tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-93877072024-03-14T02:15:39.815-05:00Two-Edged SwordThis is my personal blog. The main topic shall be theology, but since theology informs every area of life, one can expect a wide range of topics. I hope that all who visit find something they like. I welcome comment and discussion.Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.comBlogger623125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-69900098572031828882019-03-29T14:16:00.001-05:002019-03-29T14:16:25.458-05:00It is time to admit Seminaries are what they are . . . businesses.<br />
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Over at Gentle Reformation, <a href="https://gentlereformation.com/2019/03/25/responding-to-carl-truemans-follow-the-money-lecture/">President York of RPTS Seminaryresponds</a> to Carl Trueman’s lecture about “<a href="https://wscal.edu/resource-center/follow-the-money">Follow the Money</a>” given at a
convocation at Westminster Seminary California.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Trueman lists some problems, but he states them as descriptions as
well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ultimately, Trueman is trying to
argue for a greater Catholicity among the Reformed Seminaries, and I think this
is where both York and Trueman fail to completely understand the basic nature
of the seminary as a business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trueman
openly admits that it is a business, but also says it is a “spiritual
organization”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He offers no proof for
that nor does he state how the two interact other than occasionally saying that
the business part militates against the spiritual part.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
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York doesn’t outright deny the business nature of the
seminary, but does seem to think seminaries can operate against the unwritten
rules of business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He argues that
non-hostile competition is healthy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>York’s
point is that one can learn from the other seminaries good points and
benefit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But is business competition
ever really “non-hostile”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
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The answer is no.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There is a small pool of reformed students, and they are going to choose
one seminary above another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The minor
difference marketing that Dr. Trueman opposes or feels unfortunate (and York
agrees) is simply a fact of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
must happen or the seminary will not thrive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Trueman’s main application to read more broadly including journals from
other seminaries is really not an answer to the problem, but a symptom of
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seminaries have journals IN ORDER TO
promote the minor difference, to communicate the ethos of the seminary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the seminary’s version of “publish or
die” from the secular academic word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
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York’s response to this with a call to build collegiality
among seminaries and promoting the strengths of other seminaries is
pie-in-the-sky fantasy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all if you
have a pool of 10 students and you tell them all how great the other seminary
is, then you should expect to lose all 10 students.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trueman may be right that businesses don’t ‘rubbish’
the competition, but they don’t talk up the competition either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can anyone imagine Wendy’s talking about how
great Burger King’s fries are?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bud Light
doesn’t talk about how Miller Light makes beer with corn syrup so that lovers
of corn can see where to go to get a different beer, but to take away Miller
Light’s buyers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There can be no real
collegiality between those in competition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And competition is healthy, but not really non-hostile since the stakes
are always going out of business and fading away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
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The complaints about seminary are good to hear from someone
like Dr. Trueman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The call to follow the
confessions rather than the teaching of the seminaries is laudable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, as Trueman admits seminaries shape the
student much more than denominations do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And there in is the problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
denomination is the church, but has little influence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The seminary is a business, and ends up
shaping the future of the church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, it
was disappointing that Trueman, as a historian, stopped so short and fail to
take that next obvious step.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is time
to end seminaries.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The church after all existed and thrived for centuries prior
to seminaries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pastors trained future
pastors, and denominations examined them, sometimes sent them to other pastors,
and the church carried on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this way,
the need to meet the payroll is removed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The business aspect is gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
denomination is back in control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why do
we bother merge business with a spiritual mission?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why is the church handing off training to
businesses?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
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The Parsonage Model answers all the problems Dr. Trueman
raises.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It avoids the inbreeding
thinking that has helped create divisions from insiders (he mentions Enns and Shepherd).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It protects the local church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It places the Confessions back in the center
and minimizes the minor difference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
forces prospective pastors to serve in the local church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It avoids the problem of debt and of mission
creep into the realm of church (York sees this as a positive, but I agree with
Trueman it is a negative).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is in the
business of the kingdom of Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All
of the problems go away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
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It is time to see seminaries for what they are . . . businesses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it is time to stop using businesses to
train pastors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-7081179025759820632018-03-12T11:37:00.001-05:002018-03-12T11:37:28.555-05:00Civility is Not Coming Back<div class="MsoNormal">
We live in a day of uncivil discourse. Hate and contempt along with blame and name
calling are the norm. You will find
people calling for <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/civility-isnt-surrender/">civility in discussion and discourse</a>. Those people are relics of the past who no
longer understand the world we live in.
Yes, civility is dead. And it is
never coming back.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Allow me to explain.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the past, civility was part of the expectation of
participation in the public discourse.
When a person lost civility, even if the point he was making was good
and valid, he was rebuked for being uncivil and speaking wrongly. Even Machiavelli was against threats and
insulting language, even if it was for self-serving reasons. Somewhere that changed. And it changed because the humanity of the
opponent was taken away. The opponent is
sub-human somehow (<a href="http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/11/15675/">usually through a position they hold or believe</a>), and that
status makes his worthy of scorn and contempt, and soon much, much more. The opponent now is a target worthy of hate.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Please understand, all is acceptable if the target is worthy
of hate. After all, do you really have
to be nice to the devil? Shouldn’t you
kill Hitler if you went back in time? So
now, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nazi-punch-antifa_us_59e13ae9e4b03a7be580ce6f">you can punch a person unprovoked in the face</a>, if the guy is a Nazi. You can say horrible things to people, if
that person is horrible to begin with. This
is how actions are now justified, not on the basis of the action in comparison
to an objective standard, but on the basis of the recipient of the action. This extends beyond simple words, but <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/17527/left-wing-twitter-erupts-vile-reactions-scalise-amanda-prestigiacomo#">even to shootings</a>. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The result is a vicious cycle. In order to make sure one’s actions continue
to be justified, part of the goal then is to continue to demonize the
target. Because if the target becomes
accepted by the masses or somehow is humanized, then all of your actions that
were previously justified are now all unacceptable. This could in turn make you viewed as a
target worthy of hate, and thus all someone else’s actions against you would
now be justified. So, there is never
room to stop and talk as equals or what used to be called “being civil”. Such an idea would tend toward making actions
against that person unjustified and could create a situation that endangered me
if the tide of opinion turned against me.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Don’t think I am just talking about politics. This is everywhere in <a href="https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/968897701046824961">life</a>. Everywhere.
There is a minor scandal in the Comic Book Industry about how people handle those who do not like
their stories. One creator tried to
start a hashtag #comicsceasefire and <a href="https://twitter.com/Sean_G_Murphy/status/967881583150723072">got massive backlash</a>. A liberal MSNBC and Vanity Fair editor spoke
up when a comic creator wished a critic had died in Afghanistan, and <a href="https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/status/967103376054996992">was amazedat the level of hate he received for speaking up</a>. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Do I need to even remind anyone about sports now? But even just stating an opinion like Hall of
Famer Chipper Jones did the other day immediately is treated as worthy of hate
and past sinful actions of Mr. Jones are brought up in order <a href="https://twitter.com/Barry___C/status/968350866381197313">to show he is anobject worthy of hate</a>. What adultery has
to do with gun control is anyone’s guess, but it does make one feel better
about dismissing and treating him poorly.<o:p></o:p></div>
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If you want to see more examples of making a person morally
worthy of abuse and then giving that abuse both <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy">Gamergate</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sad_Puppies">Sad Puppiescampaign against the Hugo Awards</a> (science fiction awards) are fine
examples. Or go to Twitter and see the
daily fights that often reward people with more followers for being completely
uncivil and dehumanizing to one another.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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It should go without say why Christians cannot follow or participate
in this trend. We can never “dehumanize”
someone made in the image of God. But we
ought to no longer expect that same respect in return. <o:p></o:p></div>
Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-5022844804715029052018-01-09T17:28:00.000-06:002018-01-09T17:28:20.871-06:00Missing Churches in Low Income neighborhoods - Why?<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/low-income-communities-churches/549677/">This Atlantic article</a> on churches in poor neighborhoods is
an interesting read if you look past the find one emotional example that the
author thinks proves his point that characterizes a lot of writing in the
Atlantic. The main point is that half of
new church plants opened in wealthier areas and church attendance is on the decline
among the poor. And perhaps that is
because it takes a lot of money to run a church and a church in a poor
neighborhood might have more financial needs to help out the needy. But has he really found the reason, finances
that churches are down in low income neighborhoods? Did he miss a very plausible explanation?<o:p></o:p></div>
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I think he did. I
will grant that low income neighborhoods might be less likely to receive church
plants than in the past. The rise in
non-denominational churches probably effects this as they have no connections
to help fund them from afar that a denomination would provide. But I still think he has the causes
reversed. Churches are not being planted
in low income neighborhoods because church attendance is down in low-income
neighborhoods. The author gives no proof
for saying fewer churches leads to fewer attending when fewer attending can
very well lead to fewer churches. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And I think there is ample reason to think the low-income
flight from church is a product of a highly anti-Christian culture. Sociologically speaking, the poor or lower
economic classes are quicker to take on the traits of the super-rich, or the
culture makers of society. This is true
in almost every category. Francis
Schaeffer noted this in his books on culture.
You can see it in things like baby name trends.
The rich pick unique names, the poor then take up those names and they
finally filter into the middle class, but by then the name has become common
and the rich have abandoned it looking for unique names again (see
Freakonomics). <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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And what are the elite and culture makers saying about
Christianity? Christianity is the enemy
more often than not. Whether it is
Christian bakers on the news as the backwater bigots or the evil group that
empowered Trump, the enemy is evangelicalism.
Maybe they get it from movies like Dogma (1999) where the descendent of
Jesus is an abortion worker and the entire thing is an attack on Christians, or
more popular and subtle fair like Footloose (1984 remade in 2011), or in award
winners like Brokeback Mountain (2005) with its positive portrayal of
homosexuality. Maybe it is from TV in
the always award winning Handmaid’s Tale (2017-ongoing) or Modern Family (2009-ongoing). Maybe it is from books like Da Vinci Code
(2003). The message is the same, church
is not good, Christianity is the problem, not the solution. So, the lower classes are responding and they
are leaving church resulting in fewer in attendance and thus fewer church
plants. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The Atlantic Article laments the fact that Christianity
could help these people out physically and materially, yet the churches are not
there. But the lack of awareness of the
real importance of Christianity and its message of Jesus Christ is
striking. For the author Christianity
helps with “positive outcomes” and “assistance for struggling families”, but
fails to realize such things are the by-product of the love of Christ
manifested in the church. It is by
living out the faith that the Atlantic and Hollywood and many others have spent
so much time tearing down. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In the end, the article provides a beautiful picture into a
mind that sees nothing beyond the material and understands little to nothing
about the faith. But it does see the
damage caused when people begin to abandon that faith.<o:p></o:p></div>
Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-80979909801490254622017-09-28T16:26:00.000-05:002017-09-28T16:26:04.974-05:00Thoughts on the current protests - GUEST POST A GUEST POST BY MY WIFE, Jenny Jo<br />
<br />
I’ve been thinking a lot about the football players’ protests of the national anthem. On the face of things, I don’t like it. By any accounting, Americans are the most free, most wealthy, most generous people on earth, and we should be thankful for our citizenship here. I think that this method of protest (disrespecting the symbols of our country) in order to make an unrelated political point so clouds the issue that many patriotic Americans can’t see beyond it. And Trump’s nasty words had the result of making this past Sunday’s protests more about him than about anything else. <br /><br />But, digging a little deeper to consider the protestors’ motives, I agree that this country has a police brutality problem. President John Adams once said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” As our society becomes increasingly more immoral, and as the citizens fail to restrain themselves, it follows that the heavy and inadequate hand of the government (the police) will do increasingly more of the restraining for us. In such a climate, a few policemen (sinners just like the rest of us) become tyrannical, and a few become so jaded that everyone appears as a law-breaker. Both situations lead to the abuse of the innocent. How many times have we heard, on TV, in the movies, or in real life, a policeman say, “I AM the law?” This perspective is very, very wrong. I think there is almost no justification for a policeman to use his weapon against a citizen: only in the case of an immediate lethal threat to the policeman or an immediate lethal threat to someone else. Unarmed people should never, ever be shot. It is far better to err on the side of criminals eluding justice than the side of innocents dying. This is an issue, a societal problem, worthy of our attention. <br /><br />Whenever controversial issues like this one come up, I always do lots of mental gymnastics, trying to turn the situation around to see how I’d feel if the shoe were on the other foot. Would I approve of a professional athlete taking a knee to mourn the lives of all the innocent children murdered in abortion? Mmm. I might. I would also admit that doing so during the national anthem communicates an anti-patriotism that I do not support and distracts from (nay, even harms) the original point of the protest. And it downright angers people for whom love of country is a more important issue (than abortion, racial issues, or whatever). As mature, thoughtful people, we have to admit that all issues aren’t equally weighted for all people. Isn’t that one of the things pollsters are always asking in the run-up to elections? For me, abortion is more important than racial tension or school spending or minimum wage because if we kill a person as an infant, then his race, his education, his income are all completely moot. We have to ensure survival before we bother about secondary things. Now I have good friends, church friends even, who believe racial equality is the more important issue. While I disagree (and am happy to debate the essential import of abortion), I do refrain from accusing them of allowing their priorities to make them de facto supporters of abortion. As also, by the way, they should refrain from accusing me of being a de facto supporter of racism. This brings me back to the beginning. In our society, we seldom consider the other person’s perspective this way. Many voices in the public square these days are saying that valuing a love of country over a desire to end police brutality is the same as being racist. And that’s not true. Just because opposing racism isn’t a person’s highest ideal does not mean that it isn’t an ideal at all. I suspect that NFL players would find many, many more people would rally to their cause if they could make their appeal for the one thing without simultaneously disrespecting another.<br /><br />And now for a note about the disproportionate percent of African American people being killed by police. African Americans make up 13% of the US population. 223 African Americans were killed by cops last year, which is 21% of those killed by cops. 315,000 African Americans were killed last year by abortion, and that’s 35% of abortions. Now, which of these is worse for African Americans, both in numbers of actual dead bodies and in percentages compared to other races?!?! You can check my math on this, but I’m pretty sure that if you’re an African American, you are a gazillion times more likely to be murdered as an infant than you are to be killed by a cop.<br />
- Jenny JoLeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-3910409174785426342017-09-12T13:21:00.001-05:002017-09-12T13:21:28.195-05:00Tales from the Box Office<div class="MsoNormal">
I keep up with the <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?view=releasedate&view2=domestic&yr=2017&sort=gross&order=DESC&p=.htm">box office</a> and movie industry. I feel it gives a good pulse of society and
culture. I like to play arm chair movie
manager just as much as the next guy, which seems to be a lot because people
often write about the movie industry. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The Atlantic has a piece about<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/09/hollywood-blockbusters-summer/539235/"> the horrible box officeincome of the summer</a>, especially the last month, and while The Atlantic writer
gets close, she misses two major things that show her leftist bent. Misunderstandings like this are why the industry
is losing money to places like Netflix. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The first reason why the summer receipts are so bad is not
so much betting on a few properties and putting lots of money into pushing
certain movies, but rather the calendar itself has changed. And of course we can always play the “maybe
it would have been a better idea to put money behind the marketing of Captain
Underpants rather than the Mummy”, I don’t think this is the real reason. Rather, the changing calendar has changed the
Summer Blockbuster window itself. Take a
look at the big money movies this year.
