Live from DC: It's Inauguration Weekend (Plus a Media Bias Bonus)

Hey friends and non-friend readers, let me know if there's any boots-on-the-ground info you'd like from my 'hood 5 blocks from the Capitol. I'm hoping to make it out for a few events this weekend, at least to watch from a safe distance. At the very least I expect to be able to catch then-former President Bush's departure from the east plaza of the Capitol, which is just a stone's throw away. For some reason I'm thinking the crowds will be thinner on that side of the dome.

And now for the real purpose of this post. Here's an old but hysterical article from the Washington Post back in campaign season. The gist of the article is that research confirmed that Fox News election coverage was harder on Obama and more positive on McCain than MSNBC. No big surprise there, right?

Well here's the kicker. Look at the actual research numbers.

Nearly three-quarters -- 73 percent -- of MSNBC's reports on McCain were deemed negative, compared to 57 percent in the media overall. Just 14 percent of the channel's Obama stories were negative, compared to 29 percent in the rest of the media. In the week of Sept. 8, when McCain was enjoying a post-convention bounce, MSNBC's negative stories on the Republican nominee outweighed positive stories by more than 7 to 1.

At Fox, 40 percent of the coverage of Obama was negative, while 40 percent of the McCain coverage was negative. That amounted to rough parity within the Fox universe, but the network was significantly harder on Obama and easier on McCain than others in the media world. Fox was also more favorably disposed toward Sarah Palin, with 37 percent of its stories positive, compared to 28 percent in the media generally.

Did you catch that? "That amounted to rough parity within the Fox universe, but the network was significantly harder on Obama and easier on McCain than others in the media world." So in other words, while Fox was equally critical of both candidates, MSNBC ran more than five times as many negative stories on Obama than McCain. But Fox had a pro-McCain bias because they weren't as pro-Obama and anti-McCain as everyone else.

I didn't like either candidate, and I didn't vote for either one. But this kind of myopia, intellectual bankruptcy, and complete lack of objectivity is simply astonishing.

P.S. Sorry you have to look at that picture of Keith Olbermann. Not much I could do about that.

The Kingdom and the New Evangelicals: A Conscience in Search of a Theology?

About a year ago I finished reading Russell Moore's The Kingdom of Christ: The New Evangelical Perspective. This book isn't primarily about the controversies that provoked the division between the Fundamentalist and (New) Evangelical movements. Rather, it's an examination of the theological arguments advanced by the New Evangelicalism that are too easily lost in the shadows of the controversy that arose when so many of the New Evangelicals went off the theological rails.

Moore takes us back to those discussions of kingdom eschatology, ecclesiology, and soteriology and shows how New Evangelicals proposed a theological system that was on many points distinct from both traditional Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology. My sense is that eschatology is the cornerstone issue, though not as much the eschatology of Daniel and Revelation as the eschatology of the Gospels and the Epistles. In other words, in what sense are we living in the last days? How, if at all, have the Kingdom promises of the Old Testament been fulfilled through Christ's incarnation, death, resurrection and ascension? What is the relationship between the Abrahamic Covenant and the establishment of the Church? What effect should the answers to those questions have on our understanding of the mission of the Church?

If these are questions you'd like to understand better, this will be a helpful book even if you don't fully agree with Moore. His documentation is voluminous, and the footnotes are well worth reading even though they'll probably triple the amount of time it takes to read the book. More importantly, he offers a wide perspective on the Dispensationalism-Covenant Theology debate that's unlike anything else I've encountered. The icing on the cake of this book is that it connects the dots [mixed metaphor, yeah I know] for those who, like me, have wondered why Fundamentalist Dispensationalists are so quick to divide over eschatology and to be so harshly critical of Progressive Dispensationalism. Moore paints the historical picture of how revisions to traditional Dispensationalism and its eschatology in particular are so closely associated with a movement that deliberately repudiated and distanced itself from the Fundamentalist movement. It's not hard to see why people who saw the New Evangelicalism devolve would react strongly against anything that carries a whiff of the old, familiar scent of gospel compromise.

