Gregory Koukl's Blog, page 97

It's About the Difference between Men and Women

In a recent Twitter conversation, I was told that opposing same-sex marriage is, by definition, bigotry:

[Y]ou are bigoted on this issue; of that I am sure. You might not be a bigot in any other part of ur life but on this you are.

I’m sure because you spell it out when you fight against equal rights for gays. Your fight makes me sure.

Leaving aside the arguments for why this issue is not about equal rights, this is what I wish our opponents would grasp: Our objection to same-sex marriage is not about a difference between homosexuals and heterosexuals. If we were saying that homosexuals were lesser people unworthy of rights, then one might have an argument for this being an example of bigotry. But the case we’re making isn’t about a difference between homosexuals and heterosexuals (it’s not even about whether or not homosexuality is morally wrong); it’s about the difference between men and women.

Mollie Hemingway’s piece in The Federalist on “The Rise of the Same-Sex Marriage Dissidents” (written in response to the Mozilla situation) touches on this:

We…have a system that is demanding conformity, uniformity and discipline — it’s not just about marriage law, to be honest. It’s really about something much bigger — crushing the belief that the sexes are distinct in deep and meaningful ways that contribute to human flourishing. Obviously marriage law plays a role here — recent court rulings have asserted that the sexes are interchangeable when it comes to marriage. That’s only possible if they’re not distinct in deep and meaningful ways. But the push to change marriage laws is just one part of a larger project to change our understanding of sexual distinctions. See, for example, the 50 genders of Facebook….

The drive to redefine marriage depends on denying the differences between the sexes, and yet these are the very differences that brought about the need for marriage in the first place:

[T]here’s precisely one bodily system for which each of us only has half of the system. It’s the one that involves sex between one man and one woman. It’s with respect to that system that the unit is the mated pair. In that system, it’s not just a relationship that is the union of minds, wills or important friendships. It’s the literal union of bodies. In sexual congress, in intercourse between a man and a woman, you are literally coordinated to a single bodily end.

In every other respect we as humans act as individual organisms except when it comes to intercourse between men and women — then we work together as one flesh. Coordination toward that end — even when procreation is not achieved — makes the unity here. This is what marriage law was about. Not two friends building a house together. Or two people doing other sexual activities together. It was about the sexual union of men and women and a refusal to lie about what that union and that union alone produces: the propagation of humanity. This is the only way to make sense of marriage laws throughout all time and human history. Believing in this truth is not something that is wrong, and should be a firing offense. It’s not something that’s wrong, but should be protected speech. It’s actually something that’s right. It’s right regardless of how many people say otherwise. If you doubt the truth of this reality, consider your own existence, which we know is due to one man and one woman getting together. Consider the significance of what this means for all of humanity, that we all share this.

It’s not unreasonable or bigoted to treat the unique joining of sexually complementary partners uniquely. But in order to see that this is a reasonable understanding that isn’t motivated by hate, one must first acknowledge the differences between women and men. Conversely, in order to hide its reasonableness, one must first erase those differences in people’s minds. Watch for this happening (e.g., with Facebook, see above), and make the connection.

I would say that perhaps we need to start our arguments farther back in the chain of reasoning, at the point our culture used to take for granted—the objective, unchanged-by-wishful-thinking differences between the sexes, but I actually don’t think that’s far back enough.

No, this goes back farther than that, for the questions involved here (whether gender is assigned or a matter of choice, whether there’s such a thing as male nature and female nature, whether an institution like marriage is something we recognize or create, whether the good of society lies in conforming itself to a predetermined purpose or a new vision, whether human nature is something in particular or a sea of possibilities bound only by what we can imagine for ourselves) all depend on whether we are here because of God or because of chance. In the end, it comes back to the most basic of all worldview differences: theism vs. non-theism.

So in a way, the people who accuse us of basing our position on religion are right, though it’s not in the way they think. That is, we’re against redefining marriage not mainly because we think homosexual behavior is wrong, but because we think human nature (including each person’s gender and the way that relates to marriage) is something fixed that we were given, not something endlessly changing and malleable that we can create for ourselves. (Not that one needs to believe in God to observe that human nature is unchanging. History is on our side on this one.)

Since we don't think we have the power to defy reality and mold ourselves and natural institutions like the family into something radically new, we therefore conclude that attempts to force such a change will lead to suffering throughout our society.

That has nothing to do with bigotry.

