1 John 2 and Regeneration

I have been deeply and profoundly drawn to how important and yet how neglected the doctrine of regeneration is to the church. I think a lot of the confusion over eternal security or the preservation of the saints has to do with not correctly understanding what happens in regeneration and this in turn skews our understanding of the church. Being born-again or regenerate is not something that we drift in and out of depending on the day. When one is born-again, you become a new creation in Christ:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17

A new creation. Not a change in attitude but a change in nature, in substance. Where once there was a dead in sins and trespasses enemy of God with a heart of stone there is now after regeneration a new creature, a brand new creation just as the universe was once a new creation, a living, breathing child of God with a heart of flesh with the law of God written upon it. I don't want to get too deeply into this question because it is too complex for a quick note like this. However I was watching John Piper's take on 1 John 2:18-19 and I thought it was worth watching and passing on to others. As a reminder the verses in question say this:

Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. 1 John 2:18-19

As Piper points out, one can be part of the visible church and yet leave but that is not because their regeneration has been undone but rather because they were never one of us to begin with. Taken together with John's Gospel account I think John (the apostle, not Piper) paints a picture of the perseverance of the saints that answers the question of how we are held safe by Christ (being a new creation after being born-again, held in the omnipotent power of God, ex. John 10:28) as well as why it seems sometimes that people we thought were Christians turned out to not have been truly born-again in the first place. Here is the video, give it a watch because I think this sort of deep diving on a verse and drawing from it the doctrines that it portrays is very important to understanding the bigger picture...

Why Go To Seminary For A Denomination That Won't Exist In Ten Years?

The Gospel Coalition had an interesting look at the largest seminary programs in America, Why We Should Be Grateful for Flourishing Evangelical Seminaries. No surprise to me, the top ten list is mostly conservative and contains all six of the Southern Baptist Convention seminaries, with Southern Seminary headed by Al Mohler in the second overall spot, behind only venerable Fuller Theological Seminary. Also little surprise that the bottom of the list is a who's who of liberal and dying denominations:

Among the smallest accredited Protestant seminaries in the nation are three Episcopal seminaries: Bexley Hall Seabury-Western Theological Seminary Federation with 17 full-time students enrolled, General Theological Seminary with 34 full-time students, and Episcopal Divinity School with 35 full-time students. IRD’s Jeffrey Walton reported Episcopal Divinity School will no longer grant degrees after the coming academic school year. “A menu of recycled 1960s-era liberation theology themes garnished with radical sexuality and gender studies proved unappealing to prospective seminarians,” Walton noted. 

Meanwhile, it’s two Cooperative Baptist Fellowship-associated seminaries that reveal another interesting contrast among evangelical institutions. Unlike the chart-topping conservative SBC-affiliated seminaries, the more liberal CBF-affiliated Baptist Theological Seminary of Richmond counted 42 full-time students and Baptist Seminary of Kentucky had only 31 full-time students in 2015-16.

It is not a stretch to say that the Episcopal Church here in America is on life-support, stumbling forward by sheer historical inertia and I am quite serious that ten years from now I doubt that the Episcopal Church will even exist as a meaningful organization. I would not be surprised to see them joined in the ash heap of religious history by the United Methodists (a huge group so it might take longer), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Mennonite Church - USA, not to mention many other smaller groups. Schism is already devastating the ranks of the above denominations and nothing happening currently would lead me to believe that will change. Quite the contrary, many leaders of the groups above are doubling down on embracing heterodoxy in a breakneck race to the doctrinal bottom. It turns out that when it comes to something like the nature of man, the existence of God and what eternity holds, people are more interested in being among other people who seem serious about the topics, rather than the social justice/progressive agenda dressed up in religious finery. The dying seminaries and denominations listened to the voices that said their survival was dependent on going wherever the broader worldly culture takes them and even when that has been proven disastrous,  the battle cry is still "If we only will compromise on one more doctrine, then the world will love us, our churches will fill back up and our seminaries will swell with new students!". With each new compromise these denominations lose more and more members. Will the last Episcopalian left please turn out lights?

