Roblog

There’s an awful lot being bandied about regarding the Colbert clip, which I shared from a post by Todd Pruitt including a bit of commentary from Scott Christensen. 

All this “family squabbling” (which is not nearly as enlightening as it is predictable) aside, what is most interesting is to me what Colbert actually says here. I hear nothing that is distinctively Christian or even Catholic, for that matter, in anything that Colbert says. It is vacuous enough to be supplied with just about any “Christian” spin one wishes to give it, which requires bringing one’s own presuppositions to that spin; it isn’t possible, as far as I can hear, to find anything of much clarity or even weightiness. Even when he speaks of “Belfast” as a movie that seeks to be “funny about sad” and “getting it” being a “Catholic thing,” we are left with no more information about Colbert’s faith at the end of the “interview” than we had its beginning. 

The conclusion, I believe, is that he is a liberal Catholic whose faith appears to be more about sentiment and emotional expression than it is about content, especially the content of redemption. Moreover, there is nothing of the Gospel in anything he says—which, to be fair, is not likely something he even had in view when asked about how his faith and his comedy overlap. 

I see no difference in the eagerness of some to see a bridge to Christianity that in this clip than when folks see Gospel testimony every time an athlete points to the sky or an artist thanks God at an award show. Why are we so desperate for the validation of our culture? 

If this is a commendable way of handling faith in a way that our “culture can handle” then it is clear to me that our culture is largely just as vacuous as Colbert’s statement. But I am left asking, “Where are we told to share our faith in a way that our culture can handle?” Jewish culture couldn’t handle a Gospel that proclaimed a crucified Messiah, and Greek culture couldn’t handle a Gospel that proclaimed human wisdom was foolish and human strength was weak. No human culture can handle the Gospel, period. 

None of this, of course, means that Christians are to be arrogant, argumentative jerks; we must never intentionally poke our culture in the eye, especially not because we don’t happen to like the culture. But when the Gospel pokes the culture in the eye—when Jesus is doing the offending—we don’t abandon him in our proclamation to embrace a thin, non-offensive progressive gruel masquerading as God’s gracious good news.

Knowing how to begin a post like this is a considerable challenge because the current climate is so charged with tensions that practically any angle is likely to be condemned by someone. There are racial tensions, social tensions, political tensions, and spiritual tensions.

As a pastor I believe I am compelled to address these tensions, both in terms of making a biblical assessment and offering pastoral encouragement and advice to my flock. « Read the rest of this entry »

On October 3, 1789, George Washington issued our nation’s first Presidential proclamation of Thanksgiving.  Thanks (forgive me) to the internet, it has been posted and reposted over and over again. You’ve probably even seen it today.

But have you read it and not merely liked it? « Read the rest of this entry »

If God chooses some for salvation, does that mean he chooses some for damnation?

The debate over this question has been long and heated—and, unfortunately, in many cases often not very enlightening or edifying. « Read the rest of this entry »