How the Charleston tragedy cries out for God

by Dan Phillips

The facts, as reported and as related in sterile prose, are simple enough.

Last Wednesday, June 17, a young man walked into the church congregation of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and sat through a prayer meeting. At about 9pm, he stood and opened fire on his unarmed, helpless victims. Nine people, ranging in age from 26 to 87, were shot and killed. Eight died on the scene, one died later in a hospital. Among the dead was the pastor, Clementa Pinckney. The murderer, now identified by the police as 21 year-old Dylann Roof, was able to reload five times during the massacre, which his reported words reveal as racially motivated. He has since been arrested.

What to make of it? How to make anything of it?

The incident can be approached from many important angles; I'll select the one I think least likely to receive much consideration. It is this: we cannot even begin to make sense of this, on any remotely satisfying level, apart from the God of the Bible, and the theology that His Word teaches us.

I'll do my best not to insult you with nuance and carefulness; I'll just be direct. As you'd expect.

How can we even describe this situation, how can we even begin to measure its shape and immensity, apart from God? What do we say of it? That it is a "tragedy"? Of course, to Christians, it is every bit of that. But to an evolutionist? To a materialist? To an environmental extremist? To a postmodern sofa-sitter? How can any of them, with any credibility, call it a "tragedy"?

• How could an evolutionist? What is the very engine that drives forward the development of species, if not the crushing of weaker members by the stronger? Is it a tragedy when a coyote "culls" a slow rabbit? Other than by emotional special-pleading, how could such a worldview even categorize this event as anything other than another step forward in the grand march of progress?
• How could a materialist? One bag of atoms interacted with nine bags of atoms. The atoms aren't even destroyed, just altered. Where's the tragedy? Where's the wrong that makes it a tragedy? What does wrong weigh? What's the atomic number of tragedy? What instrument measures moral outrage? Is it measured in feet, or in pounds?
  
• How could an environmental extremist? Aren't we constantly told that human beings are destroying our planet? People are the enemy, right? What is nine fewer, if not a step in the right direction? Perhaps the murderer is an enviro-hero, for reducing the "carbon footprint" in Charleston by many thousands of tons per year, going forward?
• And how could a postmodernist? Oh sure, to you and me, this is a tragedy. But that's only our perspective. The consistent PoMo — though such a creature is a cryptid — is in a conundrum. He may feel bad about the slaughter. But for him to describe the act as a crime or as a moral outrage – that means he has to judge the shooter by a standard the shooter plainly does not share. Should the PoMo have coffee with the shooter? Or propose a 5-year moratorium on discussing it, until he has had time to think it through?
• How could a pro-abortionist? It is reported Margaret Sanger's belief that black people were weeds to be eliminated, and abortion was one great way to weed the garden, so to speak. Abortion kills more black people yearly than any other single sort of event. Well (I speak as a fool) nine "weeds" were just plucked, to this mindset. Where's the minus?

Do you see? The worldling has an insoluble problem when faced with such tragedy as this horrendous slaughter. Taken seriously, the reigning worldviews of our day leave us helpless to describe murderer, victims, or incident, in any terms other than either "...and then that happened," or even (God help us all) positive terms. Then after describing them, they have no way to categorize them, or have any relief to the emotional response they quite properly have. They are forced to steal categories from Christianity — categories they don't really mean, and just as surely do not think through — to do any better than "this event makes me feel bad!"

Of course all my observations would be as horrifying and insulting to adherents and proponents as they are inescapable. They would deny them, with outrage and conviction. You see, we don't want to think through our billowy proclamations. We want just enough "freedom" to avoid Jesus, Bible, and church; to sleep with whoever we want, do (or not do) whatever we want, and escape all guilt, reproach, or consequences.

But we don't want anyone continuing the lines of logical development one inch further than we draw them.

Only the Biblically-faithful Christian, studying his Bible and applying the resultant theology faithfully and not emotionalistically, can make full and fully-satisfying sense of this horrific event.

• Only the Biblically-faithful Christian can say that the lives of every person in that meeting were infinitely valuable, infinitely precious, because they were the lives of eternal beings created in the image of the infinitely valuable God (Genesis 1:26; 9:6). 
• Only the Biblically-faithful Christian can say that the murderer had no right to take those lives as he did, and only the Christian can give a grounded solution as to what the law must do to do justice to the murderer, and why (Genesis 9:6; Romans 13:1ff.). 
• Only the Biblically-faithful Christian can say that what the murderer did was — not unfortunate, not sad, not objectionable, not regrettable, not ill-advised, but — evil, wicked, sinful.
• Only a Biblically-faithful Christian can point the grieving to comfort, eternal comfort, by pointing them to Christ and His Gospel. 
  
• Only a Biblically-faithful Christian can urge mourners to see and trust that God will completely avenge every drop of blood spilled in that church, either eschatologically on the person of the unrepentant murderer (Ps. 94:1; Rev. 21:8; 22:15), or retroactively on the person of His dear Son for repentant offenders (Isa. 53:6; Rom. 3:25). 
• Only a Biblically-faithful Christian can expose the evil, indeed the absurdity, of racism, and can point to the one and only solution for it: a Biblical anthropology (Gen. 1:26-28; Acts 17:26) married to the Biblical Gospel (Col. 3:11; cf. Eph. 2:13-22).
• Only a Biblically-faithful Christian can speak truth to the murderer, facing him with the full evil of his crime, the full weight of eternal wrath and judgment he deserves from God, and the full offer of reconciliation and forgiveness that he can know through (and only through) repentant faith in Christ (cf. Acts 9:1, 13; 26:10; 1 Tim. 1:12-16). 
• Only a Biblically-faithful Christian knows when and how to think and speak of forgiveness.
• Only a Biblically-faithful Christian can look with assurance to a day when we will dwell in a "new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells" (2 Peter 3:13) — which will be brought in, not on a tide of social or biological evolution, or scientific advance, or abortive weeding, or endless legislation, but with the return, rule, and reign of Jesus Christ.

This tragic and immoral event, in short, is too massive and too immense not to speak and think of Biblically, which is to say, theologically. It mustn't be cheapened by mere emotionalism or bandwagoning.

For the Biblically-faithful Christian knows there is no other way to do this atrocity the justice for which it cries out, and that there is no purer and better display of theological truth than that found in God's Word, the Bible. The Bible is the best theology I've heard in my life, or ever will hear. All thoughts and words — yours, mine, commentators', politicians', mourners' — can only be assessed truly by that standard.

This is the full implications of Sola Scriptura applied to the very depths of life. As it was meant to be.

[This post ricocheted into my mind from Todd Pruitt's fine post, Charleston and the Age to Come, and his observation that "the actions of the murderer cannot be adequately described in anything less that theological language."]

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The hates and loves of the fool

by Dan Phillips

The book of Proverbs uses a number of different words which are all translated "fool" in most English versions. The word k^esîl [k'SEEL] occurs 49X in Proverbs. Its relation to cognates meaning "plump" or "fat" tempts one to translate it "fathead," but I take the translation "stupid" offered by many lexicons. It features in the pivotal verse signalling Solomon's shift from long-form to short-form proverbs:

Proverbs of Solomon.
A wise son rejoices a father,
but a stupid son¹ is the grief of his mother. (Proverbs 10:1 [DJP])
________________
¹Literally “a son, a stupid one.”

In this verse, Solomon crafted the perfect transition from Proverbs' introductory chapters to the sentence-proverbs that dominate the rest of the book. When I preached it, I developed that relationship at length; here my point is a bit different.

