Can't We All Just Get Along?

The doctrines of grace are divisive. How many times have we heard that when Calvinism comes to church, people are divided? Well, “duh,” the doctrines of grace contradict the naturally synergistic mind of men, and the noetic effects of sin still abide in all of God’s children.

Historically, however, many doctrines have divided. At one time, Trinitarianism was considered “divisive.” For a short period after the Council of Nicea, the Arians had the power in the churches. Athanasius was the troublemaker.

At the time of the Reformation, “Sola Scriptura” was divisive too. How many of those who don’t want us to debate theology (specifically the doctrines of grace and issues related to providence/concurrence) will apply their logic to this issue? Aside from those sympathetic to Rome; I doubt many would do that.

Matt Slick from CARM once wrote:

There is nothing wrong with division per se. The Bible speaks about division in the church in positive and negative light.

1 Cor. 11:18-19, “For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part, I believe it. 19 For there must also be factions among you, in order that those who are approved may have become evident among you.”

1 Cor. 1:10, “Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree, and there be no divisions among you, but you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.”

1 Cor. 11:19 uses the Greek word “haireses” for “factions”. We get the English word heresy from this Greek word. A heresy is a false teaching, something that deviates from orthodoxy. If we see that the Scriptures declare something clearly (orthodoxy), and if someone teaches contrary to that clear teaching, then he or she is teaching heresy.

The Scriptures teach that there is a place for division and that is when opposing teachings that are contrary to sound doctrine. But division can only occur when the truth is known and those who abide with the truth should correct those who do not.

Good words. We need to be careful when we talk about division. It isn’t solely negative. It isn’t solely positive. It’s often a tool. Consider too that sometimes the goal is just to make us long for Christ to come back. The period we call the time of the Judges in Scripture (Judges & Ruth) was, in hindsight, a preparatory period for the nation of Israel. God had planned to give them a king eventually. That king, of course, was to be type of Christ, the archetype. The time of the Judges was, to say the least, more often than not, a dark time. Men did what was right in their own eyes, but God used this to prepare them for a king, and this in turn prepared for Christ. In like manner, conflict and turmoil in the church has been a place for the clarification of doctrine, often in response to error. On the other hand, this process is often cyclical, with a time of relative orthodoxy falling into a downgrade. I wrote about this awhile back when I talked about Jacob Vernet.

I'm personally of the opinion that one of the reasons there is never absolute peace in the Church in any age is to make us long for the return of the Lord. It fits the biblical model, but this isn't about eschatology. It's about what to do in the meantime.

That said, you can draw the circle so tight it becomes a noose around your own neck. Today, in the SBC specifically and in Baptistery in general, I’m seeing issues of “Baptist identity” which occupy relatively low places within the structure of a theological system elevated to controlling principles around which all else must be constructed. This is a model example. Then you have the old "I'm not a Calvinist; I'm a Baptist" statements by Ergun Caner, not to mention a few pastors I know - as if the two are mutually exclusive. I may have more to say about that whole way of thinking in the near future.

For now, however, to answer this question in greater detail, I’d like to point our readers to this text:

Irenicum

Get it. Read it. Make use of it.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Tominthebox

HT: Calvinist Gadfly

No Good Reason To Be An Atheist: Part III - Pragmatism

Pragmatism basically says that we know something is certain if it gives us success in achieving our goals. In reality, pragmatists say “We don’t care about certainty. Certainty is just an intellectual game that’s been played in the history of Western philosophy. We don’t need what’s called epistemological certainty, all we need is success. We need success in building theories that will help us control our environment or achieve the goals that we set for ourselves.” So, let’s say you have epistemological theories X, Y, and Z and it turns out that only theory Y leads to success in what I want to do. If that’s the only one that will give me success or if it leads to more success than Z or X do, relatively speaking, then we prefer theory Y or methodology Y as it would be called for a pragmatist. So we give up the traditional questions of epistemology: “What is truth? What is certainty? How do we know what we know?” We give up those questions in favor of questions such as: “How are we going to get along best in the world? What method is going to gain for us the things we want to gain?” Now, to avoid arbitrariness and question begging, the pragmatist has to necessarily appeal to some external justification for their position, forcing them to go outside of epistemology and do what is called “naturalizing” their procedures to reduce epistemology to another branch of science. This justification for their position must be descriptive in nature claiming that a given agent succeeds in getting to his given goals if he adheres to a given system or method. And there are a number of possibilities. There are those who say that we must naturalize epistemology to psychology. Others say we should naturalize it to biology. Still others say that we ought to naturalize it to sociology. Some say we should naturalize it to anthropology.

Now, the trouble with all of these naturalizing epistemologies, all these pragmatic approaches (which reduce to one branch of descriptive science or another), is that they answer the request for a justification of science by skirting the question. Epistemology is a normative endeavor, it’s not simply a descriptive enterprise that says, “This agent using this method will achieve that goal.” The quest for justification is an evaluative quest just because the alternative goals need to be appreciated as to their respective values. In other words, if you tell me, “Use that method which gives you the best success in accomplishing your goals” then the question becomes, “Well, which goals should I have?” Should they be anthropological, biological, psychological, aesthetic? What are the proper goals in life? The pragmatist forces us to know what the meaning of man, the world, and life is. And yet, if anything, that is the theory that tells us, “All those are silly questions!” And so the pragmatist ends up without justification for knowledge either! And now, you may be saying, “What are we going to do? Nobody has any answers! Look, we have to have certainty. Relativism’s self-refuting, foundationalism is in disrepute, pragmatism ignores the question, so what’s left?” Well, by God’s grace, in part four of this series, I want to briefly offer an alternative, namely, Christian Transcendentalism.

Do Modern People Have Room for the Wrath of God?

Do Modern People Have Room for the Wrath of God?

by Vern Sheridan Poythress

Jan. 17, 2007

How do we think about disasters? On 9/11, disaster struck in the form of plane hijackings, loss of lives, the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, and the damage to the Pentagon. A few years later, a tsunami struck in southern Asia. Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. Some Christians thought that one or more of these disasters were judgments from God. Let me call them the doom-sayers. Other Christians quickly rose and criticized the thought. Let me call them the comforters. This disagreement among Christians raises the question as to how we will interpret the next disaster that strikes.

I am writing as one who believes the Bible. The Bible does indicate that God comprehensively controls the events in the world, including disasters (Lam. 3:37-38; Eph. 1:11; Amos 3:6; Isa. 45:7). That is not the question I wish to discuss. Rather, I want to ask how we are supposed to interpret these disasters.

The comforters, that is the Christians who criticize the idea of judgment, have pointed to several passages. They have pointed out that in Job, Job's friends thought that the disasters that fell on Job must have come on account of his sins. Yet the ending of the Book of Job indicates that the friends were wrong (Job 42:7-9). Jesus' disciples wanted to know whether the man blind from birth had committed some sin that led to his being born blind. Or was it the sin of his parents? Jesus denied both suppositions (John 9:1-3). Some people told Jesus "about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices." Jesus' answer is recorded in Luke 13:1-5:

Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

In the context of modern disasters, the comforters have appealed to these passages in order to make the point that God's ways are inscrutible. In the Bible God provides certain cases where he directly tells us what his purposes were. For instance, 2 Chronicles 36:15-17 and 2 Kings 23:26-27 make it clear that the exile of Judah to Babylon took place because of the people's sins. But unless we have such a statement from God, we cannot see his purposes infallibly. We must not pretend that we can. If we presume to draw quick conclusions, we may find ourselves doing the same thing that Job's friends did.

I agree completely with the main theological point here, namely that God is God and that we are not. His actions in his providential rule are mysterious, and we need to realize that he may have many purposes of which we are unaware.

