A Few Notes About Mitt Romney

I just happened to catch a few words on the radio the other day from Sandy Rios on the Chicago radio station WYLL. Sandy has been a fairly listenable conservative voice for years, sort of a kinder gentler Laura Ingram. She did spend a few years in Massachusetts at the time when Mitt Romney was governor and the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in favor of gay unions. She won't be supporting Romney.

In light of all the buzz among conservatives and Christians over Romney's well written speech regarding religion and politics, including and endorsement from endorsement from Wayne Grudem, and generates a lot of interest from Christians it is interesting to hear a different take.

The gist of Sandy Rios' objection is simply that she doesn't trust Romney. She believes he will say things to please conservatives, but will then do things in such a way as to virtually guarantee the opposite outcome. On abortion and gay marriage, his actions speak louder than words. In short, in her view, the Massachusetts court directed its ruling toward the legislative branch, but Romney, claiming he had "no choice", saw to it that marriage licences were changed from "husband" and "wife" to "party A" and "party B" and ordered officials to begin performing same-sex marriages at risk of losing their jobs if they did not comply.

What is Heresy?

The flap over Rob Bell allegedly being called a heretic by Mark Driscoll raises an interesting question. What is heresy and how is it defined?

The late Harold O. J. Brown has suggested that after the Reformation, the term "heresy" is essentially meaningless. Why? Because the term seems to have referred to the notion of "going one's own way", that is: at a time when there was one unified church, those who departed from the teaching of that one unified church were heretics. Once the church ceased to be unified, "going one's own way" could no longer be termed heresy - there was no longer a singular arbiter of what was orthodox. In actuality, the term lost some of its meaning after the separation of the Eastern and Western churches in 1054. Can a Roman Catholic call an Orthodox a heretic with any real authority? It becomes a "he said/he said" conflict.

Yet the term is still used, probably too often. I do not think the term is meaningless, nor do I think Driscoll was entirely off base in saying Rob Bell was straying into heretical territory. Here's why.

Some Random Quotes

My wife and I went to a Farmer's market recently and I found someone selling books at a table, used books of various kinds. I bought two. Both were $2.00. They were by J.P. Moreland and they were on Christian apologetics. I guess it was good that I got a deal. But it was discouraging in another way. When I buy a quality book, I keep it. When good books that challenge the mind are casually discarded, it makes me wonder who let them go and why.

On the way home, I leafed through the book "Love Your God With All Your Mind." At the beginning of each chapter there were various quotes from different figures. Three in particular aroused some old passions in me.

"False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and succeed only in winning a straggle here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion." - J Gresham Machen

PBS Indoctrination - Some thoughts

So the PBS Nova presentation on the Dover Intelligent Design case was about what I expected.

The defendants looked like dishonest idiots. The ACLU Lawyers looked like knights in shining armor. Michael Behe was conspicuously absent, PBS claimed he "refused" to be interviewed, which was false. They highlighted the "establishment clause", well, half of it. "No law respecting the establishment of religion." They left out the part about prohibiting the free exercise of it. The usual stuff.

But all that is what we've come to expect. I did note Behe had a response at the Discovery Institute site which pertains directly to the decision of Judge John Jones.

"The Court’s reasoning in section E-4 is premised on: a cramped view of science; the conflation of intelligent design with creationism; the incapacity to distinguish the implications of a theory from the theory itself;"

PBS Indoctrination on Origins Continues

PBS has a long history of presenting a pretty one-sided view of the evolution vs. design controversy. From Carl Sagan, ("the cosmos is all there ever was and all there ever will be") to Donald Johanson to Steven Jay Gould, folks who believe everything about origins must be explained by purely natural processes in order to be "scientific" explanations get lots of airtime and those who don't get the "dunce" treatment.

This Thursday the trend continues with a program on NOVA this Thursday about the Dover Pa. case in which a single statement about Intelligent Design which did not mention anything religious was found to be an unconstitutional promotion of religion.
World Magazine reports that the program is less than a stellar example of objective reporting:

"Because no cameras were allowed in the courtroom during the trial, NOVA created dramatic reenactments of the proceedings with actors quoting lines from the case transcripts. Filmmakers also interviewed attorneys, school board members, scientists, and local teachers and parents. Conspicuously absent: interviews with fellows of the ID-advancing Discovery Institute, several of whom testified at the trial."

The article claims that Intelligent Design advocates wanted to be included but PBS would not allow for a bit of checks and balances:

"...negotiations over interview procedures broke down when Apsell (Nova Executive Producer) refused to allow a Discovery Institute representative to record the exchanges for public release should NOVA use any statements out of context..."

Seems like a reasonable request to me. Consider the CBS Westmoreland lawsuit, the Dan Rather forged documents episode, the NBC staging of exploding gas tanks... Journalists these days have a reputation not much higher than that of lawyers and politicians. People do not trust them. PBS made a counter offer:

"Apsell instead offered to provide Discovery officials with complete footage of the interviews provided they signed away any right to make it public. "

So, if Michael Behe were to catch PBS in an outright lie, he would be bound not to tell anybody about it? That's an option?

So PBS will go forward with its "report", with not a single representative of ID, apparently, presenting their side of the story. It will, no doubt, give all the impression of being an objective, factual, news program, but will likely be an all-out indoctrination that materialist views of origins are "science" and anything that suggests nature might not be all there is has to be "unscientific", "religious", and therefore a matter of mere "belief" severed from fact and reason.

Your tax dollars at work.

Red Letter Inconsistency

Interesting exchange between Stan Guthrie and Tony Campolo in CT under the banner When Red is Blue. Guthrie makes his case that the term "Red-letter Christians" seems to refer to those who hold two problematic views. One is that the "red letters", that is the words of Jesus in some translations of the Bible implies that Jesus' words are somehow more canonical than other portions of scripture. The other is that the "red-letter" Christians seem to decry the entanglement of the "religious right" in politics, but then turn and embrace political views that are almost entirely in agreement with the views of the left. Writes Guthrie...

If you believe ending poverty requires more government spending and a higher minimum wage; if you believe in a manmade global warming crisis; if you oppose school vouchers; if homosexual marriage is no big deal (and in fact a civil right); and if you are tired of talking about the 50 million unborn human beings lost to abortion since 1973, then you know which lever to pull.

Guthrie's critique may or may not be 100% correct, but Campolo's response was a bit of a surprise.

Rethinking Robert Webber - Part 4

Robert Webber grounds authority in the apostolic teaching, and most Christians would of course agree. The apostles were given authority by Christ, and all other authority derives from that. Here Webber veers ever so slightly into the “tradition is equal to written scripture” view.

