All posts by Wintery Knight

https://winteryknight.com/

Alistair Begg preaches on practicality and initiative in the story of Ruth

I finished listening to Alistair Begg’s series on Esther, and I’m now on to his series on Ruth. Sermon #3 stood out to me, because it touches on the important issues of free will vs determinism as well as the two methods of seeking God’s will: mysticism vs wisdom.

The discussion centers around Ruth’s decision to go to the barley fields to work, in order to get something to eat.

Here is the description:

When we’re facing a future devoid of prospects or possibilities, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and discouraged. Ruth could relate. She was a penniless widow in a foreign land seeking a way to provide for herself and her widowed mother-in-law. Her future was totally dependent upon someone showing her unmerited grace and favor. Instead of giving up, she gives us an example of humility, initiative and faith as she seeks work and sustenance.

As things in the world spin out of control, it’s important to remember that you must always have a plan and be working on that plan. Even when things look very bleak, you have to do something reasonable and practical, and then pray to God for “favor”. That God will do something unexpected that will make your reasonable action bear unexpected fruit.

If you want to listen to sermons #1 and sermon #2 in the series on Ruth, you can find the whole series here. So far, I have listened to 5. The first two were also very good, so if you listen to the first 3, you will definitely benefit. Each one is 35 to 40 minutes.

Evangelical Christian college fires professor for taking Biblical position on homosexuality

When I was a pretty new Christian in college, I joined Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. While getting to know the other young Christian students, and the progressive feminist IVCF student leader, I suddenly realized that not everyone who called themselves a Christian really believed the Bible. In my case, problems arose over the doctrine of Hell, sexual morality and evidential apologetics.

This was my first exposure to a Christian organization that was not rigorous about the Bible. I would try to get them to bring in apologetics professors to talk about science and history, but they kept insisting on prayer walks and testimonies. This was one of the experiences that let me to do my Christian work using an alias. I began to think “what if these progressive Christians get into power, and they get offended by my conservative views?”

And that’s what happened to this professor, who tweeted out Biblical views under his own name. He must have thought he was safe working for an evangelical Christian college. But he was not.

Premier Christianity UK reports:

I was recently dismissed for misconduct by Cliff College, an evangelical Methodist Bible college where I had worked as a lecturer and programme lead for seven years. The misconduct referred to my now-infamous tweet…

[…]A Twitterstorm quickly ensued. Aggressively pro-LGBT advocates attacked me as homophobic and hateful, pressurising the college to sack me. The college swiftly and publically denounced my tweet as “inappropriate” and “unacceptable”. They later asked me to remove it. When I said I couldn’t do that in good conscience, I was suspended and later dismissed for “bringing the college into disrepute”.

He wrote this, which I found very interesting:

One woman, a Soviet-born émigré now teaching at a US university, said: “You have no idea what completely normal things you do today, or say today, will be used against you to destroy you. This is what people in the Soviet Union saw. We know how this works.”

I came from another country to the United States, and I saw Christians being persecuted by the secular left government for the things they had said and done. That’s why I left.

Cliff College describes their organization this way:

Cliff College provides theological education and training with a particular focus on mission and evangelism.

Cliff College has a long and rich heritage of providing Bible training to people from diverse backgrounds, for mission and evangelism.

Since the beginning, we have sought to provide biblical, evangelical training that is both relevant and forward-thinking, with an emphasis on scriptural holiness.

“Scriptural holiness”. It makes you laugh to read it.

And:

Cliff College is an evangelical learning community which is rooted in God’s Word and Spirit, for the purpose of equipping God’s people for practical ministry and cutting-edge missional engagement.

The education we offer at Cliff is theology for the real world – rooted in practice, forged in community, grounded in the authority of Scripture and consistently prompting us to face outwards. We proclaim the Gospel and invite everyone to experience the life-changing transformation of a relationship with Jesus Christ.

When the authority of Scripture comes up against the secular left culture, Cliff College sides with the culture.

Calvin Robinson
Calvin Robinson

There was another story out of the UK that you might now have heard about – the story of Calvin Robinson.

Here’s the story from Church Times UK:

A CONSERVATIVE media commentator, Calvin Robinson, has said that his ordination in the Church of England was blocked, owing to his political views.

Mr Robinson was due to be ordained deacon in the autumn. Without a title post, ordination cannot take place, and, in an article for the Mail on Sunday, he alleges that the offer of a part-time post as assistant curate of St Alban the Martyr, Holborn, in London, was withdrawn, after several bishops had expressed concerns about his outspoken views.

I thought this was interesting – a progressive white woman told the conservative black man what he should think about racism:

In February 2020, the Archbishop of Canterbury told the General Synod that the Church was still “deeply institutionally racist” (News, 11 February 2020).

[…]Mr Robinson, who is black, wrote on Sunday that he “fundamentally disagreed with this approach”, and described it as “divisive and offensive”.

“I do not think the claim that either the Church, or wider society, is institutionally racist has ever been supported by robust evidence,” he wrote.

Mr Robinson says that, in a meeting with [the Bishop of London, the Right Reverend Sarah] Mullally, she said to him: “Calvin, as a white woman, I can tell you that the Church is institutionally racist.”

