Boz Tchividjian shocks those who aren't paying attention

Billy Graham's grandson takes to the HuffPo to make the "shocking" claim that sex abuse is worse among evangelicals than among Roman Catholics.

I have a few thoughts about such a claim.

1) Would anyone care about his assertion if he didn't have the grandfather he has? Would HuffPo feature this interview?

2) How is he defining "evangelical"? Does that include Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and groups that basically qualify as cults? What about Church of Christ, who holds the heretical view that water baptism is a pre-requisite for justification?

3) Does he mean sex abuse of children or is he including, say, married pastors committing adultery with other women in his flock?

4) The main reason for "pointing" (as Tchividjian puts it) to Roman Catholics is not that Roman Catholics commit acts of sexual abuse. Who could deny that professing Protestants , or yes, "evangelicals", have done the same?
Rather, the main problem has been that unlike Protestant churches, the Roman Catholic Church claims to be unified under the Pope and Magisterium, to have a holy hierarchy and government, to be the One True Church that Jesus founded, preserved by God all the way from then to today, and that this hierarchy and government has not only ignored but indeed actively protected and hidden men who were known to be gross sexual predators.
Unless and until some grand sex-abuse-concealment conspiracy among numerous different "evangelical" organisations or churches or denominations, what we have chez evangelicalism is an example of bad apples in a large basket, rather than a rotten root. (And no, I'm not denying that the number of apples  is probably quite high.)

The closest parallel to Rome mentioned in the article is probably the missions agencies, who allegedly systematically move and hide known sexual predators. If this is true, those predators need to be called to repent by their church and prosecuted for their crimes, and if they will not repent, they should be excommunicated by their church while under prosecution. The missions agency should fire them, obviously, instead of hiding them. That's a no-brainer.

And for the record, given my experiences with a very large missions organisation whose name rhymes with Shminternational Gission Toard, it would not surprise me in the slightest to learn that many people within that agency are guilty as Tchividjian contends. The hierarchy of that particular place has a well-earned reputation for hiding and ignoring sin, and sin has a way of getting too big for the leash you try to put on it.

Regardless of what definition he is using of "evangelical" and his misunderstandings of the actual issues at hand with the Roman priest abuse scandal, I applaud Tchividjian's efforts and his shining a light on this dark place. Far too many in the evangelical and Reformed world seem to think that calling sinners and possible false converts to repentance in the hopes of reconciling them to God and to their neighbor(s) is bad and sinful, that it's "talking smack about the Bride of Christ". They could not be more wrong and it would be hard to imagine how it could be more self-serving.

A Good Reminder

As we think about our culture and the upcoming election, here is a good reminder from Al Mohler:

Excerpt:

"Parents who raise their children with nothing more than Christian values should not be surprised when their children abandon those values. If the child or young person does not have a firm commitment to Christ and to the truth of the Christian faith, values will have no binding authority, and we should not expect that they would. Most of our neighbors have some commitment to Christian values, but what they desperately need is salvation from their sins. This does not come by Christian values, no matter how fervently held. Salvation comes only by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Human beings are natural-born moralists, and moralism is the most potent of all the false gospels. The language of “values” is the language of moralism and cultural Protestantism — what the Germans called Kulturprotestantismus. This is the religion that produces cultural Christians, and cultural Christianity soon dissipates into atheism, agnosticism, and other forms of non-belief. Cultural Christianity is the great denomination of moralism, and far too many church folk fail to recognize that their own religion is only cultural Christianity — not the genuine Christian faith.

The language of values is all that remains when the substance of belief disappears. Tragically, many churches seem to perpetuate their existence by values, long after they abandon the faith.

We should not pray for Christian morality to disappear or for Christian values to evaporate. We should not pray to live in Sodom or in Vanity Fair. But a culture marked even by Christian values is in desperate need of evangelism, and that evangelism requires the knowledge that Christian values and the gospel of Jesus Christ are not the same thing."

Al Mohler

"Christian Values Cannot Save Anyone"

http://www.albertmohler.com/2012/09/11/christian-values-cannot-save-anyone/

Just one small correction for Carl Trueman

No Co Ever: Episode 1 from No Compromise Radio on Vimeo.

This was a very good video discussion, regarding the problems with modern Evangelicalism and "The Elephant Room 2" and compromises with T. D. Jakes and his modalism and anti-Trinitarian doctrines and his word of faith/prosperity theology, two very dangerous heresies.  And, as Phil Johnson says, "damnable heresies".

I agree with everything these gentleman said on the issues of doctrine and the problems with the Elephant Room 2

. . . except for one small side comment that Carl Trueman made that I think is important for Christians to understand.

The one small comment was one that Carl Trueman made and I am very surprised that he said it.   I really appreciate Carl Trueman, and I enjoy his blog at Reformation 21; and I tried to find his email at the Westminster Seminary Website, but I could not.  I respect him greatly, and his work in church history and historical theology is very important.  So nothing personal is meant here, and I know he is very mature and will take this for the merit of the issue.

