Say It Ain’t So, Billy!

Great men often die not so great. Augustine died sick in a cell, as Vandal barbarians destroyed his state and his church. Gregory of Nyssa, Patriach of Constantinople during the First Council of Constantinople in 381 died a lowly rural cleric in the backwaters of the Empire, estranged from that other great Cappodician Father, his childhood and lifelong friend, Gregory Nazianzus. Ulysses S. Grant, former president of the United States, died of throat cancer, desperately writing his biography to raise money to support his soon-to-be widow. And now we watch Billy Graham.

Billy Graham is to evangelical Protestants what Messiah Obama is to the adoring American masses. He is an icon, not to be questioned, but to be quoted, and venerated. Fundamentalists, of course, have never liked Mr. Graham. In the light of what Billy Graham has recently stated, one may well ask, were the fundamentalists perhaps correct?

Here is the record:

· Billy Graham in 1997 being interviewed by Robert Schuller:

“I think there’s the Body of Christ. This comes from all the Christian groups around the world, outside the Christian groups. I think everybody that loves Christ, or knows Christ, whether they’re conscious of it or not, they’re members of the Body of Christ… And that’s what God is doing today, He’s calling people out of the world for His name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ because they’ve been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don’t have, and they turn to the only light that they have, and I think that they are saved, and that they’re going to be with us in heaven.”

Well, God forbid that I bring up logic, but how in the world does one “love Christ,” or “know Christ” without being conscious of it? This is very deep stuff. I had all along thought that Mr. Graham was an evangelist, not a theologian, but I see now that I was wrong.

Here’s Billy Graham being interviewed by Jon Meacham of Newsweek (August 14, 2006):

On being asked whether he believes heaven will be closed to good Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or secular people, Graham says: “Those are decisions only the Lord will make. It would be foolish for me to speculate on who will be there and who won’t … I don’t want to speculate about all that. I believe the love of God is absolute. He said he gave his son for the whole world, and I think he loves everybody regardless of what label they have.”

This is good news. Apparently God even loves Democrats and Republicans, and will let them into heaven. Such a wide mercy!

In the same interview, Graham goes on to say:

“I’m not a literalist in the sense that every single jot and tittle is from the Lord,”

Hmmm. One wonders where the jots and tittles that aren’t from the Lord came from? The world? The flesh? The Devil? One also wonders which jots and tittles didn’t come from the Lord, and how does one discover what those jots and tittles are? Perhaps a shaft of light from heaven will strike us, even such as happened to Obama supporters, to tell us. Perhaps this is why postmodern emergenics find it so hard to oppose sodomite “marriage.” Perhaps they wonder if those embarrassing Scriptures damning homosexuality are a jot and tittle that didn’t come from the Lord. Oh Happy Day! Billy Graham, like the modern age, is free! Free from the rigid circumscriptions of some sort of medieval morality, imposed upon us by that paper pope we call the Bible.

I have read two bloggers who called or wrote the Billy Graham Association for clarification. One response was a cheery “There only one way to heaven.” Well, I’m glad Mr. Graham’s troops believe what he can’t seem to bring himself to say. Another response was: “You have to understand, he’s getting old.” Ah, the senility defense – all is forgiven old people. Another response was: “Read what he believes in his books.” The inquirer responded, my Catholic father who thinks everyone is saved and my unsaved friends don’t read Billy Graham’s books, they read Newsweek.

I have recently poked fun at several outlandish Christian compromisers. Perhaps it may be thought that the intellectual and theological rot I have been noticing in the American church is not widespread; that I have merely found outliers, evangelical freaks outside the mainstream. Well, Billy Graham ain’t no evangelical extremist. He is evangelicalism. And as he fades into irrelevance, not with a bang but with a whimper, let us recognize him for what he is: an icon beautifully representing the dying American church, as it too fades into irrelevance, too ashamed of its Head to even accurately represent what He said about Heaven and Hell.

Andy Being Wussy

A blogger by the name of Andy (andybeingachristian), giddy over the strides the church has made towards unity in the twenty-first century, has defined postmodern Christian belief, explicity using the term. Andy gushes:

“A post-modern belief that knowing God is more important than knowing things about him, that loving people is more important than understanding and that there is no invalid way of worshipping God, is the packaging for the new consensus.”

