Jon Morrison

Loved this. Hard hitting.

Wed, 30 May 2012 13:47:34 -0700

Loved this. Hard hitting.

The Sound (and Logic) Of Fine-Tuning.

Fri, 18 May 2012 04:47:00 -0700

I had done it so many times, but never thought of it this way before.

I was tuning my trusty left-handed guitar before leading my program in worship this past Thursday and had… an apologetics moment. Before everyone showed up that morning, I pulled out my guitar and tuner in an effort to make sure each string was in tune.

I wanted to make sure these were made right, twisting the heads to find the string’s sweet spot - the green light zone! As I presumed, some strings were too flat and some were slightly too sharp. They need to be altered just right in order to obey the laws of music (laws that I have broken far too many times before). I realized that this was important because fine-tuning matters. The note has to sound right. You don’t want to be flat but you also don’t want to be too sharp.

With my finely tuned guitar, we all worshipped Jesus together. It was a beautiful sound.

Fine tuning matters with music. If the musician gets it wrong, thankfully nothing blows up. Not so with the world. God had to get that exactly right or else we would not be alive to talk about it.

The Improbability Of Random Chance

Philosopher Martin Rees calls our position in the universe, “The Goldilocks Zone.”* Should any of the fundamental constants that sustain life on earth (force of gravity, nuclear forces, distance of earth from the sun and moon, etc) be tweaked slightly life would cease to exist on Earth. Francis Collins explains, “It turns out that if we change gravity by even a tiny fraction of a percent—enough so that you would be, say, one billionth of a gram heavier or lighter—the universe becomes so different that there are no stars, galaxies, or planets.”

The Logic Of Design

From music, to probability to logic, I think God is the best explanation for why the world gives us the appearance of design. William Lane Craig’s syllogism from design for the existence of God goes like this:

The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance or design.
It is not physical necessity or chance.
Therefore, it is due to design.

As a word of clarification, in premise one, “fine-tuning” is specifically worded as to not become a circular argument. Otherwise it would read, “The design of the universe is due to…design” Such reasoning convinces no one. Premise one is limited to three options when it comes to why there is order in the world - It can only be necessity, chance or a creator.

By process of elimination, we move to premise two. The world could not have been designed by physical necessity because there was once nothing and nothing cannot need anything. In a way, “Nothing” is very low maintenance. It has no needs. It simply is not.

Could the universe have become by chance? There is a small chance it could I suppose. But it is a very small chance. Many examples have been used to show the minuscule probability that the universe we observe came by chance. John Jefferson Davis for one has looked at the precise, necessary fundamentals of the Big Bang and illustrated that an accuracy of one part in 10(60) was needed to keep the universe intact. He compares this to firing a bullet at a one-inch target on the other side of the observable universe, twenty billion light years away, and hitting the target.** In light of this and many other examples, secular scientist Freeman Dyson concludes that, “There are many…lucky accidents in physics.” What some will interpret as extreme lucky I suppose others will infer as design.

With neither physical necessity nor chance as plausible explanations for design, consider the Occam’s Razor approach which cautions us against adding complexity to what seems quite simple. Given the straight-forwardness of premise three, that designed things usually have a designer, necessity nor chance seem to explain the observable order in the world. Therefore, we move on to premise three, the universe is fine-tuned by a designer.

It got a little technical there but I wanted to say that fine-tuned music matters. I tried ot appeal to the musician and the logician in an effort to say: We see design in the world - God made it that way.

That was my point.

* Rees, Martin. Just Six Numbers. (Great Britain, Orion Books, 1999).

** Lennox, John, God’s Undertaker. (London, Eng.: Lion, 2009). p67.

A weekend in Paris. Lovely little place it is. (Taken with...

Sat, 12 May 2012 14:22:45 -0700

A weekend in Paris. Lovely little place it is. (Taken with Instagram at Paris, France)

Walk A Mile With Sorrow

Sat, 12 May 2012 10:01:32 -0700

An insightful poem from Robert Browning Hamilton called, “Along the Road”

I walked a mile with Pleasure;

She chattered all the way,

But left me none the wiser

for all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow;

And ne’er a word said she;

But,oh, the things I learned from her

when sorrows walked with me.

