Beware of Veggie Tales.

The producers of these Veggie Tales movies desecrate Holy Scripture by perverting it into upbeat do-good stories completely absent the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Read that sentence again. Holy Scripture. That’s what we teach our children that the Bible is. Holy. Untouchable. Sacred. Must not be tampered with. But we are considered freaks in a world where nothing is sacred. Nothing is holy. Nothing is untouchable, particularly if there is cash to be made. These people are getting wealthy off the mistreatment of the Word of God.

I watched a Veggie Tales video years ago that had been given to one of my preschoolers. In the story the vegetables were trying to avoid the lie that was trying to come in the window. If they avoided the lie, they would be good. The false teaching in that was that lies don’t come from outside us as the video taught. They come from within us because we are sinful and corrupt, and that’s why we need a savior. But vegetables don’t need a savior. Jesus didn’t die for tomatoes and cucumbers. The foolishness in these videos serve as spiritual confusion for children who go around believing that the Ninevites were about to be destroyed by God for slapping each other with fish. In another movie, the vegetables are featured throwing grape slushies over the Walls of Jericho. And we wonder why our kids are biblically illiterate and grind holy things under their feet. They learned from their parents who taught them to do so.

How many hours of this garbage do you want your children to watch? We have the Holy Bible, preserved through the centuries by the martyrs who gave their blood for their love of God’s Word. So what do we give our children? Trash movies that distort the sacred words of Scripture into little moralistic, works righteousness tales with dancing cartoon characters.

I always find the Open Theism discussion a bit frustrating. Greg Boyd clearly says that God knows the future as a set of possibilities based on his exhaustive knowledge. He doesn’t know it as something he predetermined. Like that or not, it’s a pretty esoteric point, in my opinion.

Makes me want to ask this question: Do we give the impression that ordinary Christian growth = becoming theologically educated? Why does Christian growth = getting a college level mastery of theology? Where’s that in the Bible? Growth is about character, knowledge and love. And despite what you’ll hear from the infallible party, it doesn’t break down as 85% doctrine. The way you hear some Christians talk, we aren’t disciples; we’re students and the ideal Christian is something like the Big Brained Blog.

I’m no expert on open theism, but I’ll stick my foot in it anyway. An open theist might say that God is smart enough to do the calculus on the bridge and realize the collapse is going to happen without some kind of foreknowledge in the usual sense of the word. It’s not that he knew it as if it had already happened, but he was able to see that it would. It would be based on his knowledge of the past, not on his knowledge of the future. Time is real that way, not in the sense of time as a substance, but in the sense of time as a way to denote sequence.

In this view, God doesn’t know the future, because it hasn’t happened yet and cannot be known. But he’s real smart, and sometimes it seems to us like he knows the unknowable.

If a person were smart enough to do the same calculus and had the resources to change the equations by fixing the bridge, the collapse could have been prevented.

In the same way, God can change the equations—he certainly has the resources. Sometimes he does this in response to our prayers.

OK. Let me have it. I can take it. I’ve already been burned at the stake once today. I’m sure you can tell that my knowledge of open theism is at a very elementary level.

Since Bill is harassing me by IM, here’s my two cents on the Olson article.

To call Calvinists “Christian determinists” is a bit simplistic and I’m not too fond of that label even if one of my professors, Jerry Walls, would agree.

I think open theism is heresy and I don’t think God was surprised by the bridge collapse—he just didn’t make it happen.

The question I would ask Calvinists is “How is God glorified by causing the bridge to collapse?” If God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in him, who among those affected by the bridge collapse are satisfied?

I contributed to the drive for one thousand comments:

This is a negative comment, so it subtracts one.

I think those pyro people have great pictures. They sort of grab you—right off. I’ve never read of word of it.

I’m trying to play the man, but … ouchie!

Nice quote in the comments at the burning blog.

Gentlemen,

After reading this article, you can shut down Pyro. This says it all.

I can’t claim the gift of discernment, but….WORD.

Not a problem at all.

Bill, I am reasonably comfortable with Olson’s take on it. But I tend to be fairly Open, if you know what I mean. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

This is from the sermon on Romans 8:19-22 (creation subjected to futility) that I’m working on for Sunday.  So there’s still time to spare my congregation if you think it’s heresy…

...That word for futility is sometimes translated vanity, and it is the word used in Ecclesiastes. “Vanity of vanities!  All is vanity!” or “Meaningless! Meaningless!  All is meaningless.”  So the preacher of Ecclesiastes says in 8:14, “There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless.” and in 9:11 “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.”

