There was a day when Easter Sunday elicited cover stories and headlines on Easter themes in American media. I remember sympathetic biographies of biblical figures along with reflective essays on the abiding lessons of Jesus’ resurrection.

Things have changed.

The Los Angeles Times ran an op-ed for Easter Sunday titled, “How Christians came to believe in heaven, hell and the immortal soul.” Written by Bart Ehrman, one of the most notorious anti-Christian critics in contemporary culture, it is an astonishingly false portrait of Judeo-Christian faith and history. The book on which the essay is based has already been soundly debunked, but many who read Ehrman’s Easter article may nonetheless be persuaded by the falsehoods it perpetrates.

Two days earlier, the Los Angeles Times published a different op-ed, this one for Good Friday. Titled “Why America’s record godlessness is good news for the nation,” the article responds to the recent Gallup report that church membership has fallen below 50 percent for the first time.

The author celebrates what he calls “organic secularization,” by which “members of a society become better educated, more prosperous, and live safer, more secure and more peaceful lives” and thus turn from religion. In his view, “highly secular democracies” do a “much better job” of meeting human needs than faith-based charities. As a result, he concludes that we should celebrate the growing secularism of our day.

The author ignores the remarkable growth among evangelical and conservative churches and ministries in our day. Nor does he take note of the seminal work by Robert D. Putnam and David Brooks, among others, which highlight the social connections that are especially strengthened in religious communities. And he dismisses the relevance of “a heavenly reward that fewer and fewer of us believe in,” as if our personal beliefs (or lack thereof) change eternal reality.

The two anti-Christian articles have this in common: both were published on two of the most significant holy days in the Christian year. And both are based on selective arguments that conflate personal opinion with objective truth.

Christians who were intellectual giants 

As intellectual attacks on Christian faith and practice continue to escalate, it is vital that Christians respond with intellectual passion and compassion. Such a commitment is nothing new for us. In fact, the rational and reasonable nature of our faith has been foundational to its transformative effect across Christian history.

Scholar Stanley Jaki demonstrated conclusively that modern science was “stillborn” in other cultures but came to life in the fertile soil of Christian reason. The list of great scientists who were also committed Christians is both large and inspiring.

Women were some of the greatest heroes in Scripture, as Shannon Bream shows in her powerful book, The Women of the Bible Speak. From the early church to today, women have excelled as theologians and leaders.

Hans Küng’s seminal book, Great Christian Thinkers, was enormously influential and encouraging. J. R. R. Tolkien’s role in leading C. S. Lewis to faith in Christ stands as just one example of an intellectual giant who influenced an intellectual giant.

Biblical thinking for biblical living 

How can we stand for biblical truth with clarity and compassion today? 

First, make a daily commitment to love God with all your mind (Matthew 22:37). 

God’s call still resounds today: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8). This is a present-tense imperative, a daily checklist of God’s continuing commands to each of us each day. 

According to the Barna Group and the American Bible Society, only 9 percent of US adults read the Bible daily. Are you in their number?

Second, immerse your mind in God’s word (John 17:17). 

God’s word is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). This means that Scripture will instruct us in the right path, stop us when we choose the wrong path, set us in the right direction again, and keep us there. 

As a result, it is vital that we meet God every morning in his word and then consult biblical truth as we face decisions and challenges all through the day. Biblical thinking leads to biblical living. Was this your experience yesterday? Will it be today?

Third, respond to falsehood with biblical truth (1 Peter 3:15–16). 

Paul’s commitment should be ours: “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). To destroy means to refute. Arguments refers to truth claims; lofty opinion refers to arrogant thinking. Raised against the knowledge of God means to be opposed to what God has revealed.

After refuting all such falsehoods, we are called to take every thought captive, meaning literally to “capture” each and every thought. We do this to obey Christ and his word, heeding Paul’s testimony as God’s commission to us.

A dear friend of mine has taught his children how to watch television and movies biblically: they compete to “spot the lie” whenever they see something unbiblical. Imagine the difference if all of us did the same for ourselves and those we influence. 

“Did not our hearts burn within us?” 

Tomorrow, I plan to discuss practical ways you and I can respond biblically to unbiblical truth claims. For today, let’s renew our commitment to thinking biblically. 

On the first Easter, the risen Christ who met the disciples on the road to Emmaus “interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). In response, they later said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” (v. 32). 

When last did your heart burn within you? Why not today?

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The United Nations has condemned a bombing at an Indonesian church on Palm Sunday, an attack that wounded twenty people. Turkey is expelling Christian pastors as its leaders continue their move from democracy to Islamic nationalism. 

Closer to home, a group of college students is suing the US Department of Education, seeking to eliminate the religious exemption that enables Christian colleges to align their practices with historic Christian doctrine. Baylor University is among more than two dozen faith-based schools named in the class-action lawsuit. 

However, the greatest threats to the church are not from without but from within.

