Underground Pewster: How did your preacher approach John 14:6?

Today's Gospel reading is one which post-modern false prophets of "tolerance" and "inclusiveness" would just as soon ignore. That was the Underground Pewster's experience in church this morning, and he is interested in how others handled it.

Today's Gospel reading was John 14:1-14. After sitting through today's sermon, I wondered how other preachers tackled verse 6, 

"Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." 

I know how it was handled in our church.

It was ignored.

Sigh...

John 14:6 is felt by many to be a "clobber verse" or a sure-fire conversation killer. Repeating Jesus' exclusive claim is not going to make you many friends if you bring them up during an interfaith dinner party, and writing about it in the public sphere will assure that you are removed from any list of potential commencement speakers.

I remember trying to get a handle on this verse a few years back during an on-line theology group. At that time, I came up with what I called an inclusively exclusive response to the question of whether or not John 14:6 means that someone who has never heard the Gospel, or a good Muslim, or a good Buddhist needed to follow Jesus in order to come to the Father. I reasoned that Jesus could call a non-christian at the time of their death at which time that individual soul could respond positively or negatively. I for one would not want anyone to wait until the last minute like that, and I think we are clearly commanded to go and make disciples in the here and now, so my non-scriptural solution may not be of any merit.

Even if it poses problems for the modern, pluralistic mind, I think the subject is something that should not be ignored when it comes around on Sunday morning.

For what it's worth, here's my sermon on the text from this morning.

The "tolerant left" claims another scalp

Intolerance and bigotry masquerading as "equality for all" is still just intolerance and bigotry. The left-wing guardians of "diversity" practice hypocrisy of the most rancid variety.

 

TODAY’S MOST OMINOUS NEWS STORY…is the resignation of Brendan Eich as CEO of Mozilla, the company that makes the Firefox browser. Eich is a superstar in the world of technology; among other things, he invented Javascript and was one of the founders of Mozilla.

But in 2008 he contributed $1,000 to support Proposition 8, the California ballot proposition that defended traditional marriage. For that, he was pilloried by left-wing activists. He lasted barely more than a week before being forced to resign from the company he helped to create. So the liberals claim another scalp.

This is something new in our history, as far as I know. Until now, private citizens could hold whatever political beliefs they wanted, and support political causes as they chose. I don’t recall an instance where a corporate officer has been driven out of a company because he holds unpopular political views. Not until now.

And, of course, there is nothing unusual, or even unpopular, about Eich’s belief that traditional marriage represents good public policy. While the tide obviously has swung in favor of gay marriage in recent years, it is still only a 50/50 proposition. The last poll I saw on the subject, at Rasmussen Reports, found 43% favoring gay marriage and 43% opposed. It is odd, to say the least, that a business executive can be deemed unfit to lead a company because he holds an opinion that is shared by half of his countrymen.

What we see here is, I think, a harbinger of things to come. The Left is mobilized and on the march, and has no intention of taking any prisoners. Anyone who thinks some kind of accommodation or compromise can be reached with these people is mistaken. They are vicious bullies, and must be dealt with accordingly.

This sort of totalitarianism is not unique to the gay marriage issue. Global warming hysterics are now arguing that those who disagree with them should be imprisoned. Seriously; even though it is the realists, not the alarmists, who win all the arguments. When you can’t win the argument, what do you do? Throw your opponent in jail, or get him fired. Liberals have no intention of living in a pluralistic society. They want to wipe you out, or at a minimum force you underground. And if you don’t fight back, they will succeed, just as they did with Brendan Eich.

Time to look for a new browser.

"Liberalism" then and now: Different, but still the same

Trevin Wax has an interesting post examining the great reversal which has taken place in "liberal" Christian circles in the roughly 100 (actually 90) years since the publication of J. Gresham Machen's classic, Christianity and Liberalism. "Liberalism" in Machen's day referred to an aberrant religious system which sought to preserve certain vestiges of Christianity, namely its moral foundations, while casting aside its "miraculoous" or "supernatural" elements. Wax outlines the trajectory of early twentieth century liberalism thusly:

We are living in a scientific age of discovery.

The miracles we read about in the Bible were written from another cultural vantage point.

It is important to maintain the ethical and moral teaching of Christianity.

Belief in the literal occurrence of biblical miracles is not needed to maintain the moral center of Christianity.

If belief in miracles is embarrassing to modern people, we should deemphasize them in order to extend Christianity into the next generation.

Christian "liberals" in Machen's day wanted to advance a society based on Christian morals and ethics but, as Machen so adeptly pointed out, this was a fool's errand. Any number of religions encouraged moral and ethical living. Only Christianity backed up the truth of its claims with signs heralding the in-breaking of the kingdom of God.

Conversely, Wax observes, the present-day heirs of "liberalism" have done a 180, embracing the miraculous and ditching the morality.

We are living in a tolerant age of enlightenment.

The morals we read about in the Bible were written from another cultural vantage point.

It is important to maintain the miraculous and supernatural events of Christianity.

Interpreting the commands of biblical morality literally is not needed in order to maintain to center of Christianity.

If belief in biblical morality is embarrassing to modern people, we should deemphasize it in order to extend Christianity into the next generation.

I'm not sure I would agree that today's "liberals" (a misnomer today, as it was, likewise, in Machen's day) are anymore favorably disposed to "miracles" than were their predecessors. It would be more accurate to say they have embraced an expansive view of the work of "the Holy Spirit," whom they often credit with leading them into "new truth," that is, a new understanding of morality and ethics unfettered from traditional restraints.

This "Holy Spirit" is not the Third Person of the Trinity which we encounter in Scripture, but an impersonal force whose "leading" today's open-minded "liberals" seem incapable of resisting. As such, they are, in fact, no different from those who came before them. In both Machen's day and our own day, the only "spirit" which guides "liberalism" is the spirit of the age. By any other name, it is, in the words of that great theologian Bob Seger, still the same.

Two bitter fruits from the same poisonous tree?

The emergence of theological liberalism in the nineteenth century had a devastating effect on the American pulpit. Preachers like Horace Bushnell (1802-1876) and Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) were at the forefront of the transition from strict doctrinal precision to broad doctrinal license. Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) was a twentieth century man, building his reputation through adept use of the mass media of book publishing and radio (the weekly "National Vespers" on the NBC network). However, he was every bit a product of the nineteenth century liberalism in which he was immersed.

Paul Scott Wilson, in A Concise History of Preaching, describes how Fosdick came to develop "a new, alternative method of preaching."

Fosdick

 In journal articles in the 1920's, 1930's 1950's, and in his autobiography, Fosdick discussed his "project method" of homiletics. It was in contrast to topical preaching, which he felt was a "Sir Oracle" lecture on a theme, and expository preaching, in which preachers "assumed that folk come to church desperately anxious to discover what happened to the Jebusites." He outlined the contemporary expository preaching of which he was critical: "First, elucidation of a Scriptural text, its historical occasion, its logical meaning in the context, its setting in the theology and ethic of the ancient writer; second, application to the auditors of the truth involved; third, exhortation to decide about the truth and act on it."

