A response to James Logan
Posted Thursday, May 31, 2007
Mr. Logan [Letters, May 30, 2007] notes in his letter in response to mine that Leviticus 18:22 makes things crystal clear. He states: “The prohibitions and punishments are clear for any adult. To state it clearer or in more graphic terms would put the text in the realm of pornography!”
Well, here are the facts.
First of all, a man can’t lay with another man as a woman as the anatomy is different. It’s impossible. So, I guess I would have to conclude that Leviticus 18:22 has no relevance based on the literal words.
Or does the verse simply mean the two men are laying side-by-side taking a nap? Yes, a man and a woman can do that. But then, I guess that means one has to interpret what it means? Otherwise, a many good men who are friends taking naps side-by-side are in deep sin.
OK, there is the bottom line. In this debate, people claim to know exactly what the evil in question is. But then, if someone like me asks the simple question about having details, then I’m told that is a little extreme and is “in the realm of pornography.”
I hope Mr. Logan doesn’t take my words the wrong way, as I’m simply reaching out to him for I feel one does need to be willing to provide some answers, although they might not be completely adequate.
I’ve found myself frustrated for some time in the debates about homosexuals as to what “homosexual practice” really means. I think we, as Christians, would have no problem discussing the gory details of what “murder practice” or “genocide practice” is. So, if “homosexual practice” is such a great evil, why is it a problem to discuss the horrible details? Isn’t it odd that so much fuss is made about this so-called sin, yet public debates for the most part steer away from the horrific details?
I, of course, speak from a different point of view. But it seems insane that we, as a church and society, are most willing to address the evils of murder, genocide, wars and hatred in detail, but won’t do the same about homosexual activity (whatever that means). If I and other men should truly be put to death since we lie with another man as we would with a woman, then those having this point of view should have no problem in confronting this evil and seeing that we are put to death. And they must be willing to state the graphic details as to why. But the reality that is the passion is not really there. It’s all words without action, as I view it.
Of course, we Presbyterians tend to be more gracious and not quick to put someone to death over a sin as Leviticus 18:22 mandates. I appreciate this.
Regarding obedience and feelings, I will simply note that my feelings led me to God as revealed through Jesus Christ, and through those feelings I wish to obey God and thank Jesus for being my Savior. Having obedience on its own, to me, seems quite empty. You have to have something alive inside of you that makes you want to be obedient; that is, the living God that you feel and know. This is an evangelical concept, and my home church taught me this.
Maybe I didn’t make that too clear. The bottom line is I don’t understand how a Christian can be obedient to God without the relevance of feelings.
Earl C. Apel member, Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio
Only congregations have title to local church property’
Posted Thursday, May 31, 2007
The perception held of property ownership affects every decision and the way decisions are made in the church.
Only congregations have title to local church property.
Consider: The audited financial statements of the United Church of Canada do not report congregation property as an asset and only congregations have insurance for local church property where the Insurance Act R.S.O. 1990 reads:
- “The insurer is not liable for loss or damage to property owned by any person other than the insured, unless the interest of the insured therein is stated in the contract.”
The Internet has more information.
Rev. Don Anderson White Lake Pastoral Charge, Renfrew Presbytery, United Church of Canada
When it comes to the media, the PCUSA will say anything’
Posted Thursday, May 31, 2007
I read the following paragraph in a story in The Louisville Courier-Journal:
- “Sharon Youngs, communications coordinator for the office (of the General Assembly), said the (PCUSA) denomination has a ‘zero tolerance’ policy for sexual misconduct.”
Doesn’t that statement assert that when it comes to aberrant sexual conduct, the denomination is intolerant? No, unfortunately it means only that when it comes to the media, the Presbyterian Church (USA) will say anything.
Jack O’Brien Beverly Heights Church , Pittsburgh, Pa.
A response to Col. Ronald Everett
Posted Wednesday, May 30, 2007
I am very grateful for your wise letters to the Layman, Colonel [Letters, May 29, 2007].
I agree with your comments about Richard Cizik, the public voice of the National Association of Evangelicals, whose comments lately have been listing decisively to port. (I am sorry, sir, but I am a Navy veteran. I think in those terms, my phrase meaning “leaning decisively to the left!”)
I have not yet read “Toward An Evangelical Public Policy.” But I once was a member of the organization Ron Sider founded, Evangelicals for Social Action, only leaving because most of its recommendations are geared for urban rather than rural people, such as the ones I serve. I also have met and had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Sider on a couple of occasions. He firmly stands with us evangelicals on social issues like abortion and homosexuality. He also consistently has urged us evangelicals to be concerned for the poor and reach out to them in their need. So, I would not worry about him going far left, or Diane Knippers and her successors at the Institute on Religion and Democracy.
But your points on the NAE itself are well-taken. Thank you.
Rev. Rick Johnson Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, George, Iowa
A way in which we can stand up
Posted Wednesday, May 30, 2007
The purpose of this letter is to explain a way that we can stand up!
The most critical issue is the general assembly’s stated clerk position. The renewal groups – especially the Presbyterian Coalition, the Presbyterian Renewal Network, the Presbyterian Lay Committee, the New Wineskins Initiative and other groups that are not an official part of any of these – as many as possible need to agree to work together on this.
Then all the newsletters of these groups would emphasize that the groups intend to work together to find, to endorse, to support and to fund the best candidate – and that they want people to nominate others or to be volunteers themselves for the general assembly stated clerk’s screening process.
I believe that we have a conservative Rev. Eugene Carson Blake or a conservative ruling elder William P. Thompson in our ranks (and it certainly isn’t me at 74). However, such a person is far too smart to be a Don Quixote and to tilt at windmills.
If even some of these groups worked together (or if even one or two renewal groups agreed to do this, the others will follow, I believe). Then, when such a person emerged from the consultations, the commissioners from presbyteries around the country would take this seriously.
Why would a person want to go to Louisville and live in that difficult environment? Well, why does anyone decide to be a foreign missionary or to serve as the pastor of a church in great conflict? We need again to make the Presbyterian Church (USA) to be a light set on a candlestick, to be a city set on a hill!
Do you agree that this is the most important issue now? Is the Lord calling you to start this? Have you come to the Kingdom for such a time as this?
Rev. Bruce W.H. Urich Winter Park, Fla.
A response to Anne-Marie Hislop
Posted Tuesday, May 29, 2007
I appreciate the Rev. Anne-Marie Hislop [Letters, May 25, 2007] taking the time to correct me regarding Pope Benedict XVI, limbo and purgatory.
- “Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge, But he who hates correction is stupid.” (Proverbs 12:1)
Actually, I realized my mistake shortly after sending the e-mail. Next time, I won’t be so quick to hit the “Send” button.
The fact remains, however, that contrary to what L. Rus Howard asserted, Roman Catholicism has never fully returned to a Scripture-based faith. In Catholic theology, tradition is placed on a par with Scripture; salvation is a faith-plus-works proposition, rather than “by faith alone” as Protestantism has always taught; and the “Holy Father” still determines, or at least profoundly influences, official church dogma.
Having said all that, I believe that, although I’m a member of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, I have more in common with a conservative Catholic than with a liberal Presbyterian. The Catholic and I would agree as to who Jesus is. After all, it wasn’t a Catholic who asked the now-famous question, “What’s the big deal about Jesus?”
Incidentally, whenever I’m on furlough in the U.S.A., I find that there’s a popular myth that once upon a time there was something called “Celtic Christianity” that was close to the Protestantism that came later, and that it was tragically squelched by Catholicism (because a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon king decided in favor or Rome).
Actually, “Celtic Christianity” was very much a sacerdotal kind of thing, and should be thought of as a variant of Catholicism rather than as an early predecessor of Protestantism. It is true that it produced my favorite hymn, “Be Thou My Vision,” but it is not true that St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland. That would have been truly hissss-torical.
Larry Brown African Bible College, Lilongwe, Malawi
What’s with the National Association of Evangelicals?
Posted Tuesday, May 29, 2007
There has been some recent controversy regarding statements made by the Washington Office (Richard Cizik) of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) on the topic of global warming. I didn’t pay much attention to it since it seemed to involve the typical kind of disagreement discussed in any ecumenical group, even evangelicals.
However, I just read a startling review of the NAE’s “Toward An Evangelical Public Policy,” edited by Ron Sider and the late Diane Knippers, that makes me wonder if the NAE is being taken over by the far left.
I assume most folks are well aware of the far-left positions of Sider’s organization, Evangelicals for Social Action. Now, starting in the first chapter of this new public policy book, the efforts of conservatives, the religious right and the anti-Communist movement that ended with the dissolution of the Soviet empire is called “an exercise in destruction.” Meanwhile, the Marxist ideas of liberation theology that are enthusiastically supported by the likes of Jim Wallis of Sojourners, Sider and Richard Barnet of the Institute for Policy Studies are commended for their stance on poverty, foreign policy and the environment.
Anyone who thinks socialism reduces poverty has not paid much attention to socialism’s record over the past hundred years. All socialism does is equally distribute poverty.
If the NAE follows the policy outlined in this book, we’re all in trouble. They would do well to publicly denounce this book before their membership flees in horror.
Col. Ronald Everett North Olmsted, Ohio
Bravo
Posted Friday, May 25, 2007
Bravo!!!!
B.J. Anderson, elder St Paul’s Presbyterian Church
Imagined’ world is seriously incomplete and impoverished
Posted Friday, May 25, 2007
With regard to the article “Atheism Fills the Void as Religion Falters in Europe:”
After spending the past hour leading a Bible study and hymn-sing at a local nursing home, I have to agree that that noted theologian and Biblical scholar, Elton John, hit the nail right on the head. Boy, what a bunch of “hateful lemmings” those old folks were!
And kudos to Mr. John for exposing my real motivation for leading such a study – I must have been doing it for the prestige and glory, not because of any religiously motivated sense of compassion or care. After all, “organized religion” is “not really compassionate.”
Elton John’s ridiculous statement, and the title of Christopher Hitchens’ book (God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything), demonstrate a common approach that the popular atheistic movement likes to employ in its dealings with religion: Highlight the worst or the most simple-minded that religion has to offer, assume that this represents the attitudes and sensibilities of most or all religious people, and then condemn/critique/ridicule those positions for all the harm they do or have done over the centuries.
According to this approach, most Christians are “young earth creationists;” the Bible can only be read in a literalist/”fundamentalist” manner; religion itself (and not the corrupted human nature that needs what religion has to offer) is what drives intolerance, imperialism, hate, and just about anything else bad that ever happens; and nobody ever did anything in the name of God that was noble, gracious, generous, loving, merciful, wise, understanding, kind, or self-sacrificing.
According to the atheist sages, religion is just plain bad and we’d all be better off if we could join John Lennon and “imagine” a world without it. To say the least, such a view of religion is seriously incomplete and impoverished, and is itself a mere caricature of what it means to have a genuine religious faith.
Obviously, it’s all too easy to find faults, and sometimes massively dreadful faults, with any religious system. As we all know, history is littered with the tragic wreckage of appalling evil perpetrated in “the name of God.” Nevertheless, to think that such faults tell the whole story, or even most of the story, of what religion is and what religious belief means to those of us who hold it is to demonstrate a striking lack of understanding of what it is to believe in God and to live a life of faith in Him.
And without that understanding, the tomes of people like Hitchens, Dawkins, et al., are going to miss the mark, no matter how intellectually astute they may be. Hey, the last time I saw Christopher Hitchens interviewed on television, he was referencing the Inquisition and the Crusades. Now, there’s a couple of events that inform day-to-day church life here in Muskingum County!
Dr. Richard Boyer Trinity United Presbyterian Church, Zanesville, Ohio
So, what is new?
Posted Friday, May 25, 2007
Earl C. Apel [Letters, May 21, 2007] appears to be claiming to be celibate, not a practicing homosexual.
Temptation to sin is common flatly states our apostle, Paul, in 1 Corinthians 10:13:
- “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”
So, Mr. Apel, if you are standing up under the temptation to homosexual (or other) sin, why do you appear to defend those who do not stand up? Rather, encourage them to trust God, to be true and just see what God will do. He will never disappoint your soul!
And if one claims to believe in his heart that Jesus is the God-sent, sinners-murdered and God-raised-from-the-dead Christ, why will they reject Moses’, the prophets’ and apostles’ Holy Spirit-inspired words? The argument that they don’t know what they do sounds hollow. We teach and preach the Bible just so that they will know, just as all practitioners of sinful lifestyles will also know.
The issue, Mr. Apel, is not how we feel about what God has said; the issue is our obedience. I am three-score and 10 years and I testify to the faithfulness of God; that He has always provided an escape, just as He did on the shores of the Red Sea. I declare that when I have stood, delivered on the other shore, I could fellowship Miriam’s rejoicing in Exodus 15.
James Logan Sr. McHenry, Md.
Limbo and purgatory
Posted Friday, May 25, 2007
Mr. Larry Brown’s statement [Letters, May 21, 2007] that the current pope “abolished purgatory” is incorrect.
Pope Benedict approved a statement in the catechism which explains that the Roman Catholic Church never had an official doctrine of limbo. Limbo is the state of “natural happiness” popularly believed to be the eternal home of infants who die un-Baptized. The happiness is described as “natural” because it is not the complete joy of being “with God” in heaven. The new catechism says that the un-Baptized infants are left to the mercy of God.
The Catholic teaching on purgatory holds that it is a state of after-death purification from sin – sin which is not severe enough to warrant eternal damnation. The Catholic Church still teaches that such a time of purification is the lot of most sinners.
Rev. Anne-Marie Hislop Davenport, Iowa
We’re all evangelicals’
Posted Thursday, May 24, 2007
- The presbytery strategy was simple and straightforward: We’re evangelicals just like you, so please don’t leave us. Chosen to make that argument were Pittsburgh Seminary professor Andrew Purves; Steven Wilson, pastor of Oakmont Presbyterian Church; and James Mead, the outgoing presbytery executive whose title is “pastor to the presbytery.” All three proffered their personal evangelical credentials as they attempted to woo the crowd.
- Parker Williamson
- The Layman Online
- What separates “evangelicals” from “fundamentalists” is that we evangelicals don’t breathe fire, and we have fancy degrees hanging in our studies instead of pictures of Billy Sunday.
- We evangelicals are they who cut this deal with modernists, “we will call you ‘brother,’ if you will call us ‘scholar.'”
- R.C. Sproul, Jr.
The gentlemen at Memorial Park Presbyterian Church were correct, in the Presbyterian Church (USA) “We’re All Evangelicals!” The folks in the New Wineskin Association of Churches are “evangelicals.” So are the saints at the Presbyterian Lay Committee.
“We’re all evangelicals.” Former Moderators Susan Andrews, Bob Bohl, and Jack Rogers are “evangelicals.” So is Cliff Kirkpatrick. Maybe it is time to stop using meaningless cliches and tell people what we really believe. Blessed are the saints who have been equipped with the sound doctrines of T.U.L.I.P.!
James E. Tuckett
There is no ‘J’ in Hebrew
Posted Thursday, May 24, 2007
Mike Zorn [Letters, May 18, 2007] needs a lesson in Hebrew. There is no “J” in Hebrew.
The Tetragramatron consists of Yod, Hay, Vov and Hay. The vowels are unknown to us at this time, but the addition of the vowels from Adonai has been accepted for 2,000 years at least.
The absence of a “J” sound in German or any other Nordic language has no bearing in the pronunciation.
Robert Demarest Cuminale deacon, PCA , Charlotte, N.C.
Catholics restored the place of Scriptures?
Posted Thursday, May 24, 2007
I read L. Rus Howard’s article, “Here I Am.” I thought it was right on target, except for the following sentence:
- “One hundred years after the Protestant Reformation, the Roman Church repented of her errors and underwent her own reformation, which restored the proper place of Scripture as the authoritative source for teaching about God and proclaiming the Good News of the Gospel.”
I teach church history for a living. Nothing of the sort ever happened. The closest thing was the Council of Trent, 1545-63. This council cleaned up much of the immorality of the Catholic clergy and recognized the Jesuits, but left Roman Catholic theology untouched.
Vatican II (1962-65) encouraged Bible reading, mandated celebration of the Mass in the vernacular, and started referring to Protestants as “separated brethren” rather than “heretics” but, again, basic Catholic theology was unchanged.
However, lately the current pope, Benedict, abolished purgatory, but then he cleared the way for the celebration of the Mass in Latin once again. Just wanted to set the record straight.
Larry Brown African Bible College, Lilongwe, Malawi
God is in charge
Posted Thursday, May 24, 2007
Thanks, Rus, you said it all.
Unfortunately, you are correct on the condition of the Presbyterian Church (USA). The denomination is becoming meaningless in a world needing hope and faith in Jesus Christ.
Fortunately, there are individual churches struggling to remain faithful to the word of God. I belong to one of those, but many who seek truth are being led by false words from those not living up to their ordination requirements to teach God’s Word. The church at Laodicia is alive and well and has been renamed PCUSA.
Thankfully, God is in charge and in the end will be victorious. God bless you and your church.
Bill Arthur Greenville, S.C.