Writing with a mission.

Author: C.L.Wells (Page 1 of 5)

Changing the Culture for Christ through Missional Creative Writing

We are in a culture war in America.  The Christian cultural norms of decades past have been replaced by a cabal of anti-Christian, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, pro-trans-sexual, anti-democratic, anti-traditional family beliefs that are threatening the very foundations of our society in a very real sense.  It is right and just that the Church—the pillar of God’s truth in the earth—stand against this onslaught and shine the light of God’s truth in the midst of the darkness.  But our goal is not simply to stand for the truth, but to lead those who have been deceived into believing the lies of the enemy to instead embrace the truths taught in the Bible and the saving message of Christ Jesus.  To best do this, we should seek to stand for the truth in a winsome way, a way that can by-pass our true enemy’s defenses and plant the seeds of truth deep in the hearts and minds of those who have been deceived by his lies.  To maximize our effectiveness at this task, we need to set aside our shock, our outrage, and our dismay at the present state of our society and turn a critical eye to examining exactly how we arrived at this point in history in the first place.  How did a once predominantly Christian culture descend into the moral chaos of our present hedonistic society?  Did it happen by accident?  No, it did not.

Why Secular Culture Matters

Before we answer these two important questions, it is crucial to understand why it matters whether or not our secular culture embraces a Christianized worldview.  It surely doesn’t mean that the members of such a society are saved just because they may oppose abortion.  However, if the predominant secular culture’s view was that abortion was wrong, far fewer babies would have been murdered by this abhorrent practice. 

What the secular culture believes and teaches matters.  Culture defines significant beliefs and behaviors that affect everything from personal choices to laws.  Every group in society has a corresponding culture that shapes how people who belong to that group are expected to behave and what they are expected to believe.  If, for instance, you belong to the Muslim community, there are certain beliefs and practices that you are expected to adhere to as a part of that cultural group.  And the group will help enforce those norms and standards.  You won’t find a Muslim woman walking around in public without a head covering, for example.  The Muslim culture believes this is how Muslim women should dress, and the pressure and expectation of the community enforces this practice and encourages belief in it.

Here are some things that culture helps define for us:

1) Culture tells us what is important and what is not.

2) Culture tells us what is acceptable and good.  It tells us what ‘normal’ looks like in our particular group.

3) Culture tells us what is unacceptable, bad, and evil.  It tells us what beliefs and behaviors we should oppose, avoid, and resist.

4) Culture tells us what we should value in life.

5) Culture tells us what a hero looks like.  It tells us who we should aspire to be like and seek to become.

6) Culture tells us what Truth is.  It tells us how we should look at the world (i.e., it defines a specific worldview and encourages us to see life a certain way).

7) Culture tells us what lies are.  It tells us which beliefs and ideas we should ridicule and avoid and hold in contempt.

It is also important to note that the predominant culture in a society—a secular culture in our case—conveys these messages with the benefit of a megaphone.  It is often the loudest voice in the room.  And as such, it tends to have great sway over the society for good or evil.  If we want the message of Christ to be revered and the moral teachings of the Bible to be embraced and championed by our society, then it should be important to us to make every effort to ensure that secular culture embraces and champions these beliefs.  This is not an impossible task.  In the 1940s, 1950s, and to a large extent in the 1960s, the secular culture in America predominantly embraced Christian views on morality and revered the message of Christ—even though the majority were not themselves practicing Christians.

It’s true that a Christianized culture does not guarantee a culture filled with Christians.  Followers of Christ are individuals who have been transformed by an encounter with the living God and pursue ever-increasing intimacy with Jesus.  As we do this, we are transformed increasingly into His image—i.e., we become more like Him through the process of sanctification.  But let’s take a good look at what ideas embraced by a culture CAN produce by looking at our own present-day society.  Currently, the transgender movement is one of the darlings of our American culture.  Because it is now considered normal—even heroic—to be a transgender person, we are witnessing the following:

1) Social media is embracing this movement and encouraging young people to explore the possibility that they are transgender.  The encouragement and support these online communities provide to young people who are going through a natural period of confusion during puberty has swayed many to pursue changing their gender.

2) Laws have been passed in at least one state that allow children as young as 13 to medically transition to the opposite gender (i.e., to have serious gender-affirming surgery and/or hormone treatment) without their parent’s consent (Rantz, 2023).  Similar legislation is being considered in other states.

3) Those who oppose the transgender ideology are frequently castigated in the news, on social media, and at political events as being mean-spirited, hate-filled bigots.

4) Public schools increasingly embrace people who espouse transgender ideology and openly flaunt their transgender status, and public school teachers regularly read small children stories promoting the transgender lifestyle and encouraging them to embrace the possibility that they should transition themselves (City Journal, 2023).

I could go on.  The effects of our mainstream secular culture embracing transgenderism as normal, acceptable, and desirable are significant.  An increasing number of people (mostly children) have chosen to become transgender themselves and live by this ideology, many times making tragic, life-altering decisions to mutilate and alter their bodies to conform with their new beliefs (Veissière, 2018; French, n.d.).

Mainstream secular cultural beliefs matter.

