Recommended Media

Carl Trueman on Hollywood’s Moral Contradiction Amidst the Weinstein Scandal

Kirk E. Miller

There is, of course, an irony in this [i.e., Hollywood’s condemnation of Weinstein]. Hollywood has done as much as any cultural institution to demystify sex and turn it into a recreational activity. That is the consistent message of many of its movies. Yet in the Weinstein debacle, Hollywood’s most powerful players are implicitly acknowledging that they have promoted a lie, because sex is more than a game.

It is not just the lack of consent that makes Hollywood types, and all the rest of us, regard sexual assault as so heinous. We instinctively know that to slap someone’s face without their consent, unpleasant as that may be, is not as traumatic as to rape them. Sexual assault is deeply significant because … sex is deeply significant, and intrinsically so—and no amount of pop-culture trivialization can remove this stubborn fact. …

… [E]ven in our ‘sex as recreation’ era, its significance is still acknowledged in the fact that sex crimes are considered by society to be among the most heinous. If any good has come from the crimes of Weinstein, it is in the fact that the champions of sex as recreation are being forced to contradict the philosophy of their own artworks.

Read the entire piece by Carl Trueman here.

Faithful Church Planting as Plodding (Scott Slayton)

Kirk E. Miller

Chuch planting has been in vogue as of late, and at times seems to get sensationalized. But faithful church planting — the type that isn’t aimed at just gathering a crowd by any means possible, or “creating” a church by merely transplanting already-believers from already-heathy-churches, but is about seeing souls saved and joined to churches as healthy members — is probably better described as plodding.

And it’s worth it. Mainstream culture — heck, mainstream Christianity — won’t get it. It flies in the face of American values of consumerism and pragmatism, a value-system that the American church seems to have embodied in what is probably best described as syncretism. But, luckily, faithfulness to Christ isn’t measured by other people’s perception of how odd, crazy, or unconventional your approach may seem.

[F]or us to plant the kinds of churches we need to plant the men who feel called to planting must change their expectations and their definition of ‘success.’ … When numerical success becomes the primary benchmark for evaluating the success of a church, a man will sacrifice his principles and build his ministry on all the wrong things to achieve his goal. Churches built on hype, great music, and a charismatic personality may reach some people who do not know Jesus, but it will mainly pull Christians from other churches. We don’t need more churches characterized by this mentality; we need thousands less.

… The task of planting churches who are faithful to share the Gospel, make disciples, and plant more church calls for an army of men who are content with no one knowing their names except the people in their community and those whom they shepherd. … We need the man willing to work in obscurity because the real task of church planting is not easy or glamorous. At the same time the task is worth every ounce of effort. – Scott Slayton

Read the entire article here — Why We Need Anonymous, Plodding Church Planters.