RCA Integrity is a renewal group in the Reformed Church in America. The aim of our annual conference is threefold:

• Celebrating the gospel
• Renewing the local church
• Encouraging new partnerships

This year’s conference will be held at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois on May 16-17. The cost is $50. We are pleased to welcome Ligon Duncan as our 2011 keynote speaker.

More information about the conference can be found at our newly designed RCA Integrity website. Registration is now open, though the web registration isn’t functioning yet. Check back in a week or so to register online, or simply print out the registration form and mail it in the old fashioned way.

We realize others outside the RCA may be interested in this conference. Last year we had a few people from other networks and that was fine. But please keep in mind that space is limited and the focus of the conference is to build up RCA pastors, students, and lay leaders.

Many in the young, restless, reformed movement do not realize that there is an alternate stream of Reformed theology, one that stands more in the tradition of Barth, Berkouwer, and Torrance than Warfield, Berkhof, and Frame. I happen to think that second stream is truer to the source, but not all agree.

Of course, the most important source is the Bible, but when it comes to Reformed theology John Calvin naturally carries a lot of weight (to mix my metaphors). One of the debates between the two Reformed currents is whether Calvin believed in inerrancy. That is, did he believe the Bible was true only in matter of faith and practice or did he believe the Scriptures to be completely without error in all they affirm? In short, was Calvin an inerrantist?

The answer, in a word, is yes. For Calvin, we “will be safe from the danger of erring” so long as we “inquire from the Scriptures what is right and true” (Calvin’s Comm., Matthew 22:29). Indeed, it is our wisdom to embrace “without finding fault, whatever is taught in Sacred Scripture” (Inst. I.xviii.4). The biblical writers were, according to Calvin, “organs of the Holy Spirit” uttering only what they were commissioned to declare (Calvin’s Comm., 2 Timothy 3:16). The Holy Spirit is “the Author of Scriptures” (Inst. I.ix.2). Consequently, “we owe to the Scripture the same reverence which we owe to God; because it has proceeded from him alone, and has nothing belonging to man mixed with it” (Calvin’s Comm., 2 Tim. 3:16). For Calvin, Scripture is so well-ordered, so unified, so beautiful and perfect that it “savor[s] of nothing earthly” (Inst. I.viii.1).

It is not hard to find quotations like these throughout Calvin’s writings. For example, according to the Genevan reformer, the apostles were “sure and genuine scribes of the Holy Spirit” (Inst. IV.viii.9). God so controlled the process of inspiration that Calvin can speak of the Spirit “in a certain measure dictating the words” of Scripture (Inst. IV.viii.8). By this Calvin does not mean the human authors were passive copyists who simply wrote down what they heard from heaven. He means that the process of inspiration was so complete and total as to yield the same result as if the Bible were nothing but dictation. God put into the minds of the men who wrote Scripture what should be written (Inst. I.vi.2) and even directed their pens (Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, Argument).

Calvin was not naive about the apparent discrepancies in Scripture, nor did he expect biblical numbers to be exact. He accepted that Scripture uses phenomenological language and figures of speech. He often probed the difficult issues stemming from mistakes in translation and transmission. All that to say, he made the same sort of distinctions careful modern-day inerrantists make.

More to the point, however, he held to the same view of verbal, plenary inspiration. Calvin never rejected the truthfulness of any Scriptural affirmation. He believed the Bible to be the Word of God and without error. He argued on many occasions that to disagree with the Bible was to disagree with God himself. Conversely, those submissive to God, he maintained, would submit themselves to the Scriptures. They would never be led by the Spirit away from the Bible, for the Bible is the Spirit’s book.

In conclusion, let me humbly and confidently suggest that those wishing to stand downstream from Calvin ought to be standing in the tradition of Hodge, Machen, and Boice . Like those inerrantists, not to mention the vast majority of Christians throughout history traveling down the wide river of mere Christianity, Calvin understood that “we owe to Scripture the same reverence which we owe to God.”

On my other blog (my real blog), I've been working through seven common "social justice" passages. I thought it might be worth sharing the last of these expositions.

