United Methodists Decide to Remain Christian

The United Methodist Church is the largest of the old, declining, liberal Protestant denominations in the United States.  Nevertheless, it still claims 8.6 million members and many of them are Evangelical.  In its General Conference, held every four years, delegates come from the mission churches planted overseas in back in the days when liberal Protestants still did missions.  The African and other overseas churches are growing rapidly and are, unsurprisingly, overwhelmingly Evangelical.  They now number about 4.4 million members.  The Evangelicals in the US plus the mission church delegates from overseas now constitute a majority of General Conference delegates. 

As Evangelical churches continue to grow in the US and especially overseas and the liberals die off, the denomination is expected to become more and more Evangelical.  So, interestingly, the UMC thus constitutes a kind of microcosm of world Protestantism today.  What does the future of world Protestantism look like?  Is is liberal? Ecumenical?  Liberation/Marxist? Feminist?  Or is it conservative, traditional and Evangelical?  General Conference is going on in Tampa this week, so let's drop in and find out. 

The Washington Post reports:

Despite emotional protests and fierce lobbying from gay rights groups, United Methodists voted on Thursday (May 2) to maintain their denomination’s stance that homosexuals acts are “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

Two “agree to disagree” proposals were soundly defeated during separate votes by the nearly 1,000 delegates gathered for the United Methodist Church’s General Conference in Tampa, Fla.

Jim Antle at American Spectator notes that the heavily biased, left-wing reporting of the New York Times is downright laughable on this one:

The vote was 61 percent to 39 percent against the change to the church’s "Book of Discipline," indicating little change to the deadlock on an issue the church has been debating for the last four decades. The delegates also defeated a compromise amendment proposed by the advocates of equality for gay members, which said that Methodists can agree to disagree on homosexuality and still live together as a church.  [my bolding]

No,  we are not laughing with you Grey Lady; we are definitely laughing at you!  I wonder if Obama won by 61-39 in November if they would refer to that as a "deadlock"? 

Antle also wonders if the denomination's pro-abortion stance can be turned around by Evangelicals in the denomination.

The votes suggest a working majority coalition between orthodox African delegates and U.S. evangelicals. This has kept Methodists from going in the same liberalizing direction on social issues as the other mainline Protestant churches. It will be interesting to see if this coalition has the votes to yank the United Methodist Church out of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

 It is nice to see the advocates of the secular, sexual revolution get rejected by Christians in favor of the Christian view for a change.  Congratulations to the United Methodist Church!

Cross-posted at the Bayview Review. 

Ontario School Policy is Clear: Only Conservatives May Be Bullied

In today's National Post, Mark Steyn mocks the totalitarians who are pretending to be caring and kind as they shut down dissent.

Canada’s GSA is the Gay-Straight Alliance. The GSA is all over the GTA (the Gayer Toronto Area), but in a few remote upcountry redoubts north of Timmins intolerant knuckle-dragging fundamentalist school boards declined to get with the beat. So the Ontario Government has determined to afflict them with the “Accepting Schools Act.”

“Accepting?” One would regard the very name of this bill as an exquisite parody of the way statist strong-arming masquerades as limp-wristed passivity were it not for the fact that the province’s Catholic schools, reluctant to accept government-mandated GSAs, are proposing instead that they should be called “Respecting Differences” groups. Good grief, this is the best a bigoted theocrat can come up with?

Bullying is as old as the schoolhouse. Dr Thomas Arnold, one of the great reforming headmasters of 19th century England, is captured in the most famous novel ever written about bullying, Tom Brown’s Schooldays in what, by all accounts, is an accurate summation of his approach to the matter: “‘You see, I do not know anything of the case officially, and if I take any notice of it at all, I must publicly expel the boy. I don’t wish to do that, for I think there is some good in him. There’s nothing for it but a good sound thrashing.’ He paused to shake hands with the master … ‘Remember,’ added the Doctor, emphasizing the words, ‘a good sound thrashing before the whole house.’ ”

These days, a Thrashing Schools Act mandating Thrashing Out Differences groups across the province would be the biggest windfall for Chief Commissar Barbara Hall and her Ontario “Human Rights” Commission since the transsexual labiaplasty case went belly up. Teachers are not permitted, in any meaningful sense, to deal with the problem of bullying. And, when you can’t deal with a problem, the easiest option is to institutionalize it. Thus, today is the Day of Pink, “the international day against bullying, discrimination, homophobia and transphobia.” Don’t know how big it is in Yemen or Waziristan, but the Minister of Education for the Northwest Territories is on board, and the Ontario MPP Peggy Nash has issued her own video greeting for the day, just like the Queen’s Christmas message: “Today’s the day we can unite in celebrating diversity and in raising awareness …”

So it’s just like every other bloody boring day in the Ontario school system then?

Meanwhile, Cable 14 in Hamilton, Ont., has been Tweeting up a storm: “National Day of Pink/Anti-Bullying Day is tomorrow. What will you be wearing?” Er, I don’t think I have a lot of choice on that front, do I? “For schools holding Anti-Bullying events in April, you still have time to order shirts at a discount.”

That’s great news! Nothing says “celebrate diversity” like forcing everyone to dress exactly the same, like a bunch of Maoists who threw their workers’ garb in the washer but forgot to take the red flag out. If you’re thinking, “Hang on. Day of Pink? Didn’t we just have that?” No, that was Pink Shirt Day, the last Wednesday in February. This is Day of Pink, second Wednesday in April. Like the King streetcar, there’ll be another one along in a minute, enthusiastically sponsored by Scotiabank, Royal Bank, ViaRail and all the other corporate bigwigs.

If anyone is naive enough actually to think that this bureaucratically-imposed exercise in groupthink actually is about what it claims to be about (i.e. bullied homosexual kids), then you also probably believe that Obama is highly committed to reducing the number of abortions by raising taxes and expanding the welfare state.

Bullying is a problem, but it is one largely created by the left-wing refusal to discipline bullies and it has little to do with homosexuality.

According to the Toronto District School Board’s own survey, the most common type of bullying is for “body image” — the reason given by 27% of high school students, 38% of Grades 7 and 8, and yea, back through the generations. Yet there are no proposals for mandatory Fat-Svelte Alliances, or Homely-Smokin’ Alliances. The second biggest reason in Toronto schools is “cultural or racial background.” “Cultural,” eh? Yet there seems no urge to install Infidel-Believer Alliances in Valley Park Middle School’s celebrated mosqueteria, although they could probably fit it in the back behind the menstruating girls. So the pressure for GSAs in every school would seem to be a solution entirely unrelated to the problem. Indeed, it would seem to be a gay hijacking of the issue. Queer Eye For The Fat Chick: “But enough about you, let’s talk about me.”

What about if you’re the last non-sexualized tween schoolgirl in Ontario? You’re still into ponies and unicorns and have no great interest in the opposite sex except when nice Prince William visits to cut the ribbon at the new Transgendered Studies Department. What if the other girls are beginning to mock you for wanting to see Anne Of Green Gables instead of Anne Does Avonlea? Is there any room for the sexual-developmentally challenged in the GSAs?

