BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Christian courage...

As the Obama administration works to advance the wickedness of homosexuality around the world, the gay battle against God and His Word progresses at home. 

Into this battle this week stepped a thoughtful and talented young woman who attends Christ the Word's youth group. Asked to provide her thoughts on homosexuality for a views page in her high school newspaper she wrote:

"Hearing about an individual choosing the way of homosexuality is disappointing. They have given in to the temptation to sin. Am I afraid of the person because of this choice? No. Do I hate the person because they have chosen to give in to a sin? Of course not. Christians are called to love others, even our enemies. I would not love a person any less for the reason of a sin they are committing. Fact is, we all sin and have struggles of our own, whether they are big or tiny, and it makes no difference to God. What makes the difference is overcoming the sin.

What if this kind of man had walked in on Jerry Sandusky...

Imagine, for a moment, a real man walking in on Jerry Sandusky in the Penn State shower room....

Imagine, for a moment, this kind of man walking in there, and how things might have ended...

(Other accounts reveal that the robber shot twice at the feet of the clerk before the man in this video took action.)

(DB)

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...

The 9/11 suicide mission of Lt. Heather Penney...

They didn't know it at the time, but Todd Beamer and his fellow stalwarts on Flight 93 saved the life of one woman intent on taking theirs--Kamikaze style. Ten years later, the Washington Post broke the story (in its "Lifestyle" section, of course):

Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney was on a runway at Andrews Air Force Base and ready to fly. She had her hand on the throttle of an F-16 and she had her orders: Bring down United Airlines Flight 93. The day’s fourth hijacked airliner seemed to be hurtling toward Washington. Penney, one of the first two combat pilots in the air that morning, was told to stop it.

The one thing she didn’t have as she roared into the crystalline sky was live ammunition. Or missiles. Or anything at all to throw at a hostile aircraft.

Except her own plane. So that was the plan.

When they ordered her to scramble, did anyone know whether or not Penney was pregnant? And if she was, did they ask her little baby if he was willing to die on his mother's suicide mission?

"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...

The deafening silence...

This piece, "The Deafening Silence" by Nathan Ed Schumacher, demonstrates that the silence of Emergent and R2K men in the face of the wickedness and oppression in our public square is of the same fabric. Fear of man is a principle that knows no boundaries. (TB)

You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. - Matthew 5:14

He that is not with me is against me. - Matthew 12:30

Qui non improbat, approbat [He who does not disapprove, approves]

Causae ecclesiae publicus causis aequiparantur [The cause of the church is a public cause]

-Maxims of Law

When Obama started his latest war in Libya, I wasn’t surprised – but I did start looking for some reaction from those in official senior positions of Christian leadership...

Three gay men...

To know, know, know them is to love... (TB)

2011 ClearNote Conference Audio is Available

If you missed the 2011 ClearNote Summer Conference this past weekend, you missed something special. You can still listen to the sermon recordings, though: just click here.

Indiana takes the lead toward stopping the massacre...

Here's a press release issued earlier today by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels announcing he'll sign Indiana HEA 1210 passed by the Indiana General Assembly earlier this week which will bring Indiana to the forefront of the national battle to end the horrific slaughter of unborn children called "abortion." Praise God for this very large step in the direction of justice and mercy restored...

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.

Nationalized health care and parental authority...

(Andrew Henry) The conflict over Joseph Maraachli throws into stark relief our modern age's attack on the authority of fathers and mothers.

The circumstances are simple and painful. Several years ago, Moe Maraachli and Sana Nader lost their daughter, Zina, to a degenerative neurological condition. Her respiratory function deteriorated so severely that she was placed on a ventilator. Rather than allowing her to die in the hospital, her parents decided to take her home. A simple tracheotomy allowed her to breathe without the aid of a ventilator and she lived for six more months at home with her family before passing away.

Fast forward several years to the birth of Joseph. He was considered to be at high risk for the same genetic condition and was closely monitored as he grew. At four months old, he began having seizures and his parents worst fears were confirmed...

Another manly hero for our time...

(Tim, w/thanks to many) Joel Northrup wrestles for Linn-Mar High School in Marion, Iowa. Wrestling's big in Iowa--something like football in Massilon, Ohio--and Joel had done very well, making it to state. But lightning struck.

Joel drew Cassy Herkelman as an opponent and decided to forfeit. He released this statement explaining his decision:

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Cassy and Megan (Black, the tournament’s other female entrant) and their accomplishments. However, wrestling is a combat sport and it can get violent at times. As a matter of conscience and my faith, I do not believe that it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner. It is unfortunate that I have been placed in a situation not seen in most of the high school sports in Iowa.

Is anyone surprised a young man who's retained some modicum of sexual modesty today is a homeschooler? Is anyone surprised the secularists consider this...

Giving thanks for true love...

