The perenially sane George Will just weighed in on some very bad news for climate-change doomsdayists:

On Nov. 2, The Wall Street Journal’s Jeffrey Ball reported some inconvenient data. Soon after the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—it shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Thinking Man’s Thinking Man—reported that global warming is “unequivocal,” there came evidence that the planet’s temperature is beginning to cool. “That,” Ball writes, “has led to one point of agreement: The models are imperfect.”

Models are no better or worse than their assumptions, and Ball notes how dicey these assumptions can be: “The effects of clouds, for example, are unclear. Depending on their shape and altitude, clouds can either trap heat, warming the earth, or reflect it, cooling the planet.” It gets worse: “The way that greenhouse gases affect cloud formation—and how clouds in turn affect temperature—remains a subject of debate. Different models treat these factors differently.”

Read the whole piece. I will never be mistaken for an expert on climate change, but with many others, I have wondered about climate change for some time.  It’s clear that more data is needed before this question is settled, but I wonder whether this whole episode doesn’t show us the importance of not jumping on cultural bandwagons.  Better to let all the data come in and give oneself time to think hard and well about matters before adopting a whole new position.

Evangelicals need to be quick to care for the world and the “environment”.  But we need to be slow to jump at whatever pet cause the culture is trumpeting.  The intelligentsia can be very right, but they can also be very wrong.  Discipleship at the feet of Christ requires that we use the full measure of our minds for His glory (Romans 12:1-2).

From an Associated Press story linked on John Starke’s blog:

Trinity College’s American Religious Identification Survey released this year showed New England overtaking the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region in the country. Twenty-two percent of respondents here said they have no religious faith of any kind, highest in the country.

In a Gallup poll this year, all six New England states were in the Top 10 least religious in the country, with Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts claiming the top four spots.

The story describes a gathering at a church plant pastored by a Southern Seminary grad and former Clifton Baptist Church member, Chris Bass:

On a recent fall Sunday, a younger group of about 50 people gathered to hear Bass’s message of salvation. The hymn “How Great Thou Art” was sung to a contemporary tune and echoed through an airy sanctuary that could fit seven times more worshippers. During fellowship afterward, Watertown resident Ralph Filicchia said he was drawn by curiosity. He said local churches have been killed by the “poison” of liberal theology, and he was eager to support a conservative church.

But the 74-year-old said he’s lived in New England long enough to avoid rosy predictions. Churches that preach traditional dogma, such as Redeemer Fellowship, can be branded intolerant.

“Up here, it’s tough, it’s tough,” Filicchia said. “It always has been.”

Read the whole thing. This church was planted by the NETS church planting residency program in Vermont, a program I’ve discussed numerous times on this blog.  In addition, note the PCA pastor mentioned, Doug Warren; a number of my close friends in college attended the church he pastors and benefited hugely from it.

There are encouraging developments, spiritually speaking, in New England.  They may be small at times, and they may be mixed with much frustration and prolonged discouragement, but the Lord has by no means given up on this region.  Here’s hoping for many more to join Bass, Warren, Wes Pastor and many others and take up the long, hard, and eternally rewarding work of New England ministry.

(Photo: AP)

An update from the Henry Center on its website.  We’ve been pushing the site in recent days, and it’s great to give a very brief public report:

What do folks like John Piper, Justin Taylor, Millard Erickson, and Thabiti Anyabwile have in common?

Answer: They all check the HCTU website and listen to its content.

Plenty of other folks have been, too. Let us give you some exciting stats that show how successful the year has been for the Center:

• Over 100 people tuned in via webcast for the Ravi Zacharias lecture
• Top five pages on the HCTU site in the last year: 1) Media, 2) Blog, 3) Trinity Debates, 4) Piper-Carson, 5) Scripture & Ministry
• In the last year, between 15,000 and 20,000 unique visitors have browsed the site (!)
• Traffic on the site in general is up nearly 200% from previous years
• Over 1000 people watched the Ware-Grudem debate from one year ago, including people from Australia, Germany, China, and numerous other countries

There’s a snapshot for you.  We at the Center want you to know that we are committed to providing excellent content, offered for free, that will benefit the Lord’s church as it seeks knowledge of God, understanding of the Almighty, in pursuit of His maximal glory.

So please–keep checking the site, and encourage others to do the same.  We’re thankful that folks like John Piper, Justin Taylor, Millard Erickson, Thabiti Anyabwile, and you are doing just that.

*******

Plenty more to come in coming days: a Rich Mouw lecture, a debate on evangelism of the Jewish community, and a conference in July 2010 in Tokyo, among many other things.

Technology changes us.  We’re often aware of how helpful it is, and thus we rush to use and apply it.  But we’re not often aware of the effect it has on us.

