Category: Culture
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Living a Red Pill Life in a Blue Pill World
The red pill/blue pill metaphor has gotten mangled to the point that it’s almost useless. I never saw the Matrix movies, but when I first encountered the red pill/blue pill categories, I thought they were fairly helpful interpretive lenses for navigating certain aspects of life in the modern world. I thought the red pill/blue pill…
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Looking Back on 2023
The new year is well underway, but I always like to look back in the work I did in the previous year that I think was most significant. My most important sermons were probably this one on LGBTQ+ “Pride” month and this one on Judges 2, preached at our church plant in Columbus, GA and which could serve as…
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The True Humanism: Being Christian Is Natural
The New Testament presents the church as God’s new humanity. The Dutch theologian A. A. Van Ruler put it this way: “We become Christians in order that we may become truly and fully human.” Being Christian is not unnatural. There is nothing more natural than living for God’s glory in Christ Jesus. It’s what we were…
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My Christian Nationalism
I am not really a fan of the “Christian nationalism” label. The “nationalism” bit carries too much baggage. But if I did want to identify myself as a Christian nationalist, Francis Scott Key’s hymn “Before the Lord We Bow” would define the term for me. Key is best known to Americans as the author of our national…
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Pastoral Leadership in an Age of Wokeness
Are woke pastors committing vocational suicide? Is it enough to not be woke? Or must a pastor be explicitly anti-woke in order to remain faithful? I admit upfront I know absolutely nothing first hand about the Scott Sauls case and therefore anything I say here is strictly speculative. The charges brought against Sauls that he has been abusive and manipulative are very…
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Thanksgiving Day Note
This was sent out in the TPC congregational email today: George Washington’s 1789 Thanksgiving Day proclamation opened with these words: “Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor– and whereas…
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Thanksgiving
This week, millions of Americans will gather for Thanksgiving. But will they really be giving thanks? And who will they thank? The Thanksgiving holiday is an annual reminder that our nation has wonderful (though obviously imperfect) Christian heritage. The influence of the Christian faith upon our nation, its government, its culture, its institutions, is the…
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Why the West Has Been the Best
A study was done by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2002 to discover why the West has had such historical success. This is what they found: “One of the things we were asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world.…
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The True Fight for Social Justice
Let the Church Challenge the Idols of Our Day(Or: Let the Church Fight for True Social Justice) The article was originally written in 2017, but I trust it’s still relevant. Let the church recover her role as a promoter of true social justice, especially against the most pernicious idols of our day, same-sex “marriage” and…
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TPC: Building for the Future (notes from the 10/15/23 congregational meeting)
These are some notes summarizing a recent presentation at a TPC congregational meeting, laying out plans for a long term building project. The session recently formed a building committee to develop a master plan for our property that ties into our vision for our congregation as a whole. When we purchased this property, we knew…
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