Fatwa Against Terrorism

On July 28th the Fiqh Council of North America issued a religious declaration against Islamic terrorism. Here is the fatwa in its completeness:

The Fiqh Council of North America wishes to reaffirm Islam's absolute condemnation of terrorism and religious extremism.

Islam strictly condemns religious extremism and the use of violence against innocent lives. There is no justification in Islam for extremism or terrorism. Targeting civilians’ life and property through suicide bombings or any other method of attack is haram – or forbidden - and those who commit these barbaric acts are criminals, not “martyrs.”

The Qur’an, Islam’s revealed text, states: "Whoever kills a person [unjustly]…it is as though he has killed all mankind. And whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved all mankind." ( Qur’an, 5:32 )

Prophet Muhammad said there is no excuse for committing unjust acts: "Do not be people without minds of your own, saying that if others treat you well you will treat them well, and that if they do wrong you will do wrong to them. Instead, accustom yourselves to do good if people do good and not to do wrong (even) if they do evil." (Al- Tirmidhi)

God mandates moderation in faith and in all aspects of life when He states in the Qur’an: “We made you to be a community of the middle way, so that (with the example of your lives) you might bear witness to the truth before all mankind.” ( Qur’an, 2:143)

In another verse, God explains our duties as human beings when he says: “Let there arise from among you a band of people who invite to righteousness, and enjoin good and forbid evil.” ( Qur’an, 3:104)

Islam teaches us to act in a caring manner to all of God's creation. The Prophet Muhammad, who is described in the Qur’an as “a mercy to the worlds” said: “All creation is the family of God, and the person most beloved by God (is the one) who is kind and caring toward His family."

In the light of the teachings of the Qur’an and Sunnah we clearly and strongly state:

1. All acts of terrorism targeting civilians are haram (forbidden) in Islam.

2. It is haram for a Muslim to cooperate with any individual or group that is involved in any act of terrorism or violence.

3. It is the civic and religious duty of Muslims to cooperate with law enforcement authorities to protect the lives of all civilians.

We issue this fatwa following the guidance of our scripture, the Qur’an, and the teachings of our Prophet Muhammad – peace be upon him. We urge all people to resolve all conflicts in just and peaceful manners.

We pray for the defeat of extremism and terrorism. We pray for the safety and security of our country, the United States, and its people. We pray for the safety and security of all inhabitants of our planet. We pray that interfaith harmony and cooperation prevail both in the United States and all around the globe.

While the fatwa used a few verses to condemn Islamic terrorism it failed to address the countless verses within the Qur’an, which encourage and command such violence. The fatwa states, “there is no justification in Islam for extremism or terrorism.” Yet, there is overwhelming documentation, which lists 164 verses of Jihad, or Jihad related themes in the Qur’an. How will Muslims answer these verses? Will Muslims across the world embrace this fatwa? Will only “secular or westernized” Muslims accept it? This may be a small step in the right direction, but if Western Muslims want to clean up their image they have a long way to go. Every suicide bomber, every terrorist act – in the name of Islam – only further adds weight to the Qur’anic interpretation held by those supposed “radical Muslims.” Maybe they are not as radical as we think. Maybe they are only seeking to understand the Qur’an at face value within their socio-historical context. Maybe the Muslims of the west are watered down versions of what True Islam really is. Yet, the most important question is this: whose interpretation of the Qur’an is correct? If the Qur’an is the rule and authority for all Muslims, who is a more faithful interpreter? Secular western Muslims or radical Islamic Terrorists?

