The Blinne Blog

The Speculist: Carnival of Tomorrow 1.0

The Speculist: Carnival of Tomorrow 1.0 has one of my blog entries in it. Check out the rest.

Rich at The Blinne Blog comments that fundamentalists on both sides of the stem cell debate have created a "huge false dichotomy."

Moderates Misunderstood

E.J. Dionne believes there is a  Revolt of the Middle. While that maybe true it is not quite as he describes. He doesn't get many moderates just like the beltway doesn't get "values voters". Being a moderate Evangelical, I get to be doubly misunderstood. :-)

But something important has happened since President Bush's inauguration. America's moderates may not be screaming, but they're in revolt. Many who reluctantly supported the president and the Republicans in 2004 are turning away. The party's agenda on Social Security, judges and the Terri Schiavo case is out of touch with where moderate voters stand. Worse for Bush and his party, most moderates have a practical, problem-solving view of government and think these issues are far less important than shoring up a shaky economy and improving living standards.

Wrong. Many moderates -- at least religious moderates -- are not merely green-eye-shade pragmatists. There is principle behind who we are. We are concerned about the process as well as the policies. We don't require partisan advocates to be lite versions of the other party. Rather, we want the advocacy done fairly, honestly, and without the over-the-top rhetoric. The reason why Bush gained much of our support was because of the overly-strident critique of him by the Left. That support is cut into, however, if the Republicans return in kind.

The latest poll to bring home this message was released late last week by the Democracy Corps, a Democratic consortium led by pollster Stan Greenberg and consultant James Carville. Greenberg and Carville are not triumphalist. They are careful to note that "Democrats are not yet integral to the narrative" of American politics and that the decline in the Republicans' public image "is not accompanied by image gains for the Democrats." Democrats still have a lot of work to do.

The work the Democrats need to do is to turn down the temperature. Otherwise, what the Republicans are doing wrong will not benefit them. At least for religious moderates, this is a matter of principle. But what is that principle? What do religious moderates require of politicians? The same God requires of us all (Micah 6:8):

He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

Racial Threats Causes Evacuation at Christian College

Originally Posted: 4/24/2005

The official denominational college for the Evangelical Free Church of America (the denomination to which I belong) had an ugly racial incident this week. The New York Times reported the following:

Scores of African-American and Hispanic students at a small Evangelical Christian college here missed classes and were set to spend a second night in seclusion on Friday, after a series of threatening racist letters spurred their evacuation from the campus. Officials at Trinity International University, a conservative Bible-based school headquartered in this village 30 miles north of Chicago, said three students, two of them black and one Hispanic, had received hate-filled handwritten notes through the campus mail over two weeks.

The officials said they urged nearly 200 minority undergraduates to leave their dormitories after the third letter arrived on Thursday because it included growing threats of violence and was sent within days of the anniversaries of the Columbine school shooting in Colorado, the Oklahoma City bombing and Hitler's birth.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson helped to diffuse some of the tension:

The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, who met on Friday afternoon with recipients of the letters as well as other students, professors and parents, praised the institution's record on race and its response to the letters.

"What is painful to me today is to talk to these students - so young, so beautiful - who feel like a target is on their back because they are black," he told reporters. "Today their faith is tested in real time. Will they face evil with courage or will they face evil with fear?"

The Chicago Tribune reported the following concerning how Jackson helped:

Rev. Jesse Jackson said he met Friday at an undisclosed nearby church with some students, professors and parents who are black and Latino.

"It's not just the black students that are targeted here, but the entire campus," Jackson said. "There's nothing about this school, or any place, that makes it safe from violence. People of faith must have courage in the face of these threats."

Amen. It is too bad that college officials needed to be so cautious and remove the minority students from campus. The Chicago Sun Times had a columnist who complained about this. Fortunately, recent reports show that the students did return to campus today with 24-hour security guards being posted. The authorities do not have a suspect as of yet.

Update 4/26/2005: This appears to be a hoax.

A black college student was charged with a hate crime Tuesday for allegedly mailing racist threats to fellow minorities on campus, apparently because she was homesick and wanted to convince her parents the school was dangerous, authorities said.

