BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Men are the minority in Evangelical churches in Africa...

When did you last hear a church commended for her "manliness?" When did you last hear a missionary talk about the absence of men in Evangelical churches in Africa? Have you ever heard how a Christian "spearman" in Africa keeps the oodles of children in his church in order, or how he deals with the bones in his meat?

The author of the post, James Brinkerhoff, is the nephew of Scott Brinkerhoff. You and your church would do well to remove some of your missionaries who have long since turned away from Biblical doctrine and practice, and fill the holes that your due diligence opens up in your missions budget with Scott and James.

And what about the absence of men in African Evangelical churches? It may be the same reason men are absent or docile in American churches. Pastors run churches through the hard work of compliant women...

Sex-selective abortion...

Through FB our longtime friend Al Stout writes:

Here is the argument… 

Abortion is a decision between a woman and her doctor. It is a matter of privacy, and the health of the woman is all that can be considered in these decisions. The fetus is not an individual life. It is not a person. It is a thing (sometimes a parasite) that cannot be taken into account by a third party to the abortion decision. An abortion is like a kidney, lung, or cornea removal.

Since the "thing" in a woman's womb is not a person, why are people upset abortions are performed for reasons of sex selection? For that matter...

Credo vs. paedobaptism...

Is this blessing then on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say, “faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness." How then was it credited? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised?

Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised; and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be credited to them, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham which he had while uncircumcised. (Romans 4:9-12)

One reader commented under another post: "Another interesting argument I came across recently from John Piper: When the New Testament church debated in Acts 15 whether circumcision should still be required of believers as part of becoming a Christian, it is astonishing that not once in that entire debate did anyone say anything about baptism standing in the place of circumcision. If baptism is the simple replacement of circumcision as a sign of the new covenant, and thus valid for children as well as for adults, as circumcision was, surely this would have been the time to develop the argument and so show that circumcision was no longer necessary. But it is not even mentioned."

My response: Weak argument although I'll take John Piper over John MacArthur any day when it comes to arguments against paedobaptism...

It was the worst of Times...

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

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

The rebellion against such gender apartheid may have begun.

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

 

Feminism, homosexism, and veganism: The Grand Conspiracy

An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule on their own authority; and My people love it so! But what will you do at the end of it? (Jeremiah 5:30, 31)

You may want to dismiss it as looniness, but this assault against God's Order of Creation is rebellion against the God Who made us. It's not naive or misguided. It's evil. Attacks on God's Creation Order are all around us and we must recognize that each of them is a part of Satan's conspiracy to grease the descent to Hell.

Feminism is a Satanic conspiracy against God's Creation Order. God made Adam first, then Eve. Thus those who conspire to place woman in positions where she teaches and exercises authority over man are rebels against Almighty God. They are false prophets calling souls to Hell.

Homosexism is a Satanic conspiracy against God's Creation Order. God made Eve--not Steve--for Adam. Thus those who conspire to legalize sodomy and promote sodomitic unions are rebels against Almighty God. They are false prophets calling souls to Hell.

Veganism is a Satanic conspiracy against God's Creation Order. God created adam alone--both Adam and Eve--in His Own Image. He did not create animals in His Image. Thus those whose morality has descended to Veganism and the claim of personhood and legal standing for animals are rebels against Almighty God. They are false prophets calling souls to Hell.

Satan has conspired to paint each of these revolutions a pretty face. Feminism is a long-overdue correction of patriarchal oppression. Homsexism is a long overdue correction of homophobic oppression. Veganism is a long-overdue correction of speciest oppression.

Satan has also conspired to silence the Church of Jesus Christ... 

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

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

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

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

Soft and effeminate Christianity hides behind lofty and ethereal theology...

This is an excerpt from Horatius Bonar's God's Way of Holiness. Much here that is helpful to men and women of God. Read carefully, to the very end. It's packed with meat. Paragraphing is mine. (TB, w/thanks to Tim C. by way of Matt B.)

* * *

"The man who knows that he is risen with Christ, and has set his affection on things above, will be a just, trusty, ingenuous, unselfish, truthful man. He will “add to [his] faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity” (2 Peter 1:5-7). He will seek not to be “barren nor unfruitful.” “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report” (Phil 4:8), these he will think upon and do.

"For there is some danger of falling into a soft and effeminate Christianity, under the plea of a lofty and ethereal theology...

