Tag Archives: Christianity

Polemics

New poll: few Millennials describe belief in God as “very important”

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Beliefs of millennials and boomers
Beliefs of millennials and boomers

I saw a very interesting article that compared the attitudes of young people about things like patriotism, religion, freedom, etc. The numbers are very discouraging.

So, here’s the article from the Washington Examiner:

The importance of patriotism, faith in God, and having children is significantly lower among millennials and Generation Z, compared to previous generations.

In a new poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News, nearly 80% of people aged 55-91 said being patriotic is important to them, while only 42% of millennials and Generation Z, or those aged 18-38, said the same. Thirty percent of millennials and Generation Z said religion was important, compared to the over 75% of baby boomers, with just over 30% of millennials and Generation Z saying it was important to have children.

Areas where the younger generations had placed higher importance compared to boomers were tolerance for others and self-fulfillment, with financial security being almost tied between the two age groups.

I’m sure that everyone has seen other polls showing the decline of Christianity, especially in mainline and Catholic churches. Evangelicals are declining less, but they are still declining.

The reason I linked to this post is because I’ve noticed that some Christians don’t really think that there is anything to be concerned about. Everything is working fine, they say. Whatever we’re doing right now must be working, because there is no decline. We’re winning, and if you think otherwise, then you’re just complaining.

Well, I don’t really know why there is this decline, all I can do is speak from my experiences. I’ve met people through my blog who did lose their faith in college, and I’ve met ex-Christians in my office, too. I asked them what the problem was, and it seems to be that when they were growing up, they often bullied into behaving like a Christian without being able to ask any questions about whether it was true. And then as soon as they got to college away from their parents and pastors, they just dumped the whole thing.

I remember listening to an amazing lecture a while back by Dr. Scott Waller. I think it was a lecture he gave for the Stand to Reason “Masters Series in Christian Thought” in 2003. The lecture was about Postmodernism in the University. Postmodernism is the view that there are no true or false views, especially with “soft” issues like religion and morality. In the lecture, he talked about how a father had sent his devout Christian son to university, and the son had returned an atheist after one semester. I remember Dr. Waller quoting the son telling his parents “I have come to think of my time growing up in this house as the dark period of my life”. The father was very upset. So Dr. Waller told him what to do. He said, you’re going to need to read a few books on the most common questions that your son has, and then work through the answers with him. And he made a little pile of books about common questions that college students ask, and pushed the pile across the table to the father. And the father pushed the books back across the table to Dr. Waller, and said “well, I don’t have time for reading so many books… but could you just talk to him instead?”

Another thing that seems to cause a lot of young people to  leave the faith in college is sex. Now if I were trying to convince someone to be responsible about sex, I’d try to show them studies and statistics to explain why there really are best practices to relationships and marriage. For example, I’d might show them that the number of premarital sex partners increases marital instability, or that sliding into cohabitation early tends to make marriages less stable. But this takes a bit of work, and you have to work through it with the young people. I just don’t know if parents really reason with their kids like this. But in churches, I’ve noticed that trying to make an argument using evidence isn’t very popular. To me, if I were trying to be convincing to someone about something, I would use evidence. It’s just natural to me to make a case if I’m trying to be persuasive. But making a case just hasn’t been a really big priority in the churches I’ve attended.

So, I guess if I had to give any advice to parents of children, or pastors in churches, it would be that Christianity is in decline, and we need to do more than just order people to memorize Bible verses and creeds, go to church, etc. It’s hard for me to know what’s really going on in everyone’s home, and in everyone’s church. But I don’t think that whatever we’re doing in our homes and churches is working to convince young people that belief in God is very important.

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To be a Bible-believing Christian, you have to be comfortable working alone

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So, when I read the Bible there are things that stand out to be as being of first importance. The priorities are about personal moral character. The overall theme seems to be to deny your personal desires and ambitions and gain control of yourself so that you can devote yourself to following Jesus. The Bible isn’t teaching that we need to implement Marxism as a solution to “inequalities”.

The Bible emphasizes things like controlling your temper, being patient when you must suffer for being a Christian, forgiving others who are penitent about treating you badly, giving to charity, being sober and chaste, either staying unmarried or marrying an opposite sex partner for life, not envying, not stealing, building other people up in the knowledge of God, renewing your mind. There’s no emphasis on disparities or social justice. Everything is about individual choices. Every person is responsible for themselves.

Now, when I go to Twitter and Facebook, I see people who occupy positions of power in Christianity who don’t talk about any of those things. They don’t practice those things themselves as of first importance. They don’t read books about how to practically pursue those things, e.g. – books about evidence countering premarital sex, divorce or same-sex marriage. They don’t talk about those things, they aren’t informed enough to be convincing about those things, they don’t promote those things to non-Christians using evidence.

