Category Archives: Law and Faith

Apologetics, Eschatology, Law and Faith, Mp3s, New Testament Theology, Politics, Reforming, Systematic Theology, Theology

N.T. Wright and the Problem of Hell

The more one listens to N.T. Wright give lectures on the topic of his new book and his strong desire to see the world put to rights by God in Jesus, the more you notice that even though much of what he says is true… he’s leaving one important topic out on purpose! In Wright’s recent Harvard lectures, found here, Bishop Wright clearly avoids talking about the topic of hell for a more positive picture of God putting the world to rights and bringing about justice through the work of Christians (along and others) in the here and now. [NOTE: I encourage everyone to listen to these free lectures in mp3 and consider the good things Bishop Wright has to say, but I want to point out that everyone needs to listen with discernment and not embrace all of Wright’s narrative.]

To be honest, this is probably the most disturbing item of disagreement that I have with the British New Testament scholar. I’m very concerned that his lecturing is going to help many people become more universalistic in their thinking and less explicit about worshipping Jesus as the one and only Saviour and Lord. Now, Bishop Wright always tells people that he is the world’s one, true Lord and Saviour, but that still does not help it when people in a postmodern culture reinterpret things so easily!

But the point of this post was to point out some good comments from another Christian pastor and writer, Doug Wilson. I encourage you to read his post here and consider what he has to say about N.T. Wright and others who seemingly marginalize the doctrine of Hell away to nothing. Below is an excerpt:

N.T. Wright at Harvard

In his otherwise admirable book on evil, N.T. Wright makes the drastic mistake of leaving the subject of Hell entirely alone. But no matter how many helpful things you say, if you leave the really huge question out, then all you are really displaying is a real loss of proportion. “Well, other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?”

The questions that swirl around the issues of violence, pacifism, and the redistribution of mammon are all questions that tend to be summed up by those advocating their causes under this rubric as questions of “justice.” “No justice, no peace” the bumpersticker puts it. This is particularly the bent of the Christian left — the Jim Wallis, Ron Sider, Greg Boyd contingent. This is the myopic view of the Obama evangelicals, all singing that blues standard, “Lie to me!”

And they persist in acting as though you can define justice by taking an evangelical Christian and making him watch CNN for long enough. And lest anybody misunderstand me, I am not saying this because I think we ought to be learning from Fox News instead. No. We are to define justice exegetically (what does justice mean throughout the pages of Scripture?) and theologically (what are the ultimate displays of God’s justice?). We have done quite a bit of the former, and it is time for us to consider the latter.

[Continue Reading…]

Apologetics, Culture, Current Events, Law and Faith, Politics, Theology

Piper responds to President Obama

John Piper:

As everyone knows, our new President, over whom we have rejoiced, does not share this reverence for the beginning of human life. He is trapped and blinded by a culture of deceit. On the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, he said, “We are reminded that this decision not only protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters.”

To which I say . . .

  • No, Mr. President, you are not protecting women’s health; you are authorizing the destruction of half a million tiny women every year.
  • No, Mr. President, you are not protecting reproductive freedom; you are authorizing the destruction of freedom for a million helpless people every year.
  • No, Mr. President, killing our children does not cease to be killing our children no matter how many times you call it a private family matter. Call it what you will, they are dead, and we have killed them. And you, Mr. President, would keep the killing legal.

Some of us wept with joy over the inauguration of the first African-American President. We will pray for you. And may God grant that there arises in your heart an amazed and happy reverence for the beginning of every human life.

[HT: James Grant]

Apologetics, Culture, Current Events, Law and Faith, Politics, Reforming, Sermons, Theology

Living Under a Pro-Choice President

John Piper discusses what it is like to be a pro-life Christian under a Pro-Choice President. He writes:

That is the title of a sermon I preached January 17, 1993, three days before Bill Clinton was inaugurated president. It is just as relevant—or more—today.

The text was 1 Peter 2:17, “Honor the king.” I closed with eight ways to honor a pro-choice president. The seventh was this:

We will honor you by expecting from you straightforward answers to straightforward questions. We would not expect this from a con-man, but we do expect it from an honorable man.

For example,

  1. Are you willing to explain why a baby’s right not to be killed is less important than a woman’s right not to be pregnant?
  2. Or are you willing to explain why most cities have laws forbidding cruelty to animals, but you oppose laws forbidding cruelty to human fetuses? Are they not at least living animals?
  3. Or are you willing to explain why government is unwilling to take away the so-called right to abortion on demand even though it harms the unborn child; yet government is increasingly willing to take away the right to smoke, precisely because it harms innocent non-smokers, killing 3,000 non-smokers a year from cancer and as many as 40,000 non-smokers a year from other diseases?
  4. And if you say that everything hangs on whether the fetus is a human child, are you willing to go before national television in the oval office and defend your support for the “Freedom of Choice Act” by holding in your hand a 21 week old fetus and explaining why this little one does not have the fundamental, moral, and constitutional right to life? Are you willing to say to parents in this church who lost a child at that age and held him in their hands, this being in your hands is not and was not a child with any rights of its own under God or under law?

