On my yearly fall trek to be with a pastor’s Covenant Group in South Carolina, I listened to several episodes of the Gospelbound podcast hosted by Collin Hansen. Collin’s conversation with Matt Chandler about family discipleship and how to raise gospel-centered children who follow Christ into adulthood is filled with practical wisdom for Christian parents.

You can listen here. I highly recommend this conversation to you! [Matt Chandler is the Lead Pastor of Village Church in Texas and author of two books that I recommend: The Mingling of Souls: God’s Design for Love, Sex, Marriage, and Redemption & The Explicit Gospel . His new book released this year: Family Discipleship: Leading Your Home Through Time, Moments and Milestones.]

Three Big Takeaways from this Gospel Bound conversation with Matt Chandler:

#1: Parents, don’t confuse behavior with belief.

Some parents, when examining the belief structure of their children (do my children believe the gospel? does my child know the Lord?) often confuse behavior with belief. This can work in two directions:

The child who is more strong-willed and constantly is in the crosshair of parental discipline can seem like a total pagan unbeliever to the parent. Yet, personality or birth order or family dynamics or school issues might be influencing the problematic behavior just as much (or more) than an apparent “lack of belief”. Parents need to discern wisely before simply conflating bad behavior with an outright rejection of Christian belief. Parents can continue to pour in grace, truth, and love into the strong-willed child. Play the long game. Don’t give up.

Conversely, the child who is more eager to please mom and dad doesn’t mean that this child knows and loves and cherishes the gospel. It just might mean that the child is eager to please and knows how to “say the right things” in order to garner parental accolades. This child, too, needs intentional instruction on doctrine, scripture memory, and age-appropriate teaching. Parents shouldn’t assume that the child will always be so pliable. Parents should continue to instruct and disciple in the home even when the child seems “already to know it all”.

#2: Parents, worship with your children in church. Sit with them.

It’s not enough to come in one car and then go to different parts of the church. The Fuller Youth Institute has been sharing this research for a long-time now: “Nearly half of all young people raised in Christian families walk away from their faith when they graduate from high school. That’s the bad news. [More precisely, I’d say these young people walk away from church or never believed the gospel, because I don’t believe people “lose” their faith.] But here’s the good news: research shows that parents are one of the primary influences on their child’s faith.”

The Fuller Youth Institute’s research shows that children who worship God with their parents in church services are more likely and more motivated to continue church attendance into adulthood.

The latins called this a “habitus”. The fact of the matter is that spiritual habits form us in powerful ways. And these habits are learned at a young age.

#3: Parents, Enter the Fray. Start Slow. Build new Family Habits.

The bar for parental satisfaction is often too low. Many parents settle for “behavioral modification” in their children (i.e. if I can only get my children “to act in a certain way”, then I’d be happy). At the same time, parents often get excited and distracted by many “good things” while neglecting to pass on the “best thing”.

Matt Chandler gives parents a simple nudge to enter the fray in family discipleship. You don’t know where to begin? So what? Neither has the majority of Christian parents throughout the history of the church! It might be as simple as reading scripture over the dinner table and praying together (start with the Gospel of Mark or the practical letter of James or the joy-filled epistle to the Philippians).

The Carter family is in the midst of reading through “Foundations: 12 Biblical Truths to Shape a Family”. The book is practical, engaging, and only takes a few minutes to implement over dinnertime. (In the past, we’ve journeyed with “Our 24 Family Ways: A Family Devotional Guide”.)

Enter the fray. Get engaged. Start a new habitus. You’ll be glad you did!

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Other helpful and interesting Gospelbound podcast conversations include:

The Future of Christian Marriage.

Tim and Kathy Keller Share the Secret of a Great Marriage.

America’s Secession Threat.

The Rise of Politics as Religion

The decline of Christianity in American has coincided with the rise of the Messiah complex in American politics. "I alone can save you," says politicians on both the right and the left. The Christ-shaped vacuum left empty in the soul of America is being replaced by politics. Politics is the new religion.