Here's a summary of most of the uses of k^esîl in Proverbs:

The כְּסִיל [k^esîl] hates knowledge (1:22), is complacent to his own destruction (1:32), exalts dishonor (3:35), slanders (10:18), thinks it's fun or a joke to do scheming evil (10:23), proclaims (12:23) and spreads (13:16) and spouts (15:2) denseness, is repelled by the thought of turning from evil (13:19), brings his friends to harm (13:20), is reckless and heedless (14:16), pastures on folly (15:14), disdains his mother (15:20), can't even have wisdom beaten into him (17:10), clings to his denseness fiercely (17:12), brings grief to his father (17:21), doesn't focus (17:24), brings bitterness to his mother (17:25), delights not in insig
ht but in sharing his opinions (18:2), is quarrelsome (18:6-7), gets deserved beatings (19:29; 26:3), is wasteful and unproductive (21:20), doesn't recognize or value wisdom when he hears it (23:9), requires special handling (26:4-5), should not have honor (26:1, 8), makes a horrid messenger (26:6) and proverb-teller (vv. 7, 9[?]), is a destructive employee (26:10), repeats his folly (26:11), is what you are when you trust your own heart (28:26), lets loose his temper (29:11).

Let's single out just one pair of those, in both of which "Fool(s)" translates a form of k^esîl:

Doing wrong is like a joke to a fool, but wisdom is pleasure to a man of understanding. (10:23)

A desire fulfilled is sweet to the soul, but to turn away from evil is an abomination to fools. (13:19)

The second verse uses the strong word "abomination," which means something abhorrent and appalling. This is the word Yahweh uses for how He feels about homosexuality (Lev. 18:22; 20:13), idols (Deut. 7:25-26; 12:31), and other repulsive things. It's a shocking, negative term. At the opposite end of the semantic spectrum is 10:23's "a joke," which translates a word meaning laughter, or what brings laughter. It's a pleasant, happy word. Jarring juxtaposition, eh?

But wait. It gets worse.

What both verses have in common is the stupid person. Where they both disconnect is right here: what brings the stupid man pleasure is what disgusts Yahweh; what disgusts the stupid man is what pleases Yahweh. Yahweh is pleased when sinners turn to Him from sin, and that is the very thing that repels the stupid man. He loves what God hates, and hates what God loves.

As an example, this may help us see why homosexual-agenda advocates and enablers become so enraged and incensed over certain notions. You'll have noticed that they often fly into a fury, not merely at ministries and programs that try to help those in the grips of same-sex attraction, but especially at individuals who claim to have found such freedom. Why are they not happy for them? Morally unanchored, why do they care who tries to help who do what?

Because turning away from evil is an abomination to the stupid.

It fairly boggles the mind, does it not? That degree of messed-up involves not just thoughts and conclusions and decisions, but affections — loves, likes, admirations. It puts him at loggerheads with God inside and out.

Good thing he's got free will though, eh? One day, he'll just decide to change! Oh, sorry; vented my inner Pelagian there. I'm better now.

But the k^esîl isn't. Left to himself, he loves what God hates, hates what God loves — and his complacency, his refusal to be alarmed and brought to repentance, is precisely what will destroy him (Pro. 1:32, using this same word).

Apart from an act of sovereign grace.

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Doug Wilson bears witness to Andrew Sullivan; plus an aside on passion

by Dan Phillips

Please sit down, for your own safety.

We open with a Startling Insight that (I say, intending very little snark) a surprising number of people don't seem to grasp: I preach to be heard, and write to be read.

Yessir, there it is. As you know, unless this is your first visit (Welcome!), we here at Pyro write from deep conviction. "We" includes me. When it's about any of the issues of the day and not mere trivia, what I preach and write comes from 40 years of seeking the Lord, seeking to know Him and walk with Him and be of fruitful service to Him. This desire was born in my heart literally the day He saved me, and what you're reading right now is a fruit of that.

That being the case, probably like most sane males, I do what I do aiming at an impact. I neither preach nor write solely to amuse nor please myself (though there is the Jer. 20:9 factor). Writing to no readers, preaching to no hearers, would be the sound of one-hand-clapping, an exercise in futility.

So I preach and write because I'm convicted that I'm communicating some portion of God's truth. This rests on the deeper conviction that nothing matters more than God's truth. Put them together and you have the driving imperative that's moved me for forty years: to know Him and make Him known. To study, do, and teach (cf. Ezra 7:10; 1 Tim. 3:1).

That said, I was very grateful to God that so many found last week's thoughts on Gen. 1:1 to be true and useful, and expressed their desire to put it to use.  (See, there it is again: true, useful, used; there's my aim.) I always smiled when folks asked my permission (!) to make use of it; and I always said "Yes, thank you, please do! That's exactly why I write this stuff: to glorify God, to inform and instruct and equip and arm His people. When you take what I give and use it, I'm a happy man."

Many gracious and kind readers and Tweeters and others echoed the word of the post, to my grateful surprise. Among their number were Challies and the TGC home page. To say that none of this ruined my day would be sheer litotes.

And so it was a pleasure to see Doug Wilson also tweet kindly about the post. Then to my even greater surprised gratitude, a reader pointed out that Wilson elected to make use of the post in his debate with Andrew Sullivan about homosexual "marriage." And  so he did:

(You can get the whole deal right here.)

Now, I suppose that, were I a Big Name, I'd strike a jaded pose, sniff indiffferently, murmur "Quite," and reach for another pinch of snuff — as if this happens every day, and is only what one should expect.

But I won't. Why not? See above. When I Tweet something I feel deeply is vital, maybe I get a few, or if I'm "lucky" a dozen retweets. When Doug Wilson Tweeted about my post, he got 76 retweets and 56 "Favorites." The mentions on TGC and Challies drove our traffic up to 8-10X its already-generous normal rate.

Why do I care about that? Again, see above. That's why.

It's a funny thing; when I do something I care deeply about, and then share it, or share others' appreciation, some unkindly sneer that it's "self-promotion." Yet when John Piper and others constantly Tweet about their talks, conferences and articles, I don't see the same. Why not? Because we know Piper's very passionate about his message, and because most of us are glad to know about what he's doing.

Yet John Piper (unlike most of us) has his own instant-promotion machinery. He doesn't need to promote his work. So why don't we accuse him, who doesn't need to promote his work, of self-promotion? Because we know why he's doing it. He is completely sold out for his message, and he wants everyone to hear it. To which we say, "Amen, me too."

In that way, I'm no different... except for not having the built-in megaphone Piper has. So I have to work harder to get out the word I care about so dearly.

That being the case, I really have a special place in my heart for anyone who does what he can to use his own means to share the message I'm trying to broadcast.

Bringing me back to Doug Wilson.

I confess, not for the first time, that I don't completely "get" Doug Wilson. I haven't made a study of him. I know there are some areas where we absolutely do not agree: his postmillennialism, his baby-sprinkling, some of what he says about how parenting. Then in other areas, I just don't think I yet understand where he's coming from. But thirdly, in other areas, I think I do get him, and agree, and in those areas Wilson is absolutely brilliant. He expresses the truths I adore in simply sparkling, exquisite terms. I have used his insight (down to the very wording) again and again, usually with credit.

