Friday, February 27, 2015

A 150 YEAR YOUNG IDENTITY

A 150 YEAR YOUNG IDENTITY
Friday, February 27, 2015

Leviticus [MKJV] 18:20-24 And you shall not lie carnally with your neighbor's wife, to defile yourself with her. … You shall not lie with mankind as with womankind. It is abomination to God. And you shall not lie with any animal to defile yourself with it. And a woman shall not stand before an animal to lie down to it. It is a perversion. Do not defile yourselves in any of these things. For in all these the nations are defiled, which I cast out before you.

  Though I most certainly am, I do not primarily identify myself as “I’m heterosexual.” So why do so many gays identify themselves by their libido? Especially since, though homosexual acts were practiced prior to, until about 150 years ago there was no “gay” identity. Until then homosexual acts were just one of the sexual acts.
  And so it is listed and defined in Scripture; as an act, not as a person.
  The natural conclusion to this knowledge being God doesn’t make homosexuals, no more than he makes Democrats . . . or Republicans, Baptists . . . or Anglicans, or _________.

EBB4 

Thursday, February 26, 2015

DELIGHTFUL RECOGNITION

DELIGHTFUL RECOGNITION
Thursday, February 26, 2015

  Dare I say something so absolute as “Everyone experiences delightful recognition.”? I am, as I believe it true.
 Typically we associate delightful recognition with faces and places. Have you ever been watching movie, video, or reading a book and delightfully recognized a person or place? I have. One of my favorites is in viewing PBS BBC and seeing that oft included row of curved front Victorian Town Houses on that curved street, and exclaiming “In July of 1984 I walked there and sat on that fence!” . . . always with same reaction of eye-rolling from those that heard it before.
  Such moments of recognition are definitely delightful, but there are others that are even more joyful.
  Recently I was so blessed and praise my Lord’s workings for it.
  The room was full of people. A candidate was being interviewed by process of questions from the floor. The facilitator with microphone in hand was not repeating the question for those hearing-impaired in the audience. Finally someone asked for questions to be repeated. And soon the facilitator lapsed back into not doing so.
  Suddenly I recognized my lack of old-fashioned passive aggressive irritation, and silently thanked He who continues to perform the good work in His family. (Phil.1:6)
  Recognizing faces and places is definitely delightful, but it cannot for one moment compare with seeing valuable eternal maturation!

EBB4 

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

WORD SHAPING

WORD SHAPING
Wednesday, February 25, 2015

  I read Janie B. Cheaney’s essays. For the most part I like what she says, and then there are the ones that speak to my need for reshaping. I read recent essay she wrote of how our words (self-talk) and the words of others shape us . . . my adding here: dependent upon whether we so allow, or embrace, or reject.
  To illustrate self-talk, Cheaney provides tale of 4 year old asked if it was he that tracked mud into the kitchen. “No, that was my shoes.” said the lad.
  Then there’s THE RIFLEMAN projected line in the late 50’s TV series, “A man doesn’t run from a fight. But that doesn’t mean you go looking to run TO one!”
  Did you hear about the new Smartphone app created by St. Louis designer Matthew Homann, and already being purchased and used by women? It’s called INVISIBLE BOYFRIEND, providing texts and voicemails from a faux beau. In TIME interview Homann explained “We’re not trying to build something that could fool you. Our intention has always been to build something that helps you tell a better story about a relationship you’re not in.”
  Say what??!!
  And then there is the WORD supplying ultra significant words “It is written, Man shall not live [be quick] by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (KJV Mt.4:4; Lk.4:4)
  Hearing and believing this, LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are our potter. We are the work of your hands. (GW Isa.64:8)

EBB4

Monday, February 23, 2015

GOIN' TA MEETIN'

GOIN’ TA MEETIN’
Monday, February 23, 2015

Hebrews [GW] 10:23-25 We must continue to hold firmly to our declaration of faith. The one who made the promise is faithful. We must also consider how to encourage each other to show love and to do good things. We should not stop gathering together with other believers, as some of you are doing. Instead, we must continue to encourage each other even more as we see the day of the Lord coming.

  I, along with a multitude of others here and abroad, gathered together yesterday. I seldom miss the weekly occasion, but why not? Or more correctly asked, “Why do I go to church?”
  First of all, I’m to follow my Lord’s example; I am to be Christ-like. This includes Jesus’ custom of meeting with others honoring the Father and His Word.
  Then there’s the benefit of hearing the Truth expounded, discussed, and being corrected and challenged thereby.
  And of course there’s the matter of nonparticipation being expensively sinful.
  Oh, and then there’s the bit about my having family and friends there.

