Service and Administration

Yours truly engages in administrating — not.

Thank heaven we work for someone smarter than we are.

If I wanted to cite a cautionary tale in that regard, I’d look no further than the corporation that employs me (which will remain nameless, since I am grateful for a weekly paycheque). For the last decade or so — not trying to be unkind, but merely truthful — the company has been afflicted with near-systemic administrative incompetence. Even a worker bee can see that dwindling market share, increasing debt load, layoffs by the thousands and an inability to attract investors are not positive indicators.

Co-opting Christ

Or is it “The Democratic Party is my god”?

They’re lining up to make use of the Lord Jesus Christ, it appears.

Carey Lodge at Christian Today writes about how both ends of the UK political spectrum seem determined to make the eternal God the poster boy for their social agendas.

As a Christian, if there’s anything more off-putting than the sort of cynicism that makes merchandise of or leverages political advantage from the Saviour, I’m having trouble thinking of it right now.

Too Hot to Handle: The Gospel Meeting

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The Real Evidence

What tipped the scales for you?

I’m going to single out the New Testament for a moment, not to minimize the importance of the first 39 books of the Bible, but because without its reframing and illumination of the Old Testament we could not explicitly know salvation in Christ: we could only hope and anticipate him. We could have Judaism but not Christianity, law but not grace, shadow but not substance.

Though we can find frequent glimpses of the character and work of God in its pages, of course, we could never possess the certainty and clarity that those who meditate on the final few books of holy writ enjoy today.

Bible Study 12 — Context [Part 6]

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What’s Behind Faith?

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Inbox: This Makes A Good Point

Passed on to me today by a friend:

The bit that is often forgotten: “... first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye”.

That’s miles from our society’s passive, boundless, mindless tolerance of anything and everything.

That Sinking Feeling

The most recent version of this post is available here.

How Will My Life Be Better?

From the Bible Gateway Facebook page:

“It is fair to ask the question: ‘How will my life be better if I understand the Bible better?’ ” 

Bible Gateway is a huge website with a lot of followers, so there are too many good answers to this question to read them all.

Mine is this.

Too Hot to Handle: Unsanctioned “Churches”

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Spiritual Economics

Economics is not science, but its study is most useful when it accurately maps observable human tendencies. At its core, economics is guesswork about what people tend to do in any given set of circumstances. Naturally it assumes rationality on the part of those it analyzes; a common sense that can be documented, predicted and acted upon to the benefit of the observer.

The Lord and the apostles frequently appeal to experience, observation, rationality and common sense to encourage sound judgment in the spiritual realm. Some familiar examples: “You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times”, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?” or even “... the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light”. Each appeals to things that should be obvious to all to encourage proper thinking and conduct in the believer.

Why Do Christians Disagree?

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The Laughter of Jackals

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R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The “No Harm” Argument (a.k.a. the Do-It-Yourself Millstone)

Care to try on one of these?

How on earth did I get started on this subject?

Trying to deal with arguments for the acceptance of Christian same-sex relationships — and let’s be realistic: everyone I’ve read on the subject actively promotes full LGBT “equality” in the church, not merely the homosexualist agenda — is like trying to grasp a handful of jello. The proffered reasons for acceptance constantly change shape and direction. One could be forgiven for speculating that many such positions are actually Trojan horses: they present as reasonable concessions that mask the true intentions (and possibly even the true identities) of those who advance them.

Such tactics are typical of social progressives but one might hope (perhaps foolishly) to find professing Christians agreeable to recognizing a set of common principles to be employed in debate, if not always completely transparent about the goals they have in mind for church “reform”.

Too Hot to Handle: IndoctriNation — The Christian and Education [Part 2]

A more current version of this post is available here.

Too Hot to Handle: IndoctriNation — The Christian and Education [Part 1]

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

“88% of Christian children deny their faith by graduation day.”

That’s one of the sensational claims made in IndoctriNation: Public Schools and the Decline of Christianity in America, a three year-old movie about the evils of the public school system that, I must admit, I have not seen in its entirety. This trailer was used to promote it:

The Coin That Always Comes Up Tails

Vox Day contemplates the British parliamentary vote to abandon 900 years of legal sovereignty, and why it is that culture wars are rarely won or lost in the span of a single human lifetime:

“Some think that these extended timescales prove that there is no conspiracy and ‘progress’ is a mere accident of history because no human lifespan is long enough to encompass the strategy or the consequences. The logic is correct, but then, logic also suggests an alternative, which is that there is something, or someone, that exists on a larger timescale and is capable of guiding events of these temporal proportions.

