Christians are often confronted with challenges that test their faith and convictions. In the face of today’s moral ambiguity and cultural relativism it is essential for believers to stand firm in their understanding of the Truth and take bold action. Christians need to shed their fears, refuse to tolerate evil, and remember to operate within the moral framework of the Creator God.
Posts tagged as “American Christianity”
by Jerry D, Plain Values
This Month’s Question:
The balance between the blessings and pit-falls of modern-day technology can be hard to find. How do we balance using technology with staying connected to our community?
Answered by: Jerry D Miller, a minister in his local Amish church
by Ivan Keim, Plain Values This Month’s Question: The balance between the blessings and pit-falls of modern-day technology can be hard to find. How do…
On Monday, March 27, a woman who believed she was a man deliberately attacked a conservative Christian school in Nashville, murdering three nine-year-old children and three staff members. It was a deliberate terror attack by a transgender on Christians and their children. A 28-year-old woman named Aubrey Hale, who also went by “Aiden” and demanded others use male pronouns to refer to her, was shot dead by police minutes after the attack began.
Given these circumstances, any reasonable person can safely conclude this was an ideological attack. Whether Hale’s manifesto recovered from her vehicle ever sees the light of day is another story, especially if it is damaging to the transgender narrative the regime has devoted massive resources to prop up. What can be pieced together is that:
By: Jerry D. Miller, Plain Values
Our human tendency is to want to be independent. We do not want to rely on others, but the irony of it is, God created us to be dependent on each other when he created a man and woman in the Garden of Eden.
This Month’s Question:
Homesteaders are often encouraged to be as self-sufficient as possible. How can I overcome the pride of being self-sufficient so that I can reconnect with my community?
Answered by: JerryD. Miller, a deaconin his local Amish church
Spiritual revival is huge news lately. What is happening at Asbury University has been in the news for weeks. Is it real? Is it fake? Is it woke? Is it sincere? It is all anyone wants to talk about. It is self-evident that we are in desperate need of Christian spiritual awakening. It is no secret that we are living through the greatest cultural revolution our nation has ever seen. There is serious, irreparable political division, powerful forces have unleashed leftwing cultural subversion and racial unrest, there is rapid technological change, there is the looming threat of nuclear war, and our nation is committed to an increasingly unpopular conventional war, and the younger generations are increasingly disenchanted and pushed to the margins of society. The more things change, the more they stay the same. To say there are parallels between today and the 1960s would be a massive understatement.
I remember back to my elementary school days in the 1980s, I had a sweet bowl-cut, knee-high socks – yes, white with colored stripes on the top – plaid shorts and a long underwear shirt under my tee-shirt. Yes, I was bold enough to mix plaid and stripes. Sometimes I think the 90’s Grunge movement saw some of my childhood pictures and just copied them. But I have no proof. In those days of terrible fashion, I can remember sitting in school and being instructed in the emerging doctrine of the progressive seclorum – environmentalism. Of course, at that time it was simply called “global warming” and today the dogmatic title is “climate change.” Frightening images of ecological disasters were presented as the grim future that awaited us. Environmental doom was coming, no one knew the day or the hour for certain, but coming it is, this they taught as a certainty. The only possible hope of salvation was to hearken to the voices crying out on behalf of the environment. We must all work together to “save the plant.” On a basic level, a laudable endeavor. No sane human person wants the earth to implode on itself. As many in my generation, I have been instructed in the seclorum’s apocalyptic end-times dogma of “climate change.”1
By Rory Feek, Plain Values
January always feels like not only the beginning of a new year, but a new opportunity. To do things better, to be better. To do the thing you’ve always wanted to do. A chance for real and lasting change. The first few stories I’ll be sharing monthly in this column are about some of the profound changes for the better that have occurred in my life that brought me here to this moment. First, to share a little about who I am and the story God has given us.
By Lisa Miller, Wife to Marlin, publisher of Plain Values Someone once told us, “If you are looking around hoping for someone to do something…
By Marlin Miller, Publisher of Plain Values
I began our first post with this question and a statement. “What do the Amish, little ones with special needs, two nonprofits, four adoptions, two one-room schoolhouses from the 1800’s and a monthly print magazine have to do with homesteading in 2023? It is the story of our family, and it is a joy to share how the Lord has pieced it together over the last twenty years.” This is the second installment of that story.
Everything we discuss and share inside Plain Values magazine is focused on loving our neighbor. From adopting a child, raising extra tomatoes and peppers, helping that neighbor build a fence or a woodshed… it’s all about living out the two greatest commandments: to love God and love your neighbor.
By Joel Salatin, Plain Values
Does God Care How I Farm? That question defines my life’s work and vision because it moves the visceral, practical decisions I make in my farming vocation to a place of sacredness and godly living. If God cares about physical and practical things in my life, then my theology and belief structure are more than academic pursuits.
They are not just discussion groups and conversations. If God cares how I farm, then I should enthusiastically embrace searching for techniques and protocols that please Him. After all, it’s all His stuff. The courthouse may say I own this land, but ultimately I don’t. Legally and culturally, I may advocate for property rights, but really it’s all God’s property. Does He care how it’s handled? Does He care how I leave it? Does He care what I do with it?
by Ivan Keim, Plain Values
First, a note from Marlin Miller, Publisher of Plain Values Magazine:
Across the news and nation, I have sensed a renewed drive to get communities together again, more like the “good ole days.” Now, I’m not a fan of wishing to go back, but the interest and thoughtful questioning of a few of my Amish friends confirmed my hunch time and again. We have assembled a panel of Amish folks, some older and a few younger, who are passionate about strong communities and taking care of one another as God asks us to.
The Amish are not perfect, but they do take care of one another in extraordinary ways, and I believe we have much to learn from it all. There are not many more well-known examples of this than “a good old-fashioned barn raising!” Philippians 2:3–4 says, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but to the interests of others.”
Our family has had the luxury of having grown up in and around Amish communities our entire lives, and we do indeed have wonderful neighbors. I have no doubt that The Roundtable will become a favorite for many of our readers in the months to come.
Marlin Miller, always looking for more friends