Bring on the Hired Guns

So how much should you pay your pastor?

No, really, that’s the question.

Patrick Traylor poses it in this article. Patrick is an elder to quite literally thousands at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., as well as a lawyer by profession. As an elder, the man knows megachurches. As a lawyer, he ought to know all about compensation.

But is he right about what the scripture teaches on the subject?

Don’t Check Your Privilege

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The Positives of Negatives

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Too Hot to Handle: Rule Upon Rule, Line Upon Line

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Eden and Variety

Has to be squash in here somewhere ...

We’ve been considering Eden and the lessons we learn there about who God is and how He chooses to relate to His creation. Before the Fall we have a unique view of God that is unfettered by sin and the concessions sin has made necessary. Eden shows us God moving in His creation in the way He wishes, without constraint. As such it is one of the best places to see God’s character.

We began by noting that God desires to bless His creatures. In fact, He delights to bless and it is His first and favourite work. For mankind, being blessed is also a delight. Working and being given work to do was a delight. Fellowship was a delight. The name “Eden” literally means “delight” and so it was — a delight to both God and mankind.

Something else that we pause to note about Eden; there was an astounding variety.

When Everything Crashes and Burns

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Inbox: A New Year’s Challenge to Elders Everywhere

My partner in crime Immanuel Can is, like many other masked men, currently vacationing in Parts Unknown.

But in the interest of giving you all a break from another day of … well … me, I offer IC’s rather thought provoking list from last week which may have gone unremarked in the comments section of a previous post.

I consider this not so much a general rebuke to elders as what seems to me to be a fairly useful checklist. IC and I both know elders who do the job wonderfully.

Rhetoric and Dialectic

Cry of the Prophet Jeremiah, Ilya Repin, 1870

If we were to read only the King James Version of the Bible, we might be forgiven for imagining that there is some sort of distinctive manner in which its characters converse or write on God’s behalf; some sort of major communication hurdle which either repels us or needs to be laboriously surmounted over time.

Of course a moment’s reflection would tell us this idea is nonsensical. When accurately rendered in a current iteration of English or any other language, the Bible is much easier to read and understand than is often thought. Its translators do their job more efficiently and with increasing frequency as years go by, which is very much to our benefit.

In fact, we often make understanding the Bible far more difficult for ourselves by failing to recognize in it the same features of language that we employ day after day in our own conversations.

Your Church Building is NOT the House of God

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Church Discipline and Membership

Let’s imagine a (hopefully semi-plausible) business scenario that may, if all goes well, turn into something of a parable.

We’ll say that I am a night supervisor working on a single floor of one of those corporate telephone solicitation colossi. I have under me perhaps a hundred employees coming and going on a regular basis. Some work on my floor only briefly before moving on to other departments. Others stay for years. I do not hire them, and I do not fire them. My role is simply to confirm that they have what they need to do their jobs and to work with them to make them better telephone salespeople.

Under these circumstances, I find myself writing an email to my department manager.

Thank You for the Failures

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Where “Judeo-” and “Christian” Part Ways

Apart from a saving knowledge of Christ, even the best of men quite rationally fear death.

We hear a great deal about our “Judeo-Christian heritage” in this country, as if Judaism and Christianity have so much in common that they can be lumped into a hyphenated modifier without further ado. And while Christianity has its roots in the sacred scriptures of Judaism, the specific conclusions Christianity draws from the Hebrew texts and the certainty with which it does so put it in a class all by itself.

Too Hot to Handle: Does Your Building Matter?

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Inbox: Someone Greater than Lawrence Is Here

Bernie passes on a quote from Winston Churchill about T.E. Lawrence that seems more than a little appropriate today:

“The world looks with some awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even power and fame. The world feels not without a certain apprehension, that here is someone outside its jurisdiction; someone before whom its allurements may be spread in vain; someone strangely enfranchised, untamed, untrammelled by convention, moving independent of the ordinary currents of human action.”

Merry Christmas!

Bernie
Immanuel Can
Tom

Joining the Choir

Is waving our arms absolutely necessary?

I make no claim to being world’s best listener.

When I advise someone to be patient, it’s most often because the thing they’re bothered about would not bother me in similar circumstances. So I consider that either they are worrying about something they have no control over (and therefore worrying pointlessly), or they are worrying about something over which they DO have control, but for reasons known only to themselves are unprepared to take the action required to deal with it.

Both types of unnecessary agitation are irritants to anyone of a pragmatic disposition.

Thus “be patient” from my lips often has the force of “please go away and flap your jaws elsewhere; I’m doing something more interesting”.

What does a choir have to do with patience? Give me a sec.

How Do You Love the Gospel?

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Resetting our Defaults

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Recommend-a-blog (2)

It’s only been a year and change, so I guess it’s about time I did another one of these.

Eddy Plett is a brave man. Talking candidly about mental illness (particularly one’s own struggles) is not universally greeted with enthusiasm in certain conservative evangelical circles.

Especially when you do it on the Internet.

Are We Teaching or Just Speeching?

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Too Hot to Handle: A Lack of Leadership

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Joy and Strength

The joy of the Lord is not just a fireworks display

I have on occasion been accused of pessimism. Unreasonably, I assure you.

But when, for example, I see a room full of grade school kids shouting out “The joy of the Lord is my strength,” at the prompting of a smiling Sunday School superintendent, unlike the cheery folk who enthuse over the fact that their children are (albeit unintentionally) memorizing scripture that will someday be of use to them, my first and far-too-natural instinct is to wonder if they have any idea what they’re singing and how many of them mean it.

The second and even less upbeat thing that often crosses my mind is to wonder how many of them really know the Lord, and how badly those who don’t (and even some of those who do) will seriously mess up their lives by the time they’re my age.

Bleak thoughts, no?

Rethinking the Platform

Okay, this one may be a little elaborate ...

It dawns on me that this blog is a pretty good opportunity to raise crazy notions about the church that might not get aired elsewhere.

Don’t panic, I’m not talking about heresy or even radicalism.

But beyond what the scripture itself says, in this venue we’ve never tried to promote a particular agenda or denominational affiliation. Obviously we have preferences, but we’re not trying to sell people on ‘this brand’ or ‘that brand’ of Christianity, just Christ.

In this space we are trying to talk to a broad spectrum of evangelical Christians about the faith we have in common and to examine how that faith intersects with popular culture, the 21st century mindset and the modern church, among other things.

“In case I don’t make it back …”

Heading out to the airport last Saturday, a friend stopped by my desk, put her arms around me and said, “I’d better give you a hug in case I don’t make it back.”

She said it lightly but not frivolously. We’ve both watched a number of people slip into eternity in the last 12 months: her health-conscious forty-something dentist from a sudden stroke; a small businessman I used to say hello to every week unexpectedly diagnosed with a brain tumor; a friend’s mother whose passing was medically predictable but still jarred family and friends; and a fellow employee with some kind of wasting disease that remained undiagnosed until it was too late. There are probably more; those are just the recent ones.

David’s Covenant and the Resurrection

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The Gospel in Context

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Christmas Dreams, White or Otherwise

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Too Hot to Handle: The Social Gospel and Social Justice

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Was Christ Made Sin?

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Making Straight Paths

We are coming up on a year of posting daily, so I thought it might be time to revisit our very first post ever, courtesy of the enigmatic and seldom-seen Bernie, who really started the ball rolling. — Tom

We are likely all familiar with the preparations involved for a visiting dignitary: the airport at which he will arrive is closed off to other traffic, the roads his motorcade must travel are cleared, a security perimeter is established and so forth. This has been society’s behavior for time immemorial — when someone important arrives, everything else is managed to ensure that the VIP can keep to their schedule in a way that is most comfortable and safe for them.

Do We Need Revival?

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Rabbit Language

“Hmm. How to proceed ...”

A Thanksgiving blog post (American, that is — I’m not running that far behind) has me thinking about freedom of speech, the Christian and the giving and taking of offence with respect to how we speak about those in authority.

Christians definitely disagree on this issue. I was in the U.S. last summer and heard them doing it. Naturally they were all doing it politely.

“It’s All Under Control …”

“Nothing happening here. You can move along any time now ...”

How many times have you heard that line?

If someone doesn’t come right out and say it (or something quite like it), a distraction is served up in the timeliest possible fashion. Remember Bill Clinton’s famous four-day bombing of Iraq just as the House of Representatives commenced his own impeachment hearing?

Or the problem may magically just go away, as in the disappearance from the news for the last month or so of anything whatsoever to do with the Ebola virus, when well over 1,000 Americans are now potentially infected.

Bad Ideas that Refuse to Die

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Too Hot to Handle: Evangelical Idiots and the Death of America

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Inbox: Richard Carrier’s Moral Philosophy

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Redistributionism and Jubilee

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Get a Cat, Richard

Not my cat, but close enough

I’m feeling inadequate today, for a number of reasons.

One is age. Okay, fine, relatively speaking I’m not all THAT old. Still, when you get out of bed in the morning and creak all the way to the bathroom and don’t feel like yourself until you’ve had your morning coffee (assuming you are still allowed by your doctor to drink coffee and of course always assuming that alcohol is not involved), you start to think about how much worse it may get.

Someone at the midweek prayer meeting I attend recently offered up thanks for the life of a fellow believer who just reached 110, more than twice my age. That is, to me, a daunting prospect.

The Hand of the Lord

Raphael: St Paul Before the Proconsul, 1515

I’ve been asked to open a Bible study on Acts 13:4-12 and decided to take the opportunity to share some of the thoughts that arise.

These nine verses mark the beginning of what is often called Paul’s first missionary journey, which began in Syrian Antioch. They relate the story of Elymas the magician.

It is unclear whether “magician” in this context means that Elymas gave wise counsel, knew a few parlour tricks or actually possessed genuine demonic power. The word magos, which the KJV translates “sorcerer”, is also translated “wise men” when Matthew employs it to describe those who came to worship the Lord Jesus as a baby (I suspect Matthew uses magos to mean “astronomers” or “scientists” rather than those who trafficked in witchcraft). In Acts 8, however, when used to describe Simon the magician who “amazed people with his magic”, it clearly speaks of gimmickry or something much worse.

In any case, Elymas had an encounter with the hand of the Lord that did not go as expected.

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

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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”

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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.

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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]

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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(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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