Bob Edgar wants to rescue
America from the religious right. In his new book, Middle Church: Reclaiming
the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right, Edgar
intends to reset the nation’s agenda when it comes to matters of Christian
concern.
A former six-term Member of
the U.S. House of Representatives, Edgar now serves as the General Secretary of
the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. As such, he is one of the primary spokesmen for the
religious left in America—symbolically presiding over the dwindling numbers of
mainline Protestants in the nation.
“My purpose in writing this
book is to awaken the conscience of average, ordinary common folks within the
United States to do above-average, extraordinary, and uncommon things to insure
a future for our fragile planet,” Edgar states. “I am especially interested in
inspiring and challenging what I call ‘Middle Church,’ ‘Middle Synagogue,’ ‘Middle
Mosque’—the many millions of faithful people who do not always connect their
spiritual values with political issues and whose voices are, as a result, often
drowned out by the far religious right.”
As it turns out, one does
not have to be very conservative in order to be considered part of the “far
religious right” as identified by Bob Edgar. Interestingly for one whose own
organization pushes so many political agendas, he claims to speak for those “faithful
people” who do not, at least always, “connect their spiritual values with
political issues.”
As Edgar sees it, there are
two different churches in the United States—one based on love and the other
grounded in fear. As Edgar asserts, “fear, fundamentalism, and the FOX
Broadcasting Company must not be allowed to set the agenda for our nation.”
Well then. As children, we
are wisely advised by parents to learn the art of compromise. This is good
advice for children playing in the sandbox. However, it is disastrous advice
when it comes to matters of truth. Compromise works when truth is not at issue.
But the very character of the National Council of Churches and the larger
ecumenical movement is one of constant compromise at the expense of truth.
As the book begins, Edgar
traces his own political involvement to the inspiration he received from the
late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Inspired by King’s example, Edgar wants to
call America’s Christians to a middle way. “It is time for Middle Church—an
umbrella term I use to refer to mainstream people of all faiths—to stand up to
the far religious right and to embrace Christianity no less sincerely. The
classic, historical Christianity practiced by Middle Church is far more
authentic than the narrow religious expression of most radical right-wing
religious leaders. We in Middle Church, Middle Synagogue, and Middle Mosque are
not secularists who wish to banish God from the public square. We are people of
faith whose traditions lead us to work for peace and care for the poor.”
Conservative Christians are
certainly not above criticism. The evangelical movement is certainly capable of
political misjudgment, spiritual triumphalism, and a truncated set of moral and
theological concerns. Bob Edgar could have written a book offering an
intelligent analysis of conservative Christianity and its cultural and
political engagement. Unfortunately, this is not that book. It is not an
intelligent analysis, and the intelligent reader will find the book absolutely
perplexing at many points.
For example, Edgar could
have offered a careful, exegetical, historical, and theological engagement with
moral issues. Instead he offers irresponsible generalizations such as this: “The
Bible mentions abortion not once, homosexuality only twice, and poverty or
peace more than two thousand times. Yet somehow abortion and homosexuality have
become the litmus test of faith in public life today.”
How can an intelligent
reader, armed with even the slightest knowledge of the Bible and the Christian
tradition, take such a statement seriously? The Bible does not mention abortion
only in the sense that it does not make direct reference to the practice of
surgical abortion as is common today. The Bible speaks clearly to the sanctity
of human life and to the priority of protecting unborn life. Furthermore, to
state that the Bible mentions homosexuality “only twice” indicates that Edgar
has redefined homosexuality as something other than that which the Bible
addresses in numerous passages.
There can be no
doubt that the Bible’s consistent judgment is that homosexual acts are
inherently immoral and sinful. The Christian church in all of its major
branches has understood this for two thousand years. This has been a true
ecumenical consensus until recent years when some more liberal churches in the
West have abandoned the Christian tradition in order to endorse homosexual
practice.
Thus, it is an
act of intellectual dishonesty for Edgar to claim to speak for “classic
historical Christianity.”
