God has already spoken: homosexuality, liberalism, and the welcoming redemption of sinners

Let me tell you of two people.  James and John were sitting in a house together watching tv.  James could see because he had his glasses on, John had lost his and was blind.  James noticed something was wrong, both he and John smelled something.  James being the one who could see went to investigate.  James turned his head around the corner and saw immediately that the kitchen was on fire.  James ran back to John "John your house is on fire! We need to get you out of here!"  Together they left the house, James leading John safely.

Now read this again

Thomas and John were sitting in a house together watching tv.  Thomas should be able see because he had his glasses on, John had lost his and was blind.  Thomas noticed something was wrong, both he and John smelled something.  Thomas being the one who could see went to investigate.  Thomas turned his head around the corner and saw immediately that the kitchen was on fire. Thomas felt like a fire really couldn't be that bad a thing and it would be rude to say something about it to John, his glasses must not be working right.  It would hurt John's feelings to say something so negative and hurtful.  So Thomas came back and told John everything was fine.  His kitchen was on fire but fire was a good thing and he needed to change nothing.  Rather he should be proud of the fire in his kitchen.  In the end the house burnt down around them both killing them both.

Who was more loving?


The early church was counter culture.   They opposed gladiatorial matches, were inclusive of slaves and antislavery, and with an uncharacteristic of their time and heavily valuing children etc.  This trend has continued throughout the churches history.  The Church, even when in a Christian culture was and provided a constant impetus for positive change in society.  Abolition, the Civil rights movement and many others.  Some failed, some succeeded tremendously.  Children for example, were seen as property and were subject to all sorts of sexual abuse in Roman culture.  Christianity, with it's high value for the human individual and society did away with such things.How Christianity invented children

After all, Christ became a man, and to be a man he became first a child.  All of the human experience was sanctified and made holy, and in him our lives are also made thus.  The Church therefore has naturally been a positive source of change in culture.

There is a movement today called theological liberalism.  It has it's roots in enlightenment and some in romantic era philosophy.  Headed by men like Friederich Schleiermacher, it embraced a progressive and pan/panentheistic view of a changing God.

Liberalism today decides to subvert itself to the culture which supposedly changes as God changes.
I saw something like this today at a United Church of Christ church.

What they were referring to was another slogan you may be familiar with

Of course he's still talking to us as revealed in scripture, And he's telling us the same thing as always  because he never changes neither is there added revelation.  What they mean isn't just he's still communicating  the same truth through his revealed word, but that he is changing.

These churches never convert anybody outside of a church.  They affirm the mantra "I"m okay you're okay" so essentially that "you're okay out there come in!" The response is typically "Okay, so I'll stay here".  It's the evangelicals who leave evangelicalism who they win over.  But their churches are getting older, whiter and dying.  The solution has been to pour in more of this toxic venom that's killing their churches, but why?

The idea is not to be countercultural much as it's claimed, rather it's to be a people pleaser to fill the pews.  It's really a hard thing to watch as they have bought into our cultures greatest value.  Always be nice and never say anything hurtful.  There is no evil aside from this in our culture today.  Which I find hurtful since they say my beliefs are wrong but they are allowed to be mean to me, since I am a conservative evangelical.

What is being said by the above pictures is that homosexuality is now okay for the church. Of course a homosexual is welcome in my church on any sunday.  Christ preached to tax collectors, adulterers and others.  However what is not acceptable is the identification of a person with sin.  This amounts to cheering a person on as they fall to their death, all to be nice and affirming.

Let me quote 1 corinthians 5

10I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. 11But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler-- not even to eat with such a one. 12For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?…

God calls us to witness and call sin sin, but we are to reach out to and love the sinner. Jesus finds a person as they are and thankfully doesn't leave us as such.  If the church were to have nothing to do with associating with those outside of the church (as opposed to only the sinners in the church) likely none of us would be here.  How else are they to see Christ if not in us?



1 Corinthians 6:10-11
9Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

If a persons identity is a sin he has not repented.  They may struggle but to associate with the sin is to disassociate from the God of the bible. What the liberal churches are doing are saying that it is fine for a persons identity to be a sin.  All this in the name of civil rights and equality.

Liberalism further likes to claim no need for change and declares itself a champion of "civil rights" however such is not the case.

Christians involved in the suffrage movement, civil rights, abolition were all trying to make the culture MORE in line with scriptural teachings.  Liberalism today tries to make it LESS by defining the bible's morality as "be nice" or "loving" without taking the bible's definitions. All to fit the culture.  Such alteration is meant to make it more appealing and relevant.  However the Gospel as is, is always appealing to those whom God calls and needs never be made relevant.  The Gospel is always relevant and unchanging because it's author is always both.  Man's condition hasn't changed either, contrary to popular belief.'

