A stronger obligation than ever exists in professional sports today to hire a younger coach, who played himself, and can relate better to the younger players.  The consideration behind the thinking is that young players won’t just respect a coach any more.  Greater value is put on relating.  The coach indulges them if he wants to see some kind of positive response. The days of expecting obedience and confronting disobedience are long gone.  A coach who says, jump, and thinks a player will ask, how high, better think again.  A popular sentiment is that younger players just aren’t coachable anymore.  They can’t be coached, only cajoled.

An at least small tremor erupted within Big Evangelicalism in the last several weeks when celebrity evangelical Josh Harris announced he left the Christian faith.  Many other big named evangelicals followed his declaration with an analysis, including Albert Mohler.  I think another evangelical, Carl Trueman, makes a more accurate assessment of the relationship of Joshua Harris to evangelicalism in his post at FirstThings, called “Kissing Christianity Goodbye.”   He writes:

While Harris seems to be making a clean break with his past, the style of his apostasy announcement is oddly consistent with the evangelical Christianity he used to represent. He revealed he was leaving the faith with a social media post, which included a mood photograph of himself contemplating a beautiful lake. The earlier announcement of his divorce used the typical postmodern jargon of “journey” and “story.” And both posts were designed to play to the emotions rather than the mind. Life, it would seem, continues as performance art. 

In a sense, that is exactly how and why the YRR was so successful: savvy harnessing of fashionable idioms and marketing strategies, exceptionally clever use of social media, large and well-organized conferences, and professional-grade websites—all fronted by attractive personalities and brilliant communicators. Orthodoxy as performance art, one might say. And Harris was both a product of and a player in the YRR project.

Later he continued:

But the movement’s leadership was often arrogant. In public, critics were derided and then ignored; in private, they were vilified and bullied. An extensive informal network of individuals, institutions, and organizations who wanted a slice of the YRR action was happy to oblige the padrini by keeping critics on the margins. And one by one big leaders fell from favor: Mark Driscoll, James MacDonald, Tullian Tchividjian, C. J. Mahaney, now Josh Harris. On Friday the news broke that The Village Church, home of YRR megastar Matt Chandler, is being sued over alleged mishandling of sexual abuse.

Sing! 2019  has all the earmarks of Trueman’s words about evangelicalism, which I’m calling “A Mess” here, and with Sing! 2019 an exhibit.  It mixes many and varied contradictory characters in the name of the life of Christ and worship.  It really is the jello running into the mashed potatoes and gravy into a soupy matrix, the latter evangelicalism for a lot of reasons, but a major one because its leaders either can’t or won’t draw necessary lines between the holy, the good, the true, and the beautiful with the profane, the bad, the false, and the ugly.  Because of the confusion arising from association and toleration, most of these, like the Samaritans of Jesus day, think they really are worshiping God.

Trueman lists C. J. Mahaney, who brought Josh Harris into the “sovereign grace ministries.”  Mohler writes like he knew all along there was a problem with Harris, even though Mahaney was his close friend as part of the smash, Together for the Gospel quartet.  Mahaney seemed like an outlier in the four, because even though they were all Calvinists — Mohler, Dever, Duncan, and Mahaney — he was also charismatic.  Still working right with Mahaney is his longtime partner and still assistant, Bob Kauflin, a part of the Sing! 2019 line-up, which is packed with continuationists, who report extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit and God talking to them.

Sing! 2019 uses the world’s music, characterized by its fleshly lust, sensuality, and breathiness.  It uses ecstatic experiences as a counterfeit of the Holy Spirit, what John MacArthur has called, strange fire, the headliner of the conference.  MacArthur has allowed his image, associated with his preaching and preaching about worship, to syncretize with the worldly, entertainment spectacle of Sing! 2019, it’s rap, rock, country, and other forms of popular music.  The promotional video includes the “worship” of Irish dancing.  The Gettys, who lead the conference, promote their national tour on their website with more of the same.

MacArthur called charismatic worship, Strange Fire, an offense to the Holy Spirit and counterfeit worship.  The worship of the Sing! conference is strange fire.  Open the lid and look into what the “artists” of Sing! 2019 and you see the influences secular, godless, and pagan, just the opposite of what God accepts in worship.