The hate mail at 3,300-student Trinity International University spread fear among blacks and Hispanics on campus and prompted authorities at the Christian school to move more than 40 minorities out of their dormitories and into a hotel last week.

Alicia Hardin, 19, of Chicago was charged with disorderly conduct and a hate crime. The hate crime charge carries up to five years in prison.

She confessed to police on Monday, saying she was unhappy at Trinity and wanted to leave, said Lt. Ron Price.

This incident (hopefully just an empty threat) shows the importance for conservative Christians to take racial hatred seriously. The administration at Trinity College did even if some feel that they may have over-reacted. Some of the quotes from the students are encouraging.

 

"It was terrible," said Myleson Collins, an African-American student who was at an assembly Thursday where school officials broke the news of the letters and outlined the evacuation.

"I saw students crying. I didn't know what was going on. I was just praying," he said.
"We got segregated real quick. It felt like the 1960s with Martin Luther King. They didn't tell us where we were going."

Collins, a senior from Chicago, said the latest letter was sent to a friend of his, a black female student who told him what it said. The letter said that the writer had seen the student in church and that she was `lucky' because `I forgot to put bullets in my gun,'" Collins said.

...

"A lot of us are angry that people would [make threats]," said Kim, a white senior in her 30s who declined to give her last name. "It was really sad as we helped our friends get ready to go. That's what makes it hit home."
...

The decision to evacuate was announced around 4:30 p.m. Thursday after the third letter was discovered, Collins said.

School officials told all minority students to gather in the recreation center, where they were told what was happening, Collins said.

"It was really terrifying," he said. "I don't want to go back.

"As we left the recreation center, all the white kids were looking at you, and some of them were crying," Collins said. "It hurt so much for the first time I cried."

...

At a news conference on campus, the president of the student body said the threat "outrages us personally and as a community."

"In general, students feel very safe," said Steven Wilson, a senior from Cincinnati. "They are excited to get the other students back on campus. This is very out of character for our community."

Watson Jones, a black student who was among those evacuated Thursday night, did not attend classes Friday. He said that although his classmates were not letting the situation get them down, "we felt threatened. We were afraid."

...

Several white students at Trinity said the threats brought to life a division no one wants.

Lauren Poierier, 20, a sophomore, said it felt weird to walk around Friday on the largely empty campus.

"It makes me feel sad that the minorities have to go through this and feel unwanted," she said.

Saudi Plan for Oil Production Unattainable

Yesterday,  President Bush and Saudi Prince Abdullah discussed high oil prices. Prince Abdullah promised nothing in the short term but had the following plan for the long term:

The officials said the Saudis used the meeting to detail for Mr. Bush the steps they intended to take to cushion the global market from future increases in demand from fast-growing economies like China and India, and from the United States and other industrial nations.

Saudi Arabia's plan, which it began discussing publicly weeks ago, calls for spending up to $50 billion to increase its maximum sustainable production capacity to 12.5 million barrels a day by 2009, and to 15 million in the subsequent decade, from about 10.8 million barrels now. The Saudis are currently pumping about 9.5 million barrels a day.

There is an Achilles heal to that plan. It is known as the Ghawar Oil Field. Last October, there was a meeting of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists conference in Denver. Petroleum Geologist, Glenn Morton, noted the following at the meeting:

The next night at one of the parties, I spoke to a person who was involved in the session (he will remain nameless as he is an old friend and a real bigwig at an important company).  I told him some of my ideas about the future of oil and Ghawar in particular. He said that this would explain something he had heard--that Saudi Arabia was desperately trying to hire western explorationists to explore Saudi Arabia for more fields. Why would they do this if they had all sorts of excess oil production capacity.

Speaking of Ghawar, I went to a talk on an attempt to collect 4D seismic over that field (4D is time-lapse 3d seismic. Two surveys are acquired in identical patterns after a period of time in which oil is produced from the field. we use it to monitor fluid flow).  At Ghawar, the world's largest field, they began water injection when the field was put on line back in the early 50s. I will draw the picture, eventually I will get it onto my web page, but I am tired tonight having just returned to Houston.  Below, I's are injectors, P's are producers and O is areas occupied by oil.  The initial injector well were just beyond the initial oil water contact of the Arab D reservoir. As the oil was extracted, a formerly producing well would be turned into an injector (a P would become an I), so you will see what it looks like today after lots of producers have been turned into I's. Water is injected into the carbonate reservoir in order to maintain reservoir pressure and allow the field to be produced at 5 million barrels per day. If the pressure were to drop, the production rate would fall quickly. Here is what I saw.

I..I...I...I....I....I....I........I..OPOOPO.I....I...I....I.....I......I.....I
I..I...I...I....I....I....I......I..OOOOOOOOOOO...I...I....I.....I......I.....I
I..I...I...I....I....I....I.....I..OOPOOOOOOOOOPOOI...I....I.....I......I.....I
I..I...I...I....I....I....I........OOPOOOOOOOOOPOOI...I....I.....I......I.....I
I..I...I...I....I....I....I.......OOPOOOOOOOOOPOO.I...I....I.....I......I.....I
I..I...I...I....I....I....I.......OOPOOOOOOOOOPOO.I...I....I.....I......I.....I
I..I...I...I....I....I....I.......OOPOOOOOOOOOPOO.I...I....I.....I......I.....I
I..I...I...I....I....I....I.......OOPOOOOOOOOOPOO.I...I....I.....I......I.....I
I..I...I...I....I....I....I........OOPOOOOOOOOOPOOI...I....I.....I......I.....I
I..I...I...I....I....I....I........OOPOOOOOOOOOPOOI...I....I.....I......I.....I
I..I...I...I....I....I....I........OOPOOOOOOOOOPOOI...I....I.....I......I.....I
I..I...I...I....I....I....I.......OOPOOOOOOOOOPOO.I...I....I.....I......I.....I
I..I...I...I....I....I....I.......OOPOOOOOOOOOPOO.I...I....I.....I......I.....I
I..I...I...I....I....I....I...........0OOOOOOOO...I...I....I.....I......I.....I
I..I...I...I....I....I....I........I..OPOOPO.I....I...I....I.....I......I.....I

Notice how little oil there is. Oil used to cover the entire area, 30 km across.This is approximately the right relationship of the old field size to the present field size in Uthmaniyah area of Ghawar.

That picture verified what I had been told privately by reservoir engineers who have worked Ghawar.  If anyone remembers my post on the reservoir engineering conference last March,  you will recall that I was told that reservoir simulation models had predicted that Ghawar would undergo a massive decline in production in 2008-2009.  But reservoir models always overestimate the amount of oil one gets.

Consider an oil field like a glass and a straw. When the glass empties it takes more pressure to get the liquid through the straw. Water is injected into the oil fields to keep the pressure up. You can tell if a field is getting long in the tooth by seeing how much water comes up with the oil. What about Ghawar? Last year the New York Times reported the following:

Saudi Arabia's reported proven reserves, more than 250 billion barrels, are one-fourth of the world's total. The most significant is Ghawar. Discovered in 1948, the 300-mile-long sliver near the

Persian Gulf is the world's largest oil field and accounts for more than half of the kingdom's production.

The company told The New York Times that its field production practices, including those at Ghawar, were "at optimum levels" and the risk of steep declines was negligible. But Mr. Price, the former vice president for exploration and production at Saudi Aramco, says that North Ghawar, the most valuable section of the field, was pushed too hard in the past.

"Instead of spreading the production to other fields or areas," Mr. Price said, the Saudis concentrated on North Ghawar. That "accelerated the depletion rate and the time to uncontrolled decline," or the point where the field's production drops dramatically, he said.

In Saudi Arabia, seawater is injected into the giant fields to help move the oil toward the top of the reservoir. But over time, the volume of water that is lifted along with the oil increases, and the volume of oil declines proportionally. Eventually, it becomes uneconomical to extract the oil. There is also a risk that the field can become unstable and collapse.

