I could talk a lot about this Reds thing. It’s hard to explain, but I’m a lot like my dad who dealt with his depression by getting involved in Ham radio. Baseball has been my way of coping with a lot of things about myself, and Denise can tell you what it’s like during the offseason. Restless. Unproductive. But during the season the games give me something to think about besides all the stuff I have to think about and don’t want to think about. For example, we’ve got a “revival” coming up here at school in less than a month. I really dread having to face it without the alternative universe.

But I’ll deal. First it’s Gameday audio. Then it’s a major upgrade of the AM antenna, though my AM problems are all related to computers in the house. If I went satellite- which I can’t because of having cable and internet bundled- I’m still not sure I could get the right station. I’m surrounded by people from all over the country who haven’t watched their teams in years, so I just have to tough it out.

I could attempt to become a Braves fan, but that would violate several points of Calvinism.

Anyway, we’ve decided to get a dog, and we are going to get her Saturday. It will be a long trip, but we’re excited about it, even though it will be lots of trouble. I’ll post a picture later. Cairn/Scottie mix. Mostly Scottie.

“I grew up a fan of the Evil Empire, and a fan of the Evil Empire I shall remain until I die. Go Yankees.” – A BHT Fellow

Hey, even Darth Vader was redeemed in the end.  ;-)

Trading the Reds on TV for the Braves, for someone in Kentucky is a real slap in the face.  The solution is to take up a love offering for Michael so he can get Satellite TV.   Although with the sabbatical coming, perhaps it’s not the worst timing….

“I grew up a fan of the Evil Empire, and a fan of the Evil Empire I shall remain until I die. Go Yankees.” – A BHT Fellow

Michael, can you go ahead and write a letter like that for me directed toward AT&T? Mine is a little short. It says, “Hey, AT&T! You suck!”

Michael: I must say, on the whole, you seem to be taking this very well. (sw)

Speaking of American culture my son and I were up at 4am today to watch the Red Sox’s opening game. It was a good one. The pitching was a little rusty but Manny is in fine form (4 RBIs). It’s good to have Baseball back.

Michael, I feel bad about your loss of the Reds on TV. That’s ridiculous. Aren’t they the regional team of choice where you are, or have the Braves taken over all of the South. Or all of the world, actually. I get most Braves games here in BC.

It’s part of our Canadian self-flagellation to say that we hate American culture. The fact is that we love it and consume it in large quantities. We’re just more willing to add stuff from other cultures to our diet. And when one of our own makes it big in the States (which happens a lot – sorry about Celine) then they are considered to have really made it.

Josh: Touché on all points!

Phillip said:

U.S. Culture? You speak too expansively. Here in Dallas...

Scylding, the funny thing is that the Christmas taboo is part of the new “mosaic, not melting pot” idea. Saying “Christmas” or giving people a day off on a major religious holiday is oppressive and devalues other cultures (is Yom Kippur a national holiday in Canada?). Since there are way, way, way too many cultures to acknowledge them all in a single greeting and thus avoid oppressing anyone, nor could we give a day off for every significant day of every religious calendar, we’ve decided that the best way is to just not say anything. We just have a non-denominational winter gift-giving festival every year.  It’s actually part of our bizarre self-flagellating thing.  See, it’s bad and wicked to say “Merry Christmas,” but no one would get offended if you said “Happy Hanukkah.”  They would think your different culture was absolutely charming and wonderful.

we believe US culture to be a contradiction in terms…

I wasn’t trying to pick on Tim, and I’m sorry that it turned out that way.

For what it’s worth, Tim, I’m sure that your life up to this point, combined with your listening and reading habits, have all provided a context in which your statements make perfect sense, just as my context has contributed to me thinking that they don’t. And fortunately, I won’t hold one silly post against you, either. :-)

Tim, don’t feel bad. Talk radio’s conservative icons agree with you. And I think conservative talk radio would go into an equal hissy fit and feeding frenzy over N.T. Wright’s Easter and Empire essay. And I believe N.T. is Jeremiah Wright’s brother as I’ve heard recordings of both of them preaching the gospel.

(sorry to be such a stirrer today… )

NOT!

(I guess I’m sorry I’m not sorry….)

A lurker has asked me to explain how I think Tim got this one wrong, so…

Tim: You’re absolutely and completely wrong on this one in every way. Seriously.

