BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Shaw on "university schoolboyishness..."

One reader sent an e-mail reporting he couldn't find the Shaw quote on corporal punishment mentioned in an earlier post. He's right. I've looked for it several times through the years and couldn't find it either. Sorry. Still, I distinctly remember reading it about thirty years ago and I'm convinced it was Shaw, so that's how I report it.

Anyhow, in looking for that quote this reader came across another he forwarded...

Ugh, it's Christianity Today, again--this time weighing in against spanking...

Knives are necessary to cut meat and bread. Every once in a while, knives are used to kill people. Can we all agree knives aren't the problem? Please? Pretty please?

The abuse of a thing does not invalidate its proper use.

This truth has eluded the editors of Christianity Today. In a recent editorial they use the death of several children at the hands of their fathers and mothers as the spectre to soften readers up to their dogma that "corporal punishment ...should be employed miles short of abuse, without anger, and as an absolute last resort." From their perch in Moses' seat, these scribes declare about spanking that "the Bible does not require it" (emphasis in the original).

Think about this. The magazine that purports to be the voice of Biblical inerrancy and Christian faith in these United States has run an editorial declaring that the rod of discipline God Himself requires God Himself does not require. And if that sentence confuses you, all I can say is I couldn't figure out how to put it more clearly.

And if you're one of the pigheaded ones who balks against progress, just be sure you only use the rod as "an absolute last resort." 

But the Bible commands us to use the rod. God requires it...

Reformed pulpits today show Erasmus won...

In his Bondage of the Will, Luther opposes the Roman Catholic church's champion Biblical scholar, Erasmus of Rotterdam. In an earlier post, I put up an excerpt from the beginning of Bondage of the Will in which Luther tells his readers he will be making assertions because it's the character of the Christian mind to "delight in assertions."

One longtime Baylyblog reader who is a committed Roman Catholic thought to defend Erasmus here by placing a large quotation from Erasmus immediately under the Luther quote I had posted.

Reading the Erasmus excerpt, it was apparent Erasmus was saying one thing while doing another. The way Erasmus speaks in this excerpt is common among scholars today and, having put those scholars in charge of the training of our future pastors at our denominational seminaries, we've arrived at the place where preachers often are incapable of saying, "Thus says the Lord God Almighty."

Pastors preach for the approval of the lowest common denominator, scholars and the professional and chattering classes they manufacture, rather than the farmers, truckers, and coal miners who used to be Presbyterian but long ago left for Baptist and Pentecostal churches...

Martin Luther: "not to delight in assertions is not the character of the Christian mind..."

Appropos to everything, this from the beginning of one of my brother David's favorites--Luther's Bondage of the Will. Here Luther is addressing the principal humanist of his generation, Erasmus of Rotterdam. As Luther makes clear throughout the course of this book, Erasmus was committed to tenuous debate and only a modicum of reform:

* * *

First of all, I would just touch upon some of the heads of your Preface; in which, you somewhat disparage our cause and adorn your own. In the first place, I would notice your censuring in me, in all your former books, an obstinacy of assertion...

Midwives, denominations, abortions, and my present political philosophy...

I don't write much about Indiana politics and government but it's caused me no small sadness to contemplate the term-limit-departure of our fiscally excellent governor a little over a year from now. Gov. Mitch Daniels will have completed his second term and will have to leave office.

If I am comforted in our loss of Mitch's magnificent fiscal leadership, my comfort comes from this: that his likely successor is a man, Representaive Mike Pence, who promises to govern with the same fiscal commitments while adding a theological framework to those commitments that promises to extend far beyond fiscal discipline, on to principles concerning many other areas of governance including the battlefields on which the destroyers of our nation and its states are focussing their revolution: sexuality, the Image of God in man, the origin and nature of sexuality and marriage decreed by our Creator in His Order of Creation, and so forth.

As you read through Daniels' penultimate State of the State Address delivered yesterday evening, you will gain a hint of why I respect him. He has been unflinching in disciplining the educationists of our state by a host of private initiatives that have finally brought competition into public education. True, he brags about over half of our state budget going to edcuation, and he seems to see higher education as an unqualified good. I disagree with both things as I disagreed with President Bush on similar matters. Mitch Daniels is not a wild-eyed enthusiast. He's a realist who really changed our state. Definitively. And reading, you'll see what difference it makes to each citizen of the state.

But there's something else I want to say, here.

Some thirty years ago, I was at the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly to oppose their denominational abortion policy. My dear Mary Lee was pregnant and, since we were in the habit of having home births, I'd called the midwest representative of the PC(USA)'s self-funded independent medical insurance plan to ask if they'd cover the cost of our midwife? It was awkward. He hemmed and hawed and said he didn't know and would have to get back to me on it...

It was the worst of Times...

Hating God's large laws (think the Seventh Commandment), the New York Times is hard at work promulgating her own infinitely small ones. Think for instance of the need to divest ourselves of evil toys.

Traditionally, toys were intended to communicate parental values and expectations, to train children for their future adult roles. Today’s boys and girls will eventually be one another’s professional peers, employers, employees, romantic partners, co-parents. How can they develop skills for such collaborations from toys that increasingly emphasize, reinforce, or even create, gender differences? What do girls learn about who they should be from Lego kits with beauty parlors or the flood of “girl friendly” science kits that run the gamut from “beauty spa lab” to “perfume factory”?

The rebellion against such gender apartheid may have begun.

Girl toys are responsible for gender apartheid. So says the New York Times. With its newspaper of record such a nag, could anyone really be surprised that Manhattan's most marketable church is pervasively androgynous? (TB)

 

Lies Wheaties believe...

See what just entered my e-mail inbox. It's Wheaton College pleading for even more money. They say their president, Phil Ryken, is convinced Wheaton is "positioned to serve as an increasingly vital base of operations for the global dissemination of the Gospel."

