Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Witnessing to Witnesses [Part 5]

Jehovah’s Witnesses acknowledge the Bible’s inspiration and accuracy but not its testimony about the deity of Jesus Christ.

That’s both intellectually vacuous and spiritually dangerous.

You may or may not encounter JWs in your travels, but the scriptural parallels between Jesus and Jehovah are worth considering regardless. John wrote that the Father has given all judgment to the Son in order that “all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father”.

That’s the aim of this series.

Tuesday, February 09, 2016

Complements of John Piper

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Monday, February 08, 2016

Three Songs of Moses

I’m not sure I can easily picture the Moses of this 1861 Ivan Kramskoy painting “Prayer of Moses” breaking into song.

Can you?

Some Bibles, including my ESV, give Exodus 15 the title “Song of Moses”. Technically this is true, because we read that Moses and the people of Israel sang the words that follow to Jehovah after the crossing of the Red Sea and the destruction of the Egyptians. We don’t actually read that Moses was the one who wrote it, though most scholars assume it and it seems likely.

But there are three “songs” in scripture attributed to Moses, and he may well have written more.

Saturday, February 06, 2016

Orderly Meditation

Have you ever thought about why the books of our New Testament are ordered the way they are?

They’re not alphabetical, like a reference work. We can see that right away.

They’re definitely not completely chronological, like most novels or histories. Read the NT through a few times and that will certainly become evident. There is some evidence of chronology, certainly, in the sense that the four gospels come first, but Acts is a history that spans a period of decades during which most of Paul’s epistles were written. If we were able to determine precisely when each epistle was written, we might try to slot them in between chapters of Acts, but that would make for an awkward read.

Some have argued that the order is providential (in fact, in 1864, Thomas D. Bernard did that precisely), but good luck trying to make that case. You’d pretty much have to take that on faith.

Friday, February 05, 2016

Too Hot to Handle: What Is Progress?

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

Donald Trump’s popularity is hugely alarming to the political left, whose agenda is often called “progressive”.

In the last couple of years Democrats have had much of their policy wish list implemented by presidential fiat to almost no resistance from the largest Republican majority in Congress since the late 1920s. Crickets.

All this social “progress” is rendered precarious by the specter of a Trump presidency. Trump has tweeted things like, “If elected, I will undo all of Obama’s executive orders”, posing an existential threat to the dream of the “just society” that lies at the heart of progressivism. Thus Carlos Lozada of The Washington Post can argue that Trump is a throwback; that he appeals to what Lozada calls the “stone-age brain”.

Thursday, February 04, 2016

The Greatest Enemy

What is the greatest enemy of mankind?

Basil says it’s got to be corporations: “They have enormous power, and their priorities and objectives are seriously at odds with the greatest good / greatest number goal.”

Videsh says it’s greed: “So many wars were fought ’cos of greed.”

Mikael says disease, because it “destroys morale”, “does not discriminate” and “will never be stopped”.

Not a bad selection so far.

Wednesday, February 03, 2016

Witnessing to Witnesses [Part 4]

Jehovah’s Witnesses say the Bible is inspired and accurate but don’t accept its testimony about the deity of Jesus Christ.

That combination doesn’t work. It’s intellectually vacuous and spiritually dangerous.

The extent to which scripture parallels Jesus with Jehovah is a subject worth considering for all believers, whether or not you regularly encounter JWs in your travels. John wrote that the Father has given all judgment to the Son in order that “all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father”.

That’s the aim of this series.

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

Vashti as Role Model

I deal with legalese every day.

Our company has lawyers for clients, often dozens at a time. We also have templates that enable us to produce a lot of legal documentation very quickly. Sometimes the language in these templates differs from the instructions provided by our clients.

To deal with these apparent conflicts in authorial intent, the company has established a very basic principle of interpretation, and it is this: when the lawyers contradict the template, the lawyers always win. Why? Because instructions directed specifically to the current situation always trump instructions of a more general nature, which have often been written with other documents, other readers and different legal situations in view.

There is a similar principle at work in the interpretation of scripture.

Monday, February 01, 2016

One Bad Argument Deserves Another

Sometimes better to add nothing ...
The creation/evolution debate goes on, but maybe a little less publicly than before.

