Theopedia? Ugh. The NPP article begins by saying that folks are “reinterpreting” Paul. That word “reinterpret” bothers be a great deal. It assumes that there is one true interpretation, apostolic and universal, whose holy truth we now declare. How ‘bout “they interpret…”? It isn’t a “reinterpretation” of anything. Not to mention, the section on Arminianism has a healthy dose of “critical” views while the Calvinist article has two unheard of websites as the “con”. There is no attempt at presenting a balanced look about anything other than the TR view.

I also have the feeling that this is the same group of folks who insist on sending me E-mail about various and sundry things. I don’t care. I don’t read it.

Since the Biblical position is that we are all sexual sinners, I don’t get the point from that angle. If you believe that the normalization of the unnatural is a social issue that really matters, then maybe there are some reasons. If you are trying to sway people against gay marriage, then I guess it’s the way you make your point.

I’ve a quick question, probably mostly for Richard but I assume that others would know as well. Would it violate Canadian ‘hate speech’ laws to teach in a Christian church that homosexuality is a sin?

I’m curious to understand whether or not a local radio station was exaggerating last evening while asking for donations to increase their broadcast power to extend into Manitoba.

I’m also curious to understand why it must be proclaimed that homosexuality is a sin in order to communicate the gospel, any thoughts?

The sexual abuse of hymns. Another interesting post by my favorite writer at Mere Comments.

Betcha didn’t know this, but the UMC has a long-standing history of alcohol abstinence.

Not that anyone pays attention to it :-) Well, unless you count using grape juice in communion. I can’t bring myself to say “wine” in our communion services. I always say “cup” because it’s more truthful.

Douglas: I’m just a bit reluctant, sitting here at home, to point the finger at the entire SBC disaster relief operation and yell “hypocrites.” There are probably 100+ Disaster Relief units in the south right now. This was some guy and some volunteers at one. And, according to the original article, they distributed the water after some hesitation.

We receive a lot of donations here at OBI. If there were donated water in beer bottles, there would be some reluctance to give it to our students and staff. I understand the problem here, trust me.

All I’ve attempted to do here is provide our non-SBC readers with the correct information about the SBC. You used the words “SBC agencies” and that is not correct. It’s like me constantly being told that the PCUSA ordains homosexuals. I appreciate the truth on that issue, and in the same way, neither the SBC, its agencies not the vast majority of its relief workers made the mistake originally noted, nor is there a policy that compelled the mistake. There are habits and feelings. All you’ve said about the mistake itself is true enough, and I don’t begrudge you saying it.

Joel: Sorry….double posting is a confession I do forget some posts. My apologies.

That Kozol article is SO 3 weeks ago, Michael. ;-) But it is a must read (still).

Serious question on the water-for-beer “scandal”: even if the original product had been in the cans, would anyone have noticed the difference?

Total Truth: I basically agree with Michael’s take. The final part of it was worth reading, but the first 3/4 I found unoriginal and unhelpful. For a book purportedly concerned with truth, I don’t recall any investigation or elaboration of her notion of truth, save for 3 pages in the introduction. But all you get there is Schaeffer’s two-storey model (roll eyes), “mental maps” (meh), and a denial that conservative Christianity is a power grab in the public sphere. It’s a good book for Challies’ list of 5.

The Pascal quote is great. It rings with the kind of honesty that I found watching The Ister, a documentary of sorts that follows the Danube river from its mouth to its source. Along the way a few philosophers expound on Heideggerian themes of technology, politics, death, and the meaning of human existence. Really great stuff.

They refuse to hand out needed water because it came from a beer company.

I don’t care if other water was available. What they did (placing their legalisms above other’s basic needs) is hypocrisy. If you can prove wrong on that score, I’ll admit I made a mistake. Not before.

And so what if there is no official SBC ban on alcohol? What have you and Reformissionary & Co. been discussing the last two months about this issue? These were Southern Baptists doing this, not Episcopalians, and we all know what the SBC does and says about alcohol. Even Reformissionary’s title for his post makes the connection. So why shouldn’t I?

And I am not attacking the charity work of the SBC in general in this mess, but saying that this particular action (which really frosts my shorts, in case you didn’t notice) did not occur in a vacuum, and it is a prime example of where the SBC needs to clean up its act. Own up to the fact that the SBC culture does NOTHING to bar this sort of nonsense!

I have two requests.

One is that you read Kozol’s essay on the inequities of American education.

