Teenage Theology

Youth Vesus the Gospel

Many Christians and even mainstream Americans were recently angered by the Miss USA pageant unfairly discriminating against the moral values of Miss California Carrie Prejean (see last week's blog). But equally disturbing is the reaction of young, self-proclaimed Christian celebrities who are taking the side of homosexual activist Perez Hilton, who led the attack against Miss Prejean.

The sad fact is, we shouldn't be surprised nowadays since most of America's youth receive little or no Biblical truth or cotton-candy, "ear-tickling" truth disguised as "Christian." Anti-religious government schools, church youth programs and the music that most parents let their kids consume have produced an almost pagan, go-with-the flow culture. Today, the majority of America's daughters - even those in the Church - are being heavily influenced by Hollywood singers such as Miley Cyrus and Heidi Montag, both who say they are Christians, yet hold non-Christian views on marriage. Right now, their pro-homosexual "marriage" values are reaching millions of young people through MTV and other media outlets.

This is one of the reasons we harp on 'family-integrated' ministry at Christ Community Church, to counter the sad fact that youth ministry and church has proven to be such an abject failure for so many families and young people over the last generation. Barna studies indicate that between 7 to 9 out of every 10 young people will 'reject" their professed Christian faith by the time they complete their freshman year of college. The very notion of youth ministry, which is non-biblical by nature, has fed into the notion that teenagers (another non-biblical concept) should be segregated from their families and mature and adult oriented doctrine with customized services and activities which are light on Bible and heavy on fun.

Christian youth identify themselves as believers, in too many instances they actually believe very little about God and His work in history. Some well-intentioned youth ministers have encouraged this hypocrisy by coating Christian discipleship in a varnish of entertainment. One expert explains, “Young people are drawn to excitement. They enjoy being involved in activities that are fun.” This may explain why another expert was led to announce at a conference, “Young people today will not listen to a message longer than seventeen minutes.” Their attention spans have been amused into submission. This has produced a youth culture that is heavy on style (see American Idol) but light on substance.

According to a sociologist from the University of North Carolina who has studied the "faith" of American youth today, their "faith consists of five basic tenets: First, God created and watches over human life. Second, God wants people to be nice and fair. Third, life’s ultimate goal is for each person to be happy and to feel good about himself. Fourth, God does not need to be intimately involved in anyone’s life—He is just there for emergencies. Fifth, good people go to heaven. Who is this God? the expert asks. Apparently He is the God of Dr. Phil, Oprah Winfrey, and Self magazine. Times change. So must God, it seems.”

Instead of Christ being the sovereign Lord to whom everyone, including teenagers, is called to submit, He becomes an instrument of personal growth. Teens may still profess Christ is Lord, but their lives and the ministries to which they belong betray a different perception altogether. Religious hypocrisy is encouraged when Christianity is seen as a panacea instead of a cross.

Miley wrote this Twitter message expressing her support for homosexual "marriage" to Mr. Hilton, who had publicly punished Prejean for supporting Biblical marriage between a man and a woman: "God's greatest commandment is to love, and judging is not loving. That's why Christians have such a bad rep. Jesus loves you and your partner and wants you to know how much he cares! Like I said everyone deserves to be happy. I am a Christian and I love you - gay or not. Because you are no different that anyone else! We are all God's children! I am not saying this so would be nice on your site though that would be nice jk;) but because the LORD has spoken 'luv cuz god loves."

Meanwhile, another self-proclaimed Christian in Hollywood, MTV's Montag, age 22, wrote this Twitter to Hilton: "God says in the bible that we should love our neighbor and he created us all as equals. I know in my heart that gays and lesbians should have the same government rights that Spencer and I will when we get married. So, yes, this blonde Christian believes in gay marriage and I hope to one day go to your wedding, Perez!!!"

Interestingly enough, Jesus said those who love Him will have and keep His commandments (John 14:21). Not to be lost in the din of youth group concerts and Disney trips is the majesty of Christ and the substance of the gospel. The church can too easily produce religious-knowledge hypocrites at a very young age, individuals who are able to say just enough to profess faith but know in fact very little about the faith they profess. Even worse, if the Church is not careful, it can produce a generation with a Christian veneer that is actually devoted to the church of Miley, Heidi or Oprah.

Who's Church Hopping?