Let’s take an example: chastity and natural marriage between one man and one woman for life. When you look at the social media of prominent Christians, Christian professors, Christian apologists, Christian celebrities, etc., you aren’t going to see them linking to studies about the premarital sex, hooking up, cohabitation, polyamory, no-fault divorce. Instead, they’re going to be talking about what makes them look virtuous to others. Things like recycling, essential oils, amnesty for illegal immigrants and refugees, girl wash your face, wear a COVID mask, black lives matter, yoga, dog and cat parenting, supporting public school teachers, etc. The sum total of their Christian distinctiveness is that they’ve got essential oils and rainbow unicorn mugs that say “just believe”.

There isn’t a single point where their personal morality or public engagement is centered around what the Bible teaches explicitly. The leaders have left the Bible behind for life enhancement and virtue signaling, as required by their new Lords and Saviors in the secular left mainstream news media. And this is not surprising at all when you look at the most popular books in Christian Women’s section of book stores. It’s all Rachel Hollis, Beth Moore, Joyce Meyer, Jen Hatmaker, Lauren Akins, Priscilla Shirer, etc. The goal is for the individual to feel good, get social approval and achieve their heart’s desires. Nothing there about promoting what the Bible teaches using reason and evidence to non-Christians. Whatever these people understand Christianity to be, it’s not something that requires that they read non-fiction, behave morally and persuade others with evidence. They’re neither salt nor light. They’re just trying to live a “good life” – just like everyone else.

So what about feminism and the Sexual Revolution? The response of Christian leaders to the new ways of meeting, dating, marrying proposed by radical feminists is enthusiastic celebration. And if delaying marriage for careers and promiscuity result in more abortions and divorces and single motherhood, then don’t blame the choices of women, just blame secular men for not turning into Christians after being given premarital sex. (This is the majority view among conservative pastors – let women have sex with atheists, then blame atheists for not converting into faithful, devoted husbands). It’s just too hard to read actual studies on sex, dating and marriage, and then take a stand against women who have accepted feminism for emotional reasons: “it’s just easier to get along with my teachers and peers if I’m sexually active with no-commitment bad boys”.

The response to the challenges of atheism is to quote Bible words and expect magical conversions due to burning of the bosom. There is no difference between the evangelistic views of Al Mohler and Russell Moore and Mormon leaders. Both camps are firm believers in magic words evangelism, i.e. – fideism. You have to pre-suppose the Bible is true because of a burning sensation when you read it. Since this approach doesn’t work when used on non-Christians, you get this retreat from proclaiming the truth of Christianity to non-Christians. They’ve been doing the same thing over and over for decades, and now they’ve just stopped presenting Christianity as true entirely. Now, they to focus on “wear a mask” and “defund the police” instead, so they can continue to achieve their real goal – communicating their virtue to others.

Regarding Marxism, they keep swallowing every cause trotted out by the left to achieve the left’s end goal of a Marxist utopia. Whether it’s global warming, importing big-government supporting refugees and illegal immigrants, black lives matter Marxism, the housing bubble bailouts, the new trillion student loan bubble, or defund the police, Christian leaders just keep rushing around like lemmings to support any cause that the secular left tells them is good. The Bible does not give them their priorities and definition of good and evil. Instead, they now look to the talking heads on CNN and MSNBC to tell them what they must promote in order to signal their virtue to others. Their religious hobby was always about signaling their virtue to others. When sobriety and chastity got hard, they switched to wear a mask and defund the police.

Conclusion

If you are approaching Christianity like “Jesus was a refugee” and “black lives matter” woke pastors, and thinking that the church / seminary hierarchy is a great place to communicate your personal virtuousness to a large group of people, then keep doing that. But if you’re just interested in championing the viewpoints that the Bible considers of central importance, then get yourself some books about the evidence related to challenges to Christianity, and read them. Get yourself an alias and a blog. Write what you learn about. Mentor others one-on-one so they learn how to defend the Bible’s teachings as well. Get involved in politics for the Republican party, which at least has some policies that overlap with our concerns about abortion, religious liberty, self-defense against criminals, etc.

We’re past the point of relying on woke pastors and Christian leaders to know anything about how to defend the Bible. They’re just pissing away the religious liberty that was built by previous generations for their own selfish purposes. Don’t rely on them.

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Three reasons why Christians should read military history

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Roger Trimble, standing second from the left, in front of his B-24 Liberator
Roger Trimble, standing second from the left, in front of his B-24 Liberator

I recently finished a book called “Beyond The Call: The True Story of One World War II Pilot’s Covert Mission to Rescue POWs on the Eastern Front”. It’s about a World War 2 heavy bomber pilot who completes 35 missions, and then goes into the Soviet Union (our allies, at the time) to rescue American POWs who were starving or being kidnapped or murdered by the Soviet secret police.

I found a very good article about it from Stripes, to just quickly introduce the story:

Later, after making contact with POWs roaming the Polish countryside, [Capt. Robert Trimble] fully embraced his mission. He saw the desperate plight of those who had been liberated from Third Reich prison camps. Many were sick, emaciated, often clothed in rags and left to fend for themselves during a brutally harsh winter.

Trimble risked his life numerous times over six weeks, helping to rescue hundreds of POWs. He came to the aid of others, too. In one daring rescue, nearly foiled by Russian agents who had become suspicious of his activities, Trimble helped 400 French women make it out of Poland and back to France.