I am confused. I wonder: how does one know God without knowing anything about him? Just how is that possible? For example, if I want to know Messiah Obama (Blessed be His name), don’t I need to know things about him, like how he in Cairo compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews? Like how he says he loves fiscal constraint, while at the same time submitting a budget the size of which has never before been seen by civilized man? It seems to me that through knowing things such as this about Messiah Obama (Blessed Be His Name) that I can deduce his quasi-divine nature, and thus know him. For only a god-man could say the things he does, and not be contradicted by men who are otherwise immune to the blandishments of snake-oil peddlars.

Perhaps Andy is married. Perhaps he knows his wife, but doesn’t know anything about her. Her likes. Her dislikes. Her birthday. Her anniversary date. Her parents and siblings. Her favorite color. Perhaps when he thinks of her, his mind goes blank, because he doesn’t know anything about her. Now here is a truly postmodern concept of married love: “loving my wife is more important than to understand her.” Now, men shall not even be tasked with the impossible burden of understanding the opposite sex. All we have to say is: “I love you, honey!” and that’s it.

Andy is showing us the way to freedom from old doctrinal hangups. No longer do we need to wrestle with such outmoded concepts as justification, propitiation, the Trinity, the incarnation, or heterosexual marriage. All that stuff does is divide Christians. All we need to say in these postmodern times is: “I love you, Jesus!” (Just like Heidi Pratt twittered “I love you, Jesus!” in advance of her big photoshoot with Playboy magazine, with which she has contracted to bare her soul, and other things). It’s all so simple now: no doctrine, no division! What a great idea.

Andy says there is “no invalid way of worshipping God.” No invalid way! Wow. Think of the possibilities. We could worship naked. We could every night light a candle to God’s messenger Messiah Obama (Blessed be His Name), while we meditate on the words of Messiah Obama’s (Blessed be His Name) good friend Mohammed. We could worship God by community organizing. We could smoke doobies while we read The Audacity of Hope.

Andy, you are hereby nominated for the Evangelical Wussy Puss of the Week.

Murderers and Rapists: What Would Jesus Do?

And now comes Mr. Stephen Collins, a Left Coast actor, the star of Seventh Heaven,  who has written one more page in the chronicles of Christian compromise. In a Fox News report dated Thursday, June 18, 2009, Mr. Collins announced: “I go to church, I’m a Christian.” Apparently, going to church, being a Christian, and living in California theologically equips one to make deep statements. Says Mr. Collins:

“we need to reexamine the dollars we are spending to indulge our lust to put people to death.”

Mr. Collins is perhaps referring to Sarah Palin-loving, religion- and gun-clinging conservative Christians who spend every waking moment fantasizing, lusting to see “people” die in the electric chair. Mr. Collins did not refer to any particular “people” that he had in mind who are the objects of these wicked lusts. Could he have meant sundry rapists, pedophiles, murders, terrorists, and torturers that I have heard inhabit American prisons?

But Mr. Collins is not finished. He informs us about Jesus’s thoughts on the matter:

“The death penalty solves nothing except a kind of understandable but misguided sense of justice and vengeance, and certainly Jesus never says anything about executing people… As a Christian it troubles me, and Christ did not advocate putting people to death for any reason.”

That’s what I love about postmodernist left coast Christians. They can say anything they want contrary to Scripture and no nasty fundamentalist quoting the Bible can deter them for a minute. Sort of like how Messiah Obama deals with the federal deficit. I can imagine some white-sock wearing Neanderthal appearing from the woods and quoting Luke 22:36:

And He said to them, “But now, let him who has a purse take it along, likewise also a bag, and let him who has no sword sell his robe and buy one.

Now, why on earth would Jesus suggest such a violent thing? How could he suggest his disciples buy a sword, for crying out loud, when Jesus wouldn’t advocate putting people to death “for any reason?” Perhaps Mr. Collins could tell us, since he apparently has a hot line to Jesus’ throneroom. Maybe Jesus meant for the disciples to cook pancakes on their swords. Maybe they were to be sword-collectors.

It must be particularly embarrassing to Mr. Collins that one of Jesus’ chief apostles openly advocated the death penalty:

Romans 13:4 (NASB77) for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it [the government] does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil.”

Those nasty Scriptures again. They can be so offputting. I suppose that’s why left coast modern Christians never read them.

