Limited Time Offer! Think Christianly eBook available for only $3.99

If Christianity is true, then it speaks to all of life. Learn how to live out your faith in the midst of the many cultural opportunities and challenges we face each day with my new book Think Christianly. For a limited time only, the eBook is only $3.99! (available on all devices).

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A Great review from Apologetics 315

WHAT CHRISTIAN LEADERS ARE SAYING:

"As someone who has devoted many years of ministry to teaching Christian worldview. I am thrilled to see dynamic and faithful worldview leaders like Jonathan Morrow stepping to the fore. Think Christianly...equips Christians young and old to engage the culture winsomely, intelligently, and with confidence."-Chuck Colson, colsoncenter.org

"We Christians love to lob rhetorical grenades at the surrounding culture from the safety of our holy huddle. What's far more difficult...is to engage the issues of our day with intelligence, moral clarity, and biblical wisdom. That's exactly what Jonathan Morrow does in Think Christianly."-Drew Dyck, Managing editor of Leadership Journal

"In a time when truth is distorted and biblical teachings are misunderstood, our commitment to engaging culture must not be compromised...Think Christianly is a much needed resource as we seek to honor God in both what we believe and how we live."-Jason Hayes, National Young Adult Ministry Specialist, LifeWay Christian Resources

"Think Christianly is a remarkable and important achievement. Written in an...accessible style, it covers an exhaustive range of topics. Indeed, I know of no other book like it in this regard, and it is now the first book to which to turn for learning the specifics of how to think Christianly."-J. P. Moreland, author of The God Question

(From Back Cover) In Think Christianly, Jonathan Morrow gives church leaders the biblical framework and practical resources for helping churchgoers boldy engage today’s cultural moments. Addressing issues such as injustice, sexuality, suffering, politics, science, the exclusivity of Jesus and what it means to be human, Morrow refuses to shy away from tough questions and includes interviews with some of today’s most influential Christian leaders, including:

• Dennis Rainey (Family Life)
• William Lane Craig (Reasonable Faith)
• Barrett Ward (The Mocha Club)
• Sean McDowell (Worldview Ministries)
• Reggie Joiner (Orange)
• Jay Richards (Discovery Institute)
• Kyle Strobel (Metamorpha)
• Kelly Monroe Kullberg (The Veritas Forum)
• more...

The Bible doesn’t make us choose between cultivating a thoughtful faith and demonstrating radical love. Why should the church?

So How Does Culture Work?

Have you heard of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview? If not you need to get to know them! Every week they release a two minute warning video that is well worth your time. In this video, John Stonestreet offers some great insight on how culture works:



More on the Colson Center

More on how Christians should engage culture.

But It's Still Eugenics...

"Having left behind pseudoscientific racial theories, it’s easy for us to look back and pass judgment on yesterday’s eugenicists. It’s harder to acknowledge what we have in common with them. First, a relentless desire for mastery and control, not only over our own lives but over the very marrow and sinew of generations yet unborn. And second, a belief in our own fundamental goodness, no matter to what ends our mastery is turned."

This is the commentary of Ross Douthat (op-ed writer for the New York Times) as he reflects on the incredible technology available to us today and danger of our good intentions ending in Eugenics (read the rest his article here). This power will give our society the ability to create genetic 2nd class citizens if they are not careful.

Bioengineering and bioethics are areas where the Christian worldview offers some significant moral reasoning...if our culture will listen.

Here are two questions and principle from a group of bioethicists that must become common knowledge in our churches. They will help guide us as we face an ever-expanding buffet of biotechnologies.

The first question: “Does the technology facilitate healing or restoration from disease or disability, or is it for reengineering (so-called enhancement)?”* Christians need to say clearly that we are for therapeutic uses of biotechnology.

The second question: “Does the technology require or promote the commodification or destruction of human life? Does the technology demean, debase, or degrade individuals?”* Christians must stand up for all of humanity — especially the weak, impoverished, and defenseless.

