Because of the emerging church’s implied doctrine of God’s unknowability, the word mystery, a perfectly good word in its own right, has become downright annoying. Let me be very clear: I don’t understand everything about God or the Bible. I don’t fully understand how God can be three in one. I don’t completely grasp how divine sovereignty works alongside human responsibility. The Christian faith is mysterious. But when we talk about Christianity, we don’t start with mystery. It’s some combination of pious confusion and intellectual laziness to claim that living in mystery is at the heart of Christianity.

[. . .] McLaren is guilty of a very modern error, insisting on either-or, when a both-and is possible. There is a place for questions. There is a time for conversation. But there is also the possibility of certainty, not because we have dissected God like a freshman biology student dissects a frog, but because God has spoken to us clearly and intelligibly and has given us ears to hear His voice.

And these sorts of rebuttals goes on and on — I’m not saying [insert false either-or emergent stereotype of opposing view here]; what I am saying is [insert both-and Biblically balanced view here]. Perhaps this can be somewhat wearying after a while, yet the pure, mere logic is so simple, and it should be understood by writers who claim they reject locked-in and “modernist” thought patterns! God’s nature is both wrath and love, knowable and infinite, and our life in Him can be mental and emotional, academic and relational.



Kluck cuts up with cool criticisms

Meanwhile, Ted Kluck, stuck with the shorter chapters, relishes his task of adding personal flair to the book. He writes slice-of-life accounts of email correspondences with friends (complete with verbatim copies, sometimes even with sent times) and reading emergent leaders’ books. He also gets to make most of the jokes, which he admits have a little fun with the emergent types’ “tics” and teaching tacks:

The book is called How (Not) to Speak of God by Peter Rollins. Similar to A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity and A Generous Orthodoxy, it has the requisite fetchingly rebellious title. And it also has what has become the emergent stamp of success—the Brian McLaren endorsement where he says he’s crazy about the book. Just nuts about it. It’s changed his life.

More than other, more-academic material, Kluck’s contributions just make you realize how silly some of the emergents’ “tics” can be. Kluck personally goes undercover at several popular emergent churches, including one where people sing an old song with the lyrics “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me ‘round, turn me ‘round, turn me ‘round,” repeated a few times.

A quick look around the room at Mars Hill Bible Church, at the five thousand or so middle-class, suburban white people, and I really wonder what injustice it is they’re singing about. Not finding their size at the Gap?

[. . . W]atching thousands of tall, white Dutch folk—babyboomers, yuppies, college and high school kids—belting out a Civil Rights-era spiritual is just about the weirdest thing I have ever seen. My black buddy L.J. would blow his stack if he saw this. I’m glad he’s not here.

But don’t think it’s all fun and games for Kluck — he can certainly sling Biblical truth with the best of them. Later, he describes Bell ascending the stage to “preach” (or whatever), and Kluck returns to Bell’s book for a refresher on the author’s view of God and man. “‘What I’m learning is that Jesus believes in me,’” Bell writes, quoted by Kluck. “’God has faith in me.’”

So the point of all of this, according to Velvet Elvis, is that God came to earth, to die, to help us realize the great potential inside us. It’s no wonder that this is popular. It’s the spiritual equivalent of Rocky ascending the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum and then digging deep to knock out Apollo Creed.

[. . .] There is nothing mentioned of those who reject God, and their fate, as laid out in Scripture. No wonder I had trouble sleeping.

Corrupting the Kingdom

Christ’s cross, Hell, the exclusivity of His claims, His Grace and forgiveness, and even the true Kingdom to come apparently receive scant mention in emergent-ism, as the authors point out. In place of relying on God and looking for His future re-creation of the New Heavens and New Earth, emergent-ism offers a bring-heaven-to-Earth-now view — in effect, lapsing right back into the legalism and moralism its advocates claim they want so much to avoid.

DeYoung quotes one such writer: “‘. . . I have mistakenly placed the emphasis of the good news on the eternal. In the Gospels, Jesus wasn’t talking about something distant when he proclaimed the good news. It was something for NOW.’”

For my own response, I want shake my head and either laugh or yell — and possibly and paradoxically both — and demand, Now see here, whoever you are, why can’t it be both?! But DeYoung more reasonably notes:

Our cursed world needs more than a plan for refurbished morals. It needs a Savior because it is so full of sinners. I just cannot understand how the gospel as a call to become a disciple for the good of the world is richer, grander and more alive than a gospel that announces God’s grace, forgiveness, and the free gift of salvation.

[. . . D]oes the emergent church really believe in original sin? The need for mercy? What about the reality of eternity? Occasionally emergent authors write about the hope of eternity, but then they strangely go out of their way to explain that eternal life doesn’t actually mean life after death.

The emphasis of emergent authors thus becomes living our best and most moral lives now on this Earth, cleaning up the environment, beating back poverty (because apparently no one else has ever tried that before) and restoring “authentic” spirituality. So the past 2,000 years of Church history mean little or nothing, and what C.S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery” runs rampant as such writers and leaders proclaim their own religious practices as the answer to all the world’s ills. Heaven and Christ’s return are nowhere in sight, DeYoung contends:

[E]mergent leaders are hoping for heaven on earth before Jesus returns to earth to bring the new heaven and new earth. Emergent leaders dare us to imagine a world without poverty and war and injustice. That’s good. We need to be stirred to have faith in the God of the impossible. But we should not expect something God has not promised, especially when He has promised the opposite. Jesus said the poor would always be with us (John 12:8) and wars and rumors of wars would continue to the very end (Matt. 24:6). This doesn’t mean we are pro-poverty warmongers. But it does mean that wars won’t go away just because we follow the secret message of Jesus.

In addition to other humbly orthodox Christ-followers who are debunking the divergents (such as D.A. Carson’s Becoming Conversant), DeYoung and Kluck have done the true Church and the field of Christian nonfiction a valuable service. Their gentle yet firm rebukes, both in-depth and entertaining, capture the paradox of loving correction and non-arrogant doctrinal defense — the kinds of Gracious both-and interactions the “emergent church” advocates apparently can’t (or refuse to) acknowledge.

Undoubtedly they will merely receive in return more of the same annoyed and feigned-humble responses. But for those open to loving rebukes, and those among the true Church who are both studying and delighting in God and His Word, learning more about Him and living out their faith in their works, Why We’re Not Emergent is a well-written defense of true Christianity and a reckonable force against what is, in effect, the divergents’ false gospel.]]> Columns http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=459 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:20:13 -0400 http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=458 (Yes, the debacle about the questionable-at-best little book continues, and the following is a lengthy response to comments directed toward the last installment, Shellacking ‘The Shack’ on doctrine and fiction, part III.)

After several smaller correspondences both on here and continuing on the Boundless blog post If God Can Use It, It Must Be OK ... Right?, it seems the best way to respond to many of your assertions here on FaithFusion is to take them one by one, in a point-counterpoint model.

However, I’m guessing that perhaps what I say will, again, inevitably seem to you to be too “cerebral” and not personal enough, likely the inevitable result of Legalism on my part(?). Yet because we don’t know each other, we are confined to using only reasoning here in the medium of blog-dom — or arguably, solely emotional arguments that bypass stronger arguments, here and there.

As I’ve also mentioned further below, that also strongly limits any assumptions I could make about your motivations or personality (but really, I have I questioned either?) and any of the same you could make about my personal faith or church background (both of which you have questioned as part of an emotional appeal; again, more near the end of this response).

Again I encourage you especially to consider the Biblical references I’ve previously cited, and not be hung up on assumed motivations on my part.

What I am not saying is that you personally believe a certain heresy-or-other.

What I am saying is that it’s irresponsible at best, directly harmful at worst, for discerning Christians to advocate The Shack for other people, or fail to understand its issues, dismissing them in favor of only a well-I-was-really-blessed-by-it sentiment. As I’ve said before, once upon a time, the Left Behind series really “blessed” me. However, I would not advocate it as the magnum opus of even the limited field of Christian end-times speculative fiction — and even its view of God was much more Biblically based than that of The Shack!


‘. . . The things of the Spirit of God . . .’

To answer your first question...the Bible was written for mankind...not specifically Christians or non-Christians. I would argue that certain epistles were written for the edification of believers and churches then and now. I would also argue that the gospels were clearly written to reveal Christ to mankind. In fact, all of Scripture was written to reveal Christ. He said so.

Here I would remind us both that “[t]he natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). Thus, while the Bible is certainly intended for everyone to read, it is only spiritually discerning Christ-followers who will fully “get it.” Aside from that clarification, I wholly agree with the above.

This book, The Shack, was intended for the author's family and has grown from there.

That results in a smile and raised eyebrow on my part. According to all accounts, The Shack did start out that way, yet it hasn’t just automatically “grown from there” — they put it out there, intentionally, for others to read. That places the writer/publishers in a role of spiritual authority and accountability, whether they believe can simply touch an imaginary “base” and be immune to criticism or not.

I would say it's directed at an audience of believers because it assumes a relationship with Jesus from the beginning. The main character has a relationship, though he is struggling in it due to deep pain.

Hmm. From what I’ve read about the book from informed sources, the cross of Christ and His sacrifice there in place of rebellious sinners gets very little mention. Can you correct me if this understanding is wrong? The Gospel should be first and foremost in any book purporting to describe the Biblical Godhead.



The only thing we have to fear is Legalism?

And speaking of questions …

Shew, glad that little quiz is over with. I'm sure I failed to study enough. ;-)

So long as we choose to continue interacting, you’re most welcome to keep asking me questions as well, to be sure.

But let me pause a moment. What, exactly, leads you to (perhaps incidentally) “play the victim” here, as if I’m going verbally to bite your head off any second if you don’t make sure to lower your gaze and act all humble? That trepidation on your part has continued throughout your materials here and on the Boundless blog, proceeding always as if under real threat of attack — as if in every corner of cyberspace lurks a hideous Bible-thumping bogeyman who’ll be mean if you’re not careful.

I don’t wish to sound too sarcastic here, but really I’d recommend putting those professed fears at ease.