In my lifetime, evolution has become the preferred ideology for those seeking election to public office and the only broadly acceptable “scientific” explanation of origins. Even an increasing number of evangelicals are buying in.

As Neil Carter puts it, “Scientists are no longer debating the topic of common ancestry nor the age of the earth. That ship sailed a long time ago”.

Which is too bad, really. Truth does not cease to be truth because people have stopped discussing it and, for the most part, abandoned the search for it.

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Earthly and Heavenly

Asked what three things they would take to heaven if they could, respondents demonstrate impoverished imaginations:

“My crucifix, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue album and a photo of my best friend who died last year”

“My PS3, cell phone, picture of my family”

“My iTouch, my electric guitar and my copy of Pilgrim’s Progress printed in the 1800s”

The most common choices are computers and game systems. A few pets work their way in as apparent afterthoughts.

Saturday, January 30, 2016

None Of This Needs To Be Permanent

A lot of people have spent an inordinate amount of time doing some really neat calculations with the ages of the ancients given to us in Genesis 11 and elsewhere. These numbers have been used to estimate the age of the earth, to speculate about the synchronization of human history to a 50 year Jubilee cycle, and so on.

Despite the fact that we don’t know anyone in our day who has lived to 600 (or especially to 969, like Methuselah), I take these rather strange accounts quite literally. If you don’t, and you can find another logically consistent explanation for the existence of such a careful and apparently historical record, good for you: I’m not looking for a debate about it.

I find it interesting to read and meditate on such things, though I don’t go to the lengths some do in analyzing them.

Friday, January 29, 2016

Too Hot to Handle: Where Do You Get Your News?

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Quote of the Day (16)

This entire G.K. Chesterton essay is worthy of consideration, but my favourite bit is this splendid, gleeful demolition of the anti-Christian argument from Incarnation mythology:

“Mr. Blatchford and his school point out that there are many myths parallel to the Christian story; that there were Pagan Christs, and Red Indian Incarnations, and Patagonian Crucifixions, for all I know or care. But does not Mr. Blatchford see the other side of this fact? If the Christian God really made the human race, would not the human race tend to rumours and perversions of the Christian God? If the center of our life is a certain fact, would not people far from the center have a muddled version of that fact? If we are so made that a Son of God must deliver us, is it odd that Patagonians should dream of a Son of God?”

Chesterton goes on to break that down further ...

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Witnessing to Witnesses [Part 3]

Jehovah’s Witnesses profess to believe the Bible is the inspired and accurate word of God but reject its consistent testimony to the deity of Christ.

That combination doesn’t work. It’s intellectually vacuous and spiritually dangerous.

You may not regularly engage with JWs, but the extent to which scripture parallels Jesus with Jehovah (or YHWH, or in most Bibles, “the Lord”) is still a subject very much worthy of consideration. John wrote that the Father has given all judgment to the Son in order that “all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father”.

That’s the aim of this series.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Why Not Now?

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Monday, January 25, 2016

Quote of the Day (15)

Sometimes you get the neatest quotes from the fertile minds of the writers of crime fiction:

“It’s pretty arrogant, calling all other gods, apart from the one you’ve come up with, idols. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Every dictator’s command to his subjects, of course. The funny thing was that Christians couldn’t see it themselves, they didn’t see the mechanism, the regenerative, self-fulfilling, self-aggrandising aspect which meant that a superstition like this could survive for two thousand years, and in which the key — salvation — was restricted to those who were fortunate enough to have been born in a space of time which was a merest blink in the eye of human history, and who also happened to live on the only little bit of the planet that ever got to hear the commandment and were able to formulate an opinion about the concise sales pitch (‘paradise?’).”
— Jo Nesbo, Midnight Sun

Nesbo’s character is wrong about two huge truths here, and both are worth thinking about.

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Always Misunderstood

ViralCraze’s “10 Bible Verses That Are Always Misunderstood” explains the parable of the Good Samaritan ... by not really explaining it:

“Jesus asked the question, ‘Who is your neighbor?’ The simple answer is the one who you choose to show mercy to.”

This is the generally accepted response, and it’s not entirely wrong. Still, a careful reading of the passage shows it is not quite what the Lord Jesus said.

In fact, the parable is not about identifying our neighbor at all.

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Horrific Hymnology

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Friday, January 22, 2016

Too Hot to Handle: Objectively Bad

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Thursday, January 21, 2016

More Where That Comes From

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Witnessing to Witnesses [Part 2]

Jehovah’s Witnesses reject the deity of Christ but profess to believe the Bible is the inspired and accurate word of God.

With respect to salvation such theology puts its adherents in danger of eternal separation from God. With respect to the understanding of scripture the position is simply nonsensical, failing to account for and deal with dozens of different ways in which the writers of holy writ specifically equate Jesus with the “Jehovah” the Witnesses claim to worship and call “Father”.

John wrote that the Father has given all judgment to the Son in order that “all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father”.

That’s the aim of this series.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Some Things Shouldn’t Need Specifying

Elsewhere, LLC comments:

“At our last business meeting (December), our pastor and the deacons proposed an addition to our statement of faith, affirming that marriage is between a man and a woman. The older members of our church were surprised on the grounds of “We thought it was already in there.” The pastor, the deacons, and the secretary had gone back through thirty years of church records and couldn’t find it anywhere ... so the change was made.

I suspect we’re in the minority of churches.”

I suspect LLC is correct.

Monday, January 18, 2016

Under the Shadow

People do things. Things good or bad, generous or selfish, trustworthy or manipulative, wise or horrendously ill-considered.

Paul tells the Corinthian church that the people of Israel were examples. The things that they did in the desert on the way to Canaan and the things that happened to them as a consequence of their behaviour were written down to instruct us, “on whom the end of the ages has come”.

It seems reasonable to assume this is true of most of Bible history: it happened, not randomly but with divine purpose. And we can benefit from observing the mistakes and successes of those who lived thousands of years before us, avoiding the former and pursuing the latter.

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Tolerating Evil: Moral Relativism and the Slippery Pole to Hell

The most current version of this post is available here.

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Unpacking Conspiracy Theories

The internet has given us unprecedented access to English language commentary from all over the world and has preserved it for us conveniently accessible for an indefinite period. Why not take advantage?

Back in October, the Hungarian Spectrum attempted to unpack the refugee crisis in Europe:

“Hungarian public officials quite openly expressed their doubts that such an unexpected migration of so many people could happen without some central direction.”

There are plausible conspiracy theories. Then there are those that are moonbat crazy.

Friday, January 15, 2016

Too Hot to Handle: Blow Up the Worship Team

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

Nate at PracticalWorship has decided to “terminate the Worship Team”. I believe he used the words “blowing up”, in fact.

I got all excited. This is radical Christianity, folks!

But to my personal disappointment, Nate doesn’t actually mean it. By “blow up the Worship Team”, he actually means “change its name to ‘the MilePost13 Band’ ”. He lists two reasons for the change: first, that an actual name gives the band a sense of identity, pride and ownership and makes them feel like professionals.

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Posing on the Precipice

At age 69, when you put on a bodystocking for a music video, you may be trying to communicate all sorts of things.

You may be saying, “I’m in really good shape for my age”.

You may be taking a political position: “Every age is as valid and important as every other, and therefore the fact that I look ridiculous in this thing should not be noted. I am making a social comment about ageism”.

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Witnessing to Witnesses [Part 1]

They are door-knockers extraordinaire, trudging suburban streets in pairs, looking for converts. That’s a lot of legwork, and I give them credit for persistence in an age when such commitment is rare.

They are Jehovah’s Witnesses, or “JWs”. Maybe you’ve picked up their flagship Watchtower magazine in a laundromat or seen them flogging books on a street corner in your downtown core. Often they are mistakenly referred to as a Christian denomination, though they are anything but.

After all, when you deny the deity of Christ, his physical resurrection and salvation by grace, you can’t really be said to be Christian, can you?

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Moving the Goalposts

I was speaking with a Christian father a while back whose teenage son had criticized others for using racist language. But when his father asked him to explain exactly what he meant by ‘racist’, his certainty began to evaporate. The closest he could come to any sort of definition was that racism has to do with mentioning somebody’s race, and maybe being critical of them. Beyond that, it seemed like he was simply parroting what had been drilled into him at school.

