SHEEP To SHEEP - comments, letters, seasonal clippings
Will Left Always be Right? - from the editors of Concern (Sept. '95)
Ever since 1988 we [in the "Community of Concern (COC) within the United Church of Canada"] have been trying to get our Church's Theological Colleges to offer a balanced curriculum in which the orthodox point of view is fairly presented. It's a perfectly reasonable request for unprejudiced treatment of different viewpoints within our Colleges; but we don't seem to be getting anywhere.
...In the United States, too, most of the mainline seminaries have a skewed focus - and for many of the same reasons. Here is the most recent description of the American situation by Professor Thomas Oden of the Theological School at Drew University, himself a Methodist clergyman and the theme speaker at COC's second Faithfulness Today conference in 1992:
In the last decade the curriculum of seminaries has been liberated for sexually permissive advocacy, political activism, and ultrafeminist hype (as distinguished from believing feminist argument). The study of Bible and church history becomes a deconstruction of patriarchal texts and traditions. The study of ethics becomes the study of political correctness. The study of liturgy becomes and experiment in colour, balloons, poetry, and freedom. The study of pastoral care becomes a support group for the sexually alienated.
Once upon a time students in theological colleges were trained to be the moral leaders of their communities. Alas, that seems long ago and far away. Now, in our United church seminaries, students who hold to traditional ethics have a very, very hard time of it. Let those of us in the reform groups try by every means at our disposal to turn those values right-side-out again. The survival of our Church depends on it.
Anglican Synod: Out of Touch?
from open letter to Most Rev'd M. Peers, Toronto by Mrs. G.J. (Cathy) Hunt
Dear Sir,
Upon hearing a report of the General Synod, Ottawa 1995, I feel compelled to write of my dismay.
a) The acceptance of the new hymns referring to the "Mother God": this is disobedience to the Word of God. Jesus is the authority (Matt.28:18).
b) The presentation of a non-celibate homosexual's grief and pain because he/she is not accepted/acceptable into the priesthood: Was there a similar presentation denouncing this talk? Jesus knew grief and pain in the Garden of Gethsemane; He chose to be obedient to [His Father], to the Word of God. I note that in the BAS's Daily Office Lectionary, that Rom.1:26,27 is omitted on pages 459, 477, and 519. Are these passages ever required to be read publicly? Ditto for Lev. 18:22.
c) There was a mention of "preaching the Gospel" in the report. My question is: which Gospel, that of Jesus Christ or that of a gospel of man? The church of Jesus Christ must remain true to the Word of God. Individuals are created with free-will and have the divine right to disagree with the commandments of the living God and thus deal with the consequences. The true church consists of disciples who believe in the sovereignty of God (Dan.4:35), not a god they can manage. (Matt.10:24; Luke 6:40).
I believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, which has one Author and the rest are writers (2 Pe.1:21; 1 Thess.2:13; 2 Tim.3:16). How else could a book be written over a period of 1500-1600 years and still be a book of "oneness" - the Messiah? Only the Lord could accomplish this. Only the Lord could have preserved the Bible as it is today... There is a need to distinguish between a paraphrased translation and a doctrinal translation.
The best way of ensuring that Christianity remains relevant to the modern world is to be faithful to Christian orthodoxy and articulate the faith in terms intelligible to the world. Orthodoxy believes that the gospel stays the same; we need rather to find better and more effective ways of presenting it. Christianity does not need to be made more attractive, it is attractive.
...The fundamental motivation for evangelism is generosity - the basic human concern to share the good things of life with those we love. It does not reflect a desire to sell or dominate. It is a "pearl of great price", something that is recognized to be worth seeking and possessing, and whose possession overshadows everything else (Matt.13:46). Evangelism - the proclaiming of the Gospel - straddles denominations.
Mrs. Hunt outlines some guidelines for Bible study, such as Scripture's self integrity and cohesion ("scripture does not contradict scripture"), the importance of canonicity and context, and acceptance of His word in faith. She mentions positively an article by Michael Cohen: "Anglican leadership out of touch with the 'ordinary' people" (Financial Post, June 14/'95).
Bogus Bible: the Oxford Ordeal - DAG & quotes
Political correctness has been carried to an extreme which, if it were not presuming to "improve" the meaning of God's Word, would be almost comical. Oxford's "inclusive" version of the New Testament and Psalms is a paraphrase rather than a true translation, and yet it's not even the kind of paraphrase designed for easier comprehension of what has been said. It's a "para-sense", standing somewhere far beyond common sense, nearer to non-sense. Instead of making scriptural meaning easier to understand, it seeks to change the meaning of scripture.
The worst corruption is similar to what Mrs. Hunt refers to (above) in new Anglican hymns: God the Father is Oxfordized into "Our Father-Mother in heaven" (Matt.6:9).
And, as noted in Catholic World Report (by "Diogenes"; Oct.'95), "even in references to Christ, the [sic] translators do their best to ignore His masculinity; the Son of Man becomes 'the Human One'; the 'Son of God' is 'the Child of God'.
"The editors have stripped out negative references to darkness, lest racist readers find comfort in these passages. Kings and soldiers and slaves disappear from the text - we now long for the 'Dominion of God' - in the interests of non-violence and social equality. Even before their miraculous cure, lepers are transformed into people suffering from leprosy. God's right hand becomes His 'mighty' hand, lest left-handed people feel offended.
"...In better days, believers took up the Bible in order to explore the wisdom of God, and thus to serve His kingdom. Now, with the help of Oxford University Press, the inspired Scripture is adapted to glorify 'the great human community'; the Word of God is altered to accommodate human sensibilities."
Rev. Ken Birch, executive director of Canadian ministries of the Pentecostal Assemblies, said: "If you move away from the exact science of linguistics, then it's every man for himself, whether you come from a male chauvinist or feminist or liberation theology position."
