Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Monday, April 22, 2013

Election is For Everyone - Discussion of Election, Free Will, Predestination, & God's Sovereignty

 
A Plug for My Current Article on “Election” in Christianity Today
 
 
 
Election Is for Everyone
 
by Roger Olson
February 5, 2013
 
However we interpret the controversial doctrine, it's clear
that salvation is never a human achievement.
 
When I was a kid my brother and I would sometimes spend part of Saturday handing out gospel tracts in our neighborhood. We were pastor's sons and probably felt some obligation to do it (as it was something promoted in Sunday school and youth group), but I can honestly say we also felt it was our contribution to the kingdom of God.
 
One of our favorite tracts pictured a voting ballot. The great preacher Herschel Hobbs, known among Southern Baptists as "Mr. Baptist," preached a famous sermon based on that tract on The Baptist Hour in October 1967. His sermon was "God's Election Day," and its main point was:
 
"The devil and God held an election to determine whether or not you would be saved or lost. The devil voted against you and God voted for you. So the vote was a tie. It is up to you to cast the deciding vote."
 
Without doubt that concept of the doctrine of election has become popular among Christians. After all, we Americans prize our right and freedom to vote. But is that what Scripture means by election? Is the gospel that God votes for our salvation, Satan votes against it, and we—individually, freely—cast the vote that decides our eternal destiny?
 
Probably not. Some biblical scholars and theologians would say, "Definitely not!" It does seem to trivialize the concept of election and especially God's sovereignty in our salvation. On the other hand, there may be some truth in this way of conceiving the issue, even if it does not do justice to the profundity of the biblical doctrine of election.
 
Unfortunately, the "doctrine of election" has come to be associated especially, even uniquely, with one particular branch of Christian theology—the one people know as "Reformed." It descends from the Swiss Reformation of the 16th century and most notably from the French reformer John Calvin, who lived in and spiritually led the Swiss city Geneva. Too often, "election" is identified as the distinctive doctrine of Calvinism—as if no other branch of Christianity believes in it.
 
In fact, it would be impossible to be a Bible-believing Christian without affirming God's electing grace and having a doctrine of election. The same could be said about predestination, often thought of as a synonym for election. The Bible is filled with references to God's choice of people, both individuals and groups. Abraham was not just "called" by God but also "chosen" or "elected" to be the father of God's "chosen people," God's elect nation of Israel (Gen. 12:1-3; Isa. 45:4). The church is the elect of God, chosen for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:5). Paul was clearly chosen by God for apostleship (Acts 9).
 
It would be no stretch of truth to say that God's election of people is central to the biblical message, to the gospel. And it can safely be said that people's election is God's grace, not human achievement. Nowhere does the Bible even hint that people elect themselves.
 
'Touched by an Angel' Theology
 
That brings us back to the gospel tract and Hobbs's sermon. All Christians, not only Calvinists, ought to reject the underlying message that election is a human act or achievement. Theologians have a term for that belief: semi-Pelagianism. It is arguably the default view of both salvation and service among American Christians, especially younger Christians. But all branches of Christianity have condemned it as heresy, because it completely contradicts Scripture.
 
[The unbiblical idea of] Semi-Pelagianism is the idea that human beings take the initiative in their salvation and service to God. We decide whether to be saved or enter into God's service completely by ourselves, without prevenient (or necessary) grace. (Prevenient grace is grace that convicts, calls, illumines, and enables. Christian theologians disagree about whether it is resistible [(Arminianism)] or irresistible [(Calvinism)], but all evangelical theologians agree it is necessary for the first exercise of a good will toward God.) Some years ago, a popular television series featured angels in human disguise helping people in distress turn to God. In one episode, a beautiful young angel with a Scottish accent counseled a man to "reach up to God as far as you can, and then he'll reach down and take you the rest of the way." I call that "Touched by an Angel theology." By itself, without careful biblical and theological clarification, it expresses semi-Pelagianism, [that is, personal self-election].
 
Contrary to what many think, both Calvinist and Arminian traditions of Protestant Christianity have always emphasized God's initiative in salvation and service. (Arminianism is the theological tradition named after Jacob Arminius, a 17th-century Dutch theologian who affirmed human free will.) That is, if any person or group finds reconciliation with God and/or a role in God's mission, it is due to God's electing grace and not to human decision or achievement alone.
 
Unfortunately, the doctrine of election has become a battleground among evangelical Protestants. Three main viewpoints vie for attention and belief. All three appeal to Scripture. All three claim the other two fall short of biblical and theological correctness. Occasionally advocates of the three views fall into nasty verbal combat with each other. Advocates of all three need to realize they share much in common, specifically belief in the divine initiative—that God is the electing one, the one whose grace is necessary to every good thing a person does, including the first movement of the will toward God.
 
