Just in time for the Coronation

I am not a big bumper sticker person and I am not a big unsolicited email person, but I saw an email ad in my spam folder, checked it out and had to order it. I am proudly sporting this bumper sticker on my truck. It kind of says it all.

You can order yours here, only a buck for shipping and handling!

Political free speech is un-American?

Tom Hanks is one of America's most beloved actors and directors. He has always struck me as someone apolitical, you just never heard him making inane political comments as so many other Hollywood types feel inclined and empowered to do because they have become rich and famous pretending to be someone else.

But apparently he thinks that only certain free speech is acceptable and by his statements shows himself to be just another one of Hollywood's self-declared cultural prophets. Mr. Hanks recently expressed his opinion of the mormon church and California's Proposition 8 at the premier of Big Love, his show about a polygamous family in Utah.

Tom Hanks, an Executive Producer for HBO’s controversial polygamist series “Big Love,” made his feelings toward the Mormon Church’s involvement in California's Prop 8 (which prohibits gay marriage) very clear at the show’s premiere party on Wednesday night.

“The truth is this takes place in Utah, the truth is these people are some bizarre offshoot of the Mormon Church, and the truth is a lot of Mormons gave a lot of money to the church to make Prop-8 happen,” he told Tarts. “There are a lot of people who feel that is un-American, and I am one of them. I do not like to see any discrimination codified on any piece of paper, any of the 50 states in America, but here's what happens now. A little bit of light can be shed, and people can see who's responsible, and that can motivate the next go around of our self correcting Constitution, and hopefully we can move forward instead of backwards. So let's have faith in not only the American, but Californian, constitutional process.”

Apparently the "constitutional process" doesn't mean that the people should be able to make their will law, but instead means that the courts can feel free and be encouraged to overturn the will of the people, declaring constitutional amendments to be unconstitutional. As I have mentioned before and what should be clear from my writings is that theologically I have no allegiance with mormonism, nor do I consider them suitable allies in any sort of cultural crusades. Mormons, members of the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" are a lost people group nor different than Muslims or Hindus. "Enemy of my enemy is my friend" doesn't work with the Gospel. We can have no fellowship nor friendship with enemies of the Gospel.

Having said that, the idea that mormons using their own resources to stand up for a cause that they believe strongly in qualifies as "un-American" demonstrates the opinion of someone who is obscenely ignorant. The right to free speech and free religious expression is foundational to our republic. I think the Founding Fathers might have had a comment or two about that...

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

So where do we see that mormons do not have the right, individually or collectively, to express their political will? Where is it un-American? Mr. Hanks has a disturbing and quite dangerous idea of what American Constitutional government is founded upon. His sort of freedom is the same sort of freedom we saw in every totalitarian government that has ever existed. Certain ideas are approved by the elites, and other ideas are considered dangerous and deserving of being suppressed. What he is counting on, the California Supreme Court overturning the will of the people, is an intrusion in the democratic process that is unprecedented.

Bill McKeever from the Mormonism Research Ministry is quoted in the Fox News article and I affirm what he says:

Bill McKeever, a rep for the Mormonism Research Ministry, added, “Personally, I find it un-American to tell people that they shouldn’t vote their conscience. Hanks said he doesn’t ‘like to see any discrimination codified on any piece of paper.’ Considering that just about every law discriminates in some form or another, makes this comment ridiculous. Hanks’ comment shows that he very much believes in discriminating against people with whom he disagrees. I may not agree with Mormon theology, but I certainly defend their right to express their opinion.”

Our differences with mormons does not mean that they do not have the same rights as any other Americans, and as a religious group they have even greater protections under our system of government. We should witness to mormons with the Gospel of Jesus Christ but we should also defend their right to free speech as vociferously as we would any other Americans.

Housing update

Well we ended up not getting into the house I mentioned earlier. We were pretty irate about it because I think the person looking to rent it decided that they would prefer not to have a family of ten in that house. That is not at all legal but the end result is that we were left scrambling to find a new place to live. The house seemed perfect for us and yet here we are starting all over.

But we did end up in an even better situation.