Questions to Ask Prospective Churches

I am looking to find a pastorate where I can serve the people of God through the ministry. In the candidating process wise churches will always take time to drill their potential pastor to find the best candidate for their church. Yet, potential pastors must also ask hard and good questions about the church. I have begun writing a list of questions and I am wondering what else should be added. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

1. What are you looking for in a pastor?
2. What is the most important thing a pastor can do for you personally? For the church?
3. What can the pastor do to get to know the members of the church?
4. What do you believe are the duties of the pastor?
5. What do you believe are the duties of the pastor’s wife? Namely, does she have to be involved at every church event?
6. What type of preaching does your church prefer? Examples?
7. How long do you expect sermons to last?
8. What type of music styles does your church prefer?
9. Is your church more traditional (hymns) or contemporary (choruses) or both?
10. Have there been any church splits or acts of church discipline within the recent past?
11. How lethargic or passionate would you say the congregation as a whole is?
12. If lethargic what steps do you believe the church needs to take to become more passionate? If passionate or somewhere in between what does the church need to do to keep the fire going and to stoke it further?
13. What is the purpose and mission of the church?
14. How do you want your church to grow? In what specific and tangible ways can this growth be achieved?
15. In five years what should be different with your church?
16. How do you feel about the pastor’s continual education? How will this be supported?
17. How will the church help support the sanctity of the pastor’s home? I.e. how will the church help provide time alone for the pastor and his family without interruption?
18. What are you doing now to evangelize your community? What can be done differently and how would you like to move forward?
19. What are your thoughts on the pastor and his family making regular visits to your home to spend with your family? Do you think this is important?
20. What are the pressing needs of the church, both spiritually and materially? What are the things that need to be prayed for the most?

Sex & Soccer

Berlin, Germany – To keep sex off the streets the Germans have begun construction on a new mega-brothel. It has been dubbed “The Artemis Project” after the Greek virgin goddess Artemis. The brothel complex opens this September complete with a “whirlpool, sauna, cinema, buffet restaurant and a staff of 100 prostitutes.” Prostitution is legal in certain parts of Germany. Why go to such an effort to develop this mega-brothel? Well, it is located only a brief walk away from Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, which will host next year’s Soccer World Cup. Soccer fans after all need their sex. With the great influx of people to the area Germany wants to be prepared. It seems that their building of this brothel has behind it the noble intentions of keeping prostitution off the streets. Now the thousands of sexual soccer fans can enjoy their whoredom in the comfort of Berlin’s finest living. No longer will sex need to be performed in the dingy back seat of a car. In today’s modern Germany it can be enjoyed with all the comforts of home – a whirlpool, sauna, movie theatre, buffet restaurant, and oh yeah – 100 prostitutes! It’s good that the Germans want to make sex safer by bringing it in doors. After all we wouldn’t want the prostitutes and their clientele to be exposed to the elements and the dirty back seats of sexual perversity.

Founder's Response Part 1

Tom Ascol of Founders Ministries has begun his response to Bobby Welch's article based on Steve Lemke's writing titled, "The Future of Southern Baptists as Evangelicals." Here is my favorite quote:

I keep waiting for some Southern Baptist leader to stand up and declare honestly to the world that our denominational statistics are in many respects a sham, a lie and false advertizing. We are not "16 million strong." The FBI could not find half of them if we put them on the most wanted list. Take Brother Bobby's church, which is above average, for example. According to their website, their total membership is 4000 and average attendance is 2000 (I assume this latter number reflects the Sunday morning worship attendance and not the Wednesday night prayer meeting attendance). The typical Southern Baptist church has less than 40% of its total membership in attendance on any given Sunday MORNING.

Calvinism, the SBC, and Evangelism

In the recent edition of Reminder (the newsletter of the First Baptist Church of Daytona Beach, FL) Bobby Welch, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, raised the question as to the extent Calvinism has negatively influenced evangelism within the SBC. He cited Steve Lemke’s (Provost at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary) article entitled, “The Future of Southern Baptists as Evangelicals.”

It seems that the biggest concern of Welch is that Calvinist leaning churches have fewer baptisms than the “typical” Southern Baptist church. He cites Lemke’s research: “Their (Founder’s Friendly Calvinist churches) baptism to member ration was 1:62; it was 1:42 in the rest of the Southern Baptist Convention.” This statistic must be appalling for someone who is driving around in a bus seeking One Million Baptisms.

