Richard Dawkins was recently challenged to a debate with William Lane Craig. He declined. Craig, he said, was a “deplorable apologist for genocide” with whom he would not share a platform. The genocide in question is that of the Canaanites in the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy (see link).

One of Richards more famous quotes from “The God Delusion” on this issue is:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

One of the biggest problems that many people have with God as detailed in the Bible, which Richard has so clearly demonstrated above, is that of His judgment against nations like the Canaanites. One only has to read Biblical history to find God commanding the slaughter of the Canaanite men, women and children. Not even the livestock are spared. So what are we make of this? Is God a moral monster?

Paul Copan has attempted to answer this challenge in his book “Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God.” His answer to the charge that God commanded the genocide of the Canaanites is that this was not the genocide that it appears to be from a simple at face value reading of the text; that the text is hyperbolic and an exaggeration of what actually happened; that these were more like disabling raids of the military bases/cities and religious centers and not the leave no survivors destructive conquest that one might assume from a face value reading of the text. The passages on the women and children are just sweeping language being used as a disabling metaphor where central structures are undermined so that the Canaanite influence is disabled. For a more thorough explanation you can check out this interview (3rd hour) with Greg Koukl on his radio show at STR or their blog. Otherwise you can get his book.

While Paul Copan’s explanation on the issues of slavery, bigamy, child sacrifice and the treatment of women in the Old testament seems sound to me, I think Clay Jones comes to the correct conclusion on the issue of the “divine genocide” of the Canaanites. He argues in his treatise, “We Don’t Hate Sin. So We Don’t  Understand What Happened to the Canaanites”, that the face value interpretation of the text is the correct interpretation. Clay also appeared on Greg Koukl’s radio show in an interview that can be found here (3rd Hour) which is where I got most of his answers for the rest of this blog post.

The first thing that needs to be examined is the culture and behavior of the Canaanites to see if there could be any justification for their obliteration as described in the Old Testament. Archeologist William Allbright tells of an ancient Canaanite poem where the Canaanite God Baal, rapes his sister while she is in the form of a calf 77 even 88 times. We have here rape, incest and beastiality in the same act. Baal also has sex with his mother and daughter. If this is who the Canaanites worshiped, if this is their God whom they emulate, then according to Jones, this is certainly what they themselves are doing. And these acts are borne out with further study of Canaanite culture. God outlaws these practices in Leviticus and this sin is punished when both the Canaanites and Israel committed them. And that punishment was harsh. Sodom and Gomorrah were examples of Canaanite cities who were judged by God with good moral justification.

So how does Clay Jones answer the complete destruction passages of the Canaanites in the Old Testament? Clay starts off by making an observation of our own culture. We seem to have been inoculated to sin. Average people just does not care anymore about many sins. Our culture does not even recognize them as sin, let alone understand what the term sin actually means. We have become so Canaanite-like in our own culture to the point where, as Clay put it, “Studying these things over the years has led me to wonder if the Canaanites might stand up at the Judgment and condemn this generation”.

Livestock

Why kill all the livestock? You do not want to be around animals that are used to having sex with people. In Clay’s article he gives an example of a female gorilla sexually attacking a psychologist.

Women

If you want to erradicate these practices from a culture, then why would you leave women who were just as guilty and as equally dangerous as the men in participating in these practices.

Children

Yes the children too. Firstly what age do you start separating children from adults? 18? 12? Clay tells of fostering children because he and his wife could not have their own children. They learned that kids coming into your house at from as young as 4 years old were bringing their culture with them. Now, what if you had killed their parents? What would teenage rebellion look like for those children who were spared. Certainly they were exposed to a highly sexualised culture and were very much likely to have been molested by that time.

So how do you stomp out that culture in order to prevent if from affecting the Israelites adversely? If you want to erradicate the sinfullness of the Canaanites, how else can you do it?

