Friends: In a busy week and even busier New Year, is America heading toward Christian revival with a Third Great Awakening? Is college football a bellwether? 

Have a great week, and may God bless the USA.   Bob

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Spirituality Column #949

January 21, 2025

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Are We Waking Up?

By Bob Walters

“Whoever acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my father in heaven.” Jesus instructing the Disciples, Matthew 10:32

Monday this week is about as busy a single celebratory day in our nation as I can remember: Martin Luther King Day, the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump Round Two, and college football’s championship game, Ohio State vs. Notre Dame.

There is no doubt in my mind that all three comprise – in various corners for various loyalties and opinions – both good news and bad news, celebration and derision, heartfelt joy and seething opposition.

That we are a divided nation is truly nothing new; that the modern legacy media and internet hot takes foment the division should be obvious to all. President Trump is the hottest of hot buttons of current importance. King’s holiday should be about equality and character – that was his dream – but the anti-racism cohort sees only color.  That those who do not love Notre Dame or Ohio State are generally rooting against them is a common reactive dynamic of sustained and envied success.

But I don’t especially want to write about culture, politics, or sports. Everyone can make what they will of MLK, Trump, and the CFP (College Football Playoffs.) Yet, let’s talk about Jesus Christ, because college football is talking about Jesus Christ.

If you haven’t seen it, here is a link to Riley Gaines Barker’s recent public Instagram post, LINK “Something's happening in our county”. She catalogues nine specific nationally televised instanced during post-season bowl coverage of coaches and athletes not just “thanking God” but overtly praying and sharing the Gospel.

It’s one thing when athletes point to heaven or thank God or Jesus for their success.  Innocent enough, I suppose, and there’s no need to judge their hearts or sincerity. But I’ve always wondered: what does that say about their understanding of God’s righteousness? Right relationship with God isn’t about winning football games; He roots for everybody, I think. I’m sure you have your own opinions about that.

Anyway, my great friend and mentor, minister Russ Blowers, used to say, “God loves to see His kids play.” I like that.  People indeed pay attention to sports, and a sincere, clear, and rich gospel statement of thanks not for a win but for one’s life and Christ’s sacrifice is a compelling and far-reaching witness. The Father in heaven smiles.

It wasn’t just Christian Liberty University’s coach sporting a “Jesus Won” t-shirt on the sidelines at the Bahama Bowl.  The link above includes coaches and players from Boise State, Texas, Notre Dame, Arizona State, and Ohio State inserting into their post-game interviews and actions unmissable representation and witness of Jesus.

America’s First and Second Great Awakenings in the 1700s and 1800s lit the fires of Bible truth throughout the nascent Colonies and United States. The 1900s saw the Azuza Street Revival, Billy Sunday, Billy Graham, the Jesus Movement and the growth of huge churches but it was never overall dubbed another “Great Awakening.”

I wonder and pray if right now – when Bible sales are at an all-time high despite polling that suggests overall religious interest is down – may be a ripe time for revival.

College football is certainly awake to the love of Jesus. May our slumber cease.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) admires Riley Gaines Barker’s tenacity and faith.

Spirituality Column #752

April 13, 2021                                             

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Good Work, Atlanta     

By Bob Walters

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.” – Jesus to the doubting disciple Thomas at the Last Supper, John 14:6

If you are into politics, wokeness, election intrigue, corporate globalism, social justice histrionics, and Christian heresy, well, Atlanta, Ga., is the new Babylon for you.

In order to stick to my own strengths, let’s leave out the “politics-to-histrionics” part of the above sentence.  You can form/inform your own opinions about all that by watching whatever newscasts you trust.  I have opinions on them, too, but not truth. 

Anti-biblical heresy, though, let’s deal with that; c’mon into the Truth wheelhouse.

What we know is that on Easter Sunday April 4, churches across America and around the world heard solid sermons, preaching, and praise music glorifying the single most transcendent, transforming event since the Creation of the world – the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  That includes the doctrinally sane churches in Atlanta, too, I’m sure, and will include the worldwide Orthodox Church when it celebrates Easter May 2.

But how a political pastor, now also a U.S. Senator, at what arguably is Atlanta’s most famous and historic Christian congregation – the New Ebenezer Baptist Church – could send out an ecclesial clunker of an anti-biblical social media post on Easter Sunday such as the following presents too great a teaching opportunity to pass up.