The first view is classical, traditional Calvinism. It was not invented by Calvin but came to be associated with his name in English lands through the Puritans. Earlier reformers Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli held much the same belief about election.
 
According to Calvin, election, which is the same as predestination and foreordination, refers to "God's eternal decree, by which he compacted with himself what he willed to become of each man …. [E]ternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others" (Institutes of the Christian Religion III.XXI.5). Many people refer to this as "double predestination." Calvin based it on Romans 9 and other passages that emphasize God's sovereignty in everything, including each individual's eternal destiny.
 
The second view is classical, traditional Arminianism. It is named after the theologian Jacob Arminius, but the basic outlines of the view predate him. Perhaps the most influential Arminian was John Wesley, founder of the Methodist tradition, who is also revered by Christians in the holiness and Pentecostal traditions.
 
According to Wesley's essay "On Predestination," faithfully following Arminius, election (pre-destination) means that "God foreknew those in every nation, who would believe, from the beginning of the world to the consummation of all things." He based this on Romans 8, especially verses 29 and 30. Like all Arminians (and many who do not use that label but agree with its essential doctrine of election), Wesley affirmed free will, enabled by [prevenient] grace, because otherwise, "[I]f man were not free, he could not be accountable either for his thoughts, words, or actions."
 
Mountains of Verses
 
Most contemporary evangelical Christians lean one way or the other—toward either Calvin's or Wesley's view of election. All agree that God elects people to service; all agree that God chooses (through corporate election) to have a people. The flashpoint of controversy is election to salvation - is it unconditional and irresistible, or does it depend on one's willingness to accept it?
 
The divide is over individual salvation and especially whether God predestines some people to hell. Arminians find that abhorrent and damaging to God's reputation, based on passages such as John 3:16, 2 Peter 3:9, and 1 Timothy 2:4. Calvinists argue that allowing humans to resist and thwart God's will limits God's sovereignty and, however unintentionally, diminishes his deity. If sinners can freely contribute to their own salvation, then grace is not the only factor.
 
Both sides in this debate can pile up mountains of verses and arguments to support their view. It seems doubtful that equally God-fearing, Bible-believing, Jesus-loving Christians will ever reach consensus about the matter. But consensus already exists in this: whatever role humans play in their salvation, salvation is God's work. Even Arminians, at their best and truest, believe sinners receive saving grace only because God enables them to receive it with the free response of faith.
 
All evangelicals agree that salvation is God's work and not ours. Our good works, even our free decisions or signs of grace, amount to nothing when compared with God's electing grace and power.
 
A third view appears among contemporary evangelical Christians. Whether it leans closer to the classical Calvinist or Arminian doctrine of election is much debated. So-called "evangelical Calvinism" is championed by followers of Scottish theologians Thomas and James Torrance. They, in turn, were influenced by Swiss theologian Karl Barth and, before Barth, by Scottish theologians John McLeod Campbell and P. T. Forsyth. This view has recently been spelled out and defended by 12 leading evangelical theologians in Evangelical Calvinism: Essays Resourcing the Continuing Reformation of the Church.
 
According to evangelical Calvinism (something of a misnomer, as all Calvinists consider themselves evangelical in some sense), Christ must be central to election as both its object and its subject. God elects Jesus Christ to be the Savior, and then elects people only "in him." In Jesus and his cross, God has said, "Yes!" to all people; there is no corresponding divine "No!" If anyone has been elected to salvation, it is because God first elected Jesus Christ and then, by grace, included sinners in that election. If anyone rejects their inclusion in Christ's election, it is solely because of their inexplicable rejection of the grace God extended to them in Jesus Christ.
 
The editors of Evangelical Calvinism affirm that "[A]ll are included in Christ's salvific work, and … salvation is by grace alone and Christ alone." Election to salvation is good news, because it is not dependent on the frail and faltering free will of sinners, and no one is excluded except those who willfully exclude themselves [in Christ].
 
Classical Calvinists and Arminians agree with much in evangelical Calvinism, but both find it inconsistent at certain crucial points. Their main common complaint is that it falls into contradiction. How, they ask, can one affirm the universality of electing grace and deny free will with regard to being elected [Arminianism], while also affirming free will to reject the truth of one's election [Calvinism]? Evangelical Calvinists, on the other hand, find both alternative views of election problematic in that each, in its own way, seems to impugn the goodness of God's character.
 
