Rev. Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, has weighed in on the new worship area for Pagans at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Spring, Colorado. According to the Associated Press article, the Air Force Academy already has worship facilities for Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists.
Here is a snippet of Jeffress guest column over at the Washington Post:
…The decision by Air Force Academy officials in Colorado Springs to construct an outdoor space for the worship of pagan deities is an open invitation for God to send His harshest judgments against our nation.
As I read of the Academy’s plans to move stones to a nearby hilltop to facilitate the worship of pagans, Wiccans, Druids, and other earth-centered believers, I thought of the Old Testament story of King Manasseh who “did evil in the sight of the Lord. . . . For he rebuilt the high places and erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them” (2 Kings 21:2-3).
God responded to Manasseh’s actions by announcing, “Behold, I am bringing such calamity on Jerusalem and Judah that whoever hears of it, both his ears shall tingle” (2 Kings 21:12). God soon delivered on His promise by sending the Babylonians to invade Jerusalem. Apparently, God did not fully appreciate the merits of theological diversity.
What we label today as “pluralism,” God called “idolatry.” The first commandment from God was, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” There is no evidence that God has changed His mind on the subject. To openly violate this most basic law is to invite God’s judgment upon our nation. God has judged idolatry in the past through military invasions, earthquakes, a flood, and a mixture of fire and brimstone. The book of Revelation prophesies that God will employ the same agents of His wrath during the final seven years of earth’s history. There is no reason to think God is on hiatus during this present age.
“But doesn’t our Constitution demand that all religions be treated equally?’ you might ask.
Since God is not an American, there is no reason to think He has a particular affinity for our ideas about the separation of church and state. Nevertheless, although the First Amendment guarantees the right of every American to worship however they choose, it does not require government to provide a stone monument to facilitate that worship - even if the same government provides a chapel for Christians.
Apparently, Jeffress has a severe case of the “Religious Freedom For Me But Not For Thee”
Jeffress has peddled this same line of reasoning in the not-so-distant-past over at the blog Mainstream Baptist and in a sermon titled America is a Christian Nation. Needless to say, Jeffress has been heavily influenced by revisionist amateur historian David Barton in his understanding of the First Amendment.
Jeffress might need a chat with the SBC’s ethics guru Dick Land. I’m pretty sure that even Land’s version of accommodationism would not deny the free exercise rights of the Pagan cadets at the Air Force Academy.
For more commentary, see Texas Pastor Can’t Grasp The Basics of Religious Liberty.
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There is a certain fringe among the SBC that has gotten so far off the Baptist reservation regarding religious liberty that it suprises me that they even claim the name of Baptist anymore.
Does he think that the United States is in a covenant relationship with God like with Ancient Israel? And does he not know that for Christians the old covenant has been replaced by a new one. And does he think that Ancient Israel did not have a choice regarding their worship of God? I also bet that he still believes in a God of supernatural interventionism.
I have enormous respect for the power of his perspective; however, that perspective is losing credibility daily
“I also bet that he still believes in a God of supernatural interventionism.”
Is this something that Baptists do not generally believe in? Any enlightenment welcomed.
Your question is an interesting one; and, as it is with Baptists, not an easy question to answer with generalities. I can only offer my own perspective on this question. Just so you know where I am coming from, I grew up and was educated in a strong American and Southern Baptist tradition. Since 1979 when the “fight” about the Bible and “just about everything else” began, I left any formal relationship with the Southern Baptists.
In general, I think the most Baptists have a “natural literal biblical” view of God”. While you could say that is represented a “supernatural interventionist” view of God, the perspective was held without any conscious conflict with the modern worldview. I think this worked from two main reasons: less formal education and certain aspects of Baptist theology that ameliorated this “supernatural theism”. As I see it, these ameliorating factors in Baptist theology are 1) an emphasis on the love of God 2) an experiential emphasis on conversion and “knowing Jesus” (what I call a relational aspect to Baptist theology 3) an emphasis on a “personal” relationship with God.
(continued)
For some this “natural, literal, biblical” point of view has hardened into a “conscious literalism” that is in a conscious battle with a modern world view and lost its emphasis on God as love and having a personal relationship with God. Instead, for some there has become an preoccupation with “correct belief” as opposed to a “life of faith and trust”. Part of this “correct belief” is what I call “supernatural interventionism”. The greatest contribution of the fundamentalists has been their insistence on opposing a modern, scientism, reductionistic world view. Unfortunately, in their opposition they have retreated to an intellectual ghetto that result in either irrationality or atheism
Thanks for your response.
[...] cited by Southern Baptists especially in the blogosphere. In some instances, Southern Baptists have taken Barton’s historical revisionism to the media as with the case of Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, [...]