What Athol Wrote...

LOVE WINS - A Review
Friday, May 27, 2011

I finally got down to Rob Bell’s book in my reading list, and I finished it this week. The first thing you notice about Love Wins is it’s not written for pastors, elders, or Bible teachers; it’s written for that guy sitting next to you in traffic, the one who hardly ever thinks about religion.

Parts of the book are arranged on the page like poetry, one short incomplete sentence stacked over another, and sometimes each line is
just
one
word.

It’s often difficult to draw firm conclusions about specific ideas from poetry, so it’s not easy to do that with Love Wins. Rob often seems to say one thing here, and the opposite thing there. To some extent I think that’s intentional. A major thesis of the book is the fact that we know far less about God and the hereafter than we often pretend to know. In a way then, Rob’s style demonstrates his thesis.

If you’ve read the “Yes and Yes” chapter in The Gospel according to Moses, you know I believe the proper response to the apparent contradictions in the Bible is not to take a stand one way or the other, but rather to say “Yes,” to both halves of the paradox. Rob says exactly the same thing, on page 127.

While some may object to this as an affront to the intellect or a copout on important doctrine, it’s just as reasonable to view it as a proof of faith. After all, who has more faith: the one who insists he must understand everything in the Bible, or the one who believes God is big enough to make sense out of two apparently contradictory propositions?

So far, so good. And I especially endorse Rob’s take on heaven, which he presents not as something to be reached in the afterlife, but rather as a way of being, which starts here in this life for believers. It is, I think, a perfectly orthodox interpretation of the scriptures. Salvation is not a single choice to be made and then relied upon thereafter. On the contrary, Paul presents salvation as something we must "work out . . . with fear and trembling" throughout this part of our immortal lives. And Jesus didn’t teach us to pray “Let us come into thy kingdom when we die.” Rather, it was “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth [right here, right now] . . .”

Rob’s perspective on heaven as a state of existence in the present world has vital ramifications for how one lives today. It’s the difference between a Christian who leaves his religion in the pews when he walks out of church on Sunday, and a Christian who loves his neighbor with actions, all day every day. When you carry heaven in your heart, it’s much easier to be heavenly.

Several other points Rob makes in Love Wins deserve praise. I appreciated Rob's effort to expand his reader's thinking about how faith in Jesus leads to a loving relationship with God, and about who enters heaven. Like Rob, I believe many Christians are going to be very surprised at the company they'll keep in the hereafter. And again, there are strong parallels between much of what he wrote and The Gospel according to Moses. I'd love to go into more detail about this and other helpful points he made, but space is limited here, so I want to pass from praise to the one concern I had when I put down the book.

Like so many others, I'm worried about Rob’s perspective on hell.

In many places, it seems to me Rob says hell is a temporary condition, a teaching tool God uses to convince those who pass out of this life unconvinced.

Note my language, please. When I write, “it seems to me,” that’s because I can’t be sure. Again, this book is written like a poem, and different people may get many different meanings from the same line in a poem. On page 117 for example, Rob seems to say if we choose hell, then God will let us have hell. Rob doesn’t limit that statement in any way. He doesn't say God will only let us stay in hell a little while, for example. But the over-arcing sense I got from this book was of a hell that’s not really “hell” in the traditional sense of the word, because as Rob writes on page 86, “there’s always the assurance that it won’t be this way forever.”

Unless I completely misunderstood Rob, he thinks hell is temporary. That idea is repeated in many places, across several chapters. Eventually, everybody suffering in hell will see the light, and enter God’s presence.

Rob quotes many scriptures to support this idea. Unfortunately his scholarship is often deeply flawed. He sometimes quotes a verse to make a point, when the prior verse in the scriptures makes exactly the opposite point. He even goes so far as to quote the first half of a verse without mentioning the second half, when the second half refutes his interpretation of the first.

Here’s just one example, although I could offer many others:

On page 91 Rob discusses Jesus’ famous teaching about two kinds of people: 1) those who try to take care of the hungry, thirsty, alien, naked, sick and imprisoned, and; 2) those who don’t. At the conclusion of that passage, in Matthew 25:46, Jesus compares the fate of those two kinds of people. He says:

"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Rob writes about two Greek words in the verse, but rather than examining the words Jesus actually used, Rob focuses on the roots of those words. It’s as if a Chinese student learning English applied the meaning of the word “finite” to the sentence “The universe is infinite.”

Based on that approach, Rob concludes that the word usually translated as "punishment" should actually be rendered "trimming" or "pruning," and the word usually translated as "eternal" should instead be understood to mean "a period of time." So he suggests the first half of Matthew 25:46 should be translated this way: “Then they will go away to a period of pruning . . .” He then moves on without mentioning the second half of the verse.

That omission is understandable, when one considers that the word “eternal” in both halves of the verse is the same word in the Greek. Had Rob translated that word in the second half the same way he translated it in the first, he would have had this to explain away:

“Then they will go away to a period of pruning, but the righteous to a period of life.”

"A period of" life is not what a believer hopes to experience in the hereafter, of course, nor is it what the Bible teaches, either about heaven, or about hell. The actual Greek word Jesus used is unmistakable: it means everlasting, eternal, or forever.

Some compare Rob’s apparent theology on hell to the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory, but it is a flawed comparison. Purgatory, in the Catholic sense, is a place where believers who die in a state of grace suffer appropriate punishment for their venal sins, a process which completes their sanctification and allows them to enter God’s holy presence.

Whatever one may think of that theology, purgatory is not a place where people who reject God in this life have a second chance at faith along the lines Rob seems to suggest. Roman Catholicism, like traditional Protestant theology, is quite clear: those who die without accepting God’s grace in this life pass directly to eternal suffering in hell.

Now, having written those terrible words, I also want to be clear on one thing: I wish Rob was right.

I wish the Bible taught that there will be an infinite number of chances to confess, repent, and step into our loving God’s embrace. I wish the Lord would give us an eternity to make that choice, if necessary. I wish the Bible didn’t say, “. . . man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.” I wish it didn’t say, “. . . whoever does not believe stands condemned already.” I wish Jesus hadn’t warned us the day will come when he will say once and for all, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels,” and “Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'”

But the Bible is consistent about this: after this life come a eternity in hell or heaven for us all. The choice of where we’ll be is ours, and the time to make that choice is now, because when we leave this part of life, our fate in the next is sealed.

