Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

Home Archives for Mark McIntyre

Why people lie – Infographic

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The infographic below was brought to my attention in response to one of my earlier posts which mentioned lying. I found it interesting so thought that I would share it with you.

From a Christian perspective we know that the answer to the question of “why people lie” can be found in Genesis 3. The result of the first sin was deception and blaming of others. Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent. The root cause of lying is our severed relationship with God which results in brokenness and alienation from others. In that brokenness and alienation is the drive to present things as being different than they are.

The church should be the one place where triumph over this effect of the Fall should be observed. But often the church is a place where people are less real about who they are. We feign that things are good when they are not. We intentionally mislead people into thinking that we are better than we really are.

Perhaps those of us in the church can look at the infographic below and purpose to be more honest about who we are and where we stand in our spiritual life.

The world does not need false spirituality, it needs Jesus. The only way they will recognize their need of Him is to see the church as a group of people who are honest about who they are and are demonstrating real progress in becoming something better.

As Paul reminds us in Ehesians 4:25, “Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.” As Christians, we know that we cannot do this in our own power. It is God “who is at work in you, both to will and to work for HIs good pleasure.” (Phil 2:13)

Nancy Pearcy on the Logos

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Saving Leonardo

“In New Testament times, the Greeks had a term for the underlying principle that unifies the world into an orderly cosmos, as opposed to randomness and chaos. They called it the Logos. The Stoic philospohers conceived it as a pantheistic mind pervading the universe. But the apostle John applied the term to Christ. ‘In the beginning was the Word’ – Logos (John 1:1). Every Greek who heard John’s gospel understood that he was claiming that Christ himself is the source of the order and coherence of the universe. As Paul put it, ‘in him all things hold together’ (Col 1:17). Creation has a rational, intelligible order that reflects God’s creative plan.”

Nancy Pearcey in Saving Leonardo

Isn’t it ironic?

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In a recent Washington Post article detailing a video message to the NARAL Pro-Choice America annual dinner, President Obama is quoted as saying,

“This is a country where the success of all of us depends on the empowerment of each of us, where all Americans should have the freedom and opportunity to reach their potential. And I know that’s what you’re fighting for every day.”

I wonder if I am the only one that sees the irony in this statement. Our success as a nation depends on individual empowerment, but abortion takes away the rights and power of the most helpless constituent, the unborn children.

While on the surface we are more civilized than ancient nations who practiced child sacrifice, the net result is the same. We sacrifice our children to appease the gods of convenience and success. We don’t have to bang drums to drown out the children’s screams so perhaps the death we deal is more tolerable, but the result is the same.

The point of this post is not political. It matters little if there is an R or a D behind the names of our politicians. We, as a society, do not have the moral outrage at this miscarriage of justice. Like the duped Germans in the 1930’s, we turn a blind eye. Our politicians give us what we want, the freedom to exercise a choice that is not ours to make. We apparently never learned the lesson that two wrongs do not make a right.

Politicians like our President, see abortion supporters as just another constituency, one more voting block which needs to be secured. They pander to the group that can secure the next election. Unfortunately, the unborn cannot vote and therefore have no voice.

Like the culture around them, these politicians have tossed away their moral compass to allow them the freedom of being lost. That freedom comes at a high cost. I agree with the President’s statement. The success of the country does depend on the empowerment of each of us. The problem is that he forgot that the unborn children are included in “each of us.”

Until those unborn children are given the opportunity to reach their potential the success mentioned by our President will continue to elude us.

Isn’t it ironic?

Abusive Churches

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Abusive ChurchIn an article called Abusive Churches, Pat Zukeran lists eight characteristics of an abusive church. A summary of the characteristics in Pat’s words (bold emphasis added by me) is below:

First, abusive churches have a control-oriented style of leadership. Second, the leaders of such churches often use manipulation to gain complete submission from their members. Third, there is a rigid, legalistic lifestyle involving numerous requirements and minute details for daily life. Fourth, these churches tend to change their names often, especially once they are exposed by the media. Fifth, denouncing other churches is common because they see themselves as superior to all other churches. Sixth, these churches have a persecution complex and view themselves as being persecuted by the world, the media, and other Christian churches. Seventh, abusive churches specifically target young adults between eighteen and twenty-five years of age. The eighth and final mark of abusive churches is the great difficulty members have in getting out of or leaving these churches, a process often marked by social, psychological, or emotional pain.

My point in sharing this is twofold:

  1. I want to encourage church leaders to examine their leadership style against this list and see if there are areas in which repentance and reconciliation should take place.
  2. I want to encourage church members / attenders to examine the church they attend in light of this list. If you find that you are in a church that is described by these characteristics, find a new church.

Compulsion and manipulation should never take place in the body of Christ. Either God is in control of a local body or the leader is. There is no shared control. The leader should always keep in mind that he is an under-shepherd who is responsible to the Master Shepherd. The pastor or elder must never lose sight of the fact that he is leading his peers; we are all equal at the foot of the Cross.

I have been in churches that had several of these characteristics but I have never been in one that had all eight. Even so, I have found that the eighth item listed above is especially true. My experience is that coming out of a church that only had a few of these was indeed a painful process.

Satan is shrewd. If he cannot get us to embrace doctrinal error, he will trip us up with spiritual pride. Those of us who are identified as leaders in the church must be constantly vigilant in watching for pride to creep in. As I see it, pride is the foundation upon which the control and manipulation described above is built.

Leaders who walk in humility and submission to Jesus Christ will not fall into the eight errors listed above.

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