Tim Keller on Christian Consistency

Tuesday March 26th 2013 Byron Reply

It’s been a long time. I mean, a very long time. I offer no excuses, though I have been busy (currently rehearsing for the role of Daddy Warbucks in “Annie”; spent a week in Nigeria and another in Mexico since last post; very busy at work, other trips, you name it). It is what it is. I still owe my friend Ken an answer and maybe a few others of you as well. I need to get back to this; maybe after Annie is over, I can do so with regularity.

For now, though, I just read a piece that needs to be read by those who profess to be Christians, in order to be able to answer those who suggest that Christians pick and choose from the Old Testament, that in the current debates regarding homosexuality, for instance, we are unfairly taking some passages from the Law and ignoring others. And most of us aren’t as prepared as we ought to be to answer this charge.

Thankfully, Tim Keller has given a robust response to this challenge. Take the time to read it here:

Old Testament Law and the Charge of Inconsistency

Faith and Politics: A Beginning Salvo

Wednesday November 28th 2012 Byron 3 comments

I have been challenged by a friend to be a bit clearer in the linkage between my faith and what may be called, for lack of a better term, my political convictions. Whether or not my friend’s criticisms are all valid, it remains a productive line of thinking for me to sketch out the basics of my fundamental beliefs, and then to delineate how I arrive at the particular outworkings of faith that I do.

I believe that the Bible is without error in the original writings, meaning that God spoke truth in all that He said. I’m not here going to get into arguments for that; it is what I, with good warrant, I am convinced, believe, and I will only add that the professing Christian who believes the Bible to contain errors is forced into some conundrums to which there is, indeed can be, no good answer. If the Bible is, as I believe, “God-breathed” and thus without error as God breathed it, we must believe that it is authoritative for our belief and practice.

There are several things that the Bible teaches that I take as a basis for my political understanding. First, I believe that life is a gift from God, that man is created in God’s image, but by nature and by choice has fallen into sin, in such a way and to such a degree that sin has warped every single facet of man’s character; “if sin were blue, I’d be some shade of blue all over”. Sin infects men as individuals, and individuals make up society and its structures, including human government.

This leads to a second belief, that God instituted human government as an agent to do good. Convinced as I am (and I’ll get to this momentarily) that most governments, including the U.S. government, are far too large, I nonetheless maintain the legitimacy of government as an institution, and further affirm that “the powers that be are ordained of God”. Sometimes—I will resist pontificating here—God raises up those in authority as a part of His judgment of a people. But to whatever end, government is God’s plan, and the rulers that rise up are themselves raised up by God.

A third fundamental building block of my political thinking is that in principle, individual freedom is a good. God does not coerce, nor does he urge his people to coerce others into belief, for instance. Bondage is regularly presented in Scripture as evidence of God’s judgment; freedom as a universal good—bounded politically by the appropriate role of government, etc., of course—is the witness of both testaments. From the exodus of God’s people from Egypt to the freedom that the believer has in Christ, freedom is seen as a good. I maintain that a universal constant can be derived from this.

Fourthly, and probably flowing more from the second point than the third, the rule of law is to be respected. This “cuts both ways”: the citizen is to abide by the laws of the land, breaking human law at his own peril. The government—and this is critical—is also bound by the law, and does not have the prerogative to change laws without due process nor to simply ignore them; indeed, to do either of these is to act immorally, to deal dishonestly with the governed.

If I thought a little longer and a little harder, I might be able to offer another plank or two that rises to the level of these four; in fact, I’d offer to any of my readers the opportunity to suggest other planks that rise to this level, though my guess is that most others would be in some way subsets of these four. I begin with these thoughts as a starting point—but I don’t plan to stop here (not that you thought I would, right?). I plan to end–one day–with what I hope to be a reasonably-robust apologetic for what I’d call a “libertarian conservative” approach to politics. Wish me luck…

On Not Becoming “That Guy”

Wednesday November 14th 2012 Byron 4 comments

OK, here’s the straight skinny: at 50+ years of age, and after having been presented numerous times with money-making opportunities of a “Direct Sales Marketing”, or “Multi-level Marketing” perspective, my wife and I have decided to pursue an opportunity. Before I tell you what we’re doing–which will come in a later post–let me first tell you the two things that are important to me in reaching a decision of this nature.

First, the product that we sell must be one in which we fully believe; i.e., it must work, deliver results, and be a product I can wholeheartedly endorse. This has been a problem with some of the opportunities we’ve been approached about: the products offered either were not outstanding products, or they were great products, but not any better than alternative products (which often could be had at a cheaper price!). We have found such a product, one which we have personally tested on three family members, and our results have been pretty impressive. Suffice it to say that Practically-Perfect Daughter, soon to be 18, has decided that when she turns that age, she is going to become a part of our team, because of what this product has done for her. It works–and that’s critical.

But the second issue is equally as important, if not more so: I am not ever going to become “that guy”. You know who I’m talking about: he’s the guy that, when you see him coming, you find a way to turn around and walk the other way, or you duck for cover. Why? Because he sees you as a mark, as someone he will (in a fake-sincere way) try to bring around to buying his product. And he bugs you about it to the point that you just wish he’d go away. Now…it’s altogether possible that some of you wish I’d go away already, but that’s a different matter. I just will not become that guy. I may offer you an opportunity to get involved–and I may not. But I promise that I am going to be the same guy I’ve always been, and I will not treat anyone as a mark.

I will post more about this product later; we just signed up. When I say “I will post more”, that means, in all likelihood, one more post–because I’m not going to become “that guy”.

The Moral Question: “Sez Who?”

The late Christopher Hitchens, a brilliant man and wordsmith par excellence, was nonetheless a militant atheist–but not at his logical best when engaging the subject, imbued with an acerbic tongue and flaming rhetoric, but at some points not with altogether cogent reasoning. He used to love to offer a challenge to theists, a challenge that I found singularly unimpressive. He “challenged” us with this question (I paraphrase, but I’m getting the clear gist): “name one moral act you (Christians) might do in the name of your God that I cannot do in the name of atheism.” To which the answer, of course, is two-fold: one, there is none (you “win”, Chris), and two, Christian faith makes no such claim in the first place–but of course, this point, such as it is, is of little significance, and this for a variety of reasons. One, it’s not about “moral acts” or “moral living”. Two, as I said, this is not a claim theists (of any understanding) would ever make. But three, there is a question that Hitchens couldn’t answer, and that is this: why should anyone act in a “moral” way in the first place? I won’t even get into the source of the very definition of morality…but back to my question, and I’ll put it another way: since we cannot speak of “morality” as a code defined from individual to individual–but rather as a more-or-less universal norm by which to gauge the actions, not only of oneself but others–by what authority can Mr. Hitchens compel any other person to act in accord with his personal definition of “morality”? Morality isn’t about “could”, but about “should”; whereas Hitchens wanted to talk about what he as an atheist could do, we must speak in terms of what all people should do.

And that conversation leads to the reasoning found in this excellent article:

“‘Who Sez?’ The Place of God in Moral Philosophy”

As this article makes clear, those who would attempt to craft a morality on a basis other than some Lawgiver (Whom we Christians believe to be God) will ultimately founder on the rocks of “sez who?”

In Defense of One-Issue Voters

Tuesday October 2nd 2012 Byron 13 comments

A friend of mine who blogs recently wrote a post in which he asked if being “pro-life” entailed more than a simple opposition to abortion (he implied that it does); I suggested in my response that to add a lot of other issues (environment, military buildup, gun control, etc.) to the meaning of “pro-life” is a mistake in that it morphs the definition beyond either recognition or use. He then responded that his intent wasn’t necessarily to do that, but to argue that, as evangelicals, we ought not simply be “one-issue voters”. To which I responded that I am–and am not–a one-issue (actually, two-issue) voter. Allow me to explain, and then defend, my position.

I am a two-issue voter in this sense: I will not support a candidate who is not, at the very least, “largely” pro-life. I don’t believe that an exception ought to be made in cases of incest or rape, though I do in the case of the life of the mother. I can vote–have voted–for people who would include rape and incest in their exceptions. Further, I will not support a candidate who believes in redefining marriage in any way beyond one-man/one-woman. Now, holding these positions becomes potentially more difficult if one is wedded to the notion–and I am not–that one may only pull the lever for a candidate with an “R” or a “D” after his/her name.

Now, if more than one candidate passes those two tests, we can look at other things; sadly, today it seems as though we only have such choices in primaries, as the Democrat Party has by and large (save for a few dwindling Blue Dogs) adopted pro-choice and, increasingly, pro-gay-marriage positions. That’s the America in which we live today.

I feel pretty certain that my friend disagrees with my position, and he seems to be in the vanguard of a generation of young evangelicals who feel the same way. And I must wholeheartedly object, and so herewith I offer a defense of the concept of the “one- (or two-) issue voter”. To do so, I shall build, as I am wont to do, a hypothetical case.

Candidate J is a winsome politician who happens to believe in most of the things I do. I thrill at his economic prowess and plans to fix the economy. He is a family man with several kids. He holds all the right social positions…well, all the right social positions save one. He believes that the solution to illegal immigration is to shoot all illegals on sight. Nah, let’s make it stronger: he believes that a whole class of people are second-rate citizens and ought to be exterminated. But his environmental policy is tops! And he has a plan to deal with health care that is foolproof! And he is committed to appointing justices to the Supreme Court who…

Get my point? Would I vote for Candidate J, a person with everything right…except the fact that he condones genocide? Ummmm…duh. Would this make me a “one-issue voter”? I suppose it would. And I would be entirely justified in being a “one-issue voter” if that one issue were of the nature of genocide, would my readers not agree?

And so we go back to the future and the question at hand: is it right to be a “one-issue voter” when it comes to abortion? Well, doesn’t the answer to that hinge on one’s perception of the seriousness of that one issue? Further, do we really believe that the person in the womb is just that, a person? And if people in the womb, having been denied equal protection under the law, are being systematically eliminated in a modern-day American holocaust to the tune of well over 1 million abortions being committed each year, then are we well-justified in saying that we cannot in good conscience ever be party to that epidemic of genocide?

And so with those understandings in place, can I be a “one-issue voter”? A better question for evangelicals, to me, is “how can you not?”