Christianity Today

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Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Today's show is on why we love

Amish romances. Well, I love them because, you know what? To me, the Amish, that's a very repressive society, and so it's so, it's kind of forbidden, but sort of heartwarming at the same time.

Steve, could you please tell me, in your professional opinion, why the recent rise in Amish fiction?

Well, you know, I've been studying this for quite some time, and in my view, the Amish culture, as inhibited as it is, well, it just shows, demonstrates a certain frivolity.

I know. I'm looking at Christianity Today in this article called,

Why We Love Amish Romances, subtitled, In Our Brave, Liberated New World, More American Evangelical Readers Are Seeking Freedom in the

Old Order. Now, I wonder what Greg Allison would say about that. This guy,

Eric Miller, said, Stories of girls sweating Julys away in layers of dark fabric, boys fumbling for words behind trotting horses, have entranced us by the tens of thousands.

Now, I wanna know, have you ever read an Amish romance book? I must confess, the answer would be no. Well, then you don't really, you can't critique it, because if you haven't read it, you don't have a leg to stand on.

That's funny, that's what I hear about the new Rob Bell book all the time. So, if I haven't read an

Amish romance, you know what, I guess Amish romances are probably better than non -Amish romances, because there's probably some, you know, they're probably morally somewhat upright, right?

Well, there's probably not all the horrible graphic stuff going on with these other romances with those guys.

I don't even know how you describe the covers of some of these romance books. I know romance books are big, but I just was looking at this, why we love

Amish romances. Just in general, how should the Christian think about reading and then reading romance books?

Could there be a problem? Well, I'm just looking at some covers here. Sure, there could be a problem, because, oh, look at that, visit amishliving .com

to download a free sample chapter of Plain Proposal and Experience a Taste of the

Simple Life. Love all things Amish, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, what people don't, you know, really kind of maybe think about when it comes to the

Amish is, you know, it's just basically a very legalistic society.

We're gonna prove our holiness by adhering to a set of rules. There's nothing good about that. You know,

I mean, it seems romantic, but it's a bunch of nonsense. And, you know, it really gets down to good, better, best.

And, you know, the best thing you could do is read good theological books.

You know, that would be the best. Are these the worst things in the world? No, but I mean, I guess they're better than People magazine and, you know,

National Enquirer and the trashy stuff that a lot of people read. When I fly, Steve, I'll get on the airplane and there'll be someone sitting there, you know, man or woman, and they look dressed professionally.

And you think, oh, you know, that's probably a nice Hugo Boss suit or some Armani dress or something.

And they look all professional. I think, you know, they've got it going on and they're flying someplace to do their business.

And then they sit down and they open up their briefcase and out comes us, our people, our

National Enquirer magazine. And I'm telling you, I think differently about that person after they do that.

It sort of lets the air out of the balloon, doesn't it? Now, it takes a little luster. We live fairly close to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, not that many hour drive away, maybe five hours or something like that, four hours.

And Steve, I get the feeling of let's simplify life. Is there anything wrong with that?

Let's be more simple in life. No, I mean, I think a lot of us get a little frazzled with all the technology and all the,

I mean, it is pretty hard to have any peace and quiet these days. So when we look at, you know, these things, they do have a certain appeal.

And the thing is, simple life is good. But what evangelicals do, and I have two homeschool kids and two public school kids, so I'm an equal opportunity basher, by the way.

And I used to have some kids in private school. Yeah, so bash away. But I gave them away. I find that the homeschool folks, homeschool mentality, they are drawn to simple often, and that's not wrong, but they're also drawn to this

Amish style of life. And so my big problem is not necessarily Amish romances. I don't know why married people read these kind of books.

I don't know how they have enough time. And if you're going to read this versus pornography, of course, this is better.

But my big problem is they drink so much of this insti, they imbibe it all, that they think

Amish theology then is good and right when it's moralistic, therapeutic, deism, law -keeping.

Right, I mean, there's nothing salvific about the Amish lifestyle.

I mean, there really isn't. And to me, it's just like, why does anybody read this and why do so many, why do they sell so many copies of this kind of book?