EBB4

Sunday, February 22, 2015

A CHILD'S DICTIONARY

A CHILD’S DICTIONARY
Sunday, February 22, 2015

  In school I always received high grades for writing. I did however get red marks on texts for a childhood habit that began not with pencil or pen, but soon after I began talking.
  Grandmother McGee swore I must have been vaccinated at birth with a phonograph needle, plus sternly warning “I know what you mean, but that’s not a word in the dictionary.” With my response being “But it’s in my dictionary!”
  I made up words; words that summarized meaning for me. I wasn’t alone in this as other playmates did the same.
  In spite of Grandmother’s warnings, I never broke the habit. One of my grownup favorites is “followship”, which to me is inseparable from “fellowship”, making point as it conveys meaning plainly.
  Followship is something I think about every day because we are always following something or someone; and in our followship there are others following us. A serious thought indeed.
  Jesus spoke of and invited followship. Here is list of KJV verses that include His “follow me”.

“And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Mt.4:19)
“But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” (Mt.8:22)
“And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.” (Mt.9:9)
“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” (Mt.16:24)
“Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.” (Mt.16:24)
“And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the receipt of custom, and said unto him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him.” (Mk.2:14; Lk.5:27)
“And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” (Mk.8:34)
“Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.” (Mk.10:21)
“And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” (Lk.9:23)
“And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.” (Lk.9:59)
“Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.” (Lk.18:22)
“The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me.” (Jn.1:43)
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (Jn.10:27)
“If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.” (Jn.12:26)
“Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards.” (Jn.13:36)
“This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me.” (Jn.21:19)
 
  This day, as with every other, we will hear many beckonings; an unavoidable situation. But it not at all the question, it being which “follow me” will we hear and heed? Let us chose daily, carefully, for the path does go on forever. (Jn.14:6)  EBB4


PS: Did or do some of you make up words? Your children? Grandchildren? If so, please share for all to enjoy in Saturday DT FORUM.

Friday, February 20, 2015

WAS JUDAS FORGIVEN?

WAS JUDAS FORGIVEN?
Friday, February 20, 2015

Luke [GW] 22:21-22  [At the last supper Jesus said] “The hand of the one who will betray me is with me on the table. The Son of Man is going to die the way it has been planned for him. But how horrible it will be for that person who betrays him."

Original DT text: “Yesterday [Sunday], Judas (betrayer of Christ) came up in our text book and it said God forgave him.  (I will get you the exact quote I'd you would like.).  Several students totally disagreed.  So we had a small discussion about him and his character.  Everyone had different opinions.  I told the group leader that Scripture says Satan entered Judas.  The leader said no....Judas was not possessed.  So I let it go.  However, my take away from this discussion is that most people (leaders in today's churches) do not like to think that a disciple could have been influenced by Satan.  What's up with that?
Love In Christ, Diane (NE) [Diane included Luke 22:3 in 21 parallel translation.]

The responses:

