What did you Expect?

Two very shocking stories have emerged from Wall Street in the last few weeks and we will comment on both of them. The first concerns the millions of dollars that were paid out in bonuses at Wall Street companies this year.

Most of us know that bonuses are of two types, merit and cost of living. Many of us receive an annual cost of living raise that helps keep us up with inflation, merit raises are based on performance and are a reward for a job well done. I do not know about you but I do not think that the stock brokers have done a very good job this year.

The economy is in the worst shape it has been in since the 1930’s and much of the blame can be laid at Wall Street. President Obama’s reaction was a noble symbol, he publicly called the bonuses shameful and his next move was more than symbolic. Many of these companies are now living on our tax money and he placed a cap on executive salaries, they are always the ones with the multi-million dollar bonuses, for companies that receive bail-out cash. This is a good and just move but it is too little too late.

The second story enlightens us to what this august group of men has been doing with their bonus money. The recent arrest of a NYC madam has brought the illicit sexual activity of these men into the light. Search warrants led officers to a computer that contained a call list for 10,000 clients, many of which are executives on Wall Street.

These men were paying these sexual slaves in excess of 5,000 per visit and the company that pimped the girls was set up as a corporation. This move was made so that the clients could bill the services on an expense account or bill their offices directly.

This means that our money was either directly paying for these escapades or that the costs were floated as a tax write off by the entire nation. We have been engaging in temple prostitution and not even knowing it, but what can we expect form a system that is based on greed.

Until our economic system is reattached to the virtues of justice and charity, there will be neither genuine ‘hope’ nor authentic ‘change.’ These words must be more than slogans.

Opportunities and Challenges

The dust of both the election and inauguration of President Obama has now settled and he has inherited a economic situation that few would wish upon their worst enemy. While the economic situation is important, most Christians are more concerned, and correctly I add, with matters of moral significance.

Now we stand at the crossroads of opportunity and challenge. With Obama’s promise to help and aid the poor, Christians may finally take part in economic reorganization that does not continually ground the faces of the poor among us into the dust. However, with his positions on abortion, stem-cell research, and homosexuality, Christians also face a challenge on the sanctity of human life and the sanctity of marriage. This is the unique situation we now find ourselves in and many of our old categories will simply not help us now.

You see, as Christians who care about and work for God’s restorative justice, we can neither fully embrace all of Obama’s plan nor disregard his efforts entirely. We will have to agree where we can, and resist his plans were they violate the clear teachings of the faith. The old approaches of “liberal” and “conservative” will not help us at this time. The last thing we need is four or eight years of us vs. them mentality chocking up the efforts of socially active Christians.

What we need now are Christian categories like justice, peace, love, charity, and life. These are the categories that we need to guide our thinking about how to work with the Obama administration. Thus, we can celebrate that our nation will no longer attempt to baptize torture and that the poor will no longer be ignored, but we must never forget the slaughter of the unborn or the biblical boundaries of human sexuality.

In the coming years we work to reduce the number of abortions, while still not giving up on stopping it all together. We can work on and evaluate our positions on homosexuality and make sure we speak the truth in love, but we can also work together with others to better this world. But we need one more bit of caution. As Christians, we must disagree with one thing Obama has said. America is not the last best hope for the world, that is a false eschatology, Jesus was and is the only hope for the world, and it is the church’s job to make this hope known in both our opportunities and challenges.

The December Meeting

Donny Introduces Greg



Greg Mathias talks on Biblical Anthropology and the Gospel


Some of our intrepid members

Neighbor Love

Luke 10:25-29 ²⁵ Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" ²⁶ He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" ²⁷ He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." ²⁸ And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live." ²⁹ But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

The recent publication of the NRSV “Green Bible” has ignited a firestorm of response from some conservative (more likely Fundamentalist) Christians. The Bible is the standard NRSV translation—already a bad start for some extreme conservatives—with commentary from theological heavyweights like N. T. Wright. The passages that pertain to creation care are highlighted and social justice issues are tied to the gospel.

The fact that creation care is tied to the gospel is problematic to some conservatives as the gospel for fundamentalists only pertains to salvation of souls into a disembodied heaven and has nothing to offer for social issues, but one conservative leader responded to the “Green Bible” by claiming that the gospel only calls us to love God and our neighbor.

