Clint continues to point out the further disenchantment with their denominations that pastors who find like-minded individuals via the internet face. They can't go back to the old way. While this development is mostly good, there is surely an appreciable sense of loss for these pastors. Evangelical Canada- Some Thoughts III
A church in the USA is disciplining a woman for an unrepentant sexual relationship with her boyfriend. The woman is concerned about being 'crucified' by the church her children trust. Unwilling to repent, she left and told the church to stop trying to contact her. Now she's complaining to the media about an 'invasion of her privacy.' Phillips writes, "In disciplining an unrepentant church member according to Jesus' words, a Christian church is doing just one thing: it is being a Christian church, as defined by Jesus." Phillips observes that 'Ms. Hancock is so worried about how hearing of her sin in church will affect her (adult) children... that she goes to the media with it? So, instead of a small local congregation knowing about her sin, now (potentially) the whole world knows about her sin. That makes sense? Neither reporter thought to ask her about that?' 'Many church-constitutions expressly deal with members under discipline who try to escape the process by resigning before completion.' Phillips also points out that he has seen the devastation caused by pastors neglecting to enforce this sort of church discipline. BREAKING NEWS- church dares to practice NT Christianity!
On the same note, Gilbert reminds us that while the reporters sensationalize and paint church discipline as outrageous, we should not expect a relativistic, inclusive, and [hypocritically intolerant] tolerant world of unbelievers to understand why we do church discipline. He also points out that, "You need to make sure that your constitution or covenant---something your members have to understand and affirm---makes explicit the church's right to refuse a member's resignation in order to proceed with church discipline." He continues to give five solid points to help legally protect churches who exercise church discipline [naturally all and only church practice this, if you aren't, well...] OUTRAGE!--Church to Make Woman's Sins -Very- Public!!! by Greg Gilbert. Oh, and Fox has named their document 'reporting' on the event as "Church Extortion." Yep, they're definitely objective reporters. UPDATE- Church Extortion - by Greg Gilbert. McKinley comments here: Church Discipline in the News by Michael Mckinley
Here's a gem from secular bioethicist Peter Singer: "Infants lack these characteristics. Killing them, therefore, cannot be equated with killing normal human beings, or any other self-conscious beings. This conclusion is not limited to infants who, because of irreversible intellectual disabilities, will never be rational, self-conscious beings." "Infants are sentient beings who are neither rational nor self- conscious. So if we turn to consider the infants in themselves, independently of the attitudes of their parents, since their species is not relevant to their moral status, the principles that govern the wrongness of killing non-human animals who are sentient but not rational or self-conscious must apply here too." Hays points out that Singer isn't on the lunatic fringe. He's a prof at Princeton. Moreover, you only need the support of 5 justices of the Supreme Court to make something the law of the land - not popular support at all. "His criteria [for the right to life] are confined to psychological, physiological, and sociological criteria. ... He has no moral criteria." "As a result, while he defends the right to abort unwanted babies or euthanize unwanted hemophiliacs, he doesn’t share the same enthusiasm for executing murderers or pedophiles. For that would involve moral criteria, which have no place in his system of bioethics." In Christianity, the default setting is that life is sancrosanct. This presumption can be overcome if certain moral criteria are transgressed. With Singer, this is precisely reversed. There is no default warrant to life. This puts every life in jeopardy. "unless human beings have some intrinsic value, the fact that one worthless human being values another worthless human being is a viciously circular way of grounding the value of human life." The objection to Singer's position isn't a slippery slope argument - his position as it stands is already evil. "There is the further objection that if you accept his position, then that logically commits you to extending his position to further wrongs." Soylent Green is people!
