"Is the Bible Literally True?" - Implications in the Culture War

Can the Bible be taken literally? Is it authoritative?

These questions were raised last week in ABC's interview with President Bush. It was raised also by Newsweek in an article claiming the Bible could be used to argue for gay marriage.

Theologian and cultural commentator Albert Mohler has been at the forefront of this debate over the past week. Below are links to his resources in regards to the debate. They are highly commended resources .

Turning the Bible on its Head - Newsweek Goes for Gay Marriage

Al Mohler and Newsweek writer Lisa Miller square off on NPR's "Talk of the Nation"

"Is Creation Compatible with Evolution?" - A President Weighs In

An ABC Nightline interview with President George W. Bush this past Monday evening (12.8.2008) traversed the territory of the president's religious beliefs. Conservatives and Christians have long respected the president for his outspoken faith in God and Jesus Christ, even when those on the left would lambaste him, claiming his religion was being forced upon us and should not influence policy making. Though not an issue of policy, per se, the interview revealed something of President Bush's worldview that this evangelical found troubling.

From the transcript:

Asked about creation and evolution, Bush said: "I think you can have both. I think evolution can -- you're getting me way out of my lane here. I'm just a simple president. But it's, I think that God created the earth, created the world; I think the creation of the world is so mysterious it requires something as large as an almighty and I don't think it's incompatible with the scientific proof that there is evolution."

He added, "I happen to believe that evolution doesn't fully explain the mystery of life."

I appreciate the president's concession that he is "out of [his] lane." I would respectfully appeal to the president (whom I am convinced is a brother in Christ) and countless others who are misguided to believe evolution is compatible with Christianity. [NOTE: President-Elect Barack Obama has also made similar claims.

I will first note I am a student of theology not biology, so this blog is not going to bite off more than it can chew. But since this particular argument of science and religion occurs so often, as in this interview with our 43rd president, I will make a few assertations here as a young pastor and concerned cultural warrior.

I argue for the Bible's teaching that "In the beginning God created." Divine intelligence existed before the world was created, and this intelligence is the Creator and cause of all life. Even if we allow for some type of evolution process over time, there is no evidence to show that the process would even get started because for evolution to occur there must be an existing organism to evolve. To understand everything else, we must first realize that God created everything and gave loving mandates for how life should come about and exist.

Phillip E. Johnson of the University of California at Berkely writes, "Almost all illustrations of 'evolution in action' in textbooks or museum exhibits...involve no increase in complexity or appearance of new body parts or even permanent change of any kind. Small-scale, reversible population variations of this sort are usually called microevolution, although 'adaptive variation' would be a better term."

More from Johnson: "It is misleading to describe adaptive variation as 'evolution,' because the latter term commonly refers also to macroevolution...Charles Darwin assumed that macroevolution was merely microevolution extended over very long periods of time. Biology textbooks, museums, and television programs still teach people to make the same assumption, so that examples of macroevolution are used as proof that complex animals and even human beings evolved from simpler organisms by similar process."

Johnson affirms the greatest flaw of the theory of evolution "is that science has not discovered a process that can create all the necessary information" needed to coordinate the complex functions taking place in plants and animals. There is simply too much going on. Even Richard Dawkins, perhaps the most famous advocate of evolutionary theory flying in the face of religion, admits we're so biologically complicated that something had to initiate creation. He believes it to be ancient alien visitors.

Attesting to the theory of evolution also robs man of the imago Dei, or image of God that is imbued in each human being. This is fact affirmed by Scripture and science's own assertations of a necessary higher power. It is unfortunate the president and far too many other Christians have been dupped by supposed scientific evidence to the contrary.

Another disturbing statement from the president is that he prays to the same God as those with differing religious beliefs: "I do believe there is an almighty that is broad and big enough and loving enough that can encompass a lot of people."

So according to this, can Allah (or the god of any other religion) also be the Christian God?

No.

And, briefly, here's why: Theologically Muslims believe Allah to be "one God." They think the representation of God and Jesus in the Bible is in error and an affront to Allah. They would certainly not affirm the God of the Christians is the same and their Allah.

Evangelical Christians affirm a triune God who is one, but also three distinct personalities: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is unique among all religions and is not affirmed anywhere outside of the Bible and Christian theology. No other religion will accept God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as revealed in the Bible. The God of the Bible cannot be changed to any other "god" presented by any alternative religion. It is not the same God.

