The list is a mixed bag of bromides that read like a religious creed, starting with “we believe.”  Leftists treat it like a creed, including a punishment or shunning of those who violate the precepts.   An irony of “we believe science is real” is how science has anything to do with belief.  If it is real, you know it, not believe it, don’t you?  So, in essence the values sign is a doctrinal statement like a church would produce.

The divide in the country now leading up to this election has spawned numerous conversations, many scholarly ones, to compare socialism and capitalism.  I’ve listened to some of them with intelligent historians, economists, philosophers, or sociologists.  One I heard started with the question of Joseph Schumpeter, written in 1942 in his book, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, “can capitalism survive?”  His answer was no.  Discussion ensues.

In now over three decades of regular evangelism, my outline of the gospel presents four points, the third of which is either worded, Jesus Paid the Penalty for Sin, or, Jesus Died for You.  Either way, I end that point by asking, Do you believe that Jesus died for you?  Almost everyone says, yes, to that question.  It occurs so often, that I would say everyone says, yes, to that question every time that I ask it.  The third point is not where the presentation of the gospel breaks down.  Many people without hesitation believe that Jesus died for them.

My question to you reader is, is someone saved who believes that Jesus died for him?  A lot of people believe that.  Do you think they’re saved?  To be consistent, many should say, yes.  Almost none of the people, who say, Jesus died for me, at that point are saved.  If they are saved, they were already saved before I asked them that question.

Do you think anything is missing from what someone needs to believe, if he just believes that Jesus died for him?  What more needs to be believed?  More does need to be believed.

On the other hand, to be consistent, many churches should perhaps assume that someone is already saved because he does already believe that Jesus died for him.  This is more than what some churches expect someone to believe.  They ask the person to just reach out and accept the free gift of salvation or eternal life by praying for it.  That is less than believing that Jesus died for him.

When someone believes Jesus died for him, he is believing that Jesus is Savior.  Is that enough to be saved?  Someone will reach that point by the time I get to the third thing he needs to know in our presentation.  I never think that is enough.  Someone hasn’t believed in Jesus Christ, when he merely believes that Jesus died for him.

When I present the gospel, I explain why the person needed Jesus to die for him.  I explain that I would die for him, but that wouldn’t be good enough.  I’m a sinner.  At that point, I explain the Trinity, that Jesus is God, and that Jesus was sinless.  He could die a substitutionary death.  I most often also explain that Jesus shed His blood for him.  I explain what the blood of Jesus Christ did, does, and means to him.  I explain all of that, and when he believes that, I still don’t believe that is a saved person.

What more does someone need to explain for someone to be saved?  Why isn’t someone saved after that third point, when I ask, do you believe Jesus died for you?  He says, yes.  Everyone says, yes.  When I explain it, he saying, yes, to Jesus as God, Jesus as sinless, Jesus as having shed His blood, and Jesus shed blood as washing away sin?  When he says, yes, why wouldn’t he be saved yet?  What’s missing?

Many of you readers know we are starting or planting a church in Oregon right now.  We are missionaries.  When I say, “we,” I mean my wife and I.  My two eighty year old parents are with us, while we start.  We are also raising support at the same time, so if you are a pastor or church member out there, we are looking for fellowship in the gospel.  In other words, we need support.  We will do this in Oregon, and once the church is started, we will go elsewhere to do that again.  I would love you to contact me about support.  You can get my number and a workable email address at the website of our new church, which is really still a mission (jacksoncountybaptistchurch.com).  Please call or email.  Thank you.  I repeat, we need your help.

We started a church in California in 1987 in the San Francisco Bay Area, the East Bay, north of Berkeley.  What I like to say, because it is scriptural, is that we began evangelizing there, and then a church formed out of those who were saved.  Some might think that’s just technical, but it is the right way to think.  We are building the kingdom through evangelism.  We want to get a church started, but we are also wanting to evangelize the area.  The two are very closely related, but they are not the same.

Without using gimmicks, which we use none, what does someone do in starting a church?  How does it happen?  We should look at the Bible.  When I think of what should happen, I think of what the Apostle Paul did in Acts.  Barnabas and Paul went to Cyprus and they evangelized.  When they were done there, they went to Asia Minor and evangelized there.  They moved from place to place in Asia Minor too.  As a church forms out of evangelism, a pastor, who is trained, must be left.  He might be a pastor from somewhere else or trained right there on the ground.