The Elements of our New Religion

With any religion, liturgy is needed. The recent political conventions (RNC & DNC) play the part nicely, as carefully orchestrated liturgical expressions of America’s new religion. They represent a high-water mark akin to Easter.

With any religion, worship is needed. Amid the decline of church attendance and bible reading, our new (political) Messiahs stride confidently to the pulpit. There is even a hint of Pentecostalism spilling forth into our political gatherings. Instead of “arms raised to Jesus”, there is political emotionalism gone mad, a Pentecostalization of political enthusiasm wherein each candidate whips into a religiously-charged political fervor their adoring fans. 

With any religion, transcendence is needed. People long to be part of “something greater” than their own small lives. Politicians ride into Jerusalem on modern donkeys (limos and private airplanes) with their political base waving palm branches (political signs). The Messiah will give you 90 minutes of a transcendent experience, replete with enthusiastic chants (more liturgy) coupled by the belief that you have taken part in a historic moment.

With any religion, a devil-figure is needed. The opposition plays the part perfectly. Blessed are you if you can brand your opponent “the next devilish coming” of Adolf Hitler, Fidel Castro or the KKK, for your angelic halo awaits you in heaven. After all, your opponent is destined for the Lake of Fire.

With any religion, apocalyptical images frame an end-time scenario for planet earth. A vote for the oppositional devil-figure takes us closer to this (religious) brink. Your devotion (you are told) is all that keeps the apocalypse at bay.

With any religion, hope is needed.  With the “Audacity of Hope”, you can reclaim the American dream. Do you have enough hope to make America great? An eschatological (postmillennial) hope of realized blessings (in the form of economic prosperity) is just around the corner. Can’t you sense the Spirit working through your favorite political Messiah who will inaugurate a glorious end-times prosperity? The promises (of prosperity) and doomsday scenarios (of demise) are spoken with the cadence of sermonic blessings and woes to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

With any religion, fellowship is needed. Who needs the ekklesia (church) composed of many different parts forming one body? Better to align your life with a political tribe where you can live safely within an echo chamber. Rallies, protests, riots, and parades are now the foyers and fellowship halls of this new American religion.

The Only Worthy Messiah

People were created to worship. People were created to experience transcendence. Substitute religions (like the new religion of politics) offers Christ-less worship and shallow experiences only simulating transcendence. I dare say that the rise and fall of American Christianity hangs in the balance with this recognition. Christ is still our only Messiah.

I’m convinced every American Christian should watch this film: American Gospel: Christ Alone. Here’s why: the prosperity gospel (aka: “the name & claim it” movement) is spreading like wildfire in American Christianity.

Thirty years ago, prosperity gospel preachers represented a small fringe element on the outskirts of Christianity. Not so today.

A Times magazine article in 2006 surveyed Christians and found:

• That 43% of all Christians agreed that the faithful receive health and wealth.

• That 2/3 agreed that God wants people to prosper.

• That 31% agreed that God increases the riches of those who give.

• That 17% of all Christians surveyed identified themselves with the prosperity gospel or the name and claim it movement.

A Pew Survey found that 3 out of 4 latinos across all denominations agreed with the statement: “God will grant financial success and good health to all believers who have enough faith.” (Statistics from Kate Bowler, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, Oxford University Press, 2013.)

Prosperity Gospel preachers like Joel Olsteen (“Your destiny is calling out to you; it’s time to start living large”), Kenneth Copeland (“I declare you debt free, saith the Lord”), Benny Hinn (“It’s as easy to get healed as it is to get forgiven”) and others pedal a substitute gospel that is really no gospel at all.

American Gospel: Christ Alone goes into greater detail, but let me briefly mention three serious errors with the Prosperity Gospel:

(1) A Faulty Notion of the Object of Faith

Whenever the object of faith does not squarely rest on Christ, we can begin to talk about a sub-biblical form of Christianity. For the prosperity gospel movement, faith becomes a sort of magic wand that is waved over our lives to secure our heart’s greatest desires in life (health, wealth, victory, feel good-ism, etc.).