Now, let’s examine what it could look like if we put the shoe on the other foot, if we were to succeed in flipping the cultural norms in Christ’s favor.  Here is what we could be experiencing in our society if that happened:

1) Social media is embracing Christianity and encouraging young people to explore the possibility that they should convert to Christianity.  The encouragement and support these online communities provide to young people who are going through a natural period of confusion during puberty sway many of them to explore faith in Christ Jesus.

2) Those who oppose Christian moral standards and beliefs (such as those promoting the current transgender movement) are viewed in news and social media, and are characterized in movies as being out-of-touch, immoral, and their beliefs undesirable.

3) Christ followers and Christian ideology are increasingly embraced by public schools and public school teachers.  Small children are regularly read stories promoting a moral, Christian lifestyle and encouraging them to embrace the very real possibility that they should consider becoming Christians themselves.  Reading from the Bible and study of this great book is once again considered an essential part of public school education.

I observe that when the mainstream secular culture embraces the idea that following Jesus is normal and even desirable, more and more people will be exposed to the good news of Jesus Christ and will choose to become Christ followers themselves, which will help in a significant way to accomplish the primary mission of the Church.  This is not a theory; we have seen it happen in our own culture less than a century ago, nor is it an impossible task to see our culture transformed for Christ again.  If the enemy can pervert our formerly Christianized secular culture so that it became the morally decadent secular culture of today—and this without God’s help and assistance, then, with God’s help, we can certainly re-take the ground that has been lost and succeed in transforming the present secular culture into one that embraces Christ and Christian values once again.  But we must apply ourselves diligently and wisely to the task if we are to succeed.

How Did We Get Here?

I submit to you that there are two primary causes for the present moral decay in our culture.  The source of our present cultural decay can be traced back many decades to a time when the Church chose to abdicate its responsibility in the fields of secular public education and secular entertainment.  This was a two-fold critical mistake on the part of the Church.  As we retreated to our Christian fortresses of solitude, where we continued to educate Christians and where we created entertainment for Christian audiences, the vacuum we left behind was filled with radical and un-Godly people who took advantage of the opportunity we gave them to almost completely shut out Christians from these two important fields.  Today, it is nearly impossible to espouse Christian beliefs in either secular educational environments or the secular entertainment industry without encountering strong resistance.  Actors who cling to Christian beliefs are virtually exiled from the secular entertainment industry, and educators who do manage to graduate from secular universities with both a degree in education and their Christian beliefs firmly intact are more and more rare.  As a result, our children are fed on a steady diet of anti-Christian values in both the classroom, where they spend the bulk of their waking hours during the week for the majority of the year, as well as on the devices and in the venues where they entertain themselves with popular secular music, movies, and online content.  This has produced a generation of people whose worldview is vastly different than the Christian worldview presented in the Bible.  It has produced a culture that is openly antagonistic to God and His message, as well as His messengers—all Christ followers.

The morally corrupt beliefs and attitudes that I mentioned at the beginning of this essay that are at the forefront of our present cultural decline have been birthed largely from the seeds sown by educators in our schools who have poisoned the minds of our children for decades and their counterparts in the entertainment industry who have done the same in their various arenas of influence.  Slowly but surely, they have used these two powerful tools of engagement to undermine the belief in God and the moral foundations taught in the Bible and replace them with their own version of the truth.  The youth in our churches may have a genuine relationship with God, but most of them are marinated in an anti-God secular culture day after day in their schools and in the entertainment they consume.  Many of them struggle to believe that homosexuality or trans-sexuality is harmful, let alone sinful, and many of them similarly find it difficult to believe that Jesus is the only path to salvation—all because of the powerfully persuasive cultural influences of education and entertainment that they are immersed in every day when they are not in a purely Christian environment of the Church.

Through yielding the field of entertainment and education to the secularists, we have allowed the culture of our nation to be groomed to embrace an anti-Christian, pro-abortion, pro-trans-sexual/LGBTQ, anti-woman, and anti-God worldview.  As a result, many in the Church have adopted the world’s value system while claiming Christ as their Savior.  Yet, beyond their acceptance of Christ as Savior of their souls, He often is not Lord of their belief system, their worldview, much to the detriment of the advancement of the gospel.

Many in the Church recognize we are in dire straits.  Many recognize the current manifestation of false and un-Christian beliefs that now permeate our society at every level is a problem that needs to be confronted.  Yet there is a struggle to discern an effective way to address the situation and lead our society back towards Christ.  Many churches are pushing even harder for their own members to buckle down on living out their Christian morals but flounder without an effective strategy for evangelizing the culture they live in, often offending the culture unnecessarily and alienating the very people they are trying to lead to Christ.  Some churches have sought to reduce their interaction with secular culture and maintain a segregated Christians-only society untouched by the secular world and thereby fail to engage with a world that desperately needs Christ.  Others, unfortunately, have abandoned the moral truths of the scriptures and have embraced many of these un-Godly lifestyles and beliefs, creating a bastardized version of Christianity that seeks to win converts by endorsing the sin as well as loving the sinner in one, big, happy family, with disastrous results.

But there is a better way.  There is a way that we can both maintain Biblical standards in the Church and also be a more powerful and effective influence on our culture to embrace Biblical truths and moral standards.  And this plan is revealed by analyzing how we arrived here in the first place.

