Who is More Catholic?

This is the kind of thing that can happen when you sell your soul to politics. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend has written a piece reflecting on President Obama’s visit to the Vatican, pontificating (pardon the pun) on how Obama is more Catholic than the Pope.

Where, oh where, does one begin to mock such childish fawning? (And the article is full of the requisite fawning.) First of all, President Obama is not Catholic. The Pope is. Strike one. But of course she means that the President represents Catholic teaching and ideals better than the Pope does. Well, not exactly. What she means is that the President represents the polling data from American Catholics better than the Pope does.

In truth, though, Obama's pragmatic approach to divisive policy (his notion that we should acknowledge the good faith underlying opposing viewpoints) and his social-justice agenda reflect the views of American Catholic laity much more closely than those vocal bishops and pro-life activists. When Obama meets the pope tomorrow, they'll politely disagree about reproductive freedoms and homosexuality, but Catholics back home won't care, because they know Obama's on their side. In fact, Obama's agenda is closer to their views than even the pope's.

So here is the rub: when politics trumps substance, substance and truth become the results of polls. Kennedy argues in her piece that the Pope and Catholic teaching ought to conform themselves to American Catholics and their latest polling data. And may I say how intolerant and culturally insensitive that is.

Why shouldn’t the Pope conform his views to African Catholics? Asian Catholics? Why not Mexican Catholics? Why do American Catholics have pride of place?

Yet polls bear out that American Catholics do not want to be told by the Vatican how to think.

Well, Kennedy is not actually interested in the views of American Catholics. She is primarily interested with their views as they align with her own elitist views. Her article becomes more and more myopic, selfish, and bigoted the more we think it through.

What Kennedy is unable to grasp is that there are truths, even theological truths, beyond the scope of her personal preferences. There are truths about the world which refuse to conform to her polling data, or the coffee-klatch of her cocktail circuit.

The beauty of the church is, in part, that it will outlast, out-think and out-influence such parochial relativism.

Stephen Meyer - Signature in The Cell

This is the video of Stephen Meyer discussing his latest work on Intelligent Design. If you haven't tracked the book down, it has a plethora of impressive accolades already.

Christians and Public Science

President Obama recently tapped Francis Collins to head the National Institutes of Health. This is a really interesting nomination for a few reasons. Collins is the author of the best-selling book, The Language of God, in which he makes an argument akin to and Intelligent Design argument for the existence of God. And he is no small-scale scientist. He headed up the Human Genome Project under President Clinton, which essentially mapped the human genome.

Add to that his hot-and-cold relationship with the Christian world. He is an outspoken Christian, but as a theistic evolutionist, he is on the outs with many who work on these scientific and cultural matters from the Christian worldview.

What is interesting, but not surprising, about the NYT article announcing his appointment, is that he is controversial due to his "very public embrace of religion." I still fail to see why that would make someone who has clearly done a great deal of ground-breaking scientific work controversial for a public post like this.

I know what the basic and over-repeated arguments are for this "controversy," but they remain very unconvincing. Collins could be a fascinating addition to the world of science on this level, in part exactly because he is a scientist committed to God's universe.

The gods of Our Age

In case you missed it, Michael Jackson died. If, on the other hand, you have read or watched or listened to a minute of news over the last two weeks any time day or night, you were aware of that fact. The hysteria and overblown coverage of his life and death is not only itself pathetic, it reveals where we are as a culture.

We don't have lives. We don't have lives of significance. We live vicariously through unhealthy, but famous, people. We don't know the difference between famous and important. We have no tolerance for substance because our diet is the sugary-sweet junk-food of style.

According to one report, Jackson's funeral "took a spiritual turn."

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Michael Jackson's public memorial started out more spiritual than spectacular Tuesday, opening with a church choir singing as his golden casket was laid in front of the stage and a shaft of light evoking a cross as Lionel Richie gave a gospel-infused performance.

Pastor Lucious W. Smith of the Friendship Baptist Church in Pasadena gave the invocation, followed by Mariah Carey singing the opening performance with a sweet rendition of the Jackson 5 ballad "I'll Be There," a duet with Trey Lorenz.

"We come together and we remember the time," said Smith, riffing off one of Jackson's lyrics. "As long as we remember him, he will always be there to comfort us."

Part of me is frustrated with the pedestrian blashpemy here, but another part of me is not at all surprised. Psalm 115 tells us that we become like the idols we worship. And, to extend the thought, we are ready to use the ultimate of all ultimate justifications to support our idol worship - God himself. It should not shock us that there are those who would use God to put their own stamp of approval on this gold-ensconsed circus. Afterall, nothing supports our own vanity like a god encased in our own little boxes.