Now think a bit further. I say that to say this. If I were to use the cool hipster term I despise — "tribe" (eugggh)  — Wilson's not exactly my "tribe." When my first book came out, many other highly-visible folks one might see as being more in my "tribe" opted not even to publicly acknowledge its existence. Yet at that time, Doug Wilson was kind enough to reach across "tribal" boundaries to pick it as his first book of the month, and recommend it heartily. That I wasn't an A-lister like Wilson, nor a dead-center member of his "tribe," didn't stop him. He shared my passion about the message, and used his megaphone to commend it to others.

Why did I care? Well, of course, first, because it was simply kind and gracious of Wilson. Also, it gave me some insight to what Wilson must see as the Gospel, if he thinks that book represents it faithfully.

But, again, why did I care?

Once last time, see above. Wilson took the book in which I pulled out every stop and gave everything I had to give to convey a message I was and am dead-earnest about and wholly devoted to, and he raised its visibility. By doing so, Wilson used the platform God had given him to assure that others who otherwise would not have heard of the book would give it a look and PUT IT TO USE.

For that, I'll always be grateful; and this use vis-a-vis Andrew Sullivan is yet another example.

And then there's this bonus. Andrew Sullivan hears the name "Dan Phillips," and thinks... "Who?"

What's not fun about that?

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If you're going to snip, you should snip this verse

by Dan Phillips

Folks at war with God have always snipped out the parts of the Bible that they didn't like. Rationalist critics in the 19th-21st centuries have turned Biblical authorship claims into pious lies at best, rationalized prophecies and miracles to remove, well, prophecy and miracles. Anything that offended their rival philosophy was discarded by one elaborate contrivance or another.

Some are less artful. A well-known actor, whom I won't name in the post for my wife's sake, tries to ameliorate his guilt over pursuing his slavery to unnatural desires by snipping out unwelcome passages from Gideon's Bibles in motel rooms. This is vandalism as therapy, evidently yet another pursuit of the idle rich.

It has occurred to me, however, that every one of these folks could save themselves a lot of trouble. Just one snip is all it would take.

Snip out Genesis 1:1.

Among the things the decades have brought to me is a deepening appreciation of the opening chapters of Genesis, and particularly of the first verse. As S. Lewis Johnson once remarked, if you believe Genesis 1:1, nothing in all the rest of the Bible is incredible. Reject it, and all goes with it.

If some poor soul with endless time on his hands were to survey my sermons and writings for allusions to Bible chapters in, say, the last decade, I'm guessing the opening chapters of Genesis would be 'way up there. My first book starts in the first chapters of Genesis, and camps there a good long while before even trying to assail the rest of the Bible's narrative. My sermons and studies at least touch base there very frequently. Last Sunday I was in Titus 1:15-16, but opening those verses led us back to Genesis 1, 2 and 3.

In Genesis 1:1 we find a sovereign, self-existing, timeless, omniscient God creating the universe by fiat. Simply because He wants it to exist, because He wills it to exist, it comes to exist. There is none of the struggle and bloodshed of contemporary myths. Simply one God, creating all things the way He wants to create them, simply because He wants to for His own glorious reasons.

Much follows from this simple fact, this simple act. Because He pre-existed everything, God is independent of everything, and everything is dependent on Him. Because all that is exists as a reflection of His will, the universe is neither undefined nor self-defining. It is pre-defined. Scrooge isn't wrong when he says "An ant is what it is and a grasshopper is what it is" (though he is wrong about Christmas). He just didn't go far enough, and add that the ant and the grasshopper are what they are as created and defined by a sovereign God.

And so is man. So while the emergent and the PoMo alike gaze inward to the endless morass of their own subjectivity, and while the immoral pursue their cravings, and while the materialistic pretends to acknowledge nothing beyond "molecules in motion," their pursuit is a charade. It reminds us of the riddle:

Question: if we call a tail a "leg," how many legs does a dog have? 

Answer: four. It doesn't matter what you call it, a tail is a tail.

And so with ourselves. We can self-realize and self-actualize and self-affirm and self-love all we like, but we are creatures of a sovereign God. Our choices are only two: believe Him and think accordingly; or to come up with a diverting ruse.

But the ruse will always be a lie, and its pursuit will always be a doomed and damned enterprise.

As Genesis 1:1 reminds us. It reminds us by what it says about the beginning; but it also does that by its very use of the word, "beginning." Because just as the word "black" makes one think of "white," and "up" brings to mind "down," what does the word "beginning" suggest?

"End."

And this was Moses' very intent in writing the word. For as he brought this first movement of his narrative to a conclusion, what he wanted to write about was the "end of the days" (Genesis 49:1, literal Hebrew). That "end" would be a time when the He who had the right to rule would come with His scepter, and would reign over all the peoples (Gen. 49:10). Rebellion would be ended, prosperity would arise.

And as Genesis ends, so ends the Bible, with a vision of all rebellion defeated, Christ made head over all (cf. Eph. 1:10 Gk.), and God and His people reconciled forever in a glorious new Eden (Rev. 21—22).

Genesis 1:1 is the first sign-post, pointing to that inevitable resolution.

Which is why it should really be the first to go.

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Lamentable Ignorance

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson





The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "Compassion on the Ignorant," a sermon preached on Thursday evening, 3 April 1884, at London's Metropolitan Tabernacle.


he talk of the theological hall is not understood in the cottage; and common phrases, which reading people understand at once, are not understood by multitudes of people.

But the pity is that there are also thousands of reading people who are totally ignorant of the things of God,—some of the wealthiest, some of the best educated, aye, some even of those who have been to the university, and some who put the "D.D." after their names.

"No," say you, "that cannot be."

I say that it is; and if you yourself know the way of salvation, you have but to talk with some of these people to find that what I say is true.

This is a truth that is learnt by the teaching of the Holy Ghost, and not by the teaching of theological professors. A man might spend a century under the best ministry, or in the best school that ever existed on earth, and yet, at the end of one hundred years, he might not know the things of God; for these truths must come as a revelation to each man, and God the Holy Ghost must teach them to each one, or they will never be learned. This is the standing miracle in the Church of God; and unless we see it continually wrought, we have not the clearest evidence that our religion is supernatural and divine.

Every man who really receives it, receives it not because it suits his taste or his palate, but because the Spirit of God sends it home to his heart. Every man who truly knows Christ, knows him not because with his own faculties he found him out, but because it pleased God to reveal his Son in him. And, apart from this, there is and must be to the end of human life an absence of all real knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

First, "Ye must be born again;" and then, being born again, ye must be taught of the Spirit of God; and, if we are not, as the strongest light cannot make a blind man see, and the greatest heat cannot make a dead man warm, so, neither can anything that we do, as long as the soul is unrenewed, ever cause it to know God and his grace aright. It is a common ignorance, then, in all ranks of society.

It is also an ignorance concerning the most important matters; for the men of whom I am now speaking are, first, ignorant of themselves. They are ignorant of their own ignorance; and perhaps there is no ignorance that is so hard to deal with as the utter ignorance of men as to their own ignorance.

"What! you call me ignorant?" a man asks. "I know everything; I have read from Genesis to Revelation, and I understand it all; I could preach as well as anybody."

Yes, but that kind of talk shows that you do not know, for he that knows that he does not know; and there is no man less inclined to boast of his knowledge than the man who has a good deal of it.

Whenever I find the men of the modern school of thought, as they are continually doing, sneering at the orthodox because we are all uncultured, and so forth, I think to myself, "And if you only had a little culture, you would not sneer so often." It is a mark which will never mislead you, that he who thinks that he knows is a fool; and he who says that he knows more than anybody else, and can afford to deal out his sneers liberally to others, is a gentleman who, if justice were dealt out to him, would be himself sneered at.