Yes, yes; of course. Everywhere I look, one more sign of Wheaton's service as an increasingly vital base of operations for the global dissemination of the Gospel smacks me in the face. Like this alumnus, Rob Bell. Surely we all see how the degree Bell bought from Wheaton's profs is the foundation of his creation of an increasingly vital base of operations for the global dissemination of the Gospel? If I were Dick Chase or Duane Litfin, I'd be thumping my chest in pride.

Ryken's hucksterism reminds me of Richard Lovelace returning to campus from an invitation-only meeting of PC(USA) liberal and conservative muckety-mucks back in 1982 or so...

Protecting God's Word from charges of anti-Semitism, patriarchalism, homophobia, and racism...

Here are a couple responses to questions asked under the post of the ESV committee's video. First the question, then my response. (TB)

Is every use of the word "slave" now going to be changed to "servant"? 

No, they are doing this gradually. Words indicating the ownership of men will be removed from Scripture at about the same rate as words indicating the federal headship of Adam  (male inclusives such as 'adam' and 'adelphoi'). As mentioned above, footnotes often show...

"Pretending they're not slaves..."

If you had the stewardship of the English Standard Version, would you have allowed this discussion to be filmed and put up on You Tube? Here these men are discussing whether or not to allow the words inspired by the Holy Spirit to be used in their Bible product. Ah yes, it was an august assemblage seated in the rarified atmosphere of Tyndale House, Cambridge. This must be history in the making.

The epicenter of scholarship in the English-speaking world and here the English Standard Version men do their work. Wayne Grudem is flown over from Phoenix, Arizona. Jim Packer is flown over from Vancouver, B.C. Kent Hughes is flown over from Spokane, Washington. Add to the mix the Wheaton men. They all roll up their sleeves and the battle is joined. But there's no battle--it's a fizzle...

Drupal...

Want a job? Want a career? For quite a while, my son-in-law, Lucas Weeks, has been saying Drupal is a good horse to ride. He's right.

All ClearNote sites were built with Drupal and son Joseph has been working with Lucas doing Drupal programming for several years. Understanding my bias, I don't hesitate to say that they're quite good.

Learning to code in Drupal is a lot cheaper than a college degree. Of course, you must be able to think logically and to work very hard. And of course, you must be able to resist the sins of the web. (TB)

Nations must face the blood shed by their fathers...

He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground." (Genesis 4:10)

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has taken the first step towards doing for the Cult of Mao what Kruschev did for the Cult of Stalin: he's publicly spoken of the terrible suffering of his own family at the hands of the Red Guards during Mao's Cultural Revolution. Melinda Liu reports: 

The Cultural Revolution remains a neuralgic political topic because it reflects poorly on Mao, who presided over that decade but is revered by many Chinese as their nation’s “Great Helmsman.” During that decade, youthful Red Guard radicals rampaged through the country, sowing violence and terror.... Even today, the government wiggles around Mao’s responsibility for the Cultural Revolution with an ambiguous formula that declares his achievements to have been “70 percent good, 30 percent bad.”

It's about time one of China's premiers officially acknowledges Mao's riot of blood. Chinese ignorance or silence concerning the over fifty million souls who were slaughtered by Chairman Mao is complicity in that slaughter and the perfect seedbed for more slaughter to come.

Christians who know and love Chinese must speak with our Chinese friends about Mao's slaughter as often as we speak with our American friends of the slaughter of the unborn. Jews aren't bashful...

Evangelicalism has betrayed the Word of God; let the dead bury the dead...

Another of the disciples said to Him, “Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.”

But Jesus *said to him, “Follow Me, and allow the dead to bury their own dead.” (Matthew 8:21, 22)

Recently, a brother has been faulting me for writing that InterVarsity ought no longer to receive support from our missions giving--whether personal or congregational--and we ought to stop patronizing InterVarsity Press.

As he sees it, such recommendations display a number of spiritual defects in me including especially arrogance and overgeneralization. He points out that InterVarsity has many good chapters that have not yet evangelized for the sodomite perversion in the Name of Jesus and many staff workers who are still the old style of Evangelical Bible-believing Christian. As he sees it, I'm wrong to call for the end of InterVarsity and InterVarsity Press when there's still so much good being done by individuals on their payroll. So here's a short response that goes beyond the shorter responses I've made to him already.

InterVarsity has an illustrious past that includes both my father-in-law and my father holding key positions at the top of the organization. And even after leaving InterVarsity back in the early sixties, Dad sat on the board until around 1982. Then he resigned because he could no longer support the direction the organization was taking. That was thirty years ago and across those intervening years InterVarsity has gotten much worse. In what ways?

InterVarsity Press has been allowed to publish many heterodox and heretical books. Principally, InterVarsity Press has become a consistent advocate of the feminist heresy. It's not simply a matter of an occasional work here and there that pussyfoots around the boundaries on this issue, but rather a clear commitment to opposing God's Order of Creation. I've been party to several private e-mail exchanges between IVP's publisher and pastors and elders expressing concern over this rebellion deeply lodged in IVP's list for decades now, and the publisher has been dismissive of those concerns and the church officers expressing them.

This is no surprise since his parent organization, InterVarsity, has for decades been a proponent of the feminist heresy. IVP is simply a reflection of InterVarsity in this matter. Starting with my friend, Tom Dunkerton, back in the eighties, InterVarsity's presidents have been committed to rebellion against the Word of God's command that woman not teach and exercise authority over man...

Repenting of parachurch, Baptist childhoods; Home Sweet Romans...

Here's a revealing, Biblically inaccurate interview with another in a long line of Evangelical intellectuals who felt that repudiating--really, really repudiating--their Baptist roots required them to turn to the Roman Catholic heresy. Honestly, what's with these guys? Can I see the hand of a man--just one man--who repents of his parachurch, Baptist heritage without becoming a Sacramentalist (you know, ex opere operato and all that), and then a full-blown Roman Catholic?

