Kamala Harris: Mike Pence is a Bad Man Because . . . Well, Because

“I disagree with him when he suggests it’s not possible to have meetings with women alone by himself. I think that’s ridiculous — the idea that you would deny a professional woman the opportunity to have a meeting with the vice president of the United States is outrageous.”

Kamala Harris – candidate for President – commenting on Mike Pence’s adherence to the Billy Graham Rule.

Since I’ve already addressed Mike Pence’s following the Billy Graham rule, I won’t make the same observations again (Mike Pence Episode - Honor Means Nothing (Unless a Feminist Says So). 

What Ms. Harris is doing here is mere political theater and raw emoting.  It is not real, it is not sensible, it follows no logic and isn’t even rational.  It’s a sound bite that people can now re-tweet and like.  It offers no rebuttal of the Billy Graham rule; it offers no suggestions as to what Mr. Pence ought to do otherwise (other than implying he should meet, alone, with women who are not his wife).

More importantly, the statement is blatantly false.  Ms. Harris offers no evidence to suggest Mike Pence denies professional women the opportunity to have a meeting with the Vice President of the United States.  She just says it as if Mike Pence failing to meet alone with women means he never meets with women at all.  The absurdity of what she is implying, without saying it, would be pricelessly hilarious if she didn’t think that she was Presidential material.

This is the world we now live in.  People who claim they are competent to lead the most powerful country in the world don’t care if what they are saying makes sense or not.  As long at it gets votes, it doesn’t matter.  As long as it’s a good sound bite, it doesn’t matter.  As long as it  get likes on Twitter and as long as it SOUNDS like it’s fair-minded, inclusive, diverse, etc., etc., etc., then it doesn’t matter.

Never mind that such statements are illogical, irrational and false.  Why, after all, should we care about that?

Jesus or Nothing - Why Atheism Doesn't Explain Good and Bad

A while back I spent two days under the teaching of Dan Dewitt, the former Dean of Boyce College in Louisville, Kentucky.  Boyce is the undergraduate arm of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  Dr. Dewitt wrote a small book entitled “Jesus or Nothing” as a perspective on engaging atheists with the gospel of Jesus Christ.  His attitude represents the best kind of thinking in this area.

Upon having read what many atheists (both the scholarly and otherwise) claim about the reality around them, one thing Dr. Dewitt struck gold with is the failure of atheism to provide a real basis for life’s experiences.  What I mean by this is that atheists don’t really live based on their professed reality.  Like the rest of us, atheists don’t like it when they’re lied to, or when someone cheats them, or steals from them, or does worse.  Atheists often do kind things for others, use clean humor, work hard at their jobs, pay their taxes, and generally behave in a “moral” fashion.  The problem for the atheist, no matter how hard the atheist tries, though, is explaining why the atheist cares about these things.  I find the websites of American Atheists and others instructive here, since there is always some effort to point out just how pleasant and thoughtful atheists are but without reference to any transcendent authority.  It’s as if human beings can somehow distill principles for living from somewhere but without having to explain where that somewhere is or whether there is a someone behind that something.

But why do atheists bother?  If we live in a cold-blooded universe which has no mind, no plan, no purpose, no thoughts, and no intent, then isn’t the best we can offer is that we are here because the universe is here.  Thus, you and I are borne of random activity which just happened to spawn not only life, but, ultimately, human life.   As a result, silly quaint notions of morality not only don’t matter, they can’t matter.  Yet, nonetheless, the American Atheists find themselves compelled to justify that they are somehow “good.”  Many atheists seem to not only claim they can be good, they WANT to be good.  It just doesn’t follow that the concept of good ought to enter the atheist vocabulary.