There is only one true imagination of God and it is according to what He has revealed in His Word.  The god of Sing! 2019 uses the name “God,” but it isn’t the same God.  The God of the Bible would not be represented by what its adherents say is their worship.  If you are a professing Christian, who keeps the world’s music in your life and then think God accepts it in worship, you have a different God than what I have.  We are not worshiping the same God, and a different God than the true God isn’t the one who can and will save from sin and death.

The content of this post is now available in the study of:

1.) Evan Roberts

2.) The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905

3.) Jessie Penn-Lewis

on the faithsaves.net website. Please click on the people above to view the study.  On the FaithSaves website the PDF files may be easiest to read.

You are also encouraged to learn more about Keswick theology and its errors, as well as the Biblical doctrine of salvation, at the soteriology page at Faithsaves.

When I explain the gospel to someone, and I get to the penalty for sin, I talk about death and separation.  I have long said that physical death is separation from the body, spiritual death is separation from God because of sin, and that eternal death is separation from God forever in Hell.  This week The Gospel Coalition posted an article written by theologian Michael Theologian entitled, “Hell Is Not Separation from God.”  He says that instead Hell is horrible because “God is present.”

For a long time, I don’t know how long, I’ve considered the contradiction between “separation from God” and God’s omnipresence.  If God is omnipresent, which He is, then how could He be separated from anything?  This is where I distinguish between the omnipresence of God, and the special presence of God.  Regarding God’s omnipresence, and Hell, I think of Psalm 139:7-8:

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

On a few occasions, when evangelizing someone, I have made this distinctive, that in one sense nothing is separated from God, because He is omnipresent.  However, I believe eternal separation from God is taught, and Hell is the place of eternal separation from God.  Here are some reasons that come to my mind from scripture, not in any necessary order.

One, eternal separation from God is taught in Revelation 21-22, an appropriate place to talk about that.  Revelation 21:23-27 read:

23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. 24 And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. 25 And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. 26 And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it. 27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

In the place described where God is and His glory is, some people would be there, but “there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth.”  Only those in the Lamb’s book of life would be there, which means that those not in the Lamb’s book of life would not be there.

Then Revelation 22:14-15 say:

14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. 15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

Here some are in the gates of the same city mentioned, and then “without” are others.  Revelation 22:19 continues:

And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city.

God takes away his part out of the holy city.  All three of these places combined teach separation from God.  It misses the point to say, “You’re all going to be with me, but the others, they are going to be with me too!”  No, the others are not going to be with Him; they are going to be separated from Him.

Two, in John 14:2-3, Jesus taught His disciples:

2 In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

Jesus said He would go to prepare a place for His own, that where He was, they would be also.  Jesus was distinguishing His unique relationship with His disciples as in Heaven being were they were and they being where He is.  It wouldn’t be unique if He would be with them and everyone else too, who rejected Him.  Non-disciples would not be with Him — Jesus, God — hence, they would be separated from Him.

Three, a regular statement of the Lord Jesus, Who is God, toward those He sends to Hell is “depart from me,” as seen in Matthew 7:23,

And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Part One

Falsely so-called science, and uniquely psychology, really psychobabble, proceeds from a requirement of meaninglessness.  When I write, meaninglessness, I know there is meaning, of course, but the pseudo-scientists need a blank canvass for their own lust.  They can assign their own meaning to any and every thing, like a rorschach ink blot, so that they are sovereign over existence.  A major component of this is “it’s not my problem, I couldn’t help it,” because the convenient randomness leaves them only a victim.  This justifies past and predicts future bad behavior.  There are a multitude in number and in different varieties of maladies, ailments, syndromes, and disorders with a similar multitude in number and in different varieties of explanations and causes so that the sovereign individual can pick his own.  He becomes even a sympathetic figure because of the disorder, which becomes his new identity.

Scripture, on the other hand, speaks with authority about what is wrong and why.  The Bible sufficiently furnishes someone to every good work.  There is no temptation to sin for anyone about anything that God has not provided a way of escape.  Instead of turning to and listening to God, a person replaces God’s authority with self-authority, and uses falsely so-called science to excuse a sin.  The “science” has become a higher pseudo-authority, quoted without a permission to challenge.  By replacing scripture, it replaces God and grants cover to the individual.  He gets a pass.

A syndrome, peer reviewed in a journal, absolves a victim of guilt.  When he does wrong, a debilitating malady explains it.  Victims are selective in their use of their infirmity like a child who isn’t hungry until he’s offered ice cream.  Greater expectations trigger a relapse.  Blame exacerbates the symptoms.  Another episode meets a suggestion of responsibility.  Victims are the perfect spokesmen for almost any issue because they can’t be criticized.