John: No, htop doesn’t work (no /procfs), but ‘top -orsize’ gives much the same effect. Activity Monitor is a nice GUI version. However, I believe Travis was actually referring to “disk space” when he said “memory,” so something like Grand Perspective is actually what he needs. Beats a bunch of manual ‘du -s’ commands, anyway.

Having spent some time listening to Wright, and in context, I agree with Travis.  This man and this church have been dealt a gross injustice by the media.  The AIDS thing is loony, but the God Damn America in context is just prophetic preaching within the tradition of non-violence.  Listen to the context folks.  9 minutes instead of 9 seconds.  Here’s the context.  I’m not sure it’s how I would handle the text, but it’s a compelling point that America needs to hear, especially after a 9/11. 

Michael, do you get the Reds on radio? Baseball on the radio is better than TV, sometimes.

Travis: is htop available for Mac? It’s a Unix application which shows all running processes in a display that can be sorted by memory, CPU time etc. Very handy app.

Michael: that Princess Bride poster was gold.

Incidentally, as regards the banner quote, I’m not sure that Luther did turn the priest round to face the people during the Mass. Perhaps a lurking Lutheran historian could help out with that one. Other than that, the quote is spot on: ”[the Mass] was not something the priest did for God, it was something God did for the people.” Amen.

In the Church of England, incidentally, I believe the westward position was quite rare until recent decades. Anglo-Catholics faced east, while evangelicals stood at the north end of the altar communion table. Westward position is now the norm, however, except in very high-church bells-and-smells outfits.

Meanwhile, the other Wright, N.T. has a post on Easter and Empire.

In all seriousness though, what is (North) American culture, as opposed to say, European culture? Actually, lets include all the majority Anglophone Colonial Cultures – the US, Canada (outside Quebec), Australia and NZ, as well as South Africa, though to a lesser extent. I’m currently reading Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” – but what he says about the US, would apply to the rest as well. Speaking on the “French paradox” – ie the French “bad food choices” vs their longevity, he states the following:

Yet I wonder if it doesn’t make more sense to speak in terms of an American paradox- that is, a notably unhealthy people obsessed by the idea of eating healthily.

He then goes on to say –
As a relatively new nation drawn from many immigrant populations, each with his own culture of food, Americans have never had a single, strong, stable culinary tradition to guide us.

A survey of the theological landscape would indicate the same, no? How much of this derives from certain strains of theological thought more common in the Anglophone tradition than in others? The obsession with rationalist doctrine at the cost of all tradition bears a lot of similarity to the obsession with optimising process and profit at the cost of taste and culinary tradition.

Ouch. She needs some lessons in lying from Billy.

My mental health has been glued together with Reds baseball.

I confess, printers are the one thing I’m not happy about with Leopard. I had a work around for the hp laserjet 1020 (Windoze only; I wasn’t paying attention) and then Leopard came along and I can’t get the steps I used in Tiger to replicate it. Hope you have better luck than I did.

Tim, I think the thing that’s really irking me about your responses is that I agree that the guy has said some irresponsible, looney, ridiculous things…I just don’t like the way you’re going about making your point that because he said those things, we need to vilify the man’s entire life and ministry. I’m not getting back into the race discussion at the moment; I’m simply talking ways and means here. More »« Less

Aaron: This is like a death. I’m serious. My mental health has been glued together with Reds baseball. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Braves. Oh please.

Michael- Go braves and take the Falcons with you.

I went to a church this past Sunday where the resurrection message was not preached. Anyone else find that odd? It is a fairly new church, that I guess, was using Easter to launch the new sermon series because they knew there would be lots of visitors. Really

The defenses of Wright are all built on spurious assumptions.

The Reds have been removed from my cable and replaced with the…......Braves.

God help me. My life is over.

“If we really believe the truth, we shall be decided about it. Certainly we are not to show our decision by that obstinate, furious, wolfish bigotry which cuts off every other body from the chance and hope of salvation and the possibility of being regenerate or even decently honest if they happen to differ from us about the colour of a scale of the great leviathan. Some individuals appear to be naturally cut on the cross; they are manufactured to be rasps, and rasp they will. Sooner than not quarrel with you they would raise a question upon the colour of invisibility, or the weight of a non-existent substance. They are up in arms with you, not because of the importance of the question under discussion, but because of the far greater importance of their being always the Pope of the party. Don’t go about the world with your fist doubled up for fighting, carrying a theological revolver in the leg of your trousers. There is no sense in being a sort of doctrinal game-cock, to be carried about to show your spirit, or a terrier of orthodoxy, ready to tackle hertodox rats by the score . . . These are theologians of such warm, generous blood, that they are never at peace till they are fully engaged in war” (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 224).