And I think it just basically comes down to there's a certain group of women that really long to have romance in their lives, and this is a safe way of getting it.

Maybe a better way would be through their husbands. I don't know, call me old -fashioned. But it's interesting,

Steve. I think husbands should be more romantic, and that is their job as the leader in that area of their life, to lead in romance.

But I think our culture today has pretty much said, guys are doofuses.

Guys are not going to do anything right. They're never romantic, and so therefore, they're just dumb.

Well, I think ladies, can't they contribute to romance in marriage? Absolutely, absolutely.

But in the same token, what does society tell us about married women? That they're just not that attractive anymore, and it's this,

I mean, they basically push the same way, I mean, you could almost use the same rationalization for men in pornography.

I mean, I'm not doing that, but I'm saying there's kind of the same sort of, well, you're not going to be satisfied any other way, and this is kind of what they're pushing with these

Amish novels. You can't get, you can't really have romantic satisfaction within the bounds of your marriage, so you have to read these books, and that's just,

I mean, it's a lie on so many fronts, it's not even funny. I mean, A, nobody lives like this.

Life is not, I don't know how to tell you this, but life is not a romance novel. You tell me this or you tell the listeners this? Well, I'm telling the listeners this.

Well, I, you know, for you, you know, because I do go through your stack of Amish novels from time to time.

Well, you know what, you can borrow them anytime you'd like. I just, they're all in alphabetical order, so please, please, yes, yes.

Yeah, but I mean, if the first word of all the titles is Amish, how much good is alphabetical? We have to alphabetize by last name.

Well, Steve, you know, of course loyalty's good, fidelity's good. God graces people, even unbelievers, in such a way that there can be honesty and loyalty, and you know, you love your parents, and you can have romantic love with other people.

My big problem is these end up proselytizing evangelicals and drawing them away from justification by faith alone, a topic that 99 % of Amish people have no clue about.

They don't understand, they're so far away from the Reformed doctrine, they don't believe in the doctrines of grace.

Now, that doesn't mean they're not Christians, but most Amish people aren't Christians for other reasons, and that is they don't see the all -out trust and knowledge and assent of Christ's great substitutionary atonement, plus zero works, because it's a works -based environment.

Yeah, I mean, what would you say, ultimately, the Amish way of life, what are they submitting themselves to?

Are they submitting to Christ, or are they submitting to a series of rules and regulations? And show me someone who deviates from justification, free grace,

God's distinguishing, electing, sovereign grace, and I'll show you a bunch of people who have rules, and then you have more rules and more rules and more rules.

You can't use machinery. Yeah, and so, yeah, it's like being in Jerusalem and being on the

Sabbath and Shabbat, and you can't use money because it's a work, but you can use a credit card.

Nice, or you can't go up an elevator. Well, you can go up the elevator, but you can't push the buttons to make it go up or down, because that's work.

They're all pushed, that's right. When I meet somebody who's Amish, which isn't very often, by the way. Really? Yeah, I've been there once, but I didn't meet too many people.

I would never say, oh, these are like Baptist, Presbyterians, and Amish. They're part of the group.

Of course, there are Amish people who are Christians, but they're not good Amish people, because they're born again in spite of what the

Amish doctrine teaches. It's the same thing. There are Catholics who are born again, but not because of what the

Vatican teaches, not because of what the Pope teaches. It's in spite of that, and so, oh, you know what just popped in my mind,

Steve? Do you know what Amish rumspringa is? Amish rumspringa,

I don't know, but I think if you have about three cups of it, you're done. You don't want to drive after you've had two cups.

Believe me, it's pungent. Rumspringa is the doctrine in the Amish areas where when the kid becomes,

I don't know what the age is, 16, 17? Yeah, I was going to say 16, 17. And then you just let them go, and let them imbibe the world, drink down the world in all its splendor, as it were.

Sadly, it's not splendor. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, whatever they want to do, and then if they say no to premarital sex, drugs, rock and roll, whatever the scene is, living together, if they say no to that and come back to the

Amish way, they got it out of their system, and they know it's best. Well, that's what I meant.

