Affirmative Action in the Church? Kind of.

I have been surprised to learn from an online article today that Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota—John Piper's church—practices a kind of affirmative action when hiring ministerial staff. I was taken aback at first; however, reasoning behind this policy is interesting.

* Probing: We search for candidates for pastors and elders who are from various ethnicities. We pursue the web of relationships that we have. We make the positions known on the web and in other ways. We write articles like this one. Etc.

* Preferring: We intentionally take ethnicity into account when making choices about who we will call to the pastoral staff and eldership. This is the most controversial. It has been labeled “affirmative action” or “racial preferences.” Here is how it works at Bethlehem and why we make decisions this way.

One guiding principle is this: To the degree that one of the aims of an organization is to experience and display racial diversity, to that degree the intentional consideration of race in hiring is warranted. If, for example, the sole aim of an organization is productive efficiency, it would be unwarranted for the hiring guidelines to contain racial preferences. Whether all the employees are Black or Asian or White or Latino or Native is irrelevant. All that matters is maximum efficiency. So you don’t consider race in hiring. The only thing you consider is competencies that maximize efficiency.

But if one of the stated aims of an organization is to experience and display the beauty of ethnic harmony in diversity, then it would be reasonable and warranted to consider race as part of the qualifications in hiring. An obvious example would be hiring actors for a dramatic production that has Black, Asian, Latino, and White roles. One would consider race essential in the actors one hires for each role. One would not say: Competency in acting is the only thing that matters, and then use makeup to create the impression of race. Of course, acting competency matters. But so does race. That’s part of what the play is about. Hence, it is reasonable and warranted to take ethnicity into account when hiring actors.

Over ten years ago, we at Bethlehem set ourselves on a trajectory of intentional ethnic diversity. It coheres with the emphasis on “the joy of all peoples” in our mission statement: We exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ. But we did not make it easy for ourselves. It would be easy if we said, “Diversity is the top priority that outweighs all others.” Or: “Diversity at any cost.” But there are things more important than ethnic diversity. For example, in hiring pastoral staff or choosing elders, there are theological and philosophical and personal commitments that are more important that ethnicity.

What are the biblical and theological grounds for such a practice? Piper explains:

We realize that this kind of intentionality in seeking staff is controversial. Some would say, “Never consider ethnicity in hiring. Always be color blind and focus only on competencies, doctrine, and faith.” Here is the problem we see with that. Most people look at the ethnic diversity in the New Testament church and admire what they see. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

It is right to admire this diversity for many reasons:

1. It illustrates more clearly the truth that God created people of all races and ethnicities in his on image (Genesis 1:27).
2. It displays more visibly the truth that Jesus is not a tribal deity but is the Lord of all races, nations, and ethnicities.
3. It demonstrates more clearly the blood-bought destiny of the church to be “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9).
4. It exhibits more compellingly the aim and power of the cross of Christ to “reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” (Ephesians 2:16).
5. It expresses more forcefully the work of the Spirit to unite us in Christ. “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:13).

Richard Dawkins, Religious Atheist

In a recent edition of The New York Review of Books, H. Allen Orr, an evolutionary biologist who is Professor of Biology at the University of Rochester, has written a review of Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion. In it, Orr reveals Dawkins to be a "religious" athiest who, being convinced that religion is dangerous, is (ironically) out to proselytize his views and "convert" people to athiesm. Ultimately, Dawkins fails to take religion seriously enough to confront any serious religious arguments and so mostly just beats up on caricatures of religion, straw men of his own construction.

As you may have noticed, Dawkins when discussing religion is, in effect, a blunt instrument, one that has a hard time distinguishing Unitarians from abortion clinic bombers. What may be less obvious is that, on questions of God, Dawkins cannot abide much dissent, especially from fellow scientists (and especially from fellow evolutionary biologists). Indeed Dawkins is fond of imputing ulterior motives to those "Neville Chamberlain School" scientists not willing to go as far as he in his war on religion: he suggests that they're guilty of disingenuousness, playing politics, and lusting after the large prizes awarded by the Templeton Foundation to scientists sympathetic to religion.[2] The only motive Dawkins doesn't seem to take seriously is that some scientists genuinely disagree with him.