This is why I've said to my F-V sympathizing friends that we have to find a way to innoculate our parachurch, Baptist brothers against feeling the need to take the most radical step possible to put the faith of their childhood behind them.

First they embrace infant baptism, and that's not enough; then it's the smells and bells of...

Salt losing its savor...

This is Dad's column from the June 1963 issue of Eternity magazine. Dad chose the title when the column was first published.

Men have long been claiming to hold to Gospel-centrality while running in terror from any declaration of God's holiness and authority. But now, instead of procaliming God's moral absolutes, Inter-Varsity staff workers here on the campus of Indiana University promote homosexual perversion. (TB)

* * *

This year, speaking to college students (as an Inter-Varsity staff member)—especially in dormitory and fraternity discussions—I’ve been asked once question again and again. It almost always takes this form: “Why is premarital intercourse wrong?”

Often there are explanatory or qualifying clauses: “—with the girl you’re going to marry some day;” “—when it seems to work out well in parts of Europe where it’s pretty commonly accepted;” “—if neither of you sees anything wrong with it;” “—since he may be shipped overseas any minute;” “—when it seems, like the psych professor says, to be merely a normal response to a human appetite.”

Those clauses reveal the more basic question, one that is foundational to the Christian religion: Are there such things as moral absolutes, or is everything relative, subject to the conditions of time and place and opinion? The latter view, probably held (consciously or unconsciously) by a majority on today’s academic scene, was expressed by the scientist Sir Julian Huxley in a recent issue of Nature...

Vandy students have hissy-fits over open-air calls to repentance...

Back when I was an undergrad at UW-Madison, I was strengthened in my faith by the open-air preachers on Library Mall.

Once I was privileged to protect one of the men when the student body vice-president, Leon Varjian (see pic above from the famous Lady Liberty prank) assaulted him. Varjian was pelting the preacher with eggs. Clearly it hurt, so between Varjian's trips back to his wagon to stock up (he had many dozens), I picked the eggs out of his stash and smashed them on the pavement.

Varjian got mad, but back then I was a longhair and I think he realized if he could batter a man with eggs, I could batter the sidewalk. So he stopped what he was doing and I stopped, too.

Another time a man was picking the preacher up from behind and humping him while the law enforcement officers watched and laughed...

A wedding sermon for man and woman...

The Bible says it is better to marry than to burn with passion. But we say that it’s better to live with each other first to determine whether you are “compatible”. We say that it is better to burn with passion than to get married before you have established your career. We say that it is better to give ourselves to lust than to give up the prospect of two high-paying jobs. We even say that it is better to give ourselves to impurity before marriage than for people to think we are weird or to call us "legalists" or "prudes." - Joseph Bayly in a recent wedding sermon

Here's a wedding sermon that, across church history, would have been a yawn. But today it elicits anger and hatred--and from men and women claiming to be Reformed.

How have we gotten to the place that pastors leave out the word 'obey' in the woman's vow and preach sermons to brides that don't mention childbearing and submission?

Speaking in Toledo this past weekend at the Friday Night Bible Study at the home of Bob and Debbie Forney, I pointed out that the weddings I attend nowadays are entirely gender-neutral...

Fearing space aliens rather Almighty God...

A dear brother sends notice of the Academy's anthrophobia that's culminated in this howler from our intellectual superiors at NASA and Penn State. Without tongues-in-cheek, they warn that space aliens may be so righteously indignant over our incandecent lights and hot water heaters that they mount an assault against the only inhabitants of Planet Earth who bear the Image of God.

As Joe Sobran oft observed, some things are so spine-tingly stupid only the highly educated could ever believe them. Brother Tibbs writes:

You know how Paul warned that God would give people over to vile affections because they worship the creation rather than the Creator, Who is blessed forever? Well, here's a very sad story about His judgment.

Hippies from outer space might arrive in their bong-ship to wipe out humanity in order to save the earth and punish us for blaspheming Gaia. Far out, man. Groovy. Pass the weed.

This is what they believe?

"Round them heaps of corpses rotting away"...

First you will raise the island of the Sirens,
those creatures who spellbind any man alive,
whoever comes their way. Whoever draws too close,
offguard, and catches the Sirens' voices in the air--
no sailing home for him, no wife rising to meet him,
no happy children beaming up at their father's face.
The high, thrilling song of the Sirens will transfix him,
lolling there in their meadow, round them heaps of corpses
rotting away, rags of skin shriveling on their bones...
Race straight past that coast! Soften some beeswax
and stop your shipmates' ears so none can hear,
none of the crew, but if you are bent on hearing,
have them tie you hand and foot in the swift ship,
erect at the mast-block, lashed by ropes to the mast
so you can hear the Sirens' song to your heart's content.
But if you plead, commanding your men to set you free,
then they must lash you faster, rope on rope.  

- Odyssey 12.45–6 (Fagles)

 Honestly, it must be the water. We've always pointed out how the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is more concerned about being nice guys than defending the Faith, and now we see Russell Moore playing nice with the womyn paid by Christianity Today to run their feminist blog, HER.meneutics. Here's a snippet...

With the souls of sodomites destroyed, children are next...

Hazael said, “Why does my lord weep?” Then he answered, “Because I know the evil that you will do to the sons of Israel: their strongholds you will set on fire, and their young men you will kill with the sword, and their little ones you will dash in pieces, and their women with child you will rip up.” (2 Kings 8:12)

Time and again, those who pastor souls are called by God to enter into the havoc and destruction caused by the sexual depredation of children. Sometimes it's the children themselves who initiate the sin; other times it's an older relative or some unrelated adult, both male and female. One tragic aspect of this ministry is watching how often sexualized children grow up into bondage to sexual perversion, themselves. Little boys molested by older boys or men grow up desiring men rather than women.

This simple fact needs to be forced out of the closet, into the light...

Perspectivalism and the sectarian political advocacy of R2K ecclesiastics...

