I’m packing.

Do you know your creator? Excellent video clip.

Mark: If you understand the context of the comment in regard to Tom Ascol’s work with a resolution in the SBC on the integrity of church membership, it’s actually not that weird. The various kinds of hype actually pertain quite a bit.

Just wondering if the banner quote is a reference to the weird, self-congratulatory comment of Rick Warren in post TMH referenced. I almost think that it could have been faked.

Also,

Ultimate Fighting Christian should have reserved some of his spray tan for the armpits…don’t tell him I said that.

TommyMertonHead: I’m glad you have someone like Paul in your life. I’m glad I do, too.

Finally, we’re weird.

Yesterday sucked to the depths of the universe. Today has been outstanding. Tomorrow when graduation is over, you will hear me shout.

TMH, that there eeelectric bike looks pretty environmentally friendly. People would think I was a heretic if I drove that thing. Isn’t there a way we can cheaply retain our oil gluttony without necessarily saving sea otters and marmosets and having clean drinking water as a byproduct? You go find something that cuts my gas bill and cuts the lifespan of furry woodland creatures and I’ll consider it. Until then, I’ll just pretend you never brought up that bike contraption.

(JN)

I’d choose that alternative to $4 gas in a heartbeat except for the fact that I live 15 miles from work and would have to cross one state highway, 2 interstate highways, and several very busy main roads. That, and winter up here makes it all but impossible except for a few insane mountain bikers.

When the time comes for us to move, I think we will look real hard for a home that’s within reasonable biking distance. (That, and I really need the exercise!)

The answer to $4 gas.

Google Aps engine for the Mac.

i mean T.M.H., that made me smile for the first time today. where did you get that picture?

MOD: Under Google image search for “loser.” But I have a special place in my heart for wrestlers.

“Get off the mat, loser. Real Christians aren’t whiners. None of that Job crap around here. We’ve got the victory or we’re not on the team.” -Ultimate Christian Guy

no doubt about that.

as a side note, I would like to request prayer from my new BHT brethren [and sisteren (if that is a word, which I doubt)]. nobody in the blogosphere understands the language of lament better than you guys, and I’ve been feeling pretty lamentable. whoever said, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” was obviously not around when Jack had a nervous breakdown. dull, it wasn’t.

it seems like things just pile on when you’re already down. I’m not quite to the point of shattering pots and scraping myself, but I’d be lying if I said the world wasn’t bringing me down.

Of course, a hearty beer might be nice to take the edge off too. If I weren’t so snowed under with work this weekend I’d see about sharing a fine Stella Artois with Father Spike who looks like he’s had a bad week too. They’ve been around since 1366, but only recently have I discovered their robust goodness. I’ll have to settle with water and midnight oil this weekend though.

Quoting Rick Warren: ”[M]y great Grandfather was led to Christ by Spurgeon, went to Spurgeon’s College, and then was sent by Spurgeon to America to plant churches. I have Spurgeon’s handwritten sermons framed on my office walls- passed down from 4 generations of pastors!”

That has got to drive some people nuts!

Rick Warren supports the Ascol resolution and says Saddleback is not what you think.

Here’s some useful blank calendar templates.

To sum up, then, we may say that, according to the general consensus of New Testament teaching, a gospel is not a gospel when—

1. it is detached from the Jesus of history; 2. it gives little or no place to the passion; 3. it exalts human achievement in place of the grace of God; 4. it adds other conditions to the one which God has declared acceptable (even if those additions be things good and desir­able in themselves); 5. it treats righteousness and purity as things which the truly spiritual man has outstripped.

On the other hand, a gospel is a gospel when—

1. it maintains contact with the Jesus of history, affirming that this same Jesus who came in the flesh and died is the vindicated and exalted Lord; 2. it embraces and proclaims “the stumbling-block of the cross”; 3. it extends the grace of God to men for their acceptance by faith; 4. it relies upon the power of the Spirit to make it effective in those who hear it; 5. it issues in a life of righteousness and purity which is sustained and directed by the love of God.

I was cleaning out my [work space] today, being the last day of [work], and one of my co-workers comes to the door and I wave him in.

Paul is the most Christlike person I know. I’ve known him for 20 years and in two different jobs, separated by his own 12 years in Africa as a teacher. He’s not perfect, and he’s a human like the rest of us, but he’s simply the most Jesus shaped person I’ve ever known and many other people would agree.