Those who are strangers to themselves do not know their own ignorance, and that is lamentable ignorance indeed.

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"Normal"?

by Dan Phillips

One little bit of Al Mohler's recent essay on "reparative therapy," homosexuality, and the Gospel, sent me off on a bypath. It is in Mohler's quotation of a coalition of mental health-type professionals in 2008, whose stated premise was that “both heterosexuality and homosexuality are normal expressions of human sexuality.” I probed a little further and found the American Psychological Association touting the release of this document, formed by a "diverse coalition of 13 national organizations has joined in a renewed effort to protect the safety and emotional well-being of students." One wonders how genuinely "diverse" the coalition was. Not very, one suspects. Perhaps the "diversity" of a bunch of bananas: some longer, some shorter; some plumper, some thinner. But all bananas.

To say that the statement is question-begging is to say that American government spending has been "a tad short-sighted." What could "normal" possibly mean, in this context? Statistically normal? Surely not; even on the grossly-inflated 10% figure, homosexual behavior is not the norm. Biologically normal? In terms of design, again, surely not — unless one wishes to argue that the mere fact that a thing can be done with a part of the body means that it is normal to do so... in which case, the imagination quickly staggers under such new-"normal" images as fingers in pencil sharpeners, tongues in light-sockets, legs in wood chippers, and the like.

No, clearly "normal" is the result of some extensively massaged redefining. Stripped of footnotes and citations and psychologese, I daresay this "normal" amounts to "feels right to them and doesn't seem to hurt anyone." This definition, in turn, while popular, also rests atop a mountain of unfounded assumptions. Is what "feels right" therefore right? Yes!, says popular culture. "Follow your heart!"... until one mentions, say, rape or murder, which also arise from the heart. All right, not that. It has to not "hurt anyone." Why not?, one asks. Well, hurting others is bad, we guess baselessly. Oh, so abortion is out? No, no no no...

And on it goes.

You smart cookies have already arrived where I'm heading. Though our culture has selective awe and reverence for the Priesthood of White-Jacketed Experts (preferably Government Certified™), this thunderous, well-nigh Sinaitic pronouncement rests on precisely nothing.

Look: suppose someone brings you a shiny, multiflanged, multifacted, multicolored, multilimbed metallic thing with a big shiny propeller on it. He asks you, "Is this working normally?"

Your response, of course, is "I have no idea. What is it supposed to do?"

Well, that's what you'd do. You have some common sense. If you were a Government Certified™ Expert, on the other hand, you'd forcibly extract  money from working folks, fund a committee, commission a study, and produce a report. If the committee noted that it kept doing the same thing and didn't burst into flames, they might name it a Disgronificator, hand it back, and say, "Yep. Normal!" Or if it worked too well, they'd regulate it into inaccessibility. But I digress.

The truth is, we really do not know what "normal" is (except statistically) until we know design and intent. That is, we don't know whether Object A is functioning normally until we know what Object A was designed to do.

So that is why in WTG I go right back to the opening chapters of Genesis, to the creation of man. It's a simple formula:

• To understand how the Gospel is a solution, we must understand what problem it addresses.
• To understand what problem the Gospel addresses we must understand what is wrong with man.
• You can't understand what is wrong with man without understanding what man was created to be and do.

In other words, the backwards progression must be:

• Gospel
• Sin
• Fall
• Creation

So you see, all of that puts us in an entirely different frame, a different perspective, a different worldview. Central issues are no longer primarily defined on exclusively horizontal (let alone statistical) terms, but primary reference must be given to the vertical. Which, you will also note, takes us right back to Genesis 3, where our existential dilemma all began. It was at that point that we, as a race represented in our head Adam, insisted on the exclusive right to solipsistic, internal, horizontal (if not centrifugal) redefinition of everything.

In other words, God created and defined us, our world and our meaning; and we turned around and re-defined ourselves, our world, our meaning — and God.

Then all Hell broke loose.

And that, dear friends, is how we got where we are today: up is down, left is right, black is white, harmful is helpful, and perverted is "normal."

But let me throw yet one more monkey-wrench into the Autonomaton. If we want to see what a real "normal" human being is like, we need to look at Jesus, as I have argued elsewhere. Put that in the context of the rest of the Bible.

Then "normal" takes on a very different hue.

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What did Jesus (not) say about... God? (full post)

by Dan Phillips

"All that really matters is that you believe in God, however you conceive of Him/Her/It/Them."

I suppose you could say that the world can be divided into two kinds of people:

1. Those who can imagine Jesus saying something like this
2. Those who actually know something about Jesus

Is such a categorical statement warranted?  I think so. My reasons fall into three categories, of which the first two will continue to serve as the basis for the rest of the series as well. Those heads are Perspective, Context, and Content. Let's launch:

Perspective: there's only one actual Jesus. You don't get to make up a new one. The only Jesus who is worth discussing, who merits any weight or "pull," is the Jesus we meet in the Gospels. Given that the Gospels are richly-attested first-century material, have a wealth of historical material on this Jesus. Any reluctance to deal with the data of the Gospels, any preference for "Jesuses" fabricated from other (or no) materials, arises from something other than historical concern.

So if we're to talk about any Jesus worth talking about, we will be talking about the Jesus we know from the Gospels, and from the apostolic witness of the rest of the New Testament. Anything anyone says about "Jesus" needs to be checked against Jesus. No matter how heart-warming, no matter how encouraging, no matter how soft and cuddy, no matter how popular — the command "keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21) works out to mean accept no other Jesus than the Jesus of the New Testament (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:1-4).

Context: the worldview of this Jesus is specific, knowable, and known. He was a man who affirmed the divine origin (Matthew 15:4), inerrant truthfulness (John 10:35; 17:17), and binding authority (Matthew 4:1-10) of the Old Testament. At no point did Jesus suggest that parts of the Old Testament were untrue, uninspired, inaccurate, or unhistorical. There was no winnowing of the truthful from the untruthful in Jesus' teaching.

Therefore, the first time Jesus says "God," we must plug in the backstory. By "God" Jesus means the same God revealed throughout the Old Testament. That "God." The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the God of Creation and Flood; the God of Exodus and Conquest; the God of captivity and return. The God of bloody sacrifices and pictorial Tabernacle. The God of Moses, Solomon, Isaiah, Malachi. That God.

The thought of proposing — much less accepting, much less advocating — another god, in Jesus' name, would have horrified the actual Jesus.

Content. All that being the case — what is the likelihood that this Jesus could have made the statement fabricated above?

Zero.

Why "zero"? Remember and apply the first two headings.

First, the odds are zero because the Jesus we meet in the New Testament is the living Word of that God (John 1:1, 14), come to earth to expound Him (John 1:18). Because this Jesus claimed an unparalleled intimacy with that God (Matthew 11:27; John 5:17, 19-20; 7:29; 8:55). Jesus' concern was never about how sinners conceived of God, but about how God conceived of Himself — and that self-conception is what He came to declare (John 1:18).

This is why that Jesus never once called people to embrace their own notions of God. Instead, He called them to repent of their notions of God, and embrace God's revealed knowledge of Himself (Matthew 4:17; John 4:21-26).

Second, the chances are "zero" because the God of the Old Testament never called people to embrace their own conceptions of "God." Rather, from the start He spoke and showed Himself to man (Genesis 1), moving people to call on His very specific and non-inclusive name (Genesis 4:26b). This God was fiercely condemning of idolatry, which is the embrace of any God other than He (Exodus 20:3-6; 34:13-17; Deuteronomy 4:23-29).

