Harmless as an enemy, treacherous as a friend

As we plod through the second year of "14 days to flatten the curve", I see that the relativity of time raises it's head once again.  "It will be three months before the Taliban can occupy Kabul" turned out to be closer to three days.  1975 is a bit before my time, but the pictures from Saigon and the pictures from Kabul bear a striking resemblance to each other.  Almost as though there is nothing new under the sun (I think I read that someplace).

The whole situation reminds me of a quote Mark Steyn attributes to Bernard Lewis sometime around the year 2010 or so: "The danger here is that America risks being seen as harmless as an enemy, and treacherous as a friend."  Well, I think America has gotten the "treacherous as a friend" part down pat, and has been that way for years.

This is why Christians should never put faith in governments, which are composed of sinners after all. Ours has been more interested in flying rainbow flags and keeping the military woke than it has been in planning how to exit a battlefield. Living your life as if God isn't watching is all fun and games until you find out He was watching.  Woe to you if God should find you not only harmless as an enemy, but treacherous as a friend too.

Mr. Rogers

I recently asked Prof. John Frame about Fred Rogers in light of the upcoming film with Tom Hanks. Prof. Frame's reply is below. (He kindly gave me permission to post it.)

Well, no, I never met Fred Rogers, though he was a big star on Pittsburgh TV—first "The Children's Corner," and then "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood."

By 1963 I had basically left the Presbyterian Church, USA. I did work in my home church (which was PCUSA at the time, now EPC) in 1965-66, after I graduated from WTS in 1964. But by the end of the decade I was OPC. In any case, Rogers was part of the liberal wing of Pittsburgh Seminary and of the PCUSA.

Being at PTS from 1960-63, he would have known some friends of mine. He would have known RC Sproul. He would have studied with John Gerstner and Bob Kelley, possibly Addison Leitch; so he would have gotten at least a taste of Reformed evangelicalism. But he never moved in conservative evangelical circles, so far as I know.

He has always fascinated me. After I moved to Orlando, I discovered Rogers was a graduate of Rollins College, a liberal arts school in the Orlando area. His name often appeared in the Orlando press. A couple years ago, my wife and I saw the documentary about him. I do hope to see the new movie with Tom Hanks.

His theology, whatever it was, was largely concealed in his shows. He had the view that you should never raise issues of violence or even agitation when you talk to children. He evidently thought that the more rowdy shows like "Howdy Doody" were not good for kids. I always disagreed. I think that a certain amount of rowdiness is good fun, and I think kids should be exposed to the dark side of things. But I was always glad that we had Mr. Rogers to show us that there was an alternate way of thinking and living. I don't know to what extent the Bible entered his world view. Some of his emphases resonate with Scripture and some don't.

Progressive Christians>atheists

https://www.premierchristianity.com/Blog/Bart-Campolo-says-progressive-Christians-turn-into-atheists.-Maybe-he-s-right

No room at the progressive inn

Machen, “Pope Francis”, and “the hermeneutic of rupture” -- or as it is now known, “the hermeneutic of mercy”

J. Gresham Machen’s work, “Christianity and Liberalism” (1923) is one of those rare theological works that helps to define what Reformed Christianity is even in our day. It stakes out an orthodox position, and it contrasts it with a line of thinking that was very prevalent in Machen’s day, “naturalistic liberalism”. It’s on the list of books that every Christian (especially those in authority) should read every once in a while, just to keep focused on what is and isn’t genuine Christianity.

Reading Machen is wise and admirable and even necessary. But what should conservative Reformed Protestants think of this quote by Machen?

Pope Francis: The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, Redux

J. Gresham Machen
Christianity and Liberalism

J. Gresham Machen, 1923:

Modern men have been so much impressed with this element in Jesus’ teaching [God as Father] that they have sometimes been inclined to regard it as the very sum and substance of our religion. We are not interested, they say, in many things for which men formerly gave their lives; we are not interested in the theology of the creeds; we are not interested in atonement through the blood of Christ: enough for us is the simple truth of the fatherhood of God and its corollary, the brotherhood of man. We may not be very orthodox in the theological sense, they continue, but of course you will recognize us as Christians because we accept Jesus’ teaching as to the Father of God (“Christianity and Liberalism”, 51).

Pope Francis, 2013:

The Son of God became incarnate in the souls of men to instill the feeling of brotherhood. All are brothers and all children of God. Abba, as he called the Father. I will show you the way, he said. Follow me and you will find the Father and you will all be his children and he will take delight in you. Agape, the love of each one of us for the other, from the closest to the furthest, is in fact the only way that Jesus has given us to find the way of salvation and of the Beatitudes."