Here are the other six posts: Micah 6:8; Amos 5; Matthew 25:31-46; Jeremiah 22; Isaiah 58; Isaiah 1.

And here are some earlier posts on the same theme: Moral Proximity; Leviticus 19; Leviticus 25; the term social justice.

Now on to Luke 4:16-21.

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

No doubt, this text is one of the clearest statements of Jesus’ mission and the goals of his ministry. It is also one of the most misunderstood. In popular explanations, Luke 4 underscores that Jesus’ mission focused on the materially destitute and the downtrodden. In this interpretation, Jesus is Messiah and social liberator. He came to bring the year of jubilee to the oppressed. He came to transform social structures and bring God’s creation back to shalom. Therefore, our mission, in keeping with Christ’s mission, is, to quote one well-respected book “to extend the kingdom by infiltrating all segments of society, with preference given to the poor, and allowing no dichotomy between evangelism and social transformation (Luke 4:18-19).” Above all else, Luke 4, it is argued, shows that Jesus’ mission was to serve the poor. Shouldn’t that be our mission too?

This common approach to Luke 4 is not entirely off base, but it misses two critical observations.

First, it overlooks the actual verbs Jesus’ read from the Isaiah scroll. The Spirit of the Lord, resting upon Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah, would anoint him to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. With the exception of “to set at liberty the oppressed” (which we’ll come back to in a moment), these are all speaking words. While it’s certainly true that Jesus healed the sick and gave sight to the blind (as pointers to his deity and as signs of the kingdom’s in-breaking), the messianic mission statement in Luke 4 highlights the announcement of good news. If Luke 4 sets the tone for the mission of the church, then our mission ought to focus mainly on the preaching of the gospel.

Second, the “missions as social transformation” reading of Luke 4 assumes too much of a strictly economic understanding of “the poor” (ptochos). While ptochos in verse 18 is probably not without some reference to material poverty, there are several reasons to think the word signifies much more than this.

(1) The quotation is from Isaiah 61:1 where the poor are lumped in with the “broken-hearted” and “all who mourn.” The poor in Isaiah are not just materially poor; they are the humble poor, the mournful ones waiting for their promised “oil of gladness” and their “garment of praise” (Isa. 61:3). The Hebrew anaoim in verse 1 can be translated “poor” (ESV, NIV) or “meek” (KJV) or “afflicted” (NASB, ESV footnote). All are possible because something more than material poverty is in mind.

(2) Likewise, the Greek word ptochos can speak of literal or figurative poverty. Of the ten uses of ptochos in Luke, seven should be taken as literal poverty (14:13, 21; 16:20, 22: 18:22; 19:8; 21:3), while three may be figurative (4:18; 6:20; 7:22). Elsewhere in the New Testament, Revelation 3:17 is a clear instance where ptochos should be taken figuratively. Laodicea thought themselves rich (and they were materially), but on a deeper spiritual level they were “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.” As in English, the Greek word for “poor” carries different shades of meaning, both literal and figurative.

(3) A strictly literal understanding of “the poor” in the immediate context would not make sense. If “the poor” are the literally poor, then “the captives,” “the blind,” and “the oppressed” should be taken literally as well. And yet there is no instance in the gospels of Jesus setting a literal prisoner free (something that confused John the Baptist [Luke 7:18-23]). Quite naturally we understand captivity and oppression to include spiritual bondage. It is not inappropriate, then, to put a spiritual gloss on “the poor” as well.

(4) The slightly wider context makes the same point. Jesus mentions two examples of the type of person who experienced the Lord’s favor in the Old Testament. One is the widow of Zarephath. She was materially poor. But the other example is Naaman, the important Syrian general who humbled himself by dipping seven times in the Jordan River. If these are the examples of good news for the poor, the poor has more to do with poverty of spirit than material destitution.

