123 Sermon Illustrations on Liberalism

Only 43 percent of Baptists believe that works don't earn salvation and 66 percent believe Satan isn't a real being, according to a new study released by the Barna Research Group and reported by the Florida Baptist Witness.

The study explored the religious beliefs of the nation's 12 largest denominations and determined that only 41 percent of adults in those denominations could be classified as "born again."

"The Barna report is a credible perspective on the state of Christian conviction in America today," R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, told the Witness. "The report is a striking indictment of the loss of doctrinal confidence and the erosion of biblical beliefs that marks American Christianity."

George Barna, president of the California firm that conducted the research, said the study was not intended to report the official teachings of any denomination. "The data reflect what the people within those churches believe," Barna said. "If nothing else, this outcome highlights the substantial theological shift that has been altering the nature of the Episcopal church, in particular, as well as other Christian churches, in recent years."

The study's findings identify an alarmingly high number of church members whose beliefs fall far short of orthodox Christianity. For example, 41 percent of all adults surveyed believed in the total accuracy of the Bible. Catholics had the lowest percentage (23 percent) who believed the Bible to be accurate, while 81 percent of those attending Pentecostal churches held to the same belief. Only 40 percent of those surveyed believed Christ was sinless, while 27 percent believed Satan to be real.

"The trends Barna traces have been progressing for several years," Mohler said. "Americans have been negotiating away the core doctrines of the Christian faith -- all the while claiming to remain Christians. But Christianity is defined by certain definite and non-negotiable doctrines. Without these, there is no Christianity at all -- just the emptying sanctuaries of declining churches and denominations."

The numbers were better for Baptists than for the whole sample, but not by much. Of the Baptists surveyed, 57 percent believed works play a part in salvation, and 45 percent believed Jesus was not sinless. Only 34 percent of Baptists thought Satan was a real being, while 51 percent believed Christians have the responsibility to witness to others. Sixty-six percent of Baptists considered the Bible to be totally accurate, 81 percent considered their religious faith to be important and 85 percent believed God is the all-powerful creator of the universe.

The Barna study didn't break down the Baptist category into specific denominations like Southern Baptists or General Baptists, so the results may not be typical of Southern Baptists as a whole.

"What we've found is that when you interview people about what kind of Baptist church they attend, a large proportion of them either don't know or they will give you information that's inaccurate," Barna told the Florida Baptist Witness. "So, we typically don't break that out."

But even if the results would be even marginally better for Southern Baptists, they're still disappointing, said Phil Roberts, president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

"This should not be too surprising," Roberts said. "We have 16 million members [in the Southern Baptist Convention] and I think it's a fair estimate that less than half actually attend church on Sunday. It's pretty hard to believe that Christ was not sinless and call yourself a Christian."

The two denominations with the highest number of members who hold to orthodox Christian beliefs were Pentecostals and Assemblies of God. Catholics and Episcopalians had the lowest percentage of members reporting a belief in traditional Christian teachings. Just 20 percent of Episcopalians and 17 percent of Catholics believed Satan was real; 33 percent of Catholics and Episcopalians believed Jesus was sinless; and 26 percent of Episcopalians and 9 percent of Catholics believed works don't earn salvation.

"The Christian body in America is immersed in a crisis of biblical illiteracy," Barna said. "How else can you describe matters when most churchgoing adults reject the accuracy of the Bible, reject the existence of Satan, claim that Jesus sinned, see no need to evangelize, believe that good works are one of the keys to persuading God to forgive their sins and describe their commitment to Christianity as moderate or even less firm?"

The study determined that evangelicals are scarce. Barna defines "evangelicals" as a subset of "born again" believers -- those who say their faith is very important in their lives, believe they have a responsibility to witness to non- Christians, acknowledge the existence of Satan, contend that eternal salvation is possible only through God's grace and not good deeds, believe that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth and describe God as the all-knowing, all- powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today. Those who fit in such a category include only 8 percent of adults.

Fourteen percent of Baptists qualified as evangelicals, compared to 33 percent from Assemblies of God churches, 29 percent from nondenominational churches and 27 percent from Pentecostal churches. Only 1 percent of Catholics and 1 percent of Episcopalians could be classified as evangelicals.

"The most disappointing finding of the report is the loss of doctrinal clarity among evangelicals," Mohler told the Witness. "We have come to expect doctrinal compromise in the liberal denominations, but we now see the same process at work among those who call themselves evangelicals. The Barna report helpfully defines evangelicals by beliefs -- not by denominational membership, etc. For too many 'evangelicals,' all that remains is emotional fervor and religious participation -- not the living faith founded upon the truth of the Gospel."

Roberts said one solution to such biblical illiteracy lies in pastors' diligence in preaching truth and in their willingness to go house to house, if necessary, to inquire about each person's spiritual condition.

"The church needs to take seriously its shepherding role," he said.

Mohler added that all Baptists should be alarmed at what the study reveals. "The Barna report is a warning of what is to come, if these trends are not reversed."

The study's results came from telephone interviews with a nationwide random sample of 6,038 adults.

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The Church of England has eliminated temptation -- or at least, the reference to it in the Lord's Prayer.

Senior clerics voted this week to delete the words "Lead us not into temptation" and substitute "Save us from the time of trial" in a modern version of the prayer to be introduced in church services in the new millennium.

The change was voted in on Wednesday by the church's general synod, or council -- which also heard a warning from the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, not to pursue "modernity for the sake of it."

Church spokesman Steve Jenkins said he didn't see a contradiction.

"He (Carey) was warning about excessive modernisation, for modernisation's sake. This (changing the prayer) isn't," Jenkins said.

Jenkins cautioned that the prayer change is still not final because it must go to a revision committee and then be approved again by the general synod, possibly later this year.

Congregations will still have a choice of whether to use the traditional version of the prayer or the modern one, he said.

Up to two million people attend Church of England services every Sunday.

Traditionalists who opposed the new version argued that the old version was part of the nation's linguistic inheritance, and a Gallup poll appeared to back them up.

The poll, taken for the church's millennium team, said 82 percent of those surveyed could recite the Lord's Prayer, and almost half had learned it at school.

Elaine Pagels grew up in a liberal Protestant home, then was influenced by Evangelicalism, and shortly after lost her faith in traditional Christianity. Spirituality still had a powerful attraction to her, however, and she began studying the early documents of Gnostic Christianity.

She met her husband Heinz when Elaine was 17 and he was 22. He had just come from Princeton to do a Ph.D. at Stanford. She was smitten by him and their relationship turned into marriage. The joy soon turned to tragedy. Their child was discovered to have a very rare disease and was given just a few months to a few years to live. That was when he was 2; he died when he was 6. It was very difficult for Elaine and Heinz. Her faith became very urgent and very essential. Soon after her son died, Heinz was killed in an accident. By that time, they had two adopted children under the age of 3. Elaine was suddenly widowed with two babies. Her church provided a community to help her deal with these very difficult issues.

What is it about Christianity that she loves in spite of many things she doesn’t? And what is it she can’t love about it? She don’t love the claim that it’s the only true religion, and she don’t love the way that many sides of Christianity have been used to nurture hatred and dissension. But she does love the enormous range of stories, poems, chants and testimonies to the ways that people discover the human spirit and express that in relation to each other, in relation to communities. She believes that finding spiritual meaning is essential. This is part of the way we imagine, we hope, we fear, the way we explore. She says humans can’t live without it.

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[Original illustration at this number was added to HolwickID #7491]

The greatest danger facing evangelicals are errors that modern leaders often fail to see, New Testament scholar D.A. Carson said.

While liberalism within the evangelical church has largely been defeated, other dangers lurk, said Carson, professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School who has authored scores of books, including “The Gagging of God,” “Exegetical Fallacies” and “The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God.”

“I suspect, right now, that this seminary -- in fact, the SBC as a whole -- is not particularly in danger ... from classic liberalism,” Carson said in a lecture at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Sept. 4. “You fought that one. So what is it that you don’t see?

“It is so easy to go on and on and on and on about yesterday’s errors. But in my view, the dangers facing contemporary evangelicalism at large have very little to do with classic liberalism.”

Whereas evangelicalism once wrestled with liberal theology and practice as its chief enemy, today the church faces others that are more subtle and more insidious, Carson said.

Several potential enemies that might work against the gospel today were listed by Carson, including postmodernism, “knee-jerk” conservatism, mean-spirited triumphalism, movements questioning the atonement of Christ and openness of God theology.

“[These] really don’t come out of classical liberalism,” he said. “They come out of other corners.”

Evangelical leaders must be aware that they see through a glass dimly when it comes to being able to discern error in their midst, Carson said. To avoid these errors, leaders of the contemporary church must be vigilant and live in humble submission to the authority of Scripture, he said.

This also demands careful and rigorous study of the Word of God and the learning of church history as well, Carson said.

“That means we are to walk humbly,” he said. “Most of us think we see much more than we do. We are to look around for mature Christian leaders who are not merely building their empires [but] who are informed, humble [and] godly.

“[We must] read and re-read and think and re-think and learn some church history and study Scripture again and again and again. The devil is not only a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, he goes around as an angel of light, deceiving if it is possible, the very elect.”

With amazing regularity, the national media take notice of the fact that, generally speaking, America's conservative churches are growing while the more liberal churches are losing members. If this is news, it is almost a half-century old by now. What is going on?

Observers of American church life notice this striking phenomenon -- the high levels of lay involvement in evangelical churches. Against the backdrop of decline and membership losses in the more liberal denominations, trends related to attendance, giving, and active participation among church members are setting evangelical churches apart from larger trends. Why?

Liberal churches and denominations are suffering massive membership losses and the evacuation of active church members from congregational life. While some observers are interested only in the levels of church attendance and membership, others note that active participation in the life and ministry of the church is directly linked to long-term involvement and attendance.

Researchers have offered various sociological and demographic arguments for this pattern, but the most salient factors related to this issue are deeply theological. Churches that expect much of members tend to receive much in terms of active participation -- and those expectations are directly related to doctrinal commitments and theological motivations.

The involvement of laypersons in church life is directly related to evangelism and the health of congregations. At one level, the evangelical understanding of ministry is poles apart from what is customary in many mainline Protestant churches and in Roman Catholicism. Put simply, evangelicals have historically offered greater resistance to the professionalization of the clergy and the sacredotalism or clericalism that shifts the work of the ministry from the people of God to pastors or priests. Where ministers are understood to bear sole responsibility for the fulfillment of the church's ministry, church members naturally feel no obligation or motivation to be highly involved in the life of the congregation and its work. Church participation is largely linked to the level of the spectator, or directed toward community involvement that is unrelated to evangelism and church outreach.

While evangelicals have been sorely tempted by market-driven models of professionalism, congregations demonstrating the highest levels of lay involvement are most often led by pastors who see the teaching and preaching of the Bible as central to the task of mobilizing church members for ministry, mission, and action. These pastors put their priority on the teaching ministry of the church and on biblical preaching as the means by which God equips His church for action and witness.

Faithful preaching has always been the central means through which God has energized His people. Preaching the word “in season and out of season” requires that the pastor present biblical truth with clarity and courage, establishing clear boundaries between belief and unbelief, faithfulness and unfaithfulness, truth and error.

This is in stark contrast to what sociologist Nancy Ammerman identifies as the “lay liberalism” found in many more liberal churches and denominations. These “lay liberals” have only a weak grasp of a diluted Gospel, and tend to see doctrine as a matter of little or no consequence. For them, Christianity is reduced to a vaguely positive way of life that often comes down to little more than being kind to others. Ammerman and her team have identified this as “Golden Rule” religion, and it goes hand in hand with low levels of lay involvement.

This correlates directly with research undertaken by Dean R. Hoge, Benton Johnson, and Donald A. Luidens, who looked at the religious patterns of mainline Protestant baby boomers. In VANISHING BOUNDARIES, these sociologists argued that members of more liberal Protestant denominations -- especially baby boomers -- understood Christianity to require very few beliefs that would put them at odds with the larger secular culture. On matters ranging from the identity of Jesus Christ and the nature of the Gospel to the Bible's teachings on sexuality, these mainline baby boomers saw no firm boundaries between the church and the world, belief and unbelief. Unsurprisingly, they were not highly involved in the life of any church or Christian movement. Why should they be?

Evangelicals should look to this research as a warning of what can and will happen if Christianity is redefined at the expense of biblical doctrine and a clear affirmation of Christian truth. The transforming power of the Gospel is what energizes Christ's church -- and biblical preaching is its Spirit-blessed fuel.

A look across the evangelical world indicates that lay Christians are most involved in the life of congregations and in the work of ministry when they are continually confronted with clear and convictional biblical exposition, and when the congregation takes the formation and fulfillment of a comprehensive Christian worldview as one of its central tasks.

Bold beliefs lead to bold action, and church members are energized to ministry and motivated to greater faithfulness and deeper discipleship when they can see biblical truth as it is presented to them by the church's commissioned teachers, and when they are then able to “connect the dots” between Christian truth and the demands of everyday life.

In these churches, members are motivated and mobilized precisely because they come to understand the demands of the Gospel and to understand the New Testament's vision of a church fully deployed for the cause of the Gospel. Christians are confronted with a biblical call to action and involvement. A commitment to Gospel priorities is produced by the prophetic preaching of God's Word -- and a passion for the glory of God will animate the congregation to action.