Evangelical books about the doctrine of election abound. Unfortunately, most of them are polemical—spending more time arguing against another view than underscoring and explaining common ground. Especially in the past two to three decades, the doctrine of election has become a cause of division more than of unity among evangelicals. More attention needs to be given to areas of broad and profound agreement, and less to areas of diversity. Evangelical Christians, at their best, share a common doctrine of election. The devil is in the details, especially when they become points of polemical accusation and opportunities for charges of heresy or biblical infidelity.
 
All evangelicals agree that salvation is God's work and not ours. Our good works, even our free decisions or signs of grace, amount to nothing when compared with God's electing grace and power.... They're like the deceptive pillars English architect Christopher Wren installed to reassure the city fathers who doubted his scheme for supporting the second floor of Windsor's town hall. Wren had in fact left space between the pillars' tops and the ceiling of the first story. But the space was so miniscule as to be invisible, and it wasn't until years later, when workmen built scaffolds to clean the ceiling, that the ruse was discovered. The pillars, which had seemed so important to the architectural design, were revealed (like our outwardly impressive good works) as meaningless.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
'God Will Find a Way'
 
If a sinner comes to Christ and receives salvation, all evangelicals agree, it is due to God's electing grace and not at all due to any meritorious work. They also agree that God is sovereign in salvation; election is one biblical way of expressing that sovereignty. The whole of Ephesians 1 extols God's sovereign election of his people. There, as elsewhere, however, it is possible to interpret election corporately [as well as it should be, esp. in Ephesians! - res]. All evangelicals agree that God's election of a people, Israel and the church, is unconditional. God chooses to have a people for his name and for his glory. He chooses to have a people on whom to lavish his love. He chooses to have a people to be a light to the nations and a testimony of God's greatness and goodness to the spiritual beings that populate the invisible world.
 
Evangelicals can and do disagree about whether individuals' inclusion in God's elect people involves any level of free will, but all agree that the existence of the people of God is not dependent on human choice. As a famous line from Jurassic Park says, "Life finds a way." Evangelical faith of all types and tribes agrees that "God will find a way" to have a people for his name.
 
Calvinists, Arminians, and evangelical Calvinists tend to find each other's positions inconsistent. But inconsistency is not heresy. Perhaps evangelicals divided over the details of the doctrine of election could rally around a prayer. The great English Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon, saved in a Methodist church but a passionate Calvinist, frequently prayed a seemingly inconsistent prayer at his church's evening prayer meetings: "God, call out your elect. And then elect some more." Evangelicals of varying opinions may cringe at the apparent contradiction, but all can rejoice at the spirit of generosity and hope that pervaded Spurgeon's appeal.
 
- R.O.
 
*Roger Olson is professor of theology at Baylor University's George W. Truett Theological Seminary, and the author, most recently, of Against Calvinism (Zondervan).
 
 
 
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Luther and “Double Predestination”

Friday, April 19, 2013

A Final Farewell by Clark Pinnock and Tribute to Open Theology


Pinnock, Alzheimer’s, and Open Theology
 
by Thomas Jay Oord
March 24, 2013
 
I received sad news in an email recently: Clark Pinnock is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Clark sent John Sanders and me the following note:
 
Dear Tom and John:
 
I want to inform you that I am now middle stage Alzheimer’s. I will not be able to do my writing etc. I am 73 years now, and I've enjoyed my biblical three score and ten. I am not bitter. I have had a good life. I'll meet you over Jordan if not before.
 
You are free to make this news known.
 
With love,
 
Clark
 
Clark Pinnock is a theological giant in our day. His influence has been great, especially in Evangelical circles. This news of Alzheimer’s disease indicates that his active contribution to theology will now diminish if not cease.
 
Pinnock’s personal theological journey has been intriguing. He moved from affirming a more or less conventional and/or fundamentalist view of God to the Open view he considers more faithful to the biblical witness.
 
In this journey, Pinnock consistently considered the Bible his primary source for theology. He gave particular weight to biblical narrative and the language of personal relationships found in Scripture. Although he rejected a Fundamentalist view of the Bible, he remained committed to honoring the Bible as his principal authority for theology.
 
Open theology offers a coherent doctrine of God, says Pinnock, in which each divine attribute “should be compatible with one another and with the vision of God as a whole.” For instance, Pinnock wishes to offer a vision of the God who “combines love and power perfectly.” Unless the portrait of God compels, he says, the “credibility of belief in God is bound to decline.”
 
Open theology as Pinnock presents it depicts God as a self-sufficient, though relational, Trinitarian being. God graciously relates to the world as one self-limited out of respect for the genuine freedom of creatures. Creatures genuinely influence God. God is transcendent and immanent, has changing and unchanging aspects, gives to and receives from others, is present to all things, and has supreme power. God’s love, says Pinnock, includes responsiveness, generosity, sensitivity, openness, and vulnerability.
 