Paul has a Ph.d in music, but is teaching math in a Christian school so his daughter can enjoy a regular school experience (in contrast to her African home-schooled experience.) He’s the person who gives away the most of his resources, shares his time, speaks with amazing tenderness, kindness and compassion, and above all, has a deep personal intimacy with Jesus that’s become part of his own personality.

Being with Paul is a lot like being with Jesus. More »« Less

Seriously, if the Catholic Church has been doing it for more than four decades, post-Protestants think it’s been going on continuously for two millennia.

I’ve been to plenty of services in my non-Augsburg evangelical days where not a single element of the service would have existed more than four decades ago. All the songs written post-1970 (with words displayed by Powerpoint and musical accompaniment provided by a “worship group”), any last, lingering vestiges of liturgy dating from the early 80s or later, comfy chairs rather than pews, modern Bible translation, casual clothing (for clergy as well as congregants), and so on.

I’m not saying those are all bad things, but taken together they all contribute to the erasure of memory in evangelical churches, one which leads to anything that pre-dates 1960 (say) having the appearance of ageless antiquity.

I haven’t said anything about what Mark Shea’s written because I could not care less what former Protestants claim Catholicism is about. In my experience, post-Protestant apologists for Roman Catholicism are a subculture entirely of their own with a rather unique take on Catholicism, church history, and non-Catholic Western churches. Half the time, they’re writing out of either some kind of psychological need to legitimize their conversion to Protestants who are highly skeptical of talking to dead folks and getting excited about salvation being offered at sacred shrines, or a need to impress lifelong Catholics with just how Catholic they are, since they don’t have the infant baptisms and first communion photos and whatever.

Personally, I prefer to construct my understanding of Catholicism from full-on Catholic sources like the actual history, papal decrees, and major writings of scholastic theologians. I find post-Protestant apologists nearly useless because their version of Catholicism generally have more to do with the incoherent fairy-tales and fantasies of John Henry Newman, himself a post-Protestant, than the history and dogma of the Catholic Church.

Just one little example: He’s quite proud of Catholicism not being about all that silly mathematical precision and diagram-drawing. To hear him prattle about mystery and whatnot, scholasticism never happened and certainly didn’t dominate Catholic theology all the way into the 20th century. And to hear him rant about TR lockstep thinking, you’d think that his church didn’t make it necessary for salvation to believe unsubstantiated myths about virgins flying into the sky, declare anathemas on people who don’t agree with some really weird, obscure point of the scholastic doctrine of congruent merit, . That’s the most absurd thing—his church has the most enormous pile of dogmas out of any religion in the history of the universe, and he’s crabbing about TRs not being nice enough to Emergents or Rick Warren or whomever.

He also forgot that patrology was invented by the Reformers and not really practiced by Catholics until at least the end of the 19th century. They’re still trying to figure out how to make Athanasius teach the cult of the saints, but they’ll figure it out. Seriously, if the Catholic Church has been doing it for more than four decades, post-Protestants think it’s been going on continuously for two millennia. Next thing you know, he’s going to say something about weekly communion being an essential part of Catholic life.

If Joseph Ratzinger or some other real Catholic theologian starts blogging, let me know. In the mean time, read Alan Creech. He’s a lifelong Catholic and thus much more interesting than someone trying to shout down his inner Baptist.

What really aggravates the terrorists…subtitles

Sorry for the recent non-participation, but I was attending a national conference of controls engineers this week. I was privileged to give one of the addresses to the main assembly, and people seemed to really like the results of the project we did. All-in-all, a very tiring but gratifying week.

I read the rant against TR’s (and others) the Mark Shea wrote. I have a couple of observations:

• In his roundup of the extreme examples of Protestant theological misfires, he mentions Schuller, Warren, and C Peter Wagner… I’ve been hip-deep in the movements that keep Wagner afloat. In the mid 90’s my church became heavily involved in the ‘Renewal’ movement. It was an offshoot of the the Brownsville revival, and was influenced by the Toronto Airport vineyard crew. I’ve probably been to about 5 conferences where Wagner and his ‘apostolic’ network headlined. He visited local churches around mine, I’ve read his books, and I took a course about historic revivals that was mostly about him and Argentinian Sergio Scataglini. Mark Shea is right on the money in saying that Wagner and those around him are not concerned about ‘sound, systematic Biblical exegesis’. However, its not because they are using a warped view of the scriptures to support their Apostolic positions so as to be the arbiters of truth, as Mark infers. They use scripture as talismans. They are Prophetic Warlords, who keep their hold on authority through promises of imparting super-powers-for-Jesus. Its not at all about apostolic authority, succession or anything that Catholics would rightly be concerned with. Its about selling all the snake anointing oil you can.


