Words mean things

I spent the last post focusing on a proclamation of the biblical definition of love and a proclamation of the Gospel.  Today, that will serve as a foundation for responding to someone making yet another claim that homosexuality is something Christians should not simply tolerate, but accept and celebrate.  This, of course, is not a new claim, as anyone who has spent more than five minutes on the Internet will quickly ascertain.

There have been many attempts made to make the case for homosexuality in Christianity, but probably the most well-known in popular culture at this time is the Matthew Vines video, as he gives his testimony of sorts and makes various claims about what the Bible "really says" about homosexuality.  Naturally, this apologetic mashup resulted in him making conflicting defenses, and was roundly shredded, most notably by Dr. James White, who dissected the video almost down to the syllabic level in exposing Vines' chicanery.  Vines now spends his days secluded from anyone who might possibly challenge his worldview.

But that dead horse will rest for the moment, as a new contender enters the ring and brings what is at least a somewhat novel argument for why Christians should welcome the new order of things: namely, that Jesus was just wrong, and Christians shouldn't just take His word for it.  Brandon Ambrosino has today's example of blatant eisegesis on the Pacific Standard website.  In an article titled "The Best Christian Argument for Marriage Equality is that the Bible Got it Wrong," Ambrosino proceeds to suggest that Christians can remain Christians, while simultaneously jettisoning entire foundational aspects of their faith, and thus proves the Apostle Paul true in 1 Corinthians 1:

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.--1 Corinthians 1:22-25

There are a host of problems with Ambrosino's claims in this article, many of which are refuted by similar responses to revisionism like Dr. White's above.  I will focus on my response on his most blatant claim: namely, that Jesus basically didn't know what he was talking about.

Though referring to the Torah with the shorthand “Moses” is hardly proof positive that Jesus was wrong about the books' provenance (many scholars refer to the books metonymically), it’s safe to say that Jesus probably assumed Moses wrote the Pentateuch.
And if he did think that, then he was wrong.
This is a point the Evangelical bible scholar Peter Enns makes in a footnote in his book The Evolution of Adam: “Jesus here reflects the tradition that he himself inherited as a first-century Jew and that his hearers assumed to be the case.”

Calling Peter Enns "evangelical" is, to put it lightly, inaccurate.  "Evangelical" implies a belief in an "evangel," in the Gospel.  Enns has long since left any semblance of a belief in the sufficiency, clarity, or inerrancy of Scripture that would testify to this Gospel, and if you can't hold to those one wonders exactly why you would bother being considered a Christian at all if you reject the foundation of its fundamental beliefs.  Dr. Michael Kruger shredded his most recent work in an article a few months back, and which I highly recommend.

But I digress.  Ambrosino makes it clear that he does not look to the text as having any measure of truth in it, and he is free to declare that Jesus, the incarnation of the Son of God, has no idea about the true authorship of the Pentateuch.  This is exactly the sort of historical bias so common to modern popular scholarship, epitomized by the likes of Bart Ehrman and others who pursue the (long refuted) Bauer hypothesis, that takes Scripture and reduces it into a pile of disconnected phrases that can be pulled apart and set against one another in the pursuit of human autonomy.

Therefore, Ambrosino is under no obligation, in the eyes of the modern scholar, to recognize that by declaring Jesus as an ignorant no-nothing who assumes that things are how he's always been told rather than being the One who tells, he is completely ignoring the multitude of texts in which Jesus identifies Himself with Yahweh and sets out the idea that the Scriptures are not simply true because Moses wrote them.  They are true because they are about Him.

And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.--John 5:37-40

Jesus speaks to the Pharisees, people who believe that they have righteousness within themselves and within their own acts and are offended by Jesus' statements that they are, in fact, sinners in need of repentance.  And like Ambrosino, they use the Scriptures however they wish in order to prop up their own desires, rather than submit to the full testimony of the Scriptures which point unyieldingly to Jesus Christ.

The bottom line error of Ambrosino's hermeneutic is the same error found in the works of Ehrman, Enns and the like: it rejects any idea of God actually being able to reveal His will to His creation.  God, if there is a God, becomes an unfathomable mystery, and we all get to stand around looking smart as we stroke our chins and ponder the universe.  All the while, we scoff at the thought that God actually is fully capable of speaking into creation and has done so clearly.