I’m not saying there aren’t challenges in this world because of the curse of sin on the creation and on people themselves.  I’m also not saying there aren’t true victims.  Scripture says there is and everyone knows that by experience, which would be why Jesus taught to “count the cost,” also represented by the tough experience of the sun beating down on a plant, which had no root in a rocky soil.

We have a state police officer in our church, and he’s seen horrific fatal outcomes in car accidents.  He deals with regular, threatening confrontation and more.  I ask him how these experiences have left a mark on him and his thinking, especially with certain disorders that others claim from them.  He says they are not beyond the ability to face, because of his faith in Christ.  The greatest afflictions arise from drugs and alcohol a part of what they treat as self-medication.  The same state police officer said that in their classes on this subject matter, it was agreed that the measures used to mask the memories create bigger issues than the incidents that triggered them.

Special attention is paid to those who go through apparently traumatic events, when anyone living faces every day the trauma of the chaos of this world, arising from the detrimental effects of sin.  Everyone could claim any one of multiple causes for syndromes and disorder, and it’s only getting worse.  Many varied events could be interpreted any number of ways to allow us to be victims:  rejection, failures, death, loneliness, isolation, disrespect, stress, castigation, fear, injustice, regret, boredom, illness, pain, hatred, sorrow, low metabolism, loss, and intolerance.  One could pick any one, several, or a unique mix of a few.

Jordan Peterson, a clinical pyschiatrist with thousands of hours, in his book, 12 Rules for Life, writes about what constitutes an “oppressed” or “disabled” people.  He asks (p. 316):

But who is disabled?  Is someone living with a parent with Alzheimer’s disabled? If not, why not?

My wife and I are taking care of my parents, both type 2 diabetes and my father with advanced alzheimer’s.  From the professional opinion of a PhD with decades of hours of clinical experience, I’m a victim to the level of a disabililty.  What do you think?

It’s pathetic, but more than ever, especially millennials use status as a victim to gain attention.  They report the latest downturn and how they’re attempting to cope.  They’re having a hard time.  I’m not sure most people either believe them or care, but the strategy or technique multiplies.  It’s an old scheme that God exposes in Ezekiel 18:1-4:

1 The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying, 2 What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying,, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge? 3 As I live, saith the Lord GOD, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. 4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

The same reference is made in Jeremiah 31:29-30:

29 In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. 30 But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.

While many boys idolize their fathers, that can change once the teenage years arrive. That’s the stage during which a young male is attempting to form his own identity. Rebellion against authority—often one’s parents—is common, and clash often ensues. This, however, often changes as the son matures and comes to realize that he didn’t, in fact, know everything, and begins to realize his father was right about a lot more than he’d realized as an adolescent.

Peter Robinson for the Hoover Institute interviews three scientists — David Berlinski, David Gelernter, and Stephen Meyer — and they talk about why Darwinism is false.  Berlinski and Meyer have both written books (here, here, here, and here) and Gelernter just announced his own departure in an article in the Claremont Review of Books (here), which you really need to read.  The Bible teaches creation and that’s good enough, but it is heartening to hear from these men.  As a disclaimer, they keep mentioning millions and billions of years.  It seems like incrementalism coming from Meyer.  However, if someone admits design, than Whoever the Designer could do what we see and know, He can also get it done in whatever way He chooses.

As an aside Gelernter was one of the victims of the Unabomber in 1993, permanently disabling his right hand and right eye.

When I was younger, I watched Star Trek.  That’s not an endorsement.  With Star Trek, I remember all the various fictional aliens coming with different languages.  Some of these aliens were advanced beyond humans and had even more advanced languages that humanity could not understand.  People were fine with that idea.  There is a code, a language, very complex, that precedes every creature on earth.  We can see the complexity of it, and we can’t interpret it.  It’s beyond us as a language, but it is there.  God wrote that language.  That language at least tells us of a Designer who must be God.

Among many other observations, an intrigue toward the beginning, Gelernter calls Darwinism a “beautiful theory,” so Robinson replies, “beauty is aesthetics, so there’s something subjective about it.”  When that came out of Robinson’s mouth, I thought, no, beauty isn’t subjective, and then Gelertner answered (at about 3:05), “Each year of my life, I am less convinced that there is anything at all that is subjective about beauty.”  That fits with this worldview, perhaps the new worldview of Gelertner, but objective beauty fits with the existence of a Designer.  That was a wonderful moment, I thought.  This goes along with what I’ve written about art in the last week or so (here and here).