How The Summer Of 2012 Is Shaping Up

Wed, 09 May 2012 14:55:00 -0700

According to my friend Jonathan Sherwin, Oxford got the more rain this past April than in any April in the past 100 years. Rain wouldn’t remind me of summer but it does remind me of Vancouver which then reminds me of the summer.

A few weeks ago I put out a post expressing my excitement that I was able to come home and hit the camp speaking circuit once again. Today I am even more excited to show how God brought it all together. Here’s how the summer will look:

July 8 - Camp Stillwood (Chilliwack, BC)

July 15 - Camp Imadeen (Cowichan, BC)

July 22 - Eagle Bay Camp (Salmon Arm, BC)

July 27 - Arrow Lakes Alliance Church Retreat (Nakusp, BC)

July 30 - Athletes In Action Hockey Camp (Langley, BC)

Aug 5 - Tsawassen Alliance Church (Tsawassen, BC)

Aug 5 - Camp Qwanoes (Crofton, BC)

Aug 12 - Camp Imadeen #2 (Cowichan, BC)

Aug 26 - Tsawassen Alliance (Tsawassen, BC)

Sept 2 - Chilliwack Alliance Church (Chilliwack, BC)

“Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.” -Ephesians 6:19

Please pray that God would lead me during these next weeks as I complete my term here at Oxford and then prepare for the summer.

Thanks for partnering as we seek to see another summer of Jesus transforming lives.

The Sword That Stood

Tue, 08 May 2012 15:59:00 -0700

This cartoon was inspired by a poem I read by a guy named John Clifton. I liked his idea but not his poem. So I wrote my own and then thought a few pictures would bring it some life.

This Is My Friend, Roy

Tue, 08 May 2012 15:35:00 -0700

I don’t think it is too morbid to admit that while here in Oxford, I sometimes visit the grave of CS Lewis. I like to visit when giving people my, “CS Lewis Tour” and sometimes I go just to collect inspiration while on a walk.

My friend Roy visits the graveyard where Lewis was buried as well. He never comes with friends, just himself. His deceased wife is buried near Lewis and he makes sure he visits her everyday. This is usually after tea and before his evening walk. Roy is always up for a chat and often has the time to spare to share stories in response to my many questions for him.

Roy is the only person I know who knew CS Lewis personally. They were not friends but he, CS Lewis and his brother Warnie all went to the same church together. Though they did not always attend the same service, Roy confirmed a lot of the things that I have otherwise heard about CS Lewis. Lewis and his brother often kept to themselves at church. The two would arrive late as they did not like the organ music. Their driver knew to pick them up promptly as the service ended to take them back home. Not much for church coffee was old Clive.

More than CS Lewis, Roy loves to talk about his late wife. I have deduced from Roy that theirs was an inspiring story of love and faithfulness for over sixty-five years of marriage before she passed away last year. They went through times of joy and pain, tears and laughter, war and peace. They raised a family together and shared many memories over those years. Now at over ninety years of age, she is gone and the memories are all he retains.

Roy likes to talk and I like to listen to him. I sense that there are not a lot of people in Roy’s life who think that their story is significant anymore. Maybe God put us together because I need to remind him just how significant his story really is. He reminds me of the stories in our lives that really matter in the end.

Being friends with Roy has made an impact in my life. Stories like his need to be told. Probably much more than the other stories we read about all the time today. I thought this post would help get a good story out there.

New blogs coming soon. In the meantime, I’m watching Allen...

Mon, 07 May 2012 09:57:49 -0700

New blogs coming soon. In the meantime, I’m watching Allen Iverson talk about practice.

8 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Blow Up Your Youth Group

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 16:31:00 -0700

The makers and contributors to Divided want all churches to call off/blow up their youth groups.

Have you heard about this new documentary yet? I hope not. I’m not sure if it will catch on but if its ideas catch on it will be disastrous. I watched parts of this and was annoyed for most of it. I see this trend developing so I thought I would include my two cents for why youth ministry is essential.

Imagine if what it suggested was true: That all youth ministry - from church work to camp ministry - is unbiblical and should be terminated in order to give a family-based discipleship model the sole contributor for discipling youth.

