Discernment

Here's an exercise in discernment.

Greg Johnson is a graduate of my denomination's seminary, Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, and this article he's written strikes me as typical of the sort of poisonous grace talk I've run into too often, recently, including among men from Covenant. Because the error is so common, it might be good for us to critique this particular piece as a means of warning others away from these errors.

Note well: I am not saying everything in this article is bad. There are things here worth saying, some of which are downright helpful and good. But the admixture of truth and error ultimately renders this piece unsalvageable except as an exercise in the practice of that most-neglected-of-all-spiritual-gifts, discernment.

So would you please take some part of this article and, quoting it, show how it is contrary to Scripture? Don't worry if your work is duplicated by someone else. I'm hopeful we'll have thousands of words written about this piece, permanently deposited here in our comments section to be read by others. Of course, it's proper to note the good points Johnson makes, but my principal concern is to see the errors exposed as a warning to all.

Feel free to argue against another reader's critique. The goal here is to grow our discernment quotient, making us all more useful in defending the church against false teaching--particularly false teaching hiding behind the cover of "grace."

Freedom from Quiet Time Guilt: The rare beauty of Weakness Christianity

by Greg Johnson

1. The Diagnosis: Quiet Time Guilt

I recently watched as a congregation I love was spiritually raped. A Christian ministry came into the church for a three-day program whose purpose was to encourage believers to pray more. During one of the breakout sessions, a man expressed his frustration with unanswered prayer. He had faithfully prayed with and for his daughter for years, and still she was not walking with God. He was broken, depressed, perhaps more than a little ashamed. How does God in his grace speak to this man? A bruised reed was crying out for help.

"You need to try harder. You need to pray more." That was the message he was given. I was enraged. Having known this church for many years, I was horrified. What I was hearing was what one seminary professor calls sola bootstrapa. Self-reliance--we pull ourselves up by our own spiritual bootstraps. The teachers who said such things surely meant well. The problem was not a lack of sincerity on their part. The diagnosis is far more severe. The problem was heresy. Any heresy wounds the soul.

When I look upon the evangelical world today, I see millions of sincere believers who are loaded down with false guilt by teachers who fail to grasp the basics of biblical prayer. To sharpen the point slightly, Christ's sheep have been lied to. They have been told that prayer is a work that we must perform in order to get God to bless us. As heresies go, this one is often subtle. Prayer has become a work rather than a grace. The result has been a loss of joy in prayer.

And prayer is not the only grace we've turned into a work. Personal Bible study has become a source of bondage as well. A whole generation of Christians has been told that God will bless them if they read their Bibles every day, as if the act of reading the Scriptures were some kind of magic talisman by which we gain power over God and secure his favor. This is not the religion of the Bible. This pervasive belief that God gives us grace as a reward for our devotional consistency is antithetical to the religion of Jesus Christ. Prayer and Bible study--what evangelicals for the past century have called the "quiet time"--have become dreaded precisely because they have been radically misunderstood.

It's ironic, but the Quiet Time has become the number one cause of defeat among Bible-believing Christians today. At one time or another, nearly every sincere believer feels a deep sense of failure and the accompanying feelings of guilt and shame because he or she has failed to set aside a separate time for Bible study and prayer. This condition is called Quiet Time Guilt. And it's a condition with many repercussions. The shame of Quiet Time Guilt manifests itself in even deeper inability to fruitfully and joyfully study Scripture. Prayer becomes a dread; Bible study a burden. The Christian suffering from Quiet Time Guilt then despairs of seeing God work in his or her life, until finally he or she simply gives up. He may continue outward and public Christian commitments like church attendance, but secretly he feels a hypocrite. What is the root of Quiet Time Guilt?

2. The Culprit: Legalism

The root of Quiet Time Guilt is legalism. Often when we think of legalism, we think of the petty man-made rules that have so often strangled the churches--rules against dancing or drinking or makeup or 'secular' music. But these legalistic rules are merely an outward sign of a deeper legalism of the heart. When prayer and Bible study are thought of primarily as duties ('disciplines') rather than as grace, both prayer and the study of Scripture become unfruitful in our lives...

This excellent response to Marcus Borg was written by Pastor Dan Reuter, a dear friend who serves Brown County Presbyterian Fellowship in Nashville, Indiana.

