Extrapolations. Mischaracterisations. Non sequiturs. What do you do when these become the rules of engagement over debated theological and political topics? All three were in play during a recent YouTube conversation between two well-respected theologians, and deservedly so. Eminent one minute, in error the next?
1 John 4:1 (NASB) 1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
The Christian leaders I watch and listen to are at least Christians but credentialed or not, everyone can sometimes be in error. So a testing of spirits is required by individual believers. This is what the biblical text is saying. It is what the Apostle John is telling the recipients of his letter to do. No one person is written off as bad or admired as always right. This principle is illustrated in the dialogue between Jesus and His disciples in Matthew 16. Thus, Christ could tell Peter one minute:
Matthew 16:17 (NASB) 17 And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.
The next, He is chastising him for rejecting God’s plan of salvation:
Matthew 16:21-23 (NASB) 21 From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. 22 Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” 23 But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”
Jesus was discerning the spirits – the spirit of God’s interests vs man’s. That is why we must be vigilant to discern what we are hearing, whomever the source. Sometimes non-Christians have valid things to say but finding wise and mature Christian leaders is a worthwhile ambition.
When I first set this website up I had issues with being a woman offering opinion. You can see from this that I do not believe in the ordination of women because I see Scripture objecting to the practice of women being pastors, involving as it does the administration of a church as well as preaching. The Bible’s reasoning is that the woman was deceived first by the serpent. In Dr Jordan Peterson’s words, “Women like to be agreeable. Men generally do not have this tendency.” So how does a woman pastor resist pressure from a church member pushing for unfaithful teaching? I would say, with difficulty if at all. But the issue is far more complex than this. Obviously, men are as prone to bending the knee to the culture as women are. The question of the ordination of women as pastors is a huge topic and this post is not prioritising it here so I move on. I came across a very helpful article about women in ministry written by Dr Tom Schreiner. It gave me self-permission to go ahead with the blog. Since then I read about a pastor saying he was unsure about going ahead with studying towards pastoral ministry but did so simply out of a drive to. Only later did his decision become more certain. These down to earth, real-life examples are helpful. I say this despite some Christians believing we should only proceed with a ministry if God clearly speaks to us. He sometimes does this but often appears not to.
I have some favourite theologians and pastors, Calvinist Protestants, non-Calvinist Protestants as well as Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic but I differ with EVERYONE on something. Even those I admire from current and past eras I do not blindly follow. No one is exempt from scrutiny except Scripture. That, I try to be true to as closely as I can. I have a percentage scale for how much I agree with someone. I have a wide range of percentage agreement that I tolerate because sometimes the low-percentage agreement factor goes out the window over a gem or gems someone might utter. Sometimes, the gems so outweigh the dubious ideas that I will continue to listen to them. I really like those who come up with gems – say, a beautiful reminder of the most important things said by Christ. I get put off by the deliberate mischaracterisation of ideas in order to put down a perceived opponent. This is wrong. Perhaps it is a heartfelt belief they are defending. Well and good. But there can be a mincing of words and over-simplification to the point of twisting another’s thought.
There is a need in the Church – not for more refined translations or word studies, valuable as they are, but for more of one very human process – reading comprehension. There’s an old-fashioned term for you, reading comprehension. I find some deeply questionable statements coming from some theological leaders and pastors on interpretation of the culture and the Bible. On the culture, one main reason I started this website was to refute the evangelical pitfall of going leftie. Left-leaning Christian leaders seem oblivious to their own political stance, assuming it to be objective truth. It is not. It is spirit-of-the-age thinking. Correct interpretation of any document depends upon the ability to read something for what it is saying – adding nothing and leaving nothing out. Just reading it, whether Bible or culture, in a commonsense way is all that is needed. And don’t swallow the culture’s lie that commonsense does not exist. It does, especially for us as Christians because we believe in objective truth.