Just a few thoughts for now:

1. Lemke, and therefore Welch, both confuse Hyper-Calvinism (Hard-Calvinism) with regular good old-fashioned Dortian Calvinism. It is all too common for anti-Calvinists to conflate and confuse Calvinism with Hyper-Calvinism. It must be stated unequivocally – hyper-Calvinism is heresy plain and simple. It distorts the gospel of grace and removes human responsibility from the picture of salvation. I will agree with them that hyper-Calvinism does destroy evangelism and missions. However, Calvinism (all five points) rightly understood provides the foundation, hope and basis for missions and evangelism (I hope to address this more in a later post). True, biblical Calvinism upholds both God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility in a tension of beautiful mystery.
2. Welch and Lemke level their sights at Founder’s ministries – a ministry within the SBC calling churches back to the Reformed / Calvinist heritage. It is common historical knowledge that the founders of the SBC were Reformed Calvinists.
3. With all statistics there is always interpretation and after reading Lemke I am left wondering how much interpreting of the numbers he has done. Lemke writes, “Founder’s Fellowship churches had considerably fewer baptisms, smaller congregations, more declining membership than the average Southern Baptist Church.”
4. First, fewer baptisms – well there is a simple answer. Most Calvinists at the very least are nervous about Welch’s One Million Baptisms and more so are down right saddened by its unbiblical emphasis. Welch is focusing on baptism to the exclusion of discipleship. The two must go together. Maybe he should promote One Million Baptized Disciples. I personally would be happier with that approach. Calvinists weigh heavily and thoughtfully one’s decision to be baptized. All too often Southern Baptists churches line up their people in a dunking booth-assembly line fashion just to obtain their numbers. This is a sad blight upon the Convention.
5. Smaller Congregations. Well, no wonder – how would you fare if the president of the Southern Baptist Convention personally attacked you with poor and confused information all the while arguing that you do not evangelize. Let’s face it Calvinism gets a bad rap. Is some of it justified? Maybe, but not to the extent Welch and Lemke want to take it. Plus we need to remember that Founder’s is a new resurgence within the SBC. Do you think they should have the most churches if they only started a few decades ago and have to penetrate the entire convention all the while being painted with false caricatures?
6. Lastly, there is the statistic that 79% of Founder’s churches have plateaued or are declining. Unfortunately, there is just no information presented but a bare stat to back this claim up. I am curious to discover how they reached this percentage. Just one thought: maybe it is because Calvinist churches have sought to clean up their church membership rolls in order to seek after the biblical doctrine of regenerate church membership. Just a thought…

The thing that bothers me most about such ignorant claims is that the majority of people who read such confusion will believe it. I do believe, however, that the greater burden should be on Calvinists. We need to defend our doctrine with our lifestyle. Let us use this as a call to bring about a more God-centered evangelism, more Christ-focused missions and more Spirit-let churches.

I hope to deal with Lemke’s article in a future post. (HT: Thanks Scott)

Reformation 21

The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals has just begun a new online journal called Reformation 21. The inaugural issue begins with discussing the controversial New Perspective on Paul. Ligon Duncan kicks off the issue with "Do we need a New Perspective on Paul." Richard Phillips also has a three part series, which looks at "The New Perspective on Justification." He begins by looking at the history and development of the New Perspective on Paul (NPP). Then he evaluates NPP's understanding of justification closing it off with a case study on the imputation of Christ's righteousness. Reformation 21 also offers book reviews, a blog and a section titled Counterpoint which deals with culture and seeks to apply biblical principles to this world. Reformation 21 is edited by Derek Thomas and will have contributions from J. Ligon Duncan, Carl Trueman, Phil Ryken, Richard Phillips and others. This should prove to be an excellent resource to fulfill the mission of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals (a mission which I wholly endorse):

The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals exists to call the twenty-first century church to a reformation that recovers clarity and conviction about the great evangelical truths of the gospel and that then seeks to proclaim these truths powerfully in our contemporary context.