"Authority in the early medieval era, like in the ancient church, was rooted in the apostolic tradition and succession….while the apostles were the original authority in the church, a writing of Augustine or another Father of the church, or a creed or council that extended or expounded an idea in keeping with apostolic teaching enjoyed a kind of apostolic authority." P177

I do not mean to read too much into that. His view is likely not equivalent to what Catholicism is often accused of by Protestants. One has to nuance one’s objections in this regard. The problem with tradition is not that it exists, but centers around the question of when it begins to bend the scripture, when it begins to add to or take away from what the apostles clearly wrote. And Augustine was one who indicated quite strongly his own writingw were not as authoritative as scripture.

Webber makes much of tradition though, and finds the horrible culprit to be convicted in recent evangelical thought to be reason.

Rethinking Robert Webber - Part 3

I don't know how to reiterate enough that I really liked the writings of the late Robert Webber, his irenic tone, his gentle and calm voice. How I hate to critique him for that reason, but precisely because I was rather fond of his "ancient-future" approach, I feel I need to point out what seems to me a significant problem. Webber's epistemology leans just a bit too far toward the postmodern for my comfort, and in that I am genuinely disappointed.

Turns out that in Ancient Future Faith Webber also had a modified evangelical stance on scripture. He says scripture is inspired. He says it is authoritative. He does not like the notion of inerrancy. But most troubling to me is that he concluded scripture is ultimately not foundational, restating a common distinction that the true source of authority for faith is a person, not a book.

"I have not started where evangelicals usually start-with the scriptures. Rather, I begin with the work of Jesus Christ, the primordial event of the living, dying, rising, and coming again. I have attempted to unfold the Christian faith in a phenomenological manner…. Not starting with the Bible does not represent a lower view of Scripture than that which is generally held among evangelicals,. Instead, Christocentric method acknowledges the place of the scriptures in early Christian tradition." P31

Of couse it sounds very good to insist that Christ is the ultimate reality and that the book that contains teachings by Him and about Him is not, ultimately, God. Still, I can only think that this distinction between the “person” of Christ and the scriptures is a false dichotomy. I’ve been hearing that one for three decades. It is nothing new to me. It usually came from the mouths of those who wanted a tie to a domesticated Christ without much commitment to his moral teachings. I'm sure that is not the case with Webber, but I have to ask, how do we know the person of Christ apart from the testimony of those who walked with him? How do we know Christ apart from the gospels? Ultimately, the answer is experience.

I would object that my own faith is not in “scripture” as an inanimate object that somehow has a magical power. It is not in rationalistic axioms or systematic theology. Of course my faith is in a person, but that faith could not exist apart from content about that person, content that has its roots in scripture. Jesus was Jewish. He was born in Bethlehem. He preached in Jerusalem and Samaria. He was crucified under an historical figure named Pilate. He claimed to be one with the father. He claimed authority to forgive sins. We know this from a book that contains writings claimed to be "God-breathed". One cannot know Christ truly apart from scripture.

But Webber unfortunately sees an overdependence on scripture as a problem to be solved. “The primary problem we evangelicals have inherited from the enlightenment is its emphasis on the foundational nature of Scripture.” P45

What Webber will ultimately argue is that the foundation for Christianity is the "rule of faith" forged by the church and that scripture is a part of the "handed down" teaching of the apostles. It is a milder version of what the Catholics and Orthodox argue. So he is not without company. But I have to disagree with his suggestion that seeing scripture as foundational is a "problem" inherited from the 17th Century Enlightenment. I can quote plenty of 16th century figures about the foundational nature of scripture. I can quote several early church fathers about the foundational nature of scripture. No doubt Webber meant something more subtle:

“The book-oriented approach to the Christian faith, which dominated during the Enlightenment, makes several presuppositions: (1) the Bible is the mind of God written; (2) the mind is the highest faculty of our creation in the image of God (3) truth is known as the human mind meets the mind of God in the study of Scripture. The Bible as observable data is an exact science that leads to rational answers. These answers are objective propositional truths." P 45

He sees this a problematic. But I think he knocks down a straw man. Exact science? Do most evangelicals really believe that? Is there no nuance, no room for humility in typical evangelical theology?

“Catechetical training from the Reformation to the present has been based on the notions of reading, writing, linear sequence, analysis and memory…a shift occurred away from a mystical view of the Christian faith experienced in the liturgy to an intellectual understanding of the faith."

Here is a truly false dichotomy. It is so common these days to read of two alternatives, the first negative one being a wooden, rationalistic and ultimately naturalistic approach to the text and the second positive one an experiential, mystical, communitarian approach. But it is not so cut and dried. Do all "rational" approaches to scripture rule out experience? Did the early church never read scripture rationally?

Clearly, according to the last statement above, he favors a “mystical” view over a “propositional” view. This is because he sees truth a a "communitarian" construct. The truth value of the faith is determined not by correspondence to reality but by the fidelity to a way of life, an embodied reality. He makes a bold claim.

"… In the postmodern world, education will shift from the passing down of information to the passing down of wisdom through experience. Christian truth, which was regarded as propositional, intellectual and rational, will be experienced as an embodied reality. Faith will be communicated through immersion into a community of people who truly live the Christian faith.”155

So the truth of the faith is not made clear by rational argument, but by allowing a seeker to "experience" the life of Christ in a community. I think most Christians would agree with that up to a point. People do want to see righteousness, to feel love and compassion, to experience forgiveness in tangible ways. I'm not sure secular non-believers will universally sense the presence of God in liturgy, but his point is well taken.

If he means that post-moderns who don't listen to rational arguments need to be reached by other approaches, I'll agree. But if he means that rational arguments are no longer valid at all, then I have a problem. If he means that the concept of "objective truth" can no longer be applied to the claims of Christianity, then I have a problem.

And here is the crux of it. Muslims live their faith, much more so than most Christians. Is Islam therefore the truth? Mormons likewise live their faith. Shall we prefer Mormonism to Christianity with no regard for the historical verifiability of Joseph Smith’s audacious claims? In separating Christianity from history, rationality, from correspondence to reality, Webber unwittingly makes Christianity nothing more than another option on the smorgasbord of ideas. Without a rational (as opposed rationalist) tie to objective truth, why should Christianity be seen as in any way more inviting or true than any other notion?”

I'm don't believe Webber went all the way through that door of runaway subjectivity and mysticism, but he cracked that door open. Once the objective historical content of faith is lost, there is no longer an anchor to hold faith in place, and it inevitably will drift. Webber believed that the consensus of the history of the church would be a sufficient anchor, but even consensus needs a cornerstone. He believes authority lies not in the text of scripture, but in something else, in the community. To his view of authority we will turn last.

Rethinking Robert Webber - Part 2

I wrote in the last post that I was a fan of Bob Webber. However, his underlying assumptions begin to come out in Ancient Future Faith in a way I hadn't seen. One of Webber's suggested methods for dealing in a postmodern world incorporated the ideas of George Lindbeck. This means, unfortunately, that Webber is hinting he agrees with the rejection of the very notion of "propositional truth", that rejection being the hallmark of postmodern thought. It involves the rejection of the idea that there is an objective reality that can be known and described and replaces that with the idea that truth is formed by a community. That community's unique set of beliefs become truth in that context.

