I have only one thing to say to the church who intended to burn copies of the Quran on 911.  It is a quote from one of the great pastors of our generation, the Reverend Shaw Moore -
 
"Go sit in judgment on yourselves."

There are many reasons why developing a consistent routine of family worship is so important for Christian parents. Many of these reasons are compelling, motivating, and encouraging. One of them is simply mandatory.

We could talk about percentages. Some 88% of teenagers who attend church regularly will leave the church once they finish high school. Adding a new program or college ministry, as important as those things might be, won’t do much to radically change such a gut-wrenching percentage. Many, if not most of the teenagers associated with that number have never had a consistent, lifelong experience of family worship. Parents can and must be the tool God uses to turn that number upside-down.

But that is not the most important reason.

We could talk about exposure. Children and students will at best receive instruction from Holy Scripture twice a week in a church setting, typically on a Sunday and Wednesday. We should be thankful for those opportunities and God will honor the faithful teaching of His word in the church. Yet, this is not enough to fully impact our children with the greatness of God and the living example of our faith.

But that is not the most important reason.

We could talk about responsibility. A recent Barna Research Group report shows that 85% of parents with children under the age of 13 believe they have the primary responsibility for teaching their children about religious belief. That is a great start. Unfortunately, a majority of those parents do not spend any time during a typical week discussing religious matters or studying religious material.

But that is not the most important reason.

The apostle John from the island of Patmos provides us with the most important and mandatory reason for family worship. He writes in Revelation 4:11, “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, And by Your will they exist and were created.” In other words, God deserves our worship. The Great Commandment to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength is in parallel with John’s words. God deserves worship; He commands worship; He expects worship. The home must become the place where worship is natural, consistent, and anticipated. Because God is worthy and deserving.

And that is the most important reason.

Clark Pinnock is dead at age 73.

Sitting on my bookshelf directly in front of me are books entitled "God's Greater Glory" and "God's Lesser Glory" both written by theologian and Southern Seminary professor Bruce Ware.  Ware took the time to write out a detailed, orderly account of why he believes "Open Theism" to be so dangerous to the church.  He took the time largely because of the vast influence of Clark Pinnock.

Pinnock was a professor of systematic theology at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario and one of the more influential theological thinkers of our day.  Throughout the course of his life Pinnock found himself moving from conservative to moderate to liberal back to moderate on a host of issues within the evangelical spectrum.  Many of these issues, most notably Open Theism, landed Pinnock in controversial waters.  I can assure you that the professors at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary respect Pinnock and his influential writing enough to broadly and repeatedly discuss his views in the classroom.  Granted, these discussions were more often than not aimed at where Pinnock veered away from Christian orthodoxy, but the nevertheless understood how powerful of a voice he was and is still is. 

I believe Open Theism is one of the most bizarre and absurd theological positions.  Having said that, I also believe it is the logical conclusion to a belief in Arminianism, so that Pinnock ultimately embraced a position that is unavoidable if you are an Arminian and continue to think through your position (obviously, Arminian proponents are going to disagree with me on that point).  Pinnock certainly came to the conclusion that Arminianism did not go far enough if humans truly have libertarian freedom and that is exactly why he became a proponent of Open Theism.  What I appreciate about Pinnock, however, is that he believed the Bible.  He loved Scripture.  He loved Jesus Christ.  And there is no question that his heart's desire was to be faithful to the Bible.  Pinnock is not one of these guys who supplants Scripture with the current cultural and theological tendencies of the day.  Although for me it is a difficult thing to read about Pinnock's move from position to position that led him to Open Theism, I have to appreciate a guy who is willing to radically change his belief system because he truly felt that Scripture taught it.  That is why during a vote to potentially remove Pinnock from ETS (Evangelical Theological Society), the vote came back to keep him in the society in good standing. 

So, a part of me feels like I have lost an old acquaintance.  I never met Pinnock, but I studied his teaching so much that I feel like we should have been on speaking terms.  I believe that Pinnock had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  If I am correct, then today he is understanding it better by and by.  Thank God for that.      

Click below to listen to my sermon based on Revelation 19:11-21.  This was preached on August 15th, 2010 during the outdoor worship service.

Click Here To Listen.

Two days ago U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker handed down a decision that soundly condemned California's Proposition 8 as unconstitutional.  That proposition helped amend and define the language in the state's constitution to affirm marriage as the union between a man and a woman.  According to Judge Walker, the clear majority of California voters who supported the proposition just simply got this one wrong.  I found his reasoning to be fascinating, not so much from a legal perspective, but from a spiritually practical perspective.

Judge Walker offers these reasons, among others, as to why he must overturn the desires of voters in California as it pertains to Proposition 8:

"Religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful or inferior to heterosexual relationships harm gays and lesbians."

"Children do not need to be raised by a male parent and a female parent to be well-adjusted, and having both a male and a female parent does not increase the likelihood that a child will be well-adjusted."

"The gender of a child’s parent is not a factor in the child’s adjustment."

and finally, "Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage"       

The connection Judge Walker makes between religious belief and homosexuality is interesting.  Walker is equating sin to inferiority.  A majority of his writing concerning the religious "angle" of his decision follows an argument against homosexuals being seen as inferior or less equal.  The only problem is that I have never met a Christian (I understand that other faiths are included in the idea of religious beliefs) who understands sin to mean inferiority among humans.  As Christians, we affirm the understanding that all have sinned (Romans 3:23).  Because of that we are all indeed inferior - to God, not to one another.  There have been, of course, those extreme groups, usually on the far right, who move homosexuality to the front line of everything evil in the world.  But as is true for any issue, extremists can't be viewed as the majority opinion.  So, for a majority of those folks who voted in favor of Proposition 8 based on religious conviction did so for reasons other than seeing homosexuals as inferior.

What are those reasons?

For me, it goes back to a repeated emphasis that theology is practical.  God does not just simply make up arbitrary rules that have no ongoing significance in our day to day, practical lives.  This is especially true when it comes to families, since the whole of creation culminated in the forming of a family, namely the Creation Mandate of a husband and wife to multiply and fill the Earth.  So, any Christian can and should affirm the critical practical outworking of God's expectations, most if not all of which can be explained in an American democratic society where Separation of Church and State is so crucial without having to say, "well, the Bible says this. . ."  Thus, it is an erroneous suggestion that anyone who votes on a practical, legal issue based on the day-to-day application of their faith must be invalidated.  To do so would immediately bring our democratic society to a screeching halt because no one, not a single person, votes out of an ethical vacuum.  All of us bring presuppositions that have been formed by someone or something to the table.  Besides, it just makes no sense at multiple levels.  For example, there are myriads of people who hold to the traditional definition of marriage as the union of a man and woman and who believe that a child is best raised by a father and a mother who have zero Christian faith at all.  Yet, their practical and ethical conclusions would sound very similar if not identical to what a Christian might say in the American political sphere (they would obviously reach their conclusions very differently).  Do we give merit to their vote because their conclusions are not stemmed from faith but deny the vote of the faithful, even though both are near identical? Dr. Mohler is correct when he says, "this establishes secularism as the only acceptable basis for moral judgment on the part of voters." 

We can debate the legitmacy of homosexual marriage all we want.  But the argument that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional because religious beliefs force an harmful inferior message on homosexuals falls short.