A toxic orthodoxy

The title of this post is my own; I doubt my "guest" here would agree with it. But I think that threats of retaliation and un-Biblical litmus tests do indeed suggest some level of toxicity. I have previously written about ill effects of dogmatic insistence on a young Earth and a literal six day creation. In a recent commentary on Moody Radio, Bryan Litfin, Associate Professor of Theology at Moody Bible Institute, identified some others. With his permission, I have reproduced his remarks below.

Misplaced Priorities
by Bryan Litfin

I had a disturbing experience recently when I was interviewed on Moody radio about the viewpoint held by some Christians called “progressive creationism.” I’ll explain what that is in a moment, but my goal isn’t to rehash that topic today. It was the response from listeners that disturbed me, and that’s what I want to focus on. I think it’s an example of misplaced priorities when it comes to the Bible’s emphasis.

Basically, progressive creationism argues that God created the universe over billions of years. This is not the same as Darwin’s evolution, because progressive creationists do not hold that man descended from other hominid species. They say God directly created certain species, including man, over billions of years. It’s an old-earth view of creationism. In this way, God’s Word and the scientific record can be reconciled. Again, my point here isn’t to revisit that topic.

It was the response from listeners that disturbed me. When I said on the radio that progressive creationism is an acceptable Christian view, and indeed one I find plausible, some listeners responded negatively. They wrote letters to me and to Moody vehemently disagreeing. That of course is fine; there’s nothing wrong with theological debate. But there were accusations flying as well, including the suggestion that certain creationist viewpoints must be a litmus test for teaching at Moody. There were threats about withholding donations, or not sending students to Moody, and even accusations of infidelity to God’s Word. Though I didn’t feel personally threatened by all this, I was bothered by the lack of discernment I was hearing. I thought, “Is this what we’ve come to in the American church today? Have we been so deluded to let a side issue become the centerpiece?”

The Bible doesn’t make a big issue of the age of the earth. Man has done that. Scripture emphasizes God as Creator, absolutely. But the specific “how” isn’t something that reverberates throughout the Bible. Defending six-day creationism is not the lynchpin of faithful Christianity. Nor is belief in evolution the root of all evil in the world. What science textbooks teach about human origins in the public schools is not a make or break issue for us.

We as believers have got to let creationism assume its proper place in our list of priorities. Sure, it’s an issue for debate among Christians. But when it comes to the unbelieving world, it’s time to stop attacking science as some massive demonic conspiracy, and stop attacking scientists as godless reprobates. Instead, it’s time for Christians to embrace the scientific enterprise, and engage unsaved scientists in serious debate and charitable apologetics.

Perhaps most importantly, we’ve got to start spending our dollars wisely. There’s only so much money to go around. We live in a world full of massive human need and suffering. Should we here in America become obsessed with our own culture wars at the expense of such need? When children are literally starving to death, and widows are oppressed by thugs, and orphans multiply daily, and young girls are forced into prostitution, day after day after day – do we really need a museum with animated dinosaurs and displays about Noah’s flood? Seriously – where do you think Jesus would spend his time? As for me, I have a hunch it would be with the poor and the oppressed.

For Moody Radio, I’m Bryan Litfin.

Professor Litfin is the author of Getting to Know the Church Fathers: An Evangelical Introduction.

Politics: Having your cake and eating it too

Disclaimer: I occasionally smoke a hand-made imported cigar. I quit cigarettes 27 years ago and have never chewed.

"Having your cake and eating too" could apply to much of what's going on in Washington these days - Senator Chris Dodd handing his AIG buddies millions of dollars in bonuses then criticizing them for taking the money, Obama promising not to force the burden of our economic mistakes on future generations while creating the largest and fastest-growing deficits in the history of Earth, and so on.

But I'm particularly amused by the reasoning of those who raise taxes on tobacco. Inevitably, these geniuses manage to do something I cannot - believe that both A and not A are true at the same time. I suppose this irrational ability is a consequence of the post-modernist belief that truth is relative:

Rational Person: "Is truth absolute?"
Post-Modernist: "There are no absolute truths."
R P: "Really? none?"
P-M: "True. Absolutely none."