After floundering for his first years as a preacher, he devised a homiletic based in pastoral counseling that made preaching an adventure for him. Every sermon was to start with the "real problems of people" and was to "meet their difficulties, answer their questions, confirm their noblest faiths and interpret their experiences in sympathetic, wise and understanding co-operation." He looked for the way even larger issues of the day, national and international, affected the lives of ordinary people. He wanted sermons to be conversational, "a co-operative dialogue in which the congregation's objections, questions, doubts and confirmations are fairly stated and dealt with." The preacher's business is "to persuade people to repent . . . to produce Christian faith [and] to send people out from their worship on Sunday with victory in their possession." To this end, "A preacher's task is to create in his congregation the thing he is talking about." A sermon on joy is to explore wrong ideas about it, false attempts at it, problems in getting it, and then move to create it.

Whereas lectures had "a subject to be elucidated," preaching had an "object to be achieved." Determining this "object" or problem to be solved was the first step in preparation. This was followed by "free association of ideas," perhaps for several hours, followed in turn by exploration of literature, cases from counseling, the Bible, and personal experience. His structure, commonly three points, for which one must listen carefully to discern, often emerged in the writing of his sermons. Someone said his "sermons begin by describing a human need, next illustrate that need from literature, from contemporary events and personal experiences, and then turn to the Bible for those principles which could meet that need." His critics caricatured his preaching as "undogmatic Christianity" and "problem-solving."

Fosdick was also criticized, rightly according to Wilson, "for taking his message to the biblical text and for using the text to illustrate his predetermined point." He was not the first, and certainly not the last, preacher to commit this error. His methodology, the mistakes inherent in it, and the paucity of its doctrinal and theological underpinnings represented the coming of age of the liberalism birthed in the preaching of Bushnell and Beecher and brought to its tragic conclusion in the incoherent psychobabble of Spong and Schori. Less obvious, at least on first glance, is the sowing of the seeds of the equally innocuous false gospel of "positive thinking" first popularized by Norman Vincent Peale, advanced through mass media by Robert Schuller, and now embodied in all its garish glory by the insufferable Joel Osteen.

Except for students of homiletics and church history, Harry Emerson Fosdick's sermons and writings are largely forgotten. To the person in the pew, he is best remembered for the stirring hymn "God of Grace and God of Glory." In recalling the era in which he was at the height of his influence, however, we can see two bitter fruits produced from the same poisonous tree of the liberalism which shaped his methodology and his ministry.

No comment department

Via IRD:

Washington, DC—An Evangelical pastor tapped earlier this week to give the benediction at the presidential inauguration is withdrawing after criticism of a sermon he gave addressing homosexuality, according to ABC News.

The Rev. Louie Giglio, who serves as pastor at Georgia’s Passion City Church, sermonized in the mid-1990s that Christians must “lovingly but firmly respond” to an “aggressive agenda” by some in the homosexual community.

Giglio is perhaps best known for his involvement in the Passion Conferences, which annually attract tens of thousands of university students. The conferences have been heavily focused around opposition to human trafficking and slavery, with the most recent event drawing over 60,000 to Atlanta’s Georgia Dome and raising millions of dollars towards combating trafficking.

Leithart: Schleiermacher still not rebabilitated

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) was, for all intents and purposes, the father of liberal Protestantism. His well-meaning but misguided attempts to reconcile the Christian faith with the criticisms raised by its "cultured despisers" of the Enlightenment era opened the door for more radical revisions. Despite the best efforts of Karl Barth, the influence of Schleiermacher is still felt in liberal Protestant circles to this day.

Chief among the weaknesses of Schleiermacher's theology was his muddled Christology, which rejected, or at least strongly criticized, the Chalcedonian Formula, which declared that Jesus Christ was "at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man."

In an article first published a decade ago in the Harvard Theological Review, Lori Pearson attempted to rehabilitate Schleiermacher, claiming that his "Christology continues the ‘Antiochene’ tradition of protecting the absolute integrity of Jesus’ human identity while at the same time maintaining a more ‘Alexandrian’ emphasis on a single (divine) subject that is the source of all Christ’s redemptive activities.”

It is a valiant effort but, as Peter Leithart notes, it is unconvincing for several reasons.

First, Schleiermacher’s characterizations of the problems of classic Christological formulae seem contrived, and arise only because of idiosyncratic and rigid definitions of terms. There cannot be two natures in one person, he argues. That’s because “nature” refers to a conditioned, limited, corporeal existence, moving between activity and passivity; it doesn’t apply to God at all. Besides, he argues, a nature is normally a universal in which individuals participate, and it makes no sense to say that an individual person partakes of two natures at the same time. Person, he says, denotes a unity, but a double-natured being like Christ cannot really ever be unified.

But who says that “nature” has such a restricted meaning? In Christology, it obviously doesn’t. And classical Christology answers the question about unity by insisting that Christ is a single subject, the eternal Logos, who assumed a full human nature. That hardly satisfies our every curiosity, but then one wonders if Schleiermacher’s questions take sufficient account of the fact that in talking about Christ we are talking about an unparalleled mystery.

Pearson points out that for Schleiermacher the main problem with the two-natures doctrine is pastoral and perhaps apologetic: “It cannot give any guidance in the proper preaching of Christ,” Schleiermacher claims. It cannot, perhaps more precisely, make any sense to the cultured despisers to which Schleiermacher wanted to appeal.

The second problem is that even when there are “parallels” with classical Christology, Schleiermacher has put them in a quite different framework. Sein Gottes in ihm, Schleiermacher affirms, but this affirmation comes at the end of a sentence that identifies the Sein Gottes with Jesus’ fully operational God-consciousness: “The Redeemer. . . is like all men in virtue of the identity of his human nature, but is distinguished from them all by the constant potency of His God-consciousness, which was a veritable existence of God in Him” (Christian Faith 94). As Pearson explains it, “The Redeemer has what other humans have (a God-consciousness), but in a perfectly ordered and complete way. Since, however, the Redeemer has this perfect God-consciousness, he is a new creation, a ‘new implanting’ . . . of the God-consciousness in human nature.” In this way, Jesus is, Schleiermacher says, the one in whom “there is an existence of God in the proper sense.”

On Pearson’s description, further, Schleiermacher’s position is inconsistent. On the one hand, the God-consciousness is something he shares with other humans; yet she claims that he also “takes great pains to protect the immutability and impassibility of God” by exempting the “inner” divine life principle from the changes of his humanity. It’s not clear how these two statements cohere: Pearson says that Jesus’ “God-consciousness went through a process of development” (p. 357) and, quoting Schleiermacher about Jesus’ determination by His cultural identity, “such determination in no way concerns the real principle of His life but only the organism.” Perhaps the contradiction is Pearson’s and not Schleiermacher’s, but it’s there.

On Pearson’s description too, Schleiermacher combines Alexandrian and Antiochene motifs in a way that results in a (somewhat modified) Apollinarianism. Jesus has a full humanity in Schleiermacher’s scheme, but a “divine principle” of some sort or other plays the active role of shaping all Christ’s actions. Apollinarianism is far more orthodox, because at least it affirms that the Logos occupied the empty soul-space of the humanity of Christ; Schleiermacher insists that the Redeemer is not the second Person, not the Logos: “The Person of Christ began only when He became a man” (Christian Faith, 105). For all his talk of Sein Gottes, there doesn’t seem to be much to distinguish the Redeemer from an inspired man.

Pearson has shown that formal parallels to Chalcedon are evident in Schleiermacher. To my mind, though, she only confirms the common charge that he revised Christology in the direction of psychology and, one cannot avoid the Barthian charge, anthropology.