Open theology rejects traditional theologies that portray God as an aloof monarch. Influential theologians of yesteryear often portrayed God as completely unchangeable, ultimately all determining, and irresistible. By contrast, Pinnock says the biblical vision presents a loving God who seeks relationship with free creatures. “The Christian life involves a genuine interaction between God and human beings,” he says. “We respond to God’s gracious initiatives and God responds to our responses... and on it goes.”
 
The future is not entirely settled, according to Open theology. This means that while God knows all possibilities, God does not know with certainty what free creatures will actually do until creatures act. Classic views of God’s foreknowledge are incompatible with creaturely freedom, says Pinnock. “If choices are real and freedom significant,” he argues, “future decisions cannot be exhaustively known.”
 
Open theology does affirm that God is all knowing. God knows all things knowable. Believers should not understand divine omniscience as the idea God possesses exhaustive foreknowledge of all future events, says Pinnock. After all, future possible events are not yet actual.
 
Biblical evidence for Open theology’s view of omniscience comes in many forms. Dozens of biblical passages, for instance, record God saying “perhaps.” This uncertainty [allowance for free will interaction on the part of man - res] on God’s part means the future remains open, and not completely certain [knowable; nor is it necessary that it be knowable - res]. The Bible also says God makes various covenants. These covenants suggest God does not know with certainty everything to occur in the future. God often asks Israel to choose one course of action over another.
 
For instance, Jeremiah records God offering two possible futures for Israel: “If you will indeed obey this word, then through the gates of this house shall enter kings who sit on the throne of David…. But if you will not heed these words, I will swear by myself, says the LORD, that this house shall become a desolation” (Jer. 22: 4-5). God’s particular course of future action depends in part upon Israel’s choice. God apparently does not know with certainty what Israel’s choice will be. Other Old Testament passages exhibit covenant language in which the future is yet to be decided, and God does not know with certainty what will actually occur.
 
God cannot be in all ways timeless, say Open theologians. We best conceive of God’s experience as temporally everlasting rather than timelessly eternal. To say God is in all ways timeless implies God is totally actualized, immutable, impassible, and outside of time and sequence. Such a God is static and aloof, says Pinnock, not relational and responsive. The temporally everlasting Lord is the Living God of the Bible.
 
Those who embrace conventional theology have difficulty accepting Open theology. This difficulty arises because Open theology challenges certain well-established traditions, argues Pinnock, not because it opposes the Bible. Open theology themes appear throughout the biblical witness: “the idea of God taking risks, of God’s will being thwarted, of God being flexible, of grace being resistible, of God having a temporal dimension, of God being impacted by the creature, and of God not knowing the entire future as certain.”
 
One of Open theology’s greatest assets is its fit with Christian experience. It addresses well the demands of ordinary life and practices of the saints. “It is no small point in favor of the openness model,” Pinnock argues, “that it is difficult to live life in any other way than the way it describes.”
 
Open theology releases people to live their lives meaningfully, says Pinnock. “As individuals we are significant in God’s eyes… the things we do and say, the decisions and choices we make, and our prayers all help shape the future.” Our lives and life-decisions really matter.
 
Open theology is preferable in other ways. It points to a friendship with God possible in cooperative relationship. Most conventional theologies implicitly or explicitly reject friendship with God. Open theology emphasizes the reality of freedom we all presuppose. Many conventional theologies directly or indirectly reject creaturely freedom vis-à-vis God.
 
Open theology corresponds with our intuition that love ought to be persuasive rather than coercive. It emphasizes sanctification in the sense of growth in grace and decisive moments. Open theology corresponds with the view that God calls and empowers growth in Christ-likeness.
 
Christians should especially prefer Open theology to conventional theology on the issue of petitionary prayer. Most Christians believe their prayers make a difference to God, including influencing at least sometimes how God acts. Pinnock argues that petitionary prayer does not genuinely influence now the God who foreordains and/or foreknows all things. Petitionary prayer cannot change an already settled future.
 
“People pray passionately when they see purpose in it, when they think prayer can make a difference and that God may act because of it,” argues Pinnock. “There would not be much urgency in our praying if we thought God’s decrees could not be changed and/or that the future is entirely settled.”
 
Above all, Open theology emphasizes love as God’s chief attribute and priority for theological construction. “God created the world out of love and with the goal of acquiring a people who would, like a bride, freely participate in his love.” Love was God’s goal, and giving freedom the means to that goal. “God is inviting us to join in his own ongoing Trinitarian communion and conversation,” says Pinnock. God “wants us to join in and share the intimacy of his own divine life.”
 
God’s loving nature is unchanging, but God’s experience, knowledge, and action change in the divine give-and-take of interactive loving relationship. “The living God is . . . the God of the Bible,” says Pinnock, “the one who is genuinely related to the world, whose nature is the power of love, and whose relationship with the world is that of a most moved, not unmoved, Mover.”
 
