Happy Friday,
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.
I Peter 3:18
There have been other deaths. Indeed, there have been other unjust deaths, other untimely deaths and other heroes dying sacrificial deaths. But the death of Jesus Christ is unique because He died in your place – the righteous for the unrighteous – to bring you to God.
Can the Center Hold? In last week’s sermon, I noted that frustration is rising, and civility is declining. This NYT piece contains good news and bad. The extremes are smaller than most believe, but those willing to be civil are exhausted.
Crazy Times: In this article, a CNN reporter stated that, “It’s not possible to know a person’s gender identity at birth, and there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth.” Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist writing for Reality’s Last Stand, responded by noting that: “Observing genitalia is the consensus criteria for determining one’s sex at birth,” and claimed that this method was “only inaccurate about 0.018 percent of the time.” In this Wall Street Journal piece, Margaret Harper McCarthy responds to the Equality Act by stating, “At stake is the freedom of rational human beings to use a common vocabulary when speaking about what all can see. . . that is why religious freedom is also at stake. Religion is the last bastion of sanity.”
The “Collapse” of Church Attendance: You may have heard that “the percentage of American church members has dipped below fifty percent of the population for the first time since 1937.” Yes and no. The stat focuses on membership not attendance. Mainline denominations, that track membership, have been hemorrhaging members for seventy years. The churches that have been growing or stable – which are generally more conservative – focus on active involvement not membership. The number who are walking away from the church is alarming, but likely overstated. In the US, pre-COVID church attendance – which is the data we are looking at – was near all-time highs.
Censorship: 1) This Wall Street Journal article notes that religious groups – whose views on marriage, sexuality, life and other moral issues do not line up with the Silicon set – are being silenced by tech companies at the rate of about one a week. 2) According to this Newsweek article, a US Army Reserve training presentation on religious extremism listed the following groups that “advocate or use violence to accomplish their objectives and are therefore rightly classified as extremists: al-Qaeda, Hamas, the Ku Klux Klan, the Roman Catholic Church and Evangelicals.”
Radical Islam: As an aside, it appears as though radical Islam is losing global sway and, in small ways, westernizing.
Last year’s Easter Song: It feels like a violation of Lent, but if I do not send this now, you will not have it on Sunday. I am referring to last year’s Christ Church rendition of Christ the Lord is Risen Today.
Correction: Last week I cited Andrew Warnock’s book on the resurrection for a thoughtful quote about fearing God, HERE. Alas, his name is Adrian not Andrew. BTW, the book is entitled, Raised with Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything.
Without Comment: 1) The divorce rate has dropped enough so that it is no longer accurate to say that one in two marriages will end in divorce. (Note: that claim was always a bit misleading.) However, the marriage gap is growing. Higher incomes equal higher marriage rates. In recent years, the sharpest decline in marriage has been occurring among the middle class. 2) The percentage of Americans in therapy is 47%; 3) The number of Americans who believe the pandemic “meaningfully damaged their mental health” is 62%; 4) Personal credit card debt declined by 11% last year; 5) One in five Bitcoin owners have lost their Bitcoins – for a total loss of $164B.
Two Quotes from the Past:
- Beuchner on Anger: Given the spike in angry rhetoric, this warning from Frederick Beuchner – the decorated 94-year-old author and Presbyterian Pastor – seems timely. “Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back–in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”
- Chesterton on the Future: Here is GKC’s predictions about his future (which has become our present): “Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed. It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. We shall be left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities of human life, but something more incredible still, this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face.”
Closing Prayer: Father, make us more like Jesus. Help us to bear difficulty, pain, disappointment, and sorrows, knowing that in your perfect working and design you can use such bitter experiences to shape our characters and make us more like our Lord. We look with hope for that day when we shall be wholly like Christ because we shall see Him as He is. Amen. (Ignatius of Antioch – c.107)