I am glad to see the larger conservative schools, especially Southern, relatively thriving amidst a culture growing ever more hostile to the Gospel. Whatever my feelings about a religious vocational school degree being a pre-requisite for many leadership positions in the church, you can't discount the academic work being done at these schools. Conservative seminaries like Southern, Westminster Calfornia. Reformed Theological Seminary, etc. are doing a lot of the heavy lifting in theological questions and I appreciate their scholarship and dedication.

Remember kids, when someone tells you the only way to survive is to deny everything that makes you who you are, they are probably speaking nonsense.

Wait A Second, Which Woman Is Trump Again?

I posted about this on Facebook and I am surprised that very few people know about it. Maybe we are so numb to foolishness coming from Christian public figures that we stopped paying attention a long time ago. Anyway, on Thursday morning last week I was driving around and had NPR on. That in itself is noteworthy. I used to always listen to Morning Edition on my way to work and All Things Considered on my way home. It was clearly deeply liberal but if you knew that ahead of time you could still get some edification out of their in-depth stories. Not anymore. You really are pressed to find a story that is not a) claiming "climate change" is the root cause of every problem in the world, b) breathlessly praising homosexuality or c) some iteration of "Black Lives Matter" propaganda. A really good NOT story includes all three. But I was out in the middle of nowhere Kentucky so I was listening to Morning Edition and the story that stuck with me was: Ted Cruz Delegate Will Loyally Favor Trump; Falwell On Why He Backs Trump. The second half was an interview with Jerry Falwell, Jr. who is President of Liberty University. Liberty is, according to their webpage, the largest Christian university in the world and the largest private, not for profit university in America. They boast 14,500 residential students and a whopping 95,000 online students. Their seminary is huge especially their online presence. I took several semesters of classes from the seminary, the Rawlings School of Divinity (it wasn't called that at the time) and they were pretty good. I am setting the table here to make the point that Jerry Falwell, Jr. is the head of a major center of influence for the church, especially the conservative Evangelical wing of the church in America. He is also an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump. What he said during the interview was so obviously wrong that my jaw literally dropped.

During his interview with Steve Inskeep from NPR, after accusing Russell Moore of being a closet liberal because he doesn't support Trump which is funny because Trump holds essentially no classically conservative political position except for a couple that he put on for the election like he put on his dorky "Make America Great Again" hats, Inskeep asked the obvious question about Trump's well documented and often flaunted immoral behavior, behavior which would have presumably gotten him kicked out of Falwell's school on multiple occasions. Here is the exchange:

INSKEEP: Is his personal life or any candidate's personal life relevant to you? 

FALWELL, JR.: Well, I think Jesus said we're all sinners. When they ask that question, I always talk about the story of the woman at the well who had had five husbands and she was living with somebody she wasn't married to, and they wanted to stone her. And Jesus said he's - he who is without sin cast the first stone. I just see how Donald Trump treats other people, and I'm impressed by that.

Anyone with even a basic level of familiarity with the Gospels knows something is wrong here. Falwell is talking about two different events in the Gospel as if they were the same event. He uses enough detail to conclude that he is drawing from both but he doesn't seem to realize they are different accounts. I imagine he had this response to the inevitable question from Inskeep ready and still he totally confused the two. As a refresher, the woman at the well with five husbands comes from John, chapter 4, specifically John 4:7-30. This is a Samaritan woman Jesus is speaking to. Four chapters later, in John 8:1-11, Jesus brings him a woman, I assume a Jew, who was caught in the act of adultery and the Pharisees wanted to trap Him in how to deal with her. This account is pretty controversial in terms of whether it should be included in John's Gospel or not. Regardless, we have two events with two very different sets of circumstances. The only commonality was that both stories dealt with women engaged in sin. It is also instructive to note that with the woman about to be stoned, Jesus said to her to go and sin no more, not go and sin some more and then run for President.