(5) The materially rich do not always fair badly in Luke-Acts. In fact, David Bosch, one of the seminal thinkers in the missional theology, goes so far as to say Luke is more “the evangelist of the rich” than “the evangelist of the poor.” Bosch doesn’t mean at all that Luke favors the rich. That’s plainly not the case. What he means is that Luke more any other evangelist tries to show how the materially rich can, and do, get it right. So only in Luke’s gospel do we get John the Baptist’s instructions on what repentance looks like for tax collectors, soldiers, and those with two tunics (3:10-14). Only in Luke do we have the story of Zacchaeus to offset the story of the rich young ruler (Luke 18-19). And in Acts, Luke mentions the generosity of land-holder Barnabas immediately before he tells the story of lying Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 4:36-37; 5:1-11). If Jesus were only good news for the materially poor, there would be no way to explain these stories of the commendable rich.

So for all these reasons I agree with Andreas Kostenberger and P.T. O’Brien that “The ‘poor’ to whom the good news is announced are not to be understood narrowly of the economically destitute, as most recent scholars have suggested; rather the term refers more generally to ‘the dispossessed, the excluded’ who were forced to depend upon God.” I agree with David Bosch when he concludes, “Therefore, in Luke’s gospel, the rich are tested on the ground of their wealth, whereas others are tested on loyalty toward their family, their people, their culture, and their work (Lk. 9:59-61). This means the poor are sinners like everybody else, because ultimately sinfulness is rooted in the human heart. Just as the materially rich can be spiritually poor, the materially poor can be spiritually poor.” Many other scholars past and present, including Eckhard Schnabel, David Hesselgrave, Robert Stein, Christopher Little, I. Howard Marshall, and Darrell Bock have come to similar conclusions.

This does not rule out an economic component to ptochos in Luke 4. The poor are often the economic poor because material hardship more often than material plenty translates into spiritual sensitivity, humility, and the desperation that gives you the ears to hear God’s voice. There’s a reason Jesus said “blessed are the poor” instead of “blessed are the rich.” The poor are more apt to see their need for help than the rich. The Greek word ptochos is, to use quote Darrell Bock, best described as a “soteriological generalization.” It refers to those who are open to God, responsive to him, and see their dependence upon him. It is to these that Jesus proclaims the year of the Lord’s favor. Therefore, Jesus’ mission laid out in Luke 4 was not a mission of structural change and social transformation, but a mission to announce the good news of his saving power and merciful reign for all those brokenhearted enough to believe.



The College reminds school superintendents that it is not uncommon for adolescents to experience transient confusion about their sexual orientation and that most students will ultimately adopt a heterosexual orientation if not otherwise encouraged. For this reason, schools should not seek to develop policy which “affirms” or encourages these non-heterosexual attractions among students who may merely be experimenting or experiencing temporary sexual confusion. Such premature labeling can lead some adolescents to engage in homosexual behaviors that carry serious physical and mental health risks.

There is no scientific evidence that anyone is born gay or transgendered. Therefore, the College further advises that schools should not teach or imply to students that homosexual attraction is innate, always life-long and unchangeable.  Research has shown that therapy to restore heterosexual attraction can be effective for many people.

In their letter to school superindents, the College provides more rationale for their advice.

Dr. Francis Collins, former Director of the Genome Project, has stated that while homosexuality may be genetically influenced, it is “… not hardwired by DNA, and that whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations.” He also states [that] “…the prominent role[s] of individual free will choices [has] a profound effect on us.” 6

The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) recently released a landmark survey and analysis of 125 years of scientific studies and clinical experience dealing with homosexuality. This report, What Research Shows, draws three major conclusions: (1) individuals with unwanted same sex attraction often can be successfully treated; (2) there is no undue risk to patients from embarking on such therapy and (3), as a group, homosexuals experience significantly higher levels of mental and physical health problems compared to heterosexuals. Among adolescents who claim a “gay” identity, the health risks include higher rates of sexually transmitted infections, alcoholism, substance abuse, anxiety, depression and suicide. Encouragingly, the longer students delay self-labeling as “gay,” the less likely they are to experience these health risks. In fact, for each year an adolescent delays, the risk of suicide alone decreases by 20%.7

In light of these facts, it is clear that when well-intentioned but misinformed school personnel encourage students to “come out as gay” and be “affirmed,” 8 there is a serious risk of erroneously labeling students (who may merely be experiencing transient sexual confusion and/or engaging in sexual experimentation). Premature labeling may then lead some adolescents into harmful homosexual behaviors that they otherwise would not pursue.

