Category Archives: Culture

CHRISTIANITY IN AMERICA IS NOT DYING!

Church, Culture, Optimism March 13, 2018 Leave a comment

PMW 2018-021 by Lita Cosner (Creation Ministries, Intl.)

Gentry note: In 1897 Mark Twain was reported to have died, to which he supposedly responded: “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” This response can be applied to the claim that Christianity in America is dead. Lita Cosner’s article makes some encouraging observations for us in this regard.

Lita Cosner article:

We’re used to hearing that religion is dying in America, secularization is inevitable, and that young people are leaving the faith in droves. But a new Harvard research study has great news for Christians. Previous research typically focuses on the massive increase in the proportion of people who claim atheism or ‘no religion’. But these reports generally don’t address where the decline is happening. This new research demonstrates that the decline is in ‘moderate’ religion. So it turns out that ‘religion’ isn’t dying, but the differentiation between believer and unbeliever is becoming clearer. Continue reading →

GAY MARRIAGE HARMS

Culture, Ethics, morality March 9, 2018 Comments: 15

PMW2018-020 by Keaton Halley (Creation Ministries, Intl.)

Gentry note: This is an excellent article on an important culture topic which greatly impacts one’s worldview. Sadly many Christians are succumbing to the liberal agenda for our culture, even in an area historically opposed to biblical norms.

Article by Keaton Halley

Three reasons that abandoning God’s design for marriage is bad for society.

Even now that same-sex marriage has become widely accepted in many countries, Christians cannot surrender. We must continue to lovingly and graciously stand for the truth. Also, if we want to be effective, we must learn to articulate the reasons why gay marriage not only violates God’s moral standard, but actually harms society. Indeed, a faulty view of marriage will create many victims, as we highlight in response to today’s question.

[M]y question is what do you think about gay marriage and adoption?

Continue reading →

IS HOMOSEXUAL PRACTICE WORSE?

Culture, Ethics March 2, 2018 Leave a comment

PMW 2018-018 by Robert A. J. Gagnon

Gentry note: The postmillennial hope looks primarily to the worldwide dominion of spirituality and morality. Though these will give rise to political stability, judicial justice, and economic prosperity, spiritual and moral issues must always remain at the foundation to our hope. This article by Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon speaks to an important issue regarding homosexual practice, which must be distinguished from the more modern idea of homosexuality (i.e., a homosexual “condition.”). Dr. Gagnon is a leading conservative, evangelical voice against homosexual practice as normative.

Gagnon article:
Is Homosexual Practice No Worse Than Any Other Sin?

In my work on the Bible and homosexual practice I often encounter the argument that (1) no sin is any worse than any other sin; therefore (2) homosexual practice is no worse than any other sin. Usually the comparison is then made with sins for which accommodations are often made by Christians (like gluttony or remarriage after divorce), rather than with sins for which no accommodation is made (like incest or murder), as a way of either shutting up Christian opposition to homosexual practice altogether or contending that self-affirming participants in homosexual practice will still “go to heaven.” Even many evangelicals who neither support homosexual practice nor extend a pass from God’s judgment to those who persist unrepentantly in it subscribe to these two views. Continue reading →

AVOID PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Culture, morality February 27, 2018 Leave a comment

PMW 2018-017 by R. Scott Clark (The Heidelblog)

The world has changed quite a bit since I entered Dundee Elementary in 1965–66. No-fault divorce did not yet exist. Two-parent families were the norm. Abortion had not yet been legalized. The late-modern drug culture had not yet exploded. WWII had been over for more than 20 years and the baby boom had just ended. The suburbs were burgeoning. Top 40 radio was in its heyday and Roger W. Morgan was playing the hits on the Mighty 1290 KOIL. The hippie movement was still a sub-culture. The Vietnam War was intensifying but mostly we got just a moment or two of it on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. The civil rights movement was on the news as Dr King and others led peaceful demonstrations calling Americans to honor the promises enshrined in the constitution. Too often, however, those marches were met by fire hoses and police dogs. The Watts Riots, which were a reaction to decades of unjust treatment of minorities by the LAPD, convulsed Los Angeles in 1965 leaving scars that would last for decades. In those years, however, my school and neighborhood were all white. Continue reading →

POLITICS AND TWO-KINGDOM THEOLOGY

Amillennialism, Culture, Kingdom, Theology February 23, 2018 1 Comment

PMW 2018-016 by Larry E. Ball

Gentry introduction:
This is an excellent, short article on the dangers of Two-kingdom Theology. TKT is very much opposed to postmillennialism and to theonomic ethics. In this quick insight into TKT we can see the very obvious negative implications of this theology.

When I recently read the post about Andrew White, a PCA elder and a democratic candidate for the Governor of Texas (The Aquila Report, January 26), I was disheartened, to say the least. What bothered me most is that he seemed to imply that since both abortion and homosexual marriage are the law of the land, they must be right and good in a democratic society. Continue reading →

SPIRITUAL SOLUTION TO OPIOID CRISIS

Culture, morality February 20, 2018 Leave a comment

PMW 2018-015 by John Horvat

In times of crisis, we are forced to reexamine our ways and ponder our future. It is in this framework that we need to consider our present economic plight and the charting of our path forward.

In his penetrating analysis of contemporary society, author John Horvat focuses on the present crisis with great insight and clarity. He claims modern economy has become cold, impersonal, and out of balance. Gone are the human elements of honor and trust so essential to our daily lives. Society has discarded the natural restraining influence of the human institutions and values that should temper our economic activities.

Return to Order is a clarion call that invites us to reconnect with those institutions and values by applying the timeless principles of an organic Christian order.

Continue reading →

THE CRUEL MERCY OF THE STATE

Culture December 26, 2017 Leave a comment

PMW 2017-103 by Dr. Charles Roberts (pastor, Reedy River PCA, Conestee, SC)

Gentry note: The postmillennial worldview is a WORLDview. Thus, it touches on every part of life, including matters of the State. In this article, Dr. Roberts briefly shows how the State’s attempt at providing mercy tend to produce cruelty as the theological foundation of true mercy is forsaken. This article is being posted the day after Christmas, a time in which we have celebrated the true mercy of God in Christ. We need always to be reminded that mercy comes from God, not the State. We must believe “In God We Trust,” not “In Government We Trust.”

In 1952 the state of Arizona established a Children’s Colony that at one time housed over 250 mentally and physically disabled children and adults. Legislative action in 1979 determined to close the facility and move its residents to normal society. Continue reading →