Follow-up to "Believing God"

I came across this interview with Dan Phillips from a while back, and it is actually what prompted my previous post from today. I wanted to share it with you all because I think it perfectly underscores (and that succinctly!) the point I was trying to make. The italics are mine.

I praise God for His kindness in sending His dear Son to die on the Cross for His people, after perfectly living a life of believing obedience to the whole Word of God in our place. Thank God that we have the power to believe and the power to obey, won by the precious blood of the Incarnate King.

***

If you could pinpoint the main problem with evangelicalism today, what would it be and why?

Unbelief.

Since that word is so often misused, and it would be easy to misunderstand what I mean, let me unpack what I am saying. I mean that God tells us a great deal in the Bible, and professed evangelicals don’t really believe it. God tells us we are lost and hopeless and comprehensively ruined by sin, but we don’t think we’re really that bad off. God tells us that He is brilliantly holy and righteous, and may be approached only on His terms, yet we think we can negotiate. God tells us that His word is living, powerful and sufficient, yet we think we need to improve on it and pep up our presentations with other things that sideline the Word. We give pulpit time to things other than the warm, truthful, passionate exposition of His Word. God tells us that the Gospel must be preached purely and grasped resolutely, but we think we can barter off the unpopular bits. God tells us Christ is the celebrity of the universe, but we have others (or “re-envisioned” Christs) we find more congenial. That, and more.

So, what is the one word that sums up the state of affairs that obtains when God tells us something, but we do not really embrace, stand on, and respond to His words with trust and obedience?

Unbelief.

*** 

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope" (Romans 15:13 ESV, emphasis mine).

Believing God...or Maybe Not

One thing I have watched for years in American Christianity but could never put my finger on is the prevalence of unbelief.

By that, I mean that God has told us all sorts of things in His inerrant, infallible, verbally-inspired Word (and yes, that means I have already lost some of you academics), and multitudes of professed Christians: (A) Do not believe that God actually said a given thing, whether by denying the inerrancy of Scripture or forcing a prefabricated theology into the text; or (B) believing that God indeed said it, but that they are (inexplicably and inconsequentially) excused from believing and living accordingly.

One would think in a nation where the English Bible is shamefully available that such unvarnished stupidity would be rare, that it would be the hallmark of only the truly Biblically illiterate, or blatantly obvious apostates.

However, self-and-oft-proclaimed evangelicals are more than capable of such arrogant, autonomous disregard for the Holy Text. To wit, I offer a non-exhaustive, representative list:

God says that He created the world in six literal, twenty-four hour days (Genesis 1-2; cf. Exodus 20:11, 31:17), but believing that would make me look like a fundamentalist/what about all of the scholarship that disagrees/I’ll look like a cult member/why does the universe look so old/a literal reading of Genesis doesn’t matter.

God says speaking in tongues is the ability to give inerrant revelation in unlearned, actual, identifiable human dialects, and that Holy-Spirit given tongues must only be exercised one at a time and must always be accompanied by translation (Acts 2; cf. 1 Corinthians 12:10, 14:21-22, 27-28), but maybe there’s another gift of tongues/private prayer languages don’t have to be interpreted/you’re just quenching the Spirit through unbelief!/Paul talks about tongues of angels/I know I’ve spoken in tongues because I’ve experienced it/insert some other claim to exercise a gift of the Holy Spirit which allows it to look absolutely nothing like anything the New Testament describes, despite the Holy Spirit inspiring the very verses it contradicts.

God says He unconditionally elected a vast number of souls to salvation from all eternity, apart from any foreseen faith or anything outside His own will (Acts 13:48; Romans 9; Ephesians 1:4, 11; 2 Thessalonians 2:13), but what about free will/that’s so unfair/I don’t know that God/that stifles evangelism/it doesn’t really matter because it’s just a big mystery.

God says everything Paul writes is Scripture and a command of the Lord (2 Peter 3:15-16; 1 Corinthians 14:37; cf. John 16:12-15; 2 Peter 3:2), but the red letters are the only really important ones/Paul was wrong/insert some other claim that totally invalidates the reality of Paul’s apostolic authority and verbally-inspired writings, and Jesus’ authorization of both.

