2009-07-14

Harris points to the Next 2009 music - $5 for the 13 live songs. Live Worship from Next 2009 

Harris links to some posts on his book I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and his own post on what he’s learned since he read it. He also takes the criticisms of the book well. I Kissed Dating Goodbye Pros and Cons

If you want to see how twisted the thinking of Romanists can be, have a look at Mark Shea’s description of Calvinism, which White quotes here. Out of the Abundance of the Heart

Here’s a post at Koinonia saying that Calvin would have embraced digital social networking… I find it less than compelling that a man so dedicated and disciplined in his work would spend significant time with such a time-wasting invention – and real discourse is nigh impossible on Facebook. :-) I personally think Calvin would be largely appalled at us, perhaps rightly. John Calvin- Why He Would Have Embraced Social-Networking (and Why We Should, too) by Douglas Es

Thabiti explains why the cross is necessary: Jesus had to die for our sins, to deal with our rebellion against God by paying for our sins, because God is holy, and He is just. He thus satisfied God’s wrath and is reconciling sinners to God, and His righteousness is credited to our account. He substituted Himself in place of sinners. This is a good, short video that one could show to unbelievers.

Wow! JT posts a quote from Sotomayor, as she disagrees with Obama over the work of the judge. Obama had basically said that 95% of the time rulings are from law, and the other 5%, the critical ingredient is what is in the judge’s heart. Asked, whether she agrees with this: “No, sir. That's -- I don't -- I wouldn't approach the issue of judging in the way the president does. He has to explain what he meant by judging. I can only explain what I think judges should do, which is judges can't rely on what's in their heart. They don't determine the law. Congress makes the laws. The job of a judge is to apply the law. And so it's not the heart that compels conclusions in cases. It's the law. The judge applies the law to the facts before that judge.” She also tends to see the Constitution as immutable. Sotomayor on the Empathy Test, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law

JT quotes Machen to the effect that while the regenerative power of God is the decisive thing in conversion, able to overcome anything, usually God applies this in conjunction with certain conditions in the human mind, which we can cultivate. False ideas, on the other hand, are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the Gospel. “So as Christians we should try to mold the thought of the world in such a way as to make the acceptance of Christianity something more than a logical absurdity…” We cannot let untruth go unchecked in the world. Machen- False Ideas as Obstacles to the Reception of the Gospel

Here’s a link to a personal liturgy of confession from David Powlison. A Personal Liturgy of Confession

ETC has some brief comments on the sales of manuscripts on e-bay, including the duplicity involved. You can’t pull one over a textual critic at this point. ;-) Coptic Manuscripts on Ebay

Metaethics is the attempt to understand the metaphysical, epistemological, semantic, and psychological, presuppositions and commitments of moral thought, talk, and practice. Philosophy Word of the Day – Metaethics

Apparently terrorist detainees are being read their Miranda rights, and this article links it to the culture of military law, and the plethora of military lawyers, and the sloppy over-generosity of the American people. Except when aroused and alert, they have a tendency to be fat, dumb and happy, and to want to spread that happiness around. “Of course, as Obama said, it is ridiculous to administer Miranda warnings to unlawful combatant detainees in Afghanistan. And it seems obvious that if we revert to treating terrorism as a matter for primarily criminal law, we risk opening ourselves to another Sept. 11-type attack, or worse. But the problem is not just in the Obama administration -- it is in our military establishment and ourselves.” http://townhall.com/columnists/MichaelBarone/2009/06/16/when_detainees_get_rights_they_dont_deserve?page=full&comments=true

Challies briefly reviews the Late Great Planet Church DVD, which he says is better for its information than its presentation. In this case the list of contributors includes Kenneth Gentry, Kenneth Talbot, Tom Ascol, Tom Nettles, Gary DeMar and several other notable teachers or scholars. Apparently it’s aimed at refuting dispensationalism, with this first volume focusing on the rise of dispensationalism, looking to its roots and its earliest proponents. This video looks at the questionable actions, theology, and conduct of Darby and Scofield. DVD Review - The Late Great Planet Church

Here’s a tribute to Martin Hengel on Koinonia. It notes his humility, his huge scholarly contribution, “Few scholars can expect to write something others will describe as ‘landmark’. Hengel is a one man landscape.” For example, “In his Judaism and Hellenism he carefully described the relationship between ancient Jews and the surrounding Greek culture. The significance of this last work cannot be overstated. It is now historically impossible to speak of a neat distinction between Greek and Jewish cultures in antiquity, and the once-common suggestion that our Greek Gospels could only contain a distant echo of an Aramaic-speaking Palestinian Jew is now historically untenable.” Hengel was no evangelical theologian—he wasn’t a theologian in the proper sense at all. He was a critical historian of Jewish and Christian antiquity; some of his views on the Bible would make a fundamentalist squirm. But he was also a man of deep piety. His enormous learning was never something in conflict with his core conviction that the Jesus of history is the risen Son of God who stands ready to hear our prayers and grant us His grace. A Don of Biblical Proportions A Tribute to Martin Hengel (1926-2009) by John Dickson

JT links to NT Wright on the Episcopal Church ordaining gay clergy. “In the slow-moving train crash of international Anglicanism, a decision taken in California has finally brought a large coach off the rails altogether. The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church (TEC) in the United States has voted decisively to allow in principle the appointment, to all orders of ministry, of persons in active same-sex relationships. This marks a clear break with the rest of the Anglican Communion.” Wright Responds to The Episcopal Church Schism over Ordaining Gay Clergy

This post at Solapanel asks, what do you do when committed Christians won’t sing – let alone open their mouths – in worship? And when someone tells a song leader it’s better to show now emotion at the front? Rather, the Bible commands us to sing, and joyfully: Ps. 33:1-3, with the reason being that God’s word is truth (vs. 4-5). Also, Paul commands it in Eph. 5:19 and Col. 3:16) and there’s a lot of singing going on in heaven. When they won’t smile or even sing

“They do not see Tetzel in carbon offsets. They do not see shuning in the treatment the neighborhood gives the guy who doesn't sort his garbage according to the dictates of the regulatory bishops. They don't see a fierce imposition of morality in their crusades for the sake of saving us all from climate change. They do not see blasphemy laws in thought crimes legislation. They do not see their religion in everthing they do, and this is because idolaters are blind.” Doug Wilson

Someone objects to Hays argument that, because we only make one choice at a time, there is no empirical evidence to substantiate a belief in libertarian freedom. The objection is that, in inserting coins into the machine, the person can vary the choices from instance to instance, putting them in face up or down, changing the coins, etc. Hays notes this as an example of bad reasoning, because the person isn’t inserting the same coin face up and face down at the same time. He therefore has no experience doing otherwise in the same situation. Heads up on heads up

Arminians think that having many choices is crucial for human agents. Hays notes that this isn’t necessarily a good thing. Having the opportunity to sin, for example, opens the change to fall into temptation. Having choices

JT points to the new book, Glory Road: The Journeys of 10 African-Americans into Reformed Christianity. Glory Road- The Journeys of 10 African-Americans into Reformed Christianity

Augustine prayed to the Lord not that God would not despise the work of Augustine’s hands because he sought the Lord with them, but rather he asks God to see in him God’s work, not his own, because if God sees his work, He’ll condemn; if He sees His own, He’ll crown. “Whatever good works I have are of thee.” Augustine- Despise Not the Work of Thy Hands

This post notes that we don’t normally think as people of losing their standings as humans, as bearers of rights, when they become weak and vulnerable and dependent on the care of others. Yet for those who defend abortion, such dependence is taken as a sign quite significant that the baby has no standing as a human or claim to the protection of the law. “When we strip away the fuzzy language of empathy, what stands revealed is a prettified version of the Rule of the Strong: The strong will rule the weak, and their power to rule confirms the rightness of that rule.” Arkes on the Rule of the Strong Hiding Behind Empathy

