Progressive theology

I'll venture a few comments on apostate Randal Rauser's video:

https://randalrauser.com/2020/05/is-progressive-christianity-worse-than-atheism-my-response-to-alisa-childers/

BTW, I often pick on Rauser because he's a good foil. A good representative of the opposing position (progressive theology).

All Christians range somewhere along a progressive>conservative continuum

That's not a Christian continuum. There's a variety of positions among theologically conservative Christian positions. Progressive theology is out of bounds. 

Sometimes liberals were on the right side of the issue while conservatives were on the wrong side (e.g. Antebellum slavery, segregation).

True, but:

i) People can be right for the wrong reasons.

ii) Deceptively equivocal. Supporters of Antebellum slavery and Jim Crow misinterpreted the Bible due to social conditioning and economic incentives. By contrast, we can see the issue with greater critical detachment because we don't have a personal stake in the issue.

Rauser might say that conservative Christians are too invested to see certain issues with clarity. That may be the case, but it cuts both ways. Progressives are subject to social conditioning, too, with blind spots that are conspicuous to conserve Christian observers.

iii) Rauser's comparison is a bait-n-switch because he doesn't think Southern white supremacists misinterpreted the Bible. Rather, he thinks the Bible condones slavery and the Bible is wrong. For him, experience and his moral intuitions override the Bible.

otherizing…marginalization…just label people so that we don't have to listen them anymore.

i) Everybody has a plausibility structure. Some are good and some are bad. Some elements of our plausibility should be revisable. But we use our plausibly to evaluate claims. Indeed, Rauser is very dogmatic about his appeal to moral intuition. To what is morally intuitive to Rauser. He treats his imagined moral intuitions as nonnegotiable. 

ii) Apropos (i), not every position has two sides. Technically, conspiracy theories about the lunar landings represent one  side of the issue, but my point is that there's nothing wrong with refusing to take that seriously.

iii) Apropos  (ii), there's a difference between not listening in the first place and ceasing to listen. How much do you need to know about a position? It only has to have one or more disqualifying tenets. 

Ironically, Rauser's own appeal to experience and moral intuition to automatically eliminate certain positions from further consideration is an example of doing what he faults in others. 

Paul was open to considering evidence for the falsity of Christianity (1 Cpr 15:14).

i) A misreading of Paul. To begin with, how plausible is it to suppose Paul thought Christianity was false given his personal experience with Christian miracles? Both miracles he witnessed (e.g. the Damascus Road Christophany) as well as miracles he personally performed? It's too late for Paul to entrain the possibility that Christianity might be false. He has too much direct experience to the contrary.

ii) Rather, 1 Cor 1 15:14,17 are cases of per impossible counterfactual reasoning, which proceeds from a patently impossible premise:

https://www.iep.utm.edu/reductio/#H7

In responding to the Corinthians, Paul working back from what cannot be the case. 

Is universalism the best possible news?

@RandalRauser

The second worst objection to Christian universalism: “If everybody is ultimately saved by Jesus, then why bother telling anybody?” 

Um, because it’s the best possible news. 

And God told us to.

And no, I'm not a universalist. I just can't stand bad arguments.

https://twitter.com/RandalRauser/status/1240775735049998336

1. It's a pity that Rauser's aversion to bad arguments never extends to his own bad arguments. 

2. God didn't tell us to proclaim universalism.

3. Even if you suppose that Scripture teaches universalism, Rauser thinks Scripture is riddled with false teaching, so how does he know that God told us to evangelize?

4. God doesn't command evangelism for its own sake, but to give the lost an opportunity to be saved. If, however, universalism is true, then no one is lost, so the exercise is pointless. Rauser acts like we should mechanically obey the command after he eviscerates the purpose of the command. But God doesn't command things for the sake of commanding things. 

5. Is universalism the best possible news? Suppose Rauser unwittingly hitched a ride with a psychopathic killer. Suppose the psycho subdues him and takes him back to his cabin, to torture him for the next six months until Rauser succumbs to his horrific injuries. Suppose Rauser is very eloquent. He can either convince the psycho that there's nothing the psycho can do to him which will prevent the psycho from experiencing eternal bliss, or else he can convince the psycho that if he tortures Rauser for the next 6 months, the psycho will suffer eternally in hell. What's the best possible news to tell the psycho? 

Was Jesus self-deceived?

Tentative Apologist

@RandalRauser

I had a nice exchange with @RTB_FRana but I was disappointed to learn that he holds Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. That thesis is to biblical studies as young-earth creationism is to geology. When Christian apologists endorse fringe views they weaken their credibility.

James Anderson

@proginosko

Replying to @RandalRauser @RTB_FRana

Yeah, it's so embarrassing when Christians endorse the sort of fringe views that Christ himself held!

Tentative Apologist

@RandalRauser

Tentative Apologist Retweeted James Anderson

James should try this out at the Society of Biblical Literature. That will surely put all those liberal "scholars" in their place.

Tentative Apologist

@RandalRauser

Replying to @proginosko @RTB_FRana

I suppose you also think the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds?

James Anderson

@proginosko

Replying to @RandalRauser @RTB_FRana

I think whatever Jesus affirmed about the mustard seed is true. I also think whatever Jesus affirmed about the OT scriptures he quoted is true. Moreover, I believe I have good rational justification for these beliefs, despite what the fine folk at SBL might think of me.

Tentative Apologist

@RandalRauser

Jesus said the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds (Matthew 13:32). So it's settled for you then?

James Anderson

@proginosko

If Jesus affirms p, I take that as decisive grounds to affirm p. Does that shock you? Of course, there's a reasonable question here about what p is in the case of Matthew 13:32. I take it that "all" is qualified by the conversational context.

1. Wow. Rauser actually trots out the mustard seed objection to inerrancy, as if that's comparable to Mosaic authorship. The mustard seed statement is proverbial or hyperbolic. It's not erroneous to use hyperbole or proverbial sayings (e.g. "a fish rots from the head down").

And it's not remotely analogous to the question of Mosaic authorship.

But this also goes to Rauser's kenotic Christology, where Jesus, as a child of his times, unwittingly taught falsehood. 

The issue is whether the target audience recognizes hyperbolic or proverbial expressions. Then analogy would then be whether the same audience recognized that Mosaic authorship was just a conventional attribution. There the comparison breaks down. 

I'm sure Rauser's real position is that 1C Palestinian Jews believed in Mosaic authorship, but modern scholars know better. 

2. While Jesus may have held false beliefs qua his human nature, that's in union with the divine nature, and in his capacity as a teacher, the divine nature would inform, correct, or censor false beliefs of the human nature/mind when it came to teaching others.

One issue is whether the divine nature would function, among other things, as a screen or quality control mechanism, to preempt Jesus from unwittingly misleading billions of Christians over the centuries. It's serious business to say Jesus was an unintentional deceiver, due to his fallibility.

But if anything, it's worse than that since on Rauser's theory, Jesus is self-deceived. If he's fallible in the way Rauser says or allows for, then he could be self-deluded about his mission, about his understanding of God, about who he himself is, about salvation and damnation. 

3. Regarding Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch:

i) If the Pentateuch was actually compiled during the Babylonian Exile, how did the entire Jewish community forget the origins of the Pentateuch? Is social memory that weak? How did Mosaic authorship ever become the unquestioned tradition in 2nd Temple Judaism?

ii) The most natural assumption is that Genesis-Chronicles are written in chronological order. It's a continuous history, so you'd expect books recounting later events to be written later than books recounting earlier events. But if the Pentateuch was compiled during the Babylonian Exile, then doesn't that push the composition of the other books into the Intertestamental period? It really bunches up, like a log jam.

iii) What were pre-exilic prophets talking about when they indict Israel as covenant-breakers and threaten the curse sanctions of Deuteronomy if, in fact, the Pentateuch was compiled after the fact?

iv) If the Pentateuch is pious fiction, why say the Israelites are carpetbaggers who invaded Palestine from Egypt, and ultimately go back to a progenitor from Babylon? Why not just make the Israelites indigenous to Palestine? 

v) For that matter, if the Pentateuch and Historical Books were really written during the empires of neo-Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Alexander, and Republican Rome, why people them Canaanite adversaries?

Hart attack

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/shall-saved-universal-christian-universalism-david-bentley-hart/

Collective hallucination

I recently had an impromptu debate on Facebook about idealism. This seems to be an academic fad in some chic Christian circles. Here's my side of the exchange:

Take people who are horribly burned in a fire. They die after days in indescribable pain. According to idealism, they suffer just as if they were burned in a fire even though there wasn't a real fire to burn real flesh and real nerves. They suffer the unbearable effects of a chemical reaction even though that's an illusion. There was no chemical cause and effect. How is that not utterly gratuitous? Indeed, malevolent?

"Besides that, why should whether the suffering is gratuitous, malevolent, etc. depend on whether the the physical is reducible to the mental or not?"

On a nonidealist view, natural evils are (generally) a necessary but unintended consequence of natural processes. There's a value in a world of physical cause and effect. The same fire that's useful for warmth, illumination, and cooking may also burn living flesh. But the fire doesn't aim to burn living flesh. The fire is unintelligent. 

In idealism, by contrast, the relation between fire and burning alive is arbitrary. The victim suffers as if there's a chemical reaction that burns protoplasm, but there's no natural or intrinsic reason for that result. There's is no chemical reaction, there is no protoplasm in contact with the chemical composition of fire. So it lacks the justification of a natural law theodicy. I'm not saying that's an adequate theodicy all by itself. But there's a fundamental moral difference between the two positions. 

Yes, Leibniz has a theodicy, but I'm not discussing the problem of evil in general. Rather, I'm drawing attention to how natural evil poses a special problem for idealism, over and above the standard objection. Idealism aggravates the problem of natural evil.

Winning yesterday, losing tomorrow

There's some concern that the SBC and PCA are drifting to the left. A quick observation: there's a sense in which there are no closed questions in theology. Nothing is ever settled for all time. That's because the younger generation is a blank slate. It wasn't born knowing the answers and the supporting arguments. It didn't live through theological controversies. So you can never take the younger generation for granted. You can never coast on past victories. 

The younger generation must be shown the "received answers," and moreover, we must provide the younger generation with the reasons to back up the received answers. Otherwise, many members of the younger generation will be swept along with the current of the Zeitgeist. 

Some Catholic apologists will exclaim: "Ah ha! That just goes to show the necessity of a Magisterium!"

But that's no alternative:

i) The Catholic church is hemorrhaging young cradle Catholics. 

ii)  In many respects, the Magisterium is leading the charge to the left.

iii) I didn't say there are no good answers. We don't have to start from scratch every generation. If there are solid stock answers and supporting arguments, we can rehearse that material. 

We must also be adaptable to new challenges. Take transgenderism. Because that's a recent fad, there aren't standard answers and arguments, so we have to think on our feet. 

Francis is an anti-pope!

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/prominent-clergy-scholars-accuse-pope-francis-of-heresy-in-open-letter

If Pope Francis is a heretic, that means the "throne of Peter" is vacant. The One True Church® is rudderless. Adrift. The skipper is an anti-pope who's taken the barque of St. Peter off-course.

Now we just need to turn this into a movie about superheroes who parachute in to rescue the One True Church® before she heads over the waterfall. Nail-biting suspense.

Progressive Christianity

Liberal Christian theology is like someone who started out with a luxury car but over time had to strip it down to a set of wheels that has to be pushed.

You've got to admire the determination to not give up on the car.#exchristian

— Tim Sledge (@Goodbye_Jesus) March 31, 2019

Sneak attack

As a progressive theologian, Randal Rauser is in a bit of a bind. That's because there's not much of a constituency for his brand of theology. It's still too religious for atheists but too secular for Christians. Christians don't take it seriously and atheists don't take it seriously. Both sides view progressive theology as specie pleading. 

He worms himself into the good graces of certain atheists, as their favorite theologian, because he's a useful tool. They both attack Biblical theism. They both attack biblical morality. But they don't take his alternative seriously. He schmoozes with heretics like Dale Tuggy. He ingratiates himself with enemies of the faith, because he has nowhere else to go. 