It's glorious how God leads intellectuals to shout their blindness. Things the simplest plowboy sees clearly are obscured by the intellectual's highly nuanced mists and vapors, so the plowboy is left to his centuries-old occupation of making fun of them. He's not anti-intellectual--he's anti-intellectuals.

Plowboys aren't envious of the intellectual's degrees or salary or light teaching load or clean soft hands and time alone with books. And it's certainly not that the plowboy is careless with reason, logic, history, and right and wrong. He's as careful with his tax forms as any making-of-books man, and much more sophisticated.

No, it's not that the plowboy is stupid and thinks stupid is good. Rather, it's that he's got his feet planted squarely on the ground while the intellectual is up in the mists and vapors forgetting that he's made of dust and to dust he will return. The intellectual speaks from on high while the plowboy speaks from soil and manure. The Christian sizing both up may be able to grasp that the plowboy's perspective makes all the difference for his grasp of truth and his growth in righteousness.

Applications of these fundamental truths are everywhere.

R2K intellectuals are a special interest group hounding the nation's citizenry about their pet policy issue. They're a PAC whose primary work is not on K Street and in the halls of congress, but out across the land. They publish and yell and chivy and curdle and yap at and hector and dog their fellow citizens with their political dogma, and they do it in the Name of God citing His Word and Church as their authorities...

The blessing of Roger Nicole and his lectures on the authority of Scripture...

This past year, my dear friend and father-in-the-faith Dr. Roger Nicole went to be with the Lord. Other than family members, there are only a couple birthdays recorded each year on my calendar, but one of them has been Dr. Nicole's. His teaching at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary was in a category far beyond any professor I've sat under before or since (and I've had some superb profs).

I'll never forget Dr. Nicole's lectures in Systematics I on the doctrine of Scripture. One day he began by asking our class a series of questions probing our knowledge of the book of Psalms...

Let us return to the Church, our Mother...

But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother. - Galatians 4:26

Until believers understand that Scripture teaches the Church is our mother; and that, as Cyprian and Calvin put it, the man who won't have the Church as his mother may not have God as his Father; until then, parachurch religious organizations like InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Navigators, and Campus Crusade for Christ International will continue to hold pride of position in college and university communities, devouring the lion's share of mission giving and prayer flowing to those communities from congregations around the country. And this is tragic...

The fool hath said in his heart...

For several days fools have kept this headline at the top of the Spotlight section of the Google news page...

Mark Driscoll and gay worship leaders...

First, two of my favorites:

Q: How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: That's NOT funny!

Q: How many worship leaders does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Does it HAVE to be a LIGHT BULB?

Yet again, my friend Mark Driscoll has been shamed into pulling in his horns. This time he committed the crime against hermanity of updating his FB status (did you join me in switching to Google + this past week?) with this question:

So, what story do you have about the most effeminate anatomically male worship leader you’ve ever personally witnessed?

All the queens of Evangelicaldom had hissy-fits over Mark's sexism, so they called in the women who took a vote, and it was unanimous: Mark was to be conveyed in chains to the town square, then locked in stocks where the old maids would pelt him with zuchini and rotten tomatos.

One Denver Seminary prof in high dudgeon brought the weighty charge against Mark that...

One shocker after another from Carolyn Custis James...

This post is the contribution of two men from ClearNote Church of Bloomington, Jake Mentzel and Josh Congrove. Recently, Josh successfully defended his dissertation for a doctorate in Classics here at Indiana University, and Jake is the campus pastor of ClearNote Campus Fellowship. We're grateful for their work. (TB)

* * *

Carolyn Custis James recently wrote a blog post slandering the Early Church father, Augustine. Here are her claims:

Last week, in a well-known Christian college, a Bible professor stated unequivocally to his class that "Men are created in the image of God, but women are created in the image of man." His assertion is a flat denial of what is stated plainly on page one of the Bible, but unfortunately (his claim) has long roots that can be traced back to early church fathers, including the revered St. Augustine, and has done enormous damage. I remember the first time I heard anyone say, "God created both women and men in his image." I was in my twenties, had grown up in the church, and this was news to me.

It's hard to imagine the professor in question presenting the matter as Mrs. James reports it here. Surely he misspoke, was misunderstood, or misquoted? Where is Mrs. James' source?

Moving past the anonymous report, it's even harder to conceive that woman being created in the Image of God was news to Mrs. James when she first heard it. In her twenties? Seriously? What a sheltered existence she must have had!

We grew up in conservative Baptist circles and heard this basic truth of Scripture all the time...

More heresy from Baker's wolves...

I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. (Acts 20:29-30)

Look what Baker Book House makes its living from today. Professor Alan G. Padgett has written a book blasphemously titled, As Christ Submits to the Church, claiming it's a "biblical understanding of leadership and mutual submission."

The marketers tell us the author is a "theologian" with the terminal degree from Oxford. Did you know how easy it is to get into Oxford for grad studies in theology? Every other applicant gets accepted.

The pic on the book's cover tells us the contents are simply the outworking of Jesus' Upper Room command to wash one another's feet. Very olde truths, don't you know?

Then this:

As Christ submits to the church, so all Christians must submit to, serve, and care for one another. Padgett articulates a creative approach to mutual submission and explores its practical outworking in the church today, providing biblical and ethical affirmation for equality in leadership. Professors and students in practical theology and gender courses, pastors, church leaders, and thoughtful lay readers will appreciate his new approach to a controversial topic.

Where to begin? "Christ submits to the church?"

No. Scripture says no such thing, but rather the opposite:

But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. (Ephesians 5:24)

The Church submits to Christ--He doesn't submit to the Church!

These heretics turn everything upside down...

Rebellion is of a fabric...

The seers will be ashamed And the diviners will be embarrassed. Indeed, they will all cover their mouths Because there is no answer from God. (Micah 3:7)

We keep saying rebellion is of a fabric. Rebellion against God's Order of Creation is inextricably bound, as apples to the apple tree, to rebellion against God the Father Almighty. For different reasons, egalitarians and complementarians alike deny it, but time is exposing their shared deception.

