For Goodness Sake?

Posted: Monday, January 05, 2009 at 5:30 am ET

Just before the end of 2008, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released a report indicating that a significant percentage of American evangelicals reject the biblical claim that Jesus is the only way of salvation.  According to the report, 52% of American Christians believe that "at least some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life."

Surprisingly, 37% of those specifically identified as evangelical Christians agreed, rejecting the claim that Jesus is the only Savior and identifying at least some non-Christian religion or religions as leading to eternal life.

The report was an important follow-up to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, released in 2007, and it basically affirmed one of the most controversial findings of that survey -- the claim that evangelical Christians are increasingly rejecting the exclusivity of Christ.  A potential lack of precision in the way the question was first asked led the Pew Forum to take another look at the issue. This new report, based in solid research, corroborates the earlier study.  Many evangelicals are redefining the Gospel and rejecting the claim that faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to eternal life.

A most interesting response to this report now comes from Charles M. Blow, the "visual Op-Ed columnist" for The New York Times.  In "Heaven for the Godless?," published in the December 27, 2008 edition of the paper, Blow celebrates the report and expresses his pleasure in the fact that Americans are abandoning their belief that, in his words, "heaven is a velvet-roped V.I.P. area reserved for Christians."

Mr. Blow affirms that the Bible teaches the exclusivity of Christ and that the Christian church has defined the Gospel in these terms.  Nevertheless, he celebrates the fact that the doctrine is being abandoned by so many -- as many as 70% of all Americans.

He then asks why this change is happening, and he suggests several factors. First, he offers this:

One very plausible explanation is that Americans just want good things to come to good people, regardless of their faith. As Alan Segal, a professor of religion at Barnard College told me: “We are a multicultural society, and people expect this American life to continue the same way in heaven.” He explained that in our society, we meet so many good people of different faiths that it’s hard for us to imagine God letting them go to hell.

As a possible and plausible causal factor, this makes sense.  As a matter of fact, Blow appears to express what millions of Americans (including many, no doubt, who consider themselves evangelicals) believe -- that the American way is the way to heaven.  But, people who "expect this American life to continue the same way in heaven" will find no biblical support for this expectation.

Second, Blow offers that "many Christians apparently view their didactic text as flexible."  In other words, they do not believe the Bible is eternal truth.  As he explains, "According to Pew’s August survey, only 39 percent of Christians believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, and 18 percent think that it’s just a book written by men and not the word of God at all."

Well, once again he points to a crucial factor.  Those who believe that the Bible is "just a book written by men and not the word of God at all" will see no reason to believe what the Bible teaches.  Those who believe that the Bible is in some sense God's revelation but deny the inspiration of the actual text will feel quite free to revise (or reject) biblical teachings at will.

Blow's third proposal delivers the most significant paragraph in his column:

Now, there remains the possibility that some of those polled may not have understood the implications of their answers. As John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum, said, “The capacity of ignorance to influence survey outcomes should never be underestimated.” But I don’t think that they are ignorant about this most basic tenet of their faith. I think that they are choosing to ignore it . . . for goodness sake.

At this point Blow's analysis gets even more interesting.  He rejects the claim that American Christians (including the evangelicals cited in this report) are confused or ignorant concerning what the Bible teaches about "this most basic tenet of their faith."  No, Blow insists, these American Christians are not confused or ignorant about this Christian teaching:  "I think that they are choosing to ignore it ... for goodness sake."

Look closely at this argument.  Blow argues that many American Christians are rejecting the claim that Jesus is the only way of salvation for sake of "goodness."  In other words, "good" people don't believe that other people are going to hell.

Here we see the ultimate confusion of theology and etiquette.  The implication of Charles Blow's argument is clear.  He believes that Americans are trimming theology to fit current expectations of social respectability.  Socially respectable people -- people who are recognized for "goodness" -- consciously reject the clear biblical teaching that Jesus is the only Savior because it just isn't socially respectable to believe that your neighbors and fellow citizens who do not believe in Christ as Savior are going to miss heaven and go to hell.

Charles Blow celebrates this transformation of theology into etiquette.  Doctrine is cheerfully replaced with public relations.  The words of Jesus are rejected in favor of a more "inclusive" message.

Those who are concerned about the integrity of the Gospel will respond to these developments with a very different attitude.  We are witnessing the virtual transformation of biblical Christianity into a new faith -- a false gospel.  This new faith wins the approval of Charles Blow and The New York Times, but it is precisely the kind of false gospel that the church is warned in the New Testament to detect and reject with clarity and courage.

Mr. Blow's column is truly helpful in crystallizing this issue.  Those who believe that the gospel of Christ is just a variant of "the American way" will find that the Bible presents a very different Gospel.  Those who reject biblical authority will feel free to replace biblical Christianity with a new religion, but they should demonstrate enough honesty to admit that this is indeed what they are doing.  Those who are convinced that social respectability determines doctrine will soon find themselves to be socially respectable pagans.

Of course, the great question missing from Charles Blow's column is this:  What if Jesus really is the only way of salvation?  If so, and Jesus clearly said that it is so, then public relations and etiquette are quickly revealed to be rather frivolous concerns -- indeed, these concerns are revealed to be both deadly and delusional.

If we really believe that Jesus is the only Savior and that the Bible truthfully reveals the only Gospel that saves, then we had better make our confidence clear.  The inevitable result of this confidence should be a resurgence in concern for the evangelization of those who do not yet know Christ . . . for goodness sake.

___________________

See my previous article, "Many Paths to Heaven?," December 18, 2008.  See also coverage by Cathy Lynn Grossman of USA Today here and here.

Ten for the History Books from 2008

Posted: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 7:10 am ET

The year 2008 began with the anticipation that history would be made, and on that count the year certainly did not disappoint.  Nevertheless, the year unfolded with more surprises than usual.  The intellectual task of reviewing a year is always fascinating, usually difficult, and often humbling.  That is certainly the case with the year 2008.

As a matter of fact, a good deal more time must pass until the meaning of 2008 and its events come into clearer view.  In the meantime, here is a personal list of the events that shaped the year.  Some may not make a list created by the historians of the future, but each is noteworthy in its own right.  The list is not ranked in a specific order of relative significance, though the list is generally weighted toward the top.

1.  The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States.  Sen. Barack Obama's historic election victory reset the political map of the United States.  The first-term senator from Illinois galvanized the youth vote, maximized use of the Internet, and reached across traditional Democratic Party divisions to become the party's nominee and then to win a clear victory in the general election.  In so doing, he toppled the favorite for the nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and turned much of the conventional political wisdom on its head.  His defeat of Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee, seemed to symbolize a generational shift, but Obama drew from a wide spectrum of the electorate.  His record is predictably liberal for a Democratic nominee -- even more liberal than Sen. Clinton -- yet he won the confidence of voters on an agenda of "change."  His liberal positions on social issues cost him significant support among evangelical Christian voters, though he attracted noteworthy support from some younger evangelicals.  As the year came to a close, the Obama transition team had assembled a core of cabinet nominees that was, in the main, drawn from traditional Democratic power circles -- a version of John F. Kennedy's "the best and the brightest" based in intellectual achievement.  Americans, concerned about challenges at home and abroad, looked to the President-elect -- the nation's first African-American President -- with great expectations.

