A comic: "Be Perfect"

Drawn with Upad.

A discourse on Jesus' command to "be perfect" from Matthew 5:48.

In a legalistic point of view, we reduce the demands of God's law to that which is doable. Or worse yet, through open cynicism or self-blinded naïveté, we reduce the demand to that which we ourselves have been doing. The standard becomes, "Be like me". Instead of God's standard becoming so high that it cost him his Son, it becomes so low that you only have to mimic the rites and morality of your local fundamentalist. In contrast, I believe that if you believe God really expects us to be perfect, you have no place to run but to the Cross. In contrast, your enemies' complaints engender apology and acts of reconciliation, not exasperation. That is the point of the comic.

Others have chimed in similarly. Tullian Tchividjian wrote,
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tullian/2012/01/09/where-can-i-find-assurance/

"In Matthew 5-7, Jesus wants us to see that regardless of how well we think we’re doing or how much better we’re becoming, when “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” becomes the requirement and not “look how much I’ve grown over the years”, we begin to realize that we don’t have a leg to lean on when it comes to answering the question, “How can I stand righteous before God”? Our transformation, our purity, our growth in godliness, our moral advances and spiritual successes–Spirit-animated as it all may be–simply falls short of the sinlessness God demands. And since a “not guilty verdict” depends on sinlessness, assurance is ultimately contingent on perfection, not progress."

Dr. Benjamin Carson's Speech at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast

The speaker at this year's National Prayer Breakfast was Dr. Benjamin Carson, a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins.   His remarks are getting a lot of attention in the conservative twitterverse, so I thought I'd chip in my own comments.

Here's the text of the speech, and I've embedded a video:


First of all, I've seen a few folks express delight that he takes a stand against political correctness, and its chilling effect on spreading the gospel. Can't argue with that.

I did have a few objections to his comments on tax policy, at least the claim that he was drawing from scriptural principles.  Here's the section from his speech:

When I pick up my Bible, you know what I see? I see the fairest individual in the Universe, God, and he’s given us a system. It’s called tithe. Now we don’t necessarily have to do it 10% but it’s principle. He didn’t say, if your crops fail, don’t give me any tithes. He didn’t say, if you have a bumper crop, give me triple tithes. So there must be something inherently fair about proportionality. You make $10 Billion dollars you put in a Billion. You make $10 you put in $1 – of course, you gotta get rid of the loopholes, but now now some people say, that’s not fair because it doesn’t hurt the guy who made $10 Billion dollars as much as the guy who made $10. Where does it say you have to hurt the guy. He’s just put in a billion in the pot. We don’t need to hurt him.

A number of objections:

1. Who's out to hurt the billionaire?
   It would be interesting to take, say the top three liberal pundits on the topic (John Stewart, Elizabeth Warren, and Warren Buffet), and see if they are out to get the rich.  I believe the tone I've heard from these folks is the opposite: "the system" helped them more, they should pay more.  Best construction??
2. Just What is the biblical policy on wealth redistribution?
   The bible did advocate a tithe to the Levites, orphans, and widows.  But only 6% of the federal budget goes to poverty programs.    And exactly what is the scriptural witness on giving to the poor? "Open wide", "Sell all your possessions", "Gave half", "Give to him who asks", "Give your cloak," etc.   Are these to be the bases for federal tax policy? Ask the guy who's starving what's fair, which interpretation would make the Creator the fairest person in the universe.
3. Are we to end emergency room requirements to take anyone
   Carson expresses delight later in the speech that poor man with diabetes would be put in a financial situation where he would know it would ruin him to go to the emergency room.   The way this would be workable is if emergency rooms were no longer required to just take anyone who shows up. Good Samaritans no more?  Is that a bible principle?

The media won't report on persecution of Christians in Iraq

Today I heard, in a Christian context, someone say that the media won't report on persecution of Christians in Iraq because that might reduce sympathy for Muslims in their fight against Israel.

What was so sad was how ridiculously easy it was to find multiple cases of reporting on such persecution.  

• Here's a CNN video from 2010:

• The conservative "Red State" blog had this article urged us to go look at a NY Times article on the topic.  
• TIME showed up with an article from 2004.
• There's the liberal Huffington Post chiming in in 2010.
• And to top if off, here's an 2010 article from Bloomberg about how Hillary Clinton and the United Nations Human Rights Council. Aren't all three of these supposed to hate Christians?

That's all I got because I got disgusted with the exercise.

I'm not saying that persecution of Christians is not a very serious problem. I have taken efforts to get Christian youth involved in the topic. I would strongly encourage readers to be involved in any of several advocacy organizations on the topic, such as Voice of the Martyrs.   But I do think it's also very serious when Christians state the easily disprovable as a given.  When they say things that take two minutes of Googling to prove wrong.  Another word for this is lie.  This is wrong for several reasons:

1. It raises the question, "What else is demonstrably untrue in your witness?"
2. It fails at a "best construction", even if it is against journalists! ;) Such professions can be allies in the campaign to get the truth out, as our "Red State" friends above have seen.
3. It is just one more way that some evangelicals force nonbelievers (and believers!) to check their brains at the door.

Here's my final sentiment:
Follow Christ. Be an evangelical.  Don't follow the evangelical herd.

How to help new, doubting, or troubled Christians.

Here's an amazing quote from Tullian Tchvidjian, pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church:

Jesus doesn't stand at the top and shout down, "You can make it." He stands at the bottom and whispers, "It is finished."

