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today’s christian culture denies
the inherent goodness of creation.

Christians no longer affirm the basic goodness of God’s Creation. We are often discouraged or forbidden from enjoying things God has placed in this world for our pleasure. Things that satisfy

our tastes (like wine, foods);
our bodies (like marital sexuality);
our eyes (the visual arts, fashion design);
our minds (philosophy, literature);

using them appropriately, as the Bible instructs us.

Having embraced a kind of “ Gnostic-dualism ,” Christians today have forgotten that the Holy Spirit comes, in sanctifying power, to war against what we are as sinners — the consequences of our moral rebellion against God — not what we are as human beings, created in the image of God.

Take very careful note of that distinction.

Today’s Christian Culture, in forbidding or discouraging the appropriate use of things God has given us to enjoy freely, is guilty of legislating a morality that is largely rooted in cultural taboos.

This type of legalism is not Christian — to forbid eating certain foods, drinking alcoholic beverages, enjoying marital sexuality, listening to “secular” music, reading literature and philosophy, engaging in other supposedly "unspiritual" activities — although it claims to be so. The Bible alone must rule the conscience of any Christian. To legislate where God has granted freedom is damnable.

In fact, Paul calls it "the teaching of demons" in 1 Timothy 4:1

As Jerram Barr notes, "God has created us to really enjoy life." That means that we are at liberty to enjoy "the things of this life" — what God has made. But in every age there are certain "religious types" who seem to shutter at that thought. And for the last few generations of "evangelical, Bible-belieiving" Christians, they have held our fellowships captive — disrupting the unity of the Spirit and breaking the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:1ff.)....