You say, wait a minute, I didn’t think we believed in chance.  Sure we do.  We just believe that God is in sovereign control of everything that happens by chance.  Does that sound like a contradiction?  It’s not.  Here’s the first entry in Webster’s for chance.  “unpredictably, without discernible human intention or observable cause.”  Things most certainly happen in this world unpredictably and without human intention or any observable cause.  But God is sovereign over all those things.  Proverbs 16 says that the lot is cast into the lap but its every decision is from the Lord.  God is so sovereign that every roll of every die on every table in Vegas comes up the number that God decrees it to be.  

But if you go out there and watch them roll the dice you quickly conclude that the rolls of the dice are meaningless.  The winning numbers don’t come up for nice guys any more often than they do for wise guys.  Time and chance happen to them all.  When the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper, Ecclesiastes calls that meaningless.  That doesn’t mean that God isn’t in control of it, it just means that you can’t draw any conclusions from it. 

So too, many if not most of the sufferings we experience by virtue of living in this fallen, cursed world are, in this sense, meaningless.  That doesn’t deny that God is in control of them.  That doesn’t deny that God will work through them for your good.  They are not purposeless, but they are meaningless in the sense that you can’t draw any conclusions from them.  God has subjected this creation to vanity, so expect it to make no sense to you. 

Again, it may be meaningless to us, but it is not purposeless to God.  God subjected the creation to vanity…in hope.  So let’s consider for the rest of our time together the hope that we have that sustains us throughout our lives in this cursed world of inexplicable sufferings… 

It’s true that sometimes I don’t recognize the God that some Calvinists paint a picture of, but I sure don’t recognize the God Olson depicts either.  He may be a little flaky on Baptist church membership but I’m going to have to get on the boat with Piper over Olson.  While Olson may be Arminian, I would think that a lot of Arminians wouldn’t be too comfortable with what he wrote.  Then again, I’m not Arminian, so who knows?

Bullies need a kid to beat up, and when that kids says stop, they mock him and kick harder.

A balanced view of the Mother Teresa matter.

If you plan to run this play, be sure and leave town quickly.

Jump…..over the motorcycle.

And finally, Roger Olson, an Arminian that has the spine to actually take on Calvinism on theological grounds, talks about Calvinism and the bridge collapse.

The God of Calvinism scares me; I’m not sure how to distinguish him from the devil.

Read it all.

Criticize the EC all you want.  Honestly the EC is so low on my radar that it barely registers.  But if someone says that the EC has nothing to do with Christianity, then they are being dumb.  If you defend that statement, then you (not YOU, John, more of the generic YOU) are being dumb.

Watchblogs don’t create post after post ad nauseum refuting the errors of Hinduism.  Why?  Because Hinduism has nothing to do with Christianity.  The new EmergentNo isn’t posting article after article refuting and mocking the EC because it has nothing to do with Christianity, but because it does!

Bill: I’m afraid you simply aren’t being honest when you deny being sympathetic to “Emerging Church” trends. You are either self-deceived or deliberately lying. I don’t pretend to know which, but it’s largely a moot point when you (and your fellow EC heretic “Art”) are overtly hostile and utterly closed-minded towards any significant criticism of the ECM. (jn+++)

(But this was jn-free, alas.)

I’ve become fascinasted by the book of Esther and the behind the scenes use of power. One queen refuses to appear to the king, one queen tempts the king with her unbidden presence, and a whole cadre of eunuchs who groom and serve the powerful even as they plot against the monarchy. Wow. A real page turner, not to mention applications for the church. I told my pastor that my new favorite verse in the whole Bible was “Queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s command…” He laughed and asked who the king was in my situation. I assured him it was a pastoral metaphor. We’re in a real spiritual battle right now with the church ‘monarchy’ for how to use church property and do ministry. The powers that be are delighted with their cracker-jack church staff and but I think we’re about to see some grumpy kings when the pretty queens (the pastors) refuse to dance for the court.  

So, uh, no, we won’t link the BHT. My pastor’s blog is perfectly suited for church consumption. I’ve never linked my own blog to the BHT either, for that matter. But, that could change…as I feel this creative fog lift.

Mother Theresa’s story is a thundering awakening. I can’t wait to read more about her story.

The comment thread over at the new EmergentNo is hilarious.  One guy makes the outrageous claim that the EC has nothing to do with Christianity.  Some guy named Art astutely observes that no matter its faults, the EC definitely has something to Christianity.  Then the ENOers start piling on.  Art tries over and over again to make his point but they simply don’t have the capacity to understand it.  They keep pointing out the errors of the EC and the head ENOer’s tireless crusade against the EC and the many articles the head ENOer has written (unwittingly proving Art’s point).  Art keeps explaining that he isn’t defending the EC, simply trying to make someone, anyone understand that the EC does have something to do with Christianity.