2.  America becomes Ground Zero of a global economic crisis.  The American economy experienced a financial crisis that, by the fall, turned into a full-blown economic crisis.  A collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market, driven by a fall in housing prices, led to a credit collapse that spread across the globe.  The crisis led to the downfall of historic and iconic firms on Wall Street and put the entire economy into a spasm of uncertainty.  Stocks fell sharply, with more than $7 trillion disappearing from the markets.  A recession was deepened by the crisis as credit largely disappeared and as consumer spending fell.  The federal government pushed through over $700 billion of stimulus plans and the nation's taxpayers became part-owners of Fortune 500 firms.  Before the year ended, the CEOs of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler had gone before Congress to ask for relief.  The upheavals continue as the year does not.

3.  The Bush Administration prepares to depart.  The eight-year presidency of George W. Bush will end less than twenty days after the new year begins.  By any measure, the eight years since January 20, 2001 have been momentous in terms of both domestic and international issues.  Though first elected on a platform of domestic proposals, the Bush presidency was consumed with foreign policy concerns within months of assuming office.  The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 reset the agenda for the Bush administration and the nation.  Within months the United States was at war against Islamic extremism in Afghanistan, followed by a massive invasion of Iraq that toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein.  The invasion of Iraq led to a quick military victory, but the goal of creating a stable society in post-Saddam Iraq defied American plans.  A "surge" in military support led to considerable progress on the ground in Iraq and, as the Bush years came to a close, signs of a functioning civic culture provided hope for the nation's future, even as a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan added new concern. Growing tensions between India and Pakistan and between Israel and Hamas brought the year 2008 to a troubling close.  Domestically, President Bush will be remembered for his advocacy on behalf of human life, including a policy that limited federal funding of research using human embryos and his nomination of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito to the United States Supreme Court.

4.  Controversy in the Episcopal Church leads to schism.  Pressures in the Episcopal Church USA reached a breaking point as more congregations and dioceses voted to leave the denomination over its actions and policy positions on homosexuality -- most centrally the election of an openly homosexual bishop in 2003.  Several churches had taken refuge under Anglican churches in Africa and the Southern Cone of South America, but as the year came to a close a new Anglican Church in North America had been declared.  Court battles over church property continued, but conservatives won a major decision in Virginia in late December.

5.  California voters approve Proposition 8.  The decision of the California Supreme Court to mandate the legalization of same-sex marriage in the state set the stage for a battle to amend the state's constitution to affirm marriage exclusively as the union of a man and a woman.  This measure affirmed what California voters had overwhelmingly affirmed just a few years earlier, but the battle to pass Proposition 8 was heated and close.  In the end, the measure passed by a 52-48 vote, but appeals put the question back before the California Supreme Court.  The vote sent a clear signal to the nation -- voters support marriage as a heterosexual union.  Votes in Arizona and Florida added weight to this signal.  By the end of 2008, a majority of the nation's citizens lived in states that had adopted similar measures.

6.  The death of Alexander Solzhenitsyn marks end of an era.  The death of Alexander Solzhenitsyn on August 3 marked a symbolic end of the Cold War and served to remind the world of the horrors of the Soviet Union and its gulags.  A Nobel laureate, Solzhenitsyn lived long enough to return to his native Russia and to die there as he had promised.  He also lived long enough to see Russia return to many of its bad habits, including oligarchy.  His death seemed to put a coda on the Cold War, proving that the human spirit cannot be broken by persecution, however brutal.

7. Euthanasia is approved in Washington State.  Voters in Washington State adopted a measure legalizing "physician-assisted suicide," even as the record of the practice in neighboring Oregon should have served as sufficient warning.  Though the administration of lethal drugs was presented to voters in terms of alleviating pain and suffering for the terminally ill, in reality many of those who receive the drugs are not terminally ill at all.  The main thrust of the movement toward legalized euthanasia is a Promethean vision of personal autonomy and human life.  Late in the year, a judge in Montana put that state on a collision course with the controversy.

8.  John Edwards is caught in a sexual affair -- and America cared. Predictably, the media made a circus of the affair as former senator and presidential candidate John Edwards, the 2004 Democratic nominee for Vice President, was forced to admit to an extra-marital affair with a media consultant even as his wife was battling cancer.  After repeated denials, Edwards' admission came in the form of a Greek tragedy.  The significant aspect of this scandal was not so much about Edwards' political prospects, but about the fact that Americans, generally confused about sexual morality, still believe that extra-marital affairs are wrong and sinful.  Virtually no one seemed to argue that Edwards' affair was of no moral consequence.  That, it seems, is worth remembering.

9.  Atheists launch public relations efforts.  The so-called "New Atheists" continued to sell books and make controversy, but some decided to take an additional step and forged efforts that included public relations and advertising.  In the United States, an Atheist Alliance sought to present atheists and agnostics as mainstream.  In Great Britain, atheists launched a campaign that put signs on buses that read:  "There's probably no God.  Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."  It seemed that Londoners were not entirely reassured in atheism by the claim that God "probably" does not exist, sending the advertising team back to their drawing boards.

10.  The world takes note of a demographic downturn -- Where are the babies?  Citizens of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania learned in 2008 that deaths now outnumbered births within the city.  In most of Europe, a "demographic winter" took shape as birthrates had fallen well below population replacement.  Leaders of the Russian Army informed national leaders that the strength of the armed services was endangered by a lack of young males of military age.  In the United States, the birthrate is stable mostly because of immigrant and minority communities.  Once again, worldviews are seen to matter.

These and so many other developments marked 2008 as a year to remember.  Each year brings surprises, but few years bring so many.  Most of us hope that 2009 will be a bit less eventful than 2008.  The times, however, are in God's hands and not ours.

________________________

We will discuss this list -- and ask for your own -- on today's edition of The Albert Mohler Program.

Can a Christian Deny the Virgin Birth?

Posted: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 at 5:30 am ET

Can a true Christian deny the virgin birth? This question would perplex the vast majority of Christians throughout the centuries, but modern denials of biblical truth make the question tragically significant. Of all biblical doctrines, the doctrine of Christ's virginal conception has often been the specific target of modern denial and attack.

Attacks upon the virgin birth emerged in the aftermath of the Enlightenment, with some theologians attempting to harmonize the anti-supernaturalism of the modern mind with the church's teaching about Christ. The great quest of liberal theology has been to invent a Jesus who is stripped of all supernatural power, deity, and authority.

The fountainhead of this quest includes figures such as Albert Schweitzer and Rudolf Bultmann. Often considered the most influential New Testament scholar of the twentieth century, Bultmann argued that the New Testament presents a mythological worldview that modern men and women simply cannot accept as real. The virgin birth is simply a part of this mythological structure and Bultmann urged his program of "demythologization" in order to construct a faith liberated from miracles and all vestiges of the supernatural. Jesus was reduced to an enlightened teacher and existentialist model.

In America, the public denial of the virgin birth can be traced to the emergence of Protestant liberalism in the early 20th century. In his famous sermon, "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?," Harry Emerson Fosdick--an unabashed liberal--aimed his attention at "the vexed and mooted question of the virgin birth." Fosdick, preaching from the pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church in New York City, allowed that Christians may hold "quite different points of view about a matter like the virgin birth." He accepted the fact that many Christians believed the virgin birth to be historically true and theologically significant. Fosdick likened this belief to trust in "a special biological miracle." Nevertheless, Fosdick insisted that others, equally Christian, could disagree with those who believe the virgin birth to be historically true: "But, side by side with them in the evangelical churches is a group of equally loyal and reverent people who would say that the virgin birth is not to be accepted as an historic fact. To believe in the virgin birth as an explanation of great personality is one of the familiar ways in which the ancient world was accustomed to account for unusual superiority."

Fosdick explained that those who deny the virgin birth hold to a specific pattern of reasoning. As he explained, "those first disciples adored Jesus--as we do; when they thought about his coming they were sure that he came specially from God--as we are; this adoration and conviction they associated with God's special influence and intention in his birth--as we do; but they phrased it in terms of a biological miracle that our modern minds cannot use."

Thus, Fosdick divided the church into two camps. Those he labeled as "fundamentalists" believe the virgin birth to be historical fact. The other camp, comprised of "enlightened" Christians who no longer obligate themselves to believe the Bible to be true, discard this "biological" miracle but still consider themselves to be Christians.

More contemporary attacks on the virgin birth of Christ have emerged from figures such as retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong and German New Testament scholar Gerd Luedemann. Luedemann acknowledges that "most Christians in all the churches in the world confess as they recite the Apostles' Creed that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary. Now...modern Christians completely discount the historicity of the virgin birth and understand it in a figurative sense." Obviously, the "modern Christians" Luedemann identifies are those who allow the modern secular worldview to establish the frame for reality into which the claims of the Bible must be fitted. Those doctrines that do not fit easily within the secular frame must be automatically discarded. As might be expected, Luedemann's denial of biblical truth is not limited to the virgin birth. He denies virtually everything the Bible reveals about Jesus Christ. In summarizing his argument, Luedemann states: "The tomb was full and the manger empty." That is to say, Luedemann believes that Jesus was not born of a virgin and that He was not raised from the dead.

Another angle of attack on the virgin birth has come from the group of radical scholars who organize themselves into what is called the "Jesus Seminar." These liberal scholars apply a radical form of interpretation and deny that the New Testament is in any way reliable as a source of knowledge about Jesus. Roman Catholic scholar John Dominic Crossan, a member of the Jesus Seminar, discounts the biblical narratives about the virgin birth as invented theology. He acknowledges that Matthew explicitly traces the virgin birth to Isaiah 7:14. Crossan explains that the author of Matthew simply made this up: "Clearly, somebody went seeking in the Old Testament for a text that could be interpreted as prophesying a virginal conception, even if such was never its original meaning. Somebody had already decided on the transcendental importance of the adult Jesus and sought to retroject that significance on to the conception and birth itself."

Crossan denies that Matthew and Luke can be taken with any historical seriousness, and he understands the biblical doctrine of the virgin birth to be an insurmountable obstacle to modern people as they encounter the New Testament. As with Luedemann, Crossan's denial of the virgin birth is only a hint of what is to come. In Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, Crossan presents an account of Jesus that would offend no secularist or atheist. Obviously, Crossan's vision also bears no resemblance to the New Testament.

For others, the rejection of the birth is tied to a specific ideology. In The Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the Infancy Narratives, Jane Schaberg accuses the church of inventing the doctrine of the virgin birth in order to subordinate women. As she summarizes: "The charge of contemporary feminists, then, is not that the image of the Virgin Mary is unimportant or irrelevant, but that it contributes to and is integral to the oppression of women." Schaberg states that the conception of Jesus was most likely the result of extra-marital sex or rape. She chooses to emphasize the latter possibility and turns this into a feminist fantasy in which Mary is the heroine who overcomes. Schaberg offers a tragic, but instructive model of what happens when ideology trumps trust in the biblical text. Her most basic agenda is not even concerned with the question of the virgin birth of Christ, but with turning this biblical account into service for the feminist agenda.

Bishop Joseph Sprague of the United Methodist Church offers further evidence of modern heresy. In an address he presented on June 25, 2002 at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, this bishop denied the faith wholesale. Sprague, who serves as Presiding Bishop of the United Methodist Church in northern Illinois, has been called "the most vocally prominent active liberal bishop in Protestantism today." Sprague is proud of this designation and takes it as a compliment: "I really make no apology for that. I don't consider myself a liberal. I consider myself a radical." Sprague lives up to his self-designation.

In his Illiff address, Bishop Sprague claimed that the "myth" of the virgin birth "was not intended as historical fact, but was employed by Matthew and Luke in different ways to appoint poetically the truth about Jesus as experienced in the emerging church." Sprague defined a theological myth as "not false presentation but a valid and quite persuasive literary device employed to point to ultimate truth that can only be insinuated symbolically and never depicted exhaustively." Jesus, Sprague insists, was born to human parents and did not possess "trans-human, supernatural powers."

Thus, Sprague dismisses the miracles, the exclusivity of Christ, and the bodily resurrection as well as the virgin birth. His Christology is explicitly heretical: "Jesus was not born the Christ, rather by the confluence of grace with faith, he became the Christ, God's beloved in whom God was well pleased."

Bishop Sprague was charged with heresy but has twice been cleared of the charge--a clear sign that the mainline Protestant denominations are unwilling to identify as heretics even those who openly teach heresy. The presence of theologians and pastors who deny the virgin birth in the theological seminaries and pulpits of the land is evidence of the sweeping tide of unbelief that marks so many institutions and churches in our time.

Can a true Christian deny the virgin birth? The answer to that question must be a decisive No. Those who deny the virgin birth reject the authority of Scripture, deny the supernatural birth of the Savior, undermine the very foundations of the Gospel, and have no way of explaining the deity of Christ.

Anyone who claims that the virgin birth can be discarded even as the deity of Christ is affirmed is either intellectually dishonest or theological incompetent.

