Patting myself on the back
Well, folks, you heard it here first. I predicted that Merely Reconciler would present the only non-white-male on his secret committee as the front line in dealing with the GLBT issues on campus. Well, it happened. They set up two panels, each with the same panelists, one panel addressing faculty and staff and one panel addressing students.
The moderator of these panels was the African-American woman who is our new chaplain and the only member of that committee who is not a white man.
All on the same page
The panelists were president Rudyard, provost Merely Reconciler, and dean of students Gimli.
At the forum for faculty and staff, each of those three spoke for five or ten minutes then the chaplain opened it up for questions.
Rudyard spoke first. He said that not so long ago, the church lined its culture up more closely with the Bible than we do today on the topics of slavery and the role of women. Back in the days when the church had a more biblical culture, they had it wrong, according to Rudyard.
Merely Reconciler spoke next. He said that we are “people of the book”, that our culture “takes its cue from scripture” and that our culture (that is, the culture of our denomination) is completely biblical. He also said that our stance toward people with same-sex attraction or other gender issues—i.e., people whom the Bible says should be stoned to death—is that we are “welcoming but not affirming.”
Gimli spoke last. She said that we do not and should not do anything to welcome people with same sex attraction and that such people should not feel comfortable here.
One of the purposes of this panel was to help all of the faculty and staff have more clarity about what the truth is on this issue. The panel very effectively ensured that we were all on the same page.
The best question
There were some questions from gay-sympathizers but the most interesting question was from my English hero. He spoke for quite a while about the frightening and powerful gay agenda. He mentioned how it was infiltrating some protestant denominations so much that gay people were permitted to breathe in some churches almost as freely as straight white men breathe at our University. (I think he must have been exaggerating but it is a justified use of the literary device of hyperbole: one can never be too afraid of the gay agenda.) He mentioned that there were rainbow colors on the “safe place” signs which proved that the gay agenda was already a powerful force on our campus. His use of language was so eloquent that one got an image of students glancing at the rainbow colors and immediately sodomizing the next person they saw.
But his main point was that straight white men at our University are under attack. We are a persecuted, oppressed minority. We have all the power but someone else is threatening to breathe in our presence without our permission! He tugged on our heart-strings and I think some people hearing the plight of straight white men at our University were in tears. He referred to this group as “those of us who believe in biblical sexuality”. It is us who are being threatened.
It’s true. Now, it is also true that we do not regularly hear of people who are suspected of believing in biblical sexuality being murdered for it. We don’t often hear about people who believe in biblical sexuality committing suicide because of the incredible pressure that the culture puts on us. It’s true that you cannot be expelled from any institution in the country or be discriminated against in any way for holding biblical sexual values. But my English hero has such a way with words that he makes it feel that way! The fact that the liberals can hear about how bad life is for us believers in biblical sexuality and not shed a tear or stand up and fight for us shows their hypocrisy.
Finally, his question was directed at faculty who had signs up. “What are you going to do to allay our fears? And please answer the question without using the term ‘homophobic’ because I don’t like that word.”
Why anyone would use the word ‘homophobic’ in response to his legitimate terror at the power of the gay agenda is beyond me.
Biblical Sexuality
I love that he referred to us normal people as “people who believe in biblical sexuality”. If my English hero’s wife were raped and no one heard her scream, he would certainly put her to death. If his unmarried daughter were raped, there is no doubt in my mind that he would force her to marry the rapist with no chance for divorce under any circumstances. I’m sure neither his wife nor daughter have ever cut their hair since the same writer (Paul) who said that homosexual sex was against nature also said that women cutting their hair was against nature. I’m with him on this. Let’s stick to what the Bible says about sex, marriage and gender.
Introducing Gimli
I’ve never mentioned Gimli before. She is our new dean of students. She is short and stout with close-cropped hair and a very Germanic face.
If you walk into her office, you will immediately notice the many books on the wall on the topic of how to overcome your homosexuality with the help of Jesus. This is a topic that is apparently very near to her heart. If she has read all those books, then she is a qualified expert on the topic.
The panel for students
The panel for students was held in the new dining center. The new dining center has a second level that surrounds and looks down on the main level. Diners can ascend a stairway and eat on the higher level.