Let’s face it, if the EC had absolutely nothing to do with Christianity, the self appointed defenders of Christian orthodoxy wouldn’t devote an entire website and years of work refuting it.

Now for the disclaimer:  I’m not emerging. I’m not emergent.  I have no piercings.  I have no tattoos.  I don’t use profanity, in or out of the pulpit.  I’m not an egalitarian.  What little of my hair is left is its natural color.  I don’t like incense.  We don’t use candles in our church except for weddings and the Christmas eve service.  I hate almost all praise music.  I’m good with the 5 solas.  I was baptized as a believer.  I don’t chant.  I’ve never read a book by Dan Kimball, Rob Bell, Mark Driscoll or Brian McLaren.  I’m not rude to old people.

Sharon, since your Sr. Pastor appears to have his blog linked on the church website why don’t you get them to link the BHT? :-D

I’m kidding ‘cause there ain’t no way I’d let my church link my blog or the BHT.

I am writing this without going back and looking at Scripture much…but that’s never stopped me before.  I remember talking about this once with elders at our church.  Our pastor suggested, and at the time I agreed, that the passage in James about anointing with oil suggests that the elders go to the person (..let him call for the elders of the church).  That is, it is a very serious situation where the person is not even able to come to the fellowship.   This really limits it to serious illnesses.  It is hard to be dogmatic about it but certainly I don’t think it is something to be done casually two or three times every week.  BTW, no one has suggested that it be done casually, this is just my two cents.

I am on vacation in upstate New York with my children. I’m about as close to Bill as I can get without attending a deacon’s meeting at his church. Yes, Bill, I do plan to call. I’d send you email, but on dial-up that’s a losing proposition.

Among other things, this we marked my 46th birthday. I wrote down something I thought I should post here.

For all my life, I believed that the message of the gospel was this: God loves us so much that he will let us go our own way, walk away from his will, and make a mess out of our lives, and when we hit the bottom and have no place else to turn, he will come to us and bring us back to himself. And all of that is true, all of that is in the gospel that Jesus proclaimed to us.

But now I realize that the gospel is something far more mysterious, something far more disturbing, something far more difficult to accept, because the message of the gospel is also this: God loves us so much that he will let us try to walk in his ways, let us do the right things and be the right people, and our lives will still end up a mess. And when we reach the place where we realize just how useless our efforts to be righteous and pure and good are, and how God has absolutely no use for them, he will come to us and bring us back to himself.

I am convinced that God is as weary of our efforts to be fine, upstanding, moral people as we (if we are honest with ourselves) are. And I’ve reached a place where I’m no longer willing to make those efforts any longer. I’m tired of trying to do what God has already done for me. I’m tired of moving toward Someone I can never reach, especially when he is already standing right next to me all the time.

Jeff ____ has a thoughtful post on Mother Teresa and Pascal, and the tin ear of American religion. This is relevant to the ref21 criticism as well, which also assumes that “effective influence” is the measure of significant public faithfulness. Ellul’s diagnosis yet again.

The reason I asked about the oil and anointing is that we are working on some prayer events in our church, and without making a show of it, I’d like to give people the option of receiving prayer and anointing if they desire it.

I saw something cool on the ESV blog yesterday. Has anyone else seen the BibleMap.org site? It’s a Google mashup with locations of Bible places.

I for one am interested in what people have to say about the question of the elders anointing with oil and praying for the sick.  Why isn’t this done more often?

Another question: When studying the LS in 1 Cor. 11 in men’s study, we read this passage:

¹⁹For there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you.

Nearly everyone’s study notes on that verse said Paul was saying that the good thing about schisms in the church is that they are a surefire way of identifying the “true Christians.”

Is it just me or does that interpretation seem whacked to anyone else?  It seems to me that Paul is clearly being sarcastic here.

Credit where it’s due: I greatly enjoyed the following, which got mentioned in a comments thread on a certain graphics-heavy blog. It’s a source-critical analysis of “Humpty-Dumpty” by Edmund P. Clowney, from 1960: More »« Less

John H: On the principle of “whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none”, I would think it is important for those of us who do have something like small group fellowship going on in our own homes to practice hospitality and welcome in those in our congregation who do not.  Rather than saying that small groups are only necessary for those who lack such families, I would nominate heads of healthy families to be small group leaders.  I know that time constraints may force us to choose the essential over the good, but on the other hand, do families really go under by opening their homes and spending themselves for the needy?  In my family, the real threats to fellowship are soccer practice, oboe lessons, marching band, irish dance classes… (I’ve got five kids, the list goes on!)  

