BOOK REVIEW - "TOXIC EMPATHY: HOW THE PROGRESSIVES EXPLOIT CHRISTIAN COMPASSION" BY ALLIE BETH STUCKEY

Is empathy something that is always beneficial? Or can it become an enabler for those who desire tolerance... for themselves, not for those who disagree? Is it possible that those to the left politically are using Christians' desire to care for others to convince us that what God considers evil isn't really evil?

"Toxic Empathy: How the Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion" is the second book by Allie Beth Stuckey, who previously wrote "You're Not Enough (And That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self Love." Both are books that look at lies exalted in modern culture.

The artist in me loves the structure of these books. They both have a pastel colored cover with black and white lettering (the font style is different). Each book deals with five lies that fit the theme of the respective book. 

"Toxic Empathy" deals with these five mantras:

1. "Abortion is healthcare,"
2. "Trans Women are Women,"
3. "Love is Love,"
4. "No Human is Illegal," and 
5. "Social Justice is Justice."

Each chapter starts out with a story that appears to defend the chapter's title. Stuckey then looks more closely and analyzes the world view and what Biblical truth says on the subject. 

I recommend this book. It was well put together and short enough to be a comfortable read.

 

SUNDAY PSALMS PART 23 OF 48 - PSALM 111

 

White Handed Gibbon, Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Park

1    Praise the LORD!
    I will praise the Lord with my whole heart,
    In the assembly of the upright and in the congregation.
2   The works of the Lord are great,
    Studied by all who have pleasure in them.
3   His work is honorable and glorious,
    And His righteousness endures forever.
4   He has made His wonderful works to be remembered;
    The LORD is gracious and full of compassion.
5   He has given food to those who fear Him;
    He will ever be mindful of His covenant.
6   He has declared to His people the power of His works,
    In giving them the heritage of the nations.

7   The works of His hands are verity and justice;
    All His precepts are sure.
8   They stand fast forever and ever,
    And are done in truth and uprightness.
9   He has sent redemption to His people;
    He has commanded His covenant forever:
    Holy and awesome is His name.
10   The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
    A good understanding have all those who do His commandments.
    His praise endures forever.
                Psalm 111:1-10, New King James Version

Aren't all of God's works wonderful? When we look at creation, we're seeing God's handiwork. Sorry, but I don't believe nature can create itself - things work so well together there must be a Creator.

This Psalm also gives the character of the Creator. He provides our needs, and He stands for truth and justice. 

How can we do anything but to praise Him for all He's done?

CANONICAL FALSE GOSPELS?

Semper Reformanda - Always Reforming. Courtesy of James Lawson.

AUTHOR'S NOTE - I wrote this a few years ago as a Facebook note. I've decided to make this my Reformation Day post for the year. So, Happy Reformation Day!

 Just when you think you've heard everything.

In an internet group, someone was claiming the Letter of James was a false gospel and that the half-brother of Jesus was the organizer of the Judaizers Paul condemned when writing to the Galatians. The person making that claim was asked if he was implying that James' letter shouldn't be included in Scripture.

No, he insisted James belonged in the Canon of Scripture so we'd know what his false teaching looked like.

If he stopped at James being a Judaizer and his Epistle being a false gospel, I would think he's wrong and outside the mainstream, but he's not the first to have problems with James and the apparent conflict with Paul's grace theology. The church leaders deciding on the canon dealt with the same question. Martin Luther called that book "An epistle of straw" (though he later changed his mind). Les Feldick believes Christian theology should be based on Paul, and that James and the other general epistles were written for Jews, not the Church. Calling James a false gospel is a step further, but I would consider that an error.

The idea that a false gospel could be canonical, however, is what I consider a very dangerous idea that must be defeated. Allow me to give three reasons why.

1. It leads to confusion.

If God wanted James in there as a false gospel so we'd see the error, have we missed others? The Jesus Seminar suggested we should add the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas - maybe that should be to show the error of Gnosticism. Many consider Mormonism, Christian Science, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Prosperity Gospel to be false teaching - should they be included as well so we can see what the error looks like?

Let's go a step further. Protestants and Jews do not accept the deutero-canonical books (aka the Catholic apocrypha) because they don't feel they pass the test of being canonical. If we allow false gospels in, what right do we have to exclude these writings?

