2010-08-29

Beggar’s All: This post corrects the idea that James White goes after Muslims who quote liberal/critical Christian scholars, while White himself will quote them. White is actually saying the the Muslim use of liberal scholars against the text of the NT undermines the Muslims’ whole religion and the Qur’an, since the Qur’an affirms the Torah, Psalms, and Gospel of Jesus. (Surah 2:136; 5:46-48; 5:68; 10:94; 29:46). Islam claims it is the third in line of the Monotheistic religions and that the first two (Judaism – in “the law and prophets and Psalms”) and Christianity (Injeel = Gospel) were given truly at that time in a “dispensational” (in stages for each time period) kind of way. For example, Ehrman and Crossan affirm the historical reality of the crucifixion – contra Muslims, so is inconsistent for them to use liberal scholars specifically on the text of the Text of the Bible, as their main attack that under girds all of their apologetic method of the doubting of the Biblical text. Getting to the Specific Issue

Hays comments on David Waltz’s defunct argument that John Bugay and White are hypocrites because they cite liberal scholars in opposition to Islam or Romanism, but reject their opposition to Scripture. i) Waltz is to religion what Solomon was to women. ii) The analogy would only work if the arguments and counterarguments regarding Scripture were comparable those for the Koran or Romanism. iii) In sifting testimonial evidence, we don’t treat every witness the same, for some are less credibly than others. iv) Waltz would, for example, have to show that the liberal scholar’s arguments on the early Roman church are crucially contingent on their arguments regarding the NT. v) Liberal scholarship can sometimes be right for the wrong reasons. For example, it’s wrong to presume to apply methodological naturalism to religious claims. But if say, an Islamic phenomenon is a natural one masquerading as the supernatural, then naturalist methods and assumptions will coincidentally fit. vi) There’s nothing inherently liberal about redaction criticism; Blomberg and Bock use it to defend inerrancy. vii) Besides, the modern Magisterium sanctions the historical-critical method, so even if the method is wrong, it’s their yardstick. The Last Waltz

Moore comments on the reception of Glen Beck by evangelicals in the USA. Not because Beck, as a Mormon, doesn’t have the right to speak in the American public square with full religious liberty, but because of what it says about the Christian churches in the USA. American Christians have had to endure years of vacuous talk of undefined ‘revival’ hardly interested in anything uniquely Christian to get this far. Christians have tolerated heresy and buffoonery, and relied on populist sloganeering. Liberation theology on both the left and the right want a Caesar or a Pharaoh, not a Messiah; a Barabbas and a golden calf. Where there is no gospel, something else will fill the void. He connects the capitulation of American Christians to the temptation Satan had offered to Jesus. Satan doesn’t mind Judeo-Christian values, or ‘revival’. It’s the Gospel that he doesn’t like. Satan doesn’t mind a universe without porn or Islam or abortion. The scandalous scene at the Lincoln Memorial indicates that many of us want to exchange the rugged cross for the crown way too soon. Mormonism and Mammonism are contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ. “They offer another Lord Jesus than the One offered in the Scriptures and Christian tradition, and another way to approach him. An embrace of these tragic new vehicles for the old Gnostic heresy is unloving to our Mormon friends and secularist neighbors, and to the rest of the watching world.” God, the Gospel, and Glenn Beck

Burk comments on the above, saying that Moore is rightly scathing in his rebuke of evangelicals who would confuse genuine revival with Mormon-American-pie-populist politics.

JT posts the order of service in the second century, from NR Needham’s multi-volume survey of church history. The service lasted about three hours, and usually there was standing. There were no musical instruments, and the Lord’s Supper was observed every week. The service of the word was open to baptized believers, those receiving instruction in the faith, and those curious about Christianity. The third part, the prayers and the eucharist, were only open to baptized believers. The rest had to leave. “the early church understood congregational prayer as “participating by the Holy Spirit in the glorified Christ’s own heavenly ministry of prayer”—something unbelievers could not share in since they did not have the Spirit.” What Was a Church Service Like in the Second Century-

Beggar’s All: Luther taught a life under the cross, which is a life of discipleship of following after Christ. Our crosses though, do not save. They serve the neighbor. Luther plainly teaches that saving faith is a living faith. Justification is by faith alone unto good works done for the good of one’s neighbor; they are the evidence of God’s complete work of justification. Luther- Only Unbelief Causes Damnation

Spurgeon talks about those believers who delight in new scientific discoveries which are supposed to destroy our faith, as if science makes a wonderful discovery, and we’re supposed to doubt immediately God’s word. “Considering that the so-called "science" is continually changing, and that it seems to be the rule for scientific men to contradict all who have gone before them, and that, if you take up a book upon almost any science, you will find that it largely consists of repudiations of all former theories, I think we can afford to wait until the scientific men have made up their minds as to what science really is.” False Alarms

Martyn Lloyd-Jones preaches a sermon series in 1969, from which Phil Johnson links to an excerpt where Lloyd-Jones is decrying the church's inordinate fear of being called "narrow." This anxiety is exacerbated in our generation, he says, because modernity has tainted our worldview. We are too easily intimidated by the feigned authority of so-called men of knowledge. The result, Lloyd-Jones says, is an unwarranted capitulation to the authority of science (falsely so called). Lloyd-Jones Saw It Coming