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Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Monday, February 13, 2017
Will MTV Propagandists Denigrate Minorities The Way The Network Does Whites?
MTV has produced a video titled “Resolutions For White Guys”.
In the propaganda, Whites are encouraged to bash America, pander to minorities, and vow to avoid “mansplaining”.
Mansplaining is the phenomena where a man proceeds to explain something to a woman often in areas pertaining to what was once considered the fairer sex before a disproportionate number of that particular arrangement of chromosome became bestial and shrill.
Interesting that there is never a criticism for women to refrain from interjecting themselves into issues and concerns where men might actually be a little more in the know.
Does MTV intend to release companion videos for minorities urging them to pull up their pants, to try to at least look for gainful employment, and not to loot electronics stores whenever there is a court verdict that they are not particularly happy about?
Perhaps a related video for immigrants might ask those of that particular background to make an effort to learn the English language.
The video could also point out other helpful tips for making life in the United States more pleasant and successful.
For example, just because they have made it here, it does not follow that distant cousins have the right to migrate here in the name of family reunification.
And even more helpful, just because they have never seen an octogenarian female with her head uncovered in public that does not mean she wants their hands grabbing at her backside.
In regards to the counterprotest chat “Blue Lives Matter”, MTV assured the network's mind-numbed and brainwashed viewers that such was not a real thing.
In other words, these media elites must have little problem with police officers being randomly gunned down with no actual provocation or even prior involvement with the assailants.
By Frederick Meekins
Sunday, February 12, 2017
Saturday, February 11, 2017
The Superiority Of Theism Part Six: Generic Theism Is Not Enough
From external evidences such as the cosmological and teleological arguments and evidence of a more internal or sociological nature, we see that there is likely some kind of a God that has established the material world and ordered the affairs of men. However, if this is the route through which the skeptic is being brought to God, major hurdles have been surmounted; but we still have a significant journey ahead of us before the seeker arrives on the other side of Heaven's door.
Even if the atheist is convinced as to the insufficiency of their unbelief, there still exists a dizzying array of theistic options available to select from that would end up sending the individual down the same road to Hell if the apologetic task is botched or mishandled. Thus it is imperative to guide the nascent theist into the arms of Christ before they are gobbled up by competing heresies, cults, and world religions.
Since man is a sentient creature that lives amidst the flow of time, the primary revelation and outreach of this Deity would therefore need to consist of some pivotal event occurring in what we know as history. As one of the world's foremost texts detailing the earliest eras of mankind's religious experience, the Bible ought to be one of the first sources considered.
The Bible is perhaps the best-known book in the world and contains within its pages the account of the most widely known person in the world, namely Jesus Christ. Love Him or hate Him, no other figure from ancient times has elicited as much of a response down to this very day. For though many distort His very nature and the claims made by this Nazarene carpenter, scores hoping to sway hearts and minds have often presented themselves as if they had the endorsement of what should have been a figure otherwise forgotten centuries ago.
One of the first objections the atheist that does not want to consider the claims of Christ raises is that the Bible cannot be trusted as an objective factual account. At best, all the Bible can provide is a chronicle of the biases of the early Church and these assumptions not even necessarily from the time when Jesus was supposed to have walked the earth.
In this era of instantaneous global communications, any event that does not have a CNN crew there on the ground to Twitter about it is hardly even considered newsworthy. Thus, it is only natural that, given the nature of the documentary evidence that has come down to us, that the unreflective would cast a leery eye towards it.
According to Geisler and Turek, the gap between the original autographs and the earliest surviving copies is about twenty-five years (226). To put this into perspective, one needs to compare it with other texts coming down to us from the Classical Mediterranean.
For example, there is a gap of 1200 years between the earliest surviving copies of Plato and the originals. Likewise, there is a gap of 1000 years between the earliest surviving works of Julius Caesar and the originals. Yet one does not find many scholars attempting to make careers of respectable renown and adulation by discrediting and throwing into doubt these Greco-Roman pillars of the Western tradition.
