TXAB: The Christ Almighty Blog

Abortion politics don’t actually do anything. ’Cause we need to do something. I’m prolife. By which I mean I’m anti-death. I know: Most of the time when Evangelical Christians call ourselves prolife, we really mean anti-abortion. We’re against that kind of death. All the other kinds?… Well, some of us are against the other kinds of death. The rest of us only care about preventing abortion. To them, the unborn baby is the epitome of innocence, and totally undeserving of death. The rest of humanity: Meh, they’ve sinned already. Screw ’em. In case you’re not clear what I mean by “the other kinds of death,” let me spell out a few of them. Death due to criminal or terrorist activity. Death due to domestic violence or child neglect. Death due to inadequate healthcare. Death due to inadequate gun laws. Death due to inadequate prison supervision. Death due to unnecessary, unjust war. Death due to unnecessary, unjust police shootings. Death due to inconsistent implementati

When we’re wrong about the non-negotiables of Christianity. HERESY 'hɛr.ə.si noun. Belief or opinion contrary to Christian orthodoxy. [Heretic 'hɛr.ə.tɪk adjective , heretical hə'rɛd.ə.kəl adjective. ] Basically we define heresy by how we define orthodoxy . ’Cause they’re opposites. If it’s not orthodox, it’s heretic; if it’s not heretic, it’s orthodox. There are other words people throw around, like unorthodox or heterodox . Technically they’re synonyms of heretic . But that’s not at all what Christians mean when they use ’em. What they really mean to say is, “I’m gonna question certain beliefs we take for granted,” or “I’m gonna say this in a way you’re not used to hearing.” But they’re not heretic; not at all. They’re orthodox. It’s just the way they explain their orthodoxy comes from an unexpected direction. They’ve chosen a unique way to describe the same traditional beliefs. It’s just unorthodox means heretic, and heterodox means “other than orthodox

Most people don’t mind at all if you do. When you don’t know what to do, talk to God. Not only is this always good advice to follow, but it’s good advice when dealing with others. When other people share their difficulties with us, we don’t always know how to respond. Prayer’s one of the best responses—if not the best, period. It’s turning to God as our first resort. I know; plenty of people think they know just what to do when they hear someone’s troubles. That’s why they immediately offer it: Advice. No, the person sharing their woes didn’t ask for it. Often they just wanted to vent to someone. But that’s not gonna stop people from inflicting bad advice upon ’em anyway. Remember Job’s friends? For a week he kept his mouth shut, Jb 2.13 but then he made the mistake of lamenting in front of them, Jb 3 and it opened up their floodgates of bad advice, naive statements, sorry platitudes—you know, the same stuff people still offer as advice, which just goes to show they’ve neve

Questions? Comments? Email. But remember, my feedback policy means I can post it. Not as part of a regular advice column; that’s not what I do. I don’t know how I turned into the advice guy. It just sorta happened. Years ago I was contributing to a couple different websites, and I had my own personal blog, and out of the blue strangers started asking me religion questions. Guess I sounded knowledgeable to them, so they figured they’d test my knowledge. So what’s the best bible translation? Or what do I know about a particular Christian denomination? Or what have I heard about this or that book?—this or that preacher?—this or that theological idea? Am I Arminian or Calvinist, and why? Pretrib or posttrib, and why? It’s not a new experience for me. I got questions like this from my students in Sunday school classes or Christian school. Or from newbies in my church who found out I knew stuff, and consider me less intimidating than our pastor. (Intimidating for no reason, I

PROJECTION prə'dʒɛk.ʃən, proʊ'dʒɛk.ʃən noun. Unconscious transfer of one’s ideas to another person. [Project prə'dʒɛkt, proʊ'dʒɛkt verb. ] When we’re talking popular Christian culture’s version of Christianity, i.e. Christianism, we’re not really talking about what Jesus teaches. We’re talking about what we’d like to think Jesus teaches. We’re talking about our own ideas, projected onto Jesus like he’s a screen and we’re a camera obscura. We’re progressive… and how about that, so is Jesus! Or we’re conservative… and how handy is it that Jesus feels precisely the same as we do? Y’know, the evangelists told us when we come to Jesus, our whole life would have to change. But when we’re Christianist, we discover to our great pleasure and relief our lives really didn’t have to change much at all. We had to learn a few new handy Christianese terms: PAGAN WAY OF SAYING IT CHRISTIAN WAY OF SAYING IT “I think…” “I just think God’s telling me…” “I strongly th