You can read the press release here.

For the letter to school superindents go here.

There's also a fact sheet on what we should know about "Sexual Orientation of Youth."

Hope College is in the news again.

Being outside the West Michigan vortex, this is the first I’ve heard of any of this. The controversy is convoluted, but it goes something like this: Last year, Dustin Lance Black, screenwriter for Milk, the biopic about gay-rights pioneer Harvey Milk, was in Holland working on a new project (go here for a critical review of Milk’s historical accuracy). Black’s attempt to show a screening of Milk at Hope College, my alma mater and one of three colleges affiliated with the Reformed Church in America, was rebuffed.

Not surprisingly, this prompted some to rally around Black and his film in an effort to combat the town’s perceived homophobia and to encourage conversation about homosexuality in this conservative part of the country. A few months later Black came back to Holland to show Milk to a sold-out audience in town. Black even blogged about his experience in Holland, Michigan and at Hope College for the Daily Beast. The not-so-subtle title: “Milk Screenwriter Battles a Gay-Bashing College.”

Two days ago the issues surrounding Milk and homosexuality resurfaced again with a lead story in the Grand Rapids Press.

Influential alumni are lining up against Hope College policies they claim shun homosexuality on campus and create an unwelcome environment for faculty, students and guests.

The alumni group — formed in the wake of the college rejecting Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black’s offer to show his film and hold a discussion about sexuality — has sent trustees a petition calling for change and a new panel to advise the president.

Among the leaders pushing for the moves are two children of past Hope College presidents, a retired Reformed Church in America minister, a former ambassador and distinguished journalists and athletes.

As is often the case, those agitating for this kind of institutional change are doing so in the name of open discussion. One recent graduate, Karis Granberg-Michaelson, who helps lead the Hope is Ready organization, argues, “”We are simply not having a dialogue. We’re having a monologue, and that doesn’t help anyone.” According to Black, writing in December, “They [Hope College and Holland] had simply never discussed gay rights openly before, and here I was, an interloper, threatening to thrust this hot-button issue into their community.”

I beg to differ. I was a student at Hope College from 1995-1999. There was no issue talked about more than homosexuality. The Dean of the Chapel, Ben Patterson ironically enough, was openly disdained by some faculty (and fewer students) for his public opposition to homosexuality. We had television crews and reporters on campus frequently. There were clotheslines draped across the pine grove protesting our “intolerance.” Mel White, a pro-gay advocate now with Soulforce, spoke on campus to a packed-out chapel. I was there. Students wrote letters to the editors back and forth in the student newspaper. The campus community talked about homosexuality, it seemed like, for two years straight.

Hope College has discussed this before. Holland, Michigan, even though it is conservative, is not just hearing about homosexuality for the first time. There are open and affirming churches in Holland. There are still GLBT supporters among the faculty. This issue tore through the campus over ten years ago, and, I imagine, has never completely gone away. The RCA, the parent denomination for Hope, just concluded three years of intentional dialogue on the subject. A new subject this is not.

And yet, Hope College, and the RCA, still believe that homosexual behavior is not consistent with biblical teaching.

Some Hope alumni disagree (whether they are “influential” as the Press calls them remains to be seen). They have a right to make that disagreement known. But no one can say that there hasn’t been discussion or that West Michigan has never consider this issue. Besides, a private Christian college has a right to decide what it does and does not want to promote. Some conversations are worth having. Some are not. And some conversations are actually advocacy in disguise.