My question is why does that church allow that person to teach?  I would have pushed on which is right the teacher or the Word.  Whichever is found to be right tells you where you really are.  Wayne (Loc.?)
[Note above that it was taught as doctrine from that church provided manual. EBB4]
+++
There's multiple questions here:
1) Did Satan enter Judas?
2) Was/could Judas have been forgiven?
3) Can a disciple be influenced by Satan?  If so, why?
  The answer to 1) is clearly yes.  Looking at the Scriptures Ed provided leaves no room for doubt or debate.  I'm not sure what the group leader's reasoning was in saying that Judas was not possessed but I hope for his group's sake that he is open to admitting and amending his error.
  The answer to 2) is a bit more complex but still very answerable.  Could Judas have been forgiven?  Absolutely.  Jesus Himself said in Matthew 12:32:"Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come."
  People usually focus on the second half of this verse but the first half states that even a sin directly against Jesus will be forgiven.  Granted, the verse references a spoken word which goes against the Son of Man as opposed to an act of betrayal but I think it is taking the verse (and Scripture as a whole) out of context to say that Judas couldn't have been forgiven.
  The next question though is was Judas forgiven.  We won't know the for sure answer to this question this side of heaven.  Luke 24:47 says:"It was also written that this message would be proclaimed in the authority of his name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: 'There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.'"
  Whether or not Judas truly repented before hanging himself is the real question, and again we won't know this for sure in this life.
  In regards to 3) a true disciple can be influenced by temptation and experience hardship, as Jesus promised his followers in John 16:33:"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
  Paul says in Galatians 5:16-18:So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever[a] you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
  Because we have the Holy Spirit in us we have no need to fear possession or temptation because Christ has already overcome it.  The Holy Spirit lives inside us and is stronger than anything Satan can throw at us.  Thus, with all this considered in addition to 1 John 2:19 (below), Judas was not truly a believer at the time he betrayed Christ even though he was with the Lord frequently.  This leads back to the real question being did Judas truly repent before killing himself. 
"They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us."
David (NE)
+++
First and foremost, Satan did enter into Judas, but Judas had a willing heart to let him in.  Judas was already going down that road so he is not a victim here.  Judas chose to betray Christ and Judas repented of his decision afterwards.  He couldn't go to the synagog and ask for forgiveness for this betrayal since the religious order was the one to whom he had betrayed Christ.  There was no place for him to get forgiveness.  If he could have just waited a view days and not hung himself until Christ's return, he would have been able to have that sin forgiven but we people are in such a rush to fix things, aren't we?
   Judas, the son of Perdition, was prophesized like this...It would have been better if he'd never been born.  Now, if redemption had occurred, this would not have been the forecast for him.  So, the odd's of Judas' redemption are pretty slim.  Still, all things are possible through Christ.    If it were me writing this and - oh, it is; I would leave it like this.  Upon Christ's resurrection, the disciples asked him who had betrayed him (as they were not yet aware of Judas' suicide).  Christ said, if it be that he tarries until my return, what is that you thee?...  He basically told that that it wasn't any concern of theirs and that they needed to stay focused on their own walk with the Lord.  They lived the rest of their lives as shining examples of Christianity.  Judas stood as a dire warning of choosing your own path.  Both ways can serve the Lord but I think I'd rather be the shining example.  Penny (NE)
+++
I don`t believe Judas was forgiven. I go along with what the Bible Commentary has to say regarding Matt. 27:3-4.: " Realizing his sin in betraying innocent blood, Judas offered the money back to the chief priests and elders. These arch conspirators who had co-operated so eagerly a few hours ago now refused to have any further part in the matter. This one of the rewards of treachery. Judas was remorseful but this was not a godly repentance that leads to salvation. Sorry for the effects which his crime brought on himself, was yet unwilling to acknowledge Jesus as Lord and Savior."  JIm G. (NE)
+++
I hate to think of the consequences if Judas had freaked out of his assignment.  He was forced to act in order for the scripture to be full filled.  It is entirely possible that God did forgive him for carrying out the portion assigned to him.  Bill (NE)
+++
I think Judas was religious, not forgiven. Tom
+++
If he confessed his sin and asked for forgiveness, yes.  1 John 1:9 srf (NE)
+++
  Was forgiveness possible for Judas? In the light of 1John 1:9, yes it was possible.
  Did Judas ask for forgiveness? He was remorseful, but there’s n concrete indication he repented and asked for forgiveness.
  From International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: After the betrayal, Mk, Lk and Jn are silent as regards Judas, and the accounts given in Mt and Acts of his remorse and death vary in detail. According to Mt, the actual condemnation of Jesus awakened Judas' sense of guilt, and becoming still more despondent at his repulse by the chief priests and elders, “he cast down the pieces of silver into the sanctuary, and departed; and he went away and hanged himself.” With the money the chief priests purchased the potter's field, afterward called “the field of blood,” and in this way was fulfilled the prophecy of Zechariah (Zec_11:12-14) ascribed by Matthew to Jeremiah (Mat_27:3-10). The account given in Act_1:16-20 is much shorter. It mentions neither Judas' repentance nor the chief priests, but simply states that Judas “obtained a field with the reward of his iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out” (Act_1:18). The author of Acts finds in this the fulfillment of the prophecy in Psa_69:25. The Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) rendering, “When he had hanged himself, he burst asunder,” suggests a means of reconciling the two accounts.
EBB4