God says the instrument of the believer’s justification, not its ground or cause, is repentant faith alone apart from any works and that this is the dividing line between a true and false gospel (Romans 3-4, Luke 18:9-14), but what about James/that’s antinomianism/that leads to false security and carnality/insert some other rationalization which spits on Jesus’ plain words here.

God says an integral part of saving faith is surrender to the sovereign and comprehensive Lordship of Jesus; salvation necessitates turning away from sin and unbelief to turn toward a humble, loving, and submissive devotion to and complete dependence on the Lord Jesus alone for salvation; that there is no distinction between a Christian and a disciple; and that genuine Christians must and will persevere in personal faith and holy living until they meet the Lord in Heaven as the holiness without which no one will see the Lord; and that as such this is another dividing line between a true and false gospel (Matthew 28:18, Colossians 1:21-22; John 8:31-32; Romans 10:13, 11:22; ) but that’s for a different dispensation/that’s adding works to salvation/submission is adding something to saving faith/Christians can be carnal/the Bible never says Christians will persevere/the fruit might not be visible to anyone else/GRACE!!!!!/ insert some other example of stubbornly poor exegesis and bad theology here.

God says women are not supposed to be pastors (1 Timothy 2:11-14, 3:1-2), but that’s just cultural/Paul didn’t really write those letters/Paul was wrong/that’s misogynistic and evil/what about women who have a calling/the wider culture will think we’re insane.

God says genuine masculinity has nothing to do with bravado, an obsession with sports, a rejection of emotional intimacy and physical affection, and lack of verbal communication but with reflecting Christlikeness (Galatians 5:20-22) and which expressly includes tenderness, vulnerability, intimacy and passion (Acts 20:37-38; 1 Corinthians 11:1; Matthew 11:28; Philippians 1:7), but guys shouldn’t say they miss each other/it’s weird for guys to hug/what will my wife think/what will my pastor think/insert some American and non-Biblical view of masculinity here, often without even a token attempt to support such from Scripture.

God says that love normatively includes deep emotions and a profound heart attachment (Romans 12:10; Philippians 1:7-8; 1 Peter 1:22; 2 Peter 1:7; cf. the negative example in Jeremiah 8:2), but love isn’t an emotion/love is an act of the will to do good things for someone/God would never command emotions/God doesn’t care about how I feel/insert some banal stupidity about having to love other Christians but not like them.

God says that love includes verbal and physical affection, devotion, emotional yearning and intimacy, and sacrificial commitment despite the messiness of relationships (Romans 12:10; 2 Corinthians 6:11-13, 7:2; Galatians 4:19; Philippians 2:25-26, 4:1; 1 Thessalonians 2:7-8, 17-20, 3:10-13; Titus 3:15) but I’m exempt because I’m a man/the Bible doesn’t really speak to relationships/that’s inconvenient and messy/that’s for a different level of relationship/I’m not called to that/that isn’t the way I show love/what will my wife or husband think/that violates my boundaries.

God says the Bible is sufficient to meet all the believer’s spiritual needs and contains everything we need for life and godliness (Acts 20:32; 2 Peter 1:3; 2 Timothy 3:16-17) and that we are complete in Christ (Colossians 2:9) with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3) and the pathway to fullness of blessing and joy is believing obedience to the revealed Word of God (John 15:5-11, 16:12-14, 23-24, 17:17; 1 Peter 3:8-13) but the Bible isn’t really enough/psychology speaks to the mind and the Bible speaks to the soul/biblical counseling is simplistic/the means of grace aren’t enough/how can you help people with mental illnesses?

God says rejection of another believer or even holding them at arms’ length is sin and rooted in selfishness (Romans 15:7; Philippians 2:3-4), but I have to have my boundaries/I’m doing it out of love for them/I have a right to what I want/those verses don’t apply to this relationship.

