BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Joel Osteen's prophetic witness against sodomy: "Not knocking anyone else" but "I like to shoot for God's best..."

(Tim) David and I are reticent to criticize Joel and Victoria Osteen lest, defending themselves against the charge that all men speak well of them, they point to us, exclaiming, "Not the Bayly Brothers; they don't!"

Nevertheless, we simply must comment on this forwarded to us by many of you. Here are Co-Pastors Osteen on Larry King Live. Asked to rate our new president's performance and to assign him a religion--pick one of three:

Larry King: Since you were last on, we have sworn in our first African-American president. What are your impressions [of Barack Obama]?

Joel Osteen: Well, I think he's doing a great job. I'm impressed with his skill, his calmness, his just strength...

King: And you, Victoria?

A meditation for the middle of Holy Week...

(Tim) Too many hop, skip, and jump through the Christian year, from Palm Sunday to Easter to the Fourth of July to Christmas. Even among those who are more observant, though, almost none of us include the cleansing of the Temple, the cursing of the fig tree, and the condemnation of the elders, stated clerks, and pastors in our Holy Week festivities.

So, dear souls, why did the religious leaders hate Him so? Why did they spend a night suborning perjury? Why did they hound Him to death? And what occupied Jesus' time between the cries of "Hosanna to Son of David" and these, a few days later: "His blood be upon us and upon our children! Crucify him!"?

Earlier today, a comment was posted elsewhere on this blog that included this statement:

I simply think we need to be careful before generalizing a particular trait to an entire class of people. Categories are useful for us humans, but I don't think God sees us in those terms...

To which I responded with a comment that, by private e-mail, a reader requested I post here on the front page. So here it is, my own meditation for the middle of Holy Week:

Dear (Reader),

There's truth in what you write, but the minority report is stunning...

He was nice and funny and normal...

(Tim: from David Wegener) Regular readers will recognize the author of this post, David Wegener, as one of David's and my closest friends and longtime resident sage here at the Baylyblog. David and his wife, Terri, are missionaries under Mission to the World. David is seconded to the Theological College of Central Africa in Ndola, Zambia, where David teaches and serves as Academic Dean. David and Terri's daughter, Lizzie, has been living in our home for the past two years, bringing us constant joy.

David posted this as a comment under "Christianity Today: In numbers too big to ignore," and I thought it should to be here, on the main page.

* * *

I started reading CT in the 70s and continued to read it through the 80s and 90s. But I let my subscription lapse. Though I have access to it in my college library, I rarely read it. No point, really; everything is very predictable, especially as long as those who are in charge remain in charge.

There is a definite trend in the articles, the authors of the articles, the editorial positions taken, etc. I'm waiting for some sharp young historian of American evangelicalism to do his dissertation analyzing CT from its inception up to the present day. What would he find?

Christianity Today, in numbers too big to ignore...

(Tim, w/thanks to Kamilla) Illustrating for the thousandth time their inability to think Biblically about sexual matters, here is the mission statement for the new blog for women just announced by Christianity Today named Her.minutiae...

Copyrighting the Holy Spirit's words, then living off the profit...

But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market place before the authorities... (Acts 16:19)

(Tim, w/thanks to Lucas) A Greek Bible web site used by lovers of God's Word around the world has been shut down by the German/United Bible Society. Why?

Because they are intent upon defending the stream of money they've lived off for many years, now, provided by the Greek text of God's Word they've assembled. They claim their text is the closest anyone can possibly get to the original autographs inspired by the Holy Spirit.

So think about this. The better they do their job, the closer they will be to claiming copyright for the very word of God. In an e-mail, my son-in-law, Lucas, put it this way:

I was trying to figure out what, exactly, the UBS was copyrighting when they produce their version of the Greek New Testament. My only guess is that when they produce a Greek New Testament, they are copyrighting their specific choice of words. In other words, their copyright is not so much on the words themselves, but on the precise sequence of Greek words in their version of the Greek New Testament.

Their ultimate goal, of course, is to produce a Greek New Testament that is *exactly* the same as the original. But here's the crazy part: If they succeed in their goal, they will have succeeded in copyrighting the *actual* text of the Greek New Testament--not a translation, but the real thing.

Is that not crazy? If I'm right, then you can state it another way: the goal of the UBS is to copyright the *original* text of Scripture.

The head spins...

You sit here in a good place...

...were Ft. Lauderdale, New York, San Francisco, or Bloomington the Apostle Paul's Athens, he'd focus his call to repentance precisely at our rebellion against the Eternal Fatherhood of God.

(Tim) It's been a long strange trip Tully's been documenting over on his blog detailing the process of his merging the two churches he wanted to serve and becoming the pastor of the new two-become-one Coral Ridge Presbyterian (PCA) Church. I've read thousands of words there and elsewhere, and nary a mention of the need for approval of the call by South Florida Presbytery. As Tully put it, if last Lord's Day's vote on his call was good, it would all be over. Done. Finis.

If the vote is unanimous or nearly so, we move forward. If it’s not, we stop. This is the final step in the process.

Really, Tully? The "final step"?

Well, err; actually not. There is that matter of my examination by South Florida Presbytery that comes two days later. But we all know that's merely a technicality. A formality. A fait accompli. I mean, who's going to say "no" to Billy Graham's grandson or Coral Ridge?

Keep in mind that Tully has been a presbyter for years, now. He knows presbtery's vote is "the final step" that determines whether he and Coral Ridge will "move forward" or "stop."

Two days after it was announced to the world, South Florida Presbytery examined Tully concerning his views and then voted whether or not to permit him to take the pulpit of Coral Ridge...

Dead babies who don't count: The Pill's bloody future...

(As you read, check out this new music for fathers and husbands who understand that, in the godly, fear and love embrace - don't miss Hiding Place and The Son of God Goes Forth to War)

* * *
...the proven ‘anti-implantation’ action of the morning-after pill is really nothing other than a chemically induced abortion. (Pontifical Academy for Life)

(Tim) Today, twenty-two percent of our nation's children are murdered in the womb, and a growing proportion of those murders are what our nation's merchant of death, Planned Parenthood, euphemistically refers to as "medical abortions"--abortions committed by chemical rather than steel weapons. Pro-life leaders have been dreading this change for decades knowing how much more difficult it will be to oppose abortion as it moves toward the earliest weeks and days of pregnancy, and into the privacy of the home.