Wednesday, February 18, 2015

A CRITIQUE OF BIOLOGOS

Evolutionary syncretism: a critique of Biologos
by Lita Cosner [Creation Ministries International website CREATION.com ]
Published: 7 September 2010 (GMT+10)Evolutionary syncretism: a critique of BioLogos
Francis Collins, American physician-geneticist, [is]founder of the BioLogos Foundation.
  BioLogos, founded in 2007 and funded with a grant from the theistic evolutionary Templeton foundation, declares on its home page that it “explores, promotes and celebrates the integration of science and Christian faith.” But by their own admission, they do not offer anything specifically Christian; their article ‘On what grounds can one claim that the Christian God is the Creator?’ says: “The creation story of BioLogos is compatible with many faith traditions. Muslims, Jews and Christians alike can align their faith with the BioLogos account of our origins, and there is no way to give a scientific proof for one monotheistic faith over another.”1
  Indeed, they succeed in their quest for non-specificity; on the whole site, there are very few articles that are specifically Christian, and most of those are from outside contributors. But they claim that all of their members are Christian theistic evolutionists, so in that sense they are a professing Christian group. But their embrace of evolutionary science and some of its logical effects on Christian theology is such that they, in effect, become syncretists2—rather like the way the Gnostics syncretized Christianity and Greek philosophy, and the Roman Catholic Church in Galileo’s day did with Aristotelian physics.

Evolutionary science … oh yes, and faith too
  It is interesting to contrast the tone on the site when discussing the Bible and the tone used when discussing science, especially evolution. In the former, evasive phrases like “it can be argued that”, “BioLogos is compatible with the idea that”, and other phrases designed to give an impression that they are taking a stance when they are actually bending every way they can to avoid taking a stance on a positive teaching of Scripture over their science, which is their ultimate authority. If this is characteristic of all their writing, one could conclude that this simply shows that they are not only compromisers, but that they actually lack any courage or fortitude in standing up for the Bible at all. However, they do not shy away from definite statements about evolution and science. These excerpts from two BioLogos articles illustrate the difference in language well. From “What is evolution?”:
  Many still wonder why macroevolutionary changes have never been observed. The simple answer, as Darrel Falk puts it, is that we haven’t been watching long enough. The types of genetic mutations that eventually lead to macroevolutionary changes are rare, and this accounts for the slow pace of evolutionary development. The amount of time that we have spent observing nature is only a tiny fraction of the evolutionary timescale. Moreover, the evolutionary process cannot be expedited by selective breeding within a species. To breed dogs with dogs, for example, will mostly result in a re-shuffling of the information that is already present within the canine genes of that population. If there is a certain trait, like size or color, that is already present within the genes, then selective breeding opens the possibility of making that feature more prevalent within the population. However, selective breeding does not accelerate the rate of genetic mutations that occur in each generation. Because those novel mutations are rare but represent necessary steps toward evolutionary change, selective breeding will not speed up the process of macroevolution.3
Note that the previous was a definitive statement from ‘science’, albeit full of equivocation or bait-and-switch—see also “A Parade of Mutants”—Pedigree Dogs and Artificial Selection. But now note how the ‘science’ is the overriding filter when judging Scripture—from “Is there room in BioLogos to believe in miracles?”:
  Given quantum uncertainty, science cannot explain or even predict the exact long term behavior of nature’s most complicated systems, and the weather is certainly one of those systems. There would always be room, from the perspective of science, for God to have caused a scientifically undetectable miracle by working within the finer, subtler details of any event. But we must be careful not to carry this argument to the extent of inserting God into the many little—and some not so little—gaps in our scientific understanding of nature. For processes that are susceptible to ultimate scientific explanation, calling such currently unexplained events miracles runs the risk of being a God-of-the-Gaps theology.4
If our steadily improving scientific understanding can fully explain events, how can we say that God was involved in those events? This is the central theological problem of divine action, an animated conversation in the philosophy of religion. Is it possible that the laws of nature are open in a way that allows for divine interaction, without leaving signs of broken or suspended natural laws?
We totally agree with not invoking miracles in operational science. But where the Bible explicitly states that a miracle has occurred, including Creation, Fall, Flood, Babel, the plagues of Egypt, the Virginal Conception, miracles and Bodily Resurrection of Christ, they should never be explained away by ‘science’, since they are cases of God’s addition ‘to natural laws’.
  Far from merely trying to avoid a god-of-the-gaps argument, they are removing God from the picture altogether. If He is not overarching in His Creation and superintending it, and their evolutionary science can explain everything, then why is a Creator God needed at all? What about passages like Colossians 1:15–17?
  He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Low, really low view of Scripture
  BioLogos’s view of Scripture is probably best summed up by this quote from a paper by professing evangelical contributor Peter Enns,: “Most Christians understand that, even though the Bible assumes a certain way of looking at the cosmos, from a scientific point of view the Bible is wrong. And that is perfectly fine [emphases his].”5 Enns had previously left (or was dismissed from) Westminster Theological Seminary over his book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament which attacked biblical inerrancy (see a thorough review by Dr Don Carson).
  In the case of Christ there was human parentage but the Holy Spirit overshadowed the event (Luke 1:35), ensuring a sinless Christ; in the case of the Scriptures there was human authorship but the Holy Spirit superintended the writers (2 Peter 1:21), ensuring an inerrant word.—Paul (not Peter!) Enns
And the people at BioLogos are very aware that it is not just Genesis 1–11 that is at stake. “For Paul, Adam certainly seems to be the first person created from dust, and Eve was formed from him.” I.e. creationists have been right all along about what the New Testament teaches about Genesis. But “[i]gnoring the scientific and archaeological evidence6 is not an option” in their mind, so Paul was simply wrong.7 In fact, Enns says that rejecting Christianity is a more viable option than taking the Bible’s account of creation at face value! He says that a true synthesis of Christianity and science “calls for a reorientation of what informed readers of the Bible expect from Genesis or Paul on the question of origins.”8
  This is not a problem for the Christian, they argue, because Scripture, like Jesus, is both human and divine. The orthodox Christian believer would agree that Jesus is human and divine, and the believer can believe much the same thing about Scripture having divine and human components, but BioLogos uses this as a sort of doublespeak—a way of ‘excusing’ Jesus’ alleged mistakes in science by implying that the human part of Him was fallible. The comparison between Christ and Scripture is right, but they draw a conclusion 180° away from the truth. Another Enns, Paul, drew the right conclusion:
  There is, in fact a correlation between the two aspects of special revelation: the Scripture may be termed the living, written Word (Hebrews 4:12), while Jesus Christ may be designated the living, incarnate Word (John 1:1,14). In the case of Christ there was human [only maternal] parentage but the Holy Spirit overshadowed the event (Luke 1:35), ensuring a sinless Christ; in the case of the Scriptures there was human authorship but the Holy Spirit superintended the writers (2 Peter 1:21), ensuring an inerrant word. The Bible accurately presents the special revelation of Jesus Christ.9
  Although the Bible is a collection of books, in its message and authority it is regarded as one book, because its books cannot be separated from one another. They all point to the Bible’s big picture—the very Gospel of Christ and His redemptive work. The books of the Bible record history, so similarly, its statements about history cannot be separated from its spiritual teachings. More than that, its spiritual teachings depend on the statements about history being true.
  But since Biologos draws the wrong conclusions, they argue that the Bible is wrong about origins, then chalk it up to the ignorant Bronze Age culture of the time that couldn’t possibly be expected to know that the earth is actually billions of years old and that we actually evolved from ape-like ancestors who were themselves ultimately descended from the primordial ooze.
  But then do we chalk up the Resurrection to the ignorant, superstitious first-century culture that couldn’t be expected to know that the dead don’t rise? After all, they argue that Paul was just as wrong about Creation as Moses was (or the rabble of priests whose writing was attributed to Moses, according to the liberal JEDP theory).

