Lord God Almighty, you have made all the peoples of the earth for your glory, to serve you in freedom and in peace: Give to the people of our country a zeal for justice and the strength of forbearance, that we may use our liberty in accordance with your gracious will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Read more on Prayer for the Nation…

Contained in this year’s Christian Reformed Church 2005 Agenda for Synod (PDF), which will be held June 11-18, is a report from the World Alliance of Reformed Churches recent General Council in Accra, Ghana (pp. 257-63). The agenda states, “A reading of this document will make it clear that, while all participants appreciated the common Christian concern regarding issues of poverty and the oppressive structures that contribute to it, not all delegates were comfortable with either the decision-making process or the ideological positions expressed by the General Council” (p. 235).

Also contained is an English-language version of the text, “Covenanting for Justice in the Economy and the Earth,” (pp. 264-68) the resulting “declaration” to come out of the WARC assembly. In many ways this document represents a defeat for the radical factions in WARC. Over the last decade we have seen the push for WARC to enter a status confessionis, and prepare a binding confessional statement on matters of the environment and the economy. As noted above, however, the “ideological positions” of those behind the push has precluded a more general acceptance of their plan.
Read more on WARC Wackiness…

I have only yet read an excerpt of Ron Sider’s new book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World? (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2005), but much of what he says concerning the church in America strikes me as true. This interview in the Dallas Morning News (free subscription required) gives some insights into Sider’s views. Whereas Jim Wallis gets most of the religious progressive press, Ron Sider strikes me as much more thoughtful, much more theologically acute, and much more intellectually nuanced.

Read more on ‘A More Sophisticated View of Politics’…

Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of thy faithful people is governed and sanctified: Receive our supplications and prayers, which we offer before thee for all members of thy holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve thee; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Read more on Prayer for All Chistians in Their Vocation…

This article is a must-read for anyone interested in the recent history of American evangelicalism:

For a movement that began its modern life among the Calvinists, the sometimes strong critique evangelicalism has received in the past decade from its own Calvinist caucus cannot be dismissed lightly. While most of these Calvinist voices have not distanced themselves from the movement they helped create, their accusations of doctrinal declension, human-centered worship and idolatrous narcissism stand in sharp contrast to the more upbeat boosterism found in a movement that has witnessed a remarkable resurgence in the modern era.

From “Evangelicalism’s Insecure Calvinists: The Proliferation of the Evangelical Self-Critique Book at the End of the Twentieth Century,” by Gregory Johnson

Read more on ‘A Modern Revival of Confessional Reformation Protestantism’…

This article from The Christian Post relates the warnings of Martin Oca༚, professor at the Baptist Seminary of South Peru, about the increasing attraction of prosperity theology in Latin America. According to Oca༚, prosperity theology (PT) teaches that,

Read more on #1 Theological Export: Gospel of Prosperity…

In the hurly-burly of the last few months, I had missed the release of the new critical edition of Dietrich Bonheoffer’s Ethics, the latest in the massive Augsburg Fortress project, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works.

Read more on New Edition of Bonhoeffer’s Ethics Published…

A respondent over at Mere Comments gets right to the heart of what the scientific and technological ethos is (i.e., Technopoly):

"If we can do it, it’s right" and "If we can do it, we do it" which resolve to "it’s right if I do it." Always an ethics committee is there to help sear the consciences of those involved.

These are precisely the guiding principles of university ethics panels that permit creation of genetic chimeras, promote embryonic stem cell usage and human cloning and the recent NAS "guidelines."

Read more on Fear the LORD and Shun Evil…

Some theologians have taken a troubling interpretation of the Noahic covenant to support a heterodox agenda. The World Alliance of Reformed Churches, in its attempts to call a status confessionis, called various study groups and forums to report on the "global crisis of life."

To this end, both the south-south member churches forum (held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, April 23-26 2003) and the south-north member churches forum (held in London Colney, UK, February 8-11 2004) affirm that:

God has made an all-inclusive covenant with all creation (Gen 9.8-12).
This covenant has been sealed by the gift of God’s grace, a gift which is not for sale in the market place (Is 55.1). We reaffirm that God made a covenant to liberate from the imperial powers (Babylon and Rome). God’s covenant is over and against any contract, which is the "law" of domination and exploitation. It is an inclusive covenant in which the poor and marginalized are God’s primary partners.

The reduction of the Noahic covenant merely to a covenant made "with all creatures," and the abstracting out from that the working assumption that God places equal value on human and animal life is simply unbiblical, and smacks of neo-pagan pan(en)theism.

The Buenos Aires faith stance also stated that:

We repent from believing that Christians have an exclusive relationship with God. We have excluded people because of their class, race, sex, ethnicity or religion, and in our beliefs about salvation we have excluded people outside the Christian community and also the non-human world.

These faith stances played a large part in the formation of the task force report to last year’s WARC General Council in Accra, Ghana. The task force report reads, in part:

In the covenant, God put God’s own self into all creation. In the covenant that God has made with the whole of creation, all members of creation are put into one another’s place.
…
In the context of life threatened, communities dismantled and the truth distorted, we must reaffirm and renew the covenant that God made with all creation, that Christ made new and promised would never be broken, and that the Holy Spirit continues to renew even today.

The context of the entire passage surrounding the Noahic covenant is critical to proper interpretation.
Read more on Remaking the Covenant…

Via BibleGateway.com

Job 19:25 (New International Version)

I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.