(HT: Between Two Worlds)

Restorative Justice

Charles Colson has become a leading voice within evangelicalism and it took prison to transform him. Through the Watergate scandal and his seven-month stint behind bars Colson came to realize the futility of the prison system and the futility of his own heart apart from Christ his maker. In the mystery of divine providence it took justice to bring about restoration. Colson, now redeemed by Christ, is seeking to also bring redemption and restorative justice to the nation’s prison systems. Adam Cohen, writing today in the NY Times (free account required), argues that his mission began with Watergate. Cohen is more surprised in Colson becoming a “radical prison reformer” than in becoming a conservative Christian. He writes, “Political conservatives have traditionally been more focused on punishing criminals than on reforming them, and religious conservatives have generally felt the same way.” Cohen sees liberal institutions as being at the forefront of prison reform, not conservative evangelical organizations. He quotes Colson to that end, “The evangelical church has some great strengths," Mr. Colson said in an interview, but historically, "concern for the poor and the marginal was not one of them." Cohen correctly highlights two reasons why Colson seeks prison reform. First, it is because Colson is intimately aware of the prison system. He has spent time there and he continues to spend most of his life through ministering within the walls of prisons. Secondly, and more importantly, Colson believes that the driving force behind his reform is the biblical injunction of dealing with offenders through redemption. Only Christ can change an inmate’s heart and transform their life into something meaningful. Colson is right – justice must be restorative. The end of justice is redemption. Yet, sadly as Colson notes, the evangelical church has failed miserably in seeking redemption for offenders, for the needy and the poor. Yet James exhorts us, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (1:27). One of the things I appreciate most about Charles Colson and Prison Fellowship is the Angel Tree project. Every year, around Christmas, they collect gifts for the children of prison inmates. It is a small, but meaningful way of “visiting orphans and widows in their affliction.” Some years ago we took part in the Angel Tree program and even had the opportunity to spend time with those children. We took them to our church gym and ran around with them playing and just having fun. They immediately clung to you, as their need for a father figure was apparent. It brought both joy and sadness to my heart at the same time. Even in this small way – giving gifts to needy children – redemption was worked out in the midst of justice. The cross of our Lord is no different. The justice of God was satisfied as Christ suffered for our sin upon that rugged tree. Yet through his suffering we were granted redemption. It is my hope and prayer that many within the prison system, along with their families, will find redemption in justice. Charles Colson knows well that offenders can be redeemed. Those who meet justice can be restored.

theologia viatorum

theologia viatorum: theology of the viatores, or pilgrims; a term applied to the incomplete or imperfect theology of believers in the world, in contrast to the theology of those who have reached their end in God, the theologia beatorum (Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1985.)

Theology is a journey. It is a pilgrimage with a goal in sight: theologia beatorum – theology of the blessed. The theology of the blessed is a theology granted in heaven of a deeper, clearer, and fuller knowledge of God and his Christ. It is the perfected form of human theology. It is a theology, which Christian pilgrims strive for while on earth. It is a “theology of earthly pilgrims or wanderers searching for the heavenly city” (Muller, theologia beatorum).

It will only be obtained at the end of the journey. Once the pilgrim passes through the black river of death only then will he enter into the celestial city. Until that time the Christian wanderer is a theological pilgrim.

However, this is no wandering like the Israelites in the desert for forty years. They marched in circles year after year, but a theological pilgrim is one who, although wandering, continues to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not endless wandering. With God there is always progression.

The road traveled is one of purpose. There is a destination. As the pilgrim ventures further and further along this life so he walks closer and closer to theological truth. As Scripture becomes all the more embedded into his person so the pilgrim comes closer to Christ. Knowing Christ is the goal of this life. To know the way and the truth and the life is our end. It is a life of joy, but a life of the cross. It is a life of persecution, but also a life of hope. It is a life of law, but also a life of gospel. It is a life journeyed toward the city of our God.

The Christian life is lived out down the road less traveled. But on that road we travel not alone. The theological pilgrim wanders down this Emmaus road, walking side by side with Christ. At times the path is overgrown and the way unclear. Yet, the way is always forward, dim though it may be. It is on this road where hearts are lit afire for the Lord Jesus Christ and his gospel of salvation. It is down this path where we will find our final resting place, where we will reach the city of God and entered into his eternal rest. This is the way of theologia viatorum; this is the path of pilgrim theology.