One final thought. As providence would have it, Dr. James Bultman, Hope’s president, spoke at our Classis meeting Tuesday night, the same day this latest story hit the papers. I don’t want to attempt to quote President Bultman for fear of misquoting him. But from what I heard at this public venue I want to convey how impressed I was with his remarks, the last few minutes of which directly addressed this controversy. Bultman is passionately committed to preserve Hope from secularization, wanting to the college to excel in academics and maintain its Christian identity. He is not reactionary in any way, nor as conservative as I would be in some areas, but he is unapologetic in insisting that faculty members know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And judging from his courageous comments on Tuesday, he will not budge on the issue of homosexuality.

The ministers and elders of our Classis gave him a long and loud round of applause when he was finished.

If we love the word of God and the health of the Reformed Church in America, President Bultman and Hope College deserve our prayers.

From the beginning of his ministry in the Mid-Atlantics to his death, Frelinghuysen was controversial. He preached emotional sermons, prayed free prayers, practiced church discipline, and aimed squarely at the conversion of sinners. His messages were experiential, fruitful, and popular. He could also be an irascible fellow.

Three centuries later, he is remembered (if he is remembered at all) as the forerunner to the revivals that swept through America in the middle decades of the 18th century.

During the heyday of the Awakening, George Whitefield, the most celebrated preacher of his century, met Frelinghuysen and later wrote about the encounter in his Journals:

Among those who came to hear the Word were several ministers whom the Lord has been pleased to honour in making them instruments of bringing many sons to glory. One was a Dutch Calvinistic minister, named Freeling Housen, pastor of a congregation about four miles from New Brunswick. He is a worthy old soldier of Jesus Christ, and was the beginner of the great work which I trust the Lord is carrying on in these parts. He has been strongly opposed by his carnal brethren, but God has always appeared for him in a surprising manner, and made him more than conqueror, through his love. He has long since learnt to fear him only who can destroy both body and soul in hell.

Frelinghuysen’s influence was not confined to Whitefield. The Dutch preacher was instrumental in the ministry of Gilbert Tennent and highly respected by Jonathan Edwards as one who laid the evangelical groundwork for God's blessing. Frelinghuysen was truly the “beginning of the great work.”

I’m no expert on Frelinghuysen, not even an amateur. But I’ve read just enough of his life and his sermons to spot several valuable lessons.

1. Dead orthodoxy is deadly. It can be hard for those who bemoan the atheological nature of today’s church (as I do) to admit it, but it’s true: orthodoxy can be dead, and when it dies it is deadly. Frelinghuysen encountered Reformed churches filled with self righteousness and empty formalism. They had the appearance of godliness, but knew not its power. His emphases on conversion and piety were not always welcome, but they were necessary. Let us not be so afraid of emtionalism and subjectivism that we mistake lifeless orthodoxy for faithfulness.

2. Tradition is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. Frelinghuysen followed the Three Forms of Unity. He often preached from and referenced the Heidelberg Catechism. He was, gladly, a confessional Calvinist. He believed in harnessing the power of tradition.

But he was not a slave to traditionalism. In objecting to Frelinghuysen’s insistence on using free prayers and his collaborating with other evangelicals, Classis Amsterdam hurrumphed, “We must be careful to do things in a Dutch way in our churches.” The Dutch leaders did not like his deviation from the liturgy, nor did they appreciate his enthusiasm and the subjective nature of his preaching. They wanted a Dutch preacher who stuck with the Dutch ways.

Frelinghuysen did not reject his Dutch Calvinism, but he wanted to do more than carry on a tradition. He wanted to preach the new birth. As such, he was willing to partner with those who shared his theological convictions and ministry goals, regardless of denominational attachment, ethnic or linguistic background, or social distinctions.

3. God blesses preaching that is scriptural, personal, and evangelical. Some sermons don’t translate well to the printed page, but Frelinghuysen’s still burst with life. When they are not catechetical, his sermons invariably work from a single text and pulse with numerous biblical allusions and references. He knew his Bible, trusted it implicitly, and preached from it explicitly.

Besides being scriptural, Frelinghuysen’s sermons are evangelical in the best sense of the word. Nearly every sermon I read dealt with the sinfulness of man, the holiness of God, the reality of heaven and hell, and the necessity of receiving the gospel and experiencing the new birth. This is preaching God can use. And did. More than 300 were converted under Frelinghuysen’s ministry.

