Jason and the Callers to the Rescue

Published on by D. G. Hart86 Comments

The Pertinacious Papist worries that devout conservative Roman Catholics cannot receive support from Pope Francis. He quotes from a recent John Allen piece on the pope:

… many on the Catholic right can’t help but suspect that the recent preponderance of conservatives who’ve found themselves under the gun isn’t an accident. Some perceive a through-the-looking-glass situation, in which upholding Catholic tradition is now perceived as a greater offense than rejecting it.

How to explain these disciplinary acts?

One possibility is that Francis genuinely wants to hobble the traditionalist constituency, and is using every chance to accomplish it. If so, then Francis doesn’t owe anyone an explanation, because his moves would be having precisely the intended effect.

Another, however, is that the pontiff’s motives aren’t ideological…. The speech Francis delivered at the end of the recent Synod of Bishops would seem to lean in the second direction, as he tried to signal sympathy for both the progressive and traditionalists camps….

If that’s the case, Francis might need to find an occasion to explain in his own voice why he’s going after the people and groups that find themselves in his sights. Otherwise, the risk is that a good chunk of the Church may conclude that if the pope sees them as the enemy, there’s no good reason they shouldn’t see him the same way.

But why worry about a particular pontiff when you have such air-tight ecclesiological theory? Why should reality get in the way?

Gizzards, Pigskins, and Carbs

Published on by D. G. Hart18 Comments

I am not sure why you might feel the need to turn Thanksgiving into another testimonial for Holy Mother Church. Can’t Protestants have anything to themselves? The converts say no.

Taylor Marshall claims:

The first American Thanksgiving was actually celebrated on September 8 (feast of the birth of the Blessed Virgin) in 1565 in St. Augustine, Florida. The Native Americans and Spanish settlers held a feast and the Holy Mass was offered. This was 56 years before the Puritan pilgrims of Massachusetts. Don Pedro Menendez came ashore amid the sounding of trumpets, artillery salutes and the firing of cannons to claim the land for King Philip II and Spain. The ship chaplain Fr. Francisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales chanted the Te Deum and presented a crucifix that Menendez ceremoniously kissed. Then the 500 soldiers, 200 sailors and 100 families and artisans, along with the Timucuan Indians celebrated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in gratitude to God.

Christine Niles acknowledges Thanksgiving’s associations with English Protestants but also points out how marginal those Protestants were:

Queen Elizabeth had little patience for Catholics, but even less for Calvinists, who complained the Church of England remained too papist. In their desire to complete the Reformation and “purify” religion of popish trumperies, the Puritans broke from the Anglican Church, rejected the Book of Common Prayer, and preferred the anti-royalist Geneva Bible to the King James version. They instituted an independent congregationalist ideal that upheld the notion of the common priesthood of all believers, and thus granted an equal say among congregants in the election of the minister (some claim the roots of American democracy lie here). All of this naturally brought down on them the wrath of the Crown, and persecution commenced. A number of Puritans fled England and sought refuge in Holland, where they lived for a dozen years, before deciding to leave for the New World. After meeting another group of Puritans in Southampton, all boarded the Mayflower on September 16, 1620. Sixty-five days later, they sighted Cape Cod. The communal meal we know of as “Thanksgiving” took place in 1621 with about ninety Native Americans, and lasted three days.

And then Ray Cavanaugh argues that Squanto, a convert to Roman Catholicism, made the first Thanksgiving possible:

He bequeathed his possessions to his English friends, all of them Protestant Puritans who, despite their own need for religious freedom, were not especially tolerant of Catholicism. One wonders if these Puritans even knew of their benefactor’s Catholic conversion.

