123 Sermon Illustrations on Liberalism

As summer simmers down, the DA VINCI CODE-fever is also mercifully breaking. I only wish that the curiosity that drove 40 million people to read Brown’s thriller would drive millions more to take up a more noble quest — a quest for VERITAS, or truth.

That’s a quest that Kelly Monroe Kullberg has been on since long before Dan Brown’s name became a household word. Kullberg’s real-life quest, detailed in her new book FINDING GOD BEYOND HARVARD, led her through the gates and archives of America’s Ivy League institutions in a search for truth. She found clues in Harvard’s wrought iron gates etched with a mysterious Latin phrase, CHRISTO ET ECCLESSIAE, “For Christ and the Church,” and among Princeton’s founding records and ancient seals, which bore the motto, VITAM MORTUIS REDDO, “I restore life to the dead.” Clues unfolded in Dartmouth’s Rollin Chapel where drywall covered over priceless stained-glass windows of a robed man, healing, hanging on a cross, emerging from a tomb.

Kullberg did not need a cryptologist to decipher the code. And unlike the DA VINCI CODE’S insinuations that there is a cover-up afoot in the Church, Kullberg found the real cover-up is happening in our universities, where academic elites are seeking to hide the fact that truth exists, that it is knowable, and that its foundation is Christ Himself.

Kelly discovered this cover-up firsthand when she enrolled in Harvard Divinity School. She writes: “I went to Harvard Divinity School expecting to be challenged by both secular and Christian professors, students, and a broad curriculum. But by the end of the orientation lunch, I gathered that I was not to speak of Jesus or the Bible without a tone of erudite cynicism. I quickly learned that subtle mockery trumped reason.... Ironically, everything was tolerated except that for which Harvard College was founded — IN CHRISTI GLORIAM — Jesus Christ’s glory.”

But thankfully for thousands of university students, Kelly didn’t adopt the attitude of the culture around her. Instead, the hush-hush about the name of Jesus moved her to dig deeper. What she found was that her search for Truth led her again and again, not to a thing, but to the person of Jesus Christ.

And so, what began as one student’s honest quest for truth led to a movement that is now on nearly fifty campuses. The Veritas Forum, which Kelly first organized on Harvard’s campus in 1992, encouraged students to ask the hard questions and gathered notable speakers, like Ravi Zacharias, who asked them too, with talks like, “Is Atheism Dead?” Today Veritas Forums are still pointing students to the Truth, a not-so-secret “code” emblazoned for nearly two centuries in Harvard’s school shield. That shield combined the school’s motto, VERITAS, with the name of Jesus, citing John 8:32, “If you hold to my teaching ... then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

So if you’re ready for a real page-turner, I’d encourage you to pick up Kelly Kullberg’s FINDING GOD BEYOND HARVARD and explore the clues that point to the most thrilling secret of all time: Christ is VERITAS, and you will be reminded that your job in life is to seek and defend that truth.

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Copyright (c) 2006 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Rob Renfroe, a minister at The Woodlands United Methodist Church near Houston, Texas, writes a very interesting article in the current issue of Good News magazine, published by the Good News Movement, a group of evangelical United Methodists. In “An Appeal to Leadership -- Listen and Lead,” Renfroe argues that the sexuality issues currently dividing his church point to far deeper differences.

He explains, “we do not believe that homosexuality is the issue that is dividing the church. That would be like saying that the primary issue facing a patient with a staff infection is his fever. I wish homosexuality was the issue that divided the church. It would be enough. But it’s not. The divide runs much deeper than our differences regarding sexual practice and it centers on four key issues.”

This is a keen insight. The issues related to sexuality point to more fundamental issues of biblical authority, the nature and character of God, and the meaning of the Gospel. Renfroe helpfully spells out the four key issues as he sees them.

First, “The nature of moral truth. Is moral truth determined by the unchanging character of God? Or is it determined by the ever-changing experiences of human beings?”

This is absolutely essential. If moral truth (as contrasted with our fallible moral judgments) is determined by our own changing experiences, then moral truth really does not exist. It is nothing more than mere social construction. In truth, righteousness is determined by God’s unchanging character -- as is sin.

Second, “The authority of the Scriptures. Do the Scriptures speak truth to all peoples in all cultures at all times? Or were they wrong when they were written, culturally determined in their declarations, and hopelessly out of date for persons enlightened by the truth contained in the last sociological surveys?”

Again, absolutely crucial. If the Bible is not a truly transcultural revelation from God, we have no authority for speaking to anyone outside of our own culture. Furthermore, we cannot apply the moral wisdom of an ancient people in an ancient age to our contemporary context. This leaves the church in a disastrous predicament, and silences the Bible.

Third, “The revelatory work of the Holy Spirit. Is the revelatory work always in accordance with the Scriptures? Or can the Spirit amend and even contradict the Scriptures?”

Renfroe’s expansion of this point is crucial to his argument:

Even the most conservative Christians believe that it is the

ongoing work of the Holy Spirit to illumine the Scriptures,

reveal more of its meaning, and show us how to apply the eternal

Word of God to the issues of our contemporary time and culture.

But liberals, at least the more radical ones, go much further

than that. They believe that the living Christ not only offers

new insights into the Scriptures, but that he also corrects,

amends, and even contradicts it. As one retired elder in our

annual conference said to me, “The church created the Scriptures

so we can recreate them.”

We now see some, even some claiming to be evangelicals, who claim that the Holy Spirit has led them to believe and to act in direct opposition to the Bible. This is an insult to the Bible and to the Holy Spirit. The assumption of individual autonomy, wedded to a radical concept of the Holy Spirit as a spiritual revolutionary, leads some to attempt to remake Christianity in their own image -- and then to claim that the Holy Spirit led them there.

Fourth, “The uniqueness of Christ. Do we confess him as the only-begotten Son of God, the unique Savior of the word, and the supreme Lord of the universe? Or can he be particularized to our experiences, relativized for a Western culture, and trivialized into just one of many ways to God?”

As Australian Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen claims, if we will not defend the plain teachings of the Bible on sexuality, we will not defend the Bible’s clear witness to the uniqueness of Christ. Rob Renfroe makes essentially the same point here. If the Bible’s teachings on sexuality are culturally relative, then so is its message about salvation -- and its witness to Christ. At this point, we then have no authority for knowing who Jesus Christ really is or why the question really matters.

Clarifying the issues is a first step toward answering the crucial questions. Rob Renfroe has done a commendable job of clarifying the issues that face not only his denomination, but all Christians today. All four of these points come down to biblical authority. There is just no way around it.

A couple of years ago I was being interviewed by a newspaper reporter on the subject of “gay marriage.” Somewhere in the midst of our conversation the discussion turned and the reporter said, “You have to admit that there are places in the Bible where Jesus comes across more like a tax and spend liberal who really wants to help the poor rather than a conservative who wants the disadvantaged to help themselves.”

“I don’t know any conservatives that are opposed to helping the poor,” I replied. “We just disagree with liberals on what is the best way to provide assistance to those in need.”

Over the next several minutes I explained that of all of the conservatives that I know, while they want to help those less fortunate than themselves, they do not believe government was the best vehicle to get the job done.

When it comes to government-run programs, I said, there seems to be a tremendous amount of waste. Not only that, but there is virtually no accountability. At best, most government programs are only placing a Band-Aid on the problem and, at worst, are only perpetuating the plight of the poor.