The second is that this not become a debate about the abolition of public schools. I simply do not want to have that discussion. If you want to suggest how private schools can and will deal with this situation, then type away, but if you simply want to say “More evidence public schools suck,” save your trouble.

I’ve always understood the inequities of public education. (I live in Ky. Eastern Ky vs Lexington suburbs. Puh-leeze.) I see it in cities like Louisville and Lexington, though I know they are trying.

I believe America will have and must have community based schools, but what Kozol describes is unacceptable. It should be unacceptable to those who believe in public education and those who believe in private education.

But I will challenge my Christian friends to answer the rational conclusion that much Christian private educate is an exercise in segregation.

Read, think and comment.

“I believe the questions that we should be asking about justice and injustice in America are not chiefly programmatic, technical or scientific. They are theological. But I disagree with those who think we should be asking questions of theology primarily to those who live in poverty. I think we need to ask these questions of ourselves.” -Jonathan Kozol

Thanks, Kathy.

Tommy: I find the very title Total Truth irritating. The hubris of it makes me nervous. Can anyone really corner Total Truth?

The Frappr thingy doesn’t seem to work for me. I’ve entered my name and location a couple times but thare’s still no marker north of the 49th parallel. Is it an anti-Canuck bias? (JN)

Blaise Pascal:

I do not know who put me in the world, nor what the world is, nor what I am myself. I am in a terrible ignorance about everything. I do not know what my body is, or my senses, or my soul, or even that part of me which thinks what I am saying, which reflects on itself and everything but knows itself no better than anything else. I see the terrifying spaces of the universe enclosing me, and I find myself attached to one corner of this expanse without knowing why I have been placed here rather than there, or why the life alloted me should be assigned to this moment [rather] than to another in all the eternity that preceded and will follow me. I see only infinity on every side, enclosing me like an atom or a shadow that vanishes in an instant.

Tommy: I read it. I didn’t like it much. I have refused to say much about it, though, because TRs are really big into it. Parts of it- the last third- are good. The early section just kept losing me, particularly in using a Schaeferian model without a single word of criticism. Also, I felt the book was setting up YEC more than ID. Frankly, Joel has poisoned me on the idea of Worldview in everything but an apologetic sense, and Pearcey’s book is much more of a “worldview as a way to build a Christian version of everything.”

Aaron: Good word. I am going to delete my original post. It’s not fair that the good work of so many be mischaracterized by one stupid move. Thanks for the chastening, brother.

Did anyone in here ever read the “Total Truth” book by Pearcey? I heard she’s off on Aquinas and Greek philosophy in general, and I’m not really interested in the ID stuff. Just wondering if anyone thought it was worth reading the worldview sections just to see what so many people are reading and repeating?

A story comes out that SBC folks don’t want to pass out water made from a beer company. Big deal. The situation was they probably had a bunch of regular bottled water they preferred to pass out instead of the other. You might not agree with their convictions but you could respect them. Eventually they did pass out the water and I am fairly sure they would not have withheld water from people who really needed it.

I have been on the ground here in the disaster area for more than 7 weeks. Hands down SBC is awesome at disaster relief. No other denomination touches what we do as Baptists in this area. The Red Cross gets a lot of credit for what SBC does.

I have been extremely proud of what the SBC has done in this situation. Catholics are coming to our churches telling our members that the doors of their churches have been closed and they will be coming to the local Baptist church now. Catholic charities is giving money to some of our disaster relief groups and churches because they do not know what to do. Not many people understand our structure but it is this structure that allows us to do so much good. I have seen the gospel in action from our folks these last two months.
I am not trying to minimize what others have done or what people have given just pointing out that SBC volunteers have been doing a lot of God glorifying work.

Douglas: You might benefit from hypothesizing the exact opposite of every statement you make, to see if it really makes as much sense as you think it does. Leaving the ridiculous political junk alone, try this:

“This [jumping to the wrong conclusions] would not have happened if it were not for [Douglas’s negative attitude regarding the SBC and unwillingness to admit mistakes]. This incident is a symptom of that greater problem, cast in ugly clarity. This should be taken for what it is—a wake-up call regarding his attitude toward this whole business.”

Actually, come to think of it, that pretty much works! Now try it with all terrorism arguments, only substitute “Christian” for “Muslim.”