And for my third post in a row, Abraham Piper emailed me:

Briefly, here’s why I question O’Connor—and it’s a literary quibble, not religious: It seems like people only see the “meaning” of her stories after they have been directed what to look for either by the author herself or by one of her admiring critics. After we hear that all her stories are about grace and violent conversion, then we see it. But according to O’Connor, a story should contain within itself everything a reader needs to understand it. So if her stories, require an outside source to open them up, then they are faulty—judged by her own standard.

Or perhaps they don’t mean what she said they do.

I would be interested in finding out whether anyone has ever interpreted her stories the way she says they should be without first reading “Mystery and Manners” or one of the dozens of books that “explain” her. If no one has—if it is impossible to come up with the truth without a key—then the stories are faulty.

Nobody will say that O’Connor was a perfect artist. So all I’m saying is that this may be one of her artistic flaws. I still think she’s remarkable and will continue reading her work over and over again, despite my Protestantism.

Abraham

I’ll try to put together a response once I’ve pulled my foot out my mouth (which made it there because of my knee-jerk reaction). Thanks to Abraham for the response.

Jason, back when I was a pastor-type person, I’d carry a small vial of oil with me if I was going to an event where I knew people who would prefer its use (I served a few times as a spiritual director on a Christian adult weekend retreat-thingy where it was common to anoint every team member before the weekend started).

I have no idea what kind it was. It was whatever the Christian bookstore sold me. Once, I forgot it, and we used vegetable oil from the kitchen.

I tossed my little vial during packing. Which reminds me – we’re taking pre-ownership of our new house down in the city today. Prayers would be much appreciated as we make this transition.

Glenn Lucke sends the following response via email to my comments on A. Piper’s Flannery O’Connor piece:

I may mis-read A. Piper’s piece, but I didn’t see the jab at her Catholicism. I thought he was extolling and then explaining her position to readers who might be the very targets O’Connor had in mind. I read Abraham Piper’s article as being quite sympathetic.

At the end his raising of the question is not a jab at her Catholic faith but rather the putting of a fair question: did O’Connor live up the standard she proposed? That’s a fair question to ask of anyone who proffers a standard.

Perhaps Piper reads in O’Connor’s oeuvre some instances where she devolved into didactic teaching. With stories like a Good Man is Hard to Find she certainly smacks the reader hard with depravity. It’s not propositional, but the unrelenting depiction of depravity could be experienced as heavy-handed teaching.

Of course I may mis-read all this. But I didn’t detect a note of snark or jab whatsoever.

My 2 cents.

Glenn’s probably correct. I can be a bit hypersensitive to the whole issue. I do agree it’s a fair question; I just too often see it applied only to people with whom we disagree theologically. Would he have concluded a post on C.S. Lewis with the same sort of doubt?  I don’t know.  I guess I’d like to hear some explanation as to why A. Piper has doubt that Flannery succeeded in her own view of literature.

First thing: I know next to NOTHING about Chuck Pierce.

That said, much of what I see on his Glory of Zion web site looks like the kind of Dispensationalism-based Christian Zionism that I have come to – um – dislike. But, I have read nothing of his, and I would be happy to be wrong.

Also, something seems a little ishy about the idea of selling 1-oz. bottles of “Resurrection Anointing Oil” for $10/bottle.

I’ll shut up about him now and let someone with actual knowledge speak up.

Second thing: A question – speaking of anointing oil, does anyone use this? If so, do you just use olive oil, or is there some standard kind? (Our church doesn’t talk about or promote the practice of elders anointing the sick with oil. But, since it’s a New Testament practice, if someone asked, I’d do it, and I believe most of the others would as well. Do any of you have any thoughts on this?)

Now, everybody, try to keep quiet. Don’t make eye-contact; keep your breathing regular; continue going about your daily business. Giving in to certain needy people’s desperate desire for attention may seem like the easiest way out at times, but in the end it only results in greater hurt, as they are reinforced in their self-destructive patterns of behaviour. They need space to work through this in their own time and in their own way. (jn)

Michael, I’m a bit surprised that you took the time to blast CBD for promoting the new Osteen book in the first place. Maybe I’m just cynical and jaded, but I realized long ago that CBD is just like Christian bookstores in general; they exist to make a buck, pure and simple. That’s why I haven’t set foot in a Christian bookstore for probably three or four years; they promote crap, to be blunt. Do you honestly think they ever cared about the true gospel? Oh, sure, many of them started off caring, but that’s not what people were buying, for the most part. Now that the “Left Behind” series is complete and the “Prayer of Jabez” has become passe, they needed to find another goose that laid the golden egg, and Joel Osteen is that goose.

