View this email in your browser

It's Saturday, November 18, 2023.

Today’s edition covers Rosaria Butterfield’s rousing address during Liberty University’s recent convocation, revelations about the Christian organization Cru, revelations about Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and much more.

“Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight” (Proverbs 4:7). Here’s hoping you get some here.

Of Christian Concern

ROSARIA BUTTERFIELD CALLS OUT CHRISTIAN ORGANIZATIONS FOR LGBTQ LIES

Screenshot Rosaria Butterfield’s address during the livestream of the Liberty University Convocation (Youtube / Liberty University)

Rosaria Butterfield spoke at the Liberty University Convocation last Friday in an address where she shared the story of her path from lesbianism to Christ, and called out Christian ministries by name that promote falsehoods about sex and gender. These lies, the Christian writer and former tenured English professor says, “discourage repentance of sin and encourage the pride of victimhood.” Here are some highlights from the talk.

Her Testimony

She speaks of how she wrestled, as an unbeliever in a lesbian relationship who had begun studying the Bible and meeting regularly with Christian friends, with the exhaustive authority that God’s Word claimed over her life. “You see,” she says, “the cross is ruthless. You know it’s an instrument of execution. It makes no ally with the sin it crushes in the death and resurrection of our Lord.”

After a long period of inner conflict, on “one ordinary day,” she “came to Jesus.” She was singing Psalm 119 in church, and was struck with conviction by the line “this has become mine.” The Word of God, she recognized, was not hers. Rather, she had despised it and as a professor had taught thousands of others to do the same, and so in saying those words she brought condemnation on herself. But she had by this point read the Bible many times, and knew its message was persuasive.

In that moment, she realized that wrestling with Scripture and with sin was part of God’s design for communicating with His people, and she too wanted to hear Him and be heard by Him. She embraced “the whole Bible, each jot and tittle” as her “open highway to a holy God.”

She recounts a number of lessons she learned as she found community with Christians, including that “You cannot bypass repentance and get to grace. The way to grace is through your repentance.” That repentance must then be followed by “cultivat[ing] what God loves. And when it comes to the creation of men and women, what does God love? He loves biblical marriage.” Not long after she was saved, she met and married her husband, Pastor Kent Butterfield.

Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age

After recounting her testimony, she underscores “five lies of our anti-Christian age [that] have coiled their way from the world to the church”—lies that she herself used to believe:

1. “Homosexuality is normal.”

2. “Pagan spirituality is kind and inclusive.”

3. “Feminism is good for the church and the world.”

4. “Transgenderism is normal.”

5. “Modesty for women is outdated and dangerous.”

“These lies,” she says, “which have entered the church and the Christian college, have one thing in common: they discourage repentance of sin, and they encourage the pride of victimhood. And these lies have a subtle appearance, because Satan is a liar who specializes in the persuasive lie of the half-truth.” As examples, she lists these common claims:

1. “Same-sex attraction is a sinless tempatation, and only a sin if you act on it.”

2. “People who experience same-sex attraction are actually gay Christians called to lifelong celibacy.”

3. “People who experience same-sex attraction rarely if ever change, and therefore should never pursue heterosexual marriage.”

4. “Sex and gender are different, and God doesn’t care whether men live as men and women live as women because all you need to do is grow in the fruit of the Spirit (as though the fruit of the Holy Spirit can grow from sin).”

“I have heard all of these lies,” she says, “and just in the last year from Christian ministries. And this is where I name names—and I’m an English professor, so I call this citing my sources.”

The ministries she names: ReVoice, Preston Sprinkle’s Exiles In Babylon Conference “sponsored by his heretical Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender,” and—perhaps most controversially—Cru (see the Also Noteworthy section below for more on this).

She reemphasizes that she also believed those lies, even as a Christian, and that she has “repented publicly, as a Christian, in my book, to you, in articles—and these people can do the same. We don’t throw people away. But without repentance, we don’t trust them.”

Also Noteworthy

→ A leaked internal document from the popular parachurch organization Cru—one of the ministries Rosaria Butterfield mentioned in her address—reveals a liberal approach to issues of sexuality and gender, reports Christian podcaster and author John Harris.

→ Southern Baptists in Kentucky and North Carolina adopted resolutions in favor of abolishing abortion during recent state convention meetings.

→ Apologia Studios released an exposé yesterday claiming Republican congressman Mike Johnson, whose recent ascension to the role of House Speaker was celebrated by many Christians, actively prevented abortion from being abolished in Louisiana in 2022, for expressly political reasons.

→ Indi Gregory, the 8-month-old with a rare condition who UK judges blocked from going to Italy for treatment, died on November 13.

→ The Kendrick Brothers, creators of Christian films like Facing the Giants, Fireproof, and War Room, announced a new upcoming film called The Forge.