Just in case we might miss
his point, Edgar offers this assessment of Scripture: “The far religious
right is fond of condemning homosexuality because they say the Scripture is
immutable and its words are literal.” Again, Edgar identifies the scriptural
consensus that homosexuality is sinful as an example of the radical nature of
the “far religious right” [italics his]. Once again, one need not be
very conservative to end up in Edgar’s category of the far religious right.
As for his view of
Scripture, “I do not personally believe God stops talking to us with the final
word in the book of Revelation.” Edgar explains that,
as a pastor, he had included readings in worship from the Old Testament, the
New Testament and what he calls the “Now Testament,” by which he means readings
from Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., among others.
When it comes to
familiarity with the Bible and the Christian tradition, there is no excuse for
Edgar not to be well versed. After all, he is a seminary graduate and was for a
decade president of the Claremont School of Theology. Thus, the reader might be
surprised when Edgar, criticizing the fact that evangelicals seem too concerned
with the Rapture and the end of the world, states this: “The book of Revelation
does speak of the Rapture, and the portrait it paints is in fact quite fierce.
But it’s equally important to understand that the books of the New Testament
are works of human beings.” In the span of two fairly
short sentences, Edgar manages to suggest that the New Testament is to be read
as a merely human book while moving the Bible’s text concerning the Rapture
from 1 Thessalonians chapter four to the book of Revelation. Continuing
to define his understanding of Scripture, Edgar suggests that “not every single
word can be taken as literal historical fact.”
When it comes to global
warming, however, Edgar is quite certain that the problem is real and can be
resolved by human beings. Furthermore, he offers his conclusion that dealing
with global warming would not “cause economic problems.” Edgar is quite certain that the Bible does not reveal an
explicit command by God against homosexuality, but he is confident that God has
a position on global warming.
Now, there is an urgent
need at present for a truly thoughtful and comprehensive analysis of global
warming and its theological significance. It would be fair to suggest that many
evangelicals are simply dismissive of ecological concerns. Nevertheless, Edgar
never makes his case for why we should, on his authority, assume that global
warming should take priority over other concerns—especially those related to
the sanctity of human life and the ordering of human sexuality.
Edgar dismisses the theory
of Intelligent Design and the claim by “biblical literalists” that the earth is
less than six thousand years old. “Let me just say here that I believe God is
an ‘intelligent designer,’ and that’s why God ‘intelligently designed’ the
theory of evolution.” That statement is cute, but it cannot be taken seriously.
Readers with the slightest familiarity with the dominant theory of evolution
held in the scientific community today will know that the very idea of an
external design is incompatible with that theory. Cute statements are no
substitute for serious thought.
The same is true when Edgar
turns to moral issues—after all, the central concern of his book is to replace
the agenda of conservative Christians with a different public agenda for
Christianity. The “Middle Church” Edgar affirms must be absolutely certain
about issues like peace, justice, poverty, racism, and ecology, but “must be
prepared to agree to disagree about homosexuality, abortion, and stem cell
research.”
In an amazing passage,
Edgar asserts: “People of faith must be able to conduct a respectful and open
conversation about all aspects of sexuality including homosexuality. God has a
lot to say on all these topics, and if we skip the listening and rush straight
to the judging—an enterprise in which we’re not supposed to be involved anyway—we
can’t hope to make serious progress in our discussion.”
Statements like this must
leave us wondering if this author actually means to be taken seriously. His book is filled with moral judgments—judgments about
ecology, justice, racism, and a host of other issues. But when it comes to
sexuality, Edgar offers the facile suggestion that moral judgment is “an
enterprise in which we’re not supposed to be involved anyway.”
In other words,
when Edgar makes moral judgments, he’s not being judgmental. But when others
make moral judgments, they are being judgmental. The Bible does not say
that we are not to make moral judgments, or that we are not to judge moral
behavior. Indeed, the Bible makes absolutely no sense if that is the case. The
Bible—in both Old and New Testaments—is filled with moral judgment and with
advisement on how we are to make such judgments. Of course, the judgments we
are to make concern behavior, not the heart. We are expressly forbidden
to judge another’s heart. That distinction is missing from Edgar’s analysis.
As is always the case, the
major issues of moral consequence are rooted in issues of more fundamental
importance. When it comes to theology, Edgar
demonstrates himself to be on the far left of the ecumenical movement.
Consider this: “My God hopes for positive outcomes. My God does not play tricks
or determine outcomes. My God has enough self-confidence to be less concerned
with the language in which people pray than with the fullness with which people
love one another. Most important, my God does not withhold love or acceptance
from a Hindu child in India, a Buddhist child in Thailand, a Jewish child in
Jerusalem, or a Muslim child in Ramallah.” All that is said with absolutely no
reference to Jesus Christ, or the Gospel.
Just in case we
missed his point, Edgar argues that, in his personal opinion, God does not “even
ask us to convert those who espouse other faiths?” Why? “I believe God reveals his love to different people in different
ways and through different vehicles.” This from the general secretary of an
organization known as the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA.
Bob Edgar—and the movement
he leads—has replaced the Gospel of Jesus Christ with a platform of political
involvement. “I admit that I do not give much thought to the afterlife
personally,” Edgar explains, “but it’s only because I am keeping plenty busy here
on Earth and I trust God to sort out eternity.” On that last part we can all
agree. God will “sort out eternity.” What separates Bob Edgar and biblical
Christianity is the fact that God has told us how He is going to judge humanity—and
the crucial issue in that judgment is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
When it comes to matters of
public policy, evangelicals surely do not have all the answers. Furthermore,
evangelicals are well served by a reminder that our moral agenda needs to be
broader than the issues of the daily headlines.
Nevertheless,
conservative Christians did not decide to make abortion, homosexuality,
and stem cell research front-line issues. It is nothing less than intellectual
dishonesty to suggest that evangelicals prompted the national debate on those
issues. On all of these fronts, evangelicals are simply calling on the
Christian church to stand by its historic convictions and moral wisdom.
We must always be willing
and ready to read what our own critics have to say. This is especially true
when the critic is fair, intelligent, and thoughtful. Unfortunately, Bob Edgar
has written a book that fits none of those categories. Instead, his book
appears to be nothing less than a parody of mainline Protestantism—a cartoon
reflection of what the ecumenical movement really represents. Middle Church
is a roadmap to nowhere except further decline in influence and relevance for
liberal Protestantism.
==============================
Theology will be front and center at this week’s meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Atlanta, Georgia. This is not a year for business as usual, for the society will be confronting charges brought against two of its members. Given the nature of the charges, one or both of these individuals may be removed from membership in the society. Why? The answer to that question points to one of the most significant controversies facing contemporary evangelicals.
The theologians in question, Clark Pinnock and John Sanders, are both proponents of a theological movement known as “Open Theism.” In sum, open theists argue for a new model of understanding God’s knowledge—a model that insists that true human freedom requires that God cannot know human decisions in advance.
Actually, open theists deny God’s omniscience in matters that go beyond human decisions. The worldview promoted by open theists is based in a high degree of confidence that God will be able to direct the future in a general way, but open theists deny that God can possess infallible and comprehensive knowledge of the future. In essence, God is waiting with the rest of us to know how any number of issues will turn out.
Promoted by Pinnock and Sanders, along with other popular theologians such as Gregory Boyd, the open theists present a more user-friendly deity, less offensive to many moderns. This new model of God, based in something like what Clark Pinnock calls “creative love theism,” redefines the God of the Bible and denies the classical understanding of God’s sovereignty, knowledge, and power.
