GON OUT BACKSON BISY BACKSON
PLES RING IF AN RNSER IS REQIRD
PLES CNOKE IF AN RNSR IS NOT REQID

(if you get the title, you're a kindred spirit)



Jamie has gone to New York for the weekend and a wedding.

(You know it's a good post when the title is longer than the body)

When Saddam Hussein was arraigned today at Camp Victory, he reportedly said: “You know that this is all a theater by Bush, the criminal, to help him with his campaign”.

Has he been listening to CNN too?

Doug Wilson and Homosexuality

In Doug Wilson’s article Owning the Curse: Rethinking Same-Sex Marriage, Wilson rethinks the same-sex issue right into the church camp.

Not only does he claim that the outbreak of homosexuality in America is largely the fault of the American Christian tradition, he also insists that it is Christian fathers, specifically, who are “the primary cause of the curse of homosexuality”.

I find these to be pretty amazing claims, especially as they are unsupported by any evidence. That makes me skeptical of Wilson’s statements, such as “Even in our own congregations, fathers are provoking their children not only to sin, but into patterns of resentment, into the patterns of homosexuality", and "For generations, we, as fathers, have lied about God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through our refusal to live self-sacrificially."

Doug Wilson, by the way, claims that his perspective is that of classical Protestantism. I hope he’s wrong.

And this isn’t all. I don’t know if Wilson claims a Reformed theological viewpoint as well as a Protestant, but his views on homosexuality seem a natural outgrowth of that view. He says that homosexuality is, indeed, a genetic problem—in fact, he “grant[s] any and all scientific claims about the genetic basis” of homosexuality, on the grounds that since God controls everything, genetically-caused homosexuality is part of the “providence of God”.

To top everything off, his solution for the church’s “sin” is just dandy—not only should we “not…stand with those seeking to ban same-sex marriage” (because to do so would oppose God’s will, which imposed the curse), but we should “[confess] publicly before the non-Christian community that we are the problem.”

I can just see what a hey-day the media would have with that one.

If, indeed, Wilson is right that the church was ordained by God to lead culture, then perhaps his suggestions would be valid. But he has yet to prove scripturally the most basic of his presuppositions—that God has, indeed, made the church responsible for the misdeeds of culture, and that homosexuality is actually a curse directed towards the church, not towards a wicked society, as Romans 1:18-32 seems to make very obvious.

When Doug Wilson can provide scripture to back up his statements, that will be time enough to start thinking about making public confession for the sins of others.

I don’t understand Reformed theology. I’ve considered it, but I don’t understand it. For one thing, it contains contradictory premises. It teaches that God does not coerce Man’s will, and thus Man has free will—yet it also teaches that Man is unable to choose to believe in Christ; rather, God must first claim a man for Himself before that man may choose Him.

As I understand from Reformed articles I’ve read, and Reformed people I’ve talked to, this contradiction is explained away as being one of those things we’ll just never understand. Thus I find in one article, side-by-side, the statements:

GOD never forces men to act against their wills.

and

When by the Spirit a mind understands essential truths, by the same Spirit the will must trust Christ. [emphasis mine]

If Man is unable to choose God before God chooses him, then why does Jesus lament:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you would not !'” [italics mine] ?

If Man can’t come to God unless God calls him, then why Jesus’ cry? Apparently He chose not to call Jerusalem, and that’s all there was to it.

Yet this article uses these verses as an example of Man’s refusal to come to Christ. How can anyone respond if he is not called? And how can God complain of Man not coming if He will not call him?

The doctrine of Irresistible Grace is at odds with such passages as the above.

Another necessary corollary of Reformed theology is that God solely determines who will go to heaven, and who to Hell. Since He alone can “quicken” Man’s heart so that Man must (not may) choose God, He therefore chooses to save some people, and chooses to condemn others to Hell—and where they end up is not contingent on their choice at all, insofar as they may only choose what He has already chosen for them—hardly an exercise of will at all, unless it be “programmed” and not “free” will.

Calvin himself said "Predestination we call the eternal decree of God, by which He has determined in Himself, what would have to become of every individual of mankind. For they are not all created with a similar destiny; but eternal life is foreordained for some and eternal death for others. Every man, therefore, being created for one or the other of these ends, we say he is predestinated either to life or to death."

If Man is “predestined either to life or to death”, then surely Reformed theologians cannot speak of “free will”! There is no free will where Man’s destiny is determined at his very creation.

Rather than believe Calvin’s interpretation of scripture, or Luther’s, or anyone else’s, I choose to go to the Bible itself, which states clearly

“God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

If God is not willing that any should perish (and the word “any” in Greek literally means “any”, just as the word “world” in “For God so loved the world” means “everyone”), then He did not create some for eternal life and some for eternal death. Likewise, if God is not willing that any perish (i.e. He doesn't want anyone to end up in Hell), and yet some people will end up there, then it is of their own volition, not God's.

So whom do you want to believe? God or Calvin?

It's back! So glad y'all repented! *wink*

My blog is missing! Admit it, y'all--you were jealous of my superior blog, and in revenge you dematerialized it out of cyberspace!

I'm telling my mom.