But the guy who wrote the book on the first Thanksgiving, Robert Tracy McKenzie, reminds readers that:

Overwhelmed by God’s gracious intervention, the Pilgrims immediately called for another providential holiday. “We thought it would be great ingratitude,” Winslow explained, if we should “content ourselves with private thanksgiving for that which by private prayer could not be obtained. And therefore another solemn day was set apart and appointed for that end; wherein we returned glory, honor, and praise, with all thankfulness, to our good God.” This occasion, likely held at the end of July, 1623, perfectly matches the Pilgrims’ definition of a thanksgiving holy day. It was a “solemn” observance, as Winslow noted, called to acknowledge a very specific, extraordinary blessing from the Lord. In sum, it was what the Pilgrims themselves would have viewed as their “First Thanksgiving” in America, and we have all but forgotten it.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving today, perhaps we might remember both of these occasions. The Pilgrims’ harvest celebration of 1621 is an important reminder to see God’s gracious hand in the bounty of nature. But the Pilgrims’ holiday of 1623—what they would have called “The First Thanksgiving”—more forthrightly challenges us to look for God’s ongoing, supernatural intervention in our lives.

None of these accounts can dissuade me from my ambivalence about this holiday at this point in this nation’s history. On the one hand, it is the best holiday of the year from the perspective of food, drink, and leisure. On the other hand, the covenant theology that informs a national day of thanksgiving (or fasting) does not fit the conviction that no nation occupies the status that Mosaic Israel did (not to mention fitting a society inhabited by Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and agnostics). Over at Front Porch Republic I develop this ambivalence.

All About (Liberal) Me

Published on by D. G. Hart53 Comments

It doesn’t get much better for one of Machen’s warrior children to be lumped with folks who provoke combat but never fight:

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that three men have been standouts in the volume of Baylyblog posts warning against them: Tom (N. T.) Wright, Darryl Hart, and Tim Keller. Each of these men has shown himself adept at drawing away disciples after him who will join in his rebellion against crucial parts of Biblical faith. Tom Wright denies God’s Creation Order, Darryl Hart denies the Church’s calling to proclaim the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all creation, and Tim Keller denies the Biblical doctrines of sexuality, Creation, and Hell.

The most striking thing about these men is their abuse of language…

All three write to the end that their readers and listeners will pride themselves over being among the chosen ones smart enough to appreciate their deep insights: “What erudition!” “What command of the language!” “What rapier wit!” Truth set to the side, flattery is a writer’s best friend. A man’s chest swells with pride as he tastes Tom, Darryl, and Tim’s dainty morsels, but their flattery of their readers carries a stiff price.

That noise you hear is Kathy Keller cackling.

Speaking of Chaplains

Published on by D. G. Hart2 Comments

The authors of the Marriage Pledge are arguing that Christian (Protestant and Roman Catholic) ministers can no longer participate in civil wedding ceremonies because the new definition of marriage compromises the Christian one — never mind that Roman Catholics and Protestants do not actually agree on the definition of Christian marriage (sacrament or not?). They may have a point, though some people (more to come) worry that this is a retreat to a form of cultural isolation made plausible only by fundamentalists.

But since the churches that minister in the United States already supply military chaplains to work in settings where the definition of religion is hardly compatible with either the Protestant or Roman Catholic understanding of the faith, why here and why now? Isn’t it the case that whenever the church collaborates with the state the former winds up in some roll as collaborator?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not at all happy as a citizen (as opposed to a Christian) with the new definition of marriage. Robbie George’s (et al) book on marriage makes pretty clear what stake the broader society has in marriage as the union between one man and one woman. But at the same time, marriage has been debased for years. Anyone can actually perform a wedding ceremony, as long as he or she files the right paperwork with American Marriage Ministries. Here is how to become ordained with AMM:

1. Become an Ordained Minister

American Marriage Ministries is a non-profit, interfaith and non-denominational church, with the mission to ensure that all people have the right to perform marriage. We offer ordination to all people, regardless of religious background or spiritual philosophy, that agree with our three tenets:

All people, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation, have the right to marry.
It is the right of every couple to choose who will solemnize their marriage.
All people have the right to solemnize marriage.
Applying to become an AMM Minister is not a declaration of exclusive faith, it is an act of allowing our tenets to coexist with personal beliefs. We encourage people of all backgrounds to find community within the simple tenets of our faith.