Bruce Ware, a careful critic of open theism, summarizes the movement in this way: “This movement takes its name from the fact that its adherents view much of the future as ‘open’ rather than closed, even to God. Much of the future, that is, is yet undecided, and hence it is unknown to God. God knows all that can be known, open theists assure us. But future free choices and actions, because they haven’t happened yet, do not exist, and so God (even God) cannot know them.”
As Ware explains, “God cannot know what does not exist, they claim, and since the future does not now exist, God cannot know it.” Most importantly, open theists argue that God cannot know what free creatures will choose or do in the future. Thus, “God learns moment-by-moment what we do, when we do it, and His plans must constantly be adjusted to what actually happens, in so far as this is different than what He anticipated.”
In two important books, God’s Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism and Their God is Too Small [both from Crossway Books], Ware provides a responsible and careful analysis of the open theists’ arguments. Ware takes these thinkers seriously, and judges their argument by the Bible. In so doing, he concludes that the open view of God “poses a challenge to the evangelical church that is unparalleled in this generation.”
The doctrine of God is the central organizing principal of Christian theology, and it establishes the foundation of all other theological principles. Evangelical Christians believe in the unity of truth. Therefore a shift in the doctrine of God—much less of this consequence—necessarily implies shifts and transformations in all other doctrines.
The open theists point to biblical passages that speak of God repenting or changing His mind. Rather than interpreting those passages in keeping with the explicit statements of Scripture that God knows the future perfectly, the open theists turn the theological system on its head, and interpret the clear teaching of Scripture through the narratives—rather than the other way round.
They also counsel that their “open” view of God is more helpful than classical Christian theism. After all, they advise, it allows God “off the hook” when things do not go as we had hoped.
In a now notorious example, Greg Boyd tells of a woman whose plans for missionary service were ruined by the adultery of her husband and subsequent divorce. This woman, Boyd relates, went to her pastor for counsel, asking him how God could have led her to have married this young man, only to see the marriage end in adultery and disaster. This pastor [presumably Boyd himself?] assured the woman that God shared her surprise and disappointment in how the young man turned out.
Most evangelicals would be shocked to meet this updated model of God face to face. Nevertheless, subtle shifts in evangelical conviction have been undermining Christianity’s biblical concept of God.
Belief in God’s absolute knowledge has united theologians in the evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox traditions. Denials of divine omniscience have been limited to heretical movements like the Socinians. Even where Calvinists and Arminians have differed on the relationship between the divine will and foreknowledge, they have stood united in affirming God’s absolute, comprehensive, and unconditional knowledge of the future.
Several years ago, a major study of religious belief revealed just how radically our culture has compromised the doctrine of God. Sociologists asked the question, “Do you believe in a God that can change the course of events on earth?” One answer, which became the title of the study, was “No, just the ordinary one.” That is to say, modern men and women seem to feel no need to believe in a God who can change the course of events on earth—just an “ordinary God” who is an innocent bystander observing human events.
Measured against the biblical
revelation, this is not God at all. The God of the Bible is not a bystander in
human events. Throughout the Scriptures, God speaks of His own unlimited power,
sovereign will, and perfect knowledge.
This model of divine sovereignty is explicitly denied by the open theists. As Clark Pinnock explains, “God is sovereign according to the Bible in the sense of having the power to exist in himself and the power to call forth the universe out of nothing by his Word. But God’s sovereignty does not have to mean what some theists and atheists claim, namely, the power to determine each detail in the history of the world.”
The obvious question to ask at this point is this: Just which details does God choose to determine? Pinnock’s “creative love theism” is, regardless of his intentions, a way of taking theism out of theology. This God is so redefined that He bears little resemblance to the God of the Bible.
Pinnock and his colleagues argue that evangelicals must transform our understanding of God into a model that is more “culturally compelling.” Where does this end? The culture gets to define our model of God?
Open theism does not stand alone. Acceptance of this model will require a complete transformation of evangelical conviction. A redefinition of the doctrine of God leads immediately to the redefinition of the Gospel. A reformulation of our understanding of God’s knowledge leads inescapably to a reformulation of how God relates to the world.