But there is something peculiar about the way in which the comforters have appealed to Luke 13:1-5. They have appealed to it in order to turn aside the idea that God's judgment was being manifested in the particular disaster at hand. Whether they intended it or not, the practical effect of their argument was largely to assure their audience that the disaster was not after all a judgment, and that we can all be comforted and spiritually put ourselves to rest, knowing that the whole thing is just unaccountable, but in any case has nothing to do with fears concerning God and his judgments and his wrath.

The peculiarity here is that Jesus' words in Luke 13:1-5 actually point in the diametrically opposite direction. Jesus unsettles rather than comforts his audience. According to customary thinking of the time, the Galileans must have been terrible offenders to experience the judgment that fell on them. So the audience think that they can comfort themselves that at least they are not going to experience such a disaster. Jesus overthrows customary thinking by saying that the Galileans were not worse. That is already unsettling. But then he adds an ominous warning, "Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." And, to underline the point, he repeats it with a second illustration concerning the eighteen people killed by the tower of Siloam. Jesus uses both instances to heighten the threat of judgment for his hearers. He accuses them of being guilty and needing repentance, and counsels them that unless they turn to God they will perish.

By contrast, in our modern situation the comforters appeal to Luke 13:1-5 to dismiss judgment. Such use of Luke 13:1-5 is completely one-sided. If someone were to emphasize only the mystery of God's providence, to the point where nothing could be said about the present, then truly nothing could be said. But in fact these comforters are not silent. They are loquacious enough in quoting Job and John 9 and Luke 13:1-5, and they are confident enough that these passages do have a lesson for the present. What lesson? A lesson only of comfort, and never of judgment. But there is plenty of evidence in Scripture that, if we are going to speak to the present at all—which we must do in order to spread the gospel—we need to be ready to speak of judgment and wrath as well as mercy and comfort. We are to do both types of speaking in a biblically-grounded manner. In particular, every disaster is a forerunner of the Last Judgment. It should be used as an occasion to reflect on the transitory character of this life (1 Cor. 7:31), on the fact that God gives us blessings that we do not deserve (Matt. 5:45), and that if we are rebels against him we ourselves deserve the worst of what the victims experienced.

So to speak only a message of comfort and to avoid thoughts of judgment is not only one-sided, but hypocritical. It commits the same error that it imputes to its opponents, namely that it presents an over-simple and unbalanced view of how the Bible's principles apply to the present.

Why then do the comforters use Luke 13:1-5 only for comfort? If we reflect with honesty, some of the reasons are clear enough, but they are not comforting. Christians speak as they do partly to counteract the effects of the doom-sayers whom they criticize. In the context of modern American culture, the dooming-saying brothers give Christianity a bad name. Non-Christians and potential Christians can see their bad motives. They think they can see that the doom-sayers are angry and impatient at the people who do not agree with them, and so in their bitterness the doom-sayers claim that God is on their side. They want God to condemn their opponents or at least teach the opponents a lesson. Or the doom-sayers are trying to scare people with talk of judgment, wrath, and hell-fire, in the Elmer Gantry tradition, in order to manipulate them, get them under their control, and get their money.

Yes, such bad motives do occur, but they are not always there among those who speak about judgment. And God's wrath does not become unreal merely because some people's motives are bad (Rom. 1:18-32).

We must also turn our eyes critically on the broader American culture. The general culture has developed a strong tradition of dismissing all language of judgment, and imputing bad motives to anyone who dares to use such language. In other words, it has developed excuses and spiritual barriers to avoid thinking about the wrath of God. One of the primary barriers is in pop psychology, which says that everyone needs to have high self esteem, and that guilt feelings are to be avoided in order to increase self esteem. People want to avoid thinking about the wrath of God, because if they do they will feel guilty, and that is not only unpleasant in itself, but bad for self esteem and mental health. Accordingly, Christians are seen as a plague on society because they keep bringing up guilt and making people feel bad.

In addition, the politics of tolerance condemns as uncivil anyone who proclaims a message of guilt (because it depreciates the guilty), and who proclaims an absolutist message, such as the message of coming judgment must be (Acts 17:31).

So the comforters who use Luke 13:1-5 to dismiss thoughts of judgment are doing a service to mainstream culture. They are helping the mainstream avoid thoughts of judgment and wrath. And they are also doing a service to themselves, by assuring mainstream culture that they, the thoughtful and sensitive Christians, are tolerant and civil, not like those other mean-spirited Christians. Only by befriending the mainstream will they be able to make positive relationships grow, and at the far end of those relationships they hope to witness to their non-Christian friends concerning the attractiveness of Christ and of the Christian faith. Attractive, yes. But it will be attractive because it has conveniently dispensed with all that is offensive. The real Jesus, by contrast, would be a total "turn-off" to mainstream culture, not only because he speaks of hell-fire, but because he makes hard demands:

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:25-27)

In fact the gospel is two-sided, containing attractions, promises, and benefits on the one hand and offenses, warnings, and serious obligations on the other. We cannot choose just the part that we like.

I think we can draw several lessons from these reflections. First, we repeatedly confront the danger of compromising the Christian faith in an effort to match the cultural norms of tolerance and civility. Second, we are in danger of muting the note of judgment and wrath in the Christian message, because that note is not only unpopular but not tolerated. Third, biblical Christianity is deeply offensive to mainstream modern culture, and we might as well get over as quickly as possible the idea that we can make it palatable. "You will be hated by all for my name's sake" (Luke 21:17).

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Copyright (c) 2007 by Vern Sheridan Poythress.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license can be found at the Free Software Foundation website.

God, Autonomy, and Abortion

INTRODUCTION

They did not destroy the peoples, as the LORD commanded them, but they mingled with the nations and learned their practices, and served their idols, which became a snare to them. They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons, and shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with the blood. Thus they became unclean in their practices, and played the harlot in their deeds. Therefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against His people and He abhorred His inheritance. Then He gave them into the hand of the nations, and those who hated them ruled over them. Their enemies also oppressed them, and they were subdued under their power. Many times He would deliver them; they, however, were rebellious in their counsel, and so sank down in their iniquity.

The Ancient Situation: In Psalm 106:34-43, we read about the progression of the apostasy of the Israelites into deeper and more advanced levels of wickedness as they readily embraced idolatry and the sinful pagan practices of those who originally inhabited the land of Canaan. After the land had been conquered and it was split up between the twelve tribes of Israel, Joshua then commanded them to be faithful to the Lord their God (Josh. 13:1-7; 23:9-11). God had promised them a land wherein they would grow, have prosperity, and worship Yahweh in happiness and tranquility forever should they continue in faithfulness to Him. But instead of being happy with God’s provision for them, and ignoring Joshua’s command for them to remain faithful to the Lord, they intermarried with the wicked Canaanites and adopted their idolatrous forms of worship and putrid form life (Judges 2:1-3). And what does the careful reader of Holy Writ see when perusing the text of Joshua? What is seen is that after Joshua and his generation died, the curse of spiritual death was sticking its grubby fingers deep into the depraved hearts of the unregenerate sons of Israel and as a result, Israel became well-known for her cycles of idolatrous apostasy and high-handed wickedness (cf. Judges 2:6-3:6).

Psalm 106:35-36 tells us that the Israelites were committed to marrying the idolatrous Canaanites by “mingling” with them, “learning their practices” and “serv[ing] their idols.” And so, instead of being faithful to God in destroying this wicked people, they intermarried with them as God had warned them not to do in Exodus 31:11-16,

Be sure to observe what I am commanding you this day: behold, I am going to drive out the Amorite before you, and the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite. ¹² "Watch yourself that you make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, or it will become a snare in your midst. ¹³ "But rather, you are to tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and cut down their Asherim ^{14 -- for you shall not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God-- 15} otherwise you might make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and they would play the harlot with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and someone might invite you to eat of his sacrifice, ¹⁶ and you might take some of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters might play the harlot with their gods and cause your sons also to play the harlot with their gods.[1]

They rejected being faithful to God and instead were faithful in embracing the Canaanite “customs”, customs which became “a snare to them” (v. 36). These “customs” included the worship of the false god Baal, murder of innocent people, and sadly, I believe the depths of depravity into which they sank is most clearly expressed in the cold and calculated practice of ritual child sacrifice upon the altars of false gods. I must remind you that our text says that they “. . . sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons, and shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with the blood.”