About Our Ordination

The AMM Ordination is free, requires no special course of study, and takes only a moment. Our goal is to help people on their path to performing marriage for friends and family.

A wedding is a momentus spiritual event, but the legal act of solemnizing marriage involves nothing more than signing a piece of paper. We believe that completion of this legal act does not necessitate the time, expense, and academia of a traditional seminarial degree. The act of solemnizing marriage historically belonged exclusively to the people; it is only recently that marriage has become the domain of the state.

Our ordination is informed by these facts – we exist to protect the right of all people to solemnize marriage. If you have been asked by people close to you to solemnize their marriage, we believe you have the right to.

So what should we do? Instead of telling the rest of society how to think about marriage and expecting the state to back us up, maybe officers and ministers in each Christian communion should work to guarantee that their congregants know the meaning and duties of marriage. That strategy might be especially valuable for those ministers in fellowship with the Bishop of Rome.

Lutheran Obedience Boy

Published on by D. G. Hart53 Comments

I will hand it to Rick Phillips. At least when he talks about good works he doesn’t try to yuck it up as certain Canadian pastors try to have a laugh while being earnestly Owenian. Even so, I’m not sure that Phillips captures the biblical motivation for good works because of an apparent need to reject gratitude as the only basis for sanctification. For instance, when he write this I get confused:

But does not Paul plainly warn that Christians will be judged for both “good or evil”? The answer is yes, but that we must set it alongside Romans 8:1, which declares, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Christians need not fear any condemnation when Jesus returns. Nor should we anticipate shaming for our failures, in which case we could hardly look forward to the Second Coming as, Paul says, “our blessed hope” (Tit. 2:13). Christ bore all the guilt and shame of our sin and failure on the cross! So where does the judgment of our “evil” come in as believers? I think the best biblical answer is found in 1 Corinthians 3:13-15: “Each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it… If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” Here we have a saved person whose life work yielded little return for eternity, and the example is given as a warning to us. The penalty for demerits here is not condemnation or shame, but rather a lamentable loss of heavenly reward.

In considering the many biblical passages that speak of a future evaluation of believers’ lives, the overwhelming emphasis lies on the side of rewards. This is not surprising, since Jesus paid the penalty for our sins in his atoning death. Since there will be no tears, mourning, or crying in heaven (Rev. 21:4), Christians may look forward to Christ’s return with an overwhelming expectation of divine approval and reward. And this anticipation is treated in the Bible as a very significant source of motivation for sanctification and Christian service. The true danger of unholy or unfaithful living among professing believers is not that they will wear tarnished crowns in heaven but that they will not be admitted to heaven at all, their ungodliness having been the death knell of a false profession and unregenerate life.

So Christians don’t have to be fear being embarrassed in glory for having fewer crowns than the really really sanctified. No one will be lamenting anything. That’s good news. But then there’s the threat that my lapses into ungodliness may actually mean that this “professing” believer will “not be admitted to heaven at all” since my sin is the evidence of a “false profession and unregenerate life.” So much for “no condemnation.”

Maybe the Lutherans can rescue the Reformed Obedience boys. Nathan Rinne not only informs us that Lutherans really do believe in the third use of the law, contrary to the Lutheran detractors among the holiness wing of Reformed Protestants. He also explains why resting in the forgiveness of Christ (which could be pretty close to gratitude) is the best motivation for genuine holiness. Here are the three levels of obedience to the law:

At the level of outward conformity:

Christians obey due to authorities who need to use coercion (parents, teachers, pastors, neighbors, etc) because they are letting their old man get a hold of their new man (hence we read later: “But *the believer* without any coercion and with a willing spirit, *in so far as he is reborn*, does what no threat of the law could ever have wrung from him”). What this means is that the believer, in so far as he is not reborn, does good only when it is wrung out of him – maybe even by using explicitly stated rewards and punishments. Again though, these coerced works are not “works of the law” per se, because they are still done by believers, and the blood of Christ covers these forced works, making them pleasing in the eyes of God.

