Today I read another annoying Letter to the Editor in my local paper and since this paper chooses not to publish anything I send to them, I thought I would inflict my response to this piece of inanity on TFD.

The author begins with this statement (“writing about the Catholic hierarchy’s refusal to admit women to the priesthood”):

“There are many people in this country and in other countries throughout the world who have long wished for women to be included as priests, thus far to no avail.”

My mother used to say, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” The fact is, there are many people around the world that have long wished that a UFO would land in a populated area. However, most of us know that wishes don’t make horses or UFO’s.

Notice that the author appeals immediately to the American aversion to “hierarchy” as if in-and-of-itself the fact that an organization has an order of authority it is automatically evil. This, of course is complete and utter nonsense. This is particularly true in all matters of the church. The church is per se a hierarchy with God on top. What He says goes—period. If God has established that priests and (in a Protestant context) pastors should be men, then that is the end of the matter. No amount of wishing or democratic nose-counting will change what God has decreed. Some people cannot understand the difference between America’s two party democracy and God’s kingship of the universe.

The author continues:

“There is no logical reason why women should not be included. After all God made us all equal, men and women. Such inequalities as the refusal of women to priesthood is a long-standing issue and needs to be considered in this time of need for women who feel they are called by God to serve him in this manner and are still forbidden to do so.”

Wow, where do I begin with this condensed version of postmodern sentimentalism? First, it is perfectly logical that if Christianity is a revealed religion by which God has given His Word to humanity that, therefore, its adherents should obey His commands. Christianity is not Bunko party. Secondly, the fact that men and women are spiritually equal does not mean that they are the same. Let me write the obvious: men are men and women are women. There is a difference. Hence, just like with the angels, men and women have different roles in God’s ordered hierarchy. Men are to rule over their homes and over the church. Finally, just because a woman “feels” that she needs to be a priest or pastor is not a reason for her to become one. I often “feel” like I should be a billionaire. Following the author’s logic, the powers that be should convene, change the rules of free-market economics, and deposit at least one billion dollars into a Swiss bank account for me.

Here are a couple of interesting tidbits of information from the Table 1-1 in World Christian Trends, William Carey Library, David Barrett & Todd Johnson.

“Most Christian bodies insist on full accountability to the last cent in finance, but ignore or even decry statistics about Christian workers and ministries…Christians spend more on the annual audits of their churches and agencies ($810 million) than on all their workers in the non-Christian world.”

If you have ever worked in a Christian organization, you have likely come across this phenomenon. Usually what one discovers is that Christians get very “spiritual” about numbers as they relate to reaching people with the gospel. In other words, Christians usually get upset and resist accounting for baptisms and conversions to Christianity. This is considered “ungodly” or “unspiritual.” Yet, both the Old and New Testaments are loaded with stories and statistics (often very precise numbers: 3,000, 5,000, etc.) of people reached by the gospel. Meanwhile, the same Christians virtually demand that every penny given to churches and Christian organizations be dutifully accounted for. Not that this is a bad thing; however, it is just not directly described or demanded in the Bible. The sad thing is that Christians spend more on annual audits then they do on mission workers in non-Christian countries. Could it be that our priorities are misdirected?

I think one of the problems here is that Christians don’t like to be held accountable for sharing their faith. It is much easier and less embarrassing to demand strict numerical accounting for money rather than souls. If we each had to account for how we use our time, talent and treasure in order to spread the gospel, most Christians would be red-faced with embarrassment. Therefore, it seems much easier to insist that the church treasurer have the books audited each year and simultaneously resist any “numbers” counting for baptisms, conversions and church growth.

Unfortunately, the unwillingness to account for how resources are used for the propagation of the gospel leads to the misdirection of those resources. For instance, it costs 700 times (yes you read it right) more money to baptize a convert to Christianity in a rich European country like Switzerland than it does in a poor country like Napal.

Right now the three most cost-effective countries with populations of over 1 million for Christian outreach are Mozambique, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. Interestingly, our church has just welcomed back a missionary and his family from a tour of duty in Ethiopia. For those of us used to the difficulty of sharing the gospel in a post-Christian culture, his reports stagger the mind. North American pastors are used to making sure the church environment is “just right” (i.e. parking, comfortable seating, lighting, sound, clean bathrooms, safe nursery, etc.) in order to reduce the roadblocks that tend to keep people away from Sunday services. Yet, in places like Ethiopia people will literally walk for miles in foul or feverish weather to pack into buildings that would be considered grossly unsafe by Western standards in order to hear the gospel proclaimed. The response to the gospel in Ethiopia reminds one of the book of Acts.

Whatever the exact situation in a given country, the important point is that the biblical model of accounting is to notice which groups of people are receptive to the gospel and, based upon that receptivity, to pour financial and human resources into those groups. To do this, however, means that Christians would have be comfortable with counting souls and not just dollars.

Romans 14:10 …For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

Let’s think about judgment for a few minutes. If you are a good manager of resources you will want to make sure that you equitably distribute those resources under your charge. Hardly anything hurts morale more than when a manager inappropriately assigns the distribution of resources. In order to distribute things wisely, it takes good judgment, so that each person receives what corresponds to his or her efforts.