While I wish it wasn’t that way, who am I to protest that this isn’t fair or just? After all, God is God, and I am not. A slug might as well complain to me about pesticide. As God himself explains, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Who am I to explain ideas like love, mercy and justice to God, the one who merely spoke, and galaxies sprang into existence?

Still, I wish it wasn’t that way.

I read an old story somewhere recently (it may have been Adam Clarke's excellent Bible commentary, or perhaps Barnes), about two preachers discussing their sermons the previous Sunday. One says he preached on the topic of hell. The other asks, “And did you cry?”

That is how any true follower of Jesus feels about hell. To live in heaven on earth is to live with a broken heart for the lost on earth. Along with Rob, I would never presume to say Gandhi is in hell. “Judge not, or you will be judged” means such awful words are for God alone to speak. And I certainly don’t revel in the thought of people in eternal torment. On the contrary, I weep.

But because my heart does break at the thought of hell, the last thing in the world I want to do is write a book that lets an unbelieving reader think she can ignore Jesus in this life, because there will be (or even might be) a chance to set things right in the next.

Is that what Rob Bell believes? Or might believe? Even after reading and re-reading Love Wins, I still don’t know for sure. And that is precisely the problem.

There is a difference between speaking judgmentally about specific people, and speaking truth about God’s coming judgment. The judgmental aspect of Jesus' relationship to creation is very clearly written in God's word, because it would not be just, or loving, to be vague about a thing like that.

Sometimes the most difficult and uncomfortable things must be spoken very carefully and clearly, if love is really going to win.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 10:33 AM 11 comments  

Labels: Church and State

Saved and Lost
Friday, March 5, 2010

What can we do about this filthy church? The short answer is...nothing. No matter which way we turn, which path we choose, we ourselves can only contribute to the mess. On the other hand, God might have a plan...

In her comment on the “Filthy Church” post, Dianne made such an important point. She wrote, "...many confuse justification with sanctification, which is where the "working out" part is supposed to start..." For those who are unclear about the theological terms “justification” and “sanctification,” here’s the gist of Dianne’s point: Too many of us in the American church today view Christianity as a single act of belief, a one time leap of faith which gets us “in,” with no further obligation ("justification"), but if that faithful moment is sincere it will be the first leap of a lifetime lived in obedience, which is to say, a lifetime lived in love ("sanctification").

“The man who says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” (1 John 2:4) Many of the people in the “filthy church” are not truly Christians, of course. As John said, they are liars. Mostly I think they are lying to themselves.

But there are others whose belief is sincere, even though their lives show little sign of their belief. I know, because I was once one of them. And since that is true, since there truly are believers living life like pagans, what can be the matter?

The problem starts with a terrible misconception about God's grace. “Grace” is God stooping down to save us from ourselves, even though we don’t deserve it. That’s the definition. Unfortunately, many Christians seem to understand God’s grace only in terms of justification (God stooping to the cross to get us “in”) but not in terms of sanctification (God stooping down to guide us ever closer to Him). In other words, we think our need for God’s grace was over when we trusted in the cross. We think, “Grace has done its work, now it’s up to me...” as if Christian life were a relay race, and God has passed us the baton. But we are weak, so of course in trying to take over for the Lord, we are bound to fail.

Then comes the guilt and shame. A terrible burden, and so painful, because we know we do not measure up. Usually we slip into denial as a form of self-defense, unable to obey, and unable to be honest about our disobedience because of the way it makes us feel. We fill our lives with distractions, making little gods out of possessions or other people (often our own children). We cover ourselves with them the way the first man and woman clothed themselves with leaves. We pretend we think these things please God. They are “blessings.” Yet we do know better. We know our attention and devotion has slipped down from the Creator to the mere creation, and in knowing this, deep within we live in misery.

Paul wrote eloquently of this to the early church in Rome. He says, "What I want to do, I do not do—no, the evil that I do not want to do, this I do." So even Paul—a true believer if ever anybody was—even that same Paul, still sins. He goes on to say, "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" And here the word to focus on is rescue. Think about this: powerhouse believer though Paul is, still he needs to be rescued. What can “rescue” mean to Paul if not the ongoing work of God’s grace in his daily life? And this is proven with his very next words: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!” followed quickly by those most welcome words in the entire Bible: "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

Jesus said, “If anybody loves me, he will obey my teaching," yet how can we obey Him while we are in these wretched bodies of death? Obedience is the only right response to the grace of the cross, yet only through God's grace is obedience possible. It’s no good pretending. Since God knows us better than we know ourselves, we might as well admit there’s something in us which still longs to sin sometimes. Our desperate need for rescue did not end at the cross. On the contrary, for a true believer, the cross was only the beginning. Something in us remains out of balance with the cosmos. The cross only makes us more aware of it, aware of how wretched we remain without God’s grace—without God’s stooping down to us—and how desperately we still need His grace every second of every minute of every day.

This then is the paradox:
“...you have been saved, through faith...not by works...” (Eph 2:8-10)
Yet also...
“...a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.” (James 2:24)

Paradox is exactly what we should expect when striving to draw near Almighty God, whose mysteries are “beyond tracing out.” And as always, when faced with such a paradox concerning Him, the answer is never to pick one side over the other, but rather to say, “Yes” to both. “Yes” to God’s grace working through faith in the cross, and “Yes” to God’s grace still working through faith even now, to rescue us from our bodies of death, to guide us as we “work out our salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in us to will and to act according to His good purpose.”

If you have tried to live a Christian life and failed and failed again, here is my advice: stop trying.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His Glory and Grace.
(Helen Lemmel)

Posted byAthol Dickson at 7:57 AM 15 comments  

Labels: Bible Studies, Church and State, The Jesus Way

Filthy Church
Saturday, February 27, 2010

The American church is dying. The signs are everywhere: rampant hedonism, materialism, infidelity, superficiality, mediocrity, cowardice, compromise...the list goes on and on, but the one charge we must not level at the church is the one which seems most common.