The civil rights movements played off of the biblical definition of humanness.  A woman bears God's image in her womanhood, why shouldn't she vote.  People bear God's image sacredly in the variety of skin colors and nationalities,  Mankind bears God's image in gender, as God created it in the Garden of Eden.  Male and female, Jew and Gentile are all saved without distinction.  Sexual sin is never sanctified.  Changing Christianity to include something contrary to how it is found in humanity therefore is not civil rights.  Sex like race is sacred and is to protected, so condoning sexual sin even damages the person living in it.



Changing Christianity is not the solution to making it relevant, rather it makes it irrelevant by making it unnecessary.  It is the conservative evangelical who inherits the civil rights movement.  It is the evangelical who seeks positive change against the culture's failings. Our need for a savior has been and always will be the same.  If God were changing who knows what he'd say tomorrow and how horrifying it could be.  Yet such is the logic of theologians pushing this progressive theology.

Liberalism can hardly be called Christianity.  It has taken the documents of Christianity and made them mean something else.  When you take a label but hollow it out and fill it with new meaning you have really made it something else.  Denominations that have gone the liberal route have ceased being Christian and become Apostates.  They have done nobody any service and have loved imperfectly.  Telling a person of their fate so they can avoid it is loving, cheering the person on and telling them in nicety is cruel.

I quote CS Lewis a lot but he is right a lot, "Love is a more splendid thing than mere kindness".  It is not about feelings but well-being.  If they really understood the Gospel they would reach out differently.  If they truly loved and were rooted in who God is they would see there is no dichotomy between his love and his justice.

Christ paid the penalty, redeemed man from sin and saves those who believe in him.  If your identity is in Christ and his work, you don't have to identify with every tendency or temptation to feel acceptable.  You will be unchangeably and permanently found in Christ and have a love that never fails. Freed to work, not working to be free.  I want that for those who are lost, whether they struggle with homosexuality or any other sin.  You will be accepted and transformed.

As for the theology behind it I will speak as follows


Postmodern text criticism has gone hand in hand with this.  The bible it's said, is there for us to draw our own meaning from and that the bible is man's experience of God not God's word to man. The bible was not written as such that we may create meaning from it.  Such would be communicating to ourselves what we wish to see.  It was meant to communicate God's word to us as revealed in his writing.  In understanding the culture we do not lose the meaning but find the original intended meaning that was being communicated.  There's no "gnostic" truth underneath it about being nice or tolerant.  There's a God who wrote to a culture. Scripture reflect culture because it was written to a culture, it is not wholly a product of that culture.  Yet in this direction liberals went to far and made truth itself relative.

The bible is not so that we can see God with a mirror, and make him  into ourselves.  Such is the conclusion when applying the Liberal Hegelian/Marxist hermaneutic.  The "world spirit" of how God manifests/speaks now dictates truth and the evolution of man.  The old thesis, meets a new antithesis and the two form a new Synthesis.  It makes sense then they would use the Church for this fusion with culture.

This practically led to the gnostic idea is "we must get to the nugget of truth within it!" which of course always ends up making God look like the liberal/Hegelian.

This may sound odd at first considering how Marxism/Hegelianism both strongly desire rebellion and social evolution.  But not so when one thinks of the world spirit being the cultures motion.  Therefore it is believed the world spirit is moving the culture to revolt and throw off it's old ways/morality. Revolution which is really devolution is the goal.  Marx spoke of "returning" man to a herd mentality (as if man had even been such). It is little wonder then our sexual ethics and our devaluing of human worth are making us more bestial.  If it feels good it's natural, if it's natural it's who you are so do it.  The belief is we are making progress but it's really regression.

The idea is to constantly "evolve" and "progress" but to what?  To whatever comes next is the assumption made in faith just as the direction is likewise assumed to be good.  Liberal Christianity is in essence, another religion.  It is Hegelian Marxism at it's most covered.  Like a sheep in wolve's clothing it pretends to be Christian but wholly defies and alters the identity of what Christianity is.  Who is to say tomorrow the progress won't lead to something akin to the dictatorships of the 20th century or some great horror?  I can guarantee you without the Gospel they deny mankind always will.  Mankind is not evolving in this way much as Marx and Hegel would suppose.  The sinful condition of man is and will be the same till Christ returns.  This failure to understand human depravity and the human condition helps explain the failure to understand the systems weaknesses.

  Liberals if they applied their cultural approach in the past would likely have been those supporting slavery which was introduced to Christian Europe in the 1500's from outside African/Islamic contact. They are certainly more akin to it in that they do not seek to change the culture, they seek to change the bible. Or male dominance, after all that's how the spirit of God is "manifesting" himself in the culture.

We win nobody over and save nobody if we make culture dominant and scripture subjective.  The ability to silence the past while claiming it to discredit those who truly inherit it's glory is astonishing.  What they really inherit, is the sexual revolution which inherits underpinnings from all these I have mentioned before, a new paganism.  While embracing new family models, new sexual ethics they protect and defend those with a harsher stance on such issues than Evangelicals.