Several years ago, Cecil Sherman--then a Southern Baptist, but later the first coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship--stated: "A teacher who might also be led by the Scripture not to believe in the Virgin Birth should not be fired." Consider the logic of that statement. A Christian can be led by the Bible to deny what the Bible teaches? This kind of logic is what has allowed those who deny the virgin birth to sit comfortably in liberal theological seminaries and to preach their reductionistic Christ from major pulpits.

Christians must face the fact that a denial of the virgin birth is a denial of Jesus as the Christ. The Savior who died for our sins was none other than the baby who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, and born of a virgin. The virgin birth does not stand alone as a biblical doctrine, it is an irreducible part of the biblical revelation about the person and work of Jesus Christ. With it, the Gospel stands or falls.

"Everyone admits that the Bible represents Jesus as having been conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary. The only question is whether in making that representation the Bible is true or false." So declared J. Gresham Machen in his great work, The Virgin Birth of Christ. As Machen went on to argue, "if the Bible is regarded as being wrong in what it says about the birth of Christ, then obviously the authority of the Bible in any high sense, is gone."

The authority of the Bible is almost completely gone where liberal theology holds its sway. The authority of the Bible is replaced with the secular worldview of the modern age and the postmodern denial of truth itself. The true church stands without apology upon the authority of the Bible and declares that Jesus was indeed "born of a virgin." Though the denial of this doctrine is now tragically common, the historical truth of Christ's birth remains inviolate. No true Christian can deny the virgin birth.

_________________________________

This article is republished by reader request.  We will discuss this question on today's edition of The Albert Mohler Program.

The High Cost of Being (and Staying) Cool -- Rick Warren in a Whirlwind

Posted: Friday, December 19, 2008 at 5:39 am ET

Pastor Rick Warren now stands at ground zero of a whirlwind, and he is likely to be there for some time. The announcement that President-elect Obama had chosen him to deliver the invocation at the inaugural ceremonies on January 20 came with formality but no fanfare. The first headlines speculated that Warren had become "the next Billy Graham" -- for Billy Graham has missed praying at few inaugurations in recent decades.

Within hours, however, the story had quickly changed. Rick Warren had gone from being the next Billy Graham to being the next Fred Phelps -- and in a media instant.

Joe Solmonese, President of the Human Rights Campaign, a group that promotes homosexual rights, sent a letter to the President-elect protesting the choice of Warren.

The letter began:

Let me get right to the point. Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans. Our loss in California over the passage of Proposition 8 which stripped loving, committed same-sex couples of their given legal right to marry is the greatest loss our community has faced in 40 years. And by inviting Rick Warren to your inauguration, you have tarnished the view that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have a place at your table.

The outrage from gay activist groups and other liberal allies reached a fever pitch within hours. Blogs and news releases referred to Rick Warren as a "homophobe" and to his choice to deliver the invocation as a "hammer blow" and assault upon the homosexual community -- a group that had enthusiastically supported the Obama candidacy.

The idea that Rick Warren would deliver the invocation at the inauguration after Obama had courted and received such support from the homosexual community was termed "abominable" and "despicable." As The Advocate reported, "Even ardent Obama supporters seem to be up in arms. Progressive radio talk-show host Stephanie Miller -- an Obama supporter from day one -- took issue with the decision, saying he could have made a better choice. She told callers this morning that in light of eight years of a Bush administration and the passing of Prop. 8, having Warren deliver the invocation felt like a big slap in the face."

Apparently stung by the criticism, the President-elect answered a reporter's question about Warren by saying:

"I think that it is no secret that I am a fierce advocate for equality for gay and lesbian Americans. It is something that I have been consistent on and something that I intend to continue to be consistent on during my presidency. What I have also said is that it is important for America to come together, even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues. I would note that a couple of years ago I was invited to Rick Warren's church to speak, despite his awareness that I held views that were entirely contrary to his when it came to gay and lesbian rights, when it came to issues like abortion. Nevertheless I had an opportunity to speak. And that dialogue, I think, is part of what my campaign has been all about.

"We're not going to agree on every single issue. But what we have to do is to be able to create an atmosphere where we can disagree without being disagreeable and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans."

Now here is an interesting point. The protest against Rick Warren is that he is an opponent of same-sex marriage. But when Candidate Obama was asked to define marriage during the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency, he appeared to leave no room for same-sex marriage: "I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian -- for me -- for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union." When asked follow-up questions by Warren, Obama endorsed civil unions and opposed a constitutional amendment protecting marriage as a heterosexual institution.

So, what's the difference? Well, as Obama indicated, he is "a fierce advocate for equality for gay and lesbian Americans." Even as he defined marriage in a way that apparently excluded same-sex marriage, he steadfastly refused to do anything to prevent same-sex marriage. Most pointedly, he opposed California's Proposition 8 whereas Warren publicly endorsed it. Before the election, the Obama campaign also provided a message from Michelle Obama expressing hope for the eventual acceptance of same-sex marriage.

In other words, the gay rights community knows that the President-elect will be a reliable friend when it comes to policy. The President-elect virtually promised to do nothing to prevent or slow down the legalization of same-sex marriage.

The outrage directed at Rick Warren must be seen in this context. It is a genuine outrage expressed by gay activists and their liberal allies. To these Obama supporters, it is unthinkable that the President-elect could have chosen Warren for such a prominent role. As one letter to the editor in Friday's edition of The New York Times expressed the sentiment, "Barack Obama’s choice of the Rev. Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the presidential inauguration is as if Lyndon B. Johnson had selected a pastoral proponent of racial segregation to deliver the invocation in 1965."

Here is the deep irony -- Rick Warren has devoted enormous energy toward the goal of defusing the culture war and creating common ground. He has attracted the criticism of many conservative evangelicals who have been concerned about how these efforts have been positioned and for what often appears as comments at their expense. At times, Warren has even had to issue clarifications in order to make his generalized statements more specific. If the President-elect wanted to choose a figure recognized as an evangelical in the public eye, but sympathetic to much of his stated agenda to unite, he could scarcely have chosen a more recognizable figure than Rick Warren.

But now many of Obama's own supporters attack Rick Warren as if he is a hate-driven homophobe, which he clearly is not. All that was necessary to bring on this opposition is Warren's opposition to same-sex marriage and his support for Proposition 8. Now, he is grouped along with the most strident and careless apostles of hatred.

It doesn't take much. We would all like to be considered cool. Cultural opposition is a tough challenge and bearing public hatred is a hard burden. Being cool means being considered mainstream, acceptable, and admirable. Believing that same-sex marriage is wrong is enough to turn "uncool" in an instant, at least in many circles.

I am not throwing Rick Warren to the wolves over this. He now finds himself in a whirlwind, and he will not be the last. Pastor after pastor and church after church will face a similar challenge in short order. No matter how cool you think you are or think that others think you are, the hour is coming when the issue of homosexuality -- taken alone -- will be the defining issue in coolness. If you accept the full normalization of homosexuality, you will be cool. If you do not, you are profoundly uncool, no matter how much good work you do nor how much love and compassion you seek to express.

