My miserly attitude was further cemented last night.

Last night I watched a true classic of pagan Christmas cheer, the 2007 film "Fred Claus." The film stars Vince Vaughn who plays Fred Claus, the older brother of Santa Claus. Aside from the cliche displays of "Christmas cheer" and a few clever scenes (Fred Claus attends a "Siblings Anonymous" meeting, surrounded by the likes of Roger Clinton, Steven Baldwin, and Frank Stallone), the message of the film was as simple as it was false. In an attempt to overturn the traditional American vision of a Santa Claus who sees you when you're sleeping and knows when you're awake, Fred Claus convinces Santa that in the end, "there are no naughty children." The naughty and nice list is thrown to the wind, and Santa will from now on give presents to every girl and boy because "every child deserves a present on Christmas."

Of course, there is nothing Christian or biblical about the idea of Santa Claus; the pagans can have him for all I care. While Santa does not deserve our defense, we should not fail to see the pagan shift our culture has undergone. "There are no naughty children" assumes that there is no sin, that there was no Fall, that there are no ultimate consequences for our rebellion against the Creator. "Every child deserves a present on Christmas" empties the word "deserves" of all meaning, declares that no one (and no One) holds authority to judge the living and the dead. The negation of sin is a negation of the Christian God. The assumption that every child is good and deserves good things is an assumption that every child is in some sense God (Mark 10:18). In this trite piece of popular culture, Hollywood and the free market have conspired to deify the creation and destroy the Creator.

This should not surprise us. But it should remind us that only one child in all human history was truly innocent. Only one child actually deserved good things. And that one child, when he became a man, received not good, but the wrath meant for you and me. Only Christ Jesus deserves the praise and adoration our culture is intent on giving to human inventions like Santa Claus and capitalism. May Christ alone be the object of our worship this Christmas.

Joni Mitchell’s song “Woodstock“ – popularized by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young –remembers one of the most generation-defining events of that decade. I was a Joni Mitchell fan long before I moved to the Bay, but the chorus to that song struck me today. She sings, ”we are start dust, we are golden, we are billion year-old carbon, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.“ 

”We are star dust,” underlines the new pagan belief – a way of thinking which has much of its roots in the 60s – that we are all one, that everything is connected. It is a monistic affirmation, denying Creator and elevating creature to the heights of being able to “get ourselves back to the garden.” Since we are star dust, since our origin is somewhere off among the stars, since we somehow are heavenly beings ourselves, we can, if we just put our minds to it, return to Eden. We can make paradise happen if we accept that we are all “star dust.” 

Of course, Genesis 2 has a different take on human origins: “the Lord God formed man from the dust of the earth” (Gen. 2:7).

Where the pagan ideology that is so prevalent in our culture exalts humanity because we come from dust, the Scriptures remind us that we got our start in less lofty places than among the stars.

John Calvin does not mince words when commenting on our origins in the dust. He explains that “man had been, in the beginning, dust of the earth. Let foolish men now go and boast of the excellency of their nature! ...[T]he body of Adam is formed of clay and destitute of sense; to the end that no one should exult beyond measure in his flesh.” He sums up this thought by writing, “He must be excessively stupid who does not hence learn humility” (Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, 111.)

Where paganism says we are born in heaven, Christianity tells us to humble ourselves. We were born from dirt. We aren’t so much “star dust” as just plain old “dust.”  

But it’s not possible not to know God at all. Paul writes, “For although [the wicked] knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” (Romans 1:21, italics added)

So we all know of God on a basic level.

We are responsible for knowing that God exists and acknowledging him as such. No one can deny God out of true ignorance.

Anyone who claims not to know the basic truths about God, that he is the Creator of the universe and outside it, that he is eternal and divine, is not ignorant of the truth. He is suppressing the truth. He is guilty of sin and deserving of condemnation.

So, by way of reintroducing the Catechism series, I will use this space to re-cap, in sequential order, the questions and answers we have shared so far.  And please, let us know as this progresses, whether this basic and systematic layout of the two worldviews of Oneism and Twoism in this manner is helpful to you.  We'd love to hear your feedback.

Without further ado, I re-submit to you "Oneism and Twoism, A Worldview Catechism"

Reality is two. There is God, and there is the world he made. There is a Creator and a creation. They are not the same. This is twoism.

Reality is one. There are many beings, but all are part of the same universe. The world is itself divine. There is no Creator and nothing outside of this universe. This belief is called “monism”, which is a fancy way of saying “oneism.”

