TBC: A recently published book has perhaps unwittingly highlighted the apostasy of some who count themselves “evangelicals.” The Audacity of Faith: Christian Leaders Reflect on the Election of Barack Obama is touted as a “book [that] dares to walk the fine line of celebrating the historic moment of Obama's election, while also maintaining the deepest Christian conviction that our 'hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness’.”
Would that were so. To the contrary, however, it appears that the “hope” of the “dynamic…esteemed…respected...popular” contributors is based upon nothing more than a vague “hope” in man. Further, the precarious position of this trust is somewhat understood by one reviewer who notes, “"Now, four years hence a different book might be written. We may need to be more prophetic, holding a president that we placed great hopes in to a higher standard. But for now, this series of essays and sermons sets us on the right path" (Bob Cornwall, pastor, Central Woodward Christian Church, Troy, Michigan, and editor of Sharing the Practice -Academy of Parish Clergy).
Should we not immediately hold all elected officials to a “higher standard” inasmuch as the decisions they make impact “the least to the greatest.”
Contributors include Tony Campolo, whom TBC has addressed in past issues of the newsletter (Jan. 1991, etc.). Campolo has promoted contemplative prayer practices: “In my case intimacy with Christ has developed gradually over the years, primarily through what Catholic mystics call ‘centering prayer.‘...Jesus is my mantra, as some would say” (Sept. 2007, TBC Extra).
Other contributors are Leonard Sweet who has said: "Mysticism, once cast to the sidelines of the Christian tradition, is now situated in postmodernist culture near the center....In the words of one of the greatest theologians of the twentieth century, Jesuit philosopher of religion/dogmatist Karl Rahner, 'The Christian of tomorrow will be a mystic, one who has experienced something, or he will be nothing.' [Mysticism] is metaphysics arrived at through mindbody experiences. Mysticism begins in experience; it ends in theology" (Yungen, A Time of Departing, p. 160).
Finally, another contributor is Dwight Hopkins, who has commented on, and mentioned as a source of inspiration for Pastor Jeremiah Wright’s black liberation theology. Liberation theology has been shown to offer no liberation at all. Neither can the Marxist roots of Liberation Theology be said to be built upon the conviction that our “'hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.” Rather, as 2 Peter:2:19While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. points out, “While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.”
