Breakpoint is publishing a "Contend for the Faith" series by T.M. Moore which examines how four ancient heresies have gained a foothold in modern churches. The first is on Antinomianism and it's contemporary form is to claim that since we are under grace, we have no real obligation to disciplined and moral living. As Moore describes it, the modern form of antinomianism says, "be free of guilt and shame, and revel in the free grace of a God who demands nothing of us but to regard Him as our friend, and to be friendly to others as we have opportunity."
Jesus, my "best buddy", no guilt, no worries. Sound like any Christians you know? Any Christian teachers you've heard? I think this is essential work. There is nothing new under the sun. Most everything churches face today is a variation of something the church has seen before.
Moore is a Presbyterian. I have long tended to think of Presbyterians as somewhat cerebral and a bit obsessed with "irresistible grace". On the other hand my Nephew is a Presbyterian pastor and the folks in his church are sweet, generous people. Moore's treatment of this topic is welcome. Look forward to Parts 2,3 and 4.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Christians responding to Violence
The Barnabas Fund has a petition online to urge Western governments to be more proactive in curbing persectuion of Christians. Since the publishing of cartoons which allegedly defame Islam in Denmark, the violence has been almost non-stop and Christians have at times been targets for no apparent reason.
Nigeria has been one hot spot for a variety of reasons, but Christian youths have apparently had enough after 30 churches were burned and 50 Christians killed. Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, International Director of Barnabas Fund, commented: "It is interesting that when Muslims attack Western embassies it is news, and when Christians retaliate against Muslim violence it is news. But when Muslims attack vulnerable Christian minorities to take revenge for publishing cartoons that are nothing to do with the Christian victims, it is barely mentioned in the media. When Christian organisations joined with Muslim organisations in the UK on 18th February to protest in London against the cartoons, did they have any concern for what Muslims are doing to Christian minorities who have absolutely no connection with the cartoons?"
I have been hearing a lot about Nigerian Anglican Archbiship Peter Akinola in regard to the battle between orthodox Christians and revisionists in the ECUSA. Akinola is also President of the Christian Association of Nigeria and commented commented about the violence.
"We have for a long time now watched helplessly the killing, maiming and destruction of Christians and their property by Muslim fanatics and fundamentalists at the slightest or no provocation at all. We are not unaware of the fact that these religious extremists have the full backup and support of some influential Muslims who are yet to appreciate the value of peaceful co-existence.
"It is no longer a hidden fact that a long standing agenda to make this Nigeria an Islamic nation is being surreptitiously pursued. The willingness of Muslim Youth to descend with violence on the innocent Christians from time to time is from all intents and purposes a design to actualize their dream."
One wonders what the response of Christians worldwide to Muslim assertiveness will eventually be. Will Christians turn the other cheek and continue to tolerate the violence in hopes that the example of forgiveness will turn hearts? Or will the specter of sharia law imposed worldwide force Christians to actively resist? In places like Nigeria, it seems one cannot depend on the government for protection, so some have chosen to take matters into their own hands. In places like the United States, where we are still relatively free of direct attack, and the Bush administration seems intent on battling the more extreme elements for now on their own turf, we don't have to think too much about what we would do were we in the shoes of a Nigerian youth, facing random killing in our back yard.
The release of an anti semitic anti american film in Muslim countries, one which portrays a Jewish doctor in a Nazi like role and American soldiers as cold blooded killers doesn't bode well for prospects of calm, reasonable dialogue. Said one viewer "The Americans always behave like this. They slaughtered the Red Indians and killed thousands in Vietnam. I was not shocked by the film, I see this on the news every day." Al Jazeera I presume. Or perhaps a Western History course at a prestigious U.S. University. Apparently no one asked him about Pol Pot.
There are clouds on the horizon. Let's pray it is not a mushroom cloud. Let's pray we don't have to find out whether we would fight or turn the other cheek. But let's pray for the wisdom and strength to know and do the right thing if the day comes.