God says that His inerrant Word is to be the standard and control for everything we think, say, believe, feel, and do (Jeremiah 8:8-9; Psalm 119:118, 128,142, 150-151, 160; 1 Timothy 6:3; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; Titus 2:15; Matthew 5:18; cf. 2 Chronicles 20:6; Matthew 28:18), and thus that we are supposed to test everything including our perceptions and assumptions by His Word or else have a false and distorted view of reality, but the Bible isn’t sufficient/there are grey areas/I don’t agree with your interpretation/insert some arrogant rationalization by appealing to some contrary authority while still claiming to believe in Biblical authority.

And finally:

God says to respond to His Word with anything other than comprehensive, heartfelt, believing obedience and submission is to respond with a stiff neck and the height of arrogance (Psalm 119:21, 85; cf. Proverbs 16:5), but God wants a broad perspective/we have to hold our positions with humility and not dogmatism/there is so much we don’t know/humans are finite and see through a glass darkly/there just has to be a center of core truths and then nothing else matters/insert some story that smugly lambasts those bigoted and small-minded fundamentalists, ironically proving my point.

God says to dither or be ambivalent or apathetic towards any of His Word, once understood, is to disobey and disbelieve Him and thus be chastened accordingly (e.g., note Jeremiah’s example in Jeremiah 13:1-2; cf. Psalm 119:60, 128, 158), but I don’t agree with your interpretation/where is grace in that?/that’s the attitude of someone who confines God to a book/insert some rationalization that presupposes God is perfectly okay with Christians waiting to believingly obey Him until it is not sacrificial or they feel like it.

As a graduate of a professedly evangelical undergraduate institution, I wish I could say being surrounded by educated professing Christians all day meant I never heard these kinds of flimsy dodges, rationalizations, and attempts at intellectual autonomy.

Alas, no.

Many of the above responses to these Biblical claims are ones I actually heard from fellow students and even faculty (especially faculty, who were often the worst culprits), either to these or similar statements. Such is the beauty of rationalizing away our responsibility to obey Jesus. Most of our excuses work on more than one uncongenial command.

The problem underlying all of these excuses is simple. Each categorically, silently presupposes that the Christian life is a process of negotiation, and that individual Christians have a note from God which excuse them (but only them) from having to do or believe all sorts of things they don’t like. How such a note can be from the Lord yet blatantly contradict His Word -- and how professed believers can seriously think the Christian life is a democracy, not a master-slave relationship -- is rather conveniently not even considered.

Also, notice not one objection intelligently and cogently deals with the Biblical assertion. It merely presupposes that the Biblical assertion is wrong because it crosses the objector’s will, and an alternative course, consisting of mere gainsaying and rationalization of disobedience, is chosen.

I find all of this quite sad.

We live in an evangelical culture where unbelief and autonomy are so profoundly entrenched that anyone who dares to stand against it on the authority of the inerrant written Word alone is perceived as a threat, as an intruder, as opposition that mist be quelled and dealt with, often with the fervor of people who think their sin is really what God wants (with mangled Bible verses to prove it).

 

There are only two ways to live: God's way, or our own. Knowing and following His way comes from an intimate and submissive relationship with His precious Word in all areas of life and leads to salvation, fullness, and blessing. Anything contrary to that, then, is our Own way" -- our default, which dishonors Him and exalts self, and leads to damnation, emptiness, and cursing (Numbers 15:39; Psalm 73:27, 119:128, 130; Proverbs 2:13, 3:32, 11:3, 20; 13:13, 14:2, 15:10, 16:20, 21:8, 1 Timothy 6:3; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; cf. Proverbs 16:18). It is from our own way that we were delivered (Isaiah 53:6) so that we might come under God's power and kingdom (Acts 26:18, Colossians 1:13), which is decisively opposed to the current world system of unbelief and autonomy (John 18:36).

As Christians, we profess to have made a fundamental, foundational, life-altering commitment to the authority of Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:3). This authority is mediated to us through His Word because the Word is how God speaks to His people. As such, any person who rejects the right of Christ to rule over him en toto is clearly not a believer, whatever he might claim.