You make some very bold assertions about The Shack for someone who has not read it - for someone who has been told what to think about it from others. Yes, I am using that argument again - that you should read something before you blast the God it represents.

Yes, you’re admittedly using it again — an argument I’ve already rebutted many times; that rebuttal stands.

Here it is again, though: yes, I can certainly rely on others’ words about the book, because their testimony is informed. This is common in discussion and debate: I am appealing to their discernment and authority as people who have read it and who share my views and whose discernment I have no reason to question. And again, you’d thus be obligated to show me how my views (or theirs) are misunderstandings of What the Book Really Says. For someone who has read the book, you’re not talking much about what it supposedly really says at all!

Please evaluate this honestly. You haven’t given much credit to Tom Neven and others — perhaps bloggers Tim Challies or Don Veinot — who have read the book and still find fault with it. How exactly would I “win points” for reading the book myself, and then proceeding with my doctrinally based objections?



Truth telling and doctrinal discernment

You may be blasting a representation of the very same God who you love. Does the book present a false view of God? Really?

Again, you can tell me. Is the book’s presentation of God as a Biblically balanced, loving yet wrathful, infinite yet personal, truly triune Creator/Savior? Is the Gospel upheld? If not, again, please show me from the book itself where and how my views (quoting more-informed sources) are wrong.

That is what I would do if a well-intended Christ-follower was lambasting Harry Potter, for example. Having read all seven novels in the series and enjoyed them immensely, I won’t insist that it is stuffed with Christian metaphors as some claim, but I won’t say they’re sending people to Hell either. However, in response to critics, I will not demand that they must read all the books first or else be absolutely barred in my view from even trying to offer an opinion. Instead, I would seek to understand their sources (if they have them) and do my best to persuade them (the critics) that a) the sources themselves are misinformed or biased, perhaps because of bad theology, and/or b) instead of “X”, the books actually say “Y,” and so on.

Again (again, again, again) no one has thus far presented what’s in the book as representative of its “real” contents, compared to what is constantly implied as the critics’ flagrant misunderstandings. Well, that’s the only understanding I have from folks I trust! No one’s contradicted it with what’s supposedly “really” in the book.

I have believed things that trusted friends have told me, not tested them, and later found them to be true or untrue. Has this never happened to you? Are we not to test everything? Are you really testing it if you aren't examining it yourself?

Ah, but have your friends quoted selections from the Things, offered Biblically based, -reasoned and –balanced perspectives of the Things? Without further detail about such scenarios, this doesn’t matter. For me, time and motivation to care about reading it is nonexistent, but so is fear — I would only be wasting my time by reading The Shack but it’s not going to hurt me at all.

Again, I do not oppose Christ-followers reading the book or liking its style or whatever. But to like it so much, to feel “blessed” by a work riddled with so much false teaching, and to recommend it to others is at best irresponsible, at worst, directly spreading false doctrine.

I am not saying you have done all this. But I am saying that far too many Shack defenders have.



A show-me state of mind

You seem to be a mature, well-grounded believer. Let me ask, if you were sharing with someone, believer or non-believer, about God would you take a passage out of context...like...for example...“not wishing for any to perish”? Is that all you would want someone to know about God? Do you think that a few statements from Young's book that have been taken out of context and presented as heresy are the God that Young wanted to present to anyone else? Do you find it honest scholarship to do such a thing? Do you find it honest scholarship to perpetuate such a thing?

Again, then, can you help provide me with the book’s actual context, the context I’ve ostensibly missed? Far too often, in the political scene and elsewhere, people cry out, So-and-so was Taken Out of Context! but they rarely go on to provide the actual context for evaluation.

I would say to you that folks have tried to debunk what you and others have presented, but you do not give the appearance of listening to them. It seems that certain people must debunk what you have said before you will consider it. I understand this. It's difficult when you don't have a relationship with someone to trust that someone. So fair enough. This will likely not change and I will not labor further here.

Agreed; and as I said, we do not know each other, so the discussion may not be as personal as it would be on a real-life basis. Yet it could also be more in-depth and honest. Such is the nature of the wild cyber-frontier.

As for “[giving] the appearance of listening to them,” others can judge for themselves whether others or I have interacted with Shack defenders or just talked right past them. You may find an example somewhere, but it’s difficult to respond to the often merely emotional arguments that are made in response to Biblical doctrine-based reasoning.

I am not saying emotional arguments are wrong. What I am saying is that pure emotions, unaccompanied by actual argument, aren’t rational, and irrelevant when discussion an issue like this.



In our eyes . . .

Meanwhile, can you try to see it from my point of view (or ours, if I may be so bold as to speak for other Shack theology critics)? While many, many problems beset the Church especially in the West, among them legalism, authoritarianism, flagrant hypocrisy, shallow program-driven impersonal systems, scandals and such, we also see among those the issue of False Doctrine. Along comes a guy with a very popular book that at least hints at God being a girl (again, Young may not personally believe this, but his personal belief is irrelevant because his public words are at best irresponsible) and worse, leaves wide open the notion that All Folks Go to Heaven (one way or another). And professing Christians are falling all OVER themselves over it all.

My reaction is fourfold.

First, I think, what’s the big deal? To me they’re eating cheap, stale cotton candy when a fantastic and much more spiritually sustaining feast can be found in many other books, novels and nonfiction as well!

Secondly, I question how they could feel “blessed” by a work that misrepresents God so flagrantly (again, I welcome any evidence contrary to what I’ve read about the book, and from the book, including direct quotes).

Thirdly, I’m perplexed and then shocked that so many professing Christians are so ga-ga over this book that they’re buying copies for all their friends — when there is little to no mention of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross in place of rebel sinners, the Gospel that we’re commanded to know and proclaim. It shows that a) these professing Christians naïvely assume their friends are as spiritually smart as they are and can figure out all that Gospel stuff themselves and see just as easily past the error in the book, and/or b) they don’t value the Gospel that much themselves anyway.

And fourthly, I must double-take and realize that many believers simply lack discernment and don’t want to be told, regardless of the gracious demeanor in which it may be said, that what they’re consuming is at best not beneficial for their spiritual growth, and at worst, blatantly anti-Biblical.

I am not saying you are in the same category. But far too many are, and to defend this “side” so vehemently gives me pause and cause for concern.



Carrying only a hammer, nailing every problem as Legalism

Thank you for explaining the nuances of the word “letter” to me. I am now well edu...ma...cated on the matter. I believe that you grossly misinterpret what the Scriptures exist for.

You make me smile, but I’m only doing my best to exegete the passage. If you had a better-informed alternative of understanding Paul’s “the letter kills” (literally, the old-covenant law), I’d read it. Yet the meaning is very clear from the passage itself, and aided by my study Bible’s commentary, other books and a survey-level familiarity with the doctrine of the old covenant being fulfilled in the new one.

It seems that you believe that you can actually live them [the Scriptures]. You cannot, friend. Trying to do so will only lead to misery. They point us to Christ. They tell you who you are in Him and that He is in you. They tell you all that you have in Him. We live by the Spirit and we are to walk by the Spirit...and against such things there is no law, not even in the New Testament. Paul even points to the misery of trying to live such a life on our own in Romans. Of course, I am preaching to the choir. So, regardless of what letter means, New or Old, the Spirit is in me, and, if I am not living by the Spirit then I am living by the flesh, albeit religious flesh at times, albeit trying to live the New Testament, and it is impossible to please God in the flesh. To live by the Spirit is to live what He has commanded us, not to live by what He has commanded us. There is a difference. Your life is a “pillar and support of the truth”. To try to live the reverse is to most certainly fail. Many, even Paul, tried and failed. Of course, failure may not be gross sin. But, failure can be really missing something of God.

You’re imputing to me legalistic motives that are not there — it seems you have a hammer, so any different view you’re “nailing” as Legalism. Thanks be to God, I have both practical and some Scriptural knowledge of Legalism, having worked through and discussed the issue extensively. Like any honest believer, I won’t pretend to be immune from Legalism, but doctrinal discernment like the kind exercised against books like The Shack isn’t it.

Moreover, again, you’re imputing to me a certain set of motives based on pure conjecture — which are first, incorrect anyway, and secondly, avoiding what I’ve said.

How can you say that we cannot “actually live them [the Scriptures]” but instead we live by the Spirit? This is a transparent false dichotomy. The Spirit Himself inspired the Scriptures, in which God’s standards are found directly. No, I’m not recommending living by the Old Testament law (again, with that hammer you seem to be “nailing” every problem as Legalism). Paul and others were clear that these standards have been fulfilled. That is why, though there is much throughout the Epistles about righteous living (especially in James), Paul spent dozens of chapters expounding about Who God is and what He has done for us, not what He demands from us. As adopted members in His Kingdom, we should want to follow Him naturally. That means getting to know Him and His Truths, and getting past all of the stuff that doesn’t help us do that — or harms that goal.



Flailing toward fatalism

Oh, but you have discounted that the Lord can use a flawed book in the lives of people. Perhaps you should revisit some of your posts. It appears that God cannot work if there is any hint of disagreement with Scripture.

Already I’ve dealt with this in another recent Boundless blog comment. In short, your statement leads easily to fatalism. God is sovereign, so yes, He can use anything toward His purpose — natural disasters, death, totalitarian regimes, abusive situations, false doctrine, even Legalism. Does that mean we as discerning Christ-followers simply back off and decide “well, ha ha, ‘que sera, sera,’ let’s not worry about anything because God will use it”?

Furthermore, I believe that no one picked up The Shack to read it as the epitome of spiritual help. They picked it up because they heard about it, maybe read the back cover, and thought it sounded good. God met them in it, and maybe helped them spiritually.

Perhaps so, but again, that doesn’t render it immune to doctrine-based criticism. Again, no one I have read has said “don’t read The Shack, it’s evil, you’ll lose your faith, if you read it you’ll go to Hell” a la the (stereotypical, whether true or not) fundie-Legalist approach. But it seems you’re overcorrecting into more false-dichotomy if/then “facts”: for example, if one discerns false doctrines in this book, then he/she is a legalist and doesn’t care about people.



