A New Song for the PCUSA

Since 14F has passed, we all know where to go if you:
1) Are married, but don't think your sex life should be confined to your spouse.
2) Can't abide being married to just one person at a time.
3) Are single and want to "test the milk" before you "buy the cow."
4) Reject the basics of human biological gender.



Let's face it. Gay clergy isn't the problem. Making the fundamentals of the faith optional is the disease...confusion over the sexes is just a symptom. As professor Alice Linsley reminds us: "Dialogue with revisionists is impossible."

“Not to oppose error is to approve it; and not to defend truth is to suppress it, and, indeed, to neglect to confound evil men - when we can do it - is no less a sin than to encourage them”
St. Felix III, Bishop of Rome, 483-492

Best wishes, though, to all my friends of evangelical persuasion still on that ship. May you find a lifeboat soon.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) an apostate denomination

Here lies the boundary of a Christian church that knows itself to be bound by the authority of Scripture. Those who urge the church to change the norm of its teaching on this matter must know that they are promoting schism. If a church were to let itself be pushed to the point where it ceased to treat homosexual activity as a departure from the biblical norm, and recognized homosexual unions as a personal partnership of love equivalent to marriage, such a church would stand no longer on biblical ground but against the unequivocal witness of Scripture. A church that took this step would cease to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. ("Should We Support Gay Marriage? No") Wolfhart Pannenberg

More analysis at Viola Larson's blog...

I'm pleased to see that others are pointing out what we've known for a long time. This is the end game for egalitarianism. When men and women become interchangeable in the liturgical context of authoritative public ministry, you can't stoop the implication that other liturgical / public authoritative acts are bound by sexual/gender distinctions. END

I'm 

When homosexual arguments lose

They resort to throwing pies in the face of their opponents.



Archbishop Leonard of Brussels, Belgium, has been targeted for his stance that AIDS spread through risky sexual behavior, at that a large part of that spread had to do with the homosexual culture of the late 1970s. This is factually true, but he is being assaulted for it.

This is what happens when reason breaks down. For now, it's just pies. He's also had lawsuits thrown at him. In the future, who knows what sort of violence will break out (and be justified as "retributive justice" or payback for past grievances)?

You can read more about the attacks here.

Yes we can

But should we?

From politics to science to economics to religion, the ability to do something doesn't mean that it is right for us to do something. To often, drunk with our own power, we rush to do something simply because we can - rather than thinking through why the limitation was there in the first place. Chesterton put it this way:

"In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

-- The Thing, in "The Drift from Domesticity" (1929)

California, I'm looking at you.

Anglican Adiaphora

The good Bishop of Durham discusses adiaphora in relationship to the problems of the American Episcopal corporation in the wider Anglican Communion.

And also internationally. We have for years in the Anglican Communion operated a tacit rule of agreeing to differ about many things but trying not to do or say things which will cause other Anglicans to stumble. The Lambeth Conference has been the main instrument of this process: broad agreement can be reached on major issues while the provinces retain autonomy in their own lives. Thus, for instance, the Lambeth Conference agreed that it was all right to admit children to Communion prior to Confirmation, which then opened up the question for any individual Province to discuss, as most now have. Our own General Synod repeated Lambeth’s point, so the issue was then passed down to dioceses. Our own Diocese in turn agreed, so the issue has now become a matter for individual parishes. That is a model of how you discern that something is adiaphora, and how you deal with the issue once that has been decided, respecting consciences all the way through. It highlights again this key point: the question of whether a particular issue is adiaphora or not cannot itself be adiaphora. It wouldn’t have done for the Parish of St-Muddy-by-the-Sea to decide independently that the question of unconfirmed children receiving Communion was adiaphora and then proceeding to take its own decision without reference to its diocese, its province, or the whole Communion.,

[SNIP]

The principle of adiaphora was itself, in fact, a matter of life and death. The doctrine that some things are adipahora, and some aren’t, is not itself adiaphora. The decision as to which things make a difference and which do not is itself a decision which makes a huge difference. Some of the early English Reformers claimed explicitly that they were dying precisely for the principle of adiaphora itself, for the right to disagree on certain points (not on everything). That for which you will give your life is hardly something which doesn’t make a difference.

