News Analysis
Mohler Collection (of non-Christian articles)
>> = Important Articles; ** = Major Articles
**A Democracy Jimmy Carter Cannot Support (Christian Post, 051115)
Britain’s New Age Prince Comes to America (Christian Post, 051102)
Jimmy Carter’s Endangered Values (Christian Post, 051107)
The Grace and Greatness of True Humility (Christian Post, 051110)
A Christian Vision of Beauty, Part One (Christian Post, 051116)
A Christian Vision of Beauty, Part Two (Christian Post, 051117)
A Christian Vision of Beauty, Part Three (Christian Post, 051118)
Why Thanksgiving Matters (Christian Post, 051123)
Albert Mohler Says Farewell to Live Radio (Christian Post, 100702)
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[KH: a review of Jimmy Carter’s liberal beliefs]
Jimmy Carter, the globetrotting ex-president, spends a great deal of his time promoting democracy, as he sees it, around the world.
Interestingly, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest evangelical fellowship of churches in America, functions as a democracy. The majority of the messengers attending a given annual convention seek the mind of Christ and vote as a democratic body, an annual activity one would think Jimmy Carter would applaud. However, the SBC is a primary target of the former president’s harshest criticism in his latest book, “Our Endangered Values.”
What he writes is nothing new. Carter’s criticism of the conservative direction of the SBC is longstanding. In 1993, he and his wife publicly announced their allegiance with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (a breakaway group of liberals and moderates, formerly of the SBC but now stridently anti-SBC), and in 2000 he felt compelled to announce with fanfare once again his break with the SBC.
For the record, individuals do not have membership in the SBC, but churches affiliate through their friendly cooperation with and financial support of SBC causes. Despite his claim that the other members of his church agree with him about the SBC, his church, Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, continues to contribute financially to Southern Baptists’ cooperative missions, ministries and theological education.
In “Our Endangered Values,” he espouses values that are not mine, likely not yours, or those of a majority of Americans in general or Southern Baptists in particular; the “our” is a limited constituency at best. Nevertheless, in light of the recent media attention, Carter’s views are worth revisiting for the sake of clarification and distinction.
ON ABORTION:
At multiple annual meetings, the overwhelming majority of Southern Baptists who were present repeatedly expressed a belief in the biblical value of human life. Interestingly, this is a belief which Carter also professes.
“I am convinced that every abortion is an unplanned tragedy, brought on by a combination of human errors,” he has stated, adding, “I have never believed that Jesus Christ would approve ... abortions.”
However, his public record doesn’t match his private beliefs.
While governor of Georgia, Carter publicly supported family planning programs that included abortion. Writing the forward, he also endorsed a book titled “Women in Need” advocating a woman’s right to abortion. As president, he organized the White House Conference on Families in 1979, which stated the right to abortion as a national priority. Finally, he hired Sarah Weddington as a White House staffer -- the lead attorney who argued for abortion in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case that made abortion legal.
Clearly, his stated beliefs don’t match with his public practice, and his de facto support of abortion rights certainly doesn’t reflect the values of most Southern Baptists.
ON HOMOSEXUALITY:
The overwhelming majority of Southern Baptists believe in the biblical guidelines for human sexuality, including those dealing with the sin of homosexuality. These beliefs have been expressed through resolutions, in our statement of faith and also in our national ministry efforts to promote chastity before marriage, encourage faithfulness in marriage, and to reach out to help homosexuals who desire to leave that lifestyle.
Carter, on the other hand, sends a mixed message on the issue -- having declared that he personally believes that marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman, while also publicly advocating civil unions for homosexuals.
In 1992, Carter served as the honorary co-chair of the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual advocacy group. Not surprisingly, he believes that a marriage amendment to the U. S. Constitution is unnecessary. He has stated that homosexuality is a sin, but sees nothing wrong with a “Christian” homosexual being ordained. In fact, he compares the sin with adultery, but forgets that Jesus told the woman caught in adultery, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more” (John 8:11, NKJV).
Moreover, he stated to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s general assembly that homosexuality is one of several issues that “in God’s eyes fade into relative insignificance, as did circumcision in the first days of the early church.” If they could speak, I don’t think the former residents of Sodom and Gomorrah would agree.
His criticism of the SBC leadership on the issue of homosexuality is particularly harsh, lumping us in with groups that “have chosen gays and lesbians as the foremost targets of their denigration” as a result of our “increasingly narrow and rigid definition of the Christian faith.” His characterization is grossly unfair, but if Southern Baptists must suffer his wrath for adhering to a biblical position on the sin of homosexuality -- stating the necessity of turning from that sin, as with any sin -- then so be it.
ON THE ORDINATION OF WOMEN:
In Southern Baptist life, only local churches have authority to ordain men and women to church office and the convention has not restricted churches in this action. Based on our understanding of the Bible, the majority of Southern Baptists strongly embrace women in ministry, but reserve pastoral leadership for men. Carter decries this democratically arrived at position as the primary reason he “decided to sever my ties” with the SBC.
ON THE SBC’S RECOGNITION OF THE COMPLEMENTARY ROLES OF HUSBAND AND WIFE:
Carter makes the outlandish claim that by encouraging women to submit to their husband’s “servant leadership,” as taught in Scripture, conservative Christians somehow want to subjugate women like those in some Islamic nations.
In the article on the family in the SBC’s statement of faith, he apparently missed the language about “equal worth” of the husband and the wife before God, or the statement that the wife “being in the image of God as is her husband” is “thus equal to him.” He also ignored the charge to husbands that they should love their wives to the point of dying for them as Christ sacrificially loved the Church.
Christ doesn’t seek to subjugate us, and neither is that the intent of our statement of faith with regard to the relationship between men and women.
ON OUR STATEMENT OF FAITH:
A consensus of Southern Baptists attending an annual convention endorsed a statement of faith called the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message. It is not a “creed” as Carter erroneously claims.
He also misrepresents one change to the wording as a “substitution of Southern Baptist leaders for Jesus as the interpreters of biblical Scripture.” He uses the general public’s lack of understanding about liberals’ misuse of the language defining Jesus Christ as “the criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted.” Carter and other liberals use this language as a means to deny the truthfulness of certain passages, by stating, “My Christ would never ...,” as if Christ was someone other than revealed in the Bible, or that Jesus could be someone different for each of us depending on how we choose to define Him.
ON THE WORD OF GOD:
“Our Endangered Values” is full of confusing commentary. To his credit, the former president admits “there were a few inconsistencies” between what he professed to believe privately and his public actions. Further, his claim to be guided by the “Holy Scriptures” conflicts with his cavalier treatment of the biblical text. At once he quotes “Saint Paul” as authoritative and then dismisses other portions of Paul’s writings as culturally conditioned. Therein lies the greatest difference between Jimmy Carter and the vast majority of Southern Baptists -- he believes that the Bible “contains” the Word of God, but we believe that it “is” the Word of God.
ON DEMOCRACY AND THE SBC:
Certainly, he has been benevolently active since departing the White House. Southern Baptists applaud his work with Habitat for Humanity and his humanitarian efforts abroad. Through the Carter Center, he has aspired to promote democracy around the globe -- a worthy goal.
However, it is unfortunate that in his post-partum relationship with Southern Baptists he continues to repeat old complaints about the SBC rather than move on in his relationship with his new faith group.
While it is unfortunate, given his track record, it is not surprising.
What is surprising is that a man who professes to be devoted to democracy, and travels the world as the champion of democracy, decries the same democracy when it is faithfully exercised by Southern Baptists to declare our values.
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Morris H. Chapman is president and chief executive officer of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee. He served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1990 to 1992. Original Source: www.BPNews.net
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First, an admission--I am an unapologetic Anglophile. I love British history, celebrate our common roots, and would live in England if I could not live in America. Similarly, I am conservative enough to admit that I am sometimes given to romantic thoughts about a constitutional monarchy as a keeper of national tradition. All that conservative romanticism has its limits, however. And that limit is represented by the current Prince of Wales. Britain’s Prince Charles is a walking refutation of a hereditary monarchy.
How did the House of Windsor come to this? As the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall make their visit to America this week, the royal couple will be attempting to buttress their image both at home and abroad. Such royal visits are usually opportunities for extended handshaking, baby kissing, and photograph taking. Of course, Prince Charles has a demonstrated knack for messing up just about any opportunity. This time, he intends to lecture Americans about our lack of appreciation for Islam.
Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor was born November 14, 1948 to the future Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Upon his birth, Winston Churchill declared: “Our thoughts go out to the mother and father and, in a special way today, to the little Prince, now born into this world of strife and storm.” Little did Sir Winston know that this prince would bring his own strife and storm.
No one can doubt that the British royal family has fallen on hard times. The current dynasty begins in greatness with Queen Victoria, whose long reign established glory for the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Unfortunately, it has been rough going ever since Queen Victoria. It was said that the aging queen had clung to life in order to forestall her son’s accession to the throne. Edward VII was an infamous playboy as Prince of Wales, and “Bertie” created as much trouble for Victoria as Charles now creates uproar for Queen Elizabeth II.
The family was renamed the House of Windsor when George V, grandson of Queen Victoria, decided that the family’s German name was simply too great a burden to bear. “I may be uninspiring,” the king remarked, “but I’ll be damned if I’m an alien.” George V may not have been inspiring, but he was a man of courage during the dark days of World War I.
After the scandal and disaster of King Edward VIII, the family regained its footing and prestige with the honorable reign of George VI, who with his wife, Queen Elizabeth, comforted and emboldened the nation during the Battle of Britain and the trauma of World War II.
In the main, Queen Elizabeth II has continued the decorum established by her parents, and she has conducted an admirable rule over her realm. Regrettably, her domestic realm has been marked by continued scandal and disaster. Three of her four children have been divorced, and two were remarried--most scandalously, the marriage of the Prince of Wales to Camilla Parker-Bowles, now known as the Duchess of Cornwall.
A. N. Wilson, one of the most thoughtful and informed observers of British life, suggests that the British royal line may have run its course. In The Rise and Fall of the House of Windsor, Wilson argues “that there are serious causes for concern that the House of Windsor is no longer in a position to fulfill the traditional functions of constitutional kingship.”
Of course, one of the primary responsibilities of the British monarch is to defend the faith. Henry VIII was given that title by the Pope for his defense of Catholic doctrine on the question of the sacraments and for his attack on Martin Luther. The Pope clearly had no idea that Henry VIII would establish the Church in England under his own authority and break with Rome. Henry VIII’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, changed the Church in England to the Church of England, thus creating a truly Anglican church.
As Wilson observes, “The Queen’s position as Supreme Governor of the Church of England is comparable to her position as Head of the Commonwealth. That is to say, an impartial observer could be forgiven for thinking that she was presiding over something which in most palpable terms had ceased to exist.” Only a small minority of British citizens actually attend church services with any regularity at all, and half of those are Roman Catholics. Over eighty percent of the British population is considered to be secular, and the fastest growth among non-secular residents of Great Britain is found among Muslims and other non-Christian groups.
As if that were not a sufficient challenge for any future monarch, the Prince of Wales doesn’t even want to accept the title, Defender of the Faith. In an infamous television interview with journalist Jonathan Dimbleby, the Prince declared that he would rather be enthroned as “Defender of Faith,” with no particular faith in mind.
“I personally would rather see it as Defender of Faith, not the Faith, because it [Defender of the Faith] means just one particular interpretation of the Faith, which I think is sometimes something that causes a deal of problem,” said the Prince. Viewers of the interview could be forgiven for failing to understand the Prince’s bumbling articulation. After all, what is “sometimes something that causes a deal of a problem” supposed to mean?
But, the Prince did go on: “It has done for hundreds of years. People have fought each other to the death over these things, which seems to me a particular waste of people’s energy, when we’re all actually aiming for the same ultimate goal, I think. So I would much rather it was seen as defending faith itself which is so often under threat in our day where, you know, the whole concept of faith itself or anything beyond this existence, beyond life itself is considered almost old-fashioned and irrelevant.”
Throughout his lifetime, Charles has dabbled with various mysticisms and New Age philosophies. In one sense, lacking any normal vocation, he has become an expert at eccentricities.
Now, Prince Charles intends to chide President George W. Bush concerning what the Prince sees as America’s lack of tolerance for Islam. According to The Telegraph [London], the Prince “has voiced private concerns over Washington’s ‘confrontational’ approach to Muslim countries and its failure to appreciate what he regards as Islam’s strengths.”
This is really nothing new. Just after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, Prince Charles met with senior Muslim leaders in London and declared, “I find the language and rhetoric coming from America too confrontational.”
In a 1997 article entitled “Prince Charles of Arabia,” reporters Ronni L. Gordon and David M. Stillman traced the Prince’s misadventures with Islam. At one point, the Grand Mufti of Cyprus declared that Charles had converted to Islam. “Did you know that Prince Charles has converted to Islam? Yes, yes. He is a Muslim. I can’t say more. But it happened in Turkey. Oh, yes, he converted all right. When you get home check on how often he travels to Turkey. You’ll find that your future king is a Muslim,” the Mufti intoned. Buckingham Palace replied through a spokesman, denying the Prince’s supposed conversion and declaring the idea “nonsense.” Nevertheless, shortly thereafter the Palace leaked word that Charles had indicated a “desire to play a greater role in the Church of England.” That can’t have been good news for the Church of England.
In recent weeks, the British press has reported about a letter in which Prince Charles spoke of his conversation with George Carey, then Archbishop of Canterbury. In this conversation, he told the Archbishop of his desire to become Defender of Faith rather than Defender of the Faith. “I wish you’d been there for the archbishop!” Charles wrote. “Didn’t really appreciate what I was getting at by talking about ‘the Divine’ and felt that I had said far more about Islam than I did about Christianity--and was therefore worried about my development as a Christian.” Clearly, the Archbishop had good reason to be worried.
In a 1993 speech at the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford University, Charles declared: “Islam can teach us today a way of understanding and living in the world which Christianity itself is poorer for having lost. At the heart of Islam is its preservation of an integral view of the Universe. Islam--like Buddhism and Hinduism--refuses to separate man and nature, religion and science, mind and matter, and has preserved a metaphysical and unified view of ourselves and the world around us . . . .” He has insisted that Islam is a religion of peace and that Western media have given citizens a false understanding of what Islam is all about.
In more recent years, the Prince of Wales has become the royal patron of the Centre for Islamic Studies, funded with a gift of 33 million dollars from the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia.
Even as Muslim extremists have sharpened their attacks in London and other European capitals, Prince Charles appears unmoved. In the same week that news reports revealed the beheading of three Christian schoolgirls in Indonesia at the hands of Islamic terrorists, and just days after Iran’s leader called for the state of Israel to be “wiped off the map,” Charles intends to lecture Americans on our lack of appreciation for Islam.
According to royal sources, the Prince will participate in a seminar on world religions to be held at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. The Prince and Duchess will attend a lunch and dinner with President and Mrs. Bush at the White House on Wednesday.
The Prince of Wales has become a perfect parable of postmodernism--embracing New Age eccentricities and relativizing the central issue of truth. His intention to be known as a defender of faith rather than of the faith indicates the tragic vacuum at the very center of his understanding of Christianity.
In just over fifty years, Prince Charles has managed to make himself a mockery of marriage and morality and to pose, as one leading British newspaper observed, as “a well-intentioned eccentric seeking divine inspiration.” There is indeed much to learn by observing the example of Prince Charles. He has become a living portrait of what happens when Christianity is separated from its central truth claims, and when faith becomes a matter of emotional aspiration rather than firm belief in the truth.
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R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.
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Former president Jimmy Carter has written yet another book -- his twentieth -- and he has hit the media circuit in order to promote his latest project. Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis represents the former president’s return to familiar themes, even as it will add new layers of confusion concerning his actual beliefs and values.
Jimmy Carter makes one central argument in this new book, and that is that America (indeed civilization itself) is under attack by a sinister force. In effect, he argues that a new specter now haunts civilization -- the specter of Christian fundamentalism.
After tracing a series of crises faced by the United States and the larger world, Mr. Carter places the blame squarely upon conservative Christians: “The most important factor is that fundamentalists have become increasingly influential in both religion and government, and have managed to change the nuances and subtleties of historic debate into black-and-white rigidities and the personal derogation of those who dare to disagree. At the same time, these religious and political conservatives have melded their efforts, bridging the formerly respected separation of church and state.” That’s quite an argument, but those familiar with Jimmy Carter’s mode of public engagement will understand that this is merely the expansion (and repetition) of what the former president has been saying ever since the American people denied him a second term in the Oval Office.