Finally, as technological progress is made at a dizzying pace, we must not forget that the “fundamental human problem of humankind is not physical or mental inadequacy, but sin.”* Whether it is in economics or genetics, we are tempted to seek a Utopia where technology can save us. It can’t. It can alleviate much suffering, but it cannot save us. We are broken, and only God can heal our deepest wounds through Jesus Christ. The pride that exists as we develop biotechnologies will be expressed in the way these technologies are used in the future.

God is not surprised. He knows the end from the beginning and will be with us in the midst of the unknown challenges and opportunities (Isaiah 46:10). May God give us the grace and wisdom to be good stewards of the technology we have been entrusted with for the good of humanity.

I go in to more detail and offer more resources in my book Think Christianly: Looking at the Intersection of Faith and Culture.

*For more on these quotations, see Biotechnology and the Human Good

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How to Test a Worldview in 3 Easy Steps

There are so many different worldviews and belief systems out there...how can we make a wise choice? In this video, I share 3 tests you can apply to any worldview.




I just released a new podcast about preparing students for college, you can subscribe to the latest Think Christianly podcast here (iTunes / RSS).

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I'd love to hear what you think. For you, what is the most compelling thing about the Christian worldview? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Think Christianly, Welcome to College, and My Interview on Stand to Reason

On Sunday I had the opportunity to be interviewed on Stand to Reason's weekly radio show. I am a huge fan of Stand to Reason (they do wonderful work!). Here is a link to my interview where I offer biblical advice for engaging culture and how to help students make the most of college (My segment occurs in the final hour).

***Also, my publisher has generously made Welcome to College available for only $5 at Amazon until tomorrow night (May 25th). If you are a parent or have a teenager, you can gift it to them or buy yourself a copy. It's a GREAT deal (72% off). My goal is to get Welcome to College in as many student's hands as I can during the graduation season. If you like what you see can you help spread the word by sharing this link on Facebook and Twitter? http://amzn.to/mcPGCx Here's what people are saying about the book:

"Wow! What a book! Quite frankly, this is the book I've been waiting for the last forty years to give to college students. It is the single best volume I have ever read for preparing students for how to follow Jesus and flourish as his disciple in college." -- J.P. Moreland, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University

"Jonathan has both the intellectual resources as well as the practical experience to provide an effective students' survival guide to university life. I'm impressed with the wide array of issues he discusses, from intellectual challenges to financial problems to sexual snares to getting enough sleep! All this is done in easily digestible bits for the student on the run." -- William Lane Craig, Theologian and author, Reasonable Faith

"Reading this book is like having your own personal mentor and friend to guide you through the rough rapids of college life. College is a great experience, but it can also be faith-shattering if you are not adequately prepared. This book is perfect for the high school senior who is curious about what college life will be like. It is also helpful to the college student who is dealing with the day-to-day challenges and questions faced both in and out of the classroom. -- Mark Schmahl, Pastor of Student Ministries Believers' Chapel

"This book will prepare anyone who is either enrolled in college or is planning to go to college for the daily challenges Christians deal with on campus. Jonathan Morrow is aware of the real college world and is dead-on with his excellent insight." -- Blake Smith, Junior, Texas Tech University

"Unpacking biblical truths, Welcome to College is a treasure book of wisdom that will literally save lives and help build a culture of life." -- Kelly Monroe Kullberg, Author, Finding God Beyond Harvard: The Quest for Veritas

"Whether you are an incoming freshman or upperclassman, Jonathan provides straightforward, practical insight for dealing with current issues regarding living the Christian life on campuses everywhere. Not only is this a great read, but you will find a place to turn to when questions or struggles show their face." -- Taylor McCabe, Junior, Baylor University


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Zondervan's Think Christianly Blog Tour...

Check out some of these great reviews! Thanks everyone! click here

Add yours...


