Happy Thanksgiving to All My American Friends

Today, our American friends celebrate Thanksgiving 2010. As we Canadians like to say: better late than never.

This post on American exceptionalism caught my eye recently and I thought it would be appropriate as Thanksgiving reading. Mark Tooley writes in The American Spectator:

The left-of-center Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and Brookings Institution have released a post-election survey showing nearly 60 percent of Americans believe God has assigned America a "special role" in human history. Over 80 percent of white evangelicals believe in this special role for America, as do two thirds of minority Christians. Majorities of white Mainline Protestants and Catholics also agree. Two thirds of the religiously unaffiliated disbelieve in any special role for America.

Probably the surveyors were discomfited by the results, especially that the devotees of American exceptionalism were not confined to white evangelicals but were nearly as numerous among minority Christians, which presumably mostly means blacks and Hispanics.

As usual, Sojourners doesn't get it:

A columnist for the Evangelical Left Sojourners group was also disturbed by the survey. "As a Christian, I tend to believe that God has a 'special role' for every person and every nation," noted Evan Trowbridge, a Sojournerscommunications staffer. "Too often, however, we confuse 'special' with 'exceptional.' If we agree that God has granted the United States a special role in history, then shouldn't we also agree that God has granted Thailand and Kenya a special role? Unfortunately, I don't think that's what most of the respondents in the study had in mind…"

No, it almost certainly is not what most American exceptionalists have in mind. Even non-believers in American exceptionalism must grant that America's story has an outsized influence on the world that exceeds Thailand's and Kenya's. Many on the Left fret that American exceptionalism is synonymous with superiority, imperialism, and exploitation. But the original Calvinist theorists, from the first Thanksgiving onward, envisioned American civilization having special duties, not special privileges. Failure to comply with these duties risked divine wrath. Later, more generic versions of American exceptionalism, at least at its best, cited America's special role as exemplar of democracy and justice. American exceptionalists were never exclusively property owning, patriarchal, Anglo-Saxon Protestant white males. Social reformers of all races and both genders, especially religious ones, successfully cited exceptionalism to justify their appeals for a more just America.

The USSR certainly did have a "special role in history" but if anyone thinks that the influence of the USA has not been more positive, far-reaching and long-lasting, then words just fail one at that point. As a Canadian, I thank God for the United States of America and for the liberty and justice for which it stands. Like Alexander Solzhensitsyn, I am a non-American who cannot deny that the American Experiment has yielded more freedom, more justice, more opportunity and more hope for mankind than any other nation in history. That is not American pride or jingoism; it is just a fact.

And it is something to think about on Thanksgiving Day 2010.

A Few Tidbits

Kudos and Criticism
I have been getting a lot of positive feedback on the blog lately, however, and I appreciate it a lot. (You all know who you are.) One nice honor is to be on Joe Carter's list of the 50 Best Blogs of 2010. Thanks Joe!

It has been a crazy last week or so with ETS and SBL sandwiched in between my classes and preparation plus other important issues taking place in my life so blogging has had to take a back seat. The debates on justification with N. T. Wright were fascinating and I came away more solidly convinced than ever that Wright has gotten the Reformation tradition and Paul both seriously wrong, despite the major contributions he has made to NT exegesis. But N. T. is not happy with me and I'll have more to say on that in days to come.

Theology Pub
I'll be joining Darryl Dash and friends at Theology Pub at the Bishop and Belcher (near Church and Bloor in downtown Toronto) for a conversation at 7 pm on January 17. They want to discuss my recent theological journey back to my conservative theological roots as displayed on my blog. I will try to convince them why it is true, as I think it is, that "The Young, Restless and Reformed will save Evangelicalism in the next few decades."

No, Pope Benedict Did Not Say Condoms Were OK
I don't have time to parse the whole sordid, on-purpose confusing mess the media has made of the remarks on condoms by Pope Benedict XVI in his new book. If you want a clear-eyed and factual perspective, go here and read George Weigel's insightful analysis. Or, if you prefer wild-eyed fanaticism and garbled messages based on a lack of knowledge of the Church, moral theology and logic, just read the New York Times. Deep sigh . . .

Heritage Theological College & Seminary
The Heritage Board, (on which I serve) made an exciting announcement today about a new strategic partnership with the Fellowship of Evangelical Baptists Central Region. I like schools that think outside the box and go against the conventional wisdom. By moving from being a non-denominational, independent school with strong ties to Fellowship Baptists to becoming the official school of the Fellowship, Heritage is bucking a trend. Instead of becoming more generically Evangelical it is choosing to put down deeper roots into a particular theological tradition (Conservative, Reformed, Evangelical, Baptist) which can nurture it and give it a distinctive identity and historical roots.

Paradoxically, I think this newly refined sense of identity will give it more rather than less appeal to non-Fellowship Baptists looking for a school with a high commitment to serious theology and to delivering quality preparation for pastoral ministry, evangelism, church planting and cross-cultural missions. We shall see, but I am hopeful and optimistic.

