The Institute on the Constitution's Imaginary Constitution

On the Institute on the Constitution’s Facebook page, the following image was posted on July 12:

The IOTC teachers Michael Peroutka and David Whitney believe that government has no role in the areas listed under family and church in this image above. This is apparently derived from the work of Abraham Kuyper and Christian reconstructionist Rousas Rushdoony (see this source).
As I looked at this, my reaction was that the IOTC teaches the Constitution of their imagination, not the actual one. According to Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, the Congress has the power “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” Congress also has the power to establish laws on bankruptcies and to make laws necessary to carry out Congressional powers. However, the IOTC teaches that families have jurisdiction over property and business ownership. Surely, property and business ownership cannot be left to individual families without some form of government regulation to protect the rights of all concerned. Bankruptcies involve individuals (often involving personal property and business ownership) but according to the Constitution, the Congress has the power to make laws regarding this aspect of commerce. Does the IOTC teachers think the Constitution has too much power?
Article 3, Section 2 establishes the courts to decide disputes between citizens over lands (property ownership) as well as other disputes between citizens. The actual Constitution gives citizens a judicial system as a protection. Families may not violate the rights of their members simply because they are biologically related. Churches may not violate the rights of their members simply because a member has signed a church covenant.
Article 4, Sections 2 requires that citizens in one state have the same rights in the several states. Article 6 makes the Constitution the supreme law in the land. The 7th Amendment in the Bill of Rights provides for the right of jury trial. Families and churches cannot claim exemption when disputes arise involving those spheres.
Families can govern their affairs, and churches have freedom to hold their beliefs sacred, unless those activities conflict with the Constitution and the powers given to civil government by it. We will always have debates about what those various limits are, but civil government has a much wider jurisdiction in the actual Constitution than in the one the IOTC teaches.
The IOTC course which is sweeping through Ohio and Maryland especially is particularly dangerous because it claims to teach about the U.S. Constitution but actually seeks to place the Christian reconstructionist interpretation of the Bible over the Constitution.
I prefer the actual Constitution.
 
 

Mars Hill Church Says A Little More But Not Enough About the Global Fund Changes

In this week’s email newsletter to members (dated 7/11/14), Mars Hill Church leaders mentioned the Change.org petition asking for financial accountability regarding the former Mars Hill Global Fund. Mars Hill has now admitted that money given to the Global Fund actually went in the church’s General Fund and mostly was spent on expanding Mars Hill video sites. Despite the fact that Mars Hill leaders admit there was a separate fund, they are requiring donors to contact the church and specifically designate (again) that their donation should go to missions (See the Global FAQs for more information). From the newsletter:

Update on Mars Hill Global

We are very thankful for what Jesus has done through our global family since 2009, with many disciples made and churches planted in the US, Ethiopia, and India.
As we strive to communicate the vision of Mars Hill Church, there has been an outside petition asking questions of Mars Hill. However, of the nearly 400 signers, only four have ever given to Mars Hill Global. We sent letters this past week to over 6000 Global donors giving them the option to designate their funds solely for international work if they wish. We received many replies of encouragement, as well as a few people who asked to change their designation, and we have gladly made those changes.
If you have any questions regarding Mars Hill Global, we have recently posted updates to our Global FAQ online page that you might find helpful.

I have heard from donors who did not get a letter or email from the church. In fact, I have not heard from any donors who did get a letter. Obviously, I am not in touch with 6,000 donors and so I am not saying a letter was not sent. However, some donors did not get a letter. Also, I would say it is a little early to quantify the reaction to Mars Hill’s change of public position (for a somewhat different reaction see Wenatchee the Hatchet). They just changed their Global FAQs on July 1.
I don’t understand what this sentence is trying to communicate: “We received many replies of encouragement, as well as a few people who asked to change their designation, and we have gladly made those changes.” Change designation from what to what?
The Global Fund was clearly designated as separate from the General Fund on the online giving page, as well as in Mars Hill documents. If donors wanted to designate their funds to Mars Hill Church’s General Fund, they had the option to do so. Thus, Global Fund donors were designating their money to what Mars Hill Church said was “how we as a church participate in the worldwide mission of Jesus” (see below from the FY 2013 Annual Report). Now Mars Hill is making their donors jump through another hoop to redesignate their money to missions. So when Mars Hill says they are changing the designations for gifts, I don’t understand. Are they really claiming that there was no designation before?

The petition (which is still open for signatures from anyone who wants to encourage disclosure in accord with ECFA guidelines) says:

Mars Hill Church has solicited millions of dollars for its “Global Fund” which, now that questions have been asked, has disappeared. It seems that most of the money was not spent on global or international outreach and that the money simply went into the general fund. Donors and those with a close interest or tie to Mars Hill Church ought to know exactly how much of what they gave was spent on international outreach. This is a part of a greater call for financial transparency from the leaders at Mars Hill Church.

Every time a person signs the petition, a letter is sent to the boards of Mars Hill Church and the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability:

Mars Hill Church, please tell us how much “Global Fund” money was spent on “international” outreach. We donors, members, ex-members and the broader Christian community deserve transparency from the leadership at Mars Hill Church.

