Slick’s Apostasy: Various Angles of the Issue

I heard about this first via Alpha & Omega Ministries: Yesterday on the Dividing Line.  I have not yet heard what Dr. White had to say about it, but other people have chimed in in written format, which I can access more easily.

Analysis from the redoubtable Steve Hays: Triablogue: Born to fail.

 

Another from Glenn Peoples (HT: Jason Engwer): How to exploit a family falling out for the sake of ideology.

 

Personally, in my reflections on the whole matter I was thinking more about the specifics of the stated reason for abandoning Christianity.  Without daring to put myself in the company of those commentators I will post those thoughts below, FWIW and as a possible indication of what others might be thinking

 

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From http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/07/15/the-atheist-daughter-of-a-notable-christian-apologist-shares-her-story/:

This changed one day during a conversation with my friend Alex. I had a habit of bouncing theological questions off him, and one particular day, I asked him this: If God was absolutely moral, because morality was absolute, and if the nature of “right” and “wrong” surpassed space, time, and existence, and if it was as much a fundamental property of reality as math, then why were some things a sin in the Old Testament but not a sin in the New Testament?

Four thoughts:

1) She was trained by Matt Slick.  Slick is cool, his ministry has stood the test of time, and he is probably one reason that I am a Calvinist today.  However, frankly his work has always been half-baked and over-reaching in some instances, and I fear that when it came to meta-ethics he may have trained his daughter poorly on account of possibly his own not having a solid grasp of certain issues.

2) Do the words “consequentialism” and “context” mean anything to either of the Slicks?  (Of course, I know that at least one of those matters to one of them.)  Or when did the Scriptures ever indicate that virtue ethics, or deontology, or divine command theory were the only possible correct paradigms by which to make sense of God’s law and God’s nature as revealed in the Scriptures?

Yes, Christians are sophisticated enough to reject divine command theory for reasons which are reflected in Euthyphro’s Dilemma.  Yet the Scriptures apparently never rule out consequentialism in toto and never rule out what we might call (gasp) situational ethics of a sort, and the whole of biblical ethics is best understood in considering both virtue ethics and these other ethical paradigms.

When and where is it appropriate in this country to walk around buck naked?  In a classroom at school?  No.  In worship services at church?  No.  At home?  Sure.

When and where is it appropriate to drive on the right side of the road?  In the U.S.?  Yes, but even then not if the driver is drunk and doing 100 mph on a crowded freeway.  In the U.K.?  No, unless suddenly it is good to cause needless head-on collisions with other vehicles.

Are circmstances or possible consequences relevant in the examples listed immediately above?  Yes, and that is exactly why there are exceptions to rules such as those to which we just alluded.

And is the range of permissible moral options dependent on the situation?  Yes, it is.  That is precisely how sex within the bond of marriage is permissible while your spouse’s cheating on you is not, or why harsh punishments are appropriate only for offenders who are culpable of the worst crimes, to cite two examples.

3) At some point the elder Slick may have got tripped up on issues of postmodern ethics or moral TAGs and passed a muddled, incomprehensible message down to his daughter--either that or the younger Slick just failed to grasp what she was being taught.  Similar language or similar terms appear in discussions of each, and this probably was a source of conflation or confusion at some point.

In any case, God is just (even essentially or transcendently so); in translation this means that God’s actions are just, for this is what the word “just” ultimately points to in terms of meaning and function.  Meanwhile, the words “just” and “moral” are more or less synonymous (though I  prefer “just” over the younger Slick’s “moral”), and those words ultimately mean either in accord with some ethical principle or in accord with what is good; and despite that the word “good” has many meanings--all of them dependent on what the metric or standard of measurement is--and despite anyone’s and everyone’s being capable of finding evil things to be favorable--i.e. “good”--or of prescribing evil conduct as though it were something just, God’s actions are just.

God has issued a body of ethical prescriptions and proscriptions of human behavior; each of these commandments are in accordance with both themselves and objective goodness: by definition, they are just.

Moreover, these commandments are “absolute” in the sense--and this is what people mean when they speak of moral rules which are “absolute”--that they are just regardless of whether Smith over here says, “Adultery?  Meh, that’s okay with me; there’s nothing wrong with it” or whether a society over there on the other side of the planet says, “Why not bow down before Baal?  Who else gives us rain for our crops or puts food on our table?”  That is the sense in which they are absolute.

However, this is not to be confused with the issues of divine command theory vs. rival meta-ethical theories.  There aren’t too many Christians who claim that if God suddenly decided one day to proscribe the consumption of turkey dinners then it would be evil to be turkey dinners in virtue of the proscription itself.  No, the claim would more or less be that if a divine proscription of turkey dinners came down the pike tomorrow then: a) it would be because the proscription did not have a favorable timing before then; and b) the proscription is done for a reason which is objectively good; c) rebellion against the Creator is not in accordance with what is objectively good; and d) guess what: God’s nature happens to be one of objective goodness, all such that it was never possible that an intuitively bad thing such as idolatry or sadistic torture or babies would have been prescribed at some point.

“...Why were some things a sin in the Old Testament but not a sin in the New Testament?” she asks.  Answer: if you can find an instance of such things, then stop to reconsider the matter and to ask yourself whether such things promoted the well-being of someone or something at one point in the past but later outlived their ability to do so.  Why is it a sin to issue orders to a someone of the rank of Sergeant First Class in one year whereas ten years later it is not a sin to do so?  Hmm, could it be that someone there in the Army got promoted such that legal and moral privileges which formerly were not theirs later rightly became theirs?  This is one example off the top of my head; you should be capable of doing the same.

4) How old is Rachael Slick again?  Oh yeah, that makes sense.

Re: Jesus and Same Sex Marriage | Joe Dallas Online

For anyone who missed this clever post from Joe Dallas: Jesus and Same Sex Marriage | Joe Dallas Online.

Citation corrections are provided over at Triablogue: http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/06/jesuss-teachings-on-marriage-in-light.html.

Another reason that we lose

Originally I was wanting to post something entirely different yet related to the Southern Baptist Convention just the same.  Chores and fatigue have prevented this for a long time now, but I will make an effort to say the following, however: Christians and social conservatives are not that bright.

We’re not that bright: first in terms of intellect, but now also in terms of positive cultural influence à la Matthew 5.13-16.  The Southern Baptist Convention in 1997 showed that it had heart when it began to fight the Disney empire and just as other Christians began to come up with every conceivable lame “excuse” for supporting the SBC’s boycott of things Disney.  This time around, on the other hand, the same organization which once was capable of noble action against social evils has shown that whatever wisdom it once had may have gone out the door in the natural flow of organizations’ shedding and gaining parts as members join, step down, die, become senile, etc.

From Southern Baptists condemn Boy Scouts over admission of gays | Fox News (06/12/2013):

HOUSTON –  The nation's largest Protestant denomination stopped short of calling for its member churches to boycott the Boy Scouts, but voiced strong opposition to acceptance of gay scouts - with a top church leader predicting at the annual gathering of Southern Baptists that a "mass exodus" of youths from the program that has been a rite of passage for more than a century.

The move by the Southern Baptist Convention came at its annual, four-day meeting in Houston, and three weeks after the Boy Scouts of America voted to allow gay youth to join.  With more than two-thirds of Boy Scout troops sponsored by religious organizations, and Baptists being the nation's largest protestant denomination, the resolution could have a crippling effect on the Boy Scouts.

"There will be a mass exodus over time," said Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee. “Churches are finally going to have to come to realize – there is a point when you say, ‘sorry, no more.’"

Let us juxtapose this with the following snippet from Baptist Press - Page, Land send letters opposing Scout proposal - News with a Christian Perspective posted on 05/17/2013:

"For over a century," Page wrote, "Scouting has helped our youth develop character and leadership skills forever impacting their lives. I am distressed by the recent proposed resolution which would introduce the subject of sex and sexual orientation into the program of the Boy Scouts. For one hundred and three years Scouting has been a safe haven from such topics rightfully reserved for parents. Such an introduction is inconsistent with the principles found in Scouting's sacred Oath and Law."

For starters, if you decimate the Boy Scouts by keeping your children out of it, you have now taken away the said means of developing character and leadership skills in the youth.

Secondly, a person who is openly gay need only be someone who is being honest about what feelings or attractions he has; it is hardly as if everyone who is a homosexual is someone who wears his “identity” on his sleeve or goes about broadcasting his sexual orientation to everyone around him.  Someone who is merely being honest their particular mental disorder--and yes, I will call it that--is not someone who categorically should be denied the opportunity to have character and leadership skills instilled within him.

Thirdly, the “safe haven” objection seems perfectly naive in considering what amount of the U.S. population is homosexual, how many members of that subpopulation would be interested in joining the Boy Scouts, and how many youngers already know that homosexuality exists.  Homosexuality is mentioned time and again in your copy of the Bible, you know.

Fourthly, what will be gained if you take your kids out of the Boy Scouts and attempt to set up conservative alternatives to the Boy Scouts?  Attempts at Christian isolation from the culture tend to create cultural ghettoes, something well-exemplified by CCM, where the only reason untalented people are getting record contracts is to fill a void in a niche market, or Christian cinema where half the movies of that genre would probably end up on Mystery Science Theater 3000 if that show were still on the air.  Sorry, but Christians do not in every instance have all the talent, money and resources necessary to put together a grade A organization or product; attempt a Boy Scouts of America alternative if you must, but please do not bother if only a few people will invest in such a project.

