as of late the posts on justin taylor’s blog between two worlds have been highly political (which is fine), but have been attacking obama from the abortion debate (which is out-dated, and not fine). in the past week he’s posted two articles showering his readers with the one-sided message that only those who are pro-life are fit for the presidency.
my question to mr. taylor is, in the past thirty years we’ve had three republican presidents, which one has helped overturn roe v. wade? how successful has it been to legislate this and to involve the entire evangelical community on this one issue (o, and along with gay marriage) while neglecting the “weightier matters of the law” like justice, love, and mercy (Mt 23:23)? where have these conservative evangelicals been when the world is eagerly awaiting to hear prophetic moral leadership (see Allen Wolf) on poverty, aids, and other systemic issues that are the root causes for abortion? interestingly enough it has been the catholic church who have both voice opposition to abortion and cared for the single mothers with their numerous social programs. where have the conservative evangelicals been?
brothers and sisters who read between two worlds, it is time to get in the way and stop shouting at these issues. it’s time to act. it’s time to care for the single mother who can’t make rent. it’s time to love the homosexuals, how about invite them over for supper? it’s time be a witness to a watching world (see Yoder). and its time we stop hijacking the republican party as God’s favorite, because God endorses neither party.
(* update 4-5-08: again today justin taylor one-sidedly attacked obama’s record on abortion. this attack and others like it – of course while ignoring mccain’s record – shows why the rest of the nonchristian world will not listen to us. we must acts as though we don’t like abortion, not only scream it by attacking political canidates. his attacks and those of conservative evangelicals sickens me. i breaks my heart to know so many mothers are grieving over their abortions and too often evangelicals can only tell them what they’ve done wrong. how about providing for them so that next time the abortion choice doesn’t even have to cross their mind.)
(to mr. taylor: stop attacking obama)
36 Comments
4 March 2008 at 5:29 pm
the correct attitude for Christians to adopt is to be sure that we are attentive to *all* these issues – not to drop abortion in favor of the others. If we fail on any one of these issues, we undermine our moral authority to speak truth on any of these issues.
as for the success of pro-life presidents, roe v wade can’t be overturned in one stroke of the pen. It has taken and will take years of effort and pressure by evangelicals to push the SCOTUS toward recognizing the value of human life, one justice at a time. GWB has done a tremendous amount to push us toward a post-Roe reality. One more pro-life president can get it done. To say that the fact that Roe has stood for 30 years means that it’s time to give up and to move on is to doubt the power and faithfulness of God and to ignore the realities of history when it comes to overturning injustice. When it comes to moving a society toward justice, 30 years is a flash in the pan. It took 110 years for our country to eliminate slavery. It took another 80 years to begin correcting all the injustice in regards to Civil Rights. We would be foolish to believe that abortion, the greatest injustice of the three, could be eliminiated in such a small window of time.
4 March 2008 at 5:44 pm
of course it will take longer than 30 years, but my point was that for over 30 years evangelical christians have been one (and two) issue believers (social conservatives, i guess) while neglecting larger systemic issues. i’m all for pro-life, but who will take care of the single mother and her child? will the church step up? has the church been stepping up? the catholics have done a wonderful job with social programs, but what about the conservative evangelicals? where have they been?
4 March 2008 at 6:48 pm
1) None of the other issues is “larger” than abortion. There is no justice greater than abortion. Some may be more politically correct to talk about, but abortion is the #1 “systemic issue” in America – followed closely by nothing. It’s not even close. Further, the issues that undergird the abortion debate are foundational to all other justice issues. If a person is disposable at 5 months in the womb, then why aren’t they disposable at 5 years, 15 years, 50 years, or 90 years. To talk about poverty or other justice issues without acknowledging the inherent value of human life is pointless. If human life has no inherent value, then society has no obligation to care for the least of these.