However, numerous professed Christians reject the right of Christ to rule over them in specific areas of theology or practice -- and such is considered a mark of noble spiritual maturity. Of not being legalistic and narrow-minded and restrictive. We’re free in Christ! Grace! Mercy! We don’t want to be angry fundamentalists! And so on. They never actually deal with the Text. They simply assume its obvious interpretation is wrong because such would cost them, entail repentance and humility and submission and death to self, exchanging their will and way of thinking for that of God’s, and allowing Him to settle in ever more comprehensively as the sovereign Lord of every part of their lives…and all of that is just too messy and difficult and painful and hard.

Which is the nuanced, dishonest, and polite way of saying, “I just don’t really care about obeying Jesus; I will fight anyone who has the gall to hold me accountable to my professed embracing of the Bible and the lordship of Jesus; and His commands don’t really apply to me because I’m really the one in control.”

This means it is also the nuanced, dishonest, and polite way of pushing Jesus off of the throne of your heart and life and settling down upon it yourself, scepter and crown firmly in place.

Why Am I Only Posting Once a Month?

It seems to ever be my lot in life that I am never happy with my blog layout. Long before I ever had an inkling of a desire to actually slap my own thoughts out on the Internet for all these strangers and all two of my dedicated friends to read, I was mesmerized by the fancy-shmancy artistic feasts bloggers like the Pyromaniacs or...well, mostly just them, since a lot of the blogs I read had little in the way of aesthetics. Such is the curse of being literary and visual-artsy, I suppose. Ah, well...we all have our crosses to bear.

Anyway, to that end I was tweaking my layout a bit this afternoon (detailed readers will note the changes! First one to pick them all out in a comment gets a cookie!), and I just noticed that I have managed to post only once a month for two of the three month the blog has been live (November was the massive, nutty record of two).

I realized with great disgust and horror (well, not really) that I have become one of those bloggers I hate --  you know, the kind that opens a blog and posts some really good things, then you check in and you realize their last post was six months ago, with no explanation. I have met the enemy, and he is me. (At least he has rockin' hair.)

Not that I have an audience to whom I am accountable, but I guess the reason I have not been blogging much is because I am realizing how hard it is to think of things to write. It isn't that I don't have ideas -- I do -- it's just that I am finding it harder than I had anticipated to get the visuals and snippets of coherence out of my head and onto the screen. It is hard to know how to intro, what to put where, how to get precise points across...to capture everything in my heart and put it out there for the edification of people and the glory of our great God.

Well. Christmas is coming. And I do tend to get inspired and nostalgic around the holidays...

{Case in point: I am finally working on my second novel, and this one is actually capable of going somehwrre. With my favorite characters ever. Seriously, I'm telling you...something about Christmastime. :)}

Blessed Be Your Name, So Weep No More

Yay! More Pettit music! :)

I am becoming more increasingly convinced that Grooveshark is an unsung means of grace. Despite the wonderful 50%-off sale about to begin at Heart Publications, the publishing arm of the Steve Pettit Evangelistic Association, I must give into the instant gratification piece and look up as many of their songs as possible on Grooveshark...especially since they are not all on iTunes, and SacredAudio.com (basically the independent Baptist version of iTunes) has been undergoing maintenance for, like, three years.

First, though, a personal anecdote. Two weeks ago I had the privilege of visiting Colchester Bible Baptist Church, about an hour away from my home, for the final night of the Galkin meetings out there. Will and Christy Galkin got their start with the Pettits in about 1997, when Christy was still Christy Roland and Northland International University (where Will did his undergraduate work) was still Northland Baptist Bible College...and much more conservative and separatist. By 2003 Will and Christy were on their own, schlepping their five kids and a young family (who would in 2010 leave to start this ministry) and still later a bunch of crazy, musically-gifted college grads around the country, ministering in preaching and music to fundamental churches.

