June 3
To Heidelblog and Scott R. Swain for Heidelblog's partial quoting of Swain's article on the importance that tradition plays to faith. This was posted in Heidelblog.
Swain's original article can be found at:
https://www.scottrswain.com/2022/05/12/on-tradition/
We want the transmission of the faith to be relevant without changing the core of the faith. The question is, where do we get that core from?
Certainly the Scriptures are our first and ultimate source. But traditions can be helpful provided that they are not put on too high a pedestal and that we understand where our traditions might be more influenced by the times and culture of those whose writing became our traditions than on the Scriptures.
For us Reformed people, we have to acknowledge that there are parts of our traditions that carry different priorities. For example, what our traditions describe the Godhead and soteriology are more important to pay attention to than what the parts of those traditions that talk about how we relate to society or each other. For if we put all of the parts of our traditions on the same footing, either we will easily compromise the most basic and essential parts of our traditions or we risk putting our traditions on such a high pedestal that they compete with the Scriptures for importance. And if we rely too much on our traditions to understand the Scriptures, the Scriptures themselves become subject to the man-made canon of our traditions.
One other point should be made here. If we put too much emphasis on our traditions, and thus putting them on too high a pedestal, we will fall prey to an authoritarianism that makes us vulnerable to relying too much on human authorities rather than properly submitting to the authority structures God has placed over us.
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June 7
To R. Scott Clark and his article that tries to partially criticize winsomeness in discussions about the faith. Here, winsomeness is called a synonym of being nice. This appeared in Heidelblog.
Authoritarians don't like to be nice, neither do those who lack self-control. Donald Trump is an epitome of anti-winsomeness, but one doesn't have to be a Trump to cross the line in how we respond to people. Here we are not talking about watering down the truths we confess, we are talking about how we confess those truths before others.
In Galatians 6, Paul tells us to be gentle in how we correct fellow believers who have fallen into sin. One reason for being gentle is that we too could easily fall into sin. And if we are called to be gentle with those who have fallen into sin, how is it that we have the license to be aggressive with or even hostile toward those in our Christian intramural debates or in defending what we believe before unbelievers? After all, gentleness and self-control are part of the fruit of the Spirit.
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June 8
To Heidelblog and Carl Trueman for the Heidelblog post that quotes a part of Trueman's article that speaks against Pride Month for the LGBT community. Thie appeared in Heidelblog.
Carl Trueman's full article can be found at:
https://wng.org/opinions/welcome-to-pride-month-christian-1654083759
When, in the article cited, Trueman wants to separate what the government allows people to do in the privacy of their own bedrooms from Pride month, he is forgetting 1 facet of marginalization: that which is practiced by society.
Pride Month is, in part, about equality for those in the LGBT community in society. So if the state doesn't criminalize the LGBT community but society is free to punish those from the LGBT community, what has been gained by the LGBT community? In fact, isn't this part of the objections to the legalization of same-sex marriage by many fellow religiously conservative Christianas? That if same-sex marriage is legal, then it is regarded, in society, as being equal to heterosexual marriage.
Should Christians participate in Pride Month? I don't believe so. That is because we shouldn't be celebrating sin. But should we agree with the need for the public recognition of Pride Month? Yes, that is if we believe that those in the LGBT community should enjoy full equality in society. And we can't separate the issue of full equality from Pride Month though Pride Month says more than that.
It's odd that Trueman's article favorably compares opposition to racism with opposing Pride Month. After all, the former opposes bigotry while the latter celebrates and promotes bigotry.
We need neither the state nor society to confront the LGBT community. Rather, the preaching of the Gospel and Church discipline for those who persist in sexual immorality is all we need in speaking against the sins practiced by the LGBT community. For us to enlist society or the state to further challenge the LGBT community will not only display a presumption of self-righteousness on our part, it will cause those in the LGBT community, and perhaps others, to see the Church's oppression before they hear the Church's evangelism.
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June 11
To the Heidelblog and Aaron Rent for Reno's article that was partially quoted in the Heidelblog post. In particular, the comment below addresses the title of this Heidelblog article. This post appeared in Heidelblog.
Aaron Reno's full article can be found at:
https://aaronrenn.substack.com/p/the-three-worlds-of-evangelicalism-7fc?s=w
Post Modernism has certainly led the charge in determining how Christianity is perceived in our nation today. But Post Modernism was not targeting Christianity per se as it was targeting all groups that claimed to have an exclusive possession of the truth. Also, Post Modernism's reaction was result based. Under Christianity, especially white, religiously conservative Christianity, many groups had been sorely oppressed and marginalized in America. And that is a truth that we white religiously conservative Christianity has yet to come to full grips with both intellectually and emotionally. That Is why we have failed to adequately acknowledge and appreciate the fallible attempts by those promoting CRT, those in BLM, and those in LGBT community to tell us how we have, and still try to, oppressed and marginalize others. Since their attempts are fallible, they are wrong in some of the things they are saying. But the gist of what they are saying about us is correct.