“Over half of psychology studies fail reproducibility test.”  “Scientists replicated 100 psychology studies, and fewer than half got the same results.”   “An ambitious effort to replicate 100 research findings in psychology ended last week — and the data look worrying. Results posted online on 24 April, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, suggest that key findings from only 39 of the published studies could be reproduced.”  “The Stanford Prison Experiment was massively influential. We just learned it was a fraud.”  The Independent, the British newspaper, characterized the above with the following headline:  “Study reveals that a lot of psychology research really is just ‘psycho-babble’.”

I’m telling you what the research on the research actually says, but I think in reality it’s worse than reported.  A lot of what is repeated, and called science, especially in the field of psychology, is the opposite of the truth.  It isn’t being said or quoted because it is the truth, but because of its personal usefulness either excusing past or justifying future sinful behavior.  There is no science behind a lot of what people say or do today.  There is no scientific proof for homosexuality, that a baby in the womb is not a person, and for the secular or naturalistic explanations for origins today.

If something is scientific, it should mean that it is true.  If it’s a lie, that shouldn’t be science.  Science should be about getting to the truth, but it has become about supporting a presupposed position, usually today something that is politically correct and more.

Notable evolutionist, Aldous Huxley, the grandson of Thomas Huxley, wrote Ends and Means and said (1937):

I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning – the Christian meaning, they insisted – of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever.

Marxism is not an economic science.  The Patriarchy is not a social construct based upon tyranny.  Darwinism is not science, but “an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality,” especially that interferes with sexual freedom.

Enter 1 Timothy 6:20-21 from the King James Version:

O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. 

The last part of verse 20 reads literally, “the antithesis of the false so-called knowledge.”  “Science” translates gnosis, found 29 times in the New Testament, and it is translated knowledge almost all of those times, but here it is translated “science,” and it fits.  John MacArthur writes:

Over the course of human history, all kinds of speculative ideas have been falsely labeled “science” and mistakenly accepted as true and reliable knowledge by otherwise brilliant people. The now-discredited dogmas of older scientific theories are numerous—and in some cases laughable. They include alchemy (the medieval belief that other base metals could be transmuted into gold); phrenology (the Victorian belief that the shape of one’s skull reflects character traits and mental capacity); astrology (the pagan belief that human destiny is determined by the motions of celestial bodies); and abiogenesis (the long-standing belief that living organisms are spontaneously generated by decaying organic substances). All those false beliefs were deemed credible as “science” by the leading minds of their times.

The psychological writings are the place of the greatest abuse of science today.  Like Paul was writing, it is pseudo-intellectualism, just trying to sound smart, but a true antithesis to actual knowledge, so that Paul calls it just “so-called,” because it isn’t.  It is made up.

Some might say that advocates approach their psychological speculations like religion — since there is no proof, it is only matter of faith for them.  This actually is an even bigger problem.  Biblical faith does depend on evidence.  What has occurred over numbers of years is the bifurcation of the sacred and the secular, separating the Bible into a religious category inferior to science.  The Bible is science.  The Bible is true, but the psychological studies are false, which is why the Bible is science and the studies are only falsely so-called.  Now someone can immediately relegate something to speculation by calling it religious or faith.

Much of psychology has earned the derisive “psychobabble,” because it isn’t scientific or true.  Despite that, the psychological still brings an unmerited force to an argument, because of its unworthy elevation over the sacred, condoning whatever psychology promotes.  Like with Huxley above in his quote, the psychology is a useful tool for bad or sinful behavior.  It has also driven professing Christians from standing in the public square and led many to succumb to the prevailing cultural norms.

One of the evil lies of the so-called science of psychology is its ability to help or give aid and its superior compassion.  Someone doesn’t really care about another person unless he offers a psychological solution to a problem.  He’s not even credible, because he doesn’t have a popular treatment to promote. In certain cases, psychology does give someone a kind of short term relief from symptoms, which are then offered as evidence of a solution.  They don’t solve the actual problem, but along with the popularity of the psychological remedy, better feelings are a powerful defense.  Actual studies will show that it’s only a placebo and doesn’t really work.  It isn’t even science, but it’s acceptance by the culture is enough confirmation.  It really is a bias toward an antidote that matches a desire, interpreting information in a way that approves a preferred behavior.  I’m saying its driven by lust.