• The Great Catholic False Dichotomy: If I reject Sola Scriptura than I must embrace the Magisterium.  What the heck?  I have my doubts about the way Scripture has been taught to me, shaped by councils, and survived unaltered by ancient translators,  but that’s a far cry from saying that scripture is unauthoratative.  To go from there to acceptance that the pronouncements of Rome are ultimately, infallibly, and inerrantly authoratative is a jump of Evel Knievel proportions.


• The Hebrews analogy: May I offer a revision to the analogy and say that the Jews in question in Hebrews were kicking around the idea of going back to temple Judaism, not installing the writer, Paul, as the first pope.

I needed this

whoa. thanks JS Bangs for the link. just when we thought the news media had all but completely begun to rubber-stamp everything out of Washington, you bring this to our attention. never heard this Keith guy before, (I try hard to ignore talking heads) but the man’s got spirit. You get the impression that he meant what he said – and I’m a news media cynic if there ever was one, so that is no light admission on my part. when did he say this on the air? has his show been canceled ‘for matters unrelated’ to the rant yet?

As a favor to me, could the BHT fellows use the nickname or TMH when referring to me personally? Thanks.

I know that many of the people here will hate it, but this is a political rant for the ages.

Brant Hansen takes on a controversial issue: is it a sin not to drink wine?

From Jimbo in the comments:

This is a real dilemma—especially in situations where not drinking wine could cause a weaker brother to stumble. Also, I have a strong family history of prideful abstinence (could be genetic), so this is an area of caution for me.

Jason- When I was a youth minister I really like using Inquest material. It can be used for middle and high school. Quality stuff that is inexpensive.

the new album from Nine Inch Nails, “The Slip” is available for free directly from Trent Reznor. He says, ”(thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years – this one’s on me)

http://www.nin.com/

Don’t know how many of you have listened to NIN, (and this is by no means an endorsement of all their music/lyrics) but the past few albums have had some pretty pertinent things to say about popular culture…evangelical & otherwise. IMHO much of his previous album “Year Zero” could have just as easily been written by a Christian unhappy with the politicizing of the faith and the glorification of violence.

A good example of this would be these lyrics from the song “The Good Soldier”

“Blood hardens in the sand, cold metal in my hand
Hope you understand the way that things are gonna be
There’s nowhere left to hide
‘Cause God is on our side…(I keep telling myself)

I am trying to see, I am trying to believe

This is not where I should be…I am trying to believe”

Lurker Craig is looking for a good Bible study for middle school kids that doesn’t devolve into typical goofy youth stuff. I’m checking out the youth materials at our church, but wonder what any of you have used in the past.

I have been asked to speak at our church’s end of summer family retreat this year, which means giving three 20-30 minute chapel talks/sermons. I think I will be speaking on the themes in NTW’s “Surprised by Hope” with elements of “Simply Christian”. It should be fun, and I think I can do it without getting myself in too much trouble. 8-)

I’m working my way slowly through Surprised By Hope now, and I have to say that chapter 5 is worth the cost of the book and more. For those who haven’t read it, it deals with the contrasting ideas of Enlightenment progress and the ideas of Plato and the Gnostics as failed views for which the Christian story (as NTW is explaining it) is the solution.

I’m sure I run the risk of upsetting some people when I make reference to the gnostic attitudes of much of current evangelicalism. Maybe they’ll be glad I’m going to school this fall. That ought to straighten me out! (jn)

The central question behind debates over sola scriptura is: what shall we take to be our epistemic authority in matters theological? On a simple division of things, Protestants say all and only the canonical Scriptures; Roman Catholics say all and only what Scripture and Tradition say.