When talking about the Christians at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, Professor Trueman said they were Turks.  [around the 31 minute mark] Professor Trueman was right that the men at the Council of Nicea were not "white men", but they were not Turkish either.  They were Greeks and Egyptians and Syrians (The Syrians before the Arabs conquered them in the 600s AD.)  That is an amazing mistake by a church history professor, in my opinion.  They were mostly Greeks, Syrians, 2 Latins from Rome, and Egyptians (Athanasius, for one) and others from around the Roman Empire.  The Turks did not live in what is today called Turkey at the time of the Council of Nicea.   The Turks (Seljuk and Ottomans) did not come to that land until before the Crusades (1071 AD) and they did not completely conquer the area known as Anatolia and Constantinople until 1453 AD.  No Turks lived in these areas in the New Testament days nor in early church history until the 900s AD!  It is possible that there were some Turkic peoples there from the time of Attila the Hun in the 400s, but not that many, and not any in 325 AD.

It is amazing to me that people don't take the time to study what happened to the Greeks and the Byzantine Empire.  The Arabs first attacked after they conquered Syria/Palestine and Persia and N. Africa.  (632-722 AD)  They tried to take Constantinople in the 600s and 700s but failed.

The Arab Muslims converted the Persians by force (Jihad, Qatal, Harb)  from the 630s into the 900s.  Jihad جهاد  (struggle/effort/striving) and Qatal قتل (the word for "slay" or "fight" = "fighting to the death" in battle - Surah 9:5, 9:29) and Harb حرب (War) are integral aspects of Islam from the time Muhammad conquered Medina in 622 AD.

Then the Arab Muslims converted the Turkic peoples of Central Asia, starting in the 600s, and by the 900s AD, the animist Turks had become Muslim.  (Today these areas are called Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kirghestan, etc.  Tajikistan is mostly a Persian speaking area - ethnically the Tajiks and southern areas of Uzbekistan are Tajik-Persian (Bukhara and Samarqand) ethnically and were part of the old Persian Empire.  The Arab Muslims also converted the Kurds to Islam by force.  Saladin ("Salah e din" = صلاح دین = "genuine religion"), the famous Muslim leader against the Crusaders, was Kurdish.  Today the Kurds are spread throughout western Iran, Northern Iraq, Eastern Turkey, and the top corner of Syria.

The Seljuk Turks were hired as the palace guards and military force for the Arabs in Baghdad.  The Turkic peoples became the dominant fighting force.  the Seljuk Turks attacked the Greek Byzantine Empire in 1071 AD at the Battle of Manzikurt near Van in the east (was part of Armenia).  The Byzantines were defeated by the Seljuk Turks.

This caused the emperor in Constantinople to call for help from the Pope in France.  The Crusades were launched.  (1095-1299)

After the Crusades, the Ottoman Turks became the dominant Turkish people and eventually conquered all of Anatolia and then Constantinople fell in 1453 and it was renamed Istanbul.

So, today, the area known as Nicea (The Turks call it Iznik today, and it is about one hour outside of Istanbul), where the Council of Nicea was held in 325 AD is in the same area as the country of Turkey; but at the time of Nicea there were no Turks there.

The Turks never heard the gospel.  The Crusades are still major stumbling block to Muslims, especially the Turks.  The Crusades were somewhat understandable in the sense of a "just war" and self-defense, but the horrible mistakes, and the slaughter of the Greek Eastern Orthodox by the Latin Crusaders is a major scandal and shame, as was the Crusading against Jews along the way to the "holy land".   Today the Turks are still 99 % Muslim and there is some outreach to them, but not much.  The Arab Muslims have not been evangelized much either in history.  The Persians were not much either.  The ancient Persian church before Islam was mostly the ethnic Assyrians in Mesopotamia (today's Iraq); not the ethnic Persians farther east.  Henry Martyn translated the first complete copy of the Persian NT in the 1800s.  He died in 1812.

Let us reach out with the gospel to Muslims.

Why make such a big deal about a minor comment not related to the main topic?

The reason why this so important to get right is that the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19; Luke 24:46-47) is to peoples, nations, ethnic people groups, not "countries" or "political boundaries".  The Greek word for "nation" is ethna (εθνη) and carries with it the idea of a cultural-ethnic people group that is unified by language and culture.  So even though the land of Turkey (and Egypt and N. Africa and Syria and Mesopotamia) had the gospel in earlier centuries, it was snuffed out by Islam in most of these areas, and eclipsed in places where there is some small evangelical witness left.