Hypocrisy is the favorite explanation given by people who claim to follow Jesus and yet will not go to church. But it misses the whole point.


This lovely photo is what I used to think of church. A place. A thing. Now when I think "church" I think people. Not “people” in a general sense, but specific people. Names. Faces. People I belong to. I am theirs and they are mine. My place in the cosmos--my designed purpose--is to serve them, which is to say to do love to them or be love for them in a sacrificial way. My purpose and place does not change if they are prideful, hurtful, or hypocritical. As Jesus said, they are my family. Most families have their dysfunctional side. Even so, most families are deeply committed to each other. Most of us have at least one family member who drives us crazy sometimes, yet we would die for them. In exactly the same way, my role is to love the church--these particular people--just as they are, just as Jesus does.

Church is just that simple, just that wonderful, just that hard. Love in spite of everything. When it comes to ideas about organized religion, all else is a human construct and a lie.

Because “church” means people, it is possible to maintain a humble and hopeful spirit while obeying the command which is “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.” And make no mistake; it is a command. Yet some who claim to follow Jesus treat it as a suggestion. Jesus said, "If you love me you will obey what I command." Could He be more clear? We follow Jesus by obeying his commands. And what is his greatest command? To love the Lord with all our hearts and souls and minds and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. So who are the hypocrites? People at least trying to live together in relationship even with their flaws, or those who claim to follow Jesus Christ but will not even try?

I wrote my most recent novel, Lost Mission, out of a sense of revelation, an understanding I have gained. It expresses an old hope I had, a desire to find a church (a place, a thing) where I could experience God without distractions. It explores the depth of meaning in the fact that those distractions end up being the very places where the Lord awaits me. Human frailty is the stuff of God on earth. Whose image are we made in anyway, if not the image of a man upon a cross? God does His best work through the feebleness of human hands, the superficiality of our prayers, and the inadequacy of our offerings. When I am weak, then I am strong. The Lord creates His church whenever and wherever flawed believers come together intentionally to praise and worship Him. God doesn’t need perfection. He doesn’t expect it. He knows us better than that, yet He stoops down to us anyway. Should we not do the same to each other?

It is not good for man to be alone. We were created to worship God in community. It is part of why God came to earth in a manger, why He endured temptation, why Jesus partied with us and grieved with us and fought with us and chose the gruesome mess that was the cross. He showed us that the Way is pure and holy, but it is not clean and easy. We can praise the Lord in solitary moments, but anyone who prefers the false perfection of solitude to the mess (and filth, sometimes) of church deludes himself. God will not be worshipped in that way, because it is not possible to love the Lord with all my heart unless I love my hedonistic, materialistic, cheating, superficial, mediocre, cowardly and compromising neighbor, who is so often a reflection of the me myself whom I so love to love.

So yes, the signs are truly everywhere: the American church is dying, and to save it we must join it. There is no other way.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 10:34 AM 9 comments  

Labels: Church and State, Lost Mission, The Jesus Way

Huckaplan For Foreign Policy
Friday, January 4, 2008

For some reason people like to say Mike Huckabee is weak on foreign policy. I’d like to know who is stronger. Among all the congressmen, senators and ex-senators, ex-governors, and ex-mayors in the running, no one exactly has the resume of a diplomat. None of them has even been on a congressional foreign affairs committee as far as I know. Governor Huckabee is every bit as qualified as any one of them, and he is definitely a man with a good plan. Want proof? I can’t convince you with a sound bite. If you have an hour to spare, you can hear his strategy for yourself, in a recent speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Or you can read a 24 page transcript of his speech. Or you can read the following summary, which is longer than my usual blog but still a lot shorter than his speech.

Since “foreign policy” these days mostly means dealing with the Middle East, here’s a crash course on Mike Huckabee’s plan to defeat terrorism:

Open lines of communication with Iran. Always leave the military option on the table. (Huckabee: “There is no way Iran will acquire nuclear weapons on my watch.”) However, acknowledge that 30 years of avoiding diplomatic relations with Iran has accomplished nothing constructive. Meanwhile, many people on the streets in Iran have no problem with the US. After 9/11, when the Palestinians celebrated, there were spontaneous candlelight vigils in Tehran. Iran’s government offered to provide boots-on-the-ground intelligence during our invasion of Afghanistan, but the Bush administration refused this offer, and announced they were part of an “axis of evil.” If we had parlayed their offer into open diplomatic relations, there is an excellent chance we would have known the truth about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction before invading. We should be talking to Iran about everything, not just nuclear weapons. Here’s a Huckaquote: “We should always put the protection of our citizens above our own pride and being bullheaded by saying we’re not going to have any conversations with these people.”

Assert ourselves militarily in Pakistan if necessary. While Iran has national interests we can understand and exploit, al Qaeda is a stateless enemy that can only be destroyed. Our failure to destroy al Qaeda’s leaders in Afghanistan led them straight to a “perfect base of operations” in the Pakistani no-man’s-land along the border. (Al Qaeda means “the base.”) Immediately after 9/11, Musharraf promised us full military access to this lawless region to destroy al Qaeda. The Bush administration later allowed him to go back on that promise, even though we have had “high confidence” intelligence reports on the exact locations of al Qaeda leaders there, and Navy Seal prepared to attack the area. Now Pakistan says they will fight the terrorists, while simultaneously saying they can’t fight them because they don’t control their own territory. Narrowly averted terrorist plots on the order of 9/11 have been directly linked to planning by al Qaeda’s leadership in Pakistan. Huckaquote: “If al Qaeda attacks [the USA] tomorrow, it will be postmarked ‘Pakistan.’ Pakistan has become the new Afghanistan.” Pakistan cannot or will not attack al Qaeda’s leaders. We must do it ourselves, or suffer the inevitable consequences.