I cringe at the thought. Here are eight reasons why:

1. Youth ministry is not unbiblical.

The experts in this video seem to suggest that since there is no mention of “age specific” ministry mentioned in the Bible, it should be eradicated entirely. In that sense, websites and even documentaries are also “unbiblical” under the same reasoning. There is more to say on this, what I suppose to be them using the regulative principle far regarding church structure. This is the idea (mostly for worship) that unless God commands something, it is to be avoided. The normative principle says that if the Bible does not disallow something, that does not mean it is wrong and is therefore allowed.

Here is the biblical part of youth ministry: Christians reaching out as part of the Great Commission to baptize and disciple (Matt 28:18); the responsibility for us all to pass on God’s works to the next generation (Ps. 78:4), and the need for the Paul’s of the world to raise up Timothys. Paul and Timothy were not related.

2. Pluralistic, Atheist Parents Do Not Lead Great Bible Studies.

I don’t know where the makers of this video came from but they certainly haven’t gotten out much. In my years as a youth pastor, we saw a lot of what we called “unchurched” (not a term I made up) kids come through the doors. “Unchurched” kids are kids whose parents nor children attend a church. A lot of times our “unchurched” students had to sneak out of their house to come to youth group that night. I can’t imagine what would’ve happened in that student’s life if we shut down youth group and told the newly-baptized student to look to their atheist parent for spiritual leadership.

The dad of one of our best students offered his son weed one day. Thankfully, his son told his dad that he was a follower of Jesus and declined the offer. #Biblestudyfail

Suggesting that youth groups should be shut down in order for parents to realize they are the ones that need to take spiritual leadership of the family is incredibly reductionistic and ignorant of what is really going on in a secular culture. Youth groups and parental leadership are not mutually exclusive. Why can they not team up and together work at reaching and discipling youth.

3. Youth Groups Are Not The Problem.

If parents are not realizing their God-given mandate (Deut. 6:6-7) to disciple their families, that is not the youth group’s fault. Calling off youth ministry would be like putting a band-aid over a sore throat- the problem goes deeper than the remedy. If parents are not leading their families, go after the parents and the lead pastors who are leading them- don’t fire the youth leader!

I shake my head that this idea somehow got past post-production without being thought through.

4. Adults Leave The Church Too

Just as you should never trust an evangelical pastor with attendance figures, you should never believe the stats about young people leaving church. They are mostly made up. Many people throw them out there to sell book (or documentaries). The truth is that the stats are inconclusive. I wrote a paper on this topic of young adults leaving church for Re:Train last year and during my research I was amazed just how many statistic abuse cases I found. I also point out that people stop going to church for various reasons: some discover the party life, some are intellectual drop outs and some just like to sleep in and get carried away with it. You can download that e-friendly paper here.

Using the Undivided logic, I suppose the adults dropping out of church (for whatever their reasons does not seem to matter) leads to the conclusion that we should close down churches too.

5. Reform, Don’t Sever.

As a recovering youth pastor myself, I know that these people have their share of weaknesses. Indeed, many youth leaders have bought into the trap of a consumeristic, fun- driven youth ministry. The ones who use the attraction model spin their wheels very fast because they want to get students to youth group in order for them to have a positive experience of church and hope they would hear the gospel sometime in the process. They argue that no dollar that is spent on strobe lights, DJs, paintballs or church-made slurpees is wasted if it means students get in the kingdom.

For the record, I have purchased all of said trinkets.

I agree that too many youth ministries are ineffective at making genuine disciples of Jesus, I believe the solution is to reform them and not fire them. It is interesting timing that my last post was about the call to youth pastors to raise up an army of young apologists who will be equip to defend their faith at schools and universities.

I just find the idea that, “Kids are leaving church after youth group so cancel all youth groups” a very terrible one at best. I thank God that the greatest leaders in church history have not viewed the church like that. I thank God for the men and women in youth groups today who are faithfully proclaiming the counter-cultural gospel and seeing lives changed.

6. A Productive Night Out

Last week I was in East London helping out three local churches in their mission to reach this tough area of the city. One of our responsibilities our team had was to talk to people on the streets and get the feel for what people were saying the need in their region of the city was.

Many people echoed the popular refrain, “We need something for our youth to do.”

I told them to watch the documentary and reminded them that it is the dad’s job to entertain their students every night of the week. I actually didn’t say that. I know kids want some freedom from their parents so they leave the house and many do stupid stuff. Youth groups provide freedom from parents in a fun and well supervised way. I right “well supervised” because I was recently at an ice rink before one of my hockey games and found some kids making out around a dimly light area behind some lockers.

