Month: September 2015

Calvary Chapel Pioneer Rebukes K.P. Yohannan's Church Rituals

GFA HQ Front
Gospel for Asia HQ, Wills Point, TX

Last night, Phoenix Preacher posted audio of Bill Gallatin, a pioneer in Calvary Chapel circles, rebuking the hand kissing rituals of Believers’ Church recently brought to light here and by former staff of Gospel for Asia. At the Northeast Senior Pastors Conference going on now in upstate New York, Gallatin said during a speech:

and you got a man in India who says he’s a Calvary Chapel and he’s wearing robes like the pope and he’s even having his own people come up and kiss his hand…and no ones even blinking.

You can hear the full audio at this link (at about 30 minutes in).
Those familiar with Calvary Chapel are telling me that Rev. Gallatin’s statement, while brief, is significant. As this kind of sentiment bubbles to the surface, it makes me wonder how long GFA will remain silent, even in response to donors and supporting churches.

Challenge to David Barton: Where Are the 1500 Bible Verses in Locke’s Two Treatises?

I think I know the answer but I doubt David Barton will respond.

First, some background is necessary. For quite some time, the head of Ted Cruz Super PAC David Barton has claimed that John Locke referred to over 1500 Bible verses in his Two Treatises of Government. In The Jefferson Lies, Barton wrote the following:

Furthermore, in his Two Treatises of Government (1689) — the work specifically relied on by Jefferson and the other Founders as they drafted the Declaration — Locke invoked the Bible over 1500 times (pp. 40-41).

The earliest instance of the claim I have been able to find is a 2006 article posted on Wallbuilders’ website about Independence Day.

Locke’s Treatise (actually two separate treatises combined into one book) is less than 400 pages long; but in the first treatise, Locke invoked the Bible in 1,349 references; in his second treatise, he cited it 157 times. Imagine! In the primary work influencing the Declaration of Independence, Locke referred to the Bible over 1,500 times to show the proper operation of civil government. No wonder the Declaration has been such a successful document!

Then, on the August 14 segment of Rick Wiles’ TruNews (ironic), Barton again claimed that Locke included over 1500 Bible verses on how civil government is supposed to operate.

In this clip, Wiles asks David Barton why pastors won’t preach about culture war topics. Barton answers by describing how he was asked to go to the Ukraine to speak to political and religious leaders there about the foundations of American government. Barton used the Locke story to support his contention that American civil government was derived from the Bible. At about 1:20 into the clip above, Barton says:

The Ukraine is very highly Christian and so I just asked these leading pastors, the heads of their denominations, I said, does the Bible say anything about government, can you give me any verses on that? And I got about seven verses and these are like the popes of their denomination. And so I pulled out a book from 1690, John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government, you know in America, this is what our founding fathers used to write the 1776 Declaration of Independence. This little book, you can see, translated into Ukrainian, less than 400 pages long, it’s less than an inch thick, it has more than 1500 Bible verses on how civil government should operate, so how come you as church leaders only know seven, when here’s a little book with 1500 in it?

Barton then goes on to castigate American missionaries for teaching the separation of church and state.

I wrote about Barton’s 1500 verse claim previously with Locke scholar Greg Forster providing expert commentary.  Here is one key component of Forster’s response:

In his edition of the Two Treatises, editor Mark Goldie of Cambridge University lists only 121 Bible verses cited in the entire Two Treatises. And that’s including all the places where Locke didn’t cite the verse explicitly and Goldie “interpolated” the citation. In addition to those 121 Bible verses referenced, Goldie lists six places where Locke cited an entire chapter of the Bible, and one place where he cited an entire book (Proverbs). That’s it. But anyone who has read the Two Treatises will know Barton’s claim is false without having had to count.

In another post, I provided Thomas Jefferson’s description of how he wrote the Declaration of Independence. While Locke was an intellectual influence, Jefferson said he didn’t consult any work to write it as asserted by Barton. 
In this post, I want to show how I think Barton could have come up with his inflated claim of 1500 Bible verses. While I get a different number than Barton, I have found a way one can misrepresent the number of verses Locke used in his arguments. Barton’s approach to history and truth is on full display with this claim.

As pointed out first by Greg Forster, Two Treatises editor Mark Goldie produced an index to Scriptures implied and directly cited by Locke. At the end of the post, I am linking to images of that index for readers to examine. In the index, Goldie refers to Locke’s citation of individual verses, several full chapters, and the entire book of Proverbs. To get to over 1500 Bible verses, one must count each time an individual verse is cited by Locke (he cites some verses multiple places in the Two Treatises), and then add the total verses in each full chapter cited by Locke and then add the entire book of Proverbs. If one does that, the total count I get is 1,512 verses. See the image below for a illustrative portion of the Goldie index with an entire chapter, multiple verses and the entire book of Proverbs.
Locke verses example
Even if this method was defensible (it’s not), Barton’s claims are still wrong. He says in The Jefferson Lies that “Locke invoked the Bible 1500 times!” Even though Proverbs contains 915 verses, mentioning the Old Testament book once does not equate to invoking the Bible 915 times. Locke invokes Proverbs once, so one can subtract 914 times from the count if one is being honest.

Most recently, Barton claimed that the Two Treatises “has more than 1500 Bible verses on how civil government should operate.”  As I have demonstrated, to get to over 1500 verses Barton has to count the entire book of Proverbs, entire chapters of the Bible, such as Genesis 36, as well as every time Locke refers to the same verse. I want Barton to explain to me how the Proverbs and some of the verses in the chapters mentioned by Locke tell us how “civil government should operate.” For instance, Gen. 36: 38 reads:

When Shaul died, Baal-Hanan son of Akbor succeeded him as king.

