“In the Name of…”

Tags

America, Christianity, Culture, God, Government, Idolatry, Pluralism, Progressive Christianity, Religious Left, Secularism, Society, Truth, United Methodists

            I mentioned a couple of days ago the silliness with which Rep. Cleaver ended his prayer for the opening of congress on Sunday, and I certainly wasn’t alone in observing the nonsense of it.  But that little detail has gotten more attention than the fact that the prayer was problematic in more significant ways.  How we end our prayers matters, but may not matter as much as the basic question of who we are praying to.

            I am no connoisseur of congressional prayers, and would be unsurprised if they were blasphemous as a matter of course; I make no claim that Cleaver’s prayer stands out from the pack (though it might, for all I know).  But the ending has claimed so much attention that we might as well draw people’s eyes up a few lines from “amen and awoman.”

            You can view the whole prayer on C-Span (there’s also a transcript, but it is both incomplete and unreliable).  And the prayer is not all bad, as concerns its content: there is humility, and an expressed desire for unity (if rendered somewhat incredible by the prayer’s conclusion).  But the question of great concern is, to whom is he praying?

            Towards the beginning, he invokes, “Eternal God,” which is an acceptable, if not explicit, Christian address.  He says, “The members of this august body acknowledge your sacred supremacy,” which seems to me unlikely, but we shall return to that.  Various phrases biblical and Christian phrases suggest that it is the one true God whom Cleaver addresses—without ever bringing in any of the key terms, such as “Jesus,” “Holy Spirit,” or “Trinity,” that might really seal the deal.  Nonetheless, one is left with the impression that he might actually be praying to the actual God—and making the audacious claim that the U.S. congress operates in submission to the Holy One.

            But, at the end, he concludes, “We ask it in the name of the monotheistic god, Brahma, and god known by many names, by many different faiths.”

            Beg pardon?

            It would appear that Cleaver has been praying to a hypothetical shared god of the world’s religions.  He conflates “the monotheistic god”—an inadequate catchall that could conceivably have reference to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, “Brahma”—the Hindu creator god, and a general reference to the gods of other religions.  In this secularized, pluralistic prayer, Cleaver seems to be trying to include everyone—thus effectively excluding most people.

            This notion, that all religions (or at least certain religions) really worship the same god under different names is not at all unique.  It is unsurprising to see it on the religious left, and perhaps the only safe course on the political left.  It is also blasphemous.

            When we read the Scriptures, we do not find God regarding worship of other gods as really being worship of Himself.  We find God profoundly distinguishing Himself from the gods of the pagans, “For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the LORD made the heavens” (Ps. 96:5, ESV).  God declares the idols worthless (Jer. 10:15), and the worship of such idols futile (Isa. 42:17).  We find not that God may be sought by any name, but that there is one name we must confess, “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

            To whom, then, was Representative Cleaver praying?  Whose “sacred supremacy” does he (and, he presumes, the rest of congress) acknowledge?  Not, apparently, the one true God.

            And that is the real problem behind all the other problems.  If our leaders submitted to the true God, our nation would not advance legislation that defies God and denigrates, devastates, and destroys people made in His image.  Idolatry is the problem, and as long as we worship idols we will harm image-bearers.  All hopes grounded in idolatry are vain.

            But there is a light in the darkness, and hope for any who will have it.  When we acknowledge the one true God, when we confess the name of our Savior, then we find the path of life.  “Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9).  He is the true hope, light, and life eternal.

The Liberal Chimera

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Christianity, Holy Spirit, Liberalism, Progressive Christianity, Scripture, Truth, United Methodists

According to an article that appeared Monday on RNS, liberal United Methodists have recently declared they are starting a new denomination (but not really a new denomination) within (and also outside of) their denomination: the Liberation Methodist Connexion. Those familiar with the history of theology in the past century may immediately detect Marxist vibes in the use of “Liberation” in the title; the choice of Anglicized spelling for connection is, apparently, a Methodist thing.

The United Methodists have been going through the same struggles as other historic Mainline denominations over whether or not to surrender to theological liberalism, particularly in the area of sexual morality. The general Mainline consensus has been to surrender, and continue to enjoy a drastic decline; the American Baptists are, I think, still deciding; the United Methodists decided last year to buck the trend and not embrace the LGBTQ+ agenda, largely because of strong participation from their African churches. But the conservatives have been quick to compromise, and the general impression was that the denomination would split this year–a break prevented by COVID-19.

The new news is that some of the liberals are tired of waiting, and have organized a new movement ahead of the scheduled (and postponed) break.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the LMX is how up-front they are about truth taking a back seat to action. Of course, they claim to be responding to “The timeline of the Holy Spirit”–although they are going directly against what the Spirit has said in Scripture. But, “Correct doctrine is less important to the new denomination than correct action, collaborators said during Sunday’s presentation.”

This is not an oversight, but a conscious decision, emphasized from the beginning of the article. “Its theology ‘is not written in stone,’ the website said”, which contrasts quite decidedly with God’s ten commandments, which were written in stone. As one of the leaders puts it, “We seek not answers that lead us to correct doctrines as to why we suffer. We seek correct actions, correct praxis, where God sustains us during the unanswerable questions”; so, for her, correct doctrine is not just undesirable but impossible–the questions are “unanswerable”. One of the destinations you may reach by the road of doubt is the cul-de-sac of ignorance.

In fact, the liberal antagonism towards truth finds direct expression in the words of another leader: “There are no doctrinal litmus tests in the movement. We are moving beyond the supremacy of a single belief system”. This is to say that to hold that there is such a thing as truth is a sort of violence, an attempt to assert supremacy. Such a view is worlds away from the perspective of Christianity, where believing the truth God has revealed is an act of humble obedience to the Creator and Lord of the universe.

Of course, the LMX does have united doctrine, even if they want to pretend they don’t. How could they have united actions–“correct praxis”–without it? What would they act towards? Here is what they act towards: “That action includes reparations, caring for the earth, and finding new ways to live together outside of systems like colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, clericalism and heteronormativity, they said.” See, the difference is not that they don’t have doctrine, it’s that they eschew historic, orthodox Christian doctrine in favor of trendy worldly ideologies. And I do wonder if someone within the ranks tried to dissent and say, advocate ‘patriarchy’ or ‘heteronormativity’ (I do not say this is likely, just speculate with me for a moment), if they might not find themselves up against “the supremacy of a single belief system” after all.

The attempt to dispense with doctrine is a chimera. When you attempt it, what is most likely is that you will dispense with true doctrine, and end up captive to deceptive ideologies and worldly fads. As the self-contradictory, almost farcical nature of the LMX shows, the supposed rejection of doctrinal orthodoxy is both a Trojan horse for paganism and a bizarre antagonism towards truth itself. Christians must seek to know the truth and love the truth, remembering that our Lord is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6, ESV).

Resisting God

Tags

Authority, Bible, Christianity, Church, Discipleship, God, LGBTQ+, Morality, Sexual Revolution, Truth, United Methodists

Respect for God’s authority has fallen on hard times in large sections of the American church.  Combine a culture that idolizes youthful rebellion with a loss of confidence in the Scriptures, and you have the perfect setup for being blown about on the winds of ever-changing social mores.

Consider this report from last year about a class of young people at a Methodist church who declined to pursue confirmation because the UMC voted to keep biblical sexual ethics.  The pursuit of justice–defined by the world, in opposition to justice as defined by God–led them to decline being confirmed into the church.  Conforming to American society won out over confirming themselves in the faith.

But when you read their letter, you see that while declining confirmation is their piece of youthful protest, the basic sentiment was not theirs at all.  It was their church which inculcated in them this confusion.  They have been catechized into immorality–what surprise, then, that they do not want to be confirmed in a church that maintains some vestige of biblical morals?

As for the leaders of that church, who catechized these young people into the sexual revolution, a certain passage about a millstone comes to mind.

But the overall lesson is one that every church and every believer must confront; true discipleship means obedience to God, absolute regard for His authority.  Those who take the way of true discipleship will be hated by the world.  But those who conform to the world’s standards can never truly be part of the church of Jesus Christ.

It’s about Jesus

Tags

Advent, Christmas, Homosexuality, Hope, Jesus Christ, LGBTQ+, Liberalism, Nativity, Progressive Christianity, Truth, United Methodists

“You’ve got to call out evil and lift up justice,” said one of the ministers in defense Claremont UMC’s nativity scene that pictures Joseph, Mary, and Jesus as a separated immigrant family.

The hypocrisy of such a statement coming from a church that has traded courageous defense of God’s righteous law for promoting popular immorality is noteworthy.

But more specifically to the point, Christmas is not about social agendas.  Yes, the gospel has social implications of all sorts.  But the implications follow from the gospel.  We dare not make the gospel message subservient to social issues.

The great message of Christmas is that God has reached down to us in our darkness and given us light; He has sent His Son to become man, in order to be the Savior of the world.  Christmas should always be a season of giving and generosity, of caring for the poor and oppressed and the stranger; but it is such a season because on that first Christmas our Savior was born.

Let the nativity be about Jesus.

Africa to the Rescue!

Tags

Africa, Christianity, Homosexuality, Humanity, Salvation, Same-Sex Marriage, Truth, United Methodists

Earlier this week, the United Methodists voted to accept the Traditional Plan, maintaining and strengthening their stance against the sexual revolution.  This decision likely came as a surprise to many, considering that it goes against the direction America’s mainline Protestant denominations have been taking for some time now.  There’s talk about a schism, some liberals fear an SBC-like conservative shift (“fundamentalist takeover” is their preferred terminology).  Time will tell.

But, for the moment, it would seem that God has been gracious to the UMC.  His instrument in turning them from the brink, or at least slowing their course, would appear to be the sizeable part of their denomination that resides outside the U.S., notably in Africa.  I have seen no statistics on the breakdown in the vote itself, but commentators on both sides of the debate appear agreed that the African vote was decisive to the conservative victory.

But, of course, the difference between the conservatives and the liberals was not essentially ethnic, but ethical.  The divide was theological, and this became evident in some of the arguments before and responses after the decision.

The conservative position is theocentric–centered on God.  They are concerned with obedience to what God says in His Word, with holiness and truth.  They care about people, but recognize that celebrating sin doesn’t actually help people, even if it’s what people want you to do.  God must be honored and trusted, and the gospel must be proclaimed untarnished.

The liberal position is anthropocentric–centered on humanity.  They were concerned about hurting people, which is good, but they let harm be defined by the pagan culture around them.  They bought the world’s narrative about human flourishing, informed by the idea that aberrant sexual desires are identity categories analogous to race.  They seek to remain relevant in a changing world, but they haven’t learned the lesson of the other mainline denominations: seeking relevance, they traded timeless truth for momentary error, and became almost immediately irrelevant.

The key is that a human-centered theology will not actually lead to human flourishing.  Only a God-centered theology will do that.  The Creator knows what is best for His creatures.  We should trust Him.  The African Methodists are helping the American Methodists remember that.

 

 

The Choice

Tags

Bible, Christianity, Homosexuality, LGBTQ+, Scripture, Truth, United Methodists

Pray for the United Methodists this weekend.  At a special session, held in St. Louis, they will be making a decision that is likely to be critical for the future of their denomination, and for their witness in a lost world.

The issue, of course, is whether to embrace or reject the sexual revolution.  Unless they put the issue off again, they will be choosing either to hold their present biblical position regarding human sexuality, or to revise it some way or another, affirming (in varying degrees) LGBTQ+ identity.  Either result will probably mean the fracturing of their denomination, whether immediately or more slowly.