"There was storm... and then a wolf."

A Christian confesses his faith, today, when he stays married to the same woman until death. When he continues to name his race "man" rather than "humans" or "human beings." When he chooses a church where he's sanctified rather than one where his wife is happy. A Christian confesses her faith, today, when she lets herself notice the beautiful diversity of manhood and womanhood, then calls attention to it.

We got a doll house with furniture off Craig's List a year ago...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another (yawn) minced confession at the PCA's Redeemer Presbyterian Church...

"To be wrong, and to be carefully wrong, that is the definition of decadence." - G. K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men

Here we have a wedding ceremony of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Manhattan.

Presiding over the service on the congregation's right wearing a suit is a male pastor (Scott Sauls) who formerly held his credentials in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church--a Reformed denomination that approves of female pastors and elders.

Presiding over the service on the congregation's left wearing a minister's robe is a female pastor.

Wedding ceremonies not being sacramental among us Protestants, one might argue it doesn't matter much if female pastors co-officiate with male pastors...

Would I support our daughters enlisting in the military...

Several days ago under the post of the Majority Report of the PCA's Ad Interim Study Committee on Women in the Military (AISCOWIM), I'd been asked whether I would support our daughters enlisting in a non-combatant position in our U.S. Armed Forces, today? Here are the questions, along with my response. (TB)

Question from Sue: Tim, Could you answer a question about women in the military that I don't think is addressed in your/your committee's report? What is your position about women serving in military in non-combat roles...

What about women in combat...

Here is the Majority Report of the Presbyterian Church in America General Assembly's Ad Interim Study Committee on Women in the Military whose recommendations were adopted by General Assembly in 2002. Being this report's principal author, naturally I commend this document to our readers. If biblical Christians today studied this report and by faith embraced its doctrine of Creation Order sexuality, it would be a significant step toward the restoration of the unity of the Church. Too, these United States would again have salty salt and lighty light in the public debate raging over the meaning and purpose of sexuality. (TB)

* * *

MAN’S DUTY TO PROTECT WOMAN

We, the undersigned, endorse the Consensus Report, while realizing that Report lacks unity on the crucial matter of whether the recommendations it contains constitute the church’s wise counsel or a Christian’s scriptural duty. Believing that this is a matter of scriptural duty, we have joined together in writing this report to the end that we might set forth with confidence and clarity the full counsel—both New and Old Testaments—of the Word of God concerning this matter. Our report attempts to summarize three areas of evidence, as follows:

First, God the Father wages war in defense of Israel, His Bride; Christ our Savior fights to the Death defending His Bride, the Church; the Holy Spirit calls men as officers to guard and protect His Bride; the duty to protect the Garden of Eden and the warning not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was given by God to Adam; husbands protect their wives, not wives their husbands. Thus we are taught the binding nature of man’s duty to guard and protect his home and wife.

Second, woman is the weaker sex and part of her weakness is the vulnerability attendant to her greatest privilege—that God has made her the “Mother of all the living.” Men are to guard and protect her as she carries in her womb, gives birth to, and nurses her children.

Third, we are to renounce every thought and action which tends towards a diminishment of sexual differentiation since God made it and called it “good.” [E.g. Scripture’s injunctions concerning women exercising authority over men (1 Timothy 2), women or men wearing clothing of the opposite sex (Deuteronomy 22:5), sodomy (Leviticus 20:15-16), etc.] Rather than a stingy attitude which minimizes sexuality’s implications, we ought to rejoice in this, His blessing.

It is our conviction that these areas, taken together, provide a clear and compelling scriptural rationale for declaring our church’s principled opposition to women serving in military combat positions.

When a man loves a woman, he will lay down his life to defend her, just as Christ loved His Bride and gave Himself up for Her. Men have proudly fulfilled this duty from time immemorial, demonstrating what A. A. Hodge in his commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith referred to as the law of nature, common to all nations, that is “unchanged” to this present day. Dying for their wives, regenerate and unregenerate men have done “by nature (the) things required by the law.”[1]

Hodge divides the Old Testament law into four categories...

Rev. Coffin's views on Church and state...

ByFaith Online points its readers to a recent interview of Rev. David Coffin in the Washingon Examiner in which David says that when churches become involved in politics, "It's a kind of apostasy." (You can find the interview here.)