(Tim) In the preface to his book, Alias Shakespeare, the late Joe Sobran wrote: "I would much rather be in the tradition of great American cranks like Thoreau, Ambrose Bierce, Lysander Spooner, and H. L. Mencken, than belong to the mass of scholars who, ever mindful of tenure, promotion, grants, and that last infirmity of ignoble minds, respectability, never deviate from scholarly consensus."

Everyone wants to have led a scientific revolution, but where's the man willing to lead one?

This Thanksgiving, I thank God for the nobility and fear of God that led Joe Sobran and Joe Bayly to deviate from the consensus and to oppose the regnant racism and sexism that deny the moral agency of blacks, women, and Jews...

Free speech in the Academy: John the Baptist, Allan Bloom, and George Marsden...

[John the Baptist was preaching:] “His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” So with many other exhortations he preached the gospel to the people.

But when Herod the tetrarch was reprimanded by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the wicked things which Herod had done, Herod also added this to them all: he locked John up in prison. (Luke 3:17-20)

(Tim, w/thanks to Kevin) Did you notice John the Baptist was "preaching the Gospel" when he rebuked Herod for "all the wicked things" done by his government? Too, did you notice why Reformed men today don't rebuke Herod?

"He locked John up in prison." Usually things are more simple than we make them--Reformed men, that is--and the avoidance of suffering and absence of faith is the key to understand our silence. Not doctrine. Never ever doctrine, but the absence of faith. Which reminds me...

About fifteen years ago, I drove an hour to take in a lecture given by the eminent historian, George Marsden, at a nearby liberal arts college. His presentation amounted to a very sophisticated wheedling and cajolling of fellow academics to give orthodox Christians a seat at the table, which plea had been the substance of a piece he'd recently published in First Things. We were coming off a bad decade or two during which political correctness had shut down rational discourse in public, private, and Christian higher educational institutions, alike, and Allan Bloom's jeremiad, The Closing of the American Mind, had accomplished little except to earn its author the scorn of the tenured and their administrative masters.

Following Marsden's lecture, one fellow asked him whether Buddhists should have a seat at the table, too?

"Yes--serious Buddhists that is," Marsden replied...

GAP attack: "I assume that you're a male, right?"

(Tim: Scott from Church of the Good Shepherd writes...) You know how I say eco-terrorists are on a jihad for Gaia? I say this because I am determined that we see this in the same way we see Islamic terrorism. This is a religious war.
 
Well, this pro-abortion terrorist is on a jihad for Molech.

* * *
Mark Harrington, Executive Director of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform Midwest and President of the Pro-Life Institute, writes: On November 2, 2010 the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) was vandalized by a pro-abortion student at Indiana University Purdue University at Fort Wayne (IPFW). In the early afternoon, a student jumped the fence surrounding the exhibit and began to tear down the signs until he was arrested. Additionally, one Center for Bio-Ethical Reform volunteer was assaulted...

Good Uns...

(Tim) Last night on our way out to Vienna, Virginia for Joe Sobran's wake, Brian and I (Charlie Dugdale is also with us) traded Sobran quotes for a while, writing down our favorites.

• A college education teaches one the correct views on racial minorities and provides the means to live as far away from them as possible.
• The U.S. Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government.
• Politician's lexicon: Greed is wanting to keep as much of your wealth as possible. Need is wanting someone else's wealth. Compassion is the means by which the transfer is arranged.
• Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, I'm a Republican.
• Quoting Chesterton: The modern and morbid habit of sacrificing the normal on the altar of the abnormal.
• The U.S. Constitution bears the same tenuous relationship to our government as the Book of Revelation does to the Unitarian Universalist Church.
• Quoting Charles Peguy: No one will ever know how many acts of cowardice have been committed out of the fear of seeming insufficiently progressive.

Clearing the squares for the guillotines...

(Tim) Steve Hutchens is a senior editor at Touchstone magazine (join me in subscribing), and I've long had a deep appreciation for his Biblical wisdom. For instance, each time one of our good readers makes a public demonstration of his cluelessness by declaring, "sex has nothing to do with worship," I remember this superb critique of evangelical worship that Hutchens published back in 2004. If you've never read it, you must. Trust me.

Anyhow, earlier this week I was privy to an e-mail exchange between Hutchens and a mutual friend. Steve's graciously allowed me to post his response here.

* ** *

There was a time when I would have scoffed at the idea that in the United States one could be hauled up before a judge for expressing a difference in philosophical or religious opinion. But the world is changing, and those who wish to make the expression of Christian opinions a hate crime, or otherwise punishable by law, are gaining the political power to do it...

What separation of church and state looks like...

(Tim, w/thanks to Bob P.; this happened a year ago, but I'd not heard of it) Reformed isolationists like to think the barbarians sacking the West will leave them alone if they keep church and state separate and don't go meddling in public morality. But it's a Faustian bargain. There never has been such a thing as separation of church and state, and never will be. Presently, Christians believe the push for pluralism and diversity and tolerance is sincere and will protect the people of God in our private judgments and ministries and worship, but it won't...