It's a radical and crazy idea, but it is in my opinion simply a summary of an old idea found in Martin Luther's Theology of the Cross. Some say it is merely Paul's theology in the Epistles. In this view, Christian growth isn't about you climbing up a ladder or out of some sort of spiritual pit. Not about your efforts (even if with Christ's encouragement) to get yourself higher. It's becoming more and more aware of how you are at the bottom and have nothing to rely on but Christ's assurance that, "It is finished." It's a radically different view of Christian growth.

Now consider your friend who's going through a period of doubting, moral stumbling, or is brand new to the faith. How you would respond to such a person depends on whether or not you view Christian maturity by analogy as going up a ladder out of a pit. If you think Christ's "It is finished" is our final answer, and there's nothing we can do to get ourselves out of the pit, then your advice and counseling to your backsliding friend may revolve around helping him or her get a grip with this reality. If instead you have adopted a model where you look on your backsliding pal as a few rungs behind you on the ladder, you may strive to think of ways for that person to pull themselves up. You could point to spiritual practices, like prayer--maybe even special topics or wording of prayer to use, bible reading, books, devotional practices, signs, songs, or good works.

There are several problems with this second, "ladder" view. Among them are that you may end up believing that your own efforts got you higher up the ladder.  You may end up implying to your friend that their lack of practice at these spiritual acts is what caused their "funk". You may imply that all they need to do to earn as much merit with God as you have is to perform the mighty spiritual works that you have. Perhaps even worse is you could end up thinking that other friends are behind you on the ladder depending on how many spiritual good deed "merit badges" they are wearing on their sleeves.

Am I over-reaching?  Here's a quote from Luther's greatest work, the Heidelberg Disputation, composed in 1518 as a series of 28 tweets.

The person who believes that he can obtain grace by doing what is in him adds sin to sin so that he becomes doubly guilty.

Luther says it's dangerous-- gives you double guilt-- to believe one obtains merits by "doing what is in him."

On the other hand, what if your backsliding friend became even more fully aware that in truth, "It is finished"? Might they start singing, praying, studying, doing good deeds?

The War on Christmas

Do we spend more time:

• Telling the world about all the sins of the world against us?
• The One who is the Answer to our sins against the world?

Luther, Anti-Semitism, and Legalism

A Lutheran friend posted for discussion on her Facebook page an article about whether Martin Luther were anti-Semitic. I had some thoughts on the matter and went back to her page the next day and it was gone: probably too controversial. So here is my take, offered here.

The discussion has to start with a Christian definition of legalism from the perspective of a Theology of the Cross. In my youth, I was taught that "legalism" was a very bad thing. I still agree that it is, it was just wrongly defined at the time. I was warned that not only telling people what good things to do but also talking about what bad things people were doing was legalism. I believed this for a while, but later realized the last half of that equation-- silence about what bad people were doing, stemmed more from the right-libertarian works of Ayn Rand than Luther.

I didn't gain a proper understanding of legalism until I started listening to the sermons of Tullian Tchividjian. He correctly points out is that legalism is REDUCING the demands of the law to the DOABLE. It's not that the legalist gives you too many things to do, it's that the legalist reduces the full weight of demand of God's law down to a minimum standard that the legalist is comfortable with. Tullian on the other hand says Christ's demand is to be perfect. (Matt 5:48) Not, give yourself grey hairs and ulcers worrying about whether you've gone enough to deserve God's grace, but "Shut up, sit down and thank God for Jesus!"

Now on to a social question, like, for example, the treatment of Jews in Medieval Germany. It was really bad. The problem of many conservatives is to dismiss the gravity of anything that Luther or any Christian German did wrong. They shrug and say, "Luther was definitely a man of his times." In other words, "Hey, he wasn't nearly as bad as his neighbors, and his badness was merely what responsible people in his day and age did." In this view, God's only "social demand" of you is to be as responsible as your responsible neighbors.

This view in my opinion is an affront to everyone who suffered, and and affront to the idea of a just or a loving God. "Be perfect" in this view gets reduced to, "Do as the Joneses do."

What would Luther say if accused (today) of participating in an evil, God-displeasing culture, of being an intellectual architect of the 20th century Holocaust? Some conservatives may say that defending the honor of a man who came up with some very Godly theology is defending God. Some theologians of the cross may say that pointing out how bad we are only points the need for a cross. Again, I quote Luther's letterto Spalatin:

“Therefore my faithful request and admonition is that you join our company and associate with us, who are real, great, and hard-boiled sinners. You must by no means make Christ to seem paltry and trifling to us, as though He could be our Helper only when we want to be rid from imaginary, nominal, and childish sins. No, no! That would not be good for us. He must rather be a Savior and Redeemer from real, great, grievous, and damnable transgressions and iniquities, yea, from the very greatest and most shocking sins; to be brief, from all sins added together in a grand total.”

The question for us today is whether the Holocaust or any other social sin that folks are debating today are "real, great, grievous, and damnable transgressions and iniquities."

Three ways of looking at Christians

There's at least three ways of looking at Christians, and how they interact with the world:

1. Christians stink.
2. The only way someone would think Christians stink is that the liberal media distort the truth about them.
3. Christians stink.

I guess I repeated myself a bit there. Let me explain each option, and give a concrete example:

1. Christians stink. This was said, in a derogatory sense, by Ted Turner when he said, "The Church is for losers."

2. The only way someone would think that Christians stink is that the liberal media distort the truth about them. I caught this sentiment in an article that Trevin Wax linked to on his blog, "9 Lies the Media Likes to Tell About Evangelical Christians". Evangelicals (Christians) are incredibly cool, it's just the media that distort the truth because they hate them.

3. Christians stink. This idea was found in several places:
   • Again, it was said, in a derogatory sense, by Ted Turner: "The Church is for losers." The only way I know Turner said this was that it was quoted in a sermon by Tullian Tchividjian. Tullian agreed with Turner, and is a great evangelical pastor, IMO.
   • Romans 3. Romans 3:19ff says that ALL people are swift to shed blood, that the mouths of ALL people are open graves. Christians should be counted for in this list of all people, written by a Christian to a church of Christians.
   • Martin Luther (quoted in Walther's Twelfth Lecture claimed as much. (To find the section in that link containing the full context of these quotes, search for the name "Spalatin".) Luther writes to a fellow pastor who has become completely despondent over his having given out some really bad moral advice. Luther writes:

     "“Therefore my faithful request and admonition is that you join our company and associate with us, who are real, great, and hard-boiled sinners. You must by no means make Christ to seem paltry and trifling to us, as though He could be our Helper only when we want to be rid from imaginary, nominal, and childish sins. No, no! That would not be good for us. He must rather be a Savior and Redeemer from real, great, grievous, and damnable transgressions and iniquities, yea, from the very greatest and most shocking sins; to be brief, from all sins added together in a grand total.”

     In other words, Christians stink!

Ken Ham vs Hugh Ross

Here is a very important debate, carried out most politely and thoroughly, between the main proponents of Young Earth Creationism and Old Earth Creationism.

I have a number of comments about the views expressed by Ken Hamm, the YEC proponent.

First, Ken says that we cannot make use of astronomy whatsoever, because we are fallen. I would have to say that's a mark against your theological view, especially if you are running a museum which speaks of physical proofs of your creation model.
Secondly, I wonder if it's not possible for a scientist to say something is dis-proven. For example, suppose I have a hypothesis that this cup of coffee always falls UP when I let go. I test the hypothesis by letting go, and it goes DOWN. Is this a TRUTH, even in the eternal, Godly sense, that I have DISproven the hypothesis that things go UP? In science, we can never be sure of what IS, but we very often can disprove that which IS NOT. Science is living with doubt based on what you know is not. I'm just doubtful of Ken's presumption that the fallibility of humans prevents us from learning anything about the past from astronomy.
Thirdly, Ken repeatedly discards any biblical reference that tells about the details of creation that is not in Genesis 1-11. This too I find to be very problematic.  Again, I reason why I think his biblical model is wrong.

Not much else I can type that would add to this piece. Enjoy!

Letter to an Atheist

You may agree with me that the value system of, say, to pick three people, Al Franken, Michael Moore, and Rosie O'Donnell is completely different from that of what could be called "biblical literalism." You might also agree with me that the value system of Franken, Moore, and O'Donnell is incredibly more preferrable than, say, that of Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich. Where you and I would disagree, however, is whether the value system of Santorum, Perry, & Gingrich is a necessary requirement of biblical literalism. In fact, I would go so far as to say that you are either as uneducated as the boo-ers in the Republican debate audiences, or you are a disingenuous propagandist, if you insist that it's so. I would also say that even Penn Jillette agrees with me on this point, as evidenced by exactly how he condemned Michelle Bachmann in a recent interview. I'd also claim that you can do nothing nicer to the "debate boo-ers" than to tell them that they are following the literal dictates of the instruction book left by the Creator of the Universe.

A spiritually dangerous film from Focus on the Family

A Theological Review

of “Lesson 10 - The American Experiment: Stepping Stones”

by Focus on the Family’s “The Truth Project”

by Greg M. Johnson

The Christian view is that man lived in paradise until Adam upset relationship with God thousands of years ago. In the Christian view, the solution is Christ’s work on cross to restore humans’ relationship with God. Individuals remaining in unrepentant sin is dangerous because of Hell. What is necessary for humans is faith in Christ, or “a broken and contrite spirit.”

A view prevalent in certain Christian circles today, and in my opinion offered by the movie, sets up an entirely different narrative of the Fall. It is that USA enjoyed God’s blessings until secularists upset the relationship with God sometime in mid 1800’s. In this view, the solution is humans’ work to restore the country’s relationship with God. Country remaining in state of non-God-honoring is physically dangerous to the nation because God may remove the lampstand of Revelations 2 from the country. What very bad for humans is to “hate America.”

Problem: The speaker repeated a theme that “Without religion and morality, it is impossible to have liberty.” In the early days of the United States, we had a lot of religious fervor, but very little liberty. Thomas Jefferson put the word “God” on some public documents, but believed in a religion where it was okay to have sex with your slaves. George Washington put the word “God” on some public documents, but believed in a religion where it was okay to leave the babies of your slaves naked in winter. If religion were a requirement for liberty, then either: A) these men’s religion is apostate (in a far worse way than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s is), or B) the premise the “religion helps liberty” is false. I object to the films’ premise that the Founding Fathers were of my religion. They are not. I shake their religion from my shoes.

Problem: the speaker referred to the cycle of obedience, rebellion, punishment, repentance, and restoration for OT Israel and said that America was in the rebellion stage. His references to when things started to go wrong were in the mid-1800’s. I on the other hand cannot imagine a greater stage of rebellion than slaveholding. Is it okay for me to believe that the 1700’s were the worst part of rebellion rather than America’s “Eden?” God’s name was on the lips but our hearts were far from him. Undoing physical slavery was the principal work of God for his people in the OT. There is always sin, and I find his reference to 1700’s America as the “good old days” to be unbiblical.