Jesus was in error!—BioLogos
  ’If Jesus as a finite human being erred from time to time, there is no reason at all to suppose that Moses, Paul, John wrote Scripture without error. Rather, we are wise to assume that the biblical authors expressed themselves as human beings writing from the perspectives of their own finite, broken horizons.’—Professing Evangelical Kenton Sparks, BioLogos.
  But when they finally do talk about Jesus, it’s to say that if we want to avoid Docetism10 we have to acknowledge that He didn’t have perfect knowledge; He was just a man of His time. And they have the same view of Scripture: “If Jesus as a finite human being erred from time to time, there is no reason at all to suppose that Moses, Paul, John wrote Scripture without error. Rather, we are wise to assume that the biblical authors expressed themselves as human beings writing from the perspectives of their own finite, broken horizons.”11
  But BioLogos makes the equal error of Ebionitism, which denied the deity of Christ; their view is essentially an Ebionite view of Scripture. Of course, Jesus was certainly fully human, but He was the unique sinless human who was also fully divine.
  And therein lies the problem—Jesus said, “If I have spoken to you about earthly things and you do not believe, then how will you believe if I speak to you about heavenly things?” (John 3:12) So it’s not surprising that BioLogos criticizes biblical morality as well as biblical history.12 Yet Jesus commended even ‘harsh’ sections of the Law: “If there is anyone who curses his father or his mother, he shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother, his bloodguiltiness is upon him” (Leviticus 20:9). (This is different to the question of whether this law applies to those today who are not signatories to the Siniatic Covenant—see Is eating shellfish still an abomination?) And Jesus commended many of the Old Testament teachings that skeptics love to mock—see Jesus Christ on the infallibility of Scripture.
  But it can’t matter what Jesus said anyway because He was wrong about so much else when it came to ‘science’ (see their next section ‘Jesus was in error’) according to advocates of BioLogos. But one problem is, which of Jesus’ saying should we accept, and who decides? Maybe the Second Greatest Commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself” is also faulty, because He was quoting from Leviticus 19:18: “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
  Of course, if one is suggesting Jesus made errors, then it is a logical assumption to suggest He was not divine. If one does not believe Jesus was divine, is one really a Christian? Because if Jesus was not fully divine, even while in human flesh, then His earthly human sacrifice could not pay for the sins of mankind. The Scripture is clear. When you look at Jesus you are seeing God, fully in the flesh. Hebrews 1:3 says:
  The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