The skeptically inclined will likely still not be impressed as to the small gap in time between the earliest surviving copies of a text and the time when the document was believed to have been written if what was written about occurred decades and even centuries before the time in which it was written down. On this point also, however, the New Testament Scriptures in general and the Gospels in particular remain in good standing.
For example, it is believed that most of these works were likely written down in a time frame no later than between AD 62 to 70. Such an assertion is conjectured along the following lines of argumentation.
In Mark 13, Jesus predicts that the Jerusalem Temple will be destroyed before the generation He was speaking to at that time passed away. That prophesy was fulfilled by the Romans in AD 70 in what the historian Josephus categorized as “the greatest war of all time”, a conflict in which the Jews not only lost the focal point of their religious material culture but also tens of thousands of their fellow countrymen (238). Yet not a word of this fulfillment is mentioned in the pages of Scripture even though it could have been one of the greatest "see I told you so" moments in all of history. This causes conservative scholars to conclude that most of the New Testament had likely been written by the time of that event.
Even if the apologist is able to martial a number of these historical technicalities to blunt this particular variety of skepticism, the unbeliever is likely to respond that such details do not validate the content. After all, numerous works can be authenticated to the era in which they are believed to describe and been written in, but are filled either with mild distortions, shushed-over omissions, or even outright lies.
For example, the works of Julius Caesar no doubt cast events in a way to put him in the best possible light and scholars to this day speculate as to what Plato was actually doing during the trial of his beloved Socrates. It is simply an aspect of human nature to obfuscate when we are embarrassed by our responses to certain situations whether we take pen to paper for publication or merely try to get out of a speeding ticket. The Bible, on the other hand, is one of the few books where the warts of its protagonists and even those overseeing the compilation of its documents are put out there for all the world to see. For example, it is believed that Mark penned his Gospel under the oversight of the Apostle Peter. Yet in that very document, Christ chastised Peter as Satan, the very embodiment of evil, and elsewhere in the New Testament this rock upon which Christ is said to have built His church comes across like any other human being as a loudmouth coward that often fails to live up to his bellicose promises.
It is at this level of detail that the Christian is able to present the case that the Gospels are an actual historical account rather than a mythological legend. Geisler and Turek write, “Now think about this: If you were a New Testament writer, would you include these embarrassing details if you were making up a story...Would you depict yourselves as uncaring, bumbling cowards, and the women --- whose testimony wasn’t even admissible in court --- as the brave ones who stood by Jesus and later discovered the empty tomb? Of course not (277).”
Once the credibility of the New Testament eyewitnesses is established, the unbeliever is forced to confront the underlying claims of the Gospel narrative and ultimately of Scripture. Those happen to be nothing less than what happened to Jesus and whom did Jesus claim Himself to be.
The central event in the life of Jesus was nothing less than His resurrection from the dead. No one living in the contemporary technocratic world --- be they devout or atheist alike --- believes that rising from the dead is a common occurrence. Where opinion diverges is on the issue of whether such an event is an impossibility or rather one requiring divine intervention in order to be orchestrated.
Skeptics not wanting to accept the account at face value have over the decades concocted a number of theories as to why the orthodox understanding as to what happened is not entirely accurate. These accuse the parties involved of a variety of shortcomings from a naive innocence, to incompetence, to outright criminality.
The first attempt to explain away the Resurrection is the Swoon Theory. This theory posits that Jesus did not really die on the cross but rather merely lost consciousness. It really does take more faith to believe in this particular explanation than the one provided in the Gospels.
This theory, in fact, does not take the facts into account. For starters, to say Jesus merely passed out or even went into a temporary coma is to seriously underestimate the brutality the Romans had perfected as an art of terror. Even from non-Christian disciplines such as contemporary archaeology and ancient sources such as Quintilian, we learn about practices such as plunging a spear into the heart to make sure that the victim was really dead (304).
Even if the Romans had botched the job in failing to kill Jesus (as we all know of instances where government employees have been less than dutiful), Jesus would have been in no physical shape to accomplish what the Gospels said He did following the Crucifixion. Even Jack Bauer could not have pulled it off as it must be remembered anyone in such a condition would have had their body broken beyond repair.
The following makes the Swoon Theory downright impossible. Jesus would have been embalmed with nearly 75 pounds of spices and bandages (305). To affect an escape, a man critically injured would have not only had to remove these, but also to remove the two-ton stone closing the tomb as well as take on the Roman soldiers. Had such a scenario transpired, Geisler and Turek humorously quip, "Even if he could get out of the tomb and past the Roman guards, Jesus would have been a battered...man whom the disciples would pity, not worship They'd say, 'You may be alive, but you're certainly not risen. Let's get you to a doctor' (305)."
For starters, to accuse the Disciples of stealing the body is to ignore that all but one of Christ's most loyal Apostles were believed to have died violent martyrs’ deaths and the one that did not was essentially exiled on a desolate island. While history and the evening news is replete with examples of those that give their lives for things that are ultimately proven to be falsehoods, seldom will someone give their life willingly for what they themselves know to be a lie. For example, would someone like Peter, whose survival instinct was so strong that he ended up denying his beloved Jesus multiple times, have willingly allowed himself to be crucified upside down, if legends are to be believed, if he knew that the account of the Resurrection was merely a fabrication?
Ironically, as scholars eager to tear down the traditional intellectual structures of Western civilization in favor of ones more socialistic in orientation are often fond of pointing out in their preferred narrative of Jesus as a merely human Apocalyptic revolutionary, the Jerusalem and Greater Palestine of that day were powder kegs set to go off in terms of violence at any moment. No on in authority --- be they Jewish religious leaders, the Herodians holding tenuous political power, or the occupying Roman military forces --- would have allowed news of a Resurrected Jesus to continue to spread if they could have found a plausible grave robber on which to pin the blame.
One theory that seeks to deny the truth of the Resurrection while upholding the good but somewhat naive natures of Christ's disciples is the Hallucination Theory (302). According to this hypothesis, those that loved Jesus were so distraught with grief that Jesus merely appeared to them in their own minds as part of a mental breakdown.
While this might be a valid line of argumentation if there were only one or two followers stepping forward to claim they had seen the risen Christ, such was not the case. Bible scholars and theologians such as Norman Geisler point out that not only did 500 see Christ after the Resurrection took place but some of these interactions were tactilely tangible such as when Thomas touched our Lord’s wounds. Hallucinations would not be a communal experience but rather something highly individualized.
Once the unbeliever has been presented with evidence attesting to Christ’s resurrection, they will have to pay attention to his claims and the claims made about Him for no other reason than that someone having been risen from the dead needs to be considered seriously because of having accomplished something so outside the historical norm. In the attempt to accommodate a place for Jesus somewhere in their worldview, many people as well as most religions will concede that Jesus was a very good man but certainly not God or God’s only Begotten Son. Such a position may be even more intellectually disingenuous and self-deluding than the brand of atheism espoused by the likes of Friedrich Nietzsche. To his credit, at least this crazed syphilitic was consistent in heaping condemnation on both God and Christ.
One must either embrace Jesus as Savior, Lord, and God or one cannot embrace Him at all. Perhaps the greatest summation of this idea was formulated by C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity when he said, “That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would be a lunatic --- on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg --- or else he would be the Devil of Hell (Geisler, 346).”
The astute unbeliever then might point out that what was it exactly that Jesus said since the elaborate Christologies that developed could be accretions that attached themselves to the narrative at a later date and might not be actual components of the original texts. After all, it is common for Christians in this hypersensitive era to point out that not everything done throughout history in the name of Jesus would necessarily be approved of by Jesus. Dan Brown, because of his blockbuster The Da Vinci Code, will never have to work another day in his life, having capitalized on the assumption in the popular culture that the Jesus of orthodoxy presented to the ecclesiastical world might not exactly be the Jesus of raw history.