They had no supervision.

For this documentary to suggest that high school students today are going to willingly spend large amounts of time with their parents (or even that working-commuting parents would have all this time to spend for that matter) is incredibly unrealistic and will never work in this culture. Maybe they could churn butter together? I’ve seen it tried but it has never worked. Not in 21st century Western culture that is.

7. Nobody Goes Into Youth Ministry For The Money

I laughed the loudest during an interview with Voddie Baucham where he basically says, “Follow the money” and then traces how financially engrained youth ministry culture is and how that’s the reason why it is not going anywhere. You have to laugh at this.

I have trained with youth pastors, sat with them in meetings, conferences, and counselling sessions with them. I have yet to meet ONE (Canadian, American, Latin American, Australian, Asian, European or African) who was in it for the money. It’s laughable to think that this is a motivator for keeping youth ministry afloat. People do it because they love students and want to save them from the snares of sin with the good news of Jesus.

If you are in youth ministry for the money, quit and get a job at Starbucks. You still get free coffee but the potential to rise in the company and enjoy full employee benefits are far better. For the rest of you youth pastors, youth leaders, camp directors, camp counsellors, and anyone involved in reaching youth as their part of the Great Commission of Jesus…

I know I have said this a million times before but…

From all of us at JonMorrison.ca:

8. YOU ARE HEROES!

Youth Pastors: Equip Students For Battle

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 09:57:06 -0700

Sometimes I am paralyzed by the fact that there are SO many people out there who do not know Jesus and yet have a hunger for God. How will we tell them? Each time I arrive at the vision of an army of trained apologists who know what they believe and can articulate their faith to unbelievers.

Alistar McGrath has written,

There are many people inside church congregations who are wrestling with apologetic questions; who come to faith but haven’t …had all of their questions answered. I think the pastor, the preacher, needs to realize if they want their people to be good and minister to the faith, apologists and evangelists, they’ve got to be equipped. They’ve got to be reassured about their faith. They’ve got to be helped to be able to explain it and defend it in the secular marketplace.

McGrath touched on the the problem that not all believers really believe what they claim to believe. Understandably, they still have doubts. Look at the culture we all live in. We are now living in the age of Christian Apologetics. The person in the pew is sitting there each week with questions about the faith they profess. I believe, each week that these questions go unanswered, they get a little more unsure if their faith is a reasonable faith.

Secondly, each person represents a sphere of influence - people that do not know Jesus who have questions of their own. Pastors have the Ephesians 4:12 mandate to equip their people to be able to go into skeptic environments and give answers. That is the missionary call to all of us today in the West.

I close with a lengthy quote from William Lane Craig,

In high school and college Christian teenagers are intellectually assaulted with every manner of non-Christian worldview coupled with an overwhelming relativism. If parents are not intellectually engaged with their faith and do not have sound arguments for Christian theism and good answers to their children’s questions, then we are in real danger of losing our youth. It’s no longer enough to teach our children simply Bible stories; they need doctrine and apologetics. It’s hard to understand how people today can risk parenthood without having studied apologetics.

Unfortunately, our churches have also largely dropped the ball in this area. It’s insufficient for youth groups and Sunday school classes to focus on entertainment and simpering devotional thoughts. We’ve got to train our kids for war. We dare not send them out to public high school and university armed with rubber swords and plastic armor. The time for playing games is past.

(Thanks to Greg at www.thepoachedegg.net for these great quotes)

Help With The 'Christianity Is Just For Wimps' Argument

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 10:02:00 -0700

I’ve been writing a lot today and thought this worthy of the old/copy paste blog. Since nuclear weapons are blown up in remote areas, I hope you don’t mind me testing some of this stuff out in the blogosphere.

Do Christians Make Up God Because They Are Wimps?

The end of the nineteenth century popularized the idea that weak people only make up the idea of God because they need something to cling on to in tough times.

Religious leaders are merely cons preying off this weakness and feeding the God-appetite of people.

Christianity was to Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) just a man-made projection of the mind and heart. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) later claimed that people merely use religion to take the claws off a scary world and make it more livable. To these skeptics, Christianity is not ‘true’, but simply wishful thinking by those who really need it.