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New York Times' Columnist Ross Douthat Talks About the State of American Christianity

Interesting interview:

"In his new book “Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics,” Ross Douthat, an Op-Ed columnist for The Times, writes about how Christianity lost its central place in American life through a variety of factors, among them the religion’s failed attempts to accommodate secular trends; a strong identification of the church with strictly conservative politics; a lack of great religious-inspired art; and the appeal to a “God within” that tailors spirituality to the citizens of a self-help age. I recently spoke with Mr. Douthat about the book via e-mail. Below are excerpts of the conversation.

“Bad Religion”

Q.

Does the book presume that a widespread, mainstream Christianity is necessary to have a thriving United States?

A.

It depends what you mean by “thriving.” I’m not arguing that if we don’t all repent our sins tomorrow, we’re going to be conquered by the Chinese or collapse into a Balkans-style civil war. I’m quite confident that America will remain rich, powerful and relatively stable even if the religious trends I’m describing continue apace. But I do think that institutional Christianity has offered something important to our nation — sometimes a moral critique of our excesses, sometimes a kind of invisible mortar for our common life — that today’s heresies are unlikely to provide.

Q.

What do you mean by the words “heretics” and “heresy” in the book?

A.

I mean expressions of religious belief that are no longer traditionally Christian, but remain deeply influenced by Christianity — and fascinated, in particular, by the figure of Jesus of Nazareth — in ways that are hard to describe as post-Christian or non-Christian or secular. It’s a loaded word, obviously, but I think it’s the best way to describe the religious landscape in America today: Diverse, fragmented, polarized, and yet Christ-haunted all the same.

Q.

Evangelicals and Catholics united with each other “in the cause of culture war.” You argue that culture war is not the best use of Christianity, but is it the strongest glue left to it?

A.

Sometimes it seems to be. In an era of weakened religious affiliation and intensified partisanship, the zeal that’s associated with political combat can supply believers with the feeling of cohesion and common purpose that the institutional churches aren’t always able to supply. The danger here is obvious: If American Christianity is just one expression of the identity politics of conservative America, then it isn’t really much of a Christianity at all. But at the same time, it isn’t enough to say that believers should just stay away from politics entirely. Like all Americans, Christians have an obligation be engaged citizens, and to bring their beliefs to bear on the great debates in our society. If they shirked that duty, you wouldn’t just lose Jerry Falwell or Al Sharpton – you’d lose Reinhold Niebuhr and Martin Luther King.

Q.

You write about current religious popular art feeling “middlebrow, garish and naïve” or “ingenuous and tacky.” How might that change, and how important is it that it does?

A.

One of the striking things about the post-1960s era is how unimportant sacred art and architecture have become in our culture. Obviously some of that reflects the secular biases of our artists and intellectuals. But some of it reflects the straightforward failures of believers to write the novels and make the films and build the cathedrals that would testify, more eloquently than any polemic, to the Christian view of God and man. The critic Alan Jacobs observed to me once that much of what remains of highbrow Christian culture in the West is sustained not by theologians or bishops or pastors, but by poets and novelists and memoirists — C.S. Lewis and Thomas Merton and W.H. Auden and Flannery O’Connor and so on. He’s right, and we need more like them."

Read the rest of John William's interview with Ross Douthat here.
Here's my perspective and what Christians can do to better engage culture.
How do you think Christians are doing? What do you think needs to change?

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Are you preaching a trivial Gospel?

"Many people are rejecting our gospel today not because they perceive it to be false, but because they perceive it to be trivial. People are looking for an integrated worldview which makes sense of all their experience."-John Stott

Preaching the simple gospel isn't as simple as it used to be. To be sure the Holy Spirit is still actively convicting the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:7-11). But the plausibility structures of this generation have drifted farther away from theistic categories. So our job is to help them connect the dots. Help them connect the questions they are asking with the explanatory power of the Christian worldview. That's what everyday ambassadors do. Not only is there good evidence that Christianity is true,  it also best explains our experience of reality. In my new book Think Christianly, I try to paint a vision for what that looks like at our intersection.

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Want a free copy of Think Christianly?