“An old adage states, ‘Give a man a fish and you have fed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you have fed him for life,’” I told the reporter. “The conservatives that I know want to teach people how to fish.”

The reporter’s perception of conservatives, specifically religious conservatives, as callous and uncaring toward the poor has been perpetuated by liberal politicians and their willing accomplices in the left-leaning media.

Conservatives have long been characterized as the Ebenezer Scrooges of society. When the phrase “compassionate conservatism” was first coined it was derided as oxymoronic. It was the liberal who was the champion of the poor and who really felt their pain.

A new book by Arthur C. Brooks not only challenges the stereotype that liberals are more compassionate and charitable, it obliterates it.

“For too long liberals have been claiming they are the most virtuous members of American society,” writes the Syracuse University professor. “Although they usually give less to charity, they have nevertheless lambasted conservatives for their callousness in the face of social injustice.”

In the book, “Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism,” Brooks uses comprehensive data to show that the values espoused by conservatives such as church involvement, traditional families, the Protestant work ethic and antipathy of government-funded social services, make conservatives more generous than liberals.

In fact, Brooks concludes that “conservatives who practice religion, live in traditional nuclear families and reject the notion that the government should engage in income redistribution are the most generous Americans, by any measure.”

And though conservative-headed households make slightly less money than liberals, Brooks found that “when you look at the data, it turns out the conservatives give about 30 percent more.”

“Conversely,” writes Brooks, “secular liberals who believe fervently in government entitlement programs give far less to charity. They want everyone’s tax dollars to support charitable causes and are reluctant to write checks to those causes, even when governments don’t provide them with enough money.”

In a recent special edition of the ABC news program “20/20,” titled “Cheap in America,” John Stossel discovered anecdotal evidence that supports Brooks’ findings. As an experiment, Stossel set up Salvation Army buckets outside retail outlets in two communities with contrasting demographics. The cities chosen were Sioux Falls, S.D. and San Francisco, Calif.

San Francisco is one on the most, if not the most, liberal city in America. Sioux Falls is very conservative. Stossel reported that San Franciscans, on average, make more money than their counterparts in Sioux Falls. He also noted that while half of the population in the South Dakota city attends church every week, only 14 percent of the residents in the City by the Bay do so.

Buckets were set up outside a Macy’s department store in San Francisco and a Wal-Mart in Sioux Falls. When the results were tallied, the South Dakotans had outgiven their left-coast counterparts two to one.

Stossel also pointed out that of the top 25 states where people give an above average amount of their income to charities or churches, 24 were red states in the last presidential election.

“If we look at party affiliation instead of ideology,” writes Brooks, “the story remains largely the same.” He continues, “If anything, it makes the political left look less charitable, not more so.

The Bible teaches that it is more blessed to give than to receive. It seems that compassionate conservatives actually practice what the Good Book preaches. Liberals, on the other hand, only preach. And their left-leaning message is “do as I say, not as I do.”

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Kelly Boggs is editor of the Louisiana Baptist Message.

Marcus Borg, soon to retire from his teaching post at Oregon State University, is described by Portland’s leading newspaper as “Oregon’s leading theologian.” Here is how THE OREGONIAN introduces a profile on Borg:

Oregon’s leading theologian walks his dog up and down the trendy

streets of the Pearl District. His neighbors know Henry, the

shaggy gray Glen of Imaal terrier, whose short legs set the pace.

But few recognize Marcus J. Borg, the graying guy in the wool

cap, as the spokesman for a different approach to Jesus Christ.

At 64, Borg is a public theologian and a private mystic. He

writes theological books, several of which have made best-seller

lists, and he reads murder mysteries. He was trained at Oxford

University, and he teaches at Oregon State. He lives in a

neighborhood overflowing with espresso, and he drinks Taster’s

Choice instant decaf.

Marcus Borg certainly is a “spokesman for a different approach to Jesus Christ. His approach, shared with other members of the “Jesus Seminar,” is to treat the New Testament writings, especially the Gospels, as multi-sourced, highly-edited, somewhat fictionalized renderings of Jesus. Borg’s Jesus is a decidedly non-supernatural figure who, though stripped of such supernatural trappings as miracles and bodily resurrection, remains a figure of compelling spiritual power.

From the article:

Borg talks, primarily, to three decidedly different groups: his

students, who are mostly undergraduates; his readers, who are

mostly Christians who question long-held beliefs about Jesus; and

his critics, who are mostly evangelical or orthodox Christians,

who confess their beliefs in familiar terms. Jesus was, the last

say, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin, suffered for

human sins, died, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven and

will come again.

Borg sees Jesus differently. As a historian and a biblical

scholar, Borg was a member of the Jesus Seminar, a scholarly

group that spent years evaluating the historical evidence of

Jesus’ life and sayings. Borg emerged from the process with

deeper faith in Jesus and a different understanding of Scripture.

Borg interprets the Bible and its descriptions of Jesus as a

mixture of memory and metaphor, better suited to preserving

meaning than as a list of beliefs fashioned by Jesus’ followers

into a list that Christians must believe.

So, Borg explains that he has a “deeper faith in Jesus” after rejecting the testimony about Jesus in the New Testament. His “different understanding of Scripture” meshes perfectly with his “different approach to Jesus Christ.”

All that is old news with regard to Professor Borg, but the Oregon paper also included this:

“For me, to believe a set of statements is impossible,” Borg

says. What is possible, he argues, is to “belove” Jesus and walk

in his path.

“For the past 300 years,” Borg says, “faith was a matter of

believing a list of beliefs about Jesus. The list varied among

Christians -- that Jesus was the son of God, that he was born of

a virgin, that the tomb was empty on Easter morning.

“But in the pre-modern world, before about 1600, the object of

belief was never a statement,” he says. “It was always a person.

To believe meant to belove a person.

“To belove Jesus means more than simply loving Jesus. It means

to love what Jesus loved. That is at the heart of Christianity.

This is a fascinating argument. Professor Borg argues that the church had, until about 300 years ago, understood that believing specific claims about Jesus was no big deal. It was only with the advent of modernity that, according to Borg, Christians began to associate Christianity with a set of necessary beliefs. Borg’s ideal is “beloving” rather than believing. As he explains, “For me, to believe a set of statements is impossible.”

That is a revealing statement, and it must explain Borg’s rather creative attempt to remake Christianity into something he can accept.

The problem, of course, is that Professor Borg’s argument falls flat on its face. The claim that the church has given central attention to specific truth claims and the priority of belief only in the last 300 years is so baseless that it can only be met with a mixture of intellectual embarrassment and wonder. Why would he make a claim that is so easily refuted by the facts?

The New Testament contains first century evidence that the church was incredibly concerned about specific beliefs -- down to theological details. Of course, those theological details are among the claims Professor Borg rejects, which is surely inconvenient for him. Just consider Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 10. The Apostle is insistent that the historical truthfulness of the claims concerning Christ, and the individual’s personal belief in those claims, are essential to our salvation. Beyond this, the New Testament includes several summary statements of belief, presented as the very foundation of the faith.

Furthermore, the early church struggled with which beliefs to take as central and essential. The church quickly understood the scriptural claims concerning Christ to be of utmost significance. Thus, the Council of Nicaea, held in A.D. 325, was called to settle a question of essential belief that came down to a single syllable. A question of belief threatened to tear the Empire apart.