The man who rebels against God's creation of Adam first, then Eve, is defying God just as the man who denies God made Eve, not Steve, for Adam is defying God. Which is to say this has never been a collegial debate over kephale or authentein...

The education mantra...

Thomas Sowell on "The Education Mantra."

(TB, w/thanks to Jim H.)

The small-minded, lockstep intolerance of the Indiana Daily Student...

The Indiana Daily Student promoted SAGE's event "Gender [you know what]" held in celebration of sexual immorality and perversion with two separate articles. Then they refused to publish this protest of that event submitted to them as a letter to the editor.

Such intolerance of diversity is what these young students supported by our tax dollars as they edit the IDS are being taught by their Indiana University School of Journalism professors (shall we make the point once more?) whose salaries are paid by our tax dollars...

An elegy for my dear father, Roger Nicole...

For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites. -1 Kings 11:4, 5

The rebels are dying. First, a few months back, it was our dear friend Dr. Roger Nicole. Then more recently, Catherine Kroeger and Nancy Hardesty. Both Nicole and Kroeger taught at our alma mater, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, although Nicole finished his career at Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando).

Back in the early eighties, Dr. Nicole's rebellion seemed fairly innocuous. He advocated women's ordination but held the line on the husband's authority in marriage and family life. Someone suggested Dr. Nicole's failure was the result of his Baptistic polity; that he had no doctrine of ordination, so the ordination of women was no big deal. It seemed about right as part of the explanation.

But I was more convinced Dr. Nicole's innate irenicism made it difficult for him to teach on a campus where the feminist rebellion was institutionally enshrined and his lectures were attended by many women preparing for the ministry. It was my gut feeling...

InterVarsity's partner, SAGE, holds another pro-sodomy event (part X)...

Can two walk together, except they be agreed? -Amos 3:3

In their recent outreach meeting featuring former staff worker William Campbell promoting sodomy, InterVarsity enlisted the campus organization Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Equality (SAGE) as a co-sponsor of the event.

This past week SAGE sponsored another event titled "GenderF**k." Billed as "a gender-inclusive drag show with no restrictions on gender presentation, sexual orientation or birth sex," the audience found it all quite delightful. Argenta Peron gushed, “It’s awesome because of the fact it’s not just a drag-show. It expresses a vision of what gender really is.”

We haven't heard if InterVarsity co-sponsored this event, also.

(TB: this is tenth in a series of posts [one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten] responding to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's promotion of sodomy at an Indiana University campus forum they sponsored the evening of Monday, March 28, 2011.)

InterVarsity's Evangelistic event promoting sodomy: news not fit to print (part IX)...

(Tim: this is ninth in a series of posts [one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine] responding to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's promotion of sodomy at an Indiana University campus forum they sponsored the evening of Monday, March 28, 2011.)

One man wrote a week ago to thank us for our series on InterVarsity's promotion of sodomy in the Name of Jesus Christ, saying he wished he'd known about the commitments of the individuals mentioned some time back when he made a decision to financially support one of the InterVarsity staffers. There are many good things that happen when evil is rebuked, publicly. Sadly, the church is no more tolerant of it today than it ever has been. For instance...

An interesting sidenote to the articles is the refusal of the editor in chief of one of the major Evangelical magazines to publish any news about InterVarsity's failure here at Indiana University. This same publication did stories on the faithfulness of InterVarsity at Tufts University over a decade ago, but now chose not to say a word about IV's betrayal of the Word of God here at Indiana University.

This is a common failure of Evangelicals. Through the years I've noticed this magazine (like many others) saves its prophetic word for unbelievers, the business world, Hollywood, and government, while running puff pieces about Christian organizations. With them, judgment may only begin outside the household of God.

It's similar with preachers...

What is a "transformational breath facilitator"?

Vaun Swanson says Denver Seminary taught her to "determine for myself what the author (of Scripture) was intending to communicate to us..."

 Even the most complementarian of men will go to any length to avoid Scripture texts that speak of women being susceptible to deception. But then we get hit in the face with a stiff dose of women-together-doing-yikes! and it's hard not to wonder if it's time for someone to blow a clear note of warning...

Rants and manifestos...

(Tim) Robert and Phama Woodyard of First Christian Reformed Church in Lynden, Washington, are Mary Lee's and my closest friends. Their fourth son, Reed, attends Azusa Pacific College and co-authors a new blog, Rants and Manifestos, with his friend, Mark. Check it out. These men are working to honor God.

InterVarsity hedges and obfuscates concerning their IU event promoting sodomy (part VIII)...

(Tim: this is eighth in a series of posts [one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight] responding to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's promotion of sodomy at an Indiana University campus forum they sponsored the evening of Monday, March 28, 2011. This post was written by Pastors Tim Bayly, Jacob Mentzel, and Lucas Weeks.)

"The decision to pay Campbell to speak at the event was made by a number of upper-level InterVarsity staff and, following the event, InterVarsity's staff workers who were present had no problem with what Campbell had said."

This Wednesday, April 6, 2011, InterVarsity e-mailed a statement to some of the individuals who had expressed concern over their recent presentation, "Jesus and the End of Homophobia," here at Indiana University. The statement was not published on any public forum.

According to InterVarsity Headquarters, the primary failure of their "Jesus and the End of Homophobia" event is that "some who trust InterVarsity" were led into "confusion" about InterVarsity's "position on the compatibility of ministry leadership and homosexual practice."

So what is InterVarsity's official position on homosexuality?

Who knows? Go to their web site and try to find it. With many others, we've searched and we couldn't find it anywhere. As we said to an InterVarsity vice president this past week, IV has carefully hidden its position behind its firewalls. This is the fear of the world's disapproval and shame of Jesus Christ that led IV into this predicament in the first place...