His sermons were also intensely personal. I don’t mean Frelinghuysen used personal illustrations or got “authentic.” He did something better. He spoke directly to his hearers.  He wasn’t afraid to warn, plead, and cajole. For example:

Oh, that you could be aroused! Seek the Lord, I pray you, while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. For you cannot be assured of your life for a moment. Avail yourself, then, of the present moment. The Lord may be found right now, but you do not know how long that will last. Right now He invites you to come so that He may offer you His favor and grace. He stands with open arms and waits. Do not let this season of grace–the time in which He may be found–pass you by.

Does the preaching in your church (my church!) sound like this? Are we preaching the gospel to our people or merely explaining what the gospel is about? No amount of structural tinkering or missional activity can replace the personal, passionate, pleading of robust gospel preaching.

4. Do not neglect the third mark of the church. To the chagrin of nearly everyone, Frelinghuysen reintroduced the practice of church discipline. He set high standards for the Lord’s Table. The Supper was not a converting ordinance, but a meal for the truly regenerate. Following 1 Corinthians 5 and Matthew 18, Domine Frelinghuysen put unrepentant sinners out of the church, a practice that encouraged holiness and outraged many of his people.

5. Fear God, not people. Many of his contemporaries deeply despised Frelinghuysen. “I am the man everyone talks about,” he wrote about himself, “beloved by many, hated by many more.” Despite the onslaught of criticism and opposition, he pressed on with courage. His motto: “I seek not praise. I fear not blame.”

6. Doctrinal fidelity and evangelistic fervor do not have to be at odds. Frelinghuysen did not accept that head and heart had to pull in opposite directions. He embraced traditional Calvinist theology, utilized zealous frontier-style preaching, accepted confessional standards, and labored earnestly for conversions. He held together diverse inclinations that don't have to be apart.

7. Passion and courage are no excuses for a harsh spirit. Like all heroes (save one), Frelinghuysen had his weaknesses. In fact, he probably had more than most. He was a hothead and seldom irenic. He was harsh toward his opponents and judgmental at times toward his congregation. His demand for a heart-experience kept from the Table some Christians who made a solid profession and were not living in immorality, but could not live up to Frelinghuysen’s subjective standards. Later in life, he became more aware of his character flaws and realized that some of the “persecution” was owing to his own prophetic bullheadedness. Likewise, he was sorry he had labeled so many of his colleagues “unconverted.”

Frelinghuysen, with his gifts and guffaws, has something to teach all of us, the conservative formalist, the liberal traditionalist, the passionless preacher, and the professional pugilist. Most of all, we ought to give thanks for this man used by God to light a spark that the Spirit fanned into the flames of the Great Awakening. As a pastor in the same denomination as Frelinghuysen, I am especially grateful for his powerful preacher of Calvinist doctrine and evangelical grace. I encourage all Christians, especially all of us in the Dutch Reformed tradition, to listen to the forgotten voice of this neglected forerunner.

“Mugged by Ultrasound: Why So Many Abortion Workers Have Turned Pro-Life”, by David Daleiden and Jon Shields, is a gut-wrenching, disturbing, graphic account of the emotional trauma abortion wrecks on those who perform them. For example, in 2008, Dr. Lisa Harris explained what happened while she, 18-weeks pregnant at the time, performed an abortion on an 18-week-old fetus. She felt her own baby kick at the same time she ripped off a fetal leg with her forceps. This prompted a visceral response.

Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes—without me—meaning my conscious brain—even being aware of what was going on. I felt as if my response had come entirely from my body, bypassing my usual cognitive processing completely. A message seemed to travel from my hand and my uterus to my tear ducts. It was an overwhelming feeling—a brutally visceral response—heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics. It was one of the more raw moments in my life.

Tragically, Dr. Harris is still in the abortion business.