Joyce Meyer and Joel Osteen and their tribe will encourage you to say, “I am blessed. I am prosperous. I am healthy. I am victorious. I have the abundant life.” And they will tell you to claim it by faith.

In the Prosperity Gospel movement, faith is twisted into “faith in my faith”. Faith becomes weaponized to secure whatever you set your heart and mind upon. Yet biblical faith has one sure and solid object: Christ is always the object of our faith.

(2) A Faulty Understanding of the Cross

Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, TD Jakes, Joel Osteen are fond of scriptures like Isaiah 53:5 (“by his stripes you are healed”) and 1 Peter 2:24 (“by his wounds you have been healed”).

Joyce Meyer says this about the cross: “By his stripes I was healed. Healing belongs to me. I was healed two thousand years ago by the stripes that Jesus bore. By His stripes I was healed, I’m not trying to get healing; I’ve already got healing, because by His stripes I was healed.”

For Joyce Meyer, faith becomes a magic wand to appropriate this healing which is available through the cross of Christ: “My faith puts that power in active operation in my body…that power is flowing in me and I am whole. I am free. I am entirely free from sickness and disease…my faith has made me whole” (J. Meyer).

Yet this is a theology of the cross based upon two texts taken completely out of context. Read the larger context of Isaiah 53:4-5:

“Surely he has born our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed."

Is Isaiah the prophet talking about physical healing that you can claim by faith? The context makes it abundantly clear: Christ was pierced and crushed on the cross for our transgressions and for our iniquities. The healing that Christ enacts on the cross is a spiritual healing that grants us peace with God (Rom 5:1) and forgiveness of our sins (Eph. 1:7; cf Ps. 32:1).

Similarly, you only need to read the entire context of 1 Peter 2:24:

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”

Is the apostle Peter to be turned into a prosperity gospel preacher? Surely not! Peter is abundantly clear that Christ’s vicarious sacrifice was a sin-bearing substitute for the purpose of putting sin to death and living for righteousness. The healing is spiritual in nature. Peter is not imagining some accumulated “merit of physical healing” that we access by faith because of Jesus’ death. That is just plain putting novel, human-centered ideas into the text of scripture.

(3) A Faulty Understanding of the Mind and Human Words

Prosperity Gospel preachers will often tell you to make positive verbal and mental confessions to get the object of your personal desire.

The “name and claim it” teachers love to cite Proverbs 18:21, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Yet again, look at the full context:

“From the fruit of a man’s mouth his stomach is satisfied; he is satisfied by the yield of his lips. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.” (Prov. 18:20-21).

Commenting on these verses, Old Testament scholar Duane Garrett writes, “The purpose of these verses is to warn against being too much in love with one’s own words. One should recognize the power of words and use them with restraint.”

In other words, believers must understand that there is a gigantic and qualitative difference between our words and God’s words. When God says, “Let there be light”, the universe is formed (Gen. 1:3)! Only God’s words do not return empty and accomplish precisely the creative purpose for which they were sent (Is. 55:11). There is a vast chasm of difference between the creative words uttered by the Creator and words uttered by creatures. In fact, the Scripture’s most common warnings about human words have to do with their destructiveness, not “speaking into existence” things that are not (see Mt. 12:35-37; Prov. 18:13, 21:23; James 3:5-10). Kate Bowler in her book Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel shows convincingly that prosperity gospel’s “mind over matter” rhetoric that brings peace, prosperity, and healing into your life is actually rooted not in scripture but in the “New Thought” movement of mind-power (which is an offshoot of Christian Science) which surged in popularity in America in the late nineteenth century (pp. 13ff).