The change has come quickly...

Already, chemical abortions comprise over twenty percent of current abortions, and the proportion is growing rapidly. In a private e-mail sent to Planned Parenthood Federation of America on July 9, 2007, Danco Laboratories LLC (the pharmaceutical firm distributing one of the chemical abortifacients, Mifeprex) reported: "In the five years following FDA approval (2000-2005), more than 750,000 U.S. women have used Mifeprex."

This means over 150,000 women per year are taking Mifeprex to kill their unborn child. But Mifeprex is only one of the growing list of chemical agents being deployed...

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...

Obama supporters claiming to be "pro-life" were never, really, opposed to abortion...

(Tim, from LifeSiteNews.com) Prior to the election, I found those who called themselves "pro-life" while shilling for Senator Barack Obama to be morally repugnant. Now, these hypocrites have had more than enough opportunities publicly to acknowledge their mistake; they've had weeks to cry "foul" or "I was misled by Senator Obama's lies concerning abortion;" yet they are silent.

Where are their protests? Where are they denouncing the aggressive promotion of abortion, internationally, that President Obama has given himself to since taking office at the White House? Where have the voices of Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo been raised in protest of President Obama's advocacy of child-slaughter? And turning to McLaren's and Campolo's useful simpletons, do any of them feel just the least bit betrayed and ashamed of their naivete?

It would be hard to prove, but I'm convinced that many of those who supported Senator Obama's presidential aspirations while claiming, themselves, to be Christian and pro-life were not pro-life at all, but rather, themselves often had had one or more abortions (or helped others to get one) and voted for Senator Obama as a coping mechanism employed to silence their conscience. And I do not say this from any anger at President Obama being elected to our nations highest elected office. Rather, it's my own personal observation.

Well, again, when guilt and complicity have silenced Emerjellicals, Rome speaks.

Here's Roman Catholic leadership that I, a Protestant Presbyterian pastor, agree with entirely..

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...

Doug Wilson on the National Prayer Breakfast...

(Tim) Those who think I'm Doug Wilson's sycophant because of how frequently I commend him to you are deluded. Yes, yes; I know he links to us here at Baylyblog in this post, but READ the post and tell me whether he doesn't say much better than I what needs to be said about all the evanjellicals who proved themselves saltless and dark at yesterday's National Prayer Breakfast. Once again, Doug's absolutely right. And not simply in his arguments, but in the pitch he adopts while making them.

And there arose up a new king over America, which knew not babies...

Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he said unto his people, "Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply... (Exodus 1:8-10a)

(Tim, w/thanks to David G.) Here's a good reminder of who President Obama actually is, and what oppression and bloodshed have formed the cornerstone of his public service from its inception. And the Emergelicals? Well, this is precisely what they wanted, and still want. They're just not honest enough to admit it.

How the world sees Christ through His Bride...

(Tim) Like it or not, to the American unbeliever today we are all "evangelicals." That is, we all believe in the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ, honor His Word, and call those lost and without hope in this world to repentance for their promotion and commitment to baby-killing, adultery, child molestation, sodomy, and greed. To them, we are not split into Reformed and Arminian. They can't distinguish between Reformed, Evangelical, and Emergent, let alone Barely-Reformed and Truly-Reformed.

So when Rick Warren prays, he prays for us. When Franklin Graham speaks, he speaks for us. When Tyndale House publishes, they publish for us.

Tragically, this means those who watch HBO's documentary, The Trials of Ted Haggard--or interviews Haggard and his family are doing for The Oprah Winfrey Show and Larry King Live--will believe they are peering through a periscope into our souls, our marriages, our families, our churches, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Filmed by Nancy Pelosi's daughter, Alexandra, this documentary is what has given rise to this latest shame of ours. Due to be aired by HBO this coming Thursday, January 29th, Haggard taking his story public and appealing for sympathy led to another tragic revelation.

President Obama: "Meet the new boss, same as..."

(Tim) Here’s the truth. Obama is the oppressor of children, born and unborn. But since his skin color is black, we can’t believe he’d oppress anyone. So we come out with all this blather about other social justice issues equally commanding our attention as Christians. Our goal, of course, is to obscure the fact that abortion absolutely dwarfs the death toll of all other forms of oppression around the world combined. That’s combined, brothers and sisters!

Why, just in these United States alone, since the bloody decision, Roe v. Wade, was issued, our nation has torn limb from limb, leg from torso, body from mother’s womb, over fifty million—50,000,0000—of our little children.

This number is so large that it makes Africans' Rwanda, Asians' Pol Pot, and Europeans' Hitler look tame by comparison. The only bloody oppressors who are even close to slaughtering the numbers we have slaughtered by our own national, systemic, bloody, oppressive, enslaving child-murders are Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.

But, get this: If instead of talking about the death toll in our nation alone, we consider the international death toll from child slaughter through the murders we call “abortions,” then we’re talking about one Joseph Stalin every year. That’s well over 50,000,000 children slaughtered EVERY SINGLE YEAR!

It’s disgusting for otherwise educated and thoughtful men to seek to legitimize their conniving at this great bloody oppression that defines our nation by sniveling about systemic poverty and education and secondhand smoke and carbon emissions and AIDS.

If men who claim to know the Triune God want to vote Democratic; if men who claim to know the Triune God and have faith in Jesus Christ have black skin and want to vote for another man with black skin; we’d all be better off if they’d have the courage of their prejudices and admit them... You know, something like, “I’m afraid of not appearing progressive enough.” Or “I’m afraid my congregation would have my hide if I didn’t speak up for the brother.”

Another pending elevation to the throne...