Churches hoping to energize members by the use of faddish programs and slick motivational messages should think again. The saints are not slumbering for lack of public relations and programming.

The development of “lay liberalism” among the mainline Protestant denominations should remind evangelicals that without clear biblical preaching, serious commitment to doctrinal fidelity, and passionate commitment to the Great Commission, the same phenomenon could arise in our midst. Indeed, studies of evangelical young persons suggest that such developments could be fast upon us.

This much is clear -- resistance to “lay liberalism” will be found only among those with deep conviction. The preaching of the Word and the church's confidence in the Gospel will, over time, produce a congregation of motivated members who are mobilized for ministry. But then, we shouldn't need a team of sociologists to tell us that.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #303]

The Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson is the Episcopal Church's first openly homosexual bishop. In an interview with THE TIMES [London], Robinson explains that he was attracted to the Anglican tradition because of its spirit of enquiry:

‘Yes. I go off to college, which quite coincidentally happened

to be owned by the southern dioceses of the Episcopal Church and

met an assistant chaplain there. When I raised my questions

again, instead of telling me that I shouldn’t be asking, instead

he congratulated me on asking all the right questions and said he

didn’t have all the answers, but I was welcome to come in and

let’s look for those answers together. I remember being struck

at how undefensive he was about his religion – that Anglicanism

seemed to be big enough and broad enough to allow and even

encourage those kinds of questions. It had its own answers, but

it existed to help me come to my own answers. I remember

thinking ‘gosh, that seems to me to be the way religion ought to

be’. So I was very encouraged by that. One day when I was

ranting and raving about how much of the Nicene Creed I didn’t

believe, he said ‘well, when you’re in church, just say the parts

of the creed you do agree with. Be silent for the others. We’re

not asking you do so something against your integrity’. And

again I thought whew, that’s what one would hope for from a

religion – honesty and integrity. And I guess that’s a theme

that has carried throughout my life in Ministry – that God wants

us to be honest and full of integrity.

This is indeed a fascinating and revealing recollection. As a young man, Gene Robinson ranted and raved to an assistant chaplain of his Episcopal college about “how much of the Nicene Creed I didn’t believe.” The chaplain’s response is classic liberalism -- just say what you believe and stay silent for the rest.

The Nicene Creed, we should remember, is one of the touchstones of Christian orthodoxy -- a creed that defines the full deity of Christ and affirms a summary of biblical teachings concerning the Christ:

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and

earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,

begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of

Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one

substance with the Father by whom all things were made; who for

us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was

incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made

man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He

suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again

according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and

sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again

with glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose kingdom

shall have no end.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life,

who proceedeth from the Father and the Son together is worshipped

and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And we believe one

holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism

for the remission of sins. And we look for the resurrection of

the dead, and the life of the world to come. AMEN

This is the creed about which Bishop Robinson, as a young college student, ranted and raved. This is the creed in which he found so much he did not believe. This is the very essence of Christian doctrine. Without these truths, there is no Christianity.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #7383]

Nicholas Kristof must be a very smart man -- but a very slow learner. A columnist for The New York Times, Kristof is a Harvard graduate and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. But when it comes to something as significant as the nature of Christianity, Kristof and his columns are dumb and dumber.

Back in March, Kristof wrote a very strange column suggesting that his liberal media colleagues ought to give evangelical Christians a closer look. Not that they would like what they saw, mind you, but that the rising public influence of the evangelicals demanded media attention.

His argument came down to this: Evangelicals are strange people with radical religious beliefs that will do great harm to the nation, but they mean well and so let's be nicer in opposing them to the death.

An exaggeration? Kristof acknowledged that he tends to disagree with evangelicals on almost everything. And he intends to oppose evangelical influence at every turn, because, “I see no problem with aggressively pointing out the dismal consequences of this increasing religious influence.”

On the other hand, Kristof called upon his liberal colleagues to drop their “sneering tone about conservative Christianity itself.” If only he had taken his own advice.

On Aug. 15, The New York Times ran another Kristof piece in its editorial section, and it's a wonder to behold: Perhaps the worst opinion piece to run in that paper in years -- and that's really saying something.

In his new column, Kristof points to “the most fundamental divide between America and the rest of the industrialized world: faith.” Unlike the rest of the industrialized world (with the exception of South Korea), America is resolutely religious. Europe is overwhelmingly secular, with low church attendance and very little Christian influence in public life or politics. In America, on the other hand, more persons attend church than public sporting events, and both major political parties court the religious vote -- just in different sectors.

This is not news, at least to anyone even moderately informed about the national character of the United States. One would have to been locked in a monastery for the last 30 years to miss the religious dynamic of America's culture war, and even the most casual visitor to western or northern Europe would note its secularity.

But the divide between Europe and America is not Kristof's real concern. It's the divide between “intellectual” and “religious” America.

Got that? Intellectual and religious are now opposing terms? What Kristof really means is a divide between secularist/liberal America and Americans who are conservative Christians. As “Exhibit A” for his case, Kristof chose the doctrine of the virgin Birth of Jesus.

“The faith in the virgin birth reflects the way American Christianity is becoming less intellectual and more mystical over time,” Kristof wrote. More mystical? Less intellectual?

According to Kristof's reasoning, no intellectually credible person could believe that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin. As authorities on this, he cites the likes of Hans Kung, a German theologian barred by the Vatican from teaching Catholic theology. Kung is a notorious liberal, who has called the Gospel narratives a “collection of largely uncertain, mutually contradictory, strongly legendary,” stories. Kristof is obviously unaware of the huge body of scholarship in support of the virgin birth. But, in all likelihood, he wouldn't care anyway. Quoting Hans Kung on the virgin birth is like identifying Hugh Hefner as a spokesman for chastity.

Kristof cannot believe that so many Christians [he cites 91 percent] take the virgin birth to be true, “despite the lack of scientific or historical evidence.” Is he demanding an ultrasound?

There are several important divides in American life today, and Kristof inadvertently pointed to one closer than he thinks: the divide between the secular media elites and believing Christians. The media elite is tenaciously committed to a worldview steeped in anti-supernaturalism. Miracles are out, along with the whole idea that modern people should be bound in any way by a 2,000-year-old book.

This is the most important American divide. On the one side are secularists who honestly cannot believe that intelligent people can believe Christianity to be true. On the other side are those who have staked their lives -- including their intellectual energies -- on the truthfulness and authority of the Bible.

It's too bad Nicholas Kristof didn't take his own advice. Instead, he offered up a caricature so ludicrous that it's hard to take it seriously. Have all the editors at The New York Times gone away on vacation? In the end, this sad column tells us all we need to know about the real worldview of the media elite. It's not like we didn't know already.

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Earlier this month, the half-eaten body of a cyclist was found in a California state park. The next day, a second cyclist barely avoided the same fate when her friends threw rocks at the perpetrator: a two-year-old mountain lion.

For people in Boulder, Colorado, the news brought back frightening memories. Thirteen years ago, a mountain lion killed a teenage jogger. The story of that attack, and the events leading up to it, are the subject of a new book, THE BEAST IN THE GARDEN. It's a story that shows how faulty worldviews can do more than mess up your thinking: they can literally kill you.

Author David Baron writes that for nearly five years prior to the fatal lion attack, wildlife experts had warned Boulder-area residents that an attack was likely. They proposed a series of modest measures, like a study of the mountain lion population, to lessen the likelihood of an attack. But their warnings and proposals were ignored or discounted.

Why? Because of worldviews that many residents embraced. Boulder is known for its liberalism, especially in environmental and lifestyle matters. In addition, Boulder's culture can best be described, as writer Cheryl Smith, a Boulder native, puts it, as “new age/hippie.”

This combination led Boulder-area residents to believe that they could create a sort of paradise where people and wildlife could exist in harmony - never mind that, as Baron points out, there has never been such an arrangement, at least this side of Eden. So residents ignored the wildlife officials' warnings that the area's out-of-control deer population was an invitation to mountain lions. No one would agree to a controlled hunt of deer.

Even after lions were spotted in the area, they continued to ignore the danger. At a meeting called after a lion had eaten several neighborhood dogs, Colorado game officials expected to be criticized for not adequately protecting area residents. Instead, most of the attendees were concerned about the lion's well being. Their spokesperson, who mentioned her affinity for “Lakota spirituality,” told officials that everything is “connected”: rocks, dirt, lions, and humans.

Similarly, even after the Boulder teenager was killed by the big cat, the anticipated anti-lion backlash never materialized. In fact, one of the teenager's teachers complained that rather than being collected for burial, his body should have been left behind so the lion could finish eating it. Incredible.

The Romanticist worldview embraced by Boulderites led them to think that they could create their own peaceable kingdom where the poodle could lay down with the lion. That same worldview caused them to see man, and the civilization he creates, as the serpent in the garden.

A more realistic understanding of the relationship between man and nature seeks a way to protect both people and lions. Baron uses the idea of “conservation,” which is derived from the biblical ideal of stewardship, as a model for managing this relationship.

Of course, doing this would challenge the cherished assumptions that the good liberal residents of Boulder hold so dear. They won't do it because they would rather stay “connected” to the beast – the one, that is, that views them as dinner.

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• David Baron, The Beast in the Garden: A Modern Parable of Man and Nature (W. W. Norton and Co., 2003). Visit http://www.beastinthegarden.com/ for the book.

• Kimi Yoshino, David Haldane, and Daniel Yi, “Lion Attacks O.C. Biker; Man Found Dead Nearby,” Chicago Tribune, 9 January 2004.

• Brett Prettyman, “As people push into cougar habitat, close encounters are more common,” Salt Lake Tribune, 22 January 2004.

• Chris Barge, “Residents concerned on attacks,” Boulder Daily Camera, 10 January 2004.

• “Cougar attacks revive arguments over big cat,” Billings Gazette, 21 January 2004.

• Janet Wilson and David Weikel, “To the Cougar, Are People Now Fair Game?“ Los Angeles Times, 11 January 2004.

• Brian Fitzgerald, “Visiting scholar David Baron examines western cougar problem that's eastward-bound,” B.U. Bridge, 9 January 2004.

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 030128, “Happy Cows, Unhappy People.”

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 030507, “Abusing Our Power.”

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 021120, “Are Pigs People Too?“ (Archived commentary; free registration required.)

• Kelley Reep, “O Brother!: The Gospel according to PETA,” BreakPoint Online, 20 November 2003.

• Matthew Scully, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy (St. Martin's Press, 2002). Learn more about Matthew Scully and read other articles by him at his website, http://www.matthewscully.com/index.htm

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Copyright (c) 2004 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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This likely comes as no surprise to most believers, but the mainstream media's presentation of Christianity is seldom offered in a positive light. The "left" or "liberal" view of the faith tends to be given more credibility and the "conservative" interpretation often gets short shrift. Interestingly, the ABC network -- which offered up another biased "Jesus" special on Monday night -- admits to such bias.

Television coverage of religious issues is up sharply compared to a year ago -- that according to a study from the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog. A study released on Monday finds the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts did 303 stories on religion during the 12 months that ended March 1, compared with 121 stories during a one-year period in 1993.

The report finds the increase was due to Mel Gibson's box-office smash The Passion of the Christ and the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's reign as well as coverage of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, the struggle over a Ten Commandments monument in an Alabama courthouse and controversies over homosexual ministers.

Still, study author Tim Graham has complaints with the way many religious stories are reported. The group says the networks are often hostile to orthodox faiths and use mostly liberal religious scholars. He says believers "get excited" to see that religion is more in the news -- but that when secular biases appear in the reporting, they ask if it is really such a good thing.

Two pro-family groups are asking that exact question regarding ABC's Monday night broadcast of Jesus and Paul -- The Word and the Witness, a three-hour special hosted by Peter Jennings. According to the American Family Association, the program presented "expert" analysis from liberal theologians and carried an underlying worldview of distrust in scripture and Jesus' divinity.

"ABC-TV was unwilling to present a scriptural concept of Jesus, choosing to give a distorted view with the impression that the New Testament cannot be trusted," AFA says on its website. "Since (in their view) no reputable scholar trusts the New Testament, ABC elected to present modern day 'theologians' whom they portray as more knowledgeable and trustworthy to debunk the New Testament account."

Focus on the Family criticizes ABC for choosing Holy Week, the week leading up to Easter, to "attack the legitimacy of the literal interpretation of the Scriptures" and to try to "reduce the Word of God to myths." A spokesman for Focus says Jennings, who hosted a previous ABC special titled The Search for Jesus, was not successful in hiding his personal biases.

"Jennings repeatedly refers to 'the Jesus movement' as if it were just another political party or faction," Tom Neven says. "They also pit Paul against Jesus, as if the apostle taught things that contradicted Jesus, and some refer to Paul as 'the founder of Christianity.'"

American Family Association has contacted its supporters, asking them to voice their disapproval of ABC's biased reporting, labeling it as another example of the network's "disrespect for the Christian faith."

A Not-So-Shocking Revelation

In a fairly stunning admission earlier this year, an ABC News column on its website stated that the U.S. media leans left on a number of critical political and cultural issues.