Read the whole thing here.

H is for Hypocrisy

On Wednesdays, I try to blog on a worship topic. However, my seminary has decided that the worship of perverse sexual acts and child rape is appropriate, so I'm interrupting my regular schedule.

(Sort-of...they promote it with the title V is for Venite. And venite is a legitimate liturgical topic which I'll need to return to at some point.)

Q is for Questionable Judgment

Here's the link to their site discussing the upcoming campus-sponsored production of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues.

R is for Risible

Here's my response (which may or may not be on the site...they moderate, and I was censored in public discourse throughout parts of my seminary career):

I'm personally saddened to see the Women's Center sponsoring this play. In a notorious section, "The Little Coochi Snorcher that Could," a woman recounts how as a 13 yr old girl she is given alcohol and then seduced by a 24 yr old woman. In the original form (which has been unsatisfactorily redacted to omit it and change the age from 13 to 16), she dismisses the substance abuse and statutory violation by saying: "Now people say it was a kind of rape.... Well, I say if it was rape, it was a good rape...." In another segment, a six year old is queried about her genitalia (smells, names, etc.). As the father of beautiful little girl, I would be hard pressed to stay in my seat through such a performance.

The rest of the play wavers between diatribes against men and male-female sex as inherently violent, or about sexual practices that really deserve to stay in the bedroom. How this play actually addresses violence against women (especially when it is celebrated in the above scene), or opens frank conversations about the role men - and women - have in the sexualization of children and women (objectification is a prologue to rape and oppression) is perhaps beyond the scope of Wimminwise to answer. But it would be helpful to reflect on why this play at this seminary - of all the venues and content available - is appropriate and effective.

O is for Objection

Beyond the politicization of a day that Christians should remember for martyrs, they overturn a divinely-ordained institution (heterosexual marriage). Worse, marriage is meant to be a mysterious - almost sacramental - expression of the union of Christ and His Church. What are we to make of this from a seminary?

B is for Bias

Why is homosexual rape given a pass by an event promoted as anti-violence-against-women?

H is for Hypocrisy

We have a mandate to reform the culture to the Scriptural norm (the norming norm), not let culture corrupt the message of the Scriptures.

E is for End!!!

U is for Update: They posted my response. It was the same old "You don't know what you're talking about." However, I have it from an eyewitness that the attendance at these events has been blissfully low. As some one once termed roughly 1/3 of the campus population: "middle-aged bitter divorcees and their dogs."

Sad, really. Men need to be molded by their interactions with the pain of women....this just stops with scolding.

Teh Interweb Makes Us Weird

Can I get an AMEN?

Whether it's the depraved erotic fetishes out there or the bizarro religious nuts, the internet has normalized elements of cultural malignancy. Want proof? I'll say this: I had an unnerving revelation after I gave a communion meditation concerning Euodia & Synteche gathering around one bread and one cup.

Thanks, Wondermark!

Was Spong Wrong?

For some reason, people are still reading John Shelby Spong. His recent article in the Washington Post is titled "Good Show, Poor Theology."

When I first read the title, I thought: "He must be talking about a rather up-the-candlestick Anglo-Catholic parish in TEC." You know the kind. Appareled amices and albs on every server. Chanted Psalms, sung gospels, and solemnities abounding. A priest that enters in cassock, surplice, hood, tippet, cope, zuchetto and biretta, then changes during the anthem into alb, amice, crossed stole, silk cincture, and chasuble. Lot's of bells, smells, bowing and wowing - but the sermon is about the latest episode of 60 Minutes or the View.

No such luck. Instead, Mr. Spong was talking about Dr. Rick Warren's forum for Obama and McCain. He went on to say this:

Homosexuality is no more a choice for gay and lesbian people than heterosexuality is a choice for straight people. It takes a while for that knowledge to trickle down to the masses. Prejudice lives only in the untrickled down gaps. The condemnation of homosexuality as a sin or as a distortion by the hierarchy of the Vatican or the leaders of evangelical Christianity is simply a sign that both groups live in the backwaters of knowledge and education. As this knowledge spreads, those groups will look like what they are - dated people similar to the members of the Flat Earth Society.