I never go to craigslist at work, but Friday I just did for some reason. First listing, posted out there for maybe 15 minutes, was a five bedroom, 2.5 bath place less than a mile from work. The price was just reduced, ready to move in. I visited it an hour later and we went up today and signed the papers. So in the very near future, my daily roundtrip commute will be 148 miles shorter. I will be able to eat lunch at home every day, and be home from work at around 4:32 most afternoons. This house has a segregated family room that we are going to use for homeschool. If we elect to attend a local church there are a number of them nearby that are more or less Reformed (a non-denominational credobaptist church, a solidly reformed baby sprinkling church and even a nearby Plymouth Brethren church). As the kids get older there is a bus stop right by the house that runs throughout the campus of Michigan State University.

This is why we never second guess God!

A call for a new Reformation in the church: Reformed Rock Stars

One of the great weaknesses among those who hold to Reformed theology is our tendency to look at the writings of other, more famous and well known Reformed theologians and treat their opinions as authoritative. Well Sproul says this or MacArthur says that or Piper preached this. We have shelves full of the works of dead theologians and living leaders of the faith. We go to conferences based on which famous Reformed theologians are speaking. If Together for the Gospel featured a half dozen pastors from East Dirtlick, Alabama and Pig Snout, Iowa instead of the Devers and Mahaneys of the church, I can guarantee that there wouldn't be five thousand men there and I wouldn't drive from Michigan to Kentucky to hear them speak. We are as caught up in the ccelebrity culture as the rest of culture, but instead of revering athletes or movie stars, we revere men who write the best books or give the best sermons.

If I had a dime for every sermon or talk I heard, or every sermon or talk I gave, that made multiple references to what this Reformed theologian or that thought on a topic I would be wealthy indeed. An argument over Scripture is not ended by a triumphal quotation of a litany of Reformed theologians. I can name 6 Reformed theologians, you can only name 3 so I win!

There is nothing wrong, and much that is right, with studying the works of the great men through the ages that were used of God. I appreciate the work of men like Calvin, Spurgeon and Edwards. They are a great aid in studying the Word, but they are not in and of themselves authoritative. We weaken our argument rather than strengthen it when we make our first line of argumentation the thoughts of a theologian instead of the Word of God.

Are Reformed theologians, even the most famous and oft quoted ones, ever wrong? Certainly they are. That is as true of modern men as it is of others. Modern Reformed theologians are as apt as any other man to bow to cultural pressure. When you sell tens of thousands of books a year, when you pastor a church of thousands of people are you immune to pressure? Of course not. That is not an indictment of their character, that is a truth of humanity. I think R.C Sproul is flat out wrong about infant baptism. I think that John MacArthur is just wrong about premillenial dispensationalism. Does that mean I think these men are useless or false teachers? Of course not. But I do think that when we examine an issue, it is absolutely incumbent upon us to start with the Word of God. Isn't that obvious? Well, not really. I fear that in too many cases, and I have done this, we make up our minds about something based on tradition or comfort and then we go to the Scriptures and try to make it fit. We come across an issue in the Word and don't like it, so we try to find cover for our rejection of the issue. I think headcovering is a prime example. If a man comes under conviction about headcovering, and then says so from the pulpit you can rest assured that some people will get mad and perhaps even leave and we can't have that. So we do a dance around the issue and try to find other men who agree to give us theological cover.

That is why it is encumbent upon the Christian to not just read what the giants of the faith wrote on a topic, but also to compare what they say to the Word of God. In fact we should flip the order around and use the Word first and then dig into what great men of the faith say about doctrine.

Reformed theology is more than a checklist of doctrines. It is certainly more than a club where we affirm certain beliefs in order to be associated with men that the world considers wise. It is a comprehensive way of viewing the Scriptures, and sometimes we will come across things that make us unfomfortable, that challenge and refute what we believe. But we who claim the title of "Reformed", of all people, need to lift everything we believe up to the light of Scripture, not church tradition, not "the Baptist way of doing things", not what this confession or that creed says. What does THE WORD say? Going back to the Word, again and again, as many times as we need to, for the rest of our lives is what makes us truly Reformed.

He was the best of Presidents, he was the worst of Presidents

As we approach the inauguration and the end of the Bush presidency, the liberal mainstream media are stumbling over themselves trying to define President Bush as the “worst President in history”. Listening to NPR, you can just tell that the reporters are giddy with the prospect of Bush leaving and Obama coming in. The Left is flush with victory and the power brokers in the American left have a dream set-up. They have an overwhelmingly liberal congress, a disheartened and discredited American conservatism and an incoming President who, although politically shrewd, is clearly in way over his head. Make no mistake that while Obama will be in the White House, the real power brokers are the Congressional leaders.

