Clueless in Seattle -- Can You Be Both a Christian and a Muslim?

Members of the Episcopal Church must brace themselves these days when they pick up the newspaper. The church is currently roiled by controversies over homosexuality and a host of other issues. Indeed, the Episcopal Church, US [ECUSA] is in danger of losing its relationship with the larger Anglican Communion over the issue of homosexuality alone.

As if that were not sufficient to fret the faithful, along comes the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding of Seattle. Sunday's edition of The Seattle Times featured a major article on Rev. Redding and her claim to be both an Episcopal priest and a practicing Muslim. She is serious, of course, which is what makes the story so interesting.

Janet I. Tu, the paper's religion reporter sets out the story:

Shortly after noon on Fridays, the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding ties on a black headscarf, preparing to pray with her Muslim group on First Hill.

On Sunday mornings, Redding puts on the white collar of an Episcopal priest.

She does both, she says, because she's Christian and Muslim.

Redding, who until recently was director of faith formation at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, has been a priest for more than 20 years. Now she's ready to tell people that, for the last 15 months, she's also been a Muslim -- drawn to the faith after an introduction to Islamic prayers left her profoundly moved.

Her announcement has provoked surprise and bewilderment in many, raising an obvious question: How can someone be both a Christian and a Muslim?

Well, at least the question is right -- How can someone be both a Christian and a Muslim. The simple and profoundly obvious answer is that one cannot be both a Christian and a Muslim, at least not until you completely redefine what it means to be both Christian and Muslim.

The case of the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding makes any sane person long for Aristotle and his law of non-contradiction. As Aristotle famously argued, two contradictory propositions cannot be simultaneously true. Nevertheless, the outright denial of the principle of non-contradiction is one of the hallmarks of the postmodern age. Postmoderns gladly embrace contradictions and refuse any responsibility to resolve them. This tactic, we might observe, works better on some issues than on others. Their denial of non-contradiction abruptly ends when it no longer serves their purposes.

Rev. Redding wants to claim to be both a faithful Christian and a faithful Muslim. The problem with this is immediately clear to anyone who understands the most basic teachings of Christianity and Islam.

Christianity stands or falls on doctrines such as the Trinity and the deity of Christ. The heart of the Christian understanding of Jesus Christ is that He is the only begotten Son of the Father, fully human and fully divine. Christianity also points to Jesus death on the cross as the means of our salvation and to Christ's bodily resurrection from the dead as the Father's vindication of the Son and the promise of the resurrection of believers yet to come.

Islam acknowledges Jesus as a historical figure and a great prophet, affirms the virgin birth, and points to a future role of Christ in judgment. Nevertheless, Islam explicitly denies that Jesus Christ is in any way begotten of the Father, that He died on the cross, and that He was raised from the dead.

These are merely the most obvious foundational contradictions between Christianity and Islam. Furthermore, these most obvious contradictions are affirmed by all major Christian denominations and both historic branches of Islam.

That doesn't deter Rev. Redding one bit. "At the most basic level, I understand the two religions to be compatible. That's all I need," she says. The important point here is that "the most basic level" to which she points is a figment of her own fertile and heretical imagination.

But, then again, Rev. Redding is clear about her basic doubts about basic Christian doctrines. She denies original sin and admits she has long doubted the deity of Christ.

From the paper's report:

She believes the Trinity is an idea about God and cannot be taken literally.

She does not believe Jesus and God are the same, but rather that God is more than Jesus.

She believes Jesus is the son of God insofar as all humans are the children of God, and that Jesus is divine, just as all humans are divine -- because God dwells in all humans.

What makes Jesus unique, she believes, is that out of all humans, he most embodied being filled with God and identifying completely with God's will.

She does believe that Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected, and acknowledges those beliefs conflict with the teachings of the Quran. "That's something I'll find a challenge the rest of my life," she said.

She considers Jesus her savior. At times of despair, because she knows Jesus suffered and overcame suffering, "he has connected me with God," she said.

So Rev. Redding denies the historic doctrines of the church and then declares herself a Muslim. In March 2006 she said her shahada or profession of faith, declaring that there is only one God and that Mohammed is his messenger.

At a Web site published by The Seattle Times, Redding later reponded to questions from the paper's readers. In one answer she offered this:

I believe that Jesus is divine in the same way in which all humans are related to God as children of God. Jesus is different in degree, not kind; that means that he shows me most fully what it means to be in total submission to and identification with God. The significance of his crucifixion is that it is the ultimate surrender, and the resurrection--both his and as it is revealed in the lives of his disciples--shows us that God makes life out of death. That is the good news to me and it is salvation. I don't think God said, "Let me send this special person so that I can kill him for the benefit of the rest of humanity." That's not the kind of sacrifice I think that God desires.

Yet again, Rev. Redding denies the central teachings of Christianity and explicity denies what the Bible undeniably teaches.

This is yet another reminder of the basic principle that religious liberals can negotiate themselves to any position they desire. Once you commit yourself to a methodology of denying Scripture and orthodox Christian doctrine, you can delcare yourself to be a Christian and a Muslim, a Christian and a Druid, or a Christian and an Atheist for that matter.

The real shame in all this is that Rev. Redding is getting away with this while continuing to be an Episcopal priest in good standing. Adding insult to injury, her bishop, the Rt. Reverend Vincent Warner of Seattle, says that Rev. Redding's declaration that she is both a Christian and a Muslim to be exciting in terms of interfaith understanding. Is there any hope for a church whose bishop considers heresy to be exciting?

Once again, we are driven to pray for Christ's church to be rescued from such heresies and preserved in the truth in the midst of such confusion. We must also pray for the faithful Christians in the Episcopal Church and other denominations who are, in effect, paying the bills that sustain these heresies.

In the meantime, they had better brace themselves for whatever atrocity will come next.

¡Here Come 'Los Evangélicos'!

June 6, 2007
by Luis Lugo, Director, and Allison Pond, Research Assistant

The Rev. Danny Cortés, senior vice president of Esperanza USA, greets President Bush at the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast in 2005 (AP).