The person who relies on a lie of psychology enjoys the acceptance of the mass, often an entire association of people invested in its proliferation.  There are paid proponents with economic motivation even to perpetuate the myth, if not the problem.  Someone needs the existence of the problem to stay employed.  They depend on belief in the falsehoods.

For people who merely want to look like they care in order to receive that recognition, it doesn’t matter if someone really gets help.  It is cheap promotion.  You don’t need to study.  You don’t need to know.  You just use the acceptance lingo for the consequential plaudits.  Few need to notice if it makes you feel good about yourself.  You don’t have to help anyone.  You just have to look like you care, and while you do, you imagine that people are impressed, and then you feel good too.

Man’s biggest problem is his sin, because of the sin itself and its offense to God, but also because of the consequences.  Sin causes short term problems with the mind, emotions, and body, but it also separates someone from God in this lifetime and then forever in Hell.  The world will support your advocacy of social issues and psychobabble, because it’s most interested in how it feels in this temporal world, all that it has and can do.  It doesn’t mean that God doesn’t want to relieve and comfort you in this lifetime, but what’s most important is preparing for eternity.  A true believer will not focus on the best life now, but on the one forever with God.  This is science.

This post introduces a short series on certain psychological science, falsely so-called, or psychobabble.  The goal will be to disabuse the readers from the lies they embrace to continue according to their own lust and excuse or justify that false way.

Part One — “Artists”

Our church doesn’t use the following psalter, but it’s available at Psalters Online.   I chose, The Book of Psalms in an English Metrical Version, founded on the basis of the Authorized Bible Translation and Compared with the Original Hebrew, by Richard Mant.  Here is Psalm 106:11-22 from this psalter, a versification of the Hebrew Masoretic text, the same text from which comes the King James Version, just like the title says.

The word “artist” is like the word “culture” — in common usage, its meaning has disappeared. People don’t know what they mean, when they are saying it.  The knock-off entertainers sure aren’t artists, no matter how many times someone says they are.

God is the prototypical Artist.  Art proceeds from the Bible in definition like everything that can be right and good, except the word in the King James Version isn’t “art,” but “craft,” and the artist is a “craftsman.”  The Hebrew word could be translated “artificer,” which is someone skilled.  As late as 1828, Webster’s defines:

The disposition or modification of things by human skill, to answer the purpose intended.

If you go back to the etymology of the word, it is “artifice,” and the “artist” is an “ingenious workman.”  The assumption of artifice from which comes “artificial” is that it is a copy, not the original, so something imitating something else.  Someone is able to make something very close to the original, so that it looks like the real thing.  The artist is imitating something, originally something of God, not inventing something new.

God, of course, is the Creator, and though we can’t create ex nihilo like God, something out of nothing, we take the components of God’s creation and orchestrate them into portrayals of God’s handiwork, which is divinely defined reality.  Since beauty starts with God, it is objective, reflecting His nature.  The handiwork of God declares His glory (Psalm 19:1), that is, the perfections of His attributes.  Anything that clashes with the nature of God isn’t beautiful or lovely, but is ugly.  This takes us to the objective nature of beauty and, therefore, art.

1 Chronicles 16:29 says,

Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

Beauty relates to the glory due unto God’s name and His holiness.  Glory, God’s name, and holiness are essentially the same.  They all relate to His attributes, their perfection.  This is a baseline for beauty.

The skill of art is the ability through both nature and nurture to represent the divine reality.  It is objective, because it focuses on the object, which is a proper object, one that is right and true and of the highest value.  The object is what makes the effort worth it.  The term “depiction” is a good word to associate with objective, because Someone (God) and something (His creation) is being depicted according to God’s perspective.  This contrasts with the subjective or relativistic.

Modern art shifted from the objective to the subjective, like modernism, and even worse then, postmodernism.  Some today think that they are more “artistic,” even and sadly professing Christians, because they are modernistic and postmodernistic.  They’re imitating others, that is, being worldly.  They don’t know what they are talking about.  They’re just saying it and anything goes today.  Hardly anyone is going to judge, because hardly anyone judges anything, except whether someone’s feelings are hurt.

The subject became “art” according to the “eye of the beholder,” which is in reality to turn from God to man, man becoming the center of things.  This made autonomous imaginings of the “artist” the standard, which are his expressions.  He’s expressing himself.  This philosophy of art in general is expression or expressionism, with lots of sub categories.

A biblical understanding, a Christian worldview, says that man is depraved, so the shift to the subject brings distortion.  The subject isn’t neutral, even if he thinks he is.  He’s affected by his own evil imaginations.  Today someone might say, “he’s messed up.”  Modern art allows the “artist” to create his own reality out of his own imagination, so that he shapes his own subjective reality and in so doing, becomes a god-like figure.  It is a subjective reality that leads people astray in modern culture as much as anything.  Sadly, some of you reading this don’t even care, and you think it’s a joke.  You’ll find out before everything is over, but the earlier the better.

Professing Christianity has started buying into a false view of art, the modernist and postmodernist view, for awhile, even when judging children’s finger paintings like they are something great.  They are without skill.  The child may not need an art lesson, to teach him how to “depict” what he sees, because it doesn’t even matter.  Just keep “expressing yourself.”  It’s wrong.  Several very bad things also happen.

Objective reality, the depiction of God, is not separate from emotions.  Some of you reading might have been wondering about feelings, because you think or feel they’re the essence of art.  They are not, but even so, scripture teaches rightly ordered emotions, what Jonathan Edwards called affections versus passions in his Treatise on the Religious Affections.  This also represents God, who is impassible, not subject to mood swings.

C. S. Lewis wrote about feelings or emotions in his book, The Abolition of Man, and this was a concern of his.  The two greatest commands of God are “Love God” and “Love your neighbor,” and both of those are at risk without getting them right.  Someone can’t obey God when he disobeys those two commands.  “Inordinate affection” is a sin (Colossians 3:5).  Lewis exhorts (pp. 28-29) of  “the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind and degree of love which is appropriate to it,” asserting that “the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought.”  He continues (pp. 31-32):

[B]ecause our approvals and disapprovals are thus recognitions of objective value or responses to an objective order, therefore, emotional states can be in harmony with reason (when we feel liking for what ought to be approved) or out of harmony with reason. . . . The heart never takes the place of the head: but it can, and should, obey it.

Lewis wasn’t promoting the expressions of someone’s imagination, but the correct emotional response to the right or true thinking about what is of the greatest value.

People who still want to profess to be Christian are changing exegetical and historical Christianity by merging it with modernism or postmodernism under the guise of “freedom.”  I read the language of “personal and creative liberation” that had been pent up by conservative Christianity, which put the “artist” in a “box.”  The limitations held back the creative expression of the artist that now he can unleash.  This freedom is called “grace,” so that now they’re really experiencing grace like they haven’t before, and that feeling flows through the art.  This isn’t actual Christianity.  The attempt to conform Christianity to lust is just departing from Christianity.

Another term, that I often hear to describe a modern or postmodern emotional quality, is “authentic.”  The “artist” is really “authentic.”  Most often this term is associated with someone who isn’t authentic, according to the dictionary definition of the term, but using it instead in a subjective fashion different than its objective meaning is apropos.  From the wrong usage, a postmodern variety, “authentic” is a highly subjective expression of someone’s feelings, usually distorted and often corrupt.  That also makes it “true,” true simply because the subject “feels it.”  It is unlikely that the “artist” “truly” or “really” feels the way he is expressing, but that doesn’t matter, because it’s what he’s expressing at the moment in an ironically inauthentic way, which is what does matter.  Instead of being “authentic,” usually it’s contrived, because it is entertainment, intended to “relate” with the audience (fool it), giving approval to the same feelings it might have, which very often are lust.

What motivated me to write this post was a recent promotion by someone of “country artists” out of Nashville.  I wasn’t expecting art or artists, which it and they were not.  The expressions reduce art to the lost wanderings of fallen men, rebelling against God’s created order, which brings chaos.  It perverts truth, goodness, beauty, and validates inordinate emotions.  It denies God as the true basis for all reality and conflicts with the truth of scripture.  It is not denying self, but expressing self with all the lack of constraint.  God is not and cannot be glorified and others are likewise influenced.

Rather than expressing imagination, true art, what Christians should solely accept and enjoy, shapes the moral imagination.   This is the true meaning of the world that God created.  The thinking and the emotions reflect God.  God is known in an accurate and better way.  The hearer can turn to God or grow closer to God, which is what a Christian wants.  He shouldn’t be promoting either the world’s twisted  perversion of art or artists or the depraved expressions of the ungodly culture from which they come.