Wolfhart Pannenberg would still give Shcleiermacher a hearing but, in doing so, he treads on dangerous ground. Leithart notes in a follow-up post:

Pannenberg (Jesus – God and Man (scm classics), 285) offers a more sympathetic summary of Schleiermacher’s Christology than I have done. He agrees that Schleiermacher’s definition of “nature” as “a limited being existing in opposition to others” doesn’t fly: It “does not meet the patristic doctrine, since its concept of nature is interchangeable with the concept of being.” This addresses also to Schleiermacher’s objection that the language of Trinitarian theology and Christology clash.

But Pannenberg thinks that Schleiermacher is on stronger ground in his objection that using nature flattens the Creator-creature distinction: “how can divine and human be so subsumed under any single concept, as if both could be mutually coordinated as more precise specifications of one and the same universal?” asks Schleiermacher.

Pannenberg thinks this question “scores a direct hit” since “one cannot speak of divine being and human being as though they were on the same plane.” While admitting that “this was not the intention of patristic Christologies,” he argues that the “two-natures doctrine is objectionable” for just this reason.

A point taken, but I wonder if any language about God can meet Pannenberg’s strictures, including his own. In formulating his objection he speaks of “divine being and human being.” Has he treated God and creation “as though they were on the same plane”?

"The strange composite voice of many million singing souls"

My article at Examiner.com yesterday linked the sanctimonious liberalism of former President Jimmy Carter with the legacy of William Jennings Bryan, the perennially unsuccessful presidential aspirant of a bygone era. The image of Bryan that endures nearly a century after his death is that of a bombastic, self-righteous, and intellectually shallow "fundamentalist" crusading against such "progressive" ideas as evolution and scientific inquiry. This Bryan of popular folklore was largely the creation of journalist H.L. Mencken, who covered the 1925 Scopes "monkey" trial in which Bryan led the prosecution against a Tennessee biology teacher charged with (and ultimately convicted of) violating a state statute against the teaching of evolution in the classroom. The 1960 film based on the trial, Inherit the Wind, portrayed Bryan (through a character named Matthew Harrison Brady) almost precisely as he had been described in Mencken's less than objective reporting.

The real William Jennings Bryan, however, could not be so easily pigeonholed as a backward-thinking rube. More than any other political figure of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, he paved the way for the shift in the Democratic party away from laissez-faire capitalism to economic populism and the big government liberalism ultimately enshrined in FDR's New Deal. In other words, the man so vilified by present-day liberals for his unswerving commitment to religious "fundamentalism" was himself a liberal, and a passionate one at that.

That is not to say, of course, that Bryan's religious faith was a mere sidelight. On the contrary, it was the fuel that ignited his passion for the causes he championed. In the epilogue of his 2006 biography, A Godly Hero, Michael Kazin summarizes Bryan's legacy.

The rhetoric of shared responsibility sounds rather hollow today, except when it is tethered to a war of self-defense against terrorists. Yet a century ago, those who spoke about collective sin and collective redemption occupied the mainstream. They took their place in a long narrative of reform that included the abolitionists, early temperance agitators (who battled poverty as much as saloons), the Knights of Labor, and the Populist insurgency -- all led by men and women whose faith motivated their activism. From William Lloyd Garrison to Sojourner Truth to Frances Willard and Edward Bellamy, nineteenth-century progressives never advanced without a moral awakening entangled with notions about what the Lord would have them do.

To inspire another such upheaval was Bryan's fondest desire. His record was impressive, particularly for someone who held no office during most of his career. Starting with the campaign of 1896, the Democrats ceased being the more conservative of the two major parties -- with the fateful exception of their support for Jim Crow. Bryan was the leading proponent of three constitutional amendments -- for the income tax, the popular election of senators, and prohibition. He also did much to place on the national agenda a variety of other significant reforms: insured bank deposits, government-owned railroads, publicly financed campaigns, and a reliable method for preventing war. None of these became law during his lifetime -- he had better luck with statewide curbs on the teaching of Darwinism. But it was certainly not for lack of promotion or resolve. "With the exception of the men have occupied the White House," wrote William Gibbs McAdoo in 1931, "Bryan . . . had more to do with the shaping of the public policies of the last forty years than any other American citizen."

It is probably fortunate that he was never elected president. As Bryan demonstrated while secretary of state, he relished confrontations over principle and abhorred compromise. If he had captured the White House, that trait would have made it difficult for him to rally an enduring majority in what would have been a nation rent by angry divisions of class, region, and party.

But neither was he a classic demagogue, burning to seize power and vengeful toward anyone who opposed him. Unlike Tom Watson, Huey Long, George Wallace, and others of their ilk, Bryan never appealed to the violent or authoritarian impulses of his fellow citizens. He was satisfied to feed a grassroots hunger for changes in the American social order, which he believed would have profound moral implications. Bryan's oratory infused the idea of a welfare state with passionate intensity. If the Golden Rule was too simple a prescription, it was certainly superior to impersonal bureaucracy or strong-man rule.

Whatever he achieved depended on the power and durability of his voice and the romantic tenor of his words. Every other progressive giant -- TR, Woodrow Wilson, Robert La Follette, Jane Addams, Booker T. Washington, and the radical Eugene Debs -- was a gifted orator. But each had to worry about operating an institution -- whether a local one such as Hull House or Tuskegee Institute, a state, or the entire federal government. But Bryan could devote decades to honing the art of preaching both for God and for the welfare of the common white American.

That rhetoric and the new style of politics it helped to create may be his most enduring legacy. "Um, um, um. Look at all those folks -- you'd think William Jennings Bryan was speakin','" jokes a character in To Kill a Mockingbird as her Alabama town fills up for a dramatic trial. After the stirring contest of 1896, most presidential candidates learned to engage in an aggressively affable, go-to-the-people campaign to demonstrate that theirs was a cause of and for the common people. For over half a century, every subsequent Democratic nominee, with the exception of the hapless Alton Parker and John W. Davis, played the happy populist warrior -- cracking jokes, beaming for the cameras, flaying the corporate rich before audiences of the insecure. Even after its party's candidates stopped bashing "economic royalists," Democrats tried their best to appear friendly, optimistic, and visionary. John Scopes, of all people, regretted that Bryan hadn't survived into the age of television, when "he could have projected his personality to millions" and had a good chance of being elected president. For Americans with a sense of history, Bryan remains a paragon of eloquence for "a lazy-tonged people." And unlike contemporary candidates for high office, he wrote every word that he spoke, except when he was quoting someone else.

The triumph of the ever-accessible, always loquacious political style helps reassure ordinary citizens as well as to mobilize partisan crowds. As the federal government grew in size and complexity, Americans hankered for leaders who could make the enterprise of governing seem more personal and comprehensible. The electorate struck an implicit bargain with the political class: "If we can no longer understand or control much of what you do, at least give us men and women at the top who can comfort us and, on occasion, provide a thrill." This was as true for Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush as it was for Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy.

Yet Bryan was a great Christian liberal, and to neglect the content of his prophecies sells both his career and American political history short. Vachel Lindsay wrote in 1915:

When Bryan speaks, the sky is ours,
The wheat, the forests, and the flowers,
And who is here to say us nay?
Fled are the ancient tyrant powers.
When Bryan speaks, then, I rejoice.
His is the strange composite voice
Of many million singing souls
Who make world-brotherhood their choice.