It should be noted that the man who advocates a strict separation of Church and state in this interview is the same man who told my brother Tim, during the 2002 General Assembly debate, that the PCA should not oppose women serving as combatants in the U.S. Armed Forces.

So here's a minister of the Word of God pedantically parsing his Biblical obligations in such a way that he can justify turning an official blind eye to one of the most depraved aspects of our culture's destruction of women--almost as bad as urging them to kill unborn babies in their wombs.

To lodge his Uriah Heapish kowtowing to our culture's attack on motherhood in the Westminster Standards is ludicrous. Has David read Reformed history--any at all? And if so, can he be serious? The Westminster Divines agreeing with him that the Church should be silent about men commanding women to take up arms as combatants in the defense of their country? 

But worse, David claims God's approval of this ridiculous two-kingdom novelty, a claim worthy of condemnation by every shepherd of God's flock. Unfortunately, few will take him on. And that's where we find the PCA--lurching between Tim Keller's feminism and David Coffin's pedantry.

(DB)

 

The death of an eighteen-year-old brother...

The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he should bear The yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and be silent Since He has laid it on him. Let him put his mouth in the dust, Perhaps there is hope. Let him give his cheek to the smiter, Let him be filled with reproach. For the Lord will not reject forever, For if He causes grief, Then He will have compassion According to His abundant lovingkindness. (Lamentations 3:25-32)

(NOTE: Since posting this a few hours ago, I've made a couple corrections and added some text at the end.) Back in 1964, my brother, Joe, went off to Swarthmore on a (rare) full ride National Merit Scholarship. He was a philosophy major, ran on the Cross Country team, and loved the Lord. He planned to go on for a Ph.D. and serve in foreign missions.

Meanwhile Dad...

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?

A New York state of mind...

Good girls gone bad, the city's filled with them...

                - Jay-Z, "Empire State of Mind"

Here's a list of the fifteen zip codes in New York City that have the highest rate of abortion. The graph was created by the Chiaroscuro Foundation and it tells us Manhattan's Chelsea - Clinton zip code has the highest rate of child-slaughter in all of New York City.

The Chelsea-Clinton zip code is the zip code of Redeemer Presbyterian Church...

Sowing the wind, reaping the whirlwind...

(TB: this from David Wegener, our American-African correspondent on home assignment here in these United States for the coming year.)

Reading the recent article about Pat Summit, the head woman’s basketball coach at the University of Tennessee, has put me in a reflective mood. If you read the article and are a regular reader of this blog, you’ll feel pretty sad. Sorry that Pat Summit has early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Sorry that her marriage ended in divorce. Sorry that she’s given her life to basketball. Sorry for her son Tyler.

Sorry Pat is such a man--this last idea was the dominant impression I had after reading the piece by Sally Jenkins (who calls Pat her best friend).

When doctors at Mayo Clinic told her she had Alzheimer’s and urged her to retire, she responded, “Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?” Jenkins describes her as “a marble pillar, ramrod straight, that seems to have stood for a thousand years, while everything around it falls.” She is characterized by “resolve.” Things like surrender and acceptance and vulnerability have never “come naturally to her.” If you watch the interview and see what it reveals about Tyler’s relationship with his mom, well, it makes you even sadder. Even sick.

She is the most successful coach in women’s sports today...

National Presbyterian Church of Mexico meets and repudiates woman officers...

(Esta entrada del blog está dedicado al Sr. y la Sra. Josué Congrove.)

While Evangelicals of the mainline liberal Presbyterian Church (USA) are gathering in Minneapolis to figure out how to keep their precious woman officers and yet differentiating themselves from the wicked promotion of sodomy that their national association of churches has approved and will enforce, the two-million member National Presbyterian Church of Mexico (Iglesia Nacional Presbiteriana de México [INPM]) is growing in obedience. Last week they held a special meeting to act on the ordination of women and voted not to allow woman officers by the margin of 158 to 14.

Redeemer promotes woman officers.

Iglesia Nacional Presbiteriana de México opposes woman officers.

Considering the Anglican machinations of the past few years, one wonders whether INPM will consider taking on a theological presbytery here in these United States of congregatons leaving the PC(USA) and PCA? This would allow...

As a result of works, faith is completed...