Ghawar is still far too productive to abandon. But because of increasing problems with managing the water, one Saudi oil executive said, "Ghawar is becoming very costly to maintain."

The average decline rate in Saudi Aramco's mature fields — Ghawar and a few others — "is in the range of 8 percent per year," without additional remediation, according to the company's statement. This means several hundred thousand barrels of daily oil production would have to be added every year just to make up for the diminished output.

Every oil field is unique, and experts cannot predict how long each might last. For its part, Saudi Aramco is counting on Ghawar for years to come.

The company projects that Ghawar will continue to produce more than half its oil. One internal company estimate from 2002 puts Ghawar's production at 5.25 million barrels a day in 2011, more than half the total expected crude oil capacity of 10.15 million, according to United States government officials and oil executives.

"The big risk in Saudi Arabia is that Ghawar's rate of decline increases to an alarming point," said Ali Morteza Samsam Bakhtiari, a senior official with the National Iranian Oil Company. "That will set bells ringing all over the oil world because Ghawar underpins Saudi output and Saudi undergirds worldwide production."

In short, not only won't Saudi Arabia help us out of our oil woes, they can't.

Religious Moderation Killed by Nuclear Option

The argument over judicial nominations and the filibuster is killing religious and political moderation. First, the religious right claimed that opposing the move was against people of faith.

Frist is trying to win support for a ban on the use of the filibuster, a technique to delay Senate business, to block votes on judicial nominees. He has agreed to give a videotaped speech Sunday for Justice Sunday: Stop the Filibuster Against People of Faith.

My question to Focus on the Family is how either position on procedures is against people of faith? Not to be undone, the  Democratic Senator Ken Salazar returned in kind.

Washington - Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar angrily denounced the influential Christian conservative organization Focus on the Family on Wednesday as "unchristian."

In response, the Colorado Springs group accused the lifelong Roman Catholic of taking an "anti-Catholic" stance.

The war of words was prompted by Focus on the Family's advertising campaign attacking Salazar's position on President Bush's judicial nominations. Democrat Salazar opposes Republican efforts to eliminate the filibuster - a procedural hurdle Democrats use to block votes on certain nominees.

Salazar said the ads include "flat-out lies" about his record.

"Focus on the Family has been hijacking Christianity and has become a wing of the Republican Party," Salazar said after a news conference. "They're using Christianity and religion in a very unprincipled way."

I guess you can expect political parties and lobbying groups would try to appropriate religion to defend their political positions. What I find even more disturbing is when churches get drawn into the fray. I find offensive the call for a so-called Justice Sunday appropriating the pulpits of conservative churches. It is one thing to have sermons supporting life and opposing abortion. It is quite another thing to have a procedural vote to become the warp and woof of Christianity. As far as I know, the conservative churches have not yet taken the bait. The liberal churches have.

 

The moderator of the PCUSA chastised Majority Leader, Bill Frist.

Among those scheduled to speak in the conference call is the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, a top official of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., in which Dr. Frist is an active member.

"One of the hallmarks of our denomination is that we are an ecumenical church," Mr. Kirkpatrick said in an interview on Thursday. He also said, "Elected officials should not be portraying public policies as being for or against people of faith."

A spokesman for Dr. Frist said his remarks, which are not yet available, would be consistent with previous statements about fair treatment for judicial nominees. "I would hope that he would read Dr. Frist's remarks," the spokesman, Bob Stevenson, said of Mr. Kirkpatrick.

I don't get the ecumenism reference. Frist was trying to get support for his proposal amongst religious conservatives. It was Focus and other religious right  groups and not Senator Frist that were making the outrageous claims. On the other hand, I suspect Rev. Kilpatrick was trying to influence the vote the other way. Pot say hello to kettle. Note the following is part of the PCUSA's Constitution (Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter XXXI):

IV. Synods and councils are to handle, or conclude nothing, but that which is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary; or, by way of advice, for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate.

When the more conservative Presbyterian Church in America considered the proposed marriage amendment to the constitution last Summer. They declared it to be none of their business.

