Battle of the Burge Continues
A reader was kind enough this week to alert me to the fact that Dr. Gary Burge is no longer at Wheaton, as I have been writing. In fact, more than a year ago, he moved to Calvin Seminary.
So let’s talk about that.
Before leaving Wheaton, Burge was interviewed by a student reporter from The Wheaton Record. Among the answers he gave:
“For 25 years, two things have been important to me. The first is, I have been an advocate from the very beginning of affirming women in leadership and in ministry. And so I have spoken many times at the Christian Feminist Club in order to give guidance to students who are wondering how to read the Scriptures and still affirm women in leadership.
“The second thing that I hope is part of that story is I have had an extensive number of experiences in the Arabic speaking church. And the Palestinian community has been prominent among those experiences. And I have wanted to let students know that there are two stories in this conflict between Palestine and Israel. Evangelicals tend to gravitate toward the Israeli side of that story. Here at Wheaton, that’s historically how we’ve seen it. And so, I have tried to represent the Palestinian side of that story, which in some cases has felt awkward in our community.”
Besides his advocacy for the Palestinian/PLO narrative, Burge is also a left wing activist for other causes:
“My most cherished memory is when I participated in one of Wheaton’s best moments. In 2006, a bus of LGBT Christian students was travelling across the U.S. advocating for their views of theology and inclusion. They were sorely mistreated at Christian colleges from California to Illinois, but we decided bravely as a college that we weren’t going to participate in that mistreatment. When they arrived in 2006, we welcomed them on campus, we fed them generously, we had an entire chapel gathering in Coray gym in which we confessed initially how we in the church we have hurt this community, and then we listened to their stories and we invited them into our classes. We had an enormous public gathering in King Arena, and we had a real dialogue. We were respectful and civil in our disagreements and I think what we did was model the college Wheaton really wants to be. And we shocked the folks that came to campus.”
Five years ago, I wrote about an email exchange I had with Burge, in which I asked him to comment on a withering report from Malcolm Lowe at the Gatestone Institute.
Malcolm tore apart Burge’s theological claims regarding the Jews and the Old Testament (Burge has referred to the Old Testament as “Jewish theology.” Not Scripture or the Word of God, but “Jewish theology”).
So I emailed Burge and asked if he wanted to comment; I’d sent him the link to Malcolm’s article.
He responded first with some flattery, telling me I’m a good writer. He then totally ignored my question and redirected to an unrelated story that he suggested I report on.
Wow.
This is what the Left does. Obfuscate.
I then emailed again:
“That’s all very interesting, but is irrelevant to what I asked. I asked you to comment specifically on the essay by Lowe. Are you able to do that?”
He never did answer it.
Do you see what’s going on here? This is a hallmark of the Left: when confronted with factual information, they redirect, ignore, etc.
What that tells us is that more than generally, their assertions and worldviews are simply false.
And they know it.
Did you hear that? They know it.
Gary Burge is a PLO-style propagandist. By not answering Malcolm Lowe’s critique, Burge exposes himself as an “evangelical” professor who can’t back up his claims.
It is astonishing, and a big deal.
This is, in a much larger sense, what is going on with change agents sent to infiltrate the Evangelical community. I would suggest you follow people like Jonathan Merritt on social media and notice how they are aggressively pushing left wing agendas…to evangelicals.
Burge does the same thing with regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict. As I’ve said many times, many evangelical “leaders” simply do not like Jews. That’s the bottom line.
The most arrogant individual you’ll ever meet is one of these leaders. Their smug assessment of all things Jewish is odious.
I now wonder if there was some pushback at Wheaton for Burge. I had assumed that the faculty and administration (and students, for sure) were of the same mind. Perhaps he felt more freedom with the opportunity at Calvin Seminary (after all, Calvinists are not pro Israel).
Poor Calvin Seminary students.