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Seeing the threat to his royalties, Eugene Peterson finesses things—making things worse...

Now the Washington Post reports Eugene Peterson is having second thoughts about whether or not he himself (at 84 and retired from the pastorate) would actually in the final analysis really and truly go ahead and officiate at a sodomite wedding. Tough question that one—especially when one considers the filthy lucre at stake.

Which is a lot. Of money, that is. The Post reports:

Eugene Peterson, who is best known for “The Message” Bible translation, set off a firestorm this week when he said in an interview with Religion News Service that he would be willing to conduct a same-sex marriage. In response, LifeWay Christian Resources, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, said it was prepared to stop selling Peterson’s books.

A threat to royalties can have a profound impact on a pastor.

Predictably, this financial threat to Eugene Peterson didn't produce true repentance, but only further conniving betrayals of God, His Word, and His sheep...


The World We Made: Coming soon...

UPDATE: There’s been lots of interest in this podcast, with about 2000 listens from 30 countries and counting! If you haven’t subscribed yet, we’ve added a few links to make it easier for those of you who aren’t on iTunes, which is most of you. (Welcome non-Apple fanboys.) Don't miss an episode. Scroll down and subscribe now.

"These are the confessions of American Christians recovering from American Christianity. This is the world we made."

Warhorn Media is pleased to announce a new podcast hosted by Jake Mentzel and Nathan Alberson and featuring Tim Bayly. The World We Made is designed to help ordinary American Christians think through the difficult issues we face in our culture today. Season 1 is about homosexuality.

Over the course of the first season, we talk with Tim about how we went from having anti-sodomy laws in all 50 states (just 50 years ago) to where we are today. What are the changes Tim has seen in his lifetime? What exactly do they mean? What part did the culture play and what part did the church play? How are regular Bible-believing Christians supposed to respond? What has Tim learned as a pastor to help equip us for the challenge of ministering to men and women tempted by homosexuality?

These are the questions we'll be unpacking over the course of eight 20-minute episodes. We'll start out slow and easy, and things will pick up steam as we get closer and closer to the end. You won't want to miss it, so check out the trailer (above), and go ahead and subscribe now in iTunes or Android (or wherever you listen to your podcasts—Google Play Music, Stitcher, TuneInRSS feed) so you're ready when the first episode drops (July 17). 

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The public shame of Eugene Peterson...

Screen Shot 2017-07-12 at 11.35.28 AM.pngA friend just sent me this link to a recent interview Jonathan Merritt of Religious News Service did with eighty-four year old IVP and NavPress author, Regent prof, and pastor, Eugene Peterson. This particular excerpt has to do with sodomy, lesbianism, and sodomite marriage. Peterson says he's OK with them all.

My friend writes, "As one formed by Intervarsity in the late 80s/early 90s, I see one "esteemed " teacher after another have no courage."

He's speaking euphemistically. This is no mere lack of courage, but utter apostasy. In other words, this man will never enter the Kingdom of God.

One might hope the things Peterson says are the product of early stages of dementia if only they didn't perfectly reflect everything I've known of Inter-Varsity and its press for decades now. How any Christian continues to give money in support of this organization and its employees is...


Homosexual orientation: just in time, Gospel Coalition and Al Mohler arrive at wrong...

If you love those who identify as gays and lesbians and you want to learn to see through their eyes and lies, other than Scripture, there's no better source.

I'm referring to the survey of the literature titled, "Sexuality and Gender: Findings from the Biological, Psychological, and Social Sciences." I've been intending to post on it for quite a while now.

The survey was authored by Lawrence S. Mayer and Paul R. McHugh, and with or without an education, you can understand the things in this report that are important for our work with those suffering LGBTQ temptations.

The authors are eminently qualified. Mayer is a scholar in residence and McHugh is a prof of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. For twenty-five years, McHugh also served as psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

A couple years ago, Al Mohler came out on the national stage saying he now no longer believed in reparative/gender identity counseling. He also "repented" of his former denial of homosexual orientation, stating that he now believes homosexual orientation is a real deal. Mohler goes on to...


In Vatican City, Pope keeps sodomy legal...

Italian newspaper il Fatto Quotidiano just disclosed another sodomite scandal in Vatican City.

A priest serving as personal secretary to one of the highest ranking cardinals in Rome's Curia was busted for drugs after Vatican Gendarmerie responded to complaints about a party. Entering the Monsignor's apartment, gendarmerie found it filled with drug-addled sodomites getting it on with one another. Vatican Gendarmerie had to take the monsignor to a hospital for detox before they could...


While Jews are persecuted, Evangelicals are captivated...

What goes down while UK Evangelicals are up in Keswick being "captivated" by OM's Peter Maiden, Alistair Begg, and "Research Professor" Don Carson?