And so, having begun with the rejection of the supernatural, we then get to take God's revelation and reduce it down into a million pieces, which we can take apart and reconstruct as we will.  Ambrosino is not doing anything new, he's just being a lot more blunt about it: don't like what the Bible says about a topic?  Well, clearly the writer just wasn't as progressive as you are, so you can reject it.  Sin?  So offensive.  Just look to the nice parts about loving people (without making any effort to understand the full argument being made or any definitions) and we have reduced the text to a mishmash of words that, at this point, mean virtually nothing.

Of course, even as we post-moderns live by this idea that we get to define our own reality, we would never treat our own words like that.  I suspect very much that if I were to take Ambrosino's column and read it the way he reads the Bible--ignoring what I don't like, "reimagining" concepts to fit my framework, and completely ignoring contexts for my own benefit--I daresay he would take issue with that.

I want to close by taking a look at a couple sections that display exactly why this style of cafeteria Christianity is utterly untenable:

What the bible most decidedly is not is some type of handbook for navigating the 21st century. It is not God, nor should it be awarded godlike status. (To treat it as such is to break the second commandment.)

Of course, exactly how we can know what the second commandment is, or why we should listen to any of God's commandments given that Ambrosino's contention is "well, the Bible is just wrong some places" is left unexplained.

Are there universal truths contained with the pages of the bible? Absolutely! Are many of those truths relevant in every age and culture, and binding to Christians everywhere? Definitely—loving your neighbor, forgiving your enemies, and looking out for the weak are obligations that Christ has put upon each person who that claims to follow him. Are there passages of Scripture that should be read as if they are describing historical events that actually transpired in this world? Of course—the physical resurrection of Jesus is a non-negotiable tenet of the Christian faith.

The inconsistencies abound: if Jesus is not who He says he is, on what grounds exactly does He have the right or ability to make anything binding to anyone.  Furthermore, why did Jesus die, and rise again?  I've heard pastors in mainline liberal churches that had little other interest in a solid, grammatically and historically accurate exegesis of the text that could stand up and say "I believe Jesus was a real person, that he died on the cross, and that he rose again."  But that statement had precisely zero impact on anything else they did, on the way they lived their lives, or on the theology that informed any other preaching to their congregations.  As far as anyone can tell, Jesus rose again because He was just such a nice guy, and you can't keep a good guy down.

I would simply ask Brandon: who exactly does he believe Jesus is?  He's an ignorant peasant walking around just parroting the Torah...and He rose from the dead?  There is no consistency, no real desire to see Jesus as a real person here, let alone as who He said that He was.  The consistent and harmonious testimony of Scripture is rejected, and instead the text is pitted against itself as passages, stripped of context and any meaning beyond the surface, are set at odds the original writers would never have agreed with.

So quite simply, the idea that this would be a "Christian argument" is a non-starter.  To embrace it requires rejecting Scripture's clear testimony about Jesus as the monogenes huios, the one and unique Son of God.  If you do that, there is no foundation to believe in anything Scripture says about Jesus, which renders Ambrosino's statements about Christ's resurrection head-scratchingly odd.  Just as John made it clear that those who denied Christ's having come in the flesh (as opposed to the docetists who believed that Jesus only appeared to be human but was really spirit) were not true Christians but in fact were deceivers and false teachers, likewise you cannot claim that Christ was merely a man who said silly baseless things without abandoning your bona fides of the faith.

But this is why the Bible says that "salvation belongs to the Lord."  Apart from the work of the Holy Spirit no one would believe, because on our own we do not look for God but instead we seek after our own selfish desires.  But thanks be to God for His mercy, in calling His people to Himself in the person and work of Christ.  His mercy is everlasting and His grace is to be desired by all men.  I would say to Brandon Ambrosino: repent of your unbelief, and turn to the real Jesus, the one to which Scripture testifies, not your imagined one who can provide no atonement, cannot testify to the truth of the living God, and certainly cannot bring conviction of or repentance from sin.  Your Jesus cannot heal, cannot find the lost (because he is lost himself), and has utterly no value.  This is not the Christ of Scripture or history.  I would call you to repent, and to know Him as Lord and Savior.