But wait, I hear you say, the Bible talks of the continued Canaanite presence in the region after this “divine genocide” occurred. How does Clay answer that? Clay directs our attention to those “divine genocide” texts and points out that Gods command was only for a specific region. There was still a Canaanite presence outside the region that the Israelites were to inhabit and that’s why there were commands still in place not to take wives from outside the Israelite culture etc. But as we read further into the text, the likes of Kings David and Solomon did not uphold these commands perfectly (by taking wives from outside the Israelite community) and thus the Canaanite culture was reintroduced into the Israels culture and corrupted them to the point where God then dealt harshly with the Israelites via the Assyrians and Babylonians.

So in conclusion, I think we can accept the text at face value. The question that remains is what do you think of God for commanding such a thing? Does God have a right to do with His creation as He pleases? If you have a problem with the selective judgment of the Canaanites then how do you feel about the almost complete destruction wrought by God of the whole world during the Flood? And how do you feel about the impending destruction of everything at Armageddon?

In the lead up to the Australian Labor Party’s (ALP) National Conference this coming weekend, at which will be tabled a discussion to change the Party’s official policy from supporting traditional one-man, one-woman marriage, this exhortation from preacher John Piper is a stirring reminder for Christians to weep with sorrow and compassion over the sins of their cities. No less ought we in Australia weep if God’s natural law of traditional, monogamous marriage is ever legislated out of existence.

Jesus died so that heterosexual and homosexual sinners might be saved. Jesus created sexuality, and has a clear will for how it is to be experienced in holiness and joy.

His will is that a man might leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and that the two become one flesh (Mark 10:6-9). In this union, sexuality finds its God-appointed meaning, whether in personal-physical unification, symbolic representation, sensual jubilation, or fruitful procreation.

For those who have forsaken God’s path of sexual fulfillment, and walked into homosexual intercourse or heterosexual extramarital fornication or adultery, Jesus offers astonishing mercy.

Such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Corinthians 6:11).

But last weekend {at a gay pride event held in Minneapolis last June} this salvation from sinful sexual acts was not embraced. Instead there was massive celebration of sin …

The Bible is not silent about such parades. Alongside its clearest explanation of the sin of homosexual intercourse (Romans 1:24-27) stands the indictment of the celebration of it. Though people know intuitively that homosexual acts (along with gossip, slander, insolence, haughtiness, boasting, faithlessness, heartlessness, ruthlessness) are sin, “they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:29-32). “I tell you even with tears, that many glory in their shame” (Philippians 3:18–19) …

Not only that, we are moving from celebration to institutionalization. On June 24 the New York legislature approved a Marriage Equality Act. This makes New York the sixth state where so-called homosexual marriages will be institutionalized: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, (and the District of Columbia).

My sense is that we do not realize what a calamity is happening around us. The new thing—new for America, and new for history—is not homosexuality. That brokenness has been here since we were all broken in the fall of man. (And there is a great distinction between the orientation and the act—just like there is a great difference between my orientation to pride and the act of boasting.)

What’s new is not even the celebration of homosexual sin. Homosexual behavior has been exploited, and reveled in, and celebrated in art, for millennia. What’s new is normalization and institutionalization. This is the new calamity.

My main reason for writing is not to mount a political counter-assault. I don’t think that is the calling of the church as such. My reason for writing is to help the church feel the sorrow of these days. And the magnitude of the assault on God and his image in man.

Christians, more clearly than others, can see the tidal wave of pain that is on the way. Sin carries in it its own misery: “Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error” (Romans 1:27).

And on top of sin’s self-destructive power comes, eventually, the wrath of God: “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming” (Colossians 3:5–6).

Christians know what is coming, not only because we see it in the Bible, but because we have tasted the sorrowful fruit of our own sins. We do not escape the truth that we reap what we sow. Our marriages, our children, our churches, our institutions—they are all troubled because of our sins.

The difference is: We weep over our sins. We don’t celebrate them. We turn to Jesus for forgiveness and help. We cry to Jesus, “who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10).

