Review: The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor's Journey into Christian Faith by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

http://christianaudio.com/the-secret-thoughts-of-an-unlikely-convert-rosaria-champagne-butterfield

This book is a testimony to the grace of God, the power of His word, and the hope of the Gospel. Dr. Butterfield was a tenured professor at Syracuse University teaching Literature and Women’s Studies. Her research focus was a form of post-structuralist criticism known as Queer Theory. She was in a committed lesbian relationship, was an outspoken supporter of the LGBT agenda, and served as an advisor and mentor to homosexual students. As part of her research on the “Christian Right” she began reading the Bible and conversing with a local pastor who lovingly challenged her presuppositions and stereotypes. By the grace of God, she became a believer in Christ and began the difficult process of having her life transformed. She describes her conversion as a train wreck and the book records the long and ongoing process of her being transformed by the renewing of her mind.

The first part of this book, particularly the first chapter, is one of the most compelling things I have read recently. She highlights how the failure of the Christian community to think carefully about the ideas we proclaim and to demonstrate love marginalize those whom we proclaim a desire to reach. Many of Dr. Butterfield’s observations are an indictment against our lack of commitment to open our doors to those who are broken and in need of the Gospel. The implication is perhaps we are content to settle for sloganeering and public positioning because we are content to engage in a discussion about theoretical people rather than in discussions with real people.

Homosexuality is obviously a major issue facing the church in our time and Christians are grappling with the appropriate way to engage the culture. Dr. Butterfield, however, reminds us that homosexuality is only a symptom of a more significant issue that Christ calls us to address; namely sin. The good news, as she reminds us, is that God has equipped the Church through His word and the message of the gospel to do precisely that. She emphasizes that most of the helpful progress be at the individual level as local Churches reach out in truth and love, engaging those in the homosexual community as real people rather than projects, and patiently sharing the gospel.

Her story is also a powerful reminder that we often do not realize what the people sitting next to us in Church are struggling with or who is not there because they felt too uncomfortable to come. It is a reminder that the first word of the great commission is “go”. It is often not enough just to put an invitation card in a mailbox. We need to be willing to take the message of the Gospel outside of the walls of our meetinghouses.

The latter part of the book is a recounting of how significantly her life has changed since her conversion. It covers a number of different topics and includes mild apologetics for adoption, homeschooling, exclusive psalmody, and hospitality. At times, the latter part of the book is a bit like a proud mother rifling through her purse to show you photos of her children. The tone, however, is always sincere and highlights the fact that Dr. Butterfield and her family are real people who are prayerfully continuing on their journey of faith and confidence in Christ.

This book really challenged me to ask if my Church and I are really committed to engaging with those that are different and may make us uncomfortable. Are we confident enough in the Gospel to share it with the outcasts and those on the margins of society? I recommend this book, particularly the first chapter, to anyone who may be asking these questions, and especially to those who are not.

 * I received a free copy of this book from christianaudio.com as part of their Reviewers Program. Reviews are not required to be positive and the opinions I have expressed are my own.

Unconverted vs. Unreached

Before ascending into heaven, Jesus gave the church a command to evangelize. In what became known as the Great Commission Jesus told His disciples that all authority had been given to Him and they were to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20 ESV)

Clearly one of the main responsibilities of the church is to share the gospel. Since each individual congregation has limited resources, they have to make decisions about how best to fulfill this commission to preach and teach. Recently, I have had a number of conversations about missionary outreach and I am surprised by how often I heard a particular opinion that I would like to address. In at least three of these conversations, well-intentioned believers have told me that they think that their churches should focus on doing missionary work in their local communities. In each of these cases, it was pointed out that there were many needs and many “unreached” people within a few miles of where their church met. These brothers and sisters would prefer that the missionary resources of their church be focused on those local needs rather than sent to the other side of the world.

The desire to see those near us turn to Christ is certainly God honoring. It is also a good thing for us to wish to help meet the needs of those in our own communities, particularly when the needs (both spiritual and physical) in those communities are so great as they are in American cities. The idea that we should focus our attention on the “unreached” people in our own communities, however, fails to make an important distinction. It is true that there are many unconverted people in our communities but it is generally not true that they are unreached. We have to be careful that we do not fail to understand the difference between those that are unconverted and those who are unreached.

In most places in the United States, there are plenty of opportunities for anyone who is interested to find a church, attend a Bible study, or get a Bible of their own. While many people in our country reject the gospel it is typically not because they lack access to people or resources where they can learn about it. In many places in the world, this is not the case. According to The JoshuaProject, there are still an estimated 2.8 billion people that are completely unreached. This means that they live in places where they do not have any access to Bibles, there are no indigenous believers, and they are likely to die without ever hearing the gospel even once.

The local mission of the church is of great importance. We should have a burden for those around us to accept the Gospel and be saved. The spiritual needs in our communities are very great and I do not want to minimize that. Even so, we have to avoid a provincial attitude where we retreat into our own communities and ignore our responsibility to the broader mission of the Church. There remain places where there is no translation of the Bible to read, no preacher to hear, and no believers to share their hope. We must not be indifferent to these needs, Jesus commands otherwise.

If you are interested in thinking about this further, I suggest you listen to the following sermon delivered by Pastor David Platt earlier this year at the T4G conference. Pastor Platt explains how a belief in God’s sovereignty fuels a death defying passion for missions. He highlights the distinction between the unconverted and the unreached and gives a memorable exhortation to the Church to share the gospel with the unreached.

The Thriller Sermon: Entertaining Ourselves to Death

The purpose of the Church is to glorify God. We (the Church) come together to praise God, to worship Him and to build one another up and encourage each other in the knowledge of Him. The pulpit is set apart for the ministry of the Word. That Word is vital to the Church. It is what nourishes the people of God, strengthens them, and transforms them.

At various times on this site and in conversation with other believers I have expressed concern about the infiltration of our marketing and entertainment culture into the worship and ministry of the Church in America. In large sections of evangelical America, we have lost sight of the holiness of God, of reverence for His Word, and of Him as the central object of our worship.

There are no perfect churches just as there are no perfect people. We all struggle with the infiltration of sin in our lives and in our churches. It is not my place or anyone else’s to sit in judgment over the ministers of the Lord as each one will have to give his own account. Nevertheless, we do have a biblical responsibility to respond when those claiming Christ act in ways that dishonor our Savior and the witness of His Church.

Rather than write another article on the unhealthy and unbiblical influence of worldly culture on the Church today I simply ask that you watch this video, taken at the Potters House Church in Denver. This, my friends, is what I have been talking about. Outrageously, at the end of the performance the pastor even says, “If I wasn't the Pastor of this church; I would become a member, Amen. We done brought Michael Jackson back, Amen.” He says this without any indication that he understands the misguided (and borderline blasphemous) nature of those remarks.

(If you do not see the video you can find it here)

Lord God, please have mercy on us, your children. Forgive our weakness and our irreverence. May your Holy Spirit be poured out upon us so that we may stand in awe of your glory, your holiness, your love. Help to open our eyes that we may see the majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ and be filled. May your light so shine in our lives that, as the song says, the things of the world grow strangely dim. 

A Gift Given to Be Given

I was sitting here today reflecting upon the sermon I heard at church yesterday. My pastor was preaching on Deuteronomy 6 and was calling attention to the responsibility that each of us have to communicate the Word of God to the next generation. As I was thinking about this, I realized what an amazing blessing it is to be able to go to church, hear a sermon, or be involved in a Bible study. We typically think of these things in relation to the value they have for us as individuals as though that were the only goal of such learning. There is, however, another reason why we should express our thankful appreciation to God for the teaching of the church.

The Bible says:

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”  (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 ESV)

These references to doorposts, gates, hands, and foreheads show us that the teaching of God is to be such an integral part of our being that we live by it and reflect it in all things that we do. Every thought and every action is to be informed by the Word of God. Notice also, however, that these verses also contain a requirement that the people of God teach their children diligently and talk to them about the teaching of God. Believers are commanded to disciple their children. Jesus even expands this requirement from the immediate family to the broader culture in Matthew 28 when He says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

The people of God are therefore responsible for communicating the revelation of God to others. It is not an option; it is a requirement that we do so. Of course, not every Christian is going to be a teacher or preacher but that does not mean that we are not responsible for sharing the simple Gospel and the basic understanding of who God is. This brings me to the other reason why church is such a blessing. God has required that we share His teaching. In order to share it we need to understand it and be able to communicate it.

The Lord has provided everything necessary to do this in His Word but many of us are not comfortable doing so. God therefore goes beyond just supplying what was necessary and in His grace supplies much more. He gave the gifts of preachers and teachers so that we are led into the Word and so we may learn how to study it, think about it, and apply it. This is not just for our own benefit with regard to our personal salvation and sanctification. It is a help to us in preparing us and encouraging us in the exercise of our responsibility to others. We are able to benefit from the teaching of others so that we would grow in our understanding and be adequately prepared to share with others.

We should not be simply consumers of God’s truth who should shop for teachers as though we are purchasing a car. Church does not exist to be our personal spiritual servant. It exists so that God will be glorified in us and through us. When we understand our own responsibility to live in a way that is consistent with our new life, we begin to appreciate better the value of those gifts that our Father has provided to help us.

Fellowship in the Gospel 2011

I just arrived home from the Fellowship in the Gospel men’s conference http://www.fg11.org/ hosted by Berean Baptist Church in Livonia Michigan. The theme of this year’s conference was Recovering the Gospel: The Ancient Message of Hope. This conference was developed because men of Berean Baptist were so blessed by their trip to the T4G conference in 2006. The T4G conferences are biannual so the men thought it would be a good idea to have a regional men’s conference in the intervening years. The format is similar to T4G where there are plenary and breakout sessions, free resources, discounted books, and panel discussions. It was a great time of fellowship and learning for both me and a few other men from my church who participated. The conference was a great experience and I would like to thank Berean Baptist for hosting the event.

There were two elements of the conference that I felt were particularly good. First, were the sessions by Dr. Sidney Greidanus, Former Pastor, Emeritus Professor at Calvin Theological Seminary, and author of many books including Preaching Christ from the Old Testament. Dr. Greidanus demonstrated how to prepare sermons and teaching material on Old Testament passages in ways that illustrate the person, work, or teaching of Jesus Christ. He explained that if a Jewish Rabbi could preach the same message that we have given in our sermons or classes on Old Testament texts then we have failed to preach the Gospel and have thus missed the most important biblical theme, namely Jesus. He also cautioned that we must remain true to the context and purpose of the Old Testament and be careful not to allegorize or twist scriptures to make them leapfrog to Christ. To do so is not necessary because as Christ showed His disciples on the Emmaus road the pinnacle and central theme of all scripture is Christ. We should therefore ensure when we are teaching and preaching from the Old Testament that we highlight the elements in it that are pointers to Jesus. The material that Dr. Greidanus presented was very helpful in demonstrating how to do this while remaining faithful to a commitment to historical-grammatical interpretation and I can see a number of areas in my teaching and preaching where I can be more Christ focussed using these tools.

The second element that I thought was particularly good were the plenary sessions by Rico Tice, minister of evangelism as All Souls Church in London England. As a result of his passion for evangelism he helped to develop the Christianity Explored materials http://www.christianityexplored.org/. I am generally nervous about canned evangelism programs or tools because I believe that it is the Gospel itself and not techniques that get people saved. I recognize the need to take certain fundamentals of communication into consideration but I do not like the “packaging” of the Gospel as if it were laundry detergent or a time-share in Florida. I told Rico this when I met him and after a few seconds of conversation it became obvious to me that he shared a passion and commitment to the power of the Word of God in his approach to evangelism.

From what I have been able to see (have not had a chance to fully review all the material yet) this is a program that combines a fervent desire to see souls saved with complete confidence that it is God who saves. His “technique” for getting people to a place where he can share the Gospel with them is simply to ask “would you like to read the bible with me?” They either say yes or no so there isn’t any marketing agenda just an explicit desire to discuss the things of God. If they say yes he suggests walking through the Gospel of Mark focusing on four basic themes. By reading the Gospel itself together with someone and asking them about what the text is saying about the identity, mission, and call of Christ contrasted with the blindness of those around Him you can allow the Holy Spirit using the Word to work in the heart of the person. His approach is to let the Gospel tell the Gospel. He also equipped us with some basic organizational and communication tools but the foundation of what he does is to focus on Gospel itself. He also reassured us that even those who are not gifted as teachers could nevertheless be Gospel "sharers". Rico is a very focused and entertaining speaker. His questions are convicting and caused me to realize that evangelism needs to be a more important focus of my own walk and ministry. If you or your church are looking to develop your evangelism programs but want to do so in a Christ centered/bible centered way I recommend that you visit their website linked above and check out their material.

In addition to these speakers there were other speakers handling a series of topics in breakout sessions, wonderful worship music, prayer time, and fellowship opportunities. It is truly a blessing to have such good and Gospel focused speakers and leaders at a local conference. In addition to the human resources they also gave away some free books and there were many others at a good discount in the conference bookstore. This was my first year attending but I am planning on coming back for the next one and if you are a man, or know one, who is looking for conservative Christian teaching and fellowship I recommend that you consider attending the next one in 2013.

May the Lord bless all those who attended and also all those who helped put the conference together and worked to support it. 

Religious Intolerance on Facebook?

Over the past few weeks I have had multiple people tell me (without me asking) that they have witnessed some level of resistance or even hostility from others on Facebook and other social networking sites to Christian content. A couple of the people simply mentioned that there were comments to the effect that people shouldn’t use the site as a platform for proselytizing. One person showed me a post by someone who was getting people to support the idea that religious expression be banned from the site. Another person even shared with me some very hostile comments to their attempts to share Christian ideas resulting in this brother feeling the need to explain his purpose in doing so. 

Believers should not be surprised that others get agitated by the posting of Christian content. The Gospel of Jesus is an offense and unless the Holy Spirit opens the eyes and hearts of those who have rejected Christ they cannot begin to understand why that message is so important and precious to us. Paul explains to the Christians in Corinth that “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor. 2:14) Notice that this isn’t just a reluctance to accept spiritual things it is actually an inability.

In our natural state we want to be the ruler of our own lives and our hardness and sinful rejection of God is so great that we literally have a moral inability to understand or accept spiritual truths. It is only by the grace of God through the preaching of the Word that anyone can submit themselves to the Lord. Those who are not submitting themselves to the Lord, recognizing their own depravity and relying upon Christ to be their only righteousness do not want to be confronted with the things of God and would much rather avoid them. Jesus said “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”(John 3:19-20)

Paul explains that those who minister the Gospel are bearers of life to those who believe but are bearers of death to those who reject the message. “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life And who is adequate for these things?” (2 Cor. 2:14-16) The words of the scripture are not a comfort to those who are resisting God. The words of God require a response and the weight of such things is more than most people want to deal with. We are breezy and light people and do not wish to be confronted with such serious and penetrating questions. The problem with God is that He doesn’t leave you with escape routes. Ultimately you must either submit to Him or continue in rebellion. He leaves no middle ground.

As a result the concept that expressions of our beliefs could ever be banned from Facebook or any other place demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of us on the part of those who are unbelievers. For those who are truly believers there is simply no area of our thinking that isn’t predicated upon God’s Word (or so it is our desire). Every expression of the believer, whether social, economic, political, etc. is an expression of our faith. Although we may have much in common with non-Christian friends on the surface the reality is that we are living in two completely different worlds. As we learn more about one another we will quickly begin to see that our experience of the world around us overlaps very little. The deeper we go the more it becomes apparent that those who are in Christ are different on a fundamental level. Christianity is the ultimate meta-narrative that requires all other experiences to conform to its Truth. Accepting Christ fundamentally changes the very way you think and experience the world. The transformation is not immediate in its comprehensiveness but it is sufficiently profound to be described as a new birth. Spiritually the person you were is dead and a new creation takes its place. This new creation is being transformed into the very image of Christ.

Despite this the one thing we know that we do have in common with those who are agitated by our faith is that we too are sinners. We too have a natural tendency to resist God in our old nature. It is only by His grace that we have come to understand and to be filled with the love of Christ. Indeed we are example enough that there is no sinner who God cannot save. We are set apart simply on the basis of what He has done and there is nothing inherent in us that make us different from them. They may not understand it but we know it is an act of love on our part to witness to them in the hope that God would save them. The Lord has said that He will in no way cast out any who come to Him and Paul reminds us that they cannot come unless someone preaches to them. We must have a sense of urgency about our faith. We must believe that it is in the power of God to overcome resistance and to cause even the most stubborn sinners to be born again. We must love our neighbors enough to tell them that the house is on fire and that they must wake up or perish!

Social networking sites are offering new ways for people to interact that are allowing some of the compartmentalization of our lives to be broken down. We can often see what people are thinking about things we say or do in ways that before might not have been as obvious. The nature of people, however, has not changed. Unfortunately most of the Christian content on these sites is fairly trite but occasionally someone will put their heart out there or share the Word of God. In those cases we can expect some flack and that is OK. Let us remember the words of our Lord, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.” (John 15:18-20) and like Paul let us be encouraged by the power of the word being able to honestly say along with him that we are not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God for salvation for all who believe.

I pray for the encouragement of all of you who are sharing the Word through Facebook and other similar sites. I pray that your ministering in that way would glorify Christ recalling that “the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy and the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” (James 3:17-18). I pray also that there would be many who would come to hear the Word and believe as a result of what you do.

