Pastor's Blog

Chapter five of Well's book is called simply "Self." In a nutshell, what happened was that our individualism, which had always been a potent factor in American life, turned inward in this decade. It withdrew from the outside world. And during the 1960s a new worldview emerged. To a great majority of Americans, it now became clear that the self had become the source of all values. The pursuit of the self was what life was all about... It is not unreasonable to think that this turn in our culture would have found resistance among the religious. And it did at the more liberal end of Protestantism, ironically enough, but evangelicals fell headlong into this new way of seeing life. It could be heard, in the 1980s and 1990s, every time Robert Schuller’s cherubic countenance appeared on television. He was moving in a new direction, though he also claimed to be traditionally Protestant. He announced that this new self-focused preoccupation was nothing less than a new Reformation....

It's been a while since I've posted anything. This has been due (in part) to having been busy with the basketball team I have been privileged to coach the last three seasons. They have been a great bunch of young men, and it's been a lot of fun coaching. Back row, left to right: Yours truly, Zach Taylor, Jamin Huck, Caleb Pence, Lee Thomas Mohler, James Enick (my son), and Tyson Taylor (my son-in-law and assistant coach). Front row: Austin Schmidt, Stephen Waltrip, Elijah Higgins, Andrew Bell, and Tanner Huck. We had a good season. We finished 16-11 and took fourth at the National Division II Christian Homeschool Association tournament in McPherson, KS.

While we're on the subject, what about the economic sense of increasing taxes on businesses? This is just a hidden tax on consumers. Taxes are simply one of the costs of doing business and, like all increases in such costs, are paid for by the consumer in the form of high prices.

It occurred to me after making my last post that some people might wonder why we should worry about Obama's plan to increase taxes on "the rich." "It doesn't affect me," you say, "I'm not rich." Perhaps not, but you might be surprised to learn just how much we all benefit from other people's wealth--not by their providing us with charitable contributions, but in providing goods and services and opportunities for employment. The motive for all economic transactions is profit. And while the desire for profit can certainly be abused, it is equally certain that without it, no economic transactions would ever take place. Those who have excess money (i.e., the rich ) are motivated by a desire for greater profit to invest their money in the production of goods and the providing of services that consumers are willing to pay for. The greater the potential for profit, the more people are involved in the venture, and the number of goods and services ...

Obama knows better what to do with your money than you do. This year I had my students read The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Marx and Engels advocated a ten point plan to achieve a communist utopia. Some of Obama's goals are eerily similar. Consider, for example, points 2, 3, and 5 of the Manifesto . 2. A heavily progressive income tax. 3. Abolition of inheritance. 5. Centralisation [ sic ] of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. (from The Communist Manifesto and Other Revolutionary Writings , Dover Publications, p. 141) Now read this article at Newsmax.com. Sound familiar?

More on the problems of "marketing" the church by David Wells. Here was the gospel product as sleekly fashioned and as artfully sold as anything in the mall or on television. Here also were churches smelling of coffee and reverberating with edgy music. There were bright and exciting videos. And the professional singers rivaled any one might hear in Vegas. It was all put together in a package to please, entice, entertain, relax, grab, and enfold potential customers, and worm its way into their hearts... What results, all too often, beneath all the smiling crowds, the packed auditoria, is a faith so cramped, limited, and minuscule as to be entirely unable to command our life, our energies, or, as a matter of fact, even much of our attention. One church advertises itself as a place where you will find "loud music" and "short services." It has a "casual atmosphere" but, it wants us to know, it also offers "serious faith." This is always the...

In addition to the older, classical evangelicals whom David Wells identifies in his book, The Courage to be Protestant , he mentions an evangelical constituency which he calls the "marketers." The church marketers are those who have followed the innovations in "doing" church pioneered by Bill Hybels at Willow Creek Community Church in 1975... This approach, it is said, is seeking to preserve the old evangelical message while delivering it in new ways. Its strategies have been borrowed from the corporate world. The key idea is that there is a market for the Christian message. They utilize marketing techniques and proven entertainment formats to penetrate that market. This innovation seemed to be the train that was leaving town three decades ago, and pastors by the thousands scrambled to get aboard. Here was the magic formula for success. Though a genuine passion for evangelism no doubt lay somewhere in the experiment, it was also wrapped in the most stunning cultural...

Compare this map with the others and notice how it confirms what we already knew to be true. The more religious (i.e., Christian ) regions are more charitable and tend to vote for more conservative candidates. Puts the lie to the liberal accusation that conservatives don't care about the poor. Conservatives are generous when it comes to spending their own money, but stingy with other people's money (taxes). Liberals are generous with other people's money, but stingy with their own.

This one charts charitable giving. And what you know...religious people on average are more charitable. Who'd a thunk it?

Here's another map reflecting religious faith by region. This one charts church attendance. Notice how it compares to the ones below.