Nigeria has been one hot spot for a variety of reasons, but Christian youths have apparently had enough after 30 churches were burned and 50 Christians killed. Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, International Director of Barnabas Fund, commented: "It is interesting that when Muslims attack Western embassies it is news, and when Christians retaliate against Muslim violence it is news. But when Muslims attack vulnerable Christian minorities to take revenge for publishing cartoons that are nothing to do with the Christian victims, it is barely mentioned in the media. When Christian organisations joined with Muslim organisations in the UK on 18th February to protest in London against the cartoons, did they have any concern for what Muslims are doing to Christian minorities who have absolutely no connection with the cartoons?"
I have been hearing a lot about Nigerian Anglican Archbiship Peter Akinola in regard to the battle between orthodox Christians and revisionists in the ECUSA. Akinola is also President of the Christian Association of Nigeria and commented commented about the violence.
"We have for a long time now watched helplessly the killing, maiming and destruction of Christians and their property by Muslim fanatics and fundamentalists at the slightest or no provocation at all. We are not unaware of the fact that these religious extremists have the full backup and support of some influential Muslims who are yet to appreciate the value of peaceful co-existence.
"It is no longer a hidden fact that a long standing agenda to make this Nigeria an Islamic nation is being surreptitiously pursued. The willingness of Muslim Youth to descend with violence on the innocent Christians from time to time is from all intents and purposes a design to actualize their dream."
One wonders what the response of Christians worldwide to Muslim assertiveness will eventually be. Will Christians turn the other cheek and continue to tolerate the violence in hopes that the example of forgiveness will turn hearts? Or will the specter of sharia law imposed worldwide force Christians to actively resist? In places like Nigeria, it seems one cannot depend on the government for protection, so some have chosen to take matters into their own hands. In places like the United States, where we are still relatively free of direct attack, and the Bush administration seems intent on battling the more extreme elements for now on their own turf, we don't have to think too much about what we would do were we in the shoes of a Nigerian youth, facing random killing in our back yard.
The release of an anti semitic anti american film in Muslim countries, one which portrays a Jewish doctor in a Nazi like role and American soldiers as cold blooded killers doesn't bode well for prospects of calm, reasonable dialogue. Said one viewer "The Americans always behave like this. They slaughtered the Red Indians and killed thousands in Vietnam. I was not shocked by the film, I see this on the news every day." Al Jazeera I presume. Or perhaps a Western History course at a prestigious U.S. University. Apparently no one asked him about Pol Pot.
There are clouds on the horizon. Let's pray it is not a mushroom cloud. Let's pray we don't have to find out whether we would fight or turn the other cheek. But let's pray for the wisdom and strength to know and do the right thing if the day comes.
Monday, February 20, 2006
A Word Regarding "Evolution Sunday"
Getting away from politics again, there is the rather interesting story last week of the numerous clergy who on February 12, (Darwin's Birthday), celebrated Evolution Sunday. This was all spearheaded by one Michael Zimmerman, who is the Dean of the College of Letters and Sciences at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.
Zimmerman is apparently also behind the Clergy Letter Project, which stated in response to the teaching of "all views" of origins in a Wisconsin school, "We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as 'one theory among others' is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children." Apparently some 10,000 clergy have signed this statement.
Zimmerman's web site claims that some 450 or so congregations are participating in Evolution Sunday. Included are links to a number of sermons by those who participated. A cursory scan of the list suggests to me that most of the signers are from denominations plagued with revisionist tendencies of the Ecstatic Heresy, that tendency to think that the Word of God is somehow separate and distinct from the words of scripture and must be understood as not necessarily dependent on the plain words of the text. Sermonizers favoring Darwin over Intelligent Design include clergy from the United Methodist, Presbyterian, and Episcopal churches, as well as from the United Church of Christ, and the Unitarian church. I don't see many signers from evangelical or fundamentalist backgrounds, nor from the Roman Catholic ranks, interestingly.
