Posts Tagged ‘New York Times’

Paul Krugman’s 9/11 Blog

Posted: September 12, 2011 in News
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Here is Paul Krugman’s blog in The New York Times that has sparked a firestorm:

September 11, 2011, 8:41 AM

The Years of Shame

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?

Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.

If I subscribed to the New York Times I would follow Donald Rumsfeld’s lead and cancel. But I don’t. What timing? When loved ones of the nearly 3000 murdered are remembering the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Krugman denigrates it as a shameful event. Krugman calls for 9/11 to be a unifying event by calling Rudy Giuliani and George Bush flake heros who cashed in on this national tragedy. His dividing remarks are character assassinations of two men who rallied our nation to defend itself against Islamic terrorism.  Because of these two heros, Krugman still has the freedom of speech to spew hatred. This is deeply shameful.

Book Review of The Camel, Part Two

Posted: November 24, 2010 in Book Reviews, Contextualization
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Here is how the New York Times weighed in on the Camel Method debate:

On Feb. 3, Ergun Caner, president of the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, in Lynchburg, Va., focused attention on a Southern Baptist controversy when he called Jerry Rankin, the president of the denomination’s International Mission Board, a liar. Dr. Caner has since apologized for his language, but he still maintains that the “Camel Method,” a strategy Dr. Rankin endorses for preaching Christianity to Muslims, is deceitful.

Instead of talking about the Jesus of the New Testament, missionaries using the Camel Method point Muslims to the Koran, where in the third chapter, or sura, an infant named Isa — Arabic for Jesus — is born. Missionaries have found that by starting with the Koran’s Jesus story, they can make inroads with Muslims who reject the Bible out of hand. But according to Dr. Caner, whose attack on Dr. Rankin came in a weekly Southern Baptist podcast, the idea that the Koran can contain the seeds of Christian faith is “an absolute, fundamental deception” (Mark Oppenheimer, New York Times: March 12, 2010: A Dispute on Using the Koran as a Path to Jesus).

Greeson quotes the Muslim Proverb that says the one-hundredth name for God is Isa al-Masih (Jesus Christ) which is  based on a familiar legend from Islam: every good Muslim knows 99 names for Allah, but there is a 100th name that was revealed only to the camel.  According to the Camel Method, the 100th name is Jesus, or “Isa,” the Arabic rendering.

Greeson takes a passage from the Qur’an (13 verses of surah al-Imaran, chapter 3:42-55) that refers to Isa al-Masih (Jesus Christ) as a bridge to introduce Muslims to Christ.

The passage is found in the Qur’an surah al-lmram which declares that Jesus was born of a virgin, that he would do miracles; that Allah (God) would cause Him to die and raise Him again to heaven.

From those passages, Greeson uses an acronym to help believers remember the main points for witnessing:

Mary was Chosen to give birth to Isa;

that Angels announced the good news to her;

that Isa would do Miracles;

that he knew and is the way to Eternal

Life (The Camel, page 41).

The Qur’an Denies the Deity of Christ

The problem in showing that Jesus was born of Mary from a neutral passage in the Qur’an is that the Qur’an as a whole denies the virgin birth and the deity of Christ.  In Surah 5 of the Koran, there are three Christological passages that blatantly reject the deity of Christ. The three passages are 5:17; 5:72-77; 5:116-119.

I quote 5:17: “In blasphemy indeed are those that say that Allah is Christ the son of Mary. Say: ‘Who then hath the least power against Allah, if His will were to destroy Christ the son of Mary, His mother, and all—every one that is on the earth?”

How can a passage be used in the Koran that refers to Christ as the son of Mary to prove the deity of Christ in witnessing when the entire message of the Koran is a denial of the deity of Christ?

The Qur’an also teaches that Jesus is a mere human whose miracles were magic (Surah 5:109-110).

5.109 On the day when Allah will assemble the apostles, then say: What answer were you given? They shall say: We have no knowledge, surely Thou art the great Knower of the unseen things.
5.110 When Allah will say: O Isa son of Marium! Remember My favor on you and on your mother, when I strengthened you I with the holy Spirit, you spoke to the people in the cradle and I when of old age, and when I taught you the Book and the wisdom and the Taurat and the Injeel; and when you determined out of clay a thing like the form of a bird by My permission, then you breathed into it and it became a bird by My permission, and you healed the blind and the leprous by My permission; and when you brought forth the dead by My permission; and when I withheld the children of Israel from you when you came to them with clear arguments, but those who disbelieved among them said: This is nothing but clear enchantment.

The Qur’an’s teaching on the oneness of God (that Allah is the only God and not three persons) denies the Trinity and the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. Surah 4:116 reads, “Allah forgiveth not (the sin of) joining other gods with Him; but forgiveth whom He pleaseth other sins than this. One who joins other gods with Allah hath strayed far, far away.” Surah 5:17 says that Allah is able to destroy Jesus, his mother, and every living creature. In Surah 5:72, Christians are told that they are bound for eternal fire as blasphemers for ascribing deity to Christ.

The Qur’an Denies the Death of Christ on the Cross

The Camel Method also encourages The Korbani Plan of Salvation. Chapter 8 in The Camel instructs how to use the Korbain Plan. Korban means “sacrifice” in Arabic and refers to a holy day the Muslims observe. The Korbani Plan reads 3:54-55 which quotes Allah saying, “O Isa, I am going to terminate the period of your stay (on earth) and cause you to ascend unto Me.” The Korani Plan instructs the witness to say, “Allah chose Isa for the Korban. This was Allah’s plan from the beginning.” Then the Muslim is taken to passages like John 1:29 and Romans 5:19 (The Camel, page 118). The problem with this approach is that the 3:54-55 does not teach nor imply the substitutionary death of Christ. In fact the entire Qur’an denies the death of Christ.

The Qur’an denies that Christ died on the cross in Surah 4:157-158 which states this clearly: “That they said, ‘We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the apostle of God’; but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow an opinion; for of a surety they killed him not, but Allah raised him up unto Himself, and God is exalted in power, wise.”

The death of Christ has no evidence, according to the Koran, and was only in the minds of those claimed to have killed him. How can the Qur’an be used to preach the gospel of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ when the Qur’an denies His death?

The Qur’an Denies the Trinity

Another reason the Qur’an rejects the deity of Christ is its rejection also of the Trinity. In the second Christological passage, 5:72-77, the deity of Christ is denied because that would support the doctrine of the Trinity which this text also rejects: “They do blaspheme who say: ‘Allah is Christ the son of Mary.’ But said Christ: ‘O Children of Israel! Worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord.’ Whoever joins other gods with Allah—Allah will forbid him the Garden, and the fire will be his abode. There will for the wrongdoers be no one to help. They do blaspheme who say? Allah is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god except One God” (Imad N. Shehadeh, “Additional Reasons for Islam’s Rejection of the Biblical Christology,” Part Four of “The Triune God and the Islamic God” Bibliotheca Sacra, 162, October-December, 2004, pages 398-412).

In part 3, we will look at the controversial use of the name “Allah” in “The Camel Method”.

Back to the Basics Series: The Problem of Evil, Part 1

Posted: October 27, 2010 in Pastoral Theology, Sermons, Sin
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Chris Sheeter and I were students at BJU and friends in 1981. Chris was tall, handsome, musical, with a great personality. He also was a good preacher. Chris was studying to pastor. We attended the same church, Southside Baptist Church and worked as waiters at the same Seafood restaurant, Old Mill Stream Inn. I graduated one semester before he did and started pastoring in N.C. and I drove back to Greenville, S.C. just to fellowship with Chris. During his last semester, he was a life guard at a local hotel. At the end of a shift, he dove in the pool just to swim across and go home. As he was swimming across the bottom, his friends notice he stopped about half way. Chris drowned.

Chris studied seven years, spent nearly $100,000 to prepare to pastor and never got to pastor one day. I remember asking myself, not out loud, why did God lead him to go through the rigors of four years of undergraduate work and the even tougher studies of three years of seminary and then allow this tragedy to happen?

William Safire, in a New York Times editorial, wrote after the 2004 India tsunami in which over 200,000 people were killed from 14 countries, “Where was God? Why does a good and all powerful deity permit such evil and grief to fall on innocent people? What did these people do to deserve such suffering.”

David Hume, the eighteenth century philosopher, connected the problem of evil and the existence of God: “Is He willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is impotent. Is He able but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Whence then is evil?”

Jewish rabbi, Harold Kushner in his book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, answered, at least to his satisfaction, Hume’s dilemma. The death of his son drove Kushner “to question his traditional Jewish faith. Though a rabbi, Kushner came to believe that God could not have prevented his son’s death. He is frank: ‘I can worship a God who hates suffering but cannot eliminate it, more easily than I can worship a God who chooses to make children suffer and die’” (D. A. Carson. Reflections on Suffering & Evil: How Long O Lord? Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1990, 29). Kushner’s solution to the problem of evil is not to reject the existence of God, but to deny God’s omnipotence.

