I just wanted to encourage everyone to listen to some of this conference audio if and when you get a chance. James White is speaking at it and his second session is on Islam. I would especially hope my readers listen to that audio file. Enjoy!

Well, I’m pleased to say that LOST, the ABC TV series, is finally over. And, as much as I enjoyed it, I was really hoping for a better series finale than the one the writers decided on. In the end, the writers decided to give us all a crummy commentary on “life after death” according to a pluralistic, pagan worldview that does not believe in immortality or resurrection or anything consistent with the hope of Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection. Now, I wasn’t expecting them to give a Christian message… I was hoping that they would simply NOT give a commentary on ‘life after death.’ It was an utterly horrible and unorignal conglomeration of secular and pagan thinking about how, when you die, you get to be with your loved one’s and relive the best parts of your life until you find out that you are actually dead and get to ‘let go’ or ‘move on’ to something else… Let’s just walk into the bright light of oblivion and cry our eyes out!

Well, if you have any thoughts, I would love to hear them. I really would have loved for the ending of LOST to be about an alternate universe that was created, in which they were able to live their lives together in happineness - this would have at least carried the idea of some kind of ‘new creation’ that came out of their actions on the Island. Yes, I know that’s not a complete Christian message, and as I said before – I didn’t expect it to be. I simply hoped that the writers would say that they created a new world, instead of deciding to cater to people’s curiosity about ‘life after death’ and what that migh be like if there is no God and our redemption is left up to ourselves working together… The fictional world of LOST did not require such an ending in order to be special or good. It was just unnecessary.

Let me hear your thoughts if you watched the series finale.

To give a little more detail of the chapter, John Frame’s influence on the Reformed tradition of our day cannot be lightly dismissed, especially as it pertains to his helping the Reformed world of today interact more broadly with the Evangelical world. The chapter is also helpful to point out how, or how he could have, influenced broader evangelicalism through more interaction with the scholarly societies.

Listen to the interview to find out more about the chapter. Also, I encourage everyone to get the Festschrift and read through it because the contributors are excellent and their insights and discussions of Frames work are priceless.

[HT: In Light of the Gospel]

Here is a link to the full debate in MP3 audio.

[HT: Apologetics315]

See the article here  that originally offered the “title” of this post: The Most Disturbing Presentation of the Year

That’s right, this past week at the University of Texas at San Antonio students were able to trade their Bibles or Qu’rans in for pornography. And who was leading the way? The Atheist Agenda, a student organization the university that had their first “smut for smut” event back in 2005.

According to My SA News, “In the view of club members, religious texts are as smutty as pornography because they contain violence and torture and spark religious wars. But mostly, it’s a public relations stunt meant to ignite debate and attract new members to the club.”

I don’t have much to say for this. It seems to me that the group is just looking for a lot of attention.

Psalm 53:1 says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good.” Read the rest of Psalm 53 here.

Athanatos Ministries is hosting an Online Apologetics Conference May 7 & 8, 2010. This year’s conference will primarily focus on literary apologetics, or promoting the Christian faith through the written word, and fiction in particular. The list of presenters is as follows:

• Keynote: Robert Bowman, Jr.
• Plenary: Dr.  Angus Menuge
• Plenary: Dr. Corey Olsen
• Workshop: Dr. Bernard Bull
• Workshop: Mr. Robert Velarde
• Workshop: Ms. Mary Jo Sharp
• Workshop: Mr. Anthony Horvath
• Workshop: 2010 Christian Writing Contest Winner

Click here to learn more about the presenters. Click here to register.

[HT: Brian]

“SHE WILL BE SAVED THROUGH CHILDBEARING”

Many evangelicals assume, due to an unbiblical view of salvation, that Christianity is not concerned with earthy things like bearing children. The apostle Paul says, however, “She will be saved through childbearing–if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control” 1 Timothy 2:15. That statement is prone to all sorts of misunderstanding. Paul is referring to God’s promise to Eve, mentioned above, that her offspring would crush Satan’s head. Her redemption came through childbearing ultimately when Christ crushed Satan’s head on the cross to give the Church forgiveness and victory over the devil (Rom 16:20). But, Paul says, “If they continue in faith and love and holiness.” So, he is pointing believing women back to the pattern God gave to Eve. They are not saved because they have babies. But they are saved as they embrace their God-given roles as mothers as an outworking of their faith and love and holiness.

Childbirth, additionally, is still oriented toward future salvation. As I said earlier, it is only reasonable for unbelievers to hate fruitful Christians because it is a sign they are losing the war. Christians should love fruitfulness for the opposite reason: when combined with faithful parenting, childbearing is one of two weapons for spreading the kingdom throughout the earth (the other being evangelism). Many of the New Covenant promises are towards fruitfulness or faithfulness of children. “And I will multiply on you man and beast, and they shall multiply and be fruitful. . . . And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Ezekiel 36:11, 27). All the promises of God are yes in Jesus Christ (2 Cor 1:20). The outworking of Christ becoming our curse for us is greater fruitfulness, in that we trust that our childbearing will not be frustrated by the tendency toward apostasy which characterized the Old Testament assembly of God. Rather we labor to train our children, believing that Christ will make our work fruitful through the Spirit.