Pushing the Envelope

It is the desire of every Christian to see others come to Christ. We are always looking for ways to introduce the gospel to people and to best use our resources to witness to others and glorify the Lord. One of the final commands of our Lord was for the church to evangelize. In Matthew 28 he tells his disciples “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in1 the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”. Many of us, however, feel inadequate as evangelists and are intimidated by the process thinking that we may not have the training or experience to do it properly. Many of us feel much more comfortable inviting others to come to church with us rather than trying to witness the gospel on our own. We feel that if we can just get people to the church they would have the best opportunity of having their questions answered.

As I was driving on a local freeway I noticed that a local church  had posted a billboard that said “Northridge Church is for Hypocrites”. Apparently there are two other billboards around town, one that says “Northridge Church is for Liars”, and the other which says “Northridge Church is for Losers”. I am not sure exactly what the purpose of this ad campaign is although I have to assume that they are trying to generate some buzz and get people to visit by playing upon certain stereotypes that unbelievers often have of those who attend church. I am not sure how effective this particular campaign will be but I assume they will undoubtedly get a few more people to check out their website to see who they are. Do the ends justify the means when it comes to this kind of thing?

The shift of church services from a worship focus to an evangelistic focus has been underway for many generations and is the result of a number of social as well as theological developments. I doubt that most Christians would oppose having an evangelistic element in the church service but making the worship service the primary evangelical platform has led to some curious innovations over the years. One is an increase in the sophistication of the advertising and marketing of church services. Particular churches are branded and then they market to their target demographic. I believe that the campaign mentioned above is an example of that.

Another is the expansion of the “ministry” activities to include a broad range of opportunities for people to socialize that leaders believe will appeal to those they are trying to reach. These attempts have often been criticized as a lack of reliance on the Holy Spirit, the power of the gospel and as appeals to the flesh. This is not a new argument. The following cartoon appeared in the fundamentalist journal The King’s Business in May of 1919.

The modern trend, however, is for this expansion of activities to become part of the worship service itself. For Easter last year a church in Texas was raffling off cars and other high priced prizes in order to get people to come. Most of us have seen or heard of similar examples. There have been many very well done examinations of these trends written and I am not going to try in this short space to duplicate those efforts but I will leave you with this observation:

Our generation is inundated with sophisticated marketing approaches. We are used to being able to customize our environment to suit our own individual tastes. Truth and community have become customizable. We are able to get our news only from those who agree with us. Using our ipods and mp3 players we continually feed back to ourselves the kind of music and entertainment that we have selected for ourselves. Using social networks we can even control how our friends and family interact with us to some degree. Unfortunately we are able to insulate ourselves from most challenges to our settled way of thinking. In this environment the best thing we can do to be relevant is to focus on the plain, straightforward preaching of the foolishness of the gospel. We all need to hear that there is God who is much bigger than we are who demands that we meet Him on His terms. We need to hear that we are corrupt sinners whose only hope is to cry out for the grace of God without which we remain an offense to His Holiness. We need to know that by the power of His Spirit we can become a new creation no longer bound to our lying, hypocritical, and inadequate old natures.

I pray that this is what Northridge is planning to do.

Book Review: Thabiti Anyabwile, Gospel for Muslims

Gospel for Muslims: An Encouragement to Share Christ with Confidence By Thabiti Anyabwile / Moody Publishers * There are several million Muslims living in the United States today. How can you effectively communicate the good news with them despite profound theological differences? As a convert from Islam to Christianity, Anyabwile offers insight to help you focus on the people rather than the religious system---and communicate your faith clearly and confidently! 144 pages, softcover from Moody.

One of the original plans for the blog was to provide quick reviews of various books that might be of interest. I realized today that there weren’t any reviews posted yet so here is the first one to get us kicked off!

When I first saw this title I assumed that it was going to be one of books that would point out a few verses from the Koran that might be helpful, remind not to say certain things that Muslims might find offensive, and provide other “methods” for sharing my faith with Muslims.

It does do some of that but I was pleasantly surprised by what I found within. Anyabwile focuses upon the power in the gospel and encourages us to have confidence in that power in order to witness effectively to Muslims (or anyone else). He reminds us that Muslims have the same spiritual needs and that same spiritual remedy as any other human being. The book was encouraging and was a great blend of sound theology and good practical advice. I have now read a couple of his books and have heard a few of his presentations and Thabiti Anyabwile is quickly moving up my list of teachers to recommend. I shall begin by recommending Gospel for Muslims: An Encouragement to Share Christ with Confidence to anyone who has a heart for evangelism in general, and for Muslims in particular.