It is inconceivable that that God would perpetuate such inclusive bibble-babble. Since that God is the God Jesus presupposed and proclaimed, it is again inconceivable that Jesus would say anything of the kind.

This truth has many implications, of course. Let's single out two.

The first is the challenging question that played heavily into my own conversion: are we worshiping a god of our own heart's fantasies, on our terms, or are we worshiping the true and living God as He knows and reveals Himself, on His terms?

The second applies to pastors, teachers, leaders, and anyone who would speak for Jesus. Are you as crystal-clear and dogmatic as Jesus is? In asking that, let me be crystal-clear:

• I am not asking if you are being dogmatic that your ideas of God are absolute and unchallengeable; but...
• I am asking if you proclaim Jesus' revelation of God as absolute and unchallengeable.

If we burble pluralistic nonsense, we are representing ourselves, not Jesus. If we pretend that issues Jesus made clear are unclear, we are representing ourselves, not Jesus.

The main thing about being (and speaking as) a Christian out loud is not saying that I know everything about God. I surely don't.

The main thing is saying that Jesus knows everything about God, and that I am learning from Him — and affirming and proclaiming what I learn from Him.

That is a sure foundation for life and proclamation.

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Two radically different ways of thinking, and their cause

by Dan Phillips

Albert Mohler wrote yesterday about a lady (Anne Eggebroten) who contributed a piece for Sojourner (a magazine for liberals who still want to call themselves "evangelicals"). Mrs. Eggebroten was shocked! shocked! to find men leading at John MacArthur's Grace Community Church.

(I know what you're thinking: "Alert the media!")

Eggebroten provides a horror-struck narrative, in an alien-sociologist tone, about this odd group of pre-Pleistocene throwbacks who think (in agreement with God) that men should lead in the home and in the church. Then, as if thousands of devastating responses hadn't already been launched against Paul Jewett's lame reach for Galatians 3:28 in the last 30+ years, and as if it has anything whatever to do with function, Eggebroten trots it out again. We are all one in Christ. Therefore women can be pastors and needn't subordinate themselves to their husbands.

What of the Pastorals? No problem; they have to be recategorized as sub-Pauline. Other passages? They don't mean what they say, or they're interpolations. Galatians 3:28 — out of context — is Eggebroten's canon. In fact, you could call it The Eggebrotenian Canon.

(Eggebroten doesn't actually cite Jewett, by the way; instead, she reaches for lesbian "Christian" feminist Virginia Mollenkott and a few other Usual Suspects instead. None of which is actually an upgrade.)

What comes through loud and clear is that Eggebroten reveals no doubts that she should be allowed to do what she wants. Eggebroten is insistent on her rights, getting her way; appalled at any talk of submission, subordination, or even "helping." No actual on-the-scene authorities should stand over Eggebroten's wants, her wishes, her desires.  They are all presumed to be holy and good. She is sure of them. So sure, in fact, that she is willing actually to snip out part of the Word of God to accommodate them. Her desires, and her judgment, are superior to the Word of God.

Then comes Professor of Biblical Studies and BioLogos blogger Kenton Sparks, who writes: "I have no interest in preserving Christianity . . . I believe because, as I understand it, it makes sense of human experience. But if it turns out that Christianity fails to do that, I’ll simply turn elsewhere."

Like Ms. Eggebroten, you see that Professor Sparks has absolute confidence in his moral judgment, his personal powers of reason, his spiritual acumen. He announces that Scripture "stands in need of redemption"; and apparently Sparks himself will step in to do the job.

In the words quoted above, Sparks betrays no doubt whatever that he is up to the task. He seems himself as able to judge rightly; in fact, is in no doubt that his judgment potentially superior both to the Bible and thus to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus. The Bible (and Christ) may well be wrong. But Sparks? Never! If the Bible offends Sparks, he'll simply walk away, no big deal. Sparks will follow his own judgment wherever it takes him. It is adequate, sound, whole, sufficient.

It is as Gleason Archer and others warned decades ago: abandon the inerrancy of Scripture, and God's supremacy is replaced by the supremacy of personal human judgment.

In these comments, Mrs. Eggebroten and Professor Sparks together stand over the Word. The Word is in the dock, they are the judges. They will massage, manipulate, torture the parts they don't like (creation, created order). If those parts will not subject themselves to EggeSparks' will, they'll either relegate it to sub-Canonical status (Eggebroten) or call it "broken," and perhaps move on in search of something better (Sparks).

As I have argued elsewhere, the point at which the heart shows itself is that point at which God's will and His truth cross our wills and our biases.

Contrast both of these attitudes with that of men and women on whom the Holy Spirit has effectually done the work of conviction of sin, who have had a glimpse of the living God.

Recall Isaiah 6, the throne room vision. How did the sight of the thrice-holy Yahweh affect Isaiah? Remember: Isaiah was a good man: a holy man, a godly man, an incredibly eloquent man. What did he think of himself, after he saw God?

Did Isaiah say, "Now I really feel empowered! I really have to get after asserting my rights"? Did Isaiah say, "You know, that really wasn't bad — for now. You know, until something better comes along"?

Not so much.

When the Holy Spirit deals with a man, a woman, that person is brought face to face with certain game-changing truths. He sees God in His limitless, vast wisdom and purity, His immensity and holiness, His absoluteness and majesty. And in that same glimpse, he sees himself as he has never before appeared. He feels the depth of the depravity of his own deceptive heart (Jeremiah 17:9). He is overwhelmed with his own puniness and impurity (Isaiah 6:5). He cannot escape the sense of his own inexcusable sin (Luke 5:8), and he repudiates it like a foul and filthy thing (Job 42:5-6). His knowledge no longer looks so impressive (Proverbs 30:1-4). Now, it is God's Word alone that stands out as sure and certain (Proverbs 30:5-6).

This is what the fear of Yahweh means, that fear which is the beginning and sine qua non of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7) and of wisdom (9:10). It is the proper view of God, and of my position before Him.

This is the point at which a man throws himself at Jesus' feet, imploring Him for mercy and life and salvation and forgiveness. This is the point at which a man takes Jesus' yoke on himself (Matthew 11:29-30), counting himself a fool, so that he may become (for the first time) genuinely wise (1 Corinthians 3:18). This is the point at which a man embraces Jesus as Savior and - not partner, not advisor, not sounding-board, but - Lord. It is the issue he settles in principle at conversion, or arguably there has been no conversion.

Make no mistake: sin is not only a moral and spiritual blight. It is a noetic blight, a perversion that effects the way we think and process data (Romans 1:18ff.; Ephesians 4:17-19). That is why we don't need a mere pointer here and there, a bit of advice, and an hour or two with a tutor. No, we need to be done with ourselves and our way of processing information as we were outside of Christ (Ephesians 4:22-24), and become renewed in the spirit of our minds (Romans 12:2).

This is a very different spirit than one sees in the wannabe world-friends, the various compromised "-ists" (evolutionists, feminists). This is the spirit that says something like this:

"Left to my own reasoning and judgment, I will surely go horribly, damnably wrong. I already did! My way of thinking headed me straight away from God and towards Hell. It would do it again in a heartbeat, given the chance. I do not know how to think rightly about anything until God teaches me how to think about it, and He does so through His word alone."

I suggest that it is this realization which utterly parts the two schools of thought. They proceed along lines drawn by two markedly different views of God and of self: that I surely can be wrong, but the God of Scripture cannot; or that the God of Scripture can be wrong, but I surely cannot.

The two views cannot be harmonized.

Don't even try.

