Sick unto death - What is wrong with evangelical thinkers?

A few days ago an amazing article by Wayne Grudem (US evangelical theologian) was being flagged in blogspace.  It was Prof Grudem inviting people to pray for a Republican victory in the recent elections.  What I found remarkable was the way he credited the President with successes using a grid of understanding which was astonishingly right wing.  Extremely liberal economic theories tied to a taste for legislation in areas of morality and medical ethics.

Here is the link to Wayne Grudem’s post.

Like Errol Hulse’s pro war rant I refered to earlier in the year it is the enthusiasm for the Iraq war and occupation which startled me.  He seemed to feel it was a reasonable response to Islamic terrorism and even believed it would help with Gospel proclamation!  The Prof really is in a high Ivory Tower if he thinks that.

Like so many Evangelicals he gets lathered up at the homosexual agenda and embryo research but seems to think that maiming and killing tens of thousands of people in a pointless war is just a peccadillo.  Trigger happy American kids are winning neither heart nor minds in Iraq and they just should not be there.   The same faction which predicted the war would be popular with ordinary Iraqis now tell us there will be a bloodbath if the troops leave.  They were wrong last time and that prediction may be wrong too.

There seems to be a belief that you really can figure out every matter of right and wrong from first principles and an assumption that warfare and oppressive legislation are easily justifed by such a process.  It is the rationalism of the madhouse.

Are Christians really meant to be good for society?

Last Sunday I preached on “Salt and Light”. I pointed out that the virtue of salt there is that it tastes salty and NOT that it is a preservative. I am sure that the reference is to be being tasty to God - as in Leviticus 2:13

Season all your grain offerings with salt . Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings; add salt to all your offerings.

and Jesus is not worried about preserving our culture. The context is that of being persecuted for the Gospel’s sake since that is when we are likely to play down our convictions to avoid suffering.

It occurs to me that the persecutors could be right. Loyalty to Jesus could make us a disruptive and divisive element.

The traditional Anglican interpretation of “salt and light” is that we are the preservers of all that is good in our culture and that we must continue to strive for social improvement. As I get older that looks more and more like a red herring. In any case, it isn’t working.

Dawkins - dazzling but dishonest

Richard Dawkins is a fanatic anti-supernaturalist anti-religionist who writes clever books. I suspect he is playing to his own gallery of fans rather than seriously discussing with anyone but here is a pretty fair minded review of his latest diatribe

http://ship-of-fools.com/Features/2006/dawkins.html

John MacArthur - from the horses mouth (well, keyboard I suppose)

The afformentioned Gent has caused a stir among the reformed by insisting that real faith is always born with real repentance and none lives in the renewed heart without the other. I think he is right but some have claimed he is smuggling in “works righteousness” which is an offence worse than selling your children in the eyes of some.

Here is a link to his current blog if you are interested (and I think you ought to be if you are in ministry).

Common questions about the Lordship position-part 1

Blatant cut and paste plagiarism

“Naturally the common people don’t want war… But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them that they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”  - Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg Trials

I cut this straight from a website called:

http://www.spinwatch.org

I hope they will forgive this gross plagiarism since I have inserted this link.

Just to remind you -

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”   - Jesus