Josh Benner

Category: Editorial

  • NYT suggests evangelicalism needs to be more liberal to save itself

    NYT suggests evangelicalism needs to be more liberal to save itself

    David Brooks had a piece in the New York Times under the headline: “The Dissenters Trying to Save Evangelicalism From Itself.”

    Brooks talks of the divide within evangelicalism. Early in the article, Brooks suggests: “There have been three big issues that have profoundly divided them: the white evangelical embrace of Donald Trump, sex abuse scandals in evangelical churches and parachurch organizations, and attitudes about race relations, especially after the killing of George Floyd.”

    I’ve read this same basic piece several times in the last couple years in trying to diagnose the problems with evangelicalism in America. 

    Brooks interviews a familiar cast of characters. Russell Moore and Beth Moore (no relation to each other) who were recently popular figures in evangelical circles but have become critics of the movement. He interviews Kristin Kobes Du Mez, the author of “Jesus and John Wayne,” which is a one-sided rant against evangelicalism which only looks at the bad and overlooks any redeeming qualities in the movement. He mentions Tim Dalrymple, the president of Christianity Today who said Trump should have been removed from office.

    There’s a lot fo discourse on the problems of evangelicalism but I feel like I never see similar critiques of liberal and progressive Christianity. These articles get preoccupied with evangelical support of Trump, and that always gets framed as if it’s some obvious scourge on the gospel. 

    My question is: what in the world is so good about liberalism? What are they doing right now to benefit our country? These articles want to criticize churches for being too conservative. As if there are not thousands of churches in America that are liberal, that support values that are not Biblical values such as the LGBT movement and abortion. Liberal churches who undermine the Bible. Those churches get a pass. 

    It’s the churches who support Trump and who are not woke social justice warriors who are the problem. Basically the problem with evangelicals is that they’re not liberals. And if they embrace liberal ideologies, then they’ll be doing the Lord’s work.

    Conservative evangelicalism is an easy target because our culture institutions are increasingly liberal. The mainstream media, Hollywood, big business, big tech, pro sports, the federal government, higher education, public education, healthcare, and on and on. It’s ok to be liberal. It’s not ok to be conservative. 

    And the focus needs to be that evangelicals don’t have a big enough tent. Brooks has the audacity to frame it as if evangelicals are not welcoming enough to other points of view. Is a conservative welcome in a progressive church? Is a belief in traditional marriage, traditional gender roles, the inherency of the Bible welcome in a progressive church? 

    There are problems with evangelicalism. There are far too many powerful people in influential ministries who are corrupt and who have no accountability. That’s an issue. Brooks mentions the scandal involving Ravi Zacharias and a scandal involving Willow Creek Church. I’ve written about both. They were terrible. I’ve written about Jerry Falwell, Jr, and James MacDonald, and the Southern Baptist Convention sexual assualt scandal.

    I think too many evangelical churches have done a poor job about teaching the Bible and focus on easy to listen to messages and appealing to cultural trends and having watered down youth ministries that are not teaching kids the Bible. Again, there are problems in evangelicalism.

    There are churches and pastors who might call themselves “evangelical” with whom I would greatly disagree. But evangelicalism is a broad movement. I think we should call out people when they’re in the wrong. But I don’t think that American evangelicalism has the inherent problems that progressivism poses to the church. Progressive churches fall right in line with that ideology. I see that as the bigger threat on our culture and on the gospel.

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  • Apple juice for communion? Why we can’t do communion our own way

    Apple juice for communion? Why we can’t do communion our own way

    27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. 
    1 Corinthians 11:27-29

    I saw quite a few responses on Twitter this evening when the rapper Lecrae mentioned taking communion at home with wheat bread and apple juice and saying “I hope this still counts.”

    It doesn’t.

    Communion is a sacred remembrance of the gospel which was instituted by Christ himself with the commandment “do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19).

    There are lots of different views of communion within Christendom. Even though I pastor an independent Bible church, my view of communion aligns pretty well with Presbyterianism where I believe that communion is to be administered to a congregation by the pastor, overseen by elders, and served by deacons. It stands to reason that those people would oversee and serve communion since they’re charged with overseeing and serving the church. Last year, when churches were shut down during Covid, I saw some people partaking of communion at home. While everyone won’t agree with me, that’s not communion. Communion is mean to be COMMUNal. Virtual communion is not communion.

    Again, there are varying opinions about communion in different branches of Christendom. (Even what it should be called, such as communion, eucharist, Lord’s Supper). The Catholic view is not the same as the Presbyterian view which is not the same as the Lutheran view which is not the same as the Orthodox view.

    But they all would agree that just taking it upon yourself to have wheat bread and apple juice and to call that communion is not communion. There ought to be fidelity to Jesus and how he instituted communion, not just doing whatever you feel like.