The idea that Jesus never claimed to be deity is clearly refuted by His own words recorded in the pages of Scripture. There are numerous instances where Jesus clearly addresses the matter to both the accepting and critical alike.
For example, in John 8, Jesus says, "before Abraham was, I AM." This is in fact a name of God the Lord first reveals to Moses when He imparted to Moses instructions as to what Moses was supposed to say on behalf of the Israelites. The title attests to God being self-existent and dependent on no one; in other words, the Unmoved Mover to formulate the concept in a manner preferable to those more familiar with the terminology of Aristotle and Aquinas.
In accounts of those that already believed in Jesus or would come to believe in Jesus, Jesus asked them whom they thought He was. For example, after Thomas examined the scars of the resurrected Jesus, upon resolving his initial skepticism, Thomas declared Jesus to be his Lord and his God. And when Peter was asked by Jesus who he thought Jesus was, Peter responded in Mark 16:16, "Thou art the Christ."
In neither of these instances did Jesus refute the claims. And in the case of Peter, Jesus said, "thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church." Though theologians might debate as to whether Jesus meant the faith and devotion of Peter or rather the divinity of Christ upon which all other assumptions of the faith flow, that is not the point of this particular exposition.
The road to embracing the Christian faith can be a long and arduous journey. The climate in which we find ourselves is of little assistance in alleviating the doubts that arise within ourselves as fallen creatures wanting to embrace our own sinful desires as well as elaborate systems of thought external to ourselves that have been crafted in the attempt to justify refusal to accept the one solution capable of rescuing man from his Hell-bound situation. It is, thus, the purpose of Apologetics to assure the skeptic that Christianity is a faith founded on fact and that it is atheism which stretches the bounds of reason beyond belief.
By Frederick Meekins
Will Trump Lavish Chicago Gangs With Welfare Handouts To Cease Endless Violence?
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Friday, February 10, 2017
A Review Of “A Survey Of The New Testament” By Robert Gundry
As God's revelation to mankind, the Bible is complete in itself and capable of equipping the believer for every good work. Thus, with it alone, the Christian has everything that is necessary to learn the essentials of salvation and the wisdom necessary to sail the turbulent seas of life. Yet, unlike many other theological and religious texts, the Bible presents numerous universal truths by addressing concrete historical situations rather than by presenting a set of detached philosophical postulates.
As such, an understanding of the backdrop against which certain Biblical texts were written can provide the believer with a deeper appreciation of and greater insight into the Word of God. That said, to the average believer, that has not already acquired an extensive background knowledge of the Ancient Near East, such a task can seem quite daunting. Fortunately, “A Survey Of The New Testament” by Robert Gundry makes such a goal much more manageable.
“A Survey Of The New Testament” accomplishes this in part by grouping various New Testament books together in relation to when they were written or by thematic topic. For example, Galatians, I Thessalonians and II Thessalonians are classified together as the early epistles of Paul; I Corinthians, II Corinthians, and Romans are categorized as the Major Epistles of Paul. Philemon, Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, I Timothy, II Timothy, and Titus are lumped together as the Pastoral Epistles of Paul because they were written specifically for young pastors (409). The books of James, I Peter, II Peter, I John, II John, III John and Jude are classified as Catholic or General Epistles because these texts were not targeted towards a specific locality. Hebrews and Revelation are each assigned their own individual chapters.
From this system of classification, Gundry proceeds to analyze each of these New Testament books. He accomplishes this by first outlining the major themes of the book under consideration for quick reference and then proceeds to a more in depth analysis of the text under consideration. For example, in the outline for I Corinthians, the student will see that marriage is discussed in I Corinthians 7:1-40 (361). Flipping ahead a few pages, the reader will find, thanks to the convenient subsection headings, where Gundry provides a more detailed examination into the Biblical teaching prohibiting divorce on the part of believers married to unbelievers and where he delves in an evenhanded manner into the debate whether the Christian abandoned by an unbelieving spouse is permitted to remarry.
