If your Christmas reveling caused you to miss the usual serving of Tin Foil Hat Camp updates on the net, fear not. John over at RWN has the best of the bunch. These people are starting to sound dangerous.

Russell: How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris?

No one knows. It has never been tried.

How many Frenchmen does it take to successfully defend Paris?

Russell: If there is an award for posting an exact quote/link posted in a previous post, you just won it. :-) Fortunately, there is no such award.

I am still considering PCUSA ordination. I hear all the latest horror stories. They are many, and many much worse than Parker Williamson losing his credentials in one Presbytery. (This is a bit of a non-starter with me, as Williamson can be credentialed in another Presbytery without a lot of trouble. He’s made a career of skewering liberals in the Layman, and I can’t believe he is surprised that they are doing a bit of revenge.) Since Williamson is not a pastor, his ordination is pretty much at the discretion of the Presbytery anyway. Being placed on inactive is not being “stripped” of his ordination, either, at least not at this point. Being an editor of a partisan paper isn’t an ordained ministry in the PCUSA. They’re just spitting in his eye ‘cause they think he’s mean.

Conservatives in the PCUSA need to stop whining. It’s unworthy of the cause. If God says we must suffer at the hands of our brethren in order to be faithful to Christ, so be it. It’s a honor, not a shame.

I have a special place in my heart for faithful, little PCUSA churches like mine. They need faithful shepherds. The almost 1500 Confessing Churches in the PCUSA, and the many more evangelical PCUSA churches are standing strong. I wouldn’t be ashamed at all to serve them. Of course, I’d have to face the scandal of explaining that I really do agree with the WCF!

I can’t STAND that song… However, when someone says something like “It was horrible being stuck frozen upside down in a snow drift for 16 hours last week” I find myself saying “I can only imagine…”

I really enjoyed the new verse someone made up. Good luck hearing that played anywhere.

Michael Were you still considering ordination from PC USA?

Kwaanza Pretty crappy web site. I don’t usually go for holidays that can’t do some decent HTML coding.

CCM Brilliant work:

Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) seems to fill a similar niche among today’s more religious music consumers. As the joke goes, you just take a standard pop song, replace all instances of “baby” with “Jesus,” and you’ll have yourself a perfectly marketable CCM song. But nothing that will make anybody sit up and take notice, of course.

The Mercy Me/”I Can hardly Imagine” piece for IM: I Found Heaven on 96.1 FM. Still in the editing shop,

Michael: My wife snuck country “music” into the house this way. The Shania Twain song I heard on the radio was not the version on the CD. So it happens everywhere, but I do think that CCM is the worst for it. When you point out that CCM isn’t very “Christian” they say it’s all about the music. When you point out the music sucks, they say, “Hey, it’s Christian!” There are no winners in CCM.

Excepting, of course, whomever it is you cherish. There are exceptions, after all.

The entire Boston Globe interview with Neville Chamberlain on his religious views and newfound commitment to Jeebus…..uh…...Hay-sus…..uh…...Dr. Suess…..oh, somebody like that. (btw- he sounds deranged. But most people sound a little nuts on this topic.)

Phillip: I think CCM marketers do things that other music people talk about, but seldom do out of respect for the artist and the audience. I am very serious. You’ve hit on one. it works like this.

I have The PWinn Band’s new kickin’ single. I release it with the distorted guitars, and another version with acoustic guitars. I release one with strings and one without. I release one with edgy vocals, and one smoothed over with lots of nice BGVs. I release one for light rock stations and another for heavier rock stations.

My hope is that 1) one of them catches on, 2) a little success with all of them sells a decent total and 3) different stations have different formats and some songs can be redone to cross format.

When I first heard this done to a Phil Keaggy tune- edgy, raw guitar removed- it did not make me happy. Mostly because I know Phil to be a consumate artist who doesn’t relish having marketers do things that he wouldn’t do to a song. But maybe he approved. I don’t know.

I will say that I have heard this done to secular artists as well. Dave Matthews comes to mind.

