Responding to responses re: Joshua Harris & the separation from his wife.

After it was announced this week that Joshua Harris was separating from his wife I saw lots of discourse online, much of which I find to be troubling and unhelpful.

Why do I want to write about this today? Well I have the background of having read many of his books as I've grown up, and I also got a chance to talk with him while he was a student at Regent. I was just finishing my own 2 year program at Regent when he first went there. From this background I'd like to add a few thoughts to hopefully advance more helpful discussions.

First: People say their separation disproves purity culture. An example of this kind of statement can be seen in the "Friendly Atheist" blog: "The news of his separation essentially confirms what we already knew: Purity culture makes extraordinary promises that it ultimately cannot keep."
Response: How do you define: Purity culture? From the sounds of the Atheist, purity culture means a 100% guarantee that a marriage will never have a divorce, and promises perfect relationships and marriage. No Christian has ever written a book that says that. Instead books like "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" say there are better alternatives than dating around without a purpose and becoming physically and emotionally involved too soon and without a commitment. All the secular studies show that divorce rates do indeed go down when "purity culture" type standards are applied. So is purity culture failing? No... And I'd argue that the entire term Purity Culture is unhelpful, unless you actually define it.
Defining Purity Culture is essential if you're going to try and refute it. There hasn't been a concerted effort to start a Purity Culture movement and to put 100% focus on keeping one's virginity etc. The history of this so called movement is that our secular culture has gotten more and more sexually explicit and pornography use has gone up exponentially in the lats few decades. What is the Christian response supposed to be? To encourage pornography use? To encourage divorce? To encourage immorality? Of course not, so what do you expect to happen as a response? An emphasis on purity..! This doesn't mean it's a movement in which purity is the only thing we focus on, but it's a response that's needed because of the cultural problem. The only way this response would not be needed is if Christians aren't engaging in culture. But we are engaging in culture. So perhaps these authors and liberal theologians think Christians should disconnect, so purity culture isn't needed? No that's not it either.

Second: People say we shouldn't be listening to anything a 21 year old says anyways (referring to Harris book "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" which people assume is now refuted).
Response: There is certainly wisdom in not getting all of one's counsel from inexperienced people who are young. That doesn't mean we automatically ignore anything a 21 year old says though, history continues to show us that younger people have had significant and important things to say in the world stage. Example: Bill Gates was 30 years old when Windows 1.0 came out, should it have been ignored because he was too young? The more important question for Christians is, how does this book engage with the Bible and does it teach scriptural principles that are important to hear in our secularizing age and culture? And on that note I would argue that his books still have much to say because of the way they go to the Bible. We shouldn't automatically believe everything a younger person says, but we also shouldn't automatically reject everything. Scripture should be the lens.

This all leads me to another point I feel bothered by. In the last year when Harris went on his "apology tour" for "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" I never saw any substantive critiques of the book. I have yet to see anyone pull a single quote from the book and analyze and respond to it and show why it was problematic. The only thing I've seen is people feeling rejected and hurt by the book and it's effects on people, or emotional hurt from people's own implications of the book. In any case this section could really get a blog post of it's own...

Those are some brief thoughts on the matters of this week.

A problem with Logos pricing?

I have heard many people say that Logos offers a great bundled deal for getting commentaries and books. 

I recently decided to do some cost comparisons to see if this was the case and I noticed something interesting. Logos does not compare it's digital prices with other retailers digital prices for books, they actually compare to print books.

This is very strange because when you buy Logos you are not buying any print books at all, and buying individual digital copies of the books they offer are available all over the place, whether it be Amazon, or other Bible Software like Olive Tree.

Illustration 1: The Pillar New Testament Commentary Series on Logos. It is advertised as being $524.95, and then puts a print comparison below saying $715. This seems like you're saving money...

What they don't show you is what others charge for the Digital editions on an individual basis. I took Carson's commentary on John as a comparison. This was not on a special sale at all (although Amazon always marks all of it's items as cheaper than some other price). And the individual unit price was $31.56.

