Evangelicalism

A friend just sent me this link to a recent interview Jonathan Merritt of Religious News Service did with eighty-four year old IVP and NavPress author, Regent prof, and pastor, Eugene Peterson. This particular excerpt has to do with sodomy, lesbianism, and sodomite marriage. Peterson says he's OK with them all.

My friend writes, "As one formed by Intervarsity in the late 80s/early 90s, I see one "esteemed " teacher after another have no courage."

He's speaking euphemistically. This is no mere lack of courage, but utter apostasy. In other words, this man will never enter the Kingdom of God.

One might hope the things Peterson says are the product of early stages of dementia if only they didn't perfectly reflect everything I've known of Inter-Varsity and its press for decades now. How any Christian continues to give money in support of this organization and its employees is...

...if I were to sum up my principal objections to most forms of feminism, it would be in the contention that feminism privileges dogmatic ideology over close and receptive attention to reality.  - A. Roberts, link

In Scripture, authority is symbolically masculine, as it originates with a God who stands over against us ...and who refers to himself with masculine pronouns.  - A. Roberts, link

I have some fairly far-reaching criticisms of complementarianism as most understand it. I believe that it unjustly marginalizes women within the life of the Church and society in many and various ways and tends to devalue them. I believe that women need to exercise far more prominent roles in the life and teaching of the Church, not just as a matter of permission, but as a matter of necessity.  - A. Roberts, link

We need more female spiritual directors, lay teachers, theologians, commentators, scholars, churchwardens, vestrywomen, treasurers, vergers, sacristans, elder women (different from elders), deaconesses, lay chaplains, leaders of Bible studies, missionaries, etc.  - A. Roberts, link

Justin Taylor works for Wheaton publisher Crossway. Now, just prior to their release of a book Heirs Together by UK Ph.D. Alastair Roberts, Justin got Gospel Coalition to run a piece on their blog introducing what Justin assures readers is a "big book." The GC blog post introduced by Taylor is written by Roberts and titled "How Should We Think About Watching Women Fight Women?" 

The post gives us an idea what Roberts's book will be like. He writes about "the particular subjective and objective otherness of the other sex," saying it is an "otherness that should excite wonder, love, responsibility, and care," A few sentences later he writes: "the strength and athleticism of women such as Rousey and Nunes is worthy of admiration in many respects." Then this...

During the advent season last year, a tenured African American professor at Wheaton College named Larycia Hawkins wore a scarf on her head as her own personal declaration of solidarity with Muslims. Dr. Hawkins explained her actions on FB: "I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God."

Quickly, Provost Stan Jones met with Prof. Hawkins and she was put on administrative leave. Dr. Jones had served as provost since 1996, but his discipline of Prof. Hawkins's public heresy brought so much hostility from faculty members and students down on his head that he later announced he would resign as provost and return to teaching. After a couple months, Wheaton hired a woman as his replacement...

Lane Dennis just announced his business made a "mistake" and is reversing their recent decision to leave the present text of his ESV unchanged, in perpetuity. Lane ends his statement announcing the reversal with this:

We believe deeply that the translation and publication of the Bible is a sacred trust and unspeakable privilege, and we want to do all we can to steward this calling, before God, with the reverence and care that it deserves.

The "we" is Lane speaking as Crossway's CEO.

Lane talks about his "sacred trust" and "unspeakable privilege." He says his business is zealous to "steward" this "calling" they have from God. The "God" is implied—"calling" is a slightly oblique way Christians invoke God's Name.

Lane says their Divine calling is deserving of "reverence and care." Read the statement and you'll find lots of flowery words accompanying their reversal. You'll even find the word "apology," but there's no hint of moral failure or plain ordinary sin...

Wheaton College's Dennis Hastert is the quintessential sodomite predator. Read this article, watch this video, and note all the details—every last one of them if you want to guard your children and the children of your church and school from being corrupted by such a man.

Evangelical.

Wheaton College alum.

Husband.

Father.

Note his easy access to young boys.

Note his taking these young men and boys on trips to the Caribbean.

This is precisely what the music director at one of the best-known PCA churches in the country did with the young men he taught and worked with in the church...

Why bother continuing to warn souls against the betrayal of God by the profs and administrations of Evangelical colleges?