The winning strategy to transform our culture for Christ is for Christ-followers to become a significant and powerful force in the fields of secular education and secular entertainment once again.  We can transform our culture FOR Christ using the same tactics that were used to lead our culture AWAY from Christ.  This is not some plan that might work to transform our culture.  It is a plan that has worked to transform our culture already.  And it will work to transform our culture again to turn our nation TOWARDS Christ Jesus if we will stand together and use the tools at our disposal to help make it happen.

The Role of Missional Creative Writing

One powerful tool available to the Church to help shift the culture back to Christian values and point people to Christ in both the entertainment and educational fields is missional creative writing.  By harnessing the creativity of those God has called to be writers for Him, we can take advantage of a wide-open door of opportunity to advance the gospel and, at that same time, help to shift the secular culture back to Christian values.  By organizing and helping to guide this process, in the same way that a good coach can help a team maximize its strengths and shore up its weaknesses, local churches can help empower this generation of Christian writers and content creators to advance the kingdom of God.

It is important at this point to clarify what missional creative writing is and is not.  It is not writing by Christians that is created for a Christian audience.  The majority of ‘Christian fiction’ and other Christian works are not missional in nature.  This is especially true when it comes to fiction.  As a former Christian bookstore manager, I can attest to the fact that the vast majority of what is considered ‘Christian fiction’ wouldn’t appeal to today’s secular fiction reader.  Missional creative writing is creating works of fiction and non-fiction that are designed specifically to attract secular readers and expose them to the good news about Jesus Christ in ways that they find appealing and want to read.  Delving into the mechanics of how to do this is beyond the scope of this essay, but it is an important distinction to comprehend as we proceed.

Missional creative writing is about storytelling.  It is about telling a story that engages the minds and hearts of those who hear it and nudges them towards the values and beliefs that the storyteller wants the audience to embrace—a Christ-centered message of hope, salvation in Jesus, and Biblical morality and worldview.  Consider this quote about storytelling from Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computers and the man largely influential in the explosion of the Pixar movie company into nationwide prominence.  In 1994, years before Pixar launched their first film, Steve Jobs said this: 

“The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values, and agenda of an entire generation that is to come… and Disney has a monopoly on the storyteller business. You know what? I am tired of that [expletive], I am going to be the next storyteller.” (Byrne, n.d.)

Let that sink in.  Steve Jobs’ prescient statement is very revealing, and the Church should sit up and take notice.  Steve Jobs understood something that the Church has forgotten for far too long.  The group of storytellers a society listens to, “. . . sets the vision, values, and the agenda” of that society.  At the time, Disney was the king of the heap as far as who told the stories to our children—whether they were children of Christians or otherwise.  Show any person who grew up in that era a list of the Disney movies released in those years, and you will be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t seen several of them during their formative years.  As of this writing, this is still true today.  Yet, this is the same company that has long championed the LGBTQ agenda and used their films and products to encourage children and adults to embrace the same while presenting a world in which God is absent to our children.

Steve Jobs succeeded in challenging that status quo, of being the David who took on Goliath.  Pixar became a force to be reckoned with in the movie industry, going on to successfully challenge Disney’s prominence.  But the messages in the Pixar films of that era weren’t pushing a message for Christ or a God-centered worldview or championing Biblical morality.  So, essentially, the narrative hadn’t changed much.  And, by the way, Disney didn’t stand by and do nothing.  They recognized the power of the Pixar brand and eventually bought the company themselves.  So Disney—a Godless, anti-family, pro-LGBTQ agenda company—remains the loudest voice in the movie storytelling business, continuing to speak their vision, values, and agenda to our children and lend their significant influence to shape the society of tomorrow into their own Godless image.

The stories we listen to and come to believe in define who we are and the direction of our very lives.  Whether the story is fictional or not, if it is told in a powerful way that connects with the masses, it can bring either great peace and deliverance or untold suffering and destruction to countless millions.  A few examples follow—all of which have changed and continue to change history around the world in varying degrees for both good or evil, depending on the work in question:

Mein Kampf – Hitler – Millions upon millions of people died needlessly because of Hitler’s fictional belief that the Jews and other non-Aryan peoples were the source of his country’s economic and social ills.

The Communist Manifesto – Karl Marx – Marx’s poisonous, anti-religious, and ignorant belief that religion was the opiate of the masses and that humankind could, by themselves, create the perfect world created a framework for human suffering unparalleled in human history.  The fiction that humankind could, as an act of their will, lay down the sinful nature to which we are all prone and live solely for the good of others without the power of a redeeming Savior was fool-hardy.  Yet, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse Tong, and a host of other leaders embraced this fiction as fact, killing between 60 and 100 million people so far as a result—depending on where you get your numbers—and enslaving millions more in a life of poverty, despair, Godlessness, and totalitarianism.

The Koran – Muhammad – The religion of Islam is founded upon the fiction contained in the Koran.  Many of those who cling closely to the more violent teachings contained in this book have started wars in which many people needlessly died and have enslaved millions in lives of forced servitude, robbing them of their freedom.  Many believers in Islam, following the teachings of the Koran, have as their goal in life the complete eradication of the Jewish people and either forced conversion or annihilation of all Christians.  This fictional book has changed history—and not for the better.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel helped in a significant way to influence public opinion for ending slavery in the United States of America.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis – A great example of missional fiction for the secular marketplace written by one of the twentieth century’s greatest authors.  This series of books depicts the salvation story as an allegory and acquaints secular readers with C.S. Lewis’ work, influencing many of its readers to explore Lewis’ other works that are blatantly Christian and convey the salvation message.

