Theology Central
Theology Central exists as a place of conversation and information for faculty and friends of Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Posts include seminary news, information, and opinion pieces about ministry, theology, and scholarship.Do We Have a Duty to Vote (For . . . )?
Do Christians have a duty to vote? More specifically, do they have a duty to vote for the lesser of two evils (whomever they think that might be)? Brian Lee gives “9 Reasons Christian’s Don’t Need to Vote for the Lesser Evil.” Here’s one:
No party owns a Christian’s vote, such that to withhold it is to add to the opponent’s tally. Not voting in this election is not a de facto vote for the other guy or gal. Not voting doesn’t subtract, it doesn’t give away, what hasn’t been earned in the first place.
Help in Selecting a Suit
The past several years have seen a shift away from pastors wearing suits. The decision to opt for more casual wear may be a statement or it may just be a preference for comfort. Still, some pastors wear suits every day, and all pastor will find themselves in situations where a suit is necessary. All pastors should know how to select a suit and how to wear a suit. Wearing the wrong suit, or wearing a suit badly, will often do more damage than good.
Need help in selecting a suit? Here’s a useful guide for ascending the “suit ladder.” It wasn’t put together by Christians. It was written by men who just want to help you know how to look good.
There’s really nothing wrong with a pastor looking good. For that matter, there’s really nothing wrong with any man looking good. But you can only look so good in dockers and a polo. You can only look so good in jeans and a tee. And you can’t look good in shorts or Crocks. Period.
Friends of C. S. Lewis
In an article on C. S. Lewis’s friendships, Joseph Pearce suggests that the great don’s friends can be reckoned across generations. Pearce traces those friendships from Lewis’s present, back to his past, and into his future.
Lewis was, however, as Ben Jonson said of Shakespeare, “not of an age but for all time,” which means that he counts amongst his friends not only his contemporaries but also the great writers and thinkers of civilization. These illustrious friends whom Lewis never met except in their books are the eminenti of literary history, far too numerous to mention, Lewis being so widely read and so omnivorous in his reading.
In Case You Didn’t Know
Muhammed was a feminist. In fact, Muhammed was a radical feminist.
You didn’t know that? Neither did anyone else until Jim Garrison, founder and president of Ubiquity University, enlightened us in the Huffington Post. He’s evidently read the Quran, you see, and he knows.
Don’t think that Moses or Jesus had anything to do with it.
Jesus did not explicitly comment on the status of women, although he did associate with women of ill repute and with non Jewish women. Moses was thoroughly patriarchal and there is virtually nothing in the Torah that indicates specific concern about women’s rights.
What about Muhammed?
He both explicitly taught the radical equality of women and men as a fundamental tenet of true spirituality, and he took numerous concrete measures to profoundly improve the status and role of women in Arabia during his own lifetime.
Well, that clarifies everything, doesn’t it? If Garrison knows as much about Muhammed as he clearly does about Jesus and Moses, then I think we can draw a few conclusions.
Seriously, folks, you can’t make this stuff up.
