A Brief Message on 9/11

“Everyone remembers where they were on that fateful day.”

I’ve heard these words many times. And yet, I belong to a tiny minority of people whom it does not apply to. As an American who was around during 9/11, I do not recall the events of that day. I was 12 ½ months old, and while I’ve been told about what happened in my family on that day, I have no way of knowing for myself.

When I see 9/11, I don’t see the rock that was thrown into the pond, but I do see its ripples. So even though I have no recollection of that day, no feelings that are original to me, I still hear its echoes bouncing around America to this day. And sadly, the echoes are growing fainter…

The legends that I’m told are that Americans were bound to one another like no other time in living history. I’m told of heroes who rushed back into the collapsing building, and I’m told that there are stories we will never hear because the people who experienced them did so to their last breath. I’m told that the whole world looked on in horror as the Twin Towers crumbled to the ground.

But then I look up from the history books, and what do I see? The memory of two towers standing strong while the people are united to never let it happen again? No, that’s not what I see.

I see two towers, that is true. But they’re fighting tooth and nail, each looking for its own survival at the expense of the other’s. They stab and they twist, they lie and they deceive, and soon they’ll crumble to the ground and a sad pile of ash and rubble will be all that remains.

But what about on the ground? What of the onlookers? Are there heroes to be found? They are far and few between.

The people who once locked their arms together on this day two decades ago now find themselves armed against each other like the nation has never seen before. Every citizen, once peace-loving, now walks down the streets armed to the teeth in weapons they can hurl against their enemies, slander, deceit, insults, lies, accusations, and blame, all while the pillars of our society, truth and freedom, burn to the ground with none to mourn them.

A year and a half ago, I looked back to the picture of the Twin Towers, the one implanted in my mind by those around me that told of heroes and bravery and unity through tragedy. And when I lowered the picture and looked into the fog that was blowing in from Wuhan, I hoped that on the other side I would find a stronger America, our bonds forged by hardship. As we approach our second winter, I find myself choking not on the smog but on the aerosol, and to my horror I look around and the people who bleed the same blood as I are ripping each other apart, more divided and hurt than they were before the disaster. Families are being ripped apart, mother against daughter, and those who I once called friend claw at my skin as they tear away from my grip. My fear is that not only are we watching the collapse, but that the spirit of unison that once kept us alive has now itself died.

But just because the heroes are far and few between doesn’t mean that they are gone entirely. Somewhere, in the corners of our nation, forgotten by the rest of our society, you will find the poor, the mourning, the gentle, the righteous, the merciful, the pure, the peaceful, the beaten, and the slandered, and they are joyful. Those are the heroes, the ones who will rush into the chaos and save the day, who will rebuild, who will inspire, who will forgive, who will heal, who will love. Look closely, you will see them working.

“Everyone remembers where they were on that fateful day.”

I don’t have the pleasure of remembering. So don’t commit the crime of forgetting. Be the hero America needs right now.

-Tyler

Faith Like a Seagull

By Mack Donahue

"Faith like a seagull" is probably a sentence you've never heard before. Faith of a mustard seed, sure. But faith of a seagull? What on earth could that mean?

Well, at risk of sounding a little crazy, let me share a testimony from my missions trip in 2019. During my trip, my group spent 4 weeks camping on the beach. It was a time of really getting to know each other, and really being intimate and close with God. There was one day where I was overwhelmed with how to hear God's will, and how to know it's actually Him speaking. And God used the unlikeliest of ways to speak to me. 

I was walking along the beach, all alone, sharing my thoughts with the Lord. How I was stressed, how I wanted His will above all else but didn't have the discernment and wisdom I needed to know I was doing the right thing. This whole time there was a flock of seagulls following me on the beach. Occasionally I'd pick up a small stone and throw it across the beach. All the seagulls would recklessly chase the rock until they realized it wasn't edible, then they'd come back to me. I'd keep walking and praying until they got annoying again and then I'd throw another rock. This process went on for a while before I became truly irritated and just yelled out to God asking Him to rid me of the distraction. "Lord I'm trying to focus on you but I'm being distracted by these seagulls, send them away Lord." I remember saying. But I didn't receive the response I anticipated. I felt the Lord speak to me in a way He seldom had before. "Maybe I want to use them." He said. "I want you to be like these seagulls. You throw a rock, and they drop everything and pursue this rock, thinking it's food. If and when they realize their judgement was misguided, they return to where they last knew they were correct, and try again." 