Changing faiths: New study finds why people switch churches

According to the Sun-Sentinel, "U.S. religion is in a churn," quoting a new study which found nearly half of all adults changing faiths at least once in their lives — usually before the age of 24. "Americans change religious affiliation early and often," says the article quoting a survey, released Monday by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life, called Faith in Flux. The report finds that 44 percent of the population holds a faith different from the one in which they were raised. Many people who change religions do so more than once."My family used to have Chevrolets all their lives; now I drive a Nissan," said Fred Greenspahn, director of religious studies at Florida Atlantic University. "Religion is showing the market economy at work."

No, what the survey may be indicating more than anything else is the inherent dichtomy between professing and possessing true, biblically-based Christian faith. The FAU religious spokesman at least indicated he had a clue, when he qualified that many people who switch religions may not have had strong beliefs in the first place."You'd have to ask about the nature of their commitment, and how much they're really changing. A lot of people think of religion as one thing, just different paths to the same God." That's the difference folks between heaven and hell and light from darkness. As we preach, they're may be as many as four roads to God- but they all run through Christ as the scripture teaches (John 14:6, see http://www.christcomchurch.org/knowing_god for more). The good news in all this is that many more adults are perhaps being regenerated and coming to Christ later in life, and are joining Bible-believing churches as many of us have- particularly those who came from Jewish and Catholic family traditions. I can relate to that.

Are people confused today about the gospel and where they will be going in eternity? Click on to this YouTube film clip from Ray Comfort's Living Waters web-site for a beach interview that well-illustrates the 'buffett' attitude influencing such surveys today (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq-36n_98vA ). Non-Christian religions, too, are showing the effects of a "salad bar approach" to faith, said Nathan Katz of Florida International University. He said many Americans shuttle between Zen centers, yoga classes and Kabbalah studies."We've become mobile and self-centered," said Katz, who directs FIU's Program in the Study of Spirituality.

"[Religion] has become a matter of personal fulfillment, not obligation..." When more of us, our friends and family members come face to face with sin, righteousness and judgment (John 16:8-11), personal fulfillment will convert to obligation to King Jesus and church and faith hopping will be a thing of the fallen past.

Tea Parties and a Rare but True Beauty Queen

South Florida Tea Parties and Tax Fever

Therefore because you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine (Amos 5:11, ESV)

Did you hear about the South Florida Tea Party last week? According to the Sun-Sentinel an amazing 2,500 (amazing for this liberally minded region) citizens joined several thousand others nationally, in protesting our federal government's recent spendfest of bail-out money, proposed tax increases and the New Deal like alphabet soup of social programs to combat the 'Great Recession.' Many today feel like our governments are using the current economic crisis to feed it's addiction to tax and spend.

The police records of major cities are filled with the names of those who commit crimes to feed their drug habits. These felons begin with a mere sampling of the narcotic, but that “recreational” use soon gives way to higher doses as tolerance rises. It takes more and more of the substance to satisfy their hunger, and they even victimize the poor to gain money for their next fix. Heroin or crack cocaine is their likely drug of choice. For the politician, it can be taxes. Certainly the Bible teaches the legitimacy of taxes; unlike heroin, they are not illicit in moderation. But their narcotic effect can drive the government to perversity.

Israel’s Jeroboam II (798-747 B.C.) reigned during a time of prosperity generated by his father Joash. Despite a considerable treasury, Jeroboam pressed for strict enforcement of ever-ascending taxes. The collections financed winter and summer palaces for the king and luxurious conditions for his powerful associates (3:15; 6:4-6). The prophet Samuel warned of this two centuries earlier when the people demanded a monarch—“He [the king] will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants” (1 Sam. 8:14). In Amos’s day, this “taking” had become a “trampling,” even of the poor. Some inner-city churches organize “neighborhood watches” to discourage the predatory practices of drug dealers and their desperate customers. They keep their eyes peeled for those who, for the sake of their own agendas and comfort, dishearten and victimize good people. By extension, many churches could join Amos in his watch for those who, in their spiraling addiction to revenue, bewilder and cripple the populace.

Rare but True -Beauty contestant chooses 'biblically correct' over PC

On Sunday, Miss California Carrie Prejean, 21, was asked in the Miss USA pageant by blogger Perez Hilton, an open homosexual and one of the pageant's judges, about her stance on same-sex marriage. Responding, Prejean said she personally believed marriage should be between a man and a woman. We live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what, in my country and in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman," she said. "No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised. I think that it should be between a man and a woman."