Consequently, it is perfectly fitting that Christ, who appeared in human nature, should be the judge over the men that He has saved. We are told exactly this by Jesus in John 5: 27 “and (God) has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man.”

There is another reason that it is fitting that Christ should be the judge of those he has saved. It is only fair that the person who is judged should see the judge. However the sight of God, in His own essential nature is the actual reward that is granted in the judgment. Therefore, it only makes sense that those who are judged—whether righteous or unrighteous—should only see God in His incarnated (resurrected) nature as Christ. If the wicked were to see God in His full divine nature, they would actually be receiving the very reward that they had rejected and made themselves unworthy of.

Recently I was in a dialogue with one of our participants here at TFD. I was doing some net research that led me to a review of a book written by two feminist theologians, Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker. The book is titled “The Theology of Presence.” What I actually found was an interview of its two authors by a journalist named Jessica Jernigan. The journalist’s interview was preceded by a summary of the book which I will quote here:

“There is violence at the heart of Christianity. No one who looks at a representation of the crucifixion or Michelangelo's Pietà can question this fact. Some Christians, though, have questioned their religion's reaction to this fact. Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us is a strong, feminist repudiation of atonement theology. In this deeply personal work of reflection and remembrance, Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker argue that belief in the saving power of Jesus's death has created a culture in which violence and suffering are accepted, in which destructive self-sacrifice is endured by the faithful—and especially by women. Rather than build a message of salvation around a traumatic and torturous death—God's murder of his own son—Brock and Parker suggest that Christians seek salvation through love, through compassionate connection with God and the world. They suggest a theology not of atonement, but of presence.” http://www.bordersstores.com/features/feature.jsp?file=brockparker

Obviously, from the perspective of orthodox Christianity, this book and its thesis are way out in left field. The authors are literally attempting to remove the atoning sacrifice of Christ from its central position in Christian theology. What is driving this desire to overthrow the cross is the idea that Christ’s suffering and unjust death are tragic examples of violence that need to be replaced with a kinder and gentler paradigm of God’s love. But, why, you may ask, cannot these feminist theologians see that Christ’s suffering is a wonderful example of God’s love for us and a model of Christian virtue? I am going to suggest a reason why they cannot accept the violence of the cross.

I believe that these feminist theologians are making a critical error that cannot be found in ancient or medieval times. It emerged in the nineteenth century with the rise of philosophical anarchism led by people such as Kropotkin, Bakunin, Marx and Lenin.

This error is the belief that it is possible for humans to live in peace and harmony without the need for just laws made effective by the exercise of coercive force. People such as Mikhail Bakunin [1814-1876] and Karl Marx [1818-1883] advocated that the ultimate ideal for humanity was the elimination of government as an irremediable evil. The state was seen as oppressive with its laws and coercive force. Therefore, they believed that when the right external conditions were established, especially in regard to the production and distribution of wealth, a “new man” would emerge capable of living in peace and harmony without the need for coercion.

The bloody experience of the twentieth-century convinced most people that the utopian fantasy of a peaceful anarchy was not only unrealizable but dangerous. However, hope springs eternal in the hearts of some utopians. Many of these philosophic utopians have now set up shop in the church as “theologians.” They resist the idea that man’s fallen nature necessitates restraint through just laws and coercive government—particularly within the church. They believe that if we get the conditions just right through proper Christian theology and polity that there will be no need for hierarchical church government and we will progress toward reconciliation of all differences by purely peaceful means. For some of these theologians this endeavor must start with scrubbing Christianity clean of all its “violent” concepts—chief of which is the atoning sacrifice of Christ on a cruel cross.

I have previously written on God’s establishment of a universal principle of hierarchy. The fact is the whole universe is ordered by way of a hierarchy stretching from the omnipotent glory and sovereignty of the Trinity through the angelic host, mankind, the animal kingdom and all of nature. Not only has God established a universal hierarchy but, because of its pervasiveness, He seems absolutely enamored with the whole idea of ordered government. This reality, of course, is anathema to egalitarians. Philosophical anarchism is an extreme form of egalitarianism. Obviously, some feminist theologians and other Christian utopians have accepted the failed notions of philosophic anarchism. They tend to believe that government, laws, and coercive measures are not part of God’s perfect plan for nature and His kingdom. The fact is, though, God’s divine government and His law are expressions of His very nature. Likewise, because the universe better expresses God’s nature through His creation of free creatures, there must be coercive measures to deal with moral evil. If you have free creatures you must have coercion to deal with evil. Hence here we find the necessity of the cross and of divine punishment. Likewise, within the church there must be found the redemptive work of the cross and hierarchical government which can apply coercive measures when necessary. God both forgives and punishes. So must His church.

Philosophic anarchists detest this conception of God and want very much to transform Christianity into their utopian image. The lessons of history teach us that this philosophy has been the source of vast mischief and misery. Mischief and misery are the result of defying God’s eternal law which is an expression of His nature.