An analytical approach that was useful to me as I read was to weigh whether the New Evangelical perspective was really driven by exegesis, or whether it was a civic conscience in search of a theology to justify itself. Though I'm far closer to a conclusion now than I was before I started reading, I'm not sufficiently convinced to shoot my mouth off, at least not on that point. At least not yet. In any case, in our current theopolitical climate, this is a matter in which we need careful thinking from believers much more than we need emotional manipulation from vapid mush-head young evangelicals.

What prompts this conversation now is that Moore recently posted a tight little article on his blog, "Is There a Future for Israel?" If you've never thought much about the issues, or you've only heard one side of the Dispensationalism-Covenant Theology conversation, this would be an accessible and thought-provoking piece to read. If it piques your interest, it might be worth giving his full volume a shot.

The People Who Can Convict Hearts While They're Talking About Worldliness

I plan to read C.J. Mahaney's Worldliness in the next few weeks. Right now I'm finishing a series of sermons delivered at Covenant Life Church on what it means to be in the world and not of it. I've been told Mahaney's book was developed largely from those sermons.

As I've listened to them, I've been struck by how much these pastors are leading their congregation to weigh the same kinds of worldliness issues any church in the fundamentalist orbit would. Perhaps I'm oversimplifying or my memory fails, but it seems to me that the only meaningful issues difference is that Kauflin dismisses as ridiculous the notion that a rhythm with an off beat is innately carnal.

What's really striking is how consistently Mahaney, Kauflin, and Harris circle back to deal with heart issues. Especially Mahaney. So we hear him saying, "Any biblical discussion of modesty begins by addressing the heart, not the hemline." He asks his church to consider internal priorities and motivations and values—the kinds of questions that aren't likely to create universal standards or binary decisions, but are designed to help believers understand the condition of their own hearts.

Seems as though there's a big difference between that and "I can tell a lot about how spiritual a guy is by the length of his hair," or "Am I telling you that because my wife and daughters don't wear slacks that you shouldn't either? Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you!" (True stories, both of them. Somewhere out there are about a thousand of you who heard the latter.)

Paleoevangelical of the Year 2008

I've previously argued that ethnic discrimination propagated by professing Christians, churches, or Christian organizations is antithetical to the gospel.

For that reason, I want to recognize the organizers of pleasereconcile.org as the 2009 Paleoevangelicals of the Year.

I can't entirely explain the cocktail of cultural and religious pressure that affects so many BJU alumni, leading them to tolerate and even defend the intolerable and indefensible. I know that it affected me for far too long. The fear of man brings a snare.

What I appreciate so much about the pleasereconcile.org organizers is that they not only broke free from that pressure, but did so in a gracious, humble, gospel-centered fashion. I have much to learn from them.

Not to be overlooked in this conversation is the fact that BJU released an apology. Though I have no way of knowing who all was behind that decision, it seems inescapable to me that Stephen Jones deserves public acknowledgement and thanks for his leadership. Although my initial reaction to the BJU statement focused on its obvious deficiencies, further reflection and other perspective shared with me in subsequent days led me to focus on the positive. For the University that stands without apology to apologize may have seemed like a small step, but it was more like a giant leap.

BJU is not simply a school; it's a culture. The people who created that culture—former administrators, influential constituent pastors, major donors, and perhaps most significantly, long-time members of the Board of Trustees—may well remain personally invested in the mindset that created discriminatory policies. Stephen Jones' decision to apologize was made in the midst of that culture, and any deficiencies in the wording are more than offset, in my opinion, by the sincerity and courage it took to say what was said.

Finally, it seems that the reactions from the kind of people who were discriminated against have been largely forgiving and grateful. This suggests to me that through an apology, a faithful picture of the gospel has been put on display to a watching world. That many haters of the gospel find another opportunity to mock BJU is finally a credit to the school since that mockery now arises from Christlike humility rather than, well, ugly things. Thanks to the men and women who served as catalysts in eliciting that apology.

