Martin Luther: the monk who defied Rome
As we approach Reformation Day….
Call Trump’s economic takeover for what it is: socialistic central planning
His tariffs are only the beginning of his seizure of control, but they are a great example of his restrictions on private producers being able to produce as they will. Nope – they must do as he wills. And Canada’s response? To follow the same central-planning path.
Why have military chaplains if they can’t mention God?
On July 29, Canada’s military chaplains received instructions that whenever they are making a public address they
“shall uphold the principle of state religious and spiritual neutrality by not using words, actions, or symbols that are specific to a particular SFT [Spiritual or Faith Tradition] on the part of the Government of Canada.”
In other words, Christian chaplains have to speak in a manner that could have their audience confusing them for any other religion. Is he Christian, or Hindu, or is he just some self-help guru? Who can tell?
We’re so confused that many a Christian would speaking approvingly of this edict, even invoking the Bible to say it’s just “doing to others as you would want done to you” (Matt. 7:12). We wouldn’t want to have to sit through a Hindu service, so we shouldn’t force Hindu soldiers to sit through a Christian service either, right? But a spiritual services bereft of the Spirit, and a faith without the Faithful One, is what we really shouldn’t want to force on anyone. But that’s what the military now requires. Christless Christianity isn’t neutral – it’s a lukewarm travesty God will spit out.
This is what happens when a Christian nation stops being one – a form of worship might linger, but not of a sort that will please God. Does that mean we should mandate Christianity from atop? No. But it means that when godless leaders tell us how to worship, we shouldn’t be shocked when they require godless worship.
Caesar’s education system takes a dip
Voddie Bauchman Jr. once said “We cannot continue to send our children to Caesar for their education and be surprised when they come home as Romans.” A recent Fraser Institute study gives reason for some hope that parents are rejecting Caesar’s education.
“…as a share of all K-12 students, enrolment in independent schools increased from 5.9 per cent to 8.5 per cent—a 45.0 per cent increase—from 2000/01 to 2023/24, the most recent year of available comparable data.
“At the same time, K-12 enrolment in government-run public schools decreased as a share of total enrolment from 93.8 per cent to 90.4 per cent.”
A pastor’s personal take on AI
“I am responsible for every word you hear or read from me…”
Christians lying in games
There’s a party game called Mafia, that involves one member of the group secretly playing the part of a Mafia hitman, and the rest of the group trying to figure out who it is before he “kills” them all. How do they figure out who it is? By discussion and debate and questions and gauging body language. When some people say, “Me? The hitman?” it’s just so easy to tell that they’re lying. But for others, it’s not easy. I don’t like playing Mafia because I’m pretty good at it. People think they’d be able to tell when a guy like me is lying – they expect me to be bad at it. And I like that expectation. I don’t like being a fantastic liar – “good” and “liar” are not two words that normally go together.
But isn’t that just part of the game? When someone “fakes” right and drives left in a basketball game, he’s tried to deceive the defensive player, and nobody has a problem with that because it’s an expected part of the game. Deception is expected in Mafia too, so it’s no different, right?
Or is it?
There is such a thing as being “overly righteous” (Eccl. 7:16-18) so I’m not trying to make much of occasionally playing Mafia. But there’s also such a thing as being “underly righteous,” and that’s our more common tendency. It’s a fallen world, so we shouldn’t expect that games will somehow always be good or at the very worst neutral – we should expect that Devil will be making a play here too, trying to shape our thinking. (One of the more notable examples of how he can use games to shape worldviews is Monopoly, which was designed to propagandize against capitalism.) That means we should use some discernment in choosing the games we play, so that here too we can act in ways that deliberately glorify God. I appreciated this discussion between Douglas Wilson and Ben Merkle on evaluating a game by the impact it might have on us after the game is done – asking what “muscles” it is training.