So, the question comes down to this: given what we can observe with the limited means at our disposal, which do you find more unlikely? A coin almost always flipping tails at random or some sort of unknown, long-lived being imposing its will on the coin toss?”

Should Christians Observe the Sabbath?

An electrical shabbat lamp. Should
every Christian have one of these?

From time to time this question still comes up among believers, particularly converted Jews or those accustomed to highly liturgical traditions.

Lauren F. Winner, for example, advocates a modified Sabbath observation for believers, despite evidently having read what the apostle Paul has to say about it.

Today’s post provides a useful counterbalance to that sort of thinking. RJA considers two significant aspects of Sabbath observance: its Biblical origins, and the question of whether or not the Sabbath should be observed by Christians today — Tom

The Incoherence of the Left

I’ve seen this one coming for a while, though I’m far from the only observer of modern society to note the inevitability of internecine strife within progressivism.

The social liberal is, after all, a profoundly incoherent creature in hot denial of the reality that any genuine claim to the benefits he or she seeks to extract from society can exist only on the basis of Judeo-Christian principles he or she despises.

That is to say, when you reject the existence of a creator and therefore the value of individual men and women to him, you lose your rational basis for the ever-increasing list of “rights” to which members of oppressed or marginalized groups claim to be entitled.

Why Are We So Unsatisfied?

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An Object Lesson Rejected: The Feast of Tabernacles

Illustration from Bible Pictures and
What They Teach Us, Charles Foster, 1897

The Jewish historian Josephus referred to Tabernacles, or Sukkot, as “[a] feast very much observed among us”. From the time it was first instituted at Mount Sinai, this feast has held a unique place among the festivals of Israel. The details of its observance were given by God, its future significance was expounded by the prophets, and its spiritual substance was exemplified by Jesus during his brief life on earth.

Let’s consider the origins of the Feast of Tabernacles, its role in prophecy and finally its use by Christ as an object lesson to reveal to a darkened and spiritually thirsty nation the truth about himself.

Origins of the Feast

The Feast of Tabernacles was instituted by divine command, one of three major feasts in Israel’s annual cycle which required that every male in the nation appear before the Lord in Jerusalem. The last feast in the yearly series, it was held for seven days in the seventh month, from Tishri 15 to 21. This placed Sukkot in the pleasant weather of early autumn, after the completion of the harvest. Beginning with a day of rest, it was concluded by an eighth day, also a day of rest, featuring a closing assembly accompanied by the relevant sacrifices.

The Price of Admission

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Too Hot to Handle: The Greatest Threat to Christianity

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Judgment and Discernment

“This is a Christian country. I go to a Christian church. I believe in God and the Bible, so what right have you to judge me and tell me I’m not a Christian?” 

A question like this must be handled with care. It is certainly possible to conclude from a person’s life and actions that they are not living in a Christlike way; it may be discerned and pointed out that their beliefs about salvation and the Christian life are not in harmony with what the Bible teaches. But ultimately the question of whether a person is a ‘real’ Christian or not can be answered only by God, or in the case of a genuine child of God, by the individual believer.

Those who lack saving faith may not even be fully aware of it themselves.

Inbox: Sucking the Life Out of ‘Vampire Churches’

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Promiscuous Freedom and Enslavement

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Justin Trudeau, Judgment and the Angels

Waitasec ... who will judge whom?

Justin Trudeau wants to be prime minister of Canada.

This is not news. But campaigning for the highest office in the land tends to bring greater scrutiny than teaching high school; the occasional naysayer or critic comes with the territory.

No surprise then that the office of the Public Safety Minister said Trudeau showed an “appalling lack of judgment” for visiting a Montreal mosque in September. It turns out their imam teaches that stoning women and cutting the hands off thieves is necessary for a “healthy, pure and balanced society”. The minister is concerned that Trudeau’s visit lends legitimacy to the imam’s comments. 

So okay, maybe one little lapse in judgment. Nothing to make a big deal of, right?

Houston Redux

A quick follow up to my post from a couple of weeks ago on Houston Mayor Annise Parker and the subpoenas served by the City of Houston on five area pastors. While it might be a little premature (and a little overdramatic) to use the headline “Fight For Faith”, Fox News reported that the subpoenas, previously redrafted, have now been withdrawn entirely.