The Acton Institute
I had a nice time visiting with the good folk at the Acton Institute while at ETS last week. They are trying to help seminaries and professors to think a bit more clearly about economics, politics and faith than we often do. Christians and especially theologians are extremely vulnerable to the fallacy of endorsing the "politics of good intentions," and therefore evaluating political and economic philosophies and ideas on the basis of what they aspire to do instead of on the basis of what they actually accomplish. You might enjoy their website here and their Powerblog here.

Suicide by Atheism: Christianity as the Basis of European Civilization

George Weigel has a worthwhile article in The National Review comparing recent speeches by Herbert von Rompuy and Pope Benedict XVI on the basis of European civilization. It is called "A Tale of Two Europes: Looking for Transcendence."

Weigel notes that in 2003-04 the debate over the preamble to the European constitution resulted in the omission of any mention of the Biblical or Christian tradition in defining the basis of European civilization:

In 2003–04, as the preamble to the European constitutional treaty that eventually came a cropper was being fiercely debated, the burning question was whether the Christian (or, more broadly, Biblical) sources of contemporary European commitments to human rights, democracy, and the rule of law could be acknowledged. The final answer was “No,” as the preamble cited classical civilization, the Enlightenment, and modern thought as the bases of the civil and tolerant Europe the constitutional treaty was to govern.

Weigel describes the shallowness of Van Rompuy's vision of the basis of Europe's shared civilization and quotes his speech at length:

But it was Van Rompuy’s flaccid attempt to define the ethical sources of the new Europe’s identity that rang most hollow:

Alongside diversity — and diversity is certainly a strength of our societies — we still need, in each of our societies, a sense of unity, of belonging together. This sense of unity can lie in shared values; or in a language, a shared history, a will to live together. . . . And this will springs above all from the stories we tell each other.

Think of the ancient Greeks: The stories of Homer created bonds through the centuries. They have us spell-bound tonight. It can be the stories of war and peace, or Olympic exploits or saint-like sacrifice, of a prison stormed or a Wall which came down.

Such stories do what a treatise on “values” cannot achieve: They embody “virtues” in an understandable way, virtues shown by men and women in real situations. Courage, respect, responsibility, tolerance, a sense of the common good.

To keep such European virtues alive, to transmit their age-old qualities to our children and grandchildren, that will be one of the great challenges for the future.

Here is the post-modern theory of the triumph of “narrative” run so far amok that it becomes self-parody. Putting aside the question of whether, on present demographic trends, there will be all that many “children and grandchildren” to whom to tell stories of Attic courage, or the figure-skating gold medals of Sonja Henie, or the fall of the Bastille, or the breaching of the Berlin Wall, Van Rompuy’s European Story Hour is just that: a disconnected conglomeration of “narratives” telling no one compelling tale. Or if there is a tale here, it is, pace the Thane of Cawdor, a “tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Weigel then describes Benedict's vision as given in his speech:

But according to the broad-gauged Benedict XVI, the voice of the God of Jews and Christians is not the only voice to which a revitalized Europe needs to attend, even if He is, to vary the medievals, the First Voice. To be sure, as the pope said, “Europe must open itself to God, must come to meet him without fear and work with his grace for that human dignity which was discerned in her best traditions.” But Europe must also reclaim the fullness of the riches of her civilizational patrimony: “not only the Biblical . . . but also the classical, the medieval, and the modern, the matrix from which the great philosophical, literary, cultural, and social masterpieces of Europe were born.” Thus “the Europe of science and technology, the Europe of civilization and culture, must be at the same time a Europe open to transcendence and fraternity with other continents, and open to the living and true God, starting with the living and true man.”

The openness to the transcendent, to God is the beginning of true wisdom. Belief in God has formed the basis of the greatest achievements of Europe: the rule of law, limited government, human dignity, freedom, free speech, freedom of religion and free enterprise. Yes, Europe needed some prodding from the Enlightenment to open up to greater political freedom but in doing so - in abolishing slavery for example - Europe was able to act in accordance with deep and abiding truths already found in Christianity. It was not necessary to jettison Christian faith in order to enhance the dignity of the human person; it was only necessary to jettison Christian faith in order to descend into a Brave New World.

Christianity was and is the basis of European civilization and the current rejection of Christianity by Europe is an act of wanton self-destruction. It is suicide by atheism.

Conservative Women Challenge Feminism in the Name of Reality and Common Sense

Sarah Palin has aroused furious and hateful opposition from feminists used to being regarded as speaking for all women because she dares to speak in public from a conservative, rather than a liberal, viewpoint. Contemporary feminism is a decadent and negative version of a once proud movement that made many contributions to modern society.

The angry, anti-family, anti-men, socialist feminism of today may speak for socialists of both sexes but it does not, and never has, spoken for the majority of women. For decades, for example, more women than men have opposed abortion. Yet, since abortion is part of the cultural Marxist assault on the oppressive family, it is a non-negotiable absolute for feminists.

