
The original issue can be found at: http://www.baptistpress.com/issue-08/23/2006

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Iran responds to United Nations <br>proposals, but not with bombs, on Aug. 22
by Staff
Date: August 23, 2006 - Wednesday

TEHRAN, Iran (BP)--Despite a warning from a Princeton scholar of Iran possibly initiating catastrophic events Aug. 22, the Muslim nation continued its exchanges with the international community on nuclear weapons production by releasing a 21-page counterproposal.

Bernard Lewis, a professor emeritus of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University, had said in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that a revered Muslim holiday corresponding to Aug. 22 could provide an opportune moment for Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to set in motion the return of the 12th Imam, whom Shiites believe will forever end the struggle between good and evil in the last days. That could come in the form of nuclear weapons aimed at Israel or the United States, he said.

But Aug. 22 came and went with no such display of force. Instead, Iran submitted an expected response to a United Nations Security Council request to stop enriching uranium by the end of August. Western diplomats had expected the response to be “not black or white, but gray,” The New York Times reported, and it was.

Iran offered “serious talks” concerning its nuclear activities but did not address the issue of suspending enrichment by Aug. 31 and did not indicate any intentions to reverse course. The Middle East nation said it was offering a “new formula” for resolving the nuclear standoff but did not provide details of the formula, The Times said.

A Chicago Tribune editorial Aug. 22 agreed with Lewis that the United States has reason to be concerned that nuclear weapons could soon be in the hands of devout religious fanatics.

“&#91;If&#93; Iran acquires the bomb, we’ll all have to wonder about its intentions every single day,” not just Aug. 22, the Tribune wrote.

“Iran has signaled that it will turn down the &#91;U.N.&#93;, but the best estimates are that Iran is at least a few years from being capable of building a nuclear weapon,” the Tribune said. “The only thing for sure is that its centrifuges are spinning, creating enriched uranium, a big step on the way to building such a weapon.

“Lewis, though, has raised an important point for the world to consider as it ponders how next to respond to Iran's nuclear ambitions,” the editorial continued. “In the Cold War, Russia and the U.S. were restrained by what is called mutual assured destruction. You launch nukes, we launch nukes. We all die. Rational people don't like those odds. That works as a deterrence.”

But mutual assured destruction, as Lewis noted, doesn’t work with Iran because its leaders are devout Muslims who have been raised to believe that dying in a battle with an evil enemy will result in eternal reward for martyrdom.

Now that Iran has offered a response to the Security Council that does not meet the central demand of the coalition, leaders of the United States, Britain, France and Germany have gathered to discuss their response, which may include a first phase of sanctions against Iran.

“They can either take up the very generous offer that the five permanent members and Germany have extended to them, and if they do, there’s a possibility of a different relationship with the United States and others,” John Bolton, the U.S. representative to the United Nations, said in The Times. “But if they don’t, we’ve also made it clear that their unwillingness to give up their pursuit of nuclear weapons will result in our efforts in the Security Council to obtain economic sanctions against them.”

An initial round of sanctions could include blocking gasoline imports. Though Iran sits on some of the largest known oil reserves, the nation imports more than 40 percent of its gasoline because it lacks the refinery capacity to meet its needs, The Times said. But gasoline sanctions could hurt the West by driving up global oil prices.

The West also has few military options toward Iran in the event that diplomacy fails since conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon remain unresolved, The Times reported.

Meanwhile, a religious liberties advocate is urging President Bush to direct the U.S. State Department to condemn Iran’s practice of inhumane executions of women by public stoning and hanging.

“While diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran remain strained, that does not absolve the United States from its responsibility as a world leader to speak out against inhumane practices and human rights abuses taking place in that country,” John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, wrote to Bush Aug. 21. 

“If, as a nation, we remain steadfastly opposed to injustice and tyranny wherever it occurs in the world, then we can have no other recourse than to condemn Iran’s practice of stoning women to death, especially on charges of adultery,” Whitehead added.