There is only one truth—or, more precisely, one “system” of truth. There are many facets of truth, and there are many things that are true; but there aren’t multiple truths and realities out there. There is only one, and that truth is Christianity.

Ultimately, all that we can know that is true has been revealed by God in one way or another.

God reveals truth in two ways: by creating and by speaking. Theologians call these “natural” and “special” revelation.

God is true, so he puts truth in everything he makes. We can learn ordinary truths about the way the world works just by looking around us. We can also learn truths about good and evil and even about God himself because of the way he has made our minds and the way he has made the world around us.

We all have a basic sense of right and wrong, which is supported by what we observe in the world around us. God’s basic moral law is available to everyone, even those who have not heard God’s laws as he explains them in his Word.

We know that he exists without having been created, that he is eternally powerful, that he is divine, that he has created the universe, and that he is distinct from what he has created. (See Romans 1:20)

In other words, we know just by looking at the universe around us that someone other than it and greater than it must have made it. We do not need to be scientists or theologians to know this, and we do not need anyone to tell us. On a deep level, all of us know.

Hardly! There is much about God that he only reveals in his Word, more that we will not know until we see him face to face, and much that we will never fully know. Still, we know enough by nature to be condemned if we do not acknowledge him as we ought.

Most Christians would agree that San Francisco is a pagan place. But understanding precisely what that means – not simply that immorality runs rampant here, but that an entire worldview and spirituality informs and enables it – is crucial to the advance of the gospel of Jesus Christ in our day. Words like “sin” and “salvation” are emptied of their meaning in the pagan worldview. In order to effectively communicate to the world who Christ is and what he has done for us, the church needs to find ways to translate these increasingly foreign concepts into language that pagan people will understand and be affected by.

I have learned a great deal from the ministry of truthXchange, and am grateful to have the opportunity to contribute in a small way to its purpose of reaching an increasingly pagan planet with the gospel. It is my hope, in relating my experiences “on the frontlines” in one of America’s more pagan cities, that others will be better equipped to share the truth of the gospel with those who have yet to believe.

A new age of paganism is upon us... and not just in San Francisco. May God grant us the grace to remain faithful witnesses of his gospel to the world.

In other words, we know just by looking at the universe around us that someone other than it and greater than it must have made it. We do not need to be scientists or theologians to know this, and we do not need anyone to tell us. On a deep level, all of us know.

Hardly! There is much about God that he only reveals in his Word, more that we will not know until we see him face to face, and much that we will never fully know. Still, we know enough by nature to be condemned if we do not acknowledge him as we ought.

God is true, so he puts truth in everything he makes. We can learn ordinary truths about the way the world works just by looking around us. We can also learn truths about good and evil and even about God himself because of the way he has made our minds and the way he has made the world around us.

We all have a basic sense of right and wrong, which is supported by what we observe in the world around us. God’s basic moral law is available to everyone, even those who have not heard God’s laws as he explains them in his Word.

Click here to download the audio.

Click here to listen to the audio.

Click here to listen to the audio.

Click here to download the audio.

Reality is one. There are many beings, but all are part of the same universe. The world is itself divine. There is no Creator and nothing outside of this universe. This belief is called “monism”, which is a fancy way of saying “oneism.”

Click here to listen to the audio.

Click here to download the audio.

The truthXchange team has been working for years to unveil these lies, but much of the material we have put out is not exactly entry-level. Accordingly, we have decided to distill some of the most basic facts about the Truth and the Lie into a course of short questions and answers, which we will be running in serial fashion on the blog in the coming months. We call this a “Catechism,” named after the question-and-answer documents that the Church has long used to instruct new converts to the faith. (Mind that it’s not meant to replace proper catechisms like the Heidelberg or Westminster Catechisms. We’re borrowing the structure, but the content and purpose are different.)

This is not meant to be comprehensive. Just by the format of it, there is no way that we can contain all of Christian teaching or all of the pagan distortions of it in this series. There will surely be exceptions to many of the rules, and there will be both pagans and Christians who will disagree with various details. But the goal is to give you a good idea of the big picture; you can learn the nuances and the details from there.

We hope, by God’s grace, to give you new eyes so that you can see the culture around you in new ways. We won’t be focusing as much on case studies—in this series, at least!—as on making clear the fundamental spiritual conflict going on in the world today, the conflict between what we call "oneism" and "twoism." We want you to be able to see the roots of it, to see how the Truth of God and the Lie get exchanged in our culture. Once you see that, it will be easier to analyze different problems in the culture for yourself. 