Problem: the movie complained that “Jurisprudence” is now viewed as something that can evolve rather than being based on God’s word. Was our system of laws ever based on God’s word, per se, or one sect in one time’s understanding of it. I note that we went from Dred Scott (1857) to Brown vs. Board of Education (1954), which is a great thing. We went from saying it is okay for the government to keep different races in different schools to an “evolved’ (if you will) state where we don’t say that. As another example, in the year I was born, interracial marriage was illegal in the state I grew up in. The country’s understanding of interracial marriage has “evolved”: God be praised!

Problem: The movie set as a good thing from the old days, that there were Christian religious oaths as a test for holding office. I say, our country has aways been more like the towns of Paul’s epistles than OT Israel. Muslims, Jews, nonbelievers, and radically different flavors of Christianity exist. Is it workable in our society? Is it an outrage to God that the religious tests are gone? Luther said he’d rather be ruled by a wise pagan than a foolish Christian.

Problem: Revelations 2 is talking about a church. The speaker applied it to a country. This is very bad.

Problem: a boy at the beginning said that America was the “light of the world.” I confess someone Else to be. (One should neither teach children to say that, nor should one be a Unitarian Universalist preacher-- another speaker at the beginning of the film).

Agreements: Biblical Christianity is under attack. (First, I must add, it is under attack by this film). Secondly, it is under attack by an intelligentsia that is more dangerous than anything by the ACLU. If you listen to the broadcast media of scientific associations (Scientific American to IEEE Spectrum), you will hear educated people say that “religion mandates violence.” You will hear a cartoony distorted view of Christianity that is probably not actually taught or held to by many people: there is no Cross in this cartoon view, only a Hell, and a Hell that is arbitrarily dished out to basically good people. In one science podcast I used to subscribe to, a man claimed that someone shouldn’t be allowed a job in science if they believed in God.

Solutions:

1) Christ’s work on the Cross

2) Our repentance

3) A witnessing that has folks (or finds) folks in a state of “broken and contrite spirit” long before hell and the need to change where they are going is mentioned.

4) Apologetics work that points out to society that the moral and religious absurdities of 1700’s America and my own life are neither faithful to nor required by the bible, and only shows the need for Christ.

5) Good works, in proper context. (I like the way that Catholics call them “Works of Mercy”).

6) Honoring God in the public square, in a peaceable way that involves risk-taking with our own bodies, not in ways that involve fighting through the government over the right to put a symbol on a piece of land or “airtime” in a secular event.

Links to Original Material:

Outline of Lesson 10:

http://cccgreeley.org/files/PDFs/Adult%20Ministries%20Files/Truth%20Project%20Group%20Resources/Tour%2010%20Participant.pdf

Truth Project Lessons:

http://www.thetruthproject.org/events/A000000068.cfm/

Truth Project

http://www.thetruthproject.org/

Christian life, summarized

"We accord our willing tribute of praise to him who seeks to ameliorate the condition of the poor, —to instruct and reclaim the ignorant and wretched dwellers in our lanes and alleys,—or to gather in the wandering outcasts on our streets to the house of God, where they may hear of pardon and peace through the precious blood of Christ."

This is a nice summary of the features of a Christian life, taken from John MacDuff's Able to Save, under the chapter of "Bearing Fruit".

Which kind of universalism?

Here's a quick post on my take on the recent controversies related to universal salvation. (Rob Bell).

Some may point to passages that seem to imply that Christ saves everyone, not merely that his death could save everyone, but that it in fact does save everyone regardless of their religious view or faith in Him. I do not share this view because I believe it to be disproven resoundingly by a host of other bible passages.

But even if you were take the view that Christ saved all, there are two very different ways to apply this conviction. Different in terms of how you would evangelize, how you'd talk to folks in other religions.

1. One is to walk into the mosque or synagogue (or the parking lot of such if you are shy) and proclaim, "You are all saved because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the only Son of God!".
2. Another is to proclaim, "You are saved by God. You honor this God by worshiping and teaching exactly as you have been doing! Have a pleasant day!" Then you see a the person who doesn't attend any religious observances at all and you hand him the county interfaith directory and say, "Please pick one and become devout at it in order to be saved."

The people I've met and read about who seem to exhibit leanings towards universal salvation seem to have this this Type 2 (above) Evangelism. It's as if they decided first and foremost to be good citizens in the Interfaith Council and then bent a religion around that view. Of course, one should be a good citizen in the (secular) community, but this is not always the exact same this as advancing the interests of the Interfaith Council. It's pushing religion.

I find it to be most deceptive, illogical, and unbiblical. Now, if someone were teaching every week that Jesus was either a myth or not divine or not raised, isn't that more of a problem to the God of the bible than the person who rarely thinks about Him at all? If anything, I would guess that if you actually believed in Christ and met someone who didn't believe in any god, it would be better to leave that nontheistic person alone rather than insist they pick another religion.


IMAGE CAPTION: Pick one, no less than one, or else!

It got cold last night!

I noticed that yesterday, between 2PM and 2AM, the temperature dropped-- it did not increase-- thereby disproving all claims of so-called "global warming". Wait, do you find that a dense observation? Okay, I suppose that I note it got colder from September to December of this year? Is the theory of climate change disproved, or am I still dense? Okay, what if we go to a really, really cold winter? Is it dense still? Would it leave a false impression if I were to go find proof of a very cold winter season (during a calendar year which scientists say ties for the warmest on record), and only mention the winter part of the story?

NOAA's report says,

"According to NOAA scientists, 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest year of the global surface temperature record, beginning in 1880. This was the 34th consecutive year with global temperatures above the 20th century average. For the contiguous United States alone, the 2010 average annual temperature was above normal, resulting in the 23rd warmest year on record."

