Patheos Links of Interest: Kirk Franklin, Anxious Bench, Godless in Dixie, Stacy Dash, Kyle Roberts

Reading an Anxious Bench post by Thomas Kidd, it occurred to me that Patheos is a very diverse site. With that in mind, I decided to go exploring. Here I am going to post some links I found interesting. I am not recommending everything said by these authors but am posting them because I think they might be of interest to readers.
Should Evangelicals Embrace the “Benedict Option”? Well, should they/we?
We Love Close Calls… Until They Happen to Us – Nice devotional post on waiting through hard times by Kirk Franklin. Wait, what? Kirk Franklin blogs at Patheos?! Nice.
I Was Wrong – Stacy Dash apologized for her defense of Bill Cosby.
Stop Saying that Teaching Children Creationism is Child Abuse – A good one from the Atheist channel’s Neil Carter.
“Can We Go Home, Now?” My Mom, Alzheimer’s Disease, and Our Longing for Home Kyle Roberts on the Progressive channel writes a truly touching reflection on his mom’s wish to go home.
I hope to go exploring more often…

Message to Glenn Beck and Fellowship Church: Congress Didn't Print the Aitken Bible

In addition to faulty theology, there are several glaring historical errors in Glenn Beck’s talk to Fellowship Church on July 5. Sadly, the audience is less knowledgeable now than before he spoke. Here is one example.
Glenn Beck told Fellowship Church that the first thing Congress did after the United States won the Revolutionary War was to print a Bible in English. Watch:
[youtube]http://youtu.be/cBgkSUILZEw[/youtube]
Transcript:

Don’t let anybody tell you we are not a Christian nation because we absolutely are a Christian nation. This is one of seven Bibles, three or four of them are held by the Smithsonian. Three are in private hands; extraordinarily rare. It’s called the Aitken Bible. This was the first thing Congress did when they started. We couldn’t print the Bible. So when we first established ourselves and we won the war, the first act was to print the Aitken Bible. When it was given to George Washington, he wept, and he said, ‘finally, a gift that is meaningful enough to give to the men that served by my side.’ We are a Christian nation. And we need to start behaving like a Christian nation, with love and respect, and take the beam out of our own eye before looking at the speck in someone’s else’s. We’re losing memberships in our churches because, stop talking about the things that the Bible tells us to do.  Let’s start doing them!

It is ironic that Beck tells the audience to start doing what the Bible says just after he consistently bore false witness about the Aitken Bible.
Let me take Beck’s claims bit by bit.

It’s called the Aitken Bible. This was the first thing Congress did when they started. We couldn’t print the Bible. So when we first established ourselves and we won the war, the first act was to print the Aitken Bible.

Beck was holding up a copy of what appeared to be the Aitken Bible. It is rare and valuable. It is also true that the British prohibited Bibles printed in America. However, nothing he said after that is true. Congress did not print the Bible and the involvement with Aitken’s project was not initiated by Congress. Furthermore, the timing of Aitken’s request and Congressional response do not match Beck’s passionate claim. It most certainly is not the first thing Congress did after the United States won the war for independence.
Robert Aitken petitioned Congress in a letter dated January 21, 1781. He wanted the approval of Congress for a Bible he was printing and he wanted to be the official Bible printer of the United States. You can read his petition here and here. I have it below as well.

To the Honourable The Congress of the United States of America

The Memorial of Robert Aitken of the City of Philadelphia Printer

Humbly Sheweth

That in every well regulated Government in Christendom The Sacred Books of the Old and New Testament, commonly called the Holy Bible, are printed and published under the Authority of the Sovereign Powers, in order to prevent the fatal confusion that would arise, and the alarming Injuries the Christian Faith might suffer from the spurious and erroneous Editions of Divine Revelation. That your Memorialist has no doubt but this work is an Object worthy the attention of the Congress of the United States of America, who will not neglect spiritual security, while they are virtuously contending for temporal blessings.

