Casting Doubt: The Legacy of Tim Keller, Part 4

CASTING DOUBT ON THE AUTHORITY AND RELIABILITY OF GOD’S WORD

“But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?”
—Jesus, in Luke 6:46—

Why defend Genesis when so many people don’t even believe in Jesus?  Why not concentrate on defending the big issues, like the Gospel and the deity of Christ?  Considering all the problems we have in society, should we really be focused on apologetics, rather than trying to change our culture?  It takes time and effort to learn to defend biblical creation.  Wouldn’t that time be better spent defending the important Christian doctrines, and fighting abortion, “gay marriage,” racism, and other social ills?

Many Christians pose these questions.  The debate over origins seems like such a secondary and academic issue compared to the real-life problems we face every day.  But what if our failure to defend Genesis is linked to many of these social ills?  Is it possible that the problems of our culture stem from the fact that people have rejected the Bible, beginning in Genesis?  If so, then defending biblical creation may be the key to resolving these cultural issues.

—Dr. Jason Lisle—

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Key points: Though widely revered and respected in evangelical circles, Tim Keller cast doubt on the authority and reliability of God’s Word — so much so that this is part of his legacy. This is ironic, because Keller has a reputation as a pastor who upheld God’s Word. Even so, on numerous occasions and in a variety of ways, he did indeed undermine the reliability and authority of Scripture. This post explores two manifestation of this influence. First, Keller effectively cast doubt on Scripture by giving Christians permission to support candidates belonging to a political party that blatantly promotes evil and evil policies. Second, he cast doubt on the Bible by undermining the early chapters of Genesis, chapters that are foundational to the rest of Scripture.

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All of the articles in this series are accessible from this page.

We’ve been considering the legacy of Tim Keller, the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City who passed away on May 19. According to Wikipedia (citations and hyperlinks originally appearing in this quotation have been deleted but of course can be readily accessed online),

Redeemer Presbyterian Church grew from 50 people to a total attendance of over 5,000 people each Sunday as of 2008, leading some to call Keller “the most successful Christian evangelist in the city”. In 2004, Christianity Today praised Redeemer as “one of Manhattan’s most vital congregations”.

The church’s emphasis on young urban professionals, whom Keller believed exhibit disproportionate influence over the culture and its ideas, has given the church an unusual makeup for a US megachurch. The majority of the congregation is made up of single adults; it is also over forty percent Asian-American, and has many congregants working in the arts and financial services. In his preaching, “he hardly shrinks from difficult Christian truths, [but] he sounds different from many of the shrill evangelical voices in the public sphere.” Keller often critiqued both political parties and avoided taking public stances on political issues, resulting in a politically centrist church.

Although we dealt with Keller’s approach to American politics and political parties in part 3, his leftist leanings masquerading as apolitical positioning ( or “taking the ‘high road'” ) provide an example of yet another way he undermined basic Christian teachings and practice. The theme of this post is that he cast doubt on the authority and reliability of God’s Word. Not coincidentally, his statements on politics and political parties reveal one manifestation of this — but of course, not the only one. We’ll consider another manifestation in just a bit, but for now, let’s recognize his statements on Christians’ duties in the political arena as affronts to clear biblical teachings.

While the Bible doesn’t tell us specifically for whom we should vote, it does tell us the kind of people who make good leaders in government. While it doesn’t tell us the specific bills or proposals we should support, it does tell us the kind of laws that make nations great. Here are a few Scriptures that shed light on these subjects.

Christians have a duty to stand for righteousness in the public square in a variety of ways (including but not limited to being salt and light.) Moreover, voting is a sacred duty, one believers cannot afford to take lightly and one through which they — we — have more influence than we often realize. John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, declared,

Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.

What kind of Christians was John Jay saying Americans ought to “select and prefer”? In other words, what did Jay mean? Even though he did not frame his desire in these terms, I believe he was speaking of Christians who have a biblical worldview and who see the importance of advocating righteous ideals (or “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God“) in the civic arena, as appropriate and fitting. Like the “sons of Issachar” in 1 Chronicles 12:32, these Christians have “understanding of the times, to know what” the nation needs to do. While no candidate is perfect, the Christians of whom Jay spoke never would advocate

abortion on demand in the name of “women’s health care,”
same-sex marriage in the name of “equality,” or
legalization of sex-change surgery for anyone, let alone children.