Tim: One of my biggest peeves with CCM is this absurd tendency to take any popular song and record it seventeen different ways, all playing on the air at once. Remakes of songs that are still in first run is just weird. Everybody and their second cousin seems to want to record the latest big “praise and worship” hit, in almost identical arrangements. What on earth is the point of that? If it sounds the same, why bother? Except to collect a bit of change, of course.

Combine that with The Prayer of Jabez for the Left-Handed, Red-Headed, Oversexed Teenager, Study Guide Edition (with VHS Video), and it sure doesn’t seem to me that the Christian entrepreneurial spirit is lacking.

Josh: Check the archives. It is possible to acknowledge the divinity of Christ and still reject an orthodox Trinitarian view. It turns chiefly into a semantic squabble, and those who do so are clearly wrong, but not wrong to the point of not-being-saved, in my view. In other words, Rejecting the Trinity != rejecting the New Covenant, Rejecting the Trinity = rejecting the orthodox explanation for the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Arius was heretical in rejecting Christ’s divinity, but there are other options, also wrong but not quite so heretical. We’ve been through all of this here before, though, so please check the archives.

Michael: That is the marvel, isn’t it? That the verse could so clearly refer to angels or some other sense of plurality for so long to so many people, and yet still clearly from our N.T. perspective include the persons of God! So could someone have derived the Trinity as a doctrine from the O.T. alone? Of course not. Does that mean it wasn’t there at all? That seems odd to me. More than simply Jesus demonstrating how he fulfilled prophecies, I do think that part of this teaching was to show the various “types and shadows” of himself in the O.T., or even possibly — if I’m right — his own appearances, as “the angel of the LORD” or “the LORD.”

So yes, the NT reading of the OT isn’t the same as the straightforward OT reading. But which is correct? I don’t think it is reasonable to think that God existed as the Trinity for those thousands of years and never once dropped even a hint into his dealings with mankind. Nothing explicit, of course, because we were awaiting the incarnation, but clearly there is more than just prophecy, and I believe more than shadow and type as well.

The bothersome part of what you’ve said is that one could (though I don’t) come away with the feeling that you believe the Son and the Spirit hid out on the down-low for all that time, never acting in any way until the incarnation.

Given the info in Alex’s link, it is clear that people have long come up with explanations for things they didn’t understand, like multiple plural references to God. “The plurality of majesty” indeed. And I’m sure that we do similar things ourselves. But the Scriptural support was there, if obscure to us, all along. At least we could say that God-as-a-plural was there, if the specific number and nature of the persons of God were yet to be revealed.

Happy Kwanzaa to everyone, and don’t give up umoja.

I recommend you all to Glenn Miller’s discourse on the OT data elements supporting a Trinitarian hypothesis. I think the evidence isn’t conclusive, but when it is weighed in conjunct with the NT evidence, those Arians look pretty stupid.

Briefly, because I have to go soon:

You can’t prove the doctrine of the Trinity from the Old Testament. That is impossible, because the doctrine of the Trinity is the intimate knowledge of God prophesied in the OT and revealed to us in the Incarnation, that fellowship which was a shadow in the Old and a revelation in the new. Note that the explicit formulation is held off in Matthew until the command to baptize the nations: it is here, in the New Covenant, that we know God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Remember, the New Covenant is not a simple repetition of the Old, but its fulfillment. However, you can use the Old Testament to show how the knowledge of the Trinity is foreshadowed.

The reason that confessing the Trinity is necessary for salvation isn’t that you have to know it to pass the Heavenly Entrance Exam; it’s that if you reject the Trinity, you reject the fellowship with and knowledge of God that Christ came to bring to the nations. You reject the divinity of the Son and thus his true mediatorship. You reject the Holy Spirit and thus the divine provenance that undergirds the ministry of the Church. And so on and so forth. Rejecting the Trinity = rejecting the New Covenant. You can’t fall back on the Old Covenant, because when God reveals something, you don’t have permission to behave as though he never spoke it.

Phillip: Here’s an example of what really turns me off.