You won’t find an August opening movie until #22. Yes, they are mostly still out, but in years
gone by you would have found more higher on the list because August was still blockbuster
season. Why the change? School.
Most kids are back in school by the second week of August now. The time for movie theater trips is
over. Friday night football is usually
going before September. This is no
longer movie time, but school time. If
you look at the list again you will find many pre-Memorial day releases. Guardians of the Galaxy at #3, Logan at #6,
and Fate of the Furious at #7 are both prior.
School is basically over for many by May. They may be attending still, but meaningful
school is over. So movie time it
is. That gives them time to be out and well-reviewed
by the time Memorial Day hits keeping financial returns strong. Those movies also are all sequels so the
movie goer is already invested. No need
to wait to release if the people are already waiting for you. For movies appealing to younger children one
can be released even earlier. See Beauty
and the Beast #1 and Lego Batman #8. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And yes if you look at this by opening weekend alone it does
not change much. Still no August
releases until #20. Dark Tower was
probably a bad movie and would have had massive drop off, but I bet its opening
would have been better if it had been released in July. The same is probably true for the Hitman’s
Bodyguard, which is a typical summer movie fare, but only garnered 21 million
opening weekend thanks to it being after summer was over because school had started
back. Its nice performance on Labor Day weekend shows that it suffered, not from story, but from the fact August people don't see as movie time anymore. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The other major omission from the Atlantic is the content of
the movies that seem to make the most money.
Hollywood really does hate its main audience. Just like political pundits cannot figure out
how Trump won most of the country, they can’t figure out what makes a movie
most of the country wants to see. The
top of the box office list is dominated by super heroes, which fundamentally
are a good v evil tale. The heroes are
from the 40’s and 50’s and so are also fundamentally about American ideals
including traditional morality. That is
half of the top 5. In fact, every super
hero movie released by Marvel or DC is in the top 10 including a Lego Batman
movie. The top spot is taken by an age old
fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, which also then reflects good old morals such
as not judging a book by the cover and such things that we used to want to
teach our kids. It did add in a few
seconds of agenda pushing, but it was so in the background no one cared. Dunkirk as well is about WWII where good
fought evil and is about heroism in leaving no man behind. Despicalbe Me 3 is a franchise for kids, and
The Fate of the Furious is something like the 8<sup>th</sup> or 9<sup>th</sup>
entry into its franchise and features the biggest box office name in the
business today Dwayne the Rock Johnson. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The only exception to the traditional morality and tales is
at #10 in Get Out. Now Get Out was
universally loved by the Hollywood critics probably causing an uptick in its
sales numbers. And I do mean
universally. The only critic to be
negative about the movie was Armond White, and he was lambasted on Twitter for
failing to fall down in love of this movie.
The movie is about racism set in a horror movie genre using the suburbs
as the backdrop. The all white people
are really racist, even the liberals, is not a theme that most people want to
see even if it is done in a unique horror movie style. Now it did make a lot of money, but it will
fall out of the top 10 soon. The movie
will probably end up behind Boss Baby, another cartoon, and probably behind
Pirates of the Caribbean too. But the
remake of “It” is clearly going to end up in the top 10 after the 3<sup>rd</sup>
biggest opening weekend of the year in September. This will knock all exceptions out of the top
10. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now look at the list of movies that littered the flop
category. It is littered with two types
of movies. Liberal garbage, which comes
in two types: movies that preach liberalism (see Fifty Shades Darker, Emoji
Movie, and the Shack) and movies that are starred in by those who spout
liberalism so much they are hated by most people (ex. Snatched). Detroit might be the best example here. A limited opening garnered it critical praise
for its police brutality and civil rights themes. It then went into over 3,000 theaters, and
still made less than 20 million dollars.
And the other type of movie is the movie with good source material that
was changed, ignored, or tampered with to remove its traditional message that
made them classics in the first place. Now
in this group I do place those remake of 80’s and 90’s cultural icons that were
redone in such a way to show contempt and hatred for them. CHiP’s and Baywatch are perfect
examples. I watched CHiP’s, but not
Baywatch as a kid. Regardless of whether or not
you liked those shows, they were successful.
Remaking them into pathetic comedies that neither does justice to nor
celebrates the source material is bound to fail. If you hate something, don’t try to write a
movie for it. Many Hollywood people
today hate American anything from its past, so expect it to fail. Also King Arthur falls here. The heroic Arthur restoring order, setting up
the Round Table, and searching for the Holy Grail is not in this movie, and the
movie failed miserably. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You could probably add a third category of just awful story
telling. The Circle would fit that. This movie ended in such an awful and unintelligible
fashion that you felt ripped off from what up until that point had been a
pretty good movie. I still get mad just
thinking about all the foreshadowing that was flushed down the toilet for an
ending that I still don’t think I get. I
actually watched the bonus features on that DVD to see what happened, and
apparently the people talked about all of this emotion building in their main
character that I never even came close to seeing and in the end she didn't act on any of it anyway. The movie they were communicating was
completely different from what came across on screen. No one wants to see such bad movies. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
What is the lesson?
The lesson is the culture makers in this country are redefining
morality. They are committed to it. Most of the country would prefer it not
changed, but most don’t fight it. They
probably don’t have the answer which is found only in Christ. Lots of people follow traditional morality
without a reason why. The next
generation is being shaped now by these culture makers. They are going to be okay with all the moral
non-sense. They just won’t know how to
tell a decent story and will have no idea what entertainment actually is. <o:p></o:p></div>
Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-39651829537479117032017-08-01T11:55:00.001-05:002017-08-01T11:55:19.225-05:0013 Reasons Why And the True Tragedy <div class="MsoNormal">
<b>13 Reasons Why</b> has created a lot of discussion since its
release on Netflix. It is based on a
book, which I have not read, but I viewed the shows. People <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/05/13-reasons-why-controversy/525237/">feared a contagion affect</a>, and it now
appears <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/08/13-reasons-why-demonstrates-cultures-power/535518/">to have been happening</a>. It was
not hard to see coming. When the hero of
the show is the one who commits suicide, then you are glamorizing suicide. But the real problem of the show is not
that. The suggestions for removing the
death scene fundamentally miss the point.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In my opinion, the problem is the accurate portrayal of high
school in a non-Christian/Post-Christian world.
Yes, the main character Hannah gets every possible type of bullying,
which is probably unrealistic, but almost everyone is going to have experienced
a couple of those types of bullying situations.
Hannah does seek help in the last show from the guidance counselor, but
he has no answers. The problem is not
that he is just too busy, but that he has no real solutions. The show seems to come up with some sort of “we
should love each other more” answer, but that is just hot air and kids today
know it. They know they can’t be totally
loving, and they sure know that the people around them are not going to be
super loving. Maybe a suicide would help
for a time in a school, but even that would not be a permanent fix. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That is the problem with <b>13 Reasons Why</b>. It asks the first question of the Heidelberg
Catechism, “What is your only comfort in life and in death?” But it comes back with a different
answer. It comes back with “There isn’t
one.” When that is the answer, why keep
living in discomfort? Why keep going
when everything is painful and hurts inside?
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The culture is learning that all the reasons suicide are
wrong rest firmly on the Christian worldview that the culture is rejecting at
every turn. Without any idea of
redemption, sanctification, divine love, thou shalt not kill, and being created
in the image of God, suicide cannot be condemned. The experts in those articles don’t want it
to look peaceful, they want the suicide to show the pain and loss of the
family. But, the non-Christian world
tells us to live for ourselves and that pain is bad. Hannah was in pain, so she ended her
pain. Now her parents are in pain, they
have the same option available to them. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>13 Reasons Why</b> is a horrible show because of its non-Christian
worldview. But it does remind Christians
that there are a lot of people out there that in pain, in search of comfort,
and do not know the answer of belonging body and soul to the faithful savior
Jesus Christ. The church has an opportunity
to reach those people. To teach them
about Jesus Christ and the cross. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
“For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being
burdened – not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further
clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is
God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.” - 2 Corinthians 5:4-5<o:p></o:p></div>
Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-83970015834732028582017-07-04T13:43:00.000-05:002017-07-04T13:43:06.486-05:00Hillbilly Elegy<div class="MsoNormal">
I read the New York Times Bestseller <i>Hillbilly Elegy</i>, and it is a very good book. It is well written, honest, and gives a
glimpse into a life style many don’t know.
The subject matter makes the book tend towards sadness and pity, but has
just enough humor in it to stop it from becoming overly depressing. The book looks at not just the life, but the mind-set
behind what we think of as Appalachia. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Full disclosure, I grew up in Appalachia. So much so that when I read the opening
chapter of this book and he said his family lived in Ohio from Kentucky, I
thought “That is not Appalachia; that is not the South.” I had to fight against my own upbringing to
be able to listen to this Ohio guy talk about Appalachia. I have been to many towns like Jackson, KY,
and my own hometown would probably be Middletown, OH if Eastman chemical ever
closed. I imagine Kingsport maybe a lot
like the Middletown that his grandparents moved to when their factory was still
open.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Remembering that I actually enjoyed the book, don’t buy the
hype that this book is “a civilized reference guide for an uncivilized election”
as Jennifer Senior from the <i>New York
Times</i> writes. It really has nothing
to do with the election. It is a look
into a forgotten group of people. Maybe
this forgottenness played a role in the election, but the book is not really
trying to address any of that. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is a beautiful picture of a society that grows
increasingly more lost. The brokenness,
the hopelessness, and the ever rising climate of drugs and violence are
real. I went home to Kingsport this
year, the first time in four years, and the change is saddening. There is such a thing as mountain poor, and
this books shows it well. It also ends
up showing how that poverty does not stay in the mountains but ends up in
places like Middletown, OH. If you want
a look at what poverty can do to people and to a community, then read this
book. It is revealing and eye opening.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, the book is ultimately very frustrating for not
only its lack of answers, which it is upfront about, but also its inability to
see the real problem staring it in the face.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
JD Vance, the author, ends the book talking about some need
for social safety nets are needed and how some problems the government can’t
fix. He is trying to advocate for some
middle of the road kind of approach. But,
if he would just read his own book with a thought of Christ and the gospel, he
would have the major portion of his answer.
Vance’s story involves a broken home, a mother who was a drug addict and
a father who ran off. Multiple marriages
later, and more abuse than I care to think about, Vance escapes thanks to the
GI bill and divine providence that goes unrecognized. At one point in the book, Vance lives with
his mother’s second husband and adopted father.
The father has found religion, admittedly a Pentecostal variety, but he
is now married and with kids of his own.
Vance is surprised at how normal they are and how they don’t fight, they
don’t scream, and they don’t hurt each other.
But, he does not stay because he feels he doesn’t belong and he will not
give up his rock-n-roll CDs. His own
family, including grandparents, profess but never really go to church. He often wonders why some make it and some
don’t. But, he often acknowledges the devastation
of the broken home created by divorce and regrets the social ethic he learned
of looking down on education and elevating fighting. The problems Mr. Vance sees are sin, and the
solution is Jesus Christ. The problems
stem from an unchristian worldview and can be fixed by the blood of the savior
and following His worldview. Yet, it is
not really ever considered as an option.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is heartbreaking to think of generations of those trapped
in the hopelessness of this environment.
But the solution is not going to be found ultimately in anything man
invents. The solution is the hope of
Jesus Christ who redeems us from our sins and saves us from all the power of
the devil. Mr. Vance may have escaped
Middletown, OH and Jackson, KY, but he has not escaped the problem. Appalachia is a place where the reigning
power of sin has beaten the hope out of people.
Their reality demands a hopelessness.
He has traded it for a world of money and power where the reigning power
of sin feeds delusion and lies regarding the problem, the answer, and situation
ending up in misplaced hope and shifting sand confidence. Both places are under the reigning power of
sin and subject to the wrath of God because of it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Without the gospel, the Hillbilly Elegy ends much, much
worse than what he lived through.