Instead of being faithful to God’s Law to avoid the wicked practices of the pagan nations by either driving them out or destroying them, they embraced and wholeheartedly promoted idolatry and the high and putrid sin of child sacrifice[2], thus earning God’s just wrath. The Psalmist declared them as being defiled by their practices (v. 39) and unfit for the worship of Yahweh. Their pagan way of life was a form of spiritual prostitution because they tried to have their cake and eat it too by worshipping Yahweh as well as worshipping statues of man-made gods (cf. Isa. 1:21; Hos. 2:2-13). And so, the land was defiled by the continual, unrepentant sins of the children of Israel (cf. Num. 35:33-34; Isa. 24:5; Jer. 3:1-2, 9), and eventually, after hundreds of years of patiently and lovingly calling them to repentance through the Old Testament prophets, God unleashed wrath through the rod of exile (Ps. 106:27, 40).[3] So what is the root of such rebellion?

The Root of It All: Autonomy: Autonomy means “the quality or state of being self-governing; especially: the right of self-government”[4] or more appropriately for this context, an autonomous person is one “who lives according to his own will.”[5] The modern world of secular humanism tries to remove God from His rightful place as Creator, Sustainer, Law-giver, and divine Governor and in doing so, it has no choice but to make itself god and to create its own morality. What this means is that when man rejects God and His self-revelation as the source of what is objectively true and morally right. And so, it naturally follows that the next highest court of appeal is man himself.

If God is not the standard of what is true and right and beautiful, then I am and you are. And since you and I will eventually disagree on something, the result will be that “might makes right” and everyman does what is right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25). And so, since God has supposedly been evicted from this world, everything from education and media to politics and philosophy will become a battle for power. In the world of the secularist, there can be no quest for objective truth, moral realism, or inherent worth in human beings since there really isn't any. At the end of the day in a secular world, all amounts to a power-struggle that is ruled by the law of the jungle. The law of the jungle says that in a world devoid of God, the one who has the power, defines what is true, what is right, and what is beautiful. And there is no court of appeal in heaven for the weak since man has made a god in his own image, namely himself. And the powerful man renders himself god Almighty or what the atheist existentialist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche liked to call der Ubermensch, that Superman who is the maker of truth, the inventor of what is right, and the definer of what is beautiful. It is no mistake to note that the fruit of autonomous, godless philosophies find their trial of blood widening to become what is known as the bloodiest century in the history of the world - the twentieth century. The bloody carnage left by the unbelieving regimes of such men as Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Slobodan Milosevic, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Mao Tse Tung, Hussein are a mere drop in the ocean of blood spilt through the work of one woman who said things like, “The most merciful thing a large family can do to one of its infant members is to kill it.”[6]

This once, meek and mild schoolgirl, grew to be the illustrious Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, an organization that is well-known as the world’s number one abortion provider. Her plans were to create a new world order, full of those who were selectively bred to be the elite of society, a society of intellectuals and leaders. However, in her desires to create this master race through the biological manipulation of human beings through selective breeding, experimentation, and forced sterilization, caused her to hate the charity organizations of the world, especially those founded upon Christian values. She expressively noted her distaste for those who helped the infirm, diseased, and weak because it slowed down the development of her Eugenic[7] ideals for the world. She said,

The government of the United States deliberately encourages and even makes necessary by its laws the breeding . . . of idiots, defectives, diseased, feeble-minded, and criminal classes. Billions of dollars are expended by our state and federal governments and by private charities and philanthropies for the care, the maintenance, and the perpetuation of these classes. Year by year their numbers are mounting. Year by year more money is expended . . . to maintain an increasing race of morons which threatens the very foundations of our civilization.[8]

In this same book, others also agree with her sentiments,

The dullard, the gawk, the numbskull, the simpleton, the weakling, and the scatterbrain are amongst us in overshadowing numbers – intermarrying, breeding, inordinately prolific, literally threatening to overwhelm the world with their useless and terrifying get.[9]

By creating a master race through forced sterilization of those who were mentally ill (a practice that was carried out in Europe and the U.S.) or by pushing birth prevention and abortion of those deemed “defective” or “unfit to breed” by Planned Parenthood’s standards, their agenda of carrying out the eugenic cleansing the world was well under way. And so, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, and Stalin get the scourge and condemnation of the world, whereas Margaret Sanger, a woman who devised an organization that is responsible for killing more people than all the combined totals of all those who died through the evil regimes of the aforementioned dictators, was praised and endorsed by people like Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, U.S. Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, and ultraconservatives like Barry Goldwater and Margaret Mead.[10] Wicked people, like Margaret Sanger have worked to achieve zero population growth in direct contradiction to what God originally commanded Adam and Eve (Gen. 1:28). And so, the implications of God-dethroning secularism for the evil practice of abortion and genocide are huge, but first let's see how ancient our “modern” secular world really is.

The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; ¹⁷ but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die. Genesis 2:16-17

What was the meaning of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”? Very simply, it represented autonomous independence from God. There is nothing wrong with “the knowledge of God and evil” in itself—Genesis 3:22 says God has it: “Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.'” But it was not meant for man to have it; at least not in the way God had it. But now man had taken it for himself and refused to heed the warning of God, and here we are today fighting against the old man that still resides in our flesh.

So now, in the creation story, to have “the knowledge of good and evil” means to claim the independent right to decide for oneself what is good and evil. It was proper for God to have that, not man, and God knew that if man would defy Him and cut the cord of dependence from Him and claim “the knowledge of good and evil” for himself, then He would die spiritually and suffer eternally devastating consequences. That is why he warned, “Don't eat it. It will kill you.”

Indeed it did cost Adam, Eve, and all their progeny, in more ways than we know. It “killed” them then and it is still killing us now - spiritually and physically. All death is rooted in this first rebellion. You can see the recipe for this rebellion beginning in the satanic temptation and fall in Genesis 3:1ff.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden '?" ² The woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; ³ but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.'" ⁴ The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die! ⁵ "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Gen. 3:1-5

So, if you choose to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will be saying, “I therefore, from this time onward decide for myself what is true and right and beautiful.” The problem is, that is what God is supposed to do, not man. God alone is the source of objective truth, ethical absolutes, and the determiner of what reality is and how it is to be correctly perceived by man. But Satan always contradicts that doesn’t he? God says, “Don’t eat it” and Satan says, “Eat it because God’s holding out on you and deceiving you!” Note the correct interpretation of reality that comes from God’s mouth in Genesis 2:16-17 and then the direct opposition of that interpretation in Genesis 3:4-5! So true and so false; and Satan’s greatest feat was to trick our first parents into thinking that they could determine which worldview was right in and of themselves apart from God’s special revelation. That is sinful autonomy in its first expression and it has killed us. However, God is the flower of truthfulness, moral rightness, and beauty. He has no roots, He needs no water, no sunshine, and no soil. He is absolutely self-sufficient. We are planted in God and find our origination in Him alone and we get all our spiritual water, our spiritual light, and our spiritual nutrition from Him. Yes, we can cut our stem and try to be like him by arrogating that authority to ourselves. But if you cut the stem of a plant from its roots, what happens? It looks green for a while, but immediately it dies and eventually it wilts away. In the same way, when we try to become our own source of life and light and truth and right and beauty, we die.