In a post earlier today Tim quoted from an interview in Christianity Today's feminist blog, Her.meneutics, with Russell Moore, new president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Moore is asked:

HER.meneutics: Complementarians sometimes say that a feminist or egalitarian reading of the Bible owes more to our own cultural prejudices than to a faithful reading of Scripture. Is this true?

Russell Moore: I do not believe that egalitarian Christians are evil, Bible-destructing people. Most of them are trying to reconcile some things they find in Scripture (Jesus’ affirmation of women, for instance) with others that seem to contradict these (the teachings of Paul and Peter on the church and family, for instance).

If egalitarian feminism is not "Bible-destructing," it follows, arguing from the lesser to the greater, that neither is it soul-destroying. This attitude has long been reflected in CBMW's genteel, comrades-in-the-faculty-row approach to feminist heresy.

But Tim has already addressed this point in his excellent post below.What must be added is the observation that only in a Reformed Protestant world where the biblically-taught union between faith and works has been decisively severed could a man argue that a heresy which leads to significant rebellion against the Word of God is not an immediate threat to human souls.

You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was completed. James 2:22 

"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...

Wives, submit to your husbands in everything but your work...

This piece written by a longtime Redeemerite does a good job of showing what complementarianism has always been and what the PCA has become...

Masculine worship: pounding guitars and lots of D minor?

Here's a post sampling the sort of music here being discussed. Check it out, then read this discussion. Or the other way around.

Here's an e-mail exchange between our Pastor for Music and Worship, Jody Killingsworth, and another church musician outside our church. The subject is men leading worship.

Yes, some readers are sceptical of the entire enterprise. The effeminacy of androgyny has taken over our culture whole-hog, leaving even the vows of wedding ceremonies neutered. Tragically, otherwise Biblical churches think and act as if men and women are interchangeable in everything but the Sunday morning pulpit and Thursday evening session meeting. Here, though, we'll assume the worthiness of the work under discussion and leave those unconvinced to argue over it somewhere else.

So, assuming men--not women--should lead the corporate worship of the church; and also that those men should lead from their manliness; what are the steps to be taken? (The e-mail has been redacted to protect the guilty.) (TB)

Dear Jody,

What are the essential elements of "masculine worship?"

These ones were born in Zion...

It's time to do the numbers. Lucas and Heather and Tenile report there are twenty-four children under a year and sixty who are five and under at ClearNote Church of Bloomington. Including the fifteen or so mothers carrying unborn Covenant children, that brings us to about seventy-five children five and under. How God has blessed us!

Cutting the grass today, I was listening to the Psalms and heard this:

The voice of the LORD makes the deer to calve And strips the forests bare; And in His temple everything says, “Glory!”  - Psalms 29:9

If you think it's weird to talk about children and births, read the Old Testament. I dare you.

Tilting at windmills...

Over on a conservative Reformed blog, a couple men have been arguing that the church today is being threatened by some who are taking father-rule (they call it "patriarchy") too, too far. No one really wanted to be specific, but when pressed by the esteemed brothers Craig French and RCJr., the following list of practices was submitted as proof of this grave threat.

We are told that the men who pose this threat within the Church are those "suggesting..."

What is a Christian wedding ceremony...

Hannah just returned from a wedding of a friend and happily reported that it was a Christian wedding. Which might lead some to ask what is a Christian wedding?

Well, it's not what New York did this past Lord's Day. Despite what the civil magistrate says, those weren't even weddings, let alone Christian.

A Christian wedding is a public exchange of vows by one man and one woman in which the man vows love and faithfulness until death and the wife vows love and faithfulness and obedience until death.

Other things may be added, but without each element of those vows, it is no Christian wedding.

Evangelicals need to be divided and this may well be the method that will do it most surgically...

From our Water-Finds-Its-Level Department...

Well-known feminist Carolyn Custis James will be in Fort Collins preaching to the women and men of Campus Crusade for Christ International this coming week. The occasion is Cru's National Staff Conference and this is one more indication of the necessity of Christians doing the hard work of removing Cru from their church and individual mission giving.

Egalitarian feminism is another Gospel. Let Ms. magazine and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and nonChristians for Biblical Equality and the National Organization of Women support Custis James, her husband Frank, and Cru. It's wrong for believers to use the tithes and offerings of the People of God to support those who turn the Scripture on its head, making a big show of their respect for God and His Word while promoting rebellion against them. (TB)

Mark Driscoll and gay worship leaders...

First, two of my favorites:

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

A: That's NOT funny!