I couldn’t really make much of Shea’s post other than this: Protestants don’t seem to realize that their “taking” of the canonical Scriptures is itself a taking conditioned by a particular historical context and by a particular set of intellectual and ecclesiological goals. The mistake is to elevate a particular “taking” of Scripture and ascribe infallibility to it. This strikes me as right: the Truly Reformed seem to confuse the claim that Scripture is infallible with the claim that our takings of Scripture are infallible. Proof: if any of their takings (e.g., a particular theological system) are criticized, the normal response is to accuse the critic of denying the infallibility of Scripture. Of course, the critic might agree that Scripture is infallible, and yet disagree with the taking.

At a fundamental level, the main epistemological problem is this: testimony (which Scripture is) varies from other kinds of evidence (perceptual evidence, introspective evidence, memorial evidence, and perhaps rational intuition) inasmuch as testimony always requires interpretation (this is what I mean by “takings” above—interpretations). Testimony, especially of the kind Scripture affords us, is no “fancifully fancyless medium of unvarnished news” (in W.V. Quine’s phrase). This makes claims to the infallibility of any particular theological system difficult to sustain.

At the end of the day, appeals to the infallibility of Scripture may very well be true, but as far as a formal principle for doing theology, it ends up being pretty useless. Given the human cognitive situation, it could be that Scripture is infallible, but that our ability to interpret it is severely circumscribed.

Can we be a cabal?

I’m really fond of cabals. Can we be a cabal?

Carpe pontifex maximus or carpe imprimatur Christianorum or something like that.

We’re not gonna take it anymore. We’re taking control. Will Tim Smith approve of this? What will Michael say when he gets back? Inklings schminklings! We’re the Star Chamber!

I think we should also put the Bible on the approved list, as we ought to be able to get nearly unanimous support for that best seller…

I vote that we ban the Bible, given its long-standing record of interfering with good theology. (sw)

I like this concept. I agree with fellow Hoosier Randy’s suggestions so far….

I’d put on the Approved List: Scandalous Freedom and “What Was I thinking?” by Steve Brown. I would put on the banned list “Your Best Life Now” by Joel Osteen. I think we should also put the Bible on the approved list, as we ought to be able to get nearly unanimous support for that best seller…

I think it would be a good move for the BHT to seize the seat of power and make binding declarative statements to everyone else in Christendom. How much does it cost to get my name in the BHT book of Who’s Who among pastors, and to whom do I send this check?

I don’t suppose there is any money to be made at it (unless we charge extortion fees), but I think it is high time we put out lists of books approved and banned by the BHT.

If unanimity is required, the approved list would be short and the banned list would be a little longer. But if consensus is sufficient, it could be an interesting exercise. Especially if dissenting opinions are published.

I’ll nominate the “Left Behind” series to be banned and Wright’s “The Resurrection of the Son of God” to be approved.

RLP has given me an idea where the BHT could make millions. We start a Who’s Who of evangelical pastors. Think of all the pastors you have met that probably could not resist such a fake honor. Oh oh I get to be in a book. They might even order one for their library. Think of the possibilities here. (JN)

A Florida pastor is threatened over the removal of flags.

Another amazing defensive play tonight. Even rarer than the unassisted triple-play. Never before, I’m sure, has a player taken the time to high-five a fan in the middle of turning a double play. Manny Ramirez did it tonight. Really.  Just Manny being Manny.

Uber-Thinkling Jared Wilson gave the world a banner-worthy quote today:

“Warning: If you treat your church like a business, you will treat other churches like your competition.”

I hate that no one has responded to Michael’s post yet because Shea provides a lot of food for thought and most of me wants to defer to Josh because his familiarity with church history is much stronger than mine.  I see a lot of the tendencies that Shea points out and he makes compelling points about Sola Scriptura but I think for people like myself and Willard who see a lot of gold in the church’s history, we don’t see ourselves on safe ground with the endorsement of the “Holy Church”.  If anything he makes a stronger case for the Orthodox church because, at least from what I know, there wasn’t that small matter of simony, indulgences, and a host of other Dark Age practices that might not have been addressed if not for the reformers.  And at least they have a palatable doctrine of the theotokos :-)

Top 10 Things You Forgot Your Mac Could Do

Did anyone else know you could get the Book of Kells on DVD? (I came across this while browsing Jason Boyett’s site.)

Mark Shea on the Truly Reformed: they hate their parents and eat their children. As RC rants go, this one is pretty good. Someone bring a Lutheran up from the dungeon.