(Tim, w/thanks to Dave M.) One of the higher-visibility churches in the Presbyterian Church in America is Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church of Senior Organist, Diane Bish, and the late Rev. Dr. D. James Kennedy. Yesterday, the church's pulpit nominating committee announced it had chosen Billy Graham's grandson, William Graham Tullian Tchividjian, to present to the congregation and Presbytery of South Florida for their approval as Coral Ridge's next Senior Pastor.

Denominational accountability is never rigorous, and rarely even present, when large churches appear on presbytery's docket. But being one of the last ecclesiastical communities confessing submission to the biblical commands concerning sexuality and authority, let's pray the men of the Presbytery of South Florida do due diligence on Pastor Tchividjian's commitment to Scripture...

Rick Warren, Gene Robinson, Barack Obama and the false presence of the Kingdom of God...

When I say to the wicked, "O wicked man, you will surely die," and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require from your hand. (Ezekiel 33:8)

(Tim, w/thanks to Michael) According to the Washington Post, Pastor Rick Warren issued a statement praising President-elect Barack Obama for his selection of Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson to call down God's blessing on our nation and new president during the Inaugural weekend. Robinson, a man infamous internationally due to his promotion of sodomy in the Name of Jesus Christ, is, according to Warren, a good choice because it is one more indication that Senator Obama has a "genuine commitment to bringing all Americans of goodwill together in search of common ground." Warren concludes concerning Senator Obama's selection of Robinson, "I applaud his desire to be the president of every citizen."

It sounds good. I could almost hear myself saying the same. But then you stop to think about it and you realize this is one more step in the silencing of the witness of the Church of Jesus Christ. Such statements are precisely the thing warned against...

The Bad Bishop "will be careful not to be especially Christian..."

(Tim w/thanks to David W.) For those concerned about the privileging of mainstream evangelical civic religion represented by President-elect Obama's invitation to Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation, the tide's come in and you may rest easy. Bishop Gene Robinson has also been asked to pray. He'll hold forth during the Inaugural weekend at the Lincoln Memorial, and both Obama and Biden will attend.

Readers will recall that the Bad Bishop Robinson is a committed, self-affirming sodomite whose elevation to the bishopric has torn the Anglican communion asunder. Robinson is not blushing over the entire world discussing the nature of the sexual couplings he's been choosing most recently. In fact, he's quite proud to be a spokesman for the latest oppressed minority yearning to be free.

Proud of it?

Thus we get a better understanding of the Apostle Paul's comment when rebuking another ecclesiastical communion that was arrogant...

Tim Keller addresses abortion...

(Tim) Here's an excerpt from a sermon recently preached by Tim Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. It was transcribed and forwarded by a friend who's attended Redeemer for years. He was encouraged that Pastor Keller touched on this issue in a sermon.

Preached on November 30, 2008, the sermon was titled, "In the Image of God," and the text was Genesis 1:26-2:3.

What happens in a society that got its idea of human rights from a belief in the image of God, that all people are created in the image of God? What happens to that society when as a society as a whole it loses the idea of God? You see, what happens when you have a secular society in which most of the cultural elite say "well, we don't believe in God anymore, and therefore we don't believe human beings were made in the image of God, we just evolved, they are very complex organisms?"

Now, how do you ground human rights in the worth of the individual human being? What does that worth consist of? What makes a human being worthy of rights now that you don't believe in the image of God anymore?

A simple plan for Pastor Rick Warren...

But if you on your part warn a wicked man to turn from his way and he does not turn from his way, he will die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your life" (Ezekiel 33:9).

(Tim) Feeling some heat from the wicked because of his tepid opposition to homosexual marriage, Pastor Rick Warren wants to shrug his shoulders, making the blessing into an act of simple pastoral humility: "Prayers are not to be sermons, speeches, position statements nor political posturing. They are humble, personal appeals to God," he says.

We respond, "So what humble request will you make of God the Father with the whole world watching, Pastor Warren?" Or better yet, "What humble request will you not be making of God the Father because such a request might be too easily mistaken for an arrogant 'sermon,' 'speech,' 'position statement,' or 'political posturing?'"

Keep in mind that the man Pastor Warren has agreed to invoke God's Name and blessing for has promised that his first act as president will be to further solidify the support of the laws of our nation for the slaughter of little babies.

With this in mind, here's my pastorally modest proposal. Let Rick Warren take this occasion to pray for a quick end to the slaughter of the babies across our land...

You cannot serve both God and Evangelicalism...

Unless the bugle-notes are clear who will be called to arms? (1Corinthians 14:8; J. B. Phillips)

(Tim, w/thanks to Steve) Rick Warren is a bellwether for middle of the road religious people in these United States. He's scrupulous about sodomite marriage, then equivocates by his casual references to "gays and straights" and his fawning over lesbian gay rights activist, Melissa Ethridge. He's pro-life, but to him this means more concern for the environment, world hunger, and AIDS. The slaughter of unborn children isn't even an afterthought.

He's a master of self-promotion but it's difficult to see how his leadership causes the Kingdom of God to advance even an inch. His books sell in the tens of millions but, after the wave passes, things pretty much proceed as they were before. Idolatry, state-sanctioned murder, materialism, divorce, fornication, feminism, envy, child molestation and abuse, self-satisfaction, pornography, and pride suffer little to no repentance. Yet there in the national limelight, larger than life, stands a Southern Baptist pastor sprinkling holy water on us all.

So what's in it for Evangelicalism's chief priest? Well, for starters, a mountain of mammon. Don't ever forget it.

But it doesn't stop with mammon...

An odious comparison: Evangelicalism's Baalam and Rome's Jeremiah...

(Tim) So everyone's talking about Rick Warren's payoff. He gets to pray in front of millions during Senator Obama's inauguration, calling down God's presence and blessing on a ceremony centered around the national politician most committed to the slaughter of his nation's children taking God's Name in vain as he falsely promises to uphold the Constitution of these United States.

When our nation was founded, our Declaration of Independence declared our commitments this way:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".

Thus, in the "Preamble" to our Constitution, we state the Constitution's purpose to be to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."

Precisely how does a man swear by God's Holy Name to secure the blessings of liberty to our posterity who himself is our nation's political leader most committed to the slaughter of that posterity? The wickedness of Governor Blagojevich pales by comparison.