Those who would wish to take Jimmy Carter and his ideas seriously will find little assistance in this book. More than anything else, it represents a superficial complaint against conservative Christianity. He offers a caricature of conservative evangelicals, even as he redefines basic Christian doctrines in order to conform to his own worldview. He criticizes fundamentalists for simplistic and superficial convictions, while he offers superficial and simplistic assessments of urgent moral questions.
What exactly is Jimmy Carter against? The “fundamentalism” he so vehemently attacks is, according to his own definition, represented by movements that “almost invariably” are “led by authoritarian males who consider themselves to be superior to other and, within religious groups, have an overwhelming commitment to subjugate women and to dominate their fellow believers.” Furthermore, Mr. Carter argues that “fundamentalists usually believe that the past is better than the present,” even as they wish to retain “certain self-beneficial aspects of both their historic religious beliefs and of the modern world.”
Beyond all this, Mr. Carter argues that fundamentalists “are militant in fighting against any challenge to their beliefs.” Accordingly, fundamentalists are likely to be angry and abusive against those who oppose their goals.
Most interestingly, Mr. Carter argues that fundamentalists err when they “draw clear distinctions between themselves, as true believers, and others, convinced that they are right and anyone who contradicts them is ignorant and possibly evil.” The most amazing aspect of that assertion is Mr. Carter’s own moralism, both as president and as America’s globe-trotting ex-president. Even in Our Endangered Values, Mr. Carter continues the pattern of arguing that others are wrong when they assert that he is wrong. But, according to his own emphatic assertion and self-analysis, he is right and others are simply wrong. One gains the quick impression that they are mostly wrong because they consider Mr. Carter to be wrong.
As to his own worldview, Mr. Carter reveals: “In the religious realm, I shall depend on the Holy Scriptures, as interpreted by the words and actions of Jesus Christ. On political issues, I shall rely as much as possible on my own personal experiences and observations.”
What exactly are the “values” that Mr. Carter believes to be so endangered? For one thing, Mr. Carter argues that fundamentalists are primarily responsible for the raging controversies that now mark America’s public life. As he sees it, America is being ripped apart by the fundamentalists who push their concerns about abortion, marriage, homosexuality, and other issues in the public square. Since these conservative Christians are driven by their own Christian convictions, Mr. Carter argues that their favored positions represent a violation of one of his most cherished values -- the separation of church and state.
Once again, readers of Our Endangered Values will be frustrated if they are looking for Mr. Carter’s own understanding of how church and state should be related. He offers no serious or coherent theory, but merely affirms “what Thomas Jefferson espoused as ‘a wall of separation between church and state.’” As he would surely remind those he criticizes in his newest book, an assertion does not amount to an argument.
In actuality, Mr. Carter offers few examples of exactly what he finds to be an unacceptable mixing of church and state. He offers a glancing blow at President Bush’s “faith-based initiatives,” (an issue that truly requires serious evaluation), but he centers his most direct criticism on the fact that “right-wing Christians” have been criticizing the federal court system.
How, exactly, should an individual’s Christian convictions affect public service and public policy? Mr. Carter does not offer any substantial approach to deciding this matter. Furthermore, he admits: “Despite what I consider to be a constitutional and biblical requirement for the separation of church and state, I must acknowledge that my own religious beliefs have been inextricably entwined with the political principles I have adopted.” Readers of Mr. Carter’s new book must be forgiven for thinking that religious beliefs are fairly applied to public policy when the beliefs and policies are those favored by Mr. Carter, but not when the beliefs and policies are those favored by conservatives.
Tracing a series of moral controversies, Mr. Carter asserts that a majority of Americans believe that abortions should be legal “in all or most cases.” Of course, this is a serious misrepresentation of the data. One could just as easily argue that the vast majority of Americans reject abortion on demand. The polls are complicated and confusing, and the conclusions reached generally have everything to do with how the questions are asked. The former president also argues that Americans have grown increasingly accepting of same-sex behavior, but he offers few hints as to how he would settle the divisive issue of homosexuality. His one positive proposal is to deny homosexuals access to “marriage” while adopting civil unions as a matter of civil rights.
Mr. Carter also comes out swinging when it comes to the death penalty, noting that his years as governor of Georgia fell in the period between 1972 and 1976 when the Supreme Court had temporarily halted executions. “Some devout Christians are among the most fervent advocates of the death penalty, contradicting Jesus Christ and justifying their belief on an erroneous interpretation of Hebrew Scriptures,” he argues.
This is a fallacious argument. In the first place, Jesus Christ never condemned the death penalty. In forgiving the woman caught in adultery, Jesus offered no blanket prohibition against capital punishment. Furthermore, the biblical support for capital punishment is based on a multitude of passages in both the Old and New Testaments. The biblical interpretations Mr. Carter offers are facile, simplistic, and intellectually dishonest.
The former president raises one serious and legitimate concern about the death penalty -- the “extreme inequity in its employment” -- and he could have called for a responsible evangelical reevaluation of capital punishment in light of the biblical teaching and contemporary application. Nevertheless, his recklessness with the biblical text undermines his point.
This is all the more problematic when it comes to Mr. Carter’s treatment of abortion. He describes this issue as “the most divisive” facing the nation. But, once again, Mr. Carter offers more confusion than clarity when it comes to his own understanding of abortion.
Just last week, The Washington Times reported that President Carter had condemned America’s abortion culture. “I have never felt that any abortion should be committed -- I think that each abortion is the result of a series of errors,” Mr. Carter told reporters in Washington. “I’ve never been convinced, if you let me inject my Christianity into it, that Jesus Christ would approve abortion.”
Mr. Carter has made this argument before. In his book Living Faith, published in 1996, Mr. Carter stated: “I have never been able to believe that Jesus would have approved the taking of a human life, but the difficult question then remained: When does a fetus become a human being? My duty was to comply with the rulings of the Supreme Court, but I did everything possible to minimize the need for and attractiveness of abortions.”
In this new book, Mr. Carter offers a similar argument: “I am convinced that every abortion is an unplanned tragedy, brought on by a combination of human errors, and this has been one of the most difficult moral and political issues I’ve had to face. As president, I accepted my obligation to enforce the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling, and at the same time attempted in every way possible to minimize the number of abortions-through legal restrictions, prevention of unwanted pregnancies, the encouragement of expectant women to give birth, and the promotion of foster parenthood.”
This position would be sufficiently problematic in itself, but it doesn’t even represent an accurate analysis of Mr. Carter’s own public positions on the issue.
As Peter G. Bourne, a former White House Special Assistant to President Carter, explains in his book Jimmy Carter: “Early in his term as governor, Carter had strongly supported family planning programs including abortion. He had written the foreword to a book, Women in Need, that favored a woman’s right to abortion. He had given private encouragement to the plaintiffs in a lawsuit, Doe v. Bolton, filed against the state of Georgia to overturn its archaic abortion laws.” Beyond this, he hired Sarah Weddington, the lead attorney who argued for abortion in Roe v.Wade, as a White Hosue staffer. Clearly, this calls into question Mr. Carter’s assertion that he has always opposed abortion. Further, if he opposes abortion now, what is he willing to do about it? His new book certainly offers no hope that he would now call for a reversal of Roe v. Wade.
Some of the most vitriolic language in Our Endangered Values concerns Mr. Carter’s criticism of the Southern Baptist Convention and its leadership. Understandably, Mr. Carter blames conservative evangelicals in general -- and the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention in particular -- for his devastating loss to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election. Indeed, the very evangelicals who had celebrated Mr. Carter’s election in 1976 abandoned him in 1980 -- and for what they saw as compelling reasons.
Over the last several years, Mr. Carter has repeatedly declared his departure from the Southern Baptist Convention (a departure made all the more eccentric by the fact that individuals are not members of the Southern Baptist Convention in the first place) and he continues his criticism of the convention’s leadership even now.
Most specifically, he condemns the Southern Baptist Convention for adopting a revised version of its confession of faith, arguing that the new version has substituted the authority of convention leaders for the authority of Christ. Clearly, here is a real debate that could have emerged out of his criticism. Nevertheless, Mr. Carter just misrepresents the convention’s action.
I was a member of the committee that proposed the revision, and I would be glad to clarify for Mr. Carter what exactly the revisions represent. Nevertheless, Mr. Carter’s chief complaint is that the confession of faith was “imposed as a mandatory creed on all convention officers, employees, deans and professors of colleges and seminaries, and even missionaries who were serving in foreign countries.” He insists that this was “unprecedented” as the convention sought to fulfill its responsibility to assure the churches of the doctrinal integrity of convention employees.
Of course, this action was anything but “unprecedented.” As a matter of fact, the convention had advised its agencies to establish personnel policies in accordance with the confession of faith as far back as 1969. If the moderate convention leaders Mr. Carter prefers had fulfilled the explicit directives of the convention, the conservative resurgence that Mr. Carter so laments would never have happened in the first place.
On the issue of women in the church, Mr. Carter has been a strong proponent of women as pastors. He dismisses the biblical concerns about this by admitting that, while the Apostle Paul clearly precluded this practice, this just indicates “his departure from Jesus’ example and a strong bias against women.” He insists that he does not mean to claim that biblical texts are in error or contradictory, but that some texts can be understood as dealing only with “local circumstances within a trouble early church congregation.” Nevertheless, Paul’s clearest instructions were not addressed to a specific congregation in conflict, but to Timothy on behalf of the whole church. “There is one incontrovertible fact concerning the relationship between Jesus Christ and women,” he asserts: “he treated them as equal to men.” This may sound like a self-evident truth, for Jesus did treat women with equal respect, equal concern, and equal standing before the gospel. Nevertheless, Jesus did not call a woman to serve as an apostle, nor as one of the Twelve. Equality is not contradicted by complementarity.
In an interesting comment, Mr. Carter recently offered a bit of self-analysis, observing: “I can’t deny that I’m a better ex-president than I was a president.” Without doubt, President Carter and his wife Rosalynn have done much good. The work of The Carter Center in leading the fight against diseases such as Guinea Worm and Trachoma has been exemplary. I will let others debate the former president’s post-term adventures in foreign policy, but I have no doubt that he means to do good and to do well. I also have no doubt that he is a thoughtful and intelligent man, and that he means to be a serious Christian.
Nevertheless, in this new book, Mr. Carter delivers a broadside attack on conservative Christians, the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention, and those who believe that abortion, homosexuality, secularism, and a host of other issues represent clear and present challenges to the witness of the church. He is surely right to argue that the Bible would broaden our range of concerns beyond these most controversial issues; but he is surely wrong to dismiss our responsibility to maintain a faithful biblical witness where controversy is inevitable.
Mr. Carter’s moderately liberal theology (more liberal than moderate or more moderate than liberal, depending on his various statements) puts him at odds with the conservative direction of the Southern Baptist Convention and with the biblical convictions held by millions of American evangelicals. Mr. Carter has chosen to make this a public issue by writing and releasing this book. This was his decision.
Our Endangered Values is not a call for discussion or dialogue. It is not an exercise in seeking understanding. Instead, this book is a political and theological call to arms. Nevertheless, it does serve to illustrate the chasm that now grows ever larger between conservative Christians and those who would offer a more “moderate” understanding of the Christian faith. President Carter and those he opposes in this book agree on one thing -- our values are endangered. We just disagree about what those values are and how they are endangered. That’s no small disagreement.
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R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.
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[comments by Kwing Hung: Jimmy Carter is certainly not a conservative Christian as he claims.]
I read Albert Mohler’s column on The Christian Post about my book, “Our Endangered Values, America’s Moral Crisis,” and found it difficult to relate his distorted comments with the actual text that was published.
Mr. Mohler writes:
“After tracing a series of crises faced by the United States and the larger world, Mr. Carter places the blame squarely upon conservative Christians.”
The primary world crises I describe are unwarranted and unjust conflicts, violations of American civil liberties and the torture of prisoners, extreme favoritism of the rich at the expense of poor and working families, violation of international agreements to control nuclear weapons, and a derogation of protection of the environment. These are, as I explain, due to radical and unprecedented changes in our government’s basic policies, as contrasted to policies of all previous administrations including those of Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, as well as Democratic presidents. In none of them do I implicate “conservative Christians” – a group of whom I consider myself to be a member.
As clearly as possible, I describe my own views regarding abortion, gay marriage, the death penalty, and other contentious social issues. Mr. Mohler writes, “As he sees it, America is being ripped apart by the fundamentalists who push their concerns about abortion, marriage, homosexuality, and other issues in the public square.” Anyone who reads my book will find this statement to be completely wrong. In fact, I believe that most Christians will agree with my assessments and may find some ideas useful in reducing the sharp divisions among us that threaten our global work as evangelicals.
One other statement of Mr. Mohler deserves correction:
“Understandably, Mr. Carter blames conservative evangelicals in general - and the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention in particular - for his devastating loss to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election.”
I have never believed such a thing, nor expressed this opinion. The American hostages being held in Iran, extremely high inflation rates, and a divided Democratic party were some of the important factors, and the only ones I have ever discussed publicly.
Mr. Mohler is correct in describing my concerns about the changes that have taken place in the Southern Baptist Convention, including the mandatory imposition of the rigid creed that he says he helped draft, the subjugation of women, withdrawal from the Baptist World Alliance and exclusion of others who express slight differences, and the increasingly overt decisions to break down the historic barrier between church and state.
I define the extreme form of fundamentalism that I deplore, which has been adopted by just a very small number of Baptist leaders and has resulted in a severe schism within our denomination.
My book’s primary expression of hope is for reconciliation of all Christians so that we can work as brothers and sisters in Christ. As Paul admonished the Galatians, we should remember that we are saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and not permit the insertion of contentious social issues to separate us from one another.
On a more personal note, I have not met Mr. Mohler but delivered the graduation address at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary prior to his becoming president. I am sure that he and I agree on more religious and political issues than is indicated by this brief exchange of views.
Jimmy Carter
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CNN founder Ted Turner once remarked, “If I only had a little humility, I would be perfect.” In a strange and almost perfectly ironic sense, this statement encapsulates the spirit of our age--an attitude that gives lip service to humility while celebrating self-promotion. Humility is hardly a hallmark of our age.
From the playing fields of athletics to the trading floors of Wall Street, humility appears to be an accessory few persons believe they can afford. The dominant personalities and cultural icons of our day are most often individuals adept at self-promotion and projection. Sadly, this confusion about the true calling of humility is found even in the church, where humility is too often seen as a gift granted to the few, rather than as the command addressed to all.
C. J. Mahaney seeks to set the record straight in his new book, Humility: True Greatness. The leader of Sovereign Grace Ministries--a group of highly-committed gospel churches--C. J. served for twenty-seven years as pastor of Covenant Life Church, located in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. C. J. is a friend from whom I have learned much, and in his newest book he has much to teach us about the nature of true humility.
One of the central problems of our times is the fact that our reflex is to define humility in basically human terms. Thus, humility can dissolve into an endless and pointless process of comparing ourselves with others. C. J. understands that this is just not the right place to start.
Instead, C. J. defines humility as “honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and our sinfulness.” That sets humility in an entirely new light. “That’s the twin reality that all genuine humility is rooted in: God’s holiness and our sinfulness,” C. J. explains. “Without an honest awareness of both these realities . . . all self-evaluation will be skewed and we’ll fail to either understand or practice true humility.”
From the onset, C. J. admits the awkwardness of writing a book about humility. “If I met someone presuming to have something to say about humility, automatically I’d think them unqualified to speak on the subject,” he observes. So, just why did C. J. write this book? “I’m a proud man pursuing humility by the grace of God,” he explains. “I don’t write as an authority on humility; I write as a fellow pilgrim walking with you on the path set for us by our humble Savior. I can only address you with confidence in the great and gracious God who has promised to give grace to the humble.”
The eclipse of humility can be traced to our celebration of human pride. “The sad fact is that none of us are immune to the logic-defined, blinding effects of pride,” C. J. instructs. “Though it shows up in different forms and to differing degrees, it affects us all. The real issue here is not if pride exists in your heart; it’s where and how pride is being expressed in your life. Scripture shows us that pride is strongly and dangerously rooted in all our lives, far more than most of us care to admit or even think about.”
In making this argument, C. J. is solidly within the Western tradition of theology, perhaps most magisterially represented by Augustine, the greatest of the Church Fathers. According to Scripture, pride is not simply one sin among others. In a very real sense, it is the very root of all sin--demonstrating the ambition of the human heart to assert the human will over God’s will.
C. J. helpfully defines pride as “when sinful human beings aspire to the status and position of God and refuse to acknowledge their dependence upon Him.” Of course, pride did not begin with human beings. C. J. helpfully points to Satan’s rebellion as explained in Isaiah 14:13. “Led by the prideful Lucifer,” C. J. explains, “powerful angelic creatures possessing beauty and glory far beyond our comprehension arrogantly desired recognition and status equal to God Himself. In response, God swiftly and severely judged them.”