Personal punditry, and conclusion

I'd be curious to hear what is balance and orthodoxy to you? For example, do you attend a local church every Sunday where you have brief interaction with some friends, sing a few songs, put some money in the plate, sit in your seat and listen to a sermon, sing another song, and go home? Do you call it church? Hmmm. Maybe you do. There is precious little about that experience that any scholar would call orthodoxy or biblically balanced or “church”, but I bet it blesses your heart from time to time, so am I to correct you in it?

As I mentioned at the start, here is the emotional (attempted personal) argument apparently questioning my own church background — stereotyping yours truly (and others by proxy?) as just another one o’them staid-fast, standoffish, likely Southern, grim-faced impersonal Churchian types.

As you would likely admit, and as Bugs Bunny would say: “Ehhh, he don’t know me very well, do he?”

In response, I could go into how great and Biblically balanced, loving yet Truth-telling, my church is, and how great the relationships are that I enjoy there. Yet that really isn’t the point. Nothing in such a “boring church” scenario as you described could be considered wholly anti-Biblical (yet I would argue, probably along with you, that it’s certainly antithetical to the views of the vibrant, personal local church that we find in the New Testament). But when comparing Biblically neutral church practices to non-neutral, directly false doctrines in any book, it’s overtly oranges and apples and there is no relation. You can feel “blessed” by a book with bad teaching, to be sure, yet I’m compelled to remind you that Mormons feel just as “blessed” by their book that is even more jammed with anti-Biblical beliefs!

Friend, can I not appeal to the Spirit of God in you? I love you and my heart is breaking.

Seriously, I appreciate it, but let not your heart be troubled. :-)

Unlike what you seem to perceive (“nailing” every problem as sourced by Legalism), I’m having a blast discussing this, and hope to Heaven that the sovereign God uses something I write to “get through” should He so choose! I don’t know whether you’re one of those souls who’s actually been affected by Legalistic extremes and so is naturally overcorrecting the other way — or is incidentally using the bogeyman of Legalism as only an “excuse” for the opposite extreme. But either way, you need to see such criticism done the right way as best I can give it, if Christ gives me the wit: with what author Randy Alcorn terms “the Grace and Truth paradox.”

However — as you can tell from this blog — I don’t let the issue of Avoiding Legalism define my Christian walk. Instead, I’m “into” all kinds of topics. But Lord willing, the Gospel should be the center of my writing and interactions at all times.

If the Gospel is not at the center, then I would indeed have issues. Yet I would be in some very popular, though not good, company — apparently right alongside the doctrinally dilapidated Shack, which from what I’ve heard, and perhaps worse than any black-woman-stand-in-for-God parts, has very few “Cross-words” at all.]]> Columns http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=458 Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:08:47 -0400 http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=457 (Read Shellacking ‘The Shack’ on doctrine and fiction, part I, or Shellacking ‘The Shack’ on doctrine and fiction, part II. Also posted today to Speculative Faith)

First let me get this out of the way: no, I haven’t yet (and likely won’t anytime soon) read The Shack. This isn’t a disclaimer, or an apology, just an acknowledgement to the inevitable objections that go something like, “you haven't read the book, so you really can’t say anything about it.”

What I’ve mostly been recently rebutting, though, have been this bestselling book’s defenders, on the Boundless webzine blog and elsewhere, who have been offering mostly emotional objections to those who (correctly) oppose the book on Biblical bases. And even for those times in which I attempt to rebut the book itself, I can do so by appealing to the “authority” of those I trust who have read it, who overall share my views and who profoundly object to the book’s contents. These include the above-mentioned blog and many others, including blogger/author Tim Challies and Don Veinot of Midwest Christian Outreach.

For those who don’t know, The Shack is a book by a guy called William Young, in which a man whose daughter has been abducted and probably killed by a murderer is summoned by God to rendezvous in the shack where the crime took place. Once there, the lead encounters the “trinity” in the form of a clichéd matronly black woman (the “Father”), a smiling Middle-Eastern guy (“Jesus”) and an Asian woman (“the Holy Spirit”). And they talk theology, or rather the author’s version of it, for several dozen pages.

Boundless blogger Tom Neven followed up his initial observations on the book with his July 1 post called “But It’s Only Fiction,” in which he specifically rebutted the idea that you can simply dismiss a story as just a story even if it contains anti-Biblical ideas. This is both bad doctrine as well as bad fiction, Neven contended:

While fiction is by definition a story that doesn't pretend to be true, it still must adhere to certain basic rules. You can create any universe you like, but once you've created it, you must stick to its internal logic. If zurts are green and fly and jurts are blue and don't fly, you cannot willy-nilly switch these “facts” around, even if they are totally products of your imagination. And if for some reason in your story we see a blue jurt that is flying, you'd better have a good narrative explanation for why or else you've confused the reader.

[. . .]

If you're going to ground your fiction in the real world, then it must conform to the rules of the real world we live in. No unicorns or magic squirrels allowed. Even one of my favorite literary genres, Magical Realism, adheres to certain basic rules.

So if you're going to have God as a character in your real-world fiction, then you must deal with God as he has revealed himself in Scripture. By using the Trinity as characters in this story set in the real world, The Shack author William P. Young is clearly indicating that he's supposedly talking about the God of Christianity. But God has said certain things about himself in Scripture, and much of what Young does in this novel contradicts that. I don't care if he's trying to make God more “accessible.” He's violated the rules of fiction.

[. . .]

To those people who have snapped up copies of The Shack to give to non-Christian friends, you are doing them no favors. You are introducing them to a false god. You are inoculating them against the claims of the True God of Scripture. And more to the point, you're just giving them bad fiction.

Skewing Scripture and storytelling

In response to that came affirmations from several commentators, myself included (I’m Dr. Ransom on there), along with a few opposing views that fairly much repeated the same point (“it’s only fiction”) or offered overly emotional responses that didn’t contradict Neven’s logical and theological argument at all (“but you see, The Shack changed my life”).

“Many were along the lines that I should just lighten up,” Neven summarized later.

To be sure, many among Shack’s Christian critics will be the same types, God bless ‘em, who pass around email forwards talking about how J.K. Rowling performs goat or human sacrifices to Lucifer, or how Madalyn Murray O’Hair, back from the dead, is taking over the Federal Communications Commission and putting TBN out of business (unfortunately, no such luck). But Neven is certainly not one of them — he’s not pulpit-pounding and raging legalistically (perhaps in a southern accent) about how The Shack will send people to Hell.

As I wrote here, just like I could read Harry Potter, or view Star Trek, and sort through the non-Christian elements, I could — if I wanted to — read through The Shack and sort the good from the bad. Thanks to God and great teaching, I’m confident I wouldn’t be swayed from what I know to be true from His revealed Word in Scripture.

However, The Shack doesn’t start with a premise of God’s nonexistence, or complete noninvolvement, as do Harry Potter and Star Trek and many other stories. Instead, “God” is there — but he/she has a completely skewed nature. He/she doesn’t talk all that much about his/her holiness, or revelation in Scripture, or death on the Cross, or judgment of sin or call to repent and be redeemed. Instead, he/she is mostly love, sweet love (supposedly something that in the Church there’s always just too little of).

In response to that often comes the argument that, well, the author doesn’t really believe everyone goes to Heaven by default, or that God is a girl, or that He won’t punish sin. And perhaps it could be unfair to assume a writer is intentionally trying to deceive his readers.

However, according to what I’ve read, this Biblical balance of the Almighty receives precious little press time in The Shack. It’s a severely imbalanced view, even if the author portrayed God the Father as a male and other unorthodoxies were avoided. This won’t be at all helpful to new believers, much less so for nonbelievers. What, then, does it really matter what the author truly believes, if what he has publicly said presents imbalanced or skewed doctrine?

“It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.”
— Bruce Wayne, Batman Begins

For your consideration

Many at this point will still be hanging onto the “it’s just a story; what’s the big deal” argument. Perhaps one cannot expect to be able to change their minds. However, one comment on the Boundless blog from a commentator named Rich makes one of the best rhetorical and sensitive arguments I’ve read on the subject.

Say I wanted to communicate to the world about God's wrath and justice (these are two biblical character qualities of God, just like His love.), so I wrote a fiction book where I depicted God as the serial killer guy from Saw. You read the book, and (rightfully) express concern (outrage would be more appropriate): 'Rich, I don't think God is like the guy from Saw. Yeah, I know He's just and He exhibits wrath on the unrepentant at the judgment seat, but the way you depict Him...well...That's not quite biblical.'

I respond, 'Relax. It's only fiction! I'm not writing a theological treatise! If you read the book, you will learn about God's justice and be blessed.'

How would you respond? No doubt, you'd respond with incredulity: even though its fiction, I'm communicating something about God, something deeply flawed. The fact that I'm writing fiction doesn't get me off the hook.

It's the same with The Shack. If I'm not off the hook in my flawed attempt at communicating about God's justice, why is Young off the hook when he makes a flawed attempt at communicating about other parts of God's nature, like His love or Immanence?

You see, we usually only express that blasé attitude when the book in question presents God in a soft light. Why the inconsistency?

I understand that fiction is a slightly more fluid genre than, say, theological papers in a professional journal. But that doesn't mean we give fiction authors a free ticket to ride when it comes to speaking about God, truth, and reality.

Far from being the “trash heap” of the written word, fiction is an incredibly powerful and important genre. Brian McLaren and others encapsulate their theological ideals in fiction partly because they understand such ideals will be easier for the rank and file to accept if they are captured in a story. For the most part, this is all well and good, but it has a down side: we can easily let our guard down.

Therefore, we should treat fiction as it is: an important and honorable genre worthy of the utmost consideration.

So far, no one on the blog has answered this scenario with how, exactly, they could object to such a reverse-engineered fiction attempt, without facing the same objections.

