Rob Bell’s latest work What We Talk About When We Talk About God is his first book after the controversial Love Wins.

Bell, former evangelical pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Michigan, moved to California after Love Wins became too divisive of an issue within the church.

Since his departure from his pastoral role, some individuals in the evangelical community have questioned his relevance. Does he even matter any more? Others argue that he does still matter.

I tend to agree with the latter – Bell still matters to our culture, and we need to be keenly aware of his sway over the spiritual matters of our day. So, when Rob Bell writes a book about God, I think it’s important to give it a look and separate the good from the bad and the ugly.

Others have already given much better reviews than I could ever give. There will no doubt be many more reviews coming, but there are a few things that crossed my mind as I read through the book that I wanted to share.

So, what does Rob Bell talk about when he talks about God?

SUMMARY

First, a quick summary of the book. What We Talk About is a quick read – don’t let the 207 pages fool you. In typical Rob Bell form, the book is

empty and

white and

small and

bite-size and

filled with run-on sentence after run-on sentence to give you a sense of urgency! followed bycalmness and reflection because Rob Bell is avant-guard.

So, if you choose, pick up a copy and skim through it in a couple of hours.

But, when it’s all said and done, What We Talk About argues that science is slowly proving that God exists. The God that science is discovering is a God who is for us as humanity and will save the world by pulling us forward through history to a more evolved, enlightened, and better future.

So, Bell invites (or warns), join in the trajectory that God is pulling culture or be left behind.

THE GOOD

There are good aspects to What We Talk About. Like most of Bell’s writing, I agree with about 50% of what I read. I want to like him for his amazing communication skills and boldness to maintain (if even loosely) a Christian identity, but it’s that other 50% that makes me cringe at the thought that people might be influenced by the theologically baneful aspects of his writings. Especially because of that Christian identity.

So what was the good?

Bell kicks off the book by bringing to the reader’s attention current scientific discoveries that are forcing us to realize that the universe is much, much weirder and unpredictable than we ever thought. He argues that there is plenty of room for God in science. Indeed, science is actually providing evidence that such a being could exist.

This is great stuff for conversations with atheists and agnostics. It’s very compelling and begins to break down the rigid divide of Science v. Faith.

Also, along the same lines, Bell reminds his readers that the spiritual isn’t categorically separated from everything else. We don’t have a spiritual life – life itself is spiritual.

In fact, God’s creation of the human body and soul are connected to each other, which is why the resurrection of Jesus was a real, physical and spiritual event. It’s also why the resurrection at the end will be both a physical and spiritual event. Heaven is not simply a spiritual, ethereal dimension lacking any tangible matter. Heaven will be a combination of both – much like it is now – only recreated without sin and death.

But just before the reader begins to think along the lines of pantheism, that God is literally everything, Bell puts the kibosh on that (Pg. 109) and maintains that God is both separate from creation as its Creator yet intimately involved.

This is a reminder I think we all need once in a while. The spiritual and the material aren’t categorically separated. Need proof? Just look at the incarnation of God where the spiritual meets the physical in Jesus.

THE BAD

Unfortunately, What We Talk About seems to be a continued departure of Rob Bell from biblical Christianity. Of the many examples in the book, the one that stuck out the most to me was on Pg 128.

“It’s time for a radical reclaiming of the fundamental Christian message that God is for us. God, according to Jesus, is for us because God loves us.”

This sounds great, but it’s also greatly misleading. Yes, God loves us, but God isn’t necessarilyfor us; rather, God is absolutely for Himself and His glory.

Why? Because God, according to Jesus, is for His own glory and invites us along in a radical reformation of our lives, minds, and souls for now into eternity.

God is not on anyone’s side but His own. If we claim otherwise, we fall into the very same tribalistic trap that Bell has accused many religious institutions of falling into – God is on my side but definitely not theirs. Or we might believe that God is our own personal, divine life coach – God is on my side to make me a better me.

*cue applause from Joel Osteen fans*

On the other hand, if we believe God is on God’s side and invites us along, then we will come to understand that everything we do and are we owe to Him.

This dramatically shifts our focus off ourself and onto God. Because, at the end of the day, we were created by God to worship Him and to reflect His glory. We messed that up, but by God’s grace, we’re invited to participate in how He’s fixing it.

This is displayed in a very intimate prayer that Jesus prayed before His crucifixion. John 17:1-2(emphasis added) reads:

“Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to…”

Pause there for a second. What do you suppose comes after?

God gave Jesus authority over us all to be for us? To encourage us to be the very best us we can be? To pull us forward in a trajectory of an ever-evolving culture? No…

“…to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.”

There it is. Eternal life through Jesus to the glory of God. That is the fundamental Christian message – not that God is for us, but that God is for His own glory and invites us to experience that glory through eternal life starting now and spanning through eternity.

THE UGLY

I have to admit, Bell has four really great lines about the gospel in What We Talk About. But then later deflates the amazing point these first four make, which turns out to be the ugliest part of the book in my opinion.

“Gospel insists that God doesn’t wait for us to get ourselves polished, shined, proper, and without blemish – God comes to us and meets us and blesses us while we are still in the middle of the mess we created.”

Absolutely.

“Gospel isn’t us getting it together so that we can have God’s favor; gospel is us finding God exactly in the moment of our greatest not-togetherness.”

Amen!

“Gospel is grace, and grace is a gift. You don’t earn a gift; you simply receive it. You don’t make it happen; you wake up to what has already happened.”

Hallelujah!!

“Gospel isn’t doing enough good to be worthy; it’s your eyes being opened to your unworthiness and to Jesus’s insistence that that was never the way it worked in the first place.”

Preach it, brother!!!

But then, the ugly. Bell later concludes that the gospel accomplishes all this through Jesus, “announcing who we truly are and then reminding us of this over and over and over again (Pgs 151-152).”

This is completely contrary to the gospel.

Jesus accomplished (past tense) our liberation from sin and death on the cross, then proved it by His resurrection three days later. Now, today, God saves us by that work, His grace, and through faith. He then sustains us in our salvation through Jesus, announcing who He truly is and then reminding us of His person and work over and over and over again.

Throughout What We Talk About Bell has shifted the focus of the gospel away from Jesus and onto the individual. This is perhaps the most dangerous aspect to the entire book.

We cannot take the focus of the gospel off Jesus and onto ourselves, even for a moment. The gospel is about Jesus, not about us. But the gospel is for us. If Bell wanted to write about what isfor us, then he could have picked the gospel.

Bell has blurred a very fine line that can cause a lot of confusion in our lives. God is not for us, God is for His glory. The gospel is not about us, but it is for us.

Bell needs to shift the focus off of us and back onto God – that’s truly avant-guard, revolutionary, controversial, novel, fresh. In today’s modern (evolved and trajectory-driven) world, we are becoming more and more humanity-centered. It’s all about us. And Bell falls right in line with this us-centeredness.

So, what does Rob Bell talk about when he talks about God?

Us. And God is simply the supporting actor.

———-

Kyle Beshears lives in Cambridge, England, is the author of Robot Jesus and Three Other Jesuses You Never Knew and blogs at Dear Ephesus on church issues and apologetics. This article was originally posted here.

Today marks the beginning of a monumental Supreme Court debate about a state and nation’s ability to define the parameters of marriage.  With the recent state elections moving in the direction of affirming same-sex marriage as a normative political and social value, many Christians are being pressed into an awkward and unforeseen circumstance: They must come to terms with how to respond to the question – What do you think about gay marriage?

At least three religious-ish sounding responses to the question have made their way into the public eye within the last month.  Each offers a possible response to the gay marriage question. In this blog post I want to address each response and offer my answer to the question at hand.

1) The first begins with a cup of coffee. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz was recently caught on an NPR audio file lambasting a company shareholder for his opposition to gay marriage (Washington state recently voted to legalize gay marriage).  This leaked audio file caused a reaction from conservative groups on facebook calling for a boycott of the coffee company.  But notice the internal logic and sequence of the reported events.

The shareholder, Thomas Strobhar, runs a Dayton Ohio based company called the Corporate Morality Action Center, an organization that seeks to challenge corporations on issues like gay marriage, abortion and pornography.  Mr. Strobhar apparently purchases shares of a company so that he has a platform to show up and troll CEO’s about ethical issues.  In this particular meeting, Mr. Strobhar raised his hand in order to make an unsolicited and unwarranted connection between the affirmation of gay marriage by Starbucks and a recent quarterly dip in numbers. He made the statement in the form of a question to which Schultz responded with gusto.

Not to claim any wisdom of leadership, especially of a Fortune 500 company, but Schultz could have responded in many other ways to Mr. Strobhar’s question.  His curt and ungracious response was a misstep for sure. But, Mr. Strobhar was equally guilty of pushing Mr. Schultz’s button with a self-described “maverick” style of aggression.

Strobhar’s position presents option 1 in the response to the gay marriage question.  In this position, Christians make it their agenda to confront proponents of Gay marriage in bombastic and argumentative ways.  

I don’t tend to recommend this approach for many reasons, most importantly because aggression tends to choke off dialogue.  This conversation is complicated and requires nuancing, facts, longitudinal studies, discussions of natural law, and discussions of what the Bible says and doesn’t say.  Nuancing generally cannot take place where aggression has become the mode of operating.

2) Option 2 comes from spirituality writer Rob Bell, who stirred up controversy in the past few weeks by aligning his evangelical Christian heritage with a pro-gay marriage position.  Bell stated:

I am for marriage. I am for fidelity. I am for love, whether it’s a man and woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man. I think the ship has sailed and I think the church needs — I think this is the world we are living in and we need to affirm people wherever they are.

Bell represents a second position on the issue of gay marriage: Christians transform Bible doctrine in a way that accommodates the gay marriage momentum. 

This option is not appealing for several obvious reasons.  Most pressingly, why hold to the Bible’s teaching at all if it directly conflicts with the culture?  If one has to transform the Bible’s plain teaching, then just get rid of the Bible?  Why hold on to this Bible tradition in the first place?  Isn’t Bell trolling all of us in a different manner than Strobhar?  In this case, Bell has nuanced his position without holding to the plain teaching of scripture.  In other words, Bell has left the Bible by the wayside and is holding to his own choose your own adventure Christianity — which is not Bible Christianity at all.

3) The third option comes from another famous CEO and involves the best tasting chicken nuggets on the planet.  By now you know the story. Dan Cathy, CEO of Chick-Fil-A, made some off-the-cuff remarks to Baptist Press writer K. Allan Blume in response to his position on supporting the Biblical view of marriage.  Cathy responded, “Guilty as charged.”  Pro-gay writers and bloggers quickly pounced on the phrase and reported it as being, not in response to being pro-Bible marriage, but as a response to being anti-gay marriage.  While being evidence A of suspect journalistic integrity, it produced website clicks, college protests, and political grandstanding.

So how did Cathy respond to such negative criticism?  By sitting down with gay activist Shale Windemeyer and talking openly about his pro-Bible marriage position.  Windemeyer recalled the first phone call:

On Aug. 10, 2012, in the heat of the controversy, I got a surprise call from Dan Cathy. He had gotten my cell phone number from a mutual business contact serving campus groups. I took the call with great caution. He was going to tear me apart, right? Give me a piece of his mind? Turn his lawyers on me?

Never once did Dan or anyone from Chick-fil-A ask for Campus Pride to stop protesting Chick-fil-A. On the contrary, Dan listened intently to our concerns and the real-life accounts from youth about the negative impact that Chick-fil-A was having on campus climate and safety at colleges across the country.

Dan Cathy.  Hateful oppressor of gay people? Nope.  Evil CEO with an evil agenda? Not quite.  Homophobic wealthy white Southerner?  Negative.  Shane Windemeyer called Dan Cathy “respectful” and “civil.”  And with this story, we see that Cathy demonstrates a third option in the Christian response to gay marriage: Christians live in the tension of confidently proclaiming the Bible’s teaching while respectfully and lovingly pursuing relationships with those who identify as gay for the Glory of God.  

By now it is obvious that I wholeheartedly affirm the third position on the gay marriage question and I commend it to Christians everywhere.  I think it is the way forward, because it has historically been the way that Christians have approached these emerging issues.  The Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 4:15, “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”

When it comes to the gay marriage question, I think Christians would be wise to follow Paul’s advice:

1. Make growing in the satisfying relationship with Christ your daily goal.
2. Know truth and boldly speak truth.
3. Make “lovingness” your method and the manner in which you do all things.

Today the Supreme Court will debate the future of the political definition of marriage.  I, personally, don’t have much hope for this discussion ending up on the side of the Bible’s definition.  There are several God-centered folks who will make some political arguments for the traditional definition of marriage.  I am not someone who would be good at speaking into that world.  That is not my calling.

All this being said, I am not ultimately saddened by the prospect of the government taking a position that may be contrary to Scripture.  My hope rests, not in horses or chariots, but in the Name of the Lord.  I will continue to follow Paul’s advice no matter what the government decides.  I have been and will continue to love God, lift up Truth, and love people.  I hope my gay friends will truly practice the tolerance they talk about by respecting my position.

This post was written by Doug Hankins. Doug is a pastor and theologian at Highland Baptist Church, in Waco, Texas. Although not a Christian in his youth, Doug came to believe in Jesus during his teenage years. He followed the Lord to Baylor University through a B.A. and M.Div, and to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School for a Ph.D in theological studies. When not playing sports or pastoring Doug is probably spending time with his wife, reading a nerd book, or researching his next writing project. Doug’s first book Dawson Trotman: In His Own Words is available wherever books are sold. You can follow Doug on twitter.

To the churches concerning homosexuals and lesbians:

Many of you believe that we do not exist within your walls, your schools, your neighborhoods. You believe that we are few and easily recognized. I tell you we are many. We are your teachers, doctors, accountants, high school athletes. We are all colors, shapes, sizes. We are single, married, mothers, fathers. We are your sons, your daughters, your nieces, your nephews, your grandchildren. We are in your Sunday School classes, pews, choirs, and pulpits. You choose not to see us out of ignorance or because it might upset your congregation. We ARE your congregation. We enter your doors weekly seeking guidance and some glimmer of hope that we can change. Like you, we have invited Jesus into our hearts. Like you, we want to be all that Christ wants us to be. Like you, we pray daily for guidance. Like you, we often fail.

When the word “homosexual” is mentioned in the church, we hold our breaths and sit in fear. Most often this word is followed with condemnation, laughter, hatred, or jokes. Rarely do we hear any words of hope. At least we recognize our sin. Does the church as a whole see theirs? Do you see the sin of pride, that you are better than or more acceptable to Jesus than we are? Have you been Christ-like in your relationships with us? Would you meet us at the well, or restaurant, for a cup of water, or coffee? Would you touch us even if we showed signs of leprosy, or aids? Would you call us down from our trees, as Christ did Zacchaeus, and invite yourself to be our guest? Would you allow us to sit at your table and break bread? Can you love us unconditionally and support us as Christ works in our lives, as He works in yours, to help us all to overcome?

To those of you who would change the church to accept the gay community and its lifestyle: you give us no hope at all. To those of us who know God’s word and will not dilute it to fit our desires, we ask you to read John’s letter to the church in Pergamum. “I have a few things against you: You have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols and by committing sexual immorality. Likewise, you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Repent therefore!” You are willing to compromise the word of God to be politically correct. We are not deceived. If we accept your willingness to compromise, then we must also compromise. We must therefore accept your lying, your adultery, your lust, your idolatry, your addictions, YOUR sins. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

We do not ask for your acceptance of our sins any more than we accept yours. We simply ask for the same support, love, guidance, and most of all hope that is given to the rest of your congregation. We are your brothers and sisters in Christ. We are not what we shall be, but thank God, we are not what we were. Let us work together to see that we all arrive safely home.

A Sister in Christ

This post was originally posted here.

To go further than that and to say that sometimes science corrects erroneous ideas is one thing, but actually to disprove Christianity . . . there are very few points of the Christian faith that are vulnerable to scientific attack. If a person says, “Well, we can scientifically prove that people can’t come back from the dead,” for example, and if science could prove that it’s impossible for the God of the universe to raise his Son from the dead, then obviously Christianity would be discredited and disproved. I don’t see how a scientist could even begin to approach that. All a scientist can do is to say that, under normal conditions and standard procedures, people who die stay dead. Of course, it doesn’t take a twentieth-century scientist to understand that; first-century people were well aware of the fact that when people died, they stayed dead. So unless the scientist could somehow disprove the existence of God or the resurrection of Christ, I don’t see how they could in any way actually falsify the claims of the Christian faith. Just because they’re not falsified doesn’t mean that they’re verified obviously. But I don’t see how we have anything to fear at that level.