According to Webber, Lindbeck “…posits the ‘cultural-linguistic’ concept of conceptualizing the significance of classical theology for the postmodern world. This approach to theology is an alternative to the modern conservative insistence on propositional truth and the liberal view of doctrines as expressive symbols. Lindbeck regards both conservative and liberal constructs of truth as ‘extratextual’ because they search for the ‘religious meaning outside the text or semiotic system either in the objective realities to which it refers or in the experience it symbolizes. The propositionalists insist the language of doctrine corresponds with an exact objective truth while the expressionists locate the value of the truth of the doctrine in the subjective experience of the believers without any need to correspond to an external objective truth. Rejecting both of these concepts, Lindbeck describes the ‘cultural-linguistic’ view of doctrine as ‘intratextual’. That is, the meaning is constituted by the uses of a specific language rather than being distinguishable from it. In other words, its truth value is determined by how it ‘fits into systems of communication or purposeful action, not by reference to outside facts” p30

I am curious here. Lindbeck seems to be saying that "liberal" and "conservative" are equally misguided in terms of epistemology. They are one and the same, in fact. They formulate different conclusions, but begin with the same misunderstanding of reality. I find that a bit disconcerting and I think, inaccurate.

But the last pharase, that meaning is "constituted" by how it fits into a system of communication "not by reference to outside facts" raises an eyebrow. Is Lindbeck saying, and is Webber agreeing, that a "fact" such as the empty tomb in the first century is not something on which meaning can be built? If the empty tomb were not a fact, would it still provide genuine meaning for the community? Is meaning completely divorced from objective reality?

This is the problem that seems to be creeping into theological thought in almost every tradition, mainline, evangelical, emergent. It is the idea that meaning is a sort of corporately held subjective social contract. All "facts" are "interpreted", so it is not the facts that really matter, only the interpretation. Webber applies this kind of thought to the Creed:

“For example, the truth value of the Nicene Creed is not to be found in words that correspond with an exact reality, but in words that truthfully signify the religious reality of the Trinity in the system of thought…in which it is articulated.” P30

I have an immediate problem with the term "exact reality". I doubt any traditional conservative believes words correspond exactly to reality, that "Trinity" adequately describes the nature of God. But most people, (I think it safe to say, for most of human history) work from the assumption that there is a measure of reasonable correspondence between language and an external something that is real. When I say "tree", nobody who heard my voice will likely conjure in their minds an image of "rock". Words do not convey exact reality, but neither do they convey nothing at all about reality. There has to be a connection.

Webber seems to buy into Lindbeck's distinction between that which is "extratextual" or objective and that which is "intratextual", or consistent within the inner logic of the community.

“In modernity, we always sought for truth that could be somehow verified outside the community of faith. Lindbeck refers to this quest as 'extratextual’. That is, using reason and logic, we expected to prove that the framework of faith could be demonstrated to be true through historical or scientific research. Both liberals and conservatives wanted statements of faith to have a proven correspondence with reality.” P185

I think he misses a mark with this connection of "objectivity" to liberalism: “This led liberals to the process of demythologizing Christian doctrine and relegating doctrines to pious experiential expressions of faith” p185

Come now. It was reason that "led" liberals to deny the supernatural in scripture? Could there not have been something more involved? Unbelief? Negative moral influences? Faulty logic? Naturalistic assumptions?

At any rate, for Webber, what ultimately matters is not the Scripture as a historical record of Apostolic teaching that can be objectively grasped, what matters is the community which defined the "rule of faith" which the scripture supports and serves. As long as that rule is consistent and has a history of guiding the community, we do not need, nor should we desire, evidence. Truth is found not in objective reality, but in the shared heritage of the community of faith.

"Lindbeck identifies the ancient regula fidei as ‘intratextual’. That is, it makes sense within its own story. Its sense is not determined by outside factors, but by the system of thought it intends to communicate. The point is that Christianity is not provable outside itself through the scientific method. One must come to the Christian faith believing that it is true and embrace it as such without any dependence on data outside the faith. Christianity requires trust, a believing embrace, a willingness to step inside its story apart from any dependence on historical, scientific, or rational persuasion. Once a person steps into the stream of faith, the community introduces that person to the rules of discussion." P185

This is precisely why I cringe a bit whenever I hear Christian leaders speak of scripture as a “narrative” these days. Of course scripture is a narrative. Of course it tells the story of salvation. But I always fear they mean that Christianity is “story” only, and has no tether to history.

To say Christianity “makes sense within its own story” is to say nothing that would require any concept of faith that I have ever understood. Internal consistency is not necessarily related to truth. Humpty Dumpty is internally consistent, but not true, not historical, nor salvific.

Faith, as Webber seems to be describing it, is not a "conviction of the truthfulness" of something as suggested in my lexicon, and understanding is not a prerequisite for faith. Rather one "just believes" by being immersed in a community, being exposed to its symbols and traditions, and understanding comes later after that non-rational "faith" is rooted. It is this subtle severing of the connection between faith and reason that I have, in my own small way, battled against for 25 years. And now it seems to be overtaking the Western Evangelical church. I did not see that strain in Webber earlier, now it greatly troubles me.

Rethinking Robert Webber - Part 1

I started down a path a few years ago, based in Tom Oden's urging to follow Vincent of Lerins' dictum, "always, everywhere and by all". It seemed to me a path that would mitigate some of the fragmentation that exists in Protestantism. A healthy respect for the past, for the consensus of what Christians have believed in every culture and century might help us overcome our blind spots and pet divisive doctrines.

About the same time, I discovered the late Robert Webber. His seminal book, The Younger Evangelicals highlighted, I believed, some of what Oden was saying. We live in a post-modern culture. Webber, I believed, was not one to embrace postmodernism uncritically, but was able to acknowledge its influence. He seemed to suggest many things that would help evangelicals navigate the postmodern era without buying its assumptions lock, stock and barrel.

I also read his Worship Old and New which I really thought would be helpful to evangelicals and would narrow some of the unnecessary gaps between free church evangelicals and traditional Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans and Anglicans. He defined and explained worship based on Vincent's dictum - always, everywhere and by all.

So I was a fan of Robert Webber. He passed away not long ago and I still want to respect and honor his gentle, irenic and useful work. I believe he was a genuine, orthodox and brilliant guy. But as I read more of his writings, I have to pause and step back.

Peter Akinola at Wheaton

I had the unusual privelege of hearing Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, speaking to a group of Orthodox Anglicans at Wheaton College. This meeting was in the news for a couple of reasons. For one, the meeting stands in contrast to the meetings held in New Orleans, during which the Episcopal Church has once again failed to even adequately address the call of the majority of the Anglican Communion to repent of the blessing of same sex unions and the consecration of an openly gay Bishop.