I might expect and excuse someone who was a young Christian and had not had the chance to study the Bible like he should that made this mistake. The President of a Seminary, a 54 year old man who grew up in the household of Jerry Falwell and undoubtedly was at church multiple times a week for more than half a century, a man who oversees the education of over 100,000 students who trust that Liberty is an evangelical school? Please. This was more than just a slip on a small detail, this is the statement of someone who apparently doesn't know that what he described as one event is what the Bible records as two distinct and very different events in the ministry of Jesus. You might think I am nitpicking or being overly harsh but if anything I am being too soft on this.

It is bad enough that someone with the public platform and influence over not just the tens of thousands of students at Liberty but potentially millions more who are taught by clergy and missionaries trained at Liberty, not to mention getting on national news broadcasts on a regular basis, is using his influence to shill for a deplorable individual that is the antithesis of every quality the Bible tells us to emulate. To do that while butchering a Biblical example that makes little sense anyway and making a fool of himself while he is at it is inexcusable. Mr. Falwell might be better served and might serve the student body of Liberty better if he spent less time singing the praises of Donald Trump and more time reading the Bible.

Repost: Headcovering: Now More Than Ever

About a year ago I posted this little essay on the topic of headcovering. Given the absolute trainwreck that is happening in our culture, headcovering seems like a pretty minor topic. Don't we have bigger fish to fry? I would argue that we will never be truly faithful in the big stuff if we neglect the "small" stuff. I say "small" because nothing recorded in Scripture is small or minor. As we observe our cultural crashing down around us, it is more important than ever that we stand firmly on Scripture. It will increasingly set us apart as peculiar and "out of step" but that is how we should have been all along. So here is my post from last year, maybe you will find it interesting.

As an aside here are a couple of fairly recent posts from others on the topic of headcovering:

Should Single Women Wear Head Coverings?

Why I Love To Wear A Head Covering
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Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering. If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God. (1 Corinthians 11:2-16)

This is a weird passage for a lot of Christians, one that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. It deals with a couple of awkward issues, like submission and a command to wear something on your head. You can see this awkwardness in the general way that it is treated in most sermons when the pastor comes to this passage and generally skips past it as fast as he can, The typical treatment of these verses is to dismiss them based on an alleged, unspoken cultural question that really has no bearing on the church today in our enlightened age. In general it is dismissed as a quaint, kind of confusing cultural relic that has no place in our modern church.

I would argue just the opposite. My wife has covered for many years, even when she was the only person in a gathering who did so. The practice kind of was in vogue in some circles a few years back and I blogged a bit about it but seems to have cooled off. Here in 2015 I am hoping to revive this conversation because if ever there was a time when the church needed it, it is now. I am not going to go back through and review the arguments for an actual covering versus long hair or a covering being replaced by a wedding ring, I have posts on those topics already if you are interested.

A covering is more than just an external sign of a submissive heart, although it is not less than that, The covering is also a quiet act of subversion against the culture that tells us that gender, like race, is whatever you want it to be, whatever you feel like at that moment. The covering reminds us that God intentionally made man and He intentionally made woman, He made them in a specific way and order and He made them to be distinct, interdependent and complementary. The two genders and how God designed them to relate with one another is integral to God's design for humanity and even for His plan of salvation. When we read the opening of the Gospel according to Matthew we see the genealogy of Jesus Christ, generation after generation. When we see the curse in Genesis 3 we also see the promise that would be fulfilled in Christ Jesus through the seed of the woman. When we see the promise to Abraham we know that it is fulfilled in the children of the union between man and woman. The covering is a critical, external symbol of recognition of the pivotal place of gender. Absolutely the heart is even more critical in this equation but you simply cannot negate the external sign commanded in Scripture, just as Christians are called to actually be baptized in water as an external sign of an inward reality.

As I said, the covering is a subversive statement today, a counter-cultural act that quietly witnesses to and stands in defiance of the prevailing culture. The culture says "be whatever you want to be, feel free to mutilate the canvas of your flesh". The cover says "I am a daughter of the Most High, made as a woman in His image and by His design and for His glory". The culture says "Men and women are indistinguishable and interchangeable" , the covering says "I am unique and irreplaceable as a woman and I have no desire to be a man". A woman with a covered head leaves no doubt as to the nature of men and women and her embrace of how God has made her. A husband blessed to have a wife at his side with a covering is a witness to the complementary nature of the genders and a recognition of his own incompleteness apart from his spouse. I don't want a woman who looks and acts like a man, I want a woman who is "a helper fit for him" (Gen 2:18).