This is not meant to be an end point. It is our hope that once you’ve read through our Catechism, you will be in a position to read through truthXchange’s published books with greater ease and profit. You should also be able to read other books, watch the news, watch movies, surf the net, listen to music, and so forth, with a clearer idea of what is going on beneath the surface, and how the cultural details connect to the great struggles of the faith in our time. And if you’re already familiar with the work of truthXchange, we hope this will be a helpful summary.

Enjoy!

Click here to listen to the audio.

Click here to download the audio.

Please forgive us for the late posting of this talk.  Problems with our internet access last week prevented us from putting it up on Thursday as usual.  We'll continue with another installment on this coming Thursday with one of our Frontline Reports from the cultural mission field.

Click here to listen to the audio.

Click here to download the audio.

Click here to listen to the audio.

Click here to download the audio.

Click here to download the audio.

Click here to listen to the audio.

Click Here to download the lecture.

Click Here to listen to the lecture.

Well, I'm really excited about this post because finally, after a long wait and a lot of amazing effort from Bill Feltner at Pilgrim Radio Network, truthXchange is happy to start releasing audio from CWiPPTHINK 2009.  

Each week for the next 14 weeks we'll be releasing one of the talks from the conference in the order in which they were presented over two days in February.  Just about every participant in this conference agreed that something profound and important happened there, by God's grace.  Repeat attendees said there hadn't been a CWiPPTHINK like it until then.  Those of us who were there for the first time were overwhelmed, educated, and encouraged by the time.  It is our sincere hope and prayer at truthXchange that God will teach and bless you through this audio.  We welcome any feedback and discussion as a result of your hearing it.

A full library of the audio for all past CWiPPTHINK conferences is available on this site under the resources section.  All audio for CT'09, as it is released, will be made available there as well.  

Here is a schedule of the talks that you'll be given access to:

Creation Sexuality Ted Hamilton, Senior Pastor, New Life Presbyterian Church, Escondido, CA

The Pagan Sexual Agenda  Dr. Peter Jones, Executive Director, truthXchange

The Omi-Gendered Society  Dr. James A. Herrick, Guy VanderJagt Professor of Communication, Hope College

Carnival to Gay Rights in Brazil  Dr. Valdeci Santos, Professor of Pastoral Theology, Andrew Jumper Presbyterian Center for Graduate Studies, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Jung and the Forming of Modern Sexuality  Rev. Ed Hird, Rector, St. Simon's Church, North Vancouver, BC

No Guts, No Vision, and Rationalizing Sin in the Name of Compassion: Why World-Weary Christians Are Losing the 'Culture War' over Homosexuality  Peter La Barbera, Founder,Americans for Truth about Homosexuality and Republicans for Family Values

Sex and Hollywood  Rev. Joel Pelsue, President and Founder, Arts and Entertainment Ministries

The Sexual Anarchy of Youth Culture  Linda P. Harvey, Founder, Mission:America 

Gaia Goes to Court: Sexual Autonomy Codified  Jeff Ventrella, Senior Vice-President of Strategic Training, Allience Defense Fund

Emergent Sexual Theory  Pam Frost, Researcher and Steering Committee Member, truthXchange

Tantric Sex and Hinduism in the West  Vishal Mangalwadi, Author and Lecturer

The Gnostic Disconnect and Evangelical Immorality Jay Wegter, University truthXchange Coordinator, truthXchange and Founder, Gospel for Life

Frontline Report: Outpost Ministries  Nathan Oyloe, Youth and Young Adults Ministries Director, Outpost Ministires

Frontline Report: Episcopal/Anglican Church  Eric Menees, Sr. Pastor, Alnglican Church of the Resurrection, San Marcos, CA

May you be blessed by this content.

This will not be a general blow-by-blow of the debate. There are other good posts which serve that purpose better than I could do. I write chiefly to point out an important fact that this debate brings out and emphasizes.

In their closing statements, most of the participants explain what they think the gospel means:

• Kevin DeYoung emphasizes that it is about what God has done for us rather than what we need to do for God: that Jesus died, that his death was for our sins, and that he rose again from the dead; that without the work of Christ we are still in our sins and face eternal punishment.
• Tony Jones, in the middle of the debate and again at the end, locates the gospel in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20: God is reconciling the world to himself in Christ, and so we are to be ambassadors of God. Reconciliation with God is made possible in some way (he doesn't at all explain how) by the death and resurrection of Christ. The theme of reconciliation is clearly the heart of the gospel for him as he presents it.
• McKnight holds that the gospel is a matter of the Triune God working through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit to restore cracked icons (his term) to union with God and others for the sake of the world. He explains earlier that he believes in substitutionary atonement, so we know that is part of McKnight's faith even though he leaves it out of his gospel presentation at the end.