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked . . . Genesis 3:6-7a

As seen with our first parents, the first result of choosing to be a god is the great gulf fixed between pseudo-appearance and reality. Now that I have chosen to be God, my non-godlike appearance is ridiculous and foolish (Pro. 1:7; 9:10). And we humans have spent centuries with fine clothing (cool clothing), cosmetic make-up, and body-building because we are trying to deceive ourselves into thinking that we somehow look less like the wreckage that we really are without God. The root of shame is the arrogant desire to be a god—the need to look invulnerable, self-sufficient, god-like (or goddess-like). The essence of the fall of Eve and Adam—and all of us in Adam—is the fleeting pleasure we have in being independent, and deciding for ourselves what is true, right, and beautiful, rather than finding supreme pleasure in God as the fountain of all that is true, right, and beautiful. So, if I could sum up human autonomy as it is first displayed in the fall of Genesis 3 it is this: The essence of the fall is preferring to be god rather than enjoying God. And so the modern secular world is very old. It puts on new clothes and takes on new names from century to century. Recently, we have known it as modernism, existentialism, secular humanism, and now postmodernism. But there is a common denominator that they all share: God is dethroned, and the next highest court of appeal for truth and right and beauty is man— finite, fallible, mortal, and sinful man.

It’s truly a shame that I have to present a message like this. The fact that I even have to present a message like this is strong evidence of the rejection of God in our culture in favor of the working of sinful, autonomous man – man, who desires to be his own god rather than enjoy the true God.

We are experiencing a global loathing of childbearing through the practice of abortion so extensively that most of the nations of the world are far below population sustainability, plunging them into economic difficulty. In America alone, we have wiped out approximately 40% of all babies conceived since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. This has been the final solution for over 50 million babies in America alone and over 200 million worldwide. It shows how desperately we reject the principle of man being “made in the image of God” and we repulse at the commandment in which God says, “Do not murder.” The Psalmist said,

Psalm 127:3-5 Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward. ⁴ Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one's youth. ⁵ How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; They will not be ashamed When they speak with their enemies in the gate.

This month, we decry the 34^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, that historic legislation that made abortion legal in the United States, in this same month in 1973. Since then we have killed over 50 million babies and today, a baby is aborted every 20 seconds which computes to > 180 babies per hour and over 4,000 per day. As far as tragedies go, this one is massive as more lives are sacrificed every day in America through abortion, than were killed in the terrorist attacks upon the World Trade Center. How did this happen? Al Mohler, the President of Southern Seminary in Louisville Kentucky said,

Roe v. Wade did not emerge from a vacuum. The inheritors of Christian civilization had been ransacking the culture for decades. Sexuality was celebrated as the driving force of entertainment and popular culture. As spirit of moral rebellion undermined the integrity of marriage and the family, a spirit opposed to all authority suffused the culture with a rebellion against any law that would inhibit personal choice, personal convenience, or personal fulfillment” Al Mohler, in Southern Seminary Magazine, Winter 2002

So, in Dr. Mohler’s quote above, we have the link between abortion and the modern secular world that began in the Garden of Eden nicely summarized in one word; “want” and in two words, “autonomous want.” It is said by those of the pro-death persuasion, “I do not want the child at this time because it would interfere with what I want.” And so the creature despises the Creator, kills His precious, little gifts, thereby showing his rejection of God’s authority over him. Put even more simply: what someone “wants” dictates when someone else dies. This is the heart of the problem. We want to do what we want to do, whenever we want to do it with whomever we want to do it without any consequences or hindrances. This is human depravity beginning in the quiet rebellion of the heart and then looming large in the public square. Now we must move on to discuss how the church must have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, she must expose abortion for what it is – child sacrifice, then we must consider what method the Church must use to rescue those children and those murderous mothers.

THREE PRACTICAL WAYS TO RESPOND TO MODERN CHILD-SACRIFICE

1. The Church must have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness (Eph. 5:11; 2 Cor. 6:14-17).
2. The Church must expose abortion for what it is – child sacrifice (Eph. 5:11b).
3. The Church must rescue the children and the mothers with the gospel (Pro. 24:11-12; Luke 5:31-32).

God leads His church through His Word. This is why we must, in times like these keep a sharp focus on the exposition of scripture. Abortion is evil because the Bible says it is. It is important to remember that when we come to the subject of abortion, we are taken into the area of the authority of God. Pro-abortion advocates are guilty of attempting to overtake God’s authority and replacing it with personal choice all in the name of that one word “want.”

When one studies Ephesians 5:21-24, they learn about headship of the husband. They also learn by comparing that passage with the panoply of Scripture and their practical experience that Satan hates the structure of Biblical order, authority and submission. He also hates childbearing, biblical marriage, and fidelity to God. The Bible teaches that he has rejected all authority and is at war with God. And this puts him in conflict with the family, which is God’s conduit for bringing glory to Himself throughout history. He is waging war with what is called in the Bible “the seed of the woman”, which is mankind. So, the call to arms regarding abortion comes from the entire Bible. In the Law, the Prophets, the poetic books, the Pauline Epistles and the Gospels we find overwhelming evidence of the sacredness of life in the womb. The ways we should think, and the things we should do, regarding abortion also come from the book of Ephesians. Ephesians 5:11 presents a twofold call contained when it says:

Ephesians 5:11 Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them;

First we are called to abandon works of darkness, which brings us to our first thing that the church must do to respond to the present crisis.

I. The Church Must have No Fellowship with the Unfruitful Works of Darkness (Eph. 5:11; 2 Cor. 6:14-17).

This is a call to turn away from the world’s solutions and strictly avoid participating in them. Sadly, the statistics indicate that many church members continue to have abortions and many so-called pastors directly or indirectly support abortion. Most notably, we have the recent incident with Rick Warren from Saddleback Community Church, author of the popular Purpose Driven Life and The Purpose Driven Church books who wholeheartedly and enthusiastically provided a platform for the staunch pro-abort Democrat Barak Obama to speak from the pulpit of Saddleback Church at his AIDS conference.

Obama is a staunch defender of the partial-birth abortion procedure. He also had a 100 percent rating from the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council for his support of abortion rights, family planning services and health insurance coverage for female contraceptives. One vote that especially riled abortion opponents involved restrictions on a type of abortion where the baby sometimes survives, occasionally for hours. The restrictions, which never became law, included requiring the presence of a second doctor to care for the fetus. Obama staunchly denied that the living, aborted child should have a right to medical care if it survives the abortion procedure.[11] However, Rick Warren enthusiastically has this man speak at his AIDS conference. Warren should read his own Bible, which states in 2 Corinthians 6:14-17,

Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? ¹⁵ Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? ¹⁶ Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, "I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. ¹⁷ "Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE," says the Lord. "AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN; And I will welcome you.

We also have so-called “pro-life” leaders (including President Bush) who still advocate abortion for situations involving rape and incest. This indicates that the church has much to do to speak to the world (and itself) to completely abandon the practice of abortion. Equal protection under the law means all under the law, not just those who have been conceived in a particular way. Although an emotionally difficult situation, children conceived by incest and rape are no less human than those conceived under exemplary conditions and either way, the method of conception never justifies the taking of innocent life.

The church needs to stand up and call for a complete abandonment of abortion, not a partial abandonment. However, there is a dangerous thought that Christians often have and some of you are plagued with it. The idea goes like this: “If I avoid the works of darkness it is enough. I don’t participate in them. This is my Christian duty and it is enough.” But there is something more than avoidance that is necessary. Christians must expose the works of darkness.

II. The Church Must Expose Abortion for What it is – Child Sacrifice (Eph. 5:11).

Ephesians 5:8 for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light . . . .¹¹ Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them;

Light makes things clear and it exposes everything and shows it for what it is. This is the context of Paul’s command to the Ephesian Church regarding wicked deeds: avoiding participating in them and instead, “Expose them” for what they are. It is important that we are truth-tellers in the midst of a culture that constantly lies about life. So how do we expose abortion as child sacrifice performed on the altar of convenience? We do so by first educating our own church as to what it is, what God’s word says about it. Then we teach and encourage the fathers, as the heads of their homes, to educate their families as to what it is, where it originates from (man’s sinful autonomy), and what the proper solution is. This leads us to point number three.

III. The Church must Rescue the Children and the Mothers with the Gospel (Pro. 24:11-12; Luke 5:31-32)

Deliver those who are being taken away to death, And those who are staggering to slaughter, Oh hold them back. ¹² If you say, "See, we did not know this," Does He not consider it who weighs the hearts? And does He not know it who keeps your soul? And will He not render to man according to his work? Proverbs 24:10-12

Open your mouth for the mute, For the rights of all the unfortunate. ⁹ Open your mouth, judge righteously, And defend the rights of the afflicted and needy. Proverbs 31:8-9

Vindicate the weak and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and destitute. ⁴ Rescue the weak and needy; Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked. Psalm 82:3-4

So how do you involve yourself in the rescue of the unborn? Historically, the common answer among Christians has been threefold: Demonstrate Compassion, Preach, and Pray). These three fit in with what Scripture directs us to do (cf. Psalm 82:3-4, Pro. 24:10-12, Pro. 31:8-9). The main idea in Proverbs 24:10-12 is that there will be times of danger for people in human history. During these times, there will be people who rescue and there will be people who do nothing. God knows who you are. But the question before us today is: how can we work to rescue those who are being taken to their deaths? Here are five ways you can intervene:

1. Demonstrate Compassion by Helping Crisis Pregnancy Care Centers that support the propagation of the gospel and Promote the Biblical Counseling – Not all Crisis Pregnancy Care Centers are the same. Many have a strong foundation in the Christian worldview whereas others are more pragmatic in their approach. The CPC in Greensboro promotes the open proclamation of the gospel through evangelizing their clients. It is also important to note that efforts of the CPC have cut the ratio of abortions to live births by 25% in the Research Triangle Area of NC.

2. Perform curbside prayer, preaching, and sidewalk counseling at abortion clinics - This type of activity is slowly dwindling away since judges have ruled against people involved and now young girls can get abortifacient drugs OTC at Wal-Mart, thus avoiding the embarrassment of being confronted with the gospel by having to go to the local abortion mill. However, in Greensboro, we will probably have to preach, pray, and offer counsel for quite some time, since abortion mills are few and far between in this area of NC and southern VA. It is important to note that anyone involved in this type of intervention should always demonstrate a perfectly peaceable presence and never promote anti-abortion violence (cf. Romans 13:1ff).

3. Take political action – Vote your biblically informed conscience - Voting according to your Biblically informed conscience is critical. My position is that a candidate supporting the pro-death/pro-abortion position disqualifies themselves from public office. Yes, this is one issue politics. John Piper notes how important single issues can be:

No endorsement of any single issue qualifies a person to hold public office. Being pro-life does not make a person a good governor, mayor, or president. But there are numerous single issues that disqualify a person from public office. For example, any candidate who endorsed bribery as a form of government efficiency would be disqualified, no matter what his party or platform was. Or a person who endorsed corporate fraud (say under $50 million) would be disqualified no matter what else he endorsed. Or a person who said that no black people could hold office-on that single issue alone he would be unfit for office. Or a person who said that rape is only a misdemeanor-that single issue would end his political career. These examples could go on and on. Everybody knows a single issue that for them would disqualify a candidate for office.

It's the same with marriage. No one quality makes a good wife or husband, but some qualities would make a person unacceptable. For example, back when I was thinking about getting married, not liking cats would not have disqualified a woman as my wife, but not liking people would. Drinking coffee would not, but drinking whiskey would. Kissing dogs wouldn't, but kissing the mailman would. And so on. Being a single-issue fiancé does not mean that only one issue matters. It means that some issues may matter enough to break off the relationship.

So it is with politics. You have to decide what those issues are for you. What do you think disqualifies a person from holding public office? I believe that the endorsement of the right to kill unborn children disqualifies a person from any position of public office. It's simply the same as saying that the endorsement of racism, fraud, or bribery would disqualify him-except that child-killing is more serious than those”.[12]

So, yes, it is entirely appropriate to be a one-issue voter.

4. Seek to make your home and church a place where you can minister to someone in a crisis pregnancy situation – If we are not working with widows, orphans, and others who have spiritual and physical needs (James 1:27), then we need to try to take care of those in crisis pregnancy situations by opening our homes and our church resources to them as we are able.

5. Evangelism, revival, and consistent prayer - We should mention these last because they are absolutely the most important. You can show pictures of aborted babies and scare people away from a clinic for a day, you can try to emotionally talk them out of killing their child for a day, but long-term and lasting change that will bring glory to God through a display of His mercy must come through the power of the Holy Spirit. This means that the only cure for stopping abortion anywhere is changed lives wrought by regeneration of the Spirit through the renewing of the mind of the murderer. We must also pray that God will bring heaven-sent revival. As repentance from dead works is wrought by the Spirit that renewed heart understands the grace of God and such forgiveness will set these people free from the “Post Abortion Syndrome” problems and other problems that are known to plague them and they will learn what it means to be set them free from the bondage of sin.

CONCLUSION

Where do we go from here? First of all, I hope that we feel and see the wonder and awe at the matchless complexity of life and how beautifully God has engineered the world. His ways are not our ways. Our thoughts are not His thoughts. He is perfect. He is wonderful. We would be insane to prefer our ways above His and in the same sense, would be no better than the pro-death people who want to legislate their “wants.”

Second, I would also like to see us brought to horror and tears. I must say that this week in my study, I cried over the tragedies connected with Roe v Wade, more than any time in my life of study. I would hope that this same horror would fill all of us as we consider the disregard for God and His authority. Horror and tears is the appropriate response. The rebellion against God is operating the factories of the culture of death. These factories of death known as abortion clinics are churning out over 4000 chopped babies everyday in America not including those killed around the world daily. All this for convenience that says, “I have better things to do than raise this child” and lust, which says: “I will do what I want with whomever I want whenever I want”.

Third, I hope to leave us with a sense of the mercy of God and the power of the cross of Christ to forgive. Christ’s cross is the foundational power of the gospel, whereby sinful hands stained with the blood of the innocents can be washed by the blood of Christ and made “white as snow.” As Isaiah said to the idolatrous nation of Israel, so Christ says to those who have killed their children for the sake of convenience, “though your sins be as scarlet, they will be white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18). It is comforting to know that for those who are troubled and tormented because their conscience condemns them for killing their child, they can and should find mercy at the cross of Christ, for He said,

"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. ³⁰ "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." Matthew 11:28-30

It is for us as a church to confess our sins one to another and weep with those who weep so as to lead them to Christ, the only source of true comfort and peace. And finally, I pray that in response to these scriptural truths, Shepherd’s Fellowship would rise up and be committed to personally protect the unborn, starting in this congregation and beginning with these households.

---

[1] See also Num. 33:50-56; Deut. 7:1-5, 16; 20:10-18.

[2] Lev. 18:21; Deut. 12:31; 2 Kings 16:3; 21:6; 23:10; Jer. 7:31; Ezek. 16:20-21; 20:31; 1 Cor. 10:20.

[3] It is important to note that even after His judgment; God “remembered His covenant for their sake.” Oh, the love and patience of our Holy God!

[4] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/autonomy

[5] Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, (San Francisco, CA: Foundation for American Christian Education, 2000), no page number.

[6] Margaret Sanger, Woman and the New Race, New York: George Halter, 1928, 67.

[7] Eugenics is the practice of selective breeding and experimentation of human beings so as to produce a superior “master race.” This is almost exactly what Hitler had in mind when he had the concept of producing a master race of people known as “Aryans.”

[8] Margaret Sanger, ed. International Aspects of Birth Control: The International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference, (New York, NY: American Birth Control League, 1925), p. v.

[9] Ibid., 5.

[10] George Grant, Killer Angel: A Short Biography of Planned Parenthood’s Founder Margaret Sanger, (Nashville, TN: Cumberland House Publishing, 2001), 108.

[11] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/17/politics/main2369157.shtml

[12] One Issue Politics, One-Issue Marriage, and the Humane Society. See also A Godward Life, Book I: Savoring the Supremacy of God in All of Life, by John Piper (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 1997), 279-280.