Hays comments on Caroline Kennedy's resume. After enumeration her cred, he writes: "As a middle class American, who grew up among middle class Americans, I find her resume unintentionally comical. I might as well be reading the Curriculum Vitae of Marie Antoinette." "I also love the modern redefinition of noblesse oblige. This used to mean you gave your own money to charitable causes, not that you solicited money from others." Gossip Girl for Congress
Manata shows the troubles and incoherence inherent to Singer's utilitarian ethic. How does utilitarianism evaluate net happiness? "Rule utilitarianism only gives us rules of thumb. There are exceptions. And sometimes we want to know if we may be justified in breaking the rule in this or that instance" "we can justifiably kill our down syndrome children because they can't enjoy a Woody Allen flick." ... "If we add that, and then add that enjoying Allen flicks increases suffering, can we kill Singer? But I digress..." "we can note that Singer is arguing that "seeing yourself as having a past and a future" is what makes killing you wrong in specie, feeling pain and pleasure in a crass way is what makes killing you wrong Lite." Manata then gives a thought experiment to get around the criteria. "Singer's problem lies in the fact that he denies any human nature, or substance, that grounds and is a necessary pre-condition for having, or potentially having, any of his particular qualitative hedonic characteristics. He denies, for example, that humans are image bearers of God, by nature. That nature grants prima facie sanctity to human life. The Christian ethic doesn't succumb to such absurdities. But, we would agree with this conditional (written in a short-hand way, i.e., qualifications omited): If morality, then God. No God. No morality." Killing is My Business, and Business is Good
Hays continues to review a defence of secular ethics. He points out that the Euthyphro dilemma is too simplistic to disqualify Christian ethics: "God is the Creator. He endows human beings with a specific nature. For example, the fact that human beings reproduce, which involves the mating of males and females, producing children who take years to mature, immediately generates a set of social obligations which would not obtain if human nature were different." Some other good points. 1) A strong sense of right and wrong isn't the same as a correct sense of right and wrong. 2) Secular ethicists can't get away from rendering value judgments. 3) Christianity explains why people aren't unified in their sense of right and wrong, and can easily account for the crimes of coreligionists. 4) Common sense of morality is also explained in Christianity - common grace and natural law. 5) Grounding morality in cognitive science continues to commit the naturalistic fallacy. Unless nature has a teleological orientation, which naturalistic evolution denies, you can’t look to nature for moral guidance. 6) Hypothetical moral scenarios fail to present a real challenge to morality since the respondent, projecting himself into a situation like this, has nothing to gain or lose. 7) There’s a difference between what a morally prereflective unbeliever might do and what a morally reflective unbeliever might do. Singer himself is a case in point. 8) why even bother referring to evolution if evolutionary ethics is admittedly inadequate? 9) unless our nature is God-given, there’s nothing normative about our nature. What’s the natural distinction between gang-rape and consensual sex? What’s the natural distinction between murder and self-defense? Godless morality
Manata offers "four brief points related to an evolutionary justification for moral realism." 1) It's speculatory. 2) Disputed even by evolutionists. 3) It fails to answer the deeper questions: It may provide a story for why we have moral feelings but it doesn't provide an explanation for the truth of moral facts (e.g. 'It is wrong to rape a child' isn't grounded like 'some pythons eat mice.') A moral fact is made true by the way the world ought to be. 4) It doesn't go far enough: ""moral faculty" story to do any relevant work in ethical discussions about evolutionary justifications for moral realism, we must go farther. it is not enough that we have "a faculty," it must be a reliable faculty." "Why think our "moral faculty" would be aimed at producing (mostly) true beliefs? Didn’t we learn from evolutionist Praticia Churchland that "truth, whatever that is, takes the hindmost" in these considerations?" Evolutionary Ethics
Manata writes that SInger is just a relativist. All that stuff about a replacement ethic, and this is what he comes up with. Perhaps he means applications of ethics. But "in that case what they've said is superfluous since every ethical tradition would agree with that. Thus, the comment can't do any relevant work in justifying a specifically secular ethic." They may be cultural relativists, if they mean that an ethical principle can be good or not good depending on cultural assent. But that would make him immoral, since he's quite countercultural (infanticide). If he's a subjective relativist, in that certain people regarding something as good makes it good, then this boils down to psychology. Subjectivism entails infallibalism, which clearly seems false. Something can be simultaneously right or wrong depending on what is believed by different people. For one to say another is wrong is just to recognize disagreement. "real moral disagreement presupposes the falsity of moral subjectivism." More on Secular Ethics
White recommends the DVD's from Dan Wallace. Two DVDs from Dan Wallace
"Sovereign Grace Ministries is partnering with Desiring God, Ligonier Ministries, 9Marks, and others in a groundbreaking project called Gospel Translations. Together we're aiming to provide translations of gospel-centered teaching online, for free." Free Gospel Translations
Challies rightly says Lewis is at his best and worst in this week's section of Mere Christianity. For example, he argues that "free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having." He even says God considered it worth the risk. [I honestly thought Lewis would have been more thoughtful than this]. "The Perfect Penitent" deals with the atonement. Here we see a vague outline of Lewis' thoughts on the atonement; and what we see is not necessarily orthodox. Reading Classics - Mere Christianity (III)
Here is a remarkable sketch of the Christ in heaven centred perspective of Izaac Walton even as he slowly wasted away to death. "A man would almost be content to die—if there were no other benefit in death—to hear of so much sorrow, and so much good testimony from good men, as I—God be blessed for it—did upon the report of my death ... It hath been my desire, and God may be pleased to grant it, that I might die in the pulpit; that is, die the sooner by occasion of these labours." Have you Donne Christmas yet-