If there is no God, Feuerbach and Freud will give you a great explanation of why you want there to be one. I can understand that. As a theist, I have benefited a great deal from my belief in God. When I wonder if my life matters, I remember that I have a God who created me. When I am anxious about the future, I am comforted to know that there is a God who knows the future already and has everything in control. When I need to pray about something, I am grateful that God promises to always be wish me.

I could see why somebody would think that my desire for their to be a God would lead me to want to believe in one. Does that mean that he does not exist. Does not my thirst lead me to search for something to quench it? Does not the finding of water comfort me to know that I do not have to go my whole life thirsty?

Surely the desire for something does not disprove its existence. I would think, rather, it affirms it.

What If You Didn’t Want There To Be A God

On the other hand, if there is a God, Freud will also give us a great explanation for why people do not want there to be one. I have met a lot of people who know that their lifestyle does not line up with how God would want them to live. Rather than submitting to God’s plan for their life, they deny his existence in order to continue living however they want as if they were God and made their own rules. If the weak desire God and project a deity then it can also be said that the proud and foolish do not want there to be a God and so they deny him.

Many atheists claim that Christianity is a comforting thought for people who are afraid of the dark.

Christians have argued that atheism is a comforting thought for those who are afraid of the light.

It clear that people’s desire for or against God remain a neutral point in and of themselves concerning the existence of God.

Gems from John Lennox

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 02:32:00 -0700

Richard Dawkins: We only need to use the word ‘faith’ when there isn’t any evidence.

John Lennox: No, not at all. I presume you’ve got faith in your wife — is there any evidence for that?

Dawkins: Yes. Yes, plenty of evidence.

Lennox: Hmmm…

Taken from The God Delusion Debate October 3 2007 Part I 36.20

Spurgeon And The Gospel

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 07:38:24 -0700

“Avoid a sugared gospel as you would shun sugar of lead. Seek the gospel which rips up and tears and cuts and wounds and hacks and even kills, for that is the gospel that makes alive again. And when you have found it, give good heed to it. Let it enter into your inmost being. As the rain soaks into the ground, so pray the Lord to let his gospel soak into your soul.”

-Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Why I'm An Evangelical Christian And What That Means

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:03:00 -0700

A guy from my hockey team asked me the other day what could be one of my top five questions to be asked,

“Jon, what does an evangelical Christian believe?”

It reminded me of a joke from church history that the Anglicans would tell:

Q: What do liberal Christians hold?

A: All the highest positions in the Church of England!

I was excited to answer my friend’s question because I had just finished reading a book called, “Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from 1730’s to 1980’s.” It was long but it was worth it because it helps answer that very question. DW Bebbington takes the reader through the history of evangelicalism from the Wesleys all the way to John Stott and Billy Graham highlighting four characteristics of the evangelical movement that I want to talk about.

Though we seldom hold positions of power in the mainline denominations, there are four common core characteristics that evangelicals do hold rather tightly. They are biblicism, conversionism, crucientrism and activism. Those words are explainable and probably come as no surprise.

Biblicism: The Bible Is God’s Inspired, Authoritative and Without Error

Evangelicals love the Bible. It is, after all, God’s inspired word and the authority for how we talk about God. You have a view of God, she has a view of God, the Bible is God tells us what the truth is. Authority means that when we are in an argument with the Bible, the Bible always wins. We believe that God inspired the writers of the texts to reveal who is he and what he is like. It was carefully handed down generation to generation to us to reveal God and his plan of redemption of sinful humanity.

Conversionism: People Need To Be Born Again To Be Right With God

Evangelicals have understood humanity to be separated from God because of our sin. Sin is our chosen rebellion against God, our Creator. The consequence for our sin is death, both physical and eternal separation from God. Thankfully, God does not give up on us, but he instead he pays the price for our sin through the death of his Son, Jesus. Jesus dies so that whoever would believe in him and accept his free gift of life, would live forever. Conversion is becoming a Christian; confessing Jesus is who the Bible says he is and did what he said he did. Conversion is also accepting Jesus as Lord and Master and following him.

That’s the consistent evangelical call from the revivals of John Wesley to the crusades of Billy Graham.

3. Crucicentrism: The Cross is Always The Main Thing

Evangelicals believe that the substitutionary death of Jesus to save sinners is the theme of both the Old and New Testaments. Evangelicals believe that Jesus was born in order to die. He was the Saviour of the world as proclaimed in his birth and accomplished this salvation through his death on a Roman cross. Evangelicals believe that accepting this offer of forgiveness for sins is the only way that humanity can be saved and thus labour to faithfully preach this message to all the world.