I don't remember where I first read it, but one of their mission statements is "to preach the gospel to both the saved and the lost." I think that is so precious because so many believers forget the primacy and importance of the gospel after they are converted. The Galkins (and the Pettits to some extent) are not ashamed about reinforcing and rehearsing the grand glories of the gospel to even those who have been saved by those truths for years. I find this refreshing if for no other reasons than (a) many fundamental Baptists are not known for such proclamation; and (b) often, the ones doing it most prominently often risk truncating the gospel by making it absolutely everything, or solely a means to personal transformation (as one of the Reformation 21 guys bluntly said, "The gospel wasn't given so you can stop screaming at your kids"), along with all sorts of other, often related, errors. So I am excited and thankful that Will, Christy, and the dear young people with whom they travel get this, avoid the excesses, and lift it high.

Anyway, I got to meet some of the team members, including Christy, and the music was unearthily beautiful. (It was so beautiful that  had to invent a new word to communicate it!) The gospel message Will gave at the end was stellar. I loved every minute and was so grateful to meet people who have had such a glorious and transforming impact on my life.

Having said that, here are two Pettit Team songs I have pulled from the Grooveshark vault. These are from their 2002 album (which is also their first-ever, I think) Weep No More. The team members at the time were: Will and Christy Galkin, Kevin Inafuku (BA, Church Music, Bob Jones University, 2000 -- now minister of music at Harvest Baptist Ministries in Guam), Beth Ann Fetterolf (BA, Elementary Education, Bob Jones University, 2000 -- now married to Pastor Steve Johns of Kennerly Road Baptist Church in Irmo, SC), Jonathan Albright (BA, Church Music, Bob Jones University, 2001 -- later went on staff at Brookside Baptist Church in Wisconsin, now ministering with the Galkins at Gospel Grace Church in Salt Lake), Rob Chisolm (BA, Bible, Bob Jones University, 2001), and Katie Matzko (BA, Music Education, Bob Jones University, 2001).

"Weep No More" was actually sung at the Colchester meetings, and I had not heard it before that point. (Christy and Sarah Roe did an amazing duet. I fell in love with the song at that point.) I realized after doing some Google scraping and skulldrudgery that the reason I had never heard it before was because Steve Pettit had written it! It was almost entirely unknown outside of fundamental music circles.

I initially thought "Blessed Be Your Name" was the Matt Redman song of the same name, but about ten seconds into it I realized it was entirely different. I think Dr. Pettit wrote this one too because I also can't find any lyrics or other song information online.

Maybe if I pick up Weep No More at the Heart Pub sale, the J-cards will solve the mystery...?

I do have to say that I was particularly stirred by "Blessed Be Your Name." There is something very communal and majestic -- heavenly -- about the harmony of all the voices, and the beautiful instrumentation. It speaks to my heart that this is how things are supposed to be, and a reminder that the world as it is now is nothing like it is supposed to be, but it will be when the Lord returns. In that regard, the music is much more than just Biblical truth set to lovely conservative music, but an inherent reminder of what God has always intended and what will one day be. I like to think hymn sings in Heaven will be not unlike this. :) It's funny...I used to not like conservative music like this...until I found the Pettits. :)

Blessed, blessed Thanksgiving to all of you. I thank God for the great promises we have of freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness because our God and Savior is indeed reigning, alive and well. We do not have to weep anymore over our sins or the aches of this life because if we know Jesus we are careening inevitably and sovereignly towards a future where all tears will be wiped away, God will make it more than worth it, and we will be in unending intimate, sin-free communion with the One whose name is blessed above all things and who makes our hearts to sing. And we will also be enveloped and restored in love to all the dear ones from this life whom we knew, sometimes failed and misunderstood, who with sinless minds and hearts will engage in brotherly community to the glory of God, no longer struggling with putting Him first or devaluing His gifts, forever and ever...and it will only get sweeter and richer and fuller, every day.

What a great hope we have...and what a gift to be thankful for!

"Weep No More" from Weep No More by the Steve Pettit Evangelistic Team (Christy Galkin and Terry Pettit on vocals)



"Blessed Be Your Name" from Weep No More (Pettit Team on vocals)

I'm baaack...

