Do you want some good news from the Atlantic article? Here’s my take: suppose someone is on the outside, an unbeliever, a subscriber to The Atlantic, and they’re reading this article which confirms everything they ever thought about Christianity…BUT, who wrote the article? And who is quoted in the article? Christians! 

Some people and churches may be getting it wrong, but there are some among us who know what the true standard is and advocate for it. There were a lot of issues in the churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3. Of the seven, only one had no problems. But Jesus, through the apostle John, called them out. 

The problem is not with Christianity. The problem is with how it’s practiced. 

What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.” (Romans 3.3, 4, ESV)

And, as always, no points just for talking. Peter Wehner, the author of the Atlantic article, the people he quoted, me for quoting them, and all those churches, for that matter: we all have to put it into practice. 

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. (James 1.22, ESV)

I’ve been sharing a few thoughts from a provocative article that appeared in Atlantic Magazine: The Evangelical Church is Breaking Apart. The first two blogs talked about the intolerance of some people in many churches toward any message of social justice, despite that the Bible has a huge emphasis on it.

Today, I’ll look at what the article gives as the root of the problem, and it will be no surprise that I latched on to this part of it.

“What we’re seeing is massive discipleship failure caused by massive catechesis failure,” James Ernest, the vice president and editor in chief at Eerdmans, a publisher of religious books, told me. Ernest was one of several figures I spoke with who pointed to catechism, the process of instructing and informing people through teaching, as the source of the problem. “The evangelical Church in the U.S. over the last five decades has failed to form its adherents into disciples. So there is a great hollowness.”

This is a classic case of building the church (read, buildings, bodies, bucks) without building the people. This despite the fact that, as my Navigator friend Ron Bennett writes:

Jesus said, “You make disciples (Matthew 28.19). I’ll build the church (Matthew 16.18).” We have it exactly backward. – Ron Bennett in The Intentional Disciplemaking Church

The Atlantic article goes on to point out:

“Culture catechizes,” Alan Jacobs, a distinguished professor of humanities in the honors program at Baylor University, told me. Culture teaches us what matters and what views we should take about what matters. Our current political culture, Jacobs argued, has multiple technologies and platforms for catechizing—television, radio, Facebook, Twitter, and podcasts among them. People who want to be connected to their political tribe—the people they think are like them, the people they think are on their side—subject themselves to its catechesis all day long, every single day, hour after hour after hour.

On the flip side, many churches aren’t interested in catechesis at all. They focus instead on entertainment, because entertainment is what keeps people in their seats and coins in the offering plate. But as Jacobs points out, even those pastors who really are committed to catechesis get to spend, on average, less than an hour a week teaching their people. Sermons are short. Only some churchgoers attend adult-education classes, and even fewer attend Bible study and small groups. Cable news, however, is always on. “So if people are getting one kind of catechesis for half an hour per week,” Jacobs asked, “and another for dozens of hours per week, which one do you think will win out?”

I agree wholeheartedly with these observations. Moreover, it’s not just “teaching” that people need, it’s training. Theology, yes, but also skills: how to spend time with God, how and why to memorize scripture, how to share one’s faith in the world we live in today. Churchgoers are often told either implicitly or explicitly: just give us an hour on Sunday morning, and experience life change! It doesn’t happen like that. Not in the Christian life, not in any other endeavor. My kids will tell you that I told them more than once, “Real skill takes real time.” I played a round of golf the other day with a friend who used to be an excellent golfer. But right now, “used to be” is the appropriate term. He said, “I’ve got to play more than nine holes a month if I expect to get my game back.”

Dr. Jacobs, quoted above, went on to say:

That’s not a problem limited to the faithful on one side of the aisle. “This is true of both the Christian left and the Christian right,” Jacobs said. “People come to believe what they are most thoroughly and intensively catechized to believe, and that catechesis comes not from the churches but from the media they consume, or rather the media that consume them. The churches have barely better than a snowball’s chance in hell of shaping most people’s lives.”

And the media not only teaches content but also behavior, looping us back into the problems we discussed the past couple of days. For example,

The root of the discord lies in the fact that many Christians have embraced the worst aspects of our culture and our politics. When the Christian faith is politicized, churches become repositories not of grace but of grievances, places where tribal identities are reinforced, where fears are nurtured, and where aggression and nastiness are sacralized. – Peter Wehner, emphasis mine

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. (Ephesians 4.11, 12, ESV)

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Timothy 4.1 – 4, ESV)

Yesterday I began to discuss the message of The Evangelical Church Is Breaking Apart by Peter Wehner, published by Atlantic Magazine. Yesterday, we looked at what was happening at McLean Bible Church in the Washington, D.C. area.