Next week hundreds of evangelical Latino pastors and church leaders will descend on Washington, D.C., for the annual National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast. Over the years, the event has steadily grown from a simple banquet to a three-day affair, running Wednesday through Friday. It includes not only the prayer breakfast but also lobbying visits to Capitol Hill, a women's leadership dinner focusing on health issues and the release of a major study on housing issues facing the Hispanic community.

As in the past, the event will attract high-level political leaders from both parties, including President Bush, who spoke at the first annual prayer breakfast in 2002 and has appeared every year since. An array of presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton, Rudolph Giuliani, John McCain, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson also have been invited to speak at this year's event.

The prayer breakfast offers a vivid illustration of the growing presence and increasing political influence of Latino evangelicals, who now make up some 15% of the rapidly expanding Hispanic population in the U.S., according to a recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Pew Hispanic Center. That survey also shows that among eligible Latino voters, evangelicals are twice as likely as Latino Catholics to identify with the Republican Party (37% vs. 17%). Latino evangelicals also are far more likely than Latino Catholics to describe themselves as conservative (46% vs. 31%).

In short, if Republicans have a prayer in making deep inroads into the Hispanic community, evangelicals may well provide their most direct route.

Religious Profile

As mentioned, nearly one-in-six U.S. Hispanics (15%) identify themselves as evangelicals, making them the second largest religious group in the Latino community. Other Protestants, including mainline Protestants (5%) and members of other groups such as Jehovah's Witnesses, account for another 8%. Most Hispanics (68%) are Roman Catholics, while seculars account for 8% of the total. Members of other faiths barely make up 1% of the Latino community.

The recently released Pew survey found that roughly half (51%) of Latino evangelicals are converts, mostly from Catholicism, and that more than two thirds (69%) identify with pentecostal and charismatic forms of Christianity. Although most (55%) Hispanic evangelicals are first-generation Americans, that percentage is lower than it is for Latino Catholics, more than two-thirds (68%) of whom are foreign born. This trend is reflected in the fact that nearly two-thirds of Latino evangelicals (63%) say English is their primary language or that they are bilingual, compared with less than half (45%) of Latino Catholics. Evangelicals also have slightly higher levels of education and income than the Latino population as a whole.

Latinos, who now comprise about 6% of the overall evangelical Protestant population in the U.S., are similar in many ways to their white evangelical counterparts when it comes to religious beliefs and practices. This is clearly the case with respect to the strong importance they place on religion (85% say it is very important in their lives) as well as the high proportion who say they pray daily (87%). Perhaps reflecting the zeal of recent converts, Latino evangelicals are somewhat more likely to say they attend church weekly than white evangelicals (70% compared to 61%) and to view the Bible as the literal word of God (76% compared to 62%).

Religion and Public Life

Latino evangelicals clearly stand out from other Hispanics when it comes to politics, and not just for their more Republican and conservative orientation. Latino evangelicals also show little reluctance when it comes to mixing faith and politics. For instance, they are far more likely than Hispanics generally (62% vs. 38%) to say that religion is very important in influencing their political thinking; an additional 24% say it is somewhat important. Moreover, by a solid majority (65%) they believe that churches should express their views on social and political questions, and by nearly as large a number (60%) they say that there has been too little religious expression by political leaders.

Latino evangelicals also take more conservative positions on many social issues compared with Latino Catholics and even compared with other evangelicals. For example, an overwhelming majority (86%) oppose gay marriage, compared with 52% among Latino Catholics and 67% among white evangelicals. A large majority (77%) also say that abortion should be illegal, compared with 54% and 61%, respectively, for Latino Catholics and white evangelicals.

On foreign policy issues, too, Latino evangelicals track fairly closely with the conservatism of their white evangelical counterparts. For instance, although their support for the Iraq war is not as high as among white evangelicals (49% vs. 60%, at the time the survey was conducted), they are significantly more likely than Latinos as whole (31%) to say that the use of force in Iraq was the right choice. The similarity is even more pronounced when it comes to the issue of Israel and the Palestinians, where the sympathy of a solid majority of Latino evangelicals (62%) is clearly with Israel. That level of sympathy is much higher than among Hispanics generally (33%) and rivals the level of support among non-Hispanic evangelicals (59%).

But Latino evangelicals differ from white evangelicals, and more closely resemble Latino Catholics, on other policy issues. For instance, nearly half (47%) oppose the death penalty, compared with just 16% of white evangelicals. A similar, and more predictable, departure from white evangelical attitudes is evident on the issue of immigration. While only a minority (33%) of non-Hispanic evangelicals say that immigrants strengthen American customs and values, a solid majority (59%) of Latino evangelicals hold that view. (The comparable figure among Latino Catholics is even higher at 67%.)

Latino evangelicals, along with other Latinos, also hold generally liberal views on economic issues and are more likely to support government programs and sympathize with poor people than are white evangelicals. For example, a large majority of Latino evangelicals favor government-guaranteed health insurance (70% vs. 58% of white evangelicals), and 57% (vs. 42% of white evangelicals) say poor people have hard lives due to lack of government services. Fully 66% of Latino evangelicals say they would rather pay higher taxes for more government services. In sum, Latinos in general, including evangelicals, tend to be big government social conservatives.

Recent Voting Patterns

The strong Republican orientation of Latino evangelicals compared with other Latinos was clearly evident in the 2004 presidential election. In that race, according to an analysis of state exit polls conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center, President Bush received 40% of the overall Latino vote, up from 34% in 2000.

That same analysis shows that Latino Protestants, the great majority of whom are evangelicals, accounted almost entirely for this increase. (The percentage of the Hispanic Catholic vote remained unchanged at 33%.) And not only did Latino Protestants vote more heavily Republican in 2004, they also represented a higher percentage of the Latino electorate than in 2000 (32% vs. 25%).

National exit poll numbers from 2006 suggest that Hispanics, along with the electorate as a whole, shifted away from the Republicans, giving only 30% of their vote to GOP candidates in the U.S. House of Representatives races. An analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center of U.S. Senate and state gubernatorial races around the country reveal a similar split in partisan preference. This represents a 10-point swing away from Republicans compared with 2004 and a seven-point swing compared with the midterm elections of 2002.