In closing, I pray for President Bush and other brothers and sisters in Christ: that this shrewdly cast veil of deception through "science" would be lifted and God would be glorified all the more at the realization that He is ultimate Creator and man is the pinnacle of His creation. May we all marvel at the complexity and majesty of this truth even as a hurting, bitter, and unbelieving world refuses this most basic of truths.

***President Bush also commented in the same interview that he does not believe the Bible should be taken literally. I will write on this in the coming days.

'Spectacular Sins'

I must admit I took a roughly three-year break from reading John Piper. I had read so much of his printed work that I found myself beginning emulate his style, so I laid off soon after When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight For Joy helped jolt me into deeper spiritual truth and discipline that has carried on to this day. (That book has a reserved spot in my Top 10 books concerning faith).

And I may be adding another: I received a free copy of his most recent, Spectacular Sins (And Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ), at the Desiring God conference this Fall and found time to read it one day over the Thanksgiving holiday.

The book is classic Piper. And that is hardly to say the book, its prose or purpose, is stale. Anything but. Dr. Piper still moves the pen (so to speak) in such a way as to stir one's heart toward the deeper truths of the faith. In this case, his opening salvo is prophetic in telling his reader that the time's are changing and everything we as Christians have come to expect, be it creature comforts to cultural acceptance, is about to be ripped away as Satan grows more powerful.

He writes in the book's introduction:

The sources of this difficulty will be pervasive sin...Tragedies and calamities and horrific suffering and sinful atrocities should not take Christians off guard. 'Beloved, do not be surprised by the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you' (1 Peter 4:12). They are foreseen by God, and he foretold them for us to know. God sees them coming and does not intend to stop them. Therefore, it appears that they somehow fit into his purposes."

This is not comfort reading. You won't feel good reading this. But you will feel buttressed by essential understanding of how that which is intended for evil by Satan and fallen men is actually part of God's plan and purpose.

Shocking? Yep.
Hard to wrap your head around? Oh yeah.
Spiritually nourishing? ...like gallons of green tea to your soul. 

Piper describes in chapter 3 the reality of God governing every move of Satan:

"...God permitted Satan's fall, not because he was unable to stop it, but because he had a purpose for it. Since God is never taken off guard, his permissions are always purposeful. If he chooses to permit something, he does so for a reason - an infinitely wise reason because he is infinitely wise. How the sin arises in Satan's heart, we do not know. God has not told us. What we do know is that God is sovereign over Satan."

This theological truth has INCREDIBLE implications with how we view the sins of Satan, others, and ourselves. My own personal sin is permitted by God. For the same infinitely wise reason he permits Satan to roam the earth for a time, "he who is able to keep me from stumbling" (Jude 24) will however permit my stumbling sometimes because it will glorify His Son. God permits NOTHING that does not eventually lead to the glorification of Christ. And though I fall, I will rise (Micah 7:8-9) and no one will snatch me from the Father's hand (John 10:27-30).

Yeah. And that's just the surface of this barely-100-page read.

Piper then walks through several small chapters focused on spectacular sins from Scripture, including: Adam's disobedience, Joseph's being sold into slavery by his brothers, and Judas' betrayal of Christ Himself.

Chapter 5 is of particular interest to this writer, focusing on the pride of the people of Babel. As I wrote in a previous post, half the world's population now lives in cities; making urban missions the most important field for the harvest in the coming century. And Piper's theological treatment of the first metropolis is eye-opening:

"Then Genesis 11:1-9 drops the bomb on us. It wasn't obedience after all [to build the city]. The people weren't spreading to fill the earth. They were clustering. God came down and shattered their disobedience and made their clustering impossible. He confused their language and brok humanity into many peoples and languages."

Further:

"His will is not that we find our security in cities but in God whom we gladly obey."

He argues that God uses the sin of Babel to glorify His cause in the world: "We humans are far too evil to be allowed to unite in one language or one government. The gospel of the glory of Christ spreads better and flourishes because of 6,500 languages, not in spite of them."

I pray this short synopsis/review has whet your appetite to delve into the deep truth presented in this small volume. I highly commend it to you. With the times changing as rapidly they are and persecution of all types on the very near horizon, John Piper rallies the Kingdom army through presenting all-important Scriptural truth that will make you uncomfortable even as it comforts your soul. His admonition to readers of Spectacular Sins serves also to rattle you out of your complacency and challenges you to begin exploring the truth of how God works through even the most vile of sins: "Wimpy worldviews make wimpy Christians. And wimpy Christians won't survive the days ahead."