Unpop Culture

When Bill Gothard and I posed in front of the camera, I had no idea that I was standing next to a sexual predator. I had just finished two years as a part-time student in Telos Institute International (founded by Gothard), and it was a time of celebration. Fast forward to today, where it has become public knowledge that Gothard has been accused dozens of times over of sexual and emotional harassment. If these accusations are true, which appears likely, it is a tragic series of events. The amount of pain caused by this one man’s abuse of power is absolutely staggering. Even before now, plenty of people have accused members of the Institute in Basic Life Principles (also founded by Gothard) of legalism and cultish behavior. I’ve even seen many people link Gothard’s sexual sin with the doctrines he espouses. I may not be steeped in IBLP culture, but I am familiar enough with it to ask myself this question: does this devastating news about Bill Gothard nullify my own experience with ...

I’m not quite sure what it was that teed me off initially. Our Sunday morning started innocently enough: we woke up and began the process of getting ready for church—something that involves more gymnastics these days, now that we have a newborn daughter. (I’ve never had to deal with projectile poop before.) I was finishing changing my daughter’s diaper when she spat up, ruining the outfit I had just wrestled her back into. Seeds of impatience sprouted out of my mouth: “Your timing sucks,” I told my uncomprehending daughter. After switching out her clothes, I brought her out of the room, only to encounter our cat in front of me, seemingly determined to get tangled up in my legs as I walked. Juggling a baby and dribbling a cat aren’t activities you want to combine. “You’re really stupid, you know that?” I barked at the cat. (Huh. Pun not intended.) In response, my wife Shannon put out her arms and asked for the baby, advising me to take my shower so I could be alone for a while...

If you’re a Christian, you’ve been saved by the gospel. That doesn’t necessarily mean, however, that you sufficiently understand the gospel. Just as it is easy to mistake the essence , purpose , and function of the law, so it is possible—and dangerously easy—to misinterpret the gospel itself. Yes, even believers can have a faulty view of the gospel—to the detriment of their Christian walk. Here’s a short quiz. Look at Genesis 12:2-3 and see if you can discern where the gospel is located. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. We can see that this is a promise, not a command. Therefore, God is speaking here with the voice of the gospel, not the law. We can be even more explicit than that, though. These verses are, in effect, the very gospel of Jesus Christ—on par with Paul’s st...

Have you ever sought to defend a cause only to end up proving something you didn’t mean to—like attempting to prove the existence of God only to find yourself backed into a corner? It’s a humbling, and evening a frightening, experience. Since I don’t think quickly on my feet, I have argued myself into a corner on more than one occasion. One such occasion (or a period of time, rather) involved the realization that I had misinterpreted more than half the Bible. Up until that point, I was convinced that the prominent use of Scriptural commands—“Choose this day,” “If you are willing to obey,” etc.—proved that those commands could be obeyed. But as last week’s post pointed out, such a conclusion is faulty. The conclusion is more than just faulty, though. It undermines the very faith on which we stand. You see, when we use the law to prove mankind’s ability, it ends up proving much more than we bargain for. It proves not just that we have some ability to follow after God; it proves...

When it comes to the Christian life, our minds can be filled with a myriad of “I need to” thoughts: “I need to pray more,” “I need to spend more quality time with the Lord,” “I need to grow in loving my neighbor as myself,” and so on. In many cases, this tendency can be a sign of something Scripture warns us against: thinking that we are saved by works and not faith. Saving faith isn’t anything we do . It is accepting God’s work on our behalf. Saving faith is a gift from God so that no one can boast (Eph. 2:8-9). We may say we believe that saving faith is not a work, and that we are not saved by our works, but our inner monologue—filled with “I need to” statements—may reveal a heart that easily turns the walk of faith into a work of human effort. When we treat Christianity as moralism, we reduce it to a means by which we feel good—or bad—about ourselves based on our performance. The good works performed by the Christian reveal the fruit of Christianity—not the root of C...