Hey everyone!

So...do you know how perfectly awful it is to be without a laptop for basically a whole month? My last post was on October 4, and my laptop died about a week later. Since then, I have used my iPhone for nearly everything (I wish it were a person so I could use all sorts of loving platitudes, hug it, take selfies with it...all out of gratitude and to embody the bonding we've experienced over the last month), with a little bit of my mother's laptop thrown in.

I ordered a lovely new HP laptop, smaller than my old one, with Windows 8, on Saturday and it arrived today! So now I can blog again!

Except not today.

I have book editing to do, letters to write, possible shopping...but I won't be gone long. I promise!

“May the Lord watch between you and me when we are absent one from another" (Genesis 31:49, NKJV).

Grace Unmeasured, to be More and More Like Jesus

Hello all! Oh, dear...it has been how long, exactly, since I updated this blog? Ugh. Life has gotten immensely in the way in the weeks and months since I first launched Faith Today. But no more! I finally have something of a schedule in between looking for freelance editing/proofreading...so...I am back with a vengeance. :)

For all two of my readers, and any other people that want to stop by, I have been thinking a lot about what to share with this new post. While Faith Today will primarily feature articles of devotional and didactic quality, I also am fond of solid, doctrinal Christian music. So I decided to start a new feature on the blog: Music posts!

I have an entire theology of music and worship that I will not get into here, choosing to save it for the "distinctives" page I will eventually set up. But rather than give a list of statements about what I think music should be and why...I think it would be better to show you.

The Steve Pettit Evangelistic Team (www.pettitteam.org)

Steve Pettit founded the Steve Pettit Evangelistic Team in 1995, having traveled in itinerant evangelism for ten years prior.  This time, he would be conducting local-church crusades with the addition of musically-gifted Christian college graduates who would assist him in vocals and instrumentation. The Pettits are the gold standard among independent Baptists for their conservative style and arrestingly lovely harmony and arrangement of both classic hymns and contemporary songs. The Pettits base their ministry out of Dunbar, Wisconsin, under the auspices of Northland Camp, a ministry of Northland International University.

Galkin Evangelistic Ministries (www.galkins.org)

Will and Christy Galikin met while traveling together on the Pettit Team, leaving in 2003 to start Galkin Evangelistic Ministries. Will is a dynamic preacher and travels across the country with his wife, five children, and the rest of the team members -- all graduates from Christian universities dedicated to magnifying Jesus in fundamental churches through music which exalts the gospel. Along with the Pettits, Will and Christy serve as a ministry team of Northland Camp, and they base their work out of their sending church, Red Rocks Baptist in Morrison, Colorado.

And now, onto the songs! I am sharing two from each team.

First is "Faithful God," from the Galkin album By Faith.


Second is "More and More Like You," which Christy Galkin and Reba Snyder gave at a meeting at Yates-Thagard Baptist Church about two years ago.


From the Pettits, one of my favorites is "Grace Unmeasured," a Sovereign Grace Music ballad, from their album So High the Price.



And perhaps one of my top five favorites of all time, "O Wondrous Love," from one of their older albums, If Eyes Could See.

Praise God that He really does promise us unmeasured grace in our wonderful Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ -- a grace that never fails to hold us within God's wondrous love, preserve us, and make us more and more like Jesus in every lack and lavishing of our lives.

Truly, Christians are the most blessed people alive!

I trust these precious truths will carry you throughout the weekend into your worship of our Risen King this Lord's Day! Let these truths arrest your heart, guard you from sin, and deliver you afresh into the arms of your Beloved, Jesus Christ. Surrender to Him wholeheartedly, for He is enough and in His arms are all truly good things.

Amen!

The Bride With a Broken Back

I have something to say.

That will not come as any sort of surprise to people who know me, since I usually talk a lot and write even more! (I once remarked to a pastor friend that I possessed the spiritual gift of long-windedness. Being a preacher, he had the same outpouring, and was honest enough to admit it.)