Be wisely benevolent. If religion provides the spark for terrorism, poverty provides the tinder—yet the USA devotes only 0.25% of its national budget to foreign aid. In most Muslim countries, massive wealth is held by a few dictatorial rulers, while most people live in poverty. In Pakistan, for example, 25% of the national budget goes to the military, while less than 3% goes to social, health and educational programs. The USA has given over $10 billion in foreign aid to Pakistan since 9/11. Less than $1 billion of it reached the Pakistani people as direct aid. Meanwhile, like all forms of tyranny, terrorism flourishes whenever there is a wide gap between the upper and lower classes, with little or no middle class to function as a buffer. The USA cannot always export democracy, because sometimes too much political freedom too soon only allows violent extremists to win elections. But we can and must export socioeconomic reforms (a free press, fair courts, and functional economy), which gives real hope to the citizens of other countries, reducing their desire to support terrorism. Thus, our strategic security concerns coincide with our moral obligations as a rich neighbor. Using foreign aid wisely will generate good will with the Middle Eastern people and simultaneously remove the poverty and ignorance that inspires suicide bombers.

Finish the job in Iraq. Look at the map. Iraq is the physical buffer zone between the Persians, Kurds, and Arabs; a barricade between the Sunnis (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt) and the Shiites (Iran, Syria). Huckaquote: “Iraq is the crossroads where these cultures meet. If it is nor a peaceful buffer, it will be a tinderbox. Al Qaeda sees its central location as the perfect place to create anarchy and have it spread.” The USA upset this balance and opened up the possibilities for al Qaeda when we removed Saddam Hussein. To leave now, before balance is restored, would open us to serious security risks, especially with the looming prospect of nuclear weapons in Israel and in Iran. Fortunately, by all objective standards, the surge is working. While politicians in Bagdad and Washington fumble and bluster, there is a true bottom-up revolution taking place in the peaceful moments created by the surge, with Iraqis on the street stepping in to make a difference. We must remain in place until the Iraqi people are able to complete their transition to a stable nation. To do otherwise would not only leave Iraqi men, women and children in horrific danger from insurgents like al Qaeda, but would also leave us with the prospect of regional war, perhaps even world war, with Iraq’s many neighbors stepping into the vacuum to protect their interests.

Follow the “Powell Doctrine” of overwhelming force. From a foreign policy standpoint, overwhelming force aids diplomacy because it means less chance we will actually have to use the military option. It allows us to, as Teddy Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” And in the event of military action, it means fewer American lives lost. When the former Yugoslavia was liberated under President Clinton, for example, peace was maintained by 20 soldiers for every 1,000 civilians with virtually no civil unrest or military casualties. We have less than one quarter of that ratio of soldiers-to-civilians in Iraq, and that’s after the build-up for the surge. This explains in part why we have lost over 3,700 men and women since President Bush gave his “Mission Accomplished” speech. We spend 3.9% of our budget on the military today, compared to 6% under President Regan during peace time. Meanwhile, our national guard and reserve troops are being asked to give far more than they signed up for, with our military strained to the breaking point. We are at war. We need to get closer to the 6% figure. If we faced another military situation elsewhere in the world at this time, then as Governor Huckabee said, “God help us.”

Become energy independent…now. Our own money spent for Middle Eastern oil is being used to fund the very terrorists who want to kill us, Our dependence on oil also means we have to pander to state sponsors of terrorism, instead of, as Governor Huckabee puts it, “dealing with the Saudis like we would the Swedes.” Of course, all the other candidates would agree so far, but only Huckabee seems willing to give this the sense of urgency it deserves. Consider the governor’s words: “Energy independence really is a matter of urgent national security and ought to be addressed not with the attitude of, ‘Well, maybe someone will come up with it in 20 years.’ Look, this is the country that had the technology of bottle rockets in 1961 and John Kennedy said we’re going to put a man on the moon and come home in a decade. Eight years later Neil Armstrong had his feet on the lunar surface. It requires that kind of commitment and I’m convinced this country has the capacity and innovative quality to be able to pull it off.”

Start acting like a nation at war. Since the American people are in a war, we ought to behave like a people at war. On this one, I’ll just quote the Governor from a question and answer session after the speech: “…after 9/11…essentially the instructions the American people got to fight global terrorism was, ‘Go back and live normally.’ …we were not called upon to have some ownership of the fight against terror…I think history will reveal [that] was the single greatest mistake that we made. Because what should have happened was what happened after every other international crisis America has been involved in. Everyone’s got to pull together. I can remember it didn’t take us long to go from Democrats and Republicans linking arms on the Capital steps and singing God Bless America, and every house sporting an American flag out front to—within a few months—there was the same kind of partisan bickering and complete isolation that we’ve seen happen in this town [Washington, D.C.]—total polarization, total paralysis, and the result has been just incredibly detrimental. If we’re going to fight this war…we all have to have some skin in the game…there ought to be a greater sense of shared sacrifice and participation.”

There you have the basics of Governor Huckabee’s speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies on foreign policy, and terrorism in particular. In the full speech the governor gives a brief but masterful analysis of the various historical and cultural forces at work in the Middle East, but this is his basic plan. It makes perfect sense to me, and I hope and pray he will get a chance to put it into action.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 4:49 PM 3 comments  

Labels: Church and State

Cause For Celebration!
Saturday, November 17, 2007

Here's great news for those who still believe it's possible to elect an honorable man for our next President. After lagging in fifth place for so long, in the latest Rasmussen poll Mike Huckabee is moving up while the others are slipping down. He’s now in a dead heat with McCain, Romney and Thompson for second place nationally for the Republican nomination. Also, in the latest American Research Group Poll he is only 2 percentage points behind the frontrunner in Iowa, well within the 4 percent margin of error for first place in the nation’s first Presidential caucus. The latest CBS Poll also has him in second place in Iowa and “surging” toward the lead, with nearly two months still to go before caucus night (Jan 8)—plenty of time for Huckabee to bypass Romney.

What’s amazing is the way Huckabee has gained so much momentum with so few resources. Giuliani raised $14 million in the first quarter of this year alone. McCain was “disappointed” to only raise $13 million. Romney raised $21 million dollars! Meanwhile, Huckabee raised less than one million dollars during the same period. In this CNN article from last April on the candidates' war chests, Mike Huckabee was not even mentioned!

Yet here he is, solidly in the running.