Liberal Protestantism came to this conclusion long ago, and those churches desperately want to be considered cool by the elites. Having abandoned biblical authority, there is nothing to prevent them moving fast into coolness. The only barriers are outposts of conservative opposition, but they will not last long.

Many in the "emerging" and "Emergent church" movements also state their intention to transcend the divisive issues like abortion and homosexuality. Some of these represent the quintessence of cool in cultural identification. But for how long? Eventually, the issue of homosexuality will require a decision. At that point, those churches will find themselves facing a forced decision. Choose ye this day: Will it be the Bible or coolness?

Rick Warren has just found himself in the midst of a whirlwind. We must pray that God will give him wisdom as he decides what to do -- and what to say -- as he stands in this whirlwind. But every evangelical Christian should watch this carefully, for the controversy over Rick Warren will not stop with the pastor from Saddleback. This whirlwind is coming for you and for your church. At some point, the cost of being "cool" will be the abandonment of biblical Christianity. We had better decide well in advance that this is a cost far too high to pay.

_______________________________

Would I deliver the invocation at the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States? Well, I have not been asked, but I can imagine that it would be difficult to turn down this invitation. After all, the inaugural ceremony is a national event, not a personal ceremony. Yet, in the end, the context of this inaugural ceremony would not allow me to accept. President-elect Obama has pledged to sign legislation including the Freedom of Choice Act, which would affect a pro-abortion revolution in this nation. He has also pledged to sign executive orders within hours of taking office that will lead directly to a vast increase in the destruction of human life. In particular, he has promised to reverse the Bush administration's policy limiting federal funding of human embryonic stem-cell research. Sources inside the transition office have advised activists to expect a flurry of executive orders in the new administration's first hours and days.

Knowing the intentions of this President-elect, I could not in good conscience offer a formal prayer at his inauguration. Even in the short term, I could not live in good conscience with what will come within hours. I could not accept a public role in the event of his inauguration nor offer there a public prayer, but I will certainly be praying for this new President and for the nation under his leadership.

I was interviewed about this question by The Wall Street Journal, and the article appears in today's edition of the paper [see here]. From the article:

Some on the right were unhappy as well. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said he wouldn't deliver the invocation for a president who supports abortion rights.

"It certainly doesn't help the pro-life movement to...participate in this kind of public way in the inauguration for one who holds to a very radical pro-abortion position," he said.

Late on Thursday, Rick Warren released this statement:

"I commend President-elect Obama for his courage to willingly take enormous heat from his base by inviting someone like me, with whom he doesn’t agree on every issue, to offer the Invocation at his historic Inaugural ceremony.

Hopefully individuals passionately expressing opinions from the left and the right will recognize that both of us have shown a commitment to model civility in America.

The Bible admonishes us to pray for our leaders. I am honored by this opportunity to pray God’s blessing on the office of the President and its current and future inhabitant, asking the Lord to provide wisdom to America’s leaders during this critical time in our nation’s history."

We will discuss this issue on today's edition of The Albert Mohler Program. Please call and let me know what you think.

__________________________

Photo of Rick Warren and Barack Obama at Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency courtesy of www.rickwarrennews.com.

Many Paths to Heaven?

Posted: Thursday, December 18, 2008 at 5:28 am ET

Are American evangelicals abandoning the exclusivity of the Gospel? A new report out from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life suggests that many evangelical Christians are, at the very least, badly confused about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

As Cathy Lynn Grossman of USA Today reports:

Of the 65% of people who held this open view of heaven's gates, 80% named at least one non-Christian group - Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists or people with no religion at all- who may also be saved, according to a new survey released today by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

This most recent report, released today, clarifies a report issued earlier this year. That earlier report became the cause of some controversy because some researchers questioned the accuracy of the responses, since some of those surveyed may have confused other Christian denominations for other religions.

In releasing this updated report, the Pew Forum isolated the question and made it far more specific. Those who affirmed other ways of salvation were then asked to specify what they meant. As USA Today reports, the vast majority of those who affirmed other ways of salvation went on to specify "Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists or people with no religion at all" as valid options.

The report indicates that 52% of those belonging to churches and denominations that teach that Jesus is the only way of salvation reject that teaching.

More from USA Today:

Christian believers who named at least one non-Christian faith that could lead to salvation included 34% of white evangelicals, even though evangelical doctrine stresses that salvation is possible only through Jesus.

Higher levels of church attendance made some difference, particularly among white evangelical protestants. But an overall majority (54%) of people who identified with a religion and who said they attend church weekly also said many religions can lead to eternal life. This majority included 37% of white evangelicals, 75% of mainline Protestants and 85% of non-Hispanic white Catholics.

This survey cannot easily be dismissed. The specificity of the responses and the quality of the research sample indicate that we face a serious decline in confidence in the Gospel. When 34% of white evangelicals reject the truth that Jesus is the only Savior, we are witnessing a virtual collapse of evangelical theology.

There is also additional cause for concern. As Cathy Lynn Grossman reports, "Pew's new survey also found that many Christians (29%) say they are saved by their good actions; 30% say salvation is through belief in Jesus, God or a higher power alone, which is the core teaching of evangelical Protestantism; and 10% say salvation is found through a combination of behavior and belief, a view closer to Catholic teachings."

I was interviewed for the USA Today story and expressed my concern:

Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, calls the findings "a theological crisis for American evangelicals. They represent at best a misunderstanding of the Gospel and at worst a repudiation of the Gospel."

And:

Overall, the new findings are "an indictment of evangelicalism and evangelical preaching," said Mohler. "The clear Biblical teaching is that Jesus Christ proclaimed himself to be the only way to salvation."

Mohler sees behind the statistics the impact of pluralism and secularism in U.S. society and the challenge of facing family and friends with "an uncomfortable truth."

"We are in an age when we want to tell everyone they are doing just fine. It's extremely uncomfortable to turn to someone and say, 'You will go to hell unless you come to a saving knowledge of Jesus,' " Mohler says.

Over twenty years ago, Professor James Davison Hunter of the University of Virginia sounded a similar alarm in Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation. In that work, Hunter warned that the rising generation of younger evangelicals -- then mostly college age -- were increasingly uncomfortable with the claim that Jesus is the only Savior and that belief in Christ is necessary in order for a person to go to heaven. Now, those students are old enough to be parents and their influence is becoming more evident year by year. One can almost draw a straight line between Hunter's analysis of 1987 and the Pew report released today.

As I told USA Today, this report reveals that a good number of those who attend evangelical churches either misunderstand or repudiate the Gospel. The New Testament reveals not only that Jesus claimed to be the only way to the Father [see John 14:6] but also that the Gospel of Christ is the only message that saves [see Romans 10]. This claim has been central to evangelical conviction -- at least until now.

