Things have been a bit quite here of late. One of the reasons for that is that I've been editing another book. We're finally to the point where I make the details public, so here it is!

God and Governing: Reflections on Ethics, Virtue and Statesmanship

Abortion. Poverty. Pornography. More than thirty years ago religious conservatives and liberals began fighting these and other problems head on. These past few decades have seen the popularity of groups such as the Moral Majority and The Christian Coalition that support numerous religious politicians and  make even more promises. After all the potential for success, why is it that these social problems persist? How is it that evangelicals have been so ineffective at changing the political and social landscape of the United States in a positive way?

Based on a conference put together by Trinity Law School, God and Governing brings together theologians, politicians, law professors and cultural critics in order to examine some of the root causes of evangelical political failure over the past thirty years.

Contents:

Foreword: Charles Colson

Introduction: Roger N. Overton

Chapter One: Why Being Good is So Political by David F. Wells

Chapter Two: The Travails of Evangelical Politics by Paul Marshall

Chapter Three: The Golden Triangle of Freedom by Os Guinness

Chapter Four Lessons on Fleeing Temptation by Patrick Nolan

Chapter Five: The Future of Virtue and Statesmanship in Pagan America by Vishal Mangalwadi

Chapter Six: The Failure of Evangelical Political Involvement by Dallas Willard

Chapter Seven: Practical Ways Forward by Donald McConnell

Chapter Eight: A Trinitarian Model for Political Duty by Stephen Kennedy

God and Governing will be published by Wipf and Stock under their Pickwick Publications imprint as part of their Princeton Theological Monograph Series. Look for it around the end of 2009.

Themed Bibles are generally a bad idea.  For one thing, every part of God's Word is meant to speak to every Christian.  Themed Bibles tend to emphasize only the parts of the Bible that speak about the particular theme, leaving other potentially important aspects of Scripture under-emphasized or ignored (and here I'm thinking primarily within the context of "daily devotions"). 

Secondly, Scripture purposefully makes use of many different genres (and different themes!) to convey the Gospel message in the most comprehensive way possible.  A Bible that goes out of its way to draw attention to only a single theme can have the unfortunate side effect of obscuring the Gospel message itself. 

Now, none of this is to say that themed Bibles are inherently sinful or that the dangers I've mentioned will necessarily result from using them (I actually own a Couples' Devotional Bible).  So naturally I didn't think much of the new Green Bible.  I assumed it was just another gimmick.  And on one level, it is that.  The paper used in The Green Bible is 100% recycled, the ink is soy-based, and the cover is made of cotton-linen.  At the beginning is a collection of essays about being a "green" Christian by such international figures as Desmund Tutu, N. T. Wright, and even Pope John Paul II.  But it's most prominent feature is that it is the first ever "green letter edition" of the Bible.  No, the words of Christ are not in green.  Rather, every verse that supposedly speaks to the subject of "Creation Care" is printed in green.  Like I said, it's gimmicky.  And if that's all it was, I wouldn't have a problem with it.   Heck, I'm a sucker for this kind of thing myself.  I want to be a good Steward of God's creation as much as the next Christian.  But then I started poking around the book's website.  As it turns out, the green bible may actually be teaching something dangerously close to idolatry.

Here are some sample questions from The Green Bible Quiz:

"2) Which verse praising creation is from the Psalms?"

The answer is Psalm 19:1, "The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork."  What's the problem?  This verse is NOT "praising creation."  It's doing the exact opposite, expressing how creation praises God.  To my mind, this is kind of a big deal (is anyone else thinking of Romans 1:25?).

"4) Where did Jesus go to commune with nature?"

(It's been said before, but it bears repeating here:  Jesus was not a hippy).  The answer to this question is apparently found in Matthew 14:23 (the quiz has the answer as Matthew 4:23, but I assume this is simply a typo), "And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray."  Seriously, are the people responsible for the green "bible" actually reading it?  Jesus didn't go up the mountain to commune with nature!  He went up to pray (literally, to commune with God!).  Stretching the meaning of a verse to make a point is one thing.  Butchering a verse and literally replacing God with nature...that's a whole new ballgame. 

Now, maybe this quiz is just a poorly conceived promotional tool that doesn't refelct the actual content of the green bible.  That's certainly possible.  But if the excerpt they provide from one of the opening essays is any indication, the content is no better than what we've seen so far.  In her essay, "The Dominion of Love", Barbara Brown Taylor says of the sixth day of creation:

The "new information" she is referring to is that land animals were also created on day six.  Apparently Ms. Taylor was under the impression that the only thing that made human beings special was that we had a whole day all to ourselves.  She also mentions our being given dominion over the earth, and the fact that God pronounces all of His creation to be good, not just man, but all of this is merely peripheral to the real issue.  If she had consulted even the most elementary level Bible scholarship, instead of simply assuming what I can only imagine are her culturally-inherited misconceptions about traditional Christian teaching, she would have seen very quickly that mankind's special place in creation is founded upon our unique status as image bearers of God.  As it stands, the main point of her essay ends up missing the point entirely. 

I would like to invite comments and feedback from anyone who might be willing to defend the green bible.  It's still possible that I've made egregious leaps and  assumed things based on these short previews that aren't really true of the bible itself.  So if anyone owns a copy and would like to defend it, I'm open to hearing your arguments. 

Like I said, I have no problem becoming "green."  I will probably never buy an SUV (as if that's all it means to be green!).  I really do want to be a good steward of God's creation.  But if the only way to join the "green team" is to accept poor theology and pseudo biblical scholarship that effectively butchers the Word of God...we evangelicals will have to work on starting our own team.  I have no doubt that "God is green" (in a sense, at least), but if He is, He ought to have said so.  We shouldn't have to twist His words to make them say something they're not really saying. 

Thanks to Aaron Gleason for passing this link along to me.

I sure am glad that we Evangelicals have moved on to caring about more important social issues. Because if we still cared about protecting the unborn, we'd be in rough shape right now.

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=2008.10.14_George_Robert%20P._Obama's%20Abortion%20Extremism_.xml

Like I said...please pray for Barack Obama. 

Barack Obama will be the next President.  Regardless of how you feel about this outcome, we must remember that God is at work in all things, and do our duty as Christians and American citizens and pray for our (soon to be) President.

Dr. John Mark Reynolds shares his own thoughts:

We should never take that for granted.

Read the rest of his article, "Morning In America."

With Proposition 8 on the ballot in California, it is important to stop and think about the issue of marriage and family in general and how these institutions relate to the state.  How should a Christian (or anyone) approach the issue of state-sanctioned same-sex marriage from a philosophical and political point of view?  Is there a case to be made for traditional marriage apart from the Bible?    Is this simply an issue that should be left to the individual?

Dr. Scott Clark of Westminster Seminary California addresses these questions on his blog.  Without addressing prop 8 specifically, Dr. Clark attempts to sketch a foundation for thinking about the relationship between marriage and the state from a Natural Law perspective, drawing from both Christian and Pagan thought.

Here is a rather lengthy and meaty paragraph to give you the gist of his argument:


Read Dr. Clark’s full article at the heidelblog.  

S. T. Karnick has written a piece for Salvo Magazine that is worth reading.  It may be the most reasonable appeal to the Same-Sex Marriage camp I've ever read. 



No doubt many will not find this article persuasive.  But consider why.  I have a feeling that it is because Same-Sex Marriage advocates think that Same-Sex Marriage is morally acceptable (even virtuous), and that it is morally obligatory for everyone to recognize it.  But this is not the argument that the "No on 8" crowd is making.  Their argument is based on the premise that gay couples are somehow being barred from marrying (which is untrue) and that the moral issue at stake is one of freedom of choice, tolerance, and liberty.  But as this article adeptly points out, it is the radical Same-Sex agenda that is now threatening true freedom of choice and tolerance. 

Read the rest of the Salvo article here.

I'm very frustrated by McCain's lack of response to Obama's charge that "Republican policies" of deregulation are responsible for the current financial crisis.  I know that many of you disagree with McCain and are against Republican policies in general, but I do ask that in the interest of intellectual honesty and clarity, you all take a few minutes to review some facts so you can argue fairly for your position. 

 

From the New York Times, September 11, 2003:

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago....

 

Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the...Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

 

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Here's another excerpt from the Wall Street Journal about who endorsed and who opposed legislation to prevent this crisis:

In 2005, the Senate Banking Committee, then under Republican control, adopted a strong reform bill, introduced by Republican Sens. Elizabeth Dole, John Sununu and Chuck Hagel, and supported by then chairman Richard Shelby. The bill prohibited the GSEs from holding portfolios, and gave their regulator prudential authority (such as setting capital requirements) roughly equivalent to a bank regulator. In light of the current financial crisis, this bill was probably the most important piece of financial regulation before Congress in 2005 and 2006. All the Republicans on the Committee supported the bill, and all the Democrats voted against it. Mr. McCain endorsed the legislation in a speech on the Senate floor. Mr. Obama, like all other Democrats, remained silent....

 

If the Democrats had let the 2005 legislation come to a vote, the huge growth in the subprime and Alt-A loan portfolios of Fannie and Freddie could not have occurred, and the scale of the financial meltdown would have been substantially less. The same politicians who today decry the lack of intervention to stop excess risk taking in 2005-2006 were the ones who blocked the only legislative effort that could have stopped it.

It turns out that the Democrats put pressure on Fannie and Freddie to lower their standards in order to enable people to buy homes who really couldn't afford to.  This was done out of compassion, but as I've explained before, misplaced compassion can have disastrous consequences when it directs government policy at the expense of standards and justice.  

 

In terms of the debate itself so far, I'm really interested to know what health care has to do with foreign policy.  What's going on with these questions?

Adam Graham at Culture11 has posted a short but insightful article explaining why the Left just can't stop talking about Sarah Palin...no matter how hard they try:

Read on at culture11.com.

During the recent civil forum at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, Senator Obama was asked point blank when he believed an embryo became a human life worthy of the same rights as any other American citizen.  Obama responded that the answer to that question was "above his pay grade." 

Fair enough.  We can't expect the President to be an expert on everything.  That's why he has expert advisers.  In this case, that's why he has an expert in bioethics. 



I'd be fine with Obama's response if it weren't for his promise to support the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA).  According to Family Research Council, "FOCA would obliterate hundreds of state laws that protect women, parents, children, and health care workers, while forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for millions of abortions. It would overturn commonsense laws like parental notification, conscience protections, abortion waiting periods, informed consent, and regulations for women's health. In essence, FOCA would tilt the table for abortion."

Now, it seems to me that if the answer to the question of when a baby's life is worth protecting is above Senator Obama's pay grade, then a decision such as whether or not to sign FOCA into law should be even further above it. 

This isn't even a simple question of whether or not I think one should vote for a pro-choice candidate.  Should one vote for a candidate who strongly supports a position that he admits to not fully understanding?  Should one vote for a candidate who does not think deeply about his decisions, and who will enact policies without truly understanding the important issues?

Can you imagine if one of the candidates had said that they could not answer the question of whether or not the current war in Iraq was a just war, and then went on to promise that he would stay committed to the war and increase the number of troops???  Obama's answer makes no more sense. 

For those of you who haven't heard, Pastor Rick Warren will be hosting both Presidential candidates at a "civil forum" today, held at his Saddleback church. 

The forum begins at 5 pm and ends at 7 pm, Pacific time. 

You can watch it live online, here.