The Forerunner Blog

Here are some of my latest comments relating to some of the articles and video projects found at The Forerunner. Check back for my thoughts on eschatology, world missions, God’s Law and Society, pro-life activism, evangelism testimonies, Neo-Puritanism, revival and spiritual awakening, church history, and so on. Use the navigation sidebar to see Forerunner Blog articles by category or see the blog archive for the category listing.

Is you head stuck in the 1980s?

I sometimes rebut people in their neoconservative geopolitical views by telling them that their head is stuck in the 1980s. This is what I mean by that. The 20th century was the century of the contest between Modernist political theories…

Christian Civilization is not ethno-nationalism

By Andy Hauter Early America was overwhelmingly shaped by Anglo-Protestant culture. The legal assumptions behind the Constitution — property rights, common law, Christian morality — were deeply rooted in English tradition. However, the Constitution itself does not limit its…

Russia-Ukraine and the Bigger Picture

“The idea that we’re going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews, just understand … that’s called World War III, okay? Let’s get it straight here,…

The quote above comes from Arthur Ponsonby's book, “Falsehood in War-time, Containing an Assortment of Lies Circulated Throughout the Nations During the Great War” (1928). The epigram at the start of the book is from an almost identical line spoken in 1917 by the United States Senator Hiram Johnson: "The first casualty when war comes is truth."

And His disciples began questioning Him as to what this parable might be. And He said, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, in order that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.”

~ Luke 8:9–10 NASB

What is interesting about Jesus’ explanation as to why He spoke in parables is that they are given so that the remaining non-believers would not understand. I am convinced that the reason people believe in false narratives is that in our fallen nature, we enjoy being lied to. This fault hearkens back to original sin, and the story of the serpent in the garden who tempted the man and woman saying, “Your eyes will be opened. For God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will become like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). From the beginning, human beings have always desired to spin their own truth. Yet there is also a yearning to return to the original story — the metanarrative that will explain everything correctly.

Will China's Christian population become the majority?

I asked the Chinese AI app, “Deep-Seek, whether the growth of the Christian population in China could become majority by the end of the 21st century. This is a common claim made by Christian missionaries to China. The first answer took into account government suppression of the Christian churches and current growth rates. The response was not as optimistic. I then asked what would happen if more Christians became wealthier and due to their growing influence in business and politics and what would happen if this would allow them to support larger families. What this means is that the task for the Chinese church, and missionaries sent to China is to train Christian leaders in the idea that Christians ought to be taking dominion of the Civil arena, especially in business, education, media, and politics.

Here is the response.