All three views can be clearly substantiated from the Bible, but they each have a distinct emphasis and focus. Tony Jones' view in particular is missing significant portions of the biblical gospel. Yes, God is reconciling us to himself through Christ; but how? Why stop at 2 Cor 5:20 and not include 5:21—God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God? Why leave out great exchange of our sin for Christ's righteousness? Why leave out the atonement for sin and the imputation of Christ's obedience? Whether Tony Jones would affirm those things in the abstract I don't know; but it is clear that he does not affirm them as central to the gospel. He states his version of the gospel publicly, twice, and it has the character of a formula that he uses regularly—not just a one-time formulation for this debate—and it is completely silent with respect to the atonement and other key aspects of our salvation. I will come back to this strange silence in a minute, along with its broader significance to the debate at large.

The Harris twins behave with refreshing graciousness and humility throughout the debate, readily conceding their youth and inexperience relative to the pastors and scholars represented. Yet, in many ways, they are the most important contributors. They serve as the voice of the new youth, and repeatedly make excellent points about the struggles and hopes of their generation. For modern young people, postmodernism is not an abstract and nuanced philosophy but a real confusion about the truth that hurts their faith directly. While humility is good, humility that ends up rejecting the possibility of orthodox truth has gone too far, and is not actually helping those confused kids. Somewhat in response to this, many in the rising generation do not see why they have to choose between orthodox doctrine and serious Christian living, which is the dichotomy that the emergent conversation sometimes seems to make. The Harris perspective is refreshing and helps to frame the whole debate.

Like the Harrises, Scot McKnight expresses concern for the youth and college students he works with who struggle with their faith. He rightly hates the fact that there is no statistical correlation between young people growing up in a conservative church and becoming believers themselves. But he draws a strange conclusion from this. He implies that the problem is that knowledge of the Bible growing up doesn't make much of a difference for whether a kid comes to faith. Alex Harris corrects his reasoning: the real issue is that even kids growing up in conservative churches are biblically illiterate; the problem is that they are not getting the knowledge they need in their churches, and the solution is not to subsequently disregard that knowledge. The discrepancy here between McKnight, who claims to speak for the new generation, and the Harrises, who actually represent it, is an important one.

The cumulative effect of these exchanges, to which Kevin DeYoung also contributes helpfully, is to highlight the fact that while we do need to speak faithfully and clearly to the new generation, removing or squishifying biblical truth is not the way to do it. This brings us back to Tony Jones' alarming silence with regard to crucial portions of the gospel. Yes, our world tends to handle truth differently now and ask different questions than other generations did. And yes, it is in this context that we need to reach the new generation. But DeYoung and the Harris twins rightly remind us that the way to reach this generation is to hold to the truth more fully, and not less. Preaching the full truth of the gospel will lead to and inspire and encourage faithful Christian living, but trying to promote discipleship and community without the full truth of the gospel will backfire.

The prominent leaders of the emergent movement, like Tony Jones, have consistently downplayed, distorted, and diminished the biblical gospel. An attempt to be humble about what we can know has led to a general silence about the gospel that is killing the new generation. A young believer who does not know what makes Christianity different from the world will not be able to resist the world when it tempts him. When strange philosophies and pagan ideologies speak out, he will not know what to say in response. The more doctrinally solid members of the movement, like Scot McKnight, are commendable for not going to the same extremes but have compounded the problem by refusing to separate from the radicals. Simply saying "We're not all like that!"—as he does over and over in this debate—will not suffice here. McKnight and others claim with their words to value the great truths of the faith but proclaim by their actions that truth matters less than retaining community and conversation with the radicals. This will only confuse young people further.

The world is challenging the church. How shall the church respond? With silence, implies the emergent movement. Not silence in general, of course. Many voices in the movement, including Tony Jones, speak quite loudly, in a fearless and articulate way. The problem is that they alter the gospel in order to do so. They offer bold speech about certain aspects of Christian living and even some of the secondary details of the atonement; but they offer only a grim silence with regard to the sharp truths of the gospel and the fundamental opposition between the things of God and the things of Satan in the world. Even those who hold to a stronger gospel will still squish it around a bit (see Scot McKnight here—he believes in substitutionary atonement but leaves it quite out of his actual gospel summary) and give full faith and credit to those who distort it with such loud voices.

