Academic Left Derails Evangelicals

Academics finding common cause with left-wing activists are not a new story, particularly since they are frequently the same people. But their effort to influence Evangelical Christians suggests a new twist on an old cliché: If you can’t beat them, subvert them.

“For America’s evangelicals, reclaiming the faith would produce a social and political ethic rather different from the one propagated by the religious right,” Professor Randall Balmer writes in the June 23rd Chronicle of Higher Education supplement, The Chronicle Review. “Care for the earth and for God’s creation provides a good place to start, building on the growing evangelical discontent with the rapacious environmental policies of the Republican-religious right coalition.”

“Once the evangelicals challenge religious-right orthodoxy on environmental matters, further challenges are possible.”

Professor Balmer is the author of the forthcoming Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America: An Evangelical’s Lament. Dr. Balmer teaches American Religious History at Barnard College in Manhattan.

The “growing evangelical discontent” Dr. Balmer writes of consists of one man—Ron Cizik—who got many high-profile religious leaders to sign onto something called the Evangelical Climate Initiative early this year, almost on blind faith, as it were. “Thinking evangelicals,” meanwhile, have jumped off of the ECI after studying its contents.

“The executive council of the 30-million member National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) recently passed a motion saying there is ‘ongoing debate about the causes of global warming’ and acknowledging a ‘lack of consensus among the evangelical community on this issue,’” the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance revealed in a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, D. C. on April 19th this year.

On the one hand, “effort[s] to cut greenhouse gases hurt the poor,” the ISA points out. “By making energy less affordable and accessible, mandatory reductions would drive up the cost of consumer products, stifle economic growth, cost jobs, and impose especially harmful effects on the Earth’s poorest people.”

“The Kyoto climate treaty, for example, could cost the world community $1 trillion a year—five times the estimated price of providing sanitation and drinking water to poor developing countries.” [And, one African dies every minute from malaria, thanks to the ban on DDT.]

“Climate models are suspect,” the ISA points out. “Our atmosphere and climate are so complex that meteorologists have only a rudimentary grasp of what actually causes storms, droughts, heat waves, cold snaps; and climate conditions have changed many times over the centuries.”

As for the so-called social issues that evangelicals have been vocal on, self-described evangelists such as Balmer and Cizik would have them shift focus and possibly even positions on them. “As for abortion itself, evangelicals should consider carefully where they invest their energies on this matter,” Dr. Balmer warns. “Both sides of the abortion debate acknowledge that making abortion illegal will not stop abortion itself; it will make abortions more dangerous for the life and health of the mother.”

“The other objection is legal and constitutional.” Many of us have failed in our quest to find abortion-on-demand or even a right to privacy in the U. S. constitution. Moreover, survivors of partial-birth abortions might be perplexed by Dr. Balmer’s “pro-life” defense of America’s abortion laws, which, author and policy analyst Carrie Lukas found, are the most liberal on the planet.

As for Cizik, he claims to be pro-life but Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute reports on comments that Cizik made at the World Bank that cast doubt on that claim. “I’d like to take on the population issue, but in my community global warming is the third-rail issue,” Cizik reportedly said. “I’ve touched the third rail and still have a job and I’ll still have a job after my talk here today but population is a much more dangerous issue to touch.”

“I don’t agree with that assessment,” he allegedly added. “We need to confront population control and we can.”

“We’re not Roman Catholics after all,” Cizik supposedly assured his audience. “But it’s too hot to handle now.”

Can government do the work of God (Charity)?

What I have read and understood from the Bible is that God and Jesus wants us to help each other by using our own time, treasure and talent and to give from our hearts ("Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." - 2 Corinthians 9:7). Nowhere have I found anything along the lines of "Go out and institute huge bureaucracies that will take money from some people at the point of a sword and give that money to other people as a politician sees fit."

Our Founding Fathers were Christian and very pious men. They founded this country under strong Judeo-Christian tenets and reflected on their religious beliefs on all their decisions. They wrote nothing into the Constitution of any type of government "aid" to help the poor, children or anyone else on purpose. They wanted a very limited government for good reason. Limited government is the best way to ensure that freedom will be preserved. The Scottish philosopher Alexander Tytler, who lived during the time of the American Revolution and writing of the US Constitution, summed these views:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure.

From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years.

These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."

There are many interesting questions if citizens rely on government to do "God's Work."

If a government takes a portion of a man's wages and does good with it, has the man also done good? If a government takes away a portion of a woman's property and does evil with it, has the woman also done evil? When a rich man pays more in taxes than a poor person, is he more Godly? If the government then does evil, is he more to blame? A woman works for the government and uses other people's tax money and does "God Work" with it, is this government woman now a good/Godly woman? If I legally try to avoid paying taxes, does that not make me an "Ungodly" man?

Today, the US government (federal, state and local) takes nearly 50% of a middle-class person's paycheck after all taxes are factored in (income taxes, Social Security, sales tax, real estate taxes, gas tax, death taxes, phone taxes, highway tolls, sad etc.). Uncle Sam will spend more money in just this year (2004) than it spent combined between 1787 and 1900 - even after adjusting for inflation. I cringe at those numbers. The Founding Fathers wanted nothing like the tax-consuming monster that we have as a government today. I also think of all the good work that could have be done if people were allowed to keep more of their own money and give it to organizations/people that they believe in their heart are doing God's work. Maybe it comes down to trust. Will people do the right thing with their own money or must a government take a huge chunk of it to do the "right things?"

Except government rarely does anything right except for those tasks that were explicitly outlined in the Constitution as the Founding Father intended. I could cite many examples (such as where would you rather put $10,000 in retirement money - in Social Security or in your own 401k plan?) but the plight of black America illustrates this failure beyond comparison.

In 1965, the US government was going to wipe out poverty by the "Great Society" programs, in which to date over 3.5 trillion dollars has been spent. These federal programs were designed to "help families and children" or "buy votes" depending on your political viewpoint.

At the beginning of the 1960's, the black out of wedlock birth rate was 22%. In the late 1975 it reached 49% and shot up to 65% in 1989. In some of the largest urban centers of the nation the rate of illegitimacy among blacks today exceeds 80% and averages 69% nationwide. As late as the 1970's there was still a social stigma attached to a woman who was pregnant outside marriage. Now, government programs have substituted for the father and for black moral leadership. The black family and culture has collapsed (and white families are not that far behind).

Illegitimacy leads directly to poverty, crime and social problems. Out of wedlock children are four times more likely to be poor. They are much more likely to live in high crime areas with no hope of escape. In turn, they are forced to attend dangerous and poor-performing government schools, which directly leads to another generation of poverty.

Traditional black areas of Harlem, Englewood and West Philadelphia in the 1950s were safe working class neighborhoods (even though "poor" by material measures). Women were unafraid to walk at night and children played unmolested in the streets and parks. Today, these are some of the worst crime plagued areas of our nation. Work that was once dignified is now shunned. Welfare does not require recipients to do anything in exchange for their benefits. Many rules actually discourage work or provide benefits that reduce the incentive to find work.

The black abortion rate today is nearly 40%. Pregnancies among black women are twice as likely to end in abortion as pregnancies among white and Hispanic women.

The "Great Society" programs all had good intentions. Unfortunately, their real world results are that they have replaced the traditional/Christian models of family/work with that of what a government bureaucrat thinks it should be.

I could make an excellent argument that if the US government had hired former grand wizards of the KKK to run the "Great Society" programs, and if they had worked every day from 1965 to today without rest, they could have hardly have done better in destroying black America than the "Works of God" that the government has done or is trying to do.

I have visited many countries in which the government "guarantees" that everyone has a job, a place to live, education, health care and cradle to grave "government help" for all children and families. It all sounds great except that the people in these countries are/were miserable. They wanted to escape but were forced by their governments, at the end of a gun, to stay. The "worker's paradises" of socialist and communist counties are chilling reminders of letting governments do "God's Work."

The Bible clearly states that we are to help those in need. The question is "Who should help those in need?" I firmly believe that scripture and the historical evidence strongly support that individuals, private organizations and churches should be the ones doing the heavy lifting. Government help should be the last resort. "Charity," enforced by the government, is not charity, it is extortion. "Charity," delivered by the government, is not charity, it is a bribe which corrupts both the giver and the receiver.