What person who is high up in the organization of CBD actually reads these books? Who do you think is in charge of doctrinal integrity? If someone said something, I’m sure they’d be ignored at best or fired at worst. Just do a survey sometime of the catalog and see if 90% of the stuff they sell is just garbage. And people are going to buy those Joel Osteen books, whether they get them from CBD, Amazon.com, or Uncle Joe’s Bookstore and Flea Market. If people expect CBD to filter through the dross, they’d better think again.

 

Michael: Christopher Hitchens has been banging that Mother Teresa drum for years. He did a British TV programme well over a decade ago about “the real Mother Teresa”, in which he sensationally revealed her to be a practising Roman Catholic who (a) admired the Pope and (b) opposed abortion. (jn)

If you want a good laugh, here’s a Christopher Hitchens article for the New Statesman from 1976, in which the drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay expresses his admiration for the up-and-coming young leader of Iraq, one Saddam Hussain, “who has sprung from being an underground revolutionary gunman to perhaps the first visionary Arab statesman since Nasser”:

Saddam Hussain will rise more clearly to the top. Make a note of the name. Iraq has been strengthened internally by the construction of a ‘strategic pipeline’ which connects the Gulf to the northern fields for the first time. She has been strengthened externally by her support for revolutionary causes and by the resources she can deploy. It may not be electrification plus Soviet power, but the combination of oil and ‘Arab socialism’ is hardly less powerful.

And the rest is, um, history.

Chris Hitchens makes his play to be an honorary TR: I Hate Mother Teresa.

This morning I got an IM comment that quoted me asking CBD why they endorse Osteen. The commenter said “Why do you endorse Mother Teresa?” He’s right. I’ll be endorsing Paula White later today. Thanks for the help.

Aaron: if you’re looking for specific materials, the best small-group Bible studies I’ve come across are Matthias Media’s Interactive Bible Studies. Two particularly good ones are “Full of Promise” (an overview of the whole OT, which our home group at a former church studied to great profit) and “Beyond Eden” (on Genesis 1-11, though that may not go down too well with members of the Ken Ham fanclub). But they’re all worth looking at.

Matthias Media is an Australian (mainly Sydney Anglican) publisher, but they have a US catalogue available for download here.

Phillip:

I think a strong biblically-sound case can be made that most Christians should probably be involved in [a small group], or something like it.

I’ll go with that, provided we remember that the believing family is the Christian “small group” with the strongest biblical support (golly, I think I must be channelling Doug Wilson again (jn)). For those lacking that form of fellowship, however, I agree that other small groups can be very valuable.

Sharon, Sonia: Delighted to have flushed you out. :-)

Sonia, hope things improve at work soon. Sharon, glad things are improving.

And finally… Yes, it’s time for the weekly sea-ice update that you’ve all been looking forward to so much. As of Tuesday 28th, there were 2.99 million sq. kilometres sea ice area in the northern hemisphere. The previous lowest-recorded minimum (last year) was over 4 million sq. km.

And a reminder that the long-term trend can be seen here. If this was a company’s stock price, I’d say this was a “sell”.

Sonia, I feel for you with all of your stress related angst. Since I recovered from my back injury last spring I’ve been fine but I’ve had to deal with a ton of family illness. The most recent is my youngest son’s broken foot. Skate boards are of the devil.

My new appointment is really a gift from God (the bishop? /jn/). I was nearly comatose from the lack of opportunities for creative expression since I was ordained in ‘06. Now, I can do whatever I can dream. The problem the problem is that I’ve been a ‘rusty dreamer’ but things are slowly getting unstuck. I would love to know that y’all are praying for us on September 9 when ALL of the children’s programs and Disciple Bible Study are getting started. Here’s a look at the rational for our children’s worship service. We’re also doing Pioneer club and it is also beginning that night. Our choir guy is doing a magnificent job with all the music and youth guy is doing great stuff with technology in the middle service.

Basically, I feel as though I’m waking up and I have a great opportunity to do some good stuff.

Edit: for grammar and unclear sentences due to being slap worn out last night.

Thank you, Travis. That’s exactly what I needed and expected to hear. I have a very low tolerance for these self-proclaimed prophets and long for a return to the days when the people of God could stone to death false prophets. I’ve got some rocks with names on them should that day come.

You Kansas City false prophets might want to buy a helmet.