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Responses (3): It all depends on whose ox is gored...

(This is the third in a series responding to critics of my post pointing out Denny Burk is wrong and the Atlantic got it right in their reporting that Southern Baptists' Christian Standard Bible is gender-neutered.)

Honestly, you can't make this stuff up!

Seven years ago, back before the Holman Christian Standard Bible was neutered and "Holman" was taken out of its name, Denny Burk saw things more clearly. Follow this.

Back in 2010, Denny's preaching pastor at Kenwood Baptist Church in Louisville, Jim Hamilton, wrote a blog post explaining that he had been asked to contribute an article to a new dictionary and the publisher had sent him these rules his article was to conform to:

[Your] articles should avoid referring to “man” (likewise “mankind,” “men,” “he,” “his” and so on) generically. Language often regarded as patriarchal should be modified to avoid giving wrong impressions. Similarly, translations of biblical and other texts, when made by the contributor, should be no more gender specific than the originals are judged to be. Citations of standard translations of the Bible should not be altered, of course, but where contributors create their own translations of the biblical text, they may find strategies for effectively and responsibly avoiding gender-specific translations by consulting the New Revised Standard Version.

"Who pays the piper calls the tune," the old saying goes, so Jim Hamilton was going to avoid the male inclusive if he wanted his publisher to pay him. And if he was going to do any of his own Bible translating for the article, he needed to delete the Bible's male inclusives "adam" and "adelphoi." 1 

This got Pastor Hamilton thinking and he asked this question... 


Love letters written to oneself...

While driving to a funeral the other day, I listened to a talk show host make fun of this new trend of people marrying themselves. Self-love is the center of our empire of desire, and it's the cultural elite who lead us.

Take President Obama, for instance; as he leaves office, he takes this opportunity to send out across the nation a love song to himself. He's cut "our deficits by nearly two-thirds." His Affordable Care Act "prevented an estimated 87,000 deaths." His administration has been great. The country is great. The lives of all his subjects are great. His Own Eminence is great.

President-elect Trump tells us he's great, too. He says he'll make America great again, but the egotism of The Donald is so bodacious it's hard not to laugh. He's a buffoon and he knows it.

The one thing President Obama knows beyond the slightest doubt is that he himself is...


Blaise Pascal: fire...

He died in 1692 when he was 39 years young. Eight years before death, he left his brilliant career as a physicist and mathematician for the monastery where he defended the Jansenists against the Jesuits. He explained the change:

Reason has its own sphere, mathematics and the natural sciences… but the truths which it is really important for man to know, his nature and his supernatural destiny, these cannot be discovered by the philosopher or the scientist. I passed a long time in the study of the abstract sciences, but the scant communication which one can have in them (that is, the comparative fewness of the people with whom one shares these studies and with whom one can communicate) disgusted me. 

A brother in Christ sent me this...


Is there a Christian ghetto in our future...

This is a talk given by ruling elder Ken Patrick at a conference held this past Saturday at his church, Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA), in Ludlow, Kentucky. Titled "Maintaining a Christian Witness in an Increasingly Pagan Culture," the conference's other speakers were Trinity's pastor Chuck Hickey and an attorney from the Alliance Defending Freedom, Jeff Shafer. I attended the conference with my son, Joseph, and his fellow pastor Paul Belcher (both serving Christ Church in Cincinnati). Hope you find this talk as wise and helpful as Joseph, Paul, and I did.

* * *

Maintaining a Christian Witness in an Increasingly Pagan Culture

by Ken Patrick

Before we begin, let me talk about my qualifications to divine the future: I’m not a prophet; I don’t have a “word from the Lord” in the sense that I’m about to share any divinely sourced revelation with you; God didn’t appear to me in a dream.

What I’m going to share are simply observations on what may come to pass if current trends continue, and what I would do if I were in charge. If you find yourself disagreeing with what I say, hopefully you’ll stay until I’m finished. We’ll have a Q&A session where you can ask a question, and of course you can pigeon-hole me afterward.

So, to answer my own question right up front—is there a Christian ghetto in our future?—I think the most likely answer is “of course, yes” at least in an intellectual sense and perhaps in a real, physical way as well. I think it’s very possible that we’ll see both. Before I begin describing what these Christian “ghetto” scenarios might look like, let’s establish why many of us think...


Crossway's ESV now written in stone...

Shows are meant to be consumed in front of the curtain—not behind it. Behind are the things you don't want the audience to see or know because it would ruin the performance.