The Bible – the followers of Jesus – The true story of God’s exuberant love for His greatest creation—humankind—and His radical plan to save us from ourselves by sending Jesus to die for our sins and restore the relationship with the Father.  While the only work of non-fiction in our list, it is truly the greatest story ever told.  In the Bible, Jesus Himself used parables—fictional stories—to illustrate many of the truths about the kingdom of God and lead people to put their faith in Him. 

 To harness the tremendous influencing power of missional creative writing to lead our secular society to Christ and the true freedom He alone offers, we must find a way to create quality works that non-Christians will happily read and get them into the hands and ebook readers of non-Christians.  Yet, today, Christian writers of fiction are all but shut out of the secular publishing market.  The publishing industry has long been left-leaning and has become increasingly so in the last two decades.  Routinely publishers and agents mention on their websites and profiles that they are looking for trans-sexual and LGBTQ characters in the works they represent and publish.  A sampling of recently published fiction in the secular market over the past several years will return a high percentage of works featuring trans-sexual and/or LGBTQ characters in a positive light, where these lifestyles are celebrated as normal or heroic, and where Christian characters frequently appear as the villains, cowards, weak-willed, child molesters, or abusers of others in one form or another.  Alternatively, you may also encounter in these works a so-called ‘Christian’ character who embraces sinful behaviors (especially homosexuality and trans-sexuality) as being accepted by God.  You will be hard-pressed to find a single instance of a Christian character in today’s secular fiction who actually represents the character and message of Christ.  These depictions have a far-reaching effect on how Christianity, Christians, and harmful sinful behavior are perceived by our society. 

Many of the largest publishers of Christian books are now owned by secular companies (Zondervan, Thomas Nelson, and Multnomah to name a few).  The situation brings to mind the scriptural admonishment to not be unequally yoked.  How can a publishing company supposedly dedicated to publishing books with a solid Biblical message be controlled by non-Christians?  It leaves little hope that the managers of these Christian imprints—Christian though they may personally be—are free to follow the Spirit’s leading in creating cutting-edge missional Christian fiction designed to influence secular readers.  On the contrary, these companies were specifically purchased by their new secular owners because their materials primarily appeal to a Christian audience, and these secular publishers want to tap into that financial market.  They don’t need their Christian imprint cross-marketing to their secular fiction readers—they already have large sections of their businesses devoted to those markets.  They would in essence be competing with themselves—not a smart financial decision and one that would likely be shut down before it made its way past the editorial board.

  The non-religious book industry is between a 10 to 13 billion dollar a year industry in the United States, depending on how you tally it up (Statista, 2023).  The religious book industry—both Christian and otherwise—drew in somewhere between 750 million to 1.2 billion dollars in 2022 (How Religion Publishing Became a Billion-Dollar Industry, n.d.).  It is fair to say that non-religious people are not the ones buying the books in the religious section of the bookstores.  Many of these presses don’t even have representation in the majority of secular bookstores.  If we can get missional creative writing into the secular sales marketing pipeline—and do so with quality materials that appeal to the secular market—we can reach a much larger market of people than is currently being reached by the Christian publishing industry.  Additionally, we can do so with materials that are crafted in such a way that they will lead people to Christ and Christian values in much the same way that Disney films have led our children away from Christ and Christian values in recent decades.  The wide door of opportunity is standing before us if we will but apply ourselves to the task.

If we are to succeed in doing our part as Christ’s ambassadors on earth to help turn our nation back to God, we must re-engage in secular culture in a way that will begin shifting secular beliefs towards Jesus, God, and Christianity by engaging the imaginations of non-Christians.  One of the most powerful ways to do this is through entertainment. The goal of creating a missional creative writing ministry is to use the gifts, talents, and abilities of Christian writers and creative artists to help facilitate a cultural shift towards God by producing quality writing and entertainment for the secular market which…

a. Encourages critical thinking from a Christ-centered worldview regarding the challenges and opportunities facing our world;

b. Promotes a positive view of God’s interaction with humanity;

c. Promotes a Biblically-based moral lifestyle that values sexual purity;

d. Celebrates the values of honesty, justice, equality, freedom of speech and expression, and democracy for both sexes and all races; and

e. Provides easy access to a clear presentation of the gospel either in the work itself or as part of the back or front-matter material of the work.

Storming the Gates of Our Culture for Christ

We currently have a wide open door of opportunity to engage with the masses of non-Christians in our society through the publishing industry that was not possible until recent decades.   The rise and expansion of the electronic book and ebook marketplace, the extremely low cost of entry to publish and distribute both ebook and quality paperback books around the world through major online and brick-and-mortar retailers, and the ubiquity of electronic devices making these materials available to the masses offer an incredible opportunity for spreading the gospel through the unique and powerful ministry of missional creative writing.  Combined with the tremendous power of social media, with which these materials can be marketed to the masses without needing the costly advertising budgets required to reach large audiences in the past, we have a truly golden opportunity in front of us.  We don’t know how long this arena will remain so accessible and so open, and we should not waste time in maximizing this advantage.