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

A: Does it HAVE to be a LIGHT BULB?

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

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

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

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

One shocker after another from Carolyn Custis James...

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

WORLD enters the Promised Land...

Father Bill Mouser submitted this excellent comment under the post, WORLD's schtick.... Reading the original post may be necessary to understand this comment. (TB)

Do not defile yourselves by any of these things; for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled. For the land has become defiled, therefore I have brought its punishment upon it, so the land has spewed out its inhabitants. (Leviticus 18:24, 25)

Imagine for a moment Joshua facing Israel as it's perched on the east side of the Jordan river, addressing that nation this way:

"For the longest time I’ve struggled to put my finger on just what I believe about homosexuality. Or, for that matter, about incest. Or, for crying out loud, Moloch worship. Forty years ago, after all that sturm und drang at the foot of Sinai, I think I would have come down pretty solid on the line of “absolutely not.”

"But, I’m not sure I can say that anymore. Wait a minute: It isn’t that I think homosexuality, or incest, or Moloch worship, or anything else Moses wrote in Leviticus 18, is OK and is something YHWH overlooks or agrees with. But it is that I’m understanding a little better that what is commanded of us Jews is simply not the same as what we should expect from those who inhabit the land YHWH has given to us...

Bad exposure...

Wife and mother Michal Crum comments, "I can't help but apply this poster to American women and the sexual revolution: lack of modesty=bad exposure, producing 'working for free' and then: you don't value your sexuality so neither will anyone else."

Design by Andy Luce from Visual Armory.

Slate judges "soft patriarchalism" an "uneasy compromise"...

This Slate piece working to understand how Michele Bachmann's presidential candidacy can be harmonized with Christian sexuality is another proof of what Jesus said, that "the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light" (Luke 16:8). Slate turns to the "influential" Council on BIblical Manhood and Womanhood to do the parsing for them and here is their description of CBMW's position:

...the civic sphere is distinct from home and church and governed by different rules, (CBMW reasoned), and if the Bible didn't explicitly "prohibit [women] from exercising leadership in secular political fields," neither would they.

Slate points out that CBMW's "compromise was an uneasy one" quoting the New York Times which labelled the compromise "soft patriarchalism."

It's hard to tell what, exactly, the notion of wifely submission means in marriages where the wife in question has a high-powered career outside of the home. Last year's New York Times Magazine piece on female evangelical leaders described these unions as enacting a "soft patriarchalism."

Here's a principle I've learned in living for God. If you think you can negotiate with the Devil...

Sin, temptation, and the Campuscrusadification of the Church...

When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, “Then who can be saved?”

And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:25-26).

Again, here's a response to a question asked by "Jay" under the post, "Must a gay man go straight?" I thought it best to put the response here on the main page as a post.

Jay asked: "I do know other men and women who struggle with homosexual temptation, who not only reject copulation but also gay identity and culture, but who do not have any heterosexual desires. Are they saved?"

Sorry for the lack of response. The post took all my time for the blog yesterday so I'm playing catch-up.

First, I'm doubtful these men and women you know who struggle with homosexual temptation actually reject gay identity and culture as clearly and with the finality you indicate. If we live in a culture that hates sexuality as God made it; if we pursue androgyny in the pulpit in the way we preach (see the category of Baylyblog titled "gelded discourse"), in our appearance--hair length and style, for instance; if our  men are physically vain (whether macho buff or femmie bling and piercings or a sweet combination of both); it's likely no Christian tempted by homosexuality has really turned away from androgyny to Biblical manhood and womanhood. Made an effort, sure, but today within the Church there are precious few heterosexuals who pursue Biblical manhood or womanhood.

So being "straight" in our sexuality as the Bible presents manhood and womanhood is exceedingly rare, today. Men are narcissists and refuse to man up, taking responsibility for themselves or others...

Must a gay man go straight?

Under another post, a longtime reader named Jay asks a question that seems worth answering on the main page.

* * *

Dear Jay,

Answering a question like this by writing rather than in person is very difficult, pastorally. How can I show you I love you and am very concerned that you know the mercy of God for your particular set of temptations, especially in a time and place when any condemnation of sodomy is seen as at least shrill, and likely smug, insensitive, and grounded in self-righteousness, to boot?