Critics from Mencken onward failed to appreciate what drew millions of Americans to Bryan and that our own era of nonstop satire and twenty-four-hour commerce manifestly lacks: the yearning for a society run by and for ordinary  people who lead virtuous lives. As everyone who heard him could attest, Bryan made significant public issues sound urgent, dramatic, and clear, and he encouraged citizens to challenge the motives and interests of the most powerful people in the land. That is a quality absent among our recent leaders, for all their promises to leave no man, woman, or child behind. Bryan's sincerity, warmth, and passion for a better world won the hearts of people who cared for no other public figure in his day. We should take their reasons seriously before we decide to mistrust them.

Revisionist arguments and the deficiency of modernity

The newly re-launched Stand Firm website is off to a good start with this piece from Matt Kennedy on how revisionist activists creep into orthodox Christian bodies and subvert their witness and ministry. The pattern should be easily discernible but, unfortunately, it goes unidentified for far too long in most cases.

1. A small group of revisionist activists embrace an unbiblical but culturally popular idea.

2. Orthodox leaders respond by reasserting the Faith.

3. Those styling themselves “moderate” (who often don’t quite grasp the theological issues at stake) emphasize the need for unity and patience. Three of the most common moderate templates are: an appeal to the “Gamaliel model” from Acts 5; an attempt to re-cast the conflict as adiaphora—a dispute over “non-essential” issues; and/or an argument from Jesus’ command not to “judge”.

4. The theological liberals congratulate and fawn over “moderates” for their “open-mindedness”, feeding the moderates’ need to be liked/admired.

5. At some point the secular media (perhaps alerted by the revisionist activists) is attracted to the conflict and various outlets report on the “growing controversy”. The media portrays orthodox leaders as stodgy reactionaries. Theological liberals are showcased as cutting edge enlightened thinkers, courageously challenging the powers-that-be on behalf of the downtrodden. “Moderates” who hold traditional views but counsel “dialog” are featured as the “voices of reason” in the troubled denomination.

6. What had been a tiny group of relatively harmless revisionists now begins to gain steam as members of the denomination uninformed and unprepared for the controversy are exposed to revisionist arguments for the first time via the media alongside gentle calls for moderation, patience and open-mindedness.

7. Well-meaning, conflict-averse orthodox pastors hope to shield their flock by “focusing on mission” and avoiding the topic.

8. Having leveraged the moderates and the press, the tiny group of revisionist activists now has the political clout to influence the direction of the entire denomination. They “put facts on the ground” and initiate legislative action.

9. Many otherwise orthodox leaders do not speak forcefully against these measures because those who have already done so have been successfully characterized as “angry zealots”, “fundementalists” and “rabble rousers.”

At this point it is generally only a matter of time before “facts on the ground” become legislative facts and the denomination begins to crumble. Traditional-minded members quietly leave for other churches. Others hole up in “safe” ghettos hoping to ride out the storm. The vast majority seek desperately to continue on as if nothing has happened. But as traditionalists leave the revisionists gain power and a vicious cycle picks up steam.

Kennedy suggests some practical steps to combat the advance of theological liberalism, but I would suggest the first necessary step is what he has already done, namely, identify the process by which revisionists gain a foothold in churches. By the time the "moderates" start spouting their pabulum (step 3), it is probably already too late. The encroachment needs to be stopped at the very beginning, but that takes wisdom and courage on the part of battle tested church leaders who are willing to confront modernity head-on before its flawed, deficient, and ultimately counter-productive presuppositions poison the thinking of average church-goers who are more concerned with being viewed in a positive light by outsiders than with living under the light of the Gospel. Ben Stevens, writing today at First Things, defines the parameters of modernity and how the aggressive movement for the legitimization of homosexual behavior (the quintessential "unbiblical but culturally popular idea") has created an environment of intolerance and bigotry by the very persons who rail against the same.

To the extent that a society becomes “modern,” then, it will be packed with people who hold to widely divergent beliefs and values, any of which may be questioned. And the glue of this system is not that we all agree with one another but that we make a commitment to not always equate disagreement, or even disapproval, with bigotry.

At present, this model of society is being rejected by the LGBT movement. And it is being rejected not to the extent that the movement simply disagrees with, and disapproves of, its detractors, but to the extent that it equates all disagreement and disapproval of itself with bigotry, and seeks to classify any question about the tenets of its own orthodoxy as hate speech.

A truly modern movement will, by definition, expect to be questioned. Being questioned about one’s beliefs, as Berger explains, is a necessary consequence of living in a diverse, pluralistic society. Christians are required to answer every conceivable kind of question about their beliefs, and they can expect their convictions to be tested both formally, in university settings, and at the popular level, in TV specials about Jesus’ “real” identity. No one expects this kind of thing to stop, and in fact many find Christians find that the pressure to defend their views in the face of such dissent actually makes them more articulate regarding those views.

In light of that understanding of modernity, consider the “if you disagree with us, we’ll convince everyone you’re backwards” tactic the LGBT movement has been pursuing in its rise to prominence. Does it embrace and adapt to a world in which it must cordially and sympathetically re-articulate itself as one belief among many? Does it expect to be questioned? That is, is it a truly modern movement? I do not see how.

A grievous example of translational hari-kari

I must confess that my intention for the Anglican Daily Prayer blog was to offer, as often as possible, original meditations on the lessons of the day. However, I have found this particularly challenging given the limited amount of time I have to get each day's meditation posted in a timely manner. Consequently, I have found myself, more often than not, falling back on classic and contemporary devotional readings or reflections from the Church Fathers. This is a task made considerably easier during Lent when I can usually find a reading appropriate for the season which doesn't have to be directly connected with the day's lessons.

Today, I selected an excerpt from Christus Veritas by William Temple published in the anthology, A Time to Turn: Anglican Readings for Lent and Easter, compiled by Christopher L. Webber. Temple, a prolific writer and theologian, served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1942 until his untimely death in 1944. Christus Veritas, a 285-page essay, was written in 1924 when Temple was merely the Bishop of Manchester. Considering those historical circumstances, it would be safe to assume then-Bishop Temple used the Authorized (King James) Version or some similar translation for his Scriptural citations. I can't see him using some watered down "modern English" translation or paraphrase, as such novelties did not exist at the time. I was quite taken aback, then, when a familiar quote from Psalm 8 (vv. 3, 4) was rendered, "When I look at your heavens, the work of our fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?" 

Temple's original text did indeed use the King James translation, "When I consider Thy heavens, even the works of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars that Thou hast ordained—what is man, that Thou art mindful of him?" The modernized text in the Webber anthology is from the New Revised Standard Version and is one of its most grievous examples of translational hari-kari in the name of "inclusiveness." The writer of Hebrews cites this very passage in relation to the Incarnation.

For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere,

“What is man, that you are mindful of him,
or the son of man, that you care for him?
You made him for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned him with glory and honor,
putting everything in subjection under his feet.”

Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying,

“I will tell of your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”

And again,

“I will put my trust in him.”

And again,

“Behold, I and the children God has given me.”

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

(Hebrews 2:5-18 ESV)

The emasculation of the text, rendering the singular "man" as "human beings" and "son of man" as "mortals," has serious theological and Christological implications. Clearly the writer of Hebrews understood the Psalmist to be foreseeing the coming of the Messiah. "Man" and "son of man" referred to a specific Person, not "human beings" and "mortals" in general.

Ironically, the selection from Temple's work is all about embracing the holiness and majesty of a God who is both transcendent and immanent. It is precisely these attributes of God which are de-emphasized or lost entirely when the fleeting sensitivities of "human beings" and "mortals" are allowed to become the primary concern of modern translators.