Is President Bush “the worst President in American history”? Hardly. Has he been disappointing in many ways, even to conservatives? Yes. Did he make mistakes of action and inaction, and become virtually irrelevant and ineffectual late in his eight years as President? Absolutely! Is he the worst President ever? Not by a long shot. In fact, he isn’t going to be even the worst living ex-President. Mr. Carter wins that one hands down. Despite the image makeover of Jimmy Carter and the kindness of years away from the White House, you cannot forget what a horrible President he was. I was very young when he was President and I remember all too well what a trainwreck he was. That is reflective in a funny way in the pictures of all of the living Presidents and former Presidents in the Oval Office a week or so ago. Much was made of the painfully obvious distance between Clinton, Obama, Bush I and Bush II and the outcast Jimmy Carter. Not sure if it was intentional or not, but it spoke volumes of what a terrible President Jimmy Carter was.

When Ronald Reagan hammered Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election, look where America was. We were in a deep economic malaise. We were a paper tiger in the world. The Soviets bullied us, our military was still stinging from the political defeat of Vietnam and in the greatest stain on American sovereignty a number of our citizens were being held hostage by terrorist thugs in Tehran. The sight of American citizens being paraded around as hostages with blindfolds on was one of the most shameful moments in American modern history, right up there with Americans fleeing Vietnam and dead soldiers being paraded around the streets of Mogadishu. After 444 days of the hostages being held in Tehran, in one of the most stinging rebukes ever given, the American hostages were released within minutes of Ronald Reagan taking office. The message was clear. Jimmy Carter was ineffective in getting the hostages released, was unwilling to do anything militarily about it and the botched rescue attempt frightened him into inaction.

The hostage crisis was the most visible of the Carter failures but the economy was in terrible shape as well. It was tough to borrow money at double digit interest rates. The economy was in the tank. There were gas lines in California. Right or wrong (I would say largely “right”!), the American people blamed Carter. Things were bad, he was negative about it and utterly lacking in basic leadership. I wouldn’t trust Jimmy Carter to lead me through the front door of my house, much less lead our nation.

Carter lost to Reagan by almost 10% of the popular vote. He only carried six states and the District of Columbia, losing 489 to 49 in the electoral college. Granted, compared to Walter Mondale’s debacle in 1984 where he carried one state and the District, losing by over 18% of the popular vote and losing 525-13 in the electoral college, it wasn’t that bad but when you look the alleged mandate of Barack Obama who beat McCain by 7% in the popular vote and 365-173 in the electoral college it is obvious that Carter was rejected and tossed out of office by the American people.

What is also forgotten is that while President Bush is at, we are constantly reminded, “historically low” approval ratings, the Democratically controlled Congress gets even lower marks, with an approval rating of around 9%. People are scared and unhappy, and they are reflecting that upon those who are governing them. President Bush gets the attention because he is the President which also explains his approval ratings of over 90% following September 11th. People are mad at government and Bush is the easy target. It is hard to be mad at Representative So-and-so from Podunk, Missouri unless you are in that district, but it is easy to aim your ire at President Bush and the media is more than happy to help encourage and channel that anger. When times are good, the President gets the accolades and cheers. When times are bad, he gets boos and low approval ratings.

So here is my retrospective on the Bush presidency.

The Bush presidency is really divided into two parts. The first part is made up of the weeks and months after September 11th. I would say that this first part ended with the now infamous speech on the warship returning home from the Persian Gulf with the “Mission Accomplished” banner. It was really at that point that opinion seemed to start turning against Bush, with the aid and abetting of the mainstream media beating the drum of defeat and failure, with their macabre running tally of U.S. military deaths reported as they happened.

First the errors of the Bush presidency.

