Questionable Assurances
by S. M. Hutchens
How many times I have heard church leaders assure their people that some decision they have made or are about to make is energized and justified by much prayer, Bible study, soul-searching, and other such exertions. At this point in my life I have come to recognize such assurances as nearly always high-sounding hooey, promoting pre-laid plans that would come into being whether they were prayed about or not. It's interesting, too, that "God" never says No to them.
In other words, just as I, when younger, came to expect massive truth evasion by preachers gravely and learnedly referring to the meaning of "the Greek," later in life I have come to expect even higher levels of deception when I am assured that some foolishness has been confirmed by masses of pious exercise—above all, "prayer"—carried out by people with reputations for the frequent and emphatic use of God's Name. It is not that I devalue good prayers or view them as unnecessary. On the contrary—but I have now found it necessary to be suspicious, and to seek for signs of truth in the presentments instead of childishly taking all declarations of reputed church authority at face value.
This is not a new necessity—an attitude of un-faith or private judgment or disputing God's anointed—but has been present in the Church from its beginnings, as when the "noble" Bereans did not simply take even an apostle's word for what they were supposed to believe.
S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
subscription options
Order
Print/Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Order
Online Only
Subscription
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on ministry from the online archives
32.1—January/February 2019
Sex, Women's Ordination & the Rejection of Hierarchy & Equality by James A. Altena
more from the online archives
24.1—January/February 2011
Marriage Thrives in Reality, Not in Our Dreams by Nathan Schlueter
25.3—May/Jun 2012
Calls for Freedom, Democracy & Secularism End Up with None of the Above by Hunter Baker
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