With his usual subtlety, former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee had a few words to say on the subject of the issuance of the initial subpoenas:

“They shouldn’t expect the taxpayers to fund their hate-filled, Gestapo-like actions to openly attempt to shut down the free exercise of religion and their attempt to establish a religion of godless secularism.”

Faith of the Calvinists

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Inbox: The Sin of Sodom

In response to Thursday’s post on homosexuality, a reader writes:

Q: “Was [Matthew] Vines referring to Ezek. 16:49 which lists Sodom’s sin as being made up of a combination of pride, gluttony, indifference and unwillingness to share one’s bread (inhospitable?) but notably, no mention of aberrant sexual conduct? How would you answer?”

A: Well, let’s look at what Ezekiel says, for starters:

“Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.”

Too Hot to Handle: Lack of Vision

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Reorient Yourself

Orientation.

That’s the magic word, isn’t it. That’s the game changer.

We used to talk about sin. Same-sex behavior, for example, was understood to be  sinful. Those who engaged in it were choosing to sin and those who didn’t were choosing not to sin. “Orientation” didn’t enter into it.

It Ain’t All About You Either

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It Ain’t All About Me

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Inbox: Dangerously Clear-Headed

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Timing Is Everything

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Vessels of Wrath and Vessels of Mercy

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Strategic Roles in Human History and God’s Election

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Too Hot to Handle: Culture and the Gospel

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“Participation Awards” and Honour

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The Shape of Character

Shape my character? How does that work exactly?

Have you ever tried to shape your character?

It’s not something I think about doing in those words exactly. Yes, I know: everybody’s character has a shape. You develop convictions about right and wrong over time. Then you either choose to act on them or you don’t. Character results, of one sort or another. It happens to everyone, including me.

But Immanuel Can dropped this gem on me in an email exchange the other day:

“The lack of any concept of male virtues leaves many young men at sea as they try to shape their characters and grow up well.”

and I thought, “Shape their characters? Who shapes his character?”

Disturbances in the Narrative

Does Pilate’s famous question have an answer?

It was Kate McMillan at SmallDeadAnimals.com who coined the phrase “disturbance in the narrative” to refer to a news story, scientific discovery or other revelation of fact that pokes holes in the popular consensus. It’s an apt description.

There have been an excessive number of disturbances in the narrative in the last week.

The First Amendment, Harassment and Leftist Overreach

The other day, Qman brought up the ongoing news story about subpoenas served on five pastors of Houston churches for their position on … well, we’re not sure now exactly. The City is evidently fishing for something:

“The city of Houston has issued subpoenas demanding a group of pastors turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender identity or Annise Parker, the city’s first openly lesbian mayor. And those ministers who fail to comply could be held in contempt of court.”

“Homosexuality, gender identity or Annise Parker” cuts a fairly broad swath, but Fox News is already calling it a “war over religious liberty”. Five specific pastors have been named and are collectively represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a law firm that specializes in cases to do with religious liberty.

Time to Man Up

No obnoxious gym teacher in sight.
photo credit

I hate that phrase. Always have. Puts me in mind of drill sergeants or particularly dull and obnoxious gym teachers pushing you to scramble up a knotted rope in front of the whole class.

But I can’t think of a better way to say it.

Implicit in the platitude is the suggestion that the way you are behaving is unmanly, which is not a fair assumption. Possibly it also intimates that to behave like a woman is a bad thing.

Which it isn’t, of course — provided you’re actually a woman.

In yesterday’s post, I talked about the decline of masculinity among millennials (and men of previous generations), and we looked at greed and the push for universal higher education as societal causes of the epidemic of malaise on the part of males generally, and their failure to assume their God-given role in the family.

Today I’d like to look at a third contributing factor:

The Descent of Man

Modern masculinity is on its way down.

North American Christian men, it’s not your fault. I get that.

No matter how hard you work, it is extremely difficult to earn enough to be the sole financial support of a family anymore; it’s well past time we acknowledged that.

We are living in a society that has made sacred cows of greed, universal higher education and feminism. While we may not personally embrace these values, it is evident that without leaving the world entirely it is impossible to escape the inevitable and natural consequences of the priorities of business, government and the individuals among whom we live.

While the conditions in which the modern Christian man finds himself are not his fault, the choices he makes as a consequence are very much down to him.

