Posted on 09/13/2024 8:00:23 PM PDT by Morgana
A Christian university named after arguably the most famous Protestant reformer in the Reformed Tradition, John Calvin, has become an icon for liberalism. Calvin University, formerly Calvin College, is located in Grand Rapids, Michigan and is associated with the Christian Reformed Church denomination which has its roots in the Netherlands and is largely influenced by the early twentieth-century theologian, Abraham Kuyper.
Today, The Christian Reformed Church is a full-fledged liberal denomination that boasts inclusivity and progressivism throughout its layers of organizational structure, including at Calvin U.
Calvin University is home to a number of student organizations, one of which is Sexuality and Gender Awareness (SAGA). The group boasts that it is “a peer education group of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, plus (LGBT+), and straight students who support each other and educate the campus” and holds yearly events including LGBT workshops in the dorms, “You are Loved Campaign,” and “various speakers including The Gospel Coalition contributor, Mark Yarhouse, on topics connected to sexuality and gender.”
It seems Calvin has lost more than just its Reformed identity on sexuality. The school now boasts teachers who openly support abortion. Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a history professor, is searching for loopholes in biblical ethics to justify abortion—this time by questioning how long we have before the soul enters the body, allowing abortion without moral responsibility.
When does the soul enter the body? And how do we understand that? How do we reconcile this theological question or apply this theological question to what we now know in terms of modern science? I mean, what a fascinating theological question and a question that I have not heard asked for at least a generation now, if not more, right?
So the theology around this question has almost not been allowed. And I think that we have an impoverished theological discourse now around this absolutely critical question. And so I would love to be able to go and draw some of those resources from 50, 60 years ago and put them on the table again.
And how do we have these conversations around life and around how we approach this in a pluralist society and how Christians bring their religious views to the table on an issue where people are bringing very different religious and moral understandings of these issues and what has been lost perhaps in pursuing this hardcore political gain and abandoning other modes of discourse and of persuasion.
And this isn’t the first time Du Mez has come out against anti-abortion legislation. Upset at the “radical Evangelicals” who are “gleeful” that the Supreme Court was set to overturn Roe v. Wade at the time, she argued in favor of the historical “pro-choice” position of the Southern Baptist Convention.
The truth is, many Christian women, in fact, many Evangelical women, do procure abortions. And throughout Christian history and throughout Evangelical history, you can see that pre-Roe v. Wade, and actually pre 1970s, lates 70s, and early 80s…there were mixed views on abortion in Evangelical communities.
Very few Evangelicals would celebrate abortion, they certainly weren’t in the “shout your abortion” camp. But there was much more nuance. So 1968, Christianity Today had a special issue on abortion, and uh, the gist of it was it’s really complicated.
And, it’s not a good thing, but it is sometimes a necessary thing in the case of rape, in the case of incest, in the case of the health of the mother, even. And even the Southern Baptist Convention, up until 1976, endorsed a pro-choice platform. So there is a history of seeing abortion as a complex moral issue, and sometimes the lesser of two evils.
Watch: video on link
a history professor, is searching for loopholes in biblical ethics
https://bulletindigest.com/2014/05/30/judgment-seat-christ-looking-loopholes/
The Judgment Seat of Christ: Looking For Loopholes
One of the most popular entertainers of the Vaudeville era was W.C. Fields (1880-1946). While Fields could make audiences roar with laughter, he was certainly not a Christian and made no pretense of his disdain for the Bible. Thus, it came as a great shock when one of Fields’ friends, visiting him in the hospital near the end of his life, found him reading the Bible one day. When asked what he was doing, Fields, ever the comedian, replied, “Just looking for loopholes.”
Friends, one day we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5:10, we read, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” On that great day, we will be judged by the word of God. Jesus Christ said, “He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him — the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day” (John 12:48).
God’s law, unlike man’s, has no loopholes. No lawyer will be able to fool the Judge of all men or be able to negotiate a plea bargain. Hebrews 9:27 reminds us, “…it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment…” If the Judgment Day were today, where would you spend eternity, in heaven or hel
This “professor” is NO Christian!
I just added FR keyword loopholes. Very appropriate for this guy: the 10 commandments, plus woke loopholes.
Shocker for me!
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! — Isaiah 5:20
https://youtu.be/b9tmOyrIlYM
The only question that is relevant to the abortion issue is “At what moment does a new human life begin?”
When two different strands of DNA intertwine to make a new genetic combination, the cell in which that happens meets all the biological criteria of life. It grows, it reproduces, it takes in material and excretes waste, etc. That life is not, and can never become, a daisy, a duck, or a dinosaur. It will only be a human being for as long as it lives. It is also genetically unique, not the same as its mother or father. To call it anything other than a new human life is simply incorrect. Every attempt to make a line of distinction in the development of this new human life is nothing but a self-serving attempt to justify a decision of one person’s convenience over the rights of another human being. It is simply a denial of reality in order to allow people to avoid responsibility for the consequences of their actions. The result of allowing and promoting abortion on demand is to classify unborn human beings as a species of property, not a person with rights who deserves our protection and respect, but a thing to be done with as its owner wills. If this feels like the justifications of slaveholders in the Deep South in the 1800’s, that’s because it is.
Another school not worth supporting. Life is too short on this earth to have to suffer the wrath of God against sinners.
Good luck with that ms. professor. Don’t cry when the abyss is swallowing you. Your cogitation will not save you.
I grew up in the Christian Reformed Church. Have a couple uncles that were Pastors in the denomination. After joining the Army and moving away, I continued to get their magazine, “The Banner”. I noticed it was continually getting more leftist all the time. I finally pulled the plug on them when they started producing a green issue and they had something to do with white people and race privileges and that garbage.
I angers me greatly that all these hard working salt of the earth farmers and such, are sending money to this progressive hell-hole. I will never return to the CRC.
My uncles have also long ago moved away or retired for the same reason.
Every single person I have ever known that is a Calvin graduate is a lefty. Every single one of them.
“The only question that is relevant to the abortion issue is “At what moment does a new human life begin?”
Sperm are living, so is the egg.
The live sperm fertilize the egg, and ANOTHER process begins.
Both sperm and egg are produced by living beings.
I’ve never understood where this imposed “life” conundrum got traction. Must be politically charged; science generally understands the process, unless particular scientists are attempting to step into the limelight of faux-substantiation.
Habakkuk 1:2
O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
Jer1:5
...BEFORE I formed you in the womb I knew you
Any more questions ya dried up heathen husk of a Christian college?
The amoral hoops these demons jump through to justify (themselves) killing children must break God’s heart.
As I recall there were similar discussions about ensoulment going back to Thomas Aquinas. However, with modern medical technology what is recognizably human occurs very early.
Thank you! I was going to post that same verse if someone hadn’t done it already.
Elizabeth’s baby, John The Baptist, leapt in her womb when Mary first visited, just after the spirit overshadowed her.
My ex-wife grew up in the CRC. That denomination, did at that time, over emphasizes the depravity of man.
The worst of TULIP was the idea of double-predestination.
For anyone who wants to read about the historical Calvinism in the CRC, Edwin Palmer’s book, “The 5 points of Calvinism” is an eye-opening experience. Despite that, he was the initial managing editor for the original NIV Study Bible; my go-to version.
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