Whining About the Bulletin Board

7 October 2025

Over the past several years, I’ve noticed a number of people asserting their right not to be argued with on social media. The rant typically goes something like this:

“I’m posting MY opinions on MY personal page. I’m not here to debate you; don’t come up on MY page and argue with me. You got something to say, feel free to post your personal opinions on your personal page.”

I’m not gonna mince words here: this is a bratty, stupid, morally incoherent position, despite its pretense of even-handedness. A public statement has a privilege (people see it) and a cost (people get to respond to it). A private archive has a privilege (immunity to criticism) and a cost (nobody sees it). The rant above attempts to claim the privileges of both a public statement and a private archive while paying the costs of neither. Let’s break it down:

There’s an important sense in which “my personal Facebook page” doesn’t exist. When we’re talking about a blog or a website, it makes a lot of sense to talk about “my personal page;” people have to intentionally navigate to your page to see it, and when they do, they can’t complain about what they get. It’s your page, after all. But that’s not how social media works. When someone logs onto their social media feed, they don’t have to navigate to your “personal page” to see your content; it gets served up to them in their feed. Which means your “personal page” isn’t some private archive of your thoughts; it’s a public bulletin board where you post your thoughts so the algorithm can share them with the world.

And let’s be honest, you know this. The reason you post something on Facebook rather than a blog/website because you want more people to see it. So you are setting out the reap the benefits of airing your opinion publicly. That’s fine; there’s nothing wrong with that. But you can’t wimp out when it comes time to pay the costs. Basic conversational norms dictate that if you get to speak to me, then I get to reply. It’s not a one-way street.

If you just wanted a private archive of your thoughts, you can certainly do that. And if I’ve somehow hacked my way into your private diary and I’m replying, you’re totally within your rights to complain. But when you post on social media, that’s not what’s happening.

Somebody will say, “but I use my personal Facebook page as my private archive,” but that’s like saying “I use my F-250 as a bicycle” and then getting salty when someone doesn’t like it that you’re driving down the bike path. You’re attempting to assert a right to use your Facebook page in a counterfactual manner, and attempting to get everybody else to join you in your pretense. You don’t have a right to that.

Now, depending on your platform, you may have the ability to delete the comments you don’t like, but that doesn’t change the moral nature of the situation. You will state your opinion to the world, someone will respond, and you’ll delete it. They’re the reasonable person who gave a public response to a public statement, and you’re the dictatorial twit that censored it rather than replying. You’re hardly the first person to notice that it’s easier to exercise power than reason. If that’s who you want to be…good luck with that.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Why Complementarian?

19 August 2025

From the time I became aware that Christian egalitarianism was a thing (age 18 or 19), I have been self-consciously complementarian. The sexes are made with different and complementary natures, with corresponding complementary duties and biblical commands. Those commands are not arbitrary, but rooted in the realities of the world God created. It was not a new concept to me even then; it’s just that I was 18 or so before I knew there was a term for it. 

Learning the term was quite a discovery, because that meant there were other views. I looked into alternative views and concluded that they weren’t convincing. I remained complementarian. At the same time, over the years, I noticed various self-professed complementarians who I found appalling, either because they had no understanding of the natural world, or because they read the church epistles as though they had been written to Ward and June Cleaver (about which more later). Nonetheless, centering the complementarity of the sexes seemed to me the best way to describe the Bible’s teaching, so I stuck to the term complementarian.

Of course, people to the left of me have been trying to drive me away from both the term and the convictions it represents for decades, arguing that my adherence to complementarianism implied endorsement of various abusive and denigrating views of women that I don’t hold and never have. But I knew what the term meant, so I ignored them. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to have the conversation, but I’m not moving on the term.)