Imagine, if you will, a trained group of Christian creative writers who are generating high-quality books, podcasts, blog posts, articles, short stories, audiobooks, and a host of other written and recorded materials—all of which appeal to the secular public and which are not perceived as being overtly Christian in nature, but yet are steadily pointing their readers towards Christ in creative ways.  Now imagine a cadre of believers who are helping to point readers to these materials through online reviews, tweets, likes, follows, and other social media applications, sites, and methodologies, creating a growing volume of social marketing material that lifts the visibility of these materials to a public that is ever-hungry for entertainment and enlightenment.

Now imagine a Christian publishing organization rallying behind these authors and creators, helping to equip them and train them, consolidating the marketing landscape to magnify the reach and volume of the advertising effort, and being a creative factory where the best of these writers and creators naturally bubble to the top.  If pursued with excellence, this can lead to missional creative works beginning to appear with frequency on major secular best-seller lists like the New York Times, USA Today, et al, showing up in trade publication charts for top-selling authors and books, and even being stocked on the physical bookshelves of major retail outlets across the United States and beyond.

A movement that accomplished all of this would be a tool God could and would use to move the needle of cultural values towards God, thereby encouraging many millions of people who have in the past been averse to even thinking about God in a positive way to take a chance on engaging with Jesus with a positive mindset.  The increased exposure and cultural acceptance of Christian values would result in more people opposing abortion, seeing a Christian spiritual alternative to problems instead of only a secular non-Christian one, viewing Christ and Christians positively, and welcoming Christian materials once again into our public schools.   If past history of such cultural shifts is any indication, it would also move the appetites of entertainment consumers away from the highly sexualized pro-LGBTQ standards of today’s secular publishing and movie industries towards offerings embracing more wholesome Biblically-endorsed values (Peterson, 2018).

Make no mistake about it.  At the end of the day, the publishing and movie industries may want to push their ungodly agendas, but they can only do so much without making money.  As Disney is beginning to learn in recent days, if they push these agendas farther than the culture will stomach, financial disaster follows.   Ultimately, secular entertainment companies will follow the money and the public sentiment and tone down or remove their ungodly prurient content altogether if the public votes with their feet to embrace quality pro-Christian value alternatives. 

The Church needs to be the loudest voice in the room when it comes to speaking to our culture.  We can become so once again, and developing a strong missional creative writing ministry can help make that goal into a reality.  The impact of such a ministry can be monumental.  We are already seeing the rise of quality movie alternatives that are challenging the status quo of Hollywood with pro-Christian value offerings that appeal to a secular public and are not seen as ‘Christian-only’ products.  Now is the time to get behind creating the same environment in the publishing industry.  With commitment and perseverance, we have the tools available to us to shift our culture back towards Christ and Christian values.  A strong missional creative writing movement can lead multitudes of people to find salvation in Jesus and help our society enjoy a host of benefits ranging from fewer abortions to safer neighborhoods with less crime.  Let’s join together to help this generation of Christian writers and creative artists spread the gospel and change our nation for Christ.

For an example of what a Christian missional YA novel looks like, visit https://cwells.net/egalitarius

Bibliography:

Byrne, D. (n.d.). Steve Jobs’​ lesson about Storytelling. www.linkedin.com. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/steve-jobs-lesson-storytelling-dave-byrne?articleId=6694940202449956864

City Journal. (2023, March 23). The real story behind Drag Queen Story Hour | City Journal. https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-real-story-behind-drag-queen-story-hour

French, D. (n.d.). The Tragic Transgender Contagion. National Review. https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/08/transgender-teens-parents-rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria-doctors/

How religion publishing became a Billion-Dollar industry. (n.d.). PublishersWeekly.com. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/religion/article/89000-how-religion-publishing-became-a-billion-dollar-industry.html

Peterson, D. (2018, April 11). How the Catholic Church censored the Golden Age of Hollywood. Vox. https://www.vox.com/videos/2018/4/11/17224220/catholic-church-censorship-golden-age-hollywood-hays-code

Rantz, J. (2023, February 10). Rantz: WA laws now allow teen gender reassignment surgery without parental consent. MyNorthwest.com. https://mynorthwest.com/3296653/rantz-washington-laws-permit-teen-gender-reassignment-surgery-parental-consent/

Statista. (2023, June 19). Book publisher sales revenue in the U.S. 2012-2022, by category. https://www.statista.com/statistics/303621/books-sales-revenue-category-usa/

Veissière, S. (2018, November 28). Veissière: Why Is Transgender Identity on the Rise Among Teens? PsychologyToday.com. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culture-mind-and-brain/201811/why-is-transgender-identity-the-rise-among-teens

The God of Lost Causes

In John 17:4 Jesus prayed to God saying, “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given me to do.”

What a profound statement!  Jesus came to earth to do something no one else could possibly do.  He came to make a way for us to be re-united with God – not through being perfect ourselves – but by relying on Jesus’ perfection to open the door to a restored relationship with the Father.

