Handing orphans over to sodomites

"Major Evangelical Adoption Agency Will Now Serve Gay Parents Nationwide"

A Response To Vincent Torley On The Virgin Birth

He recently posted an article about a lack of evidence for the virgin birth and argued against the historicity of much of the infancy narratives in the process. I want to make several points in response:

What is Christmas?

There are standard definitions of conversion. With a focus on the before and after–especially the immediate aftermath (weeks and months following conversion). That's fine as far as it goes. 

But I'd like to discuss it from a different angle. In conversion, God brings us into his life. There are many analogies. 

Take an orphan who's adopted at 5-7. He's had a life of neglect. He knows what it's like to be lonely all the time. 

If he's adopted into a loving home, the adoptive parents take him out of the life he's know up to that point and bring him into their life. In some cases they travel to a far country to pick him up and take him back home to their home, his new home, a real home.He's suddenly exposed to all the things he instinctively longed for but didn't know existed.

Or take an adolescent boy whose home life is a hellhole. Then he's befriend by a classmate with a happy childhood. Up to this point the adolescent boy has only known the ugly side of life. Physical ugliness and especially moral ugliness. Physical and psychological abuse. 

But his friend, who sought him out, introduces him to a different side of life. Shares the goodness of his own life with the classmate. Exposes him to the joy and beauty of life.

Or take two well-adjusted teenagers who become friends. They have complementary interests. Each friend takes the other friend into his own life. Suppose one boy has an interest in science fiction novels. His friend isn't familiar with that, but enjoys it once his friend shares it with him. Suppose the other boy has an interest in a genre of music he's friend isn't familiar with, but enjoys that once his friend shares it with him. 

Another cliche is a couple to get married and make a life together. Some of these examples are like conversion. 

Which brings me to the title of the post. In Christmas Eve sermons it's typical for the preacher to say God came into our world as a child. And that's true enough.

But there's a neglected truth–in the opposite direction. At Christmas, God is coming into our world to bring us into his world. God shares his life with us. That's the meeting-point where God takes us out of our world into his world. 

Dogs and babies

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2019/04/03/tiny-baby-did-not-have-any-hospital-visitors-five-months-so-nurse-adopted-her/

Compare this to women who "rescue" dogs from animal shelters, then have "dog mom" bumper stickers.

Abortion and adoption

One popular argument for abortion goes like this: prolifers are hypocrites unless they adopt kids. 

i) I haven't seen them turn that allegation into an actual argument, but maybe I missed it. Is the argument that if more prolifers adopted kids, that would save lives?

If so, is there any demonstrable evidence that abortion rates are correlated to adoption rates? Mothers who contemplate abortion already have the option of putting their child up for adoption. Is there any demonstrable evidence that mothers contemplating abortion think, "If I knew there was a Christian couple waiting to adopt my child, I wouldn't abort it"? 

ii) I don't know the stats, but it wouldn't surprise me if Christians adopt at far higher rates than atheists.

iii) It isn't necessarily hypocritical to value life, yet not do everything you can to save lives. For instance, driving cars inevitably results in thousands of fatalities every year. Does that mean it's hypocritical to say you value life if you drive a car? 

iv) Sometimes people have prior obligations. Take a grown child who's the caregiver for an elderly parent. They're not in a position to adopt a child. They already have a full plate. 

iv) What, exactly, is the general principle which the allegation of hypocrisy exemplifies? Does it go like this: "It's hypocritical to oppose something unless you're prepared to take up the slack if you're in a position to do so"?

If so, is that a valid inference? Is that a reliable principle in general?

Is it hypocritical of me to disapprove of people who litter unless I take it upon myself to dispose of their litter?

Is it hypocritical of me to disapprove of shoplifters unless I personally reimburse the store for stolen goods? 

Is it hypocritical of me to disapprove of people who release dangerous reptiles into the Everglades unless I adopt the dangerous reptiles?

v) It's not hypocritical to have public policies that incentive parents to raise their own kids. As a rule, kids are better off with their biological parents. 

vi) In addition, it's not hypocritical to have social policies that incentive people to be responsible, productive members of society rather than freeloaders who expect others to foot the bill for their lifestyle choices. 

vii) Nowadays, you have secular progressives who lobby to prohibit Christian adoption because Christians repudiate the LGBT agenda. They are closing down Christian adoption agencies. 