Though Gundry does highlight the wisdom found in the pages of the New Testament epistles most are accustomed to discussing in Sunday school, his “Survey Of The New Testament” is no mere devotional and will keep the attention of those seeking deeper academic understanding of the sacred documents. For example, in his examination of the Book of Galatians, Gundry goes into considerable detail as to whether the epistle was addressed towards either North or South Galatia.
Such an academic conjecture has bearing upon as to when the book was written. Gundry points out that, if the text was addressed to the area of Northern Galatia which Paul did not visit until his second missionary journey, this means the epistle was not written until after the Jerusalem Council detailed in Acts 15. If the epistle was addressed towards Southern Galatia, then it is believed to have been written after Paul's first missionary journey and thus prior to the Jerusalem Church Council (346).
If one is not particularly inspired by such academic technicalities, one might find the chapters regarding the cultural settings of the New Testament world much more interesting. One may even find considerable similarity with our own era.
Religiously and philosophically, Gundry describes a world of considerable variation. Permeating the non-Jewish population of the Mediterranean was the official state religion of Rome combining Greco-Roman mythology along with emperor worship to which the population was expected to grant tacit consent.
However, it must be pointed out to the reader that this belief served more as a backdrop rather than the sum total of religious expression. For it is from the assorted esoteric sects and various philosophies that many drew inspiration and centered their lives around.
It is at this point where Gundry lists some of the various philosophies popular at that time that the reader can see similarities with those prevalent in our own era. For example, Epicureans taught pleasure as the chief end of life, Stoicism taught dutiful acceptance of one's fate, and the skeptics are described as relativists who abandoned belief in the absolute. As the Apostle to the Gentiles, Paul would have confronted these philosophies on a regular basis as exemplified by his encounter on Mars Hill in Acts 20.
In light of the popularity of works such as “The Da Vinci Code” and “The Gospel Of Judas”, it can be easy for the faith of the Christian to be shaken by those claiming to have attained higher levels of academic expertise. Written from a solidly Evangelical perspective, “A Survey Of The New Testament” by Robert Gundry is a trustworthy defense against these pervasive heresies that have stalked the Church from its earliest days.
It is often assumed that Christianity appropriated the ideas of the immortality of the soul, resurrection of the dead, and ceremonial washing such as baptism from the so-called mystery religions. However, Gundry points out, “On the other hand, not until the second, third, and fourth centuries of the Christian era do we get detailed information concerning the beliefs held by the devotees of the mysteries...Where their later beliefs look slightly similar to Christian beliefs, the direction of borrowing may have gone from Christianity to the mystery religions rather than vice versa (58).”
It has been said that the Scriptures are simple enough for a child to understand yet deep enough for a theologian to drown in. “A Survey Of The New Testament” by Robert Gundry will serve as a sufficient life preserver as the believer heads out into doctrinally deep waters.
By Frederick Meekins
Thursday, February 09, 2017
Wednesday, February 08, 2017
Pope Living Behind Wall Insists Common Mortals Not Worthy Of Similar Protections
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Tuesday, February 07, 2017
Monday, February 06, 2017
Sunday, February 05, 2017
Saturday, February 04, 2017
The Superiority Of Theism Part 5: The Incredulous Nature Of Scientism
Yet despite the complexities and intricacies of both the biological and physical realms, atheistic naturalists continue on in their faith despite all the evidence to the contrary. Whereas Christians and other forms of theism look to deity to smooth over or bridge these aspects of reality that the finite mind struggles with comprehending, unbelievers look to other sources as to the origins of things.
These are none other than time and chance. With no conscious hand guiding the cosmos as posited in theism, everything we see around us today is the result of fortuitous confluences; in other words, by blind random luck over vast eons of time.