So we need forgiveness for good works done for the wrong reasons. A better motivation is:

Christians obey willingly without coercion, due to their putting their old man in its place – by their new man (not Christ, but the new nature that wills – “not my will…” – to cooperate with Christ’s Spirit) who is eager to do so, and spontaneously does so more or less consciously (in other words, they cheerfully and joyfully make the decision, in cooperation with Christ’s Spirit, to do something in the midst of a necessary fight vs. their old man, utilizing even “teaching, admonition, force, threatening of the Law,….the club of punishments[,] and troubles” themselves against their old man – their old nature).

Even better is being in a state of unconsciously following God’s law, perhaps out of a sense of knowing that we no longer face condemnation and are grateful to have the burden of the law removed so that it becomes simply the w-w of the Christian:

Christians obey willingly without coercion either more or less unconsciously (in other words, they simply do something without needing to fight much vs. their old man). Ideally, we do these good works more and more spontaneously, as Old Adam’s strength dissipates – while never fully disappearing in this life. Here, again, we think about Luther’s famous words introducing the book of Romans…. “When [Christ, the fulfiller of the law] is present, the law loses its power. It cannot administer wrath because Christ has freed us from it. Then he brings the Holy Spirit to those who believe in him that they might delight in the law of the Lord, according to the first psalm (Ps. 1:2). In this way their souls are recreated with [the Law] in view and this Spirit gives them the will that they might do it. In the future life, however, they will have the will to do the law not only in Spirit, but also in flesh, which, as long as it lives here, strives against this delight. To render the law delightful, undefiled is therefore the office of Christ, the fulfiller of the law, whose glory and handiwork announce the heavens and the firmament, the apostles and their successors (Ps. 19:1, cf. Rom. 10:18).”

I don’t presume to know whether Mr. Rinne is right about the Lutheran confessions or Luther himself, but his posts are instructive for remembering that Lutherans really do believe in sanctification. He may also indicate that the Lutheran Obedience Boys have a much more satisfying account of the place of the law in the believers’ life. Rather than engaging in some sort of calculus about penalties, demerits, and rewards (or — uh oh — worse), the Lutherans seem to have found a way to make the law a delight.

Who knew?

Cherry Picker in Chief

Published on by D. G. Hart18 Comments

If you appeal to Exodus for an immigration policy tweak, what do you do with Leviticus?

Tonight President Barack Obama outlined his executive action on immigration reform, which could impact up to 5 million immigrants. He gave two citations: one from former President George W. Bush, and one from Exodus 23.

“Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger—we were strangers once, too,” said Obama. “My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too.”

This is boiler plate civil religion. Bush did it. Clinton did it. I get it.

So why oh why, as Richard Gamble asked, do American Christians allow the Bible to be so used and abused?

Could it be that quoting the Bible is like hearing the furnace kick on, like just so much background noise? Judging by reactions to Obama’s speech, his “thus, sayeth the Lord” solved nothing:

Meanwhile, Russell Moore explained why he agrees with reforming the United States’ “incoherent and unjust” immigration system, but disagrees with Obama’s decision to “act unilaterally.”

“On more than one occasion, I asked President Obama not to turn immigration reform into a red state/blue state issue,” said Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. “I also asked him not to act unilaterally, but to work for consensus through the legislative process. Acting unilaterally threatens that consensus, and is the wrong thing to do.

“My hope is that the Republicans in Congress will not allow the President’s actions here as a pretext for keeping in the rut of the status quo,” he continued. “More importantly, I pray that our churches will transcend all of this posing and maneuvering that we see in Washington. Whatever our agreements and disagreements on immigration policy, we as the Body of Christ are those who see every human life as reflecting the image of God.”

Noel Castellanos has long “urg[ed] Congress to fix our broken immigration system based on the biblical principles of love for neighbor and human dignity,” so he applauded Obama for “making good on his promise to give relief.”