Tony Jones has a gospel, but it is soft, inoffensive, and incomplete. The gospel involves and enables reconciliation between God and man—gloriously so!—but it cannot be reduced to reconciliation as he does several times in this debate. The result when you do make that reduction is that remaining in community and in conversation becomes, at least in practice, more important than speaking out about the truth and perhaps causing division or offense.

Alex Harris says something very different in his closing remarks (I paraphrase very slightly) "Proclamation of the truth of God's Word to the new generation is the solution to the statistics [of youth leaving the faith] and to the confusion that a lot of young people feel." We must reach this generation, but gagging and curtailing and reducing the gospel is not the way to do it. We must not be silent about the heart of God's work in the world, but rather we must speak out about it. We must not reconcile ourselves to the lies the world tells, but rather we must speak out against them. The new generation needs role models, as McKnight says, but it needs even more to learn how to understand and communicate the gospel for itself. This insight moves us past the perils of the emergent conversation and shows us the way forward.

One of the beauties of watching this debate is seeing how some younger ministers and leaders have learned to speak. DeYoung and the Harris twins are willing to speak out about the gospel and the distinctiveness of Christianity, and to do so with full and articulate voice. Sitting on either side of Tony Jones and Scot McKnight, they provide tangible proof that one can speak up about unpopular truths without having to distort them in order to do it.

In a time when more and more voices are being raised against the authority of Scripture, the uniqueness of Christ, and the power of the Gospel, the faithful need to learn to stand up against the crowd; to resist the twin temptations to cower in fear or to join in the distortion ourselves. Boldness and clarity of speech on behalf of the gospel are what we need now, more than ever.

Speaking truth is of the essence. Silence is not a virtue.

My mother is ninety years old. She has vision and hearing issues, but her mind is razor sharp. We live in different parts of the country and being her only child I make several airplane trips a year to be with her. We talk almost every day by phone. A consistent topic she raises is, "What has happened to our country?" or, "I feel as though I went to sleep and woke up in a different world". One doesn't have to live ninety years to identify with those same sentiments.

I have been a pastor for most of my professional life. For eighteen of those years I wore two hats. The first part of each workday I wore a "pastor hat". That was my day job. But every weekday afternoon I would jump into a phone booth and just like Superman, I would put on another hat. Well, it wasn't a hat really. It was a pair of earphones and it wasn't a phone booth, it was a radio studio. Since the radio station format was "Christian Talk" I was hired to, from a biblical perspective, examine politics, culture, and life style issues.

It was a dream assignment. Every weekday I could preach, pontificate, posture, and even get paid for my time. The medium allowed a slightly more irreverent tone than pulpit decorum demanded. In short, it was fun! About ten years into the talk show era I became much more sober about the assignment. My assumption had been the domination of liberal politics for four decades. The solution to that problem seemed obvious. I believed that Christians, biblically informed, and politically engaged, could resolve much of the cultural degradation we were witnessing. We could turn secular humanism on its head with the ballot. After a decade of reading, interviewing, talking to listeners, and seeing biblically informed public policy consistently defeated, I came to realize that there was no substantive foundation for a political solution in our present situation. It was obvious that the portion of the Christian church engaged politically was wedded to partisan passions rather than prophetic vision. Evangelicals who were social conservatives believed Jesus, at His second advent, would surely be riding an elephant. Evangelicals persuaded by social liberalism envisioned Jesus ushering in the consummation of history aboard a donkey. My supposition was predicated upon there being a sleeping mass of evangelicals out there somewhere who, with some education and encouragement, would turn back the massive momentum of our culture toward a post Christian era. My belief was simply unfounded.

What most of the rest of my talk show colleagues and political ilk did not realize is that underneath our radar screen something very radical had occurred.  Our assumptions about "Christian America" were false. "Christian America" existed in memory alone, if it ever existed at all in reality.