And in our best moments, we weep for the world. In the days of Ezekiel God put a mark of hope “on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in Jerusalem” (Ezekiel 9:4).

This is what I am writing for. Not political action, but love for the name of God and compassion for the city of destruction.

“My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law.” (Psalm 119:136)

Taken from John Piper’s blog, Desiring God: “My Eyes Shed Streams of tears” – Thoughts on the new Calamity

Approximately 24 hours ago Ray Comfort and his Living Waters Ministry released the short 180 Movie regarding the subject of abortion, which has not only exploded across social media but also reignited conversations all over North America over the moral question about abortion. A bit skeptical about the film, given the hype and build up to its release, I decided to give it a viewing, mostly because I knew I would encounter conversations about it in my circles and wanted to be properly informed. And good thing, too, for the conversations have been plenty. While many of those conversations have regarded the biblical and theological integrity of the Way of the Master gospel witnessing techniques, one of them tonight regarded the issue for which the film was made in the first place, which I want to share with you here. While I have changed the young man’s name to protect his identity, the following is the conversation that we had tonight over the moral question about abortion. He did not explicitly state his position on the subject but I gathered that for him the issue remains a somewhat open question (due to things he had said prior to the part I am sharing here), having not settled definitively on one side or the other. He is a Christian but converted quite recently, a matter of a few months ago. We pick up the conversation mid-stream, where he is critically evaluating the merits of defining life in the womb as human.

~ * ~

JOHN: I don’t think the biological distinction between “human” and “non-human” is the morally relevant question.

DAVID: What then is the morally relevant question as it pertains to valuing human life?

JOHN: It’s like I said: “persons” are afforded full dignity and value. In fact, we already know that not all persons are human beings anyway.

DAVID: Who or what defines personhood?

JOHN: Oh, well God, I should think.

DAVID: Does Scripture give any indication at which point such personhood becomes morally relevant?

JOHN: I have looked and, actually, I don’t think it’s very clear.

DAVID: So the Bible is unclear about human life in the womb?

JOHN: It doesn’t seem to be very clear on that issue.

DAVID: Are you familiar with Psalm 139:13-15 and Jeremiah 1:5?

JOHN: Yes.

DAVID: What is unclear about the moral relevance question in those passages?

JOHN: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” I don’t see how that is going to make your case.

DAVID: That rather clinches it, I should think. Not only does God knit together the human life in the womb, but that life belongs and is known to him before that life is even conceived. Does that not indicate fairly clearly the moral relevance pertaining to the value of human life?

JOHN: It seems to be a statement of God’s foreknowledge, more than anything. I don’t think you can extrapolate anything else from that, particularly not anything helpful about dealing with a full-fledged person in the womb.

DAVID: That bothers me somewhat, that you don’t think anything beyond God’s foreknowledge can be extrapolated from that—such as, for example, his purpose for that human life, to which it is already set apart (consecrated) before it is even formed in the womb. The text rather explicitly states this. Ergo, you certainly can extrapolate more than God’s foreknowledge from this—not to mention what can be understood from this text and Psalm 139 about human life belonging to God.

JOHN: But the verse isn’t about that. It’s about God’s purpose for Jeremiah and foreknowing his destiny. I’d be more convinced if that verse was combined with more explicit statements about the topic, but that seems to be as good as it gets.

DAVID: How is what you said essentially different from what I said (vis-a-vis God’s foreknowledge and purpose for that human life)? You repeated what I said as if it was different from what I said.

JOHN: So, God making statements about foreknowing Jeremiah’s destiny implies that human life begins at conception? Non-sequitur.

DAVID: God foreknows Jeremiah’s destiny because he ordained it; before he was born God knew him, God consecrated him, God appointed him to a particular purpose.

JOHN: Yeah, right. So?

DAVID: What it implies, again, is that God not only knits together the human life in the womb but that human life belongs and is known to God before it is even conceived. That indicates rather clearly the moral relevance vis-a-vis the value of human life.