Whereas “other leaders” (a charitable term) will seek to explain away this doctrine called the atonement, evangelicals will go to great lengths to make it explainable and clear.

Activism: The Gospel Has To Make A Difference

Lastly, evangelical Christians believe that a commitment to the Bible, conversion and the Cross should result in a changed life and a changed world. For centuries evangelicals have sought social reform as fruit of the seed, personal conversion. From the Wesley’s preaching in prison, Wilberforce, John Newton and David Livingstone, labouring to end the slave trade, Lord Shaftsbury reforming working conditions and child labour, etc, evangelicals have traditionally been active in the pursuit of social reform through various forms of activism.

A Long Line Of Sinners Saved By God’s Good Grace

I agree with Bebbington. Evangelicals like Whitefield, Spurgeon, JC Ryle, JI Packer, John Stott, John Piper, and the many nameless and faithful faithful evangelical witnesses have always been deeply committed to biblicism, conversionism, crucientrism and activism. I’m proud of my heritage and feel called to keep the Bible central, preach the cross for conversion of sinners and watch it continue to change lives - mine included.

Why April 8 Was My Favourite Facebook Day

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:06:00 -0700

I think we can agree that birthdays are enhanced by Facebook. My birthday, July 4, used to be my favourite Facebook day of the year. Not anymore. Now it is Easter Sunday. This “Resurrection Sunday” on Facebook brought me exceedingly more joy to me than any social media boosted birthday has ever before.

A Scottish Kind of Easter

This was a unique Easter having spent it on the sparsely populated, Isle of Arran in Scotland. My only church commitment that day was taking the Smiths (the lovely family I was staying with) up on their offer to attend the Church of Scotland service that day. The one hour service was (to put it mildly) underwhelming for a resurrection Sunday. The minister told a few stories to the kids to prepare the way for an Easter egg hunt in the middle of the service. As to not have the parents left out she also passed around Mini Eggs with the application that we are all to share good news about Jesus.

If not for the scripture reading from Matthew’s Gospel or the resurrection themed hymns we sung, the service would have been totally void of any gospel content.

Like I said- underwhelming.

I was a little depressed that afternoon knowing that those kinds of services were happening in churches all over the world. On Easter morning, far too many people in need of the having the truth of Christianity clearly explained to them, got dressed up to “give church another shot” and instead of hearing the gospel they got an Easter egg hunt.

Discouraged and feeling far from both of my homes (Vancouver and Oxford), I opened up my iPad and began my cursory survey of the various social media sites available to pass time until Jesus returns (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, repeat). Thankfully, my friends were up all around the world and they were posting fervently.

Easter was trending you could say.

These posts were consistently full of Bible verses reciting the truth that on Good Friday Jesus died for our sins but on Resurrection Sunday he was reported alive again. Many status updates kept to the popular Easter refrain, “He is risen.” These came from people of all ages, most of them in the 18-30 bracket on my particular feed.

My pastor friends talked about what they were looking forward to preaching about. Many reported of the baptisms that they were grateful to be a part of that day.

Those getting baptized testified to their excitement about their new faith in Christ.

One gentleman posted to another gentleman about his eagerness to worship in church on this particular morning with his “worship pants” on.

Other friends posted links highlighting how Global TV and CBC News, in one of the most secular regions of North America, did features on Westside Church’s baptism service at Kits Beach. Someone linked to the front page of the Vancouver Sun which had a baptism from the event.

Several people sent links to articles in an effort to help their friends see that the resurrection is a valid position to hold concerning what happened to the body of Jesus of Nazareth.

Others showed a more diverse approach by quoting lyrics from songs or posting Youtube links to their favourite songs. That freakishly talented, Youtube sensation, Christina Grimmie, even did a powerful version of one of her “favourite songs ever,” In Christ Alone.

The Resurrection Is A Truth To Be Proclaimed

I was reminded of the early church in Acts when they went around telling people about the resurrection as the chief argument for why the world should believe (Acts 4:33). You get the sense in Acts 4:20 that they could not help themselves from such a declaration. That’s what happens when you really believe something - you can’t help but tell people about it.