Just a reminder that if the average of something, say school buses' weights, were increasing year to year, then it is no disproof of the average weight change if you were able to point to one really skinny kid on the bus. In temperature terms, that means that the summers got hotter than any cold parts got colder.

Now let's discuss this. There you are, sitting in your chair, not thinking about the weather at the moment, and someone comes up to you and makes sure that you have information that this past winter was really cold. Then they go and mention "global warming" and "the religion of climate change". This is what happened in my reading of Frank Turk's Pyromaniacs blog. It's a blog with religious and Christian themes, not a blog about science. My view is that if you had kept up to date with the scientific data (not the theories, just the raw data), you would be questioning whatever political or religious philosophy that inspired such posturing.

What views of government and religion are threatened by the data?

• In my view, biblical Christianity, the doctrine of the church historic is not. Martin Luther, in explaining the meaning of the Seventh Commandment (Thou Shalt Not Kill), in his Large Catechism, said,

  "It is just as if I saw some one navigating and laboring in deep water [and struggling against adverse winds] or one fallen into fire, and could extend to him the hand to pull him out and save him, and yet refused to do it. What else would I appear, even in the eyes of the world, than as a murderer and a criminal?

  So Christianity isn't threatened by worrying about people drowning. It demands it. It points to how helping those who are laboring in deep water is a way to honor the commandments. It also tells us how greed and covetousness isn't God's will.
• In my view, free market economics and a philosophy of small government is not threatened. Say, take the issue of some toxic chemical or bird flu virus strain. If I am convinced that something threatens the public, this information doesn't threaten free market economics. I could first and foremost pull the plug on all tax subsidies, and I could strive to make sure that the court system doesn't prevent those who have been damaged by the product from seeking damages. Those two things would go a long way to addressing the problem, more so than "regulation". I could also refrain from dissing those who use the public square to educate the public about the dangers. I could also refrain from publishing misinformation, spurious pieces of data.
• Humanism, per se, isn't even threatened, at least not that kind that is defined by thinking highly of humans. Humans produce poop and CO2. Our civilization long ago got used to the idea that people ought to be careful how they handle one product of their body, where they put it. What's so strange that another body product has to engender equal care?

What is threatened?
• In my opinion, in religion, a gospel reductionism or antinomianism is surely threatened. Wordnet defines Antinomianism as: "The theological doctrine that by faith and God's grace a Christian is freed from all laws (including the moral standards of the culture)" In my opinion, one reason so many conservatives are upset about global warming is because it presents a place where they are being called to repentance. Their churches aren't doing it, focusing instead on choosing the correct team.
• A statist conservatism is threatened. If you got chills at the idea above of people being able to sue over pollution, I think you're a bit statist. Pollution is a subsidy. You want the state to prevent people from getting compensation for damages they suffer, because the damage-ers are politically favored, or something called "civilization" benefits.

These criticisms are not directed at the person who doesn't care about global warming. They are not directed at folks who don't understand the science, or are troubled by all the arguing, or even skeptical. My criticisms are directed at those whose philosophies are troubled by the possibility of woefully sinful behavior in your everyday actions. At those who introduce scientific topics into religious settings, and in so doing misrepresent the facts-- not the esoteric theories or predictions, but the actual facts that a fifth grader could verify, like whether 2010 was hot.

Saving the Bible from climate change

Representative John Shimkus has drawn attention to the role that Christian theology can play in the climate change debate. My sources of information are a Huffington Post article, which is based on a Toronto Star article by Cathal Kelly.

In a 2009 hearing, Shimkus cited God's promise to Noah:

“Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though all inclinations of his heart are evil from childhood and never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done.

“As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease.”

(Interestingly, Jerry Falwell's 2007 sermon on climate change quoted the same passage. ) Here's Shimkus' analysis, from the Star article:

“I believe that’s the infallible word of God, and that’s the way it’s going to be for his creation,” Shimkus said. "The Earth will end only when God declares it's time to be over. Man will not destroy this Earth. This Earth will not be destroyed by a Flood," Shimkus asserted. "I do believe that God's word is infallible, unchanging, perfect."

I for one, do believe that the bible is infallible, unchanging, perfect. My problem is that he sets up the bible to be disproved by events in history. Shinkus took the trouble to cite this scriptural passages to say that the bible refutes global warming alarmism. That is a very fair assessment of his purpose in citing Scripture.

Okay, what is global warming alarmism? It is that due to anthropogenic gas pollution, the earth will experience radical, geographic shifts in its zones of agricultural productivity, and experience massive local flooding (just the low lying areas of the planet, not "the earth" as in the flood of Noah). Can anyone point to me a major green organization, a citation from the ICCP, or Science or Nature that says more? I'd like to see it!

Now the question is whether the earth has already suffered cases of massive local flooding, or radical shifts in zones in agricultural productivity due to weather changes? The suffering of the Bangladeshi people due to flooding is all too well known. It's already happening. Global warming alarmism is that more parts of the earth will experience flooding, not that the entire planet will be underwater. Greenpeace just released a statement saying,

"In an extreme runaway scenario, a complete melting of the Greenland ice sheet would add 7 metres to the world’s oceans, and a complete melting of the Antarctic sheet would add 60 metres. Those scenarios would require a massive restructuring of human civilisation as we know it. However, even a one-to-two metre rise in sea level will inundate certain port cities, islands, atolls, flood deltas and coastal plains, obliterate vulnerable species and displace millions of people.

