coming next--marriage as oppression

There are two things, outside of death and taxes, that we may be sure of.

1. Those who want to loosen morality will scoff at the notion of a slippery slope.
2. Those same people will slide further down the slippery slope, and try to take others with them.

What with homosexual practices having reached a large degree of de facto acceptance, there seems to be a bit of a transition to other concerns. For example, here's something from Tony Jones' blog. The first part of the quote is in italics, because it's taken from something Jones himself is quoting from, so it's not Jones' own words.

What’s a Christian to Do with…Dan Savage?

Savage believes monogamy is right for many couples. But he believes that our discourse about it, and about sexuality more generally, is dishonest. Some people need more than one partner, he writes, just as some people need flirting, others need to be whipped, others need lovers of both sexes. We can’t help our urges, and we should not lie to our partners about them. In some marriages, talking honestly about our needs will forestall or obviate affairs; in other marriages, the conversation may lead to an affair, but with permission. In both cases, honesty is the best policy.

Savage’s sexual ethic is primarily one of realism: human beings are animals who, until very recently, procreated like animals. It is evolutionarily dishonest to demand monogamy of a species predisposed against it. It’s not impossible to be monogamous, he says, but it is super difficult, and you’ll be more likely to succeed if your partner is GGG.

I don’t know if Savage’s ethic jibes with a biblical, Christian view of sexuality. But I do know a few things: 1) he’s a helluva lot more realistic about sex than most Christians I’ve talked to about sex; 2) based on my experience on this blog and at the Wild Goose Festival, a lot of Christians really want to talk about sexuality; and 3) many Christians are ready for our conversations about sexuality to expand beyond “what to do with the gays,” and instead have a more fully-orbed dialogue about sexuality and human identity. I also know that, for the first time in my life I’ve met Christians who are in “open” marriages or are practicing polyamory — and I’m committed that my theological/ethical response to them be both Christian and pragmatic/realistic.

Strangely, that one paragraph above, about us being like animals, reminds me of something another emergent wrote.

Who decided that kids--or anybody else for that matter--are unable to abstain?

In a lot of settings, abstinence programs are laughed at. So are those campaigns in which students commit themselves not to have sex until they're married. Have you ever heard a news piece on the television or read a magazine article about one of them that didn't at least subtly mock the idea of "keeping yourself pure for marriage"? People who organize and promote these kinds of campaigns are often viewed as hopelessly naive messengers from a far-off land that simply doesn't exist anymore. The criticism of the "sex is for marriage" view is usually presented as the voice of realism. Are people actually capable of restraint?

But it's not realism. It's the voice of despair. It's the voice that asks, "Aren't we all really just animals?"
Rob Bell, sex god, p. 54

If only Rob Bell showed that much sense all the time. But Bell isn't the issue right now.

We can see how Savage is making an ever-so-slight case for marriage being just a bit oppressive, or at least that's what Jones is saying about him. It's ok to be unfaithful, so long as your spouse knows about it. Now, if the spouse is less than ok with such things, well, who knows. But monogamy is simply not for everyone, and being a postmodernist and emergent, Jones is all for the conversation going on.

My prediction--in about five years, if not sooner, this will be Jones' new pet sexual project, that things like open marriages and polyamory should be accepted and celebrated in the church, that such people should be allowed into positions of authority in the church, and of course all those who oppose are simply haters who must be silenced.

Sure, you can have your lonely little spouse, but don't you dare force others to abide by your morals.

And here's another little nudge along that line, at Sojo.

What’s in a Name?

Our current practice in the U.S. actually reflects the earlier legal reality of coverture: In the process of the “two becoming one flesh,” the wife lost her rights to property, legal representation in court, and even her public identity as her husband became the sole representative for the family. This combination of identities (or, rather, the wife becoming lost in her husband’s identity) led to wives taking their husbands’ last names. For me, losing my surname would have represented silent assent to this oppressive practice.

That's right, ladies, taking your husband's name is oppression. Sure, she sugar-coats it a bit over the next few paragraphs, but she clearly calls a wife taking her husband's name an oppressive practice.

These are small nudges against marriage, but I won't be a bit surprised if it continues.

going without a map

A few weeks ago, I had to make a bit of trip out-of-state. It was to a place I had not been before, and while I had a general idea of how to get there, I still needed some directions in order to reach the city, and even more to find the place in the city I needed to go to.