Love

I have pondered exactly how to write on the issue of gay marriage in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's decision to legalize it.  I am torn--not on my position on the subject, because that is firm opposition.  Rather, I am torn in exactly how to approach it.  I have friends near and far and coworkers who consider themselves to be homosexual or to be "allies."  My goal here is not to write an angry rant, because I'm not angry and it would accomplish nothing.  Certainly there is a measure of disappointment but that is tempered by the knowledge that God is God, and while man foolishly believes in his own autonomy, God will ultimately be glorified in all things.

The heart of man plans his way,
   but the Lord establishes his steps.
--Proverbs 16:9

However, I have come to face the fact that no matter what I say, no matter how calmly or reasonably I seek to discuss this, at this point there is little room for such things in the eyes of many.  The behavior of so many in recent months has made this abundantly clear: anything short of full-throated endorsement of homosexuality and its partners bisexuality and transgenderism will not be tolerated.  I don't say all this to set myself up as a potential victim; rather, I simply want to lay groundwork for this discussion, and pray that those who disagree with me will 1) actually read through this and allow me to speak for myself, rather than inserting thoughts and claims into my words that I do not actually make, and 2) understand this to be written in a spirit of love.

Pardon my tone

I have a long blog post in the works that I may or may not get finished today that will discuss issues related to the gay marriage decision and its fallout, but in the aftermath of the release of the Planned Parenthood video revealing that abortions are often performed in such a way so as to maximize the ability of the doctors to harvest organs from the dead child, I couldn't let this story pass by without comment:

Reuters: Planned Parenthood head sorry for tone in video on fetal tissue use

Let's start with just the headline.  Firstly, as the good Dr. White remarked on Twitter yesterday, "tone" seems to have become the most dastardly crime one can commit--you can say the most heinous thing imaginable, but if you say it in a nice way or in such a way that it seems like you are trying to be sensitive to others, that excuses the actual content of the statement.  Of course, given that our culture today seems to be rapidly fleeing from the idea that language has any firm meaning, I suppose this shouldn't be terribly surprising, but it is still head-smackingly inane.

Secondly, I realize that Reuters is probably using the phrase "fetal tissue" because it is considered by the bulk of the media to be the most "neutral" phrase, but I believe this is a sign that the idea of the secular worldview being completely on board with all things proven true scientifically is complete nonsense.  I still find it fascinating that in this day and age, far advanced beyond the then-rudimentary prenatal knowledge of 1973, we still continue to pretend that we haven't had it established beyond any reasonable doubt that a fetus* is a child, a separate and new life.  The only thing that could possibly make it more clear at this point would be a literally transparent womb, and we virtually have that with the incredible advances in ultrasound imaging now available.

Just a few parts of the story I wanted to comment on:

Planned Parenthood's president apologized on Thursday for the "tone and statements" of a senior staff member who was secretly recorded in a video that critics say suggests the U.S. reproductive health organization sells aborted fetal tissue. Despite Planned Parenthood's denials of the allegation, the video's release earlier this week has rapidly spurred investigations in the Republican-led U.S. Congress. Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a new video statement that the nonprofit organization does not profit from fetal tissue donation.

The verbal sleight-of-hand I have been seeing by PP defenders on Facebook is ever-present: "selling" versus "profiting."  We'll let slide the fact that they absolutely do profit from providing the abortions themselves.  I'm sure once the various governors and attorneys general investigating this are done, we'll have a very clear count of exactly what sort of margin Planned Parenthood is pulling down on baby livers.

She also apologized for the remarks of Dr. Deborah Nucatola, its senior director of medical services, recorded discussing fetal body parts over lunch and wine in a restaurant. She was meeting with actors posing as buyers from a biological company. "Our top priority is the compassionate care that we provide. In the video, one of our staff members speaks in a way that does not reflect that compassion," said Richards, whose statement did not name Nucatola.

This concept continues from the above defense being used by many right now: talk about Planned Parenthood as though it's a poor put-upon woman's clinic that just happens to have some detractors.  Don't allow anyone to bring up what is actually being discussed in the video: the murder of unborn children, and that murder being done in a particular way so as to preserve certain organs for use by others.  This is being acclaimed by the defenders, appallingly enough, as some sort of act akin to organ donation (I even saw one person, without the slightest sense of self-awareness, say "You must be against organ donation" to someone writing about this in a similar vein to me right now.)  This goes along with the longtime claim of abortion rights supporters: unborn children are just tissue, their disposal is the right of the mother and is without consequence.