Our task on this earth as believers in Jesus is not to perfectly accomplish the will of God, but rather to imperfectly pursue Him and by extension to imperfectly pursue His calling for our lives while there is breath in our bodies and the ability to do so.  And what is our task?  To take our gifts, talents, and abilities and use them in the attempt to spread God’s kingdom in the unique way that God has designed us as individuals to do so. And all of us are probably well aware of our own failures and shortcomings in pursuing that task.

Know that you are not alone.

Our journey is often messy, non-linear, filled with mis-steps, mistakes, and missed opportunities.  But Christ Jesus is a Redeemer if He is anything at all.  He can take the brokenness of our lives and re-shape and re-purpose them to make a beautiful work of art that brings Him glory in the same way that an artist can take a pile of broken colored glass and make it into a piece of beautiful stained glass art.  And He can do so not in spite of our brokenness, but because of it. 

Don’t lose hope wherever you are in your journey today.  God is a Redeemer.  No one is a lost cause to Him. 

It’s Time for Christians to Confront the Leaders of the Church

As anyone not living under a rock knows, Roe vs. Wade—the landmark court case legalizing abortion—was recently overturned by the United States Supreme Court.  This ruling paves the way for hundreds of thousands of precious lives to be spared from an untimely death, and as a follower of Christ, I couldn’t be happier about this fact.  But not everyone in the Church appears to be so happy about this situation, which is a cause for great concern.

Shortly after the verdict, I was rejoicing with a friend of mine concerning this momentous decision when they lamented that the large mega-church they attend had taken a markedly subdued approach in addressing this great victory during a recent church service.  This church had not marked the occasion with boisterous celebration.  On the contrary, they took a conciliatory approach and observed that there were varied opinions on the issue held by the attendees and that all were welcome in their church, regardless of which side of the issue they happened to be on.  Full stop.  End of discussion.  Next item on the agenda. 

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. 

For those of you who see nothing wrong with the approach this church took, allow me to remind you what the purpose of the Church is.  The Church is the pillar of truth in the earth (1 Timothy 3:15).  The Church is supposed to be the one place you can go where you can learn God’s perspective on right and wrong and be steered in the right path.  It is to be a place where we acknowledge and repent of our sin, receive forgiveness through Jesus, and are empowered by God to follow Jesus in living in concert with God, not in opposition to Him.  And the very first step in that process is being confronted with our sin, in all of its ugliness.

If the Church is not willing to be very plain and forthright in calling sin, sin, then we have lost our way, confused our purpose, and are powerless to help anyone.  Indeed, as Jesus said of His disciples in Matthew 5:13 (NASB), “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.”

Abortion is sin. 

It is not something that true followers of Christ can agree to disagree on.  It is the most horrific sin ever conceived in the blackest hearts of the sickest, most twisted hell-bound souls ever spawned on planet earth.  And if the church you attend is not willing to clearly state this incontrovertible truth—and unashamedly so—for all the world to hear—then you either need to get new church leaders or find a church to attend where they preach the unadulterated good news about Jesus.

It is true that many people in our society are distraught over the fact that the Supreme Court has paved the way for a possible end to legalized abortion in America by striking down Roe vs. Wade.  It is also true that we are not to beat people over the head with the Bible, but should be vessels of God’s love and understanding, leading people to Christ through kindness and gentleness rather than ridicule or unnecessary abrasiveness.  After all, Jesus Himself often attended wild parties—not participating in the sinful activities Himself but interacting with and influencing sinners to come to God by showing His great love for them.

But there is a Biblical principle that some in the Church are missing.  We should never, never, NEVER, compromise the truth in the process of seeking to spread the good news about Jesus Christ. 

Truth overrules our desire to be gentle in respecting the feelings of others in the process of helping show them God’s love.  The good news about Jesus Christ and what He stands for absolutely WILL be offensive to those who are perishing without God.  It is not possible to eliminate the sting that the salve of God’s truth brings to the wounded soul of a lost person without also compromising that truth.  We should not be unnecessarily offensive to the lost soul in the process, but we should never shy away from standing up boldly for the truth in love.

And the truth, in love, is that every church in America and around the world should have had a celebration commemorating the overturning of Roe vs. Wade.  The beginning of the end of the genocidal war against generations of innocent children should not have been downplayed in an effort to not offend church-goers who might support abortion.  On the contrary, the fact that true believers celebrate such a victory can serve as a lightening-rod moment in the lives of those who support such atrocities, forcing them to confront the fact that the God of the Bible, Church leaders, and all genuine followers of Jesus oppose abortion, which could hopefully lead them to repent of their own support of this barbaric and unholy practice.

To fail to call sin, sin is no badge of honor for the Church.  Jesus never used such a tactic.  He offered a path to forgiveness and compassion to those who had sinned, but he never down-played the significance of that sin in the process.  It is time for believers who have not been deceived into embracing such can’t-we-all-just-get-along tactics to rise up and begin confronting their local church leaders regarding their kid-glove, mamby-pamby attitude towards the great sins in our culture—abortion being chief among them.

