I’ve recently acquired this little book by the Met. John Zizioulas, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics. One of the important points made by Met. Zizioulas is that (Orthodox) theological thinking often is just a paraphrasing and restating of what has been already set out and stated by the Fathers. In his words, 

It is unfortunate that much of today’s Orthodox theology is in fact nothing but history — a theologically uncommitted scholar could have done this kind of ‘theology’ just as well or even better. Although this kind of ‘theology’ claims to be faithful to the Fathers and tradition is in fact contrary to the method followed by the Fathers themselves. For the Fathers worked in constant dialogue with the intellectual trends of their time to interpret the Christian faith to the world around them. This is precisely the task of Orthodox theology in our time too. 

So, with that in mind, I’m going to begin reading through this book and discussing some small points I encounter on the way (as time permits). Met. Zizioulas begins by defining and discussing what is meant by these terms. What is Theology? How might we define it. He begins:

Theology starts in the worship of God and in the Church’s experience of communion with God. Our experience of this communion involves a whole range of relationships, so theology is not simply about a religious, moral or psychological experience, but about our whole experience of life in this communion. Theology touches on life, death and our very being, and shows how our personal identity is constituted through relationships, ans so through love and freedom. What makes man different from any other creature? Can humans be truly free? Do they want to be free? Can humans be free to love?

Theology is concerned with life and survival, and therefore with salvation. The Church articulates its theology, not simply to add to our knowledge of God or the world, but so that we may gain the life which can never be brought to an end. Christian doctrine tells us there is redemption for us and for the world, and each particular doctrine articulates some aspect of this redemption. We have to inquire how each doctrine contributes to knowledge of our salvation. Rather than isolating each doctrine, we have to set each doctrine out in the context of all other doctrines. Theology seeks a living comprehension of the Christian faith, of our place in the world and relationship with one another. It does not just want to preserve the statements of the Church as they were originally made, but also to provide the best contemporary expression of the teaching of the Church.

Well, that is quite a bit to chew on. What might be offered to start. One thing might be said right off. He goes on in the following to define what he means by doctrine and dogmas. On reflection this begins not so much by defining what theology is, but of what the process examines and consists. What questions does it address, what concerns does theology approach is what is posed here. 

 [I am working on a project that may become a book on the most influential evangelicals leaders of our generation, since 1976, and the impact they’ve had on the church and their times. I will introduce them briefly on this blog from time to time. Who should be on this list?]

#25. Samuel Rodriguez. Hispanic advocate 

(b. 1971)

The enormous promotional skills of Samuel Rodriguez, the self-anointed “leader of the Hispanic evangelical movement” and “America’s voice for Hispanic Christianity,” will be put to the test over the next few years as he attempts to bridge conservative evangelicals and the emerging group of evangelical Hispanics over the contentious issue of immigration reform.

President of the Hispanic Christian Leadership Council (HCLC)—earlier known as the Hispanic National Association of Evangelicals—Rodriguez wields tremendous influence as one of the leaders of a religious-ethnic religious group being courted by Republicans and Democrats. It is a role the young Assemblies of God pastor clearly relishes, and he has recently demonstrated the skills that will be necessary as a coalition builder on immigration.

Rodriguez gains influence on the right with stellar conservative Christian bona fides. He serves on the board of directors of some of America’s leading evangelical organizations, such as Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, National Association of Evangelicals, and Christianity Today, Inc. He also serves on the advisory board of the National Campaign to Reduce Teen Pregnancy and various pro-life initiatives. In addition, he serves on the steering committee of The Freedom Federation, The Oak Initiative and the General Superintendents’ Cabinet in the Assemblies of God.

Raised in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, by Puerto Rican parents, Rodriguez grew up in an Assemblies of God church (and now pastors one in Sacramento, California). He delivered his first sermon when he was 16 and quickly grew to be a rousing and acclaimed preacher.  ”I want to be a voice for our people,” he says.[1] His wife Eva serves as senior pastor of Christian Worship Center.[2]

Rodriguez earned his Master’s degree in educational leadership from Lehigh University and he is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in organizational management and behavior. He is serving on President Obama’s White House Task Force on Fatherhood.

His conservative voice often has a slightly different tone than his anglo-evangelical counterparts, but the substance is usually the same. On the war on terror, he said:

“Our moral imperative must drive us to advocate a foreign policy of justice. If we must take the lead on the war on terror, let us simultaneously take the lead on the war on poverty. We can be both Pro Israel and Pro the Palestinian People. Let us help Israel and the Palestinians by both eradicating the terrorist groups while simultaneously building schools, infrastructure, and providing opportunity. Let us replace fear with hope, rockets with opportunity. At the end of the day, let us understand that Islamic religious totalitarianism is the 21st Century version of Hitler’s National Socialism. What do we do with evil? Negotiate compromise, surrender or confront? The answer will determine not only the fate of Israel, but the fate of world peace for years to come.” [3]

But Rodriguez’ marquee issue is immigration, which he calls “a family issue for Hispanics.” In May 2010, Rodriquez orchestrated an unlikely coalition of conservatives that adopted a consensus statement on immigration reform. The group included Matthew Staver of Liberty Counsel, a ministry of Liberty University; Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission; and Rick Tyler, the head of Newt Gingrich’s new values-based organization.