The culture wars are over and the religious right lost. The casual immorality and confusion we see all around us speaks this truth loud and clear. Now is the time for the quiet way of the cross, a way that does not shout or seek power but also does not seek to hide or accommodate. Rather than seeking to blend in through capitulation or fighting for the last vestiges of political coercive power, we instead can follow a third way of quiet subversion via witness. The covering is an ancient symbol but one that carries with it powerful ramifications and a similarly powerful witness without saying a word. It says to the world that no matter what the nonsensical, ignorant chattering heads on The View or the writers of People magazine have to say, God has already spoken definitively on the question of men and women.

Sometimes the ancient practices are the best response to the modern errors.

So THAT is who Mark Burns is

In my prior post I mentioned I had no idea who Mark Burns, excuse me, Pastor Mark Burns was. As an aside, there are few things I find more revolting and indicative of someone who is probably not called to be an elder than constantly referring to yourself as "Pastor So and So". Anyway, Mr. Burns gave the benediction last night at the opening night of the GOP convention....



Beg your pardon "pastor". Hillary Clinton is not the enemy of the church. She is an unbeliever and her policy proposals are consistently, 100% the exact opposite of what we should be doing as a nation but she is not our enemy. The Bible tells us over and over that Satan is the enemy of the church. Certainly Hillary Clinton may be influenced by our enemy when she advocates so enthusiastically for infanticide but even if she is, she is but a tool. She might be the political enemy of the Republican Party but this guy who gets up and crows about his title as "pastor" and talks about Donald Trump believing in Jesus Christ in spite of all of the evidence to the contrary seems to think that enemies of the Republican Party are of course also enemies of the church. If you are speaking with the presumed authority of being an elder in the church and people can't be sure if you are speaking as a Christian or as a Republican, something is wrong.

As Paul writes, we have a real enemy to fight:

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Eph 6:12)

The mission of the church is not to make more Republicans or to win secular elections. Our mission is to preach the Gospel and proclaim the Kingdom of God. We are in far more danger from those within the church who are false teachers and wolves among the sheep than we are from unbelieving politicians, even unbelieving politicians like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The outcome of this election does matter because it will have a huge impact on the everyday lives of regular people but let's not turn this into a holy war because there isn't anyone running from the two major parties that is a Christian or represents Christian values.

Someone Who Is Neither Christian Nor Conservative Can't Really Be The Christian Conservative Candidate

Somebody named Mark Burns, oh excuse me Pastor Mark Burns, was on Fox and Friends yesterday and declared one Donald J. Trump to be the "Christian conservative candidate"...

"He is the Christian conservative candidate. America, if you're a Christian, if you're a conservative, this is the party you need to be voting for."

I don't have a clue who this Mark Burns fellow is but he must be relatively famous and be willing to use his credentials as a "pastor" to speak at the Republican National Convention in favor of Donald Trump. Since many Christians automatically place a great deal of trust in the credibility of what someone says if they are identified as a "pastor" or "minister" or "reverend", it makes sense for the RNC to drum up someone who will say the right things on stage. It will make it easier for rank-and-file Christians to vote for Trump if someone who is a "pastor" tells them it is OK. In a society where many people give immediate credibility to something said by someone in a position of authority, it is incredibly dangerous to have people who are allegedly supposed to be shepherding the sheep using that influence to promote secular political candidates.

If you want to support and vote for Trump, be my guest. I get why you would do so but what I really wish Christians would do is to state that while Trump is not a Christian in any sense of the word, he is a better pragmatic choice than Hillary Clinton. My view is that while Trump might accidentally do some stuff right if he is elected, we can be sure that Mrs. William Clinton will make the wrong decision 100 times out of 100. For what it is worth, I am not voting for either of them.