Even with vast amounts of time, the atheistic evolutionist must account for how everything is just so to sustain the universe as demonstrated by the Anthropic Constants. Theists point out it defies probability for the universe we experience today to have arisen on its own since such a vast number of fortuitous coincidences to occur in such a manner is not likely.
Rather than admit the need for a God, a number of atheists reach into the conceptual “black hole” and pull out what has to be a last ditch explanation. According to the Multiple Universe Theory, the probability of something happening should not be viewed as a statistical barrier to it occurring since parallel realities have formed where everything that could possibly happen has happened (107-108).
It is time to invoke the Geisler/Turek doctrine of “I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist”. Isn’t it just easier to admit that God exists?
Admittedly, over the years, Multiple Universe Theory has led to some interesting science fiction such as the episode of Star Trek where Captain Kirk met an evil version of the Enterprise crew with a Mr. Spock that Dr. McCoy admitted looked like a pirate. However, in the end even DC Comics found the concept of divergent parallel realities very confusing with multiplying Batmen, for instance, that writers often yanked readers around by the chain in terms of plotlines by invoking as a defense as to whether or not the Caped Crusader’s famed insignia had a yellow oval around it at the time or not. Editors finally put a stop to the implausibility over two decades ago through the monumental “Crisis On Infinite Earths” miniseries. Its about time those claiming to be grounded in the real world did the same.
Though they attempt to pass themselves off as detached and dispassionate seekers of truth, the proponents of scientism often have less than scientific reasons for undermining the credibility of theism. For example, it has been claimed that when he was asked by Merv Griffin why he believed in Darwinism, famed evolutionist Julian Huxley is said to have responded, “The reason we accepted Darwinism even without proof is because we didn’t want God to interfere with our sexual mores (163).”
I will be the first to admit that more than one Evangelical scholar has cited the recall of D. James Kennedy as the source of this quote (including Geisler and Turek) rather than a more irrefutable reference such as a transcript of the broadcast. As such, academic nitpickers will likely snip at it with their feigned sophistication and pretension as if their own claims don’t already rest on a house of cards.
However, Huxley’s alleged mindset is just as pervasive among evolution's lesser luminaries as well. Ron Carlson, author of classic apologetics texts such as “Fast Facts On False Teaching”, relates an incident where at an after-lecture dinner a biology professor admitted that, while what Carlson had to say made considerable sense, he himself held a position disturbingly similar to what Huxley is said to have revealed on national TV. The professor said, "I mean if Darwinism is true --- there is no God and we all evolved from slimy green algae --- then I can sleep with whomever I want. In Darwinism, there is no moral accountability (163)."
Many will no doubt be shocked by this claim since most academics look like they can barely get dates much less be chronic bed-hoppers though Bertand Russell certainly went through a number of marriages and liaisons for someone looking so disheveled. However, its bluntness is absolutely honest. For if atheism was true and God did not exist, then nothing is right and nothing ultimately wrong.
Geisler and Turek tackle this unsettling reality in the chapter titled “Mother Teressa vs. Hitler” since these two figures epitomize the dichotomies of good and evil to the contemporary popular mind. The authors make the following argument: “(1) Every law has a law giver. (2) There is a Moral Law. (3) Therefore, there is a Moral Law Giver (171).”
Concepts such as justice, fairness, and rights are ultimately predicated on the foundation of there being a Law Giver unchanging in His nature. For if there is no consciousness existing above mankind and the institutions of the species, whatever those institutions decide becomes by definition the good and the right. As has been said, democracy with no higher check placed upon it is a group of 100 where 51 men vote to rape 49 women.
The sensitivities of the delicate in this culture that just about goes to ridiculous extremes to curry favor with the self-appointed mouthpieces of certain favored demographics might be shocked by such a statement. However, it is an honest assessment if the world described by atheism was the most accurate.
If there is no intelligence existing above and transcendent to the physio-social realm, the right or rather the operationally convenient becomes whatever those holding power over a given territory say it is. Geisler and Turek highlight a few of these startling implications.