    Thinking you can just make communion whatever you want it to be comes from a shallow theology. Any church with history would consider ad hoc communion to be sacrilegious. It comes form the modern age that makes Christianity existential, where everyone does what is right in their own eyes, and where we do whatever we want and justify it as long as it’s sincere or “from the heart.”

    Jeremiah 17:9 says: the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

    There are some things where there are prescribed ways to do them and communion is one of those things.

    My point isn’t just to criticize Lecrae. Too often we try to take the sacred and just make it whatever we want it to be.

    Communion is communal. Communion is given by Christ as a sign of the new covenant. As a covenantal sign, and as such, it is meant for the church during worship. It can’t just be you taking something you’re eating and calling it communion. Even if you’re with your family, that doesn’t make it communion. There’s a Congregational aspect to it. There’s a sacred and set apart aspect to it.

    What about home churches? I can appreciate home churches. I would also hope that home churches would still handle communion in an appropriate Biblical manner and not just arbitrarily create elements.

    You can have a fellowship meal. You can thank God while you’re eating a meal. But that doesn’t make those things communion anymore than dunking yourself in a swimming pool or bath tub doesn’t mean you just baptized yourself.

    Thanks for reading!

  • The Afghanistan debacle

    The Afghanistan debacle

    The situation in Afghanistan is a debacle.

    President Biden had wanted to withdraw U.S. troops by September 11. And before we’re even into September, the government of Afghanistan has fallen. In weeks, the Taliban has overtaken the country. The president of Afghanistan has been forced to flee.

    I’ve heard that we shouldn’t be nation builders. I’ve heard we shouldn’t have had troops there. I’ve heard that we had accomplished the mission in 2011 when Navy SEALS killed Osama Bin Laden.

    This week, we’ve heard comparisons of this war to Vietnam. This wasn’t Vietnam. We had long ago overthrown the government of Afghanistan and there was a certain degree of stability in that country. And all of that has been thrown out the window with our withdraw.

    We had heard politicians say that our troops were in harms way and talk about this being a 20 year war.

    Things were stable! We had not had an American combat death in Afghanistan since February of 2020. And over the last five years, our deaths in Afghanistan were in the teens (not all of those were even from combat). And people seriously want to compare that to Vietnam?

    I hear that we should have gotten out. Because we shouldn’t be “nation building.”

    We have troops literally all over the world. We should have gotten them out of Afghanistan when the operations ended? Should we also take our troops out of Japan and Germany, and Italy, whom we beat in World War II? We have over 100,000 service men and women in those countries today.

    But we couldn’t keep a few thousand troops in Afghanistan to help maintain stability?

    I’ll give a brief aside that if you’re someone who had more of an isolationist view of America in foreign affairs, I can at least appreciate the consistency in thinking we should have been out of Afghanistan.

    I would argue that it’s in America’s interest to have a foothold in Afghanistan. We’re likely going to lose logistical advantages of having boots on the ground. Plus we’re turning our backs on women and children who we helped give a greater degree of freedom to than they will have under the iron fist of the Taliban. In America, we like to talk about all of the things we should provide for free to our citizens. We like to talk about all of the things we should have the right to have access to. We were helping provide lives that were just a little bit better for people in a war torn country.

    I think about people who worked with us as translators, people who worked with our military over there. Many of them will be slaughtered. They’re in danger. I don’t think it’s right to turn our backs on them. And with all of the platitudes the Biden Administration will say about how they’re working to ensure their security, that will be much harder to achieve in a country that’s ruled by the Taliban. And heaven forbid there be another issue in that country (which is possible), it’s hard not to wonder if the people who had previously helped America will be less likely to help us a second time when we turned our backs on them.

    And for what?

    Why did we absolutely have to leave a country where we had helped them achieve a certain level of stability? That was surely better than this.

    Hindsight is 20/20, but this was an obvious outcome to many who had questioned pulling out of Afghanistan. All you have to do to defeat America is to outlast our attention span.

    Twenty years ago next month was the darkest day in modern American history. A generation went to war to avenge those attacks. And a legacy of Joe Biden is that his failures as commander-in-chief rapidly undid so much of what had been accomplished and enabled a hostile group who hates America to easily come back into power.

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

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  • Cynthia Nixon criticizes CVS for opposing theft

    Cynthia Nixon. Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

    I sometimes feel like I’m living in the Twilight Zone.

    Actresses and failed New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon took to Twitter in support of leniency on shoplifting.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Is this mindset the way to build a better society?

    Go easy on thieves because it’s hard out there right now?

    I don’t think anyone is saying that if a person steals something that they should go to prison forever, but we need to to be in agreement as a society that stealing is wrong.

    And when cities put the word out that they’re going to go easier on shoplifting, it leads to the predictable result on increased thievery. This results in either fewer shopping options or increased prices to compensate for theft (which ultimately hurts honest, low-income people the most!) We hear about “food deserts” in urban areas. But leftists want to push radical policies and ideologies which make these areas less appealing for legitimate businesses.

    Nixon wants to make excuses and talk about how difficult it is for people right now.

    We have more jobs right now than we have people willing to work in this country.

    We’ve had multiple rounds of stimulus money. We have vast welfare programs, food stamp programs, medical assistance programs. But no, we still should not have a reasonable expectation for people to abstain from theft.

    I think she’s pushing an elitist attitude of low expectations on the poor. Just because someone is poor or low income does not mean they inevitably need to steal. And I think it’s a true insult to poor people to insinuate that this is a necessary decision for some of them. Furthermore, I think her Tweet is implicitly critical of CVS for locking up some of their merchandise in order to protect it from theft. CVS is a business, not a charity.

    It’s all backwards.

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

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    Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

  • Police officer saves life and the power of narrative

    Police officer saves life and the power of narrative

    Columbus, Ohio is my hometown. It’s a city that I love. On the same day that a verdict was reached in the Derek Chauvin trial, a teenage girl was fatally shot by a Columbus Police Officer.

    It’s a tragedy anytime a young person loses his or her life.

    I’ve seen a mix of comments on this shooting.

    I see some comments from people who want to act like this is all just another piece of evidence for the narrative of systematic racism and oppression that is part of the system and which is rampant in society and in law enforcement.

    I’ve also seen comments from people who believe that the officer was justified in shooting Ma’Khia Bryant and that this does not fit a narrative of systematic racism.

    My belief is that cases need to all be looked at individually.

    In the Bryant shooting, Columbus police were quick to release body cam footage. It’s a chaotic scene when the first officer arrives. You see a girl in pink and the officer says “Hey. What’s going on? What’s going on?”

    You see two girls fall into view fighting. The officer tells them to get down and draws his pistol. One of the girls is still on the ground and a man runs up and kicks her in the head. Bryant charges at the girl in pink pushes her against the hood of a car with a knife drawn.

    The cop fires four shots. Bryant died from her injuries.

    I believe cases need to be looked at independently and that this situation does not fit the popular media narrative of systematic racism.

    I hear arguments about her age “she was just a kid,” or “she was just sixteen.” But she was also about to stab someone. I’ve heard arguments of “she was the one who had called the police for protection.” That point is one I’ve yet to see confirmed. And if that is true, she’s still the one who’s charging at someone with a knife about to cause bodily injury to someone after police have arrived on the scene. She might have been the one who called the police, but once the police are there, that does not justify any means necessary.

    Were the other girls armed? I’m sure an investigation will look into that. I can admit that I don’t know. But I do know Bryant was, and that she was in a position of power over the girl in pink.

    I’ve seen many people make the ludicrous comment of “if she had been white, they wouldn’t’ have shot her.” They absolutely would have. Police don’t sit back and let people stab other people. And part of this goes to the narratives. The media and popular culture want to put forward one narrative. Police are systematically racist and bad.

    Consider some of the headlines on this story.

    COLUMBUS POLICE KILLED MA’KHIA BRYANT, 16 YEAR OLD FOSTER CHILD WHO DIALED 9-1-1 FOR HELP

    Family: 15-year-old girl shot, killed by police in Columbus, Ohio

    Ma’Khia Bryant Shooting: 16-Year-Old Killed By Cops After Reportedly Calling For Help

    Black Teenager Makhia Bryant Shot Dead by US Police in Ohio, Less Than an Hour Before Derek Chauvin’s Conviction

    I haven’t seen any headlines that talk about police saving a life.

    I return to the argument of “they wouldn’t have shot a white girl.” It’s a fact that more white people are killed by police than African Americans. And I bring that up because the media is the one who fuels the narrative. And since systematic racism is the narrative, that’s what the media reports and that’s when the media reports it on the national level.

    I also hear talk about whether or not the officer was justified in using lethal force. I hear people argue “why not use a taser?” Tasers aren’t foolproof. It was also a split second decision where the officer saw someone who was about to get stabbed.

    I hear “why do police have to shoot to kill? Why can’t they shoot you in the leg?” Because it’s an insane expectation that an officer shoot once, wait to see if there’s a threat, maybe fire a second shot, wait around and see if the person is still a threat. A person can be shot and still stab someone. A person with a gun can be shot and still shoot someone.

    I even heard someone (and I hope they’re reading this, because I believe I raise legitimate points), that the officer should have first de-escalated the situation. There wasn’t time. Less than 15 seconds after the officer is out of his car, Bryant is about to stab someone.

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

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