Thus, pride stands at the very core of sin. As C. J. explains, pride is directed towards one solitary end--self-glorification. “That’s the motive and ultimate purpose of pride--to rob God of legitimate glory and to pursue self-glorification, contending for supremacy with Him. The proud person seeks to glorify himself and not God, thereby attempting in effect to deprive God of something only He is worthy to receive.”
The knowledge and confession of pride is rare in our times. Most modern persons would be hard pressed to identify with Jonathan Edwards, who once acknowledged his own sin by confessing, “What a foolish, silly, miserable, blind, deceived poor worm am I, when pride works.” To the modern prophets of self-promotion and self-esteem, this looks like a sick-souled individual in need of therapy. To the contrary, Edwards understood the deadly danger of pride and his own inclination to self-deceit.
In our day, C. J.’s assertion that humility makes for true greatness runs against the very maxims by which our culture measures greatness. In essence, this is just one more indication of how deeply pride has infected humanity. In the culture at large, pursuing greatness amounts to a projection of the self. In C. J.’s words, this comes down to individuals who are “motivated by self-interest, self-indulgence, and a false sense of self-sufficiency,” who are pursuing “selfish ambition for the purpose of self-glorification.” This is contrasted with true greatness which is biblically defined as “serving others for the glory of God.”
The awareness of sin is a necessary corrective. “That’s why we need to stay close to the doctrine of sin--because it helps us to see the presence of pride and protects us from those hardening effects,” C. J. explains. “The doctrine of sin was specifically designed for this, and it’s sufficiently potent to put pride to death in our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Of course, sin is a problem we can’t solve. The only antidote to the problem of sin is the grace and mercy of God demonstrated in the cross of Jesus Christ. “Our situation couldn’t be more serious,” C. J. reminds us. “Prior to our conversion we were sin’s prisoners, and even after our conversion we continue to fight the presence of sin, though we’re freed from the power and penalty of sin. And if you aren’t aware of this danger, you’ll never sufficiently appreciate the significance of His death. It’s this captivity to sin and continued tendency to sin that necessitates the Savior’s death as a ransom for many. That’s the price the ransom requires: the life of God’s only Son.”
Throughout the book, C. J. offers helpful suggestions about how Christians can seek and find true humility. With wonderful pastoral advice, C. J. suggests that believers should begin and end the day in a spirit of gratitude to God. “I found that it’s possible for me to charge into my day motivated by self-sufficiency,” he admits. “But I’ve also learned that the very act of opening my Bible to read and turning my heart and mind to prayer makes a statement that I need God.” Likewise, the end of the day “offers us a unique opportunity to cultivate humility and weaken pride, as well as to sense God’s pleasure. How? By reviewing our day and carefully assigning all glory to God for the grace we’ve experienced that day.”
Most helpfully, C. J. also points to the necessity of finding humility through participation in the life of the local church. “We’re all in need of grace. There’s no one you know who doesn’t need more of it. And God has so composed His church that when we’re together in a larger corporate gathering or in a small group or even in casual conversation, we can both receive grace and communicate grace through the exchange of edifying and appropriate words.” Christians inculcate humility by giving and receiving correction as a demonstration of God’s grace.
“Never forget that others see what you do not,” C. J. advises. “Where you’re blind to sin their vision is often twenty-twenty. And by God’s grace they can impart clarity to help protect you from the hardening effects of sin. Others can exhort you, encourage you, and correct you. They are a gift from God in your battle against sin. And you never grow out of this need. Never.”
One of the most important sections of Humility: True Greatness focuses on the need of parents to call out humility in their children. Readers will note that C. J. has dedicated this book to his twelve-year-old son, Chad, in whom he finds obvious delight. At the same time, C. J. understands that the Christian parent’s responsibility is not to make their children into objects of pride, but rather to prepare them for the demonstration of true humility. “If humility is to endure in our families and churches, it must be cultivated by parents and pastors and passed on to our families and churches,” C. J. helpfully instructs.
Far too many parents fall into the trap of making their children into projects of self-expression. These children are pampered, pushed, and transformed into objects of their parents’ self-projection. C. J. gets right to the heart of the problem: “Do your ambitions for your son or daughter include a certain vocation or a certain level of education? Graduation from a certain college? Professional or athletic or artistic recognition? If so, let me ask this: Are any of these ambitions in line with true greatness as defined in Scripture?”
In this new book, C. J. Mahaney has given his fellow Christians a real gift, even as he has dared to confront the self-delusions of our times. To know C. J. is to know that God has prepared him to write this book and to serve as an example of the very humility he commends. Humility: True Greatness is truly a tract for our times.
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R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.
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I have been asked tonight to talk about a Christian vision of beauty, and I am first struck by the fact that this conversation would be so rare. There are altogether too few opportunities for Christians to ponder some of the biggest questions of life. We tend to focus on the questions of urgency and the questions of immediate interest. That is not to say that such questions are improper, but it is to say that Christian thought can sometimes fall out of balance. One of the realities we face is that in a conversation like this, we are not exactly sure where to begin. Where should we begin talking about beauty?
Allow me to make a couple of preliminary observations, the first of which is this: There is something intrinsic to humanity that is drawn to beauty. There is something of an aesthetic desire in us--an aesthetic appetite. Even infants are attracted to certain objects and even faces because of complexity and color and light, those elements which aesthetic theorists have considered the very substance of beauty, form, and attractiveness. Moreover, this desire for and recognition of beauty is something unique to human beings. Dogs do not contemplate a sunset. Animals do not ponder the beauty of the landscape. It is true the heavens are declaring the glory of God, but most of the creatures on the planet are oblivious to this fact. They neither make nor observe nor appreciate art. They stage no dramas, write no music, and paint no portraits. The desire for art is something unique and nearly universal among human beings.
At the same time, we must understand that beauty is in crisis; it is a contested category. Let me suggest two reasons why this is so. First, beauty is a category in crisis because it has been so devalued in the reigning confusion of popular culture. The fact is that we have come to use the word “beautiful” in an altogether awkward and inappropriate context. We speak of beauty, when what we really mean is prettiness, or attractiveness, or even likeability. None of these things, however, is actually equal to beauty. Yet the popular culture increasingly confuses the artificial for the real, the pretty for the beautiful, and the untrue for the true--all of which are essentially one root confusion, as we shall see.
Second, beauty is a category in crisis also at the level of elite culture and academia, where philosophers who give attention to aesthetic theory are increasingly convinced that beauty is a shopworn category. It is either political, or entirely subjective, or delusional. Many of the major writers in philosophy suggest that beauty is a category we ought to discard altogether. The idea of beauty, they say, is too expensive, too contested, and too misleading.
In the history of Western thought, beauty has often been a difficult category. The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, for example, was convinced that in the end aesthetics was a divergence from ethics, so that to be concerned with the beautiful was to be inadequately concerned for the good. Friedrich Nietzche, the very prophet of nihilism himself, believed that the category of beauty was a symptom of the decadence and the weakness of modern humanity. Only the decadent would consider beauty important, he argued, because all that finally matters is power. Perhaps in reality, Nietzche saw only power as beautiful.
But if beauty is in crisis in terms of the culture, both at the popular level and among the elites, it is also in trouble in the church, where the influence of popular culture has led to confusion about what beauty actually is and why we as Christians should seek it.
A Christian understanding of beauty runs directly into the wisdom of the age by suggesting that the beautiful is simultaneously the good and the true and the real. This goes all the way back to the conversation of the ancients--especially to Plato, who understood the good, the beautiful, the true, and the real as being essentially reducible to the same thing. If there is one good, then that good must also be the true, which must also be the real, which must also be the beautiful. So the good, the beautiful, the true, and the real--the four great historical transcendentals--are unified in the One. For Plato, however, the One had no name.
Augustine, the great theologian of the patristic era, identified the One as the one true and living God. Taking Plato’s metaphysical speculations into the very heart of the Gospel, Augustine suggested that Christians uniquely understand that the good, the beautiful, the true, and the real, are indeed one, because they are established in the reality of the self-revealing God--the triune God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He alone is beautiful, He alone is good, He alone is true, and He alone is real. That is not to suggest that nothing else reflects beauty or truth or goodness. It is simply to say that He alone, by virtue of the fact that He is infinite in all His perfections, is the source and the judge and the end of all that is good, beautiful, true, and real. For as Paul said, from Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever, Amen.
