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It's Saturday, May 20, 2023.

Today’s edition covers a Christian woman in Pakistan charged with blasphemy, the threat of mRNA in the food supply, and more.

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Of Christian Concern

CHRISTIAN WOMAN IN PAKISTAN CHARGED WITH BLASPHEMY, RELEASED ON BAIL

A Christian woman in Pakistan who was charged with blasphemy and could face life in prison, was released on bail last week, The Christian Post reports. Musarrat Bibi and a Muslim man named Muhammad Sarmad were charged after they cleaned the storeroom of a school where they worked, and burned the wastepaper and other scrap. Some of the burned materials, students of the school later discovered, were pages with Quranic verses. Both Bibi and Sarmad are illiterate, so, according to Bibi’s attorney, school staff members, including the principal, were aware that they had not burned the Quranic pages intentionally. 

Still, a local Muslim named Kashif Nadeem reported Bibi to the police and staged a protest outside the school. This led the police to arrest Bibi and Sarmad, allegedly to avoid unrest. The two workers were charged under Section 295-B of the blasphemy statutes, which explicitly includes willfulness as a necessary component to the charge. The Bishop of the Anglican Church of Pakistan, Azar Marshall, says this case shows how blasphemy laws are “misused to victimize vulnerable citizens.”

ATTORNEY TOM RENZ CLAIMS THAT mRNA IS IN THE FOOD SUPPLY AND MAY VACCINATE EVERYONE

The Vigilant Fox, a citizen journalist, reported this week that “the unvaccinated won’t be unvaccinated for long with mRNA in the food supply.” The post included a clip from Real America’s Voice’s mid-April interview with attorney Tom Renz, who says, “We’ve confirmed: this mRNA stuff is in the food supply.”

Renz reveals that the pharmaceutical company Merck has been injecting mRNA—a molecule that conveys genetic information—into pigs since 2018, and that they are able to make “transmissible mRNA.” Transmissible mRNA, he claims, would transmit to whomever ingests the food, resulting in vaccination.

Renz is on a crusade to get laws requiring disclosure of this practice passed in enough states that the practice halts altogether. Otherwise, those who “stood strong” and refused to be vaccinated with the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines—a segment that includes many evangelicals—will get vaccinated anyway through the food supply. “The key,” he says, “is that there’s informed consent before someone screws with your genes . . . For me, I’m a Christian. I believe I was made in the image of God. I don’t want to be made in the image of Bill Gates . . .”

SBC-APPROVED SAME-SEX ATTRACTED CHRISTIAN SPEAKER UNDER FIRE FOR COMMENTS ON GAY MARRIAGE

Rachael Gilson, a “same-sex-attracted” Christian writer and speaker who is scheduled to speak at the SBC Pastors’ Wives Conference, came under fire this week after a clip surfaced on Twitter of her teaching that “God hates divorce” even in same-sex marriages. A longer clip showing more of the context was no less controversial.

In response, Gilson issued a statement affirming that “same-sex marriage is always sinful” and “the path of obedience is to end that marriage by divorce.” She also stated, “This has been my consistent teaching.” Some suggested this statement contradicts her previous comments, which she did not directly address. Despite requests, no clarification has been forthcoming.

One vocal critic, Pastor Tom Buck, asserted that full repudiation and repentance of her previous teaching should be required before she is “platformed in any Christian setting.”

Also Noteworthy

→ Tim Keller, 72, died yesterday after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. A well-known Presbyterian pastor, theologian, and author, Keller was considered winsome by many and “woke” by others. His passing has been met with both tributes (like this) and denunciations (like this).

→ Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California has appealed the determination that the church is “not in friendly cooperation with the [Southern Baptist] Convention due to the [church] continuing to have a female functioning in the office of pastor.” The appeal means a representative of the church will have a brief time to speak at the Convention’s annual meeting on June 13, prior to a vote on the decision. As previously reported, forcing this vote may have been SBC leaders’ reason for the decision in the first place. Rick Warren, founder and former lead pastor of Saddleback Church, says the church is appealing the ruling for five reasons.