Rauser is like the cheerleader's swishy gay male friend. He's amusing company. He's safe. A limp, non-threatening figure. But she doesn't mistake him for a real man. As soon as they graduate, she will leave him in the dust. He's just a toy. Okay for temporary entertainment, but not to be confused with manhood material. 

Because it's hard for Rauser to find a niche, his modus operandi is hypothetical dilemmas, which he uses as a wedge tactic. He postulates impossible dilemmas for conservative Christians. Choose between these two intolerable options. If you balk, that creates room for his third option, his progressive alternative.

But it only works if you play his game by his rules. Anyone can dream up hypothetical dilemmas for which there's no good answer. That's what makes thought-experiments so convenient: because they're artificial, you can stipulate anything you wish. You delimit the parameters. 

And there's nothing intrinsically wrong with thought-experiments. Indeed, they can be very useful.

But there's something wrong when they are used to subvert divine revelation. The solution is not to step into the trap. The fact that Rauser tries to control the terms of the debate creates no obligation to submit to his false dilemmas.  

Cutting Jesus down to size

Randal Rauser 

That depends. To note one example, Jesus refers to Moses (John 6). That provides prima facie evidence for the Christian to believe that Moses did in fact exist. But if there is strong evidence that Moses did not exist, the Christian could conclude based on that evidence that Moses does not exist. In that case, the Christian may come to believe that Jesus was accommodating to the errant beliefs of his audience because he was aiming to teach about his own messiahship, not a history lesson on the ANE. Or one could believe that Jesus adopted to the common knowledge of his day in accord with the kenotic emptying described in Philippians 2:6 ff. Or, one could believe that the text is a post-New Testament theological reflection on Jesus and his unique status. If the evidence for Moses were problematic, I would think the first (accommodation) explanation is the most natural one. (Cf. Jesus saying the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds.)

https://randalrauser.com/2019/03/the-problem-of-evil-and-biblical-violence-a-conversation-with-an-exvangelical/#comment-4373719730

Several issues:

i) This is a good illustration of progressive theology. Rauser has a Rauser-sized Jesus. A domesticated Jesus. Rauser has Jesus on a leash. Rauser's Jesus isn't big enough to ever pose an intellectual challenge to what Rauser is prepared to believe. Rauser's Jesus isn't any bigger than Rauser. Indeed, Rauser's Jesus is smaller than Rauser. A child of his times. Rauser's Jesus is a Jesus Rauser can manipulate and control. 

ii) Notice the false dichotomy between the historicity of Moses and the messiahship of Jesus. But in Scripture, the credentials of Jesus must be validated by the OT. Jesus is a superior counterpart to Moses. 

iii) What would count as strong evidence that Moses didn't exist?

iv) Phil 2:7 doesn't describe kenotic emptying. That's a 19C misinterpretation. Consult any good commentary. For instance, as Fee explains:

Christ did not empty himself of anything. He simply…poured himself out. This is metaphor, pure and simple. G. Fee, Paul's Letter to the Philippians (Eerdmans 1995), 210.

What is literally meant by the metaphor is explicated in terms of incarnation, undertaking the status of a slave, and a criminal.  

v) Rauser proposes another explanation: this is a fictional speech which the narrator put in the mouth of Jesus, like a ventriloquist dummy. That makes the Johannine Jesus an imaginary character. There may be a historical Jesus who lies in the distant background, but the Johannine Jesus is a product of legendary embellishment–like King Arthur. The Johannine Jesus never existed in real life. That's the implication of Rauser's proposal. 

vi) To say the comparison with the mustard seed is divine accommodation is an absurdly inflationary characterization. Why not just say it's idiomatic, proverbial, maybe hyperbolic? 

vii) Finally, this is a good example of how termites burrow into evangelical institutions. Rauser teaches at a nominally evangelical seminary with a token statement of faith that affirms inerrancy, but he has little gimmicks to evade that, and the administration lets him get away with it. This inerrancy statement is just for show, to hoodwink gullible parents and donors. 

Likewise, he's a contributor to The Christian Post. Richard Land is the editor, but Land is asleep at the switch. There's no serious vetting process for contributors. That laxity gives progressives openings to hollow out evangelical institutions from the inside, until there's nothing left but the facade. 