JOHN: Right, and God also foreknew that his parents would get together in the first place. I don’t think any relevant conclusion could be drawn from that, could it?

DAVID: John, that life is knit together in the womb by God; that life belongs and is known to God before it is even conceived. That life does not belong to itself, or to the mother or the father. It belongs to God. That is the morally relevant question as it pertains to human life.

JOHN: Yes, before he was even conceived God knew him. Obviously before he was conceived he wasn’t actually a person.

DAVID: Indeed. And yet even then that life belongs to God—because he is the one who brings it forth, knitting it together, having a purpose for it. If that life belongs and is known to God before conception, what about at conception or thereafter? You see what I mean?

JOHN: Okay, but in the situation outlined by the verse itself, God states that before Jeremiah was conceived God knew him. I think the “before” part is actually a problem to the argument.

DAVID: I cannot imagine how.

JOHN: Because if God knew Jeremiah even before he was conceived, then it must be that his parents had to get together or they’d be doing something wrong, frustrating God’s plans, not forming the life which is properly his, etc. And that seems highly implausible.

DAVID: That is an interesting and separate question from the one we are looking at.

JOHN: Well, I am arguing that perhaps the verse should not be taken in that direction, at the risk of implausible conclusions.

DAVID: Okay, let me address that. First, this subsequent issue you are raising pertains to the parents and their coming together, whereas our question pertains to the issue of moral relevance with respect to the value of human life. Therefore, it is a fallacious avenue to pursue (ignoratio elenchi). Second, we can certainly pursue that question if you like, but not until after the present question is settled. Third, your objection, at any rate, carries the implicit assumption that it is possible the parents could fail to come together (and thus do something ‘wrong’).

JOHN: I’m employing what I understand to be an analogous argument to yours about the nature of the verse, to demonstrate a reductio.

DAVID: See the second point.

JOHN: Yeah, I realize you think they are separate issues. But it strikes me as the same sort of reasoning being applied to different parts of the verse.

DAVID: Let us assume for the sake of argument that the verse carries the implication that I am arguing for. Let us continue in that vain. So, if that verse carries the implication I am arguing for, then what does that tell us about the moral relevance pertaining to the value of human life?

JOHN: That’s a loaded question (which is, by the way, what I think Ray Comfort was doing).

DAVID: An ‘arguendo’ does not a loaded question make.

JOHN: No, that’s not it. It’s the term “human life.” But setting that aside for a moment…

DAVID: Do we need to get into imago Dei? I would point to Psa 139:15 (cf. Job 10:9–11) as answering that question with its implicit reference to Genesis.

[A pause in the conversation for a few moments.]

JOHN: I think I lost track of what exactly I should answer—what the consequence would be of agreeing the verse implies that God directed the development of Jeremiah in the womb, or of agreeing that God directs the development of everyone in the womb? Sorry, I’m getting tired.

DAVID: You raised the issue of what the morally relevant question is with respect to valuing human life (with respect to the abortion issue in the context of The 180 Movie). My answer, calling upon those two texts from Scripture, seeks to answer you on that score, showing that the morally relevant question is answered by the fact that all human life belongs to God—not only in the womb but even prior to that. That is, abortion is wrong because that life belongs to God. Not to itself, nor to its mother, but to God. That answers what the morally relevant question is.

JOHN: Right, okay, which to me seems to leave us precisely where we started—namely, what counts as “human life.” The fact that God knew Jeremiah even before he was conceived (when obviously Jeremiah the person, the human life, was not around) doesn’t help to settle that question.

DAVID: If that person belongs and is known to God before it is a human life, would that not also apply to when it is a human life?

JOHN: If I accepted your interpretation of the verse for the sake of argument, that God knitting Jeremiah in the womb suggests that any developing embryo, fetus, etc., belongs to God and therefore only God has the right to direct what will or will not happen to that (developing) life, then yeah, I could see how that could apply to the morality of abortion. But I would suggest that that is a different argument than relying on defining a blastocyst as a human person or life or whatever. And I think that is a lot of weight for a single verse to carry, when the verse isn’t explicitly about that.