The most venerable creed of the church, the Apostles Creed, begins with Credo -- I believe. There can be no question that Christianity requires the believer to follow Christ. But the believer is a believer because the believer believes certain truths concerning Jesus Christ.

Professor Borg wants to redefine the Christian faith so that it meets his expectations and preferences for the postmodern age. That has been tried before. What should cause him deep embarrassment is the claim that the church has been concerned with belief for only the last 300 years. That’s only about seventeen centuries off the mark.

In a recent New York Times column, David Brooks told a story that perfectly captured the divide between what I call “traditional conservatism” and liberalism — ”liberalism,” which historically is a good term, but has been perverted.

He quoted a report by a Harvard faculty committee, which read, “The aim of a liberal education ... is to unsettle presumptions, to defamiliarize the familiar ... [and] to disorient young people and to help them to find ways to reorient themselves . . .”

The report helps us understand why higher education has been corrupted, and why we are producing a generation of barbarians.

The language Brooks quotes goes far beyond teaching critical thinking or even encouraging students to, as the old bumper sticker used to say, “question authority.”

As Brooks rightly argues, the report describes “an entire way of living.” In this way of living, “individuals should ... be skeptical of preexisting arrangements ... break free from the way they were raised ... [and] discover their own values.”

This disregard for the past seems even natural in our day because, as Brooks notes, our cultural norms exalt the individual over the institution — so much so that appeals to things such as institutional memory are regarded as primitive.

Thus, we are increasingly unable to understand ideas such as those expressed by former Chicago Cub Ryne Sandberg at his induction into Baseball’s Hall of Fame. He spoke of the respect due the game, his teammates, opponents, and, most of all, those who had played the game before him.

If this brings to mind the biblical phrase “the great cloud of witnesses,” it should. What Brooks wrote about institutions is in accord with Christian ideas about the role and importance of tradition.

One of the best exponents of this was G.K. Chesterton. In his book ORTHODOXY, he wrote, “Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors.” And he wrote that “tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father.”

It’s not only respect for tradition that’s involved here — it’s prudence. These institutions and arrangements have helped to preserve the moral order, which is our first duty to maintain. They have been shaped by people who took into account the world as it is — filled with fallen human beings — instead of an imaginary utopia filled with perfectible people.

This respect is why true conservatism is a disposition, not an ideology. It doesn’t seek to reinvent man and his world — its concerns are about what T.S. Eliot called the “permanent things.”

In contrast, perverted modern liberalism, which includes many who call themselves “conservatives,” is about innovation, breaking from the past, upsetting the established order, and maximizing individual autonomy.

But this is precisely the worldview that has brought us to the economic crisis we face today. People of all stripes — bankers, bureaucrats, and John and Jane Q. Public — all cast off those stuffy old virtues like thrift, avoiding debt, delaying gratification, and they “reoriented” themselves and all of us into a global recession.

Whoever said worldview doesn’t matter?

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Copyright (c) 2009 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Not long ago, organised faith seemed to be on its last legs. Now it is again a force to be reckoned with.

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The return of ideology has taken us all by surprise, because no one expected it all to be about religion. Twenty years ago, when the Berlin Wall fell and it seemed reasonable to suppose that all the big questions about how to organise society had been solved by history, if you had asked what could possibly disrupt this progressive consensus, hardly anyone would have supposed that the answer had anything to do with God.

There may have been a few prescient pessimists who thought Islam would be an important and dangerous disruption on the forward march to the future - perhaps important and dangerous enough to need quelling with a few brisk, punitive expeditions - but even such pessimists could hardly have imagined the fiasco that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have turned out to be, nor 9/11 attacks and the widespread fear and loathing they have produced.

Nor could anyone have foreseen the emergence of the religious right as such a dominant force in American politics and its extraordinary takeover of the Republican party.

But now the Reaganite model of capitalism is collapsing around us, liberal democracy is no longer poised to take over the world but worrying about where and how it may survive - and the arguments about religion are back as fiercely as ever, and almost as popular. This is extraordinary. Communism would not have fallen in the way it did were it not for the passionate Roman Catholicism of the Poles, and even in the other countries of eastern Europe there were Christian groupings at the forefront of the revolutions of 1989: Lutherans in Germany, Calvinists in Romania. But these atavistic throwbacks, while they might have outlasted communism, seemed helpless against capitalism.

Sure enough, the Catholic church in Ireland imploded in scandals, and even in Poland lost much of its influence. The slow etiolation of liberal Protestantism continued. The simple message of hedonistic liberalism - there is probably no God; there is nothing to worry about; enjoy yourselves - seemed in the west entirely self-evident. The wierdos who didn’t know the enjoyment of this life was all one could hope for were clearly dying off and religion was no more than a “licensed insanity”, in the words of John Bowker, then dean of Trinity.

What changed? What brought us to the contemporary world, where millions of Muslims, Christians, atheists and Hindus understand the existence of infidels and heretics as an existential threat, against which almost any degree of violence is sometimes justified? The one thing that almost all intellectuals would now agree on is that other people’s theological and philosophical opinions threaten the continuation of human life, a belief unknown since the cold war. Of course, we all disagree about which beliefs are dangerous. Nor is there any accepted way to resolve these disagreements, or even to live with them.

Part of the answer to what changed is obviously Islam. Without the attacks of September 11, and before them the fatwa on Salman Rushdie, the idea that religion might be dangerous as well as wrong would not be nearly so widespread. But it is also, I think, related to a general realisation that, for whatever reason, the welfare states of western Europe have fallen far short of their original promise. Whether you blame Thatcherism or the 60s, it no longer seems self-evident that everyone will continue to get richer, less violent and better educated in the way that everyone took for granted in the years when churches were collapsing.

Marx said: “Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people... The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition that needs illusions.”

I agree, but what if we cannot give up the “condition that needs illusions”? What if the demand to give it up is itself as infantile a piece of wish-fulfilment as anything in anyone’s scriptures? The fear of these questions is surely part of the explanation for the hysterical and apocalyptic tone of some atheists.

Asking these questions doesn’t guarantee an answer, but they suddenly seem pressing, which guarantees that religion will continue its resurrection. That’s one reason for the paper’s new site, Comment is free: Belief, today.

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Andrew Brown is author of THE DARWIN WARS and editor of the Guardian’s new faith site at GUARDIAN.CO.UK/COMMENTISFREE/BELIEF

[An analysis of why so many liberal mainline pastors lose their faith and drop out of church after retiring.]

“Be merciful to those who doubt.” — Jude 22

I belong to a support group of seven retired Mainline clergypersons. Six of the seven no longer affirm historic, creedal, orthodox, traditional theology. The same six members of the group no longer actively participate in a congregation. If you do the math, that means 86% of my retired clergy group have, to a large degree, lost traditional faith and left institutional religion.

For a long time, I assumed this dynamic in my support group was an anomaly. Surely, I thought, this is not typical. So, several months ago, I decided to take an informal survey of retired clergy to help find out. I asked them two questions: “Do you still affirm traditional doctrines/theology? Why or why not? Are you still actively involved in a church? Why or why not?”

Before sharing the results of the survey, a significant disclaimer needs to be made. This was not a large or a scientific survey. Instead, it represents the responses of about 100 retired (almost all Mainline) clergy who read DoubtersParish.com, ProgressiveChristianity.org or Baptist News Global. In short, the responders to this survey already trend “liberal/progressive” theologically and ecclesiastically. Had I surveyed retired clergy from conservative evangelicalism, the results likely would have been significantly different.

