Denny Burk

Ehrman & Hayes Caricaturing Inerrancy

2006-05-10T11:05:00.000-07:00

Ehrman & Hayes: Caricaturing Inerrancy

In a previous post, I made reference to a recent debate between Bart Ehrman and Richard Hays. For all of their disagreements about the origins of Christianity, they were in decided agreement in their caricature of inerrancy. This kind of an attitude does not surprise me coming from Bart Ehrman. I’ve seen him misrepresent the inerrancy position before, and I have written about it on this blog.

But I am a bit disappointed in Richard Hays. When Ehrman called differences between Gospel accounts historical errors, Hays simply agreed with him. Moreover, Hays recalled a an incident from a recent panel discussion at Southeastern Seminary of which both he and Ehrman took part along with Andreas Kostenberger and Norman Geisler. After calling Geisler “this very angry guy who was pounding his fist on the table,” Hays simply dismisses inerrantists as those who hold to their position out of fear—fear that if they admit any error in the Bible the whole edifice of Christianity will fall.

Now, even though one may make this charge against Ehrman (who lost his faith as a result of admitting one error in the Bible), it is hardly fair for Hays to lay that charge at the feet of all inerrantists. Most of the inerrantists I know (including myself) are not motivated by fear at all. We just believe the Bible to be without error.

During the Hays-Ehrman debate, Ehrman and Hays got into it about the seven last words of Jesus. Ehrman, of course, denies that there were seven last words. For Ehrman, the last words of Christ were simply the invention of the early church, not words that actually passed the lips of the historical Jesus.

When Hays addressed the issue, he made a note of the differences between Luke’s and Mark’s account of Jesus’ last words. Whereas in Mark 15:34 Jesus quotes Psalm 22:1, in Luke 23:46 he quotes Psalm 31:5. Hays wonders aloud about this difference between the accounts of Mark and Luke. He says,

“Can both of them be, strictly speaking, historically factual accounts of what you would have if you had a video camera like this one there taping what Jesus had said at the moment? No, of course not. It can’t be both things” (Beyond The DaVinci Code, April 28, 2006).

What is disappointing about this response is that one does not have to become and inerrantist to exhibit a little humility here. As a historical question, would it not be possible that Jesus said both things? Would it not be possible that Jesus might have prayed many Psalms in the hours leading up to his death? Why must one necessarily conclude that Luke’s and Mark’s versions are contradictory? Hays alleges this contradiction but has no historical evidence to back it up. There’s just as much evidence for the apparent contradiction as there is for the harmony. It’s simply a matter of what presupposition one brings to the table.

I would simply suggest to Ehrman and Hays that they reread the 1979 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. This document represents how most informed evangelicals would define inerrancy. Its affirmations and denials give a more nuanced picture of what evangelicals believe—a picture that does not match the caricature that they put forth.
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This brings me back to something I wrote about in my last post about the “Together for the Gospel” (T4TG) affirmations and denials. I have already read on other blogs people alleging that T4TG’s opening statement about the inerrancy of scripture is idolatry of the Bible. Rather, they allege, the starting point should be something about God Himself. Yet the debate between Ehrman and Hays shows that “Christians” still do not agree about what should be the normative rule of the church. T4TG wants to say right up front that the verbally inspired scriptures should be the final authority on all matters.

As long as the scripture’s substance is being called into question, statements like T4TG will be necessary.

N. T. Wright on the Necessity of Believing the Resurrection

2006-04-16T06:02:00.000-07:00

I used to think that the "N. T." in N. T. Wright stood for "New Testament." He's such a fine scholar of the New Testament, it only made sense. However, having read his comments in The Australian, I am not so sure (HT: Al Mohler). Contrary to 1 Corinthians 15, and Romans 10:9-10, and a host of other scriptures, the Bishop of Durham thinks that belief in the bodily resurrection of Christ is unnecessary in order for one to be a Christian. He says,

I have friends who I am quite sure are Christians who do not believe in the bodily resurrection. But the view I take of them - and they know this - is that they are very, very muddled. They would probably return the compliment. Marcus Borg really does not believe Jesus Christ was bodily raised from the dead. But I know Marcus well: he loves Jesus and believes in him passionately. The philosophical and cultural world he has lived in has made it very, very difficult for him to believe in the bodily resurrection. I actually think that's a major problem and it affects most of whatever else he does, and I think that it means he has all sorts of flaws as a teacher, but I don't want to say he isn't a Christian. I do think, however, that churches that lose their grip on the bodily resurrection are in deep trouble and that for healthy Christian life individually and corporately, belief in the bodily resurrection is foundational (source).

This is very sad. Here is the guy who is a Bishop in the Church of England and who wrote what is probably the definitive defense of the bodily resurrection of Christ, and he doesn't even see how essential such a belief is for being a Christian.

Good Friday and the Ransom to Satan

2006-04-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

Several years ago on the Saturday before Easter, I heard Paul Harvey share a story on his radio program. It was a sweet story, but it represented a fairly common misunderstanding of Jesus' atoning work on the cross. My aim is not to criticize Paul Harvey; I've always loved to listen to his show. However, I think the anecdote does reflect an unwitting error that Christians are prone to make--namely, that Jesus' death was a payment to Satan. You can read the story here: "The Bird Cage."

In spite of its shortcomings, we should acknowledge that the story does illustrate a couple important truths. First of all, it illustrates God's love for sinners through Jesus' sacrificial work (e.g. John 15:12; Rom 5:8). It also rightfully proclaims that Jesus' death on the cross releases sinners from the ruling power of sin, which includes satanic bondage (Acts 26:18; 2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:13; 2 Tim 2:26).

However, the story completely misunderstands the Bible's teaching about the payment that Christ made in behalf of sinners. In the story, Christ's sacrificial death is pictured as a payment to Satan. Satan has humanity caged up, and unless he's properly paid off all humanity will be damned. So Jesus steps in and pays the ransom to Satan in order to release sinners who are held captive by him.

Harvey’s story represents a view of Christ’s atonement that the church by and large rejected centuries ago. It was rejected because the "ransom to Satan" view of Christ's death misunderstands what the Bible teaches to be the central meaning of the cross. The scriptures are clear that Jesus Christ's death on the cross constituted a payment to God, not the devil.

Why is this point significant? It's important because the Bible everywhere affirms that sin is an offense against God (e.g. 2 Samuel 12:9-10; Romans 3:23). All of us are sinners and have thus offended God. The offense of sin has created a rift between God and humanity (Isaiah 59:2). Sin has incited God's angry and terrible wrath, and all of us therefore owe God a debt of eternal punishment because of our sin. This debt is paid in hell, and when one goes there one never finishes paying the debt. It lasts for eternity.

It's important to note here that hell is not a place where Satan doles out punishment upon sinners. No, hell is much scarier than that. Hell is the place where God metes out His just punishment upon sinners. We must not think of hell as a place where Satan rules. On the contrary, hell is the place of Satan's punishment (2 Peter 2:4; Rev 20:10). So if hell isn't the realm of Satan's wrath, then who's wrath is it that is poured out in hell? It's the wrath of God. When we let ourselves reflect on this truth, the thought is almost too difficult to bear. The same God who is the treasure of heaven is also the One who is the terror of hell. This is why Jesus warned people, "And do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matt 10:28). Whereas heaven is the realm of God's mercy, hell is the place of God's wrath. Hell is scary not because Satan is there but because, "It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31).

All of this further illumines the point that we as sinners owe a debt of eternal punishment to God, not to Satan. Therefore, when Jesus died, he was making a payment to God, not to Satan. When Jesus died, he was being punished by God, not by Satan. On the cross, Jesus Christ was receiving the punishment from God that we deserved. Someone may object to this last statement by asking, "But does the Bible really teach that God is the one who punished Jesus? After all, it looks like the Romans and the Jews are the ones who punished him." Numerous texts could be cited in response to this objection. Let's look at a couple.

The prophet Isaiah describes Jesus' death as follows, "But the Lord was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief" (Isaiah 53:10, emphasis mine). In Isaiah's words, "the Lord" is the One who crushed Jesus. In Matthew's gospel, God says "I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered" (Matt 26:31). In this text, God is clearly the agent of Jesus' death. Also, let us not forget 2 Corinthians 5:21, "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." God made Jesus to bear the guilt and punishment for our sin! This couldn't be any clearer in scripture.

So the payment that would have taken us an eternity in hell to endure, Jesus endured in the moment of the cross. Jesus' physical sufferings were horrific. But who can imagine the terror of the spiritual anguish of bearing God's wrath against sin? All the frightful rage of the infinite creator and judge of the universe was poured out in full on Jesus at the cross. As C. H. Spurgeon once put it, "it seemed as if Hell were put into His cup; He seized it, and, ‘At one tremendous draught of love, He drank damnation dry.’ So that there was nothing left of all the pangs and miseries of Hell for His people ever to endure." This is the true meaning of Christ's death. Jesus took the wrath of God upon himself as a substitute in the place of sinners. In this, Jesus rendered payment to God, not Satan.

The amazing paradox is that the measure of God's wrath is also the measure of his love because "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). God's love is demonstrated in Jesus' death. How can this be? The measure of Jesus' anguish on the cross demonstrates the extent of his love. He suffered to the uttermost for those he came to save. So when we view God's wrath poured out on Jesus at the cross, we are at once viewing the measure of his love for us. Isn't this the reason that we sing, "Amazing love, how can it be that Thou my God wouldst die for me?"

We give away precious gospel truth if we say that Jesus' death was a ransom to Satan. If we say that Jesus' death is a ransom to the devil, we don't see the true measure of God's love because we don't see the true measure of His wrath poured out on sin. But we see the gospel in all of its glory when we realize that Jesus' death was a payment to an offended God who loves us. God offers Jesus as a substitute penalty-bearer to anyone who will place their faith and trust in him. Whoever turns from their sin, whoever forsakes all attempts to reconcile himself/herself to God through human effort and good works, whoever will trust in Jesus alone will find salvation from the eternal debt of punishment owed to God. That is the heart of the Gospel.

Peggy Noonan on Immigration

2006-04-13T06:16:00.000-07:00

When she's good, she's really good. Noonan's Op-Ed this morning is right on the mark:

"At the Immigration Rally: Having an open heart doesn't mean supporting open borders."

New Podcast

2006-04-13T06:15:00.000-07:00

For anyone who may be interested, I am now podcasting. Right now, some of my appearances on the radio show here in Dallas are available. Here's the feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/DennyBurk-Podcast

I will keep a link to this feed on the right sidebar. To add this podcast in iTunes, follow these directions:

1. Click on the “Advanced” button at the top of iTunes

2. Select “Subscribe to Podcast” in the drop down menu

3. In the box underneath “URL:” enter this address,

http://feeds.feedburner.com/DennyBurk-Podcast

4. Press “OK”

It’s done! You are now subscribed to my podcast!

Who’s afraid of Derek Webb? (part 3)

2006-04-12T06:51:00.000-07:00

(Click here for Part 1) (Part 2)

As I said in part 2, there is much to commend on Derek’s new album, “Mockingbird.” But as I also indicated there, I will now address some items that I think are not so good.

First, pacifism plays a big part on this album. That Derek embraces pacifism as the only Christian alternative comes through loud and clear in the song “My Enemies Are Men Like Me.” I don’t know how else to understand the following lines except as an endorsement of pacifism:

peace by way of war is like purity by way of fornication

it’s like telling someone murder is wrong

and then showing them by way of execution

It seems clear to me that he is saying that just as fornication is always immoral so also war and the death penalty are always immoral. He didn’t expand upon this theme at the concert last week, but he did in a recent interview he did with Donald Miller. In that interview, he said that killing another person is not one of the “resources” that he has as a Christian (click here to listen to the interview).

I am not going to argue that pacifism is a position that is completely out of bounds for a Christian. But I am going to say that one cannot simply dismiss centuries of Christians from throughout the worldwide church who have read their Bibles and have found there a basis for the idea of a just war. Many of those same Christians have also found in their Bibles the right of civil governments to use the power of the sword for the good of society.

These are not new-fangled ideas that have been foisted upon the church by George Bush and the Republican Party. From Augustine forward, there has been a robust just-war tradition within the church. This is not to say that all wars are therefore justified or that all wars started by Christians are justified. It’s just to say that the Bible has much more to say on this topic than one might think from listening to “Mockingbird.” And it won’t do to say that Christians who support the idea of a just-war don’t take their Bibles very seriously (as is implied in the aforementioned interview). Anyone who has ever read Augustine knows better than that.

At the end of the day, we all have to deal with the fact that the Jesus who said “blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9) is the same Jesus who commended a Roman soldier’s faith as the greatest he’d seen (Luke 7:9).

Second, Derek takes a swipe at Christians who act as if being a Christian also entails being a Republican. Here are the money lines from “A King and a Kingdom”:

there are two great lies that i’ve heard:

“the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die”

and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican

and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him

Like I said in my previous post. I agree with Derek that anyone who would suggest such a thing as described in these lines does not understand Jesus or what it means to be a Christian. Unfortunately, I fear there are far too many evangelicals who have sold out their Christian mission for a political crusade, and that is a tragedy.

But even on this issue, I think more needs to be said. Many Christians rightly view the killing of 40 million innocent children within the borders of our own country as the most important moral issue of our time. Those Christians also believe that it is their duty to stand for justice for the unborn (Proverbs 24:11-12). If the unborn don’t number among those “orphans” we are supposed to protect (James 1:27), then no one does (see John Piper’s exposition of this text).

The political realities in the United States right now are this. No Democrat running on a national ticket is allowed to be pro-life. No Republican running on a national ticket is allowed to be pro-choice. If you are a single-issue voter (in the John Piper sense), then who else is a Christian to vote for in national elections? As far as I’m concerned at the national level for now, the Democrats are disqualified. That doesn’t mean I’m a partisan. It just means that I am outraged by the injustice of abortion.

In part one, I said that the title of this series was a play on “Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.” Do I think Derek is the Big Bad Wolf? No, not at all. If I thought he was the Big Bad Wolf, then I wouldn’t have been listening to his new album non-stop since I bought it last week. As best I can tell, Derek is wrestling with the Bible and the radical claims King Jesus makes on all our lives. He’s challenging believers to lay down some cherished idols, and I for one am happy to receive that word. Even if we don’t agree on everything and even though I don’t know him personally, I count him as a dear brother. I hope you will too as you buy and listen to “Mockingbird.”

Radio Show on the Emerging Church

2006-04-10T15:26:00.001-07:00

Some readers of this blog have requested the audio of the recent radio show I hosted. The show was about the emerging church, and I did an interview with Scot McKnight, professor of religious studies at Northpark University in Chicago Illinois. I also interviewed Jim Hamilton, professor of biblical studies of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Right click on the following link, and select “save as” if you want to download the MP3 of the interviews.

Denny's interviews with Scot McKnight and Jim Hamilton on Jerry Johnson Live

The most important thing about this show is that it is probably the only time that the Indigo Girls have ever or will ever be played on KCBI Dallas. :)

Who’s afraid of Derek Webb? (part 2)

2006-04-09T21:31:00.000-07:00

(Click here for Part 1)

When I got home from the Derek Webb concert on Tuesday night, I shot off a blog that was in protest of what I thought was an overtly left-wing political message on Webb’s new album “Mockingbird.” But I later deleted what I wrote because I came to the conclusion that Derek’s message actually deserved a little more serious consideration than I had given it. So that is why this has turned into a three part series.

My initial response, however, was provoked in part by how the concert-goers received Derek’s lefty-friendly message. Consider, for example, the response from the crowd when Derek sang these lines:

there are two great lies that i’ve heard:

“the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die”

and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican

and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him

I kid you not. Many in the room cheered at the end of line three. There was a real sense among many who were there that Derek’s protest was their protest.

As I was watching the people cheer (especially those near the front of the stage), I wondered who Derek was talking about. After all, who would actually say that Jesus was a white, middle-class Republican? Was this a fair charge? Not even the worst hacks and lackeys of the political right would say something as crass as that.

But as I reflected on his comments after the concert, I realized that he was being hyperbolic, and I was interpreting his words in an overly literal way. My response was kind of like the Jews’ response to Jesus in John 6 when he told them that they needed to drink his blood and eat his flesh. Their overly literal interpretation was a result of their animus against Jesus. A more sympathetic listener would not have pressed the literal sense of His words so as to make the charge that Jesus advocated cannibalism.

We all need to make room for hyperbolic statements—especially since Jesus Himself spoke this way all the time (e.g., Mt 5:29-30; Lk 14:26). I want to receive the hyperboles of Jesus, and I want to be open to receive them from someone else when they are in line with the truth of the gospel. And the truth is that Derek has expressed great insight into some of the besetting sins of American evangelicalism. So I think we would all do well to listen to some of the things Derek is saying.

First, Derek is defying the apparent alliance between evangelical Christians and the Republican Party. Appearances do not always match reality, but they often do reflect correlations. And the fact is that culturally conservative people gravitate toward the Republican candidates. To the extent, however, that any Christians think that the Republicans or the Democrats will usher in the kingdom of God, to that extent they are deeply and profoundly mistaken. So Derek asks a great question. Have evangelicals become mere lackeys of a secular political party? If so, they have sold out their mission. I am right on board with Derek on this one.

Second, Derek is challenging evangelicals who confuse Christianity with American nationalism. Anyone who has ever sat through patriotic displays and ceremonies during what is supposed to be Christian worship knows that this particular critique is right on target. Just last year, I sat in a patriotic service in an evangelical church in which the worship leader led the congregation to sing hymns praising America. A military color guard marched the American flag down the center aisle while the church orchestra played each of the anthems of the five military branches. There was nothing distinctly Christian about the whole display, but it was nationalistic. I thought it was shameful. My irritation was exacerbated because I had just welcomed a family of visitors from Sri Lanka before the service began. I was embarrassed and ashamed that these dear brothers and sisters from abroad were asked not to lift up Christ, but to praise America. I think we would all do well to hear Derek’s challenge in this respect.

Third, Derek is confronting the legalism that persists among too many evangelicals. Of course this is the main point of the song “New Law.” While evangelicals will readily affirm that keeping the Old Testament law will not save anyone, they all too often adopt new laws and keep them in a prideful attempt to feel better about themselves. In “Rich Young Ruler,” Derek makes the point that it is precisely this kind of legalism that makes people feel self-assured about their standing with God, even though their materialism and idols betray that Jesus doesn’t have their allegiance at all. People become so proud of their ability to keep their new law, they don’t even realize they aren’t following the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2). This is also an apt word from Derek.

There is much good in what Derek is saying. I am praying for the Lord to let me hear it so that I can change. I am also praying that the wider evangelical community will listen to it because too many churches are missing the mark in these areas.

Yet even for all the good that there is on “Mockingbird,” I still think there are some things that aren’t so good. I’ll address those in Part 3.

The Gospel of Judas: A Transparent Fiction

2006-04-08T09:19:00.000-07:00

What should we make of the discovery of this new Gospel of Judas that has been unearthed in the sands of Egypt? The media and unfortunately some biblical scholars of note would have us think that this document represents voices from the early centuries of Christianity that need to be given a hearing as we assess who the Jesus of history was.

Bart Ehrman and Elaine Pagels are among those scholars of the opinion that earliest Christianity was not a monolithic movement. There were many different Christian groups in the first century, but we just don’t know much about the “other” groups because their voices were suppressed by the orthodox tradition. For Ehrman and Pagels, texts like the Gospel of Judas enable scholars to rewrite the myth of the origins of Christianity. (See my review of Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus)

How should we assess claims such as these being touted in the media and by some scholars? First of all, the Gospel of Judas is not new. Not only is the document not new (obviously), our knowledge of it and its central claims aren’t new either. We’ve known about the existence of the Gospel of Judas for nearly two thousand years. Irenaeus mentions this gospel in his book Against Heresies which was written around AD 180.[1] He writes:

They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1:XXXI.1).

So don’t let anyone tell you that this “new” discovery completely changes the historical picture that we have of Jesus. It doesn’t. The evidence has been in a long time.

Second, this copy of the Gospel of Judas has been carbon dated to about the 3rd or 4th century. However, scholars estimate that the original text dates approximately to AD 130–170. Obviously, that means that the author could not have been Judas. It also means that whoever wrote it could not possibly have had any first hand knowledge of Jesus. So it’s a late document with a false name on it making claims for which we have no historical corroboration.