Here's some good tips on reading the Bible together. Some warnings: The priority of God's word, not our problems. It sounds harsh at first, but there is a better way. Firstly, if you do meet with such a person, set a different agenda. Instead of starting with his or her problems, start with Bible reading and prayer. Spiritual Guru syndome: We don't want to become spiritual guides for people and make them dependent on us, rather than God. Meeting regularly with someone and drawing them into close relationship can be highly manipulative. Some have never had such close attention from anyone, and they will agree to anything to protect the relationship. Be wary of gender issues. Factotum #3 (continued)
Doug Powell on the American Humanist Association. "The first thing that has to be taken into account is that morality does not describe actions, it prescribes them." [The Christless Christmas of the American Humanist Association's 'be good for goodness sake' seems rather intellectually lacking given the Triablogue's assault on Singer's ethics, as summarized above.] Merry Christ-miss from the American Humanist Association
Wallace gives a short tribute out of his respect for Harold Hoehner. Harold W. Hoehner
McKinley writes about the joy of being in a church in light of "Roy the Cabbie," who said, "I have no use for the church. I've got my preachers on the radio, my Bible in the glove box, and my passengers are my congregants. What do I need the church for?"" Roy the Cabbie & the Joy of Being Part of a Church by Michael Mckinley
Gender Blog offers the conclusion of the critique of Miller's article. "The article chooses only the scholars that serve to prove its thesis. None of the scholars whom Miller quotes are evangelical; all hold to some form of higher critical scholarship; all presume to stand "over the text" and in judgment of it and not "under the text" in submission to its authority." "The article proceeds upon an anthropological presupposition that views man as morally good, a notion decidedly out of step with Scripture." "The article displays a gross misunderstanding of the central meaning, purpose and intent of the Bible and a fundamental failure to comprehend basic Christianity... This is Sunday school 101-level knowledge. A highly trained reporter such as Miller should come to such an important cover article with at least an awareness of the way in which the overwhelming majority of Christians throughout history have interpreted the overall storyline of Scripture." "Overall, Miller's article is superficial in its understanding of the Bible and irresponsible in its method of biblical interpretation. The piece lands far wide of the mark in its comprehension of the elementary theological and ethical teachings of Christianity." Newsweek's Biblical Defense of Gay Marriage- Twisting Scripture and Logic, Part II
Gender Blog responds to Towner's commentary on 1 Timothy 2:13-14 in Commentary on the NT use of the OT. "according to Towner, the complementarian interpretation that women were prohibited from teaching and holding authority over men because of the creation order is (1) inconsistent with the biblical testimony of how women actually functioned in ministry roles and (2) stumbles over the "inescapable implication of 2:14" that women are by nature more easily deceived than men. Rather, he argues, (3) the reasons given in 2:13-15a are in response to a heretical interpretation of the Genesis account, which women in Ephesus were teaching." To point 1, this is hardly obvious. To point 2, cf. Moo: "Verse 14, in conjunction with verse 13, is intended to remind the women at Ephesus that Eve was deceived by the serpent in the Garden (Genesis 3:13) precisely in taking the initiative over the man whom God had given to be with her and to care for her." In other words, the women at Ephesus will repeat this error if they seek independence from men. To point 3, "verse 14 provides no evidence that women were teaching the heresy. Verse 14 says that Eve was deceived and, so, could be used to say that women in Ephesus were influenced by false teaching (there is evidence of this in 1 Timothy 5:11-15). But it cannot be used to prove that women were propagating false teaching." Indeed, it puts the egalitarian argument in an indefensible position. Philip Towner, 1 Timothy 2, and Women in Ministry
Here's a recommendation of Farrar's book "God Built" that comes with a grain of salt (e.g. while it seeks to beef up laymen's theology, it never culminates in the Gospel). A Review of God Built by Steve Farrar
Phillips asks, did Governor Ryan actually repent? He points out that "yes, sin is a "mistake." It is always a "mistake," because it is always the wrong thing to do. But sin is never just a mistake. "Sin," the Holy Spirit tells us through John, "is ἀνομία," it is lawlessness." When you call your sin a mistake you're asserting that you're basically a good person. You would never do something really wrong! A repentant man does not view, nor approach, nor deal with his sin that way. He deals with it as sin, something done deliberately, inexcusably, and culpably. Sins and mistakes
Here's some daily happenings, worth checking. 2008
Carson has a review of Three Views of the OT use of the NT. "Is it not the case that the more one insists that the New Testament authors' interpretive methods exactly mirror those of Second Temple Judaism, the harder it is to explain why their understanding of what Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) actually says differs so much from theirs? If one responds that this difference is entirely explained by "Christotelic" commitments that are themselves entirely independent of distinctive exegesis, then neither the Jewish nor the Christian exegesis has much to do with the determination of meaning." HTJT: Carson Reviews Three Views on the NT Use of the OT
JT: Steve Nichols offers his thoughts on what we can learn from Apostasy Literature (i.e. author recounts their recanting of Christianity). "Among the many potential teaching moments apostasy lit provides, two stand out: the warning against sternness or harshness and the warning against creating a stifling environment." Steve Nichols on What We Can Learn from Apostasy Lit
Harris offers sixteen "easy" steps to write a book. If you're so inclined, give it a read. How to write a book in 16 easy steps
For those who don't think that we should be seeking to detect and refute falsehood in the church (pejoratively called 'heresy hunting'), Jay Adams has a brief summary of dealings with error in the books of the NT. Fighting error in the church
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