The Stawman Argument From Evil

From Triablogue:

Many unbelievers seem to think they have a simple, four-step syllogism for the argument from evil:

1.God is omnipotent
2.God is benevolent (or omnibenevolent)
3.There is evil
4.Given (3), either God is able to prevent evil, but unwilling (pace #2), or else he is willing to prevent evil, but unable (pace #1), in which case there is no God.

Many unbelievers also seem to think that this is an internal critique of the Christian theism because it generates a contradiction between a set of propositions which a Christian would affirm. But this argument is deceptively simple.

1.The first premise isn’t especially problematic although some unbelievers caricature the attribute.

i) There is a logical constraint on what is possible.

ii) There is also a constraint on what is physically possible. For the physical is inherently limited. A finite medium is not infinitely elastic.

iii) Finally, omnipotence is not self-referential. It’s not about God’s power over himself. Rather, it’s about God’s ability to make things objective to himself.

2.The second premise is far more ambiguous.

At this point, many unbelievers make no attempt to define divine goodness in Biblical terms. They simply begin with *their* preconception of what a benevolent being would do, equate that with God, then proceed to disprove God because he doesn’t live up to their preconception. But there are two basic problems with that move:

i) It represents an unspoken shift from an internal critique to an external critique.

ii) In presenting an external critique, the onus is now on the unbeliever to justify his own value-system as well as his belief that there are creatures capable of suffering pain or suffering wrong.

3.As with #2, many unbelievers simply begin with *their* preconception of what constitutes gratuitous evil. But at that point it ceases, once more, to be an internal critique.

In sum, the common flaw in the formulation of the argument from evil is that it operates at too high a level of abstraction. It often purports to be an internal critique, but it frequently disregards Christian theology when defining the key terms.

So the argument from evil is generally a straw man argument.

(Steve Hays)

The Mind of the Church

For those who don't know there's a discussion going on relative to John 6.

See:

Here

Here

Here

Here

The "opposition" is invoking the "mind of the Church." It's only fair to see what it is, don't you think?

Catholic Encyclopedia: (a) Defined Texts.—The Catholic commentator is bound to adhere to the interpretation of texts which the Church has defined either expressly or implicitly. The number of these texts is small, so that the commentator can easily avoid any transgression of this principle. Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. V, Exegesis (New York: The Encyclopedia Press, Inc., 1913), p. 699, 2nd column.

Uh-huh. Let's put that to the test shall we?

Raymond E. Brown: To the best of my knowledge the Roman Catholic Church has never defined the literal sense of a single passage of the Bible. Raymond E. Brown, The Critical Meaning of the Bible (New York: Paulist Press, 1981), p. 40.

Raymond E. Brown, S.S.: Roman Catholics who appeal explicitly to Spirit-guided church teaching are often unaware that their church has seldom if ever definitively pronounced on the literal meaning of a passage of Scripture, i.e., what the author meant when he wrote it. Most often the church has commented on the on-going meaning of Scripture by resisting the claims of those who would reject established practices or beliefs as unbiblical. Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament (New York: Doubleday, 1997), p. 31.

Maurice Bévenot, S.J.: But very few indeed are the Scripture texts of which the Church authorities have defined the meaning, and even there, their intervention has generally been to say what Scripture does not mean, otherwise leaving open what it does. See his chapter “Scripture and Tradition in Catholic Theology” in F.F. Bruce and E.G. Rupp, eds., Holy Book and Holy Tradition (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1968), p. 181.

Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J.: When one hears today the call for a return to a patristic interpretation of Scripture, there is often latent in it a recollection of Church documents that spoke at times of the ‘unanimous consent of the Fathers’ as the guide for biblical interpretation.(fn. 23) But just what this would entail is far from clear. For, as already mentioned, there were Church Fathers who did use a form of the historical-critical method, suited to their own day, and advocated a literal interpretation of Scripture, not the allegorical. But not all did so. Yet there was no uniform or monolithic patristic interpretation, either in the Greek Church of the East, Alexandrian or Antiochene, or in the Latin Church of the West. No one can ever tell us where such a “unanimous consent of the fathers” is to be found, and Pius XII finally thought it pertinent to call attention to the fact that there are but few texts whose sense has been defined by the authority of the Church, “nor are those more numerous about which the teaching of the Holy Fathers is unanimous.” (fn. 24) Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Scripture, The Soul of Theology (New York: Paulist Press, 1994), p. 70.

R. C. Fuller: Again, Scripture texts are incorporated into Dogmatic decrees in proof or illustration of partiular doctrines. appears in the Bull Inffabilis Deus defining the Immaculate Conception. Infallibility however applies only to the dogma defined and not to any particular argument adduced in support of it; hence the interpretation of , though of great weight, is not infallible by reason of its inclusion in this decree (cf. Durand, art. Exégèse DTC 1838). The number of texts infallibly interpreted by the Church is small: for further examples see Mangenot-Rivière, art. cit. 2317-9. It has been estimated that the total of such texts is under twenty, though there are of course many others indirectly determined (cf. Corluy, 426; Durand art. cit. 1838). It should also be observed that an infallible interpretation of a text does not necessarily exhaust its full meaning. See Dom Bernard Orchard, M.A., ed., A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1953), pp. 59-60.

R. C. Fuller: The number of texts determined by the consent of the Fathers is even smaller than that of the texts determined by the decrees of the Church. Dom Bernard Orchard, M.A., ed., A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1953), p. 60.

Johann Adam Möhler: Except in the explanation of a very few classical passages, we know not where we shall meet with a general uniformity of Scriptural interpretation among the fathers, further than that all deduce from the sacred writings, the same doctrines of faith and morality, yet each in his own peculiar manner; so that some remain for all times distinguished models of Scriptural exposition, others rise not above mediocrity, while others again are, merely by their good intentions and love for the Saviour, entitled to veneration. Johann Adam Möhler, Symbolism: Exposition of the Doctorinal Differences between Catholics and Protestants as evidenced by their Symbolical Writings, trans. James Burton Robertson (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1997), pp. 301-302.

Johann Adam Möhler: Catholic theologians teach with general concurrence, and quite in the spirit of the Church, that even a Scriptural proof in favour of a decree held to be infallible, is not itself infallible, but only the dogma as defined. Johann Adam Möhler, Symbolism: Exposition of the Doctorinal Differences between Catholics and Protestants as evidenced by their Symbolical Writings, trans. James Burton Robertson (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1997), p. 296.

Stravinskas: In the only declared exercise of papal infallibility, Pope Pius XII, after consultation with all the bishops of the Catholic Church, on November 1, 1950, proclaimed the Assumption of the Virgin Mary a doctrine of the Faith.” Peter M.J. Stravinskas, Our Sunday Visitor’s Catholic Encyclopedia (Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., 1991), p. 100-101.

Stravinskas: It is also worth noting that whenever a rare, definitive interpretation is given, it is done only after consultation with the best exegetes of the day, as well as allowing for the divine guidance promised by Jesus to His Church (see ; ).” Peter M. J. Stravinskas, The Catholic Church and the Bible (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), pp. 15-16.

Patrick Madrid on : . . . the dogma being defined here is Peter’s primacy and authority over the Church — not a formal exegesis of . The passages from and are given as reasons for defining the doctrine, but they are not themselves the subject of the definition. As anyone familiar with the dogma of papal infallibility knows, the reasons given in a dogmatic definition are not themselves considered infallible; only the result of the deliberations is protected from error. It’s always possible that while the doctrine defined is indeed infallible, some of the proofs adduced for it end up being incorrect. Patrick Madrid, Pope Fiction (San Diego: Basilica Press, 1999), p. 254.