Molech lives and Bloomington's councilors feed him...

They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons, and shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with the blood. - Psalms 106:37,38

(Tim: At my request, Josh Congrove submitted this report. Please note that in a city of 65,000, only four Christians protested this use of our taxes. In your own city, dear reader, it's likely the funding goes through without anyone other than Roman Catholics showing up. Who cares about the babies?)

Nearly every year (see here, here, and here), Planned Parenthood makes a request to the city of Bloomington for public funding for their programs, and this year was no exception. This past Wednesday, the Bloomington City Council once again granted this request voting 8-1 (only Councilman Brad Wisler voted in the negative) to disburse public money to an organization that performs hundreds of abortions per year. Though the vote itself was a foregone conclusion, a few of us from Church of the Good Shepherd attended and spoke against the funding.

Each of us took a different approach...

Street preacher busted for hooliganism...

(Tim, w/thanks to David L.) If you find yourself wondering why Tim Keller would go through such machinations of equivocation at the Columbia University Q&A session when he was asked whether sodomy is a sin and whether a man could be condemned to Hell for it, here's an article telling of the arrest of street preacher Dale Mcalpine on charges of hooliganism for not equivocating on the subject.

One of our correspondents under this prior Keller post stated that he didn't believe Keller was afraid to speak the truth about sodomy, but only that he had forgotten that truth.

Uhhh...

Doesn't it seem like it would be mighty difficult to forget one of God's most basic moral laws when the whole world has that specific law in its sights and is blazing away? Tim Keller's simply forgotten what the Word of God says about sodomy? Really?

Today, the world has judged that anyone condemning sodomy and sodomites has committed a heinous crime against humanity for which he will receive his reward. It may be arrest. It may only be a civil suit. It may be the loss of friendships. It may be a rejection for tenure...

Veritas Forum's Tim Keller on sodomy: "It's not good for human flourishing"...

(Tim) My parents gave most of their lives to campus ministry. The first IVCF staffers in New England back in the forties, they lived in Cambridge and were responsible for all of New England. I grew up going to Bear Trap Ranch and Cedar Campus--IV's camps for student leadership training--and listening to Dad teach the Word of God.

And now, for most of our ministry Mary Lee and I have served in college and university contexts. We started in Madison, Wisconsin; moved to Boulder, Colorado; then on to Boston; and now, for the past eighteen years, here in Bloomington, Indiana, where half the population of 70,000 or so is connected to Indiana University. Our church is filled with IU undergrad and graduate students, as well as profs and other IU employees.

So it's not from inexperience concerning the spiritual needs of the Academy that I say I've never been much of a fan of Veritas Forum. Well-intentioned, yes; but largely ineffective. Watching it over the years, including here in Bloomington, I'd say the main effect it has is allowing evangelical Christians who have been silent and compromised academics on their own campus to thump their chests for a week while hired guns come in and clean up the town. But with one exception--Walter Bradley, if you're curious--the hired guns seem pretty tame when it comes to their ability and willingness to pull the trigger. So, unlike the Apostle Paul's itinerant ministry, nothing much gets cleaned up.

Few places are as evil and so desperately need a clear and bold witness to sin, righteousness, and judgment--and then, to the wisdom and glory of the Cross of Jesus Christ--than the Academy...

Who cares about the sheep...

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. - Acts 20:28

(Tim) I was discussing leadership with a friend who'd served a number of years in the Navy and Marines. A Viet Nam vet, he was wounded twice during the Tet Offensive's Battle of Hwa.

My friend said the military teaches men to make decisions, and that the worst thing an officer can do is to avoid making a decision. He illustrated the principle with a story about a patrol he'd been on where the men came under fire. Instead of maintaining command and assuring his soldiers' safety, the officer dove for cover.

From the way my friend told the story and the silence at the story's end, I knew this was about as bad a thing as an officer could do. "So what happened to the guy?" I asked...

Tolerance's steel shackles and the gagging of Wheaton's Christian witness...

“Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way" (Luke 6:26)

"Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name" (Matthew 24:9).

Taking the measure of how Wheaton's Department of Education will implement their Teacher Education Program Conceptual Framework and what kind of Christian witness it would allow Wheaton students to have and still be certified requires seeing the increasingly narrow constraints applied through these three "goals/outcomes related to social justice" spelled out on page four.

The first outcome required of the students is that they "work effectively with all children and their families regardless of race, creed, religion, national origin, sexual preference, disabling condition, or capabilities." As Professor Rasmusen said under an earlier post, as long as "work effectively" is fairly defined and doesn't exclude the diversity of orthodox Christian thought and speech related, for instance, to sodomy and sodomites, we have no problem.