Tell you what, Spong... I'll publicly acknowledge that "homosexuality is no more a choice for gay and lesbian people than heterosexuality is a choice for straight people" if you'll publicly acknowledge that there might be a reason other ignorant prejudice for resistance to homosexual acts.

Taking a Stand in Seminary

Want to know what seminary felt like for me?



Yeah...truth really does win.

Unfortunately, many seminarians - especially young conservative males like myself - can side with the truth in an ungracious way. For the first two years or so of my experience, that's what I did. I made an *ss of myself. Towards the end, things got a little better.

I thank God that he has used some other disappointments, heartaches, and failures to bring about a deeper brokenness in my life. And I thank God that His TRUTH is still TRUTH no matter how lousy or feeble my witness to it was and will be.

John Adams on the preaching we need

With the recent unpleasantness in Massachusetts, I found myself drawn back to the writings of John Adams.

"It is the duty of the clergy to accommodate their discourses to the times, to preach against such sins as are most prevalent, and recommend such virtues as are most wanted.

For example, if exorbitant ambition and venality are predominant, ought they not to warn their hearers against those vices?

If public spirit is much wanted, should they not inculcate this great virtue?

If the rights and duties of Christian magistrates and subjects are disputed, should they not explain them, show their nature, ends, limitations, and restrictions, how muchsoever it may move the gall of Massachusetts?"

Read the rest here or here. And remember, despite the evidence, he was indifferent to personal religion. Right, public schools?

Them's Fightin' Words

From the You Can't Make This Stuff Up file comes a lawsuit that I've been waiting to see.

Zondervan and Nelson Publishers are being sued by self-proclaimed Bible expert and self-affirmed practicing homosexual, Bradley LaShawn Fowler. In all, he says he is owed $70 million for the emotional pain and trauma he has suffered. 1 Corinthians 6:9 is the focal point of his complaint. (I wonder where he got the idea of focusing here....) Feel free to take a look at the Greek behind it.

Now Mr. Fowler is surely an intellectual powerhouse to be reckoned with - as a quick review of his website will show. He also is a self-published author of Reconciliation with the G.O.A.T., God of All Truth. (Please, no goatse jokes.) And - tremble, O Zondervan and Nelson - he's representing himself in court. (I don't know why: the ACLU, GLAAD, GLF, GMAD, and others would probably provide pro bono homo legal counsel.) I'm sure that it's tort claims like these that our founding fathers intended to take up the time of the justice system.

Also, would anybody be interested in helping some death-row murders file a tort against God and the Bible publishers for that whole killing / murder confusion in the Decalogue?

If you can't beat'em, join'em

Well...it looks like it's time to join the Covenant Network. I think conservative Presbyterians should rush in droves to join the Covenant Network. Here's the link to the Covenant Network that discouraged PCUSA Presbyterians need to join.

Ecclesia Refermata

Okay - I admit it. I can't keep out of PCUSA GA business. So sue me. You'll have to do it in civil court, because I'm not under the jurisdiction of the PCUSA anymore. For real coverage from a real PCUSA pastor, go to Classical Presbyterian. Anyway....

Before the vote to change the Heidelberg Catechism, the usual predictable YAD stands to the mic and says that the church is a reforming church (instead of a REFORMED church). They take this to mean that the church is always changing her basic beliefs. As evidence, she cited the presence of multi-ethnic moderator / vice-moderators this year. (Big whoop. There were more black people and Near-East Asians at the Council of Nicea than there are at the PCUSA's GA!)
This tired statement (I refuse to call it an argument, which would require both logical construction and some sort of proof!) I've come to call the Ecclesia Refermata. You'll recall that a fermata is a musical sign indicating that a note should be sustained. This tired canard of an incomplete statement - the church is always changing (to accommodate our point of view) - just has to go away. And yet it comes up at EVERY SINGLE GA, and is trilled and sung into the minds of gullible YADs who don't have much catechesis in the Reformed tradition (and even less Latin training).