Benefit of the Doubt

The Internet is an amazing thing. Poor Tom Brennan, pastor of Maplewood Bible Baptist Church, posts this on his Facebook page:

One drive-by commenter just can’t resist taking his best shot:

In Due Season

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Turning the Beat Around

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Burning Down the House

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(Re)Making Music

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The Meaning of Life in Three Rounds

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Too Hot to Handle: Authority and Cultural Assumptions

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Inbox: A Multiplication of Woes

Anonymous writes in response to my post on potential problems with the multi-site church model:

“I thought the definition of a church was ‘a multi-site group of local congregations all part of the Body of Christ’. But if that’s what the church is, then why would we need a flow chart in order to locate our authorities? There are elders, then there’s the Chief Shepherd: did I miss something?”

Before we get into the definition of a church, Anonymous’ reference to a “flow chart to locate our authorities” points out what may have been a lack of clarity in my graphic illustration.

Don’t Forget What You Never Knew

The most recent version of this post is available here.

A Multiplication of Woes

Need one of these to diagram your local church?

Multi-site churches. Wow.

If you want to get wrapped up in a modern church problem not contemplated by specific doctrinal teaching in the New Testament, this would surely be a prime candidate.

I didn’t even know what a “multi-site” church was until I read Jonathan Leeman’s recent blog post about the problems that tend to result from them.

Call me out of touch, but now that I think about it, I know of more than one local situation in which this sort of arrangement might appear to present a potential solution to complications resulting from sudden or unexpected church growth.

One Wild and Awful Moment

A more current version of this post is available here.

A Man Without A Clue

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Big Government, Micro-Regulation and Morality

In a 2012 article for National Review entitled “The Perversion of Rights”, Mark Steyn laments the age of micro-regulation:

“That’s the real ‘hot topic’ here — whether a majority of citizens, in America as elsewhere in the West, is willing to ‘leave it up to the government’ to make decisions on everything that matters. On the face of it, the choice between the Obama administration and the Catholic Church should not be a tough one. On the one hand, we have the plain language of the First Amendment as stated in the U.S. Constitution since 1791: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’

On the other, we have a regulation invented by executive order under the vast powers given to Kathleen Sebelius under a 2,500-page catalogue of statist enforcement passed into law by a government party that didn’t even bother to read it.”

Too Hot to Handle: Choosing a Church

The most recent version of this post is available here.

(Maybe Not So) Far Kingdom

Anyone with their eyes on eternity is usually alright by me. Like these folks:

I don’t know what the rest of their music is like, but this got to me in a big way.

“There is a far kingdom on the other side of the glass
And by a faint light we see
Still there is more gladness longing for the sight
Than to behold or be filled by anything.”

Analyzing the Narrative

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The Science Is Settled … Until It Isn’t

This little bombshell apparently necessitates reexamination of the theories of both Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. In the words of Phys.org’s Thania Benios, it “not only forces scientists to reimagine the fabric of space-time, but also rethink the origins of the universe”.

“Black holes have long captured the public imagination and been the subject of popular culture, from Star Trek to Hollywood. They are the ultimate unknown — the blackest and most dense objects in the universe that do not even let light escape. And as if they weren’t bizarre enough to begin with, now add this to the mix: they don’t exist.”

Laura Mersini-Houghton, professor of physics at University of North Carolina has done the math:

“The take home message of her work is clear: there is no such thing as a black hole.”

Next they’ll be telling us the Grand Canyon is the product of a global flood.

Christians Against Climate Change

Mick Pope is marching about climate change, not in spite of his faith, he says, but because of it. He insists that:

“… a solid theology of creation and of the resurrection means that Christians should be concerned about climate change.”

Huh. Remember the whole “What Would Jesus Do?” fad from a few years back? It became a trendy thing to have on a bumper sticker or t-shirt, sold its share of merch in Christian bookstores and has largely disappeared, I think.

So what would Jesus have said about climate change, I wonder?

A Second Babel

Can you read this? I can’t.

Sam Luce says his children’s pastor is irrelevant.

I agree, in theory. So I read his article twice.

I may as well be trying to read Mandarin.

This seems to be how it is in Christendom these days. I find it increasingly challenging to communicate meaningfully with believers outside of my own immediate circle. Despite the fact that we are, according to the words of scripture, all one in Christ, it’s almost as if we speak different languages.

It’s a challenge any serious believer and lover of the word of God needs to face.