But anyone half alive in these United States today knows how "work effectively" is likely to be defined. As I said to George Marsden years ago when he was busy arguing that Christians should also have a place at the table (of the modern university), if they give us our place and we open our mouths about the slaughter of the unborn children all around us; or if we utter a single word about Adam being created first, and then Eve; we'll be removed. In a heartbeat, our place will vanish. Poof! It's gone.

So we move on to the second "goal/outcome related to social justice" required of students. They are "to ensure that diversity is respected and that candidates have the opportunity to work in diverse environments and with diverse colleagues and teachers." Now we begin to see how "work effectively" is defined by Wheaton's profs as they evaluate their students. The above diversities must be "respected." Of course we respect different races and national origins and disabling conditions and capabilities. No problem.

But would a student be "respecting" the diversity of sodomy or Islam if he presented a loving and graceful and merciful and cogent and truthful witness against it? If he taught the true history of expansion by Jihad...

Worship wars, part I: Sure, I must fight if I would reign...

(Tim: This from our Worship Director, Jody Killingsworth, over on ClearNote Blog)

Lo, by the sons of hell he dies;

But as he hangs ‘twixt earth and skies,
He gives their prince a fatal blow,
And triumphs o’er the powers below.

                    ~ Isaac Watts

The most frequent metaphor Scripture uses to describe daily Christian life is the metaphor of war... (read more)

Greater love hath no man than this...

(Jesus said) "I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep" (John 10:11).

(Tim, w/thanks to Todd W.) The NYTimes' David Brooks sets out to explain how a nation of five million won as many gold medals as our nation of three-hundred million at the Winter Olympics this year. So he tells a brief version of the story of Jan Baalsrud, a Norwegian instrument maker who tried to get back into Norway to help the Norwegian resistance movement during the Second World War.

The account reminds me of the Apostle Paul. What courage and tenacity in the face of the most terrible danger and suffering these hardened men demonstrated!

Which prompts me to ask when it was, precisely, that the sign of godliness in a pastor changed...

Calvin on John the Baptist condemning "all the wicked things" the civil magistrate has done...

(Tim) Here's Calvin's matter-of-fact statement commending the two-kingdom faithfulness of this servant of God in his rebuke of, not only the immorality, but also "all the wicked things" done by his civil magistrate. Clearly Calvin had no idea how careless he was being with the proper distinctions that must be made between what should never be said by God's "ministers of the truth" to secular authorities.

Some may want to go into long explanations of the precise limits and boundaries of a minister's authority and of distinctions that must be made between the calling of a prophet and a minister of the Word and Sacrament. But note Calvin's declaration that "all pious teachers ought to possess" this same moral courage in the face of the "all the wicked things" done by the civil magistrate.

Note also his statement that the "ministers of the truth" who are accepted by the "great and powerful" do not honestly serve God...

Corrie ten Boom, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Oskar Schindler, and Leah Winandy...

(Tim, w/thanks to Alan) Now that it's safe, movies are made and books written about the men and women who feared God and took action to save the lives of Jews during the Third Reich. Corrie ten Boom and Dietrich Bonhoeffer are the best-known in evangelical circles. Oskar Schindler was the inspiration behind Steven Spielberg's Academy Awards Best Picture, Schindler's List. Too, there's the relentless (and unjustified) attack on Pope Pius XII for his purported failure to defend the Jews.

But back when Hitler was still in power and the Jews were still being slaughtered, who then was making movies about Corrie ten Boom, Oskar Schindler, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

No one. Our Lord made it clear prophets don't get garlands until they're dead and buried.

And while, elsewhere on this blog, the debate rages over whether any pastoral prayer should include a petition that God our Father would cause our civil magistrates to repent of their hatred of justice and mercy and bring an end to the slaughter of untold millions of unborn babies they have presided over, there are a few heroes at work in our cities today...

The utility of the spirituality of the church yesterday and today...

(Tim) In a comment under the post, "Two-kingdom's tendentious misuse of the Establishment Clause," Ken Patrick wrote: "Christianity is a threat to the existing political order because it is a call to a new way of living." Here are some thoughts I've had while watching that discussion...

Excellent comments, Ken, although I'd like to tweak your statement slightly: "Christianity is a threat to the existing religious (or cultic) order because it’s a call to turn from the our worship of the cult of the state to worship the One True Living God. Mind you: He has appointed a day when He will judge all men..."

In other words, let's acknowledge not only that the US Constitution does not establish separation of church and state, but also that there's never been a politas in history that's had separation of church and state. And those who reassure themselves they live in such a politas today here in these United States are deluded.

Among a host of things proving their error is the river of Molech’s blood we swim in each day. Millions of slaughtered children—a billion worldwide, now—proving precisely which god our state worships. His name is Molech, and we remain at ease in Wheaton and Escondido and St. Louis and Manhattan.

It’s weird...

Texas State Board of Education adjudicates the establishment of the state religion...