(HT To Doug Wilson)

Nevermind.  I just found it.

A couple months ago, a few of you suggested programs that would analyze my MacBook and tell me what’s eating all my memory. I used one and it worked great, and now I don’t remember what it’s called and can’t find it.

So…anyone remember what they suggested I use?

Richard Dawkins reviews “Expelled”. 

Michael, I don’t see why you’d need the combo updater unless you did a reinstall from the Leopard disc recently. And FWIW, I’ve got a similar model of printer with all software current, but nothing’s broken so far. Is your printer new?

MOD :Maybe a year old. Worked fine till an auto update over the weekend. Now the computer and the printer can’t talk. I’ve swapped all cables and switched USB port, etc. It just says “data won’t send” and goes into a pause.

(HT To Lurker BK)

Scylding: I got your melting pot. Drive on down.

I’m still without a printer. sigh Can one of you Apple geeks tell me this: If I have kept all auto updates current, do I need to download and install combo updater for Leopard?

Scylding, anyone who feels that way is quite welcome to observe from a distance, please.

I don’t care what you think of my culture any more than you care what I think of yours. 

Josh – what you describe is not multiculturalism, but mono-culturalism: The melting pot which is the US has adopted a single, secular culture – at least in parts (as per Phillip’s comment on Texas..). In Canada, there is more multiculturalism – ie, you will also hear Happy Hannukah / Divali, or good wishes for Ramadan. The official position here is that we are a mosaic, not a melting pot. Which does make things somewhat easier, I think.

But then again, up here (and in The UK too, as John H would attest), we believe US culture to be a contradiction in terms… (BIG JN).

Josh: U.S. Culture? You speak too expansively. Here in Dallas, it’s Merry Christmas, all the time. I suppose it might be Happy Hannukah in the suburb of Richardson, but there’s not much of the “Happy Holidays” nonsense here*. Not for Christmas, and not for Easter.

• Of course, I’m sure there are pockets of militant multiculturalism, but the public school at the end of the block isn’t one of them, either.

Scylding, your surprise shows how little of US culture you actually know. This is the country where the word “Christmas” to refer to that present-exchanging time in late December is taboo—not just around publicly funded offices, but at retailers and virtually any other public place as well. You’ll hear it on the radio: “Chez Martin is the perfect restaurant for your special holiday dinner.” Or an old man comes on, advertising the local hospital: “Last year, I had a heart attack while decorating our holiday tree. After the care that St Melchizedek’s gave me, I’m going to look forward to seeing my grandchildren open their holiday presents for many more years.” I remember when I worked retail, they instructed me very sternly to not say “Merry Christmas” to anyone who didn’t say it to me first. When I took my mom to Olive Garden, as the host seated us, he said, “Are you going to do anything special for the Holiday?” The “deer in the headlights” look when I asked him “Which holiday?” was priceless. You could tell he thought I was going to make a scene about not celebrating Christmas and berate him for his lack of sensitivity.

I just checked the University of Alberta’s web page, and was surprised to see that they still insensitively refer to the Winter Break as the “Christmas holiday period.” DON’T THEY REALIZE THAT NOT EVERYONE CELEBRATES CHRISTMAS?!?!?!? Whereas at the University of Kentucky, we have an official policy forbidding any reference to “Christmas break” in official university publications.

So actually, the idea that any institution in any way associated with government money would in any way acknowledge that last Friday might be important to a few people in the world is ridiculous, not when we can’t acknowledge that the only reason a “winter break” even exists is Advent. The only way to get a religious holiday acknowledged is if it can somehow be included in a “multiculturalism” or “diversity” program.
But if you say you don’t believe in God, good luck getting elected.

The Bible must be really soft on contemplative spirituality.

Well, take Psalm 131, for example:

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,    my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things    too great and too marvellous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul,    like a weaned child with its mother;    my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.

