Lighthouse Faith

If you're not exactly sure what Christian Nationalism is, just keep watching or reading mainstream media outlets and you'll learn a lot of negative things about it, and by default, Christianity. What's clear is that it's a term meant to evoke fear and loathing. In fact, the majority of people who've heard of Christian Nationalism see it as something negative. Why is that? Because it's primarily a term liberals wield in order to marginalize conservative Christians who are pro-life, support traditional marriage and gender roles and love America. On this episode of Lighthouse Faith podcast, author and radio host Kevin McCullough speaks frankly about how liberals and some left-leaning Christians are using the term to set up the proverbial political bogey man, in order to 'cancel' those who use their faith to defend life and family, and that they're trying to change the narrative about what it means to be Christian. McCullough also has a lot to say about the need to push back against the transgender movement. The country is at a crossroads. Though it is still possible to raise a voice in opposition, McCullough warns that freedom is precariously unstable.

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While Disney is embroiled in the culture wars and litigation with the state of Florida, another entertainment alternative is coming into its own; one that holds to the foundational faith values that built America, perhaps the values the Disney brand used to have. It's called The Logos Theater. And it's not just stage productions, but also a film studio and a conservatory that's part of its umbrella organization, The Academy of the Arts based in Taylor, South Carolina. Logos is Greek for 'Word'. Theologically its meaning is far richer and deeper. Logos is The "Principle of divine reason and creative order, identified in the gospel of John with the second person of the Trinity incarnate in Jesus Christ." When John's Gospel opens with, "In the beginning was the Word..." it's actually the Logos. Not just God's Word, but His "Created order". The stage productions include larger than life puppets they create, like Aslan, the Lion from C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." There are horses that can be ridden for their production of "A Horse and His Boy", which will be on stage at the Museum of the Bible in Washington. D.C. this summer. And a scary figure known as "Dark Despair" from "Pilgrim's Progress". On this episode of Lighthouse Faith podcast, listen to the theater's artistic director Nicole Stratton and Master Puppeteer Justin Swain talk passionately about this ministry in the arts they believe God has raised for such a time as this.

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No disrespect to the Pew organization, but Reverend Samuel Rodriguez insists its numbers don't tell the whole story. Pew recently released its survey on the changing faith of Hispanics in the nation, the largest minority group in the United States. As of 2022, Pew shows that 43 percent of adults identify as Catholic, a drop of 24 percent from 2010. And the number of religiously unaffiliated rose to 30 percent, up from 10 percent in 2010. What's going on here? Rodriguez, the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, the world's largest Christian Hispanic organization, says 'unaffiliated' in the Hispanic community does not mean not religious. The very opposite says Rodriguez: "We are a passionate Holy Spirit community, loving Jesus, either Catholic or evangelical or holding on to faith. And we don't like the term affiliation! There it is". On this episode of Lighthouse Faith podcast, Rodriguez has a lot more to say about the Pew survey, and also immigration, how Hispanics are voting Republican by nearly 45 percent, that they are pro-life, pro-family, and pro-traditional values when it comes to gender. Rodriguez has advised Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump, and frequently consults with Congress advancing immigration and criminal justice reform. He can fill in the blanks left open by many a survey about the Hispanic community in America.

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The increased attacks on churches and Christians are just the latest chapters in a long narrative of Christian persecution. While the Roman Empire brutally tortured, maimed and slaughtered the first Christian believers, Christians today are being maligned and massacred for much the same reason, because they will not renounce their faith in Jesus Christ. Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world today, with a third of the 2.5 billion Christians living in dangerous conditions. Even in America the plight of strong believers is precarious as legal cases against those standing up for their faith mount. And, unbelievably, where a White House press secretary could not call the shooting at Covenant School in Nashville a hate crime, even if the shooter's manifesto might reveal a hatred for Christians. But the Good News of the Gospel is that it's a Church that grows not in spite of prosecution, but because of it. On this episode of Lighthouse Faith podcast, Rev. Johnnie Moore talks about his book, "The New Book of Christian Martyrs," which details the harrowing and gruesome attacks on Christians since the dawn of Christianity, while talking about the more recent cases that go unnoticed as persecution, like the Columbine High School shooting. Also, Moore says one of the main governmental forces against Christianity today is not in Muslim majority countries, but Communist regimes. And China is its most virulent opponent. Moore says President Xi hates Christianity and is persecuting believers. But the end result is that Christianity is growing in China, and Moore predicts its conversion in the next few decades.