DAVID: Answer that question I asked you, please: “If that person belongs and is known to God before it is a human life, would that not also apply to when it is a human life?”

JOHN: You are assuming it all counts as human life. That is precisely what I question.

DAVID: I am getting to that.

JOHN: Okay. Then yeah, I granted that with my previous comment. (Also, I need to get going soon, after your next point.)

DAVID: All right, now observe the following. If that person belongs and is known to God before it is a human life (which answers the question of moral relevance), and if that person constitutes a human life upon being born (infant), then the moral relevance of abortion is answered at every stage in between—from conception to infancy.

JOHN: Right, which I just granted.

DAVID: At what point you happen to consider it a human life is irrelevant if that person belongs and is known to God even before it is a human life.

JOHN: Well, it wouldn’t be a person. But yes, I granted that.

DAVID: It would not be a person according to who or what?

JOHN: If the issue is that the (developing) human life or person “belongs to God” and therefore only God has the moral right to direct its progress or non-progress, then okay. That is an argument different from arguing that it is wrong because the blastocyst is a human life or person.

DAVID: Right. Whether it is a person, a human life, a potential human, etc., all of those points are irrelevant, given the answer to the moral relevance question.

JOHN: Okay. And I did explicitly state in the other conversation that a different argument could be advanced using a different morally relevant fact. So I think I will tentatively agree that, if I grant that interpretation of the verse, the argument could then follow.

DAVID: There are countless ways to answer this question. I have simply advanced two.

JOHN: Sure.

DAVID: The prior one I never actually got to finish because our conversation was hijacked.

JOHN: Yeah, the topic can rile people up.

DAVID: Are you too tired to argue for how that interpretation creates a problem for my argument?

JOHN: I think so. I am supposed to get up fairly early tomorrow. But, if you’d like, I’m game to pick it up another time.

DAVID: Sure thing.

JOHN: Okay, cool.

~ * ~

Have you watched The 180 Movie? Has it sparked conversations in your life about the moral issue of abortion? Do you have any positive encounters to share?

Dear Dr. Esposito,

I just recently read through your article New Narrative for 9-11 and Muslim Americans. It is an interesting piece of writing, and I am always looking for people who are willing to give an apologetic for their viewpoint. In your article, you try to make the case that fears of Islamic extremism in the Muslim American community are unfounded, and that Muslims in America as a whole are well integrated into the rest of western society. I must confess that I am not convinced of your article’s thesis, and I would like to explain why. Read the rest of this entry

Recently, apologist Frank Turek has written a short but excellent article on the hypocrisy of LGBT activists who accuse Christians who oppose homosexual behaviour of being bigots. He also shows how they abuse the term “bigot” by mis-applying it to everybody who disagrees with their position, even when they have valid reasons for doing so. In the process, they expose themselves as the real bigots. Here is Turek’s article in full:

George Orwell said, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” When you tell the truth about homosexuality today, you can be sure that the central tools of deceit—name-calling and bullying—will be unleashed.

I recently was having a respectful conversation with a homosexual activist, but after I made a point he couldn’t answer he called me a “bigot.”

I asked, “What’s your definition of bigotry?”

He said, “Fear and intolerance.”

I said, “The definition of bigotry is not ‘fear and intolerance.’ It’s making a judgment without knowing the facts. I have written a book about the problems with same-sex marriage and the destructive medical consequences of homosexual behavior. So my convictions on those issues are based in fact not ‘bigotry.’ With all due respect, if anyone is engaged in bigotry it is you for judging my position as wrong without even knowing why I hold it.”

He was also falsely equating my opposition to a behavior as prejudice toward people who engage in that behavior. That’s the central fallacy in virtually every argument for homosexuality—if you don’t agree with homosexual behavior, you are somehow bigoted against people who want to engage in that behavior. How does that follow? If conservatives and Christians are “bigots” for opposing homosexual behavior, then why aren’t homosexual activists bigots for opposing Christian behavior? And if we are bigots for opposing same-sex marriage, then why aren’t homosexual activists bigots for opposing polygamous or incestuous marriage?