Saturday Morning Cartoons (Afternoon Edition): The Jim Wallis "Fast Across America" Tour

Jim Wallis's stale, antiquated brand of left-leaning, self-promoting "Christianity" is always good for a few laughs. H/T to MCJ.

Gagnon takes on another incompetent revisionist

Two years ago, I made the observation that "theologically liberal" was synonymous with "theologically incompetent," particularly with regard to biblical teachings on human sexuality. Now, the eminently competent orthodox scholar Robert A.J. Gagnon, who has a good track record of responding to liberal idiocy, has taken direct aim at one of the rising stars of the revisionist galaxy whose theological incompetence is painfully plain to see.

In her recent CNN Belief Blog post “The Bible’s surprisingly mixed messages on sexuality,” Jennifer Wright Knust claims that Christians can’t appeal to the Bible to justify opposition to homosexual practice because the Bible provides no clear witness on the subject and is too flawed to serve as a moral guide.

As a scholar who has written books and articles on the Bible and homosexual practice, I can say that the reality is the opposite of her claim. It’s shocking that in her editorial and even her book, "Unprotected Texts," Knust ignores a mountain of evidence against her positions.

It raises a serious question: does the Left read significant works that disagree with pro-gay interpretations of Scripture and choose to simply ignore them?

Owing to space limitations I will focus on her two key arguments: the ideal of gender-neutral humanity and slavery arguments.

Knust's lead argument is that sexual differentiation in Genesis, Jesus and Paul is nothing more than an "afterthought" because "God's original intention for humanity was androgyny."

It’s true that Genesis presents the first human (Hebrew adam, from adamah, ground: “earthling”) as originally sexually undifferentiated. But what Knust misses is that once something is “taken from” the human to form a woman, the human, now differentiated as a man, finds his sexual other half in that missing element, a woman.

That’s why Genesis speaks of the woman as a “counterpart” or “complement,” using a Hebrew expression neged, which means both “corresponding to” and “opposite.” She is similar as regards humanity but different in terms of gender. If sexual relations are to be had, they are to be had with a sexual counterpart or complement.

Knust cites the apostle Paul’s remark about “no ‘male and female’” in Galatians. Yet Paul applies this dictum to establishing the equal worth of men and women before God, not to eliminating a male-female prerequisite for sex.

Applied to sexual relations, the phrase means “no sex,” not “acceptance of homosexual practice,” as is evident both from the consensus of the earliest interpreters of this phrase and from Jesus' own sayings about marriage in this age and the next.

All the earliest interpreters agreed that "no 'male and female,'" applied to sexual relations, meant "no sex."

That included Paul and the ascetic believers at Corinth in the mid-first century; and the church fathers and gnostics of the second to fourth centuries. Where they disagreed is over whether to postpone mandatory celibacy until the resurrection (the orthodox view) or to begin insisting on it now (the heretical view).

Jesus’ view

According to Jesus, “when (people) rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels” (Mark 12:25). Sexual relations and differentiation had only penultimate significance. The unmediated access to God that resurrection bodies bring would make sex look dull by comparison.

At the same time Jesus regarded the male-female paradigm as essential if sexual relations were to be had in this present age.

In rejecting a revolving door of divorce-and-remarriage and, implicitly, polygamy Jesus cited Genesis: “From the beginning of creation, ‘male and female he made them.’ ‘For this reason a man …will be joined to his woman and the two shall become one flesh’” (Mark 10:2-12; Matthew 19:3-12).

Jesus’ point was that God’s limiting of persons in a sexual union to two is evident in his creation of two (and only two) primary sexes: male and female, man and woman. The union of male and female completes the sexual spectrum, rendering a third partner both unnecessary and undesirable.

The sectarian Jewish group known as the Essenes similarly rejected polygamy on the grounds that God made us “male and female,” two sexual complements designed for a union consisting only of two.

Knust insinuates that Jesus wouldn’t have opposed homosexual relationships. Yet Jesus’ interpretation of Genesis demonstrates that he regarded a male-female prerequisite for marriage as the foundation on which other sexual standards could be predicated, including monogamy. Obviously the foundation is more important than anything predicated on it.

Jesus developed a principle of interpretation that Knust ignores: God’s “from the beginning” creation of “male and female” trumps some sexual behaviors permitted in the Old Testament. So there’s nothing unorthodox about recognizing change in Scripture’s sexual ethics. But note the direction of the change: toward less sexual license and greater conformity to the logic of the male-female requirement in Genesis. Knust is traveling in the opposite direction.

Knust’s slavery analogy and avoidance of closer analogies

Knust argues that an appeal to the Bible for opposing homosexual practice is as morally unjustifiable as pre-Civil War appeals to the Bible for supporting slavery. The analogy is a bad one.

The best analogy will be the comparison that shares the most points of substantive correspondence with the item being compared. How much does the Bible’s treatment of slavery resemble its treatment of homosexual practice? Very little.

Scripture shows no vested interest in preserving the institution of slavery but it does show a strong vested interest from Genesis to Revelation in preserving a male-female prerequisite. Unlike its treatment of the institution of slavery, Scripture treats a male-female prerequisite for sex as a pre-Fall structure.

The Bible accommodates to social systems where sometimes the only alternative to starvation is enslavement. But it clearly shows a critical edge by specifying mandatory release dates and the right of kinship buyback; requiring that Israelites not be treated as slaves; and reminding Israelites that God had redeemed them from slavery in Egypt.

Paul urged enslaved believers to use an opportunity for freedom to maximize service to God and encouraged a Christian master (Philemon) to free his slave (Onesimus).

How can changing up on the Bible’s male-female prerequisite for sex be analogous to the church’s revision of the slavery issue if the Bible encourages critique of slavery but discourages critique of a male-female paradigm for sex?

Much closer analogies to the Bible’s rejection of homosexual practice are the Bible’s rejection of incest and the New Testament’s rejection of polyamory (polygamy).

Homosexual practice, incest, and polyamory are all (1) forms of sexual behavior (2) able to be conducted as adult-committed relationships but (3) strongly proscribed because (4) they violate creation structures or natural law.

Like same-sex intercourse, incest is sex between persons too much structurally alike, here as regards kinship rather than gender. Polyamory is a violation of the foundational “twoness” of the sexes.

The fact that Knust chooses a distant analogue (slavery) over more proximate analogues (incest, polyamory) shows that her analogical reasoning is driven more by ideological biases than by fair use of analogies.

Knust’s other arguments are riddled with holes.

In claiming that David and Jonathan had a homosexual relationship she confuses kinship affection with erotic love. Her claim that “from the perspective of the New Testament” the Sodom story was about “the near rape of angels, not sex between men” makes an "either-or" out of Jude 7’s "both-and."

Her canard that only a few Bible texts reject homosexual practice overlooks other relevant texts and the fact that infrequent mention is often a sign of significance. It is disturbing to read what passes nowadays for expert “liberal” reflections on what the Bible says about homosexual practice.

From "Workers of the world unite!" to "All aboard!" (The downward spiral of "progressivism")

"Progressivism" is supposed to imply a forward-thinking philosophy and a forward-looking vision. Instead, what passes today as "progressivism" is the collectivist ideology of American leftists and their nostalgic attachment to labor unions, fairness doctrines, railroad transportation, and other antiquated relics of the past which are their last, best hope for implementing an equally antiquated vision of a worker's paradise. George Will dissects the irony of the Obama Administration's curious obsession with high speed rail projects and the real agenda behind the "progressive" impulse.

