Click to go to rebuttal here.

Every Saturday morning I have coffee and fellowship with one of my dearest friends at a coffee shop. In an hour and a half we discuss reformed theology and solve the worlds problems. My friend, Dave Heesen, is a reformed Baptist and is the head of Secretarial Services at Beloit College - a lone Calvinist in a post modern bastion of liberal morals and politics. Recently he wrote two letters to the school newspaper answering proposals for banning Christian literature from a crisis pregnancy center and the handing out of condoms to solve the aids problem.

The response he received was complete with strawman arguments and hostility toward a Biblical presupposition. If any of you have the time to help out my brother, I'm publishing the entire response from the editor here and would greatly appreciate any tips or tacts on how Dave should reply to Mr. Harrison. I would love to tell Dave, "Here are some suggestions from the greatest reformed thinkers in the world." Thanks.

__________________
Bob Vigneault (Bawb Vēēn-yo)
I just know there's got to be a pony in here somewhere!

The Heartbeat of Heaven (blog) MySpace (Music), MySpace (Personal)
Member of Christ Presbyterian Church, Janesville, WI OPC www.christ-opc.org

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

How do you answer something like that? Any attempt to reason with this person will degrade into a apologetics context witha person who thinks they are a "god" and can correct the God of the Bible. This is one for folks with a lot more patience than I. Could it be casting your pearls before swine?

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1689 Baptist Confession

Psa 55:16 As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me.
Psa 55:17 Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.
James Farley, Wilderness Road Baptist Assembly.
Husband of Melissa and father of Ann.
www.wildernessroadbaptist.org

It's important for anyone to note that he never once explains why the bible isn't valid, even though he makes this claim over and over. He repeatedly asserts that Christian morality is illogical but never gives a proof. This is a prime example of what the unbelieving arguments against God's perfect Word boil down to: hatred of God, not reasonable argumentation. He doesn't like the bible, that's all. There is no explanation for why God's laws in the Old Testament were unjust because he has no philosophical reason why they would be. He just doesn't like God's justice, most of all because he himself is a sinner standing in judgment.

__________________
Davidius
Husband of Emilia
Member: First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham (RPCNA) - Durham, NC
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German Literature and Classics

This may explain the old adage about Baptists being Methodists with shoes, and Presbyterians being Baptists who can read. To round out the adage, Lutherans might qualify as Presbyterians who drink to excess, and Episcopalians as Lutherans who know when to say when. - D.G. Hart

I believe this does need to be answered. It's past time for Christians to boldly go back into these "Mars Hill" settings and bring a Christian Worldview that his consistent and coherent and demonstrate that these knee jerk arguments are toothless and only work because a non-theistic worldview is assumed. This man's premise is based on his own assumption that the Bible is irrelevant and irrational. We can demonstrate the opposite and/or demonstrate that he is beginning with a philosophical assumption as well. In a college atmosphere they should encourage the use of logic and proper rules for debating instead of getting away with strawmen and unsupported bias.

My 4 year old son was so expressive in last night's Christmas program that an older woman came up to me and said, "I hope he's going to be a preacher." When I told my wife she said, "I hope not!". I asked, "Why not?" She said, "Think of the persecution he'll have to endure."

I have a much more optimistic attitude. I see the young people in our church who are being home schooled and trained to defend the faith. I really believe we are going to see the tables turn on the new militant atheists. They are drawing attention to themselves and that is their downfall. It is going to be so easy to demonstrate that the 'emperor isn't wearing any clothes.' We and our children will need to be prepared but this is a battle that we will use to further the Kingdom. We need to bring the fight to the skeptics from now on.

When I have a little bit more time I'll read over the letter and see if I can help think of a response...

__________________
Bobbi Clark
Covenant Member
Pinewood Pres. (PCA) Middleburg

When I kept Silent, My bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. Psalm 32:3

Blueridge Baptist;


You answer it prayerfully.

And something we need to remember is that this is for the school newspaper, so it is not only this person who would be reading the response, but others as well. God may not use the response to reach this one man, but He may desire to use the response to reach someone else...if we look only at the one person 'reading' the response, then certainly I may agree with you about casting pearls before swine, but given the fact it is a response that will be read by many other people...I don't see it that way.

Let's look at the bigger picture here, this man puts the response in the newspaper, say 100 people read the newspaper and the response causes even one or two people repent..is that not for God's glory that even the one or two repent; even if the one that is being addressed doesn't?

I like what Gary DeMar had to say about this type of debate. I really appreciate what American Vision did in the Dothan Evolution Debate, they brought the argument to these smaller venues. I live by the 10-10-80 rule when it comes to these type of give and takes.

Firstly I would point out that these quotes are NOT in context. Quoting a couple sentences doesn't equal the context of systematic or biblical theology.