CNN reported: 

 ”After securing our borders, we must allow the millions of undocumented and otherwise law-abiding persons living in our midst to come out of the shadows,” reads a recent draft of the document, which is still being finalized. “The pathway for earned legal citizenship or temporary residency should involve a program of legalization for undocumented persons in the United States. …”

 Many conservatives say illegal immigrants should be forced to return to their home countries and start the process of legally coming to the U.S. from scratch.

 Rodriguez, who heads the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference — which represents about 16 million Latino evangelicals in the U.S. — says he’ll soon start presenting the document to Republican leaders like Gingrich, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio in hopes that they sign on.

 ”If the conservative evangelical community looks to the Republican Party and says, ‘We demand integration reform, we demand a just assimilation strategy,’ that may be the tipping point in getting substantial Republican support for comprehensive immigration reform,” Rodriguez said. [4]

Rodriquez points out that what commentators call an ”illegal immigrant” is, for Hispanic-evangelicals, beloved Uncle Carlos, a hard-working family man and deacon at the church. It’s hard to build alliances with people who want to put Uncle Carlos in jail. Rodriguez emphasizes that he’s not defending violations of the law. He is all for border control and immigration enforcement. He feels, however, that the argument has become anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic. “I’m very disappointed. We need dialogue on why white evangelicals are so threatened by people who are so fundamentally in accord with their values.”[5]

[2] http://www.nhclc.org/leader/rev-samuel-rodriguez

[3] http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/samuel_rodriguez/2009/01/hamas_hezbollah_and_al_qaeda_2.html

[4] http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/05/10/immigration.evangelicals/index.html

[5] http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/september/31.82.html

[I am working on a project that may become a book on the most influential evangelicals leaders of our generation, since 1976, and the impact they’ve had on the church and their times. I will introduce them briefly on this blog from time to time. Who should be on this list?]

#41.  Nancy S. DeMoss. Philanthropist  b.1938 

While evangelical leaders recognize that God’s will and blessing are the most important ingredients of successful Christian work, it should be no surprise that funding is a vital lubricant for successful ministries. The primary sources of this funding are the individual donors who provide relatively small but regular gifts—“tithes and offerings”—to local churches and to national and international ministries.

However, large ministries must also receive major gifts from individual donors and foundations focusing on Christian ministry.  The largest U.S. group providing money to evangelical causes is the Arthur S. DeMoss Foundation, a family foundation led during the last 30 years by its matriarch, Mrs. Nancy DeMoss. The foundation was begun by her late husband, Arthur S. DeMoss, an insurance innovator and highly respected Christian businessman. Art DeMoss founded National Liberty Corporation, the pioneer of direct response insurance marketing (whose advertising featured Art Linkletter) and then began the foundation before his untimely death in 1979.

His oldest daughter Nancy Leigh DeMoss said her father was “a living illustration of the principles he taught us,” showing his seven children to put God first in everything by giving the first hour of his own day to the Word and prayer—every day for 28 years. He taught his children to be generous givers through his own goal of giving away an extravagant sum of money during his lifetime.”[1]

 His wife Nancy has guaranteed that Art DeMoss’ goal became reality, as she has guided the foundation—with a strong hand–in its extravagant giving to Christian and conservative causes over the last three decades. 

The DeMoss family, like many families of means who give away large amounts of their treasure, is mostly private to reduce badgering by grant-seekers and for family safety. But since all foundation giving records are public, the generosity of the family cannot be hidden. Also, the foundation has sponsored some very public programs, and several  family members—although not Mrs. DeMoss–have been quite visible.  ”The Foundation has a history of not seeking publicity. Foundation grantees sign a confidentiality agreement so strict that they will not even discuss the group to praise it.”[2]

Although media coverage of evangelicals, such as Time’s 2005 cover story on 25 influencers, usually focused on political action and hot-button issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, in reality most evangelical attention goes to the spiritual priorities of the church, such as evangelism, Christian growth, and care for the poor and suffering.

This emphasis is reflected in giving within evangelicalism and is typified by the DeMoss Foundation. Records show that DeMoss provides gifts of some $21 million a year, largely support of evangelistic efforts in this country and around the world, with the top recipients including Campus Crusade for Christ, Prison Fellowship Ministries, and Liberty University. 

The foundation has also conducted some high-profile projects of its own, such as Power For Living, which has as its objective to acquaint as many people as possible throughout the world with information on how to get right with God. This is done through a multi-media campaign promoting the free book, Power For Living. The project has shifted overseas, but in the early 1990s it was quite visible in some major U.S. markets, with the foundation reportedly spending “more than $27.8 million–a sum outpacing [at the time] the media buy of a presidential campaign. [3]

Among its visible projects over the years was the 1992 ad campaign with the slogan “Life, What A Beautiful Choice,” one of the most effective and tasteful pro-life campaigns ever created. On his radio program, BreakPoint, Chuck Colson said at the time:

“The DeMoss commercials are an excellent model of how to win hearts. In a gentle, engaging style, they nudge people to reconsider how to respond to a problem pregnancy. It holds people up as admirable if they carry their babies to term. It reminds the audience that there are millions of couples ready to offer a loving home for those babies. The De Moss Foundation’s decision to air these commercials during prime time is brilliant. Right during thirtysomething, no less, when the audience consists of just those middle-class, single women most likely to abort.”[4]

Another high-profile ministry heavily supported by DeMoss is a Campus Crusade program called Executive Ministries, an evangelistic outreach targeting business and professional executives. The points of contact are luncheons and dinner parties featuring prominent Christian speakers, with these events often conducted at Mrs. DeMoss’ Palm Beach mansion, or at a facility in New York City called the DeMoss House. 