The Reality of Hate Crime Laws

I have argued here before that hate crimes legislation is an utterly arbitrary act of power, especially as it becomes a political reality. Even though we are able to point to legitimate and historical instances of systemic hate, as a matter of legislation, what groups get covered by hate crime laws is nothing but a matter of who is in power and the ideology they wish to impose.

Recently the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony about the latest form of the law before Congress. Among the presentors was Attorney General, Eric Holder. His actual report is on the Senate website, and the Q&A in his testimony is in the web/video link.

He received a question from Senator Sessions about who is covered in this bill. The hypothetical situation went like this:

"[A] minister gives a sermon, quotes the Bible about homosexuality, is thereafter attacked by a gay activist because of what the minister said about his religious beliefs and what Scripture says about homosexuality."

Is the Christian minister covered under this law? AG Holder responded:

“Well, the statute would not -- would not necessarily cover that. We're talking about crimes that have a historic basis. Groups who have been targeted for violence as a result of the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, that is what this statute tends -- is designed to cover. We don't have the indication that the attack was motivated by a person's desire to strike at somebody who was in one of these protected groups. That would not be covered by the statute.”

So, the long and the short of it is that speech derived from the Christian worldview is not covered because it does not fit into the agenda upheld by Holder and the lobby groups behind him. This is a perfect case in point for the arbitrary and subjective nature of these laws. They are not aimed at protecting victims, but at suppressing certain kinds of speech through acts of power.

And it raises another important question for the practicality for these kinds of silly laws: who wins when competing victim groups are involved? Rationally, this kind of politicized victimhood should make it clear to us this is a ridiculous path to tread down, but in reality, some lobbying group has enough money and influence to make themselves the most victimized of the victimized.

Augustine and Missional Theology

I have been thinking a lot lately about the “missional” trend in evangelicalism. On the whole, I think the drive is right: we need to see our communities in North America more and more like missions fields and approach our cultures with the sensibilities of missionaries. In that light, our LHC book club has been reading Augustine’s Confessions, and I was struck by his own account of his conversion. There was a lot more there than I recalled. So in the spirit of thinking about how people (especially those completely outside the circle of influence of Christianity) come to faith in Christ, here are a few reflections on Augustine’s conversion.

First, he was passionately devoted to truth. Though he wasted over a decade of his life stuck in systems he knew were unsatisfying, he stayed in them for their security (and income) before he had the wherewithal to leave. So what are people passionate about, and do they belong to systems of thought they are not entirely satisfied with?

Second, he had a praying mother. This may be the most well-known fact of his conversion, but it cannot be passed up. Prayer is indispensible.

Third, he had an authoritative Christian figure in his life who was different than anyone else. Whereas Augustine was wholly disappointed with the Manichean elite, Bishop Ambrose genuinely impressed him with his devotion and command of life and theology. Are we these kinds of “aliens” to the unsaved around us or do we look and sound and smell exactly like everyone else?

Fourth, he had a circle of friend who were on the spiritual journey with him. I had completely forgotten this important fact. The chapter Augustine devotes to his conversion begins with his retelling of friend who were either just “behind” him on the path to salvation, or who were just “ahead” of him and how it moved him toward Christ. We cannot neglect the power of spiritual journey with people!

Reality TV and You

This is a great little piece by Colleen Carroll Campbell at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. The garbage of reality TV not only degrades the people involved and reveals the thinness of our culture, it degrades us as well. Speaking specifically to the debacle that is the “Jon and Kate Plus 8” show, Campbell writes:

The excruciatingly public marital troubles between Jon and Kate Gosselin reached their predictable denouement Monday when the reality television stars announced their impeding divorce before an audience of 10.6 million. After 10 years of marriage and two years of filming "Jon & Kate Plus 8," the parents of 8-year-old twins and 5-year-old sextuplets denied that the constant intrusion of cameras into their private life had precipitated their split or exploited their children. And true to form, the couple assured viewers that the divorce would not interfere with their hit cable series. As Kate Gosselin said gravely, "The show must go on."

It is very telling that the TV show carries more weight to these people than does a marriage or the health of a home in trouble. But this is emblematic of our own lack of personal substance. Not only do we live vicarious and dysfunctional lives through TV people, but we find our own substance through them. The fodder for our daily conversations and perceptions about relationships, language, work, politics, comes through TV.

An uncle to the children on this TV program (Kreider) had a great piece of advice:

"So please," Kreider said, "stop watching."

