Marxism/Cultural Marxism – Page 56

Marxinov on Culture … McAtee on Marxinov

“The more Christianity gains ground, and the more Christians become with their religion, the less cultural differences we will see in the world. In the final day of history, every place on the planet will have the same covenantal views of God, man, law, judgment, and future, and therefore every place on the earth will have the same cultural practices informed by the Christian faith.

In short: people choose their religion, their religion determines their culture. When the world as a whole accepts the Christian religion, the world will be one culture.”

– Bojidar Marxinov

1.) Throughout History the European Protestants formed distinct Protestant cultures. The Swiss Protestants were different from the English Protestants who were different from the German Protestants, who were different from the Dutch Protestants. Is Marxinov telling us that some or all of them were in sin and that postmillennialism requires us to eliminate the differences between Bavinck and Warfield — between Kuyper and Hodge?

2.) Also we need to ask, why is it, given the few cultures that have been considered Christian, by any reasonable estimation, have not all been the same throughout history? If all Christian culture will look the same why didn’t the Christian culture of Charlemagne look the same as the Christian culture of Calvin’s Geneva or why didn’t Calvin’s Geneva look like Puritan New England? Was it because one or all of them were in deep sin?

3.) Marxinov has not taken into considerations the likelihood that Theonomists in one Christian country will come to a different understandings of how the law of God applies in different settings and situations. The reality of this almost certainty has the explanatory power to demonstrate why there might remain legal – jurisprudent differences between two nations in the Postmillennial Kingdom fully flowered.

4.) Marxinov has lost the Many in his search for the One. His God (and so his view of culture) is the view of the Unitarian. Marxinov, channelling U2 actually does believe that all colors will bleed into one. Marxinov has embraced unity and no diversity now remains. Rushdoony pointedly warned against this.

5.) Marxinov’s vision runs face flat into the wall of God’s Word where we find the Nations as Nations still existing in the New Jerusalem. In Revelation 5:9, 7:9 and in 22:2 we do not find the presence of an amalgamated whole in the New Jerusalem, but rather the distinctions of the Nations remain. Marxinov has lost the understanding that Grace restores nature and has exchanged it for the understanding that Grace destroys nature and replaces it.

6.) Marxinov’s vision is the same vision of Saruman who started off with the best of intentions in resisting Mordor but who, because of his desire to save the world, became as evil as Sauron in trying to save the world. Marxinov in seeking to save the world from Marx is actually in competition with Marx seeking to out Marx … Marx.

What a wonderful coincidence that Bojidar’s last name is Marxinov.

Characteristics of Revolutionary Humanism

We noted last week that during this season of the Church Calendar that what is emphasized is Doctrine and ministry. The idea was that Doctrine would be taught alongside with how that Doctrine could be implemented via some kind of ministry in a person’s life.

This week we want to briefly consider the Christian doctrine of Anthropology.

What we have in Romans 3 is God’s pronouncement on the nature of man. Fallen man is utterly sinful. Even man as Redeemed by Christ realizes that he contends against a nature that is not yet perfected. He confesses his sins weekly and is taught in his catechism to recite to the question,

Q. 82. Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God?

A. No mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but doth daily break them in thought, word and deed.

The Heidelberg echoes this when it teaches,

“even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this obedience (to God’s Law).

Christianity has always taught that man has a sin nature and that the sin nature is not finally put off completely until we put off this mortal coil. So thoroughly has Christianity taught this that the Gospels make it clear that Jesus did not have this sin nature that He might be a pure sacrifice for our sins.

This is so simple and basic but if we get this wrong in our doctrine there is no help of getting anything else correct. And we live in a culture where the idea that man is sinful is

1.) Man is basically good

“I know in my heart that man is good…” — Ronald Reagan

Man left to himself, apart from evil influence, will choose what is good. This is articulated by Cultural Marxist Psychologist Eric Fromm when he writes,

“As far as I know we just don’t have any intrinsic instincts for evil. If you think in terms of basic needs; instincts, at least at the outset are all good — or perhaps we should be technical about it and call them ‘pre-moral’ neither good or evil.”

Another Psychologist Wendell W. Watters writes,

“The true Christian is running furiously on a treadmill to get away from whole segments of his or her human nature which he or she is taught to fear or about which he or she is taught to feel guilty. The Christian is brainwashed to believe that he or she was born wicked … ”

Of course all this denies the plain words of Scripture. If man were basically good and his nature was good then the whole idea of Christianity, and the Church would be irrelevant. Christianity and the Church might exist but if it did exist it would exist as a place where people would attend in order to meet other nice people, hear some uptempo music, listen to sermons about how good they are, how to influence other people, and how to get on in life with people who do not yet know how good they are. If man were basically good then the demand would be for Christianity and the Church to meet felt needs and perhaps be a place where social justice can be pursued. If it were true that men were basically good then there would be no need to hear about a Christ who takes away sin. If it were true that men were basically good then Christianity and the Church would become just about what it currently already is today — currently is that because “man is basically good” is what most of the Church believes today.