The recent US mid-term elections featured the election of a number of strong, conservative women like Senator-elect Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire and Governor-elect Nikki Haley in South Carolina. Sarah Palin will one day be regarded as a trailblazer as conservative women increasingly challenge the old, cynical, 60s left-overs for the role of speaking for women.

Interestingly, this trend is going on in Germany as well. This news report describes a new trend in which conservative women move to the attack instead of allowing themselves to be put on the defensive by Marxists using gender to advance their ideology.

They are perhaps the most high-profile women in Germany after Chancellor Angela Merkel: Kristina SchrÖder, the young, glamorous minister for families, women and pensioners, and Alice Schwarzer, the seasoned feminist intellectual and campaigner. And they're embroiled in an unseemly, vitriolic war of words over sex, the role of women and feminism. Played out in the mass media, the slanging match is providing titillating fodder for the press - but many German women fear it is also undermining their ongoing struggle for equality.

It all started when SchrÖder - at 33 the youngest member of Merkel's cabinet - attacked the 1970s feminist movement, telling Der Spiegel news magazine on Nov. 7 that early feminism "overlooked the fact that partnership and children can provide happiness." The conservative minister, who's known for her prim and proper attire, went on to say: "For me, emancipation will only be truly reached if a woman can wear make-up and skirts without having her abilities doubted as a result." (See Merkel in TIME's top 10 female leaders.)

Then SchrÖder took a dig at Schwarzer, 67, Germany's doyenne of feminism, claiming that many of Schwarzer's theories were too radical: "For example, that heterosexual sex was hardly possible without the subjugation of women." She added: "It is absurd if something that is fundamental for humanity and its survival should be defined per se as subjugation. That would mean that society can't carry on without the subjugation of women."

The comments provoked a fast and furious response from Schwarzer, author of the 1975 bestseller The Little Difference and Its Big Consequences and publisher of the feminist magazine Emma, who on Nov. 8 posted a fiery open letter on her website accusing the minister of "incompetence." Schwarzer couldn't resist pointing out that it was only thanks to the feminist movement that women like SchrÖder had managed to climb up the career ladder. And in a personal gibe, the feminist icon said the minister was "simply unsuitable" for the job, having failed, Schwarzer claimed, to introduce any policies to improve the rights of women and families in Germany since she was appointed last year: "Chancellor [Merkel] appointed you ... and whatever her motive was, it couldn't have been competence or empathy for women." (See a profile of Angela Merkel.)

Schwarzer's letter, which was published by the mass-market daily Bild, also slammed SchrÖder's initiative to help boys perform better at school and her reluctance to introduce quotas for women in leadership roles, despite the fact that out of 185 board members listed on the DAX stock index, only four are women.

After concluding that SchrÖder was a "hopeless case," Schwarzer delivered another personal blow: "The only exciting news to come out of your ministry this year was your name-change." (SchrÖder traded in her maiden name, Koehler, after getting married in February. SchrÖeder hit back, telling Bild on Nov. 9 that she thought it was a "pity" that Schwarzer had personally attacked her.(Comment on this story.)

Schroder's main point, that heterosexual sex cannot be inherently oppressive since it is essential to the survival of the human race shows that contemporary feminism is not only fighting culture, but also nature and reason. Her views seem moderate and reasonable; those of her opponent seem like a caricature of a crazy feminist drawn by someone opposed to feminism.

Schroder is "a hopeless case" because she took her husband's name and cares about boys succeeding in school? What is this, most normal people would ask, some kind of joke? I wonder if contemporary feminists realize how out of touch they are with ordinary middle-class people. And I wonder if they realize how inevitable it is that - given their extreme ideology - sooner or later the majority of women are going to rise up and tell them that they only speak for themselves.

If you don't believe me, ask a conservative woman. It is not like they are hard to find these days.

Thinking Beyond Obama's Failed Presidency

On Oct. 2, 2010 I repeated and made more precise my prediction that the Republicans would win the Nov. 2 mid-term elections by taking control of the House and Senate. The House went as predicted, but the Republicans fell 4 seats short in the Senate, even though they actually won a higher percentage of the Senate seats up for election (65%) than they won in the House. The Republican take-over of the Senate is a high probability in 2012 given that there are 23 Democratic and 10 Republican seats up for election and many of the Democratic seats are in states that just went strongly Republican.

I also had this to say about Obama:

So I predict that Republicans will win control of the Senate and gain about 55-60 seats in the House. This will effectively end Barack Obama's ability to further implement his leftist agenda and will lead to gridlock between Congress and the President. This will set the stage for a possible primary challenge to Obama and the Republicans winning the presidency in 2012.