The biblical errantists on Biologos confuse several concepts:
  Adaptation to human finitude vs accommodation to human error: the former does not entail the latter. A mother might tell her four-year-old ‘you grew inside my tummy’— this is not false, but language simplified to the child’s level. Conversely, ‘the stork brought you’ is an outright error, and if known to be an error, a lie. Similarly, God, the author of truth, used some simplified descriptions (e.g. using the earth as a reference frame, as modern scientists do today) and anthropomorphisms, but never error.
  Limitation vs misunderstanding: while the Second Person of the Trinity was incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, He voluntarily limited His omniscience (Phil. 2:5-11). I.e., in His humanity, He did not know all things. But this does not entail that He was mistaken about anything He said. All human understanding is finite, but this doesn’t entail that every human understanding is errant. Also, what Jesus did preach, He proclaimed with absolute authority (Mt. 24:35, 28:18), because He was speaking with the full authority of God the Father (John 5:30, 8:28), who is always omniscient. So if these BioLogos theologians wish to maintain this charge that Christ was mistaken because of His humanity, they must logically charge God the Father with error as well. Worse still, since the Father in His omniscience would know that it was error, they are in effect charging Him with involvement in propagating lies.
  As Jesus is the founder of the faith, one wonders what to do with His own words in Mark 10:6 when questioned about marriage when he said “But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.” When referring to Adam and Eve as the foundational and historical basis for marriage, He obviously did not mean the beginning to be an evolutionary big bang 14 billion years ago. So by BioLogos standards, Jesus would be wrong too. But they sidestep the issue by being willfully ignorant of Jesus’ teaching about Genesis. Enns says, “After Genesis 5:3, Adam is mentioned elsewhere in the Old   Testament only in the genealogy in 1 Chronicles 1:1. … In the New Testament, Adam appears in two genealogical contexts, Luke 3:38 and Jude 14. The only place in the Bible, other than Genesis 2:5, where Adam is of any theological importance is Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15, … and 1 Timothy 2:13, where Paul is addressing the role of women in church matters.” He seems bewildered by this: “After a virtual scriptural silence on the subject in the intervening centuries from Genesis one, Paul suddenly appeals to Adam and holds him side-by-side with Jesus.” But Scripture is anything but silent about Genesis; the New Testament alone appeals 60 times to Genesis 1–11. An Old Testament scholar like Enns should know that one doesn’t get the full picture by simply doing a word search or looking for outright quotes of a certain part of Scripture; the Bible is full of allusions that look back to a previous part of Scripture without spelling it out completely.  