More recently, I’ve found myself on the receiving end of pressure from the right, which has been something of a surprise. These attempts argue that “complementarian” implies various defections from biblical authority that I do not hold and never have held. As with my favorite lefties, they can point to actual humans who profess to be complementarian and commit the defection in question. Certainly they exist — as one commentator famously noted, “The left wing of complementarianism is the right wing of egalitarianism.” This testimony is true, but I’m not going to be driven off a thick view of complementarity because somebody else is complementarian in name only. As with the lefties, I am happy to have the conversation, but I’m not much impressed with the attempt to drive me off the term. (And I would point out that their preferred terms also have some impressive vulnerabilities.)

Very recently, Aaron Renn has weighed in. (And you should read it!) He’s not involving himself in the gender debates so much as making some observations about the generational development of different ideas. He correctly argues that the Grudem/Piper version of complementarianism was not traditional, but an attempt to respond biblically to feminism while also self-consciously breaking with the past. On that basis, he considers his article title justified: “Complementarianism is New.” That’s quite a leap, considering that in the article itself, he also says “The traditional view that Piper, Grudem, and company rejected was also complementarian.” (emphasis his)

Just so. The traditional view was complementarian, the teaching of the Bible is complementarian, and no one need be embarrassed to use the word “complementarian” to describe their complementarian view.

Speaking for myself, I’m complementarian (and patriarchal); have been my whole life. I know what the word means, despite the various weirdbeards and feminists-in-all-but-name who wrongly claim it, and despite the various haters who wrongly try to tar me with one or the other of those groups. If I may put it bluntly, nobody needs the permission of some self-appointed gaggle of word police to use an appropriately descriptive term for their view. So let the word-scratchers say their bit, but don’t be disturbed by them. If you’re getting harrassed from the left and the right at the same time, perhaps you’re onto something.

Now it is true that all man-made symbols, including terms, have a lifespan. The day may come when for whatever reason, “complementarian” ceases to be useful, and it’s time to put it to bed. But it’s not today, and by my lights, it ain’t likely to be tomorrow either.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Biblicist and Classical Theist?

29 July 2025

Ever since seminary, I’ve been suspicious of classical theism. Too many assertions that flatly contradict the Bible…or so I thought. To be fair, there was no shortage of classical theists who were happy to confirm my suspicions.

Of late, I’ve found myself in conversation with a biblically faithful classical theist that I respect: Chris Morrison. You can listen in on our first discussion here: “Is Classical Theism Biblical? Starting the Discussion.” Hope it’s helpful to you.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Simply Believe

22 July 2025

Belief is simple the way language is simple. If there’s a bunch of different sized and colored buckets in the corner of the garage, and you send me over there to get the big red one, you say it exactly like that: “big red bucket.” You never say “red big bucket.” Do you know why? Probably not; that’s just how it’s said. Simple, right?

Well…not exactly. When you start examining the order of English adjectives, you’ll discover that there’s a very strong, nearly inviolate rule. Linguists have mapped it, and use the acronym OSASCOMP (opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, purpose). Size comes before color; there ya go. That’s pretty complicated, isn’t it? Who thinks about that? Nobody but linguists, and people learning the language as adults. If you’re a native speaker of English, you can live your whole life without ever being consciously aware of the rule — all the while keeping it.

Thus also with belief. We can get deep in the philosophical weeds on what belief is and how it all works — it’s complex the way everything in God’s world, especially everything human, is complex. But you don’t need to grasp all the deep philosophy to just believe something. We do it every day. Wake up, there’s light streaming in the window — you believe it’s morning. You glance at the clock, which reads 5:45 am — you just believe it’s true. Check the weather for the day and see that there’s an 80% chance it’ll rain this afternoon — you trust them enough to take a jacket with you when you leave the house. Of course you’re not sure it will rain (and the weather guy isn’t either), but you believe that it’s likely enough to be worth taking a jacket. And so on….

And that’s not even to speak of all the things you’re just assuming: the reality of the physical world, personal existence, causality…somewhere in the aether, the spirit of David Hume seethes with envy. (Not really. He admitted he assumed those things too — couldn’t seem to stop himself.)