But Biblical Christianity does not believe that so when you come to Church you hear God’s law and because as Christians we break God’s law every day in word, thought, or deed, we confess our sins and then hear God’s forgiveness for the sake of Christ.

As we continue to consider Romans 3 we understand that we sin because of our nature. The problem is not primarily with the environment that lies outside of us, but rather what lies inside of us. James underscores this when he writes,

14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and is enticed.

You see both St. Paul and St. James agrees that the problem is within us.

But our culture does not agree with this assessment. Contrary to Biblical Christianity we are constantly inundated with messages that the environment is the problem.

2.) Man’s environment accounts for evil

Psychologist Abraham Maslow has directly said,

“Sick people are made by a sick culture, healthy people are made possible by a healthy culture.”

This means that if man is to discover his goodness, what needs to happen is a change of environment. This accounts for the belief in social engineering. Because this is true, man’s lack of goodness is explained in terms of his family, culture, or social environment. If man is to be changed, man’s environment must be changed.

Anti-Christian doctrine teaches that if man is to be saved, man’s environment must be changed. Change comes from the outside in. Christian doctrine teaches that if man’s environment is to be changed, man must be changed. Change comes from the inside and radiates outward as we are renewed by the Spirit of the living God because of the finished work of Christ on the Cross for His people.

The idea that sick people are made by a sick culture has been around forever. Writing in 1908 Dutch Theologian Herman Bavinck could complain about this kind of thinking,

“Under the influence of the supposition that at this point human beings have already traveled wonderfully far along the path of evolution, people surrender to the illusion that human being can still do infinitely more, and that we can make human beings into whatever we want. If only full use were made of the results that have been and will be obtained by scientific investigation, then nurture would not only furnish outward formation and intellectual development, but it would also improve the human person morally, eliminating the brutish inclinations still at work internally, renewing his heart, and bringing sin and crime to an end, not all at once but gradually.

Complaining about the same tendency in another area Bavinck could say again, “They all suffer from the illusion that by means of external measures, by means of abolishing old laws and implementing new laws, they can change human nature or convert the wicked heart.”

Before Bavinck in the 1840’s the founders of the common school movement were inspiringly optimistic about the power of education. These common-school reformers, beginning with Horace Mann, saw universal public education as a solution to a host of social problems. In their view, public schools would transform children into moral, literate, and productive citizens; and eliminate poverty and crime.

And this form of thought is still with us today as the coin of the realm. I stumbled across this comment about the recent incident where a NBA team owner was caught talking about black people,

“Many Americans were in love with Nazism, one popular example is the architect Phillip Johnson. So the idea of Nazism permeated American society and in 1933 it was current and relevant, one would not be unreasonable in assuming that the parents of Sterling caressed the idea and whispered to little Sterling. That is my point, we cannot rule out the possibility that Sterling’s most impressionable years were in a time of Nazism.”

You see … Sterling’s problem with his words is not because of a sinful nature but because of his environment.

Of course this is in contrast to Biblical Christianity which teaches that man’s sin nature accounts for man’s evil institutions.

And we know that only the Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified for sinners in the context of Union with Christ is the solution for Man’s sin nature.

This is why you hear me constantly say that the cure for what is wrong with us as a people is not more and better programs. The cure for what is wrong with us is the preaching of Christ Crucified followed by the discipling of the nations.

Of course in St. Paul’s statement we find that the agency by which men learn their sin nature is by the trumpeting of that Word in the context of the Gospel in the ark of the Church. Those who oppose this message have their own delivery system in order to evangelize. We talk about the necessity of Word and Sacrament. Word and Sacrament is to repeatedly point us to Christ to remind us of that only Christ can heal us via the forgiveness held out in Word and Sacrament.

However those who hold to the idea that man is basically good have their own agencies whereby they proclaim the inherent goodness of man.

3.) The agency whereby man discovers his goodness is Church & State

Just three quotes in order to support the claim that the agencies that hold to a different anthropology then Christians do — who hold that man is basically good — is mediated by agencies of Church and State

“I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers that correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being… The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and new. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing the classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level – preschool day care or large state universities.”

John Dunphy on the purpose of humanist education.

“Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism, and every American school is a school of humanism. What can a theistic Sunday school’s meeting for an hour once a week and teaching only a fraction of the children do to stem the tide of the five-day program of humanistic teaching?”

Charles F. Potter, “Humanism: A New Religion” 1930

So, in Churches that practice Biblical Christianity every week, just by the liturgy we teach people that they have a sin nature that only Christ can heal and every week the State teaches that men are basically good and merely need to be educated and informed of their goodness.