It is the conservative evangelical who inherits the civil rights movement, it is the evangelical who seeks positive change against the culture's failings.

An evangelical is labeled evil and a bigot for his disapproval of the sexual ethic of our time but a Muslim is to be tolerated and is right for himself.  This betrays two things.  They have the same enemy, the Gospel.  And Christianity is seen as a "Western" idea.  It belongs to our culturally relative culture so we can speak poorly of it.  Further and more importantly, it gets in the way of the world we want.

I will likely discuss my Christ in culture leanings elsewhere but one thing must be certain.
God never intended Christianity to be a cheerleader.  He intended it be a transforming and soothing balm to a world not only dying but a world that is already dead.

Without the realization of the Gospel there can be no true positive change in a culture.  The Gospel as expounded by conservatives is the Gospel and the necessary healing for the nations.  The church's calling is to save and transform individuals and in so doing save and transform nations.

All are indeed welcome, welcome to a new life and a renewal of our beings.  The Gospel is as true for you as it is for me.  Christ atoned for my sins too and he found me while I was yet a sinner.  I was not acceptable as I was but was made acceptable on his account and by his work.

I will close thus

Revelation 22 (after the new Jerusalem, the church is introduced)
1Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.


Romans 12
1Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

X-rays and love is the same

Not too long ago a lesbian couple danced in front of an xray, kissed and revealed they were gay.  Love knows no difference! Was the headline.  But what kind of love? The point that was made missed the point that should’ve been made.

Huffington post did an article on it

All they proved was we are biological human.

It could (should) more easily be a case for common humanity.  It proves that the lesbian couple are human and worthy of human dignity just like those who disagree with their lifestyle.

It did not prove their union (which could never be proper) was equal, or even identical to a male female union. At best their point would be prove their romantic relationship is not bestiality.  

What struck me most though, was how this argument could and should be extended to their genitals (to be blunt).  It’s an argument from biology as well as the one I just made just not carried further than what is comfortable.    Their point would have been still muddled on sexuality but stronger, had they argued for their humanity.  But biology attests to quite the opposite of what they put forward as far as romantic love and gender.    

If we studied the two people dancing we would realize there is something missing (I won't be blunt here). It ignores telos (purpose), that sex is involved in reproduction and reproduction is inseperable from sex. Their union can’t create children, they are simply identical. If we add a man to the mix and take one of the women out, all of a sudden we see reproduction is possible.

Their union bears no fruit, neither does it contain the design that would. To make their argument from biology, they’d have to ignore biology.  It is a logical non sequitur, it does not logically follow.  The logical sequitur in this case is a common humanity, and a different type of love based on a male/female reproduction model.  There is a strong argument from design which works against the point they are making and the point is undercut when the logic is consistently applied.

God alone gets to define what love is.  It is possible they love each other, but is it in a way that God created it for?  There is friendly love, familial love, eros (romantic) love but to misapply any of them is to lead to ruin.  Romantic love by design is made for man and woman.  

It’s another sad case of hurting people looking for security in their identity and seeing evidence where they want it.  I disagree with their premise to begin with, but the argument that is being made is a logical non sequitur. 

It’s an example of seeing what we want to see but it also shows something that should draw us together.  Our humanity  It is a sinful behavior, but one committed by people who sin just in a different way than I do. They are human and as such are as in the image of God as I am.  The same respect any of us expect should be extended to those who we disagree with.  

Faith and Reason, the False Dichotomy

Faith and reason are seen as diametrically opposed in todays society and we've suffered for it.

Faith and reason however are two inescapable functions of an existing being.

Most famously are the words of Martin Luther.
"Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has. It never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God"

Luther was referring to his disdain for the scholastics and academia of his age.  The problem however wasn't reason, Luther made the mistake of not identifying the problem as man's own sinful hearts.  Reason is an implement that serves those who wield it.  Reason is not the whore, rather it is man who has whored out his reason to his lusts.

Our contemporary culture buys into this false dichotomy.  Ironically the fideist who elevates "faith" (and abandons intellectual thought) has reasoned out that the two are opposed and that he should elevate faith. In essence, he reasoned out that reason is to be avoided.  People who take the side of "reason" believe and have faith in that statement (and as they claim, their reason).

The fideist denies the mind which was given him to enjoy the creator and delight in him.  Christianity need not run from intellectualism for we have indeed a rich history.  Bacon, Duns Scotus, Ockahm, Euler, Descartes, even Keppler and Galileo all founded their work on the belief that God created the universe. With this assumption design is expected and inquiry naturally became a personal act of love and worship.  Fideism has led to different forms of mysticism in the church and a fleeing from culture in fear.  Critical thought is no killer of faith. Doubt and sinful desire to excuse oneself is the enemy.  We have nothing to fear.  Reason is actually impossible without a theistic worldview and reason always demands the creator.  As a belief system it plays as Scientism/humanism which is really unreasonable and can't account for the very thing it claims to elevate.