Third, the document advances a Gnostic version of Jesus, a version of Jesus which is historically implausible given what we know about first century Judaism and Christianity. To begin with, the Gnostics believed in a radical Platonic division between material things and spiritual things, such that all created, material things (such as human bodies!) are evil because they are material and all spiritual things are good. First century Jews and Christians simply did not believe such things. Both Jews and Christians looked forward to a time when God would redeem people’s physical bodies through resurrection. I could go through text after text to illustrate this from Jewish and Christian sources (e.g., Daniel 12:2; 2 Maccabees 7:9, 11, 14, 23, 28ff; John 5:25-29; 1 Corinthians 15). Anyone interested in getting the full picture of what people believed about the resurrection of the body in the first century should read N. T. Wright’s magisterial work on the resurrection. The Gnostic Gospel of Judas is clearly out of step with the historical record.

Fourth, it’s Easter season. Every year historically tendentious depictions of Jesus get released just in time for Holy Week. This year is no exception. Let’s not be naïve about this. This discovery is being hyped now because this is the season for hyping such things. That the National Geopraphic Society made this sensational announcement when it did is no accident. It was timed.

At the end of the day, this discovery doesn’t tell us anything reliable about Jesus. It does, however, tell us about a 2nd century Christian heresy and about 21st century people who are all to willing to recycle it.

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[1]Some dispute this. Ben Witherington, for example, thinks it’s possible that this 3rd or 4th century copy may not be the same document that Irenaeus refers to in Against Heresies: “It is entirely possible that the Gospel of Judas we now have is not the original document created by the Cainite Gnostics that Irenaeus knows and speaks of” ("The Gospel of Judas--- Part Two," April 9, 2006). The controversial claims of this document go back at least as far an Irenaeus. So in any case there’s nothing new as far as claims about the historical Jesus are concerned.

Interview with Scot McKnight

2006-04-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I hosted the Jerry Johnson Live radio program in Dallas, Texas. My guest for the first half of the show was Dr. Scot McKnight, professor of religious studies at Northpark University in Chicago, Illinois. While Dr. McKnight did a great job, I’m afraid I may not have. Unfortunately, many of our listeners had trouble understanding what the emerging church is even after our discussion of it. I chalk this up to my less-than-perfect interviewing skills.

Thankfully, I can refer my readers and anyone who listened to yesterday’s show to Dr. McKnight’s very clear essay, “The Future or Fad? A Look at the Emerging Church Movement.” Also, Dr. McKnight writes regularly about all things emerging at his online blog, www.JesusCreed.org. If my interview didn’t give a clear enough picture of where Dr. McKnight is coming from, those resources will.

Thanks to Dr. McKnight for his willingness to be a part of our show.

Libby Leak: Much Ado about Nothing

2006-04-06T12:25:00.000-07:00

As I was leaving my house to go to work today, I saw the reporters on CNN breathlessly reporting the breaking news about Scooter Libby. I didn’t have time to do anything but listen to a couple of minutes of the report and to read the banners at the bottom of the screen.

The gist of the report was this. Scooter Libby, who is under indictment and who is thought to have leaked the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame, testified that President Bush authorized Libby to leak classified material to the press. This authorization came through Vice President Cheney. The report was clearly slanted to link Bush and Cheney to the indicted Libby.

The whole thing looked pretty damming to me, but I didn’t have time to investigate the facts until just now. It turns out that the facts do not support the media ballyhoo. Here is a summary of the facts according to The Washington Post:

A former top aide to Vice President Cheney told a federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA agent's identity that President Bush authorized him to disclose classified intelligence information about Iraq as a way of rebutting criticism from the agent's husband, according to court papers filed by prosecutors.

However, the former top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, testified that although he gave a reporter sensitive information from a secret National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) in a July 2003 conversation with the president's approval, he did not disclose the CIA employment of Valerie Plame (source).

Here’s what we know based on the facts as we have them today.

1. Libby testified that he did not leak Plame’s identity, nor was he authorized to do so by the President or Vice-President.

2. Libby testified that the President and Vice-President authorized him to disclose material from the National Intelligence Estimate, parts of which became public domain anyway.

Big whoop. Larry King’s interview with Yanni was more interesting than this.

Doug Wilson on Free Will and the Sovereignty of God

2006-04-06T07:00:00.000-07:00

Doug Wilson has a great little piece on free will and the sovereignty of God. This short essay on his blog is titled “Freedom? What Freedom?”

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Who’s afraid of Derek Webb? (part 1)

2006-04-04T22:30:00.000-07:00

I just returned home from a Derek Webb concert.

Derek’s venue was the Gypsy Tea Room near downtown Dallas in the area known by locals as Deep Ellum. Deep Ellum used to be the hip part of town, the place where all the young urban twenty-somethings would descend every weekend for dining, music, and club hopping. This once very popular center has declined over the past several years as most of the nightlife has moved to the new and trendy “uptown” area.

If you have ever been to a Christian concert, you might have been surprised by this one. When I saw and heard the Marilyn Manson style death-metal band screeching in the room adjacent to Derek’s, I knew this particular outing was not going to be your standard Point-of-Grace-at-Prestonwood kind of a thing. The Gypsy Tea Room is a decidedly non-religious venue. Nevertheless, this is actually the second Christian concert that I’ve been to there.

I went to the concert with the expectation of hearing Derek talk a lot. If you have been to any of his shows in recent years, you know he talks a lot—maybe even more than he sings. But at this show, he sang most of the time, which was a good thing. He took requests from the audience at the beginning of the show for about 30 minutes, then after a five-minute break, he and his wife Sandra McCracken played through the new album from start to finish without stopping.

I can affirm again what I have said before on this blog. Derek is an amazing musician and songwriter. His performance was outstanding. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire show.

But, as I have also pointed out before on this blog, this latest album “Mockingbird” leaves me with a lot of questions. On the album, it is clear that he is identifying himself with political views at the left end of the spectrum. He sings songs affirming pacifism and opposing the death penalty. In the song "My Enemies Are Men Like Me," one even detects a possible protest against the Iraq War.

Here are my questions. What is the message that Derek is trying to get across? Is it purely a political message, or is Derek trying to say something about the kingdom of God? Or both? What can be said about the theology underlying the message?

In two posts over the next two days, I will make a go at answering those questions.

(In case you were wondering, the title of this piece is just a play on the words “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”)

The Hammer Will Retire

2006-04-03T20:41:00.000-07:00

No, I’m not talking about Judas Maccabeus. I'm referring to the “hammer” Tom Delay who has just announced that he will not be seeking reelection to represent his suburban Houston district in the U. S. Congress. This is huge political news. How the mighty have fallen.

“Tom DeLay Says He Will Give Up His Seat” – TIME Magazine Exclusive

"Rep. DeLay Won't Seek Reelection" - Washington Post

CTR on the Emerging Church

2006-03-31T13:40:00.000-08:00

The current issue of the Criswell Theological Review is making the rounds in the blogosphere (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here . . . just to name a few). As I indicated in my previous post, some of the articles are already available to download for free.

One of the interesting things about this issue is that at least two of the contributors, Mark Driscoll and John Hammett, have decided to use Ed Stetzer’s tripartite scheme for describing emerging churches: Relevants, Reconstructionists, and Revisionists.

Here’s how Driscoll breaks it down in his CTR article:

Relevants are theologically conservative evangelicals who are not as interested in reshaping theology as much as updating such things as worship styles, preaching styles, and church leadership structures. . .

Reconstructionists are generally theologically evangelical and dissatisfied with the current forms of church (e.g. seeker, purpose, contemporary). . .

Revisionists are theologically liberal and question key evangelical doctrines, critiquing their appropriateness for the emerging postmodern world (CTR 3.2, pp. 89-90)

Driscoll associates Dan Kimball, Don Miller, and Rob Bell with the Relevants. He associates Neil Cole, Michael Frost, and Alan Hirsch with the Reconstructionists. And he associates Brian McLaren and Doug Padgitt with the Revisionists.

The provocative claim associated with this last category (the Revisionists) is that Driscoll charges them with heading in a heretical direction (CTR 3.2, p. 91). As near as I can tell from reading Driscoll’s essay, he believes McLaren and Padgitt represent a dangerous and unorthodox strand of emergent leaders.

His evaluation of the three types of emerging churches is instructive:

If both doctrine and practice are constantly changing, the result is living heresy, which is where I fear the Revisionist Emergent tribe of the Emerging church is heading. But, if doctrine is constant and practice is always changing, the result is living orthodoxy which I propose is the faithful third way of the Relevants, which I pray remains the predominant way of the Reconstructionists (CTR 3.2, pp. 90-91).

I expect that we will see much more of this tripartite division in future descriptions of emerging churches, even though emergent-folks on the Revisionist side of the spectrum are likely to offer strenuous objections. Nobody likes to be pigeon-holed, but I think this is a fair categorization.

As a heuristic device, the scheme is most profitably used if it is conceived as a spectrum rather than as three distinct and mutually exclusive categories. I think it is fair to say that most emerging churches probably fall somewhere along this spectrum. This is probably the best way for us to talk about a movement that is very theologically diverse.

McLaren and Driscoll's Articles Online

2006-03-30T20:21:00.000-08:00

For those who are interested, the McLaren and Driscoll articles that I wrote about previously are now posted on website for the Criswell Theological Review (www.CriswellJournal.com). You can download them there.

McLaren and Driscoll in New Journal on Emerging Church

2006-03-28T18:24:00.000-08:00

www.CriswellJournal.com

Readers of this blog are aware of the falling out between Pastor Mark Driscoll and the emerging church movement. Driscoll’s very public criticism of Brian McLaren’s stance (or non-stance) on homosexuality and Driscoll’s subsequent apology make it very clear that the theological issues at stake in the emerging conversation cause no little dissension.

That is why the latest installment of the Criswell Theological Review does a great service to the evangelical community’s discussion of this important topic. The current issue features both Mark Driscoll and Brian McLaren. Driscoll contributes an article that gives “A Pastoral Perspective on the Emergent Church.” Brian McLaren participates in the conversation by doing an interview with the editor of the journal. In addition, this issue includes other articles both pro and con on the emerging movement.

You can find out how to get a copy of the journal at the website: www.CriswellJournal.com. This is one issue you won’t want to miss.

Marvin Olasky vs. Ralph Reed

2006-03-26T16:54:00.000-08:00

The Washington Post has picked up Marvin Olasky’s reporting on Ralph Reed’s ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Here’s the heart of it.

Olasky, a journalism professor at the University of Texas, is editor in chief of World magazine, the mission of which "is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." Since Nov. 19, World has run 10 articles and essays describing the $4 million in gambling money Abramoff paid to Reed to lobby against casinos competing with Abramoff's clients. The articles have highlighted incriminating e-mails and other disclosures that have raised doubts about Reed's explanations of his activities.

If you are interested in reading the full article, you can find it at the following link: “From a Conservative, a Lack Of Compassion for Ralph Reed.”

Olasky has provided a list of his reasons for covering this story in a short essay titled: “Why dig into a sad situation?” Olasky saves the sting for the end when he writes:

[Ralph Reed] has damaged Christian political work by confirming for some the stereotype that evangelicals are easily manipulated and that evangelical leaders use moral issues to line their own pockets.

Inerrancy Is Not Enough

2006-03-25T16:36:00.000-08:00

Today I presented a paper at the Southwest Regional Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. The meeting was held at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and Albert Mohler and Wayne Grudem were special guests and speakers at the plenary sessions.

I told the people who attended my session that I would make my paper available here on my blog. So here it is for anyone who is interested.

Inerrancy Is Not Enough – by Denny Burk

Thanks to all of you who attended my session.

Deconstructing The Da Vinci Code

2006-03-24T07:56:00.000-08:00

Photo by James Yacovelli

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary recently held a symposium on Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. Panel members include Bart Ehrman, Andreas Kostenberger, Richard Hays, and Norm Geisler.

You can download the mp3 audio of the conversation from the SEBTS Website, or you can subscribe to the “Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary – Chapel Podcast” through iTunes. The title of the discussion is “Roundtable Discussion of The Da Vinci Code.”

This is a very fascinating discussion. As for the historical claims of The Da Vinci Code, when Norm Geisler and Bart Ehrman are in agreement on anything having to do with Christianity, you know that something momentous has happened. In this case, it turns out that The Da Vinci Code is momentously wrong. The book makes egregious historical errors, and panel members (liberal and conservative alike) agree on that score.

The Use of the Old Testament in the New

2006-03-23T21:44:00.000-08:00

The blogosphere is buzzing with discussion about the use of the Old Testament in the New. Justin Taylor is blogging about this important topic.

Jim Hamilton has been writing and publishing in this area and has some good things to say today on his blog. Check out Jim’s blog and the articles that he links there.

"The Old Testament in the New" - by Jim Hamilton

Jerry Johnson on Scarborough Country [updated]

2006-03-22T17:53:00.000-08:00

Dr. Jerry Johnson, The President of the Criswell College (where I teach), will be appearing Thursday night on MSNBC on the program “Scarborough Country.” The show airs at 9pm central time, Thursday, March 23.

Dr. Johnson will be discussing Abdur Rahman, an Afghan man who has been jailed for converting from Islam to Christianity and could face the death penalty if he refuses to become a Muslim again.

I’ll be watching this story very closely. I’ll also be praying for this dear brother.

Blue Like Blue States

2006-03-21T21:21:00.000-08:00

Don Miller’s blockbuster book Blue Like Jazz has influenced a significant number of a whole generation of young Christians across this country. I can say that the book has definitely made an impact on many of the students at the college where I teach.

Mark Coppenger delivered an address at Southern Seminary recently in which he reviewed Don Miller’s book. The audio of the review is witty and insightful and worth the time to listen to. But if you don’t have the time for the audio, you can now read it. The Baptist Press has run a print version of the review titled “Blue Like Jazz & Berri Blue Jell-O.” I highly recommend this one. Even if you disagree, it’s really entertaining.

Botched Abortions You Haven’t Heard About

2006-03-19T06:41:00.000-08:00

The vaunted “safe, legal, and rare” abortions that we’ve heard so much about may be legal, but they are hardly rare, and in the following story are not safe either (that is, safe for the mother, since they are never safe for the baby).

The F.D.A. has now received reports that six women in the United States died after taking RU-486, or Mifeprex. A seventh died in Canada. The two most recent deaths and two of the previous four underwent their procedures at Planned Parenthood clinics, a spokeswoman said . . .

Since reporting drug side effects is voluntary in the United States, it is possible that more women have died and that their deaths have gone unreported because doctors, medical examiners and coroners are not obligated to forward such reports to the F.D.A. Doctors and local officials also may not associate a death with a pill-based abortion, especially if the death occurs weeks later (source).

Stories like these tend to fly by under the radar because mainstream media outlets tend to bury their coverage of them. But those of us who care about the unborn and their mothers need to make sure that we tell the whole story—even when it’s tragic.

Bart Ehrman on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”

2006-03-17T10:33:00.000-08:00

Bart Ehrman has been making the media rounds with the publication of his new book Misquoting Jesus. Recently, he promoted his book on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” (click here and scroll down to “Bart Ehrman” to stream the video). (HT: Daniel Streett)

I reviewed Misquoting Jesus on this blog a couple of months ago. In that review I made the observation that Ehrman often mixes in higher critical conjectures that do not have anything to do with the manuscript tradition per se. This serves his polemical purpose of undermining the reliability of the Bible, but it does not help the lay reader who is being introduced to the discipline of text criticism for the first time. The unhappy result is that many will mistakenly conclude that the discipline of text criticism somehow discredits the veracity of the Bible when nothing could be further from the truth.

In the “Daily Show” interview, Ehrman again conflates the conjectures with the criticism. He says that he believes that not only are the scribes who copied the Bible human, but so are the authors who produced it. In other words, not only are the manuscript copies of the Bible flawed, but so are the originals.

I refer the reader to my original review for a response to the contentions Ehrman made in this latest appearance. There are also a number of other helpful reviews online that have been coming out. Here’s a list:

Craig Blomberg

Denny Burk

Scot McKnight (forthcoming)

Semper Reformanda

2006-03-17T09:12:00.000-08:00

As a Southern Baptist, I really appreciate the sentiments expressed in Douglas Baker’s Baptist Press essay, “Semper Reformanda: more than a phrase.” His basic contention is that the Southern Baptist conservative resurgence will have been for naught if a continuing reformation does not ensue. He writes:

The affluence and leisure of modern church life make it all the more difficult to evangelize and disciple people who find Broadway more exciting than the Bible. The logic proceeds that if people are still attending Broadway shows and movies, then the church had better mimic such venues or else the sanctuary of today will be the museum of tomorrow.

To assuage this fear, many churches have sought a dynamic alchemy of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and “biblical” preaching brought to you by the local Baptist church. For the most part, this has failed . . .

The question remains: Is theological conservatism SBC style compatible with healthy churches who aggressively work for biblical preaching and discipleship beyond the level of theological pabulum? The SBC needs only to look at other theologically conservative denominations such as the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA) and see their rapid growth (fueled by some former Southern Baptists who left the denomination) for an answer.

This is hard-hitting, good stuff. Semper Reformanda!

Democrats Wind-up To Impeach Bush

2006-03-16T10:48:00.000-08:00

Today’s New York Times confirms what I posted yesterday. Democrats are mobilizing to impeach President Bush should they win control of congress this year. Here’s a snippet:

Last year, Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and a member of the panel when it weighed proceedings against President Richard M. Nixon in 1974, proposed an initial inquiry into a censure or impeachment of Mr. Bush over the war. So far, the Conyers proposal has attracted support from about two dozen of the chamber's 201 Democrats.

ImpeachPAC, a grass-roots group based in New York City that grew out of the last election, is agitating for the idea. In the last few months, local governments in San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Arcata, Calif., and in several towns in Vermont have passed resolutions calling for impeachment. Harper's Magazine, the writer Garrison Keillor, the former Watergate figure John Dean, Barbra Streisand and the actor Richard Dreyfuss have expressed their support as well (source).

These two paragraphs represent only that which has bubbled to the surface. Make no mistake. This is the tip of the iceberg. The base of the Democrat party will agitate for President Bush’s impeachment should they win control of congress.

This is a no-win proposition for the Democrats. I hope they keep it up.

Bush To Be Impeached?

2006-03-15T07:05:00.000-08:00

An editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal claims that the Democrats intend to impeach President Bush if they win congressional majorities in the elections this Fall. Their intention to do so was amplified by Senator Russ Feingold’s attempt this week to have President Bush censured:

In fact, our guess is that censure would be the least of it. The real debate in Democratic circles would be whether to pass articles of impeachment. Whether such an inevitable attempt succeeds would depend on Mr. Bush's approval rating, and especially on whether Democrats could use their subpoena power as committee chairs to conjure up something they could flog to a receptive media as an "impeachable" offense. But everyone should understand that censure and impeachment are important--and so far the only--parts of the left's agenda for the next Congress (source).

The cynicism of the Democrats never ceases to amaze me. President Bush has done nothing even approaching illegal, yet all these Democrats believe he’s worthy of impeachment. And this is not a fringe view. Russ Feingold represents a swing state and will be running for the Democrat nomination for President. How could such an idea be making its way into the mainstream of the Democrat Party?

I do hope that impeachment becomes a part of the debate leading up to November’s elections. The American people need to know what the Democrats plan to do with their majorities should they win. That revelation would likely keep them out of the majority, and that would be a good thing.

Scratching My Head at Derek Webb

2006-03-13T22:50:00.000-08:00

I love Derek Webb. I first started listening to his music in 1994 when I was in college and when he was in Caedmon’s Call. I will never forget the first time I saw Derek perform live with Caedmon’s (circa 1995). It was at Tulane University in New Orleans, and I and the other hundred or so people were mesmerized for the entire concert. When I heard Derek sing and play “Bus Driver” that night, he became my favorite of the group. It was one of the best shows I’d ever been to.

Caedmon’s Call was supposed to be playing Christian music, but it didn’t sound like any of the “almost-as-cool-as-the-real-thing” Christian music that was being produced in Nashville. The stuff Caedmon's was playing was lyrically profound and musically brilliant. From the very beginning, it was the lyrics and the music that held me. And as the years went by, both seemed to get better and better.