Paul Jarret is not. He quit after 23 abortions. “As I brought out the rib cage, I looked and saw a tiny, beating heart,” he would recall, reflecting on aborting a 14-week-old fetus. “And when I found the head of the baby, I looked squarely in the face of another human being—a human being that I just killed.” Judith Fetrow and Kathy Spark, both former abortion workers, converted to the pro-life cause after seeing the disposal of fetal remains as medical waste. Daleiden and Shields explain:

Handling fetal remains can be especially difficult in late-term clinics. Until George Tiller was assassinated by a pro-life radical last summer, his clinic in Wichita specialized in third-trimester abortions. To handle the large volume of biological waste Tiller had a crematorium on the premises. One day when hauling a heavy container of fetal waste, Tiller asked his secretary, Luhra Tivis, to assist him. She found the experience devastating. The “most horrible thing,” Tivis later recounted, was that she “could smell those babies burning.” Tivis, a former NOW activist, soon left her secretarial position at the clinic to volunteer for Operation Rescue, a radical pro-life organization.

Many abortion providers have been converted by ultrasound technology. The most famous example is Bernard Nathanson, cofounder of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, the original NARAL. By his own reckoning Nathanson performed more than 60,000 abortions, including one on his own child. But over time he began to fear he was involved in a great evil. Ultrasound images pushed him over the edge. “When he finally left his profession for pro-life activism, he produced The Silent Scream (1984), a documentary of an ultrasound abortion that showed the fetus scrambling vainly to escape dismemberment.”

Sadly, countless abortion workers keep on perpetuating the great evil, even if it means suppressing the truth they literally feel in their bones.

Pro-choice advocates like to point out that abortion has existed in all times and places. Yet that observation tends to obscure the radicalism of the present abortion regime in the United States. Until very recently, no one in the history of the world has had the routine job of killing well-developed fetuses quite so up close and personal. It is an experiment that was bound to stir pro-life sentiments even in the hearts of those staunchly devoted to abortion rights.  Ultrasound and D&E [dilation and evacuation] bring workers closer to the beings they destroy. Hern and Corrigan concluded their study by noting that D&E leaves “no possibility of denying an act of destruction.” As they wrote, “It is before one’s eyes. The sensations of dismemberment run through the forceps like an electric current.”

Read the whole thing and pray for abortion workers.



A number of people continue to wonder aloud how crucial the doctrine of the virgin birth really is. In a related vein, I’ve had a few people (on the blogosphere and elsewhere) ask about the transmission of sin and what role, if any, the virgin birth played in keeping Christ free from sin. This is a good question. Because if we aren’t careful we could end up saying sex is bad or that the sin nature is passed on through the male.

In order to answer this question about the transmission of sin, and to demonstrate that I’m not the only one who considers the virgin birth crucial to the faith, I thought we should listen to what others have said about the matter.

Calvin:

Thus, so skillfully does he [the Apostle Paul] distinguish Christ from the common lot that he is true man but without fault and corruption. But they babble childishly: if Christ is free from all spot, and through the secret working of the Spirit was begotten of the seed of Mary, then woman’s seed is not unclean, but only man’s. For we make Christ free of all stain not just because he was begotten of his mother without copulation with man, but because he was sanctified by the Spirit that the generation might be pure and undefiled as would have been true before Adam’s fall (Inst. II.xiv.8).

Ursinus:

The Holy Ghost miraculously sanctified that which was conceived and produced in the womb of the Virgin, so that original sin did not attach itself to that which was thus formed; for it did not become the Word, the Son of God, to assume a nature polluted with sin…Objection: But Christ was born of a mother that was a sinner. Therefore he himself had sin. Answer: The Holy Ghost knows best how to distinguish and separate sin from the nature of man; for sin is not from the nature of man [as created], but was added to it from the devil (Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, 206).

Ursinus goes on to explain why the virgin birth matters. 1) It confirms that the Son of God truly assumed human flesh. 2) It means Christ truly descended from the fathers; he was a true seed of Abrhaam and a son of David. 3) That we may know that the Scriptures are fulfilled. 4) That we may know that Christ was sanctified in the womb and therefore pure and without sin. 5) That we may know there is an analogy between the nativity of Christ and the regeneration of the faithful (206-7).

