Rachel-Just curious, why yall are not members of the church you attend?

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I think it is probably a decent policy. We can’t unbaptize the person in our church that is committing adultery but we can kick them out of fellowship or at least stand against any teaching or leadership assignments.

Grace allows sinners in; we don’t have to clean up our lives to be saved or baptized. But the members of a congregation define a church more then anything and some recognition of visible sin is called for.
Non -members should be welcome at most events but excluded from teaching and leadership duties. I say this as a person who is not a member of the church I attend though I am probably one of the most active attendees. (We do not join because WE are not Baptists and it is an SBC church and it is my husband’s decision, though I do agree)
And silly as it seems I am the bookkeeper and write 99% of the checks and do all of the computer entry and the tax stuff (I can not be the treasurer because I am not a member LOL).

I’m not sure I know which question is being asked here. Is Saddleback wrong for baptizing someone having unmarried sex? Or is Saddleback wrong for baptizing someone without considering them for membership? No membership without baptism, but no baptism without membership?

Putting Amazing Back into Grace: Embracing the Heart of the Gospel One thing almost every Reformation minded person I know can agree on: Horton’s “Putting Amazing Back Into Grace” is a fine book, and probably a great book to give to anyone just starting out. One of you asked me about curriculum the other day. Here’s a book that would never disappoint as a study for any age.

Ten Best Flickr Mashups. Way Cool.

Yeee. I wasn’t accusing you of anything like that, lief, it was just a phrase that sprung to mind as guiding the general direction of such discourse. My main reason for disagreement followed. Trust me, if I thought you were denying Christ, I’d be more concerned than ‘the way to go’ intimates.

I didn’t think you’d stop at ‘no’, either, but the de facto denial of the label is what I was talking about. We can go on and on about wanting to break free from a label, but that’s verbal currency. Personally, I’d rather polish up the adjective everyone’s applying to me than change it altogether. There’s nothing wrong with my label. Or at least the one I’m called to my face.

Mark Dever discovers just how far baptism and church membership have been separated by Rick Warren’s church: They are two separate things. I’ll leave it up to the bar to debate if Rick is expressing the teaching of the New Testament or dilluting it.

Reformissionary: Story About Tim Keller in NYT Keller has risen to the top of my short list of people who ought to make you happy to be reformed. Our TR friends have plenty to dislike in this excellent piece. Remember that Redeemer doesn’t have a building. The only things wrong with Keller is that he charges big bucks for his sermons, doesn’t write books and doesn’t blog. C’mon Tim. Get with it.

Scott: Don Knotts’ humor wasn’t the “make me laugh out loud” kind. It was the comedy of the human race. Pity. Tragic in many ways. Small towns are so full of people like Knotts’ characters, especially in leadership. (I’ve known dozens of Fife-ish pastors and staff members, especially in their official dealings with people.) The thing about Knotts is that Barney Fife captures a lot of the anxieties and behaviors of teenagers, but he never left them behind. The “mature” Barney Fife never made it out there. And it is quite profound to see how a dictator lurks underneath every person who can’t do anything right.

Now I’ll think about the Andy Griffith episodes that stay with you your whole life. Barney singing in the choir.

Fare thee well, Kolchak. Thank you for some enduring childhood memories. God rest your soul.

I may catch flak for this, but I’m probably the only person in North Carolina who really, really could care less about Don Knotts or the Andy Griffith Show. I always thought Mr. Knotts was a passable comedian, but not impressive.

Oh, well. At least I finally got w.bloggar working again.

CNN.com – McGavin, ’A Christmas Story’ father, dies at 83 – Feb 26, 2006

bob.blog: Prayer for Humility

An important mistranslation in a text forbidding women to teach?

Man, what a crappy way to wake up: Don Knotts dead. Of course God has to “nip it in the bud” for all of us eventually, but there are some people who seem immortal until they actually go. For me, he was one of them.

As Bishop of Durham NT Wright is a lord of the realm with a seat and duties in the House of Lords. I’m glad to see that he’s fulfilling these duties with his customary competence and genius. Wonderful stuff! How does he find the time and energy to wear all his many hats so well???

No “hangups”.....sleeping…zzzz

Michael, How much of Kierkegaard have you read? What are your hangups on him? i’ve had to read for this term: Philosophical Fragments, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Either/Or, I & II, Fear and Trembling, Concept of Anxiety, and Attack Upon Christendom. So far, i haven’t run into too much difficulties, albeit most of Kierkegaard is in direct relation to Hegel.

Someone posted a while back that the term “Christian” was “biblical.” I’ll spare everyone my general rant against using “biblical” as an adjective, and just use the short-hand for it: you are front-loading your hermeneutic onto the discussion when you use “biblical” as an adjective.

Having said that, I’d also point out that claiming “Christian” has some special significance vis. identification with Christ based on “The disciples were first called ‘Christians’ at Antioch” is pretty silly. Yes, it proves that the name was used very early in church history. It also proves that the term was used as a label by those outside the church to identify those inside.