A Rutherford Institute news release Aug. 23 recounted one such instance of stoning: “... on or about June 29, 2006, an Iranian court sentenced Malak Ghorbany, a 34-year-old mother of two, to death by stoning after finding her guilty of adultery. In contrast, two men who were found guilty of murder in the same court were reportedly only given jail sentences of six years.

“Research into the practice of death by stoning indicates that the female victim is placed in a deep pit and covered with dirt, leaving only her head and shoulders exposed,” the news release continued. “Members of the community are then invited to hurl rocks at her head until she has been beaten to death. The size of the stones used during the execution are required to be a certain size—not so large that they would kill a woman too quickly, nor so small that they would fail to cause serious injury or pain.”

The Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank, posted an assessment of Iran’s “waning human rights” Aug. 9, saying there are “fresh signals of the low tolerance for dissent under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regime.”

“Human rights monitors say that in Iran critics are silenced, independent journalists and opposition members are arrested, and minorities are persecuted,” Lionel Beehner wrote for CFR. “Reports persist of torture in detention centers. With attention in the region focused on matters of war and peace -- Israel's battle with Hezbollah, Iran’s nuclear program, sectarian warfare in Iraq -- human rights violations appear to face less international scrutiny.”

Iran’s worsening human rights record includes a crackdown on women, homosexuals and ethnic and religious minorities, CFR said, and Islamic law is more strictly imposed under the current regime.
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Execution ‘stayed indefinitely’ for 3 Indonesian Catholics
by Art Toalston
Date: August 23, 2006 - Wednesday

WASHINGTON (BP)--The execution of three ethnic Indonesian Christians has been “stayed indefinitely,” a spokesperson for International Christian Concern told Baptist Press Aug. 23.

The international civil rights organization nevertheless is continuing to urge Christians to contact the Indonesian embassies in Washington, Ottawa and London to press for “a wide-ranging investigation” into Christian-Muslim violence on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island in 2000 -– “so that everyone who is guilty can be charged or amnestied.”

In other developments, Indonesia’s Supreme Court has rejected a second appeal for a pardon of the three men, AsiaNews reported Aug. 23. (AsiaNews is a Catholic news service based in Rome.)

AsiaNews reported that a defense attorney for the men said he will challenge the court’s ruling by contending that it only has authority to make a recommendation to the country’s president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, regarding the appeal for a pardon.

The three men, Fabianus Tibo, Marianus Riwu and Dominggus da Silva, all Catholics, were convicted in 2001 for inciting Christian-Muslim violence that led to the killing of some 1,000 people in the Poso port region of Indonesia’s Sulawesi island.

AsiaNews also reported that the chief prosecutor for the region “lost his job” on Aug. 20, but the news service was unable to report further details.

The prosecutor is the one responsible for scheduling the execution under Indonesian law, AsiaNews reported.

The execution of the three men by firing squad had been scheduled Aug. 12 but was delayed at the last moment. Protests of the execution were waged not only by International Christian Concern but also by the Vatican and the European Union and townspeople in the Poso region, including an estimated 10,000 people on Aug. 18.

The nation’s police chief, Gen. Sutanto, as he is known, had said the executions would be carried out some time after Aug. 20, the Associated Press reported Aug. 11.

Heightening international attention over the fate of three Catholic men has been similar uncertainty over the scheduled execution of three Muslim militants for their convictions in the 2002 bombings that killed 202 people in nation’s Bali resort area.

The militants’ Aug. 22 execution was delayed after they decided to move forward with a final appeal, according to news reports. In all, 33 people were convicted for the plot.

Jeff King, president of International Christian Concern, had noted in an Aug. 11 news release that the Indonesian government “views the executions of these Christians as a way to balance justice –- very important in Indonesian society.”

“Overall concerns of justice or whether these men are the fall guys for thousands of other guilty individuals is secondary,” King stated.

The Poso conflict included attacks initiated by both Muslims and Christians. The turmoil also stirred an influx of Muslim fighters from the paramilitary Laskar Jihad movement, which TIME magazine reported as having “launched a campaign against Christian villages in Sulawesi ... to sweep all Christians out of the area.”

