Merry War on Christmas! – Mark Steyn – National Review Online

~ brandon ~ Leave a comment

The crisis afflicting the West is not primarily one of unsustainable debt and spending. These are mere symptoms of a deeper identity crisis.

via Merry War on Christmas! – Mark Steyn – National Review Online.

Steyn is spot on that we face a much larger problem in America than who gets elected, what laws they pass and what judges rule on those laws.  The foundations of our culture are being undermined by those very folks who, in previous eras, would have been guarding the gates.

I wonder if the Church doesn’t have some blame in all of this.  Steyn points out the ‘faintheartedness’ of the American Church in confronting those forces that would destroy celebrations like Christmas.  True, we are often faint of heart.  Yet, the Church has poured countless sums into political action committees, candidates and other such endeavors.  We’ve sought to overturn Supreme Court decisions, repeal laws, enact new laws and get ‘our’ guys to a place where they control the levers.

But that isn’t the Church’s mission.  Western Civilization is, in large part, the result of more than 1,000 years of making disciples.  The cultures of the West developed because we proclaimed the Gospel to hostile people.

Thus, our current cultural devolution is not a call to greater political action.  It is a call for the Church to reinvest in our core mission:  making disciples of Jesus Christ.

Grace-Driven Effort | The Resurgence

~ brandon ~ Leave a comment

D.A. Carson Writes:People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.

via Grace-Driven Effort | The Resurgence.

Interesting Commentary on Dual Income Families

~ brandon ~ Leave a comment

Althouse: “The entire two-income trap… is actually a two-income tax trap…”.

My family is a one income family.  For the past 9 months or so, that has been a tiny income.  (Part-time flight instructing doesn’t bring much in).  Our family isn’t founded upon the financial reality Althouse refers to, but to our personal convictions about how God designed family.  What Althouse is talking about is, however, another excellent reason for adopting a traditional one income family model.

What will they say about you?

~ brandon ~ Leave a comment

This past week I was officiated the funeral for the father of a dear friend.  Then, later in the week (as has been well covered), John Stott died.  Reading some of the articles eulogizing Dr. Stott, left me wondering, what will they say about me?  Or, perhaps, what do I want to be said?

For me, I want it to be said that I was a faithful follower of Jesus Christ.