IV issues statement responding to inquiries concerning IU/InterVarsity event promoting sodomy (part VII)...

(Tim: this is seventh in a series of posts [one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven] responding to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's promotion of sodomy at an Indiana University campus forum they sponsored the evening of Monday, March 28, 2011.)

Below is a statement issued privately by InterVarsity yesterday, April 7th, in response to some who expressed their concern over IV's recent forum at Indiana University titled, "Jesus and the End of Homophobia." An individual who received this statement from IV kindly forwarded it to us and we post it here for the record (downloard a PDF). We will have a post responding to this statement in  the next day or so...

IV hierarchy approved William Campbell's leadership at IU/InterVarsity event promoting sodomy (part VI)...

(Tim: this is sixth in a series of posts [one, two, three, four, five, six, seven] responding to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's promotion of sodomy at an Indiana University campus forum they sponsored the evening of Monday, March 28, 2011. Pic on right.)

This past Monday, April 4, 2011, Jacob Mentzel and Lucas Weeks met with Mark Abdon, InterVarsity's staff worker for their undergraduate chapter here at Indiana University, to state their concern over InterVarsity's promotion of homosexuality at an InterVarsity forum the previous week, and to ask Mr. Abdon and InterVarsity to issue a public correction. As a courtesy to InterVarsity and its staff, prior to this meeting with Mr. Abdon InterVarsity's office of the president had been called and informed this meeting was going to occur later that day.

The following account was written the same day as the meeting and edited for accuracy yesterday (4/5) and today (4/6). It's posted here as one more part of the historical record. 

An Account of Our Meeting With Mark Abdon

by Jacob Mentzel and Lucas Weeks

On Monday, April 4th, we met with Mark Abdon, the undergraduate staff worker for InterVarsity at Indiana University, to discuss IV's recent forum on homosexuality. Mark had an undergraduate woman present with him who plans to go on staff with IV this coming year. It was obvious Mark knew what we wanted to talk about, so we asked him about how the decision was made to have former IV staffer, William Campbell, speak.

Mark told us the majority of the planning for the week's forums belonged to one of his undergraduate students and that the planning began in May of 2010. He made it clear IV's goal from the beginning was to live at peace with the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered Queer (LGBTQ) community in Bloomington. InterVarsity partnered with Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Equality (SAGE), a LGBTQ student advocacy group on campus, to sponsor the event. Mark did not mention the involvement of any other student groups. He noted InterVarsity campus groups were being expelled from universities around the country over the issue of homosexuality, and he was very concerned that the Bloomington chapter not face the same fate.

Because of these concerns, InterVarsity had adopted a policy that the event would be viewpoint neutral. It was decided there would be no "theological content" in the forum...

Another campus minister addresses IU/InterVarsity's promotion of sodomy (part V)...

(Tim: this is fifth in a series of posts [one, two, three, four, five, six, seven] responding to to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's promotion of sodomy at a Indiana University campus forum they sponsored the evening of Monday, March 28, 2011.)

ClearNote Campus Fellowship is, with IU/InterVarsity, an Evangelical campus ministry working on the campus of Indiana University. CNCF's pastor, Jacob Mentzel, has written a response to InterVarsity's promotion of homosexual sin, along the way making some good suggestions for how InterVarsity should correct the scandal.

IV gags the Bible at IU/InterVarsity event promoting sodomy (part IV)...

(Tim: this is fourth in a series of posts [one, two, three, four, five, six, seven] responding to to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's promotion of sodomy at a Indiana University campus forum they sponsored the evening of Monday, March 28, 2011.)

“The unique Divine inspiration, entire trustworthiness and authority of the Bible.”                         - InterVarsity’s Doctrinal Basis

Sola Scriptura is a cornerstone of Protestantism. From the beginning, Protestants have objected to the idea that we can know God and what He commands from any source other than His divinely revealed Word. As the Westminster Confession puts it: “The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture” I.10

Of the many things that were wrong with the event “Jesus and the end of Homophobia” hosted by Indiana University’s InterVarsity chapter, the most disturbing was the silencing of God’s Word. As a Protestant, Evangelical organization, InterVarsity is supposed to be committed to the Bible. It is supposed to be committed to the Bible because it is in the Bible that God speaks to us most clearly. If we have a question about Who God is and what He requires of us, the Bible is where Protestants turn for the answer.

But that is not what happened at last week’s event. Last week, InterVarsity sponsored an event where the Bible was not allowed into the discussion. God was not allowed to speak through His Word...

Gay IV speaker affects the posture of a victim at IU/InterVarsity event promoting sodomy (part III)...

(Tim: this is third in a series of posts [one, two, three, four, five, six, seven] responding to to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's promotion of sodomy at a Indiana University campus forum they sponsored the evening of Monday, March 28, 2011.)

Here is the doctoral student's account of the evening. (John Doe) is a member of ClearNote Church of Bloomington. Given the personal nature of the ending of his account, we've decided to reserve his name for non-internet distribution.

The account is accurate, there's a real man who is a gentleman, intelligent, and articulate who wrote it--a man who loves God, the Church of Jesus Christ, and souls tempted to sin. And it's probably helpful for the reader to know (John Doe) is an African American. He understood those souls needed to be warned and, from his love for them and Jesus Christ, he warned them. A second Indiana University student who is a Christian man attended the event with (John Doe) and is able to corroborate the facts given here.

* * *

This week, the Indiana University undergraduate and grad/faculty chapters of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship are sponsoring a series of forums entitled "Jesus and the end of..." The topics to be addressed are:

-Homophobia
-The Immigration War
-Religion
-Environmental Degradation
-Racism

On Monday night, IV presented a forum called "Jesus and the End of Homophobia." For this particular evening, IV partnered with a LGBTQ campus advocacy group called SAGE and Christian Student Fellowship. The speaker was William Campbell, a former InterVarsity staff worker (he left staff last October) at the University of Illinois—Chicago and current member of Chicago's LaSalle Street Church.