"Jesus Seminar" Edits Gospels - DAG, quotes from Rev. Paul Miller
Just as Oxford Press has attempted to man-make a politically correct Bible, the group of "career academics" who comprise the Jesus Seminar are attempting to construct an innocuous Jesus. Rev. Paul Miller, writing for Theological Digest & Outlook (July '95; Church Alive, 403 Wilson Ave., Burlington, ON. L7L 2N2) characterizes the motives of the seminar's twice-yearly goal as "the delightfully presumptuous purpose of deciding what Jesus really said...". They seem to insist that many sayings of Jesus were invented by the early church (cf. "Word enFolding", this issue). Rev. Miller asks, "In whom do we place our faith? Christ as witnessed to in the Scriptures and as confessed by the Church? Or a hypothetical, reconstructed, allegedly "historical" figure standing behind the Scriptures?" He goes on to say (emphasis is his): "The more I preach, the more I study Scripture and relate it to contemporary issues, and the more I read of the development of modern theology, the more convinced I become... that the wisdom of the Holy Spirit was somehow at work in the Church's confession of the risen Christ, the formation of the New Testament, and generations of reflections upon Christ's meaning for us. The Christ who has the power to save emerges out of the fullness of the biblical witness, and the rich totality of the Church's confession of Him. Next to this, the abridged Gospels of the Jesus Seminar seem strangely poor and powerless."
Feminism: Wolf in the Fold - from an article by John Moerman
- Pioneer Christian Monthly (Jan./Feb.'95; "Now... A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing!!!")
Feminism is truly a watershed issue of the church today. Not to recognize it as such, ignore it and hope it will go away, or to embrace it, will lead to the same inevitable conclusion... for some in this generation, for others in the next. "Some evangelical leaders, in fact, have changed their views about inerrancy as a direct consequence of trying to come to terms with feminism... It is a direct and deliberate bending of the Bible to conform to the world spirit of our age at the point where the modern spirit of our age conflicts with what the Bible teaches."(1)
For example, Virginia Mollenkott [writing in 1977, was at that time] "no different from any other Bible believing evangelical Christian, except in her views about the Bible's teaching regarding the roles of female and male."(2) By 1983, she was writing "we can resolutely learn to speak of God in an all-inclusive way... He/She/It... to be recognized everywhere in everyone and everything."(3) By 1988, she began to see herself as God. "I am a manifestation of God. God Herself! God Himself! God Itself! Above all. Through all. And in us all."(4)
Further, she "argued that Christianity should yield its 'exclusive claim' of Christ being the only way to God" ... and finally she pushed feminist presuppositions to advocate an inclusive morality: "When scripture seems to be condemning homosexuals, it is actually condemning the loss of male sperm in a culture that needed population; or it is condemning pagan rituals, or prostitution, or exploitive lust, or the use of sex by some males to humiliate other males, as in the Sodom story. It is time for the heterosexuals in the church to... educate themselves about human sexuality so that they can cease bearing false witness against their gay and lesbian neighbours."(5)
With a known end like this (if she is finished), is it really advisable to read her beginning works? I suggest that not only would it be a waste of time, it has the real potential of sending the reader further down the slippery slope toward apostasy, and gross immorality!!
To be sure, we are often left confused in attempting to understand the connection between the false view of women's roles as they have crept into the church and the sickening ends of lesbianism and apostasy. A word from Francis A. Schaeffer is in order here: "Again we see that an idea which sounds at first so close to a genuinely biblical idea ends up in a completely different place. The idea of absolute, autonomous freedom from God's boundaries flows into the idea of equality without distinction, which flows into the denial of what it truly means to be male and female, which flows into abortion and homosexuality, and the destruction of the home and the family, and ultimately to the destruction of our culture."(6)
Mr. Moerman concludes this article with quotes from Martin Luther, Jeremiah 5:31 and 6:16, and this from Mary Kassian:
"Looking to Christ for strength, as our whole culture is against us at this point, we must reject the infiltration of feminism in theology and in life equally. We, as the Bride of Christ, need to remain holy by rejecting this unholy union."(7)
NOTES:
1. Schaeffer, Francis A., The Great Evangelical Disaster (Crossway Books, 1992) p.137
2. Kassian, Mary A. The Feminist Gospel (Crossway Books, 1992) p.237
3. ibid., p.238 in a quote from Mollenkott's The Divine Feminine: the Biblical Imagery of God as Female
4. ibid., p.238 in a quote from Mollenkott's Godding: Human Responsibility and the Bible
5. ibid., p.239 also a quote from "Godding: etc."
6. Schaeffer (see note 1), p.136
7. Kassian (see note 2), p.253
Passing Comments, Letters, & Seasonal Clippings Feminist Presumption "The Chesterton Review" (Aug.`96) provides the text of an article from the London "Spectator" (Sept.2`95) by Paul Johnson. Speaking about the recent U.N. Conference on women in Beijing, China, he is especially troubled by..."the totalitarian assumption underlying the conference itself. Why is it necessary or desirable to hold a Conference on Women? We would not dream of holding a Conference on Men. No one would have the effrontery to proclaim that they spoke for men throughout the world and could be faithfully entrusted to represent their interests. Why, then, should a group of `delegates' (delegated by whom?) claim to speak for all the world's women? Here, indeed, we have patronising paternalism at its worst - and fraudulent to boot.
Mr. Johnson points out that Anita Broderick for example is one "representative" acting first for the sake of her company, the Body Shop (as evident from her article in The Evening Standard)."She says as much. But, she adds, with breath-taking effrontery, that she and the Body Shop people will also be `taking with us the voices of women who cannot attend'. It is as though the chairman of Marks & Spencer went to an international gathering and claimed the right to speak on behalf of M&S's 30 million customers.