Would you rather be a Muslim who acts like Jesus?

Arminian theologian Randal Rauser likes to pose trick questions as a wedge tactic:

https://randalrauser.com/2019/01/would-you-rather-be-a-muslim-who-acts-like-jesus-or-a-christian-who-doesnt/

i) He rigs the debate by stipulating a false dichotomy, then requires the respondent to pick one horn of the dilemma. But in this illustration, it's not a choice between a Muslim who happens to do the right thing in contrast to a Christian who fails to do the right thing or does the wrong thing. For in this illustration, the SDA pastor wasn't a Christian in the first place. He was a nominal Christian whose fundamental loyalty was to his ethnic group rather than God. His ethnic identity was his core identity rather than his religious identity. 

You can't split Christian identity into faith and works, where some have faith without works while others have works without faith. Both faith and works are the outworking of grace. No faith without grace or works without grace. 

ii) To say that faith in Jesus is normally a prerequisite for salvation is standard Bible teaching. But Rauser doesn't care about that. He brazenly embraces salvation by works alone. 

iii) From a Reformed standpoint, the Muslim who did the right thing exemplifies common grace. He did the right thing despite his Muslim faith. His virtue on this occasion isn't something inherent in himself, but a residual virtue that God preserved. 

iv) Finally, Rauser's comparison is self-defeating. What does it mean to act like Jesus during the Rwandan genocide? How did Jesus act during the Rwandan genocide? What did he do to prevent it? Nothing. What did he do to stop it once it was underway? Nothing. 

If we're supposed to follow his example, then his example is nonintervention. Do nothing to prevent the genocide–or, if you couldn't see it coming, do nothing to stop genocide in progress. 

Rauser acts as though Jesus was a moralistic guru like Buddha. An inspirational figure from the past. Because he's dead, he can't do anything to help. 

But according to orthodox Christology, Jesus is God Incarnate. He didn't intervene in the Rwandan genocide, not because he was unable to do so, but because he was unwilling to do so.

If that's the standard of comparison, then inaction is how to act like Jesus in that situation. Watch it unfold while you do nothing. 

I'm not saying Christians never have a duty to get involved. I'm just responding to Rauser's blinkered comparison on his own grounds. His argument backfires. 

Do 70% of Evangelicals Reject the Deity of Christ?

https://selfwire.org/article/evangelicals-deity-christ

Celibate Jesus

It's sometimes alleged that Jesus was a bachelor because Jesus was gay. 

Some people say Jesus was gay, not because they really believe that, but because they like to get a rise out of Christians. They know some Christians will wax indignant if they make outrageous statements about Christianity, and they like to push their buttons. 

Some people say Jesus was gay, not because they really believe that, but because they want to destroy Christianity, and one tactic is to redefine Jesus. They know a gay Jesus is inimical to biblical, orthodox Christianity. It's like a computer virus. 

I suppose one argument for the gay Jesus is that he spent so much time in the exclusive company of other men. That, however, would be a fallacious inference.

i) For instance, Jack and Warnie Lewis were middle-aged bachelors who spent lots of time in the exclusive company of other men, belonged to men's clubs, yet there's no evidence they were gay. (Jack eventually married, late in life and unexpectedly.)

ii) More to the point, in the context of 1C Palestinian Judaism, the fact that Jesus spent so much time in the exclusive company of other men is actually evidence that he wasn't gay. If Jesus was suspected of being homosexual, he'd have no disciples. Back then, normal Jewish men had an extreme aversion to sodomites. And in addition to their personal aversion, they'd avoid the company of known or suspected homosexuals to protect their own reputation. Associating with sodomites would invite gossip and innuendo that they were homosexual, too. If they suspected that Jesus was gay, they'd go out of their way to avoid being seen in his company. 

iii) To my knowledge the traditional Jewish polemic against Christianity doesn't allege that Jesus was homosexual. It accuses him of sorcery, blasphemy, or illegitimacy. If there were rumors that Jesus was homosexual, wouldn't that be a fixture of the traditional Jewish polemic against Christianity?

So why was Jesus a bachelor? The NT doesn't say, so we can only speculate. 