Bible translations are hammered out behind the curtain, and for good reason. It wouldn't give people confidence in the trustworthiness of the English Bible they read to watch the arguments and votes over how to translate this or that Hebrew or Greek word or phrase. Other parts of the Bible publishing business may be even more disconcerting, but let's focus here on the academics' work.

Although the scholars who produce Bible text for their Bible publisher are paid for that work, most of their income is from tuition paid by seminaries whose curricula require those students to spend years studying Hebrew and Greek. So these scholars have two priorities at odds with each other.

First, in order for their publishers' investment in their translating work to realize a profit, scholars must not stop assuring church people that every last word of the text of their version is precisely what God Himself inspired. Nothing has been changed...


The Christian Mind Conference in Spartanburg, SC...

This announcement from Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Spartanburg:

Evangelicalism has been gutted. The core has has been scooped out and little more than a thin shell remains. Churches are clubs, sermons are stand up, and the sheep are fed with the sawdust of entertainment. No wonder most Christians can’t define or defend basic doctrines of Scripture. Like the rest of the West, the church is amusing herself to death. 

The Reformed answer usually comes in the form of a toothless scholasticism. We find a way to do nothing that requires faith. Instead, we rest complacently within the technical confines of our confessions. In other words, we snore to Bach rather than Lady Gaga. 

This isn’t the faith of Calvin, Ryle, and Hodge. These men demonstrated that a mind possessed by the glories of biblical doctrines leads to a life of faith and holiness. Harry Blamires says, “The Christian mind is the prerequisite of Christian thinking, and Christian thinking is the prerequisite for Christian action.”

In just a few weeks, Dr. David Talcott, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at The King's College, will tackle how the church got here and what we can do to return to a Biblical way of thinking. We'd like to invite you to attend The Christian Mind conference at Trinity Presbytery Church in Spartanburg, SC on August 19 & 20. Then, in a Friday night concert, My Soul Among Lions will demonstrate the power the Psalms possess to shape the Christian mind. Both the conference and the concert are free. 

Here's a rundown of the sessions, followed by a link for more information and registration...


Carl Trueman's embarrassing silence...

[UPDATE: Tuesday morning, June 28, Liam Goligher texted me with his Calvin source. To quote, "Calvin to Cecil, 28th January 1559, ZL, vol. II, p34-36." Liam says this proves his point. Of course, it doesn't. Calvin held the very opposite of what Liam continues to claim and it seems apparent Liam hasn't read the sources I provided in my earlier post (including another letter he wrote to Cecil). 

Liam and Carl's halfway covenant of male authority limited to home and church ordination is not the doctrine of Scripture. Thus it was never taught by the Reformers—least of all John Calvin. Rather, Calvin said the government of women "ought to be counted among the judgments with which God visits us," that it "ought to be held as a judgment on man for his dereliction," and that it "is utterly at variance with the legitimate order of nature."]

Carl Trueman teaches church history at Philly's Westminster Seminary. In his WTS profile, among his credentials, Trueman includes:

 [I am] currently co-editing with Bruce Gordon the Oxford Handbook of Calvin and Calvinism...

Trueman claims he knows Calvin, so it's quite embarrassing that Trueman's blog published a howler of a misquotation of Calvin twenty-four days ago, now...


Phil Jensen talks about his mistakes...

Here's a good interview with my friend, Phil Jensen, of Sydney, Australia. Phil and his wife, Helen, spent a weekend with us in Bloomington twenty years ago, and we've often been helped by our conversations then as we have done the work of ministry in a university community.


Lessons from China: "the government must be the big brother..."

Beijing lawyer Zhang Kai was arrested August 25, 2015. Zhang had been giving legal counsel to churches in Wenzhou where pastors had been arrested for opposing a systematic campaign by government officials to relegate churches' crosses from the peaks of their roofs to interior courtyards and other places hidden from the public eye.

Here's the noteworthy quote from the World article:

Yang recalled officials explaining to him that the church and the government were competing for the role of “elder brother” in society: “There can only be one big brother. The government must be the big brother.”

This is precisely the issue in these United States, also. I have no desire to aid the White House campaign of Donald Trump by saying this, but the intolerant liberalism of the West is just as authoritarian as the intolerant Communism of China. The issues are different, but the dictatorial aspirations are the same. Washington's central committees will not stop... 


In the name of research...

Indiana University is seeking to legally block a state's law requiring that aborted children be buried or cremated, because it would prevent the public university from experimenting on aborted babies' organs and tissue.