However, that doesn’t mean an attempted answer doesn’t exist, per se. Any interaction here about the Shack book — or, as with me, reactions to the reactions of its defenders — is most welcome, along with discussions about what or how much, exactly, is “permitted” in Christ-honoring speculative fiction, given what we know from Scripture about God and His Truths.]]> Columns http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=457 Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:09:51 -0400 http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=456 a collection of mini-columns originally written for the Boundless blog, in which I added my own rebuttals, not necessarily to the wishy-washy ramshackle-theology book The Shack (or choose your shack construction-related pun modifier), but the unsound — and often only emotional — arguments of its defenders.

In particular, those “essayettes” focused on three areas, including the book’s fans’:

1) Dismissal that the book presents stories about (an) un-Biblical god(s);

2) Disturbing defenses of the book’s skewed ideas of God’s nature, incidentally yet simple-mindedly relegating all its critics as only typical legalistic redneck “fundies”;

3) Tendency to fall for false “humility” that turns right back around and arrogantly proclaims “God is complete mystery” when in fact He’s revealed much about Himself in the Word.

Now comes a few more subtopics of that continuing conversation, including whether someone can be “safe” offering critiques of a book he’s not personally read — or, more appropriately, at least that book’s defenders, as I’ve tried — including the method of critiquing the criticism (without offering an alternate understanding of what the critic has — by implication — misperceived), or relegating the critics to merely wanting to avoid people’s enhanced love for Christ, or influence by the Holy Spirit, just because the critics themselves “don’t get it.”


Critiquing the criticism

(Originally posted on July 3, in response to Tom Neven’s first post)

Tom Neven wrote:

Significantly, no one actually used theological arguments to object to what I’ve written. Some were emotional responses, some speculative, some snarky, but many were along the lines that I should just lighten up.

That has been my impression throughout the comments of the previous post as well — coupled with the assertion (heavily implied, anyway) that if a commentator hasn’t read the book, then he/she can’t be at all informed on it. However, that brings two counter-objections:

1) Neither I nor many others here are remarking on the book or its characters (Mack?) anyway. Instead, it’s the reactions from those who defend the book that are rebut-able.

2) As per offering criticisms of The Shack itself, though I have not read it, I do have the “testimony” of those I trust who have read it. The same is true of other media offerings I have not personally read or seen — for example, nothing, rhetorically, is to prevent me from citing as an authority on the matter Plugged In reviews of books or films I’d prefer to avoid based on their detailed discernments.

And yet the attempts to downplay opposing views seems to be not so much “you haven’t read the book and you misunderstand it, as I can clearly show you here and here and here; and here’s what it really says,” but instead, “you haven’t read the book, so you really can’t say anything anyway” (I have not seen this specific argument made here, per se, but it’s close).

As Tom said, the objections (thus far, anyway) have been emotional: God really changed me through the book; I’ve really seen Him in a light I haven’t before, and so on.

To that I can personally relate. Similar to Tom’s account, during my teenage years I became quite enamored by an end-times novel series, (which I won’t name), authored by two evangelical writers (whom I also won’t name), of a dozen titles (followed up by three prequels and one especially horrid sequel). These novels were also of a certain eschatological persuasion that I won’t name, except to say that it wasn’t mid- or post-anything.

They were also of a certain theological bent that I can best describe as Definitely Not Reformed. Even God’s judgments on sinful souls during the seven-year Tribulation were portrayed more as “God is trying to get your attention” instead of “God is nuking you because you’re evil,” as Revelation would clearly say (even in the perspective of that end-times view). (The series’ characters, by the way, even remarked upon this fact of God’s judgment, yet they directly decided to talk more about His mercy and love instead, which seems interesting when demons are stinging everyone and the oceans are turning to blood at the same time.)

As a Christ-follower, I can still enjoy these novels (yes, even as one of those Young-Restless-Reformed guys; and I might be the only one). That’s because first, they’re still kinda fun, and second, they’re part of my recent “religious heritage” and helped increase my interest in writing and particularly fiction.

However, knowing what I know now, I am not going to act as though this series is an example of supreme and creative Christ-honoring literature, or the best portrayal of God’s true nature and solid doctrine about the end times or otherwise. I would also definitely not recommend them to new believers, much less nonbelievers, as a great example of Scripture-based storytelling.

There is so much better fiction out there that encapsulates God’s true nature, balancing His paradoxical attributes as best can be done this side of Heaven (love/wrath, Grace/justice, infinite/knowable, and so on). Why not advocate these stories rather than one that will surely continue to confuse, if not deceive, so many readers?

Meanwhile, Rich’s point in response to the last post, about what this well-it’s-only-fiction argument would look in reverse to The Shack’s defenders, remains un-addressed. I’d be interested to hear Shack advocates’ responses to this — the fact that overstressing God’s judgment and wrath in fiction would bring criticism, and much more so if His love and Grace were not only minimized, but ignored.



The Biblical balance of God

(Originally posted on July 8, in response to Chris Pack’s points)

Chris Pack, perhaps nothing typed here will be perceived as a Gracious rebuttal, or as an acknowledgement that regardless of the profound disagreement with much of what you’ve said, I still find your writing’s demeanor and style very humble. It seems clear that you believe what you’re saying — it’s just that what you’re saying doesn’t hold up Biblically. And while it may not spiritually harm you ultimately and personally, inevitably it will cause damage to others.

As has been noted frequently in these two posts, the same is true for certain wishy-washy books that devalue what God has already told us in the Bible, either fiction or (attempted) nonfiction.

Chris Pack wrote:

Well, I suppose it shouldn't be strange to me to hear the Spirit of God moving folks classified as an “emotional response” since I used to do the the [sic] same.

Chris, no one here (that I have seen) is discounting emotional reactions altogether.

Worship involves emotional reactions; delighting in God and His Word involves emotional reactions; fellowship with other believers involves emotional reactions. These bring glory to God and the Spirit can speak in these.

His Truths can even be echoed in a book, film or television program whose worldview is not explicitly Christian. Last week, for example, I had an ”emotional reaction” when during a Star Trek: Voyager episode, one character underwent a Native American-style “vision,” in which he communicated with his dead father (hardly spiritually valid, that!). However, his father was nevertheless upholding an incredibly Christian view of unborn children’s sanctity of life — even for unborn children fathered by rape!

But would you affirm or deny that the Spirit will speak to people in something that clearly contradicts the Word He has already inspired? Would you affirm or deny that The Shack contains overtly anti-Biblical messages and advocates a different gospel, a different God?

I have asked before whether anyone can correct me on my (and others’) understanding of the book’s views; instead, responses have generally been “you need to read the book first.” Very well, then, to those of you who have read the book: where is my misunderstanding? How is what the author presents of God and spiritual truth actually aligned with Scripture’s presentation of the same?

Meanwhile, commentator Rich’s’ argument from before, about how many would rightly oppose a book presenting God as only a wrathful, serial killer and could be told “it’s just a story,” yet remains unanswered.

I’ll take it a bit further: what if such a fictitious presentation of God did exist, and others rightfully opposed it, and were rebutted not only with the “argument” that Hey, it’s only fiction, we’re just having a conversation here; don’t worry, but with the notion going something like this:

If you have an issue with portraying God as solely a vengeful serial killer, you’re quenching the Spirit. People’s lives are being changed by this. They’re seeing God in a whole new way — instead of only a loving, caring deity Who tolerates everything, even the sin in their lives and the lives of people who’ve hurt them terribly, they can take confidence in the fact that He will send such people to Hell where they will suffer forever.

Because one could use your same arguments, then, to defend what others would surely consider an un-Biblical balance in the other direction, how would a Shack supporter respond?

Chris Pack wrote:

There is much labeling that has happened in these multiple forums and I felt need to draw attention to it so that brothers and sisters aren’t alienated for seeing things differently than Dr. Ransom and you.

(Checks, then double-checks) ‘Tis flattering, but we’re not at all the only ones in the “room,” are we? ;-) Multiple others here have voiced their well-written objections, and they’re not merely “labeling” others who disagree as apostate or non-Christian. (I’d like to see a quote from anyone here who has merely ranted legalistically? However, that is often simply a quick-draw stereotyping reaction, spying fundie pulpit-pounders everywhere.)

Furthermore, what, exactly, is the logic behind mere dismissal of discussion as “labeling”? “Labels” are how we communicate. They’re also called “words.” Thus, Chris Pack himself has 604 labels in his last comment. ;-)

Chris Pack wrote:

It's much like the 2/5 of democrats who are born again Christians that Barna has identified - they are easily alienated in evangelical churches today because they don’t typically vote for “God’s candidate”.

This seems another stereotype about all Christ-followers who believe certain candidates are closer to advocating God’s moral standards in government than others — that if they maintain this belief, they are saying such-and-such a person is “God’s candidate” (and blast you, you’re going to Hell if you don’t vote our way).

As for those who claim to be Christians in surveys: first, Barna himself has elsewhere said many self-described Christians don’t really hold to a Biblical worldview; secondly:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

Matthew 7: 21 (ESV)

Chris Pack wrote:

A common thread in both the theology of Tom Neven and the theology of those who like “The Shack” is a love for Jesus Christ. May we never forget that.

Ah, but if you really love a person, wouldn’t you want to know what he or she has said about him- or herself instead of contradictory speculation from a secondary source? Similarly, if we truly love Jesus, aren’t we going to want to know the balanced and Biblical Truth about Him? Is this truly advocated in The Shack? To be sure, many people from other religions and Christianity mutations (such as Mormonism) claim to love Jesus — but their “Jesus” is a prosperity-“gospel” Jesus, or a “Jesus” who is a brother of Lucifer, or a “Jesus” who somehow found time to go to India and attain enlightenment.

What I am not saying is that you or anyone who enjoys The Shack’s view of Jesus is not a Christian. What I am saying is that although this is anti-Biblical teaching about Him that may not terribly damage true Christ-followers’ spiritual growths in the long run — God is sovereign to preserve His own — it will not ultimately advance their growth in faith in and knowledge of Him. Furthermore, will it help unbelievers understand a Biblical balance of Christ, Who as fully God and fully man is both love yet wrath, transcendent yet knowable, infinite yet personal?