Enlightenment values had unquestionably succeeded in deconstructing much of the common cultural ethos informed by traditional biblical beliefs about law, the role of the state, traditional marriage, morality, etc. Most Christians were aware of that dynamic. Secular Humanism was viewed, since the 1970's, as the single greatest of all enemies to biblically informed faith. Other than a political answer for the drift toward our cultural decadence there was not much vigorous analysis going any further than political solutions. The assumption of the Christian Right that the ballot box could be used to retake America for God was simplistic. When I encountered Peter Jones and his work regarding the resurgence of pagan spirituality it was as though I had been smacked by lightening in the head. While Enlightenment notions could deconstruct traditional ones, it could not do one very important thing. It could not absolve, even stark atheists, from the guilt of behaving in ways defying traditional structures and morality. Secularism, atheism, and anti-supernaturalism had prevailed in the West for many years among the "gate keepers" of society. Most atheists even, for much of the modern era, would have subscribed personally to traditional morality and structures and ordered their lives accordingly.

Culture wields great influence at a suppositional level. It conditions us; it desensitizes us, but is not strong enough to give permission to openly behave in ways contrary to our consciences. Cultural influences might tolerate someone else declaring "evil to be good and good to be evil". (Is. 5:20) However, our own consciences will not permit us to make public pronouncements or act out in ways deeply believed to be aberrant. We might do things in secret we believe to be wrong, but we would not want those deeds "shouted from the house tops". In order for behavior traditionally deemed evil to be perceived as good, one needs a higher authority than external ideology. Something deep within our beings was created to give us permission from a spiritual authority to reorder our moral sensibilities. Pagan spirituality, retrofitted to fallen human sensibilities, does just that. I am convinced that until the body of Christ repositions itself as the pillar and ground of truth and boldly engages the culture with Gospel truth, the pagan lie will maintain its ascendancy among the gatekeepers of postmodern society.

I wanted to ask those of you whom the Lord prompts, to pray for our grand-daugher Maya Jones, daughter of our son Julien and his wife Christina (daughter of Dennis and Jane Johnson of Escondido). They also have Kellen (4) and Finnan (4 months). Maya is only 2 years old, so the fibrosarcoma she was diagnosed with on December 24th, 2008 was a shock. She has been through four rounds of chemo and is now having radiation to her right arm and shoulder. On April 1st, she will undergo surgery to remove the tumor. After that she will have a month's rest to heal, and more radiation. This is a very grueling time for the family, and we are so honored and blessed to have prayers going up around the world. Any of you who would like to see some pictures, read more of her story, or leave a message of encouragement can go to the following site: www.caringbridge.org/visit/mayajones. Peter will be teaching in Indonesia at that time, and I will be in Germany with our oldest daughter and her family. Both trips were planned long before we knew anything of Maya's cancer. Jane Johnson, Christina's mom, will be with the family during this difficult time, and Julien and Christina's local church is actively helping as well.

Thank you.

Rebecca Jones

In our committee meeting earlier this month, Jay Wegter (who heads up our University truthXchange ministry) said that he thought this was Dr. Jones' best presentation yet of the message for university students and their cultural context.

Many thanks to University Presbyterian, Orlando for posting the message.  I hope you guys enjoy the link!

This also makes me think of those who will attend our new conference series, The Xchange.  I think it's an important list to pay attention to as you plan a conference as well.  It is my hope that when people leave The Xchange they will leave with solid, insightful answers to these questions as well as the impetus to follow up on each of them.

We are thrilled and exhausted.

What can I say?  This was my first CWiPPTHINK conference and so it might be hard to gague how objective my, "This has changed me profoundly" reaction is.  It might be, that is, if it weren't for the fact that I got to sit in the conference room after the close of the think tank and look at the planning committee's faces as we all reveled and shared about all we saw God doing among those who attended.

There were two common phrases that came up on Friday night as every member of the conference met and shared together in a general discussion at the end of the day:

1. "I have felt so alone."

2. "I've kept wondering, what happened to us?"

The first was shared by so many -- Anglicans and Episcopalians who are watching with grief as their churches split over issues of gender and sexuality; ministers to our youth who pine to see this generation of children saved from the predatory lies thrown at them from nearly every corner of the culture; college students who find themselves isolated as they see their peers self-destruct while swollowing the false promises of "new" spirituality.

The second, shared so eloquently the first time by one of our attendees, came up time and time again from participants in the 25 - 35 age range.  It came up more in personal conversations we had over meals and during breaks between sessions.  Time and time again, each of us in this group found ourselves saying, "Finally we can see what's happened to us."

It was hard not to feel desperate as speakers shared their expert insights under the general topic of the conference, which was "The Sexual Body: Epicenter of the Worldview Battle."  But together we were also reminded constantly that, no, it is not hopeless because we trust in Christ who has already overcome.

To those of you who spoke and those of you who attended, thank you.  I can not say it profoundly or deeply enough.  We are so thankful for you.