Iraq

Iraq was perhaps the right war at the wrong time. Removing Saddam Hussein was a worthwhile mission. The world is a better place without him and his murderous sons raping and pillaging (literally) the Iraqi people. No sane person has any doubt that Hussein had at one time chemical weapons, proven by the bodies of Kurds in Northern Iraq and the use of those same weapons in the Iran-Iraq war. No sane person thinks that Hussein was not trying his hardest to obtain or develop nuclear weapons. The U.N. had weapons inspectors in Iraq for years to keep him from developing nukes, they weren’t in Baghdad on vacation. (Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Saddam Hussein’s successor in the crazy Islamic dictator chair is doing the exact same thing and is a lot closer to success.) The war was prosecuted properly, with swift military victory. The war itself is not the problem. The problem came before and after the war. We waited way too long to go in, giving Hussein time to move any evidence of a weapons program out of the country. I assume he thought by hiding his program he could ride out the invasion and go back to developing nukes later. I don’t think he saw his death at the end of a rope being his ultimate destiny. Afterward it became apparent that we had not thought out the rebuilding process as well as we should have, and years of stumbling, roadside bombs and virtual outright civil war followed. Liberating Iraq is not like liberating France from the Nazis. They had no idea how to run a democracy and are just now figuring it out. The liberation of Iraq will be the defining event of the Bush presidency and you can bet it will be spun negatively until Iraq is standing as a free, democratic state on her own someday in the future.

Hurricane Katrina

At the start, let me say that philosophically I don’t think it is the Federal government’s job to run to every natural disaster and fix things. Also, like many of the ills of the Bush administration, this fiasco was partly the fault of the Democrats (i.e. the lovely mayor of New Orleans and others who made it hard to get anything done) and also a media circus. But Bush looked tentative and uncaring during Katrina, and his lack of decisiveness made it seem like something should have been done but wasn’t. Katrina left a black eye on the Bush presidency that he never fully dealt with.

The handling of the economic crisis

Again perception is everything. The perception is that Bush waited too long and the whole collapse was his fault. Much of the fault lies on his desk, but much of it also is systemic (see my post here: Death by Savings) Our economy is a shell game of credit and consumption, and all of that finally came to a head. September 11th is completely forgotten by many Americans who are more worried about their job. Ironically, because the Bush policies have worked so well in keeping us safe, Americans are back to being self-centered about their pocketbooks.

The abandonment of fiscal restraint

This is my biggest gripe. I would say that the GOP with the blessing of Bush has been spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors. Too much was spent, too little was gained. Had we spent money on oil exploration or nuclear power plants, that at least would have been useful. Instead money was poured down a sinkhole. I have no idea where it all went.

President Bush has a high opinion of his fellow man, and that trust in people has been his downfall.

President Bush was played for a patsy by the Democrats on a number of occasions, and he let it happen because I think he inherently has a high opinion and trust for people. I think he needs to get away from the Methodist church he has been a member of and start going to a solid Calvinist church where he will learn about Total Depravity (Voddie Baucham’s church is in Texas I believe…)

But not all went wrong. Here are the things that went right.

Iraq

Iraq is the great contradiction of the Bush administration. On the one hand, for a long time it seemed like an abject failure. But today we see relative calm in Iraq. The government is still hardly stable and will need U.S. support politically, economically and militarily for some time to come. But overall the Iraqi people are far freer than they were under Hussein. There are some who think they were better off under a ruthless dictators, but those same sort of people point out that Hitler made the trains run on time. Someday Iraq will be a stand alone democracy, and people like the crazy guy who threw his shoes at Bush can thank him for liberating their country at the cost of his own political legacy.

Two great Supreme Court Justices in Alito and Roberts.

Those two jurists have proven to be a solidly conservative as advertised. It is too bad Bush didn’t get to replace one of the old line liberals so Roe v. Wade could be overturned. I expect now to see the old liberals retire so that Obama can replace them with someone younger and even more liberal. We were so very close….

Frequent tax cuts.

As President Bush pointed out last night, every American tax payer is paying less in Federal taxes than they were when he was in office. There needed to be deeper spending cuts to go along with the tax cuts (see above) but philosophically Bush was right on that lower taxes are both better for the economy in the long-term and the right thing to do.

Governance with conviction.

Like him or not, agree with his decisions or not, President Bush typically led based on his convictions. When public opinion turned, he rarely strayed from his path. Is that inflexible? Perhaps, but it is also principled and a stark contrast to his predecessor. Bill Clinton never met a Big Mac, intern or opinion poll that he didn’t like. To say that the eight years of Clinton were governance by opinion poll is not being unfair. Right or wrong, Clinton gave the people what they wanted and is remembered fondly for it. Bush often bucked his own party and is being punished for it.