“I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvellous for me” – sounds awfully like a disavowal of involvement in weighty doctrinal controversies; so much for watchblogging. “But I have calmed and quieted my soul” – if that’s not an admission of involvement in contemplative prayer, then what is? (jn, kinda)

Seriously, Psalm 131 is one I find highly convicting. Thank God that the writer didn’t leave it there, but continues:

O Israel, hope in the Lord    from this time on and for evermore.

The Bible must be really soft on contemplative spirituality

Josh – the world is always a more complicated, messier place than we are let to believe by the powers that be, no matter from which side of the political spectrum they are…

Here in the rural school division which my kids’ school is part of, they start each day with the Lord’s Prayer, followed by singing O Canada. And the school is funded by tax money. Ok, they don’t have Bilbe classes, but then again, that is a good thing – I prefer to control what religious instruction my children receive.

Now, I know the whole prayer in school thing you folks in the US went through, but I was genuinely surprised by the fact that Good Friday is not a public holiday.

But if you were to paint yourself a religious political candidate of any kind in any way here in Canada, you have destroyed your chances altogether.

The world’s a funny place….

Watchblogger Carla of Emergent No fame has blogged on this as a reason NOT to read the book. Worldly approval means her suspicions of Keller as soft on contemplative spirituality are probably confirmed.

By that logic (if that’s what that’s called, anyway), we can never hope for any widespread evangelistic success, and we can never celebrate when it looks like a lot of people are listening to the message of the gospel.

I wonder what that “logic” says about the Bible itself…you know, the bestselling book of all time?  The Bible must be really soft on contemplative spirituality.

I always find it HILARIOUS when nations that leftists hold up as exemplars of the secular ideal to which the USA should conform (and could conform were it not for those religious wackos) do things like “have state churches,” “have national holidays for major liturgical festivals,” and “use public funds for overtly religious decorations.”  Canada gets Good Friday off, while Americans try to figure out how not to say “Easter” in reference to that chocolate egg holiday.  I love the world.

Memo to the “Discernment Police”: Watchblogger Carla is no longer someone worth paying any attention to because she has achieved a popular notoriety, even mentioned in a posting by the famous Internet Monk, Michael Spencer.   Please do not read Carla, for anyone this popular is obviously not being faithful to the gospel!

jn..

Jason Robertson defends being a fan of the UFC. I couldn’t agree more with Jason on this one. I’m not a UFC fan, but his overall view of sports is well expressed. The false righteousness of some in criticizing an interest in sports needs to be corrected as a gnostic false spirituality.

I wasn’t aware that Good Friday is not a public holiday in the US. Do you have to put a day’s leave in when you want to attend the morning service? Here in Canada, it is a big holiday – some malls completely shut down. Just shows how terribly liberal we are… (jn)

On the other side: Charlotte Allen on The Cultural obliteration of Easter

Tim Keller’s book, “The Reason for God” is now #7 on NYTIMES best seller list.

MOD: Watchblogger Carla of Emergent No fame has blogged on this as a reason NOT to read the book. Worldly approval means her suspicions of Keller as soft on contemplative spirituality are probably confirmed.

John: I think the Slate writer is wrong that U.S. Easter has resisted commercialization, but I do think that it stands up as a Christian holiday better than Christmas does. That is, even with the eggs and chocolate, it is still seen a holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, more so (I think) than Christmas is seen celebrating His birth.

Perhaps it’s better to say that Easter is just a smaller holiday, period, and that might explain it all.

I was explaining on my microblog on Friday that Lent+Easter is more important, really, than Advent+Christmas, but I realize that not all Christians even would see it that way. They’d be wrong, of course. :-)

I used to love systematic theology. Somewhere along the way I started caring more about what the Bible said more than someone else’s categories about what Scripture said. I don’t think systematics and the Bible are mutually exclusive, but I’m beginning to think that systematics appeals to a type of person who has to pigeonhole EVERYTHING.

Some people are always going to be offended when you actually teach them what’s in the Bible as opposed to what they assume is in the Bible. – N.T. Wright

Bob: sadly, I suspect if you were to ask (say) Jewish people, you’d find that there have been times in history when Holy Week has been a very uncomfortable time for them.