Now, let's test our imagination, shall we? Let's suppose that as I was preparing to leave for this trip, I pulled out of my driveway and simply decided to go any which way I wanted. If I cam to a turn in the road, I went whichever direction I though seemed ok, basiced on strictly subjective reasons. If I happened to make it to a highway or interstate, I got if at whatever exit I wanted. I consulted no map, disregarded all road sign, didn't care about directions.

What would be the odds that I would get to where I needed to go? Not being very exact, but I think the term "mathematically impossible" would be an accurate description of those odds.

Keeping that little fiction in mind, take a look at this.

Practice Precedes Doctrine

One thing that’s intriguing to note, and easy to lose sight of two millennia later, is that in the very earliest church, practice begat doctrine. That is, the early church didn’t convene theological conferences to debate the nature of the godhead and then spin out a practice of prayer.

Instead, it’s clear in the earliest Christian documents that the people prayed, and out of their experience of God’s nearness did they develop doctrinal beliefs regarding who God is and how God acts. That all changed, of course, by the dawn of the fourth century: as the Christian religion was afforded more freedom, church leaders rose up to fight heresies. Thereafter, the formation of doctrine seems to have had as much impact on the evolution of Christian practice as it had happened conversely in the earliest years.

Really? It's clear from those documents that this is how they did it?

Consider, for example, Peter's sermon at Pentacost. Taking Jones' words, one may be surprised to see very little about practice in that sermon. It's mostly about doctrine--Jesus fulfilled Scripture and prophecy, Jesus was crucified, God raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus is the Messiah. The only action Peter tells them to do is to repent and be baptized in His name.

In other words, doctrine preceded practice. It wasn't until there was a church and believers, people who believed in certain things, that there were discussions about certain things.

Those practices did not happen in some kind of spiritual or doctrinal vacuum, which seems to be what Jones is contending.

And how could it otherwise? Putting actions first is simply pragmatism--whatever works. Questions of right and wrong are shunted aside. If the church had not begun with doctrine, with for example belief in the Scriptures that they had (the Old Testament) and faith in a crucified and risn Christ, it would have stood for nothing.

I think that, if you look at what Jones believes, you'll see why he's so eager to put practice first. If he put doctrine first, if he put the things Scripture teaches first, he would not be able to believe the things he believes.

another emergent says he's smarter than God

I Don’t Believe in Demons

As I’ve been writing the posts exploring the possibility of Christian universalism, it’s become clear to me once again that I have a pretty different worldview from Jesus. Had I lived in his time, I’m quite sure that our worldviews would have been more similar, but a lot of water has passed over the dam since Jesus’ day, and it’s sometimes difficult to build a bridge back there.

I also — no surprise here — hold a different worldview than some of this blog’s readers. Like about demons, for instance. I mentioned in yesterday’s post that most of us would see schizophrenia where Jesus saw a legion of demons. That discomfited a couple readers, and caused a couple more to shout, “Heresy!”

It's always a little surprising, when Emergents raise their voices in support of heretical ideas, and then act all surprised when people call them heretics for it. One would think they would realize they are being heretics. At least if you're Spencer Burke, you acknowledge it and wallow in it.

But, back on topic. Jones is quite taken with the idea that Jesus was wrong! Oh, that poor ignorant Son of God. I'd hate to think what Jones thinks of the accounts of Satan himself tempting Jesus.

And one other little excerpt from the post.

What I’m not saying is that God could not work in this way. What I’m saying is that she doesn’t.

But don't worry, Mr. Jones. You may not believe in demons, but they sure do believe in you.

repeating myself

One really should make the effort of looking at what another has written before say that person has not written about something. To be fair, EP has reached the point where it is now 'not small', though it is probably rather miniscule compared with some other longer-running, more busy blogs. Still, a couple of hundred entries is still rather sizable. Simple because a book of about 300 pages is small compared to, say, War and Peace, doesn't mean it's not a rather substantial read.

Having said all that, here's a blast from the past (coming up soon, the Best of EP--you have been warned).