How about Exodus 21:7? Did the founders rely on this verse to help write the founding documents?

If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do. 

How about Proverbs 12:25?

Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up.

Few of the verses Locke used fit the descriptions offered by Barton.
In my opinion, Barton inflated the number of verses in order to craft a fiction about the role of the Bible in the construction of the Declaration of Independence.

To close, it is worth re-reading what Forster said about Locke’s use of the Bible:

Moreover, a large number – possibly even the majority – of those 121 citations are not to passages “on how civil government is to operate.” The Bible references in the Two Treatises are heavily concentrated in the First Treatise. The overwhelming majority of the First Treatise, in turn, is devoted to an extended analysis of small number of selected verses from the first two chapters of Genesis, especially Genesis 1:28-30. That’s a lot of analysis devoted to understanding the biblical text, but it’s not a large number of verses cited. The remainder of the First Treatise, where other biblical verses are cited more frequently, looks to the Bible not primarily for instruction on civil government but almost entirely on the power of parents over their children, especially the inheritance of property from parents to children. Locke is interested in these verses because he wants to use them to refute Robert Filmer’s claim that today’s kings inherit their power from Adam, but these are clearly not “biblical references on how civil government is to operate.” They are biblical references on how families are to operate. In fact, the point that descriptions of the how the family should work are not descriptions of how civil government should work was Locke’s main point!

Goldie’s index: page 253, 254, 255.

Gateway Church Pastor Robert Morris Calls Blogs "Satan's Hit List"

On Saturday at Gateway Church, pastor Robert Morris went off on bloggers. Watch:

But, but I have to say this, um, I’m really concerned about how much time people spend on the Internet. I’m extremely concerned about it. Extremely concerned about it; here’s one thing, just even the blogs that mention Christian leaders, and I’m one of ‘em. Praise the Lord, I’ve made the Satan, Satan’s hit list now you know, but here’s what blows me away.
You wouldn’t listen to gossip, but you’ll read it. I mean, I have a friend of mine, that made a comment a while back, and it just blew up on the Internet. It blew up. Like he was “changing” his theological position. And really he was saying, ‘our methods are evolving’ but he had to clarify later, ‘my theological position’s not evolving on this issue, but our methods in dealing with people who are in bondage to sin, those are evolving, we’re trying to learn to deal with people who-who suffer with this’.
But on the Internet, everybody had already judged him. And he’s a pastor and he’s a friend of mine. And what upsets me is Christians read filth on the Internet. And they believe it.
And, I, um, you can’t imagine how many people have told me, that ‘this is true,’ “How ya know it’s true? ‘Read it on the Internet’
Anybody can write on the Internet. And the people who write on the Internet are people who would not have a platform, unless they put my name, or Bill Hybels’ name, or T.D. Jakes’ name in it, they wouldn’t have a platform, if they didn’t put someone’s name who already had a platform. Boy, I’m just fired up, I’m telling ya.

So we know you’re reading Rev. Morris. Now if there is something you think is factually wrong in anything you read here, please don’t hesitate to have one of your people get in touch with me.  Like you, I don’t want people to read filth or untrue info.
 

Gospel for Asia Adds Board Members

According to a former staffer in a position to know, Gospel for Asia added Frances Chan (Crazy Love), David Mains (Chapel of the Air), and Damian Kyle (Calvary Chapel – Modesto) to their governing board.
The addition of these men makes GFA’s silence all the more troubling. It seems fair to call these men into accountability for the questions which GFA has refused to answer about their financial and other dealings.
These new members join founder and CEO K.P. Yohannan, his son Danny, his wife Gisela, Chuck Zink, Gayle Erwin, Robert Felder and Skip Heitzig as board members.

#PrayerforEveryone

While some evangelicals are predicting the beginning of the end in September and October, others are participating in an effort to mobilize religious folk to pray and work for the common good. This post is to make readers aware of the prayer for everyone effort.
Among many other groups, Bono’s One campaign is supporting the focus on prayer.  Here’s more:

This September, world leaders will commit to the Global Goals for Sustainable Development to achieve three extraordinary things by 2030. End extreme poverty. Fight inequality and injustice. Combat climate change. The Global Goals for sustainable development could get these things done. In all countries. For all people.

But to achieve these Goals, everyone needs to know about them.

From September 24 to October 1, everyone from every faith, every walk of life, everywhere, can take part in Prayer for Everyone by sharing the Goals with their faith community and their friends.

ONE, Project Everyone, and Global Goals invite you to join us and champion the Goals through the teachings and practices of your faith.

Offer your #PrayerforEveryone and tell everyone about the world you hope to see in 2030.

While the goals may seem unattainable, they are certainly worthy. The fact that leaders from around the world are supposed to agree today to promote such goals as ending extreme poverty is a sign to certain evangelicals that the world is about to experience the beginning of the end…maybe on September 28 when a “blood moon” is supposed to appear in the sky.

I don’t get into these prophecies. As a teen, I thought the world was going to end because so many adults said so (“I wish we’d all been ready”). About all I know now is that I am supposed to be busy while I am here and do what I can. God will handle the cosmic part when He’s ready.

In the mean time, offer a prayer of thanks for common grace and: