The Flag of the World

Earlier this week, I complained about the ritualistic, religious approach to global warming. Well, I’m still cranky about it. I have two examples of this pervasive danger that is, in the long run, going to do a great deal of harm to the environmental movement.

For years, I’ve wondered why in the world environmentalists haven’t supported large-scale engineering projects to prevent global warming. If it really is such a danger, why aren’t we creating massive carbon sinks out of cyanobacteria or genetically engineered green algae or something? Or, as these guys suggest, we could blow a mountain of dirt into the stratosphere. I happen to think carbon sinks sound a little safer, myself.

But what’s the response from the climatically obsessed to this scheme? As Glenn Reynolds points out, it’s downright religious:

Questions of usefulness and necessity aside, grand-scale sun-blocking schemes feel dubious in part because they challenge our intuitive sense that large-scale wrongs can be atoned for only with equally large-scale sacrifices. Drastic emissions cutbacks require drastic lifestyle changes, like taking shorter showers and scrapping the Hummer. Such changes feel right because they’re a little painful; putting the squeeze on ourselves is suitable penance for the collective sin of spewing tailpipe fumes into the atmosphere for the past 100-plus years.

Geoengineering, by contrast, seems like an undeserved dispensation.

Martin Luther, eat your heart out. But to me, the religious language alone isn’t the most remarkable part.

The remarkable thing is to consider what, exactly, the “collective sins” are that we are being punished for. Does anyone think that by “tailpipe fumes,” the writer is referring to the colorless, odorless gas that is produced by all animals, plants, fungi and microorganisms during respiration? Of course not. She’s talking about the unburned hydrocarbons and nitrous oxides that foul the air (1.1 & 1.2 in this list). But of course, nobody’s claiming that these things are what cause global warming. Global warming is merely the excuse that forces us to do “penance”.

My second example comes courtesy of CNN International. It’s the only channel all in English that we get, and thus I watch it far more than I would otherwise. In some ways, it’s instructive. Take, for example the incessant commercial for CNN’s “Eco Solutions” segment. Consider this little chant that we are treated to every hour or so:

Industrial revolution (image of gears)
Worldwide earth pollution (image of factories belching smoke)
Mother Nature’s retribution (image of a hurricane)
Conservation evolution (image of the holy icon)
Mankind tries to make restitution (image of flowers)

Did you catch that? We must offer up restitution to Mother Nature, lest we perish beneath her retribution! There are more ridiculous reasons to buy a Prius, but I can’t think of any off the top of my head.

The whole “religious fervor” thing has been a clever marketing strategy for global warming activists so far. But if this stuff ends up being anything more than a blip, there could be a seriously brutal backlash.

Ted Olsen of the Christianity Tody Weblog has the scoop on a piece of ancient literature even more explosive than the “Gospel of Judas”:

If you want to be really cool, though, tell your friends about a little-known document that’s even more amazing than the Gospel of Judas. It’s called the Epistle of Judas, and it makes some pretty wild claims. First, the document is reportedly older than almost any New Testament book, and it draws heavily upon non-canonical Jewish literature. It includes some odd stories like the archangel Michael fighting with the Devil over a corpse, and quite a bit of discussion about sexual indulgence. Unlike most New Testament books, the Epistle of Judas appears to be written in Judea itself. The book makes the dramatic claim that its author, Judas, was the brother of the apostle James (the first leader of the church). Judas apparently makes a subtle claim that he’s Jesus’ brother, too.

Pretty intense, no?

Greg Boyd, the Minnesota pastor and theologian who’s always one for stirring up trouble is at it again (actually, I don’t know that he ever stopped). The latest incarnation can be seen at the Leadership Journal blog Out of Ur, in the form of two excerpts from his new book The Myth of a Christian Nation (via my father). Boyd gets a lot right in these excerpts, but gets quite a bit wrong, as well, and those points should be addressed.

(Before I begin, a disclaimer: I have a great deal of respect for Boyd, and regularly listen to his sermons during the week. However, I think key portions of his theology are shaky at best, heretical at worst.)

One of the things he gets right is that churches ought not become platforms for particular candidates or parties. This is true for the long-term health of both the church and the politicians. Churches can–and should–take stands on particular issues without necessarily taking stands on the specific outcomes of elections. However, when Boyd writes a book “addressing the dangers of intermingling the gospel and the GOP,” he is taking one such stand, whether he knows it or not.