The 16th Century rebel with his world of either/or Christianity has to fight a two front war. He must both repudiate his Catholic parents and eat his Protestant children. In this, he is something like my own Generation Narcissus, which thinks wisdom was born and will die with us and which has never tired of talking about how dumb our parents were and how our children don’t appreciate our greatness.

.ay have just given myself permanent ear damage, as it took all my strength not to burst out laughing hysterically in public while reading that review. Too funny. You know, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a particularly – ‘free spirited’ – angry and honest TR (or fundie in all fairness) use that “Gloria” quote – and mean it. They could set it up with: “Oh! You were finished? Well allow me to retort. Tell me, what does Tim Lahaye look like? ‘What’ you say? Do they speak english in What?”

Seeing how people view fundie evangelicalism from the outside can be very enlightening. So awful that you have to laugh a little or cry a lot.

Joel: that’s a great article by Ben Myers. Particularly the profanity. :-)

Radosh’s opinion of Ken Ham was interesting. Depressing but not altogether surprising. And Myers is absolutely right that the end result of ventures such as the Creation Museum or the Left Behind novels is that “the Bible is diminished – and, frankly, rendered incoherent and ridiculous”.

And I certainly agree with Myers that Christian consumerism is part of the problem rather than (as Radosh argues) part of the solution. As someone once said, the Christian subculture results in us being of the world but not in it, rather than the other way round.

Ben Myers reviews Rapture Ready! Adventures in the parallel universe of Christian pop culture. (Multimedia appendix here.) The apex of the review is a sublime use of profanity culled from Radosh’s analysis of Left Behind. Ben gives a thoughtful critique of the author’s hope that consumerism and market forces will continue to tame the evangelical culture.

Can I just say, with reference to the banner quote (which I otherwise think is good stuff), how much I hate the expressions “theological right” and “theological left”?

The “right”/”left” distinction is simplistic enough in politics (though I can see its value in that context), but I don’t see how the seating arrangements in the French revolutionary National Assembly have any bearing on whether someone’s theology is correct or not. Really it’s just a form of guilt by association, associating people’s theological views with those of one’s political opponents so as to dismiss them without the need for further argument.

And I’m reminded of G.K. Chesterton’s comment on the assumption that one’s political views should correlate with one’s theological views:

It is often suggested that all Liberals ought to be freethinkers, because they ought to love everything that is free. You might just as well say that all idealists ought to be High Churchmen, because they ought to love everything that is high. You might as well say that Low Churchmen ought to like Low Mass, or that Broad Churchmen ought to like broad jokes. The thing is a mere accident of words.

The Willard quote is after the fold for future reference:

...at ufos.nationalarchive.gov.uk, to be precise, where the UK’s National Archives have released 160 UFO-related documents from 1978 to 2000. The Guardian provides some pointers for exploring the released material.

Speaking of Lake Wobegon, I’m taking my wife to a Prairie Home Companion show for our Anniversary next month. Yes, this is the extent of my romantic-ness.

Neural Buddhism = fancy name for Scientology.

To paraphrase Alex: “Why should we care if outsiders think we’re parochial?”

Alex: have you ever considered becoming a Lutheran? (jn/sw)

Did all the Inklings agree with Tolkien that all the papally approved tradition of the Roman Catholic Church is part of the Christian revelation?  I’m pretty sure that rather than talking about what an Oxford-educated literate heathen might find interesting, we talk about what we find interesting, ranging from baseball to why the Lutherans are right, again.  Some people don’t like that because they have already decided what Christian bloggers should write about, and how they should interact with others.  It’s the exact same mentality that gets people all upset when a rock band with Christian musicians writes a song about war, love, cars, consumerism, or something instead of how much they love Jesus.

I linked, below, to Asdrubal Cabrera’s rare feat of an unassisted Triple-Play. Shortly after MLB had the YouTube video of the feat taken down. (I fixed it with the “authorised” link). It seems to me that MLB is in the midst of a PR nightmare, what with all the fallen heroes (Clemens, Pettite, McGwire, Bonds, on and on and on) and other scandals. You might think they would be glad of free publicity for something good that is actually related to the game. Apparently not.

When will MLB actually do something right? Particularly with regards to new technologies (their MLB.com service this year is a much worse service than it was in past years. Yuck!)

There seem to be two criticisms in Tim’s piece:

1. The discussion here is too parochial, too narrowly centered around a few theological topics of little everyday importance (so some might say).