Selling an appointment to the U.S. Senate is child's play compared to the child slaughter which was a central plank of Senator Obama's campaign. Talk about wickedness in high places!

But no one's watching. We're all transfixed by our nation's little morality play over there on Chicago's South Side.

Also, by the vision of Evangelicalism's own Balaam, the Warrenmeister, thinking gentle thoughts about how his invocation of the Triune God can help heal our nation as we all unify behind our new President. So Rick Warren, prophet of Israel, hoists himself on his donkey...

NAE VP Richard Cizik states, "I believe in civil (sodomite) unions," and resigns...

(Tim, w/thanks to Jake) Yesterday, Richard Cizik resigned as Vice President for Governmental Affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). In the past (see here, here,  here, and here) Cizik's public statements have led me to suggest that my denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, resign its membership in the NAE. I'm only more convinced of this now, given Cizik's failure and resignation and the moral failure and resignation of NAE President Ted Haggard two years ago.

The context for the present scandal is that Cizik had this question put to him during a December 2 Fresh Air interview with National Public Radio's Terry Gross:

"A couple of years ago when you were on our show, I asked you if you were changing your mind on that. And two years ago, you said you were still opposed to gay marriage. But now as you identify more with younger voters, would you say you have changed on gay marriage?"

Cizik responded:

Home from the CREC...

(Tim) A few weeks ago, David and I attended the national assembly of the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches. The CREC meets every three years so this was a special occasion. Among other things, the denomination multiplied from two to seven presbyteries this year. God is blessing the work and David and I both greatly enjoyed our fellowship with the men and women there.

What did we enjoy? Well, any list is somewhat arbitrary, but for starters, the directness of communication. There were no Emergent ear-tickler types, so declarative statements were very much in order and welcomed. When disagreements surfaced, they were dealt with forthrightly. Men spoke their minds without acrimony or petulance. Passive-aggressiveness didn't show its face.

Scripture was honored by being used to support particular positions. Church fathers, catechisms, and confessions were cited regularly, too, but in a way that demonstrated they were subordinate standards--subordinate to the Word of God, that is. The singing was robust--even loud. The "Amens" were almost shouted.

David and I had several conversations with Federal Vision men...

Peddling the Word of God...

For we are not like many, peddling the word of God... (2 Corinthians 2:17a)

(Tim, w/thanks to Jeff) You couldn't make this stuff up, could you? One company's peddling an "Illuminated" Bible that "looks more like a gossip rag you'd find in a dentist's office than a Bible... (and) features intense pictures of violence and death around the world along with the people who are working to find solutions for many of today's problems."

Intense pictures of violence and death? Maybe it has color images of aborted children's body parts next to a photo of Judie Brown, Joe Schiedler, or Justices Thomas, Scalia, or Roberts?

Not missing a beat, Zondervan's released a Green Bible that "highlights more than 1,000 verses about the earth in soy-based green ink" and contains "essays by religious leaders and other resources on eco-justice." The Green Bible's editor, Michael Maudlin, reports that environmental concerns are "a big part of the Christian agenda today, especially among the youth."

Also, this: "Matthew Sleeth, a doctor who's been pushing fellow evangelicals to go green in recent years, writes in his introduction to the Green Bible that the biggest problem in the world is that the planet is dying."

Over seventy million babies slaughtered each year by medical ghouls and the mothers and fathers who paid them, but bad doctor Sleeth breathlessly reports the imminent death of the planet itself. Or maybe I should say, "the planet herself."

Tony Campolo, evangelical Christian college profs, Obama, abortion, sodomy, and Hell...

(Tim, w/thanks to the usual suspect) Growing up in Wheaton among evangelicalism's elite, it became apparent to me more than twenty years ago that my Christian sanity depended upon never looking at, let alone subscribing to, Christianity Today or her many sister publications. Alas, it's never been that easy.

Some years back, a young couple attended Church of the Good Shepherd while doing graduate work at Indiana University. Too, too late, I discovered they were related to CTi's CEO (since retired). Had I known it from the beginning, I would have nipped our relationship in the bud. By the time I found out, alas and alack, we loved them and they us. Ever since, we've made do as best we could. For their part, they became reformed and he stepped into the eldership of a PCA church in the D.C. area. For our part, we assured them regularly that some of our best friends work on Gunderson Drive.

My father-in-law looked at my aversion to CT as quixotic and several times gave me a gift subscription, urging me to read it. It took a while, but finally I was able to convince him I was seriously opposed to that thing entering my home. With a temperament as sweet as honey, finally he gave in.

Normally, then, I'm able to escape knowledge of the suits and their profitable religion.

Just now, though, I let down my guard and it all came back to me when I ran across this at Touchstone's "Mere Comments." It's a post responding to a recent news piece CT ran on Tony Campolo's membership on the Democratic Party's Platform Committee. Yes, you read it right: That patriarch of Christian liberal arts colleges and chapel service prophet worked with other members of the Democratic Party and produced these planks on child-slaughter...

Last person out, bolt the door...

(Tim) Really, what more is there to say about "If my father were still alive, he'd have converted to Eastern Orthodoxy" Franky Schaeffer? His trajectory was set twenty-five years ago with little but dishonor and shame since. Here's the latest in that line, taken from a piece he wrote for the Huffington Post (ephasis in the original). Yes, I know Franky's larger argument is to move the Democratic Party toward electability by getting them to distance themselves from the albatross of late term abortion, but the context of this piece is immaterial to me as I remember Francis Schaeffer while reading these words...

Hoosier Ray Boltz to hold benefit concert...

(Tim) Tomorrow evening, Ray Boltz will be giving a concert in Indianapolis at the Indy church that exists to promote sodomy in the Name of Jesus Christ. It's called Jesus Metropolitan Community Church and the concert is promoted on the church's web site as follows (emphases in the original)...

Ray Boltz gives in and comes out...

It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme. (1 Timothy 1:15-20)

(Tim, w/thanks to Stephen) CCM artist Ray Boltz has given an exclusive interview to D.C.'s sodomite newspaper, the Washington Blade, for the purpose of coming out as a "gay" man. But gay he's not.

