Evangelism

Vice President Vance and a Call for Good Public Theology

Some people say we shouldn’t bog down the simple love of Christ with theology. But such people fail to appreciate that they refute themselves because even the lovely childhood sing-along, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so” is a theological statement. It is actually a profound theological statement. We are all theologians if we spend any time thinking about God.

It is also good and praiseworthy when our national leaders employ good theology in their public work.

Vice President J.D. Vance did exactly this yesterday in an evening news interview. In addressing the politics of immigration, he referred to “a very Christian concept” of love where first “you love your family, then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country … and then, after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.”

Here’s his explanation of this very big and foundational idea:

Vance is correct. He is speaking of an ancient Christian teaching stretching all the way back to St. Augustine in the early 400s, and far beyond that in scripture.

In Augustine’s massive City of God, a book that explains how humanity lives in one of two cities, the City of God or the City of Man as in our “race we have distributed into two parts, the one consisting of those who live according to man, the other of those who live according to God” (Book 15:1).

Specifically, Vance was referring to the Augustinian tenet of Ordo Amoris, which is Latin for the proper ordering of the loves. To love is essential for all Christians, but to have our loves properly ordered is even more important.

In fact, Augustine says “it is a brief but true definition of virtue to say it is the order of love” that guides our ethics best (Book 15:22). C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man tells us, “St. Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind and degree of love which is appropriate to it.”

This beautiful truth is simply building on what Christ taught us all the Law and Prophets depend upon.

When our Lord was asked which was the greatest commandment in the Law, He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” He added, “This is the great and first commandment.”

Jesus then orders that love superior to the next important: “And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Love God first. Love others as you love yourself, second. Sin is rooted in our failure to keep this ordo amoris, is it not?

We cannot miss that there is a God-ordained order to these human loves.

We are to love our family first, before all others. Then, from that love, and God’s divine love within us, we are to love our neighbors closest to us, the ones we see every day and share a life with. We are then to love our community and city. Then our nation. For these are the people that we can love most effectively because we share a common life with them. From there, we are to love to the ends of the earth. These ordered loves exist in concentric circles based on our closest and most meaningful relationships and radiate out.

This is how love is most effectual and this truth is understood in the Principle of Subsidiarity. This is a Christian theory of public policy that those closest to a community problem have the greatest interest in those affected and are thus, more likely to answer that need better and more efficiently.

The Acton Institute says this of Subsidiarity, “This principle is a bulwark of limited government and personal freedom. It conflicts with the passion for centralization and bureaucracy characteristic of the Welfare State.”

This aligns with God’s ordering of creation. The family was the first institution God established to provide for the growth and provision of humanity and the proper ordering of the larger society. It is in family that we first learn to love God and then love our first neighbors, who are our parents, siblings and extended family. Out of that love, we learn to love our most immediate neighbors and be concerned for their well-being. From there, we extend our love to the larger village, and then that of our fellow countrymen. Beyond that, we care for those of the world.

Love indeed has a proper starting place and love and compassion which does not first consider those closest to us is a disordered love. That is what Vance was telling us we must all keep in mind in practicing legal immigration and protecting the borders of our nation. These are love of neighbor issues and it is refreshing to see a national leader speak intelligently from orthodox Christian theology.

Additional Articles and Resources

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Laken Riley Act Passes Senate

Laken Riley Act Introduced in Senate

Illegal Immigrant to Appear in Court for Death of Texas Teen, Illustrates Violent Trend

Illegal Immigrant Arrested in Murder of Maryland Mom

Talking to Your Kids About Illegal Immigration

The Preacher Who Carried a Cross Around the World

It’s a captivating image, a young man carrying a 12-foot high and 6-foot wide, 110-pound cross up Fifth Avenue in New York City, pausing just in front of Hallmark’s Gotham office.

As he makes his way, he’s handing out Bible tracts.

His name was Arthur Owen Blessitt (his real name) and he held the distinction, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, of taking the “longest walk” of anyone in recorded history.

Arthur Blessit died earlier this month at the age of 84.

A Southern Baptist street preacher and pastor, Arthur began walking from his church in Hollywood, California across America on Christmas Day in 1969. He didn’t stop walking for two years, arriving in New York City in 1970.

Pastor Blessitt wasn’t walking for the publicity, wasn’t trying to glorify his own ego or garner notoriety to land a book and movie contract.

Simply put, he began walking because he heard (not audibly) God tell him to “Go!” – and so that’s what he did.

Only Arthur Blessitt didn’t stop walking when he reached New York. All told, Arthur covered 43,340 miles across all seven continents. He was arrested 24 times. Weather never deterred him. He carried the cross when it was 20 degrees below zero in Nova Scotia and 135 degrees in Yemen and Iraq. Arthur even carried the cross up Bronzal Pass on the Pakistan and Afghanistan border (18,200 feet) and down into Carlsbad Cavern in New Mexico (850 feet below sea level).