Without the gospel it ends in damnation and eternal torment. With the gospel, it not only avoids damnation
and gives a better life after death, but it redeems life on earth and equips
people to handle the situations faced even in the deep “hollars” of
Appalachia. <o:p></o:p></div>
Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-45518376130139923872017-06-16T23:24:00.000-05:002017-06-16T23:24:09.956-05:00Condemnation is ImportantSometimes what is not said is louder than what is said. Consider this example of a parent with two kids. One kid hauls off and punches the other kid right in the face. The punch broke the child’s nose and required surgery to fix. What would you think the child who punched his sibling would learn if all his parent said was “My thoughts and prayers are with your sibling. I am glad the EMTs got him to the hospital quickly.” Do you think that the parent would have taught the child that it was wrong to punch? Did the parent discourage future punching? The parent’s failure to speak words of correction has a greater impact than the parents words of sympathy. Sometimes we have to be willing to say an act is wrong, vile, evil, or hateful. We just do.<br />
<br />I bring this up in regards to the amazing response of many to the recent shooting of Representative Steve Scalise, a Republican staffer, and some others at a baseball practice. What is amazing about this response is what was missing. Remember, this was a Democratic shooter hunting Republican lawmakers. Let’s look at some twitter responses from leading Democrats.<br />
<br />First Hillary Clinton:<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />2 sides take the field tomorrow, but we're all ultimately on one team. My thoughts are with the members of Congress, staff & heroic police.</span><br />
<br />Clinton offers no denunciation of the act itself. Interestingly, her Twitter statement lacks any hashtag, which seems to imply she does not want it easily found or widely read. For comparison, here is a Tweet from the day before from Clinton in which she remembers the anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub shooting: <br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />My heart is with the loved ones of the 49 people killed at Pulse, the city of Orlando, & the LGBT community. #WeWillNotLetHateWin</span><br />
<br />The violent act in this case is a year old. Clinton does use a hashtag, and calls the shooting “hate.” <br />Now onto Joe Biden, former Vice President:<br />
<br /><span style="font-size: large;">Jill and I are praying for the victims and their families. Grateful for courage of my former colleagues, first responders & Capitol Police.</span><br />
<br />Again, no denunciation of the act itself. Prayer and thoughts. No indication of violence being evil or wrong. Let’s look at his one year remembering of the Pulse Nigh Club shooting:<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />We meet unspeakable tragedy and hate with unbound resolve. I stand with the LGBTQ community, today and every day. #OrlandoUnitedDay.</span><br />
<br />Again this act was “hate.” And we see that the Vice President understands hashtags, which were absent above. <br />
<br />Tim Kaine is a senator from Virginia, and the latest VP candidate offered up by the Democratic Party: <br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />Praying for Steve Scalise and all hurt in the outrageous attack this morning in Alexandria.</span><br />
<br />Again, no condemnation of anything. Just prayers for the hurt. He even uses the word Alexandria, which was the hashtag being used, but fails to make it a hashtag. If you go to his twitter feed you will see that he does link to an interview he gave with NPR where he says we need better political rhetoric. So, bonus points to Kaine for at least that much. <br />
<br />Nancy Pelosi, the highest ranking Democrat Congressman: <br />
<br /><span style="font-size: large;">My thoughts and prayers with @SteveScalise, Capitol Police and staff at the shooting in Alexandria, VA this morning.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />No hashtag, no condemning. Now her response to the one year anniversary of the Pulse shooting:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />Hatred will never defeat #pride. #OrlandoUnitedDay</span><br />
<br />That was hate. It deserves hashtags. And there is a video message attached where she condemns the attacks even more. <br />
<br />Chuck Schumer, the highest ranking Democrat in the Senate: <br />
<br /><span style="font-size: large;">Saddened by news of the shooting in VA this am. Thoughts & prayers for Rep @SteveScalise & others injured & hope for a speedy recovery.</span><br />
<br />No hashtag; no condemning the act. He did have a second tweet later that thanked responders, but again, no condemnation. On to his Pulse anniversary tweet:<br />
<br /><span style="font-size: large;">Their names & faces will not be forgotten, nor will our promise to fight hate & intolerance & to honor them w/ action. #Rememberthe49</span><br />
<br />This one gets a hashtag and is condemned as hate. <br />
<br />Just in case you are wondering, the Republicans are not much better. Here is Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House: <br />
<br /><span style="font-size: large;">This morning the hearts of the whole House are with @SteveScalise, the brave Capitol police, staff, and all those who were in harm's way.</span><br />
<br />No hashtag here either, and no condemning it as hate. He also had a Tweet on the Pulse anniversary:<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />Join me in taking a moment to remember the 49 innocent lives lost one year ago today in the #Orlando terrorist attack. #OrlandoUnitedDay</span><br />
<br />Hashtags, but no condemning this one, either. <br />
<br />Ted Cruz gets closer:<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />Praying for our friends, colleagues, and all hurt or impacted by today's terrible shooting.</span><br />
<br />At least he uses the word “terrible.” The first time we’ve found any sort of denunciation involved. <br />Bernie Sanders’s response stands out as different. The shooter volunteered for Bernie’s campaign, so the political pressure is greater on him, but his response was much better: <br />
<br /><span style="font-size: large;">I am sickened by this despicable act. Let me be as clear as I can be. Violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society.</span><br />
<br />His tweet included a link to a speech he made on the floor in which he condemned it even further. He made a clear statement that shooting political opponents is wrong. <br />
<br />Sure, many, if not all, of these may have condemned the baseball shooting in their “press releases,” but who ever sees those? No one. Who sees Twitter? Everyone. It is not hard to recognize evil as evil, at least it shouldn’t be. <br />
<br />The Bible is clear that we should condemn that which is evil and refrain from doing it. Killing another person in thought, word, gesture, much less in deed, is forbidden by God. Yet, governmental leaders appear to have a problem saying such a thing.<br />
<br />This lack of condemnation is loud to my ears. Add in all the over-the-top rhetoric such as the assertion that the President is like a Nazi/Hitler or the Republicans are going to take away Granny’s healthcare. Or even the statement that the Republic would be over if Hillary Clinton had been elected. Such words are taken seriously by many people. When a citizen takes the call to “resist” to the level of armed violence, then such an action must be condemned, or we can expect it to be repeated. <br />
<br />Our nation’s leaders had a chance to restore civility, or at the very least to condemn violence in politics, and they failed to do so. God save us from the consequences. Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-91569073599889875862017-05-08T23:18:00.000-05:002017-05-08T23:18:01.377-05:00Skipping the ChurchThis <a href="https://cryingoutforjustice.com/2017/05/05/you-werent-there-a-letter-to-pastors-from-a-survivor-of-domestic-abuse/">post</a> over at A Cry for Justice is indicative both of what I like about the site and of what makes me deeply uncomfortable about it.<br />
<br />The site has published an open-letter type response to an allegedly real letter from a pastor to an abuse victim (non-physical abuse). I am not defending the pastor’s letter in any way. I don’t know enough to say anything about the pastor’s situation at all. So don’t misconstrue this as an endorsement of his letter. <br />
<br />What I appreciate about the open letter is how clearly the real pain is communicated. First, I do think pastors need to realize that often when a person speaks about a spouse’s emotional manipulation (I prefer that word to the term “abuse” so that we can keep the distinction between the crime of physical abuse and the sin of spiritual tyranny), he/she is already at the end of the rope. The sufferer has reached the tipping point. It is not a new problem in the marriage but a long-standing pattern. Hope has been lost. Second, I’m thankful for the reminder that when a pastor approaches marriage counseling, he ought to consider that one of the marriage partners could very well be a rank pagan. Pretenders and hypocrites exist within our churches. Pastors are probably the easiest to fool since we see the people the least. Spouses witness the hypocrisy the most. Third, divorce is a biblically acceptable outcome in some situations. Divorcing couples are not a sign of a failing church or ministry; sometimes they are just the by-product of the depravity of man.<br />
<br />What I find deeply troubling about the open letter is its low view of the church. And it’s regarding this point that I find myself unable to endorse this open letter (much less A Cry for Justice overall). This letter begs the pastor to listen. And he should. But what the author basically is saying is, “I tried all the Christian stuff already, please grant me a divorce, now.” Just as the pastor needs to understand that the wife (or whoever is the offended party in the marriage) is at the end of her rope, that person needs to understand that the church has only just now been apprised of the situation. The church cannot jump straight to the end and just say, “I am sorry for you, here is your divorce.” We can’t do that because ours is a “ministry of reconciliation.” We can’t do that because Jesus Christ’s grace is real and can change lives. It changed Saul into Paul. It can change anyone. We can’t jump to the end because, while the wife may have tried everything by herself, she has not tried anything with the backing and support of the church. That fact is important.<br />
<br />The open letter makes clear that pain and suffering are real, and the husband in that case needs to repent. He is acting sinfully. However, the author’s efforts to change her husband are not the same as the church’s. The church can add its voice to the call to repent, the call to recognize how much the husband’s behavior has hurt his wife and his kids, the call to turn to Jesus and away from sin. One of the important lessons from Matthew 18 is that the one who refuses to listen is not to be treated as an unbeliever or a tax collector until after he has failed to listen to the church. I do not see that attitude in the letter. And that concerns me. <br />
<br />Ultimately, what I am arguing for is to involve the church much, much earlier in the process. Go to your church well before you reach the end of your rope. If your spouse gives you the silent treatment at home, don’t endure it for months, involve the elders and pastor right then. Is he yelling and screaming and blaming you for financial problems that are not your fault? Call the pastor. Did he kill a beloved family pet? Tell it to the church. Did he hit you or wave a gun at you or threaten to kill you? Call the police. The church understands and will support you. Physical abuse is a crime and should be reported. You and the church can work out the details of divorce later. <br />The open letter is right: pastors should listen. The letter is right: the pastor was not aware. But that is because he was never told. And that is part of the problem. Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-62323528710486126212017-02-17T15:04:00.000-06:002017-02-20T15:17:21.114-06:00Misunderstanding love and hate<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ben Mallicote writes about
faith and politics at the group blog BenMallicote.com. <a href="https://benmallicote.com/2017/02/13/the-impossible-call-of-love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin/#more-383">His newest piece</a>
is written in condemnation of the phrase: “Love the sinner, hate the
sin.” I dislike the phrase, as well (it comes from one of Augustine’s
letters, not from the Bible); however, I strongly disagree with his post.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">1. Ben misunderstands hate. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">I
assume that he was motivated to write this article to address the hate he sees
in the world. I wish he had given it some context, because it’s been my
experience that people use that phrase, “Love the sinner, hate the sin,” in
order to take sin less seriously, not in order to give freer rein to
hate. Unfortunately, Ben did not define what he means by hate. He
does assert that those with whom we have relationships (children, friends) are
ineligible recipients of our hate. So from the outset, he conflates
“hating the sin” and “hating the sinner” without offering any justification for
doing so. I would wager that’s the point where he loses his argument with
the people who are enamored of the phrase. Then he writes that since we
are categorically incapable of hating our children, we should also refrain from
hating people groups such as gays or Muslims. (I don’t see the thought
progression, there.) Then he abruptly switches to talking about love.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">The problem Ben has is that he’s using a worldly
definition of hate in which hate appears to be the opposite of love. But this cannot be. God is love.
Yet God hates (Psalm 5:4-6; 11:5; Romans<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="aqj"><span style="z-index: -1;"><span data-term="goog_40238845" style="z-index: 0;" tabindex="0">9:13</span></span></span>). He hates
things like lying (Proverbs 12:22), idolatry (Deuteronomy 7:25), and arrogance
(Proverbs 16:6-9). He also hates people
such as idolaters, evildoers, and lovers of violence. (Psalm 5:4-6, 11:5) So then, what can the Christian know of hate? Hate is an emotion, and it is not sinful.
It is a God-given emotion. There is a
time to hate (Ecclesiastes 3:8). Hate is
an emotional opposing and a standing against something or someone (Psalm 26:5).
Thus we are called to hate the enemies
of God (Psalm 139:21). It can be easily
misused, and when we direct it wrongly, we do sin. We ought not hate simply because we don’t like
someone’s actions. Hate is rightfully
directed against the unholy actions of those who stand against God. It is also directed against the unbeliever
himself because the unbeliever stands against God, and that stand is disastrous for
the unbeliever. I agree with Ben that
it’s hard to separate the sin and the sinner; apart from Christ, the two are
inescapably connected. In hell God won’t
be punishing sin; He’ll be punishing sinners. Jesus reminds us of the dire state of the
unbeliever when he tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who
persecute us (Matthew 5:43-44). Hatred
of the enemies of God does not rule out love.