The church in Revolutionary Humanism is the government school as controlled by the State. Of course over time the “Christian” church begins to reflect the Government schools as Government school graduates bring their humanism into the Church. Church and State teach basically good man that it is his role to use any means necessary to change the environment in order to serve the “good.”

4.) The abstraction of mathematical equality is applied to men in their social relations.

Revolutionary Humanism leads to egalitarianism and the egalitarianism here is defined in such a way so that no man is allowed to excel above another. All men being equal results in “all men being the same.” So, whether it is 700 million Chinese wearing the Maoist suit or whether it is men and women sharing public bathrooms, equality is now the order of the day.

5.) Man, being absolutized, is his own God

And man being God there is a movement towards Social Order uniformitarianism. All gods have unity in the godhood and so as collective man is god collective man builds social order where there is very little margin for differentiation among the particular men.

6.) All other mediating Institutions (Family, Church, School, Guild, etc.) are eliminated.

Humanism does not allow for pluralistic jurisdictions (See #5). Everything is for the State and nothing is outside the State. We are seeing this increasingly in our culture. Teachers have long been agents for the State. Soon Doctors will be agents for the State with Obamacare. Ministers, are often Defacto ministers of the State.

7.) The insistence that man, via a reason that is untouched by evil, can ascertain “self-evident” truths so as to construct a world apart from any need of Supernatural Revelation.

Man starting from the autonomous self can answer the question, “How Shall We Then Live,” and so build, a better if not indeed, perfect world. This garnering of “self-evident” truths is commonly pursued by means of legal positivism which reduces to “might makes right.” Oliver Wendell Holmes gives us this in microcosm when he said,

“I used to say when I was young, that truth was the majority vote of that nation that could lick all others…. and I think that the statement was correct insofar as it implied that our test of truth is a reference to either a present or an imagined future majority in favor of our view.

In this view of truth reason has no transcendence reference point to which appeal can be made. It is simply a matter of “licking all others.”

8.) Man’s Teleology (end) is the Kingdom of Man as expressed in some kind of paradise.

All legislation that is pursued it pursued in the name of a Utopian world where man is set free from all constraints.

9.) Man as God, thus can be assured of the inevitability of progress

Since God can not fail, Man as God calls whatever is, “progress.”

Alexander Pope gets at this in his poem, “An Essay On Man.”

All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony, not understood;
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.

Humanism vs. Christianity

While reading Matthew Henry I came across something from Henry that really flies in the face of much of what we see in our the mad pursuit of multiculturalism, or in suppositions supporting the idea that nations are social constructs that can be held together merely on the basis of propositions. On Genesis 11 (Babel) Matthew Henry can write,

1. Their language was confounded. God, who, when he made man, taught him to speak, and put words into his mouth fit to express the conceptions of his mind by, now caused these builders to forget their former language, and to speak and understand a new one, which yet was common to those of the same tribe or family, but not to others: those of one colony could converse together, but not with those of another.

Understand the implications of Henry’s statement.

When God dispersed the tongues the variation and number of tongues was equal to the variation and numbers of preexisting tribes. The fact that God dispersed them by language implies that he dispersed them by tribal identity. If Henry is correct here (and I think he is) this drives a stake through the often repeated meme of the Christian cultural Marxists that Babel was about languages and not ethnicities. Henry would have us realize that there is a nexus between the confounding of the language and the tribes to whom the languages belonged. When the languages were dispersed, Henry believed, the dispersal was tribe by tribe according to language. Precisely because it was about languages it was about ethncities.

Henry again offers,

(4.) The project of some to frame a universal character, in order to a universal language, how desirable soever it may seem, is yet, I think, but a vain thing to attempt; for it is to strive against a divine sentence, by which the languages of the nations will be divided while the world stands.

If, according to Henry’s previous reasoning that the confounded tongues corresponded to the confounded tribes, then Henry is telling us that ethnic homogeneity for tribes or nations is the divine standard while the world stands. By Henry’s previous reasoning the attempt to build a universal people at Babel was confounded by dividing the tribes by dividing their languages.

Current Christian Cultural Marxists and Theonomic Alienists, according to Herny, strive against the divine sentence when they insist on pursuing a Christianity that ignores God’s dividing of the peoples.

Now, to underscore Henry’s comments we examine how the enemies of Christianity have consistently striven against the divine sentence of dividing people’s and languages of which Henry speaks.

Humanist Manifesto II

ELEVENTH: The principle of moral equality must be furthered through elimination of all discrimination based upon race, religion, sex, age, or national origin. This means equality of opportunity and recognition of talent and merit. Individuals should be encouraged to contribute to their own betterment. If unable, then society should provide means to satisfy their basic economic, health, and cultural needs, including, wherever resources make possible, a minimum guaranteed annual income. We are concerned for the welfare of the aged, the infirm, the disadvantaged, and also for the outcasts – the mentally retarded, abandoned, or abused children, the handicapped, prisoners, and addicts – for all who are neglected or ignored by society. Practicing humanists should make it their vocation to humanize personal relations.