According to the story cited above, the reason for raising the federal tax on cigarettes from $.39 to $1.01 is "to finance a major expansion of health insurance for children". Rooting for the increase is the president of the American Heart Association:

The tax increase "is a terrific public health move by the federal government," he said. "Every time that the tax on tobacco goes up, the use of cigarettes goes down."

Wow! 33 billion bucks to spend on children and improved health for smokers who are forced to quit or cut back! Who wouldn't want that? But there's a more realistic question - which one do you want? Someone needs to explain to liberals that they can have one or the other, but not both. Either smokers keep smoking and keep coughing up the taxes (so to speak) to pay for children's health insurance, or they cut way back, get healthier, and leave no one to pay for the insurance.

But liberals, the poster children for irrational public policy, obviously believe that cigarette smokers will simultaneously pay and not pay the tax; they will both smoke and not smoke.

And, of course, there's another hallmark of liberalism here, hypocrisy:

Some policy analysts have questioned the wisdom of boosting tobacco taxes to finance health care for children. They argue that the fate of such a broad program should not depend on revenues derived from a minority of the adult population, many of whom have low incomes and are hooked on a habit.

There you have it, pure post-modern liberalism at its best.

PCUSA: Goodbye to all that

My church and I have joined the Midwest Presbytery of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC). After a long, divisive, frustrating struggle with a stiff-necked and ungracious Administrative Commission (AC), we (the session) finally said "enough!". We scheduled an information meeting and vote without the AC's permission.

More than 300 of 550 active members showed up last Sunday to vote on disaffiliation from the PCUSA. The vote was 270 to leave and 36 to stay. In addition to immediate disaffiliation, members voted to seek membership in the EPC and to retain our pastors, session, and Board of Deacons. Additional details are available at the Layman Online.

We still have the presbytery's inevitable claim of an alleged trust in our property to deal with. We continue to hope that our dissenting members will choose to stay in their church family rather than cast themselves adrift in the PCUSA.

In a strange way, I am grateful to that unkind and unreliable AC. If they had shown some consideration for our church, we might still be trapped in their interminable process - and the PCUSA. Is this a case of God intending their evil for our good? I can't say for sure, but as a new member of the EPC, I can say it's a real possibility.

Paris!

I love Paris.

I knew I would love it before I ever set foot in its streets. I knew it my junior year in high school (1961-1962) when I took my first French class. Last May 21, my wife Debbie and I stepped aboard the TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse - France's 200 MPH passenger train) in Strasbourg, France to begin the final leg of a journey that began in Springfield, Illinois 47 years before.

When I was 16, the French language seemed unspeakably sexy to me. The thought of learning it was wrapped in the vague, lusty fantasies of a Midwest teenager. Our teacher, Miss McFadden, did her best to teach us to read, write, speak, and understand French, and some of it stuck with me. I never forgot how to conjugate a handful of verbs. I still remember a brief tribute to the month of March and its often unexpected turns: O que mars est un joli mois, c’est le mois des surprises. The language worked its magic on me, hinting at a world beyond the corn and soybean fields, beyond the grand metropolises of St. Louis and Chicago, a world that revolved around - Paris!

I took two more years of French in college but they seem to have left no lasting impression on me. (To be honest, little of my squandered undergraduate career penetrated my indifference to higher education, at least little of an academic nature.) No matter; like Roy Neary's vision of the Devil's Tower in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I had an image planted in my consciousness. My mind harbored the ghost of a place I had never visited, a place that nonetheless beckoned to me over time and distance.