“Now it is time for Congress to finish the job by passing comprehensive immigration reform,” said the CEO and president of the Christian Community Development Association. “Our nation as a whole, and our immigrant communities in particular are in desperate need of decisive action on immigration that will impact the well-being of our nation for generations to come.”

Leith Anderson acknowledged that while the “president’s announcement appears to offer important temporary help to many families, it is no substitute for congressional action that comprehensively fixes our broken immigration system.”

“Congressional leaders — both those who applaud the President and those who oppose his actions — must come together to negotiate bipartisan solutions. We call on both sides to lower the rhetoric and get to work,” the National Association of Evangelicals president said.

Appealing to the Bible resolves nothing. Same goes for the Roman pontiff. Maybe Christians need to get over Christian society.

From DGH on Weak on Holiness Submitted on 2014/11/21 at 1:55 pm (PST)

Published on by D. G. Hart47 Comments

Mark,

Too funny.

Owen was a hoot.

Coincidence?

Published on by D. G. Hart4 Comments

Hard-question-failure alert.

Maybe this is a reason for reconsidering the attire rather than embracing it.

Think about it. At Mass the priest comes out robed like a Roman senator. Did you know that’s where the vestments first originated?

And maybe Patti Smith is not going to blog soon for Called to Communion:

Granted, Smith’s coarse language (which, unlike a famous slip by Francis, was clearly intentional) won’t win her any awards among Catholics who value reverence. Still, as Farber goes on to observe, there are indications she’s been God-haunted for a while, and more so in recent years

Then again, some do raise hard questions:

I think it is necessary for the papacy to admit that some of its present teachings on sexuality are wrong. But that is going to be a very difficult task to do. When Paul VI came out with his encyclical Humanae Vitae, condemning artificial contraception, he recognized there were some significant arguments in favor of accepting contraception, but he could not accept them because they went against the traditional authoritative teaching of the church.

Without doubt, it will be very difficult for papal teaching to admit that its teaching in the past has been wrong. Catholics believe that the papal office is guided by the Holy Spirit. Could the Spirit ever allow the papal teaching to be wrong?

On the other hand, history has shown that such teachings have been wrong. Perhaps the problem has been that the papacy has claimed too much certitude for its own teaching. My friend [Mercy Sr.] Margaret Farley some years ago wrote a marvelous essay entitled “Ethics, Ecclesiology, and the Grace of Self-Doubt.”

There is also the fact that a good number of Catholics with great personal sacrifice themselves have followed the existing church teachings. How would they react to any change in the teaching?

Also, there is the psychological aspect. I was discussing these issues with some friends this past week. One of them was in total agreement with me but pointed out the danger that if you force people into a corner with their backs up to the wall, they are not going to react very well. Might it be better to take a less confrontational approach?

I recognize all the problems and difficulties in the way of recognizing that past and present papal teaching has been wrong, but this is the real problem that we have to face. However, in facing it, in light of what we talked about earlier, I am certainly willing to accept some kind of gradualism …

But with this acceptance of gradualism, there comes a warning. In the past, the Catholic church had a long time to deal with the possibility of change, or what it preferred to call development in its teachings. But because of instant communication today, the church no longer has the luxury to take that long. There is an urgency to change the present teaching for the good of the church.

Hard or Soft?

Published on by D. G. Hart60 Comments

Yesterday I participated in an ETS panel on The New Calvinism. (Here is one of the presentations. Here is evident of another ETS sighting.)

One thing that I kept asking myself and then asked everyone in open discussion was why so few New Calvinists ask hard questions about the movement. People talk a lot about how big, successful, important, and spiritual the whole enterprise is. People even mention the phrase, “work of God.” But who is willing to ask whether it is a work of God? And if you ask are you guilty of Pharoah’s disease — hardness of heart? And yet, it sure seems to me that one of the biggest differences between the Old and New Calvinists is that the former ask hard questions and make hard distinctions. Newbies don’t ask hard questions. Their softness of heart makes them see the good in everything. And that leads to a squishiness of conviction and teaching.