Akinola heads the largest province in all of Anglicanism, and is an outspoken opponent of the agenda of the Episcopal church on this issue. That has made him an enemy of many and there were a handful of picketers, as promised, outside Edman Chapel on campus.

But like most of the Orthodox Anglicans, his focus is not on the symptom but the cause. A brief summary of his key points will follow.

This meeting was about unity, as representatives from many different churches in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Minnesota were present. Africans, midwestern Americans and Spanish speaking churches were present. Those churches represented different groups whose leadership, at present, comes from places like Nigeria and Rwanda, groups which critics say could further fragment the communion if they do not come together after the dust settles from the September 30 deadline for the Episcopal church to comply with the demands of the rest of the communion. The fear is that if the TEC fails to repent, which is almost certain, that various Anglican groups will split into many different directions, with various Global South leaders setting up different missionary structures in the US that will end up in competition.

To that end, Akinola said things like this:

A Bit of Respect of D. James Kennedy

"D. James Kennedy, RIP. And while we are at it, let us bury American Christendom, too. "

This is the unfortunate closing line from a post by Diana Butler Bass on the God's Politics Blog at Sojourners. I was not a bit devotee of D James Kennedy, but I always found his ideas regarding faith and politics compelling. Which is why I am disappointed and annoyed at the way his ideas are represented in Bass' article. It is a common characature of the "religious right" by the religious left. Bass writes...

"His strongest contribution to the movement was his passionate belief that America was founded as a Christian nation and developing media to carry that message across the globe. 'Our job is to reclaim America for Christ,' he proclaimed, 'whatever the cost.' His preaching, politics, and public ministry flowed from this central idea: to restore Christian America."

Revisiting Catechesis...

I've been involved in church Christian Education initiatives off and on for most of my 30 years in evangelical churches. Seems like the biggest hurdle was trying to figure out what to do with adult CE programs. There are so many options. We did classes on parenting, classes on books of the Bible (I taught Romans, Pastor Epistles on a couple of occasiosn for example). There was a class on the book of Acts I sat in on that lasted for years. One teacher in my youth did a great summer series on the Old Testament tabernacle and it's relation to New Testament events. I once led a class on affliction attended by mostly couples over 50, who found such a class more pertinent than the under 30 crowd might. There were classes on marriage, finances, prophecy, current events and more. Options, options, options. Not a cohesive game plan usually. Whatever seemed current and timely - whatever someone was willing to teach.

When we tried to come up with a game plan, for newcomers and new members things generally covered evangelical distinctives. So we dealt with things like inerrancy, salvation by grace through faith, eternal security, maybe a bit about congregational government, a word about tithing and about spiritual gifts. In recent years, the emphasis in many churches seems to be on getting newcomers "active" as soon as possible as opposed to "grounded". One suggestion was actually made in a leadership context that we should avoid "theology" because folks wouldn't come to something heavy.

In leadership meetings in past church affiliations, we tried to be more intentional about depth. We tried to devise a way of covering a few deeper theological concepts and grounding folks in a larger view of how scripture all "fits together". But it was overwhelming. Hard to limit, hard to pick and choose. I once came up with an elaborate three year plan, mapping out a bunch of "essential" ideas for biblical literacy.

But there is a simpler starting point....

Is Evidential Apologetics Dead? - Part 3

If it is true that Christianity doesn't fit into the cateories of mathematical or scientific "bomb-proof certainty", then what kind of proof can we speak of for basic tenets of Christianity?

We have, in this country, a longstanding legal tradition that says that cases can be settled on the principle of proof "beyond reasonable doubt". We do not require that matters be settled with absolute certainty, which is not humanly possible for your average court case. What we require is that a case be made which establishes something in such a way that to doubt a particular conclusion would be unreasonable.

Is Evidential Apologetics Dead? - Part 2

In all the conversations I have seen regarding whether evidential apologetics are no longer useful, something strikes me as odd. One reason evidential apologetics seems under attack is because the notion of "bomb-proof certainty" has been abandoned. It is often stated that certainty is one of those enlightenment ideas that should be given up in favor of epistemological modesty and an embrace of mystery and ambiguity.

Part of the reason for this is criticism from skeptics who insist many of the traditional "proofs" of this or that are not adequate. But I tend to think there is a bit of category confusion going on here. There is a lack of definition of what is meant by the term "proof".

I tend to think of proof in terms of three types - mathematical, scientific and legal.

Is Evedential Apologetics Dead? Part 1

The late Robert Webber coined a phrase in "The Younger Evangelicals" which has caught on in Emerging Church circles - "embodied apologetics". He means, if I read him correctly, that because we live in a postmodern age where young people are skeptical about the triumph of the scientific method, they are not receptive to the old apologetics approach of "evidence that demands a verdict", but do respond to a "proof is in the pudding" approach where seeing Christianity lived well is compelling.

I generally have liked Robert Webber. He does not seem to travel the path of others who are sensitive to postmodern cultural shifts - that is, though he recognizes that many enlightenment ideas art now seen as discredited in the culture at large and are considered naive by postmoderns, he does not seem to buy all of the tenets of the postmodern epistemology uncritically. Webber tends to speak in measured tones - not overstating his case, not trashing all things modern, not treating postmodern notions as the latest and greatest thing. He seems a bit more cautious than others in this regard.

So when Webber says "embodied apologetic", guys like me tend to listen and not react like we do when hearing the more provocative spokesmen of EC make their pronouncements. He seems to be saying "we need to understand the culture without succumbing to it." We don't have to accept everything in PoMo epistemology, but we do need to deal with it. If the folks we are trying to convince of the truth of Christianity don't warm to rational proofs, then we are foolish to take rational proofs as a starting point. If they do respond to genuine community, then by all means, having goals of establishing and maintaining communities that are genuine makes sense. One does not have to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

The Glocal Church

I was challenged by the CT article about Bob Roberts. His revolutionary ideas about using laypeople as missionaries globally is really intriguing. He seems to be saying the true mission of the church is to the whole man in the whole world, in a way that building houses and digging wells is a part of the total mission of the church. So "making converts" is a narrow vision. "Making disciples" implies transforming whole lives, not just changing theological beliefs. It has some deep implications I like, but will have a hard time imitating.

But the part of the article that struck me was this passage. Roberts had apparently attempted a church plant, and it was going nowhere. He found himself questioning himself and God.

Christian Teens and Sex

Disturbing article in World about teen sexuality. The article deals with a book Forbidden Fruit: Sex & Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers by Mark Regnerus. The telling statistics...

"...evangelical teens tend to have sex first at a younger age, 16.3, compared to liberal Protestants, who tend to lose their virginity at 16.7. And young evangelicals are far more likely to have had three or more sexual partners (13.7 percent) than non-evangelicals (8.9 percent)."

Apparently, Regnerus offers no pat answers, but the article asks a couple of hard questions regarding the cause of this concern.