Oh, I had seen pictures of Paris. I had seen movies set in Paris. I studied paintings hanging on walls in Paris. I knew la Tour Eiffel when I saw it. I had read Sartre and Camus. I had sung folk songs that celebrated life in Paris. I knew a lot facts about Paris but I didn't know Paris. I hadn't experienced it on the ground, conversed with it (however uncertainly) in its native tongue, smelled or tasted it, absorbed its colors or its sounds. Like a fond memory, the longing to be there quietly occupied its corner of my mind, occasionally prodding me and reminding me of its presence.

After being invited to leave college for the final time in 1967, I lived in St. Louis and Chicago - and in New York, and San Francisco, and Provincetown on Cape Code, and Kailua-Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii, and in a lot of places in between. They were all fun or interesting or satisfying places to live. I didn't pine for Paris. I enjoyed those places; they just weren't ... Paris.

As the train crawled through the suburbs of Paris, I searched the skyline for the one landmark that I could not mistake. We had been in France - in Strasbourg visiting expatriate cousins - for five days. But only one thing would make my presence in Paris real. And then I saw that tall, familiar silhouette in the distance. I knew from my 47 years of preparation for this trip that the the grand Champ de Mars lay at its feet, and that just on the other side was the river that had been flowing through my dreams, la Seine.

My recently-resumed study of French (and the foresight to write down the address of our hotel) saw us from the train station to l'Hôtel Beaugency near the rue Cler without difficulty. That evening we celebrated our arrival in the City of Lights by dining at l'Altitude 95 restaurant on the first observation deck of its most famous structure. At any other restaurant in any other city, I would have said the food was good but seriously over-priced. But the end of a 47-year journey deserves a once-in-a-lifetime commemoration at a meaningful location. It was perfect.

I spent ten more days falling in love with this city. A normally picky eater, I resolved to eat whatever was put in front of me while in France. I was never disappointed. Six of those days were spent on a walking tour of the city. I have never been in a city where every street corner entices you away from your planned route. And when you finally tire of walking, the Metro waits a few blocks away to deliver you within blocks of your destination.

Debbie and I just returned from a visit with the cousins who have now been repatriated after four years in Strasbourg. Talking about Paris and writing about Paris are a far cry from being in Paris. But - for now - I can talk and write about where I've been, not just where I want to go.

These and other photos from Alsace, Paris, and Switzerland can be seen here (still many more to come).

PCUSA: Obfuscating the Bible

As an academic (Computer Information Systems), I usually appreciate other academics' creativity. I enjoy novel ways of thinking that lead to interesting and maybe useful results. But not when the academic is trying to make the Bible hard to understand.

The utterings of theologians and Bible scholars must be approached with caution and often taken with pounds - not grains - of salt. A professor doesn't get tenure by writing "Calvin was right." No, getting tenure generally requires the production of ever more novel and esoteric ideas. This is especially true when grants are involved. That's fine in most fields but not when explaining God and his Word.

I am not a theologian or a Bible scholar (just a lay student of the Bible), so I don't keep up with what is all the rage in this global academic village. But as a Presbyterian, I sometimes read about what Presbyterian scholars are up to. "No good" is often an accurate summary. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the current debate over homosexual practice.

In the interest of full disclosure, I confess I often wish God would lighten up a little. I've worked with and been friends with homosexuals most of my adult life. I've worked in college, community, and summer stock theater. (Accuse me of stereotypes if you will, but it is what it is.) I lived at a YMCA in New York for a while - not "the" YMCA of Village People fame - but not much different. I team taught an adult Bible study on homosexuality with a friend who was trying to escape "the life". (He has since quit trying, but I still greet him as a beloved brother whenever I see him.)

It grieves me that as a man married to a woman I can enjoy sexual intimacy within Biblical bounds but these friends and colleagues can't. God, however, didn't ask my opinion. He sets his standards and I can't change them. Neither can I ignore them or urge other Christians to. Theologians and Bible scholars shouldn't either, but too many do.

