Edward Feser writes in Christian philosophers revile Christian philosopher for advocating Christianity Is your head spinning yet? Sep 28, 2016:
Richard Swinburne, emeritus professor of philosophy at Oxford University, author of many highly influential books, and among the most eminent of contemporary Christian thinkers, recently gave the keynote address at a meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers (SCP). In his talk, which was on the theme of sexual morality, he defended the view that homosexual acts are disordered – a view that has historically been commonly held within Christianity and the other major world religions, has been defended by philosophers like Plato, Aquinas, and Kant, and is defended to this day by various natural law theorists. …
Yet for some reason, Michael Rea, president of the SCP, posted the following statement on his Facebook page over the weekend:I want to express my regret regarding the hurt caused by the recent Midwest meeting of the Society for Christian Philosophers. The views expressed in Professor Swinburne’s keynote are not those of the SCP itself. Though our membership is broadly united by way of religious faith, the views of our members are otherwise diverse. As President of the SCP, I am committed to promoting the intellectual life of our philosophical community. Consequently (among other reasons), I am committed to the values of diversity and inclusion. As an organization, we have fallen short of those ideals before, and surely we will again. Nonetheless, I will strive for them going forward. If you have thoughts or feedback you would like to share with me, I would welcome hearing from you via email or private message.
Now Professor Rea is condemning Christianity in the leftwing magazine, Salon, in
How the evangelical movement became Trump’s “bitch” — and yes, I know what that word signifiesAs an evangelical myself, I can see how far the movement has sunk — even to betraying its own ideal of masculinity, September 9, 2020. He now gives his true feelings about Professor Swinburne and about sodomy, which he concealed before.
There was an incident that fall in which a presenter at one of our conferences made some inflammatory remarks about members of the LGBTQ community. The remarks went beyond the sorts of moral objections that familiarly arise out of traditional Christian sexual morality, and seemed to arise out of sheer bigotry. They made their way onto social media and drew predictable (and justified) condemnation. As president, I felt compelled to respond.
The big point of Rea’s Saleon essay, though, is that American Christianity is the passive partner in sodomy with President Trump as the active. He’s trying to be inflammatory, but he’s such a beta male that it doesn’t really come across as offensively as he wants, one you get beyond the title. He argues that evangelicals pander to Trump because they worship power:
Forsaking the steadfast commitment to Jesus and the principles that treat love for neighbor, concern for the oppressed and the obliteration of artificial hierarchies among human beings, evangelicalism has turned submissively to the desire for a strongman to preserve them in a place of privilege and power and to provide them with public recognition as partners in the deal-making that shapes the policies of our nation.
This is pure projection. Sam Rea pretends he is not a liberal, and that he is a Christian, but his wife is a pastor and he teaches feminist philsosopy and things anybody who says sodomy is a sin is a bigot, to name three things he admits to himself in this essay. Who, then, has adopted a subservient posture to Power? Who worships the World? Who has chosen Privilege and Power, and public recognition? Rea’s Christianity has no sin or redemption: it is about “love for neighbor, concern for the oppressed and the obliteration of artificial hierarchies among human beings,” where we know these are code words for not caring whether one’s neighbor is going to hell, concern for the groups liberals privilege, and destruction of the authority of Church and family God has created.
I should perhaps add the Taylor University administrators here, and the Wheaton ones, and some excerpts from Unigenitus, the 1713 bull that condemned Jansenism, and, in particular, the doctrine that sometimes it is church leaders who lead the persecution against Christians.