The panel and students (some estimated two hundred) were on the lower level. On the upper level—closer to heaven—were three women: the wives of Rudyard and Merely Reconciler and a third woman who presumably represented Gimli. These women were looking down from above praying for their loved ones down below.
The three speakers spoke a good bit longer this time and there was less time for questions.
Gimli was more personable this time—she is the dean of students after all. She talked about her lesbian neighbors and how well she gets along with them. But she didn’t allow her familiarity with the enemy to water down the truth. She said that people with same-sex attraction should remain celibate. In order to show, I suppose, that being celibate is not so unusual, she immediately added that she was celibate.
Problem with befriending homosexuals
I actually have a problem with the fact that Gimli is so close to her lesbian neighbors. Think of what may happen if she showed them unconditional love and forgiveness. (I’m sure Gimli is too good a Christian for that but this is a warning for others.) What if the lesbians, these sinful women, were so grateful to Gimli for her love that one of these sinful women actually came onto campus during some event in order to show her gratitude? What if Gimli’s unconditional love and forgiveness so emboldened them that they came into the presence of us righteous people?
Well, we would see this and say, “If Gimli were really a spiritual person, she would know that these are sinners showing this gratitude.” Of course this would be very embarrassing for Gimli. She would have to come up with some bogus excuse like “those who are forgiven much love much” or some such nonsense.
Anyway, the point is, don’t treat sinners with unconditional love and forgiveness. Their gratitude might be unseemly. Plus, it is anti-Christ.
That’s all I have to report at the moment. I will certainly keep you posted as our University works to fight against the terror that is the gay agenda. Please pray for us persecuted straight white men at our University. The threat of people who are not like us being permitted to breathe in our presence is growing.
Merely Reconciler posted an announcement on the internal University website and also as an email to the announcement email list that goes to all faculty at the University. The announcement was a “personal reflection” discouraging faculty from putting up “Safe Place” signs on their office doors.
Some faculty had put these signs up because they love sinners. Seriously! At a Christian University, you have faculty who want sinners to feel safe. What next?
Well, this announcement prompted a discussion on the college faculty email list. Perhaps I’ll offer more detail on this another time. The short version is that some faculty did not appreciate the Provost’s approach and others did.
City set on a hill
But first I want to deal with the fact that someone with access to that email list apparently sent information to a journalist at InsideHigherEd.com! This journalist then began contacting faculty and staff who were taking part in the online conversation.
There is only one sensible explanation for how this happened. To understand it, let’s look at some words of Jesus.
Matthew 5:14-16
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
and in John 3:
For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.
Even though this was the pre-resurrection Jesus, I think he may have gotten this right. In light of this, there is only one way this information could have leaked.
Someone who supported Merely Reconciler’s approach read his announcement and recognized what a good deed Merely Reconciler was doing and how glorifying it was to God.
This person contacted the journalist and this journalist began to contact other faculty who were posting. When the journalist contacted people who opposed Merely Reconciler’s approach, they hid from the light because they didn’t want their evil deeds to be exposed. But those who supported Merely Reconciler came to the light so that their deeds would be manifested as having been wrought in God.
I have this to say to those evildoers who are hiding from the light: your bunker mentality is a sign that your days are numbered. Just wait until an article on this appears in print where the whole world can read it!
Papa Bear’s role
The one thing that confused me about this for a moment was that Papa Bear actually posted a couple of messages to the discussion list first telling people not to talk to the journalist and second shaming the (apparently still unknown) person who had leaked the information. My only explanation for this is that Papa Bear is just so modest that he is uncomfortable with the world seeing the good works he is doing.
You may ask, what was Papa Bear’s good deed in all this?
Super-secret committee
Well, it turns out that our great University now has a secret, non-official committee that was formed to deal with the issue of these “Safe Place” signs. They’re not being secretive on account of their deeds being evil, but just out of modesty. I see that now.
Naturally, Papa Bear is on this committee.
The other members of the committee are Merely Reconciler’s book-writing club. You may not know about this club. This is a small group of white men whose ideas are so alike that they sometimes write each the others’ books and nobody notices. This makes for extremely reconciled committee meetings and is really the only good way to lead: get ideas from everyone who is qualified to have ideas.