I’m going to tell you what I’m doing right now, because I’m in the midst of doing it.  It’s not as if you couldn’t be doing the same thing where you are, because this is not some secret.  It is very basic, which is what you read in the New Testament. 

Begin covering the area with the gospel.  I spend a chunk of the week going door-to-door. Perhaps you wouldn’t do it, because of Covid-19.  It’s not been a hindrance at all.  The worst that happened was an older man with a cane, who left his house with insane anger in his eyes and asked if I had left the tract on his door.  I said, yes.  He said, that’s littering.  I just looked at him, because it was a patent lie.  He was angry, because he hates Christianity.  I was holding my mask in my hand right in front of him.  He said, where’s your mask?  He wasn’t wearing one.  I just looked down at my mask I was holding.  I was standing there outdoors with no one, besides him, within 100 feet of me. There were two obvious points.  Where was his mask and why did he walk within six feet without one?  I was talking to no one within six feet and carrying a mask.  I asked one question, where’s your mask, sir?  He didn’t answer.  He said, “I’m calling the police.”  It was fine in part because he confronted me on my way out to my car.

I want to keep preaching the gospel.  Today I went 2 1/2 hours.  I had four conversations.  Two were with younger men, both who claimed to be spiritual, one more skeptical and the other more pantheistic.  They were both long conversations and one of them might have a future.  The other two were with an older religious man, who didn’t know the gospel, and he couldn’t keep talking, but he was interested in meeting again to hear the gospel.  The other was a woman who had just finished dialysis, but she did want to know the gospel, except she was too tired.  These kinds of conversations happen almost every time I go out.  I’m trying to go out 2-3 hours 6 days a week.

So, I want to get coverage.  This is fulfilling, preach the gospel to every creature.  It is sowing the seed like the parable of the soils in Matthew 13, making sure it falls everywhere.

Second, out of the coverage, you can get some evangelistic Bible studies.  I just talked about people two paragraphs ago, who were potential for an evangelistic study.  One of our original group is starting in on an evangelistic study with someone I met door-to-door, who was interested in a Bible study.  Maybe it will keep going, maybe it won’t, but these are available for people.

My wife does these evangelistic studies.  She’s got one going herself, and maybe two.  When you have ladies, it helps if your wife can do this.

Third, disciple converts.  When someone makes a profession, we give a Bible and we have an initial study.  Then we get into a thirty week discipleship.  Everyone goes there.  If someone is really saved, he will follow Jesus Christ.  His sheep hear His voice and follow Him.  That voice is scripture.  I assume true believers want the Word of God.

Included in discipleship is corporate worship.  We hold services:  Sunday School, Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and then a midweek time.  We want to get someone to all of those.  In those times, you reinforce the individual discipleship or individual discipleship reinforces the services — either/or, it doesn’t matter.  People learn how to pray, to give, to sing, to fellowship, to live holy, to be separate from the world, and to minister.

We immerse new believers.  This is part of making a disciples in addition to teaching them to observe all things Christ commanded.  Lord-willing, we will be baptizing at least five adults on Saturday.  We are renting a motel room with an indoor pool that we can reserve for just us for an hour.  We are looking forward to more.

Help the new believers learn how to evangelize.  This is perfecting the saints for the work of the ministry.  After a church is started, an evangelist or missionary should be leaving other people to continue the work.  They can’t do that if they are not trained to do that.

Fourth, every person in your new group has a circle of influence.  Start talking to everyone that all of them know.  They have family, brothers, sisters, parents, children, aunts, uncles, co-workers, and friends.  Start getting evangelism appointments with every possible person.  This is actually where the most people listen.  People’s lives change and they are the best testimony to other people.

This is what I see.  A new convert talks to her best friend.  A new convert talks to a co-worker.  A new convert talks to a sister or brother.  A new convert talks to her parents.  There are a lot of these people.  One person might have ten to twenty other people.

Much more is required to get a church started, but these are four basic activities that work together to see it happen.  This will spread the gospel and it will get a church started, two closely related jobs.

 WHAT POSTMODERNISM GETS THE MOST RIGHT (IT DOES)

Here is how Britannica defines postmodernism:

Postmodernism, also spelled post-modernism, in Western philosophy, a late 20th-century movement characterized by broad skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism; a general suspicion of reason; and an acute sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power.

Postmodernism is a reaction to or what one might call a pendulum swing from modernism.  Modernism depended on human reason or empirical evidence alone as its basis for truth.  Modernism did not nor was sufficient to fulfill its adherents.  Postmodernism arose mainly, it seems, from a dissatisfaction with modernism.  Modernism did not provide satisfactory answers to important questions related to man’s existence.  The main evidence overall for postmodernist thinkers or sympathizers was the modern machine running over humanity as witnessed in the wars of the twentieth century.  Modernism did not bring utopia.

After the rejection of transcendent truth, goodness, and beauty proceeding from Divine revelation, and then the abject failure of modernism, postmodernism is the next iteration of the departure from the Divine.  One could say that the results of modernism were foretold by Friedrich Nietzsche in his “death of God.”  Some of the popularity of Jordan Peterson in recent days was his evaluation that Nietzsche’s intention of “God is dead” was a warning against the atheism and nihilism of the Western intelligentsia. Peterson says that Marxism and then Nazism moved in to fill the void.

Postmodernists now react to the void left from at least the practical atheism of the West.  What we see in the streets of the United States are the manifestations of that void.  Postmodernism doesn’t offer a better alternative than modernism.  It’s actually far worse.

Postmodernism is right in its rejection of the modernistic means of knowing the truth.  It says that we are limited in our ability to know.  Modernism placed and places far too much value on reason and empirical evidence.  Postmodernism says the reason is biased, so that reality is constructed through institutions, language, and power.  These are subjective barriers to knowing truth.  This is right.

In application to postmodernism, we get critical theory.  In gender theory, gender has not been determined by empirical evidence, but by a social construct.  “The man” can’t be trusted, so if your birth certificate says, biological male, you can still identify as a woman.  Gender is merely a social construct.  Ideas and values are power constructs that shape what is called the truth.  Human beings cannot rise above cultural bias to get at reality, knowledge, or truth.

When modernism rejected the epistemology of faith, the means by which God gives the truth, skepticism and relativism replaced it. By faith men know what is most important to their reality.  The modernistic rejection of faith in God’s revelation brought postmodernism.

Postmodernism does acknowledge that man cannot access knowledge in a neutral way.  He comes with a bias.  No one is neutral.  The Bible agrees with that assessment.  This is the reason why men must depend on Divine revelation for their knowledge of the truth.  Postmodernism gets the bias part correct, but turns the exact opposite direction to get the solution.

One more thought.  Much of evangelicalism by bowing to evidentialism and historicism for its theology has aided and abetted the rise of postmodernism.  I’m not saying that evidence does not match what God says in its Word.  I am saying that what is most important for us to know we know by faith.  None of the truth is contradicted by Divine revelation.  All of what we need to know, we receive sufficiently from scripture.  You can see the rejection of that among the leaders of evangelicalism, so it is no wonder that evangelicals today are being influenced by critical theory.  They so wanted to be included in the academy, that they turned from and rejected a premodern, transcendental, fideistic epistemology.

SCIENCE SHOULD RECOGNIZE SUPERNATURALISM AS SCIENCE

When I evangelize, I don’t know how many times I’ve had someone say they can’t take what I’m saying or preaching because he or she is a scientist, meaning of course that I’m not a scientist with what I’m presenting.  It’s a lot of times I’ve heard this — thousands.  I had it occur the last two days in a row, as examples, and that’s not unusual.  I’ve got a lot of different come backs through the years, but one of them is, “I’m a scientist too.”  In fact, people who deny supernaturalism are not the scientists.  Supernaturalism is a requirement for true science.  I’m not going to plunge the entire depth of this subject, but I want to explain part of it at least.

It’s not scientific to look at this universe and say, it’s only natural.  It’s not scientific to look at the existence of kinds both living and in the fossil record and say, it’s only natural.  It’s not scientific to look at the hundreds of conditions that exist for anyone to live at every given moment and say, it’s only natural.  It’s not scientific to consider the origin of all matter and space and say, it’s only natural.  It’s not scientific to look at the irreducible complexity of a human cell and its DNA and say, it’s only natural.  It’s not scientific to consider the human eye, the circulatory system, the reproductive system, two people conversing at a rapid pace with almost complete understanding and say, it’s only natural.  It’s not scientific to read and know the thousands of fulfilled prophecies of the Bible and says, it’s only natural.  It’s not scientific to read and know the true history of the life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ and say, it’s only natural.

What is obvious is the tremendous power and intelligence required for the origination and sustaining of the order and complexity of all things.  Whatever the explanation, it isn’t natural.  Even if someone doesn’t want to believe it is God, he still ventures into something supernatural that someone might say requires more faith than the biblical account of the origin of the universe.  For instance, a common view among professing naturalists is the multiverse.  

In The Scientific American in August 2011, scientist Mark Ellis criticized the multiverse view because the issue is metaphysical and can’t be resolved with empirical science.  The thought or idea of what it would take or what it would have taken for the existence of a mind-boggling immense and complex universe with incalculable variegated systems delves into something beyond our comprehension, which by definition is supernatural.  Something beyond our human abilities, which is what it would take for all things and every thing to exist and function, moves into the supernatural.

If someone could or would get it into his head that the universe requires a supernatural explanation, then he can consider or explore God as the supernatural explanation.  It does require the supernatural.  There is not an eternal regression of causes, and the first cause must be more powerful and intelligent than human comprehension.  It is not scientific to limit ourselves to the natural alone as an explanation.

Furthermore, some of the smaller, detailed happenings also are beyond a naturalistic explanation as seen in the inability still to know or understand.  Unexplained phenomena are all around.  Men are still not sure what causes the electrical discharges of lightning, a very common occurrence.  A strong force holds atoms together and even though they know it exists, scientists don’t know what it is.  They know more than ever about how it works, but they still do not know what it is.

It isn’t scientific to reject the supernatural.  It’s a philosophical point of view and that’s what scripture says it is.  Another name for complete naturalism is uniformitarianism, “the assumption that the same natural laws and processes that operate in our present-day scientific observations have always operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe.”  This point of view is represented in scripture in 2 Peter 3:4, “all things continue as they were from the beginning.”  It is a denial of supernatural or divine intervention.

Things don’t just continue as they were from the beginning.  That is not scientific in and of itself based upon many different scientific truths, including life comes from life, not from nonlife.  A supernatural first cause, a Self-Existent Uncaused Cause, who intervened to start, is a necessity for the fulfillment of that law of science.  God has continued and continued to intervene and provided sufficient evidence, revelation from Him, that proves His intervention in His creation.

One reason many give for not believing the gospel or the true message of scripture is the quality of the supportive evidence.  In their assessment, the means by which God persuades of His existence or of the truth of the gospel does not rise to a high enough caliber to believe.  The Bible preemptively strikes at this excuse by informing us that men already know God and they suppress the truth in their unrighteousness (Romans 1:18).  In other words, men have a will problem and not an intellect problem.  This is why scripture is the solution, because the will requires a supernatural work to change.  The Bible is the instrument of the transformation of the will, necessary for true salvation.

There are mounds of evidence, more than enough.  God says there is enough (Romans 1, Psalm 19).  However, I understand the criticism.  God is all-powerful.  If He wants us to believe in Him, and He can do anything that He wants, then why wouldn’t He just provide a crown performance to every single person who ever lived?  Furthermore, why should anyone even be required to believe in Him, when He could just show Himself directly to everyone?

I use the term, crown performance, in line with what an entertainer does for a king or queen, except in reverse.  The traveling minstrel comes to the throne room and entertains the king or queen to a thumbs up or thumbs down.  In this case, God comes to a person and performs for him, jumps through the person’s hoops, to prove to the person who God is.  God doesn’t do this, because God wears the crown.  We perform for Him, not Him for us.

God gives sufficient evidence for the one who seeks Him.  You may say or think, “But we can’t seek Him.”  We can’t on our own, but God enables everyone to seek Him through His powerful revelation (Romans 10:17).  Men do not believe in Him because of a lack of knowledge, but because of a suppression of that knowledge.  In other words, men don’t seek God while He may be found (Isaiah 55:6).  Jesus said they don’t strive (agonize) to enter the narrow gate (Luke 13:24).

Man on his own does not seek after God.  With God’s revelation, man can seek after God.  God wants man to seek Him.   He must receive what he knows and upon receiving that, he receives more, until he finally receives enough.  This pleases God.  The idea that men need more evidence does not please God.  It’s rebellion against God.  It isn’t thankful for what God has given.

What I’m writing takes away the pressure off the evangelist.  The evangelist offers the gospel.  The gospel is great.  There’s nothing better.  If someone doesn’t want the gospel, there isn’t anything more that the evangelist can do.