Links Mentioned on the 4/08/14 Show

The following are links that were either mentioned on this week's show or inspired by it, as posted live on the @STRtweets Twitter feed:

CrossExamined Instructor Academy – Training for people who want to teach apologetics


Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem


Putting Amazing Back into Grace by Michael Horton


Sinners in the Hands of a Good God by David Clotfelter


Dogmatic Theology by William G. Shedd


What We Believe about the Five Points of Calvinism by John Piper


Sign up to receive Solid Ground to read Greg's articles about the moral argument in the next two issues


The Intolerance of Tolerance by Greg Koukl (PDF)


Mozilla Co-Founder Brendan Eich Resigns as CEO, Leaves Foundation Board by Kara Swisher


Inclusiveness at Mozilla – Brendan Eich tries to calm people's fears (before he was ousted)


Mozilla's Statement on Brendan Eich's resignation


The Hounding of a Heretic by Andrew Sullivan


Inclusive, Safe, and Welcoming to All? by Amy Hall


Decide Here and Now by Amy Hall


Same-Sex Marriage Quick-Reference Guide by Greg Koukl


Marriage: What It Is, Why It Matters, and the Consequences of Redefining It by Ryan Anderson


Freedom of the Will by Jonathan Edwards


Evil, Suffering, and the Goodness of God by Greg Koukl (CD)


The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell


Does God Desire All to Be Saved? by John Piper

Listen to today's show or download any archived show for free. (Find links from past shows here.)

To follow the Twitter conversation during the live show (Tuesdays 4:00–7:00 p.m. PT), use the hashtag #STRtalk.

Challenge: Shouldn't Christians Retreat?

Today's challenge comes from a question we received on Twitter:

Shouldn't American Christians retreat from the gay marriage issue? It's unwinnable.

What do you think? There are several facets of this challenge that you can address: Should we stop fighting for a man/woman definition of marriage? Is the issue unwinnable? If so, does the fact that an issue is unwinnable mean there's no value in presenting our argument? What purpose might God have for our continuing to argue for what's right when the issue is unwinnable? When might He prefer us to stop arguing? Is retreat in this situation even possible?

Tell us how you think this challenge should be answered in the comments below, and then check back on Thursday to hear Alan's response.

[Explore past challenges here and here.]

CrossExamined Instructor Academy 2014

On the show today, Greg will be talking with Frank Turek about this year’s CrossExamined Instructor Academy (August 14-16):

CIA is an intense three-day program where you will learn how to present I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist—which involves four main topics: Truth, God, Miracles and the New Testament—and how to answer questions about those topics in a hostile environment. During those three days, in addition to hearing lectures and participating in discussions, you will be asked to present a portion of I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist and answer questions from several instructors including Frank Turek, Greg Koukl, Richard Howe, [Brett Kunkle, J. Warner Wallace,] and others.

There will be a couple of changes from past years:

Prior to 2013, all students attended the same teaching sessions.  This year each student will be able to choose from a series of breakout sessions, and then will have two opportunities to present to CIA instructors. We have made this change for two reasons.

First, presenting is more difficult to master than content. You can learn content by reading books and watching lectures, but learning to present that content takes actual practice before qualified instructors. So we want to spend a bit more time honing your presentation skills than we have in the past.

Second, breakout sessions provide several advantages including the opportunity to learn new content, go deeper into the arguments, and ask questions. It will also provide CIA graduates who attend again to learn some new material and tactics.

Read more about CIA and apply here.

Do We Need God in Order to Explain Morality?

Brett explains why God is the most logical explanation for objective morality.

 

Do Muslims Love Jesus?

Muslims love Jesus too. At least, that’s what a new billboard campaign claims. The question, though, is which Jesus do they love?

There’s the Jesus described by the Gospel writers. These eyewitnesses walked with Jesus, ate with him, talked with him, and saw Him perform miracles. They knew Him.

Then, there’s the Jesus described 600 years later by the Qur’an. That author did not know Jesus, see Jesus, or live anywhere near where Jesus ministered.

As one would expect, the Jesus of the Qur’an looks a lot different than the biblical Jesus. That’s significant, since the billboard campaign gives the impression that Muslims love the same Jesus that Christians do.

But that’s not the case. The Jesus of the Bible is the son of God, the second person of the Trinity, was crucified, resurrected, and atoned for the sins of mankind. The Qur’an, on the other hand, denies every one of these points: the Trinity, His death on the cross, His resurrection, and the atonement. These differences aren’t merely incidental details. They are fundamental attributes of the identity and role of Christ. If you deny them, you deny the real Jesus.