Great Lecture on Truth and Christianity

Sadly, many in Christian circles are dismissing the value, relevance or reality of truth claims about spiritual and moral truths. My former professor, Douglas Groothuis, wrote a great book on the issue - Truth Decay. Here is an introduction to a lecture he gave on the book's topic.

Great Satire: The Value of a Life

Satire the way only The Onion can do it. But it presses a very important ethical issue: when is euthanizing appropriate (if ever)? Many will argue that "biographical life" is what is important. In other words, then the value of a life is done, it is ethically permissible to end a life. Apparently the gymnast's parents agree...



Gymnast Shawn Johnson Put To Sleep After Breaking Leg

Back to the Bookshelf: Pastors are Not Professionals

I have to admit that the first few chapters were a rollercoaster ride for me. I bought the book with one expectation, the first chapter met that expectation, then the second two went another direction altogether. Piper opens with:

We pastors are being killed by the professionalizing of the pastoral ministry. The mentality of the professional is not the mentality of the prophet….Professionalism has nothing to do with the essence and heart of the Christian ministry. (pg 1)

I was excited to read a book from a veteran pastor analyzing the current state of professional ministers, and the details of how the prophetic role of pastor is incompatible with the professional mentality of a CEO. But that is not what Piper wrote.

His next few chapters began to deal with a few of Piper’s pet theological issues and how important they are to the life of the church. If you have read Piper, you know he has a handful of themes that run throughout his preaching and writing, and honestly, a couple of them wear thin for me after a little while. For example, Piper is an ardent traditionalist/compatibalist when it comes to male/female roles, and though I disagree with some of the justifications of his position, I don’t mind reading his mind on the issue. But when he managed to squeeze that into several of his chapters while citing his own works on the matter, it got a little old for me.

But once I got over my initial shock about the purpose and direction of the book, I settled into a wonderful and incredibly lucrative read. This book is not an analysis of professionalism versus pastoring, it is a work of pastoral theology. What kinds of things should be important from behind the pulpit, and what kinds of lifestyles are necessary in the lives and careers of pastors? The chapters, which average a very readable nine pages long, have titles like, “Brothers, Consider Christian Hedonism,” “Brothers, Let Us Query the Text,” “Brothers, Read Christian Biographies,” and “Brothers, Our Affliction is for Their Comfort.” Piper’s book is essentially a call to action; a call to have pastors regain their prophetic role before Scripture and before God, and to live lives that may become their congregations’ comfort and guide.

There is an oddity or two to the book. The one that sticks out to me occurs in the pull-quotes that open each chapter. Most books that contain these cite other authors than the one writing the book to make their point. This one, however, cited John Piper probably 80-90% of the time. So Piper was quoting Piper to help make Piper’s point.

The book is very well-cited. In fact, it is a wealth of resource material on several issues. For example, he encourages pastors to read biographies of Christians who have made a difference in this world. He has a chapter specifically devoted to that issue in which he provides several good possibilities, but then it is evident throughout the rest of the book that he has read a lot of them himself, and he cites them often.

Overall, the book’s value lies it its break from the standard fare of pastoral leadership. Piper is not at all concerned that we are competent professionals (as his opening chapter makes abundantly clear). He is concerned that we present the glorious truths of the Gospel to our congregations and that we live lives that reflect those truths. And, in my opinion, in a world that just doesn’t know what a pastor does (but which is abundantly clear on what CEOs do), his call is a necessary one if we are to regain—in the eyes of God and in the eyes of our congregations—the uniquely biblical role of pastor.

To see this review among others by pastors and for pastors, visit Pastor's Books.

The Difference Between Grace and Karma

This is great.


Rolling Stone: Don’t you think appalling things happen when people become religious?

Bono: It’s a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the Universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between grace and karma.

RS: What’s that?

Bono: At the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, you put out what comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics every action is met by an equal and opposite one. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I have done a lot of stupid stuff. I would be in big trouble if Karma is going to finally be my judge. I am holding out that Jesus took my sins to the cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity.

RS: The Son of God who takes away the sins of the world. I wish I could believe that.

Bono: The point of death is that Christ took the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. It’s not our own good works that get us through the gates of Heaven.

Rolling Stone, one of the worst cultural perps in our world right now, opens with one of the most hackneyed and false salvos possible, and Bono responds with, well, grace. I'm not Bono's biggest fan, but this is great stuff.