The article goes on to say that what’s happening at McLean Bible Church is happening all over:

“Nearly everyone tells me there is at the very least a small group in nearly every evangelical church complaining and agitating against teaching or policies that aren’t sufficiently conservative or anti-woke,” a pastor and prominent figure within the evangelical world told me. (Like others with whom I spoke about this topic, he requested anonymity in order to speak candidly.) “It’s everywhere.”…The aggressive, disruptive, and unforgiving mindset that characterizes so much of our politics has found a home in many American churches. – Peter Wehner

Then Peter makes this astute observation:

The root of the discord lies in the fact that many Christians have embraced the worst aspects of our culture and our politics. When the Christian faith is politicized, churches become repositories not of grace but of grievances, places where tribal identities are reinforced, where fears are nurtured, and where aggression and nastiness are sacralized. – Peter Wehner, emphasis mine

You don’t need a seminary degree to know that such behaviors are not Christ-like, that believers ought to be able to associate with people with whom they disagree on certain issues. Jesus’ original twelve were very diverse, including Matthew, a former tax collector, and Simon the Zealot who would have been violently opposed to tax collectors. The Chosen, Season 2, Episode 3, captures an imaginary argument among the disciples, mainly provoked by Simon Peter who also wasn’t thrilled to be in the company of a former tax collector.

I would have said in Wehner’s paragraph above that “one root of the discord…” There is another root, which the article itself discusses, and about which I’ll say more tomorrow. Stay tuned.

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2.1 – 4, ESV)

Welcome with open arms fellow believers who don’t see things the way you do. And don’t jump all over them every time they do or say something you don’t agree with—even when it seems that they are strong on opinions but weak in the faith department. Remember, they have their own history to deal with. Treat them gently. (Romans 14.1, MSG)

Atlantic Magazine has just published a very thought-provoking article that articulates some of the themes of this blog. I’m going to take a few days to look at some of the highlights of The Evangelical Church Is Breaking Apart by Peter Wehner. It’s long, and I encourage you to read the article in its entirety – each link in this paragraph goes there: one on Atlantic Magazine’s site and the other a copy on my site.

Why does the author – an Evangelical Christian himself – say the church is breaking apart? Because people’s politics is trumping (no pun intended!) their Christianity. The article leads with controversy over David Platt’s leadership at McLean Bible Church in Virginia:

Platt, who is theologically conservative, had been accused…by a small but zealous group within his church of “wokeness” and being “left of center,” of pushing a “social justice” agenda and promoting critical race theory, and of attempting to “purge conservative members.”

I like David Platt, who has made an honest attempt to make church something more, in his words, than “a performance at a place with programs run by professionals.” He has also, apparently, attempted to make the members aware of God’s concern for the poor. For example, Isaiah quotes God as saying:

Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the LORD? “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? (Isaiah 58.5 – 7, ESV)

David Platt wrote (long before he became pastor at McLean Bible Church):

Every Sunday we gather in a multimillion-dollar building with millions of dollars in vehicles parked outside. We leave worship to spend thousands of dollars on lunch before returning to hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of homes. We live in luxury. Meanwhile the poor man is outside our gate. And he is hungry. In the time we gather for worship on a Sunday morning almost a thousand children elsewhere die because they have no food. If it were our kids starving, they would all be gone by the time we said our closing prayer. We certainly wouldn’t ignore our kids while we sang songs and entertained ourselves, but we are content with ignoring other parents’ kids. Many of them are our spiritual brothers and sisters in developing nations. They are suffering from malnutrition, deformed bodies and brains, and preventable diseases. At most, we are throwing our scraps to them while we indulge in our pleasures here.”
― David Platt, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream

But to preach too much of this at his church is to get himself accused of being “left of center” and “pushing a left-wing agenda.” And being perceived “left of center” is a bad thing…why? Because it violates some people’s conviction that “real Christians are right-wing.” I’ve written about this issue before and explained that no party has ALL the elements of early Christianity.

David Platt’s church’s story is just the beginning of the article. Stay tuned.