I am confident that much of this confusion can be traced to the superficiality that marks far too many evangelical pulpits. The disappearance of doctrinal understanding and evangelical demonstration can be traced directly to the decline in expository preaching and doctrinal instruction. A loss of evangelistic and missionary commitment can be fully expected as a direct result of this confusion or repudiation of the Gospel.

This new survey should be received with great concern. Will it awaken today's generation of evangelicals to the catastrophe before our eyes?

?

Faith Equals Fertility?

Posted: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 6:34 am ET

A growing number of researchers and observers are beginning to take note of a huge demographic reality -- those who take belief in God most seriously tend to have more babies. For many years, the conventional wisdom has held that demography determines destiny. Well, now it appears that theology determines demography.

Writing in Intelligent Life, reporter Anthony Gottlieb notes that some belief systems "are dramatically outbreeding others." As he acknowledges, this "outbreeding" will impact the course of nations and societies.

The background to all this, of course, is the contraceptive revolution. Once human beings developed the ability to separate sex from procreation, children became optional. For the first time in human history, couples could engage in sex without even the thought of babies. Once these technologies spread, a decision to reproduce became just that -- a decision.

The task of social scientists is to observe, describe, and possibly explain social behavior. One behavior that has become more and more apparent is the fact that couples in most nations are having fewer children. Indeed, falling birthrates have become a major concern in many societies. Once social scientists look closer, it also becomes apparent that this pattern is not uniform.

As Anthony Gottlieb explains, those who are more "religious" (meaning those who hold to a worldview that is based in belief in God) have more children. This appears to be a constant across cultures and religious lines.

This fact will change the face of society at home and around the world. In the United States, high Mormon birthrates and low Jewish birthrates mean that there will soon be more Mormons than Jews in America -- a startling development. In Europe, falling birthrates among secularized couples must be placed alongside the much higher average birthrates of Muslim couples. Europe, Gottlieb observes, will inevitably become more religious in years ahead. But the religion that is on the ascent is Islam.

Interestingly, these patterns play out within denominations and religious families as well. More liberal Jews tend to under-reproduce, but the Orthodox reproduce at much higher rates. Evangelical birthrates outstrip those of more liberal Protestants. Traditionalist Roman Catholics are far more likely to have large families than is the case with more liberal Catholics.

The differential in birthrates can lead to fundamental changes within societies. In Israel, the "Ultra-Orthodox" reproduce at much higher rates than the general population. Thus, Gottlieb reports that by 2025 the Ultra-Orthodox will account for "at least a quarter of Israel's population of under-17s." That spells big changes for the nation.

Gottlieb asks the big question: Does having a big family make you more "religious," or does being more "religious" make you more likely to have more children?

In the end, Gottlieb seems to favor the first option. He cites the work of Mary Eberstadt of the Hoover Institution and argues that the experience of having children makes parents more concerned with spiritual matters and, in essence, more conservative in theology.

I would argue that this argument could just as easily be reversed. From a Christian perspective, it is easy to see how the belief that children are gifts from God would lead believers to have more rather than less children on average.

In any event, Gottlieb's article serves as a powerful reminder that theology matters. Just look at the fertility factor.

________________________

We discussed this article Tuesday on The Albert Mohler Program [listen here].

NPR's "Talk of the Nation" -- The Real Issues in the Newsweek Debate

Posted: Tuesday, December 16, 2008 at 4:35 pm ET

The controversy over the recent Newsweek cover story, "A Religious Case for Gay Marriage," continues. See here for my initial analysis of Miller's article.

I appeared on National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation" program yesterday, along with Lisa Miller, Newsweek's religion editor and author of the cover story.

The interview can be heard here. I appreciate Lisa Miller's candid acknowledgment of the fact that the November 4 passage of Proposition 8 in California had just about everything to do with the timing of the story. Beyond that, I appreciated her explanation of her argument for same-sex marriage. In essence, her dichotomy between those who see the Bible as a document with a "living" interpretation and those who see it as a binding document gets to the heart of the issue. As much as no evangelical I know would ever accept the dichotomy framed this way, she does explain her own perspective well. She believes the Bible contains "universal themes" that should be preserved, but no binding rules that are to be obeyed.

That does clarify the issue. Her understanding of biblical authority (if you can even call it that) allows her to deny the truth status of passages she prefers to disregard.

How to Use a Study Bible

Posted: Monday, December 15, 2008 at 6:20 am ET

One of the most memorable purchases I made as a teenager was The Thompson Chain-Reference Bible in its original King James Version edition, complete with blue leather cover. I still have it, of course, though it now finds itself surrounded by a host of other Bibles on the shelf nearest to my desk. That study Bible opened the Word of God to me in a whole new way, helping me to make connections in the text and to see how subjects and themes run throughout the Bible.

That was my introduction to a study Bible. The chain-reference notes in that Bible took me throughout the Scriptures, reading text alongside text. I recognized this as a great improvement on Bibles that contained only a minimal index and a few maps in the back.

Today, there are several significant study Bibles, ranging from the most minimal, offering only cross-references, to others that offer the equivalent of several hundred pages of supplemental helps.

How should a study Bible be used?

1. Read the text of the Bible first. Meditate upon the text and read it with care. Apply your own knowledge of the Bible in order to understand the particular text within its context and place in the biblical story-line. Consider and note other texts that come to your mind as directly related to this text. Read the text with full attention and conviction.

2. Look carefully at the cross-references that the study Bible links to the text you are reading. Do not look only to the citations, but read the actual passages. This assistance is still the main contribution of a study Bible -- making related and parallel passages more accessible. A first principle of interpreting the Bible is to interpret the Bible by the Bible. In other words, to allow the Bible to interpret itself text by text.

3. As a third step, take full advantage of the notes, articles, and other helps printed alongside the text. In some cases, short articles will help in understanding contested issues or matters that might otherwise require a Bible dictionary or encyclopedia. Where appropriate, maps can be very useful, along with tables of measurement and similar points of reference. The very best of the study Bibles will also offer some level of commentary within the notes.

Of course, it is the Bible itself that is inspired, inerrant, and infallible -- not the study materials included in study Bibles. Therefore, judge the notes by the biblical text, and never the other way around. Where possible, use more than one study Bible in order to maximize this learning process.

I am often asked for recommended Bible translations and study Bibles, so I offer this list in the hope that some will find it helpful. For the sake of simplicity I will recommend three excellent study Bibles representing the three translations I most eagerly commend.

The ESV Study Bible -- This long-awaited study Bible redefines the category in terms of its sheer heft. Its 2750 pages (plus maps) represents a massive resource for personal Bible study. Based on the English Standard Version [ESV] of the Bible, this is a truly worthy contribution to the world of study Bibles. Under the direction of General Editor Wayne Grudem of Phoenix Seminary, the scholars who wrote and edited this study Bible have blended practical insights with keen theological reflection. The introductions to each book are well done, as is the pleasing and useful layout of the text and materials. This new study Bible will be warmly welcomed by those who pray to see more Christians grow in understanding the Bible. This is a study Bible for the serious Bible student and will serve any Bible reader well.