For me, the high water mark of Derek’s stint with Caedmon’s was 40 Acres. Everything seemed to come together on that album. I thought he had been reading my mail when I first heard the lyrics to “Table for Two”:

I'm not gonna worry 'bout nothin'. Cause if the birds and the flowers survive, Then I'll make it okay. . .

Well this day's been crazy But everything's happened on schedule, from the rain and the cold To the drink that I spilled on my shirt. 'Cause You knew how You'd save me before I fell dead in the garden, And You knew this day long before You made me out of dirt. And You know the plans that You have for me And You can't plan the end and not plan the means And so I suppose I just need some peace, Just to get me to sleep

At that particular time in my life, the lyrics were a Godsend. It was a confession of faith in a sovereign God who was going to take care of me no matter what. The music, the lyrics, and the ministry were resonating with me in a deep way.

That’s why I (and many others) celebrated the news in 2002-2003 that Derek would be breaking away from Caedmon’s to do a solo album. That solo album, She Must and Shall Go Free, did not disappoint. I thought Derek manifested a new apprehension of the Gospel in these songs, and I was tracking right along with him.

I am my beloved’s and my beloved’s mine So you bring all your history and I’ll bring the bread and wine

In these lines (from the song "Lover"), I saw myself as the one with all the “history,” and I saw Jesus with the “bread and wine.” Again, the music was outstanding, and the lyrics were deepening.

I’m reviewing all this history because the rest of what I am about to say wouldn’t make sense if I didn’t. Given all that Derek has written before, I do not understand where he is going with his latest album Mockingbird. The music is still great. If you haven’t heard the album yet, you can listen to two of the songs for free at Derek’s website: http://www.derekwebb.com/.

Yet as I hear and read the lyrics, I see a new trajectory in Derek’s thought. To be sure, much of the message is good stuff. Nevertheless, a good portion of the album reads like a left-wing political tract.

In “A King & A Kingdom,” he complains against all the Christians who teach that “Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class Republican.” He embraces pacifism and opposition to the death penalty in a song that follows a twenty-three second instrumental titled “A Consistent Ethic Of Human Life.” One even detects an oblique protest of the Iraq War in the song “My Enemies are Men Like Me,” where Derek writes: “I will protest the sword if it’s not wielded well.”

I am reading all of this, and I’m asking myself, “What’s going on with Derek Webb?” I am honestly in the dark here. I can’t figure out why all of a sudden he’s engrossed with anti-conservative politics. Is it just me, or does anyone else see what I am talking about?

In any case, I still really like the music, even if I am scratching my head at the lyrics.

“Blue Like Sad”: Robbie Sagers on Don Miller’s New Book

2006-03-13T20:00:00.000-08:00

My friend and fellow traveler Robbie Sagers has written an excellent review of Don Miller’s new book To Own a Dragon. Sagers writes the review for the Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (JBMW), but you can read it now on the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood’s website.

Miller’s widely acclaimed book Blue Like Jazz left me wondering about the effects of Miller’s dysfunctional relationship with his father. According to Sagers, this book delves deeply into that subject. I haven’t read the book yet, but Sagers’s essay has definitely piqued my interest.

When Sagers isn’t out late at night getting folks lost in Harlem, he proves to be an insightful and thoughtful writer [ :) ]. Go check out his review.

(HT: Russell Moore)

Could Carl Henry Be Wrong?

2006-03-10T16:28:00.000-08:00

I was struck by something that I read today in Carl F. H. Henry’s watershed work The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (1947).

Fundamentalism is agreed on the main doctrines of God, of creation, of anthropology, of soteriology, and of eschatology in its main peaks (p. 61).

What impressed me about Henry’s observation here is that, sadly, it is no longer true. The consensus that used to characterize American evangelicalism no longer exists.

One can no longer claim unity among evangelicals on central issues. Current debates among evangelicals about open theism and the adequacy of the penal substitution model of the atonement demonstrate that the old, broad consensus on the doctrine of God and soteriology has broken down.

Henry’s characterization of old liberal saws sounds a lot like the critiques of some post-modern and emergent evangelicals today. Can you see the similarities in the following?

To conceal his own embarrassment, many a liberal today follows a planned strategy of thanking God he is not a Fundamentalist [just like this guy and this guy]. A frequent pattern is to remark that of course the liberal repudiates the obscurantism of taking the whole Bible literally [like this guy again], or of thinking God dictated it without respecting the personalities of the writers, or of contending that God stopped working in human history 1900 years ago. What is not remarked is that no representative Fundamentalist thinks that either (p. 56).

I could give a lot more examples of correlation, but I will stop with these. Truly, there is nothing new under the sun.

Clubbing Clooney

2006-03-10T09:02:00.000-08:00

Peggy Noonan has a penchant for rhetoric, and sometimes she can be downright harsh. You should check out her piece on George Clooney's acceptance speech at last Sunday's Oscar ceremony, “Boy in a Bubble: What George Clooney doesn't know about life.” Here’s a devastating snippet:

George Clooney is Hollywood now. He is charming and beautiful and cool, but he is not Orson Welles . . . Orson Welles was an artist. George Clooney is a fellow who read an article and now wants to tell us the truth, if we can handle it.

The Missional Baptist Blog thinks I was pretty harsh in my critique of George Clooney in my Baptist Press article “The Gospel according to Hollywood.” Well, at least I’m not as mean as Peggy Noonan! :)

‘Misquoting Jesus’ in the Washington Post

2006-03-09T05:33:00.000-08:00

Neely Tucker reviews Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus in last Sunday’s Washington Post (click here). Unfortunately, the review takes up some of the tendentious claims that Ehrman puts forth in the book. One such claim is Ehrman’s contention that the variations in the manuscript copies of the New Testament undermine the Christian faith. The Post review writes:

Most of these are inconsequential errors in grammar or metaphor. But others are profound. . . [One] critical passage is in 1 John, which explicitly sets out the Holy Trinity (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit). It is a cornerstone of Christian theology, and this is the only place where it is spelled out in the entire Bible -- but it appears to have been added to the text centuries later, by an unknown scribe.

The text in question is 1 John 5:7, the so-called Comma Johanneum (a.k.a. the “Johannine comma”). Yes, the reading was erroneously added by a later scribe. But the Post review wrongly implies that the doctrine of the Trinity is dependent upon this particular reading (which is reflected in the King James Version). Nothing could be further from the truth.

The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries debates over the Trinity never appeal to this verse as a basis for Trinitarian theology. If the reading were so fundamental to that particular doctrine, it would be odd to find that the early church never referred to it. The fact is that the doctrine of the Trinity was not dependent on 1 John 5:7 because the doctrine of the Trinity was hammered out without dependence upon it.

This is just one of many baseless claims in Ehrman’s book. Unfortunately the Post is repeating the error.

_____________________

Click here for my review of Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus.

Have You Heard about Jason McElwain?

2006-03-07T21:31:00.000-08:00

This is the kind of story that makes your heart full and your eyes well up with tears. It’s a Rudy-esque tale about a kid with autism. It’s the story of Jason McElwain, and it’s so good that the movie studios are already lining up to make a movie about him.

Jason McElwain is the waterboy for his high school basketball team, and he’s also their biggest fan. Because Jason is a senior and the team’s most ardent supporter, the coach decided to let him suit-up with the team for the last home game of the season. Then, the coach actually let him play for the last four minutes of the game. As Jason goes into the game, the fans hit their feet and roar with excitement. This much of the story is enough for the makings of a great movie, but what happened next makes it even better.

When Jason hits the court, he starts shooting the basketball. He misses two shots right off the bat—one jump shot, one lay-up. On his third shot, he drains a three-pointer, and the crowd goes absolutely nuts. He then proceeds to drop five more three-pointers, finishes the game with 20 points, and ties the school record for most three-pointers in a game.

As the buzzer sounds, the student body rushes the floor and carries Jason off the court in triumph.

I know this sounds too fantastic to believe, so I would encourage you to see for yourself. Someone videotaped the game. Greatness.

CBS News - "Autistic Teen's Hoop Dreams" (video)

ABC News - "Hoop Dreams for Autistic Student" (video)

Speak Softly? Not When It Comes to Iran & Nukes

2006-03-07T09:17:00.000-08:00

Speaking on behalf of the Bush administration, Vice President Dick Cheney vows that the U.S. will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. He also will not take the military option off of the table (click here to see the story).

In this case, I think the administration is doing the right thing. Sometimes saber-rattling achieves more than "speaking softly while carrying a big stick."

Do you remember the "Axis of Evil"? It's Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. If Iran thinks that Bush is not serious, they have another thing coming.

Not a Fan of “Crash”

2006-03-06T13:47:00.000-08:00

Last night, “Crash” won the Oscar for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. I saw “Crash,” but I am not a fan of the movie. I thought that it was hokey and superficial in its treatment of a serious subject.

In an essay for MSNBC.com, Erik Lundegaard sums it up well.

But what is [the movie] saying? That we all bear some form of racism. That we all “stereotype” other races. That, when pressured, racist sentiments spill out of us as easily as escaped air.

Here’s my take. Yes, we all bear some form of racism — that’s obvious. Yes, we all “stereotype” other races in some fashion — that’s obvious. (Particularly obvious in the Los Angeles of “Crash,” where so many characters are stereotypes.) But, no, we don’t easily give voice to our racist sentiments. And that’s why “Crash” rings so false.

Last month I wrote an article on the best picture nominees (called “Anything But ‘Crash’”) in which I talked about how the most potent form of racism in this country is no longer overt but covert. Once upon a time, yes yes yes, it was overt, which is another reason why “Crash” [is an awful movie]. It’s doing what simple-minded generals do: It’s fighting the last war (source).

Lundegaard is right on target. The dialogue in this movie simply does not ring true. Real racism typically does not surface in the way that this film alleges. The situations in “Crash” seem contrived and unrealistic at best.

I still can’t believe that this movie won Best Picture. In my view, it was awful.

If you don’t agree with me, that’s okay. But I recommend that you go and take Lundegaard’s “‘Crash’ Quiz” (click here). It may change your mind.

____________________

P.S. I am reminded by my wife of another reason not to see this movie. Apparently, there were some objectionable scenes in it. I had forgotten about them because I never saw them. We skipped over the scenes when we watched the DVD.

The Gospel according to Hollywood

2006-03-06T07:38:00.000-08:00

Christians aren’t the only ones who preach. Hollywood does it too, and with great effect. This was no where more clearly seen than in two men who won Oscars at the Academy Awards March 5. George Clooney and Ang Lee both made a point of saying that movies can and should advocate for causes that the rest of the country may not support.

In the acceptance speech after winning the Oscar for best actor, Clooney celebrated the disconnect between his own liberal views and the views of mainstream America.

We are a little bit out of touch in Hollywood every once in a while. I think it's probably a good thing. We're the ones who talk about AIDS when it was just being whispered, and we talked about civil rights when it wasn't really popular. And we, you know, we bring up subjects. This Academy, this group of people gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theaters. I'm proud to be a part of this Academy. Proud to be part of this community, and proud to be out of touch. And I thank you so much for this (source).

We can all agree with AIDS awareness and the promotion of civil rights. But Clooney implies that current left-wing causes (like the normalization of homosexuality) are morally equivalent to the advent of civil rights for African Americans. Such a position is in fact “out of touch” with the vast majority of Americans (and contrary to the Gospel), but I don’t think it’s anything to be proud of. Clooney is proud to be “out of touch” with mainstream America because he believes Hollywood’s values are superior to those of the "fly-over" states.

In Ang Lee’s long list of “thank yous,” he expressed gratitude to the homosexual characters in "Brokeback Mountain"

First of all, I want to thank two people who don't even exist . . . Their names are Ennis and Jack. And they taught all of us who made 'Brokeback Mountain' so much about not just all the gay men and women whose love is denied by society, but just as important, the greatness of love itself (source).

In so many words, Ang Lee is very clear that he intends for this story to teach viewers. He aims to teach all of us about the "cruelty" of society’s stigmatizing homosexuality. As far as Ang Lee is concerned, mainstream America still clings to outdated sexual mores and ideas about gender, and he means to change that with movies like "Brokeback Mountain."

Both Clooney and Lee indicate their intention to advocate in their movies a secularized vision of the world. Make no mistake; they don’t mean merely to reflect culture in their movies, but to shape it.

As Christians, it’s important for us to take note of comments such as these. The Gospel of Christianity is one that tells a story that goes from Eden, to the fall, to redemption, to new creation -- a story that is summed up and realized through the work of Jesus Christ crucified and raised.

Hollywood is telling another story, one that simply will not be compatible with that of the Gospel. To the extent that Hollywood or anyone else tries to impose its stories in place of God’s story (the one true story), we have a sacred obligation to speak up with the Gospel.

We don’t need to wait for a Gospel revival in Hollywood to meet this obligation. By God’s grace, let us all resolve to herald the true story whether Hollywood is on board or not.

_____________________

This article appeared in the Baptist Press, March 8, 2006 under the title “The Gospel according to Hollywood.”

Witherington’s Non-Patriarchal Reading of 1 Timothy 2:12

2006-02-28T19:29:00.000-08:00

1 Timothy 2:8-15 has a been a battleground in the recent history of interpretation as scholars have been offering varying interpretations of a passage that at first blush cuts against modern egalitarian sensibilities. Verse 12 has proven to be particularly problematic for modern interpreters who support the ordination of women as pastors.

A literal translation of verse 1 Timothy 2:12 reads: “I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over/domineer a man.” At the heart of the exegetical dispute is the problem of translating the phrase “to teach or to exercise authority over.”

Dr. Ben Witherington, who will soon be adding to his impressive list of literary accomplishments a new commentary on the pastoral epistles, has recently offered some reflections on his translation of 1 Timothy 2:8-15 (see his blog). Witherington argues that understanding the background of Paul’s command is absolutely critical to a proper interpretation of the verse. He writes:

What I would stress at the outset is that Paul is correcting problems in worship--- correcting both men and women as is perfectly clear from vs. 8 where he tells the men to not dispute or get angry but rather to start praying. He then corrects women in several particulars. I would stress then that the correction of an abuse of a privilege is not the same as the ruling out of a proper use of a privilege, in this case the privilege of speaking in worship or even teaching. Paul is not laying down first principles here, he is correcting an existing problem . . .

In other words, Witherington avers that Paul is not laying out a general principle that would be normative for all Christians. Rather, Paul is confronting a specific abuse in the Ephesian community: “The issue here in Ephesus is that there are some women who are seeking to teach or take authority over men, without first being quiet and learning about their faith .” Therefore modern readers should not treat this verse as if Paul were laying down a limitation on women in ministry because “the correction of an abuse of a privilege is not the same as the ruling out of a proper use of a privilege.”

There is much that needs to be said in response to Witherington’s exegesis here, but I would like to point out one difficulty that I see with his reasoning. Even if we grant that Paul is confronting a specific abuse in the Ephesian church, it does not necessarily rule out the possibility that he might appeal to “first principles” to address that specific problem.

So even if we grant the background as Witherington has described it, it may very well be that Paul sees a specific abuse and corrects it by appealing to a more general principle that is rooted in Jewish-Christian patriarchy. That is in fact what I think Paul is doing here.

Dr. Witherington disagrees and has responded to my objection in the comments section of his blog. Even though he did support his reading by appealing to egalitarian readings of other Pauline texts, I am still not satisfied that he has answered my specific objection.

I suppose the debate will have to continue.

Unspeakable Abortion Tragedy

2006-02-24T06:57:00.000-08:00

I read an unspeakably tragic story today in the BBC News (click here to read it). It’s about a 16 year old girl who tried to abort her twins early in her pregnancy. Later in the pregnancy, she found out that one of them survived the procedure.

Now, the surviving twin is four years old, and the mother is suing the hospital because “she suffers an impediment in her ability to obtain employment in consequence of her care for the child.”

Consider these lines from the mother and weep: “I still don't know if, or what, I am going to tell Jayde when the time comes. Maybe when she is nine or 10 I will sit her down and explain it to her.”

As my wife completes her seventh month of pregnancy before the delivery of our first child, tragic stories like these take on a new poignancy. It just takes your breath away that this story could possibly be true.

Maranatha.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Follow-up on Ben Witherington's post on the ESV

2006-02-22T11:31:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I wrote in response to Ben Witherington's critique of the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible. Today, Dr. Witherington apologizes for the remarks that he made there (HT: Justin Taylor). He explains that he didn't have the whole story when he originally wrote, but now he does. You can read the entire apology in the "comments" section of the original post which is titled "The Problem with the ESV." I understand where he's coming from. I had to revise my post after reading the critiques of those who visited my site. I had overgeneralized on one point, and I'm glad that someone pointed it out to me. Oh, well. Nobody's perfect. Including me!

New Testament Scholar, Ben Witherington, Takes a Whack at the ESV

2006-02-21T21:26:00.000-08:00

Ben Witherington’s apocryphal account of the origin of the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible has been roundly refuted on the ESV Bible Blog (HT: Justin Taylor). Among other things, Witherington alleges that the ESV translation too often manifests conservative biases rather than accurate translation.

His comments imply that he detects complementarian biases being manifested in the ESV’s translation of texts like Romans 16:7, 1 Timothy 2:12, and Ephesians 5:21-22. Witherington writes, “The ESV doesn’t do justice to any of these texts, and at the expense of women.”

For Witherington (himself a Methodist), he thinks it’s important to speak out about the ESV now because someone else has told him that “the Southern Baptist Convention is considering endorsing the ESV as the one true Baptists ought to use.”

I have about one-thousand things that I would like say in response to Witherington’s blog, but the most important issues have already been addressed by the ESV Bible Blog. I would, however, like to offer some reflections on one paragraph in particular. Witherington writes:

The ESV we owe chiefly to one particular scholar who has spent much of his career opposing the idea of women being involved in minstry. I am told that this scholar did everything he could possibly do to scuttle the TNIV, in the main because he abhorred the idea of the use of inclusive language in the translation even where it was fully warranted and did better justice to who was being spoken of in particular cases. A good example would be when the Greek term ‘anthropoi’ (‘human beings’)is used to refer to a mixed group containing both women and men. To translate the term ‘men’ in such a case is in fact to misrepresent the meaning of the word in such a case since there were also women present who were not mere ciphers or appendages of the men who were there.

First, let me start out by saying that the unnamed scholar is Wayne Grudem. If you’ve read anything on this topic or even attended one meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in the last several years, then you know that it’s no secret that Wayne Grudem has been the most exercised about the issues at stake in the gender debate and in the debate on gender-inclusive translations of the Bible.

Second, and to the point I want to address, Witherington is in error when he says that translating anthrōpoi as “men” misrepresents the meaning of the word. In English usage, as in Greek, the plural form “men” can refer to mankind or people in general without respect to gender. A quick perusal of any English dictionary will confirm that this is in fact a long standing English idiom.

So, for instance, when the Declaration of Independence declares that “that all men are created equal” and that “Governments are instituted among Men,” no one misunderstands “Men” to be referring to male humans only. We know that “Men” means “mankind” or “people” of all genders.

The question is whether the idiom is still in use today such that English readers can still understand “men” to refer to “human beings” without respect to gender. It is true that about forty years of Western-style feminism has resulted among other things in a successful revision of the way we use the English language. Today, from the halls of Congress to the college campus to the style-manuals of modern publishing houses, it is no longer acceptable to use masculine words like “men” to stand for males and females. The forces of political correctness have achieved a change in usage. But that doesn’t change the fact that at least some English speakers are still able to distinguish the difference between “men” when it refers to male humans and “men” when it refers to all people regardless of gender. One could argue that the usage is fading, but it’s not gone yet.

I say all this because Witherington claims that “men” actually misrepresents the meaning of anthrōpoi. This is a serious charge because Witherington says the mistranslation is driven by an ideological agenda “at the expense of women.” Yet the charge rings hollow when one realizes that English speakers can still recognize the idiom of “men” standing for “all people” regardless of gender. The idiom may not be politically correct, but it’s perfectly understandable to the native English speaker. I think Witherington’s critique really misses the mark on this point.

Scot McKnight on the Emerging Church Movement

2006-02-18T21:07:00.000-08:00

One of the most dangerous things that a theologian can do these days is attempt to describe and/or define the Emerging Church Movement. It’s a perilous task not because one is literally risking life and limb, but because those within the movement have taken great pains to resist being pigeon-holed into any rigid system of belief. Not only that, the movement is in many ways so disparate that characterization has appeared to many to be a well-nigh impossible task.