Now this Christian conversation about the transcendentals opens an entirely new awareness for us. We now begin to understand that there is a moral context, a truth context, to every question about beauty. We can no longer talk about beauty as a mere matter of taste. Instantly, by affirming the unity of the transcendentals, we are required to see beauty fundamentally as a matter of truth to which taste is accountable, rather than a matter of taste to which truth is accountable.
Thus, it violates Scripture and indeed the character of God to call something “beautiful” which is not good, or “true” which is not beautiful, or “real” which is not true. Now, all of these things come together and immediately are subjective analyses of the beautiful. Yet if we are honest, we admit to ourselves that in our common cultural conversation, we routinely sever the good from the true, the true from the beautiful, the beautiful from the real, and the real from the good. As Christians, we alone really understand why this is so, and why it so important.
Augustine understood that beauty was a key Christian category. Indeed, Christians cannot properly think as Christians without understanding the power of beauty. In his Confessions he said this: “I have learnt to love you late, Beauty at once so ancient and so new! I have learnt to love you late! You were within me, and I was in the world outside myself. I searched for you outside myself and, disfigured as I was, I fell upon the lovely things of your creation. The beautiful things of this world kept me from you and yet, if they had not been in you, they would have had no being at all.” In that confessional statement, Augustine is saying that it was beauty that was calling him. It was his Creator that was calling him, and yet he was distracted by the things of apparent beauty in the world. And yet he does not despise those things; he remembers that their beauty is merely a reflected beauty, derived from the fact that God is their Creator.
Augustine continues: “It was you then, O Lord, who made them. You who are beautiful, for they too are beautiful. You who are good, for they too are good. You who are, for they too are. But they are not beautiful and good as you are beautiful and good. Nor do they have their being as you the Creator have your being. In comparison with you, they have neither beauty nor goodness nor being at all.” Augustine realizes that in order to see true beauty, he has to go to his Creator, and then, knowing the Creator, he may observe the creation and see that it does indeed bear the mark of its Maker. There is undeniable beauty in creation, but in comparison with the infinite beauty of the Creator, such finite beauty no longer has the seductive allure it once had. All earthly beauty is simultaneously validated and relativized by the contemplation of the beauty of God.
The same theme was picked up by Jonathan Edwards, who said this: “True holiness must mainly consist in love to God, for holiness consists in loving what is most excellent and beautiful. Because God is infinitely the most beautiful and excellent being, He must necessarily be loved supremely by those who are truly holy. It follows from this that God’s own holiness must consist primarily in love to Himself. Being most holy, He most loves what is good and beautiful, that is Himself. To love completely what is most completely good is to be most completely perfect. From this, it follows that a truly holy mind, above all other things, seeks the glory of God and makes the glory of God His supreme governing and ultimate end.”
In that brief statement, Edwards does something very helpful and very consistent with the Christian tradition. As a matter of fact, it is a necessary insight once we go to the Scriptures. If you search through the Old Testament, you will notice that the word “beauty” is really not there. Instead, it is the word “glory.” Throughout the Bible, the beauty of God is most commonly described as His glory. Once we understand the biblical category of glory--that is, the reality of God in terms of His inner reality and the external manifestation of Himself--we realize that God’s glory encompasses all the transcendentals. To gaze upon God is not first of all to see His beauty, but rather His glory.
Edwards defined beauty as consisting mostly in “sweet mutual consents.” By this, Edwards meant that things are rightly set: The thing is what God declared that it must be. In other words, beauty is achieved when the thing created most closely and most perfectly glorifies its Creator. Thus a “sweet mutual consent,” or absolute harmony, exists between the created thing and the Creator.
When we look at the unity of the transcendentals, and compare Edwards’ and Augustine’s vision of view to our contemporary poverty concerning things beautiful, we are quickly and painfully aware that something has gone horribly wrong. Why would human beings seek to sunder the unity between the good and the beautiful, between the true and the real, between the beautiful and the true? Why would we want to call something that is ugly true? Why would we want to call something that is unreal beautiful? That is a symptom of a human sickness, and that sickness is sin.
Our understanding of beauty as a category in crisis begins not with contemporary confusion, but in the Garden of Eden, where our first parents were attracted to the forbidden fruit at least in part because it was attractive to the eyes. A false understanding of beauty--the false allure of the evil rather than the good--is a part of the story of the Fall. Thus the confusion over beauty is not merely an item of cultural consternation, nor is it merely a matter of theological debate. It is a matter of redemption. The only way out of our confusion over beauty is to know the Creator, to know Him not merely conceptually but personally, and to have our relationship with Him once again set right, something which only He can do. Then Edwards’ vision of the “sweet mutual consents” might be realized--a redeemed people once again entering into the mutual consent of the good, the beautiful, the true, and the real.
[Editor’s Note: This is an edited transcript of an address Dr. Mohler gave on November 14, 2005, at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. Tomorrow: Why the World is Beautiful, but Not Quite.]
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R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.
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The Christian vision of beauty opens an entirely new awareness for us. We now begin to understand that there is a moral context, a truth context, to every question about beauty. We can no longer talk about beauty as a mere matter of taste. Instantly, by affirming the unity of the transcendentals, we are required to see beauty fundamentally as a matter of truth to which taste is accountable, rather than a matter of taste to which truth is accountable.
Let me follow through with three basic implications of the Christian vision of truth and beauty. First, the Christian vision of beauty explains why the world is beautiful, but not quite. We are often struck by the beauty of the created order, and this feeling is validated for us in Genesis chapter 1, where the Creator’s own verdict is that the creation is good. The goodness of creation is therefore nonnegotiable, and again the unity of the transcendentals reminds us that if it is good, then it is also necessarily true, and real, and beautiful. Thus our metaphysic and our aesthetic, our understanding of truth and our evaluation of ethics, all come together in creation. The creation as God made it was good and beautiful and true and real.
But of course, we then must proceed to Genesis chapter 3, where we learn that the disruption and confusion over beauty--the corruption of the very concept of beauty--is not derived from a mere fault in human perception; it is rather a matter of human rebellion. Genesis 3 is a picture of the beautiful denied, of the real, the good, and the true rejected in favor of mankind’s desire to be as God.
The cosmic effect of Adam’s fall extended even to the natural world, so that what once could tell only the truth now lies. In verse 6, we read: “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and she ate, and she gave also to her husband with her and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were open, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.”
Thus we are warned that that which is a delight to the eyes may very well be unbeautiful. Our human temptation is to substitute the truly beautiful for that which is merely a delight to our senses and a delight to our eyes, and thus we also are drawn to the forbidden fruit of a corrupt and fallen culture.
Verse 7 teaches that once Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, their eyes were opened. Following the mentality of the Enlightenment, this would appear not to be a Fall at all, but a rise. After all, a human capacity that had been absent is now present. Eyes that have been able to see only the beautiful have been opened, but that opening leads not to enlightenment, but to confusion and corruption. Their eyes were opened, and the first thing they saw is that they were naked. That which had only been seen as beautiful and good and true now became a thing of embarrassment and shame. So Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.
The Creator’s verdict upon sin is made clear in the remainder of Genesis 3, and we see again that there are cosmic consequences. The ground itself will demonstrate the effects of the Fall. In verse 22, we find: “Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil. And now, he might stretch out his hand and take also from the Tree of Life and eat and live forever.’ Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the Garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So He drove the man out, and at the east of the Garden of Eden, He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword, which turned every direction to guard the way to the Tree of Life.” Because of sin, the earth would now become hostile. That which had willingly yielded its fruit must now be cultivated. By the sweat of the brow, the man would have to work the field, even as the pains of childbirth would also now demonstrate the effect of the Fall in the woman herself.
So in Genesis chapter 1, we have the perfection of God’s created order--the unity of the transcendentals. Now, however, the unity of the good, the beautiful, the true, and the real has been sundered, and thus we are plunged into confusion and rebellion. Yet even still, the world is beautiful--though not quite. In other words, there is a vestigial beauty in creation that calls out to all concerning the reality of God. This is reflected, of course, throughout the Psalms, where we are reminded that the heavens tell the glories of God. The firmament, the seas, the crawling and creeping things--all of them cry forth the wonder, the reality, and the goodness of the Creator.