It does not rule out pity. It
does not rule out prayer. We are
emotionally opposed to those who stand against God, but we are also desirous of
seeing them switch sides and come to faith in Jesus Christ. We are against the promotion of sin, but that
does not mean we are against repentance unto life.<span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">Now, this doesn’t mean that I’ll be marching in a
parade with a sign that says, “God hates (fill in the blank with pet peeve).” The people at Westboro Baptist Church
misunderstand hate, too. They use the
world’s idea of hate and impute it to God. They seek to belittle, curse, demean, and
vilify others. That is not Biblical. Our speech is still always to be seasoned with
grace. We cannot condone or excuse sin,
but that does not mean our language should be unkind. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">I need to point out that we ARE capable of hating
those with whom we have a close relationship, such as our children. People practice the worldly definition of hate
on close family members all the time. Just think of the neglected children or the
spousal abuse. Most crimes are committed
against people the criminals know, and those could all be called hate crimes
because love never motivates violent crimes. Turning back to the Biblical definition of
hate, we see that people are capable of hating their children in that
worldview, too. Proverbs <span class="aqj">13:24</span> states, “Whoever spares the rod, hates
their children.” From this, we
understand that failing to discipline our children is being hateful to
them. It is standing against them
because it fails to drive the folly from them. Or, in other words, failing to hate the sins
of your children leads to hating your children. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">2. Ben misunderstands love.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">In this article he writes, “love
from a distance, love in the abstract, love without being in relationship with
those we claim to love is no love at all. It is love in theory only, or
self-righteousness masquerading as love.” But in a <a href="https://benmallicote.com/2017/02/06/jesus-anger-and-love/">previous blog post</a>, Ben tells us that
love is the absolute core of Christ’s teaching, and he concludes, “If your
reading of Scripture allows you to be unconcerned about the Syrian refugee,
you’ve enshrined your own prejudices over God’s law.” So, in one case, love of distant strangers is
self-righteousness masquerading as love, but when it comes to Syrians, love
from a distance without relationship is obedience to the law of love. His definition seems a bit malleable. .</span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">For the record, I am closer to agreeing with the
current article, not the previous one; you can’t show love to a distant person
you’ve never met. How can I be patient and kind to someone I do not know
or see or who is not near?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"><span style="background: white;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background: white;">At least as regards children,
Ben says love is “pray[ing] that God would give them the deepest desires of
their hearts, that God would prosper them and make their lives happy.”
This definition of love seems to come more from the American dream than
the Bible. Ben seems to have forgotten
that Jesus does not pray for us in such a manner. In fact, Jesus teaches us to pray, “Your
kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew </span><span class="aqj"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">6:10</span></span><span style="background: white;">). This is
not praying for the realization of our deepest desires or the satisfaction of
our wills; this is praying for the accomplishment of God’s will. In John 17, Jesus prays for us, but never for
our deepest desires, nor for our prosperity. Rather he prays, “Sanctify them in the truth,
your word is truth,” (John <span class="aqj"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">17:17</span></span></span><span style="background: white;">). He then
goes on to pray for unity amongst the brethren and for their unity with
Himself, but never for prosperity or happiness. In fact, Jesus states that the world hates
believers (v.14), and then he asks God to leave us in this world that hates us
(v.15). That was how Jesus prayed for
his disciples, his spiritual children and friends. And it was love that motivated him to pray
such prayers. I don’t ask God to give my
children prosperity and happiness; I pray that God will save their souls and
conform them to the likeness of His Son. I pray that God will make the deepest desire
of their hearts be to know and to love God.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">The central proof text for this article is taken
from the account in John about the woman caught in adultery. Ben points out that Christ didn’t rebuke her
sin until after he had publicly defended her and granted her mercy and after
her accusers had left the two alone. Ben
asserts that our encounters with sinful people should also follow this pattern.
What about the time Jesus made the rich
young ruler go away sad? Mark <span class="aqj"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">10:21</span></span> </span><span style="background: white;">tells
us that, out of love, Jesus brought that man to sadness by openly and publicly
exposing his covetousness. Verse 23 makes it clear that conversation occurred
in front of at least his disciples. Or
what of Matthew 23 where Jesus, speaking “to the crowds and to his disciples,”
began to pronounce seven woes on the Pharisees? He openly called them hypocrites, a brood of
vipers, and white washed tombs. There
was no public support, mercy, or private rebuke there. Even the Sermon on the Mount is a public
correction (Matthew 5-7). Take note of
the phraseology: “It was said . . . but I say to you….” Take note of all the warnings on how not to
pray or how not to practice righteousness in front of others. Jesus reminds his listeners, “Unless your
righteousness does not exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will never
enter the kingdom of heaven.” And then,
of course, there is the very public, very zealous, very merciless overthrowing
of the money tables and the expulsion of the corrupt moneychangers from the
temple.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">Ben also references how Christ washed the feet of
his betrayer, using that incident as a model for how we should always treat our
enemies. But that isn’t the whole of
Jesus’ interactions with Judas. Jesus
also labelled him a devil in front of the other disciples (John 6:70), and
there was neither mercy nor forgiveness nor brotherhood for Judas in the end. When we pick one or two incidents from
Christ’s life and say this is how to love, we get a stunted understanding of
love. If we’re looking for the Biblical
definition of love, we must interpret the Bible using the whole Bible, not
using cherry-picked bits that support our own definition.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">Additionally, Ben says love must be “demonstrate[d]
in a way [fellow sinners] feel and understand; and it requires us to treat them
not as the ‘other,’ but as beloved brothers and sisters.” Truly we are to show love to our enemies and
to everyone as God makes the rain fall upon the just and the unjust. As I’ve mentioned, this love includes pity,
prayer, and patience. But loving someone
as a brother and sister in Christ is reserved for actual believers in Christ. The only people groups Ben mentions in his
post are "gays", who may claim to be Christians, and Muslims, who by definition
are not. It seems that he thinks we
ought to make homosexuals feel totally accepted before we ever mention
repentance and forgiveness. But it is
definitely not loving to let someone remain in a state of sin that will result
in eternal damnation (Revelation<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span><span class="aqj"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">22:15</span></span></span><span style="background: white;">, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Galatians 5:19-21,
Ephesians 5:5). It seems that Ben thinks
we should treat Muslims as those who are going to heaven despite their belief
that God has no son (1 John<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></span><span class="aqj"><span style="z-index: -1;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"><span data-term="goog_40238851" style="z-index: 0;" tabindex="0">2:23</span></span></span></span><span style="background: white;">, John 17:3). Again, it is a denial of reality to treat
Muslims as beloved brothers and sisters when they are not.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">I wonder what Ben would say if his example were
changed to a people group whose sin he doesn’t dispute. What if we were talking about slave holders? In Ben’s view of love and hate, he advocates
first publicly defending the slave holder, speaking out against anyone who
would dare call the slave holder a sinner, and then, only after demonstrating
love in a way the slaver can feel and understand and treating him as a brother
would Ben dare to privately point out the abomination that owning another human
being truly is. Does that seem right to
you?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">3. Conclusion <br />
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">For Ben, love seems to be some sort of
unconditional acceptance, maybe even support, of all things. But I can tell you this is wrong. Love does not mean the acceptance of
everything. I love my children, but I
hate it when they fight with one another. I hate it when they are selfish. I want them to hate it in themselves, too, so
they can “mortify the deeds of their flesh.” After all, I hate sin in myself and seek to
put it to death (Romans <span class="aqj"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">8:13</span></span></span></span><span style="background: white;">, Colossians 3:5). It does not mean I do not love my kids, nor do
I dislike them. In fact, it is unloving
for me to accept such sin in my kids or in myself. It is indeed love that leads to an unbroken
relationship with my children, forgiveness when they sin, and it is love that
prompts and empowers my children, and myself, to change and put off the sinful
old man and put on the new.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">This different view of love and hate leads to a
different view on life. I can love the
people groups Ben mentions (Muslims and gays) by treating them as people made
in the image of God, showing respect, granting charity, mercy, and kindness. But, love also brings with it the biblical
hate or standing against. I cannot
accept those things that are sin, for the person’s own good. I must share the
gospel of grace because they stand in need of it. I cannot be close or intimate with them
because two cannot walk together lest they be agreed (Amos 3:3). What fellowship does light have with darkness
or Christ with Belial (or, in this case, with Mohommed)? The answer is:
none (2 Corinthians 6:14). Christian
love cannot approve of that which God has not approved. And this Christian love changes the world. It is Christian “hate” that has chased out (or
nearly out) of the world such things as slavery, human sacrifices, and bigamy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">I deviate greatly, not only from Ben, but from the
“love the sinner, hate the sin” phraseology. It reinterprets the gospel by lessening sin. God is not just displeased with what you do,
but with you! With me! What should strike us about our sins is not
how awful they are, but that we’re the kind of people that do such awful
things. I don’t need my actions changed;
I need my heart changed. “And rend your
hearts and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God: for he is gracious
and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness,” (Joel </span><span class="aqj"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">2:13</span></span></span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">). If the problem were only my
sin, then tearing my garments might be enough.
But the problem is I am a sinner, so my heart is what needs to be torn
apart and built anew by the power of the Spirit. This is the beauty of the gospel. We are reconciled to God in Christ. While we are children of the world and sons of
disobedience, God must stand opposed to (hate) us and our sin. But He sent His Son to die for our sins AND to
change our sinful nature (redeeming the sin and the sinner), so that we might
be received into fellowship with Him. No
longer opposed, we are reconciled to God through the blood of Christ. No longer are we enemies, but instead we are
citizens of the kingdom and sons of the King, eating forever at His table. It is this love that we must show, the divine
love that reconciles through changing the sinner and paying for the sin. Everything else is just whistling in the wind.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Disclaimer: I know Ben. We attended school together until college. </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span>Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-40333087488675266762017-01-16T15:40:00.000-06:002017-01-16T15:40:13.281-06:00Lacking HopeThere is a great need for the comfort and hope of the gospel today. We can see it in the culture around us. And no I don’t mean politics. Politics is downstream of culture. I think it is most obvious in young adult literature and movies. <br />
<br />Take a look at what is popular and for the most part is dystopian futures and zombies. Both have been around for a long time, but never were they so popular. You have your “1983” and “Fahrenheit 451”, but they did not start a rage in dystopian writings. Even 1993’s “The Giver” did not jump start the idea, although Lois Lowery’s book did have the main character as a teenager, which is what future dystopian writings would capitalize upon. Enter “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins in 2008 and we have our beginning. This series of books not only sold millions of copies, but launched a film franchise that made big time bucks. Also, it was followed by books like “Divergent” (2011) by Veronica Roth, and then the “Maze Runner” (2009) by James Dashner. Each selling millions and spawning movie franchises although not quite to the same level of success as Hunger Games. Those are just the big massive successes. We could also count “Uglies” (2006) by Scott Westerfield, “Across the Universe” by Beth Revis, and “The Knife of Never Letting Go” (2008) by Patrick Ness just to name a few. <br />
<br />All of those books have teenage heroes, fight against a corrupt system, everything is already ruined and will not get better even when the protagonist wins, and is easily comparable to aspects of high school (I am not the first to state such similarities). <br />
<br />Now add in the popularity of zombies. Again “Night of the Living Dead” has been around for sometime, but the genre has really taken off thanks mostly to “The Walking Dead” (2003) comic book, which is still on-going, and its resulting TV series, and “Resident Evil” (1996) video game, which has since become a film franchise as well. This has helped spawn both movies and books such as “I am Legend” and “World War Z”. The genre is popular enough that it also has some comedy books such as “Pride Prejudice and Zombies” (2009), which is now coming to a theater near you and “Shaun of the Dead” (2004). <br />
<br />
The majority of these books, movies, and games have little to no real hope and often the real threat is not the zombies, who seem to be more of the setting than the problem, but other non-zombie survivors. “The Walking Dead” particularly dives into the idea of living in a world without morals because it is without structure. What does civilization look like in such a world and is it even possible are regular themes. <br />
<br />This is a change in what young adults have traditionally read. In times past people read “The Chronicles of Narnia”, which is full of hope and goes from disorder to order, or they read “Little House on the Prairie”, which is about hard work and finding a good life without things, or “A Wrinkle in Time” which is a good vs. evil fight. The difference in themes is stark and obvious.<br />It is not hard to see that this change reflects something lacking in our culture and something that speaks to young adults. They are hopeless. Just look at the ending of the Hunger Games Trilogy. They have fought this profound evil of making kids fight to the death for sport to keep people in line, and when the “good guys” win, they want to re-instituted the same thing. So, the heroine kills the new leader rather than the old one. They are both the same. No real hope. Even the brief glimpse of her future she and her husband suffer from the scars of their life mentally. Yes they have kids, but we learn nothing of the outside world then. There is no real hope in it.<br />
<br />Or if you want more proof look at what has happened to a beloved movie trilogy in Star Wars. “The Force Awakens” takes the original trilogy and makes it all for nothing. The original ends with the Emperor defeated, Anakin redeemed, and the Empire crumbling. Now we join in some 20 years later and what do we see? The Dark Side has once again ravaged the galaxy. Even Luke Skywalker could not stop the killing of Younglings again. The Empire appears fine in the guise of the First Order, which whatever government or Republic was put in place could not stop and indeed it was so bad that there is a group called the Resistance in this government. Han and Leia could not stay together, Luke no longer comes to the aid of his friends, and we are left to wonder how is the galaxy better off thanks to the Rebellion? This is the culture we live in. <br />
<br />Previous generations of both writers and readers have faced their share of hardships and toil, but produced far different literature, and literature with very different themes were popular. Tolkien, Lewis, and Milne (creator of Winnie the Pooh) all fought in World War I, all got seriously ill, and yet they created beloved children’s and young adult literature. Laura Engels Wilder lived life on a prairie, survived harsh winters, threat of Native American attacks, and illness without doctors, yet she wrote young adult literature that looked back on her life not with gloom, but with a sense of family, optimism, and hope. One could argue that this generation of writers and readers has had a much easier life, yet they have created and enjoy a much bleaker style or writing.<br />
<br />
<br />What does this tell us as the church? It should tell us that kids seem to believe they are in a hopeless situation. That young adults don’t trust the system (probably including church), and they seem in desperate search for meaning. Thankfully, Christ is the answer. We just don't seem to be communicating this truth the young very well. It is the young who are growing up for the first time in a post-Christian world. Their parents remember the vestiges of Christian civilization, but this new generation has been taught there is no truth in school, won't remember marriage before its redefinition, and live in a world that is hostile to the Christian faith. The challenge for the church is how do we communicate meaning and truth in Jesus to this generation of people who are floundering without hope in the world today? There is hope for the hopeless, and a name for the condition they rightly see the world suffers from: sin. But we must make sure we are communicating to young people as well as adults. This literature is telling us we had better not wait until they are adults to start communicating the gospel. They are in need now. They need Christ now. Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-33990471762038821072016-12-31T15:19:00.003-06:002016-12-31T15:19:56.311-06:00Rogue One and Thoughts on the New Direction of Star WarsI saw Rogue One, and it is a good action movie. It felt a bit more like a Star Wars film, but without any character development. Droids still steal the movie. It is not directed by J.J. Abrams so no need to worry about crazy light flares. But it does fit with the new direction of the franchise set by Abrams. So here are a few thoughts now that we have two movies from the new direction.<br /><br />First, it is clear that the concept of the Force has changed. The Force is now acting on its own, and has a will. People seem to pray to it in Rogue One, and it can look as if Rey might be doing the same thing in Force Awakens to change the momentum of her light saber fight. This makes the ground split between Rey and Kylo Ren have new meanings as well. The Force did not want Rey to kill Kylo. Everything now is part of the will of the Force. It is taking the Force from a more Eastern mysticism to something closer to Christian conception of a personal god. <br /><br />This is different from Lucas’s view of the Force. Even in the Phantom Menace where it is mentioned the Force has a will, but then it also obeys your commands. Lucas used the Force as more of something that gave people abilities, and can be used rightly or wrongly. Now with this new view of the Force having a will, it brings with it a host of complications. What does it mean to return the Force to balance, as they discussed in the Prequel Trilogy? Why did the Force allow the Emperor and the evil he wrought? Vader killed younglings after all. Why does the Force have a light side and a dark side? <br /><br />Second, these movies are no longer really fantasy kids movies. Force Awakens was the first film to earn a PG-13 rating, and this movie, Rogue One, is a war movie where, well, when you see the end you will understand. At least Rogue One is a self contained movie unlike Abrams’s Force Awakens where the mystery is never revealed. <br /><br />Third, the original trilogy was great in creating characters. After all, we love those characters enough to have all these other movies. It still stands as one of the best trilogies ever. The Prequel was not as good. Some of the characters failed miserably. But, it did a good job of showing the government go from a Republic to an Empire. That was well done. The belief that councils and republics don’t work well continues in Rogue One. Force Awakens showed us some great new characters, but gave us very little and left with so many questions that it was annoying. Rogue One does not give great character development, but does a good job of showing the evil of the Empire and the nature of the war that does not come through in the original trilogy. <br /><br />Fourth, Rogue One should have had a slightly different ending. Princess Leia being in that massive fight makes no sense. Worse yet, the beginning of Star Wars now feels like stupid pathetic lies. It seems as if Leia and the guy who said it was a diplomatic mission are a little like PR guy for Saddam Hussen. <br /><br />Fifth and finally, the technology of allowing dead people to appear in movies is amazing. It will be bad in the long run as now the dead can be used to advertise beer or Snickers, but it is impressive technology. The moral questions of who owns the likeness of dead people is what will be interesting. Still, it cannot be denied that seeing some of the original people was fun. <br /><br />Go see the movie, and hopefully Abrams will give us a better movie in 2017.Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-25041804262439234222016-12-02T15:50:00.001-06:002016-12-02T15:50:35.838-06:00Mockery in the Church<div class="MsoNormal">
I recently wrote about the decline in discussion thanks to
the rise in mockery. It was in the
context of why we have Trump vs. Clinton.