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Of course, this is always greeted with the assertion that it’s “the Trinity” talking to one another. Despite the fact that a very convincing case is there for this being God speaking to the Heavenly council of angelic beings that is suggested many times in the OT, this interpretation persists. Now who wants to say they don’t believe the Trinty was involved in creation!? Not me! It is, but interpreting this as it’s written and not as Christ-centered NT interpretation reads it yields two slightly differing results. And I always sound like I am demoting Christ! Hey- if we are interpreting John 1 of Colossians 1 I am right there. But one thing I have learned is that Christian interpretation of the OT theologically is not the same as correct reading of the OT in original context. What Jesus does in Luke 24 is add the “key” to all kinds of passages (like Psalm 2 for instance) by relating them to himself. So there really are two different things: the ingredients themselves and the cake they are finally baking. (Copyrighted Spencer illustration.)

Michael: Argh! Spell-check did a mass substitution on Melchizidek. The “Ignore All” and “Change All” buttons look so similar!

I do agree with you that the Trinity is certainly not explicit in the O.T., only implicit at best. It is certainly easy to think of God as God and Spirit only based on the O.T., and even easy to think of the Spirit within that context as less than a full person with the N.T. material. I’m a little leery of the way you phrased it the first time, but in the end, I’m pretty sure we agree on this.

On The Trinity: BTW, since we’re talking about the Trinity and I have been beat up around here a few times for my lack of strenuous insistence on orthodoxy on the subject as a soteriological requirement, I should state that I have greatly enjoyed the White Horse Inn’s treatment of the Trinity over the last 4-5 weeks. One point they made last night was that we should pray to the Holy Spirit just as we do the Father and the Son. Funny, I don’t think I’ve ever even prayed to the Son! I guess I keep getting hung up on the “Our Father, Who art in heaven” bit, though I must admit that instruction was given pre-ascension and pre-Pentecost, so…

Any thoughts?

P.S. My wife and I spoke about this last night after the show (which airs at 11pm Sunday nights here), and she said that she actually prays to Jesus and the Holy Sprit far more often than to God the Father. For odd reasons, I think, but I’ll keep those between us for now, so the sake of peace and harmony in my home.

On O.T. and N.T. Interaction: It is interesting for me to think about what Scripture was available to different groups at different times. Post-resurrection but pre-Ascension, in Luke 24:27, Christ showed the travelers Himself all throughout Scripture, not just here or there, but everywhere. So nobody was able to reason it out ahead of time, and much of it we can’t seem to suss out now, but he was there all along in some form or fashion. I’m also reminded of the Bereans (?) whom Paul commended for carefully studying Scripture to see if what Paul said was true. What Scripture? All they would have had was the O.T. and the gospels! I suspect out scholarship today is a bit different than that of the Bereans.

Phillip: Melchior? As in the three wise guys? :-/

I don’t disagree with your reasoning at all. It’s just New Testament reasoning, and is based on New Testament revelation. The Chrsitian teaching of the Trinity cannot, in my opinion, be derived from the Old Testament alone, without Christ in the picture. That is a controversial statement, but I stand by it. Of course in Luke 24, Jesus can teach the Trinity from the OT, but the precise reason that happens is that Christ has been revealed and is teaching. So Sure, I know God is always a Trinity, and yes, your interpretation of those passages is sound. But the phrase “pre-incarnational Christ” just doesn’t work in my reading of the unfolding drama of Revelation. But it really is a quibble.

Michael: I choke on the idea that Melchizidek is Christ, too. When Melchizidek is named Melchizidek, I’m inclined to think that he is in fact Melchizidek. I’m referring specifically to passages in which “the angel of the Lord” turns into “the Lord” in the same passage. Genesis 3 is a perfect example of this. In verse 2 we read that “the angel of the LORD” appears, but in the very next verse “the LORD” sees Moses, and “God” calls to him from the bush. It is clear from reading the entire chapter that Moses has a conversation with God, not an angel. So did God trade places with the angel between verses 2 and 3? Maybe, but it seems unlikely to me.