The MacArthur Study Bible -- This well-known study Bible flows from the preaching and teaching ministry of Dr. John MacArthur, one of the most respected expositors of our era. I find this study Bible consistently helpful. Dr. MacArthur's clarity and the simplicity of his explanations make this study Bible accessible to anyone, while the preacher or Bible teacher will find great usefulness as well. One key feature of this study Bible are his notes on the texts, especially the Old Testament, on which Dr. MacArthur has not yet written commentary in other forms. The MacArthur Study Bible, first released in the New King James Version [NKJV] of the Bible, is now (gladly) available in the New American Standard Bible [NASB] version.

The Apologetics Study Bible -- This unique project is a study Bible that devotes particular attention to the apologetic issues that are confronted within the Biblical text. Under the general editorship of Dr. Ted Cabal of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, a team of scholars contributed, not only cross-references and the usual helps found in study Bibles, but also short articles on issues of current concern. The Apologetics Study Bible is based on the Holman Christian Standard Bible, another very trustworthy translation. I was honored to write one of the articles in this study Bible, and I commend it especially as a wonderful resource for students at the high school, college, and university levels. Those on the front lines of the apologetic confrontation will find great help here.

There are other worthy study Bibles, but these are the three I most heartily recommend. Any of these would make wonderful gifts at Christmas or any time of the year.

As One With Authority

Posted: Friday, December 12, 2008 at 6:30 am ET

In 1971, just six years after being invited to teach New Testament and preaching at the Graduate Seminary of Phillips University, Fred Craddock put his thoughts on preaching into a book. That book, As One Without Authority, launched something of a revolution in preaching. Craddock proposed that preaching was on trial in the contemporary church, and that it was fast becoming an anachronism.

He reflected that the church might "celebrate the memory of preaching in ways appropriate to her gratitude and to affix plaques on old pulpits as an aid to those who tour the churches." Yet, he warned, "the church cannot live on the thin diet of fond memories."

Why did Craddock see such disaster for the pulpit? Among other contributing factors, Craddock cited "the loss of certainty and the increase in tentativeness on the part of the preacher."

As he explained:

Rarely, if ever, in the history of the church have so many firm periods slumped into commas and so many triumphant exclamation marks curled into question marks. Those who speak with strong conviction on a topic are suspected of the heresy of premature finality. Permanent temples are to be abandoned as houses of idolatry; the true people of God are in tents again. It is the age of journalistic theology; even the Bible is out in paperback.

The result:

As a rule, younger ministers are keenly aware of the factors discussed above, and their preaching reflects it. Their predecessors ascended the pulpit to speak of the eternal certainties, truths etched forever in the granite of absolute reality, matters framed for proclamation, not for discussion. But where have all the absolutes gone? The old thunderbolts rust in the attic while the minister tries to lead his people through the morass of relativities and proximate possibilities, and the difficulties involved in finding and articulating a faith are not the congregation's alone; they are the minister's as well. How can he preach with a changing mind? How can he, facing new situations by the hour, speak the approximate word? He wants to speak and yet he needs more time for more certainty before speaking. His is often the misery of one who is always pregnant but never ready to give birth.

Craddock's eloquent way of describing this looming disaster in the pulpit still impresses. Periods turned to commas and exclamation points curled into question marks; thunderbolts left in the attic as the preacher suffers as one pregnant but never able to give birth. This is an eloquent warning, but it is a seductive eloquence.

Professor Craddock's warning retains the ring of the contemporary almost four decades after it was sounded. His description of the pulpit's problem remains cogent and even prophetic when we observe the emaciated state of preaching in far too many churches. The last thing one expects to hear from many pulpits is a thunderbolt.

The title of Craddock's book says it all -- As One Without Authority. The biblical reference is all too clear. In Matthew 7:28-29 we read: "And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes."

Thus concludes the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew has just taken us through the Sermon and we have heard Jesus set forth a vision of life in the Kingdom of God that transcends our moral imagination and explodes our theological comforts. We thought we knew what God required of us. No murder and no adultery, for example. But Jesus now demands no anger and no lust. "You have heard it was said," he begins, "but I say to you," he concludes.

Jesus refused to act like an argumentative theologian or a speculative moralist. He rejected rabbinical reasoning and moral casuistry. He warns of hell and commands that we love our enemies. He warns us not to trust our bank accounts or retirement plans but to lay up treasures in heaven. He reminds us that we cannot add a day to our lives nor an inch to our height, but assures us that our heavenly Father will clothe us in more glory than the lilies of the field and care for us even more than he cares for the birds of the air.

He tells us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and promises that all these things will be added to us. We are instructed to judge a tree by its fruit, even as we shall be judged. We are to build our house upon a rock and not upon the sand, for the house on the rock stands while the house on the sand falls, "and great was the fall of it."

Jesus has turned our world upside down. The ones we thought were blessed are now cursed, and the ones we saw as cursed are promised to be blessed. We hear Jesus warn that some who sure look like prophets are false, and hear him say that his judgment will be definitive -- "I never knew you."

Then we hear from the crowd: "And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes."

The radical nature of Jesus' ministry and teaching is on full display here -- and it is all established upon his own authority. When Jesus teaches, he does not cite human authorities, enter into irrelevant debates, or cushion his words. He speaks on his own authority. He will make that authority clear by healing the sick, casting our demons, staring down the religious authorities, and, most clearly, by forgiving sins. At the end of Matthew's gospel, he will announce that all authority in heaven and on earth has been granted him, and he will send his disciples out into the world as ambassadors of the Gospel.

This is all about authority. There would be no Gospel but for the display of this authority. There would be no church, no salvation, no forgiveness of sins, no hope.

Matthew tells us that the crowds were astonished at his teaching -- astonished. They had never seen or heard anything like this. Every teacher they had ever heard cited other teachers as authorities. Their teachers hemmed and hawed, proposed and retracted, pitted one interpretation against another, and left themselves room for qualification.

The crowds recognized that Jesus teaches with an authority that is unprecedented and singular. He was teaching "as one who had authority, and not as their scribes."

The scribes were the licensed teachers of the law. They interpreted the law by investigating precedent and tradition. Their rulings were approximate and carefully hedged. Nothing was conclusive. Tradition was placed upon tradition; interpretation laid alongside interpretation.

Jesus has already told the crowd that their righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees. Now, the crowd sees that the scribes' authority is also just not enough. Once they have heard Jesus, they will never again listen to one without authority -- nor should they.

The situation Fred Craddock described still defines far too many pulpits today. His prescription was inductive preaching -- preaching that leaves the big questions unanswered; that lets the congregation come to its own conclusion. This is not the method of Jesus. Jesus uses induction in his teaching, but he never leaves the big questions unanswered, nor can we. He speaks as God. We speak as His preachers.