I probably ought to have called this blog Ironic Musings of a Puritanical Raver.  While I understand intellectually why the atheist doesn’t want God, because there are times when the demands of the Christian life befuddle me as well, what puzzles me is how often atheists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins insist religion is actually a “bad” thing.  Yes, sometimes Christians can come across as arrogant and pugnacious, myself included.  I repent of my arrogant and pugnacious days.  How is it not equally and more profoundly arrogant to claim that you are so brilliant that your human intellect, which by the way has its origins in a non-thinking, non-rational, non-logical, non-intentional, non-caring universe, can determine what is good and bad for people?  More difficult to fathom is from whence the atheist even derives such concepts as good and bad?  How can an amoral universe cause such concepts?  And, yes, the universe must have caused the concept, because the universe is all the atheist has from which to claim such causation.

More importantly, though, setting aside the incredible oddity that such a universe would cause us to come to a notion of good and bad at all, doesn’t such a universe imply that all of our actions are programmed into us from the very beginning?  If the first life that “sprang” into existence out of the primordial muck had a certain DNA, did not that DNA therefore contain all information necessary from which further life could spring?  If so, doesn’t it mean that we don’t have any control over ourselves, but simply operate based on pre-existing code embedded in us through that original piece of slime?  Thus, good and bad mean nothing since good and bad presuppose some sort of standard that transcends our programming.  Does anyone seriously say their computer was acting morally reprehensibly because it followed its programming when you hit certain key strokes? The only difference between us and our laptop or pad is we apparently have sufficient capability to strike our own keystrokes.  But isn’t even that simply part of the program?

The Christian worldview solves this problem and, frankly does so with simplicity and elegance.  A creator whom we call God set the material universe into motion for his own reasons, which we may never fully comprehend.  In doing so, he created human beings to bear his image – to provide a basic understanding of who and what he is.  Unfortunately, we humans decided image bearing was insufficient for us – we wanted it all – we wanted to be God, not just God-like.  In violating God’s one rule, we violated our image bearing status and warped and mangled it so that we now only faintly resemble the creator God whose image he intended we bear fully and completely.  God however, determined to save as many of us as he could, entered  the picture by becoming an image bearer himself.  Someone had to pay for the warping and mangling we caused and continue to cause.  God, in the form of a man, Jesus, the Christ, accepted the punishment we deserved by taking it onto himself through the means of a Roman cross in first century Palestine.  The debt paid, he rested in the grave for three days, only, by, yes, supernatural means, to rise to life.  If we repent of our sins and believe this truth, we are saved for all eternity to be proper, unwarped, and unmangled image bearers once again.

Yes, the gospel message sounds insane to worldly ears.  Yet, if it is true, then it solves everything, brings purpose, makes good and bad understandable, and provides a rational basis for living.  Atheism, ironically, only brings irrationality since it doesn’t explain how people actually live their lives.  We WANT to be good.  We WANT others to treat us rightly.  We WANT to believe our lives mean something more than mere existence.  We WANT to believe our choices matter.  If we are pre-programmed by the universe, it’s all meaningless.  Yet, people, yes even atheists, don’t live life that way.  Only the Christian worldview explains it.

Jesus is NOT a liberal political activist - He's the savior

One of the reasons I’m concerned about the current emphasis on social justice, especially by leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, isn’t because of the language being used (although there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about confusion given the secular and Marxist use of the term).  No, I’m concerned because there is an inevitable slide toward the kind of theological missteps that took place in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s with the so-called “Social Gospel” movement.  You see, it is clear that no matter how hard we try, we are never, let me repeat that word: NEVER, going to create heaven on earth.  In fact, it will take the return of Jesus to consummate God’s entire plan.

This being the case, we need to be very careful as we explore what we mean when we talk about social justice.  If we mean things like mercy ministries for the widow, the orphan and the prisoner, great.  If we start tacking into political territory about transforming society, we’re moving into ground the gospel simply doesn’t cover.  Jesus told us that our primary focus, our number one job, our main goal was to make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20).  He modeled how disciple making was to take place.  He pulled a small group out from the larger following, then developed an even smaller following from that group to act as leaders.  Discipling took place on three levels: the preaching level (larger groups), the small group level (twelve men) and the intimate level (three men).  Discipling was designed for those disciples to follow his lead by creating more disciples, from Jerusalem, to Samaria to the ends of the earth.  The formula had much to do with engagement between teacher and disciples and among disciples.  Jesus offered no political insights and no grand theories about fixing societal ills.  What he did offer was a means for individuals to come to know the God of the universe and, in doing so, transform their inner lives.  Good works were never offered as anything beyond an outworking of the inner change – evidence of a transformed life which then manifested itself in care and concern for others (see Luke 10:25-36, The Parable of the Good Samaritan, for instance).