One sermon from Paul Beckel of the First Universalist Unitarian Church, quotes from Tao Te Ching (chapter 5) as its main text. Others are more focused on Christian source material. The message from a Roy Howard, of St. Mark Presbyterian Church, in Rockville, MD confirms more of my suspicions. His sermon illustrates the chasm between matters of faith and matters of reason, a major part of what drives some clergy to stick with Darwin while many scientists are slowly moving away from him. Says Howard,
"Matters of science, including theories of the origin of life, are to be pursued by way of the standard forms of scientific research. Matters of science, when in dispute, including theories about the origin of life, cannot be solved by theology, nor can matters of theological dispute be solved by the scientific method. Theology has to do with the pursuit of God and doxological practice that flow from our understanding and experience of God."
Like the "wall of separation" ACLU lawyers like to appeal to between church and state, many find an impenetrable wall between faith and reason, so that the scientific method cannot be applied to "doxological" matters and faith is somehow absent from all things truly scientific. Such a view would seem to imply that if a scientist were present at a miracle of Christ, he would have to defer to theologians to verify whether the miracle actually occured. Likewise, it would imply that physicians who practice both medicine and prayer must not speculate as to which one had the most effect. Of course, ordinary folk intuitively know that the wall can't be so impenetrable.
Don't get me wrong. There is a point in saying that Genesis 1-11 are not scientific texts. They aren't. They are accounts of what supposedly happened. But from Genesis 11 forward, it is clear there is real history in Genesis. It is at least inconsitent to insist that everything prior to Genesis 11 has no connection to history when clearly everything after Genesis 11 does. It is one thing to acknowledge we can't get all the details of creation from Genesis 1-3 or that we may legitimately debate the length of a day or the gap between 1:1 and 1:2. But as a matter of doctrine, Christians cannot so easily give up the historicity of the first man and woman or the fall in the Garden, without giving up an essential aspect of Christian belief, that human beings are fallen and that evil exists for a reason.
Those are, in fact, theological questions, questions of hermeneutics, questions to be discussed in Christian circles more than in a science classroom. But they are not what the proponents of Intelligent Design care about, primarily. It is true that creation science proponents like Henry Morris and Ken Ham take a position which defends the book of Genesis against Darwinism, that their primary focus is the Bible. That is not the case with ID.
It appears to me that most of the critics of intelligent design seem not to understand it. No one in the ID movement wants to silence the teaching of evolution. I don't believe there is anyone in the ID movement who wants the Public Schools to teach Genesis or even theism.
This is where this clergy endorsement of Evolution Sunday betrays its own cause. ID advocates do not oppose Darwin because Darwin contradicts the Bible. They oppose Darwin because Darwin's theory can no longer account for what we know from science. The whole point of ID is that Darwinism and its many revisions fails as science. There are certain things in nature that evolution does not explain and cannot explain. All ID proponents want is to be able to present the new ideas of information theory, irreducible complexity, the incredible balance of the cosmos in terms of the precision of the organization of the planets and stars. All of this is completely independent of the text of Genesis or any "doxological" formulation.
ID folk are generally not too concerned with the age of the earth or whether Adam had a belly button. They are concerned with how information in the genetic code can be explained as a collection of random chance occurrences or how a brain, nervous system, retina, and lens could all form simultaneously, allowing the amazing thing we call vision to truly be an evolutionary positive develpment that increases the odds of survival. ID is not an endorsement of Genesis or Christianity or even theism - it is a critique of Darwinism and naturalism.
So it is odd that those who signed this clergy letter to protest the promotion of scientific "ignorance" allegedly caused by mingling science with faith miss the point that it is science they are undercutting. In allowing Darwin's dogma to go unchallenged with new ideas, they impede knowledge, rather than protect it. As long as naturalism reigns - the idea that all events must be explained in purely naturalistic terms - not only will theology be kept in an intellectual ghetto, the science establishment itself will continue to squash true scientific dissent, smother new ideas, and hinder scientific progress.
In the name of keeping theology and science separate, which coincidently keeps morality and ethics comfortably cloistered as well, they throw their support to naturalism, an idea that denies any place for anything that is "beyond nature". Those clergy who support Darwin and his followers are not only cutting out from under themselves what is left of their theological foundation, but they are undermining the very science they claim to champion. Do they imagine that if the naturalists win the day again that those naturalists will be so generous as to sign petitions to continue the teaching of Genesis in Christian educational settings?