So I had this realization about pursuing God's will. It's a matter of trial and error. God doesn't expect us to have it all figured out. He expects us to be yielded to His will. He won't let us accidentally walk off a cliff in pursuit of His heart. Or maybe He will, but He'll slow our fall and what we find at the bottom will be better than we could imagine. He desires for us to walk towards what we believe to be His plan, and He'll correct our path from there. It's easier to redirect an object already in motion than it is to get an object in motion to begin with. Don't be frozen in fear of misinterpreting. Do your best, and move towards God, and He'll correct you as needed. 

If you ask for wisdom with a surrendered heart, you will receive it. But probably not how you expect. When I asked for wisdom, I expected guidance on the specific situation I was dealing with at that moment. I didn't anticipate that the 'thorn in my flesh' so to speak, would become the lesson and source of wisdom I sought.

Christian Experience and the Word of God →

By Nate Kreider

Many times, especially after a time of severe weather, the news station of a coastal town will show the coastline damage from the storm surge. Often when they do this, you will see houses dangling over the edge of a cliff side from the surge washing it away, and sometimes you will see that even a house has collapsed and fallen down the cliff into the waves. This is oftentimes the picture I get in my head when I think of the passage of the house built on the sand. It goes as follows,

 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Mathew 7:24-27)

God’s Word thus is this important: That if a man does not build his life upon it, he will sooner or later fall into destruction; and great will be his fall. 

    J. Gresham Machen in his section on The Bible talks about how this is vitally true also for the church. In his day (and in ours still, 100 years later) the scriptures are under constant attack from people who have no regard for its divine properties. The people who were assailing scripture in his day were placing experience on par and even above the witness of scripture. It was based upon experience. While Machen argues that the experience of the Christian is not a negative testimony to the works of God, it does not usurp scripture. He says “Christian experience is rightly used when it helps to convince us that the events narrated in the New Testament”, in essence saying that it can help us in part to be convinced of the truths of the scriptures, by seeing the evidence of our redeemed nature through the Holy Spirit and newfound love for God. He continues, though, in saying, “But it can never enable us to be Christians whether the events occurred or not”. In the words of the late R.C. Sproul, this point is summed up in saying “your personal testimony is not the gospel”. 

    What then is the foundation of our Christian faith and experience grounded on? On the solid ground, God’s Word. Today, many churches have simply lost sight of what it means to be led by the scriptures, that is, to have it as its foundation. Many churches today are based on experience. They are founded more so on the songs that they sing than the Word of God. They are more founded upon the experience that one receives upon entering the building than on solid food. What I have just explained sounds eerily like the Christianity of Machen’s day. Have we let liberalism slip through the back door unnoticed? Are we now undermining our own faith by usurping God’s Word for an experience? Machen drives the nail home when he says truthfully, “[The Christian experience] is a fair flower, and should be prized as a gift from God. But cut it away from its root in the blessed Book, and it soon withers away and dies.”

To Love God is to Know God →

By Nate Kreider

Last week, I wrote concerning the implications that 20th-century liberalism has had upon the modern-day mainline evangelical church (and mind for that matter) here. This week will be somewhat of a continuation of that thought based upon a point that Machen makes at the beginning of chapter three of his book Christianity and Liberalism. In this observation we will be going a step further, and talking about the practical ramifications of what was talked about in the article linked above. In the previous chapter, Machen spoke on the topic of doctrine, and how in his time many scholars and philosophers were throwing out the notion of doctrine for a natural religion, or one based not on scripture but on feeling, promulgated by the father of liberal theology Friedrich Schleiermacher. But what implication does this waywardness of doctrine have upon the Christian life? Paul answers this well in Ephesians 4:14, when he speaks of how young believers are “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” A similar picture is given in Jesus’ parable of the house upon the sand. When the winds come and seas rise, the shifty foundation upon which they are built will surely be washed away. The point being, Christians who do not have their faith truly built upon the Rock will be swept away by crafty teachers, desiring to tickle the ears of those who are ignorant to the truth (2 Timothy 4:3). 