Three of the DeMoss children have been in the public eye.

•  Nancy Leigh DeMoss, a best-selling author and popular speaker, has served on the staff of Life Action Ministries, a revival ministry based in Niles, Michigan, since 1980.
•  Mark DeMoss heads the nation’s largest public relations firm serving Christian organizations and causes and is the author of The Little Red Book Of Wisdom , a book of principles for personal and professional fulfillment. (Note: I was a vice president at The DeMoss Group in the late 1990s).
• Deborah DeMoss was a  forceful and sometimes controversial aide to Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), championing Nicaragua’s contra rebels and advising conservative politicians in El Salvador and throughout the region (where she married and still lives).

Although liberal stalwarts like to criticize Mrs. DeMoss and the foundation for their support of conservative politicians and causes, most who know of her work sense the heartbeat of evangelism. Eastern College sociology professor and author Tony Campolo said:

 ”Their purpose is to propagate the evangelical commitments, and that includes the social values associated with those commitments. But what they are really about is old-time religion, endeavoring to see that every person in the world comes to know Jesus.”

[2] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,28859,00.html#ixzz0sWuxxSmB

[3]  http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,28859,00.html#ixzz0sWuxxSmB

[4] https://www.colsoncenter.org/bpcommentaries/breakpoint-commentaries-search/entry/13/10200

Throughout Church history, theological controversy has been one of the enduring features. Name any communion or denomination and you will find one which has struggled with this matter. St. Maximus the Confessor was imprisoned, exiled and lost his tongue and compared to many he got off easy. For that matter, I’d be willing to guess that among those reading this very essay, if they are Christian, have themselves had discussions, often perhaps heated, of this sort. As the title indicates, I’m leading towards a question but to start I’m going to preface that with a few remarks.

Two fragments from Scripture are perhaps relevant. (1 Corinthians 13:12) “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”  For the second passage, Romans 2 offers that Jesus not men will be the final judge. 

We may argue about our view of the theology, Christology, soteriology, or whatever topic, but we all must admit we only see dimly the truths to which we attest. Who is right in these argument? From the second it might be said that these arguments will only be settled at the eschaton.

My question then is why then might we argue? What is the core reason for which we dispute. What is at stake? I’d be very curious to hear a variety of responses to this.

For myself, my answer might be as follows. Trinitarian theology and Christology, the parables and teachings of Jesus, Paul, James and so on are beautiful. They possess symmetry and a poetry have no little impact. Teachings that obscure this beauty … that is what is problematic. Why? Because it hinders others from seeing it. The core problem is not that you will be judged adversely if you’re a Calvinist and if at the eschaton Calvin’s teaching was fraught with error (and no, please don’t take this as a generic attack on Calvinism, the “if” is important there). The problem might be with Calvinism is whether his teachings obscures or conceals some important part of the Gospel. 

Two weeks of links to catch up!

Closing Guantanamo; big priority during the campaign, not so much now.  (Well, especially since even Democrats don’t even want to do it.)

The Obama administration turned down using Dutch oil skimmers because they couldn’t meet our stringent government environmental regulations on how pure the decontaminated water was that they dumped back into the Gulf of Mexico, right on-sight of the spill.  Instead, we transport the oily water to facilities and decontaminate it there.  Huge efficiency drop during a major catastrophe because, ironically, of environmental regulations.  Read the whole article for more things we turned down that could have averted a lot of this problem.

Our own Treasury Secretary is ignorant of economic history.  Timothy Geithner said this at the latest G-20 summit:  “One of the mistakes made in the 1930s was that countries pulled back their recovery efforts too soon, prolonging the Great Depression.”  However, precisely the opposite happened.  Recovery efforts failed, lasted too long, and that’s what prolonged the Great Depression.  NewsBusters has the charts.

School vouchers improve graduation rates. Now we have a government study to prove what common sense already told us.

Sharia Law in the UK:  Dogs barred from buses so as not to offend Muslims.

Democrats have decided that there will be no budget this year.  Hey, at least (this time) they’re being honest about it.  I guess they’ll just spend until it doesn’t feel good anymore.  Or until they’re voted out.  Whichever comes first.

In Venezuela’s socialist paradise, the government’s Food Ministry rounds up 120 tons of rice because it might be sold above regulated prices.  At the same time, 80,000 tons of food was found rotting in government warehouses.  Government efficiency at its finest.

Another example of bait-and-switch in the passage of ObamaCare.  Obama rejected the idea that the individual mandate was a tax increase, but in defending it from state lawsuits, the administration does classify it as a tax increase.  This way, the mandate falls under a law that forbids the states from interfering in tax collections.  In addition, “an early draft of an administration regulation estimates … a majority of workers—51 percent—will be in plans subject to new federal requirements….”

If your 11-year-old asks a particular Massachusetts school for a condom, they’ll get it, no questions asked.  Also, parents objections will not be taken into consideration.  Actually, there’s no real age limit on the policy; any kid can get one.  Only in Massachusetts.  For now.

And finally, all that hard work pays off, but not the way you thought it would.  (From Chuck Asay.  Click for a larger version.)

[I am working on a project that may become a book on the most influential evangelicals leaders of our generation, since 1976, and the impact they’ve had on the church and their times. I will introduce them briefly on this blog from time to time. Who should be on this list?]

