9 Lies the Media Likes to Tell About Evangelical Christians

I realize that “the media” is not a monolith. So I’m using the word generally here.

However, I keep seeing the following narrative played out in scores of interviews, commentaries, and pundit discussions across the TV news networks, magazines, and the Internet.

So while there are certainly exceptions, I’ve identified nine common lies perpetuated by people in the media. Granted, there are enough vocal evangelicals to bolster each of these stereotypes, so the media isn’t completely responsible. But nuance is necessary here. Thus this post.

Lie 1. Evangelical Christians are intolerant. “Intolerance” is the new clay word that is used to strong-arm an entire group of people who dissent from the conventional wisdom. Thus if a person believes that Jesus is the only way to receive eternal life (as most evangelicals do), they are deemed “intolerant” because the conventional wisdom is to believe that eternal life doesn’t exist.  Continue at Frank Viola

Lies Women Believe while Wedding Planning

Being a bride-to-be can be an incredibly sweet and exciting time. It can also be a quite challenging time, filled with temptations and anxieties that are uncharted in a woman’s life until the sparkling engagement ring slides on her finger. Wedding planning can turn even the most laid-back girl into a stressed filled bride-zilla. Praise God that even then, we can find the truth of his word to be a very present help in time of need, silencing the lies that our flesh, the enemy and the self-obsessed wedding industry entice us to believe.

Lie #1: This is my day.

 
False. Though this day will and should bring much joy, scripture makes clear that marriage is God’s doing and that he has created it in order that the covenant love of Christ for his bride, the Church, might be put on display. In the first “wedding” of all time, Genesis 2:22 explains that after causing a deep sleep to come over Adam, God creates Eve out of one of his ribs and brings her to him. Also in Mark 10:8-9, while referring back to this scene in Genesis, Jesus explains that, “’The two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.“   Continue at Brittany Lind

3 Lies Porn Tells You

Three years into our marriage, my wife, Trisha, woke up in the middle of the night and realized I wasn’t in bed. She walked out into the living room and as soon as she looked at the TV, I quickly changed the channel.  

She began to question me about what I was watching, why I wasn’t in bed, and why I would immediately change the channel. Then came the repeated question: Do you struggle with lust and pornography? The more she asked the more intense the conversation became.

So I denied everything. I told her I was just channel surfing. I argued with her about what she saw. I convinced her that I didn’t struggle with porn or lust. She had nothing to worry about. I was lying. 

For the amount of people who struggle with this, we don’t talk about it near enough.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that night was the first of many opportunities I had over the first 10 years of our marriage to be honest about my porn addiction. I was a pastor and pastors don’t struggle with lust or porn. At least, no other pastor I knew struggled with it, I felt all alone.

The truth was, I wasn’t alone. I had friends I could have talked to. I had accountability partners I lied to. I had other pastors I blew off when asked about sexual sins and struggles.  Continue at Relevant

Motherhood Is a Calling (And Where Your Children Rank)

A few years ago, when I just had four children and when the oldest was still three, I loaded them all up to go on a walk. After the final sippy cup had found a place and we were ready to go, my two-year-old turned to me and said, “Wow! You have your hands full!”

She could have just as well said, “Don’t you know what causes that?” or “Are they all yours?!”

Everywhere you go, people want to talk about your children. Why you shouldn’t have had them, how you could have prevented them, and why they would never do what you have done. They want to make sure you know that you won’t be smiling anymore when they are teenagers. All this at the grocery store, in line, while your children listen.

A Rock-Bottom Job?

 

The truth is that years ago, before this generation of mothers was even born, our society decided where children rank in the list of important things. When abortion was legalized, we wrote it into law.

Children rank way below college. Below world travel for sure. Below the ability to go out at night at your leisure. Below honing your body at the gym. Below any job you may have or hope to get. In fact, children rate below your desire to sit around and pick your toes, if that is what you want to do. Below everything. Children are the last thing you should ever spend your time doing.

If you grew up in this culture, it is very hard to get a biblical perspective on motherhood, to think like a free Christian woman about your life, your children. How much have we listened to partial truths and half lies? Do we believe that we want children because there is some biological urge, or the phantom “baby itch”? Are we really in this because of cute little clothes and photo opportunities? Is motherhood a rock-bottom job for those who can’t do more, or those who are satisfied with drudgery? If so, what were we thinking?   Continue at Rachel Jankovic

Why Lie to Your Kids about Santa?

I’m no Scrooge. I lodge no objections to celebrating Christmas or singing inane jingles, like Jingle Bells. My family understands that, pagan roots aside, the plastic conifer in our living room is not a subtle mark of our allegiance to the forces of darkness. It’s a tree (model).

We do, however, prefer singing “Hark the Herald Angel Sings” over the misdirected praise of “Oh Christmas Tree,” though I’m not even fanatic about enforcing that.

We tolerate the poetic inaccuracy of “We three kings of Orient are” because it rolls off the tongue better than “We indeterminable number of Gentile scholars of Persia are.”

But… I am nervous about the potential confusion which may cloud a 4 year old’s faith in my honesty. 

Angels on high, a pregnant virgin, God in a manger, a guiding star… are impossibilities. Yet, “all things are possible with God.” [Yes, you need to believe in the virgin birth to be a Christian] We ask our children to trust us on these claims with their lives. Then we add a fictitious, omniscient fat guy with a red-nosed reindeer to the mix. At a certain age we matter-of-factly disclose that we were just kidding about the chimney intrusion, the Elven workshop, and the works-based naughty-or-nice judgment. “Those parts are make-believe, the rest is gospel truth. Trust me, son.”

Misinformation has a way of taking root in our memories. Do you picture the stable with oxen lowing on a silent night? Were the angels actually singing? Was there a villainous inn keeper? These details are not found in Scripture.  Keep Reading >>>

The Root Of All Sin

Temptation is a false promise–a promise that doesn’t deliver. When we give into temptation, we are believing a lie. In the moment that we’re being tempted to do something, say something, or believe something, there is a deeper temptation happening under the surface. This may come as a surprise to you, but temptation has more to do with belief than it does behavior. Every temptation to sin (going all the way back to the Garden of Eden) is, at it’s root, a temptation to disbelieve the gospel.

When we are being tempted, we are being enticed to purchase something we think we need in order to escape the judgement of emptiness. On the surface, the bait might be lust, anger, greed, self-pity, defensiveness, entitlement, revenge, having to win, and so on. But the only reason we take the bait is because we think it will satisfy our deeper hunger for meaning, freedom, validation, respect, empowerment, affection, a sense of identity, worth, and so on.

So, here’s the connection between sinning (the fruit of the problem) and unbelief (the root of the problem): our failure to lay aside the sin that so easily entangles is the direct result of our refusal to believe in the rich provisional resources that are already ours in Christ–we’re not believing that, by virtue of our Spirit-wrought union with Christ, everything we need and long for, we already possess. John Calvin rightly said that, “Christians are in perpetual conflict with their own unbelief.”   Keep Reading >>>

The Great Exchange: Replacing the Glory of God for a Lie

How do we account for this mysterious reality where the great majority of men and women even amongst those who profess the name of Christ are indifferent towards the presence of God? Is it perhaps because they are uninformed? Or because of sheer ignorance?
Will that work however? When before the judgment seat of Christ is it possible for us to plead ignorance? When our time comes to die and we stand before the thrice holy God, in giving a defense to how we lived our lives—how self-absorbed we are, our reveling in sin and our putting of ourselves on the throne of our lives, can we say, “I did not know You were there”?
Can we come before the Lord of Glory, the one true living God and cry out before Him, “God, you did not do enough to reveal yourself to me!”
Is that true? Has God truly not done enough? May it never be! Continue Reading>>>