A Discussion Concerning Warren’s Prayer

Eva Marie Cropsey — Daughter of a Michigan State Senator

“Isa” is the name for Jesus in Arabic. Yeah, it’s the name used in the Qu’ran, because the Qu’ran was written in Arabic. You can’t look at this and say it’s “totally disgusting, since all those mentioned are not the same God at all,” because they are all actually referring to the same person. Yeah, Islam goes wrong in what they believe about Jesus’ resurrection and in believing that Muhammad was greater than He was, but they do honor and revere Him.

Unless you actually talk to Rick Warren, you can’t give his motivation for praying the way he did. However, a possible alternative to the idea that he’s just trying to make everybody happy is that he’s trying to build on the common roots of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. If you know anything about the history of these religions, you should know that Christianity’s basis is in Judaism (Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecies in the Hebrew scriptures), and Muhammad was greatly influenced by both Judaism and Christianity. If you want to reach people for Christ, you need to build on common ground, rather than trying to eliminate the commonalities you do share. Jesus called us to be peacemakers (Matthew 5), and Paul sets a precedent for this in his sermon to the Areopagus (Acts 15) where he quotes the an Athenian poet and references an Athenian religious tradition of worshiping an unknown God (for more on this, you should read Eternity in Their Hearts by Don Richardson). The Shema is from the Hebrew Scriptures, yes, but aren’t the Hebrew Scriptures also your Old Testament? God hasn’t changed since then. Islam teaches that God is compassionate and merciful, but doesn’t Christianity teach the same? And in case you’re wondering, “Allah” is simply a generic word that means “God.” There are thousands of Christians in the Middle East that use this word to refer to the same God that you and I worship.

I’m sorry. It looks like neither one of us is going to change our positions, so there isn’t any reason to discuss it further. I would suggest that you research the historical roots of both Islam and Christianity for yourself–outside of what you have been taught by a pastor or Christian educator–and also that you read the book A Deadly Misunderstanding by Mark Siljander.

Bret responds,

No, you are wrong. If Jews and Muslims do not believe Jesus is the Son of God who died for the sins of the world they do not revere him and they do not honor him. In point of fact they dishonor him, disrespect him and call God a liar. That is not revering! In point of fact that is blasphemy.

This can be seen by your notion that Islam, Christianity and Judaism has common roots. What Islam and Judaism teach is diametrically opposed to Christianity. Judaism and Islam are bastard religions that deny the essence of Christianity. The Triune God that Christians serve has absolutely nothing in common with the Unitarian blasphemy of Islam and Judaism. Muslims and Jews deny the virgin birth. Muslims and Jews deny that there is salvation in no other name except for Jesus. Muslim and Jews deny that Jesus is God. Muslim and Jews deny that Jesus will return again to judge the quick and the dead. Saying that Islam, Christianity and Judaism have common roots is like saying that a Porn Flick, a Snuff Movie and “Old Yeller” have common roots all because they are all cinema.

When a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ prays he is not looking to find common ground with pagan religions or pagan gods. In doing so he is doing exactly what I suggested he was doing when I wrote the analysis piece of Warren’s prayer. When a Christian minister prays he prays that the God of the Bible would defeat all other rival gods and deliver their adherents out of the false religions they are in bondage to.

No you advised me that my learning is deficient. I should probably tell you that I am a Pastor. I have the requisite degrees. I have done the research. I have already read the books you recommend.

Allow me to suggest you have read all the books that are creating the current crisis in Christianity. For example in Acts 17 Paul was not using a common ground approach. You might want to check out this links to see that discussed in detail.

http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/pa045.htm

Common ground evangelism is a disaster precisely because the pagan denies the common ground exists. He hates God and so hates the common ground you are trying to reach him on. If you are interested in seeing this idea teased out I would recommend,

http://www.the-highway.com/defense_VanTil.html

The OT is my Bible but it is not the Jewish Bible. They read it in such a way that it is no longer the Scripture to them. They twist it and ruin it and what Jews need to be called back to is the Scriptures they deny by the way they read it.

Allah may be the same word for God but He is not the same God. We do Islam no service by allowing them to think Allah and the God of the Bible are the same beings. Primarily because the God of the Bible exists and Allah doesn’t. I don’t care if converted Muslims use the word Allah to address God as long as they are convinced of Allah’s Triune character.

Siljander used to be my congressman years ago. He is a liberal and knows less about Islam then I’d care to mention. A good beginning resource on Islam is Serdga Trifkovic. He grew up around Islam and knows what a danger it is and how it hates Christianity, and how it will not be satisfied until it conquerors all its competitors.

Rick Warren is a well intended fool who is trying to sink Christianity into a sea of meaninglessness pluralism. I’m afraid you’re already wearing the weights around your ankles. You strike me as a sharp young lady. If you are as sharp as you sound you will go the extra mile and investigate these things I’m telling you to see whether or not they are so.