Yet these are policies that Democrats support — and actively promote. In defiance of God’s Word and in the name of political neutrality, Timothy Keller effectively gave Christians “permission” to work to put the most wicked people in office! Mark it down! Political neutrality is not possible for the Christian, because there is no such thing as political neutrality. Remember that government’s primary task is to maintain order by commending those who do right and punishing those who do wrong — according to God’s law, not arbitrary standards.

As we stated in part 3, the overt and blatant promotion of evil by Democrats does not necessarily mean American Christians must support the Republican Party, but it must mean refusing to support the Democrat Party and its candidates, nearly all of whom vote lockstep either promoting evil or hindering good (go here, here, and here). We must understand this, as well: While Republicans certainly are far from perfect, to imply or to state that the two major political parties are morally equal is absolutely false.

For a better understanding of Keller’s perspective on politics, including his intellectual journey that brought him to his conclusions, go here and here.

Learn from History — And Heed the Lessons it Teaches

Christians today, as well as all Americans, need to learn from history. Having written a best-selling biography of Diedrich Bonhoeffer, Eric Metaxas is keenly familiar with the history and political climate of Germany in the 1930s. He sees clear parallels between Germany during that period and America today, and clear and alarming parallels between the church in Germany during that period and the church in America today.

Metaxas knows that, generally speaking, American hesitate to take righteous stands on the moral issues being debated in the political arena for fear of being accused of being “political” and for fear of alienating potential converts. Some of them — perhaps many — are taking this approach because of Tim Keller. Keller is wrong!

In his urgent Letter to the American Church, Eric Metaxas contends that Christians must consider evangelism in broad terms. In other words, they should be intensely concerned for the eternal souls of those who are directly affected by government policies promoting evil, not just about the eternal souls and initial responses of those who might be offended by a preacher who speaks about an issue deemed to be “political.” Obviously burdened by the mandate the church has to uphold righteousness and to be salt and light in society, Metaxas writes,

Our responsibilities as Christians go beyond mere “evangelism.” We pretend we would have spoken out for the Jews in Bonhoeffer’s day, or that we would have spoken against the slave trade in Wilberforce’s day, but are we speaking out today on the issues that are no less important to God in our time? If not, we are deceiving ourselves. But God is not deceived.

On what issues are we ourselves being silent, and for what reasons? The unborn are being murdered and their body parts sold for profit. Are we not to mention this for fear of driving someone away from God? Or do we ourselves not quite believe or wish to believe it?

Very young children in schools are being fed pernicious ideas on the subject of sexuality—ideas with which their young minds are quite unable to cope, and to which their own parents object.

Older children are being so confused by sexual activists that they agree to have their bodies mutilated, so that they can never become the men and women God created them to be.

Socialistic and communistic ideas are being pushed everywhere. These will end up harming the poor more than anyone, although those pushing these ideas boldly spread the lie that any who oppose these wicked ideas secretly hate the poor.

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Socialistic and communistic ideas…will end up harming the poor more than anyone, although those pushing these ideas boldly spread the lie that any who oppose these wicked ideas secretly hate the poor.

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Are we really to keep silent about all of these things? Is it not possible that those whom we wish to evangelize are looking to us in the Church—who claim to have no fear but of God—to speak boldly on these things and fight for the truth as we see it while there is yet time? Is this not perhaps the very thing that will lead these souls to the God we worship, if we obviously so love Him that we are willing to live in this way?…

We are obliged to wonder: Where are all of the leading American pastors today on the issues of sexuality and transgender madness? Are they afraid to speak? Do they not know that God has appointed them to speak on these issues fearlessly—as though He really has defeated death on the Cross and has freed them to do His will and share His love, come what may?