They're ultimately submitting to a series of rules and regulations, a way of life, and it can be with or without Christ, but for them, that's not the ultimate issue.

The ultimate issue is will you live by our rules, and that's not Christianity. Well, if you're reading romance novels as a

Christian, I'm not going to say it's sin. May I just encourage you to every five romance novels you read, would you read one good biblical theology book?

Why don't you start with The Attributes of God by Pink? And I think that will help you. You have free time, you'd like to read romance novels that are

Christian. Okay, I have free time, I like to go on a bike ride. We aren't now trying to be legalist, are we?

No, no. I mean, you can even eat a bonbon or two while you're - On your bike.

While you're reading your Amish romance novels. I noticed that the article said the 20 -something evangelical hipsters are reading

Wendell Berry. So now, you've got the young Christian hipsters like to read this kind of stuff.

Mm, that doesn't sound very hip. You're listening to No Compromise Radio. My name's Mike Abendroth. Steve Cooley is in the house today, and we're talking about some

Christian topics in Christianity Today. Steve, what else do you have there in that Christianity Today?

Well, you know, while we're talking about the Amish lifestyle, just this quote just kind of knocked me back a little bit.

This is from a woman who wrote in to Christianity Today. She says this, we have done a number of marriage classes and Sunday school classes and always feel like freaks.

They, meaning these classes, don't describe us and our desires and needs.

This woman was explaining how she and her husband fit to, or struggled to fit the expectations designated by gender.

In other words, when they hear what the Bible says, it makes them feel like freaks. And I don't,

I just, I don't understand that except for this, from this perspective. Listen, if the

Bible says, wives submit to your husbands, well, that's difficult. If the

Bible says, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church, that's difficult. But that shouldn't make you feel like a freak.

That should just be like, oh yeah, I know I need to excel at that. I know I'm not doing all that I can, you know, but by the grace of God, I want to improve.

Well, let's face it. The Bible says all kinds of things that unless you're born again, you're going to have trouble with. And I don't know why evangelicals are so surprised that, you know,

Margaret Sanger or someone wouldn't like what the Bible teaches. And it's God, the creator, speaking to the creature and they don't like it.

Steve, the other day, I was reading Sinclair Ferguson's book on the Holy Spirit and he described repentance as something like this.

This is not an exact quote, but close. Repentance is the person understanding that he's more of a, that he is a creature before the almighty creator.

That's right. Isn't that what repentance is? We're creatures. And if God says, husbands love your wives like Christ loved the church, then my response should be as a redeemed person, yes, and thank you for forgiving me for all the times that I didn't.

Yeah, I think our tendency as creatures is to forget the creature, creator, the difference there and to just presume or to go through our life as if we are the creator, as if we are the boss, as if we are in fact

God. Steve, in Christianity Today, there's a little article about the man who's a

Christian and he's on Survivor, Matt Elrod. And there's a whole article about Matt Elrod the 22 -year -old pre -med student.

But what struck me most in this article, Redemption Island, it's called Survivor Redemption Island. And there's a local church that just did a series, a mini series on Redemption Island because here we have, that's your sermon series.

What do you think of churches that will take this pop culture, hey, Survivor Redemption Island, and now let's have a sermon series?

Well, I think it's a great way to grow the church. I think if you really wanna pack them in, this is the kind of thing to do.

And then you, what, I guess vote some of the deacons and elders off each week and...

Send them to Redemption Island. That's exactly right. That is interesting. I like that concept.

I don't like it when churches assume the congregants are stupid, backward, lame, and non -motivated to study the

Bible. Now, some are, some pastors are. But I don't really wanna be, if I'm a congregant,

I don't wanna be treated like a baby. And by the way, Christians are so old anyway in their trends, observing their trends, that wasn't,

Survivor was not big anymore. I know it's still on, but it was big 10 years ago. So Christians are a day late and a dollar short now doing

Redemption Island. What are they gonna do next? All in the family, Chrisagas?