So, imagine that John Doe was raised a Buddhist, but was converted during college. He marries a good Christian woman, Loretta, whose parents were believers but not very faithful to Christ. One important aspect of their choosing each other was their common desire to raise up the next generation of believers. With that goal in mind they each work hard to raise their children in the Word and to model repentance and forgiveness to them. For decades they labor in faith and weep and pray as children struggle with the temptations of the world. The fruit of their labor is seven children, six of whom have more or less healthy relationships with the Lord, and one they are still praying for. They look back on where they came from and they see God’s mercy in saving them and using them to bring so many faithful Christians into the world. They see death in their past, and life in their future in the form of (Lord willing) hundreds of great-great-grandchildren who are faithful to Christ.

DREAMING BIG

Having just spent a considerable amount of time discussing the calling of Christian women, let me address men. Men, listen, read the Scriptures and learn to value fruitfulness as they do. Encourage your wives to value fruitfulness. Work hard and live at a lower standard of living so that your wife can use her strongest years in her calling as a mother. The primary problem in the church is men who do not value what God values. They consider the “blessings” of a quiet, uncrowded, restful, richly-decorated house to be more valuable then the actual blessings of children. They would rather their wives “man up” and get to work earning money, than to waste time pursuing Eve’s calling to be life-giver (what the name Eve means).

In a hundred years their posh houses will be falling apart, or, if well-made, inhabited by some very fruitful Muslims. Their handful of descendents will wonder what they can do to have a greater impact in their communities. As their churches age and die, they have fewer and fewer distractions in worship. No more babies cry, children do not have to be taken to the restroom, and there are no teenagers to reprimanded for texting their friends. The elderly congregation hires a rock band and a pastor with spiky hair in a desperate and blatant attempt to lure young people from the church down the road.

On the other hand, imagine the great-great-great-great-grandchildren of the Duggar family in a century. Perhaps, they have grown exponentially to number in the millions. (Do the math.) If so, they have a powerful influence on a small city. They are the leaven, leavening the whole lump. Mercy, love for life, and hard work have replaced a culture of despair and fear. Even those who hate them, cannot argue with their numbers. Like the OT church in Egypt, they could be set to take over an entire nation in three hundred more years.

That can happen when blessings are treated like blessings. We must learn not to dream of small, insignificant things. Rather we must consider the incomparable value of children—children who (if God is gracious) will never cease to live as worshipers of God forever and ever along with their innumerable children and grandchildren. We must make our first priority, outside of loving our wives, to raise a house-full of sons and daughters to love Jesus. We must look forward to family reunions—that we may not live to see—where great-great-great-grandchildren converge on an ancestral home every few years to sing hymns to the Lord, praising God that they exist because we did not despise His mercy.

THOU SHALT DRESS COOL

Not only does understanding womb in this way strengthen the pro-life case, but it also expands what we should mean when we say, “pro-life.” You see, pro-life should not simply be anti-murder, for the Christian. One is not pro-life simply because he does not want people killing other people. One is pro-life when he embraces the life that God has mercifully provided in a fruitful womb.

I have to praise Catholics for having a much fuller understanding of how God’s mercy looks in history than most Protestants. I recently went to a Catholic wedding and was impressed that embracing that life was actually part of the wedding vows. And, really, it is impossible to immerse oneself in the Bible without changing one’s perspective on fruitfulness. One is constantly confronted with the yearning of God’s people for offspring and for statements like, “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate” (Psalms 127:3-5).

Unfortunately, even among Christians, our culture turns things upside down and views fruitfulness as a curse. All one has to do is to bring up the Duggar family in a conversation. While I do not agree completely with their view of contraception, I see no room for criticizing people for doing exactly what God’s people are commanded to do. It is not surprising that unbelievers hate this; it means the Church is going to outnumber them. But when believers criticize the Duggars, it is like saying, “Those people are just way too honest. They value truth way too much.” These people are raising dozens of happy children to be faithful Christians, and all Evangelicals can say is, “Those kids dress weird.” When exactly did God command Christians to dress cool?

DASH THEM AGAINST THE ROCKS

Back to contraception, in my opinion it is potentially a blessing. (Although most forms of chemical contraception should not be used because many of them will make the uterus unable to sustain the egg if it happens to be fertilized, which sometimes happens, thus killing a human being.) I think there are times when wisdom needs to be used in family planning. Most importantly, because at some point pregnancy and labor may become detrimental to a woman’s health. Additionally, not all of us have the wealth or wisdom to properly raise nineteen kids like the Duggars. We still must have faith that God can provide much more than we expect, and we should definitely not let our desire for an early retirement make us reject the gift of children.

What is evil, however, is our culture’s contraceptive outlook on life. Our culture views children as a burden and, therefore, despises the mercy of God. Those who make their womb barren are choosing the curse. When God brings judgment on a people their fruitfulness as well as their offspring are destroyed. So abortion, for instance, is a self-inflicted judgment (a judgment we want others to avoid). When someone says, “God is going to judge this nation for killing the unborn,” the Biblical response is, “Yes, but the judgment has already started. What is greater judgment than your children being killed?” That sounds a little radical, but the Bible is radical. “O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed. . . . Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!” (Psalms 137:8-9). “Ephraim must lead his children out to slaughter. Give them, O LORD– what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts” (Hosea 9:13-14). When a person decides they are going to not have children, they are choosing to wipe their own name off the face of the earth.

American Christians, often out of ignorance, choose to err on the side of barrenness. They do not realize that when the Duggar’s say, “Children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward” they are not just quoting a Bible verse (Psalm 127:3). They are using shorthand for a truth that runs throughout the Scriptures, which takes too long to explain to those who do not have ears to hear.

In part 3, I will discuss what exactly that truth is that Christians who embrace fruitfulness understand.