This thesis, which gets bandied around even by people who should know better, is based on a rather widespread and longstanding misunderstanding of the Latin motto, Ecclesia Reformata et Semper Reformanda. This has even been addressed by the GA in 2006. The Latin reformanda is not a passive participle; it is a “gerundive,” which can be defined as a “verbal adjective used to indicate that a specified noun needs to, deserves to, ought to, or must be the object of the action indicated in the gerundive.”

The classic example is the Roman Senator Cato’s repeated cry, Cartago delenda est! He was not saying, “Carthage is being destroyed.” He was saying, “Carthage needs to be destroyed!” or “Carthage must be destroyed!” Similarly, Legibus parendum est, does not mean, “The laws are being obeyed.” It means, “The laws must be obeyed!”

By the same token, “Ecclesia Reformata at Semper Reformanda” does not mean, “The Church Reformed and Always Reforming.” It means “The Church Reformed and Always Needing to be Reformed.”

Second, the YADs (and the commissioners and advisors who coach them) leave off the most important aspect of that reforming work: it's done secundum verbum dei. The exegetical maneuver that the Reformers came up with was grammatico-historical interpretation. When the text says something, once you understand the context and the content, you understand God's will and are bound to obey it. The church is thus further conformed to the image of the Son (the living Word) by the Scriptures (the written Word).

The Heidelberg issue that was brought before the GA - which, despite protests to the contrary, was just a tired repeat of previous attempts to legitimize homosex (search on Heidelberg) - is not about restoring the church's confessional integrity or increasing her faithfulness to the standards of Scripture. (That's actually what the translators of the current PCUSA version were doing.) It's about making the Scriptures and creeds a quieter place when it comes to speaking about homosex. And of course the irony of the situation is lost on people who have forgotten that the slogan was born out of Dutch pietism (the so-called Nadere Reformatie) - an earnest desire to apply the glorious doctrinal and ecclesial insights of the Reformation to the everyday task of living a holy life.

As long as they keep bringing it up without definitive silencing based on confidence that God's word does not err in condemning homosex (as well as ANY non-marital sex), then you're going to see them hold this out again and again. REFERMATA.

Reminder to those who allege reductionism

Since the California ruling on Same Sex Marriage, my inbox has been full of requests for money and activism to support traditional marriage. Some of the Christian organizations even ask me to pray. (Shame on the others!) There have been insightful commentaries and legal musings (can you say balkanization), along with the standard tripe. There's just a tremendous amount of energy going toward dealing with the issue.

Plenty of people on the other side say that the right is obsessed with homosex. Now that's like saying that during a flood, Iowans are obsessed with sandbags. But even if we do come off as a bit fixated, there's a reason beyond morbid obsession that the battles rage these days over sexuality:

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the Word of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Him. Where the battle rages there the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle front besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.

(Luther's Works. Weimar Edition. Briefwechsel [Correspondence], vol. 3, pp. 81ƒ.)

In each age, we are asked to give allegiance to the powers of this world or to the Kingdom of God and His Christ. Everyday, we choose sides. The place where Christians must rush in to fill the gap is where the nay-sayers allege that Christ's Kingdom does not extend. If it is sexuality, we will speak of His Lordship there. If it is economics, we must contend for him there. If it is freedom of conscience, we will challenge those against it.

Right now, a tiny contingent of the population* is waging an enormous rhetorical (and now political) campaign against Christ's Lordship over human relationality & sexuality. It's a big deal, because Paul describes that sacred bond as a mystery illustrative of Christ and His Church. As stewards of the mysteries, our service to Christ cannot constitute an erosion of that union.

If nothing else, think of the children and the minorities.

*Less than 3% of men and 1.5% of women, according to Sex in America: A Definitive Survey, Robert T. Michael, John H. Gagnon, Edward O. Laumann, and Gina Kolata, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1994, p. 176.