The first pages of Genesis declare that God created us male and female in His image. Can anything be simpler? Not to aver this at a time when it is being madly challenged—to the detriment of millions of souls—is to be silent in the face of evil, and therefore to partake in evil. Everyone in the world knows that a rooster cannot lay an egg and that a man cannot have a womb—and cannot menstruate or give birth or lactate or be a mother. But who will say it? Who will help lead the way through the carnage of this ideological warfare? Who will hold up the battle standard—which is Jesus Himself—so that others can see and follow?

Young women dedicate their whole beings to athletic excellence, only to be roughly shoved aside in what ought to be their long-awaited moment of triumph by a man who, to the applause of a hopelessly confused and broken culture, claims suddenly to be a woman. A young man is confused about his sexuality, but he only hears one message: that he must seize and celebrate his same-sex attractions as a gift from God. Is your pastor talking about these things? Are you?¹

In America Today, Strictly Speaking, the Phrase Politically Centrist Church is a Contradiction in Terms

The point here is that a “politically centrist church” in America in our day is a church failing to take a stand for righteousness. Every church and every pastor who is serious about presenting “the whole counsel of God” must be willing to uphold God’s truth in every sphere where it is being attacked. This is true of pastors of all churches claiming to uphold God’s truth, whether those churches are

• • predominantly white,
  • predominantly black or some other minority, or
  • ethnically diverse congregations.

Martin Luther is credited with saying,

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.

Sadly, Timothy Keller, though revered by many evangelicals, flinched on many front-line issues being fought over on spiritual battlefields today. In so doing, he undermined biblical authority, whether he intended to or not.

Yes, Keller called homosexuality a sin but (as we will see in a subsequent post) minimized its seriousness. He called abortion “a sin and a great evil,” but only a few words later minimized it by saying, “but it doesn’t tell me the best way to decrease or end abortion in this country, nor which policies are most effective.” Can you imagine making a similar argument “against” slavery just prior to and during the Civil War?

The Bible…doesn’t tell me the best way to decrease or end slavery in this country, nor which policies are most effective [so as a Christian, I have a great many options for addressing it].

Folks, this is far less complicated than Keller implied or even stated. “Great evils,” including abortion, must be condemned and outlawed. If you are tempted to think the country’s too far gone already, I encourage you to allow William Wilberforce’s tenacity in his battle against slavery in England to encourage you. Wilberforce never gave up — and just days before he died, slavery was brought to an end in Great Britain.

Muddying the Water on the Authority of Genesis

Sadly, Tim Keller undermined Scripture in other ways, too. Be sure to listen to the audio clip that Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis showcases in the following tweet. In just a bit, you’ll be able to hear a slightly longer recording where Keller restates what he says here.

This is an audio clip of Tim Keller pic.twitter.com/0TsDSUgOtE

— Ken Ham (@aigkenham) March 11, 2023

What? How can Tim Keller say he doesn’t believe in a worldwide flood when Jesus affirmed the flood account in Genesis? Here’s what He said in Matthew 24 (emphasis added):

³⁶ “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.³⁷ But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. ³⁸ For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, ³⁹ and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

Read carefully the account of the flood in Genesis 7:17-24, in the New International Version (NIV). Ask yourself if this account leaves any room for an honest reader to believe it is describing a local flood.

The Rainbow: Evidence of God’s Covenant with Noah and “All Flesh”

In the New King James Version,

• • the phrase “all flesh” in Genesis 9:8-17 appears no less than five times; and each time, the two-word English phrase ( “all flesh” ) represents two specific words that also appear in the Hebrew text. Moreover,
  • in two of these five instances, the phrase “all flesh” is a part of a larger phrase: “every living creature of all flesh” (vv. 15 and 16).
  • Finally, note the word translated destroy in “a flood to destroy the earth” in verse 11 and “a flood to destroy all flesh” in verse 15. 

Let’s look at the above elements in the context of the verses that carry them.

In verse 11 God says,

Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.