Despite my admiration for much of Dawkins's work, I'm afraid that I'm among those scientists who must part company with him here. Indeed, The God Delusion seems to me badly flawed. Though I once labeled Dawkins a professional atheist, I'm forced, after reading his new book, to conclude he's actually more an amateur. I don't pretend to know whether there's more to the world than meets the eye and, for all I know, Dawkins's general conclusion is right. But his book makes a far from convincing case. The most disappointing feature of The God Delusion is Dawkins's failure to engage religious thought in any serious way. This is, obviously, an odd thing to say about a book-length investigation into God. But the problem reflects Dawkins's cavalier attitude about the quality of religious thinking. Dawkins tends to dismiss simple expressions of belief as base superstition. Having no patience with the faith of fundamentalists, he also tends to dismiss more sophisticated expressions of belief as sophistry (he cannot, for instance, tolerate the meticulous reasoning of theologians). But if simple religion is barbaric (and thus unworthy of serious thought) and sophisticated religion is logic-chopping (and thus equally unworthy of serious thought), the ineluctable conclusion is that all religion is unworthy of serious thought.

The result is The God Delusion, a book that never squarely faces its opponents. You will find no serious examination of Christian or Jewish theology in Dawkins's book (does he know Augustine rejected biblical literalism in the early fifth century?), no attempt to follow philosophical debates about the nature of religious propositions (are they like ordinary claims about everyday matters?), no effort to appreciate the complex history of interaction between the Church and science (does he know the Church had an important part in the rise of non-Aristotelian science?), and no attempt to understand even the simplest of religious attitudes (does Dawkins really believe, as he says, that Christians should be thrilled to learn they're terminally ill?).

Instead, Dawkins has written a book that's distinctly, even defiantly, middlebrow. Dawkins's intellectual universe appears populated by the likes of Douglas Adams, the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Carl Sagan, the science popularizer,[3] both of whom he cites repeatedly. This is a different group from thinkers like William James and Ludwig Wittgenstein—both of whom lived after Darwin, both of whom struggled with the question of belief, and both of whom had more to say about religion than Adams and Sagan. Dawkins spends much time on what can only be described as intellectual banalities: "Did Jesus have a human father, or was his mother a virgin at the time of his birth? Whether or not there is enough surviving evidence to decide it, this is still a strictly scientific question."

. . . . . . . . . .

One reason for the lack of extended argument in The God Delusion is clear: Dawkins doesn't seem very good at it. Indeed he suffers from several problems when attempting to reason philosophically. The most obvious is that he has a preordained set of conclusions at which he's determined to arrive. Consequently, Dawkins uses any argument, however feeble, that seems to get him there and the merit of various arguments appears judged largely by where they lead.

The Authority of Scripture

In this excerpt (taken from here) from a sermon of his on Ephesians 6:14 ("Stand therefore having your loins girt about with truth"), Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899–1981), a great English, Reformed preacher, indicts the church for having gotten away from the doctrine of the authority of the Bible. He challenges the church and individual Christians to return to this fundamentally-important doctrine.

There can be no doubt whatsoever that all the troubles in the Church to-day, and most of the troubles in the world, are due to a departure from the authority of the Bible. And, alas, it was the Church herself that led in the so-called Higher Criticism that came from Germany just over a hundred years ago. Human philosophy took the place of revelation, man's opinions were exalted and Church leaders talked about 'the advance of knowledge and science', and 'the assured results' of such knowledge. The Bible then became a book just like any other book, out-of-date in certain respects, wrong in other respects, and so on. It was no longer a book on which you could rely implicitly.