→ Peter Singer, a well-known moral philosopher, posted a “thought-provoking” article challenging society’s taboo against bestiality. The post was heavily ratioed—meaning it received more comments than likes, which usually indicates significant public disagreement with the post.

The Bible, Briefly

Which Sins Are Worse?

Adam and Eve Driven Out of Eden, Gustave Doré, 1865 (Public Domain)

Last week we saw that not all sins are equal—some are “greater” than others (John 19:11). But which sins are greater? Here are a few thoughts.

First, as mentioned, the law of Moses has different penalties. Theologians John McClintock and James Strong observe, “The particular penalties among the Israelites consisted in death, stripes, imprisonment, and in the payment of sums of money...” We can reasonably deduce that the offenses with more severe punishments are worse. A systematization of these crimes and their penalties could theoretically reveal a certain hierarchy of those particular sins.

But there’s more to the picture. For example, it’s clear that when Jesus says things like, “it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you” (Matthew 11:24), the reason is that “if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day” (Matthew 11:23). In other words, the reason for the greater penalty is less about the particular sins committed and more about the level of accountability a person or a group has based on the revelation they have received. There is greater accountability for greater knowledge. 

Jesus says this explicitly in Luke 12:47-48: the servant who knew his master’s will but failed to act will receive a severe beating, whereas the servant who failed to act but didn’t know better will receive a light beating. So, in a manner of speaking, the same sin may more sinful for one person than for another.

Also, it’s notable that in the New Testament’s various lists of sins (called “vice lists” by scholars), evils that presumably have different punishments are lumped together. Example: “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness” (Mark 7:21-22). Even theft and murder do not carry the same severity of punishment in the law of Moses, yet here Jesus lists them together without distinction. It’s not that they have no distinction, but that despite their distinctions they are both “evil things” that “defile a person” (Mark 7:23).

That relates to another clear biblical teaching: in the final judgment, every sin, no matter what it is, is deserving of death (e.g., “those who do such things deserve death” [Romans 1:32], “the wages of sin is death” [Romans 3:23]). Death, in its ultimate sense, is separation from peace with God and access to Him, which, for those who do not receive Christ, is experienced fully and finally in the lake of fire—“the second death” (Revelation 21:8). This means that although not all sins are equally punishable, all sins are equally damnable. One sin gets a person to hell just as easily as any another.

The bottom line is that God hasn’t disclosed all of the details about which sins are worse or about the penalties for each offense. We’re not supposed to calculate which sins we can commit to get away with the least punishment. Rather, we’re supposed to trust in Christ as the One who “suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18), and to “strive for…the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).

Church History Tidbit

The Origin of Just War Theory

14th-century miniature of the Second Crusade battle from the Estoire d'Eracles (Public Domain)

The Middle Ages (c. 500-1500) saw a lot of war, not the least of which were initiated by Christians for religious reasons. So, that presents a moral question: can war be just? 

Historically, Christians have answered yes, under certain conditions. The beginning of this thinking, called just war theory, is traced back to St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430). Augustine’s view on what makes a war just is often summarized in three points:

1. just cause

2. legitimate authority, and

3. right intention.

In his Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, Augustine writes: “The real evils in war are love of violence, revengeful cruelty, fierce and implacable enmity, wild resistance, and the lust of power, and such like; and it is generally to punish these things, when force is required to inflict the punishment, that, in obedience to God or some lawful authorities, good men undertake wars, when they find themselves in such a position as regards the conduct of human affairs, that right conduct requires them to act, or to make others act, in this way.”

By this commentary, Augustine establishes the idea that for a war to be morally acceptable it must oppose evils that cannot be opposed except by force, and it must be initiated by God or a lawful authority. He goes on:

“A great deal depends on the causes for which men undertake wars, and on the authority they have for doing so; for the natural order which seeks the peace of mankind, ordains that the monarch should have the power of undertaking war if he thinks it advisable, and that the soldiers should perform their military duties in behalf of the peace and safety of the community.  When war is undertaken in obedience to God, who would rebuke, or humble, or crush the pride of man, it must be allowed to be righteous war . . .”

Here again he emphasizes the need for proper cause and authority for a war to be legitimate. These concepts were expounded upon by later theologians, most notably Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)—but by Aquinas’ time, many wars had already been waged that were ostensibly justified according to these principles. Most notably, the first several Crusades. More on the Crusades next week.

What did you think of today’s briefing?

Know someone who would enjoy this?Please SHARE this newsletter

Have some feedback for me? Reply to this email with comments or suggestions. I’d love to hear from you!

Why "18:15"? The name Project 18:15 is based on Proverbs 18:15: “An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.” The aim is for this weekly email—a Christian news briefing, a Bible study, and a Church history lesson rolled into one—to be one way you keep abreast of current events and acquire knowledge you might not acquire elsewhere.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Copyright (C) " target="_blank">unsubscribe