Also on the committee is one black woman. I know it sounds strange but there is a really sensible reason for it. If anyone finds out that this committee exists, they can make her the spokesman.
Reconciled committee
I’ve written about reconciliation plenty of times before and we all know what it means: silence and remove all voices but the Truth so that we remaining true Christians can all get along.
That is why this committee—which, remember, is responsible for dealing with the issue of the “Safe Place” signs—didn’t consult any members of the GLBT community. This is why they didn’t consult any faculty who had a sign on their office door. That would ruin the reconciled nature of the conversation.
Papa Bear’s further contribution
While the online discussion of all this was happening, Papa Bear posted a link to this article. He said that it was relevant to our discussion.
The article is about how to give a moral education in a university. It says that the proper way to do it is something like the way Socrates did it. The article recommends taking a “dialogical, rather than didactic, approach.” Socrates is a model because
he was also willing to acknowledge that the truths for which he was willing to die might be shown to be faulty in the next dialogic encounter; that he might have missed something in the world or the argument that would force him to modify what he had come to believe with such conviction
Our patient role models
First, let’s consider how Merely Reconciler and Papa Bear model this for us.
Merely Reconciler posted his announcement in two fora. I say “fora” because he posted his announcement in two places that were just like the ancient Greek fora where open discussion occurred… well, just like those fora except that there was no way for anyone to comment on or discuss the announcements in either place he posted it. But I still say, the announcements were made in very Socratic and non-didactic fora.
When a very didactic voice from outside the cave (the journalist) started to ask questions in a very nondialogic way, Papa Bear made his announcements forbidding people from engaging in the kind of nondialogic conversation that journalist wanted to have and shaming whoever might have done it.
After a week of criticism from nondialogic faculty and support from dialogic faculty who posted comments in a discussion forum, Merely Reconciler has remained silent. Why? Because he is waiting for those faculty who criticize him to modify their opinion just the way Socrates modified his opinions when nobody answered his questions.
I’m afraid he might be waiting a long time. The nondialogic faculty seem to be able to discuss things for a long, long time.
What if Paul had said,
But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are practicing homosexuality! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.
That would totally clinch it! Our hermeneutical heroes would pounce on that passage of scripture like a cat on a mouse. Oh! It would be so beautiful! Can you imagine what they would say about that passage? Can you imagine how often we would be hearing about it if Paul had said that?
I mean, how much more clear could Paul be that homosexual behavior is anti-God? Even if you didn’t accept the other arguments from the Bible that prove that God hates gay behavior (not gays, just their behavior, mind you), a Bible passage such as this one would end any lingering debate.
As it is, you’ve probably never heard any passage of scripture like this one before. There is, in the book of Galatians, a passage that says almost exactly this except that Paul is talking about some other serious sin instead of homosexuality.
The reason you’ve never heard this passage is that the Holy Spirit elides it out for you. If Paul had been talking about homosexual acts, then the Holy Spirit would let you notice that this passage was there.
Too bad what Paul actually said in Galatians 4.9–11 is this:
But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days like Christmas and Easter! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.
As it is, the Holy Spirit elides these verses out when we read it and it’s a waste of Holy Scripture. It’s really a shame that Paul didn’t use that kind of strong language to talk about a sin that the Holy Spirit really cares about instead of condemning celebrating Christmas and Easter which is obviously fine.
I want to apply some Holy-Spirit-guided hermeneutics to the questions of divorce and abortion.
Divorce
First, what does the Bible say about divorce? Nothing. Unless you wear a veil that blocks out the Holy Ellipses. In that case, you will see a fair bit. For example, in the Old Testament, there are a lot of laws that make it easy for men to get rid of a wife who doesn’t please him. For instance, at any moment during a marriage, the husband can demand some physical proof that his wife was a virgin when they married. If she cannot produce physical evidence that she had been a virgin at that time, she is executed. (I guess that’s not divorce, though, is it?)
But you will also find condemnations of divorce in various places including from the mouth of Jesus himself.
But most of these passages from Holy Scripture are Holy Ellipses.
The Holy Spirit has guided us into a more compassionate society. We realized that most marriages are miserable. If half of marriages end with the participants preferring divorce—which everyone knows is one of the most traumatic things that can happen to a person—think about how many marriages don’t end in divorce just because they are not quite as miserable as divorce!
It is interesting that the response to Jesus’ condemnation of divorce in Matthew 19 was, “are you saying no one should get married?” His listeners understood how difficult married life usually is. Maybe more interesting is Jesus’ answer which amounted to saying that it is easiest for a eunuch to enter the kingdom of God. Ouch! I’m glad the Holy Spirit has elided that part out so that true Christians never notice it!
So what do we do these days? Here is the Holy Spirit’s logic that underlies our current system:
Look, nobody likes divorce! It is one of the most traumatic things that can happen to a person. Nobody is “pro-divorce”. However, we consider the misery that marriage often is and the frequency with which marriages are abusive and destructive. When divorce is illegal, many unfortunate women live in very abusive homes. Under the circumstances, we believe that it is better for divorce to be legal and not prohibitively difficult.
So we build a society in which divorce—as much as we hate it—is legal and not too difficult to obtain. It is up to non-governmental organizations, such as churches, to try to deal with the causes of divorce (selfishness, unpreparedness for marriage, excess anger, etc.)
To argue this method from the Bible is difficult, let’s be honest. We have to look at abstractions such as the teaching that we are all stuck in sin or the importance of compassion for the vulnerable and let things like that outweigh the passages that speak directly on the topic. We also rely on the Holy Spirit to lead us away from the views based on naive interpretations of The Word of God on divorce and toward this view that justifies our behavior.
But we Christians agree that the system here in the US is humane and compatible with a Christian life-style. We don’t murder divorce lawyers or make loud protests against the legality of divorce.
Not only that, we divorce just as often as the broader population. Thus, the Holy Spirit really had to do something about those passages of Holy Scripture.
Abortion
There is only one passage of scripture (correct me if I’m wrong) that deals with the issue of abortion directly: Numbers 5. It is one of the Holy Ellipses that I’ve written about before. The reason it is a Holy Ellipsis is that it allows abortion at the whim of a husband.
So again, considering what the Bible says about abortion directly is out. We look at abstractions again. Since the Holy Spirit has elided those passages of scripture that advocate genocide, capital punishment, and war, we can see that the Bible is all about the sanctity of human life. Therefore, we are pro-life.
But in this case, the Holy Spirit’s way has not won the day in our broader culture. Abortion is still legal!
The anti-life (also called “pro-abortion”) lobby uses the following ridiculous “logic”:
Look, nobody likes abortion! It is one of the most traumatic things that can happen to a person. Nobody is “pro-abortion”. However, we consider the many complex issues that people face, such as rape, lack of education, poverty, etc. When abortion is illegal, many unfortunate women have dangerous, illegal abortions or live with starving children. Under the circumstances, we believe that it is better for abortion to be legal and not prohibitively difficult.
So we build a society in which abortion—as much as we hate it—is legal and not too difficult to obtain. It is up to both governmental and non-governmental organizations, such as churches, to try to deal with the causes of abortion (poverty, rape, ignorance of the causes of pregnancy, unpreparedness for parenthood, etc.)
Obviously, the people who make such an “argument” hate babies unless they are boiled and spiced. How anyone can follow along with a single phrase of that Satanic line of “reasoning” is beyond me! It makes me want to spit and roll my eyes!
This is why we can sympathize with the murderers of abortion doctors. This is why we loudly support laws that hurt poor people and have no effect on us. In Matthew 23.4, Jesus talks about laws that make life difficult for the poor but have no effect on those pushing for the laws. I figure that if Jesus talked about it, it is probably a good thing!
This is why, if you ask me how I’m going to vote, I say, “I love babies.” This makes it clear that anyone who disagrees with me on this issue hates babies.
Conclusion
The Holy Spirit has spoken on these issue. In neither case is the Holy Spirit’s answer particularly Biblical. (Isn’t God mysterious?)
The inexperienced and Holy-Spirit-lacking interpreter of the Bible would say that the Bible teaches that women are the property of men and abortion is a husband’s choice. If you’ve read the Bible and never notice those things, then you have the Holy Spirit working powerfully in you. I’ll write more about this in a future post.
The Holy Spirit has revealed the Truth to us. We can’t help it that the Truth justifies our way of life and let’s us condemn others.