I actually linked the wrong “Wretched Urgency” essay. What I wanted was “Wretched Urgency II: My Not So Guilty Pleasures.” I wanted this Screwtape quote:

He’s a hedonist at heart. All those fasts and vigils and stakes and crosses are only a facade. Or only like foam on the sea shore. Out at sea, out in His sea, there is pleasure, and more pleasure. He makes no secret of it; at His right hand are “pleasures for evermore”....He’s vulgar, Wormwood. He has a bourgeois mind. He has filled His world with pleasures. There are things for humans to do all day long without His minding in the least- sleeping, washing, eating, drinking, making love, playing, praying, working. Everything has to be twisted before it’s any us to us. We fight under cruel disadvantages. Nothing is naturally on our side.

Douglas: The SBC doesn’t really have much in the way of “official policies regarding alcohol and participation in alcohol related businesses.” The Baptist Faith and Message is silent on the subject. The old church covenant that stated teetotalism was not an official SBC document. Individual SBC entities have policies, but those are not mandated by the SBC. They do reflect a broad evangelical culture that extends far beyond just the SBC. I am not trying to get the people who did this stupid thing off the hook. McCoy is right. This is what you get when you emphasize trivial things, but I want my non-SBC readers to be clear that there was no SBC agency order to not use this water and it is not the official policy of the SBC that you have to be a teetotaler to be a Christian. Evangelical teetotalism prevails in the SBC because it prevails in much of the Bible belt south.

This probably would not have happened (or it would have been much less damaging) if it were not for the SBC’s culture and official policies regarding alcohol and participation in alcohol related businesses. This incident is a symptom of that greater problem, cast in ugly clarity. This should be taken for what it is – a wake-up call regarding their attitudes toward this whole business.

Douglas: That post is the very definition of Wretched Urgency. The “feed the poor” line can be said at every wedding, at every party, at every holiday. I want absolutely nothing to do with a kind of Christ who can’t turn the water into wine so the party will go on. Yes, we ought to be more serious, less trivial and less worldly. But this rant has lost the kind of happiness that God built into the world. Read GOD’S Instructions for celebrations in the same Old Testament that said always remember the poor. Dead end. Jesus was accused of being a drunkard and a glutton because he knew how to have a good time. Compassion for the poor doesn’t flow out of my announcement that the candy money is going to missions. Compassion for the poor flows out of the joy in God that wants to extend that joy to others. It doesn’t come from dread, guilt and the kind of militant intensity that negates everything. I mean, why are we blogging? Why do we pay for server space? Why buy a book? Did I really need to spend $5 to go to a high school football game last night. And the money I will spend on my daughter’s wedding? Let’s get serious.

We used to have a pastor here who castigated all of us for spending any money on Christmas because Jesus wouldn’t. He would give it all to missions. No one ever made me want to become a Shinto quite like that guy.

As I said, if compassion doesn’t come from knowing and following Christ, but comes from a kind of Christian Marxism, I want a different religion. I drive past poverty that is third world just to go to the grocery. I could take my grocery money, and my car and give it to a hundred people who live within 2 miles of my house. Instead, I plan my giving; I give in a way that reflects my faith and my joy. Life is too short to be eaten up with guilt and anger over Halloween candy.

Sorry for the rant, but I am simply tired of the idea that anyone who can say “Let’s give the money to the poor instead” has the high ground of the Good News.

Moderator: This is the same story linked earlier. Please note that it is not “SBC agencies.” The individuals running the relief sites down there are volunteers with all kinds of independence. There was no order from theSBC or the NAMB to not use the water. In fact, if you chase the story, it appears the water was used eventually. The outrage of the story is the values of the people who originally refused to use the water, but that was not the policy of an SBC agency or of the SBC.- MS

I found this outrageous account at Reformissionary today.

This just kills me. I mean, it blows my mind.

During Katrina, as some of you may be aware, Anheuser-Busch shifted production on some of their lines from beer to water, to provide drinking water to the hurricane victims. Well, guess what? It turns out that some SBC agencies refused to distribute it, because it came from an alcolol company.

“The pastor didn’t want to hand out the Budweiser cans to people and that’s his prerogative and I back him 100-percent,” said SBC volunteer John Cook.

The SBC felt it was inappropriate to give the donation out, and they weren’t happy when NBC2 wanted to know why.

“Why do you want to make that the issue? That’s not the issue. The issue is that we’re here trying to help people,” Cook said.