Because the truth is that Jesus enemies never found his body. It never turned up. His scared disciples had an infusion of courage when they saw him alive. In response they offered their reputations, jobs and lives defending the fact of the empty tomb and the resurrected Saviour. In those days it would have cost everything to follow this Jesus and his life-altering ramifications on their lives. The cool thing is that over 2000 years after, this sort of commitment is still happening today. This was a particularly moving Tweet from my friend, Jessica Dailly:

Christianity is a global movement, based on a historic empty tomb. Try as many have, it cannot be stopped.

The Roman Empire could not contain its spread.

Heresy could not stop it.

The Middle Ages could not corrupt it.

The Enlightenment could not outreason it.

Communism could not kill it.

Liberalism could not change it.

Consumerism could not ignore it.

Skeptics cannot disprove it.

The resurrection of Jesus is still true, it is still powerful and it still works.

Feeling Much Better

Sitting there on the coast of Scotland I became extatic about what God has done historically, is doing internationally and will continue to do in the future. That was all one afternoon on April 8, 2012.

You can understand now why it is my favourite Facebook day.

Having a wee Easter retreat first in Glasgow and then on the...

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 16:47:05 -0700

Having a wee Easter retreat first in Glasgow and then on the Isle of Arran with the Smith family. Lovely folk up here.

Why Respecting My Elders Means Honouring The Fundamentalists

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 05:00:00 -0700

What do you think that people will say about you when you are dead and gone?

Will they conclude that you were perfect, that you always knew what was right and did what was right?

If you’re anything like me, that is not very likely.

The truth is that our biographers will probably celebrate the areas that we really nailed and then on another page will criticize where we failed. It’s part of being human.

For years I was critical of fundamentalists. In honesty, I was ignorant of who they were and what they stood for. I had a view of these “right-wing, moral-majority-monsters” that came more from the media and not the pages of history. As I began to see just how critical it is to contend for the teaching of Christian doctrine, I see how important it is to do this in every generation. For the rest of this post, I want to briefly share who the Fundamentalists are, what they were all about and why what they stood for/against is essential to us today.

I have learned that, though they had their flaws, their contributions are honourable and should be honoured.

A Quick Historical Survey.

It has been said that Christianity is always one generation away from extinction. It’s a bit dramatic but an understandable statement. If everyone in one generation chose to neglect the call to pass the truth of Christianity to the next generation, if there were no Sunday schools or youth groups, the Christian movement would halt. I don’t think this will ever happen but at the turn of the 20th century, there were some concerns that this could happen.

German higher criticism of the Bible (the belief that there are naturalistic explanations to all the miracles in the Bible) was spreading through the West, particularly among the younger generations. Secularism was growing, sexual freedom was emerging out of Victorian/Puritan conservatism, church attendance was declining as people were filling up the Sabbath day with work and sports. Also, advances in science was seemingly triumphing over the “God of the gaps” leaving many questioning the belief that God even existed.

In the academy, Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton, Harvard and Yale - once bastions of Christian education, had embraced liberalism and professors prided themselves on their ability to undermine the confidence of students in the Bible. In the center of the Oxford logo (right) is a Bible with Psalm 27:1 written in Latin. Needless to say, “The Lord is my light” is no longer the heart of this historic institution. The shift from “The Lord is my light” to “The Lord is something we used to do” came during this time.

By the end of the 19th century and early on in the 20th, liberalism and secularism had declared war on the Western Church and were winning. Christians en masse were questioning the veracity of the Old Testament and questioning core Christian doctrines (specifically the virgin birth and the bodily resurrection of Christ).

It was not much better on the mission field either. Many liberal drifting missionaries were becoming notorious for compromising on Christian doctrine in hopes of blending world religions, allowing for a palatable reception of the gospel. Eventually many of them decided that doing missions was merely about doing good deeds and not about gospel proclamation.

Serious Problems Call For Serious Action

As a conservative evangelical, what would you have done in this scenario? The secularizing youth were becoming increasingly apathetic to God, Bible schools professors were debating what Jesus really said and some if he actually existed. Students training to be the next Christian leaders were being encouraged to doubt the trustworthiness of the Bible, and the historic gospel as passed down through the ages was being re-interpreted by those who held the power.

What do you do?

When my computer crashes, I do a hard reboot. You turn off the machine and you start it up again. In the church, you might eventually have to hit reboot once in awhile as well.