That said, what really struck me about that Washington Post editorial was how condescending it was. It patted 2,000 years of Christian tradition on the head and sombrely informed the church that we are now almost beginning to live up to the high standards of the Washington Post. Well, ain’t that grand? (jn)

I hadn’t realised that Good Friday wasn’t a public holiday in the US. Is it just an ordinary working day, then? Here in the UK it has been a public holiday for centuries, though in recent years it has increasingly become just another day, with most shops open as usual.

Another question about transatlantic attitudes towards Easter. Slate had an article at the weekend about how Easter has “stubbornly resisted the commercialism that swallowed Easter”, and instead has maintained its “religious purity” rather than being a “palatable consumerist holiday”.

Well, that was news to me. Do I take it from this that you don’t do the chocolate egg thing, then?

A Lurker responds to my rant about the Wa Po editorial: I want documentation. From the WaPo ?Does your church burn incense, and did you stand too close to it yesterday?  ;-)

(I plead Easter exhaustion for expecting documentation from the Washington Post, sorry for the lapse in judgment)

PS. If anyone suspects Shingles, getting on Zovarax or something like that  ASAP is essential.  Even then, it’s no picnic, but getting the  drugs fast helps….

Garfield minus Garfield is one of the best websites out there.

If I say that Feds invented Meth to kill Appalachians, my boss will say don’t say it again. If I do, he’ll fire me. And he should, 16 years or not. Then I should get help. I’m messed up.

No reflection on Obama. His attitude here is about what it should be. But anyone who preaches AIDS as a government conspiracy is a loon and shouldn’t be in the pulpit, I don’t care how brilliant or otherwise helpful he is. C’mon people. Real world here. This is why people AREN’T pastors. If he says whites are the devil, is it any weirder than this AIDS/Crack conspiracy line?

Tim: what Travis said. I don’t know what the real deal is about Jeremiah Wright, but Obama’s line – which can be paraphrased as, “I condemn those particular remarks, but that’s not the whole story, and overall I think Revd Wright is a positive influence” – makes perfect sense on its own terms.

Indeed it makes rather more sense than the alternative spin of “Wright the incorrigible preacher of hate, week after week” – which relies on asserting that Obama is either too stupid to realise that sitting under such preaching might harm his political ambitions, or else is himself some kind of closeted Louis Farrakhan figure who will rip off the mask of decency, intelligence and tolerance the moment after taking the oath of office and announce that it’s now payback time for Whitey (jn).

It just occurred to me though that, as a Lutheran, I’ve perhaps had more practice than some having a spiritual father-figure whose overall influence is highly positive but who said some contemptible things. Those arguing that Obama should have entirely dissociated himself from Wright and left his church should, for the sake of consistency, also be arguing that all Lutherans should leave their church because of what the sainted Doctor Luther of blessed memory said in “On the Jews and Their Lies”.

Michael: Praying.

Michael, I’ll certainly be praying for Denise. I had shingles once and to say they weren’t much fun would be an understatement.

I do think that, again, we need to be careful to judge people on the basis of soundbites. You wouldn’t have much trouble stringing some soundbites together on me (if they were recorded) to conclude that I’m a hellbound heathen. Yes, the thing he said about AIDS was stupid. If I were in the congregation that day, I’d ask him, if I had the chance, for documentation that supported that statement. But it seems that people who have sat under his ministry for an extended period of time and have a broader perception of his total ministry and the ministry of the church seem to have a better opinion of the guy. I think the important thing is not to indict Obama because of things that his pastor said.

So if I get up tomorrow and preach in chapel that the Federal government invented Meth to kill off Appalachians, what should my superiors do?

After a software update last night, my Brother HL-2070N printer won’t communicate with my Mac. I have updated drivers, but still no change. Any suggestions out there?

Tim: I’m guessing the point was that those comments are not the norm, and the endless repetition of them on TV makes it look like the guy preaches that week in, week out, when the reality is much different. Or have you known him for 35 years, too?

That’s what “the other side of the coin” means.  It means that we get to hear those sound bytes over and over, and someone who has known him for 35 years gets to tell us more of the story.  I think Obama’s answer to King’s question was just fine.

Couple of matters of prayer:

Denise has some very early symptoms that could be shingles. She’s been wary of this for quite a while, having had chicken pox when she was very young and having several grandparents who suffered with shingles. She’s off to the doctor asap.