Karl Von Hase: If the Catholic Church really believed in her infallibility, and did not prefer to hide the Divine pound in the earth, she would long ago have set forth a clear and well-defined list of all her teaching concerning the faith, instead of which we are now obliged to search for this, especially in its finer relations, from sources which in other respects are not irreproachable. On so many points are Catholic schools at variance with one another, and in rejoinder to every Protestant attack the appropriate subterfuge is of course that the Catholic teaching has been misunderstood or misrepresented.
It is only seldom that tradition, summoned to the support of newly arisen dogmas, corresponds to any extent with the rule upon which Vincentius laid stress, that it should have been believed everywhere, always, and by all. Karl Von Hase, Handbook to the Controversy with Rome, trans. A. W. Streane (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1909), Vol. 1, pp. 128-129.

Note carefully that what's being said is that the dogma, not the Scriptural proof of it is what is considered infallible. So, what, pray tell, is the mind of the church relative to any particular passage of Scripture, particularly John 6? Ask this to your Roman Catholic friends and relatives when they talk about the authority of the church to interpret Scripture for all Christians. Where is the list of Scriptures to which they have given such imprimatur? To make the claim to know the "mind of the Church," one is claiming to have access to that mind. Pray tell, where is that mind?

HT: James Swan & David King

P.S. I'm working on a big paper/short booklet on Fundamental Articles of Faith in Reformation History for some folks in the SBC this week. I'm a week behind, because I was sick all last week and part of this one. Ergo, I've not read emails. I'll catch up as soon as I'm done.

A FATHER'S HAND! - Christ's Sympathy To Weary Pilgrims

The following devotional treatise is from another Christian who understood the experimental application of the doctrine of God's sovereignty in providence. It follows quite nicely on the heels of the teaching heard this past week at Shepherd's Fellowship Baptist Church.

by Octavius Winslow

"My times are in your hand." Psalm 31:15

Our times of adversity are also in God's hand. As every sunbeam that brightens, so every cloud that darkens, comes from God. We are subject to great and sudden reverses in our earthly condition. Joy is often succeeded by grief, prosperity by adversity. We are on the pinnacle today, tomorrow at its bottom. Oh! What a change may one event and one moment create! But beloved, ALL is from the Lord.

Afflictions do not spring from the soil, nor does trouble sprout from the ground. Sorrow cannot come until God bids it. Until God in His sovereignty permits-health cannot fade, wealth cannot vanish, comfort cannot decay, friendship cannot chill, and loved ones cannot die. Your time of sorrow is His appointment. The bitter cup which it may please the Lord that you shall drink this year will not be mixed by human hands. In the hand of the Lord is that cup! Some treasure you are now pressing to your heart, He may ask you to resign. Some blessing you now possess, He may bid you to relinquish. Some fond expectation you now cherish, He may will that you should forego. Some lonely path, He may design that you should tread.

Yes, He may even bereave you of all, and yet all, ALL is in His hand! His hand! A Father's hand, moving in thick darkness, is shaping every event, and arranging every detail in your life! Has sickness laid you on a bed of suffering? Has bereavement darkened your home? Has adversity impoverished your resources? Has change lessened your comforts? Has sorrow in one of its many forms crushed your spirit to the earth? The Lord has done it! In all that has been sent, in all that has be recalled, and in all that has been withheld-His hand, noiseless and unseen has brought it about!

Ah! yes, that hand of changeless love blends a sweet with every bitter-pencils a bright rainbow in each dark cloud-upholds each faltering step-shelters within its hollow-and guides with unerring skill, His chosen people safe to eternal glory! Dear child of God, your afflictions, your trials, your crosses, your losses, your sorrows, all, ALL are in your heavenly Father's hand, and they cannot come until sent by Him!

Bow that stricken heart-yield that tempest-tossed soul to His sovereign disposal, to His calm, righteous sway, in the submissive spirit and language of your suffering Savior, "May Your will, O my Father! not mine, be done. My times of sadness and of grief are in Your hand." Beloved, all is in your Father's hand! Be those times what they may-times of trial, times of temptation, times of suffering, times of peril, times of sunshine or of gloom, or times of life or death, they are in your Father's hand!

Has the Lord seen fit to recall some fond blessing, to deny some earnest request, or painfully to discipline your heart? All this springs from a Father's love as fully as though He had unlocked His treasury and poured its costliest gifts at your feet! All of our times are in our Redeemer's hands! That same Redeemer who carried our sorrows in His heart, our curse and sins on His soul, our cross on His shoulder; who died, who rose again, and who lives and intercedes for us, and who will gather all His ransomed around Him in glory, is your Guardian and your Guide! Your times are in the hands of Him who still bears the print of the nails!

My Second (and probably last) Freethought Meeting

On Sunday afternoon, January 14, 2007, I attended my second "freethought" meeting. It was also probably my last. To set the context as to why I would say such, you'll need a brief review of what would probably be considered the more controversial highlights of what happened at the first meeting. At the first meeting, the conversation eventually moved from the original topic of free will to the subject of abortion, of which I am passionate. It was said by one atheist that he thought that what our church was doing outside of a local abortion clinic several times per month was unconscionable.[1]

One of the atheists in the group asked me what basis I had to determine that human personhood is present at conception, and I posited that my authority to make such determinations rests first of all upon the clear teaching of the Bible (i.e., Psalm 51:5, etc.) and that the scientific evidence is only made sense of by my worldview, thus such empirical evidence will naturally have only secondary authority within my worldview. Now, it is important to point out that the man who asked this question is truly a likeable guy. In all my brief interactions with him, he always made an effort to think and speak without letting his emotions get the best of him, and for that, I truly appreciated my brief conversations with him. Nevertheless, the antithesis between our respective worldviews quickly clashed when I took the opportunity to ask him when he thought personhood began, and he said something like (not word-for-word) "when consciousness is present."

I challenged him to take this idea to its logical extent by pointing out that such a position is arbitrary because it doesn't successfully give a justification as to why the criterion for personhood should be limited to consciousness. I then argued that if I was an evil man in possession of dictatorial power, and the majority of the population believed my propaganda, then what non-arbitrary epistemological warrant can he use to prevent me from making the argument that human personhood doesn't exist for those who are of another ethnic derivation or social standing? In other words, why arbitrarily limit personhood to consciousness/sentience?

I also sought to point out that his view for establishing personhood was terribly inconsistent and unworkable on a practical level because that would mean that the unconscious athlete on the football field, my friend who is currently unconscious with head trauma in the hospital, and the KO'ed boxer would cease to be "people" when they entered a state of unconsciousness and thus, lose all rights to protection as “human persons” under the constitution of the United States, just like the unborn. Now, it needs to be said that my intention in engaging this man was *not* to be nasty, but just to press his perceived illogic just a little so that possibly, he might see his blatant arbitrariness and inconsistency and say something like, “Hey, you know what, I don’t agree with your pro-life position, but on this issue of personhood, you’re right. I am being inconsistent and I need to re-think this issue through a little more carefully so I can interact more intelligently about it.” That’s all anyone needs to say when they are inconsistent. Sadly though, pride and the pressure to defend your position at all costs often gets in the way of rational, consistent discourse (Proverbs 16:18). So, although it would have been fairly easy to challenge these men several times on various other issues, I decided not to for the sake of prudence as I didn't want to come off as a know-it-all nor as being uncharitable at the first meeting. However, I did want to faithfully “give an answer” for the hope of the gospel that is within me to those who asked me to do so and also promote challenging, rational discourse (1 Peter 3:15). If that is perceived as hateful, unkind, unloving, and contentious by the atheists and agnostics within this freethought group, then I leave them with the right to express and hold to such sentiments.

As the second meeting, it got pretty interesting right from the get-go. The leader of the group said that he wanted to stop the official meeting 30 minutes early today to discuss what process could be developed so as to receive members into their group because they hadn’t yet done so. He then said that he wanted all those who weren't members to leave at 4:30 p.m. so that they could discuss these things as a group. It was at this point that my fellow elder quickly asked him how they could ask "non-members" to leave if they didn't have any members to begin with? This impaled the group leader on the horns of a dilemma, because it made it obvious that he either (1) had to have us stay and sit through that part of the meeting because they had no membership to begin with, or (2) he would be forced to ask all of the Christians to leave so that the atheists would then be free to talk about how to get rid of us without us challenging their assertions, thus revealing his true intent. Of course, this would then have made him appear unfair, discriminating, and inconsistent, the very thing he chides theists for. So, as you can imagine, he became very uncomfortable, even resorting to sarcasm and personal attack toward my fellow elder when he asked “Who are members?”. The leader asked an absurd question; “Are YOU a member?”. “I don’t know the criteria for membership” demonstrated the absurdity of the leader’s sarcastic question. At this point, a new “freethinker” from Charlotte entered the meeting late and broke up this tense situation thereby saving the leader from further marinating in this embarrassing situation. However, this discussion was made even more interesting when the new “freethinker” from Charlotte, NC arrived. Was the leader going to ask him to leave also when 4:30 p.m. arrived?

Next, the leader started a brief discussion regarding whether there is a conflict between religion and science and after a few quick replies from the group it was obvious to me that they had set this question up in an effort to intimidate us by making fun of religion in general by saying things like, "religion makes a person non-objective", "religion is opposed to science", "religion is for fools", ad infinitum, ad nauseum, etc. I then asked a question and a young man to my right started to respectfully answer me and when I proceeded to enter into a dialogue with him, another atheist across the room rudely interrupted our dialogue and blurted out some unintelligible statement, to which I kindly responded with something like, "I am having a dialogue with this young man right now, so you'll have to kindly wait till I'm finished speaking with him and then you can ask your question." At this point the group leader became visibly angry and interrupted me by saying harshly, "Now, why did you say that to him? This is an open meeting and anybody can talk at any time!" to which I responded, "That is fine, but that doesn't give him the right to rudely interrupt me when I'm trying to have a conversation with this young man." Due to the nature of the group leader's emotional response to me, I ensured him that I harbored no ill will toward him or anyone else in the room. Then I attempted to continue my conversation with the young man to my right which was pretty much dead at this point given the fracas that had just occurred. The leader later lamented his angry outburst.

When @ 4:35 p.m. came, the group leader made an effort to switch the conversation to determining how they would receive members into their "freethought" group. He then wondered how they could receive members into their group when one dictionary definition said that a freethinker was "one who forms opinions on the basis of reason independently of authority; especially: one who doubts or denies religious dogma." At this point there was more discussion concerning the supposed irrationality of Christian theism on various levels as they posited that those who are of religious persuasions have no objective basis upon which to claim that they have the capability to engage in free-thinking, for that defies the posited definition above. Of course, this sword cuts both ways if they want to wield it in such a manner, for all men have beliefs and biases, the real question is: Which beliefs/biases form a worldview that provides the sufficient and necessary preconditions for the intelligibility reality?

Now it is important to note that there were several folks there who did seem to be willing to engage in a reasonable dialogue over these issues without becoming emotionally irrational and vitriolic in a conversation. I think especially of two unbelieving women in this group, one older and one younger. Both women were truly sweet in their outward demeanor, and although they staunchly disagreed with me, they were amiable to good conversation and I truly appreciated that. It is people like that that I enjoy discussing these issues with. I think also of two or three younger, college-aged men who were calm and willing to discuss these issues accurately, with one young man even providing an important clarification regarding a claim made by Richard Dawkins in his book The God Delusion.

It was then interesting to listen to the discussion progress in ~ 10 minutes from "what is a freethinker?" to then have the new atheist from Charlotte mock us by calling us “idiots”, curse our God, blast profanity in the earshot of a three and five year old coloring at a table near their mother, and then literally get up, storm across the circle of participants, shaking and spewing unintelligible fragments of anger, eventually to come to an abrupt halt, standing three feet in front of me, and continue to mock all of three of the Christians that were present by using some nonsensical illustration about trading a $5 bill with a $100 (while the rest of the group either subtly laughed or expressed deep embarrassment), while continuing to call us "idiots" to our face several times. [**No, I'm not joking here, I have documentation of the entire meeting.**] I calmly told this man that he was being irrational, was using ad hominem attacks, and that I'm not interested in behaving like he is, but that I’m interested in having rational discourse. He then mumbled under his breath that he wanted the same and then sat down. It is interesting to note that in this particular case, those who are often the most militant and “fundamentalistic” in their hatred of religion and the Christian God in particular, actually practically deny the very thing they claim to chide religionists for, namely, irrational and emotive behavior that is grounded in mere arbitrary assertions, ad hominem attacks, and open mockery rooted in autonomous dogmatism.

Of course, it was evident by their facial expressions and body language that some of the more rational atheists in the group were very embarrassed by what their new friend had done but several tried to justify it by saying, "He's merely describing how some of us feel . . ." "We feel that our 'safe haven' has been violated" and "We don't want to discuss that book [the Bible, which all present manifested their fear of the big black, glove leather NASU we presented to our newly ordained elder by pointing and quipping ‘that book’ ], we want to be able to freely talk about whatever without being judged or condemned." This type of emotive rhetoric continued for about 5 minutes when my fellow elder (who has attended these meetings for several months) asked the more consistent atheist attendees, "Have I ever insulted you, threatened you, or done anything other than show you respect?" to which several of them admitted that they didn't personally have a problem with him since he's always been respectful, but that they were uncomfortable with him bringing other Christians to the meeting with him to challenge their beliefs. One atheist said that he felt deceived by my other elder because he had supposedly labeled himself as some type of atheist by jokingly calling himself an “aanthrotheist”[2] in some of their original e-mail correspondences.

My other elder then said, "If any of you do not want me to return to this meeting, all you have to do is ask." to which one atheist eventually said, "Sterling, we don't want you here." The “likeable” atheist that I mentioned from the first meeting then asked me, "Why are you here?" to which I said something like, "I am here to get a pulse on the freethought community by learning what it is thinking, doing, and reading. I'm also here to glorify God through increasing my knowledge and having productive, respectful dialogue and debate about these issues and bring glory to God through giving an answer for my hope in the gospel." Needless to say, he didn’t' like my response. Another atheist then said something like, “Well if that’s the case, then why are you at the abortion clinic?” To which I responded with something like, “To warn those going into the clinic that they are on their way to hell.” Of course they disagreed strongly with the preaching of the gospel, because in their minds, there can be no afterlife whatsoever in a “particulars-only” universe, wherein immaterial, abstract, and universal entities are non-existent. The meeting pretty much ended there. There are more negative (and some positive) things that I could say about this second meeting, but time fails me.

So, the atheists have asked my fellow elder to stay home because frankly, they don't want to have their unbelieving ideas challenged in their safe-haven and then subsequently shown to be vacuous and foolish. They know and understand that embarrassment is a hard thing to deal with, and it much easier to make fun of the Christian apologist, rather than actually listening to, interacting with, and wrestling with what we have to say. Although I wasn’t specifically asked not to return, I'm planning on staying home too, since I can shake the dust off my feet (versus being called names) and spend time with my family and church body, a group of people who will listen to Christian truth and give glory to God in the process. As the apostle Paul said, “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. ²² For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; ²³ but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, ²⁴ but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (1 Cor. 1:20-25)

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[1] A group of people from Shepherd’s Fellowship Baptist Church stands outside of a local abortion clinic in Greensboro 2-3 times per month to open-air preach, read Scripture, pray, and offer helpful information about alternative, non-murderous options. Through this intervention, hope is offered to the hopeless through the gospel, and the information provided is offered to inform and remind these women of the alternative measures that are available so as to avoid murdering their own preborn child.

[2] An “aanthrotheist” is a humorously-contrived term, original to my fellow elder. It is designed to describe one who denies the existence of man-made gods. It certainly reflects my fellow elder’s sense of humor – dry, witty, but nevertheless stimulating because it is guaranteed to bring a good laugh when figured out!