November 2 was a bad day for Obama. But it has been another ten bad days for Obama since then. This TV panel discussion (which features 4 people having a calm discussion and taking turns speaking - what is up with that?) covers the ground rather clearly. The Heritage Foundation summarizes the same material here. Note that its assessment rather closely parallels that of the New York Times below.

The New York Times sketches out the grim facts as follows:

And as officials frenetically tried to paper over differences among the Group of 20 members with a vaguely worded communiqué to be issued Friday, there was no way to avoid discussion of the fundamental differences of economic strategy. After five largely harmonious meetings in the past two years to deal with the most severe downturn since the Depression, major disputes broke out between Washington and China, Britain, Germany and Brazil.

Each rejected core elements of Mr. Obama’s strategy of stimulating growth before focusing on deficit reduction. Several major nations continued to accuse the Federal Reserve of deliberately devaluing the dollar last week in an effort to put the costs of America’s competitive troubles on trading partners, rather than taking politically tough measures to rein in spending at home.

The result was that Mr. Obama repeatedly found himself on the defensive.

He and the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, had vowed to complete the trade pact by the time they met here; while Mr. Obama insisted that it would be resolved “in a matter of weeks,” without the pressure of a summit meeting it was unclear how the hurdles on nontariff barriers to American cars and beef would be resolved.

Mr. Obama’s meeting with China’s president, Hu Jintao, appeared to do little to break down Chinese resistance to accepting even nonbinding numerical targets for limiting China’s trade surplus. While Lael Brainard, the under secretary of the Treasury for international affairs, said that the United States and China “have gotten to a good place” on rebalancing their trade, Chinese officials later archly reminded the Americans that as the issuers of the dollar, the main global reserve currency, they should consider the interests of the “global economy” as well as their own “national circumstances.”

When the NYT sounds just like Fox and the Heritage Foundation, things are not rosy for the White House. Then, just when the Obama team must have thought that it couldn't get any worse, the Washington Post runs an op ed piece today by two Democratic pollsters, Douglas Schoen and Patrick Caddell, calling on Obama to announce (two years into his first term!) that he does not intend to run for re-election. They actually go so far as to say:

We do not come to this conclusion lightly. But it is clear, we believe, that the president has largely lost the consent of the governed. The midterm elections were effectively a referendum on the Obama presidency. And even if it was not an endorsement of a Republican vision for America, the drubbing the Democrats took was certainly a vote of no confidence in Obama and his party.

This is an astonishing thing for two Democratic Party operatives to say - that he has lost the consent of the governed - and it is hard to believe they are trying to help Obama succeed in saying this sort of thing. A good piece by Ryan Witt here skewers the logic of Obama being more effective if he became a lame duck. But this is not really about Obama being more effective; it is about saying out loud in public what many have been saying behind closed doors for some time now, as Joe Scarborough vehemently asserts here about seven, powerful, Democratic senators who have told him privately that Obama doesn't have a clue about what he is doing. Obama is too inexperienced, too out of touch, to egotistical and, most importantly, too ideologically leftist to succeed in leading a center-right country like America.

Obama is under fire from the Left because he has raised utterly unrealistic expectations on the Left for what he can deliver. The Left should remember that the US did not turn into the EU on the day Obama was elected. Maybe the oceans stopped rising and the planet began to heal, but the US electorate did not embrace European style social democracy and Americans did not suddenly reject American exceptionalism. He may now face a primary challenge from the Left, which would be stupid politics because the problem the Left has is not really Obama - it is the American voting public itself. And weakening Obama won't make America more left-wing.

The problem is that Obama acted like he thought America had elected him to implement his leftist agenda when the voters just wanted to feel good about electing a mixed race, centrist who was as different from George Bush as it is possible to be. But that does not mean they wanted failed, stale, Kenyesian ideas lifted out of the 1930s. And it does not mean that they wanted Obama to govern from the left. And it does not mean that they are too thick to understand the wonderfulness of Obama. They understand the dangers of trillion dollar deficits better than he does.

No doubt we will hear Obama say a thousand times in the next two years that the Republicans are frustrating his attempts at "moving the country forward." But in so doing, the Republicans will merely be doing what they were put there to do.

Looking ahead to 2012, it is imperative for the Republican Party to find a candidate who is experienced enough to govern with competence as well as conservative and charismatic enough to get elected. I'd say that with every passing week the number of potential nominees who could beat Obama gets larger, which means that the Republican Party will be able to choose someone who has the experience to govern competently.

This means that Sarah Palin likely will not be the nominee. It also means that younger potential candidates like Christie, Rubio and Jindal won't be the nominee either although any of these four could wind up as the VP nominee. It may be time for a boring manager with a long resume who can just clean up the mess and get the country back on track (Daniels, Romney, Pawlenty?). If the Republicans nominate someone like that and then a Tea Party darling like Rubio is picked as the running mate, it will likely result in a conservative win that could be more far-reaching in its effect than even the Reagan win in 1980.