London's private Vishnitz Orthodox girls' school fails its third inspection for conformity to the UK's Equalities Act and is on the verge of being shut down. Their crime?

The young Jewish women were not indoctrinated in “sexual orientation." Government inspectors declared "this restricts pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and does not promote equality of opportunity in ways that take account of differing lifestyles."

What happens when UK pastors farm out their Biblical witness against the homosexualist juggernaut to the SSA chatterboxes of...


The book is finished: check it out on CrossPolitic...

Just now (and by "now," I mean now) I finished writing The Grace of Shame. Tentatively subtitled, 7 Errors that Keep the Church from Loving Homosexuals (And What To Do About Them), the book is co-authored by son Joseph and Jurgen von Hagen. All three of us are pastors, but here's a hint: one of the three is not like the others.

Get a feel for it by going over to CrossPolitic and listening to today's podcast.

The three guys behind CrossPolitic, David Shannon, Gabriel Rench, and Toby Sumpter, were great to work with and you'll want to sign up to support their work. Tell them I sent you.

Then look for Grace of Shame's release in a few months after it's turned down by all the publishers and we rob the piggy bank to get it printed and released.

If you want to help with that, please give me a shout.


Pusillanimous: Chancellor Merkel and Gospel Coalition...

Reading Sobran's article just posted reminded me of the word "pusillanimous."

Keep track of the words that have died. They tell us what we've become.

Public leadership in the church and uncivil society today is forevermore pusillanimous. The word had to be killed. If you're fighting under cover of darkness, you don't provide the enemy night vision goggles.

Pusillanimous is the perfect word to describe what Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel did earlier today. After showing her truest heart to a woman's magazine where she answered a question about sodomite marriage by emoting about a recent visit she'd had with a lesbian couple and their foster children, Merkel suggested the issue be put to a vote...


Lighthouse Christian Academy: a press release...

Here's the press release Lighthouse Christian Academy issued this morning in response to the Huffington Post's faith-shaming of Christians. 1 


Vice President Pence and the Billy Graham rule...

A FB friend just asked my thoughts on the thrashing Vice President Michael Pence has been receiving for observing "the Billy Graham rule" in his relations with women other than his wife. What is the rule? I mention it in this Baylyblog post from January 20, 2005. First the post, then some comments on the present controversy...


Audio recordings from Shepherds Conference now available...

not_ashamed_0.pngThis past February, Clearnote Church, Bloomington hosted our annual Shepherds Conference. This year our subject was "Not Ashamed: Ministry in a Post-Obergefell World." The entire world is talking about the beauty of this and that sexual perversion, so the pressures on Christians to join in the work of removing these sins' shame is intense. Will the church be ashamed of the shame God has attached to these sins, turning away from His words to join the gay pride parade?

So we had an idea: why not hold a conference that might be helpful to the saints in this evil day?

Click here to listen to the audio recordings. We pray that they will be strengthening to you.


Tim Keller's legacy...

I am one of those women who have worked under Tim Keller’s leadership at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. [Tim] hired me to envision and develop an entire ministry to equip and mobilize men and women in Redeemer’s congregation to work with gospel-centered vision and integrity out in the world. We partnered in the establishment of the Center for Faith & Work, which may have done as much as any church in decades to honor Abraham Kuyper’s vision of humble, respectful engagement in a world of many faith perspectives.

- Katherine Leary Alsdorf, "Tim Keller hired women in leadership: Katherine Leary Alsdorf responds to the Princeton Kuyper Prize controversy" in A Journey Through NYC Religions.

Far above all other blog posts I've done through the years, the things I've written criticizing Tim Keller have cost me the most in terms of being viewed as an outlier among Reformed Evangelicals. "Who on earth would want to criticize Tim Keller," people ask; "he's the best we have!"

Maybe he's the best of my generation, but sorry to say, that's not saying much. Based upon the past generations of leaders I've known personally, as well as my reading of fathers in the faith who preceded us across the centuries, it's my judgement those of us leading the church today are moral, theological, and spiritual midgets. Children. Infants.

A little less than a century ago, J. Gresham Machen observed that America...


Every disability conceals a vocation...

Don't say I never quote Lewis. It's true I prefer Chesterton, but here's a great Lewis line forwarded by a dear friend just now:

Every disability conceals a vocation.

Actually, it's a phrase from the middle of a letter he wrote to Sheldon Vanauken quoted in Vanauken's A Severe Mercy, so the capital "E" and period should both be an ellipsis, technically speaking.

In this particular case, Lewis is speaking of the handicap of being homosexually tempted. Christians don't speak of homosexual or same-sex "attraction" or "desire," but rather homosexual and same-sex "temptation."