Our, that is those who are white, religiously conservative Christians, marginalization is nothing compared with the marginalization that we put others through. And yet, we are very focused on our current state in society. And we should note that that white, religiously conservative Christianity is not really marginalized in the whole nation like minorities and the LGBT community had been. There are large areas of the nation where such Christianity still holds sway.
Another way to express the last two paragraphs is that we white, religiously conservative Christians have been spoiled by the past so that we are tending to magnify and marginalization we are suffering today. And our magnification of our current marginalization is just another cause for us to lose credibility as witnesses for Christ.
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June 11
To Anthony Costello and his comment in response to a comment of mine about CRT. His comment appeared around June 10th This was part of the conversations that followed his article entitled "Whiteness" And The Splitting Of The Evangelical Mind. That appeared on the Theological Apologetics blog on Patheos.
Anthony,
I simply accommodated to your language. With some of the above, they denied the pandemic, such as a family member who denied it both before and after having Covid. So it doesn't matter got me which word is used. Not treating the pandemic as seriously as it should be costed lives.
I can't believe you asked the question about whether I have read any CRT. That is simply an attempt to discredit me here. How would know about ties between MLK and CRT without being familiar with both? Listen to the Xander Vanocur interview with MLK, which can be found on Youtube, as he made the distinction between his earlier of struggling for dignity and his latter work of struggling for real equality and then read Kimberlé Crenshaw on the equality of outcomes. Or read Anthony Cook on how MLK deconstructed the Christian support for Jim Crow. Or read Derrick Bell on the possibility of racial equality in today's America or Jayne Chong-Soon Lee as she challenges Kwayne Anthony Appiah's take on racism.
Not only that, the AME has determined to make social justice issues part of their sermons--btw, AME is the only African Methodist Church denomination I have found. And I didn't see any denunciation of CRT by that denomination. However, I did see an interesting quote from a Black leader of the Methodist Church regarding CRT (see https://um-insight.net/pers... ):
First and foremost, Critical Race Theory does not teach that ‘some students are inherently good, and others are inherently bad based on their outward appearance.’ Critical Race Theory takes a critical look at racial justice and the roots of racism in the United States. It focuses on systemic and institutional changes and challenges that lead to racism and seeks to uncover the hidden dynamics that have brought us to where we are in this country.
Contrary to promoting racism, as has been suggested, Critical Race Theory examines the role of race in our justice system and the complex interplay between race, and gender and its impact on minorities. Unfortunately, some groups have co-opted the term and twisted it to serve their own agendas.
Here's the real problem, You're using a model of thought to deduce the extent to which CRT reflects how Blacks experience racism in this country without regard for the history and real life experiences of Blacks in this nation. And by your model of thought, you seem to have concluded that CRT does not reflect to any degree how Blacks have and still do experience racism in this nation.
And in your comments to me, you use name dropping to defend your case.
Your argument is not very sound. We religiously conservative Christian thinkers often are lured into a temptation that we can define anything in or out of existence through deduction.
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June 12
To Mark Malvasi and his article that criticizes Nikole Hannah-Jones's 1619 project. Malvasi attempts to steer a course that between Jones's 1619 Project and the vision of America held to by the Patriotic Right. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative Blog.
So Nicole Hannah-Jones's 1619 Project errs more in interpretation than in facts. And Malvasi wishes to find a Goldilocks position between the approaches of both Jones and Zinn and that of the American Patriotic Right. And thus Malvasi is seeking to do more than just take an edge off of the historical approach taken by Jones and Zinn.
In trying to curb Jones's interpretation of history, he moves the date for when slavery and race became more of a focal point in the US. He also includes that it was Americans who freed the slaves in the Civil War. In addition, he contends that Jones's interpretation of history accounts for neither abolitionists nor the Civil Rights Movement.
But in all of that, Malvasi might just be a bit too selective with the facts. Race was an issue from the beginning of white America's history. After all, land was being forcibly taken from Native Americans almost from the beginning and captured Native Americans as well as Blacks were being traded as slaves by the Puritans in the latter part of the 1630s.
Yes, Americans freed the slaves in the Civil War. But they had to fight their fellow Americans to do so.
As for the Civil Rights Movement, the bulk of the key leaders from that movement were black, and so what was missing in Jones's description of America regarding that? And being an abolitionist did not imply that one believed in equality. In fact, many black abolitionists soon learned that many white abolitionists were still white supremacists.
And yes, America was not alone practicing slavery and promoting white supremacy. But America seems to have ended slavery later than many other nations did. And we are still battling the notion of white supremacy. While other nations eliminated slavery, the US followed slavery with Jim Crow.
Malvasi wants to select a Goldilocks position in talking about racism and slavery in the US. He wants a position that lies between Jones-Zinn and the American Patriotic right. But I have another suggestion. My suggestion is this, America should treat our past history and present practice of racism in the same way that we want Germany to treat its history of Nazism. To do so would indicate how seriously we are taking both our past and present racism.
Of course the difference between the two situations is that America is still suffering from horrible problems with racism. Nazism has been relegated to being that of a fringe group in Germany today. Unfortunately, racism here is still too much in vogue.