Because of this, Open theology “is a model of love.”
 
 
*Comments mine own - R.E. Slater (res)
 
 
 

Thursday, April 18, 2013

3 Lies Porn Tells You

 
 
April 18, 2013
Justin and Trisha are bloggers, authors, speakers and founders of RefineUs Ministries. Sharing their story of pain, loss and redemption, RefineUs is igniting a movement to build healthy marriages and families. They are the co-authors of their first book, Beyond Ordinary: When a Good Marriage Just Isn’t Good Enough, published by Tyndale House Publishers.
 
 
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
 
 
Three years into our marriage, my wife, Trisha, woke up in the middle of the night and realized I wasn’t in bed. She walked out into the living room and as soon as she looked at the TV, I quickly changed the channel.
 
She began to question me about what I was watching, why I wasn’t in bed, and why I would immediately change the channel. Then came the repeated question: Do you struggle with lust and pornography? The more she asked the more intense the conversation became.
 
So I denied everything. I told her I was just channel surfing. I argued with her about what she saw. I convinced her that I didn’t struggle with porn or lust. She had nothing to worry about. I was lying.
 
For the amount of people who struggle with this, we don’t talk about it near enough.
 
I didn’t know it at the time, but that night was the first of many opportunities I had over the first 10 years of our marriage to be honest about my porn addiction. I was a pastor and pastors don’t struggle with lust or porn. At least, no other pastor I knew struggled with it, I felt all alone.
 
The truth was, I wasn’t alone. I had friends I could have talked to. I had accountability partners I lied to. I had other pastors I blew off when asked about sexual sins and struggles.
 
In my mind, my intentions were good—I was trying to protect my marriage. The reality is, porn was telling me lies and I was buying right into them.
 
For the amount of people who struggle with this, we don’t talk about it near enough. We don’t talk about it in our families. We don’t talk about it in our churches. We think avoiding it will make it go away. Statistically speaking, over 50 percent of the men reading this post have had exposure to pornography recently. And it’s not just a “man’s problem,” either. About 30 percent of porn users online are women. It isn’t going away.
 
Here are the three lies porn told me and will tell you as well.
 
1. That was the last time.
 
No matter how many times you’ve looked at pornography, that was your last time. Because you truly believe it is your last time buying the magazine, going to the web site, downloading that movie—you don’t need to confess it, because it was the last time. Until tomorrow or next week or next month. It is the last time—until the next time. If porn can convince you that “this time is the last time,” you’ll never tell anyone.
 
2. You can stop anytime you want.
 
You know what pornography has done to other marriages, to other friends, to other families, to other church leaders…but you aren’t really “addicted” to pornography. You can stop anytime you want. Besides it doesn’t have the same effect on you that it does on other people. It won’t hurt your life, your marriage, your kids, your church, your ministry like it has other people. You are in control of porn, it doesn’t control you.
 
Freedom costs something upfront, but not as much as bondage costs over time.
 
3. Confessing your struggle with cost you too much.
 
Porn wants you to live in secret. Porn causes us to weigh the cost of confessing against the cost of hiding and convinces us that hiding will be less painful. You think you are helping yourself and your marriage by hiding your porn addiction. Your wife—or husband—won’t understand. Your marriage won’t recover. Your credibility won’t be able to be rebuilt.
 
Something I’ve learned the hard way: Hiding sin never provides us with the power
to overcome it. The freedom you long for is found in confession. Freedom costs
something upfront, but not as much as bondage costs over time.
 
Believing these lies will never give you the power to overcome them. Trying to quit will not give you the power to quit. But freedom is possible.
 
Here is what I believe with all of my heart: If you struggle with pornography, God isn’t disappointed in you; He is fighting for you. He died and conquered sin and death so you can have victory in this area of your life.
 
Where do we begin? How can we overcome something that grips our heart and keeps us living in shame and guilt? The first place I suggest everyone that struggles with pornography start is with a Christian counselor. Both my wife and I needed someone with greater perspective and wisdom than we had to help us overcome this struggle in my life.
 
Beyond that, I want to share one principle with you that I believe has power to bring freedom, hope and healing to your heart. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.
 
Healing comes through confession and prayer. I know that sounds very churchy, but take a look at this Scripture: “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” (James 5:16).
 
The type of confession that James is talking about isn’t a confession for forgiveness; it is confession for healing. There is a healing that comes to our heart as we confess our sins with one another.
 