But again, what will be gained if you take your kids out of the Boy Scouts and attempt to set up conservative alternatives to the Boy Scouts?  Do the Scriptures not have something to say about believers’ being “salt and light”?  And do the Scriptures not have something to say about winning people with actions as opposed to mere words?  If there are kids in the BSA who are believers and if there are kids there who are not, then by isolating the believers from the unbelievers an opportunity is missed to show unregenerate people exactly how gracious and selfless a person should be toward his fellow man and how this behavior is borne of an understanding of the teachings of Christ.

Finally, some problems will naturally blow over or fade away if no further fuel is added to the fire.  The sort of attention that some social conservatives don’t want homosexuality and homosexuals to receive is something what would not exist if people would not create news stories by doing exactly the sort of thing for which the Southern Baptist Convention is currently in the news.  In fact, any further legal gains that the Gay Lobby makes could conceivably, over the course of time, come to be as forgotten and ignored as laws of various states which in our own day still outlawed sodomy or adultery.  And despite how debased Western culture has become in its ethically minimalist attitude toward homosexuality, guess what: there are still hate crimes (which I do not condone in any way) being committed against homosexuals, including the recent Madison Square Garden attacks in liberal, home-of-the-Stonewall-Inn New York City.  The point is that people such as members of the SBC need to stop the knee-jerk reactions to cultural occurrences around them and instead calm their nerves so they can think clearly.

Then again, if the reader thinks it is I who am in error here, then my first point is still proven; the fact that people can be disagreeing over the issues means that something has gone wrong somewhere down the line.

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Addendum: It is amazing what a little bit of further reading and research can reveal; lo, there may still be hope for Southern Baptist Convention: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/12/us-usa-boyscouts-baptists-idUSBRE95B0NO20130612.  The reaction of the Mormon hierarchy on this issue, meanwhile, is interesting.

You call THAT an Argument?

So, last Wednesday I went to a new youth group to hear a friend of mine preach. His topic was emotional purity, and needless to say, there was a lot of fire -- from even the grown-ups! Specifically, we were discussing how one-on-one dating is NOT a good idea, even when you are trying to find a spouse. (I'll post his lesson if you want background.)

The floor was open for debate, questions, and arguments. One girl "for" dating said: "When you're dating for a spouse, it's like when you get saved. God only did half the work, you still had to do half the work. It's not fair to let God try to bring the right person to you; you half to look." (keep in mind, I just quoted her.)

HOLD IT! WAIT! STOP!!!!!!!! Did you even just hear yourself? Shall I take it from the top?

1. You said God only did half the work for you to get saved. WRONGO! God did 100% percent of the work. There is one and ONLY one thing that you must do to receive it: say yes.
2. Using the new example; then yes, finding your spouse is a lot like getting saved: God is doing 100% of the work arraigning the meeting and forming the person for you. There is one and ONLY one thing that you must do to receive it: say yes.
3. Lastly, what in the world do you mean, "it's not fair to let God do all the work"? HE'S GOD! All we have to do is follow His instructions and be obedient. Who are we to start telling God, "Oh, here, let me do this for You"?

Some of the adults' arguments (with all due respect to them) were just as flimsy. One gentleman said, "Come on girls, date as many guys as you want to find the right one. See if you can get a free meal out of them!"

Once again, Excuse me? Are you suggesting that I date so that I can get free food?!? Well let me see then, if I date a new guy every day for 365 days, I could get an entire year of meals paid for? Never mind that it would be manipulative, usurping, using, and selfish! Not only would it be wrong of me to date just for the meal, but "date as many guys as I want"? Why should I waist time trying to "fish out" the one for me by my own power, when I could be spending time learning about the God that created me? helping in church ministries? volunteering for charity? Why in the would should I put myself in that situation?

I'm sorry, but if you want to convince me that dating is a good thing BY GOD'S STANDARDS you'll have to come up with much better arguments. :)

Powerless Powerful People

2 Timothy 2:13: “If we believe not, [yet] he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.”

If it is fair for the apostle Paul to blur identities here, as if the Head of the body of Christ were identical with the parts of the body, then up to a point perhaps it is fair for us to do the same. That is, if Christ cannot deny himself, then his self probably cannot deny him. Consequently, particular apostasy--in this case, a repudiation of Christianity--probably is not possible for those in whom the seed of God and the Spirit of God dwells.