To borrow a phrase from Os Guiness, "he who dines with the devil better have a very long spoon."
Zimmerman is apparently also behind the Clergy Letter Project, which stated in response to the teaching of "all views" of origins in a Wisconsin school, "We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as 'one theory among others' is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children." Apparently some 10,000 clergy have signed this statement.
Zimmerman's web site claims that some 450 or so congregations are participating in Evolution Sunday. Included are links to a number of sermons by those who participated. A cursory scan of the list suggests to me that most of the signers are from denominations plagued with revisionist tendencies of the Ecstatic Heresy, that tendency to think that the Word of God is somehow separate and distinct from the words of scripture and must be understood as not necessarily dependent on the plain words of the text. Sermonizers favoring Darwin over Intelligent Design include clergy from the United Methodist, Presbyterian, and Episcopal churches, as well as from the United Church of Christ, and the Unitarian church. I don't see many signers from evangelical or fundamentalist backgrounds, nor from the Roman Catholic ranks, interestingly.
One sermon from Paul Beckel of the First Universalist Unitarian Church, quotes from Tao Te Ching (chapter 5) as its main text. Others are more focused on Christian source material. The message from a Roy Howard, of St. Mark Presbyterian Church, in Rockville, MD confirms more of my suspicions. His sermon illustrates the chasm between matters of faith and matters of reason, a major part of what drives some clergy to stick with Darwin while many scientists are slowly moving away from him. Says Howard,
"Matters of science, including theories of the origin of life, are to be pursued by way of the standard forms of scientific research. Matters of science, when in dispute, including theories about the origin of life, cannot be solved by theology, nor can matters of theological dispute be solved by the scientific method. Theology has to do with the pursuit of God and doxological practice that flow from our understanding and experience of God."
Like the "wall of separation" ACLU lawyers like to appeal to between church and state, many find an impenetrable wall between faith and reason, so that the scientific method cannot be applied to "doxological" matters and faith is somehow absent from all things truly scientific. Such a view would seem to imply that if a scientist were present at a miracle of Christ, he would have to defer to theologians to verify whether the miracle actually occured. Likewise, it would imply that physicians who practice both medicine and prayer must not speculate as to which one had the most effect. Of course, ordinary folk intuitively know that the wall can't be so impenetrable.
Don't get me wrong. There is a point in saying that Genesis 1-11 are not scientific texts. They aren't. They are accounts of what supposedly happened. But from Genesis 11 forward, it is clear there is real history in Genesis. It is at least inconsitent to insist that everything prior to Genesis 11 has no connection to history when clearly everything after Genesis 11 does. It is one thing to acknowledge we can't get all the details of creation from Genesis 1-3 or that we may legitimately debate the length of a day or the gap between 1:1 and 1:2. But as a matter of doctrine, Christians cannot so easily give up the historicity of the first man and woman or the fall in the Garden, without giving up an essential aspect of Christian belief, that human beings are fallen and that evil exists for a reason.
Those are, in fact, theological questions, questions of hermeneutics, questions to be discussed in Christian circles more than in a science classroom. But they are not what the proponents of Intelligent Design care about, primarily. It is true that creation science proponents like Henry Morris and Ken Ham take a position which defends the book of Genesis against Darwinism, that their primary focus is the Bible. That is not the case with ID.
It appears to me that most of the critics of intelligent design seem not to understand it. No one in the ID movement wants to silence the teaching of evolution. I don't believe there is anyone in the ID movement who wants the Public Schools to teach Genesis or even theism.
This is where this clergy endorsement of Evolution Sunday betrays its own cause. ID advocates do not oppose Darwin because Darwin contradicts the Bible. They oppose Darwin because Darwin's theory can no longer account for what we know from science. The whole point of ID is that Darwinism and its many revisions fails as science. There are certain things in nature that evolution does not explain and cannot explain. All ID proponents want is to be able to present the new ideas of information theory, irreducible complexity, the incredible balance of the cosmos in terms of the precision of the organization of the planets and stars. All of this is completely independent of the text of Genesis or any "doxological" formulation.
ID folk are generally not too concerned with the age of the earth or whether Adam had a belly button. They are concerned with how information in the genetic code can be explained as a collection of random chance occurrences or how a brain, nervous system, retina, and lens could all form simultaneously, allowing the amazing thing we call vision to truly be an evolutionary positive develpment that increases the odds of survival. ID is not an endorsement of Genesis or Christianity or even theism - it is a critique of Darwinism and naturalism.
So it is odd that those who signed this clergy letter to protest the promotion of scientific "ignorance" allegedly caused by mingling science with faith miss the point that it is science they are undercutting. In allowing Darwin's dogma to go unchallenged with new ideas, they impede knowledge, rather than protect it. As long as naturalism reigns - the idea that all events must be explained in purely naturalistic terms - not only will theology be kept in an intellectual ghetto, the science establishment itself will continue to squash true scientific dissent, smother new ideas, and hinder scientific progress.
In the name of keeping theology and science separate, which coincidently keeps morality and ethics comfortably cloistered as well, they throw their support to naturalism, an idea that denies any place for anything that is "beyond nature". Those clergy who support Darwin and his followers are not only cutting out from under themselves what is left of their theological foundation, but they are undermining the very science they claim to champion. Do they imagine that if the naturalists win the day again that those naturalists will be so generous as to sign petitions to continue the teaching of Genesis in Christian educational settings?
To borrow a phrase from Os Guiness, "he who dines with the devil better have a very long spoon."
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
The Religious Left
I have to make another foray into the political, briefly. Hugh Hewitt directs us to this column by Patrick Hynes on Townhall.com about the use of religious references by Democrats to try to win support among America's religious. One expects a certain amount of interplay between left of center politics and theological meanderings from someone like Jim Wallis or Jimmy Carter. But, James Carville and Paul Begala saying "God is a Liberal"? How calculated can you get? How transparent and cynical.
“When did Jesus become pro-rich?”, asks Wallis. Typical party line meaningless slogan. If one asks for factual detail about whether tax cuts help people in all income brackets or whether social welfare programs really help the poor, one will be accused of avoiding the subject. Don't confuse us with substance when sound bites will do. Coincidentally, this kind of debate has become very concrete recently, as a friend of my wife who is struggling to rebuild a life after some hard times has faced up to the reality of government concern for the poor as envisioned by the liberal side of the aisle. She works as many hours as she can, has virtually nothing to her name, and is told by "relief" agencies that she is ineligible for aid, because she makes too much money at an $8.oo and hour part time job. Undoubtedly, if she were to walk in to work, insult her boss and get fired, then and only then would she qualify. She would then be sufficiently "dependent" on government feel good systems. Those who wish to improve their lot are penalized and those who show no initiative at all are given no reason to show initiative.
“When did Jesus become pro-rich?”, asks Wallis. Typical party line meaningless slogan. If one asks for factual detail about whether tax cuts help people in all income brackets or whether social welfare programs really help the poor, one will be accused of avoiding the subject. Don't confuse us with substance when sound bites will do. Coincidentally, this kind of debate has become very concrete recently, as a friend of my wife who is struggling to rebuild a life after some hard times has faced up to the reality of government concern for the poor as envisioned by the liberal side of the aisle. She works as many hours as she can, has virtually nothing to her name, and is told by "relief" agencies that she is ineligible for aid, because she makes too much money at an $8.oo and hour part time job. Undoubtedly, if she were to walk in to work, insult her boss and get fired, then and only then would she qualify. She would then be sufficiently "dependent" on government feel good systems. Those who wish to improve their lot are penalized and those who show no initiative at all are given no reason to show initiative.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
The Ecstatic Heresy
I was just introduced to the writings of the Rev Robert Sanders through a friend of a friend. He was an Episcopal priest, who as part of the crisis in the ECUSA left that group and associated with the Anglican Mission in America, an orthodox missionary movement to the United States led by the Archbishop of Rwanda.