Sin is not just a difference of opinion, and the good news about Jesus is not that everyone ever born gets to go to heaven regardless of their choices.  Sin has consequences.  The good news about Jesus is that He came to save us from our hopelessly twisted sinful nature that leads us to choose to do evil things that harm others and are deserving of hell.  Abortion is evil.  Abortion is the murder of the innocent.  The good news for anyone who has had an abortion, performed an abortion, or in any way supported the practice is not that, ‘it’s okay; we all have our own opinions about it.’  The good news is that Jesus died a horrible death on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins and pave the way for us to turn away from them and have an eternal relationship with Him instead of going to the hell we so richly deserve.

In the book of Acts, Paul had to confront Peter—the leader of the church in Jerusalem and an apostle of Jesus—when Peter lost his way on the topic of classism/racism as he had begun segregating himself from Gentile believers in favor of Jewish believers.  Peter was clearly wrong, and Paul confronted him in front of everyone, thus setting him straight and bringing about a much-needed correction.  Similarly, it is time for those of us attending churches throughout America whose leadership has become confused about some very important issues to begin standing up and confronting them, just as Paul did. 

Whether it concerns Abortion, the toxic Critical Race Theory, or taking a stand against the radical transgender movement, the Church needs to take a clear and compassionate stand on the moral issues facing our society, calling what is sin, sin, and offering the hope of Christ and the wisdom provided by our faith on these issues to a confused world. If the Church cannot stand for Biblical truth on these things, then we should shutter the doors and go play golf or spend the day at the beach instead of wasting our time.

Find Your Calling online course released!

I have just released the Find Your Calling online course on Youtube. It is designed to help you Find Your Calling, once and for all, without any gimmicks or half-solutions that leave you doubting the results.

I know the inner drive that many of us have to answer the questions, for ourselves, of “Why am I here?” and “What am I supposed to be doing with my life?” I also know the intense dissatisfaction and depression that can result when those questions are not answered correctly – or not answered at all. In this free course, based on my book, Finding Your Calling Without Losing Your Mind, I will help equip you with the tools and knowledge that you need to answer these questions for your own life once and for all.

This course is much more than a how-to class to help you find your calling. It will lead you on a spiritual journey of discovery that will help you connect on a deeper level with God as you learn to embrace the unique purpose that He has for you. Delving into the teachings of Jesus to provide guidance, the Find Your Calling course is sure to leave you inspired, informed, and stirred up with a renewed passion to live life and bring forth your unique gifts, talents, and abilities into the world!

Don’t put off finding your true calling any longer. Start the Find Your Calling course today, and don’t forget to subscribe to the channel so we can let you know as each new episode is released.

May God bless your day!

God is not dead.

It was once written, “These are the times that try men’s souls.”  I believe we live in such a time.  In reality, every generation does, and some times are more trying than others, to be sure.  But, as far as my own journey is concerned, I am living in the most trying days I have ever personally witnessed in our nation.  Good is called evil, and evil called good, by an increasing number of my fellow-citizens.  There are a variety of reasons for this, but it all results in a rather depressing situation where it appears the deck—at least in the natural realm—is stacked against those of us who follow Jesus Christ as the Bible teaches us to. 

The national sin of Abortion still results in legally murdered babies by the tens of thousands, sexual immorality on a scale unprecedented since the times of Sodom and Gomorrah is considered to be a civil right, and those on the side of evil appear to have finally garnered enough power to willingly sway once free and reasonably fair elections to their whim on a national scale without anyone powerful enough to stand in their way.  And let’s not forget our children, who are being propagandized daily in the taxpayer-funded schools to believe that all of these aforementioned evils are the way things ought to be, and that God is simply a historical figment of our imagination and nothing more, and that people who believe as the Bible teaches us to are backwards, homophobic, xenophobic, racist insurrectionists who must be censored, silenced, cancelled or otherwise suppressed for the public good.

Our nation, it is fair to say, is in trouble.

It is easy, in times such as this, to feel depressed and angry and a host of other negative emotions.  But we are experiencing nothing different than countless generations before us who have lived in societies that pursue hedonistic pleasure over a right relationship with God.  Certainly, the technology is more advanced to aid them in their head-long pursuit of perdition, but little else has changed in the grand scheme of things.  Sinners still sin, and the righteous are still persecuted when we refuse to abandon the path of Truth and Righteousness.  Jesus promised us no less, but He also promised us victory in the end when He told us, “In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

So, how do we live in this present age?  How do we live when it seems even a shocking number of our church leaders are being lured down the primrose path of complicity with these present evils?

A thought that occurred to me recently as I pondered these questions was this:  we are here to serve others.  Like Jesus before us—our Lord, Master, and example elder brother—Who came to this Earth not to be served, but to serve.  We are here to serve others. 

It’s easy to forget that in the middle of the turmoil, when everything and everyone you hold dear seems to be in jeopardy.  But it’s true.  And if we take our gifts, talents, and abilities, and seek to serve others with them in a way that will advance the kingdom of God, then we can expect to be reasonably happy in this life, and receive the reward of God’s everlasting presence in the next—a reward like none other.

The events of the past four years have been an emotional and spiritual roller coaster for me, arising both from personal events in my own life and the national events that have occurred in our society.  My ship has been tossed on the waves of the times.  And I have found myself in a place of questioning how to move forward when even many spiritual leaders in the Church seem to be leading us astray.

