He touched me

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Secularism

It does cost, but . . .

Just as I am?

We are not interested in the production of “cookie-cutter” Christians

“We ought to be fully aware that in the body of Christ we are not interested in the production of “cookie-cutter” Christians. This is a word of caution in the matter of Christian experience-there is no pattern or formula for identical Christian experiences. It is actually a tragic thing for believers to try to be exactly like each other in their Christian faith and life. I have probably been overly cautious about testifying to my own experiences because I do not want anyone to be tempted to try to copy anything the Lord has done for me. God has given each of us an individual temperament and distinct characteristics. Therefore it is the office of the Holy Spirit to work out as He will the details of Christian experience. They will vary with personality. Of this we may be sure: whenever a person truly meets God in faith and commitment to the gospel, he will have a consciousness and a sharp awareness of the details of that spiritual transaction!”

~ A. W. Tozer

Be Patient with Your Slow Growth

by Jon Bloom, Staff writer, desiringGod.org

We value speed today far more than we realize, and that makes the painfully slow process of our sanctification and personal transformation confusing and frustrating.

We live in an era of such rapid technological advancement and in a society that so values efficiency, productivity, and immediate results that we can hardly help but assume that the faster things happen, the better. Therefore, we often don’t value the precious benefits of slow growth.

Speed Shapes Us

For most of human history, most people’s lives were mapped on to the relatively slow cyclical rhythms of the seasons. Life was demanding and difficult because it had a primary, and at times ruthless, focus on subsistence, and so was largely dictated by the annual migration patterns of fish and herd animals, plant and fruit cultivation and harvesting, rainy seasons, and available sunlight.

One of the things this did was produce and reinforce in the minds of people, because of sheer necessity, an understanding and valuing of slow, incremental progress toward an aimed-for reward. Food, clothing, and housing were obtained through arduous, sustained effort and care.

In America, this has all but disappeared from living memory. For generations now, a superabundance and wide variety of food has been available and largely affordable a relatively short distance from nearly every home — prepared, packaged, and FDA-approved. We do not have to work nearly as hard, nor do we spend nearly the percentage of our annual income on food, water, and shelter as our ancestors did.

On the whole, these have been immense blessings. But our abundance and increasing conveniences on every level have shaped — and in some ways warped — the way we view time. We now expect that nearly everything should happen fast and with little or no inconvenience.

Continue: http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/be-patient-with-your-slow-growth

Darwin, Being a Christian, and Evolution

If Darwin was right, then let us follow him, but surely we can ask if he was wrong.

Charles Darwin died an unbeliever, yet the work that makes him famous should not be a reason anybody dies outside the Christian faith. Don’t get me wrong: I remain skeptical that he or those who have followed in his footsteps have explained what they intended to explain. However, if I turn out to be wrong, then it will not be the first time.

My faith does not depend on it and yours should not either. The interesting question to me regarding Darwin and theories of evolution is not: “Is it compatible with Christianity?” but, “Is it true?” Would one accept Darwinism if one were not a metaphysical naturalist? Maybe, but one wishes that the defenders did not so often betray ignorance of basic philosophy and philosophy of science. 

Given that Darwin lived in a pervasively Christian culture, it is not surprising that so much of the theory is not only compatible with Christianity, but echoes many distinctly Christian ideas. Christian civilization produced much of the science and the rules of the philosophy of science that Darwin ably deploys. While Darwin may have superficially rejected theism, when he assumes the rationality of the universe, ideas about simplicity in  theories, and the ability to find a unifying explanation for events, he reveals his Christian imagination. For this reason, people I greatly admire, such as CS Lewis, were able to separate his atheism and naturalism from his evolutionary stories. CS Lewis even wrote a science fiction series that depended on ideas like deep time (a very old cosmos) that Darwin also needed and found no problem in accepting important aspects of Darwinism.

And so M* asks me:

Go to: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/eidos/2017/09/darwin-christian-evolution/