GARBC Resolution on Preaching Christ from the Old Testament
PROCLAIMING CHRIST FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT
The messengers of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches, meeting together in regular conference June 28—July 1, 2016, at Harvest New Beginnings in Oswego, Illinois,
Believing that the Old Testament Scriptures are rich in teaching concerning Christ (Luke 24:27; John 5:39), regarding such topics as His incarnation, death, resurrection, glory, Messiahship, kingship, and much more,
Rejoicing in the privilege of preaching, teaching, and proclaiming the Old Testament in the light of Christ and New Testament revelation,
Understanding that the meaning of the Old Testament does not change, yet recognizing that further New Testament revelation about Christ’s life, death, glorification, and future rule clarifies the divinely intended meaning of various teachings of the Old Testament, including the reality of an intricate and complicated law system (Col. 2:16, 17; Heb. 10:1),
Declaring that, while desiring to move the listener from the Old Testament context toward Christ, one must not force the text to convey New Testament teaching or to reveal Christ; being assured that there are times when one can preach an Old Testament text, understanding the writer’s intended meaning for his original hearers and then pointing the contemporary audience to rightly respond to the teaching point of the text,
Admitting that some have been guilty of preaching the Old Testament merely moralistically, at times missing the opportunity to draw the listener toward Christ, grace, and the gospel, and that some have overused typology in the Old Testament Scriptures or made connections to Christ that are suspect,
Noting also that some have wrongly used allegory and that others advocate a Christ-centered methodology built on a faulty redemptive-historical approach to interpretation, a tactic that makes the advance of God’s redemptive plan the delineating factor in the historical context of any Bible passage, an approach often arising out of hermeneutical systems that confuse Israel and the church,
Recognizing that while a redemptive purpose of God in the world is fleshed out in the Old and New Testaments, a more comprehensive theme for the underlying purpose of God in the world, taught in Scripture, is His glory, with redemption as a means to that end (Eph. 1:6, 12, 14), we
Urge all students of the Word to rightly divide the Old Testament, making use of a grammatical-historical approach to interpretation, allowing the central truth intended by the writer to emerge from the text or texts;
Encourage students with a clear grasp of the writer’s intended meaning of the text in its historical context to then give strategic scrutiny to the text, aware of the progressive nature of Scripture and God’s plan, the promise-fulfillment of Scripture in Christ, direct prophecies, legitimate types and foreshadowing, the longitudinal themes of the Bible, and other proven and balanced approaches to understand the text in light of its possible fulfillment in Christ; and
Exhort all preachers, teachers, and students of God’s Word not to neglect the Old Testament, but to proclaim it faithfully, revealing to listeners the unity and richness of God’s revealed Word, and in a richer, fuller way proclaiming Christ and redemption to the glory of God, “warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus” (Col. 1:28).
Conspiracy Theories
Dwight Longenecker asks why conspiracy theories are popular in America. And he explains why we don’t need them. Read more at The Imaginative Conservative.
From the Tower of Babel down through human history it has always been so. The rich and powerful have always schemed behind the scenes. They have always made alliances and broken them, built secret armies, waged war both secret and open. They have always built vast wealth, met in secret, and schemed to control the world. Through the ages, their secret societies have taken different forms and moved across the globe and across human history like a pack of ravenous and cunning wolves.
We do not need conspiracy theories to know this.
Old Parked Cars
I never would’ve thought of a blog like this. But I’m glad somebody did. It may be a guy thing, but it’s fun to browse and see how often you find yourself saying, “I used to have one of those.” Or those. Or those.
A Critique of Academic Publishing
Daniel Lattier insists that “Academics Write Rubbish that Nobody Reads.”
Sadly, however, many academic articles today are merely exercises in what one professor I knew called “creative plagiarism”: rearrangements of previous research with a new thesis appended on to them.
He has a few special remarks about the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. As a member of the American Academy of Religion, I can only say that we resemble those remarks.
Toxic Charity?
Americans love charity. They jump to help relieve the latest disaster. But sometimes charity is not what’s needed, at least not exactly as it is being given. So argues James Huenink at the Federalist in an article entitled “How to Make Sure Your Charity Doesn’t Keep People Poor.”
Relief undermines developing nations’ economies. Clothing donations given to charities like Oxfam and the Salvation Army are often shipped overseas, where they destroy local textile markets. Why buy a locally made shirt, when you can get a better quality, cheaper shirt donated from America? For every secondhand shirt we ship to Africa, a local clothing manufacturer or retailer loses a sale. Soon, the textile mill goes out of business.
Their Agenda Is Clear (How the Left Thinks)
Somehow I’ve ended up on the email list for Soulforce, probably the leading professedly Christian LGBTQ advocacy organization. This is from their latest appeal:
With Election Day just over a week away, the Religious Right is attempting to mobilize voters who will advance an anti-LGBTQ, anti-choice, anti-immigrant political agenda.