We have a problem though when Mr. Burns (no relation to the owner of the nuclear power plant in Springfield) uses the term "Christian conservative candidate" to describe Trump. The problem is that he apparently doesn't understand what 2 of those 3 words mean. He is correct that Donald Trump is a candidate for President. But a conservative? Unless you actually believe that Trump has had a complete change of heart on every single issue, most notably abortion, you have to recognize that he is not a conservative as it is understood by anyone who has thought it through. A pragmatist, sure. A sort of nativist/populist demagogue for certain. But a conservative? Please. The claim he is a Christian is even worse. Being a Christian means being born-again, being a new creature in Christ. Saying "Imma 'strong' Christian" and waving an obviously unopened Bible around doesn't make you a Christian, nor does having the term applied to you by James Dobson. We are told that we will know Christians by their fruit but Trump is the more or less exact opposite of every single fruit of the Spirit. I wish Christian "leaders" would quit trying to turn Trump into a Christian to make it our obligation to vote for him and just be honest, Trump is the less awful choice in what is traditionally a strictly two party contest and it says a lot about Mrs. Clinton that she can make Trump look like the better choice. I am hoping that Gary Johnson gets on the debate stage, he is not exactly a dynamo and is wrong on some issues but at least he would be honest about who he is, a marked contrast to the two serial liars representing the two major parties.

"Conservative". "Christian". Mr Burns keeps using those words but they don't mean what he thinks they mean.

Of course I might add that someone who uses his ecclesiastical title to try to influence members of the church to vote for Donald Trump might add another word to the list of words he doesn't understand, "pastor".

And This

"Exciting News" for the children of California, a new program of indoctrination education curriculum that is going to emphasize "the contributions of people and groups who may not have received the appropriate recognition in the past", Superintendent Torlakson Announces Approval of History–Social Science Framework.

"This is a big win for our students," said Torlakson. "This document will improve the teaching and learning of history and social science. It will give our students access to the latest historical research and help them learn about the diversity of our state and the contributions of people and groups who may not have received the appropriate recognition in the past."

The Framework provides guidance to teachers, administrators, and publishers for the teaching of history and social science. It includes more than 20 detailed classroom examples that show teachers how they can integrate their instruction to build students' history–social science knowledge and skills, literacy skills, and English language development.

"The adoption of this Framework today is an important part of our instructional program, said President Michael Kirst of the California State Board of Education. "Hundreds of people representing broad perspectives contributed to the development of this important tool for teachers and classrooms. The new Framework will help guide classroom instruction at each grade level and will be used with other instructional resources to ensure all students have a broad understanding of history."

The Framework adds considerable information on civic learning, consistent with the work of Torlakson's California Task Force on K–12 Civic Learning. In addition, information was added about financial literacy; voter education; genocide; and the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans and people with disabilities to the history of California and the United States.

So kids in California public schools probably won't be able to tell you within half a century when the American Revolution or World War II happened but they will be well versed in what a heroic "martyr" Harvey Milk was. The news release reads like a parody but unfortunately for the kids of California it is not. I am guessing that "civic learning" is a code for "leftist indoctrination to achieve a political outcome and a predictable population".

I am not totally joking when I suggest that sending your kids to a public school in California is tantamount to child abuse. California is the leading edge of what all public schools are going to become, little incubators to create a leftist, entitled population of drones who will passively accept the leftist narrative they are being force fed through the "education" system. With the constant push to get more and more kids into government run pre-"school" and keeping them in that system via "free" year round college for everyone, the end result are an annual entry of 22 year old serfs who will never question the state because they have never been taught, and are actually discouraged, from engaging in critical thought for more than two decades, separated as much as possible from any influence from their family.

No one in the "education" establishment seems concerned that we spend more and more to push a kid through public K-12 and yet the kids coming out are less educated, less able to think independently and less prepared for work and family in the real world. It seems as if that might be the intent all along.

Then There Is This

#UMC bishop-elect Karen Oliveto: “I think at this moment I have a glimpse of the realm of God.".https://t.co/tNd8k64mdD

— UM News Service (@UMNS) July 16, 2016

A lesbian woman as a bishop. Well there you go. It is almost like having the second leads inexorably to the first.