Not only does the Qur’an paint a different picture of Jesus, it depicts an Islamicized version of Him. New Testament scholar Craig Evans points out, “All of the Qur'anic traditions are dependent on the New Testament and/or Christian teachings…Much of it reflects Islamic ideas. Some of it may reflect aspects of Jewish-Christian polemic. None derives from early, independent sources.”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against Muslims loving Jesus. I hope they fully embrace Him, His teachings, and His atoning work. But they need to love the Jesus of history, not the Christ of the Qur’an. The former is real while the latter is fictionalized.

Muslims, in fact, have good reason to accept the biblical Jesus. Their highest authority, the Qur’an, affirms the Gospel (and also the Torah and Psalms) as a divine revelation from Allah. It places the Gospel on par with the Qur’an, saying that Muslims should believe in both revelations (Surah 29:46) and “Make no difference between one and another of them” (Surah 2:136).

I realize that present-day Muslims might balk at these Qur’anic commands and claim the Christian scriptures are corrupted. This, though, is a Muslim belief and not a Qur’anic teaching. For four hundred years after Mohammed, no Muslim scholar claimed the Bible was corrupt. Now, however, the claim of corruption is deeply embedded in Muslim culture, but it’s not backed by their highest authority. I explain more about how Muslims can accept the Gospel in The Ambassador’s Guide to Islam.

The bottom line, though, is that anyone can claim to love Jesus. But who is this Jesus you’re claiming to love? While Jehovah’s Witnesses might love Jesus, they claim he is the archangel Michael. While Mormons might claim to love Jesus, they believe he is a god, but not the God. In the same way, Muslims claim to love Jesus, but they believe he is merely a human and a prophet like Moses or Mohammed.

It’s one thing to fashion Jesus to your liking and claim to love him. That’s easy. It’s a different thing to love Jesus as He truly exists.

So, while I think the billboard campaign is misleading, I think Christians can still use a Muslim’s love or commitment to Christ as a common denominator leading to further discussion. We may have the opportunity to eventually point Muslims to His true identity found in the Gospels.

Inclusive, Safe, and Welcoming to All?

What can one say when the new CEO of Mozilla is drummed out of his job by Mozilla's "community" for being a heretic when it’s discovered he gave $1,000 to the Prop 8 campaign?

Mozilla said this:

Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn’t live up to it. We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves.

We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better.

Brendan Eich has chosen to step down from his role as CEO. He’s made this decision for Mozilla and our community.

Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech. Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard.

Our organizational culture reflects diversity and inclusiveness. We welcome contributions from everyone regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender-identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographical location and religious views. Mozilla supports equality for all.

We have employees with a wide diversity of views. Our culture of openness extends to encouraging staff and community to share their beliefs and opinions in public. This is meant to distinguish Mozilla from most organizations and hold us to a higher standard. But this time we failed to listen, to engage, and to be guided by our community.

And GLAAD said this:

Mozilla’s strong statement in favor of equality today reflects where corporate America is: inclusive, safe, and welcoming to all.

The reason why their statements are so darkly and ironically amusing is that they reveal just how much language has been misused in the interest of PC enforcement (and by “PC,” let’s be honest—for the most part we’re talking about a set of political positions on one side only). “Inclusive, safe, and welcoming to all” means something in PC language that is none of those things, as this situation has made perfectly clear.

“Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard.” I can understand Mozilla having trouble finding a way to make all their values, as they’ve stated them in the past, fit together. That’s what happens when you use words to promote yourself that don’t represent your actual values.

It’s hard for Mozilla's community, because they like speech that supports their political views, and they like including people who agree with them, but they also like the way the nice words “free speech” and “inclusive” make people feel, so they like using those words to describe themselves. If they have to redefine the words to mean allowing, supporting, and including only particular political views, so what? Since they’re the good people, they get to use the beautiful words to describe themselves, whether the literal meanings of those terms apply or not.

This is simply the misuse of pretty words to shame people into joining their side.

If there’s one thing we ought to demand from Mozilla and GLAAD in this situation, it’s this: stop misusing language to make your views sound nice. If you want your company to stand for certain ideas, that’s perfectly fine; just use words in a meaningful fashion to express the actual ideas you stand for. Be honest about your values: the views you’re for and the views you reject, the people you’ll tolerate and the people you’ll require to fully recant their views or face the consequences.