It turns out that Trump won and in large part because the middle of
America felt put upon and scorned by the mocking left. I was not surprised. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But now I must say that I have long been bothered by the
same trend in church. Mocking is often
now the way the church communicates too.
Douglas Wilson is excellent at it with a sharp wit and a sarcastic
tongue. He helped popularize the heresy
of Federal Vision with his mockery. But
it has gone from the controversial to the church mainstream in the <a href="http://babylonbee.com/">Babylon Bee</a>. I see this posted everywhere I go
on social media. </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Some of the Bee’s stuff is quite harmless using well-worn
jokes as fodder like <a href="http://babylonbee.com/news/half-congregation-dies-starvation-sermon-goes-15-minutes-time/">the need to end a sermon on time</a>. Others are more satire directed at new
<a href="http://babylonbee.com/news/study-people-use-hashtag-blessed-much-likely-blessed/">evolving ways of communicating on social media</a>.
But more and more are mocking of <a href="http://babylonbee.com/news/joel-osteens-bible-makes-daring-escape-abusive-owner/">people directly</a>. And not always individuals but large
groups. Some were <a href="http://babylonbee.com/news/police-calm-millennial-protesters-handing-participation-trophies/">so popular</a> they were
fact checked by Snoopes. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now mockery in and of itself is not sinful. We do see it used in the Bible. Surely Paul is mocking to some degree in
Galatians 5:12 where he wishes those who would require circumcision would
emasculate themselves. God participates
in a bit of mocking or sarcasm at least in his conversation with Job in Job
38. God knows where Job was when he set
the limits to the waters, and he knows Job cannot hook the Leviathan. But it was used to make a point. Job need his sense of importance and power
torn down by God, which God did to Job’s spiritual benefit. But we also see the Bible warn quite a bit
about mocking such as Proverbs 3:34 or the incident in 2 Kings 2:23 where the
she-bear tears apart some mocking children.
So there is a limit, a time and place, for the use of such
communication. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The problem today is the overuse of mockery. Jesus and Paul could mock, but that was far
from their only weapon. It had a place
and a purpose. The majority of the
conversation was to build up. They
mocked to bring a listener to change by laying bare his folly. But they never ever left someone there. Tearing down without building up is not good
at all. It clears out the strong man
without filling the house with the Spirit.
Jesus mocked and so did Paul and Elijah and others, but can we find a
Scriptural example where the mockery was not done in order to bring about
change, but rather to bring about a laugh.
Did the disciples sit around and tell jokes to each other about the
Pharisee who was eaten by a wolf on Saturday because he could not exceed the
proscribed number of steps for the Sabbath?
Probably not.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And here in lies the rub, for me at least. Do we believe this mockery is effecting
change? Is this tearing down leading to
a building up? Does anyone really think
Joel Osteen is reading this, much less motivated to start using the Bible
correctly? Do we think this helped any
followers of Osteen? Do we think it
helped protesters in the streets? Are
modern worship services s<a href="http://babylonbee.com/news/elevation-church-ordered-post-seizure-warning-worship-services/">tarting to tone it down after seeing how they are likenight clubs thanks to the Babylonian Bee</a>? Is the mocking of the <a href="http://babylonbee.com/news/scholars-discover-translation-error-root-evil-actually-gluten/">anti-gluten diet craze</a> really changing minds? Of course not. But is the
conservative Reformed crowd being affected by this mockery? We don’t make these mistakes, but what is the
attitude portrayed toward those that have contemporary worship or were so upset
by the election they took to the streets?
Is it compassion and love? Even
Jesus loved the Rich Young Ruler when he pointed out his sin and shortcoming. Does this form of communication, which seems
to be just for our entertainment, moving us to help the protesters in the
street who need to know from where the only comfort in life and death comes, or
does it make us look down our noses at them because they need a participation
trophy? <o:p></o:p></div>
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And let us also hold up the “do onto others” mirror that the
Bible desires us to hold up. Would Adam
Ford want to be at the end of his mocking satire? He has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/04/04/fake-news-thats-good-for-the-soul/">often</a> <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/local-church/2016/april/babylon-bees-adam-ford-says-church-needs-laughter.html">pointed</a> to his anxiety disorder
as part of his journey that was very formative for him. He takes anxiety medicine and has <a href="http://adam4d.com/meds/">openlysatirized those who think you should not be taking medication for suchdisorders</a> in some of his comics. Would
Adam think it good and funny satire if someone wrote an article with a title
along the lines of “Blood tests confirm levels of sin (just like Diabetes),
Jesus pill the answer”. Would he even
allow such as post on his Babylonian Bee? According to a search on the Bee's sight, the answer is apparently no. I am not saying that people with anxiety should not take medicine. What I am saying is that this is a more
complicated question than comparing it Diabetes. Again the more the mockery the less the
discussion. And the other thing I am
saying is that if he would not allow such an article, then he is being
hypocritical about his support of satire/mocking. His goal was to mock from a place of love,
but if you are doing something to others that you would not be okay with being
done back to you, you have failed the biblical test of love. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The problem I have with what goes on today in places like
the Babylonian Bee is that mockery is presented for mockery's sake. The main audience is not even those who it is
mocking. Rather, it is those who already
agree. It is not tearing down for the
purpose of building up, it is tearing down so we can all have a good laugh at
those fools over there. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is a
worrisome trend especially in the church. <o:p></o:p></div>
Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-66855092672049655192016-10-03T23:26:00.000-05:002016-10-03T23:26:15.698-05:00Blame Jon Stewart for the 2106 ElectionIt is hard not to be confused by how the American 2016 presidential election has come down to Clinton and Trump. They are hated by almost everyone and have the highest disapproval numbers ever. How did this embarrassment happen? <br /><br />Obviously the answer is complicated, but let me suggest one reason you might not have considered. Jon Stewart. Stewart, the former host of the Daily Show, helped bring America to its knees and has led us to the farcical match up of Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton. Let me explain.<br /><br />In 1999, Stewart took over The Daily Show on Comedy Central, a news satire and talk show, turning its focus away from pop culture and toward politics and the national media. He interviewed political guests such as presidential candidate John Kerry. As host of this program, Stewart repeatedly criticized Crossfire, a current events debate program airing on CNN. Eventually in 2004, the hosts of Crossfire invited him to be on their program as a guest. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE">In that appearance</a>, he stated that Crossfire was hurting America, and he called the hosts “political hacks” and worse. He rejected the concept of a two part only (liberal-conservative) worldview, and in turn he rejected the political discourse that took place on Crossfire. Within three months, Crossfire was cancelled by CNN. A little over a year after Stewart’s appearance, his own Daily Show launched a successful spin-off, The Colbert Report. <br /><br />Both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report were comedy shows that garnered their laughs through mockery of politics, politicians, and political beliefs. Both shows concentrated their jeering on conservatives with very little spent on the liberal/progressive side. Originally this was explained by Stewart as simply a consequence of the Republicans presenting a bigger target since they were in power; however, when Barak Obama became President, both shows continued to focus their fire on Republicans, conservatives, and conventional values. <br /><br />The serious-minded debate show on CNN died, Daily Show ratings went up, especially among young people, and Liberal politicians noticed. Not only did they all want to appear on the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, but this joking-at-the-conservative's-expense began to be imitated by Progressive Liberals. By the time of the 2016 presidential campaign, Stewart’s method of dealing with political opponents with mockery is the main way politics is done, and it is not a coincidence. <br /><br />Bill Maher is another comedian who reflects this trend. From 1993 until 2002 he hosted a show called Politically Incorrect. It was not as contentious as Crossfire, usually incorporating guests from various viewpoints speaking together in a light debate style on various topics. The show was canceled before Stewart’s appearance on Crossfire, but well after The Daily Show was growing in popularity. Maher then launched his own mocking show called Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO. This show has a much more liberal tone and <a href="http://www.forwardprogressives.com/meet-press-bill-maher-mocks-conservatives-dont-believe-facts/">jeers conservatives </a>with jokes such as: “Conservatives don’t believe in facts.” In 2008 he filmed a “documentary” titled Religulous, designed to make fun of religion and deter people from belief. <br /><br />In 2008 the people of Minnesota actually elected a comedian to the Senate, further bolstering this movement away from thoughtful, even-handed debate and toward sarcasm and mockery as a primary means of political expression. The drive to destroy one’s opponents with ridicule rather than argumentation was well-established on the political Left and is evidenced in the fact that most people believe that Sarah Palin, Republican candidate for Vice President, said that <a href="http://www.snopes.com/politics/palin/russia.asp">she could see Russia from her backdoor</a>, a statement which in reality came from a Saturday Night Live skit. <br /><br />Remember when then-candidate Obama was taking on Senator Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination? What helped sway the tide for Obama? There are lots of factors, but one that stands out is Obama’s mocking, patronizing dismissal of Hillary as “You’re likable enough,” during a January 2008 debate. Hillary’s likability became a regular concern for the rest of that election cycle. It is a routine part of Obama’s arsenal, and he uses it effectively. Rather than engaging in dialog and rational discussion with his rivals or even arguing like participants on Crossfire, President Obama <a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/obama-mocks-republicans-now-theyre-worried-about-3-year-old-refugee">ridicules his opponents</a> a la Jon Stewart.<br />
<br />