As for whether the refutations here have been written with loving attitudes, others can discern that for themselves. It seems that to some, any advocacy of Biblical Truth and encouragement of teaching it, and discouragement of false teaching, would seem “unloving.” With that in mind, then, perhaps the Apostle Paul himself would seem very “unloving” almost constantly?

Unlike another un-Biblical balance that perhaps some incidentally advocate — that of believing we cannot be humble and gracious and yet defending God’s truth — we can do them together. Christ-followers really can walk the walk and chew deep doctrine at the same time — and eschew that which is not a Biblical balance of both.]]> Columns http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=456 Wed, 9 Jul 2008 07:42:48 -0400 http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=455 if Christians act loving toward others, then they’re not doctrinally solid — or, more commonly, if Christians advocate solid doctrine, then they’re automatically not loving.

Who, exactly, came up with this false dichotomy? We might guess one culprit: the Devil, who likes extreme positions to either end of a Biblical balance — a front-and-center focus on Christ and the Gospel. Yet human reasoning has a lot to do with it, too.

The slogan is this:

Christ-followers really can walk the walk and chew deep doctrine at the same time.

And I keep wanting to say this repeatedly while writing this series of mini-“essays,” mostly in the form of rebuttals, in response to two (and probably more) installments on the Boundless blog during the past week, about the quasi-Christian small novel The Shack. Blogger Tom Neven had written before about that Controversial book and followed it up with two posts on July 1 and July 3 (“controversial” in my view is often journalism-ese for “we shouldn’t have to talk about this thing because it’s really nothing new, but it’s somehow hugely popular, so I guess we’d better take a look at it”).

In those discussions I’ve contributed much, and much of that material is reproduced here, with slight adjustments for formatting and a too-late-for-the-original-page self-edit here and there.



Stories of the ‘gods’

(Originally posted on July 1, in response to Tom’s initial post)

Excellent follow-up thoughts, Tom. From what I’ve heard and read, The Shack is yet another example of liberal Churchianity — under the guise of evangelical Christianity — offering “a different gospel — not that there is another one,” as Paul told the Galatians.

It seems the “god(s?)” of this book isn’t a “supposal” of how God might appear in a parallel world, a la Aslan, or the representations of Christ in several other Narnia-like imitators among Christian fantasy. Rather, it’s an imbalanced, all-love-all-the-time, neo-Universalist perversion of God — “god” in man’s image.

But if you’re going to write fiction based in this universe, then you need to play by this universe’s “rules,” absolutely. Star Trek never pretended gravity didn’t exist (though I think the nearly “omnipotent” Q played with physics constants from time to time) or that warp drive wasn’t a nearly impossible concept — as you pointed out, they came up with technical jargon to work around it.

Even in Harry Potter, with its decidedly un-Christian mindset, plays by the rules of this universe when it is set here — at Hogwarts and other magical locations, of course, other rules apply, but they always apply. Consistency, continuity, is key to realistic, believable fiction.

Yet both of these series assume an often-more-than-implied atheistic worldview. God is absent in Star Trek, and only love as an emotion is upheld as the highest virtue worth dying for in Harry Potter. Both of these fictitious worlds, though, bring me little difficulty in recommending them to others just because the stories are so good (and often reflect Christian values whether they like it or not). It’s because they assume, a priori, God’s nonexistence — or absolute non-involvement; same thing — that they don’t pose much threat to Christianity. Just as with fairy tales, such as “Cinderella” or “Peter Pan,” you assume God’s not involved and off you go.

However, any fiction that would purport to be Christian, yet flagrantly skew what is clearly revealed in the Bible about God in favor of some kind of shock-jock doctrinal tricks (a la “Hee hee hee! guess what, God is a girrr-rll; yes, I said ‘God is a girrr-rrlll,’ what’re you going to do about it?”) is in the very least, not helpful to the body of Christ, and furthermore, deceiving the Church and (even worse) nonbelievers about Who God is.

Paul and Christ before him both have strong words for those who pervert the Gospel and offer their own counterfeit (Galatians 1: 8-9). Now of course, this criticism will be inevitably be taken by many as just more pulpit-pounding legalistic fundamentalism. If so, they would be judging the Apostle who wrote this strong language, not the concerned Christ-followers who only cite this, and plead with them to stop twisting the Truth, and the image of God in others’ sight, in the name of “creativity” (which is not at all “creative” anyway — God is a girrrr-rrlll has been a hapless heretical cliché for centuries).

True art, in fiction, music, film and otherwise, honors Christ and His Truth. Otherwise, the “art” is at best a total waste of time, at worst, an abominable lie and dishonoring to the Creator.



Reasoned rebuttals to disturbing defenses

(Originally posted on July 1, in response to several other commentators)

Read, the differences between Narnia and this book are striking. The character of Aslan results from Lewis’s supposal of “what if” Christ really did create and interact with a world called Narnia.

But unlike Shack, apparently, Aslan wonderfully parallels what we know about the real Christ from Scripture. He is both beautiful and terrible — a divine, perfect Paradox.

Now, some Christians overextend on the idea of God being “terrible.” But (sometimes in response to that), other people far overcorrect and present God (or a version thereof) as little more than just All Love, All the Time. Scripture doesn’t leave us the option of this dichotomy. God is love, but He is also justice.

Others’ deceptions aside, I for one (as a discerning Christ-follower) simply don’t find any reason to read anything that skews the real God like this. How, exactly, would I benefit spiritually from this?

If others have learned and benefited spiritually about the real God from The Shack or something similar — if by reading this book, God has somehow seemed bigger and more glorious — then that would be a helpful argument to hear. Yet from what I have heard thus far, man’s ideas of God, and not God Himself, is most glorified in the book.

Meanwhile, the publisher’s response to Shack criticisms, linked above, reflects much of the same attempts at false dichotomy and straw-man construction common to many who react against reminders of what’s in Scripture — even Grace-based reminders.

It seems that The Shack‘s defender, here, in his zeal to defend what he feels is a righteous cause — decides that everyone else has too much zeal to defend a righteous cause, and oddly, lashes out in a very stringent, “fundamentalist” way against those who are supposedly stringent and fundamentalist.

It seems the writer is clinging to a simple view of God while ignoring the complexity of divine paradoxes (love/wrath, knowable/mysterious, personal/transcendent) — the very same error that more-“orthodox” Christ-followers are accused of making.

Just because we didn’t put Scriptural addresses with their numbers and colons at every allusion in the story, does not mean that the Bible isn’t the key source in virtually every conversation Mack has with God.

Note the false dichotomy, here — if you criticize The Shack for being un-Biblical, that simply must mean we demand that an author sprinkle chapter-and-verse in a novel. This is a simplistic, straw-man approach to pretend that any criticism is this absurd.

The book uses some characterizations of God to mess with the religious stereotypes only to get people to consider God as he really is, not how we have reconstituted him as a white, male autocrat bent on religious conformity.

This is simply more bad rhetorical technique — I wonder exactly how many nasty letters received by The Shack’s publishers have contended that God is a white European male. Perhaps they have contended that He is definitely male, based solely on the flimsy evidence offered by, well, the Book He wrote, that He is, in fact, well ... male. ;-)

Just because people have amused, annoyed, head-shaking qualms — to say the least — about portraying God as a girl (again, it’s rather clichéd trick anyway, to sing-song that ”God is a girrr-rrlll” merely in an attempt to rile “fundie” Biblical Christians) doesn’t mean I ascribe Him Euro-centric WASP characteristics.

And frankly, contrary to Christina’s criticisms, I wouldn’t even give much credit to the notion of portraying God as a black woman being “original.” It’s sort of like crediting The Da Vinci Code for being a creative, fast-moving yarn ... it wasn’t, and neither was it that original; for some reason or other, it just found a roaring readership where others did not.

Ultimately, if The Shack were to help readers understand and give glory to the God of the Bible, that’s great. But from what I’ve heard from reasonable, non-fundie critics, I just don’t see how it could benefit me spiritually — it would be like simply reading my ABCs instead of the articles and novels I’m now capable of comprehending. But it’s worse than that: apparently, in this simplified spiritual alphabet, the letters just aren’t written down right — they’re backward, drawn incorrectly, or some left out entirely, or substituted with made-up symbols.

Those who already know the real “alphabet” basics — i.e., the true nature of God and His Truth — will not really be corrupted by books like this, just annoyed, bothered and confused, at least because of the wasted time, but mostly at the inevitable negative results of those who are being taught to think along these un-Biblical ways.

Again, Scripture itself (not just all them redneck legalistic pulpit-pounding, hemline-measuring KJV-only fundies! ;-) )has strong words for those who promote a false “gospel” and a different version of Jesus — and especially those who teach others, who are held to much greater account.

But if they’re reflexively going to ascribe nefarious, legalistic, un-Gracious motives to their critics, despite any loving and pleading demeanor that accompanies criticism, there’s not much we can do. ...



More eating of ‘humble’ lie

(Originally posted on July 2, in response to an “Anonymous” commentator)

Anonymous, the you-haven’t-read-it-so-you-can’t-criticize concept is often employed in order to duck otherwise well-assembled objections, such as those found on this page — and which you haven’t addressed. Sometimes it’s effective, and sometimes not — sometimes not, because those of us who haven’t read it are repeating the objections of those who have so it’s still informed testimony.

Anonymous wrote:

The point is not that God is a girl but that he is not who we think he is. God is a complete mystery, even to people who think they have him all figured out.

This is similar to what I’ve heard before — but again, it’s a false dichotomy. Some people, especially in postmodern-influenced Western civ, seem to think that just because we don’t know everything about God, that means we can’t know anything for sure. Furthermore, this seems to them the more humble way to approach understanding God; they claim that anyone who says “this is what God is like” is therefore claiming to have God “all figured out” — a rather simplistic and straw-man attempt.

But that is another false dichotomy. God is infinite and ultimately not able to be fully understood. But He has revealed parts of Himself in the Word, in which He has said, repeatedly, that He is, in fact, a He.