The usual point of tension, however, has to do with the origin of the universe and the origin of life. If science proves that the world was not created, I think that would destroy the Christian faith. Christianity is committed to the concept of divine creation—that there is an eternal Creator before whom we are all responsible and by whom we were all created and that all that is made has been made through him and that the universe is not eternal. If the scientist could prove that the universe were in fact eternal, that would be the end of the Christian faith. But I don’t think we have the slightest need to worry about that.

This post was originally posted on Ligionier.org and can be found here.

Here’s what Bell was quoted as saying in the Huffington Post:

In response to a question regarding same-sex marriage, Bell said, “I am for marriage. I am for fidelity. I am for love, whether it’s a man and woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man. I think the ship has sailed and I think the church needs — I think this is the world we are living in and we need to affirm people wherever they are.”

Bell went on to say that while it used to be fair to equate evangelicals with social conservatism, that assumption no longer holds true. More pointedly, he said, “I think we are witnessing the death of a particular subculture that doesn’t work. I think there is a very narrow, politically intertwined, culturally ghettoized, Evangelical subculture that was told “we’re gonna change the thing” and they haven’t. And they actually have turned away lots of people. And i think that when you’re in a part of a subculture that is dying, you make a lot more noise because it’s very painful. You sort of die or you adapt. And if you adapt, it means you have to come face to face with some of the ways we’ve talked about God, which don’t actually shape people into more loving, compassionate people. And we have supported policies and ways of viewing the world that are actually destructive. And we’ve done it in the name of God and we need to repent.”

I’m sorry to hear this for the sake of Bell’s soul. I hope that he repents and turns to the truth.

With that said and meant, this shift is altogether unsurprising. The new mark of being culturally acceptable is affirming homosexuality as virtuous (not merely okay, but virtuous, even exemplary). This is the litmus test. I don’t think many of us expected that it would so quickly fill this role, but it has. The mark of being a progressive, kind, socially courageous person today is simply this: affirming same-sex marriage. There are other cardinal virtues of a contemporary au courant identity, but this is the lodestar, the one that hangs one’s personal moon.

This shows us that the cultural middle is indeed vanishing. The space where broad-minded people could hang out is rapidly disappearing. Either you are for same-sex marriage or not. If you’re not, and you’re a known commodity, you’re now behind the curve in a public, image-driven sense. Expect in coming days to see a veritable torrent of declarations of affirmation of SSM. Celebrities, news anchors, intellectuals, politicians, religious types, tycoons, and many more are heading to the pro-marriage exits. They’re going to be calling press conferences as quickly as they can. They’ll be getting into line with the value that drives the New Cultural Acceptance: affirming same-sex marriage.

We are witnessing in these very moments the propulsion of the New Civil Rights movement: the homosexual lobby. A decade ago–five years ago!–it seemed unthinkable that this issue would have vaulted into the cultural mainstream. But it has. Not only is affirming same-sex marriage part of our cultural conversation, though. It has become the moral pearl of great price. Public figures like Rob Portman, Bell, and Clinton–a strange assortment, admittedly–will deny prior statements, their own personal commitments (to marriage, that is), and the will of many of the people they serve or lead to be on the right side of history on this issue.

This has major implications for evangelicalism. A soft middle has developed as evangelicalism has become culturally popular. It’s very on trend in certain circles to occupy this space. Past generations have prayed, with Proverbs 30:8, “give me neither poverty nor riches.” Today’s generation modifies the prayer for our own situation. “Give me neither conservatism nor liberalism,” many evangelicals seem to have whispered. “Let me be an evangelical, but an inoffensive one.”

Perhaps you don’t want to breathe fire in public discourse. Whether you do or not, though, you’re going to be seen as very clearly on the wrong side of history if you continue to back marriage (and don’t affirm SSM). If you’re a pastor who has distanced himself from the Religious Right, and who regularly digs it in a pulpit aside or two, you’ve now got to go one better. To be truly progressive, truly open-minded, truly relevant, truly savvy in your cultural engagement, you need to now affirm same-sex marriage, with all that represents (the moral purity of homosexual acts, for example).

It will, to be sure, take time for this shift to shake itself out. But it’s here. What does this mean for people whose first love is not the culture, but God? It means that we really are behind the times now, and will be so in increasing measure. We’re backward. We’re mean. We hate people not like us. That’s how we will be interpreted. And make no mistake: this is not a quest for some rights and a piece of paper. We will, most assuredly, face the threat of losing our religious liberty.