Perhaps you have good answers to each of these questions. We will honor you by expecting you to defend your position forthrightly in the public eye.

You have immense power as President of the United States. To wield it against the protection of the unborn without giving a public accounting in view of moral and scientific reality would be dishonorable. We will honor you by expecting better.

[HT: James Grant]

Culture, Current Events, Law and Faith, Politics

Homeschoolers win in Germany

This is an update from previous posts I’ve done on the same topic. I wanted to pass along this good news for the Christian parents that were facing the possibility of jail time for the homeschooling of their children. Read below and be thankful to God for providing them with this amazing deliverance!

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POLICE STATE, GERMANY
Homeschoolers win when government charges dropped
Mom, dad no longer threatened by penalties including jail

Posted: December 11, 2008
12:00 am Eastern
By Bob Unruh

Authorities are dropping criminal child-neglect charges pending against a German mother and father who could have faced up to two years in jail and loss of custody for homeschooling five of their children, according to a report from the International Human Rights Group.

Spokesman Joel Thornton said his group, which has been working on the case involving the Brause family from Zittau, Germany, heard from local counsel about the government’s decision.

“We received word from our German counsel in this case, Johannes Hildebrandt, that the court and the prosecutor are dropping the charges against Mr. and Mrs. Brause. This means they no longer face up to two years in prison and the potential loss of their children. The decision of German officials is a huge victory for this family and for homeschool families in Germany,” Thornton told WND.

[Continue Reading…]

Culture, Law and Faith, Politics

Abortion And The New Government

1 Comment

Thanks to James Grant for informing me of this:

A coalition of pro-choice organizations has sent Barack Obama and his transition team a document titled “Advancing Reproductive Rights and Health in a New Administration,” which has been posted on the president-elect’s website.

The document “urge[s] the next President to articulate and implement a vision for a new, commonsense approach to the nation’s and the world’s pressing reproductive health needs,” and outlines the actions they would like to see him take toward that end — including improving access to abortion worldwide, increasing funding for comprehensive sex education and defunding abstinence-only programs, pushing for the Freedom of Choice Act, and appointing pro-choice judges and government officials.

The Obama website is accepting comments on this document. Click here to read it and to give your opinion.

I’ve posted my own comment on the debate site (Look for a comment from Glenn). Please go to the web site above and give your opinion on this matter. Here is what I said:

I hope that the president-elect will be sensible in his dealings with these things. When the majority of people in the country believe that abortion is wrong, even calling it murder, this is not a time to judge that a baby is merely part of a woman’s body. How can the government have the right to allow or even force medical institutions to murder unborn children? That is the question that so many people are asking. But the common rhetoric is, “well it’s her body,” but if it is her body, then why doesn’t the woman die when an abortion is performed??? Is it because she’s cutting off part of her body? Or because she’s ending the life of someone’s body, who happens to be living inside of her’s? The language of pro-choice and pro-abortion organizations is rhetoric at best and deceptively murderous at worst. Please, president-elect Obama, do not pass the Freedom of Choice Act and do not add to the funding of pro-choice groups by giving them my tax payer money or anyone else’s taxpayer money. It is not right and it is not something that the government should be doing.

Culture, Current Events, Law and Faith, Politics, Prayer, Promotionals, Reforming, Theology

Ten Things to Keep in Mind After the Election

Here are some helpful thoughts from Doug Wilson about how Christians should respond to the election of Barack Obama.

1. God is still Father, Christ is still at His right hand, and the Holy Spirit is still abroad in the world, recreating that world according to the image of Christ. When the nations conspire against Him, He laughs at them.

2. The most important thing we can do for our nation, and for the world around us, is to gather for worship every Lord’s Day. The privilege of voting in presidential elections comes to us every four years, while we are graced with the opportunity to take the Lord’s Supper week to week. Right worship reforms the Church, and is therefore God’s central instrument for remaking the world. For this reason, we must insist on worship that is in accordance with Scripture. Judgment begins with the household of God. Our generation is fatherless. In the power of the Spirit, in the name of the Son, we must therefore worship the Father.

3. The first and greatest command is to love God, and the second is to love our neighbor. When the question arises, as it will, as to who is our neighbor, a good policy is to always begin with the smallest, the least, the most defenseless. Never apologize for a crawl-over-broken-glass pro-life stance. Live in such a life-affirming way as to expect apologies from those who would redefine the lives of others (always the lives of others, isn’t it?) into expendible insignificance.