Although Miss North Carolina, Kristen Dalton, won the title, Prejean has made the rounds of television news and talk shows, addressing the controversy that her answer may have cost her the Miss USA crown. Prior to the interview segment of the pageant, Prejean reportedly was the hands-down favorite to win. Wonders never cease in America's free-fall from a grace when a beauty queen contestant of all people, takes a correct and biblical stand for truth, suffering persecution in the process.

Gay Rights Momentum

NY Gov. to Propose Bill Legalizing Gay Marriage

Just when you thought the whole same-sex marriage issue was done away with and settled with our state's Yes amendment and California's Prop. 8 election victories last November, affirming marriage as between one man and one woman (Mega-churchman Rick Warren's confused "purpose" notwithstanding), the last week or so have presented us (biblicists) with the latest wounds from shots and skirmishes in the gay rights battle front of the culture war.

Vermont's legislature became one of the few legislative bodies in the country to approve same-sex marriage and the Iowa Supreme Court just side-stepped the will of the people (as per recent trends) in ruling same-sex bans as unconstiutional, opening the door for gay marriage there (yes- America's heartland). Today, New York Gov. David Paterson is expected to introduce a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in a move that comes nearly a year after Paterson ordered all state agencies to recognize gay marriages performed in other jurisdictions. Despite the lack of votes by Democratic senators needed to pass the measure, Paterson still wants the bill to be debated and to come to a vote. If the legislation is approved by lawmakers, New York would become the fifth state to legalize same-sex marriage.

Paterson said on Tuesday. "I think it is, as other states are showing, the only ethical way to treat people who want to live together in peace under the civil law. So my general feeling about all these issues is the right ethical decision will inevitably be the right political decision." I would ask the good governor, "is it also ethical to let polygamists and pedophiles marry as well, so they can 'live together in peace under the civil law?" Can anyone draw the line today when it comes to morals, values and truth and NOT be branded a bigot? A greater challenge to world-view Christians is how do we find an effective, uncompromising and yet compassionate ministry to gays and lesbians, while taking proper, biblical positions on policies and politics pertaining to homosexual issues?

Why does this matter? Because votes aside, we can't argue homosexuals into biblical perspectives any more than we can argue them into the kingdom. Most attempts to do so will only result in pain, alienation and unecessary impediments to the cause of Christ. Unless confronted directly with direct questions regarding ethics and "gay rights," I suggest that we lovers of the Word and truth, who are commanded to "love God and love people," take the following positions when preaching and relating on the front-line of this battle in the culture war:

- Love and care for the hurting homosexual whom you know (and may work with or have in your family) and remind them that they too, are made in the "image of God," and are worthy of His love, redemption and reconciliation. Tell them they can have a new identity in Christ. they don;t have to go around telling people, "I'm a homosexual, " anymore than we tell people we're hetrosexual. They can say when in Christ, they're born-again, new creations (Jo. 3:3; 2 Cor. 5;17; Ro. 8:1).

- Preach a confession and repentance gospel of all sins, not just homosexuality as the 'road' to God through Christ. Tell them homosexuality is just another in the list of sins the Bible names "fornication (sexual sin)," which according to it's root word, has to do with idolatry (which is why unfaithful Israel was corporately known as an "idolatrous" nation). Sexual sinners love immediate gratification in their bodies and pleasure more than Jehovah God (Pro. 28:13; Ja. 4:8-10) and that's idolatry.

- Preach and teach God's model and best for sexuality. Make no mistake about it, God condemns homosexuality amongst other fornications as sin worthy of judgment (Gen. 18; Lev. 18:22; Ro. 1:27; 1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim. 1:8-11). Moreover, Christ and the church and hetrosexual unions among people, are His models and design for marriage (Gen. 1:26-27, 2:18-25). Biology, sociology and common sense affirm this. Otherwise, as Pastor James McDonald says, "If we choose to sin, we chooser to suffer, or when God says, don't- He really means don't hurt yourself."

- Finally, teach them that same-sex marriage and gay rights disrupt the created order and functionality of families, children and societies, which is precisely why governments of all sorts and for all times have opposed gay rights in civilized societies, up until only the later half of the 20th century. If divorce is dysfunctional and harmful to children (from instability to mixed mesages of gender roles) and the future of a given society, what further damage would occur if same-sex marrriage were legalized and normative?

At the end of the day however, remember it is your visible love, prayers and the grace and sovereign will and power of God that will change the heart of a homosexual and the culture of America - one saved sinner at a time, not Focus On the Family and not any particular politician.