Despite this, however, human beings are given to corrupting even this expression of beauty. For one thing, it is all too easy to worship the creation rather than the Creator. We can very quickly look at the creation and think that it is beautiful in itself, rather than having been made beautiful by the One who alone is beautiful. We can begin to look at the human creature as beautiful in and of himself, rather than beautiful because he or she is made in the image of God. Thus we adopt and bring into the very center of our hearts a corrupted understanding of beauty that bears more signs of the Fall than of the common grace that allows us--even as fallen creatures--to see this beauty.
There is another problem, of course, with the beauty of creation: It often lies. In the oceans, there is a fish known as the lionfish. It is incredibly beautiful--and venomous. In the Amazon jungles, there are many frogs, some a beautiful verdant green, some almost unimaginably purple, some almost iridescently yellow--and all deadly, such that the aboriginal peoples in those places would often use the fluid on the skin of these animals to poison their darts. That which looks beautiful to the eyes can kill, and thus we have learned not to trust our apprehension of beauty.
All this confusion about the created world is a symptom of our fallenness, but it is not just human beings that are affected by sin, by the severing of the good, the beautiful, the true, and the real. Creation as a whole finds itself groaning because of human sin. In Romans 8, the Apostle Paul speaks of God’s work of redemption in all of its comprehensive glory, including creation itself. He writes: “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now, and not only this, but we also ourselves, having the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.”
The work of redemption has cosmic significance. That which has been corrupted by sin is to be restored, but even now in this age, we are to see it and understand it as groaning, anxiously awaiting the revelation of the sons of God.
In Revelation 21, we have the end of the story, and even as we began with a perfect creation, we have here the promise of a new heaven and a new earth. “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will be no longer any death; there will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain; the first things have passed away.’ And He sits on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’ And He said, ‘Write, for these words are faithful and true.’ Then He said to me, ‘It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and He will be My son.’”
Beginning in verse 10, John writes about the new Jerusalem: “And He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city of Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper. It had a great and high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names were written on them, which were the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. There were three gates on the east and three gates on the north and three gates on the south and three gates on the west.”
The beauty of the new Jerusalem is reflected in language about precious and semi-precious stones. The streets are said to be made of gold. All this has been turned into the stuff of gospel music, but the picture is much more of beauty than of opulence. It is meant to cause us to think about what a redeemed city would actually be, how it would appear. This is creation reset, a new heaven and a new earth, and now a new Jerusalem. Thus we have the completion of God’s redeeming work, and it comes with the revelation not only of the sons of God, but of the Son of God, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, who after all was the firstborn of all creation, the One through whom all the worlds were made, and the Logos who was the very instrument of the creation itself.
So the Christian worldview explains to us why the world is beautiful--but not quite. As the Psalmist says, the world indeed tells forth the glory of God, but it does so in fallenness. The world contains things of prettiness that are deadly, and the inclination of human beings is to worship the creature and the creation rather than the Creator. The world is now groaning under the effect of sin and the wrath and judgment of God. That explains a great deal to us, including natural evil--hurricanes and earthquakes and tsunamis, venomous fish and poisonous plants. Yet it was not always so, and it will not always be so. Scripture points us toward the restoration of all things. The Christian understanding of beauty is an eschatological view, one that looks forward to the unveiling of true beauty, which will come on the day of the Lord when the Alpha and the Omega will be seen as the beautiful One.
[Editor’s Note: This is Part Two of an edited transcript of an address Dr. Mohler gave on November 14, 2005, at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. Click here or scroll down for Part One. Tomorrow: Why the Face of a Child With Down’s Syndrome is More Beautiful Than the Cover Girl on the Fashion Magazine.]
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R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.
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The Christian vision of beauty not only tells us why the world is beautiful--but not quite. Secondly, the Christian worldview explains why the face of a child with Down’s syndrome is more beautiful than the cover girl in the fashion magazine. The unity of the good, the beautiful, the true, and the real calls us to look below the surface and to understand that the ontological reality of every single human being is that we are made in the image of God. The imago Dei is the beauty in each of us, and the rest is but of cosmetic irrelevance.
Just as we, in our fallenness, are likely to see the fallen aspects of creation as beautiful, we are also likely to try to validate ourselves in an artificial humanism of worshiping the creature. When we look at our fellow human beings, or frankly, when we look in the mirror, we are likely to be led astray by prevailing concepts of prettiness and attractiveness rather than to gaze into the mirror or to gaze into our neighbor and see one made in the image of God. The imago Dei is the complete and transformative category here, and without it we are left with nothing but the superficial. The imago Dei explains why the child with Down’s syndrome is far more beautiful in herself than the cover girl in the fashion magazine.
First of all, let us remember that one of the transcendentals is the real. What does it say of us that we live in a culture in which the cover girl is the ideal, and yet no one actually looks like that? The Times of London recently forecast that eighty percent of all women will have cosmetic surgery at some point. What kind of world is this? Now, most of us, and I am the first of sinners in this category, would not want to answer the door to face a television camera first thing in the morning. We get dressed. We use various techniques and technologies. We are at least somewhat attuned to the fashions of the day. So if we suggest that we Christians are completely without concern for attractiveness, we lie. But at the same time, we ought to be the people who understand that this is mere window dressing. This is an apron of fig leaves, placed upon our nakedness in the garden.
In reality, a Christian worldview that takes full account of human sinfulness is the only way that we can understand how prevailing cultural standards tend to dehumanize our fellow human beings. We delude ourselves into thinking that attractiveness means beauty. Just as nature can lie with its attractive creatures, so also we can lie with the attractiveness we try to portray on the newsstands, on the television, in Hollywood, or in the mirror. An entire industry of billions of dollars is built upon the lie that one can buy enough or endure enough, suffer enough or apply enough, to be genuinely beautiful. The whole category of pornography is one big mutual co-conspiracy to deny the beautiful in favor of a perverted ideal of attractiveness. The real is denied, because given the insatiable desire of the sinner toward erotic attractiveness, the real no longer suffices. Thus the imagined and the fantasized becomes the hunger that is the appetite to be met.
The Christian vision of beauty not only tells us why the world is beautiful--but not quite. Secondly, the Christian worldview explains why the face of a child with Down’s syndrome is more beautiful than the cover girl in the fashion magazine. The unity of the good, the beautiful, the true, and the real calls us to look below the surface and to understand that the ontological reality of every single human being is that we are made in the image of God. The imago Dei is the beauty in each of us, and the rest is but of cosmetic irrelevance.
Just as we, in our fallenness, are likely to see the fallen aspects of creation as beautiful, we are also likely to try to validate ourselves in an artificial humanism of worshiping the creature. When we look at our fellow human beings, or frankly, when we look in the mirror, we are likely to be led astray by prevailing concepts of prettiness and attractiveness rather than to gaze into the mirror or to gaze into our neighbor and see one made in the image of God. The imago Dei is the complete and transformative category here, and without it we are left with nothing but the superficial. The imago Dei explains why the child with Down’s syndrome is far more beautiful in herself than the cover girl in the fashion magazine.
First of all, let us remember that one of the transcendentals is the real. What does it say of us that we live in a culture in which the cover girl is the ideal, and yet no one actually looks like that? The Times of London recently forecast that eighty percent of all women will have cosmetic surgery at some point. What kind of world is this? Now, most of us, and I am the first of sinners in this category, would not want to answer the door to face a television camera first thing in the morning. We get dressed. We use various techniques and technologies. We are at least somewhat attuned to the fashions of the day. So if we suggest that we Christians are completely without concern for attractiveness, we lie. But at the same time, we ought to be the people who understand that this is mere window dressing. This is an apron of fig leaves, placed upon our nakedness in the garden.
In reality, a Christian worldview that takes full account of human sinfulness is the only way that we can understand how prevailing cultural standards tend to dehumanize our fellow human beings. We delude ourselves into thinking that attractiveness means beauty. Just as nature can lie with its attractive creatures, so also we can lie with the attractiveness we try to portray on the newsstands, on the television, in Hollywood, or in the mirror. An entire industry of billions of dollars is built upon the lie that one can buy enough or endure enough, suffer enough or apply enough, to be genuinely beautiful. The whole category of pornography is one big mutual co-conspiracy to deny the beautiful in favor of a perverted ideal of attractiveness. The real is denied, because given the insatiable desire of the sinner toward erotic attractiveness, the real no longer suffices. Thus the imagined and the fantasized becomes the hunger that is the appetite to be met.
The cross is beautiful, not tragic. As Isaiah 53:3 reminds us, there was no prettiness in Jesus, and the cross itself certainly is not pretty. It is a symbol of execution. Yet we know the reality. We know the truth, and thus we embrace the cross as a beautiful cross on which hung a beautiful Savior, whose death was a beautiful death. In terms of humans, there are no beautiful deaths. Only one death was beautiful, and that was the death of the One who died for our sins.