Most of us have the “forgiveness” part of confession down. We know that in order to get forgiveness from God, we have to confess our sins. Maybe you grew up confessing to a priest, maybe it is something that you do in your quiet time with God, maybe it is something that you do after you’ve made a huge mistake. Most of us know that forgiveness from God comes through confession.
 
We don’t talk about the “healing” type of confession in the Church very often. In fact, we have built a religious system that tries to find healing through hiding our sins, not confessing them. The sins we do confess are “safe” sins: bitterness, jealousy, materialism, anger and selfishness.
 
I was the master at this. I appeared “authentic” for confessing socially acceptable sins while I lived as a prisoner to sins I wasn’t willing to confess. For years, I forfeited the healing that God longed to bring to my heart not because I didn’t confess my sins to Him; but because I refused to confess them to anyone else.
 
But here’s 3 truths porn will never tell you:
  • Temptation loses its power when we confess.
  • Sin loses its ability to keep us fractured when we confess.
  • Addictions lose the control they have in our lives when we confess.
The secret sin you keep only has power as it remains a secret. The Light will always overcome darkness. The difficult decision we face is allow that Light into the darkest, most embarrassing parts of our heart. God can’t heal the parts of our heart we refuse to bring into the Light. But when we do, we can be healed.

 

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Asking Questions of Evolutionary Creationism

 
"I am not of the opinion that evolutionary theory poses no challenge to Christianity, but neither am I of the opinion that evolutionary theory can be ignored or dismissed. The questions therefore that must be answered, among others I'm sure, are: 1. Is evolutionary theory necessarily teleological for the Christian? 2. Is there a place for natural theology or general revelation in light of evolutionary theory? 3. What priority is to be given evolutionary science in determining Christian dogma?" - Mark Quanstrom
 
 
A Much Needed Conversation
 
by Mark Quanstrom
April 17, 2013
 
I am appreciative to those who recognize that there ought to be a place where serious conversation can take place regarding the relationship between evolutionary theory and Christianity's faith affirmations.
 
I'm appreciative because I am not of the opinion that evolutionary theory poses no challenge to Christianity. I don't think that if we just appropriated the right Biblical hermeneutic, or understood the respective epistemological domains of science and religion, or insisted on science recognizing its "faith" presuppositions, then all would be well.
 
I'm appreciative because neither am I of the opinion that the challenges that evolutionary theory pose to creedal Christianity can be ignored or dismissed. (And just for the record, I am using the word "theory" here in its scientific sense, not in the "detective novel" sense.) I am not in agreement with the young-earth creationists who dismiss or explain away the scientific evidence for evolutionary theory, even if I am sympathetic to their recognition of the problem evolution poses. Evolutionary theory must be taken seriously, as it is providing the best theoretical framework for understanding biological life on this planet.
 
So this is a much needed conversation, and for that reason, I would like to raise a few of the issues that I believe confound an easy reconciliation between evolutionary theory and Christianity. I don't think that the three questions I am raising exhaust the issues, but in my mind, they seem to be three that are worthy of reflective consideration by Christian theologians and Christian biologists alike.
 
 
1. Is Evolutionary Theory Necessarily Teleological for the Christian?
 
The first question that I believe is relative to some sort of rapprochement between creedal Christianity and evolutionary theory concerns how evolution is to be understood itself. There is considerable conversation among evolutionists about whether or not evolutionary theory is teleological in nature; that is, whether the theory necessitates purpose or direction, or whether it is simply descriptive of a blindly mechanistic universe. John Dupre, Professor of Philosophy of Science at Exeter University, in his review of John O. Reiss' Not By Design: Retiring Darwin's Watchmaker, stating the facts of the matter, writes:
Followers of the debate between evolutionists and various waves of creationists, most recently the advocates of "intelligent design," will have been struck by one curious convergence between the views of the opposing parties. Both sides agree that life, whether or not literally designed by an intelligent agent, seems just as if it had been designed.1
This philosophic presupposition that evolutionary theory is guided by some teleological principle ("survival of the fittest" or "natural selection" for example) is being rejected by many evolutionists precisely because a teleological principle cannot be empirically verified.

So John O. Reiss, Chair of the Biology Department at Humboldt State University, believes it absolutely necessary that evolutionary theory be understood non-teleologically. In the first chapter of his book, he explains his project.
In this book, I try to show that the concept of natural selection is often invoked to explain evolutionary transformations for which we have no evidence that the mechanism of natural selection, as currently understood, was wholly or even partially responsible for the transformation. I argue that we have never been able to overcome the major weakness of this metaphor... This weakness is the implication that there is, in nature, an agent with actions analogous to those of the breeder in artificial selection, a teleological agent that intentionally, and with foresight, 'selects' variations directed toward the improvement of the organism.2
Reiss insists that evolutionary theory, for it to be coherent, must reject any implication or indication of purpose.
 