2) Clearly, the church has failed on a number of counts. However, I would go so far as to say that the church is the very, very best group of people **in the world** and **in the United States** when it comes to caring for people. Can we do better? Yes. Is anyone else doing better? No. I believe that the church has moral authority to speak to issues regarding human dignity both before and after birth because no one else has done more to care for people than the church.
3) You are presupposing that government is the best way to care for the poor. Most evangelicals believe that private care and programs are better to care for the poor than government. No one, however, believes that justice can be done for the unborn apart from governmental protection. This is why, when it comes to politics, evangelicals are so big on abortion – government is THE institution with both the ability and the obligation to do justice. Whether the government has the ability or obligation to care for the poor is debatable.
4) If we are going to do justice regarding human life, the church must speak with one voice and with clarity. Shutting up about abortion and trying to deal with other issues (where we have no where near a consensus among us regarding the best way to handle the issues) will leave the church with no voice at all.
4 March 2008 at 7:15 pm
1. Abortion isn’t the largest issue that the should be concerned about. I encourage you to read Richard Hay’s book The Moral Vision of the NT (specifically the section on abortion). Although abortion is an important issue the church must continue to speak against, it should not be the central concern with neglect to the “weightier matters.”
2. I’m not so convinced Christians are the “best” people in the world. To even say that reminds me of the “unrepentant sinner.”
3. No, the government can’t do it all, but neither can private institutions. God ordained that the government should be used for good, justice, and decency in the world. If the church was left to do it all we would have to raise over $3 billion a year for health care alone (see Ron Sider’s book Just Generosity).
4. The churches voice comes from witness (which does include proclamation). The world is watching us to see (not hear) if we act differently than the rest of the world. Are we manifesting the Kingdom of God in and through our actions? If not, then lets work on that first.
4 March 2008 at 7:22 pm
If we killed 2 million random three year-olds every year, what issue would be more significant than that? Health care?
4 March 2008 at 7:27 pm
Also, I didn’t say that we were the best people. What I said was that the church, as a group of people was doing the best work. If you object to this point, I would be interested in hearing what other group is doing better, more extensive, more comprehensive work.
4 March 2008 at 7:31 pm
The problem with your scenario is that the children who are aborted aren’t killed “at random.” Rather they are caused by the woman’s boyfriend or spouse left her and she can’t afford to take care of the child. Often those who abort can’t afford nor have the support system to support the child. Often adoption isn’t an option, because many don’t know how to find such resources.
We need to humanize the issue and have compassion. We, the church, need to advocate for better paying jobs, universal heath care, and sponsored child care so woman don’t even have to consider the tragedy of abortion.
4 March 2008 at 7:34 pm
The church is doing a good work, but many of these works are done by socially active Christians (Catholics, episcopalians, and Methodists), there aren’t too many conservative Christian social justice organizations. But there are more (loud) advocacy groups who petition government to change policies, but don’t often have grassroots efforts to change the systemic issues of abortion.
The church is doing good things, but conservative evangelicals especially need rethink what it means to do good works. We can’t juxtapose grace vs works to the point of being paralyzed to do no action.
4 March 2008 at 7:43 pm
Okay, so a woman was sinned against. No problem – just kill the child.
Most abortions are a matter of convenience. Women get pregnant, don’t want the child (or the stigma or hassle of a pregnancy), so they abort it. Clearly, some are the result of rape (forcible or de facto), but even in these cases the circumstance can not dictate the value of the life.
There are crisis pregnancy centers (generally staffed by Christians, who are apparently the uncaring, selfish, scum of the earth), planned parenthood offices, churches, etc who would all LOVE to tell young women how to go about putting their children up for adoption. Well, Planned Parenthood would probably first counsel for abortion, but if an abortion were refused, they would probably be willing to help you put a child up for adoption.
I’m well aware that there is a human face to every unplanned pregnancy. I’ve known those faces. But you can’t let difficult circumstances mitigate the value of the child’s life. That’s just ridiculous. If circumstances dictate the value of a life, then you are automatically denying the INHERENT value of life – to say that life has inherent value is to say that its value is independant of its circumstances.