"This brings me to my main point - the assumption, behind all the propaganda activities, that women, making up 52% of the world's population, think broadly alike on a whole range of key issues. There is no evidence at all of this, and much evidence to the contrary. Women did not even agree about getting the vote - some of the most vociferous opponents of the Suffragettes were women. The fiercest opponents of married clergy are women and always have been, beginning with Queen Elizabeth 1, in some other respects a notable proponent of women's rights. Women who actually go to church, as opposed to worshipping at the foot of the columns of the Guardian and Independent are bitterly divided over women priests. On abortion, the most important issue of all, women hold the entire spectrum of views, forming the bulk of the militants on both sides but expressing every imaginable doubt and nuance in between. There is no such thing as the Women's View on anything, least of all those issues where feminists claim to speak for the entire sex."
The Chesterton Review, St. Thomas More College, 1437 College Dr., Saskatoon, SK. S7N 0W6 ($37.00/year, 4 issues).
London Spectator, 56 Doughty St., London WC1N 2LL England.
Extremes of the "Mainstream"This is the first of 3 short excerpts from "First Things" Aug.-Sept.`96, p.68(subscriptions: P.O.Box 3000, Dept FT, Denville, NJ. 07834 USA):
"In politics it matters a lot who gets described as `mainstream' and who is `extreme'. And, of course, the media do the describing. Politicians who `defend a woman's right to choose' are mainstream. The who would `ban abortion' are extreme. A new national survey by the Tarrance Group shows that only 13% of Americans favour unrestricted access to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. That is the `mainstream' position. Fifty-two percent of Americans favour the outlawing of all abortions, or all abortions except the 1% (according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute) performed for rape/incest/life of mother. That is the `extreme' position. Go figure." (Fr. Richard John Neuhaus)
From the same issue of First Things (p.77), this sad comment on the new "mainstream" emerging in the Episcopal Church (equivalent in the US to the Anglican Church in Canada):
"Episcopal Bishop John W. Howe of Florida spoke for many Episcopalians after a group of bishops decided in May that ordaining an openly non-celibate homosexual person violates neither the doctrine nor the discipline of the Episcopal Church. Bishop Howe wrote to the members of his diocese:
"`As your bishop, I said in my Address to our Convention back in January that I believed a finding by the Court that the Episcopal Church has no ("Core") doctrine vis-à-vis human sexuality would be tantamount to abandoning orthodoxy and embracing apostasy - on this particular point, at least, I reiterate that conviction now. That is an extremely serious charge to make, and I do not make it lightly. I have also said that I personally cannot and will not support an apostate Church. I reiterate that commitment as well. I take no pleasure in doing so. There are those who will see these issues as peripheral - matters about which we can agree to disagree. Please be aware that the other side does not see them that way. Bishop Spong of Newark has recently said that the Episcopal Church is engaged in a battle to the death over these issues. On this point, at least, he and I are in complete agreement.'
"Other bishops have made similarly strong statements. It would seem that one cannot return to bishoping as usual in a church that one believes to be apostate. It is not extreme to think that the Episcopal Church may indeed be battling itself to death." (Fr. Richard John Neuhaus)
The supposed shift in the "mainstream" is also reflected in First Things lead editorial (p.13) while mentioning the toothless label "homophobia" :
"...A homophobe, in current usage, is anyone who objects to the agenda of the gay rights community. Homophobes are people who vote against gay rights ordinances and who resist recognition - legal or moral - of same-sex marriage.
"It is all quite remarkable. Until very recently, opposition to homosexuality has been an all but universal social norm. Within a single generation, that norm has been turned on its head. It is now not homosexual behaviour that needs to be defended or explained, but rather objection to such behaviour. Opposition to homosexuality has become a suspect moral category: thus the now automatic grouping of `homophobia' with racism and sexism (the last another term so elastic in its application as to become meaningless).
"In this view, there is no significant distinction to be made between the attitudes, on the one hand, of philosophers, psychologists, and theologians who regard homosexual practice as objective disorder and, on the other hand, of gangs of skinheads eagerly in search of gays to bash. It is all ... [said to be] bigotry and prejudice, and it [supposedly] follows that decent people will have nothing to do with any of it.
"America's religious communities have a particular stake in seeing that these conversation stoppers not be allowed to set the terms of discussion on this matter. Jews and Christians alike believe that there is a divinely ordained right order of things, and that our sexuality finds right expression within that order in monogamous heterosexual unions. It takes no extraordinary perception to see that God created men and women for each other. Indeed, it requires a remarkable capacity for denial of the obvious to get around that intent. Homosexuals have the right to expect of the rest of us decent and respectful treatment as human beings and citizens. They have no right to insist that we surrender our fundamental moral beliefs in order that they might feel comfortable with their sexual behaviour."
from "When Insults No Longer Insult" by James Nuechterlein
Pagan Revolution - In the Fall 1996 issue of Fellowship Magazine (1-800-678-2607), Rev. Dr. Don Faris reviews "two recent books dealing with the latest biblical and scientific research" confirming that "homosexual practice is, from the biblical view, immoral, and from the scientific view, treatable". The books are: "Straight and Narrow? Compassion and Clarity in the Homosexual Debate" by Thomas E. Schmidt (I.V.P., `95) and "Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth" by Jeffrey Satinover, M.D. (Baker, `96).
The second book "...concludes with a chapter on `The Pagan Revolution' which is worth the price of the book. It explains the pagan (Gnostic) forces at work within our culture and how they have invaded the churches. It helps explain the ongoing struggle within our beloved United Church. It is no accident that we see the rise of the Mother Goddess and the approval of homosexuality coming form the same quarters. The old struggle between Orthodox theology and ethics and Gnostic theology and ethics is being replayed in the mainline North American denominations." (Rev. Dr. Don Faris)
Coercion by Courts - Aided by the liberal media, the so-called "Supreme Court of Canada" has consistently overruled the desires of the majority of Canadians in controversial areas such as abortion and the "normalization" (based on imposed ideology) of homosexuality. When the "gay" lobby for example could not obtain spousal benefits through the political process, they found a court willing to engage Canada's notorious "charter of rights" (spiked with the recently entrenched clause about "sexual orientation") in order to insist upon it. Euthanasia is next on the list.
