Do you miss your old Mac? Take a journey back…back…

I am conducting a test on the minds of my critics. I am confessing it right now so if it comes up later, I can honestly say I admitted it. There. I did. (Note: the following quote from a TR blog is NOT the experiment.)

Definition of salvation that appeared today on a TR blog: “It is faith alone in the gospel truth, and we need to show our faith by our works. Fruit needs to be evident in the believers life.”

If you keep repeating “Faith alone = faith + evidential works” long enough, I guess it starts to make sense. Did Bill Clinton ever say “I guess it all depends on what alone means?”

And by the way…I’m pomo.

Ah, “Christian Victory”

If you only have enough faith …
If you just pray and believe …
If you just send me a little cash for this here prayer hankie …

BULLOX

Kent, you got it, man. Few things irritate me as much as the empty promises of sinless perfection in the here and now. Jesus died. Jesus rose again. In Him, we will rise again. He is Lord of all creation. Not us. Not things. Not others. People seem to forget the first few chapters of Genesis. Everything was very good, then we had that little sin problem. And guess what, everything was cursed and we earned death. Jesus atoned for the death, but we’re still operating under the curse of the earth. It’s still groaning for its ultimate remaking. Jesus said he’s going to make a home for us. He didn’t say it was done already. As for sin, if we can’t see the sin and struggle Paul went through and lamented over, then realize we still have to deal with it in our justified state, then the only explanation is blindness.

Struggle on brothers and sisters. Jesus is Lord. Trust in Him alone. Seek His strength. And when (not if) you stumble, get back up an walk on.

Peace be with you.

One of my wife’s sisters has had a fairly wretched go at life; we noticed that whenever we talked about her we’d start out by saying: “She’s a Christian, but…” and then go on to list all of the ishy stuff she’d been involved with/sins she’d been committing.

We realized that we were doing this and asked ourselves the question: Can we really say that someone is a “Christian, but…”? In answering this question we were required to take a good long look at scripture to try to understand what a “Victorious Christian Life” looks like.

We realized that one of the best living examples of a “Victorious Christian Life” was the one being lived out in front of us by Laurie’s sister. It’s full of pain and suffering, it’s full of sin and struggle and it ends with death and resurrection.

A lot of my clients think about heaven a lot. So would you if your body disobeyed, if your hand didn’t do what you told it to, if your bowels moved without your permission. I’m reminded when talking about heaven how I’m so very little less disabled then they are and how suffering is something we should hold in common as human beings and stop trying to convince ourselves that it isn’t part of our destiny as human beings, Christian or not.

Phillip: I propose we make a pact. If we both live to be 99, let’s meet someplace, fill a car with cans of gasoline, and go out in a fiery high-speed crash.

Kurt: Statistically speaking, my wife is almost certain to outlive me unless we die together in an accident. I guess I rely heavily on statistics, plus I can’t imagine life without her.

Insofar as the “victorious life” is sold as a guarantee of financial and worldly well-being, I’m not interested. Nope, count me out. Scripture doesn’t even come close to saying anything like that, and 2000 years of Christian tradition have almost always affirmed the opposite. So “victory over my credit card” is not part of the package.

But when it comes to victory over sin… well… I’m actually in favor of it. No, not the presto-changeo instant sanctification that gets bandied around by many Charismatics and Evangelicals. That’s snake oil. OTOH, Jesus really and truly set us free from sin, which means that it should be possible for us to really and truly not sin. This is part of the Holy Spirit’s work in us, and all believers should strive towards this with the help of the Body of Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Jim said, Like sanctification, repentance is a process, not an event. We don’t repent once-for-all-time and then begin to be gradually sanctified. We continually repent, and are continually sanctified. This is absolutely correct. We shouldn’t be telling people that they can be sanctified tomorrow. We also shouldn’t be telling them that they can’t be sanctified at all.

Phillip: It always tickles me that when you speak of your post-mortem wishes, you always seem reasonably certain that you’ll go first. I know you’re a wee bit older than Herself, but I wonder if you’ve got other reasons for that. ;)

When I go, I want my friends to do what these guys did with their friend’s remains:

I want to be cremated, but my wife points out that after I die, it’ll be her money, and she can spend it to bury me if she wants to. Jim’s arguments sounded very familiar, but failed to convince her when coming from Jim just as they have coming from me.

Anyway, back to the now/net yet nature of the victorious Christian life, a friend of mine who lurks at the BHT sent me an email earlier that I’m just now getting around to fully appreciating, and so I will summarize his point here and then add my own thoughts: Compare Matthew 19:27-29, Mark 10:28-30, and Luke 18:28-30. Think about what Jesus is saying here. Contra the word-of-faithers and Joel Osteen, we are not promised a trouble-free life. In fact, Mark’s version of the quote specifically states that our blessings in this life will come with persecutions. But contrary to the gloom-and-doom straw men (who probably exist somewhere), we do in fact expect blessings both in this life and in the life to come, though our blessings in the life to come are much, much greater.

So how does this work itself out? What does it mean that those who have given up everything that provides security will find more security? Does that apply in any way to those who haven’t given up those things for the sake of the gospel? How is it that persecutions come along with it? Are these U.S.-style persecutions, where the excesses of some Christians are derided with raised eyebrows and grimaces, or real persecutions? I don’t know that we’re given enough information to be 100% sure, but I’m pretty sure that Your Best Life Now fails to engage scripture here.