Let me play along with your scenario, though I deny the premise:
If we identified the poorest women in the country, whose husbands, boyfriends, families, churches, and friends had all abandoned them, and gave them a “kill your 3-year-old for free” pass, would it then be an issue worth dealing with? Or does the convenience of the outcome justify the action?
Clearly, you have made a distinction in your mind between an unborn child and a born child. Have you or have you not?
4 March 2008 at 8:01 pm
No, I have not made the distinction as you ask. Both lives are valuable. However, my contention is that simply by outlawing it, and spending so very much energy to vote those into office who promise to or spending energy promoting anti-abortion law campaigns, does not solve the problem. The problem is so much deeper than the law.
For example: Murder is illegal in the US, yet there are still many, many murders in the US. Clearly having a law does not deter, nor solve the problem. Murder is caused by certain circumstances. Therefore, is the church simply to abandon its efforts in deterring murder since it is now law?
Therefore, if we spend so much time outlawing abortion what infrastructure will be in place to support the mothers who can’t get abortions? Will the (conservative evangelical) church have a support system developed handle these thousands and thousands of requests?
My argument is that we need to do both, but for way too long conservative (at time militant) evangelicals have been sadly way too one-sided. Thoughts?
4 March 2008 at 8:22 pm
1) Outlawing abortion will radically decrease its prevalence.
2) Law is not always simply about practical outcomes. It is also about justice. Capital punishment is not a deterrent, but a case can be made (I’m ambivalent about the death penalty) that some crimes require capital punishment as a matter of justice. Abortion must be outlawed as a matter of justice, regardless of the outcome. The first responsibiltiy of government is to defend the defenseless. Everything else comes after that. Justice demands that abortion be outlawed.
3) First things first. The biggest reduction in abortions will come when we outlaw it. After outlawing it, then we can focus ALL of our efforts on alleviating the circumstances that tend to lead to abortions (we are already focusing a lot of our efforts on these things, as I’ve already mentioned – it’s not as if we’re doing nothing).
4) Outlawing abortion will redeem Planned Parenthood for a good purpose. In the absence of being able to provide abortion services, Planned Parenthood will be able to devote ALL of its substantial resources to ethical ways of helping women in crisis pregnancies. That’s a heck of a lot of infrastructure, right off the bat.
5) Again, it’s not that evangelicals are ignoring the other issues. We are already doing a heck of a lot to help (not as much as we could, but a heck of a lot). The fact is that most evangelicals believe that their efforts to care for the poor and marginalized are better spent through private endeavor rather than through lobbying the government to get it to do the church’s job.
I really think that you are not giving the church enough credit for all the work that it does. Clearly, we are in sin for not doing more. But, if you remove the church, where would the world find itself? The church is doing an awful lot to serve the poor and marginalized. It’s just the case that the church does not have a monolithic view of the role of government in curing these problems, and so the church tends to focus its political energies on issues where the church DOES tend to have one view of the role of government.
4 March 2008 at 8:30 pm
You are right in that the church is doing a lot of good, sadly it’s not mainly the conservative evangelicals who are.
4 March 2008 at 8:41 pm
I suspect that, proportionately, conservative evangelicals (I guess it’s going to depend on how you define those terms and who you include), are doing just about the same as the rest of the church. The Catholic Church does a lot because, 1) it has a consistent ethic of social justice and valuing life in all its forms and stages and is committed to living that out, and 2) it’s freaking huge, worldwide.
One thought. I suspect that I am typical of many evangelicals in this respect: I am guilty of not working hard enough to bring an end to abortion or prevent individual abortions. Over the years, I have given thousands and thousands of dollars to missions, parachurch ministries, and my church. I have given thousands and thousands of dollars to individuals in dire financial straits and to organizations that work with the poor, domestically and abroad. But I suspect that I’ve given less than $500 in my life to crisis pregnancy centers, adoption ministries, or groups that lobby the government and work for an end to abortion.
I say that because the church is loud about what it does about abortion, but is silent in many of its efforts to work with the poor and proclaim the word. I think that I am probably typical of many, many people in the church.
4 March 2008 at 9:17 pm
Conservative evangelicals have to humanize the abortion debate. To speak of it only in legal jargon dehumanizes those who are faced with the decision. And as an evangelical Christians I am convinced that God’s call on us is to care for the disinherited and only secondarily pass legislation. We must be agents of grace in the world, not megaphones of annoyance. Who will listen to our tired message? But who can deny a life changed?
4 March 2008 at 10:03 pm
Jerry, it seems as if you completely ignore Mike’s last comment! What do you have to say about his contention that evangelicals are “loud” on the issue of abortion, but silent about the other social work (which is to be expected if we are trying to listen to Jesus who tells us to give “in secret”). You also fail to engage the argument about the different ways Christians view government.
I agree with you that we should be seeking to serve those who may consider abortion as a possible course of action while seeking for the reversal of Roe. The problem that I see is that you are overreacting. I think that you are right to react against an almost singular focus on the reversal of Roe by evangelicals up until a decade ago (I think that this is when Crisis Pregnancy Centers started taking root). But you are overreacting in that you seem to be downplaying the importance of making abortion illegal.
4 March 2008 at 11:07 pm
Caleb,
I agree with Mike on his last comment. It was what I’ve been saying in the previous comments.
Jerry
4 March 2008 at 11:51 pm
“where have these conservative evangelicals been when the world is eagerly awaiting to hear prophetic moral leadership (see Allen Wolf) on poverty, aids, and other systemic issues that are the root causes for abortion”?
I couldn’t disagree with you more on this one: poverty, aids and other systemic issues are emphatically NOT the root cause for abortion. The hardness of our hearts is the root cause of abortion. The desire for man to play God is the root cause for abortion. Pride and arrogance are the root causes of abortion. Do poverty, aids and systemic issues directly contribute to abortion and other social issues? Absolutely. But to say that abortion is due to anything other than the sin in our lives and in this country is, in my opinion, skirting the real issue behind any heinous crime, such as the senseless and merciless killing of the unborn.
5 March 2008 at 12:55 am
RW,
The issue is not black and white. Abortion is not simply caused by selfishness.
Jerry
5 March 2008 at 12:40 pm
The immediate justification for an abortion may be circumstance, poverty, rape, health complications, or any other circumstantial factors.
Ultimately, though, abortion is indeed, in every case, a selfish response to a circumstance that can not be justified no matter how difficult or unjust the circumstance. In every case, it is a human determining to kill that which God has made alive. It is selfish and it is an act of rebellion against God’s authority.
Again, if human life has inherent value, then that value (by definition) can not be altered or disregarded due to circumstance.
I anticipate that your response is that I need to humanize the issue more (although I’ve made it clear that I have seen and known the human faces of unplanned pregnancy and the process of responding to that pregnancy). At this point, saying that carries no weight, because you can’t demonstrate that my position is the result of dehumanizing the issue. It simply becomes a rhetorical fall-back response when the arguments carry to much weight for you to contradict.
Perhaps you need to humanize the unborn child.
5 March 2008 at 4:14 pm
and mothers who are pregnant can only think of the immediate circumstance. that is why after the abortion many regret it – because when one is in a crisis one usually doesn’t think clearly.
i’m not sure if you’ve heard me so i’ll say it again: i am against abortion and i think it should be illegal, BUT we must go deeper and promote “shalom” in all of life SO THAT women who are pregnant don’t even have to consider an abortion.
if you die in 30 years and abortion is still legal what has your voice done? have to cared for any of the mothers who had abortions in those 30 years? have to given a place to stay, financially supported, or helped raise a child of a mother who chose not to have an abortion? or have you forgotten about her and the child and instead spent all your time screaming at congress, the president, and the supreme court?
jerry
5 March 2008 at 5:34 pm
…and you’re not hearing me. The church IS doing BOTH. We need to do better with the practical, immediate care, but we need not silence our voice regarding outlawing abortion in order to do that.
You are creating a false dichotomy. If you want to fault the church, then fault it for not offering enough practical care – not for doing the right thing on half. The answer isn’t to change which half we pay attention to – the answer is to do both.
By the way, the fact that mothers in those circumstances can’t think past the immediate circumstance is EXACTLY why we need to work so diligently toward outlawing abortion: it removes an option from the table in order to prevent a significant number of women from making that mistake. You are making my point for me.
5 March 2008 at 6:11 pm
Yeah, I don’t know. I think you’re making broad sweeping statements about the church that aren’t necessarily true outside of your experience. A fight for social justice, poverty AND abortion is happening. There’s more needed but let’s celebrate that God is mobilizing people to love what He loves and hate what He hates.
Also, I’m not so sure that you can go after Justin like that. I’m so over hearing the statements “God is not a Republican,” or “He doesn’t have a favorite.” These are overstated eliciting a knee jerk by moderates. This entry seems a little emotional and reactionary…
5 March 2008 at 6:17 pm
the church (yes the catholics, methodists, and other socially involved denominations) are doing both, but clearly the conservative evangelicals are not. my critique (because i used to be one) of that flavor of christianity is that for too long you’ve wanted to promote the christian agenda through legal options (something roger williams and other free church founders would have never even considered) instead of starting and primarily concerning yourself with grassroots efforts in local churches. evangelicals have spoken very loud and it’s not working and while shouting you overlook caring for the very people you demand not have the choice.
by outlawing abortion it will not stop it. mothers in the immediate circumstances will find other ways to abort the child. we have to focus on the poverty, uneducation, and other large issues that push women to do this.
conservative evangelicals have to stop only voting for republicans – the witness to the watching world is: to be a christians means to vote republican and mainly be concerned about abortion, gay marriage, and national security (something jesus was not concerned about)
we will not be judged by how many right laws we got passed, but by how well we cared for the poor
change your emphasis from legal wrangling to caring for the actual mother and then maybe she will feel so compelled not to abort her child
5 March 2008 at 6:18 pm
Pointing out a candidate’s views and voting history is not an attack.
5 March 2008 at 6:22 pm
brandon,
well thanks for observing what i’ve been aruging in this discussion. the church is doing both, but it’s not the conservative evangelicals who are. i’m sick and tired for the one-sided winner-take-all debate. where is the listening from the conservatives? sure conservatives are good and preaching and telling, but what about the care, compassion (whatever happened to compassionate conservatism?), and systemic causes the lead to abortion? conservatives turn a blind eye to them.
5 March 2008 at 6:23 pm
jake,
yes it is when it is done in the spirit of the collective posts. where are the post about mccain, clinton, huckabee? it’s a one-sided attack on another christian brother who has done wonderful things for the south side of chicago.
5 March 2008 at 7:31 pm
I call BS. The conservative evangelicals are, in fact, doing both. I’m beginning to feel like you have more of a general gripe against evangelicals than anything, and this is just how you choose to voice your gripes, because calling for them to do more seems to put you on the moral high ground.
Outlawing abortion will RADICALLY decrease the number of abortions. If murder of adults were legalized, murder rates would skyrocket. Would you then advocate that Christians be quiet about the laws regarding murder and only work to resolve the issues that lead to murder? Sin leads to murder. Ultimately, only Jesus can deal with sin. We have to deal with the practicalities, which means governing in such a way to restrain sin.
It is nearly impossible to believe you when you say that you make no distinction between an adult and an unborn child. Please answer this simple question: if it were legal to murder adults, would you believe that Christians should do nothing to correct the law and only try to remedy the causes of murder?
Further, 30 years of “screaming” has accomplished quite a bit. We are currently 1 SCOTUS justice away from a majority pro-life Supreme Court. If it weren’t for Catholics and evangelicals, we wouldn’t even be talking about the possibility that Roe could be overturned.
The fact is that you are essentially advocating that Christians adopt a halfway attempt at justice (care/compassion only), because you get annoyed that a full attempt at justice (care/compassion and political action) makes people not like Christians and Republicans. That’s fine – but you ought to at least be a bit more intellectually honest about it, rather than ignoring the realities of the non-political work that evangelicals are doing.
Also, to answer your question from earlier: if I die 30 years from now, and abortion is still legal, and I have lived my life in vocal, politically strategic, and compassionate efforts to stop abortion, then I would by no means feel like my life was wasted. Should all the abolitionists who died before emancipation feel like their lives were wasted?
To go back to slavery again – what was the correct response to slavery? Caring for escaped slaves and lobbying the government? Or just caring for escaped slaves and boycotting cotton (because cotton created the conditions that led to much of slavery)?
5 March 2008 at 7:48 pm
Mike,
Please read my new blog entry for my case.
Jerry
5 March 2008 at 11:21 pm
Jerry, imagine how many murders there would be if it were perfectly legal with no penalties. Do you seriously advocate having no laws against murder, rape, or stealing? If so, then you can hardly claim to love the victims of crimes. I don’t think that’s what you meant, but that’s how it comes across, and it does seem to be the implication of some of what you’re saying.
in the past thirty years we’ve had three republican presidents, which one has helped overturn roe v. wade?
All three of them, actually. Reagan got Scalia on there. Bush got Thomas. Now Bush II has gotten Alito and Roberts. All we need is one more, and if McCain puts someone on to do it then they just need the right case, and they’ll either overturn it outright or more likely begin to undermine it a piece at a time until it’s pretty much de facto gone.
As for one-sided posts, you’re right about one thing. Justin hasn’t spent a lot of time explaining McCain’s pretty good pro-life record (or Huckabee’s for that matter, not that he’s relevant anymore). [Justin has certainly presented plenty of information about Hillary, so there's no ground for complaint there.] I’m not sure how this is relevant, though. Is it wrong to point out one person’s bad record without pointing out his probable opponent’s pretty good record? I certainly didn’t think it was.
I’m curious why you’re sure Obama is a Christian brother. I know he says he’s a Christian, but lots of non-believers say that without actually believing the gospel. Given that his church isn’t all that strong on the gospel but instead emphasizes liberation theology and a political agenda, I’d be at least hesitant to endorse any claim that he’s a brother. That doesn’t mean he’s not, but given his church I’d want to see more evidence than simply a claim to be a Christian. (It doesn’t help that he says he’s not an evangelical, either, because at least someone claiming to be an evangelical can be expected to have some belief in the general vicinity of the gospel. Someone who merely claims to be a Christian could be nearly anywhere on the spectrum. Consider Spong.)
5 March 2008 at 11:36 pm
I know people who worked under Obama while he was a community developer. I’ve also worked for a short term mission in S. Chicago and the pastor of the church we were working with agree that he’s done good things for the area.
As for your consideration about his belief in the gospel, your presumption is that conservative evangelicals have a corner on the truth – that you’ve figured the gospel out. In fact, I find much problematic with the conservative reading of the NT, but that’s a different subject.
I don’t support any candidate when it comes to promoting specific christian agendas. jesus’ politics focus on witness (action), not right law – even the phrasiees had that!
6 March 2008 at 12:09 am
Jerry,
I appreciate your response and the time you take to write comments back to people who post on your blog.
Let me make one thing clear: Please don’t lump all evangelical Christians into the same group. When you say that Catholics or Methodists, etc are the only groups taking up grassroots efforts to help women in crisis preganancies, etc, you’re stereotyping many Christians that DO support social programs, State Agencies, Foster Parents, etc. This writer works for a social service agency. I will concede that there are many Evangelical Christians that give Christianity a bad name, but we as a Body need all Christians on all levels, from Congress to Grassroots to share the gospel, to change hearts and have the Holy Spirit develop the kind of people in the world that will HATE abortion.