Christian Idol. Yeah, you know that's happening places. You know what really, what

I find disturbing about that, though, is if I was in the congregation, I'd be thinking, I would be upset because they are presuming that everyone who comes every

Sunday is a Christian. We just had our Resurrection Sunday here not too long ago.

And correct me if I'm wrong, we had two services. We had an early service and then a slightly less early service. The gospel was preached at both.

Why would that be? Why would we bother to preach the gospel? I mean, if the idea is it's okay to have

Redemption Island and to do a little play and a little drama and all that, why would we bother on Easter Sunday to preach the gospel to anyone?

Because the presumption should be that everybody who comes to church is a Christian, right? You should see

Steve's face. By the way, you know what, Steve? I need to post your picture at NoCompromiseRadio .com. I think that's a very bad idea.

Because then when people see your face, they'll go, the voice doesn't match the face. That's correct.

That's what they will say. Can we just put Brad Pitt's picture on there? You know what?

We could morph it a little bit and then I could put Mr. T's body. Nice. Mr.

T. I was at a basketball game, the Clippers game one day, and I walked past a guy. He was probably a foot shorter than I was and almost bumped into him and it was

Mr. T. I pity the fool. I pity the poor fool. We preach the gospel to Christians.

We preach the gospel to unbelievers. And we really, here's my philosophy,

Steve. The Bible's not boring because God isn't boring. If God is boring, then we've got a major problem.

And so, I mean, how are you gonna help God if he's boring? What kind of props can

I give the creator? He needs a makeover. Yeah. And so, since God isn't boring, his word isn't boring, and so then

I'm going to get up and preach his non -boring word, his exciting word, the drama of redemption.

And if I'm excited about it, I think the people get excited about it too, and I don't have to stoop down to celebrity evangelical apprentice series.

Well, I think you hit the nail on the head because the presumption is, if you're gonna do Redemption Island or anything else, you're saying, well, people will be bored if we just preach the

Bible. So we gotta spice it up a little bit. We gotta give them something that they'll really enjoy and that they'll come back for.

And it betrays the fact that they really think the Bible is boring, that it is irrelevant, that they have to put all these crutches.

That's exactly right. But Steve, back to celebrity evangelical apprentice. Let's do that. I wonder if it'll sell. We could have

Francis Chan and Mark Driscoll and Martha Peace and some other people, and then you could be the

Don. Can I be Donald Trump? Uh -huh, and you could fire him. Yeah, because that's what I'll say. And I have to say, you're fired.

You're a good person. I like your cause. I really respect you in lots of areas, but you're fired.

I really like your book, even though it's chock -full of heresy. Let's talk about Donald Trump for a minute on No Compromise Radio.

Yeah, okay. I don't know what his position is on certain social aspects, but how should a

Christian perceive the Don? The Donald? Well, I mean, just think about him.

He's humble, certainly. You'd have to say that. Yeah, okay. Self -effacing. You know, he's somebody who definitely,

I mean, I was surprised to hear, it was maybe about a week ago, that he's a Christian. I know he is because he said so.

It's interesting that he's now talking about the Bible, and he goes to some Presbyterian church on occasion in Manhattan, and that he said when people give him

Bibles, because many people do, that he treasures them so much he keeps them. Yeah, he keeps them. In a storage unit.

Yeah, but I mean, he has, I guess it sounds like a good number of Bibles. I'm just like, hmm, well, that's impressive, but hmm, how should we take him?

Well, I think, you know, here's my philosophy, when, you know, if you're talking about anybody who's running for president or anything else, we're not electing a theologian -in -chief.

I mean, if I have to wait till somebody who agrees with me about the Bible runs, I'm gonna have to run for president, and that's probably not what

I'm gonna be doing anytime soon. Well, that's true, and I was just thinking about Mitt Romney. Yeah. He probably says he agrees with us.

Well, you know, hey, Mitt, if you're out there, we'd like to talk to you. You can just call us at, what's our phone number? 1 -800 -NoCompromise.

No. 1 -800. How about this,

Steve, on Christianity Today and the Magazine of Evangelical Conviction. April 19th, 2011,

Tim Keller and T .D. Jakes are among Obama's prayer breakfast guests.