But the results were not entirely bleak for the Republicans. As the Pew Hispanic Center report points out, some Republican candidates in states with sizable Hispanic electorates, such as California, Texas and Arizona, did much better than their party's showing at the national level, and, in fact, received a share of the Latino vote that was comparable to the portion of the vote Bush received in 2004.

Bush-Cheney '04 campaign manager Ken Mehlman called the Latino vote "the single most important number" that came out of the 2004 election. More recently, in a piece posted on The Politico, Mehlman stated: "The majority party in the 21st century will be the party that reaches out to Hispanics." If that truly is the case, then the growing Latino evangelical community will have a significant say in the future direction of American politics.

Generosity to the culture, unfaithfullness to the Gospel

Some time ago, Brian D. McLaren came to my theological college to give some lectures. The lectures had to deal with the Emerging Church, and what now has been deemed as Post Christemdom (as if Christemdom is only confined to Europe or North America and Australasia). I can't remember why I didn't attend, but my college has a tendency to invite some bad lecturers, from the liberal camp to the not so conservative, and the never fundamentalist.

Well, I've heard a program from Issue Etc. dated on the 31 of May, in which McLaren is mentioned as someone who does not believe in Hell. Well, I wanted to make sure that the Issues Etc. program was not only giving their point of view, and I found that what they were saying was true.

But what McLaren stands for, the emerging church, is being seen as an attack against the Biblical understanding of Christianity. This movement, does not want to define what truth is, and McLaren is the epitomy of such a movement.

Albert Mohler has written about McLaren and one of his books, A Generous Orthodoxy, discussing not only his argument, but also other things that McLaren has said that are not in accord with biblical orthodoxy. I therefore, give you the article for your information.

****************************************************************

"A Generous Orthodoxy"--Is It Orthodox?

Monday, June 20, 2005

The book's title looks both promising and inspiring. Brian D. McLaren's new book, A Generous Orthodoxy, is sure to get attention, and its title grabs both heart and mind. Who wouldn't want to embrace an orthodoxy of generosity? On the other hand, the title raises an unavoidable question: Just how "generous" can orthodoxy be?

McLaren is the founding pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church near Baltimore, and he has become a leading figure--if not the single most influential figure--in what is now known as the "Emergent" church. In A Generous Orthodoxy, he offers what amounts to a manifesto for the Emergent movement, even as he claims to have established a position that combines the strengths of both liberalism and evangelicalism, the charismatic and the contemplative, the mystical and the poetic.

McLaren defines orthodoxy as "straight thinking" or "right opinion." He sets the mood of his book right at the start: "The last thing I want is to get into nauseating arguments about why this or that form of theology (dispensational, covenant, charismatic, whatever) or methodology (cell church, megachurch, liturgical church, seeker church, blah, blah, blah) is right (meaning approaching or achieving timeless technical perfection)." Still following?

Since he is determined to transcend all those difficult questions of who is right and who is wrong, McLaren wants to qualify his brand of orthodoxy as "generous orthodoxy." He credits the term to Dr. Stanley Grenz, a prominent revisionist evangelical theologian who, in his book Renewing the Center, quotes the late Yale theologian Hans Frei as the inventor of the phrase.

McLaren intends to be provocative, explaining that this reflects his "belief that clarity is sometimes overrated, and that shock, obscurity, playfulness, and intrigue (carefully articulated) often stimulate more thought than clarity."

McLaren is also honest about the fact that he lacks any formal theological education. As a matter of fact, he seems rather proud of this fact, insinuating that formal theological education is likely to trap persons in a habit of trying to determine right belief.

This author's purpose is transparent and consistent. Embracing the worldview of the postmodern age, he embraces relativism at the cost of clarity in matters of truth and intends to redefine Christianity for this new age, largely in terms of an eccentric mixture of elements he would take from virtually every theological position and variant.

He claims to uphold "consistently, unequivocally, and unapologetically" the historic creeds of the church, specifically the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. At the same time, however, he denies that truth should be articulated in propositional form, and thus undercuts his own "unequivocal" affirmation. McLaren doesn't like answering questions, either. Even though he would be more appropriately categorized as a "post-evangelical," McLaren was listed as one of 25 influential evangelicals in the February 7, 2005 edition of TIME magazine. In its profile, TIME referred to a conference last spring at which McLaren was addressed with a question related to gay marriage. "You know what," McLaren responded, "The thing that breaks my heart is that there's no way I can answer it without hurting someone on either side." TIME referred to this as "a kinder and gentler brand of religion." Others would be less charitable, for McLaren's "nonanswer" is itself an answer. This is a man who doesn't want to offend anyone on any side of any argument. That's why it's hard to find the orthodoxy in A Generous Orthodoxy.

As McLaren admits, "People who try to label me an exclusivist, inclusivist, or universalist on the issue of hell will find here only more reasons for frustration." In other words, McLaren simply refuses to answer the question as to whether there will be anyone in hell. He refers to these questions--evangelical hang-ups for the doctrinally moribund--as "weapons of mass distraction."

McLaren effectively ransacks the Christian tradition, picking and choosing among theological options without any particular concern for consistency. He rejects the traditional understanding of doctrine as statements of biblical truth and instead presents a variant of postmodernism--effectively arguing that doctrines form a language that is meaningful to Christians, even if not objectively true. He claims to be arguing for "a generous third way beyond the conservative and liberal versions of Christianity so dominant in the Western world."

Incredibly, McLaren simply asserts that concern for the propositional truthfulness of the text is an artifact of the modern age, "modern-Western-moderately-educated desires." As a postmodernist, he considers himself free from any concern for propositional truthfulness, and simply wants the Christian community to embrace a pluriform understanding of truth as a way out of doctrinal conflict and impasse.

What about other belief systems? McLaren suggests that we should embrace the existence of different faiths, "willingly, not begrudgingly." What would this mean? Well, a complete reconsideration of Christian missions, for one thing. McLaren claims to affirm that Christians should give witness to their faith in Jesus Christ. But, before you assume this means an affirmation of Christian missions, consider this statement: "I must add, though, that I don't believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all?) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts. This will be hard, you say, and I agree. But frankly, it's not at all easy to be a follower of Jesus in many 'Christian' religious contexts, either."
Citing missiologist David Bosch, McLaren affirms that we have no assurance that salvation is found outside the work of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, he believes that we cannot jump from this to a claim that there is no salvation outside belief in Jesus Christ.