So what is causing all this shouting and name-calling on all sides? Columnist David Brooks nails it.

Justice Harry Blackmun did more inadvertent damage to our democracy than any other 20th-century American. When he and his Supreme Court colleagues issued the Roe v. Wade decision, they set off a cycle of political viciousness and counter-viciousness that has poisoned public life ever since, and now threatens to destroy the Senate as we know it.

Brooks doesn't go far enough. The nuclear option will not only blow up the Senate but civil discourse in general. Judicial activism not only causes rulings that I believe are wrong but also has horrific effects on both politics and religion. The nuclear option may produce more judges that are less judicially active but at a terrible cost.

Brooks concludes:

The fact is, the entire country is trapped. Harry Blackmun and his colleagues suppressed that democratic abortion debate the nation needs to have. The poisons have been building ever since. You can complain about the incivility of politics, but you can't stop the escalation of conflict in the middle. You have to kill it at the root. Unless Roe v. Wade is overturned, politics will never get better.

I'm even less sanguine than Brooks. Even with overturning Roe v. Wade, neither politics or religion will get better. Until people of faith on both the left and right start showing some more good will, our country will be stuck in an intractable civil war. We need to be part of the answer rather than part of the problem.

 

Dean Lures Back Red State Voters with Wrong Bait

Howard Dean gives as a goal of trying to lure so-called "values" votes in a USA Today interview.

"We need to be a national party, we need a national message, and we need to understand why people in dire economic straits — people who certainly aren't being helped by Republican policies — why they vote for George Bush," he said. "We need to respect voters in red states who want to vote for us, but we make it hard for them by not listening to what they have to say."

So far, so good. Values voters such as myself believe that the proper role of government is to protect the weak from the strong. The Democrats could make the argument that the so-called values agenda is too narrow. I made such an argument in January. Liberal Evangelicals, Ron Sider and Jim Wallis,  make similar appeals. I find such appeals moderately compelling. So, how about Howard Dean's own appeal?

Democrats get "caught" in defending abortion, he said. "Well, there's nobody who's pro-abortion, not Democratic or Republican. What we want to debate is who gets to choose: (House Majority Leader) Tom DeLay and the federal politicians? Or does a woman get to make up her own mind?"

This falls very flat. The issue is not who decides but whether the Democrats will be true to their roots of being for the powerless.  Hubert Humphrey put it this way:

The moral test of government is how that government  treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those in the shadows of life--the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.

One could effectively argue that the Republicans fail that test. Republicans pick up Evangelical voters because they don't fail as badly as the Democrats. Either party could easily improve their situation because the bar is so low. Dean's quote shows that despite his best intentions he is not really listening. Thus, he is losing what might have been an easy opportunity to pick up Evangelical voters.

Galileo, the Church, and the Bible

One of the accomplishments of Pope John Paul II was the rehabilitation of Galileo:

Oct 31, 1992 - After 359 years, Pope rehabilitates Galileo, condemned by the Church for saying earth turns around the sun.

The conflict between Galileo and the Roman Catholic Church has been the classical example of the conflict between Science and Biblical Christianity. However, Galileo's approach to Scripture was much more nuanced than has been generally appreciated. Galileo had a problem with an interpretation of Scripture but not Scripture itself. As such, he is a model of finding the common ground between science and religion and not their conflict. Note the following from pages 63 and 64 of Galileo's Daughter:

The troubling news of Madama Cristina’s displeasure inspired an immediate response from Galileo. Even more than he regretted her opposition, he dreaded the drawing of battle lines between science and Scripture. Personally, he saw no conflict between the two. In the long letter he wrote back to Castelli on December 21, 1613, he probed the relationship of discovered truth in Nature to revealed truth in the Bible.

“As to the first general question of Madama Cristina, it seems to me that it was most prudently propounded to you by her, and conceded and established by you, that Holy Scripture cannot err and the decrees therein contained are absolutely true and inviolable. I should only have added that, though Scripture cannot err, its expounders and interpreters are liable to err in many ways … when they would base themselves always on the literal meaning of the words. For in this wise not only many contradictions would be apparent, but even grave heresies and blasphemies, since then it would be necessary to give God hands and feet and eyes, and human and bodily emotions such as anger, regret, hatred, and sometimes forgetfulness of things past, and ignorance of the future.”

These literary devices had been inserted into the Bible for the sake of the masses, Galileo insisted, to aid their understanding of matters pertaining to their salvation. In the same way, biblical language had also simplified certain physical effects in Nature, to conform to common experience. “Holy Scripture and Nature,” Galileo declared, “are both emanations from the divine word: the former dictated by the Holy Spirit, the latter the observant executrix of God’s commands.”

Whither Modernism?

Donald Kennedy in last week's editorial in the journal Science bemoaned the twilight of the Enlightenment, a.k.a. modernism.

For much of their existence over the past two centuries, Europe and the United States have been societies of questioners: nations in which skepticism has been accepted and even welcomed, and where the culture has been characterized by confidence in science and in rational methods of thought. We owe this tradition in part to the birth of the Scottish Enlightenment of the early 18th century, when the practice of executing religious heretics ended, to be gradually replaced by a developing conviction that substituted faith in experiment for reliance on inherited dogma.

That new tradition, prominently represented by the Scottish philosopher David Hume, supplied important roots for the growth of modernity, and it has served U.S. society well, as it has Europe's. The results of serious, careful experimentation and analysis became a standard for the entry of a discovery or theory into the common culture of citizens and the policies of their governments. Thus, scientific determinations of the age of Earth and the theories of gravity, biological evolution, and the conservation of matter and energy became meaningful scientific anchors of our common understanding.

Kennedy claims too much here. Darwin was not the atheist Hume was. Frank Burch Brown in The Evolution of Darwin's Religious Views (as quoted by Alistair McGrath, The Twilight of Atheism, p. 104) stated:

His beliefs concerning the possible existence of some sort of God never entirely ceased to ebb and flow, nor did his evaluation of the merit of such beliefs. At low tide, so to speak, he was essentially an undogmatic atheist; at high tide he was a tentative theist; the rest of the time he was basically agnostic -- in sympathy with theism but unable or unwilling to commit himself on such imponderable questions. Overall his thought regarding theological matters could best be described as being in what he himself termed a "muddle."

Isaac Newton was a Christian. Kennedy goes on to complain:

Finally, certain kinds of science are now proscribed on what amount to religious grounds. Stem cell research is said by its opponents to pose a "moral dilemma." Yet this well-advertised dilemma does not arise from a confrontation between science and ethical universals. Instead, the objections arise from a particular belief about what constitutes a human life: a belief held by certain religions but not by others. Some researchers, eager to resolve the problem, seek to derive stem cells by techniques that might finesse the controversy. But the claim that the stem cell "dilemma" rests on universal values is a false claim, and for society to accept it to obtain transitory political relief would bring church and state another step closer.

The present wave of evangelical Christianity, uniquely American in its level of participation, would be nothing to worry about were it a matter restricted to individual conviction and to the expressions of groups gathering to worship. It's all right that in the best-selling novels about the "rapture," the true believers ascend and the rest of us perish painfully. But U.S. society is now experiencing a convergence between religious conviction and partisan loyalty, readily detectable in the statistics of the 2004 election. Some of us who worry about the separation of church and state will accept tablets that display the Ten Commandments on state premises, because they fail to cross a threshold of urgency. But when the religious/political convergence leads to managing the nation's research agenda, its foreign assistance programs, or the high-school curriculum, that marks a really important change in our national life. Twilight for the Enlightenment? Not yet. But as its beneficiaries, we should also be its stewards.

The current political situation is the result of a huge false dichotomy. So, people are forced to chose based upon their deepest allegiance. For most people,including myself, that would be their religion. So, if Donald Kennedy wants more people to accept the theories of modern science he needs to drop -- what Steven Jay Gould said of Richard Dawkins -- his Darwinian Fundamentalism. For those of us who are interested in both science and Evangelical Christianity, the Fundamentalists are on both sides are making a mess of things.