To illustrate the point, I submit a post by John Piper Tony Reinke (thanks to our southern correspondent) on celebrity pastors. The bottom line is that we can’t condemn them and we certainly can’t do without them. “Choose ye this day?” Do we have to? (And yet these are the people who are supposed to oppose lukewarm going-through-the-motions Christianity.)

Piper is interacting with Tommie Kidd about George Whitefield:

It doesn’t always work perfectly, but there’s no reason why a Christian celebrity should exist without accountability to a plurality of elders and congregation in a local church. The New Testament pattern for the local church is sufficiently capable of caring for celebrity Christians. The key is commitment and intentionality. “Celebrity preachers and artists would do well to build in real accountability structures for themselves within their church — and are they actually connected to a church to begin with? Some Christian celebrities today, if you scratch under the surface, are actually not involved with church. That is a serious warning sign” (Kidd).

Hello! Whitefield was a priest of the Church of England. He was supposedly under the oversight of a bishop and he wasn’t a mere Celebrity Christian the way that Amy Grant is/was a Celebrity Christian. He had taken ordination vows. His status as a preacher derived in part from his membership in the Church of England. So how much integrity did he have when contrary to church laws, laws he had vowed to uphold, he acted like those laws didn’t matter and went fellowshiping around with Protestant Dissenters?

Inquiring Old Calvinists want to know.

Here’s another hard question: do you ever worry about appearing to be self-serving?

Rejecting Christian celebrities on the basis of their fame is foolish. Paul tells us to do the opposite, and to see faithful Christian celebrities, not as idols, but as divine gifts. “So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (1 Corinthians 3:21–23).

In other words, celebrities like Whitefield and More are part of God’s cascading eternal gifts. In the end, if you can anticipate a day when you will inherit the earth, then you have begun to discover the freedom you need to humbly and joyfully embrace every celebrity God has given the church — celebrity teachers, preachers, artists — as gifts. Such wide-hearted gratitude is the antitoxin for the poison of elitism.

Love Celebrity Christians. Love George Whitefield. Love John Piper.

One last query: could it be that fame clouds the way a Celebrity Christian sees himself? If you think it’s all a work of God (and forget that we have been here before with the First and Second Pretty Good Awakenings and the revivals of Billy Graham), that is, if you accent the positive and look at hard questions as just so much evidence of the lack of the fruit of the Spirit, then you may be the soft underbelly of the body of Christ.

For my (body of Christ) part, put me down for the pain in the neck.

Is Warren Cole Smith an Evangelical?

Published on by D. G. Hart28 Comments

On the one hand, the associate publisher of World Magazine warns about people who call themselves evangelical but aren’t:

3. Not everyone who calls himself an evangelical is an evangelical.

We have an old saying in my part of the South: “Just because my dog sleeps in the garage, that doesn’t make him a pick-up truck.” Just because a blogger calls himself (or herself) an evangelical doesn’t make it so. You don’t have to vote Republican or go to a particular church, but you gotta believe in that stuff in #1 above, or you’re something else. Beware of “progressive evangelicals” who claim to speak for evangelicals but who, upon examination, reject core doctrines that evangelicals find essential.

On the other hand, Mr. Smith looks like a fairly progressive evangelical himself:

2. Jerry Falwell wasn’t the first evangelical.

In fact, when Jerry Falwell started out, he wasn’t an evangelical, but self-consciously fundamentalist — and there was (and is) a difference. Church historian Phil Johnson credits William Tyndale with first using the word “evangelical” in 1531, when Tyndale wrote this: “He exhorteth them to proceed constantly in the evangelical truth.” The great Catholic martyr Sir Thomas More used the phrase a year later to describe Tyndale and other Protestant Reformers. The great missionary movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were evangelical in character — think of the great evangelical statesman William Wilburforce, who fought against the slave trade in Great Britain.

In short, evangelicalism has a long history and is not a recent suburban American phenomenon.