"We can blame the culture. Regnerus gives evidence that correlates the sexual activity in the schools that Christian kids go to with their own behavior. Peer pressure is real, and Christian teenagers are not immune.

"But might we also blame the culture of the church? Not only because so many of today's evangelical churches follow the path of cultural conformity as a way to grow bigger and bigger. It goes deeper than that.

Ravi Zaccharias on Mitt Romney

A minor controversy has erupted over comments by the brilliant Christian apologist Ravi Zaccharias regarding the candidacy of Mitt Romney. Before I get in trouble myself, I need to say Romney is not my favorite choice. But the topic at hand was whether conservative evangelical Christians should support a Mormon for president. Ravi says it all quite well in the first paragraph...

What we want is a politician who will understand the basic Judeo-Christian world view, and on the basis of that the moral laws of this nation are framed, and then run this country with the excellence of that which is recognized in a pluralistic society: the freedom to believe or to disbelieve, and the moral framework with which this was conducted: the sanctity of every individual life.

In other words, as I have stated elsewhere, we don't live in a theocracy. One's view of eschatology or even Christology will likely not have a significant effect on decisions about economics or foreign policy. What matters is a more generalized understanding that human rights are not endowed by the state, but come from someplace higher. What matters is a belief that guy in the top job in the nation is not God and cannot willy nilly make up the rules according to his whims or the latest polling data.

Unfortunately, many comments have been posted criticizing Ravi for not criticizing
Mormonism. That is unfortunate. The topic is politics, not faith. They overlap, but are not one and the same.

Lost Faith

From Hugh Hewitt...If you don't believe a lack of holiness and doctrinal purity can be damaging to others, read this.

I do not mean to take God's place and pass judgment, but Jesus words about those who mislead children having a millstone around the neck are rather sobering. Lord have mercy.

Can Faith be Rooted in the Symbolic?

Chuck Colson has an interesting little bit today about how the emphasis on symbols may be contributing to overall illiteracy. The example he focuses on is how automobile dashboards are increasingly covered with symbols, pictures and no words describing the function of this or that button or switch. As someone who currently works in education I find that a point of interest - how kids who do not read well have difficulty in every other area of education and how well meaning educators from time to time have emphasized other ways of learning to accommodate those kids, only to find that they sacrifice long-term essentials for short term gain.

But this is the quote that really struck me...

As the late Neil Postman wrote in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, the medium of communication actually helps shape the way people think. The printed word requires sustained attention, logical analysis, and an active imagination. But television and video games, with their fast-moving images, encourage a short attention span, disjointed thinking, and purely emotional responses.

What is an Anglican?

Anglican Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi has written an excellent article published in FirstThings about the meaning of Anglicanism. It should be read in its entiretly, but a couple of highlights...

For the Ugandan church to compromise God’s call of obedience to the Scriptures would be the undoing of more than 125 years of Christianity through which African life and society have been transformed. Traditional African society was solely an oral culture, which limited its ability to share ideas beyond the family level. We couldn’t write our language, and there was nothing to read in our language. The first converts in Uganda were called “readers” because they could read the Bible, the first book available in our own languages. Because of the Bible, our languages have been enriched and recorded. For the first time, we heard God in our own languages. To this day, our people bring their Bibles to church and follow along with the readings.

He then gives several examples of that transformation, from bringing peace to warring tribes to bringing respect and dignity to women to virtually making a unified Ugandan society possible. This is not a "spiritual" transformation, if by "spiritual" we mean of the mind or heart. This is real transformation of living breathing human beings in a society. And it is based on a fairly straightforward reading of the text of the Bible.

Deconstructing Tony Jones - Part 4 - The Silenced Voices

I really have no desire to be mean or nasty or attack Tony Jones personally. I hope my rather miniscule readership will recognize that my admittedly polemic prose is directed at ideas, not personalities. Tony, if you are reading, my tone reflects the seriousness of the topic, not a desire to call names and assault your person. Perhaps my problem is with the imprecision of language, but it would seem in Theology, precision matters, and implications of ideas matter.

Having said that, in this last post I have to take issue with the insertion of power politics into Jones’ reading of history. Of course human beings tend to assert themselves in any and every meeting. Yes, politics happen. But does it necessarily follow that one must “deconstruct” every decision and conclude that power politics played a central role in the outcome? Perhaps he was merely being hyperbolic, but Jones claims:

"The Chalcedonian creed of the two natures-one person of Jesus Christ, as well as every other theological construction from every other council, has human fingerprints all over it. These were messy meetings, rife with power and politics."

Notice the “totalizing metanarrative” Jones suggests. “Every” theological construction is “rife” with power politics. In reference to the debates regarding this or that doctrinal development, he notes that disagreements were sometimes heated – but takes it one step further…

Deconstructing Tony Jones - Part 3 - Tepid Liberalism

Tony Jones claims that EC is a great way to navigate between the “cocksure certainties of conservatism and the perceived tepidness of liberalism.” Odd, he seems pretty cocksure that consensus is a misguided notion. And in the place of “cocksure certainties of conservatism”, Jones inserts what can only be described as, well, tepid.

Jones quotes from a book, “The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event”, by one Jack Caputo:

"To think theologically is to make the mind’s ascent toward God, which means toward whatever event is astir in the name of God, where the name of God is not a linguistic object that can be stretched out on the table for analysis. To use the name of God is an unstable, destabilizing act that exposes us to whatever event is transpiring in that name, to whatever chain of events this name provokes."
Hmm. “Whatever chain of events this name provokes”. In the place of a rule book, be it rules about strike zones or foul balls, we now have the theology of “whatever”. I am looking in vain for what are the precise or even imprecise limits of “whatever”? How do we know if a “chain of events” leads us heavenward or toward the pits of hell? In the absence of definitions, propositions, truth statements, what is the means of discerning the difference between ascent and descent?

Now I’m sure Jones will protest he is not advocating an “anything goes” viewpoint. He writes:


"To look at it from the side of our weakness, orthodoxy is an event and not a statement because, to put it colloquially, not one of us will score a perfect 100 on the Big Theology Exam in the Sky. We’ve all got a little heterodoxy mixed in with all the orthodoxy, and most of us will admit that. I’m wrong about some things; the problem, of course, is knowing what parts I’m wrong about. “O my fellow orthodox theologians, there are no orthodox theologians”.
While admitting that we all have a mixture of orthodox and heterodox ideas rattling about in our limited brains, he again throws down the “provocative” gauntlet, “there are no orthodox theologians”. None. Wonder why so many who might consider themselves to be orthodox theologians were upset with him.

Deconstructing Tony Jones - Part 2 - Vincent of Lerins

Back to Tony Jones' paper and it's rejection for publication in a book detailing the conference at Wheaton in which it was presented.
My quibble with Tony Jones' use of the strike zone as an analogy to the task of theology is pretty much just that, a mere quibble. When Jones takes on Vincent of Lerins and the very definition of orthodoxy, I believe he goes way over the edge and “disaster”, a word used by his critics at the Wheaton Conference, seems an accurate description of his position.