To those of you who could not come, stay closely tuned to the blog and site as audio and articles will begin to be posted soon.

In following days and weeks, I will share (hopefully along with some of my other colleagues) the lessons we learned at CT'09, the insights we gained, and the goals that have been set before us.  In the meantime I would urge you and plead with you to pray for Dr. Jones and those of us working with him. 

Pray for guidance. Pray for clarity of purpose. Pray for protection.  Pray, most of all, that the glorious truth of Christ's work as our savior and our redeemer would be held up and magnified in all that we do.  Pray that lives would be changed by it and, in this, that He would be glorified.

-- Mary

To all our friends, encouragers and supporters who have stood with us during this past year, we send you our heartfelt Christmas greetings. We trust your faith will be encouraged as you reflect upon the enormity of this celebration: God the transcendent Creator, at a specific moment in the history He created, entered our human lot to redeem us from our sin. Only He could accomplish such salvation. On Christ's atonement we base our lives and our ministry.

"On Christ the solid rock I stand: all other ground us sinking sand."

P.S. In the middle of writing this greeting from my older son's home in Colorado Springs, where we have come to spend Christmas, I learned at 1:00 pm December 23, as the parents came in from the doctor, that their two year old daughter, Maya, has a tumor in the muscle of her right shoulder. They have just left (2:30 pm) for the Denver Children's hospital for an emergency biopsy by a specialist. Rebecca and I and our daughter Stasie are staying in their home with four-year-old Kellen. This will be an odd Christmas, but I pray that the truth of Christmas will sustain us.

This is a picture of dear Maya:

 
Please pray for us, but especially for the parents (Julien and Christina), for little Maya, and for her two brothers, Kellen and Finnan (1 month old).

Peter and Rebecca Jones

Kellen (4), Julien (daddy), Maya (2), Christina (mommy), and Finnan (1 month)

I've been given the pleasure of announcing our Board for this upcoming year!  This is some of the fun of being the current resident blogger -- sharing exciting news with all of you.  And so, you're hearing it here first. 

Here is our Board in 2009:

Our Executive Director remains, of course, Dr. Peter Jones.

Continuing to act as Chairman for truthXchange is Matthew Bohling.

We are thrilled to welcome Harry Reeder of Briarwood Presbyterian Church as our Vice-Chair.

Equally exciting is the appointment of Hugh Jacks as Secretary.

We will also continue to benefit from the wonderful and capable leadership of Jim Routson as our truthXchange Treasurer.

Stay tuned for more information about projects we have ahead of us.  This is going to be an exciting year.

Thank you all for your prayers this week for the meeting.  The Lord blessed us with guidance and we can't wait to see what He has in store for 2009.  May He be glorified and lifted up in all of it.

I think that many of our group would agree with me when I say that, given current events with both the economy, new presidency about to begin, and other cultural and social issues of the day pressing, this meeting feels especially weighty.

I am not able to attend the meeting this year because of obligations here at home, but my heart and mind are with the rest of the team in Birmingham.  I have felt the call to stop in my tasks at points today and to pray.  I expect to feel the same urgent need throughout the rest of the week.

Would you who read this join me as the Lord leads you?  Please pray for guidance and wisdom for all of those involved with truthXchange.  Please pray above all that God would be lifted up and glorified in every decision made this week.  If that is not our focus, then we do our work for reasons that do not matter.

I think Dr. Jones will forgive me for saying this, since he knows I’m being honest:  It can be very hard, at first, to see the relevance of Paganism to me, a Christian in modern-day Southern California.

When I think of Pagans I don’t tend to think of the lady standing in line in front of me at the coffee shop.  I have some strange image in my head, rather, of wildly dressed men and women with ivy wound through their hair dancing around a fire somewhere on the heath by moonlight.  If I think HARD, I might come up with ancient rites I’ve read about in National Geographic – some of them still carried out in distant parts of the world.  But no matter how hard I tried for the longest time, I didn’t come up with modern, Western culture.

Don’t even get me started on trying to understand the relevance of Gnosticism.  I didn’t even get to begin with a funny mental image to help me out on that one.  At first, as Gnosticism got discussed around truthXchange, I had to bite my tongue to not let out and audible, “Um…GnostiWHO?”