I'm not really sure how to defend against this other than by returning to his inability to provide a reason why slavery is categorically immoral. Your friend could also point to the discussion of slaves in Paul's epistle to Philemon.

Even if these texts were teaching the inferiority of women, this man (again) would have no reason to assert gender equality. People have decided that it is a good thing (this decision by "society" is something he actually refers to later in the letter) but so what? Morality cannot be statistical average. If that should be the case, then women would have been "inferior" to men in previous times but have somehow become equal through nothing more than a change in public opinion. It can be shown that he doesn't actually consider public opinion a source of truth.

Furthermore, the bible doesn't teach the inferiority of women. It teaches an essential equality but a functional hierarchy. Of course he refuses to quote the passages showing women to be made in the image of God and that there are no longer male or female in Christ. He's only concerned with "what women are allowed to do" (symptomatic of our culture's general obsession with practice over theory) according to the bible. Well, we can't be ashamed that this is what the bible teaches. Remind him that he has no rational reason to assert that things should be otherwise.

Deuteronomy 22:23 is not talking about rape. It is referring to consensual sex between a man and an engaged woman. This would be clear if he had actually provided the verse in context (something he arrogantly claims at the beginning of the letter). That the woman was in the city and didn't cry for help means that she wasn't averse to the man's advances! Verses 22-23 talk about adultery and verses 25-28 talk about rape.

I'm not sure how to respond to the second passage since this is one I've wondered about myself. Moses is apparently talking about the intact hymen as proof of virginity but it is my understanding that the hymen can be gradually destroyed without having sex and is not even very large to begin with in some women. I'll let someone else take this one.

Ever heard of a figure of speech? Sheesh. He wouldn't criticize other works of literature this harshly.

Again, there is no rational reason why these punishments are unjust.

The section I have set in bold type is important. He is saying that he should be God and that he should be able to determine morality. This is his "logic." Then he throws out some more hot air about Christian morality being "outdated, uneducated, [and] sickly." He talks about "reasoned thought" but has absolutely nothing to show for it.

I really try not to get so angry when reading something like this that I can't think straight. There's zero intellectual substance here. He commits every informal fallacy in the book but thinks that he's defending rationality and logic. It's amazing to me that he thinks that the secular world has some kind of accepted morality.

Does morality really evolve? Or is it just that we evolve and begin to get a grip on morality? If the former, why should one be moral? If the latter, of what metaphysical stuff does morality consist and where did it come from? And where did the logical principles come from with which we derived this nonexistent accepted body of morality?

What I've added here is certainly basic but there's nothing here that goes past the basics.

Well done David. Thank you very much. Great stuff.

BobVigneault;

While yes, all of these things (even if taken out of context) are God's laws for mankind in order to protect man from destroying itself in sin, are we to only look at the physical effects of sin, or should we be compelled to also consider the eternal consequences of sin?

Should we not also ask, for what purpose did Christ die? Was it not to pay the penalty of sin? Was it not to pay the price for the wife who has not submitted to her husbands authority, was it not to pay for the sins of the rapist or adulterer/adulteress, the murderer? So again, while all of these things are God's judgement and laws, Christ came and paid the price already. So should we as His creation trample on that payment and continue to do these things?

Or should we as Christians in Society stand up and speak out against these things sharing with others how God who created us has already made payment for them, so that while there may be worldly consequences they we may personally face such as jail or divorce, there are also eternal consequences that have already been paid.



It is also apparent his understanding of submission is skewed, based on what he's saying he has a tyrants view of submission and that should be addressed, sharing the differences of a Hitler/Stalin/Moslem submission with a biblical view of submission expressed by the love and understanding as a partner/helpmate/equal of a wife to her husband in a marriage with different responsibilities towards the household..

Maybe as an "oppressed" Christian woman, I can answer some of his comments.


First of all, Mr. Harrison is NOT using Bible quotes in context. Here is the entire passage from Ephesians 5:22-33:

As a Christian woman, I see that I am to submit to one man: my husband. Galations 3:28 assures women that all are equal in Christ: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (ESV) Here, Paul is laying out a hierarchy: Christ is the head of the church and the husband is the head of the family. Modern life is also filled with hierarchies: e.g., the CEO is the head of a company, and the principal is the head of a school. How is this hierarchy any different from those hierarchies? Are all corporate employees oppressed?


Furthermore, in case the husband would be tempted to oppress his wife, Paul gives a clear illustration of exactly how a husband is to treat his wife. The husband is to love his wife as himself. Even more, he is to love her as Christ loved the Church. That means that a husband is to love his wife so much that he would lay down his life for her. How is this oppression? Reading this as a Christian woman, I see an assurance that I am valuable enough to expect a husband who will be faithful to me and love me enough to die for me.

Well, I am not sure how an exhortation to let my deeds rather than my clothes characterize me is oppression. Secondly, for a book that oppresses women, the Bible does a surprisingly bad job at it. Ruth and Esther have whole books dedicated to them. A prostitute named Rahab was courageous enough to save her own family and was listed as an ancestor of Jesus. The first person to spread the news that Jesus is the Messiah was a Samaritan woman. The first person to see the risen Christ was Mary Magdalene. Yes, the Bible does forbid women to preach in church to the full assembly of believers. However, women are encouraged and even commended for teaching their children, other women, and even *gasp* discipling men.
Here Mr. Harrison provides a list of punishments out of context without providing any evidence for how the law was actually administered. For the first instance, this is not a case of rape. This is the case of a young woman willingly committing adultery. Second, any person accused of the previous crimes would have been given a trial by the Sanhedrin. The Institute for Public Affairs of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America is an Orthodox Jewish group seeking to examine issues confronting modern society using the law of God. (That's right-there are still a whole lot of people who seek understanding from those rules that are "monstrous to any rational person.") In a study of the American death penalty by Nathan J. Diament, the Director of the IPA, the administration of the Torah (the first 5 books of the Old Testament) by the Sanhedrin was discussed:

For the death penalty to be administered at all, exemplary witnesses had to be present:

Current American law does not insist that two witnesses be present and that they had to have warned the perpetrator that he or she was committing a crime for the death penalty to be administered.
How is this an indication that the sun was moving round the Earth?


For a treatment on slavery, see the book of Philemon. I believe I have discussed the other two issues previously. There is clearly a commandment on abortion: Thou shalt not kill.

Respectfully, I disagree. I pray that life will always be considered sacred. I believe this quote sums up my belief about biblical law:

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Susy Doyle
Penn Forest Christian Church
Roanoke, VA

Hi Bob,

I really don't have anything to add here. However, I did run across the website of your friend, Dave Heesen. Seems like a wonderful person. Now I find out he is your friend. What a small world! I pray Dave will hold forth the truth simply and purely.

__________________
Ivan Schoen, Pastor
Maranatha Baptist Church
Poplar Grove, Illinois USA
http://maranatha-sbc.org/
"When a denomination begins to consider doctrine divisive, theology troublesome, and convictions inconvenient, consider that denomination on its way to a well-deserved death." Dr. Albert Mohler, President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

I was reading through the archives of Brian Bosse's logic blog and found the transcript of a recent debate between himself and an atheist. The issue of a geocentric solar system came up and, since his response was much more thorough and hard-hitting than mine here, I felt it would be worth sharing.

Greetings:

A prima facie reading of the passages which the editor cites when interpreted from a Postmodern viewpoint would indict these passages as being immoral. However, when one looks at the literary and cultural context in which these passages arise, then one can be assured that these passages are not immoral at all.

While the editor properly points out that the Bible condones slavery he has failed to realize that the Bible does not condone the abuse of slavery:

Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven, Col. 4:1.

Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him. Eph. 6:8,9.

All Christians are servants (or slaves) of Jesus Christ - who is our master - Matt. 23:8. But Christ is a kindly master, and so should such treat their slaves. The idea of the master/slave relationship is also extended by Christians into the modern day workplace. Thus, Christians would fully support efforts to eliminate slavery if there is abuse in the system. It is slave abuse that makes slavery odious to any rational thinking human being.

The Equality of women:

Sure. We believe that men and women are equal. But, we are not so blind as to think that they are equal in all things. A rational person will realize that men cannot have babies. Thus, we celebrate not only our equalities, but our inequalities as well. There is also a mountain of psychological evidence showing differences between the way men and women respond to various stimuli. And none other than Phyllis Schlafly has written an article on why women should be forbidden from ground combat. Women in ground combat are forbidden by Pentagon regulations and Congressional law. The laws forbidding women in direct combat roles does not come from the Bible, but from some secular humanist philosophy. The editor of the paper is naive to think that men and women are equal in all things.

Women are not being treated "inferior" but are being treated as women. This is a recognition of their personality and distinctives as human beings. That the wife is to "submit" to her husband is given the same dignity as the husband is to "submit" to Jesus Christ, love his wife, and lay down his life for her. Is it too much to ask of her to listen and follow his directions when he is willing to give so much for her? Feminism sounds vain and childish in this light.

The Bible does not punish rape victums:

The editor claims that he is reading the passage in context, but the context clearly does not indicate rape. A woman who is bethrothed to a man has sexual relations with another man within a city "and does not cry out for help" is not being raped. By not resisting and screaming for help she is condoning the act, and is in agreement with it. This is clear from the context:

But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her: then the man only that lay with her shall die: But unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death: for as when a man riseth against his neighbour, and slayeth him, even so is this matter: For he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her. Deut. 23:25-27
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