The modern secular humanist ironically is incapable of true critical thought and is enslaved to his naturalism. The idea of something existing outside of his "scientism" is unthinkable. Science is said to solve all our problems in an upward evolution as we wield man's reason. He is not taught to question or think critically either so anything "supernatural" and outside of his presumption of materialism is automatically "faith".  But he believes his system too for belief at it's core is trust.

It is essentially the false dichotomy of religion vs science as sources of truth.  Two worldviews are clashing.  Both have their reason and both have their faith.

The abuses we are seeing are in a way two kinds of fideism with their own reason that can't be questioned.  What is faith then?  Faith at it's core is trust and deeply held trust at that.  I trust my family and my friends, and I am FAITHFUL and they are to me. It is also reasonably so considering how I know them. I am reasonable in that I think and inquire into the workings of this world.
 Using both faith (essential trust) and reason (thought and inquiry) is unavoidable and a function of being an existing, thinking creature.  Both these extremes are really distortions and both are dogmatic and insulated.  Neither fit the realm of reality.  Buying into this dichotomy is as absurd as asking the question "respiration vs a beating heart, which is it?" If you're alive you will do both and you cannot live without both together.  It's the black and white fallacy, offering two options as opposed and the options as faith or reason.  In fact a third option exists, a marriage of the two.

Jesus says to "consider the lillies of the field"  (Luke 12:27), reason is encouraged and actually points to the creator.  The Psalmist writes "when I consider your heavens, the work of your hands" (Psalm 8:3).  Reason actually should lead to God himself as creation testifies to him.  God tells Isaiah to "come let us reason together" in Isaiah 1:18. I've done a lot of thinking about it, I could keep going but I think the point is made.   True knowledge will always point to our creator.

In this age of Reason, it is disturbingly sad how we have become bestial in our morality. Nietzsche was right, without God it all falls apart.  We have embraced illogical and damaging lifestyles and morality.  Madness has essentially taken over in the guise of liberating intellectualism. 

 Even Nietzsche, an avowed atheist recognized this.

Until we destroy this false dichotomy of "Facts vs Values", and "Faith vs Reason" we will continue to suffer our increasingly dysfunctional decline.  Embrace faith and reason, and love God in so doing.  Theology is the queen of sciences, and philosophy is her handmaiden.

All our senses, every faculty are given to us that we may know God and fall completely in love with him.  Ask the important questions that we may do as Anselm did.

Anselm's prayer

"O my God, teach my heart where and how to seek you.
Where and how to find you.

You are my God and you are my All and I have never seen you
You have made me and remade me
You have bestowed on me all the good things I possess
Still I do not know you
I have not yet done that for which I was made

Teach me to seek you
I cannot seek you unless you teach me
or find you unless you show yourself to me
Let me seek you in my desire
let me desire you in my seeking.
Let me find you by loving you, let me love you when I find you

Making meaning and Neil Degrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an undeniably popular
Our culture has very much made the scientist our clergy and Tyson is a particularly popular character.  Someone asked him the meaning of life. The whole article here.
child asks Tyson the meaning of life

First he takes away Pluto's status as a planet, now this :P

He was asked for a philosophical answer and gave one, which is ultimately out of the realm of the terrestrial and a question of the metaphysical.  Telling to be sure.  Further his answer is one that is particularly weak for he is not concerned with ultimate meaning.
His "Perfect" answer is only perfect when viewed emotionally as a romantic notion, not intellectually where it is bankrupt.  He is not a stupid man, but he does not dig deeply into the metaphysical because he cannot bear the possible answers and it cannot fit into his naturalistic method.  Rather he doesn't care to entertain the question and in his own words.

"I'm moving on, I'm leaving you behind, and you can't even cross the street because you're distracted by deep questions you've asked of yourself. I don't have time for that."
The week wrote an article on his intentional avoidance of the metaphysical.



"I think people ask that question on the assumption that meaning is something you can look for, then, 'Oh, I found it'...And it doesn't consider the possibility that maybe meaning in life is something that you create." 

His answer to the questioner asking him what the meaning of life is turns on contradiction.
  He proclaimed we make meaning and that is the meaning of life.

It is inherent within man to seek out meaning.  Without a God to ascribe meaning we end up with a very difficult urge we can neither fulfill nor account for.  He proclaims there is no meaning but that the meaning, is to make meaning.  Meaning therefore for him is created because that's the meaning of life.  With such a definition he cannot simply define or even answer this.

Why make meaning?  What's the meaning in meaning?  He in one breath denies there is a definite meaning then defines one.  He assumes meaning exists because he knows it does, but he can't explain why or define really what it is or it's purpose.  If it's created, it's entirely fabricated without explaining why we do or why we should.