To do this, the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) has initiated a “#ChristiansVote” media campaign to encourage Christians across America to cast their votes in the upcoming election.
We know this is significant because this is a Right-Wing strategy that has been mobilized since the 1970s to organize Christians to engage in politics that harm LGBTQI people, People of Color, Women, the Poor, and other marginalized groups through voting or direct civic engagement.
This election also determines the appointment of a new Supreme Court Justice – determining the kinds of laws and regulations that affect our bodies, livelihoods, and spirits for an entire generation.
Nicholas Woltersdorff on Same Sex Marriage
Speaking at Neland Avenue Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, philosopher Nicholas Woltersdorff recently argued that biblical justice requires permission for and recognition of same-sex marriage.
Woltersdorff is one of the most widely-recognized evangelical philosophers in the world. He taught for years at Calvin College before accepting a post at Yale University.
Here is the Youtube video of his address. Be warned: it’s over an hour long.
Here is a report of the event.
Here is a response from Wesley Hill. Among other things, Hill states,
What is so disappointing about this is its profound shallowness. Hearing Wolterstorff’s quip, one would never guess that great figures from the Christian past like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, who affirmed openness to procreation as one of the essential goods of marriage, were well aware of the crude technologies of contraception of their day and the lamentable fact of infertile marriages. One would never guess, listening to Wolterstorff, that these old saints wrestled with whether those facts invalidated their arguments about procreation, nor that they eventually arrived at accordingly nuanced, qualified views. One would never guess, furthermore, from Wolterstorff’s presentation that contemporary advocates of marriage as irreducibly procreative have also thought deeply about the reality of marriage past childbearing age, about infertility and contraception, and offered sophisticated responses that make laugh lines like Wolterstorff’s seem entirely facile.
The Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart
According to Rolland McCune,
There are nineteen biblical references to the hardening of Pharaoh, only four of which put Pharaoh himself as the active agent; the rest refer to God. This hardening, while divinely caused was simply divine withholding of the Spirit’s restraint, a withholding that results in the depraved heart taking its inevitable course since sin and depravity are inherently degenerative. In other words, God does not need to positively inflict some kind of moral cement to harden anyone’s heart; it is endemically in a state of being hardened, and its inherently deteriorating process is hastened when the non-redemptive, restraining grace of God is lifted.
–Rolland McCune, A Systematic Theology of Biblical Christianity, Vol. 3, p. 26-27.
Black Church Leaders Rebuke Hillary Clinton
Central Seminary avoids taking political positions on this blog. We discuss theological developments. Sometimes, however, the two overlap.
That’s the case with a recent open letter sent by Black church leaders to Hillary Clinton. It’s a hard-hitting expression of concern that Clinton’s policies, if she becomes president, would be bad for Blacks and bad for Christians. Here is an excerpt:
D. G. Hart on Christianity Today
The Presbyterian professor comes down pretty hard on evangelicals who condemn “locker room talk” in a presidential candidate while failing to challenge the degradation of popular cultural icons. And he’s right: it’s hypocrisy.
You don’t lose anything in condemning Trump. When it comes to the GOP’s nominee, fundamentalism is winning. But if you come down against a hit-show on HBO, you risk looking like a rube.
The War Against Conservatives
Stanley Kurtz at National Review wonders about the ethics of some conservative tactics against liberals, but he also notes how the liberal war against conservatives easily becomes one of personal destruction. His closing quotation from liberal Robert Creamer reveals exactly the approach that the Left has taken.
Apostates: Reprobation or Preterition?
Here is what Rolland McCune says:
Preterition is supported by the following texts. First, Jude warns his readers that “certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 4). The apostates are “marked out” for their condemnation. The best way to take prographo here is simply, to write beforehand, undoubtedly referring to previous prophecies and not to a divine decree of reprobation/damnation.