We deplore racial, religious, ethnic, or class antagonisms. Although we believe in cultural diversity and encourage racial and ethnic pride, we reject separations which promote alienation and set people and groups against each other; we envision an integrated community where people have a maximum opportunity for free and voluntary association.

TWELFTH: We deplore the division of humankind on nationalistic grounds. We have reached a turning point in human history where the best option is to transcend the limits of national sovereignty and to move toward the building of a world community in which all sectors of the human family can participate. Thus we look to the development of a system of world law and a world order based upon transnational federal government. This would appreciate cultural pluralism and diversity. It would not exclude pride in national origins and accomplishments nor the handling of regional problems on a regional basis. Human progress, however, can no longer be achieved by focusing on one section of the world, Western or Eastern, developed or underdeveloped. For the first time in human history, no part of humankind can be isolated from any other. Each person’s future is in some way linked to all. We thus reaffirm a commitment to the building of world community, at the same time recognizing that this commits us to some hard choices.

The 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union

ARTICLE 123. Equality of rights of citizens of the U.S.S.R., irrespective of their nationality or race, in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life, is an indefeasible law. Any direct or indirect restriction of the rights of, or, conversely, any establishment of direct or indirect privileges for, citizens on account of their race or nationality, as well as any advocacy of racial or national exclusiveness or hatred and contempt, is punishable by law.

We see when we compare and contrast a Father of Historic Christianity (Matthew Henry) with the 20th century Humanists and Communists a marked contrasts between the oikophilia (love of one’s household and one’s faith — I Timothy 5:8, Romans 9:3) of Christianity and the Babelphilia (love of Babel and so hatred of ethnic distinctions) of the Marxists. Now, naturally this one point of harmony of Christians and Marxist does not by itself prove that Christians who embrace a globalism that automatically attacks ethnic homogeneity in a knee jerk fashion are Marxists but it at least should cause us to ask questions.

CNN Belief Blog Goes All Emotive & Irrational

Here is another brilliant commentary on sodomite marriage by Rachel Held Evans at CNN Belief blog. I don’t know who she is. I am told she is another influential writer.

How evangelicals won a war and lost a generation

How evangelicals won a culture war and lost a generation
Opinion by Rachel Held Evans, special to CNN

(CNN) – On March 24, World Vision announced that the U.S. branch of the popular humanitarian organization would no longer discriminate against employees in same-sex marriages.

It was a decision that surprised many but one that made sense, given the organization’s ecumenical nature.

But on March 26, World Vision President Richard Stearns reversed the decision, stating, “our board acknowledged that the policy change we made was a mistake.”

Supporters helped the aid group “see that with more clarity,” Stearns added, “and we’re asking you to forgive us for that mistake.”

So what happened within those 48 hours to cause such a sudden reversal?

The Evangelical Machine kicked into gear.

Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said the decision pointed to “disaster,” and the Assemblies of God denomination encouraged its members to pull their financial support from the organization.

Evangelicals took to Twitter and Facebook to threaten to stop sending money to their sponsored children unless World Vision reversed course.

Within a day of the initial announcement, more than 2,000 children sponsored by World Vision lost their financial support. And with more and more individuals, churches and organizations threatening to do the same, the charity stood to lose millions of dollars in aid that would otherwise reach the poor, sick, hungry and displaced people World Vision serves.

So World Vision reversed course.

Stearns told The New York Times that some people, satisfied with the reversal, have called World Vision headquarters to ask, “Can I have my child back?” as though needy children are expendable bargaining chips in the culture war against gay and lesbian people.

Many of us who grew up evangelical watched with horror as these events unfolded.

As a longtime supporter of World Vision, I encouraged readers of my blog to pick up some of the dropped sponsorships after the initial decision. I then felt betrayed when World Vision backtracked, though I urged my readers not to play the same game but to keep supporting their sponsored children, who are of course at no fault in any of this.

But most of all, the situation put into stark, unsettling relief just how misaligned evangelical priorities have become.

When Christians declare that they would rather withhold aid from people who need it than serve alongside gays and lesbians helping to provide that aid, something is wrong.

There is a disproportionate focus on homosexuality that consistently dehumanizes, stigmatizes and marginalizes gay and lesbian people and, at least in this case, prioritizes the culture war against them over and against the important work of caring for the poor.

1.) Why does Evans believe that all because Evangelical dollars were taken away from World Vision because of their change of policy that therefore those dollars were no longer going to go to the poor? There are many many relief ministries out there and it is not unreasonable to think that Christians withdrawing money from World Vision would not take that same money and support some other relief agency that was not compromising on the Gospel. The poor would still be aided. True … different poor but poor all the same.