For starters, if there is no divine moral law existing about men and nations, there would be no human rights. In an atheistic world, no authority exists above the government; and since it is the final word, whatever it says is by definition proper. If its leaders want the consent of the governed, that is fine and so is rounding up all the Jews and putting them in gas ovens if that is what authorities think is necessary to secure the survival and prosperity of the nation.
The fact that a wide array of individuals from Rosa Parks to Gandhi to Alexander Solzhenitsyn have spoken out against the shortcomings of the nations and times in which lived they is itself proof that a moral law exists. Figures such as these are remembered largely in history for marshaling reason and and argumentation on behalf of their respective causes rather than armed force.
Geisler and Turek write, "Without a Moral Law, there would be nothing objectively wrong with Christians...forcibly imposing their religion on atheists. There would be nothing wrong with outlawing atheism, confiscating the property of atheists, and giving it to Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell (181)." These authors conclude, "Unless atheists claim that there is a moral law [that] condones or condemns...then their positions are nothing more than their own subjective preferences (181)."
by Frederick Meekins
Bibliography: Norman Geisler and Frank Turek. “I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist.”
Friday, February 03, 2017
Thursday, February 02, 2017
Uppity Nun Insists You Aren’t Pro-life Unless You Advocate Income Redistribution
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Episcopal Subversives Organize To Establish Jihadist Footholds In U.S. Territory
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Wednesday, February 01, 2017
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Sloppy Exegesis A Gift That Ought To Be Returned
The trick (or perhaps better stated skill as some theological nitpickers might associate the first term with the work of the Devil) in exegeting a Biblical text is deciphering if a particular narrative the circumstances that are of an historical nature pertaining only to that unique incident from those which are a prescription binding upon everyone irrespective of time or geography.
It has been observed that the accounts of the Advent and Nativity stand in stark contrast to the gospel of abortion as advocated by infanticide front groups such Planned Parenthood.
Southern Baptist theologian Russell Moore in his column titled “Joseph of Nazareth vs. Planned Parenthood” attempts to formulate a number of suggestions and proposals for the Christian wanting to apply the spirit of the Christmas story in their own lives.
This effort in itself is not necessarily without merit. For example, Moore suggests adoption as an alternative to the pervasiveness of abortion.
However, where Dr. Moore goes a hair too far is his suggestion insinuating that adoption is somehow an obligation on the part of the believer rather than one way particular families might decide for themselves to live out the implications of the Biblical message in their specific lives. Even more debatable is the invocation of Joseph as a pretext to shame the individual Christian into compliance.
Of particular interest is how the onus of sin is placed upon Christians deciding that taking on the responsibility of someone else's unwanted child is not necessarily for them rather than the ones despising a child to the extent that they are willing to see the child in question murdered.
In his exposition, Dr. Moore rips entire Scriptures from their particular contexts. For example, Moore writes, “In his obedience, Joseph demonstrated what his other son would later call 'pure' and undefiled religion', the kind that cares for the fatherless and abandoned (James 1:27).”
Regarding the children threatened by abortion today as well as the single mother households that Moore's kind of rant invokes in order to coerce all sorts of handouts, technically these children are not necessarily orphans and these WOMENNNN (said with the politically correct emphatic pronunciation often extended to this gender category) are not widows.
These children still have mothers to provide for them and, in most cases, their fathers are still alive and are simply deadbeats that refuse to take care of the lifetime consequence resulting from a few fleeting moments of pleasure. Likewise, to enjoy the sympathy, honor, and protection of which a widow is deserving, a woman needs to have had first been married, a criteria many these days finding themselves already with children have yet to fulfill.
As such, how about first casting blame at those that have actually done something wrong? For when was the last time you heard a good old fashioned hellfire and brimstone sermon directed at both unfit parents?