After completing our Easter cantata today, I’m now free to go to the Presbyterian church in London if I want. Problem is, I can’t get any real peace. I am much appreciated at the Baptist church down the street, and I can’t decide if my reluctance to go elsewhere is Baptist guilt or God’s guidance. I need to make a decision- which sounds very Baptist doesn’t it?

For some reason, this past year at work has contained a series of administrative decisions aimed right at me. All small things, but things that are unmistakably targeted at pushing my boundaries. I’ve learned to view these things as tests of my patience, and I’ve accepted them cheerfully, without complaint or grumbling. I guess life in any organization contains its share of the Dilbert universe, and I need to continue processing these as incidental to what I’m really doing with my life.

The Washington Post has a STUPID, IDIOTIC, editorial about Easter.  Among other things, it’s closing statement is that there is much progress to move Easter towards a more tolerant holiday, and that we have many miles to go towards this.

I kind of doubt they are thinking of things like giving people Good Friday off, or Easter Monday as a holiday….   

I also admire their ability to invent stories of contemporary Christians who use Easter to persecute other religions.  As far as I know, it just doesn’t exist.  I want documentation.

That’s what’s important, after all, feeling affirmed.  And even if it were—“feeling affirmed” after hearing that the US gov’t invented AIDS to carry out genocide on Blacks?  And Wright has been “caricatured”?  By playing his own videos?
There’s that point in any spin session where all intellects should protest the rape of language.

KING: We’re back with Senator Obama. What might be the other side of the coin, Martin Marty, who is white, and one of America’s foremost theologians, has known Reverend Wright for 35 years, attended many of his services, and is quoted in today’s “New York Times” defending the reverend.

He says, “You hear hope, hope, hope. It’s not anti-white. I don’t know anyone who walks out of there not feeling affirmed.”

How would you comment on that?

OBAMA: Well, Martin Marty I think is one of the greatest theologians that we have. And I think his characterization is accurate. As I said, there’s been a caricature of Reverend Wright and the church that’s been out there. Now, given the reckless and offensive statements that have been played, it’s understandable that people have a negative reaction. And I understand that. And as I said, Reverend Wright’s comments were inexcusable.

I’m a calvinist, Matthew. What’s so funny?

;-)

I just had the worst joke/pun/whatever pop into my head while preparing a preaching schedule.

Circumcision = Elective Surgery.

Look there! The Christ, our Brother, comes
resplendent from the gallows tree
and what he brings in his hurt hands
is life on life for you and me.

Joy! joy! joy to the heart all in this good day’s dawning!

Good Jesus Christ, our Brother, died
in darkest hurt upon the tree
to offer us the worlds of light
that live inside the Trinity.

Joy! joy! joy to the heart all in this good day’s dawning!

Or if you prefer….

Happy Easter!!

I think it’s pretty simple. You are a Christian, a believer in Jesus Christ, who is in imperfect communion with the Catholic Church (i.e. the true church instituted by Christ) by virtue of your baptism.

You are a person who has genuinely responded to and made use of the grace which God has supplied to you in the ways that are available to you, such as your natural knowledge of goodness and the teachings of Jesus.  You have striven for holiness, and moreover have done so out of some kind of faith toward Jesus.  You are a Catholic without realizing it, and thus in an imperfect communion with the Church to which you truly belong.  Your ongoing sanctification has yet to be fully developed into submission to the full teachings of Christ as given through the Church, and the grace you have been given has yet to be fully unfolded and sealed through the sacrament of confirmation, but it is genuine nonetheless.

John H: Very helpful. You know, there is so much I need to learn, just like the helpful little contextualization illustration you just gave, but my childhood anti-Catholicism still has control of the emotional thermostat. I doubt I’ll ever get that thing fixed.

By the way, does anyone have the feeling that anyone who actually REACHES PAGANS WITH THE GOSPEL is going to be severely criticized eventually for compromise? Thankfully, hyper-Calvinism isn’t a problem anymore.

Michael: to be fair on our RC friends, a lot of what gets Protestants riled about RC statements about “the church” is the fact that Protestant ecclesiology tends to amount to defining “church” as merely the collective noun for “believers in Christ”. So when we hear an RC say, “You’re not in the true church”, we hear them as saying, “You’re not true believers in Christ”.

However, for RCs the church has more of a distinct identity of its own. So a (post-V2) RC can say “You are a true Christian but your congregation is not part of the true church” with more consistency than most Protestants could probably muster.