“But apparently they’re scared of widows and orphans coming into the United States of America as part of our tradition of compassion,” he said. “At first, they were too scared of the press being too tough on them during debates. Now they’re worried about three-year-old orphans. That doesn’t sound very tough to me.”<br /><br />In fact, this was a deliberate strategy of his campaign in 2012. Ridiculing Mitt Romney became the path to winning. It was implemented apparently on October 4. He stopped speaking of lower expectations and began “<a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/31/obamas-revised-pitch-features-hard-sell-record-moc/">adding a heavy dose of ridicule</a>”. Mitt Romney was caught by surprise when, during the second presidential debate on October 16, he was asked about his “binders full of women.” The phrase was then used by both President Obama and Vice President Biden on the campaign trail to mock Romney. <br /><br />Hillary Clinton learned the lesson and now uses ridicule and mockery regularly. Whether it is her “delete your account” <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/06/09/hillary-clinton-tells-donald-trump-to-delete-twitter-account/">tweet </a>to Donald Trump, the <a href="http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2016/07/21/clinton-just-made-donald-trump-selfie-filter/">hashtag</a> #Trumpyourself, telling Trump she knows he lives in his own reality, or even her “basket of deplorables” comment, she uses mockery as a campaign tactic. Secretary Clinton has imbibed deeply at the well of Stewart’s method of ridicule.<br /><br />There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens (Ecclesiastes 3:1). This includes a time to laugh, but when we get confused and laugh at the wrong time, we end up with vanity and confusion. <br /><br />Jon Stewart’s rejection of political discourse in favor of sarcasm and ridicule as a means to promote political beliefs is an example of such confusion and vanity. His behavior had the cover of “comedy” to prevent backlash or thoughtful disagreement. Unfortunately, this approach has changed our culture so that comedy is now a weapon rather than a release and escape. Jerry Seinfeld, a satirist in his own right, admits that <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/08/jerry-seinfeld-college-politically-correct-racism-sexism_n_7534978.html%20%20-%20seinfeld%20interview">he no longer performs on college campuses because the college kids don’t understand comedy</a> and are too easily offended. (And of course <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/13/the-lefts-outrage-at-jerry-seinfeld-proves-his-point/">he was attacked</a> for stating this.) The reason, I believe, is that this generation of people in college grew up hearing comedy as a tool and a weapon. Being the butt of a joke is not funny; it’s an attack. Comedy’s purpose is now tearing others down, not making people laugh. A similar incident occurred when comedian <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/09/20/jimmy_fallon_gives_hillary_clinton_a_bag_of_literal_softballs.html">Jimmy Fallon interviewed candidate Donald Trump</a> on the Tonight Show and good-naturedly joked with him as he does all his guests. The progressive world, <a href="http://tvline.com/2016/09/20/samantha-bee-jimmy-fallon-donald-trump-interview-video/">most notably Samantha Bee</a>, the host of another Daily Show spinoff, attacked Fallon for his “softball” interview. The next week Candidate Hillary Clinton appeared on the Tonight Show, and she mocked Fallon by giving him a bag full of softballs, but she did not complain when Fallon treated her just as he had treated Trump. It is now expected that comedians use their comedy to accomplish a political goal. Comedy is a weapon. <br /><br />But how does this give us Trump vs. Clinton? Progressive liberals have mocked and ridiculed the conservative right for over a decade now. The progressive left appears to be winning the Culture Wars, and candidates from the right who try to participate in debate are mocked out of the public square. Enter Donald Trump. Trump was already rather famous for his insulting treatment of people on his TV show The Apprentice. The primary campaign began, and one by one, the other Republican candidates fell away before Trump’s onslaught of ridicule. Some tried to fight back with ridicule and the subsequent Republican debate went down in the books infamously featuring an exchange on the size of the candidates’ hands, which served as a euphemism. Senator Marco Rubio experienced some of his highest approval numbers after that exchange. Ridicule wins. The people on the conservative right are now embracing fighting fire with fire. Ridicule with ridicule. Senator Ted Cruz, perhaps the best debater in the group, embodied the final vestige of reasoned debate and policy knowledge. And he, too, fell. Trump won the primary using the Stewart method and backed by an electorate that’s tired of being mocked and eager for a candidate who can fight fire with fire.<br /><br />It should not be surprising that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/21/opinion/campaign-stops/clintons-samantha-bee-problem.html?_r=0">eventually the conservative side pushed back</a> and adopted the same mocking methodology. Nor should it be surprising that they picked a professional mocker to do it. The war is on, but it is no longer a war of ideas; it is a war of ridicule. <br /><br />Jon Stewart helped introduce us to this age where ridicule is reason and comedy is policy. Now, no matter who wins, we are going to have a clown in the White House. Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-14320926949735150222016-08-23T16:08:00.000-05:002016-08-23T16:08:13.887-05:00More Hyde on the 4th Commandment
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Hyde makes the claim that there is no way around the fact
that the Lord’s Day is the Christian Sabbath.
And <a href="https://prts.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Puritan-Reformed-Journal-PRJ-2012.1.pdf">the article</a> and a good portion of the <a href="http://reformedforum.org/ctc450/">podcast</a> are discussing the pronouncement
of Dort concerning the Sabbath. Rev.
Hyde claims that this shows agreement with the Puritan position, and I
disagree. Now Dort is probably a bit
closer than the Heidelberg to the Puritans and closer than the Second Helvetic Confession,
and close to in-line with Jan Laski, but not in agreement with the Puritans. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">First let us remember that this is not the Synod of Dort
that was all the Reformed from across the Continent. This was the same synod, but the foreign
delegates had left by this point. It is
what is called the ‘post-acta’ portion of the Synod. So this is only the Netherlands. A Netherlands that was in the midst of being
highly influenced by the Puritans from England.
William Ames was currently ministering in the Netherlands and was
serving as a help to the Synod President, and the Dutch had a church in London
as well. Thus the Dutch had internal
divisions on this subject. Gomarus was
against the Puritan view and Voetius was for it. Both at the Synod. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dort has <a href="http://heidelblog.net/2014/07/the-canons-of-dort-on-the-sabbath/">six points regarding the 4</a></span><sup><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://heidelblog.net/2014/07/the-canons-of-dort-on-the-sabbath/">th</a></span></sup><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://heidelblog.net/2014/07/the-canons-of-dort-on-the-sabbath/">Commandment</a>. The first point speaks of having
a ceremonial and moral aspect. The
ceremonial nature of the commandment that includes the “rest on the seventh day”
and the “strict” manner of observance according to point 2. Hyde states the ceremonial aspects as the “day
on which the Sabbath fell” and the “strictness” (Regulae. pg.171 see article link above). But that is not what the text seems to
say. The word “rest” is included. Hyde’s formulation assumes the Sabbath will
continue, but that is actually what is being debated. The moral portion, according to point 3, is one day a week needs to
use for worship and all that gets in the way of that should be rested from or stopped. So note that there
is no equation of the seventh day with the first day. Just one day a week is required. The fourth point is the Sabbath of the Jews
is abolished, and Sunday is to be hallowed.
This is a follow up on the ceremonial points, this is all
abolished. Strict observance is
abolished. The Sabbath is
abolished. No mention of a new Christian
Sabbath. The word Sabbath is used only
here to say it is abolished. Point 4
does seem to be saying that Sunday is the day appointed to worship, but it is
not the same as saying it is the Sabbath.
The fifth point now references the long standing tradition of
worshipping on Sunday. It is saying that it is now a well-established
tradition. That should have weight. Point 6 then speaks of consecrating the day
to worship by resting from servile labor and all recreation that gets in the way
of worship. It is not a call to rest
form all work, nor from all recreation.
So this is clearly less than the Westminster. Still, it does go further than the
Heidelberg.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Just in case anyone thinks I am crazy, Douma comments on
Dort and the fourth commandment saying “the Synod did not come up with a
strictly Puritan pronouncement” (The Ten Commandments pg.144). He too argues it is a compromise
statement. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is not a Puritan interpretation because the Puritans make
rest on the day as well as worship part of the continuing moral force of the
commandment. The Heidelberg does not. This pronouncement from Dort does not. It says you have to rest from stuff in order
to worship, but that is not the same as what the Puritans are arguing for. They want all work on the day to cease
(including recreation). Rest itself is
part of the moral force not simply as an aide to worship, but rest for rest’s
sake. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It should be noted that Dort, as well as the Westminster,
downplay the everyday portion of the 4</span><sup><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> commandment. The Heidelberg and earlier Reformers
emphasized resting from your evil works all the days of your life. It is not found in this pronouncement by Dort
(although perhaps outside of its intention), nor is it mentioned in the
Westminster Confession and Catechisms. </span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-18135190771493134232016-08-18T14:16:00.002-05:002016-08-18T14:16:07.401-05:00Rev. Hyde and the Sabbath
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One cannot click around for more than a few seconds before
running across someone slobbering all over the Puritans and talking of their
greatness. Everyone wants to be part of
Puritanism now and show how Puritanism is Reformation theology down the line. Rather than admitting that Reformed theology
has some breadth to it, many desire to simply make everyone into a
Puritan. No example is better than the
idea of saying there is no difference between the Continental and Puritan view
of the Sabbath or 4</span><sup><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Commandment.
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The latest example of this is Rev. Daniel Hyde. He is a guest on the <a href="http://reformedforum.org/ctc450/">Christ the Center Podcast Episode 450 </a>(congrats on that number by the way) and has an article being republished in the Confessional Presbyterian
arguing that everything was always Puritan Sabbatarianism. Rev. Hyde and the hosts make this claim at
about the 5 minute mark. They go on to
talk about how sometimes the application is different, but the principle is the
same. And proof is offered in that the
URC is very strict on the Sabbath and a lot of Presbyterians are not. And it must be said this is true; however, it
is because the URC holds the Puritan view of the Sabbath not because there is
no such thing as a Continental view. From
this point on in the podcast they talk of the “myth” of the Continental view or
the “so-called” Continental view. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Rev. Hyde does attempt to prove this from the Heidelberg
Catechism Q.103. At the 18:31 mark and
again at the 20:30 mark, Rev. Hyde quotes from the HC and reads the answer as “and
that I especially on the Sabbath, that is the day of rest, . . .” He makes a big deal about the inclusion of
the word Sabbath. The problem is the
word Sabbath is not in the answer. Now it
is my understanding that while the URC has adopted the Three Forms they did not
adopt specific wording or versions until this past Synod (which I do not have
access to), so it might be in whatever version Rev. Hyde is using. However, Ursinus’s commentary on the
catechism does not include Sabbath, nor does any RCUS version of it, nor does
the Christian Reformed Church, or really any version I can find. The Heidelberg avoids the word Sabbath. Hyde concludes at the 21:20 mark by saying “There
is no way around it, The Lord’s Day is the Christian Sabbath.” </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I disagree. Rev. Hyde
has told us the Dutch are real strict about Sunday’s but he has not shown us
that it comes from the Confessions nor has he dealt with the ample proof that
the Lord’s Day is not the Christian Sabbath.
Remember this quote from the Second Helvetic Confession Chapter 24 “Besides
we do celebrate and keep the Lord’s Day, and not the Sabbath, and that with a
free observation.” The Second Helvetic
makes a distinction between Lord’s Day and Sabbath. Not an equation. And remember the Second Helvetic is the
single most widely adopted Confession of the Reformation. Calvin’s 1545 Catechism is similarly focused
on saying that “the observance of rest is part of the ceremonies of the ancient
law, which was abolished at the coming of Jesus Christ” (Q168). The Lord’s Day is not the Christian Sabbath,
and if I read Calvin right, not even required to be Sunday. Add to that Ursinus’s Major and Minor
Catechisms, which speak of honoring the ministry and removing hindrances, but
fail to call the Lord’s Day the Sabbath and specifically says the time and place
is set by the church. Also the Larger
Emden Catechism, which gets closer to what Hyde wants, states the external
Sabbath is maintained “when the church of God is honored in its office and
ministry” (q.41) and goes on to state this time is set by the church (43). </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the end, Hyde’s claim that the Lord’s Day is the
Christian Sabbath is the heart of the dispute.
That is what makes one a Puritan Sabbatarian. If you believe the Lord’s Day, Sunday, is the
Sabbath on a new Christianified day, then you hold to the Puritan view. If you believe the fourth commandment is
really about resting from your evil works all the days of your life and a
helpful pattern to aid our weakness in calling us together to worship once a
week, then you hold to the Continental view.
If you believe cessation of labor is the obedient response to a holy day
instituted by God then you hold to the Puritan view, if you believe cessation
of labor and physical rest is not really the point of the commandment then you
hold to the Continental view of the Sabbath.