The Bible, McLaren argues, is intended to equip God's people for good works. He rejects words such as authority, inerrancy, and infallibility as unnecessary and distracting. In a previous work, McLaren had argued that the Bible is "a unique collection of literary artifacts that together support the telling of an amazing and essential story." His thinking shows the influence of the so-called "Yale School" of theologians who have argued for Scripture as the record and substance of Christianity as a "cultural-linguistic system," to be interpreted as narrative and not as propositional truth.

The Emergent movement represents a significant challenge to biblical Christianity. Unwilling to affirm that the Bible contains propositional truths that form the framework for Christian belief, this movement argues that we can have Christian symbolism and substance without those thorny questions of truthfulness that have so vexed the modern mind. The worldview of postmodernism--complete with an epistemology that denies the possibility of or need for propositional truth--affords the movement an opportunity to hop, skip and jump throughout the Bible and the history of Christian thought in order to take whatever pieces they want from one theology and attach them, like doctrinal post-it notes, to whatever picture they would want to draw.

When it comes to issues such as the exclusivity of the gospel, the identity of Jesus Christ as both fully human and fully divine, the authoritative character of Scripture as written revelation, and the clear teachings of Scripture concerning issues such as homosexuality, this movement simply refuses to answer the questions.

McLaren attributes this to humility. "A generous orthodoxy," he explains, "in contrast to the tense, narrow, controlling, or critical orthodoxies of so much of Christian history, doesn't take itself too seriously. It is humble; it doesn't claim too much; it admits it walks with a limp." In other words, it is so humble that it will not answer some questions that will not rest without an answer. In this case, a nonanswer is an answer. A responsible theological argument must acknowledge that difficult questions demand to be answered. We are not faced with an endless array of doctrinal variants from which we can pick and choose. Homosexuality either will or will not be embraced as normative. The church either will or will not accept a radical revisioning of the missionary task. We will either see those who have not come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as persons to whom we should extend a clear gospel message and a call for decision, or we will simply come alongside them to tell our story as they tell their own.

The problem with A Generous Orthodoxy, as the author must surely recognize, is that this orthodoxy bears virtually no resemblance to orthodoxy as it has been known and affirmed by the church throughout the centuries. Honest Christians know that disagreements over issues of biblical truth are inevitable. But we owe each other at least the honesty of taking a position, arguing for that position from Scripture, and facing the consequences of our theological convictions.

Orthodoxy must be generous, but it cannot be so generous that it ceases to be orthodox. Inevitably, Christianity asserts truths that, to the postmodern mind, will appear decidedly ungenerous. Nevertheless, this is the truth that leads to everlasting life. The gospel simply is not up for renegotiation in the twenty-first century. A true Christian generosity recognizes the infinitely generous nature of the truth that genuinely saves. Accept no substitutes.

This article was originally published on February 16, 2005.

A Transgender Pastor in the Pulpit?

From the Albert Mohler Website.

What do you do when your pastor shows up in a new gender? That question is now faced by a United Methodist church in Maryland, and the issue of transgender persons is soon to confront all churches and denominations.

As The Baltimore Sun reports, the Rev. Ann Gordon is now presented as Rev. Drew Phoenix. The paper sets the issue clearly:

A year ago, the Rev. Ann Gordon received her routine reappointment as minister of a Charles Village Methodist congregation. Yesterday - after undergoing a sex-change operation and taking on a new symbolic name - the Rev. Drew Phoenix received another one-year contract to head St. John's United Methodist Church.

The paper also reported that the "reappointment" of the minister came after a 2 1/2-hour meeting with Methodist clergy "as well as an emotional open session." In the end, the bishop of the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church decided that the church's moral code, known as the Book of Discipline, did not preclude the appointment of transgender persons as pastors.

Before turning to the ecclesiastical and theological issues at stake, we should note the way the minister explained her motivation -- to do this for others. "This is about more than me . . . . This is about people who come after me, about young people in particular who are struggling with their gender identity. I'm doing this for them." What she is doing is leading her congregation into an illusion and her denomination into an explosive controversy.

The illusory nature of this transformation becomes clear in another section of the paper's report:

"The gender I was assigned at birth has never matched my own true authentic God-given gender identity, how I know myself," Phoenix said. "Fortunately today God's gift of medical science is enabling me to bring my physical body in alignment with my true gender."

This pastor claims that she knows her "own true authentic God-given gender identity" to be different than her own body. The ancient Gnostics would understand this repudiation of the body, but not historic Christianity. Christians have believed that the body is a gift from God, for believers the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Despising the body to the point of repudiating birth gender is a posture in direct conflict with the Bible and the historic Christian tradition.

There can be no question that some persons suffer excruciating gender confusions. But the answer to this must be the embrace of birth gender as a central dimension of God's will for the individual. Christians must understand that gender --the sex of an individual -- is a part of God's glory in creation. God's own verdict on the creation of humanity as male and female, both made in His image, was that is was "very good." The transgender temptation is a repudiation of God's own verdict on His creation and His plan for humanity.

The emergence of this phenomenon is a direct consequence of the massive social, moral, legal, and ideological shifts that mark our times. The concept of autonomous individualism has led persons to believe that each of us holds the protean ability to create and re-create ourselves into whatever or whomever we wish -- and that no one outside the autonomous self has any right to set limits on this self-definition and transformation. The therapeutic revolution has deluded modern Americans into thinking that patterns of basic rebellion against God are means of self-liberation and therapy. The law has been transformed into an instrument of social revolution, even as many legal authorities claim that traditional definitions of marriage, sexuality, and gender are artifacts of an oppressive and patriarchal age.

Added to all this, the sexual revolution has led to a society fixated on sex and reluctant to draw any clear boundaries. A worldview of nearly absolute non-judgmentalism leads the larger society to consider sexuality and sexual issues to be beyond the bounds of common concern.