Of course, Richard Land’s comments are correct in sense as the scriptures call us to love God and our neighbors. And to go step further, we should care for our human neighbors more intently than we care for our non-human neighbors as there is a ordering in creation, but that the hard distinction he is calling for cannot stand.

There are simply times when environmental concerns are sanctity of human life issues. Consider the recent issues in China where whole water supplies were contaminated with chemicals, and even more recently, the infant formula was contaminated, and babies died. In situations like these, neighbor love requires us to act on environmental issues as what they are, matters of life and death.

Those who are familiar with the Luke passage quoted above will know that Jesus goes on to tell the Good Samaritan story to expand his interlocutor’s concept of neighbor. If we think that we can care for our neighbor, while ignoring his environmental problems, or even contributing to them, then we are no better than those lawyers who asked Jesus about their neighbor. We need the same shocking answer he gave them.

As far as the gospel goes, the gospel—the good news that the resurrected Jesus is Lord—affects the entire cosmos (col 1:15-20). This includes all of creation. Jesus was the agent responsible for creation and he is the agent responsible for its recreation in the resurrection. The restoration of creation is written all over the narrative of scripture and is a part of the mission of God and his CHURCH! Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.

Racism and the Presidential Election

Because this election is historic in that an African-American is the lead on a major ticket, it was only a matter of time before the specter of racism raised its ugly head. Many of you will have undoubtedly started receiving the “anti-Obama” hate e-mails. These e-mails make all kind of racist statements and usually misconstrue some of his writings into a pro-Islamic rant against America. These e-mails are part and parcel of the extreme right and reflect a certain approach to politics that is governed not by reason and ideas but by bigotry and closed mindedness.

The episode of racism that I want to address, however, belongs to another category all together. Recently, during the Republican National Convention, a certain policy group that is historically affiliated with James Dobson’s Family Research Council was selling an interesting item. The said item was called “Obama Waffles”, which is an obvious play on Obama’s perceived or actual changes in position on a particular issue. While this is not offensive in and among itself, the pictures on the box were clearly racist and offensive. (I invite you to check the cartoonish representations of Michelle and Barack Obama at www.obamawaffles.com).

Reaching back to “Aunt Jemima” and other racist icons, the developers of the “Obama Waffles” clearly were attempting to tap into a stream of bigotry that exists within conservative America. The truly damnable aspect of this whole fiasco is that a Christian organization was involved. Racism has no place within Christian convictions, and all those involved in the “Obama Waffles” campaign should withdraw immediately if they are authentic followers of Christ. Jesus died in order to provide forgiveness for a single family that is made up of every tribe, tongue and nation under heaven. He would not tolerate this type of action from his followers and neither should we.

However, this post should not be taken as a blanket support of the Obama campaign. There are many reasons not to vote for him. Here are just a few. First, his position on the sanctity of human life is out of line with the historic Christian position. He openly supports abortion and would obviously appoint judges that reflect his convictions. Second, his position on same sex marriage is also problematic. While he says that marriage is between a man and women, he rejects the defense of marriage act, which would ultimately be an outright support of gay marriage across the country.

This is not to say that he does not have positive aspects as well such as, care for the poor and restoring international integrity. His economic plan is more in line with biblical ideas of restorative justice, and his views on the environment are also in line with the basic outline of creation care. His plan for a green economic sector is especially promising. There are positive and negatives with Obama, just as there are with McCain, however any decision should be made on significant facts and not racism or bigotry.

What I am trying to say is that this election, as all others, should be decided by what the candidates believe about the issues. There is plenty of authentic information out there that Christians should use to help them make an informed decision in November. Obama’s race, however, should not be an issue, and I seriously question the Christian character of believers who are proceeding in this fashion. They are no better than the serial e-mailers who present Obama as closet Muslim who is hell bent on enforcing Sharia law. Last time I checked, that was far too conservative for him.

As a final post script to this post, I would like to note the following. This week Dr Dobson, on his radio show, apologized for the affiliation of his lobbying arm with the “Obama Waffles” incident. I give him the benefit of the doubt that he is not racist and that he would have been upset, if he had been present. However, the fact that a Christian organization can be so wrapped up in something like this proves that so called “Conservative” attitudes are not necessarily Christian attitudes.

Rev. Donnie McDaniel, M.Th (Edinburgh University)

Greed: The Forgotten Vice

^NRS 1 Corinthians 5:11 But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. Do not even eat with such a one.