#36  Ralph Reed. Political muscle  b.1961 

 Ralph Reed is “perhaps the finest political operative of his generation,”[1] and has certainly been the most bare-knuckled evangelical political brawler of the last 20 years. As executive director of the Christian Coalition (1989-1997), he built one of nation’s most effective grassroots organizations and played a pivotal role in the election of the first Republican Congress in 40 years. Under his leadership, the organization grew from 2,000 over 2 million members and supporters in 3,000 local chapters.

Reed’s departure from the Coalition to form his own consulting firm in Atlanta provided a vivid demonstration of the importance of leadership.  The group was never the same, and today it is a shell of the organization it was in its heyday. Reed went on to have a successful career as a political consultant to both corporations and candidates. He headed George W. Bush’s southern campaign and transformed the Georgia Republican Party, building first-time Republican majorities in the State House and capturing the Governor’s Mansion and both U.S. Senate seats. 

Reed made a run for public office, but he found that his work as a political operative and consultant involved associations and tactics that didn’t bode well as a candidate. As one of the toughest of the modern political players, the ugly and risky strategies he used in high-profile political races did not look statesmanlike (or of a high ethical standard) in the bright light of a candidacy, and he was soundly defeated in the Georgia Republican primary for Lt. Governor in 2006.

This surprised observers who had seen nothing but success from the the young wunderkind:

Many thought “the young man who at 33 graced Time magazine’s cover in 1995 as “The Right Hand of God” might appear there again, perhaps a decade from now, taking the oath of office on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Instead, there was Reed, just 45 but with crow’s-feet carved gently into his temples, offering a meager group of supporters a curt concession speech in a hotel ballroom in Buckhead. He had lost the primary to a little-known state senator named Casey Cagle in a 12-point landslide, Reed’s once invincible lead in the polls and fund raising eroded by a year of steady revelations about his ties to the convicted former G.O.P. superlobbyist Jack Abramoff. In the political vernacular that Reed loves to employ, he was waxed.”[2]

Nonetheless, Reed remains one of the brightest and most sought-after political consultants in the nation and is extending his public voice through The Faith and Freedom Coalition advocacy group, which he started in 2009. He also published an insightful political thriller called Dark Horse that demonstrated Reed’s knowledge of both national politics and Christian conservatives. 

[2] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1218060,00.html

 [I am working on a project that may become a book on the most influential evangelicals leaders of our generation, since 1976, and the impact they’ve had on the church and their times. I will introduce them briefly on this blog from time to time. Who should be on this list?]

37.  Richard Cizik. Renegade  b.1951 

After nearly five years of tweaking conservative evangelical leadership on a variety of issues, but most pointedly global warming, from his post as the vice president and chief Washington lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals, Richard Cizik finally accomplished what his persistent Christian adversaries could not. He self-destructed on a national radio program, stepping beyond NAE dogma not on an environmental issue, but on same-sex unions. After a run as one of the most-quoted evangelicals, occasionally taken to the woodshed by his NAE bosses but frequently glorified in mainstream media, Rich Cizik was fired by the association and found himself in the evangelical wilderness, with invitations and job offers only from his secular admirers and the most progressive evangelical allies.

 Cizik has been an honest and valuable voice for evangelicals for nearly 30 years, twisting the arms of politicians on issues important to the movement, such as abortion, pornography, religious freedom, AIDS, and—more recently— human trafficking, global poverty, climate change, and torture. The issues that gripped him broadened over the years, and while he remained theologically conservative and pro-life, the matters that began to stir his passions shifted from the historic issues of the culture wars to the causes usually championed by the evangelical left and progressives generally. 

 Cizik is described as one of the “new breed of evangelicals,” a label made popular by the New York Times[1] to give sashay to evangelicals who began to add their voices to those of progressives on topics such as the environment. He was on the point for this new part of the movement, but he outran his cover and left himself vulnerable to his adversarial brethren. Although evangelicals have been embracing many new missions, they aren’t moving as fast as Cizik or as far to the left.

 I’ve seen all of this happening while working at Rich’s side in the evangelical environmental movement, and as our public relations firm, Rooftop, represented him and the NAE government affairs office in the final years of his tenure. I have found Rich to be devout, earnest, ambitious, and slightly reckless.

 Cizik can easily be seen as one strand of a thread extending from the generation’s beginnings, in the tradition of Francis Schaeffer and Carl Henry–evangelicals who were strictly orthodox, but advocated a broad engagement with the world. “I’m not some upstart who’s trying to conjure up a new vision,” Cizik said. “This goes back a long way.”[2] His errors are tactical rather than theological.

More than anything, Cizik has been driven by this moral necessity for Christians to fight climate change.

He thought little about climate change until 2002, when he attended a conference on the subject and heard a leading British climate scientist, Sir John Houghton, a prominent evangelical. “Sir John made clear that you could believe in the science and remain a faithful biblical Christian. All I can say is that my heart was changed. For years I’d thought, ‘Well, one side says this, the other side says that. There’s no reason to get involved.’ But the science has become too compelling. I could no longer sit on the sidelines. I didn’t want to be like the evangelicals who avoided getting involved during the civil rights movement and in the process discredited the gospel and themselves.