4. Honor women. Honor your mother, your wife, and your daughters. We live in a culture that despises women, and which has engineered a vast machinery of propaganda designed to get them to surrender to it. If you don’t know how to honor, on a day-to-day basis, the women in your life, then learn. Make it a priority.

5. Don’t doubt in the dark what you knew in the light. The late Francis Schaeffer taught evangelical Christians to think like Christians as they engaged with unbelief in the public square. But a goodly number of his proteges, disciples, and name-appropriators have begun to “engage with the culture” in a way that looks more like going native than it looks like missionary work. Melancthons fall apart more rapidly than they used to. Get used to it, but don’t you do it.

6. While pro-life work is at the very center of all mercy ministry, it should not be allowed to distract from the broader kind of mercy ministry that offers gospel help to those who have contributed to their own misery — addicts, convicts, the uneducated and the unemployable. Such mercy ministry must be consistently tenderhearted and hardheaded. Sentimentalists are never able to give themselves away in the ongoing way that bleeding (but thinking) Christians must.

7. Learn something about economics. Please.

Continue reading Ten Things to Keep in Mind After the Election →

Culture News, Current Events, Law and Faith, Politics

Culture News: Arizona and Florida ban ‘gay marriage’

Arizona and Florida ban ‘gay marriage’
The Christian Institute
Wednesday, 5 November 2008

Voters in Arizona and Florida have supported measures to defend the definition of marriage. A similar vote in California looks set to go the same way.

Meanwhile, voters in Arkansas have agreed with proposals to restrict adoption and fostering to married heterosexual couples only.

…In Florida, 62 per cent of voters supported an amendment to the state constitution that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

In Arizona, 56 per cent of voters supported proposition 102 which seeks to amend their state constitution so that only a union between one man and one woman would be valid or recognised as a marriage in the state. (Continue Reading…)

Apologetics, Culture, Current Events, Law and Faith, Politics, Prayer, Reforming, Theology

Honor the President

I would like to point everyone to some very good posts that came out yesterday on election day regarding how we, as Christians, are to respond to the new President. Justin Taylor says:

With Ohio being called for Senator Obama, it appears that he will be our next President.

It’s very easy to forget–especially for those of us who are on the younger side–that it was only a little over 40 years ago that there were Jim Crow laws in the US. Just a generation ago, many African Americans were segregated from whites in public schools, transportation, restrooms, and restaurants.

Tonight, the United States has elected a biracial man to serve as its leader.

It would be an understatement to call this a watershed cultural moment in our country’s history.

No matter who you voted for–or whether you voted at all–it’s important to remember that, as President, Barack Obama will have God-given authority to govern us, and that we should view him as a servant of God (Rom. 13:1, 4) to whom we should be subject (Rom. 13:1, 5; 1 Pet. 2:13-14).

There are many qualifications to add to these exhortations–for example, see this excellent post by John Piper–but it’s still important to remember that these are requirements for all Bible-believing Christians.

John Piper Says:

How does the Bible instruct us to pray for “all who are in high positions”? It says,

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1Timothy 2:1-4).

A few observations:

1. Giving thanks “for kings” is hard when they are evil.

And, as Calvin said on this passage, “All the magistrates of that time were sworn enemies of Christ.” This shows us that anarchy is a horrible alternative to almost any ruler.

We should give thanks for rulers because “non-rule” would unleash on us utterly unbridled evil with no recourse whatever.

Again Calvin: “Unless they restrained the boldness of wicked men, the whole world would be full of robberies and murders.” The better we understand the seething evil of the human heart that is ready to break out where there is no restraint, the more thankful we will be for government.

2. The effect we pray for is “that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly, and dignified in every way.”

Dignified means “serious and reverent,” not stuffy. I suspect what Paul means is not that we can’t live godly and serious lives during times of anarchy. We can. I suspect he means that peaceful and quiet lives, which are the opposite of anarchy, are often wasted in ungodly and frivolous actions.

So he is praying for a government that would give peace and quiet (not anarchy), and that Christians would not fritter away their peaceful lives with the world, but would be radically godly and serious about the lost condition of the world and how to change it.

3. Using our peace for radical godliness and serious action will lead to more effective evangelism and world missions.

This last observation is confirmed by the hoped-for outcome Paul mentions. Paul says that the reason God delights in such peaceful, Godward, serious action is that he “desires all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

More people will be saved if our government restrains the horrors of anarchy, and if Christians use this peace not to waste their lives on endless entertainment, but seriously give their lives to making God known.