Let’s talk about that passage for a second. The verse in full says “For the time will come when men will not tolerate sound doctrine, but with itching ears they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires.” Now let’s re-hash what we have been talking about in light of this verse. Many evangelicals today have little desire to know the doctrines of scripture, therefore putting themselves at a disadvantage, and possibly in harm's way. 

But what they might also be doing, is setting themselves up for the scenario described in this passage. If they do not desire to hear things that might be difficult to hear, they will begin to surround themselves with people who they like to hear, or that do not preach an offensive gospel message. They, in not committing themselves to the scriptures, have indirectly caused themselves to seek after people who tickle their own ears. 

    The Christian Religion, therefore, cannot just be a relationship based upon feeling. Machen says of this, 

“if religion consists merely in feeling the presence of God, it is devoid of any moral quality whatsoever. Pure feeling, if there be such a thing, is non-moral. What makes affection for a human friend, for example, such an ennobling thing is the knowledge which we possess of the character of our friend. Human affection, apparently so simple, is really just bristling with dogma...but if human affection is thus really dependent upon knowledge, why should it be otherwise with that supreme personal relationship which is at the base of religion.”

When, O Church, will we treat our relationship with the Lord with the fear and admonishment that it deserves. 

"The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our Lord stands forever" Isa. 40:8

The Implications of 20th Century Liberalism on Modern-Day Evangelicalism

By Nate Kreider

In the war against liberalism that Machen is waging, he arrives at the topic of doctrine, and the objection thereof by the liberal theologians. In his rebuttal, Machen pushes back against the idea that “teachings are unimportant” (quote from 16). The main thrust of this ideology, and the main phrase which he deals with though, is the phrase “Christianity is a life, not a doctrine”. Now if you are at all familiar with modern-day Christian lingo, you might know this term by such things as “Christianity is not a religion, but a relationship’’, or people might say “I don’t (want to) know theology, but I just want to know Jesus”. While the idea of what these phrases are perpetuating might be true, it is not a holistic truth. 

The definition of theology, according to dictionary.com, is “the field of study and analysis that treats of God and of God's attributes and relations to the universe”. In essence, it is to know God; who He is, and how He relates to His creation. Now first and foremost, to those who say they just want to know Jesus, you either don’t believe He is God, or you are already studying theology and you might just not know it. Most of the time, hopefully, it is the latter. I say this because if you believe He is God, and you are attempting to know Him more, you are in fact practicing theology. It is impossible to be a Christian and not study theology, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. The main thrust of our faith, might I say our religion, is to know God, and to be in the right relation with him through Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ is our means by which we might know God, then to know Him is already to be in the practice of Christian Theology. 

Colossians 3:10 says: “...and have put on the new self, which is being renewed towards knowledge according to the image of the one who created it”. This verse tells us that not only at salvation are we now a new man, but we are also being renewed with the end goal of restored knowledge in accordance with the image of the one who created us. The end goals of our being saved are a renewed soul, and a sanctified knowledge of God. A quick Greek note: The verb ἀνακαινούμενον is in the passive form, meaning that this action is being done to us. A conclusion from this is that not only are we saved to be theologians, but Christ is actually the one who carries us through this process of coming to know God more fully. Christ empowers our theological study, whether we like it or not. 

    Liberal theology has certainly crept into the modern day evangelical church. Its ideologies run rampant, and its anti-intellectualism has crippled the church. Not every believer has to be a scholar, or a systematics, or a Ph.D., but all believers are called to be greater, more fearful knowers and worshipers of their creator — theologians.

Public School: Beneficial or Tyrannical? →



Public School: Beneficial or Tyrannical?