"The Note," which declares itself on the site to be from the "ABC News political unit," posted its thoughts in a February 9 column, admitting: "Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections."

What are those biases? "They include, but are not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the [accepted positions], while more conservative positions are 'conservative positions,'" the column said.

In late 2001, Bernard Goldberg, a 28-year veteran at CBS and a winner of six Emmy Awards during his career, criticized the news media in his best-selling book, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News. Goldberg said that his experience at CBS demonstrated that the media is biased against conservatives and Christians.

In the ongoing culture war in American life, the Religious Left is jockeying for a voice in the debate.

This loose-knit cluster of organizations is predominantly composed of mainline Protestants, liberal Jews, reformist Catholics, and progressive Muslims. Their mission is to provide politically active “people of faith” with an alternative to the conservative values of most evangelicals and traditional Catholics.

These folks are not that new to political action. In fact, this coalition has always been around, though it has normally operated outside the purview of many cultural commentators.

Not everything advocated by the Religious Left is patently wrong. For example, they make a strong statement about the need to battle poverty. The merits of a welfare system are debatable, but most evangelicals probably would agree about the obligation we have to address the needs of the poor. Many conservatives are committed to seeking to alleviate the plight of those in poverty while also preaching a gospel that clearly discriminates between the Good News of Christ and American middle-class consumerism.

The Religious Left also is an advocate for racial equality. Again, while many conservatives would differ with the methods of liberals regarding racial justice, most religious conservatives would agree that racism is still a problem in many places in America.

Peace, with a special emphasis on the Middle East, is a key theme with the Religious Left. Conservative believers desire peace as well; we simply disagree with liberals concerning the appropriate process for securing peace.

Still, while the Religious Left may have some noble goals, they suffer from a fundamental problem that prevents them from having the prophetic voice in American culture that they so desperately desire. Simply put, religious liberals deny the sufficiency of Scripture. (A note: at this point I am referring primarily to mainline Protestants, leftist evangelicals, and liberal Catholics, though the principle also applies to Jews and Muslims who devalue their sacred writings).

Most religious conservatives (and some religious progressives) affirm the inerrancy of Scripture, meaning that when the Bible speaks, it speaks truthfully. It only follows that if the Bible is inerrant, then it is sufficient to guide the decisions believers make, be they spiritual, familial, or political.

The Religious Left displays a basic disbelief in the sufficiency of Scripture when it endorses secularism, radical feminism and the homosexual agenda.

Religious liberals often champion “homosexual marriage,” arguing that they “personally” disagree with homosexuality, but that it is wrong to deny homosexuals the benefits of marriage. This is outright rejection of the scriptural model of marriage, which is a lifelong union between one man and one woman.

Theological liberals also rebuff scriptural teachings about the value of human life, supporting the killing of human embryos for stem cell research in direct opposition to biblical instruction about the preciousness of each of God's creations. Even more troubling is the excuses these same liberals use to defend their support of abortion. Recently, John Kerry, Democratic candidate for president and a liberal Catholic, claimed that he disagrees with abortion “because of his religion,” but would not allow his religion to dictate his politics. Indeed.

That's ultimately the problem with the Religious Left. Though many of them claim to be more or less orthodox in their beliefs, there is a distinct disconnect between their purported religious beliefs and their actions. Moreover, most of them claim to be defenders of the First Amendment, yet argue for exclusion of religion from the public square -- a perverse interpretation of religious liberty that rejects the sufficiency of Scripture to guide every aspect of human existence.

In essence, the Religious Left, in the name of tolerance and pluralism, attempts to disallow the Bible any influence over contemporary culture, proving that, at least in the political arena, they are much more left than they are religious.

*

A TV advertisement promoting the United Church of Christ says that God is now affirming homosexuality, but R. Albert Mohler Jr., appearing on ABC's “Good Morning America,” said the commercial misrepresents biblical Christianity. “It is a piece of masterful propaganda but it is a diabolical misrepresentation of Christianity,” said Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, on the national telecast Dec. 2, 2004.

“...Jesus Christ did indeed come to seek and to save the lost but as He said to the woman caught in adultery, 'Go and sin no more,'“ Mohler said. Jesus “did not invite persons to stay in sinful lifestyles. Rather, He came to save us from our sins and to make us what we otherwise could not be -- and that is victorious over all the sins that entrap us. Homosexuality is one of those.”

The 30-second spot began running on several cable channels and is part of the United Church of Christ's two-year campaign toward an inclusion that affirms “all persons who feel rejected” by the church, said Robert Chase, UCC director of communications, who appeared with Mohler on Good Morning America.

The ad depicts a pair of bouncers, clad in black and wearing dark sunglasses, standing behind a set of velvet ropes as a long line of people attempt to file past them into a church that looms in the background.

The bouncers stop a same-sex couple, saying, “No, step aside please.” One guard halts two black children with a hand and a terse statement, “No way, not you.” He turns away a Hispanic girl, dismissing her with two words: “No way.” The brawny gatekeepers remove the ropes only to allow a well-dressed white family to pass.

The written content reads, “Jesus didn't turn people away ... Neither do we” and the soothing voiceover reassures potential parishioners that, “No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here.”

“This ad is clearly allegorical,” Chase said on the ABC program. “There are no churches that have real bouncers out in front of their structures with velvet ropes. But the point is not from those of us who are inside the church but those people who feel alienated and rejected. For those people, those barriers are very real and we're simply trying to say, 'You're welcome here.'“

Host Diane Sawyer asked Mohler if his criticism of the commercial meant that he does not want gays to attend his church. Mohler pointed out that every true church is composed of sinners who have, by God's grace, repented of and turned from their sins. Biblical churches would by no means turn aside homosexuals but would proclaim to them, as to all sinners, the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he said.

“Our church is made up, like every true church, of sinners saved by grace,” Mohler said. “But we are not to be left in our sin but are to come out of what the Scripture clearly identifies as sin. The Apostle Paul spoke [to] the church at Corinth, listing things, including homosexuality, and said, 'and such were some of you.’ We are all sinners but we cannot remain in our sin and we can't just bless a lifestyle by saying we accept it when the Scripture clearly condemns it as sin.”

The ad is a major component of the UCC's “Stillspeaking” campaign that seeks to cast the denomination as a broad and ultra-inclusive body. The Stillspeaking website asserts that “like Jesus –- the United Church of Christ seeks to welcome all people, regardless of ability, age, race, economic circumstance or sexual orientation.”

Central to the campaign is the theme “God is still speaking” followed by a comma. The punctuation mark is pivotal to the slogan, showing that God has not definitively spoken. The website includes a quote from the late comedienne Gracie Allen that serves to explain the campaign slogan: “Never place a period where God has placed a comma.” The UCC includes some 1.3 million members and more than 6,000 churches nationwide.

In concluding the brief interview, Sawyer asked Mohler if he would allow in his church the moneychangers for whom she said, “Jesus reserved His worst anger.” Mohler said the moneychangers would be urged through proclamation of the Gospel not to remain in their sin.

“They would not be welcome to remain as moneychangers any more than Jesus would just bless any kind of sin,” Mohler said.

“Remember, Jesus required the rich young ruler to sell all he had and give to the poor and he didn't and he went away. Jesus doesn't leave us as we are. He offers us His grace -- salvation -- but that's a transforming grace to call us out of sin. Homosexuals would be welcomed. There would be no bouncers at the door at our church to keep them out but they would hear the authentic Gospel when they came inside.”

*

An article in the online magazine Slate reveals a lot about the forces of political correctness. Slate assistant editor Julia Turner was clearly in a tongue-in-cheek mood when she wrote “Laura Bush — Why liberals shouldn't like her.” But the article turned out to be even funnier than she intended.

Turner, you see, is bowled over by the idea that an avid reader like the First Lady is not liberal. Of course, it is well known that Laura Bush is married to a fairly influential conservative. However, Turner writes, liberal book-lovers could not believe that Mrs. Bush was on board with her husband's policies.

Turner explains “how easy it is to be wooed by the first lady's reading habits. ... More than one commentator has noted with approval and some surprise that Laura Bush's favorite scene in literature is the 'Grand Inquisitor' portion of THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV [by Fyodor Dostoevsky].” Turner quotes fellow writer James Wolcott, who asked, “A man who would marry a woman this kind and refined couldn't be all boor, could he?”

Turner and many other liberals were disappointed this campaign season when Laura Bush confirmed that, yes — imagine it — she is a conservative. Her attack on embryonic stem-cell research, in particular, left Turner in the dumps.

Turner explains, “When liberals note that Laura is a reader, they mean that she must be a sort of anti-Dubya. And when they hear her standing by Bush in the stem-cell debate, they wonder how a reader — someone devoted to the pursuit of knowledge — could possibly stick up for a policy designed to thwart those who seek it.”

It's hard not to laugh when you hear this from the tolerant, all-embracing Left. (It might even break Turner's heart to know that THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV is my favorite novel too.) But Turner is not the only one surprised, as many responses from Slate readers demonstrated. One such reader lamented, “What I and many other liberals are often guilty of is the fallacy that, if one reads the right books ... one's politics are bound to be progressive. What we often fail to realize is that people read the same books and come to different conclusions.”

No kidding. Great literature isn't political propaganda; its complexity and insights draw people of all religious and political stripes. The cited passage from THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV — a parable about Christ's return — is a perfect example. Both Christians and non-Christians have found unforgettable truths in this story. But Dostoevsky was a believing Christian who wrote powerful Christian themes, and he would have been startled today to see how much they are being enjoyed by modern secular liberals.

Much of the greatest literature is full of such Christian themes. If these “progressive humanists” were to meet some of their favorite authors in real life, they would even notice that several of those authors had worldviews very similar to Laura Bush's.

As I've said before, there's so much to learn from great literature — if we're willing to keep our own biases and prejudices out of the way. But reading isn't always beneficial. Wearing ideological blinders when we read — and trying to force fellow readers to march in lockstep — can produce twisted ideas and a diminished ability to see, as Ms. Turner's column illustrates.

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• Julia Turner, “Laura Bush — Why liberals shouldn't like her,” Slate,31 August 2004.

• Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, 1879. Read the book online here. (The “Grand Inquisitor” chapter is here.) Anne Freemantle's 1956 essay “Introduction to Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Grand Inquisitor“ provides a biographical sketch of the author and a thoughtful analysis of the “Grand Inquisitor” passage. Mars Hill Audio gives more details here.

• C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge University Press, 1992 edition).

• Michael Dirda, “As I Live and Read,” Washington Post, 25 July 2004, B01.

• “The Importance of Reading Earnest,” Wall Street Journal, 9 July 2004.

• Joseph Epstein, “Is Reading Really at Risk?“ Weekly Standard, 7 August 2004. (Available to subscribers only.)

• Vigen Guroian, Tending the Heart of Virtue (Oxford University Press, 1998).

________

Copyright (c) 2004 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

“Enormous forces in our culture are determined to deny that Jesus was raised from the dead,” N.T. Wright, an Anglican evangelical scholar, said.

“Over and over again, they use arguments that can be shown to be invalid and propose alternative scenarios which can be shown to be impossible.”

Wright and John Dominic Crossan, a member of the Jesus Seminar, voiced divergent views of the resurrection during the inaugural Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

Wright, bishop of Durham, England, defended the literal, bodily resurrection of Jesus as the only tenable view, while Crossan, a professor emeritus at DePaul University, set forth a metaphorical interpretation of the resurrection.

To begin the forum, each speaker was given 20 minutes to explain his beliefs. During the following dialogue, both Crossan and Wright questioned each other and clarified their positions.

Wright began by examining some of the common attempts to explain away the resurrection. He said one argument proposes that ancient people did not understand the laws of nature and were, therefore, more inclined to accept unsophisticated answers.

“That is simply absurd,” Wright said. “The ancients knew perfectly well that dead people didn’t rise. We didn’t need modern science to tell us that.”

Others have pointed to Hellenistic and pagan stories featuring empty graves and visions of the dead as the reason the early church began to believe in the resurrection. But Wright said these stories are completely different from the biblical resurrection accounts.

The presence of resurrection beliefs in Judaism cannot account for the focus on Jesus’ resurrection in the early church either, Wright said, noting that resurrection was peripheral in Judaism, or not a foundational part of the Jewish beliefs. In Christianity, the resurrection of Jesus is central.

“I’ve shown conclusively that [the Apostle] Paul really did believe in the bodily resurrection despite generations of critics going back as far as the second century trying to make out that he didn’t,” Wright said.

The empty tomb and Jesus’ appearances caused the early church to believe in His bodily resurrection, Wright said, noting that the empty tomb and the resurrection appearances taken together constitute a sufficient condition for belief in the resurrection.

“Having examined as many of the alternative explanations I could find and having shown them all to be completely inadequate, the one we are left with, however unlikely, must press itself upon us as being true,” Wright said. “It is only with the bodily resurrection of Jesus, demonstrating that His death dealt a decisive blow to evil, that we could find the proper grounds for calling the kingdoms of earth to submit to the Kingdom of God.”

Crossan, on the other hand, said he believes the mode of the resurrection is secondary to the meaning of the resurrection. Though taking a metaphorical approach to the resurrection, Crossan maintained that, whether one believes in a literal or metaphorical resurrection, the implications of the resurrection should make a difference in the world today.