It's an answer that shows the person couldn't find what they were looking for and so has to "make one up".  What meaning is there in meaning?  It's essentially escapism and avoidance.
God can't be the purpose for whatever reason, so Tyson must make one.  The truth is sadly suppressed because he is divorced from God.  He cannot accept God as creator so he cannot live consistently in God's world or fulfill what his design demands of him.

Morally this is also a disturbingly flimsy direction to take.  If a person makes the meaning of life cannibalizing as many people as possible he cannot say they are wrong.  After all they are just living out their meaning for life.  Most would shudder at the thought but to be consistent one would have to say that is his legitimate personal meaning.

Christians have an ultimate meaning and purpose, and that is founded in a person.  God himself is the purpose of all things.

Colossians 1:16
For by him all things were created, in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things were created through him and for him.

  Each individual is to live to glorify God in all they do.  Once that ultimate meaning is established we can pursue the use of our gifts and our lives to Christ resting securely in our relationship to him.  All things were made for and through Christ, and all things glorify him.  Without him we are detached from our true purpose.


I'm going to be a good Presbyterian and end with the Westminster shorter catechism.
1 Q.  What is the chief end of man?
   A. Man's chief end is to glorify God (1 Cor.10:31), and to enjoy him forever (Ps. 73:25-26)

*mike drop

Relevant and Rob Bell

Relevant magazine does have many good articles.  I won't contest that they do some good and neither will I make accusations and guess their intentions.  However I have noticed something.  Whenever I see an article on Rob Bell, a known Universalist and liberal who emphasizes that a loving God could never condemn anyone is portrayed in a positive light.  When he recently was taken up by Oprah and placed on her network the reaction was ecstasy.  I watched in horror as people whom I hope simply didn't know any better cheered his return. Nobody seemed to pay any attention to what he has said in the past, or the fact that a woman as heretical Oprah Winfrey could champion him as a hero.
Recently he has declared the Church will, and must change to meet the times by accepting homosexuality and gay marriage.  His reasoning? People who love each other should marry.  But where does that end?  Who defines love and what kind of love is right?
 The bible is too old he says and the times have changed.  it is not the bible he believes, but himself.  Someday too he will be dated and I suppose, his ways will have to change with the culture.
Listed below is an article and the video of his words.  He is surely no protestant for he denies Sola Scriptura.

Rob Bell denying Sola Scriptura

Some have replied well to Glorify God and stand by the bible.  My question is, why are some not?.

The church won't give

Perhaps we should champion swinger culture, hookup culture and the various other culturally accepted practices regarding sex.

And what from Relevant?  Not even a peep, and no article addressing his clear heresy.

The notion that the Gospel needs to be changed to suit the culture has not won the day in the past.  The Early Christians, had they applied this would have engaged in drunkenness, orgies, prostitution and idolatry as they were pressured to by the Roman world.  Churches that do so die because they abandon God himself.  The Gospel is and always has been relevant.  It does not need our help.  What surprises me is how unsurprised I am.  I am disappointed in how many let this happen.

I'm pointing this out, calling them out even.  They need to not shy away from exposing heresy no matter how popular a teacher may be.  They need to be more discerning, for the sake of their readers and yes even Rob Bell.  We cannot stand idly by as sheep are led astray and we certainly cannot abandon a false teacher to his fate.  Relevant sits idly by, as do many other Christians.  Be aware, put on the full armor of God, and speak the Gospel in Love.  I pray for Rob Bell, I pray for that magazine who has the burden of teaching and the responsibility to teach the truth.

"If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself."

Saint Augustine

Cultural Relativism

Cultural relativism is the dominant belief today and a postmodern one at that.  However what isn't being asked is a simple and essential question.
How do you define a culture? Who gets to define it?
Defining what a culture is, where it begins and where it ends is a difficult task.  The definition of how we define a culture is further culturally relative.  We talk about "western culture" but then German, or English culture.  Subcultures are often identified, but what keeps them from being their own cultures?
I am reminded of a German counselor who I worked with at a summer camp.   Bavarians are known for being way too friendly, informal and bizarre to the rest of Germany.He said once "People think pretzels are German but they're not.  They're Bavarian...." So seriously that it was hilarious.
We need look no closer than our own culture though.  People in the west of my own state are considered to have a weird vocabulary and an unhealthy pride in their football team (go Eagles!).  Or people from New England who appear to middle Americans as myself unfamiliar with the letter R.  Who think differently and act differently, yet we're all "American".

Ultimately as it stands cultures are defining what is and isn't a culture.  Each culture determines who is us and just different as opposed to who is something else.  To say truth is relative to culture (as an absolute) is an absolute claim from a nebulous construct that originates in the individuals culture.  What if another culture defines culture or cultural identity differently?  The same is true for the postmodern philosophy which it desperately clings to.  To claim there are no absolutes is an absolute.  To claim each culture defines morality is an absolute morality claim.  For most relativists they realize the futility of living it out when they tell a male dominating culture not to abuse women.