HT: Salvo Blog

Hate Speech Police

More and more hate crimes laws are being woven into the fabric of our legal structure and even our societal assumptions about what crimes are the really heinous ones. If two people are murdered alongside a road, one is a WASP and the other is a female Mexican immigrant, one murder is much worse than the other. Thankfully, Congress is ready to help us broaden our current myopic understanding of what counts as a hate crime. From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

This month, Congress has an opportunity to deal with this challenge by adopting the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

A top priority of the Anti-Defamation League, this legislation would strengthen federal hate crimes laws by authorizing the Department of Justice to assist local authorities investigating and prosecuting certain bias-motivated crimes. The bill would also provide authority for the federal government to prosecute some bias-motivated crimes directed against individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. Current law does not provide sufficient authority for involvement in these cases.

The “mark up” of this piece of legislation actually happens this Wednesday (April 22nd) and will present to Congress, the Senate and President, legislation that explicitly includes speech against sexual orientation as a hate crime. According to one report, it includes all 30 (yes, there are 30!) sexual orientations recognized by the American Psychological Association. Ironically, many of the behaviors based on those orientations are currently against the law in most, if not all, states. Politicians have never let such ironies stop them before.

The ever clear-minded Huffington Post contained an opinion piece…wait for it…supporting it! The argument proffered is full of postmodern language about the maintenance of power structures and the evils of what children are taught in their homes about people who are different than them. And in case you thought that all people could be hateful, the article make it clear that, “Hate crime exists at one end on a continuum of privilege.”

It is incredibly convenient to support a piece of sweeping and horrific legislation like this one, and in one quick sentence exempt most people (including yourself) of the crime. Only “those guys” are guilty of hate, because we have simply defined hate as an attitude and act shown from the powerful to the disenfranchised.

Another inconvenient falsehood perpetrated by this kind of legislation is that things that are not crimes become crimes. Literally, it is not a crime to think something, and it is not a crime to say most things. The clear application sought by it supporters is that this kind of hate thought legislation will be applied to religious organizations and churches. It can become a crime to speak truths and beliefs taught by religion, thus making the State the arbiter of speech and acceptable belief.

Another crushing and obvious irony to all this is that hate crime and hate thought legislation is more often than not supported by those who espouse the virtue of “tolerance.” In reality, their agenda is the crushing of any thought and belief different than their own, and because they don’t have a leg to stand on in public debate and analysis, they force their views on everyone else through laws and the courts.

New Book Review Blog For and By Pastors

Another pastor and I have begun a blog dedicated to books for pastors reviewed by pastors. Take a look!

Pastor's Books

Truth, Arrogance, and the Wisdom of Deepak Chopra

Lee Strobel has a wonderful apologetics site full of videos and information on the basic questions regarding the truth of the Christian faith. In this video, Greg Koukl debates the ever evading Dr. Deepak Chopra regarding religious truth.

As is standard for Chopra, his only fall-back position to facts and arguments is that because other people think differently about religious matters, they must not be any truth to the matter. Don’t bother me with facts! I know a guy who thinks differently than you do, and you are arrogant for not being a relativist!

What bothers me the most about this argument is that it seems to have a hold on a large and growing number of people, even thought is it so thin you could drink tapioca through it (I don’t know what that means). Part of the problem our culture has when it comes to debate is that there is a point of view out there (a dominant point of view) that believes differences are evidence for relativism and that dissent from relativism is arrogance. In a fatal twist of irony, this is the most arrogant and tyrannical belief possible to hold.

For instance, if I believe it is true that “Jesus is the only Son of God,” and I believe that because of an objective source (Scripture, God’s existence, etc.), then I make my appeal to you through another “truth maker.” In addition, I make, or ought to make, my claim humbly. I did not make my belief true, therefore I am in a position of humility with regards to it. In other words, I assent to the truth and provide good reasons for you to do so as well.

On the other hand, Chopra and others like him do not believe there is a “super-human” standard for truth, and thus have made themselves the makers and bearers of truth. If Chopra believes “all religions are ways to god,” then his only standard for that truth is himself. In addition, that makes him infinitely arrogant. As a result, his reply to anyone who holds to any kind of objective truth is one of arrogance.

The Christian worldview has hold on the truth, not because we are that smart, but because God has revealed it to all of us. And that makes us infinitely humble in all the right ways with regard to the truth.

Stem Cell Debate Over?

Kablamo!

While on the show with Michael J. Fox, Dr. Oz describes how useless embryonic stem cells are and how useful adult stem cells are. The video cuts short the whole discussion, but for the objective student, there is a growing amount of information to support his argument.

Should Doctors be Made to Practice Against their Conscience?

President Obama has recently announced his intent to reverse what is commonly called the “conscience clause” for medical professionals. Officially, the Provider Refusal Rule, allows a medical practitioner to opt out of procedures they personally find immoral and distasteful. Their conscience can be their guide in their practice, and for many, that means their religious views will come into play.

