Category Archives: Culture

JESUS AND GOD’S LAW (1)

Culture, Ethics, Law, morality September 21, 2018 Comments: 5

PMW 2017-076 by Kenneth L. Gentry. Jr.

Postmillennialism is an optimistic eschatology. In its definition (as I give in my “Definition” page of this website), one expectation of postmillennialism is that “increasing gospel success will gradually produce a time in history prior to Christ’s return in which faith, righteousness, peace, and prosperity will prevail in the affairs of men and of nations.”

Contrary to some opponents of postmillennialism, it is essentially social-gospel liberalism. However, the postmillennial hope of righteousness and peace prevailing on the earth is a concrete expectation. Not just any sort of “righteousness” and peace will do. Postmillennialism expects God’s grace to change men so that they will live in terms of God’s Law. Continue reading →

LBGT IDENTITY, REVOICE, AND BIBLICAL CHRISTIANITY

Culture, Ethics, morality August 28, 2018 Leave a comment

PMW 2018-069 by Albert Mohler

Gentry note:
One of the most surprisingly successful assaults on biblical Christianity, Christian morality, and Western cultural values has been the LBGT movement. In this article Christian theologian Albert Mohler provides an intelligent and important evaluation of Revoice conference, which is causing consternation among many evangelical Christians and may well bring down the Presbyterian Church in America.

For the Revoice conference’s relevance to the PCA, see: click

Torn Between Two Cultures? Revoice, LGBT Identity, and Biblical Christianity
By Albert Mohler

The chaos and confusion which are the inevitable products of the Sexual Revolution continue to expand and the challenges constantly proliferate. The LGBTQ+ revolution has long been the leading edge of the expanding chaos, and by now the genuinely revolutionary nature of the movement is fully apparent. The normalization of the behaviors and relationships and identities included (for now) in the LGBTQ+ spectrum will require nothing less than turning the world upside down. Continue reading →

CULTURAL ELITES AND SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

Culture, Ethics, morality, Worldview August 7, 2018 Leave a comment

PMW 2018-063 by Alastair Roberts (The Gospel Coaliton)

Gentry introduction:
The postmillennial worldview expects a time in which righteousness and peace will spread across the globe (Isa. 11:9). This will result from the gospel making its way more deeply into the hearts of men and more fully into human society and culture (John 3:17). But though our world is instant-this, freeze-dried that, biblical eschatology operates slowly over the long term. Just as the first promise of the gospel occurred thousands of years before Christ (Gen. 3:15) and finally came to fruition in his birth, just so the progress of the gospel promised in both testaments only gradually moves toward victory.

Recently we have been witnessing the wholesale and seemingly unrelenting collapse of morality and virtue in world culture. And this is occurring in America, which claims that it is “One Nation Under God” so that our motto has been “In God We Trust.” The radical leftist agenda has asserted itself and has won the day in terms of the homosexual movement. Of course, God is greater than our sin, and greater than all sinners (1 John 4:4). So this too will pass for Christ has promised: “if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself” (John 12:32).

But in the meantime, we do well to arm ourselves with knowledge of the situation transpiring around us so that we might understand and expose the works of darkness (Eph. 5:11). This review article of an important secular work on our cultural collapse provides us valuable insights that we would do well to notice.

Continue reading →

SAME-SEX ATTRACTION CAN CHANGE

Culture, Ethics, morality May 11, 2018 Leave a comment

PMW 2018-038 by Jeremiah Keenan (The Federalist)

Gentry note: This is an excellent article on the “instability” of sexual orientation. In that the moral challenge of the homosexual movement is such an enormous issue, it serves the postmillennialist well to be up on the issues. Postmillennialism believes that righteousness shall cover the earth as the waters cover the seadbed. Thus, we believe that eventually homosexuals will be converted to a righteous lifestyle through the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This article by Jeremiah Keenan should be helpful to my readers.

While You Probably Think Same-Sex Attraction Is Fixed, Researchers Don’t

Tucker Carlson asked Jordan Peterson last week whether his views on sex and gender were rare in academia. “You can’t be one of many people who has these views where you live and work,” Carlson said.

Carlson was inviting Peterson to complain about leftist homogeneity in the ivory tower, but as usual Peterson refused to take the bait. “I think they’re more common than you think,” he said. “My views on gender, for example, and sex – they’re shared widely among people in the psychometric personality community…. This isn’t contentious; the only people it’s contentious around are gender ideologues. They’ve already lost the scientific battle, and so they’ve taken it to the legislative front to enforce their views.” Continue reading →

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Culture, Law, Worldview April 20, 2018 Leave a comment

PMW 2018-032 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

As Christ’s kingdom advances to greater fulfillment in the world, it will establish a full world and life view. Thus, it will impact the laws of men and nations. One aspect of this advancing endorsement of law is the principle of capital punishment. Though capital punishment is rejected in most European nations and only partly maintained in America, it is important that the Christian understand the obligation to a Bible-based criminal justice system.

In Genesis 9:6 God establishes his covenant with Noah as he disembarks the Ark to repopulate the world. One of the principles he establishes in this covenant is that of capital punishment. Genesis 9:6 reads: “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.” Thus we have here a justification for one man taking the life of another: because man is in the “image of God” he may therefore act for God on just occasion. Continue reading →

HORRIFIC SUGGESTIONS OF A MODERN ACADEMIC

Culture, Ethics, morality April 6, 2018 Comments: 2

PMW 2018-028 by Paul Price (Creation Ministries, Intl.)

Gentry note:
The world needs Christianity, not only for personal salvation but for a moral foundation. Cornelius Van Til spoke of the progress of unbelief in becoming more consistent as an “integration downward into the void.” That is, the more fully thought-out and applied unbelief becomes, the worse its results will be.

Postmillennialist believe Scripture teaches that in the long run (not by the year 2018!), the Christian faith will overwhelm the world, leading to a long era of righteousness, peace, and prosperity. But we also believe there will be ups and downs along the way, such as we are experiencing today as unbelief has gained the upper hand.

Nevertheless, as the real-world implications of unbelief become more obvious, its results will become less appealing. God will use the horror of unbelieving culture to cause a response against it, furthering the Christian faith. The unbelief controlling evolutionary thought will be one of those sparks for the resurgence of the Christian faith. And because of this, there is a way in which we can thank Dr. David Barash for helping us to see the horror of atheism (for those who did not learn it from the French Revolution or Soviet Communism).

Continue reading →

WHEN HARRY BECAME SALLY

Culture, Ethics April 3, 2018 1 Comment

PMT 2018-027 by John Stonestreet

What was once unthinkable has become unquestionable. And so, every Christian must know how to engage this transgender moment.

Imagine this scenario: Your 17-year-old daughter tells you she’s trapped in the wrong body, is really a boy, and wants hormone therapy to begin the process of transitioning. As her parent, you love your daughter, but you disagree. You want to look at other options to help her. Continue reading →