Secondly, abortion is black and white: you either are for abortion or you’re against it. There’s no middle ground. Now, inside of those positions are levels of people that vacillate in their thinking when you give specific examples (i.e a rape case and unplanned pregnancy). It’s understandable, but still black and white. I wouldn’t necessarily say that selfishness is the main attribute of those who get an abortion, but if it’s not #1, it most certainly is #1A.
Lastly, to say that evangelicals need to stop voting for Republicans is simply not your call. The men and women who died for this country to give us the right to vote and the freedom to choose who we vote for would have died in vain if we were ever told who to vote for. Plus, not all evangelicals vote Republican. Some, unfortunately, don’t vote at all.
6 March 2008 at 12:15 am
Sorry one more comment:
“As for your consideration about his belief in the gospel, your presumption is that conservative evangelicals have a corner on the truth – that you’ve figured the gospel out. In fact, I find much problematic with the conservative reading of the NT, but that’s a different subject.”
Above is your statement you wrote. I gather from this you consider yourself part of the Emerging Church, or Progressive movement? Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but when ANYONE suggests that Christians don’t know the “truth”, I tend to think the writer doesn’t believe in the Bible as the infallable Word of God.
6 March 2008 at 1:00 am
No, I am not a part of the emerging church. Neither am I a conservative Christian. I don’t think Christian’s have a corner on the “truth.” I think we testify that Jesus is the truth and from Jesus we pray for reassurance. However, if Christian’s think they “got it right” it leads to an us/them mentality. And that is what I do not want to be a part of. We are all in this together (read evangelist professor Richard Peace’s work).
Also, I appreciate the sacrifice from the men and women who died for America, but I do not presume to think America is better than other nations. The conquest state is antithetical to Jesus’ message of peace (see Sermon on the Mount).
6 March 2008 at 10:11 am
So, when the Bible says ” if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”- I gather you don’t believe this is the truth? Not sure how that is. What about Jesus’s “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to Father except through me”? I don’t mean to only give one or two examples of the truth that is found in Jesus, but given the space, well, you get it. I also don’t mean to minimize the gospel’s impact on society either, especially how it impacts our need to meet the needs of others, no matter who or where they are (see the good Samaritan). I just find it difficult that someone can call themselves a Christian and not, at the very least, have a desire to share that gospel (i.e. be evnagelical).
6 March 2008 at 1:33 pm
As for your consideration about his belief in the gospel, your presumption is that conservative evangelicals have a corner on the truth – that you’ve figured the gospel out. In fact, I find much problematic with the conservative reading of the NT, but that’s a different subject.
No, I consider C.S. Lewis to have been a genuine believer. He accepted the gospel. It’s clear in his writings. He was not a conservative evangelical. He wasn’t even an evangelical. You must be reading my comments in light of some filter by which you read such comments, because nothing I said depended on evangelicals having some corner on the truth. I did say that I’m more likely to give a politician who claims to be an evangelical the benefit of the doubt, because evangelicals tend to be explicit about what the gospel is, and people don’t usually call themselves evangelicals without being close to that. But that’s a far cry from claiming that evangelicals have a corner on the truth.
The reality is that Christians don’t have truth. Truth is simply there. What Christians have is knowledge of the truth and knowledge of God who is a truthful God. We have knowledge of the truth from our trust in Christ and our reliance on the Bible as the infallible word of God. Of course, in an extended sense, we do have Christ, and he is the truth, so we do have the truth.
But I don’t think that’s what you meant. I think you just meant that people who aren’t Christians can know things too and Christians can have false beliefs, and of course that’s true.
6 March 2008 at 1:34 pm
Oops, the format didn’t work there. Only the first paragraph should have been italicized.