As a side note to Ms. Oliveto. What you are glimpsing is not the realm of God but the lies of man. Looks great now but it doesn't end well.

Stuff That Sounds Really Deep But Really Is Not

Another Facebook inspired post. I saw this posted on a webpage dedicated to T. Austin Sparks...

OK, that sounds great. What is my problem now?

Just this little quibble. How do we know Jesus in the first place if we don't know the Bible? Notice the quote:

We first know the Lord Jesus, and then we take Him back into the Bible, and He is the interpretation of the Bible. Therefore, we cannot really understand the Bible until we know the Lord Jesus.

We know Jesus first. How do we know Jesus first? Imagine this fictional conversation with someone who doesn't know Jesus but wants to:

Hey there friend, I hear you want to know Jesus?

Yep, I hear lots of great things about Him! Can you tell me about Him?

Sure, what do you want to know?

Ok, great! So what do we know about Jesus?

Well, we know that God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that's Jesus, into the world so that anyone who believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.

That is awesome, how do we know that?

Well, it is in the Bible.

What else do we know about Jesus?

We know that He was born to a virgin and that this fulfilled Old Testament prophecies.

Amazing! How do we know that?

Well, it is in the Bible.

Go on, tell me more!

OK, while Jesus was on earth He fed a multitude with a little bread and a couple of fishes, He healed the lame and cause the blind to see.

What a great guy Jesus was! How do you know He did all that?

Well, it is in the Bible. And He was more than a man, He was actually God who took on flesh.

Incredible! Where did you learn that?

Well, it is in the Bible.

What ever happened to Jesus, this God who became man?

He was unjustly arrested by the Jewish religious leaders, condemned by a Roman named Pontius Pilate, tortured and crucified on a cross where He died. He was buried in a tomb but on the third day rose again and in doing so He atoned for the sins of His people.

Wow! How do...

Well, it is in the Bible.

Then what did He do?!?!?

He appeared to His apostles, told them to spread the Good News of His Gospel, calling men to repent and be baptized and that He would return one day in glory for His church.

Let me guess how you know that...

Well, it is in the Bible.

So it sounds to me that if I want to get to know Jesus I need to get to know the Bible?

Yeah, I guess it does sound that way.

You see where I am going with this. It is easy to get so caught up in studying the Bible as a textbook that we lose sight of Jesus as the ultimate subject of and reason for the Bible in the first place so I understand the caution. However I am concerned when people seemingly pit knowing Jesus against knowing the Bible. The Bible is all about Jesus and what we know about Jesus is found in the Bible. Someone can tell you about Jesus but if they don't point you to the Bible to learn who Jesus is directly from the authoritative source, something is squirrelly.

While the intent of the quote is probably noble, the words and the way they are used can make it seem as if the Bible is a secondary source. I am all for people knowing Jesus better. I am all for people knowing their Bible better. The second will help the first.

If you want to know the living Son of God, you need to know the revelations preserved for that very purpose. Know the Bible, know Jesus.

A Doctorate of Ministry in Queer Theology. No, Really.

Take a gander at this video, ostensibly of a "pastor" who called on God to damn "white America" shortly before the shooting of those Dallas police officers who were there to protect him while he was making such asinine and anti-Christian statements and then going on TV to talk about "one America" and coming together in "love":

You heard that correctly. Here is a "pastor" (more on that in a second) who is calling for God's damnation on every person in this country that is white. That is not what he meant? Well then he shouldn't have said it. The video shows the guy with a hokey fake accent very slowly and deliberately calling for God to damn white America. Twice. I am white. I live in America. So this guy is calling on God to damn me because of my skin color. This wasn't an off the cuff remark, he clearly had thought this through and even invoked the name of another well known racist "preacher", Jeremiah Wright. Mr. Wright is a racist cut from the same racist cloth as David Duke.  Look at Mr. Hood (or as he styles himself "The Reverend Doctor Jeff Hood") as he invokes Jeremiah Wright with that smirk on his face as he gets the applause he is craving from the crowd. He looks like he is desperately wanting someone in the crowd to pat him on the head. He says it twice so it isn't exactly like he didn't think about what he was saying, when you repeat yourself it is for the purpose of emphasizing and reinforcing what you are saying.