I wonder what Jesus would do if he were asked to give advice to an executioner about to pull the switch on a murder who had terrorized, tortured, raped, dismembered, and killed a little ten-year old girl? What would Jesus do? I am afraid that Mr. Collins would be disapppointed to discover that Jesus very probably would do this. He would say:

“Fry him like an egg.”

Orthodoxy Down, Orthonomy Up?

David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch, writing in the New York Times, February 21, 2009, opine about that which this blog has begun to chronicle, namely, the decline of the authority of Scripture in the church of Christ. These two observers of the current scene don’t seem too worried, because they believe that emerging church guruess Phyllis Tickle has the answer to the “demise of orthodoxy.” And what is the answer Mrs. Tickle provides? Why, orthonomy of course. Yes, that’s right, orthonomy. None of that old-time B-I-B-L-E, that’s good enough for me. Now we must have orthonomy to lead us through the canyons of confusion confronting the modern Christian.

Says Mrs. Tickle concerning orthonomy:

“it means the employment of aesthetic or harmonic purity as a tool — and therefore the intent or authority — of anything, be that thing either doctrine or practice.”

Doesn’t that just make you want to have a hallelujah breakdown? Reading that makes shivers run down one’s leg faster than Obama makes ‘em run down Chris Matthews’. No more dead, antiquated, orthodox, biblical popery for us, by golly! No sir. Now we have orthonomy to guide us.

And whence does Mrs. Tickle believe our new orthonomic authority will arise? Blankenhorn and Rauch inform us:

Tickle suggests that it arises out of community, conversation, and a new way of knowing, from the compost provided by every sector and tradition of the church…

I knew it! All that old stuff of tradition that we used to believe in, it was COMPOST! It was the moral equivalent of DO-DO! And to replace it, we have… ORTHONOMY!

Onward, Christian orthonomists! We shall conquer the world for Christ.

Orthonomy comes from conversation, Mrs. Tickle informs us. Thank God for the word “conversation.” But for that word, the emerging churchers would be no more. Matthew David Cameron would like to join in a conversation with the emerging churchers. He would like to ask them why is it that everytime he hears them speak, he is overcome with nausea.

Two Left Coast Christian Girls Duke it Out

Carrie Prejean, the former Miss California recently relieved of her crown, has become notorious for her outspoken opposition to sodomite marriage. Stephanie, author of Stuff Christian Culture Likes, a recent nominee for Evangelical Pussy Wuss of the Month, has used her blog to take Miss Prejean to task. Says Stephanie in her blog:

“Carrie Prejean has told the press, “I am praying for Perez Hilton.” Does she imagine that when that gets back to him and that when gay people read her quote that they are going to feel loved and validated? Does she imagine they will feel honored and humbled as precious people made in God’s image who deserve to be treated with dignity?”

Poor Miss Prejean. She can’t win. If she had rather said: “I ask God to curse Perez Hilton,” I dare say Stephanie would have labeled her a homophobe. Instead, Miss Prejean prays for Perez, and Stephanie tags her as a Pharisee, as we see in this quotation:

“Carrie also said in an interview, “It’s not about being politically correct. For me, it was being biblically correct.” This notion that her unchallenged beliefs are biblically correct is the same notion Christian culture clings to. But refusal to question what you are taught “in your family and in your country” and refusal to wrestle with Scripture or wrestle with God dooms all of us to repeat history as the Pharisees wrote it.” (emphasis added)

Well, I don’t know, Stephanie. I’ve never seen a Pharisee in a 6-micron-wide string bikini, posing in semi-nude photos, defending marriage. Miss Prejean can get away with that, because, as she told Sean Hannity, “This is California.” Indeed. It seems that California Christians do seem to operate in their own moral universe.

But, I digress. I would love to inquire of Stephanie: by calling Carrie Prejean a “Pharisee,” “Do you imagine she will feel honored and humbled as a precious person made in God’s image who deserves to be treated with dignity?” I am confused. I thought postmodern Christians like Stephanie were not suppose to make such categorical moral judgments about other people, especially fellow Christians.

To clear my confusion, I would humbly request that Stephanie and Miss Prejean invite each other to a conversation, have some dialogue, and then “wrestle with some Scripture.” I would like to see Miss Prejean, preferably fully clothed, wrestle with this Scripture:

^“9 Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, ¹⁰ but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. ” (I Tim 2:9-10)

And then I would like to see Stephanie wrestle with this Scripture:

^“9Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders” (I Cor 6:9)

And last of all they could debate: is there any reason on God’s green earth that California should not be booted out of the union?