You may recall the seminal 2008 article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by The Atlantic writer Nicholar Carr (his blog is engrossing).  In the piece, Carr explores how using the use of Internet technology affects the way we think and act.  Carr notes that he has noticed the diminishing of his own attention span since using Google.  For those of us (myself included) who make extensive use of cutting-edge technology, the essay is a must-read. (Illustration: Guy Billout)

I have a keen personal interest in the devolution of thinking.  But I have a greater interest in the devolution of morality, and specifically, Christian morality.  How does this relate to Google and technology?  It’s actually quite simple.

As I noted above, technology does not only better our lives.  It has negative influences as well.  Al Mohler has written of the “morality of knowledge,” a matter he tied to the development of the atomic bomb.  That is, as our capacity to create and master technology increases, so too does our capacity to wreak havoc on the earth.  Even if technological innovations are morally neutral, after all, we are inherently sinful.  Whatever we develop, then, we will use for good–and for evil.

Let me make a connection here of a much smaller magnitude.  I want to suggest that our constant connection to the Internet, supplied to many of us by constant access to the Internet through computers and, more recently, smartphones like the iPhone, is tempting many of us to decrease our attention span, focus on our own narrow (often silly) interests, and live less kindly than we should.  How on earth could this be so?

We can use our iPhones for good purposes–getting directions, accessing needed emails, finding phone numbers for places to call, and so on.  I use mine for things like that.  But with our laptops, we can also be tempted to use them as social crutches, means by which we can evade classroom lulls, boring spans, unwanted conversation partners, and more.  Do a quick test–have you done this recently?  How often?  Regularly?

I know I’m certainly tempted by my laptop and my phone to tune out from the long, slow, mundane rhythms of everyday life.  The Internet, however and wherever it’s accessed, promises instant gratification of my small desires.  As I’ve said, this can be fine–who would begrudge a traveler in the airport checking his phone, or a student writing a quick email to his wife in class?–but it also can be personally harmful.  Technology of whatever contemporary form can provide us an easy means of escape from the realities of life that are meant to shape us.  Many of us are letting it do just this kind of work.  Our character, meant to glorify God on a moment-by-moment basis, is suffering as a result.

What are some scenarios in which this might play out?

• At church, you might busy yourself on your phone instead of talking to the awkward person who sometimes annoys you.
• In class, you might update your Facebook page instead of developing character–not to mention actually learning something–by listening to your teacher.
• At home, you might be texting on your phone, or watching funny Youtube videos, instead of getting on the floor and playing with your kids.
• When in the grocery store, you might call someone you can’t really focus on and prattle on, meanwhile avoiding small but potentially meaningful interaction (and witness) with folks around you.

How do I know that things like this can happen?  I’ve done them (gasp).  As a sinner, a cheerful modern narcissist, I may do them again.  Also, it may rain in Seattle at some point in the future.

But I am trying not do these things.  I want to be able to slog through the tough stuff of life.  I want to be able to focus on a 45-minute sermon so that I can grow in godliness.  I want to be able to learn from a two-hour lecture so that I can think well about lots of things–and not just the things I deem worthy of learning (which may not be the only things the Lord wants me to learn).  I want to be able to minister grace not only through long conversation on plane rides, but in small doses to the people in my church, not to mention my grocery store.

I want, in short, to be a thoughtful, focused, kind person, a person of strong character, who doesn’t reach at every spare moment to gratify his small and narrow desires.  I don’t want to be That Guy–and he is legion–whose emails and texts, often featuring insightful sports commentary and inside humor are so compelling that he can’t look me in the eye while I ask him about how his family is doing.  This kind of person is common nowadays.  We can all be tempted to be him.  But he’s not a kind person.  He has, in some areas, weak character.  He is missing the opportunity to glorify God in the small, mundane, seemingly meaningless things of our earthly sojourn.

I’m going to use technology–hopefully cutting-edge technology–but I want to use it wisely and well.  I want to be a modern person, but I want lots of traditional stuff, traditional fiber, to inform how I live.  I want to be able to think long and deeply; to listen intently; to focus extensively; to converse meaningfully; to extend grace continually; and to glorify God relentlessly. I want to use technology; I don’t want it to use–and weaken–me.

Is Google making us stupid?  In some ways, I would say yes.  Are iPhones making us unkind?  I fear that they are.  If we are to use technology well, it seems to me that we need to think hard about this question, and questions like it, and constantly recommit ourselves to capturing every second, every minute of our days to give glory to our great God and Savior.

The new 9Marks eJournal just arrived, and it’s on–take a deep breath here–church discipline.  I know, right–why don’t they settle down and pick a single issue to focus on already?  Good grief.

I’m just kidding.  In actuality, the new issue looks typically helpful.  Some of you will know that I have a particular affection for the writings of one Greg Gilbert, he of Capitol Hill Baptist Church.  Greg has a nice review of a hot new book called Deep Church written by a PCA pastor named Jim Belcher that includes some very helpful comments on unity, gospel, and how the two relate in our day.