In evangelical churches all across America, this verse is used (correctly I might add) as a basis for sermons that teach people to avoid, all forms of sexual immorality, drunkenness, idolatry, and even robbery. But ask yourself this question. When was the last time that Rev. Young Evangelical Preacher began to sweat and beat the pulpit in a calculated tirade against greed?

If you are in the average evangelical church, then the answer may be never. Greed is the forgotten vice. In fact, we have made the vice of greed into a virtue. Our entire economic system is built upon the idea that everyone must be dedicated to their own self-interest above all else.

Instead of preaching against this turn of events in our churches, we have baptized the economic system of capitalism, complete with its reversal of virtues, and now not only defend it with our lack of preaching and prophetic critique, but run our churches based upon it.

We cannot preach against the evil actions of various joint stock holding corporations because we may offend the well to do businessman in our church whose monetary giving is so important to the new building program. This travesty must be addressed. Greed is a sin. Not only is it a sin but Paul places it within his list of the most heinous sins. Christians correctly rally against every other of these sins in that list, but greed slips through the gaps.

A good example of greed being tied to other sins is found in the actions of several oil executives who have putting their record braking profits to good work. These men and women have been buying both drugs and sexual services. When the story broke, all they had to say was “Their actions did not hurt anyone directly” and “the consumer was not harmed in any way.” I pray that the church of God would rise up and preach the whole council of God, even the uncomfortable subject of greed.

Greed hurts people and that is the bottom line. When the pursuit of profit becomes not only the sole issue for individuals, but the foundation for the whole world, then the entire world, including the image bearing creature, will be subject to marketing strategies that will lead to further exploitation. Do you think Paul would fail to teach on the vice of greed or that he would welcome its transformation into a virtue?

Sex Sales

As I stated in the September meeting, one of the main goals I hope to accomplish this year is to sustain a vision of God’s restorative justice that the members of IJM SEBTS can easily grasp and follow. One of the tools that we will employ towards this goal will be weekly posts on our blog.

The International Justice Mission is an organization that is dedicated to addressing abuses of power that occur around the world. The main areas of focus are unprosecuted rape, illegal land seizure, sex trafficking, female genital mutilation (clitoral circumcision), bonded slavery, sexual slavery, and others. The focus of IJM is in the international sphere where these injustices occur quite often.

A theme emerges when we look at the areas of concern for IJM; sexual injustice is at the heart what we do internationally. For this post, however, we will focus on our own domestic shortcomings in regards to sexual injustice. Whereas many of the injustices that occur internationally, may be rare events in the United States, we still live in a sex driven society. A recent issue of Prism Magazine from Evangelicals for Social Action took on America’s porno addiction head on.

The Prism articles investigated the problem from various angles and demonstrated how our culture has been invaded by images that are pornographic. The articles included pictures from current magazines, and only one could be described as blatantly sexual (Marissa Miller in Sports Illustrated). All of the others occurred in advertisements from Ladies magazines. One advertisement from high-end brand Dolce and Gibranna had a woman engaged in group sex. Another sales device had a bottle of cologne pressed between two bare breasts, with the obvious connotation that the purchase of this cologne would lead to sexual fulfillment. The story goes on and on.

This is America’s sexual sin. We may not be engaging in sex traffic or bonded slavery but we have taken the image-bearing creature and commoditized it in pursuit of corporate and individual profit. We may think that the sexual sins of others are somehow worse than ours, but we need to take a closer look at what we are doing and promoting. Young models, mostly female, are told that their sexuality must become a commodity if they hope to be successful. Corporations employ this advertising because it works. But it is not a zero sum game, demand not only engenders supply, but supply helps generate the demand. We are a part of the problem instead of being part of the solution.

What should we do in response to this problem? Recently, a group of people in Raleigh actively protested Abercrombie and Fitch because of a picture of young man with his pants undone down to his shaved pubic region and this is a good place to start. We should also do our best not to fall into the advertising trap. Do we buy Axe spay because it smells good, or because of its successful sexual marketing? We have to resist the temptation to go along with the rest of society. Therefore, we can protest and resist. Resistance will hit them where it hurts, in the profit margin, and that is where we should focus. As for the picture at Abercrombie and Fitch, it is still up, but we know that the protestors did not work in vain.

This has just been a short walk through America’s sexual sin and we must keep it in mind as we are focusing on the problems of the rest of the world. I welcome your response and your own thoughts.

Rev. Donnie McDaniel, M.Th
President of SEBTS IJM