A Hermeneutic of Diversity

Mark DeYmaz' Building a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church is a terrific book. It makes a powerful case that one of the central purposes of the work of the gospel is to break down ethnic barriers in order to create one people of God in the Church. Therefore, the ongoing propagation of unjustifiable ethnic barriers or discrimination is antithetical to the gospel. DeYmaz' argument pulled together several strands of thought that had been present in my mind and provoked me to voice my support for the recent appeals from BJU alumni that the school's leadership acknowledge and apologize publicly for decades of such unjustifiable barriers and discrimination.

Several months ago, I posted a link to my review of the book and added a few other comments. That review contained some criticism of the author's exegesis of a few passages and the ecclesiological implications of his practical suggestions. The author responded and requested that I offer specific examples. I promised a reply in a day or two. That was just over four months ago. So while I apologize for my tardiness, I want to follow through on that commitment. In doing so, in no way do I want to undermine my appreciation for DeYmaz' worthy contribution on an important matter in 21st century American church life.

Here, then, is a chronological list of the passages where I'm unconvinced that DeYmaz' arguments are supported by the text.

Page 22: DeYmaz suggests that the unusual presence of cross-ethnic relationships in the church at Antioch is the reason the disciples first called Christians in that city. Though that's possibly true, the text offers no clear affirmation of that notion.

32-33: DeYmaz argues that something has been lost from the text after the Greek phrase “in the heavenly” in Ephesians 3:10. He believes that something has been lost from the original text since Paul would not have ended the sentence that way and since it’s inconceivable to him to limit “God’s display of wisdom to those rulers and authorities dwelling only in heavenly places.”

The problems here seem so obvious and substantial that I almost wonder whether I’m missing something. First, the last word in the phrase quoted above is a plural noun, not a singular adjective—heavenlies, not heavenly. Second, there is no significant textual variant whatsoever (according to my UBS Greek text) in the verse. Third, this same phrase, “in the heavenly places,” appears four other times in Ephesians (1:3, 20; 2:6; 6:12). In none of those identical usages is there any textual evidence whatsoever that anything has been lost from what Paul wrote. For these three reasons, DeYmaz’ analysis is wholly speculative and imprudent.

35-37: Commentators acknowledge that the first love from which the church at Ephesus departed is difficult to identify dogmatically. Is it possible that this first love was love and fellowship across ethnic divisions? Perhaps. But this is certainly not stated by in the text, and DeYmaz’ proposal that this is the first love simply on the grounds that it is the first quality for which the Ephesians are commended in Paul’s epistle to them is exegetically unsupported.

59-60: DeYmaz argues that churches should accommodate approaches to ministry and cultural expressions that are unfamiliar or uncomfortable to the ethnic majority. I agree that we should not assume from the start that either the majority or the minority cultural expressions are superior. But DeYmaz approach seems to assume that cultural expressions are neutral as media for communicating biblical truth. I do not accept that presupposition, and a faulty presupposition can have severely detrimental effects on churches that adopt expressions in an attempt to attract and accommodate groups. We must not compromise the clarity of the biblical message in an attempt to mold it into the shape of cultural expressions that may be incompatible with that truth. I believe DeYmaz is right to propose accommodation in the sense of not forcing others into our preferences, but wrong to assume that all forms are created equal.

71: DeYmaz builds many of his arguments on specific details nested in narrative texts. I think he often pushes the significance of these details too far, but other interpreters too often ignore the significance of these details. I think DeYmaz is correct to recognize the significance of the broad range of ethnicities present in the church at Antioch. So despite my disagreement with many of his conclusions, I don’t reject his approach categorically. In other words, I agree that Luke intended to demonstrate the power of the gospel to transcend ethnicity when he wrote about the multi-ethnic character of the church in Antioch. On the other hand, I’m not convinced that this is an example of choosing leaders based on their ethnicity. The presence of a broad range of ethnicities in the leadership may simply reflect the presence of a broad range of ethnicities in the membership.

71: DeYmaz suggests that Paul chose Timothy because of his multicultural heritage. Though it’s impossible to suggest this could not be true, the text simply does not affirm it. The reality is that of all the NT discussions of the qualifications for pastoral ministry, ethnic diversity is never offered as a decisive factor, or even a worthy consideration.