But really, what is racism? Does anyone know anymore?

Monday, January 11, 2016

A Thought Experiment

The famous wording originated with Thomas Jefferson and survived three full rounds of edits: one from Julian Boyd, a second from the Committee of Five and a third from Congress. The final version reads:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Let’s talk about the pursuit of happiness.

It ain’t scripture, folks, but enough people can relate to the concept that a nation built around it (and the other “truths”) has survived 240 years. And people continue to find the notion appealing today.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

The Big Gamble

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Saturday, January 09, 2016

What Should We Think About Death?

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Friday, January 08, 2016

Too Hot to Handle: Star Wars and the Masculinity Crisis

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

I happened across this column by Mark Judge today in Acculturated, Immanuel Can, and I recognized a favourite hobby horse of yours in the subject of masculinity. So I thought why not exploit the current heat around the new Star Wars movie (which I have not seen, by the way) and discuss this a bit, since even secular writers are now drawing attention to the problem.

Tom: Have you seen the movie, by the way?

Immanuel Can: Nope. But I do like the subject of the article.

Thursday, January 07, 2016

It’s Alive!

Sometimes you can learn as much by the way something is said as you can from the content of the message itself.

The incidental assumptions upon which the teaching of the apostles is based are often as fascinating and revealing as the assertions of truth themselves. Their absolute conviction with respect to the source, nature, reliability and accuracy of the word of God is the bedrock upon which every Christian doctrine rests.

Wednesday, January 06, 2016

I Almost Wish You’d Stop Posting Altogether

Complaints, complaints. You always get them, don’t you.

These are not complaints about Coming Untrue, I hasten to add (though we may be overdue for a few). No, I plucked them from the comments section of another evangelical blog where they were presumably destined to disappear quietly into the ether. The writer of the piece being critiqued prudently elected not to respond to his critic in kind.

But such sentiments are the sort of thing generally expressed by self-designated representatives of the status quo whenever anyone proposes a change to, well … anything at all.

Tuesday, January 05, 2016

Recommend-a-blog (16)

“Inviting Jesus to come into your life in the past is not proof that you are genuinely saved.”
— John MacArthur

The idea of inviting Jesus into my life or heart is not to be seen anywhere in scripture, and yet it is found everywhere in Christendom. I’ve been hearing it since childhood. The concept is easily caricatured and rarely defended, but still it persists.

Monday, January 04, 2016

Mr. MacArthur, Please Find a Different Verse

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Sunday, January 03, 2016

Worth Waiting For

“Time preference” is an economic term that expresses the relative value of having something now as opposed to having that same thing later.

People with high time preferences focus primarily on their well-being in the present and in the immediate future. They choose now over later more often than average.

People with low time preferences, on the other hand, look further down the road. They most often choose later over now.

Saturday, January 02, 2016

Quote of the Day (14)

Today I find myself praying for a loved one going through tough times. That’s not unusual.

But somewhere in the middle of my prayer it becomes apparent to me that what I’m most concerned with alleviating is not really the specific problem she encountered today or even her feelings about it: these are only drops in a near-endless and apparently all-but-unsolvable stream of ongoing calamities. Primarily I am troubled by the level of stress her problems are currently causing ... me.

I mean, feeling sick with anxiety is really putting a damper on my day, folks!

Friday, January 01, 2016

No Passage Back

Frozen New Year’s Day morning and I’m on my way to work with a line from an old Eagles song running through my head:

“I had to find the passage back to the place I was before …”

Except there is no passage back to the place we were before, is there.

Time is unidirectional and it seems to move faster as we age. The speed is probably a conceit of advancing years, but it certainly feels like a truism.

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Be Careful What You Outgrow

John Pavlovitz has decided he’s outgrown American Christianity.

I am not losing my mind.
I’m not losing my faith.
I’m not failing or falling or backsliding.
I have simply outgrown American Christianity.

Okay. Well then.

To a certain extent I can sympathize with the sentiment, though perhaps the word “outgrown” might not be the one I’d reach for first.

