Chasing the Rabbit
There is only one rabbit worth chasing: God himself. He is the only rabbit who can be caught and, at the same time, remain elusive. In Christ, you can catch God.[i] And yet, because he is infinite, you will never really catch him. Once you’ve tasted the true presence of God, you should know that nothing else will ever satisfy the way he can.
Bob Buford tells a story about dog races in his book Finishing Well that rattled my heart when I first read it and continues to shake me:
“One of my favorite stories is about the dog races in Florida. They train these dogs to chase an electric rabbit, and one night the rabbit broke down, and the dogs caught it. But they didn’t know what to do with it. They were just leaping around, yelping and biting one another, totally confused about what was happening. I think that’s a picture of what happens to all sorts of people who catch the rabbit in their life. Whether its wealth or fame or beauty or a bigger house or whatever, the prize isn’t what they thought it would be. And when they finally get it, they don’t know what to do with their lives.”
What rabbits have you caught in your life? I’ve caught a lot of rabbits in my life. And, like the dogs, they usually hang lifeless in my jaws once caught.
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Heresy at the Heart of Derek Webb’s “Boys Will Be Girls”
As Pride Month and its demands increasingly invade all of life, Christians must understand the semireligious nature of the culture war we’re fighting. Homosexual behavior and cross-dressing are nothing new, but as Scrivener, Holland, and (I suspect) Chesterton would argue, the way these things are sold today—as a matter of oppressed and outcast minorities in need of compassion and deserving of equality—is new. And that’s because of Christianity.
Watching the music video for the new song “Boys Will Be Girls” by former Caedmon’s Call lead singer Derek Webb, I experienced a strange mixture of disgust, pity, and clarity about the appeal of his message. That message, part of Webb’s new album, The Jesus Hypothesis, is anything but subtle: it’s a celebration of gender transition and drag, written in response to the coming out of a close friend. In the chorus, Webb sings,
Where sometimes boys will be girlsSometimes armor will be pearlsWhat you put on, oh, it shows the worldHow hard you’re fightingBrother, sometimes boys will be girls
Appealing to Jesus
The video is, if possible, even more in-your-face. Webb goes under the brush for his own drag makeover by (self-described) “shame-slaying, hip-swaying heathen” singer-songwriter Flamy Grant (real name: Matthew Blake). It opens with a quotation by progressive pastor Stan Mitchell that reveals something of Webb’s evolved thinking on the church and LGBT+ issues: “If you claim to be someone’s ally, but aren’t getting hit by the stones thrown at them, you’re not standing close enough.”
So Webb shows us how close he’s standing. After Blake plasters him with a wig and layers of flamboyant makeup, both appear on the stage of what looks like an empty church and sing the on-the-nose final verse:
I heard Jesus loved and spent his life with those whoWere abandoned by proud and fearful menSo if a church won’t celebrate and love youThey’re believing lies that can’t save you or them‘Cause you’re so beautiful by any name
For a guy who grew up hearing Caedmon’s Call hits like “We Delight” on the radio and loved the band’s collaborations with and tributes to the late Rich Mullins, gut punches like this can tarnish what felt like purer years. Webb’s moral deconstruction is neither the highest profile nor the most unexpected in recent memory. But in many ways, it’s one of the most revealing for those who want to understand why LGBT+ ideology has made inroads within evangelicalism.
Musically and instinctively, there’s an appeal to Webb’s message. As he looks you in the eye and sings of love and compassion, as the instrumentals suggest the struggle of a tender soul against cruel and repressive social demands, you feel what he’s saying. The lyrics—in spite of a conspicuous f-bomb—pointedly invoke the listener’s nurturing impulses. It’s not “sometimes men will be women” but “sometimes boys will be girls.” To laugh this off, to ridicule or inwardly gag at this spectacle, feels like attacking something childlike and even pure. Webb may be the one caked in makeup, but his song and music video are a calculated dare to critics: Go ahead. Paint yourself as the churchy villain I’m talking about. Be the “proud and fearful” Pharisee who abandons people like me. Jesus won’t.
And yet, stop and remember what we’re talking about. This song is a celebration of an impossible delusion that has turned society upside down and led to the physical and mental devastation of countless souls, young and old.
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The Marquis de Sade – the Progressive Prophet?
For de Sade culture is relative. You can trust only yourself and your feelings – especially your sexual desires. They are your authentic self so you must do what you want and live your own truth. Freud accepted Sade’s proposition that sexual identity is fundamental to your identity and that it is bad to suppress it. We have now so adopted this as state ideology in the Western world, that to seek to suppress any one’s desires is regarded in some states as a hate crime. Whereas de Sade went to jail for sexual perversion, soon we will be sent to jail for calling it perversion!
Note: This is this week’s article on Christian Today….see the original here. I think this is a really important insight – if you agree feel free to share it…
The Marquis de Sade – the Progressive Prophet?
In order to understand the times we live in, it is essential that we know where we have come from. While this is true of personal history it is also true of our collective history – which is perhaps why The Rest is History, fronted by Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, has become one of the most popular podcasts in the English-speaking world. The mixture of deep historical knowledge, contemporary application, British humour and joyful camaraderie make for a wonderful listening experience.
Every now and then they come up with an episode which is revelatory – almost prophetic. A recent example was on that unlikeliest of historical subjects, the infamous Marquis de Sade. In less skilled hands the temptation to turn this into a kind of mocking sleaze fest would have been too much, but not to our two intrepid presenters.