Talk about straining out gnats and swallowing camels! (Matthew 23:23-24)

You would think that, if Paul felt that eating meat sacrificed to idols was OK in normal circumstances (I Corinthians 8), he would certainly have approved of the free distribution of idol meat in a time of famine, wouldn’t he? I would LOVE to see the SBC explain this little bit of pharisaical hypocrisy!

I’ll be waiting right here for it. I won’t leave till I get it.

Here’s a new twist in the Halloween debate – why give candy to rich kids when you can feed the poor instead?

Here’s something we need in the BHT bookstore: The Serrated Edge Study Bible. Very funny.

Thomas. Muntzer.

While looking for a Luther quote, I came across this page: The Protestant Reformers were frauds.

Luther’s Table Talk. This is fun to browse and I don’t know anything that takes you into the mind of a great figure of history like this. It reveals much of the personality and opinions of Luther.

Just got back from Universal Studios. May have some cool pics to show later on.

Jack: My view on these matters is probably going to seem paradoxical to some. I think that Christians must think theologically about all matters – including secular politics. Therefore, I do theologically critique both Statism and the PoL. However, I also think that we cannot expect non-Christians to ultimately accept our critiques, because they are theological and non-Christians are by nature to one degree or another hostile to God. Some deny we should even bother to think about the wider culture, as it’s all evil (separatists) – some think that we can convince the wider culture about selected chunks of “Judeo-Christian” morality and political theory. I deny both. I think we must recognize the flaws of the wider culture, and accept that the only way we can change things is by minor local increments, by being the Church. And that is my biggest beef with your usage of the PoL – you bring Christian assumptions to it that a non-Christian could (rightly, in their vantage point) brush off as meaningless “theological” intrusions. “Do unto others as you would have them do to you”? Sez who? If I’m my own master, and I can get away with it, why should I care about others? Without God, there is no reason to do so. Period, end of story.

Jim asks, “If you have the power to prevent evil from happening, and you fail to exercise that power, are you in any sense culpable?”

Abso-rippin’-lutely. The problems are in drawing the line of where your rightful sphere of preventive influence, and what level of evil constitutes a rightful provocation. Did Israel, say, have the “right” to frag Iraq’s nuclear reactor back in the early 80’s? That did prevent Saddam from gaining atomic weapons. And that was my point in the entire discussion this week – the stakes are very high, the amount of warning one could get in a situation like this is small to nil, and the preventive measures required might not fit into some people’s ideas of moral perfection in war and politics. There is another possible reason for the “squeamishness” regarding moral decision-making that you noted – there are often situations where every choice is wrong in some sense of “absolute moral principles”. We live in a fallen world, and that’s just the way it is.

Just want to make you aware of Theopedia, which is now on the permanent sidebar.

Rolling Stone interviews Bono, and he’s making more sense all the time.

It’s Hell House Time!

Don’t forget our frapper page. We’ll get it up on the sidebar soon. There’s a lurker page, too, I think.

Mark Horne on Church Landmines.

Mclaren’s Seven Layers of the Emergent Conversation.(Don’t read it, Josh. You’re just pissed that Lutherans don’t have a layered conversation.) (jn)

Years ago, we had a very close family member who was musically gifted. Her family encouraged her music, and all through high school she was successful. Eventually she was named the best high school performer on her instrument in four states. But when it came time to go to college, her parents insisted she lay aside her music and pursue business. She obeyed, and flunked out in less than a year, never finished, but has continued playing her instrument, though with much less success than she would have enjoyed.

This really affected me, and I promised myself that I would encourage my kids to follow what they love. As long as they have a plan and are responsible, I will do what I can to support them. I don’t know if Clay will work in churches, or schools or the business or something else. I do know that the only thing that will bring him joy in college is the pursuit of singing and some skills that can be used in the music business. So we will see. I don’t like that “you need to prepare for a job” approach to college, because my judgement is that twenty-somethings are pursuing their heart and not their financial future. My job is to see if we can find ways to get the two together somehow.

Dagnabbit, Michael, I start feeling OK about joining an SBC church, and you keep pointing out boneheaded Baptists!

Actually, I think our church is OK. I am discovering that the SBC is just about as loose as a denomination can be, at least right now it is. If a church doesn’t want to join in goofy resolutions, it doesn’t have to.

Re Clay and music: Not that he is waiting for my advice, but I was a professional musician and guitar teacher for several years. I had to switch careers when I got married and wanted to support a family, but I’d tell him go for it. He may find a niche where he can make his mark and a good living, or else he’ll eventually go for something more lucrative and be thankful for the years he got to spend focusing on what he is passionate about.