“There is no statute of limitations on truth” 

Kanakuk Kamps is one of the largest Christian camps in the world. Since its founding in 1926, it claims to have served more than 450,000 campers. Each summer, approximately twenty thousand kids pass through its gates outside of Branson, Missouri, and in other locations. Numerous families in the churches I pastored have had wonderful experiences with Kanakuk. 

Now, tragically, Kanakuk is back in the news for all the wrong reasons. 

Former Kanakuk director Pete Newman went to prison in 2010 for abusing boys. Nineteen victims were identified in the initial investigation against him. However, Christian journalists David and Nancy French recently published an extensive article noting that the damage could be far worse. 

They describe Newman as enormously charismatic: “Girls wanted to date him, guys wanted to be him, and children wanted to follow him.” However, as they note in deeply disturbing detail, he abused boys in camp cabins, in the gym, in the pool, in the showers, on father-son retreats, and on a mission trip to China. They report that camp leaders were extremely slow to respond to rising allegations against him. 

A site called “Facts About Kanakuk” lists other former Kanakuk staff and associates who have been convicted of sexual abuse of minors. Christianity Today reports that one of Newman’s victims died by suicide in 2019. 

It also notes that Kananuk has since put on child protection training seminars for leaders from more than four hundred and fifty fellow Christian camps and ministry organizations. Kanakuk now lists detailed guidelines regarding contact, interaction, and conversations which staff members can have with campers. 

However, David and Nancy French note that the number of Kanakuk victims who have come forward remains unknown since many cases were settled with nondisclosure agreements. They explain the reason for their report: “There is no statute of limitations on truth.”

A catastrophic weakness in our theology 

Any biblical response should begin with the fact that God loves children and condemns anyone who victimizes them. Jesus stated bluntly that for such a predator, “it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6). The abuse of a single child anywhere in the world grieves the heart of our Father and must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. 

Why, then, would a camp run by evangelical Christians be susceptible to such horrific sin? It seems to me that evangelicals suffer from a catastrophic weakness in our theology.

We know that salvation is in three tenses: 

1. We have been saved from condemnation as sinners and granted salvation as the children of God. 
2. We are being saved through the process of daily sanctification. 
3. And we will be saved from physical death to eternal life in heaven. 

We know that we must depend on God for the first and third tenses of salvation. We cannot save ourselves from our sins (Ephesians 2:8–9). We obviously cannot save ourselves from physical death once we die and are dependent on God to raise us to eternal life with him (John 11:25–26). 

However, we all too easily ignore the fact that we are just as dependent on God for the second tense of salvation. We fall prey to the lies of our fallen culture that promote self-sufficiency and reward external success. This is true of charismatic figures like Pete Newman, brilliant communicators like Ravi Zacharias, and trendsetting innovators like Bill Hybels. Too many leaders forget that “we who teach will be judged with greater strictness” (James 3:1) and that “each of us will give an account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12). 

The body of Christ is complicit here. The more famous a Christian leader becomes, the less we seem to hold them accountable for the sins to which all people are tempted. We want heroes to value and emulate and resist our biblical responsibility to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1). 

So long as this cycle of accountability avoidance continues, more tragedies will make more headlines, dishonoring our Lord and grieving his heart.

“Encourage one another and build one another up” 

This is where Easter becomes especially relevant. 

On the day after billions of Christians celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the fact is that he is just as alive and active as he was when he first rose from the grave. He is just as committed to interceding for us (Romans 8:34), walking with us (Matthew 28:20), forgiving us (1 John 1:9), and empowering us (Acts 1:8) as when he first walked our broken world. 

But we, like his first followers, must choose to follow him. We must admit Jesus was right when he told us, “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). We must submit to his Spirit each day and all through the day (Ephesians 5:18). We must ask him to make us like himself (Romans 8:29) “through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth” (2 Thessalonians 2:13). 

We must hold each other accountable to God’s best for us (Proverbs 27:17) as we “encourage one another and build one another up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). We must start every day by admitting how much we need Jesus to empower us by his omnipotent grace.

Christless Christianity is no Christianity at all. 

Alexander Maclaren was right: “The risen life of Jesus is the nourishment and strengthening and blessing and life of a Christian.” 

Will you invite the risen Lord to be glorified in your life today? 

Denison Forum

The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that a passenger train in Taiwan derailed today, killing more than three dozen people and trapping more than seventy others. It is the island’s deadliest rail accident in decades.

Officials say the eight-car train might have hit a construction vehicle that had stopped on the tracks.  

The suffering of Jim Caviezel 

It is terribly appropriate for such a horrible tragedy to occur on Good Friday, the most somber day of the Christian year. This is the day Jesus was tried and convicted illegally by the religious leaders of his nation, then whipped, tortured, and nailed to a cross to die. 

You may have seen Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. It is the most realistic depiction of Jesus’ suffering I have seen on film. 