If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2.15 – 17, ESV)

But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. (1 John 3.17, 18, ESV)

Sometimes things just work out. We were rooting for the Atlanta Braves in the World Series:

• We’re National League fans in our family…my dad pitched in the NY Giants (National League) minor league system back in the late 1920s.
• We have one son that lives in Atlanta and often goes to games.
• The Houston Astros are documented cheaters.  In 2017, the year they won the World Series, they were stealing signs by illegal means and signaling to the batters what pitch was coming by banging trash cans. (You can’t make this stuff up!) No players were punished, and the four current Astros infielders all took part. (Which is a shame since Altuve, the second baseman, is a fantastic baseball player.)

If you follow baseball, you know that the Braves, improbably, won the Series in six games, despite having the least number of regular season wins among all playoff teams. But they had the best record in baseball in August and September.

Here’s what’s interesting:

• The Braves won 44 games prior to the all-star break. 
• They won 44 games after the all-star break (in fewer total games)
• They won the World Series on Tuesday, November 2, in the 44th week of the year.
• The great Hank Aaron, who broke Babe Ruth’s lifetime home run record in 1974, played for the Braves wearing what number? You guessed it: 44.

Sometimes God does seem to care about sports! 

Two hometown men were on the team: Freddie Freeman has been with the Braves organization since he was 17 years old, playing for the Braves at the Major League level since he was 19: 12 years with the team. Here’s a snippet of a NY Times piece:

HOUSTON — The friendliest man in baseball is a champion. Freddie Freeman, the Atlanta Braves’ slugger known for smiles, small talk and soft serve ice cream hit the last home run of the season and caught the throw from shortstop for the final out of the World Series. Nice guys finish first. 

Freddie is so friendly, other players can’t help but like him:

Another home-town boy playing for the Braves was Dansby Swanson. On October 30, 2021, Swanson hit the game-tying home run in Game 4 of the 2021 World Series. Jorge Soler followed with a solo home run to provide the Braves a 3 games to 1 lead in the World Series. Swanson also hit a two-run home-run in Game 6, giving the Braves a 6-run lead. He fielded the last out as well. He said:

Destiny, I guess. The good Lord, he has blessed me with so much. Wouldn’t be here without him. Just the peace that he gives me, it’s remarkable. Especially in moments like this, you can never go wrong trusting in that. Like I said, I’m just so thankful to be here, truly. – Sports Illustrated

Sometimes the winners give God good press, and that’s nice to see. Apparently, “whatever you do” includes baseball!

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3.17, ESV)

And there’s always a basic lesson from sports:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (1 Corinthians 9.24 – 27, ESV)

We close this little series on Jeremiah with one of my favorite, and perhaps most obscure, quotes. Jeremiah is talking to his assistant Baruch. Previously, Baruch wrote a scroll at Jeremiah’s dictation, and when it was read to the king, the king burned it, section by section (see Jeremiah 36.1 – 26). And what was the next step in that parade? More work for Baruch!

Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, who wrote on it at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the scroll that Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire. And many similar words were added to them. (Jeremiah 36.32, ESV)

This throws Baruch into a twit, which you can read about in Jeremiah 45. The section closes with this simple sentence, perhaps good for all of us:

And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not. (Jeremiah 45.5, ESV)

That will preach! How does the Lord’s Prayer start?

Our heavenly Father, may the glory of your name be the center on which our life turns. (Luke 11.2, TPT)

Yes. The glory of HIS name – not the glory of mine.

He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3.30, ESV)

When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. (John 17.1 – 5, ESV)

Yesterday we looked at some verses in Jeremiah, particularly those that talk about settling down and getting to work even during the captivity.

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters…multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile… (Jeremiah 29.4 – 7, ESV)

Live life. This will be a 70-year captivity. Someone asked, what if COVID lasts for 70 years? Best we be about what we’re supposed to be doing within COVID constraints.

Now on to a conversation in Jeremiah I find fascinating, recorded in Jeremiah 42. The people who are left behind in Jerusalem after many have been taken captive to Babylon ask Jeremiah whether or not they should go to Egypt for safety. And they pledge to do as the Lord says:

Then all the people from the least to the greatest came near and said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Let our plea for mercy come before you, and pray to the LORD your God for us, for all this remnant—because we are left with but a few, as your eyes see us— that the LORD your God may show us the way we should go, and the thing that we should do.” Jeremiah the prophet said to them, “I have heard you. Behold, I will pray to the LORD your God according to your request, and whatever the LORD answers you I will tell you….Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the LORD be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act according to all the word with which the LORD your God sends you to us…We will obey the voice of the LORD our God…” (Jeremiah 42.1 – 6, ESV)

So Jeremiah prays, and the word of the Lord is clear, “Whatever you do, don’t go to Egypt.” (See Jeremiah 42.7 – 22.) And what’s the response of these people who said, “We will obey the voice of the LORD our God.”?