South of the border, a former presidential nominee for the US Supreme Court, who was denied appointment by a congressional pro-abortion lobby, examines this subversion of popular will in "Our Judicial Oligarchy", an article in November's First Things (another commendable issue, as usual: address above).
Robert H. Bork, whose latest book is "Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline" (upon which an article is based in December's First Things), wrote:
"The most important moral, political, and cultural decisions affecting our lives are steadily being removed from democratic control. ...A majority of the [US Supreme] court routinely enacts its own preference.... [seeming] to be gnostics, firmly believing they have access to wisdom denied the rest of us. `What secret knowledge, one must wonder, is breathed into lawyers when they become justices of the Court?' [Justice Antonin] Scalia has asked. `Day by day, case by case, [the Court] is busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize.'
"This last term was unusually rich in examples. The Court moved a long way toward making homosexual conduct a constitutional right, adopted the radical feminist view that men and women are essentially identical, [and] continued to view the First Amendment as a protection of self-gratification rather than of the free articulation of ideas..."
Bork later in this article quotes from other people's characterizations of the majority of Supreme court judges, describing them as "our robed masters"behaving like a "band of outlaws". Bork says, "They order our lives and we have no recourse, no means of resisting, no means of altering their [dictatorial edicts]. ...An outlaw is a person who coerces without warrant in law. That is precisely what a majority of the present Supreme Court does. ...Lord Acton's famous aphorism about power corrupting turns out to be right: Given unchecked power, most human beings, even those in robes, will abuse that power."
Women's Ordination - CRC Split - After a year-long reprieve from the ascendancy of Bible revisionists, the Christian Reformed Church in North America divided last year when a mistaken notion of gender "equality" (meaning now co-identity of roles) again took precedence over Scriptural headship principles. Synod 1995 overturned a 1994 decision regarding women's role beyond that of Biblically-sound deaconesses into the teaching-with-authority ministry of congregational leadership.
But, according to a letter sent by Interclassical Conference officers to the CRC's Synod 1996,(1)this was done with no "clear reference to Biblical grounds. Instead, the entire matter seemed to be handled with a political flavour [which is the only way women's ordination can be "legitimized" -ed.] suggesting `compromise' was the solution to the 25-year long struggle. At the same Synod, a delegate from the GKN [Dutch Reformed Church]seemed to add fuel to the fire, describing that denomination's perspective on homosexuals in ministry. Once again, the debates raged fast and furious within our churches and assemblies...
"Through the entire decades-long debate over the hermeneutics of the women in office issue, several sad things have happened. One is that the CRC has lost the unity of her faith and witness. Another is that she has come to appear to be indecisive and wavering on Biblical truth - one year prohibiting `on Biblical grounds', the next permitting `by declaring the word "male" inoperative' [the old "reverse-discrimination" finesse -ed.]. But no consequence of this sad history is more grievous than that our people have lost confidence in the text of Scripture. As a denomination, we may possess a heritage that is right, accurate, and even articulate theologically. But in the way we have handled the Bible in our synodal debates in recent years, we have committed a heinous sin. We have so trifled with the text that our people have lost the ability to use Scripture believingly, lovingly, trustingly. We have affirmed `infallibility' (if not `inerrancy'), but we have effected confusion. We have established anew what the Reformers sought with blood to abolish: a priesthood that stood between the people and the Bible [which of course is not an inherent problem of "the priesthood" per se -ed.]. This new priesthood is... one of scholars, of hermeneutic experts, of theologians who tell the people why the plain words on the page of the Bible don't mean what they obviously say. But the effect is the same: God's people stop picking up the Bible because they believe they cannot understand it.
"This is tragic. It is sinful. And we are together responsible for it. ...We must return to the Bible, to the plain meaning of its words and sentences without hermeneutical gymnastics that seem to make it say what its words do not say, and to so return by way of repentance and confession of sin, which alone will bring God's healing mercies."
Pope Misquoted - And speaking of the plain meaning of words being ignored, December's issue of "Catholic World Report" (Box 591300 San Francisco, CA. 94159-1300 USA)has an article by Rick DeLano explaining that the widely-reported Papal "endorsement of evolution" is in error. The common misquote of Pope John Paul II spawned inaccurate headlines like "The Pope declared that evolution is `more than just a theory...'" (US News and World Report). In other words, "we are being told that, in effect, [the Pope] taught that evolution is true".
The proper translation of Pope J.P.2 from the official Vatican paper "L'Osservatore Romano" (Oct.30/`96) has the crucial passage, "Today... new knowledge has led to the recognition of more than one hypothesis in the theory of evolution." In other words, as DeLano says, "...the fact that there is a lack of unanimity within the scientific community itself as to which particular hypothesis best explains the theory of evolution, is a far cry from the translation which was so widely quoted."
Catholic? - Education?? - The same issue of Catholic World Report (Dec.`96) has a disturbing lead editorial by Philip Lawler. Boston College is one example among modern "Catholic" universities where officials "routinely tolerate the violation of their own expressed policies - both in the classroom where Church teachings are mocked, and in the dormitories where the Ten Commandments are flouted.
"At Boston College today, theology professors extol the glory of goddesses. A homosexual group, meeting on campus with the tacit approval of the Jesuit administration, has enacted skits blaspheming the Virgin Mary. The dean of the law school is writing legislation that would allow physician-assisted suicide. In the past the student health clinic has provided abortion referrals, and more recently the school set up a scholarship fund in honour of an alumna who worked in an abortion clinic.
"In a city famous for its universities, Boston College stands out not for its academic rigour, but for its parties. Drunkenness is common on the campus; virginity (from all available indications) is not. Those students who are practicing Catholics are often distinctly uncomfortable; they are unquestionably a minority."
By comparison, Lawler says, the most recent scandal about gambling among Boston College football players is "a bit like professing shock upon learning that the local Mafia button-man has bad table manners".