“We are talking about cosmic transformation from a world of injustice, impurity and violence into a world of justice and peace and purity and holiness,” he said.

Crossan denied that the empty tomb and the appearances of Jesus served as a sufficient cause for the rise of resurrection belief in the early church.

“That would get you to the exaltation,” Crossan said. “It would get you to the conclusion that Jesus has been exalted, maybe even to the right hand of God.... Something else is absolutely needed to make that leap of faith [to belief in a literal, bodily resurrection].”

Crossan said Jesus’ words about launching the Kingdom of God caused the early church to believe in the resurrection.

“If you want to debate what has to be taken literally and what has to be taken metaphorically, it is a perfectly valid debate,” Crossan said. “But there is something else -– the question of meaning.”

Crossan said he would like to hear someone who takes the resurrection literally share the implications of that belief, asking how that belief could change the world.

“Tell me that from your literal reading,” he said. “I will try, as one who takes it metaphorically, to spell out the implications from a metaphorical reading.”

Those who disagree over the mode of the resurrection, whether literal or metaphorical, will find common ground in the area of meaning, Crosson said.

During the dialogue time, Wright pressed Crossan on the use of “literal and metaphorical.” Wright argued for the use of the terms “concrete and abstract.”

“Often we use the terms literal and metaphorical when, actually, we mean concrete and abstract,” Wright said. “I do think it makes an enormous difference if you say that what happened on Easter day was not a concrete event.”

Wright also challenged Crossan to explain the changes that occurred as believers in Christ moved from Judaism and other cultures to Christianity.

“Something happened which caused all those Christians from very different backgrounds to transform the beliefs their cultures had given them into this remarkable new shape,” Wright said.

Crossan, however, spoke again of Jesus’ teaching on the Kingdom of God.

“I think for me it’s extraordinarily important that the historical Jesus, the Jesus of the Gospels, has already made an announcement,” he said. “It is not that the Kingdom is beginning. It is that the Kingdom has begun. When He sends people out, I think these people ... experienced part of the Kingdom.”

Crossan said he believes the early believers saw apparitions rather than the literal risen Jesus. The apparitions along with their experience with the Kingdom, Crossan said, caused the dramatic shift in their beliefs.

Wright responded, “I agree with you that Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom and their awareness of the power of God through the preaching of Jesus is one of the preconditions for the eventual interpretation at which they arrived.” But, he said, “I don’t think those by themselves would have been sufficient to generate anyone saying, ‘He has been raised from the dead.’”

New Orleans Seminary President Chuck Kelley described the dialogue, which was attended by about 1,000 people in Leavell Chapel, as “a great opportunity for our seminary family and many other guests to see how we can dialogue with the world and get the Gospel out there without sacrificing our convictions ... a great model for how to take a strongly held belief like we have in the resurrection and then share and defend that belief with those who don’t accept it.”

“Of course I do not believe in the virgin birth or in that old-fashioned substitutionary doctrine of the atonement, and I know of no intelligent person who does.”

-- Rev. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor of the Riverside Baptist Church

of New York City, responding in 1945 to a person who inquired about his

beliefs

*

J. I. Packer, the eminent British theologian now living in Canada, puts this in clear perspective when he says:

“Liberal theology as such knows nothing about a God who uses written language to tell us things, or about the reality of sin in the human system, which makes redemption necessary and new birth urgent. Liberal theology posits, rather, a natural religiosity in man (reverence, that is, for a higher power) and a natural capacity for goodwill towards others, and sees Christianity as a force for cherishing and developing these qualities. They are fanned into flame and kept burning in the church, which in each generation must articulate itself by concessive dialogue with the culture pressures, processes and prejudices that surround it. In other words, the church must ever play catch-up to the culture, taking on board whatever is the ‘in thing’ at the moment; otherwise, so it is thought, Christianity will lose all relevance to life. The church will inevitably leave the Bible behind at point after point, but since on this view the Bible is the word of fallible men rather than of the infallible God, leaving it behind is no great loss.”

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #19810]

If your church nursery was unnervingly quiet this past Sunday, you are probably a member of a liberal Protestant church. So says a new study about population decline and mainline Protestantism by sociologists from the University of California at Berkley, the University of Arizona and Indiana University. Mainliners are hailing this survey because it places the blame for Protestant denominational decline not on theological liberalism, but on the churches' acceptance of delayed childbirth, small families and an extreme contraception culture.

“For most of the 20th century conservative women had more children than mainline women did,” the sociologists wrote in Christian Century.

Oh, so it is not that old-line Protestantism has adopted the sterile ideologies of modernism. It's just that they have adopted the idea that children should be delayed, and procreation downplayed. So, in other words, they've adopted the sterile ideologies of modernism.

Is the connection here not obvious? For years, conservative Protestants have attributed their growth, and the liberals' decline, to the fact that liberal churches are, first of all, not evangelistic and, second of all, not distinct from the surrounding culture. The mainline Protestant view of children is interwoven into the fabric of both of these problems.

First of all, churches that don't celebrate and exult in children aren't going to celebrate and exult in evangelism. After all, the “fruitful and multiply” clause in Genesis is echoed back in the Great Commission of Christ, a commission that also seeks to fill the entire earth. Jesus links procreation to new creation by speaking of new converts as newborn babies, and through His apostles of the community of faith as the household of God. Moreover, He announces to His Father that He stands before Him with the redeemed of all the ages, “the children you have given me” (Heb 2:13). Churches that mimic (even if by default with silence) the culture's view that life is about possessions or sentimental romance or self-advancement are not going to produce men and women committed to giving up these things for the cause of evangelism and global missions.

Also, if conservative churches are growing because their theological convictions are counter-cultural and thus distinct from the blob spirituality of contemporary Western civilization, then what is more counter-cultural than the embrace of children as gifts from the Lord? In an era when a mom with five children receives snide comments from her neighbors (“Don't you know what's causing that?”), a congregation that celebrates from the pulpit and within the fellowship new life is a congregation that causes onlookers to ask why.

Old-line Protestantism may take comfort that their downfall is declining birthrates, not liberal theology. But, don't be fooled, the two go together. And evangelical Protestants and traditional Catholics should take note, because we are only a few steps behind. As a free-church evangelical Christian, I don't believe in inherited regeneration or in some covenantal status for the children of believers. But I have a biblical mandate, with all Christians, to share the Gospel with all persons, and to equip the saints to do the same. I also have the responsibility to recognize that evangelism often includes raising up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. If we miss that point, our churches will absorb the message of the culture, a message that presents the self as central and children as a nuisance.

So the growth of Christianity means calling sinners to repentance and showcasing the Gospel: in the revival tent, and in the church nursery.

*

“The Book of Daniel” premiered with a two-hour special that arrived with much publicity but garnered a third-place showing in the ratings. NBC's new series was one of the most-hyped new programs of recent years, complete with effusive media coverage and much sought-after controversy.

The premise of the show is the reason for the controversy. “The Book of Daniel” features a liberal Episcopalian priest and his family who, along with various others in the cast, are involved in almost every form of sin imaginable. As if all this were not enough, the show also features an actor playing the part of Jesus, who appears as the very essence of liberal toleration, complete with therapeutic aphorisms and transcendent nonjudgmentalism.

The two-hour premiere of the program introduced the concept and the show's central characters.

The Episcopal priest, known as Daniel Webster, is played by actor Aidan Quinn. The Reverend Webster is a liberal churchman serving a wealthy suburban parish in Westchester County, New York. The sins, temptations, foibles, and syndromes experienced by this priest, along with his family and his flock, are those common to affluent American suburbia. Viewers of the program may well imagine that the creators have simply channeled all of the real and imagined sins of Westchester County into one family and a single congregation. Reverend Webster is an indulgent parent and an extremely tolerant preacher, who is far less concerned with sin than with self-forgiveness. His wife, a wealthy heiress played by Susanna Thompson, is as hapless as her husband. The family also includes Peter, the Websters' homosexual son, along with Grace, his sister, and Adam, the Websters' adopted Asian son.

This priest and his family are poster children for postmodern times. Their gay son is at peace with his homosexuality, even as his parents suggest that he should look for just the right male partner, perhaps a male nurse or a doctor. Daughter Grace is selling drugs which she smuggles into the community by stuffing them into teddy bears. Adam adds his part to the family's catalogue of vices by flaunting his sexual promiscuity and engaging in sex with the church warden's daughter.

And it doesn't stop there. Reverend Webster's father is a bishop who is committing adultery with another bishop (a woman), even as his wife is suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

Just about everyone on this program is comfortable with sin -- including the character presented as Jesus, played by Garret Dillahunt. The appearance of Jesus as a character in a television soap opera is problematic enough, but Dillahunt's Jesus looks like a refugee from the Hippies, offering therapeutic words of assurance that sin is really not such a big deal. When one character reveals a lesbian relationship, Jesus quips, “Boy, you never know, do you?” Jesus excuses Reverend Webster's adulterous father by telling the son: “He's a good man, Daniel. Everybody's different.” When the Webster's fifteen-year-old son is caught having sex with the daughter of a church member, Jesus simply responds, “A kid has to be a kid.”

Indeed, Jesus appears to notice sin only when it takes the form of Reverend Webster's addiction to Vicodin, a prescription painkiller. Riding along in Reverend Webster's car, Jesus takes note of the priest popping a pill. “I thought you were cutting back on those,” Jesus observes. The minister explains that he takes the pills only “occasionally” in order to deal with back pain. Jesus doesn't accept this for a moment. “Right ... ,” he responds. For once, Reverend Webster is taken aback. “Could you fit more judgment into that 'Right'?” Jesus responds: “Actually, yes, I could.” Both characters then laugh.

The show has something to offend almost everyone -- at least, one would suppose that liberal Christians might be offended by the hyperbolic satire this show must surely represent. Conservative Christians will be rightly concerned about the portrayal of Jesus Christ. The fictionalization of Jesus is an inexcusable act of sacrilege that appears as nothing less than a calculated effort to offend the faith of sincere believers. Of course, this sacrilege is compounded by the portrayal of Jesus as a long-haired surfer dude who apparently just wants humans to get over their hang-ups about sin -- except for the sin of popping pills, of course.

What I can't understand is why liberal Christians are not crying foul. After all, the portrayal of liberal Christianity on this program is so satirical that it approaches parody.

Take Reverend Webster's opening sermon, for example. Preached just after the Websters' daughter was caught attempting to sell marijuana, the sermon is an almost perfect distillation of liberal theology expressed as mind-numbing toleration.

Just consider this section from the pastor's sermon: “Temptation. Is it really a bad thing? I don't think so. What I mean is, if there were no temptation, how could there be redemption? If we never did anything bad, how could we repent and be stronger for our weaknesses? Doesn't good need evil in order to be good? Now obviously I'm not suggesting that we should go looking for temptation, but, my brothers and sisters, if temptation corners us, maybe we shouldn't beat ourselves up for giving in to it. And maybe, maybe we shouldn't ask for forgiveness from a church, or from God, or from Jesus, or from anyone until we can first learn to forgive ourselves.”

Yes, Virginia, there really are preachers who preach such nonsense. As a matter of fact, the Apostle Paul countered such fatuous arguments in his letters, and the New Testament clearly rejects the kind of self-forgiving theology that is the very essence of Reverend Webster's gospel. Reverend Webster's embrace of temptation as liberation is rooted in his certainty that we are “stronger for our weaknesses.” Those who may hear a weak refrain of the Apostle Paul in the background of Reverend Webster's sly comment would do well to remember that Paul wasn't talking about his sin in this respect.

One might fairly expect that the leaders of liberal Protestant denominations would be calling their attorneys and rallying their dwindling memberships to protest this portrayal of a liberal Episcopal priest. Are we really to believe that one family and one congregation can get into this much trouble in two hours? And note this -- the embezzling of funds and various other peccadilloes must be added to the picture. Is this an honest and accurate portrayal of liberal Christianity? Are liberal preachers really THIS mindlessly tolerant? Apparently, some are.

Reporter Matea Gold of the LOS ANGELES TIMES informed her readers that “some Episcopal priests are urging their congregants to watch the program, saying that it offers a refreshingly candid portrayal of religious leaders and showcases the Episcopal Church as a tolerant denomination.” According to Gold, “the Episcopal Diocese of Washington has even launched the Blog of Daniel ... a website designed to spur discussion about issues raised on the program.”

Reverend Susan Russell, Senior Associate for Parish Life at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, where the show's initial episode was filmed, is enthusiastic about the show's portrayal of Episcopal ministers. “I think it's a realistic portrayal of a faithful man facing 21st century challenges,” she explains.

Reverend Russell urged her congregation to watch the program and explained in a letter to her church members that she believes the show could actually attract new members to the Episcopal Church.

Some Christians are organizing letter-writing campaigns and similar protests against “The Book of Daniel.” I take offense at this show's portrayal of Jesus Christ, but this program's approach is so clumsy and unbelievable that I harbor few fears of viewers believing that this character is anything like Jesus Christ the Lord.