Hence even our beloved friends the Professional Catholic Apologists tend to talk more in terms of “Christians returning home to Mother Church” rather than (as tends to happen the other way round) “Non-Christians leaving the synagogue of Satan and being converted to Christ”.

(Incidentally, isn’t all that a great illustration of the importance of contextualisation?)

Talking of contextualisation, Frank Turk posed the following question in the Teampyro thread, which I thought I’d answer here rather than risk joining Art on the ocean floor (jn):

Which brings me back to my hypothetical example: how does that multi-location, multi-culture church address Islam when it shows up on the front porch?

Well, one way it might wish to address Muslim people who show up in the neighbourhood (you know, actual people rather than “Islam” in the abstract) is by distributing copies of the gospels. Ah, but which gospel? Well, why not Mark? After all, that’s a popular gospel for evangelistic purposes: short, to the point.

And yet, as at least one church in the UK found, it’s a terrible choice for evangelising Muslims. Because the first line (“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” – a terrible blasphemy in the eyes of Muslims) had the recipients chucking the booklet in the bin without reading the rest of it.

The church in question realised that next time it would be better to choose another of the gospels, which will of course still proclaim Jesus as the Son of God no less strongly than Mark – no compromising of the message going on here – but do so in a way that might hold its audience’s attention for more than a sentence. Matthew, say, who was careful to tailor his language for a Jewish audience (“kingdom of heaven”, etc.). Contextualisation in action.

Who said it?

Keller is sounding confused these days. He is not speaking biblically like a reformed thinker nor is he speaking with linear rationality like a biblically astute expositor; he is speaking mystically with an obvious penchant for acceptance from the audience rather than speaking the truth claims of the gospel to that same audience even if they reject him.

John H: Wouldn’t it be great if someone would say “Belongs to Jesus Christ by redemption, adoption, justification, sanctification and glorification. It would be ridiculous to ask for more than that.”

But I don’t want to sound unappreciative. Tim may have been stuck- as I was- by the word “Church,” which is used inconsistently.

Another thing that strikes me is that Cantelemessa can preach that sermon, but few Protestants would be as gracious to Catholics, and few evangelical-converts-turned-apologists could say the same very convincingly.

I wish I could understand what the RC church thinks about me.

I think it’s pretty simple. You are a Christian, a believer in Jesus Christ, who is in imperfect communion with the Catholic Church (i.e. the true church instituted by Christ) by virtue of your baptism.

However, the ecclesial community to which you belong is not part of the true church, as it is not in communion with the bishop of Rome, lacks apostolic succession and does not possess a valid Eucharist.

Is it Barack Obama? Or is it Hillary Clinton? It couldn’t be John McCain, because the All-Knowing one would know that Iran is not training Al-Qaeda members.

I have nothing to say…

Italy’s most prominent Muslim commentator is converting to Catholicism by being baptized by the pope at an Easter vigil, the Vatican announced Saturday.

N.T. Wright interview on Surprised by Hope.

The latest installment: Anyone using the word “post-” is implying they are smarter than just plain whatevers….otherwise you wouldn’t be “post”....right? “Now I’m post-stupidity.” So a “post-evangelical” is implying he is smarter than stupid ol’ evangelicals.

I wouldn’t suppose the radical notion of saying that “words possibly have more meanings and different contexts than only what I happen to say about them” is all that appealing a possibility? Like….could some good people say “contexualize” and possibly not mean “sell out the gospel?” And could we just let them do that without having a rally of the Order of the Slippery Slope? Could there be some possible allowance for other communities with usable definitions that aren’t characterized ONLY by the worst interpretations of the worst possible examples?

I didn’t think so.

Michael, from the sermon you linked, preached by Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the Pontifical Household, at the Good Friday liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The brother who belongs to another Church—indeed every human being—is “a person for whom Christ died” (Romans 14:16), as he has died for me.

...the fundamental distinction among Christians is not between Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants, but between those who believe that Christ is the Son of God and those who do not believe this.

Is this the time to concern ourselves with that which only regards our religious order, our movement, or our Church? Is this not precisely the reason why we too “sow much but harvest little” (Haggai 1:6)? We preach and we are active in many ways, but we convert few people and the world moves away from Christ instead of drawing near to him.

I wish I could understand what the RC church thinks about me.