Bizarro World...er...church

As requested, I've worked my Photoshop-phu on that Bizarro pic so descriptive of the PCUSA's GAPJC ruling on the Janie Spahr case. (Okay...this wasn't done out of a sense of camaraderie. I was just feeling left out when Holston Presbytery endorsed minister, John Shuck, started name-calling.)


Shouldn't you just go ahead and rename the organization the Presbyterian Smirch?

Meet the Robinsons

Vicky "Mean Gene" Robinson, the non-celibate sodomite Episcopal prelate of New Hampshire, is marrying his 20-yr lover in a June ceremony, shortly before the decennial Lambeth Conference. He claims that the date has nothing to do with offending the already alienated primates of 4/5ths of Anglicans worldwide. He says it's to provide protections for his "spouse" and children. However, in his November 27th speech at Nova Southeastern University, he gives the real reason: "I always wanted to be a June bride."

Can anyone reasonably believe that this man thinks of anyone other than himself and his agenda in these decisions? Even if we were to grant that homosex is biblically permissible (even for a bishop), what about his divorce and his alcoholism?

Moral Relativism vs Relative Moralism

Okay...I'm no longer PCUSA, so I should probably keep my nose out of this. But I was startled by the PUPpies challenge to the GAPJC. However, I believe that a pattern being displayed is actually cross-denominational. It's what Dr. Albert Mohler has termed relative moral relativism.

I think Dr. Achtemeier is confused about who are the friends to whom he owes his highest allegiance. He wants to fight for his friends - that's part of what the getting together and dialogging is about - becoming friends. The PCUSA seems convinced that anybody can cross their principles so long as they have friends on the other side. It's the natural result of believing that propositional truth is in reality prepositional truth (whom you're with, whom you're against - rather than hath God said...).

What I mean by this is the silly notion that all of your allegiances and philosophicotheopolitical commitments are a result of the "folks ya run with" and not well-thought out convictions. For a large part of the populace, it is true that bad company corrupts good morals - thus, getting a broader view of the world can help mitigate those inimical forces that keep us ignorant and bigoted. Exposure to different view points, understanding where people are coming from, etc. is of great service in disposing of human bias.

(The same works in reverse - we can become skewed by the company we keep. I remember falling in with a KJV-only group in my early college days. It didn't last, but for about two months I was convinced that the NIV was sending people tah HAY-uhl!!! I got over that - though I still think the NRSV stands for the Nebbish Revisional Substandard Version.)

However, to continually mistake well thought out ethical / theological / political positions for ignorant and/or malicious bias is perhaps the capital obstruction to talking to "the left" on the issue of homosexuality. It's not bias...it's biblical. Fight the battle there and nowhere else.

As for who should take precedence in our allegiances? Jesus, the Word written, and the company of saints who have died to get it to us take precedence...not some people that you met in the last 30 years and worked with on a committee for 5. You're going to live in accountability to Jesus for all eternity, so make now count.

h/t Toby

Out-for-blood Drive

A little background: I'm still on the communitymail email list for LPTS. It's an email listserv where people can announce general interest items. I've had some "adventures" on there in the past, but things got ugly when folks wanted to paint me as the mouth-breathing conservative homophobic woman-beater instead of make an intelligent rebuttal. I generally leave it alone, but when the following came along...well...I couldn't hold back.

Let me set it up: LPTS hosts several blood drives throughout the year. There's always a handful of international students or folks who've gone on mission trips to parts of the world that disqualify them from giving blood. With some recent loosening of restrictions on foreign travel, the office staff person that coordinates these donations sent out a helpful email reminding people to reconsider whether or not they are newly eligible. In response to that information, an student demagogue wrote the following:*

I find it somewhat disturbing that we don't make some statement expressing our concern that (as far as I can see in this email) homosexuals are still summarily excluded from eligibility to donate.

To which I responded, as pastorally as I could:

I find it somewhat comforting that - when you graduate - you're "MD" will only stand for Master of Divinity, not Medical Doctor.

Do you seriously believe that this decision is based on homophobia, heterosexism, or anything other than rational medical science?

Stick to exegesis, and leave the epidemiology to competent critics.

