...and Jessica Simpson Thinks Tony Romo Is the Greatest Quarterback Ever

 

 

American Bar Association Gives Sotomayor High Rating (HT: Fox News)

 

 

Was Jesus a Racist? Is Miguel De La Torre a Christian?

(HT: Dr. Thomas White for bringing this article to the blogging world's attention.)

File this one away with…OK, I admit that I don't even have a category in which to file this one. Under 'R' for Rank Heresy? Or, unfortunately, under 'A' for Associated Baptist Press? It's far less my business than it would be if this were in Baptist Press (and I'm thankful to say that I can't even imagine that happening), but ABP really needs to take down this tripe. I think we all know that there are false teachers and purveyors of heresy out there, but does ABP really want to be in the business of providing them with a platform? Until we left BGCT, our church was helping to fund things like this. It sure helps my conscience to know that now we are not at all responsible for the dissemination of the views of Miguel De La Torre and those like him.

You can read for yourself: Miguel De La Torre's latest opinion piece on ABP is entitled "Was Jesus a Racist?" His answer to the title question becomes pretty clear in the piece.

An Analysis of Fosdick's "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?"

Perhaps the most eloquent oratory championing liberal Christianity is Harry Emerson Fosdick's 1922 sermon "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" Fosdick himself is a fascinating character in history—one of the most engaging papers I ever heard in seminars dealt with Fosdick. Tonight I offer for your consideration my reflections upon a recent re-reading of Fosdick's magnum opus.

To keep up, you should really spend a few moments first to read "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" I know that some of you won't bother, but if you don't read the sermon first, don't blame me if you have trouble keeping up within the body of my post.

It strikes me that Fosdick's opening strategy is to contrast "Fundamentalists" with the "evangelical churches." I had forgotten this from my earlier readings of the sermon. Fosdick was writing at a time when liberals were actually willing to own the name. He does unapologetically refer to liberalism within the body of the sermon. But his opening contrast is between "Fundamentalism" and the "evangelical churches," even before he refers to "liberal opinions." I hadn't realized that the roots of the strategy to mask liberalism as evangelicalism went back so far into history.

Liberalism is emphatically convinced that our moment in time is so consequential as to invalidate all that went before it. Consequently, it desperately postulates that Christianity cannot much longer endure except liberals be allowed to make it relevant. It is "the last generation" that has been enlightened to a "great mass of new knowledge." The tailoring of Christianity to update it with the latest fads of thinking is "indispensable to the Christian Church." Indeed, if Christianity is not immediately steeped in liberalism, then it will surely lose the newest generations, for no "man who is worthwhile" could ever be interested in a conservative church. Dr. Mark Dever has spoken recently regarding the link between liberalism and the quest for relevance. Dr. Dever is 100% right. "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" is dripping with panic over the numeric decline that would surely follow the triumph of Fundamentalism. Of course, we who live eight decades after Fosdick preached this sermon know that precipitous decline actually came to those who heeded Fosdick, not to those who remained true to God's Word. Then again, perhaps in Fosdick's estimation most of those people aren't "worthwhile." In contrast, those who deny the virgin birth are people whom the church "needs."

Fosdick complained that the Fundamentalists were wrongly elevating non-essential (dare I say, "tertiary") ideas beyond the gravity that they deserved. The Fundamentalists were "driving in their stakes" around such trivia as the virgin birth of Christ, the inspiration of the Bible, the atonement, and the second-coming of Christ (not in what sequence Christ is coming back, but whether Christ is coming back). According to Fosdick, these things simply were not primary questions of doctrine.

Fosdick's clarion call, mind you, was simply for magnanimity in cooperation among Christian brethren. He was more than willing to cooperate with people who held to such a quaint notion as Christ's propitiatory death on the cross; they just weren't willing to cooperate with him. The sin of the Fundamentalists is their insistence that they "have the right to deny the Christian name to those who differ…on such points." Essentially, Fundamentalists simply aren't "tolerant." Fosdick worried that the Fundamentalist movement was causing problems on the "foreign field," where Fundamentalists were doing damage to the missionary cause.