1. "Christian Renewal - A Magazine of Distinctively Reformed Faith and Vision" (Box 777, Jordan Station, ON. L0R 1S0) Jan.29/`96, p.9
Ever since 1988 we [in the "Community of Concern (COC) within the United Church of Canada"] have been trying to get our Church's Theological Colleges to offer a balanced curriculum in which the orthodox point of view is fairly presented. It's a perfectly reasonable request for unprejudiced treatment of different viewpoints within our Colleges; but we don't seem to be getting anywhere.
...In the United States, too, most of the mainline seminaries have a skewed focus - and for many of the same reasons. Here is the most recent description of the American situation by Professor Thomas Oden of the Theological School at Drew University, himself a Methodist clergyman and the theme speaker at COC's second Faithfulness Today conference in 1992:
In the last decade the curriculum of seminaries has been liberated for sexually permissive advocacy, political activism, and ultrafeminist hype (as distinguished from believing feminist argument). The study of Bible and church history becomes a deconstruction of patriarchal texts and traditions. The study of ethics becomes the study of political correctness. The study of liturgy becomes and experiment in colour, balloons, poetry, and freedom. The study of pastoral care becomes a support group for the sexually alienated.
Once upon a time students in theological colleges were trained to be the moral leaders of their communities. Alas, that seems long ago and far away. Now, in our United church seminaries, students who hold to traditional ethics have a very, very hard time of it. Let those of us in the reform groups try by every means at our disposal to turn those values right-side-out again. The survival of our Church depends on it.
Anglican Synod: Out of Touch?
from open letter to Most Rev'd M. Peers, Toronto by Mrs. G.J. (Cathy) Hunt
Dear Sir,
Upon hearing a report of the General Synod, Ottawa 1995, I feel compelled to write of my dismay.
a) The acceptance of the new hymns referring to the "Mother God": this is disobedience to the Word of God. Jesus is the authority (Matt.28:18).
b) The presentation of a non-celibate homosexual's grief and pain because he/she is not accepted/acceptable into the priesthood: Was there a similar presentation denouncing this talk? Jesus knew grief and pain in the Garden of Gethsemane; He chose to be obedient to [His Father], to the Word of God. I note that in the BAS's Daily Office Lectionary, that Rom.1:26,27 is omitted on pages 459, 477, and 519. Are these passages ever required to be read publicly? Ditto for Lev. 18:22.
c) There was a mention of "preaching the Gospel" in the report. My question is: which Gospel, that of Jesus Christ or that of a gospel of man? The church of Jesus Christ must remain true to the Word of God. Individuals are created with free-will and have the divine right to disagree with the commandments of the living God and thus deal with the consequences. The true church consists of disciples who believe in the sovereignty of God (Dan.4:35), not a god they can manage. (Matt.10:24; Luke 6:40).
I believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, which has one Author and the rest are writers (2 Pe.1:21; 1 Thess.2:13; 2 Tim.3:16). How else could a book be written over a period of 1500-1600 years and still be a book of "oneness" - the Messiah? Only the Lord could accomplish this. Only the Lord could have preserved the Bible as it is today... There is a need to distinguish between a paraphrased translation and a doctrinal translation.
The best way of ensuring that Christianity remains relevant to the modern world is to be faithful to Christian orthodoxy and articulate the faith in terms intelligible to the world. Orthodoxy believes that the gospel stays the same; we need rather to find better and more effective ways of presenting it. Christianity does not need to be made more attractive, it is attractive.
...The fundamental motivation for evangelism is generosity - the basic human concern to share the good things of life with those we love. It does not reflect a desire to sell or dominate. It is a "pearl of great price", something that is recognized to be worth seeking and possessing, and whose possession overshadows everything else (Matt.13:46). Evangelism - the proclaiming of the Gospel - straddles denominations.
Mrs. Hunt outlines some guidelines for Bible study, such as Scripture's self integrity and cohesion ("scripture does not contradict scripture"), the importance of canonicity and context, and acceptance of His word in faith. She mentions positively an article by Michael Cohen: "Anglican leadership out of touch with the 'ordinary' people" (Financial Post, June 14/'95).
Bogus Bible: the Oxford Ordeal - DAG & quotes
Political correctness has been carried to an extreme which, if it were not presuming to "improve" the meaning of God's Word, would be almost comical. Oxford's "inclusive" version of the New Testament and Psalms is a paraphrase rather than a true translation, and yet it's not even the kind of paraphrase designed for easier comprehension of what has been said. It's a "para-sense", standing somewhere far beyond common sense, nearer to non-sense. Instead of making scriptural meaning easier to understand, it seeks to change the meaning of scripture.
The worst corruption is similar to what Mrs. Hunt refers to (above) in new Anglican hymns: God the Father is Oxfordized into "Our Father-Mother in heaven" (Matt.6:9).
And, as noted in Catholic World Report (by "Diogenes"; Oct.'95), "even in references to Christ, the [sic] translators do their best to ignore His masculinity; the Son of Man becomes 'the Human One'; the 'Son of God' is 'the Child of God'.
"The editors have stripped out negative references to darkness, lest racist readers find comfort in these passages. Kings and soldiers and slaves disappear from the text - we now long for the 'Dominion of God' - in the interests of non-violence and social equality. Even before their miraculous cure, lepers are transformed into people suffering from leprosy. God's right hand becomes His 'mighty' hand, lest left-handed people feel offended.
"...In better days, believers took up the Bible in order to explore the wisdom of God, and thus to serve His kingdom. Now, with the help of Oxford University Press, the inspired Scripture is adapted to glorify 'the great human community'; the Word of God is altered to accommodate human sensibilities."
Rev. Ken Birch, executive director of Canadian ministries of the Pentecostal Assemblies, said: "If you move away from the exact science of linguistics, then it's every man for himself, whether you come from a male chauvinist or feminist or liberation theology position."