Now let's look at seedtime and harvest. Has the weather either starved people or caused massive local suffering? How about the Irish potato famine (blamed on increased rainfall & cool weather that led to blight), and the American Dustbowl (blamed on a drought) being but two examples. And as one of my conservative friends pointed out, even during the Irish famine, the country was a net exporter of food. So we had massive suffering due to loss of agricultural productivity, but no "end to seedtime and harvest".

I would also note that the promise in Genesis 8 speaks to what God Himself would not do, not what people can do to themselves.

As I see it, there are five possibilities:

1. The Bible (or at least Genesis 8) is fallible and has been completely disproven by multiple events in history, OR
2. God breaks his promises, OR
3. Our recollection of human history is wrong, because the bible is true. Those Irish immigrants to the United States were lying to us about conditions back home. OR
4. There is a significant portion of the green movement that is saying the earth will lose all its agricultural productivity and be completely flooded, like to the top of Mount Ararat (and I just haven't been listening), OR
5. Shinkus is engaged in three sins: One is a misrepresentation of what green activists and climate scientists have actually said. The second is setting up the reliability of the Word of God to be mocked by people who read the newspaper. The third is tacking "and the bible is infallible" to the end of his political opinions.

.

Neanderthals, Mitochondrial DNA, and the Tower of Babel.

Here's an interesting take on the recent science news that certain races of humans may have some common DNA with Neanderthals.

The organization "Reasons to Believe" has a series of podcasts which attempt to advance an Old Earth Creationist position. That is that God took supernatural action to create over hundreds of millions of years. It holds that Genesis is literal history, if one is careful about the translation of certain words. Anyway, their May 10 Podcast was entitled, "Ancient DNA shows interbreeding between Homo sapiens and Neanderthal".

They advanced a fascinating interpretation. We may remember that the biblical story of the Tower of Babel shows humanity as having a single culture, and then being dispersed afterwards by the action of God. In this episode, Hugh Ross offers the idea that the mixing of humans and Neanderthals may have been part of what happened in this story. A fascinating listen!

Is there any way to combine these two videos?

VERSUS



Is there any way to combine these two? The truthfulness of the first is of no doubt. But its message is weakened a bit by its apparent sarcasm to the second. And that it is as much a message to the converted, it seems to say, "The real urgency is in the Great Commission (Matt 28:16:20); don't worry about Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) or being a Goat (Matthew 25:31-46)."

In college, one of my conservative friends claimed that the purpose of all social concern was to create a Utopia, and Christian truths show us that creating a Utopia is impossible. I replied, "I guess that depends on whether your purpose is to create a Utopia or to keep people alive long enough to hear the gospel." I really don't know where those words came from, because I hadn't ever before put that thought together.

When did the producers of the first video see Christ hungry? In the second video!!

Slavery's new apologists

On the internet, a Lutheran pastor that I know was sharing links to this old clip from the TV show, "West Wing." The one where the fictional President tears into a fictional "Dr. Laura" conservative pundit. The President tries to make the argument that if you use the Bible to come to an opinion on the morality of homosexual sexual relations, you must also follow its directives on the Sabbath and slavery. According to the clip, the directives on the Sabbath are for each of us to up and go stone those who work on the Sabbath. It also means that a prosperous man can sell his daughter into slavery whenever he pleases.



Too many of those who have been advocating for justice for GLBT persons, who advocated setting aside the traditional ethical requirements for pastors in churches like the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, did so against the bible. They used arguments like my Lutheran pastor above that if you rely on the bible alone, you're going to have to do all kinds of awful things, like let men sell their daughters into slavery. Indeed, upon watching the 2009 Churchwide Assembly of the ELCA, I ended up with the feeling that the slavery issue were being re-opened. That 21st century Christians now were no longer sure that the bible was against slavery. It was like watching a convention of apologists for slavery from the 1800's.

I'm open to progressive ideas on the rights of gay and lesbian persons, but have to speak up when some advocates nail their platform on the idea that the bible motivates brutality. They may have evidence that some apologists for slavery did use the bible to support their position. But I have yet to find an abolitionist of that age that used 21st century liberal dogma: dissing the authority, historical accuracy, etc., of the scriptures. Those who argued against slavery used the bible, too, and in my opinion, took more passages more literally.

Find me a group that's speaking for gay rights from a biblical perspective, and I'll join them. I cannot join church movements, per se, that state as obvious that the bible makes you a brute.

Here's my latest piece of evidence. I have been reading William Wilberforce's 1807 "Letter on the Abolition of Slavery." Here's the part where he deals with the biblical record on slavery:

"[H]owever, most of all astonishing, that our opponents attempt to vindicate the Slave Trade on grounds of religion also. The only argument which they urge with, the slightest colour of reason is that slavery was allowed under the Jewish dispensation. The Jews were exalted by the express designation of heaven to a state of eminence above the strangers who sojourned among them, and the heathen who dwelt around them, from either of whom, as a mark of their own dominion, God, who has a right to assign to all his creatures their several places in the scale of being, allowed them to take bondmen and bondwomen, treating them, however, with kindness, remembering their own feelings when they were slaves in Egypt, and admitting them to the chief national privileges, to the circumcision, to the passover, and other solemn feasts, and thus instructing them in the true religion. Besides this, the slaves were to be set free at the year of Jubilee, or every fiftieth year, a command which was alone sufficient to prevent their accumulating in any great number.

