This is all I know about hockey and siblings:

You see what happens when we all try to make nice and avoid foolish controversies? We’re not tickling any itching ears. Come on lads:

NT Wright is a genius! Piper and MacArthur don’t understand justification! Brian McLaren is the captain of team awesome! Contemplatives get it right and Calvinists don’t get it at all! Start a petition to get Sufjan to record all the Silly Songs with Larry. Tell Josh that Tetzel was right.

That’s got to make somebody mad…

Where are the small government conservatives? I only see one on the ballot.

They’re all hiding out with John Galt in some Libertarian utopia. 8-\

Dave Walker (the cartoon church guy) is proposing a rather fun experiment. Top Verses has a bunch of top 10 lists for Bible verses, and after some searching he was able to determine that 2 Chronicles 31:7 is apparently the 30638th most popular of the 31101 verses in the Bible. He had this thought (with which I heartily agree) and this idea:

The failing, of course, is that one could be led to believe that the verses most often published on the internet are therefore the most important verses. My own view is that the most important themes in the Bible come not from picking individual ’soundbite’ verses out of context, but by looking at the overall message of entire books. Surely that is how it was intended to be read.

Feel free to post your own devotional thoughts on 2 Chronicles 31:7. It would be great if we could bump it up to the top 5. This would perplex a lot of people, which I’m all in favour of.

Not that I’d suggest mischief or anything(!), but it would be fun to game the system a little bit.

Our local public broadcasting station, enjoying one of those rare days when they do not have a beg-a-thon, showed a wonderful short documentary called The Spirituals. The film featured one of our local musical treasures, Everett McCorvey, and the American Spiritual Ensemble. I had the great pleasure of meeting Dr. McCorvey when he attended the organ dedication at our church.

Something he said on film gave me a new angle to make my always-annoying point about sacred music and the contemporary church. I’ll put it below the fold so those sensitive to this issue won’t have their eyes bleed. If you click, you might want to wrap your head in duct tape first… More »« Less

I nominate Rush’s “Witch Hunt” as the official theme song of the TR Blogosphere.
(BTW, their concert last night in St. Paul was awesome. I’ve never heard Geddy sing so well.)

WWJD triumphs again.

What would Joel do? 8-)

I don’t have time to make up a bunch of sarcastic posters designed to expose the faults and flaws of the fightin’ fundies, aka reformed baptists, but if I did, this picture would probably find its way in to one of them: More »« Less

The human brain is remarkably capable of processing an immense amount of information from a huge amount of sources at an incredible rate. Modern culture, in particular modern media has recognized this and retooled the delivery of cultural content in ways that stimulate the whole brain and take advantage of both verbal and non-verbal delivery. All of this arguably makes us smarter, and better equipped to handle the barrage of stimuli that we face in our everyday environment.

You might argue that worship should provide a respite from this, and it’s true that some people are drawn to more traditional worship styles for that reason. But it’s just as rational to argue that those who favor tradition are just being mentally lazy as it is to say that those looking for more of a modern media experience have sold out to the culture.

It’s kind of silly for middle-aged adults who can’t even stop their own VCRs from flashing “12:00” at them all the time to complain that their kids can’t sit through a sermon without sending a dozen text messages, and would rather follow Powerpoint slides than open a hymnal. After I read Peter Morville’s excellent book Ambient Findability, I was struck by how much paper is wasted on Sunday mornings. Imagine a church where the “bulletin” was a web site that popped up on your iPhone or PDA when you turned it on in the sanctuary. Imagine that instead of a few penciled lines scribbled in the margins of your bulletin, you have a sermon outline on the projection that was simulcast to your handheld, complete with hyperlinks to sites referred to in the message. Imagine a world where pastors can’t get away with making silly arguments based on the eclectic readings of their church’s pet pew Bible translation, because anyone in the audience can instantly cross-reference his text on the Bible Gateway and discover that the New Living Breathing Translation is the only one in history that renders the personal pronoun that Jesus uses for the disciples as “youse guys…”

Virtually every argument I’ve heard against the use of media technology in worship is identical to virtually every argument I’ve heard against contemporary music in worship: it eventually boils down to “I just don’t like anything with a beat.”

This cat picture is not intended to complain about any thread going on here. I just wanted to point out that even our pets love the Bishop of Durham in our house.

Before we get into any serious barroom brawls with David, should we determine, for the sake of BHT discussions, where the line is drawn between Catholics and “The Rest of Us” in terms of the levels of authority? This may require more of us to read the CCC, and I know there are differences among the rest of us as well.

But seriously, for a Catholic, where are the lines of authority drawn concerning doctrinal issues, dogmas, and other practices, beliefs, and superstitions? Or, over what areas does the individual Catholic make their own decisions regarding belief vs. the priest, parish, magesterium, pope, etc.?

It will be near impossible for protestants, I’m sure. Some of us believe that each believer, informed by the Bible, makes their own decisions regarding essentials. Some have a denominational structure, some are “ruled” by a local church, etc.

And once that’s done, we can promptly start picking on David regarding all the matters at the highest level of authority, while not accepting “that’s what the Church/CCC/Pope says.” 8-)

Better still, let’s confuse everyone first by bringing out terms like adiaphora and subsidiarity.

σκύβαλον!

Or, as Col. Potter would say, “Horse Hockey!”

(EDIT: In light of Joel’s comment, I should make this a little more clear than my post implies. David, this is not aimed at you specifically. Though I am coming at the from a non-RCC perspective, I’m throwing out a general observation on Church authority that we all seem to be poking at without addressing squarely.)

Appeals to our individual Magesteriums, Councils, Conferences, Confessions, etc. as authority are all well and good, but I have yet to be convinced from the scriptures that any of these man made councils have any legitimate claim to global authority. If we take a trip in our time machine and look at the earliest churches, then sure, they were all lead by the authority of the apostles, and it is from them that the churches received their doctrine. And where do we get the authority of the apostles today? Is it from bishops, priests, pastors, denominational hierarchies, etc.? No. It is from the scriptures themselves.

The New Testament canon is the record of the teaching of the apostles to which believers devote themselves. (Acts 2:42) While the apostles were alive, we could appeal to them. At some point, I’ll grant that we do need leaders ,who are real live people today, to read, understand, and interpret these texts, then teach us also to read, interpret, and obey them. This in itself, however, does not authorize any of the above mentioned authority structures to assume an unaccountable position of leadership. All of us are a priesthood of believers, all of us who belong to the Kingdom of God have the indwelling Holy Spirit, and all of us at one time or another may be called upon to raise the BS flag if someone else teaches a false doctrine. Does it work that way in practice today? Of course not, but I blame that on laziness.

Any one of us can appeal to the authority of our individual denominations, and we often do. But from the scriptures, and this will probably point at David’s church more than anyone else’s, but I aim this at us all, it makes more sense to see the ultimate guidance of the Church residing with God, given to us today by the third person of the Trinity. Below that, whether you look at independent churches, confessionally organized denominations, or hierarchies of bishops, priests, and deacons, I can go as far as councils of leaders praying and studying through issues together. If you like, I could even see one or a few top leaders being regarded as first(s) among equals. But what I do not see, and have never been convinced of, is the idea that one man (save Jesus Christ himself) has any claim to authority over the global Church.

Every time this place gets into a discussion about baptism, it remonds me of the scene at the end of Blazing Saddles with the food fight.

What? No discourse on the metaphysical narrative of the extended tongue, with discussions of the interpretations of the traditions of the raspberries and the non-raspberries? 8-)

The “trajectory of history” is about as reliable as our emotions for making moral judgments. How else could “enlightened” followers of society’s “progress” tell us that we are misguided to follow after Jesus of Nazareth?

Says Joel:

Yeah, I never get breathless sighs about my Derrida posts. It must be the way
you say “Chim-Nits.”

Yeah, but when you start talking about Lyotard, you get all the guy’s attention. ;-)

So why not make it simple and have a Dove dark chocolate bar with a bourbon chaser?

If your pastor proclaimed a three day fast for the congregation [not for any locally significant reason, but just a general “God wants us to do this for spiritual reasons” thing] would you participate?

No.