The title of his paper is “Whence Hermeneutic Authority?“ so he has declared a purpose. He also clearly identifies himself as “Tony Jones, National Coordinator of Emergent Village”, so we should all agree that Tony Jones claims to be a leader in the emerging church movement. His positions cannot be dismissed as just a singular tentative opinion in a large “conversation”, but are instead positions that carry a certain amount of weight and influence. That is why they are troubling.

Jones begins with a quote: “Tipp O.Neill famously quipped that .All politics are local.. Maybe so, but the postmodernists have argued that all hermeneutics are local. It is our local communities that shape how we see the world”. This quote is critical to understanding emerging church viewpoints. The postmodern epistemology that flows through the veins of key EC thinkers colors everything. The disdain for “metanarratives” can only lead, in their view, to one conclusion, that “micronarratives” are the logical replacement.

Deconstructing Tony Jones - Part 1 - The Strike Zone

Tony Jones is miffed that the paper he presented at Wheaton has been rejected for publication in a book that includes the papers presented by others. On his blog he expressed a bit of frustration that some theologians characterized his paper as a “disaster” and a couple of others wrote him detailed responses, critiquing specifics. Of course the several students who approached him later saying they appreciated his talk, in Jones’ estimation were sufficient counterbalance to the concerns of the theologians for him to characterize the response as “mixed”. Hmm.

The assignment, apparently, was for Jones to give some perspective on how the emerging church includes the patristic fathers in their “conversation”. Wheaton apparently told him that his talk was “off message” and “provocative but less than helpful”. Having read the entire paper now more than once, I have to say Wheaton could have been less gracious.

Since Jones chose to “deconstruct” Vincent of Lerins’, a rather important figure in the “new ecumenism” espoused by Thomas Oden and others, to refer to Vincent’s famous charge to seek what has been believed “always, everywhere and by all” as “hollow”, perhaps a bit of deconstructing of Tony Jones will be both “provocative” and “helpful”.

Debates Worth Reading

I have liked many of the things Christopher Hitchens has written over the past couple of years. He is articulate, witty, fearless and you know what you are reading is exactly what he thinks. His defense of the war in Iraq and scathing critique of Michael Moore are both a treat to read.

Now he has written God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. He seems to have taken on all religion, including Islamo-fascism and Christianity. Ordinarily I would be rather disappointed and leave it at that, but for the debate Christianity Today hooked up between Hitchens and Douglas Wilson, author of Letter from a Christian Citizen. What strikes me about this debate is how literate both participants are, how forthright, how much fun they seem to be having. Neither pulls any punches. They blast each other regularly, but with delightful prose. I think Wilson does a very good job of holding Hitchen's feet to the fire on the basic question of whether morality is even a legitimate term to use if there is no higher purpose in the universe.

Just read the whole thing. Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5.

And then, when that is all done, read the response to Hitchens' book by his brother Peter here. More great reading.

Frank Schaeffer - Over the Cliff...

Frank Schaeffer. What in the world happened to this man? The son of Francis Schaeffer, a voice that stirred a generation, seems to have completely cut all ties to his father.

There may be a few good reasons, at the risk of trying to psychoanalyze someone I don't know. He was raised in a home that had the influences of 1950s fundamentalist behavior codes, which is true of most anyone born in the 1950s. He was sent off to boarding school while his father's fame and influence took off. Francis is known to have had a temper.

On the other hand, the rigid fundamentalist tag seems a difficult one to make stick. No one, twenty to thirty years ago was more in favor of engaging the culture than Francis Schaeffer. Few were as critical of legalistic insistence on unbiblical absolutes, of being "absolutist about everything". Few were more supportive of Christian involvement in the arts, in simple citizenship, in the full spectrum of living a life as if all things were God given gifts. All the things Franky accuses fundamentalists of depriving him of, his father supported. Odd.

Maybe the Last Straw...

The Washington Times today reports that openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson wants to be one of the first in New Hampshire to marry his gay partner. So after the consensus of Global Anglican bishops was that the Episcopal Church should toe the orthodox line on gay issues, this is yet another outrageous and defiant slap in the face to orthodoxy. Meanwhile the NY Times reports that presiding bishopress Katherine Jefforts Schiori is upset that Othodox Nigerian Bishop Peter Akinola is about to consecrate Martin Minns as a bishop here, crossing "boundary" lines. Predictably she considers crossing territorial lines more divisive than biblical morality. She protects her turf, but not the truth.

Like a Spong...

Jason Lee Steorts has a nice review of retired Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spongs latest book, Jesus for the Non-Religious. The main thesis of the review is that Spong's religion fails to answer the basic question of whether it is a religion that is good for anything at all. Spong does the usual song and dance about the "story" of Jesus being a major embellishment based on Jewish folklore, that none of the supernatural events in scripture actually occurred, but somehow in this Jesus who is misrepresented in the biblical texts, we can encounter something like a god.

"'As a Christian,' Spong explains, 'I live inside a faith system which, at its core, asserts that in the life of this Jesus, that which we call God has been met, encountered and engaged.'”

This has always been curious to me. If the gospels are so full of legend and embellishment, how do we know enough about Jesus to "encounter" or "engage" him. Doesn't seem to worry Bishop Spong. Why? Because not only is Jesus unintelligible, God is beyond understanding as well.

Partial Birth Abortion Reactions - Predictably Strident

So the Supreme Court today upheld a ban on partial birth abortions. This is a bit of good news for pro-life folks. Republican Presidential candidates were quick to comment in a positive way.

Mitt Romney: “Today, our nation’s highest court reaffirmed the value of life in America by upholding a ban on a practice that offends basic human decency...This decision represents a step forward in protecting the weakest and most innocent among us.”

Rudy Guliani: “The Supreme Court reached the correct conclusion in upholding the congressional ban on partial birth abortion...I agree with it.”

John McCain: "I'm very happy about the decision given my position on abortion. Partial birth is one of the most odious aspects of abortion."

Compelling was the concurring opinion by Clarence Thomas, short and to the point.

"I join the Court's opinion because it accurately applies current jurisprudence, including Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992). I write separately to reiterate my view that the Court's abortion jurisprudence, including Casey and Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), has no basis in the Constitution." At least someone on the bench has a firm grasp of the obvious!

What is a Pastor?

Here's an ecclesiological question. There is only one reference that I know of in scripture to pastors. I'm sure there may be other references that use a form of the word, but the only real solid one is Ephesians 4:11: And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers. It could be argued that this is a list of gifts, not a list of offices, but one could argue the opposite as well.