Scripture never urges us to make “positive confessions” so that a general sense of well-being (therapeutic positivity) or health and wealth will be ours. Instead, Paul urges us to: “Set your minds on the things that are above, not on things that are on the earth” (Col. 3:2) and “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil. 4:8). With so much emphasis on health, wealth, and victory, prosperity gospel teachers can scarcely hear these verses of the apostle Paul telling us what should truly be set before our lives as desirable.

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Alongside recommending American Gospel: Christ Alone, let me direct you to two other fascinating places to engage with the prosperity gospel:

(1) This video is an incredibly fascinating look at how America’s home-grown prosperity gospel is being exported around the world to places of poverty. I saw this hocus-pocus all the time in Central Africa and it made me sick to my stomach for the Cause of Christ. I encountered this intriguing video while attending the Lausanne Congress of World Evangelization in Cape Town, South Africa in 2010.

(2) John Piper’s most viewed sermon clip of all time is a weighty and passion-filled attack on the Prosperity Gospel. This is the seriousness with which we need to take this substitute gospel which is really no gospel at all:

The Gospel Coalition has a fascinating “back story” of this inspired preaching rant entitled “The Story Behind John Piper’s Most Famous Attack on the Prosperity Gospel”.

Here is the sermon I preached on August 23, 2020. Its “longer-than-normal length” and “thicker-than-normal exegesis” was required because the issues of lust and purity as well as divorce and marriage are often misunderstood scripturally and culturally.

As I said in the sermon, “If we have stopped being shocked at the teachings of Jesus, we have never fully understood them.” This is no more true, I believe, than in the Sermon on the Mount.

It’s often been said that a preacher’s job is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable”. For preachers, Jesus is our plumb-line who was full of grace and truth (John 1:14). My prayer is that believers heard “truthful grace” and “graceful truth” even as we delved into one of the “more difficult” passages in the Sermon on the Mount.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Whatever!

What if this common teenage word also represents their attitude towards Christ and his church? What if your teenager displays apathy towards spiritual things?

“Apathy. This word literally means ‘without feeling’ or ‘without passion.’ When teens are apathetic, they simply go through the motions of life…disconnected, flat, appearing not to care. Whatever!” (p. 1)

Rob and Amy Rienow cite a 2013 Barna study that indicates that “59% of twenty-somethings have stopped attending Christian churches, even though they were active at church during their teen years”. In addition, according to the Nehemiah Institute, “from 1988 through 2012, high school students’ understanding of Christianity and the teaching of the Bible has declined 50%. It is important to note that this was a study of students attending Christian high schools!” (p. 2-3)

What do parents do with these statistics? Some parents simply shrug their shoulders. Other parents dismiss spiritual apathy as “what teenagers are like these days”. Many parents simply freeze, become immobile, and plead the 5th (“I don’t know what to do!). Sadly, becoming immobile is often the same as doing nothing.

The Rienows write: “Many parents passively accept the seasons of struggle and apathy in their kids without ramping up their parenting involvement and attention. ‘He is just 14. He’ll grow out of it.’ ‘She is just doing what her friends are doing. She’ll be fine.’ Just because teenage apathy is common doesn’t mean it isn’t serious.” (p. 5-6)

“Think of a plane that has lost power and is headed for a crash. It is coming down fast and hard. These are the critical moments. Will the pilots and crew do what is necessary to restore power and pull the plane out of its nosedive? Desperate times call for desperate measures. If we have an apathetic child, it is desperate times. It is a dangerous time, where the threat of a massive crash is very real.” (p. 6)

This small book identifies 5 common factors that cause teenagers to develop an apathetic attitude towards God.

The authors identify that the first common cause of spiritual apathy among teenagers is that the parent’s heart is not turned toward the teenager (p. 9). Although this reason, at first, seems harsh, many parents begin “checking out” of parenting duties during the pre-teen and teenage years, thinking that the “hard part” of parenting is behind them (infant years, changing diapers, etc.) instead of ahead of them.

