Pain-Pleasure and Our Response by David Williams In these four articles, I have suggested that the Western world is moving from a guilt-innocence to a pain-pleasure worldview. In this final article, I want to explore how the Bible engages the theme of pain and pleasure. Pain-pleasure or suffering-glory? The Bible’s answer to pain-pleasure is not Joel Osteen’s answer. Its answer is not that…
Posts by Rick Maude (Page 5)
Pain-Pleasure and the Seduction of the Church – Part 3 By David Williams In this series of articles, I have argued that we are living through a radical change in the Western worldview. We are moving from being a guilt-innocence culture to becoming a pain-pleasure culture. Western societies increasingly are making their most fundamental decisions based on what brings us pleasure and…
How the Pain-Pleasure Worldview Attacks Christianity – Part 2 By David Williams In the first article of this series, I suggested that the Western world is moving away from being a guilt-innocence to a pain-pleasure culture. This article explores the ways that guilt-innocence and pain-pleasure worldviews attack Christianity in different ways. The Double Assault Of Culture In 2018, God’s people in Australia are facing…
Introducing the Pain-Pleasure Worldview – Part 1 by David Williams At St Andrew’s Hall, we train future missionaries to understand and engage cultural worldviews with the gospel. Perhaps the broadest categorisation used by missiologists and anthropologists is to divide human cultures into three predominant worldviews: guilt-innocence, shame-honour and fear-power. Ruth Benedict is credited as the first anthropologist to distinguish guilt-innocence and shame-honour…
The Pillars That Grace Built – Part 2 (Chris Thomas concludes his two-part reflection on Law and Grace) Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing … (Joshua 3:15-16, NIV) A flooded Jordan was no…
The Walls That Law Built by Chris Thomas Like many of my generation, I’ve remembered my fair share of lines from ‘The Princess Bride’. But as an Australian, I always took a small amount of offence at Vizzini’s dizzying intellect. Man in Black: You’ve made your decision then? Vizzini: Not remotely. Because iocaine comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is…
What is the image of God? Part 2 (for part 1 see website) Image as Occupation In the ancient world there were images and idols of gods everywhere. Idols were designed to express the attributes of the god there represented and the gods were supposedly present through them. To see the idol was to see what the god was like; to serve…
What is the Image of God? Part 1 by Matthew Payne In Genesis 1:27 we read that ‘God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them’. However, the passage doesn’t define what “Image of God” means. Consequently “Image of God” has been interpreted in a vast number of ways throughout church history. Does it refer to…
Guidance on how to be a man by Peter Sholl Warning: this post contains an obvious conclusion, but read on anyway! I am a 40-something Christian man. I am married, and at the moment I live in Australia (although I usually live in Mexico). I enjoy the cricket, can cook a good steak, and will happily go to the beach. Like most…
How Christians Can Go Beyond The ‘Culture War’ – Part 2 Step 2: Resonate Understand the underlying desires that make them hold their view Once you’ve understood their position, you’re now ready for the next step: resonating with their viewpoint. The gospel doesn’t just challenge a culture, it also connects with it: Resonating means feeling the God-given ‘existential cry’ behind the other person’s position –…