As I said before, this guy is a real “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” story. Not only does Mike Huckabee have no money to speak of by comparison to the others (and doesn’t that prove he is in nobody’s pocket?); he’s a beltway outsider, by far the most vocal critic of the Republican establishment (except for Ron Paul, of course). Although Mike Huckabee is a Southern Baptist, he gets very little help from high profile evangelicals, in fact most of our evangelical “leaders” (whatever that means) continue to either ignore him or come out in favor of the pro-choice Republican national frontrunner because they think the frontrunner has a better chance of “winning” (whatever that means). Huckabee does not fit into a simplistic red state / blue state mold (he’s passionately Christian and a foreign policy conservative, yet he’s also a fiscal revolutionary and a genuine social liberal in the original best sense of the term). All of this means he should have fallen by the wayside long ago.

Yet here he is, solidly in the running.

While Romney and Giuliani tell us what they think we want to hear, professing strong beliefs today that directly contradict what they said the last time they ran for political office, Mike Huckabee is gaining traction for one reason only: this man tells the truth exactly as he sees it, exactly as he has always seen it.

To those who still say Mike Huckabee can’t win, it’s idealistic to think he could, it’s not practical, I can only reply, "Tell it to the polls."

To everybody else, I say, Don't just sit there; stand against the cynicism! Now is the time to get behind Mike Huckabee with your money and your time!

Posted byAthol Dickson at 8:59 AM 1 comments  

Labels: Church and State

This Is the Air I Breathe
Friday, October 26, 2007

The view from my window these last few days has been ugly. I live directly in the smoke plume of one of the wildfires ravaging Southern California. Ash falls from the sky day and night; the rising sun is a dim red ball I can stare straight at without blinking; my eyes water and my nose burns as the air conspires to choke me, and the mid-day light has a sickly yellow cast that makes me feel like I’m on another planet, maybe Mars. But as much as I wish this wasn’t my home, it is.

Yesterday I went searching for a gas mask. Seriously. And as I searched, I kept thinking about that popular song by Michael W. Smith. Maybe you know it. The first lines go like this:

This is the air I breathe
This is the air I breathe
Your holy presence living in me

I realized the ugly air I had been breathing for the last few days was much like the social and spiritual atmosphere we inhale all the time. Drugs. Adultery. Poverty. Greed. Waste. War. Pornography. Divorce. Sexual confusion. Aborted babies. Pedophiles. Rapists. Racism. Misogyny. Materialism. Hedonism. Cancer. AIDS. Apathy. Terror. Pollution. Lies in the press. Lies in the street. Lies from the pulpit. Lies everywhere. This is the air we have been breathing for so long we hardly even notice anymore, even as it chokes us.

Searching for a gas mask, I thought about the last few posts here on this blog, and the concern expressed by a few people who contacted me to say, “Athol, we need to work on this a different way. We need to clean the air one heart at a time. The solution isn’t laws or politics; it’s Jesus and Jesus alone.”

I understand why they say this. For many, it’s a reaction to the mistakes of the last two decades, when Christians pursued political solutions with all the fervor of an old time revival preacher who has forgotten the point of his sermon in his zealousness to convince the crowd. Since Christians turned to politics in the late 1970’s the air quality has gotten only worse. We set out to be a light on a hill, and ended up looking like just another wildfire. But there is terrible irony in this reaction to that mistake. More than a quarter century ago, after helping to inspire Jerry Falwell and others to found the Moral Majority, Francis Schaeffer wrote these words in A Christian Manifesto:

“The old revivals are spoken about so warmly by the evangelical leadership. Yet they seem to have forgotten what those revivals were. Yes, the old revivals…in this country did call, without any question and with tremendous clarity, for personal salvation. But they also called for a resulting social action.”

Did you catch the irony? Some of us today, reacting to the ugly air in spite of decades of Christian political action, want to forget politics and focus only on revival. But the largely ineffective Christian political action they’re reacting against was itself inspired by revivals that also failed to clear the air. It seems our mistakes are self-perpetuated.

Human beings have an unfortunate tendency to see things as “this,” or “that,” but seldom both. We are pendulums doomed to swing back and forth between partial solutions, never stopping at a balanced middle place. The apostle James wrote, “Faith without works is dead,” and Jesus was talking about mutually supportive principles when he said, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.” Faith…and works. Love…and obey. In these areas, the proper Christian life is not an either/or proposition. God’s holy Presence dwells in the balanced middle place that includes them both. There, and there alone, the air is clear.

Our nation desperately needs a new political direction. Our neighbors desperately need faith in Jesus Christ. It is not one or the other; it is one, because of the other. “Faith without works is dead,” might just as truthfully been written “Works without faith is dead.” To argue one over the other makes no more sense than fighting wildfires without gas masks.

So this time, let us rise up at the primaries to ensure a godly choice for president in 2008, and let us also rise up in our pulpits, streets, schools, homes and offices to boldly preach the undiluted Gospel. Seriously. Pray for the right president, and pray for the right preachers. After swinging back and forth too often, this time let it be the balanced middle place. Let it be revolution and revival, by the grace and power of the mighty God we serve.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 6:29 PM 5 comments  

Labels: Church and State, The Jesus Way

What Terri Wrote
Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Terri Blackstock does not blog, but recently I saw a copy of an important email she sent to several friends, and asked if she would offer something similar here. To my delight, she graciously agreed. Terri is always doing something gracious. For example, although we had never met, soon after the publication of my first novel she took time out of a busy book tour schedule to have dinner with my wife and me, along with my mother who was a big fan. I will never forget the encouragement Terri offered me as a writer that night, the amazing humility she displayed by treating me, then a one-novel author, as if I was a peer, and the powerful sense of God’s guiding hand I felt as she spoke of her recent decision to risk a well established writing career for the (then) very risky proposition of Christian fiction. Writing for houses such as HarperCollins, Harlequin, and Silhouette, thirty-two Terri Blackstock titles had been published and 3.5 million books in print when she decided to switch to Christian fiction. At that time the Christian fiction market was untested, and the quality of the novels available was mostly very poor. It was a huge risk for her career, a true leap of faith. But Terri felt a calling and obeyed. Since making that decision, she has sold 2 million novels and over thirty titles that explore faith in Jesus Christ, many of which have been number one best-sellers. Her latest book, True Light, reached number one on the Top 50 of all Christian books the first full month it was in stores, and Night Light was the winner of the 2007 Retailer’s Choice Award for General Fiction. You can learn more about Terri’s journey by reading her testimony on her website. But first, here’s what Terri wrote…

Posted byAthol Dickson at 3:36 PM 12 comments  

Labels: Church and State

Mystery Guest
Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Guess who is going to post on What Athol Wrote tomorrow? Here are a few hints:

> One of the top selling authors of Christian fiction in the world.
> Does not have a blog.
> Does not want a blog.
> Does not like to blog.
> Has decided to "come out of hiding" just this once, to speak out about the 2008 Presidential elections.