This is a question Mars Hill could answer easily. They know how many donors gave money, they certainly know how they spent the donor’s contributions. Mars Hill Church leaders already said the preponderance of the funds went to fund the expansion of Mars Hill video sites in the United States. Surely, they can tell us the actual numbers. Sources within Mars Hill have told me the percentage of Global Fund actually spent on missions is low, perhaps 5% or less. There is potentially quite a windfall for Ethiopia and India if Mars Hill donors would contact Mars Hill to stress they want those funds spent on missions. The amount would likely more than double the annual budget of Mars Hill’s partner for Ethiopia, New Covenant Foundation.
For all stories on Mars Hill Global, click the link.

Christian Post Provides Free Advertising for International Healing Foundation

I missed this a couple of days ago. The Christian Post provided free advertising for the following activity masquerading as therapy:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJXWFZz0Qjo[/youtube]
This video cannot be shown enough. This is what the Christian Post is advertising with their puff piece on the International Healing Foundation. Doyle says being attracted to the same sex is a matter of poor parenting. Richard Cohen, the founder of IHF, says the therapist should establish a parent child relationship as a means of replacing what clients didn’t get from their parents. This is a dangerous and false premise. Some gays and some straights didn’t get what they needed from their parents, but this doesn’t make them gay or straight. Putting the therapist in the role of a nurturing parent is reflects a wrong diagnosis and potentially sets up an unhealthy dependence on the therapist. Furthermore, a robust line of research suggests that the pillow beating catharsis treatment is fundamentally unhelpful.
Perhaps these points and more are why no graduate training programs offer these approaches for the purposes designated by IHF. I know of no graduate training programs housed in Christian colleges which teach these techniques. Even at Liberty, Doyle was not allowed to consider Cohen a clinical supervisor, nor was he allowed to count his experience there toward his school internship.
Chris Doyle says the IHF does therapy. However, I even wonder about that. According to their 2012 990 form, they took in very little money in program services fees with the lion’s share of their income coming from donations.
I hope the reporter will consider doing a counter point article in response.
 
 

Who Are the Real Evangelicals? A Q&A with Historian Thomas Kidd

Historian and author Thomas Kidd caught my attention again with his column at Anxious Bench about evangelicals who are not evangelicals. He contends there that there are four groups of Christians who are often confused for historic evangelicals but should not be considered evangelicals. Theological liberals make up the first group, and orthodox Presbyterians (I would add Christian reconstructionists) the second group. The next two groups, advocates of the prosperity gospel, and Christian nation proponents (think David Barton), will probably flinch about not being included. I have clearly lumped most of those people under the evangelical umbrella at one time or another so Kidd’s precision interests me.
I asked him if I could ask him a couple of questions for the sake of discussion here. He agreed and here is the exchange:
Me: Can a person be in two groups? Can a Presbyterian in your group 2 also be an evangelical? I suspect many believers in a Christian America would also see themselves as evangelical. Can they hold every other tenet of evangelicalism and work for a political solution to the nation’s problem?
Kidd: Yes, I would assume that virtually all evangelicals would also have some other denominational/congregational identity. Plenty of Presbyterians, especially in the PCA and the EPC, would fully accept the evangelical label. My point regarding Hart’s type of confessional Reformed folks is that there are conservative Protestants who explicitly reject the label evangelical, even though much of the media would automatically regard them as evangelical.
I agree that most in the Christian America (as well as prosperity gospel) camp would embrace the evangelical label, but if the core of their Christian message is American patriotism and politics – if there is, for them, an indispensable connection between the American Founding and Christianity – then I don’t see how that fits with historic evangelicalism.

Me: In the case of group 2, the Presbyterians, they have a name for their group. However, how about groups 3 and 4. How would you label them?
Kidd: Group 3 are the advocates of the “Prosperity Gospel,” Group 4 are advocates of “Christian America.” These are not how they
would necessarily label themselves, of course.
Me: As a follow up to question 2, I suspect the Christian America advocates would view the belief in America’s Godly Heritage as a hallmark of evangelicalism since they believe many of the founders were evangelicals. By excluding this group from the historic evangelicalism, are we not engaging in a debate over what historic evangelicalism is? It seems to me that historic evangelicals and Christian nationalists are in a dispute over the definition of evangelicalism with the Christian nation group believing your definition of evangelicalism is missing the important political element. What is your reaction to that formulation? If you think I am right, can you say briefly what you point to historically to suggest they are off?
Kidd: Yes, the whole debate is a question of what historic evangelicalism is. Christian America folks are often eager to cast the non-evangelical Founders as evangelicals, because doing so helps to justify their close connection between the Christian faith and the American Founding. Thus their desire to find quotes that might suggest that Jefferson or Franklin, or other non-evangelicals were actually devout, traditional believers.Historic evangelicals, conversely, say that while they would be delighted if it turned out that Franklin or Jefferson were actually evangelicals, there’s no good evidence to suggest that they were. This is no big deal for historic evangelicals, because our faith is not fundamentally connected to the American Founding. We’re thankful for the many good things about the Founding, especially the traditions of religious liberty and God-given equality. But we don’t need any of the Founders to have been Christians or evangelicals. Some were, some weren’t – they were a mixed lot, even if they pretty much all held to some basic Christian/theistic ideas, like the notion that God is the author of our liberties.
Thomas Kidd is the author of God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution and the upcoming George Whitefield: America’s Spiritual Founding Father.