This is important because God is saving people from all the nations, peoples, tribes, and tongues, as the gospel goes out.  (see Revelation 5:9 and 7:9)   Some "nations" are spread over several political boundaries (countries) and some peoples/nations are within political boundaries and don't have their own country.  A classic example of this is the Kurdish people, who have never had their own political country and are spread over 4 countries.  (Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria)

The OT background of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19 and Luke 24:46-47 is in Genesis 12:1-3; 18:18; 22:18; 26:4; 28:14; Psalm 2:8, 67:1-7, 96:3-6, 87:4-6, Isaiah 49:6 and many other passages that use the word "families" (Mishpakha = משפחה ) and "nations" = "goyeem" גוימ and peoples  עמימ  ("ameem") .

A good book that explains the Biblical idea of nations and peoples is John Piper's Let the Nations Be Glad! (Baker) and the articles by Ralph Winter and John R. W. Stott and others in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement.    The Perspectives book is, overall, a good missions book, but there are some articles in it that I would disagree with, just in case any one wonders.

Addendum: (August 31, 2012)
I want to apologize if it seems I was being too nit-picky on Professor Trueman's statement.  I think if someone reads the whole thing that I wrote above, they can see why I wrote what I wrote, and that it was not meant as a "potshot", but an honest pointing out of the importance of understanding that aspect of church history in relation to missions and the spreading of the gospel among unreached people groups.  A big problem is that missions people are weak in theology and historical theology and church history; but also sometimes theologians are weak in missions.  I noticed that in seminary also, they have their separate disciplines and yet there is a great need for more inter-connectedness of these disciplines because they all come together in the challenge of Islam in today's world.  Islam is what should cause us who believe the Bible to also understand it and evangelize Muslims and also integrate it with church history and historical theology. (and politics, culture, just-war theory, etc.)   The challenge of Islam will force us to deal with the implications of it to all of these areas of study and knowledge.

Someone (D. Waltz) pointed out an article that Professor Trueman wrote, in which he was a little more accurate on the situation:

"Still, let us go back to the fourth century and see how the `middle aged white guy' critique measures up.  Well, at the Council of Nicea in 325, many of the participants were no doubt middle aged -- which Paul in the Pastorals would actually seem to think is quite a good thing in a church leader.  But white?    I suspect they were ethnically more akin to modern day Turks or south eastern Europeans, not that racial categories really meant anything then.  The key category in the fourth century was that of Roman citizenship, not skin color."

The modern Turks are a mixture of many peoples.  But they originally came from Central Asia, and they were not at Nicea in 325 AD and they were not in those lands in NT days that is now called "Turkey"; and they were never reached with the gospel in history; as I pointed out earlier.  They did Islamic wars/Jihads/killing against the Byzantine and Armenian men, and probably took many of the women as wives from the original people groups that lived there.  So, there is probably some Greek, Syrian, Arab, Galatian, Armenian, and other ethnicities within the modern day Turks who live in Turkey.  Today, Turkey is officially 99 % Muslim and very unreached with the gospel.  

"Another thing needful"

Carl Trueman explains the need for a "thoughtful, learned Protestant response" to post Vatican II Roman Catholicism, and why Evangelicalism has yet to provide one:

http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2011/04/another-thing-needful.php

Calvin on Radical Individualism

Contrary to a modern mindset of some Evangelical Protestants, who change churches as one would change outfits to fit the caprice of fashion and weather, Calvin approached the issue of church fellowship with decidedly more caution:

Be this as it may, when the preaching of the gospel is reverently heard, and the sacraments are not neglected, there for the time the face of the Church appears without deception or ambiguity; and no man may with impunity spurn her authority, or reject her admonitions, or resist her counsels, or make sport of her censures, far less revolt from her, and violate her unity, (see Chap. 2 sec. 1, 10, and Chap. 3. sec. 12.) For such is the value which the Lord sets on the communion of his Church, that all who contumaciously alienate themselves from any Christian society, in which the true ministry of his word and sacraments is maintained, he regards as deserters of religion. So highly does he recommend her authority, that when it is violated he considers that his own authority is impaired.

...

I admit, that it is a great disgrace if dogs and swine are admitted among the children of God; much more, if the sacred body of Christ is prostituted to them. And, indeed, when churches are well regulated, they will not bear the wicked in their bosom, nor will they admit the worthy and unworthy indiscriminately to that sacred feast. But because pastors are not always sedulously vigilant, are sometimes also more indulgent than they ought, or are prevented from acting so strictly as they could wish; the consequence is, that even the openly wicked are not always excluded from the fellowship of the saints. This I admit to be a vice, and I have no wish to extenuate it, seeing that Paul sharply rebukes it in the Corinthians. But although the Church fail in her duty, it does not therefore follow that every private individual is to decide the question of separation for himself. I deny not that it is the duty of a pious man to withdraw from all private intercourse with the wicked, and not entangle himself with them by any voluntary tie; but it is one thing to shun the society of the wicked, and another to renounce the communion of the Church through hatred of them. (Institutes, IV.i.10, 15)