But they who thus urge on us the Divine toleration of slavery under the Jewish Theocracy, should remember that the Jews themselves were expressly commanded not to retain any of their own nation, any of their brethren in slavery, except as a punishment, or by their own consent; and even these were to be set free on the return of the sabbatical, or the seventh year. Inasmuch therefore, as we are repeatedly and expressly told that Christ. has done away all distinctions of nations, and made all mankind one great family, all our fellow creatures are now our brethren ; and therefore the very principles and spirit of the Jewish law itself would forbid our keeping the Africans, anymore than our own fellow subjects, in a state of slavery. But even supposing, contrary to the fact, that our opponents had succeeded in proving that the Slave Trade was not contrary to the Jewish law, this would only prove that they would be entitled to carry it on if they were Jews, and could, like the Jews, produce satisfactory proof that they were the chosen people of God. But really it would be consuming your time to no purpose, to enter into a formal proof, that fraud, rapine, and cruelty, a contrary to that religion, which commands us to love our neighbour as ourselves, and to do to others as we would have them them do to us. I cannot persuade myself that our opponents are serious in using this argument, and therefore I will proceed no farther with this discussion. Besides, even granting that it were possible for any of them to be seriously convinced that Christianity does not prohibit the Slave Trade, I should still have no great encouragement to proceed, for,—it may be prejudice, but I cannot persuade myself that they are so much under the practical influence of religion, that if we should convince their understandings, we should alter their conduct.

William Wilberforce, A letter on the abolition of the slave trade, 1807

Strong stuff.

Christianity is evil

"When we cast our eyes towards the south-west of Europe, and behold extensive countries, once possessed by the most polished nations, the chosen seats of literature and the liberal arts; and now behold one universal waste of ignorance and barbarism, we have always been accustomed to ascribe the fatal change to the conquest of a band of Mahometan invaders... But with what shame must we acknowledge, that in Africa, Christianity and Mahometanism appear to have mutually interchanged characters-- Smith, the African Company's own agent in 1722, tells us, 'the discerning natives account it their greatest unhappiness that they were ever visited by the Europeans. They say that we Christians introduced the traffic of Slaves, and that 'before our coming they lived in peace.' But, say they, it is observable, that where ever Christianity comes, there come with it a sword, a gun, powder, and ball.'
The same picture may appear to claim still greater attention from the hand of Mr. Parke, whose visit is more recent, and whose knowledge of Africa is more extensive. Speaking of the Foulah nation, who are many of them professed Mahometans, he says, 'religious persecution is not known among them..."

"... we must abolish the Slave Trade before we attempt to diffuse among the Africans the lessons of peace and love; lest we are asked the same well-known question, and receive the same well-known reply, as the Spanish priest from the poor dying Peruvian, when the Spaniards in America were acting on the plan which is here advised of at once ravaging and converting: 'Are there to be any Europeans in the Heaven, where you wish me to secure a place?' Being told 'yes', 'Then it is no place for Peruvians.' "

William Wilberforce, A letter on the abolition of the slave trade, 1807

This is a work by a great Christian apologist, in a passionate letter of Christian reasons to abolish the slave trade. William Wilberforce wrote it in 1807 to the "Freeholders and other inhabitants of Yorkshire" to urge Britain to outlaw slavery. In it, he basically says that Islam laid waste to the south-west of Europe. But that in Africa, "Christianity and Mahometanism appear to have mutually interchanged characters." One was an undeniable sociological evil in one place and time, and another is an undeniable sociological evil in another. So saith one of the great Christian apologists of Britain.

This is again a reference to Franklin Graham's "Islam is evil" approach to evangelism. One might just as well have equal anecdotal evidence that "Christianity is evil." That's the charge actually made by some atheists, based on equally flimsy logic. In this regard of sloppy attacks, the devout followers of Islam and Christianity might have more in common than opposition. Here's a checklist of questions I ask before blaming any religion, especially my own, for a social ill:

• The real question is whether the the Koran and/or the Bible required these periods of brutality. Not whether some nut could find a few verses to support the brutality, but whether a comprehensive faithfulness to the whole text as authoritative really motivates one to be a brute.
• If someone could point to a few verses which appear to give a "green light" to the outrage, is there even a single "red light" verse which says, "STOP!" ? (Like, "Love your enemies"?)
• How are the Law portions of the text being used? Are the brutes using the "law" portions of the sacred texts only as a list of things that the "elect" get to do to their enemies, or as a demand for all humans to exercise restraint? (i.e., permission to slaughter your/God's enemies vs. a call to exercise restraint in advancing your interests.)
• Who is advocating the brutality? Were all camps of traditionalists within the sect in favor of the brutality?
• Were there any "social conscience traditionalists" (like Wilberforce, King, Romero, Bonhoeffer, John Paul II) within the sect in effect "spoiling the party" by complaining about the brutality?
• Were those who complained about brutality appealing to either the literal demands of the sacred texts or to older authorities in the faith tradition? (This is opposed to attacking the text's authority, complete inspiration, accuracy, humanity, etc.)?

IMO, it is necessary to go through this kind of thought process in order to distinguish between "a jerk who happens to be of Religion X" and "the jerkiness inspired by Religion X."

My point is not that both religions are good, and therefore you ought to feel good about either. You should be a Christian because Jesus died for your sins, and you cannot earn merits with God based on your works. In my last post, I said it was "evil" for any religion to promise such merits. Furthermore, I suspect not only are there contemporary Christians whose religion brings the world "a sword, a gun, powder, and ball," but also there are mild-mannered, faithful Muslims who aren't out to kill us or oppress their women. (Bush, Blair, Colson, and Buckley, Jr., repeatedly insisted so after 9/11, didn't they?) You'll do little to achieve religious conversion of these mild-mannered folk-- or engender their strategic cooperation against the brutes of their own religion-- with the kind of broad brush that Graham paints with. Or by implying they are less faithful than the suicide bombers.