They are different and they have existed since the Reformation. People have to stop denying it. If you think one is right, then argue for it,
but don’t pretend everyone has always held to that view. It is okay to say you think Calvin was wrong
or that Bullinger was wrong. It is not
okay to say that they really meant the same things as the Westminster.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I will deal with Hyde’s discussion of Dort in another post.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-58123020623926191992016-07-15T14:10:00.000-05:002016-07-15T14:10:15.145-05:00Activism vs. ActionThe Gospel Coalition has a blog up trying to figure out why the <a href="https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/why-the-planned-parenthood-videos-didnt-change-the-abortion-debate">videos showing Planned Parenthood selling baby parts</a> did not have any affect on anything. They have five main reasons including over estimating the pro-life mood of the country, focusing on illegality vs. immorality, not coordinating with other pro-life groups, not anticipating the attacks, and not having a marketing strategy. <br />
<br />
I agree with some of those and not with others, but I don't think this is why they failed to change any laws or politicians on the matter. And the reason is simple. Today people have replaced action with activism. Success is not measured in change, but in hashtags created. <br />
<br />Let me explain. I think if you were to have asked people in congress and many they would think that they did an all out assault on Planned Parenthood, and they would be surprised so many think nothing happened. Even the article admits that dozens of investigations were launched, media attention garnered, and even congressional investigations. This is activism. But since nothing changed, there was no action. Congress did not put forth any new law. The FBI did not prosecute. The laws were not changed. Funding was not cut. No action. <br />
<br />
This is the world we live in. Think for a moment about all the stunningly awful things that have happened. Email scandal - no action. Benghazi - no action. IRS scandal - no action. Lots of talk about all of it, No action. <br />
<br />
But let us leave the realm of politics. And we can see the same behavior. Boko Haram kidnaps girls and forces them into slavery. No action. A hashtag was created and sad faced pictures posted. So activism was done. Now we can all move on. Terrorist attack in Boston. Hey we can now all buy Boston Strong t-shirts, but no real action to fight terrorism happened. We can change our FB profile to make our pic covered with a French flag, or we can "pray for Nice", but we will do nothing else. Action is not the goal. Activism is. <br />
<br />
Today it is enough to be seen to be caring. It is about looking good and being on the right side of history. It is not about participating in history, or writing history or doing anything at all. For sometime one's intentions have been the measure of whether something was good or bad. Outcomes were unimportant. That social program was meant to help the poor. It does not really matter if it does or not, the intention was good. The intention of putting the bands in the church is to be evangelistic, so it is good. It doesn't matter whether we ought to put bands in churches, the intentions make it good. This is simply the next logical step. I just need you to see my intentions, I don't need to do anything.<br />
<br />
So why did the Center for Medical Progress expose on the evil of Planned Parenthood fail? Because we live in a "look at me" combined with a "do nothing" culture. Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-9686795349631804662016-06-07T16:35:00.003-05:002016-06-07T16:35:49.063-05:00Taylor is not Trump
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Recently <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/history-campaign-politics-zachary-taylor-killed-whigs-political-party-213935">Politico</a> began a <a href="http://www.redstate.com/streiff/2016/06/06/donald-trump-zachary-taylor-gop-going-way-whigs/">stream of thought</a> that the
Republicans could be the Whigs because Trump is like Zachary Taylor. Sadly, it is an article that understands
little of history and in fact are just making stuff up.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Whig Party did dissolve not long after winning the
Presidency, but it was not Zachary Taylor’s fault. In fact, the Politico article skims past the
actual reasons. Taylor was close to the
perfect Whig candidate, a candidate who stood for next to nothing. The problem with the Whig party was that it
was always a party that simply opposed Andrew Jackson and his principles. They were not united by any real set of
beliefs. Thus, the quotes calling the nomination
of Taylor a betrayal of Whig principles are laughable because there were no
Whig principles. Even the article notes
it was a “strained” coalition of Northern and Southerners who were against
Jackson. The quotes from abolitionists
like Greeley are not universal for the Whigs because they had a large group of
Southerners. Taylor was chosen because
he could stop the party from splitting by not having a real position on
slavery. This was always the Whig
way. Clay stands as the perfect
example. He owned slaves, but was not
really for slavery, but not really an abolitionist either. Clay is the picture of the Whig Party, and it
slowly became an impossible place to be.
That is hardly Taylor’s fault. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is also not exactly fair to claim Taylor an
outsider. Yes, he had never held office,
but he was a general, and that had always been a path to the Presidency. Washington, Jackson, and Harrison had all be
war heroes. And every one of them had
been opposed by people for not having the right background to be
President. Yet, we can see from the way
James K. Polk managed that war that he very much understood the war hero who
comes out of the Mexican American war will be a candidate for President. And in fact, both major generals, Scott and
Taylor, stood for nomination. Being a
general during war was at this time in American history, an acceptable path to
the Presidency. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In fact, the election of Taylor and his resulting Presidency
(and that of Fillmore who followed after Taylor’s death) was probably the high
point of the Whig movement. It is during
this time that the Whig party controls congress as well as the Presidency. It is during this time that Clay pushes
through the Compromise of 1850, with the help of Stephen Douglas. This adds California to the rolls as a free
state. No minor feat. It kept America together during that struggle,
and that is exactly what the Whig platform had always been. Together.
This led to them ignoring and compromising over and over. Their greatest member, Henry Clay, is known
as the Great Compromiser. Their death
came when the public no longer wanted compromise, but a more permanent solution. The Whigs failed to see this and died.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the end the Whig Party died not because of the lack of
success that Taylor had as President. In
fact, he did not even make it out of his first term before dying. Taylor had little impact on the Whig Party’s
ultimate doom. The election of Taylor
does show the seeds of the ultimate doom of the Whig’s but not because of
Taylor, but because of the presence and success on the ballot of Martin Van
Buren. Van Buren the former Democrat
President ran as a Free Soil candidate and garnered lots of votes. Not enough to win anything, but enough that
he changed the election. And it was
enough that people should have seen that this issue was too important to
ignore. But both parties did just
that. They ignored it. Thus, by 1852 the party has been badly
wounded by a refusal to take sides on the slavery issue as evidenced by the
Compromise of 1850. And it is at that
convention, when Southerners prevent Millard Fillmore from running for another
term, and get General Winfield Scott as the nominee, that the first meetings of
what would become the Republican Party emerge.
Scott is a beautiful example of the Whig Party. Scott himself was anti-slavery, but ran on
the platform that accepted the Fugitive Slave Law. His personal stance killed him in the South,
and the party’s stance killed him in the North.
He was crushed in the election. And
by 1856, the Republicans have fielded a candidate of their own. And by1858 the Republican Party dominated the
North. Republicans had a clear message and
stance. “Free soil, free silver, and
free men”. This addressed the issue of
the day decisively. Southern Whigs
turned to the Know Nothing Party, and even the Democrat Party as they feared
the rise of anti-slavery parties, like the Republican and Free Soil parties, in
the north. Although one can argue the
1860 Constitution Union Party was what was left of the Whig Party. Again, its main platform. Together.
Unity. Avoid the issues. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">If there is a lesson for the Republican Party it is that
taking a stand is important as is keeping up with what is important to the
people. I do not believe Trump will be
the death of the Republican Party.
Without a third party to siphon off voters, there will be no death for
the GOP. If the Libertarians gain a
massive increase, then maybe, it is the beginning of the end. But the Libertarians do not run candidates
well for other offices. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sadly, this comparing Trump to Taylor is very unfair to
Taylor, misses the real message of the Whigs, and is just bad history. I know people want to think this is the end,
but it is probably not. And that message
is the one that really ought to scare us.
</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-60523750615894310752016-05-12T23:49:00.000-05:002016-05-12T23:49:34.304-05:00Celebrity Pastor and SeminariesYou read a lot today about the Celebrity Pastor and the problem and even how to fix it. Opinions vary on the causes and solutions. Sometimes it is an overhaul that includes <a href="https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/gospeldrivenchurch/2016/05/11/troubleshooting-the-celebrity-pastor-problem/">no multisite churches,</a> or the <a href="http://skyejethani.com/the-celebrity-pastor-factory/">Evangelical Industrial Complex</a>, or <a href="http://www.christianity.com/church/pastors/dethroning-celebrity-pastors.html">calls to humility and proper ambition</a>, or even just simple <a href="http://amicalled.com/2014/09/the-celebrity-pastor-problem-from-mars-hill-to-me/">accountability</a>. But I wonder if there is another factor . . . seminaries.<br /><br />Today the vast majority of seminaries use “celebrity” professors as a way to lure you to their seminary. These seminaries almost always have at least one well-liked, well published professor. The better the finances of the seminary the more publishing by more professors, usually also equals more students. You don’t need me to name the big names at each seminary you probably know them off the top of your head. Besides the problem here is not in professors who write good books, but in the attraction students have to them. <br /><br />Modern seminaries also love distinctions. You need something that sets your seminary apart. What makes Westminster in Escondido, CA different than the rest? What makes Mid America distinct so that you should go there? Yes, this is promoted and encouraged. And it is hard to blame the seminaries for doing it. It is what businesses are supposed to do. Carve out your place and grow that place. And independent seminaries are no different. <br /><br />So perhaps part of the “celebrity pastor” begins with seminary. We want future ministers to go to the seminaries with big names, but then when they get into the pastorate we don’t want them to pursuing having a big name or follow other pastors with big names. <br /><br />If we really want to fight against the cult of celebrity, we have to fight it everywhere, including in our seminaries.Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-77513774876189043482016-05-06T16:42:00.003-05:002016-05-06T16:42:17.917-05:00Rethinking Seminaries Part 6
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Apprentice Model of the Seminary has many advantages
over an academic model. First and
foremost among them is that it returns training of ministers to the church. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Today in the Academic model most Presbyterian and Reformed
churches garner graduates from many independent seminaries around the
country. Independent seminaries like Reformed
Theological Seminary (insert whichever city name here), Mid America Reformed
Seminary, Westminster Seminary California, Westminster Theological Seminary,
New Geneva, Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the list goes
on. In almost every instance the diploma
serves as proof that the man is ready to at least sit for exams. Most denominations have a program that
oversees men pursuing the ministry, but it often is little more than checking
up on studies at the seminary. There a
few denominations that have denominational seminaries, but they still have the
problems of the academic model. The CRC
and Calvin Theological seminary exemplify the tail of the seminary wagging the
dog because the academic institution was not so much under the church as over
it. The Canadian Reformed Church also
has a seminary in Hamilton. It too is on
an academic model. Even here the
graduates are assumed to be ready for service in the church without really ever
having been around serving the church.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Apprentice Model gives a different kind of oversight for
the denomination. Each candidate would
be intimately known, along with his family, and his gifts and abilities along
with his spiritual temperament would have been assessed regularly, by both the
pastor serving as the mentor, but also the elders. The pastor would be able to train him
theologically, and when he was ready, he would then begin to get his toe into
ministry. He would be able to do some
guided teaching, maybe lead catechism, eventually give a sermon or two. The elders would be able to give feedback and
see all of it. The apprentice would meet
and sit in on Consistory or Session meetings and learn the value of elders up
close and know how the system works. The
giftedness in teaching could actually be evaluated and not just his giftedness
at writing a paper. A paper and a sermon
are not the same thing. Being able to
read Turretin and teach 1</span><sup><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">st</span></sup><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> graders are not the same thing. This way the church has complete oversight
over both the instruction and the student.
If the student is not cut out for the ministry, he can be gently told,
and the apprenticeship can stop.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is direct oversight by the church over every area of
ministerial training. It is not mediated
through an independent contractor, who may have other motivations or not share
your ideals. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is better for the student as well because he has not had
to uproot his family, quit his job, and sink thousands of dollars into something
that he may not be called to do or cut out for.
He would be able to see what ministry was first hand, and see if he
still felt this was his calling. He
would be able to do so at low cost and low risk, so that if either he was not
cut out for it or decided he was not called to do it, an easy exit would be
painless for him and his family. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Presbytery and Classis could then proceed to a
theological exam to see if he was knowledgable enough for the ministry. Frankly, this is the part that most
denominations do well. The exams are
great to discover knowledge. Where they
are weak is in character, calling, and commitment. These are all addressed already by the church
when the church is the one actually doing the teaching and overseeing. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sure no method is fool proof. But a church that has tried the student,
taught the student, and lived with the student for years would be able to come
before the Classis or Presbytery and give an honest and open account of the
spiritual character and commitment of the individual, who himself would have a
better understanding of his internal calling.
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Returning training to the church in the Apprentice Model
gives the church back the ability to know the men they make into
ministers. </span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-85603686050309458362016-04-28T17:09:00.004-05:002016-04-28T17:09:49.354-05:00Rethinking Seminaries Part 5
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So what is the better way than seminaries? I think it is the apprenticeship model. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The whole world used apprenticeships for every kind of
vocation for centuries. You go and stay
with a person already in the vocation.
You learn from him, are taught by him, get hands on experience that ends
up helping both you and the man already in the job, and then you are ready and
you go out on your own. The same
principle is easily applicable to ministry.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One could easily argue that this is the model used in the
New Testament. Jesus had twelve
disciples. They each went out and they
appeared to train up men and send them out.
Paul for example always seemed to have men around him. Timothy, Titus, Luke, and a host of
others. Barnabas could be argued to have
been with Mark or maybe he started off around those at Jerusalem like
Peter. Mark would later be with
Barnabas. Mark is usually (according to
tradition) with Peter too. But at the
very least we can say the Apprenticeship model fits with Titus 1:5 and 1
Timothy 4:6-16 and other verses. I do
not argue this is the only way, I just think it a better way that what we are
doing now.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The basics of this model are people who desire to get into
the ministry go to be with a pastor, perhaps even their local pastor, who then
apprentices the man. He takes him under
his wing, teaches him, and gives him firsthand experience in the ministry. And I think there is a big role here for
elders in that church as well. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I can hear people already complaining that this is not
academic enough. But yes, academics
would be involved. It would simply be
done on the Cambridge / Oxford system, sometimes known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutorial_system">Tutorial System</a>. The pastor would be assign
readings, the student would do them on his own, and the duo would discuss. Oral communication would be at a premium,
which is the way an eventual pastorate would be. Writing could be required to help people
organize their thoughts. I disagree that
this would be a lowering of actual knowledge gained. I simply think this would return pastoral
education to a way in which people actually were trained and prepared for the
pastorate.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Having ever so briefly outlined the model I recommend, I
will in future posts outline some benefits of this model.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-42160370769628437082016-04-20T13:42:00.000-05:002016-04-20T13:42:16.844-05:00Rethinking Seminaries Part 4
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Seminaries present problems because they are based on an
academic model. This means that like any
graduate school, you have to pick up and move to take years of classes. It is true that today many seminaries offer a
lot of work over the internet, but that is just watering down the actual point
of the seminary, class room instruction.