Although he was being constantly trailed by Russian spies and informers, he would evade them, and bring food and money to the POWs, then put them on a train to Odessa, Ukraine, where they could get onto a ship going home.

Why I read military history

It is hard to develop virtues just by wishing and hoping. Something has to go into your mind that causes you to think differently, and feel differently. Everything that you watch on TV, hear on the radio, or see in the movie theater, is made by secular leftists. They aren’t trying to build your moral character. They’re goal is to break down your resistance to their unBiblical worldview and moral values. Instead of giving people who hate Jesus your money, just so you can be entertained, why not try to put something in front of your eyes that will make you better?

Look at this famous passage from the Bible.

Romans 12:1-2:

1Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 

2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

And also this from Philippians, my favorite book of the Bible.

Philippians 4:8:

8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

So you can see that when I am reading, my goal is to work on my character. I want to have feelings about things that are appropriate for a Christian man.

So why military history? Here are three reasons why I read these military history books.

Humility

First, humility. Humility used to be one of my biggest challenges. So I thought to myself “instead of seeing yourself as some heroic figure, why don’t you read about some real heroes… people who willingly gave their lives for their friends, like the Bible urges, and like Jesus did by example”.

Remember this from John 15:13?

13 Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

Military history is filled with stories of courage, bravery, self-sacrifice, endurance, unselfishness, and many other virtues. When you read about people who are better than you, doing more important things than what you’re doing, it really helps you to be humble.

The best thing for humility is reading Medal of Honor citations. You can find a bunch of them online here. And if you want a book to read, try these books about Medal of Honor recipients:

Endurance

Second, endurance. I sometimes feel badly about not having found someone to marry and not having lots of children. I wanted a good marriage to be a model for others, and also to have an influence in the next generation through my children. However, whenever I read military history, I see a lot of young men dying in battle. And I think, they too won’t know what sex is like. And, they too won’t know what marriage is like. And, they too won’t know what having children is like. But it’s not just the ones who die, it’s the hardships they have to go through, as well. Cold, hunger, imprisonment, pain, loss of their friends, etc.

I remember reading about one of my favorite battles – probably the most famous battle of the Korean War, which is our most moral war. It’s about Fox Company of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment, 1st Marine Division. They had to hold a hill beside a vital road against overwhelming numbers of Chinese soldiers during the freezing cold North Korean winter. I remember reading about how one soldier got up to go to the bathroom, and was nearly shot by a sniper. He fell over on his own poop, which had already frozen by the time it hit the ground. For months after, I would always think about this whenever I went into a bathroom. We have pre-warmed water in our bathrooms at work, along with soap, lysol spray, febreeze, contact lense cleaner, hand sanitizer, and other things. Just understanding what other people have to go through in war helps me to be more patient with the little tiny setbacks that I experience. I used to get very anxious when anything went wrong, because of I was raised by strict immigrant parents. That anxiety seemed to last a long time, but since I started to read military history, I’ve been much more patient. I know that things could be worse.

Thankfulness

The third thing that I’ve experienced is thankfulness. Not just for all the things that I have because of what our armed forces have done, e.g. – basic human rights, prosperity, liberty, security, etc. But also specifically about those who gave their lives so that I could live free in a free country, and practice my Christian faith without fear.

Here are two of my favorite Medal of Honor stories from World War 2, in the Battle of Pearl Harbor:

Congressional Medal of Honor
Awarded Posthumously
PETER TOMICH

Rank and organization: Chief Watertender, U.S. Navy.
Place and date: Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941.
Born: 3 June 1893, Prolog, Austria.

Although realizing that the ship was capsizing as a result of enemy bombing and torpedoing, Tomich remained at his post in the engineering plant of the U.S.S. Utah, until he saw that all boilers were secured and all fireroom personnel had left their stations, and by so doing lost his own life.

And:

Congressional Medal of Honor
Awarded Posthumously
JAMES RICHARD WARD

Rank and organization: Seaman First Class, U.S. Navy.
Place and date: Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941.
Born: 10 September 1921, Springfield, Ohio.

When it was seen that the U.S.S. Oklahoma was going to capsize and the order was given to abandon ship, Ward remained in a turret holding a flashlight so the remainder of the turret crew could see to escape, thereby sacrificing his own life.

I do think that it’s important for Christians to read these kinds of stories in order to feed their own awareness of what it must have been like for Jesus to give his life voluntarily for us.

There is no shortcut to gratitude. You have to constantly reflect on the sacrifices made by others for you, if you are to have any concrete reason for feeling grateful. The more you read about examples of people giving their lives for others, the more you’ll appreciate what Jesus did for you. It will make you grateful.

There is a very annoying idea out there in the culture that says that people just do whatever is easy and fun for themselves, and since everyone else is always doing what makes them feel good, then there is no need to be thankful for anything. It’s comforting for people to delude themselves with that belief, but it’s false.

My reading list

You can check out the “What I am Reading” section of the blog to see which military history books I’ve been reading.