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It's Saturday, January 20, 2024.

Today’s edition covers a Christian senator’s proposals in Oklahoma, stats suggesting conservative Protestants have better sex, the foundation of all knowledge, and more.

Your weekly helping of knowledge, hot off the griddle. ♨️

Of Christian Concern

OKLAHOMA STATE SENATOR DUSTY DEEVERS PROPOSES LANDMARK BILLS

Photo: Oklahoma Senate

Pastor and newly elected Oklahoma state senator Dusty Deevers proposed a number of bold socially conservative bills to the state senate this week. Deevers, who garnered national attention for his campaign and upset win in a special election last month, told Republic Sentinel the bills “would do what I said I would do.”

The proposed measures, the news site reports, are “meant to abolish abortion, repeal no-fault divorce, and ban pornography, as well as introduce a crackdown on false testimony with respect to crimes, reform election laws, eliminate state income taxes, provide a grocery tax rebate, and create electronic access for transactional gold.”

Learn more here.

“CONSERVATIVE PROTESTANTS HAVE BETTER SEX,” NANCY PEARCEY REPORTS

Photo: cottonbro studio

“Conservative Protestants have better sex,” acclaimed Christian author Nancy Pearcey posted on Sunday. Citing an article about Rodney Starks’s 2013 book America's Blessings: How Religion Benefits Everyone, Including Atheists, the post offers a handful of statistics to support the claim.

Among those polled, conservative Protestants reported having sex most often, while liberal Protestants reported least often. Conservative Protestant women were far more likely to be “extremely” satisfied with their sex life both physically and emotionally, while the irreligious were least likely.

Pearcey quotes Starks: “Religiousness does delay premarital sex, but without any of the lasting repressive effects proclaimed by so many sexperts. . . . [R]eligious Americans, especially women, have sex more often, more reliably achieve orgasms, and express greater emotional and physical satisfaction with sex.”

In response to a skeptic in the comments quizzing her on her motivations for the post, Pearcey writes, “One way to test a truth claim is whether it fits the real world. There is a proper kind of pragmatic test. If something is true, it should work because it fits the contours of reality. So it's worth noting when Christianity works better in the real world.”

Also Noteworthy

→ “1 in 7 Christians are persecuted worldwide,” Open Doors reports in their new World Watch List 2024. In Africa, the number goes up to 1 in 5, and in Asia it goes up further to 2 in 5.

→ Pastor Gavin Ortlund sparked controversy among Christians online this week with a video arguing that Noah’s flood was local, not global.

→ More Christians use AI in their work than non-Christians, Barna Group finds in a new study.

→ Famed preacher Alistair Begg scandalized many this week with comments that surfaced from a September interview in which he recounted advising a woman to attend her grandson’s transgender wedding.

→ “LA's First Christian Nightclub” was launched last month in North Hollywood as a venue for believers to come together “to praise God through dance, music and fellowship.”

New Article

The fact that you know anything proves God exists. Is that a bold claim? I make the case in this latest installment on my blog. —Anthony Langer

Read it

The Bible, Briefly

The Foundation of Knowledge (Part1)

Photo: Mstudio

There is no knowledge apart from God.

That may come across as an astonishing statement, when so many of our society’s sources of knowledge profess to be secular. Don’t unbelievers know things? How, then, can there be no knowledge apart from God?

Consider the following Bible verses. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul writes that Christ is the one “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). In Proverbs, it says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7), and “the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding…” (Proverbs 2:6). In 1 Samuel, Hannah prays, “the LORD is a God of knowledge” (1 Samuel 2:3), and in the book of Psalms, David tells God in poetic terms, “in your light do we see light” (Psalm 36:9).

What can we gather from all this? According to the Bible, God is the foundation of knowledge. If it’s in His “light” that “we see light,” then we cannot see light apart from His light. In other words, God’s knowledge is the source of our knowledge, without exception. This necessarily includes “secular” knowledge, not only knowledge of the things of God.

Another psalmist is even more direct when he calls God “He who teaches man knowledge” (Psalm 94:10). One implication of that description is that everything we know, we only know because God taught it to us.

So, again, what about unbelievers? How do they—since they’re apart from God—know anything, if there’s no knowledge apart from God?

Having laid the groundwork (the foundation!) here, we’ll answer that question next week.

Church History Tidbit

St. Bernard On Loving

Bernard of Clairvaux from A Short History of Monks and Monasteries by Alfred Wesley Wishart (1865-1933). (Public Domain)

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), the Christian History Institute reports, “is remembered at least as much for his compelling spiritual writings as his theology.” A noble-born Frenchman, Bernard became a monk in the new monastic movement of the Cistercians.

He rose to prominence and was deeply “involved in papal politics,” as well in “promoting the second crusade”—a fact that reflects “how easily medieval Christians combined profound spirituality with wars of conquest.” Bernard also petitioned against Peter Abelard’s theology of atonement, resulting in its condemnation. (As an aside, see here for a comparison of Bernard’s monasticism and Abelard’s scholasticism, by former Pope Benedict XVI.)

Here’s a short, challenging excerpt from Bernard’s famous book On Loving God, a work of spiritual contemplation that he wrote in response to questions from another church leader.*

Love is one of the four natural affections… And because love is natural, it is only right to love the Author of nature first of all. Hence comes the first and great commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God” [Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37-39]. But nature is so frail and weak that necessity compels her to love herself first; and this is carnal love, wherewith man loves himself first and selfishly, as it is written, “That was not first which is spiritual but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual” [1 Corinthians 15:46].

This is not as the precept ordains but as nature directs: “No man ever yet hated his own flesh” [Ephesians 5:29]. But if, as is likely, this same love should grow excessive…then a command checks the flood, as if by a dike: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” [Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:37-39]. And this is right: for he who shares our nature should share our love, itself the fruit of nature. Wherefore if a man find it a burden, I will not say only to relieve his brother's needs, but to minister to his brother's pleasures, let him mortify those same affections in himself, lest he become a transgressor. He may cherish himself as tenderly as he chooses, if only he remembers to show the same indulgence to his neighbor.

__________

*“On Loving God by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux,” enotes, https://www.enotes.com/topics/loving-god.

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Why "18:15"? The name Project 18:15 is based on Proverbs 18:15: “An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.” The aim is for this weekly email—a Christian news briefing, a Bible study, and a Church history lesson rolled into one—to be one way you keep abreast of current events and acquire knowledge you might not acquire elsewhere.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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