"Don McLeroy, a small, vigorous man with a shiny pate and bristling mustache, proposed amendment after amendment on social issues to the document that teams of professional educators had drawn up over 12 months, in what would have to be described as a single-handed display of archconservative political strong-arming." -read more of the New York Times piece, "How Christian Were the Founders?"

(Tim) How dare that small vigorous man whoop up on those teams of professional educators who had worked so long and hard to produce a document that did such an excellent job of promoting the established state religion. Educators shouldn't have to be subjected to such benighted individuals.

Our Reich of indifference...

(Tim) This piece ran in Eternity magazine back in June of 1984, in Dad's (Joe Bayly's) monthly column, "Out of My Mind." The sin of indifference Dad was condemning is the sin of reformed pastors and elders today. Some of us hide behind missional concerns and talk of contextualization; others behind talk of the spirituality of the Church; others two kingdom theology; others redemptive historical preaching; and there are those who make no effort at all to hide it. If nothing else, readers may understand David and I haven't fallen far from the tree. Dad was ordained to the Gospel ministry.

I should add that, when he wrote this, Dad had just served several years as Executive Director of Christian Medical Society, the national professional association of physicians with evangelical doctrinal commitments.

* * *

Our Reich of Indifference

"We castigate the apathy of Christians in Nazi Germany-and ignore our own silence on today's holocaust of abortion..."

There is a sin of indifference. It is the sin that binds evangelicals as the Lilliputians bound Gulliver, preventing us from exercising the influence that God has given us in these years-years that are destined to come to an end and may never be repeated.

To me, the outstanding example of indifference is in our reaction to the great sin of abortion that is the shame of our nation...

A primer on two-kingdom, spirituality of the church, redemptive-historical evasions...

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires.... (2 Timothy 4:3).

(Tim) Darryl Hart is Director of Partnered Projects at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) and an adjunct faculty member at Westminster Seminary in California (WSC). He wrote a helpful bio of J. Gresham Machen titled Defending the Faith. He's also done a short history of the OPC titled Fighting the Good Fight which made me want to go back to my roots there in that denomination--that is, until I remembered what the OPC actually was like. As in somnolent by way of its distinctives, one of which is variously referred to here and other places as R2K (radical two kingdom), 2K (two kingdom), or "the spirituality of the Church."

Concerning the two books above, buy and read them, carefully. If you trace your spiritual or cultural lineage back to the popular evangelicalism of the twentieth century as many of Dr. Hart's admirers do, you need to know the history of men like J. Oliver Buswell, J. Gresham Machen, and the denomination Machen founded called the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. You need to know how real dispensationalism with its always-attendant moralism dogged fundamentalism and the early evangelicals; but also Machen's courageous stand against it. This history will go a long way toward explaining why many otherwise good reformed men today seem careless about cruelty and injustice, and indifferent to the sodomitic bondage and slaughtered babies at the headwaters of the river of blood we drive through each day in this Babylon that is our home.

Dr. Hart does a superb job documenting Machen's opposition to the binding together of the Church and the feminine anti-alcohol and tobacco crusade that, by way of Fundamentalism, sought to extend its reach into conservative presbyterianism. He said "no," and our R2K brothers think of themselves as the true keepers of Machen's flame. Sadly, though, what started out as opposition to teetotalers, prohibitionists, and other moralistic crusaders has morphed into what appears to be a lack of compassion and love for our neighbors and opposition to the Moral Law itself in our work of obedience to the Great Commission...

A Christmas gift...

(Tim) This past week, I heard about a young man who, about two weeks ago, dared to give a speech that was pertinent to the lives of those listening in his public school classroom. He spoke against the slaughter of the little ones in their mothers' wombs in his speech class and got a 'D' for his good and brave efforts. I wrote his Dad and asked for a short account to encourage all of us to visit the poor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and break the jaw of the wicked, snatching his victims from his mouth to safety.

His father...

Loveless, bland, and left behind...

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...

The martyrdom of intellectuals...

(Tim, w/thanks to Kamilla) For Baylyblog readers, this from Touchstone's Tony Esolen is well worth the five minutes it will take. Praise God for men and women who love God's Word and Truth, leading us back to the innocence and joy of the Garden!

Fatherhood, the dread of responsibility, and childbearing...

(Tim, w/thanks to Bob and Brian) At church the other day, I was talking with Bob Sands, a young father of ten or twenty (I've lost track), and he mentioned another man in our congregation, Brian Bailey, had sent him a link to a book on Google Book that he'd found very helpful titled The Dread of Responsibility by Emile Faguet.

"The dread of responsibility," I thought, "that's the perfect summary of leaders today--teachers, principals, professors, judges, senators, presidents, and of course, pastors, elders, deacons, fathers, and husbands. All of us have a dread of responsibility."

Bob told me the book emphasized the courage fatherhood required and I was reminded of a quote I've used at times that says something like, "The father of a family is the world's first and greatest adventurer."