By Nate Kreider

9/11/2020

Public schooling is much more of a contemporary institution than many imagine. In the year 1918, a law was passed which required all children to attend public elementary school. Much like the Amish nowadays, children were not required to do much beyond that, nor were they able to, seeing that many families needed their labor if they owned farms (since the Fair Labor Standards Act was not passed until 1938).  In Christianity & Liberalism, Machen makes a very extreme, but very observant point towards the end of chapter one.  He says,

A public-school system, in itself, is a deed of enormous benefit to the race. But it is of benefit only if it is kept healthy at every moment by the absolutely free possibility of the competition of private schools. A public-school system, if it means providing free education for those who desire it, is a noteworthy and beneficial achievement of the modern times; But when it becomes monopolistic it is the most perfect instrument of tyranny which has yet been devised. Freedom of thought in the middle ages was combated with the Inquisition, but the modern method is far more effective (12).

The Spanish Inquisition (1479-1834) was a judicial institution established to combat heresy in Spain. As you can see from the date about, it lasted almost 400 years. This was a 400 year span filled with executions and exiles due to people refusing to align themselves with the Roman Catholic Church. People were not allowed to practice religion in any way other than that which Rome told them to. Machen is saying that public school, though philosophically is a great charity to common man, if let loose, would turn into something worse than this. He goes on to say "despite [tyranny's] weapons of fire and sword they permitted thought at least to be free". This is the danger that I see with public schooling. Who (genuinely) is there to hold the governing authorities accountable, besides maybe a few good politicians? Little do most people know, the government already has a strangle-hold on public education, and even more so a death grip on homeschooling or private schooling. Why have we allowed the most influential, wealthy people in our society to decide what our children are fed with? They have already kicked religion out of the school system! They have fulfilled step one, which is to deconstruct the religious worldview, and are now fulfilling step two, which is to fill that void with secular humanism. Machen continues saying "place the lives of children in their formative years, despite the convictions of their parents, under the intimate control of experts appointed by the state, force them to attend schools where the higher aspirations of humanity are crushed out, and the mind is filled with the materialism of the day, and it is difficult to see how even the remnants of liberty can subsist." Therefore we must decide individually, and especially as a church, how beneficial really is the public school system?

When it's Too Late to Hit the Brakes

By Tyler Vigue

If you’ve ever driven on the ice and lost control, you know exactly what I’m talking about. One moment you’re driving down the road the next you’re sliding sideways with no more control over your car than a ball that’s been thrown. Once control is lost, it cannot be regained. The moment your wheels lose their traction, there’s no guarantee that you’ll get it again, no undoing the turn that you took too sharply, and no slowing down. Once those sparks blow a little further from the fire than you intended, by the time you realize that the ball isn’t going to hit what you wanted, after words you never meant to say come bursting out of your mouth, it’s all far too late because control is lost and the damage is done. So tell me this, dear reader, with your hand too close to those moving parts, with your confidence of where that tree will fall as you saw away at it’s trunk, and with your foolhardy bliss as you whiz down subzero roads, what else might you be losing control of? 

Control is on my mind, not because I’m a control freak, but because a horrendous lack of control has led to some heartbreaking news in the recent days. I’m going to assume that you, the reader, don’t know anything about gaming, and you don’t need to in order to understand my point, but let me fill you in on the important stuff. 

Gamers have communities. The people who play Pokemon, the highest grossing media franchise ever, talk about Pokemon online, they make YouTube videos about Pokemon, share Pokemon tips with their friends, battle and trade their digital Pokemon creatures from game to game, they remix and do covers of music from Pokemon, they draw Pokemon, go to conventions about Pokemon to meet other Pokemon fans, and they enjoy Pokemon more because they do it in a community together. Many fans do this with many different games or hobbies. 

I personally am a huge fan of a game series called Super Smash Bros. which is a fighting game featuring various characters from other Nintendo titles (and beyond). The newest iteration of Smash Bros. on the Nintendo Switch has been called “a celebration of gaming,” as it features so many of gaming’s most famous faces and offers you something to love about each of them. As you could imagine, there’s a lot of people who enjoy this game, and so there’s a large community of active fans who do things together, online and otherwise. Because Smash Bros. is fundamentally a competitive game, fans hold tournaments, sometimes huge ones with huge cash prizes, where they play the game against each other, and fans of the game are often fans of these tournaments. 