That is why Scot McKnight’s recent article in The Covenant Companion provides and invaluable resource for those in search of a succinct description of what the Emerging Movement is all about. In “The Future or Fad? A Look at the Emerging Church Movement,” McKnight undertakes to describe the Emerging Movement [henceforth, “EM”] and to give a brief critique of it.

McKnight’s essay is important not merely because his perspective is that of an accomplished biblical scholar, but because he writes as an insider who is sympathetic to the concerns of EM. No one could fairly accuse him of trying to pigeon-hole anyone.

McKnight gives a thumbnail sketch of EM at the beginning of the piece:

It is a conversation about the future direction of the evangelical church in the postmodern world; it’s a reaction and a protest against traditional evangelical churches; and it’s a conversation focused less on theological niceties and more on “performing” the gospel in a local setting.

“Emerging movement” is an umbrella term that refers to a group of churches, pastors, writers, and bloggers who are exploring the missional significance of culture, philosophy, and theology in a postmodern context (p. 7).

The rest of the article unpacks what EM is in terms of its “pros” and “posts.” EM is pro-missional, pro-Jesus, pro-church, pro-culture, and pro-sensory worship. But it is post-evangelical, post-liberal, post-doctrinal, and post-Bible-study piety. If you are scratching your head wondering what each of these descriptors mean, then I shall leave it to you to read the article and see for yourself. I don’t want to rehash the entire thing here. For my part, I will offer just a few critical reflections on McKnight’s piece.

First, McKnight points out how difficult it has been for theologians to make a “systematic critique” of EM. In this vein, he alludes to D. A. Carson’s description of EM in the recent book Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church. According to McKnight, Carson misses the mark in his critique because . . .

Carson criticizes the whole movement by focusing on one leader (Brian McLaren), one issue (postmodern epistemology—the theory of how one knows truth), and one problem (the postmodern denial of truth). The EM is more than McLaren, often not at all concerned with epistemology, and rarely (if ever) does it deny truth. Instead of epistemology, the EM is concerned with ecclesiology—how to “do church” . . . in our current context (p. 8).

Though there may be some truth to the charge that Carson focused too narrowly on Brian McLaren (and Steve Chalke), the rest of McKnight’s description of EM belies the claim that the EM is not concerned very much about epistemology. In fact, two of the hallmarks of EM have been on the one hand its rejection of propositional truth claims and on the other hand its denial of the metanarrative—two features that McKnight takes note of in his essay (pp. 8, 9). Thus one would be hard-pressed to argue that EM is not concerned with epistemology when so many of its adherents desire to move away from “rationality and systematic thinking” when doing theology (p. 8). If that’s not an epistemological statement, I don’t know what is!

Moreover, EM’s denial of the metanarrative suggests epistemological anarchy of the first order. McKnight writes,

The EM tends to celebrate the demise of meta-narratives, finding in this demise the opportunity for micro-narratives of local communities. Some EM thinkers suggest that the Christian faith is one such meta-narrative that can’t be proven true.

EM’s postmodern embrace of the death of the metanarrative is no surprise. But it is surprising that McKnight would suggest that D. A. Carson’s criticism paints with too broad a brush when McKnight's essay points out that the death of the metanarrative is a key feature of the EM. One of Carson’s central critiques in Becoming Conversant is that the EM has not been clear whether it considers the Gospel to be the supreme metanarrative, or just one among many metanarratives. This is no obscure theological point. If the Gospel metanarrative if relativized, the heart and soul of Christianity is lost.

McKnight acknowledges and critiques an important and controversial feature of EM—the tendency to favor the Gospel narratives about Jesus over the didactic letters of Paul. This tendency is right in line with EM’s aversion to the abstract, systematic theologies of the Reformation that are rooted in logic and reason. The EM likes narratives, and Paul’s misogynistic theologizing just does not do it for many EM-types. EM wants to root its theology in the incarnate life of Jesus, not the letters of the apostle Paul.

There are many problems with this kind of “canon within a canon” theology. Just to name one, it pits Jesus against the Apostle Paul in a way that does not comport with Scripture. Jesus is the one who appointed Paul to speak for Him as an apostle, and it makes little sense for Christians to ignore the commission given by Jesus to Paul.

There is much more that I would like to comment on in McKnight’s article, but this has gone on long enough. I will be writing more on the Emerging Church is subsequent posts. But let me go ahead and finish this one by commending McKnight’s article to you. You should read it. The critiques he gives at the end are right on the money.

God’s Grace and Cancer

2006-02-15T18:01:00.000-08:00

Those of you who read my blog know how much I love and admire John Piper. I esteem him as highly as I do because the Lord has used him so mightily in my own life to raise my esteem for God. John Piper was diagnosed with cancer last December, and by the grace of God is turning the entire trial into a platform for bearing witness to the supremacy of Christ. I love him for that. I love God for that.

On the eve of his surgery to have the cancer removed from his prostate, he penned a little exhortation titled, “Don’t Waste Your Cancer.” As usual, the words are powerful, challenging, and biblical to the core. This piece is not just for those who are battling cancer or some other disease that promises imminent death. It’s for all of us who too often go through our lives as if we would live forever. We won’t. And it’s the essence of folly to order our lives and our devotion as if we would.

Go read this piece from Dr. Piper. It’s a gift for all of us. Don’t waste Dr. Piper’s cancer.

"Don’t Waste Your Cancer" - by John Piper

John Piper on the Danish Cartoon Controversy

2006-02-09T13:56:00.000-08:00

John Piper's essay on the Danish Cartoon controversy is a must-read. It clearly and respectfully delineates the differences between Christianity and Islam and calls for people to see the supremacy of Christ crucified. "Being Mocked: The Essence of Christ's Work, Not Muhammad's" - by John Piper Go read it. You'll be glad you did.

Bono’s Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast

2006-02-08T14:03:00.000-08:00

Can a rock star preach? Apparently those who head up the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. think Bono can. Last week, he spoke at the annual event with President Bush sitting close by (for a transcript click here). I would argue, however, that although there was much to commend in Bono’s remarks, there was also much to be concerned about.

We can all appreciate and affirm Bono’s desire to see the Christian church get more involved in addressing poverty and disease in Africa. We welcome the challenge that he gave to Americans to be more generous in their giving to charities that help bring relief to those who are suffering there. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ has the responsibility to care for “the least of these,” and Bono has rightly called all our attention to the needy in Africa.

I fear, however, that with Bono and with many others the gospel message gets muddled in the murky waters of religious pluralism. That is, the distinctive Christian gospel too often gets shuffled to the side so as not to offend well-meaning people of other faiths with whom Christians cooperate in acts of mercy. At the breakfast, Bono’s appeal to Christian Scripture and to the Koran is a case in point of this danger. Yet, Christians derive their impulse for mercy directly from a gospel that teaches God is merciful to us through Jesus Christ crucified (Romans 12:1-2).

I’m concerned that Bono’s language can send the wrong message to a listening world. Many will hear Bono’s call (and those sympathetic with him) and will wrongly conclude that all religions are equal. They will also miss the truth that God is reconciling the world to Himself exclusively through Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:19).

I don’t think of Bono as an evangelical spokesman, but I do think that he has the ear of many Evangelical Christians. An article in Christianity Today, for example, called Bono’s remarks “prophetic.” Even though Bono and others may appeal to the Bible, Evangelicals should listen critically when considering messages such as his. When it comes to extending mercy to the least of these in Africa, let’s all say “amen” to Bono’s call and give until it hurts. Let us cooperate with others in extending this mercy in so far as we can do so without compromising the gospel.

But let us never forget that for Christians the centrality of Jesus Christ crucified is a non-negotiable (1 Corinthians 2:2). We should never compromise this focus in the cause of mercy. Rather, our acts of compassion should bring it into sharper view (Matthew 5:16). I’m not sure Bono has grasped this yet. Let’s hope and pray that Evangelical Christians do.

See my previous post on Bono: “Interview with Bono in CT.”

See Christianity Today’s coverage of the National Prayer Breakfast: “Bono Waxes 'Prophetic': Rock-star/activist inspired by Leviticus and Isaiah.”

Coretta Scott King’s Funeral and No-Class Politics

2006-02-07T20:10:00.000-08:00

At Coretta Scott King’s funeral today, some of the speakers used their eulogies as an opportunity to take cheap shots at President Bush. Indeed, it was no-class politics of the worst kind. The most notable disparagements came from former President Jimmy Carter and Reverend Joseph Lowery.

Reverend Joseph Lowery protested President Bush’s Iraq war policy with a poem:

“We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there/But Coretta knew and we knew that there are weapons of misdirection right down here/Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war billions more but no more for the poor” (source).

President Carter drew attention to the recent wire-tapping controversy by referencing Martin Luther King’s own bouts with secret government surveillance:

“The efforts of Martin and Coretta have changed America, they were not appreciated even at the highest level of government. It was difficult for them personally -- with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated as they became the target of secret government wiretapping, other surveillance . . . and as you know, harassment from the FBI” (source).

President Carter also highlighted the catastrophic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a disaster that many still unfairly blame on President Bush. Carter race baited the crowd by implying that the tragedy was somehow due to the color of people’s skin:

“This commemorative ceremony this morning and this afternoon is not only to acknowledge the great contributions of Coretta and Martin, but to remind us that the struggle for equal rights is not over. We only have to recall the color of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. Those who were most devastated by Katrina to know that they are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans” (source).

Carter and Lowery threw red meat to the crowd, and the crowd pounced on it. Both of their statements were met with raucous and extended ovations from funeral attendees.

The saddest part about these cheap partisan swipes is that they distract from the legacy of Coretta Scott King as a civil rights leader—a legacy that should be celebrated by every American, regardless of one’s party affiliation or views on the Iraq war.

The non-violent protests led by Rev. Martin Luther King and his wife quickened the heart of a dead nation that had imbibed the poison of racism and discrimination. As a result of the movement they led, the conscience of America was revived to reject the unjust laws that were the basis of segregation an to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

This great legacy of Rev. and Mrs. King belongs to all of us. Yet Carter, Lowery, and others made it sound as if it belongs solely to liberal Democrats and all those who oppose George W. Bush. I don’t buy it, and I’ll wager most of America doesn’t either.

Pray for John Piper's Surgery

2006-02-03T17:30:00.000-08:00

Be sure to pray for John Piper's upcoming surgery to treat his cancer. It will be on February 14. You can read about his illness and about the procedure he's undergoing here. In praying for God's will in this difficult time, Dr. Piper has a good word from John Newton that he's taken to heart: "Everything is needful that He sends; nothing can be needful that He withholds." Thanks.

Jerry Johnson Live

2006-01-31T22:00:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, President Jerry Johnson of the Criswell College (where I teach) began a Christian worldview radio show here in Dallas, TX. The program is called “Jerry Johnson Live” and broadcasts all over the metroplex area every weekday from 5-6pm Central Standard Time.

Dr. Johnson has invited me to take part in today’s show as we analyze and discuss the President Bush’s State of the Union Speech. You can listen to the show live on the internet by clicking on the following link when the show airs today from 5-6pm:

KCBI Live Stream

Dr. Johnson’s show has been going great so far, and I am honored to be a guest. I hope you get a chance to tune in.

Thanks.

Should We Baptize the Babies? (Part 2)

2006-01-30T11:33:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I directed your attention to an interesting discussion taking place on the Reformation21 Blog. Rick Philips has made some remarks on the paedo-baptist position, to which I have been responding. I am continuing that response here since Philips has posted another entry: “Wet v. Dry Christian Babies.”

Philips writes:

I would observe that this does not answer the uniform testimony of the Bible as to the application of covenant signs and seals to children of believers (including Peter's new covenant teaching in Acts 2).

Paedo-baptists often appeal to Acts 2:39 to show that children of Christians are included in the New Covenant: “For the promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself.” For the paedo-baptist, this verse is cited as slam-dunk proof of “the uniform testimony of the Bible as to the application of covenant signs and seals to children of believers.”

I am surprised at how so many people can so consistently misread this text. Clearly, the “promise” is for three groups of people: (1) “you,” the listeners hearing Peter preach, (2) “your children,” the children of the people in group 1, and (3) “to the ones who are far off," probably Gentiles (cf. Isa 57:19 LXX; Eph 2:14, 17). All three of these groups are delimited by the final phrase of the verse: “as many as the Lord our God shall call to himself.”

The final qualifying phrase indicates that not everyone in the three groups has the promise extended to them. Only those that the Lord “calls to Himself” are the proper recipients of the promise. It is, therefore, no more proper to assume that the promise applies to all children of believers than it is to assume that it applies to “all who are far off.” The promise is linked to calling.

Thus, those who are included in the New Covenant are those who have been called.

Brian McLaren Strikes Again

2006-01-30T08:21:00.000-08:00

Pastor Brian McLaren responds to the responses to his response to “the homosexual question” that he wrote about last week. This newest essay extends to three times as long as his original piece, but it can be summed up as follows: McLaren still doesn’t have a position on whether homosexuality is a sin, and most of those who responded to his original piece are not very nice. We shouldn't discuss the homosexual question until conservatives learn how to be nice to people they disagree with.

You can go read the entire McLaren essay on Christianity Today’s leadership blog at the following link: “Brian McLaren on the Homosexual Question 4: McLaren's Response.” There is plenty to comment on in this new piece, and I will offer some critical observations here.

McLaren writes:

Many readers seem to assume that by quoting verses from Leviticus, Romans, and 1 Corinthians, they have solved the problem.

I think the issue here is that we are not agreed as to what the “problem” is. McLaren seems to think that the main “problem” is that conservatives aren’t “pastoral” in the way that they respond to homosexuals. But his definition of “pastoral” seems to be something along the lines of being in touch with other people’s woundedness—a definition far short of the biblical ideal (Acts 20:28-31).

But for many of us, we define the main “problem” far differently than does McLaren. Yes, we could all be nicer, but it doesn’t help anyone if Christians are nice without also being truthful. We don’t have a Gospel for homosexuals to believe in if we cannot call them simultaneously to repentance from their sin. This goes not just for how we address homosexuals, but for how we address any sinner. And if we cannot say to them that God desires to save them from their sin (including homosexuality) then the Gospel becomes a truncated perversion of the message that the Bible calls us to preach. If at least part of the “problem” includes whether or not to call homosexuality sin, then yes “quoting from Leviticus, Romans, and 1 Corinthians” does provide a solution.

McLaren also writes:

We have become aware of as-yet unanswered scholarly questions, such as questions about the precise meaning of malakoi and arsenokoitai in Paul’s writings, and we wonder why these words were used in place of paiderasste, the meaning of which would be much clearer if Paul’s intent were to address behavior more like what we would call homosexuality.

Here we need to make a technical note. The words malakoi and arsenokoitai appear in 1 Corinthians 6:9, and scholars do dispute their meaning. But paiderastês actually denotes a more specific activity—the practice of older men having homosexual relations with young boys. Contrary to McLaren’s claim, therefore, pederasty is not “the behavior more like what we would call homosexuality.” Most of us use the term homosexuality to refer to all same-sex sexual activity and orientation. This sentence doesn't adequately reflect what is going on in scholarly discussions, and it betrays more misunderstanding on his part than it does careful attention to a subtle debate.

McLaren also makes this unbelievable statement:

These questions are all the more challenging for some of us when we realize that the Leviticus texts themselves, if taken literally, call for the death penalty. Nobody (I don’t think?) takes that literally, nor do we take many of the other 611 Mosaic proscriptions literally. Why take these selected verses literally, and only partially so?

Here, McLaren employs an old liberal saw that in one fell swoop relativizes the entire Old Testament law! Now I know there are huge hermeneutical debates about how the OT law relates to us as NT believers, but this statement from McLaren makes it look as if he thinks Evangelicals have no answers to these kinds of questions. All this remark really does is give ammunition to those who would like to treat the Bible as an irrelevant book.

McLaren also claims that some of the responders have said things about him that aren’t true: “we only wish they could extend the same grace and not assume or assert things about us that aren’t true.” One thing about McLaren that is true is that he continues to stay mum on the morality of homosexuality. Contrary to his claim at the end of the article that he still hasn’t taken a position, McLaren needs to know that not taking a position is a position.

For this reason, his non-stance on homosexuality more resembles that of one who is “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7) than it does a pastor who would faithfully lead his flock.

Here are the Relevant Articles on CT’s Leadership Blog:

Brian McLaren on the Homosexual Question 4: McLaren's Response

Brian McLaren on the Homosexual Question 3: A Prologue and Rant by Mark Driscoll

Brian McLaren on the Homosexual Question 2: A Blogger's Response

Brian McLaren on the Homosexual Question: Finding a Pastoral Response

Should We Baptize the Babies?

2006-01-29T14:17:00.000-08:00

I would like to direct your attention to an interesting discussion taking place on the Reformation21 Blog. Various reformed theologians and personalities contribute to this blog, and the format is somewhat of a conversation among the various contributors.

Yesterday, the lone Baptist contributor, Justin Taylor, asked the paedo-baptists the following question: “According to covenant theology, what is the difference between the baby of a Presbyterian and the baby of a Baptist? . . . what privileges and benefits would [a Baptist baby] lack?”

To my mind, this is the million-dollar question that my Presbyterian brothers cannot answer sufficiently. Rick Philips attempted a response today, but I think he hit way wide of the mark. Allow me to elaborate on my disagreement as I comment on excerpts from Philips’s response:

We baptize our babies not to bring them into covenant relationship with God but because of their covenant relationship with God . . . Since baptism is the sacrament of initiation into the church, we apply it to our children. We do not believe that by birth our children possess eternal life, but we do believe that by virtue of being our children, they are in covenant with God

This statement gets to the heart of the difference between Baptists and Paedo-baptists. Unlike paedo-baptists, Baptists believe that the New Covenant is “not like” the old Covenant. In the New Covenant all covenant members will have the law written on their heart and will have their sins forgiven (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 8:7-13). Unregenerate children do not participate in these new covenant privileges (the law on their heart and the forgiveness of sins), even though their Christian parents may be nurturing them in the instruction of the Gospel.

Contrary to Philips, for Baptists baptism signifies much more than what he alleges. Philips says that Baptists hold baptism to be “an outward sign of an inward change.” This statement is partly accurate, but actually leaves the Baptist position open to caricature. I have often been told by paedo-baptist brothers, “You believe that baptism signifies your faith, but we believe it signifies God’s promise.” They seem to imply in this that Baptists think baptism signifies what a person does for God, while Presbyterians believe it signifies what God has done for us in the Gospel. This is an effective rhetorical device and has caused many a reformed Baptist to blush for holding a position that seemingly contradicts the sovereignty of God in salvation. But our own historic Baptist creeds demonstrate that this is not an accurate description of our position.

Our best creeds explain Baptism as signifying no less than two things: (1) what God has done for His people in the Gospel, and (2) the believer’s participation in the Gospel. For instance, chapter 29 of the London Baptist Confession says that baptism is “a sign of his fellowship with him, in his death and resurrection.” In other words, Baptism signifies in the first instance Christ’s death and resurrection on our behalf (what God has done for us) and our participation in what Christ has done for us (see also “The Abstract of Principles”). For Baptists, this is the most faithful way to understand texts like Romans 6:1ff where Christ’s work on our behalf and our participation in it are both signified in baptism: “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). [There is much more to be said here, but I will leave it at that for the sake of space].

To my mind, Philips never adequately answered Justin’s question. Philips writes:

So what is the cash value of infant baptism for us, which we think Baptist babies are denied? We believe that the Baptist approach fails to recognize the place of children in the church, with very real privileges and obligations.

What Philips fails to do is to answer what these “privileges and obligations” consist of. Certainly it is much more than the ability to say the Lord’s prayer, which he says only baptized infants can do with any theological integrity. Both kinds of children are brought up having the Gospel preached to them, so what benefit does the baptized baby have? I would still like to know.

Mark Driscoll Takes a Whack at McLaren Too

2006-01-27T08:20:00.000-08:00

Well, if you thought Doug Wilson’s firebombing of McLaren was severe (see previous post), you haven’t seen anything yet. The cussing pastor Mark Driscoll is also outraged at McLaren’s non-stance on homosexuality. The lambaste appears on the same blog that hosted McLaren’s original essay.

