Liberation theology of the right

Todd Wilken:

You have written that there is a liberation theology of the left and there’s also a liberation theology of the right. Of course a criticism of many of those who were supporting Glen Beck and his Restoring Honor rally was that President Barack Obama is a “liberation theologian.” What do you mean by a liberation theology on the right?

Russell Moore:

Well I think liberation theology is any kind of theology that seeks to bypass the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and the empty tomb in order to get to some temporal value.

And so I think on the left you’ve got a liberation theology that says what we’re looking for is freeing the oppressed and we’re looking for all these — which may be good and right in and of themselves, but when you get to them apart from the Gospel you’re getting something other than the Gospel.

The same thing happens on the right, where you can take values that can be good in and of themselves and can be commendable, but you seek to get to them some other way than through the Gospel.

That’s essentially exactly what is happening in the third temptation of the Lord Jesus. Satan says to him, “You can have all of the kingdoms of the world if you just bow down and worship me.” Jesus refuses to do this even though Jesus ruling over the kingdoms of the world is obviously a good thing.

Ultimate trust

If the history of slavery ought to teach us anything, it is that human beings cannot be trusted with unbridled power over other human beings — no matter what color or creed any of them are. The history of ancient despotism and modern totalitarianism practically shouts that same message from the blood-stained pages of history.

— Thomas Sowell

The missing word

There's a missing word in the political debate over abortion. See, the “pro-choice” crowd almost always phrases the thing they're defending as “a woman's right to choose.” But there's a problem.

As an aspiring writer, I feel compelled to point out that “choose” is a transitive verb. That is, the way should be phrased, to be grammatically correct, is “a woman's right to choose X,” where X is some object. Whenever you hear that phrase, always ask, “a woman's right to choose what?”

In the current election

“There is no message in the New Testament for the lost except to tell them that they are lost, that they are under condemnation, that they are under the wrath of God, and that unless they repent they remain lost and will be lost to all eternity. This is what I want to emphasize, that the New Testament has nothing to say to the world this morning except that — nothing whatsoever. Our only message to those who are in the world is to repent and to believe the Gospel — nothing else. There is no further interest taken.

“If a man does not repent and believe the Gospel, well he remains where he is, and the Gospel has nothing further to say to him. There is no hope for the world outside Christ — none whatsoever. There is no improvement predicted or prophesied for the world — none whatsoever.

“There is no greater error or heresy than to think that it is the business of Christian preaching to improve the world somewhat. It's a denial of the Gospel. I am using my language advisedly and soberly. The idea that it is the business of the church to recommend Christian principles to the world and plead with it and ask it to put [them] into practice, to send messages to statesmen and ask them to put [them] into practice, I say, is a denial of [the Gospel].

“The only message of the Gospel to the world is to tell it to repent because it's under the wrath of God, and that unless it repents it's lost, and lost eternally.”

— D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Christian issues in the presidential election

I have to admit in advance that many of you (as if anyone is actually reading this) may not agree with this, but there are few — very few — Christian issues in the current national election cycle. What I'm thinking of is not indirect issues such as taxation, defense, entitlements, etc., even though these are important issues; in fact, they are issues I have strong opinions on. I'm thinking now of issues the Bible addresses directly.
Here are all I can think of:

• Abortion
• Definition of marriage

Can you think of any others?

This was in the news

Go read this. Just to whet your appetite, here's the ending. But to see what he's saying, read the whole thing.

Where anything other than Christ is preached, there is no truth, and there is no freedom. There may be shouts of affirmation or silently nodding heads in response, there may be left-wing politics or right-wing politics, there may be culturally liberal psychotherapy or culturally conservative psychotherapy, but there's nothing but judgment in the air.

Then come back here and comment.