Here’s a nice chunk (read it all–Greg is a punchy but deep penman):

The real irony of Deep Church is that Belcher actually does a pretty good job of laying out the real, substantive, and ultimately fellowship-breaking issues that stand between emergents and traditional evangelicals, but his whole stated project of finding common ground on which those two camps can reunite falls completely apart, I think, in the first few pages of his book. Let me show you why I say that.

In the book’s introduction, Belcher recounts a meeting between Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, and John Piper. The meeting ended badly, with Piper telling Pagitt, “You should never preach,” because Pagitt rejected what Belcher strangely calls “Piper’s view of atonement,” which I have to assume is penal substitutionary atonement. As Piper summed it up, because they rejected penal substitutionary atonement, Pagitt and Jones were “rejecting the gospel in toto.”

Now, this is not the place to rehearse the biblical case for penal substitutionary atonement. I and others have done that elsewhere. So let me just skip to the conclusion of that case and say that Piper is right: To reject the idea of Jesus dying in the place of sinners, taking their punishment on himself for their sins, is to reject the gospel in toto. And therefore it is to make any sort of union between yourself and traditional evangelicalism impossible. To reject penal substitution is to reject the gospel, and to reject the gospel is to put oneself outside traditional evangelicalism.

Gilbert goes on to conclude the point as follows:

Knowing what Belcher was trying to do with this book, I entirely expected him to try to show later in the book how emergent leaders don’t in fact reject penal substitutionary atonement. I expected him to quote a passage here or there in one of their writings which leaves open the possibility of penal substitution. That never happens. Quite to the contrary, Belcher concludes in his sixth chapter, titled “Deep Gospel,” that the emergent church (represented here by Brian McLaren) is indeed guilty of “gospel reductionism” (118). “Nowhere,” Belcher says, “does [McLaren] mention…the doctrines of atonement, justification, union with Christ, or our need to be forgiven” (118). True, Belcher makes that statement about a certain article in which McLaren is claiming to articulate the gospel, but his point is that he doesn’t find those doctrines anywhere in McLaren’s writings.

But then, if that’s the case, what’s up with all this hope for a reunion?  How exactly do you find a “third way” between affirming the gospel and not affirming the gospel?  Yes, of course, Belcher softens his hit on the emergents by saying that traditional evangelicals are guilty of “gospel reductionism,” too. They “make the opposite mistake” of “car[ing] only about their own selves” and ignoring the kingdom of God, he says. But even setting that infuriating straw man aside for a moment, wouldn’t you think that when Belcher finally realized—after a third reading!—that Brian McLaren in fact does not affirm the gospel of forgiveness of sins through the penal substitutionary death of Jesus, he would maybe temper some of the “reunion” talk?

Amen to that.  It’s right to want Christians to unite around the gospel.  Problems arise, however, when people who profess to be Christians won’t affirm the core truths of the gospel.  Who on earth would think that it makes sense to pursue unity of this kind?  And why would a pastor from the PCA, a denomination doing such great good in our day, argue along these lines?

The latest from Ben Peays and The Gospel Coalition:

The Gospel Coalition is pleased to welcome 10 Million Words — a new blog by Tim Challies.

Over the next year Challies will read and review all of The New York Times bestsellers (nearly 200!). The aim of this project is to learn about American culture through the pages of the country’s best-selling books. We at TGC trust this project will serve pastors by providing insight into what Americans are thinking and feeling through an analysis of the popular literature of the day.

The TGC revolution continues.  This should be a big project, one worth checking regularly.  Tim is a terrific writer, a sharp thinker, and, most importantly, a guy who loves a big God and His gospel.  I’m personally looking forward to reading his thoughts on today’s bestseller’s.

And keep your eye on Ben Peays–seriously, what else is he going to pull off?

A number of fun things for your Internet consumption today.

1. Have you heard of The Swell Season?  It’s the duo that produced the film “Once.” Excellent music.  You can stream most of the cd online.

2. You read this blog, so you know that I can’t resist a good dunk every now and then.  This guy is, to use the technical term, ridiculous.

3. Another great article from Salvo (seriously, check that site out) on the lack of heroes in today’s films.  Insightful.

4. Pray for Hunter Baker to find some time to write up this excellent presentation on the challenges before Christian colleges that aspire to significant cultural influence.  Keep checking evangel–it’s really well done so far.

5. Just heard about this: Gentlemen Broncos, from the guy behind Napoleon Dynamite.  Looks funny.

6. A parody worth viewing: “Cletus Take the Reel.” Two things got me: the slow-mo, and the fat guy singing falsetto.

7. The Weekly Standard on the “American addiction to overreaction.”

–Have a richly edifying weekend, all.