"A Rant by Mark Driscoll" - Out of Ur

I cannot endorse the coarseness of Driscoll’s response, but it is significant because it represents a division between two Emergent leaders over this very pressing issue.

Doug Wilson’s Firebombing of Brian McLaren

2006-01-25T13:04:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of things that Doug Wilson and I don’t agree on (not the least of which is our interpretation of the Apostle Paul’s letters). But I have to say that he is one the most effective rhetoricians that I have ever read. His loquacious pyrotechnics rank right up there with the rhetorical hand-grenades that Martin Luther used to hurl at his opponents with great effect.

Doug Wilson pulls no punches in his recent critique of Pastor Brian McLaren’s inability to define homosexuality as sin (click here to see McLaren’s article). In a few short paragraphs, Wilson mounts a withering assault on McLaren’s tortured argument and then finishes him off with a wallop:

If you don't know what to think about homosexuality, then get out of the ministry. If you can't read the big E on the eye chart, then why should the rest of us follow you into the ditch? Now homosexuality is not the most important issue in the Bible, not by a long shot. But it is, thank God, one of the clearest. And if it is not clear to McLaren, or by his account, to most of the leaders of the emerging movement, then the time has come to look for another calling, and I hear UPS is looking for reliable drivers.

If someone were to ask me whether the Bible teaches that Jesus went to Capernaum, I would say yes, it does. I would not be in agony over the question. It is not the most important question, but it is clear. If someone were to ask if the apostle Paul taught that homosexual behavior (both male and female forms) is the dead end result of idolatry, I would say yes again. No agony in the exegesis whatever. There is only agony if you are lusting after respect from the world, which they will not give to you unless you are busy making plenty of room for their lusts. And that is what the emergent movement is doing -- this is really all about sex. And, conveniently enough, this has the added benefit of making room for evangelical lusts. Son of a gun. All that agony paid off. . . (source).

The emergent folks who read Wilson’s critique will immediately write him off as having committed the unforgivable sin of being not-nice. Nevertheless, the frustration demonstrated in Wilson’s piece is one that is shared by many of us conservatives who can’t figure out why some of the Emergent folk always seem to be learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 3:7).

The sting of Wilson’s rebuke is not just the rhetoric, it’s the truth of the charge. I hope some will have the ears to hear it.

Review of "Where Is Boasting?"

2006-01-24T22:08:00.000-08:00

Simon J. Gathercole. Where Is Boasting: Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s Response in Romans 1-5. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002. 311pp. $32.00.

Simon J. Gathercole fires a salvo into the ongoing battle over Paul’s doctrine of Justification and the new perspective on Paul. In Where Is Boasting: Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s Response in Romans 1-5, Gathercole contends with the growing consensus among Pauline scholars that the Judaism of Paul’s day was not a legalistic religion of merit, but a gracious dispensation of covenantal election. This work represents Gathercole's Ph.D. dissertation which he wrote under the supervision of James D. G. Dunn, with whom Gathercole is in decided disagreement.

Gathercole argues that E. P. Sanders’ scheme of “getting in” and “staying in” has very little eschatology (p. 23). That is, Jewish soteriology was based not merely on divine election (à la covenantal nomism), but also on final salvation by works (à la eschatological judgment). According to Gathercole, new perspective scholars have overemphasized the former at the expense of the latter. Gathercole attempts to show that the evidence of second-Temple Jewish literature paints a different picture.

Gathercole traces the theme of “boasting” in second-Temple Jewish texts (Part 1) and in Paul’s argument in Romans 1-5 (Part 2). He shows that “boasting” in Paul and the Jewish literature refers to “confidence of vindication in the final judgment” (p. 23). Such “boasting” relies on obedience to the totality of Jewish law as the condition of and basis for final vindication in the final judgment. For Gathercole, salvation in Judaism, contrary to new perspective scholarship, does rely on works of obedience.

Gathercole’s work is important because it challenges one of the central claims of New Perspective proponents. They have alleged that the Judaism of Paul’s day was not legalistic because “legal works” were not viewed as the basis for “getting into” a right relationship with God. “Legal works” were merely a means of “staying in” that right relationship.

Gathercole has shown that second-Temple Judaism did indeed hold to a final salvation for the righteous on the basis of works (p. 266). In other words, New Perspective scholars have emphasized the gracious character of Israel’s election at the expense of the legal works that are required for one to stand at the final judgment.

In many ways, what Gathercole has done is to balance the scales a little bit. He shows that there has been somewhat of a false antithesis between election and legalism in descriptions of first century Judaism. For Gathercole, Jewish soteriology is based both on divine election and on eschatological salvation by works (p. 33). Any description of Judaism that fails to emphasize both is not being faithful to the sources.

Some reviewers of Gathercole’s work allege that New Perspective scholars have always given eschatological salvation by works its proper place in describing Jewish soteriology. But this reviewer disagrees with that assessment. New Perspective proponents rarely if ever give proper weight to the indications that Judaism was in some sense legalistic. Gathercole offers a needed course correction in this respect.

This is a valuable book and a must read for anyone who is interested in getting outside of the echo-chamber that is modern Pauline scholarship. Gathercole has made his point—rather, the sources have made their point, and every New Testament scholar would do well to hear them.

Review of "Blue Like Jazz"

2006-01-24T05:18:00.000-08:00

Shane Walker at 9Marks ministries has reviewed Donald Miller’s popular book Blue Like Jazz. What can I say? The review is devastating and gets at the heart of all that’s wrong with the postmodern ethos in certain sectors of the Emergent church movement. Here’s a teaser from the review:

Don wants to invite the reader to authentic Christian spirituality, but he’s not really sure what it looks like. He can only report back what he’s experienced—and it’s been a confusing trip. This means that some of his readers will walk away even more confused, but more resolved to get another tattoo, another piercing, grow those dreads, attend another anarchist protest, or say another profanity. They will learn that watching South Park is not so bad, having crushes on lesbian pop stars is cool, and that smoking pot is an ambiguous moral question. Taken in isolation these are petty sins, but as a lifestyle they draw people away from Christ by confusing who he is and inhibiting the joyful freedom experienced in obedience to him. . .

Likely, right now someone in your church is reading Blue Like Jazz or some similar book. It will resonate with them in style and content—it is cool and Christian. And it is extremely unhelpful. The only antidote seems to be twofold. The first is to reintroduce young Christians to the biblical Jesus: the person who died an agonizing death for their sins, who will tread the winepress of the wrath of God, and who listens to their prayers. The second is to begin the battle against the cool. The godly must begin to prove in the pulpit, in writing, and in their lives that Christianity is the deadly enemy of the cool. And the cool is the Western postmodern entertainment driven culture that has tutored our children and ourselves for the last fifty years.

You need to go read the rest of the review. You can find it here: “Review of Blue Like Jazz.”

Review of "The Face of New Testament Studies"

2006-01-22T22:00:00.000-08:00

Scot McKnight and Grant R. Osborne, eds. The Face of New Testament Studies: A Survey of Recent Research. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004. 544pp. $34.99.

Eminent New Testament scholars Scot McKnight and Grant R. Osborne have edited an important volume that introduces the various sub-disciplines of New Testament studies. In The Face of New Testament Studies: A Survey of Recent Research, various luminaries of the scholarly guild have contributed essays that give an overview of their respective disciplines and that introduce some of the important voices in those disciplines.

There are a total of twenty-two essays, and they are divided into four parts: (1) Context of the New Testament, (2) New Testament Hermeneutics, (3) Jesus, and (4) Earliest Christianity. There are special sections for historical Jesus scholars, scholars on individual Gospels, generalists on the Synoptic Gospels, Pauline scholars, Petrine scholars and more. The book tries to give an introduction to all the major areas of specialty within the field of New Testament research.

The value of the book consists in its comprehensiveness. There is much more here than in a typical introduction to New Testament criticism. The weakness of the book is in its organization. Because the book is intended to give students an overview of the discipline, it would have been helpful if the essays could have been divided into parts that better represent the sub-disciplines (e.g., Greek Language, Historical Backgrounds, Synoptic Studies, Pauline Studies, etc.). The four part scheme adopted in this book does not adequately reflect the specialized fields of research on the New Testament.

On the whole, however, the essays themselves look to be very helpful to anyone looking for an update on and synopsis of the major trends of research. This volume would be a useful textbook for a course on New Testament criticism.

NBC Cancels 'West Wing' After 7 Seasons

2006-01-22T14:08:00.000-08:00

The AP is reporting that NBC is canceling the Emmy-winning “West Wing” after 7 seasons (source). For some of you, this announcement is no big deal. But I’ve been watching the “Left Wing” since its second season. It was a good decision to cancel the show because it has been in decline ever since its creators Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme left the show.

Now what am I going to do? Is there anything else on TV with a predictable liberal slant that will chafe me every time I turn it on? Oh, well. I’m sure I’ll be able to find something. J

Review of "Choosing a Bible" by Leland Ryken

2006-01-21T17:55:00.000-08:00

Leland Ryken, Choosing a Bible: Understanding Bible Translation Differences (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005). 32pp. $3.99.

This little 32-page booklet is in many ways an extension and abstract of Leland Ryken’s earlier and more comprehensive work, The Word of God in English: Criteria for Excellence in Bible Translation (Crossway, 2002). The booklet consists of three chapters and an appendix. Chapter one asks and answers the question, “How Do Bible Translations Differ from Each Other?” Here Ryken introduces the distinction between dynamic equivalent and formal equivalent approaches to translation. Chapter two sets forth five negative effects of the dynamic equivalent approach. Chapter Three discusses ten reasons why “essentially literal” translations are trustworthy. The Appendix consists of a chart that places specific translations along a spectrum that has formal equivalence on the left side, dynamic equivalence in the middle, and paraphrase on the right side.

This little book’s value consists mainly in its succinct and clear presentation of the different sides of the translation debate. It would be very useful in a classroom of students who are just being introduced to the debate over what the proper method of Bible translation should be. In fact, Ryken’s exposition resembles the lectures that I give to my own hermeneutics students each semester on this subject. There are three basic approaches to translation (formal equivalence, dynamic equivalence, and paraphrase) and each individual English translation of the scripture false somewhere on the spectrum between formal equivalence and paraphrase.

Another strength of this book is its thesis that the formal equivalence approach is the best and most faithful method of Bible Translation. Ryken’s thesis and the reasons he gives to support it are basically on target—formal equivalence preserves the full interpretive potential of the original, it reduces the frequency of having to correct a translation in preaching, etc.

The main weakness of the book is that it does not discuss the main issues with the depth that the main issues deserve. Certainly, this is due to the brevity and intended scope of the book. Nevertheless, this is a shortcoming that is worth pointing out. For instance, Ryken charges dynamic equivalent translations with “interpreting” the Biblical text rather than “translating” it. The main problem with this contention is that even formal equivalence translations like the NASB give more interpretive renderings at times. This is inevitable in any translation into English and absolutely cannot be avoided. Ryken does not acknowledge this fact.

Overall, this is a useful little volume, and I intend to use it in my courses. However, as the beginning student’s knowledge of the intricacies of translation increases, a more comprehensive treatment of the issues will be required.

Has the Iraq War Compromised Evangelical Witness?

2006-01-20T12:43:00.000-08:00

Charles Marsh argues that Evangelicals in the United States have undermined the credibility of their moral and evangelistic witness in the world by supporting the war in Iraq. The essay is titled “Wayward Christian Soldiers.” Marsh recently read sermons delivered in 2002-2003 by prominent evangelicals who supported the President’s decision to go to war.

What surprised me, looking at these sermons nearly three years later, was how little attention they paid to actual Christian moral doctrine . . . As a result, many ministers dismissed [just war] theory as no longer relevant . . . The single common theme among the war sermons appeared to be this: our president is a real brother in Christ, and because he has discerned that God's will is for our nation to be at war against Iraq, we shall gloriously comply.

I have no doubt that many of the sermons probably did lack serious moral reflection and failed to explain the Iraq war in light of the Just War tradition as it has developed over the years since Augustine. I also agree that it is likely that many evangelicals put a rubber stamp on whatever the President decides because of the fact that he is a Christian.

However, I disagree with Marsh’s analysis of why the preachers ignored Just War theory. Just War theory was ignored, not because the preachers knew that the Iraq War fails to meet the requirements of a just war, but because too many evangelical preachers don’t even know what Just War theory is. The fact of the matter is that many evangelicals gave up serious biblical and theological reflection a long time ago and have replaced it with vapid emoting.

There has been a compromise of Evangelical witness in America, and the problem largely resides in pulpiteers whose sermons have little to no connection to the Bible. Now there’s a compromise we should all be concerned about.

The Essence of Idolatry: Worshipping the God of My Understanding

2006-01-20T12:05:00.000-08:00

Larry King conducted a panel discussion on Tuesday that used the widely-acclaimed movie “Brokeback Mountain” as a catalyst for discussing the issue of the wider culture’s debate over the morality of homosexuality (transcript). The discussion focused on the question of homosexual rights and, in particular, the question of homosexual “marriage.”

The panel consisted of Albert Mohler (President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), Janet Parshal (host of the radio show “Janet Parshall’s America”), Chad Allen (the openly gay actor and star of the new movie “End of the Spear”), and Guy Padgett (openly gay former mayor of Casper, Wyoming).

The panel was ostensibly set up to have two voices opposing the homosexual agenda (Parshall and Mohler) and two voice supporting it (Allen and Padgett). But this turned out not to be the case as Larry King became more and more petulant with Mohler and Parshall.

King’s aghast with Mohler and Parshall’s refusal to see the movie “Brokeback Mountain” was particularly illuminating. King clearly implied that Mohler and Parshall had no right to have an opinion because they had not seen the movie: “If you go see the movie, you might learn more than not seeing the movie, where you learn less . . . OK, Janet, let's just stay home [insert sarcasm in the latter phrase].”

For me the most striking part of the interview was when a caller asked Chad Allen, “By whose standard do you think that it's right to live the way you have chosen to live?”

Allen’s response to this query was breath-taking in its candor. He replied:

By the standard that I judge all of my actions. These days I judge all of my actions by my relationship with God of my understanding. It is a deep-founded, faith-based belief in God based upon the work that I've done growing up as a Catholic boy and then reaching out to Buddhism philosophy, to Hindu philosophy, to Native American beliefs and finally as I got through my course with addiction and alcoholism and finding a higher power that worked for me.

The key phrase here is “These days I judge all of my actions by my relationship with God of my understanding.”

Classical Christianity has insisted that The God Who Is is also The God Who Speaks. He has made himself known through Divine Revelation, and He expects for his creatures’ knowledge of Him to be determined by that revelation.

Classical idolatry has insisted not on worshipping God as He has revealed Himself, but on worshipping the “god of my understanding.” In other words, sinful humanity by default suppresses divine revelation and chooses to worship “gods” that are invented out of their own imagination (Romans 1:18-25).

This is the reason that John Calvin said that the human heart is an “idol factory.” Because of sin, we humans are predisposed to suppress the evidence of the true God and to manufacture gods that affirm us in spite of our sinful proclivities. It is our devotion to our ego-stroking idols that keep us comfortable in our sin and distracted from the One true God.

The fundamental religious question that every person has to grapple with is, “Who is God and how can I know him?” Tragically, Chad Allen has come to the wrong conclusion about how to answer it. The challenge for those of us who wish to answer people like Chad is to penetrate the post-modern haze with the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I think Dr. Mohler did just that in the Larry King interview on Tuesday. Let’s pray that the ones who saw it will have ears to hear.

[This discussion continues in the blogsphere. See Scott McKnight, Al Mohler, and many others.]

David Howard on the Story behind “End of the Spear”

2006-01-20T11:37:00.000-08:00

David Howard of Bethel University has penned and excellent opinion piece in today’s Wall Street Journal titled “Triumph From Tragedy: Five missionaries' murders were not the end of the story.” It’s the kind of essay that will pique interest in the faith that led these five men to die martyr’s deaths. Go read it. Tell others.

Big Security Council Members Agree on Iran

2006-01-16T14:32:00.000-08:00

The AP reports that the members of the U. N. Security council are coming together against the recent, provocative steps taken by Iran. Here’s the article: “Big Security Council Members Agree on Iran.”

The developments reported here are significant because it’s the first sign that Russia and China might oppose the actions taken by Iran. Russian and China are permanent members of the Security Council and can veto any sanctions that the other members might propose. Hopefully, this is a sign that they are moving toward challenging Iran. According to this article, Russia is hinting that it may do just that.

If you are wondering what might happen if the problem in Iran is not addressed, then read my previous post.

The Great Gulf War of 2007

2006-01-16T12:46:00.000-08:00

A great big Hat Tip to Dr. Mohler for bringing our attention to Niall Ferguson’s OP-ED piece in today’s LA Times: “Tomorrow's world war today.” This piece is narrated as if it were written by a historian looking back on the “Great Gulf War” of 2007. The essay rings eerily prescient and is a must read. If you don’t read any thing else today, read this one.

Fighting the Good Fight against Abortion

2006-01-16T12:12:00.000-08:00

Dr. William Cutrer is the medical director of a crisis pregnancy center that is featured in today’s New York Times. The article is titled “Some Abortion Foes Forgo Politics for Quiet Talk.” Dr. Cutrer is an OB-GYN who also serves as a Professor of Christian Ministry at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also a special friend who ministered to my wife and me while we were living in Louisville, KY.

This article puts to the lie the notion that pro-life people do not care about women. A Woman's Choice Resource Center where Dr. Cutrer works not only counsels women against abortion, but also provides material and financial resources for those who decide to carry their babies to term. Moreover, the center also has open arms for any woman in need of counseling after they have gone through with an abortion.

The kind of work being done at the Center is probably the most important front in the ongoing public battle over abortion rights. At the end of the day, abortion-on-demand will only be turned back when the hearts and minds of the American people are won over to the pro-life cause. The work being done by people like Dr. Cutrer will go farther to win people over than any piece of legislation passed in Congress or any judge confirmed to the U. S. Supreme Court.

Thanks, Dr. Cutrer, for fighting the good fight.

[You might be interested in checking out some of the books that Dr. Cutrer has authored. The titles are listed below.] When Empty Arms Become a Heavy Burden: Encouragement for Couples Facing Infertility Sexual Intimacy in Marriage Simply Romantic Nights Lethal Harvest (fiction) Deadly Cure (fiction) False Positive (fiction)

Cronkite Joins the Ranks of the Not-Serious

2006-01-15T23:09:00.000-08:00

It would be an understatement to say that the Iraq war has caused some controversy here in the U. S. and abroad. Public opinion about the war ranges all the way from “This is a just war worth winning” to “This war is an evil act of aggression, and the U. S. should pull out of Iraq now.” In other words, opinions range all the way from totally serious to totally not serious.

Unfortunately, it appears that the man who was once hailed as the most trusted man in America has joined the ranks of the decidedly not serious. Walter Cronkite, former CBS anchorman, delivered these remarks just yesterday to a group of reporters in Pasadena, California:

“We had an opportunity to say to the world and Iraqis after the hurricane disaster that Mother Nature has not treated us well and we find ourselves terribly missing in the amount of money it takes to help these poor people out of their homeless situation, to help rebuild some of our important cities of the United States, and therefore we are going to have to bring our troops home . . . We would have been able to retire with honor . . . We've done everything we can. We're going to have to leave it with [the Iraqis] someday, and it is my belief that we should get out now” (source, source).

Apparently, Cronkite has taken leave of himself (and common sense). If the U. S. were to retreat from Iraq now, it would leave pro-democracy Iraqis in a lurch, the country would likely descend into civil war, and the region would be even more destabilized than it was before the U. S. went in. Moreover, not only would it be immoral to make up a lie about the Hurricane being the cause of the withdrawal, it would also project weakness to all our enemies who would then think that the U. S. can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.

So my question to Cronkite is this: How in the world can it be considered honorable or safe to tuck tail, run, and then make up a lie to explain why the country chooses to lose the war? If that’s what honor is to Cronkite, then someone needs to tell him that that’s not the way it is.