2.) Why are Evangelical principles misaligned? Why should they support with their monies a ministry that is contrary to their convictions? What would it take for Evans to conclude that people could withdraw their money, once designated for a set ministry, in order to protest the direction of the company the monies were formerly designated? What if World Vision had come out in favor of Pedophilia? Would that be a good enough reason? By what standard does Evans adjudicate that withdrawing support is commendable?

Held writes,

Evangelicals insist that they are simply fighting to preserve “biblical marriage,” but if this were actually about “biblical marriage,” then we would also be discussing the charity’s policy around divorce.

But we’re not.

Furthermore, Scripture itself teaches that when we clothe and feed those in need, we clothe and feed Christ himself, and when we withhold care from those in need, we withhold it from Christ himself (Matthew 25:31-46).

Why are the few passages about homosexuality accepted uncritically, without regard to context or culture, but the many about poverty so easily discarded?

1.) We should discuss the Charity’s policy around divorce if it needs discussed.

2.) Held misinterprets the Matthew 25 passage. The passage is referring to ministry to the Brethren of Jesus — that is those who wear the name of Christ. Secondly, Held assumes that all because monies were going to be withheld from World Vision that necessarily means that those same funds were going to be withheld from the poor. That is a very tenuous assumption. People can withhold money from the poor of World Vision and still help the poor of some other organization that they believe is more faithful to their convictions.

3.) Who says that the passages about poverty are easily discarded? Held doesn’t get what she wants and she throws a fit insisting that the passages that have to do with poverty are neglected?

4.) The “without regard to context or culture” comment of Held is suggestive that she likely dismisses the passages forbidding sodomy.

Held writes,

As I grieved with my (mostly 20- and 30-something) readers over this ugly and embarrassing situation, I heard a similar refrain over and over again: “I don’t think I’m an evangelical anymore. I want to follow Jesus, but I can’t be a part of this.”

I feel the same way.

Whether it’s over the denial of evolutionary science, continued opposition to gender equality in the church, an unhealthy alliance between religion and politics or the obsession with opposing gay marriage, evangelicalism is losing a generation to the culture wars.

A recent survey from Public Religion Research Institute revealed that nearly one-third of millennials who left their childhood faith did so because of “negative teachings” or “negative treatment” of gay and lesbian people.

1.) If the Church must lose people because it is faithful to the message of Scripture than it must bear that loss. What will it profit the Church, Rachel, to gain the whole world but lose its own soul?”

2.) Rachel’s comments above demonstrate that “Evangelical” means both nothing and everything. We are better off being done with the whole word and movement. Let the various splinters go their various ways and find another orbit to circle around.

Held holds,

Christians can disagree about what the Bible says (or doesn’t say) about same-sex marriage. This is not an issue of orthodoxy. But when we begin using child sponsorships as bargaining tools in our debates, we’ve lost the way of Jesus.

So my question for those evangelicals is this: Is it worth it?

Is a “victory” against gay marriage really worth leaving thousands of needy children without financial support?

Is a “victory” against gay marriage worth losing more young people to cynicism regarding the church?

Is a “victory” against gay marriage worth perpetuating the idea that evangelical Christians are at war with LGBT people?

And is a “victory” against gay marriage worth drowning out that quiet but persistent internal voice that asks, “what if we get this wrong?”

I, for one, am tired of arguing. I’m tired of trying to defend evangelicalism when its leaders behave indefensibly.

I’m going AWOL on evangelicalism’s culture wars so I can get back to following Jesus among its many refugees: LGBT people, women called to ministry, artists, science-lovers, misfits, sinners, doubters, thinkers and “the least of these.”

I’m ready to stop waging war and start washing feet.

1.) This is an issue about orthodoxy. See Romans 1, I Cor. 6, Jude 1, Galatians 5, etc.

2.) When other poor are being still helped because previously designated money is going to different poor people, it is not holding the poor as bargaining chips when money is no longer sent to merely one of dozens of agencies for the poor.

3.) Held seems to hold that the money that is committed to World Vision is automatically World Visions whatever it does and that somehow there is some immorality in someone deciding that they are going to support someone different than World Vision with their monies. That is a most tenuous assumption.

4.) All because people are not interested in supporting an agency that supports the LGBT movement doesn’t even get close to meaning that we have lost the way of Jesus. That is just more emotive language to try to get people all verklempt.

5.) As to Held’s questions

#1 — Does not apply. Withholding money from World Vision does not equal withholding that money from the poor.

#2 — Yes

#3 — Yes

#4 — We are not getting this wrong.

6.) As to Held’s “least of these comments” she should try being a White Male Biblical Christian Minister. Talk about the least of these.

Vineyard Ann Arbor Pastor Offers Third Way … The Offer Examined

The chap who wrote this is from Ann Arbor Michigan and Pastors a Vineyard (Pentecostal on steroids) church. I’m told that is an influential church and he is a influential man. Would that God would deliver us from influential Churches and Pastors. Be that as it may be, I thought it would be important to expose the severe failures in his reasoning.

The original piece can be found here,

What C.S. Lewis’ Marriage Can Tell Us About the Gay Marriage Controversy

A priest going against the grain

C.S. Lewis, author of the Chronicles of Narnia and the greatest apologist for the Christian faith in the 20th century, fell in love with a divorced woman, Joy Davidman. Her husband was an alcoholic (and not a Christian) and their marriage fell apart. Lewis had never been married. His beloved Church of England, hewing to the biblical teaching that marriage is between one man and one woman for life, refused to sanction this union on the grounds that in marrying Joy, Lewis would be marrying another man’s wife, making them both adulterers.

Deconstructing Ken Wilson (hereafter “DKW”)

1.) C. S. Lewis was not, by any consideration, the greatest apologist for the Christian faith in the 20th century. Indeed it is doubtful that he makes the top 10. I will concede that he was perhaps the most widely known Christian apologist in the 20th century.

2.) Let’s concede, for the sake of argument, that the Church got the marriage and divorce matter wrong. Clearly, according to the record Davidman’s husband (Wm. Lindsey Gresham) was an adulterer and a philanderer. If that is true, then clearly the Scriptures do allow for divorce despite what the Anglican Church pronounced. However, all because the Church has not been correct on some matters doesn’t mean that it is wrong on all matters. Just because the Church may have been wrong about the proper context for re-marriage doesn’t mean that it is wrong about forbidding sodomite marriage.

But there was one priest who was willing to go against the grain, Father Peter Bide. Lewis turned to Bide, a former pupil who had become an Anglican priest, after the bishop of Oxford refused to marry Lewis and Davidman. Bide knew that Lewis was asking for something that wasn’t consistent with the teaching of the Church of England. But this naïve priest prayed about it. That’s right. He asked Jesus what he should do. What a concept! As if Jesus were alive and might talk back! And he felt led by the Spirit to perform the wedding.

DKW

1.) Typical Vineyard hyper Pentecostalism with its notorious “word from the Lord” theology. Bide knew in his soul that he could do the marriage despite what the Church said. Too bad Bide didn’t just look in Scripture to find out that Jesus Himself said that divorce was an option in the case of porneia, of which Joy Davidmen’s husband was guilty. Vineyard “Pastor” Ken Wilson would have us believe that the Jesus who talks back in prayer is more to be consulted than the Jesus who speaks in Scripture.

2.) Why does Wilson seem to suppose that Pastors don’t pray about difficult matters? And honestly why should Pastors pray for wisdom about difficult matters when the Scripture speaks directly to the issue at hand. I don’t need to ask for additional wisdom from God when He has already given me the Wisdom I’m asking about in Scripture.

During the ceremony, which took place in the hospital room where the bride was battling cancer, he placed his hands on her and prayed for her healing. She went into an unexpected remission almost immediately and Lewis and Davidman had a blessed reprieve in which to enjoy their union. They had what so many of us long for, including people who are gay, lesbian, and transgender: someone to pair bond with, someone to cuddle with at night, someone committed to care for the other should the other — as so many of us eventually do — get sick and die.

Most evangelical churches have remarried leaders. No one speaks of loving these remarried people but hating their sin.

That was then, over 50 years ago. This is now. The most theologically conservative expressions of Christian faith in the 21st century — Roman Catholicism and evangelicalism — wouldn’t blink at the thought of blessing the union of C.S. Lewis and Joy Davidman. The Catholic Church would do so by annulling Davidman’s first marriage. Most evangelical churches would ask her a few questions (if that) and determine that God was surely blessing this new marriage.

DKW

1.) But God has called such “bonding,” “cuddling,” and “caring,” “sin” when it is done in the context of sodomy.In Romans 1, I Corinthians 6, Galatians 5, Jude 1 and others.

2.) Ken Wilson seems to take the position that human desire for reverted companionship trumps what Scripture has to say regarding the companionship He delights in.

3.) Evangelical Churches who have re-married leaders whose divorce was not Biblical and who have not repented because of their unbiblical divorce should continue to plead with those married leaders to repent. Wilson seems to take the position that two wrongs make a right. Since the Church has been wrong on re-married leaders, therefore they can be wrong also in approving sodomite Marriage.

4.) Is there no place in Wilson’s theology for hating sin?

5.) If, as the record states, that Davidman’s husband was unfaithful to his wife then Davidman had grounds for Biblical divorce. However, there are no Biblical grounds for sodomite marriage.

