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 Touchstone senior editor.
• Not a subscriber or wish to renew your subscription? Subscribe to Touchstone today for full online access. Over 30 years of publishing!
personal subscriptions
Purchase 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!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives including pdf downloads for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
gift subscriptions
GIVE Print &
Online Subscription
Give six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for the reduced rate of $29.95. That's only $2.50 per month!
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
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.
kindle subscription
OR get a subscription to Touchstone to read on your Kindle for only $1.99 per month! (This option is KINDLE ONLY and does not include either print or online.)
Your subscription goes a long way to ensure that Touchstone is able to continue its mission of publishing quality Christian articles and commentary.
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
26.5—Sept/Oct 2013
The Perils of Pragmatism in Christian Attitudes Toward the Liberal Arts by Robin Phillips
34.1—January/February 2021
What the World Needs Now It Hardly Knows by Anthony Esolen
17.6—July/August 2004
Old Science Confronts a Formidable Challenge in the Scientific ID Movement by Jay W. Richards
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