You know you might be Democrat …

If you got knocked up in order to collect a larger government check because you couldn’t afford your three children by three different men.

If you were glad for the government bailout because it allowed you to take your trip to the Riviera with your mistress.

If you were able to base your recent bank mortgage loan on the fact that you had had three jobs in two weeks.

If you cheated on your taxes and knew it wouldn’t matter much unless you were nominated to be the Secretary of the Treasury.

If you think that drinking copious amounts of Liquor is a cure for a hangover or if you think that borrowing more money is a cure for debt.

If you think that it is necessary to teach 1st graders what a dildo is while showing films on how homosexuals couple.

If you hate God even though you are convinced that he doesn’t exist.

If, while shoveling your sidewalk clean of the 24 inches of snow you have received daily for the past week, you keep warm in the sub zero cold by looking forward to legislation that will stop global warming.

If you consider Barney Frank a role model for America’s children.

If you think women should have a right to choose to kill their children but you don’t think Americans should have the right to choose to keep and bear arms.

If you think Republicans are conservative.

If you were one of the 1.8 million that attended the Obama inauguration but not one of the 14 who had a job and so had to miss work.

Behold The State … The Giver Of Life

ABC Sunday News Show

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those – one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

Now how did we go from aiding children’s health to making sure people don’t have children in two sentences? How does making sure that people don’t have children at the same time contribute to children’s health?

Look, the State sees itself as the parent of the citizenry and as the Parent it must decide when and to when not have children, and if it decides to not have children in order to relieve the pressure on the Parent’s budget as the parent it is sovereign to make that decision.

What this boils down is that the entitlement culture cannot provide for all the illegitimate children that it creates and as such the State will take sovereign responsibility to make sure that people on the Government dole will encouraged (in due time required) to not have to many children.

Also keep in mind that it is likely that planned parenthood is going to be the beneficiary of all this family planning stimulus money.

Now, you better believe that if the birth of children is a concern to the Sovereign state because of their great cost that it won’t be long until the Sovereign state will be concerned about how much money is required in our season of dying. The generation who aborted their children for the sake of convenience are going to find itself aborted in old age for the sake of convenience. Payback is a b—-.

How many more of God’s prerogatives does the State have to try and take up before Christians begin to realize that it is idolatry not to try and check the State’s desire to be God?

These people, and the people who keep voting for them are sphincter release valves.

Covenantalism & Social Order

“Natural law theory in both forms (the realism of Natural law organicism and the nominalism of Natural law social contract — BLM) prevented the development of a uniquely biblical social theory. The doctrine of the biblical covenant was missing, since one or more of its five points were denied: (1)the absolute personal sovereignty of God over both nature and human history; (2)the hierarchical authority of all human institutions under God’s limited, delegated sovereignty; (3)Biblical law as authoritative in all civilizations; (4) God’s historical sanctions (blessing and cursing), imposed in terms of his Bible revealed law; and (5) the development of history in response to the imposition of God’s sanctions, though mitigated temporarily by His mercy. Point 1 is called Calvinism; Point two is called representative government; points 3 and 4 are called theonomy; and point 5 is called postmillennialism. They are a package deal. Without all five, it is impossible to construct an exclusively and covenantally faithful biblical social theory.”

Dr. Gary North
Millennialism And Social Theory — pg. 39

Social theory that strives to be Biblical has to be covenantally structured. A Biblical social theory looks to create a social bond among men not in some chain of being reasoning that connects all reality into an organic whole that can then be read by a Natural law mechanism that is reflection of the union of all reality, nor in a social contract theory where the nature of reality is very mechanistically laid out and where natural law becomes the mechanistic equivalent for social order that the other laws of nature are for the operation of the cosmos.

The organic view of Natural law seems to partake in the errors of pantheism where man and God are united by shared being with the result that man can know the mind of God apart from God if only there is some sort of organic union that exists between the two. The social contract view of Natural law seem to partake in the errors of deism where God and His creation are divorced with God leaving behind a Natural law mechanism that functions in much the same way that the independent laws of nature operate. Man does not need special revelation to read this Natural law aright, he merely needs the use of his own right reason.

Each of these view of Natural law theory then incarnate themselves into differing understandings of social theory. Natural law realism produces a social theory organicism that is characterized by chain of being thinking. The metaphor that is often used to describe such societies is that it is a living entity. In this kind of Natural law everything in a social order is living tissue that is inter-connected. Society is viewed as an organism, just as the Cosmos as a whole is.

Natural law nominalism on the other hand produces a social theory that is contractual and is characterized by some kind of pre-historic contract that the ancients entered into that is binding on successive generations because the contract is a reflection of the way things are. According to Gary North,

“In the social contract theory men in the distant past voluntarily transferred their individually held political sovereignty to the State, which now maintains social order. Each social institution is governed by the terms of an original contract, whether mythical or historical.”