1. As God-Incarnate, Jesus has an anomalous psychological makeup. On a two-minds Christology, the human mind of Jesus is to some degree conditioned by the divine mind. God Incarnate may not be psychologically suited to marriage.

2. In paganism, male gods and demigods fraternize with human women. As God Incarnate, Jesus might wish to avoid heathen associations with licentious gods.

3. The notion of God Incarnate having a sexual relationship with a human woman seems analogous to other sexual sins which transgress natural boundaries, viz. parental incest, bestiality, and pedophilia. 

4. Jesus didn't come to have a normal social life or normal lifespan. Rather, he came to die. And he knew ahead of time when he was going to die. Even if there weren't theological impediments to Jesus getting married (see above), that might well be a major deterent.

Take single men and women diagnosed with an incurable degenerative illness. They may be asymptomatic at the time of diagnosis. Their illness is a time-bomb, just waiting to detonate. 

Or take someone who's diagnosed with an inoperable brain aneurysm. In their head is a ticking time bomb. 

They may forego marriage and kids due to the prospect of incapacitation or premature death. They make a great personal sacrifice. 

5. Imagine the havoc it would wreak in church history if Jesus had kids. That would foster the cult of Christ's sons and daughters. There might be rival cults, since each dominical son or daughter would their own family tree. What if two or more dominical descendants had a theological dispute with each other?  

Imagine the theological clout the descendants of Jesus would have. Instead of following the Bible, Christianity would be diverted into a family cult. People with dominical bloodlines would command slavish followers. There'd be disputes over dominical lineage. 

6. If Jesus had a wife and kids, he'd be neglecting his family by spending so much time on the road. An absentee husband and father. 

7. Conversely, it would be quite impractical for Jesus to take his family with him as he traveled by foot all over Palestine. Exposure to the elements day and night. 

Some of his disciples may have been married while some of his disciples may have been bachelors. There's be no semblance of privacy, sleeping out of doors. That's not a problem if it's just a bunch of men. It is a problem when you throw men and women together, some married, some unmarried. 

Traditionally, men often team up for male-only expeditions. They can go at their own pace. Don't have to worry about protecting or providing for women and children in tow. Privacy is not an issue. 

That's true in historical explorations. Military situations. Some missionary situations. Take Mormon missionaries who pair off: two young guys. Nothing gay about that arrangement. 

(That's not a plug for Mormonism–just a sociological observation.) 

The transgender agenda infiltrates Biola and the ETS

When I opened the program guide for this year’s meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Denver, I was surprised by a paper titled “Walking across Gender in the Spirit? The Vocation of the Church and the Transgender Christian.” My interest piqued, I made plans to attend the session to hear the presentation. I honestly thought going into it that the title was intended for shock value to garner interest in order to set up an evangelical rebuttal of transgenderism. But what I heard from that paper went beyond anything I had thought possible at the Evangelical Theological Society.

The paper argues for the legitimacy of transgender identities. It appeared in an “Evangelicals and Gender” section, which means that the paper was vetted by committee members before being accepted into the program. Every member of the steering committeeexcept one is a contributor to an evangelical feminist group called Christians for Biblical Equality. This raises the question: does CBE now accept the legitimacy of transgender identities? In addition to this session, there is at least one article that suggests it might.

Andy Draycott, Associate Professor of Theology and Christian Ethics at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, delivered the paper to a crowd of maybe thirty or forty. Draycott set out his thesis at the beginning of his paper in answer to the question, “Should we consider ‘transgender Christians’ as having a good self-understanding?” His answer was an unqualified yes, that “transgender Christians” do have a good self-understanding when they perceive themselves to be gendered opposite their biological sex.

https://cbmw.org/topics/transgenderism/transgenderism-at-the-evangelical-theological-society/

Parsing the Ligonier survey

A few observations about the recent Ligonier survey. They plug this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1X4QTItsNk

I don't see the point of going to downtown Seattle and sticking a microphone in the face of random pedestrians. Is that supposed to be a representable sample? Of whom? Notice, too, that it's the same handful of respondents. 