The places where the gospel is presented in Scripture also don’t get deep into the philosophical weeds. The biblical accounts of human nature will stand up to deep and rigorous examination, but most people never go there, and never need to. So whether we look at a particular evangelistic encounter between Jesus and Matthew, say, or Nathaniel, or Nicodemus, or whether we’re looking at a work like John’s Gospel as a whole, we see a pretty commonsense presentation of belief.

That’s because the biblical accounts focus the reader on Jesus, not on the reader himself. The goal is not to gaze at yourself in the mirror as you believe in something. The goal is to look to Jesus. Focus on Him, not on your own belief.

As we encounter people who need to meet Jesus, that’s what we want for them, too. So again, we don’t get deep in the weeds over what believing is; we don’t need to. What we do need to do is live like Christians, which provokes the questions to which Jesus is the answer (1 Peter 3:15). Then we tell them who He is and what He did.

When you’re telling people about Jesus, don’t soften it with “I believe that…” In polite secular society, “I believe that…” is code for “you don’t need to agree.” We reserve that expression for matters of opinion, not matters of fact. When you’re announcing a fact, you just say it; you don’t lead off with “I believe.” Try it: “I believe that gravity works.” “I believe the sky is blue.” “I believe 2+2=4.”

Sound funny, right? Of course it does — because when you’re mentioning that 2+2=4, your belief is not important. Nobody cares if you believe it; they care if it’s true. So if you wouldn’t say “I believe” there, don’t say “I believe” when you’re announcing facts about Jesus either. Just announce the truth:

“Every evil thing you’ve ever done, every character flaw, every failing, was nailed to the cross with Jesus; died on the cross with Jesus; was buried in the earth with Jesus; and when God raised Him from the dead on the third day, He didn’t come out of the grave dragging a Hefty bag of your crap! It’s all done; He took care of it, and He offers you a new, clean, resurrected life that starts right now. You could quit wallowing in all that right now and be free for the rest of your life! What do you say?”

You don’t need them to say “I believe.” You just want them to believe. Too often, we focus our message on the act of believing. Don’t. Focus your message the way Jesus did: on Jesus Himself. We don’t want this person looking in the mirror watching themselves believe in Jesus. We want them looking at Jesus and believing in Him. Let the focus be on Jesus, not on their belief.

(For the record, I’m not against getting into the philosophical weeds in order to look more closely at how belief works — it’s fascinating, and it’s part of the world God made. We’ll learn good things from the examination if we conduct it well. But that’s a whole other layer, and we don’t need to drag unbelievers through it.)

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Posted by Tim Nichols

How Important is Theology?

8 July 2025

I was corresponding with a fella about practical ministry and seeking Christian fellowship. In passing, he asserted that soteriology is really the heart of it all. I had an intense, visceral reaction to that line, and it made me stop and interrogate it. Soteriology really is important, after all. Different Christians focus on different aspects of theology, and that’s as it should be; if soteriology is his focus, why is that bothering me so much?

Upon reflection, here’s where I’m coming from: Soteriology is not the heart of it all. Jesus Himself is the heart of it all, which I hope is what he meant, but the language matters here, so bear with me in a little folly! The distinction is not trivial: soteriology is an ever-more-detailed set of ideas and convictions; Jesus is a Person. People who prioritize Jesus will work at getting along with other people who prioritize Jesus; they find ways to handle their differences charitably for the sake of serving their mutual Friend and realizing His righteousness in the world. People who prioritize soteriology will turn on their fellow believers over a series of ever-smaller distinctions, all the while congratulating themselves loudly on their keen discernment. I could name names here — I certainly have some in mind — but what for? You can probably think of your own examples, and if you’d recognize the names I would mention, then you can see what I’m talking about anyway. The temptations may be subtle in the moment, but the results are visible from orbit.

I’m easy friends with people who put Jesus at the heart of it all. Whatever their foibles, I got mine too, and we get along all right. Folks who put soteriology at the heart of it all, on the other hand…no. Not even if we agree on the soteriology. They need to repent, hard. I pray that they do. If they won’t, then they can’t backstab their way into irrelevance fast enough to suit me, and I certainly don’t wanna be standing within reach while they do it.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Empathy, Hammers, and Handguns

22 April 2025

Much has been said in certain quarters about the sin of empathy. How ought we to think about this?