You can bet that everybody in Washington is now thinking beyond Obama now. He has shot his bolt and from here on in it will just be posturing and pouting until January 2013 when the country heaves a giant sigh of relief and gets ready to deal with the bills.

German Reporter Claims Jesus Taught Violent Jihad in Wilders Interview

In the wake of Angela Merkel's recent comments about the failure of multiculturalism, an actual debate has broken out in Germany about the issue of Islam. So Der Spiegel decided to interview Geert Wilders, who is currently on trial for saying what everyone knows to be true, but is afraid to say out loud, in the Netherlands.

All this is background. What I want to point out is the following passage. Note clearly the reporter's quotation from the Gospel of Luke:

SPIEGEL: You compare the Koran with Hitler's "Mein Kampf." Have you read "Mein Kampf"?

Wilders: Yes, but not in its entirety. The Koran has, in any case, more anti-Jewish passages. In principle, these are concoctions with a totalitarian approach, which allows no room for other opinions. Fascism, communism and Islam adhere to the same principle.

SPIEGEL: Your own principle is apparently this: The more drastic the comparison, the more headlines it generates.

Wilders: I don't need headlines. For me, it's the truth that matters.

SPIEGEL: The truth is that you are dividing Dutch society: Here in The Hague, nearly half of the residents come from immigrant families, and many of them are Muslims. And you are calling for the Koran to be banned?

Wilders: "Mein Kampf" is banned in our country. But the Koran is worse in terms of inciting hatred and violence. If my left-wing friends were consistent, the Koran would have to be banned.

SPIEGEL: Are you familiar with this quote from the Prophet? "But these enemies of mine, who did not want me to be their king, bring them here and slay them before me"?

Wilders: I have read many such passages.

SPIEGEL: The Prophet cited in this case was Jesus, from Luke, Chapter 19, Verse 27. Do you admit that there are also calls for violence in the Bible?

Wilders: There are brutal passages in the Old Testament; the New Testament takes a more moderate approach. But a key difference between Christianity and Islam is that Muslims believe that the Koran contains verbatim the word of God; it is written in the imperative. This precludes a comparison with Christianity.

It is too bad that Wilders was suckered in because of his lack of biblical knowledge. He should have pointed out that this was spoken by a character in a parable told by Jesus, a parable that had a point that entirely unrelated to a call to violent jihad. This was a mangling of Scripture by quoting an isolated statement out of context.

He should have pointed out the dishonesty of the reporter's claim that this was a call to violence by Jesus. Is German higher criticism now presenting Jesus as a ruthless, violent nationalist or something? I thought the German Christian attempt to do this in the 1930s had been declared a failure.

A first year Bible college student who used the NT in the way this supposedly educated reporter did would be in big trouble. But this kind of systematic deception is not something the editors of Der Spiegel are ashamed of, apparently, because they have left this interview up on their website.

The palpable hostility and ritualized contempt dripping from the words of this smug and self-righteous politically correct reporter is unbelievable. He even begrudges Wilders state protection against Islamic assassins thus implying that he would like to see Wilders killed instead of having his free speech protected. What a coward this reporter reveals himself to be. I suppose he hopes to be killed last.

If It Looks Like Fundamentalism to You, It Might Be a Sign You've Drifted a Little

David Fitch has a post entitled "Is the New Calvinism a New Fundamentalism?" in which he defines fundamentalism in a quirky manner.

He offers no doctrinal definition and no historical definition. So it is not a matter of defending the fundamentals of the faith - virgin birth, bodily resurrection etc. - and it is detached from the historical context of the defection of the majority of 19th century North American Protestantism from the orthodox Christian faith and the resistance by conservatives like J. G. Machen or J. I. Packer to this trend. Instead, Fitch offers a completely relativistic definition as follows:

a.) Insularity. There’s a mentality of insiders over against those who don’t believe.

b.)Distrust towards culture as a place where God is at work.

c.) An “us against them” mentality. Because of the previous two characteristics, fundamentalists typically reject open dialogue. Engagement with culture takes the shape of winning arguments and confrontation. As the insularity builds, there is less and less wiggle room to associate with other Christians who disagree. As a result, a certain form of arrogance tends to infect fundamentalism.

These are the marks of classic fundamentalism.

Notice that this definition is worded in such a way that it can mean one thing in 1920, something else in 1950 and something radically different in 2010. It all depends on where the culture is at a given moment. Is it the year 250 AD? Then basically the whole Christian Church is fundamentalist. Is it 313 AD? The number of fundamentalists has shrunk to a few monks in the Egyptian desert. What changed? The culture or the Church?

Fitch then deploys this relativistic definition to complain that the New Calvinism is less accommodated to the culture than is his sort-of-but-not-quite emergent church position. I guess the only response I have to this assertion is to say "So what?" Who defined the center as where David Fitch happens to stand on November 12, 2010? If the New Calvinism is more hostile to contemporary Western culture than the Emergent Church is, who really cares? Of course it is. So is the Pope. What is this but a simple case of solemnly proclaiming oneself to be "more culturally relevant than thou?"

The point of employing such a loaded and pejorative term, (which the New Calvinists would not apply to themselves without qualifications and careful definition) is mainly rhetorical rather than substantive. Whoever has the weakest case theologically and biblically is always tempted to dismiss the opposition with labels and this is a sign of weakness.

Of course, there is a place for labels as a kind of shorthand as long as we know what they signify in a given context and as long as people are willing to define them. But in this case, the definition is so vague and relativistic that it turns the label into a nearly meaningless emoticon. It just means something like "out of step with whatever I think are the centrally important trends of our day."

So what it comes down to is that the New Calvinism does not genuflect before the altar of the "Church of What's Happening Now." Again, I ask, so what?

The New Calvinism and Complementarianism

Dan, over at City of God, asks "Must New Calvinism Be Complementarian?" He writes:

Another thing that was fascinating about that Fitch post that keeps giving us material over here at City of God was the mention again of the complementarian view of gender relations as being integral the New Calvinism. . . . Is there any particular reason why the New Calvinists are so strongly in favour of complementarianism? Is there space to be an egalitarian and still hold to at least some aspects of Calvinist theology?

In answer to the last question, of course there are convinced Calvinists who are also egalitarians. But the other question is more interesting: "Can the "new" Calvinism legitimately be combined with egalitarianism?"

Egalitarianism is the fancy name for the importation of secular feminist ideas into Evangelicalism in order that we Evangelicals might feel less tension between ourselves and the secularized, neopagan culture around us. As the culture drifts further and further away from Christian influence, it becomes increasingly violent, anti-women, anti-children, selfish, hedonistic and individualistic. Second wave feminism, beginning in the 60s with writers like Betty Frieden and Gloria Steinem, is partially responsible for this cultural decline. To try to accommodate to such a trend is suicide, which is one reason why liberal Protestantism is dying. The United Church and Anglican Church are in the process of going out of business slowly. Why Evangelicals would feel impelled to follow their example is baffling.

The sexual revolution, with which second wave feminism is inextricably bound up, is a failed Utopian experiment. Sexually transmitted diseases, broken homes, emotionally neglected children, abortion as birth control, the hook up culture on campus, increased levels of rape, pornography, the normalization of homosexuality - all these serious problems have come out of the naive faith of the 60s that if we just relax all rules and break down inhibitions then we won't be "up tight" and will find "freedom." The traditional family, monogamy and sexual restraint were seen from a Marxist perspective as limitations on the freedom of the individual to realize himself and attain freedom.

Previous struggles for equality of women, which have been undertaken for centuries as Christianity gradually lifted women to the highest status they have attained in any previous culture in history, produced real progress in male-female relations. But all that was attained before feminism took its fatal Marxist turn in the 60's. Since then, the hard-won, Christian-inspired, gains of Western civilization in this area have been swiftly eroded and actual women and children have suffered tremendously because of the breakdown of the family. If present trends continue, that suffering and misery will only worsen. The feminist narrative of horrific oppression up until the sexual revolution and steady emancipation ever since is laughably inaccurate and ideologically driven. Who could possibly be convinced by it on the basis of facts alone? Horrific oppression of women characterizes Iran and Saudi Arabia, not 1950s North America.

The New Calvinism sees no reason to throw out 20 centuries of traditional exegesis regarding the role of women as elders in Church or the role of wives and husbands in marriage. There are certainly better and worse traditions to be sifted through and improvements to be made around the edges. But this traditional exegesis has proven to be compatible with a high view of marriage, a high view of women and a high view of children. The new exegesis in support of the sexual revolution and feminism has not so far proven itself to be able to maintain the progress made by Christians using the old exegesis. So, naturally, the New Calvinism finds it unconvincing so far.

Many of the churches that ordained women in the 70s and 80s are now ordaining practicing homosexuals. The Evangelical churches that followed the trend but twenty years later are now discussing homosexuality in exactly the same way that the liberals were doing 20 years ago. So what assurance do we have that the embrace of feminist ideas can be combined with a rejection of the sexual revolution? Is it really likely that churches will be able to embrace feminist ideas and still maintain a high view of family, marriage, child-rearing and sexual restraint? It does not look like it; the most sensible response is to take a wait and see attitude.

The Roman Catholic Church, at least in its hierarchy, has stood fast against second wave feminism and the sexual revolution. This has allowed Catholic scholars the time and space in which to construct a new, biblical feminism (if that word can be redeemed from its negative connotations, which I personally doubt). This new, post-sexual revolution feminism is rooted in traditional theological anthropology and exegesis and it rejects the individualism, the body-soul dualism and the lack of self-control that characterizes the sexual revolution of the second half of the 20th century.

As a Reformed thinker, I find Catholic moral theologians in general, and John Paul II and his theology of the body in particular, to be the most interesting conversation partners in discussing the way forward in matters of sexual morality, the family and marriage. I can't muster any enthusiasm for the old, stale, Marxist, philosophically modernist thought of liberal Protestantism and their Evangelical imitators. It all seems less than serious to me compared to the depth, beauty, profundity, and fruitfulness of the theology of the body.

So what incentive is there to abandon complementarianism and embrace egalitarianism in the present context? The future of Christian theological reflection on male-female relations clearly lies with some sort of complementarian approach, perhaps not exactly what we have now but nevertheless building on the past and not rejecting the tradition in a wholesale way as modern feminism does. From my perspective, the real question is not "Can the "new" Calvinism be combined with egalitarianism?" but "Why on earth would anyone want to try?"

Margaret Thatcher on the "Gap"

It has been a busy week. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to the capitalism debate tomorrow. In the meantime, here is a clip from Margaret Thatcher's last speech in the House of Commons in which she skewers the socialists with logic and humor.



Poor old broken Britain could sure use her back in the leadership again! Instead they have socialism lite in the form of the faux conservative David Cameron, whose greatest ambition appears to manage decline efficiently. True, he is cutting the obscene levels of spending, but it is arguable that even a new socialist government would need to do that. On schools policies, we shall see. But on Europe, social issues and many other questions, David Cameron is the type of conservative who gives the Conservative Party a bad name.

What I liked about Thatcher was her willingness and ability to make the moral argument for free enterprise. Conservatives need either to learn how to make that argument or else give up and become socialists. I think I'm preaching to myself at this point.

Progressivist Statism versus Belief in the True and Living God

I believe it was G. K. Chesterton who said that when people stop believing in God they do not believe in nothing; rather, they will believe in anything.

Ed West in his Daily Telegraph blog post entitled "When People Stop Believing in God they Start Believing in Big Government and Obamaism" comments on some recent studies that confirm what astute observers of modernity have been saying for a long time. He writes:

A new study has found that belief in a God may be inversely correlated to belief in Government.

A sense of political stability provides comforting reassurance that our world is orderly and controlled. So does belief in an all-powerful deity. This puts the two in a seesaw relationship: When one goes up, the other goes down.

Obviously people who live in chaotic and anarchic parts of the world and who subsequently live in squalor are more likely to be religious. And until a society reaches high levels of education and wealth religion is unlikely to lose its grip. However there is more to it than that . . .

He then describes the study, which you can read about by clicking here. He concludes by writing as follows:

In other words, people who do not believe in an all-powerful creator are more likely to believe that the state can move mountains.

There is an understandable tendency among atheists and agnostics to laugh at the beliefs of religious cultures, and this forms a large part of modern British snobbery towards the United States. But should they really be so smug? The Virgin Birth, the Resurrection and life after death cannot be proved nor disproved, but some of the commonly-held beliefs that flourish in England are demonstrably false. Take, for example, Gordon Brown’s pledge to “end child poverty by 2020”, which is a big topic at the moment with the current cuts; even if we were to use the traditional measurement of poverty, rather than the Labourite relative poverty, the state simply cannot end child poverty, because the primary cause of child poverty in rich countries is bad parenting, which the state cannot eliminate without truly totalitarian measures. Which is inevitably where all these unachievable goals lead them.

From Robespierre onwards people have believed that the state can perform any God-like function, something Jonah Goldberg, author of Liberal Fascism, calls statolatry – worship of the state.

Perhaps a belief in a supernatural deity acts as some form of vaccine for this destructive belief, which has caused untold misery from the Vendée to the Killing Fields. Roger Scruton speculated that people who believed in paradise in the next world were perhaps less likely to go along with schemes to create it here, and maybe there’s some truth in it.

The Guardian and the BBC have been keen to point to the religious beliefs of Tea Party activists. That is hardly surprising, considering the US is a religious country, and it does not change the secular nature of the movement; what is true is that Obamaism, the deification of the 2008 Democratic candidate by the European and American media, who they believed would heal the planet and end racial division, was a form of statolatry. And there’s no doubt which side of that debate was filled with sceptical rationalists and which one with credulous fools.

True religion is protection against fanaticism, irrationality and idolatrous cults which create chaos, bloodshed and tyranny. One cannot worship both God and Caesar.

Evangelicals and the Republican Party: Finally Some Light and Not Just Heat

I am grateful to Andrew Walker at Mere Orthodoxy for pointing out this fine article by John Mark Reynolds of the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University. I appreciate his refreshing candor and straight-forward recognition of the imperfections and shortcomings of his party coupled with his firm and reasonable contention that it is the least bad option.

Here is a snippet in which he argues that the GOP is the natural home of Evangelicals:

Nobody needs feel shame to be a Republican, because when it came time to confront the original sin of the nation—slavery—the Republican Party was on the Lord's side. In the great battle of my time, the war against communist tyranny, the Republican Party led in the defense of free markets and freedom of thought.

The Republican Party has always been the party of Evangelicals. Lincoln was elected by appealing to our beliefs and this has not changed in one hundred and fifty years. The party base of Northern Evangelicals abides in states like Iowa and Ohio, though it has faded in secularized New England. When many Southern Evangelicals saw the light in the late twentieth-century, they were coming to their natural home.

And here is one in which he states his priorities clearly:

No Christian puts his trust in princes. We remember that no earthly party is God's party, because He is never a Republican or Democrat, being a committed monarchist. No Christian votes simply for party, but is open to good men and women where ever they may be found. We are, at all times, first subjects of Christendom and only secondarily citizens of this Republic.

On poverty, he offers this bit of wisdom:

We would give all our money in taxes if we thought it would end poverty, but have seen that it only enriches the state at the cost of liberty. We create statist masters and the poor are with us always.

On liberty, he writes:

Politics before the coming of Jesus is a balance between law and liberty. Christians utterly reject the idea that the measure of man is his ability to contribute to the economy. We believe every human, whatever their condition, has a right to life, liberty, and a rich human life. We know that if a person cannot benefit from labor, that such a person is not free.

Children must be cared for, but Christians refuse to make infants of any adult. God Himself gave mankind the ability to defy Him in the garden, so we are hesitant to make any person do good by the force of law.

There is a lot of wisdom in this brief article. Read it all here.

The Evangelical Left Seems a Little Grumpy These Days

If this article in Christian Week is an accurate reflection of Rene Padilla's views, then he appears to be confused and angry.

He criticizes presentations at the recent Lausanne Congress in Capetown which emphasize evangelism and tries to re-define evangelism as discipleship. He is quoted as saying:

"Superficial evangelism is not going to get the job done," says René Padilla, a renowned evangelical scholar from Latin America, currently living in Argentina. "Jesus talked about making disciples who learned to obey everything he has taught."

OK, if this was all he said it would not necessarily be a problem. Jesus, in the Great Commission, commanded his followers to preach and baptize (evangelism) and to then teach these new believers to "obey all things I have commanded you" (discipleship). One cannot be a disciple without being converted and to convert people and then leave them in a state of only superficially understanding the faith is to fail in the mission. Both are necessary; to play them off against each other or debate which is more important is a non-starter. You can't disciple a person who has not responded to the preaching of the Gospel and you can't say that conversion/baptism is all that is needed.

But Padilla doesn't seem to see it that way. He called one presentation by a speaker from Campus Crusade for Christ a "waste of time" that demonstrated "the syncretism of American evangelicalism," which he characterized as "the market mentality and the obsession with numbers and calculation." In this one statement he manages to combine anti-capitalism, anti-Americanism and anti-evangelism prejudices!

The article also describes him as being critical of John Piper for preaching that we as Evangelicals ought to be concerned about the eternal salvation of people as well as their material lot in this life.

Padilla was also unhappy with John Piper's strongly stated desire for the global church represented by the Lausanne movement to agree, "for Christ's sake, we Christians care about all suffering—especially eternal suffering."

"Why especially?" asks Padilla. Why are the needs of people after they die a higher priority than their needs now? "This doesn't mean we don't proclaim. But proclamation is not the first thing." He points to Ephesians 2:14-18: "Jesus is our peace, does our peace and proclaims our peace. To be; to do; to say. Why say that the most important thing is to say? To be; to do; to say. Put them in that order. Christ is our peace."

I don't understand Padilla's objection here. All Evangelicals believe that lost people need Christ and that those who die outside of Christ are lost eternally. This is a matter of eternal life and eternal death. If Padilla does not believe that, he is free to believe whatever he likes but Evangelicals have always believed it and always will.

Why would he want to single out Piper for criticism? Is it because Piper is challenging the left-wing emphasis on "social justice" or "the social gospel" and calling people back to biblical basics? I don't know but Padilla certainly seems angry about something. He is quoted as saying:

Padilla is encouraged that "a lot of third world people at the congress are critical of the strategy for the evangelization of the whole world." The three key global issues, he contends, are discipleship, globalization (poverty) and stewardship of creation. "In a congress like this, these are the key issues we should be exploring to see what we can do about it.

"But here we are again with the obsession for numbers—how to make more converts; how to build megachurches. I wonder when U.S. people are going to learn to listen to what others are saying, all over the world," says Padilla.

Padialla may be encouraged that a lot of Third World people are critical of the strategy for world evangelization, but I am not. His priorities of "discipleship, globalization (poverty) and stewardship of creation" sound just like the liberal priorities of the World Council of Churches. An emphasis on evangelism is not somehow uniquely "American" and most third world Evangelicals would be surprised to hear that Padilla thinks it is because for them it is simply biblical.

If Padilla wants to promote the liberal agenda and denounce the priority of evangelization, he is free to do so. But he should not expect much of a hearing from Evangelicals. Maybe that is what makes him so cranky.