King noted in the Aug. 11 news release: “One of the most amazing aspects of this case is that in attacks from 1998 to 2003, there were approximately 10,000 Christians murdered, 1,000 churches burned down and 80,000 homes burned down. In that orgy of violence directed against Christians, the only individuals the government chose to convict were these three &#91;Christian&#93; men. This is quite alarming especially considering all the indications that local and regional government officials aided and abetted these attacks against Christians.”

In an Aug. 9 news release, International Christian Concern had stated, “While these men &#91;Tibo, Riwu and da Silva&#93; have admitted their involvement in the conflict, they were the only ones charged in a conflict in which massive numbers of Muslims participated.... This is a glaring injustice and hints of massive coverup by the Indonesian government.”

Contact information for embassies in the United States, Canada and England follows:
Indonesian Embassy US
Phone: 202-775-5200; fax: 202-775-5365
http://www.embassyofindonesia.org/ click “Contact Us.”
2020 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036, USA
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Indonesian Embassy Canada
Phone: 613-724-1100; fax: 613-724-1105
http://www.indonesia-ottawa.org/
55 Parkdale Ave., Ottawa, Ontario K1Y 1E5, Canada
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Indonesian Embassy UK
Phone: (020) 7499 7661; fax: (020) 7491 4993 
38 Grosvenor Square, London W1K 2HW 
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CULTURE DIGEST: Military dismissals over homosexuality <br>rose in ’05; geneticist reasons the existence of God; ...
by Erin Roach
Date: August 23, 2006 - Wednesday

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--The U.S. Department of Defense reports that 726 service members were discharged from the military for being homosexual in 2005, which represents an 11 percent increase over the previous year.

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, an advocacy group that opposes the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy obtained the statistics through a Freedom of Information Act request and released them Aug. 13, according to the Associated Press. 

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” went into effect during the Clinton administration in 1994 and prohibits the military from inquiring about the sexual behavior of service members but requires the dismissal of those who openly acknowledge being homosexual or are otherwise found out.

Homosexual advocacy groups like the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network are seeking to repeal the policy because they say it is being abused as the war in Iraq continues with some heterosexual soldiers faking homosexuality as an easy way out of military duty. Others say the prolonged involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan will lead military officials to take whomever they can get to serve.

“It’s going to be overturned because people are needed, and it’s not going to matter who they’re sleeping with,” Elizabeth Recupero, an internist and pediatrician discharged under the policy last year told AP. “We’re in a situation of high alert and war.”

But the military contends that allowing homosexuals to serve would disrupt unit cohesion and undermine missions, The New York Times reported, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said the Bush administration will not revisit the policy.

Despite the dramatic increase in dismissals in 2005, The Times said a review by the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, found that more service members were discharged last year for drug offenses, pregnancy and weight problems than for being homosexual.

Mark Coppenger, a retired colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves and distinguished professor of apologetics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, told Baptist Press that 726 discharges among more than 2 million military personnel is “a miniscule number.”

In an article he wrote about the policy in 2000, Coppenger mentioned several legal cases showing that the secular government recognizes a citizen’s right to be protected from “peeping Toms,” whatever the context. 

“I submit that this applies to the issue of gays in the military,” Coppenger wrote. “When we admit them, we make our men, or women, as the case may be, exceedingly vulnerable to the gaze of those whose lust tends runs in their direction.

“Even in the examination and induction stations, one is stripped before his peers. Once in uniform, the exposure continues in a variety of settings,” he added. “But, at least, it’s men with men and women with women. Introduce homosexuals, and you change the equation, for those of the ‘opposite sex’ are now intermingled.”

GENETICIST REASONS THE EXISTENCE OF GOD -- Francis S. Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, has written a book describing his personal journey from atheism to a belief in God, maintaining that the scientific method and faith can coexist.

In “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief,” Collins, 56, cites Christian theologians Augustine and Thomas Aquinas as well as writer C.S. Lewis in addressing scientists who believe the world is purely matter as well as Christians who take a literal view of the Book of Genesis with no regard for scientific discovery.

“Although Collins's purpose is grand, his manner is modest and his prose clear, as befits a man more concerned with sharing his views on the nature of things than with displaying his ego,” Scott Russell Sanders wrote in a review for The Washington Post.