Regarding some of the test statements in the survey:

1. God is a perfect being and cannot make a mistake.

According to open theism, God does make mistakes. So much the worse for open theism.

2. Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.

A classic Arian formulation. I wonder how many Americans in general have the theological literacy to understand that statement. 

3. Jesus Christ is the only person who never sinned.

So either the Father and the Spirit are sinful or else the Father and the Spirit aren't persons. Ditto: the angel Gabriel, Archangel Michael, seraphim and cherubim. 

4. Even the smallest sin deserves eternal damnation.

I don't think that's the best way to frame the issue. It's not first and foremost about particular sins, but the moral and spiritual character of the sinner. That's the source of sins. 

5. God counts a person as righteous not because of one’s works but only because of one’s faith in Jesus Christ.

A good Pauline formula, but I wonder how many Americans in general have the theological literacy to grasp what that means.

6. The Bible, like all sacred writings, contains helpful accounts of ancient myths but is not literally true.

That's really two statement bundled into one:

i) The Bible contains ancient myths

ii) The Bible isn't literally true

But should we give the same answer to both parts? Surely the Bible can be entirely true without being entirely literally true. Take the parables of Jesus. 

7. There will be a time when Jesus Christ returns to judge all the people who have lived.

Again, that's two statements bundled into one:

i) Jesus will return

ii) He will return to judge everyone

Regarding (ii), what about a passage like Jn 5:24? "Judgment" has ambiguous connotations.  

8. Sex outside of traditional marriage is a sin.

Presumably, "traditional" means "heterosexual monogamous" marriage in this context. But do Americans in general understand that?

9. Gender identity is a matter of choice.

On the one hand, transgender activists say it's a social construct. On the other hand, they say some people are psychologically trapped in a body of the wrong biological sex. But if that were true, it wouldn't be a choice. So it might be better to have two test statements on transgenderism.

10. The Bible’s condemnation of homosexual behavior doesn’t apply today.

What about homosexual attraction? Is that condemned? If so, why leave it out? 

The foolish builder

Commenting on my post:

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/10/fun-fact-randal-rauser-is-fool.html

Dale Tuggy said:

Fun fact: Jesus disapproves of this post. Matthew 5:22

The sort of contempt he [Hays] expresses here is exactly the sort of thing Jesus has in mind. 

Here's the passage in question:

But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire (Mt 5:22).

i) When it comes to blogging, I'm pretty emotionally detached. Anger wasn't in play.

ii) The statement is not about anger in general, but anger directed at one's "brother". In Matthean usage, "brother" is a synonym for "Christian". 

Rauser has views of Scripture and Christology that would get him excommunicated from any 1C church overseen by the apostles. Rauser has views of Scripture which parallel the views of Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins et al. Rauser is not a Christian by NT standards. He couldn't be a church member in good standing by NT standards. So he's not my "brother".

For his part, Tuggy denies the Incarnation. Tuggy is a Socinian rather than a Christian. So he's not my "brother".

Summing up (i)-(ii), I wasn't angry, but even if I was angry, I wasn't angry at a Christian brother. 

iii) Jesus himself, in the very same Gospel, refers to certain kinds of people as "fools" (7:26; 23:17; 25:2-3,8), and Christians are expected to view them the same way their Lord does. So unless Tuggy thinks that Jesus is hopelessly contradictory, Mt 5:22 can't be a universal condemnation of calling people "fools".  

iv) I wasn't insulting Rauser. Rather, I was making a considered value-judgment about his inept, patronizing, contemptuous dismissal of young-earth creationism. I'm not even committed to young-earth creationism, but it deserves a lot better than Rauser's smarmy tweet. 

v) Rauser promotes a kenotic Christology. He regards Jesus as a fallible teacher. A child of his times. So even if, for argument's sake, we agreed with Tuggy's interpretation of Mt 5:22, Rauser doesn't view the teaching of Jesus as authoritative. 

vi) For that matter, Tuggy thinks Jesus is just a human being. So is Jesus still infallible from Tuggy's viewpoint? Is Mt 5:22 inerrant from Tuggy's unitarian viewpoint? 

vii) In addition, both Rauser and Tuggy reject the inerrancy of Scripture. So do they even think the Gospels preserve an accurate record of what Jesus said on this and other occasions? BTW, do either of them think the Gospel of Matthew was written by an eyewitness? 