Our British cousins commonly speak of automobiles as "motors." We, at least colloquially, tend to call them "wheels," as in "I got wheels, man." Which of us is correct?

It's a ridiculous question, but hardly more ridiculous than Dr. Marcus Borg's sermon on the character of God. Wheels are useless without motive power and the motor is no vehicle without wheels. But Dr. Borg tells us that there are two metaphors for God which are so far divorced that "they virtually produce two different religions."

One metaphor-the bad one, according to Borg-is of God as monarch, lawgiver, and judge. This is the God of the Ten Commandments, the God who demands obedience, the God who demands, at the very least, faith. And this is the God before whom we never measure up. He is the God who, ultimately, will "get" us because of our failure to do what he tells us. The last word of this God is, according to a colleague whom Borg quotes with approval, "divine ethnic cleansing." The words which Borg associates with the God of this monarchial metaphor are "requirements," "in-group," and "vengeance." Borg's language as much as his argument-actually, there isn't much argument-makes it clear that this God, if he exists, is bad. No right-thinking person today would admit to worshiping a God who has anything to do with vengeance or exclusion, much less ethnic cleansing. And even requirements seem to be a rather dated notion in an era of noncompetitive "sports" with no losers and no winners.

The other metaphor is the one which pictures God primarily as a lover. The bad, lawgiving God "also loves us," Borg admits, but his love is conditional and therefore not to be reckoned on the same exalted plane as the love of the divine Lover who is only that. God, says Borg, "is in love with us." In fact, he quotes another colleague who says that God is "besotted with us." And With this God there are also other words associated: "compassion," "liberation," "justice." Once more the language says it all. Who nowadays admits to being against compassion or liberation or justice?

[NOTE FROM TIM: This article was posted on Baylyblog back in 2006. Church of the Good Shepherd is now called Clearnote Church, Bloomington.]

The 2006 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) met a few weeks ago and approved a measure that clears the way for practicing homosexuals to be ordained and installed as pastors and elders of the church. Many news organizations covered this event, but no one commented on the most newsworthy aspect of this radical step--namely, that the measure was itself the product of a Task Force that included a number of evangelicals, and that the evangelicals were instrumental in selling this proposal to the church. How does it happen that evangelicals promote the normalization of sodomy and advocate a plan that clears the way for sodomites to shepherd God's flock? There's a lesson here--a very important lesson--particularly for evangelicals who think all that's important is that people "love Jesus" and have prayed the sinner's prayer. Please read on...

Now I ask you, lady, not as though I were writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it. For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward. Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds. (2 John 1:5-11)

The late Elizabeth Achtemeier was adjunct professor of Bible and homiletics at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia and served on the board of Presbyterians Pro-Life, a reform organization within the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA). Particularly because of her courageous opposition to some of the most poisonous aspects of feminism within mainline Presbyterianism, it came as no surprise that Elizabeth was appointed to the PC(USA) General Assembly's blue ribbon Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity as a representative of those on the evangelical end of the denominational spectrum.

This so-called "PUP Task Force" was formed several years ago to try to mediate the chronic tensions over sodomy that have split the PC(USA) since the mid-seventies. The denomination made a conscious effort to balance the membership of the PUP Task Force between those who still hold to Scripture's condemnations of sodomy and those who have rejected Scripture's condemnations and demand the Church endorse sodomy by accepting practicing sodomites as members and placing them in the office of pastor and elder.

When Elizabeth died in the middle of the Task Force's work, her son Mark Achtemeier, a PC(USA) seminary professor teaching systematic theology at Dubuque Theological Seminary, was appointed to take her place and he served on the Task Force through the completion of its work this past year. The Task Force brought a number of recommendations to the (national) General Assembly this year, all of which were carefully crafted to end the divisive battle over the normalization of sodomy.

Up until this time, those seeking to normalize sodomy and to ordain sodomites to the offices of pastor and elder had to contend with PC(USA) denominational standards that forbade such ordinations. If churches defied these standards, they could be brought up on charges, although through the years a variety of technicalities were used to escape accountability. True, the denomination's definitive guidance was a roadblock to those seeking to normalize sodomy, but the practice across the country was a far cry from that definitive guidance. Lesbians and gays were active at all levels of the church as members, leaders, and officers, and there was little accountability for those who flaunted their rebellion against God's Word.