Marketing Christ

Jeff Goins’ guest post at Beyond Evangelical asks “Should Christians Sell, Market, and Promote Products & Services?”

If you guessed he’s coming out strongly in the affirmative, congratulations. He says:

“There are basically two ways to pursue a creative calling as a Christian.

First, you can go into vocational ministry (as I did for seven years) and ask people to support you. This takes time and it may include some awkward conversations, pledge drives, or capital campaigns.

Second, you can get a job or go into business for yourself and support yourself that way. In your free time, you can volunteer your time at church, go on mission trips, and give discretionary income to ministries and causes that you believe in.”

Only two ways? Not exactly. He goes on to suggest another possibility:

“The third way is this: If you have a gift, a talent, or skill that the world needs, you can and should offer it people in exchange for money. If you have value to offer, you should let people pay you for it.”

Too Hot to Handle: The Correct Church

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Reflections on the Lord’s Prayer

A gazillion more profound things have been written about the so-called Lord’s Prayer. I’m going to shoot for a low bar here and merely try to supplement the Wikipedia entry on the subject, though I promise not to be anywhere near as lengthy.

You will remember it goes like this, though not because anyone has recited it in school recently:

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

(Matthew 6:9-13)

(I’m not, of course, suggesting that having unsaved children recite any mere religious formula daily, especially one that means nothing whatsoever to them, does much that is useful for their spiritual state. I do note that removing its recitation from the school day has not improved schools any. Of course, singing the national anthem never really made me more patriotic either.)

Abomination x 3

In case anyone doubts the relevance of the Old Testament thousands of years after it was written, The Wall Street Journal comments on the implementation of the (un)Affordable Care Act:

“… there have been so many unilateral executive waivers and delays that ObamaCare must be unrecognizable to its drafters, to the extent they ever knew what the law contained.”

as does Solomon, son of David:

“Unequal weights and unequal measures
    are both alike an abomination to the Lord.”

(Proverbs 20:10)

Hats Off to the Imam

The Portage Daily Graphic has an interesting piece on Imam Bilal Philips, accused by the Philippines of “recruiting and inciting people to commit terrorism”.

Philips runs an online Islamic university he says has 180,000 students — out of Qatar, of all places — and has been banned at various times from the U.S., the U.K., Kenya, Germany and Australia. His YouTube videos explain the penalties for homosexuality under Islamic law. Needless to say, he has generated his share of controversy.

Oh, by the way, he’s back in Canada. From a citizenship standpoint at least, he’s one of ours. Which of course is neither my call, nor is it really any of my business.

In Need of Analysis: Worship as a Lifestyle [Part 2]

A more current version of this post is available here.

In Need of Analysis: Worship as a Lifestyle [Part 1]

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Conflicts of Interest vs. the Peace Principle

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Too Hot to Handle: Blow Up the Worship Team

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Head to Head: Theism and the Skeptics [Part 2]

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The Purpose of God in My Generation

“People try to put us down just because we get around.
Things they do look awful cold. I hope I die before I get old.
Talkin’ ’bout my generation.”

— Pete Townshend, 1965

I’m dating myself with this quotation, but you don’t need to have been alive in ’65 to be familiar with The Who’s anthem. I’ve left out the awful Roger Daltrey stutter that features in seven of the song’s eight lines, but you get the drift. It’s an expression of teen alienation; a de rigueur dissing of the previous generation.

“Why don’t you all f-fade away?” Townshend asked the parents of his audience and of course, eventually, they did.

Breaking the Spirit

“No one gives up on something until it turns on them, whether or not that thing is real or unreal.”

― Thomas Ligotti

Ligotti’s statement may or may not be true, but there is something to be said for people who live consistently.

Those who have become disillusioned by Christians are among the most intensely disillusioned people I have ever met. They are the hardest to reach, the hardest to talk to about my faith, the most difficult to even know where to begin with.

How do you initiate any kind of dialogue with those who believe they have already taken the measure of your faith and found it wanting?

Head to Head: Theism and the Skeptics [Part 1]

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You Don’t Know My Father

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“It’s Not What We Came For”

The Daily Mail Online has this interesting headline:

‘I don’t want to be a jihadi ... I want to come home’: How dozens of British Muslims who went to Syria to join ISIS ‘plead to return to UK after becoming disillusioned with the conflict’

Of course, after the fashion of many news outlets, the actual story fails to provide sufficient facts to judge whether its headline is accurate or whether it is merely the fond wish of the British media. Other news stories about ISIS show at least some of its adherents demonstrating considerable enthusiasm for their cause, to say the least.