There is no question at all that the falling away, even in Church attendance, in this country is the direct consequence of the Higher Criticism. The man in the street says, 'What do these Christians know? It is only their opinion, they are just perpetrating something that the real thinkers and scientists have long since seen through and have stopped considering'. Such is the attitude of the man in the street! He does not listen any longer, he has lost all interest. The whole situation is one of drift; and very largely, I say, it is the direct and immediate outcome of the doubt that has been cast by the Church herself upon her only real authority. Men's opinions have taken the place of God's truth, and the people in their need are turning to the cults, and are listening to any false authority that offers itself to them.

We all therefore have to face this ultimate and final question: Do we accept the Bible as the Word of God, as the sole authority in all matters of faith and practice, or do we not? Is the whole of my thinking governed by Scripture, or do I come with my reason and pick and choose out of Scripture and sit in judgment upon it, putting myself and modern knowledge forward as the ultimate standard and authority? The issue is crystal clear. Do I accept Scripture as a revelation from God, or do I trust to speculation, human knowledge, human learning, human understanding and human reasons Or, putting it still more simply, Do I pin my faith to, and subject all my thinking to, what I read in the Bible? Or do I defer to modern knowledge, to modern learning, to what people think today, to what we know at this present time which was not known in the past? It is inevitable that we occupy one or the other of those two positions.

The Protestant position, as was the position of the early Church in the first centuries, is that the Bible is the Word of God. Not that it 'contains' it, but that it is the Word of God, uniquely inspired and inerrant. The Protestant Reformers believed not only that the Bible contained the revelation of God's truth to men, but that God safeguarded the truth by controlling the men who wrote it by the Holy Spirit, and that He kept them from error and from blemishes and from anything that was wrong. That is the traditional Protestant position, and the moment we abandon it we have already started on the road that leads back to one of the false authorities, and probably ultimately to Rome itself. In the last analysis it is the only alternative.

People will have authority; and they are right in so thinking. They need authority because they are bewildered; and if they do not find it in the right way they will take it in the wrong way. They can be persuaded even though they do not know the source of the authority; in their utter bewilderment they are ready to be persuaded by any authoritative statement. So that it comes to this, that we are back exactly where Christians were 400 years ago. The world talks about its advance in knowledge, its science, and so on, but actually we are going round in cycles, and we are back exactly where Christians were 400 years ago. We are having to fight once more the whole battle of the Protestant Reformation. It is either this Book, or else it is ultimately the authority of the Church of Rome and her 'tradition'! That was the great issue at the Protestant Reformation. It was because of what they found in the Bible that those men stood up against, and queried and questioned and finally condemned the Church of Rome. It was that alone that enabled Luther to stand, just one man, defying all those twelve centuries of tradition. 'I can do no other' he says, because of what he had found in the Bible. He could see that Rome was wrong. It did not matter that he was alone, and that all the big battalions were against him. He had the authority of the Word of God, and he judged the Church and her tradition and all else by this external authority.

We are back again in that exact position, and I am concerned about the matter, not only from the standpoint of the Church in general, but also from the standpoint of our own individual experiences. How can we fight the devil? How can we know how we are to live? How can we answer the things we hear, the things we read, and all the subtle suggestions of the devil? Where can I find this truth that I must gird on, as I put on all this armour of God? Where can I find it if I cannot find it in the Bible? Either my foundation is one of sand that gives way beneath my feet, and I do not know where I am, or else I stand on what W. E. Gladstone called 'The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture'.

J. I. Packer, in his essay Hermeneutics and Biblical Authority, emphasizes the (divine) authority of the Bible over the beliefs and practices of the individual believer.

Evangelicals hold that the obedience of both the Christian individually, and the Church corporately, consists precisely in conscious submission, both intellectual and ethical, to the teaching of Holy Scripture, as interpreted by itself and applied by the Spirit . . . . Subjection to the rule of Christ involves - indeed, from one standpoint, consists in subjection to the rule of Scripture. His authority is its, and its is His.