The saddest part of the Sun's report comes when the pastor claims that "today God's gift of medical science is enabling me to bring my physical body in alignment with my true gender."

This is an illusion of incredible tragedy. Modern medicine is truly capable of many wonders, but it cannot turn a woman into a man, nor a man into a woman. Doctors may perform drastic surgery and prescribe hormone therapies, but they cannot make a woman into a man. Rev. Drew Phoenix will be no more capable of biological fatherhood than Rev. Ann Gordon. Those who overlook this fact are hiding from reality.

Subsequent to its first report, the Sun reported that local Methodist clergy have asked for a judicial opinion from the church's highest legal authority, questioning Bishop John R. Schol's decision to reappoint the pastor. UMAction, an organization of conservative United Methodists, called upon their church to offer moral teaching on this pressing issue:

"I think instinctively most church people would say there are some theological problems with gender change, but they don't know how to articulate the arguments, and expect the church to offer a teaching on the subject," said UMAction director Mark Tooley.

"The issue of gender identity is not directly about sexual practice and really requires some different theological arguments," he said.

As one concerned pastor lamented, "Medical technology has gotten ahead of us." That is true for virtually all churches and denominations. Now is the time for Christian congregations, schools, and denominations to offer clear moral teaching and sound theological reflection on the gift of gender and the challenge of transgender persons.

The challenge could show up at your church tomorrow.

Should we beware of "Christian nationalism"?

Due to its comtemporary usage, nationalism has become, as it ever was, a threat to some, and a blessing to others. As in the case of the USA, being 'american' (whatever that means, since I am also an american, although I wasn't borne in the USA) means being white, European descent, and above all, a Protestant Christian.

This forum I hope will deal with the issues that Christian nationalism poses in today's world. I hope to comment about it when it is aired.

Until it is published, I would like to make you aware of it

**********************************************************************************

Should we beware of "Christian nationalism"?

Recording date: Thursday 31 May 2007, Transmission date: Sunday 3 June 2007
Barry Thorne
21-05-2007

The efforts of some evangelical Christians to influence American politics have produced sharply divergent reactions.

Just this month, the passing of American televangelist Jerry Falwell - known for his outspoken views on political and social issues - prompted glowing tributes and fierce criticism of his life in equal measure.

Evangelicals are often given credit for helping to ensure the re-election of President Bush in 2004, in the belief that his policies would better reflect a conservative Christian agenda.

Secular voices have been quick to raise the alarm over what they see as the rise of "Christian nationalism", especially its influence on Bush's Republican Party.

For their part, many evangelicals are equally alarmed by what they see as the spread of secularism at all levels of American society.

Have your say
It's a sharp dividing line in American society. It divides America and Europe as well - evangelical Christianity has no comparable influence on European politics.

In her book Kingdom Coming, Michelle Goldberg argues that American democracy is under attack: in particular, she says the separation of church and state enshrined in the American constitution is being threatened.

This week Amsterdam Forum is exploring and testing her conclusions, and we want to know what you think about the relationship between religion and politics.

The panel
Michelle Goldberg - freelance writer and journalist, author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism.

Dr. Hans Krabbendam - assistant director of the Roosevelt Study Centre in the Netherlands, which focuses on twentieth century American history.

Talking to God gives body a boost

APP

Communicating with God or other spirits can improve your physical health, Australian researchers suggest

A new report has reviewed controversial scientific evidence that religious or spiritual prayer can boost a believer's emotional and physical wellbeing.

The review, published in the Medical Journal of Australia, states that 74 per cent of Australians believe in a higher power, with many praying regularly as part of their worship.

"Some studies have shown a positive association between prayer and improved health outcomes," wrote lead author Marek Jantos, Director of the Behavioural Medicine Institute in Adelaide.

Mr Jantos, a clinical psychologist, said there were four ways prayer could have a positive effect on the body.

The first was through its "meditative" effects.

He said prayer was a Western form of transcendental meditation that worked in a similar way, slowing the breath and lowering the heart rate and blood pressure, thereby enhancing physiological wellbeing.

It also boosted positivity and improved mood, both of which had positive health-related spin-offs, Mr Jantos wrote.

Praying could also have a placebo effect on health.

For instance, in a study of heart patients, the half being prayed for by others made significantly better health improvements than those who were not prayed for.

But the most controversial benefit claimed by believers is through direct supernatural intervention from above.

Mr Jantos and co-author Professor Hosen Kiat, from the University of NSW, said the Bible offered several references to making a sick person well and Jesus himself was known for his personal practice of prayer and for his miraculous "super natural" healings.

The researchers warned that while this area was often dismissed as being beyond the reach of science, it should not be underestimated.

"Irrespective of whether scientists seek to attribute the benefits of prayer to the relaxation response, placebo or positive emotions, the most common reason people turn to prayer is their belief in a divine being that transcends the natural universe and hears and responds to prayer," the pair wrote.

They quote a chronically-ill elderly woman who believed God took her pain away every time she prayed.

Other researchers writing in the journal's special spirituality supplement call for more work to explore the link between religion and health and its relevance for Australian doctors and patients.

The death of Jerry Falwell and what kind of legacy he left

Jerry Falwell, died this week at the age of 73 has created many to write both and against what he has done during his life. Even one of my 'heroes' Albert Mohler has written about him. However, I find that he, as with others, have risen the guy above what others percieved of him, at least, within the Conservative Christian camp.


I would not say that Falwell was one of the greatest among us, but he tried, as do many of us. But the eulogies have been off the scale sometimes. To cite Mohler, he claims, ''The death of Dr. Jerry Falwell brings an end to one of the most fascinating lives of the twentieth century."


To say that of somebody who said that the attacks on 9/11 were the fault of those he saw as not being in par with God. This is what he said, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen." Falwell also said that he needed gay and other who protested against his views to gain publicity, would not make him a person I would trust to head an organisation that represents Christianity in such a scale as Falwell did.


I have found an article on the The New Republic which, although does not praise Falwell as does Mohler, I think gives a good balance as the what sort of innovator Falwell really was. As the article says, he wasn't in the line of Martin Luther King Jr.