With that important disclaimer, I’d like to share some of the findings of the survey. Overall, it identified the following three categories of retired clergypersons (with percentages):

Those who affirm traditional theology and participate in a church (19%)

Those who do not affirm traditional theology but participate in a church (40%)

Those who do not affirm traditional theology and do not participate in a church (41%)

Three major trends that surfaced in the survey will now be reviewed, followed by a tentative attempt to explain why so many retired clergy have lost traditional faith and left church.

A majority remain in church

Fifty-nine percent of the retired clergy who took this survey still participate in a local church. This includes clergy who retain traditional faith and those who do not. A few representative quotes from respondents follow:

“I am still active in a congregation. How can a good son abandon one’s mother?”

“I believe in the church, in the sense that we were never meant to go it alone in our faith.”

“I certainly don’t believe all that is preached from the pulpit but have stayed for the social connection.”

“I appreciate the mission work and the camaraderie. It is affirming for me.”

“I am actively involved in my church, partly because it has jettisoned dogma.”

“I go mostly because it is a communal activity in which I have participated all my life.”

“The church is where community can be found, care received and practiced, and prophetic voices can be heard. The church can be frustrating, but it’s also the place where I learned to love Jesus, my neighbors, the Bible’s story and the power of hope.”

A significant minority have left church

Although 59% of retired clergy who responded to this survey remain in church, 41% have left. For people who devoted decades of their lives to institutional religion, this seems like a large number. A few representative quotes from respondents follow:

“The church is not going to change. For example, the language used for worship is so gendered and theistic. When people ask me what I did before retiring, I tell them I am a retired pastor who no longer goes to church.”

“Today’s church has become a political pawn in the American culture. It has lost its voice and credibility in the world. Other cultures often see the American church as an instrument of imperialism.”

“Churches are prejudiced, racist, they don’t think, they are comfortable with 1950s understandings of the Bible and theology, and they spend almost all of their money on themselves.”

“The church has abandoned the example and teachings of Jesus for power, politics, money and the status quo.”

“My experience is that many churches continue to offer only white worship, white music and white liturgy, thus resembling a white country club that really doesn’t want to do any hands-on work with the least of these.”

“I found parish ministry to be very draining, and I’m still feeling the need to have my own well filled up with peace and beauty rather than theological squabbling, meetings, committee work and toxic relationships in troubled systems.”

“I’ve shoveled enough church crap to last a hundred lifetimes. I’m finished, and it’s absolutely liberating.”

A large majority no longer affirm traditional theology

The biggest surprise of this retired clergy survey, at least for me, is that 81% of the respondents no longer hold traditional (historic, creedal, orthodox) theology/doctrines. A few representative quotes from respondents follow:

“I no longer believe the doctrines of the church. Instead, I follow the life, teachings and example of Jesus.”

“I believe in a nontheistic God who is universal energy.”

“I am closer to the Jesus of The Jefferson Bible and the Jesus Seminar than to the Jesus of The Apostles’ Creed.”

“Sometimes I’m not sure if I still believe in God, but I’m sure I still believe in Jesus.”

“I no longer affirm the doctrines I learned in junior high Sunday school like heaven, hell, virgin birth, physical resurrection, ascension or the second coming.”

“I cannot reconcile reality with traditional doctrines, nor do they make logical sense anymore. Some of the traditional doctrines I find to be morally corrupt and inconsistent with a loving God.”

“I still possess a belief in God, but it is not bound by what lies in the formulated canon of Scripture.”

“Far more important than any creed or system of beliefs or principles is having a moral compass and great kindness.”

Why have so many retired clergy lost traditional faith and left church?

When 81% of retired clergy (who took this survey) have lost traditional faith, and 41% have left church, you cannot help but ask why. There’s no one definitive answer. For example, numerous respondents never affirmed traditional faith in the first place, especially those in the noncreedal, highly progressive United Church of Christ. But the primary explanation respondents gave for losing traditional faith and leaving church is that, as retired clergy, they now have the theological and ecclesiastical freedom to do so.

For example, when you are a professional minister, even if you are fed up with institutional religion, you obviously do not have the freedom to leave church. Retirement allows you, for the first time in a long time, to make a decision about your church participation.

As already noted, the majority choose to stay. After spending a lifetime working in church, most clergy want to remain connected to their life’s work. However, retired clergy who have grown disillusioned with institutional religion are now free to cut their ecclesiastical ties — and many do.

As one respondent said, “I am not involved in a church. Short version, I had enough. Retirement provides freedom not to.”

This freedom is even more pronounced when it comes to theology. For active clergy, not believing in traditional doctrines can create major crises on many levels. Therefore, most clergy attempt to avoid this painful reality, even if it requires not being fully forthright with themselves or their congregations.

However, once they are freed from vocational constraints, many of them come to the realization they no longer affirm traditional beliefs. Very few become atheists. However, many of them, like those in this survey, become far less orthodox.

As one respondent said, “Although I struggled with doubt my entire career, I convinced myself that I still believed in the core tenants of historic Christianity. But when I retired, I realized that I didn’t.”

While writing this article, I came upon a provocative quote by Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Although he was not specifically referring to religion or clergypersons, it certainly applies.

I don’t share this quote in a judgmental or cynical way. Instead, I share it to illustrate how difficult it is for doubting clergypersons to understand and admit (to themselves or others) that they have lost important tenants of their religion. Why? Because, as the quote suggests, losing those beliefs can result in the termination of your salary, which is no small matter.

But it goes much deeper than that. Losing faith also can lead to a loss of call, vocation, identity, community, purpose, meaning, reputation and even family relationships.

For someone with “Reverend” in front of their name, admitting he or she has lost faith feels overwhelmingly frightening and threatening. As a result, most clergy find a way to hang on to some semblance of faith, if only by their fingernails.

But when they retire, such fears and constraints dissipate, giving many of them the freedom to acknowledge (perhaps for the first time) that their faith has significantly strayed from traditional orthodoxy.

A case study

Let me share a specific example. A few weeks ago, I read a book by a clergyman narrating his struggle with doubt. I won’t go into many details, but he laid out numerous factors that led him to doubt his faith. They included the usual suspects (questions about the Bible, the problem of suffering, skepticism about a theistic God and a divine Christ, difficulty believing in supernaturalism, and the massive failures of institutional religion).

By this point in the book, most readers would expect to turn the page and discover he has given up on faith and resigned as a minister. Instead, the author makes a surprising shift. Instead of jettisoning his religion, he decided to take a “leap of faith” and “trust” Christianity. Given his massive doubts, I’m sure many readers felt a bit of whiplash.

However, his decision to retain faith despite debilitating doubts will not surprise most clergy. The cost of giving up his faith was too high a bar, the price too steep. He acknowledged as much when he admitted he could not bring himself to leave his vocation, which is all he knew and which he was good at. Nor could he bear to leave his denominational tribe and the community it provided. He also loathed to give up the spiritual comfort traditional faith offered him. So he found a way to keep faith alive, although just barely.