So today, I went and read the part of the book Brian had recommended...

Marxists killed their hundred million, feminists their billion...

Lots of Berliners talked of Ronald Reagan’s speech, delivered in Berlin, almost two years earlier, when he demanded:”Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down this Wall!” Was President Reagan’s dramatic call about to happen? Some Berliners worried the soldiers would take charge. No one knew.

Ironically, the worst source of information was the media, perhaps because in 1987 so many had underestimated the importance of Reagan’s speech. The New York Times declared that Reagan had “lost the air of authority” and suggested that Reagan’s Berlin Wall speech was “surreal” and indicated that the “presidency had ceased to function.” The Washington Post, and U.S. News & World Report has also been highly critical.

But, in November 1989, Berliners remembered the power of a U.S. president calling for the hateful wall to be torn down. Each person to whom I spoke, seemed to know someone, a family member or friend, who had been trapped on the other side of the wall. Hope was alive, powerful and focused on tearing down the Wall. -"I Helped Tear Down the Wall"

(Tim) Grant Olson, the producer of the video at the bottom of this post, was an elder at our church some years back. Since then, he's gone on to serve in Campus Crusade's work in Eastern Europe. Although I'm in strong disagreement with Crusade's relegation of the Church to the sideline of evangelism and discipleship, since the fall of communism twenty years ago, it's been a great joy to see how Crusade has poured men into Eastern Europe where they've boldly proclaimed Jesus Christ.

There was some glamor in the early years, but that glamor has long since departed. The callouses Marxism left on men's hearts are real. Also, the systemic poverty and corruption that is Communism's legacy remains intractable in many of the Eastern European countries. The glory days of the first opening of Eastern Europe are long gone and what's left for those giving themselves to the people of countries such as Albania, Hungary, and Romania is very tough slogging.

So God bless Campus Crusade and her men and women who have loved Eastern Europeans with the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

All this on the occasion of our arrival, today, at the Twentieth Anniversary of the act of God pulling down the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. Men of towering courage and strength like Lech Walesa, John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn were putty in God's hands to bring down the bloodiest ideology and greatest oppression man had known up until that time. (It's since been dwarfed by feminism's victims, one billion and counting.)

In my office is a picture Dad had been given by the artist who drew it. He had the drawing on the wall of his study and loved it...

"In pain you will bring forth children..."

To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children (Genesis 3:16a)

(Tim) One mother who recently gave birth to her first child wrote this meditation on the pain of childbirth, woman's curse from our Heavenly Father. Thank God for this mother and every other woman who is not ashamed of her sex, but gives herself to it as an act of faith and courage. How I love and praise God for these women that surround us as we do the work of husbandry in the home, church, and public square! "The woman is the glory of man."

* * *

Thank you ______ for this testimony of motherhood... I had similar thoughts of the "pain in childbirth" part of the curse until this past year.

Even after I realized that the whole pregnancy was included in "childbirth," I think I still thought that once I got through labor and delivery, I would be done with the pain of childbearing. Almost every day, I realize how wrong that is, but I started to learn that lesson in my first days after delivery...

An interview with Elisabeth Elliot...

(Tim) During four years in the late nineties and early two-thousands while pastoring Church of the Good Shepherd, I also led the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood as its Executive Director. My brother, David, joined me in that work and was a great help, designing our first web site and providing invaluable counsel while also serving in the pastorate.

Part of my work was editing CBMW's journal. Periodically, we ran interviews--one being with my hero, Elisabeth Elliot. Naturally, I did the interview myself.

Growing up, the Bayly family had a long personal association with the Howards of Philadelphia--particularly Dave Howard and his sister, Elisabeth Elliot. A couple months ago, Elisabeth's husband, Lars, wrote me telling of a recent trip he and Elisabeth had taken to visit family down in South America. For those of you who know and love them, Lars and Elisabeth are doing well.

So then, here's the interview from CBMW's Journal, Volume 5, No. 1.

* * *

PLAIN AND SIMPLE: AN INTERVIEW WITH ELISABETH ELLIOT

JBMW: We are delighted to be able to speak with you. Why do you think you've been a lightning rod in the evangelical world on this particular issue?

EE: I didn't know I was! I have just proceeded the way I've tried all my life to proceed-by studying what the Bible says and living by it. If I'm asked to talk about it, of course I have a responsibility to talk about it. It is from this that I have learned that I'm not wanted in many circles...

Five hundred years ago, he said...

(Tim) "...nobody is fit to preach the Gospel in a hostile world, unless his mind has been prepared for suffering. Therefore if we are to prove ourselves faithful ministers of Christ, not only must we ask Him for the spirit of knowledge and of wisdom, but also for the spirit of steadfastness and of courage, so that we may never be broken by desperate suffering, for this is the lot of the godly." - John Calvin, Acts, Vol. 1 (Torrance) pp. 266--267.