From a sermon preached at The Falls Church:

But we are here today, on Sunday, the resurrection day, to celebrate and proclaim to the world the fact that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. We live by this truth and we shall die by this truth. We comfort each other by this truth and we are stirred to love and devotion and service by this truth. Let us therefore settle it in our minds and hearts that we will allow the truth of the resurrection to propel us to be true revolutionaries. Not the cheap and easy kind of revolutionary, those who want to use violence to overthrow the present order and simply turn it upside down and replace it with one of their own. No, we’ve had plenty of those and it doesn’t work. No, we are like Jesus and, in his love and power to be double revolutionaries, celebrating his victory over death and sin, and finding through prayer and politics and Bible study and campaigning and love and fellowship and celebration and truth — finding the way to bring that victory to birth, both in the dark corners of our own private and personal lives and in the dark corners of God’s suffering world.

May God give you grace and joy in his service and in believing and living the gospel of the resurrection and to his name be the praise and the glory. Amen

I find the arguments against cremation specious, particularly when they are hedged with statements like this

Of course, God can resurrect a cremated Christian (or a Christian torn to pieces by lions, etc.), but how we deal with the body of a Christian teaches us—and the watching world—what we really believe about the gospel.

Can someone please find all the people who rejected the gospel because they heard about a Christian’s body being cremated and decided that we are all hypocrites and phonies?

I could probably together a fairly convincing argument along similar lines that Christian’s shouldn’t be embalmed and buried because of the association those practices have with pagan practices. Since the cost of a full embalming, viewing and funeral in 2006 likely is several orders of magnitude (in terms of actual weath) over the cost of building the Sphinx, why would we want to be associated with such a barbaric practice?
Here’s why my will insists on my body being cremated, verbatim from my will:

I have requested that my remains be cremated when I die because the expense associated with burial are ridiculous, and my survivors will have more important uses for the money. I cannot be buried where I want to be, because health regulations will prevent it.

I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that His death accomplished my salvation. The promise of that salvation includes the promise that I will be resurrected when He returns. Now that I am dead, I want there to be no lingering doubts as to the fact that I’m dead and gone, so that if anyone who knows me is still around when I’m resurrected, there is no doubt that I have been brought back to life by Jesus.

We’ve talked about sanctification here before, and I got into trouble. I probably will get into trouble now too. But I can’t resist, because this “victorious Christian life” stuff is hitting close to home for me.

1. Any understanding of the “victory over sin” has to have in view principally that it is an accomplished fact. Sin loses its power to damn us when Jesus dies for us.
2. Most people get tripped up because they confuse deliverance from judgment with something else. Jesus died to save us from the penalty for our sins; his death will eventually accomplish the removal of sin, but that removal is an as yet unfinished eschatological event – not a present reality – for anyone alive.
3. No honest believer claims that they are less tempted by sin as they live as a Christian. We may, in fact, sin less as time passes – but there’s no promise of that.
4. Like sanctification, repentance is a process, not an event. We don’t repent once-for-all-time and then begin to be gradually sanctified. We continually repent, and are continually sanctified.
5. Sin is not the same thing as bad behavior. Observable bad behavior is the effect of sin, and we have no more volitional control over those effects than we do over the effects of oxygen starvation on our brains. (We can take steps to prevent the starvation from occurring, but we can’t make our brains not die when they are starved of oxygen.)
6. Repentance is also not behavioral. It is simply our mental assent to what God reveals, particularly applied to our own sinfulness. This “change of mind” may precede or occur along with a behavioral change, but what brings us into line with God’s thinking is a change of in our minds.
7. Repentance is a work accomplished the Holy Spirit. It’s not an object that we can work for. It’s something God does in us at His own pleasure.
8. Repentance doesn’t require that we change our behavior. Repentance doesn’t make us want to do bad less, it simply is us agreeing with God that we want to do bad. God may grant the strength to resist the desire to sin, or He may remove the desire or the opportunity, but those are the result of His choice for us, not something we accomplish on our own.
9. Victory over sin is not the result of our will, even if our will becomes conformed with God’s will through the process of sanctification.

I’ll post a F&L in South Bend later, but I cannot resist braying for just a sec.

So I’m at the conference (Society of Christian Philosophers) at Notre Dame (beeyoootiful campus, btw), and I’m attending a friend’s paper on Kierkegaard: “Standing Before God by Standing Next to Others: Kierkegaard on Ethics and Ontology.” A nice paper that ::ahem:: Christopher might like to read. But who plops down on a chair next to me? None other than one of my heroes: Merold Westphal (who is giving a keynote tonight). (Remember how I was reduced to a weepy mass of quivering goo when I met Cal Seerveld, Michael? It was like that. Only not as bad b/c it’s the second time I’ve met him.)

So the paper’s over and a couple of people ask the speaker some questions (including Merold), when I shoot up my arm. I ask my question, dialogue ensues. Merold leans over and whispers: “That was good question.” Well, that’s about the high point of my academic career so far. I should retire now. I have never felt confident during Q&A to ask a decent question, figuring I’m going to ask one of the predictable dumb ones. I’m two-for-two today and got an “atta boy” from my daddy. Good times.

Russell Moore lays out the case against cremation. I guess this issue seems a bit silly to some people, but when you are dealing with extreme poverty as we are here in the mountains, the economic and personal ethics of the funeral industry are worth discussing. Cremation makes a lot of sense to me and to Denise.

In fact, Denise has often wanted to buy one of the urns made by the monks at Saint Meinrad.

On a related note, reading this sort of post makes me wonder at how similar to old line RCs the current crop of Southern Baptist intellectuals have become. Can the phrase “canon law” actually make it into Southern Baptist life? Never say never.

I will have some more to say on this at IM later if I get some writing time. A fine post, and a place where many young people are finding themselves.

Challies says that evangelicals are hypocritical for supporting Gibson’s Passion of the Christ but now criticizing and working against The DaVinci Code. Just in case you can’t connect the dots, Gibson is Catholic and the Passion is drawn from Catholic spiritual literature. It did a lot for evangelical perceptions of the RCC. DVC, on the other hand, is highly anti-Catholic and continues a long tradition of anti-Catholic novels and stories that imply the RCC is hiding all sorts of juicy secrets from the world.

Remember the “Federal Vision?” Jonathan Barlow has a good introductory post for those of us who need to know the basics. (HT to Barb)

A new Anglican Blog: The Continuum.

This may be the largest collection of Luther’s music available. Looks good.

I don’t know about dogs in your area, Kurt, but around here they eat some pretty gross stuff, and there’s plenty of it over in that neighborhood.

Listening to a student tell her story to me this morning, I am amazed at how easily kids are seeing their lives ruined by drugs, and how simple it is for a parent- just by making their child’s life their main business for a few years- can help that child avoid all that. So many of these stories are similar: parent with money, disinterested in parenting, leaves kid to deal with life on their own, kid finds new family among drug culture, has sex, has major problems, parents pay more money for new schools and more help, kid does more drugs, picks more terrible friends and so on. I know I am supposed to say accepting Jesus will make all of this better, but the fact is that any parent- Christian or not- can do a lot to stop this from happening if they will just do what they should do instead of believing that money can buy a child’s health and happiness.

Eric, sorry to post this here, but I got a bounce for an answer to the email you sent me the other day.

Regarding the Ghostbusters quote, I’m glad you liked it. If there’s one thing we emerging types can do, it’s find good movie quotes. It makes for all those fun movie clip sermon illustrations. (Some of us even make sure the clips fit an actual verse!)

I will never forget my grandfather’s funeral. It happened when I was in my first fall quarter at seminary, and it showed me how and why theologians are so damaging to the witness of the Church. The pastor was a Word of Faith preacher (no seminary degree… just the cawl uv Gawd on hee-is lahf), and he started spouting his garbage at the funeral and then even more afterwards at dinner with my grandmother sitting next to him. I was (and still am) pissed. How dare he desecrate my grandfather that way! I took a class called Lutheran Mind in the spring and read (surprise, surprise, Michael) On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on Luther\’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518 (Theology) by Gerhard Forde.

Basically, a theologian of the Cross looks at the cross itself and tries to go no further (Cross = Christ’s entire atoning work from incarnation to glorification and finally hope in the eschaton) whereas a theologian of Glory will try to look through the Cross to see God’s very own hidden purposes.

Yes, there is a change in our lives now on earth. Day by day, we become more and more dependent on God’s grace because day by day we flout it by resisting it in our lives. I do it. And I know every one of you does it too. Phillip and I talked about it down in Waco. Michael even wrote a five-part post about it when I first arrived (btw, fantastic posts, Michael… I’m glad the archives work now so that I can read them again—for everybody else, search for Luther, Merton, sanctification, and you’ll come up with 2-5 and links to the first).

Paul seemed to have no compunction calling himself a sinner (even chief of sinners), even though he lived his life under the Cross. Romans 7 would sound like a despairing cry if not for Romans 8 and 1 Thessalonians 4.

If I do experience victory against sin in my life, however (and I have against certain sins in the past, but it has lasted for only a season, and each time I start thinking I’ve got it beat, it always overtakes me again), where is the glory due? The point is, a theologian of the Cross will pray with hope and expectation but understands that God’s will is supreme. A theologian of Glory will try to seek for what is hidden in Who God is.

Lord, may I ever only be Your living and dying servant every day. Grant this, Lord, unto us all. Amen.

Josh & PWinn, i’m sending you guys an email, in hopes to at least clear up what i am saying.  i don’t want to continue cluttering up the bar with this one topic.
Bill, i want to continue using language others can understand.  i’m all for Nietzsch’s or Kierkegaard’s writing style, not Kant’s or Hegel’s.  Well, at least when i’m talking to non-”philosophers.”
Van Til, always glad to bring controversy and confusion to the TR elsewhere.  And i though that i wrote long posts…

Michael: This is a great topic, and I know Eric has some things to say about the contrast between the theology of glory and the theology of the cross. Me, mark me down with the cross every time.

Still, the question is whether Jesus makes our life better right now, or just after we die. I’m gonna be obnoxious and say both, but Steve’s gonna have to understand that the disciple’s lives were all impacted dramatically for the better, and most of them died martyr’s deaths. “Better” doesn’t mean health or wealth, or everyone from Jesus to Paul got it all wrong.

As an escapee from word-of-faith churches, I know that there is a huge emphasis on “steak on the plate” (contrasted with “pie in the sky”), but that’s a false dichtomy. I don’t believe that the issue is now vs later or even a truly-dualistic spiritual vs physical so much as it is a restatment of the question: What is the Kingdom of God? Is it a good job? A nice house? Two cars? How then is the Kingdom of God any different from any profitable enterprise? If my best aspirations are to live the life of a successful business person, then how exactly is God helping me more than the successful business person? Which of us, exactly, is focusing our Christian hope on heaven instead of now? How does being financially successful help lead others to Jesus?

I’m inclined to think that the fruit of our walk with Christ is what the Bible described as the fruit of the Spirit, our Helper, God Himself. In other words: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That’s not just for “later,” but for right now. We can have joy even when things don’t appear to be going so well. We can be kind to people who don’t deserve it. We can be gentle when confronted by bitterness (not that you’d know it from the internet). And so on. Those are things that are real, right now, and that people notice. Those are the things that point to Christ. Jesus had patience with His disciples, love for the world, and joy as He went to His death, and now He is faithful to complete the work He began in us. That’s real, and for here and now.

The problem isn’t that many people want results now more than later. As contrary as that is to Biblical teaching, I still think that the main problem is that people want their results now. In other words, people want to define what they should get out of Christianity, while Christ calls us to come and die, and find abundant life in Him. While my idea of an abundant life might involve a nice car and a nice house, His idea of an abundant life is something different, and just might involve prison and execution, or not.

Hey, iMonk, your dog got out of the yard again and he’s out digging through the neighbors’ trash. You’d better not let him keep rolling in that stuff.

Time reveals all truth. Wright moves from unregenerate to….YES! YOU GUESSED IT!

Biblically, here’s the thing with Wright and other theologians and Christians like him: an antichrist denies Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. That is to say they deny the most important things. When it comes down to it. Wright is like this when he is forced to make a meaningful choice or stand. On homosexuality you saw it, on the resurrection you saw it. On justification you see it. Where he comes down on what is most central and foundational and important exposes what he really is.

So where does this go? WHAT WILL N.T. WRIGHT BECOME?

“Steveâ€? is a commenter at IM with whom I’ve had several exchanges both on and off the comment threads. Steve has a continuing concern with what I write about the Christian life: Where’s the personal victory? Where’s the hope for victory over sin NOW? Where’s the power for change NOW?

You can read my latest IM piece and Steve’s comments to get an idea of what our discussions are like. So here’s the question for the bar:

At the Easter season we talk about the victory of Jesus, and we call people to believe in Jesus so they may share in that victory. How much of that victory is ours NOW?

My answer:

1) The victory Jesus promises is a future cosmic redemption. Read Romans 8. Our experience of it now is a foretaste; the “firstfruits� of the age to come.
2) Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to his people. All Christians share in the blessings of the Holy Spirit, but the life of the Spirit vies with the life of the “old man,� the flesh, the current evil age.
3) Nothing about Christian experience in the present is complete or perfected. Pick any category of Christian experience, and the words “imperfect� or “incomplete� are appropriate.
4) “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.� (2Co 5:17) This passage primarily refers to being part of the “new creation� in the coming age. There is no article in the greek. The text actually reads: Anyone in Christ- new creation.
5) The power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in the life of the church and in the life of the Christian. God is creating an eschatological community of persons resurrected from death, the fall and the old fallen order. The power of the resurrection is at work in the Gospel and the church now.
6) If you don’t take the “already/not yet” or “inaugurated, but not consumated” view, you are left with explaining continuing sin in ways that are extremely discouraging to the normal Christian life. For example, the spiritual warfare bus runs mostly on explaining to Christians why they have serious problems that they “shouldn’t” have. So get exorcised, etc. This is why most conservative evangelicals rebaptize so many people. They are trying to get in on the perfect deal that’s been promised.

Am I off base?

Let me make one comment. I think a lot of the ideas of the “victorious Christian lifeâ€? come from so much pastoral preaching from texts in the Gospels where people are completely healed by one touch or encounter with Jesus. This, combined with the heritage of revivalism, altar calls, Pentecostal miracles, etc., brings us the kind of “victorious lifeâ€? theology that confuses the Bible’s completed (“consumatedâ€?) Kingdom promises with the present Christian experience.

“Come here Josh, my little BrokeBack Philosopher”

So Dennis:  Are you saying Josh and Christopher should get a room?

I know little about this. Too bad Matthew is out of the country. He is an Asbury grad and an associate minister in the UMC.

Candler- the most far left
Duke- I’d go in a minute. Some great teachers. A place at the crossroads of some exciting scholarship. Yes, it’s going to lean way left, but it has a very eclectic faculty in Biblical studies, ethics, theology.
Asbury- One of the two or three best independent evangelical schools out there, esp if you are into missions. BWIII is the man. But with the UMC being pretty liberal it may affect how you are perceived. Check with Matthew on that one.

I would really appreciate some response to these questions. I have two family members who feel called to go to Seminary. They are Methodist and are wanting to go to Candler and Duke. What do yall know about these schools? My conservative Methodist friends always push people to go to Asbury. Is there any other seminaries i could suggest to them?

Congratulations to Christopher, who has been honored with a full autopsy on board the Calvinistic mothership. According to the Oracle over there, Christopher is “defending Borg.” Who knew?

Oh. IM is updated. I have no idea how that happens. 

That was attitude, for those of you who don’t know.

Dennis said: “Can we all take an offering and pay for Josh and Christopher to get in a room and duke it out… after a couple of porters of course.”

Room nothin’ – We need an octagon. Full contact UFC cage match. I’ll bet we could even turn some of our critics into betting men on that one.

Nice job on the CMS change.  It’s a pain in the ass and drives you nutz I bet. We all appreciate the hard work.

Guys… I’m still around and lurking about.  Works kicking my arse, so I don’t have a lot of thinking and posting time, but I am here.

Can we all take an offering and pay for Josh and Christopher to get in a room and duke it out… after a couple of porters of course.

Christopher:  You’ve made a fundamental error which is opening you up for all sorts of criticisms from other BHT fellows.  You are a philosopher, and yet persisting in communicating in ways the rest of us can understand.  I suggest you go back over the archives of the last year and look at Joel’s posts.  Almost no one disagrees with him because no one understands him.  You need to practice obfuscation and fortunately you have the opportunity to learn from a master.  Don’t fail to take advantage of it.

See y’all again in a couple of weeks. I’m about to board a plane for Spain and won’t be back for a couple of weeks. Might be able to check E-mail if Josh wants me to bring him back some turron :-)

Christopher: I love you, too. But I’m not taking you very seriously, and for precisely the reasons Josh describes. You’re bouncing back and forth between disagreeing with concepts, labels, and events, and doing so seemingly randomly. Death and life—the events, the concepts, the reality of them—aren’t arbitrary distinctions, you say, but the words we use are. Which strikes me as… well, orange. Are the Maori, Chinese, or Italian words for those concepts also arbitrary? Only by the definition that all words are arbitrary. Immediately after arguing that the words we use are arbitrary (which is not what you were arguing yesterday), you switch gears again to describe our preconceptions about the concepts, which you had already stipulated as real. So your new argument—fresh from the orange grove—is that our perceptions of death as final is the problem.

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I’ve been listening to the discussion of academic qualifications going on across the street. The subject never has caused me any stress.

Josh, i am not talking about simple “inside one’s head” and “outside one’s head.”  It was through the Greeks that the separation of “physical” stuff with “nonphysical” (i.e. “meta-physics”) was popularized.  It is like saying “British empiricism” or “Scottish Common Sense.”  These groups didn’t invent these things, they just made them popular and the label stuck.
Secondly, you seem to think that i am suggesting some kind of relativism, which i have not.
Thirdly, the term “second death” may only appear in Revelation and be a hapax legomena, but the idea of “life after death” isn’t.  For a “life” after “death,” that “death” must not be absolute.  Yet, most people think of “death” as being absolute.  There’s a problem there.  That’s my point as simple as i can make it.
Fourthly, if i were garbling my communication, nobody would have understood me.  The problem, though, is that some did understand me.  Therefore, the problem is the entirety of the line of communication between you and me, including the both of us.  There is no “oh, well, you’re the only one screwed up.  i’m safe” kind of crap.
Lastly, it’s nice that you can read whatever and completely understand it.  i don’t.  So don’t criticize me because i haven’t been as gifted by God as you.

Josh, Greek dualism is a reference to “mind/body” dualism, it is not meant as a derogatory. And, just because “all people” live according to a premise does not make that premise “right.” i am not saying that “death” and “life” are arbitrary distinctions, but i am saying that the words we use to signify those are. We construe death as some final thing, yet there is a “second death.” That implies to me that the construction of “death” as final isn’t accurate.
i question words because our usage of them is important. Words are one of the only ways to effectively communicate ideas. If the reception of that communication is garbled, we might as well be speaking different languages. All i ask is that people don’t bludgeon words so that the square they are holding fits into the circle their recipient is holding.
The reason i’m “incapable of serious discussion” is because you are expecting me to be such. You are not really engaging what i am saying. Yet, others are. That would indicate not that i am “incapable of serious discussion” but that i am “failing to communicate effectively with you.” There is a difference.

The incorrect association of a commenter at triablogue with the BHT has been graciously corrected by both Phil Johnson and Matt Gumm. The anonymous commenter also apologizes, and then hoses the monk again. Whatever. As a dog returns to his vomit and all that.

Thanks to Mr. Johnson and Mr. Gumm for fair treatment.

In the midst of all this disater relief stuff a group contacted me about coming to New Orleans and working with a church.  I respect and like the leader of this orginization but he works with a group my denomination frowns on working with.  I really wanted to facilitate this group so I asked my pastor if our church could work with them.  He was glad to and I informed him of this groups loose affliation with a more liberal denomination.  His response is that he is responsible for what we teach at our church.  He welcomed this group to come help out because it was a kingdom minded thing to do.

On the internet we have people fighting back and forth all the time to assert who is right. It really is getting old and annoying.  As believers I do believe we are to correct error and heresy but I am not sure the web is the best place for it.  It should occur in our churches and with friends in a loving manner.  Although I enjoy our community at the BHT the web is so impersonal.  These fights get so nasty.  I wonder if these people who so often point out error publically ever try to get in touch with folks privately first (I know that is not always possible).  What type of personality or security level does it take to want to tell people they are wrong all the time. 

Heidegger’s fun to read in German.  i haven’t read much of S&Z, but i have read a good bit of his Besinnung (primarily because there wasn’t an English translation).

If I have my way, Joel and I will spend some time reading David Lewis’s “Parts of Classes”...

In ENGLISH…

Sven is nails. Buy that man a bitter.

On my way to South Bend. Alex and I will be reading Sein und Zeit in German together. I’ll do my best impersonation of Christopher impersonating Phillip as an Irishman.

I’m sure that Dr. Piper has a Minnesota Driver’s License just like me, otherwise, having no credentials at all, I don’t feel adequate to critique another’s.

Jason, I think you make a great point about ‘local’ pastorage (new word?) and the role of community in correcting heresy. It’s a point that relational degenerates like me need to remember whenever we’re tempted to ‘go it alone’.

Alex, you wrote:

The burden of proof is on the innovators, who are required to present argumentation and evidence to support their innovation, neither of which have you done in any significant way.

And i agree with you. It is a rather “beyond historical orthodoxy” concept and it probably won’t ever become orthodoxy. Heck, i don’t think it will ever be considered acceptable by most Christians. But for me, i do find it as an acceptable interpretation. It may not be the best interpretation, but it is an interesting way at looking at things. In the end, i’d probably agree with the historicity of the rez just so that i don’t get crosses burning in my yard or stones thrown at my head.
Josh, your distinction between “meatspace” and “headspace” is purely arbitrary and reminiscint of Greek dualism. i don’t accept dualism in Christianity because i don’t find it in the Bible. From my understanding of cultures, the Jewish culture did not separate “body” from “mind” or from “soul”/”spirit.” All of these tigether made up a person.
Also, if we want to get serious about this distinction, the empiricists seem to have made it very clear that if we are to “know” anything, it is pure “headspace” to the point where “meatspace” is all “headspace” as well.
PWinn, thank you for the love. i love you, man!
With the RSS, there are 4 feeds in WP 2.
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From Kent: “Mr. Johnson said some words to Michael that granted some insight into his way of thinking and that one of the roles of ‘ministers’ is to keep others in line and quench erroneous thinking. Quenching has never worked with me, I have to work through my heresies by talking, sharing, thinking and praying…by community and as part of a body…’hashing through’ things as Jason stated.”

Good point. I think I understand where Phil is coming from. As brothers and sisters in Christ’s church, there is a point where we need to hold each other accountable. If his point is that error must be called, stomped on, and the correct answer given as dogma, then I have to disagree. Rote learning is fine for things like multiplication tables, but when dealing with sticky issues like working out one’s salvation with fear and trembling, there are times when you just can’t give the answer and say “here ya go.” Life must be lived. Occasionally, mistakes must be made, and learned from, as we continue to grasp after obedience to Christ.

Another thing, with no disrespect to Mr. Johnson, whether this forum is public or not, our best sources of accountability comes from those who know us best. Even if I were to be corrected by him on some point of error, I’m more likely to receive the correction gracefully from one of my elders than I am from him. Not that they are “better” than him, but that they know me, and know the struggles and theological issues I am working through from day to day.

That’ not just Phil, either. The fine folks in this pub will likely get to know my theology and studies better than Joe Random Christian Blogger, but even the BHT won’t know me as well as those in my local body. It’s not that we can’t call out heresy when we see it in the world. Rather, we need to make sure we know the whole story, and to be able to discern the difference between conversation/intellectual workout as opposed to teaching. I wouldn’t call what we do here teaching, but it seems that is how some of our critics approach us. Perhaps that’s the source of the conflict rather than serious theological difference.

A commenter at Pyro is claiming that the “BHT” questioned the academic credentials of Dr. Piper. You can find the comment and an exact quote (from Triablogue) here.

The BHT has never had a Keith. The commenter quoted is not a member of the BHT. I have no idea who it is. No one here has ever questioned the academic credentials of Dr. Piper.

We have killed baby seals and we haven’t stopped beating our wives, however.

I’m sure this will be cleared up….when pigs fly and I willingly go to the Animal Shelter for a “little shot.”

To clarify Van Til’s post earlier post, option #5 originally suggested another blog at which one might leave comments, except that said blog doesn’t allow comments either. I suggested that the blogger in question was a “good man” for not allowing public comments. It was a snide dig at someone who probably didn’t deserve it, since my antipathy for him is more accurately aimed at his minions rather than he himself. I left it up for about fifteen minutes, then thought better of it. Van Til has sharp eyes, sharper than most dogs. :-)

Thanks to Jim’s post, I added a link to the standalone trackback form.

P.S. I wonder how many non-regulars at the BHT know the true identity of Van Til? Hmm…

Van Til: So the monk needs some counseling? I think not. What he really needs is a touch of the hyperbolic annointing, given by the great and honorable Rev. Dr. R. Tilton, through the Rev. Benjamin Hinn via the Right Rev. Jeremiah Loudenphat to me…. Gentlemens, let us pray.

EESHEEKEEEENDYEENDOPOLYSQUDINOUSSQUDILYBAT
SUPERCALIBATHOLYMPICSTRAGICHALITOSISITCHYITCHY
EENYMEENYEMTUSRTTNODDNACITEREHAMAIOOHAHOOHAH
MANEENYZENTYATAMANDATAPUTRESCENTESCHATOLOGY!!!!

He will be healed shortly. Please send money.

Is this a trackback?

I have just posted some reflections on relationships and needs: Eternal Insecurities: needs met vs. needs removed, at the new “Drinking from Fire Hydrant” site. I’d appreciate feedback on this, as it’s being considered for publication. Also, registration works (although you won’t get an email) on the new site, and registered users can leave comments.

If you’re savvy, or use blog software that is, you can send us a ping to link your thoughts to ours. The result will be displayed below.

Even if you’re not savvy, or you’re just plain dumb, or you use stupid blog software, or you’re just paranoid about things you don’t understand, you can send us a ping, thanks to the Wizbang Standalone Trackback Pinger. Just another way of showing you that BHT is a full-service blog. Oh, and this is the contemporary service – the traditional service is earlier. Much earlier.

I’ve locked the cat guy in the bathroom. We need to make an announcement.

The BHT has comments. Sortof.

When you hit the comment button, the following message appears:

If you would like to contribute to the conversation, you have a few options:

1. Email. Probably your best option. Nearly everyone lists their email address over on the sidebar, and the only difference between email and a comment is that email doesnt allow you to show off to the entire world how wise and wonderful you are. Surely if your concern is to provide a needed corrective, you’d be just as happy doing so one-on-one, right? If you give permission for the recipient to quote your email, you might even find it on the BHT anyway.


2. Comment at Internetmonk.com, where comments are always open.


3. Ask to join the BHT, and get in on the conversation. We sometimes even open up a temporary guest account for people who don’t want to commit long-term but have something to say.


4. Trackback/Pingback. If you’re savvy, or use blog software that is, you can send us a ping to link your thoughts to ours. The result will be displayed below.


5. I forgot what this one was, but it was cool.

That means you can now comment on posts- at your blog- and it will appear here in trackback form. The chances of any of us responding to you are 50/50. Take me for instance. I’ll just bark at you. Some of the other guys will belch. But someone might wander over your way and comment at your blog, etc.That’s the deal, and it’s like those Kibbles and Bits that I eat- this is as good as it gets.

This (and Robert Capon) may just push me over the edge into Episcopalianism.

Jason & Phillip - related to Jason’s second random thought:

Mr. Johnson said some words to Michael that granted some insight into his way of thinking and that one of the roles of ‘ministers’ is to keep others in line and quench erroneous thinking. Quenching has never worked with me, I have to work through my heresies by talking, sharing, thinking and praying…by community and as part of a body…’hashing through’ things as Jason stated.

Mark, Father Capon has much to say about hospitality and the growing lack therof in Bed and Board, written in 1965.

I found this to be a very encouraging article.  (HT Steve McCoy)  I am getting increasingly disenchanted by the isolation that is too common in the suburban culture.  In my Apologetics and Outreach class, Dr. Barr also keeps stressing the Christian’s obligation to show hospitality.  He even goes so far as to say that if you have a desire to be a pastor or youth leader and you aren’t having people over, you should change your habits or reconsider your ministry goal.  I have been praying for opportunities for outreach, and I believe that God is showing me to (well, duh) befriend our neighbors.  God bless the people who go door to door, but in our neighborhood, at least, I’d be written off just like the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Eric: No offense was taken.  My “Don’t Mess With Texas” joke was all in good fun.  I know how we speak a different language up north. :-)

Jason sagely noted:

Now that the site is up and running on Wordpress, [...] it seems that trackbacks are (at least in some cases) working on posts. Consider the possibility of having trackbacks only. If someone wants to interact badly enough, but is afraid to email one of us, then they can post something on their own blog with a trackback.

My thinking exactly, Jason. One of the reasons behind my drive towards WordPress. And, if the Akismet plugin works as touted, it’ll eat trackback spam for lunch.

So I blow my nose at all of the “The BHT doesn’t have comments!” detractors. If they need to drop commentary on a post, they can do so on their own blogs (provided they use one of the many fine platforms that supports trackback) and we’ll be kind enough to furnish them linkage.

Greetings gang. The monk checked in today from the road. Seems he left a note at OBI and said he’d be back when he was better. He seemed pretty broken up. The hours and hours of ranting about N.T. Wright have just drained him. Plus, as many of you know, he’s written Wright hundreds of letters in the past year, and not one has been answered, so he’s disillusioned as well.

He said that right now he plans to drive out west and look for a Bible college with a counseling program where he’s not known, and hopefully he can get help without having to hash through all of this. He has started attempting to make things up to all the nice people who’ve tried to steer him to the good and true all these months; people he was just plain mean and snarky with. He’s buying gifts for them and composing some poems that get right to the heart of things.

He’ll be sending me notes as he can so that things here in St. Sadies can keep running in his absence. Looks like the guy is serious. He may even go and visit some of his critics and apologize in person. Wouldn’t that be something?

Phillip: Telling that story about Joel to others, I laugh about as hard as he did.  They just look at me like I’m the strangest person they’ve ever seen in their lives and ask simply, “Mouth-breathers???”  I guess you had to be there…

Okay, so All Shiner all the time isn’t really going to cut it.  Sorry, I just had to flaunt my state pride.  I (somewhat) retract the statement (and Mark, I should’ve put a jn in there somewhere earlier… apologies, my friend).

On a completely unrelated subject, I gotta tell y’all… I simply Can’T abide useless people.  Not direCTed at anybody in particular… just a general CommenT.

Jason: Yes and yes. I’m constantly amazed that we’ve managed to get together one of the largest groups of thoroughly orthodox Reformed Christians that I can find anywhere, and yet we’re constantly attacked by people who claim we’re not orthodox and not Reformed and so on.

Apparently it’s not enough to come up with the right answers. You must have acquired them at birth, or via reading the KJV in its entireity seven times, or by osmosis. You cannot ask questions, cannot suggest anything “dangerously” unorthodox even as a mental exercise, nothing. Know it, all of it, right now, or shut up and get off the internet. I suppose it’s a good thing Peter didn’t know any better.

Too bad we can’t all be perfect, like the disciples were. Oh, wait.

Now that the site is up and running on Wordpress, another odd thought popped into my head. If this has already been suggested/implemented, chalk it up to the regimen of cold meds I’m on at the moment. :-) I continue to support the overall consensus on not having comments here, but it seems that trackbacks are (at least in some cases) working on posts. Consider the possibility of having trackbacks only. If someone wants to interact badly enough, but is afraid to email one of us, then they can post something on their own blog with a trackback. That could allow some level of interaction with the outside world, without the temptation to have the stream of conversation here interrupted. Just a thought…

Another random thought – if many of us here were pinned down on what we believe about “issue x,” I’m sure we would ultimately have an answer that is within the realm of orthodoxy, and at least not heretical to many of our critics. What I think is challenging for many of them is that we have no fear of challenging those beliefs and working them out, out loud, together, sometimes resolving and sometimes not. Sometimes questions get thrown out for the joy of the intellectual exercise. In these cases, our orthodox beliefs are never denied or changed. We simply like hashing through the issue, not always having to dance around “the approved answer.” Does this sound like a fair characterization to all of you?

Kent: I wrote my post without seeing yours, so it definitely wasn’t you I had in mind. It is wrong, and shameful, and antethetical to the basic tenets of Christianity and Calvinism, and every other thing I can imagine. It is one thing to say that someone who doesn’t profess faith in Christ is not a Christian, but quite another to say that about someone who claims to bear the label. The New Testament is full of warnings about such statements, and that people can make them with such certainty is horrifying. I fear for the people making those statements, because the Biblical warnings aren’t something I would take lightly.

Maybe Wright and McLaren are unregenerate, maybe I am, and maybe you are. But that is for God to decide. God saves whom He wills, right? I don’t like McLaren, but the labeling makes me sick. I’m glad to see that Phil Johnson—someone I respect—disavowed that statement

Phillip, when I’m illuminating the relationally vicious words of others my intent is not to take ‘potshots’, my intent is to help two sorts of ‘others’ realize that such behaviour is antithetical to a health body. ‘Sort #1’ is the individual tempted to make the same sort of judgements that our inflammatory brothers are making and ‘Sort #2’ are those injured by judgements like theirs.

The four being labeled ‘unregenerate’ can take it, but for each of them there are ten thousand or so others that are being dumped on and mistreated within the Body for making similar statements and voicing similar struggles and doubts. My love for the Body of Christ is such that I have difficulty allowing such talk about members of the same Body go unconfronted.

It is wrong for members of the Body to speak to/of one another in such cold, patronizing ways.

Reading comments stating without even a hint of doubt that people like McLaren and Wright are unregenerate make me feel sick to my stomach. I want to cry, seeing how people so easily elevate themselves above Paul or Jesus, who were far less quick to judge the state of others.

So for now I’m dropping the “Supreme Leader” shtick for a while and just asking, please, if we can stop discussing this topic or referring even slantedly at those who’ve gone out on this limb. I’m begging. God didn’t raise Jesus from the dead so that we could sit around taking potshots at each other.

Please.

Doesn’t not being regenerate imply that if you are regenerate you were once generate and became degenerate?  I thought I was born a degenerate and am now becoming generate.  In order to be regenerate I would think that I would at one time had to have been generate and I don’t think I ever was.

If they can say that all those who cite, quote from, admire and/or would applaud Wright in any way are also unregenerate, I’d say they’ve just about cleared the table.

I’m glad I’m a dog.

It all makes sense now why Joel is on the global warming bandwagon.

Wow, those pyronic experts are a hoot. Mr. Camp’s heretic detector had Crossan and Borg all wadded up in an unregenerate ball ready to throw them overboard and somehow got NTW wadded up in the same ball…but wait…there’s more…McLaren got caught up in it too and he was probably just sitting in Maryland minding his own business.

I haven’t seen this much human dissection since my anatomy class back in ‘81…expert flamers…it’s like watching a slow, purposeful train wreck, I can’t tear my gaze away…

Van Til: Here, kitty, kitty!

You know, I wish the picture I snapped the other morning with my phone had turned out better. In my master bathroom—which I’ve often joked would be the best place in the house for the piano, but for the humidity—there is a ledge up at about the eight-foot level on which we’ve got plants, pcitures, and so on. Decorative, you know? Part of the ledge is apparently intended to store a really large potted plant, but we’ve never put one there. And our cat—should I produce a picture?—sometimes jumps up t