Criticisms of inept and negligent fatherhood are not all that uncommon. They are in fact the homiletical staple of Father's Day. However, rarely will you hear condemnation of the unfit mother often so enamored with her carefree lifestyle that she is willing to allow the murder of her unborn child. In the noble endeavor to save as many children as possible from pre-natal human butchery as possible, like hostage negotiation at times it might be necessary to sweet talk and stroke the egos of these women threatening infanticide until the child can be rescued from their clutches. However, one is in danger of approaching a conceptual state bordering heresy if one's systematic theology is compromised while engaged in such a tactic.
In his application of Biblical texts, Dr. Moore glosses over where shortcomings of character and behavior ought to be called out at least in generalized terms and cries out he has found these kinds of deficiencies where none in fact actually exist.
For example, the crux of Moore's argument centers around Joseph not abandoning Mary after she was found with child and this humble carpenter taking Mary as his wife and in essence raising Jesus as his own despite Him not being such. However, the invocation of Mary as a categorical imperative to be applied in the case of every other woman in the world does not hold up to closer scrutiny.
Foremost, God appeared to Joseph in a dream to dispel any notions Joseph might have had that Mary found herself in these circumstances as a result of sin. In fact, in regards to this aspect of her virtue, she was far from such blemish and actually selected because of her status as a righteous virgin.
In this day of radical non-judgmentalism, it will be snapped let he that is without sin cast the first stone. That is usually Biblically sound advice. However, nowhere in not casting the first stone is one man obligated to surrender to the humiliation of having to pick up the tab for a baby conceived through the normal carnal means between his fiancée or betrothed and another dude.
Furthermore, why does this non-judgmentalism only apply to those living in outright sin? Dr. Moore certainly doesn't mind getting up in the grill of those that haven't emptied their bank accounts so the libertines can continue to breed wantonly without the consideration of their actions.
If Mary had conceived in such a fashion, Joseph should have kicked her to the curb. Russell Moore writes, “With full legal rights to abandon Mary and her unborn child --- perhaps to a fate worse than death --- Joseph obeyed the Father in becoming a father.” But, to reemphasize, that is because in this instance Mary had done nothing wrong.
From the way that Moore writes, had Joseph followed legal procedure, he would have been exceedingly cruel. But wasn't it because of the seemingly harsh nature of this prospective penalty that in all likelihood that the out of wedlock birthrate among the ancient Israelites in times when that people were living for the most part righteously was nothing in comparison to what it is today?
It must also be asked who was it that set up what looks to early twenty-first century eyes as an excessively judgmental social system. You can't really get all bent out of shape at the ancient Israelites because in many instances they were merely implementing what God had ordered them to under threats of calamity and damnation if they failed to do so until instructed otherwise.
This matter of whether Joseph would keep Mary or set her aside is not the only matter in which Russell Moore has not thought out the implications of what he has said in regards to these issues at hand.
Moore writes, “In a culture captivated by the spirit of Herod, could it be that God is calling our churches to follow the example of Joseph?” In that remark, Dr. Moore articulates the typical anti-male animus that has come to increasingly characterize Christian Evangelicalism.
For those that might not recall, following the visitation of the Magi, Herod flew into a rampage ordering the the murder of male children below two years of age. As a result, Joseph was instructed in a dream to escape with Mary and the Christ Child into the land of Egypt.
From the way Moore flippantly handles the allusion to the narrative, one could come away with the impression that Joseph was the only father or designated male provider to care in all of Bethlehem. Don't you think the other fathers loved their children enough that if they were accustomed to receiving messages via dreams that they would have also packed up their bags and gotten out of town if they had been extended such an opportunity? One cannot very well accuse these fathers of any wrongdoing in regard to Herod's slaughter of the innocents if the general population was extended no warning of the pending assault.
The war against human life throughout the contemporary world is pervasive. Those taking principled stands of whatever form grand or small will be commended by their Father in Heaven. However, in our own zeal for what is right, caution must be taken not to pull the facts of divine revelation from their holy context to create binding parallels that can only be deduced as a result of strained analogies such narratives never intended.
By Frederick Meekins
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