Think you know who this is? If so, feel free to post your guess in the comments, and then tune in tomorrow to see if you were right. And just to make things more interesting, let me say right here in print that there will be a prize awarded tomorrow to someone somewhere for some reason. :)

In the meantime, here are links to a few quick excerpts from various interviews and debates, for those who haven't had a chance to see Mike Huckabee in action. Check them out, and see if, like me, you don't find yourself feeling like you're watching a remake of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Here's a man who truly believes, as that movie's script says, "The only causes worth fighting for are the lost causes." Except as the movie also teaches, when we truly believe that, those causes are not really lost at all....

The most pressing moral issue.
On evolution.
On poverty.
On being "Communicator in Chief"
Don't ask, don't tell.
Illegal immigration.
On the ecology.
Attaining energy independance.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 11:27 AM 7 comments  

Labels: Church and State

Should We Give Up?
Saturday, October 20, 2007

In next year’s elections, it looks more and more like we will be presented with a presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Giuliani, both of whom are “pro-choice.” Any third party option virtually guarantees the Democrat will win. Think about that. Then think about the fact that two Supreme Court justices will likely be replaced by our next president. We were so close to overturning Roe v. Wade. Now it looks like that hope might be lost for another generation. With a growing sense of desperation, my wife and I have been begging the Lord to raise up someone to lead this country. We will never cast our votes for a politician who thinks killing unborn children is a basic human right. That means we may not in good conscience be able to vote in the next presidential election.

Over a quarter of a century ago in A Christian Manifesto, Francis Schaeffer said when there are no true ideological differences between candidates, democracy is dead. I fear that day is very near.

But the last seven years have taught me I cannot be a one-issue voter, not when there are so many other looming disasters. The rise of Muslim terrorism, a radically polarized and impotent legislature, ill will in nearly every nation on the planet, bitter divisions among Americans themselves, the vast gap between the rich and poor growing quickly wider just as millions of Baby Boomer Americans are entering their retirement years with no savings and no health insurance, spreading challenges to the fundamental right of every child to be raised by both a mother and a father, rampant fiscal irresponsibility at both the governmental and personal levels, an ongoing suicidal dependence on oil, religious freedom in this country on the ropes…the list goes on and on and on.

Fortunately, in these desperate times I think the man we need is right under our noses. Please, please, please, go to Mike Huckabee’s site, and read every word of his positions on these issues. Read about Huckabee’s experience in two terms as the Republican governor of a state with a Democrat controlled legislature. Compare Huckabee’s straightforward and clear statements about what he plans to do, to the vague position statements you will see on Mitt Romney’s site. You probably won’t agree with Huckabee’s ideas on everything (I don’t), but you will find that Romney’s position on the issues reads like public relations, while Huckabee’s position statement reads like an action plan.

As you read, also consider this: the evangelical kingmakers in this country have already decided Mike Huckabee is unelectable against Hillary Clinton. The Southern Baptists’ Richard Land has said it. James Dobson has said it. Mark DeMoss (former Jerry Falwell consultant) has said it. Yet they also say they wish they could support the man. Their reason for this paradox? As this article puts it: “They can’t support him because no one is supporting him.” In other words, in spite of the fact that evangelicals are the largest cohesive voting block in this nation, they have already given up on the idea that one of us can be elected.

I would like to send a message to the kingmakers that they are wrong, that we should not give up, that we should have some faith for crying out loud, that democracy is not yet dead and there can still be a real choice in 2008. Do you believe that’s possible? If you do, I strongly suggest that you get busy right now. Talk about Mike Huckabee on your blogs. Often. Talk about him at your churches. Send his campaign as much money as you can. (Even $20 says “I’m with you.”) Call and email Richard Land, James Dobson and every other evangelical leader you can think of to say, “Let’s support our own.”

It’s either that, or like them, we have already given up.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 8:25 AM 18 comments  

Labels: Church and State

Agape, Even If By Force
Thursday, October 18, 2007

It was uncomfortable, but I read Francis Schaeffer’s A Christian Manifesto yesterday.

If you have not read this book, I strongly recommend that you get a copy and do so right away. We’re talking about a pillar of the Christian intellectual community, who wrote statements like this:

“…since tyranny is satanic, not to resist it is to resist God.”

And this:

“…at a certain point there is not only the right, but the duty, to disobey the state.”

These are startling words from a conservative evangelical, although as Schaeffer points out, we of all people have inherited a mantle of revolutionary responsibility directly from the founding fathers. And as one reads Schaeffer’s words, they take on more impact when it becomes apparent that here was a true prophet. He predicts the continued rise of courts that overstep from neutral judicial interpretation of existing law into the realm of making law, by actually commanding the legislative branch (!) to create new laws in conformance with court opinion, and in defiance of the will of the majority of the people. (Consider the recent Massachusetts court decision recasting the basic definition of “marriage,” and then demanding that the legislature create a law to support its ruling.) He predicts the rise of science as a form of religion, with its own dogma that brooks no contradiction. (Think of the plight of those who dare to question global warming science, and are publicly compared to Holocaust deniers.) He predicts a blurring of the lines between “conservative” and “liberal,” until there seems to be little difference and therefore little true democratic opportunity for change. (One thinks of “conservatives” who are supposed to be fiscally responsible, yet cannot be trusted to control government spending, and “liberals” who are supposed to advocate the rights of the weak and underprivileged, yet openly support the very same forms of American eugenics that led directly to the real Holocaust.)

Remarkably, Schaeffer predicted all of this over a quarter century ago.

Way back then he also warned that the Moral Majority movement would probably fail. He offered a scathing indictment of evangelical leadership’s inept responses to a rising tide of secular humanism in the century prior to the Moral Majority’s founding, and gives little hope of a change now without a change in tactics.