Still, I will work to answer you because you say others are unwilling to do so, and because you are a precious soul belonging to the Lord of us all Who bought us each with His Own Blood and has called us to be holy as He is holy. If you want, I can put you in touch with those struggling with your particular set of temptations who are a part of our church here in Bloomington and you may ask them if what I write here is from love or censoriousness? You may ask whether you’d find our church to be loving of all regardless of their particular besetting sin, or loving only of those with more acceptable besetting sins?

So on to the difficult work others have avoided.

You wrote, “I would not consider myself heterosexual at all. Is being straight a requirement?”

Let’s clarify the question. The opposite of straight is gay, so another way of asking the question would be, “My psychological and emotional identity and inclinations are completely homosexual, so can I be give in to them as long as I don’t go all the way?” Or another way of saying it would be, “May I give myself to gayness rather than straightness in everything but physical intercourse, and will this please God?”

The answer is...

For one family, this was a very sad Father's Day...

Here's a letter written by father of three, Tom Ball, explaining why he planned to set fire to himself. The letter was received by the New Hampshire Sentinel this past Thursday morning, June 16th--one day after Mr. Ball burned himself to death in front of the Cheshire County Courthouse in Keene, New Hampshire.

Despair is evil and suicide more so, but it's worth reading Mr. Ball's very long letter to understand the policeman/judge/social worker troika feminists have so successfully employed to destroy millions of homes, robbing many more millions of children of their fathers. Likely every last one of us reading this apologia knows at least several fathers who have been arrested or had their children taken from their home without warrant. And Mr. Ball is right--it will only get worse.

Note particularly Mr. Ball's failed efforts to get official stats on domestic violence arrests; but also his stats on the percentage of domestic batteries and murders committed by men and women. Our good readers must be reminded again and again that domestic violence is an equal opportunity employer.

(TB)

More heresy from Baker's wolves...

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

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

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

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

Then this:

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

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

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

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

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

These heretics turn everything upside down...

Abdicating fathers, working mothers, and children raised in litters...

Under this post appears the following comment from Drew, a PCA pastor. Click through to the second page for my responses. (I've made some significant additions since first posting it.)

(TB)

* * *

Drew writes: So I'm new to this blog and confused. What is the problem with positive job prospects for women? And competition for men? Is it unbiblical for women to work? For men to share in staying at home and raising children? Aren't jobs outside of the home the result of a post-industrial revolution economy? Does the Bible really address this topic directly? If it does, isn't the woman in Proverbs 31 at least sharing in shouldering the household's economic burden? Doesn't it look like she is working outside the home?

Bottom line, how do we know that YOU haven't just adopted the unbiblical attitude towards gender roles that developed during the course of the 1800s, and that what we are experiencing in the workplace today is actually one positive aspect of our contemporary culture? [not everything is doom and gloom after all...just a lot of things]

I'm not trying to poke your eyes, these are honest questions offered in the spirit of furthering the conversation...

The economics of feminism...

Sooner or later every faithful pastor joins the resistance movement engaged in mortal combat with the Feminist Reich. At long last, the shepherd finds it impossible to live seated in the heavenlies far above the screams and bloody carcasses rotting in our public squares and churches. Hell and destruction get to be too much for him, so he puts on his armor, grabs the Sword of the Spirit, and marches out to destroy the Devils of Hell whose mouths are dripping the blood of the sheep. War is finally declared and the shepherd marches out in defense of his flock!

As he enters the battle, though, it dawns on him that economics is one of the key battlefields. Yet he's never learned a thing about economics...

Straining at gnats, swallowing camels...

(June 2--Please note that TypePad only displays the first hundred comments on a post by default. Comments past 100 can be displayed by clicking the "More Comments" link at the bottom of the 100th comment.)

Is Federal Vision theology (FV) worthy of the intense opposition Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) conservatives dignify it with? I suspect not. For a number of reasons, I suspect such opposition to FV theology in the PCA is a sign of conservative weakness rather than strength; opportunism rather than courage. But first a bit of history.

Four years ago when FV was first dealt with by the PCA at her 2007 General Assembly (GA), conservatives rallied in support of a report condemning aspects of FV theology. The report was adopted and trials of Federal Vision supporters followed, the latest of which is the upcoming trial of Peter Leithart in Pacific Northwest Presbytery. It would appear, then, that the PCA is dutifully reforming herself and the cleanup is mostly finished.