When I read his story, which was published 12 years ago, I thought to myself, “I bet his perspective changed when he retired.” My hunch proved correct. An online search revealed he recently retired. I then read several of his current blog posts. He no longer talks about “a leap of faith” or “trust” in God. Instead, he talks about his “slowly dissolving faith.” He clearly no longer believes in traditional Christianity, and he’s deeply frustrated with institutional religion.

I do not criticize this man for hanging on to a minimum of traditional faith while serving as a minister, only to let it go upon retirement. Instead, I can empathize with him. When we are still in the ministerial arena, it’s extraordinarily difficult to acknowledge our deepest doubts to ourselves, much less to others. The stakes are simply too high. Therefore, many doubting clergy — often subconsciously — defer and deny such threatening thoughts.

However, according to the participants of this survey, when we retire, and gain the theological and ecclesiastical freedom that accompanies it, our perspectives often change. And that, more than anything else, appears to be the primary reason so many thoughtful and well-educated clergy, upon their retirement, release (at least some) traditional faith, embrace (at least some) nontraditional faith, and rethink their relationship with institutional religion.

Michael Dowd argues that Christians should thank God for the New Atheists. A self-styled “evangelist” for evolution, Dowd recently preached a sermon in Oklahoma City in which he called for nothing less than a rejection of biblical Christianity and the embrace of a spirituality rooted in an embrace of evolution and a rejection of the supernatural.

A few weeks ago, a reporter called me for comment after Dowd had made a similar argument on his Web site, “ThankGodforEvolution.com.” In more recent days, Dowd has responded directly to my comments. Without doubt, his argument deserves a closer look.

In his 2007 book, THANK GOD FOR EVOLUTION, Dowd recounts that he, along with his wife, Connie Barlow, decided in 2002 to go on the road as “evolutionary evangelists.” As he explains, “We offer a view of our collective evolutionary journey that frees the imagination, touches the heart, and leaves people wanting more.” An ordained minister of the United Church of Christ and a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now Palmer Theological Seminary), Dowd now finds his passion in spreading his message of “the epic of evolution” or “the Great Story.”

In his book, Dowd makes clear his rejection of biblical Christianity. He rejects the notion of a personal God. To the contrary, his concept of God is more metaphorical than metaphysical. “When I say ‘God,’ I’m not talking about something or someone that can be believed in or not believed in,” he explains. “I’m talking about the Ultimate Wholeness of Reality, seen and unseen — the whole shebang — which is infinitely more than anything we can know, think, or imagine.”

He rejects the authority of Scripture and embraces scientific knowledge. “New truths no longer spring fully formed from the traditional founts of knowledge,” he asserts. “Rather, they are hatched and challenged in the public arena of science. This is the realm of PUBLIC REVELATION.”

Dowd rejects the biblical concepts of sin and forgiveness. “Let’s just say our sins and failings can be used as compost for new growth,” he offers.

Those who reject or resist the claims of naturalistic evolution hold to a “flat-earth faith.” The Bible, he insists, must give way to the “public revelation” of science.

In the book, Dowd claimed to bring science and religion together, though in the end the religion seems to be science itself.

Now, in his more recent offerings, Dowd is making waves by celebrating the rise of the “New Atheists” such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris. In his Oklahoma City message, he proclaimed his gratitude for the New Atheists, acknowledging “a huge shift” in his understanding of God.

He gushes that the New Atheists “have come to our rescue,” but that “rescue” is an escape from biblical Christianity, and even from any belief in the supernatural. In his view, the God of the Bible is neither believable nor good.

Confidence in the Bible is misplaced and dangerous, he insists: “Ancient, unchanged scriptural stories and doctrinal declarations are inadequate guidance for meeting modern challenges.”

The word “God,” he proposes, must be continually updated in light of scientific knowledge. The God portrayed in the Bible no longer makes sense. “God is not a person,” he avers, “God is a personification of one or more deeply significant dimensions of reality.”

Furthermore, the God of the Bible is immoral, he declares. Dowd describes the God of the Bible as “brutal, cruel, vindictive, and genocidal.” But, he claims, the New Atheists have now come to rescue us from such beliefs. “Few things are more important at this time in history than for religious peoples of all backgrounds and orientations to heed what the New Atheists are saying,” he chided.

The New Atheists, with their assertive and aggressive atheism, are true prophets who are forcing modern people to “get real” as they abandon biblical Christianity. Those enlightened by the New Atheists will “get their guidance from humanity’s common creation story and teach and preach the discoveries of science as God’s word.”

When asked by a reporter if Dowd’s views amount to heresy, I responded by saying that Dowd’s proposals actually give heresy a bad name. Heresies, I explained, are efforts to redefine the Christian faith in ways that are often subtle as well as toxic. There is no subtlety to Dowd’s total rejection of theism, the supernatural, and any belief in a personal God. His embrace of anti-supernaturalism is total and energetic.

In a response, Dowd expressed sympathy for my lamentable ignorance and backwardness. “But time marches on,” he warned. “Like it or not, believe it or not, evolution happens.”

In a telling sentence, Dowd revealed his near total animus to classical Christianity: “In an ever-evolving cosmos, ‘orthodoxy’ is a recipe for either extinction or irrelevance.”

“I certainly don’t expect Dr. Mohler and others like him to let go of mythic beliefs to embrace evidential knowledge,” he explained. “But I’m betting my life that his grandchildren (and theirs) will find Christianity 2.0 more appealing and soul-nourishing than Christianity 1.0.”

“Time, of course, will tell,” he concluded.

In his message, preached to three liberal churches in Oklahoma City, Dowd told of the day in September of 2009 that he learned he had an aggressive form of cancer. “If I have only one message left to communicate to the world, what would it be?” he wondered. His answer: “Preach the New Atheists as God’s prophets.”

I regret to learn of Michael Dowd’s cancer, but my concern for him is far more urgently focused on his malignant beliefs. In his own very effective way, Dowd clarifies the theological and biblical costs of embracing the evolutionary worldview. In describing himself as an evolutionary evangelist, he underlines the fervor of his cause and the inevitable collision between evolutionary theory and biblical Christianity. In sharing his sense that preaching the New Atheists as the prophets of God is his supreme calling, he points us to what is ultimately at stake.

We are engaged in a great battle for ideas that Christians understand to be a battle for hearts, minds, and souls. Dowd and his fellow evangelists for evolution are certain that they own the future, and that biblical Christianity will simply fade and disappear. “Ours is a time of space telescopes, electron microscopes, supercomputers, and the worldwide web,” he asserts. His conclusion: “This is not a time for parsing the lessons given to a few goatherds, tentmakers, and camel drivers.”

Well, give Michael Dowd credit for reminding us where the rejection of biblical Christianity inevitably leads.

________

Mohler's original title was "Thank God for the New Atheists?"

________

Michael Dowd, “Thank God for the New Atheists!,” A message delivered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, August 1-7, 2010. Text available at

Michael Dowd, “GIVING HERESY A BAD NAME!,” THE EVOLUTIONARY EVANGELIST, August 8, 2010.

Michael Dowd, THANK GOD FOR EVOLUTION: HOW THE MARRIAGE OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION WILL TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE AND OUR WORLD, Plume, 2007.

For my book on the New Atheists, see ATHEISM REMIX: A CHRISTIAN CONFRONTS THE NEW ATHEISM, Crossway, 2008.