Similarly, he says,

It is hardly possible to deny that what God says is true, any more than it is possible to deny that what He commands is binding. Scripture is thus authoritative as a standard of belief no less than of behaviour, and its authority in both realms, that of fact as well as that of obligation, is divine. By virtue of its inspiration the authority of Scripture resolves into, not the historical, ethical, or religious expertise of its human authors, however great this may be thought to have been, but the truthfulness and the moral claim of the speaking, preaching, teaching God Himself.

The Believer’s Delight in the Beauty of Divine Things

The joy, and spiritual delight and pleasure of the saints has its first foundation not in any consideration or conception of their interest in divine things; but it primarily consists in the sweet entertainment their minds have in the view of contemplation of the divine and holy beauty of these things, as they are in themselves.

And this is indeed the very main difference between the joy of the hypocrite, and the joy of the true saint. The former rejoices in himself; self is the first foundation of his joy: the latter rejoices in God. The hypocrite has his mind pleased and delighted, in the first place, with his own privilege, and the happiness which he supposes he has attained to, or shall attain to.

True saints have their minds, in the first place, inexpressibly pleased and delighted with the sweet ideas of the glorious and amiable nature of the things of God. And this is the spring of all their delights, and the cream of all their pleasures: it is the joy of their joy. This sweet and ravishing entertainment they have in the view of the beautiful and delightful nature of divine things, is the foundation of the joy that they have afterwards, in the consideration of their being theirs. But the dependence of the affections of hypocrites is in a contrary order: they first rejoice and are elevated with it, that they are made so much of by God; and then on that ground he seems, in a sort, lovely to them.

The first foundation of the delight a true saint has in God, is his own perfection; and the first foundation of the delight he has in Christ, is his own beauty; he appears in himself the chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely. The way of salvation by Christ is a delightful way to him, for the sweet and admirable manifestations of the divine perfections in it: the holy doctrines of the gospel, by which God is exalted and man abased, holiness honored and promoted, and sin greatly disgraced and discouraged, and free and sovereign love manifested, are glorious doctrines in his eyes, and sweet to his taste, prior to any conception of his interest in these things.

Indeed the saints rejoice in their interest in God, and that Christ is theirs: and so they have great reason, but this is not the first spring of their joy. They first rejoice in God as glorious and excellent in himself, and then secondarily rejoice in it, that so glorious a God is theirs.—They first have their hearts filled with sweetness, from the view of Christ’s excellency, and the excellency of his grace and the beauty of the way of salvation by him, and then they have a secondary joy in that so excellent a Savior, and such excellent grace are theirs.

From Jonathan Edwards. Religious Affections. Edited by John E. Smith. Volume 2 Works (Yale, 1959), 249-50.

Back in Cambridge

After more than a month of travelling throughout Europe, I am now back in Cambridge, where I shall resume my studies. Second term (named Lent Term) begins Thursday, Jan. 18. Until then, I'm preparing for term, reading, reviewing Greek grammar and vocabulary, slowly unpacking, and hanging out with my friends.

I am particularly excited about one of my supervisions this term: Paul's Letters.

Istanbul, Turkey

I am now in Istanbul, Turkey. I arrived this morning at about 8:30, having taken an overnight train from Alexandropolis, Greece. Although I (with my three fellow travelling companions) have spent some time walking through the city, lost, I have been able to visit the Hagia Sophia.

Sunday, I visited Delphi, Greece, and saw the ruins of ancient Delphi, where the Temple of Apollo and the famous oracle of Delphi were located. Before that, I stayed in Athens for three nights, where I saw the Acropolis and the ancient agora. In addition, I took a daytrip from Athens to Mycenae, where I explored the capital of the ancient Mycenaean civilization (c. 1600-c. 1100 B.C.).

Tonight at 10:00 (GMT +8), I leave Istanbul and Turkey by train for Transylvania, Romania (a region, not a city).