During the bloodshed, what did Rwanda's pastors do?

(Tim) Below is an excerpt from Philip Gourevitch's history of the Rwandan genocide, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families. This book should be read by every believer committed to opposing the slaughter of the feeble, elderly, newborn, and unborn upon which our civil compact has been built for decades, now.

A few years ago, a godly Rwandan was preaching to us here at Church of the Good Shepherd and he took the occasion to rebuke us, saying we Americans had no authority to condemn Rwanda's genocide when we were slaughtering 1.3 million children in our own nation, year after year, with no sign of the bloodshed ending.

Truth is, many, many denominations, churches, elders, and pastors have endorsed the slaughter of the unborn here in these United States. And even among those pastors who claim to be pro-life, precious few are anti-abortion. Like the Rwandan priests and pastors, many of us...

Register now for ClearNote's "Standing in the Gap" conference...

(Tim) We're looking forward to hosting a number of you for the first annual ClearNote Fellowship conference, Standing in the Gap, to be held here in Bloomington two weeks from now, July 10-12. If you haven't done it yet, please register now and we'll look forward to meeting you and your children.

Online registration is available. And here's a PDF of the conference brochure for you to download. Message titles include, Who Will Stand?; Fight or Flight--True or False Contextualization; Cheap Grace; and Worship Wars.

We plan a refreshing time of fellowship, teaching, food, and worship. The whole family is welcome--we'll be child-friendly but we'll also provide childcare.

I hope you'll register now and join with us for the weekend.

If you'd like more information, please e-mail (Mrs.) Ali Trout at churchoffice at shepherdchurch dot com. Or, give her a call, Tuesday through Friday, at (812) 825-2684.

John Piper explaining his invitation to Doug Wilson...

(Tim) When John invited Doug Wilson to speak at one of his big conferences, I sent him an e-mail commending him for his courage. Like those who paid dearly for inviting Dad to speak after he publicly rebuked Bill Gothard in the pages of Eternity, John will pay for escorting Doug into the Reformed big top.

But like Doug, John has some courage and those who specialize in anti-Wilson bile should take note that, among men who are reformed pastors of national reputation, John stands with Doug. Why?

John released this video explaining his invitation. Forget the first three minutes or so. Just listen to the last few seconds and you'll get the straight dope. (And by the way, I do wish men would release a transcript of such video talks so we weren't forced to spend the time watching video to get their message.)

Preparing for persecution: two concrete steps to take...

(Tim, w/thanks to James) Please listen to Wake Up Sleeper (the title cut) and Where Are the Persecuted? as you read this post.

At Church of the Good Shepherd, we work to raise our children and disciple new believers in expectation of growing persecution. Calvin says times of peace are not to be used getting fat, but to prepare for the next battle already on the horizon and closing on us quickly.

This is our goal at CGS and it informs our preaching, Bible study, childrearing, reading, and worship. It's these last two things I want to focus on in this post--worship and reading. First then, worship; and within worship, the themes and instrumentation of our music.

STEP NUMBER ONE: MUSIC

In our age of feminized discourse and cheap grace, Church of the Good Shepherd makes a conscious effort to restore the biblical themes of persecution, conflict, suffering, Satan, death, the coming Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.

Have you noticed these themes are absent from reformed worship today? And beyond absent, they're anathema to woman deacon/Emergelical churches where everyone has an iPhone, evangelism happens in the art gallery, sermons are eloquent discourses on the many faces of narcissism, and women administer the Lord's Supper.

Living in such a decadent age, we're working to restore them--particularly to the music of our worship.

Next to one of the world's largest music schools, Church of the Good Shepherd is a congregation filled with musicians and composers, most of them classical...

Gratitude for the faithful men who are fighting against the egalitarian feminist attack upon God's Fatherhood...

(Tim--Partly in an effort to take into account some of the comments, I've changed this post substantially this Saturday evening. If you'd read it before, you might want to read it again.)

For years it's been clear the egalitarian feminist attack upon reformed ecclesiastical communions has not been content to limit itself to the Christian Reformed and Evangelical Presbyterian Churches, but is increasingly focused on our own Presbyterian Church in America. This became obvious to me while serving on our General Assembly's Ad Interim Study Committee on Women in the Military. The arguments I heard then concerning the meaning and purpose of sexuality were absolutely abysmal--particularly those emanating from sophisticated teaching elders who saw themselves as God's gift to the PCA provided to aid their country bumpkin colleagues at rural, small town, and southern churches in learning how to contextualize the Gospel within this postmodern world.

As I listened to them carefully, it was evident the sound bites they employed in denying the truth or application of God's order of sexuality everywhere but inside the elders meeting and pulpit Sunday morning perfectly reflected arguments I'd heard in prior years at presbytery and general assembly levels in the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA). You know: slavery, cultural context, wife abuse, barefoot and pregnant, you can't turn back the clock, people will laugh at us--that sort of thing.

