Jesus said: "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. (Matthew 5:13).
(Tim) Explaining to a friend the other day that I've found Roman Catholics writing about almost anything other than the five solas of the Reformation infinitely more interesting and helpful than Protestants, I lamented the inability of Reformed men to go against the flow. Why is that?
We went against the flow in the Reformation; and for years after, critical thinking under the Word of God belonged to us. But now, the only ones doing good critical (and often Biblical) thinking about ethics and war, sex, medicine, politics, art, demographics, culture, fertility, and the list goes on are almost exclusively Roman Catholic. About the only thing Protestants, and particularly Reformed Protestants, today are able to think about in an interesting way is how best to trim the coin of the doctrines of Scripture in such a way as to lower the hurdle barring entry to the Church for pomos who hate light, authority, meekness, humility, and truth. All our creativity goes toward church growth. Which is to say, all our creativity goes toward perfecting the idolatry Vernon Grounds warned against when he pointed out that the evangelical world worships at the altar of "the bitch goddess of success."
Show me any evangelical who's written on the place of vampire flicks in the sodomization of the Western world as...
E. Michael Jones has. To evangelicals--including PCA pastors--vampire flicks are entirely innocuous. Even cute.
Show me any work written in defense of the Biblical doctrine of sexuality that's half as wise and helpful and Biblical as Stephen Clark's Man and Woman in Christ. I promise you, there's none. Not even close.
Show me any review of the media, art, music, and publishing that's close to the "New Criterion." Any political commentary the last half of the twentieth century half as wise as Joe Sobran's. Any news collection and critique of the sodomizing priest scandal in the Roman Catholic church that was half as forthright about the systemic complicity of Roman Catholic hierarchy in this betrayal of souls as "The Wanderer." Any Protestant group of physicians or ethicists who have been even one tenth as careful and wise and courageously Biblical in their research and writing as the Vatican. (Have you read what Cardinal Ratzinger's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith produced on euthanasia and compared it to the sorry statements of the PCA or the Christian Medical and Dental Society? Do so--it's quite instructive)
Show me any baby-slaughter business down the street from you and I'll show you Godly Roman Catholics demonstrating up close and personal the same thing their intellectuals demonstrate in journals and reviews and bookstores: a Godliness that leads them to stand against the tide precisely at the gaps in the wall. Precisely where the blood flows. At great personal sacrifice. Judie Brown, anyone? Joe Scheidler? Richard John Neuhaus? It's laughable to think of "Books and Culture" running one tenth the column inches opposing the slaughter of the unborn, feeble, and elderly "First Things" habitually runs.
Try to get evangelicals--Reformed evangelicals, especially--to think about Africa. What do they come up with?
Micro finance is good. So said "World" a few years ago, while failing to note that over 95% of micro finance loans go to women. Intentionally.
"Well, what's wrong with that" you ask? Yes, yes; what's wrong with that. You must be the product of a Reformed seminary or a Reformed church where you learned to shut up about life and death and manhood and womanhood and sodomy and oppression and adultery, right? A Protestant who learned the Reformed doctrines of grace meant that the world is going to Hell in a handbasket and what's really needed is for you to share the Gospel. Just the Gospel, that is. And by Gospel, we mean we have determined to know nothing more than Jesus Christ and Him crucified. No making of disciples needed. Only the making of converts. No teaching them to obey everything Jesus commanded. Don't you know about grace? Are you Roman Catholic or something?
Well, to answer your question, it's about Christian Africa having no husbands and fathers who work or are faithful to their wives. Can you believe I wrote that? Don't I know Willow Creek won't invite me to their bitch goddess love-fests if I post such hate speech? Actually, for those with Biblical eyes to see, what you just read was love speech, but love speech that people lacking Christian charity and a Biblical worldview are incapable of hearing or understanding.
So, as Randy Shilts put it, the band plays on. But if you've read this far and you have the Christian faith to love people groups, check this out and ask yourself if you could ever imagine "World" or "byFaith" or "Christianity Today" or "Books and Culture" or the "Evangelical Missions Quarterly" publishing it?
Never in a million years. We're too busy growing our churches to worry about truth. Souls. Races. Continents. Oppression. Injustice. Child slaughter.
Well, Merry Chistmas anyhow! I love you and ask you to use your gifts for Christ and His Kingdom. He gave them to you for His Own glory. Don't hide them in the ground or put them under a bushel basket.
If you're able to think and write, do it. Salt should be salty.