David Hanke, Senior Lecturer of Biology at the University of Cambridge, goes further and insists that the whole evolutionary theory is compromised precisely because evolutionists infuse it with purpose.

In a chapter titled "Teleology: the explanation that bedevils biology," he writes:
Biology is sick. Fundamentally unscientific modes of thought are increasingly accepted, and dominate the way the subject is explained to the next generation... One major reason is the manner in which Natural Selection slipped seamlessly into the place of the Creator: the Natural Selector as the acceptable new face of the Great Designer... Predictably enough, anthropomorphizing Nature as your selector leads inevitably to the false supposition that there exists the quality of selectability, called 'Fitness' on the basis of which Nature selects... 'Fitness' does not exist – it is another phantom construct of the human mind...
 
There is no selection, only differential survival... ...both 'natural selection' and 'survival of the fittest' amount to no more than survival of the survivors, reflecting the uncreative emptiness of the continuous sieving of living things...3
According to Hanke, there is no "natural selection" or "survival of the fittest," as if "selection" was the means and "survival" was the end. No, it was simply "survivor of the survivors."
 
It seems to me problematic if the future paradigm for evolutionary biologists necessarily precludes a telos or teleological principle. Those who adhere to theistic evolution will necessarily be engaged in conversations about the definition of evolution itself and how the presupposition of purpose affects the scientific methodology. So the first question that I have is this one: "Is evolutionary theory necessarily teleological for the Christian?"
 
Comment 1
 
The last article I have listed below is by an evolutionary scientist/philosopher who
actually proposes the idea of teleology being central to the "bones" of evolution.
Many Evolutionary Creationists also feel this same way as do I.
 
- R.E. Slater (res)
 
 
2. Is there a place for natural theology or general revelation in light of evolutionary theory?
 
The second question I have concerns the place of natural theology or general revelation in an understanding of the Christian Faith. I should confess at the outset that I am not Barthian in this matter. While I recognize the absolute and definitive uniqueness of the special revelation of God in Christ, and while I understand the Reformed rejection of natural theology per se, I would like to accept as true Paul's word in Romans 1:20a, which says: "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen..." (NIV)

And I should note that our theological tradition acknowledges the place of general revelation to a knowledge of God. H. Orton Wiley wrote:
The Scriptures recognize the fact that nature reveals God, not only by frequent references to the work of nature but also by direct assertion. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night... The Apostle Paul... makes it clear that nature reveals God sufficiently to lead men to seek after Him and worship Him...4
However, in light of what evolution has taught us about "creation," I'm thinking I might need to be afraid to ask what nature teaches us about the Creator. How is Hume's critique of the teleological argument for God's existence to be answered by Christian evolutionists who embrace natural theology or general revelation?
Look around this universe. What an immense profusion of beings, animated and organized, sensible and active! You admire this prodigious variety and fecundity. But inspect a little more narrowly these living existences, the only beings worth regarding. How hostile and destructive to each other! How insufficient all of them for their own happiness! How contemptible or odious to the spectator! The whole presents nothing but the idea of a blind man, impregnated by a great vivifying principle, and pouring forth from her lap, without discernment or parental care, her maimed and abortive children.5
If general revelation, through creation, is a true revelation of the divine nature of God, then are we not with Tennyson, who wrote that nature was "red in tooth and claw" and who then was compelled to ask:
Are God and nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life.6
Indeed, Jerry Coyne, Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, calls into question the natural theology/general revelation of the Christian community in his blog when he challenged BioLogos' use of evolutionary science to draw conclusions about God's character. BioLogos, which is a "community of evangelical Christians committed to exploring and celebrating the compatibility of evolutionary creation and biblical faith," argued on their web page that God's character can indeed be discerned from evolutionary science. Specifically, they posited that God is "Extravagant" (in light of the diversity of life), "Patient" (in light of the length of time evolutionary processes take) and a "Provider" (in light of the complex ecosystems that are necessary for individual species to survive).7 Coyne responded:
As an evolutionary biologist, I would see this as deliberate humor if I didn't know better. For I could think of several not-so-nice characteristics of God also manifested by "studying evolutionary science." But I'll leave this amusing exercise to the readers...
And then Coyne asks: "What characteristics of God do you see from studying nature and evolution?"8
 
And so the second question I have concerns the place of general revelation/natural theology in light of evolutionary theory? Can we continue to look to nature to discern the Creator?
 
Comment 2 
 
I have attempted some answers to these very same questions which can be found under the
sidebars of "God," "Sin," "Sovereignty," "Theism (both Relational and Process)," and such
like. I believe that God's handiwork does reveal God as it must, but I also believe that His
handiwork has been corrupted by sin.
 