Peggy Noonan on the Confirmation Hearings

2006-01-12T07:27:00.000-08:00

I look forward every week to Peggy Noonan’s column in The Wall Street Journal, and her piece this morning is a gem. Today she decided to lampoon the outlandish senators and their preposterous grand-standing in the confirmation hearings of Judge Alito. My favorite part of the article is when she begins channeling Senator Biden of Delaware, who is notorious for patronizing, self-aggrandizing speeches that do not stay on topic. Here’s the kind of “question” that Biden so often “asks” according to Noonan:

What if a fella--I'm just hypothesizing here, Judge Alito--what if a fella said, "Well I don't want to hire you because I don't like the kind of eyeglasses you wear," or something like that. Follow my thinking here. Or what if he says "I won't hire you because I don't like it that you wear black silk stockings and a garter belt. And your name is Fred." Strike that--just joking, trying to lighten this thing up, we can all be too serious. Every 10 years when you see me at one of these hearings I am different from every other member of Judiciary in that I have more hair than the last time. You know why? It's all the activity in my brain! It breaks through my skull and nourishes my follicles with exciting nutrients! Try to follow me.

What a hoot!

“Biden His Time: Judge Alito's low-affect tour de force” – by Peggy Noonan

The New York Times Blames President Bush for the Mining Disaster!

2006-01-11T07:35:00.000-08:00

I can’t believe it. Someone has found a way to blame President Bush for the mining disaster in West Virginia last week. Who better to make such a charge than one of the usual suspects, the editors at The New York Times? Here’s the money-line:

The pro-company bias of the administration is itself a factor deserving full investigation if the inquiries now being promised are to have any credible effect.

The editorial is titled “Lost Time, Lost Lives in the Mine.”

Review of Bart Ehrman's 'Misquoting Jesus'

2006-01-11T06:24:00.000-08:00

Bart D. Ehrman. Misquoting Jesus: The Story behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. HarperSanFrancisco, 2005. 242pp. $24.95.

It’s not often that a heady subject like Text Criticism (TC) receives airtime in the popular media, but the release of Bart Ehrman’s new book Misquoting Jesus: The Story behind Who Changed the Bible and Why has made quite a splash. Since its publication late last year, he has been interviewed twice on NPR to talk about his book—once by Diane Rehm and once by Terry Gross. This attention is not surprising given the success of his popular lectures for The Teaching Company and the fact that his many writings have distinguished him as a leading expert in the field of TC.

Ehrman, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, has a knack for provocative writing that appeals to a broad audience. He also possesses the unique ability to simplify complicated subjects for readers who are not specialists. His stated aim in this book is to introduce the layperson to the discipline of TC (p. 15), which he defines as the science of restoring the “original” words of the biblical text from manuscripts that have altered them (p. 5). Though Misquoting Jesus is written for a popular audience, its conclusions are based on serious scholarship, especially his book The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture (Oxford University Press, 1993).

OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK

For the most part, Chapters 1-5 comprise a straightforward introduction to the discipline of TC. Chapter 1 discusses the “bookish character” of Christianity, including a basic introduction to the kinds of literature that shaped early Christianity. Chapter 2 gives an overview of how texts were copied in the ancient world in general and in the Christian communities in particular. He observes that the copyists of Christian scripture often made changes as they copied manuscripts with the result that surviving copies of the New Testament vary from one another (p. 69). Chapter 3 surveys some important ancient manuscripts and published editions of the New Testament, while also discussing the kinds of changes that early scribes made in their copies of New Testament texts. Chapter 4 traces key developments and players in the discipline of TC from the 17th century all the way through to the watershed work of B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort. Chapter 5 summarizes modern methods of TC and applies those insights to three texts having to do with Jesus.

In Chapters 6-7 Ehrman argues that early Christian scribes changed the texts they copied in order to make the biblical text conform to their own theological and social agendas. Chapter 6 alleges that scribes modified their texts for theological reasons. Oftentimes, the changes reflect which side the scribes were taking in the theological disputes of their day. Ehrman argues that the changes favor the orthodox tradition. Chapter 7 claims that scribes who were not satisfied with the words of the New Testament changed those words to make them more forcefully oppose women, Jews, and pagans.

One of the reasons that Misquoting Jesus is such a compelling read is that Ehrman frames his entire argument (Introduction and Conclusion) in the narrative of his own journey of faith—a journey that moves from passionate evangelical conviction to settled unbelief. From his days as a newly minted born again Christian, to his studies at Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College, to his terminal degree at Princeton, Ehrman explains how TC provides the “key” to his “own autobiography” (p. 1).

This autobiography proves to be the key to understanding why Ehrman seems to be on a mission to demolish the doctrines of biblical inspiration and inerrancy. He wants to convince readers that “there are clear reasons for thinking that, in fact, the Bible is not this kind of inerrant guide to our lives” (p. 14). In Ehrman’s own life, the undoing of inerrancy resulted in the undoing of his Christianity, and it appears that he wants to convince his readers to follow him down the path of skepticism.

CRITIQUE OF EHRMAN’S POLEMICS

Unfortunately, Ehrman’s polemical goal of discrediting inerrancy is often at odds with the stated goal of his book—to introduce the discipline of text criticism to a lay audience (p. 15). Ehrman includes discussions that are potentially misleading to the reader who is being exposed to the discipline for the first time.

For instance, in his discussion of the difficulty of nailing down the “original” text of the New Testament (p. 58), Ehrman introduces some of the conjectures of higher criticism in a way that is not relevant to the tasks and methods of textual criticism. In his discussion of John’s Gospel, he makes assertions about the shape of the “original” text of John that have nothing to do with the manuscript tradition per se, but with speculations that critical scholars have made about sources that the author of the Fourth Gospel might have used in writing his Gospel (pp. 60-62).

Specialists know that there is no manuscript evidence for such sources. The sources he refers to are purely hypothetical. The entire discussion confuses the reader with respect to the definition of TC. TC concerns itself with concrete data—extant manuscripts—and what that data can tell us about the original form of a text. Scholarly hypotheses about what sources went into the production of a given work may be interesting, but they should never be confused with TC.

Ehrman’s discussion of Galatians dips into the same error when he speculates about whether Paul’s amanuensis changed his words (pp. 58-60). Technically speaking, such a question has no bearing on the task of TC. The only changes that have any bearing on the task of TC are those that occur after the penning of the original text. In other words, pre-production of texts is the domain of higher criticism while post-production (copying) is the domain of text criticism. Even though Ehrman is clearly aware of this difference (“The task of the textual critic is to determine what the earliest form of the text is,” pp. 62-63), the distinction between the disciplines is likely lost on the lay reader.

It is precisely in these kinds of ways that Ehrman’s ax-grinding leads the reader astray. Speculations about errors in the pre-production of manuscripts help the theological point that he wants to make about inerrancy—namely, that inerrancy is a farce. Although such conjectures may be relevant insofar as they help us to understand Ehrman’s own spiritual journey, they are not relevant for the lay reader who is trying to understand how text critics make their decisions about what reading is most likely to be “original.” This kind of a discussion leads the unsuspecting reader into thinking that TC itself somehow opposes the doctrine of inspiration.

Throughout the book, Ehrman’s argument against inerrancy is a simple non sequitur. It goes something like this: We don’t have the original manuscripts, and the copies that we do have alter the texts they were copied from. Therefore, the doctrine of inerrancy is fallacious on its face. Yet the debate about inerrancy has nothing to do with either of the two premises of Ehrman’s argument. As far as TC is concerned, the debate is about whether the science of TC can reconstruct with a level of accuracy the original form of the New Testament. Ehrman is cynical about that, but I daresay that the vast majority of specialists are not.

Thus, it does not follow from variations in the textual tradition of the New Testament that the Bible is an unreliable document. Ehrman speaks as if Evangelicals have never heard of these variants and that if they only knew the truth they would join him in his skepticism. This particular aspect of the book is ironic, given that he admits that his Evangelical teachers at Moody Bible Institute were the very ones who alerted him to the existence of such variations (pp. 4-5)!

There is another controversial claim in the book worth noting. Ehrman suggests a manipulation of the manuscript tradition of the New Testament that would require a conspiracy of DaVinci-Code proportions to pull off. As I stated above, Ehrman believes that many scribes in the orthodox tradition of Christianity were actively trying to change the scriptures so as to make them more hostile towards women. Whereas Jesus affirmed equality of the sexes, the scribes promoted misogynism and were consciously changing their text to make it fit their view. One senses that this alleged scribal tendency grates against Ehrman’s own egalitarian sensibilities.

In Chapter 7, this line of argument comes to a head in his treatment of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. He adopts the view that these verses do not belong to Paul’s original text but were added by a later scribe “who was concerned to emphasize that women should have no public role in the church, that they should be silent and subservient to their husbands.” Nevermind the possibility that such an opinion might actually have been Paul’s view. And nevermind the fact that all our best and most ancient manuscripts contain these verses. Against the hard external evidence, if Ehrman had his way, these verses would be dropped from our Bibles altogether. In this case, ironically, it appears that Ehrman is the one making theologically motivated changes to the text.

CONCLUSION AND EVALUATION

Misquoting Jesus contains a good introduction to text criticism, a subject that has heretofore been almost exclusively the domain of specialists. Ehrman proves he is adept at communicating difficult material to a lay audience and, provocateur that he is, he engages the reader in his topic. Nevertheless, his polemical goal muddles his presentation at numerous points.

In advocating the view that the Bible is not inerrant, he overstates the link between variations in the copies and the Evangelical doctrine of inspiration. For this reason, even the careful reader will find it difficult to distinguish the substance from the advocacy. The value of this book is diminished significantly by the omnipresent need to sift the evidentiary wheat from the tendentious chaff.

Bird Flu: How Deadly Is It?

2006-01-11T06:23:00.000-08:00

I wrote in October that the biggest story of the year might be the possible outbreak of a flu pandemic. According to The New York Times, I and many others may have been sounding the alarm too quickly. Here’s an excerpt from the Time's article:

Two young brothers, ages 4 and 5, who have tested positive for the dreaded A(H5N1) avian virus but shown no symptoms of the disease were being closely watched at Kecioren Hospital here on Tuesday. Doctors are unsure whether they are for the first time seeing human bird flu in its earliest stages or if they are discovering that infection with the A(H5N1) virus does not always lead to illness.

In any case, the highly unusual cluster of five cases detected here in Turkey's capital over the last three days - all traceable to contact with sick birds - is challenging some of the doctors' assumptions about bird flu and giving them new insights into how it spreads and causes disease. Since none of the five have died, it is raising the possibility that human bird flu is not as deadly as currently thought, and that many mild cases in Asian countries may have gone unreported.

Here is at least one instance in which I will be thrilled to find out that I was wrong. Update: There’s an editorial today on this topic in The Washington Post: “Bird Flu Harbingers.”

Please Pat, We Don't Need Anymore Help (part 2)

2006-01-08T20:49:00.000-08:00

Photo: Jamie-Andrea Yanak/Associated Press

Pat Robertson has stepped in it all over again this week with his pronouncement that Ariel Sharon’s illness is a judgment from God. The Washington Post reports:

“Sharon was personally a very likable person, and I am sad to see him in this condition, but I think we need to look at the Bible and the Book of Joel. The prophet Joel makes it very clear that God has enmity against those who ‘divide my land,’” Robertson said.

Sharon was “dividing God’s land, and I would say: Woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the E.U. [European Union], the United Nations or the United States of America,” the 75-year-old Baptist minister said.

Last August Robertson recommended that the U.S. government should stage a covert action to assassinate Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, (source). Last November he suggested that disaster may strike Dover, PA because they voted God out of their city by ousting school board members who favored teaching intelligent design (source). Now he has come out with these latest remarks that actually combine the errors of his two previous gaffes.

He is doing this so often now that I don’t have time to respond to them all. For a response to this newest blunder, see my immediately preceding post and “Please Pat, We Don't Need Anymore Help (part 1).”

Need Christ? Not if you are Jewish.

2006-01-08T20:22:00.000-08:00

Today’s Washington Post observes the widespread support for Israel and for Jews among evangelical Christians. The piece is titled, “Among Evangelicals, A Kinship With Jews.” The paper quotes excerpts from an interview with Mark Noll that should raise the eyebrows of anyone who cares about the gospel.

Mark A. Noll, a professor of Christian thought at Wheaton College, a center of evangelical scholarship in Illinois, said evangelicals are beginning to move away from supersessionism -- the centuries-old belief that with the coming of Jesus, God ended his covenant with the Jews and transferred it to the Christian church.

Since the 1960s, the Roman Catholic Church and some Protestant denominations have renounced supersessionism and stressed their belief that the covenant between God and the Jewish people remains in effect.

Evangelicals generally have not taken that step, but ‘among what you might call the evangelical intelligentsia, questions of supersessionism have come onto the table,’ Noll said. “It’s in play among evangelicals in the way that it was in mainline Protestantism and Catholicism -- but wasn’t among evangelicals -- 30 or 40 years ago.”

What Noll refers to here is not the belief among many evangelicals that there will be widespread conversion of Jews to Christ at some point in the future (along the lines of Romans 11:26). What Noll refers to is the idea that the Jews have a favored status with God apart from Jesus. This favored status consists in their election by God to be in covenant with him—a covenant that God made with the patriarchs all the way back in Genesis beginning with Abraham.

This idea has been popular among mainline Protestant for some time, and it holds that God’s promises to bless Israel are still in effect for the Jews even though the Jews by and large do not embrace Jesus as their Messiah. In other words, because of the covenant with Abraham, the Jews can have salvation apart from faith in Jesus the Messiah. The shocking thing that Noll brings forth is how this idea is making inroads among the “intelligentsia” of evangelicalism.

But what Noll doesn’t address is the somewhat ironic fact that many conservative evangelicals, who would otherwise affirm that there is no salvation apart from faith in Jesus the Messiah, make the claim that non-Christian Jews have a favored status with God even though they do not embrace Jesus as their Messiah. This is in fact what the Post article is all about. These sentiments characterize the remarks of a Southern Baptist pastor who was interviewed:

“I feel jealous sometimes. This term that keeps coming up in the Old Book -- the Chosen, the Chosen,” says the minister, who has made three trips to Israel and named his sons Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. “I’m a pardoned gentile, but I’m not one of the Chosen People. They’re the apple of his eye.”

Comments such as these are unfortunate because they actually detract from the central truth that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, and all the blessings of the covenant with Abraham can only be obtained through faith in Jesus. The blessings of the covenant only come to those who believe in the crucified and risen Messiah, and any Jewish person who does not believe in this Messiah has broken the covenant and is liable to judgment. If one wants to drink from the rich root of Israel (Romans 11:17), they must do so by faith in Jesus the Messiah.

These Gospel truths have a profound impact on how Christians should feel about the middle-east conflict today. The secular state of Israel today may not claim a present divine right to the Land as long as they reject the Messiah and are thereby covenant breakers. Until the mass of Jews convert their allegiance to Jesus the Messiah, God will not bless them according to the terms of the covenant. That is why every evangelical who anticipates a “future for Israel” in the Holy Land also anticipates a mass conversion of the Jews before that blessing comes. So even traditional dispensationalists are inconsistent when they claim that the Jews have a right to the land now.

This does not mean, however, that there are no reasons to be supportive of the secular state of Israel. It is the only democracy in the region (Iraq, nothwithstanding). You will hear me from time to time expressing support for Israel on this basis because I think democracies promote justice. But I will never argue that God is obligated to bless anyone apart from Christ. That idea simply does not appear in the Scriptures anywhere.

For more on this topic, I recommend John Piper’s sermon “Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East.”

N. T. Wright's "Paul: In Fresh Perspective"

2006-01-07T22:00:00.000-08:00

N. T. Wright. Paul: In Fresh Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005. 195pp. $25.00.

In many ways, there is not much that is “fresh” about N. T. Wright’s Paul: In Fresh Perspective. The book consists largely of a rehashing of material that he has already written about elsewhere. Wright acknowledges this fact in the preface where he states that the current work develops themes from three of his previous writings on Paul: What Saint Paul Really Said (Eerdmans, 1997), The Climax of the Covenant (T. & T. Clark, 1992), and his commentary on Romans in the New Interpreters Bible (Abingdon, 2003). Wright is not so much attempting to break new ground in this work, but rather he intends for it to stand as a pointer to a fuller treatment of Paul that will form volume IV of his series “Christian Origins and the Question of God” (p. xi).

The book divides into two parts that broadly define the direction of Wright’s thinking on Paul. In part one, “Themes,” Wright’s introductory chapter locates Paul in his own historical setting. According to Wright, Paul was a man shaped by “three worlds” plus one: Second-Temple Judaism, Hellenistic Culture, the Roman Empire, and the church. In this chapter, Wright also reaffirms his commitment to the so-called “new perspective” on Paul. The remainder of part one is taken up with three dyads that according to Wright form the matrices from which Pauline theology develops: Creation and Covenant (chapter 2), Messiah and Apocalyptic (chapter 3), and Gospel and Empire (chapter 4).

In the first three chapters of part two, “Structures,” Wright offers a sketch of the shape of Paul’s theology (p. 83). Because Wright finds the familiar topics of Reformation soteriology an inadequate framework in which to understand Paul (p. 83), he suggests that Paul is best interpreted within the framework of what the Jews of Paul’s day believed. The structure of second-temple Jewish faith had three tiers: monotheism, election, and eschatology. For Wright, “Paul’s thought can best be understood, not as an abandonment of this framework, but as his redefinition of it around the Messiah and the Spirit” (p. 84). For this reason, Wright’s argument proceeds by explaining Paul’s rethinking of God in chapter 5, his reworking of God’s people in chapter 6, and his reimagining of God’s future in chapter 7. The concluding chapter of the book takes up the difficult question of how Paul’s gospel relates to that proclaimed by the Jesus of the canonical Gospels, how Paul conceived of his apostolic task, and how Paul informs our understanding of the task of the church in the present day.

In this book, Wright has made his case once again that Paul cannot be properly interpreted apart from his historical context. Wright does not argue that Paul merely mirrors the philosophical and theological premises of his Jewish and Greco-Roman background. Rather, he shows that Paul both agrees and disagrees at significant points with both. This fact enables Paul to be both thoroughly Jewish and Roman, while at the same time confronting both with his gospel. This reviewer looks forward to seeing how the details of this approach will work out in his forthcoming volume on Paul in “Christian Origins and the Question of God.”

Yet even for all of his learned explication of Pauline theology, Wright’s exegesis in this book leaves much to be desired. Rather, I should say, that the exegesis is nearly non-existent. Rather than getting bogged down in the details of careful exegetical work, Wright is constantly referring the reader to his former works on Paul. These notices come up so often, that one wonders why Wright has chosen to write this volume at all.

Nevertheless, one theme that Wright returns to time and again appears to be at least one “fresh” emphasis on his part. In chapter 4 in particular, Wright argues that Paul’s gospel contained “echoes” of the rhetoric of imperial Rome. The upshot of this observation is that Paul thought that his message offered a direct political challenge to the dominant world power of his day—the Roman Empire. This so-called “fresh perspective” on Paul argues that the unveiling of the Messiah as Israel’s king and the world’s true Lord challenges the grand claims of pagan empire (p. 40). This means that, for Paul, to confess Jesus as Messiah is to confess that “Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not” (p. 69; cf. 58).

This much of Wright’s proposal is not controversial. Even the most traditional readings of Paul recognize that his gospel makes Jesus out to be the King of kings, and Lord of lords. Most interpreters would probably agree that there are no political or spiritual rivals to the kingship and lordship of Jesus in Paul’s theology.

What is truly “fresh” about this perspective is the implication that Wright derives from this reading of Paul. It means first of all that Paul’s gospel calls Christians to oppose political entities that make claims to empire and world domination. Wright even hints (via Richard Horsley) that this message of Paul offers a special critique of “today’s monolithic American empire” and that this emphasis should not be dismissed “as a mere leftie fad” (p. 16). Given Wright’s open and frequent critique of American foreign policy elsewhere, this particular application of Paul’s gospel will likely prove to be very controversial.

This book is to be recommended to anyone who wishes to get an overview of Wright’s thinking on Paul. It summarizes the work that Wright has done on Paul up to this point and gives a little bit of a hint as to where he will be going in the future. For anyone who has already been reading Wright’s work, there is not much more here that is not already covered in Wright’s other books. Nevertheless, the book does pique one’s interest in what trails Wright might be blazing in his forthcoming volume on Paul.