The PUP report, for example, contained the astonishing assertion that the Bible’s teaching on same-gender sexuality is too “diverse, subtle, and complex” to make any determination of what it actually says. Had they asked, I would have referred them to the excellent Scripture and Homosexuality by Dr. Marion L. Soards, a professor at the very liberal Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Unlike some of his colleagues he is indeed able to read and understand what the Bible says. (My friend and I used Dr. Soards' book and How Will I Tell My Mother? as resources for the class.)

But there are plenty of Presbyterian academics who want us to believe that the Bible was written for intellectuals with advanced degrees. To these exalted few, we poor yokels in the pews are unable to grasp what the plain text means without their intervention. Strangely enough, what they present is often an obfuscation* of what the Bible says, not a clarification. (I have written before about the PCUSA's penchant for word games.)

Such were the speakers at the recent Covenant Network victory celebration. Walter Brueggeman and Stacy Johnson gave attendees what they wanted hear - strained exegesis that they can use to claim that the Bible says what they wish it said. James Berkley (the Berkley Blog, formerly the Institute for Religion and Democracy) has written in the Layman Online about the talks by Breuggeman and Johnson.

Presbyterians who want to know what a faithful academic has to say about the Bible would be better served reading J. Gresham Machen, Francis Schaeffer, or the aforementioned Dr. Soards.

* Obfuscate: To make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand: "A great effort was made . . . to obscure or obfuscate the truth" (Robert Conquest).

PCUSA: The Sundquist disaster

The Sundquist decision is reminiscent of Roe v. Wade. In that case, an activist Supreme Court searched the Constitution high and low to find a hook on which to hang its desired result. Through some of the most tortured logic since the Dred Scott case, the Court found the right to an abortion tucked away in the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure. Likewise, the GAPJC discovered powers invested in the presbyteries that until now have lain completely hidden in the Book of Order, awaiting discovery by a greedy and desperate bureaucracy.

The really alarming thing about the Sundquist decision is the practical reality of how churches wishing to escape the clutches of the PC(USA) might initiate the process. The session can't ask the congregation what they think. The session can't vote to ask the presbytery to launch their intrusion into the life of the congregation. There seems to be no mechanism to compel the presbytery to take action, so particular churches must beg the presbytery to act. They are entirely at the mercy of the presbyteries who have been granted authority to lord it over them like the Gentile kings and call themselves "Benefactors".

It seems the denomination's dreams of converting presbyteries into bishops (cf. the Louisville Papers) is coming closer to fruition. With this decision in hand, it will be much easier to convince a judge that a presbytery is not a body governed by representatives of local churches, but is in fact a powerful hierarch with ruling authority over those churches.

One has to wonder if the the part of this decision that limits expressions of conscience to speech only (no action permitted) will apply to the broad right to scruple. If one had any confidence in the integrity of the GAPJC, one would assume that the first case involving a candidate scrupling G-6.0106b would result in the candidate being told "You can verbally disagree with the standard, but you can take no action that would violate it." Odds, anyone?

Frankly, this comes as no surprise. Those of us who have studied the Supreme Court over the years have witnessed its growing tendency to act as though the Constitution means whatever the Justices say it means. This seems to be a common weakness in constitutional systems of government: Where the legislative body is either weak or complacent, the highest court is free to interpret the constitution any way it pleases. So it is with the PC(USA). Perhaps the GAPJC took its lead from the 218th GA's authoritative interpretations that declare meanings not found in the actual words of the Book of Order.

Discipline in the PCUSA: An undisciplined process

When our session announced a year a go that we believed God was calling our church out of the PCUSA into the EPC, it galvanized a small opposition group into action. Initially, they sent a letter to our congregation that listed their objections to the EPC. Whether by design or honest mistake, the letter contained many misleading and inaccurate statements about the EPC and its beliefs and policies. After that, the group went underground, refusing many invitations to discuss their concerns with the session, rebuffing several efforts at reconciliation, and never publicly giving any reason to remain in the PCUSA.