Under this persuasion, your Memorialist begs leave to inform your Honours That he hath begun and made considerable progress in a neat Edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools, But being cautious of suffering his copy of the Bible to Issue forth without the sanction of Congress, Humbly prays that your Honors would take this important matter into serious consideration & would be pleased to appoint one Member or Members of your Honourable Body to inspect his work so that the same may be published under the Authority of Congress. And further, your Memorialist prays, that he may be commissioned or otherwise appointed & Authorized to print and vend Editions of the Sacred Scriptures, in such manner and form as may best suit the wants and demands of the good people of these States, provided the same be in all things perfectly consonant to the Scriptures as heretofore Established and received amongst us, And as in Duty bound your Memorialist shall ever pray

Robt. Aitken Philadelphia. 21, Jany. 1781.

Aitken appeared to be under the impression that the United States might operate like Britain and regulate the authorized version of the Bible. He wanted his Bible to be the one approved by the government. In addition, he wanted Congressional awareness and approval because it had been illegal to do what he was doing under British rule. In fact, the war had not yet been won when Aitken began his work. He had already printed the New Testament but wanted to finish the job. “Being cautious of suffering his copy of the Bible to Issue forth without the sanction of Congress,” Aitken didn’t want to do anything which Congress might oppose.
Cornwallis surrendered to the American forces on October 19, 1781 so Aitken’s petition came prior to the end of the war, not first thing after we won. Congress appointed a committee to interact with Aitken as he progressed on his project. Aitken sent a copy of his Bible to Congress on September 9, 1782. The Congressional proclamation about the Bible was dated September 12, 1782. . The treaty of Paris formally ending the war did not come until September 3, 1783.  The proclamation from Congress is below in the first paragraph:

There is nothing in this proclamation about Congress as Bible printer. Congress clearly recognized Aitken as the author and recommended his work for religious and artistic achievement. It was Aitken’s idea, his work, his investment, and eventually his loss. He didn’t make money on the project, and because Congress didn’t fund the project, he offered the Bibles to George Washington with the suggestion, made by a friend, that Washington ask Congress to purchase Bibles for the troops who had fought in the war.
Beck embellished the story more by involving Washington. Beck claimed:

When it was given to George Washington, he wept, and he said, ‘finally, a gift that is meaningful enough to give to the men that served by my side.’

There is no record that Washington wept when Aitken’s friend, John Rodgers, requested that Washington asked Congress to buy copies of the Bible for his troops. Washington declined politely saying that most of the troops had gone home and so he couldn’t make such a request. Washington’s return letter on the subject indicated that he would liked to have given the troops a Bible but not in the manner claimed by Beck. Here is what Washington replied to Aitken’s friend, Rev. Rodgers.

Your proposition concerning Mr. Aikin’s Bibles would have been particularly noted by me, had it been suggested in season, but the late Resolution of Congress for discharging part of the Army, taking off near two thirds of our numbers, it is now too late to make the attempt. It would have pleased me well, if Congress had been pleased to make such an important present to the brave fellows, who have done so much for the security of their Country’s rights and establishment.

Beck’s quote from Washington is quite a dramatic embellishment as is most of what he had to say to Fellowship Church. Beck’s story about Congress and the Aitken Bible is false; his citation about Washington is highly inflated and misleading. Most people listening would go away thinking that the first thing Congress did after winning the war for independence was to use public funds to print a Bible and give it to the American troops with the heartfelt approval of George Washington.
Beck’s key story used to support the claim that the U.S. is a Christian nation turns out to be a fabrication.
Beck has to know this. It has been pointed out publicly by numerous writers. Even if somehow he has avoided reading the many debunkings of this story, the alternative isn’t much better. He is either knows the story is a fiction or he is a very, very bad historian. Fellowship Church’s spokesman told Christian Post that Beck was “unmatched” in his knowledge of history. If that is so, then Beck misled Fellowship Church on July 5 with knowledge aforethought.
If Glenn Beck and Ed Young want to honor the passionate plea Beck made to Fellowship Church to stop talking about the things the Bible says to do and to start doing them, then they need to come clean to the congregation and set the facts straight.
For more on the Aitken Bible lie and the involvement of Washington, see this Huffington Post article by Chris Rodda

Gospel for Asia Exhibiting at Calvary Chapel Pastors Conference; Any Answers There?

Earlier today, Danny Yohannan (K.P. Yohannan’s son and in leadership at Gospel for Asia) tweeted the following:


GFA is exhibiting at the Calvary Chapel Senior Pastors Conference (watch live here). I wonder if GFA will address any of the CC pastors’ questions.
Tomorrow will be two months since GFA told me they would answer no more questions. GFA reps have time to exhibit at this conference but they can’t be bothered to address other matters such as:

In addition to the “awesome free materials” perhaps Mr. Yohannan could give some free answers to these questions. If anyone attending the Calvary conference gets any responses, please add that information in the comments or send me an email.

David Brooks Wants Us to Fight a Different Culture War; Retraining Required

Brooks is a good writer and makes a good case for what I consider to be the right position.
In essence, he says evangelicals have lost the culture war over sexual matters, and so should consider being more like the Salvation Army than the Moral Majority. Become useful again. Actually, there is a lot of that going on and Brooks says evangelicals should become known for our good works of community as opposed to outrage over gay marriage.
It is hard to look at the ministry of Jesus and find fault with Brooks’ suggestions. Christians getting all mad over losing some political power doesn’t look like the New Testament to me.
Speaking from experience, the other culture war was exciting. There was a feeling of doing something important and meaningful. I thought the objective of defeating the godless liberals was a noble cause. Being a part of the in-group is a power social experience. However, I believe there is a better way to live.
Culture warring (on both extremes I think) requires lots of confirmation bias and self-deception. As I began to raise questions about the intellectual honesty of, for instance, the evangelical positions on the causes of same-sex orientation and the lack of change really happening, I was strongly discouraged from going there. I went there.
After I went there, certain evangelicals demanded my college fire me, my family was lied about and various other in-group rejections happened. I still believe in the same Jesus and still sing from the same hymnbook, but you can’t be an A-List evangelical unless you’re willing to believe a particular set of premises. Nothing much has changed; if you go after sacred cows, the cows’ caretakers get angry, often in Jesus’ name.
I write all of this because I fear that, without some kind of retraining, the hard core evangelical culture warriors may not be up to what Brooks says is a struggle for which social conservatives should be well-equipped:

The more practical struggle is to repair a society rendered atomized, unforgiving and inhospitable.

Brooks’ suggestions are good, but there are practical problems. Evangelicals can’t even agree that it would be a good idea for a Christian to serve all comers in our businesses. We can’t even agree that being hospitable and Christlike means bakers should bake a cake for gay customers. The culture warriors applaud the person who takes actions which are inhospitable. Currently, evangelicals need to own our part in rendering society “atomized, unforgiving, and inhospitable” and to repair our own community, before we can help anybody else do it.
 

Glenn Beck Tells Ed Young's Fellowship Church: We Are a Christian Nation

LDS Gospel doctrine teacher Glenn Beck told Southern Baptist Fellowship Church on July 5: “We are a Christian nation, period.”
Watch:
[youtube]https://youtu.be/y0_xha6Jcdg[/youtube]
As I have pointed out, Beck’s church believes the founding fathers were baptized into his LDS church by coming in spirit form to a former LDS president and asking for redemption. So even rational Unitarian Thomas Jefferson is now a Mormon (according to the Mormon Chronicle).
Any Tyndale scholars in the house? I don’t think Beck got Tyndale’s last words right.
This video is only a brief clip but it sounds like he went over similar ground as his speech at Liberty University last year.
Here is one of the sessions posted by Ed Young. I may have additional comments:
[youtube]https://youtu.be/xL5uqFVlkBg[/youtube]