Perhaps in the context of the Bush presidency, one success stands out more than this one: We have had no terrorist attacks on American soil in the more than seven years following September 11th. Those who say America is not safer today are head-in-the-sand liberals. Do you remember the weeks following September 11th? As a nation we were all expecting the next attack. But thanks in large part to the diligence of our armed forces, intelligence community and law enforcement we have not had a terrorist attack on America soil since September 11th. To have thought that would be the case, seven years with no terror attacks in America, on September 12th, 2001 would have been unthinkable. The Bush doctrine of taking the fight to the terrorists instead of trying to deal with the terrorists as common criminals has kept American civilians safe.

When President Bush was wrong, he was really wrong. When he was right, he was really right. Trying to reassure the American people that the economy was fundamentally sound when it was collapsing all around him made him look like “Baghdad Bob” during the liberation of Iraq. But when he stood on that rubble after September 11th and declared that those responsible would come to justice, when he gave his speech in the National Cathedral, there was no President like him. His presidency is one of great opportunity missed and great potential squandered. I, like many others, am disappointed but I think that an unbiased assessment of his Presidency in the future will be more kind than the media and liberal historians are today.

The twin dangers of individualism and collectivism

As I grow in my study of Christianity, still barely a baby in my understanding, I have become more and more aware of the various tensions in the Bible. These tensions often seem irreconcilable at first blush. How can man have free will and yet God still be sovereign? It makes no sense until you wrap your arms around the idea of man’s deadness in sin, that in our unregenerate state we are free to choose whatever flavor of sin suits us. It is not just that we are unwilling to choose to follow God, we are utterly unable to by our very nature. The hypostatic union, that Jesus Christ is fully man and fully God, is another example. Even those of us educated in the public schools know that 100% plus 100% doesn’t compute. Again we have a tension.

The same is true with individualism in the church. On one hand, Christianity is very much an individual faith. One sinner, one Savior, one salvation. What church you belong to, who your parents are, none of that matters. The oft repeated and often overused term “personal relationship with Jesus” is not a Biblical term but it does raise the very real point that only by personal faith in a personal Savior can we saved. We are not saved by our religion, we are saved by our Savior. On the flip side, Christianity as a faith is a communal faith. Over and over again we see the need for God’s people to assemble together, not forsaking that assembly but taking joy, comfort and encouragement in it.

The dangers lie in both extremes. On the one side we see most American Christians absorbed into the institutional church where their faith becomes ritualistic, traditional and formulaic. Being in the church is replaced by being in church. Church is not who we are, it is where we go and what we do. We think that by being “in church” on a Sunday morning we are in fellowship with one another, when in fact we barely know one another. Church becomes a series of boxes we check off. Went to Sunday school: check. Shook pastors hand: check. Said hi to people I know: check. Stood up when told, sat down when told, prayed when told: check. Put money in plate: check. Dutifully listened to sermon: check. Gathered up kids and bolted for the car: check. Is that what we see in the New Testament, does that really fulfill what we are commanded and exhorted to do?

The flip side danger is that we jump headlong into a rugged individualism, you can’t tell me what to do mentality. The danger here is that we become so uncoupled from authority that we start to let the authority of the Word slip away. I have wandered into many a blog where commentators have pared the Gospel down into a social justice, inclusivistic, vague spirituality where there is no dogma, no doctrine, no hell and ultimately no Gospel. Social justice issues are fine and dandy, and get short shrift in the most conservative of churches, but ultimately social justice is worthless if uncoupled from the Gospel of the Good News of God’s sovereign redemption of sinners. Social justice is not the Gospel, it is a result of changed hearts. Inclusivism and ecumenism are not the Gospel and are indeed antithetical to the exclusive claims of the Gospel. Jesus didn’t “hang out with gay people”, He brought a message of repentance, exclusivity, grace and judgment. Every person Jesus healed, every thing He taught, everything He did is secondary to the cross. Without the cross, we are still under judgment no matter how many lepers were healed or how much we were exhorted to love our neighbors.

I think in my own humble estimation that the local church is properly looked at as individual sinners, saved by sovereign grace, who assemble together in the bonds of Christian fellowship to worship and give thanks for our common salvation. We have complicated the mission and function of the local church by making it something it was never commanded or intended to be. That does not mean we abandon the local church. How can we and why should we? We need rather to reform the local church. I yearn for a small, simple church. Led in love by elders who serve out of worship, not as a profession or for pay. Elders who are qualified Biblically to lead based on the qualities we see in men called to be elders, not because of their professional resume, how many original languages they speak or where (or if) they went to seminary. Worship where all are allowed and expected to participate Biblically (i.e. women would not teach men). Where we love one another because we know one another, and we fellowship together not out of obligation or because it is on the schedule, but because no worldly distraction is more compelling to us than being with the Body. Vibrant and joyful yet sober and reverent. I have found many elements in different places. Still haven’t found it all in one place. I am not sure I ever will.