Postscript: am I judging the writers' hearts? Of course not. How could I (1 Corinthians 2:11)? All of us say and do things from time to time that do not represent our truest beliefs (Romans 7:14-25). I can only see what they write - and that is what they present to the world for evaluation. Yet these are arguments the writers are making which reveal ways of thinking that, if they are Christians, need to be reconsidered, and repented of. I offer them as cautionary examples.

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Everyone is an inerrantist

by Dan Phillips

Phil's recent (terrific) posts on BioLogos tangentially raise the issue of inerrancy once again. Many lodge the charge that some or all of the contributors at BioLogos either weaken or deny inerrancy, either openly or tacitly.

My contention is that they affirm inerrancy, every one of them. As surely as Phil does, as surely as I do, as surely as you do.

As surely as Christopher Hitchens does, as surely as Richard Dawkins does, as surely as Paris Hilton (or Perez Hilton, for that matter) does, as surely as the Pope does, as surely as Lindsey Lohan does.

Everyone is an inerrantist.

The only question is where we locate inerrancy.


The glandolatrous hedonist locates inerrancy in his senses; the Papist (and the, er, Pape-er himself) locates it in the teaching office of The Church™.

What of the BioLogos types? One might argue that they locate inerrancy in the scientistic fad du jour, the fad of uniformitarian macroevolutionism with a light dusting of God-talk on the top.

At this juncture, the retort might come "Oh no! All we care about is Science™ and The Evidence. If the Facts led elsewhere, we'd change in a heartbeat."

About that. Is Science a person, a monolith, a thing that speaks or writes? Or is it (as the word is popularly used) actually a particular philosophy? Are there other competing philosophies? Is there only one school of thought?

Are facts self-interpreting? How long has the current fad held the day? How long did previous fads dominate? Did previous generations say they were probably wrong and would likely be undone by the next generation — or did they all lay out their positions in just as absolute and self-assured terms as the current lot is doing?

Yet with all that, let us grant for the sake of argument that the BioLogos types really are sincere in their insistence that they'll go wherever the evidence drives them.  Then we must make three observations:

1. Given their eagerness to throw out the plain reading of Scripture in Genesis 1-3, they obviously do not locate inerrancy in the text of Scripture.
2. Given their eagerness to throw out the plain reading of Scripture in Genesis 1-3, they obviously are in fact provisionally locating inerrancy in today's scientistic consensus, over against Scripture. (That is to say: given that there is a push and shove between the majority view created on the assumption that Scripture is untrue on the one hand, and Scripture itself on the other, they are siding with the former against the latter. It is Scripture that must yield, to them.)
3. Given their eagerness to throw out the plain reading of Scripture in Genesis 1-3, they obviously locate inerrancy in their own personal reason, their own ability to sort things out, their own (if you will) autonomous knowledge of good and evil.

The Christian position is radically different, by definition. It is a chastened epistemology specifically in that it is the way a man will think when God has broken his pride through conviction of sin, through a vision of the massive holiness and rightness and wisdom of God, over against the pervasive moral, spiritual, and noetic effects of human sin. It is the thinking of a man who has come to see that Jesus is Lord, and he isn't; who has come to the cross for life and light and wisdom; who has yoked himself to Jesus and confessed, "I can't see anything rightly unless I see it as You see it, which I learn from Your Word alone."

Creation is a classic He-said/they-said. Listen:

• We begin our thinking with the premise that God the eyewitness cannot err in His revelation of what happened, or ...
• We begin our thinking with the premise that man the non-eyewitness cannot err in his reconstruction of what happened.

Because everyone believes in inerrancy.

It's just a matter of where he locates the final authority.

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Middle of the Road: R.I.P. Kermit

by Phil Johnson



ur friends at BioLogos are feeling the pincers of criticism. On one side are doctrinaire materialistic atheists; and on this side are those of us who actually believe the Bible.

BioLogos has deliberately staked out a middle-road position between these two irreconcilable worldviews. They say they are determined to find and develop common ground between both sides. But this week they've been discovering what any highway engineer will tell you: on a freeway where heavy traffic is moving at high speed in opposing directions, there's no such thing as "common ground."

Furthermore, you won't get very far pretending the yellow line is the common-ground marker. You're liable to get clobbered by traffic from both sides.

So anyway, Dr. Darrell Falk, president of BioLogos, e-mailed me Thursday morning to say he had prepared a response to Monday's Pyro-post. I read it eagerly, hoping he would respond to the substance of my critique. Instead, he spent most of his time pandering to Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, and others on the doctrinaire-materialistic-atheist side.

He was keen to assure them that "BioLogos exists in no small part to marginalize [belief in the historicity of the Genesis account] from the Church." Specifically, the BioLogos team have targeted the notion that Adam was a special creation—fashioned in God's own image rather than evolved from higher primates. "A fundamental part of our mission is to show that [the Genesis account of Adam] is not tenable," Falk solemnly (and somewhat fawningly) assured Dawkins. (Read his post for yourself if you think I am exaggerating about the obsequious tone he takes with Dawkins.)

Dr. Falk's whole response to my post was basically: You have your interpretation of Genesis; we have ours. He seems to be suggesting that because interpretation by definition has an element of subjectivity to it, everyone is free to interpret however he or she prefers, and everyone's interpretation deserves equal respect. That may seem a nice-sounding platitude in our current postmodern context, but it is by no means a biblical value.

And it's no real answer to any of the points I made.

Indeed, Dr. Falk's one complaint about my post focused on the wording of my closing paragraph, where I wrote:

If BioLogos is willing to throw away so much at the very foundations of our faith and at the very beginning of God's revelation, I can't imagine why they would want to keep up the pretense of being Christians at all. Selectively admiring the Bible's moral teachings is not the same thing as actually believing the Bible.

Naturally, Dr. Falk did not like my suggestion that genuine faith can't be as skeptical and selective with God's revealed truth as the BioLogos team wants to be.

He also objected to Travis Allen's post at the GTY.org blog. Travis (quoting from 1 Timothy 6:20) said: "It's time for Christians to return to the self-attesting authority of God's Word and forsake the 'vain babblings and oppositions of science, falsely so called.'" Dr. Falk wasn't happy to have such harsh words (written by the apostle Paul, not by Travis Allen, as Falk seemed to think) applied to his views.

He wrote,

I do wish though, that we would not be put forward as those who, according to the above quotations, live under the "pretense of being Christians," or that we be represented as "vain babblers." At various times, we have written respectfully that we understand why this issue is so important to you. We love and respect you for the sincerity of your position, but please don't call us "vain babblers" any more, and please don't imply that we are only "pretending" to be Christians.

So I'd like to clarify a couple of things: First, despite Dr. Falk's verbal reassurance, most of the contributors at BioLogos clearly have no clue "why this issue is so important." It's painfully obvious that theology is very low on BioLogos's list of priorities. In fact, one of the besetting sins at BioLogos is a blithe lack of concern for some of the most foundational doctrines of Christianity and their implications. I'm thinking especially of the authority and inspiration of Scripture and the doctrine of original sin.

Second, I stand by my statement that the blend of scientific skepticism and moral piety being peddled over at BioLogos isn't authentic Christianity. That's based on the fact that the authority of Scripture and the doctrine of original sin are and always have been deemed Christian essentials by every major branch of the church—and BioLogos does seem very keen to do away with both doctrines.

For example, BioLogos's relentless attack on the historicity of Adam entails an implicit denial of the doctrine of original sin (or in the very best case, a totally different, extrabiblical re-imagination of how humanity fell). Dr. Falk himself rejects the views of those who believe in the historicity of Adam and the Fall. In his reply to Dawkins he seems to be pleading for patience as they seek a way to humor the minority in the BioLogos community who crave the "comfort" of believing all humanity descended from a single pair—not a specially-created Adam and Eve, mind you, but a pair of humanoids who evolved from the higher primates. I thought that part of his post came across as especially condescending and dismissive. You can decide for yourself whether I'm reading too much attitude into it.

In any case, his rejection of the historicity of Adam and the Genesis account of original sin simply isn't consistent with biblical and historic Christianity. The doctrine of original sin is and always has been the starting point of Christian soteriology and the doctrine of atonement. Ecumenical councils, Catholic Church councils, and mainstream Protestants (including Calvinists and evangelical Arminians alike) have always explicitly, emphatically, and repeatedly affirmed original sin as a cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith. Denying original sin is the identifying mark of Pelagians, rank heretics, and quasi-Christian cults.

The authority, inspiration, and inerrancy of Scripture is a matter of similar import, and this too has been the subject of sustained and systematic attack at BioLogos. Remember, in their president's own words, BioLogos "exists in no small part to marginalize this view" (i.e., the view "that Adam and Eve were created with apparent age"). That goal obviously will require a systematic campaign to undermine Christians' confidence in the Genesis account, starting with an open attack on evangelical convictions regarding biblical inerrancy.

Which of course is precisely what the team at BioLogos are currently doing.

BioLogos is by no means the first group in church history to attack the foundations of the Christian faith in the Name of Christ—shamelessly pleading for charity and acceptance as true believers from the very saints whose faith they are determined to dismantle. (Read the saga of Arius and Athanasius if you want a gripping tale of doctrinal intrigue and heresy in the name of Christian brotherhood. It'll cure you of thinking it's uncharitable to take a hard-line stance against heresy.)

In short, I don't apologize for saying that the worldview BioLogos promotes is a challenge to—and by no means an affirmation of—the authentic, biblical, and historic Christian faith.

I'm certain that fact will become more and more obvious the more material BioLogos publishes. But for those still in doubt, here's a simple test: Apply their Genesis hermeneutic consistently to the bodily resurrection of Christ (or the deity of Christ, for that matter), and see what you come up with. Then ask how reasonable it is to accord the BioLogos worldview the right hand of Christian fellowship.

Over at the Grace to You blog Travis Allen has posted a response to yesterday's BioLogos piece. Check it out. Also, Fred Butler has weighed in here, replete with a quotation from Mr. Miagi.

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Continuationism and Credulity, East and West

by Phil Johnson

Last time we posted on this subject, I figured we had said enough about it, and I had no plans to bring it up again. But I get lots of e-mails from charismatics who want to argue about cessationism, and lately they have seemed to come more frequently and with more passion than usual. Maybe this will help:

've said in the past that I've never met a real continuationist. Every charismatic I have ever discussed cessationism with ultimately admits that certain key features of the apostolic era are no longer in operation. For example, no one is writing new books of Scripture. No one can credibly claim to have raised the dead. The gifts of healing and prophecy claimed by today's charismatics are not of the same character or quality as "the signs of a true apostle" (2 Corinthians 12:12).

In fact, all the charismatics I know who are basically orthodox when it comes to the gospel and the authority of Scripture will freely admit that there are not even any "true apostles" today—i.e., there is no one today whose teaching is infallible and authoritative in the same sense Peter's and Paul's apostolic ministries were.

What is that but a kind of selective cessationism?

I once also remarked that anyone who believes he truly does possess an apostolic-quality gift of healing ought to be exercising that gift in hospitals and in doctors' waiting rooms, where such a gift could do the most good.

A charismatic reader wrote to challenge that suggestion:

Where in Scripture do we find those with the gift of healing purposefully going around looking for sick people to heal, and then healing every sick person they find?

I wrote back:

It seems to me that is precisely what Jesus Himself did:

"Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them" (Matt. 4:23-24).

Sometimes the sick were brought to Him:

"They brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick" (Matt. 8:16).

Other times, He actively sought them out:

"Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people" (Matt. 9:35).

He also sent the disciples on precisely the kind of mission I proposed for those who believe they have gifts of healing:

"He went round about the villages, teaching. And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits . . . And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them" (Mark 6:6-7, 13).

Christ's reputation as a healer did not escape the notice of anyone, and Scripture repeatedly says He healed all the sick He encountered:

"And whithersoever he entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment: and as many as touched him were made whole" (Mark 6:56).

"All they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them. And devils also came out of many. . ." (Luke 4:40).

"And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all" (Luke 6:19).

"God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him" (Acts 10:38).

Same with the apostles in the earliest days of the church:

"And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women. Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them. There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one" (Acts 5:14-16).

I defy any modern charismatic to demonstrate that anything on this scale this is happening anywhere today.



My correspondent replied:

Perhaps we in the West do not see much of the power of God because of the practical atheism of our Weltanschauung. We may fight for the inerrancy of Scripture, but do we not often turn the Bible into a catalogue for a museum of extinct species, rather than seeing it as a field guide to test what is happening in the world around us today?

Oh, brother.

Frankly, that sort of East vs. West rhetoric is a tired cliche that has been answered repeatedly. I think it was John Wimber who first popularized the "we're just too Western" argument among charismatics. I'm amazed people are still parroting the claim, because it is so easily refuted.

Over the years my ministry has taken me numerous times to India, Korea, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. And I can tell you definitively that Charismatics who have lived their entire lives in the East have no better success rate when it comes to miraculous healings than my charismatic friends who grew up in Tulsa, or those who hold healing crusades in suburban Los Angeles. People steeped in mysticism may be more credulous when it comes to believing outlandish claims, but that doesn't count. The point is that the miracles being done by charismatics in the East are no more numerous or spectacular than what Benny Hinn does. (In fact, Benny puts on a much more impressive show than the average Asian faith-healer, and that's why he attracts such massive crowds when he visits there.)

The opportunities for miracle-workers abound in some Asian cultures, if any real miracle-worker would step forward and seize the moment. For example, every train platform in every major city in India is swarming with beggars, most of whom are sick or seriously disabled. I have traveled extensively by train in India, sometimes with sincere charismatics (ranging from young YWAMers to old-line pentecostals; people coming from both Eastern and Western hemispheres). Never once have I met a charismatic who took the opportunity on one of those train platforms to perform—or even attempt—the kind of miracle Peter did in Acts 3:6-7. The only "healings" I've ever seen charismatics claim in India are the same unverifiable back-straightenings, leg-lengthenings, and other non-visible "cures" you can watch every week on Benny Hinn's program.

In fact, the most spectacular "signs and wonders" I have ever witnessed from charismatics in India are the same laughter and animal noises that were sweeping Western charismatic churches ten years ago. And those phenomena were imported to Indian churches from Western sources.

Non-Christians in India are totally nonplused by such claims, because these are the same sort of phony miracles routinely claimed by almost every guru and mystic in Hinduism. (Look up Sai Baba if you'd like to meet a particularly interesting non-Christian counterpart of Benny Hinn.)

Credulity may be more common among Christians in the East. Genuine miracles certainly are not.

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Apocalypse Then

Remembering the Y2K Hysteria
by Phil Johnson

xactly ten years ago this week I preached in our church's morning service. I can't remember if John MacArthur was ill or suddenly called out of town for some reason, but I remember being asked very late to fill in. I had about 24 hours to prepare.