Some of the best players become mini internet celebrities, and I’m even an avid fan of some of these people. But this week, things got bad. A significant number of these gaming celebrities, from Super Smash Bros. players and beyond, have been outed by a huge list of sexual allegations, one after another. But the Smash Bros. players stand out to me with a lesson to learn, and that’s why I’m writing this article. It’s not about gaming, and you don’t need to know about gaming to understand this. My point is about control. 

You see there’s something I spotted in the Super Smash Bros. community that I’ve noticed for years: They’ve had far too strong of an affiliation with anime. Anime is a Japanese style of cartoon animation that is very popular with geeks and weirdos (myself included) over here in the states. Anime has three main draws for people. 

1. Japanese media studios know how to tell a good story. Many stories are epic, or sad, or hilarious, or all three (looking at you, Mob Psycho 100), and far richer than many stories we have in the states. 

2. Japanese animation studios have got animation figured out in a way America is decades behind in. While Disney dropped 2D artwork years ago to switch to 3D computer generated movies, Japan has been pushing the limits of what 2D animation can do for years, and it’s amazing. 

3. Anime as a general art style depicts super jacked dudes and incredibly… ummm, “blessed” ladies. 

I said to a friend the other day (while playing a Japanese card game and talking about the anime that the card game originated from) that “I’m here for the plot,” which I would gladly get on a t-shirt. I love a good story, and that’s what draws me to anime and related media. But you have to be really careful with anime. The limits of what’s traditionally culturally acceptable in terms of exposure and suggestion in Japan (and this may surprise you as a consumer of American media) is actually far more risque than in American media. To put it right out there, many fans of anime, especially the men, are fans of it because they are unapologetically horny, and anime culture takes advantage of that. In fact anime has always been far too closely associated with animated porn. 

So with all this explained, and with a second disclaimer that what I personally like least about anime is anime trait #3, this new light shining on serious sexual misbehavior in the gaming community comes to me with a great deal less shock than it would otherwise. The reality is that many of these people have been dancing with the devil for years, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that he’s been tripping them too. 

For instance, let's take my favorite Smash Bros. player, ZeRo (ZeRo is a nickname, many gamers have them when interacting with the community and call them “tags”). ZeRo is from Chile, he grew up in poverty there, but eventually came to America and found a way to make a living by being amazing (and I mean amazing) at Smash Bros. He was incredibly entertaining to watch and with the release of the 4th Super Smash Bros. game, he became a world record holder for most consecutive esports tournaments won with over 56 consecutive tournaments won. ZeRo is a legend. ZeRo has since faded from glory but has made his living making (mostly) Smash Bros. themed YouTube videos. 

ZeRo has also, as I’m sure you guessed, had a history with anime. ZeRo has often featured rather scandalous images in the thumbnails for his YouTube videos, and often uses humor around and about the more lewd side of anime and anime culture. 

And, if you didn’t see this coming by now, this week multiple women, some of whom are underage or were underage when interacting with him, accused him of some pretty terrible things, which he has now confessed to being guilty of. These things included (with some dispute) inappropriate messages and even some accusations of open consumption of porn in actively occupied areas (like a living room). 

ZeRo also issued a statement explaining part of his untold story, including sexual trauma as a small child. In case you’re unaware of this trend, many people who experience any form of sexual trauma at a young age often develop serious issues, sexual and otherwise, later on in life. That said, ZeRo took the turn too sharp down a road he shouldn’t have been on in the first place. It’s a shame because I’ve always loved ZeRo since the first time I saw him playing Smash in a tournament I was watching online. I think it’s that love for watching ZeRo play that really has forced me to learn from this, so at least his mistakes aren’t wasted. 

But it doesn’t end there. ZeRo had an archnemesis/frenemy who goes by the tag “Nairo.” Nairo was friends with ZeRo but also rivals. During ZeRo’s 56 tournament win streak, the peak of his career, Nairo would play his absolute best and make it to grand finals in tourney after tourney only to lose to ZeRo. That was of course until tournament 57, where Nairo finally was the one to topple ZeRo, ending his win streak and taking the tournament for himself and getting a hug from his fallen rival in one of the most epic and emotional moments in Smash Bros. history. 

Now that video is hard to watch, because Nairo this week was accused (and then confessed to) having an inappropriate relationship with a 14-year-old Smash Bros. player in that very same timeframe. 

But guess what, it’s not just a culture that plays into sexual desire that can cause these issues. Like in the case of two others in the Smash Bros. community. D1, who’s normally a very wholesome guy and one of the best people to ever grace the community with his presences, or so it seemed, was just outed for an incident where he got absolutely destroyed with alcohol, blacked out, and woke up the next morning not even remembering engaging in non-consensual sex the night before. 

Or how about Keitaro, another crowd favorite, who got drunk with a 16-year-old girl at a party and then proceeded, tragically, to do nothing as her drunken stupor took her over him. “I never thought I’d let it go that far,” I recall reading in his apology statement a few days ago which I now cannot access since he locked up his own account. 

Isn’t that the case with all of these incidents? “I never thought I’d let it go that far. 

“Oh yeah, I drink, but I would never drink so much that I blacked out and then slept with someone.” 

“Oh yeah, I look at animated porn but I would never show it to underage girls in an open area.”

“Oh yeah, I drink with 16-year-olds….” I won’t finish that one. 

Now as easy as it would be to meta-judge their poor judgement, I think our time is much better spent learning from their poor judgement, and at the heart of it is that phrase, “Yeah but I would never.” 

This whole thing is so convicting for me, both in a general sense and in a more specific one too as I can relate with the struggles of these people, although I like to think that I struggle a little more aggressively against those evils than they do. But still, how many bad decisions to protect behind “Yeah but I would never” phrases? How many times a week, no, how many times a day do I justify a sinful choice because of the “worse” sinful choice that it’s not? Worse yet, what kind of awful futures am I potentially allowing for myself by not dealing with the lesser evils now? What’s going to happen when it’s too late to hit the brakes? 

“This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness in of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. 

But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus; that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. 

Therefore, putting away lying, ‘Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,’ for we are not members of one another. ‘Be angry, and do not sin’: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.” Ephesians 4:17-27 NKJV

This is the passage that has come to my mind as I’ve wrestled through this issue. That last verse, which says “[Do not] give place to the devil,” that verse is often quoted as “Do not give the devil a foothold.” The original Greek word is “topos” which simply refers to a place, but I think the more specific leap to “foothold” is probably a good one. There shouldn’t be wiggle room for the powers of evil to be moving around in your life. Yet so often what we find, instead of putting away our old selves each day, the old version of us that had not been sought and scrubbed by Christ, we allow parts of it to linger. Not only that, we do far worse than give the devil a foothold, we give him a spot at the poker table and constantly deal him new hands. Is that a bad idea? Yeah but I would never let him get the royal flush on me. 

Know this, Christian, and know it so well that you recognize it in your own life even before the tempter does: Every time you open up that bottle, every time to go to that website, every time you text that “friend” your spouse doesn’t know about, every time you give that little white lie because it’s easier than the truth, every time you put someone down just a bit to push yourself up, every time you choose to ignore the voices that cry out in the night, and every time you shut yourself away instead of revealing your true flaws, you deal the devil another card. You better hope it’s not the ace he needs to flush you away. 

My best advice I can give to you, as difficult as it is, is to burn the deck. Take a long look in the mirror, but not the one you see in the morning, the one you see at night. You can lie in your bed but you can’t lie in your head. In those moments where there’s nothing else but you and your thoughts and you confront those demons you’re so keen to ignore, that’s when it’s time to move. Look at your life, weigh every decision. Does this have the potential to kill me? Make that decision wisely. But beware the most dangerous phrase you can play. 

Except me. 

I would never let things get too far. 

After all it’s simply anime loneliness teenagers whiskey friends porn too late.