Postmodernism Left Coast Christian Style

I have received correspondence that my previous post, containing “semi-nude” pictures of Mrs. Heidi Pratt, has caused offense. So! No more pictures of our sister Mrs. Pratt. I should have realized that all of us are not from California,  a place whose moral framework is constructed differently than that of traditional, biblical Christianity. From now on, Mrs. Pratt will have to crusade for church reform without visual aids, at least in this forum. Perhaps she can witness for the Lord in Playboy magazine, which is offering her one-half million dollars for the privilege of photographing for a future issue her surgically augmented upper deck. Mrs. Pratt, with remarkable Christian conviction and courage, has refused to let the magazine photograph her nude. Such modesty! Such restraint! Mrs. Pratt teaches us that sometimes in the Lord, we must sacrifice ourselves.

Speaking of California, I have run into a blog written by Stephanie, a devout Christian sister in Seattle, daughter of a preacher and married to a preacher, which blog exemplifies left coast Christian postmodernism. Perhaps all of us, stuck in our traditional bible-believing modes, could learn from Stepanie. Her blog  gently pokes fun at “Stuff Christian Culture Likes” by calling those who don’t believe in sodomite marriage “Pharisees.” We really need to understand that things we often label as “moral” and “universal” and “truth” are really just part of our ever-changing culture. I applaud Stephanie for her out-of-the-box thinking. I look forward to the day when she will ask us to enter a conversation about the appropriateness of incest or rape.

A quotation from Stephanie will show you the depth of her thinking.

“It’s uncomfortable for Christian culture to entertain the idea that gay marriage might be anything other than flat-out wrong. They don’t seem to want to entertain the idea that maybe what could be more in line with Jesus’ teachings is being friends with gay people, seeking them out, and loving them well. People in Christian culture can’t seem to see themselves as being as sinful as they think gay people are.”

Stephanie uses many of the tools of the postmodernist here in this one short paragraph. The false dilemma: on the one hand, one either has to not be friends with gay people, one must not seek them out, one must hate them, OR, on the other hand, one must sanction sodomite marriage. Stephanie leaves us the clear impression that there is no other alternative, like loving homosexuals and suggesting that they are destroying themselves with their sodomy. One wonders whether Stephanie would take the same approach with adultery (especially if it were her own husband committing the adultery). I can hear her now: “It’s uncomfortable for Christian culture to entertain the idea that adultery might be anything other than flat-out wrong…”

Our postmodern Stephanie uses the old double standard for relativists. She says people in Christian culture are “sinful,” which is quite a morally imperialistic charge, and yet, she condemns those who say that sodomite marriage is “flat-out wrong.” That’s what’s nice about being a left coast postmodernist Christian: you get to call other people sinful, but nobody opposed to you can make any sort of value judgment about what you espouse. Pretty nifty.

Stephanie represents the new breed of young evangelical. She never bores us with stentorian calls to return to Scripture. No! She asks us to be separate from Christian culture, but she doesn’t worry one whit about conforming to her own left coast culture. She dutifully tells us her sign is “Aquarius.” She lists “Japanese bitch rap” and “dirty British rock” as two of her favorite musical genres. She tells us that “People of the Lie by M. Scott Peck is the best g.d. book I’ve read since the Bible.” Wow! Stephanie is as free with her words as Mrs. Heidi Pratt is with her skin.

Congratulations, Stephanie. You are hereby nominated as Evangelical Pussy Wuss of the Month!

Heidi Montag… Reprise

I know that I have already nominated Heidi Montag for Evangelical Pussy Wuss of the week. However, having run across some more information on the web, I am thinking I need to reconsider. Miss Montag’s Twitter entry for May 26th, 2009 at 5:16 PM says: “i love Jesus!” I was struck by her theological depth, but not so much, I must confess, as by this picture of her:

Notice that our sister is quite free from the law – the joyous spring in her step, the happy smile. Doesn’t she almost remind you of our first mother, Eve? She is obviously full of the Spirit. Perhaps she was ministered to by her then boyfriend Spencer Pratt, who in the picture below, laid hands on Miss Montag in order to empower her for further ministry.

We in the backwards areas of our country should take a lesson from the new California Christians. God forbid that our cranky legalisms interfere with a fresh move of the Spirit!