After doing all you can to seek reform from the inside, some would hit “reset” and go back to the basics. This is exactly what happened. Between 1910-1915 some 90 essays titled: The Fundamentals: A Testimony To The Truth were published by a new institution for Christian education, The Bible Institute of Los Angeles. Contributors were evangelicals like James Orr, BB Warfield and Canadian Anglican, Dyson Hague. Such topics included: The Virgin Birth, Deity of Christ, History of Higher Criticism, Justification by Faith, etc.

These essays were embraced (mostly in North America) as water to thirsty evangelicals who were desperate to know that the “Old, Old Story” they had grown up singing about was not some myth or fairy tale. The ethos of this group was (whether explicit or implicit) “forget about a self-destructing world, we must jump out of this sinking ship and swim for safety.” These who clung to the fundamentals, the core doctrines of the Christian faith, were known as The Fundamentalists.

Because they resisted the trend, they stopped getting invited to parties. Or maybe they ripped up the invitation. Conservative scholars were no longer welcome at institutions of higher education. Gospel based, revivalist preachers were passe, putting too much emphasis on conversion. Missionaries who prioritized converting the heathen were called “no earthly good.” How did these shunned ones respond? The scholars set up their own Bible schools, social workers created parachurch organizations and other evangelical societies. The missionaries started their own conservative organizations and rallies. This was clearly a time of drawing lines in the sand.

English Fundamentalists?

One debate in evangelical scholarship right now is whether the Fundamentalist movement came west over the Atlantic to the UK. That question was part of my responsibility these past months as I combed through an English Church newspaper seeing what themes came up during these years. Without detail I will say that my findings were that, though the evangelicals in the UK didn’t necessarily use the title, Fundamentalist, they sure talked about the importance of holding to the Christian fundamental doctrines, their disdain for liberal tendencies, the importance of the office of preaching, skepticism towards science/evolution, etc.

My conclusion: If it looks like a fundamentalist, talks like a fundamentalist, smells like a fu…you get the idea.

100 Years Later

The legacy of the fundamentalists reveal that they did not do everything right. Their bomb shelter, sectarian mentality, though understandable for the times, was a too anti-culture and not missional enough. They were too skeptical and scared of science and today their followers are too eager to seek power in politics. As mentioned above, we all have our problems.

Today we have those “right wing fundamentalists” who regularly make the news (the media loves them because they are controversial and controversy sells Toyotas). Though they have the label today, I believe they do not have the same ethos as one who is concerned about “the fundamentals” of the Christian faith.

Say what you want of the original fundamentalists but history shows that they were the ones who effectively passed down the gospel through the 20th century. We see that liberalism destroyed the faith of all who embraced it. It is said that “He who marries the spirit of the age with time only becomes a widower.” The YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association), Harvard, Princeton and the present free-falling mainline churches serve us as great examples of this.

At the time of writing, these are not exactly the pillars of evangelical thought and action they once were.

Those who clung to the fundamentals continued on. They passed down the faith because they believed they still had a faith to pass on. Just as I’m thankful for how the Benedictine monks preserved the Scriptures during dark and chaotic 5th and 9th centuries, I’m thankful for the Fundamentalists. With time I believe we will see just how crucial it was that this group of people believed that the exclusive, counter-cultural truth of Jesus’ salvation message was important enough to risk rejection and lonely isolation.

The fundamentalists believed that and were willing to do whatever it took to preserve this message. That message, however counter-cultural it is, has pointed me to love and serve Jesus and want to tell others about it as well.

I can honour that.

Summer Is Coming

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 18:10:00 -0700

I am very pleased to announce that I am going to be coming back to BC this summer. That means that I will be able to hit the camp circuit once again.

This year I have put together a couple of streams to help organize my mind a little. I thought they would help people figure out what I’m most passionate about speaking about. They are posted here.

Please pray that God would lead me to the right places and that the gospel would change many young lives again this summer.

Spent the day at Auschwitz in Poland. Words fail to describe...

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 11:41:23 -0700

Spent the day at Auschwitz in Poland. Words fail to describe what happened there. (Taken with Instagram at Krakow, Prague)

Steph caught me staring at the chicks in Prague (Taken with...

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:34:01 -0700

Steph caught me staring at the chicks in Prague (Taken with instagram)