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.