I know to some of you reading this, it might sound like I’m simply being silly.  I know that to some of my colleagues, it is just so obvious to see how paganism affects us in our culture that it’s hard NOT to see.  But to me, the self-named Idiot Saint, that vision didn’t come so clearly until recently.   And I think that it’s important for people, especially in Christian ministry and education, to know that the relevance isn’t so obvious to some of us – in fact, probably a lot of us – at first.

I think that amongst Christians – probably more those who dwell outside of seminary circles and the theology blogosphere – there is a looming sense of unease about what is happening around us, in our schools, on our televisions, and even in some of our churches.  What is it about all this spiritual talk around us that sounds “Christiany” but just…ISN’T?  Where is it coming from?  What does it all mean?  What’s behind it?  Further – how do I even begin to speak to it?  How do I lovingly and clearly share the Gospel message with my friends and loved ones when they have already heard something that proclaims to be the “real” truth but isn’t?  Where do I find a Christian perspective on all that is being broadcast around me?

Christians like me don’t tend to think in terms of Gnostics and Pagans, and therefore, a lot of it flies right by us, adding to our discomfort but hard to identify in order to learn and equip ourselves against it. 

It is because of this ignorance of mine that I believe that the work Dr. Jones and other godly men and women are doing is so important.  This is part of why I am so excited about truthXchange and two of its newer ministries, University truthXchange (UTX) and Church truthXchange (CTX).  These ministries are an opportunity for universities and churches to invite Dr. Jones, Jay Wegter and others in our panel of speakers to share with student bodies and congregations about the very real war that is going on over the truth of the Gospel in our culture today. 

Recently, we had a UTX conference at a Midwestern university.  Clearly, based on the comments we got back from participants in that event, others are having reactions and experiences similar to mine.  Here are two that grabbed me when I read them:

 “UTX was an eye-opener for me.  I grew up in church as a pastor’s kid.  I was not familiar with the way people think.  Through Dr. Jones’ lecture I was hit with the full extent of just how much the lie has spread.  I went to my room depressed Friday night wondering if our nation is capable of change”

 “I was raised to think as a relativist. What hit me at truthXchange was first of all the definition of the pagan worldview. (…)  My experience in church and Sunday school in the past had involved no worldview equipping.  I now long to see students come to UTX and be involved in the Q & A that they might understand what they believe and what others believe.”

We need equipping and, through God’s grace, I truly believe truthXchange is helping to do it.  Personally, it has begun to make worlds of difference to me.

--IS

Greetings from the Idiot Saint and welcome to the new truthXchange blog.  I am one of a few regular writers who will be posting to this site.

 Before I go any further under this name, please let me explain:  Taking verbal abuse from Dr. Jones is not part of my job description.  When truthXchange first posted the position I was later hired for, Dr. Jones exclaimed, “Whoever takes this job is either an idiot or a saint!”  I laughed when I heard what he’d said, and then very quickly turned it into my unofficial job title, a silly joke for my new, delightful, incredibly educated colleagues. 

And so, as the Idiot Saint, let me explain a little about who I hope to be to you:

When I first learned of Dr. Jones’ work it was because, on a business trip to San Francisco, I was handed a copy of Dan Brown’s book “The DaVinci Code” by a co-worker who exclaimed over the fun read it had turned out to be.  As I took the book from her she tagged onto her description, “Well, and it made me think of you because you’re a Christian and there are all these new facts that he works into the story about the Church and about who Jesus really was…it’s amazing!”  Indeed, it was “amazing” to read and, slightly shaken but certain that there had to be some answers for me somewhere, I went looking for insight.  It was then that my father recommended that I read “Cracking DaVinci’s Code” by Dr. Jones and James Garlow.  With relief, joy and new insight I plowed through the book cover-to-cover and at the end came away with the beginnings of an important awakening about the context in which we, as Christians, practice our faith.

Perhaps, like me, you are a Christian who has begun to feel the disconnect between what you believe and read in the Bible and what you see broadcast at you from all sides about what “spirituality” really should be.  Or perhaps, as a pastor or a scholar, you need an insight into the confusion and struggles of those in your churches who are living in a culture inundated by the New Age, “alternative” spiritualities, and the insistence that all faiths are equal and all lead to the same God. 

Well, here I am – or perhaps given my chosen moniker I should amend that to say, “Here I IS.”  As I work here at truthXchange I have had the opportunity and blessing to be thrust into an environment where I can’t help but learn from the men and women around me as they seek to turn spirituality inside out.  As I learn I will be posting here to all of you.  It is my hope and prayer as I write that each of you will find it helpful to have insights into the mind of the resident Idiot Saint.

                                                                                                -- IS