Meltdown in progress

Apostate Dale Tuggy was really triggered by my review: 

http://trinities.org/blog/response-to-hayss-review-of-what-is-the-trinity/

This review is by the slandering, long-winded polemical blogger Steve Hays, of Triablogue - you can search and find this post. This sort of "critique" is what he thinks apologetics is. He's obsessed with me and my work, and loves to accuse me, as here, of being an incompetent weasel. 

i) The accusation of obsession is revealing. I often do posts defending the Trinity, Incarnation, deity of Christ that have no reference to anything Dale wrote, yet he frequently swoops in to comment, so who's obsessed with whom?

ii) It's best to douse a wildfire before it burns down the whole neighborhood, which is why I stay on Dale's case. The talent pool for unitarianism is about as shallow as a mud puddle. I focus on Dale because he's the best they've got. Not saying much, I know.  

'Apostate' is a wicked slander, as has been pointed out to him. I was born again and baptized in 1978, and have been following Christ in various churches since then. I have never at any point left the faith or denied my savior. 

i) Dale's reaction reflects his immaturity. He acts shocked that when he switched to unitarianism, that cut him off from the Christian community, as if this is just another one of those in-house debates like amillennialism/premillennialism or credo/paedobaptism. He lacks social intelligence if he couldn't anticipate that he'd be shunned when he took that step. Assuming his disillusioned reaction is sincere and not a rhetorical ploy, he's a babe-in-the-woods if he didn't realize that's a bridge way too far to maintain Christian fellowship. 

ii) The Incarnation is rock-bottom foundational to the Christian faith. Dale used to be a professing Christian who like all other professing Christians affirm the Trinity, Incarnation, deity of Christ. Now he denies it. That's textbook apostasy. Sure, he doesn't see it that way because he's a unitarian, but he's hopelessly native when he imagines that Christians will judge him by his adopted unitarian yardstick. It's like a sexually active "gay Christian" who expects evangelicals to affirm his piety. 

iii) And it's not like Dale quietly lost his faith. He's the stereotypical apostate who goes on the attack against his former faith. The stereotypical apostate zealot who evangelizes for his new position. 

'Propaganda' is vicious slander. The book is deadly serious, and is based on more than fifteen years of professional scholarship on this topic, with many peer-reviewed publications. It is packed with historical information and (I hope) helpful analysis.

Who said propaganda can't be deadly serious? 

It is at best a foolish mistake, at worst a lie, to say that the book is 'in defense of unitarianism.' That is my theology, biblical unitarian, which I don't hide. But the book doesn't argue for it, but only lays out a number of helpful historical and logical and theological distinctions which I claim can help Christians to make up their minds on this difficult topic. I have actually argued for my views on the basis of scripture in other places. But my aim in this book is really to stimulate Christians to informed, critical thinking on this topic, and ultimately, to re-visiting the scriptures with these distinctions in hand.

Dale is submerged in self-delusion if he sincerely imagines that his book isn't in defense of unitarianism. Of course it is. His book is a pop-level tract for unitarianism. Why does he even wish to deny it? Given his outlook, he should be proud to admit his agenda.  

'Deconversion' is a vicious slander. So is the comparison with the arch-anti-evangelical, ex-evangelical agnostic scholar Bart Ehrman. By many the common criteria, I am an evangelical Christian. There is no deconversion part of the book. 

Except for the central criteria like the Incarnation. 

This is where my family and I currently fellowship. 

How's that any different from a Kingdom Hall, where Jehovah's Witnesses fellowship? Unitarianism is a cult. Dale is a cult-member. Indeed, Dale is a cult-leader. Cults have fake churches. Why not show a picture of the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, for all the difference that makes. 

BTW, I'm a bit unclear on how a resident of Fredonia NY regularly attends a unitarian shrine near Nashville TN. That's a ten hour drive, one-way. But I do appreciate the irony that it's about 666 miles from Fredonia to Nashville. The Old Serpent has a wry sense of humor by stamping the mark of the Beast on Dale's travel itinerary.