Fortunately, from beyond the grave Schaeffer offers clear guidance on what to do next. He calls for the Christian use of force to resist the evil consuming our freedoms. That’s right, he calls for force. But he draws a distinction between force and violence. In that regard (and in many others) he sounds very much like Rev. Martin Luther King, as quoted in the wonderful compilation of sermons, A Knock at Midnight:

“We will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good, and so throw us in jail. We will go into those jails and transform them from dungeons of shame to havens of freedom and human dignity.” (Martin Luther King, sermon, “The American Dream,” delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia, July 4, 1965.)

One thing that struck me again and again in A Christian Manifesto, is the power that comes from Schaeffer’s calm voice in combination with his absolute refusal to compromise the truth. This is such a contrast with the strident tones and rampant non-constructive hyperbole so commonly adopted by some evangelical leaders, and the wishy-washy responses to humanism offered by others. Here was a man who knew how to project the love of Christ while simultaneously speaking the truth boldly, an ability I fear we Christians have nearly lost. Think about our many pitiful attempts to be “relevant” as you watch this excellent video, and if you’re wise, after you’re done laughing you might cry a little.

Dr. King was taken from us in 1968, and Dr. Schaeffer’s book was published in 1981. It’s long past midnight now, and they're done knocking. Is it too late?

I think brother Martin and brother Francis would say that depends on you and me.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 12:29 PM 4 comments  

Labels: Church and State, The Jesus Way

Words of War
Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Love poetry, hate war? Then you should visit Gary Brown's newest blog, The Heart of War. Be warned: this is not easy reading. But what Gary has written is important, I think, because the juxtaposition of such lyrical language with the horrors of the subject matter lends a desperately needed freshness to the message. In our jaded culture, when the distance afforded by the Internet and the evening news makes war too easily watched and too easily ignored, Gary's work may remind you of the outrage lost along with innocence. That's a good thing, even if it hurts a little. Here's a sample, used by permission:

Crutch

Destined to be someone’s three-limbed

poster child for peace,

for war,

for nothing and

much more,

they made me their

one man parade,

a lifetime limping billboard for

the strangers who

will never know

my name;

who’ve now moved on,

forgotten the cause which prompted them

so many years ago

to plant a mine

along my path

to school.

Without a foot,

without a leg,

without a way to class again,

I began

another education

where pain and sorrow

taught me long,

other people, too.

Sweaty years of stumbling as

the object of sad eyes,

the target of a taunt,

the last in line

have roughly led me to a place

where God’s embrace

of fierce gentility has gripped me so

I can’t let go;

for I am not the first child He has

rescued from the

public cross

of someone seeking

private justice.


Copyright (c) 2007 Gary Brown. All rights reserved.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 4:42 PM 0 comments  

Labels: Church and State

...Let Man Not Separate
Tuesday, October 9, 2007

If only it was true. Christianity Today published an article this month entitled “What God Has Joined,” which blesses divorce on the basis of “emotional neglect,” among other things. I wish I could agree with it, because I am a divorced person who remarried. Unfortunately, the author’s scholarship is flawed, which should come as no surprise since he disagrees with two thousand years of generally accepted church doctrine.

You might want to read the article before continuing here, but when you get to the reference to Exodus 21:10-11, remember to suspend belief for a few minutes, until you come back to read this letter I just sent to the editors of CT:

To the Editors:

According to The Barna Group, Christians abandon marriage in the United States at a rate equaling or exceeding that of unbelievers. David Instone-Brewer seeks scriptural support for this in Exodus 21:10, stating, “Exodus says that everyone…had three rights within marriage…food, clothing, and love.” He equates a lack of love with the “emotional neglect” so commonly cited as a basis for divorce today. But the Hebrew word he creatively interprets as “love” in that verse is not translated that way in any well-known English translation. Nor is it rendered as “love” elsewhere in the Bible. In fact, according to The Englishman’s Hebrew Concordance, the Hebrew word does not even occur in this same form elsewhere in the Bible. That alone should warn us not to base such a far-reaching application upon the verse, but there’s more. Instone-Brewer applies Exodus 21:10-11 to “everyone,” but the woman in the contemplated relationship is a concubine—essentially a slave—who was sold to her “husband” without any choice in the matter and thus cannot be accurately compared to a modern person who freely chooses marriage. Also, with the words “if he marries another woman” the Exodus passage specifically addresses polygamy in particular, and takes pains to exclude monogamous relationships. Although his entire argument is built upon these verses, Instone-Brewer fails to mention any of this.

Sadly, in divorce and many other difficulties millions of North American Christians base choices on the amount of pleasure or pain involved in a decision. As a divorced person myself, I sincerely wish it was that easy. Jesus warned us there would be crosses to bear if we follow Him, and even Paul had a “thorn in the flesh” the Lord would not remove. The hard reality of Jesus’ teaching on divorce is evident in the disciples’ stunned reaction: “…it is better not to marry.” Along with every other sin, our God of mercy will forgive divorce of course, but divorce is still sin in most cases and it is always caused by sin. Rather than joining the Pharisees who sought an easy way around the Bible’s teaching, we should focus on the plain sense meaning of our Lord’s teaching in Matthew 19:3-11, and seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance and strength to do the hard work of healing our marriages.

Sincerely,
Athol Dickson

I need to add a postscript, which was not part of the letter since it was already running long.

Nothing I have written here should be interpreted as a suggestion that Christian women should cohabit with physically abusive husbands. Far from it. If you are in that situation, my advice is simple: get away from him! But whenever someone treats a Christian like an enemy, it seems to me the commands Jesus gave will apply to the relationship. We must love them, which is to say, we must forgive them, which is to say, we must remain engaged with them. “Turn the other cheek” should not be taken literally in a physically abusive situation, but the metaphor does carry meaning that extends beyond the lips and into actions.