“As a biblical Christian,” Cizik said, “I agree with St. Francis that every square inch on Earth belongs to Christ. If we don’t pay attention to global climate change, it’s pretty obvious that tens and or even hundreds of millions of people are going to die. If you have a major sea-level rise, then Bangladesh becomes uninhabitable. Where do you put its 100 million people? Do you put them in India? In China? They’d have no place to go.”[3]

In 2006, Cizik was part of a group that organized the Evangelical Climate Initiative[4], a major statement from 86 key evangelical leaders that described climate change as an urgent moral issue for Christians and called for the government to act on it. Cizik was part of the group of four people who planned ECI and made waves with its launch. (I was part of that group and served as campaign director for two years.) The real mastermind of the initiative, though, was Jim Ball, who for the last 15 years has been the progressive, intellectual glue for environmental work among evangelicals (now climate director for the Evangelical Environmental Network). It is Ball who mentored Cizik and taught him most of what he knows about both the science and the biblical basis for climate work. Ball, however, is a far more cautious operator, and while cheering Cizik’s progress on environmental issues, constantly counseled him to be more careful about his public statements on climate change as an NAE spokesman.

That counsel, as well as similar advice he received from Rooftop and others, went unheeded. 

It is a shame that Cizik is currently too toxic to have influence among mainstream evangelicals, for his instincts and convictions are important among a profusion of concerns. That may change as he continues to work within his new organization: The New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, and as the disagreements on some issues begin to lose their edge. Also, while some of Cizik’s most virulent critics are in the final years of active ministry, he is a relatively youthful 58.

[2] Newsweek. January 28, 2010  http://www.newsweek.com/id/232669

[3] http://www.grist.org/article/2010-04-27-jesus-climate-change-journey-of-evangelical-leader-rich-cizik/

[4] http://christiansandclimate.org/

 [I am working on a project that may become a book on the most influential evangelicals leaders of our generation, since 1976, and the impact they’ve had on the church and their times. I will introduce them briefly on this blog from time to time. Who should be on this list?]

#33.  Richard Land. Lobbyist  b.1946 

 Conservative evangelicals are inclined to oppose East coast elite, Washington insider, Princeton-Oxford educated, career lobbyists. That is unless he’s their lobbyist.

Enter Richard Land, the chief Washington lobbyist of the Southern Baptist Convention and a key part of the fixed conservative set in the culture wars.  Land has presented what he sees as Southern Baptist interests to policymakers and media for more than 20 years. Land is clear where the bulk of Southern Baptists will come down on most issues. But except for the convention resolution process once a year, there is really no mechanism for Land and the SBC agency he heads, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC)—the official policy voice of the SBC—to derive the SBC position. Land often develops his own position and builds support from key players in the denomination. He knows well what will sell in the SBC, which helps him steer clear of positions that would attract the ire of Baptists across the country.

Land is a formidable public spokesman and culture warrior. “People think they’re going to be dealing with some bootstrap preacher,” said Larry Eskridge, a the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College. “But he can match pedigree and training with the best of them.”[1]

He helped stop the 16-million-member SBC’s  slide to the left in 1979, and he has a hand in most of its key policies, from its 1995 apology for having supported slavery, to its 1998 statement that wives should submit to the leadership of their devout husbands.

While most ERLC positions are predictable—most recently its stubborn opposition to even nuanced climate change legislation—Land does occasionally surprise.

In 1994, he was a signer of the Evangelicals and Catholics Together document,  not a popular expression of ecumenism in the SBC.

 In 2010, Land announced the denomination’s support for establishing a path to U.S. citizenship for illegal immigrants. Land said that after borders are secure, there needs to be a way for them to pay back taxes, take a civics course and get in line with others seeking legal status. Similar to many ERLC positions, the reasoning on immigration is both spiritual and political.

The spiritual: “It is love your neighbor, do unto others. This is a kingdom issue. They are disproportionately suffering because they are forced to remain in the shadows because of their illegal status.”

The political: “Hispanics are hard-wired to be social conservatives unless we drive them away. They are family oriented, religiously oriented and pro-marriage, pro-life … tailor-made to be social conservatives.”[2]

 Land’s positions are not always the winning ones within the convention. In 2010, he took a hard line on responses to the Gulf oil spill; one writer called him the “drummer in the right-wing parade of blame” of the the environmental movement and the Obama administration, while treating British Petroleum gently.[3] A more balanced resolution for SBC action passed overwhelmingly at the 2010 convention and although Land later expressed his support, he privately sought to undermine it at the committee level.

 Land, who Time magazine called “God’s Lobbyist,” exercises great power because of his intellect and persuasive skills, but also because of his ability to choose his tactics as a SBC powerhouse—either leading (in times when he has deep personal convictions) or following (when he can claim to be only a spokesman for the denomination).

 He’s done both with great effectiveness in a generation of public evangelical engagement in the halls of power.

[2] Tennessean.com, June 8, 2010

[3] http://baptistplanet.wordpress.com/2010/06/12/richard-lands-misanalysis-of-the-deepwater-horizon-catastrophe/

Timothy Dalrymple, in his second article of a series on the Tea party, asks this question.  (His first was; is it a social justice movement?  More are coming.)  He asks this particular question because of a similar question asked by Jim Wallis, he of Sojourners and the Christian Left. 