But let’s have no more of this “inclusive,” “tolerant,” “welcoming” nonsense.

The Angel of Prisons

Elizabeth Fry was a British Quaker Christian who led the movement for prison reform in the 19th century. She was also the driving force behind reform legislation. 

At the age of 18, young Elizabeth was deeply moved by the preaching of William Savery, an American Quaker. Motivated by his words, she took an interest in the poor, the sick, and the prisoners. She collected old clothes for the poor, visited those who were sick in her neighbourhood, and started a Sunday school in the summer house to teach children to read....

Prompted by a family friend, Stephen Grellet, Fry visited Newgate prison. The conditions she saw there horrified her. The women's section was overcrowded with women and children, some of whom had not even received a trial. They did their own cooking and washing in the small cells in which they slept on straw. Elizabeth Fry wrote in the book Prisons in Scotland and the North of England that she actually stayed the nights in some of the prisons and invited nobility to come and stay and see for themselves the conditions prisoners lived in. Her kindness helped her gain the friendship of the prisoners and they began to try to improve their conditions for themselves....

In 1817 she helped found the Association for the Reformation of the Female Prisoners in Newgate. This led to the eventual creation of the British Ladies' Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners, widely described by biographers and historians as constituting the first "nationwide" women's organisation in Britain....

Elizabeth Fry also helped the homeless, establishing a "nightly shelter" in London after seeing the body of a young boy in the winter of 1819/1820. In 1824, during a visit to Brighton, she instituted the Brighton District Visiting Society. The society arranged for volunteers to visit the homes of the poor and provide help and comfort to them. The plan was successful and was duplicated in other districts and towns across Britain....

In 1840 Fry opened a training school for nurses. Her programme inspired Florence Nightingale, who took a team of Fry's nurses to assist wounded soldiers in the Crimean War.

After her death, memorials and a home were established in her name to care for prisoners and the poor. Since 2001, her picture appears on the £5 note.

Gnosticism and Kabbalah in Aronofsky's Noah

After seeing Noah, I think some reviewers who gave strongly positive reviews of the film read their own theology into the story where it didn’t actually exist, resulting in confusingly divergent reviews from people I respect. My assessment is that the movie is mediocre at best and the theology is terrible, but if you intend to see it, there’s a review by Brian Mattson you should read that will help you interpret the ideas advocated in the film.

Dr. Mattson makes a compelling case that the creator of Noah, Darren Aronofsky, didn’t take liberties with the Bible story:

Aronofsky hasn’t “taken liberties” with anything.

The Bible is not his text….

Darren Aronofsky has produced a retelling of the Noah story without reference to the Bible at all. This was not, as he claimed, just a storied tradition of run-of-the-mill Jewish “Midrash.” This was a thoroughly pagan retelling of the Noah story direct from Kabbalist and Gnostic sources.

It’s worth reading the entire article to see the specific examples he gives of the parallels between the ideas in Noah and Gnosticism/Kabbalah. Here’s one:

The world of Aronofsky’s Noah is a thoroughly Gnostic one: a graded universe of “higher” and “lower.” The “spiritual” is good, and way, way, way “up there” where the ineffable, unspeaking god dwells, and the “material” is bad, and way, way down here where our spirits are encased in material flesh. This is not only true of the fallen sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, but of fallen angels, who are explicitly depicted as being spirits trapped inside a material “body” of cooled molten lava.

Admittedly, they make pretty nifty movie characters, but they’re also notorious in Gnostic speculation. Gnostics call them Archons, lesser divine beings or angels who aid “The Creator” in forming the visible universe. And Kabbalah has a pantheon of angelic beings of its own all up and down the ladder of “divine being.” And fallen angels are never totally fallen in this brand of mysticism. To quote the Zohar again, a central Kabbalah text: “All things of which this world consists, the spirit as well as the body, will return to the principle and the root from which they came.” Funny. That’s exactly what happens to Aronofsky’s Lava Monsters. They redeem themselves, shed their outer material skin, and fly back to the heavens. Incidentally, I noticed that in the film, as the family is traveling through a desolate wasteland, Shem asks his father: “Is this a Zohar mine?” Yep. That’s the name of Kabbalah’s sacred text.

The entire movie is, figuratively, a “Zohar” mine.

Dr. Mattson’s understanding of Noah certainly explains the oddity of Tubal-Cain (the villain) trying to convince Noah’s son that since he’s made in the image of God, he ought to follow the biblical command of God to “fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over” the creatures in it. Why would Aronofsky have the villain advocate God’s command from Genesis 1? (Some spoilers ahead):

[W]hen Gnostics speak about “The Creator” they are not talking about God. Oh, here in an affluent world living off the fruits of Christendom the term “Creator” generally denotes the true and living God. But here’s a little “Gnosticism 101” for you: the Creator of the material world is an ignorant, arrogant, jealous, exclusive, violent, low-level, bastard son of a low level deity. He’s responsible for creating the “unspiritual” world of flesh and matter, and he himself is so ignorant of the spiritual world he fancies himself the “only God” and demands absolute obedience. They generally call him “Yahweh.” Or other names, too (Ialdabaoth, for example).

This Creator tries to keep Adam and Eve from the true knowledge of the divine and, when they disobey, flies into a rage and boots them from the garden.

In other words, in case you’re losing the plot here: The serpent was right all along….

The world of Gnostic mysticism is bewildering with a myriad of varieties. But, generally speaking, they hold in common that the serpent is “Sophia,” “Mother,” or “Wisdom.” The serpent represents the true divine, and the claims of “The Creator” are false….

Many reviewers thought Noah’s change into a homicidal maniac on the ark, wanting to kill his son’s two newborn daughters, was a weird plot twist. It isn’t weird at all. In the Director’s view, Noah is worshiping a false, homicidal maniac of a god. The more faithful and “godly” Noah becomes, the more homicidal he becomes. He is becoming every bit the “image of god” that the “evil” guy who keeps talking about the “image of god,” Tubal-Cain, is.

But Noah fails “The Creator.” He cannot wipe out all life like his god wants him to do. “When I looked at those two girls, my heart was filled with nothing but love,” he says. Noah now has something “The Creator” doesn’t. Love. And Mercy. But where did he get it? And why now?

In the immediately preceding scene Noah killed Tubal-Cain and recovered the snakeskin relic: “Sophia,” “Wisdom,” the true light of the divine.

I think Dr. Mattson is really on to something here, and I encourage you to read the rest of his review.

[Update: See a response to Dr. Mattson by Peter Chattaway and a response to that by Dr. Mattson.]

There's No Middle Ground on Same-Sex Marriage

In response to the World Vision controversy, progressive Christian Kristen Howerton wants the church to reevaluate it's view of and approach to the same-sex marriage issue. In her article, "Is the Debate Over Gay Marriage What We Want to Be Known For?" she suggests that Christians ask three questions:

Why is same-sex marriage such a fraught issue?
How can we find unity in this division?
How is this affecting our LGBT brothers and sisters?

At this point, I'll bypass the myriad of problems with her piece, to focus on a single question that she asks: "Does the loud and passionate protestation about same-sex marriage draw others to Christ?" Of course, Christians who oppose SSM are not merely protesting, rather they're reasoning about a significant moral and public policy issue. But does Howerton think that if Christians just quiet down a bit, stop arguing with each other, and agree to disagree, this will satisfy the secular culture? That's the sense you get from progressives, that if we just play nice enough and keep our views to ourselves, then the world will start liking Jesus and the church again.  

Well, in his response to Howerton's article entitled, "The Debate Over Gay Marriage is Precisely What Christians Will Be Known For," the "Friendly Atheist" Hemant Mehta makes it clear this approach is unsatisfactory: 

People like Howerton are too polite, trying to find some magical mythical middle ground on the issue. There isn’t one. There’s the inclusive, tolerant, accepting side…and there’s the side most evangelicals are on...

...you do have to recognize that Christianity as a whole is part of the problem here, not the solution, and it’s up to individual Christians to take action if they want to save the church. Howerton asks “How can we find unity in this division?” and it’s the wrong question. Forget unity. Those anti-gay Christians aren’t going to budge. What you need to do is leave them behind and find community among people who don’t use their faith as a shield against common sense and decency...

...For my gay and lesbian friends’ sake, if they’re Christian, I want them to be able to find a church where they’re accepted instead of merely tolerated.

There you have it. Secularists won't be satisfied until Christians abandon conservative churches and unequivocally accept everything LGBT. Everything. No matter how well-intentioned the call for Christians to stop fighting the culture on this issue, it won't be enough. Only full 100% approval of homosexuality and SSM will do. That's the price the church will have to pay to satisfy the culture. Are progressives like Howerton ready to capitulate to this demand? If yes, that's fine, they're entitled to their view, but I just want them to be up front and tell us, so that it's clear they don't really think there's a middle ground either.