It being the first Sunday of 1999, I decided to preach an appropriately forward-looking message on Matthew 6:34 and its context: "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself."

In those days, the evangelical world was at the peak of the Y2K insanity, so I made reference to that issue in my message. At the time, Gary North was operating a heavily-trafficked website that included this:

We've got a problem. It may be the biggest problem that the modern world has ever faced. I think it is. At 12 midnight on January 1, 2000 (a Saturday morning), most of the world's mainframe computers will either shut down or begin spewing out bad data. Most of the world's desktop computers will also start spewing out bad data. Tens of millions—possibly hundreds of millions—of pre-programmed computer chips will begin to shut down the systems they automatically control. This will create a nightmare for every area of life, in every region of the industrialized world.

North's Web site had links to more than 3,000 places where you could read similar doom-and-gloom predictions about the Y2K crisis. He grimly told visitors to his Web site that they had better heed these doomsday warnings, or they would certainly regret it.

Today, he admits, "I did not understand the Y2K thing in any sort of detail. I took someone elses [sic] word for it. . . ."

At the time, he was saying:

It took me from early 1992 until late 1996 to come to grips emotionally with the Year 2000 Problem. You had better be a lot faster on the uptake than I was. We're running out of time. I don't mean that society is running out of time to fix this problem. Society has already run out of time for that. There are not enough programmers to fix it. The technical problems cannot be fixed on a system-wide basis. The Millennium Bug will hit in 2000, no matter what those in authority decide to do now. As a system, the world economy is now beyond the point of no return. So, when I say "we," I mean you and I as individuals. We are running out of time as individuals to evade the falling dominoes . . .. We are facing a breakdown of civilization if the power grid goes down.

(It frankly amused me that a postmillennialist like North, who had frequently derided premillennialists by referring to them as "pessimillennialists" would himself make a career of fear-mongering. But that is just what he has done. So much for the vaunted "optimism" of theonomic postmillennialism.)

In my message that morning a decade ago, I pointed out that the spirit of that kind of panic-mongering was 180 degrees at odds with a whole string of Jesus' commands in Matthew 6:25-33. I mostly just explained the biblical text.

I admit I wasn't prepared for the reaction I got that morning. There was a smallish group of people in the church who were fully into the Y2K hysteria, and they approached me in a phalanx as soon as the service was over. The guy who would have been their spokesman (if his wife hadn't kept interrupting him) was so angry he was red in the face and spitting when he talked. He said he was going to meet with the elders and demand equal time to tell the people of Grace Church they needed to start stockpiling food and preparing for the looming crisis. He likened me to me a holocaust denier.

I stood there and listened to them for ten minutes or so until they began to calm down a bit. I let them talk and did not interrupt, except to ask how they thought Matthew 6:25-34 applied to our society in 1999.

As the spokesdude began to lose some of his steam, he said, "Look: all I know is that if you're wrong, you are guilty of placing the people of our church in mortal jeopardy by not encouraging them to stockpile food and prepare Y2K bunkers. But if I'm wrong, the worst that will happen is that I will have to come back and apologize to you for losing my temper."

"Will you do that?" I asked.

"Of course I would—if it turns out I am wrong," he avowed. "But I am not wrong."

"I will look for you on the first Sunday of the year 2000," I promised.



He moved to a remote part of Idaho that fall because he wanted to be as far as possible from any urban area when all the computers started spewing bad data. One of the hard-core Y2K aficionados in the group actually left his wife when it came to light that she did not share his fear of the coming apocalypse. He likewise moved out of state.

Ten years after the fact, not one of that group of Y2K cadets has ever come back and formally acknowledged that they were wrong, much less apologized for the scene they made that morning.

Gary North is now selling doomsday advice for a monthly fee—"approximately the cost of one movie ticket, a large box of popcorn, and a large soft drink per month."

My advice: the popcorn is much healthier for you.

Even if you load it with butter.

Seriously.

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O Canada — is that where we're headed? (Abortion)

by Dan Phillips

Jeremiah pointedly asks:

8 “How can you say, ‘We are wise,
and the law of the LORD is with us’?
But behold, the lying pen of the scribes
has made it into a lie.
9 The wise men shall be put to shame;
they shall be dismayed and taken;
behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD,
so what wisdom is in them?
(Jeremiah 8:8-9)

The Bible both makes clear and illustrates the point: when the truth of God is not our starting-point, assuredly folly, epistemological and moral insanity, and disaster will be our ending-point (Psalm 55:19; Proverbs 1:7, 29-33; 9:10; Romans 1:18-32).

And so, what that in mind, consider this headline:

Canadian Doctors Group Worried
Palin Example Will Lower Down's Abortion Rate

Nope, before you ask: no, this is not Scrappleface, not The Onion, not Tom in the Box, not Sacred Sandwich.

This is straight news. Twisted doctors, and twisted reasoning. But straight news.

The backdrop is Alaska's governor Sarah Palin, who found herself bearing a child with Down syndrome, knowing gave birth to him, and celebrates him as "absolutely perfect" in the family's eyes.

The original story was in The Globe and Mail. What passes for moral reasoning in the article itself is pretty chilling. Those opposed to aborting babies with Down syndrome babies are said to "fear it could result in dwindling numbers of people living with Down syndrome, which could diminish funding for research or resource programs." The only concern the reporter can understand is a concern about funding.

Further, André Lalonde, who is executive vice-president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, is reported as being concerned that "Ms. Palin's widely discussed decision to keep her baby, knowing he would be born with the condition, may inadvertently influence other women who may lack the necessary emotional and financial support to do the same."

Now, parse that out. They lack the "emotional and financial support" to support the baby. So they "decide" not to "keep" the baby. In other words, they decide to have the baby killed.

Now, that's okay — if it's a few inches to one side of the birth canal. For some reason. We're never told why. But ___ inches this way = murder, ___ inches that way = celebrated and sacred "right" of "choice." In fact, not just choice but (we're being told) the only loving and responsible choice.

Now, try to reason this out. If the difficulty of the situation before the child's birth warrants a just death-sentence on the child... why not equally on the other side of the birth canal?

Consider this situation. Perhaps things are okay when the special-needs child is born... but then afterwards, the marriage breaks up, jobs are hard to find, and there are medical bills.

Death warrant?

If not, why not?

Human life is a continuum of development that begins with conception and ends with death. There are many milestones, none of which marks off humanness from non-humanness. There is no bar Mitzvah in the womb.

And so, any rationale for killing a child before birth is only as compelling as a rationale for killing him after birth. That is, if you can kill him for being imperfect or inconvenient before birth, it must be legitimate to do so afterwards (as Princeton's Peter Singer has in fact argued). If it is legitimate to kill him for some parent's crimes before birth, it must be legitimate to do so afterwards.

This contrasts starkly with the Biblical perspective on human life and its implications for abortion.

But abortion has become a sacrament to a certain Molochian worldview. In spite of my title, I have no illusions that America is fundamentally any better than Canada. Our national stance on this topic is indefensible and shameful.

In both nations, we see a living answer to Jeremiah's question: "they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom is in them?"

What wisdom?

The "wisdom" of might makes right. The "wisdom" of me-first.

The "wisdom" of buying the foundational lie — "You shall be as God."

Notes about the meta:

On-topic/permissible comments include: Biblical worldview, epistemology, apologetics, abortion, ethical decision-making.

Off-topic/impermissible comments include: this American presidential election and the candidates per se. Issues related to that are being discussed here and there — but not here. I'll be fairly merciless, so tread lightly.

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