Also watch later in the clip when he is talking to Megyn Kelly. Notice that his fake accent has mostly disappeared. Like Hillary Clinton he turns on what I guess he thinks is an appealing accent when speaking in front of a black crowd and then turns it off when speaking to a white reporter. If I were black I would be deeply insulted that this is what Mr. Hood thinks black people talk like and that if he uses a fake accent he can seem like a more authentic guy. When someone has a hokey accent for black audiences and then a more educated and articulate accent for white audiences, who is the racist here?

He also states: " We have to come together as one America". Huh. How do you think that is going to happen when you go on TV with a dorky smirk on your face and deliver "God damn White America" to curry favor? As part of "White America", whatever that means, I sure don't feel like linking arms with a racist like Jeremiah Wright or a self-loathing white leftist who fawns over Wright to become "one America".

Mr. Hood calls the police "the enemy" and then goes on TV (minus his "black" accent) to talk about coming together as one America and loving each other. I am assuming he only regrets what he was saying because of what happened that night. He shows little remorse for his racist attacks and his hypocritical statements, statements that have more in common with Westboro Baptist than the Biblical Church. That begs the question:

If inflammatory rhetoric from Donald Trump is directly to blame for violence at his rallies, why is inflammatory rhetoric from Black Lives Matter  and from a "pastor" who is clearly inflaming the crowd not to blame for the shooting of police?

Speaking of Mr. Hood as a "pastor". He goes to great lengths to brag about his accomplishments which is kinda ironic since he benefited educationally from institutions (Auburn, Alabama, South Seminary, etc.) which epitomize the "white America" that he wants damned. Of course he does have the super prestigious  "Doctorate of Ministry in Queer Theology at Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University", which is actually a thing. There is actually a degree granting program at TCU's seminary that gives out "Doctorate of Ministry" degrees focused on "Queer Theology". According to Brite Seminary the cost of getting that nonsense is $13,200. I could have saved Mr. Hood thirteen grand and summed up what the Bible teaches about "Queer Theology": Don't do it. I am sure that Addison and Randolph Clark, the brothers that co-founded what is now Brite Seminary, must be delighted to see how far afield this seminary has gone. Read the rest of his humble intro:

The author of ten books (The Queer: An Interaction with The Gospel of John, The Queering of an American Evangelical, The Sociopathic Jesus, The Year of the Queer, Jesus on Death Row, Frances, Last Words from Texas: Meditations from the Execution Chamber, The Rearing of an American Evangelical, The Courage to Be Queer and The Basilica of the Swinging Dicks), Dr. Hood also serves in the governing leadership of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and Fellowship of Reconciliation USA. In 2013, Dr. Hood was awarded PFLAG Fort Worth’s Equality Award for Activism. In 2015, Hood was named Hope for Peace and Justice’s Ambassador of Justice for his theological activism and also the Next Generation Action Network’s Person of the Year for his work against police brutality. In addition to being the husband of Emily and father of Jeff III, Phillip, Quinley Mandela, Lucas & Madeleine, Dr. Hood also maintains a close friendship with Texas Death Row prisoner Will Speer.

Well I have to admit none of those books is on my reading list although I am sure that "The Basilica of the Swinging Dicks" is a deep and profound theological work. Some of his other stuff claims that "God is queer" which is so incredibly nonsensical that it boggles the mind. He closes his bio with this:

With deep soul and a belief that God is “calling us to something queerer,” Dr. Hood is a radical mystic and prophetic voice to a closed society.

Well. I guess "deep soul" means "putting on a fake accent to appease a crowd".

It takes some doing to make Donald Trump seem humble but Mr. Hood has pulled it off. Lest you think I am being unfair, I would also point out that Mr. Hood is a poet. Here is a sampling, the first one I clicked on, of his "poetics", Chickens After Dark:

Chickens after dark

I hear you call

You know my name

I long for God

Tell me your secrets

Your eye leans in

Bawk

Bawk

Bawk

Bawk

That was it

Everything’s not dead after all

I seriously had to check to make sure this wasn't The Onion or the Babylon Bee. Bawk. Bawk. Bawk. Bawk. Dude, that is some deep stuff worthy of a radical mystic and prophetic voice. 