On Easter, Senior Pastor/U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock tweeted, and I quote:

“The meaning of Easter is more transcendent than the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Whether you are a Christian or not, through a commitment to helping others we are able to save ourselves.”

No.  Nothing in all human history is more “transcendent” than the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  No.  A commitment to helping others is nice but it is merely “works,” not “salvific” (salvation in Jesus).  No. We cannot save ourselves; only Jesus can do that.

Repeating:

No. “I am the resurrection and the life …” John 11:25-26.

No.  “… not according to our works, but to His own purpose in Christ.” 2 Timothy 1:9

And Hell no. “I am the way and the truth and the life …” John 14:6 (cited above).

I suppose we all are somewhat steeled and inured from (i.e., “used to”) secular persons with public platforms saying stupid and heretical things about Jesus and Christians.  But a pastor?  The Pastor at Martin Luther King’s old church?  I protest.

This pastor/politician’s motives for posting the tweet – and quickly taking it down when the storm of criticism erupted – remain, presumably, between him and his handlers.  No apology, theology, or explanation; the tweet just disappeared.  SMH.

“Transcendent”? Here, must mean “to exist above.” Humans do not “exist above” Jesus. “Christian or not”?  The path to the Father is Jesus Christ, period. “Commitment to helping others”?  Matthew 22:37 says, “love God and love others.” I.e., God counts.  And, what does “save ourselves” even mean? “Save ourselves” to or from what?

Our pastor on Easter made a great point about “graves and gardens,” meaning that Jesus’s grave – our fallen, earthly death – became, on Easter morning, humanity’s “garden” of new life, i.e., God’s promise of salvation in and through Jesus.  It’s the only “garden,” the only heavenly, eternal-life-with-God salvation, any religion preaches.

Save ourselves?  You expect the Christian garden without the Jesus grave?

It doesn’t work that way … for anybody, good works or not.  Faith is the only way.

Redemption and salvation, like justice and truth, are God’s alone.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) apologizes for the glancing blow on politics, adds a hat-tip to E91 pastor Rick Grover for his excellent “Graves & Gardens” Easter sermon, and notes “SMH” is twitter shorthand for “Shaking My Head.”

Spirituality Column #323
January 22, 2013
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

Understanding Christians and Christ
By Bob Walters
Author of (click) Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

May I recommend some holiday reading?

Martin Luther King’s Birthday:  If you’ve never read Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” here it is the weekend of MLK’s birthday observance along with the upcoming 50^th anniversary of this famous treatise (April 16, 1963).  It’s a perfect time to read King’s sincere and instructive presentation of biblical principles to other Christian ministers.  This is not merely a faith-based political polemic; it is a doctrinal letter Christians should read and believers will understand.

King, we all know, was a flawed man.  But too many flawed Christians write off flawed men.  King’s theological argument for his civil disobedience is well stated in this biblically-based human rights manifesto for the ages.  The letter also teaches salient   historical nuggets, such as the reason 1963 was so active in civil rights: it had been 100 years since President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves, and King perceived that very little real civil rights progress had been made.

America’s thinking Christians owe it to themselves to understand King’s biblical motivation and perspective of man’s formation and freedom in the image of God.  Google “MLK Birmingham.”

Presidential Inauguration:  And speaking of mankind’s freedom being formed in the image of God, I’ve recently read Marcelo Pera’s Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians: The Religious Roots of Free Societies.  As America inaugurates a president and tries to find its way as a nation through the seemingly infinite polarization between liberals and conservatives, this Italian philosopher and statesman utterly nails both the philosophy and reality of freedom.  Pera describes the absolute historical necessity of Christianity as a precondition for true political freedom to exist.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote the book’s foreword.  Pera’s highly readable and thoroughly footnoted 161-page work ably explains modern liberal thought, which is almost entirely secular, and how it bears almost no relation to classic liberal thought, which is almost entirely Christian.  This is a great group discussion book.

After Christmas: Have you ever wondered why Jesus was born in a barn?   My elder son Eric gave me (by request) for Christmas Ken Bailey’s 2008 book Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes.  The book clears up many cultural misunderstandings about Jesus.  For example, our Western understanding of the Nativity (Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2) largely misses the reality of what happened in and around Bethlehem.  Bailey taught New Testament studies for 40 years in the Middle East and provides a clear and faith-assuring overview of the biblical Jesus.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) got the tip about the Bailey book from his pastor Rick Grover at E91, who had gotten the tip from Walters’ Wednesday night Bible study teacher George Bebawi.  Funny how life is a circle.