With close to five million CDs sold, Boltz's signature song is the sentimental favorite, "Thank You." Boltz had twelve number 1 hits on Christian radio stations (including "Watch the Lamb," "I Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb," and "The Anchor Holds") which earned him three Dove Awards from the Gospel Music Association.

The article in the Blade is truthful in many ways that bring into focus the tragic fact that this former confessor of faith in Jesus Christ has given up the battle. Here are some excerpts, followed by some pastoral comments aimed at helping us to understand and care for those who have given up the fight, or are thinking about it...

Kent Hughes' successor and the future of evangelicalism...

(Tim) Mary Lee's and my home congregation, College Church in Wheaton, is the church where any number of evangelical luminaries hold their membership including owners and executives of Christianity Today Inc. (Christianity Today, Partnership, Leadership Journal, Christian History, etc.), TEAM, Crossway Books (publisher of the ESV, John Piper, and works by a variety of authors associated with the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood), Tyndale House (publisher of the New Living Translation, R. C. Sproul, James Dobson, and Left Behind with its blockbuster sequels). Across the lawn from the front campus of Wheaton College and the Billy Graham Center and Museum, there are also quite a few academics from Wheaton College as well as Moody Bible Institute. So a good case can be made that as College Church goes, so goes evangelicalism.

Until a couple years ago, David's and my friend, Kent Hughes, was College Church's senior pastor, so we've watched with interest to see what sort of man the congregation's search committee would select as Kent's replacement. The most controverted issue of the past twenty years at College Church, as with Wheaton generally, has been the nature and purpose of sexuality. Kent fought the good fight for orthodoxy here, so David and I expected the next pastor to represent some conciliatory movement towards those pressing for change.

Yesterday, the search committee announced they had finally settled on a man and announced Rev. Dr. Josh Moody as their candidate. Mr. Moody is the pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in New Haven, Connecticut.

I haven't yet had opportunity to delve deeply into Pastor Moody's doctrinal commitments, but based on what I've read so far, I'm pleased he appears to be solidly reformed. On the matter of sexuality, though, only time will tell.

Meanwhile, this statement provides some indication of the sort of posture he will be taking at this breach in the wall of biblical orthodoxy. Yes, it's likely Pastor Moody will support the New Testament texts applying the creation order of father-rule to the home and church. Nevertheless, it's a stretch to imagine any orthodox reformed pastor who lived prior to the late twentieth century going into print with a statement that, if I'm reading Pastor Moody correctly, holds that patriarchy is sub-biblical and inaccurate as a descriptor of Israel's corporate life:                                                                                                                                       

Experience real moments...

(Tim) If you'd like to know more about the woman preacher named Joyce Meyer, here's the lead-in from a brochure I picked up in Indianapolis two weekends ago when she'd hired the Conseco Fieldhouse for people to come hear her preach. She wrote:

Joyce Meyer Ministries Conference Tour '08 (Worship with Matt Redman)

Come Together--with One Heart, One Voice

Be a part of genuine worship and relevant, inspiring messages. Where thousands of people unite to experience real moments, real change--this is your defining moment.

This text alone ought to be sufficient for an evangelical pastor to warn his flock to steer clear of Ms. Meyer's "ministries."

The pastor's divisive calling...

God has ordained the Sacraments to divide men...

(Tim) From The Huffington Post, here's some commentary on the congregational applause that greeted Senator McCain's statement at the Rick Warren pow-wow, that life begins at conception:

These are church people. What they say and what they do often doesn't match.... As loudly as they may have applauded McCain's straight talk about abortion, a lot of women in that audience have had abortions. A lot of their mothers, their sisters and their daughters have too.

How do I know?

I know because evangelicals who've studied each other have shown again and again that evangelical behavior differs very little from that of the rest of the country.

The writer is correct to say the church is filled with women who have murdered their babies. Even if you don't believe the pollsters, do the simple math and you'll see that the over two-thirds of Americans who claim to be Christians have to account for the murder of millions of the babies murdered since 1973's Roe v. Wade. And although the writer doesn't mention it, the church is also filled with the men who fathered those children and demanded or acceded to their murder.

Acknowledging this, we need to keep some things in mind.

First, regardless of how they identify themselves spiritually or theologically here on earth (membership in the PCA, for instance), like unrepentant adulterers and thieves, murderers who refuse to confess their blood-guilt and ask for God's mercy will not be in heaven. As the Apostle Paul puts it so bluntly:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. (1Corinthians 6:9,10)

Second, as a minister of the Word and Sacrament, the essence of Pastor Warren's calling is to be as constant and explicit in making this dogmatic pronouncement as the Apostle Paul in the Word of God. He cannot fail to discipline those who, while murdering their unborn children, attend his church and take the Lord's Supper there.

It's Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, mother of Trig Paxson Van Palin...

On the day she gave birth to her newborn son who has Down syndrome, Governor Palin sent an e-mail to family members and close friends. Written as if it came from God, Gov. Palin signed the e-mail, "Trig's Creator, Your Heavenly Father." In her e-mail, Palin wrote: "Many people will express sympathy, but you don't want or need that, because Trig will be a joy. You have to trust me on this. Children are the most precious and promising ingredient in this mixed-up world you live in down there on Earth. Trig is no different, except he has one extra chromosome."

(Tim) So Senator McCain's picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. David and I slightly disagree on this. Roughly speaking, here's David's thought...

"Discernment was discouraged"...

(Tim, w/thanks to David) Evangelicals hate discernment. To hate discernment is to hate truth. God's Word is truth.

But evangelicals love God's Word, right? Evangelicals love truth.

These thoughts upon the occasion of this article announcing the divorce of Lakeland revivalist, Todd Bentley. Charisma magazine's editor, J. Lee Grady, admits Bentley's failure has serious implications for the entire pentecostal/charismatic movement. Here's an excerpt from Grady's mea culpa...

The "New Living Translation" and "Today's New International Version" are bad...