Rome, Day 3

On my first day in Rome, I visited the following sites: Pantheon, Palatine Hill, Colesseum, Trevi Fountain, and part of the Forum. Yesterday, I went to Vatican City, where I toured the Sistine Chapel, explored all the other Vatican museums, and toured and attended evening mass at St. Peter's. It has all been awesome. However, I shall have to describe it in detail later, for now, I must go. Today, I am planning to visit the Spanish Steps and some of the catacombs.

Europe, Round 2

After spending a relaxing week at home in the States, I'm now back in Europe, through which I'll be travelling until Jan. 16. I'm now in Rome, where I will stay until Jan. 1. The current plan is to go to Greece after leaving Rome. I'm uber-excited about getting to visit the lands of the classical world (especially in light of my classical humanities minor)!

While home, I was able to finish reading Sproul's The Holiness of God and also began-and-nearly-finished reading J.I. Packer's Knowing God (I left it at home intentionally, since I only wanted to bring one extra-biblical book with me, and since I wanted to bring something that would last me the entire trip). And so, besides my Bible, I've brought with me an abridged version of Augustine's City of God, which I've been wanting to read for quite some time.

Knowing God was an amazing book, and I would wish that every Christian might read it. The book consists of a number of essays on various aspects of God's character, what it means to know God, and how Christianity and Biblical truths should manifest themselves in the personal piety of Christians.

European Travels: Krakow, Poland

Taking a train from Prague, I arrived in Krakow, Poland this evening with my friend David Wiegert. We walked around the city center—which is absolutely beautiful—for awhile before we found our hostel, Mama's Hostel. It's highly recommended and is actually supposed to be the third best hostel in the world. In fact, though, it only costs $12.00 (US) per night. (Hostels are amazing.) Tomorrow looks to be an amazing day of exploration in Krakow.

My European travels began on Dec. 4, when I flew into Berlin from Stansted Airport, London. I flew with three of my friends (also Jewell students studying abroad in England). In Berlin, we met up with two fellow friends (also Jewell students studying abroad in England). We spent three days in Berlin. Next, we traveled to Wittenburg, Germany, the city where Martin Luther lived, taught, and from which he initiated the German Reformation. It was incredible and it has been my favorite place so far. In fact, in Wittenburg, we stayed in a hostel located in Wittenburg Castle—the very castle to which Luther nailed his famous Ninety-Five Theses! We also saw Luther's house, the City Church, and Philip Melanchthon's house. What a privilege it was to experience the world of those great men! Then, we traveled to Wartburg, Germany. In Wartburg, we toured Wartburg Castle, where Luther hid out for about a year in the early 1520s. There, he wrote many important works, including his translation of the Bible from Greek into German.

Next, we went to Dachau and toured the WWII Nazi concentration camp there. After that, we rode a train over night from Munich to Prague, Czech Republic. Prague has been my least favorite place, being dirty, ugly, and crowded. After a few days in prague, we rode the train to Krakow, where I am now and where I shall stay until I fly out of Krakow to London (and from there to Kansas City) on the evening of the 16th.

European Travels

I'm now in Prague, Czech Republic. This city has big buildings, good food. Bye for now.

"Hell Is Just"

"It is an infinite sin to prefer anything to the infinitely attractive God. Therefore, hell is just."
—John Piper

Free-Will-ism and the Canons of the Council of Orange

Unless he be perpetually reminded of the free and unconditional nature of the gospel, and therein sustained and preserved by God, a person will, in accordance with a universal natural inclination of man, tend to regress and revert back toward a kind of works-righteousness, or Pelagianism (i.e., the idea that he must in some sense and to some degree earn or merit his salvation). Though natural, the error known as "Pelagianism" was clearly condemned by the the Second Council of Orange (529 AD). The medieval scholastic theologians (viz., those of the Via Moderna, against whose theology Luther specifically reacted) don't seem to have known about or had access to these cannons. For, theologians such as Gabriel Biel, while thinking themselves to have avoided the Pelagian error, had in fact become ensnared in it. The Reformers did utilize these canons, which was a powerful demonstration against the Catholic Church.