Every Christian is part of God’s nation of priests. Elders especially. Priest /prist/ n. Person able to perform a religion’s rituals, and therefore intercede between God and his followers. [Priestlike /'pris(t).laɪk/ adj. , priestly /'pris(t).li/ adj. ] Protestants tend to translate presbýteros as “elder,” by which we mean the senior Christians in a church. Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, and some Lutherans, translate it “priest.” Properly “priest” would be the Greek word yeréfs —but for the most part, I don’t disagree with this translation. Y’see, the elders of the church are our priests. Technically every Christian is a priest, for it was after all God’s intention to create a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. Ex 19.6, 1Pe 2.9 Jesus made his followers, us Christians, a kingdom of priests to our God and his. Rv 1.6, 5.10 Elders in particular happen to be able and mature enough to perform priestly functions. They can preach, prophesy, lead us in worship, perform

And no, you’re never gonna find it on ChristianBook.com. Years ago, I was complaining about one of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’s Left Behind novels. Don‘t remember which one, but I do remember my complaint—for once—wasn’t about the terrible Darbyist theology, but about the poorly-developed characters. Caricatures of characters, really. The fellow I was ranting to was a bit of a Left Behind fan, so he didn’t appreciate my critique… although he admitted the writing “felt rushed.” There, I don’t agree. My beef wasn’t with how fast the Left Behind novels were cranked out. Some authors only need a month, start to finish, to produce a book. But they produce three-dimensional characters, whereas the Left Behind books produced melodramatic heroes and villains. “Well fine,” he said, “what’s your favorite End Times book?” “Easy,” I said, “ The Stand .” Yep, this book. When I realized I meant the Stephen King novel , he was outraged. Which I get. After all, King uses swears in h

It’s not about being emotionally be excited. That’d be a way easier problem to solve, right? Revelation 3.15-16. I give youth pastors a bad rap sometimes. Okay, often. Because I believe a lot of them fundamentally misunderstand their job. As did most of the youth pastors I’ve had to deal with, both decades ago as a teenager, and in the years since as I’ve worked with kids and young adults. Their job is to minister to the young people of the church, and share Jesus with the young people of their communities. You know, like any other pastor. Only with youth. Problem is, many of the YP s I’ve run into, don’t think that way at all. Sometimes because their churches don’t think that way. My church, growing up, thought of the YP s as our babysitters. They were to make sure the church’s members’ kids behaved ourselves, and stayed Christian—at least till college. Once we graduated high school, we weren’t the YP ’s responsibility anymore. My YP s made this fact quite clear to me when, sho

ECUMENICAL ɛk.jʊ'mɛn.ə.kəl adjective. Representing multiple Christian churches or denominations. 2. Promoting unity among Christian churches, regardless of affiliation. 3. Representing all Christian churches, regardless of affiliation. [Ecumenism ɛ'kjʊ.mɛ.nɪz.əm, ɛk.jə'mɛn.ɪz.əm noun. ] One of Jesus’s commands was that we Christians love one another, Jn 13.34, 15.12, 1Jn 3.23 and one of his prayers was that we be one, like he and his Father are one. John 17.20-23 KWL 20 “I don’t only ask about these, but about those who believe in me by their word, 21 so they could be one—like you, Father, in me, and I in you. So they also could be in us. So the world could believe you sent me. 22 The honor which you gave me, I gave them, so they could be one like we are one. 23 I in them, you in me, so they can be perfected as one, so the world could know you sent me, and love them like you love me.” Originally we Christians were one group. Or at least every

My take on an overdone sermon illustration. I grew up Christian, as some of you know. As a result I’ve heard hundreds of sermons. Seriously, hundreds: I grew up Christian, and never took any longer than three-month break from attending a church. (And during that time, I was going to daily chapel, which was mandatory in seminary.) So, since I grew out of the childcare program at the age of five: One every Sunday, and sometimes two. One during many a midweek evening service. One every time I went to chapel, both in school, and when I taught school. Three to ten during conferences. At least one every time I listen to preacher radio, or download a church’s podcast. I listen to my own pastor’s sermons twice: Once on Sunday morning, and once again as I scrub the audio for podcasting. So no, I’m not kidding when I say hundreds. It’s possibly thousands. Since many of these preachers tap the very same sources for sermon illustrations, the result is I’ve heard thousands of clichés. Some o

When Christians assume “God’s will” means good fortune. You mighta noticed my articles on God's will thus far, mainly focus on what God revealed in the scriptures to actually be his will. His commands. His instructions. His wisdom. What he literally wants us to do. Problem is, whenever Christians wanna know about God’s will, that’s not what we mean. Nor what we want. Poll the Christians you know, and our overwhelming attitude about God’s commands is they’re either “too hard” cf. Ac 15.10 or “old covenant.” We don’t care about the commands. Well, unless they make us feel good about ourselves ’cause we’re already obeying them—whether intentionally or accidentally. (And if we’re not obeying them, we offer our excuses.) Or unless they justify our prejudices, ’cause it appears God doesn’t like certain sins any more than we do. But whenever we Christians say, “I just wanna know God’s will for my life,” you gotta understand we don’t mean God’s commands. We don’t wanna be dire