(Tim) Starting in 1996 or so (actually, my work on the NLT started years before this), David and I worked hard privately and publicly to oppose a number of members of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) who, working through the International Bible Society, Tyndale House, and Zondervan, were removing the sex-markings of thousands of texts of Scripture in the Living Bible and the New International Version. At the time, the NIV was the Bible translation standard of the Bible-believing, English-speaking world, so it was the efforts to modernize this particular translation that were our main public focus.

Our opponents' plan was to put out an updated NIV called the New International Version Inclusive. Since then, they've updated their work giving it the name, Today's New International Version (TNIV). In the TNIV, Hebrew and Greek words such as adam, adelphoi, and aner are stripped of their male grammatical component. These scholars, publishers, and corporate executives worked together to mute these words, ending up with new books called "Bibles" where thousands of changes had been made to render them innocuous to those of us raised in a feminized society in which it has become gauche to make references to mixed-sex groups using any word with a male marking. Thus, in their book, 'man' became 'humankind', 'brothers' became 'Christian friends' (NLT) or 'siblings' (NIVI), 'man' became 'person', and so on--thousands of times across the pages of Scripture.
 
As you'll see from the above reference to the NLT, the NIV was not the only Bible in wide use across the evangelical world being similarly updated. In an effort to update the Living Bible which was growing long-in-the-teeth, Tyndale House Publishers had hired a long list of ETS academics to produce the New Living Translation which, benefiting from millions of dollars in advertising and purchased product placement in national bookstore chains, was steadily gaining market share. (The writer is the son-in-law of Ken Taylor, owner of Tyndale House Publishers until his death several years ago.)

Partly because of the naturally lower expectations of accuracy the NLT inherited from its predecessor, the Living Bible; partly because the academics who had done the NLT's translation work likely expected it to be more a devotional than a study Bible; and partly because the NLT's publisher responded to expressions of concern over some of the more egregious mistranslations evident in the NLT's text with thoughtful consideration and, eventually, a number of changes to the text of the NLT's subsequent printings; the public battle was focused almost exclusively on the updated NIVI, its publisher Zondervan, and Zondervan's subsidiary (in a manner of speaking), the International Bible Society and her subordinate Bible Translation Committee.

The public became aware of the battle through the publication March 29, 1997 of Susan Olasky's cover article, "The Stealth Bible: the Feminist Seduction of the Evangelical Church," in World magazine. For almost everyone this was the first hint of Zondervan's plans and the response was a good measure of the profound theological divisions present within the vast entrepreneurial business park named "evangelicalism."

Predictably, one side decried Olasky's divisive spirit and focused their attack on World magazine...

Still evangelical after all these years...

(Tim) Some of our elders and closest friends think the commitment David and I have to evangelicalism is quixotic, with the kindest of them hoping we'll see the light some day, and give it up. It's not likely.

Take the sermon text this past Lord's Day, for instance. It was Matthew 22:34-40, where Matthew records the exchange between Jesus and a lawyer who asks Him which is the greatest commandment? Jesus answers that the greatest commandments is to love God with all our heart and soul and mind.

Today's evangelicalism has eviscerated love of much of its objective biblical content, so I'm not suggesting anyone take out membership in a megachurch and join in a sing-along...

Complementarianism simply a private Christian conviction...

(Tim) Several of us have been having a conversation about what I consider far and away the best work on sexuality in print today, Stephen B. Clark’s Man and Woman in Christ. If you’re a Titus 2 woman, a pastor, or an elder and you haven’t read Clark, you should know that this book written by a Roman Catholic layman is indispensable. Traditional complementarian literature such as Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood can never be more than a stopgap measure. Although helpful, such works are only a hodgepodge of viewpoints and perspectives, never approaching a theology of sexuality. Why?

At the heart of the movement known as “Complementarianism” is the commitment to saying sex matters only in the church and home and only among Christians. It’s a private affair for those who affirm the authority of Scripture because of their Christian faith, and this private affair is only applicable in the private Christian spheres of the church and the home. One looks in vain for complementarians’ application of the order of creation to the military, courts, law enforcement, education, business, or government. The silence is deafening.

As with abortion in the late seventies and early eighties, we again are humiliated by having to turn to Roman Catholics for the doctrinal work needed for our time. While evangelical marketing mavens cop relevant postures and talk loudly in restaurants about being missional and the necessity of contextualizing, Roman Catholics do the heavy lifting against the heresies of our time. What shame we should feel.

These comments exchanged with several brothers by private E-mail led to this response by Bill Mouser, a dear brother in the Lord who's been a great encouragement to me for many years, now. Mouser, the head of the International Council for Gender Studies, writes...

Muslim evangelism, the evangelical or Coptic way...

(Tim, w/thanks to David) The International Foundation (aka The Family, The Fellowship, The Fellowship Foundation, and Jesus Plus Nothing), is the sponsor of the National Prayer Breakfast, long seen as ground zero of evangelical influence in Washington D.C. More recently, though, The International Foundation has become better known for promoting syncretism with its rabbis and imams at the podium. In keeping with its promotion of Muslim-Christian rapprochement, The International Foundation has become much-enamored with Mark Siljander and his approach to Islam.

Mr. Siljander, a former high-profile evangelical congressman from Michigan recently indicted for money laundering, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice, just published a book opposing the historic Christian position on Islam (that it's simply another Christian heresy). Mr. Siljander is touring the country with his revisionist gospel of misunderstood Islam and its Quran, and in this he's typical of a host of former-evangelical (my label) missionaries who say 'God' and 'Allah' are both names for the True God, that there's no reason for Muslim converts to Christianity to stop going to the mosque for daily prayers, and that baptism of these converts and membership in a Christian church is unnecessary given the dire consequences of conversion in an Islamic nation...

Not your mother's DTS...