The call of Gideon is another example I remember from reading through Judges recently. In Judges 6:11 and Judges 6:12, we read about “the angel of the LORD” and yet in Judges 6:14 and Judges 6:16, it is “the LORD.” Gideon at first addresses “the angel of the LORD” as “sir” (Judges 6:13) but then addresses “the LORD” as “Lord” (Judges 6:14). Is this another case of a sudden substitution? It sure doesn’t seem so. I should also note here that the Septuagint manuscript keeps “the angel of the LORD” throughout, but has Gideon using “Lord” as the address in both cases. That’s lower-case Lord, not upper-case LORD (Yahweh), which is obviously another factor.

That passage also has the interesting exchange of Gideon expressing dismay at having seen “the angel of the LORD” face to face and fearing death. And in verse 25 it switches back to “the LORD” again, without any apparent surprise to Gideon.

Judges 13 is another interesting passage, in which “the angel of the LORD” doesn’t give Manoah his name, but suggests that they offer a sacrifice to the LORD and then rides the smoke from that sacrifice into the sky. Manoah and his wife fall face-first at that, and despite the fact that other angels go out of their way to tell people not to bow or worship them, this “angel of the LORD” seemed to encourage it by his actions. Manoah and his wife, incidentally, are also fearful that they will die because they had seen God. That is, they clearly believe that they had seen God in some form.

So anyway, it’s not all the time, by any means, and certainly Melchizidek is Melchizidek, but it does seem clear that at least in certain instances, “the angel of the LORD” is actually God in some form.

I’m actually a little bothered by your statement that you think that ”[t]he Trinity isn’t laying around in the Old Testament.” Wasn’t God triune before the foundation of the world? Didn’t the Word exist with God in the beginning? It isn’t surprising to me to see hints of the Son in the O.T., since the Father and the Spirit are explicitly mentioned. Obviously in itself, that’s not evidence of pre-incarnate Christ, and it is certainly possible that he is not mentioned in any way, but combined with the mentions I just made and a few others, one starts to develop an impression.

As for why he isn’t mentioned by name, what name would he have? Jesus was his human name, and Christ was his role, so God seems to be the best name, and if the O.T. writers can use “the angel of the LORD” interchangeably with “the LORD” under certain circumstances, I don’t really know if that is the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit, but it is pretty clearly God.

But obviously, I could be wrong.

[Edited: Spell-check had changed all of the “Melchizidek” references to Melchior’s” so I changed them back.]

Tim, et al: I am not contending about the lyrics. They are obviously only talking about the writer. I am writing on IM about why this song has persisted for a year on secular radio? And the question is: What are non-Christian hearers thinking about when they relate to the song? And my answer will be that they are thinking of themselves and their loved ones in heaven, a frequent theme in a lot of American roots music. It is the same thing they think when they watch John Edwards or believe that everyone who died in 9-11 or is killed in Iraq are in heaven. Americans are near-universalists at heart, tragic times bring that to the surface, and I think this song is being interpreted that way

Michael,
I never took that song to be an all inclusive desire of we’re all going heaven type of thing, here’s the lyrics as I know them, perhaps they have been changed to fit someone elses purposes and that is what you have read or heard? The only people mentioned or referenced in the original song are the person singing and Jesus. I, Me, My, You, Your and Son, as in Jesus..

I will say one thing for the dude that wrote it (and sang it with Mercy Me), he is getting every bit of use from that song he can. I have heard at least 3 different versions of that song now over the last two or three years, and at least one cover version. Maybe that song tells the secular world that Christians can be good business men too?

So while it’s a catchy little song that was well done originally (the only version I have heard enough to comment on), like most CCM stuff I would hardly call it a worship service appropriate song,, but that’s just me.
It is however, one of the few songs in the CCM catergory that I like, the singer delivers a convincing message of his desire to know what he will do when he faces Jesus. He is not questioning whether he is going to heaven, but rather how he will react when he faces Jesus in heaven.