The Christian Century, the venerable voice of liberal Protestantism, juxtaposed two significant obituaries in its August 23, 2011 edition — and both on the same page. The magazine published a respectful obituary of evangelical titan John R. W. Stott, identifying him as “a renowned and prolific author credited with shaping 20th-century evangelical Christianity.” After reviewing his 90 years of life and ministry, the magazine quoted S. Douglas Birdsall of the Lausanne Movement, who described Stott in this way: “The church was his great love. World evangelism was his passion. Scripture was his authority. Heaven was his hope. Now it is his home.”

The magazine’s other obituary marked the death of Gordon Kaufman, a professor of theology at the Harvard Divinity School for more than three decades, who died at age 86. Kaufman, the magazine reported, “had a profound influence on rethinking theology in naturalistic terms, arguing for a vision of God as the ‘profound mystery of creativity.’” Kaufman influenced generations of liberal theologians through his writings and teaching, serving as president of both the American Theological Society and the American Academy of Religion.

As a seminary student, I was assigned to read Kaufman’s 1972 work, God the Problem, a book that set forth Kaufman’s effort to bring Christian theology in line with modern thought. A frustrated seminary student in my class posted a sarcastic cartoon on the classroom wall, with the cover of Kaufman’s book changed from God the Problem by Gordon Kaufman to Gordon Kaufman the Problem by God.

The book is nothing less than a treatise for a purely secular theology. The entire concept of God, he wrote, “is problematical to men in many different senses and ways.” As he explained:

For the Judeo-Christian tradition, God has been the primary and fundamental reality with reference to which all of life — indeed all of creation — was oriented and understood. To our modern empirical, secular, and pragmatic temper, however, it has seemed increasingly dubious, ever since the Enlightenment, whether it is necessary or even reasonable to believe in such a transcendent Reality; human life can be adequately understood as an emergent from evolving nature, and the meaning of human existence can be found in the cultural values produced by man’s creative genius and the social interaction of which love is the profoundest form. Is not talk about God simply a vestige of earlier stages of man’s historical development which, however appropriate and necessary in its own time, is no longer relevant or useful in ours?

Kaufman argued that an entire array of intellectual problems made belief in a personal God impossible on modern terms. Human beings now consider themselves autonomous and belief in God “raises serious problems for man’s sense of moral autonomy.” He went so far as to argue that belief in God might be “in itself morally dubious.”

On the other hand, even the most secular among us have a hard time letting go of God entirely. Modern humanity cannot believe in the God of the Bible, he insisted, but we still require some intellectual referent that can be called “God.” Kaufman’s answer to this problem was to construct a notion of God as symbol. Having rejected the idea of a God who objectively exists or a personal God who engages his creatures, Kaufman argued that the human imagination is the proper source for a doctrine of God.

Devising a naturalistic doctrine of God was just practical, Kaufman argued. Since human beings seem to need a God as referent, humans should just construct a symbolic reality to meet their need for moral validation and the sense that life is meaningful. Of course, those who construct a concept of God as mere symbol know that they are doing so, and their references to God are more poetic than anything else.

Some of Kaufman’s theological colleagues criticized his use of the word “God” in this sense as confusing — and understandably so. If God is nothing more than “a construction of the human imagination,” then why use the word at all?

In one of his last books, God-Mystery-Diversity, Kaufman took a shot at conservative Christian theologians:

Conservatives may still wish to maintain that it is possible and necessary to give an authoritative and binding definition of Christian beliefs and praxis, and that theologians should proceed on that basis, but such positions express a kind of romanticism about how things used to be. History has moved Christian faith beyond that sort of possibility, willy-nilly, and theologies alert to their own historical situatedness can no longer proceed easily on such assumptions. Theologians can no longer take it for granted that there is a fixed body of beliefs simply to be interpreted and explained. On the contrary, a major task for theologians today is to ascertain just which beliefs and concepts inherited from tradition are still viable, and to determine in what ways they should be reconstructed so they will continue to serve human intellectual and religious needs.

This is where the revisionist methodology of liberal theology inevitably leads. Doctrines are no longer considered to be true statements of fact, but only reflections of “human intellectual and religious needs.” Since these needs are supposedly changing over time, doctrines must change as well. God is just a symbol, and doctrines are symbolic as well.

In their own ways, Gordon Kaufman and John Stott represent the stark alternatives that face the Christian theologian today. We will either embrace a theology established upon the knowledge of the self-revealing God of the Bible, or we will see theology as a project to be developed by the human imagination. We will choose between the affirmation of the triune God of the Bible or the claim that God is merely a symbol.

In other words, the obituaries of Gordon Kaufman and John Stott represent more than footnotes in Christian history. These were men who represented two very different and irreconcilable understandings of God, theology, and the Christian faith.

Their obituaries may have been published side by side, but — in the truest sense — Gordon Kaufman and John Stott were never on the same page.

________

John Dart, “Liberal Theologian, Mentor, Gordon Kaufman Dies at 86,” The Christian Century, August 23, 2011, p. 17.

Adelle Banks, “John Stott, 90, Was Major Shaper of Evangelicalism,” The Christian Century, August 23, 2011, p. 17.

Gordon Kaufman, God the Problem (Harvard University Press, 1972).

Gordon Kaufman, God-Mystery-Diversity: Christianity in a Pluralistic World (Fortress Press, 1996).

Theologians of all ideological stripes agree Walter Rauschenbusch was a key figure in 20th-century Baptist history and that his 1917 book “A Theology for the Social Gospel” marked an important juncture in the social gospel tradition.

But students of theology are divided 100 years later on whether Rauschenbusch (1861-1918) should be remembered as a friend or foe of evangelism and sound doctrine.

“Walter Rauschenbusch was born into a long line of pastors,” said Lloyd Harsch, professor of church history and Baptist studies at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. “His father was the first to become a Baptist. While in his late 20s and early 30s, Walter served for more than a decade as pastor of Second German Baptist Church which was located in the destitute, crime-ridden area of Hell’s Kitchen in New York City.

“It was in this context that Walter came to the conclusion that his evangelistic efforts needed to include concern for the social issues affecting the neighborhood,” Harsch told Baptist Press in written comments. “Eventually, the social concern came to dominate his ministry. Rauschenbusch reminds us that even worthy issues pursued with the best of intentions can eventually distract us, drawing us away from the important task of sharing the Gospel with those around us.”

Published amid the early 20th century’s social gospel movement -- which sought to apply Christian principles to social problems like poverty, alcoholism and racial tensions -- “A Theology for the Social Gospel” argued the “old message of salvation” must be “enlarged and intensified” to address social ills.

“The individualistic gospel,” Rauschenbusch wrote, “has taught us to see the sinfulness of every human heart and has inspired us with faith in the willingness and power of God to save every soul that comes to him. But it has not given us an adequate understanding of the sinfulness of the social order and its share in the sins of all individuals within it.

“...The social gospel seeks to bring men under repentance for their collective sins and to create a more sensible and more modern conscience,” wrote Rauschenbusch, who left the pastorate in 1897 to teach at Rochester Theological Seminary in upstate New York.

In developing a theology to support the social gospel movement, Rauschenbusch critiqued historic formulations of some Christian doctrines.

He argued, for example, that the doctrine of biblical inspiration should acknowledge “the human frailty and liability to error” of the biblical authors. The idea Jesus’ death was a “substitution” and that He bore God’s wrath toward sinful humans, Rauschenbusch wrote, was among a collection of “post-biblical ideas” that were “alien to the spirit of the Gospel.”

