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 _________.
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!
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)
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.
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.
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.“
by Lita Cosner
[Creation Ministries International website CREATION.com ]
Published: 7 September 2010 (GMT+10)
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
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?
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
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
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.
<http://biologos.org/questions/biologos-and-christianity/>,
2 September 2010. Return to text.
Syncretism is the attempt to reconcile two
fundamentally different philosophies or systems of belief. Return to text.
<http://biologos.org/questions/what-is-evolution/>,
2 September 2010. Return to text.
<http://biologos.org/questions/biologos-and-miracles/>,
2 September 2010. Return to text.
Pete Enns, “Evangelicals, Evolution, and the
Bible: Moving Toward a Synthesis,” p. 1. Return to text.
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.
“Religious accommodationism at Evolution 2010,” Blag
Hag, 26 June 2010. Return to text.
Dan Phillips, “A Coda on the Week’s Discussion” Pyromaniacs
26 June 2010. Return to text.
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.