“Collins writes just enough about his youth for us to learn that he was brought up in a household indifferent to religion; he became an agnostic in college and an atheist in graduate school, where he studied chemistry,” Sanders added. “Only in medical school did he reverse that trajectory, gradually accepting the existence of God and embracing evangelical Christianity -- led to belief, like St. Augustine, less by longing than by reason.”

In the book released in July, Collins asks scientific skeptics to investigate God with the same open-minded zeal they apply to the natural world, according to the Associated Press, and he voices his opinion that the alternative views of evangelicals who oppose evolution undermine the credibility of faith.

Circumstances he encountered in medical school, such as watching suffering and dying patients retain faith in God, led Collins to begin a faith journey, AP said, and he realized he had become an atheist without ever looking at the evidence for whether God exists. Lewis’ classic “Mere Christianity” was a tremendous influence, he said.

“For me the experience of sequencing the human genome and uncovering this most remarkable of all texts was both a stunning scientific achievement and an occasion of worship,” Collins wrote in the book’s introduction. “Many will be puzzled by these sentiments, assuming that a rigorous scientist could not also be a serious believer in a transcendent God. This book aims to dispel that notion, by arguing that belief in God can be an entirely rational choice, and that the principles of faith are, in fact, complementary with the principles of science.”

BARNA FINDS AMERICANS ARE PLEASED WITH THEMSELVES -- Americans have a generally positive view of themselves, according to a recent study by The Barna Group which found that most people perceive themselves as good people who are spiritually stable and living a good and honorable life.

“Yet, despite the spiritual focus people claim, the study found that people’s lifestyles, attitudes and self-perceptions are more likely to be affected by their life-stage and ethnic culture than by their faith commitments,” an Aug. 14 news release from Barna said.

At least nine out of 10 people surveyed said they are “a good citizen,” “friendly” and “generous,” the study found. At least eight out of 10 said they “feel at peace,” “are clear about the meaning and purpose” of their lives, and are “making a positive difference in the world.” Among those with children, 69 percent said they are “an effective parent,” Barna reported.

Only 13 percent of respondents admitted to being “in serious debt,” and only 21 percent said they were “feeling unfulfilled.” One out of three people surveyed said they feel stressed out, Barna found, and four out of 10 admitted to being overweight.

More than eight out of 10 Americans, according to the study, believe they “live a simple life,” though 58 percent claim to be “into new technology” and 53 percent are “active in the community.” Four out of 10 adults, Barna reported, said they are still “trying to find a few good friends.” One out of eight admitted to “dealing with an addiction” that personally haunts them.

An overwhelming majority of Americans, 88 percent, “feel accepted by God,” the study found, while 62 percent consider themselves “deeply spiritual” and 59 percent would describe themselves as “a fulltime servant of God.”

Eighty-four percent of Americans who responded to the survey view themselves as Christian, and 60 percent as “a committed Christian,” Barna said. 

George Barna, the survey’s director, “pointed out that while most people claim that their faith is one of the fundamental self-defining elements of their life, the data indicate that people’s perspectives are more likely to be influenced by their age and ethnicity than anything else,” the news release noted.

The study was based on nine national telephone surveys conducted by The Barna Group, with each survey involving between 1,002 and 1,015 random individuals. For more information, visit www.barna.org.
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Coca-Cola best family friendly advertiser, GM worst, PTC says
by Erin Roach
Date: August 23, 2006 - Wednesday

LOS ANGELES (BP)--Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. ranks as the best family friendly advertiser this year on the Parents Television Council’s fifth annual list of “Top Ten Best and Worst Advertisers,” which ranks advertisers according to how frequently they sponsor wholesome, family oriented television shows or those containing sexually graphic, violent or profane material.

The Campbell Soup Company, The Walt Disney Company, Ford Motor Company and Cingular Wireless rounded out the top five best advertisers, while General Motors Corp., Toyota Motor Corp., Volkswagen, DaimlerChrysler and Target Corp. were the top five worst, according to the rankings released Aug. 22.