(BTW, "homosexuals" aren't excluded - only men who've actually had sex with another man since 1977. That means a heterosexual who was raped in 1983 isn't eligible but a 20 yr old homosexual who has been chaste is eligible, as would be all lesbians - assuming no other risk factors.)

Abraham Maslow once said, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. " Mainline seminaries have sold out to the "oppression / patriarchy / issues" ticket, and are creating ordinands that are incapable of reflecting on ethical, theological, biblical, or political issues outside of that framework. And we're the poorer for it.

* Names have been changed to protect the willfully stupid.

PS - This is the kind of stuff that made my CPM say "CPE will cure him!"

Update! Touchy non-celibate gay male responds:

[Student demagogue] was referring to the fact that gay men are not allowed to donate blood. The list includes people who are now allowed to donate who previously were not allowed to do so. He was commenting on the fact that gay men SHOULD be on that list but ARE NOT on that list. I guess the tests they run on the blood doesn't work for queer blood, that is the only reason that I can figure out as to why gay men are still excluded.

Update part deux: I've been reported to the dean of students. shudder What is it about those Holston boys that makes'em so reportable? Anyway, it's not the first time it's happened. It will probably be the last, as I'm moving away (into my first home!) in about a month.

Matthew 23 Comes to Mind

San Francisco Presbytery has given us the final outworking of the PUP report. If you have not read Ms. Larges' own statement, do so here. Make sure you read page 3-4, where she says: "By my conscience, faith and theology I cannot and will not accept the terms of this standard....In my own life, while I affirm the moral values of fidelity and chastity, I will not and can not claim chastity in singleness unless and until fidelity between two persons of the same gender within a covenantal relationship is recognized."

This obstinate reaction is the natural outworking of her double-minded hermeneutic on page 2: "while Holy Scripture is necessary to faith and authoritative in our lives, 'to lead a life in obedience to Scripture' sets the authority of Scripture above the authority of Christ and returns us to life under the law." (Don't you love the smell of antinomianism in the morning? Can someone please tell me when the PCUSA went Quaker?)

Now try and apply that "logic" to any issue that is claimed as a matter of justice (women's ordination; "minority" representation; property; etc.) and see if you think feel that it could be "scrupled" as easily as G-6.0106b has been in San Fran.

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! See, your house is left to you desolate."

God bless the faithful presbyters who will continue to guard those entrusted them by the chief shepherd.

Panzers...not pansies

The Layman reports that Bel Air Presbyterian Church failed in attaining a stay for a same-sex blessing that will occur this Sunday at neighboring Brentwood Presbyterian Church (according to the LA Times). Frankly, while I'm against the service because of how it perverts marriage (a covenant instituted by God himself), I would not have wasted my breath on asking the presbytery to interfere with the "blessing."

Instead, since an ordained Presbyterian Lesbyterian minister (Ms. Bove) is one half of the couple being blessed & recognized for her 10-year same-sex relationship, why not go ahead and ask for an enforcement of the constitutional standard in G-6.0106b? She works as a chaplain at a children's hospital, and it wouldn't be difficult for her to gain "ordination" by any number of false ecclesiastical structures - so it wouldn't even threaten her livelihood. (Compare that to the action against Kirk Johnston.) But it would do something that most folks enmeshed in the system are incapable of doing: show some backbone.

I've said it before and I'll keep saying it till someone listens: the Presbyterian Church USA is falling apart because there is no resolve to discipline her ministers. The recent lawsuits over property show that the Constitution's Form of Government only serves as a punitive instrument to enforce specious claims of provenance. The Book of Confessions and the Book of Order are flaunted on a regular basis, but don't even think of trying to snub the Board of Pensions! Every once in a while, we'll nod to our sexual standards - but even that is rare. (We seem to prefer to go after the ministers who do the service, rather than attempt to lovingly discipline and restore the unrepentant homosexual.)

What we THEY need are some pastors who can be Panzers...instead of pansies.* Unfortunately, they like to throw out the ones they can't tame or buy out.

*No insult offered to either the genus viola or the genius, Viola, who shows more resolve than most men in confronting the errors of the PCUSA.