This naïveté is excusable, as Boyd is generally described as someone relatively apolitical, but it is a little disturbing that he went through the entire process of writing a book about the subject without running across the fact that, say, conservatives aren’t the only ones abusing their interaction with the Church. (You may object that Boyd was simply taking the beam out of his own eye before going after his brothers’ speck–but his writing makes clear that this is one particular beam he never struggled with. He’s just going after the beam of the nearest brother.)

So, what could have been a balanced look at the necessity of keeping any stripe of politics from becoming idolatry instead appears* to be an uncharacteristically grumpy book that will win Boyd applause from the Christian left and alienate him from even more people elsewhere. I consider that sad for all involved.

The reason, though, that Boyd didn’t take on the left as well as the right is that his book is not really about politics, it’s about semantics. The book is not about the danger of turning politics into idolatry, rather it is about what Boyd sees (wrongly) as the root of the rightward tendency to do so (hence the title):

What gives the connection between Christianity and politics such strong emotional force in the U.S.? I believe it is the longstanding myth that America is a Christian nation.

What does Boyd mean when he refers to the idea that America is a Christian nation? He never gets into specifics, instead thrusting at a vaguely (and occassionally cartoonishly) described worldview that he opposes. The closest he gets* to nailing it down is when he writes:

[M]any Christians who take their faith seriously see themselves as the religious guardians of a Christian homeland. America, they believe, is a holy city “set on a hill,” and the church’s job is to keep it shining.

Boyd’s murky picture of political idolatry makes it difficult to disagree with him. Most conservative, politically aware Christians will read through his description of the worldview he is attacking and murmur things like, “well, I agree with that…no, that’s overstating the case by quite a bit… well, that’s certainly true, but not in the way it’s phrased there” and so forth.

I don’t want to say that Boyd is setting up a straw man argument, because he is right that there are Christians who truly do believe the things he’s stating. However, in choosing the most extreme and cartoonish version of the view to argue against, Boyd also misses the rational middle ground occupied by those Christian conservatives who endeavor to take both faith and politics seriously, and who state without irony or fear of blasphemy that America is a Christian nation–depending on what you mean by that.

America is a Christian nation in that it contains more Christians than most nations do–it has always been more Christian than its progenitors in Europe, and that is more true today than it has ever been (indeed, I imagine Boyd did his best to ignore the situation in Europe in the book, as it provides rather strong evidence that the fate of political conservatism & Christianity are somehow linked).

America is a Christian nation in that you can generally convince us to do the right thing by appealing to Christian notions–the civil rights movement, for example, prospered as long as it demanded that white Christians behave like Christ, then foundered as it left its religious roots. America is a Christian nation in that we have done more than any other nation to secure the rights of Christians around the world to worship God.

America is a Christian nation in that we were the first such nation that applied Christ’s teaching to “do unto others” even to those in power (for what else is democracy but that?).

On the other hand, America is not a Christian nation in the sense that America is a conglomeration of many different people, some of whom know Christ and some of whom don’t.

It is not a Christian nation in the sense that our government, being a system of laws written down on paper, has no relationship with Christ.

But if America is not a Christian nation, then the term “Christian nation” describes nothing, and is useless–and that’s probably Boyd’s point. But if that is the case, then it is, as I noted earlier, simply a case of semantics. In the excerpts provided, Boyd never seems to get past the semantics to the historical and political truths and falsehoods behind them them.

But political & historical truths & falsehoods are not Boyd’s specialty. He’s a theologian, not a politico, nor a student of history. Hence his odd assertion that:

The truth is that the concept of America as a Christian nation, with all that accompanies that myth, is actually losing its grip on the collective national psyche, and as America becomes increasingly pluralistic and secularized, the civil religion of Christianity is losing its force.

To anyone who has been paying attention to such trends, this is a ridiculous statement. In truth, a (usually) quiet revival has been sweeping America (something in which God has used Boyd’s church and others like it) in recent years, beating back the nihlism & hedonism of the latter half of the 20th century, and the effects of this change are being felt in the political realm and beyond. Boyd confuses a reaction to increasing influence with one to decreasing influence.