God calls every believer to preach the gospel.  In that way, God intends every believer to be an evangelist, which is a person who preaches the gospel.  There is the office of the evangelist too, but there is the general job of preaching the gospel, which is to be an evangelist.  The message of the gospel itself is the allure of the preaching of the gospel.   No one can offer something greater, so that if someone doesn’t want it, he’s not going to be persuaded by something other than the gospel, which proclaims the goodness of God.

God isn’t going to provide a crown performance, so for those for whom the evidence God gives isn’t enough, they’re not going to believe.  God has given sufficient evidence to believe through general revelation (creation, conscience, providence, etc.) and special revelation (the Bible).  If someone doesn’t get saved, it’s not because of the knowledge, but because of rebellion.

I remember visiting a particular house with a rainbow flag.  There have actually been many, but this one comes to mind.  I like rainbows.  They are pretty.  They’re meaningful in the Bible in a good way.  When that flag flies on a house today, I’m critical in my mind and heart.  I don’t like what it stands for.  The person who came to the door was a woman with a man’s hair cut, who also dressed and talked like a man.  I was kind to this person, and we could talk, but I was critical, based upon scripture.

You know, I know, you can’t be critical today about what is obvious according to scripture.  You are required to be silent to a lot of aberrant appearance and behavior, that is easy to see.  So little is good that when you do see something that looks biblical, it’s extraordinary.   For awhile, society has instructed toleration.  No one knows enough or has the authority to say something is wrong.  No one knows the truth.In one sense, the church has lead in capitulating to the loss of meaning.  Almost nothing is sacred anymore.  Music is amoral.  The roles of men and women have become a mystery.  The one thing you know is that you don’t want anyone to be offended or feel bad about almost anything.  In this vacuum of meaning, critical theory steps in.  Where the church embraces little to no authority to judge almost anything, especially in cultural issues, a new caste of secular experts claims the ability, and is judging with certainty and harshness.As I grew up in a first generation Christian home, my parents would not allow foul language, which even included forbiddance of minced oaths, words short for the longer profane term.  At a certain point very early in my life, I just was not going to speak these prohibited words.  The present culture in many places in the United States requires avoiding the expression of a new list of vocabulary.  Rather than the historic encouragement of a clean mouth, a new movement has arisen that requires public shaming, firing, canceling, or even other forms of violent punishment for having said something racist, sexist, or homophobic.  Devastating consequences could result from even inadvertent violation of a new speech code.You may see yourself as not a racist, which you might define in your mind as equal treatment or opportunity to all races and not judging someone by the color of his skin.  You didn’t know that racism is undetectable to any one except for an expert trained in a critical method to decide if someone or something is racist.  This expert is “woke,” meaning that he is awakened to what is invisible to you.  He has an ability to spot racism, like a Geiger counter picks up radioactivity.  His expertise at this critical method enables him to know not just what someone says, but what he meant by what he said.  He sees things that you can’t see, so it is essential that you just admit you were wrong when they say you were wrong and to confess that you’re racist, when they say that you really are racist or have a white privilege.My title asks, what is critical race theory?  What is the basis for these “critics” of “racism”?  Their basis is not the Bible, the basis for criticism of premoderns.  It isn’t science or reason, the basis for modernism.  Their basis is “theory.”  No one should consider theory to be a basis of criticism.  Theorists have been imbedded in universities for awhile now, giving the impression of authority.  They have tenure. Now they also have some very loud and extreme followers.  They expect their ideas to be heard, allowed, and adhered to.  Their critical theories, one of which is race, are now even considered the truth.The theory is that white males are racist.  This is not based on the Bible, theology, or science.  It is theory.  White males either don’t know they’re racist or they can’t judge that they are.  They are not the experts, the purveyors of theory.  The can’t know what they can’t know.Opponents of critical race theory won’t call it liberal.  Classic liberalism encourages free speech.  Much speech is not tolerated by critical race theory.  Therefore, disputants of critical race theory call it leftist, leftist ideology. When you hear, “critical race theory,” it sounds like something difficult to understand.  It sounds smart, something proposed by a PhD, deeply read and researched.  It isn’t.  It is hard to understand, because it isn’t based upon truth.  It’s nothing you’ll figure out through objective analysis.  It is subjective.  It is relativistic.Without a true, valid, or objective basis, critical race theorists invent whatever criteria suits them to prosecute their targets or victims.  Since they believe that race and gender are only social constructs invented by power and the use of language, they apply these methods to construct their own reality on the world.