When Jeremiah finished speaking to all the people all these words of the LORD their God, with which the LORD their God had sent him to them, [they] said to Jeremiah, “You are telling a lie. The LORD our God did not send you to say, ‘Do not go to Egypt to live there…’ So …the commanders of the forces and all the people did not obey the voice of the LORD, to remain in the land of Judah. But [they] took all the remnant of Judah…also Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch the son of Neriah. And they came into the land of Egypt, for they did not obey the voice of the LORD. (Jeremiah 43.1 – 7, ESV, emphasis mine)

You can’t make this stuff up. June is studying discernment right now: how do we know what God’s will is? This passage teaches that, at a minimum, it doesn’t matter if we can discern God’s will if have no intention of obeying it.

If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. (John 17.7, ESV)

I’m still following the annual through-the-Bible-in-a-year plan, and I realized I’ve just finished Jeremiah and written nothing about it except a quote from Jeremiah 23 supporting James 3. So here’s one containing a few of my favorite takeaways from a book that, unfortunately, is overall depressing: predicted in the first chapter.

Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.” But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD.” Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” (Jeremiah 1.4 – 10, ESV)

Jeremiah was sent, but the overall effect would be the destruction of Jerusalem. The people would be against him; therefore, he needed God’s promised protection.

And despite God sending the Israelites into exile he gave them this promise:

Then the word of the LORD came to me: “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so I will regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up, and not tear them down; I will plant them, and not pluck them up. I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart. (Jeremiah 24.4 – 7, ESV)

In the meantime, they were to live life well in Babylon – not just yearn for their return to the land:

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. (Jeremiah 29.4 – 7, ESV)

And then the promise from Jeremiah 24 is repeated:

For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. (Jeremiah 29.10 – 14, ESV)

Wow. There’s more hope here than I thought…and more takeaways! To be continued tomorrow.

Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts. (Jeremiah 15.16, ESV)

Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? (Jeremiah 23.29, ESV)

This is the last of the highlights of my time with friends of my friend Terry. We heard from terrific guys, following Jesus wholeheartedly, some despite difficult circumstances.

The third speaker was Joe, a track star when he was in college. Joe’s theme was “people help you get through life and grow in your faith.” Unlike many of the men, Joe’s collegiate discipleship training was not with The Navigators but with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA). He said, “FCA was not nearly as hardcore as Navigators!”

Joe said that a verse that really helped him was Proverbs 3.4 – 6, which he quoted from The Living Bible:

If you want favor with both God and man, and a reputation for good judgment and common sense, then trust the Lord completely; don’t ever trust yourself. In everything you do, put God first, and he will direct you and crown your efforts with success. (Proverbs 3.4 – 6, Living Bible)

He said another FCA concept that helped him came from Colossians 3: FCA called it “total release.”

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters. (Colossians 3.23, NIV)

As Joe rose through the ranks in the military, he encountered an officer who was being considered for promotion to brigadier general, but who honestly didn’t care whether he was promoted or not or whether he retired or not. (I have written about this before under the theme “indifference.”) The brother shared this verse with Joe, which ended up helping him later:

For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another. (Psalm 75.6, 7, KJV)

Later, at the peak of his career, while a student at the Air War College (attended by the best of the best), Joe was diagnosed with cancer. His flying career was over. He fell back on Psalm 75.6, 7, and also this affirmation from the Apostle Paul:

…a thorn was given me in the flesh…Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12.7 – 10, ESV)

Joe said, “God has used the cancer for good and his glory” and ended with this excerpt from a poem:

Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul, 
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Taken from The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions, edited by Arthur Bennett.

I don’t know why this is the only “holiday” in which the “eve” gets more attention than the day! Halloween = “All Hallows Eve” or the Eve of All Saints’ Day.

All Saints’ Day is a celebration of all Christian saints, particularly those who have no special feast days of their own, in many Roman Catholic, Anglican and Protestant churches. In many western churches, it is annually held on November 1…It is also known as All Hallows Tide, All-Hallomas, or All Hallows’ Day.

And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 11.32 – 12.2, ESV, emphasis mine)