What I’d like to see from Christians is seriousness about the need to find a career where your views can be kept secret from nosy progressives like the Bishop of London, the Right Reverend Sarah Mullally. My goal in life is to never have my Christian activities be subject to the authority of the Bishop of London, the Right Reverend Sarah Mullally. Or an employer like her. Or a judge like her. Or a pastor like her. One of the reasons why Christians don’t stand up to the secular left is because we make too many friends, and then we conform our speech to these friends, in order to be popular.

Paternity fraud case shows how pro-marriage conservatives see men as expendable

When terrible things happen to men in this society, you often get comments from people saying “well, it’s his fault, he chose a bad woman”. And I agree that men often make poor choices because they focus on attraction instead of on character. But what if a man is an innocent bystander, and is falsely accused by a woman he doesn’t even know? Is it still his fault then?

Here is the news story from Fox 2 Detroit.

Excerpt:

A Metro Detroit man cleared his name after Friend of the Court sent him a letter saying he had a baby with a woman he never met.

“She don’t know me, how do you just put my name down? How do you just put anybody’s name down?” DeAngelo Smith said. “I don’t know her. Never seen her. Still to this day, haven’t talked to her, and it just proves the baby has no ties to my name.”

Late last year, DeAngelo received a letter from Friend of the Court in Berrien County saying that he was the father of a baby girl.

His wife was the first to see the accusation:

His wife first spotted the letter in the mail from Friend of the Court.

“Let’s just set the record, I trust my husband,” Tyahvia Smith said. “I know his character, man of integrity.”

They contacted his employer:

While waiting for the child’s mother to take the baby for a DNA test, DeAngelo said the school where he teaches received an inquiry for possible garnishment in case the child was his.

“It made it something that is not being alleged, but now it’s something that’s being taken into action and no paternity has been established,” he said.

Finally, the woman had the DNA test done, and DeAngelo has since gotten a letter confirming he was not the father.

Legislation introduced by Republican Jim Runestad to prevent this from happening has been tied up for eight years… in a Republican-led legislature:

“It’s very unfortunate, but paternity fraud is not a unique, unusual situation in Michigan,” Sen. Jim Runestad (R-White Lake) said.

Runestad said he has been pushing for new legislation on the matter for the past eight years. Currently, there is no penalty for lying and a DNA test is not required before a person is contacted about the paternity of the child.

The fact that there are no consequences for doing this means that women are going to keep doing it again and again.

Does masculinity mean that a man should give a woman whatever she wants?

I sent this story to a conservative pro-marriage friend, and she said “So what? How many times does something like this happen?” Her only concern was that this story made women look bad. She had previously told me that “masculinity is when a man uses his strength to protect and provide for women”. So, then it is just “masculine” for this innocent man to pay for a child who isn’t his own. Why would he object to paying? Does he not like children?

Most people today like the changes that feminism has made for women. They like public schools run by women that discriminate against boys. They like women taking out huge student loans for useless non-STEM degrees, then demanding bailouts from taxpayers. They like women taking part in hook-up culture. They like women using no-commitment bad boys for validation. They like no-fault divorce laws. They like false accusations during divorce trials. They like biased domestic violence laws. They like paternity fraud. They like massive welfare spending designed to reward women who make reckless decisions. And they like feminist judges stripping fathers of parental rights for refusing to agree with the transing of their kids.

Men are expendable when it comes to creating greater happiness for women. So what’s wrong with sending a man a bill for a woman who needs some money for a child that isn’t his? It’s horrible to tell a woman that she can’t do what she feels like doing. It’s horrible to tell a woman that she has to pay the costs of her own actions. Just make a man pay for it. Men are big and strong, they can handle it. And besides, women never tell lies. We have to believe all women. We have to force men to make women happy. That’s “masculinity”.

Society pressures men to get married

This “believe all women” attitude that is shared by many Christians and conservatives becomes a problem for men when men are pressured to get married. This society makes marriage a risky enterprise for men. And men have to understand that this pressure to get married is often coming from people who see men as expendable in the cause of increasing women’s happiness. The person telling you to get married is often the same person who thinks that a DNA test shouldn’t be performed in a paternity case.

Men have to understand that the command to “get married” is coming from pro-marriage activists who think that men exist solely to make women happy. Who cares about the risks and costs of marriage for men? Who cares about men’s needs and desires? Who cares what reasons a man has for marrying? Who cares about a man’s standards for his wife? Who cares about a man’s plan for his marriage? He should just be pressured to get married. Just like the falsely accused paternity fraud victim should have to pay.

It’s not the purpose of men’s lives to get married and have kids

Always remember that according to the Bible, serving God is more honorable than getting married and having children. (Read 1 Cor 7:8-9 and 2 Tim 2:4) Many social conservatives try to guilt men into getting married and having children by denying the risks and costs of marriage for men. They think that Christianity’s main purpose is to force men to make women happy, regardless of what women offer to men in exchange. That’s the actual view of several of my social conservative Christian friends.

Men are designed to serve God first and foremost. And it’s much easier to serve God if you are not encumbered by alimony, child support, false accusations, denial of due process, paternity fraud, feminist judges, etc. Only women who honor that obligation, and want to help a man to meet that obligation, should be taken seriously for marriage and child-rearing.