Jim Caviezel, the committed Christian who played Jesus, spoke after the movie was completed about the injuries he suffered. He was accidentally whipped twice, leaving a fourteen-inch scar on his back, and he dislocated his shoulder from the weight of the cross. He contracted hypothermia and pneumonia while hanging on the cross. 

In one scene, Caviezel appears to have a blue coloration of his skin. This was not a special effect. It was due to asphyxiation, which is the typical cause of death for victims of crucifixion. Prolonged suspension by the arms in this position can make breathing very difficult and cause slow suffocation. According to scholars, victims died from a combination of suffocation, heart failure, exposure, dehydration, lung embolism, and sepsis from infected wounds endured from flogging and the nails of crucifixion. 

Jesus chose all of this. In the Garden of Gethsemane the previous night, he had every opportunity to flee with his life. He knew that Judas would betray him and that the soldiers were coming to arrest him. He could have appealed to his Father to “send me more than twelve legions of angels” (Matthew 26:53) or he could have retreated back home to Galilee. So long as he was not a threat in Jerusalem, the religious authorities there would likely have stopped their pursuit of him. 

When I lead study tours to Israel, we always visit the Garden of Gethsemane. We look out over the Kidron Valley to the eastern wall of the Old City of Jerusalem. We envision soldiers marching in line by torchlight, down the valley and up the slopes of the Mount of Olives. We watch as Jesus watches them come, choosing to die on a cross that we might live eternally. 

He did all of that, just for you. He would do all of that again, just for you. 

A nine-year-old boy died in his mother’s arms 

The derailment in Taiwan is not the only tragedy in this morning’s news. 

Fox News is reporting that the suspect who killed four people and injured a fifth in an office complex in California last Wednesday knew all of the victims personally. One of them was a nine-year-old boy who apparently died in his mother’s arms as she tried to save him. Meanwhile, CBS News tells us that COVID-19 cases are spiking in Michigan, fueled by infections among children and teenagers. 

I honestly don’t know why an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God allows such suffering. Take the derailment in Taiwan, for example. God obviously knew the accident would happen before it did. He loves each of the victims so much he sent his Son to die for them. If he could create the universe with a spoken word, calm stormy seas, resuscitate dead bodies, and raise his Son from the dead, he is clearly powerful enough to stop a train derailment and spare its passengers. 

It is a fact that our broken world is the cause of much of our suffering (Romans 8:22). Gravity, propulsion, and other realities of nature caused the tragedy in Taiwan. If God intervened every time physical laws could cause someone pain, there would be no physical laws. 

Misused free will causes much suffering as well, as in the California tragedy and other mass shootings in Georgia and Colorado. If God intervened every time someone could use their free will to harm others, there would be no free will. 

My father’s early death 

However, God does sometimes intervene. He saved Peter from Herod’s plot to kill him (Acts 12:3–11), but he did not spare James the same fate (v. 2). Jesus healed a leper who sought his help (Matthew 8:1–4), but presumably he did not heal all lepers. He opened one man’s blind eyes (John 9:1–7), but he did not end all blindness. 

A member of one of the churches I pastored had open heart surgery and could not be revived. After the doctors pronounced him dead, his heart inexplicably began beating again and he returned to life. We were and are convinced that God healed him in response to our prayers. 

And yet, my father died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-five despite my fervent prayers for him over many years. I still grieve his early death and the fact that my father never met my sons. He would have been a wonderful grandfather. 

I don’t know all the reasons why our Father in heaven does not prevent all our suffering. But I do know this: he suffers with us. Good Friday proves that it is so. 

Why Good Friday still matters 

Why was Jesus executed by crucifixion? God in his providence could have arranged for his Son to die by stoning, as with Stephen (Acts 7). Or he could have arranged for Jesus to be beheaded, which is how Rome executed its citizens and was presumably how Paul died. 

Instead, he arranged for his Son to die in the cruelest, most horrific manner ever devised. Crucifixion is so terrible that it is illegal in most nations today. 

As a result, it is a literal and logical fact that you can feel no suffering greater than what Jesus felt. The One who was tempted in every way we are (Hebrews 4:15) felt every pain we feel. Our Lord grieves as we grieve (John 11:35) and walks with us through every valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23:4). You can “cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7 RSV). 

The fact of Jesus’ solidarity with our suffering matters. It matters to me that my Father loved my father even more than I did and is redeeming his death in ways I will not understand on this side of heaven. 

It matters that Jesus died in the most painful manner ever devised so that we can trust our greatest pain to his providential grace. And it matters that he redeems all he allows, on earth and especially in heaven. 

What pain, grief, or guilt are you carrying today? Take it to the cross. Ask Jesus to reveal his empathy, compassion, and love for you. Ask him to heal you, or forgive you, or sustain you, or do whatever you need most. 

If he would die for you, what won’t he do for you? 

This is the promise of Good Friday. Will you claim it for yourself today? 

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