Unlike organicism which teaches that there is a unity between the seen and a real unseen realm social contract social theory denies any transcendent metaphysical reality or social unity where the contract on earth is corresponding to a contract in the heavenlies apart from the will of mortals. (Hence the nominalism)

A Biblical social order theory eschews both of these alternatives and opts for a view of social order has one that is kept together by complex system of legal bonds with God as the ultimate enforcer of that complex system.

In this social order arrangement there are four primary covenants, personal, familial, ecclesiastical, and civil.

More anon,

Lubell & Realignment

“Whenever a new majority coalition comes into dominance, as the Democrats in toppling the old Republican ascendancy, it brings with it a distinctively different orbit of political conflict. This orbit also governs the movement of struggle within the minority party.”

Samuel Lubell
Future Of American Politics

Lubell wrote this book in 1951 and the insights that Lubell offered in that book are as fresh today as they were when he offered them in 1951. If you are interested in the way that political parties shift and recast themselves and if you can find an old copy of Lubell’s book you would do well to read and absorb it. I had to read it in my undergraduate work and have referred to it often since then.

The essence of what Lubell is getting at above is both profoundly simple and yet simply profound. What Lubell was contending is that when a political party has strung together a series of victories that establish it as the majority party what inevitably must happen, in order for the minority party to survive and compete is that it must, in significant ways, take on the visage of its competition. In short it must become a “me too” political party.

This can be seen time and time again in history. In 1840 the Whigs ran General Wm. Henry Harrison and sold him as a populist and as a man of the people. This was a candidate and a page right out of the Democrats book when they ran General Andy Jackson. The Whigs realized that if they wanted to win that they had to mimic the Democrats and so they came up with the Log Cabins and Hard Cider campaign that put Harrison over the top.

In the 1960’s Senator Barry Goldwater complained publicly about how the Republican leadership had become a “Dime Store New Dealism.” Goldwater’s complaint was that Republicans had basically embraced the Democratic New Deal paradigm and only dissented from New Dealism by insisting that Republicans could be more efficient Democrats then the Democrats of the Democratic party.

These are but two examples of others that might be offered. As interesting as this is though I am not primarily concerned about teaching a History lesson here. What I want to examine is how the Obama election, combined with the successes of Democrats in the 2006, and 2008 election cycles might change the Republicans. This is important to consider for if the Republican leadership believes that the Democrats, in the last two election cycles, have achieved political re-alignment then inevitably we can look for the Republican party to become even more of a “me too” party then it already is. If the Republican leadership believes this then Obama will have very little resistance as Republicans look to support his policies so that they may return to their constituencies to run in 2010 as “me too” Republicans.

There is much to argue for the possibility that Democrats have achieved a political realignment in the last two election cycles. One must consider the inroads that Democrats made in traditionally Republican states. Further, one must consider the impact of minority voting patterns for Democrats. This is especially important if the percentage of the minority population continues to rise significantly.

However, in my estimation it is still to early for the Republicans to concede Democratic hegemony and so begin recasting themselves into an image of the Democratic party light. The Goldwater / Reagan wing of the Republican party still can salvage the party and avoid political realignment but it must act quickly and decisively.

First, it must publicly disassociate itself from the Republicanism of the Bushes and of its most recent standard bearer Sen. John McCain. The Republican party, in the last six Presidential election cycles, have offered the electorate inside the beltway type Republicans. In these candidacies Republicans have had precious little in the way of campaigns that have emphasized limited Government, fiscal responsibility, humble foreign policy, sound money, social conservativism, and the integrity of our borders.

Second, if the Republican party wants to continue as something distinct from the Democratic party then in the next two years it must resist, resist, and resist. It must draw the sharpest of lines between itself and the current Democratic regime. Now is an excellent time to resist, because the Democrats in charge are not moderate Democrats but Democrats who embrace some of the most radical leftism that we have seen in a very long time. Democrats have majorities and the Republicans ought to make them use those majorities to accomplish their agenda. Let the Democrats be Democrats and let the Republicans lose seeking to stop their policies. This is all with a view of being able to run against the mess that these policies are going to create.

Third, the Republicans have to hang this current and coming recession on the Democrats. There is plenty of evidence to make that case but they have to be willing to do so.

Fourth, the Republicans have to, very loudly and very often, make the case that the Democratic party is actually the Socialist Party. They should use the word “Socialist” often when referring to Democrats and they should explain precisely what they mean by that in simple terms that the American public can understand.

Fifth, the Republican party cannot win solely by merely being negative but also must offer substantive alternatives. They ought to cast a vision that is both workable and stands in contrast to socialism.

Sixth, if the Republicans wish to survive as a real viable party they must, above all, stop amnesty for illegal immigrants. Should illegal immigrants be given amnesty the Republican party will disappear by weight of sheer numbers.

Were I a betting man I would bet that the current Republicans will not resist and so will become more of what they have been for quite some time and that is just a mere reflection of the Democratic Party.