Christian Living, Culture, Politics, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Vulgar Authenticity

Who is your favorite celebrity? Your favorite political pundit? Your favorite politician?

Why are you drawn to these individuals? Maybe it is their personality. Perhaps it is because you respect their convictions. Possibly, it is because of their unique style.

Taylor Swift might be the most beloved celebrity in the world. Many have commented that one of the reasons that Swift has cultivated such a devoted following is her accessibility and down-to-earth qualities, from what she wears to the love stories she writes about in her music.

Vulgar Authenticity
Christian Living, Biblical Studies, Religion, Spiritual Growth, Theology
John Beeson
The Faith of Unbelief

Bart Ehrman has perhaps done more to undermine the credibility of the Bible than anyone else in my lifetime. But his story didn’t begin that way. Ehrman is a New Testament scholar and skeptic. Ehrman grew up in a Christian home, attended a conservative Bible school, and then found his way to a liberal seminary where his faith in the God of the Bible unraveled. That seminary happens to be the seminary I would attend a couple of decades later.

For Ehrman, everywhere he looks he sees holes in the biblical story. The inconsistencies that he sees have led him to determine that he cannot trust in the God of the Bible.

The Faith of Unbelief
Christian Living, Culture, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Don't Numb Your Feelings

“Don’t listen to your feelings; remember what Jesus did for you!”

“Don’t be guided by your feelings; listen to what God commands you to do!”

In just the past week, I heard both of these warnings. Two very different Christian speakers urged their audiences to shut down their feelings. These admonitions resonate. They contain truth. It is correct that our feelings don’t override truth, nor do our emotions negate what God has done. Neither do our feelings give us an out for what God commands us to do.

Don't Numb Your Feelings
History, Spiritual Growth, Suffering, Wisdom
John Beeson
Lord, Reach Your Justice Down

I had outsized emotions as a child. Games, especially, would get the best of me, whether cards or boardgames or sports. In response to a stroke of bad luck, a hot surge of anger would erupt, followed quickly by tears and then embarrassment.

Emotions are God’s gift to us in many ways. They are one of his kind ways of showing us where our deep attachments lie.

Our son started his freshman year at the University of Arizona this fall. It’s been a great experience for him, but not without its adjustments. The climate of a secular school is quite different than the Christian school he graduated from

Lord, Reach Your Justice Down
Culture, Generosity, Nature, Relationships
John Beeson
Marshmallows and Friends

Most have heard of the famous Stanford marshmallow experiment. In 1970, psychologist Walter Mischel invited kids into his lab. A child was offered a marshmallow that they could eat, or, if they waited until the researcher returned, they were given a second marshmallow. About one-third of the kids waited approximately fifteen minutes for the additional reward.

The study then tracked those children over time and found that children who waited for the second reward tended to have higher SAT scores and lower body mass indexes. Later tests have challenged those outcomes, but it hasn’t stopped parents everywhere from running the experiment on their kids, often with humorous results.

Marshmallows and Friends

anger

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Anger, Retaliation, and My Scion xB

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Anger, Retaliation, and My Scion xB

I drove a little manual 2005 Scion xB for about eight years. It finally gave out after 230,000 miles. I loved that little car. It was fuel-efficient and required minimal maintenance. But it is undeniably close to the least powerful car on the road. I’m pretty sure that on its specs, next to 0-60mph, it says, “Eventually!”

Unless I was lined up against someone from a nearby retirement community, I was the last car to reach the speed limit coming off a stoplight. Unsurprisingly, more aggressive drivers with more powerful vehicles tended to treat my little Scion like a safety cone on the road, more like an obstacle than a fellow traveler.

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What To Do When I Can't Feel

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What To Do When I Can't Feel

“I’m not sure how to explain how I’m feeling.” I’ve heard a variation of this phrase dozens (probably hundreds) of times in my office, predominantly by men. They look down into the well of emotion and all they see is blackness. Others struggle with the ability to identify their emotions beyond angry or happy. Some people feel disconnected or indifferent toward others or in response to events. Emotionally numb people may struggle with expressing outwardly what is felt inwardly.

If you see yourself or a loved one in this description, you might be recognizing emotional numbness.

Emotional numbing is an understandable response to protect ourselves from pain. It can arise from trauma or simple emotional neglect.

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Why Do I Have To Keep On Forgiving?

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Why Do I Have To Keep On Forgiving?

Why do I have to keep forgiving him?

I’ve heard it many times as a pastor. It’s said with weariness and hurt, or bitterness and anger, or confusion and longing. It can mean at least four things.

  • “It hurts too much to keep forgiving him for repeated sins.”

  • “Can’t I just overlook her sin against me?”

  • “He hurt me so deeply that he doesn’t deserve forgiveness.”

  • “Why am I still hurting over an offense when I said I forgave her?”

What does God’s Word have to say about each of these situations?

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. May a Christian Gamble? Jim Newheiser warns, “Gambling is an attempt to circumvent God’s way of gaining wealth. Even if you do not expect to become wealthy personally through gambling, you are participating in a system that undermines the work ethic of our entire society.”

  2. Public Trust in Pastors Falls to Historic Lows: Aaron Earls reports, “Trust in pastors fell for the third straight year and reached an all-time low. Around 1 in 3 Americans (34%) rate the honesty and ethical standards of clergy as high or very high, according to the latest Gallup survey.”

  3. Not Enough of Me to Go Around: Kristen Wetherel reflects, “I want so badly to “help [everyone] when [they want me to].” I have told my daughter that I’m not an octopus—but boy, do I wish I was. (At least in the sense of having eight capacities at once. I do not wish to become a sea creature with tentacles rather than arms…).”

  4. Why Should I Forgive? Guy Richards confesses, “Deep down inside, I don’t really want to forgive my wife, my son, or my co-worker—at least not initially. I want instead to hold on to my anger and pride, knowing that I really was right all along. I want to prop up my feelings of superiority and self-respect and to feel vindicated for acting the way that I did.”

  5. Local Man Crushing Bible-in-a-Year Plan After Switching to Jesus Storybook Bible: Funny stuff from the Babylon Bee.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. Most Americans Embrace Spirituality and Religion, Even Atheists: Also of note is the large gap between spirituality and religion. Aaron Earls reports, “Yet even among the quarter of Americans who do not identify with a religion (atheists, agnostics, and those who say they are “nothing in particular”), most still describe themselves as a spiritual person.”

2. Characteristics of Churches That Keep Young Adults: This is a great addition to the two posts I recently wrote on raising teens to love the church. Aaron Earls begins with the importance of sincerity. He says, “When teenagers see church members as insincere, they are more likely to drop out. Relatively few young adults say the church they attended as a teenager was insincere, but dropouts say this more often.”

3. One of the Ugliest Sights in the World: Tim Challies begins with a scene we’ve all witnessed, “One of the ugliest sights in the world is that of a child who rules over his parents. We have all seen it, I’m sure. We have seen parents who tiptoe around their child’s cries, their child’s demands, their child’s outbursts of anger. They will do whatever he dictates, give whatever he commands. We look on with horror, knowing they have set their child on a path to destruction.”

4. Brothers, We Should Stink: Thabiti Anyabwile explains that godly pastors live among the sheep. He says, “Do you know how to tell the difference between sheep and wolves in sheep’s clothing? Sheep eat grass; wolves eat sheep — it doesn't matter how prettily they are dressed.”

5. What is Christianity? This is a simple and clear three-minute visual presentation of the gospel.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. Can We Do Better Than the Enneagram? Psychologist Sarah Schnitker believes we can. She says, “At present, there is scant empirical evidence that the Enneagram accurately describes human personality or spirituality. The nine types do not align with any scientifically evaluated models of personality.”

2. The Dangerous Love of Ease: Greg Morse warns us, “We might assume that there is no danger in a world that feels so safe. If no one is violently banging at the door, we assume we don’t need the same strength as poor or persecuted Christians. We do. We too need Christ’s strength in the prosperity we face.”

3. Anger with God Amidst Great Pain: Brad Hambrick considers how to walk with someone who is angry with God. “As a theologian, our first question might be, “Is it right for our friend to be angry at God?” As a counselor, our first question would be better stated, “Do you mind telling me about the things that have been hard and the ways you see God being involved with your pain?” That doesn’t mean there is a contradiction between being a theologian and being a counselor. It does mean that the order in which topics enter the conversation is likely to be different.”

4. You Weren’t Meant to Be Isolated: Michael Kelley reflects, “COVID has robbed us of many things, but it also presents us as church leaders with this opportunity—to help people embrace the nature of the true community of the faith.”

5. YouTube Wins 2020 Teacher of the Year Award: From Babylon Bee (with a wink, of course), “"Where some teachers' unions have failed our students, YouTube has been there 24/7," said the event's emcee. ‘YouTube has done a better job than almost any schoolteacher in 2020, instructing kids in any practical topic they wish to know about. YouTube never gets tired or cranky or hungry, and if you don't like the worldview of a particular video, you can just turn it off instead of being brainwashed.’”

6. How Amazon’s Super-Complex Shipping System Works: Holy moly. Crazy stuff. The logistics involved are mind-boggling.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. COVID Vaccines May Work, but are They Safe? I appreciate this well-considered conversation of vaccines by Dr. Charles Horton at World. He explains how the vaccines work and whether or not they are ethically sourced. If you like this piece, I recommend subscribing to the World and Everything In It podcast.

2. When Looking for a Church, Beware the ‘Right Fit’: Excellent piece by Australian pastor, Murray Campbell. He shares, “There are good reasons for joining and leaving a church, and not so good reasons. There are sensible reasons and sinful reasons. But among the most common is what I often call a spiritualized version of natural selection.”

3. In Praise of the Average Pastor: Darryl Dash with a moving post. He begins, “Few search committees look for one. Few young men aspire to become one. But it’s what most churches need. I’m grateful for the average pastor.”

4. Should We Expect Our Jobs to Make us Happy? Barnabas Piper uses a great metaphor of weak household hooks and compares them to the weight of our happiness we try to hang on our jobs.

5. Do Not Trust Your Anger: Ray Ortlund begins, “Our world, including our Christian circles, gives us opportunities galore for anger. It’s not as though provocations lie on only one side of the theological, political, or cultural divides. Bob Dylan was right: ‘Everything is broken.’ No wonder, then, that a whole lot can light the fuse of our anger.”

6. Think Twice Before Changing Churches: 2020 might feel like exactly the right time to change churches. Ivan Mesa argues why that isn’t the case. He concludes, “Sometimes faithfulness means walking out. More often than not, though, it means staying put.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.        How the West Became Self-Obsessed: An intriguing interview with William Storr, a book on the history of Western Individualism: "This tendency to focus on the self, on the individual, runs deep in our cultural history, and it’s not something we can easily escape."

2.       Americans Believe in God, Psychics, and Crystals: In Pew Research's recent study, they found, "Four in 10 Americans (42 percent) believe spiritual powers rest in physical objects like mountains, trees, and crystals... A similar number (41 percent) believe in psychics. A third (33 percent) believe in reincarnation, while 29 percent believe in astrology."

3.       6 No-No's for Relating to Your Husband: The whole of Robert Lewis's list is good, but I particularly appreciate #6: "Never fall more in love with your kids than with your husband. That’s easy to do as the years go by. I call it “the great swap.” You get caught up in all the things the kids are doing, often seeing more of them than you do your husband. What you don’t notice is the growing distance developing between you and the man you vowed years ago to give your life to."

4.       6 No-No's for Relating to Your Wife: Mary May Larmoyeaux's list is also good, especially #2: "Don't tell your wife how to feel: ...please don’t say, “You shouldn’t be afraid or worried about that.” The fact is, we are afraid or worried about that. Just acknowledge our feelings. Tell us that you will pray for us. Ask us what you can do to help us not be afraid/worried, etc."

5.       Dealing with Your Anger: Ed Welch is my favorite writer on the topic of anger. He reflects, "Some counselors notice that people get tied up in knots when they hide or stuff their anger. They will tell you to deal with your anger by getting in touch with how you feel and then expressing it. “Get it off your chest. Say exactly what you think. Give ‘em a piece of your mind.” Other counselors have noticed how destructive people become when they express anger. They will counsel you to control your anger. Psychotherapy, medication, exercise, and meditation are just some of the different ways they recommend for defusing your anger and calming yourself down. So which is it, venting or calming? Actually, God has a different way for you to deal with your anger."

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