Therefore, God is not a “complete mystery,” and there are parts of Him that we have figured out — though not because of anything we have done, but because we have been blessed to receive His written revelation about Himself in His Word.

How, then, could it be construed as “humility” to ignore what He has said, in favor of our own views? I might as well fail to acknowledge or even read what you have said, because then I might actually think I could understand your views and that would be “arrogant.” No, instead it would be arrogant for me to ignore your written words and decide that I, and some of my friends in a “conversation,” could figure out your views and your nature on our own — though perhaps we might say that we have high regard for your own words about, well, yourself.

No, true humility is achieved when we’re not thinking about ourselves and our own humility (which always backfires — “By Jove, I’m being humble!” as C.S. Lewis wrote). Instead, we’re focusing on God and what He has told us about Himself. We haven’t deciphered His “code” on our own; everything we have is what He has given us. It is all from Him, from His Grace, and for His glory.

This is what will keep us truly humble and dependent on Him — not closing our eyes and ears to what He has said and thus elevating our own views about Him above His own Word about Himself.]]> Columns http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=455 Tue, 8 Jul 2008 16:15:21 -0400 http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=454 the Boundless blog, and then suddenly you're writing 975 words about the spiritual corruption of Doug Phillips and “Vision Forum,” their “droid training camps” (as another commentor phrased it), and the true nature of Christ's love for His Church and how husbands should lead and serve their wives ... and I just can't quit typing.



Crushing Grace under pathetic 'patriarchalism'

At first I wasn’t sure how far to go in critiquing such bizarre and cringe-inducing activities such as those perpetuated by Phillips and “Vision Forum.” But it seems others have gotten there first! :-)

I wasn’t sure, either, whether to link to the video itself. Unintentionally hilarious, that, but moreover it’s decidedly freakish, and grossly un-Biblical. That neo-“slavery” to fathers at this camp is hideously contrary to the Biblical truths of servant leadership and husbands and fathers humbling themselves and even giving their lives for those they love — for crying out loud!

Eesh. Yet this perversity (frankly, calling it “weird” or “wacky” wouldn’t be strong enough) fits with legalists’ worldviews. If your relationship with God isn’t so much loving Him, getting to know Him and His truths, and rejoicing and delighting in His nature and Grace, then this will carry over into how you view human relationships as well. In the Vision Forum universe, God is little more than your Authority, with little intermediary human “authorities” in between Him and us. (This, by the way, is just recycled Bill Gothard-ism, the same kind of “chain of human spiritual authority” view that the Reformers fought to abolish centuries ago.) Thus, families behave the same way, especially between husbands and wives, fathers and daughters.


Quite literally, fathers own daughters in the Vision Forum universe (which has its own parallel-world terms such as “vision-casting” and even “dominion,” which immediately brings to my mind the evil empire across the wormhole in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). This is not a reactionary exaggeration. Read their websites. See the cheerful proclamations their young women make about having their hearts “belong” to their fathers until a potential husband comes along for the arranged property transfers. Note the hegemonic, attack-of-the-clones dress codes in the above-posted video and elsewhere on the internet.

All of this twisted theology results from a low view of God, an exalted view of man and man’s righteousness, and terrible eisegesis and skewed reading of Scripture. Like Gothard and other legalists, they equate practices that are described in the Bible, such as arranged marriage, and ascribe these as having just as much value as direct commandments from God.

It’s bad enough that daughters and families are suffering the loss of freedom and Grace because of this false teaching. Far worse is the fact that God Himself is not glorified, and Grace merely is thrown into the grinding machine of Moralism.

As His Utter Subliminity Screwtape told us in intercepted secret demonic correspondence (from C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters), if people must be Christians, Hell’s best tempters need to make sure they are at least believers in the religion of “Christianity And.” As I wrote elsewhere, regarding Phillips’ mutant strain of spirituality:

It brings about Christianity and the Law. Christianity and Extreme Complementarianism/Patriarchy. Christianity and Homeschooling Only. Christianity and Approved Denim-Skirt Intensive Dress Codes. Perhaps Christianity and Head Coverings. Christianity and Extreme Interpretations of Paul’s Advice to Women in Churches Which May or May Not Have been All or Partly Culturally Derived (Especially the Parts about Braided Hair and Jewelry). Christianity and the Law. Christianity and Approved Curriculum. Christianity and Voting For Only My Preferred Political Party. Christianity and Quasi-Whitewashed American History. And on and on it goes … but mostly back to Christianity and the Law — which is not the Gospel of Grace.

Meanwhile, EM, Galatians 3:28 is often cited in an effort to downplay husband/wife roles in the family … yet you may find in the following that the verse’s meaning isn’t what you seem to think it is.

Em wrote:

Didn't Christ come to change the old system? Isn't that what freedom we can enjoy in knowing Him--as is stated in Galatians 3:28

Context is very important, and this verse is far too often divorced from the clear meaning of the Apostle Paul’s material and intent.

In Galatians 3, Paul is not referring at all to gender or gender-role issues. He is talking about the inheritance in Christ available to all who are His children, whether they are Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. You will notice, too, that Paul writes that all are “sons of God” — furthering the concept that both men and women are treated equally by God in terms of beneficiaries of His promise.

(Dr. Russell Moore of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary explained this well and more effectively, in a DVD made available by the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood — another little free souvenir I brought home from New Attitude 2008 last month. :-D)

Again, gender roles aren’t in view here at all — much less dismissing our differences because we’re all one in Christ. Rather, Paul explains very clearly in passages such as 1 Corinthians 11 the differences between men and women (following different dress standards according to the cultural methods of that era). And the last section of Ephesians 5, the apostle is even clearer about the different roles for husbands and wives (not just generic men and women, Vision Forum!).

The beauty and harmony of this arrangement eases more clearly into mental and emotional place when one considers the great, sacrificial love given by Christ to His collective Church. He leads it, loves her, pursues her, and even died for her. Human marriage is a pattern for the future ultimate union between Christ and the Church, just as the Old Testament sacrifices foreshadowed Christ’s death. And that truth is best reflected symbolically in a marriage based on mutual love and cooperation, with a husband’s overall leadership and wife’s overall “followership.”

If love, not Legalism, is the basis, and the true Christ and His example of a humble, servant leader is in view — then any abuses will be minimized, if not obliterated entirely in favor of truly Grace-based marriages and families.]]> Columns http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=454 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:44:03 -0400 http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=453

Many Christian movie reviews are very helpful in their rundowns of films' content and whether it's objectionable. ...

Consider this from the MovieGuide review of Pixar's Wall*E, releasing tomorrow, in which the organization, founded by Dr. Ted Beahr, offers nothing but the highest praises for the animated science-fiction story:

Strong Christian worldview without mentioning Jesus that tells a story about no greater love has any person than to give up his or her life for his or her neighbor, with very strong moral elements such as kindness, courtesy, compassion and all the other cardinal virtues extolled
[. . .]

Yet sometimes they're unintentionally, simplistically comical in directly taking “inventory” of a film's moments.

[. . .] no sex but robots hold hands [. . .]

I think that about sums it up.]]> Media http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=453 Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:10:50 -0400 http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=452

For New Attitude 2006 in Louisville, Ky., Dr. Al Mohler, author/pastor/blogger/talk-radio host/president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, had somehow managed to clear out time from all that to host only one of several separate break-out sessions at the conference. During New Attitude 2007 — well, I’m not quite sure what he may have talked about or did there, because I was absent for it.

But for New Attitude 2008, Mohler was back, and this time a headliner speaker, for the main message of the midafternoon Sunday session, May 25.

When I saw the title — Bible Q and A — I wondered briefly whether that meant Mohler might be winging it, literally taking questions from the audience and offering ad-libbed answers from the platform. But no, that’s probably not it, I thought; instead, he’ll likely be talking about the predetermined “most-asked questions of the Bible” or something like that.

Actually, it turns out I was right the first time. Indeed Mohler winged it, in an hour-plus-long session introduced and aided by Josh Harris, and sourced by questions from two long queues of questioners in the audience — most of whom stood in line during the whole thing and ultimately didn’t get to ask.

Harris praised Mohler, saying the seminary president was the only one who could do such a thing at New Attitude. He heartily recommended Mohler’s blog about theological, cultural and political issues, AlMohler.com, adding, “How does God’s word speak to a different topic? Go to Dr. Mohler, search the topic.

“He’s got a strong commitment to the truth,” Harris said. “But he always does it with a love for others.” Mohler practices “humble orthodoxy,” the focus of New Attitude conferences, Harris continued.

For example, recently Mohler was at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland, which Harris pastors, at about the time Mohler debated a homosexual about homosexuality. “It wasn’t just a debate, it wasn’t just an issue to be talked about,” for Mohler, Harris said. “He loved this person and cared about this person, because he viewed this person as someone created in the image of God. … He loves the lost and about the culture that we engage with.”

Harris then invited Mohler to the platform, asked that the lights be turned higher, then raised some firm requirements for the procedure beforehand. Different types of questions are welcome. “But we do believe in dumb questions here at New Attitude,” he said. “Yes, there are dumb questions. They do exist.”

Thus, the hosts may need to say that lovingly, or perhaps not so lovingly, to a troublesome questioner — then redirect the conversation, he said. “We don’t want to turn this into a Bible Answer Man, Stump-Dr.-Mohler Moment,” with questions such as, “Did Adam have a belly button?” Harris added. (For the answer, by the way: here.)

Instead, we want to have good, focused questions, Harris said, then asked Mohler what types of questions he would prefer.

“The kinds of questions that give you the most trouble, trying to talk to the types of people you meet,” trying to share the Gospel, Mohler answered.

And by the way, Harris added, “This is not your testimony time, all right? … We don’t want your comments!” That resulted in laughter; then the two lines formed, in the two aisles, and Eric Simmons and at least one another conference host got to work finding what they felt were the best questions.

Those covered a total of eight topics, as follows:

• What makes the Bible distinct from other “sacred” religious texts?


• How were the 66 books approved into the canon of Scripture?


• What about the Bible’s “deleted scenes,” such as Jesus and the woman caught in adultery in the Gospel of John?