I post the article, which I find goes better to my way of viewing the legacy that Falwell has left behind, which differs greatly from Mohler's and I am sure, others. I thank God for Falwell, but Falwell will not be remembered as the likes of Martin Luther King Jr, or be held among the greatest among the American of the last century. Great, no doubt, but not among the giants. The legacy, must be embraced by all, not only by those who said yes to all you wanted. On with the arcle:
***********************************************************************************
Jerry Falwell's nasty contributions to American political life.
Farewell to Falwell
by Damon Linker Only at TNR Online Post date 05.17.07

Jerry Falwell's friends and allies on the right tell us that he was a force for democracy in America. This is true. Thanks to Falwell, millions of conservative evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants now actively participate in the political life of the nation, consistently mobilizing on the far-right side of the Republican Party. This makes Falwell historically important. But was he an admirable figure? Did he contribute to elevating the political culture of the United States? Have evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants proved to be thoughtful citizens, adding to the seriousness, depth, and rigor of public debate? Or have they, instead, injected superstition and sectarianism--in short, religiously based illiberalism--into the political life of the nation? More than six years into the failed evangelical-Protestant presidency of George W. Bush, the answer is obvious.

Defenders of the religious right like to link it to earlier examples of religious activism in American history--above all, abolitionism and the civil rights movement. Evangelicals supposedly follow in the footsteps of William Lloyd Garrison and Martin Luther King Jr. Yet the inconvenient fact is that Falwell and most of his fellow evangelicals sat out the civil rights movement. Back then, the segregationist Falwell thought that preachers were called to be "soul winners," not politicians.

What led Falwell join the political fray was not indignation at racial injustices but disgust at the sexual liberation of the 1960s and early 1970s. In the starkly Manichean outlook of Falwell and his followers, post-'60s America seemed to be (as he put it in his autobiography) a "war zone where forces of God do battle with forces of evil." For Falwell, it was the duty of all genuine Christians to take sides against Satan in this theological struggle.

At first, evangelicals hoped that one of their own--Jimmy Carter--was the right choice to lead the charge. But Carter quickly proved to be a disappointment. Few today remember that Falwell and other organizers of the Moral Majority were definitively persuaded to abandon Carter and embrace Ronald Reagan in 1980 because of a seemingly insignificant misjudgment on the part of the Carter administration. Under pressure from his fellow evangelicals to stem the tide of immorality in the nation, the president formed the White House Conference on the Family in 1979, hoping it would mollify his religious critics.

But, as with so many initiatives of the Carter administration, the plan backfired. In order to placate feminists and gay rights activists who feared that the executive branch would be holding up a single form of family life (the "traditional family") as legitimate and therefore denigrating "alternative lifestyles," the president quickly moved to pluralize the title of the conference (from "Family" to "Families")--an action that infuriated Falwell and his allies. It was only a matter of months before evangelicals withdrew their support from Carter and began actively campaigning against him. Reagan, they now believed, would be much more effective at combating the growing secularism and depravity of American life. The Moral Majority and its successor groups--Ralph Reed's Christian Coalition, James Dobson's Focus on the Family--have been fierce Republican Party loyalists ever since.

Approximately one-third of Americans describe themselves as evangelicals. Those millions of votes give them tremendous leverage with the GOP. In order to guarantee their continued support, the party has taken increasingly strident stands on the right flank of the culture wars, and never more so than under George W. Bush. The Bush White House has appointed right-wing justices to the Supreme Court. It has come out in support of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. It intervened in the right-to-die case of Terri Schiavo. It defends its foreign policy in quasi-theological terms. The president himself has even gone out of his way to portray himself as a born-again Christian whose decisions are guided by his personal relationship with the Lord. And as we've learned with the ongoing Justice Department scandal, Bush has packed his administration, at all levels, with conservative evangelicals--including numerous graduates from Falwell's fourth-rate Liberty University.

Those are Jerry Falwell's distinctive contributions to American political life. Falwell's death should serve as an occasion to reflect on the ambiguous goodness of all political ideals--very much including democracy.


Damon Linker is the former editor of First Things and author of The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege.

Just days after reporting that 90 percent of all babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are now aborted, Amy Harmon reports in The New York Times that the real reach of the question goes far beyond Down syndrome. Now, some babies are aborted for virtually any trait considered undesirable by the mother or parents -- and ethicists seem unwilling to draw any clear lines.

As Harmon reports:

Abortion rights supporters -- who believe that a woman has the right to make decisions about her own body -- have had to grapple with the reality that the right to choose may well be used selectively to abort fetuses deemed genetically undesirable. And many are finding that, while they support a woman's right to have an abortion if she does not want to have a baby, they are less comfortable when abortion is used by women who don't want to have a particular baby.

"How much choice do you really want to give?" asked Arthur Caplan, chairman of the department of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. "That's the challenge of prenatal testing to pro-choicers."

We knew this was coming, and the expanding availability of genetic testing will make the situation ever more complex and the options even more ominous. What about those who would abort a baby of the wrong sex . . . or eye color . . . or likely intelligence?

Here is a frightening section of the paper's report:

But Kirsten Moore, president of the pro-choice Reproductive Health Technologies Project, said that when members of her staff recently discussed whether to recommend that any prenatal tests be banned, they found it impossible to draw a line -- even at sex selection, which almost all found morally repugnant. "We all had our own zones of discomfort but still couldn't quite bring ourselves to say, 'Here's the line, firm and clear' because that is the core of the pro-choice philosophy," she said. "You can never make that decision for someone else."

There is a brutal honesty in Kirsten Moore's candid admission that her inability to rule out any reason for an abortion is inherent in her pro-choice philosophy.

That same point is made by Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. She provided the paper with a statement that included these lines:

"This issue underscores the importance of families making personal, private decisions without political interference . . . The decision should be with women, their families, and their doctors."

As Amy Harmon reports, there are a good many people who consider themselves pro-choice who cannot go along with this logic. Ann Althouse, a law professor who considers herself a supporter of abortion rights, asked the key question: "Shouldn't they have moral standards about what reasons are acceptable for an abortion?"

The answer coming from groups like NARAL is a simple "no." And they apparently mean it.