Dead Man Walking

Ladies and gentlemen, I present Jim Schwartz! Or as he is more affectionately known, the new soon to be former Detroit Lions head coach. Yet another promising career about to go down the tubes. He is pictured here coming to town at Detroit Airport. He better remember where the airport is, because he will inevitably be heading back there once he gets fired.

The Detroit Lions, where coaches come to die.


(I have some more substantive posts coming, be patient!)

Brrr!

OK, it is really cold. The temperature in downtown Detroit was -11 this morning, with wind chill it was approaching -30. Almost every school in Metro Detroit and Lansing are closed. The roads are still pretty poor. It took me almost two hours to get home Wednesday on interstates that were slick with ice. I am looking forward to getting today over and staying home and off the roads this weekend.

More on “Bishop” Robinson and the Coronation

This whole fiasco just keeps getting better and better. There is an article in the New York Times that deals with Obama’s choice of Mr. Robinson to give the invocation at some sort of gala event at the Lincoln Memorial.

The event Bishop Robinson will participate in is on the first day of formal inaugural festivities in Washington. It will feature a lineup that includes the musicians Beyoncé, Bono, Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Wonder.

The pay cable network HBO will broadcast the event and provide a free signal so that nonsubscribers can also watch, said Linda Douglass, the chief spokeswoman for the inaugural committee.

Wow, Beyonce, Bono and “Bishop” Gene Robinson! How can I face my grandchildren some day and tell them I missed this event? It is even going to be free on HBO!

Bishop Robinson said he had been reading inaugural prayers through history and was “horrified” at how “specifically and aggressively Christian they were.”

“I am very clear,” he said, “that this will not be a Christian prayer, and I won’t be quoting Scripture or anything like that. The texts that I hold as sacred are not sacred texts for all Americans, and I want all people to feel that this is their prayer.”

Bishop Robinson said he might address the prayer to “the God of our many understandings,” language that he said he learned from the 12-step program he attended for his alcohol addiction.

Bishop Robinson said that his partner of more than 20 years, Mark Andrew, would accept the Obama team’s invitation to join him in attending several inaugural events. The two had a civil union ceremony last summer in a New Hampshire church.

Oh dear, what could be more horrifying than a Christian minister giving a prayer that is “specifically and aggressively Christian”. Oh the humanity! I can only guess what President Lincoln would think of a homosexual “minister” giving a vague, ecumenical prayer at a memorial dedicated to his memory. I assume that he would reject the attempt to link the abolition of slavery and the civil rights movement with the radical homosexual agenda for normalization of deviancy.

I guess he can call himself whatever wants, and dress up in fancy, colorful outfits and such. His use of the title “Bishop” is no more meaningful than Joseph Ratzinger declaring himself the Vicar of Christ, or vicarious representative for Christ on earth, or an 18 year old mormon missionary carrying the title of “elder”.

What I have wondered in the past is what would motivate someone who clearly doesn’t believe in even the basics of Christianity to go into a professional ministry? I think what it really stems from is both a desire to cover his own unrepentant sin by cloaking himself in religious trappings and also a desire for attention. The NY Times article says that there is no correlation between the kerfuffle among the homosexual lobby over Rick Warren’s selection to give the invocation and Mr. Robinson being invited to give the post-inaugural prayer at the Lincoln Memorial. Riiiiggghhtt. Mr. Robinson got to play the aggrieved victim card when Warren was chosen and look concerned and wounded on TV. Now he gets to play the pious peacemaker and sophisticate for the media. I think he is the kind of person who might douse himself in gasoline and set himself on fire to get attention.

(Dr. Mohler also addresses the NYT article)

Biblical Evangelism

I was listening to Paul Washer yesterday morning on my iPod (not a good idea when the roads are snowy, listening to Washer makes me a little jittery!) and he was talking about Biblical evangelism, which is a world different than the evangelism we see in most churches. Evangelism is not one of my strengths, at least personal one on one evangelism. Put me on stage in front of a dozen or a thousand people, and I am fine. With an individual I have a lot harder time. But the Bible models for us by command and example not just that we should evangelize but how we should evangelize.