Religion News, a propaganda machine for liberal “Christianity”, has published a showcase of opinions regarding what some Methodists hope will result from the session.  It is a very slanted piece of reporting (granted, it is labeled an Opinion piece), a collection of voices that are mostly liberal to very liberal, with a couple of very gentle conservative voices included to soften the one-sidedness.  But, as a piece of liberal advocacy, the article does highlight what is at stake for the Methodists in this session.

It begins with a reminder that the denomination has already effectively caved to the sexual revolution, and only by repentance and submission to God will they be able to turn back from the precipice of paganism that looms before them.  They already have an openly lesbian bishop.  Having biblical standards regarding human sexuality on paper isn’t worth much if you ignore them in practice.

The voices that follow show the inroads of secularism and paganism in their denomination’s leadership.

Rev. Adam Hamilton says:

It requires patience, humility and grace to look at people with whom you disagree on an issue or theological point and say, “You are still my brother or sister.” It requires a willingness to say, “I don’t agree with you here, but I value what you bring to the table, and I need you.”

As though gross sexual immorality were a matter of adiaphora or theological minutia!  Hamilton regards willingness to tolerate this sort of thing as a sign of patience, humility, and grace.  The Scriptures regard that sort of tolerance as a spiritual failing, not a virtue (see 1 Cor. 5).

Rev. Alex da Silva Souto speaks in worldly terms of discrimination, framing this (as the culture has so effectively done) in terms stolen from the civil rights movement.  He says:

Which is why I and thousands of other United Methodists support the Simple Plan, which would strike from our Book of Discipline all discriminatory language against LGBTQIA+ people. After decades of systemic harm, the only solution is returning to the first rule of United Methodism: “Do no harm.” The Simple Plan proposes exactly that. We must first stop the spiritual/physical harm against LGBTQIA+ people, and only then can we have a real conversation about “human sexuality.”

Very good.  First, let the pagan culture set the agenda, then engage in theological reflection.  Step 1, surrender, step 2, sit down at the diplomatic table.  What could go wrong?

Rev. Beth Ann Cook begins insightfully.  She recognizes that there is an underlying issue:

Our theological division is not limited to the issue of human sexuality. Sexual ethics are the presenting problem for a deeper theological division in our church.

But her following comment makes clear that she does not grasp what the underlying issue is:

The Commission on a Way Forward spent countless hours looking at every possibility. There is no perfect plan. Passing any of the plans will violate someone’s deeply held convictions in such a way that they will feel unable to remain part of our denomination.

Deeply held convictions are not worth defending simply because they are deeply held convictions.  Atheists have deeply held convictions, but you shouldn’t let them guide your denominational policy.

The underlying issue is whether or not God should be believed and obeyed.  A perfect plan, in this case, is one that says God should be believed and obeyed, and that those whose deeply held convictions disagree with this are welcome the to leave.  The Traditional Plan probably approximates this closely enough.

The Scriptures are not unclear about the issues being debated here.  This is not a matter of difficult biblical interpretation.  Besides the clear condemnations of homosexuality in various biblical passages (e.g., Rom. 1:26-27; 1 Tim. 1:10), the opening chapters of Genesis lay the groundwork for a sound theological anthropology, and attendant doctrine of human sexuality.  God created mankind in His image, male and female (Gen. 1:27).  He made us man and woman, equal in dignity and glory as His image-bearers, immutably different from each other, and sexually complementary (Gen. 2:18-24).

That is, God created humanity in two genders, male and female; both men and women are fully human and equal; men and women are different, not changeable and not interchangeable; sexual intimacy is designed to be enjoyed by a man and woman within the covenant of marriage.

We could go on through the article, but it isn’t necessary.  This is the issue, often buried beneath worldly rhetoric or the laudable goal of unity.  Is God to be believed, trusted, and obeyed?

God’s Word is clear.  The issue for the United Methodists is a question of whether to believe God’s Word and accept its authority; that is a question of whether to believe God and accept His authority.  The alternative is the anthropology and sexual mores of an increasingly pagan culture.  Ultimately, then, the United Methodists are deciding between God and idols, between Christianity and paganism.

I pray they make the right choice.