"The fact that the women were there during the most significant events in the life of Jesus meant that the apostles, the male apostles could not write the Gospels without collaborating with the women." -Ms. Carolyn Custis James in Dallas Theological Seminary chapel on March 28, 2008

(Tim, w/thanks to John) During a CBMW council meeting about ten years ago, I listened to one of the high priests of evangelical exegetical scholarship rebuke the council for our work opposing gender-neutered Bible translations. Wayne Grudem had been excited at the possibility that an invitation to sit in on the council meeting might be enough of an enticement to get this scholar to allow CBMW to use his name on the council or as a member of the Board of Reference, but instead of being awed by the company he'd been given entree to, he took the opportunity to poke us in the nose...

Fleeing sinking ships

(David) It's hard for anyone committed to ecclesiastical purity not to view J.I. Packer's recent departure from the Anglican Church of Canada through jaundiced eyes.

Dr. Packer, at age 81, finally finds a cause worth quitting Anglicanism over. According to Packer, "poisonous liberalism" has consumed the Anglican church in the form of her recent dalliance with homosexuality. Packer leaves the Anglican Church of Canada for the extra-territorial "Province of the Southern Cone" based in South America.

Our appreciation for Dr. Packer's opposition to homosexuality is tempered by the realization that his stalwart support for Anglicanism influenced many into the Anglican church despite its long history of opposition to Biblical truth both corporately (women's ordination, authority of Scripture) and personally by its officers (Williams, Robinson, Spong, et al).

Indeed, as with Dr. Stott, the die was cast as early as 1966 when Martyn Lloyd-Jones warned Stott, Packer and other Church of England stalwarts of the need to break with their denomination at the annual meeting of Great Britain's Evangelical Alliance--a warning scorned by Stott and ignored by Packer. It's to Dr. Packer's credit that he actually leaves--something Stott never did. But it leaves a sour taste in the mouth to know that neither Stott nor Packer have ever acknowledged the slightest debt to Llloyd-Jones for his 1966 warning, or the slightest error in ignoring it for so many years.

Slip sliding away: Twenty year Wheaton prof on "sexual preference"...

God only knows
God makes his plan
The informations unavailable
To the mortal man
We work our jobs
Collect our pay
Believe we're gliding down the highway
When in fact we're slip slidin away

                        - Paul Simon

(Tim) Yesterday, one of our congregation's Wheaton alumni was talking about other Wheaton alumni she keeps in touch with. She described her friends' typical post-graduate spiritual condition as consisting of a crisis experience a few years after graduation in which a decision is made between throwing it all away or turning and facing the fact that they're a sinner and coming to true Christian faith. Her grief was obvious as she described the spiritual bankruptcy so often characterizing her friends' post-Wheaton lives...

Just down the street from our church-houses...

"For from the least of them even to the greatest of them, Everyone is greedy for gain, And from the prophet even to the priest Everyone deals falsely. They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, Saying, 'Peace, peace,' But there is no peace. Were they ashamed because of the abomination they have done? They were not even ashamed at all; They did not even know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; At the time that I punish them, They shall be cast down," says the LORD. (Jeremiah 6:13-15)

(Tim) A few years after Yale was founded, a student spoke critically of one of Yale's tutors saying, "He has no more grace than this chair." Yale's response was swift: The student was expelled and, despite his apology (contra Wikipedia), Yale refused to reinstate him. Centuries later, Yale named one of her Divinity School buildings for this student. It's the only building ever named for a student who was expelled.

One of this student's contemporaries also attended Yale a few years earlier when Yale was just being chartered. At that time, Jonathan Edwards himself was caught up in the discipline of Yale's tutors. Their infraction?

They were promoting Arminian theology. Yale had been founded because of Harvard's betrayal of Christian doctrine, so no one involved in Yale's founding was about to let it happen again.

What does Yale discipline today?

This past year, a Yale art student regularly impregnated herself (artificially, with a syringe), then killed the babies she never knew by taking oral abortifacients--all of which she carefully documented with a video camera for display at a Yale art exhibition. Yale's administration was quite embarrassed and released a statement...

Putin, patriarchs, and thugs...

(Tim, w/thanks to Lucas) From my perspective, there's little difference between the claims of unity of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Both amount to little more than, "We're real, real old."

No duh.

Read Calvin's Institutes and you'll see that evangelical reformed doctrine and practice are much older, going back to the Apostles themselves with much support in the early and medieval church. I like to tell my congregation that the Roman Catholic church didn't exist until the Council of Trent when it went off in schism. Yes, it's slightly hyperbolic, but a good bit true, too.

Here's an article from the New York Times documenting something those of us with brothers and sisters in Christ working in former Soviet bloc countries knew already. Just as Orthodoxy's scribes were tight with the KGB before Communism's fall, they're tight now with the blinkered nationalistic thugs governing these countries today. And Orthodoxy's patriarchs are in The Man's hip pockets...

Young evangelicals: "I'm not for killing babies, but I'm pro-choice."

(Tim, w/thanks to David and James) Tonight, our third year Pastors College students start studying Iain Murray's splendid Evangelicalism Divided. If you haven't read it, do.

When it came out in 2000, I marked pages right and left. Now, getting ready to teach the class, I'm reading it again and it's packing the same wallop it did the first time. Murray proves evangelicalism ceased being a community of faith at least sixty years ago, and now is only a community of experience and sentiment.

In other words, today's evangelicals are the great, great, great, great grandchildren of Schleiermacher, the great, great grandchildren of the Auburn Affirmation heretics, the grandchildren of Nelson Bell and his son-in-law, Billy Graham...

Chelsea Clinton drawing water at the well...

(Tim) Within the church today, why are we so reticent to recognize sexual distinctions that go beyond God's command or certain "roles" the result of His command? Pastors and elders can bring ourselves to swallow the very specific biblical prohibitions against women serving as elders, and the equally specific commands for wives to submit to their husbands--even going so far as to defend those prohibitions with some small talk of the nature of sexuality (although we always call it "gender" rather than "sex" because gender is a social construct while sex is a hard biological reality); but still, despite this supposed submission to the biblical command, we show a complete absence of any biblical theology of sexuality.

Why? Why are we so chip-on-the-shoulderish when it comes to a discussion of the nature of man and woman beyond the obvious body parts (which are undeniable and very useful for advertising), and certain small aspects of authority in the church and home? Why do we read sexuality in such a mind-bogglingly narrow way? We claim to love diversity, right? So why such a penurious, such a tight-waddish reading of this one so basic to our lives?