Rolland McCune, A Systematic Theology of Biblical Christianity, Vol. 3, p. 25.
FBFI Position Statement on Gender
The board of the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship International adopted the following position statement on March 11, 2016.
On Gender
- In the beginning God created Adam and Eve, male and female respectively, as taught by Genesis 1 and 2 and as affirmed by Jesus Christ (Matt. 19:4–5) and by the apostle Paul (1 Tim. 2:13). As with the rest of the created order, the nature of mankind as male and female is by the will of God and for the purpose of glorifying Him (Rev. 4:11).
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- The creation of mankind in two genders is especially important because it is a central aspect of the image of God in Man (Gen. 1:27–28; 5:1–2). As image-bearers, men and women are of equal worth and dignity (Exod. 21:28; 35:29; Prov. 31:30; Matt. 26:13), of equal moral responsibility before God (Lev. 20:27; Num. 5:6–7; Mark 10:11–12), and equally heirs of salvation and spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus (Luke 7:47–50; 2 Cor. 6:18; Gal. 3:28; 1 Pet. 3:7). However, God also made them different in strength, disposition, and function (1 Pet. 3:7; Isa. 49:15; 1 Cor. 11:7–12), and He intends that they interact harmoniously in a complementary fashion to glorify Him (Gen. 1:28; 2:18; Prov. 31:10–12; Eph. 5:22–33; Col. 3:18–19).
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- Gender distinctions are not a temporary expedient made necessary by the Fall but are the product of the creation of man and woman from the beginning (1 Cor. 11:8–9; Eph. 5:25–33; 1 Tim. 2:12–13). Therefore, these distinctions remain and are no less valid today than they were at the moment of Creation (Gen. 2:24; Matt. 19:5–6; Mark 10:7–9). The Fall did not eliminate or change gender distinctions but rather provided the corrupt vehicle for the perversion of those distinctions (Rom. 1:18–32).
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- Gender is not an individual self-identification or a social construct; it is a divinely ordained reality. The Scriptures nowhere regard social gender as different from biological gender. Because gender distinction is integral to God’s creation, this distinction is naturally reflected in human societies (1 Cor. 11:14). It is a sin against God and His created order for individuals or societies to try to erase or reverse gender distinctions (1 Cor. 11:3–12). Therefore, gender neutralism and transgenderism in any form and expression are contrary to God’s will and are incompatible with a God-honoring Christian life.
Must Pastors Be Married? Have Children?
Jeff Hagan offers a useful survey of the issue. He follows with some reflections on divorce and remarriage for ministers–employing a non sequitur or two. Here is his main conclusion:
If a man has to be married to hold a position in the church, then Paul would have disqualified himself which is ludicrous (cf. 1 Cor. 7:8). Some will still argue. They will say that Paul was a married man before he was widowed. Although this is true, a widower is still NOT a married man. Paul had no living wife. In fact, Paul actually considered being single better.
Movember is here.
Bro, grow a mo!
If you’re a man, you know you can.
Make a splash: let’s see your stash.
Why Does Reformation Day Fall on Halloween?
It’s not just a coincidence, says Stephen Nichols. And he’s basically right, though he seems to have confused All Saints Day (Hallowmass) with All Souls Day. All Saints falls on November 1; All Souls usually falls on November 2. Halloween is simply All Hallow’s Eve, or the evening before All Saints (Hallows) Day.
But why did Luther post his 95 theses on Halloween? Here’s the nub of Nichols’ answer, but you’ll want to read the rest.
On November 1, 1517, a massive exhibit of newly acquired relics would be on display at Wittenberg, Luther’s home city. Pilgrims would come from all over, genuflect before the relics, and take hundreds, if not thousands, of years off time in purgatory. Luther’s soul grew even more vexed. None of this seemed right.
APPLICATION & AID