Franklin Graham calls 10% of Islam to repentance

According to a Pew Research study

In all nine predominantly Muslim nations surveyed in 2009 a strong majority say it is equally important to educate girls and boys. This opinion is shared by more than eight-in-ten in Lebanon (96%), Israel (93%), Indonesia (93%), Turkey (89%), Pakistan (87%) and the Palestinian territories (85%).

Now we all know that Muslim countries are known generally to be behind the west in terms of women's rights and education-- the Taliban's abuse of women being an extreme but all-too-real example. But what to the Muslim citizenry wish for? Equality, at least in education according to this poll. It's also not too hard to believe that if these people are residents of Muslims country, they are actual practitioners of Islam, and therefore probably don't see some degree of equal treatment for boys and girls as being incompatible with all flavors of faithful Islam. How do you reach these people for Christ?

Here's Franklin Graham's approach. Franklin Graham is the son of evangelist Billy Graham and the head of Shepherd's purse. He was recently disinvited from a Pentagon Prayer day at the request of some Mulsim advocacy group. Graham has taken heat for comments he has made in reference to Islam. He has called it "evil". Recently, on the April 22 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

GRAHAM: You know, Gretchen, first of all, I love Muslim people and I want Muslims everywhere to know what I know, that God loves us, that he sent his son Jesus Christ into this world to take our sins and he died for our sins and rose from the grave and that Christ can come into their heart and change them and they can have the hope of eternal life, salvation. I want them to know that they don't have to die in a car bomb don't have to die in some kind of holy war to be accepted by God. But it's through faith in Jesus Christ and Christ alone. But when you look at Islam, I love the people of Islam but the religion, I do not agree with the religion at all. And if you look at what the religion does just to women, women alone, it is just horrid. And so yes, I speak out for women. I speak out for people that live under Islam, that are enslaved by Islam and I want them to know that they can be free, free through faith in Jesus Christ and Christ alone.

[emphasis added in red].
He also said,

"True Islam cannot be practiced in this country," he told CNN's Campbell Brown last December. "You can't beat your wife. You cannot murder your children if you think they've committed adultery or something like that, which they do practice in these other countries."

Okay, so now take those 80% of residents of the Islam world who would like to see their daughters educated. Are they going to view an accurate view of Islam as one where they murder their daughters? How many of them are going to take pause at Franklin's suggestion to accepting Christ instead of doing suicide bombing? Are Islamic people all just strapping on their bomb vests, and need a missionary like Graham to tell them to stop?

I suspect Graham's statements read like nationalistic prejudice, where you tell people to repent of a stereotype of their nationality. I put Graham's "I want them to know that they don't have to die in a car bomb don't have to die in some kind of holy war to be accepted by God" isn't very well received by the vast majority of well-behaved Muslims. I suspect it would be taken as well as saying to Israelis, "You don't have to kill Palestinian babies by bulldozing their houses..." or to Southern men, "You don't have to have sex with those animals..." Or to Italians, "You don't have to become part of a Mafia where you go kill old ladies." There should be pastors bravely making sermons about the very real cases of animal abuse and indiscriminate use of force by security operations. But you don't address people by a large class that doesn't comprise the set of those doing the bad things. To do so is immature, silly, counterproductive to evangelism of real people. I remember Bush, Blair, and Buckley, Jr., all making the case after 9/11 that the terrorists were heretics of Islam.

Franklin's statements are probably however red meat to certain kinds of Christians as far as supporting certain kinds of evangelism. I have also seen a lot of ugly things said by his supporters on the internet.

If you've made it this far, you might have noticed that I haven't yet criticized his idea that "Islam is evil." This is also the statement that the secular press and liberal-protestants within Christianity will take most offense at. And here I will support Reverend Graham. From the context of a Theology of the Cross in Christianity, any good deed that causes you to place an iota of hope for rightness with God is a mortal sin. Indeed, Martin Luther wrote in his Heidelberg Disputation:

• The works of the righteous would be mortal sins if they would not be feared as mortal sins by the righteous themselves out of pious fear of God.
  
• By so much more are the works of man mortal sins when they are done without fear and in unadulterated, evil self-security.
  
• To say that works without Christ are dead, but not mortal, appears to constitute a perilous surrender of the fear of God.
  
• Indeed, it is very difficult to see how a work can be dead and at the same time not a harmful and mortal sin.
  
• Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work.

Luther is here saying that good deeds can be mortal sins, if we put our hope in them. This is the sense that Islam is evil in the view of a theology of the cross. That it is a works-based religion where humans must strive to put themselves right with God apart from a righteousness based on Christ. If the confessions of Christianity are true, then telling people they can get right with God apart from Christ is nothing less than evil.

The problem with Franklin Graham's approach is that he's not saying this. Or it's not getting into the papers. Perhaps a theologian of the cross would, too, be dis-invited from the Pentagon.

Small gifts for the poor.

I found in my folder at church about 20 brown paper lunch bags (empty, new). I'm not entirely sure who gave them, but it's because I as a layman coordinate the list of volunteers to make lunches for the local homeless shelter. It's fascinating, that I really don't have a convenient way of using them, or getting them to the massive rotating list of persons preparing the meals. But someone thought enough about the poor to stick these lunch bags in my folder, perhaps in effect in Christ's name. I don't know exactly what to do with them, but I don't think I should trash them or stick them into my family's own pantry. It's just an interesting little burden and privilege to have these holy bags taking up space in the kitchen.