• What do Christians do with the Old Testament law codes?


• What is Biblical inerrancy, and how do we deal with professing Christians who deny it?


• What are the effects, good and bad, of postmodernism on the Church?


• How do we deal with Christians who deny the doctrines of Grace and instead hold to a more human-effort-centered “semi-Pelagian” idea of salvation?


• What role should the Word of God play in our artistic and creative endeavors?

Inspiring words

First came Tim, from Fellowship Bible Church in Nashville, who wanted to know the best answer if a friend approached him and questioned whether the Bible’s claim to divine inspiration was really that special, because other religions’ books, such as the Muslims’ Qu’ran or Hindu texts, also say they’re inspired. “What makes the Bible distinct from the rest of those books?” Tim asked.

That’s a great question, Mohler responded, and offered an overview of the Qu’ran’s backstory. That Islamic text makes an internal claim that “it was dictated to man that was illiterate, who was unable to understand even what he was writing,” Mohler said. Thus, the Qu’ran claims to have resulted from a completely supernatural way in which Allah revealed himself, unlike the Bible, which came about through literate, understanding human writers.

Also, the Qu’ran is not like the Bible, which tells more of the same storyline over time to different people. Instead it’s just “revealed” to one man at one time, Mohler said.

Meanwhile, Scripture claims to be revealed by a God who speaks to people and Who reveals Himself. As Frances Schaeffer said, “‘He is there, and He is not silent,’” Mohler quoted. The people understood what they were writing, not just dictating what He had to say — they were inspired by the Spirit.

Muslims know the Christians have a different inspiration “model” for the Bible, and they don’t respect that model at all, he said. If they did, they would have to conclude that their model of “revelation” doesn’t fit.

The Bible claims “these events took place exactly as recorded,” Mohler continued. “We actually don’t use the evidence so much to test the Scripture as the evidence has become corroborative.” It becomes “evident in the life of a people. … The we here is very important, that we believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God together.

“It proves itself to be true,” he said. “The truth claim of the Qu’ran is not the same thing, for the same reason that no one has a personal relationship with Allah.”

Among other religious works, the Qu’ran is actually the toughest case, along with the Book of Mormon, “which actually follows a more Islamic mode of interpretation and inspiration,” Mohler said.

He added that he wished he could say more in support of Scripture’s unique internal inspiration proofs, about fulfilled prophecy and the sustained coherence of the narrative. That’s because, when you really look at the scriptures of other sacred writings, such as the works of Hinduism or the Reverend Sun Myung Moon or whatever, they’re simply not parallel in any way, he said.

“We’re not paying the Bible a compliment,” by saying it’s been “inspired,” Mohler said. Rather, our account of Biblical inspiration starts with God, Who has chosen to reveal Himself in this way. One of Mohler’s mentors, he added — a man who is rarely poetic — said that God “forfeited His own personal privacy so that His sinful creatures might know Him.” Through the 66 books of Scripture, then, “we come not only to know about God but so that we would know Him.”

That’s very different from any other claim of inspiration, Mohler concluded.



Canon question

The second questioner, whose name I missed, asked, “How do the books of the Bible get selected? Why were others omitted, specifically the Book of Nicodemus and the Book of Thomas?”

Those are very different, and they fall in two or three categories, Mohler answered.

First are the apocryphal writings, which fit between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament, he said. We don’t recognize these books as canonical, partly because the early Church recognized them as special and historically significant, but “they’re never cited on the same level” as the other books.

The second are the pseudopigraphal writings, which are not written by the authors by whom they’re claimed to be written, and which are spurious and exotic, Mohler said. And it makes sense that such writings would arise with such a religious flavor, he said: something big, new and prolific like the fledgling Christian faith and Church would naturally draw these types of writings.

The third category is that of the Gnostic “gospels,” written by adherents to the ancient near-East and Mediterranean philosophy of Gnosticism. They sought to appropriate the story of Christ and the Gospel with their own beliefs in secret knowledge — a highly spiritual “gnosis” achieved by knowing the secrets of the universe. These results in some people, like a Professor King from Harvard, claiming these show the early church was much more diverse than we would have thought, Mohler said. But instead, the early Church had to figure out its doctrines and who was on their side, and who was a heretic — and they did not accept these “gospels.”

The 66 books recognized by Reformation Christians are this way because, first, the Old Testament was fixed by that time. As for the New Testament, the Church recognized that a book “had to be tied to an apostle, and it had to have apostolic authority in the recognition,” Mohler said. The second qualification was catholicity — “the churches all over, led by the Spirit, recognized that these were the right books.”

By the time of the Nicene Creed in 325 AD, the church was very unified over which books were inspired. Thus, we can have absolute confidence that these books were “the right set,” and are sufficient for our recognized canon, Mohler said. “Nothing can be added to it; nothing can be taken from it.”



Deleted scenes?

Greg, a questioner who hailed from Heritage Baptist Church in Owensboro, Kentucky, then asked Mohler about John 7:53 through 8:11 and the alternate ending of the Gospel of Mark, which are often offset in some translations with a note going like, The Septuagint and other early texts do not have so-and-so selection.

That’s another great question, Mohler said, then launched into his explanation.

The answer relates to textual criticism and what is in some translations italicized or set apart in brackets. Here we need devoted scholars who will delve into whether the text is right. “In those two passages, there are significant textual questions.” But Mohler said he believed they should still be included the Scriptures; he would trust the early church to have made the call, he said. “There is no major doctrine hanging on either of those texts. … I have absolute confidence that there is no problem whatsoever with those two verses being included in Scripture.” They don’t relate to our understanding of the Gospel, he added.

However, when Mohler teaches about Mark, he said, he would include those passages, but mention that there are questions about whether these verses should be there, because they’re not in the earliest texts of Scripture.

“We do not have Mark’s [original] manuscript,” Mohler said. If we did have it in the Library of Congress somewhere, for example, we could see for ourselves. But clearly, if God wanted us to have that manuscript, we would have it. “We want to be very, very careful to pay heed to the right textual criticism,” Mohler said. Although hostile, unbelieving, skeptical criticism will damage the Church, “believing, devoted textual criticism can be a real service to the Church.”



Law and order

Next, Alan Mallard, a questioner from Athens, Georgia — “Go Dogs,” he suggested — wondered aloud about the application of the old covenant Law to the Christian. “What parts of the Law do we apply and follow, and which parts of the Law do not we not?” he asked.

For example, the Old Testament forbids wearing clothes with blended fabrics, and materials such as polyester would qualify as that today.

“Well, I’m not wearing polyester,” Mohler quipped, drawing laugher. “This is the kind of thing that we get thrown immediately: why do you not, then, keep all of the ceremonial law, all of the law of hygiene, and the law of holiness that is found … within the Old Testament?”

The question of the law is central to our understanding of the Gospel, he said. The apostle Paul asked in the book of Romans whether the Law was a negative thing? After all, the apostle said that it kills us — “we fall short of its requirements and we break it routinely.” We violate it and we hate it, because we know it condemns us to death.

Is, then, the Law evil? No, Paul says, of course not, Mohler said. Rather, the Law shows us that we need Grace to cover our breaking it. It will not justify us; we’re absolutely helpless, but God in His Son redeemed us from our sin. “And Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled the Law,” Mohler continued. “God didn’t decide on a plan B. He fulfilled plan A in Christ, but much more than the mere fulfillment of the Law”

Now, though, what do we do with the Law now? For example, some may ask us whether homosexuality is still a sin; you may say yes, but never get a chance to say exactly why. (Of course, we’re all guilty of different sexual sins, and that’s helpful to point out in such discussions, Mohler said.)

“The Law is also helpful; it is a schoolteacher for us, beyond that, in teaching us how we are to live,” he said. We have a distinction between the moral and ceremonial laws — all of the moral laws are repeated in the New Testament. But Jesus “never lessened the command; He increased it,” he said. “It’s not just adultery, it’s lust. It’s not just murder, it’s anger.”

Then what about sins such as homosexuality? “We have it repeated in the New Testament —” and more specifically, Mohler said. “In the New Testament, it speaks stunningly, candidly!” For example, in 1 Corinthians, the apostle Paul uses words for male homosexuality specifying “both the active and the passive partner.” He also mentions lesbianism. “All of that moral law continues.” All of the prohibitions about sexuality continue — what is received, and what is enhanced.

In the Old Testament is also ceremonial law. “In the Old Testament, the people of the Covenant were set apart with a holiness code.” That involved sex laws, and physical contact with an animal or a dead body. “That holiness is to be reflected now in the New Covenant people of the Church, not in a lesser way, but in a greater way.”

The New Covenant is not an abrogation or cancellation of the old covenant, but a fulfillment,” Mohler said. And that doesn’t mean we’re loose-living antinomians either, above all laws. Instead, we’re above that lifestyle.

For that reason, then, “our first place to go for what the Bible teaches about homosexuality should not be Leviticus,” he recommended. “It should be Romans.” Yes, homosexuality is barred in Leviticus, Mohler said. But in Romans, we hear what this sin tells us about ourselves, about all of us. In the first chapter, Paul is saying, “You want to know how ugly sin is this? This is what sin looks like,” Mohler said.

“Let’s always … realize that we as evangelicals are in perpetual danger of saying too much or too little,” he added. That is, we can say too little and condemn people to their sin, misleading them to their condemnation. “We can also say too much by trying to elaborate upon what the Scripture says, as if the Scripture has a focus on homosexuality in Third Corinthians,” Mohler said. (Then qualified, as if just in case: “There is no such book. Thank you.”)

Instead, homosexuality is part of the natural discussion of sin in the New Testament. We Christians need to tell the world that we are not saying homosexuals are sinners and others are not. Instead, this should wake us up to the reality of sin, and that it is against nature.

“Any human being who’s gone through puberty is a sexual sinner, so let’s talk humbly about what it means as a sinner,” to find the gift of Christ’s Grace, Mohler concluded.



Inerrancy inquiry

At that point, Josh Harris asked specifically for a question from one of the ladies, and a woman — whose name was either not mentioned or which I missed — stepped up.

“I’ve been wrestling with this for a while,” she said. She has talked with friends who say they believe the Bible, “but do away with its inerrancy. And I don’t know what to do with that.”

Not surprisingly, Mohler found that this, too, was another very good question. However, some people 40 or 50 years old at this point would be wondering, “How are we talking about this again?” he said. That’s because the “inerrancy” debate was a controversy throughout the evangelical world during the 1970s and 1980s that keeps coming back.

“Inerrancy is not the most important thing we say about Scripture,” Mohler said. Instead, the most important thing is that Scripture is the Word of God. It itself claims it is inspired, God-breathed, and it speaks with authority on key issues. “It speaks with God’s authority,” he said. “It’s His voice. It’s the Creator speaking to us.

“We want to use a word like ‘infallible,’” Mohler said. It means, “the Bible never fails.” And this is true: God sends out His omnipotent Word, and it does what it’s intended to do. But some professing evangelicals have said, “Let’s call the Bible infallible, but not inerrant,” he added — that is, the Word does do what it’s supposed to do, but with some degree of error.

Yes, the word inerrancy doesn’t cover all that we want to say about Scripture. But if the Scripture isn’t inerrant, it’s errant, at least in some part, he said. Thus, some people claim that the Bible is only errant in some inconsequential parts.

Well, let’s suppose that is true, Mohler said. If so, then, which parts are these? Perhaps they’re the chronologies in the Old Testament, or the genealogies in the New Testament? Perhaps they’re the direct sayings of Jesus? The trouble becomes clear very quickly. “If any part of Scripture is in error, then we are in trouble,” he said. We can’t really say that this is the Word of God anymore.

It’s true that we don’t have the original documents for the books of the Bible. “The specific term ‘inerrancy’ relates to those,” he said. The human authors wanted to write exactly what God wanted them to write.

But to overcome that lack of originals and the time between them and now, “we have the challenge of translation.” Faithful Christians should pay attention to a translation’s quality and choose one that translates as faithfully as it can, reducing the opportunity for human beings to make errors. It’s a huge effort to translate, he said; “that’s why people get paid a lot to be translators.” Mohler commended to his audience the “formal equivalence translations,” such as the New American Standard Bible and the English Standard Version in particular; those are the best, he said.

“I would put it this way: without the doctrine of inerrancy, we can’t have the adequate confidence to say that this is the Word of God,” Mohler said.

The doctrine of inerrancy is necessary, but not sufficient by itself. Do away with it, and you cast down every word of Scripture. “Usually those who do that have an agenda that becomes very transparent very quickly,” he summarized. “In other words, there’s something in the text that they don’t like or can’t handle.”



Are you pre- or postmodernist?

Bethany, the next questioner, said she lived in Louisville. Her question: “Should we wary of postmodern ideas and their effect on the Church?”

Mohler’s answer wasn’t surprising: in short, “Yes.”

But following some laughter, Mohler kept going, pointing out some ways in which the postmodern mindset can be helpful. “Postmodernism has its own understanding of how important worldview is,” he said. “In other words, it begins with the assumption that worldview establishes the way we construct reality.” We do believe that there is objective truth, knowable by God’s divine revelation, but it’s helpful to know that people will do their best to construct their own realities all the time. Also, we have an intellectual gain by knowing that people are embedded in a social system of which they’re not aware. People may be ensconced in their own system of symbols and meanings, and naturally assume that everyone thinks the same.

Postmodernism can bring an intellectual humility, but sometimes far too much by resulting in the idea that all truth is unknowable and relative, Mohler said. (And by the way, the term “perspectivalism has replaced relativism,” as a philosophy buzzword, he added.)

Among postmodernism’s main dangers are also that “it attacks the idea that meaning can be something that is textual,” Instead, the reader of a text is the authority and decides a text’s meaning, and not its author.

Imagine what would happen if people take that view with Scripture, Mohler said. the results would be disastrous. Then he amended that: “Well, you pretty much end up with Christianity in America, I guess.” (Oooohhs and nods resulted.)

Postmodernism does help us know that many different views are in the world and that they’re often based on people’s communities, Mohler continued. It helps us to understand evangelism and even what goes on in a room like this one, with people’s different backgrounds and stories.

But postmodernism’s fatal problem is that “it denies that there is a great universal Truth to which we are accountable, and which we can know,” he said. “The postmodernists say that there is no metanarrative … no one story to which we’re all accountable.”

Instead, postmodernists are only helpful in pointing out all the little stories. For example, Mohler pointed out the difference between him as a young American looking over issues of National Geographic with photographs of other cultures, and the possibility of an islander somewhere, looking at a similar magazine with photos of the exotic American culture, with people wearing polo shirts. “Postmodernism helps us to understand that there are many different peoples with many different stories.”

But as for Christians, “we need always humbly to recognize that the Gospel — the entire Christian narrative, the Bible, speaking specifically of the Gospel — it is the one great story to which we are all accountable,” he said. “It’s also the only story that solves the problem. Postmodernism has nowhere to go!

“Our story goes where no postmodernist has dared to go.” (Aww, I thought, he came so close to quoting Star Trek.) In Revelation 5, men and women before the throne are there, from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. All worldviews will be there, but “as evidence of what God has saved us from,” he said. All languages and backgrounds will be reminders of human diversity, and the Creator will bring glory to Himself by having His Name praised in all these languages. “Out of the many, one, has never meant what it means in the Gospel and in the age to come.”



Semi-Pelagianism: discussed, then defined

Following further applause, Harris asked Simmons, down near one of the queues of questioners, whether there was any kind of theme of questions that had emerged.

“No,” Simmons answered simply.

“Great,” Harris said, then they went on to another evidently random question.

The next questioner was a young man who thanked Mohler “for serving us.” He went on basically to ask whether he should continue being friends with people who reject Reformed doctrine in favor of views close to semi-Pelagianism.

His question, he said was about the doctrines of Grace, relating specifically to their contrast with semi-Pelagianism. “All my friends adopt that doctrine, and I adopted the Biblical doctrines of Grace,” he said. “It hit me that this is Biblical, and there’s no error in this.” However, his friends are rejecting the truth of the doctrines of Grace, and adopting the alternate semi-Pelagianism teaching.

“How can I consider my friends?” he asked. “Should I still fellowship with them? Or should I just wait and pray until the Lord — I’m using my word carefully — grant them repentance?”

At this point, I was realizing something like, Oh. More “free-willies,” eh? And I’ve found that while it’s not helpful to either side of the sovereignty debate to treat free-willies as though they’re almost like heretics, neither can it be productive to keep talking with them about something that ultimately they’re never going to agree with unless God in His sovereignty decides that they will. It’s almost the same as presenting the Truth to people who are entirely non-Christian, then trusting the Spirit to work.

“Wow,” Mohler started. “I think in general I would encourage you to continue the conversation, while living out the Gospel of Grace.” Live faithfully, and do your best to bear testimony. Do present Scriptural arguments, but let’s step back for a moment, he continued.

“Why do people not see the doctrines of Grace?” The answer is that “we would like to have a part in this thing —” that is, being redeemed by Christ. This is similar to the scribes and Pharisees in the New Testament, he said, who just continually miss the point. “We can see ourselves among the scribes and Pharisees too, because — we would like to have a hand in this! This is just us — and we all know we need Grace, but what most of us want, or think we want, is enough Grace to get by. And thus, a semi-Pelagian system makes perfect sense.”

We know we have a problem and need help, because we can’t get as far as we’d like, so some of us would prefer a sort of “rocket boost” assistance from God at the end.

“We even have evangelical songs that are horribly awful in suggesting just this kind of understand of Grace,” Mohler continued. “When we’ve done allll we can do! — God steps in and does the rest. Well try to find that in the Bible!

However, we can humbly acknowledge and understand why semi-Pelagianism is so very attractive, and why that vortex is always pulling us back. “There’s always that little voice inside going, Yeah, you’re not that depraved. Yeah. There’s part of you that can — at least you can please God in some sense.”

At that point, Harris made a rare and quiet interjection, asking somewhat belatedly in Mohler could define semi-Pelagianism in the first place.

“It’s more fun to just use it without defining it,” Mohler immediately quipped, drawing laughter. Then he went on to explain: Pelagianism goes back to the early-Church heretic Pelagius, who opposed the fourth-century bishop and Grace-alone-advocating Augustine. Instead, Pelagius and his followers taught that people are born morally good and can keep themselves that way, struggling against sin. “Basically Grace was an unnecessary thing.”

Then the semi-Pelagians came along. They said, “No, we’re not born morally good — more morally neutral. And it’s not that we can do everything that we need to do to make ourselves holy and keep ourselves holy, it is instead that we’re gonna need some help. So that’s why it’s semi and not fully Pelagian.

“You know, it’s pretty hard to be a Pelagian these days with a straight face,” Mohler continued. “But you can really kind of pull off semi-Pelagianism and you can even turn it into so-called Gospel songs and make your recordings and — be loved by Christians. … It’s the idea that we’re more morally neutral at the beginning, and we all sin, but the semi-Pelagians argue that we sin because of environmental reasons. Not Al-Gore environmental reasons, but being surrounded by other-sinner-environmental … reasons.”

Therefore, people will need some Grace, but only as little as possible to help them get by. But then the doctrines of Grace come along — and by the way, Mohler said, it’s important remember that they are, after all, the doctrines of Grace. “It is very difficult to administrate Grace if you are trying to strangle someone with the doctrines of Grace. And so, realize that it is a spiritual problem.”

To persuade someone, Grace advocates really need to start with the Scriptures and ask disbelievers how they make sense of them. “All of Scripture starts to fit together when you tell the story just that way. It makes sense of ourselves, in terms of depravity. It doesn’t mean that we’re as awful as we would otherwise be, and could be, in terms of doing every sin we would ever have the opportunity to do — thankfully, by common Grace that’s not true of us.”

Rather, “total depravity means that every part of us, every capacity in us, is totally corrupted by sin so that we are unable to obey God and to please Him, or to fashion any right