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Holy Week is the most sacred time in Christianity. Palm Sunday to the victory of Easter seven days later, is what defines the faith. There is no Christian religion without the resurrection of Jesus. And there is no resurrection without His crucifixion, and no crucifixion without understanding why, just a few days before his arrest, Jesus was hailed as a hero when he entered Jerusalem with throngs waving palms and shouting hosannahs. Biblical scholar Dr. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, says what Jesus did just a few miles from Jerusalem is key to understanding Palm Sunday and the entirety of the week. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, it thrust into high gear, the political forces that would have him Jesus executed. On this episode of Lighthouse Faith podcast, Constantinou, who is an expert on ancient Jewish and Roman law, shares her insights from her book, "The Crucifixion of the King of Glory." She says, "It says in the Scriptures, John tells us that it's because of the raising of Lazarus that Jesus received this kind of welcome as he entered into Jerusalem. And when he gets hailed... as the Messiah, which had a lot of political overtones in those days, this is when the Jewish leaders said, 'You see the whole world is going after him. We have to do something about it. We have to stop him.'" Constantinou is Greek Orthodox, what she says is the oldest continuous Christian church. Catholics make that claim too, but Catholicism has changed quite a bit over the centuries. The Orthodox, even in America, still hear New Testament Scripture chanted in Greek, its original language. That tie to the first century culture makes Constantinou's take on Holy Week unique. She has six degrees including one in law. Her scholarly insights are scarcely found anywhere else.

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The transgender phenomenon is fast becoming the concern of parents worldwide, and a big problem is that those who question its validity get labeled transphobic, especially if they're a conservative Christian. The shooting in Nashville, TN has even furthered the debate, as the shooter identified as trans. The controversy has pitted supporters of puberty blockers and cross sex hormones against those who call those drugs dangerous and believe that gender is immutable. Now stepping into the fray, is Dr. Jeff Myers, head of Summit Ministries. His new book, co-authored by Brandon Showalter of The Christian Post, endeavors to expose the truth. On the Lighthouse Faith podcast, Myers talks about "Exposing The Gender Lie: How To Protect Children and Teens From The Transgender Industry's False Ideology." Myers says a growing number of teens are "finding their bodies irreversibly disfigured due to radically invasive and medically unnecessary surgeries." He says the puberty blocker Lupron is not even approved by the FDA for treatment of Gender Dysphoria, which according to Abigail Shrier, author of "Irreversible Damage", is a mental health problem that up until 2007 or so, affected about .01% of teens. The explosion of teen girls experiencing gender dysphoria has been called a social contagion, the same origin of the growth of anorexia and bulimia. Bottom line, says Myers, is Gender Dysphoria is a mental health problem that's being treated with surgery, permanently disfiguring a perfectly healthy teenage body.

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Even geniuses need nurturing; people who say the right thing at the right time to a developing mind, that brings about their incredible awe-inspiring insight. So it is with the theological wisdom and intellect of Dr. Timothy Keller, one of the most well-known Christian pastors and authors in the country and some would say in the world. He's the retired senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, a congregation he founded in the late 1980's when the Big Apple was known as one of the most secular -even pagan- cities in America. Under his guidance the church grew to mega-church size with four locations in Manhattan. Keller's specialty was and is tackling the hard questions and objections that atheists, agnostics, and even nominal Christians ask about Jesus Christ and Christianity. So it's fitting that the first real biography of Keller would focus mainly on the people who created him: the theologians, Bible scholars, teachers, pastors and deep thinkers. On this episode of Lighthouse Faith podcast, author Collin Hansen talks about his book, "Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation." Hansen had an all-access pass to Keller's inner circle, and Keller himself, as he talks about his early upbringing and spiritual polemics that brought him to see, believe and preach to thousands that, "The resurrection of Jesus Christ is intellectually credible and existentially satisfying."