Are they going to simultaneously say prolifers are hypocritical for not adopting more kids when they turn right around and prohibit prolifers from adopting kids? 

Adoption and penal substitution

Here's a neglected argument for penal substitution. The NT says Christians are heirs. And inheritance has a vicarious dimension. An heir is the beneficiary of someone else's action. An heir needn't do anything to be the beneficiary. He can simply be an heir in virtue of his relation to someone else who did something. An heir typically has an ascribed status rather than an achieved status. A status conferred on him in relation to someone else.

According to the NT, Christians are heirs in virtue of their union with Jesus. And by reason of that relation, they are heirs of salvation rather than damnation. They escape eschatological judgment they are God's adopted sons, and they enjoy that status in virtue of what God's ontological Son did on their behalf. So that has a penal dimension as well as a vicarious dimension. 

Election and adoption

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtnGGFqpT80

God's foundling

Traditionally, Calvinists focus on theological metaphors like the New Birth or death in sin to illustrate the helplessness of the lost. A neglected theological metaphor is adoption. Paradigm-examples include God's "adoption" of David and God's "adoption" of Israel. A graphic example is Ezk 16, where a newborn who was left to die is rescued by a passerby. The adoption metaphor may be related to the OT concern for orphans. And it's a major theological category in the NT. 

Take the scenario of an orphanage. The kids are neglected because they don't receive the kind of individualized attention and affection that normal kids do. They have no one to call their own. No one they belong to. No adult who's their frame of reference.

Suppose an orphan like that is adopted by a loving parent or parents. This is like a second life. Although they preexisted their adoption, there's a sense in which life truly begins for them after their adoption. Now they suddenly have the life they longed for. They are showered with blessings. 

In Arminian theology, the blessings of salvation flow from the headwaters of faith. Blessings contingent on the autonomous act of faith. 

In Reformed theology, the blessings of salvation flow from the headwaters of grace. Blessings contingent on the unilateral act of God. Adoption is an image which powerfully illustrates that difference. 

The concept of a norm

http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2016/03/the_death_of_the_concept_of_no.html

Pure religion

Arminian NT scholar Scot McKnight has weighed in on the World Vision debacle:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/04/07/world-vision-and-the-brother-of-jesus/

Here are some of the highlights:

When I think of World Vision and the monies Kris and I send to World Vision (and still will send should you care to know and we are thinking of adding to our support — and believe when I say I despise the culture wars and our support of WV has nothing to do with that), I think of words from the brother of Jesus at James 1:27, words that many of the critics of World Vision’s recent decision need to read with some integrity- and soul-searching:  

• Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. 

The critics of World Vision, if the numbers are right, may be right in their own minds about what to believe, but they won’t be right before God if they lift those donations and don’t sink them into compassionate donations toward those in need in our world. And they are surely not right if they have merely taken an opportunity to pounce on brothers and sisters though they do not care about orphans and widows (this is not just about children, folks, it is about widows, the most neglected segment in the church today — read Miriam Neff’s book about widows, please). 

What is the world? In James that word will refer most especially to power-mongering, violence, and verbal assaults on one’s brothers and sisters. Notice James 1:19-21 and then 2:5 and 4:4 and especially James 3:13-15. James, as always, has much to say. 

A good-before-God religion cares for the needy and eschews violence against one’s brothers and sisters.

This is so confused at so many different levels. 

i) First of all, it's striking that what he takes to be self-evidently true, critics of World Vision take to be self-evidently false. This reflects McKnight's insularity. There's a growing rift between the evangelical left and the evangelical right, where some positions taken by the evangelical right are simply inconceivable to the evangelical left. Members of the evangelical left belong to like-minded, ideologically self-reinforcing communities where their assumptions go unchallenged. It's a self-enclosed subculture. They can't even enter into the mindset of Christians with whom they disagree. 

ii) Notice how he equates criticism of World Vision with "violence." If you criticize World Vision management for hiring homosexual "couples," that's tantamount to practicing "violence" against one's "brothers and sisters."

a) One problem is trivializing the concept of violence, so that a "verbal assault" is equivalent to "violence."

b) Another problem is his failure to appreciate that, when World Vision management capitulated on homosexual marriage, that, in itself, is a test of their withering Christian commitment. Are they "brothers and sisters"? 

iii) Offhand, I don't know of any Bible verses which command charity towards widows and orphans outside the community of faith. Aren't such verses typically directed at Jewish widows (in the OT) and Christian widows (in the NT)? 