Why, of course! GSAs are officially welcoming of gays, straights, and even those freaky weirdy types who aren’t yet into sexual identity but could use a helpful nudge in the right direction. “Advisors Say GSA Also For Straight Students,” as the headline to a poignant story in yesterday’s edition of the Pembroke Academy newspaper in New Hampshire puts it. The school-approved GSA began five years ago with an ambitious platform of exciting gay activities. “They had plans for group events, like bake sales and car washes, but they never came to pass,” explained Ms Yackanin, the social studies teacher who served as the GSA’s first advisor.

From a lack of gay bake sales and gay car washes, the GSA has now advanced to a lack of gays. “The students just stopped coming,” said Mrs McCrum, the new Spanish teacher who took over the GSA at the start of this school year. This is the homophobic reality of our education system: a school gay group that has everything it needs except gays.

Homosexuality is not the point. Bullied homosexual kids is not the point. The point is to change your attitude and mine to sexual promiscuity and the sexual revolution as part of the Ne0-Marxist attempt to undermine the family and leave the State as the only entity capable of solving social problems, which thus gives it unlimited power.

Did you really think it was about bullied kids? There is only one group that is being bullied here and that is conservatives who resist the attempt to corrupt kids by promoting sexual license.

Puzzling Headlines

In the mood for a new, up-to-date Bible?

"Jimmy Carter supports same-sex ‘marriage’ as he launches his new Bible"

No thanks, I'll keep my old one by God that does not support mockery of marriage.

So, who exactly is God again?

"Catholic actor Martin Sheen: ‘the Church is not God’ on gay ‘marriage’ issue"

We knew it wasn't the Church, but we didn't think it was Martin Sheen. Or maybe he is just the guy who decides when the Church is right and when it is wrong. But we thought that was God . . .

We admire Timothy Cardinal Dolan's honesty, but isn't it about 50 years late?

"New York Cardinal Dolan says Church failed to teach against contraception."

Not that we Protestants have anything to be proud of on this issue. We folded like a cheap suit when the world discovered that the pill allows you to play around without consequences . . . or so it was thought back in the 1960s.

Wait, isn't it the job of the Left to persecute Christians?

"Betrayal of the Crucifix: As PM urges support of Christianity, his own Minister tells Europe Britons do not have right to wear cross at work"

David Cameron's "Conservative" Party is going to get in trouble with the Labour Party, which specializes in persecuting Christians. Now the Left and the "Right" is competing to see who can be most intolerant of Christianity. Only in Britain you say? Well, so far anyway.

Does This Encapsulate Obama's Foreign Policy or What?

"White House Hosts Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood as Rocket Hits Israel"

Say what you will about Obama; the guy has always had exquisite timing.

This is What Totalitarianism Looks Like: Politicians Presuming to Determine What True Christianity Is

From PAFE newsletter comes these two choice quotations from two of the more rabidly anti-Christian Ontario MPs:

Glen Murray: "I have to say to the bishops: 'You're not allowed to do that anymore.'"

And

Cheri di Novo: "We need to do so much more. It's just not enough anymore to condone any of the actions of those who pretend to be Christian-because they're not. That's what I'll say: They're not Christian."

No unbiased observer can pretend any longer that all the sexual revolutionaries want is tolerance. They want to take over that part of the Christian Church that they can intimidate and destroy the rest. These politicians are claiming the right to determine what true Christianity is.

We have seen this script played out over and over again in the twentieth century. Every totalitarian government is threatened by the Church teaching Christian truth and by families that are not controlled by government bureaucrats. Nazis, Communists, Progressives: they all do the same thing. They come into conflict with the Church and the Family because they are trying to intrude into every aspect of life and impose their Utopian ideologies on every facet of human existence.

But it is highly doubtful if they would be so bold if it were not for the Judas-like betrayal of Christ and his body by the liberal Protestants. They provide cover for these neo-pagan revisionists and allow them to pretend to be a form of Christianity. The United Church and the Anglican Church today function like the German Christians under Hitler and the Orthodox Church under Stalin. They trade the freedom to criticize the regime for the privilege of operating without persecution. They are the "court prophets" who bless the State in exchange for money, prestige and protection from persecution. They already have their reward.

The sexual revolutionaries shout "Theocracy" the minute anybody dares to disagree with their radical anti-life, anti-family, anti-marriage agenda. Social conservatives are criticized for wanting to "impose their values" on everybody else. What blatant hypocrisy! All this talk of "hidden agenda" and "theocrats" is nothing but pure projection.

What they want is an "atheocracy" and they mean to impose it by force. Their weapons are not dogma and scripture, but political correctness, "diversity" (by which they mean uniformity) and "inclusion" (by which they mean exclusion of the truth). They want to impose their values on us by force, so to divert attention from their true agenda, they project their own will-to-power on Christians and accuse us of what they themselves actually are guilty. Since the mainstream media agrees with them ideologically, the meme is picked up and spread. They have learned their lesson well from Goebbel: they know the lie must be big and repeated endlessly. This is their strategy.

Will it work? Time will tell. But Christians should not be intimidated or silent. We should speak out against sodomy, against promiscuity, against the hyper-sexualizing of our children in public schools through so-called "sex education," against attacks on marriage as the foundation of society and against bullying of parents and teachers by "gay activists" bent on imposing their warped values on us. It is time for conservatives to stand up and be counted. Of course we will be called names; Jesus told us to expect that. But if being called names intimidates you, just wait until the persecution ramps up; you will wish that all that was happening was that you were being called bad names.

Update:
For those who don't know, this post might make more sense if you were aware of the fact that Cheri de Novo is an ordained United Church of Canada minister.

The Ontario Government is Bullying Parents and Catholics in the Name of Anti-Bullying Laws!

How hypocritical can you get. The whole homosexual rights charade is nothing more than a fig leaf for totalitarians who want to break apart the family and destroy the influence of the Church.

A rally organized by Concerened Catholic Parents of Ontario took place yesterday at the Provincial Legislature. Here is a report from the PAFE (Parents as First Educators) newsletter.

(Toronto, March 30, 2012) Parents as First Educators spokesman, Teresa Pierre, told a crowd of 2000 outside the Ontario Legislature Building on Thursday afternoon that her members support any anti-bullying bill that adds new tools to fight bullying but that they oppose bill 13 because it mandates an equity curriculum that parents oppose. Parents are particularly concerned about the provision of age-inappropriate material to children of young ages in the sexual education component and elsewhere. "How much more strongly do parents have to say that they want less sexualization of children, not more?" she asked. The crowd of Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus responded with enthusiastic cheers.

Onlookers said how much they enjoyed hearing the different faith-perspectives of various groups. The common denominator was concern to protect children against bullying, but with measures that respect their faith traditions. Many groups, including non-Catholic groups, said that Liberal Education Minister Laurel Broten's attempt to override the statements of Catholic bishops opposed to having GSAs in Catholic schools was a kind of thought control no Canadian should support.

Inside Queen's Park MPPs were debating Conservative anti-bullying bill 14. MPP Glen Murray said that the Catholic faith teaches that homosexuals are disordered. Outside speaker Jack Fonseca from Campaign Life Coalition stated that the Church does not condemn or say that individuals are intrinsically disordered by virtue of same-sex attraction. Murray attempted to paint members of ordinary mainstream denominations demonstrating outside as extremists in order to diminish their concerns.

Pierre stated that parents are opposed to bill 13 because it will likely trigger years of costly lawsuits against the province which will ultimately be paid by the taxpayers. In a time of global financial crisis, parents need to pay their bills, and they are not going to tolerate wasting their hard-earned cash when it could be paying for the gas to take their kids to hockey practice. Parents think bill 14 offers new tools to address bullying such as a third-party body to oversee situations in which parents find they are not making headway with their school principals. They do not support bill 13 because "it is a grave violation of our conscience rights, we think it is just a feel-good measure, and we think it will cause social upheaval and add to our own financial distress."

The rally was sponsored by Concerned Catholic Parents of Ontario. Other speakers included TDSB Trustee Allan Tam and several individuals from the Muslim, Sikh and Hindu faiths. Several PC MPPs stopped by to listen, including PC MPP John O'Toole, who challenged the application of the term homophobic to demonstrators by MPP Liz Sandals later that afternoon during the Parliamentary debates.

A small group of 20 protestors stood nearby shouting that Catholic parents favor bullying.

MPPs from all parties praised bill 14, speaking of the need to move forward on progress toward an anti-bullying bill. Just before Parliament ended for the day Witmer's bill was referred to the social policy committee. One wonders how quickly Bill 13 will join it there.

You have to admit that the anti-Christian and anti-Family cultural Marxists, nihilists and sex worshipers employ clever rhetoric. They want a law to force Catholic schools to teach that historic Christian teaching about sexuality is wrong. So they claim that Biblical teaching leads to bullying homosexuals and then they bully politicians into persecuting Christians and taking away parental rights to decides what ethics their children will be taught. Brilliant! But then again, the Devil has always been clever.

Sign the Petition!

Help us defend parental rights and religious freedom against the flawed Bill 13. This proposed legislation by Dalton McGuinty's Ontario government will subvert parental rights and freedom of religion. It will cause schools to teach children controversial Sex Ed theories that violate the religious and moral convictions of many parents about human sexuality.

The state must not be allowed to take away our rights with Bill 13. Join us at Queen's Park. Let's tell Dalton McGuinty and all MPPs to vote NO to Bill 13. We support genuine efforts to reduce bullying, but Bill 13 is a veiled atttempt to push a sex ed agenda, under the guise of anti-bullying.

If you live in Ontario, please take a moment to sign the petition against Bill 13 that the McGuinty government is putting forward in the Ontario Legislature.

Vote "No" to Bill 13 Petition | GoPetition

Children should not be exposed to talk about sexual matters in elementary school. This itself is a form of bullying, if not child abuse. It is also a direct assault on the family and its freedom of religion. Parents have a right not to have the State teaching their children that the religion of their parents is wrong and hateful.

Why are we so tolerant of those who seek to impose their false beliefs on us in such a high-handed and disrespectful manner?

Same-sex "Marriage" and Schism

There are many theological issues over which sincere Christians can agree to disagree until further light comes to us. Evangelical Christians have learned to be a united renewal movement within the broader Church despite disagreements over the form and mode of baptism, models of church government, Calvinism versus Arminian soteriology, speaking in tongues and so on. The two-decade long process of Evangelical and Catholics Together has dulled the anti-Catholic fervor of most Evangelicals, although many Reformed conservatives still hold out. Personally, I think a tipping point was reached with the Lutheran-Catholic joint statement on justification and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I still believe the Roman Catholic Church is in need of further reforms, but I acknowledge that on many issues the last two centuries has witnessed a remarkable number of reforms for which the 16th century Reformers called. Significant ecumenical progress is underway.

The sheer number of such non-fellowship destroying theological issues and the good ecumenical news on several fronts, however, can have the unintended side-effect of inuring us to more serious theological disagreements which do, in fact, destroy the unity of Christ's Church and cause the loss of salvation for those who deny central truths of the Scripture. As Evangelicals and Catholics come closer together, liberal Protestantism becomes increasingly isolated from the mainstream of Christianity.

To deny the substitutionary atonement of Christ as necessary for the forgiveness of sins or the Triune nature of God or the full deity and humanity of the God-Man, Jesus Christ - these are not things which we can agree to disagree about. To deny these doctrines is to deny the Faith and to separate oneself from Christ and from his body in schism.

A serious question that must be faced today, given the slide into acceptance of so-called same-sex "marriage" by liberal Protestants, is whether or not this issue falls into the category of secondary doctrines about which disagreement can be tolerated without destroying the Church's unity or whether or not the endorsement of same-sex "marriage" is a soul-destroying heresy that rends the fabric of Christ's Church. Technically, a heresy is a doctrinal deviation that causes the heretic to be regarded as a non-Christian doomed to eternal punishment and which causes a schism in the Church by placing those who embrace the heretic outside the Church. Not all doctrinal disagreements rise to the level of heresies, but some do. It takes spiritual discernment, careful thought, historical awareness and, above all, deep biblical understanding to tell which are which.

So, is the embrace of the charade known today as same-sex "marriage" a heresy?

John Piper has a good post on Dietrich Bonhoffer and Wolfhart Pannenberg, two major twentieth-century theologians who have made solemn judgments on heresy and schism. Bonhoffer denounced the "Aryan Paragraph," which the Nazis tried to impose on the German Protestant Church in order to exclude Jews from the Church as heresy in the precise and fullest sense. In the Barmen Declaration (authored by Karl Barth) the Confessing Church separated itself from the German Christians who accepted the Aryan Paragraph. They did not just claim to be disagreeing with fellow-Christians; they were clear that to accept the Nazi demand that Jews be excluded from the Church was to abandon the Church and cease to have a credible Christian testimony.

Piper also quotes Wolfhart Pannenberg on the same-sex "marriage" issue as follows:

Here lies the boundary of a Christian church that knows itself to be bound by the authority of Scripture. Those who urge the church to change the norm of its teaching on this matter must know that they are promoting schism. If a church were to let itself be pushed to the point where it ceased to treat homosexual activity as a departure from the biblical norm, and recognized homosexual unions as a personal partnership of love equivalent to marriage, such a church would stand no longer on biblical ground but against the unequivocal witness of Scripture. A church that took this step would cease to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

You can access Pannenberg's entire article, of which this is the final paragraph, here. Pannenberg views the embrace of same-sex "marriage" as a schismatic act. It is a heresy.

Piper notes that the Aryan Paragraph and the endorsement of homosexuality both deny the cross of Christ. Christ died, he notes, to bring Jews and Gentiles together in one body. (Eph. 2:14-16) And Christ died to bring repentant sinners into the Kingdom of God. (I Cor. 6:9-10) Therefore, he concludes, to exclude Jews is to deny Christ and his cross and to affirm a way of life that excludes people from the kingdom of God is to take a stand against the cross of Christ, which aims to save people for the Kingdom of God.