The first article I read, the Ecstatic Heresy, on Sanders website examines the drift of “revisionist” theology over the last two-hundred years. What intrigued me about it was that it parallels many of the issues Francis Schaeffer addressed in his critique of neo-orthodoxy. Sanders refers to a movement, which he attributes to Schleiermacher, as “ecsatatic” theology, a mystical system based not on the words of revealed scripture, but on the experience of a God-consiousness. In the end, Sanders, like Schaeffer, follows the clues to a place where proponents of a new system of theology use the same words as orthodox theologians, but give a very different meaning to the words, in fact teaching a completely false faith. Though Schaeffer and Sanders come from very different perspectives, Schaeffer a committed Presbyterian and Sanders an Anglican, there are parallels to the issues they faced in their different situations, and possible parallels to issues evangelicals face today.
The first article I read, the Ecstatic Heresy, on Sanders website examines the drift of “revisionist” theology over the last two-hundred years. What intrigued me about it was that it parallels many of the issues Francis Schaeffer addressed in his critique of neo-orthodoxy. Sanders refers to a movement, which he attributes to Schleiermacher, as “ecsatatic” theology, a mystical system based not on the words of revealed scripture, but on the experience of a God-consiousness. In the end, Sanders, like Schaeffer, follows the clues to a place where proponents of a new system of theology use the same words as orthodox theologians, but give a very different meaning to the words, in fact teaching a completely false faith. Though Schaeffer and Sanders come from very different perspectives, Schaeffer a committed Presbyterian and Sanders an Anglican, there are parallels to the issues they faced in their different situations, and possible parallels to issues evangelicals face today.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Musical Mush
Chuck Colson is a man after my own heart. His commentary today is on musical mush. Colson begins his short commentary by recounting an incident in which a particular “worship” chorus – somewhat short of theological content - was sung and sung in a morning service repeatedly. When the cheerful worship leader suggested it be sung yet again he, unable to contain himself, shouted “No!” (How many times have you secretly wanted to do that! When I told of this incident to my wife, she burst out laughing.) But he points up a trend that has bothered me for many years, that much of what passes for Christian worship music is weak music with even weaker theology.
I have to confess, I have been a worship leader and battled with the inertia of this era of church history. Though I sought to select songs with content and depth, decisions are often made by committee, and song selections are often made out of habit and familiarity rather than content.
Colson correctly sees the trend in worship music as leaning toward entertainment and “needs meeting” rather than worship and instruction in sound doctrine. And Colson connects the dots to trends beyond the local church worship service.
I have to confess, I have been a worship leader and battled with the inertia of this era of church history. Though I sought to select songs with content and depth, decisions are often made by committee, and song selections are often made out of habit and familiarity rather than content.
Colson correctly sees the trend in worship music as leaning toward entertainment and “needs meeting” rather than worship and instruction in sound doctrine. And Colson connects the dots to trends beyond the local church worship service.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Michael Novak on The Logic of Character Assassination
Many conservatives see events like the tirade of Ted Kennedy over Samuel Alito's inevitable confirmation as a sign that the left is losing its collective mind, such as the literate and courageous Michelle Malkin. See ('KENNEDY UNHINGED: LIVEBLOGGING THE MELTDOWN'.)
Michael Novak writes in First Things that the seemingly unhinged attacks by the left on anything or anyone near the right are perhaps part of an intentional strategy. Says Novak,
"The Left is not engaged in an “argument,” it is engaged in a revolution in the name of all that is just and right and good. Therefore, it does not aim to out-argue its opponents, but to shame them, to drive them from the field in ignominy, to make them figures of ridicule, moral indignation, and revulsion."
Michael Novak writes in First Things that the seemingly unhinged attacks by the left on anything or anyone near the right are perhaps part of an intentional strategy. Says Novak,
"The Left is not engaged in an “argument,” it is engaged in a revolution in the name of all that is just and right and good. Therefore, it does not aim to out-argue its opponents, but to shame them, to drive them from the field in ignominy, to make them figures of ridicule, moral indignation, and revulsion."
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