- res
 
 
3. What priority is to be given evolutionary science in determining Christian dogma?
 
The third question I have concerns the specific challenges evolutionary theory poses to the affirmations of the Christian Faith. I'm not speaking of those affirmations that are dependent on a fundamentalist hermeneutic, but rather those creedal affirmations that are grounded in the Bible-entire and not in any one particular passage or dependent on any one particular hermeneutic.
 
For example, granting that the first three chapters of Genesis are primarily theological in nature, how is the doctrine of original sin or inherited depravity to be understood? If Adam and Eve are archetypes, then how is the "fall" to be explained? Is a primeval paradise from which humanity fell and to which it longs to return essential to the Christian Faith as it has been understood in the West?
 
Related to the above questions is the question of death. Christian Faith teaches that death was an intrusion on the created order. Death was the consequence of the fall, is judgment on sin and is an enemy to which the resurrection of Jesus Christ was the victorious answer.
 
Evolutionary science demands that death be understood as an essential part of the biological world. If death is essential to God's creation and therefore a necessary good, then why is there a need for resurrection from the dead? Why has the Christian Faith considered death to be an enemy? Evolutionary science poses challenges to the Christian understanding of Jesus Christ as well. In short, was He the God-man, the prototype of a restored humanity, a second Adam? Did all the fullness of God dwell in human form? Or was he a homosapien on the evolutionary continuum? If so, was He perhaps an exception to evolution and therefore a "tertium quid," which means not fully human after all? If He wasn't human as we are human, then we must rethink atonement as well as Christology.
 
The real issue for Christians which I believe confounds an easy reconciliation between evolutionary theory and Christianity is nothing other than the incarnation. The first confession for Christians is the confession that "Jesus is Lord," that "the Word became flesh." I believe this foundational confession precludes Gnostic answers to the challenges that evolutionary theory poses, for example, that death must be understood in a spiritual sense; that resurrection is symbolic; that the new creation is immaterial. If we take incarnation (and therefore Christianity) seriously, we must take Christ as fully human seriously, and we must take creation as good creation seriously.
 
So I am not of the opinion that evolutionary theory poses no challenge to Christianity, but neither am I of the opinion that evolutionary theory can be ignored or dismissed. The questions therefore that must be answered, among others I'm sure, are:
  1. Is evolutionary theory necessarily teleological for the Christian?
  2. Is there a place for natural theology or general revelation in light of evolutionary theory?
  3. What priority is to be given evolutionary science in determining Christian dogma?
  4.  
Comment 3

Most specifically does Evolutionary Creationism affect classical Christian doctrine... as well it should. Dogmas which are not biblical must fall, and more  helpful descriptions of God, His Word, and His creation, be allowed in. We  live in a world that must now admit this and can no longer consider relevant the older, cherished, Christian doctrines that were concluded during non-scientific eras (nor even our most recent modernistic era of the past 100 years!). However, as I, and others, have shown, through our words and blogsites, what results will be a far richer, more deeply relevant Christian faith than first thought imagined. And that without giving up the fundamentals of our faith... just the fundamentals of our religious ideologies and inaccurate biblical descriptions.  - res
 
 
1 John Dupre. "The Conditions for Existence," American Scientist, Volume 98, Number 2 (March-April 2010): 170
2 John Reiss. Not by Design: Retiring Darwin's Watchmaker. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009) 4.
3 John Cornwall, ed. Explanations: Styles of Explanation in Science. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 143-155.
4 H. Orton Wiley. Christian Theology, Vol 1. (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1940) 51-52.
5 Dorothy Coleman, ed. Hume: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and Other Writings. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 86.
6 Alfred Lord Tennyson. In Memoriam A.H.H., LV, http://www.online-literature.com/donne/718/
7 http://biologos.org/
8 http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/10/01/biologos-goes-all-natural-theology/ 
 
 
 
Mark Quanstrom
Olivet Nazarene University
Professor of Theology and Philosophy
 
Rev. Mark R. Quanstrom, Ph.D. is a full-time professor of theology and philosophy in the School of Theology at Olivet Nazarene University. He is also the University Campus pastor at College Church of the Nazarene in Bourbonnais. He began teaching at Olivet in the fall of 2005.
 
Prior to coming to Olivet, he was pastor for 23 years at the Belleville, IL First Church of the Nazarene. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Olivet, a Master of Divinity from Nazarene Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from St. Louis University.
 
His Ph.D. dissertation was published in 2004 by Beacon Hill Press under the title A Century of Holiness Theology. His second book, From Grace to Grace, is a call to holiness which places priority on grace (hence the title) and was published by Beacon Hill Press in October of 2011.
 
 
 
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