It is difficult, however, to always know precisely how to say a given thing, even if (usually especially if) the thing is immensely important. One might imagine such a case would be rare for the man who graduated with a BA in English but, alas, no.

Here’s my point: The Bride of Christ in America is trying to function with a broken back. She is paralyzed by unbelief.

I suppose I have, in one way or another, known this was the case as long as I have been a Christian. Even before that, during my messy early teenage years, I was unusually sensitive to theological issues within the wider Body of Christ that to some extent continue to be issues of concern today -- I just didn’t know their root cause, or how to address the problems even if I did.

From the time of my conversion in my senior year of high school until now, I would...notice things. Things that bothered me, things that concerned me, things that I knew were unbiblical and thus sinful but couldn’t really explain or concretely identify. Perhaps most pivotal in this regard was the time I spent as an undergraduate student at an extremely high-profile and academically rigorous -- and benightedly self-proclaimed “evangelical” -- institution in the Southeastern US. To say that I generally found my interactions with students and faculty, including the several in both groups to whom I became close, equal parts vibrantly exhilarating and blatheringly dumbfounding, would be axiomatic.

I underwent a reasonably significant theological sea change while away at school; I transitioned from the doctrinally conservative but minimalist high school senior to the theologically-informed, very conservative, forceful, more spiritually mature post-undergrad I am currently. There are many reasons for this, though the ultimate and most obvious is that I was repeatedly and submissively exposed to Scripture at my local church, and was then forced to proclaim and defend that near-constantly at school.

That in itself was admittedly eye-opening for me. Coming from a public school background as I did, where I was one of only three or four believers, I was eager to be whisked away to what I thought was a place where I could be secure, welcomed, affirmed, and grow. Well, I certainly did grow. And I was secure and so forth on an individual level, among my friends. But to be quite honest, I hadn’t the foggiest idea that evangelicalism was such a profound wreck until I entered what was ostensibly a mainstream evangelical institution.

The anecdotes I have to confirm this are literally almost endless. There was the time I couldn’t finish writing a paper in the library during my sophomore year because a group of students (including one of the men who would be my RA during my senior year) decided to break out into the laughing revival on the first floor, right smack in front of the staircase, distracting everyone and without a soul rising to shut them up (or, as I would have done, politely asked where in Scripture God ever commanded believers to thrash on the floor like crack-infused hyenas to cries of “More, Lord, more!”).

There was the video produced by friends of mine during senior year that contained snippets from students about how God spoke to them, and interestingly not one student that I recall mentioned anything remotely like the most obvious answer: The Bible.

There were the numerous professors who categorically denied inerrancy, and the dozens of others who enabled and covered for them by shrilly proclaiming inerrancy was not a fundamental of the faith, or that the school was supposed to have a broad spectrum of views, or that the school didn’t require instructors to hold to inerrancy (only infallibility or the generically-titled “authority” of Scripture -- without bothering to explain how a non-inerrant text could be considered authoritative in any meaningful sense, or how they could hold to Biblical authority when denying its very claims about itself).

I still remember when I had to explain to a professor friend of mine, an exceptionally bright man with multiple advanced degrees, what the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy was. Or the time I had to explain to a new professor, from 1 Corinthians 15, how a person couldn’t deny the virgin birth or inerrancy and still be saved, because they were implied in the broader statements Paul was making there. (He was not convinced.) I remember the toxic levels of bitterness and invective hurled towards cessationists, often because the faculty or students did not stop to consider that one of them was sitting right there, not unlike how white supremacists cut loose with the N-word when they think they’re among friends. I remember how one theology professor would openly slander Calvinism during class lectures and of course not one student (except for me, the token Calvinist) would speak up, because not one student had any real theological grounding or exposure; they had no idea what they were being taught wasn’t true.