In short: a physically abused wife must keep her distance, but physical separation is not divorce. And short of adultery or an unbelieving spouse’s abandonment, if we don’t stay in a spouse’s life, if we cut ourselves off from all possible reconciliation with a divorce, then “I forgive you” becomes just an empty story told to make ourselves feel better, instead of the extension of Christ’s sacrificial love on earth it ought to be.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 12:58 PM 9 comments  

Labels: Church and State, The Jesus Way

Christians Behaving Badly
Wednesday, August 8, 2007

As so often happens . . . different parts of life have merged to focus my attention on something in particular this morning. First I read an OpEd piece in Christianity Today by David Aikman, entitled "Attack Dogs of Christendom." I don't think they have it posted on their website yet, but here's a quote:

"Lashing out in public at fellow Christians is objectionable--especially when the Christian influence on contemporary culture today is so weakened. No attribute of civilized life seems more under attack that civility. If Christians blast each other from here to eternity...where on earth is the witness that brings grace and savor to our crumbling civilization? Where is the gentleness, modesty, and wisdom wth which we are supposed to shame those who mock and accuse the Body of Christ from the outside? Christians should set an example. By all means, criticize fellow Christians if necessary, but do so with grace."

Almost immediately after reading the above, a friend in a totally unrelated email exchange told me about a series of posters attacking the Emergent movement. You can see them here.

These posters are supposed to be funny I suppose, but it reeks of school yard bullying . . . just the kind of thing people who hate Christianity love to see us do.

I’m not concerned today with whether there’s a legitimate problem with the Emergent church. Today I want to know why so many Christians think being right gives us license to be harsh. And why are we hardest on each other? Imagine if a Christian decided to publish similar "funny" posters with Judaism as his target, or homosexuality, or something else he deems incorrect or sinful. Only anti-Semites and bigots would be laughing. So what kind of person laughs at these Emergent posters?

Posted byAthol Dickson at 10:19 AM 1 comments  

Labels: Church and State

Jesus on Aisle Ten
Tuesday, July 31, 2007

This morning I came across a most amazing news story. The parents among you may already know this, but I was surprised to learn that Jesus has been coming again for a while now, and his next stop will be WalMart. Instead of clouds, he's arriving in a little cardboard box wrapped in plastic and covered with stickers that proclaim the Gospel According to Madison Avenue. Here's a sample of the wisdom:

"I Talk. Try me!" (There are several Bible verses on a microchip.)

"Fully Poseable." (Jack and Jill can make their very own crucifix!)

And lest we mistake him for just another action figure we have this:

"God's Son." (As opposed to a Transformer? A Mutant Ninja Turtle? Buddha?)

Of course I had to do a little digging. It seems this second coming is courtesy of a company in California called Beverly Hills Teddy Bear Company. It also seems this thing is a something of a holy crusade ("Take Back the Toybox!") created by a Christian man. But the division selling BHTB's plastic Jesus dolls is run by a Joshua Livingston, who is allegedly Jewish and if so, ought to know better. Mr. Livingston says, "I have a very open mind and believe people can have their own beliefs and religion." One wonders what it is he thinks these Christians believe as they rush out to trade filthy lucre for a little plastic god.

Also offered are Samson, Mary, David, Ester and Moses, and with them, I have no problem. It's a great idea to teach kids the Bible using toys (or almost any other way we can) and heaven knows we need healthy alternatives to the trash they're selling to our children, especially our boys, who seem to be growing up these days on a steady diet of blood and guts.

But come on. Jesus Christ, the action figure?

I don't know why I am surprised. As a writer of books that are mostly read by Christians, I sometimes attend an annual convention put on by a trade organization created to support stores that sell Christian products, books included. Years ago at the first of these I was amazed to see a sales booth offering Christian workout clothing. (You know: so you can proclaim the Gospel boldly while sweating off those church social donuts.) Towering above the sales booth was none other than a ten foot Styrofoam Jesus, suggestively stripped down to a loin cloth, wearing a crown of thorns, and struggling in spite of a Schwarzenegger-like physique to perform a squat thrust with his cross.

I digress.

It seems Jack Hayford has endorsed Our Dear Lord in a Box, and Focus on the Family is something called a "ministry partner." And speaking of the box again, I see it has yet another label:

"Ages 3+"

Ah, the formative years. The age when fact and fantasy are one. As a three year old I had a teddy bear named Wilber. He probably wasn't born in Beverly Hills since I come from humble stock, but Wilber was good enough for me. He was my best friend. He could walk, and talk, and everything. When I was sad, he made me feel better. When I was happy, he was happy too. Wilber could do anything. He had magic powers. He was alive. There were moments when he was more important to me than anyone. I loved Wilber, because he first loved me.

Then I grew a little older, and one Christmas morning I got another toy, a little plastic fellow with a cape. I think he was called "Dare Devil." I don't remember playing much with Wilber after that. After all, by then I had figured out that Wilber wasn't real.

There my story ends for now. But I mustn't let you go without quoting the final pearl of wisdom on Jesus' little box, the bit in small print near the bottom where it says:

"Warning. Choking Hazard."

Posted byAthol Dickson at 6:38 AM 3 comments  

Labels: Church and State

Pastor-Politicians
Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Let it not be said I entered the blogosphere with cliches or timidity. Instead of all the usual remarks in this, my first ever blog, I think I'll dive right into comments on the biggest news in North American Christendom today: Jerry Falwell's battle here on earth is done.

I am interested in the disrespectful way those outside the church have responded to the news, and what is says about his approach to ministry. Consider, for example, Christopher Hitchens (Contributing Editor of Vanity Fair, author of current bestseller God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and professional atheist) in an interview with Anderson Cooper, saying among other things:

“I think it's a pity there isn't a hell for him to go to…. The empty life of this ugly little charlatan proves only one thing, that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and to truth in this country if you will just get yourself called reverend. Who would, even at your network, have invited on such a little toad to tell us that the attacks of September the 11th were the result of our sinfulness and were God's punishment if they hadn't got some kind of clerical qualification?”

How very, very sad. Apparently it doesn’t matter to Mr. Hitchens that Dr. Falwell made a very public apology for his words. And of course, if Dr. Falwell hadn’t said that about 9/11, people would still have found something to condemn him for, because he took such strong public positions on political and legal issues.

This is just the latest example of why it’s so vital for evangelical leaders to refocus our attention on the Gospel, and nothing but the Gospel.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 10:35 AM 6 comments  

Labels: Church and State