Here are 14-17 (God is still speaking; emphases added):

¹⁴ It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; ¹⁵ and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. ¹⁶ The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”¹⁷ And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

Perhaps Keller would say Jesus’ words and the Genesis account do not require a worldwide flood — but that’s a stretch! It is difficult to imagine how the above descriptions could fit a mere local flood. Furthermore, if the flood of Noah were only a local flood, then God’s promise that he would not send another flood to destroy all flesh makes no sense.

Not Just the Genesis Account of the Flood, but also Genesis 1 and 2

There’s more!

Theologian Tim Keller believes Genesis 1 & Genesis 2 contradict each other. He claims the order in regard to plants is different. He believes Genesis 1 is a song but Genesis 2 is historical narrative. He also rejects a global Flood & believes in an old (billions of years)…

— Ken Ham (@aigkenham) March 11, 2023

Here is the text of Ken Ham’s presentation against Keller’s contention that “Genesis 1 & and Genesis 2 contradict each other”:

Theologian Tim Keller believes Genesis 1 & Genesis 2 contradict each other. He claims the order in regard to plants is different. He believes Genesis 1 is a song but Genesis 2 is historical narrative. He also rejects a global Flood & believes in an old (billions of years) universe & earth. He compromises God’s Word in Genesis.

Many in the church have this false belief that Genesis 1 & 2 are two different contradictory accounts of creation. Let me first quote from Jesus when asked about marriage from Matthew:

“He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female ,and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” (Matthew 19:4–5).

Note that Jesus quotes the text of Genesis 1:27 (male & female) & then the text of Genesis 2:24. In other words, when Jesus is teaching about one man & one woman in marriage, he quotes from the historical record in Genesis 1 & 2. Jesus obviously didn’t view them as contradictory but complementary.

And that’s exactly what Genesis 1 & 2 are, complementary accounts. Stand back & look at both accounts: Genesis 1 is a summary of God’s account of creation in chronological order, 1,2,3,4,5,6 & 7. Genesis two is actually an account focusing in on the sixth day of creation, specifically giving details of the creation of the first man & woman & the instruction God gave to them. This then gives the foundation for understanding Genesis 3 which focuses on the Fall of man.

But what about those who claim the order of creation of plants & animals is different in Genesis 2 compared to Genesis 1?

At first glance this does seem to be a contradiction because Genesis 1 has the animals & trees created prior to the creation of man; however, both issues can be resolved by an understanding of the original language & the translation process. The Hebrew word for formed in both passages is yatsar [יָצַר]. Some translations translate the verb in its perfect form.

However, this Hebrew word may also be translated in its pluperfect form. In this case, it would read that God “had formed” these creatures, as some other translations have it (ESV etc.). And, as Genesis 1 gives the account in chronological order, it makes sense that the translation of “formed” in chapter two be translated in its pluperfect form (past tense).

Thus, as we read in the ESV, “Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.” (Genesis 2:19). So “had formed” fits perfectly with the chronological order of events in Genesis 1.

Now how do we understand the plants mentioned in Genesis 2:5-6. At first, this section can seem confusing. But we need to understand it in the whole context of this second chapter. After this section, we read details about the creation of the first man, Adam, the planting of a garden and Adam’s role to look after it, the command & warning given to Adam, the naming of the animals, & the creation of the first woman, & thus the first marriage. This means the first section of the chapter must be focused on finishing the previous section & then leading us up to the details of the creation of man and the roles and instructions God gave him.

God had created plants on day three (Genesis 1). Now God didn’t just plant seeds so the plants could grow. The plants were obviously mature & fruit trees had fruit on them as God had told man to eat fruit on the sixth day. But until man was created, no human tilled the ground to grow plants for food. And God had a different watering system in place until the hydrological cycle we see today was fully functioning.

So there’s no contradiction at all with the creation of plants on day three in Genesis 1. People need to stop undermining the authority of God’s Word as Tim Keller & other pastors do.

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People need to stop undermining the authority of God’s Word as Tim Keller & other pastors do.
—Ken Ham—

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The photos of Kirk Cameron and Ken Ham showcased above and the following audio clip are from this TBN short video.