A central part of understanding our culture is seeing the hatred for distinctions at its core, and few distinctions are more despised than this one present in the womb from our earliest days--male and female.

Typical believers in Jesus Christ will think we've seen the goodness of sex when we've decided to marry a woman rather than a man...

Franky's Haming it up again...

(Tim, w/thanks to Mark) Speaking of Senator Obama, Franky Schaeffer's using the current ruckus to kill his father. For the second or third time.

Remember the account of Noah's sons, how the youngest, Ham, saw his father in a drunken stupor and left the tent to broadcast his father's nakedness? How did Noah's two eldest respond?

Is the PCA fundamentalist?

(Tim) Ross from New Zealand, by way of Scotland, comments: "I have just come from a Fundamentalist list which looks and sounds remarkably like this one. Would it be fair to call the Presbyterian Church in America the fundamentalist wing of the broader Presbyterian & Reformed tradition? "

Ross, here in America, 'fundamentalist' is used in a variety of ways, most commonly for those who hold a religious belief in life after death and act accordingly. Although he'd deny it, this is the best way to understand the Fundamentalism project of the elder dean of American church history, Martin Marty.

There's another sense, though, that hearkens back to the early decades of the twentieth century when Christians first starting fighting with some zeal against modernism's heresies and got a bad name for it...

A statement to sign...

(David) Evangelicalism's perfervid heart pulses with non-binding statements signed by non-ecclesiastical authorities: the climate yesterday, the essence of the Gospel the day before that, the real status of Israel before God last month, the meaning of manhood and womanhood last year....

Today it's how we should get along with Muslims. Tomorrow, who knows? The only thing certain is that with tomorrow's dawn will arrive another piece of Evangelical pablum to which significant signatories will have added their agreement.

Oh, another weighty Evangelical statement on an important issue of our time? Nahh. Just a Hot or Not test for mid-tier Evangelical celebrities. Am I alive? Yup, read my name in print today. Hot? Well, I was just asked to sign another statement. How hot? At least a 6: CJ signed it too.

It's been this way for decades, to our shame. Year after year of meaningless statements, each statement dwarfed by the list of signatories appended to the end. Don't think it's the statement that matters. The thing that really matters is the signatories. They got asked. They live. Their stock's still afloat.

If the people ...do at all hide their eyes...

• The LORD said to Moses, “Say to the people of Israel, Any man of the people of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, who gives any of his children to Molech shall be put to death; the people of the land shall stone him with stones. I myself will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, defiling my sanctuary and profaning my holy name. And if the people of the land do at all hide their eyes from that man, when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, then I will set my face against that man and against his family, and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in playing the harlot after Molech. (Leviticus 20:2-5)

(Tim) Last Sunday, about two hundred believers went to the Monroe County Courthouse on the Square to protest the slaughter of the unborn. This protest is held each year to memorialize the fifty million--that's 50,000,0000--babies that have been slaughtered under the protection of our Supreme Court's blood lust known as Roe v. Wade. That's sixteen thousand, eight hundred and twelve times the number of deaths caused by the nineteen terrorists on 9/11.

Here in Monroe County, six hundred and seventy-six infants were murdered by Planned Parenthood and its hired guns in 2005, the most recent year stats are available.

Show up at this protest and you'll witness the anemic witness to Jesus Christ that prevails the rest of the year in this community. Five or so from Evangelical Community Church (less than one percent); five or so from our evangelical megachurch, Sherwood Oaks (less than a quarter of a percent); thirty to fifty from the various Roman Catholic parishes (less than one percent); a smattering from each of a number of other churches; five or ten from the Reformed Presbyterian Church; the occasional vegan or atheist who agrees with Nat Hentoff that "For an atheist, life is all we have;" and the remainder from Church of the Good Shepherd.

No, I'm not bragging; I'm shaming. It's unconscionable that Christians are silent year in and year out as babies are slaughtered in our fair city. When I used to preach at Evangelical Community Church, if I mentioned abortion in the sermon the wife of one of our elders would stand up and parade out of the sanctuary...

Revelation, authority, dreams, and visions...

(Tim) At ETS's recent annual meeting in San Diego, J. P. Moreland gave a paper titled, "How Evangelicals Became Over-Committed to the Bible and What Can Be Done About It." And in the wake of Francis Beckwith's recent conversion to Roman Catholicism, Moreland's paper carried quite a punch. Apparently Moreland failed to acknowledge that evangelicals' overemphasis on Scripture's inspiration has not resulted in any overemphasis on Scripture's authority. Yet, I'd like to note this excerpt from his paper and make a comment on a related matter...

Alister McGrath, part II: his work on justification...

Note from Tim: Under Pastor David Wegener's prior post concerning Rev. Dr. Alister McGrath, Bill R. asked Pastor Wegener for an evaluation of McGrath's $80 volume titled, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification. Did I mention this work lists for $80?

Rather than bury Pastor Wegener's response in the comments under his post, it seemed good to put it here on the main page with the hope that many more will read it than otherwise might.

Dear Bill R.: Sorry for the delay in responding to your question about McGrath’s book on justification. I have a copy of Iustitia Dei and have studied parts of it. It is one of the few treatments of the history of the doctrine of justification, so maybe that is why people regard it as seminal.

It is a pretty accurate truism of historical theology that justification by faith alone was one doctrine the Reformers recovered from the Scriptures. Yes, you can find comments in a number of earlier authors that would line up with Protestant doctrine, but by and large, it was a key truth that the patristic (including Augustine) and medieval theologians got wrong.

However, I’m not convinced that McGrath is correct on the Reformed teaching on this topic. He tries to pry apart the unity of the Reformers on justification (p. 188). It is easy to do that with Zwingli and Bucer. Neither were so reliable as theologians. But it is more difficult to do that with Calvin and Luther and the evidence McGrath presents can be used against his attempts to pry them apart.

McGrath’s conclusion to the book is much more troubling...