I’m considering starting another series on hermeneutics. As I plan the series, I realize that there is a common thread underlying hermeneutical technique: the Holy Spirit. In this post, I am going to explain the role of the Holy Spirit in hermeneutics.
The Holy Ellipses
Turn in your Bibles, if you will, to 2 Corinthians 3.15–18.
15 Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. 16 But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
In verse 15, Paul is talking about the Jews but his words apply to everyone who is not a true Christian—that is, everyone who is not a conservative evangelical. When (or really “if”) they read the Bible, a veil covers their hearts. All they see is the words and what the words mean.
Or perhaps I could put it better: the problem is not so much that they only see the words as it is that they see all the words. This illusory vision is a result of the veil that is taken away when anyone turns to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit removes the veil so that instead of so many words, we see the ellipses.
As I study hermeneutical technique, I am struck heavily with the centrality of the role of the Holy Spirit in helping us to see the ellipses. Any true Christian has experienced this. How many times have you been reading the Bible and suddenly woke up at the end of a large section with no memory of what it was about?
The Abortion Example
I’ll give one example here. With the Holy Spirit, we read Numbers 5 and get to the end without having any thought about the words or their meanings. We know that that Chapter of Holy Writ is a Holy Ellipsis. We have never heard a pastor or teacher talk about that text.
Without the Holy Spirit, people see an outrageous law in which the priest performs an abortion at the whim of the husband. The woman has no say in it.
…if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure—then he is to take his wife to the priest.
In other words, if the husband wants an abortion, all he has to do is tell the priest that he feels jealous. Conveniently for him, no proof of infidelity is required—only proclaimed jealousy.
The priest then prepares a poison drink and administers it to the woman. The expected result is: “may the Lord cause your people to curse and denounce you when he causes your thigh to waste away and your abdomen to swell.” Not only does the woman lose her child at the whim of her husband, but she is forever shunned by her community.
The abortions were not always successful. If the baby and wife survived, it was considered a sign that she was innocent. (In this case, the husband is punished by needing to try again later.) If the unborn child died or the wife became infertile or died as a result of the poison the priest made her drink, then it was a sign that she was guilty.
It is by the work of the Holy Spirit that I, for example, would never notice this. (I heard about this from someone wearing a heavy veil.) It is by the work of the Holy Spirit that none of my Bible teachers noticed this or talked about it.
But what to do if some veiled person forces you to think about what this means? Or what if someone asks you to write a commentary on the entire book of Numbers including the Holy Ellipses? Now we are in an area that only the most experienced hermeneutical experts should tread.
I haven’t found a single truly Christian commentator who so much as mentions that there is an unborn baby being killed in this Holy Ellipsis.
Here is are some of the things the Holy Spirit guided experts do instead: some see the deeper meaning of the text. (Those without the Holy Spirit say they make stuff up.) They say that the potion that the priest prepares was no poison: it was just a ceremonial drink with dirt from the floor of the tabernacle mixed with some substance that is first spread on parchment then scraped from the page into the harmless, ceremonial drink. It was called “bitter” just because it was metaphysically bitter. Anyway, the point is that it was for ceremonial purposes only. Whatever happens, and they don’t mention what happens, it is God who does it. It was all supernatural and not natural.
Another common tact is just to say that there is no baby and it is the wife who dies even though there is nothing in the text suggesting that. We true Christians want to believe this interpretations so badly that we just do. That’s the Holy Spirit, too.
Others talk about how much more humane this procedure was compared to what the polytheists were doing at the time: “Viewed in this light, its sanction by divine authority in a corrected and improved form exhibits a proof at once of the wisdom and condescension of God.” Again, no mention is made of the fact that the priest or God or somebody is killing an unborn child.
Are there any real hermeneutics experts out there who can help us deal with this Holy Ellipsis when we are forced to do so by veiled heathen?
Conclusion
Without the Holy Spirit removing our veil so that we see ellipses when we read certain parts of the Bible… So, let’s all thank God that He has removed the veil!
I’m thinking of starting a series on the work of the Holy Spirit in hermeneutics by looking at what the veiled people see in the some of the major Holy Ellipses in The Word of God. These examples will exhibit proof at once of the wisdom and condescension of God on our behalf. Seriously! What would we do without those ellipses?
