2008-12-13

Manata points out that while many evangelicals are quite anti-intellectual, the New Atheists are simply the other side of that coin. "I think this is because most of them are former fundies and have taken their confused view of Christianity - marketing Jesus for mass consumption in order to make it palpable to American consumerism - right on over to their atheism. They still read the Bible like their former fundie selves, and they still "preach" the good news of atheism, making it "culturally relevant," just as they preached (or were preached to) as fundies." He goes on to demonstrate the intellectual vacuity of the New Atheists based on a sign that was placed by the Freedom From Religious Foundation. Culture Warrior Atheists

Piper: "It is good news that we will never be thanked by God. Not thanking us is a form of love. We need to adjust our expectations of what it feels like to be loved by God compared to what it feels like to be loved by men." God Isn't Grateful

Mohler: A 70 year old woman is pregnant, via IVF, from a donor egg and a donor sperm (not her husband's). Yet how is a mother of this age to raise a child? And the whole thing is very artificial. http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=2901

Mohler writes how a tragedy facing pulpits is that preachers are ones without authority - unlike Jesus. They have little sense of absolutes, always being concerned about committing the heresy of premature finality. "The preacher's authority is a delegated authority, but a real authority. We are assigned the task of feeding the flock of God, of teaching the church, of preaching the Word. We do not speak as one who possesses authority, but as one who is called to serve the church by proclaiming, expounding, applying, and declaring the Word of God." http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=2912

Here's an interesting comment to Newsweek: "you also need to know that many of your readers would have welcomed a journalistic cover story that provided a lively discussion of this issue, featuring the views of liberal Christian scholars (a variety of them, since their views are not always the same) and traditional Christian scholars from a variety of viewpoints — mainline Protestant, evangelical, Orthodox, Catholic and the like. The views of traditional Jews, Muslims and others would have made a wonderful sidebar." Think about that in terms of journalism. Hey Newsweek- It's the Journalism, Stupid

Sproul: "Every generation has its abundance of Scrooges. The church is full of them. We hear endless complaints of commercialism. We are constantly told to put Christ back into Christmas. We hear that the tradition of Santa Claus is a sacrilege. We listen to those acquainted with history murmur that Christmas isn't biblical. The Church invented Christmas to compete with the ancient Roman festival honoring the bull-god Mithras, the nay-sayers complain. Christmas? A mere capitulation to paganism." Bah! Humbug!

Good question: Are people of ill-repute drawn to the churches the way they were drawn to our Lord? Ray Boltz's Hunger for Community

Russell Moore argues that parenting isn't about behaviour modification but Christian eschatology. When you fail to discipline your children, you communicate that hell doesn't exist. We teach them authority hierarchies. We teach them that there are consequences. "Discipline should be swift and fair with quick reconciliation between parent and child. Long periods of “time out” do not communicate the discipline of God; they communicate the isolation and exile of hell." The Eschatology of Parenting

Mark Dever points to five reasons we don't evangelize: "1. Fear - of rejection, of offending 2. Ignorance - don’t know what to say, don’t know how to say it 3. Inexperience - haven’t seen it done, haven’t done it 4. Attitude - that’s just not me, leave it to the experts 5. Lack of true love - we don't really care about the lost and their eternal destiny." He then offers twelve ways to mitigate these barriers. Then five alternatives to these are given. Barriers to Sharing the Gospel by lduncan

Here's a review by Phillips of The Day the Earth Stood Still. He basically says what I expected it to be. The Day the Earth Stood Still remake — a movie review (spoilerific)

[Other than what I consider to be a rather short-sighted, culturally motivated, and overstated comment relating to universal health care and global warming, etc. as being something every evangelical in the world except North Americans is for - and how this relates to the Gospel I'm still not sure] Bird has an interesting and useful post on drawing lines between evangelicals and being reformed, and how we should be defined by the Gospel and embrace our brothers and sisters. "Michael Horton gave a paper at one of the sessions and he made a useful analogy of how evangelicals relate to each other. If I understand him correctly, he said evangelicalism is kinda like the hallway where people leave their dormitory rooms (denominations) and go out and mix and mingle with others. This makes a useful distinction between one's denominational setting and one's willingness to mix and engage a wider theological and ecclesial context. In other words, you can retain your denominational distictives and still intersect with a wider Christian community." "That gospel is summarized for us in the articles of our Christian faith---a creed beyond doubt and confessed throughout the world. This is why I am convinced unto the point of death that what should be the defining characteristic of evangelicalism is one's theological articulation of the evangel and (practically put) what one does with it. To be Reformed, then, is to be an evangelical and to proudly and graciously stand shoulder to shoulder with our evangelical brothers and sisters throughout the world. There endeth the lesson: solum evangelium!" Evangelicals and the Reformed

Here's a fascinating post on early heretics by Michael Bird. "... Basilides operated principally in Alexandria and taught from 132-138 CE. His teachings reflect an Alexandrian milieu as they reflect the influence of Philo, Alexandrian Jewish Gnosticism, and Greco-Roman philosophy." Friday is for 'Heretics'- # 1, Basilides

Following proposition 8, there is significant persecution coming from the pro-homosexuals (hatred, if you will). "Paul Bishop, a Los Angeles Police Department supervisor told Meridian, a Mormon magazine, that, while both supporters and opponents of the measure honked their horns at rallies in favor of Prop 8, he wrote, "the way to tell the difference is the ‘No On 8' supporters usually accompanied their horn honking with an obscene gesture or a string of obscenities. They also liked to swerve their cars toward the children on the curb."" They are literally attacking those who supported it. Prop 8 Stirs Rage Against Its Supporters

Gilbert decided to give his thoughts on how small groups are useful in an upside-down/backwards post. "˙ɥɔɹnɥɔ ǝɥʇ uı dıɥsǝldıɔsıp ɹoɟ looʇ pooƃ ɐ ǝq uɐɔ ʎǝɥʇ ʞuıɥʇ ı 'llǝʍ pǝsn puɐ 'llɐ uı llɐ  ˙ɯǝɥʇ ǝsn ʇ’uplnoɥs noʎ ʎɐs oʇ sı ʇɐɥʇ ɟo ǝuou ʇnq" sdnoɹƃ llɐɯs -ǝɹ by Greg Gilbert. He has confessed to shameless gimmickry in the hopes of not appearing boring. True Reason for Upside Down Post- by Greg Gilbert

Turretinfan draws a quote to show that Edwards did indeed hold to limited atonement. The chart distributed at John 3:16 conference put Baxter and Amyraut in the moderate/classical Calvinism column! Phillip Johnson and Amyraldianism

Mounce argues that the articles present in 1 Timothy 4:13 are significant, which are dropped in translation: "Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to the exhortation, to the teaching." "I argue that Paul is referring to explicit parts of the first century worship service, that there was a time specifically for the public reading of Scripture, an explicit time for encouraging people to follow it, and a specific time for the people to be taught not only the content of Scripture but its theology." The Definite Article and 1 Timothy 4-13 (Monday with Mounce 15) by Bill Mounce