Of course, Fosdick included the obligatory insinuation that the Fundamentalists are closet papists.

Fosdick closes the sermon by reiterating his two main points: Christians need a "tolerant, liberty-loving church," and Christians need to put aside the "quarreling over little matters" (the atonement, the Bible, the incarnation) in favor of the "main issues of modern Christianity" (the "great needs" of the world for "justice," which perhaps Fosdick could prompt the church to address through some sort of new covenant?)

Fosdick's sermon is poison. If you don't believe me, examine the corpses of "churches" that made a repast of his brew. It kinda makes you want to be careful what you swallow.

The Progressive Metanarrative

Progressive

Gradually advancing in extent. Moving toward a goal

Metanarrative

A grand overarching account, or all-encompassing story, which is thought to give order to the historical record.

From the bare lexicography of it all, the term "Progressive Metanarrative" could simply mean any concept of history moving toward a goal. In such a case, I would be a "progressive" because I certainly believe that God is moving history toward a defnite goal.

But in common parlance, THE Progressive Metanarrative imagines that the world (or at least the United States) is moving inexorably toward the specific goals of secularism, social libertarianism, pacifism, and socialism (or at least radical redistribution of wealth). According to the Progressive Metanarrative, arrival at the goal is inevitable. It may be delayed or temporarily sidetracked, but it cannot be derailed. Sort of like a doctrine of Perseverance of the Sinners.

Here's the odd thing: You don't have to be a progressive to buy into the Progressive Metanarrative. Progressives may believe that progressivism will inevitably win at which time they will be delighted. Conservatives may believe that progressivism will inevitably win at which time they will be defeated.

Progressives who buy into the metanarrative are often patient regarding delays of the coming of the ideal, but they go bananas when anyone tries to overturn any of their "progress" and restore past conditions. Delays are compatible with the metanarrative, but movement "backwards" is not.

But all that I've written so far is really just prelude.

What fascinates me is the phenomenon of conservatives who buy into the Progressive Metanarrative. Such people think that the best we can do is temporarily to forestall things. They believe, deep down inside, in the inevitability of their grandchildren living in a nation that recognizes gay marriage. They believe that next year's movies must always be raunchier than last year's movies. They believe that today's conservative educational institutions must necessarily slide into liberalism within a few generations. They don't like these ideas, but they don't think that they have any choice. For example, according to this view the 1960s must necessarily be a permanent lamentable slide into moral oblivion, while the 1980s must necessarily be a temporary Dunkirk for conservative morality.

Often, conservatives just don't know how to be winners. They only know how to dominate and live in fear of the day when they will dominate no longer. Winners confidently persuade others to agree with them and thereby build a future. They do so by sharing their own "metanarrative" and giving people a vision. Many conservatives do a great job at this—unlike some I do not believe that defeatism and defensiveness are inherent to conservatism. I only think they are inherent to conservatives who have succumbed to the Progressive Metanarrative.

Sometimes it seems to me that some conservatives almost want to believe in the Progressive Metanarrative.

Some of it comes, perhaps, from the fact that it is much easier to preach about how horrible things are and how horrible they are becoming than it is to kindle in people's hearts a vision for working towards a better future. One of those "curse the darkness" / "light a candle" kind of situations.

Some of it comes, perhaps, from a certain conviction that these are the days of great apostasy leading into a premillennial vision of the eschaton. I would point out that a great many people have thought so in the past, only to see things make a turn and get better. Morality was horrible in the Roman Empire, but Christians turned things around and saw real progress in the direction of Christ. Colonial morality before the First Great Awakening was deplorable, but Whitefield and Edwards and Tennent and Frelinghuysen were used by God to turn things around. I will be the first to echo, "Lord Jesus, come quickly," but I will point out that the Apostle John didn't manage to hurry up the schedule by wishing that and I have no reason to suspect that I will either. Christ will come when He gets ready.

And in the meantime, He has pleased Himself on many past occasions to bring spiritual awakening and to frustrate the grand schemes of sinners. There is a Christan Metanarrative. I opt for it. And I pray that it will embolden us all in our vision for homes, communities, nations, and a world moving closer to God rather than farther away.