But underground didn't mean inactive. Instead of addressing the issues, they mounted a full-scale assault on both of our pastors, several session members, a Sunday School teacher, and even the church organist. Part of the strategy was to file complaints against these people with a willing and compliant presbytery. On October 9, I received a letter from the moderator of an investigating committee along with copies of two complaints. These complaints alleged that I had intimidated an anonymous party and that I had failed to show this unnamed person (or perhaps another) proper respect. The alleged offenses seem to have taken place at a congregational feedback meeting held in August, 2007, so the time line went something like this:

• August, 2007 - alleged offenses in a public meeting with a hundred or so witnesses


• November, 2007 - session (including this curmudgeon) announces unanimous support for move to EPC


• February, 2008 - complaints filed with presbytery


• October, 2008 - notice of complaints and investigation sent to alleged offenders

My initial reaction was to cut the complaints up into little bits and send them back to the Investigating Committee. Instead, I explained why I would not be participating in their broken process. This was my reply:

October 13, 2008

Dear Moderator ---;

I am writing in response to your letter dated October 8, 2008 concerning two complaints against me filed with the Presbytery of Wabash Valley. My purpose is not to respond to the accusations but to bring to your attention violations of both the Bible and the Book of Order.

According to D-1.0103, [t]he traditional biblical obligation to conciliate, mediate, and adjust differences without strife is not diminished by these Rules of Discipline. Although the Rules of Discipline describe the way in which judicial process within the church, when necessary, shall be conducted, it is not their intent or purpose to encourage judicial process of any kind or to make it more expensive or difficult. The biblical duty of church people to “come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court . . .” (Matthew 5:25) is not abated or diminished. It remains the duty of every church member to try (prayerfully and seriously) to bring about an adjustment or settlement of the quarrel, complaint, delinquency, or irregularity asserted, and to avoid formal proceedings under the Rules of Discipline unless, after prayerful deliberation, they are determined to be necessary to preserve the purity and purposes of the church. [emphasis added]

The meetings described in the two complaints took place more than a year ago. At no time in the intervening months has any member of our church fulfilled his or her “duty to try … to bring about an adjustment or settlement.” Had my accuser(s) honored this simple obligation, a five minute conversation would have ensued. I would have clarified my words or actions which were never meant to disrespect or intimidate anyone and I would have sincerely apologized for any offense given, however unintentionally. This did not happen, however, and any opportunity to bring about a resolution has been lost.

By shielding the identity of my accuser(s), the IC [investigating committee] has “abated”, “diminished” and indeed eradicated any possibility of my “coming to terms quickly” with my unknown accuser(s). By not admonishing my accuser(s) to be obedient to the Bible and the Book of Order and by pursuing these complaints in this manner, the IC is actively impeding any effort to bring about a resolution consistent with the principles that bind us as Christians and as Presbyterians. All that now remains are the “formal proceedings” that we are directed by the Book of Order to avoid. I find it particularly shameful and ironic that while I may have unwittingly created the appearance of disrespect or intimidation, this deliberate circumvention of Biblical and Presbyterian procedures can have no other purpose than to willfully disrespect and attempt to intimidate me.

I cannot in good conscience be a party to this un-Biblical and unlawful process. This letter concludes my participation in the IC’s investigation. I request that you include this letter in the official record of the investigation, lest anyone mistakenly believe that my silence bespeaks either an admission of guilt or a lack of due regard for the process the Bible and the Book of Order both prescribe. I assure you that, in choosing this course of action, I do not stand on any “right to remain silent” conferred by the Book of Order. Rather I stand on the right conferred by Christ himself to stand silent in the face of malicious accusations.

Sincerely,

I copied the Interim Executive Presbyter and the presbytery's Stated Clerk. As expected, I have received no further communication. My experience with our presbytery has convinced me that the Bible and the Book of Order are little more than convenient sources of quotes. They offer no roadblocks to the pursuit of power and property that drives the presbytery and its local allies.

Add this to my list of reasons to leave the PCUSA and reasons not to stay. Of course, if this nonsense actually went to a trial (without my participation, of course), they would probably kick me out of the PCUSA. Oh, darn.