Jesus never once told his disciples to concern themselves with transforming society by fixing racial problems, ending poverty, or assuring that women would be treated properly.  Yes, he clearly wanted us to be concerned about others.  Primarily, however, he was concerned about eternal, spiritual matters, not temporal problems.  Yes, when temporal matters got in the way, he was tough on them.  He spoke clearly to the rich young ruler not because wealth was, in itself, evil, but because this man’s wealth was an idol that was holding him back from entering God’s eternal kingdom.  Giving away the wealth wasn’t some prescription by Jesus for solving society’s problems.  It was a prescription for the heart ailment of anyone who was letting their wealth convince them they were heaven bound.  Jesus notes “how difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.”  Luke 18:24. Jesus cared that this man, who was wealthy, would not enter the kingdom of God – moreover, he was concerned for anyone else who, like this man, had wealth upon which they were relying to “save” them.  Not once does Jesus say anything like “if you are wealthy give all your wealth away to solve societal problems.”  Moreover, Jesus doesn’t once suggest that his concern was for anything other than the spiritual condition of the man to whom he was talking and any who were like him.

There is a vein of evangelicalism right now that is obsessing with the idea that Jesus is some kind of societal and political leader out to make the world a better place right now.  My wife recently alerted me to a post on Facebook from someone who we would have otherwise believed to be a serious Christian who offered that Christians should focus on Jesus as “a liberal activist” during Christmas.

No.

Jesus was not and is not an “activist” of any kind.  Jesus is the God-Man, come in the flesh from his throne in heaven, as messiah, first for the Jews, then for the rest of the world.  He sought those who would repent and believe (Mark 1:15) to enter the kingdom of heaven.  His focus was not on making earth a better place to live.  He told Pilate that his kingdom was not of this earth. 

This idea that Jesus was a liberal activist limits him so severely it makes him less than who he is.  It is, in a word, heresy.  I’ve written over 100 blog posts and the term heresy appears sparingly, so I don’t say this lightly.

Worse, this is nothing more than a form of the prosperity gospel – it’s Joel Osteen’s “Your Best Life Now.”  To turn Jesus into some kind of social do-gooder is to relegate him to the merely mortal and merely human: a leader who will fix our current problems with social and political change.  The Bible simply doesn’t support this kind of view of Jesus.  This is why serious Christians eschew the syrupy gobbledygook of Joel Osteen and other purveyors of “health and wealth” gospel claims.   This view of Jesus as liberal activist (and, therefore, God as liberal activist) becomes nothing more than a cosmic Amazon.com delivering directly to us, for us, at our convenience whatever it is we think we need.  It is heretical, unbiblical nonsense.

Southern Baptist leaders are complicit here.  They’re not clear and they’re often so busy talking about “justice” that the people in the pews are getting the message that Jesus is about transforming society in the here and now.  Isn’t that precisely what the Jews expected and one of the fundamental reasons they were so disappointed in Jesus?  They thought they were getting a political, social, religious, and military leader like King David.  Instead they got Jesus . . . and they crucified him.

Let’s be very clear that the gospel is the message that we are dead spiritually and in need of a savior.  The primary responsibility of Christians isn’t to fix social ills, it’s to make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20) so they can receive life everlasting.  John 3:36 says that those who believe in Jesus will have everlasting life; those who don’t will not see life but will feel the wrath of God.

Are we not, then, crucifying him afresh by causing his people to veer from the primary message of salvation through repentance and belief in the bloody, battered, king on a cross, who died and yet lived?  Let’s stop talking about Jesus as an activist and talk about Jesus as savior.