It is bad enough in this country with all of the inflammatory rhetoric. We don't need false teachers like Mr. Hood making it worse while styling himself as a "pastor". Lest anyone be confused: Mr. Hood doesn't speak for the church, doesn't have a clue who God is and has no idea what Christ came to earth to do.

Sometimes it seems like we would be better off without the internet so that people like Mr. Hood don't have a platform for their nonsense.

If He Didn't Say It Then Don't Say He Said It

So there was this on Facebook posted from Instagram:

That is great except Jesus didn't actually say that. Any of it. Nor anything vaguely like it.

Here is a good rule of thumb. Jesus said lots of stuff that was not recorded (John 21:25) but what was recorded was preserved for a good reason. We have a pretty tough time comprehending what Jesus did say without trying to make Him say stuff He didn't say. So to say that "...saying "Black Lives Matter" is one of the most Christ-like things we can do" is the statement of someone who doesn't apparently know anything about Christ, at least not the real Christ. Jesus wasn't a "social justice" warrior in the contemporary sense of "social justice". He wasn't driven by identity politics. His Gospel was universal. The asinine picture above is an attempt to co-opt the King of creation as a tool for a political agenda that has nothing to do with the Kingdom. I have no doubt that Jesus thinks that  the lives of image bearers with black skin are precious, as much so and not less or more than image bearers with white skin or any other skin color. Jesus came to die to save an elect people from every tribe and nation and people, not to divide people up by skin color to pander to one over another or to become a form of slogan to push an agenda.

Too many people use the name of Jesus as a talisman to give credence to their secular cause. They never let Jesus speak for Himself or to even be silent. They simply say whatever it is they think and then invoke the name of Christ without so much as asking if He was on board or not. Saying that parroting "black lives matter" is one of the most Christ-like things we can do is to demonstrate that one has no idea what Christ is like.

The question of race, of excessive force by police, etc. is complicated and fraught with enough confusion, mistrust and misunderstanding as it is. It is completely counter-productive to try to force Jesus into a particular political fringe movement and claim that He has endorsed it. If your argument can't stand on its own without a clumsy and exegetically ludicrous attempt to enlist Jesus as your spokesperson, it probably is not a very good argument.

Words Matter

One of the major problems we have in America in communicating with one another is that we seem to have forgotten that the words we use have meaning. In a day of twitter and social media not only have we lost the ability to write by hand and to spell without assistance, we also have forgotten that that words have meaning. The words we use, how we use them, what order we put them in and what words we don't use, all deeply impact what people hear when we speak or write and yet this generation is so incredibly careless with our words. Many people just assume that you know what they mean even when what they mean is directly at odds with what they say and just as often get offended when we can't successfully guess their cryptic message.

I harp on about this all the time but it really is important. Sloppy language in cultural discourse leads to inflamed conversations because no one really agrees on what a topic is even defined as. Sloppy language, especially intentionally misleading language, in the church leads to people thinking they are justified when they are not and unbelievers being unequally yoked to believers because no one seems to know who is part of the church and who is not.

This is not intended as a deep, thought provoking post (obviously!) but it was something on my mind today in our current climate. If you say something but then say that we shouldn't embellish what you say but that we should add onto what you say to create a completely different definition, it seems a little silly to get mad when people take what you say at face value. I regularly check the established definition of words to make sure that what I think something means is what it actually means. I am almost always correct in my use but every now and again I realize that what I meant to say should be said a different way and revise my comments.

Let me implore us all to be more precise in the language we use, to use words as carefully as we use sharp objects or flammable liquids because in a lot of ways an imprecise word can be more deadly than a match near a gas can or a toddler running with scissors. Mean what you say and say what you mean. An old chestnut to be sure but one that still applicable today, in fact even more so in a day when our words can go instantly from a passing thought to our hands to every corner of the world in a matter of seconds. If there was ever a time that cried out for precision it is now.