resistence is not futile

AAR Panel part 1-- roughly 57 minutes in

Tony Jones--When I spoke at the National Cathedral in May, at a conference around Diana's book, that they were nice enough to invite me to, the evening before I spoke, Marcus Borg spoke, and Marcus Borg for the umpteenth time was asked in the Q&A an old--I remember this so vividly--an old man came up to the microphone in the center aisle of the nave of the national cathedral, and said "Dr. Borg, what about the empty tomb?". And he said, probably for the umpteenth time, verbatim, this is what he said, "If I had to bet a dollar or my life, I would say the tomb was not empty, or there was no tomb." I was in the back, sitting around a circle with people my age who came from a mainline church in Wichita, and if you're a mainliner in Wichita, you're not really a mainliner in the way that people on the east coast think of mainliners, or people in Minnesota think of mainliners. In the fly-over territory, you don't get to be a liberal mainliner at a big mainline church in Wichita. You are a bit evangelical, even though you're a mainline church, because you're in Wichita. And they were extremely distressed by this response, and it got me to thinking, that emergents don't have a problem with paradox. And it seems to me, and this is the risky thing that I do in the book, I really think that Marcus Borg and John Piper, who's a right-wing baptist pastor in Minnesota, very five-point Calvinist reformed hyper-reformed guy, that they're basically doing the same thing. They're both looking for an air-tight Christianity. For Borg it's logical positivism, it doesn't make sense that God would upset the laws of physics and do things like resurrect people or have miracles or things like this, so let's do away with those things and make Christianity more believable. For Piper, it's a purely fideistic system, in which the laws of physics matter not at all, and what matter is you know what the Bible says and that's it. And so leads to Creation Science and leads to you know these kinds of interpretations of scripture of which we're all familiar. Those are both part of the modern enterprise, modern apologetics on the evangelical side is built on, and the modern ecumenical movement on the left side is built on it--looking for rock-solid indubitable foundations not to be questioned. And it's this search that emergents find no interest in. And so yes, indeed, the six questions that Scot talks about that he hears his students in evangelical university asking...

minute 1:06
Diane Butler Bass--I really, I just have to jump in real quick, and then we can go to larger questions, but Tony, if Marcus Borg was sitting here and had misquoted you, I would jump in and defend you. Marcus did indeed say exactly what you said, but then three minutes later, he said that "but that in no way undermines the confession of the early church that Jesus lives and Jesus is Lord" and so then he went on to say that he does indeed--I mean I remember how startling it was there in the great high alter of the national cathedral, we got this incredible faith statement, personal faith statement, from Marcus Borg, saying that he does indeed believe in that confession and that he makes that confession proudly with the early church, and so what he actually did was although the way that he got about it was perhaps logical positivism, he came to a place himself of incredible paradox, that he made a faith statement that in a way contradicts old style liberalism and he did it in front of a crowd of some 350 people. And so you both were actually working out of your point of tension or wanting to work out of a paradox its just that your paradoxes where in different places and I wasn't entirely sure that that you were--there were a couple of people who blogged about that as well, heard the second part of what Marcus said and I did hear it because I went downstairs and was attacked by somebody from the Institute of Religion and Democracy and they were going on about how you know this was just old style liberalism and it's the same old same old and on and on and on and I said "Did you just hear what Marcus Borg said upstairs, if you weren't listening, Marcus Borg just said that he believed in Jesus Christ." And he said "Oh yeah I heard that but it just doesn't matter"

I Corinthians 15
15:12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?
15:13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:
15:14 And if Christ be not risen, then [is] our preaching vain, and your faith [is] also vain.
15:15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.
15:16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:
15:17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith [is] vain; ye are yet in your sins.
15:18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.
15:19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
15:20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, [and] become the firstfruits of them that slept.

Romans 10
6. But the righteousness that is by faith says: "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?' " (that is, to bring Christ down)
7. "or 'Who will descend into the deep?' " (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).
8. But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming:
9. That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.
11. As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame."

So, here's the deal--Marcus Borg basically bets his life that Jesus did not really resurrect from the dead (even though Butler Bass says that "he does indeed believe in that confession", which I suppose means he's saying that he does believe in Christ's resurrection in some non-literal sense). Paul makes the resurrection central to our hope in Christ and our salvation. And Paul leaves no doubt that "now is Christ risen from the dead", and not in some metaphorical of 'spiritual' sense.

Borg tells us that it is only in this life that we have some kind of hope in some kind of still-dead Christ. Butler Bass' contention that Borg believes in Jesus Christ is wrong. He may have constructed some imaginary or mythological "jesus christ" in his own mind, much like how cults take the name Jesus Christ and add and take away from what the Bible says about Him, but the "jesus christ" Borg believes in is not the one in the Bible, and the person from the Institute of Religion and Democracy was right to say that what Borg said didn't matter.

For my part, I think I'll stick with Paul. After all, he actually met the risen Christ on the Damascus road. Plus his writings are scripture and true, while Borg is just, well, another crank.

Sorry, but Borg will not assimilate me.

Consider what's being said in the emergent debate linked to above.

Marcus Borg claims that "If I had to bet a dollar or my life, I would say the tomb was not empty, or there was no tomb."

For a summary of Borg's views on what he calls the pre-Easter and post-Easter Jesus', look here.

Despite this, Borg wants to also say that "but that in no way undermines the confession of the early church that Jesus lives and Jesus is Lord".

This is in an emergent debate, and this statement is made by the emergent Diane Butler-Bass.

Butler-Basse claims to have said to someone "Did you just hear what Marcus Borg said upstairs, if you weren't listening, Marcus Borg just said that he believed in Jesus Christ."

So, to the emergent Butler-Basse, Borg's claim that the Jesus of the Bible is largely a mythical figure made up by the early church, the Jesus was really only a man, does not in any way contradict the statement the Jesus lives and Jesus is Lord.

If the person who has been disrupting this site wishes to repudiate Butler-Basse's claim, and say that Borg's statement is in direct contradiction to scripture and has no place in emergent, than he may do so. If he does not, than he is merely showing that any claims of the part of emergent that they believe in the lordship of Christ is simply them playing with words and ideas, trying to disguise their real intention behind religious words.

jones is so right, and so wrong

Why It Matters that Jesus REALLY Rose

One of the strangest things about Tony Jones is that, at least in the emergent circles he runs in, he seems to be the most "right", in more ways than one. But then, he's also the one who's most publicly come out in support of the wrong, especially in regards to so-called sexual lifestyles.

In the blog entry linked to above, he makes one of the better arguments for the reality of Jesus' life and death and resurrection.

While the Jesus Seminar infamously rejected the miracles as mythological fables, I think it's important that Jesus healed real people of real maladies. The inauguration of a new age would be rather impotant if Jesus wasn't able to heal an actual, physical, historical woman who had suffered from non-stop mentrual flow for years, thus disqualifying her from Temple worship. Yes, she was real, and her blood was real, and her healing really meant that she could join with God's people and experience temple worship.

Why is that important? Because I'm a real person. Because the people to whom I have ministered in Jesus' name are real persons. We're not hypotheses, fables, or legends. And we need real healing, all of us. While our realities may be largely socially constructed, we have real DNA, real physical, material properties.

Thus, since the resurrection of Jesus is his defeat of death, evil, and grief, it's important to me that it really happened. Without a resurrected Jesus, Christianity is impotent. (Exhibit A: liberal Christianity) And I don't mean a Jesus who was "resurrected" in the Disciples' hearts, and in my heart. I mean a real resurrection in the space-time continuum by a physical being known as Jesus of Nazareth, as 99.99% of Christians for the last two milennia have believed.

Despite the pomo-creep into his thinking here, it's actually pretty good. He mentions nothing about the Bible's own accounts of the resurrection and how important it is, as Paul wrote "If Christ is not raised, our hope is in vain, we are still in our sins, and are of all people most miserable". Still, kudos to the good try for Jones.

But literally bookending this statement of his, he tries to tie himself in knots.

And I understand where they're coming from, because I don't feel the same way about the historic facticity of Adam and Eve, the Tower of Babel, Jonah living in the belly of a fish, or Job's family and cattle being wiped out by God...

So, here's my pledge: I'm going to keep theologizing about ways to affirm historic, orthodox Christianity while undermining the historic Christian perspectives on social issues like slavery, the role of women, and homosexual rights.

It would be amusing, if it weren't so sad.

Jones has bought into the liberal definition of love, which isn't love at all--call it permissiveness, relativism, tolerance, but never call it by the noble name of love. Should he ever see that the most unloving thing he can do is to encourage people in their sinful lifestyles, he will have made a great step forward. Other men may say he is unloving if he should do so, but that is not important.

how to make a puppet Paul the Apostle

On his blog, Tony Jones has continued his debate on original sin.

One thing he tried to do was to post some kind of new translation of Romans 5, which is one place where Paul talks about how Adam's sin effected the rest of us. The translation was done by a Brian (likely not McLaren).

But at least at the moment, it looks like the translation of another chapter in Romans is up, likely chapter 14.

This isn't about that mistake itself, such things happens; rather, it's about the translation. Here is a link to it, and some snippets.

A New Translation of Romans 5

Welcome those who are traditional in faith, those who still believe in original sin, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions. Emergent Christians believe in deconstructing all theologies, while the Traditional Christians only deconstruct certain theologies. Those who deconstruct must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who deconstruct; for God has welcomed them. Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another? It is before their own God that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for God is able to make them stand.