Still, his emphasis on the need for Christianity to address social problems led Rauschenbusch to “a national acclaim rarely accorded seminary professors,” wrote Rauschenbusch biographer Paul Minus.

Neoorthodox theologian H. Richard Niebuhr wrote in “The Kingdom of God in America” that Rauschenbusch “continued to speak the language of the prophets and St. Paul.” Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in 1960 that Rauschenbusch “left an indelible imprint on my thinking.”

Among Southern Baptists, former Southern Baptist Theological Seminary ethics professor Henlee Barnette classified Rauschenbusch in a 1968 sermon as among the “three great prophets” America had produced. The other two, Barnette said, were King and Abraham Lincoln.

Yet Rauschenbusch also drew criticism. In the mid-20th century, neoorthodox theologians like Niebuhr “declared his optimism excessive and certain doctrines deficient,” Minus wrote. King was among those who agreed with that critique.

Southern Baptists who admired Rauschenbusch knew mentioning him in some settings could alienate theologically conservative believers. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary ethics professor T.B. Maston, a noted civil rights advocate who was influenced by Rauschenbusch, said in his 1973 oral memoirs that he counseled seminary students to avoid referencing the social gospel in Southern Baptist churches.

Using the word “social,” Maston said, “arouses some opposition on the part of some people to what you’re trying to do.”

Barnette similarly wrote in his 2004 memoir “My Story” that “Southern Baptists had a phobia about the term” social gospel and about Rauschenbusch -- “the father of the social gospel.”

That reticence about the social gospel tradition manifested itself when the Baptist General Convention of Texas established a commission in 1950 to address social issues.

Convention leaders called the new commission the Christian Life Commission rather than follow the Southern Baptist Convention’s lead, which had named its commission charged with cultural engagement the Social Service Commission. Texas Baptists felt a reference to the “social” gospel tradition of Rauschenbusch could undermine support for the new commission, former Texas CLC executive secretary A.C. Miller said in his 1972 oral memoir.

In 1953, the SBC’s Social Service Commission followed Texas Baptists’ lead and changed its name to the Christian Life Commission. Four decades later, the CLC became the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

Despite the varying assessments of Rauschenbusch, church historians at SBC seminaries agree a century later that he rightly urged Christians to apply Scripture to social issues and that his work should be remembered.

Keith Harper, senior professor of Baptist studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, told Baptist Press Rauschenbusch “engaged the social, cultural and economic issues of his day.”

The major festivals of the Christian year often prompt major cover stories in the nation’s weekly news magazines. Time, Newsweek, and US News & World Report all regularly feature major articles timed for Christmas and Easter. The days of these cover articles may soon be over, however, since US News & World Report is no longer publishing a print edition, and Newsweek’s final print edition will be dated December 31, 2012.

In years past, these cover articles had featured the work of reporters who interviewed a range of scholars and authorities from several theological perspectives. More recently, both Time and Newsweek have instead featured essays written by a single author.

Timed for this Christmas, Newsweek just released a cover essay by Bart D. Ehrman, who is well-known for his belief that the New Testament is largely historical fiction. “Who is Jesus?” is the question on the cover. “The Myths of Jesus” is the headline on the essay itself. Newsweek’s agenda is clear, and it has chosen to feature a cover article denying the historical basis of Christmas as one of its last print editions.

Ehrman begins, predictably, by reviewing the controversy concerning the so-called “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” that emerged earlier this year when Professor Karen King of Harvard University claimed a tiny papyrus fragment to be a monumental discovery. Even as she insisted that the fragment did not prove in any sense that Jesus had a wife, she fueled the confusion in carefully-staged media appearances in which she referred to the fragment as “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.”

A professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Ehrman’s academic specialization is in the history of the New Testament and its times. As such, he dismissed the papyrus fragment as either irrelevant or a hoax. He writes, “As it turns out, most experts on early Christianity have come to think the fragment is a hoax, a forgery produced in recent years by an amateur who, unlike King and scholars of her stature, was not well versed in the niceties of Coptic grammar and so was unable to cover up the traces of his own deceit.”

A close look at that statement reveals a strong critique of Professor King who, according to Ehrman’s logic, should have been able to detect problems with a papyrus fragment probably manufactured by an amateur.

Ehrman cites that controversy, however, in order to make the point that there were hundreds of “proto-gospels” about Jesus floating about in the first few centuries of the Christian church, and that much of what modern people think they know about Christmas is actually not to be found in the New Testament.

He rightly states:

“As Christians around the world now prepare to celebrate Jesus’ birth, it is worth considering that much of the ‘common knowledge’ about the babe in Bethlehem cannot be found in any scriptural authority, but is either a modern myth or based on Gospel accounts from outside the sacred bounds of Christian Scripture.”

Of course, that is profoundly true. The New Testament tells us that Jesus was born in unusual circumstances and placed in a manger because “there was no room in the inn.” There is no innkeeper in the New Testament, however. There is no record of the number of the magi, no reference to December 25 as the date of Christ’s birth, and no mention of barnyard animals, much less a little drummer boy.

Beyond these rather familiar issues, Ehrman also points to a host of claims about Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the larger Christmas story that amount to “legends and fabrications” that are rightly recognized as implausible and untrue.

Ehrman then turns to press his case on the New Testament itself. After reviewing a number of traditions and non-biblical accounts he asks, “Are the stories about Jesus’ birth that are in the New Testament any less unbelievable?”

He then says that the answer to that question “depends on whom you ask.” To leave no doubt, Ehrman answers the question directly in his essay. The New Testament writings “are not historically reliable descriptions of what really happened when Jesus was born,” he asserts.

Ehrman juxtaposes those who are “interested in affirming the narratives of Scripture” and those who are more interested in “knowing what actually happened in the past.”

He then explains:

“And there is indeed a very wide swath of scholars — Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, agnostic, and others — who have a very different view of the accounts of Jesus’ birth in the New Testament and who realize that there are problems with the traditional stories as they are recounted for us in Matthew and Luke, the only two Gospels that contain infancy narratives. However valuable these writings may be for theological reflection on the meaning and importance of Jesus — and why should anyone deny that they are tremendously valuable for that? — they are not the sorts of historical sources that we might hope for if we are seriously engaged in trying to reconstruct the events of history.”

In other words, Ehrman argues that Matthew and Luke simply can’t be trusted to convey historical truth. He points to what he insists are inconsistencies and erroneous historical claims, arguing that though some attempt to explain these questions in an attempt to affirm the veracity of the gospels, it is better just to abandon them altogether if you are “seriously engaged in trying to reconstruct the events of history.”

Just as a practical matter, a reading of Bart Ehrman’s many books, along with similar efforts, reveals that those who claim to abandon the New Testament in order to “reconstruct the events of history” find themselves coming back to the New Testament again and again. The reason for this is simple — there are no comparable sources.

Ehrman reveals his real agenda in the sentence that follows his denial of the historical truthfulness of the New Testament. He asserts, “For some Christian believers that is a problem; for others, it is a liberation, as it frees the believer from having to base faith on the uncertainties provided by the imperfect historical record and the fallible historians who study it.”

In Ehrman’s view, liberation comes in freeing the believer from a faith based in the claims of the New Testament, or in any historical record, for that matter.

The interesting point about Ehrman’s proposed path of liberation for Christian believers is the fact that Ehrman is himself no longer a believer. He was once a conservative evangelical, but now describes himself as an agnostic who has left the church.