"Jesus Seminar" Edits Gospels - DAG, quotes from Rev. Paul Miller
Just as Oxford Press has attempted to man-make a politically correct Bible, the group of "career academics" who comprise the Jesus Seminar are attempting to construct an innocuous Jesus. Rev. Paul Miller, writing for Theological Digest & Outlook (July '95; Church Alive, 403 Wilson Ave., Burlington, ON. L7L 2N2) characterizes the motives of the seminar's twice-yearly goal as "the delightfully presumptuous purpose of deciding what Jesus really said...". They seem to insist that many sayings of Jesus were invented by the early church (cf. "Word enFolding", this issue). Rev. Miller asks, "In whom do we place our faith? Christ as witnessed to in the Scriptures and as confessed by the Church? Or a hypothetical, reconstructed, allegedly "historical" figure standing behind the Scriptures?" He goes on to say (emphasis is his): "The more I preach, the more I study Scripture and relate it to contemporary issues, and the more I read of the development of modern theology, the more convinced I become... that the wisdom of the Holy Spirit was somehow at work in the Church's confession of the risen Christ, the formation of the New Testament, and generations of reflections upon Christ's meaning for us. The Christ who has the power to save emerges out of the fullness of the biblical witness, and the rich totality of the Church's confession of Him. Next to this, the abridged Gospels of the Jesus Seminar seem strangely poor and powerless."
Feminism: Wolf in the Fold - from an article by John Moerman
- Pioneer Christian Monthly (Jan./Feb.'95; "Now... A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing!!!")
Feminism is truly a watershed issue of the church today. Not to recognize it as such, ignore it and hope it will go away, or to embrace it, will lead to the same inevitable conclusion... for some in this generation, for others in the next. "Some evangelical leaders, in fact, have changed their views about inerrancy as a direct consequence of trying to come to terms with feminism... It is a direct and deliberate bending of the Bible to conform to the world spirit of our age at the point where the modern spirit of our age conflicts with what the Bible teaches."(1)
For example, Virginia Mollenkott [writing in 1977, was at that time] "no different from any other Bible believing evangelical Christian, except in her views about the Bible's teaching regarding the roles of female and male."(2) By 1983, she was writing "we can resolutely learn to speak of God in an all-inclusive way... He/She/It... to be recognized everywhere in everyone and everything."(3) By 1988, she began to see herself as God. "I am a manifestation of God. God Herself! God Himself! God Itself! Above all. Through all. And in us all."(4)
Further, she "argued that Christianity should yield its 'exclusive claim' of Christ being the only way to God" ... and finally she pushed feminist presuppositions to advocate an inclusive morality: "When scripture seems to be condemning homosexuals, it is actually condemning the loss of male sperm in a culture that needed population; or it is condemning pagan rituals, or prostitution, or exploitive lust, or the use of sex by some males to humiliate other males, as in the Sodom story. It is time for the heterosexuals in the church to... educate themselves about human sexuality so that they can cease bearing false witness against their gay and lesbian neighbours."(5)
With a known end like this (if she is finished), is it really advisable to read her beginning works? I suggest that not only would it be a waste of time, it has the real potential of sending the reader further down the slippery slope toward apostasy, and gross immorality!!
To be sure, we are often left confused in attempting to understand the connection between the false view of women's roles as they have crept into the church and the sickening ends of lesbianism and apostasy. A word from Francis A. Schaeffer is in order here: "Again we see that an idea which sounds at first so close to a genuinely biblical idea ends up in a completely different place. The idea of absolute, autonomous freedom from God's boundaries flows into the idea of equality without distinction, which flows into the denial of what it truly means to be male and female, which flows into abortion and homosexuality, and the destruction of the home and the family, and ultimately to the destruction of our culture."(6)
Mr. Moerman concludes this article with quotes from Martin Luther, Jeremiah 5:31 and 6:16, and this from Mary Kassian:
"Looking to Christ for strength, as our whole culture is against us at this point, we must reject the infiltration of feminism in theology and in life equally. We, as the Bride of Christ, need to remain holy by rejecting this unholy union."(7)
NOTES:
1. Schaeffer, Francis A., The Great Evangelical Disaster (Crossway Books, 1992) p.137
2. Kassian, Mary A. The Feminist Gospel (Crossway Books, 1992) p.237
3. ibid., p.238 in a quote from Mollenkott's The Divine Feminine: the Biblical Imagery of God as Female
4. ibid., p.238 in a quote from Mollenkott's Godding: Human Responsibility and the Bible
5. ibid., p.239 also a quote from "Godding: etc."
6. Schaeffer (see note 1), p.136
7. Kassian (see note 2), p.253
Passing Comments, Letters, & Seasonal Clippings Feminist Presumption "The Chesterton Review" (Aug.`96) provides the text of an article from the London "Spectator" (Sept.2`95) by Paul Johnson. Speaking about the recent U.N. Conference on women in Beijing, China, he is especially troubled by..."the totalitarian assumption underlying the conference itself. Why is it necessary or desirable to hold a Conference on Women? We would not dream of holding a Conference on Men. No one would have the effrontery to proclaim that they spoke for men throughout the world and could be faithfully entrusted to represent their interests. Why, then, should a group of `delegates' (delegated by whom?) claim to speak for all the world's women? Here, indeed, we have patronising paternalism at its worst - and fraudulent to boot.
Mr. Johnson points out that Anita Broderick for example is one "representative" acting first for the sake of her company, the Body Shop (as evident from her article in The Evening Standard)."She says as much. But, she adds, with breath-taking effrontery, that she and the Body Shop people will also be `taking with us the voices of women who cannot attend'. It is as though the chairman of Marks & Spencer went to an international gathering and claimed the right to speak on behalf of M&S's 30 million customers.
"This brings me to my main point - the assumption, behind all the propaganda activities, that women, making up 52% of the world's population, think broadly alike on a whole range of key issues. There is no evidence at all of this, and much evidence to the contrary. Women did not even agree about getting the vote - some of the most vociferous opponents of the Suffragettes were women. The fiercest opponents of married clergy are women and always have been, beginning with Queen Elizabeth 1, in some other respects a notable proponent of women's rights. Women who actually go to church, as opposed to worshipping at the foot of the columns of the Guardian and Independent are bitterly divided over women priests. On abortion, the most important issue of all, women hold the entire spectrum of views, forming the bulk of the militants on both sides but expressing every imaginable doubt and nuance in between. There is no such thing as the Women's View on anything, least of all those issues where feminists claim to speak for the entire sex."
The Chesterton Review, St. Thomas More College, 1437 College Dr., Saskatoon, SK. S7N 0W6 ($37.00/year, 4 issues).
London Spectator, 56 Doughty St., London WC1N 2LL England.
Extremes of the "Mainstream"This is the first of 3 short excerpts from "First Things" Aug.-Sept.`96, p.68(subscriptions: P.O.Box 3000, Dept FT, Denville, NJ. 07834 USA):
"In politics it matters a lot who gets described as `mainstream' and who is `extreme'. And, of course, the media do the describing. Politicians who `defend a woman's right to choose' are mainstream. The who would `ban abortion' are extreme. A new national survey by the Tarrance Group shows that only 13% of Americans favour unrestricted access to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. That is the `mainstream' position. Fifty-two percent of Americans favour the outlawing of all abortions, or all abortions except the 1% (according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute) performed for rape/incest/life of mother. That is the `extreme' position. Go figure." (Fr. Richard John Neuhaus)
From the same issue of First Things (p.77), this sad comment on the new "mainstream" emerging in the Episcopal Church (equivalent in the US to the Anglican Church in Canada):
"Episcopal Bishop John W. Howe of Florida spoke for many Episcopalians after a group of bishops decided in May that ordaining an openly non-celibate homosexual person violates neither the doctrine nor the discipline of the Episcopal Church. Bishop Howe wrote to the members of his diocese:
"`As your bishop, I said in my Address to our Convention back in January that I believed a finding by the Court that the Episcopal Church has no ("Core") doctrine vis-à-vis human sexuality would be tantamount to abandoning orthodoxy and embracing apostasy - on this particular point, at least, I reiterate that conviction now. That is an extremely serious charge to make, and I do not make it lightly. I have also said that I personally cannot and will not support an apostate Church. I reiterate that commitment as well. I take no pleasure in doing so. There are those who will see these issues as peripheral - matters about which we can agree to disagree. Please be aware that the other side does not see them that way. Bishop Spong of Newark has recently said that the Episcopal Church is engaged in a battle to the death over these issues. On this point, at least, he and I are in complete agreement.'
"Other bishops have made similarly strong statements. It would seem that one cannot return to bishoping as usual in a church that one believes to be apostate. It is not extreme to think that the Episcopal Church may indeed be battling itself to death." (Fr. Richard John Neuhaus)
The supposed shift in the "mainstream" is also reflected in First Things lead editorial (p.13) while mentioning the toothless label "homophobia" :
"...A homophobe, in current usage, is anyone who objects to the agenda of the gay rights community. Homophobes are people who vote against gay rights ordinances and who resist recognition - legal or moral - of same-sex marriage.
"It is all quite remarkable. Until very recently, opposition to homosexuality has been an all but universal social norm. Within a single generation, that norm has been turned on its head. It is now not homosexual behaviour that needs to be defended or explained, but rather objection to such behaviour. Opposition to homosexuality has become a suspect moral category: thus the now automatic grouping of `homophobia' with racism and sexism (the last another term so elastic in its application as to become meaningless).
"In this view, there is no significant distinction to be made between the attitudes, on the one hand, of philosophers, psychologists, and theologians who regard homosexual practice as objective disorder and, on the other hand, of gangs of skinheads eagerly in search of gays to bash. It is all ... [said to be] bigotry and prejudice, and it [supposedly] follows that decent people will have nothing to do with any of it.
"America's religious communities have a particular stake in seeing that these conversation stoppers not be allowed to set the terms of discussion on this matter. Jews and Christians alike believe that there is a divinely ordained right order of things, and that our sexuality finds right expression within that order in monogamous heterosexual unions. It takes no extraordinary perception to see that God created men and women for each other. Indeed, it requires a remarkable capacity for denial of the obvious to get around that intent. Homosexuals have the right to expect of the rest of us decent and respectful treatment as human beings and citizens. They have no right to insist that we surrender our fundamental moral beliefs in order that they might feel comfortable with their sexual behaviour."
from "When Insults No Longer Insult" by James Nuechterlein
Pagan Revolution - In the Fall 1996 issue of Fellowship Magazine (1-800-678-2607), Rev. Dr. Don Faris reviews "two recent books dealing with the latest biblical and scientific research" confirming that "homosexual practice is, from the biblical view, immoral, and from the scientific view, treatable". The books are: "Straight and Narrow? Compassion and Clarity in the Homosexual Debate" by Thomas E. Schmidt (I.V.P., `95) and "Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth" by Jeffrey Satinover, M.D. (Baker, `96).
The second book "...concludes with a chapter on `The Pagan Revolution' which is worth the price of the book. It explains the pagan (Gnostic) forces at work within our culture and how they have invaded the churches. It helps explain the ongoing struggle within our beloved United Church. It is no accident that we see the rise of the Mother Goddess and the approval of homosexuality coming form the same quarters. The old struggle between Orthodox theology and ethics and Gnostic theology and ethics is being replayed in the mainline North American denominations." (Rev. Dr. Don Faris)
Coercion by Courts - Aided by the liberal media, the so-called "Supreme Court of Canada" has consistently overruled the desires of the majority of Canadians in controversial areas such as abortion and the "normalization" (based on imposed ideology) of homosexuality. When the "gay" lobby for example could not obtain spousal benefits through the political process, they found a court willing to engage Canada's notorious "charter of rights" (spiked with the recently entrenched clause about "sexual orientation") in order to insist upon it. Euthanasia is next on the list.