There is no plausible way to view those who endorse homosexual sin as attempting to acknowledge the authority of Scripture. Scripture is crystal clear that homosexual activity is sin and homosexual temptations are a result of a fallen, disordered, human sexuality - a curse we all bear. There is not a single positive or neutral reference to homosexuality in all of Scripture. Romans 1 distinguishes between those who are tempted and fall into temptation and those who "not only do them but give approval to those who practice them." (Rom. 1:32) Those who commit homosexual sins merely need to repent and they can be forgiven. But those who "give approval" to such sins need to change their minds about the morality of such actions before they can repent. It is far worse to teach that evil is good and that sinful acts are not under God's condemnation than merely to engage in a wrong act. The latter imperils one's own soul, but he former imperils the souls of others as well. Only a mind that is sunk deep into sin and rebellion against Christ could endorse same-sex "marriage" as good.

The United Church of Canada and the Anglican Church of Canada have gone into schism from the rest of Protestantism. It is highly problematic even to articulate a way in which they could legitimately be called Christian Churches anymore. Their status would be closer to the Mormans or Jehovah's Witnesses than to Protestant Churches. This is a very serious matter for those who find themselves members of schismatic bodies. They need our prayers as they wrestle with what to do.

The tragedy of being conformed to this world is the loss of Jesus Christ. Same-sex "marriage" is probably the primary way contemporary Christians are being conformed to this world and thus drawn away from a living unity with our Lord and His Church. Clarity on this issue is a major requirement for effective pastoral ministry.

This Election is about Morality and God: Everything Else is Details

Well, blogging is still light around here because I'm deep in the fourth century but before I dive back into Athanasius' smackdown of Arian exegesis again, I just checked what is going on in the 21st century and, oh what a night for Rick!

All over America millions of people are saying something like this to each other: "The only thing I ever had against Santorum is that I never thought everybody else would vote for him."

Exactly. That is what you were programed to think by your media manipulators. Romney is inevitable. Romney is the choice of all the smart people in the Republican establishment. Santorum is a nobody. He belongs to some creepy cult called Roman Catholicism whereas Romney is a fine, upstanding, mainstream Mormon.

Enough. This is not a beauty pagent. More than any other election I can remember in my lifetime it is an election of big ideas. Here are a couple of comments I noted well from the Big Government website this morning. Big Government leans libertarian not social conservative, so they are all the more significant for that.

First, from Joel B. Pollack:

Santorum’s (belated) victory in the Iowa caucuses owed much to his campaign’s explicit appeals to evangelical voters on social issues. Yet even voters who disagree with him on those issues may be attracted by the fact that he has a set of values that he is not willing to sacrifice under any circumstances. After a year of frustrating compromises in Congress–for both sides–Santorum’s strong stances on social issues may be a plus. . . .

The church is an imperfect guardian of individual liberty, but Obama’s expansive state is liberty’s clear enemy. That is why 2012 could see a social conservative revival after all.

Secondly, from Charles C. Johnson:

But Santorum understands something that few of the other candidates can put into words: that the power to mandate is the power to compel and compulsion must be grounded on something higher than the mere will of the sovereign. This is a very effective argument against Barack Obama, but it it also a very effective one against Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, who also supported the Wall Street bailouts, cap and trade (taxing breathing) and of course, the individual mandate in health insurance. Both Gingrich and Romney are essentially progressives in their view that there is nothing government mustn’t do.

Santorum is totally correct when he says that government big enough to give you everything is big enough to take everything away or to force you to accept their “gifts” on their terms. We got a vision of what an Obamacare regime will look like this week when the Obama administration forced Catholic universities, hospitals and other church-affiliated employers to implement a new policy that requires health insurers to offer birth control coverage. For Catholics and many Americans who rightly argue that life begins at conception, forcing their institutions to provide the morning after-pill is tantamount to forcing them to countenance abortion.

The truth has always been that the left were the aggressors in the culture wars and this week they dug their trenches and prepared their assault on three key issues: homosexuals, the murder of the unborn, and compulsory subsidizing of birth control. Each of these issues is tied to the freedom of conscience and each of these issues is a battleground that the left has chosen. Suddenly the pushy Catholic, as the left would describe Santorum, doesn’t seem so pushy when the Catholics get pushed around. So much for if you like your health plan you can keep it. The fine print was apparently: you can only keep your health plan if we like it. Oh, and if you are a charity that doesn’t want to fund our left-wing causes, we will hack your websites, destroy your reputation, and threaten your employees.

(My bolding) The two sentences I have bolded represent the crux of this election. Do Americans still believe, as the Founders did, that ultimately morality and law must be based on something higher than the will of the sovereign (or the people)? Not all the Founders were orthodox Christians, but this was something they nevertheless believed to a man. There is an objective order of right and wrong in this universe and our job is to try to measure up to it, not redefine it.

Sometimes we fail and sometimes we don't even try. But the objective standard remains the same. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Etc.

A country that has a standard it fails to live up to, like an individual, can always repent. So there is always hope. But when you deny the standard, re-define it, assume the role of God, what comes next? Solzhenitsyn talked about this in his Harvard commencement address, "A World Split Apart." He criticized the failure of the tyrannical Soviet Union as rooted in the tragedy that: "Men forgot God." But he scandalized the leftist intelligentsia of America by telling them to their faces that unless they remember God they face the same fate.

Social conservatism cannot, as Mitch Daniels suggested, be cordoned off and ignored while the real business of economics is taken care of by the government. Why? Because the basic economic problem in America is whether government should be limited or unlimited. And the answer to that question depends on whether or not we believe that God exists.

To put it bluntly, God limits government and that has always been the secret of the West's greatness. And when the West forgets God - it will fall too.

UPDATE:

If you want to watch Rick Santorum's victory speech last night, click here. It is about 14 minutes and the best part, if you are short on time, is the second half, especially the closing. He talks about "honour" for heaven's sake! Honour! In the modern world. No irony. And it is credible. Honestly, conservatives have waiting for another Reagan since 1988. Could this finally be what they have been waiting for?

Newt Exposes the Media's Anti-Catholic Bias

Give Newt Gingrich credit for exposing the anti-Christian bias of the secular media and highlighting the fact that it is the Christian Church that is facing more bias and discrimination than homosexuals are today.

Last night, in answer to a typically loaded question by the moderator, Gingrich said:

"I just want to raise -- since we spent this much time on these issues, I just want to raise the point about the news media bias. You don't hear the opposite question asked. Should the Catholic Church be forced to close its adoption services in Massachusetts because it won't accept gay couples which is exactly what the state has done. Should the Catholic Church be driven out of providing charitable services in the District of Columbia because it won't give in to bigotry? Should the Catholic Church find itself discriminated against by the Obama administration on key delivering of service because of the bias of the administration? The bigotry question goes both ways. There's a lot more anti-Christian bigotry today than there is concerning the other side. None of it gets covered by the news media."

You can see the video clip of this answer here. The point is that the secular media is not interested literally in "bias" or "discrimination" or "fairness," but rather in advancing the sexual revolution agenda and undermining the foundations of our culture. That is the real problem.

By the way, Mitt Romney had a great line too. He said that when he was Governor of Massachusetts the Supreme Court found that the Constitution required the state to recognize marriage between two people of the same sex. Then he said, "John Adams, the author of the Constitution would undoubtedly be very surprised to hear that!" No doubt.

Who is the Bigot?

Watch this clip of Piers Morgan interrogating Rick Santorum. (It can't really be described as interviewing.) Santorum gives an excellent account of himself and shows real Christian grace under fire.

I don't think I could be so gracious while in the presence of someone who has already compromised his conscience and rejected the moral teaching of his own church in order to get ahead in a highly secularist and anti-Christian profession.

The more discussions I hear of the topic of homosexuality, the less I think it has to do with sex at all. It seems much more a matter of the anti-Christian secularists having stumbled on a weapon they find useful to use to get at Christians and reduce Christian influence on society.

1.

So, based on this exchange, who do you think the real bigot is?

Next Stop on the Slippery Slope: Pedophilia

The culture wars still rage in the US over homosexuality and same-sex marriage, but the next step on the slippery slope is already coming into view. Once homosexuality is successfully mainstreamed, the next frontier inevitably will be pedophilia.

The Daily Caller reports in an article entitled: "Conference aims to normalize pedophilia":

If a small group of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals have their way at a conference this week, pedophiles themselves could play a role in removing pedophilia from the American Psychiatric Association’s bible of mental illnesses — the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), set to undergo a significant revision by 2013. Critics warn that their success could lead to the decriminalization of pedophilia.

The August 17 Baltimore conference is sponsored by B4U-ACT, a group of pro-pedophile mental health professionals and sympathetic activists. According to the conference brochure, the event will examine “ways in which minor-attracted persons [pedophiles] can be involved in the DSM 5 revision process” and how the popular perceptions of pedophiles can be reframed to encourage tolerance.

Researchers from Harvard University, the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Louisville, and the University of Illinois will be among the panelists at the conference.

B4U-ACT has been active attacking the APA’s definition of pedophilia in the run up to the conference, denouncing its description of “minor-attracted persons” as “inaccurate” and “misleading” because the current DSM links pedophilia with criminality.

As you may recall, this is exactly the same tactic used to get the APA to drop "homosexuality" from its list of mental illnesses and add "homophobia" instead. Nothing changed in terms of research or understanding of homosexuality; a group of political activists simply co-opted science through methods of intimidation. Now it is happening again.

Note that academics from major universities are involved in promoting this horrible evil.

And if you think that social disapproval of pedophilia is so strong it could never be overcome by activists, please remember that millions of people said the same thing about homosexuality as recently as 20 years ago. There are definite signs that our society's hatred of pedophilia is diminishing. How could it not in such a relativistic climate?

Check out this recent picture from a recent issue of the French Vogue magazine. The girl is ten years old and already an erotic object for men.

Pedophilia is just another step down the ladder of sexual perversion and is inevitable when a society refuses to acknowledge the plan of the Creator for the expression of sexuality within a loving, permanent, heterosexual marriage that is open to new life.

What Stands in the Way of the Radical Homosexual Goal of Destroying Marriage? Reuban Diaz . . . and God

The radical homosexual agenda has come out into the open in recent years. No longer can an unbiased observer be justified in believing that the push for "same-sex marriage" has anything to do with tolerance for homosexuals. It clearly is all about providing a legal basis for the persecution of Christians, Jews and other conservatives who believe in traditional marriage. Consider what has been happening in New York since the Legislature made it illegal not to pretend that a man can "marry" another man.

Speaking of "crimes," on Tuesday, Bob Ellis reported on some of the very predictable fallout from the recent outrage of the state lawmaker-mandated forcing of homosexual "marriage" on the people of New York. Now appearing on the hellish stage is Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice, who has apparently been threatening county clerks who are morally opposed to issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

As Bob Ellis reported,

"...[I]n the wake of New York's recent decision to allow homosexuals to counterfeit marriage, some not only want morally committed clerks fired, they want clerks criminally prosecuted who will not participate in the counterfeiting of marriage.

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) blog highlights one NY state senator who still has a moral compass, Ruben Diaz, and a press release he sent out yesterday:

'...It is inexcusable that Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice has publicly threatened employees by stating 'the law affords no discretion to public officials charged with granting marriage licenses. Therefore, any such refusal may be subject to criminal prosecution.'

Her press statement stated: 'The religious exemptions in the Marriage Equality Act are inapplicable to town and city clerks serving in their license-granting roles, and a public official's intentional refusal to issue marriage licenses to qualified same-sex couples may constitute Official Misconduct, a Class A misdemeanor defined in section 195.00 of the New York State Penal Law.'"

Freedom of conscience? Freedom of religion? What in the world are you talking about? Oh, those United States of America constitutional rights don't apply here. When it comes to appeasing the aggressively radical homosexuals, you Christians can check your God-given rights with your coat and hat at the door.

So who is standing up to the "dictatorship of relativism," this fascist imposition of the will to power? A Pentecostal minister who also happens to be a Democratic member of the New York State Senate, Rev. Reuban Diaz, that's who. And if you are a black Democrat you can surely dissent from the party line on one issue and not get slurred and threatened, can't you? Well, actually, no - it is the lynch mob for you.

Sen. Ruben Diaz, a South Bronx Democrat is also a Pentecostal Minister and a charismatic and unshakeable man of principle. He refused to back down on what he considered a moral truth. As the 'gay marriage' debate heated up in the final week, he refused to be bullied into selling out.

... During his stand for marriage Sen. Diaz endured death threats which caused him to seek help from the police and FBI.

But now, two weeks after the vote, Sen. Diaz continues to be [the] target of a vile and disgusting campaign of personal attacks by the homosexual community. He receives a flood of vicious hate calls and emails to his home and office. The 'tolerant' homosexual community sponsored a 'F- Ruben Diaz Festival' in a gay bar in Brooklyn.

But Sen. Diaz is not backing down. Yesterday he published a press release, also posted on his web site, which re-stated his unwillingness to back down under pressure."

What does Sen. Diaz have to say? In a press release he says:

"On June 24th I voted my conscience and opposed Governor Andrew Cuomo's key piece of social legislation in the New York State Senate that redefines our marriage laws away from the traditional definition of one man and one woman. I was the only Democrat in the Senate to vote against this legislation, and I wear my vote as a badge of honor.

I have been congratulated by religious leaders and constituents not only from my district, but from districts all over New York State. I have received messages of encouragement and gratitude from people throughout the United States. Alberto Martinez tweeted: 'Jesus said: 'Whoever is ashamed of Him and His words, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of such person at His coming.' Bravo Senator Diaz.' All of these supporters know that I am unashamed to be a Christian. If we talk the talk, we must walk the walk.

Although Republican Senate Leader Dean Skelos ushered the gay marriage vote to the floor in order to make the 11:00PM news, and even though the vote passed, the hatred that has spewed in my direction before June 24th continues.

Yesterday I received a series of five emails in my Senate account from one person that read like homicidal rantings: 'You eat s-. You are s-.' 'There is no worse person on Earth than you. God has told me so.' 'You worthless pile of human excrement...' 'I hope you die. I hope you die soon. I'm waiting for you to die.' 'Satan would sooner nail a stake through your heart than admit to knowing you. Your very own lover...'

To err on the side of caution and especially since one of the messages awaits my demise, those emails were properly reported to the FBI."

The pro-homosexual movement is not about tolerance or justice or compassion for the underdog. Black Pentecostal Democrats are not the face of the Establishment; they certainly don't control society. But they have to be ruthlessly mowed down by the extremist homosexual movement as it seeks to consolidate power and eliminate all opposition to its control of our culture.

Where are the New York Baptists, Presbyterians and other Evangelical voices in New York? If it were not for the Catholics and Pentecostals the Christian voice would be practically silent. We Evangelicals are being weighed in the balance and found wanting. A hundred years ago there were no such things as Pentecostals. Now there are half a billion. Do we really think God is stuck with us and has no options?

In any case, the agenda is clear and the battle lines are drawn. Those who think there can be compromise and reasonable accommodation between Christians and Nietzschean homosexual extremists are being proven wrong systematically by events as they unfold. The agenda is the destruction of marriage and the Christian Church stands in the way of that objective.

Some liberal Protestants have been so frightened that they have scurried into line and so we witness the humiliating spectacle of so-called Episcopalian "bishops" dutifully marching like captives in "Gay Pride Parades." They are sell-outs who will do anything for the Nazis in exchange for being gassed last. The Church was built on martyrs not on pragmatic bandwagon jumpers.

For every traitor and heretic God has reserved for Himself a man like Reuban Diaz. Let us pray for him and may his courage inspire us to serve without reservation.

Homosexuality, Biblical Interpretation and the Christian Mind

As I noted in my last post, the moral and theological clarity of the Roman Catholic Church on the issue of homosexuality, as in the case of the formidable Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, is commendable. Unfortunately, the Protestant trumpet blows with a rather uncertain sound.

Evangelicals, for the most part, are standing firm on Scripture, but have failed to reflect theologically on the doctrine of human nature. As a result, the secular disciplines of psychology and sociology often exert more influence on Evangelicals' understanding of human nature, including sexuality, than Scripture, Tradition or systematic theology. This is a worrisome fact for the future of Evangelical faithfulness.

But if Evangelicals have a weak understanding of human nature, Liberal Protestants have completely abandoned the Christian doctrine of the human person and embraced a heretical tradition stemming from Rousseau, Marx, and Dewey, which views humans through the mechanical philosophy of Bacon, Newton, Kant and Nietzsche.

In Modernity, human nature is conceptualized dualistically as matter plus spirit. Matter is seen as completely under the control of blind, mechanistic, natural forces, while spirit is the realm of freedom. However, many moderns are not convinced that the human soul is anything more than myth. Those who do believe in the soul tend to reduce it to matter in various ways.

As a result of this kind of dualism (which is very different from the dualism of orthodox Christianity), Modernity is fundamentally confused about human nature, ethics and natural law. Modern dualism posits an agonistic conflict between the realm of freedom (spirit) and the realm of necessity (matter). They are related in a mysterious and tragic manner. But Christian dualism views the realms of freedom and necessity as intimately and harmoniously related to each other and the dissonance (perceived in both Modernity and Christianity) is caused, not by agonistic metaphysical mystery, but by sin. So the fundamental conflict in Christian anthropology is not between nature and freedom, but between the obedient and joyful will and the bent and destructive will (i.e. between love and sinful rebellion).

For Moderns, the assertion of will is not the natural function of the human being in the service of joyful obedience to the law, but essentially rebellion against nature. For Modernity, nature is incoherent chaos, not creation. Modernity seeks to rebel against nature in the name of humanism and thereby feels itself to be both noble and anti-Christian simultaneously for it cannot understand how or why Christianity can be so peacefully accepting of God's creation as revelatory of the plan of the Loving Creator. For Modernity, nature is to be feared, tamed and ultimately overcome. For Christianity, on the other hand, love brings nature and human freedom into harmony.

Liberal Protestantism has completely embraced the Modern understanding of human nature, God and creation. Therefore, it is no longer Christian. We have moved beyond differences of understanding of one theological reality into the realm of the denial of the Creed itself. While the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Evangelicalism all remain within the realm of orthodoxy, Liberal Protestantism has separated itself from the Church universal and embraced heresy. Anyone who embraces the Liberal Protestant heresy is no longer a Christian except in the sense of having some sort of vague Christian heritage. The best name for this position is "post-Christian."

It is confusing for the general public, journalists, politicians and others who wish to know what Christianity thinks of public policy issues like abortion, homosexuality, marriage and so on. It is confusing because non-Christians have seized control of the denominational machinery, endowments and institutions of formerly Christian denominations. They still spout a lot of Christian phrases and slogans, but they have denied the content of the orthodox faith contained in Scripture and affirmed by all true Christians down through the centuries. Is it too radical to imagine that this shell of a religion may form the outward trappings of the anti-Christian religion that will be used by Satan and his minions, including the Antichrist, to deceive as many as possible in the last days?

What is the significance of the embrace of homosexuality by liberal Protestantism? It goes far beyond disagreement on just another ethical issue. Scripture itself clearly indicates that only a mind that is far gone into rebellion against God and the Truth can possible be so self-deceived and corrupt as to call homosexuality good. Romans 1 is often debated as to its meaning, but its real hermeneutical and theological significance is seldom appreciated.

I want to make three points that come out of Rom. 1:18-32, which is probably the most important passage in the Bible on the issue of homosexuality and hermeneutics. If you are not familiar with this passage, please go and read it carefully right now. What follows is not a complete exposition of the passage but just some important points it teaches.

1. In vv. 18-22 the Holy Spirit informs us that the natural man is under the wrath of God because of his rejection of natural revelation. Even apart from any knowledge of Scripture, the gentiles have rejected what can be known of God and human nature from creation and have thus incurred the wrath of God. As a result of this, we read in vv. 21-22:

"For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools." (ESV)

So the first thing this passage says is that sin makes us stupid, or rather, that by sinning we make ourselves stupid. This is why what seems perfectly natural and common sensible is turned upside down by people professing to be religious, educated and intelligent.

2. The second point we need to note from this passage is the triple "God gave them up" in vv. 24, 26 and 28. It says that God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts in v. 24, to dishonorable passions in v. 26 and to a debased mind in v. 28. In v. 18 it says that men suppressed the truth and failed to honor God. In v. 25 it says that men exchanged the truth of God for a lie and in v. 27 it says that men gave up natural relations with women. So we see here a pattern in which men reject the truth and God rejects them. There are three stages. First, men reject the truth itself and then they reject the behavior which is the living out of that truth. Finally, they lose the ability even to know or understand the truth itself: their minds become darkened and they begin to call good evil and evil good.

3. The third point I wish to emphasize from this passage is that this rejection of the truth results in a generally debased mind which is no longer able to function properly as God intended. Conscience is seared, the mind is darkened and people can no longer perceive reality clearly. Those in this condition are untrustworthy guides to the interpretation of Scripture as a whole.

This "debased mind" is the opposite of the "Christian mind" that is needed in order for the interpreter of Scripture to discern correctly the meaning of Scripture. In vv. 29-31 we find those who have this debased mind no longer able to understand right from wrong and in v. 32 we find them giving approval to actions that lead to death. Such people are a menace because they advise the unwary to engage in actions that lead to death. These people are extremely dangerous spiritually because they have an appearance of religion and learning, but they are incapable of perceiving the truth.

Those liberal Protestants (and their Catholic fellow travelers) who have gotten to the place where they actually think that evil is good and good is evil actually encourage those who depend on their advice to do evil. Their darkened minds prevent them from interpreting Scripture according to its center in Jesus Christ; instead, they impose ideologies derived from modern philosophies upon Scripture and call it interpretation. Like the Gnostics of the second century, they actually make the philosophical systems derived from pagan culture the framework into which Scripture is pressed and distorted.

A good rule for lay people to follow in matters of religious authority is to let their common sense and Christian Tradition guide them in matters of Scriptural interpretation relating to obvious evils like homosexuality and to be very wary of religious teachers who try to invert morality as liberal Protestants do. In other words, if someone is so far out of touch with reality that he tries to convince you that up is down and homosexuality is normal, then have nothing to do with such a one. Such a person is unlikely to understand the Bible at all.

Peter warns the laity of the church that false teachers will rise up and bring in secret heresies. (II Pet. 2:1) Likewise Paul warns the Ephesian elders that after he is gone, wolves will come in speaking twisted things and draw away many. (Acts 20:29-30)

When Christians leave liberal Protestant denominations that have embraced homosexuality they are only doing what is logical and safe for the souls entrusted to their care. Pastors and parents must answer for how they shepherd their flocks and families and exposing them to religious leaders who have rejected Christ, the Gospel and the authority of Scripture in order to embrace modern heresies is irresponsible. As important as Christian unity is, we must realize that there can be no Christian unity between Christians and non-Christians. And heretical religious leaders who have rejected God and truth and twisted Scripture into a pretzel trying to justify their rejection of truth are not Christians.

Homosexuality is a kind of bright red line beyond which difference of interpretation between Christians mutates into a clear rejection of God. Beware especially of those who claim that homosexuality is just a minor issue about which Christians who agree on everything else can agree to disagree. This tactic buys time for the heretics to gather strength until they can impose their doctrine on the denomination or institution as a whole.

Also watch out for those who claim that you can't love someone unless you accept their sin as normal. No one does this consistently. In fact, no religious group in the world is more judgmental, moralizing and condeming of the politically incorrect than liberal Protestantism. When they plead with us who are orthodox and traditional not to judge or condemn those who engage in sexual vices, they are utter hypocrites and their arguments fall flat.

In short, homosexuality is a canary in the coal mine when it comes to Scriptural interpretation. It is an issue which reveals the condition of the mind of the one who discusses it more clearly than most specific issues. Homosexuality itself is rather beside the point; what is important is the kind of mind that could be confused about something as obvious and clear cut as this issue is.

Archbishop Dolan of NY Stands Up to Government Overreach: Blessings on Him

In this Catholic News Agency story we have an update on the culture wars in New York state as the assault on marriage by cultural Marxists and Progressives continues relentlessly.

New York Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan is concerned that state senators might “re-invent the very definition” of marriage—society's basic institution—as five more lawmakers pledged to support a same-sex “marriage” bill.

“Not every desire, urge, want, or chic cause is automatically a ‘right,’” the archbishop explained in his June 14 blog post titled “The True Meaning of Marriage.” True freedom, he said, is not “the license to do whatever we want, but the liberty to do what we ought.”

Later that day, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo presented the “Marriage Equality Act” to the state legislature after a key Republican senator voiced support for it. Four Democrats who previously voted against same-sex “marriage” said on June 13 that they would support the bill.

Governor Cuomo's administration is reportedly pursuing a strategy of gradually pressuring lawmakers to give their support.

“We’re in a very precarious situation,” New York Catholic Conference director Dennis Poust told CNA on June 15. According to a New York Times tally, the law needs only one more committed vote to ensure its passage.

“We are doing everything we can to convince the remaining 31 senators who have not said that they are going to vote ‘yes’ that this bill is a terrible mistake, and we have not given up,” Poust explained. “There is still hope, although certainly it is hanging by a thread.”

If the bill does pass, “there is very little that can be done,” he said, because New York does not have a system of initiatives and referendums like California and some other states do.

As always, this attack on the two institutions that stand in the way of the totalitarian state, marriage and the Christian Church, has nothing really to do with so-called "homosexual rights" and everything to do with renouncing natural law, attempting to impose the triumph of the human will over reality itself and making the State (controlled by an elite class of bureaucrats) all-powerful. The Leviathan - the State without limits - seeks to take the place of God. And just as the idea that two men can "marry" each other is a lie, so is the idea that the State can be God.

Notice how destructive of marriage and family this attack is:

Archbishop Dolan warned that the proposal would exert government control over an institution more fundamental than the state itself – a prospect that he compared to the communist regimes of China and North Korea.

“In those countries, government presumes daily to ‘redefine’ rights, relationships, values, and natural law,” he observed. “There, communiqués from the government can dictate the size of families, who lives and who dies, and what the very definition of ‘family’ and ‘marriage’ means.”

The bill under consideration in New York specifies that no religious institutions will be forced to honor or facilitate homosexual “weddings.” However, it will eliminate all gender-specific language regarding the rights and responsibilities of individuals and couples.

The whole idea is (1) to marginalize, de-legitimize and minimize marriage as the foundation of the family and (2) to assert the authority of the State over all other social institutions and realities - even natural marriage and family. Since the Church seeks to protect the priority and rights of families, the homosexual "rights" campaign can be used simultaneously to weaken and persecute the Church. This is why homosexuality is such a huge issue; it is not about homosexuals, it is about destroying all opposition to the Progressive agenda and its vehicle the State.

Archbishop Dolan is to be commended for centering on the crucial issue:

Archbishop Dolan also responded in his blog post to those who say the Church discriminates against homosexuals. He pointed out that the Church seeks, rather, to maintain the truth about human nature, sexuality, and the family.

The issue is the truth about human nature. The Church did not invent this truth; rather, she discovers and submits to it in both creation and revelation. The truth is prior to human decision and impervious to human will. No society can remain free and healthy if it denies the truth and the denial of the truth will always lead to oppression, de-humanization and tyranny.

The culture wars were not started by Christians, but by those who seek to attack the truth. In this case, it is heartening to see the Catholic hierarchy defending the family, marriage, the truth about human nature and the freedom that comes from believing the truth.
_________________

Note
(By the way, the fact that this assault on the truth is being facilitated by individuals claiming to be members of Christian churches and in some cases by clergy or even whole denominations is confusing to casual observers and simple-minded people. This does not change the reality that the assault is ultimately the work of Satan and his puppets. This aspect of the situation will be discussed in another post.)

Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis: Wolves in Sheep's Clothing

Brian McLaren has two remarkable posts up at the moment which explain his strategy and his goals in his speaking and writing. He basically admits that he is trying to nudge Evangelicals leftward and this is why he has tried to stay within the Evangelical world so long. He has been a theological liberal for a long time, but only gradually revealed his true leanings so as to take as many souls with him out the door as possible.

The first post is on the Sojourners website where he defends Jim Wallis and Sojourners against criticism from the Left based on the fact that Sojourners magazine refused an ad from a pro-homosexual group aimed at local churches. The criticism seems to be two-fold: (1) "why aren't you openly with us on this issue when you are with us on so many others" and (2) "you are being hypocritical because we both know you favor the liberal position on sexuality." So how does McLaren defend Wallis?