2. We haven’t held a Tavern Council and decided on what Christian revelation is; we haven’t written a Shorter Boars Head Catechism.

I have never looked at the BHT as the sort of thing that I’d direct my pagan friends to survey. I’ve always figured that this webspace is for Christians (lay and otherwise) who want to talk about a range of subjects, from the mundane to the abstract.

Moreover, I’m not sure what the locution “applying the whole Christian revelation to the big wide cosmos” means. I call BS. It sounds like jargon. It also sounds like something that mere mortals like myself are incapable of doing. I am a Christian, and the Faith surely informs, constrains and directs the way I think about everything. If that’s what is meant, then I’d say we do that here. But if the criticism is that we haven’t developed a little checklist of things to evaluate culture by, or that we haven’t written a BHT Confession, then I ask, who ever said we had to do that? And who would care anyway?

Another odd thing about criticizing us for not having a confession of faith: I was always under the impression that we needed merely to be historically orthodox, mere Christian, believe the Apostles’ creed (even if not by name), etc. I think it’s actually a strength that we are from varied backgrounds, even at the risk of getting into ugliness over “The Supper,” for the very reason that we are unable to devolve into team sports.

Some of us have even – GASP – changed our views as a result of interacting here.

Actually – and ironically – Tolkien thought Lewis was pretty off-the-mark when it came to what Christian revelation is also.  Tolkien helped convert the guy, and then the poor, confused man chose the Church of England over the Roman Catholic Church.  How did those two ever accomplish any discussion about the cosmic applicability of Christian revelation?

Tim apparently has access to a BHT mission statement and membership requirements that I’ve mislaid.

We don’t even claim to be a good group blog. And criticizing us for not having a common confession of faith sounds remarkably like the same ol’ criticism from the same ol’ flamethrowers: The blog is the “church” and should behave like a “flock.”

We are neither Inklings, nor Thinklings, nor clergy club. To see what we are…look at the banner.

Tim’s post is gracious, indeed, but, as others have mentioned, the whole thing falls apart in the second sentence.  I mean, I can see where the mistake is made – Jack is our patron saint and all.  But neither before I joined nor since have I ever imagined this to be a “modern day Inklings,” either in stated intention or in attempt.  If that particular point is not accurate, the whole rest of it doesn’t really work.  

Would that we all had a better handle on “what IS the Christian revelation,” but I would submit that we try to start with Jesus and go from there as much as possible, and I don’t see how that’s too far wide of the mark.

Maybe I’m not as well-versed in Inkling thinking as I’d like to be, but weren’t they far more concerned with literature than anything else?

And besides all this, isn’t there another blog with which it would be more natural to make a connection to the Inklings?  I think they just put a little “th” at the beginning of the name of the group in question…

All from the perspective of professional clergy, who desperately need a Christian revelation for themselves and for their sheep. (And don’t we all.)

We have sheep? We’re all clergy?

Attention all sheep: Get out of here. This is a bar, and alcohol is bad for sheep stomachs. You need a real pastor and a real church, and this place is neither.

John, I went and read Tim’s post. Friendly is the right word for it. Thanks for finding it.

To answer your questions:

• You certainly aren’t the only one who is not professional clergy or aspiring to be. I have done in the past, but then I got saved.
• If this bar is supposed to be the modern-day Inklings, I walked into the wrong bar. All the folks here are great, but I haven’t met a Lewis or a Tolkien or even a Charles Williams in the bunch. Well, maybe Joel is worthy. PhD and all. Sharon might be something like Dorothy Sayers, I guess.
• We do listen to you and Josh. It’s impossible not to. (jn)

The Indians’ Asdrubal Cabrera turned a rare unassisted triple-play last night against the Jays. Pretty cool if you’re into that sort of thing.

David Brooks’ column today is interesting: The Neural Buddhists

You’ll probably have to log in to the NYT site, but it’s free.

BHT alumnus Tim Smith on the BHT (emphasis original):

“I think it does not accomplish what it sets out to be, which is a modern day Inklings, because it is so much Inside Baseball … The BHT fellows – bright and good, all — are still busy working out what exactly IS the Christian revelation. All from the perspective of professional clergy, who desperately need a Christian revelation for themselves and for their sheep.