Though the innocent Job suffers in the book that bears his name, the question this book asks and answers is not, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” But “Why do suffering believers continue to serve the Lord?”

That is the question Satan posed to God in reference to godly Job in 1:9. “Does Job serve God for nothing?” was really an attack against God’s worth to be served. Satan was saying that God had to bribe Job to serve Him with his wealth. Satan was attacking the motives of Job in serving God and the worth of God to be served.

It is true Biblically that there are no innocent people. All suffering is the result of the Fall of Adam. Each of us is born a sinner and in time willfully sin against God which made clear in the New Testament in Romans 3:23 and the observation of any individual.

D. A. Carson is right when he observes that “on the whole, the biblical writers are surprised, not by punishment, but by the Lord’s patience and forbearance. God does not punish the Amorites until their sin has reached full measure (Gen. 15:16). Again and again we are told that the Lord is longsuffering, slow to anger, and very merciful. . . .From this perspective, it would have made more sense to write a book full of wonder under the title When Good Things Happen to Bad People (Carson, 48-49).

Yet, Job 1:1 makes it very clear that Job was not suffering retribution for some lifestyle of sin. The godliness of Job is repeated by God in 1:8 and 2:3.

Job forces us to examine our motives, “Do we serve God for nothing?”  The book of Job answers Satan’s question in 1:9.

The author of Job answers Satan’s question in the three major sections of Job.

1. God’s Suffering Believer in the Hands of Satan (Chapters 1 and 2).

A. Job was godly. Job was “perfect” not sinless.

The word “perfect” was used to describe an animal sacrifice that was blemishless and ready for sacrifice (Lev 22:21). The blamelessness of Job is well established in the narrative section of Job. This point will be very important when Job’s friends begin to accuse Job of suffering because of sin in the second section.

B. Job was blessed by God. Job’s wealth is inventoried in 1:2-3.

J. Vernon McGee said donkeys were OT pickup trucks, oxen were OT tractors, and camels were OT delivery trucks. Job was in the trucking business.

C. Job was attacked by Satan in 1:6-19.

1. Job lost his wealth when Satan was permitted by God to attach Job on all fronts.

a. From the South by the Sabeans

b. From the west by a thunderstorm

c. From the north by Chaldeans

d. From the east by a storm

Job’s business going belly up proves the motive for Job’s service to the Lord was not material possession.

2. Job lost his children. Job attended a funeral with ten coffins. Job, also, lost the support of his wife (2:9-10). J. Vernon McGee said the reason Satan did not take her when he took the ten children was that she was more useful to Satan alive. The motive for Job’s service to the Lord was not family.

3. Job lost his health (2:1-8). There are 16 medical updates throughout the book. Job suffered from

a. Painful boils (2:7)

b. Severe itching (2:7-8). Job is on the ash heap.

c. Great grief (2:13)

d. Loss of appetite (3:24)

e. Insomnia (7:4)

f. Worm and dust infested flesh (7:5)

g. Continual oozing of boils (7:5)

h. Hallucinations (7:14)

i. Decaying skin (13:28)

j. Shriveled up (16:8)

k. Severe halitosis (19:17)

l. Teeth fell out (19:20)

m. relentless pain (30:17)

n. Skin turned black (30:30)

o. Raging fever (30:30)

p. Dramatic weight loss (33:21)

Job still served the Lord when his health was gone. So far Job is proving Satan wrong.

In Part 2, we will see Job in the hands of Christian critics and finally in the hands of God. The second section of Job (Job 3-42:6) is no longer Hebrew narrative where God expresses his view of Job’s innocence. The next section of Job is Hebrew Poetry which is the language of the soul. Hebrew poetry is the genre that expresses people’s emotions. Sometimes the positive emotions of praise is expressed in Hebrew poetry as in the Psalms (for example Psalm 103) and other times as in the second section of Job the negative emotions of Job’s ”miserable comforter” and Job are vented in the three cycles of debate.

What is interesting about the second section of Job is the fact that Satan is no longer mentioned. In chapters 1 and 2, Satan is persistent in attacking Job’s faith. But when Job’s Christian critics take over in the next section, they do such a good job of verbally pounding on Job, perhaps Satan felt he could leave Job in the hands of his ash heap critics and go destory some other believer’s faith.