As the dust began to settle from recent national events and the storms in my personal life began to subside somewhat, I finally had the emotional and spiritual energy to lean into the question of “How should I then live?”  The words of the Serenity Prayer came to my mind:

God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed,

Courage to change the things which should be changed,

and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,

Enjoying one moment at a time,

Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,

Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is,

Not as I would have it,

Trusting that You will make all things right, if I surrender to Your will,

So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,

And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

(Reinhold Niebuhr)

Stepping back and looking at the world’s situation and my own personal life as they exist today, not much has changed from four years ago.  The heat may have been turned up a few notches on sin and hatred, and we’re facing challenges like we’ve never faced before in our personal and national lives, but the train has been headed in this direction for a lot longer than four years.   Yet God is still God.  He still has a plan, and His plan hasn’t changed in the midst of our current situation.  The truth contained in 2 Chronicles 7:14 is still true:  “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

Christ Jesus gave us some additional instructions to go along with 2 Chronicles 7:14.  He told us in Mark 16:15 to, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” 

So, what does this look like?  If each of us will take the gifts, talents, and abilities that God has blessed us with, and get up each day and use them to demonstrate God’s love to others and find some way to point people to the good news about Jesus Christ in the process, then we win.  God’s kingdom advances.  The world becomes a better place because we are here.

Will there be trials and tribulations and challenges along the way?  Yes.  Will we be called on to do difficult things at times?  Yes.  Will God be with us?  Yes.  Is God greater than the present evil?  Yes. 

So, be encouraged.  All is not lost.  The whole reason God came into the world and died on a cross for our sins is because we need a Savior.  And our Savior is not a president, isn’t a group of politicians, or our job, or our bank account, or some other thing, person, or situation we are tempted to put our trust in when the waters are troubled.  Our Savior is and always has been Jesus, God incarnate.

So, I leave you with some words our Savior spoke, and encourage you that these words are still just as true today as the day He spoke them.  “Peace I leave with you.  My peace I give you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.”  – John 14:27.

The Death of George Floyd

Since the writing of my original article, much additional information has been revealed about this incident, including the fact that George Floyd had what some medical professionals have deemed to be a potentially lethal dose of illegal drugs in his system at the time of his death. I am still horrified about how George Floyd was treated by police officers and feel that they should be punished for not seeking medical attention for Mr. Floyd and for using a restraining method which likely contributed to his death (a restraint method that it appears their department authorized for use). I mourn the death of this man. It is quite likely that, if the police had sought medical attention for him and/or used a more humane method of restraint, Mr. Floyd would be alive today.

But there is even more to the story.  There is an aspect of this event that served to escalate the response of the public across the nation, fueling riots, and helping to cause even more needless death.  Because of the color of Mr. Floyd’s skin, this actions of the police were immediately labeled as racially motivated.

I can completely understand why many people jumped to the conclusion that the actions of the police were racially motivated.  Our nation has had a long and sordid history of racism—against people of color in particular.  And, because of that history, it’s easy to assume that when a white police officer is involved in the death of a black man that it is racially motivated.  But if we want the truth, we need to be able to take a step back and objectively look at the event critically in the least-biased way that we can.

What happened in this case on a national level was that the color of a person’s skin was taken as proof-positive that his behavior was racially motivated.  That’s one of the things that Martin Luther King, Jr. fought against—racial bias that makes a judgment about a man simply because of the color of his skin.  It is bias like this that helps perpetuate racism in this country, racism against blacks as well as racism against whites and all other people.

As I examined what was known after the first several days following George Floyd’s death, I didn’t find any hard evidence presented by law enforcement or the news media indicating his death was, in any way, motivated by racist beliefs on the part of the police involved in the incident.  As of this writing, I believe that is still the case.

If Derek Chauvin was a member of the KKK, was a known racist who regularly wrote racially motivated hate-speech on social media, or was otherwise known to have racist beliefs against black people, none of this was revealed by the media or law enforcement in the days after the incident, as far as I am aware.  In short, no evidence was presented to substantiate the charge that this incident was racially motivated.

I believe one of the primary things that we legitimately need to be addressing in the wake of George Floyd’s death is a national culture of excessive police brutality against the public—which affects all races.  Making George Floyd’s death about racism is diverting our focus from the real atrocity of ever-increasing use of excessive and unwarranted police brutality against the public they are sworn to protect.  Here is an excellent article on this issue by constitutional attorney John Whitehead concerning how the George Floyd murder is not about racism, but about police brutality.


Some good news:

Sometimes you need to hear some good news with no ulterior motive. Well, here it is: God wants a relationship with you, and He isn’t holding your mistakes or failures against you. (2 Corinthians 5:18-21)

The Re-education of Senator X

Just published a new short story that you can read free using the link below:

Senator Xavier Sanford wakes up in a strange place with no memory of how he arrived there. He quickly realizes something went horribly wrong at the party he attended the night before. Unable to leave, he is forced to cooperate with the bizarre demands of his mysterious host in a desperate effort to keep his daughter alive. The new psychological thriller short story by author C.L. Wells will keep you on the edge of your seat!

Read it for yourself on Medium.com: https://medium.com/@creativewriting777/the-re-education-of-senator-x-chapter-1-187e5e212f1f

Photo by Maria Lysenko on Unsplash

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