Enter the standard drum-beat of public vs. private morality. Stanley Fish wrote a column on this issue for the NY Times in which he invokes Hobbes’ political theory in order to support the view that doctors should be bound by law to carry out what the law requires. If we allowed each individual doctor to practice according to their conscience, the public order of law and morality would be on the brink of disorder. According to Hobbes and Fish, Law becomes the public morality, and each of us in society is bound by our kinds of social contracts to abide by those laws.

Fish’s argument has some fatal flaws to it. I agree, for example, that because premeditated murder is against the law, all citizens are bound to not commit premeditated murder. And if they do, they should be punished. In this way, murder has a tight legal force behind it and our society has contracted to abide by it.

The provision of abortion has no such tight legal force around it. Where the universal prohibition of premeditated murder is on the books, no such universal provision for abortion exists. There is no law stating that all doctors are bound to provide abortions. So Fish’s argument stands with murder – it fails with abortion. If any doctor (or any set of doctors) refuses to provide abortions, they violate no laws, and certainly do not even rise to the level of violating a social contract.

Secondly, Fish doesn’t even raise the question of the status of the fetus. And he doesn’t, because to do so is to make the social contract theory he enjoins work against him. If a fetus is human or potentially human, then abortion is murder or tantamount to murder, thus we have a universal law agreed upon by our society protecting the fetus against abortion. Fish’s argument might just commit suicide.

And thirdly, he assumes an ethical breech between private and public morality. In making a silly emotional plea, he tries to take your emotions and wrap them around a bad conclusion.

But should patients be asked to add to the problems they already have the problem of having to figure out (if they have the time) which providers will be willing to treat them? When a professional hangs out his shingle doesn’t he offer his services and skills to the public and not just to members of it who share his morality?...

The force of these questions depends on assumptions the proponents of the conscience clause do not share, chiefly the assumption that obligations vary with different contexts and that one can (and should) relax the obligations of faith when one is not in church.

I wonder if Fish holds these private ethical values of his loosely when he enters the public square, especially one that on the whole, disagrees with abortion on demand?

Support the Conscience Clause

Be Heard Project

And Another Try...

Like clockwork every Easter and Christmas, someone in the main stream press has to make another effort to tell us all how old, outdated, irrelevant, and irrational Christianity is. Newsweek is the latest culprit with their cover proclaiming our nation is no longer "Christian." It grows ponderous and repetitive to deal with each of these rehashes, so we don't always do so here. But posted on the First Things blog is a great treatment of the selective journalism and poor quality that is Meacham's article.

Mediums and a Gospel Message?

Shane Hipps is the recent author of two books on how media and mediums change the way the messages are conveyed. The interview below is specifically in regards to his book, Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith. I have not read the book, but the few minutes of the video below are provocative.

He goes after the fairly conventional notion that though mediums change, the message stays the same, and concludes, ostensibly with McLuhan, that the medium is the message. On several levels, I find this a very important reality for pastors and churches to reflect upon. We often swallow and use technologies without reflecting first on what they are doing to the message. What happens to a sermon when it is simulcast? What happens to community when more and more of it happens “on-line”? What happens to worship when it is programmed like a Yani concert? And so forth.

On another level, I am curious about how deep his conviction goes. Is his argument that we need to scale back our reliance on technology and be much more cautious? (He is a Mennonite pastor, so that is entirely possible.) Is he traveling down a path where the message of the Gospel itself becomes a little fungible and begins to change in significant ways? (He wrote a book endorsed by Brian McLaren, so that is also possible.)

In any event, enjoy the brief provocation.

HT: Out of Ur

Apologetics Study Bible

I was given the Apologetics Study Bible for my birthday, and though I haven’t read every single word (I received it yesterday), I have spent a lot of time reading articles, text notes, and the editors’ explanation for the way they put it together. I have to say I am extremely impressed. I am impressed by the wide array of philosophers who contributed articles throughout the text, and I am impressed with the annotated bibliography on different apologetic issues. I was also impressed, reading through several biblical texts, on the focus of the textual notes. They really did focus on apologetic issues and, where I read them, handled the text well.

A “bonus” feature for me was a set of comments called the Twisted Scripture notes. At several important places, the editors stuck a brief note on how this particular verse of set of verses has been taken out of context and used to justify some pretty bad thinking. If there is any kind of draw-back for me, it would be the Holman translation, and only because it is brand new to me. Now I have a new translation to get used to.

If you are looking for a new and useful study Bible, I highly recommend the Apologetics Study Bible!