South of the border, a former presidential nominee for the US Supreme Court, who was denied appointment by a congressional pro-abortion lobby, examines this subversion of popular will in "Our Judicial Oligarchy", an article in November's First Things (another commendable issue, as usual: address above).
Robert H. Bork, whose latest book is "Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline" (upon which an article is based in December's First Things), wrote:
"The most important moral, political, and cultural decisions affecting our lives are steadily being removed from democratic control. ...A majority of the [US Supreme] court routinely enacts its own preference.... [seeming] to be gnostics, firmly believing they have access to wisdom denied the rest of us. `What secret knowledge, one must wonder, is breathed into lawyers when they become justices of the Court?' [Justice Antonin] Scalia has asked. `Day by day, case by case, [the Court] is busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize.'
"This last term was unusually rich in examples. The Court moved a long way toward making homosexual conduct a constitutional right, adopted the radical feminist view that men and women are essentially identical, [and] continued to view the First Amendment as a protection of self-gratification rather than of the free articulation of ideas..."
Bork later in this article quotes from other people's characterizations of the majority of Supreme court judges, describing them as "our robed masters"behaving like a "band of outlaws". Bork says, "They order our lives and we have no recourse, no means of resisting, no means of altering their [dictatorial edicts]. ...An outlaw is a person who coerces without warrant in law. That is precisely what a majority of the present Supreme Court does. ...Lord Acton's famous aphorism about power corrupting turns out to be right: Given unchecked power, most human beings, even those in robes, will abuse that power."
Women's Ordination - CRC Split - After a year-long reprieve from the ascendancy of Bible revisionists, the Christian Reformed Church in North America divided last year when a mistaken notion of gender "equality" (meaning now co-identity of roles) again took precedence over Scriptural headship principles. Synod 1995 overturned a 1994 decision regarding women's role beyond that of Biblically-sound deaconesses into the teaching-with-authority ministry of congregational leadership.
But, according to a letter sent by Interclassical Conference officers to the CRC's Synod 1996,(1)this was done with no "clear reference to Biblical grounds. Instead, the entire matter seemed to be handled with a political flavour [which is the only way women's ordination can be "legitimized" -ed.] suggesting `compromise' was the solution to the 25-year long struggle. At the same Synod, a delegate from the GKN [Dutch Reformed Church]seemed to add fuel to the fire, describing that denomination's perspective on homosexuals in ministry. Once again, the debates raged fast and furious within our churches and assemblies...
"Through the entire decades-long debate over the hermeneutics of the women in office issue, several sad things have happened. One is that the CRC has lost the unity of her faith and witness. Another is that she has come to appear to be indecisive and wavering on Biblical truth - one year prohibiting `on Biblical grounds', the next permitting `by declaring the word "male" inoperative' [the old "reverse-discrimination" finesse -ed.]. But no consequence of this sad history is more grievous than that our people have lost confidence in the text of Scripture. As a denomination, we may possess a heritage that is right, accurate, and even articulate theologically. But in the way we have handled the Bible in our synodal debates in recent years, we have committed a heinous sin. We have so trifled with the text that our people have lost the ability to use Scripture believingly, lovingly, trustingly. We have affirmed `infallibility' (if not `inerrancy'), but we have effected confusion. We have established anew what the Reformers sought with blood to abolish: a priesthood that stood between the people and the Bible [which of course is not an inherent problem of "the priesthood" per se -ed.]. This new priesthood is... one of scholars, of hermeneutic experts, of theologians who tell the people why the plain words on the page of the Bible don't mean what they obviously say. But the effect is the same: God's people stop picking up the Bible because they believe they cannot understand it.
"This is tragic. It is sinful. And we are together responsible for it. ...We must return to the Bible, to the plain meaning of its words and sentences without hermeneutical gymnastics that seem to make it say what its words do not say, and to so return by way of repentance and confession of sin, which alone will bring God's healing mercies."
Pope Misquoted - And speaking of the plain meaning of words being ignored, December's issue of "Catholic World Report" (Box 591300 San Francisco, CA. 94159-1300 USA)has an article by Rick DeLano explaining that the widely-reported Papal "endorsement of evolution" is in error. The common misquote of Pope John Paul II spawned inaccurate headlines like "The Pope declared that evolution is `more than just a theory...'" (US News and World Report). In other words, "we are being told that, in effect, [the Pope] taught that evolution is true".
The proper translation of Pope J.P.2 from the official Vatican paper "L'Osservatore Romano" (Oct.30/`96) has the crucial passage, "Today... new knowledge has led to the recognition of more than one hypothesis in the theory of evolution." In other words, as DeLano says, "...the fact that there is a lack of unanimity within the scientific community itself as to which particular hypothesis best explains the theory of evolution, is a far cry from the translation which was so widely quoted."
Catholic? - Education?? - The same issue of Catholic World Report (Dec.`96) has a disturbing lead editorial by Philip Lawler. Boston College is one example among modern "Catholic" universities where officials "routinely tolerate the violation of their own expressed policies - both in the classroom where Church teachings are mocked, and in the dormitories where the Ten Commandments are flouted.
"At Boston College today, theology professors extol the glory of goddesses. A homosexual group, meeting on campus with the tacit approval of the Jesuit administration, has enacted skits blaspheming the Virgin Mary. The dean of the law school is writing legislation that would allow physician-assisted suicide. In the past the student health clinic has provided abortion referrals, and more recently the school set up a scholarship fund in honour of an alumna who worked in an abortion clinic.
"In a city famous for its universities, Boston College stands out not for its academic rigour, but for its parties. Drunkenness is common on the campus; virginity (from all available indications) is not. Those students who are practicing Catholics are often distinctly uncomfortable; they are unquestionably a minority."
By comparison, Lawler says, the most recent scandal about gambling among Boston College football players is "a bit like professing shock upon learning that the local Mafia button-man has bad table manners".
1. "Christian Renewal - A Magazine of Distinctively Reformed Faith and Vision" (Box 777, Jordan Station, ON. L0R 1S0) Jan.29/`96, p.9