Now, there are false statements in Scripture. For example, the false prophecy of Hananiah in Jeremiah's day, or the errant theology of Job's friends. But in both cases, these errors are in context with the error being refuted. Let me add another refuted false teaching - that of the Judaizers, which Paul deals with in his letter to the Galatians. (Which calls to question the need for a book of Judazing teaching, as James is proposed of being, since the heresy is dealt with already in Scripture.)

This leads to why this view is dangerous. If a book that is strictly false teaching is included in Scripture without refutation, someone might assume its inclusion is an endorsement, and that false gospel is treated as God's truth. And if the person calling James a false gospel is correct, this has happened, because a near-unaminous majority of believers are convinced James is just as much the true word of God as the rest of the Biblical authors.

Furthermore, who decides which books are God's Word and which are false Gospels? My friend seems to consider himself that sort of authority, since most people don't agree with him. But someone else might differ. I had one friend who didn't think Esther needed to be in Scripture, and another who thought there were missing books that needed to be added to the Bible's 66 but when his Bible came out, he left out Song of Solomon.

2. It undermines the authority of Scripture.

A common myth is that the Catholic Church picked the books that fit its political view and omitted other equally worthy books. Not so. The process of Canonization determined on a basis of certain qualifications which books were included and which weren't. There were books that missed one of the qualificatons that were discussed before being included. For example, the question about who wrote Hebrews. Or Esther not mentioning the name of God. Or Jude including quotes from apocryphal books.

By the way, where did the word "canon" come from? One view is that it is taken from the Hebrew word qaneh, which means a cane or measuring stick. Thus, Scripture is a guide if something is consistent with God's Wrod or if it isn't. This was one of the tests - does a book contradict with other Scripture? Case in point is whether James' "Faith Without Works Is Dead" is countering Paul's emphasis on justification by faith. With careful study, though, there is no contradiction between James and Paul.

Furthermore, Scripture talks about itself as being true and having come directly from God, such as Psalm 12:6, Psalm 119:160, Isaiah 8:20, Romans 15:4, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, and 2 Peter 1:21. Including a false gospel as Canon would invalidate these verses, and if we take the next step, we'll see the biggest danger of canonical false gospels.

3. It attacks the character of God.

I will state that I sincerely doubt the person claiming James is a canonical false gospel would imagine he's doing this, but this argument unknowingly does so. Let me explain why I feel so strongly.

As stated before, the Bible is God's Word, spoken by God. Scripture also says God cannot lie (Numbers 23:19, Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:18). A false gospel is a lie. If a false gospel is canonical, then God is inspiring the author to write a lie. Thus, there are only three conclusions:

1) James is a false gospel and also canonical, which means God isnpired a lie and the Bible, which states He cannot lie, is worthless and not to be trusted;

2) James is a false gospel, and since God cannot lie, it cannot be canonical, or

3) James is canonical, and since God cannot lie, it cannot be a false gospel.

What is the reason for this theory of canonical false gospels? I consider it similar to those who say the Bible is corrupted, who claim the Bible is not sufficient, or that passages that have a clear literal meaning don't really mean what they say. The reason is that the person has a belief that is inconsistent with the rest of Scripture.

Let's look at those who think the Bible is corrupted. None ever produce proof of an uncorrupted Bible (at least until they show up to revive the uncorrupted Scripture, they claim). New Agers claim it's corrupted because the original Bible (they claim) agrees with them on reincarnation. Muslims say the uncorrupted Scripture contains prophecies of Mohammed. The House of Yahweh claims Catholics corrupted Scripture by adding in verses about the Trinity and Sunday Worship. In other words, it's always subjective. Of course, those making the claim cannot be wrong, and they don't have the guts to say the Bible's wrong, so they all blame those evil Catholics - even though they don't agree with each other's reasons for the Bible being corrupted.

The bottom line is we need to trust the Bible to be right 100% of the time, to trust the Word of God and not of men. There is no false gospel in the Canon.

THE FACE OF HEALTH? OR NOT?

Not the billboard referred to in blog, but same message.