It’s depressing to me that this book appears to be as shallow as it does. The problems Boyd addresses are certainly real–but to a different extent, for different reasons, and in more diverse situations than he supposes. But he appears to have made an all to common mistake for writers, and went to his task alone.

Had he sought the experiences and wisdom of godly men and women who have actually struggled with the sin he writes about, instead of writing solely from his own narrow experiences on the outside looking in, then this could have been a magnficent, balanced and much needed book, addressing difficult questions (such as, how ought Christians react when a major political party happily sets themselves up as a secular, or even outright anti-Christian party? How ought American Christians interpret the blessings we have undeniably recieved as a nation? How ought we respond to personal sins of those in power?)

Alas, I fear that Boyd did not seek such counsel for the exact same reason that so many Christians struggle with the sin he writes about. The heart of that sin (and, perhaps, his own–certainly most of mine) is not any “myth of a Christian nation,” but rather the great sin that has dogged mankind since our beginning, and will do so until our fulfillment–the sin of Pride.

*It could be that, as I have not read the entire book but only the excerpts provided by Out of Ur, I am misjudging Boyd. It could be that his book is considerably more thoughtful, cheerful and balanced than I am giving him credit for. But if that’s the case, he’s doing a very poor job of making that known.

b4G-punditry

But hopefully, the Church will flourish even when its would-be martyrs are spared by cooler heads:

An Afghan Christian leader in the U.S. has welcomed reports that criminal charges may be dropped against an Afghan convert who was threatened with execution for refusing to return to Islam. The case has prompted strong international condemnation.Hussain Andaryas said the publicity surrounding the Abdul Rahman case had resulted in a surge of interest in Christianity among Afghans, strong concern for the plight of Afghanistan’s underground Christians — and an antagonistic response from Muslims…

Andaryas runs a collection of Christian websites in Afghanistan’s Dari-Persian tongue as well as daily radio programs and a weekly television program.

He is in daily contact with individuals in his homeland, and has been reporting for several years about the risks faced by Afghan Christians — all converts from Islam and thus considered apostates worthy of death, according to Islamic law (shari’a).

He said the websites typically drew about 300 unique visitors every month, but since the Rahman story emerged had attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors.

The number of emails received also has risen enormously, and 13 people are now tasked with responding to them.

The majority of emails are negative and many are abusive, coming from Muslims who felt that Rahman and other apostates — including Andaryas himself — should be severely punished.

But there also are many messages of support, he said.

And then there are emails coming from Afghans wanting to know more about Christianity, asking where they can get a Bible in the Dari or Pashto language, or sharing the news that they had become believers in Jesus Christ.

Among the most stirring messages are those from Afghan Muslims marveling about a faith for which a man was willing to die and wanting to study the Bible further.

“I strongly believe God is using this situation for His glory,” Andaryas said. “One man’s bold step has shaken the world.”

Andaryas estimated there are up to 10,000 Christians in Afghanistan. He based that figure on the 6,000 messages sent to his ministry since it began in 1996, all from individuals inside Afghanistan who identified themselves as believing Christians.

Even if some of those messages were not genuine, he said, the number would be more than evened out by Christians living in remote areas without access to computers; and those who are too scared to risk their safety by coming out.

“And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” — John 1:5

(Via Instapundit.)

Another subject that I don’t read blogs about, but do listen to podcasts about, is my faith. There are lots of very good Christian blogs that, for whatever reason, don’t capture my interest. But one of the key uses of my mp3 player has been listening to sermons. Perhaps years of church has just conditioned me to take in that sort of thing aurally. It doesn’t hurt that the preachers I listen to are darn good at what they do.

There are two main ones–John Piper and Greg Boyd. Anyone who is familiar with both men should find that either very bizarre or simply amusing. Both men are from Minnesota, both pastor Baptist General Conference churches, and both have previously taught at my alma mater, Bethel University–but Piper is what some have called a “hypercalvinist” and Boyd is armenian to the point of heresy (no, seriously). Boyd’s espousal of the simply incorrect theology of “open theism” led to major clashes with Piper a few years ago, and the “Piper-Boyd” controversy is probably still a topic of conversation at Bethel and elsewhere.