Screen Shot 2016-05-31 at 2.49.55 PM.pngIndiana University prides itself on being a "major research institution." It's amazing what gets promoted in the name of "research." For decades, IU's pride and joy has been the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction which serves the campus as its breeding ground for the promotion of every imaginable form of sexual perversion and is housed in one of the University's most beautiful buildings on the old quad (see picture). We know the sort of "research" Kinsey did and we have no difficulty imagining the sort of "research" the Kinsey Institute carries on as his legacy. 

Now, this public university is suing its own state government that funds it, seeking freedom to continue experimenting on the corpses of murdered children. All in the blessed name of "research."


Denny Hastert, Evangelical, Wheaton College alum, husband, father...

Wheaton College's Dennis Hastert is the quintessential sodomite predator. Read this article, watch this video, and note all the details—every last one of them if you want to guard your children and the children of your church and school from being corrupted by such a man.

Evangelical.

Wheaton College alum.

Husband.

Father.

Note his easy access to young boys.

Note his taking these young men and boys on trips to the Caribbean.

This is precisely what the music director at one of the best-known PCA churches in the country did with the young men he taught and worked with in the church...


Sympathy for the Trumpster-divers...

The soulless creatures who have been the enforcers of the closing of the American mind for decades, now, all contracted the plague during their mandatory four-year service to the Academy we euphemistically refer to as "getting the college degree." If someone escapes the Academy with their thinking still free and their speaking truthful, the media can be trusted to finish the Academy's work.

When NPR needs someone to comment on the darkness of darkness above the Arctic Circle, it has to be a PhD. But when NPR needs someone to comment on the higher suicide rate among single men who are childless, it has to be a PhD then, too.

Even when NPR needs someone to explain why the Stupid Class is coming out in droves for Donald Trump, they'll get a PhD to do the explaining.

No kidding: even if NPR needs someone to explain...


Scientific journals and Divine attribution...

Open access scientific journal PLOS ONE made a big boo-boo. They published a paper that attributed the design of the human hand to the "Creator." Hell hath no fury to equal biologists finding the word 'Creator'. After receiving complaints, PLOS ONE's editors responded:

A number of readers have concerns about sentences in the article that make references to a ‘Creator’. The PLOS ONE editors apologize that this language was not addressed internally or by the Academic Editor during the evaluation of the manuscript. We are looking into the concerns raised about the article with priority and will take steps to correct the published record.

It's plagiarism when a scientist fails to attribute the design of the object of his study to God, but now we know why he never does so. Among Scientism's priesthood, giving proper attribution to God is the most serious heresy and will not pass unpunished. Someone should take them to court for their...


Wheaton and Calvin merely dispense status...

From an article by Justin Fox over at Bloomberg View:

[Academic] journals are getting more and more selective as time goes by. According to Glenn Ellison of MIT ...the average acceptance rate at the top general-interest economics journals has declined from 18 percent in 1980 to about 6 percent now.

This trend will be familiar to anyone who has looked at admission rates to top universities. Despite ever-rising tuition costs and the growth of much-cheaper online alternatives, the highest-status universities keep getting more selective. The best way to understand this, I think, is to see both academic journals and top universities less as purveyors of information or knowledge than as dispensers of status. Information may want to be free, but status will always be scarce.


The scandal of the Evangelical college...

Why bother continuing to warn souls against the betrayal of God by the profs and administrations of Evangelical colleges?

A quarter century ago, I bought a book that put some social science muscle behind what I had observed growing up in Wheaton and knowing Wheaton's profs, administrators, and their families firsthand. The book was Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation by University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter. Originally published in 1987, Hunter's work was based upon a careful survey of students at Evangelical colleges and seminaries, including Wheaton College, Gordon College, Westmont College, Seattle-Pacific University, Taylor University, Messiah College, Fuller Theological Seminary, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Wheaton Graduate School, and Westminster Theological Seminary.

University of Chicago Press summarized Hunters' work..


Calvin's Cornelius Plantinga says peace, peace...

For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge...  (Malachi 2:7)

After the post on Calvin College's billboard campaign lauding themselves for being dirt-renewers, one reader defended Calvin by providing links he believed would explain their dirt-keeping campaign. He commented:

Actually Calvin College teaches about renewing minds and renewing the earth. Judging by the sarcasm in your second paragraph it sounds like you started with a negative pre-disposition toward the college. (Did you really think the photo depicted a religious ritual?) The billboard you saw was one of six scattered around West Michigan, each with a different photo and message. You can get more context of the campaign here: http://www.calvin.edu/wonderon.... And you can get more context for Calvin's approach to education here:http://www.calvin.edu/about/wh.... I doubt I have swayed you in any way but at least your readers will have more context.