 One thing that irked me during the social distancing/mask mandate era: There was a billboard on the I-465 titled "The Face of Health", with a picture of a nurse wearing a mask.

Hold on to your horses. Probably too late to avoid a Facebook notification of where to go to find the facts of the mask. This is not meant to make a statement one way or the other of the value of masks.

Rather, my focus is on the blurb. No, a masked face is not the face of health. Those who say so either don't know what health looks like or they are deliberately telling a lie to get the results they want.

Here's the obvious: if things are healthy, masks are not needed.

If the masks are able to protect a healthy person from COVID19, then the masked face is a face that needs their health protected. If, however, a mask works solely to keep the infected from infecting the healthy, then the masked face is the face of UNhealth.

Again, this is not a critique of wearing masks. I can see the rationale of it protecting you and others. In fact, mask wearing may help put someone else at ease, and that is a good thing. 

However, to me that billboard was saying evidence of a lack of health was what health looked like.

So if I'm not arguing against masks, why write this blog? Is it just letting steam of at a time where that steam has passed its prime?

No, there is Scripture that this makes me think of. And that verse is Isaiah 5:20 (NKJV):

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who set darkness for light and light for darkness, who set bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. 

Okay. The billboard I saw is not the best example of that verse. I cringed when I read Christians saying a true Christian would not wear a mask, just as I cringe with the "Face of health" billboard and the mandates. But it still is an illustration of calling something the opposite of what it is.

Unfortunately, we can find better illustrations. Yes, I can find them and mention them. But then, why should I when you can give examples yourself. 

The reality is we need to realize we serve a righteous, holy God. He dictates what truth is, and plan A is to agree with Him. To disagree with Him is plan C. What's plan B? To realize plan A needs to work and if someone suggests plan C is an alternative, destroy plan C before someone makes the foolish mistake of trying the failed idea.

WILL ALL THE LEGALISTS AND DIVISIVE PEOPLE PLEASE STAND UP?

 

Interesting - I don't see anybody standing up. Are you sure that none of you reading this are legalists or divisive people? Or is it that nobody fits those categories?

Let's start with legalism. One problem is what does it mean? If a Christian condemns another because they don't listen to the right style of music or use the correct Bible translation or have their hair too long or are not observing the Sabbath on the correct day, are they being legalistic? Or to be a legalist do you have to go beyond judging and have to make those issues a salvation issue?

That's why nobody will claim to be a legalist. It may be that they don't believe they are being legalistic but rather that they are trying to stand for truth. With the examples used above, they may be convicted that a rock beat is Satanic, or that some translations (more accurately, most translations) are using corrupted texts, or that the NT deals with men wearing long hair, or that God desires us, whether Jew or Gentile, to set aside the 7th Day. 

Allow me to say that people who have these convictions have reasons for them. The thing after the last thing I should do is to criticize them for those convictions. Rather, I should applaud when they live out their convictions. 

However, those convictions are not my convictions. I might have different convictions. If so, I need to do two things... no, let me say I need to do one thing and avoid the other thing. What I need to do is to live out my convictions. The thing I need to reject is expecting others to live my convictions. If I make that mistake, I'm being divisive.

I remember years ago reading a post on the internet where the person says he believes all Christians should be united. Thus, he invites all Christians in denominations other than his to leave their groups and join his. Is that the true spirit of unity?

Too often, when we have debates, we accept nothing less than unconditional surrender on the other side, while we don't have to give up a thing. I read a book on worship where the author said that those who prefer contemporary worship music should give preference to those who prefer the traditional style. No problem with that, but did the author do the right thing and expect those with traditional preferences to give preference to the contemporaries? Uh, no. He actually ended the book with a list of things contemporaries should give up, such as using overheads and instead returning to hymnals.

My hope is that those who are divisive are unaware of that tendency. It would be a shame for them to know they're causing division and not care. No, it wouldn't be a shame; it would be a sin. 

Yes, God wants us to be likeminded, but does that mean we're to be copies of each other? Didn't God create us different for His purposes? 

Have you encountered someone who had legalistic tendencies or was divisive? Do you have any of those characteristics that you may be blind to? How do we promote true Christian liberty without tolerating what Scripture clearly states is false doctrine and/or ungodly living?