Dalrymple notes that, for starters, that for a guy who doesn’t like to be caricatured (and who does?), Wallis certainly uses it to make his points.  Some excerpts from Dalrymple:

The first sleight of hand comes in the phase, "Tea Party Libertarianism." Wallis poses the question: "Just how Christian is the Tea Party movement — and the Libertarian political philosophy that lies behind it?" Yet not all Tea Party supporters are Libertarians, and Wallis twists the Libertarian "political philosophy" beyond recognition.

[…]

How, then, does Reverend Wallis describe the "political philosophy" of the Tea Party? Wallis likens the Tea Partiers to the murderous Cain, who believed or pretended to believe that he was not his brother’s keeper.

[…]

Finally (I will deal with the racism charge in the third part of this series), Wallis condemns the Tea Party’s "preference for the strong over the weak" through its "supreme confidence in the market" — indeed, in a "sinless market" that has no need for oversight or regulation. The values of the Tea Party do not honor "God’s priorities" but "the priorities of the Chamber of Commerce."

These are powerful claims. They are also patently absurd. Only those who are already conditioned to expect the worst of political conservatives can believe that this represents a fair and honest account of the beliefs and values of the Tea Party movement. Would any Tea Partier — any single one, out of the millions across America who support or participate in the movement — actually accept this definition? It is an astonishing distortion of the Tea Party message to reduce it to "just leave me alone and don’t spend my money."

Rather than painting the movement with the brush of Rand Paul, Reverend Wallis might have consulted the polling data that shows what the majority of Tea Party supporters believe. He would have found a reality that defies the caricature.

Dalrymple proceeds to deal with these caricatures one by one, showing that Wallis either has no idea what the Tea Partiers really stand for, or who they really are.  Dalrymple does a good job of being moderate in his pronouncements, noting, in many places, that neither side, Wallis nor the Tea Partiers, inhabit the extreme positions they each are often accused of, and does a great job of explaining what’s really going on in conservatives’ heads.  Example:

What also needs to be refuted is the notion that resistance to higher levels of taxation is necessarily selfish. To resent a tax hike (or the prospect of one) is not to neglect the needy, and to wish to retain control over the funds one has secured in order to care for one’s family is not necessarily selfish. Conservatives generally are more generous with their giving than liberals, yet they resent it when a distant bureaucracy extracts their money in order to distribute public funds to the special interest groups on whose votes and donations they rely. Conservatives would prefer that care for the needy remain as local and personal as possible. Jobless Joe is more accountable to use the money he is given wisely, and to strive to become self-sufficient as swiftly as possible, when he receives that money from the members of the church down the street. This is not to deny that government services are needed, but it is to refute the notion that "taxed enough already" is a slogan of economic narcissism.

So, is this a Christian movement?  Dalrymple’s answer is a solid "yes and no".  I’ll let you read the whole thing to get his complete take on it, but answering this provided another point of moderation between the two sides.

In the New York Times poll, 39% of Tea Party supporters identified themselves as evangelicals or "born again," and 83% identify as Protestant or Catholic. If Wallis were correct in his description of the philosophy that undergirds their movement, then these conservative Christians would be abandoning the essential ethical principles of their faith. Yet this is hardly the case. What separates Jim Wallis from the Tea Partiers is not a difference of moral quality, or the presence and absence of compassion, but a different vision of the society that biblical love and justice require.

This is a much more sober description of the differences that in Wallis’ article.  In it, he labels some of the (supposed, caricatures) values of the Tea Party as "decidedly un-Christian", while at the same time saying he wants to "have the dialog".  In reality, he’s made up his mind already.  Dalrymple, arguing from the Right, gives both sides a benefit of the doubt that Wallis doesn’t seem to be willing to do.

[I am working on a project that may become a book on the most influential evangelicals leaders of our generation, since 1976, and the impact they’ve had on the church and their times. I will introduce them briefly on this blog from time to time. Who should be on this list?]

#34. George W. Bush. Resolute witness  b. 1946 

 One of many things that agitated George W. Bush’s political opponents was the bold statement of Christian faith that made him one of the most visible—if not one of the most articulate—witnesses for Jesus Christ in the modern era. Bush’s public professions demonstrated the clumsy language and descriptions that evangelicals recognize as typical of new believers brought to the public stage. Bush attests that he came to faith in Christ in his mid-life as a result of wife’s influence and then a 1985 family weekend with Billy Graham.

 “Over the course of a weekend, Reverend Graham planted a mustard seed in my soul,” Bush says in his testimony. “It was a seed that grew over the next year. He led me to the path, and I began walking. It was the beginning of a change in my life. I had always been a ‘religious’ person, had regularly attended church, even taught Sunday School and served as an altar boy. But that weekend my faith took on a new meaning. It was the beginning of a new walk where I would commit my heart to Jesus Christ.”[1]

 His later-in-life conversion, although not uncommon, made him “among a small number of American presidents to have undergone a profound religious transformation as an adult.”[2] What matured his faith were the actions he took as a new believer: reading the Bible voraciously, becoming involved in a men’s Bible study, and committing to a regimen of regular prayer.

Bush said: “I have also learned the power of prayer. I pray for guidance. I do not pray for earthly things, but for heavenly things, for wisdom and patience and understanding. My faith gives me focus and perspective. It teaches humility. But I also recognize that faith can be misinterpreted in the political process. Faith is an important part of my life. I believe it is important to live my faith, not flaunt it. America is a great country because of our religious freedoms. It is important for any leader to respect the faith of others.”[3]

 One of the most striking differences in the actions of born-again president George W. Bush and two other modern presidents who professed Christianity, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton—both Southern Baptists at the time of their presidencies—was the number of evangelicals that Bush surrounded himself with in his Administration.