In the end, though, the men have more similarities than differences–both love Christ passionately, both are gifted immensely in preaching and other pastoral skills, and both have seen their ministries blessed remarkably. And they both make their sermons available via podcast–Boyd here, weekly, and Piper here, daily. If you’re curious about listening to sermons–or about this “Christianity” thing in general–I highly suggest you give them each a listen. Where they disagree, they balance each other very nicely, and where they agree, you can be very confident. As long as you ignore Boyd whenever he starts getting heretical, you should be just fine.

Jim Miller points out & dismantles Jim Hoagland’s comparison of Pat Robertson and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His was not the only such comparison, of course, which brings to mind the question: when can we expect the comparisons of Ray Nagin to Pat Robertson and the nutball president of Iran?

(I should note that I find Nagin’s hypothesis a bit more plausible than that of the other two, but for most of Robertson’s critics, plausibility isn’t a concern.)

Regardless of how you feel about the Miers nomination, you have to be willfully obtuse in order to miss the fact that Bush’s team is handling at least one half of the aftermath brilliantly. How so, you ask? By highlighting her religion. Miers, like Bush and like your humble writer, is an evangelical Christian–and may possibly be the first such person on the Supreme Court, at least of the modern variety. What makes this so brilliant? The simple fact is that when you hoist the evangelical flag, it drives some people into something of a fury. It’s like a big juicy steak, and there are some who just can’t resist going after it.

And then the trap springs. Because Americans don’t like seeing Christians attacked for being Christian, period. And that’s what’s happening. Liberal groups, of course, are going after it. Dick Durbin, unsurprisingly, couldn’t stop himself. And now Captain Ed notes that it’s spread to the various arms of liberal media. As the Captain mentions, Miers is not particularly popular with evangelicals–yet. But if the hearings include even a smidge of anti-Christian language from Democrats, that will change quickly, and any question of her nomination being approved (a somewhat silly question even now) will disappear.

The often surreal violence (via Donald Sensing) that has gripped New Orleans in the wake of Katrina’s destruction should be a reminder to us–though it probably won’t.

It should be a reminder that, as Oswald Chambers put it, “If I have never been a blackguard, the reason is a mixture of cowardice and the protection of civilized life.” When the latter drops away in the face of such destruction, we should be unsurprised. It should be a reminder to us that man is fallen, and capable of great evil. But it probably won’t.

To that end, it should also be a reminder that the violence occurring in Iraq since the liberation is not an aberration–it is the natural state of man. When such things as Katrina and the fall of Saddam happen without violence, that is the aberration. It is an aberration we should certainly seek, but we ought not place the blame too heavily on leaders–be they Allawi, Talabani, Bush, Blanco or Nagin–when the natural state of man reasserts itself.

UPDATE: In the sermon I wish I would have heard this morning, Donald Sensing hits it squarely:

But there was nothing unnatural about the violence in New Orleans. If a wide-scale catastrophe struck Nashville we would see the same scenes here. No one who knows what the Bible teaches about human nature should be the slightest bit surprised at the evil people do when the moral levees of their own consciences and of society have broken, allowing the flood waters of violence, selfishness and disregard for others to drown their souls.

The question is not why many people walked into the heart of darkness, but why so many remained children of the light.

Despite not being fully on the Intelligent Design bandwagon, I disagree with Ed Larson as heartily as Glenn Reynolds agrees with him (though like Glenn, I do recommend his book). Larson asserts:

Intelligent design, despite its proponents’ claims to the contrary, isn’t modern science. It’s part of that rebellion against it. Scientists look for natural explanations for natural phenomena. Their best explanations, if they survive rigorous testing, become scientific theories.

Intelligent design, in contrast, is a critique of all that. Its proponents may challenge the sufficiency of evolutionary explanations for the origin of species but they have not — and cannot — offer testable alternative explanations. The best they can offer is the premise that, if no natural explanation suffices, then God must have done it. Maybe God did do it, but if so, it’s beyond science.

In particular, the idea that if God did something, it’s beyond science is a bizarre limiting of science. If God came down from heaven and created a 12 foot obelisk of an unknown metal to appear in the middle of downtown New York, according to Larson’s version of science, scientists studying the object would have to invent some sort of naturalistic explanation for its creation, no matter how absurd. After all, if God did do it, it’s beyond science.