Assuming the story is accurate, this is one ISIS fighter’s reason for his disillusionment:

“We came to fight the regime and instead we are involved in gang warfare. It’s not what we came for but if we go back [to Britain] we will go to jail.”

I’ll decline to express an opinion on what the British government should do with individuals of this sort since I don’t have a dog in their fight. I’m more interested in the sort of regret they are expressing, because it seems rather insubstantial.

Too Hot to Handle: The “Divinity” of Christ

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Inbox: Agnosticism and Folly

HS has managed to find Blogger’s word limit for comments with the following reflection on my September 6 post, so I’ll post his email in full here, as I think he makes some interesting and thought-provoking points:

“It has always been my contention that Christ’s existence and the validity of his teaching (and of the bible in general) can be assigned a relatively high probability of correctness.

What You Don’t Know Can Kill You

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The Atheist’s New Clothes

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Is the Holy Spirit ‘Racist’?

Forgive the scare quotes, but they’re employed in the title with good reason, as will hopefully become clear.

We have been discussing the modern, leftist redefinition of the word ‘racism’ to include any and all generalizations about race, speaking out against sinful behaviour (or even identifying it) and even gently humorous references to obvious differences between racial groups.

This is not ‘hatred’ or ‘intolerance’, as racism has historically been defined, but an evanescent, constantly morphing definition of what is acceptable that functions largely as a means of disqualifying and marginalizing opponents of progressive social engineering.

Christianity and Racism

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Is Christianity a Religion?

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Agnosticism and Folly

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Too Hot to Handle: A Reason Outside Ourselves

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The Moment That A Human Being Encounters

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The Deadliest Attack on Happiness

Author Trent Hand lists what he believes are the deadliest attacks on happiness:

1.   Comparing yourself to others

2.   Talking about your dreams instead of going to work on them

3.   Listening to people with nothing positive to say

4.   Focusing on the news

5.   Deciding someone else needs to change

6.   Thinking “happiness” is a destination you can reach

7.   Forgetting to say “thank you”

Clearing negative influences out of our lives does have a certain utility.

You Don’t Want to be ‘That Guy’

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Big Questions and the Loss of Faith

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It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over

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The Bible Contains the Word of God

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Too Hot to Handle: Why I Don’t Share My Faith

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The ‘Moral Hazard’ of Calling ISIS a ‘Cancer’

The New York Times, or at least one Michael J. Boyle, wants us to be careful about calling wickedness wicked:

“But if the ‘war on terror’ has taught us anything, it is that such moralistic language can blind its users to consequences. Describing a group as ‘inexplicable’ and ‘nihilistic,’ as Mr. Kerry did, tends to obscure the group’s strategic aims and preclude further analysis. Resorting to ritualized rhetoric can be a very costly mistake if it leads one to misunderstand an enemy and to take actions that inadvertently help its cause.”

Mr. Boyle is correct to express reserve about Mr. Kerry’s choice of epithets: the behavior of ISIS in Iraq is far from inexplicable and quite strategic, though its consequences are horrific.

But the Times’ concern about moralistic language is misplaced.

Inbox: Qman Asks the $64,000 Question

“Very interesting and relevant blog. The question I have at this point is who actually benefits from it at this site? Is there anyone else out there? There seems to be little response as far as I can tell. I did not see a mission statement for this site and if it’s only very local, then wouldn’t a wider distribution be better for getting across insights like this?”

Ask and you shall receive ...

Science Redux

David Berlinski does what I can’t (but certainly tried to) in a Peter Robinson interview appropriately entitled Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions. He quotes from his book The Devil’s Delusion:

“In many respects, the word ‘naturalism’ comes closest to conveying what scientists regard as the spirit of science: the source of its superiority to religious thought. But what reason is there to conclude that everything is, to quote philosopher Alexander Byrne, ‘an aspect of the universe … revealed by the natural sciences’? There is no reason at all.”

He comments on the validity of certain scientists’ claim to authority:

“The comparable claim would be, ‘(a) I’m a scientist; (b) I’m an expert on contract law’. You’re an expert on contract law because you’ve studied particle physics? Give me a break. An expert on the existence of God because you’ve studied particle physics? I request the same break, the same suspension of belief, the same absence of commitment to whatever it is you’re saying.”

The Beginning of Wisdom

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