See you next time!
Today, I’m continuing my series on Merely Reconciler’s question and answer with the college faculty.
In my previous post I talked about the question Dr. Reconciler took the most seriously: how to stop our University’s slide toward being intellectual and tolerant. Today, I’ll tell you about part of his answer to the first question he got.
A relatively new member of the philosophy department asked the first question. It was about academic freedom and specifically mentioned the question of evolution. I want to look closely with you at his response to this question.
A Preemptive Strike at Intellectualism
Merely Reconciler laid out what he called “all possible perspectives” into four “models”. Three theistic views which are acceptable at our University and one atheistic view that is not. He said that at secular schools, only one of the four models—”atheistic” science—was permitted and there are three theistic views we can choose from. Therefore, he said, we have more freedom.
This is a beautiful example of what I mean when I say that he talks like a preacher or a very good seminary professor. One of the things you learn in a homiletics course is to just say things that are obviously nonsense and figure your audience is made of uneducated people who are starving to believe whatever you say. I love that he treats the PhDs in his new audience the same way. This shows that he is sincere in his avowal to stop intellectualism at our University.
Let me explain.
- The fact is, there are dozens of atheistic views of evolution, theories on evolution, and philosophies of science applied to the theory of evolution. There is not just one.
- Scientists at secular universities can and frequently do hold any one of the three theistic views of evolution that Dr. Reconciler laid out. They are free to hold any theistic or atheistic view.
Now if there were an intelligent person in the room where he was speaking, they would be insulted by his gross misrepresentation of the facts and his assertion that we at our University have more freedom.
Do you get it now? He is intentionally insulting any intelligent person! It’s all part of his plan to stop intellectualism here! He doesn’t waste a minute! He hasn’t even started his job and he’s already fighting for us!
The Consequences of Believing Science
The first of the four perspectives was
a Dawkins-like macro thing which is completely unguided and not in any way the result of a creative act of God. We as Christians are not open to that position and if you held that view or came to that view over time, then we would have to have conversations about that.
This view is what is normally called “science”. This reminds me of something a Roman Catholic bishop said long, long ago:
This Galilean natural laws of mechanics and gravity thing which is completely unguided and not in any way the result of a creative act of God is not open to us Christians and you held that view of came to that view over time, then we would have to have conversations about that.
You might think that they are saying exactly the same thing. Unfortunately, there is an important difference.
The bishop was fighting against the progress of science toward finding patterns and simple explanations in nature instead of accepting the Christian, biblical view that the only force of nature is the hand of God and things fall to the earth only when God pulls them. This hasn’t changed. (Well, the Roman Catholic Church has retracted that view but the evangelical church has picked up the mantle of biblical tradition.) The difference is what these two men mean when they say, “have conversations”. The bishop meant conversations that ended in the loss of thumbnails or life. Merely Reconciler will probably only have conversations that end in the loss of dignity, motivation, job-satisfaction, or livelihood. I miss the good old days.
Where is the Line?
It sounds like science is not allowed any more at our University. So, what is allowed? Merely Reconciler laid out three acceptable views. One was “Young Earth Creationism”. About this one, Merely Reconciler
would say, I as provost would say to a person who holds that view, “You’re OK! Don’t let people force you to try to agree with them! That’s within the bounds of what we say and what we agree with.”
Another of the acceptable perspectives was one in which natural forces are at work generally but God sometimes does a miracle to create a new species. (When no one is looking, of course, otherwise scientists would try to measure it and come up with laws explaining it.)
Finally, the most liberal of the acceptable views is this:
a view that holds to common descent and acknowledges the notion of a sort of theistic evolution where God is in some providential way guiding the process and yet scientists are able to detect mechanical functions by which new forms of life including new species develop and grow.
It is kind of scary to me that this is acceptable. It is so obviously contrary to scripture. Either you believe the Bible or you don’t. But I guess Dr. Reconciler is trying to appease the liberals. Now that he has power, I have no idea why he would try to do this.
Here is why I don’t like this border-line theistic view: it sounds quite like the way Christians do science at secular universities. That is, they do and teach science exactly the same way an atheist does except in their hearts they believe that God is involved in some way that might not be explainable from a scientific perspective. But there is a problem here: they are still doing science! Are we going to continue to allow that at our University? Apparently so.
Could a scientist who holds what might be called an atheistic philosophy of science (i.e., no appeal to God is needed in order to do science) but who believes that there are natural phenomena that science cannot and never will explain (e.g., God, resurrection, etc.) qualify under Merely Reconciler’s definition of “mere Christianity”? Say it isn’t so! This would be admitting actual scientists into mere Christianity! How can we have a reconciled community with people like that running around loose?
The Importance of Philosophy
Not long ago, my theological hero (who, by the way, considers Merely Reconciler his mentor!) scolded a science professor (who fortunately retired last year) because he invited an outside scientist to speak on campus. Why is a theologian scolding a professor in another department? Because the invited outside scientist did not hold the same philosophy of science that my theological hero holds.
Now that my theological hero’s mentor is in power, I hope my theological hero will feel empowered to do a lot more policing around here.
It shouldn’t stop at philosophy of science either. All philosophies need to be theistic. Any philosophy explaining something without reference to God’s involvement should not be allowed.
For example, closely related to science is mathematics. We have mathematicians here who do mathematics with no appeal or reference to God. I’ll bet some of them hold an atheistic philosophy of mathematics. They see no need to appeal to God in order to solve the problems of mathematics or the philosophy of mathematics! Surely, such a person cannot satisfy Merely Reconciler’s definition of “mere Christianity”!
My hope is that he is just trying to appease the liberals and in practice, he will get rid of them all.
And Papa Makes Two
Papa Bear and Merely Reconciler make an excellent team. Together, they should be able to get rid any remaining scientists or otherwise intelligent people here until only my heroes remain.
I’m very hopeful. Expect a much more up-beat blog here for years to come!
In the coming days, I’m going to post some more details from Merely Reconciler’s question and answer session with the college faculty.
The first questions began from the left. Questions about academic freedom and even a question about taking care of the environment! I’ll say a bit about some of these questions and his responses in a later post. But clearly Dr. Reconciler got tired of fielding questions from the left and said:
Let’s go to the right side. My left.
It is so refreshing to finally have someone at our University for whom the people on the right are to his left. I loved the emphasis he put on these two sentences. It’s clear that everyone knew what he was talking about because it got a good laugh. The person “to the right” he was calling on was none other than my biological hero.
My biological hero’s question started with a story from his own life. He reminisced about his first year at our University. Chapel attendance was high and students and faculty were all focused on their common faith. But things are different now:
There is huge pressure on schools to move away from that, to become more tolerant, to become more intellectual. How do we stop that from happening? How do we keep that distinctive that I fell in love with the first year I came here? And how do we keep from becoming those other schools where the students seem to not have that experience?
Merely Reconciler’s answer began with this:
Well, that’s a big question. That’s an important question to me.
Finally! Someone asked a big, important question!
The he preached about each of us faculty doing his or her best to “stop that from happening”. I hope the people sitting on the left were listening!
I haven’t officially announced this yet:
We have a new provost at our University! Merely Reconciler! He has more power than past provosts in that he is over the college, the seminary, and the graduate school!
He was previously a professor at our seminary and he has been a pastor for the past few years.
Here at the college he held a Q&A session. I’ll tell you more about this another time.
Dr. Reconciler has been a pastor for the last few years and it shows. He is a natural preacher! Very inspiring!
He also said that he was very broad in his definition of the word “Christian”. He said that he likes C. S. Lewis’ approach with his “Mere Christianity”. But I take some comfort knowing Merely Reconciler’s track record of relationships with people who don’t agree with him: I’m sure we don’t have to worry about any heterogeneity at our University going forward.
He also talked a lot about his focus on reconciliation. His past experience on the issue proves that he and I mean the same thing by that word. That’s why I’m calling him “Merely Reconciler!”
I really hope Merely Reconciler can have a strong influence on Rudyard and keep our University from heading off the rails. The combined strength of him and Papa Bear should be able to overpower President Rudyard’s attempts to define reconciliation in some way that involves really engaging with outsiders. You can expect lots of stories with happy endings in the coming years. I suggest we start by ending the careers of some of the liberals who are bringing this place down!
In my next few blog posts, I will elaborate on some of these questions and his answers to them.
Hooray!!