I agree with critic Tom Shales of the WASHINGTON POST, who believes that the program will fail because it is simply lousy television. “I cannot recall a series in which a greater number of characters seemed so desperately detestable -- a series with a larger population of loathsome dolts,” Shales observes. “There ought to be a worse punishment than cancellation for a show that tries this hard to be offensive and, even at that crass task, manages to fail.”

In his criticism of the program, Shales sees through the satire. “Perhaps realizing they've created a crop of characters who are irredeemably mean, venal and idiotic, the writers try to tell us these people are really sweethearts -- not by depicting good qualities through action but simply by having them primitively vouch for one another. 'He's a good boy,' Mom says of the cautious and confused Peter. 'You're a good man,' the priest is told by a golf crony. 'She's a good girl,' Jesus says of Grace even after she's arrested for selling marijuana, and later, of the priest's bigoted, oafish father: 'He's a good man, Daniel.'“

If nothing else, the show may succeed in accomplishing what it almost surely does not aim to do -- demonstrate where liberal theology inevitably leads. The “tolerant” approach to sin so prosaically demonstrated in Reverend Webster's sermon leaves the church with no coherent understanding of sin or of the human condition. Accordingly, there is no need for salvation, no place for the Cross, and no fear of judgment. If this is all one believes, why not engage in all the various sins depicted on this program? All the characters of “The Book of Daniel” fear is embarrassment, and they seem to get over that very fast.

By all accounts, “The Book of Daniel” will be a spectacular failure where the networks care most -- in the ratings. These actors would be unwise to plan a career based on this program. Nevertheless, so long as the wretched episodes of this excruciating soap opera are part of our national conversation, Christians should take the opportunity to point to the theological lessons of the program and its plot. Beyond this, believers should seize the opportunity to distinguish between the false theology of “The Book of Daniel” and the orthodox theology of the church. After all, the genuine gospel is far more interesting and exciting -- and it saves.

*

Recognizing the Holy Spirit in other religions, tolerating homosexual marriage and denouncing the U.S. war on terror were among the views advocated at the 9th World Council of Churches Assembly Feb. 14-23 in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Founded in 1948, the WCC describes itself as “the broadest and most inclusive among the many organized expressions of the modern ecumenical movement, a movement whose goal is Christian unity,” according to the group’s website. The WCC has 347 member denominations in more than 120 countries, including most of the mainline Protestant denominations in America.

In its pursuit of unity, the WCC has advanced an agenda that includes opposing wars and weapons systems, criticizing free markets, promoting a worldwide redistribution of wealth and seeking common ground with non-Christian religions.

“The World Council of Churches has long been a boutique of paganism in Christian garb,” said Russell D. Moore, senior vice president for academic administration and dean of the school of theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. “This year’s assembly happenings, including the recognition of ‘the Holy Spirit’ working in non-Christian world religions, only continues the downgrade.

“Regenerate believers across the world, whatever their denomination or communion, recognize the sprit of the World Council for what it is: the spirit of antichrist. The only differences between the WCC of today and the WCC of the mid-twentieth century are first one of degree and second one of relevance. No one listens to the World Council of Church anymore, and for that we should be thankful to God.”

HOLY SPIRIT IN OTHER RELIGIONS

“The church is called to discern the signs of the ‘hidden’ Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit in other religions,” WCC central committee moderator Aram I said in his report to the assembly, according to a release by the Institute on Religion and Democracy.

Speaking on the need for unity among Christians, Aram, the Armenian Catholicos of Cilicia (one of the Lebanese church’s four major leaders), said a divided church cannot offer a credible witness to the world.

To reach the world, he advocated “a church beyond its walls” that is “liberated from its self-captivity” inside “dogmatic, ethical, theological, ethnic, cultural and confessional walls.” Aram went on to suggest that the Holy Spirit operates in non-Christian religions.

“According to biblical teachings, God’s gift of salvation in Christ is offered to the whole humanity,” he said. “Likewise, according to Christian pneumatology, the Holy Spirit’s work is cosmic; it reaches in mysterious ways to people of all faiths.”

Changes in the church and the world demand that Christians adopt new approaches to ecumenical organizations in the 21st century, Aram said. He noted that inter-religious dialogue can help believers get away from an “exclusivist, monological and self-centered self-understanding” and “look at the basics of our faith in a broader perspective.”

Aram’s comments on other religions were absent from the WCC’s official news release on his report, which focused on Aram’s call for Christian unity.

U.S. ‘RAINING DOWN TERROR’ ON THE WORLD

Throughout the assembly, delegates expressed anti-American sentiments regarding the war in Iraq and made claims of U.S. imperialism.

At a press conference Feb. 18, Leonid Kishkovsky, chief ecumenical officer of the Orthodox Church in America and former president of the National Council of Churches, presented a letter described as representing the WCC delegates from U.S. denominations. The letter portrayed U.S. military actions to thwart terrorism in terms of aggression against innocents.

“[O]ur country responded [to Sept. 11] by seeking to reclaim a privileged and secure place in the world, raining down terror on the truly vulnerable among our global neighbors,” the letter stated. [...]

“Nations have been demonized and God has been enlisted in national agendas that are nothing short of idolatrous,” the letter stated. “We lament with special anguish the war in Iraq, launched in deception and violating global norms of justice.”

U.S. denominations represented at the WCC included the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Episcopal Church and various African-American Baptist and Methodist denominations.

Anti-American sentiments also were expressed in a Feb. 19 press conference on the church in Latin America. Speaking under the auspices of the WCC, Argentinean Nobel Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel denounced American policies in Latin America and spoke against U.S. President George W. Bush.

“Dictatorship in Latin America was imposed by the United States,” he alleged. “All the methods of oppression which we see come from over there, from the Empire [the United States].”

Speaking against the American President, Pérez Esquivel, said, “When Bush prays, God covers his ears.”

HUMAN SEXUALITY WORKSHOP

Any sexual act that is done with an attitude of love and respect is morally legitimate, regardless of whether it occurs in marriage, said Erlinda Senturias, a Filipino member of the WCC’s “international reference group” to guide the council’s conversations regarding human sexuality.

Senturias made her comments Feb. 18 in an unofficial workshop on the WCC’s recent dialogues about sexuality. When a young Irish man in the audience asked whether it was acceptable for him to engage in sexual relations with his girlfriend, Senturias offered a clear answer.

“A sexual experience is a spiritual experience,” she said, according to an IRD report. “If it is done in a spirit of mutual respect and love, it is a very beautiful experience -- whether you are married or not.”

George Mathews Nalunakkal, a Syrian Orthodox priest from India spoke against “conservative” views of human sexuality.

“When this appeal to the Bible [in a literal way] is combined with natural law,” he said, “it leads to exclusive and conservative positions.” He also objected to “statements [that] reflect a rather negative anthropology, where man is seen as a ‘fallen’ creature and sin is sexual.”

In the same workshop, Sara Baltodano of Costa Rica presented a summary of conclusions reached by regional WCC meetings in Costa Rica and India. The presentation stressed the importance of “sexual rights.”

“Sexual rights are also human rights,” the summary said. “Right and responsibility go together. This does not mean that we promote sexual rights without the attendant responsibilities of being non-abusive within relationships, and faithful within whichever configuration of relationship one chooses to be in.”

Alan Wisdom, IRD interim president and reporter from the assembly, said Baltodano’s comments reveal a low view of traditional marriage between a man and a woman.

Her remarks “revealed the attempt to dethrone marriage from its traditional place at the center of Christians sexual ethics,” he said. “Instead Baltodano’s summary would affirm ‘whichever configuration of relationship one chooses to be in’ –- not exactly a biblical category of thinking, or even a clear rational category.”

Archbishop Desmond Tutu expressed the WCC’s pluralistic thinking in a Feb. 20 address on unity.

“Bush, bin Laden, all belong, gay, lesbian, so-called straight -- all belong and are loved, are precious,” he said.

Wisdom said that moving forward, the WCC is facing issues of survival, not just relevance.

In America and elsewhere, mainline denominations continue to suffer in influence while orthodoxy is growing; if the WCC persists in trying to rally churches around the agenda of western liberals instead of around biblical orthodoxy, it faces the prospect of extinction, he said.

“The question is where the WCC will find any unity,” Wisdom said. “The continued pursuit of the political agendas of the Western left -- a rapidly declining contingent in the global church -- will relegate the council to accelerating irrelevance. But a reappropriation of the orthodox and evangelical Christian faith that is growing in so many African, Asian and Latin American churches would promise a much brighter future.”

Wisdom did not speculate on whether the WCC had the will to abandon liberalism and ecumenicalism for the evangelicalism that is driving Christian movements worldwide.

*

Robert Jensen is absolutely transparent in his atheism. “I don't believe in God,” he asserts. That statement is simple enough, indicating a categorical denial in any belief in God.

Lest anyone mistake his atheism for mere theological confusion, Jensen went on to explain: “I don't believe Jesus Christ was the son of a God that I don't believe in, nor do I believe Jesus rose from the dead to ascend to a heaven that I don't believe exists.”

What makes these statements all the more significant is that they appear in an article entitled, “Why I am a Christian (Sort Of),” in which Jensen, a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, explains why he joined St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Austin.

As Jensen relates his story, he explains that he has joined the church as “more a political than a theological act.” In other words, Jensen sees the church of which he is now a member as more of a political than a theological institution.

“Standing before the congregation of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas, I affirmed that I (1) endorsed the core principles in Christ's teaching; (2) intended to work to deepen my understanding and practice of the universal love at the heart of those principles; and (3) pledged to be a responsible member of the church and to the larger community.”

Moving from that most minimal of confessional pledges, Jensen went on to claim: “So, I am a Christian, sort of. A secular Christian. A Christian atheist, perhaps. But, in a deep sense, I would argue, a real Christian.”

Of course, arguing that it is so does not make it so. Robert Jensen is a well-known political activist whose championing of liberal causes is a source of regular controversy at the University of Texas and beyond. He appears to enjoy his role as a self-anointed provocateur, and in this move to join a church, he has provoked an outcry from both orthodox Christians and his fellow atheists.

Why, after all, would an atheist even want to join a church that identifies with Christianity? More to the point, how could any church that holds even a minimal sense of Christian identity allow an atheist to join?

Jensen makes an unconvincing case concerning his own motivations. He explains that “whatever my beliefs about the nature about the non-material world or my views on spirituality, I live in a country that is extremely religious, especially compared to other technologically advanced industrial nations.” In some sense, Jensen appears to be making a “if you can't beat them, join them” argument.

The cynical dimension of Jensen's reason for joining the church becomes immediately apparent when he explains that, “since a vast majority of Americans define a 'good American' as one who holds to some religious faith, clearly there's an advantage to being able to speak within a religious framework in the contemporary United States.”

The political motivation behind Jensen's move is openly acknowledged. “So, my decision to join a church was more a political than a theological act. As a political organizer interested in a variety of social-justice issues, I look for places to engage people in discussion. In a depoliticized society such as the United States – where ordinary people in everyday spaces do not routinely talk about politics and its underlying values – church is one of the few places where such engagement is possible.”

Well, so much for Jensen's reasons for attempting to join a church. The larger and more important question is how any church could justify accepting an atheist to join the church? In his article, published in the March 12, 2006 edition of THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE, Jensen explains, “the pastor and most of the congregation at St. Andrew's understand my reasons for joining, realizing that I didn't convert in a theological sense, but joined a moral and political community. There's nothing special about me in this regard – many St. Andrew's members I have talked to are seeking community and a place for spiritual, moral and political engagement. The church is expansive in defining faith; the degree to which members of the congregation believe in God and Christ in traditional terms varies widely. Many do, some don't, and a whole lot of folks seem to be searching. St. Andrew's offers a safe place and an exciting atmosphere for that search, in collaboration with others.”

So, here we find a congregation that, in the words of the atheist who is now accepted into its membership, is “expansive in defining faith.” This is a colossal understatement, to say the very least. In the case of this church, at least as is now claimed by Robert Jensen, this expansiveness includes those who claim no faith at all, at least in terms of any basic belief in God.

This statement gets to the heart of a widespread confusion about the nature and identity of the church. There may be strategic places which represent “a safe space and an exciting atmosphere” for a vague and wide-open spiritual quest, but this has nothing whatsoever to do with a Christian church.

By definition, a church is a fellowship of believers – those who have confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord. The very fact that a contemporary congregation could celebrate allowing an atheist to join is an indication that such a congregation is, by biblical definition, a false church.

Jim Rigby, pastor of St. Andrew's, a church affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA), explains that allowing an atheist to join his church is a matter of building “connections.”

“Neither the church nor Jensen views his membership as surrendering anything,” Rigby insists, “but instead is an attempt to build connections. Such efforts are crucial in a world where there seems not to be a lot of wood to build the bridges we need. And the shame is, while we fight among ourselves, the world is burning.”

In making his case, “why we let an atheist join our church,” Rigby, like Jensen, connects church membership to political activism. “In my ministry, I have had to live in two worlds,” Rigby explains. “I have spiritual friends who are trying to celebrate the mystery of life and activist friends who are trying to change the world. Somehow these two enterprises have been separated, but I don't believe either option represents a complete life. Apolitical spirituality runs the danger of giving charity instead of justice, while atheistic humanism runs the danger of offering facts instead of meaning. This divide between spirituality and activism is a betrayal of the deeper roots of both.”

What about the church's confession of faith? Constitutionally, both the pastor and the church are accountable to the denomination's revised confession of faith – a confession that, though significantly weakened by revision, still, we should note, requires belief in God. Rigby explains, “If God had wanted us to simply recite creeds, Jesus would have come as a parrot.”

The pastor also asks a most interesting question: “Is there still room in the church for Thomas [who questioned the Lord's resurrection]?” This is the kind of sloppy, silly, and superficial theological argument that is so frequently the common fare in liberal Protestantism. Is Rigby seriously suggesting that Thomas was at any point an atheist? Where is the pastor's acknowledgment that Thomas' response to his encounter with the risen Lord was concluded by his own confession of faith: “My Lord and my God.”

Rigby has been involved in controversy before. St. Andrew's is a congregation aligned with the “More Light” movement that is pressing for the acceptance of same-sex marriage and the ordination of active homosexuals within the Presbyterian Church (USA). As John H. Adams reports in THE PRESBYTERIAN LAYMAN, “St. Andrew's is a More Light congregation whose pastor, Jim Rigby, was recently exonerated by a presbytery investigating committee, which decided he would not face trial for marrying same-gender couples during a homosexual activist event at the University of Texas. Rigby was never tried for the charges although he declared that he welcomed the trial because he married the couples as a matter of conscience.”

Just recently, John Judson, pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in San Antonio, and chairman of the local presbytery's Committee on Ministry, sent a letter to presbytery officials that stated: “It has come to our attention that a session within the bounds of the Mission Presbytery has received into membership an individual whom, according to his own writings, claims neither to believe in God nor to believe that Jesus Christ is who our historic Christian tradition and Scripture claim him to be.” Further, “We take this incident with great seriousness and want you to know that we will be sending a team from the Committee on Ministry to visit with this session and discover the facts and take whatever measures we feel appropriate to deal with the situation.”

We can only hope that this committee will take the measures that will be necessary in order to hold this church accountable to Scripture and the denomination's confession of faith. Lacking this, the denomination will be accepting atheism as an acceptable confession of faith for the membership of its churches.

The loss of a biblical vision for the local church is one of the greatest tragedies of our times, leading to a weakened Christian witness and a deadly theological confusion both within and without the church. This is not a problem limited to one denomination or to a single congregation.

One urgent question remains – can a church that has allowed itself to move this far from theological orthodoxy ever be recovered? Time will tell. Nevertheless, short of a miracle, such a recovery doesn't look likely. For, St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church is not only a congregation that has accepted an atheist into its membership – it is a congregation that remains proud of its own spiritual rebellion.

On November 3, 1921, J. Gresham Machen presented an address entitled, “Liberalism or Christianity?” In that famous address, later expanded into the book, CHRISTIANITY & LIBERALISM, Machen argued that evangelical Christianity and its liberal rival were, in effect, two very different religions.

Machen's argument became one of the issues of controversy in the Fundamentalist/Modernist controversies of the 1920s and beyond. By any measure, Machen was absolutely right -- the movement that styled itself as liberal Christianity was eviscerating the central doctrines of the Christian faith while continuing to claim Christianity as “a way of life” and a system of meaning.

“The chief modern rival of Christianity is 'liberalism,'“ Machen asserted. “Modern liberalism, then, has lost sight of the two great presuppositions of the Christian message -- the living God and the fact of sin,” he argued. “The liberal doctrine of God and the liberal doctrine of man are both diametrically opposite to the Christian view. But the divergence concerns not only the presuppositions of the message, but also the message itself.”

Howard P. Kainz, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Marquette University, offers a similar argument -- warning that it is now modern secular liberalism which poses as the great rival to orthodox Christianity.

Observing the basic divide in the American culture, Kainz notes: “Most of the heat of battle occurs where traditional religious believers clash with certain liberals who are religiously committed to secular liberalism.”

Kainz offers a crucial insight here, suggesting that one of the most important factors in the nation's cultural divide is that persons on both sides are deeply committed to their own creeds and worldviews -- even if on one side those creeds are secular.

“This explains why talking about abortion or same-sex 'marriage,' for example, with certain liberals is usually futile. It is like trying to persuade a committed Muslim to accept Christ. Because his religion forbids it, he can only do so by CONVERTING from Islam to Christianity; he cannot accept Christ as long as he remains firmly committed to Islam. So it is with firmly committed liberals: Their 'religion' forbids any concessions to the 'conservative' agenda, and as long as they remain committed to their secular ideology, it is futile to hope for such concessions from them.”

Kainz's argument bears similarities not only to J. Gresham Machen's observations about the theological scene, but also to Thomas Sowell's understanding of the larger culture. As Sowell argued in A CONFLICT OF VISIONS, the basic ideological divide of our times is between those who hold a “constrained vision” over those who hold an “unconstrained vision.” Both worldviews are, in the actual operations of life, reduced to certain “gut feelings” that operate much like religious convictions.

Kainz concedes that some will resist his designation of secularism as a religion. “Religion in the most common and usual sense connotes dedication to a supreme being or beings,” he acknowledges. Nevertheless, “especially in the last few centuries, 'religion' has taken on the additional connotations of dedication to abstract principles or ideals rather than a personal being,” he insists. Kainz dates the rise of this secular religion to the French Enlightenment and its idolatrous worship of Reason.

Looking back over the last century, Kainz argues that Marxism and ideological Liberalism have functioned as religious systems for millions of individuals. Looking specifically at Marxism, Kainz argues that the Marxist religion had dogmas, canonical scriptures, priests, theologians, ritualistic observances, parochial congregations, heresies, hagiography, and even an eschatology. Marxism's dogmas were its core teachings, including economic determinism and the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Its canonical scriptures included the writings of Marx, Lenin, and Mao Tse Tung. Its priests were those guardians of Marxist purity who functioned as the ideological theorists of the movement. Its ritualistic observances included actions ranging from workers' strikes to mass rallies. The eschatology of Marxism was to be realized in the appearance of “Communist man” and the new age of Marxist utopia.

Similarly, Kainz argues that modern secular liberalism includes its own dogmas. Among these are the beliefs “that mankind must overcome religious superstition by means of Reason; that empirical science can and will eventually answer all the questions about the world and human values that were formerly referred to traditional religion or theology; and that the human race, by constantly invalidating and disregarding hampering traditions, can and will achieve perfectibility.”

Kainz also argues that contemporary liberalism has borrowed selectively from the New Testament, turning Jesus' admonition to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's,” as a foundation for “absolute secularism,” enshrined in the language of a wall separating church and state. Thus, “religion [is] reduced to something purely private.”

Secular liberalism also identifies certain sins such as “homophobia” and sexism. As Kainz sees it, the secular scriptures fall into two broad categories: “Darwinist and scientistic writings championing materialist and naturalistic explanations for everything, including morals; and feminist writings exposing the 'evil' of patriarchy and tracing male exploitation of females throughout history up to the present.”

The priests and priestesses of secular liberalism constitute its “sacerdotal elite” and tend to be intellectuals who can present liberal values in the public square. Congregations where secular liberals gather include organizations such as Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, the National Organization of Women, and similar bodies. These groups “help supply a sense of affiliation and commonality for the religiously liberal.”

The rites and rituals of secular liberalism include “gay pride” parades and pro-abortion rallies. Interestingly, the eschatology of this movement is, Kainz argues, the distillation of pragmatism. “In the estimation of the religiously liberal,” Kainz asserts, “all lifestyles and all moralities can approximate this goal, as long as the proscribed illiberal 'sins' are avoided.”

Kainz readily admits that not all liberals are committed to this religious vision of liberalism. As he sees it, “There are many people working for social justice, human rights, international solidarity, and other causes commonly regarded as liberal without a deep ideological commitment.” His point is that conservatives may find common cause and common ground with these non-religiously committed liberals.

“For many 'moderate' liberals, liberalism is a political perspective, not a core ideology,” he observes. “In the culture war it is important for Christians to distinguish between the religiously committed liberal and the moderate liberal. For one thing, Christians should not be surprised when they find no common ground with the former. They may form occasional, even if temporary, alliances with the latter.”

Kainz's article “Liberalism as Religion: The Culture War Is Between Religious Believer on Both Sides,” appears in the May 2006 edition of TOUCHSTONE magazine. His analysis is genuinely helpful in understanding the clash of positions, policies, convictions, and visions that mark our contemporary scene.

Though Kainz does not develop this point, all persons are, in their own way, deeply committed to their own worldview. There is no intellectual possibility of absolute value neutrality -- not among human beings, anyway.

The conception of our current cultural conflict as a struggle between two rival religions is instructive and humbling. At the political level, this assessment should serve as a warning that our current ideological divides are not likely to disappear anytime soon. At the far deeper level of theological analysis, this argument serves to remind Christians that evangelism remains central to our mission and purpose. Those who aim at the merely political are missing the forest for the trees, and confusing the temporal for the eternal.

The American denominational landscape has experienced significant shifts in recent times, but one major story stands out among them all -- the massive redirection of the Southern Baptist Convention. America's largest evangelical denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention was reshaped, reformed, and restructured over the last three decades, and at an incredibly high cost.

Was it worth it? That is one of the crucial questions addressed by Paige Patterson in his essay, ANATOMY OF A REFORMATION: THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION 1978-2004. Published in booklet form, Patterson's analysis offers an invaluable insider's perspective on the Southern Baptist controversy and its meaning. Patterson, now president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, was one of the key architects of the plan to change the direction of the Convention. Born to Southern Baptist aristocracy, Patterson was the son of T. A. Patterson, a prominent Texas pastor who later became executive secretary of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Surrounded from boyhood by Baptist preachers, theologians, and denominational leaders, Patterson quickly gained both an intuitive and an educated understanding of Baptist identity.

Later, Patterson was to attend New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, from which he received a doctorate in theology. After serving as a pastor in Arkansas, he was elected president of the Criswell Institute for Biblical Studies, later the Criswell College. That college, closely identified with its namesake, Dr. W. A. Criswell, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, provided Patterson with a national platform and unquestioned Baptist credentials. Both of these would prove crucial in the ensuing conflict.

In ANATOMY OF A REFORMATION, Patterson tells the story from the vantage point of his own involvement. He dates his understanding of a need for denominational reformation to when he was a “nineteen-year-old Bible major at a state-operated Baptist university in West Texas.”

An early signal of coming controversy was issued by Houston pastor K. Owen White, who as president-elect of the Southern Baptist Convention directed his attention at a recent book written by a professor at one of the Southern Baptist Convention's six seminaries. Ralph Elliott, a professor of Old Testament at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, had written THE MESSAGE OF GENESIS, a book that had been published by the denomination's official press. As Patterson explains, the book “had employed historical-critical assumptions, conclusions, and methodologies, which led the professor to question the historicity of some of the narrative portions of Genesis.”

As an observant college student, Patterson was surprised that his Baptist religion professors supported Elliott and dismissed White's concerns. Patterson summarizes the faculty response: “First, educated and intelligent people virtually all had arrived at similar conclusions with Elliott. Second, in any event, if there were minor shifts away from orthodoxy, 'the Convention' (which in actuality was 'the bureaucracy') would make the necessary corrections. Third, having accepted the first two premises, the average Southern Baptist should trust the system, remain silent and give his tithe -- a hefty portion of which would be passed along through the Cooperative Program lifeline to continue funding the bureaucracy.”

To know Paige Patterson is to know that there is no way he could remain silent in the face of heterodoxy. Indeed, when Houston attorney Paul Pressler visited the campus of New Orleans Seminary in order to meet conservative students who could be supported through a new scholarship funded by Houston business leaders, he was directed to Paige Patterson. Their meeting would change history.

Pressler, whose organizational understanding and legal expertise led him to see a mechanism for recovering the denomination, and Patterson met for conversation at the Café du Monde in New Orleans and discussed their mutual hope for denominational reformation.

Patterson recalls, “As the evening wore on, several convictions that were repeatedly confirmed across the years began to take shape. First, a large number of Southern Baptists were skeptical about many of the leaders in the denomination. Second, Baptist ecclesiastical polity made possible a popular movement to correct errant trajectories. Third, many such efforts had been attempted but had uniformly failed because they were launched either by little-known leaders or else by isolated individuals who knew little of the value of organization or political process. As such, they were novices playing in a league with experienced professionals whose political prowess and, when necessary, determined ruthlessness rendered the efforts of rookies useless. Fourth, the Convention constituency was comprised of at least four groups, which eventually began to be designated as: 'movement' conservatives, 'intuitive' conservatives, denominationalists, and liberals.”

Patterson suggests that the liberal group consisted mostly of “neo-orthodox professors and leaders who had imbibed deeply at the wells of historical-critical scholarship.” This was certainly true in the beginning stages of the controversy. Nevertheless, by the time the controversy gained full steam, a significant group of seminary professors had moved far to the left of neo-orthodoxy.

The number of “movement” conservatives was relatively small, Patterson conceded. The vast majority of Southern Baptists fell into his designation as “intuitive” conservatives. These Southern Baptists were driven by a basic confidence in the Bible as the word of God and the Gospel as the only means of salvation. Furthermore, their basic theological and moral instincts were deeply conservative. As Patterson describes these conservatives, they were “sweet believers who embraced the best about everything.” They believed that every word of the Bible is true, that all the miracles happened, that abortion is murder, and that Jesus is the only way of salvation -- and they were a hard group to convince that the denomination was in deep trouble. After all, Southern Baptists were understood to be conservative Christians who would be deeply resistant to encroaching theological liberalism. They were soon to learn otherwise.

In tracing the history, Patterson takes his readers back to the fall of 1978, when a group of determined pastors and laymen met at a hotel near the Atlanta airport in order to launch “the controversy.” Pressler and Patterson understood that electing the president of the Southern Baptist Convention was the key to redirecting the entirety of the denomination. Through his appointive powers, the president eventually influences who will be elected as trustees of the various denominational agencies and seminaries. Driven by a sense of doctrinal urgency, the Atlanta group determined to elect Adrian Rogers, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, as president of the Convention.

As Patterson remembers, he was doubtful the plan would work. In contrast, Judge Pressler exuded confidence that Baptists would recognize the problem and respond with a determination to return the Convention to its conservative roots. Patterson had observed Baptist controversies for most of his life, and he had seen the Convention's bureaucracy triumph again and again. Nevertheless, Pressler and Patterson, along with a corps of determined pastors and laypersons, were determined to put their reputations and careers on the line to attempt the reformation.

“In the final analysis, we did not attempt a reformation movement because we thought it would succeed but because we sincerely believed that we were right about the inerrancy of the Bible and because we did not want to tell our children and grandchildren that we had no courage to stand for our convictions,” Patterson recalls. “Above all, the conviction that the continued drift of the Southern Baptist Convention could spell eternal doom for hundreds of thousands of people was the principle compelling motivation.”

The hard lessons of experience had taught Pressler and Patterson that symbolic actions would not be sufficient. The Convention had adopted resolutions opposed to theological liberalism in years past, but these had been largely deflected by the denominational machinery.

Why did the plan work? Patterson acknowledges the ultimate explanation is “the intervention of God.” Nevertheless, certain factors were clearly at work. In the first place, Southern Baptist polity allowed the grassroots of the denomination to have its say through the participation of “messengers” who would attend the Southern Baptist Convention and make their will known. As Patterson explains, “The genius of the system is in leaving elected messengers in ultimate control, while extending to the elected president considerable influence, if he makes his appointments carefully. Since even two-term trustees on the various boards serve no more than ten years, the election of presidents committed to a renewal agenda each year for ten years, in theory, should redirect the entire system.”

In the end, that is exactly what happened. The election of Adrian Rogers in 1979 was followed by an unbroken succession of other conservative presidents. Each appointed conservatives, who in turn appointed other conservatives, who nominated the trustees, who elected the agency heads and institutional presidents.

Patterson also acknowledges the effort of leading preachers in defining and supporting the controversy. He cites sociologist Nancy Ammerman, who observed that the public leaders of the conservative resurgence “were preachers of remarkable ability, able to stir crowds with their words, able to evoke response in their hearers.”

Last, Patterson also points to the conservatives' decision to focus primarily upon the reliability and inerrancy of the Bible. “There were a host of other concerns,” Patterson acknowledges, “but the issue of the nature of Scripture was chosen for two essential reasons. First, if the epistemological issue were resolved, then the basis for resolving all other issues was in place. Second, most Baptists believe the Bible was every whit true.”

All this came together in a powerful movement to hold the denomination and its institutions accountable. “Believing that heaven and hell are the only destinies and that everyone alive will spend eternity in one or the other, and further that Jesus and His atoning death provides the only way to avoid hell and inherit heaven, conservatives were determined to prevent the slide of Baptists into the labyrinth of formerly-effective denominations whose evangelistic zeal and missionary fervor had been stripped by rising doubts about the veracity of Scripture. The goal, then, was to keep the denomination close to a reliable Bible for the sake of evangelistic and missionary outreach.”

In the remainder of this work, Patterson takes his reader through many of the twists and turns of the controversy, revisiting such seminal moments as the adoption of the final report issued by the “Peace Committee” in 1987. Looking back almost twenty years later, he now acknowledges the strategic role of that report in defining the doctrinal differences that separated Southern Baptists on opposing sides of the controversy.

ANATOMY OF A REFORMATION is an important resource for understanding the Southern Baptist controversy and the future of the Southern Baptist Convention. After his years as president of the Criswell College, Patterson would become president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, where he would build a powerful institution and influence a generation of future Southern Baptist pastors and missionaries. The respect in which he is held by this generation of Southern Baptists was reflected in the fact that he was twice elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Now, he presides over one of the largest theological seminaries in the world and has become the dominant Baptist figure in his native state. Now among the heavenly assembly, T. A. Patterson is smiling.

“There are regrets,” Patterson reflects. He points to vocational disruption, hurt, sorrow, and disrupted friendships as evidence of the price controversy inevitably exacts. “No one seriously confessing the name of Jesus can rejoice in these sorrows,” Patterson acknowledges. “I confess that I often second guess my own actions and agonize over those who have suffered on both sides, including my own family.”

In the end, it was Paige Patterson's willingness to put his own future at stake, and his own reputation on the line, that explains how the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention succeeded. More than any other individual, Paige Patterson was the man who put all at risk for the sake of what he so profoundly believed. Confronted by a looming denominational disaster, and aware of what this would mean to the cause of the Gospel, Paige Patterson threw himself into the controversy, defined the issues, mobilized an army, educated a denomination, and paved the way for a new generation to continue the work he so boldly began.

Those of us who now hold positions of leadership and influence in this denomination owe this opportunity to Paige Patterson and those who with him stepped out in faith for the cause of truth. Now, Paige Patterson can look across a denomination and see a generation of young pastors, missionaries, and leaders who are mobilized for the cause of the Gospel and who are driven by the very convictions Patterson sought to defend. Not a bad legacy for a man who didn't think the plan would work.

________

This article was originally published on May 31, 2005.

Is preaching still central to Christian worship? This question is asked again and again as contemporary evangelicalism is observed. How can this be up for question?

In some circles, preaching has fallen on hard times. An open debate is now being waged over the character and centrality of preaching in the church. At stake is nothing less than the integrity of Christian worship and proclamation.

How did this happen? Given the central place of preaching in the New Testament church, it would seem that the priority of biblical preaching should be uncontested. After all, as John A. Broadus -- one of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s founding faculty -- famously remarked, “Preaching is characteristic of Christianity. No other religion has made the regular and frequent assembling of groups of people, to hear religious instruction and exhortation, an integral part of Christian worship.”

Yet, numerous influential voices within evangelicalism suggest that the age of the expository sermon is now past. In its place, some contemporary preachers now substitute messages intentionally designed to reach secular or superficial congregations -- messages which avoid preaching a biblical text, and thus avoid a potentially embarrassing confrontation with biblical truth.

A subtle shift visible at the onset of the 20th century has become a great divide. The shift from expository preaching to more topical and human-centered approaches has grown into a debate over the place of Scripture in preaching, and the nature of preaching itself.

Two famous statements about preaching illustrate this growing divide. Reflecting poetically on the urgency and centrality of preaching, the Puritan pastor Richard Baxter once remarked, “I preach as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.” With vivid expression and a sense of Gospel gravity, Baxter understood that preaching is literally a life or death affair. Eternity hangs in the balance as the preacher proclaims the Word.

Contrast that statement to the words of Harry Emerson Fosdick, perhaps the most famous (or infamous) preacher of the 20th century’s early decades. Fosdick, pastor of the Riverside Church in New York City, provides an instructive contrast to the venerable Baxter. “Preaching,” he explained, “is personal counseling on a group basis.”

These two statements about preaching reveal the contours of the contemporary debate. For Baxter, the promise of heaven and the horrors of hell frame the preacher’s consuming burden. For Fosdick, the preacher is a kindly counselor offering helpful advice and encouragement.

The current debate over preaching is most commonly explained as an argument about the focus and shape of the sermon. Should the preacher seek to preach a biblical text through an expository sermon? Or, should the preacher direct the sermon to the “felt needs” and perceived concerns of the hearers?

Clearly, many evangelicals now favor the second approach. Urged on by devotees of “needs-based preaching,” many evangelicals have abandoned the text without recognizing that they have done so. These preachers eventually may get to the text in the course of the sermon, but the text does not set the agenda or establish the shape of the message.

Focusing on so-called “perceived needs” and allowing these needs to set the preaching agenda inevitably leads to a loss of biblical authority and biblical content in the sermon. Yet, this pattern is increasingly the norm in many evangelical pulpits. Fosdick must be smiling from the grave.

Earlier evangelicals recognized Fosdick’s approach as a rejection of biblical preaching. An out-of-the-closet theological liberal, Fosdick paraded his rejection of biblical inspiration, inerrancy and infallibility -- and rejected other doctrines central to the Christian faith. Enamored with trends in psychological theory, Fosdick became liberal Protestantism’s happy pulpit therapist. The goal of his preaching was well captured by the title of one of his many books, “On Being a Real Person.”

Shockingly, this is now the approach evident in many evangelical pulpits. The sacred desk has become an advice center and the pew has become the therapist’s couch. Psychological and practical concerns have displaced theological exegesis as the preacher directs his sermon to the congregation’s perceived needs.

The problem is, of course, that the sinner does not know what his most urgent need is. She is blind to her need for redemption and reconciliation with God, and focuses on potentially real but temporal needs such as personal fulfillment, financial security, family peace and career advancement. Too many sermons settle for answering these expressed needs and concerns, and fail to proclaim the Word of Truth.

Without doubt, few preachers following this popular trend intend to depart from the Bible. But under the guise of an intention to reach modern secular men and women “where they are,” the sermon has been transformed into a success seminar. Some verses of Scripture may be added to the mix, but for a sermon to be genuinely biblical, the text must set the agenda as the foundation of the message -- not as an authority cited for spiritual footnoting.

Charles Spurgeon confronted the very same pattern of wavering pulpits in his own day. Some of the most fashionable and well-attended London churches featured pulpiteers who were the precursors to modern needs-based preachers. Spurgeon -- who managed to draw a few hearers despite his insistence on biblical preaching -- confessed that “The true ambassador for Christ feels that he himself stands before God and has to deal with souls in God’s stead as God’s servant, and stands in a solemn place -- a place in which unfaithfulness is inhumanity to man as well as treason to God.”

Spurgeon and Baxter understood the dangerous mandate of the preacher, and therefore were driven to the Bible as their only authority and message. They left their pulpits trembling with urgent concern for the souls of their hearers and fully aware of their accountability to God for preaching His Word, and His Word alone. Their sermons were measured by power; Fosdick’s by popularity.

The current debate over preaching may well shake congregations, denominations and the evangelical movement. But know this: The recovery and renewal of the church in this generation will come only when from pulpit to pulpit the herald preaches as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.

________

R. Albert Mohler Jr. is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. This column was adapted from his blog, online at www.AlbertMohler.com.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #21034]

Katharine Jefferts Schori, who became the first woman presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church Nov. 4, 2006, at Washington National Cathedral, holds key views contrary to what her own church believes.

A CNN reporter asked Schori, “So what happens after I die?”

“What happens after you die? I would ask you that question,” Schori responded. “But what’s important about your life, what is it that has made you a unique individual? What is the passion that has kept you getting up every morning and engaging the world? There are hints within that about what it is that continues after you die.”

When Time magazine asked her if belief in Jesus is the only way to get to heaven, she said, “We who practice the Christian tradition understand Him as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box.”

And when a National Public Radio host asked her to elaborate on that answer, Schori said, “Christians understand that Jesus is the route to God. Umm -- that is not to say that Muslims, or Sikhs, or Jains, come to God in a radically different way. They come to God through ... human experience ... through human experience of the divine. Christians talk about that in terms of Jesus.”

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, noted on his blog Nov. 10, 2006, that the Articles of Religion used by the Episcopal Church clarify that “Holy Scripture doth set out unto us only the Name of Jesus Christ, whereby men must be saved.”

Is saving the earth what remains when liberal churches are no longer concerned for the salvation of souls? Have these churches replaced theology with ecology?

Frank Furedi is a British sociologist who teaches at the University of Kent. He is also a controversialist and a public intellectual. In a recent article published at Spike, Furedi suggests that some religious institutions are “busy reinventing themselves by promoting ecological virtues and preaching against the eco-sins of polluters.” He offers a most interesting argument.

Furedi contends that a crisis of authority has shaken many churches, and that modern societies the have largely given up on saving traditional morality. In his words:

Sometime back in the 1980s, Western societies gave up on the

project of rescuing ‘traditional values’ and morality. From time

to time, conservative politicians and moral entrepreneurs have

attempted to launch back-to-basics crusades promoting ‘family

values’. However, their lack of popular appeal has only exposed

society’s estrangement from these traditions. Indeed by the

Eighties, even religious institutions found it difficult to

uphold their own authority with conviction. Instead of

influencing society many churches began to internalise the

attitudes associated with the lifestyles of their increasingly

individualised consumerist flock. The last quarter-century has

seen a steady diminishing of religious authority in Western

societies. Debates about the role of women priests,

homosexuality and marriage indicated that religious institutions

have become confused about their own relationship to traditional

values.

