An excellent summary of a more disturbing trend over at www.christianitytoday.com

It has not been that long ago since the online editor was praising her nightly ritual of watching sitcoms and going to bed with Jay and Dave in her editorial section at the start of the weekly Christianity Today updates. I wrote a nice email asking if she was serious or just being hyperbolous for effect. I am still waiting on a reply.

Click below and see the excellent synopsis.

Sex and the CT « The Shepherd’s Scrapbook

Sex and the CT

Here’s an update on the Sex and the City and Christianity Today movie review ordeal…

Sex and the City was an HBO television series (1998-2004) that won 7 Emmy Awards.

The SATC movie (rated R) was released on May 30 with more of the same, what the Chicago Tribune labels “outré fashion, casual sex and dubious cocktails” and “plenty of eye candy for the ladies (think naked men and haute couture).” Not your typical Christian movie.

However, Christianity Today’s Camerin Courtney wrote a fairly explicit and positive review, giving SATC 3 stars (CT gave Prince Caspian 2.5 stars).

People criticized CT for positively reviewing a “pornographic movie.”

Carolyn McCulley (a CT contributor herself) writes an exceptional response to the CT review: “the pot with the proverbial frog has boiled over. The changes that have come about with the introduction of ’sex positive’ or ‘porn positive’ third-wave feminism, beginning in the early 1990s, have now so thoroughly permeated our culture that even evangelicals fail to see the trend or the danger.”

CT responded to the swarm of criticism by defending the original review.

Then yesterday Ted Slater of Boundless called CT to *repent* over the review (and the defense of the review) in an article simply titled “Christianity Today Relishes Sexual Perversion.”

An Evangelical Response to “An Evangelical Manifesto”

An Evangelical Response to “An Evangelical Manifesto”

Posted: Monday, May 12, 2008 at 6:35 am ET

Who are the Evangelicals? The issue of Evangelical identity and definition has been central to the Evangelical project from its very beginning in America. Given the nature of the movement, definition is elusive and constantly contested.

The release of “An Evangelical Manifesto” on May 7 caught the attention of the national media, and thus it represents yet another opportunity for evangelical definition. The document, released May 7, also represents a challenge, for its framers hope to redefine the movement in the context of our unsettled times.

The Manifesto, released at a press conference at the National Press Club, represents an agenda. The press release offered by the organizers makes that clear:

Christian Leaders Apologize to Muslims

On October 13, 2006, 38 leading Islamic scholars, clerics and intellectuals sent an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI in response to his lecture at the University of Regensburg in Germany in September of 2006 in which he addressed such topics as Holy War, forced conversion and the need for dialogue and respect between Christians and Muslims.

One year later to the day, on October 13, 2007, another open letter, this time penned by 138 major Muslim leaders, was sent, not just to the Pope, but to any and all Christian leaders around the world. The letter entitled, A Common Word Between Us and You, presents a long and detailed treatise on the common ground between Christians and Muslims, mainly as it relates to the importance of loving the one true God and loving your neighbor.

In response, a group of scholars at Yale Divinity School’s Center for Faith and Culture drafted the document, Loving God and Neighbor Together: A Christian Response to a Common Word Between Us and You. The letter was then forwarded to Christian leaders and theologians around the world, encouraging them to endorse and sign the statement. The letter, which affirms the importance of loving God and loving your neighbor, as well as the need for dialogue and living in peace, has so far been signed by over 300 Christian leaders, including some prominent names:

• Leith Anderson (president) and Richard Cizik (vice president) of the National Association of Evangelicals.
• Richard Mouw (president), C. Douglas McConnell (dean) and numerous professors from Fuller Theological Seminary.
• Doug Pennoyer (dean) and Leonard Bartlotti (associate professor) of Biola University.
• David Yonggi Cho, senior pastor of Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, Korea.
• Lynn Green, international chairman, Youth With a Mission.
• Bill Hybels, senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church.
• Stanton L. Jones (provost and professor) and Stephen B. Kellough (chaplain) of Wheaton College.
• Roy Oksnevad, director of Muslim ministry at the Billy Graham Center, Wheaton.
• Robert Schuller, founder of the Crystal Cathedral.
• John Stott, rector emeritus at All Souls Church, London.
• Rick Warren, founder and senior pastor of Saddleback Church.

While much of the content of both documents is positive, many Evangelicals are very concerned about certain aspects of the letter penned by the Yale scholars. For example, it seems to acknowledge Allah as the God of the Bible. A paragraph in the preamble states, “Muslims and Christians have not always shaken hands in friendship; their relations have sometimes been tense, even characterized by outright hostility. Since Jesus Christ says, ‘First take the log out your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye’ (Matthew 7:5), we want to begin by acknowledging that, in the past (e.g. in the Crusades) and in the present (e.g. in excesses of the ‘war on terror’), many Christians have been guilty of sinning against our Muslim neighbors. Before we ’shake your hand’ in responding to your letter, we ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and of the Muslim community around the world.”

Islam expert Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo has called it a “betrayal” and a “sellout,” and has called for Christian leaders who signed the letter to withdraw their names. He explains that the confession of guilt puts Christian communities in Muslim areas of the world at risk.

Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said the agreement “sends the wrong signal” and contains basic theological problems, especially in “marginalizing” Jesus Christ and offering an apology for the Crusades. “I just have to wonder how intellectually honest this is,” said Mohler. “Are these people suggesting that they wish the military conflict with Islam had ended differently — that Islam had conquered Europe?”

Some are concerned about “hidden” meanings in the document. A CitizenLink report notes that the very name of the Muslim communiqué — “A Common Word Between Us and You” — is from a verse in the Quran that condemns “people of the Scripture” (Christians) for alleged polytheism (the doctrine of the Trinity).

In a letter responding to criticism he received for signing the statement, Leith Anderson wrote, “Sometimes we all sign onto things that are not all that we would like them to be. … I sought the counsel of other evangelical leaders [who] told me that signing the statement would be especially helpful to Christians who live and minister in Muslim-majority countries and cultures. In fact, some suggested that not signing could be damaging to these Christian brothers and sisters who live among Muslims.”

The full text of the letter from the 138 Muslim leaders and the response which has been signed by over 300 Christian leaders can be found at http://www.yale.edu/faith/abou-commonword.htm. The statement by Leith Anderson explaining why he signed the document can also be found there.

WORLD Magazine | Weekly News, Christian Views

Remember the Alamo

RELIGION: Is the battle for the Bible really over?

It was America’s bicentennial year, but not all the fireworks were about the nation’s birthday. That same year, Harold Lindsell, then editor emeritus of Christianity Today, lit a fuse of his own with the publication of The Battle for the Bible.

Lindsell’s book was an exposé of a spreading liberalism within evangelicalism—and with special reference to the Southern Baptist Convention. “At this moment in history the great bulk of Southern Baptists are theologically orthodox and do believe that the Word of God is inerrant,” he advised. Even still he warned that if Southern Baptists committed to inerrancy did not act soon, “the rougher the battle will be, the more traumatic the consequences, and the less obvious the outcome in favor of historic Christianity.”

Southern Baptists did not hesitate. In 1979 they elected Adrian Rogers, pastor of the famed Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, as president—and the battle was joined. What later became known as the “Conservative Resurgence” in the SBC began in earnest, and conservatives eventually captured the boards of all of the denomination’s national institutions. The “Battle for the Bible” was won by those who insisted that biblical inerrancy is so vital to the health of the church that it was worth dividing the Convention over the issue if necessary.

This week the Southern Baptist Convention convenes for its annual meeting in San Antonio. The last time the Convention met here, the voting “messengers” elected Jerry Vines of Florida as president—by 692 votes out of 32,727 cast. Those were days of constant controversy and contested elections.

This year’s convention will be different. SBC President Frank Page, a prominent South Carolina pastor, is expected to be elected to a second term without opposition. Page represents a new generation and is marked by a low-key style. There will be no long lines of buses from across the Convention idling outside the convention center, waiting for decisive votes to be cast.

So much has changed. Adrian Rogers died in 2005. Jerry Vines retired last year as pastor of Jacksonville’s First Baptist Church.

The SBC’s seminaries, now under the control of conservative trustees and presidents, enroll a record number of young ministers, drawn to the conservative theology. But most of these students were not born when Adrian Rogers was elected in 1979. They were toddlers when the Convention made history in San Antonio in 1988. They are the generation without a living memory of the controversy and what was at stake. To them, the election of Jerry Vines in 1988 is almost as remote as the struggle of Davy Crockett and the brave Texans at the Alamo.

A group of younger pastors and bloggers is now openly asking the question, Is the “Battle for the Bible” over? Some go further, arguing that the theological issues are settled, health has been returned, and the SBC should move on from theological preoccupations. Are they right?

The SBC is certainly in no danger of an organized liberal takeover. The more liberal elements have largely moved on to other groups and have little to do with the SBC. There will be no re-match on the question of biblical inerrancy in San Antonio.

Still, all is not well. The denomination is losing many of its young people, especially at the crucial transition between adolescence and adulthood. New controversies have emerged even as older fissures have been reopened. A generation that was playing Little League as the “Battle for the Bible” raged now includes some who loudly claim that the Conservative Resurgence has gone too far.

Not hardly. The incipient controversies of the present serve to remind Southern Baptists of what was at stake when we last met in San Antonio—and of where we would be if the Convention had headed in a very different direction. The issue of biblical inerrancy is as important today—and as in need of defining and defending—as it was then.

Southern Baptists will do well to remember what every Texan remembers when reminded of the Alamo: There are some battles worth fighting, some stories worth remembering, and some causes that never die.
— R. Albert Mohler Jr.

WorldNetDaily: Megapastor Rick Warren’s Damascus Road experience

Man, what a set of articles

� �Cheap Grace� Is No Grace at All - Christian Action League

An excellent and timely article by Mark Creech

Rick Warren’s Ministry Toolbox
Interesting, invalid article.

FOXNews.com - Ousted Evangelist Rev. Ted Haggard Tells Followers He’s Guilty of ‘Sexual Immorality’

Yikes, yikes, yikes.

DenverPost.com - Haggard admits some indiscretions