A third way for evangelicals on same-sex marriage

I studied the scriptures on divorce and remarriage extensively as a younger pastor. I studied the early church fathers and the Protestant Reformers. Their grounds for allowing remarriage were extremely strict, based on a plain reading of scripture. This older consensus held sway in the church — Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox — until it was flooded with remarried couples after World War II.

Today, most evangelical churches have remarried lay leaders and board members. Some have remarried pastors. No one speaks of loving these remarried people but hating their sin. Instead, they are fully accepted into the life of the church. A veritable cottage industry of evangelical books exists to help the conscientious Bible reader make sense of the biblical prohibitions in light of their historical context and apply their teaching in light of the experience of the remarried people we know, love, and often, are.

As I reflected on this issue, the thought hit me like a punch in the gut: if we gave the same considerate reading to the handful of texts condemning same-sex sexual practices that we give to passages on divorce (what did they mean in their historical context and how should we apply them today?), we would likely come up with a very different approach to gay, lesbian, and transgender people. We might even find a way to fully include them in the life of the church as we have done for so many remarried people.

DKW

1.) Wilson seems to suggest that the standard by which the Church really adjudicates right and wrong is by popular opinion. Many people were being remarried so the Church allowed re-marriage. Many people are sodomites so the Church should re-think sodomy. Now, it may be accurate that the Church determines right and wrong by polling but that doesn’t mean that such a technique is honoring to Christ.

2.) I’m sure we could read the texts in such a way so as to allow the LGBT crowd into the Church. I’m also sure we could read the Scriptures in such a way as to allow the Necrophiliacs, Bestiality crowd, and the Pedophilia crowd into the Church. We could read the Scriptures in such a way to prove that Jesus was a sodomite. We could read the Scriptures in such a way so as to prove that God hates heterosexuality. But really, Pastor Ken Wilson, what does that prove?

3.) If forced to choose between going back to a unduly harsh policy on remarriage or a unduly cultural Marxist reading of Scripture regarding sodomites, I much prefer to going back to over-protecting Heterosexual marriage.

“And I wondered: are we reluctant to consider this possibility because it’s virtually impossible to finance an evangelical congregation without remarried people, while it’s easy enough to do so without gay, lesbian, and transgender people simply because there are fewer of them?

Then, the knock-out blow occurred to me: how would that square with the good shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep to go after the one which has wandered from (or been driven out by) the rest of the flock?

With much trepidation and a sometimes paralyzing dose of fear, I opened myself to the possibility that my received tradition on this subject might be wrong. So I have proposed what I am calling a “third way” between the longstanding and polarized binary — either “love the sinner, hate the sin” or “open and affirming.”

DKW,

1.) So, is the point here of Pastor Ken Wilson that if we can finance a congregation via sodomite members that we should go ahead and do so? Is that Wilson’s standard of determining right and wrong?

2.) The good shepherd leaves the 99 to go gather the one who is part of the flock and has wandered away. Where is there any evidence that unrepentant Queer people are part of the flock? Wilson keeps setting up these emotional laden argument and never pauses to tell us how the Scripture is wrong when it explicitly teaches that sodomy is contrary to Nature.

I Cor. 6:9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? [m]Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor wantons, nor buggerers, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the [n]Name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

Note that St. Paul says that formerly some of them were buggerers (1599 Geneva Bible) but now they no longer are and because they no longer are they are now part of the Church because they’ve been “washed,” “sanctified,” and “justified.”

Wilson, is merely another Pastor who in his moral cowardice is surrendering to the Zeitgeist.

“Why Christians can agree to disagree on gay marriage

Some have objected that this “third way” is just “open and affirming” in disguise. But I maintain that this “third way” — I call it “welcome and wanted” — is not equivalent to “open and affirming” for two important reasons.

First, it grounds the full acceptance of gay, lesbian, and transgender people in a much-ignored portion of scripture: Romans 14-15, in which Paul introduces a category he calls “disputable matters.” The upshot is this: the church in Rome was splitting over disputes about first order moral issues — like whether or not eating meat sacrificed to idols constituted idolatry (one could make the case!), or whether ignoring the command to rest on the seventh day was a sin against one of the Ten Commandments, even a sin against nature, since God himself rested on the seventh day in the Genesis creation account.

If how the biblical prohibitions of same-sex sexual practices apply to modern same-sex couples is an example of a “disputable matter,” then it follows that the church can “agree to disagree” on this question, while practicing full acceptance of gay, lesbian, and transgender people, not to mention full acceptance of those who disagree with whether such people sin by having sex with their covenanted partners.

DKW

1.) It would be fine that sodomy would be considered adiaphora (indifferent things) if the Scripture didn’t insist that it was not a matter of indifference.