The role of "pastor" is never defined in scripture. There is no list of qualifications. Yet the term "Pastor" in evangelical circles has become synonymous with the focus of leadership in the local church. The "pastor" is the "shepherd" in a real sense, but evangelicals have laid the major burden of church leadership on a title that is used once, is largely undefined and which includes no explicit spiritual qualifications. Why?

The Trojan Horse from Tanzania

Two weeks ago, I witnessed the commissioning of Anglican "catechists", an office used extensively in Africa to further the work of the church in places where the number of pastor/priests is insufficient for the number of believers. The vow the catechists were required to take included the responsibility to drive away all false doctrine.

In fact, the Ordination vow from the 1662 Anglican tradition explcitly says that church leaders must "with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away from the Church all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God's Word; and both privately and openly to call upon others to do the same." Anglicanism was once wholly committed to biblical doctrine and orthodox protestant could fully affirm.

I posted recently about the conference in Tanzania, here, here, here, and here, where the global Anglican church seemingly held the feet of the Episcopal Church to the fire, the church that has replaced the Gospel with UN Goals and openly ordained the first openly gay bishop. Many hailed this event as the beginning of the end for the TEC, and a path to victory for orthodoxy in the Anglican church.

Now VOL reports that The Society for the Propagation of Reformed Evangelical Anglican Doctrine (SPREAD) suggests that the Tanzania event, upon a careful analysis of the language, is in fact a path to further erosion of the orthodox faith within Anglicanism.

A Closing Comment Regarding Calvinism

Blogging can be therapeutic. Over a period of several months I have had a chance to jot down thoughts on why Calvinism was first of all something nobody bothered to tell me about in my younger days as an evangelical, like an iceberg with just a bit of shape above the water and a massive edifice below the surface. I described how a fuller understanding of absolute sovereignty became a rude awakening in my short seminary stint, one that nearly crushed my spirit and faith, as if I had just discovered that Darth Vader was my father. I described some philosophical reasons why arguments in favor of absolute sovereignty seemed contrived and dealt with a couple of key Biblical passages that seem to support it. In all, it felt good.

But the time has come to take a step back. For all my frustrations with the way Calvinists understand sovereignty and free will, no universal church council has condemned them. Sure the Council of Orange says some Calvinist sounding things, stopping just short of the all out victory of predestination over free will. The Roman Catholic Council of Trent was not particularly kind to Luther and Calvin's views on sovereignty and grace, but only Catholics would find that council to be binding.

In short, the debate over how free will fits with God's sovereign hand in the past, present and future is a family squabble. As much as some Calvinists have insisted that Arminians and Catholics are "semi-pelagian" heretics, most have been unable to completely cut defenders of free-will theism out of the family picture. And as strongly as Arminians argue against a sovereignty that redefines or excludes free-will, most readily admit Calvinists are otherwise orthodox.

Why I am Not a Calvinist - Part 9

This will be my last argument on this topic. Then I'd acually like to say something nice about Calvinists...but for now, here goes...

When the debate over free-will and sovereignty is framed, as it usually is, in terms of the debate between Medieval Catholic emphasis on the priesthood, the sacrament, the miracle of transubstantiation and the power of the church against the Protestant emphasis on the grace of God, the Grace of God and the Grace of God, it is not hard to see why many protestants lean toward Calvin.

But what struck me as I started looking into the history of the early church, was how many early church fathers would seemingly have been very comfortable with the views of Arminius. The debate between Augustine and Pelagius again will find most humble readers of scripture side with Augustine. But Augustine was fighting that battle in the 4th century. Much history and theology existed prior to that skirmish.

For this, my next to last venture into this question, I mainly want to quote a number of voices of the early church.

The Continuing Anglican Crisis and the Escalation of the Evangelical Crisis

Hard to know what will be the future of Anglicanism. I follow the news from time to time on VirtueOnline and Global South Anglican websites.

For those who don't know the history, in 2004 the Windsor Report was released in London, the result of ongoing issues related to the Episcopal Church's ordination of openly gay bishop V. Gene Robinson and the resulting "alternate oversight" orthodox bishops in the global south were giving to orthodox Anglicans who wished to not be associated with what they believed to be the last straw in a long history of heresy. The Windsor report recommended three small things. It suggeted there be a moratorium on consecrating new gay bishops, a moratorium on the blessing of same gender unions, and it also chastised bishops who crossed ecclesiastical boundaries and established parallel provinces. In practical effect, it solved nothing and extended the anguish.

But just a few weeks ago in Tanzania, the Episcopal Church was given something of an ultimatum, one which surprised many. In Dar Es Salaam, the Global Anglican communion embraced three key propositions with which the TEC must comply at risk of unspecified consequences. It put the focus on the radical novelties of the TEC and actually suggested that the alternate oversight provided by Global South Bishops was understandable, and should be halted only after some other alternative oversight was put in place on an interim basis. Tanzania insisted on:

Why I am Not a Calvinist - Part 8

Finally getting back to my personal resolution to the free will vs. sovereignty debate. Just one more after this and I'll move on to other things.

Back in my brief stint in seminary, I was required to read portions of Louis Berkhof’s massive Systematic Theology . In it I recall reading one particular paragraph that struck me as odd in relation to foreknowledge, which of course the Arminian, (and Romans 8:29) say precedes predestination. Said Berkhof:

"The Arminian, of course, will say that he does not believe in a foreknowledge based on a decree which renders things certain, but in a foreknowledge of facts and events which are contingent on the free will of man, and therefore indeterminate. Now such a foreknowledge of the free actions of man may be possible, if man even in his freedom acts in harmony with divinely established laws, which again bring in the element of uncertainty; but it would seem to be impossible to foreknow events which are entirely dependent on the chance decision of an unprincipled will, which can at any time, irrespective of the state of the soul, of existing conditions, and of the motives that present themselves to the mind, turn in different directions. Such events can only be foreknown as bare possibilities." (Systematic Theology, p. 107)

Seems to me that what Berkhof is saying is that if God allows any sort of contingency, any sort of possibility that creatures can actually choose from more than one option, then he cannot know the future.

Beyond Politics - sort of...

Joseph Bottom takes on the less than honest calls to go beyond politics in
Beyond Beyondism today. Key quotes:

The way to get beyond the liberal/conservative divide is for all of you on the other side to agree with me.

and the bait and switch of those who want to get beyond politics is that:

The left needs to see that the right has all the best techniques for extending and maintaining a position, while the right needs to see that the left has all the best positions. Now can’t we all get beyond our pesky divisions?

Good stuff.

Weeping with Francis Schaeffer

I've generally liked the comments of John Fischer, who has generally been solid, calm and reasonable. This week he remembers Francis Schaeffer, the American who singlehandedly preserved my faith and my sanity for much of my adult life with his writings, and inspired me to think more than any other. Fischer writes about Schaeffer's compassion. His key point, Francis was not a man who only railed about political issues as a few portray him today. He was a man who wept over a culture that was disintegrating. His political involvement was borne of compassion, not a quest for power.