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It has been well documented that Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world. Open Doors International has all the statistics showing how the lives of Christians in countries like North Korea, Nigeria and several Muslim majority nations are under constant threat. However, in Western countries like here in the United States, there's a different kind of persecution taking place. They're the same "spiritual forces of evil" at work, but under the guise of political, legal and cultural challenges. Dr. James Spencer, President of the D.L. Moody Center, warns that we are now living out George Orwell's 1984. That Christians in the West are being controlled not by external forces, but by being lulled into accepting ideas that are in fact counter to God, not by conscious choice but by the slow "reorientation of one's beliefs". Those that resist, like Jack Philips the cake baker, and the Mid-Vermont Christian School, or little Lydia Booth who just wanted to tell her classmates about Jesus, they've become the problem. On this episode of Lighthouse Faith podcast, Dr. Spencer talks about his book "Christian Resistance: Learning to Defy the World and Follow Christ." He brings up Orwell's 1984 because a big part of the subversion of real Christianity in the culture is how Big Brother seeks to control language. And we certainly see this in the transgender movement's obsession with pronouns. It also helps explain why a politician who calls himself a devout Catholic could advocate for abortion on demand. Resistance takes effort. But more than that, it takes knowledge of what you're up against.

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When it comes to the issue of gender, how do you talk to your young children? How do you push back against the tide of wokeness and indoctrination going on in public schools? Bethany Bomberger asserts that, "We as Christians don't have the luxury of being silent." She and husband Ryan have made it easier for Christian parents to reinforce their beliefs about what it means to be male or female. Their new book, "She Is She", is an illustrated children's book tackling the difficult subject of gender, in a simple and direct way. On this episode of Lighthouse Faith podcast, the Bombergers talks about how the book shows what the culture has taught for centuries about gender, what the Bible says about gender, and also what science says about gender, as it constantly reinforces biblical truths. The Bombergers are the creators of the Radiance Foundation, a faith-based pro-life organization working to educate the culture on life shaping issues. The conflict over gender has become one of the most pressing they've had to address. They've spent a lot of time in School Board meetings in Loudoun Country, Virginia, one of countless school districts in the country that see it their duty to hide a student's gender status from parents. Bethany says, "We don't have the luxury of just being bulldozed by an industry that is targeting our kids at younger and younger ages."

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No matter what your professed faith is, it has to be lived out through relationships. It's unavoidable. Faith without interaction with other image bearers will inevitably be weak. But it's in our most intimate and close relationships that we are tested and tried to our very limits. And the most intimate bond we have here on earth is marriage. But what happens when the person you promised to be with till death, reneges on so many of the assurances he or she vowed on that altar? When is divorce the only alternative? Best-selling Chrisitan author Lysa TerKeurst has bared her soul in her books, that bring to light our greatest wants and our greatest needs. She's been frank and open about her divorce from the man who just a few years ago, she renewed vows with after the union of two decades went sour. TerKeurst learns from experience, which is why she is a valuable spiritual guide for both men and women. On this episode of Lighthouse Faith podcast, TerKeurst talks about her book, "Good Boundaries and Goodbyes: Loving Others Without Losing the Best of Who You Are". Love is complicated. It's the one lesson any spouse or parent learns, oftentimes, the hard way. And loving someone in a godly way is the most difficult. It's also potentially the most painful. But it can also bring us closer to understanding who we are, while strengthening and loving who we are meant to be.

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