24 [ao]Wherefore [ap]also God [aq]gave them up to their hearts lusts, unto uncleanness, to defile their own bodies between themselves: 25 Which turned the truth of God unto a lie, and worshipped and served the creature, forsaking the Creator which is blessed forever, Amen. 26 For this cause God gave them up to vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. 27 And likewise also the men left the natural use of the woman, and burned in their lust one toward another, and man with man wrought filthiness, and received in themselves such [ar]recompense of their error, as was meet.

God does call sodomy a matter of indifference Rev. Ken Wilson or does he call it a matter of vile affections?

2.) Covenanted partners by whose standard? If God defines marriage as between a man and a woman how can it be suggested that it is possible to covenant with someone, in the context of marriage, who is of the same gender?

3.) The Church can not agree to disagree. Look what Jude says on this matter,

7 As Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, which in like manner as they did, [l]committed fornication, and followed [m]strange flesh, are set forth for an example, and suffer the vengeance of eternal fire.

But let me guess Ken … you’re going to read this through some new lenses and discover that it does not say what it really says.

The biblical “ideal,” if there is such a thing, is not marriage, but celibacy.

DKW,

Ken arrives at this via a misreading of the text. Nowhere does the Scripture teach that the Biblical ideal in every context is celibacy.

I realize that in the current climate of intense controversy over this issue, that would be hard to pull off in many local churches, but that, too, seems to be Paul’s point: Jesus is more powerful than other lords (like Caesar) precisely because he is risen from the dead, and can empower those who follow him to do improbable things — like remain in a unity of the Spirit despite sharp disagreement over important questions. In fact, this demonstrates his resurrection power: he can do what mere religion can’t — keep people together who watch different cable news-entertainment networks.

DKW

1.) Note Wilson tries to reduce this issue down to the equivalency over people fighting over which cable News entertainment networks they should watch.

2.) Jesus does not look for Unity when the integral aspects of the Scriptures are being conveniently ignored. Ken Wilson would have the resurrected Jesus using His resurrection power to keep people together who highhandedly disobey God with people who think High-handed sin is dreadful and blasphemous.

Second, the “third way” questions why people who accept the gospel of Jesus Christ think they have any business assuming that our acceptance of one another “in Christ” is contingent on granting each other our moral approval. The “affirming” in “open and affirming” implies that the congregation so tagged offers its moral approval to gay couples. But what does that have to do with the gospel? Isn’t the whole point of the gospel that God accepts us thanks to the faithfulness of Jesus and not because he approves of all our moral choices? And that we are to do likewise with each other? Where does this insistence that our unity depends on granting each other moral approval come from?

In any event, the biblical “ideal,” if there is such a thing, is not marriage, but celibacy, according to the teachings of Jesus and Paul. Marriage, according to both, is a concession to human weakness. “If you can’t remain celibate, it’s better to marry than to burn,” said Paul. Hardly a ringing endorsement of marriage. This business of granting marriage some privileged moral status is far from the New Testament ideal.

DKW,

1.) Wilson’s first paragraph turns the Holy Love of God for His people into the love of a whore for her rotating Johns.

2.) By Wilson’s standards the Gospel wouldn’t be questioned if people fornicated during Sunday Worship service. After all, Isn’t the whole point of the gospel that God accepts us thanks to the faithfulness of Jesus and not because he approves of all our moral choices? And that we are to do likewise with each other? Where does this insistence that our unity depends on granting each other moral approval come from?

3.) According to Wilson a common faith has nothing to do with a shared orthopraxy. Can you say “anti-nomian.”

4.) When Paul says it is better to marry than burn he is speaking of a specific situation. He is not speaking of a Universal given. There was a situation in Corinth whereby Paul taught that given the circumstances in Corinth at the time it was better to be single though better to marry than burn.

5.) Wilson seems to be teaching that since heterosexual Marriage is not the ideal therefore sodomite marriage — also not being the ideal — is acceptable. That’s like saying that since losing two legs in an accident is not ideal therefore losing one leg is acceptable. Again, Wilson’s interpretation of the celibacy passages is not accurate.

Call me naïve, but I think there’s a third way for evangelicals in the gay marriage debate, and it’s a way that honors the Bible and the power of the gospel better than “love the sinner, hate the sin” or “open and affirming.” Whether or not it works is another matter. But I think it’s time to give it a try, especially if it could bear witness to a risen Lord better than the current rehashed moralism that we’re calling the gospel.

If you are an evangelical pastor who has felt the same troubled conscience that I have over your exclusion of gay, lesbian, and transgender people, you might try what the pastor who married C.S. Lewis and Joy Davidman did: ask Jesus what you should do and do that, come what may.

1.) Wilson disapproves of “rehashed moralism” and offers his own new hashed moralism as a substitute.

2.) “Come follow Jesus and be a better witness as you countenance what God clearly says is vile.” Sounds like a good marketing meme for a new Vineyard Church.

3.) Wilson ends with his hyper Pentecostal nonsense in tact. Just get Jesus to talk to you audibly and go with that. You can’t lose.