This stems, I think, from a misunderstanding of the term “supernatural.” Supernatural does not mean unnatural, or extranatual. God is outside nature, but He is also within it. German for supernatural is “übernatürlich,” or literally, “over nature.”

The work of God in nature is just as open for scientific exploration as the work of you or I.

On a related note, I do hope that Intelligent Design proponents do more than simply assert that a Designer was involved, ergo we cannot know any more. Clearly, there are implications to the Design hypothesis that can, contra Larson, be tested, and they should be explored.

And praise Him that the new Pope isn’t Benedict XVIII, because that’s just too many letters.

Seriously, though I’m very pleased to see that my hope was fulfilled–Joseph Ratzinger is now Pope Benedict XVI. As I noted yesterday, the elevation of Benedict demonstrates that the Catholic Church sees what he has called the “dictatorship of relativism” as its chief challenge. This is a challenge that Protestants and other Christians can stand shoulder to shoulder with them in facing.

The second concern facing the church is the explosion of faith in the 3rd world. A Pope from the 3rd world–which we are only one or two papacies away from–would have addressed this head on, but the elevation of Benedict does not. Benedict is pretty focused on Europe–but maybe that’s as it should be. “The healthy do not need a doctor, but the sick,” and all that.

The third concern–my pet concern, anyway–is the coming rapproachment, reconciliation and/or reunification between the Orthodox, Catholic & Protestant churches. When I say “coming,” I mean at some point between now and eternity, when such reunification will certainly come. I don’t expect the Catholic Church to be able to focus on that for quite a while–but I may be pleasantly surprised:

He is not, of course, a “minimalist” theologian who is inclined to tailor Catholic teaching to fit Protestant tastes. But he has intimate understanding and appreciation of the religious and theological genius of figures such as Luther. He believes that what is true in the Protestant critique can and should be embraced by what he calls “the structure of faith.” At the same time, he does not seem to expect too much in the healing of the breach between Rome and the Reformation. Speaking of the prospects for Christian unity, he says at one point that perhaps the most we should hope for is that there will be no new schisms. At another point, however, he speaks of Catholic “responsibility for the unity of the Church, her faith, and her morals,” and he envisions the ways in which the exercise of the office of the papacy will change “when hitherto separated communities enter into unity with the Pope.”

As might be expected, Salt of the Earth pays extensive attention to the office of the papacy. It is assumed that the New Testament intends a continuing “Petrine Ministry” in the church. The question is the relationship, if any, between that ministry and the ministry of the bishop of Rome, who, it is claimed, is the successor of Peter. Some Protestants, Ratzinger notes, “are ready to acknowledge providential guidance in tying the tradition of primacy to Rome, without wanting to refer the promise to Peter directly to the Pope.” Many others, he says, recognize that Christianity ought to have a spokesman who can personally and authoritatively articulate the faith both to the world and to the Christian community.

This is from a review of the book linked above. Of course, any sort of rapproachment is going to be a difficult process, as evidenced by this sort of thing: a shameful attack on those Protestants who approach the late Pope with respect and reverence as being “borderline apostate[s].” Thankfully, that sort of nonsense seems to be a minority, at least in the evangelical blogosphere.

No Pope yet, but chances are good we’ll have one before the week is out. Since all we get is black and white smoke, the media is hyping up the betting odds, which strikes me as deeply ironic. Right now, though, I’m pleased to say that my top two choices, Arinze of Nigeria and Ratzinger, the media’s current boogeyman, are running 1 and 2 in the odds. Whether that says anything useful or not, we’ll see in a while.

Ratzinger and Arinze, though, represent the two great trials that the next Pope will have to face: first, the onslaught of what Ratzinger calls the “dictatorship of relativism,” and second, the supplanting of Europe as the center of Christianity. Unfortunately, the third great challenge of the Church, and my personal prayer–the reunification of the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant branches–will probably have to wait, as the first two are weighty enough issues on their own.

I expect that whoever is chosen will symbolize an approach to one or both of those

I’m just now hearing that the Pope–the only Pope I’ve ever known–has died. I’m not a Catholic, but with this Pope, it hardly matters. He was one of the greatest Popes the Catholic Church ever had, one of the greatest men of the 20th century, and one of the greatest men of God most of us have ever seen. As he goes to his great reward, we should both mourn that he is no longer with us, and rejoice that he was.