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Volume 7 No 4 August 2001 >next> Issue
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August
Issue in the same format as printed Table of Contents - August 2001
Institutional
Ethics: An Oxymoron As I have become older (and hopefully wiser), my trust in institutions has diminished. Reinhold Niebuhr tried to warn me during my seminary studies, but I am a slow learner. In his classic
work, Moral Man and Immoral Society, Niebuhr proposed a classic
thesis: that individual persons are always more moral than when they
function in a social group. As a soldier in warfare or as a rioter in a
mob, we act in ways we never would individually. The reason is basic: as
individual persons, we seek to fulfill neighbor love; in a social group,
the bottom line is the survival of that institution. There are exceptions
to this rule of course, but their rarity only serves to prove the point. Left
Behind”
There was a time
when most Christians got their theology at church, which had many advantages. We
could be assured that the pastor was familiar with the distinctive doctrines of
our denomination. If we didn’t understand what was being taught, he was
readily available to answer questions. In case we disagreed with some emphasis,
fellow church members were always willing to sharpen the issues through friendly
debate. A Reminder
of Why I Wanted to Follow Jesus
©2001 Tony Campolo came to town. In one evening of anecdotes and illustration, of laughter and tears, he reminded me of the vision of Christianity that captured my allegiance more than three decades ago. Tony
is a retired sociology professor from Philadelphia, not the sort of professional
identity we normally associate with spellbinding stage presence. But there he
was, Cardigan sweater and bald head, a blend of Mr. Rogers and Dick Vitale; at
ease one moment and in your face the next; a thousand students in the palm of
his hand. Separation,
Integration, And Accommodation:
The interplay
between religion and state in the United States is complex, if anything. The
rules that comprise the American system of church-state relations—rules
dictated mostly by judicial interpretations of the First Amendment’s religion
clauses, but also embracing traditions that the High Court chooses not to
interfere with—are frequently criticized as inconsistent and confusing. A
common criticism, for example, is that students in public schools cannot have
prayers in their classrooms or at their football games, but the U.S. Congress
may have its own chaplains to lead its daily prayers. Another is that the Ten
Commandments cannot be posted in public school classrooms, yet the U.S. Supreme
Court chamber in Washington, D.C. is decorated with a representation of Moses
holding the Ten Commandments. And how is it that ordained preachers like Pat
Robertson and Jesse Jackson can run for President of the United States in the
face of the constitutional requirement of separation of church and state?
On their face, these seemingly contradictory rules and practices seem
rather odd, even bizarre. But understood in the broader, elaborate American
framework in which religion and state interact, these apparent consistencies can
be understood, even justified. A
Good Deed Kept Secret I think
big corporations are only out to make money. They rarely, if ever, go out
of their way to help others. This story changed my mind. We
returned to Austin about 6:00 p.m. on December 26, 1972. The trip from
Littlefield, Texas, where we spent Christmas with my wife’s parents, to
our home in Austin, takes about 8 hours. Jill,
our teen-aged daughter, walked in the house, went to her room, and turned
on the radio. Typical teen behavior. Moments
later, she came crying into the den. “The radio said our church bus
crashed into a cattle trailer in Clovis, New Mexico. Several of our kids
are dead.” Color
Blindness, Political Correctness, or Racial Reconciliation: We hear a lot about the concept of racial reconciliation in Christian circles today. Yet how often do we think about what we mean by racial reconciliation? In one sense, no one is completely sure what it means because this concept easily represents contrasting ideas to different Christians. Nevertheless, it is still important for us to have a well-developed idea of what we mean when we talk about racial reconciliation. It is also important to explore how this idea may differ from non-Christian ideas as to how to solve the social problems of racism and racial alienation in our society. I will use this paper to explore a possible construction of racial reconciliation as a Christian concept and to see how our Christianity may shape a different answer to racial problems in our society than the answers given to us by secular thinkers in America. To understand what
racial reconciliation is, we have to first understand what it is not.