Bavinck:

The exclusion of the man from his conception at the same time had the effect that Christ, as one not included in the covenant of works, remained exempt from original sin and could therefore also be preserved in terms of his human nature, both before and after his birth, from all pollution of sin. As subject, as “I,” he did not descend from Adam but was the Son of the Father, chosen from eternity to be the head of a new covenant. Not Adam but God was his father. As a person he was not the product of humankind but himself came to humankind from without and entered into its ranks. And since he thus, in God’s righteous judgment, remained exempt from all original sin, he could be conceived by the Holy Spirit and by that Spirit remain free from all pollution of sin. Conception by the Holy Spirit was not the deepest ground and final cause of Jesus’ sinlessness, as many theologians say, but was the only way in which he who already existed as a person and was appointed head of a new covenant could now also in a human way–in the flesh–be and remain who he was: the Christ, the Son of God the most High (Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 3, 294-95).

In summary, the virgin birth is crucially important for several reasons, one of which is that it made possible the uniting of full deity and full humanity in one person. If Jesus had come to earth without being born, it would be hard to see how he was a human like us. But if he had been born to two parents just as we are, it would be hard to see how he could be fully God.

Is it possible that God could have brought Christ into the world in some other way? We don’t’ know. Scripture doesn’t tell us. But Scripture does strongly suggest that Christ was born holy as a result of being conceived by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35). This does not mean sex is evil, nor that sin is only transmitted through the father. It means that although Christ was a man like Adam, he was not a descendant of Adam. Rather, he stood in parallel as the promised seed of Abraham and a second Adam. The Adamic line, with its inherited taint, was interrupted in Christ. Christ was not begotten by a man, but by God. He was not conceived through natural human intercourse, but by supernatural intervention. The virgin birth shows that someone from the outside has come in to our world. A new stream is flowing, one that is not involved with the guilt that flows in the original stream.

It is best not to speculate how all this can be. What Scripture tells us clearly is that it is. The Gospels want us to understand that Christ was not conceived in the normal way (Matt. 1:20), and that his miraculous conception does, in part, speak to his unique identity as God with us (Matt. 1:23). If we remove the virginal conception from the equation, the biblical account of Jesus identity and mission does not hold together.

He was born of the Virgin Mary that he might be recognized as the true son of Abraham and David, who had been promised in the Law and the Prophets; as true man, like us in all things, save only sin, who having been tried by all our infirmities learned to bear with them.  Yet that same one was conceived in the Virgin’s womb by the wonderful and ineffable (to us) power of the Holy Spirit, that he might not be fouled by any physical corruption, but might be born sanctified with the highest purity.

Calvin, and the Reformed tradition after him, not to mention the historic orthodox faith behind him, has not hesitated to make much of the virgin birth. If building on the virgin birth is a theological house of cards, as some contend, then it’s one that has been built up many times.

And while I’m spending time I shouldn’t on blogging, let me make one other point. Christianity is a historical religion. To suggest that Matthew or Luke inserted the virgin birth as a metaphorical example of how God can do amazing things is, frankly, preposterous. Luke, for example, claims to have received his reports from “eyewitnesses” (1:2). He then makes clear that he has “followed all things closely” and has endeavored to write “an orderly account” so that Theophilus “may have certainty concerning the things” he has been taught (1:3-4). This is not the introduction you give if you plan on throwing in a few myths here and there.

Moreover, everything in the first two chapters of Luke screams “history.” Luke is exceedingly careful to note who was ruling where and when. The references to Augustus, Herod, and Quirinius tell us, at the very least, that Luke sure thought the birth of Jesus happened just as he narrates it. It is history he is relating to Theophilus, nothing less.

This same emphasis on history, by the way, shows up in the Creed. Why mention so specifically that Christ “suffered under Pontius Pilate” if the bit about “born of the virgin Mary” is ahistorical make-believe? The Gospels and the early church believed it was important not just that Jesus was born of a virgin, but that it was a virgin birth that really happened in time and history.