“Why is this important? Quite simply because it is advertising dollars that make TV shows possible, both the good shows and the awful shows,” Brent Bozell, president of the Parents Television Council, said in a media conference call.

Bozell quoted David Stanley, producer of ‘The Man Show’ on cable’s Comedy Central, in a statement Stanley made to the Los Angeles Times.

“There was a time when the airwaves were a public trust and the television code was enforcing it. Today, if there’s a real difference, the line is being drawn almost exclusively by the advertising industry. If advertisers are willing to buy time on shows with more risqué content, they will go ahead and sell it,” Stanley said.

In a real way, advertisers are now driving the bus, Bozell said, and there is good news and bad news.

“We compliment those who made the top 10 best,” he said. “We also say to the top 10 worst that perhaps they have no idea the degree to which they are polluting the popular culture. But they simply must take responsibility. They’re sponsoring it. Without their advertising dollars, these horrific shows would disappear, and we wish they would shape up.”

The rankings were based on each company’s prime-time network television ad buys between October 2005 and May 2006, and each company listed purchased at least 25 ads on prime-time broadcast programs. Companies with the most ads on PTC-rated “green”-lighted shows were ranked the best, and those with the most ads on PTC-rated “red”-lighted shows were ranked the worst, according to a PTC news release.

“Our mission is to protect children and families from graphic and gratuitous sex, violence and profanity in entertainment. Advertisers are the ones who ultimately make this possible,” said Tim Winter, executive director of PTC and a former official at NBC. “In between Hollywood and the viewers at home are sponsors who pay for the material. It doesn’t hurt to be reminded that contrary to public belief, the viewer is not the customer -- the advertiser is the customer.

“The viewer is the product out of all this,” Winter added. “The networks are selling the viewers to the advertisers. With that in mind, who is footing the bills for all this stuff? It is the advertisers who are doing this.”

From 1982 until 1996, Winter held a number of financial and management roles at NBC. When he started at NBC, he said, it was a weekly practice for advertisers to come into the building to screen every single episode of every single show they sponsored.

“Not only did they want to make sure they were comfortable with the content of the show, they wanted to know which commercial break their spot would air in,” Winter recounted. “A car company -- a General Motors or Ford -- did not want to be the first commercial in a break after a car wreck. So careful were the advertisers at that time that they could pull out at the last minute or move somewhere else in the show or move to a different show entirely.”

Corporate downsizing and cost-cutting led advertisers to cease screening their ad placements, and networks have stopped allowing prescreenings even to their own affiliates, Winter said.

“But what we’re seeing today, fortunately -- and we feel like we’ve helped this to be the case -- is an overall heightened awareness of corporate responsibility of advertisers and their behavior,” Winter said. “It’s no coincidence that frequently you see today on publicly traded corporations’ boards of directors a new director who specializes in corporate responsibility and ethics. We see this as a natural extension of that overall heightened public awareness on how corporations behave.”

PTC meets with advertisers regularly and shows them video clips of the material they sponsor, Winter said, and often, the advertisers are unaware of the programs they sponsor.

“It is our job, we feel, to help them make better, more informed, more educated buying decisions,” he said. “The corporations tell us that they believe a good advertising practice is good business for them. That’s why this is so important.”

Bozell recounted a meeting he had with a major advertiser that complained there were not enough PTC green-lighted shows on television to sponsor. The advertiser said they purchased ads on those shows and then had advertising funds left over that had to go to red-lighted shows in order to get ads on television.

“Now, if you take that very same argument to the industry and speak with TV executives, as I’ve done, they flip it around,” Bozell said. “They say the reason there are so few green-lighted shows and there are more risqué shows is because advertisers are demanding this of us. So they’re pointing fingers at each other and I don’t accept either answer.”

Other companies on this year’s best advertisers list are Altria Group (parent company of Kraft Foods, Post Cereals, etc.), DreamWorks, Schering-Plough Corp. (products include Claritin, Dr. Scholls), Darden Restaurants Inc. (Olive Garden, Red Lobster) and Sears Holdings Corp.