How should we respond to all this? By being afraid and attacking those who oppose our biblical convictions? Not at all. We need to be like the Proverbs 31 woman. We need to laugh at the days to come (Prov. 31:25). Our hope is in Christ. He has already rescued us from the only peril that really matters, our condemned state (Rom. 4-5). We are set free from sin and hell and death. We have triumphed over the grave through vicarious participation in the resurrection of Christ.

What we must do now is gear up for persecution of varying kinds (per Matthew 5:1-11). And we must set our faces like a flint to speak the truth and to love our neighbor, including those who would silence us (Matt. 22:37-39). Do you see this? People are going to watch us. They’re going to see if we respond to those who call us bigots with hatred and anger. Will we lash out?

I believe that we won’t, many of us. We won’t budge a millimeter from the Word of God. We know that sin, in whatever form, only brings pain and destruction, and that the gospel, however demanding its call of transformation, only brings life and joy. So we will proclaim the truth without any fear or hedging. And we will love our neighbor to the utmost.

This is not a new problem. It’s a new face to an old problem. The church is being called to capitulate. Professing believers have done just that, with prominent examples coming to mind from the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries. We know full well how this plays out. If we acquiesce to the culture, we will soon become a more religious version of the culture. On the other hand, if we stand fast in the power of God’s Spirit, we may lose some influence, some cache, some power. But we will honor the Lord.

We will show the coming generation that God’s people are not made out of sand, but solid rock.

No matter what we lose, we will glorify the Lord as in olden times. Perhaps our connection with Isaiah and Jeremiah and the Minor Prophets will no longer be expository, a matter for our devotions. Perhaps we will walk in their paths and experience their sorrows. If so, we know their God, and he will bear us through.

Written and posted here by ostrachan

Over the course of our ministry, the most common pastoral issue that Tim and I have confronted is probably marriages—either actual or proposed—between Christians and non-Christians. I have often thought how much simpler it would be if I could remove myself from the conversation and invite those already married to unbelievers do the talking to singles who are desperately trying to find a loophole that would allow them to marry someone who does not share their faith.

That way, I could skip all the Bible passages that urge singles only to “marry in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:39) and not “be unequally yoked” (2 Corinthians 6:14) and the Old Testament proscriptions against marrying the foreigner, a worshiper of a god other than the God of Israel (see Numbers 12 where Moses marries a woman of another race but the same faith). You can find those passages in abundance, but when someone has already allowed his or her heart to become engaged with a person outside the faith, I find that the Bible has already been devalued as the non-negotiable rule of faith and practice.

Instead, variants of the serpent’s question to Eve—“Did God really say?” are floated, as if somehow this case might be eligible for an exemption, considering how much they love each other, how the unbeliever supports and understands the Christian’s faith, how they are soul-mates despite the absence of a shared soul-faith.

Having grown weary and impatient, I want to snap and say, “It won’t work, not in the long run. Marriage is hard enough when you have two believers who are completely in harmony spiritually. Just spare yourself the heartache and get over it.” Yet such harshness is neither in line with the gentleness of Christ, nor convincing.

Sadder and Wiser

If only I could pair those sadder and wiser women—and men—who have found themselves in unequal marriages (either by their own foolishness or due to one person finding Christ after the marriage had already occurred) with the blithely optimistic singles who are convinced that their passion and commitment will overcome all obstacles. Even the obstacle of bald disobedience need not apply to them. Only ten minutes of conversation—one minute if the person is really succinct–would be necessary. In the words of one woman who was married to a perfectly nice man who did not share her faith: “If you think you are lonely before you get married, it’s nothing compared to how lonely you can be AFTER you are married!”

Really, this might be the only effective pastoral approach: to find a man or woman who is willing to talk honestly about the difficulties of the situation and invite them into a counseling ministry with the about-to-make-a-big-mistake unequal couple. As an alternative, perhaps some creative filmmaker would be willing to run around the country, filming individuals who are living with the pain of being married to an unbeliever, and create a montage of 40 or 50 short (< 5 minutes) first-hand accounts. The collective weight of their stories would be powerful in a way that no second-hand lecture ever would be.