Professor Althouse should talk to Dan Neil, whose argument for unrestricted abortion rights sends chills down the spine.

Neil's column, "The Abortion Debate Brought Home," was published in the May 6, 2007 edition of The Los Angeles Times.

Here is how he begins:

My wife and I just had an abortion. Two, actually. We walked into a doctor's office in downtown Los Angeles with four thriving fetuses -- two girls and two boys -- and walked out an hour later with just the girls, whom we will name, if we're lucky enough to keep them, Rosalind and Vivian.

Rosalind is my mother's name.We didn't want to. We didn't mean to. We didn't do anything wrong, which is to say, we did everything right. Four years ago, when Tina and I set out on this journey to have children, such a circumstance was unimaginable. And yet there I was, holding her hand, watching the ultrasound as a needle with potassium chloride found its mark, stopping the heart of one male fetus, then the other, hidden in my wife's suffering belly.

Neil and his wife aborted two boy fetuses in order to increase the chances for two healthy girls. All of this resulted from an IVF procedure and the option of "selective reduction" that is urged upon parents by many doctors.

As Neil explains, "We don't feel guilty. We don't feel ashamed. We're not even really sad, because terminating these fetuses -- at 15 weeks' gestation -- was a medical imperative."

That is a redefinition of "imperative," and the claim completely side-steps the moral responsibility of using a technology that is almost certain to present this awful choice.

Furthermore, Neil and his wife used advanced diagnostic testing to determine which fetuses to abort.

Added to all this, Tom Strode of Baptist Press reports that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority in Britain has allowed human embryos to be tested for eye squint. As Strode explains, "The news marked an ominous milestone -– supposedly the first embryo screening for a cosmetic flaw."

More:

The director of the London Bridge Fertility, Gynaecology and Genetics Centre, which gained the license from the HFEA, told BBC News it was more than a cosmetic condition.

"Whereas we all know somebody who's got a squint, in this particular condition the muscles that control the gaze of direction of the eyes [are] grossly abnormal, so the gaze of the eye might be 90 degrees different from the direction which one might be looking, so to speak, the direction of one's face," Gedis Grudzinskas said.

Grudzinskas is not opposed to using PGD for cosmetic reasons, however.

"We will increasingly see the use of embryo screening for severe cosmetic conditions," he said, according to The Telegraph, a British online newspaper.

The clinic director said he would be willing to try for permission to test for any genetic factor that would produce severe distress in a family.

When asked about hair color, Grudzinskas said, "If there is a cosmetic aspect to an individual case I would assess it on its merits. [Hair color] can be a cause of bullying which can lead to suicide. With the agreement of the HFEA, I would do it.

There is no honest way to deny the slippery slope toward the wholesale denial of human dignity. We are frighteningly far down that slope already.

http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=943

Where Have all the Liberals Gone? -- The Riverside Church Seeks New Pastor

New York City's famous temple of Protestant liberalism, the Riverside Church, is looking for a new pastor. As The New York Times reports, the search committee is not having an easy time of it.

The paper describes the historic church as "the Vatican for America's mainstream Protestants," but also as "the capital of a theological movement that has been slowly eroding."

As reporter Samuel Freedman explains, the church's storied past has given way to an uncertain future:
Yet now, as Riverside prepares to search for a new senior minister for only the sixth time in its history, mainstream Protestants are struggling to reverse a decades-long pattern of losing numbers, vitality and influence to their evangelical Protestant competitors. Between 1990 and 2000 alone, mainstream denominations like the Episcopal, Presbyterian and United Methodist Churches and the United Church of Christ lost 5 percent to 15 percent of their members, according to the Association of Religion Data Archives. Riverside is interdenominational but is affiliated with the United Church of Christ and the Baptist Church.

The confluence of challenge, opportunity and visibility, then, makes Riverside's selection of a new leader important not only for the 26 million adherents of mainline Protestantism but also for the shape of American religion as a whole.

Thus, the Riverside Church's search for a new pastor becomes a metaphor for the future of liberal Protestantism -- and a reminder of its past.

The church was built in order to provide Harry Emerson Fosdick with a place to preach. That explanation is overly simplistic, but accurate. Fosdick's liberal theology ran into controversy as he was the preaching minister at New York's First Presbyterian Church. After that controversy cost Fosdick his pulpit, a group of prominent New Yorkers established Riverside Church and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. led in the construction of Riverside's massive and elegant edifice in Manhattan's neighborhood of Morningside Heights. The church sits adjacent to New York's Union Theological Seminary, another symbol of liberal Protestantism.

The church's main sanctuary is one of the nation's most beautiful Gothic structures. Fosdick and Rockefeller envisioned the church as a fortress of sorts for Protestant liberalism. As a preacher and controversialist, Fosdick pulled no punches. His denials of central Christian doctrines and his reputation for theological revisionism were infamous. But, at the same time, he was one of the most powerful pulpit orators of his day.

Fosdick defined preaching as "pastoral counseling on a group scale," and his liberalism set the trajectory for the future. He was followed in the pulpit by Robert James McCracken (1946-1967), a former professor of theology. The Scottish-born McCracken defined his approach as "life-situation" preaching. His tenure, like Fosdick's, was 21 years.

McCracken was followed by Ernest T. Campbell (1968-1976). Campbell, oddly enough, was a graduate of Bob Jones University. He was later to graduate from Princeton Theological Seminary. Like Fosdick, Campbell considered himself a modernist in theology. He was followed in the pulpit by William Sloan Coffin (1977-1987).

Coffin, like Fosdick, was well-known before assuming the Riverside pulpit. He had previously served as chaplain at Yale University, where his liberal views and anti-war activism were legendary.

The most recent pastor at Riverside was James A. Forbes, Jr. (1989-2007). The church's first African-American pastor, Forbes came from a Pentecostal background in North Carolina. He was Professor of Preaching at Union Theological Seminary when called to the Riverside pulpit.
Forbes continued the Riverside tradition of theological liberalism and social activism. Reflecting on his pastorate, The New York Times observed that he had been successful at integrating the church racially and ethnically, but that he had also run into significant opposition with some members of his "highly educated, highly involved congregation."