→ Former president Donald J. Trump weighed in on the six-week abortion ban that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law last month. In an interview with The Messenger published on Monday, Trump suggested, “many people within the pro-life movement feel that that was too harsh.” During a press conference the next day, DeSantis responded, “protecting an unborn child when there’s a detectable heartbeat is something that almost probably 99 percent of pro-lifers support.” | Significantly, 2019 CDC data shows 42.9% of reported abortions have already occurred by the sixth week of pregnancy.

→ Target is selling LGBTQ swimsuits with “tuck-friendly construction” and “extra crotch” coverage, per the label—including in child and baby sizes, critics claim. This news has sparked calls for a boycott of the retailer in the vein of the ongoing Bud Light boycott, which has seen five straight weeks of decreasing sales for the beer brand that aligned itself with trans activist Dylan Mulvaney in a marketing campaign.

Content Catch-Up

Recent, notable content by Christian creators.*

→ Christian Nationalism Defended: On an episode of The Babylon Bee podcast, Pastor Doug Wilson of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, makes his case for why a nation should be explicitly Christian with explicitly Christian laws. (Video)

→ Christian Nationalism Critiqued: In an interview on biblical scholar Sean McDowell’s YouTube channel, apologist Neil Shenvi seeks to elucidate and dialogue with the various versions of Christian Nationalism. (Video)

→ Did Jesus Die For Everyone or Only the Elect?: Evangelist and author Justin Peters interviews Dr. Mike Riccardi, a pastor at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, about the extent of Christ’s atonement. (Video)

*Not necessarily an endorsement

The Bible, Briefly

In John 21:15-19, the resurrected Jesus asks Peter three times whether the disciple loves Him, and Peter professes that he does. Three is significant because it's the number of times Peter denied knowing Jesus on the night of His crucifixion. However, there’s a subtlety that gets lost in translation from the original Greek: different words are used for “love,” and they have different nuances. 

The first two times Jesus questions Peter, He uses the word agape—which, Alexander Moseley writes, “refers to the paternal love of God for man and of man for God but is extended to include a brotherly love for all humanity.” Agape, he goes on, “seeks a perfect kind of love that is at once a fondness . . . and a passion without the necessity of reciprocity.” If Jesus had this kind of definition in mind when he used the word agape, He was asking Peter for a lot. Of course, it was nothing new: agape for God is “the great and first commandment” (Matthew 22:37-38).

But, notably, each time Peter responds to Jesus’ inquiry (with “you know that I love you”), he doesn’t use the word agape. He uses the word philia, which, Moseley explains, denotes more of a fondness and appreciation, as in a friendship, or in loyalty to family or community. So, Peter was professing a serious kind of love for Jesus, but not perfect, unconditional agape.  

Henry Alford, 19th-century theologian, comments: “Peter therefore uses a less exalted word, and one implying a consciousness of his own weakness, but a persuasion and deep feeling of personal love.” Could it be that his recent failures had weakened his confidence that he could love Jesus fully and rightly (in contrast to what he says in John 13:37)? 

That’s when Jesus says something remarkable.

The third time Jesus asks Peter whether he loves Him, He too uses the word philia (in its conjugated form phileis): “Simon, son of John, do you phileis me?” It’s at this point that the narrator interjects, “Peter was grieved because [Jesus] said to him the third time, ‘Do you phileis me?’” It seems, then, that Peter’s grief was not merely that Jesus asked him the same question three times, but that, the third time, He used the same “less exalted” word for love that Peter had been using.

According to this interpretation, Jesus acknowledged Peter’s weakness and accepted what he had to offer, even though it was not everything he ought to have offered. When Jesus was asking for agape, but Peter had only philia to give, Jesus met him where he was. 

Perhaps also, as Alford suggests, the Lord’s use of philia is intended “to press the meaning of it home to [Peter].” If so, Jesus was challenging Peter, since he professed philia for Him, to truly live out that profession.

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