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

With Best Intentions

Sinners crave validation.

When our consciences trouble us, a common first instinct is to seek out sympathetic ears.

For all but the most morally callused that is usually ineffective: most of us can detect when we are being indulged or patronized; when the person listening isn’t buying our sob story but is too intimidated (or uninterested) to fight about it; when their own judgment is suspect or their own character compromised. The sort of comfort such a person gives is wholly inadequate. The alarm bell of conscience just keeps on ringing.

So it becomes necessary to seek validation from those we know to be opposed to our behaviour. If we can convince them, the logic goes, surely we can quiet the voices in our heads.

If only it were that easy.

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Zombie Church

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Not Her Voice

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Nationhood and Angelic Representation

 The most recent version of this post is available here.

Saturday, December 26, 2015

Too Clever For Their Own Good

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Friday, December 25, 2015

To One and All, A Mary Christmas

The latest version of this post is available here.

Thursday, December 24, 2015

My First and Last Christmas Play

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

The Danger of Ordinary

Do you ever find yourself doing essentially the same thing day after day, year after year, and wondering if this is all there is to the Christian life? Sure, you pray, you read your Bible, you spend time with other believers and with the Lord. Most of us look for and find a way to serve God at various times in our lives and plug away at it, sometimes for years. There are precious, encouraging and sometimes exciting moments; there are answers to prayer and things for which we may be very grateful indeed.

But the rest of it? We have to admit it’s usually pretty ordinary.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Throwing Money

My brother once commented (rather perceptively) that I try to solve every problem I encounter by throwing money at it.

He was not wrong. And I’m not the only one.

An elder at one of the local churches in my neighbourhood invited me over for dinner a few weeks ago, and we spent a very enjoyable evening together discussing nearly everything under the sun. One of the subjects he brought up was the regular compensation of pastors.

To his satisfaction, I did the expected double-take.

Monday, December 21, 2015

The Cost of Doing Business

Aids to a very effective
ancient form of censorship.
Internet censorship is coming, and it’s coming fast. Thanks, Mark Zuckerberg.

Numerous media sources reported last week that Facebook, Twitter and Google have all agreed to cooperate with the German government in removing hate speech from the internet. Special teams in each company will determine whether content violates German laws and remove it within 24 hours.

Under German law, “hate speech” is speech that “incites or instigates harmful action”. So a mechanism is now in place where quite literally anything may be censored provided it can be said to potentially cause “harm”, as defined by German lawmakers.

Today, that means anti-immigration sentiment. Tomorrow, it could mean anything perceived as homophobic, misogynist or religious. Effectively for Germans it means an end to whatever level of free speech they may have previously enjoyed.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

The Evil Nature of God

What’s the argument inside the argument?
Over at the Friendly Atheist, Michael Runyan, a former Catholic and retired risk analyst lists 40 problems he sees with Christianity, one of which he calls the “evil nature of God”.*

After doing a little Old Testament math with rather broad strokes, he says this:

“The case can be made that God killed or authorized the killings of up to 25,000,000 people. This is the God that Jesus looked up to and of whom he was allegedly an integral part. That is to say: Jesus himself was an accessory to these massacres. Therefore, Christianity cannot extract itself from these atrocities; it must own them and admit that their God is in fact a serial, genocidal, infanticidal, filicidal, and pestilential murderer.”

Hmm. Let’s think about that a little.

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Deconstructing the Narrative

Do you ever find yourself telling God stories? I do.

“Lord, you know I did my best, but ...”

Uh, no. Cease narration. Start deconstructing.

Too many words for one thing, all of them unnecessary. It’s one of those “empty phrases” Matthew talks about. The Lord knows whether I did my best or not. Chances are I didn’t. Maybe it was a 50% effort, maybe it was 80 or 95, but there’s always more I could have done. Because he would do more. He did more.

In any case it’s unnecessary. What I’m really doing is writing a sales pitch for the only Person in the universe who already knows the whole truth of the matter. I often don’t.