Companies listed on the worst list also include GlaxoSmithKline (products include Zyban, Flonase), Nissan Motors, American Express Inc., Apple Computers Inc. and Circuit City Stores.

Only Campbell Soup, Sears and Coca-Cola were on the best list last year, and Ford Motor Company jumped from number five on the worst list last year to number four on the best list this year.

Companies that ranked worst last year but didn’t appear on the list this year also included Yum! Brands (KFC, Pizza Hut), Sprint, PepsiCo, Citigroup and Procter & Gamble.

“One of the reasons Ford moved from our worst list onto our best list is because of a unique relationship they have with ‘American Idol,’ which also happens to be one of the most-watched, highest-rated shows on TV,” Melissa Caldwell, senior director of programs for PTC, said. “They’re able to reach the demographic they want with that program but they’re also able to advertise on a clean, family friendly program that they don’t have to worry about offending viewers.

“In terms of reaching an older demographic, there are cleaner alternatives out there,” Caldwell added. “‘Law & Order,’ for example, is much cleaner than ‘CSI.’ They both reach roughly the same audience, they both appeal to adults, but one is much cleaner than the other.”

Although Ford made the "best" list for TV advertising, it is being boycotted by some conservative groups because of its advertising in homosexual magazines and its support of homosexual activist causes. For instance, a Ford ad earlier this summer in The Advocate appeared on the facing page to an article on "gay polygamy." The boycott apparently is having an impact -- in June a letter was sent to Ford on behalf of 78 Texas Ford dealers, who said the boycott was "affecting &#91;their&#93; business."
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For more information, visit www.parentstv.org.


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FIRST-PERSON: A call for theological triage & Christian maturity
by R. Albert Mohler Jr.
Date: August 23, 2006 - Wednesday

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--In every generation, the church is commanded to "contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints." That is no easy task, and it is complicated by the multiple attacks upon Christian truth that mark our contemporary age. Assaults upon the Christian faith are no longer directed only at isolated doctrines. The entire structure of Christian truth is now under attack by those who would subvert Christianity's theological integrity.

Today's Christian faces the daunting task of strategizing which Christian doctrines and theological issues are to be given highest priority in terms of our contemporary context. This applies both to the public defense of Christianity in face of the secular challenge and the internal responsibility of dealing with doctrinal disagreements. Neither is an easy task, but theological seriousness and maturity demand that we consider doctrinal issues in terms of their relative importance. God's truth is to be defended at every point and in every detail, but responsible Christians must determine which issues deserve first-rank attention in a time of theological crisis.

A trip to the local hospital emergency room some years ago alerted me to an intellectual tool that is most helpful in fulfilling our theological responsibility. In recent years, emergency medical personnel have practiced a discipline known as triage -- a process that allows trained personnel to make a quick evaluation of relative medical urgency. Given the chaos of an emergency room reception area, someone must be armed with the medical expertise to make an immediate determination of medical priority. Which patients should be rushed into surgery? Which patients can wait for a less urgent examination? Medical personnel cannot flinch from asking these questions, and from taking responsibility to give the patients with the most critical needs top priority in terms of treatment.

The word "triage" comes from the French word "trier," which means "to sort." Thus, the triage officer in the medical context is the front-line agent for deciding which patients need the most urgent treatment. Without such a process, the scraped knee would receive the same urgency of consideration as a gunshot wound to the chest. The same discipline that brings order to the hectic arena of the emergency room can also offer great assistance to Christians defending truth in the present age.

A discipline of theological triage would require Christians to determine a scale of theological urgency that would correspond to the medical world's framework for medical priority. With this in mind, I would suggest three different levels of theological urgency, each corresponding to a set of issues and theological priorities found in current doctrinal debates.

First-level theological issues would include those doctrines most central and essential to the Christian faith. Included among these most crucial doctrines would be doctrines such as the Trinity, the full deity and humanity of Jesus Christ, justification by faith, and the authority of Scripture.