A quarter century ago, I bought a book that put some social science muscle behind what I had observed growing up in Wheaton and knowing Wheaton's profs, administrators, and their families firsthand. The book was Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation by University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter. Originally published in 1987, Hunter's work was based upon a careful survey of students at Evangelical colleges and seminaries, including Wheaton College, Gordon College, Westmont College, Seattle-Pacific University, Taylor University, Messiah College, Fuller Theological Seminary, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Wheaton Graduate School, and Westminster Theological Seminary.

University of Chicago Press summarized Hunters' work..

For if the bugle produces an indistinct sound, who will prepare himself for battle? (1Corinthians 14:8)

What's the context for Gospel Coalition and various Southern Baptist profs from Louisville coming out against reparative therapy and loudly pronouncing "there’s no place in the Bible where heterosexuality is commanded"?

The context is our culture's hatred of the law of binary heterosexuality instituted by God in the Garden of Eden prior to the Fall. Every law and every person in our culture who teaches the male and female heterosexuality Jesus proclaimed was "from the beginning" is under relentless attack and the battle has been going against us for decades, now. So we have to decide whether to continue to fight out of love for our neighbors, or to throw in the towel. 

The recent attack upon reparative therapy and heterosexuality is the new sweet spot where Christians weary of the battle are hiding, hoping to wait it out until the artillery shells are gone and the smoke over the battlefield has dispersed. They'd never say it, but keep your eye on where these men are in relation to the rockets' red glare and you'll note how carefully they've placed themselves.

"Just tell them we don't believe in heterosexuality! We believe in Jesus. Tell them the Bible doesn't call men to heterosexuality! Tell them we are Christian counselors and we are against reparative therapy, too!"

Readers may object, saying these are principled men who are taking a stand against reparative therapy and heterosexuality because of their commitment to Scripture. That it has nothing to do with any desire to escape our culture's hostility against reparative therapy and heterosexuality.

So let me get this straight. The motives of shepherds of God's flock are always pure? They ought never to be questioned or judged?

For twenty years or so, the battle lines were drawn up over whether or not our Supreme Court would strike down state laws prohibiting homosexual acts. With even conservative Reformed seminary professors such as Covenant Theological Seminary's David Jones calling for the repeal of these laws, it was inevitable the Supreme Court would take Jones's cue. The battle stretched over several decades, but in time SCOTUS repealed all state laws prohibiting homsexual relations.

The battle lines then were drawn up over whether or not our Supreme Court would strike down state laws prohibiting homosexual marriage. Again, conservative Reformed seminary professors and pastors refused to defend the Western world's historic commitment to heterosexual marriage. Building upon their prior ruling bringing the force of law to bear in support of homosexual relations, SCOTUS consolidated the ground they had taken and repealed all state laws prohibiting homosexual marriage. 

Now the battle lines are drawn up over what is called "reparative" or "conversion therapy." Such therapy is the outworking of the Christian doctrine of sexuality and those who practice this sort of counseling work to move souls caught up in effeminacy toward embracing their manhood or womanhood given them by God. Christian pastors, psychologists, and family therapists call those caught in the prison of homosexual lust and identity to repent of it, and to plead with God to restore to them the nature he gave them at their conception when He created them male or female.

Across the country, our states and cities are passing laws criminalizing this Christian ministry. Once again, conservative Reformed professors and pastors are on the bandwagon. They too believe conversion therapy is bad...

(This is the third in a series of posts [first, second] on the Gospel Coalition's declaration, "Godliness Is Not Heterosexuality.")

He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created. (Genesis 5:2)

Gospel Coalition has a tough problem on their hands. With their pronouncement, "Godliness is not heterosexuality," they've backed themselves into a corner they share with a skunk that doesn't stop spraying.

The problem begins to come clear when we think of other formulations of the Coalitions' pronouncement—say "Godliness is not honesty" or "Godliness is not modesty." Honesty and modesty are accepted moral virtues. Certainly honesty is not the entirety of Godliness, but no one would buck at the statement "to be honest is to be Godly." Thus Gospel Coalition wouldn't dare to run the headline "Godliness is not honesty."

On the other hand, they did run the headline, "Godliness Is Not Heterosexuality." With this headline, the Coalition is trying to make a point they believe the church needs to hear as we seek to get a few more years of peace in this post-Obergefell world...