The search for Riverside's new pastor reveals the troubles faces by Protestant liberalism. For one thing, there is no long list of well-known preachers. As the paper reports:
At this early stage, the most notable aspect of the search is the dearth of names being bandied about. If Riverside wanted to break the sex line, it could look to the Rev. Vashti McKenzie, a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal denomination, or the Rev. Suzan Johnson Cook, former president of the Hampton Ministers Conference. Both of these women are African-American, as are two prospective male candidates -- the Rev. Calvin O. Butts, pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, and the Rev. Michael Livingston, outgoing president of the National Council of Churches.

"Compared to Bill Coffin or Harry Emerson Fosdick, neither Jim Forbes nor anyone else in mainline Protestantism cuts that kind of profile," said Mark Silk, director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford. "Who are the big dogs today? It's true in Catholicism, too, for that matter. Where's the Spellman or the Cushing? The religious leaders worth listening to have to make the case for themselves -- running their own organization, writing books, being in the media

."

The challenge faced by the Riverside Church is indeed the challenge faced by Protestant liberalism as a movement. Once the vital content of the Christian faith is removed, denied, or marginalized, all that remains is a vaguely Christian spirituality and an agenda of social activism.
The problem for liberal churches is this -- Americans have learned that they do not need churches for "spirituality" or social activism. They can find these alone, in their yoga group, in political involvement, and in a myriad of other places and institutions. As the Times reports, liberal churches and denominations have been losing members for decades. Movements in such a pattern of decline are not likely to produce long lists of well-known preachers. There is no Harry Emerson Fosdick in the wings.

Beyond this, many liberal churches and denominations have become, in essence, collectives of special interest groups. These different groups are likely to hold very different expectations for a future pastor. As one nominee to the church's pastor search committee admitted, the congregation will have to "face up to the fact that Riverside has had a fairly public reputation of irritating our last two senior ministers to the point they got exasperated."

The basic problem with liberal Protestantism is theological. The movement's subversion of biblical authority and denial of basic orthodoxy lead, inevitably, to a sub-Christian message.

Professor Peter J. Paris of Princeton Theological Seminary once described the Riverside Church as "the world's most prominent institutionalization of Protestant liberalism." Where does it go from here?

Schism in the Episcopal Church of the USA

I have always enjoyed reading and hearing to Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Seminary, who usually posts very interesting articles in his blog, as well interesting podcasts from the same blog.

Since the next couple of weeks I will be very busy doing my essays for the end of the semester, I may not write a lot, but I will keep you informed of those news and issues that are of a Christian interest.

I thereby offer you an interesting blog entry by Dr. Mohler.

William Bennett once observed that America was fast becoming "the kind of nation civilized nations sent missionaries to." In truth, that is what America has now become, with the installation of Martyn Minns as "missionary bishop" for the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA).

The schism in the Anglican communion was visible for all to see when the Nigerian primate, Archbishop Peter Akinola, installed Bishop Minns in a ceremony held in northern Virginia. According to press reports, the event was held in a 3,500 seat facility next to Potomac Mills. Bishop Minns will exercise episcopal oversight over 34 congregations in the U.S. -- with about one third identified as ethnically Nigerian.

As Michelle Boorstein of The Washington Post reported:
A powerful Nigerian Anglican archbishop defied top church leaders yesterday by coming to Northern Virginia and installing as one of his bishops a local minister who recently broke with the U.S. church after accusing it of being too liberal.

The festive ceremony thrilled those who believe the U.S. church has become too permissive but highlighted divisions that threaten to crack the Anglican Communion.

Church leaders in the United States and Great Britain had asked Archbishop Akinola not to come to America at this time and not to install Martyn Minns as bishop of his new group. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church USA, even released a letter asking Akinola to stay away. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, did the same [see here].

Nevertheless, he came. And his coming indicates one blunt truth that cannot now be denied: Archbishop Akinola no longer considers his church in communion with the Episcopal Church USA, at least as the American church is represented by its elected leadership.

This was made clear in a letter from Akinola to Jefferts Schori released May 2, 2007. Note this excerpt:
At the emergency meeting of the Primates in October 2003 it was made clear that the proposed actions of the Episcopal Church would "tear the fabric of our Communion at its deepest level, and may lead to further division on this and further issues ..." Sadly, this proved to be true as many provinces did proceed to declare broken or impaired communion with the Episcopal Church. Since that time the Primates have established task forces, held numerous meetings and issued a variety of statements and communiques, but the brokenness remains, our Provinces are divided, and so the usual protocol and permissions are no longer applicable.
And:
It is my heartfelt desire - and indeed the expressed hope of all the Primates of the Communion - that The Episcopal Church will reconsider its actions - and make such special measures no longer necessary. This is the only way forward for full restoration into fellowship with the rest of the Communion. Further, I renew the pledge that I made to your predecessor, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, that the Church of Nigeria will be the first to restore communion on the day that your Province abandons its current unbiblical agenda. Until then we have no other choice than to offer our assistance and oversight to our people and all those who will not compromise the "faith once for all delivered to the saints." (Jude 1:3)

The Washington Post observed that Archbishop Akinola now presides over the largest province of the Anglican Communion -- and a province experiencing rapid and continuing growth. Meanwhile, the Episcopal Church USA continues to lose members.

An interesting comment came from one of those who observed the new bishop's installation. Marie Penney, described as bouncing her baby happily in the foyer, said this:
"To me, this movement combines the best of all worlds -- to be banded with all these brothers and sisters from Nigeria. I can't imagine another group of Christians I'd rather be with," said Pinney, who grew up Baptist and worships at Truro. "I feel so much more in line with Archbishop Akinola. There are hardly any bishops in the Episcopal Church that I'd even want my children in Sunday school with."

That last sentence is stunning in its force and clarity. "There are hardly any bishops in the Episcopal Church that I'd even want my children in Sunday school with."

That kind of frustration with liberal theology and liberal church teachings is what produced the installation of Bishop Minns. Archbishop Akinola came to the United States as, among other things, a missionary to a land that desperately needs the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Tragically enough, his visit was necessary because far too many of our churches and denominations need to be evangelized as well.