Back in the seventies and eighties, Francis Schaeffer used to get criticized for oversimplifying the philosophers he spoke about — Hegel, for example. Professional philosophers would complain that Hegel was actually quite a bit more nuanced than Schaeffer was letting on, and not necessarily vulnerable to the criticisms Schaeffer would level against him. I can’t really discuss the validity of the criticism; I’m no expert on Hegel either. But for the sake of discussion, let’s grant that the professionals are right, and Schaeffer really was oversimplifying Hegel.

Where did that oversimplification come from? Was Schaeffer just straw-manning Hegel? No indeed, and here we need to remember Schaeffer’s actual ministry context. He wasn’t ministering to Hegel himself, nor to professional philosophers. Overwhelmingly, he was serving college students. When you’re working with a college sophomore who has misread (and oversimplified) Hegel and thinks he has hold of a profound truth, what’s the task at hand? Do we try to make him a better Hegelian? Or do we just start from where he actually is and minister the gospel to him?

Obviously the latter, which is what Schaeffer did. It might be fair to say that Schaeffer’s treatment isn’t up to dealing with all the nuances of Hegel’s actual views, but it his work deals admirably with Hegel as portrayed in popular culture of the time. He dealt with the actual beliefs of the people in front of him, as well he should.

So when my brothers to the northwest wax eloquent on the sin of empathy, I can see their point. They are not (as we will see) addressing what empathy actually means, but the sin they are expertly skewering is a real sin, it is rampant in our culture, and the people who are committing it often call that sin “empathy.”

Why is it that the popular definition so diverges from the real one? For the same reason that we misuse “depressed,” “triggered,” or “autistic.” Psychotherapy is our culture’s unofficial religion. Religious terms with specific meanings always get debased, usually in a quest to apply a virtuous gloss to whatever the adherent wanted to do anyway. (Hence, for example, one of the most intemperate displays of modern times calling itself the “temperance movement” in the early 20th century. In contemporary usage, someone who’s triggered (the real definition) should be treated with compassion, so people describe themselves as “triggered” when they’re just mad, so as to garner more sympathy than they deserve.) The clergy and theologians — psychotherapists and counselors, in the case before us today — always object: “That’s not what the word means!” But people go on abusing the terms anyway. It’s an unfortunate trend, and clearly psychotherapy is not immune to the term-debasing trend that has long afflicted other religions.

Whether our brothers ought to cede the term “empathy” is a separate question. As it is not a biblical word, they are under no obligation to fight for it if they don’t want to. On the other hand, there’s no sin in fighting for the proper definition, either. Since the actual meaning of empathy is both a biblical concept and a necessary spiritual discipline, that’s what I’m going to do below.

Properly defined, empathy is not a virtue and it is not a vice. It is a tool, like a claw hammer, a chef’s knife, or a handgun. That tool can be used to build or destroy, to nourish or injure, to save life or to kill. So what does the word “empathy” actually mean?

Empathy: n. understanding a person from their frame of reference rather than one’s own, or vicariously experiencing that person’s feelings, perceptions, and thoughts. Empathy does not, of itself, entail motivation to be of assistance, although it may turn into sympathy or personal distress, which may result in action. In psychotherapy, therapist empathy for the client can be a path to comprehension of the client’s cognitions, affects, motivations, or behaviors.

APA Dictionary of Psychology

A seasoned psychotherapist I know put it this way: empathy and compassion are two fundamentally different things. The best con artists have perfect empathy, but zero compassion. They can see the world through your eyes so well that they can take everything you have. So it’s fair to say that seeing things from another person’s point of view is not inevitably a virtue.

On the other hand, some virtues are impossible without it. Husbands, for example, are commanded to do exactly that for their wives: “Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.” (1 Pet. 3:7)

The Golden Rule requires similar insight. The proverbial young husband who buys his wife a drill for her birthday because that’s what he would want is obviously not applying the Golden Rule correctly. He would like a birthday present that he wants; therefore he should buy her a birthday present that she wants. But he can’t really do that without seeing the world from her point of view, can he?