Yet even as they rebelled against Scripture's doctrine of sexuality and got away with only a few slaps on the wrist, the sodomy lobby worked feverishly to change church law so that sexual perversion would no longer be formally condemned and informally overlooked, but positively celebrated. Nothing less would do. Thus for years every level of church government found its time consumed by the battle, and people grew so weary of the controversy that the PUP Task Force was appointed and given a mandate to find a way out of the quagmire.

This year's national General Assembly was D-day, and the Task Force released its recommendations a few months before the Assembly so there would be plenty of time for commissioners to weigh its recommendations before the assembly convened. When those with biblical commitments saw the report and read through its recommendations, they were sickened to see that the Task Force had thrown in the towel and called it quits. Assuming the General Assembly adopted the Task Force recommendations (which it now has), they knew the definitive guidance would become obsolete. Rather, local rule would prevail. True, in theory this meant conservative churches and presbyteries could enforce the definitive guidance if they so chose, but only within their own jurisdiction. Meanwhile, liberal churches and presbyteries would be cut loose to do as they thought best--including ordaining and installing self-affirming active sodomites as pastors and elders. Really, the recommendations amounted to a ceding of the historic Presbyterian principle of connectionalism to the all-American ecclesiastical default of congregationalism.

But as shocking as the parameters of the surrender were, the shock turned into disbelief when the names of those who had signed on to the surrender included a number of evangelicals, including Elizabeth Achtemeier's son, Mark. People were flabbergasted. How could Elizabeth's son betray Scripture and the souls under his protection in this way? Did he care nothing for those tempted by same-sex intimacy? Was he really prepared to join the long line of self-proclaimed prophets who cry "Peace, peace" where there is no peace? As the smoke cleared, there was no denying that Mark Achtemeier had been co-opted by the sodomites...

-posted by Tim Bayly

So, twice in three days, I was depressed hearing about the influence of a certain cool dude's ear-scratching book telling everyone how wise he is at meeting the culture where it's at, and how unutterably stupid the Church is. Oh, how weary I grow of these Bible-betraying fools and their sycophants. They sell out to the world and call it thinking biblically. They betray the Lord and call it God's new thing. They are cowards and call it tact--sometimes even evangelism! But do they bear one iota of resemblance to the Apostle Paul? No, the thought of them being lashed or stoned is laughable. The world wouldn't bother. Well, God just reminded me that there are still many who have not bowed the knee to Baal. He has promised that the gates of Hell will not prevail against His Church and He's always faithful to His promises. How was I reminded? I came across this most excellent comment by one of Mom Taylor's granddaughters under my tribute to Mom on her 90th birthday. May God give us many more mothers like Leslie Taylor. But more, may He fill His Church with Titus 2 women who WILL teach the younger women of the church to be godly women, and therefore godly wives and mothers. If Leslie is the kind of woman evangelical feminists are trying to push into the pulpit, I say "You go, girl!" Here's Leslie's comment:

It is tragic that home economics has largely disappeared because I am convinced that being a mother requires more education and training than any other occupation. One of the most noticeable effects of feminism is how unprepared and clueless many of today's mothers are (and I was one of them). I know that there have always been spoiled children and clueless mothers all throughout history, but what is going on in America today is an epidemic of enormous proportions, and the church is no haven. When Christopher [her husband] and I left the park with the kids yesterday...

Over and besides those qualifications that should be in all Christians--they that rule the church of God, should be men of counsel and understanding. ...Remember what was said of old, (Malachi 2:7) "the priest's lips should preserve knowledge: and the people should seek the law at his mouth."  But when this is wanting, the people will be stumbling and departing from God and one another. Therefore God complains, (Hosea 4:6) that his people were destroyed for want of knowledge; that is, for want of knowing guides. For if the light that is in them that teach be darkness, how great is that darkness! and if the blind lead the blind, no marvel both fall into the ditch. (John Bunyan, Exhortation to Unity and Peace, pp. 29,30.)

In a screed for peace posted by Prof. Reggie Kidd of Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando) a week ago today, Dr. Kidd proved himself an able controversialist, but of the modern sort. A jab, a parry, and a thrust; he lopped off the heads of his opponents sending them rolling into the ditches at the side of the road, but all was well—Dr. Kidd never posed the slightest threat to the feminized discourse characteristic of our modern defenders of the faith who claim for themselves Calvin’s, Luther’s, or Machen’s mantle. Said the good Dr. Kidd while sheathing his bloody blade,  “It should be obvious to all that I am a man of peace.” And so he titled his post, “Mutual defenestration means self annihilation.” Not surprisingly, the one-hundred plus comments his post garnered are permeated with admirers congratulating him on his irenic spirit.

Bosh.

Apparently it takes a pastor with many session meetings under his belt to see who’s kidding whom. One could go on at length demonstrating the exact perimeter of the swaths cut by Dr. Kidd’s sword, but there’s one stellar example. Keeping in mind that Dr. Kidd possesses the terminal degree and his life’s work is within the Academy, could there be a more fatal thrust to the bodies of his intended victims than to call the Report of Ad Interim Study Committee on Federal Vision, New Perspective, and Auburn Avenue Theologies adopted by the PCA General Assembly this summer “a tendentiously and carelessly written paper?”

No, this short piece by Dr. Kidd is no blow for peace. It’s too bad the guys commending him can’t see it, but the rest of us shouldn’t allow ourselves to be bamboozled. To focus our thoughts, let’s line up Dr. Kidd’s good guys and bad guys. In fact, to purge the pomo spirit from among us this Monday morning, all at once let’s do every one of those hateful things that go directly against the spirit of our age: let’s delineate, distinguish, and divide.

First, who are Dr. Kidd’s friends?

(David Lehr, by way of Tim) Baudelaire said (in the Lehr translation), "It's more difficult to love God than to believe in Him. On the other hand, it's more difficult for the men of our time to believe in the Devil than to love him. Everyone serves the Devil, yet no one believes in him. It's his sublime subtlety."

(Tim) An excellent post on Gary Gygax and D&D by Pastor Travis Hutchinson. The post makes good applications to the copy-cat nature of what passes today for Christian imagination; also to the inhospitality of our church youth groups.

(Tim) Here's a response to this comment left by a reader: "It seems that many in the complementarian community spend almost all their energy on the negative side of the equation."

Feminism is toxic and its relentless attack on Scripture and the Church doesn't give faithful shepherds a lot of opportunity to take their preaching and teaching somewhere else, avoiding this breach. We must focus our defensive work where the good deposit is under attack. In response to people complaining of the frequency of his preaching against fornication, Spurgeon said once that he'd stop preaching against it when people stopped doing it.

Pastors today aren't preaching or teaching against this heresy. And when we do, we do it half-heartedly making it clear to our flock and other shepherds that we wish the need for battle would go away because we're men of peace and love and grace, and we really don't enjoy beating up on women.

Now I may not have captured our critic's sentiments, personally, but from many years experience I know I've hit the mainstream. So think where we'd be if Calvin or Luther or Knox of any of hundreds of other shepherds had tried the positive approach in the darkness of Rome's shadow across the Middle Ages? What if Calvin had written his Institutes without the central thrust of opposing and exposing Rome? Would anyone read them?

The real issue isn't that many within the complementarian camp spend almost all our energy on the negative side of this equation, but that we live in an evil day much like the day of the Apostle Paul and Athanasius and Peter Waldo and John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards and John Newton and J. Gresham Machen and Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Francis Schaeffer, and that our work must follow theirs in being faithful with God's "yes" and His "no." And if our only "no" is said in opposing those who don't say "yes" often enough to suit our tastes, we're not really saying "no," are we?

(Tim) For the record, I'm disappointed Rocky Mountain Presbytery's City Church in Denver was allowed to take the PCA's ball and go home without being disciplined for her rejection of biblical sexuality and polity. A plant of the Presbyterian Church in America, she (and particularly her pastor) should have heard a clear "No" from her presbytery, somewhere or sometime. Instead, she saw her presbytery enmeshed in a bunch of split votes that demonstrated tepid leadership, at best; and trendy postmodern commitments to biblical sexuality, at worst.

What would a pastor or session have to do in order to receive a clear disciplinary "No" from a presbytery of the PCA today in this matter of sexuality?

I can hear some responding, "No one's ordained a woman elder or pastor, yet."

If we think it's possible to avoid declaring the boundaries of biblical sexuality at every point leading up to the eldership, but then to hold firm there, our problems are much deeper than the biblical doctrine of sexuality...

(Tim) Since the decline of his health about a year ago, requiring him to move in with his daughter, leaving Washington D.C. behind, my favorite columnist on American culture and politics, Joe Sobran, has been on hiatus. His articles are few and far between, about every three months, now, and I've missed him quite a bit. So it was a happy day, today, when a new column arrived--this one on our recurrent theme of why Senator Obama rocks, as hip, chic, submergent types see it.

For my money, the keys needed to unlock the submergent church scene are chronological snobbery--after all, they are chrysalises emerging from the slime of our patriarchal, authoritarian, institutional roots--and they hate authority. Thus their support for Senator Obama. He's new, he's about change; what's not to like?

But of course, neither Arcbishop McLaren nor Cardinal Obama are about change, not to even the slightest degree. They're carbon copies of one another. They're both relentlessly superficial, adroit, and non-Christian, in lockstep with our superficial, adroit, and non-Christian information class. Why bother faulting them with wanting to be on the winning side? It's positively democratic, isn't it?

But I do fault them with claiming originality in their consummately predictable, boring opinions. Sobran says it so much better...

(Tim, w/thanks to David) Evangelicals hate discernment. To hate discernment is to hate truth. God's Word is truth.

But evangelicals love God's Word, right? Evangelicals love truth.

These thoughts upon the occasion of this article announcing the divorce of Lakeland revivalist, Todd Bentley. Charisma magazine's editor, J. Lee Grady, admits Bentley's failure has serious implications for the entire pentecostal/charismatic movement. Here's an excerpt from Grady's mea culpa...

(Tim) Speaking of what words to use to refer to a certain type of sexual immorality, I don't remember leaving a comment on this blog where someone used the word David Lehr mentions in one of his recent comments, but I don't question David's accuracy. For myself, I prefer the word 'sodomy' and would be pleased for those who comment to avoid other terms, whether 'bugger' or 'gay.'

'Gay' because it's a word expressing solidarity with an oppressed people group and there's no hint of shame or condemnation. Souls who believe in the plenary verbal inspiration of Scripture--that it's every word of Scripture that's inspired, not simply the concepts those words convey--should desire to speak as Scripture does.

Those complaining here about a lack of love and gentleness in the comments and citing Scripture to make their point are, by their arguments, agreeing that Scripture is the standard for our words. Would they, though, take a confessing Christian to task for using the word 'gay?'

They ought to. 'Gay' says all the wrong things and none of the right ones...

For we are not like many, peddling the word of God... (2 Corinthians 2:17a)

(Tim, w/thanks to Jeff) You couldn't make this stuff up, could you? One company's peddling an "Illuminated" Bible that "looks more like a gossip rag you'd find in a dentist's office than a Bible... (and) features intense pictures of violence and death around the world along with the people who are working to find solutions for many of today's problems."

Intense pictures of violence and death? Maybe it has color images of aborted children's body parts next to a photo of Judie Brown, Joe Schiedler, or Justices Thomas, Scalia, or Roberts?

Not missing a beat, Zondervan's released a Green Bible that "highlights more than 1,000 verses about the earth in soy-based green ink" and contains "essays by religious leaders and other resources on eco-justice." The Green Bible's editor, Michael Maudlin, reports that environmental concerns are "a big part of the Christian agenda today, especially among the youth."

Also, this: "Matthew Sleeth, a doctor who's been pushing fellow evangelicals to go green in recent years, writes in his introduction to the Green Bible that the biggest problem in the world is that the planet is dying."

Over seventy million babies slaughtered each year by medical ghouls and the mothers and fathers who paid them, but bad doctor Sleeth breathlessly reports the imminent death of the planet itself. Or maybe I should say, "the planet herself."

(Tim, w/thanks to Jake) Day after tomorrow, my former prof, David Wells, will give a chapel lecture at TEDS titled, “How, Then, Should We Preach to Postmodern Persons?”

As a teaser question to get people interested, Dr. Wells was asked, "What is a postmodern person?"

He responded:

“Postmodern is how we are speaking about our current cultural mood.  While in some ways we become more and more modern—more technological advances, more information, more medical breakthroughs, and more things—in terms of a world-and-life view, we are adrift. The old Enlightenment paradigm with its belief in unaided, naturalistic reason, human potential, and the prospect of progress have all collapsed.  In the way we think about our lives, we are not modern but postmodern because we think about ourselves differently from what was true up though the 1960’s.”

Leaving everything else aside, did you notice the one absolutely glaring thing about Wells' lecture?

(Tim) Natalie is a longtime friend of the Bayly family--particularly our eldest daughter, Heather. This afternoon, Heather forwarded this e-mail she received from Natalie earlier today, and I asked Heather if Natalie would permit my posting it? Natalie was fine with it. I appreciated very much what she had to say and thought it would strengthen our readers, also. So here are the post-election thoughts and feelings of a young Christian wife and mother named (Mrs.) Natalie Calhoun.

* * *
I'm feeling pensive and sad this morning. It has less to do with who won the election, though I am disappointed in that result. It has much more to do with who voted for him. Perhaps I was naive to believe that people I respected in college, who, I thought, shared my world view, would think the same as me. But I don't understand this wave of young Christian people who supported and voted for Obama. I really want to understand.

I have heard a lot about social justice with regard to this election. I'm for justice. I'm for taking care of "the least of these". I believe that "true religion is taking care of widows and orphans." What I can't get over is the complete disregard for the value of life that is represented by Obama and how a Christian can support that...

Quickly, he said "Yes," but then inquired, "Why would you want me?"

I responded that I thought he'd be perfect because he'd speak from the same presuppositional basis as our denominational leaders.

Another part of our conversation that sticks in my mind was Hentoff saying, "Every atheist should be pro-life because life's all we have."

He who conceals hatred has lying lips, and he who spreads slander is a fool. (Proverbs 10:18)

(Tim) This afternoon, I was talking with a man who was describing how a young couple had been alienated from their church, in large part because of a bad report they heard from a couple who had left that church to escape the discipline of its elders. And yesterday, I heard a similar report from a couple who had been subjected to their church leadership repeating evil and malicious words against another church, while every indication was that their leaders had never spoken personally to those they were attacking. "Lying lips" and "he who spreads slander" are constants in pastoral ministry, and always have been. Thus the Apostle Paul writes:

 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. (Ephesians 4:31)

Man leaves church angry and bitter at church's leadership for their correction or rebuke of him. He's accepted into another neighboring church without question. Yet he's not content to have left his former church. From bitterness, he slanders it to anyone who will listen--starting with his new pastor, church board, and members.

But maybe it's not slander at all, right? Churches do abuse people and you can't be too careful guarding against church popes and dictators who oppress the souls under their care. So how do you know when you're listening to slander and when the bad report is actually true?

A few simple tests will make things clear.

First, ask the person badmouthing their former church whether he has been formally disciplined by that church...

(Tim; this from and by Rev. David Wegener of Ndola, Zambia)

* * *
This is an open letter from an American Reformed Christian living in Africa to my African Christian friends on the occasion of the Inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the U.S.A.

20 January 2009

Dear African Christian Brother:

I would ask you to pray for your brothers and sisters in Christ in the church in America, particularly for those who believe in the complete truthfulness of Scripture.

I’ve just begun a new term at the college and one of the courses I teach is a survey of church history. Last week we learned about Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, who was asked to curse Christ or die. The old man replied, “for 86 years I have served Him and He has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” Minutes after making this good confession he was burned alive... We also read about Blandina, a slave girl who endured indescribable tortures before being killed for her faith. In a few weeks we’ll study Athanasius, who was exiled from his pastorate five times because of his faith in our triune God and his willingness to stand alone against the world for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints.

(Tim) Back when Dad (Joe Bayly) was serving as Executive Director of Christian Medical Society (now Christian Medical and Dental Society), he sent me a copy of the following editorial from the September, 1970 issue of California Medicine, the journal of the California Medical Association. I've referred to this editorial in prior posts, but never run the editorial itself.

It might help readers understand David's and my commitment to push Christian medical professionals hard in matters of life and death if they knew that, in my files, I have copies of a series of letters between C. Everett Koop and Dad immediately following Dad's assumption of the leadership of CMS.

In the first letter, Dad tells Koop that he intends to lead CMS to adopt an anti-abortion position as official policy. On that basis, then, Dad appeals to Koop to restore his membership in CMA.

Prior to then (1979-80), CMS had refused to take a stand against abortion and Koop had resigned in protest...

(Tim) Too many hop, skip, and jump through the Christian year, from Palm Sunday to Easter to the Fourth of July to Christmas. Even among those who are more observant, though, almost none of us include the cleansing of the Temple, the cursing of the fig tree, and the condemnation of the elders, stated clerks, and pastors in our Holy Week festivities.

So, dear souls, why did the religious leaders hate Him so? Why did they spend a night suborning perjury? Why did they hound Him to death? And what occupied Jesus' time between the cries of "Hosanna to Son of David" and these, a few days later: "His blood be upon us and upon our children! Crucify him!"?

Earlier today, a comment was posted elsewhere on this blog that included this statement:

To which I responded with a comment that, by private e-mail, a reader requested I post here on the front page. So here it is, my own meditation for the middle of Holy Week:

Dear (Reader),

There's truth in what you write, but the minority report is stunning...

"Women at Redeemer will be free to use all the gifts, privately and publicly. There are no restrictions on (women's) ministry at all." -Keller/Redeemer

(Tim) In what was billed as a debate, but turned out to be more a love-fest between Tim Keller and Lig Duncan in the PCA's deniminational magazine byFaith, Tim gave his rationale for something approximating his church's practice of woman deacons. If readers take Tim's piece at face value without comparing this public argument with what Tim writes and does in his local church, everything will be muddied and obfuscation will win. The obfuscation may be unintentional or inadvertent, but it will win.

Thus it is that the article must be interpreted in the larger context of Redeemer's structure, words, and actions.

The operative rule at Redeemer with regard to all things sexual is, "A woman may do anything a non-ordained man may do." So the working out of Redeemer's theology of sexuality is that women at Redeemer are allowed to teach and exercise authority over men everywhere and always except from the pulpit Lord's Day morning and in any way reserved for the elders as they exercise something they call "teaching authority." But whatever this "teaching authority" is, it's not when women teach Scripture to men because that precise thing they explicitly allow:

"In a nutshell, our position is this: whatever a non-ruling elder male can do in the church, a woman can do. We do not believe that I Timothy 2:11 or I Cor.14:35-36 precludes women teaching the Bible to men or speaking publicly. To 'teach with authority' (I Tim.2:11) refers to disciplinary authority over the doctrine of someone. For example, when an elder says to a member: 'You are telling everyone that they must be circumcised in order to be saved--that is a destructive, non-Biblical teaching which is hurting people spiritually. You must desist from it or you will have to leave the church.' That is 'teaching authority'--it belongs only to the elders. Thus, women at Redeemer will be free to use all the gifts, privately and publicly. There are no restrictions on ministry at all...

(Tim) From all the facts surrounding Metro New York Presbytery's recent formal approval of unordained male and female deacons serving together in her churches, without sexual distinction, what's the most noteworthy detail?

That the presbytery was informed that Teaching Elders Bryan Chapell and Joe Novenson, in agreement with TE Tim Keller, also did not think the presbytery should overture General Assembly with the proposal.

(Tim) We're looking forward to hosting a number of you for the first annual ClearNote Fellowship conference, Standing in the Gap, to be held here in Bloomington two weeks from now, July 10-12. If you haven't done it yet, please register now and we'll look forward to meeting you and your children.

Online registration is available. And here's a PDF of the conference brochure for you to download. Message titles include, Who Will Stand?; Fight or Flight--True or False Contextualization; Cheap Grace; and Worship Wars.

We plan a refreshing time of fellowship, teaching, food, and worship. The whole family is welcome--we'll be child-friendly but we'll also provide childcare.

I hope you'll register now and join with us for the weekend.

If you'd like more information, please e-mail (Mrs.) Ali Trout at churchoffice at shepherdchurch dot com. Or, give her a call, Tuesday through Friday, at (812) 825-2684.