Phillip: I habitually confuse those chapters. My error.

And couldn’t disagree more on the pre-incarnate Christ thing. I have heard that all my life. It seems to want to take passages like I Corinthians 10:4 and abandon all notions of literary style for literal substance. (Sorry Josh :-) I hear it about Melchizedek constantly, but this seems to simply read in way too much into Hebrews 5, 6, 7. The Trinity isn’t laying around in the Old Testament, I don’t think.

Michael: Actually, I was thinking of Luke 1:19 and Luke 1:26, not Luke 2.

As far as the O.T. references go, it seems clear to me that at least some of the apparitions described as “the angel of the Lord” are actually pre-incarnate Christ. I would venture to say that Exodus 3:2 is one of those incidents. So we’re still left with no Gabriel outside of Daniel and Luke, and Galatians 3:19 is too vague for me to even count. In general, I’m annoyed by those who make too much of very few references to angels in Scripture, and this one is just mind-boggling. One out of three, that’s all he hits. Wow.

LOTR is, of course, racist. I feel sorry for people who can’t even go see a simple movie anymore.

Tom: That should be (JE) for Jonathan Edwards. I wonder if we can get Alex to add that verse next time he leads worship? It’s “fun”!! I’m thinking of sending it to our school worship team’s leader, straight-faced, for inclusion in their next “performance.”

The songwriter of this tune, of course, is speaking about himself being in heaven, not anyone else. I think it’s OK to be assured of your own salvation. If secular people like the song because they hear in it that everyone’s going to heaven, that’s their problem. But, just to make sure, maybe another verse could be added:

I can only imagine how hot that fire will be
When some of you go to hell, who are listening to me,
I can only imagine hearing the demons laugh
When you’re immersed head-to-toe in that fiery bath,
I can only imagine.

Surrounded by screaming,
How will you then feel,
Will you burst into cursing,
Or emit a loud, wordless squeal,
Will you stand like a lit torch
Or to the slimy floor you’ll fall,
When the snakes entwine your body
Will you be able to cry at all?
I can only imagine, I can only imagine.

There, I think I’ve solved that little problem!! (JN)

broken body its joints at war
religious vipers sucking royal blood
the price is paid
the final score
the truth exists even through pious mud
who are these people behind the stained glass windows
have they forgotten just what they came here for
was it salvation or “scared of hell”
or an assembly of a social get-together
what’s the mission of the preacher man?
some are true some do lie
what’s the mission of the preacher man
yeah! yeah! yeah!
a threat of justice the lazy judge
the governess teaches his son to scream
adopted child
true path to trudge
no minor plot to undermine his dream
(preacher: bless god! the more i think about it the more i think i was preaching the truth i went down to the cadillac agency and one hour later i drove out a new cadillac hallelujah say praise the lord bless god i’m gonna drive that cadillac down here and get it dusty and dirty and use it for god hallelujah! thank you jesus)

Bill MacK: Of course, if you ever run out of the basic Essence, you can always follow this recipe:

Essence (Emeril’s Creole Seasoning):
2 1/2 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon dried leaf oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme

I use it often and mmmmmmmmmm…....

It’s pretty common in the OT for the angel to be God’s physical mouthpiece, but I can’t think of an OT passage other than Daniel where an angel is named.

Exodus 3:2 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. 3 And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” 4 When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5 Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

Phillip: Concerning Gabriel, maybe he was referring to this verse from Galatians.

Galatians 3:19
Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.

But, I am just guessing at what he meant.

The bishop needs to read his Bible. Luke 2 says “an angel of the Lord” spoke to the Shepherds. It could have been Michael :-) or Fred. As to the Moses thing, he’s talking about Acts 7:53 and Galatians 3:19, neither of which mention Gabriel. Very Hollywood, bishop.

From my church in D.C.:

And what was God thinking… when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the Law to Moses?

And what was God thinking… when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the sacred Quran to the prophet Muhammad?

And what was God thinking… when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God?