Church of Nigeria in America Established

Regular readers of my blog will note my chronicling the deterioration of the relationship between the Episcopal Church (ECUSA) and other Anglican bodies in what is known as the Global South. Leading the charge amongst the Third-World Anglicans is Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria. On April 8th Archbishop Akinola announced the establishment of the The Church of Nigeria in America.

I have also become aware of the challenging circumstances in which many of you find yourselves because of the actions of ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada. By their recent decisions, they have torn the fabric of our common life and have jeopardized your lives and ministries. This is a tragic reality that cannot be ignored. While it remains my prayer that ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada will repent and embrace the teaching of the Communion, their actions have placed an obligation upon me to provide for the proper and continuing pastoral and episcopal oversight for Nigerian churches in North America.

It is well known that many Nigerian Anglicans who live in the North America are no longer able to worship in an Anglican church, some have drifted to other churches, and others have even given up the faith.  I well remember one woman coming to me during one of my visits and, with tears, saying she could no longer worship in an ECUSA church and that her whole family no longer had a church home, yet they would prefer to remain faithful Anglicans. In saying this she spoke for many others.

Several of our Nigerian clergy in America have been informed they can no longer work in an Episcopal diocese or have had their funding cut.  Finally, the unilateral dismissal by the Presiding Bishop of the Chaplain we had jointly appointed to minister to Nigerian congregations illustrates the extent of the brokenness of our relationship and underlines the need to provide alternative structures for episcopal and pastoral care.

After much prayer and careful discernment with appropriate colleagues and advisors over the last two years, and in full consultation with the Nigerian congregations in America, together with the enthusiastic endorsement of the Episcopal Synod and the Standing Committee of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) we announce the formation of the Convocation of Anglican Nigerian Churches in America.

This Convocation will function as a ministry of the Church of Nigeria in America. Our intention is not to challenge or intervene in the churches of ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada but rather to provide safe harbour for those who can no longer find their spiritual home in those churches. While it will initially operate under our Constitution and Canons, it will have its own legal and ecclesial structure and local suffragan episcopate. I will be asking the next General Synod of the Church of Nigeria, which will meet in September 2005, to make the necessary constitutional amendments.

During the intervening months, in cooperation with our friends in the Anglican Communion Network, I will be appointing episcopal visitors from among already consecrated bishops to provide pastoral and episcopal oversight for those congregations already in operation and in formation. I am excited by the possibilities before us and look forward to seeing this ministry grow.

ID Cannot Take the Heat

Proponents of a theory known as intelligent design (ID) have gotten together to form a blog called Intelligent Design the Future. This blog differs from other blogs such as this one by not having comments. One of the entries complains about confusing ID with Young Earth Creationism (YEC):

ID and the Charge of Creationism William Dembski

Despite intelligent design’s clear linkage, both methodologically and in content, with existing sciences that sift the effects of intelligence from undirected natural forces, critics of intelligent design often label it a form of creationism. Not only is this label misleading, but in academic and scientific circles it has become a maneuver to censor ideas before they can be fairly discussed.

Excuse me? If people cannot interact on your blog, the charge of censorship falls hollow at least on my ears. What about the substance of the complaint? Is it reasonable for people to conclude that ID is a form of creationism? This seems to be complaining too much because you could argue anybody who believes in a creator including theistic evolutionists are a form of creationism. In fact, many -- including myself -- who hold to that view prefer the label evolutionary creationists. What about the other end of the spectrum? What do YECs consider ID to be? Jonathan Savarti in Answers in Genesis says this:

Young-earth creationists (YECs) and the Intelligent Design Movement (IDM) are natural allies in many ways, although we have major differences as well.

Dembski tries to disassociate himself from YECs but in my opinion grants too much:

Despite my disagreements with Morris and young earth creationism, I regard those disagreements as far less serious than my disagreements with the Darwinian materialists.

