Re: [asa] ISA

These documents from the ISA are nothing new. It is indeed a shame that
this is creating yet another divide in evangelicalism.

OTOH, I don't think it's entirely fair to compare this to the YEC
problem.
In many ways, I think this problem should be more tractable than YECism,
because the underlying divide is really more about economics the role of
government and mistrust of international institutions than about
purported
questions of scriptural authority.

  It's interesting that many of the movers and shakers behind ISA
seem to
be libertarian-leaning economic conservatives. What needs to happen,
IMHO,
is that regulatory approaches need to be developed that don't entail the
devolution of sovereignty to the United Nations and that don't
excessively
burden the middle class. If some political consensus can develop around
such approaches, I think you'll see Republicans, and then
libertarian-leaning Christian conservatives, at least grudgingly come
along. This is one reason why I'm interested in more limited approaches
such as a progressive tax and international cooperation through a trade
regime administered by the WTO (GATT) rather than through a separate
environmental regime adminstered by the UN.

I did notice, however, this curious bit of theology in one of the ISA
documents:

As theologian Wayne Grudem put it, "It does not seem likely to me
that God
would set up the world to work in such a way that human beings would
eventually destroy the earth by doing such ordinary and morally good and
necessary things as breathing, building a fire to cook or keep warm,
burning
fuel to travel, or using energy for a refrigerator to preserve food."

Um... yeah, but there's this little problem called "sin." We might
just as
well say that God wouldn't set up the world to work in such a way that
people could destroy the earth by doing such ordinary and morally
good and
necessary things as defending democratic freedoms against tyrrany ...
but
then, the nuclear arms race couldn't just be wished away -- it required
sustained diplomatic efforts and international coopeartion to stop
nuclear
proliferation. I'd really love to see a solid response to this pathetic
theology of technology.

On 3/5/07, Randy Isaac <randyisaac@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> The Interfaith Stewardship Alliance has taken the gloves off and
> come out
> swinging. This past weekend we saw the public call for Cizik's
> resignation.
>
> Then there's this document
> http://www.interfaithstewardship.org/pdf/OpenLetter.pdf
> and the supporting technical document
> http://www.interfaithstewardship.org/pdf/CalltoTruth.pdf
>
> Somehow it seems like deja vu all over again. We saw it in the
> young-earth
> scenarios that were established in similar manner and are now deeply
> entrenched. I fear the same will happen here. It would be good if
> someone
> had the time and energy to draft a parallel document addressing all
> the
> points raised.
>
> Randy
>

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Received on Tue Mar 6 00:57:08 2007