Furedi suggests that these churches are now seeking to find a new platform in order to assert a new claim to authority within the culture. This new platform appears to be ecology and the goal of saving the earth.

His argument is compelling:

In recent years, some in the church have sought to gain the

public’s ear through the greening of traditional doctrines, and

Christ the Saviour is fast becoming Christ the environmental

activist. Western society is continually in search of rituals

and symbols through which moral probity can be affirmed. It

appears that, for many church leaders, the project of saving the

planet offers more opportunities for reconstituting rituals and

symbols than the saving of souls.

It is not just the odd priest offering absolution through the

ritual of eco-confession. Church leaders have embraced the

rituals of eco-morality to demonstrate their commitment to a

higher good. Absolution through carbon offsets appears to be the

way forward.

An observer of church life today, especially within the shrinking domain of liberal Protestantism, will find plenty of evidence for Furedi’s hypothesis. Ecological concerns appear to serve as a replacement for abandoned doctrines and outdated concerns -- such as evangelism.

Furedi finds plenty of support for his argument within contemporary Roman Catholicism, but here is his analysis of the situation within the Church of England:

In 2006, the Church of England launched an eco-crusade entitled

‘Shrinking the Footprint’. The Archbishop of Canterbury

complained that ‘early modern religion contributed to the idea

that the fate of nature is for it to be bossed around by a

detached sovereign will, whether divine or human’. It seems

possible that those misguided early modern religionists received

that idea from the Book of Genesis, where God gives Man dominion

‘over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth

upon the earth’. Now the head of the Anglican church protests

about nature being ‘bossed around’ not only by Man, but by God.

This year, the Church of England launched a booklet of green tips

for the faithful entitled How Many Christians Does it Take to

Change a Lightbulb? Its eco-commandments include: share cars on

the road to church, use virtuous low-energy lightbulbs but cast

out junk mail, and do not flush the loo at night.

So is Christ the Savior is fast becoming Christ the environmental activist? Furedi’s argument is both insightful and troubling. There can be no doubt that his argument is true with respect to many churches and denominations. And there is a clear warning here. When churches abandon or marginalize the central doctrines of the Christian faith, another religion soon takes its place. That religion might be a religion of therapy, social action, or ecology -- or any number of other substitutes for the Gospel.

As Furedi explains, this particular temptation can be traced to “the powerful influence that environmentalism exercises over contemporary culture.” When churches lose confidence that they can speak to other issues in terms of right and wrong (sex, personal behavior, etc), environmentalism remains. In effect, it is the only socially acceptable form of moralism.

Nevertheless, Furedi believes that this is a losing strategy for the church in terms of social and cultural influence. As he explains, “eco-spirituality cannot really compensate for the loss of traditional moral authority.”

Furthermore, once a church embraces environmentalism as its central mission, its authority suffers and even greater loss because the society considers the true authorities for ecology to be scientists, not church leaders. “The shift away from God towards nature inevitably leads to a world where the pronouncements of environmentalist experts trump those of the priesthood,” he explains. “It will be interesting to see what will remain of traditional religion as prophecy and revelation is displaced by computerised climate models.”

Christians do bear a responsibility to be good stewards of the earth. This is not an easy responsibility to bear in the confusing context of modern ecological debates. But the church of Jesus Christ bears the responsibility to be the steward of the Gospel above all other concerns. The temptation to turn to this-worldly concerns at the expense of spiritual concerns is very strong. Beyond this, human beings will worship either the Creator or the creation. When the authority of the Bible is undermined and confidence that we can know the Creator is compromised, the creation itself looms larger and larger as a central passion.

When a passion for seeing sinners converted to faith in Christ declines, a passion for converting people into environmentalists can appear as a replacement purpose and a culturally-attractive mission.

We should take note when a sociologist like Frank Furedi sees the picture so clearly. Why does he see what so many others miss? When a church forfeits its God-given mission, no other mission matters.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #21502]

Michael V. Fox doesn't believe that faith-based scholarship of the Bible is possible -- and he wants to see such scholars marginalized in the larger world of scholarship. In an essay posted at the Web site for the Society of Biblical Literature [SBL], Fox argues, “In my view, faith-based study has no place in academic scholarship, whether the object of study is the Bible, the Book of Mormon, or Homer. Faith-based study is a different realm of intellectual activity that can dip into Bible scholarship for its own purposes, but cannot contribute to it.”

That is a shocking claim, but Fox is simply asserting what many others in the academy have thought for a very long time. Even if the secularization of the larger academy is a FAIT ACCOMPLI, Fox and many others are concerned that the majority of scholars studying the Bible are believers of some sort, mostly Christians and Jews involved in the serious study of the Bible.

Fox teaches at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and he is unsparing in his denunciation of what he calls faith-based scholarship. In reality, what he means is that scholars who study the Bible as believers forfeit any claim to scholarship. Could there be any more telling evidence of what the secularization of the academy has wrought?

The naïveté of Fox's approach is self-evident, but he apparently fails to see that even an atheist brings a certain “faith” to the work of scholarship. As he sees it, Jewish scholars who would wish to publish academic research on the Old Testament are simply to be discounted because they may well believe in the existence of deity and may see the Old Testament writings as sacred. Beyond this, Christians are to be discounted wholesale, and Christians who engage in biblical scholarship are to be denied the status of scholars, regardless of which testament is their focus of study.

“Faith-based study of the Bible certainly has its place,” Fox concedes -- but those places are “synagogues, churches, and religious schools, where the Bible (and whatever other religious material one gives allegiance to) serves as a normative basis of moral inspiration or spiritual guidance.” His next statement serves as the theme for his entire essay: “This kind of study is certainly important, but it is not scholarship -- by which I mean WISSENSCHAFT, a term lacking in English that can apply to the humanities as well as the hard sciences, even if the modes and possibilities of verification in each are very different.”

Look carefully at Fox's next sentence: “Any discipline that deliberately imports extraneous, inviolable axioms into its work belongs to the realm of homiletics or spiritual enlightenment or moral guidance or whatnot, but not scholarship, whatever academic degrees its practitioners may hold.”

This is where Fox's own lack of intellectual honesty brings his argument to a standstill. Does he really believe that he, or anyone else for that matter, comes to the task of scholarship with absolutely no “extraneous” presuppositions? No, Fox concedes that “everyone has presuppositions and premises,” but he insists that, for scholars such as himself, “these are not inviolable.” He continues, “Indeed, it is the role of education to teach students how to recognize and rest their premises and, when necessary, to reject them.”

Of course, this simply begs the question. Why is the presumption of atheism any LESS inviolable than belief in Jesus Christ as Lord? In its own way, the same argument holds true for assertions of agnosticism, since the true agnostic argues that the question of God's existence simply cannot be answered. That is about as inviolable an axiom as one is likely to encounter.

Give Fox his due, he attempts to exclude believers from the academy with fair warning. “Faith-based Bible study is not part of scholarship even if some of its postulates turn out to be true.” Thus, even if the believing scholar makes a scholarly argument that non-believers find convincing, that work is still to be denied the status of scholarship, simply because the person is neither agnostic nor atheist.

Fox does attempt to distinguish between “faith-based Bible study” and “the scholarship of persons who hold a personal faith.” He explains, “there are many religious individuals whose scholarship is secular and who introduce their faith only in distinctly religious forums.” Nevertheless, Fox never really explains how these persons are anything other than secular in their scholarly conclusions. Does he believe that persons live in separate intellectual spheres and can operate as authentic believers in one sphere but not in any other?

Fox's frustration is clear: “There is an atmosphere abroad in academia (loosely associated with postmodernism) that tolerates and even encourages ideological scholarship and advocacy instruction. Some conservative religionists have picked this up. I have heard students, and read authors, who justify their biases by the rhetoric of postmodern self-indulgence. Since no one is viewpoint neutral and everyone has presuppositions, why exclude Christian presuppositions? Why allow the premise of errancy but not of inerrancy? Such sophistry can be picked apart, but the climate does favor it.”

Fox may dismiss these arguments as “sophistry,” but he never answers his own questions. Why should the premise of biblical errancy be considered ideologically neutral, but the assertion of biblical inerrancy is considered to be evidence of distorting bias?

“The claim of faith-based Bible study to a place at the academic table takes a toll on the entire field of Bible scholarship,” Fox laments. “The reader or student of Bible scholarship is likely to suspect (or hope) that the author or teacher is moving toward a predetermined conclusion. Those who choose a faith-based approach should realize that they cannot expect the attention of those who don't share their postulates. The reverse is not true.”

Get it? In Fox's scheme, the secularist wins the coin toss whichever side turns up. “The best thing for Bible appreciation is secular, academic, religiously-neutral hermeneutic.” That is an astounding claim, and one that demands a far more developed argument and series of definitions. Does Fox actually believe in the myth of a “secular, academic, religiously-neutral hermeneutic?” Does he believe in the Easter Bunny?

He cites with appreciation the work of Jacques Berlinerblau, who also argues for a secular hermeneutic. In a response to Fox's essay, Berlinerblau stated that he read Fox's essay “with appreciation and glee.” Berlinerblau, who teaches at Georgetown University and Hofstra University, is the author of THE SECULAR BIBLE: WHY NONBELIEVERS MUST TAKE RELIGION SERIOUSLY, published by Cambridge University Press. Berlinerblau congratulated Fox for calling “attention to a topic that is virtually taboo in biblical scholarship.”

Berlinerblau criticizes the world of biblical scholarship for its “demographic peculiarities,” most specifically the fact that the vast majority of Bible scholars are members of some church or synagogue. He sees this as historically understandable but academically unsustainable. “They continue to ignore the fact that the relation between their own religious commitments and their scholarly subject matter is wont to generate every imaginable conflict of intellectual interest,” Berlinerblau asserts. “Too, they still seem oblivious to how strange this state of affairs strikes their colleagues in the humanities and social sciences.” Significantly, Berlinerblau seems to understand that this imbalance is overwhelmingly in favor of the secularist. “Before this response begins to sound like the prelude to a class-action suit, permit me to observe that the type of discrimination encountered by secularists in biblical studies IS PRECISELY WHAT BELIEVERS WORKING IN THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES HAVE ENDURED FOR DECADES. The secular bent and bias of the American research university is well known. It is undeniable that many of its workers are prejudiced against sociologists, English professors, and art historians who are 'too' religious.”

But, back to believers engaged in biblical scholarship, Berlinerblau is concerned “by the degree to which explicitly confessional researchers sit on editorial boards of major journals, steering committees, search committees, and the hierarchy of the Society of Biblical Literature.”

In contrast to Michael V. Fox, Berlinerblau does not appreciate believers who attempt to compartmentalize their faith and their scholarship into separate worlds. “It is another category of Biblicists that, to my mind, is far more problematic” Berlinerblau explains. “It is comprised of researchers who in every facet of their private lives are practicing Jews or Christians but who -- somehow -- deny that this may influence their professional scholarly work (which just happens to concern those documents that are the fount of Judaism and Christianity!)”

Sounding slightly less alarmist than Fox, Berlinerblau warns of “a collective ideational drift in the field” of biblical studies -- “one that makes it difficult to think or speak about the Scripture in certain ways.”

Berlinerblau must be given credit for a finely-tuned sense of humor. Consider this paragraph: “Assume for a moment that you are an atheist exegete. Now please follow my instructions. Peruse the listings in OPENINGS [a listing of academic posts looking to be filled]. Understand that your unique skills and talents are of no interest to those institutions listed there with the words 'Saint' and 'Holy' and 'Theological' and 'Seminary' in their names. This leaves, per year, about two or three advertised posts in biblical studies at religiously un-chartered institutions of higher learning. Apply for those jobs. Get rejected. A few months later learn -- preferably while consuming donuts with a colleague -- that the position was filled by a graduate of a theological seminary. Realize that those on the search committee who made this choice all graduated from seminaries themselves. Curse the gods.”

In his indispensable work, THE SOUL OF THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, George M. Marsden explains how academia came to embrace this degree of secularism: “One way to describe the current state of affairs, however, is that, in effect, the only points of view that are allowed full academic credence are those that presuppose purely naturalistic worldviews. Advocates of postmodernist viewpoints have, as a rule, been just as committed to exclusively naturalist premises for understanding human belief and behavior as were their turn-of-the-century predecessors who established evolutionary naturalism as normative for academic life. One must wonder, however, whether there are adequate grounds for most academics to insist on naturalistic premises that ignore the possibility of fruitful religious perspectives.”

Evidently, Professor Fox needs to read Professor Marsden's book. Then again, I hold little hope that it would make much of a difference. If nothing else, Professor Fox's essay, published by the Society for Biblical Literature, indicates where the debate in those circles is headed.

All scholarship is based in some faith and deeply grounded in some set of presuppositions. For the vast majority of those engaged in academia today, that faith is some form of ideological secularism. Christian scholars should always be absolutely transparent and clear about their confessional commitments. As a matter of fact, this should be an absolute requirement of their confessional institutions. At the same time, we should never allow that those who hold alternative worldviews are any less ideologically or intellectually committed. The radical nature of Professor Fox's proposal indicates just how committed he is to his own faith -- and how blind he is to his own faith-based perspective. Watch this debate with interest -- it is not going away any time soon.