The vibrant dance of apostasy
  BioLogos’s participation in the conference The Vibrant Dance of Science and Faith raised some eyebrows. Christians and atheists alike wondered what Biologos was doing partnering with the likes of Hugh Ross’s Reasons to Believe, the Discovery Institute, and Dinesh D’Souza. Ross in particular, with his brand of Progressive Creationism, claims not to be an evolutionist, and even wrongly, if not deceitfully, accuses biblical creationists like CMI of believing in ‘hyper-evolution’ because we teach rapid speciation. His supporters should take note that he seems all too eager to jump on board with anyone who subscribes to his old-Earth view. Also interesting is that many of the participants have mutually exclusive views of origins; the advocates of Intelligent Design, Old Earth Creationism, and Theistic Evolution would have much to disagree over.
  Christians who have commented on the conference tend to emphasize their unifying theme of compromise13—all of them believe in the big bang and billions of years—i.e. cosmological and geological evolution—and many (though not all) are comfortable with some sort of biological evolution. The common unifying factor is their disdain for straightforward biblical creation; all of the contributors have written or spoken out against young earth creation in some way. In fact, the agenda seems to be to marginalize true biblical creationists by claiming that the majority believe in an old Earth. It has been also noted that BioLogos seems to be keen to win the non-evolutionist old-Earthers fully over to their theistic evolutionary camp.
  Atheist bloggers have so far tended to view the ‘reasonable’ BioLogos’s partnership with ‘fundamentalist’ groups with horror:
  Now as far as I know BioLogos professes to be anti-creationist and anti-ID. They claim to fully accept the findings of science, which, last time I looked, supported evolution. Why … [profanity] are they sponsoring a meeting that includes [progressive] creationist speakers yet tries show the mutually supportive interactions between science and faith?14
Some, however, are more pragmatic:
   I don’t know why Jerry [Coyne] & crew aren’t supporting BioLogos on this, or at least neutral. The only people who can even talk to the creationists (and more importantly their audiences) and have much chance of convincing them of mainstream science are people who (a) fully accept modern evolutionary theory but (b) are evangelical Christians. Having anyone else usually turns it into a debate about theism vs. atheism, and the audience is forced to choose between accepting science and abandoning their whole worldview, community structure, moral system, etc.
  Theistic evolutionists, aka evolutionary creationists (who are not creationists in the common sense of the word, i.e. denying evolution), bug the ID people and the old-earth creationists probably even more than the atheists do. So if the goal is to fight the creationists, this is what you want.
BioLogos has devoted itself to changing the opinions of the evangelical world on this issue, and to do that they will have to participate in things like this.
  So, anyway, what they are doing is the exact opposite of promoting fundamentalism, being a Trojan Horse for ID, yadda yadda. [Emphasis ours].15

Darrell Falk’s comments on the BioLogos blog defending BioLogos’s involvement in the conference are telling:
  Truth, when put side by side with views which are untrue, will prevail. Why would we not want to co-sponsor an event which is designed to facilitate, perhaps for the first time, consideration of the evolutionary creation view alongside of other views which, we think, are not strongly supported by evidence?16
  So why no biblical (‘young earth’) creationists? In response to an atheist blog, Falk proclaims:
BioLogos is not providing any financial support for this meeting. However, we definitely do support helping pastors in evangelical churches see that Hugh Ross is wrong about evolution and that the Discovery Institute anti-Darwinian stance is based on false pre-suppositions. Both groups know we feel this way about their work, and we have been invited to present the pro-science [sic] side of the story.17
In other words, BioLogos is going to the conference to try to persuade the other compromisers that they’re wrong because they’re not compromising enough! One wonders what Progressive Creationists Hugh Ross and Fazale Rana, who reject biological and chemical evolution, are doing at a conference full of evolutionists, sharing the stage with people who believe that the Bible is wrong and that Jesus erred. Has their opposition to biblical creation reached the level where they are willing to join with theistic evolutionists against their common opponent—biblical young-earth creationists?

Atheists: “We’re not impressed!”
Some of the most revealing comments about BioLogos came from atheist blogs:
  By your compromise, (A) you are not winning them over, but (B) are signalling to them that they are winning you over. They will simply wait you out, until you continue in your process of jettisoning everything the world hates about you as a Christian. After all, if they can get you to toss such a straightforward chapter, the rest should be child’s play.—Dan Phillips to Biologos
  The real issue is that BioLogos doesn’t have a bright line stance on science versus religion, saying that science and sound and tested evidence trump religion where the two conflict. Such a position is the only consistent scientific position to take, but it puts both biblical literalists and “moderates” in the same basket, since it opposes impossible virgin births and impossible re-revivification of corpses as much as it opposes a 6,000 year-old earth. Thus BioLogos has no actual principle to stand on when they oppose a literal reading of Genesis but support a literal reading of a story of a virgin birth.18
Another self-confessed apostate blustered:
  You hold that science cannot demonstrate that Adam, biblically said to be created directly by God, the wellspring whence all humans came, did not exist, but it can demonstrate that there did not exist such wellspring in the first place?
  … yeah, somehow not buying it. And I would have noted the blatant contradiction even in by bible-believing days as well.
  … Do you ever get tired of tying yourself into a pretzel trying to ignore obvious logical implications, and to keep others from noting them?19