That doesn't mean it's ipso facto wrong to extend charity to needy individuals outside the community of faith. But McKnight is ripping these commands out of context. 

iv) Then he seems to indicate that he wants to opt out of the culture wars or compartmentalize charity towards widows and orphans from the culture wars. Evidently, he's never bothered to notice that when liberals win the culture wars, widows and widowers are among the first casualties. 

Liberals push to euthanize the elderly because seniors are a drain on the healthcare system. A development which Wesley J. Smith regularly documents at Human Exceptionalism. 

Liberals would rather see limited medical resources go to worthier causes, like insuring sex-change operations, fertility coverage for same-sex couples, building more transgender rest rooms, and developing HIV vaccines. 

And their policies are just as harmful to orphans. They are shutting down Christian adoption agencies that refuse to place children with homosexual "couples." Christian agencies which insist that children should be placed with normal couples who can model a normal father/mother, husband/wife relationship. 

Instead, liberals are now making adoptive children guinea pigs in their social engineering experiment. Forcing orphans into an unnatural environment. Classic corruption of minors.  

For that matter, it's only a matter of time before liberals have CPS remove children from their Christian biological parents. 

v) In addition, the way liberals deal with unwanted children is to kill them. Having largely won the legal battle on abortion (through judicial fiat), they are now pressing ahead on after-birth abortion (i.e. infanticide). 

vi) Furthermore, as the president of World Vision has indicated (in an interview), World Visions employees are not allowed to "proselytize." But in that event, they are treating symptoms rather than causes. After all, the problem of widows, orphans, and poverty in general, is often exacerbated by a false religion informing the culture.

For instance, when Muslims practice child marriage, that means more women and children will be widowed or orphaned, since the husband/father will often predecease them by a wide margin. Likewise, the Hindu caste system creates a culture of poverty. So does belief in reincarnation and karma, which is punitive and fatalistic. 

One fringe benefit of evangelizing the lost is to reduce certain social maladies which result from a false worldview.  

vii) Likewise, simply providing for the physical needs of the poor, when you refuse to evangelize them, is a short-term solution to a long-term problem. For they are still hellbound. 

Paul Ryan supports homosexual adoption

http://www.redstate.com/freedomrepublican/2013/05/05/paul-ryan-now-supports-gay-adoption/

Life with God

There are different ways of describing Christian conversion. One way is to say that God came into my life.

Of course, there’s a sense in which God was never absent. God’s providence is pervasive. What is meant by saying God came into my life is, in part, that I became aware of the God who was always there. Moreover, that God did something to make me aware. His grace restored my sight.

To say that God came into my life is a friendship metaphor. Like being lonely, adrift, until you have someone to share your life with. Share your likes with.

Another, perhaps richer way of describing conversion is to say, not that God came into my life, but that God brought me into his life. I have life, I have a life, because the living God shares his life with me.

This dovetails with the divine adoption metaphor. Take a five-year-old in an orphanage. He’s alive, but he’s out of place. He’s not a part of anyone there. He has no sense of belonging. Lost. Rootless. Alienated.

Suppose he’s adopted by a wonderful couple. There’s a sense in which his life truly begins on the day they come for him in the orphanage, and take him home. He may remember the orphanage. He may remember what his existence was like before he was adopted. But that was life without a center.

They take him into their lives. Into their home. Into their preexisting relationships. Into their daily routines. It all falls into place, as if he’d always been there, as if he’d always been with them.

Bavinck on Justification and Adoption and Perseverance and Assurance

Jason Stellman asks (118):

I am asking how you, John Bugay, would reconcile your insistence that Protestants can have assurance without having to “do anything” (unlike with Catholics) with the statements in the NT like “Unless you forgive others, your heavenly Father won’t forgive you,” etc.

Here is the great 19th century Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck on how justification and adoption and perseverance and assurance all work together: