Category Archives: Culture and Society

How do we interact with our culture and society as followers of Jesus?

Christian Life, Culture and Society, Family Life

The Real Reason We Are Unhappy

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Who’s to blame?

A lot of people are listening to TED Talks these days. I think it is because they are supposed to be smart and scientific. They are mostly just secular and progressive. I was listening to one about how monogamy does not work anymore and how we should be “Monogam-ish”— that is, mostly monogamous. The first part of the talk was full of all kinds of pseudoscience, but the main idea was that marriage is a worse than fifty-fifty gamble and it definitely needs an adjustment if it will have the potential to make us happy. And the thing we need to adjust is probably the monogamy part.

You may or may not think that’s particularly controversial. For my purpose here, this is just one example of a much broader phenomenon. It is part of the general unhappiness with the things that are supposed to make us happy, including human institutions that have lasted tens of thousands of years. The secular and progressive way of dealing with such a phenomenon is to blame the institution — the thing that was supposed to make us happy. If we are not happy in our marriages, then the problem is marriage.

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Continue reading The Real Reason We Are Unhappy →

Culture and Society, Learn and Grow

Recommended Reading: Onward by Russell Moore

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BH-Onward_ShareSquares19-300x300In the sermon on Sunday, Pastor Lloyd mentioned that the High Point Church staff are reading a book together about the strangeness of Christianity. We would love for you to join us. The book is Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel by Russell Moore. We hope this book will equip and encourage anyone who reads it to engage our city with the Gospel.

Continue reading Recommended Reading: Onward by Russell Moore →

Culture and Society

Pastoral Letter Extended 8: Proper lament

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This is the eighth and final of a series of posts expanding on my Pastoral Letter post based on my sermon from June 28th.

8. Our lament of wickedness must be consistent.

If we’re going to be virtuous giants, we have to get our emotions in line with what’s true. When that is true of us, we will lament over wickedness…all wickedness. Continue reading Pastoral Letter Extended 8: Proper lament →

Culture and Society

Pastoral Letter Extended 7: Get your roots ready

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This is the seventh of a series of posts expanding on my Pastoral Letter post based on my sermon from June 28th.

The original address was partially in response to the US Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage from this June. This series is not intended to be alarmist, but aims at equipping High Point Church to be faithful and vibrant followers of Jesus in a very sensitive cultural moment, while also anticipating what it may look like for us to do the same throughout whatever may follow.

7. We will need to (will get to) learn the truths of our faith – for real.

We are often impatient and disinterested in learning the deeper points of consistency and understanding within the Christian worldview, especially in “meddlesome areas” like sexuality, money, parenting, and marriage. We are naturally resistant to being told what to do, particularly in these areas, but God has told us clearly how to live regarding these things.

Your response might be, “I don’t need to know the theological definition of marriage in order to be a good spouse.”

But you do.

Even when we are not actively resistant, the word “theology,” particularly when used outside of a church building, sometimes initiates alternating waves of yawns and glazed-over eyes. It can conjure images of dusty academia and old men in robes who are detached from everyday Christian life.

The result is that we struggle to give any meaningful form to our beliefs. Continue reading Pastoral Letter Extended 7: Get your roots ready →

Culture and Society

Pastoral Letter Extended 6: The sunset of our idols

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This is the sixth of a series of posts expanding on my Pastoral Letter post based on my sermon from June 28th.

Following the US Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage this June, American Christians have been giving more attention to the idea of suffering as a consequence of being a Christian. This is certainly not a new subject in Christianity. Jesus himself assured us it would happen, it has been a consistent narrative in the life of the Church ever since, and our brothers and sisters outside of America today have been experiencing this suffering in a more blatant way than most Americans to date. For comments on how we need to attend to their voices on the subject, revisit my post from earlier in this series: Pastoral Letter Extended 2.

The purpose of this post is not to speculate about what sorts of changes American Christians ought to anticipate or what new pressure churches will experience. While I discuss some of that, the main attention here is instead on the more important question of how we will respond to whatever may come. If American Christians’ worst fears were to be realized, what then? Continue reading Pastoral Letter Extended 6: The sunset of our idols →

Culture and Society

Pastoral Letter Extended 5: Why no one’s listening

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This is the fifth of a series of posts expanding on my Pastoral Letter post based on my sermon from June 28th.

5. We have lost our moral authority. How did we lose it, and how can we regain it?

We could talk cultural apologetics and offer up the most rhetorically excellent, logically flawless arguments imaginable in favor of the gospel message, but few would care to listen long enough to understand what we’re saying, let alone be persuaded by it. They don’t care because, in their minds, our understanding of the fundamental nature of human society is completely defunct in moral authority. They’re not listening. Continue reading Pastoral Letter Extended 5: Why no one’s listening →