But perhaps as noteworthy as what happened within the PCA at the 2007 GA and following is what did not happen. To understand this, we must consider a pair of strange couplings that took place that year.

The 2007 General Assembly was notable, not only for its debate and subsequent vote on the FV report, but also for several mésalliances forged in the lead-up to that vote. On one side, the middle-aged lions of the Keller/Redeemer/hipster/missional party provided some support for the FV camp. On the other side, the old lions of the southern/tall-steeple/rich/broadly Reformed party provided some support for the Truly Reformed (TR) conservatives of the PCA.

When the heat of battle passed, though, both the hipster middle-aged lions and the rich old lions woke up to strange bedfellows. Neither alliance could last. Redeemer hipsters...

Children are amazingly resilient...

Lots of you have forwarded the story about the foolish couple in Toronto trying to keep their newborn's sex a secret. Hissy-fits and kudos all around, depending on your politics.

But really how different is it from the normal Christian home where, aside from putting body parts together when it's time for marriage...

Coming out of the bathhouse...

Here is a helpful and wise autobiographical account of one man's life of sexual perversion prior to repentance, along with a warning against the tactics of the sodomy lobby that are taking Emergents like Tony Campolo and Rob Bell by storm today. The article isn't for the faint of heart, but this piece does such a good job of smashing all the pro-sodomy propaganda to smithereens that every pastor and elder and deacon or deaconess should read it carefully.

Note particularly how gays and egalitarians share identical hermeneutical strategies. Following the sodomites' hermeneutical technique outlined below, for decades now egalitarians have checkmated the Pollyannas of the Evangelical Theological Society. Mr. Lee records how all the debates over the meaning of this or that Biblical verse or word have born the fruit of "the gay rights apologists (earning) a place at the table from which they will never be dislodged." This is precisely the way the egalitarians have won their battle, also. When kaphale and authentein have been parsed into oblivion, the egalitarians walk home chortling over their victory--and rightly so...

Rebellion is of a fabric...

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

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

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

Don't lie on Baylyblog...

Under this post, a man or woman identifying himself or herself as "Ben S" commented. On a hunch, I checked him or her out and found he or she's been using a number of false identities here on Baylyblog for over five years, now...

Excellent comments...

Several excellent comments have been made here and you'll want to read them.

(TB)

The wedding...

For those convinced that weddings mean something, did you notice today how the fairer sex signed their submission to Adam and his brothers with a veil or headcoverings?

(TB: thanks to Phil)

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

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

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

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

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

A brief on feminism, with a note on the deeper meaning of weddings...

If you think Luther and Calvin sinned in their rhetoric and you suspect parody does not edify, you may want to pass this one up. For the rest of us, here's an emetic for all the feminist toxins we're force-fed each day.

And if you're wondering, my dear wife Mary Lee liked it. But then this is a woman who pierced her own nose back in 1975 so let the reader undestand her opinion doesn't count for much.

(TB)

Feminists think women are infantile...

This teaser from a post by Kamilla: "Feminism is all about the self, perceived needs and keeping women in this state of need through rehearsal of the shared narrative... (Feminism is) the perpetual infantilization of women, making them out to be nothing so much as a needy toddler who stomps her little foot when she doesn't get her way:

'No, you cannot be a priest.'

STOMP.  'I WILL be a priest! And you can't stop me or I'll tell on you!!'"

(TB)

Spring housecleaning of Evangelical missions long overdue...

Because hundreds of millions of dollars are given each year to Christian missionaries and missions organizations who are ashamed of and hide--or often, simply oppose--what is commanded in the Word of God, Baylybog works hard to expose those organizations. Churches, missions committees, and individual Christians give money to organizations like InterVarsity with faith these organizations will use the money to advance the Kingdom of God and His Church--not the Kingdom of Satan. But who will tell such godly givers and their churches when InterVarsity is using their money to pay the salaries of staff workers who are betraying God and His holiness?

Back when J. Gresham Machen was working for reform of the Presbyterian church, the battle lines formed around the church's missions. Missionaries and their missions organizations were betraying Jesus Christ in the Name of Jesus Christ while being supported by naive church members and missions committees who were clueless. So Machen joined forces with other godly men to put a stop to it.

The message went out far and wide that Presbyterian missionaries were betraying Jesus Christ and His Word. This infuriated denominational and mission executives...

What is a "transformational breath facilitator"?

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

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

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

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

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