Everyone puts limits on marriage—if marriage had no definition it wouldn’t be anything. Recognizing that marriage is between a man and a woman is not bigotry, but common sense rooted in the biological facts of nature. That’s why the state recognizes marriage to begin with—not because two people love one another but because only heterosexual unions can procreate and best nurture the next generation.

Everyone also puts limits on behaviors. But opposing behavior is not the same as opposing or “hating” people. In fact, to really love people, we often have to oppose what they do! Parents know this, and all former children know it as well.

Original Article

• Frank Turek  - Who Are the Real Gay Bigots and Bullies

The debate over the increasing acceptance of LGBT lifestyles in mainstream culture is one issue which — at least in Canadian society — has been more or less dominated by one side, which seeks to label all dissenters as “bigots,” “homophobes,” and even “extremists.” If you do not give them your unconditional assent and affirmation, they will level the most relentless forms of criticism against you. And this is precisely the case in the recent controversy over Toronto city mayor Rob Ford’s decision not to attend the annual Pride Parade.

To give a little background to people who are unfamiliar with this issue, Rob Ford is one of the most Conservative city mayors that Toronto has had in a long while. This particularly manifests in his policies regarding LGBT issues. He has publicly stated that he disagrees with same-sex marriage during his mayoral campaign, has refused to show up at a Pride flag raising at a public square, and has at least once threatened to cut public funding to the city’s annual Pride Parade. After all, why should the city spend public funds on such a parade anyway? Shouldn’t the LGBT community get its own funding if it wants a parade? Mayor Ford isn’t even targeting the LGBT Pride Parade in particular on this issue, since he has said in an article for The Star that “the public sector shouldn’t be funding parades, no matter what parade it is … The private sector should be sponsoring these parades.”[1] Be that as it may, the Pride Parade still got the funding that it wanted. There is just no stopping the LGBT agenda these days.

That being said, however, the biggest faux pas he has made recently (at least from the standpoint of the politically correct Left) was his refusal to attend the pride parade which took place earlier this month, on the grounds that it conflicted with a family tradition where he would spend the long weekend in a cottage away from the city. The responses that have been produced by Leftist pro-LGBT commentators and activists on newspapers and blogs have been merciless; most of them show relentless criticism of Mayor Ford for his personal choice. Now, if that isn’t ironic, I don’t know what is. These activists who demand society to affirm and support their ungodly lifestyles and personal preferences become very militant when others make personal choices that contradict the party line that LGBT activists force everybody else to follow. It seems that these days, their unofficial slogan is, “Support our campaign against bullying. If not, we’ll bully you until you do.” Read the rest of this entry

(HT: @Shinar_Squirrel)

Cathy Lynn Grossman of USA Today published an opinionated response to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler who seized upon Congressman Anthony Weiner entering “treatment” to make a point about Jesus Christ being the only answer for the problem of sin. Mohler tweeted the following on June 11, “Dear Congressman Weiner: There is no effective ‘treatment’ for sin. Only atonement, found only in Jesus Christ.”

Grossman’s scurrilous opinion piece about Mohler began by describing his tweet as throwing “an evangelistic dig at Jews like Weiner and other non-Christians.” That sounds rather scandalous, does it not? But if you remove her spurious histrionics about Jews it loses all its force. For instance, consider if Grossman had instead described his tweet as throwing “an evangelistic dig at people like Weiner and other non-Christians.” But that risks representing Mohler and his tweet accurately—gasp!—which targeted Weiner as a person, not as a Jew. And in a subsequent blog post Mohler also points that out. “I never mentioned Judaism,” he writes. “Rep. Weiner’s problem has to do with the fact that he is a sinner, like every other human being, regardless of religious faith or affiliation” (emphasis mine).