Very Sincerely,

2banana

Please, don't remind me of the PCUSA's lunatic Assembly. Oy.
The Trinity report was so embarrassing . . . .
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Perhaps this item on the reception of a prominent Presbyterian at the Southern Baptist convention will be more to your liking? LOL

Christian Century shows disdain
over Rice's address to Baptists

By John H. Adams
The Layman Online
Thursday, July 6, 2006

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a Presbyterian who has been shunned by her own mainline denomination, received rousing ovations when she addressed the recent annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The Christian Century, a mainline Protestant publication whose senior editor John Buchanan is a Presbyterian minister, wrote disdainfully of her address to the Baptists. Buchanan, pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, was the co-founder of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, the organization that promotes ordaining men and women in violation of the "fidelity/chastity" requirement in the Book of Order.

"The historical irony of her appearance before Southern Baptists was augmented by the fact that she was cheered by members of a denomination founded in defense of slaveholders and still opposed to women in leadership roles in the church," the liberal magazine wrote in an article that did not have a byline.

"However, the longtime Bush administration foreign-policy official enjoys broad admiration from the SBC – one of the few denominations whose leaders publicly supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq," the article added. "The day before Rice spoke, the denomination's resolutions committee quashed a South Carolina delegate's proposed resolution denouncing the SBC's 'support for the unjust war in Iraq.'"

Those putdowns were added by Christian Century editors, who acknowledged that most of the story was taken from reports by the Associated Press and Religious News Service.

They followed some of Rice's remarks about her career in education and politics as a black woman. "After all, when our Founding Fathers said 'we the people,' they didn't mean me," she said. "My ancestors in Mr. Jefferson's Constitution were only three-fifths of a man."

But times have changed, added Rice, whose predecessors at the State Department were an African-American man and a white woman. "If I serve to the end of my term as secretary, it will be 12 years since a white man was secretary of state," she quipped, to loud applause.

There was an historical irony to The Christian Century's assertion that the founding of the Southern Baptist Convention was an expression of Baptist support for slavery. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Presbyterians were deeply divided over the issue of states' rights and the mainline church divided into Southern and Northern denominations. They remained separated until the Presbyterian Church (USA) was formed through their reunion in 1983.

Rice defended the American role on the world stage. "If America does not rally support for people everywhere who desire to worship in peace and freedom, then I ask you, who will?" she asked. "America's message cannot be clearer: government simply has no right to stand between the individual and the Almighty."

Some of her message had tones familiar to Presbyterians. She noted that many people in the world are denied dignity because of poverty, the lack of political and religious freedom and human trafficking and other forms of subjugation. She declared that it is in the U.S.'s best interest to ameliorate those situations because oppression, poverty and suffering produce instability.

"Let us resolve to deal with the world as it is but never to accept that we are powerless to make it better than it is – not perfect, but better," she went on to say. "America will lead the cause of freedom in our world not because we think ourselves perfect. To the contrary, we cherish democracy and champion its ideals because we know we are not perfect."

Rice, one of the most prominent Presbyterians in the world, has never addressed a General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) or been considered as a candidate for a Women of Faith Award. The recipients of those honors have gone principally to Presbyterian activists in liberal social or theological camps, including "lesbian-evangelist" Janie Spahr, who gained national attention by conducting weddings for homosexual couples.

One of the most detailed accounts of Rice's address was published by the Associated Baptist Press.

Reformed theology discussion draws large crowd
One of the other "Presbyterian" highlights of the annual meeting of the Southern Baptists was a discussion of Calvinism by two nationally prominent Baptists. Although attendance was not required, it attracted more than 2,500 people, including hundreds who could not find seats.

The crowd was so large that the Greensboro, N.C., fire marshal required that Baptists who wished to hear the discussion be turned away.

It was a friendly but pointed discussion between Paige Patterson and Albert Mohler. Patterson is president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and Mohler, a self-described Calvinist, is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

While they displayed mutual admiration for each other, they expressed dissimilar views about election, free will, grace and sovereignty.

Mohler is one of the leaders of what Baptists have described as a neo-Calvinist movement in the 16-million-member denomination. Patterson, who was one of the leaders of the conservative takeover of the denomination's leadership and seminaries in the 1970s. The Southern Baptist Convention's newsroom posted an account of their debate.

Baptists raise record amount for missions
Congregations of the Southern Baptist Convention raised a record $137.9 million for international missions in 2005, according to the convention's International Mission Board.

Known as the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, the collection supports the work of 5,100 international missionaries.

The members of one congregation, Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., gave $656,951.44 to the Lottie Moon Offering. The members of Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Boone, N.C., made the highest per-capita gift: $243.74 per member.