Then, of course the conservatives had their own reasons for not standing in the gap, opposing the feminist heresy. There was that old battle axe of Southern Presbyterianism, the spirituality of the Church, that conveniently kept many from feeling any responsibility to oppose our civil magistrate sending off our mothers and sisters and daughters to die for us on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. And there was also the federal vision to deal with--that issue alone took so much time and energy there was little zeal left for contending for God's order of sexuality.

Fear of judgement is God's gift to pastors and elders...

(Tim) Church of the Good Shepherd hosted Ohio Valley Presbytery for our Spring Stated Meeting a week or so ago. Here are my sermon notes...

An excellent read: Tinker v. Des Moines School District...

(Tim) The joys of serving Church of the Good Shepherd are all around me, day by day, and my heart is constantly thankful to God for this privilege. Just one of my recent joys was reading the following statement written by several of our high school students a week and a half ago in anticipation of being ready to respond to the pro homosexual immorality Day of Silence held at our two public high schools each year on April 17th (last Friday):

Silence Can’t Hide the Truth

Although people attempt to write off sodomy as merely a lifestyle choice, it is in fact morally wrong. Arguments to the contrary could go on forever, but the conscience and the Word of God give indisputable evidence that it is sin.

Despite this fact, many believe that they can continue in this sin without any form of judgment, and try in every way to gain equal approval from others. However, even if all voices were to cease speaking out against homosexuality, in the coming judgment no one will be able to escape or to justify himself.

While this may seem cruel and heartless, as there are none who are perfect, God has given us a way to escape from our sin and be saved from the coming judgment...

Not "the," but "these" United States...

(Tim) From my incomparable tutor in all things political for over thirty years, Joe Sobran, I learned of the existence of the Tenth Amendment, but also of its impotence in the hands of the crooks who have served on the U.S. Supreme Court in recent decades. Also from Sobran, I picked up the habit of never, ever, ever referring to "the United States," but always and only "these United States."

The past few years, Church of the Good Shepherd has had an influx of Texans who move here for a few years to complete their doctorates at IU. Most of them plan to return to the motherland so, half-seriously, I've told them of my wish that Texas would secede so I could move there...

Easter joys: confession of sin, and the day of silence...

...but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

(Tim) Here in Bloomington, there were two sweet endings to a wonderful week among the People of God celebrating Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter. Let me share them with you for the building up of your faith.

First, following the service, yesterday, a young man came up to me with a smile on his face. Accompanied by a friend, he said he had a sin to confess and told me of his quite-serious dishonesty in certain academic work. Today he will tell the authorities about his sin--confess it to them--and it could well mean the end of his plans for the future. He was ashamed, but joyful. Christ died for that sin and he is forgiven. Christ rose from the grave and because He lives, we also shall live.

What a precious gift this confession of sin is. Everywhere it goes, it lays waste the pride of man and glorifies Jesus Christ. We are less and He is more. It was the perfect end to Holy Week!

But wait, there's more...

Later on in the afternoon, as the sanctuary was being cleaned up after having been packed for several hours with people feasting on ham, potatoes, and green beans, four young men who attend our public high schools asked for advice concerning how they should respond to the Day of Silence that will be taking over their schools' classrooms this coming Friday.

But first, a word of explanation.

The Day of Silence held April 19th each year is a day of student advocacy of sodomy and other sexual perversions. But of course, those who love sexual perversion never admit they love sexual perversion, nor do they demand that others love it. That would be gauche...

Snoring in the gap...

(Tim) Back when Dad (Joe Bayly) was serving as Executive Director of Christian Medical Society (now Christian Medical and Dental Society), he sent me a copy of the following editorial from the September, 1970 issue of California Medicine, the journal of the California Medical Association. I've referred to this editorial in prior posts, but never run the editorial itself.

It might help readers understand David's and my commitment to push Christian medical professionals hard in matters of life and death if they knew that, in my files, I have copies of a series of letters between C. Everett Koop and Dad immediately following Dad's assumption of the leadership of CMS.

In the first letter, Dad tells Koop that he intends to lead CMS to adopt an anti-abortion position as official policy. On that basis, then, Dad appeals to Koop to restore his membership in CMA.

Prior to then (1979-80), CMS had refused to take a stand against abortion and Koop had resigned in protest...

Trust me, bookmark MoralAccountability.com...

(Tim) No links to Rob Bell's schlock, the deep and sensitive thoughts of Brian McLaren, the Christian Medical and Dental Society, Talbot Seminary's groundbreaking ethics and public policy think tank, faculty members at Wheaton College, or CTi journalists on this site. Ron Sider and Jim Wallis haven't made an appearance just yet--nor their "me too" buddy, Al Gore. There's been no sighting of Niel Nielson or Bryan Chapell--nor any of their professors, for that matter. In fact, no sign of anyone in the Presbyterian Church in America...