In an interview concerning the recent film “End of the Spear,” Stephen Saint confirmed something I had long suspected: the term “Auca,” which was used throughout the media coverage of the events and in subsequent books on the subject, was actually profanity used by the other tribes in the area to refer to the native group that his father’s team was attempting to reach. Similarly, it’s thought that the term “Adirondack” was actually an insult directed at the native tribe of the area by their rivals (the term actually means “bark-eaters”, a reference to the tribe’s allegedly poor hunting skills.)

If you want to use the term, fine. I don’t have a problem with it myself, because I think the meaning has shifted. But if you’re going to use the Acts passage as a basis for calling yourself Christian, and you’re going to be consistent, then if you’re an American, I have to ask: Are you going to start calling yourself and your fellow countrymen “assholes?” Because, frankly, that’s what a substantial number of those outside the US call us.

Well, let’s be clear on one thing. Nowhere does scripture tell us to call ourselves Christians. The word occurs three times, never as an imperative.

If there are times that identifying oneself as a Christian is wise, it doesn’t change that at all. There is a difference between a formal discussion of religions and a water cooler conversation. I know a lot about eshewing labels. Remember that I am a “Reformation Christian,” and not a Calvinist.

Oddly, I am somewhat infamous on campus for my refusal to use the term “Christian music,” for much the same reason leif has for dropping the label overall. When someone hears me playing U2, for example, and says, “Are they a Christian group?” I never give a straight answer.

So God bless you leif. Or God have mercy on your soul for denying Christ. Whatever. (jn)

Michael: (am I showing my age?)

I wish, I wish,
I wish I was a fish.
‘Cause fishes have a better life than people.

Yes. I remember the “Incredible Mr. Limpett.

leifrigney: Consider all the folks that call themselves “Christian”. IF you call yourself a Christian, you have that in common with those who deny the Trinity, those who call upon the name of the spirit-brother of Lucifer for salvation, those who pray to a god who once once as human as you and I.

“I follow Christ”
“I belong to Christ”
“I am a disciple of Christ”

My kids went through a stage with everything was “random”. I’d reply “nothing is random.” They’d shoot back, “everything is random.”

The last line of the conversation was:
“We belong to a Sovereign God who is in control of the universe.”

I heard one of the barnacles use that line with a friend the other day.

CNN.com – Actor Don Knotts dies at 81 – Feb 25, 2006 This totally bums me out. Talk about the death of your childhood. Keep ‘em laughing up there, Deputy Fife.

Anyone remember Mr. Limpett? Ghost and Mr. Chicken?

I’ll say one more thing and then I’ll shut up and go to bed, because obviously I’m way too grouchy to deal with this tonight.

It seems that a lot of people seem to have a wrong-headed idea about how this “dropping the label Christian” thing will go, at least for me. It seems the assumption is that when I am asked if I am a Christian, I will just say “No.” But that is not the case. Don’t you see that not using the name will offer more chance for discussion rather than less? I’d be lying if I said that was my only motivation, but it is a cool by-product. I am no wretched urgency man, but I love when opportunities arise to talk about God in non-shallow, non-stereotypical ways.

Forgive me for being cranky, but I typed a lot about exactly why I am doing this experiment and what I believe, and I lost it (even though I have been writing on computers long enough to know to save your work early and often—I feel like Chris Farley: “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”).

But if someone asks me, “Hey, what religion are you?” and I quote them part or all of The Apostle’s Creed, at what point am I denying Christ? Is it when I decided not to use a single-word label? Or is it when I say, “I believe in God, the Father almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord”?

I’m sorry, but it’s just way too much of a leap to automatically assume that not using the word Christian is tantamount to a denial of Christ. And yes, the suggestion makes me a little testy.

There seems to be a small percentage of the population that doesn’t understand, and I don’t know how to get the truth across without just saying it, so I’ll say it again, because it really is getting frustrating:

Not using the name Christian is not “denying Christ.”

Not using the name Christian is not “denying Christ.”

Not using the name Christian is not “denying Christ.”

Not using the name Christian is not “denying Christ.”

Not using the name Christian is not “denying Christ.”

Et Cetera

Josh: I hate to say it, but I have the opposite problem. Because of the way my employment status has fluctuated several times (unemployed, self-employed, employed full time, etc.) over the past two years, my average refund is a horrendous amount (because it represents an interest-free loan of my money to the government.) On my last W2, I claimed 14 withholding exemptions, and when all is said and done, the IRS still owes me over $5K this year. For what it’s worth, here’s some advice based on my experience:

1. Leave academia, sell out, and join the corporate rat-race.
2. Get married.
3. Buy a house.
4. Live on one income
5. Have many kids.
6. Itemize.

I can’t imagine denying Jesus is the way to go… If you deny me, I will deny you, etc.

I understand the slant is novelty, but I just can’t see it. It’s dissociative, which is the point, but it’s also the problem. What does this denial signify? Not just to you, but to those who hear it? That it’s okay to ‘follow Christ’ so long as you’re not a ‘Christian’? Or that you can do either? The underlying principle seems to lend itself to extreme reductionism when it comes to the content of the faith. And, forgive me, but if I heard it, I’d feel like I was being sold something via some fancy double-talk. I hates me some fancy, double-talking salesman, yessir.

Leif, unfortunately, the only way I’ve found to be sure not to lose work is to type in a generic text editor (notepad, emacs, vi, etc.), then save early and often. I’ve lost enough work over time that this has become second nature, and it absolutely works.

Matthew, I’d say something witty about that little mixup, but I’m laughing too hard.

So (and I think I know the answer to this), is there any way to, like, recover the hour of typing I just did that Xanga gobbled up? If someone can work that (surely impossible) miracle, you’ll be my new best friend.

If I blog against your experiment, don’t hate me or overcharge my daughter for wedding stuff :-) But I probably will. I respect what you are doing, and I am not hung up on titles, but I think “credo,” “I believe…” is the essence of the Christian faith, which is an articulated, communal, public experience, and not a gnostic “search.” I know some excellent Christians who have taken this approach, such as Kierkegaard and Bono, but I tend to think they have created as many problems as they solved. The idea of diverting the discussion from self to Christ is excellent. The idea that we can’t say “I am a disciple of Jesus” becomes pretty confusing. Baptism has a consequential meaning of some kind. If we can say, “I am Baptized and a disciple of Jesus,” then what are we avoiding saying by avoiding the term “Christian?”

I’ll get to this at IM sometime. In the meantime, I’m off to see “Streetcar Named Desire” in Lexington with my AP IV kids and Denise.

Jason: I am very serious about it, even more so the more I think about it. For one thing, I am really looking forward to some conversations I am bound to have with non-believers as a result of it. When you can’t name yourself in one word, people become more curious. You say, “I’m a Christian,” and people nod and immediately file you away. They may do the same if you say more, but for many people, when you say, “No, I’m not a Christian, but…”, I theorize they will be curious to hear the rest of what you say. In case any of the Chicken-Little-The-Signifier/Signified-Sky-Is-Falling folks wonder, no, I will not just say, “No” when people ask if I am a Christian.

And even though this is of course unscientific, I will keep track of the experience. I haven’t been on my blog in a while (anyone else find it embarrassing to set up a blog and then have no time to maintain it? I do). But what I will do is record developments there (and here, if the bartenders don’t mind) as they happen. Sort of a dispatches from the field sort of thing.

I’m not promising a whole lot. First, it’s a cliche but true: I am very short of time these days. I am not whining, because I love my life; but lack of time is one of those things that characterizes it. Second, I don’t know how much will change. Most of the people I know who have cared to enter into such a discussion with me already know me as “a Christian,” so they won’t likely ask. And I am not wretched urgency type of guy. The times I feel called to “witness” are generally the times when someone asks me outright what I think about God/spirituality, etc. I hold high contempt for the old “If you were put on trial would you be convicted of being a Christian?” routine. Blecch. So I don’t know how much, if any, there will be to report. But if there is any, I will do so. Anyone interested, stay tuned. Those who are tired of all this, peace be with you. But I am serious about this experiment.

You know you’ve blogged too much

From a discussion on “Christian-themed” movies in the Lexington Paper:

Just last year, I saw “Left Behind III: World at War” which followed an
unconventional path of showing on the “church circuit” instead of
traditional theatres. That was a great mid-budget Hollywood-style
thriller with an outstanding cast (notably Oscar-winner Louis Gossett,
Jr.) that would probably have been in most fair-minded people’s top 20
films for the year had it been shown in the mainstream. Everything from
the script to the acting to the special effects were big-budget
quality. It should have been a regular theatrical release.

Jason:

I looked at the Cornerstone Festival. I like it, but can only take it in small doses…

I don’t know how the church thing is going. Nobody seems to think it’s a big deal that we’re sending our kids down there. The youth pastor says that he’ll be there to re-teach if anything goes wrong. My answer was to ask if he can’t discern what’s what from here, where it’s neutral and he has time to reason, how on earth is he going to be able to discern when he’s right in the middle of the emotionalism of it all (and these groups do depend on emotionalism to whip things up).

My hope is that the Firehouse will do their full-bore Pentecostal thing on Wednesday night, when the kids are there – let them see “holy laughter”, folks getting “slain in the spirit”, all of it. Let these little CRC kids get all freaked out and come home and tell their parents.

Or maybe they’ll just find it “cool”

IM is updated with “A Perfect Paul?”

Leif, if you’re serious about that experiment of not calling yourself Christian for a time, I’d be really curious to know how it turns out.

As for me, I think I may start adopting what’s on my Slashdot profile: “bondservant of Christ” – it’s odd enough to start conversations and avoids the word slave, which has all kinds of bad connotation to the present culture.

Ellen, if you like some of those bands, you’d really love the Cornerstone Festival. One week – hundreds of bands of many styles – all kinds of freaky people, mostly in but some not in the Faith. (OK – Christians – is everyone happy?) BTW, how’s the whole church situation over there?

Jason Blair