Then consider being a part of the Think Christianly: Looking at the Intersection of Faith and Culture blog tour sponsored by Zondervan. Click here to get your free copy and all the details! Please share on Facebook and Twitter. Here is what Chuck Colson said about the book:

"As someone who has devoted many years of ministry to teaching Christian worldview. I am thrilled to see dynamic and faithful worldview leaders like Jonathan Morrow stepping to the fore. Think Christianly, in a compelling and accessible way, equips Christians young and old to engage the culture winsomely, intelligently, and with confidence.”

- Chuck Colson,

Founder, Prison Fellowship and the Colson Center

 for Christian Worldview

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Feelings Are Not A Good Foundation For Faithful Living

Feelings are great...in fact I have them all the time! But they are a lousy foundation for our faith. As our culture has shifted from a thinking culture to a feeling culture in the last 50 years, the under 30's generation has been the most deeply effected. I think Nancy Pearcey is correct in her observation that "Young people whose faith is mostly emotional are likely to retain it only as long as it is making them happy. As soon as a difficult crisis comes along, it will evaporate" (Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning, 16-17). They need to be trained and challenged to think hard about their faith.

Learning to feel our emotions and be able to express them to others is vital for developing a healthy heart (and takes great courage! cf. Prov. 4:23). I'm not downplaying feelings and emotions. I just want to add reason to the equation as well. Imagine if students emerged from our churches equipped to understand what is going on in their hearts and able to use their minds to understand, defend, and commend a Christian worldview (Jude 3)? Why do we have to settle for one or the other? I don't think we do. That is one of the reasons I wrote Welcome to College to help students (and those who love them) be prepared to walk with Jesus Christ during the exciting and challenging college years. Graduation is coming up and a new batch of students are heading off to college....are they ready? They can be...

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My Interview on the Frank Pastore Show Now Available (KKLA - Los Angeles)

Had a lot of fun with Frank talking about what it means to Think Christianly and why it's reasonable to believe that God exists in an age of science. You can listen here.

Find out more about the Frank Pastore show here.

The books I mentioned were Think Christianly and Is God Just a Human Invention?

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Have we already lost the battle?

"When Christians are willing to reduce religion to noncognitive categories, unconnected to questions of truth or evidence, then we have already lost the battle."* Please reread that last sentence. You see, if Christianity does not rise to the level of being true or false then it has been removed completely from the cognitive realm. If something can't be false, then it can't be true either. And rational investigation or justification fly out the window too. If we in the American church don't get this and teach it to the next generation, then Christians will be increasingly marginalized in a secular culture. But worse still, this unbiblical notion will sap us of our confidence to live as if Christianity were actually true because confidence and knowledge go hand and hand. I go into more detail on how this plays out in our lives and in the broader culture here.

*Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth.

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What Chuck Colson, J.P. Moreland and others are saying about the release of Think Christianly...

"As someone who has devoted many years of ministry to teaching Christian worldview. I am thrilled to see dynamic and faithful worldview leaders like Jonathan Morrow stepping to the fore. Think Christianly, in a compelling and accessible way, equips Christians young and old to engage the culture winsomely, intelligently, and with confidence.”

- Chuck Colson, Founder, Prison Fellowship
and the Colson Center for Christian Worldview

"Think Christianly is a remarkable and important achievement. Written in an interactive and accessible style, it covers an exhaustive range of topics. Indeed, I know of no other book like it in this regard, and it it now the first book to which to turn for learning the specifics of how to think Christianly."

 - J. P. Moreland, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, 

Talbot School of Theology, Biola University,
 and author of The God Question 

"We Christians love to lob rhetorical grenades at the surrounding culture from the safety of our holy huddle. What’s far more difficult—and effective—is to engage the issues of our day with intelligence, moral clarity, and biblical wisdom. That’s exactly what Jonathan Morrow does in Think Christianly. Morrow has a knack for elucidating complex ideas and applying timeless truth to contemporary topics. He’s also done a fine job of gathering top Christian thinkers and presenting their ideas on issues ranging from the role of the Bible to bioethics. Think Christianly is a significant addition to the faith and culture conversation and a readable primer for church leaders. It belongs in the library of every thoughtful Christian."