I have literally dozens of stories, from conversations with professors to reading papers as a coach at the college’s writing center, to overhearing things friends or colleagues said when they thought I wasn’t listening. Classroom lectures, long talks during office hours with a favorite instructor and best friend, quotes I still remember from textbooks, dreadful things I can’t forget from the mercifully few times I ever dared to waste time at the chapel services…I kept my eyes and ears open. I kept my nose in my Bible and good Christian books. I prayed nonstop.

And I learned.

And the main thing I learned was that the root problem, behind all of these errant comments and bad practice and things that everyone, without question or reflection, accepted to be true, was one thing: Unbelief.

I do not mean that the people I met were not Christians. I have no reason to question the salvation of essentially everyone I met while away at school. Rather, I mean this: God has spoken, unequivocally and clearly in His Word. This is not something one needs a Th.D. to understand. He has spoken, and He did not stutter, and He expects (and desires!) to be heard, believed, and obeyed.

The problem I found at my college was that basically everyone I met, on some level, recognized that God has spoken, and simply chose to not believe what He said.

Certainly, it is a bit more complicated than that -- in fairness, most of the people to whom I refer would probably quite vigorously say they are in fact believing God, that their interpretations of Scripture are just different (read: less stringent) than mine. To an extent, that is true. But I would wager that their interpretations are different precisely because they are not believing God’s Word.

Take the foundational premise I alluded to above: the authority of Scripture. Anyone with two synapses to rub together can see the Bible:

• is the final authority for God's people in everything they believe and do (Deuteronomy 32:47; Proverbs 13:13, 16:20; John 12:47-49; 1 Corinthians 2:10-16);

• is without any error or contradiction in the original manuscripts on all matters to which it speaks (Psalm 119:142,151,160; John 10:35, 17:17);

• must be the control and filter for the believer's thinking (1 Corinthians 14:37; 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21);

• asserts the by-definition, unilateral, unconditional, and lifetime duty of believers to mark themselves off as slaves and submissive learners of Jesus by conforming every area of their lives to His Word, knowing intimately His truth, persevering therein, and thusly being continually set free from the corruption of unbelief, autonomy, and bondage (John 8:31-32; cf. Matthew 28:19; Colossians 3:16; 1 Timothy 6:3-4); and

• is completely sufficient to address any spiritual need of any person in any age (2 Timothy 3:15-17).

See? That isn’t a matter of interpretation, much less a secondary or unimportant issue: That is the blatant, unvarnished, obvious teaching of Scripture. If words mean anything remotely intelligible, there is no way for an honest interpreter to get around this.

The problem, however, is that many of the people I met simply did not believe this. I in part blame the kind of scholarship they were exposed to as a reason, but even apart from that, when I talked to people, they simply did not believe some or all of those things. The reasons varied: perhaps those were just one interpretation of the passages cited; perhaps they were simply ignorant and untaught; perhaps they had become too intellectual and divorced their faith from their scholarship, leading to deplorable theology; perhaps they simply strained their ears to listen for the inward voice of the Holy Spirit and did not need to concern themselves with “theological minutiae,” since after all cessationism was worldly and functional deism by confining God to a book.

And yet…and yet…

What else do you call it when there is a clear, authoritative, binding, inerrant word from the Living God (which is to say: any word from God), and, for whatever surface reason and however sincerely or humbly or politely, it is not believed?

Unbelief.

Professed Christians today are in a predicament. They gladly name the name of Christ, yet do not know, or do not believe, that the definition of a Christian is one who has savingly yoked themselves to the Lordship of Christ, to learn from and relate to Him as Lord in every area of life -- and that the most fundamental element of that yoking is to understand, own and embrace the authority of His Word in all things. That many believe and live in direct contradiction to that claim, and do so without realizing it, is the root problem not only of every theological and practical problem within American Christianity, but in the personal lives of millions of people as well.

Over the next weeks, we will explore in some detail these issues, examine what the Scriptures have to say, and hopefully find a cure.

And I have it on good authority that there most certainly is (cf. Zechariah 1:3; Joel 2:12; Matthew 3:2; Acts 20:23; Romans 8:13, 15:13).

“Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight…the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Proverbs 9:6, 10, ESV).