I say “my church” because I’ll be starting confirmation classes in two weeks. Anyway, so obviously the Quran stuff is simply insane, but I’m wondering about the Gabriel stuff, too. One out of the three, I’ll give him, because the Bible does indeed say that Gabriel spoke to shepherds and told them of Christ’s birth. But Gabriel revealed the Law to Moses? I assume he’s not talking about the ten commandments, because I think that was clearly God Himself talking.

In fact, I only remember Gabriel popping up by name twice, in Luke and Daniel. Moses tended to deal with God directly, from bush to Sinai and beyond.

And if Mohamed dealt with anything supernatural at all, ‘twasn’t God.

If you step outside, you can probably hear someone yelling BAM! periodically. It’s me. I got loads of spices and sauces for Christmas including several different Emeril’s Essences and Sauces. I am kicking things up notches unknown to mankind.

Other sundry items I received: Celtic Music CD. Finding Nemo and Pirates of the Carribean DVDs. 10 volumes of Spurgeon’s sermons. Hunting Knife, Tool Chest

Also my son moved into an apartment and my wife, daughter, and mother in law are leaving today for Orlando. Five days of complete solitude, except for the dogs. The couch will be my friend. I plan to move only enough to prevent bed sores. Also looking forward to 45 straight hours of the Twilight Zone on the SciFi Channel.

Soliciting the input of the Fellows (and the lurking community) on a question that truly puzzles me. (Also one that will generate a piece for IM and/or RM.)

How do you explain the huge success of Mercy Me’s CCM ballad “I Can Only Imagine” on (generally nasty, hip-hop and rap playing) secular radio? What does it tell us about the people listening, especially the non-Christians, and about CCM’s influence? Am I correct that the song indicates a general desire to hear that we are all going to heaven?

A recipe from this past Christmas…

Truffles
1 12-oz package of semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
2 Tbsp. Butter
2 Tbsp. Cherry Liquer
1 Tbsp Veg. Oil
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. milk

Warm 1/2 of the chocolate chips (about 1 cup) over low heat until melted. Stir in whipping cream, butter, and liquer until melted and thoroughly mixed. Place in refrigerator for 15-20 minutes, stirring often. When the mixture is able to hold a shape, pull out of fridge and place (in teaspoon-sized drops) on an aluminum-foil lined cookie sheet. Place in freezer for 30 minutes. Just before pulling them out, melt the rest of the chips and oil together over low heat. Pull drops out of freezer, and dip them one by one into the mixture and place them back on the foil-lined cookie sheet. DO NOT CHEAP OUT AND DUMP THEM ALL AT ONCE. You’ll be sorry. Put the candy back into the fridge for about 20 minutes. Mix together sugar and milk and stick it in a ziploc bag. Take out the cooled candy, stick them in the bag with the sugar and give it a shake.

Candy’s ready. Best served cool to room temperature with a glass of milk.

Ho Ho Ho.

I haven’t touched a computer in almost a week, and it felt goooooood.

This past Christmas at the Ward household was pretty groovy. We all got what we wanted. I wanted to look like Hugh Hefner, so I combined Bart’s gift of scotch and cigars with a robe my in-laws got me. The wife wanted time off of work, so Santa brought her a raging case of influenza.

Hot Buttered Rum Recipe…

Ingredients:

1 lb. Brown Sugar
1 lb. Powdered Sugar
1 lb Butter
2 tsp. Cinnamon
1 tsp. Nutmeg
1 quart of vanilla ice cream, the good stuff like Breyer’s or similiar.

Thoroughly mix and freeze the above ingredients. It’s easier to let the ice cream melt first before mixing.
Add Captain Morgans Spiced Rum to taste and 2 tablespoons (more or less to taste, I like more) of the batter mixture in a large sized mug.
Fill a mug the rest of the way with hot water. Stir until batter is desolved and add whipped (or whupped, depending on where you live) cream and more Nutmeg on top if desired.

We give these out as Christmas gifts with a pint of Cap’t Morgans, they never fail to ask for the recipe. They also warm us up after a cold walk in the woods or shoveling the driveway.