99: DeYmaz argues that the story of Ruth offers an example of cross-cultural competence (CCC). I think CCC is a good thing. Don’t get me wrong. But I don’t think the message of Ruth is to pursue CCC. We find lots of examples of qualities and attitudes in Scripture that the text is not teaching us to imitate.

112: DeYmaz uses Philippians 2 to defend the neutrality of styles of worship, but there’s more to the conversation than that. Can all styles equally communicate truth about God, or is it possible that some styles are less equipped to do so? The discussion is not that simple. A blanket assertion that we should consider others’ interests above our own doesn’t trump that conversation. DeYmaz” argument overlooks the possibility that we may not serve the interests of an ethnic minority by appealing to its preferences. Of course, we must also remember that appealing to the preferences of the ethnic majority may be equally or even more contrary to its genuine interests.

Having said all that, I still recommend the book. Its central thesis is sound. Just read critically.

"Worthy Is the Lamb"

As I'm writing this, I'm sitting in the rear nave of the National Cathedral in Washington during "part the third" of Handel's Messiah. Just a few minutes ago about two thousand people rose to their feet for the Hallelujah Chorus. Though I have some appreciation for that tradition, the inescapable reality is that we who stood will one day, to a man, fall on our faces in full and final recognition that "the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."

I live in Washington, where "the kings of the earth rise up, and rulers take counsel against the Lord, and against his Anointed." It's impossible to meditate on that Hallelujah without remembering that the one who is worthy of praise is the one who both "taketh away the sins of the world" and "shall laugh them to scorn" who cast off his reign.

Around the time Handel's oratorio debuted in London, a newspaper published a letter that warned that if an oratorio "is not performed as an Act of Religion, but for Diversion and Amusement only (and indeed I believe that few or none go to an Oratorio out of Devotion) what a Prophanation of God's Name and Word is this to make so light Use of them?"

Nevertheless, I do sing Hallelujah that the gospel is still clearly proclaimed, at least a few times a year, here in what so many consider our nation's place of worship. "Their sound is gone out unto all lands, and their words unto the ends of the world."

A Question for the Hard-Line Cessationists

Hypothetically speaking, imagine that you knew a person who told you something along these lines:

I was a devoted Muslim when a man appeared to me in a dream. The man told me to go see a foreigner in town who is a follower of Jesus. The man in the dream told me to ask him about Jesus, and to believe what he told me. The Christian man told me all about Jesus, and now I am a follower of Jesus too.

So what do you think. Is the guy delusional? Under demonic influence? Or is this sort of thing compatible with rigid cessationism? Hypothetically, of course . . .

Props from Mohler to Fundamentalist Prof

The annual Evangelical Theological Society meeting is in Providence, Rhode Island, this week. Al Mohler is there. So is Jeff Straub, Associate Professor in Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Minneapolis. Straub presented a paper on the Rockefeller family and how theologically liberal causes were funded by people who, at least at first, were not theologically liberal.

Straub, who earned his PhD at Southern Seminary, got a nice shout out yesterday beginning in the fifth minute of the Albert Mohler Radio Program. You can listen to it here.

Cultivate Some Sympathy for the "Eastern Media Elite"

Some Palinesque sarcasm from Dana Milbank of the Washington Post.

Christians in the Public Square: Involvement Without Intoxication

John Hutchinson pastors McLean Presbyterian Church in the DC metro area. I found his recent Tabletalk article, "A Different Kind of Power," to be a helpful perspective on how Christians, particularly pastors, should engage in political issues. Praise God for a wise, godly Senator who advised Hutchinson on a particular matter:

John, I’m not going to tell you what to do, and I share your convictions on a subject that is very important. But as you pray about your decision, remember that you will have no control over how the press will quote you, and you will be labeled as a conservative advocate. You have been called here to be a minister of the Gospel of the kingdom that transcends political conservatism or liberalism. And as a minister you will have the opportunity over the years to give that Gospel to both conservatives and liberals.