Meanwhile, even if one can produce biblical exhortations or warnings that one not succumb to even this sort of apostasy, this doesn't necessarily prove that such apostasy is possible of believers. I go back to what Dr. John Martin Fischer was telling us once in class. Someone once explained to him (and I paraphrase): Look, even if determinism is true and your visiting a particular restaurant later tonight is determined, it’s still not going to happen unless you (intentionally) get up and go there.

God keeps his people safe, but God is also a God of means. And this means that you should not be surprised if God were to accomplish his ends through reminders of what would happen if two links in the causal chain were to be removed.

Second Juxtaposition

The following set harkens back to http://bright-idea.blogspot.com/2009/09/juxtaposition.html, but it also presents its own challenge:

Revelation 2.20: “Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.”

1 John 3.9: “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”

The challenge for biblical inerrantists is to come up with a truly plausible explanation of the seeming contradiction. The challenge for errantists includes this and their civil obligation to give the benefit of the doubt and not to jump the gun. Any thoughts?

Juxtaposition

Regeneration does not guarantee instant moral infallibility. Nevertheless, it apparently does come with limits:

1 John 3.15: “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.”

Revelation 2.20: “Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.”

More could be said on this subject.

Political: Questions About Obama's Moral Fiber

Trouble in Paradise?

The Obama presidency isn't officially underway, but questions about the administration's moral fiber certainly are. After a brief interlude as the Secretary of Commerce nominee, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) withdrew his name after questions arose about business deals with the state of New Mexico. Richardson's embarrassing exit only expands the cloud over the Obama administration, which faced its first serious test after Gov. Rod Blagojevich's seat-selling scandal in Illinois. The White House transition has given Americans some pause over the next President's vetting process for key leaders.

If the administration won't fully scrutinize the nation's new leaders, FRC will. Please visit www.frcblog.com for the latest edition of "Change Watch," featuring Homeland Security's new boss and former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano (D).

---Not that this is all surprising, sadly, since Pres.-Elect Obama's moral fiber has been questioned by many during the last two years of his campaign.

Morality: Vote Against Same-Sex Marriage is a Vote For Tolerance

Here is an article by Frank Turek describing what the same-sex marriage debate is and is not about.

It is NOT about list:

It is not about equality or equal rights.

It is not about discrimination against a class of people.

It is not about denying homosexuals the ability to commit to one another.

It is not about love or private relationships.

It is not about bigotry or homophobia.

It is not about sexual orientation or being born a certain way.

It is not about race or the civil rights struggle.

It is not about interracial marriage.

It is not about heterosexuals and divorce.

It is not about the separation of church and state.

It is not even about religion.

“But that’s all I hear about,” you say.
Of course, that’s because the propaganda campaign continues to be successful. Those topics are all smokescreens designed to divert you.

He goes on to say that data from countries with same-sex marriage that 96% don't get married even when given the opportunity.

Since most homosexuals don’t want to get married or stay married, then why are homosexual activists so adamant about government recognition of same-sex marriage? Because same-sex marriage will win them what they really want—validation and normalization. In other words, the activists want same-sex marriage because they understand that government-backed same-sex marriage will validate and normalize homosexuality throughout society.

This is not an issue of rights or stopping someone from loving another person of their liking. They are already free to do that. It is not homophobia, since many folks who think marriage should be between one man and one woman don't do so because they are afraid of or hate homosexuals.

Greg Koukl puts this very well: “Same-sex marriage is not about civil rights. It is about validation and social respect. It is a radical attempt at civil engineering using government muscle to strong-arm the people into accommodating a lifestyle many find deeply offensive, contrary to nature, socially destructive, and morally repugnant.” Same-sex marriage advocate Andrew Sullivan understands this. He writes, “Including homosexuals within marriage would be a means of conferring the highest form of social approval imaginable.”

Once they get social (or governmental) approval, they are going to aggressively pursue, as the true villian, those that would dare suggest that this lifestyle is destructive, contrary to nature, or offessive. Don't think so? Look at the news. It is already happening. And will only become more and more frequent.

In fact, this intolerance is already happening and will get worse if same-sex marriage spreads. A federal court recently denied parents the right to know when homosexuality was being discussed in their Massachusetts schools because gay marriage is now legal there. Also in Massachusetts, a Catholic adoption agency was forced to close its doors rather than provide children to homosexual couples as the state now demands. In New Jersey, a Christian ministry was investigated for refusing to conduct a same-sex ceremony. In California, a doctor was sued for refusing to artificially inseminate a lesbian. Several other examples of gay intolerance can be found here, and the unbelievable forced normalization of homosexuality in businesses, schools and charities throughout Massachusetts can be found here. (Click on that link if you really want to see how bad the intolerance can get.) And has already begun.

Stand up for traditional marriage and family. Vote Yes on Prop 8 (if you live out in CA)

D.B.