So why is America’s “win the future” administration so fixated on railroads, a technology that was the future two centuries ago? Because progressivism’s aim is the modification of (other people’s) behavior.

Forever seeking Archimedean levers for prying the world in directions they prefer, progressives say they embrace high-speed rail for many reasons—to improve the climate, increase competitiveness, enhance national security, reduce congestion, and rationalize land use. The length of the list of reasons, and the flimsiness of each, points to this conclusion: the real reason for progressives’ passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism.

To progressives, the best thing about railroads is that people riding them are not in automobiles, which are subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends. Automobiles go hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables. Automobiles encourage people to think they—unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted—are masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make.

Time was, the progressive cry was “Workers of the world unite!” or “Power to the people!” Now it is less resonant: “All aboard!”

Annoy the Left: Eat Mor Chikin

Here's an idea that will help the economy and inspire you with a renewed sense of hope. Patronize your local Chick-Fil-A. In so doing, you will also be driving left-wing hate-mongers and smear merchants nuts.

Chick-Fil-A is an American success story. Founded by Georgian entrepreneur Truett Cathy in 1946, the family-owned chicken-sandwich chain is one of the country’s largest fast-food businesses. It employs some 50,000 workers across the country at 1,500 outlets in nearly 40 states and the District of Columbia. The company generates more than $2 billion in revenues and serves millions of happy customers with trademark Southern hospitality.

So, what’s the problem? Well, Chick-Fil-A is run by devout Christians who believe in strong marriages, devoted families, and the highest standards of character for their workers. The restaurant chain’s official corporate mission is to “glorify God” and “enrich the lives of everyone we touch.” The company’s community service initiatives, funded through its WinShape Foundation, support foster care, scholarship, summer camp, and marriage enrichment programs. On Sunday, all Chick-Fil-A stores close so workers can spend the day at worship and rest.

For the Left, these Biblically-based corporate principles constitute high social justice crimes and misdemeanors. Democrats are always ready to invoke religion to support their big government, taxpayer-funded initiatives (Obamacare, illegal alien amnesty, increased education spending, and FCC regulatory expansion, for starters).

But when an independent company – thriving on its own merits in the market place — wears its soul on its sleeve, suddenly it’s a theocratic crisis.

Over the past month, several progressive activist blogs have waged an ugly war against Chick-Fil-A. The company’s alleged atrocity: One of its independent outlets in Pennsylvania donated some sandwiches and brownies to a marriage seminar run by the Pennsylvania Family Institute, which happens to oppose same-sex marriage.

In the name of tolerance, the anti-Chick-Fil-A hawks sneered at the company’s main product as “Jesus Chicken,” derided its no-Sunday work policy, and attacked its operators as “anti-gay.” Michael Jones, who describes himself as having “worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School,” launched an online petition drive at www.change.org “demanding” that the company disavow “extreme anti-gay groups.” Facebook users dutifully organized witch hunt drives against the company on college campuses.

Over the weekend, New York Times reporter Kim Severson gave the Chick-Fil-A bashers a coveted Sunday A-section megaphone – repeatedly parroting the “Chick-Fil-A is anti-gay” slur and raising fears of “evangelical Christianity’s muscle flexing” with only the thinnest veneer of journalistic objectivity. Severson, you see, is an openly gay advocate of same-sex marriage equality herself and the former vice-president of the identity politics-mongering National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association. In a bitter op-ed on gay marriage laws not changing quickly enough, she asserted: “I don’t want the crumbs. I want the whole cake.” Severson has voiced complaints about her social and economic status as an unwed lesbian with a partner and child in several media publications.

I believe my experience at Chick-Fil-A today was pretty typical. At the table across from me, a man and a woman discussed last week's Sunday School lesson. Near the front window, a nursing student studied her medical books while sipping a Coke. The store manager rushed to assist a young mother with her two toddlers in a stroller, escorting them out the door and to their car. Meanwhile, a smiling associate offered to refill my drink as I finished my meal and prepared to leave. She was new in town. Her husband had been transferred and she had to leave her job at a Chick-Fil-A in Richmond. But she was ecstatic about having the opportunity to continue with the company in her new place of residence.

It is no wonder that Chick-Fil-A would see it as nothing but normal to support organizations committed to values and principles that are, after all, normal. To dine at Chick-Fil-A is to be witness to a parade of simple, common decency. That such a thing is an offense to the very people who now lecture us about the need for "civility" is a glaring illustration of the hypocrisy, moral bankruptcy, and utter reprobation of the vile activists of the perverted Left.

Spurgeon got it right, way back when

Charles Spurgeon was a man way ahead of his time. He saw the folly of premillennial dispensationalism almost from its inception and took a far more optimistic view of the final triumph of the Gospel than many of his contemporaries. With regard to another theological and philosophical aberration ascendant in his day, Spurgeon was nothing short of prophetic. In 1872, he wrote:

Now-a-days, if a man is very reverent towards the word of God, and very desirous to obey the Lord's commands in everything, people say, "He is very precise," and they shun him; or, with still more acrimony, they say, "He is very bigoted: he is not a man of liberal spirit;" and so they cast out his name as evil.

Bigotry, in modern parlance, you know, means giving heed to old truths in preference to novel theories; and a liberal spirit, now-a-days, means being liberal with everything except your own money—liberal with God's law, liberal with God's doctrine, liberal to believe that a lie is a truth, that black is white, and that white may occasionally be black. That is liberal sentiment in religion—the broad church school—from which may God continually deliver us.

Two years later, in a sermon entitled "Needless Fears," he observed:

The very persons who talk most about being liberal in their views are generally the greatest persecutors. If I must have a religious enemy, let me have a professed and avowed bigot, but not one of your "free thinkers" or "broad churchmen" as they are called, for there is nobody who can hate as they do; and the lovers of liberal-mindedness who have no creed at all think it to be their special duty to be peculiarly contemptuous to those who have some degree of principle, and cannot twist and turn exactly as they can.

A century and a half later, we can see the truth of Spurgeon's words not only in the religious sphere, but even moreso in the political sphere. There are none more intolerant than those liberal crusaders for "tolerance," and none more intent on quashing diversity than those who claim in all their liberality to "celebrate" it.

H/T to Blue Collar Philosophy

Spirit of Richard Cizik lives on at NAE

A year and a half after tree hugging, "civil union" supporting Richard Cizik resigned as its chief spokesman, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) continues to slide leftward. OneNewsNow reports on the NAE's latest attempt to extend an olive branch to the forces of secularism.

The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) has adopted a resolution to pursue "common ground" towards reducing abortion in the United States. But one longtime pro-life activist calls the plan "a dead-end road."

Engaging in what it calls "fresh national dialogue" to decrease abortions in America, the NAE resolution includes contraception as one of several possible means of achieving that goal. It also states that "some longtime opponents in the debate over the legality of abortion" have shown an interest participating in the dialogue.

OneNewsNow asked NAE's director of government affairs Galen Carey if that means working with groups like Planned Parenthood. He said it is too soon in the project to identify organizations that might be included.

"We are looking to work with people from across the political spectrum and organizations with a variety of perspectives," he responds, "provided that they would be willing to work on this issue of reducing abortions."

Asked if NAE would align itself with groups that promote condoms and contraceptives, Carey pointed to a Gallup study that suggests the vast majority of evangelicals support the use of contraceptives as part of an ethical family-planning program.

"So, yes, I think we would be happy to work with people who also are involved in family-planning efforts," he replies, "provided that they are willing to actually work on reducing the number of abortions."

But Joe Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League points out that distribution of condoms and contraceptives has led to promiscuity, and that many times groups promoting life have tried to talk with abortion and contraceptive proponents, to no avail. Very little can be accomplished by sitting at the same table as abortion supporters, he contends, because abortion is their business.

"...This [approach] has been tried over and over and over again and it never works, because we're talking about human life-- and how do you make compromise on human life?" he asks.

"These are stupid people who try to do something like that," the pro-life activist continues. "I don't care who they are [or] how sophisticated they may think they are -- they're on a dead-end road."

NAE says on the other hand that a million abortions every year in the U.S. is unacceptable, and the organization wants "honest conversation" on effective ways to reduce abortion. The evangelical group also states it will not desert its principle of ending abortion.

Carey currently holds the position from which Cizik resigned, and his comments indicate, sadly, that he is following in his predecessor's footsteps. Scheidler is blunt, but right. Nothing good can come of any effort to find "common ground" between the culture of life and the culture of death. The Apostle Paul's admonition to the believers in Corinth is quite relevant here.

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,

"I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore, go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty." (2 Corinthians 6.14-18)

The aim of the Gospel is not to "reduce the number of abortions." The aim of the Gospel is to transform a culture of death into a culture of life. What the NAE, and popular American evangelicalism in general, seem to have forgotten is that abortion is merely a symptom of a much more deadly disease.

McLaren's "New Kind of Christianity" is more of the same old kind of liberalism

Brian McLaren is at it again. As if we needed any more concrete evidence that the "emergent" guru has jumped the shark, his new book, A New Kind of Christianity, brings his blatant apostasy out in the open for all to see. Kevin DeYoung, at the end of a lengthy review, sums up the essence of "McLarenism."

Well, 6000 words later, what is possibly left to say? Hopefully not much. It would not sadden me in the least if I never talked or wrote about the emergent movement again. I don’t think any of us will be talking about the “great emergence” twenty years hence, let alone a hundred. All that remains is to highlight one final irony.

For all the talk of being new (xi) and at the same time ancient (255), McLarenism is neither. It is old fashioned liberalism. McLaren, despite his historical plundering, has no right to claim he is in [the] tradition of Martin Luther because he finds “sustaining inner strength,” or in the tradition of the Wesleys because “our hearts can be ‘strangely warmed’” (227). This is like saying I’m in the tradition of Ignatius because I have strong convictions. It doesn’t work. McLaren stands in the tradition of Ritschl, Harnack, Rauschenbush, and Whitehead, plain and simple.

Other reviewers have reached similar conclusions. Mike Wittmer devotes considerable space to answering the "ten questions" around which McLaren's book is built while Trevin Wax sees the book as good for the "emergent" movement because it will force others to come clean about their own beliefs. Tim Challies has the best (and likely most controversial) assessment of McLaren himself as one who loves Jesus but hates God.

When all is said and done, however, I believe DeYoung speaks not only for himself but for many others in his desire never to talk or write about the emergent movement again. As the old adage goes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. McLaren and his ilk are merely the latest version of the worn out liberalism which first wielded its ugly head about three centuries ago and died its most recent death with the collapse of mainline Protestantism at the end of the twentieth century. The emergent movement wants to breathe new life into this stinking carcass but, thanks be to God, it has already failed in this endeavor.

Andrew Walker: The subtle promotion of death

Writing for Mere Orthodoxy, Andrew Walker observes how the "pro-choice" movement is exposing its darkest motives in its response to Tim Tebow's pro-life Super Bowl commercial.

To mark the occasion—for some a highly anticipated (and caloric) event, and for some, more forgettable—why not bring Christian reflection to the Super Bowl?

The Internet, blogosphere, and news networks are abuzz with the current Tim Tebow Abortion Commercial Controversy—coming soon to a TV near you.

While I will refrain from the multiple canvasses upon which this debate has been forged, I do want to draw attention to the obvious: While no doubt pro-choice advocates are effused with frustration at CBS’s allowance of the commercial produced by Focus on the Family, the pro-choice movement is framing their frustrations in an exceedingly loathsome way, even to such a degree that they are exposing the fallaciousness and hideousness of their position as vehemently anti-life. Here is where the argument opens up and allows the pro-life movement remarkable potential to gain positive capital.

To the chagrin of the pro-life movement, we’ve often allowed our opponents on this issue to define the terms of the debate and as a result, we’ve never really felt compelled to draw attention to the obvious: Yes, we as pro-life individuals are for life, but we’ve never wanted to identify pro-choice individuals as for death. Now, lest I be interpreted as comparing every pro-choice individual to Hitler, I believe that the protestation over this commercial waged by the pro-choice community reduces to such. If anyone is doing the labeling, it’s self-ascribed this time. Careless presentation, presently exhibited, often merits unfortunate consequences. As even the New York Times concluded, “the would-be censors are on the wrong track. Instead of trying to silence an opponent, advocates for allowing women to make their own decisions about whether to have a child should be using the Super Bowl spotlight to convey what their movement is all about: protecting the right of women like Pam Tebow to make their private reproductive choices.”

The manner and attitude of their response is only fueling the positive aspects of the pro-life movement. Does anyone want to be seen actively working against the family and proposing, as renowned Hollywood feminist and bloviator Joy Behar did, that Tim Tebow could easily have been a pedophile just as much as he is a Heisman trophy winner and all-around good guy? Pro-choice individuals need to ask the perilous and self-indicting question of how their protests are being interpreted. To me, this particular argument has been interpreted as Kevorkian libertinism.

The lesson: Choose carefully how you argue and grant, however sacrosanct the issue is, that life is good and to be encouraged. In the absence of this axiom, the pro-choice movement’s frustration is tantamount to their own demise.

I have previously commented on the deceptive use of the word "progressive" by present-day liberals. The devaluing of human life, as promoted by the "pro-choice" movement, is not a sign of progress, but of social decadence and a slide toward barbarism.

Is it a sign of "progress" to embrace behaviors, practices, and worldviews which the civilized world has rejected for some two millennia? In ancient times, the Christians were the true "progressives." They looked upon a world awash in decadence and licentiousness and boldly declared there was a better way than the way of temple prostitution and drunken debauchery. A world which embraced such godless misbehavior was a world that was passing away. A new world was coming into being in which the holiness of God would be the order of the day and those who would be a part of it were called to turn away from the temporal pleasures of the flesh and begin living here and now as though this world had passed away and the new world had already begun.

Whenever present-day liberals embrace the term "progressive," they are simply following an age old formula for deceiving weak-minded people into thinking they are the ones with a forward-looking vision. But there is nothing "progressive" about celebrating sin and pretending there is no God or, if there is, he's somehow open to diverse opinions about right and wrong. What was true in ancient times is no less true today. The way of progress is the way of Christ and the cross, for there is no other way to the blessing of eternal life.

Mohler: Air conditioning hell

Albert Mohler traces the origins of theological liberalism and its devastating legacy through the lens of a very basic, and much maligned, biblical doctrine.

Interestingly, the doctrine of hell serves very well as a test case for the slide into theological liberalism. The pattern of this slide looks something like this.

First, a doctrine simply falls from mention. Over time, it is simply never discussed or presented from the pulpit. Most congregants do not even miss the mention of the doctrine. Those who do become fewer over time. The doctrine is not so much denied as ignored and kept at a distance. Yes, it is admitted, that doctrine has been believed by Christians, but it is no longer a necessary matter of emphasis.

Second, a doctrine is revised and retained in reduced form. There must have been some good reason that Christians historically believed in hell. Some theologians and pastors will then affirm that there is a core affirmation of morality to be preserved, perhaps something like what C. S. Lewis affirmed as "The Tao."[5] The doctrine is reduced.

Third, a doctrine is subjected to a form of ridicule. Robert Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral, known for his message of "Possibility Thinking," once described his motivation for theological reformulation in terms of refocusing theology on "generating trust and positive hope."[6] His method is to point to salvation and the need "to become positive thinkers."[7] Positive thinking does not emphasize escape from hell, "whatever that means and wherever that is."[8]

That statement ridicules hell by dismissing it in terms of "whatever that means and wherever it is." Just don't worry about hell, Schuller suggests. Though few evangelicals are likely to join in the same form of ridicule, many will invent softer forms of marginalizing the doctrine.

Fourth, a doctrine is reformulated in order to remove its intellectual and moral offensiveness. Evangelicals have subjected the doctrine of hell to this strategy for many years now. Some deny that hell is everlasting, arguing for a form of annihilationism or conditional immortality. Others will deny hell as a state of actual torment. John Wenham simply states, "Unending torment speaks to me of sadism, not justice."[9] Some argue that God does not send anyone to hell, and that hell is simply the sum total of human decisions made during earthly lives. God is not really a judge who decides, but a referee who makes certain that rules are followed.

Tulsa pastor Ed Gungor recently wrote that "people are not sent to hell, they go there."[10] In other words, God just respects human freedom to the degree that he will reluctantly let humans determined to go to hell have their wish.

ACLU loses biggest donor; Sierra Club and anti-war groups also take a hit

Earlier this year, it was learned that the Madoff scandal had an adverse financial impact on the ACLU (as well as Planned Parenthood and several other abortion providers). Now, just in time for Christmas, comes this cup of cheerful news.

The American Civil Liberties Union has lost a quarter of its yearly donations after a major donor cut off $19 million in annual donations because of economic difficulties.
David Gelbaum, a wealthy California conservationist, said he was indefinitely stopping the donations that had made him the New York-based group's largest anonymous donor.

"For a number of years, your organization has received very substantial charitable contributions from me," Gelbaum said in a statement. "My investments in alternative, clean energy companies have placed me in a highly illiquid position as a result of the general credit crisis in the American and world financial systems."

Gelbaum also announced he was halting some $12 million in yearly gifts to the Sierra Club Foundation and about $50 million a year that he's been giving to an organization serving veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.* Gelbaum has given a total of $389 million to the groups from 2005 to 2009.

The New York Times named Gelbaum in a story published in the newspaper Wednesday. Gelbaum had previously funded those organizations anonymously.

"While we're clearly disappointed that his desire to remain anonymous was breached, we remain eternally grateful for everything he and his family have done to advance the cause of civil liberties for all Americans," ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero said.

Romero also called Gelbaum an American hero, "an unassuming man with a spectacularly generous spirit."

Gelbaum says he hopes others will step forward and replace his donations.

Gelbaum, a native of Minnesota, once chaired the math department at the University of California, Irvine. He made his fortune working for hedge funds, where he used mathematical formulas to pick stocks and bonds.

He runs an investment firm called Quercus Trust, based in Newport Beach, Calif.

*Those "veterans" groups are anti-war organizations such as Iraq Veterans Against the War.

The radical left: All hoaxes, all the time

It is not shaping up as a good week for the radical left. The "global warming" movement continues to unravel as "Climategate" gains traction. What many of us have been saying all along has turned out to be true. The whole "climate change" industry, which has made Al Gore a multi-millionaire, is a scam based on a hoax built on a lie.

It was announced Thursday afternoon that computer hackers had obtained 160 megabytes of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in England. Those e-mails involved communication among many scientific researchers and policy advocates with similar ideological positions all across the world. Those purported authorities were brazenly discussing the destruction and hiding of data that did not support global-warming claims.

Professor Phil Jones, the head of the Climate Research Unit, and professor Michael E. Mann at Pennsylvania State University, who has been an important scientist in the climate debate, have come under particular scrutiny. Among his e-mails, Mr. Jones talked to Mr. Mann about the "trick of adding in the real temps to each series ... to hide the decline [in temperature]."

Mr. Mann admitted that he was party to this conversation and lamely explained to the New York Times that "scientists often used the word 'trick' to refer to a good way to solve a problem 'and not something secret.' " Though the liberal New York newspaper apparently buys this explanation, we have seen no benign explanation that justifies efforts by researchers to skew data on so-called global-warming "to hide the decline." Given the controversies over the accuracy of Mr. Mann's past research, it is surprising his current explanations are accepted so readily.

There is a lot of damning evidence about these researchers concealing information that counters their bias. In another exchange, Mr. Jones told Mr. Mann: "If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone" and, "We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind." Mr. Jones further urged Mr. Mann to join him in deleting e-mail exchanges about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) controversial assessment report (ARA): "Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re [the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report]?"

In another e-mail, Mr. Jones told Mr. Mann, professor Malcolm K. Hughes of the University of Arizona and professor Raymond S. Bradley of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst: "I'm getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data. Don't any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act!"

At one point, Mr. Jones complained to another academic, "I did get an email from the [Freedom of Information] person here early yesterday to tell me I shouldn't be deleting emails." He also offered up more dubious tricks of his trade, specifically that "IPCC is an international organization, so is above any national FOI. Even if UEA holds anything about IPCC, we are not obliged to pass it on." Another professor at the Climate Research Unit, Tim Osborn, discussed in e-mails how truncating a data series can hide a cooling trend that otherwise would be seen in the results. Mr. Mann sent Mr. Osborn an e-mail saying that the results he was sending shouldn't be shown to others because the data support critics of global warming.

Repeatedly throughout the e-mails that have been made public, proponents of global-warming theories refer to data that has been hidden or destroyed. Only e-mails from Mr. Jones' institution have been made public, and with his obvious approach to deleting sensitive files, it's difficult to determine exactly how much more information has been lost that could be damaging to the global-warming theocracy and its doomsday forecasts.

But the news only gets worse for the left. The death of a Kentucky census worker was not the work of "right wing extremists," after all.

A Kentucky census worker found hanging from a tree with the word "fed" written on his chest killed himself and staged his death to look like a murder, authorities said Tuesday.

Kentucky State Police said Bill Sparkman died at the same location where his body was found Sept. 12 near a cemetery in a heavily wooded area of southeastern Kentucky.

A man who discovered the body in the Daniel Boone National Forest said the 51-year-old was bound with duct tape, gagged and had an identification badge taped to his neck.

Police told a news conference Tuesday that Sparkman was naked except for socks and had his glasses taped to his face "so he could see what he was doing."

Kentucky State Police Capt. Lisa Rudzinski said the investigation revealed that the letters "fed" scrawled on his chest in black pen had been written from the bottom up and Sparkman's DNA was the only forensic evidence found at the scene.

He was touching the ground, and to survive "all Mr. Sparkman had to do at any time was stand up," she said.

Sparkman spoke to a witness they wouldn't name about hanging himself and making it look like someone else killed him, according to Rudzinski.

Authorities say Sparkman acted alone in manipulating the scene to conceal the suicide.

As more and more lies propagated by the radical left are exposed to the light of truth, it is becoming quite apparent that this is a movement based on all hoaxes, all the time.