In the earliest centuries of the Christian movement, heretics directed their most dangerous attacks upon the church's understanding of who Jesus is and in what sense He is the very Son of God. Other crucial debates concerned the question of how the Son is related to the Father and the Holy Spirit. The earliest creeds and councils of the church were, in essence, emergency measures taken to protect the central core of Christian doctrine. At historic turning-points such as the councils at Nicea, Constantinople and Chalcedon, orthodoxy was vindicated and heresy was condemned -- and these councils dealt with doctrines of unquestionable first-order importance. Christianity stands or falls on the affirmation that Jesus Christ is fully man and fully God.

The church quickly moved to affirm that the full deity and full humanity of Jesus Christ are absolutely necessary to the Christian faith. Any denial of what has become known as Nicean-Chalcedonian Christology is, by definition, condemned as a heresy. The essential truths of the incarnation include the death, burial and bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who deny these revealed truths are, by definition, not Christians.

The same is true with the doctrine of the Trinity. The early church clarified and codified its understanding of the one true and living God by affirming the full deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit -- while insisting that the Bible reveals one God in three persons.

In addition to the Christological and Trinitarian doctrines, the doctrine of justification by faith must also be included among these first-order truths. Without this doctrine, we are left with a denial of the Gospel itself, and salvation is transformed into some structure of human righteousness. The truthfulness and authority of the Holy Scriptures must also rank as a first-order doctrine, for without an affirmation of the Bible as the very Word of God, we are left without any adequate authority for distinguishing truth from error.

These first-order doctrines represent the most fundamental truths of the Christian faith, and a denial of these doctrines represents nothing less than an eventual denial of Christianity itself.

The set of second-order doctrines is distinguished from the first-order set by the fact that believing Christians may disagree on the second-order issues, though this disagreement will create significant boundaries between believers. When Christians organize themselves into congregations and denominational forms, these boundaries become evident.

Second-order issues would include the meaning and mode of baptism. Baptists and Presbyterians, for example, fervently disagree over the most basic understanding of Christian baptism. The practice of infant baptism is inconceivable to the Baptist mind, while Presbyterians trace infant baptism to their most basic understanding of the covenant. Standing together on the first-order doctrines, Baptists and Presbyterians eagerly recognize each other as believing Christians, but recognize that disagreement on issues of this importance will prevent fellowship within the same congregation or denomination.

Christians across a vast denominational range can stand together on the first-order doctrines and recognize each other as authentic Christians, while understanding that the existence of second-order disagreements prevents the closeness of fellowship we would otherwise enjoy. A church either will recognize infant baptism, or it will not. That choice immediately creates a second-order conflict with those who take the other position by conviction.

In recent years, the issue of women serving as pastors has emerged as another second-order issue. Again, a church or denomination either will ordain women to the pastorate, or it will not. Second-order issues resist easy settlement by those who would prefer an either/or approach. Many of the most heated disagreements among serious believers take place at the second-order level, for these issues frame our understanding of the church and its ordering by the Word of God.

Third-order issues are doctrines over which Christians may disagree and remain in close fellowship, even within local congregations. I would put most of the debates over eschatology, for example, in this category. Christians who affirm the bodily, historical, and victorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ may differ over timetable and sequence without rupturing the fellowship of the church. Christians may find themselves in disagreement over any number of issues related to the interpretation of difficult texts or the understanding of matters of common disagreement. Nevertheless, standing together on issues of more urgent importance, believers are able to accept one another without compromise when third-order issues are in question.

A structure of theological triage does not imply that Christians may take any biblical truth with less than full seriousness. We are charged to embrace and to teach the comprehensive truthfulness of the Christian faith as revealed in the Holy Scriptures. There are no insignificant doctrines revealed in the Bible, but there is an essential foundation of truth that undergirds the entire system of biblical truth.

This structure of theological triage may also help to explain how confusion can often occur in the midst of doctrinal debate. If the relative urgency of these truths is not taken into account, the debate can quickly become unhelpful. The error of theological liberalism is evident in a basic disrespect for biblical authority and the church's treasury of truth. The mark of true liberalism is the refusal to admit that first-order theological issues even exist. Liberals treat first-order doctrines as if they were merely third-order in importance, and doctrinal ambiguity is the inevitable result.