Over recent years I have particularly valued the work of Dr William Lane Craig. He, without necessarily knowing it, has rescued me several times from doubting my own opinion. I am grateful to him and his website and YouTube discussions and classes for this. I do not believe what Dr Craig believes just because he is credentialed, though he is that. I believe what he believes because I happen to often interpret Scripture the same way he does, for example, on freedom of the human will. I believe in free will yet in God’s sovereignty. God, in His generosity and pure goodness, does not use His sovereignty to flatten our wills and usurp them. He is our self-limiting God for our good. If He did not self-limit, He would judge non-believers now. He does not. He waits for people to repent. He is patient with us; He is patient with others :
2 Peter 3:9 (NASB) 9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
Another demonstration of the self-limits of God can be seen in Christ’s own words about what He was to go through on the cross :
Matthew 26:53-54 (NASB) 53 Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels? 54 How then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen this way?”
I have some differences of opinion with Dr Craig also, thus my percentage-agreement meter. I neither elevate as infallible nor dismiss those with whom I agree and disagree. I think for myself. We need this quality of forever evaluating statements in order to unherd from lies of the culture. Unherding does not imply a 1960s predilection for bucking the system by an anti-hero. What we conservatives buck at is lies. This is surely a thing to be valued, is it not?
Even atheist Dr Sam Harris, in dialogue with Pastor Doug Wilson, paid Pastor Doug the respect due to him by intelligently and honestly relaying back to him precisely what the good pastor had said. What I admire about Pastor Doug is his facing of reality – in life and in the Bible. Facing reality instead of hiding behind layers upon layers of human thought in the form of theology is, in my mind, the way to go. Put down the theology if it gets in the road of reality including the reality of life and the reality of truth conveyed in the Bible. Theology is wonderful and helpful. We all need a framework for understanding the Bible but ultimately biblical truth, no matter how disruptive of our theology, has to take precedence. Call that fundamentalism if you like but what’s wrong with fundamentalism if it leads to the truth? “Fundamentalist” is the worst insult some Christians believe they can hurl at someone in order to label them as unsophisticated or lacking in knowledge. I do not admire extrapolations the other way either but I admire some Christian fundamentalists for trying to uphold the value they place on the word of God.
I have just mentioned a couple of Christian leaders whose theological or theological/political ministries I find helpful for their nailing of particularly theological issues such as the two natures of Christ, the Trinity etc, things I was grateful for receiving from Ridley College too when I briefly studied there many moons ago. But the political side of things needs to also be addressed by Christians. I believe the Bible needs to be used to judge the culture but too often, Christians allow the culture to judge the Church and the Bible so that rather than taking up our cross we become cowards, denying the truth. The church must not allow itself to follow cultural trends and cultural language in order to make itself palatable to the world. This does not mean it should become obnoxious. All that’s needed is to remain firm in resolve to obey God rather than man. I am grateful for any Christian who addresses the culture and the Church on political issues from a perceptively biblical perspective instead of from what I can only call a culture-brainwashed perspective. Sorry if that sounds harsh. Many Christian podcasters remain true to God and Scripture and address politics from that vantage point. They may be wanting to reach a particular type of audience, say a homosexual (I do not use the word ‘gay’) audience, and they remain true to God and Scripture in doing so. Their bravery and truth-telling are admirable. Other Christians address other particular audiences. And there are several who address purely theological issues. These are all helpful to the culture because they express uncompromising truth. We must remain true to God and not bend the knee to the culture.
One further subject that was discussed on the podcast I mentioned at the start of this article was that of the US Department of Homeland Security’s recent ad defending the work of armed personnel in upholding the integrity of their nation. They overlaid the advertisement to the public with the caption :
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
Matthew 5:9
This ad was seen as cause for ridicule. Look closer. It is conveying the need for state force in order to maintain peace in the society. Criminal activity requires the intervention of the state and in confronting crime, peace is maintained. This is the real world. I think the DHS would have better served their own interests if, instead of quoting Matthew 5:9 which was intended to wryly confront the peaceniks, they had quoted Paul instead when he said:
Romans 13:3-4 (NASB) 3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; 4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing;
When a government has good intentions, in this case peace in their nation, the wielding of force for the sake of peace becomes necessary. Drug traffickers, child traffickers, Church disruptors should face the force of the law. The Bible does not shy away from the reality of the occasional need for violence in both domestic and international conflicts.
Our World Our Faith 