 - Drew Dyck, Managing editor of Leadership Journal
 and author of Generation Ex-Christian: 
Why Young Adults are Leaving the Faith…
and How to Bring Them Back (Moody, 2010)

 Every generation of Christ-followers lives at the intersection
 of faith and culture; now it's our turn...

I'm convinced that the Bible doesn't make us choose between cultivating a thoughtful faith and demonstrating radical love in our world. Yes there is much moral and spiritual confusion today and that brings with it it's own share of challenges. But it also presents us with some amazing opportunities. So let's learn to think Christianly and embrace these cultural moments. Let's engage!

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What are FACEBOOK and GOOGLE hiding from the world?

Perhaps more than you think...The internet opens up the whole world of ideas to you right? Maybe not. This video underscores why you need to be aware of what doesn't show up in your Facebook feed and Google searches.

 "The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him."--Prov.18:17

 

(H/T Kevin Perry)

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Christianity is not just about believing in Jesus

Before you get nervous, the key word in that claim is "just" (not just about getting in to heaven when we die). I'm convinced that if Christianity is actually true (and I think there are good reasons to think this), then it speaks to all of life. Here's a short video where Chuck Colson unpacks this important concept on his weekly two-minute warning at breakpoint.

   

If you are looking to go deeper in exploring how all of life is connected and how our Christian worldview impacts all of life, then you will really enjoy my new book, Think Christianly: Looking at the Intersection of Faith and Culture. Chuck Colson was kind enough to provide this endorsement:

"As someone who has devoted many years of ministry to teaching Christian worldview. I am thrilled to see dynamic and faithful worldview leaders like Jonathan Morrow stepping to the fore. Think Christianly, in a compelling and accessible way, equips Christians young and old to engage the culture winsomely, intelligently, and with confidence.”

Are you ready to engage?


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Our First Freedom

Everyone thinks. We can't help it. Our thoughts deeply shape the contours of our lives. But often we don't cultivate our minds and ultimately leave a resource God has given us untapped.

Dallas Willard shares a helpful insight in this regard from Renovation of the Heart: "The ultimate freedom we have as human beings is the power to select what we will allow or require our minds to dwell upon."

How is your thought life? What do you find your mind dwells on the most often? What do you want to dwell on? Today, take some time to read and reflect upon Romans 12:1-2.

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Is the Bible Culturally Outdated? And Other Questions...

Recently on the Janet Mefferd show I was asked how to respond to the charge that the Bible is culturally outdated...how would you respond? You can listen to how I responded to this and other tough questions in my interview with Janet here.

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Thoughts on God and Culture - New Podcast!

How should Christians think about culture? Are they for it or against it? What is culture anyway? Check out the new podcast where I have a conversation on God and Culture with Paul Edwards.

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Sound Bites and Slogans: "Why can't we let people believe what they want about Jesus and just get along?"

Around the holidays, today's response to a popular Sound Bite and Slogan may come in handy. "Why can't we let people believe what they want about Jesus and just get along?"

I agree with you that we should try to get along and certainly not be rude or condescending toward those who believe differently than we do. But we also need to remember that while people are entitled to their own beliefs, they are not entitled to their own truth. Just because we believe something (even sincerely) doesn't make it true. When it comes to really significant questions in life--like is God real? and was jesus who he claimed to be?--the most important question we can ask is this: Is it true? And to answer questions about the identity of Jesus, we must examine the historical evidence which is something I'd love to explore together.

Truth for Today: "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect." - 1 Peter 3:15 (NIV)

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Think Christianly on Apologetics 315 (audio interview)

Recently I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Brian Auten of Apologetics 315 on my new book Think Christianly. Here is the post and the audio. Enjoy and feel free to share on Twitter and Facebook if you find it helpful.

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