It’s all in the justification you gave. I can think of possible occasions when I would participate in such a fast. But the spectacle of such a dramatic request would cause my Manipulation! proximity sensors to trigger and the Herd! alarm would not silence until my little legs had carried me to the nearest pub for a plate of fish and chips and a couple or seven of Mark’s ESBs.

Travis, I didn’t realize the NHL was still around. Huh. Who knew?

If I may shamelessly cross post something from one of my sites, I’m curious about the pub’s thoughts on this:

Anthony Esolen asks some reflective questions at Touchstone’s Mere Comments.

After looking back at the end of medieval Christendom, then moving
forward to what he sees as the end of the Nation, he asks the following:

[I]f faith is not the source of a people’s prime identity and loyalty,
and if the nation is not, then what is? What do we revere and obey?
We are made for reverence and obedience; something must occupy the altar or the flag.

As I see it, we reverence our tribes or ourselves. By tribes*, I
mean any group or activity around which we organize our lives. It could
be a sport, a job, a hobby, a club, etc. In that sense, I see many
Americans (megachurch suburban Americans, specifically) treating their
church more like a hobby or a club than a small part of a larger body
at all times and in all places who belong to the kingdom of Jesus
Christ.

If there is one good thing coming out of the missional conversation,
it is the emphasis of Christian Community. One could make the
accusation that this is one more tribe among many, but there is more to
it than that. There is a seeking after that elusive unity Jesus prayed
for in John xx, over and above the schism and denominational
splintering the body of Christ has endured.

* For another idea of what I mean by tribe, read Cory Doctorow’s Eastern Standard Tribe. (Be aware that some of the content is PG-13)

I would be a flacid complementarian, but it wouldn’t be manly.

Does that count?

Take a virtuoso classical violinist, then put him, along with his talent and highly expensive instrument, in a subway station at rush hour for a little street performing. What do you think the reaction would be?

It is pub talk indeed that let’s our conversations have the movement from the meaning of baptism to the treatment of the nether regions. Y’all are giving me nostalgic thoughts of dinner conversation at college.

... to those who are annoyed by these things.

Mike “Fathers of the Church” Aquilina wants to know: Which church father are you?

It looks like I’m St. Melito of Sardis.

(HT: Mere Comments of all places)

I nominate the following for the banner quote:

“Don’t sweat the small stuff, and compared to the Cross of
Christ, it’s all small stuff.” – Phillip Winn

Sharon, are you hanging out with a neighborhood group full of fortune tellers or something?

And now for something completely different: Virtual Apple. Every old game I used to play in Junior High is on there. The Apple ][ (plain, +, e, and c) series of computers was my first exposure to all things digital. It’s all been downhill from there. 8-)

And thou shalt make for thyself no chocolate images. (HT: my wife) – Or there’s this version of the story (HT: Cartoon Church)

Father Matthew takes on “Left Behind Theology” in his latest video.

He makes a number of assertions that reveal his own biases, politically and theologically, so I don’t give it an unqualified recommendation, but I’m glad to see people openly calling out the kind of end-times thinking that is infecting evangelicalism. I really loved it when he refers to the beliefs being “nominally Christian.” I hope he knows that he opens himself up to the accusation of nominal Christianity by virtue of the denomination in which he is ordained, though from what I see in the videos I don’t doubt his faith in Christ.

Theological differences aside, I dig Father Matthew’s videos, so I’m glad to link another one.

In a rare appearance, Van Til graced us with a proclamation against those who are “postmodern, emerging, missional, relativist, nihilist, youth director dominated,
poorly dressed, snarky, David Crowder Fro-ed, irreverent, compromising cultural
deadheads.”

Or, as one prominent biblical scholar and eminent theologian said, “the rebellious and stupid.”

(jn, added for the dim)

Thank you, Michael, for causing irreversible damage to our eyes. Who allowed that “design” to come into existence? Blech.

Did anyone see the Mere Comments thread on the most annoying phrases in the English language? It should give you all a reason to smile today. My personal choice for worst phrase is “outside the box.”

Jim, the richest blessings be upon thee this day!

Jason You got it.

Michael: I was going to rename you as “Robert Capon,” but I figure the joke was getting old.