The content of the Council itself naturally grew out of the public dispute between Augustine and Pelagius. This critical dispute had to do with the extent to which the natural man is responsible for his own regeneration (the new birth)—i.e. whether the work of God in regeneration monergistic (God alone) or synergistic (a cooperation of man and God). The council supported Augustine's monergism, rejecting Pelagianism of any degree. Here are four of the most important canons:

CANON 4. If anyone maintains that God awaits our will to be cleansed from sin, but does not confess that even our will to be cleansed comes to us through the infusion and working of the Holy Spirit, he resists the Holy Spirit himself who says through Solomon, "The will is prepared by the Lord" (Prov. 8:35, LXX), and the salutary word of the Apostle, "For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).

CANON 5. If anyone says that not only the increase of faith but also its beginning and the very desire for faith, by which we believe in Him who justifies the ungodly and comes to the regeneration of holy baptism -- if anyone says that this belongs to us by nature and not by a gift of grace, that is, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit amending our will and turning it from unbelief to faith and from godlessness to godliness, it is proof that he is opposed to the teaching of the Apostles, for blessed Paul says, "And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:6). And again, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8). For those who state that the faith by which we believe in God is natural make all who are separated from the Church of Christ by definition in some measure believers.

CANON 6. If anyone says that God has mercy upon us when, apart from his grace, we believe, will, desire, strive, labor, pray, watch, study, seek, ask, or knock, but does not confess that it is by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit within us that we have the faith, the will, or the strength to do all these things as we ought; or if anyone makes the assistance of grace depend on the humility or obedience of man and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, he contradicts the Apostle who says, "What have you that you did not receive?" (1 Cor. 4:7), and, "But by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10).

CANON 7. If anyone affirms that we can form any right opinion or make any right choice which relates to the salvation of eternal life, as is expedient for us, or that we can be saved, that is, assent to the preaching of the gospel through our natural powers without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who makes all men gladly assent to and believe in the truth, he is led astray by a heretical spirit, and does not understand the voice of God who says in the Gospel, "For apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), and the word of the Apostle, "Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God" (2 Cor. 3:5).

But why ought Christians to concern themselves with such seemingly trivial and troublesome points of doctrine such as free will? Martin Luther has a blunt (and perhaps offensive) answer for us in his 1525 On the Bondage of the Will:

It is not irreverent, inquisitive, or superfluous, but essentially salutary and necessary for a Christian, to find out whether the will does anything or nothing in matters pertaining to eternal salvation . . . , to inquire what free choice can do, what it has done to it, and what is its relation to the grace of God. If we do not know these things, we shall know nothing at all of things Christian, and shall be worse than any heathen. . . . For if I am ignorant of what, how far, and how much I can and may do in relation to God, it will be equally uncertain and unknown to me, what, how far, and how much God can and may do in me . . . . But when the works and power of God are unknown, I cannot worship, praise, thank, and serve God, since I do not know how much I ought to attribute to myself and how much to God. It therefore behooves us to be very certain about the distinction between God's power and our own, God's work and our own, if we want to live a godly life. (117)

"Jedi Knights They Are"

Wow: If I knew nothing else about humanity, the existence of a Jedi religion alone would seem to establish beyond all doubt the total depravity of man. Apparently, it exists—and is the fourth largest religious group in Britain, if the article below is to be believed. The article is copied from here.

Two self-styled Jedi Knights are stepping up an intergalactic campaign for formal recognition.

Umada and Yunyun, also known as John Wilkinson and Charlotte Law, want the United Nations to feel “The Force” is worthy of being called a religion.

The couple claim to be part of the UK’s fourth largest religious group, after 400,000 people recorded their faith as “Jedi” in the 2001 Census.