The Lottie Moon Offering is $40 million higher than the entire 2007 mission budget of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

As a denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention sponsors one international missionary per 3,135 members. The PCUSA's ratio is one missionary per 9,600 members.

You mistake a serious rebuke for "clever sarcasm". I am aware of the abortion holocaust, and do not take it lightly. I also do not pass judgment cavalierly on the responses other people make to difficult circumstances without attempting to see their predicament from within.

As you ponder means of imposing your pure ideals on others, think through how you might be available to share the burden with them even now, to be a good neighbor to them rather than merely a contributor to the social pressure on others to "do the right thing" (the value of which I do not underrate - - - and would even acknowledge that such contribution is one part of being a good neighbor).

If an unwilling host mother for the child of a rapist found her burden overwhelming, and if her burden could be transferred from her uterus to yours, would you accept it, in the name of preserving the life of this newly created being? Or do you merely cry out for and vote for politicians seeking to serve as governors and judges and legislators who would impose your deeply sensitive concern for the baby on her unwilling host, and dismiss such individuals in distress with "peace be unto you, may your needs be met somehow or other, but sorry, I can't help you out"? If the latter, then accept that you are subject to Matt. 7:2. Whether that comes true in time or beyond time, we are all subject to it.

Draw appropriate conclusions and be a good neighbor to the women fallen among rapists and incestuous fathers. In order to do this, you do not need to wait for anyone to be elected or the court system to "do the right thing", and in so doing, you will likely contribute more to a national revival of concern for the unborn than anything else you can think of, with the exception of prayer. And, if you have been praying fervently over this matter for some time, add this to your petitions: "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner, and show me how I can be a better neighbor to the victims of this great iniquity who happen to live in my community. Amen."

If I misjudged the intent of your post I apologize. But if you had read that post from my perspective I think you would agree that it could easily be taken as a flippant response to my serious question regarding Ms Rice's position on the issue of abortion.

Your several references to Matt 7:2 do not offer a practical solution to the problem of pregnancies by rape and incest IMHO. In practical terms there is nothing that either you or I can do to alleviate the emotional suffering of rape or incest victims who we do not know or to who we are not related, and I am not interested in speculating about biologically impossible answers to those tragic and difficult situations. The bottom line for me is that there is nothing other than saving the life of the mother that justifies the taking of innocent human life in the womb. As for your repeated references to Matt 7:2, I don't see any connection with my comments and the teaching of Jesus regarding accusing others of sins that the accuser is guilty of himself. I have not impregnated anyone through rape or incest myself, and I have not accused the rape and incest victims of committing any sin in connection with their unfortunate situation. It seems to me that your concern for the emotional distress of the rape/incest victims is more important to you than the deliberate killing of the innocent babies who pay for the father's sin with their own lives. As I see it, the legal status of abortion in America only makes it possible for the women who abort babies conceived through rape or incest to share some of the guilt for aborting those babies with the abortionist and the criminal father. There are other and much better ways to resolve that situation than aborting the ultimate victim, one of which is adoption.

My point in mentioning adoption in my original comment was simply this; If legalized abortion was not the readily available "answer" to many of the relatively few difficult situations such as pregnancy by rape and incest, the many thousands of American couples who are now adopting babies from China and eastern Europe every year would provide a humane, morally acceptable alternative for those victimized mothers. My niece and her husband expended a large amount of time, effort, and money to travel to China and arrange the adoption of a Chinese baby girl. They are now in the expensive and time consuming process of adopting another Chinese baby. While in China they met many other American couples who were there for that same same purpose. If legal and readily available abortion did not offer the preferred "answer" for American victims of rape or incest, those American couples would provide a humane and morally acceptable "way out" for those unfortunate girls and women instead of paying the abortion industry to dispose of their "problem".

The cruel irony of the situation is that every day while those American couples are waiting in places such as China, Romania, or the Ukraine to pay for and adopt babies, American abortion mills are being further enriched by slicing and dicing thousands of pre-birth babies. At least some of those lives would be saved by adoption if not for the "answer" provided by our legalized abortion industry. You might answer by saying that in that case the foreign babies who are now being adopted by Americans would become the victims instead of the American babies who are being aborted. While that may be true, I would much rather that God assign the guilt of murdering babies to those nations' account instead of to America's account. I can't believe that God will tolerate the present situation indefinitely without imposing severe punishment on the offending nations.

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