Three True Outcomes

For the moment, though, here goes: There are only three ways an unequal marriage can turn out, (and by unequal I am willing to stretch a point and include genuine, warm Christians who want to marry an in-name-only Christian, or someone very, very far behind them in Christian experience and growth):

1. In order to be more in sync with your spouse, the Christian will have to push Christ to the margins of his or her life. This may not involve actually repudiating the faith, but in matters such as devotional life, hospitality to believers (small group meetings, emergency hosting of people in need), missionary support, tithing, raising children in the faith, fellowship with other believers—those things will have to be minimized or avoided in order to preserve peace in the home.
2. Alternatively, if the believer in the marriage holds on to a robust Christian life and practice, the non-believing PARTNER will have to be marginalized. If he or she can’t understand the point of Bible study and prayer, or missions trips, or hospitality, then he or she can’t or won’t participate alongside the believing spouse in those activities. The deep unity and oneness of a marriage cannot flourish when one partner cannot fully participate in the other person’s most important commitments.
3. So either the marriage experiences stress and breaks up; or it experiences stress and stays together, achieving some kind of truce that involves one spouse or the other capitulating in some areas, but which leaves both parties feeling lonely and unhappy.

Does this sound like the kind of marriage you want? One that strangles your growth in Christ or strangles your growth as a couple, or does both? Think back to that off-cited passage in 2 Corinthians 6:14 about being “unequally yoked.” Most of us no longer live in an agrarian culture, but try to visualize what would happen if a farmer yoked together, say, an ox and a donkey. The heavy wooden yoke, designed to harness the strength of the team, would be askew, as the animals are of different heights, weights, walk at different speeds and with different gaits. The yoke, instead of harnessing the power of the team to complete the task, would rub and chafe BOTH animals, since the load would be distributed unequally. An unequal marriage is not just unwise for the Christian, it is also unfair to the non-Christian, and will end up being a trial for them both.

Our Experience

Full disclosure: One of our sons began spending time a few years back with a secular woman from a Jewish background. He heard us talk about the sorrows (and disobedience) of being married to a non-Christian for years, so he knew it wasn’t an option (something we reminded him of quite forcefully). Nevertheless, their friendship grew and developed into something more. To his credit, our son told her: “I can’t marry you unless you are a Christian, and you can’t become a Christian just to marry me. I’ll sit with you in church, but if you are serious about exploring Christianity you will have to do it on your own—find your own small group, read books, talk to people other than me.”

Fortunately, she is a woman of great integrity and grit, and she set herself to looking into the truth claims of the Bible. As she grew closer to saving faith, to our surprise our son began growing in his faith in order to keep up with her! She said to me one day, “You know, your son should never have been seeing me!”

She did come to faith, and he held the water when she was baptized. The next week he proposed, and they have been married for two and a half years, both growing, both struggling, both repenting. We love them both and are so grateful that she is both in our family and also in the body of Christ.

I only mention the above personal history because so many of our friends in the ministry have seen different outcomes—children who marry outside the faith. The takeaway lesson for me is that even in pastoral homes, where the things of God are taught and discussed, and where children have a pretty good window on seeing their parents counsel broken marriages, believing children toy with relationships that grow deeper than they expect, ending in marriages that don’t always have happy endings. If this is true in the families of Christian leaders, what of the flock?

We need to hear the voices of men and women who are in unequal marriages and know to their sorrow why it is not merely a disobedient choice, but an unwise one.

This post was written by Kathy Keller and can be found here. She serves as assistant director of communications for Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. She is co-author with her husband, Tim, of The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God.

Political instability in Kenya, triggered by influences from the Muslim minority group al-Shabaab, is causing great concern over the future religious atmosphere in the Eastern Africa country, says Open Doors, a Christian persecution watchdog group. The organization is asking for prayer with less than one month to go before the country’s general election.

“We are at a defining moment because these are the first elections under the new constitution with its many new structures and elective and nominative posts,” explains the Open Doors coordinator for the region, who – as the case with most of the ministry’s international field workers – remains anonymous for security reasons.

Al-Shabaab’s success in pressuring the government to allow greater official influence for Islam is troubling, say Open Doors officials. Islamic family courts based on Sharia Law have been implemented in all counties – even in those with a low Muslim presence. It is feared that at least 10 of the counties with higher Muslim representation may push for the implementation of Sharia Law and may even be harboring ambitions to break away from the rest of the country, which is Christian dominated (83 percent).