There were around seventy-five people in the room, most of them undergraduates. Many of them—as I would later find out—were there for real answers. For example, afterwards I met (Jane Doe), an undergrad studying the sciences. She told me she came because she saw the signs for a biblical discussion of what "Jesus really thought" about these issues. She's been thinking about becoming a Christian for the past several months and was looking for answers.

Campbell began the evening by giving his credentials and a brief overview of his topic. Then he began his talk by answering what he claimed was the "question that (is) on everyone's mind." With a mixture of pride and glee he announced "I'm gay! And yes, I am a Christian." He stated that he believes in Jesus...

Member of IV national leadership team silences Biblical voices at IU/InterVarsity event promoting sodomy (part II)...

(Tim: this is second in a series of posts [one, two, three, four, five, six, seven] responding to to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's promotion of sodomy at a Indiana University campus forum they sponsored the evening of Monday, March 28, 2011.)

Yesterday, Baylyblog had a post titled "Indiana Chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship promotes sodomy...." Accompanying that post was a link to an article from the Indiana Daily Student reporting on the IV event with an accompanying pic of IV's homosexual advocate and this caption under the pic:

William Campbell, the first speaker of the 'Jesus and the End of...' series, talked about the relationship between religion and the LBGTQ community Monday at Jordan Hall. In the lecture, Campbell drew upon his life experiences and as a homosexual Christian and from working as a staff member of the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship progam for college students in Chicago.

Here are the facts...

Remove IV from your church's missions budget: Indiana University chapter of InterVarsity promotes sodomy (part I)...

(Tim: this is first in a series of posts [one, two, three, four, five, six, seven] responding to to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's promotion of sodomy at a Indiana University campus forum they sponsored the evening of Monday, March 28, 2011.)

Back when David's and my father and mother, Joe and Mary Lou Bayly, were living on Mass. Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they were InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's (IV) first staff workers in New England, it would have sickened them to know their children would live to see the day when IV was advocating sodomy in the Name of Jesus Christ and His Word. That's what happened this week here at Indiana University.

IV brought in a longtime IV staff worker (he recently left IV staff) to speak against homophobia at a special attention-getting series of public meetings and that man promoted sodomy in the Name of Jesus Christ, His Church, His Word; and certainly in the name of that parachurch organization known in this country as IV. They're the sponsor of Urbana and they own the book marketer that does the best job of promoting the feminist heresy within the Evangelical world, InterVarsity Press.

Weird, isn't it? I mean, that an organization and its publishing arm would use the Name of Jesus to obliterate the meaning of sexuality in society, the home, and the Church concerning the relationship between the sexes would then go on to work to obliterate the meaning of sexuality also in the matter of how body parts go together? Check out the caption under the pic: the Indiana Daily Student got this one right.

Honestly, I thought IV would try to keep these two parts of Gods' Creation Order separate so the scandal of giving in on the second would not undercut the massive progress they've made in destroying the first. Do you think people might be on guard now that it's obvious its full-out sexual anarchy IV's committed to? Or do you think IV will be able to finesse the matter, claiming it's a one-off and purely accidental that in this particular chapter and speaker, feminism and sodomy are both promoted?

Yes, yes, of course. I know IV's leadership will claim that this is an anomaly...

Cleaning up Scripture's patriarchy, anti-Semitism, homophobia, speciesism...

I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book. (Revelation 22:18, 19)

(Tim, w/thanks to several) Back fifteen or so years ago when I read the first proofs of the New Living Translation and saw they'd changed adelphoi to "Christian friends" in the Epistles, I said to my brother-in-law (who was over the NLT at Tyndale House), "If you're willing to change the words of Scripture to appease the feminists, there's no change you won't make. You'll be the slaves of every last advocacy group. It starts with feminism--who wants to say "no" to women? Then it'll be the Jews; you'll have to clean up the Gospel of John so the Bible isn't open to the charge of anti-Semitism. It'll go on to homosexuality; you'll do everything you can to avoid Scripture being accused of homophobia. And you'll end up taking out repentance, too. Because honestly, repentance is the most obnoxious part of the Bible. Get rid of it and the Bible won't offend anyone!"

Later I found they'd already changed the Gospel of John so it would be more acceptable to the Jews...

Home schoolers split over Ken Ham and Peter Enns...

(Tim) When I was younger, I used to say the homeschooling movement was one of the most encouraging signs in America, today.

Government has no business engaging in religious instruction, yet public schools do almost nothing else. Through the training and certification of government school teachers, education's oligarchs rule public schools with an iron fist and they are determined to wrest the minds and hearts of children away from their fathers.

My parents graduated from Wheaton College back in the forties and one of their friends went to Columbia University to get his doctorate. He reported Columbia's faculty and grad students were committed to using government schools to foment rebellion in the home, telling of a party in celebration of John Dewey's ninetieth birthday at which faculty and grad students discussed the utility of government schools for undermining parents' efforts to pass their religious commitments on to their sons and daughters. Their plan was simple: they would train public school teachers to serve as front-line missionaries for the godless paganism sold to the parents of government schoolchildren as "separation of church and state."

This and other things led to my parents working with several couples to start a new Christian school outside Philadelphia called Delaware Country Christian School. Mary Lee and I followed in their footsteps, joining with a few couples here in Bloomington to start Lighhouse Christian Academy. Before we finish educating our children we'll have used Christian schools, a Christian college, a public university, a secular college, public schools, home school, and a home school co-op.

What education do we think is best?

From Dark Ages, Galileo speaks of literal interpretation of Scripture...

(Tim) It's central to our chronological conceit to reassure ourselves the Middle Ages were the Dark Ages crammed full of religious bloodshed, religious oppression of scientific progress, and the Plague. So we've all learned the lesson to keep church and state separate to the end that we won't have as many wars or as many people die in those wars.