As she goes on to characterize Mohler’s tweet (in this and another article), notice how persistently Grossman harps on Jews and Weiner being Jewish:

• “… an evangelism tactic … aimed at people like Jews such as Weiner …”
• “What he told the Jewish congressman was …”
• “So, Mohler wasn’t targeting Jews, he was using a Jewish person in crisis as a sermon springboard … Right?”
• “He addressed his pitch to someone he knows is Jewish …”
• “… a turn-or-burn message addressed to a Jewish person …”

The fact that Weiner is Jewish was never a relevant point in Mohler’s tweet. And if she were to give it even a moment’s thought Grossman ought to realize that. The relevant point was that Weiner as a person struggled with a particular sin and chose to seek “treatment” to make himself well, which can never work apart from the sanctifying grace of Christ’s atoning sacrifice on behalf of all believers. She can make a big fuss about this person being Jewish or that one being Muslim but at the end of the day she has a battlefield full of straw men of her own making, none of them being relevant to Mohler’s gospel point which stands irrespective of the religion of this or that person, Weiner included. It is about people inescapably being sinners regardless of their religion, ethnicity, gender and so forth.

Consider the following rewrite and notice how her opinion piece loses just about all of its scandalous punch when the spurious histrionics about Jews is removed (the underlined text indicates where I made a change):

One of the nation’s top Southern Baptist leaders takes sexting-pol Anthony Weiner’s case as a chance to throw an evangelistic dig at people like Weiner and other non-Christians. … This reads as an evangelism tactic, riding in on the Weiner headlines but aimed at people like Weiner, Woods, and many others, such as Weiner’s wife, who hold different ideas about salvation, different approaches to atonement.

And a rewrite of her follow-up piece:

What he told the congressman was, “There is no effective ‘treatment’ for sin. Only atonement, found only in Jesus Christ.” … So, Mohler wasn’t targeting Jews, he was using a person in crisis as a sermon springboard to preach to his known flock to return to traditional faith. Right? But he didn’t begin “Dear Christians…” He addressed his pitch to someone he knows is a sinner … Evangelism is Mohler’s job description: He is charged with preaching the Good News, as Christians believe it, to the world and using every vehicle he can, even the sad case of #Weinergate in Twitterspeak… So, it would be no surprise if many read a message that starts, “Dear Congressman Weiner,” as a turn-or-burn message addressed to a person in the public domain.

All of a sudden Weiner being Jewish is irrelevant—as it always was. With all of her spurious histrionics about Jews removed, all of a sudden Grossman is reporting about an evangelist addressing a sinner about the necessity of being in Christ in order to “make himself well” (which Weiner’s spokesman Risa Heller said his aim is). Apart from the sanctifying grace of Christ no “treatment” will save him from his carnality and sin. This goes for everyone, completely irrespective of religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and so forth.

References:

Grossman, Cathy L. (2011, June 12). “Baptist to Jewish Weiner: Christ is the only ‘treatment’.” Faith & Reason, USA Today.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/

Grossman, Cathy L. (2011, June 15). “Baptist leader stands by ‘Christian love’ for Weiner.” Faith & Reason, USA Today.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/

Mohler, Albert (2011, June 14). “Theology, therapy, Twitter, and the scandal of the gospel.” AlbertMohler.com.
http://www.albertmohler.com

On Valentine’s Day, 2011, gay lobby group Australian Marriage Equality, in partnership with the progressive activist group, GetUp!, released a short video advertisement¹ promoting gay “marriage” in Australia. Predictably, they used the standard term employed by gay “marriage” advocates, “marriage equality”, serving the perception that there is nothing equal about the current legal status of marriage. While intentionally innocuous, the term “marriage equality” is nevertheless stuffed with worn-out and rebadged rhetoric: why oughtn’t two people who love each other be allowed to marry?; gender has nothing to do with marriage; its not fair that John and Jim can’t marry each other, but that Dean and Denise can.