The preacher's authority is a delegated authority, but a real authority. We are assigned the task of feeding the flock of God, of teaching the church, of preaching the Word. We do not speak as one who possesses authority, but as one who is called to serve the church by proclaiming, expounding, applying, and declaring the Word of God. We are those who have been called to a task and set apart for mission; as vessels who hold a saving message even as earthen vessels hold water.

Our authority is not our own. We are called to the task of preaching the Bible, in season and out of season. We are rightly to divide the Word of truth, and to teach the infinite riches of the Word of God. There are no certainties without the authority of the Scripture. We have nothing but commas and question marks to offer if we lose confidence in the inerrant and infallible Word of God. There are no thunderbolts where the Word of God is subverted, mistrusted, or ignored.

The crowds were astonished when they heard Jesus, "for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes." Congregations are starving for the astonishment of hearing the preacher teach and preach on the authority of the Word of God. If there is a crisis in preaching, it is a crisis of confidence in the Word. If there is a road to recovery, it will be mapped by a return to biblical preaching.

Our hope and prayer is that you will go forth from here to fulfill a ministry of astonishment. To preach and teach and minister so that commas are turned back to periods, and question marks into exclamation points. Congregations long to have the thunderbolts brought down from the attic and loosed in their midst. They are starving for a word from God.

Go and astonish a church. Go and astonish the nations. Go and astonish sinners and saints alike. Go and astonish your generation. Go and astonish those who no longer even believe that they can be astonished.

Go and preach as one who has authority. Just remember always that the only true authority for ministry is biblical authority. May we always be mindful that the only authority that matters is God's authority, and that God's thunderbolts are what we must fear . . . and what we must seek.

If you go out and preach as one who has authority, you will be constantly amazed by what God does through the preaching of his Word. You will see those who hear you astonished -- and no one will be more astonished than yourself.

______________________________

This is a commencement address and charge to graduates of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, delivered December 12, 2008 in Alumni Chapel by R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President. Audio is available here.

Photo of pulpit in historic Miller Chapel, Princeton Theological Seminary, taken by R. Albert Mohler, Jr., October 31, 2008.

Do Natural Boundaries Tell Us Anything?

Posted: Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 6:45 am ET

A woman in India is reported now to be the "world's oldest mom," giving birth to a baby at age 70. Rajo Devi of Alewa, India gave birth to a baby girl last week. She, along with her 72 year-old husband, had been hoping for a baby for a half-century. The local media reported the event as a great scientific breakthrough as the aged couple beamed with their infant.

As The Hindustan Times reported, Dr. Anurag Bishnoi of National Fertility Centre at Bishnoi Hospital provided the In-Vitro Fertilization [IVF] technology and treatments that allowed the pregnancy and birth. Dr. Bishnoi explained that IVF is changing attitudes about infertility: IVF has revolutionized the way we looked at infertility. Infertility is no longer a social taboo or a divine curse. It can be treated scientifically."

Rajo Devi became pregnant using a technology that combined a donor egg from a younger woman with donor sperm from a younger man. The embryo was created in a laboratory and then transferred into her womb. Clearly, the entire process redefines reproduction and pregnancy.

A most interesting response to this story comes from William Saletan, who covers biomedical ethics at Slate.com:

If you think Devi's record will stand, I'll take that bet. There will be mothers at 71 and 72. It will be done because it can be done, and because doctors such as Bishnoi see themselves as liberators. They're not just defeating society's strictures. They're defeating nature's. What once seemed an unalterable curse can now be "treated scientifically."

But as the march of motherhood continues into life's eighth decade, it may begin to dawn on the liberators that natural and cultural constraints are two different things. The former are less arbitrary. Nature tends to shut down a woman's ability to bear offspring shortly before it starts shutting down her ability to raise them. Science can defy the first shutdown, but how long can it defy the second? If 70 isn't too old to become a mom or dad, what is?

Maybe, as we extend our reach in this area, we'll learn to control it. We'll stop seeing infertility as a binary struggle between cultural fatalism and scientific treatment. We'll see an ecology of procreation and parenting, with some boundaries worth respecting, even when we know how to defeat them.

Saletan, whose reports are always worth reading, introduces here a fascinating concept -- an "ecology of procreation." His analysis of likely future developments is hard to refute. Many doctors seem to be propelled by a desire to overcome any natural barrier and the desire for children produces a pool of prospective parents ready to pay for virtually any treatment that might offer hope.

Saletan asks the obvious question -- can prospective parents be too old to have children in an ethical, if not technological sense? Humans have not faced that question in previous generations, for the technologies were both unavailable and generally unimaginable.

But, that was then and this is now. The reality is that this aged couple is now a set of parents to a newborn infant. The father has already exceeded the life expectancy for a man of his generation in India and the mother will be 80 when the baby reaches age 10. Needless to say, this child is not likely to be raised, in any normal sense, by these parents.

Saletan calls for an end to the "binary" approach of pitting "cultural fatalism" against technological advances. This is a good argument, so far as it goes. His concept of an "ecology of procreation" is interesting as well. He seems to hope for the recognition of "some boundaries worth respecting, even when we know how to defeat them."

That is where his argument ends, at least for now. It would be most interesting to see Mr. Saletan provide a proposed structure for this "ecology of procreation." We should note that his "binary" issues are posed as "cultural fatalism" and "scientific treatment." Missing from this equation is a notion of natural boundaries -- the acknowledgment that our bodies reveal a set of limitations that are, at the very least, morally instructive.

Saletan seems to glimpse this when he reflects: "Nature tends to shut down a woman's ability to bear offspring shortly before it starts shutting down her ability to raise them. Science can defy the first shutdown, but how long can it defy the second?"

The Christian worldview provides important instruction here. Our bodies are not biological accidents, but the creation of a loving God. Our bodies reveal his intention -- both in the structures for procreation and the process of aging. There is every good reason to believe that the Creator intended for his human creatures to reproduce when our bodies favor reproduction. There is also every good reason to believe that the Creator did not intend for us to reproduce well beyond these years.

The sheer artificiality of this situation calls the entire enterprise into question. The egg was not from this "mother" and the sperm was not from this "father" and the embryo came to life in a laboratory before it was transferred into this aged woman's womb. Neither parent can expect to see this child grow to anything like adulthood. Do we really expect these parents to approximate the energy demanded of parents?

The Bible does not speak directly to issues of reproductive technology like IVF and aged parents, but the biblical worldview does reveal the glory of God in our embodiment and both the capacities and the limitations that we are given in being human -- and in being part of sinful humanity bearing in our bodies the full evidence of sin. In this biblical concept of embodiment we find grounding for "boundaries worth respecting."

This is where we should start thinking about an "ecology of procreation." The news out of India might well prompt us to think carefully -- and to think fast.