I had a friend in high school who was very much cultural relative and therefore into "tolerance".  Female circumcision came to discussion.  We both agreed it was wrong.  But she resignedly shrugged it off as I told her "you can try to be tolerant but there are some things you just can't", she agreed resignedly knowing the trouble it gave her philosophically.  I could say it was wrong and she knew it was, but she had no ability to say so since it was another culture.

The same ideology is hyper-critical of Western culture because it is "ours" while embracing others, to a point.  How they determine who within western culture is of the same culture is another story.  Can someone from an atheistic culture talk down a person from a Christian culture? Should they tolerate the Christians? It is essentially a self-refuting attempt to be nice not philosophical.  And one that tries to define culture as it wants and proclaim it true everywhere.  Who can you critique and say is wrong, and who can't you?  If one group does define cultures diffeently they will be "intolerant" of people we could consider in their own.This very thing becomes culturally relative.  We define who is what culture by our own culture and apply it as true everywhere. Yet the concept remains present all places.  People know Truth exists and must live in it, whether we acknowledge it or not.  Applying the postmodern cultural relativist method to determine who we can and cannot be critical of then, leads to a serious problem of defining who is and isn't with you. Cultural relativism is a culturally relative concept masquerading as ultimate.   The reality is Truth is all places and all should be open to scrutiny, regardless of how you may define where your culture ends and where another begins.

The centrality of the resurrection

1 Corinthians 15:12-19

Now if Christ is preached, that has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, your faith is also in vain.  More over we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised.  For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised;  and if Chist has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.  Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.  If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.  

 Easter was just this Sunday, the day of the resurrection of Christ. The resurrection which is much denied in today's world even by so called Christians.  Or Socinians to be more accurate.  These embrace supposed human wisdom and deny the necessity of believing any part of the Apostle's Creed.  Instead the ideas are important, the morality is important and if man can't reason it, well then it can't be true.  These liberal and postmodern churches see no need for doctrine especially as timeless.  Whose doctrines of course fall on themselves as an interesting doctrine on doctrine that reflects only the time.  

One 19^th century adherent named W.Robertson Smith when accused of denying Christ’s divinity went so far as even to claim such as “to never have denied the divinity of any man”.  If you’re beliefs are wholly other than that before you they are of a different character you can’t claim them as your own.  To have changed and deviated from what that faith has historically been you are no longer that thing.  Instead you have become something else entirely having stepped out of the tradition of those who came before you.

  Theological Liberalism and unbelievers alike deny the resurrection.  Evey once in a while something gets published saying something like "Jesus had a wife" or we "found his tomb with him in it".  Inevitably it ends up being another man with the then common name Jesus. Many never seem to think of that until it gets in print and makes them money and gives them a name.  When inevitably disproven it is almost never loudly recanted but quietly redacted.  For many it simply can't be true, because it is not how we want God to be.  Today there very much is an air of "scientific superiority" more accurately known as chronological snobbery.  The logic goes, since we don't see miracles every day they can't have happened.

Paul was speaking to those in Corinth about false teachers who said they knew Christ as well.  Their disapproval of the resurrection was a horrible mistake to make.  The resurrection was as much under attack then as it is today.  There are two ways the resurrection is denied.  Either there is no life after death (as certain Jews believed and some do today) or the body itself would not be resurrected (as the Platonists believed and many still do).

For Jewish groups like the Saducees this life was all there is.  There was nothing after death, not in spirit or body since the Old Testament was largely absent of such things.  Likewise the idea of a resurrection to Platonists is absurd for different reasons.  The body was evil, so who want to be resurrected in it?  When the prison of the body was escaped why would you want to go back into that prison?  Though it looks different it looks the same for the same heart of doubt and trust in man's "wisdom" is at work.  This is why Paul was mocked after his address on Mars Hill in Athens and likely one reason immorality flourished since the body was viewed as of no consequence.

Acts 13:32

Now when they head of the resurrection of the dead some began to sneer, but others said, “We shall hear you ^[k]again concerning this.”

No doubt there were many reasons the resurrection would be denied by both Jew and Gentile.  Then and today there are false teachers and false apostles who accost this central doctrine.

Death is a harrowing doorway we all must walk through.  It is impossible to go through this life in the world today and not see or experience it.  Our culture and time is very humanistic, a world very centered on man and post-enlightenment rationalism.  Which is irrational to think man is the measure of the universe.  We today are very overly focusing on what we can do and the world of our sense.  I've seen tragic hopelessness that comes from the inevitability and finality of death with no resurrection that this produces.  Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die is how those consistent with this belief live.

1 Corinthians 15

 If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus with no more than human hopes, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised,

“Let us eat and drink,
    for tomorrow we die.”^[a]

Often when asked what happens after death I would hear some heresy if anything spiritual at all. 