The authors write: “We live in a world of delegation parenting. Do you want your children to learn to play the piano? Sign them up for piano lessons. Do you want them to learn basketball? Find a coach…Do you want them to learn about Jesus? Take them to a great youth group. Your job is to simply drive the mini-van and drop your children off with the various experts who will teach and train them for success.” (p. 9)

Yet, as any youth pastor will tell you today, many parents are refusing even to drive their teens (or encourage their teens to go) to youth group. But that’s not even the heart of the matter. Addressing parents of teenagers directly, the authors write: “When it comes to their spiritual training and nurturing of their faith, no Christian program can ever replace you! It is so easy for us to slip into the mindset that a youth group or a Christian school is all our kids need to grow in the faith and love for God…Youth groups and Christian education can provide a ‘spiritual vitamin’ boost for our kids, but they were never designed to be a ‘spiritual meal’”. (p. 10)

What happens when a parent’s heart is not turned “towards” their teenager? “If an adolescent has a disconnected parent, it is like the head coach of their team sitting on the bench not offering any direction….Just as a team becomes lifeless and rudderless when their coach stops coaching, a teen can become indifferent when parents are not engaged in providing spiritual leadership” (p. 16).

A second common cause of spiritual apathy is when the teenager has turned his or her heart away from the parent. Yet, positively, what does it mean for teenagers to metaphorically “give their hearts” to their parents? “First, it means the child is open-hearted. He shares his thoughts, feelings, fears, highs, and lows. Second, it means the child has a sense of trust in her parents. As her parents seek to lead her, she knows that they have her best interests at heart, and while she struggles with honor and obedience as every child does, she genuinely wants to be responsive to the discipleship of her parents” (p. 20).

In their ministry to families, the Rienows have heard frequent stories from parents of prodigal children who started “pulling away” from their parents: “The parent of the prodigal shared with us about a time they first sensed their son or daughter 'taking their heart away’ from them. They started telling lies. They started doing more and more in secret. They increasingly gave one-word answers, especially if the questions had anything to do with God. Personal conversations were off limits” (p. 21).

The authors give parents this advice: “If you sense your child’s heart becoming cold toward you, don’t ignore it! Don’t chalk it up to teen hormones. The longer you allow their heart to drift, the longer the journey to retrieve it” (p. 23).

Why is spiritual apathy so intimately connected to the parental relationship? The Rienows make the case as follows:

When the hearts of fathers (and mothers) are fully engaged with their children, and the hearts of children are turned to their parents, everyone’s heart is prepared to receive the love of Father God expressed through His Son Jesus” (p. 14).

While I won’t delve into reason #3 (The presence of secret sin) and reason #5 (A spirit of rebellion) for spiritual apathy among teenagers, I believe the authors correctly identify “a lack of spiritual nourishment” in the home as the fourth reason for the “whatever” attitude towards the things of God among American teenagers.

“If we want our children to be spiritually strong, they will need their three spiritual meals. They will need to pray and ‘eat’ God’s word (1) alone as an individual, (2) together with the family, and (3) with the church” (p. 45-6).

Essential Meal #1: Personal Prayer and Scripture Time

How can parents help their children with the first spiritual meal of setting aside time alone to pray and contemplate God’s word? The authors counsel parents with these words:

1. “First, we can ask the Lord to help us set a good example for them. Ask God to help you grow as a man or woman of prayer. Ask Him to give you a greater personal hunger for His Word….

2. Second, we can give our children space in their schedule to spend time with God….We can help our children set aside time to prayer and read the Bible…What they do with that time is up to them. We can’t force our children to pray. Even if we could, it is a bad idea. We can’t force them to read the Bible with an open heart. But we can try to model this for them, give them time and space, and warmly encourage them to draw near to God This is especially true for a teenager who is intensely apathetic about spiritual things.” (p. 47)

Essential Meal #2: Family Worship at Home

“No matter what family worship has looked like in your household up to today, it is never too late to start— or restart. Years ago, we encouraged a group of adults in our church with this biblical vision for family worship. A mature godly man came to me after the class and said he would try to have a time of prayer and Bible reading that evening with his wife and two teenage daughters. He was feeling awkward and insecure about it so we took some time to pray together before leaving church. It turned out to be a great time for their family. They talked. They prayed. They read the Bible. At the end of their devotion time his 15-year old daughter said, “Dad, why did you wait so long to do this?” It is never too late.” (p. 50)

Essential Meal #3: Worship at Church

The practice of the church for the first 1900 years was parents and children worshiping together. In the 20th century, especially beginning in the 1970s, children became increasingly separated from their parents at church. As I’ve said before, “Parents, Stop Sunday Schooling Your Kids Out of Church”.

The Rienows concur: “Sadly, we have almost two generations in our country that were raised on little more than spiritual vitamins. Parents made it a top priority to be sure their children were in Sunday School, youth group, and even Christian schools. While these vitamins can provide a boost, they will never replace the meals of personal prayer and Scripture, family worship, and your church’s corporate worship service [“the essential meals” instead of “the vitamins" of sunday school and youth group]. For some families a great way to help their kids get both their meals and vitamins is by making church on Sunday morning a two-hour experience. They worship together as a family for one hour, and the second hour they get their ‘vitamin boost’ in Christian education, youth groups, or adult classes.” (p. 57)

This is a simple book. (I’ve quoted the most important pieces of the book above, so this post is not a hearty endorsement to buy the book.) Yet the problem of spiritual apathy among teens is profound and pervasive. The overarching theme of the book might be put like this: Parents, enter the battle. Don’t ignore the apathy. Be the kind of parents that prays, reads your Bible, and models the kind of spirituality you want to see in your own teenager. Be diligent in providing the three essential meals that every teenage heart and soul needs. It’s never to late to enter the battle for the soul of your child.

"Brothers and Sisters" by Dr. Lisa D. Cain

Monergism on Facebook 6/12/20: The World Needs What the Word Has

“For those who have asked for resources to combat racism... read, pray and meditate over your bible. Take it off the shelf, blow off the dust and read it. It is God's very own word. To love your neighbor as yourself includes everyone, no exceptions. Jesus came for people from every tribe, nation, people and language (Rev 5:9).”

BARNA: Black Practicing Christians are twice as Likely as their White Peers to See a Race Problem

• Interesting surveys about race in American among black and white Christians.

“Only two in five white practicing Christians (38%) believe the U.S. has a race problem. This percentage more than doubles, however, among black practicing Christians (78%), As this survey was conducted in late summer 2019, it can’t account for any shift due to the present, heated national discussion discussing racism and white supremacy..

There are polarized views in the pews about whether the root of the nation’s race problems is primarily systemic or individual in nature. Data shows that three in five white practicing Christians (61%) take an individualized approach to matters of race, saying these issues largely stem from one’s own beliefs and prejudices causing them to treat people of other races poorly. Meanwhile, two-thirds of black practicing Christians (66%) agree that racial discrimination is historically built into our society and institutions.”

VIDEO: A Christian Approach to Moving Beyond Racial Gridlock

Justin Taylor: Professor George Yancey (PhD, University of Texas) is professor of sociology at Baylor University, specializing in race/ethnicity, biracial families, and anti-Christian bias. He is the author of Beyond Racial Gridlock: Embracing Mutual Responsibility (IVP, 2006). The above talk asks whether Christianity can offer a unique approach to the problem of racism and race relations that differs from the dominant secular ideologies of our day. You don’t have to agree with every jot and tittle to benefit from his analysis and prescription.

John Piper: Structural Racism: The Child of Structural Pride  (Nov. 15, 2016)

• Biblical reasons concerning structural racism from a conservative theologian.

