Monthly Archives: December 2017

Should Christians expect to know God’s will by means of feelings and intuitions?

21 Thursday Dec 2017

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This is the most popular topic I have ever presented on the college campus. Students typically flood the front area to ask questions afterward. The subjective, feelings-based, and mystical discernment model that has become the folklore of American Christianity is severely hurting the young adults I serve.
Thanks for posting on this topic, Wintery Knight.
-Darren

WINTERY KNIGHT

I have a key that will unlock a puzzling mystery I have a key that will unlock a puzzling mystery

There are two views on the topic of decision making and the will of God. The view you learn in the church is called “the traditional view”. I call this view the feelings/intuition view. This view that elevates feelings / intuitions to the level of divine communications from God. The more practical view is called “the wisdom view”. I call this view the battlefield commander view. I am a proponent of the wisdom / commander view.

Let’s learn about the two different views:

[The traditional view is] that God has a plan for our lives and that we receive guidance through methods such as “open and closed doors”, “feeling led” and “the still, small, voice”.

[The wisdom view] holds that God does not have an “individual will” for our lives, but rather that all of God’s will can be…

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Worship – within a larger context

18 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by in Campus Apologetics, Church, Liturgy, Ratio Christi, Worship

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The latest article by Rod Dreher is worth pondering. I hope you will take 15 to 30 minutes to soak it in. He is interviewed by a college student, and thus, he is forced to give a sketch of his last many years writing and wrestling with the biggest issues.

Since I have kicked the wasp nest of worship here and here, I thought I’d excerpt his thought-provoking words on worship as a teaser to the larger article. Please savor the whole thing one morning this Christmas season.

My interviewer told me that there’s a strong tendency among his Christian peers to dumb down Christian worship — to make it instantly accessible to anybody, without having to do any work. He said he struggles to understand the anti-intellectualism of all this, especially as it manifests itself among college students. What’s more, they act as if anti-intellectualism was an egalitarian virtue.

This, I responded, is exactly the wrong approach. It’s not that they ought to be making worship more complex and demanding, necessarily, but this stance assumes that we stand over worship asserting the right to mold it to fit our preferences. You end up with a ritual that worships yourself, not God, whether you mean for it to or not. Similarly, if you see the Christian tradition that way, as a repository from which you can pick and choose this or that thing, and make a bricolage of it, you may soon find that you have decorated a temple to yourself.

Powerful words. Read the whole enchilada… It’s worth it!

Love to you all!

Darren

Jesus Wouldn’t Argue. . .

07 Thursday Dec 2017

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Come, let us reason…
-DW

BEARDED DISCIPLE

Many times when I do apologetics or simply talk about it people tell me they think it is the wrong approach. To them argument, discussion, or some other seemingly confrontational approach to sharing the gospel is not what Jesus would do.

Those that appose an apologetic approach are often those who I may be arguing with, but more often than not it is a fellow Christian who believes a confrontational approach is unbiblical, unloving or even unchristlike.

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Healing words for a sick world

01 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by in Campus Apologetics, Sexual Ethics

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Sick of hearing about the sexual [mis]conduct of nearly every famous news anchor, politician, coach, actor, producer, etc?

Me too.

Rather than rant about it, why not step back and analyze it some? Here is an excellent article from Salvo Magazine on loving relationships. -DW

(Hat-tip to Wintery Knight.)

–Begin Excerpt–

Mastering Modern Love

How Chastity Orders Your Relationships & Liberates You for Love, by Terrell Clemmons

Chastity: So Out, It’s In

The second approach is one Dawn developed following her Christian conversion, when she completely rethought how to “do” unmarried life. This approach offers modern singles like Jordana something they desperately need but may not even know exists: a sound alternative paradigm for love and sex—a lifestyle she calls singular. “To be singular is to understand the meaning of chastity, and chastity by its very nature goes against the popular culture’s beliefs regarding sex and choice.” It’s “the new counterculture . . . so out, it’s in.”

Contrary to the pervasive bad press it’s gotten from libertines, chastity isn’t about “not having sex.” In fact, it’s about a lot more than just sex. Dawn defines it beautifully: “Chastity is the virtue that enables us to love fully and completely in every relationship, in the manner that is appropriate to the relationship.” Of course, this raises the question of what determines appropriateness, but from both a scriptural and natural law standpoint, this is an easy question to answer. Sexual expression is appropriate to the marriage relationship and inappropriate to all others. Whether or not it’s easy to follow is certainly another matter, and Dawn gives excellent counsel on that and other related matters, but the point here is that the categories are discrete and clearly discernible.

The Chaste Singular

More important, chaste living is grounded in something larger and more permanent than the individual. Whereas in modern singlehood, love is based on feelings, which are apt to change with the wind or even last night’s dinner, chaste love is defined by and grounded in God himself. Love of God—love for God and love from God—becomes the love that orders all other loves. “For each of those whom divine providence places in your life,” Dawn writes, “friends, family, the stranger on the street—you ask yourself, how can I love God through loving this person?”

Whereas the modern single is driven by an inner void that is desperately trying to get filled, the chaste singular looks to God himself to fill the void. Rather than trying to get love through the right match, the chaste singular receives love from God, the ultimate source, and then turns outward with love to give from an inner fullness.

Chaste love is respectful. It behaves with appropriate decorum, which requires forethought. What is the nature of this relationship? Why am I in it? Where is it headed? What are my intentions?

—Read the whole article—