Fundamentalism, on the other hand, tends toward the opposite error. The misjudgment of true fundamentalism is the belief that all disagreements concern first-order doctrines. Thus, third-order issues are raised to a first-order importance, and Christians are wrongly and harmfully divided.

Living in an age of widespread doctrinal denial and intense theological confusion, thinking Christians must rise to the challenge of Christian maturity, even in the midst of a theological emergency. We must sort the issues with a trained mind and a humble heart, in order to protect what the Apostle Paul called the "treasure" that has been entrusted to us. Given the urgency of this challenge, a lesson from the emergency room just might help.
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This column was adapted from R. Albert Mohler Jr.'s website at www.albertmohler.com. Mohler is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. For more articles and resources by Mohler, and for information on The Albert Mohler Program, visit www.albertmohler.com.


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FIRST-PERSON: 3 signs of optimism for the American church
by Thom S. Rainer
Date: August 23, 2006 - Wednesday

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--If you have read earlier columns by me, you know that I am deeply concerned about the American church. Evangelistic effectiveness is waning. Biblical illiteracy is growing. And many of the 400,000 churches in the United States seem to be caught up in activities with little purpose of meaning. 

You may therefore be surprised that I would even begin to suggest that the American church has reasons for optimism. Indeed, I must be careful in making such claims. Our initial work at the new entity, LifeWay Research, indicates that the American church is still in a mess. I cannot for one moment claim that significant negative trends are reversing. To the contrary, the overall path of churches in our nation is not good. 

But what compels me to write about reasons for hope are the exceptions we are discovering in our research. Some of the stories are just too good to neglect. Please allow me to categorize these exceptions as three signs for optimism. 

The first sign is that we are finding more churches that are focusing on conversion growth rather than total growth. For years the most heralded churches in America have been those that are growing the fastest numerically. But, upon closer examination, these churches are often growing at the expense of others. This transfer growth, rather than conversion growth, is the source of the large numbers reported by the churches. Still, we are seeing hopeful signs as many church leaders are asking serious questions about their methodologies and theology. They have a growing desire to impact the world of the lost and the unchurched rather than gaining members from other churches. 

Though their numbers are relatively few now, I am gratified to see a greater concern among these churches for the lostness of our world. If more church leaders begin to move in this direction, we may truly see a significant evangelistic impact. 

Second, in a growing number of churches we are seeing a concern for both meaningful membership and evangelistic outreach. The more common pattern we documented in the past focuses on one at the neglect of the other. In other words, some of the churches with the most focused resources on evangelism have done little to develop new converts into fruit-bearing disciples. Or, in the desire to see decisions, these churches have sometimes produced unregenerate members, or members who are not really Christians. 

Yet other churches are focused on regenerate and meaningful membership while neglecting evangelism. The result is a small church of non-evangelistic but otherwise dedicated disciples. 

The early findings of our research are encouraging. Imagine what a church could be if it had the fires of evangelism and the devotion to produce true disciples. 

A third and hopeful sign is a growing desire for more significant and deeper teaching and preaching. I was recently visiting a church where the pastor of 15 years lamented that many members sitting under his preaching for his entire tenure were still, by their own admission, woefully ignorant of biblical doctrine. I commend him for stating his very clear decision to change the ministry of the church and his preaching ministry so that the riches of God’s Word would be consistently taught and preached. 

My lamentations of the past are still valid. The American church as a whole is hardly evangelistic at all. Membership is so inconsequential in many denominations, including my own, that a “good attendance day” is when only half of the purported saints show up. And biblical ignorance among evangelicals is pervasive and worsening. 

Yet I have taken careful note of the exceptions. And I do not believe that I am the only person noticing these incredible churches. As more take note, more will emulate them. And in doing so, they will not simply be copying yet another church growth fad or idea. Instead, they will be emulating a healthy New Testament church. 

The trends are not significantly sufficient to declare a new direction of the American church. But these exceptions give me hope. Perhaps God is not yet done with our churches. Perhaps the exceptions will become the rule. Perhaps the best is yet to come. 

Such is my prayer....
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Thom S. Rainer is president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. 



