Category: Warren Throckmorton

If you mean a new Israel or a covenant nation, Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore — writing for The Gospel Coalition — says no.

The Founders were influenced by Christians but there is no religious test in the Constitution. Moore says the Bible doesn’t assign America a providential place in history. Moore makes it clear that Ted Cruz’s stump verse of II Chronicle 7:14 was a promise to Israel and not to America as a political entity.
While Moore didn’t call out specific people, this is a pretty clear rejection of David Barton’s Christian nationalism on theological grounds.

Previously, I believed that at Liberty University, David Barton was viewed positively as a great historian. Since he speaks there frequently, some in certain circles must believe that. However, I was surprised to learn that Barton’s reputation is not as positive in the history department. John Fea was able to get a first hand look into the matter from a former history graduate student at Liberty. Russ Allen has his masters degree from Liberty and attended a talk given last week at Liberty by Barton. About Barton and his history classes, Allen told Fea:

The first time that I heard Barton’s name was in a graduate-level history classroom at Liberty University. In that setting Barton was almost unanimously viewed as a model of someone engaging in historical fallacy. His works are discussed only in light of their faults and supplemented with strong scholarly criticism.

This is pretty encouraging and raises my estimation of Liberty’s history department.
After Barton speaks to the student body, the history department must be busy undoing his many fallacies.

The Christian radio empire K-LOVE (find a station near you) is in the middle of their Spring Pledge Drive. To be blunt, the constant solicitations are annoying.

After hearing a claim recently that K-LOVE’s CEO Mike Novak’s salary is over half a million dollars, I decided to do some exploration of K-LOVE’s finances. K-LOVE is one of two radio enterprises run by Educational Media Foundation (Air One is the other). Because EMF is a non-profit, their finances are available via their 990 form. The organization is quite large and took in just over $152-million during 2014.

Concerning the salary claim, it is true that CEO Mike Novak got a hefty sum of $531,256 in 2014. Numerous employees, including one of the DJs got over $200k in compensation. K-LOVE pushes an “easy” giving level of $40/month on the air and their website. It takes 1107 people making that monthly pledge just to pay Novak’s salary. By comparison, the executive director of Doctors Without Borders, Sophie Delaunay, got just over $160k for running an organization that took in twice what K-LOVE received in donations.

K-LOVE also spent $267,463 on “pledge drive coaching.” The return on investment was phenomenal in 2014 in that they raised over $32-million attributed to the effort.

As annoying as the gimmickry is, it is apparently quite successful.

Are Board Members Paid?
In reviewing K-LOVE’s claims about their finances, I found one claim to be technically true but misleading. On their website, K-LOVE says:

K-LOVE claims that the Board of Directors at large serve without compensation. While it is true that the 2014 990 form doesn’t report any income paid to non-staff board members, CEO Mike Novak is one of the board of directors and is well compensated. However, readers wouldn’t know that by reading the website. The website description makes it seems as though none of the board members get paid. When one looks at the list of board members on K-LOVE’s website, at large members are not identified.


The 2014 990 identifies CEO Novak as a salaried board member:

Does K-LOVE Need Your Money?
K-LOVE’s net revenue over expenses for 2014 was over $64-million. At $40/month, that means 133,761 donors could have given their money elsewhere and K-LOVE would have covered operational expenses. While it clearly takes lots of money to run a high quality media operation, it may come as a surprise to donors who sacrificially give $40/month that K-LOVE is doing quite well financially.

I am not saying that K-LOVE is doing anything wrong (although I think they could make it more clear that staff board members are handsomely paid). My intent is simply to provide potential donors with information that is not provided by K-LOVE. It may be that your local church or food pantry needs that money more than this mega-station.

Previously, I posted a link to a Tennessee bill which gives permission to counselors to refer clients over conflicts with a counselor’s “sincerely held beliefs.”
Last week, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam signed the bill into law. His reasoning was summarized in a statement after he signed the bill:

The following is the Gov. Haslam’s statement on Senate Bill 1556 (http://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/109/Amend/HA1006.pdf):
“Although Senate Bill 1556 has received attention for its perceived focus, my job is to look at the actual substance of the legislation. After considerable thought and discussion with counselors both for and against the bill, I have decided to sign Senate Bill 1556. There are two key provisions of this legislation that addressed concerns I had about clients not receiving care. First, the bill clearly states that it ‘shall not apply to a counselor or therapist when an individual seeking or undergoing counseling is in imminent danger of harming themselves or others.’ Secondly, the bill requires that any counselor or therapist who feels they cannot serve a client due to the counselor’s sincerely held principles must coordinate a referral of the client to another counselor or therapist who will provide the counseling or therapy,” Haslam said.
“The substance of this bill doesn’t address a group, issue or belief system. Rather, it allows counselors – just as we allow other professionals like doctors and lawyers – to refer a client to another counselor when the goals or behaviors would violate a sincerely held principle. I believe it is reasonable to allow these professionals to determine if and when an individual would be better served by another counselor better suited to meet his or her needs.”
The bill was signed by the speakers on April 13 and transmitted to the governor for action on April 15.
The bill language is available at http://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/109/Amend/HA1006.pdf.

While I appreciate the amendments requiring care in cases of homicidal or suicidal risk, I don’t support this bill. This bill allows discriminatory actions toward anyone, including religious people, based on a vague condition of a counselor’s conflict involving “sincerely held principles.” While I believe some conflicts could be so great that a referral would be the best course of action in the immediate situation, this bill points counselors in another direction. For mental health care to be fully integrated with health care, a value of treating all people is required. I don’t want a health care system where providers are allowed to delay care based on personal disagreements with patients. I do think providers should be allowed to decline performing certain treatments (e.g., abortion, hypnosis, EMDR, etc.) but I don’t think a referral based on personal disagreement should be the norm in health care.
 

Mark Driscoll has a God-sized vision for The Trinity Church and you can find out what God has revealed to him this coming Sunday. One thing for sure, the Vision includes essential ministry tools like an Airstream trailer, a yellow fire truck, and mid-century modern chairs.
Driscoll’s vision is really big. Listen:

The worship band should have this tune on the set list:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUP4dCucVnY[/youtube]