There is also increase in people saying there is nothing after death.  Often the answer is simply 

nothing at least for the body.  I remember as a child growing up seeing death.  The neighborhood cat 

that went prowling would attack varioius small animals.  One time we found a rabbit that had been 

killed and I looked it.  It was lacking visible wounds wondering why it wouldn't and couldn't move. 

 Its body looked fine but there was no life in it.  Another time we found a bird with it's head torn off. 

 that was more obvious.  Sad as those experiences were those were but animals.  What of people?

You can't live too long and not have someone you knew or were close to die.  I've been to three 

funerals and lost my grandmother.  She was cremated and I never got to say goodbye or see her one 

last time.  The thought of her or any of those people being gone and not just existing in another way but ceasing to exist is deeply disturbing.

The we are all simply material and death is just a stopping of our electrical impulses deeply troubles 

us.  But without God what is bigger than death? Without God what hope is there?  Yet many today 

who claim Christ deny his resurrection work and in so doing deny him.  You might as well eat drink 

and be merry for tomorrow you die.  For what else would there be?  Without the resurrection death 

would reign as king and nothing would be of eternal value.  For all the answers our secular 

humanism  gives it can't explain why we yearn for eternity.  At best it would be some cruel trick, a 

lie created by evolution or random chance.  The bible provides a far bette answer.  We are wired this 
way the same  way we are wired to desire food and water.  There really is something more and life eternal and we are made with that knowledge

Church history is very useful in guiding us to know true teaching.  The Apostles creed, speaks of the necessity of the resurrection and its key role in identifying who is a Christian.  Then and today the resurrection has been a hard doctrine to swallow because we don’t see dead bodies suddenly gain life.  I’ve heard and seen many people joke about “Zombie Jesus day”.  As if he’s as a zombie, some horrid abomination and profaning of the Gospel resurrection.  Zombie films are totally different.  They are oddly a bizarre resurrection.  They die, rise again to life and feed on the living converting (if you will) others to death and having no soul of their own.  Christ Died for us rose again and speaks of us needing to feast on him to live.  He gives life to draw others to him and renews the body and soul.   He is not “zombie Jesus”.  The explanation for the joke is that it is laughably absurd to some people that anyone could come back from the dead. 

Whether people deny Christ’s resurrection, either because people believe the body is evil and the spirit good or as we do today believe we are only matter.  Further put with our over scientism “we don’t see it happen every day it can’t happen”.  But a miracle is a miracle because it doesn’t happen every day in nature otherwise we might simply call it a common or a typical.

If there is the supernatural and a divine agent in the natural world of course he could do such things.  It would not be a violation of the laws of nature but simply natural.  A miracle is God breaking into the world to exercise his power and authority to accomplish his purpose.  It sounded equally absurd to the Greeks of Paul’s day not because of some naturalism.  The idea of a resurrection of the body was absurd and undesirable. 

Paul was speaking to those in Corinth about false teachers who said they knew Christ.  Their denial of the resurrection is a horrible mistake to make.  The resurrection was as much under attack then as it is today.  In Paul's day it was more likely Proto-Gnostic and Platonic.  The idea of a resurrection to a Platonist is absurd since the body itself was seen as evil.

So who would want to be resurrected and placed back in?  You just escaped and you would go back into prison?  The body was evil and a cage.  Spirit was good so dying would set you free.  What need would Jesus have to put his spirit back in the body and give it life?  Though it looks different the same heart of doubt and trust in man's "wisdom" is at work.  It would have been pointless and absurd to the Gnostic and this belief has persisted.  I spoke to an unknowing Gnostic once who said we have "new bodies" not of flesh but spiritual.  She cited Paul in a translation to support a belief identical to those who opposed him.

1 Corinthians 15:50

⁵⁰ I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

Context is key and she without it she fell into a false belief.  In Greek the word that was used was sarks (σαρξ), flesh (as in a nature).  Soma (σωμα) is the term used for body elsewhere and never of the sinful nature. The Greek points to something within the fleshly nature as corrupt.  The problem then is something that is not the body itself but attached to the body like a leech.  Paul is showing something is wrong with creation that needs redemption and restoration.  It is this nature that Paul focus’ on, and the reality that a person’s birth doesn’t earn salvation. Christ is in his body for eternity lest we say that he will lose the incarnation.  If we were to gain new (spirit) not renewed bodies Thomas would not have been able to put his hands in Christ’s wounds.

  Paul affirms the goodness of the body as well in the work of Christ. God made both body and soul, and so Christ took on flesh to become a man, that the whole of man might be saved. If the body were evil God would not take it on himself.  If the body were not made new, the whole of man would be left tainted.  God had to come down in the body, born of a virgin and do it himself for no mere man could overcome death.  If death still reigned over the body it would never be defeated.  The curse of sin would still and forever be supreme over mankind.   Mankind very much is not a spirit with a body; we are spirit and a body not just one or the other. To redeem man therefore he had to become and resurrect as one completely.  Only then would he conquer what we could not in his death and resurrection.  He paid the price of our sin in his death and overcame it in his resurrection.

I don’t think those animals will resurrect one day.  If animals do I will have an awkward time with many delicious animals I was previously acquainted.  But you and I will.  I know you and I if we pass before Christ returns will resurrect on the Day of Judgment. It’s a matter of which resurrection.  Either you will come to a resurrection in Christ and life or one unto eternal death.  Even the atheist and the skeptic know the importance of this and we can see it in the questions we all ask.  We ask about life after death, purpose here, and to ask these is not taught.

 There is something deep inside every person that longs for eternity.  We are unsettled by the so called fact of materialism that when we die there is nothing.  So we try to make the most out of what short lives we have.  If death was but natural and we were built for a short life why do we ask and desire a life after death?  If such were true our desires and longings would be just a cruel trick of fate and evolution.  Pure chance, even our recognition of such things would be equally suspect for all would be nothing.  What we all experience is that we were made for eternity. Why? God wants us to know him and the resurrection is very much a part of the center of having relationship with God. 

If Christ was not raised, your faith is nothing.  For you have not this victory over death now or ever.  In this age where man is the center of all understanding miracles and the divine are denied, even in so called churches.  According to many Churches that have lost their way “the idea of the resurrection is what’s important.” What is really the central to the “idea” is that it actually happened.  The idea is that it was real and is real and as an empty notion it is not a hope.

 If Christ was not raised, neither will we be.  Christianity is not just a spiritual sense of the morality or idea of death being defeated or Christianity is fruitless.  If we believe Christ did not conquer the grave Paul is right in saying that we are indeed most to be pitied.   Without the reality of that hope is an empty, foolish delusion.  It becomes a sick escapist fantasy which death would abruptly end.   Still under death, we would have no forgiveness without his resurrection.  His resurrection affirms his sinlessness and that death therefore has no claim to him.  It very really did happen and there were witnesses to it. In any court of law it helps to have a witness, two is better, 12 would be great, and hundreds would be outstanding. 

Hundreds saw Jesus after his resurrection.  That many witnesses grew to include Paul who had been persecuting Christ before he encountered him on the road to Damascus.   The body indeed disappeared from the tomb and many saw him after he died, with the wounds in his physical body, a body with which he even ate.  Christ was no spirit or group illusion. Christ very much did die and was raised again, and that is remarkable, joyous and very REAL thing.

We proclaim it in sacraments such as Baptism which shows a death, and a resurrection (Romans 6:4).  If Christ did not die and be resurrected neither can you die to yourself and find new life in him.  I’m Presbyterian, and when we baptize we don’t keep pouring the water on you forever.  I’ve been in a few Baptist churches and they don’t just hold the baptized under water (I hope not).  Baptists don’t stand there and say “now think about the idea of coming out, think about how great that would be.”  Believing the idea is what’s important is likewise as foolish.

 Instead you get pulled out and dried off, to show the resurrection and our new life in Christ. What good is it to be baptized proclaiming newness in life and victory over death in the name of someone who is still dead and still under deaths tyranny?  This modern Jesus who lost is a hippy teacher who was a liar and a lunatic and who was not really lord.  He is not Jesus but a caricature. There is no renewal and life without the resurrection. The resurrection is paramount.  Death is Christ’s enemy and the last to be put under foot, subdued forever. 

1 Corinthians 15:25-26

²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

One day the horrid aberration death will be totally destroyed.  Christ’s victory is our victory as well.   The deniers would be right if it were a miracle of but a man.  Resurrection is impossible, for you and me in this world by our own strength.  It is only reasonable if Christ were just a man we wouldn't be here today for there would be no church.  Such a church would be a monument to mass delusion.  But Christ, coeternal and equal within the triune God, raised himself up just as he gave up his own spirit on the cross. 

John 10:17
For this reason the father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take it up again.\

That’s the whole point.  He was no ordinary man, but God and man fully.   This is all the testimony of the early Church, which the Apostle’s creed articulates so beautifully.  In Christ because of Christ’s work, which he did for us he was not just resurrected for his own sake but ours, can we be one day resurrected to life everlasting.  The truth of our loving God, who for us and our salvation took on flesh that sin and death may be conquered in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.  He died and rose to newness of life joined to him we do also.  This is what the apostles taught and bore witness to and the Church does to this day.  In the reality of the resurrection we can look forward to the new heavens and the new earth.  Sin and death will pass away, for Christ has conquered.

The Apostles Creed

1. I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth:
2. And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord:
3. Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary:
4. Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried: He descended into hell:
5. The third day he rose again from the dead:
6. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty:
7. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead:
8. I believe in the Holy Ghost:
9. I believe in the holy catholic church: the communion of saints:
10. The forgiveness of sins:
1l. The resurrection of the body:

12. And the life everlasting. Amen.

Lee Strobel's study on the evidence of the resurrection