The conscience-scarring act of adopting this viewpoint vexes me to the core, and demands a cry of "Repent!" from every believer.  Not because we are morally superior, but precisely because the only reason we have any different perspective on our own humanity beyond "It's there for me to do as I please" is by the grace of God.  That we have come to encourage mothers to regard their unborn offspring, the most helpless state of human life one could imagine, as simply a clump of tissue to be disposed of is wicked, and surely it is just as wicked as those who labored to defend the institution of slavery in the United States by claiming that an institution which debased and degraded its victims to the level of animal was, in fact, for their benefit.  George Orwell certainly did not invent doublespeak, but he codified very well the thought process of humanity when it rejects its Creator and chooses slavery and death.

And so it is with "compassionate care."  I fully acknowledge that Planned Parenthood does do many good things in providing needed healthcare for women, especially women without a great deal of means.  That does not excuse the wickedness of calling the act of killing an unborn child "compassionate care."

Finally, there's this:

Richards said Planned Parenthood stood by its work helping women to donate tissue for "lifesaving" research. "We know the real agenda of organizations behind videos like this," she said. "Their mission is to ban abortion completely and cut women off from care at Planned Parenthood and other health centers."

If I may be so bold: you are bloody right it is.  Just like it was the goal of abolitionists like William Wilberforce, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Harriet Tubman to see the practice of slavery abolished and to see an end to the treatment of African-Americans as subhuman, so today those who have been set free from bondage to sin by the power of the Holy Spirit must raise their voice in protest against those who would degrade the imago Dei through this assault on motherhood and on our most helpless.

And I choose to do this by pointing out the evil in this practice, and by calling all who consider this act to be acceptable to have their eyes opened, to see the truth of what abortion really is before them, and to repent and know true forgiveness and life in Jesus Christ.  I do this because eliminating abortion is not the true end: the true end is in our work as ministers of reconciliation, calling our fellow imagebearers of God around us to the foot of the cross of Christ and to the true life only found in the Spirit.

*And I don't say "fetus" derogatorily, it's a legitimate word to describe a particular point in life just like "zygote" or "child" or "adolescent" is, or like "larva" is for an insect.  The issue comes in when the word is loaded down with the implication that "fetus" means "clump of random cells that are totally not at all anything you should worry about until they magically turn into a baby on the way down the birth canal."

Pressures of church and state

Apologies for the long delay again.  But: I have a good reason!  I have started a podcast with the help from a friend at church, and I would direct you all to check it out.  It's called Spurgeon Audio, and I am reading through the sermons and writings of Charles Spurgeon, works that have served as great inspirations to me in my walk as a believer.  I hope you will all be edified and share it as you see fit.  It is on iTunes, and the link to subscribe is at the website.

This is another entry publishing a paper I've written for the still-ongoing C3 Academy, the classes my church is putting on to help raise up leaders within the laity.  This paper is on the subject of the relationship between the church and the state.  If you are a theonomist, you may not care for this paper, but then I am not trying to please theonomists.  Read on:

Loving the truth

Christians, at least Western Christians, are an odd bunch.  Even within denominational lines you have varying battles over what's right and true, what's central to Christianity and what isn't.  My observation is that there is a struggle for people to really engage in these debates and see them through to the end; so many times I see people throw up their hands after the first or second response and walk away simply because they dislike conflict.  That's understandable; I know of few people who enjoy getting into fights with others.  But the problem here is that by not taking a firm stance on defining what Christianity is and what the truth is on many subjects, the faith has absorbed a strange mishmash of beliefs that, in reality, bear no resemblance to biblical Christianity.  For example, this particularly vexing bit of malarkey from Joel Osteen's wife, Victoria, followed by very poignant commentary by Bill Cosby:



There has been a lot of commentary and snark on this, unsurprisingly, but I want to respond to this with a much more serious tone.  My concern is one for my family, my friends, my brothers and sisters in the faith who hear this and may not be deeply rooted in the Word or simply don't think that what she's saying here is really that big of a deal.  I've responded to Joel Osteen before, and I want to flesh out my problem and preach the truth of the Gospel to my friends and family that happen to read this here.