Empathy is a component of wise love, a necessary but not a sufficient condition. You can’t love another person well if you refuse to see things from their perspective; that way lies well-intentioned cluelessness.
Neither can you love love another person well if you get so pulled into their perspective that you fail to exercise good sense. You should not believe everything you think or feel; you should not use empathy to substitute someone else’s thoughts and feelings for your own. Discernment and emotionally sober judgment is required: love well, and love wisely.

So what are we to say about the “sin of empathy?” Well, our brothers would defend their position by pointing out that the behavior they are criticizing really is a sinful use of empathy. Sure. They would also criticize the sinful use of handguns, but you won’t see anybody from their camp writing a book titled “The Sin of Handguns” anytime soon. So there’s that.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

An Update

12 July 2024

I had a chance recently to chat with Chris Morrison about the continuing “Content of Saving Faith” debate.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Beware the Abstract Nouns!

4 June 2024

A bit back, I posted a link to this article on my Facebook feed. The response was predictable: my comments were full of Christians objecting to the notion that Jesus wasn’t a nice guy. 

Now, I’m not complaining; this is trouble I’m happy to be in. Jesus was not, in fact, a nice guy, and I don’t mind annoying folks who think He was. As you can see, I have a mug in the cupboard for just such occasions. 

(Yes, really. My daughter-in-the-faith Anna got it for me, and I love it!)

If you need a demonstration that Jesus was not a nice guy, go ahead and re-read the gospels. I’ll wait. This post isn’t about that. This post is about the trends I’ve noticed in the outraged (or “concerned”) responses to such observations. I’ve noticed three major defenses against the council of God here: christological heresy, pragmatics, and abstract nouns. 

Christological Heresy

Now obviously, there are the folks who will trot out the old chestnut, “Well, Jesus was God and you’re not, so….” Ignore these people. Their objection is functionally a christological heresy, the notion that Jesus is not human the way you are human, such that He presents you with an example of what a human life should look like. Besides, honestly, they’re being intellectually dishonest. These same people are in favor of being christlike when we’re talking about humility or caring for the poor or washing someone’s feet; it’s only when you start talking like Jesus in ways that will get you uninvited to the cool kids’ table that they trot out their “Jesus was God” excuse. 

Besides, John the Baptist wasn’t God, and he called the religious leaders a “brood of vipers” too. Amos wasn’t God, and he famously called the mall rats of Jerusalem a bunch of cows. Ezekiel wasn’t God, and his comments about donkeys continue to scandalize 2500 years later. Paul wasn’t God, and he publicly wished the circumcision party would just chop it off. All these mere humans were led by the Holy Spirit to describe scandalous things honestly, in a scandalous way. Obviously this is a tool a righteous man can be led by God to employ. 

Pragmatics

Some folks won’t bother to argue about whether Jesus did, in fact, say these things, or even about whether we’re allowed to say them. They’ll just encourage you to “keep the main thing the main thing,” remain “gospel-centered,” and promise you that you’ll see better results if you just focus on the gospel rather than “getting sidetracked.” What these folks are missing is—in their terms—that the gospel is supposed to be the center of something. We’re here to proclaim the full council of God, and to follow Jesus’ whole example, not just a core sample of Jesus’ praxis that happens to fit some tight-shoed schoolmarm’s canons of niceness. They seem to honestly think they can get better results than Jesus got by taking a different approach than He did. All I can say is…good luck with that.

Abstract Nouns

Finally, there are the folks who will bury you under an onslaught of abstract nouns. This approach will start with an appeal to a basic biblical command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Let your speech be always with grace.” “Be kind to one another.” 

Then you will be challenged to be loving/gracious/kind based on the biblical command, which , ex hypothesi, means that you’re not allowed to talk like Jesus did. 