I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that no theology is un-deconstructible in itself; but it is un-deconstructiblble for anyone who thinks it's un-deconstructible. If your brother or sister is being injured by the theology you deconstruct, you are no longer walking in love. Do not let the theology that you deconstruct cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died. So do not let your good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not about certain theologies or particular dogma but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

The Emergent Christians, who are progressive in faith, ought to put up with the stagnation of the Traditional Christians, and not to please ourselves

And here's the real thing.

Romans 14 (New International Version)

1Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. 2One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. 4Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

14As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food[b] is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. 15If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. 16Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. 17For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 18because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.

I tried to match up the Bible verses with the "translation" at the first. It was a bit tricky.

So, let's see...

Brian equates Paul's words about eating to this undefined thing called deconstruction. Paul was talking about a real issue concerning a real thing. Brian's making him talk about something that no one has much of an idea what it is.

Brian's Paul says that "the kingdom of God is not about certain theologies or particular dogma". Perhaps his Paul forgot how much he writes about theologies and dogmas in other places. Perhaps as well the real Paul didn't see what one ate as being near as important as what one believed.

And, in a typical instance of emergent arrogance, Brian's Paul calls traditional Christians "stagnant", which kind of puts paid to all the "nice" things he had his Paul say before.

In fact, this whole things can be set on a shelf about being a shining example of emergent arrogance. I wouldn't even take it seriously, except that Jones seems to think it's somehow serious.

is this emergent's next stop?

A few weeks ago on his blog, emergent Tony Jones came out saying that the church should approve and recognize glbt lifestyles.

I wonder if this will be where emergents are going to go next?

The Other Side of Disgust

Daniel Bergner isn’t the devil’s advocate, but he is a pervert’s apologist. This author and contributor to the New York Times Magazine has a new book titled “The Other Side of Desire” which argues it is unfair to judge bizarre, harmful, and disgusting sexual attractions as bizarre, harmful, and disgusting.


Bergner’s book focuses on four real-life fetishists: a husband with a secret foot fetish, a man with an attraction to amputees, a vicious female sadist, and a man who longs for sex with his 12-year-old stepdaughter. Book reviews and interviews suggest he hasn’t written a book to judge the fetishists, but rather to judge the society that would rush to condemn their drives and behaviors.

What these people call “moral ambiguity” leads inexorably to moral paralysis. Its champions in our popular culture aren’t trying to redefine the boundaries as much as destroy them. They may look like playful pundits who just want to talk graphically about sex for fun and profit. But they’re constructing a funhouse with mirrors so distorted that the people inside will be lost without any guideposts for an escape.


The commercial possibilities for Bergner’s exploitation of perversion may be never-ending. Gottlieb concluded: “On one level, this book has all the elements of a top-rated HBO series – provocatively graphic sex, humorous dialogue, and moral ambiguity.”

The problem for those like Jones now is--where do they draw the line, and why? As they have abandoned biblical absolutes, where do they say "This crosses the line"? And what if someone wants to cross that line?

I doubt it will be long before emergents start talking about "stories" of those who practice those kinds of sexual perversions, throwing in words like "oppressions" and "misunderstanding", claiming those have been "judged" and "condemned" and need rather to be "heard" in the midst of the pomo/emergent "conversation", essentially spinning them as the victims and those who says practices are sick and wrong as being "oppressors" simply interested in "power".

ok, who DIDN'T see this coming?

How I Went from There to Here: Same Sex Marriage Blogalogue

With that in mind, I always responded, "I'm holding that issue in abeyance. I haven't made up my mind yet, and I'm in no hurry to. Homosexuality," I would say, "I one issue that I don't want to get wrong."

And yet, all the time I could feel myself drifting toward acceptance that gay persons are fully human persons and should be afforded all of the cultural and ecclesial benefits that I am. ("Aha!" my critics will laugh derisively, "I knew he and his ilk were on a continuous leftward slide!")

In any case, I now believe that GLBTQ can live lives in accord with biblical Christianity (at least as much as any of us can!) and that their monogamy can and should be sanctioned and blessed by church and state.

Ok, so, a few months ago, I showed some excerpts from Tony Jones' book "The New Christians", which show how some emergent churches mentioned in the book were already compromising on the homosexual issue (even as some claimed to not want to deal with it).

Given all that, this move on Jones' part is completely predictable. The only question was the timing.

("Aha!" my critics will laugh derisively, "I knew he and his ilk were on a continuous leftward slide!")

Umm...yes, Jones, you and your ild are continuing your leftward slide. Those of us you look seriously at your movement are not surprised, because that is what you have been doing--sliding more and more leftward.