But Arthur didn’t just carry the cross on his many journeys. Instead, he talked about the cross and the significance of Jesus’ sacrifice on it.

“The most important thing you will ever do is whatever Jesus tells you to do next,” he often said.

Coming of age in the late 1960s, Blessitt resisted the drug culture and instead mocked it by talk up the benefits of having Christ in your life.

“If you want to get high, you don’t have to drop acid,” he wrote. “Just pray and you go all the way to Heaven. You don’t have to pop pills to get loaded. Just drop a little Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.”

On his numerous worldwide treks, Arthur crossed paths with everyone from Dr. Billy Graham to Yasir Arafat and Bob Dylan, to name just a few celebrity encounters.

But once again, Blessitt didn’t see it as a time to glad hand or gawk, but instead, leverage any and every encounter to tell people about Jesus.

“I’ve climbed to the top of the long winding road,” he wrote. “Looked beyond and saw the Glory. The sweat and tears, the joys and the pains. All seem to blend in the amazing love of Jesus. 

He continued:

“The cross is my road companion and we grow old together walking in the Shadow of the Presence of God. The cross needs some repairs with chips gone and bangs from the roads. My body has endured the longest walk in history and cries out for eternal rest. But we press on together with a smile.”

In classic Arthur Blessitt fashion, his obituary was written in the first person. Here is how it begins:

I, Arthur Blessitt have completed my walk and mission on earth. I departed to heaven on January 14, 2025. I was just a donkey and pilgrim, lifting up the cross and Jesus and loved the people of the world. What a glorious journey of life with Jesus my Lord and Savior. ]
I’ve really been looking forward to this walk in Glory. These feet that walked so far on roads of dirt and tar will now be walking on the streets of gold. Ready to see Jesus again! I rejoice in Jesus, now, and in the hour of my passing. “Father, into Your Hands Jesus I commit my spirit.
I am home at last, this was my last trip! I have been an evangelist, soulwinning preacher, pilgrim and cross carrying witness of Jesus.

Arthur asked that rather than a memorial service, “The greatest thing you could do would be to go out and lead one more soul to be saved. The second thing would be that you would support this ministry of the cross in sharing the message of Jesus with the world.”

Well done, Arthur Owen Blessitt.

Image from AP.

Notre Dame’s Riley Leonard: ‘Did I Better My Relationship with Jesus Christ?’

University of Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard led the Fighting Irish to a 23-10 upset win over the University of Georgia Bulldogs in Thursday’s Sugar Bowl – and a berth in the semifinals of the College Football Playoffs.

At the conclusion of the highly anticipated context, Leonard was asked by ESPN about the victory.

“First and foremost, I want to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” the Alabama native told sideline reporter Molly McGrath. “Without Him, I wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be here.”

In recent years, Christian players are increasingly using their public platforms and precious few seconds in the spotlight to share their faith.

But this isn’t the first time the Notre Dame captain has been vocal about his faith-rooted perspective.

The 22-year-old Leonard has led his team this year to a record 13 wins (12 straight), but has made clear the final score of each game isn’t what’s driving him.

“When I go to bed at night, I’m not thinking, ‘How many touchdown passes did I throw?’ ‘Did we win or lose?’ I’m thinking, ‘Did I better my relationship with Jesus Christ?’ ‘Did I treat my girlfriend with respect?’ ‘Did I call my parents?’”

Riley’s faith is still relatively new, having only started going to church in the 9th grade. Leonard said he was struck and concerned by how his moods and spirits would rise and fall based on football and basketball games.

“I was just like, ‘Man. There’s gotta be more to life than feeling good for a week about making some team,”he wrote just before this past Christmas.

“I felt this weird emptiness inside. And that’s when I started to pay attention as all these people in my life were preaching the Bible. Whether it was on a mentor level, like some of my football coaches and pastors in the community, or it was on a personal level, like when I met my girlfriend Molly, and she’d bring me to church. Once I started to find my faith, and find a purpose besides just being an athlete, I feel like the world kind of opened up for me. And I ran with it.”

Riley has recruited 40 other players to attend a weekly Bible Study on the Notre Dame campus.

The Fairhope, Alabama native originally thought basketball was going to be his main pursuit, but when COVID hit, he was allowed less time in the gym and more time outside with football.

Though originally playing at Duke, Leonard transferred to South Bend after his junior year following an ankle injury, fulfilling a dream of playing for the Irish. His great grandfather played for the university’s legendary coach Frank Leahy in the 1940s. “Rudy” was Riley’s favorite movie growing up.

Prior to Notre Dame’s first playoff game against Indiana, Leonard wrote about how badly he felt following the team’s lone loss in game two against Northern Illinois. He was so embarrassed to show his face on campus that he asked if a stadium police officer could drive him to his apartment.