So here's the math:

15 Digital Kindle Copies (at $32 average) = $480
15 Digital Logos Edition = $524.95


Here's the bottom line then:
You actually aren't saving any money at all with Logos, it actually costs more..! Even though it's bundled which is usually a cost-saving benefit, Logos actually ends up costing $44.95 more than getting digital editions elsewhere, rather than the $190 savings they claim you get.

What is even more interesting is that there are often sales through other digital retailers that make Logos look even more expensive. Recently Olive tree offered this same 15 Bundle set for only $150. That made the Logos Edition over $370 more than the Olive Tree Bundle while both were at Sale pricing.

Comparing digital prices with print prices is not the most honest way to display your product. Admittedly Logos does acknowledge the original price is print in very small font, but there's no need to make this unhelpful comparison when a plethora of other retailers sell digital just like them.
Overall, be warned, Logos doesn't actually save you money on a lot of the items they offer. But most people won't notice as the bundles they purchase include such a huge amount of books that comparisons become complicated.

Introducing Joanna

Joanna Faith Ramsay

I'm very proud and excited to have a baby daughter now. She has just turned 3 months old, which means she has been alive for about a year. She of course was fully a person at all stages of life in her last year, and what an amazing thing that is to reflect on.

For those who don't know she was born on October 2, 2014 at 1:55am. We had a home-birth and were attended by two mid-wives who did a great job. Being able to witness the delivery like that a very blessed thing.

Woe to those who call evil good

"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20

For just over a decade I was a member of the Anglican Church in Canada, in particular I was in the "Diocese of New Westminster". During this time there was great debate over what the Bible says about homosexuality. Around 2002 there was a split where a lot of the biblical leaders started the process of leaving the diocese including St. John's (with J.I. Packer) among others. This was because the Diocese started to bless homosexual marriage. I myself had to leave this group of churches as I became increasingly uncomfortable with having to be a missionary in my own church, and at annual meetings, and increasingly in conversations with others around the diocese.
Originally when the motion was passed to bless homosexual marriage there was some idea that this wouldn't be pushed onto congregations that were opposed to this.

I went to the website today and I see that this is quickly losing it's own reality. On the main events section they have a new event coming up where they're having a worship service geared towards the gay community, and then they're actively participating in the Vancouver Pride parade. This is why I put the Isaiah verse at the top. They are not only allowing for sin, but now they are celebrating it, and endorsing it. The Bible is clear in showing us God's response to this: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil." If God is saying Woe to you, that is about the most serious thing you can be hearing. I pray my friends who I still have in the Anglican church will head the warning of God in scripture, that they will themselves turn from this clear abandonment of God, and that many more people will leave this "diocese".

I am reminded again of what J. Greshem Machen wrote in his book "Christianity and Liberalism" (penned in the early 20th century). He stated that Liberal Christianity is not another denomination, but it's another religion. And that couldn't be more clear today...

BBC's Bias

I found some fascinating points recently on a BBC news article that had an attached video. The article was about how online bloggers and youtubers are having more and more a say in people's lives. People are not looking to the media outlets as the only way to learn about news and events. Of course this would be bad news for BBC since they and other news outlets want to be the primary source, and sadly they are terribly biased. The majority of news outlets have far reaching left biases. In the video they posted there were images of popular online people and while showing these images they said, "ordinary people who don't have advanced degrees who aren't ordained who can post about their views and gain followers".

Dr. Piper has no degree?

Strangely, while saying this, they posted a picture of John Piper! That is... Dr. John Piper who was an ordained Pastor for decades, who also has a doctorate from Germany, and multiple published volumes.
This is a person without a degree who isn't ordained, and who we shouldn't respect as much because he's posting online?

It's certainly not a big deal as News Outlets make mistakes all the time, but it certainly is ironic that as they criticise online sources and their information that they make such a blatant error in their own compilation.