Schaeffer was a man who had a temper, and descriptions of that temper have leaked out of L’Abri, partly through equally fiery son Franky. He could be unbending and hard, I’m told, from at least one source I would tend to respect. Yet he could weep with compassion - like Jesus wept with compassion over Jerusalem.

And why did Francis weep? Because, like Christ, he saw people as sheep without a shepherd, as individuals adrift in a sea of moral chaos. At the heart of Schaeffer’s theological and cultural analysis was his proverbial "line of despair", a line he defined as that place where human beings give up on finding real answers to the central questions of life.

Budziszewski on Tolerance

Jim Tonkowich, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy has an absolute must read article on Colson's Breakpoint site.

He reports on an address by Jay Budziszewski before the Evangelical Theological Society, which addresses the very issues I have been trying to get at in recent posts about conservative evangelicals in politics, the idea that being tolerant of all views is in fact truly tolerant. Key paragraphs...

"...liberals argue that we must suspend public judgments about the nature of the good. After all, as liberal philosopher John Rawls argued, while the Christian sees the good in one way, the Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Marxist, or hedonistic pleasure-seeker each see it in other ways.

"Rawls calls each system a “comprehensive doctrine.” And since comprehensive doctrines can’t all be true, and each is more or less reasonable, the only solution for public discourse is to privatize them all, that is, ban all comprehensive doctrines from the public square. This, the argument goes, creates an environment of moral neutrality in which to make public decisions."

Those Evil Christian Conservatives - Part 2

I posted not long ago about a situation in Massachusetts where 6-yr-olds were being taught homosexuality and transgenderism and a federal judge insisted the parent had no right to pull his child out of such indoctrination.

Now comes this from a nearby suburb. Deerfield high school, just a few short minutes away from Trinity Evangelical Divinity Shool, has issued a gag order on freshman students indoctrinated in gay behavior.

Officials at Deerfield High School in Deerfield, Ill., have ordered their 14-year-old freshman class into a "gay" indoctrination seminar, after having them sign a confidentiality agreement promising not to tell their parents. the school's officials required the 14-year-olds to attend a "Gay Straight Alliance Network" panel discussion led by "gay" and "lesbian" upperclassmen during a "freshman advisory" class which "secretively featured inappropriate discussions of a sexual nature in promotion of high-risk homosexual behaviors."

Saying No to Theocracy

So my nephew Troy, a Presbyterian Pastor, sends me a link to Richard Mouw's recent post A Larger View of Theocracy. Mouw writes:

“Theocrat” functions these days a lot like “pervert.” The people who think nothing of accusing other people of being perverts do not really expect the persons they are accusing to respond by saying, “Yes, I am a pervert.” “Theocrat” seems to function in pretty much the same way.

So he recognizes the negative connotations that go with the word. But Mouw is not at all uncomfortable with the term, writing "strictly speaking, anyone who believes in the God of the Bible is a theocrat."

I had to write back to my nephew that I didn't agree with Mouw on that point, but it deserves a larger context. It is hard to debate the issue, however, without some definitions.

Choice Words about Environmentalism and Population Control

I just thought this quote from Chuck Colson Breakpoint article this morning was choice.

In contrast to the Christian idea of stewardship, which “wishes to conserve and protect the natural resources of the planet for the sake of future generations,” this viewpoint “wishes to eliminate future generations for the sake of the planet.”

It illustrates the contrast between naturalism run amok and good sense stewardship, between seeing man as created in God's image and charged with caring for all of creation vs. man as merely another part of nature to be controlled. Francis Schaeffer was all for preservation of the environment (Pollution and the Death of Man). But he clearly did not see humans as a disease to be eradicated for the sake of the environment. Another reason why a Christian voice in issues of public policy is a necessity.

How Schism is Supposed to Work

Interesting article on the issue of turning around the mainline in ChristianityToday. Seems like the long habit of those who are biblically conservative to opt out of their denominations and start new ones is slightly shifting toward trying to preserve the orthodoxy of the existing denomination. A few years ago, I would have been wholly on the side of those who would vote with their feet to leave any denomination that might flirt with theological or moral nonsense such as denial of essential beliefs about God or radical sexual permissiveness.

What gives me pause is the fragmentation that exists in the Christian world. We cannot speak to society with a unified voice if every time there is a controversy we start a new organization. We become more "pluralistic" than the society, it sometimes appears. We have no credibility on major issues if we are hopelessly divided on so many things.

So I am encouraged that some are willing to fight for their denominations and try to force the new and novel ideas out, to allow those who would alter Christianity to be the ones to leave and to seek a common consensus on that which Christians have held to be true for 2000 years.

We don't know where it will end in the Presbyterian and Anglican churches, but maybe there is a new model for conflict being worked out before our eyes.

Certainty Equals Fascism

Ryan T. Anderson writes in First Things about another attack by a self-proclaimed Christian on the religious right with the subtle title American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. You can read the article for yourselves, but two incongruous phrases were rather intriguing to me.

The key, Hedges claims, is the certainty of evangelical faith. Confidence, we are told, is a fascist ploy, while real Christians accept that we “do not understand what life is about. . . . Faith presupposes that we cannot know. We can never know.”

Has there ever been a time in all of human history when certainty has been defined as a vice and uncertainty a virtue? In light of this praise of uncertainty, one wonders about this second quote:

“Debate with the radical Religious Right is useless. . . . It cares nothing for rational thought and discussion.”

What is the point of rational thought and discussion if uncertainty is a virtue? Anderson also noted that:

By understanding faith as “an intellectual act, its object truth, and its result knowledge,” John Henry Newman must have been an anti-intellectual fascist, in Hedges’ definition.

So faith cannot deal with the intellect, truth or knowledge and if it does it becomes fascism!

And we are the ones incapable of rational thought?

Going to Chapel at College...

Having two sons of college age gives me an occasional opportunity to see firsthand what sort of influences are present on Christian College campuses. On a campus visit a number of weeks ago, I was treated to the political views of one popular author as part of the chapel experience at one college, and the captivity of the American church to the religious right was alleged. Over the weekend we visited another campus and heard, well, more politics.

I do not know much about this particular speaker, so he will go unnamed, as will the college in this case. I don’t want to misrepresent someone I don’t know much about, nor do I want to be accused of attacking persons. When I am critical of ideas on this page, I try to be critical of ideas, not people. In this case, keeping the individual anonymous might be the best path. Suffice it to say, he was a professor at a Midwest seminary, speaking at a chapel for a Midwest college. I can only state what I heard and saw.

His topic was the shifting demographics of the world wide church. His statistics I’m sure were for the most part accurate, that about 60 percent of all Christians worldwide are now in the Eastern and Southern hemisphere. His main point was that white Christians in Europe and North America need to understand this shift and recognize that the church has a multicolored face, one that is no longer “western”.