In fact, what transpired was enlightening. When we find ourselves wondering how the Western world has ended up in its present state of confusion and disintegration, the Rest is History’s analysis of de Sade helps us to the answers. In summary, Holland and Sandbrook argued that the ideologies and ideas of Freud, Darwin and Nietzsche were there in seed form in de Sade.
De Sade, a Frenchman, was born in 1740. He was a writer, philosopher, politician and playboy. He lived through the French revolution and even became a key participant in it, becoming an elected delegate to the National Convention. He died in September 1814 having lived a life of debauchery, sexual perversion and violent abuse. He recorded his ideology in various writings including the books Justine and The 120 Days of Sodom – works that are so grotesque they were banned in the UK until 1989.
They are horrific – so horrific that Tom Holland records that though he had tried to read The 120 Days of Sodom several times, he gave up. He described it as literally “unreadable”, because of its evil and sickening content. It is an interesting observation that websites like Amazon feel quite free to offer this book for sale (and Penguin are now quite happy to publish it as a ‘classic’) but dare to misgender someone and your books could be banned! At a personal level I would strongly discourage people from reading this dark perversity – I know of people who have been severely harmed by reading it at university.
His promotion of what became known as sadism, as well as masochism and homosexuality was, for its day, so extreme that he ended up in prison for over 30 years of his life. But as Holland and Sandbrook point out, much of his philosophy would today now be regarded as ‘progressive’. Here are his principles which sound so modern.
1. All Is Naturalistic Materialism
He was a social Darwinist, believing in the survival of the fittest. He had faith that everything was material. All are molecules and molecules are endlessly turning. Therefore, war and murder are natural and desirable. It is natural for wolves to eat lambs – and we should never oppose nature.
2. Reject Christianity
It is not without significance that de Sade was a committed atheist, who like Nietzsche, rejected not only the religion of Christianity but also its values and virtues. De Sade hated and despised Christ and the Church. He continually blasphemed against all aspects of Christianity and attacked Christ, as well as portraying the clergy as perverted hypocrites. He regarded Christianity as a slave religion which was fit only for the weak.
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The SBC’s “Title IX” Recommendations on Handling Abuse
Written by Aaron M. Renn |
Tuesday, June 21, 2022
The recommendations in the report essentially represent a progressive takeover of the SBC, utilizing the same pattern of of Title IX style administrative control used by progressives in higher education (and elsewhere). As in secular society, accusations of wrongdoing are being leveraged for the purposes of seizing control of an institution.In newsletter #49 I discussed the importance of defending institutional integrity. The first plank of this was “trusthworthiness,” that is, operating with baseline morals and ethics. As I put it, “You would think this would be a simple baseline element of institutional leadership, but alas apparently not. The number of churches and other Christian institutions with a variety of moral, ethical, operational, and even criminal problems is absurdly high.”
Unfortunately, one of the areas with severe failings has been in responding to abuse. The Catholic abuse scandals get the most press, but there’s a ton of Protestant ones too. At the same time, I pointed out that in the Protestant world, outrage over abuse is curiously selective and often associated with political attempts by activists to insert themselves as the leaders of the institution being accused. I said with regards to this:
This is why, although even accusations by enemies that are true need to be strongly addressed, you should never give any sort of position of authority or oversight of your organization to people making accusations against it. You’ll note that they frequently agitate for this such as by demanding that some allied organization be retained for an investigation, calling for the board members to be replaced (naturally by people of which they approve), etc. But just because I point out that an organization has some conflict of interest, for example, that doesn’t mean I or my buddies should be assigned any role in running or overseeing its finances.
I want to examine the recent Southern Baptist Convention abuse report through this lens. I didn’t go into any detail on the investigation itself and the findings. Sadly, I have no doubt that there are many cases of abuse, and many cases in which incidents of abuse were poorly handled.
The SBC is a huge denomination with nearly 14 million members. Clearly, any group this large will have lot of bad things happen within it. Demographer Lyman Stone suggested that the report shows the SBC has lower levels of abuse than we would expect. Even if that’s true, it certainly doesn’t excuse the evildoers or those who failed to correctly act in positions of authority. Judgment begins with the household of God. The Protestant house has not been in order on abuse.
Rather than the allegations themselves, I want to look at the report’s recommendations for action. There are about 30 pages worth of them, including 17 executive committee recommendations (along with two alternatives) and 16 credentials commmittee recommendations. So even in the recommendations, I cannot do a detailed analysis here. But I will give a big picture look.
Creating a Title IX Style Adjudication System in the SBC
Before getting into the recommendations, it’s important to note that in baptist church polity, each congregation is completely autonomous. Unlike other denominations like the Episcopal Church or the Presbyterian Church, where the denomination provides a lot of oversight and control over congregations, baptist denominations do not have authority over their churches. Basically, the only membership requirements are very low baselines, such as giving assent to the broadly evangelical Baptist Faith and Message statement. The SBC is more of a cooperative association than a denomination per se.
The abuse report recommendations start to change that in two key ways:It proposes creating an “administrative entity” that will be similar to a Title IX style tribunal in investigating allegations of abuse.
It proposes turning the credentialing committee (which basically determines whether or not a church is affiliated with the SBC) into a more expansive accrediting committee that can kick out any churches that don’t comply with the Title IX style entity, or who are otherwise not perceived as following the party line from the report recommendations on abuse.Given that this report is about some of the some heinous felonies on the books —sexual assault and sexual abuse —it’s remarkable how few references to the criminal or civil legal system there are in the recommendations. Apart from references to mandated reporting —cases where churches are legally obligated to report suspected abuse to the police —I only saw one reference to criminal justice in the recommendations, a note that the Title IX style entity might hire people from law enforcement backgrounds.
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