Hunter Baker is a sharp dude out of Houston Baptist University who just published a piece on the Salvo magazine website entitled “Facts Evasion: When it Comes to Sex, the Left Hates Science.” I commend the piece to you–it’s apologetically quite useful.  Hunter just published The End of Secularism, I might add, which will make you much smarter than you are now if you read it.

In Hunter’s article, he takes aim at the common misconception that the political left works from a scientific standpoint on matters of social policy while conservatives work from a merely ideological perspective.  His article makes several excellent points, and I’m going to block quote a big section of it because it is highly worth your time as a thoughtful Christian person engaging cultural matters for the glory of Christ:

How well does it work to encourage promiscuous sex accompanied by birth control pills and condom use? Ask an obstetrician-gynecologist about the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases in young women. The rate is exceptionally high. We may well reap a demographic disaster of infertility down the road. Let’s pray that P. D. James, who wrote The Children of Men, is no prophet.

Abortions continue to be performed in huge numbers despite the past assurances of some on the left that modern birth control would eliminate the need for the grisly procedure. And of the children who are born, an alarmingly high number are born to single mothers. As a group, these children are substantially more likely to do poorly in school, abuse drugs, commit crimes, require governmental assistance, and serve time in jail—and to see the cycle repeated when they have children of their own.

Is it a scientific outlook that would maintain that this state of affairs is somehow conducive to human flourishing? Or would the evidence-driven observer be more likely to affirm that sex within marriage is far more advantageous to women than promiscuity? A more logical mind could also see very well that social support for traditional marriage would help with the recurring problem of convincing men to raise their offspring rather than simply siring them.

And let us dwell for a moment on the record of the secular left’s “rational” approach in the matter of procreation. In the case of the unborn child, for example, pro-choicers for a long time stubbornly clung to the notion that the child inside the womb was no more than a cluster of cells, undifferentiated tissue, and/or a tumor-like growth. They maintained this stance long after Lennart Nilsson’s landmark photos of fetuses were published in Life magazine in 1965, and even beyond the advent and regular use of ultrasound technology.

It has only been within the past decade, when major corporations began using images of unborn children in their advertising and parents began purchasing ultra-detailed images of their in utero babies, that supporters of broad abortion rights began to abandon the dehumanizing and, yes, anti-scientific language of the fetus as inert matter. Some years ago, the famed feminist Naomi Wolf broke ranks with her side just enough to plead for recognition of the humanity of the fetus, lest the battle be lost through a failure to acknowledge what is obvious to non-ideologues.

The whole piece is worth reading, and Baker’s chief argument is worth noting and using extensively.  We Christians are not behind the 8-ball when it comes to science.  We’re squarely in line with it.  To an extent that we too rarely cite, it is on our side.

Too often we operate culturally from a position of weakness instead of a position of strength.  Selections like this show us the importance of evaluating rhetoric and thinking clearly about science, faith, and the way in which the former, when handled well, serves the latter.

I recently read a March 2009 piece by Russ Moore in Touchstone entitled “Abba, Joseph” that is one of the more moving pieces on Joseph and the significance of his husbanding of Mary and his fatherhood of Jesus I have encountered. Turns out that the article is offline, but it’s based on an accessible sermon called “Joseph of Nazareth Is a Single-Issue Evangelical.”

Some of you have seen this before, but whether you have or not, you should read this (again).  Get the PDF of the sermon here.

Here’s a particularly affecting section from the text:

I once actually heard myself saying these words to my children, “Would you please leave me alone so I can finish this book on adoption!?” This message, though, is not just those who are parents, for Scripture speaks of a fatherhood within the church. If we are going to walk in the walk of faith imaged in this man, then we are going to need pastors who see themselves as fathers of a flock and do not simply leave when trouble comes. We are going to need older generations who are less concerned with protecting their own prerogatives and more concerned with pouring their lives into the children of the congregation. There must be evident in the people of God a demonstration of the same thing that Joseph is asked to do—to walk in the kind of faith that protects and provides, that nourishes and cherishes as does God.

Amen to this.  Read the whole thing, and as we gear up for Christmas, prepare yourself to better understand Joseph–and, more than him, the God whom he imaged in his protection of the weak and defenseless.

Thanks to the huge pack of you who signed up to test the new BibleMesh site.  Way too many folks replied for us to respond individually to you, but rest assured that we have received your emails and are now gearing up to engage you in the beta-testing process.

If you are interested in being a beta-tester but have not responded, we may be able to fit you in.  Email me at ostracha [at] tiu.edu (take out the spaces and put in the @ symbol there) to sign up.

As I said, a BibleMesh representative will be contacting you shortly, and you’ll be on your way to viewing all kinds of cutting-edge content and technology all designed to help you–and many others besides–dig into the awesome truth and story of God’s Word.