Clay will be majoring in voice. If he teaches, it will be choir. I think he would like to direct a choir in an Episcopal church.

Brandon:

Re: Josh’s post

Or you could end up like me with a B.A. in Music (not Music Ed, not Performance, just… Music…) and a minor in Radio/Television/Film and end up working at Starbucks because you’re just do dang burned out at your instrument to do anything useful with it. I still love my trumpets but four years of required marching band was about two or three too many, even when you’re at the same school and at the same time as LaDanian Tomlinson.

Michael: I’m glad Clay will have something besides an instrument as his bread an butter. I’m speaking from experience.

Brandon: Clay is going to EKU (where his KEES scholarships and other Ky scholarships will plug in) and pursue a degree in Music with the emphasis in Music Merchandising. That means he will get the B.A. in music (and is quite happy with the prospects of teaching in public schools or working in a small church) but will also do work on the technical and business side of the university. His goal is to work in the music business. My policy is to encourage my kids in whatever they want to do. At this time last year we were headed to Calvin with a degree in Film Studies. Clay’s grades are good not great, so IU isn’t an option. Plus, it’s….like….IU.

Jack: You’re a libertarian anarchist. I dare not take advice from you :-)

leif rigney: Please e-mail me if you remember where I did the LOVELACE WEDDING. It is VERY important.

Douglas: If you have the power to prevent evil from happening, and you fail to exercise that power, are you in any sense culpable? That’s the essential question that “the US is not the world’s policeman” willfully ignores. In a situation where there is no serious threat of retaliation against a unilateral action taken by the US, if you are president, and you see something that is wrong, do you use your power to fix it? You may disagree with the current president’s assessment of “evil”, but if you had the job, you’d have the same problem. Witness the fictitious female US president who invades Nigeria to prevent the execution of sharia judgment.

I don’t necessarily think that unilateral action is justified. I just think that those who wish the US to act with “restraint” in such circumstances need to be more forthcoming with their reasons for that restraint. I strongly suspect the reason they aren’t forthcoming is that many of us don’t like the particular choices that leadership applies “evil” to – and that’s true for both sides of the aisle. I think we’re uncomfortable with a president acting on his moral choices, or even speaking in the language of moral choices. The discomfort is not just because we disagree with them, but more because we don’t like having it pointed out that we ignore those moral choices on a daily basis.

Conservatives disapproved of Clinton’s intervention in Haiti, and some of their objections were worth considering, but their disapproval betrayed the fact that many of us were perfectly willing to allow Haiti to implode into open civil war, and have many people die as a result, than do anything about it – in the name of sovereignty, or whatever. Liberals disapprove of Bush’s invasion of Iraq, and again there are valid reasons to question the decision to intervene, but far too many of us were willing to allow the abuses that went on under Saddam Hussein to continue indefinitely, as long as nobody drove any more airplanes into our offices. (The leaders of Syria, who are at least as guilty of atrocities as the Iraq regime was, are at this moment hoping that that same indifference will prevail in their case. They have good reason to believe it will.)

We all need to be honest and admit that for much of the recent past, a good part of the reason the US didn’t intervene (or why we weren’t more successful in interventions, in places like Vietnam and Korea) is that we were restrained by the threat that the situation would escalate into a full-out war between rival superpowers. Today, that threat is muted. What holds us back now? International law? Some set of universal moral principles? What should hold us back, and what should justify us when we act?

Michael: Since I’m probably one of the few guys in this bar who actually HAS a music degree, (from this prestigious university, no less), let me encourage you to encourage Clay to get a degree that is actually worth something, like – I dunno – sociology or psychology or maybe 8th Century Albanian Literature.

Michael: It occured to me that if Clay is thinking of doing music as a degree, he needs to at least think of applying to the Indiana University School of Music. It’s the top music program that a public university can offer. My wife graduated from it, and I can tell you, it is incredibly rigorous. Music students at IU are among the most overworked on campus, but they do well and have a leg up on everyone else. For evidence, may I give Joshua Bell, an IUSOM grad, as well as Angela Brown, who, if you watched it, sang “How Great Thou Art” at the national day of mourning for Hurricane Katrina.

Of course, going to IU might be hard for hardcore UK fans to fathom, but just some brotherly advice. And, of course, I’ll buy beer for him and all his freshman friends (jn).