I read his links and responded by...


Calvin College's dirty marketing campaign...

Driving up to the Home Depot in Benton Harbor the other day, I passed a billboard. At 70 MPH, I had just enough time to read the come-on, take a look at the picture, and note the brand.

The come-on was "You were made to renew." The pic filling the center of the billboard was of three or four college-age men and women standing in a tight circle engaged in some sort of religious ritual. One of them was kneeling while the others peered into his devotional life sending affirming and supportive vibes cascading down upon him. The object of their devotion wasn't clear, but my quick glance left me with the impression that the man kneeling was holding dirt. I'm assuming the point of the billboard was to communicate to people driving northward on I-94 that man's chief end is to renew creation, starting with dirt.

The whole thing was an ad for Calvin College, so I'm guessing Calvin's mission statement has something in it about renewing creation. Or dirt.

If you go over to their website, you'll find this under "Calvin's Identity"...


President Obama prepares executive orders on guns...

Citizens of these United States, President Obama has to put up with you and he's not enjoying it. He's a Formula One race car chained to a line of tricycles. He's so brilliant and we're so very stupid. Slow. Plodding. Methodical.

None of those enlightened Europeans who worshipped him with rallies of 100,000 ever stooped to defending their freedom from government oppression by passing any law guaranteeing the citizens the right to bear arms. Against their government.

Stupid ignorant white trash. Don't we know our federal masters are the only ones to be trusted with guns? In fact, our federal masters are the only ones to be trusted with authority.

The sub-context for every educated man's distaste for guns is...


John, get your gun...

(NOTE: “Johnny” is a diminutive of “John.” After titling this piece, it occurred to me that using the title “Johnny get your gun” would be seen as disrespectful, so I’ve changed it to “John, get your gun.” I respect John Piper and apologize for a title that didn’t show proper respect for him.)

The Reformed church has been all atwitter over John Piper’s response to Jerry Falwell encouraging the students of his Baptist college to get a gun and help protect the campus against armed attack. John tells his readers that he talked with Jerry before writing him up. Then, he frames his response to Jerry this way: 

The issue is about the whole tenor and focus and demeanor and heart-attitude of the Christian life. Does it accord with the New Testament to encourage the attitude that says, “I have the power to kill you in my pocket, so don’t mess with me”? My answer is, No.

Of course, this is an uncharitable summary of President Falwell’s position since no one carrying a gun on Liberty’s campus is primarily concerned about himself. Christians don’t carry guns because they don’t want to be killed themselves, but because they want to be faithful to defend others—particularly women and children. This is our calling as Christian men. We defend the innocent and defenseless. It would have been more kind for John to phrase it this way: “I have the power to defend my sisters in Christ here in my holster, so don’t mess with them!”

(Henry Holsters are the superb work of a member of our church, Andrew Henry. Buy one.)

I haven’t read any of the responses to John’s anti-gun piece except Doug Wilson’s. Doug makes a good point when he begins his defense of John this way...


Justice Primer; is this really a scandal?

Canon Press has pulled their recent book, Justice Primer, from their list, issuing an apology for some few sentences which were unattributed to their original authors. Doug Wilsons' co-author, Randy Booth, has acknowledged he is the guilty party, and the father-rule haters are gleeful at their success in humiliating Doug.

Yet here in the calm, solely by the grace of God, there are a couple things that need to be said about pastors and books.

Most pastors, to a greater or lesser degree, use manuscripts in the pulpit, and therefore write from 2,500 to 10,000 words each week, just for their preaching. As we write those manuscripts, we have first read and read other men's preaching and teaching, so when it comes to writing our manuscript, we pull in direct quotes from others' work and face the decision whether to cite that work in our manuscript, itself; but also, whether to cite that work in our preaching on Lord's Day. It's similar to the work of a prof lecturing. If we had a way to record profs' lectures and run them through a search site that included all copyrighted works, it's long been my conviction that a large percentage of academics' lectures would be found to contain plagiarism. But is it really that simple?

We can all see the difference between preaching and lecturing, on the one hand, and blogging and writing articles and books, on the other hand...