“…if your mind is Bible-saturated, you would consider it absolutely astonishing if structural racism were not pervasive wherever sin is pervasive. In other words, Bible-shaped people should expect to see structural racism almost everywhere in a fallen world.

But beware of thinking that, because structural racism is pervasive, it is the decisive cause of all injustice or all inequalities. The pervasive presence of one type of cancer cell in the body does not make it the cause of every malady. Therefore, it is seldom helpful to wave the flag of structural racism without putting the finger on specific manifestations. The likelihood may be high that it played a part. But a good physician does his tests.”

Monergism on Facebook: Cries for Justice/Morality Demand an Objective Basis in God

“I am delighted to see how many young people are committed to universal justice. But, at the same time, modern society tends to be deeply incoherent. On the one hand our culture demands justice for the oppressed and impartial benevolence toward all. On the other hand it teaches that no one has the right to declare right and wrong to anyone else, as secularism asserts that every person must determine his or her own moral values. This is cognitive dissonance. It demands moral behavior of others and yet insists morality is relative. The idea undermines itself. The promotion of universal justice, human rights, self-sacrifice, a commitment to human dignity and considering the poor can only coherently make sense in a world where morality is objective and whose source is God. Either stop moralizing others or stop pretending to believe morality is relative/subjective. You can't hold to both at the same time and expect people to take you seriously.

If you lie to yourself in this way, you are not helping. It is a type of willful blindness to the real source of the problem. This means if you are fighting for justice with human wisdom alone, with no thought to where human dignity comes from, you are keeping humanity in the very bondage and slavery you claim to be fighting against. We cannot merely judge policies by their "good intentions" but by a consistent commitment to the truth, in a way that corresponds with reality. The real remedy for our problems cannot be based on a lie.”

Cole Brown: Jesus is Not Colorblind

• Brown explores 6 reasons for Jesus not being colorblind and concludes: “Let us love the way our barrier-crossing Savior loves us.”

Video: Grace, Justice, & Mercy: An Evening with Bryan Stevenson & Rev. Tim Keller (from 2016)

• Tim Keller was the founding pastor of NYC’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Bryan Stevenson is one of this nation’s most influential public interest lawyers and the Founder & Director of the Equal Justice Initiative. For over 30 years, Stevenson has dedicated his life to help release those wrongly condemned on death row. He has also successfully advocated to eliminate the prosecution of children as adults. Leading the charge for a renewed conversation about racism in the US by connecting contemporary injustices with slavery, lynching, and segregation, Stevenson is the bestselling author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption.

Shai Linne: George Floyd and Me

• Christian hip-hop artist shares about his personal, visceral reaction to George Floyd’s death.

“I am heartbroken and devastated. I feel gutted. I haven’t been able to focus on much at all since I saw the horrific video of George Floyd’s murder. The image of that officer with hand in pocket as he calmly and callously squeezed the life out of that man while he begged for his life is an image that will haunt me until the day I die.”

Tony Evans: America’s racial crisis is a result of the failure of the church to deal with racism

One of America’s foremost evangelical pastors, Tony Evans, writes: “God has four distinct spheres in which life is to be lived, and therefore, there are four areas in which changes need to be made, according to his kingdom agenda. The kingdom agenda is the visible manifestation of the comprehensive rule of God over every area of life.”

MLK’s Theological Case for Racial Justice (and Today’s Thin Alternatives)

• A scholarly article on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s biblical foundations for racial equality

“In addition to his appeal to natural law and the imago Dei, King frequently used an argument from New Testament ethics. A major aspect of this derived from the command to love your enemies, as propounded by Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount. In numerous speeches and essays, King develops the idea by distinguishing divine agape love…

…Utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, virtue ethics, and social contractarianism fail to provide this. In contrast, Martin Luther King’s Christian theological ethics—natural law ethics combined with a biblical theology of imago Dei and agape—does provide this crucial philosophical foundation. Arguably, this is a major reason why the Civil Rights Movement was a success.”