Firstly: I've seen responses to this that offer a tongue-clucking "Poor dear, she just had a little slip-up" excusing of her bizarre, patently unbiblical statements.  I do not agree.  What you are hearing from her is not atypical from the prosperity gospel crowd, because it's precisely what they believe about God.  You would never hear the Westminster Catechism's "The chief end of man is to glorify God" because they view salvation and, in fact, all of God's activities, in an ultimately man-centered way: Jesus died to save us from our sins, yes, but the reason isn't because God is glorifying Himself by displaying both His mercy and His justice.  It's because He is just so into us that He can't think of doing anything but making us happy.  In this philosophy Jesus is not the mighty King of the universe who will return wielding a sword to vanquish His enemies.  Instead, He is a meek servant that waits on us kingdom kids hand and foot, taking away anything that might stop us from having a grand old time.

"But doesn't the Bible promise rewards to the faithful?"  Absolutely it does.  And it also promises that those who follow Christ are walking in a way that is contrary to what a man who is dead in his sin believes is right, and because of that, this life is not one of ease and pleasure, but rather one that involves sacrifice and, often, persecution:

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.--John 15:18-20

This is not to say that Christians therefore can expect painful lives of drudgery either; certainly we take a great deal of joy in what God does provide us, and He knows exactly what we need so that we might live to His glory:

And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.--Luke 12:22-31

Believing that your relationship with Jesus exists for the purpose of giving you something else that you want, even something undefinable like "happiness" or something ostensibly good like healing from sickness, is not Christianity.  It's idolatry, for two reasons: 1) Scripture says that the only thing we can earn from God is death.  That which we receive from God that is good is a gift from Him.  "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. 6:23) 2) You cannot make God owe you anything.  "The Lord does not let the righteous go hungry, but he thwarts the craving of the wicked." (Prov 10:3)  Is this a God which can be made to perform based on our deeds, words, or our "faith?"  Of course, when listening to a prosperity preacher, faith is not the gift Scripture describes it to be, but a tangible commodity that one can gain or lose and without which God is incapable of acting because of...something.  "Bring no more vain offerings;
    incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations—   I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly."--Isaiah 1:13
God is speaking to the Israelites who are doing--on the outside--exactly what he commanded them to do, and He is telling them that He wants nothing to do with it.  Is this a God who can be manipulated into action?  Of course not.  God is our source of life, of existence, He provides all things and lays out our steps in life.  Read the Psalms--firstly, of course, because they are amazingly worshipful and refreshing to the soul, but also because there is no way to study them and come away with a picture of a God who is constrained by anything or who is standing there trying to please us.  Quite the opposite: "Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases." (Ps 115:3)  

So let's move from criticizing a lie to this post's title: the truth, and why it is critical that we love the truth.  As I said, it is impossible to study the Word in any depth and come away with an image of God that is in any way weak, needy, or anything other than absolutely sovereign and in control.  He is infinite, all-powerful, yet utterly personal, and it is His good pleasure not simply to "make us happy," a simple yet ultimately meaningless goal, but to make us His:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.--Ephesians 2:1-10

We were spiritually dead, He made us alive.  We were astray, He put us on the path of righteousness.  He took out hearts of stone and replaced them with hearts of flesh.  And we can take credit for none of it.  Our God is in the heavens and He does what pleases Him, and what pleases Him is to save a people for Himself through Christ's sacrifice on the cross and His role as the first of the resurrection, and as great high priest for all who are His.  Why on earth would I waste my time on the God of the prosperity gospel, one that can't act unless I "have enough faith" and offers nothing but the same earthly pleasures that everyone else pursues, that will all perish in the end?

If we will not love the truth, we will be caused to love a lie.  For this reason, and because there is no greater calling to which a human can aspire, I call on my readers, my friends, my family, to love Jesus and follow the King!  To repent of sin and leave your burden nailed to the cross is true freedom, to grow in grace is true joy.

And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.--John 12:44-46

Theology Matters: Eulogy for a dead man

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.--Matthew 7:15-20

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.--Galatians 5:16-24

I have mentioned it a couple other times here, but I can recall a line in one of C.S. Lewis' books to the effect of people having two equally wrong ways to deal with sin: we either take it too harshly and become legalistic jerks, or we take it far too lightly and begin thinking we can do whatever we wish.  In both cases we cease to recognize both the effect and the gravity of Christ crucified: Jesus died on the cross because our sins are deadly serious, and because He has died and risen again we are able to walk in freedom and grace--away from our sin, into God-glorifying lives of sanctification.