Basically, his argument comes down to this: Sojourners is trying to influence as many Evangelicals as possible toward a left-wing, welfare-state, big government politics by portraying themselves as advocates for poverty reduction. And it is working; a sliver of the left wing of the Evangelical spectrum is being seduced [my word] into Marxism. And this is Sojourners' mission. In the world of left-wing politics there are many Soros-funded advocacy groups, but only one that has a realistic chance of appealing to left-wing Evangelicals and so Jim Wallis can perform a service for the radical Left that no one else can. Why destroy that potential by taking a position Evangelicals oppose so strongly it would drive them away?

In this post, McLaren links in this post to one on his blog in which he chronicles his journey from a conservative to a progressive position on homosexuality. What I found interesting is how far back his openness to theological liberalism, cultural Marxism and progressive politics actually goes. He writes:

I speak as a person who inherited the conventional conservative position about homosexuality, but who began questioning it in my teens when one of my close friends came out. When faced with the choice between a) truly listening and seeking to understand this friend and b) showing what compassion I could without endangering my status in conservative Christian circles, I chose b). I suppose my response during my "conventional phase" could have been worse, but it could have been much better.

When I became a pastor, more and more gay people came out to me and data started to accumulate that indicated problems with my inherited understanding. I went through a stage where I sought to be as personally understanding and humane to LGBTQ people as I could while still holding, however tenuously, to a theology that stigmatized them.

So his leftist ideas about human sexuality go all the way back to his teens, before he ever became a pastor. So, you may wonder, how did he ever gain a reputation as an Evangelical writer? It was no accident, but a deliberately crafted strategy:

But at this point I was a pastor and had to deal with the conflict between two commitments: first, one of my primary job requirements - to keep together rather than divide my congregation on the one hand, and second, to stand up with integrity and be counted as an advocate for people I had become convinced were being treated with neither justice nor compassion. I negotiated this tension by speaking up when I could and by seeking to use my influence to increase sensitivity to people whom I felt were being treated by Christians in a truly sub-Christian way.

But at every turn I felt that I couldn't speak out too strongly too fast without dividing the church that I was called to serve. . . .

You might ask why I didn't go ahead and take a stand, letting the chips fall where they may. After all, I had inherited a conservative position on the role of women in church leadership, and our church crossed that boundary and never looked back. The honest answers to that question are complex and many (perhaps a subject for another time). . . .

One essential dimension of my decision to hold back was my desire - and sense of calling - to hold together a fragile coalition.

He wanted to hold together a coalition, which is exactly what he claims is motivating Jim Wallis to cultivate ambiguity about where he stands on biblical morality. In other words, he wanted Evangelical money, Evangelical support and Evangelical converts to his liberal position. He wanted Evangelicalism to underwrite its own destruction.

To the extent that Evangelicals embrace McLaren's sordid sexual ethics and his vacuous and heretical theology, they will witness institutional decline as their hold on the Gospel evaporates. To see the future, one only has to look at the rapidly declining liberal Protestants in the Episcopal Church. The future is statistical decline, cultural irrelevance, and eventually death.

Evangelicals lives only by the Gospel; Evangelical churches grow only because they have a life transformational Gospel to preach. Take that away and substitute a vaguely humanistic therapeutic message and socialism in its progressivist form, and there is no future. The Gospel is Good News about sin and salvation, heaven and hell, a supernatural Savior and a living God who answers prayer. If one turns these doctrines into symbols of social justice with a Marxist tinge, one eviscerates them of meaning and significance.

Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis are trolling for poorly-taught, Scripturally-ignorant, emotion-driven, easily-deceived prey on the left wing or other fringes of Evangelicalism. They pretend to be (kind of) Evangelical even though they have really embraced a new religion and they are dangerous to those sheep who wander around outside the sheepfold. Tragically, there are a lot of wayward sheep and sleepy shepherds today and so the pickings are not slim at all for the wolves.

Let us recall the warning of the Apostle Paul to the Ephesian elders:

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. (Acts 20:28-32) [ESV, my bolding]

Elders of Evangelical churches have a duty to speak out and warn the flock about those who are "speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them;" men such as Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis, who are wolves disguised as sheep. Make no mistake: book royalties are not their goal, they are after souls. And they are extremely open about it.

In Which I Agree with Tony Jones on Something

I don't agree with Tony Jones, the Emergent Church leader, about much of anything and I don't read him much any more. I happened to link to his blog while reading a post at Mere Orthodoxy on Jim Wallis and his little flap on homosexuality. (It looks like Sojourners is in the last stages of resistance to the spirit of the age.) Anyway, here is what I thought I could honestly quote and agree with from Jones:

But here’s the thing. I get questions like this a lot: “C’mon, you know him, what does Jim Wallis/Rob Bell/Shane Claiborne/fill-in-the-blank really think about gays?” The point is, a lot of people are making a lot of assumptions about leaders in the Protestant church who are progressive on other issues. And the questions those people ask me, I think, disguise a more fundamental question: Can someone who is theologically thoughtful and progressive on other biblical and social issues remain conservative on issues of human sexuality?

Jim Wallis, Shane Claiborne, and others have, to this point, answered yes to that question. I have my doubts about whether that position is tenable in the long run.

Later, in the Comments section, Jones says:

Annie, I agree that economic justice does not require a progressive hermeneutic, although there are many conservative Christians who find defenses of capitalism in the Bible. However, a progressive hermeneutic is necessary to argue for racial equality and gender equality from scripture. I say if you affirm inter-racial marriage and women preachers, then you’re an eyelash away from affirming gay ordination.

Setting aside the nonsensical jab about inter-racial marriage, (I'll bet Evangelical churches are far more racially diverse than Emergent ones), I have to agree with his linkage of women's ordination and approval of homosexuality. He is right that you need a "progressive hermeneutic" to get approval for women's ordination and you obviously need it for approval of homosexuality too.

Don't ask me what a "progressive hermeneutic" is: ask him. It seems to be any method of twisting Scripture into a pretzel so as to make it - amazingly! - line up with the current prejudices of the Western middle-classes in the late modern world. But whatever it is, you clearly need one to make the Bible sound like a 21st century political correctness seminar.

One after another, liberal Protestant denominations are capitulating to the sexual revolution. Today comes news that the Presbyterians have taken the leap too. It will be interesting to see which, if any, of the denominations that embraced women's ordination will have not embraced homosexuality 20 years later. It the answer turns out to be zero, will that have proven conclusively that women's ordination was a theological mistake? Or will it just be evidence for why we should all embrace our inner sexual nihilist?

I think Tony Jones is right to say that it is not really possible to remain conservative on sexual issues and to become "progressive" on social and economic issues. I tried for years to do it and I found that there are logical and historical links - not to mention dodgy hermeneutical moves - that join progressive thought on a wide range of issues. The Marxist critique of society is a total critique that seeks to overthrow the family, the state and private property and Marx and Engels were quite right to link them together.

A choice must be made and I made mine. I concluded that if support for abortion and the sexual revolution were logically entailed by a socialist approach to economics then socialism must necessarily be immoral. So I said farewell to socialism. The alternative is to become a liberal Protestant and I'd rather be a Christian.