John Piper and Cancer

2006-01-06T08:04:00.000-08:00

John Piper has written a letter announcing that he has prostate cancer. The letter is available here on the Desiring God website. Those of you who read my blog know how much I love Dr. Piper and how important his ministry has been in my life. I hope you might be willing to join me in praying for him, his church, and his family.

USC Dynasty? Give me a break!

2006-01-05T13:39:00.000-08:00

Can someone tell me how a USC win in the Rose Bowl would have been a three-pete? People seem to be forgetting who won the 2004 championship. Great game, Texas! Geaux Tigers! HT: Ray Bowman

Who’s Dodging a Judicial Philosophy?

2006-01-04T22:25:00.000-08:00

Stephen L. Carter of Christianity Today expresses a bit of cynicism concerning evangelicals who hold to Originalism as a judicial philosophy (see “The ‘Judicial Philosophy’ Dodge”). He thinks the very notion of having a judicial philosophy is a “slippery” business at best. All the talk about opposing judges who “legislate from the bench” and supporting judges who interpret the Constitution according to “original intent” is just code for one’s position on abortion. For Carter, the popular distinction between Originalism and the “Living Constitution” approach is nonsense—“not merely nonsense, but nonsense on stilts.”

Carter may be correct that some evangelicals support justices based on outcomes and not based on actual judicial philosophy. But this is a far cry from saying that the distinction between Originalism and the “Living Constitution” approach is nonsense. Carter is not giving enough credit to those of us who really do hold to a consistent Originalist philosophy and who see the deconstruction of traditional texts to be one of the central threats to morality and justice in our society. For us, original intent is more than just a “catchy phrase.” It is the only moral way to interpret texts (see Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text?).

I’m a bit at a loss to understand where Carter is going in this piece. Ostensibly, he is trying to show that both liberals and conservatives can be disingenuous in their taking up the mantle of a judicial philosophy. Yet, both of the (somewhat strange) hypothetical scenarios he dreams up to make his point seem to be directed against those who hold conservative political views. It makes him sound like one of those “above-the-fray” types who take up the rhetoric of critiquing both sides but end up just criticizing the conservatives (think Jim Wallis, and all major media outlets).

Carter’s opinion on Bush v. Gore also makes me wonder where he is coming from. He writes, “Yet it is not only liberals who hand down results that seem inexplicable except as exercises of arbitrary will. As I have mentioned in these pages before, the Supreme Court's 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore certainly seems cut from the same cloth.” Here, Carter echoes the rhetoric of every left to center-left politician who has every complained about the results of the 2000 Presidential election. Not only is he tipping his hand with respect to his politics, but he’s also missed the logic of Bush v. Gore.

If he thinks that Bush v. Gore is a trouncing of the original intent of the Constitution, then he doesn’t understand Bush v. Gore. Contrary to popular misconception, the decision in that case was not just a willy-nilly vote among nine justices on who they think should be President (with President Bush edging out Gore 5-4). Gore was suing to have ballots recounted only in counties where he thought he could uncover some more votes. This of course means that ballots cast in Democrat-filled counties would have been given more careful consideration than ballots in other counties. This was obviously a violation of the “equal protection” clause of the fourteenth amendment. Seven of the nine Justices recognized this violation and said so in their opinions. Only five of the seven could agree on how to address the violation, and that was to stop the recount in the Democrat-filled districts. If Gore would have sued for a statewide recount, there likely would not have been a fourteenth amendment violation.

But I digress . . .

My main point is that Carter’s piece is off base. He needs to give us Originalists a little more credit.

Bethlehem Withdraws the Motion to Accept Unbaptized Persons as Members

2006-01-04T15:42:00.000-08:00

For those of you who read my blog, you may remember my two previous posts on the elders at John Piper’s church who were proposing that certain unbaptized persons be accepted into their fellowship as members (read them here and here). You may also remember my post in December in which I disagreed with this decision on the part of the elders (read it here). I am happy to learn that the elders have withdrawn the motion (click here to read the notice on the church’s website).

Bethlehem still needs our prayers, however, as the issue is still not resolved. This is evident in the statement posted on the church’s website:

The elders realize that the issue cannot be dropped because the majority of the elders still favor the motion, including almost all the pastoral staff, and because that conviction puts most of the elders and staff in conflict with at lease one literal reading of the Bethlehem Affirmation of Faith.

This puts the majority of the elders (including John Piper) in the position of being in disagreement with the doctrinal statement that they are duty-bound to uphold. When there is such a conflict as this one, either the doctrinal statement has to change, or the elders have to change. Otherwise, the integrity of the church’s leadership is compromised. It’s evident that the elders don’t want that to happen.

I’m sure the elders who are in disagreement with the statement are wondering how long they can remain elders in good conscience while disagreeing with the church’s doctrinal statement. They have already tried to change the statement, and that didn’t work because it split the elder board. I’m sure they are now pondering and praying about what to do next. I’m going to pray too.

The Incoherence of Darwinism on Display

2006-01-01T14:00:00.000-08:00

Olivia Judson, an evolutionary biologist at Imperial College in London, writes an interesting Op-Ed in today’s New York Times titled, “Why I'm Happy I Evolved.” The essay is interesting because it puts on plain display the incoherence of atheistic Darwinism. She writes:

Some people want to think of humans as the product of a special creation, separate from other living things. I am not among them; I am glad it is not so. I am proud to be part of the riot of nature, to know that the same forces that produced me also produced bees, giant ferns and microbes that live at the bottom of the sea.

It is not at all clear to me how being part of the so-called “riot of nature” provides any significance at all for the human being. In Judson’s worldview, the “forces” that bequeathed to us the “bees” and the “giant ferns” are not intelligent or benevolent, but a random arrangement of materialistic causes and effects. How can merely being a part of this biological morass be a source of pride for any person? It’s all random with no meaning whatsoever according to the Darwinist’s worldview. Judson goes on:

For me, the knowledge that we evolved is a source of solace and hope. I find it a relief that plagues and cancers and wasp larvae that eat caterpillars alive are the result of the impartial - and comprehensible - forces of evolution rather than the caprices of a deity.

How can evolution, which depends on the random mechanisms of chance and time, provide “solace and hope” to any person? What solace is there in knowing that one is nothing more than the sum total of his or her biological matter? What hope is there in the idea that when my biological matter ceases to exist, I cease to exist? The “impartial” forces of evolution grind a person into a meaningless oblivion.

Perhaps Judson’s problem is not so much with the idea of design in nature, but with the idea of a Designer over nature. Why else would she charge the Deity with directing all things by “caprices” and not by a wise and benevolent will? Maybe it is because even she recognizes that not all is right with the world, even though it is being controlled by the “impartial” forces of evolution. She continues:

More than that, I find that in viewing ourselves as one species out of hundreds of millions, we become more remarkable, not less so. No other animal that I have heard of can live so peaceably in such close quarters with so many individuals that are unrelated. No other animal routinely bothers to help the sick and the dying, or tries to save those hurt in an earthquake or flood.

If we are all just cogs in the evolutionary wheel, how is helping the sick and the dying a virtue? Doesn’t the “wonder” of evolution consist in the fact that the fittest survive and the weakest don’t?

There is more here to critique than I have space or time to deal with. The point is that the Darwinist has no leg to stand on when he or she begins to talk about meaning and virtue. Those two things simply cannot exist in their world—if they are to be consistent within their own worldview. As Judson shows in this article, many Darwinists are simply inconsistent.

Yet I am hopeful when I see such inconsistency because I think that it shows that even the most committed materialistic Darwinist cannot get away from the fact that God has set eternity in their hearts and that there is more to this world than just matter, chance, and time. As the apostle Paul writes, “what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made” (Romans 1:19-20).

My hope and prayer for people like Olivia Judson is that their unbelief will collapse under the weight of the inconsistencies of their position and that they will be driven to a true knowledge of the Maker of all things.

The Last Christmas Blog

2006-01-01T09:42:00.000-08:00

Since it is New Year’s Day, I figure there is time for one last holiday post. World Magazine takes an entertaining look at Santa Claus and makes the argument that jolly old St. Nick should be enlisted in the Christian cause. The article is titled, “Slappy holiday: Why not take the Santa Claus tradition a little further?” If you are a theologue, then you will likely find this piece quite amusing.

HT: Carl Miller, the SixPointCalvinist

Deliver Us from Kony

2005-12-31T09:31:00.000-08:00

Christianity Today has run an article on what U.N. officials have called “one of the worst human-rights crises of the past century.” The article is titled “Deliver Us from Kony” and is about the butchery and inhumanity of a guerilla paramilitary group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda. The leader of the LRA is Joseph Kony.

The worst of the LRA’s crimes have been perpetrated against children, whom the LRA routinely kidnaps and forces to serve in their ranks.

Perhaps the greatest atrocity is teaching these children that they spread this carnage by the power of the Holy Spirit to purify the "unrepentant," twisting Christianity into a religion of horror to their victims. It is spiritual warfare at its very worst, and it could not be more satanic. . .

[Warning: The rest of this section contains graphic descriptions of brutality.]

Under threat of death, LRA child soldiers attack villages, shooting and cutting off people's lips, ears, hands, feet, or breasts, at times force-feeding the severed body parts to victims' families. Some cut open the bellies of pregnant women and tear their babies out. Men and women are gang-raped. As a warning to those who might report them to Ugandan authorities, they bore holes in the lips of victims and padlock them shut. Victims are burned alive or beaten to death with machetes and clubs. The murderous task is considered properly executed only when the victim is mutilated beyond recognition and his or her blood spatters the killer's clothing.

CT includes a brief section on what American Christians can do to bring an end to this conflict. What all of us can and should do is pray.

Alito Argued That Roe v. Wade Should Be Overturned

2005-12-23T08:10:00.000-08:00

In a 1985 amicus brief, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito appears to have supported the overruling of Roe v. Wade. The brief reads as follows:

“We should make clear that we disagree with Roe v. Wade and would welcome the opportunity to brief the issue of-whether, and if so to what extent, that decision should be overruled” (“Memorandum,” p. 9).

In spite of all the media ballyhoo, I don’t think this is as big of a story as it’s being made out to be. First of all, when this brief was written, Judge Alito was working as a lawyer for President Reagan and was advocating for a position on behalf of his client. In his confirmation hearings, questioners will not be able to use this brief as if it were an expression of Alito’s personal view. Secondly, since when is it illegal for a Judge or a lawyer to have an opinion on whether a court case was correctly decided? A judge can have such an opinion without prejudicing his hearing of future cases.

Like I said, I don’t think this is that big of a story--or at least it shouldn’t be.

Anti-Bush Bias at the New York Times (So what else is new?)

2005-12-22T19:47:00.000-08:00

Why did the New York Times splash a story about the National Security Agency’s (NSA) secret surveillance program? There appears to be no laws broken (it’s not clear that FISA applies here), and other presidents (like Clinton and Carter) have authorized similar programs in the past. So what was the motivation for the New York Times’s putting forth a story that it has been sitting on for over a year? Why now?

Edward Morrissey of The Weekly Standard has a plausible answer to that question in a story titled “Fit to Print? Neither the Bush administration nor the NSA broke the law, so why did the New York Times break the story?” He writes the following:

SO WHY PUBLISH the story at all? The Washington Post published a behind-the-scenes look at the Times's editorial decision and found a couple of motivations for the decision to dust off the story which had been spiked during the election year. With the Patriot Act up for renewal, the current headlines finally provided a political context that would make the story a blockbuster--not because it describes illegal activity, but because it plays into fears about the rise of Orwellian Big Brother government from the Bush administration. The second impetus to publish came from the upcoming release of James Risen's book, State of War, due to be released in less than a month.

It had to dismay the editors at the Times, then, when an angry President Bush came out the next day, the day after that, and the day after that to take personal responsibility for the NSA effort. Bush called the Risen/Lichtblau bluff. Had there been any scandal, the president would hardly have run in front of a camera to admit to ordering the program. He changed the course of the debate and now has the Times and his other critics backpedaling.

The timing and questionable news value of the story opens the question about the motivation of the Times's editors. Has the Times allowed its anti-Bush bias to warp its judgment so badly that it deliberately undermined a critical part of America's defenses against terrorist attack to try to damage the president?

Bottom line: The New York Times appears to have an anti-Bush bias. I guess there’s nothing new here after all.

Guilt by Association: Intelligent Design on Trial

2005-12-21T10:16:00.000-08:00

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones put Intelligent Design (ID) on trial in the Pennsylvania legal battle over the teaching of evolution in public schools. Judge Jones ruled that the Dover School Board violated the constitution in requiring science teachers to read a brief statement about ID and evolution before teaching about evolution in Dover Public Schools (click here to download the proposed statement). In Judge Jones’s 139-page opinion, he charges that “ID is nothing less than the progeny of creationism” (p. 31). In other words, as far as Judge Jones is concerned, ID is simply creationism in sheep’s clothing. Judge Jones argues that ID has a religious pedigree linking it both to Christian fundamentalism (p. 19) and to scientific creationism (p. 21). These links, among other things, show that the Dover School Board curriculum takes a religious position that violates the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution. This opinion ought to trouble any thinking Christian. Judge Jones did not so much evaluate ID on the basis of its own claims, but on the basis of its association with Christianity. That association consists mainly in the fact that many proponents of ID are themselves Christians. Judge Jones sets the precedent of outlawing any curriculum that can be shown to have been supported by Christians! The logic goes like this: If Christians support it, then it must be religious. If it is religious, then it violates the establishment clause of the U. S. Constitution. On this logic, any idea taught in public schools that can be shown to have been supported by Christians violates the first amendment. What precedent does this set with respect to whether other controversial topics should or should not be included in public school curriculums? For instance, would it not be possible to rule that abstinence-only curriculums violate the first amendment because Christians by and large tend to support such curriculums? This kind of guilt by association without considering the merits of the arguments sets a dangerous precedent indeed. Whether this logic will be applied in other cases remains to be seen. Let’s hope not.

Defeatists Just Don’t Listen (even at the Associated Press!)

2005-12-18T23:06:00.000-08:00

President Bush delivered a great speech tonight—one that was long overdue. He brought the nation up to date on the progress of the war in Iraq, defended his decision to go to Iraq in the first place, and warned about the deadly consequences of pulling out of Iraq before winning the war. He assured the American people, “Not only can we win the war in Iraq—we are winning the war in Iraq.”

The President also directly addressed his critics and political opponents:

I also want to speak to those of you who did not support my decision to send troops to Iraq: I have heard your disagreement, and I know how deeply it is felt. Yet now there are only two options before our country -- victory or defeat. And the need for victory is larger than any president or political party, because the security of our people is in the balance. I do not expect you to support everything I do, but tonight I have a request: Do not give in to despair, and do not give up on this fight for freedom (source).

About two hours after the speech, Ron Fournier of the Associated Press released an “analysis” of the President’s speech. Fournier’s characterization of what the President said was as pitiful a thing as I have ever seen:

After watching his credibility and approval ratings crumble over the course of 2005, President Bush completed a rhetorical shift Sunday night by abandoning his everything-is-OK pitch to Americans and coming clean: He was wrong about the rationale for going to war in Iraq; he underestimated the dangers; the country has suffered "terrible loss"; and the bad news isn't over (source).

Fournier’s summary is a deceptive mischaracterization of what the President said.

The President never said that “he was wrong about the rationale for going to war.” He did say that our troops never found the weapons that he thought they’d find in Iraq. On this point, U. S. intelligence was incorrect. But this is a far cry from saying that the President was wrong about the “rationale” for war.

The main “rationale” for the war was Saddam Hussein’s continued defiance of the United Nations. Security Council resolution 486 was all about Saddam’s refusal to verify the dismantling of his pre-1990 WMD stockpiles. Saddam never did comply with this obligation, and this became the legal premise that the President cited for the war in Iraq. Saddam’s defiance of Resolution 486 (and about a dozen others through the 1990’s) had to be dealt with, whether the weapons were really there or not. For more on this point, I have written previously on it here and here.

How Fournier’s piece passes for legitimate analysis is beyond me. Fournier’s “analysis” reads as if it were written by the very “defeatists” that the President was warning us about. What a sad response to a clarion call from the President.

N. T. Wright and American "Imperialism"

2005-12-14T12:46:00.000-08:00

The Wall Street Journal’s OpinionJournal.com has a great piece on N. T. Wright and his influence on American Evangelicalism. It is titled “Reform Party: A British Theologian Takes Another Stab at It.” John Wilson, the author of this piece, argues that N. T. Wright is “the most influential biblical scholar in American evangelical circles today.” According to Wilson, this fact is a great irony because Wright regularly denounces the “imperialism” of U.S. foreign policy—a criticism that most American evangelicals would not agree with.

I am reading N. T. Wright’s new book on Paul as I write, and I intend to post a review of it here when I am finished. For now, let me just say that Wright argues for a “fresh perspective” on the gospel that Paul preached. This “fresh perspective” (not to be confused with the “New Perspective”) includes a realization that one of the chief things that the apostle Paul is doing in his letters is denouncing imperialism. Whether Wright is correct to apply this insight to U. S. foreign policy, I will leave for another post. But if I may tip my hand a little bit, I think it's clear that Wright seems to be indulging in a bit of parallelomania and is probably reading too much Greco-Roman background into Paul.

But, as I said, more on this later.

25 warning signs that you might be obsessing about Calvinism

2005-12-13T06:42:00.000-08:00

Hat tip to Justin Taylor for bringing our attention to this must-read list: “25 warning signs that you might be obsessing about Calvinism.” This list is hilarious, and too painfully true.

I could add some of my own foibles to this list, but there is not enough blog space for that.

John Piper, Bethlehem Baptist Church, and Baptism

2005-12-12T09:43:00.000-08:00

I wrote several months ago about John Piper’s support for a proposal to recognize some paedobaptisms as valid baptisms for members of his church (read here and here). Piper and the other elders of Bethlehem Baptist Church have recommended to the church that they allow

the possibility that a person may become a member who has not been baptized by immersion as a believer but who regards the baptismal ritual he received in infancy not as regenerating, but nevertheless (as with most Presbyterians) in such a way that it would violate his conscience to be baptized as a believer. The elders are proposing that under certain conditions such persons be admitted to full membership (“What the Elders Are Proposing”).

In effect, the new policy being proposed by the elders is that under certain conditions members need not be baptized by immersion after coming to faith. Of course, the change would have to be approved by the congregation before the policy would go into effect.

I totally disagree with this proposal. Yet I understand the desire to have unity with evangelical brothers who are not Baptists. Nevertheless, this proposal seems to me to be without scriptural foundation.

My doctoral supervisor, Tom Schreiner, is the pastor at Clifton Baptist Church in Louisville, KY. He and the elders of his church have sent a letter to the elders of Bethlehem Baptist Church urging them to withdraw this proposed change to Bethlehem Baptist Church’s membership policy. I am in agreement with what Clifton’s elders have written, and I commend the letter to you also for your careful consideration.

[Right click on the following link, and click "save target as"]

Download: “Proposal and Response to the Elders of Bethlehem Baptist Church From The Elders Of Clifton Baptist Church”

Closing Church to Reach the Unchurched

2005-12-10T14:43:00.000-08:00

Many churches across America have announced their plans to be closed on Sunday, December 25. Rachel Zoll of the Associated Press made this news a national story this week in her report, "Some Megachurches Closing for Christmas." At the end of the day, the controversy over the propriety of such a move boils down to a dispute about whether the Bible prescribes Sunday to be observed as the Christian Sabbath. Since no church that I have seen wants to cancel services altogether (most will have Christmas eve services on Saturday), this doesn’t seem to be a question of whether to gather for worship, but when to gather for worship. So the question is this–Can Christians meet for worship on Saturday in lieu of regular Sunday services? The question becomes all the more controversial in light of the fact that the issue of the Sabbath has certainly not been a theological point upon which Evangelical Christians have had consensus. Some observe Sunday as a biblically prescribed Sabbath, and others do not. Yet even if Evangelicals cannot agree on the propriety of observing Sunday as Sabbath, they certainly should agree that the matter ought not be settled by appealing to the preferences of people who aren’t even Christians! Sadly, this kind of agreement does not exist–at least not with those who have a more "seeker-friendly" orientation. As Rachel Zoll reports, a spokeswoman for Willow Creek Community Church said that "If our target and our mission is to reach the unchurched, basically the people who don't go to church, how likely is it that they'll be going to church on Christmas morning?" This is the kind of statement that is common fare among those who have imbibed of the pragmatism of the church growth movement. Yet the notion is wrong-headed on a number of different levels. First, no where does the Scripture teach that the church should conform its worship practices to the darkened opinions of those who do not in fact worship her crucified and risen Lord. The church gathers to worship Jesus Christ, to make much of her Lord, not to bow to the unsanctified whims of those still in need redemption. Second, since when has it ever been the case that the unchurched like to stay away from church on Christmas? Everybody knows that one of the only times the "unchurched" show up to church is on Christmas and Easter! So the spokesperson from Willow Creek has not only missed the point theologically, but also pragmatically. On her own criterion, the stated reason for keeping the church closed doesn’t achieve the goal it intends. Whether churches meet for worship on Sunday or Saturday, may it be this Christmas that the Lord’s people will endeavor to be pleasing in all things to her Lord alone.

Emerging Irony

2005-12-06T23:57:00.000-08:00

The cover story of the most recent issue of Touchstone magazine is about Johnny Cash, and it’s written by Russell Moore. This is an excellent piece, and I highly recommend your reading it.

Scot McKnight, however, does not share my enthusiasm about Moore’s article and has criticized it here. Moore has responded to McKnight’s response here. Now McKnight has responded to Moore’s response to McKnight’s response here.

If that all sounds confusing, then let me sum it up for you. McKnight thinks that people like Moore should have been more supportive of Cash’s Christian conversion about twenty or thirty years ago. For McKnight, supporting Cash now is too little too late.

In other words, the Emergent folks don’t seem to be very tolerant of Moore’s admiration for the sinner Johnny Cash.

How ironic is that?

Richard Hays: An Intellectually Honest Egalitarian

2005-11-30T07:53:00.000-08:00

It has been a great blessing to teach through 1 Corinthians this year in Sunday morning Bible Study at my church in Dallas, TX. This past Sunday I taught on chapter 11:2-16, the passage on “headship” and “head coverings” in the church. In my preparation for teaching, it became abundantly clear that the interpretation of this passage has caused no little controversy among commentators—most of them struggling to reconcile Paul’s apparent patriarchal language with a gospel that they think affirms the current culture’s flattening out of gender distinctions (cf. Galatians 3:28).

In order to resolve this tension, commentators tend to interpret Paul’s language non-patriarchally (i.e. head in v. 3 means “source” not “authority”), thereby removing the clash with texts like Galatians 3:28 and with a culture that is manifestly moving to obliterate gender roles. The unhappy result of such an approach has been the defanging of Paul’s patriarchal vision of the Gospel (for more on patriarchy as Gospel click here). To my mind, this kind of exegesis represents more a caving in to feminist cultural pressure than a faithful exposition of the clear meaning of Paul’s words.

One egalitarian interpreter is an exception to this trend and actually interprets Paul on his own patriarchal terms. In his commentary on 1 Corinthians, Richard Hays of Duke University argues that,

Any honest appraisal of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 will require both teacher and students to confront the patriarchal implications of verses 3 and 7-9. Such implications cannot be explained away by some technical move, such as translating kephalē as “source,” rather than “head,” because the patriarchal assumptions are imbedded in the structure of Paul’s argument (p. 192).

I really do appreciate Hays’s willingness to let Paul’s voice be heard. There is no attempt here to bend Paul’s teaching to conform it to feminist, anti-patriarchal sensibilities. This is remarkable given that Hays is himself an egalitarian when it comes to the role of women in the life of the church (see review of Hays’s Moral Vision of the New Testament).

Yet not everything that Hays argues in his commentary is helpful. Although he recognizes that patriarchy is “imbedded” in Paul’s teaching, he ultimately rejects Paul’s teaching in favor of egalitarianism. Hays thinks that Paul has misinterpreted the creation accounts in Genesis and thus that Paul is in error in what he argues in 1 Corinthians 11:3ff. Hays writes,

There are various possible approaches to this problem . . . we must reconsider how the doctrine of creation might lead us to conclusions about the relation between male and female that are not precisely the same as Paul’s (p. 192).

So Hays is an intellectually honest egalitarian in his willingness to interpret Paul’s meaning on Paul’s own patriarchal terms. Hays is also intellectually honest in acknowledging that Paul’s view is in conflict with Hays’s own egalitarian view.

Yet, I think Hays’s analysis represents what’s at the heart of the evangelical gender debates: whether to accept the Bible’s teaching on its own terms and to submit to its teaching even when it is radically counter-cultural. While Hays is willing to read this text on Paul’s terms, he is not willing to let Paul’s patriarchal vision have any authoritative weight over the Christian’s conscience.

While I appreciate Hays’s willingness to let Paul’s voice be heard, the implicit compromise of biblical authority makes his solution untenable for the Christian who wishes “to live on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

Russell Moore’s ETS Paper: The Best Yet

2005-11-27T17:13:00.000-08:00

The week before Thanksgiving, I attended the 57th Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. Evangelical scholars gather annually at this meeting to present scholarly papers on sundry biblical and theological issues. Out of all the papers and addresses that I have heard over the years, only a very few have stood out to me as particularly good. I have to say that the best paper presentation that I have ever heard at ETS was given at this latest meeting by Russell Moore of Southern Seminary. The paper was titled “After Patriarchy, What? Why Egalitarians Are Winning the Evangelical Gender Debate” and can be accessed here. Not only was Dr. Moore right on target in what he was arguing, but he delivered the paper with passion and conviction (two traits that are sadly lacking in too many ETS paper presentations). Last week, Moore blogged on the post-paper fallout on Touchstone magazine’s blog site. He wrote,

The stakes of the gender debate for all of Christian theology are apparent even at the ETS meeting itself, with egalitarian theologian Alan Padgett arguing for mutual submission between Christ and the church from Ephesians chapter 5. In his presentation, Padgett argued that Jesus "submits" to the church at the cross. Touchstone readers will remember Padgett for his interaction with Touchstone editors in the pages of the magazine over feminine God-language. This proposal assumes that service means submission. The church did not send Jesus on the redemptive mission; the Father did. Jesus everywhere notes that he is freely offering his life in obedience to the Father's mission. Moreover, Jesus in his love for the church refuses to submit to the foundation stones of his church, when they demand that he will never be delivered over to the Romans. Instead, he sets his face like flint toward Jerusalem. That is servant leadership, and that is headship. Stunningly, in his paper presentation Padgett argues that the church's submission to Christ ends at the eschaton. This is sub-Christian at best; Canaanite at worst. An article about the Padgett presentation can be accessed here. If this is where evangelical feminism is going, it is clear that the movement is even more self-consciously more feminist than evangelical; more egalitarian than Christian.

Download and read Moore’s paper. You will be glad that you did. FYI-postscript: My very favorite plenary address was delivered by John Piper at the 1998 meeting, and it was titled “Training the Next Generation of Evangelical Pastors and Missionaries.” My second favorite plenary address was at last year’s meeting, and it was delivered by R. Albert Mohler: “Truth and Contemporary Culture.”

Bush Knew That There Was No Connection between Iraq and 9-11

2005-11-26T06:21:00.000-08:00

A story in the National Journal claims that President Bush knew ten days after 9-11 that there was no connection between Iraq and the attacks of 9-11. My response: big fat hairy deal!

This little tidbit of information would be important if the administration had ever claimed that Iraq was somehow directly involved in the 9-11 attacks, but neither the President nor the Vice-President ever said any such thing. Anyone who claims that the administration did make such a claim participates in cynical historical revisionism.

I wrote pretty extensively on this subject before the presidential election of 2004 (click here to read “Making a Staw-man out of the President’s Iraq Policy”). The Democrats were regularly making the claim that the Bush administration had lied to the American public by telling them that Iraq participated in the attacks of 9-11. I argued in 2004, and I argue now that no one can find any statement by any administration official to the effect that Iraq was directly behind the 9-11 attacks. To accuse the Bush administration of making such a claim is a dishonest rewriting of how the Iraq war began.

In the 2004 Vice-Presedential debate, John Edwards made this false charge against Vice-President Cheney. John Edwards said, “Listen carefully to what the vice president is saying. Because there is no connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of September 11th -- period. The 9/11 Commission has said that's true. Colin Powell has said it's true. But the vice president keeps suggesting that there is” (source).

Yet the Vice-President’s response to Edward’s charge was very clear: “The senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11, but there's clearly an established Iraqi track record with terror” (source).

So this article in the National Journal does not present anything new. The story resurrects a red herring that’s at least a year old. My guess is that the people who followed the red herring then will be more than eager to follow it now. Unfortunately, the group of gullible followers includes many mainstream media outlets. What a shame.

Questions about the Safety of the Abortion Pill

2005-11-23T05:23:00.000-08:00

In today’s New York Times:

Federal drug regulators have discovered that all four women in this country who died after taking an abortion pill [RU-486] suffered from a rare and highly lethal bacterial infection, a finding that is leading to new scrutiny of the drug's safety. . . Ms. Patterson died seven days after taking Mifeprex. She lived in Livermore, Calif. On Dec. 29, 2003, Vivian Tran, 22, of Costa Mesa, Calif., died six days after taking Mifeprex.On Jan. 14, 2004, Chanelle Bryant, 22, of Pasadena, Calif., died six days after taking Mifeprex. And on May 24, 2005, Oriane Shevin, 34, of Los Angeles died five days after taking Mifeprex. In each case, Clostridium sordellii infected the women's uteruses, flourished and then entered their bloodstreams. The bacterium can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and weakness but may not induce fever, so victims often fail to realize how sick they are until it is too late and succumb to toxic shock. Antibiotics are often ineffective once an infection has flourished because even in death, the bacteria release toxins.

Vice-President Cheney Makes the Case

2005-11-22T07:01:00.000-08:00

Photo Credit: Associated Press In a speech yesterday, Vice-President Dick Cheney made the “two plank” WMD argument that I talked about in a previous post. Here is the relevant excerpt from the Vice-President’s speech (the parts in brackets are mine):

[1st Plank] Although our coalition has not found WMD stockpiles in Iraq, I repeat that we never had the burden of proof; Saddam Hussein did. [2nd Plank] We operated on the best available intelligence gathered over a period of years and within a totalitarian society ruled by fear and secret police.

What this part of Cheny’s speech illustrates is that the Bush Administration’s WMD argument for the war had two planks. First, the administration argued that Iraq had failed to verify the destruction of its pre-1990 WMD stockpiles in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions. Second, the administration argued that it had intelligence that indicated that Iraq was seeking to reconstitute its WMD programs, including is nuclear weapon program. The first plank was a slam dunk. Everyone agreed and still agrees today that Saddam never accounted for all his old WMD stockpiles. Cheney argues that this plank by itself was a sufficient casus belli. The second plank is where the intelligence failures come in—failures that Cheney acknowledges “are plain enough in hindsight.” Nevertheless, Cheney is correct to claim that the war was justified on the basis of the first plank alone. The Bush administration needs to re-educate the American public about how it made the case for war in 2002 and early 2003. Vice-President Cheney is right on the mark in arguing that the “burden of proof” was on Saddam Hussein to comply with U.N. resolutions (which he never did). Yet the President himself is going to have to make this case himself if he desires to penetrate popular public opinion.

My ETS Paper

2005-11-19T21:19:00.000-08:00

For those who read my blog, you may think that my only interest is politics. The truth is that following politics is more like a hobby. The thing that I am most serious about is the Bible. Yet most of what I write on biblical studies does not make it to this blog. That’s I why I am happy to share a paper that I presented on Thursday at the 57^th Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. Here’s the link:

“N T Wright, Corinthian Sloganeering, and Paul’s Doctrine of the Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 6,12-20”

This paper is a work in progress. However, I received some good feedback at the meeting and hope to incorporate it into a revision. If any of you readers have any suggestions for improvement, I would highly appreciate hearing them.

Russell Moore’s Review of New Johnny Cash Movie

2005-11-15T15:06:00.000-08:00

One of the things that I love most about Russell Moore is his taste in country music. He is not nearly as much a Dixie-Chick-Keith-Urban country music fan as he is a George-Jones-Loretta-Lynn kind of a fan. He likes the old timey stuff.

That’s why I enjoyed reading his review of the new movie about Johnny Cash. Moore discusses the movie Walk the Line and generally gives it a good review. He also talks about Cash’s conversion which is not featured explicitly in the movie. The last paragraph of the review sums up Moore’s admiration for the late Johnny Cash.

My sons know Johnny Cash quite well because they hear his music around them all the time. My infant son's lullaby each night is a Carter Family song. When they are older, we'll watch Walk the Line. But we'll follow it up with a reminder from Scripture that sums up Johnny and June more than celebrity can ever explain: They loved much for they were forgiven much. There was a Man in Black, not because of a marketing gimmick, but because he understood with lifelong pain what it means to descend into a "Ring of Fire" and to find a Deliverer on the other side.

Read “Walking the Line” by Russell Moore

Tom Schreiner’s New Page

2005-11-13T19:19:00.000-08:00

Dr. Schreiner and I on my graduation day (December 12, 2004)

I am so thankful to have had Dr. Tom Schreiner supervising me in my doctoral work. Throughout my time as his student he pushed me to be an exegete first and to let the scriptures alone have their say. He is an expert in his field, a godly man, and a great pastor to his flock.

That is why I am happy to direct you to his faculty page on Southern Seminary’s website which lists books, articles, book reviews, and editorials that he has written. Go check out his page, and take advantage of the many contributions this great man has made to biblical scholarship.

Tom Schreiner’s Faculty Page

Who Is Lying About Iraq?

2005-11-13T19:18:00.000-08:00

I cannot recommend highly enough Norman Podhoretz’s recent essay “Who Is Lying About Iraq?” (available in html and pdf). It is a singular word of sane analysis among a din of media reporting that merely parrots anti-war talking points. I have been writing about this topic a great deal lately because opponents of the Iraq War have been making hay out of Scooter Libby’s indictment (read here, here, here, and here). They have used the indictment to slander President Bush by claiming he lied in order to dupe the nation into going to war.

The charge is outlandish on its face and is belied by the facts as we know them. The only way for anti-war Democrats and liberals to make such a charge is for them to rewrite the history of how the war began. With the help of the media, they have been able to do just that, with the result that polls are now showing that American support for the war is diminishing.

In this article, Podhoretz makes a good start of reminding us how the war really began and shows how unreasonable it is to conclude that the President had such sinister motives. Even though the facts presented in this essay will be ignored by most of the news reporting you see, you should not ignore them.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

The New York Times Misses the Point Again (probably deliberately)

2005-11-13T08:15:00.000-08:00

I am not surprised at the superficiality of an editorial in today’s New York Times. The editors at the Times are notoriously predictable in their knee-jerk defense of secularist liberal values. Unfortunately, this fact often means that they do not engage the real issues that are at stake in a given debate.

In the editorial “The Democrats and Judge Alito,” the Times once again shows its penchant for missing the point. The gist of the piece argues that “there is reason to believe that Judge Alito could do significant damage to values Democrats have long stood for.” It goes on to complain that “Alito showed as a federal appeals court judge - when he voted to uphold a Pennsylvania law requiring women to inform their husbands before getting an abortion - that abortion rights can be severely diminished even within the framework of Roe. The same thing could be true in other areas.”

In other words, the Times thinks that the Supreme Court exists to promote “values Democrats have long stood for.” This is precisely the point of contention between Republicans and Democrats over the role of the courts. Democrats think that Supreme Court Justices should promote values. Republicans believe that Justices should interpret the Constitution according to the framers original intent.

The editorial urges that “Democrats should put a heavy burden on Judge Alito to show that he would not do damage to the Constitution.” Yet it’s the Democrats who want Justices to bend the Constitution to whatever it is that promotes their values. Alito’s only aim as a Justice would be to apply the Constitution according to the framers’ intent. The only philosophy that “damages” the Constitution is the one that ignores it or distorts it. Yet this is precisely what a Justice would do if the Times had its way.

The Times does not acknowledge this debate. Common sense says that the only proper way to interpret a document is to try and figure out what the author of the document meant when he wrote it. Any mode of interpretation that ignores the author is fraudulent on its face. The Times knows that if Americans learn that liberals embrace justices who will ignore the authors of the Constitution, liberals will lose the debate over judicial philosophy.

Thus, this is a debate that the Times nor the liberals can afford to have.

Please Pat, We Don’t Need Anymore Help!

2005-11-11T21:17:00.000-08:00

Pat Robertson may have single-handedly done more to undermine the Intelligent Design (ID) movement than any of its opponents. After Tuesday’s elections, he made the following remarks about a Pennsylvania town that voted their school board out of office for supporting ID:

I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city. And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there (source).

These comments have two really negative effects. First and foremost, it says to people that their response to ID somehow determines whether or not God will be favorable to them. Such a notion does not prepare the way very well for a Gospel that makes one’s response to Jesus Christ the critical issue. It is possible to embrace ID without embracing the Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified and raised. It would be a tragedy indeed if people began to think that God would be favorably disposed towards them simply because they supported the place of ID in the local public school curriculum. (This is to say nothing of the fact that Jesus Himself indicated that disasters are great occasions for God-ignoring people to consider their ways and repent. See Luke 13:1-5).

Second, thanks to Robertson’s remarks, we can expect that the detractors of ID will have one more reason to regard ID as marginal and fringe. Robertson gave ammunition to critics of ID who have been charging that ID is more a Fundamentalist theological presupposition than it is a plausible theory of the origin of the universe. Intelligent Design is a scientifically and philosophically robust theory—more credible than its detractors have wanted to admit. I’m afraid that Robertson has only reinforced the critics’ skepticism.

Finally, Bush Steps up to the Plate

2005-11-11T12:02:00.000-08:00

Photo: Charles Dharapak/Associated Press President Bush has been mute for far too long about the baseless charges being leveled at him by his political opponents. This silence has been very frustrating for those of us who have supported this president’s war policy. The silence on his part has given the appearance that everything that the critics of the war are saying is true and that there never was any legitimate basis for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Today in a speech marking Veterans Day, the President finally decided to step up to the plate and take a whack at the unfounded allegations that his critics have made against the case he made for the Iraq War. The “money line” from the speech was the following: “It is deeply irresponsible [of the Democrat critics] to rewrite the history of how that war began” (source).

I literally cheered when he said it. Finally, the President made of start of refuting the absolutely ridiculous and groundless accusation that he manipulated intelligence in order to mislead the U.S. into war. Not only did he defend his own policy, but he also drew attention to the hypocrisy of some of his loudest critics.

Many of these critics supported my opponent during the last election, who explained his position to support the resolution in the Congress this way: "When I vote to give the president of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hand is a threat and a grave threat to our security." That's why more then a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power (source).

Of course, he is referring to John Kerry in this remark, and he is absolutely right for doing so. Somehow John Kerry got the anti-war vote in the last election, even though he himself supported the war! That so few of Kerry’s anti-war supporters acknowledged the inconsistency of their position reveals that their opposition to the President’s policy was more about politics than their own principles. I suspect that most of the opposition today is just as unprincipled as it was in the 2004 election.

I have been complaining in this blog about the misleading revisionism that has completely dominated recent public debate about the Iraq war. It’s not just the Democrats who have been misleading the public on this point. The mainstream media have gone right along in fabricating a storyline that has no basis in fact. Bush began retelling what actually happened in today’s speech.

Some Democrats and antiwar critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs. They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein. They know the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing his development and possession of weapons of mass destruction.

The paragraph above is very important. It’s a reminder that the president’s WMD argument was multi-faceted. The war wasn’t based merely on U.S. intelligence estimates about Saddam’s WMD. The legal premise of the war was actually based on Saddam’s defiance of a string of U.N. Security Council resolutions dating back to the first Gulf War. That defiance culminated in his refusal to comply with Security Council resolution 486 in the winter of 2002. This last slap at the U.N. became the legal causus belli (see my previous post on this point). Mainstream media outlets and Democrat critics of the war regularly leave this crucial piece out of the “history” of how the war began.

I am hoping that this is the beginning of a concerted effort by the President to re-educate the American public about how we actually got into this war. For too long the only voices that people have been hearing have been the voices of dissent. The President will go a long way towards winning this war if he can recapture the hearts and minds of Americans. To do that, he will need to give many more speeches like the one he gave today.

Touché, Mr. President!