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Grossly
Unfair:
Evaluating the Bush Proposal I consider the President’s tax cut proposal blatantly unjust. If that sounds partisan, let me remind you that I try hard to evaluate political agendas in a non-partisan way. The postman has recently delivered some rather angry letters condemning my strong support for President Bush’s new emphasis on faith-based initiatives. So be it. I think the President’s new emphasis on FBOs and civil society is right and important—perhaps even of far-reaching, historic significance. But some of his tax proposals are dead wrong. Forty percent of his tax cut would go to the richest one percent. The bottom 80 percent get only 29 percent! President Bush wants
to use about $1.6 trillion of the projected federal budget surplus for several
key changes in the tax code. Two of those measures—eliminating the marriage
penalty in the income tax code and expanding the child tax credit from $500 to
$1000—are indeed “pro-family” and “pro-marriage” and are essentially
wise. Abolishing the estate tax and dropping the income tax rates for everyone
are quite another matter. Book Review by J. Terry Young, Professor Emeritus, New Orleans Baptist Seminary God
So Loved The World: Two Baptist professors of theology have done Southern Baptists a favor by authoring this small (102 pages) but very helpful book. There has been a rising tide of interest in Calvinism among Southern Baptists in the last thirty years. I saw evidences of it many times during twenty-seven years of teaching theology. I frequently found that students who thought that they were Calvinists quickly said, "That's not what I believe," when presented with a clearer picture of Calvinism. The Calvinism most often encountered among Southern Baptists today is hyper-Calvinism, the more rigid form that is based upon the Canons of the Synod of Dort, named for the Netherlands city where the Dutch Church council met (1618-1619), backed by the power and authority of the government. There
are five major theological premises enunciated in the Canons of the Synod of
Dort. These five statements are the foundation of most of the calls to Baptists
to adopt Calvinism as their own expression of the Christian faith. Presently,
some of the most noted (and quoted) figures in the new leadership of the
Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) are outspoken proponents of Calvinism. Some
of them would like nothing better than to lead all Southern Baptists back to
Dort. Indeed, debate over Calvinism may be the next major theological
controversy for Southern Baptists, who have devoted much energy to doctrinal
debate (often splitting theological hairs) during the last twenty-five years. Global Ethics What We Can Learn From
Christians Overseas As we enter the next
millennium, we are more conscious than ever before of living in a “global
village.” We drive cars from Japan, wear clothes sewn in China, eat bananas
from Columbia, vacation in the Caribbean, and give Christmas ornaments made in
India. We may have an idea about our church’s global mission outreach. We may
even be dimly aware of “globalization,” but it’s one of those things, like
global warming, that we would rather not think about. What does it have to do
with our way of life? Does it mean protecting our borders against encroachment
and terrorism? Is it primarily a matter of advancing America’s interest in
freedom, democracy and prosperity? Although our answers to such questions are
important, I would like to focus on a few of the implications of the global for
Christian ethics. A Seamless Garment of Love: The divide between advocates of fetal rights and women’s rights advocates is deep and wide. These differences rest on explicitly defined, but not always well articulated philosophical assumptions. Fetal rights advocates assert that there is no
fundamental difference between a day-old single-cell embryo and a twenty-five
year old man. Each has the requisite forty-six chromosomes that determine a
person’s unique genetic identity. As one has said, “Contained within the
single cell who I once was, is the totality of everything I am today.” Book Review by Darold H. Morgan God’s Name In
Vain The
well-known law professor from Yale University, Stephen L. Carter, has authored
another timely book which will challenge students of the volatile church and
state issues in contemporary American life. He announces bluntly in his
introductory paragraphs the theses of his volume, and he rarely is far from
these as the book unfolds. “First, that there is nothing wrong and much right
with robust participation of the nation’s many religious voices in debates over
matters of public moment. Second, that religions— although not democracy—will
almost always lose their best, most spiritual selves when they choose to be
involved in the partisan, electoral side of American politics” (p. 1). Two Essays on Pride and Prejudice
Wisdom The genre which I have generally used in writing for this journal has been one of intentional low voltage. (Admittedly, this has not been a strain for me for low voltage is one of my very best things, my modus operandi, as it were.) Other contributors have provided the meat of strong doctrine, while still others have addressed the weightier issues of Christian social ethics. I have tried to focus on such things as Paul, I imagine, must have envisioned when he wrote the wonderful insights of Philippians 4:8, “Whatsoever things are . . . lovely . . . think on these things.” In recent times, however, I have been so driven to
wade more daringly into the deep waters of the concept of wisdom and so
compelled to try to find ways to communicate the importance, if not the
primacy, of wisdom that I simply cannot now be disobedient to what I have
perceived to be this “heavenly vision.” Woe to me if I preach not this gospel. |
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