 “Though Clinton talked often about his faith,” wrote Rice University professor Michael Lindsay in his book Faith in the Halls of Power, “the presidency of George W. Bush strikes many observers as the most evangelical in recent memory.”[4]

 “Bush surrounded himself with more evangelicals than any other U.S. president in the last 50 years,” Lindsay wrote. “Even among nonevangelicals [in the administration], there was a general affinity for religious faith.”

There was also divergence from his Democratic predecessors reflected in Bush’s views on the role of personal responsibility and government. Bush commented:

“The new culture has said: ‘Individuals are not responsible for their actions; we are all victims of forces beyond our control.’ We have gone from a culture of sacrifice and saving to a culture obsessed with grabbing all the gusto. We went from accepting responsibility to assigning blame. As government did more and more, individuals were required to do less and less. The new culture said: ‘if people were poor, the government should feed them. If someone had no house, the government should provide one. If criminals are not responsible for their acts, then the answers are not prisons, but social programs.’  For our culture to change, it must change one heart, one soul, and one conscience at a time. Government can spend money, but it cannot put hope in our hearts or a sense of purpose in our lives.” [5]

But more than anything Bush will be forever remembered as the president who guided the nation after the 9/11 attacks, and then as an unpopular war president. Taking a nation to war in both Afghanistan and then Iraq, and in the more vague War on Terror, subjected Bush not only with anti-war vitriol from the left, but also forced him as a Christian to consider the question of whether the conflicts were morally justified or just wars.

Christians since Augustine have used the Just War theory as a calculus for determining whether acts of aggression are morally justifiable. Historically the jus ad bellum criteria have included: just cause, right authority, right intention, proportionality, reasonable hope of success, and last resort.

There are, of course, different views on whether the conflicts that were begun under the Bush Doctrine of preemption and preventive action qualified as “just wars” using these critieria. One moral theoretician concluded:

“While there are on the face of it morally justifiable elements of the Bush Doctrine as a security response to terrorism, from the perspective of the Just War tradition the doctrine’s linkage with a power-driven, hegemonic foreign policy strategy undermines the moral credibility of the doctrine, and thus the moral credibility of the United States.” [6]

Others find moral justification for the Bush Doctrine. Jean Bethke Elshtain, in her book Just War Against Terror, cites the just war tradition as a source for legitimating her claim that it is the “burden of American power” to undertake the global war on terrorism. In her application of the just war criteria, Elshtain finds not only adequate reasoning for the Bush Doctrine conflicts, but overwhelming justification for these actions.[7]

It is perilous to analyze the personal faith of political figures in the context of their policies and popularity.  To label—as I am inclined to do–George W. Bush the most Christian president of the modern era brings both cheers and jeers. There is little doubt, however, that Bush best represents among U.S. presidents an evangelical figure that experienced a profound spiritual conversion, explained his faith in the language of evangelicalism, applied the movement’s moral criteria and spiritual disciplines, and worked for policies most important to the conservative Christian church.

[2] The Faith of George W. Bush, by Stephen Mansfield

[3] http://www.prayforbush.com/testimony.php

[4] Lindsay, D. Michael, Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite; Oxford University Press: 2007.

[5] http://www.prayforbush.com/testimony.php

[6] http://www.trinstitute.org/ojpcr/6_1snau.pdf States.

[7] Elshtain, Jean Bethke, Just war against terror: the burden of American power in a violent world, ,Basic Books; 2003.

[I am working on a project that may become a book on the most influential evangelicals leaders of our generation, since 1976, and the impact they’ve had on the church and their times. I will introduce them briefly on this blog from time to time. Who should be on this list?]

#47  Beth Moore. Ceiling breaker  b.1957

Beth Moore is a Bible teacher whose books, study guides and conferences have had an enormous impact on millions of Christian women. Oh yes; men, too—but keep that to yourself. There are enough evangelical churches that believe that women cannot teach men about spiritual things that successful female Christian leaders often mask the truth about the number of men who benefit from their teaching.

Moore is perhaps the best-selling female author among evangelicals in the last generation and a symbol of women who over the last decade have begun to break into the upper echelons of evangelical influence. At the center of the strongest resistance to an egalitarian role for women in the church, the Southern Baptist Convention, Beth Moore is among the most successful and perhaps the best-selling Baptist author, and a financial boon to the denomination’s B&H Publishing Group. For the longest time, when you walked into a Lifeway (SBC) Christian Bookstore it appeared there were only two authors at work:  Beth Moore and Henry Blackaby. 

Moore committed her life to vocational Christian ministry at the age of 18, but years later, when she was volunteering as a Sunday School teacher, she realized that she needed to learn more about the Bible. She went to a biblical doctrine class that gave her a deep yearning to know the Bible, and she began sharing her expanding knowledge through a weekly Bible study class. By the mid-1990s that class had grown to 2,000 women and she was speaking at churches throughout South Texas. It was then that B&H began publishing her Bible studies, leading to a national speaking ministry.

Moore founded Living Proof Ministries in 1994 with the purpose of teaching women about God’s Word. Moore writes books based on the regular Bible studies that she conducts at the Living Proof Live conferences and at her local church, First Baptist Church, Houston, Texas. Her books include Breaking Free, Believing God, The Patriarchs. and When Godly People Do Ungodly Things. Living Proof Live conferences are conducted in every state and have been attended by more than a million women. Moore began a radio ministry called Living Proof with Beth Moore in 2004, and she has a Bible study segment on the television program “Life Today with James and Betty Robison.”