5. Evangelicals are generous.

Virtually every reputable study, from Arthur Brooks’ book Who Really Cares? to the annual Empty Tombs, Inc. survey on church giving to the work of sociologist Bradley Wright, comes to the same conclusion: theologically conservative evangelical Christians give more money to charity than do theologically liberal Christians and non-Christians. And they don’t just give to evangelical Christian organizations. Liberals and non-Christians talk a good game when it comes to income equality or “social justice,” but evangelicals, not Episcopalians, are keeping the food banks of America alive.

6. Evangelicals love LGBTQIA people.

We are not homophobes. We are homophiles. Our churches welcome LGBTQIA people with the same message we present to all others: “Come as you are . . . but leave transformed.”

7. Evangelicals love the arts.

Ok, it’s true: our music mostly sucks. And so do our movies. At least, the music and movies we’ve made for the past 30 or 40 years. But not all of it, and it hasn’t always been so. I’m astonished and inspired when I see Kent Twitchell’s massive murals of Jesus on the public spaces in Los Angeles. Or Makoto Fujimura’s remarkable abstract expressionist paintings in chic Chelsea art galleries. Or hear anything by Bach.

Sure, contemporary evangelical writers, musicians, and artists are producing a lot of kitsch, but so are non-Christians. (You can’t blame the Kardashians and Honey-Boo-Boo on evangelicals.) And I predict that 100 years from now, if the Lord tarries, Christians will be singing Keith Getty’s and Stuart Townend’s “In Christ Alone” in the same churches that continue to sing Martin Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and perform Handel’s “Messiah” at Christmastime.

8. Evangelicals are pro-science.

I support this assertion by noting that the rise of the scientific method and some of the great technological advancements of Europe correspond with the rise of evangelicalism in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. In our own day, Frances Collins (who leads the National Institutes of Health and led the Human Genome Project) is open about his Christian faith.

Evangelicals have endured the slanderous label of “anti-science” in recent years because of our skepticism about politically correct theories regarding the origins of man and climate change. In these arenas and many more, evangelicals joyfully go where the science takes us. But when ideology hijacks science — that is, when the pursuit of a point of view outruns logic, history, data, and reason — we rightfully object, and so should all who love pure science.

9. Evangelicals value quality education for all.

Because evangelicals operate most of the private schools in the country, and because most of the nation’s two million homeschoolers are evangelical Christians, we are often accused of being anti-public education and of having abandoned the public schools. That is simply not true.

For one thing, I state the obvious: evangelicals whose children do not attend the schools still support them with our tax dollars even though 100 percent of those dollars go to other people’s children. Secondly, most Christian schools I know about are generous with scholarships for those who would not otherwise be able to afford the school.

But the key point is that evangelical commitment to quality education for all means we do not support the government having a monopoly on education. The real threat to quality education for all is the near monopoly of the government-run education system, not the small-but-vibrant private Christian and homeschool sector. Private Christian education and homeschooling are the way up, not the way down.

10. Evangelicals are diverse and tolerant.

Evangelicals have never been, and are certainly not now, old white Americans. By some estimates, China has 30 million evangelical Christians. Some countries in Africa and South America have evangelical majorities. Here in the U.S. you can find millions of Hispanic evangelicals. That diversity is the result of — and has led more deeply into — a culture of tolerance evangelicals don’t get credit for.

No one values the free and honest exchange of ideas more than evangelical Christians. The Bible teaches evangelicals: “Come, let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18). We take that idea seriously. However, evangelicals believe mere tolerance is a low standard for those called to the much higher standard of love. Tolerance says, “Put up with those different from you.” Love says, “Help them achieve God’s highest and best.” (See #6 above.) Further, evangelicals see nothing tolerant in an ideology that brands any and all dissenting ideas as “hate speech.” Neither do we believe that tolerance demands us to view all ideas, beliefs, or behaviors as equally true and valid. Evangelicals believe some ideas are good and true and some are bad or false. Saying so does not make one a bigot.

So hipster evangelicals are not progressive evangelicals. As if I needed additional reasons for not reading World. Journalism is not cheer leading or re-branding.