But then came Monday, and the realization that life goes on and difficulties shape us. Head coach Marcus Freeman told him, “Riley, I’m telling you. One day you’re gonna be thankful for this.”

Following Thursday’s win in New Orleans, Leonard was quick to credit his whole team for the victory – a sentiment consistent with Jesus’ words which he wears on his wrist each game:

“Those who exalt themselves or praise themselves will be humbled, but those who humble themselves will be praised” (Matthew 23:12). 

Of course, Leonard doesn’t know if Notre Dame will win out. But he says, “We’re going to dare greatly. And maybe we’ll stumble again. Maybe we’ll come up short … We just have to keep digging.”

Image credit: Instagram / Riley Leonard

Happy Incarnation Day – The Christmas Story

Faithful Christians would do well to always think of Christmas as Incarnation Day.

It is the day we celebrate the fact that Jesus, the Word, became flesh and dwelt among us. To be absolutely correct, it actually happened some nine months earlier in the miracle in the womb of a humble Jewish girl.

The Christmas miracle is God becoming man in the eternal and beloved Son of God, spoken of through the prophets and the Apostles. But it is told most dramatically in John 1:1-14.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:1-5 ESV).

And then in verse 14, we read something very profound:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The Word became flesh.

… And dwelt among us.

That is what Christmas is really all about.

Heaven touches earth most dramatically here. The begotten Son becomes one of us, a human, in what theologians call the Incarnation, the most profound truth in all reality.

C.S. Lewis called it the “grand miracle” explaining, “…[I]t was the central event in the history of the earth – the very thing that the whole story has been about.”

It is the very center of the Christian story, of reality, for without it, nothing else is possible. The Slovenian composer, Jacobus Gallus, so beautifully explains the nature of this world-changing event:

A wondrous mystery has been proclaimed today; all natures are renewed:
God has become human: He remained what he was, and what he was not, he became, suffering neither confusion nor division.

No other religion or philosophy brings the human and the divine together like this. Only Christianity does this … and so intimately. It is the Incarnation that makes our salvation and freedom possible, breaking down the divide between the Spirit and the Flesh, bringing these two wonders together in the Person of Christ.

It is important for all believers to know the Incarnation does away forever with the first heresy to invade the Church, that of gnosticism – which held that the spirit was real and desirable while the flesh was illusory and to be shunned. The Incarnation obliterates such a view and brings all of reality – the spiritual and the physical – together in absolute harmony. Thus, there is no sacred and secular divide, no flesh/spirit dichotomy in Christianity.

The baby in the Christmas manger, and prior to this, in the womb of Mary, is Christ, the sovereign Lord of all creation and reality, fully God and fully man. Christmas proclaims this truth.

We cannot ignore that this Grand Miracle happened; God has placed it before each of us to decide for ourselves whether we will believe it actually did, and if so, what we will do with that knowledge. That is the Gospel decision that each of us must make … and it changes everything.

Nor can we ignore how the Grand Miracle happened, for the how is just as important as the what. The way God did it cannot be separated from the doing; it all goes together.

The Word left His heavenly place where He dwelt in the bosom of His Father (John 1:18), and while remaining fully God – as the second Person of the Trinity – He became fully man, fully flesh and lived among us.

God was first incarnated, not in the Christmas manger, but in the fleshy womb of a woman: humble Mary. This is a profound statement about the significance of the feminine and it is central to Christianity. Jesus entered the world in the flesh through the     birth pangs in that most feminine part of one blessed woman.

Jesus, the God-Man, was born into a family.

And He remained in that family all of His life. The Lord of the Universe, upon that terrible cross of our salvation, asked His beloved disciple John to undertake the care of His dear mother until her last day.

Jesus was a family man from His first day in the womb until the cross.

The incarnation of the Word of God into real human flesh is indeed the Grand Miracle. None of the other miracles Jesus performed, including the resurrection, are possible without this one. And it all happened in the context of a real, fleshly family.

That is what Christmas is really about.

Additional Resources on the Total Lordship of Christ

How Big is Your View of the Gospel?

The Cultural Paradox of Following Jesus Christ

The Church’s Lane is the Whole Cosmos

Appreciating the Full Scope of the Lordship of Christ – and the Gospel Itself

As Secularists Prep for the Apocalypse, Christians Must Have Strong Kingdom Theology

In Our Troubled World, Take Heart and Remember That Christ is King

Image credit: Wikipedia

Reformation Day: What Really Happened?

Most people, even those with no interest the history of Christianity, know the story of the great Martin Luther and his revolutionary doings 507 years ago today on October 31, 1517.

The great reformer ignited a bomb that changed the course of history with the sparks from his protestant hammer as it drove a nail into the rugged wooden door of Wittenberg’s main cathedral. Second only to the nails driven into the cross of Christ, this hammer divides Western history into before and after.