Yawn. I’m getting sleepy already.

Yet the proud tag line on Australian Marriage Equality’s website² follows that same hum-drum line: “Marriage is about love and commitment, not your partner’s gender.”

Further, GetUp!³ state on their website for this campaign that “all love is equal and all relationships deserve recognition.”

Well, no. Not all (romantic) love is equal, and neither is marriage founded on love and commitment alone. Marriage is very much a gender-based institution no matter how much organizations like Australian Marriage Equality or GetUp! espouse the “love is all” card. Read the rest of this entry

I know I’ve asked this question before on my old blog, but I thought it would be a good idea to ask it again here in the interest of generating conversation from a different crowd. And being Easter it ties in nicely.

Eating meat on Good Friday? Is it blasphemous to eat red meat on Good Friday? Where did the vegetarian/fish policy come from?

After speaking to a Catholic colleague; the custom has was originally adopted by the early church (and since maintained by the Catholic Church) from the custom on the Jewish Sabbath. Not only is the Sabbath a no work day but is also a no meat day. And fish is not considered meat to the Jews.

My own thoughts were that there is no problem with eating meat on Good Friday. Looking at the words of Jesus in Matthew 15:10-11, 16-20

Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean.

Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.

To me this is Jesus lifting all the Jewish food restrictions and saying “Whats food got to do with anything, its just food. There are more important things to dwell on.”

If, on the other hand, having a meat ban on Good Friday leads you to reverent reflection and remembrance of the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross, then I don’t see any harm.

Earlier today, France has just put into effect a law banning the niqab and the burqa. This law was enacted about a month ago but has just been implemented now. It is the first in all of Europe, which is not surprising, given that France has the largest Muslim population in all of Europe (about 5 million of them at the very least).

Violations of this ban result in a fine of €150. Already, however, there are people within the Muslim community who are making efforts to undermine this law, such as Kenza Drider, who intends to travel from Avignon to Paris wearing a niqab. Another notable figure is Rachid Nekkaz, a tycoon who will be paying off the fines of the burqa law violators. So far, it seems that the French are keeping their word. Two women have already been arrested as a result of this burqa law.

So what are we supposed to make of all this? There are two ways of looking at the situation. The first way (which is the popular approach among those Liberal left and those who are steeped in political-correctness) is that this a violation of the French Muslims’ human rights. Funny since only 2000 women actually wear the veil. Also, if this was the case, then why do Muslims continue to immigrate in large droves to France? Truthfully, large sections of France have already been given over to them, as evidenced by the fact that there are now at least 751 no-go zones in France. Far from violating their rights, France has already bent over backwards to accommodate the Islamic population, and the latter seem to just want more and more.

The second way of looking at the situation is it aims to “protect women from Islamic fundamentalism and improve public security” (link). After all, what better symbol of Islam’s subjugation of women is there than the veil? Also, there is also the security concerns involved, since men have been known to disguise themselves with burqas to commit crimes (as in the case of two armed men in Sarajevo and one radical cleric in Pakistan). Finally, why the total face veil in the first place? For the vast majority of Muslim women in the west, the hijab is already sufficient, and it is only stricter interpretations of Islamic doctrine (the same stricter interpretations one would normally find groups such as the Wahabbis and Deobandis) that advocate going further than that.

Personally, I think the wearing of the veil does the exact opposite of what it’s alleged to do. Muslim apologists say it is for the sake of modesty and to divert attention away from the woman. Yet far from diverting attention away from them, it actually attracts the attention of many of those around them, especially when the women who wear the niqab/burqa is necessary. Also, France has made its move a little too late. The nation as a whole is already on the fast track to becoming a Muslim majority country (possibly the first to go in western Europe), and the burqa ban is just a small bump on the road for those who are advocating the implementation of Shari’a in France and the rest of Europe. Aside from the few instances where the police have successfully arrested offenders, I highly doubt that this law will be enforced with any degree of effectiveness.