Yeah, I saw that. I did see that, and you know, I don't, I mean,

T .D. Jakes, obviously, is not, he's not even a

Christian. He doesn't hold to. Come on, the Trinity, just a small thing. Yeah, he's a Oneness Pentecostal, so when you don't believe in the

Trinity, it's pretty hard to pass yourself off as a Christian. Tim Keller, Redeemer Press in New York.

You know, he's written some interesting things. I don't really, I don't have that much of an opinion about him, but I just find it interesting that those men would go to an

Easter prayer breakfast with someone who, I mean, if you read the text of what the president said, you might really actually think that he's a

Christian. Isn't it interesting how people know how to talk when it comes to Christianity?

But I'm more interested in the foods that they had there. They had mini yogurt parfaits, muffins, bagels, and they also heard a prayer from Episcopalian Bishop Vashti McKenzie and Reverend Sharon Watkins.

Yeah, and I think that Vashti person, I don't think that's a man, by the way. I think it was, if I recall correctly, it was like something, something, and then

I read she did this or whatever it was. Oh, well, Obama read Isaiah 53, five, and then he said, this amazing grace calls me to pray.

It calls me to ask God for forgiveness for the times that I've not shown grace to others, those times that I've fallen short.

It calls me to praise God for the gift of his son and our Savior.

Well, I mean, like I said, you know, if you just, if you did not know anything else and you were just taking that on face value, you'd have to say, well, he must be a

Christian. Well, that's true. I mean, in a vacuum, that's what that would be, right?

I mean, just ignore kind of the whole abortion thing and some other matters.

But again, I just think when you're talking about politics, church versus state, et cetera, et cetera, and I just think we don't elect a theologian.

We don't get to pick from the reformed Presbyterian and the reformed Baptist. Those aren't the people running for president.

I thought Donald Trump was. I thought he was OPC. Well, I don't know what kind of Presbyterian church it is.

All I know is he goes, well, you know, I don't go to church as often as I should, but I'm busy. And I'm like, okay, yeah.

Well, in the last two minutes, let's talk to people who are listening today who are too busy for church.

There are people, I'm sure, driving, listening, iPod -ing. They don't find time for church.

What advice would you give them? Can I be blunt? This is no compromise. Stop being selfish.

I mean, if you think, well, you know, church, I'll get there when

I get there, then you're not prioritizing the Lord's Day, first of all. You're not prioritizing the other people in that church because the

Holy Spirit has gifted you with certain gifts and you could be serving and employing them at the local church, so you're failing to do that.

You may even be kidding yourself about whether you're a Christian or not, because the Bible is very clear in 1

John that Christians want to be around other Christians. They love the brethren. Well, Hebrews chapter 10 talks about not forsaking the assembly as well, and when

Christians symbol, when Christians symbol, some semblance of order, when

Christians gather together, you should be there, and you don't get saved by going to church, but if you never go to church, then

I would ask you the question, how can you call yourself a Christian when you don't do, as Steve said, the one another's worshiping

Christ? You don't even go to church to get anyway. You do get as a byproduct, but aren't you going there to give? I don't think

I want to go give praise today to the Creator. Yeah, I don't have time for that, or it's a beautiful day,

I'd rather go golfing, or well, we've got this outing planned, six flags, eight flags, whatever.

It's just the kind of thing where, what are your priorities? Well, I've got great tickets for the

Red Sox game. Awesome, but what about the Lord and Savior who bought you with a price?

I did go to the Patriots game last year. On a Saturday? On a Monday night.

On a Monday night, okay. Well, today we've talked about a potpourri of things. Can I just say one more thing about?

Yes, you, please. Here's another thing, if you do go to church, sing. I just hate it when people sit there and they won't sing, and I go, if you can't sing the praises of God, then you need a check up from the neck up.

As Sinclair Ferguson said, sing like you're holding the hymnal of Jesus. Yeah, I mean, if the

Lord were present, you wouldn't be sitting there with your lips fastened tightly, so. No more lips pursed ministry.

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