Genderblog quotes Poythress on the question, “How do we interface permanent ethical principles from Scripture with the changing situations in various modern cultures, with their pressures on marriage, work, church, economics, etc?” Poythress notes that typically sociological thinking influences modern theology/hermeneutics, but that this influence need not go one way. We need biblically based critical analysis of sociological ideas about culture/gender as malleable/constructible. Divine revelation must be our standard for ethics. Yet we can’t be antagonistic to all things new. We need to not compromise on all fronts like many who capitulate to egalitarianism, and to not become disconnected, but rather have a robust biblical ethic that reaches to the struggles in our world. A Steady Path Forward- Some Direction for the Gender Debate, Part 2 - Speaking of Ethics

Burk quotes Wright on the ECUSA ordaining homosexuals: “‘Paganism ancient and modern has always found this ethic, and this belief, ridiculous and incredible. But the biblical witness is scarcely confined . . . to a few verses in St Paul. Jesus’s own stern denunciation of sexual immorality would certainly have carried, to his hearers, a clear implied rejection of all sexual behaviour outside heterosexual monogamy. This isn’t a matter of “private response to Scripture” but of the uniform teaching of the whole Bible, of Jesus himself, and of the entire Christian tradition.’” Tom Wright on ECUSA Declaration of Independence

Hays notes that “One of the problems with praying to the saints is that you’re praying to saints who don’t believe in praying to saints. You see, there are no Catholic saints in heaven. All the heavenly saints are Protestant,” and therefore such prayers are contrary to their theology. Praying to the saints

WIth regard to Sotomayor, Hays notes that much of liberalism is built on false premises, as they stipulate a falsehood, and if unchecked, this grows into ‘truth’, upon which a superstructure is built. For example, just because mandatory segregation is wrong doesn’t mean that the alternative is mandatory desegregation. Courts then practice reverse discrimination. Hate crimes leads invariably to more groups receiving preferential treatment. Sotomayor, for example, made the ‘wise Latina’ is a better judge comment, taking a jab at ‘white privilege’ (i.e. only minorities know adversity). This is classic stereotyping of the worst kind. “If a white nominee said the same thing in reverse, he’d have to withdraw his name from further consideration. But because liberals automatically treat certain minority groups as victims of oppression, they think minorities like Sotomayor are entitled to a double standard. This is precisely the sort of false premise which ought to be cut down root and branch before it takes hold and begins to spread--–like a wild vine that chokes the life out of everything within reach.” Moreover, conservatives should compete wherever possible, not refraining from action out of fear (with reference to ‘looking at the bright side’ as it were of Sotomayor’s nomination). Also, one can’t be gullibly charitable in politics. Sotomayor

Hays has a short-lived email conversation with an atheist. The atheist basically says that without God, there’s no limit in the human capacity to comprehend, we’re governors of our own destiny, that a love to self can be replaced with a love for the world, and with God, people can slit a baby’s throat if they are convinced they’re following God’s orders. Also, "The evidence is overwhelming that the happiest, best-adjusted, healthiest societies in the world are those in which the majority has freely abandoned belief." Hays makes these points: i) Isn’t all science/comprehension limited by evidence, etc.? ii) Does a baby aborted in the womb command its own destiny? Don’t some people always rule over others? Don’t we all just die – and we don’t govern that. iii) Why would an atheist want to be altruistic? If this is all their is, isn’t it foolish to deny yourself? iv) Peter Singer, a very articulate secular bioethicist, unapologetically advocates infanticide (‘slitting babies throats’), which really goes against the religious connection advocated by the atheist. v) Suicide rates around the world seem to indicate that we’re not the ‘best-adjusted, happiest’ people around. It seems that rates of suicide are a fairly obvious barometer of a happy, healthy, well-adjusted society. vi) “Isn't a supernatural puppet-master who offers eternal life better than a natural puppet-master (i.e. instead of God pulling the strings, it's genes, hormones, brain chemistry, natural selection, cultural conditioning) who consigns you to oblivion?” The atheist then opted out of the conversation.  The New Atheism- Taking a Stand for Fideism and Obfuscation