In 2 Corinthians 4:6, Paul says, “For God, who said light shall shine out of darkness, is the one who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” Thus we who have been called to faith, who have come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and who have been transformed by the grace of God, now see the Lord Jesus Christ and his cross as beautiful.
In Revelation 22, we are reminded of how God will one day bring beauty to perfection. “Then He showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, on either side of the river, was the Tree of Life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse”--there’s the corruption reversed--”and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it and His bondservants will serve Him, they will see His face, they will gaze upon Him. And His name will be on their foreheads, and there will be no longer any night and they will not have need of the light of a lamp, nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them and they will reign forever and forever.”
Let me conclude by suggesting that for Christians, beauty is an evangelistic category. In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky put in the mouth of one of his characters this phrase: “Beauty is the battlefield where God and Satan contend with each other for the hearts of men.” And thus it is. In one sense, the evil one tempts with prettiness, and lies about beauty, and corrupts the good, the beautiful, the true, and the real, sundering them from each other and celebrating the confusion. He celebrates whenever something ugly is called true, when something unreal is called beautiful. Evangelism, then, is a matter of restoring the unity of the transcendentals. The unity that has been sundered, however, can only be put back together again by the one who created the world, and thus redeems.
It is no accident when we are told in Romans 10 that the one who carries the Gospel has beautiful feet. A recovery of beauty can only come by recovering humanity. It can only come by recovering truth, and it can only come by recovering the good and the real, by the power of God.
Beauty is for us an evangelistic mandate, a missiological purpose. We are the people who know what beauty is--not that we have seen it yet with our eyes, but we have seen it in a foretaste, and we have been promised it with an assured promise. In this life, we live amidst the pretty, the corrupt, and the artificial. We live among those who do not believe beauty exists, and among those who think beauty can be manufactured. In such a context, we are the ones who have to say we know beauty, and it is none other than Jesus Christ the Lord.
[Editor’s Note: This is Part Three of an edited transcript of an address Dr. Mohler gave on November 14, 2005, at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. ]
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R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.
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The holiday police are at it again--looking for violations of the nation’s new policy of separating faith and civic celebrations. The same folks who will soon be trolling courthouse squares looking for manger scenes are now calling on Americans to have a happy Thanksgiving . . . but leave God out of it.
School textbooks filled with revisionist history tell children that the first Thanksgiving was a celebration at which the Pilgrims thanked the Indians for teaching them how to survive the harsh New England climate and plant successful crops. God is simply not part of the picture.
Some educators, worried that even the word “thanksgiving” might be too controversial, have renamed the holiday “Turkey Day.” Of course, this implies that the central thrust of the celebration comes down to poultry.
The revisionist historians want to have it both ways. They present the Pilgrims as wild-eyed religious fanatics--precursors to the Religious Right--and then suggest that the first Thanksgiving was essentially a secular holiday.
The historical basis for the Thanksgiving observance is clear. In 1621, the Pilgrims celebrated “the goodness of God” as they feasted with friendly local Indians. In reality, the Pilgrims had faced far greater adversity than had been expected. The climate was harsh, the crops were sparse, the native peoples were often hostile, and their ranks were thinning. Hunger, disease, discomfort, and discouragement were ever close at hand.
Aiming for Virginia, these Christians--dissenting from the Church of England and determined to establish a truly Christian community--actually landed in New England. That miscalculation meant that disaster was almost certain. Nevertheless, they “fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven who had brought them over this vast and furious ocean,” recorded Governor William Bradford.
In 1789, President George Washington declared the first national day of Thanksgiving by asking Americans to “unite in most humbly offering our prayer and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of nations.”
Later presidents followed Washington’s example. Abraham Lincoln issued moving Thanksgiving proclamations during the Civil War. Franklin Roosevelt, who regularized the holiday on the national calendar, called the nation to thankfulness in the middle of World War II: “The Almighty God has blessed our nation in many ways. He has given our people stout hearts and strong arms with which to strike mighty blows for freedom and truth.... So we pray to Him now for a vision to see our way clearly--to see the way that leads to a better life for ourselves and for our fellow men--to the achievement of His will, to peace on earth.”
Is all this just a demonstration of civil religion? Do most Americans really follow the example of the Pilgrims in expressing thankfulness to God, or is it just another holiday with emotional overtones--and an orgy of overeating?
Millions of Americans will, no doubt, celebrate an essentially secular festival. For them, it might as well be “Turkey Day” or something equally vacuous. This reveals the most important contrast between the Pilgrims and the current generation. The Pilgrims were driven by a worldview that was centered in the worship of the one true and living God, the Creator of the universe, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. They understood His providential rule over the universe to explain everything that happened to them--and everything that blessed them. They did not attribute their survival in New England to their own fortitude--nor to the help of the Indians--but to God.
Secularized Americans are driven by no impulse to give thanks, and wouldn’t know to whom thanks should be addressed. They think of themselves as self-sufficient, self-directed, and self-reliant. Their horizon of thankfulness is, to say the least, rather low.
The civic holiday may not mean a great deal to many moderns--but that doesn’t mean that it is meaningless. At the very least, it implies that we cannot really take care of ourselves. That is just as true today as it was in Pilgrim New England.
Christians understand that the call to thanksgiving is far more urgent than a holiday, and far more important than the calendar. True thanksgiving cannot be limited to a day or a season. We recognize that God has given us everything that we have--and everything that we need. We acknowledge our unconditional dependence upon Him for every second of our lives, every morsel we will eat, and every joy we will ever experience.
Deserving nothing but God’s wrath, we were granted forgiveness through the Son. Needing all things, we have been given everything needful for our salvation and eternal life. To these God has added joys, comforts, and provision beyond our imagination--”far more abundantly than all that we ask or think.” [Ephesians 3:20]
So, gather together to give thanks to God. While others celebrate “Turkey Day” and ponder poultry, direct your thoughts to the God of Heaven, by whose hand we have been brought near and given more than we can even remember.
The Pilgrims knew to whom they were praying--and why. Let’s follow their example and remember that their dependence upon God was no greater than our own.
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R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.
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Known for “intelligent Christian conversation,” prominent theologian and cultural commentator Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., is hosting his final live radio program Friday.
After nine years of providing a biblical perspective on cultural issues and engaging with a live national audience, Mohler has decided to end his radio stint.
“As I’m now struggling with issues related to my other responsibilities it has become very clear that I’m going to be unable to continue a live radio broadcast like this on the same terms and schedule that I’ve experienced for the last several years,” he said.
Mohler, who has been dubbed the “reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement in the U.S.” by Time.com, currently serves as president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., and is the media’s go-to evangelical on controversial issues and Christianity.
He has been hosting a one-hour live talk show, called The Albert Mohler Program, every weekday, providing thousands of listeners with “the Al Mohler view of the world” – as Washington, D.C., pastor Mark Dever described it – and interviewing hundreds of guests.
The program was originally called “Truth on the Line.”
Reformed theologian Ligon Duncan thanked Mohler for “edifying” him over the past nine years. Dever, meanwhile, lightly posed, “Al, what are we going to do from five to six (p.m.)? Just drive home in silence?”
In one of his last live commentaries on Thursday, Mohler commented briefly on this week’s confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. He drew attention to her role, during her service as an adviser in the Clinton White House, in revising the language of a statement by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologist so as to delay the enactment of the partial-birth abortion ban.
“I think it gives us a rather chilling and I’ll just say a rather frightening indication of what may be behind the judicial approach, the legal reasoning of Elena Kagan,” Mohler said.
Nearing his final live show, Mohler commented that the experience of talking with callers on the air has been the most fascinating.
“The thing I will miss more than anything else is the conversation with America over the means of the radio broadcast. There’s an incredible intimacy to radio ... because radio builds a community.”
Ending the program was one of the most difficult decisions Mohler has ever made, he said, but he explained that it “simply came down to the fact that a live radio program at 5 o’clock everyday was becoming something that literally kept me from doing, as much as I loved it, some other things that for the cause of the Gospel and the Kingdom I really need to do.”
“By the end of the day we’ve got to decide how we’re going to be most maximally deployed for the glory of God.”
Mohler will continue to provide national commentary on “issues that matter” but via podcast rather than live radio. The podcast, called “The Briefing,” will be offered as a daily resource beginning in September.
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