May 12
To the Heidelblog article that quotes part of Carl Trueman's article on how Baylor is chartering an LGBT organization on campus. Trueman continues by comparing the Christian reaction to Baylor's recent move with his own Grove City College's negative response to CRT and to Jemar Tisby.
Besides the fact that the title for this article has little to do with what Trueman wrote, what many of us religiously conservative Christians struggle with in reacting to the LGBT community is to realize the extent and effects that the recent past marginalization of that community in and by society has on that community. Often, the initial addressing of social injustices often yields an overcompensation for past time because those addressing social injustices want to prevent any future injustices. And thus there is a hypervigilance that makes people not just sensitive to what contributed to past injustices, but what coincidental factors that are associated with those injustices.
My guess as to the disparity in reactions that Trueman is writing about is do to the disparity in how many Christians see the two institutions. Smaller religious colleges are often viewed as being more religiously centered than larger institutions, especially those that have teams competing at a division 1 level in elite conferences in the NCAA for decades. Even if you take BYU as a counterexample, it doesn't have the history in competing in elite NCAA conferences. And so many Christians view institutions like Baylor as a hybrid institution where it has religious roots but is also significantly secular in atmosphere.
Finally, part of the reaction to Grove City College is its newfound response to fellow Christians. There are religiously conservative Christians who are either politically liberal or politically leftists--there is a difference between the two. And thus many see Grove City College's response to CRT, with which they include their response to Jemar Tisby, as dividing the body of Christ for the sake of providing a politically conservative bubble in which to educate their students.
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May 13
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost on why abortions, assuming elective abortions, should be made illegal. His article was written in response to a position taken by Alex Berenson who, despite recognizing that abortion is murder, for practical reasons believed that we have to allow abortions to be legal. This appeared in Heidelblog.
I fully agree with what the above article says when it states that elective abortions must be made illegal. But if the leaked SCOTUS opinion reflects the final decision adequately, we are not going to ask women to forego abortions because of the human life of the unborn, we are going to be telling women and everyone that they cannot have abortions because there is no right to privacy. Thus, women cannot have abortions because of the religous sentiments of those in their state governments.
The problem with elective abortion is that it came from a legitimate concern of the Sexual Revolution: the equality of women. One of the issues that became almost inseparable from women seeking equality was to have the right to an abortion because of the personal freedom and power of choice that recognized right gave women. As a result, continuing that journey toward equality has created a conflict of interest when it comes to considering the humanity of the unborn. Note that it is the quest for equality, not the gender of the person, that creates this conflict of interest.
And so we need to minimize or even remove that conflict of interest without compromising our opposition to the legalization of elective abortions. We need to remove that conflict of interest so people can consider the humanity of the unborn more objectively.
While I agree with the above stated opposition to abortion, insistence on making either the whole 10 Commandments or the 2nd Table of the Commandments the law of the land is the result of our theologies rather than the teachings from the New Testament. That doesn't imply that we should allow for murder or theft. It is simply that we should not allow murder and theft for other reasons than that they are in the 10 Commandments. Here we should note that many of our standard theologies were written in a completely different historical and cultural context than what we have today.
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