Posted April 03, 2025
Today’s headlines focus on the global stock slide in response to President Trump’s tariffs announcement yesterday, the dismissal of New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ corruption case, and Sen. Corey Booker’s twenty-five-hour-long floor speech opposing Mr. Trump’s policies.
Meanwhile, here’s a story you may have missed: A Lutheran pastor preaching on Jesus’ encounter with Mary and Martha in Luke 10 declared that our Lord got it wrong. In his (very erroneous) interpretation, Jesus’ commendation of Mary for sitting at his feet and listening to his teaching (vv. 39–42) denigrated women, consigned them to silence, and denied them their proper leadership roles.
The pastor offered our Lord a caveat, however: “I really hope that it was the writer Luke who just put it on Jesus’ lips.” (This, of course, raises enormous issues regarding the integrity and authority of Scripture.) But assuming that Jesus spoke these words, the minister declared: “Jesus needed to have his worldview and the purview of his goodness expanded. . . . Jesus needed to learn his lesson and stand corrected.”
He went on to assert that the passage, which he claimed was initially used to silence women, has been employed over the centuries to elevate the importance of theological education and engagement for them.
Then he declared, “Take that Luke, or Jesus, or whoever.”
I would like to tell you that such defamation is unique in our post-Christian world, but it’s not so. The Roman Catholic bishop Robert Barron, in a First Things article titled “It’s Always Open Season on Christianity,” writes: “As surely as the swallows return each spring to Capistrano, so the elite media can be counted on to write pieces debunking Christianity precisely at the holiest time in the Christian calendar.”
In this case, he’s referring to Adam Gopnik’s lengthy New Yorker review of Elaine Pagels’ latest book, Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Miracle of Jesus. Barron notes correctly that Pagels “has been questioning orthodox Christianity for decades.” Gopnik uses her latest skepticism to frame his own, falsely claiming that the Gospel writers “could not have been eyewitnesses” of Jesus and stating that a newspaper report of a post-death Elvis sighting is “at least as reliable as the spotty accounts shared by fervent believers two millennia ago.”
It is therefore unsurprising (though tragic) that Gopnik can assert so boldly: “Jesus, whether a historical figure or not, exists for us only as a literary character in a series of polemical exchanges. Even if he existed, his actual purposes, whatever they might have been, are marginal to the development of Christianity as a religion.” As I read his proclamation, shockingly wrong on the facts of early Christian history, I prayed for him to experience Jesus not as a “literary character” but as our living and saving Lord.
As Barron rightly notes, Gopnik consults and quotes from a plethora of skeptical scholars but mentions not a single authority who would speak for orthodox Christianity. If he sought more objective reporting, he could have consulted N. T. Wright, Ben Witherington III, and a host of other brilliant biblical scholars. But their reasoned support for our faith would have countered the argument he is so intent on making.
Then Barron asks a question I always ask as well when “hit” pieces on Christianity appear at Easter: “Why, I wonder, are there no similar pieces on Islam written during Ramadan?” Can you imagine the furor if the elite media caricatured and castigated Islam as many do the Christian faith?
When you encounter lies in this fallen world, remember their source. Jesus described Satan this way: “When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44, my emphasis). Jesus did not call the devil “a father of lies” but “the father of lies.” The definite article could be translated to show that Satan is “the one and only father of lies.”
Our next question should always be: Why would our enemy lie in this way?
In the case of the Lutheran minister and the New Yorker article, the reason is the same: If the enemy can convince us to question God’s word and character, he opens the door to every other lie he wants us to believe.
In the garden of Eden, he first lied about God’s word: “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’” (Genesis 3:1). This was a falsehood, as the woman explained (vv. 2–3). However, now that he had her attention, he responded, “You will not surely die” (v. 4), claiming that God’s warning was false and his character could not be trusted. Then he could take his third step, promising that if she ate the forbidden fruit “you will be like God” (v. 5).
This is the taxonomy of temptation, from then to today:
Let’s close by applying this discussion to ourselves.
As I noted on Monday, even for Christians “our default position is to rule on the throne of our own lives.” When we sin, we are doubting God’s word by disobeying it: if we really believed it was true and relevant, we would do what it says. And we are doubting God’s character as well: If we really believed that he “never lies” (Titus 1:2) and that he “is” love (1 John 4:8), we would do what he says because he says it.
In a way, our faith makes such sinful decisions easier for us, since we know we can confess our sins later and be forgiven for them (1 John 1:9). What we overlook is the fact that even forgiven sins have tragic consequences in this life and cost us eternal reward in the next (1 Corinthians 3:11–15).
But here’s the good news: God wants to help us trust his word and his character. We can pray, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24 NKJV), and he will answer our prayer.
His Spirit will guide us into “all the truth” (John 16:13) as we submit to him, study Scripture, pray, and listen for his voice. And he will enable us to experience the living Lord Jesus in such a transforming way that we trust his character and obey his will (cf. John 20:24–29).
Such a spiritual movement is occurring these days in remarkable places and ways. Bishop Barron can therefore close his article with this good news: “Even as Pagels and Gopnik trot out tired old arguments, Christianity is experiencing a rather surprising revival in the West, especially among young people. In that, I find a good deal of Easter hope.”
Let’s claim and experience this “Easter hope” together, to the glory of God.
“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.” —G. K. Chesterton
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