Doing well are we? Paganism is the state religion almost everywhere and more people were sacrificed on the altars of paganism's idols (Communism, Zionism, Feminism, etc.) this past century than ever died from all the religious wars of the Medieval world combined.

But what of science? Our modern morality play smugly assures us the Enlightenment busted truth loose from the religious ignoramuses who had oppressed the great minds across many centuries. Finally we know it's not wrong to take the Pill, unborn babies aren't persons and can't feel the knives, the iPhone is cool, washing hands saves lives, you can make babies in the lab, you can end the war by blowing up the women and children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Earth isn't the center of the Universe.

"Poor Galileo! If only he'd lived today when every man finally knows religion has nothing to say to the state or the high priests of Science. The Bible's true when it talks about spiritual things--not political or sexual or scientific things. It's no history book or textbook on cosmology. It tells you how to feel--not what to think. Poor Galileo! He had it right and the church tried to shut him up. Stupid ignorant church. Stupid Dark Ages...

Wheaton's Rob Bell and Bilezikian's Bill Hybels; and a warning against idolatry...

(Tim: For days now, I've received more recommendations of this video clip than I can count. Thanks to all of you. In a little while I'll post more on it, but first this. NOTE: This post has been changed to correct my error in saying Pastor Bill Hybels went to Wheaton College. His mentor has been now-retired Wheaton Bible Prof. Gilbert Bilezikian, but that relationship began when Bilezikian was teaching at Trinity College--not Wheaton.)

On MSNBC, Martin Bashir does the nasty job the elders of Mars Hill Church apparently can't summon the courage or insight for. He takes Pastor Rob Bell by the scruff of the neck and peels his adverbs off his verbs and nouns long enough to expose the deceptions that make him so much money. Bell's nothing more than a peddler of emotive words and idolatrous images, but many are fooled. His toxins go down smoothly and Baylyblog's warned readers against this hireling time after time.

Pastor Bell's the product of Wheaton College. Take a look at the job Wheaton didn't. Or maybe did?

When I first entered the ministry, there was another gifted prophet prophesying against the parts of historic Christian faith he judged old and in the way. His name was Bill Hybels and he studied under Gilbert Bilezikian at Trinity College (now Trinity International University) just prior to Bilezikian moving to Wheaton's Bible Department. Christianity Today fawned over Pastor Hybels, too, and my church mailbox was filled with offers to "Rev. Timothy Bayly" promising if I sent my money to one of Pastor Hybels' corporate enterprises, some of his churchly success might rub off on my ministry. Then maybe I could afford a similar campus, staff, hairdo, glasses, and jet. Think of it--my own private jet! Then I could pick up and minister internationally. Maybe even galactically!

Rob's hell: the Times gets it about right...

(Tim, w/thanks to Mick) The Gray Lady reports on the controversy surrounding Rob Bell's forthcoming book attacking the Bible's teaching on Hell:

Judging from an advance copy, (Bell's) 200-page book is unlikely to assuage Mr. Bell’s critics. In an elliptical style, he throws out probing questions about traditional biblical interpretations, mixing real-life stories with scripture. Much of the book is a sometimes obscure discussion of the meaning of heaven and hell that tears away at the standard ideas.

Then we have this expert witness aiding and abetting the enemy:

Paul Johnson wearing his velvet slippers...

(Tim, w/thanks to Mark) So very many good points here from that excellent historian, Paul Johnson. The necessity of courage in politicians and a woman--Sarah Palin--held up as an example. He likes women in politics, but he is divorced and notes with approval the cut of Governor Palin's jib. Also a tip of the hat to President Bush for his courage--which I think exactly right. Summary judgments of leaders as "goodies" and "baddies" with Churchill and Napolean, respectively, heading the list. His dislike of intellectuals defining them as caring about ideas rather than people. That Reagan talked in sentences punctuated with one-liners while President Obama speaks in paragraphs (punctuated by nothing). That revolutions come in waves and the protests in the Mideast may be successful against the softies but certainly not the hardened, evil men. Much more wisdom here. Take the time.

"Scholar-priests trained to decipher the arcane tongues..."

(Tim) From a January 3, 2011 New Yorker article titled, "God's Librarians: the Vatican Library enters the twenty-first century," here's an explanation of Rome's many-century opposition to laymen reading the Bible that strikes me as pertinent to the scientific exegetes who write books and teach in reformed and evangelical seminaries and colleges, today:

(The Vatican Library) may possess some of the most ancient manuscripts of Scripture in existence, but for centuries the (Roman) Catholic church held that ordinary people shouldn't be able to read the Bible--that the Old and New Testaments themselves should be a kind of "secret history" for everyone but the scholar-priests trained to decipher the arcane tongues in which they were written.

The modern scientific exegete has done the medieval equivalent of denying Scripture to the layman by...

Steven Mosher and the latest Rwandan genocide: your tax dollars at work...

(Tim, w/thanks to Dan R.) Back in 1983, a young Stanford anthropologist was booted from China for blowing the whistle on China's forced abortion policy. Steven Mosher (not the Mosher of Climategate) had been in one of China's rural provinces doing Ph.D. research when he discovered China's government forced mothers to murder their unborn children.

Mosher publicized this great oppression and China's government responded by expelling him from the country. Standford University also responded by expelling Mosher from his Ph.D. program. The Chronicle of Higher Education did long articles on the scandal and, despite Stanford's attempt to defend their actions, those of us who read about the case as it developed learned a lesson about the limits of Academic freedom.

Shortly afterwards, Mosher published his best-selling expose of China's mass murders of the unborn, Broken Earth: The Rural Chinese; followed a few years later by Allan Bloom's best-selling expose of the Academy, The Closing of the American Mind.

For some years, now, Mosher has been doing excellent work at the Population Research Institute. Here's a recent example exposing the abuse of our U.S. tax dollars for the coercive sterilization of Rwandan men.