Pastor Mark Fox wrote in his weekly newspaper column last Saturday about the authority of God’s Word and our inability to change it to meet our preferences.
In doing so, he challenged the UCC denomination’s use of Gracie Allen’s quote “Don’t put a period where God puts a comma … God still speaks.” A slogan which is used to state the opposite view: that God doesn’t really mean what He said all along in His Word, and the Bible therefore is open to alternate and contradictory interpretations from historical orthodox theological positions.
A working example of this slogan in practice is the UCC’s reversal of the Biblical position of homosexuality being a sin, and therefore not something in which repentance is required (other examples can be seen in these two responses to the same editorial: (One. Two).
Stephen W. Camp, Conference Minister of the UCC, took issue with Pastor Fox’s article, but in doing so misrepresented Mr. Fox’s words and position, claiming somehow that Pastor Fox doesn’t believe in forgiveness.
I issued a challenge to Mr. Camp in the editorial of the paper to see if he would be willing to test Pastor Fox’s belief and practice of forgiveness:
In the Letters To The Editor on Sunday, July 13th, Pastor Mark Fox’s words were severely misrepresented, necessitating an observer’s response.
Referring to Fox’s July 5th column, UCC Minister Stephen Camp implied that Mr. Fox doesn’t believe in forgiveness or second chances, and asserted his personal view that Fox’s theology is “narrow” and “harms.” But in support of such conclusions Camp failed to accurately represent what Fox actually wrote.
Mr. Camp claimed that Pastor Fox “suggests that God must place periods, never commas, in our lives.” However, what Fox actually wrote was that WE should never place a comma, where GOD has already placed a period. Fox’s point was clear: Where God has been absolute in His Word, we do not have the prerogative to change the meaning of Scripture to our liking – a very important distinction from Camp’s misrepresentation of Fox’s words.
One thing in Scripture where God has been clear and absolute is the ninth commandment, which states that we should not bear false witness against one another. It is appreciable and humble to recognize that people have different views, and therefore agree to disagree on such matters. It shouldn’t however be tolerated when people publicly distort and misrepresent another’s words.
I am positive that if Mr. Camp were to ask for Pastor Fox’s forgiveness, he would discover that Mr. Fox does practice the forgiveness he believes and preaches, even though he was maligned by Camp’s words.
Filed under: Apologetics, Church Life, Editorials, Homosexuality, Methodists, PCUSA, Scripture
Good points, Tony. I addressed that in this piece – http://4simpsons.wordpress.com/2007/07/19/problems-with-pro-gay-theology-4-of-4/
Here’s part of it:
A Methodist pastor named Laurie Hays Coffman did a pro-gay theology piece that made the argument that she wants to “unfurl our corporate sails to catch today’s winds as the Spirit blows afresh.” She said she was challenged by the vision God gave to Peter in Acts 10-11 where God makes it clear that the Gospel is for the Gentiles, too, and that the Israelites’ ceremonial dietary laws are no longer in force.
Her reasoning is that in the same way that God overturned those laws that He is now overturning the prohibitions against homosexual behavior.
The problem is her poor Biblical analysis. There are at least nine things wrong with this view:
The person with the revelation was Peter, one of Jesus’ inner circle and a key leader in the early church. It wasn’t made to you, me or someone like Ms. Coffman. That doesn’t mean God couldn’t reveal something important like this to us, just that it is highly unlikely.
The visions were clear and emphatic. Peter was given the vision three times.
Peter was inclined to reject the meaning of the vision, whereas these pro-gay theologians have views on human sexuality that are virtually indistinguishable from the prevailing culture and they are glad to accept this “new revelation.”
There was external validation for Peter from the Roman centurion.
This lesson showed up in the Bible, not outside it. I’m not saying miracles don’t happen outside the Bible. It is just that things appear in the Bible for a reason. God communicating that the ceremonial laws had been fulfilled was one of those “big deals.”
This vision overturned a ceremonial law, not a moral law. There are zero examples in the Bible of God reversing his moral laws. In fact, the more Jesus talked the stricter the laws seemed to get, because He emphasized the spirit of the law and not just the letter (i.e., lust was akin to committing adultery, anger was akin to murder, etc.). The dietary laws never applied to Gentiles.
The “God has changed his mind view” is primarily being “revealed” to theologically liberal Christians in the U.S. . . . the very ones who often deny his Word to being with! So we can’t trust the accurate transmission of the original writings but we can trust their new revelations? Go figure.
If God is revealing a change, why is it necessarily more liberal? Why couldn’t God make his laws more stringent? Jesus never watered down any moral teachings. At a minimum he made the intent more clear and more difficult to adhere to (i.e., lust is like adultery, unrighteous anger is like murder).
The Bible gives strong warnings not to add or take away from its teachings.
Other than those nine problems, she had a great point to make
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Thanks Neil, I had forgotten about your posts on this but I need to revisit it. Look at the original post above and click on the words “one” and “two.”
These are two letters that also ran in the paper from these same apologists and I am working on a guest column reply to them in the paper.
I might use some of your information on the shellfish arguments, etc. Thanks for that resource!
tr
Best of luck with the responses.
One UCC supporter said:
“In fact, in the scope of Christian history the reading of the Bible in a purely literal and infallible sense is a relatively recent phenomenon arising as a dominant view only in the last few centuries.”
That’s odd, because I remember Jesus supporting every last letter of the law and the prophets. And the “purely literal” bit sounds straw-man-ish to me. I don’t know anyone who reads it that way.
[...] In response to that article a local UCC pastor distorted much of what was said. I addressed that myself in a Letter To The Editor, but several other UCC apologists wrote letters in response to the original column, and literally embarrassed themselves with their use of Scripture. (I wrote about this a few days ago here). [...]