Still another anti-christian asked:
  Are people truly supporters of evolution if they’re not accepting it as a natural process? Do people really understand natural selection if they think God is zapping in mutations or had a plan for humans to eventually evolve? Why is it that our tactic involves people preserving their religious beliefs (which are based on faith), but molding science (which is based on facts) to fit their world view? If anything, it should be the other way around. Religion should have to accommodate science.20
  Nothing new here really. T.H. Huxley, David Hull, Jacques Monod, and Richard Dawkins were likewise most unimpressed with Christians who denied what the Bible clearly teaches (see the linked articles).
Thus it’s not surprising that an astute Christian blogger noted Biologos is having a diametrically opposite effect from what it intends:
  By your compromise, (A) you are not winning them over, but (B) are signalling to them that they are winning you over. They will simply wait you out, until you continue in your process of jettisoning everything the world hates about you as a Christian.
After all, if they can get you to toss such a straightforward chapter, the rest should be child’s play.21

Pastors, leaders and even creationists with different views about the age of the earth, beware!
  Biologos is a syncretistic religion which no longer takes Scripture as its authority; rather, they twist and distort Scripture to try to fit with their true authority, evolution. The result is a religion, but it is not Christianity.
  We have affirmed over and over that a person can be saved and an evolutionist. One’s stance on the first 11 chapters of Genesis does not affect whether one’s name is in the Book of Life. But BioLogos’s consistent syncretism goes beyond the “blessed inconsistency” which we believe enables a person to be a Christian evolutionist. They are a syncretistic religion which no longer takes Scripture as its authority; rather, they twist and distort Scripture to try to fit with their true authority, evolution. The result is a religion, but it is not Christianity. As Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, pointed out in a reply to Karl Giberson, vice president of Biologos:
  If your [Karl Giberson’s] intention in [his book] Saving Darwin is to show “how to be a Christian and believe in evolution,” what you have actually succeeded in doing is to show how much doctrine Christianity has to surrender in order to accommodate itself to evolution. In doing this, you and your colleagues at Biologos are actually doing us all a great service. You are showing us what the acceptance of evolution actually costs, in terms of theological concessions.22
  BioLogos shows the logical end of compromise regarding origins; ‘progressive creationists’ and theistic evolutionists should take BioLogos as a warning of where such thinking can end up.
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References
  1. <http://biologos.org/questions/biologos-and-christianity/>, 2 September 2010. Return to text.
  2. Syncretism is the attempt to reconcile two fundamentally different philosophies or systems of belief. Return to text.
  3. <http://biologos.org/questions/what-is-evolution/>, 2 September 2010. Return to text.
  4. <http://biologos.org/questions/biologos-and-miracles/>, 2 September 2010. Return to text.
  5. Pete Enns, “Evangelicals, Evolution, and the Bible: Moving Toward a Synthesis,” p. 1. Return to text.
  6. Of course, we’re not advocating ignoring the evidence, either; what is usually meant by such phrases is ‘ignoring the current evolutionary consensus about how the evidence is to be understood’. Return to text.
  7. Enns, ref. 5, p. 4. Return to text.
  8. Enns, ref. 5, p. 5. Return to text.
  9. Paul Enns, Moody Handbook of Theology (Chicago: Moody, 1989), p. 159. Ch. 18 has an excellent treatment of inspiration and inerrancy. Return to text.
  10. The heresy which denied Jesus’ humanity and said that He only seemed to have a human body, from the Greek dokeo, to seem. Return to text.
  11. Sparks, K.,“After Inerrancy, Evangelicals and the Bible in the Postmodern Age, part 4” Biologos Forum, 26 June 2010. Return to text.
  12. “After Inerrancy, Evangelicals and the Bible in the Postmodern Age, part 2” Biologos Forum, 10 June 2010. Return to text.
  13. Such as Henry M. Morris III, “The Deceptive Dance of Compromise” Acts & Facts 39(8), 4–5. Return to text.
  14. “Biologos gets in bed with the fundies,” Why Evolution Is True, 22 July 2010. Return to text.
  15. Comment from blog, ref. 14. Return to text.
  16. “’I am the Lord of the Dance,’ said He,” Biologos Forum, 10 August 2010. Return to text.
  17. Comment from blog, ref. 14. Return to text.
  18. Comment from blog, ref. 14. Return to text.
  19. Comment from blog, ref. 14. Return to text.
  20. “Religious accommodationism at Evolution 2010,” Blag Hag, 26 June 2010. Return to text.
  21. Dan Phillips, “A Coda on the Week’s Discussion” Pyromaniacs 26 June 2010. Return to text.
  22. Al Mohler, “On Darwin and Darwinism: An Open Letter to Professor Giberson,” AlbertMohler.com, 26 August 2010. Giberson had published an abusive ad hominem piece in the secular liberal site Huffington Post. Return to text.