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Adam Parker <a href="http://theaquilareport.com/a-letter-to-my-wife-after-four-years-of-seminary/">penned a very nice letter</a> to his wife about her
wonderful labor during his five years in seminary, and I don’t want to diminish
the love and care this letter shows to his wife. I want to emphasize the problem with
seminaries this letter shows. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Adam notes that it took 17 years after his becoming
convinced he had a call to ministry to get to the place where he could go to
seminary. Seventeen years!!!! Now, it was probably lengthened by his
marriage and having children, but he did not even meet his wife until two years
after he had decided he was called to the ministry. Adam knew he was called to serve God as a
pastor, but took 17 years before he was able to start training for ministry and
another 5 to complete it. In other words
if Adam felt called to the ministry at age 22, he is finally able to begin
following that call at age 44. The main
reason for the delay is seminary.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Seminaries are expensive.
They usually have multiple professors (three at least) who need full
time salaries, and probably a full time fundraiser. Also they are going to need some part time
staff like a secretary or two, maybe a janitor, and probably one professor who
only teaches from time to time, but makes the catalog look better. This does not include insurance, a building,
and travel expenses, promotional material, and office supplies. We could go on, but the point is it takes
money and lots of it to run a seminary.
At least a portion of that is going to come from the student in
tuition. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Seminaries also take time.
Remember the whole model is class room based, so we have to be in a
class room for classes. You need to be
in class to earn three credit hours for each class. There are academic standards to be met, so
you can’t just pretend a class earns three credit hours. You actually have to meet enough to earn
it. Plus you need to be doing out of class
work, and so many hours per every hour in class is expected (Academic standards
again). And you need to do it for at
least three years so that the degree looks academically rigorous enough. This makes full time employment during school
difficult. If you have full time
employment, it makes full time school difficult, expanding the number of years
you are there. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I don’t know how old Adam is, but what I do know is that
seminary has cost him 22 years of serving the church and following his calling. Yes, he apparently has preached some while in
seminary. That is good. The Jackson area benefits from having so many
students able to help with preaching.
But, guest preaching during seminary is more like filling in than
working in the church. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is amazing to think that the way we train people to work
in the church so far removes them from the church. It takes them into a setting they will never
see again in church work. And it stops
them from actually being able to do what they feel called to do for something
like 22 years. There has to be a better
way.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-87134862034406864932016-04-08T15:04:00.000-05:002016-04-08T15:04:07.927-05:00Rethinking Seminaries Part 3
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of the fundamental planks of Dr. Pipa’s defense of
seminaries is the superiority of Princeton to other methods of training men for
the ministry. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">There are somethings that cannot be denied about
Princeton. Princeton was a place of
great learning. There is no doubt those
who graduated had a tremendous education.
Princeton made a bold and beautiful stand for orthodoxy for a little
over 100 years. That cannot be denied
either. Nor can it be denied that in
1929 Princeton Seminary went liberal. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Yes, it is true Princeton was orthodox for more than 100
years and that is longer than every other seminary, but it still went
liberal. But, it must also be noted that
remaining orthodox for 100 years is not the same as being the best way to train
pastors. The stand for orthodoxy is
impressive precisely because of how liberal most seminaries are and how fast
they go liberal. This really ought to be
seen as the exception that proves the rule that seminaries are not the best way
to educate men for the ministry. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But let us look beyond the fight for orthodoxy. For here is the real key to the
discussion. Were the men who graduated
from Princeton good ministers, better prepared than those who came before them
being trained in a different manner? </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Think about the great graduates of Princeton Theological
Seminary. You think of men like Charles
Hodge, Casper Witsar Hodge Jr., Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, Geerhardus Vos,
and J. Gresham Machen. You know what
these men had in common? They never
served a church as pastor. B.B. Warfield
was an evangelist briefly and stated supply a couple of times, but never a full
time pastor. And these are not the only
names that fit this bill either (O.T. Allis, James Moffat, and J.A. Alexander
for example). Princeton had trouble
training men for ministry. Listen to the
evaluation of David Calhoun, a Princeton Seminary supporter, commenting on
Princeton ignoring complaints from the student body in the early 1900’s. “Princeton had maintained faithfully the
founder’s priorities in promoting ‘solid learning’ and ‘piety of heart’, but it
had lost something of Alexander’s and Miller’s ability to teach and model for
the students skills of ministry” (Princeton Seminary Vol. 2 pg. 269). Or again, Princeton faculty “concentrated
their energies on fighting to maintain the legacy that they had inherited from
Archibald Alexander, Samuel Miller, and Charles Hodge. However, in Old Princeton’s desperate
struggle, attention to some very good things was lessened. Sturdy biblical exposition, great preaching,
and more evangelistic and missionary zeal – along with its stalwart defense of
the faith – would have strengthened the Princeton cause” (Ibid. pg. 398). Calhoun explains why this was the case, “It
was difficult to find the scholar-pastor-preacher combination to fill the need,
and there was apparently some reluctance on the part of the faculty to develop
this department fully, fearing that it would detract from the more “academic”
work of the seminary” (Ibid., pg216). </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And there lies my chief complaint about the modern
seminary. It is based on the “academic”
model, and what will always be stressed above all else is academics. Dr. Pipa is holding Princeton out as a
standard even though Princeton willingly sacrificed preaching and practical
pastoral theology in favor of academics.
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Princeton did produce wonderful scholars and
theologians. Some of the best in
American History without a doubt. They
produced not only replacements for themselves as professors, but also filled
the chairs of other theological seminaries.
Men like William Henry Campbell (professor of languages at New Brunswick
Seminary, and later President of Rutgers) who followed the Princeton theology,
and some who didn’t like John Williamson Nevin (at Mercersburg Seminary), and
some who were in the middle like James Petigru Boyce (founder of Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary). And for
the record none of those men served as a pastor for any real amount of
time. In the end, Princeton failed to
produce enough solid biblical preachers and pastors to combat the worldly
influence and the church’s slide toward liberalism. And producing solid biblical preachers was
the weakest part of the Seminary. Obviously
there were many other factors in the Presbyterian Church’s slide into
liberalism, but Princeton’s failure in the area of pastor training cannot be
overlooked or excused either. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">After all this is a discussion of the best way to train men
for the ministry, training men to be pastors, not training men to be future
seminary professors. </span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-57734414351922989162016-04-04T15:48:00.000-05:002016-04-04T15:48:37.029-05:00Rethinking Seminaries Part 2
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Continuing a discussion about seminaries started from Dr.
Pipa’s article “Seminary Education” from the Confessional Presbyterian 2007, we
move into the discussion of how seminaries came into existence historically.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dr. Pipa begins with the catechetical school in
Alexandria. This began as a place to
train new converts, but apparently at some point begins training men for the
ministry too. Dr. Pipa admits that this
first seminary fails and leads the church into error because of its foundation
on the allegorical approach and Greek Philosophy. This example then seems to be as much against
seminaries as for them.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Middle Ages presents the monasteries as the equivalent
of seminaries. Here Dr. Pipa suggests
the monks were often better educated than the priests, and he points to Jerome
in Palestine and Cassiodorus in Italy.
The problem here is he often neglects how in the middle ages the monks
were bigger problems too. It is the
monks of Egypt who kill Bishop Flavius of Constantinople at the Robber Council
of Ephesus. It is the monks who demand
the reinstatement of images and the Second Council of Nicaea while many priests
were opposed to the images. Leaving out
such prominent negative examples seems to cast doubt on the supremacy of this
method of training men for the ministry.
One could also make the argument that training men to be monks is not
the same as training men for the ministry, but we will not pursue that avenue. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I must admit that I am a little surprised Dr. Pipa leaves
out the school of Charlemagne. Perhaps
because it was not meant to be for men going into the ministry, but just people
in general. Although it seems probable
that some of Charlemagne’s illegitimate children were educated here and ended
up in the ministry like Hugo and Drogo.
It was here Charlemagne gathered Alcuin, Theodulf of Orleans, Einhard,
and others helped create a Caroligian Renaissance. If Dr. Pipa ought to include counter
examples, so should I. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dr. Pipa then points to the early Universities that helped
spawn the Reformation. The University
system clearly aided the rise of the Reformation with the majority of
Reformation leaders coming from Universities.
However, this could also serve as a counter example. The point of the University was to turn out
men in the Roman Catholic Church, but failed miserably by letting people read
the Bible and allowing criticism of the church and non-conformity. While these university/seminaries were great
for the Reformation they failed in their job to provide an educated clergy for
the Roman Catholic Church.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dr. Pipa also notes the early American colleges that were
meant for training ministers. Harvard
was founded just a few years after the colony itself was founded. It was clearly important to the Puritan
men. He goes onto say that when “Harvard
began to slip, Yale was formed; when Yale began to slip, Princeton developed.
(pg.225)” This is true, but shouldn’t
this be another sign of the problems with seminaries? And if we continue to look at this trend when
doctrinal divisions arise the parties often responded with their own
college. College of Delaware was Old
Side to combat Princeton (New Side).
Kings and Queens college were founded by opposing sides of the Dutch
Reformed church. We could go on. This seems to point to a controversial nature
embedded in seminaries that I think is part of the problem. More on that to come. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But Dr. Pipa sees some of these problems. His answer to the failing results of
seminaries is found in systematic theology, classical education, and a
confessionally united faculty. This, for
Dr. Pipa, protects against the slide to liberalism by demanding confessional
fidelity as well as not jettisoning systematic courses for practical theology
(a problem he believes many modern seminaries have pg.228). Much of this is taken from Princeton Seminary
and their founding documents and teaching with slight updating to hit modern
problems and issues. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Yet a glaring problem is that Dr. Pipa assumes the greatness
and superiority of Princeton rather than actually proving it (probably for lack
of space in the article). It is however
an issue that deserves closer attention.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9387707.post-72641648238111559692016-03-31T16:18:00.001-05:002016-03-31T16:18:55.088-05:00Rethinking Seminaries Part 1
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the 2007 edition of the <a href="http://www.cpjournal.com/contents-by-issue/the-confessional-presbyterian-3-2007/">Confessional Presbyterian (vol. 3),</a> Dr. Pipa has an article entitled “Seminary Education”. And it is a defense of seminaries as the way
to educate our future pastors. I would
like to challenge that article because I am no longer convinced seminaries are
the way to go. </span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dr. Pipa begins by admitting that formerly Presbyterian
ministers were the best educated men in town, and that is no longer true. He admits that this may be the worse trained
generation of ministers ever and points not just to not being the best educated,
but also to the state preaching and churchmanship as proof. He also freely admits the high cost of
maintaining seminaries serves as another strike against seminaries, but he
continues to believe it the best idea. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dr. Pipa then goes into a biblical defense of
seminaries. The main biblical support
for seminaries is the “sons of the prophets” found in places 1 Samuel
10:5. Dr. Pipa’s main argument appears
to be that there was a group of people called “sons of the prophets” who appear
during the time of Samuel and continue and appear to dwell with prophets and
serve them. Dr. Pipa argues that from
these men are drawn future prophets, so they are sort of a prophet in
training. His proof for the assertion
that most prophets came from the school of the prophets comes from Amos 7:14
where Amos denies being a sons of the prophet, but rather a man who
shepherded. He claims they studied and
became the historians of the divided kingdom and he points to verses like 2
Chronicles 12:15 as proof. Although
those verses speak of Iddo the Seer and names prophets, it never says the
person was from the Sons of the Prophets.
Dr. Pipa also assumes that bible training would have taken place as well
as musical training and poetry readying them for life as a prophet. Dr. Pipa concludes then the Sons of the
Prophets were OT seminaries. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, I think this is shaky proof at best. We don’t really have an example of an
attender of the “sons of the prophets” becoming a prophet. Amos specifically says he was not one. Elisha is not one despite the Sons of the Prophets
being around. Isaiah is not one. Jeremiah is not one. Ezekiel is not one. Thoes three were priests. Daniel does not appear to be one. Neither does Zephaniah, who may also have
been a priest. These are a lot of
exceptions. The best picture of someone who
was a son of the prophet being a prophet himself is in 1 Kings 20:35 where a
certain man of the sons of the prophets commanded someone to strike him and he
died when he did not, and that son of the prophet then delivered a prophetic
message to Ahab. Dr. Pipa is assuming
that the rest of the prophets came from the sons of the prophets. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But let me put forth an alternative suggestion. Perhaps these sons of the prophets are the
source for the 400 false prophets of 1 Kings 22. Here there are four hundred men who are
pretending to be prophets of God, but are accepted by the king and many others
as legitimate prophets. I have read some
who suggest these are the 400 prophets of Ashoreth that are not mentioned as
being killed by Elijah on Mt. Carmel, but how would they be accepted as
legitimate if they all switched from Ashoreth to Jehovah? Something has happened to make people believe
these prophets are legitimate. And what
of the false prophets like Hananiah opposing Jeremiah in places like Jeremiah
28? Could they not be products of the
sons of the prophets? It might help us
understand why so many listened to the wrong voices. Would this not mean that the Bible is really
telling us seminaries are dangerous and should be avoided at all costs because
they will lead the church astray? This
seems to fit a bit better with more modern historical evidence like Calvin
Seminary and the CRC or the Mercersburg Seminary and the RCUS. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But in the end, the Bible is not saying either what I just
put forth or what Dr. Pipa puts forth.
We are both drawing conclusions through assumptions. The Bible in the end is not saying anything about
seminaries. Yes, it teaches we should
have an educated clergy (see 1 Timothy 4 and 2 Timothy 2). But, the how of that education is really not
spelled out. This gives the church
freedom to do what they deem best to educate men for the ministry. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Next I will look at some of Dr. Pipa’s historical
points. </span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10422257306176024118noreply@blogger.com2