They say that as a religion, they deserve tolerance and respect. November the 16th is the annual International Day for Tolerance.

And as part of a global battle worthy of Luke Skywalker’s efforts against the Empire, the band of self-styled Jedis want the UN to re-name the day as Interstellar Day of Tolerance.

More people claim their religion to be Jedi in England and Wales than those who follow Sikhism, Judaism and Buddhism. And the cause has global support.

There are also 70,000 Jedi knights in Australia, 53,000 in New Zealand, and 20,000 in Canada.

This is Umada and Yunyun’s letter to the UN Association:


To whom it may concern,

For the last ten years the United Nations has marked today as the International Day of Tolerance. While we support this important work, we feel the UN needs to move with the times.
In the 2001 UK census, 390,000 people identified themselves as Jedi Knights, making us the fourth largest religion in the country. We have a proud heritage dating back 195,000 years to our first Jedi, the blue haired, blue eyed Kaja Sinis, who was born on Coruscant.
Like the United Nations, the Jedi Knights are peacekeepers, and we feel we have the basic right to express our religion through wearing our robes, and to be recognised by the national and international community.
We therefore call upon you to change the 16th November to the United Nations Interstellar Day of Tolerance, to reflect the religious make-up of our twenty-first century civilization.
Tolerance is about respecting difference where ever it lies, including other galaxies. Please don’t exclude us from your important work.

May the Force be with you.

"Just and the Justifier", Part 2

Yeah, so my first "Just and the Justifier" post never actually discussed "just and the justifier." And so, consider this:

God's judicial righteousness is demonstrated in the gospel. Under the Mosaic sacrificial system, forgiveness was offered through (but not on the basis of) animal sacrifice. As the New Testament recognizes (Heb 9:11–15; 10:1–4), such sacrifices cannot substitute for the sins of humans. The real significance of the Old Testament sacrifices lay in the way they pointed forward to Christ, through whom God would deal with human sin in an appropriate and final way. In view of what He would later do, God could righteously pass over "former sins" (v. 25). The work of Christ reveals both the justice of God (He does punish sin in the person of His own Son, 8:32) and the righteousness of God's way of salvation by "faith in Jesus" (v. 26). In dealing with Christ as sin-bearer and the human person as sinner, God does not compromise His own holiness or the necessity of sin's bieng atoned for. Yet He graciously provides a salvation that mankind was incapable of obtaining. In this respect, Paul sees the Cross as the manifestation of the glorious wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:23, 24).

A New Post

Hey, this is a new post. I've been terribly busy recently. Normally, I have two essays due each week (1x 1500 word, 1x 3000 word). Last week, however, I had three essays due (2x 1500 words, 1x 3000 word). This week, I have the normal two essays due (one of which I finished today).

I'm playing lots of table tennis here at Cambridge. I joined the CU Table Tennis Club (though I'm not nearly good enough to play on the CU team), and I'm on the Homerton College table tennis team (which I am good enough to play on). The Homerton team is in a league with the other 30 individual Cambridge colleges. The Homerton College team has played twice so far this term: first against St. Catherine's College, and then against Robinson College. We won both competitions: 5-4 against St. Catherine's and 6-3 against Robinson. Against St. Catherine's, I personally went 2-1, and then I went 1-2 against Robinson. There are three players per team, and each player plays each of the other team's players once (so there are 9 matches per competition). Each match is best of five games—although, if both teams wish to shorten the competition, they may agree to only play best of three games (this was the case at our second competition). On the CU Table Tennis Club, I am, however, on the club "ladder" (although I happen to be last, since I was the last person to join the ladder. You can even see my name on the CUTTC website here. Visit the main page for the Cambridge University Table Tennis Club website. You can see the rules and everything. (I can only think of one or two people who would be interested in all this.)

I must now go to a theology supervision ("The Shaping of Modern Theologians"), but I'll be back with another post soon.