A few initial thoughts on this (offered in the same friendly but critical spirit as Tim’s post, and without meaning to be as defensive as this is probably going to end up sounding!):

• So, does that mean I’m the only person here who’s not “professional clergy”? Why did nobody tell me this? (jn)
• I’m not sure we do set out to be a “modern Inklings”, and by and large we do live up to the stated aims of the site: to be a “wide-ranging weblog conversation” by a “diverse group of Christians” (“diverse” in some ways more than others, admittedly), concerned with thinking about church in the ale-house rather than the ale-house in church. As such it is a conversation between/among Christians, rather than a showcase to present Christian discourse to a non-Christian readership.
• Anyway, if y’all would only listen to me and Josh, you’d know what the Christian revelation IS, exactly, and we could then get on with talking about other things. (jn+++)

Any other thoughts?

Great Scott Cairns poem: The Spiteful Jesus.

Lurker Jeremiah suggests that Driscoll is the reason for Calvinist obsession with emergents. He presents an interesting circumstantial case, at the least.

Good advice from an unexpected place.

Look who’s joining the cool pseudonym club…

I should think that most emergent leaders and Moby Dick could swap stories.

From what I’ve seen the T4C crowd does not see the distinction between ‘Reformed faith” and “the Gospel”.  In supercalvinist eyes, they are equivalent.  The idea that they could be different, let alone an approximation to the other, is repugnant to them.  Contrast the emergents; who would readily admit that complete grasp of the Gospel is something that is highly unlikely to ever happen.  Therein lies the conflict and therein lies the danger to both.

One side says ‘what is truth’, the other side replies ‘we have it’; but when the gospel of Jesus becomes enslaved to Modernism or Post-Modernism it is no longer the gospel.  I really don’t want my savior to have to  vet his teachings through Aristotle, Descarte, or Kierkegaard.  That’s the Jesus who infuriates me, who plays savage games with fate and humanity.  So, when Jesus says I am ‘The Truth’ he is really setting us free from both paradigms of bondage…not advocating for one or the other.

I’m trying to get into some sabbatical rhythms, and one of those will be much less posting here at the BHT. So let me go ahead and get my backpack, pay my tab, fill my pockets up with peanuts and get ready to go.

I’ll stick my head in the door as I’m driving through, but don’t expect to see or hear from me much. Should I need prayer, money or friendship, I know where to come.

I’ll be posting at IM more regularly. I’ll be answering email.

Just to let all know- I could use your prayers, starting right now, in a big, big way. They told us a sabbatical is complicated, and they were right. Everything conspires to ruin it, especially with those who resent you having it. But I believe God gave me this time and it will be an adventure with him. Let’s see what happens.

Someone feed Van Til, and you may hear from him a bit more often.

Well, insofar as Missions are concerned, the LCC (Lutheran Church Canada) is active in a number of places, one of which is Nicaragua. The work there has been maturing, with an independant synod recently forming. See here...

RE:Baseball Map: Red Sox territory should include all of the Canadian Maritime provinces and, possibly, southern Quebec (former Expos territories where fans have no residual feeling for the Nats and won’t cheer for a Toronto team). Jays territory should include all of Ontario. Twins territory should extend into Manitoba. Mariners territory should include southern BC, particularly Vancouver and Victoria. BoSox have embassies everywhere.

Michael: That is an interesting baseball map. Curious the little tail of Reds fans descending into Kentucky…. I’m most struck that there are actually any Mets fans.

As for Lutherans, I second what John and Josh had to say. Seems as if Lutherans are gun shy and haven’t recovered from the coup attempt in the 70s.

My meatspace friend said that he is glad that our pastor is low-key, that a cult of personality could never be erected around him, and I agree. It’s refreshing to see someone serious about standing in the place of Christ in his vocation, but being completely self-effacing otherwise. Don’t know if this is a widespread tendency, but it would certainly limit the scope of Lutheran influence if this is standard among our clergy. Also, the doctrine of vocation, if preached, has the tendency to make Lutherans blend in a bit. I’m a bit less noticeable if I go about my job as a Christian man serving my neighbor than if I hang out a giant ichthus and advertise myself as a Christian therapist.

Also, Lutherans have a tendency to go to Concordia colleges and universities – limiting their access to the rest of the Reformed world. (Sorry – I had to). By the way, nothing was more confusing for me as a new Lutheran that trying to figure out who Lutherans were referring to when they said “reformed” – my schema included only PCA, OPC and the ilk.