“It was reported by Open Doors that 22 Christians were killed in incidents last year and over 100 seriously injured or maimed,” said Open Doors USA spokesman Jerry Dykstra. “The persecution of believers in the Muslim parts of the country has increased. Please join Open Doors in praying for Kenya as it prepares for elections next month.”

More than 1,200 people died in post-election violence in 2007. After the setup of a tribunal was blocked by politicians in Kenya, the International Criminal Court (ICC) decided to prosecute six politicians. Charges against two were dropped, while two of the remaining four are running in the elections – one for president and the other as his running mate. Some reports of violence have already surfaced this year. The election is scheduled for March 4.

Open Doors released the prayer requests below:

The New Constitution: The country voted in a new constitution and it is in the process of being implemented. There continues to be a backlash against Christians who opposed some clauses in the constitution. Pray that the Lord would guide the full implementation process and this harassment of Christians will stop.

The Presidency: Current president Mwai Kibaki has completed two terms and must now hand over leadership to a new elected president. Pray that the handover process will be smooth. Pray that God gives the new president wisdom.

The 42 Tribes: Kenya has a total of 42 recognized tribes that have been polarized against each other. Pray that God would protect Kenyans against political pressures to divide along these tribal lines, but instead rise higher to accept and celebrate one another.

The Challenge of Islam: Islamic influence is growing in the country and with it the levels of persecution towards Christians, especially in Muslim-dominated areas. Pray that the Christians in those areas would gain wisdom and strength to enable them to stand strong in the faith.

Refugees: The government decided to relocate all Somali refugees to the camps in readiness to repatriate them. Pray for Christian refugees. This decision directly affects them. They are worried and afraid for their safety. May the Lord bring solutions to their individual cases.

Open Doors Work in Kenya: Pray for the Open Doors team as it travels to difficult areas in the region to do research, conduct training and give comfort and encouragement to believers.

Some time ago a reader of this site asked if I could address a concern in his life. He had been pursuing a young lady and beginning to think about marriage, but rather suddenly found that he was no longer attracted to her. She was a godly person and just the kind of woman he could see himself settling down with. But then he looked at her and saw that the physical attracted had just plain disappeared. What could he do? What had gone wrong? Michael McKinley recently addressed a question much like this over at the 9Marks blog, so I will begin with his thoughts and add my own.

God may already be restraining 99.99 percent of evil and suffering.

Why does the chaos that breaks out in some corner of the world always prove the exception rather than the rule? Why haven’t tyrants, with access to powerful weapons, destroyed this planet? What has kept infectious diseases and natural disasters from killing 99 percent of the world’s population rather than less than 1 percent?

In the collapse of New York’s Twin Towers, fifteen thousand people came out alive. While this doesn’t remove the pain felt by families of the nearly three thousand who died, it shows that even on that terrible day, suffering was limited.

Nanci said to me, “Given what Scripture tells us about the evil of the human heart, you’d think that there would be thousands of Jack the Rippers in every city.” Her statement stopped me in my tracks. Might God be limiting sin all around us, all the time? Second Thessalonians 2:7 declares that God is in fact restraining lawlessness in this world. For this we should thank him daily.

If God permitted people to follow their every evil inclination all the time, life on this planet would screech to a halt. Sometimes God permits evil by giving people over to their sins (see Romans 1:24–32), and this itself leads to the deterioration and ultimate death of an evil culture, which is a mercy to surrounding cultures. The most morally corrupt ancient cultures no longer exist.

“But many children suffer; why doesn’t God protect them?” We don’t know the answer, but we also don’t know how often God does protect children. The concept of guardian angels seems to be suggested by various passages (see, for example,Matthew 18:10).

God gives us a brief, dramatic look into the unseen world in which righteous angels battle evil ones, intervening on behalf of God’s people (see Daniel 10:12–13, 20). How many angels has God sent to preserve the lives of children and shield them from harm?

My earliest memory is of falling into deep water and nearly drowning; someone my family didn’t know rescued me. As a parent and a grandparent I have seen many “close calls” where it appears a child should have died or suffered a terrible injury, but somehow escaped both.

This thought, of course, doesn’t keep a parent’s heart from breaking when her child suffers or dies. Still, though I can’t prove it, I’m convinced God prevents far more evil than he allows.