But what most people believe happened on this date, now celebrated as Reformation Day, is actually myth. Simply put, it’s likely the famous door episode never happened. It certainly didn’t happen as portrayed in popular history and classic paintings.

A carefully researched history, published on the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation by Richard Rex, a noted professor of Reformation History at Cambridge, explains,

Bizarrely, there is almost no reliable evidence for this well-known story. There is no credible evidence that Luther actually went and nailed them [his 95 Theses] to the church door that day, and every reason to believe he did not.

Eric Metaxas echoes Rex’s take in his important book on Luther explaining on p. 111, “So the image in our collective minds of Luther audaciously pounding the truth onto that door for the world and the devil to see is a fiction.” He adds the picture of a fiery reformer signing his own excommunication with a hammer “is very far from the truth.”

Nearly all serious Luther historians agree on this.

The only posting Luther did was posting a letter to a bishop under whose authority he stood, dated October 31, 1517. He went to bed that night never having taken up a hammer nor approached any church door with a document and nail.

This letter contained his famous 95 Theses and a very personal cover letter, warning the bishops of the abuse of indulgences by the perversely extravagant proto-television evangelist Johann Tetzel. Luther himself clearly tells us his state of mind and heart when he dispatched his Theses,

I was then a preacher, a young doctor of theology, so to speak – and I began to dissuade the people and to urge them not to listen to the clamors of the indulgence hawkers; they had better things to do. I certainly thought that in this case I should have a protector in the pope, on whose trustworthiness I then leaned strongly…

Luther was certainly not full of thunder but simply being a dutiful pastor to the flock. As Metaxas explains, Luther, at this point, “was a faithful monk in the only church in Western Christendom.”

His letter to Archbishop Albrecht was not a fiery rebuke or correction riddled, but instead was riddled with lap-dog praises, greeting Albrecht as my “most reverend Father … worthy of reverence, fear, and most gracious,” and Luther’s “Most Illustrious Lord.” Luther contrasts himself mightily as “I, the dregs of humanity.” He meekly asks to be spared for having “so much boldness that I have dared to think of a letter to the height of your Sublimity” and that the good archbishop might “deign to cast an eye upon one speck of dust, and for the sake of your pontifical clemency to heed my prayer.”

Metaxas describes the letter as nothing less than “a model of cringing sycophancy.” This evidence shows the October 31st Luther was actually a purring kitten, while legend has him a roaring lion.

The great Reformer’s bold spirit arose sometime later. Luther’s initial warning letter of Tetzel’s abuses was of no effect. The financial scheme was greater than he imagined with Albrecht on the take, splitting the proceeds with the pope after giving Tetzel his hawker’s fee.

The Document and the Door

Some two weeks later, the Theses were likely posted on the doors of the Castle Church at Wittenberg as a proposal to scholarly debate, or disputation, as these typical exchanges were called.

Such invitations for debate were everyday business for professors and nothing worth noting in itself. To use imagery from basketball, this would have merely been Luther’s call for an intramural pick-up game. The debate never happened. No one responded to the invite.

And the posting of these academic invitations would not have been to only one door, the great Cathedral of Wittenberg. It was university policy that such invitations be posted on the doors of every church in the town of Wittenberg, which boasted at least six or more. So, the posting itself was not an event to be sure, but a mere administrative task.

And it was not Luther doing the posting with hammer and nail. Professors did not do such menial work.The person posting the document was most likely a custodian armed with a brush and pot of glue, or a modest tack at best.

But Luther’s Theses did indeed eventually bring great thunder to the world, launching nothing short of a civilization-changing movement. Few can dispute this.

However, it was not that mighty sound of a hammer upon a famous door, but the clackity-clacking of this new contraption called a printing press that was the detonation point.

It was here that his revolution really sparked.

His 95 Theses were printed and sold, without his knowledge or consent, by enterprising printers, their pamphlets spreading “throughout the whole of Germany inside two weeks” as Luther himself tells us.

Luther went viral before viral was cool, and the monk himself had little to do with it.

While Luther never mentioned any posting on a door in Wittenberg in any writings, it was his faithful friend Philip Melanchthon who is credited with launching this famous but mythical scene. He did so some years after Luther’s death and was certainly not an eyewitness to the supposed event.

Why make a point of all this on this day? Because truth matters in the mouths and traditions of Christians who follow Jesus who is the way, the truth and the life.

Of course, none of this takes anything away from the singular influence of the great Refomer, not only on Christian faith and practice, but on nearly every other sphere of human culture: politics, economics and industry, education, distribution of the printed word, art, the status of women, and the nature and significance of marriage and the family, just to name a few.

It’s simply impossible to construct a definitive list of Luther’s work’s total influence upon history and faith. But we must realize that the Reformation’s anniversary is more faithfully honored when we replace the myths surrounding it with facts.