First of all, Lutherans have never really been part of American evangelicalism.  The LCMS was highly active in missions throughout at least the first half of the 20th century, but largely in disjunction from evangelicalism.  Since we’ve never seen ourselves as part of the evangelical scene, we’ve never been really active in trying to shape it.  The Christian world in the American Lutheran mind has been traditionally divided into

1.  Orthodox Lutherans, who have an urgent imperative to evangelize the lost (this is different from the mentality of state-church Lutheranism; the LCMS was missional for its first century of existence).

2.  Roman Catholics, who are in thrall to the pope, but Christians anyway.

3.  The Reformed, which encompasses everyone from Pentecostals to Presbyterians and is made up of nutcases that we had best stay far, far away from.

Having lumped every single last non-Orthodox, non-Catholic Christian under the heading of “Reformed,” the old Lutherans felt no compunction whatsoever to interact with or understand the various Protestant denominations.  They all stem from Zwingli, so writing about why Zwingli was wrong about “This is my body” is sufficient to address all of them, right?  Let me put it this way:  Lutherans say “Reformed” the way lots of Catholics say “Protestant.”  It’s a catch-all term, and they genuinely believe it’s a single, fairly coherent religion that can be comprehensively characterized and refuted in a 40-page book.  Just as Catholics tend to be completely uninterested in the differentiation of Protestant churches and view all arguments as being somehow internal to one massive “Protestant Church” (and thus irrelevant to discussion and practice) Lutherans simply remove themselves from the fray and call the whole mess “Reformed.”

I don’t know if that’s good enough.  There is a very strong sense among Lutherans that the rest of the Christian world is not our world, thus not our concern.  And unlike the Roman Catholics, we don’t claim to be the One True Church That Christ Founded, so proselytizing the “Reformed” is not on the agenda. They might be heretics, but they’re already Christians, so leave them alone.

Things are changing.  Unfortunately, missions has been the main casualty in the battles over what that change should look like.

Michael: well, I’m trying to do my bit. (sw)

And remember that I can’t speak for the LCMS. I give thanks on a daily basis for two things: that the LCMS exists, and that I don’t have to be a member of it. (jn, at least about the frequency…)

I suspect there are good and bad reasons for the low profile of Lutheranism. And, in my own context, one unavoidable reason:

Bad reason: insularity and ghettoisation. More than a little truth in that, I should think. Though perhaps even that is as much imposed from outside as arising from within: in the US, Lutheranism could be seen as a “flyover religion” for “flyover country”, lacking a presence in more “culturally formative” areas of the country (the coasts, the south). That’s an ill-informed outsider’s view, I hasten to add, before people start emailing me!

Good reason: the churches and individuals you cite all tend to be very large churches with many hundreds, if not thousands, of members. The same could be said of churches and preachers that have been influential in the UK over recent decades (Westminster Chapel/MLJ, All Soul’s Langham Place/John Stott, HTB/Nicky Gumbel, etc). Churches like that have the critical mass, wealth and exposure to have an impact far beyond their confessional boundaries. But as Josh put it recently:

Lutheran pastoral activity is about proclaiming the forgiveness of sins, serving people at the Supper and directing them to a life defined by their baptism. That requires that [the pastor] both knows and loves his people—not the faceless mass of people, but the actual individuals in the pew.

That approach to ministry makes it difficult to become a “megachurch”, as compared with churches where the focus of their collective worship life is the forty-five minute sermon and/or the thirty-minute worship session.

Unavoidable reason (in the UK): there’s about, like, fifteen of us in the entire country. Congregations, that is, he added hastily. (jn)

The United Countries of Baseball. Very cool map, and I love how the Reds area snakes right down to my house! A bit too generous on the Nationals, imo.

Fr. Stephen on prayer:

There is a failure in much of modern Christianity – a failure that is marked by a passivity in our approach to God. Some would justify such passivity by deriding certain actions as an example of “works righteousness,” mistakenly thinking that being saved by grace and not by works means that all we should do as Christians is believe. This is not even good Protestantism.

Possibly relevant to the Lutherans here. Given my past and my present, it does me a lot of good whenever I hear Fr. Stephen say positive things about the Pentecostals and Baptists around him.