Dembski like Gertrude in Hamlet protesteth too much. Until he more publicly and explicitly disavows YEC it is reasonable for the general public and academia to assume they are joined at the hip. Hopefully, this new venture will do just that if he opens up comments on his blog. Welcome to the blogosphere. Ask Dan Rather what it is like. If you cannot take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

 

Pluralism Good for Evangelical Church

The Evangelical Outpost is having a symposium asking about Judeo-Christian morality in an ethically pluralistic society. First, I'm going to narrow the topic from Judeo-Christian morality and look specifically at an Evangelical one (given that in my opinion the whole Judeo-Christian label is not helpful). Second, since the topic itself appears to beg the question I will not presuppose what form the influence Evangelical Christians ought to have on society as a whole.

The problem concerning the interaction between a so-called pluralistic society and believers is almost three thousand years old. King Ahab had adopted the henotheism of the surrounding Canaanite culture. Henotheism is the a belief that each nation had its own god. We will see more of this in a much different context later. This was (like today) a faux pluralism. You could choose amongst a number of gods, but the choice of Yahweh who was the God of all people was not available. The prophet Elijah challenged the state religion and made truth claims in what we call today the "marketplace of ideas". Even Elijah was plural in the sense was there were multiple options of which there needs to be choice. Elijah put it this way in 1 Kings 18:21:

Elijah went before the people and said, "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him."

But the people said nothing.

Elijah was definitely counter-cultural in that he was one prophet amongst hundreds on the other side. He also became depressed when his actions did not produce a society-wide change. Note how Elijah was rejected by the people making a non-choice and the king by an imposed choice. This is the essence of pluralism. God relieved that depression by showing Elijah a remnant who truly followed Him and who did made a real choice.

Presenting an option is the middle ground between the non-choice and the imposed choice of a state religion. The latter has produced profoundly negative effects in church history.

After the Thirty Years' War came the Peace of Westphalia. This established a "henotheism" in Europe by carving it up into Catholic and Lutheran sections. This was the start of the established national churches. There were exceptions by the so-called "free churches" that were not established. (Note: the Evangelical Free Church of which I am a member is a descendent of such a church.)  An attempted revolt against the established religion in the Peasants' War resulted in disaster with hundreds of thousands of deaths. In fact, death was the result of established religion irrrespective of who was in charge. For example, in England Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, and Sir Thomas More were all executed for their religious views.

This produced the English Dissenters or non-conformists who dissented from the Act of Uniformity. Many of the non-conformist denominations (e.g. Baptists, Anabaptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, and Puritans) are the forerunners of modern Evangelicals. This particularly carried over to America. Patrick Henry's famous speech Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death was in part the result of witnessing a non-conforming pastor being flogged for lacking a license to preach. Thomas Jefferson's famous letter coining the phrase "separation of church and state" was in response to the Danbury Baptist Association who were concerned about the established church.

Here's a part of their request that spawned Jefferson's remark:

Our Sentiments are uniformly on the side of Religious Liberty -- That Religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals -- That no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious Opinions - That the legitimate Power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor: But Sir our constitution of government is not specific. Our ancient charter together with the Laws made coincident therewith, were adopted on the Basis of our government, at the time of our revolution; and such had been our Laws & usages, and such still are; that Religion is considered as the first object of Legislation; and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the State) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights: and these favors we receive at the expense of such degradingacknowledgements, as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen. It is not to be wondered at therefore; if those, who seek after power & gain under the pretense of government & Religion should reproach their fellow men -- should reproach their chief Magistrate, as an enemy of religion Law & good order because he will not, dare not assume the prerogatives of Jehovah and make Laws to govern the Kingdom of Christ.

Scripture and history teach us that pluralism is not quite the enemy we assume them to be. It is true that it is used as an excuse like the people at Mount Carmel not to decide. But, it is preferable to the religious tyranny spawned by state-sponsored religion. There is a catch phrase used by people in progressive politics that applies here to Evangelicals as we interact with our culture:

Speak the truth to power.

We may not be in charge, nor is it likely that we will be. Yet, we must propose the truth to all of the remnant who might listen. If God be God follow Him. If Baal be God follow him.