Indeed, some have gone so far as to call for an “evangelical mega-shift,” that would completely transform evangelical conviction for a new generation. Even granting the open theist the highest motivations, the result of their theological transformation would be unmitigated disaster for the church.
The late B.B. Warfield remarked that God could be removed altogether from some systematic theologies without any material impact on the other doctrines in the system. My fear is that this indictment can be generalized of much contemporary evangelical theology. As the culture draws to a close, evangelicals are not arguing over the denominational issues that marked the debate of the twentieth century’s early years. The issues are now far more serious.
Sadly, evangelicals are now debating the central doctrine of Christian theism. The question is whether evangelicals will affirm and worship the sovereign and purposeful God of the Bible, or shift their allegiance to the limited God of the modern mega-shift.
At stake is not only the future of the Evangelical Theological Society, but of evangelical theology itself. Regardless of how the votes go in Atlanta, this issue is likely to remain on the front burner of evangelical attention for years to come.
The debate over open theism is another reminder that theology is too important to be left to the theologians. Open theism must be a matter of concern for the whole church. This much is certain—God is not waiting to see how this vote turns out.
==============================
In The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels called for the laboring classes of the world to join the communist revolution and promised assured liberation: “Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.” In similar fashion, the prophets of religious pluralism promise world peace and true spiritual happiness if Christians will just abandon Christianity and join the pluralist revolution. Ready to join?
Of all the doctrines revealed in the Bible, the exclusivity of the incarnation of Jesus Christ stands as the great embarrassment to liberal theologians. The logic is quite simple: If the historical Jesus was God in human flesh, and if He made atonement for our sins, and is therefore the only means of salvation—all other religions are false and lead to death.
For post-Christian theologians, this is simply too much to take. A group of theological pluralists met for a major consultation last month in Birmingham, England. Led by John Hick, a philosopher who has been the primary exponent of religious pluralism in the academic world, this consultation was built as a “multi-religious exploration” of religious reality. As you might imagine, the conference was a caldron of confusion.
Religious pluralism is based in the belief that all religions lead essentially to the same divine reality and that one faith is, in effect, as good as any other. By definition, theologians and philosophers committed to religious pluralism are considered heretics by biblical Christians. This is a label pluralists are increasingly willing to bear.
According to press reports, the pluralist conference, held September 6-9 at the University of Birmingham, was a festival of theological denial. In order to claim that all religions lead to the same divine reality, these thinkers are required to reject Christianity’s clear and undeniable claims of exclusive salvation through Jesus Christ. The pluralists are aware of their predicament.
They argue that Jesus should be seen as a great religious teacher and that Christianity should be seen as an important historical reality, but that Christians are deluded in believing that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh, and that salvation is found only through Him.
As a matter of fact, speakers at the pluralism conference accused traditional Christians, as well as traditional Jews and Muslims, of holding to the “idol” of religious exclusivism. This “idolatry” is the great enemy of world peace and understanding, they argue, and sophisticated moderns must be rid of it.
According to the conference’s official press release, “the great world religions...are authentic paths to the supreme good.” Each of these religions promotes some healthy values, they argue, but these are often corrupted by exclusivists. Paul Knitter of Xavier University in Cincinnati asserted that orthodox believers misuse religion “for purposes contrary to those very values.”
The organizers of the conference identified nine key principles that would outline a “pluralist model of religion.” These principles include a call for religions to relate to one another by dialogue and engagement. This dialogue would require, of course, that the religions surrender all absolute truth claims, because such claims “can easily be exploited to incite religious hatred and violence.” The entry ticket to such a dialogue would require that all parties “affirm ultimate reality/truth which is conceptualized in different ways.” Recognizing that the various world religions are just different ways of looking at the same reality, each religion should recognize that all others “constitute authentic paths to the supreme good.”
Does this sound meaningful to you? If so, hold hands and sing “The Pluralist Internationale.”
John Hick, the godfather of the movement, is certain that the pluralist model will eventually prevail. He compared religious pluralism to the concept of biological evolution, claiming that the acceptance of evolution in a secular society will be followed by the acceptance of religious pluralism as necessary for world peace in a postmodern world.
Most Christians have failed to notice that the theological world has shifted quickly in the direction of pluralism. The Roman Catholic Church, which had long claimed to be the only vessel of salvation, now accepts the notion that persons may become Christians unconsciously. Catholic theologian Karl Rahner argues that these “anonymous Christians” are following the light of other religions, but will eventually be included in Christ’s work of salvation. This position, known as “inclusivism,” stands in stark contrast to Scripture, which points us to the claims of Christ.
According to John 14:6, Jesus Christ claimed to be “the way, the truth and the life.” Furthermore, Jesus added, “no man comes to the Father, but by Me.” This is a stone of stumbling that modern secular intellectuals cannot tolerate. Their rejection of historic and biblical Christianity comes precisely at this point, for Christianity claims not only to be a superior revelation, but insists that the only means of salvation is personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Hick’s writings in this area have outlined his position in stark detail. “Jesus Christ is not God in human flesh, “ argues Hick, but rather the “metaphor of God incarnate.” This metaphor means that “we see in Jesus a human being extraordinarily open to God’s influence and thus living to an extraordinary extent as God’s agent on earth, ‘incarnating’ the divine purpose for human life. He thus embodied within the circumstances of His time and place the ideal of humanity living in openness in response to God, and in doing so He ‘incarnated’ a love that reflects the divine love.” That’s it. For Hick, Christmas is just a metaphor in a manger.
John Hick knows this is not orthodox Christianity. In his recently published autobiography, Hick traces his own pilgrimage from “orthodoxy to heterodoxy.” On his way, Hick “came fairly soon to see that for Christianity the problem of religious plurality hinged on the central doctrine of the incarnation. If Jesus was God incarnate, Christianity alone among the world religions was founded by God in person and must therefore be uniquely superior to all others. This made me look again at the traditional doctrine and its history.” After his “look,” Hick decided to abandon the doctrine. He developed what he calls his “pluralistic hypothesis” and argues that Jesus did not even claim to be the unique revelation of God. Hick asserts that those words from the Gospel of John “are not words of the historical Jesus, but words put into his mouth by the writer of St. John’s Gospel.”
He goes on to make this audacious claim: “It is the consensus of the great majority of the New Testament scholars today that Jesus Himself did not claim to be God incarnate and that his deification was the gradual work of the church.” Professor Hick needs to get out more often. This is an example of the sloppy thinking and intellectual dishonesty that marks the pluralist movement. The conference in Birmingham provides further evidence of the fact that it is hatred of Christianity that drives these thinkers rather than a serious and thoughtful concern for the evidence.
Of course, for John Hick to deny the exclusive claims made by Christ in the Gospel of John, all he has to do is deny that the gospel is authentic. Liberated from Scripture he can then accuse the church of twisting the message of Jesus into a message of salvation and of putting words into Jesus’ mouth in the New Testament.
A Christianity that accepts the “plural hypothesis” ceases to be Christianity at all. These liberal theologians and philosophers would remake Christianity in their own image. Christ becomes just another teacher of holiness and preacher of platitudes. God is no longer recognized as the creating and redeeming God of the Bible, but is reconceptualized as an amorphous deity that is nothing more than an impersonal “transcendent reality.”
Hick’s confidence in winning the war against Christian orthodoxy is based in the fact that he believes that theologians and biblical scholars will “operate when necessary as theological spin-doctors” and “find ways to give it [pluralism] the stamp of approval.” In The Myth of God Incarnate, Hick argued that the survival of institutional Christianity is at stake. He applauds the “willingness” of liberal churches “to rethink their beliefs.” He goes further to assert that the “mainline churches” have been saved from becoming “marginalized” in a cultural ghetto by their abandonment of core Christian doctrines.
The arrogance of this claim is matched only by its imbecility. How can any sane observer of the contemporary religious scene point to liberal mainline denominations as models of cultural relevance? These churches are hemorrhaging members even as they progress toward the total abandonment of orthodox Christianity. They are now of interest primarily to an intellectual elite who finds them to be non-threatening venues of “spirituality” that require no commitment to truth.
More than anything else, this conference of pluralists demonstrates where theologians and philosophers feel free to go, once they are liberated from the authority of Scripture. Rejecting scriptural claims of exclusive salvation through Christ, they invent a new religion of relativism, and then dare to call Christians to follow their example.
These pluralist proponents have already rejected Christianity and gone over the intellectual cliff into theological nihilism. If the incarnation is merely a “metaphor,” and if Jesus Christ is just one savior among many, then Christianity is at its end. These pluralists do not really seek to transform Christianity, but to make the preaching of the gospel unthinkable and unacceptable in modern secular culture. Pluralists are the perfect embodiment of the postmodern mind. They want to launch a theological revolution. We can only imagine their slogan: “Pluralists of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your faith.”
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By Chuck Colson
If he knew, John Knox, the great Scottish cleric, would be turning over in his grave.
A publishing company bearing his name has just released a book that links a September 11 conspiracy theory with claims that Jesus was a political activist intent on overthrowing the Roman Empire. It’s a warning of what can happen when Christians drift away from Christian beliefs.
The book is titled Christian Faith and the Truth behind 9/11: A Call to Reflection and Action. It is published by Westminster John Knox Press, the publishing arm of the Presbyterian Church-USA. The author is liberal theologian David Griffin.
Griffin claims the Bush administration orchestrated the attacks, bringing down the Twin Towers with controlled demolitions. It was, Griffin claims, part of a “false flag” operation to provoke war in the Middle East and expand the American global empire.
Griffin views the United States as a “demonic” power, responsible for starving millions of people every year. His solution: one-world government in order to “bring the kingdom of God to earth,” as he told Heather Wilhelm in the Wall Street Journal. We should do this, he says, in imitation of Jesus, the original political activist who tried to overthrow the Roman Empire.
Of course, as Wilhelm dryly observes, that would make the testimony of Jesus that “my kingdom is not of this world” the original “false flag” operation.
While Griffin’s publisher incredibly claims the book “advances religious scholarship” and “inspires faithful living,” rank-and-file Presbyterians know better: They have called Griffin everything from “irresponsible” to “a total wing nut.” And as a reviewer on Amazon.com sarcastically wrote, “Actually, the 9/11 attacks were planned and coordinated by Martians, in conjunction with survivors from Atlantis.”
Griffin, of course, is far from alone in pushing September 11 conspiracy theories. What makes his theory so disturbing is the fact that he drags a twisted view Jesus into his fantasies — and that the Presbyterian Church publishers would aid and abet him. One of the fundamental truths of the Christian faith is that Jesus did not come to lead an overthrow of earthly powers, but to announce the kingdom and to prepare people for it.
In his classic 1923 book, Christianity and Liberalism, the great Presbyterian scholar and Princeton Professor Jay Gresham Machen reminds us that people who deny the fundamentals of the Christian faith are not just liberal Christians; they belong to another religion entirely. When it comes to liberalism, Machen wrote, Christianity “is battling against a totally diverse type of religious belief,” rooted in naturalism. Despite its use of Christian terminology, “liberalism not only is a different religion from Christianity but belongs in a totally different class of religions.”
If I ever saw evidence of this writ
large, it is the willingness of Presbyterian publishers to publish such a
heretical book.
The Bible warns us that false prophets and teachers will always be among us, introducing destructive heresies and maligning the way of the truth. We need to be on guard against them — and willing to speak out against those who attempt to lead Christ’s flock astray. Bible-believing Presbyterians, take note and clean house.
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