The evangelical consideration of gender roles often puts men in the forefront and one result is that any listing of evangelical leaders is predominantly male. Despite this, there is no doubt that women are the primary strength of the modern church. This is not because of the positions they hold but because they are teaching the children in the churches and at home, they dominate in sheer numbers, they are more faithful in participation (including modern missions), they are frequently the real life examples and teachers of spiritual things to their spouses, and they are the most effective hounds of heaven. At times, superior teachers such as Moore, Anne Graham Lotz, Kay Arthur, Joni Eareckson Tada, Joyce Meyer and others have risen to the top as speakers and authors within a male-dominated subculture, and although they are restricted by conservative convictions on gender roles, we all find ways to listen in.

 Criticized for teaching men, Moore responded:

 “The ministry to which God has called me is geared to women. My conference and weekly Bible studies are entirely focused upon women. The only exception to an entirely female audience is my Sunday School class. Men continue to come and sit in the back. We never sought them but did not know how to deal with them. Would Christ have thrown them out? I just didn’t know. I handed the problem over to my pastor and under his authority; he said to allow anyone to come who chooses. I have wrestled with this and the Lord finally said to me, ‘I tell you what, Beth, you worry about what I tell you to say, and I’ll worry about who listens.’ My ministry is to women. That’s where my heart is. I make no bones about it. But what if men come and sit down? Do we stop and throw them out? I really don’t know. I just placed myself under the authority of my husband, my pastor, and my God.”

This last weekend our N.T. class delivered homilies based on New Testament passages. I’m drawing on parts of one of the other student’s homilies for what follows.

And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus answered them, “I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things.The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?” And they discussed it among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From man,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. (Matthew 21:23-17)

and take quick read of of the story of Jesus encounter with St. Photina Equal to the Apostles (who is known to the Western traditions as the Samaritan woman at the well) The passage is from John 8,  ESV here. 

A typical reason couples live together before getting married is that, supposedly, this will allow them to find out if they are compatible and thus ensure their marriage lasts longer.  But a new study says, nope, they are less likely to stay married.

Read my lips; no new taxes on those making $250,000 or less.  Well, we may soon add to the many exceptions since that promise was made, “unless you own a home”.

The revolving door between the MSM and the Democratic Party.  Oh, that liberal media.

If the Gulf oil spill had happened on Bush’s watch, do you really think the environmental groups would be as virtually silent as they are now?  (Me neither.)

Remember how the UN climate change panel was supposed to be the result of boatloads of scientists in agreement?  Turns out the boat was a dingy.

And from the “Beware of Governments Bearing Gifts” department:

Churches and other faith-based organizations that receive government funds, beware. In an agreement that will be enforced by a federal court, government agencies in New York have agreed to monitor the Salvation Army to ensure that it doesn’t impose religion on the people its serves through its tax-funded social services.

The agreement just effects the Salvation Army’s social work in New York, but it’s more than a cautionary tale for religious groups in this era of government-backed faith-based initiatives. “With this settlement, government is watching out,” co-counsel Deborah Karpatkin of the N.Y. Civil Liberties Union said in a statement. “It will not fund religious organizations to proselytize to recipients of government-funded social services.”

The Salvation Army’s social services are intended to be an expression of faith in God and love for fellow man, but if they are prevented from doing the former while performing the latter, they’re being hobbled.  My suggestion has always been to avoid government money at all costs.

 [I am working on a project that may become a book on the most influential evangelicals leaders of our generation, since 1976, and the impact they’ve had on the church and their times. I will introduce them briefly on this blog from time to time. Who should be on this list?]

#42.  John C. Maxwell. Mentor  b.1947 

John C. Maxwell is an evangelical author and speaker who has written more than 50 books, primarily focusing on leadership. Maxwell is a familiar name inside and outside the church, but particularly among business professionals. A lot of people know you when the books your write sell 13 million copies.

His training organizations–INJOY, Maximum Impact, ISS and EQUIP–have trained more than 2 million leaders worldwide.

 The most surprising thing about all of that is that leadership training is John Maxwell’s second career. He’s so well known as an author, for his conferences, and his high-profile speaking that most don’t realize that Maxwell pastored Wesleyan churches for 30 years.

Maxwell says God called him away from pastoring to speak mainly with business professionals about leadership. He talks often about all the criticism that he had encountered since that decision, but finds assurance in the fact that God is using him to share Christ in the secular business community. This year more people have accepted Christ through his life than during any five-year period when he was a pastor, he says.

The criticism is a characteristic of many of the evangelical community who frown on a change among those in what’s called “full time Christian ministry,” to a “secular” vocation. And Maxwell is an example of how that change can be made without losing sight of the underlying Kingdom values. 

Now, Maxwell quite simply teaches people how to lead, and he’s found many ways to do it. He could sell an icebox to an Eskimo, as the saying goes, but then he’d write a book about the 10 steps it took to do it.

 Every year Maxwell speaks to Fortune 500 companies, international government leaders, and organizations. Maxwell was one of 25 authors and artists named to Amazon.com’s  10th Anniversary Hall of Fame. Three of his books, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, Developing the Leader Within You, and The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader have each sold over a million copies.