I remember sitting under the preaching of a man at a scheduled “revival crusade” when we lived in Kentucky and were members of the big Southern Baptist church in town (we had several SBC churches in our small suburban town, it was Kentucky after all!). Our church brought in a well-known revival preacher who shall remain nameless (it was not Billy Graham). This is a famous man, a man who is huge in Southern Baptist circles and someone who brags on his website that: “As a pastor, he has led more people to Christ than any other Southern Baptist pastor in an equal period of time in the history of the Southern Baptist Convention.”, along with a grotesque litany of other self-exalting accolades and fawning adoration from other Christian leaders about the great things he has accomplished. Back then as a very new Christian I didn’t understand that no human leads anyone to Christ, that it is the Spirit working in the heart of the sinner who changes that heart to become receptive to the Word of God. But I digress.

At the time, I thought this guy was great. He is an accomplished showman, everyone seemed to like him, he preached with passion and just look at all the “decisions” he got! He was a stereotypical decision generating preacher. He did the whole “Every head bowed and every eye closed”, “I see that hand!”, “Play through the last stanza of that hymn one more time.” shtick. People came forward in droves, people who had been in church for their whole lives. He preached for an emotional response and like a master craftsman he got the exact response he intended. I really thought this guy was a Gospel preaching machine and that genuine revival had broken out in this church because everyone knows that revival is something you plan for and schedule speakers for, not a working of the Holy Spirit when and where He pleases.

The problem, as Paul Washer pointed out, is that we never see that style of evangelism in the Bible. We see lots of evangelism, lots of people truly repenting and coming to Christ, plenty of direct commands and examples but nothing like the decisional model in vogue today. Jesus doesn’t knock on the door and ask to come in. He kicks the door down! As we are before the Spirit changes us, we would never open the door for Him and indeed we would never even hear Him knocking. He doesn’t wait for us to have a change of heart, He tears out that old heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh. The sort of preaching we get in church today is a lot more Charles Finney or P.T. Barnum than it is Paul, Peter or John the Baptist.

I would without hesitation say that it is because of this style of decisional evangelism, exemplified in this preacher and many others who emulate his style, that we see the state of the Southern Baptist Convention today. 16 million “members”. Do half of them show up on Sunday? Perhaps. Of those that show up every now and again, how many of them are actually believers? I am not sure and neither is anyone else because the preaching they sit under every week is not the sort of preaching that is going to convict anyone. In the SBC churches I have been a member of or frequent attender in, an unregenerate sinner could very comfortably sit in a pew month after month, year after year and never realize anything was wrong. That is not reserved for Baptist churches. The last two weeks I have been to a Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod church and an Orthodox Presbyterian church. In the LCMS church, there was virtually no preaching at all of any sort and in the OPC church it was sound exposition but there was little or nothing that would expose an unregenerate sinner to the cross.

If you are going to gather in a church building and have preaching, that preaching must be preaching that is Christ centered and cross focused. All the upbeat music and entertainment in the world, all the altar calls and the exhortations to walk an aisle, all the sacramentalism and liturgy, all the deep theology with frequent quotes from Calvin, Edwards and Spurgeon sprinkled liberally with references in Greek and Hebrew are meaningless to a lost sinner. I kind of use the formula “The garden and the cross”. If you miss the Fall and the lost estate of man, how can someone be convicted of sin? If you skip the cross, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, how can you preach grace? You can, and should, preach expositorally, but you can miss the grand unveiling of redemption in the minutiae of the text. Not every verse in the Bible mentions Christ, but the whole Bible preaches Christ. Preach Nehemiah, preach Habakkuk, preach James but don’t preach it without the shadow of the cross. Preach repentance, preach salvation but never, ever without the terrible cost of the cross. For the sake of souls, never preach decisions as a substitute for Spirit driven regeneration. God has been handling things on His own timetable for millennial, He doesn’t need us to nudge things along now.

Here is the sermon from Washer

The New Face of American Diplomacy

YIKES!

Maybe it is just me

But it sure seems to me that there are a) a lot more cars with Obama bumper stickers than there were before the election and b) that the stickers look brand new.

Could just be me being bitter....