The Damage

John Mackay and Diane Eager of Creation Research have noted,

Tim Keller was asked: If biological evolution is true and there was no historical Adam and Eve, how can we know where sin and suffering came from?

His brief answer was: Belief in evolution can be compatible with a belief in a historical fall and a literal Adam and Eve. There are many unanswered questions around this issue.…

Anyone reading Genesis 1 and 2 will straight away see that it is not compatible with the evolutionary story of how human beings arrived on the planet, and what a ‘non-good’ state the world was in if evolution was true.

It actually was the sin of mankind — the actions taken by the first man and woman in defiance of God’s command that messed up the world and that brought it into a state of not being good! MacKay and Eager continue,

Keller claims he believes in a historical Fall of Man but does not go into details concerning  Genesis 3 or the chapters that follow, so let us  provide them.  After judging the serpent and promising a Saviour who would defeat the serpent, God sentenced Adam and Eve to death and cursed the ground.  From then on the living world degenerated into violence, disease and general degradation – all things that are not good.  If death, disease and struggle had already been in the world, these would not be punishments.  Again, there is a clear incompatibility between Genesis and evolution.

Thus, even as he says he upholds Scripture as true, he leaves the door open for an incompatible ideology to be united with it, or forced into it.

What is the effect of Keller’s contention that the Bible is authoritative but that it can be interpreted to fit a the scenario that evolution demands, including millions of years?

Keep in mind that evolution is, by definition, a random process. It makes no sense to believe that chaotic, unguided forces that by definition couldn’t have included God actually gave rise to life and order in the cosmos, in nature, and in the world. Neither does it make any sense to believe that God guided a random and chaotic process. If it was random and chaotic, it wasn’t guided! Stand to Reason’s Greg Koukl writes,

I don’t think evolution works at all. I don’t think Charles Darwin’s theories are sound, so I’m not in the least bit tempted to baptize them with some form of theistic evolution.

By definition, evolution offered an explanation for how things got to be the way they are without God (I’m referring to what’s known as the “general theory of evolution”). This is why it made such a splash. Do you think that if God could be worked into the evolutionary picture, then evolution would have taken off the way it did? Of course not.…

When people try to fit God into the process of evolution, that’s when evolutionists like [atheist Stephen J. Gould] stand up and say, “Wait a minute, you don’t understand evolution if that’s what you think actually took place. Evolution is by chance, not design, and you can’t have design by chance.”

On the other hand, creation, by definition, is a purposeful process initiated by a personal God. Reiterating: If God initiated and superintended the process, it was then purposeful and not random. It couldn’t have random. Consider the following clip from a Conversations That Matter podcast. Jon Harris emphasizes that Keller’s approach

• • undermines Scripture and
  • gives Christians permission to believe in an atheistic theory of origins, even though, and even while, they also believe in God.

The clip, which is just two minutes long, begins with a statement from Keller in which he proudly declares his disbelief in a young earth and a worldwide flood.

Note that Jon unmasked a motive for Keller to leave open the possibility of evolution in the biblical narrative:

The issue, as I’ve said before, is that, instead of starting off with What is true? What does the Bible teach? How do we communicate it? He’s starting off with a different question. How do we get around this objection that worldly people have in New York City to Christianity? And that’s the barrier of denying Darwinian evolution and believing in some kind of a modern creation science.…

It doesn’t actually answer any questions. It’s a man-centered approach. It’s just trying to make things palatable, take down barriers, or objections that people might have that are legitimate questions that honestly should be answered, and smart people should be asking those questions.

The bottom line is that Tim Keller’s legacy is one of undermining Scripture. We’ll see this as well in our next post — part 5 in this series — when we consider Keller’s take on homosexuality.

Be sure to return!

 

Copyright © 2023 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.

This article is available for publication and distribution by Exposing enemies within the church, LLC.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture has been taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Scripture quotation designated NIV is from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Note:

¹Eric Metaxas, Letter to the American Church (Washington, DC: Salem Books, 2022), 84,91.

 

top image credit: You Tube / Talks at Google