Unless you've lived under a rock for the past decade or so, you have probably seen the antics and nonsense from the so-called "Westboro Baptist Church."  I say "so-called" because they are not a church, and they are certainly not Baptist.  They have done everything from give incredibly foolish and nonsense-filled interviews on TV to protesting funerals, to proclaim that the death being mourned has been brought about by a vengeful God because of America's sins, in particular its tolerance of homosexuality.  There is precisely zero understanding of the Gospel, no desire whatsoever to submit to the full counsel of Scripture, and a complete lack of regeneration evident in their words and deeds.  In short, this is what happens when Category A Self-Righteous Hypocrite goes on steroids: you have someone who can see what's wrong but believes, foolishly, that because they aren't engaged in such and such sin that they are clean.  Believing the Gospel does not produce this wicked fruit.

But likewise, the answer is not "You can do anything you want to do, because God made you and therefore anything you want is okay!"  And those are the two sides we find engaged in a battle of "who can be more wrong," amplified by the recent death of Westboro's founder, Fred Phelps.  The fruit of his life is on display for all to see, and one can argue he has been one of the biggest allies of the pro-homosexuality movement: his behavior and words have provoked such a dramatic response that it's hard for anyone with even an ounce of compassion for another human to find a way to make an argument against the normalization of homosexuality.  And so the diseased, thistley, dried-up fruit of his tree is seen before the whole world, many of whom turn and...eat the diseased, thistley, dried-up fruit of unashamed sinfulness.

Phelps was a man dead in his heart reading from a book that could not possibly have any meaning to him.  "How can you say that?" you ask.  "I thought Christians weren't supposed to judge."  Oh, but I can--by what the man produces.  And we know what the life of a man transformed by the power of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit looks like; read it again:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

 So why write all this?  I'm sure that few would begrudge this if I said I simply was in a mood and wanted to kick the man while he was (literally) down, but that could not be farther from the truth.  On the contrary, I'm writing this as a follow-up to my last post, as a demonstration of why, exactly, theology does matter.  When we view the God of the Bible as nothing more than pure, unadulterated judgment of God and do not preach the Gospel, do not believe in God's power to save (in spite of their claimed "Calvinist" position) and do not believe in God's ultimate goal of restoring His creation but rather simply see Him showing up on the scene at some point to damn everyone except...well, them.  When we do not seek to line theology up with what the Bible actually says--the whole Bible--there is almost no end to the foolishness that can result.  Fred Phelps was perhaps one of the most obvious and blatant examples of it, but the danger always exists and we must be vigilant to sit in the Word, to sit in prayer and to celebrate with gratitude and great joy the mercy God has shown us in the person and work of Jesus--for if we don't, we tread very dangerous ground.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.--Galatians 1:6-9

Tuesday night viewing

No big long post tonight.  I watched this a long time ago, and I watched it again tonight, and feel as convicted to pray and sit in the Word as before.  Everyone needs to watch this as well, and I pray that its effect is to cause people to do the same.  It's called the "shocking youth message," but really this is what I hope would be brought to every group whether youth or old or somewhere in the middle: the uncensored, basic Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the incredible need we all have for it, especially those of us who call ourselves "Christian."


UPDATE: apparently Blogger likes to strip out the video, so let's try this again.

Let's try this again

Well, the last post certainly brought one of the more heated responses this blog has ever gotten.  Not on the post itself, but on Twitter it certainly brought on some discussions as well as some rather uncalled-for responses, which I will not get into here.  The author of the piece I was responding to, Micah J. Murray, did in fact reply to me on Twitter.  In the process we learned several things:

1. Micah does, in fact, believe that one can be walking in something the Bible calls sin unrepentantly and still be saved. 
2. He was unwilling to directly answer the question of who, exactly, was saying that gay people were worse sinners than other sinners; his first response was a vague comment about "conservative churches," when pressed for specifics he did not reply. 
3. Those who agreed with him continued to argue a point I specifically disagreed with, preferring to set up a "hater" straw man to actually engaging my arguments.  They operated on the assumption that I was setting gay people apart from others, rather than insisting that they be counted as part of the population that makes up the world: rebel sinners in need of God's grace.
4. Where Micah did attempt to engage my actual arguments, his position was Scripturally deficient, rooted in his opinion rather than anything biblical.  Where Scripture did enter into it, issues of definition abound. 

Now, let me say that I believe I understand the driving force behind where he is right now.  I've walked with many men and women who have felt burned by the church, felt like they came into a body of believers with struggles and pain and needing someone to listen and help them, and came away feeling rejected and lost.  And this is a compassion that I share, and that ought to be shared by every believer; like him, I want people to know Jesus not as a condemner but as a savior, one who sets people free from their slavery to sin.  I want people to rejoice at the name of Christ, to have the ability to trust him wholly and freely.

But the problem, and the place where we are going to part ways, is that I cannot see biblically how any argument can be made that one can be unrepentantly in any sin and still be saved.  Furthermore, the modern cultural redefinition of sin to "if it doesn't hurt anyone else, it's okay" is not an allowance Scripture provides for.  Not that Jesus cannot save anyone the Father gives to Him, because we know that He will do so.  But with he and his followers unwilling to even acquiesce to the idea that homosexuality is a sin, the struggle here is with presuppositions.  So let's start from the foundation, from the beginning of understanding our relationship with God and why Christ came.

Picking tulips

It was my occasion today to engage in conversation with some fellow believers on Facebook, over the subject of limited atonement. My brothers and sisters were incensed at the idea and, like many people brought up in our tradition-bound churches, believed that it was opposed to the message of salvation as being a message of hope for all people.

I have seen a lot of different reactions from people in these sorts of conversations: in a couple instances I had people who just switched to full emotional outburst mode, not wanting to even discuss the topic and calling the idea of Calvinism "satanic." In such cases while I often press them to explain more, typically it's something ingrained deeply and it's beyond my purview to dislodge such thoughts. In other cases it's just because they have certain understandings about what the Bible says, and while we have had respectful conversations it's simply a matter of disagreement. And in some instances people have applied terms such as "four point Calvinist" to themselves, meaning that they believe in some of the less controversial doctrines that descend from the famous TULIP acronym, but limited atonement or unconditional election are sticking points for them, usually for the same reason as the second group but with less reticence over the term "Calvinist."

My desire here is to expound on why I believe in the doctrines of grace, and to explain my contention that, as Charles Spurgeon put it, "Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else." I want to say first and foremost that I'm not here to defend John Calvin as a perfect man, and if your response to this involves wrongs committed by Calvin then quite frankly I'm not interested. John Calvin was just a man, and like myself, a sinner. But he provided a thorough, deep, and accurate understanding of what the Bible teaches about God, about us, and about God's role in bringing about salvation for our sakes.

The humanist half-gospel

The new Catholic Pope Francis has been making a lot of waves in the news lately.  Certainly he's an interesting character to watch from the perspective of someone who rejects his authority to speak as he claims he can, with God's own words.  But he's said a lot of things that have people talking about how the church talks about its role in the world and about ministry--well, the Catholic church at least, but it bears discussing.  There's a couple of articles in particular I read that deserve responding to, especially in talking about issues of Christian doctrine, truth, and why Christians ought to both be actively doing good to those around them while unapologetically preaching the truth of the Gospel to a culture that rejects it angrily.

From the Daily Beast article:

Pope Francis used [the story of St. Francis renouncing his wealth] to assert that, like that first Francis, Christians have on too many clothes. We must “lay ourselves bare,” he said, and “divest ourselves from this worldliness: the spirit contrary to the spirit of the beatitudes, the spirit contrary to the spirit of Jesus.” He repeated this command to “strip ourselves” of worldliness several times and concluded with a flourish: “Spiritual worldliness kills! It kills the soul! It kills the Church!”

What a phrase: spiritual worldliness. How can something be at the same time worldly, and spiritual?  The answer is, it can’t, and Francis knows this well. He is slyly saying that our spirituality is often a farce, that the church has for years draped itself in clothes that masquerade as holy but are actually just earthly rags.

It’s not a stretch to think that Francis is pointing his finger across the ocean at so much of what has characterized American Christianity over the past 30 years.  The empty layers of denomination and doctrine that have little to do with grace. The gospels of health and wealth that stand in contradiction to the gospel of Christ. The political rhetoric and advocacy that claim the mantel of the eternal for decidedly temporal causes.

I don't know much about Joshua DuBois other than what it says in the "about the author" section at the end of the article, that he was an adviser to President Obama for religious affairs and that he has an African Methodist Episcopal background.  But he's saying a lot of good things here, right?  Both of them, actually, the Pope and DuBois.  So many people, especially in the West, exist in one of two states as regards spirituality: either they reject God entirely and opt for secularism, or they exist in some kind of spiritual state that looks to be about God but really is about getting what they want for themselves.  I've discussed this division in the past as it refers to this passage:

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.--1 Corinthians 1:20-25

But there's an issue here: the Pope calls us to give up "spiritual worldiness," though he doesn't really define that.  DuBois takes the step of trying to define it, and he points out some other issues within the church that detract from the Gospel, but he is left talking about the need for the church to...give up...something?  He ends the article with, "But if Christians can muster the courage to strip off false religion and stand clothed in grace alone, we might yet save the American church. Here’s hoping for a bit of Francis’s naked faith."  But the church, in America or elsewhere, was not established on humans building anything and it's not going to be "saved" by anything but God continuing to maintain His elect as He has throughout history.  But that rather major issue aside, they are scratching the surface of something true.  If they won't dig in all the way, though, what good is it?

The other article is by Lincoln Chafee, current governor of Rhode Island.  As expected, it's written in lots of pol-speak, but it touches the same concern on different issues of the day:

The first Jesuit to ascend to the papacy, Pope Francis recently told La Civiltà Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit journal, that too many people have become obsessed with gays, abortion and contraception. His vision of a more inclusive faith that does not discriminate against anyone is a conviction in which I believe the vast majority of Rhode Islanders and Americans share.

Pope Francis, by his actions and words, demonstrates that he is determined to eliminate the scourge of prejudice in our society and to renew our civic purpose as a people.

For too long, religious extremism has prevailed at the expense of our common human ties. In certain circles in America and countries around the world, there are those people who try to demean others as lesser based on their social standing, skin color or the person they love.

I question how, exactly, Chafee defines "eliminating religious extremism."   He talks about how the Pope has pushed the Catholic church to refocus on issues of service to the poor and social justice.  Again, nothing bad here, nothing to be against.  But does Chafee truly believe that to preach the Gospel is to stand against these things?  Does he believe that Jesus, in calling everyone to repent of their sinfulness and idolatry and follow Him, is promoting "religious extremism?"  He certainly wasn't very popular for such a message, even though it contained elements of both DuBois' and Chafee's statements.

Jesus did not come to bring a message of social justice; he did not come to simply call for an end to "spiritual worldiness" or to tell us to "stop being so obsessed with sin."  He brought the Gospel, the good news that starts off very badly.  Everyone everywhere that believes they are good enough, that they've done the right things or had the correct thoughts, is fooling themselves.  We begin our life in sin, and on our own even our best laid plans are only paths deeper into sinfulness.  But Jesus came with the message that with repentance from sins and faith in His sacrifice on the cross, His resurrection, and His status now as our eternal high priest who has made the atonement for everything, we have renewed life that continues beyond this earthly one.

Should we be giving up our attachment to worldly things?  Yes, but if we are not then turning to Christ from those things, what is there to gain from it?  Do we need to show love to those who struggle with sin of all kinds, no matter what it is.  Absolutely yes, and it's also true that many Christians do not do a good job of showing mercy to those who struggle with sins different from their own.  But at the same time, we do not commit an act of love in any sense of completeness if it does not involve sharing that same message of repentance and grace in the cross.  Grace is not simply "come on in, the water's fine," it is "come over here, there is room here at the foot of the cross for you as well."

DuBois and Chafee together with the Pope they are discussing cover the parts of the gospel people want to hear--the part that lets them do enough to be good and to look down on those who don't do as they are doing.  But all three of them are leaving out the parts that are truly life-giving and -transforming, because they involve turning aside from worshiping our own desires.  Being able to acknowledge aspects of truth is good...but it's also dangerous, because it means there is no excuse for not acknowledging all of it.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.--Romans 1:18-25