Yet his statement works just as well with blindness, cerebral palsy, and pedophilia.

God is no man's debtor. He always does a perfect job stewarding our suffering and the suffering of our loved ones.


The homosexualists' Chinese water torture...

Drip, drip, drip. The top right of the Google News page right now has this headline: 

Fans Give Back to Beloved Pittsburgh Artist and Dying Partner

The news story is about two sodomites who have been crowd-sourced $17,000 to have their dream vacation before...


Bloomington's Siosi Design...

"Tactile bar stools." Seriously?

Lesbian design here in Bloomington, and we're so very proud.

They tell us they have "been in demand ever since they were discovered by a private buyer in the Hamptons." You can't argue with that. Here's their "About" page. It's not self-parody.


Neil Gorsuch worships someone at a pagan church in Boulder...

Boulder has better churches than St. John's Episcopal Church attended by President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch. Their rector is a priestess and the congregation is committed to embracing sodomites and lesbians as full members with sacramental privileges.

On abortion, CNN reports:

"Despite Trump's pledge to pick a 'pro-life' justice, Leonard Leo, who advised the president on Supreme Court nominees, said the issue was never explicitly raised during their discussions. 'Judge Gorsuch wasn't asked about it, and he's not going to make a commitment on it,' said Leo, who has taken a leave from his job heading the Federalist Society while he shepherds Gorsuch's nomination through the Senate."

This is the man who made it worthwhile to vote for Donald Trump? Seriously?

Were Vice-President Mike Pence and the Federalist Society unable to find and recommend any nominee whose work is inspired by his orthodox Christian faith?

PS: Please click through for some criticisms of this post and my responses...


Pining for Christendom...

NYT's David Brooks is so very precious about buggery. My friend Mark Albrecht forwarded a link to Brooks's latest piece dissing Rod Dreher's exquisitely titled "The Benedict Option" while flattering Dreher for writing the most important book on religion in ten years. He points out twice in his three-minute read that he disagrees with Dreher's opposition to buggery.

Noted.

Noted again.

Dreher thinks the inspiration for his book's title is the sixth century founder of the Benedictine monastic order who wrote...


Response to inquiries concerning the Sam Allberry post...

Last week I wrote Gay priest Sam Allberry is LivingOut... warning against the errors bound up with Rev. Sam Allberry and his LivingOut.org movement now quite popular here Stateside. Since that post, men who read the post through FB links have been quite angry. 

I understand the frustration these men feel at criticisms leveled against a pastor who is committed to foregoing sexual intimacy outside heterosexual marriage, and to speaking against such sin to his liberal synod’s bishops, most of whom are themselves full-blown homosexualists. At this point in Western culture’s normalization of sodomy,  it seems wacko to get technical about our witness against the movement. Something like the enemy of my enemy can’t be anything other than my friend, right?

Trouble is, we can witness to Biblical sexuality in a way that undercuts Biblical sexuality. Which is to say winning isn’t everything; how we fight is an integral part of our witness. Yes, I get it: we’re very weary of the battle. We see the growing marginalization of Christian sexuality and it would be very helpful right now to have...


Gay priest Sam Allberry is LivingOut...

When Gospel Coalition puffed the LivingOut.org two-minute video by Anglican priest Sam Allberry, did you think it hit the sweet spot culturally and Biblically?

Sorry to disappoint, but no. Though parts of it were true, Pastor Allberry's testimony was carefully wrong at several key points—but in such a highly nuanced way that it's little wonder many people missed it. Pastor Allberry was wrong in the kind of way that listeners had to be highly educated to miss.

This sort of sound-bite plea of the pain of victimhood combined with sophisticated half-truths is what LivingOut.org specializes in, and there's a reason all men speak well of them.

Pointing out these errors Gospel Coalition keeps promoting is the subject of the book Juergen Von Hagen and I are close to finishing, now. We spent the past week...


The church's witness on sexuality: too cute by half...

Remember, the goal of my writing on sexuality is not to demean women and promote male privilege. Every brash woman and effeminate man who hates Baylyblog never stops repeating these accusations, but they couldn't be further from the truth. Manhood is not privilege, but its opposite: responsibility. As Christ died for His Bride the Church, so man takes up his own cross and dies for the mother of his children, his lover, his bride.

The story of marriage is man dying so woman may give life and nurture it. Where that story is not told, marriage doesn't exist. It's not a private story for Christians. It's the timeless, transcultural story of sex written by God in the very DNA of His universe. To preach and live this story is to preach and live the Gospel.

Among the perishing, this Gospel witness is the stench of death. This is why worldlings outside and inside the church never stop scorning, mocking, hissing, and shaming those who try to be faithful witnesses to God's holy heterosexuality.

There can be no middle ground on sexuality, although many of us are frantic...