Like many others, Ehrman tries to argue that the New Testament is still useful for “theological reflection on the meaning and importance of Jesus.” He asks, “And why should anyone deny that they are tremendously valuable for that?.”

But the New Testament does not present itself merely for the purpose of theological reflection. It makes unvarnished historical claims and direct statements of fact. Ehrman attempts to sideswipe this truth, stating that the New Testament contains writings identified as “gospels” rather than “histories.” But the word “history” in that sense is a fairly modern invention. The gospels do contain interpretation and theological elaboration, but all four gospels, including Matthew and Luke, contain explicit and pervasive historical material — the bedrock historical claims of Christianity itself.

Christianity stands or falls on the truth concerning Jesus, and thus it also stands or falls on the authority and truthfulness of the Bible. What you believe about historical truth defines what you believe about Jesus Christ. Without the revealed truths of the New Testament, there is no Christianity, just superstitions and fantasies about Jesus.

Interestingly, Bart Ehrman does believe that Jesus existed. In a recent book he debunks those who dismiss all claims about Christ as mere myth. He believes Jesus to have been a Jewish apocalyptic prophet, but not God incarnate in human flesh.

The cover article in the magazine, timed for maximum publicity at Christmas, was a premeditated act. Securing Bart Ehrman to write the essay set the course, and the cover art is intended to sell the magazine.

So, in the waning days of Newsweek as a print magazine, the editors decided to take on the New Testament. Readers should note carefully that it is Newsweek, and not the New Testament, that is going out of print.

________

Bart D. Ehrman, “What Do We Really Know About Jesus?,” Newsweek, Monday, December 17, 2012. http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/12/09/what-do-we-really-know-about-jesus.html

R. Albert Mohler, Jr., “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife? When Sensationalism Masquerades as Scholarship,” Thursday, September 20, 2012. http://www.albertmohler.com/2012/09/20/the-gospel-of-jesuss-wife-when-sensationalism-masquerades-as-scholarship/

The United Kingdom government has outlined some of the details of its proposed conversion therapy ban and, to say the least, they are interesting. For those who wish to engage you can have your say on their equality hub, and I hope that many church leaders will because this law has the potential to be a real trojan horse for discrimination and abuse.

In a nutshell, the government is proposing legislation:

targeting physical acts conducted in the name of conversion therapy

targeting talking conversion therapy with a new criminal offence; and

producing a package of holistic measures, such as conversion therapy protection orders, new support for victims, restricting promotion, removing profit streams, and strengthening the case for disqualification from holding a senior role in a charity.

To some it seems pretty draconian – although it does all depend on what you mean by conversion therapy. After all, would anyone argue against banning physical coercion? But to others it is far too weak.

From a Christian perspective there are three interesting observations.

1. The proposed legislation includes conversion to transgenderism

In a surprising development the government minister, Liz Truss, has declared that it will include seeking to ‘convert’ someone to transgenderism: “The proposed protections are universal: an attempt to change a person from being attracted to the same-sex to being attracted to the opposite-sex, or from not being transgender to being transgender, will be treated in the same way as the reverse scenario. They therefore protect everyone.”

This is logical - but with potentially interesting consequences. I think of the teacher who advised a depressed young teenage man that he could be ‘trapped in the wrong body’. Would this teacher fall foul of this law? Or what if someone tried to persuade a teenager that they might want to change their sexuality and asked something like ‘why don’t you experiment with your sexuality?’. Could they potentially be breaking the law?

Pink News is not happy. It writes, “The idea that children are being coerced into ‘becoming’ trans is a popular anti-trans talking point, a myth which suggests that affirming trans and gender non-conforming kids will cause them to be trans when they otherwise would not have been.”

But that’s their standard. It’s so strange that in their world there are thousands of gay teenagers who are being damaged by being ‘coerced’ into changing their sexuality, but it’s a ‘myth’ to suggest that young people can be led into changing their gender!

Yet the evidence is that social contagion, peer pressure and ‘counselling’ can cause considerable harm. There are numerous lawsuits coming down the line from adults who now want to detransition and feel that they were misled as teenagers. There is little doubt that the harm caused by the trans ideologues far outweighs anything done through any other conversion therapy.

2. The proposed laws do not ban prayer or private speech

“To be clear: talking conversion therapy could not be reasonably understood to include communication such as casual conversations, exchanges of views, private prayer or pure speech acts,” the government says.

Peter Tatchell was disappointed. He tweeted: “The UK government’s proposed LGBT+ conversion therapy ban has loopholes. It allows adults to consent and churches to pray in certain circumstances. We await the final details. Until then, the battle goes on. #StopDithering.”

Imagine allowing churches to pray!

The formerly evangelical minister, Steve Chalke, agreed that this was dangerous.

“There’s a lethal loophole in the proposed ban on Conversion Therapy. It leaves room for adults to give ‘informed consent’ to religious groups for help with ‘unwanted same sex attraction’, so can’t protect LGBT+ people already brainwashed into believing their sexuality is ‘a sin’!” he wrote on Twitter.

Although Chalke is not noted for his understatement, claiming that allowing individuals to pray with people is ‘lethal’ is, even by his standards, somewhat over the top!

Jayne Ozanne, another former evangelical who describes herself as a conversion therapy ‘survivor’ was just as condemnatory. She told Pink News: “The consultation document makes little mention of the harm that religious practices are known to cause, nor does it recognise that the government’s own research has shown that these form the majority of such practices.”

It appears as though Ozanne and Chalke will not be happy until churches which uphold biblical standards on marriage, humanity and sexuality are prosecuted for daring to teach what the Bible teaches. It is quite extraordinary that it is not the militant secularists but some professing Christians who are pushing the government to persecute those who are supposed to be their brothers and sisters!

3. Consent is no longer the absolute of progressive society

You will have noticed in the earlier Tatchell quote how he objects to the idea of adults being able to consent to conversion therapy. It used to be the mantra that what consenting adults do on their own is nobody else’s business. But in the marketplace of progressive idols, autonomy is now trumped by sexual ideology. Campaigners say that no one can freely consent to psychological harm. And of course, they are the ones who will determine what psychological harm is.

The argument goes: “Saying you can consent to conversion therapy is like saying you’re consenting to robbery when you hand over your money because you’re terrified of being assaulted if you don’t.”

The whole issue of ‘consent’ is fascinating. To what extent, for example, can we say that people ‘consent’ to vaccinations when they are threatened with not being able to travel, visit many places, or even go to church?

It’s interesting that progressives are now admitting that consent is a mixed term. There is a sense in which their new attitude is more realistic and biblical. Some of the Jews who heard Jesus offer to set them free were confused and upset, and instead argued that their very identity made them free. But Jesus pointed out that everyone who sins is a slave to sin (John 8:31-34).

We do not have that radical autonomy. We are not in control. But we do have the right and the ability to ask for help from our fellow humans, and from the Lord. The proposed Bill seems to at least preserve that in civil law - although no serious Christian would be prepared to hand that right over to a secular government. We ultimately answer to God, not to them.

Once governments grasp the limitations of their power, they will stop trying to make rules which control every aspect of our lives. ‘Know the truth and the truth will make you free’ is a word for all in today’s increasingly bound society.

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David Robertson works as an evangelist with churches in Sydney, Australia