Any appeal to Jesus’ example will generally be met with the “He was God” objection, above, and any appeal to any other example will be met with “That passage is descriptive of what the person did in his human frustration, but what makes you think it’s prescriptive for us?” The net result of this hostility to the biblical narratives is that there are no concrete examples to which one might appeal for anything. Then, the abstract nouns like “love,” “kind,” or “gracious” become empty suitcases that we can fill up with whatever we like.

In the absence of having our tastes catechized by the biblical stories, we tend to fall back on whatever our sentiments dictate to us. In the early 21st century church, that generally means we’re falling prey to weapons-grade niceness. In our imaginations, being loving or kind means you would never say anything hard; gracious speech means nobody is ever offended. If someone is offended, that automatically means you’ve done something wrong.

But no. When grace incarnate walked among us, He regularly offended the respectable people. In a particular moment, “children of snakes!” was the kindest, most loving thing anybody could say to the Pharisees, and we know that because Jesus said it.

Go thou, and do likewise.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Proposition on a Cross?

21 May 2024

We all agree that how one gets from ‘unbeliever’ to ‘believer’ is a critical question. But the question of precisely what one must believe…that can go really bad places if you get too tight-fisted about it. There are serious problems with demanding a single proposition that accounts for every person’s journey from the one category to the other.

1. It simply is not a question the Bible ever poses or answers.

2. No proposed “saving proposition” accounts for all the recorded conversions in Scripture — a fact which should register WAY more prominently in the content of saving faith (COSF) debates than it does. Read the latter chapters of Gordon Clark, Faith and Saving Faith for a good treatment of this.

3. The COSF question makes a significant category error. It assumes that getting the proposition right is what matters, and that’s incorrect. A proposition was not nailed to the cross for your sins; you’re not saved by faith in a proposition, you’re saved by a Person in whom you trust. The Bible–Jesus Himself, in fact–uses multiple propositions to elicit and support that faith. The proposition is a window, and it’s true enough that not every window points out at Jesus. But if the conversion accounts of Scripture itself are to be believed, there are many windows that do. The point is not to get the exact right window, as if there were only one; the point is to be looking through the window at Jesus.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Far Better, and Far Simpler

11 October 2022

As simply as I can say it, the new birth is irreducibly relational; you are born again when you trust Jesus Christ to save you. There is no consistent reading even of John’s gospel, let alone the whole New Testament, that successfully presents a single proposition as the content of saving faith. The thing can be described in propositions to an extent, but it’s not actually a matter of subscribing to propositions. Propositions didn’t die for your sins; Jesus did.

Many people balk. “How does one have assurance?” they want to know. “What must I believe, to be sure that I am saved?”

Ah, my friend, if you’re thinking in terms of “what I believe,” you’re missing the point: it’s not “what,” but Who! It isn’t about “correct belief” or “fulfill[ing] the ‘belief’ condition.” The news is far better, and far simpler, than that.

This Jesus that we meet in (say) the pages of John’s gospel — He wants to save you, sacrificed everything to save you, and He means to see it done. You need not fret about fulfilling conditions or fussing about with propositions any more than you need fret about your insufficient moral merits. Rest assured, you are inadequate! Whether we’re talking about your morals or your theology, you are inadequate! The whole point is that Jesus met the conditions for you, and He will save you. He’s got you; your assurance comes from knowing that it’s Him that’s got you.

Theologically speaking, that’s sufficient. Practically, there’s another avenue as well. Eternal life just is knowing God (Jn. 17:3) and it’s not something you hope to get eventually, it’s something you have now (Jn. 5:24). Assurance naturally grows in the living of it. I have the paperwork to prove that Kimberly married me, but where do I get my day-by-day comfort and assurance that our relationship is what I think it is? Not from looking at the paperwork – what kind of relationship would that be? I am assured that I know Kimberly in the day-to-day living with her, and so it is here, because like a good marriage, eternal life is not having your papers in order; it is knowing a Person.

2 Comments | Bare Minimum Gospel Foolishness, Controversies, Meditations, Person/Proposition, The Free Grace Food Fight, Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols

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