Friday, December 18, 2015

Too Hot to Handle: The Dwarves are for the Dwarves

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Thursday, December 17, 2015

The Greater Sin

Let’s take it as read that all sins are bad by definition. Offensive to God. Destructive to human will, life, character, testimony and interaction. They contaminate the present, give the lie to the past and, even when repented of, may negatively impact the future.

(When considered against the backdrop of the cross of Jesus Christ they’re actually worse than that, but this is intended to be more practical than theological.)

The thing is, not all sins are equally bad.

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Quote of the Day (13)

This is so choice that it would be a crime to let it languish in the comments on an older post where few of our readers are likely to notice it.

Immanuel Can writes:

“If you think about it, you’ll recognize what so many of the prophets, from Job to Isaiah to Habakkuk all found: that in this world there’s no straight line between doing the right thing or making the right choice and getting a guaranteed right outcome. The just suffer and the wicked prosper, in many cases.”

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Happy (Late) Anniversary to Us

Oops. December 11 has come and gone. Totally escaped me.

I vaguely remember our first post was in the month of December two years ago, but the specific date has never really stuck in my mind. Were I better organized we might have done something more memorable to mark the occasion.

Still, I wouldn’t want to let the date pass without taking the opportunity to say thanks to our readers.

Monday, December 14, 2015

You Are Being Manipulated

Mass immigration might be the single most important political issue being discussed in North America at the moment.

Perhaps you are among the small minority of people who have never given much thought to the question of what sort of people — and how many — ought to be allowed to acquire citizenship in your home country. If so, this will probably not interest you much.

But if, like many, you have very definite answers to those questions in mind, and especially if you are one of a growing number of Christians with the inclination to publicly share your thoughts on the issue, I have a gentle suggestion for you:

Stop and think first. There is a very good chance you are being manipulated.

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Inbox: Down the Memory Hole?

Tertius writes:

Your chat with IC made me think of ‘I will remember their sins and lawless deeds no more.’ ”

Quite so. IC talked a little about the potential dangers of making dogmatic theological statements on the basis of figurative language, or what are sometimes called biblical “anthropomorphisms”. He points out that the writers of scripture use:

“… human-style metaphors, like the hand of God’, because we know what ‘hands’ are ... not because God the Father has a physical body like ours.”

“I will remember” is another of these human-style metaphors.

Saturday, December 12, 2015

Just Do It

Everybody knows it. It’s been Nike’s slogan since 1988. It resonates, and that’s why it’s lasted this long. ‘God helps those who help themselves’, people are fond of saying.

Redneck translation: Git ’er done.

But generally speaking, when God sets out to accomplish something significant, he does not “just do it”.

He could, of course. After all, when God created our universe, he did not call upon angelic consultants. He sought nobody’s buy-in. He simply spoke it all into being. He had no need of a second opinion. He never does.

Friday, December 11, 2015

Too Hot to Handle: Open Just A Bit Too Far

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Trinity Matters

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Wednesday, December 09, 2015

Keeping It In Proportion

The late Richard Feynman was known for his theoretical work in quantum electrodynamics and particle physics. For a scientist, Feynman had an uncharacteristically folksy way of presenting the rationale for his atheistic worldview:

“I can’t believe the special stories that have been made up about our relationship to the universe at large because they seem to be too local, too provincial.

The earth. He came to the earth. One of the aspects of God came to the earth, mind you! And look at what’s out there. It isn’t ... in proportion.”

But the celebrated physicist and reputed genius is far from the first intelligent person to address the pressing issue of disproportionality in the universe.

Tuesday, December 08, 2015

Heartless

More women are abandoning their children (and their families generally) than ever before. CNN reports it. The Huffington Post, in a piece too appalling to link to, actually defends it. Indiana has decided to enable it, becoming the first state to install “baby boxes” at hospitals, police stations and fire stations as an easy and anonymous way for parents to give up their infants.

Some would say men have always been quick to stampede for the exits when things get tough, but an epidemic of wives and mothers doing likewise is a comparatively new phenomenon. It may be the straw that breaks Western society’s back.

What we might call natural affection is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. The world around us is increasingly heartless.

Monday, December 07, 2015

Close Encounters of the Philosophical Kind

Eric English is emerging. We’re not altogether sure what he’s emerging into, and it actually seems to be kind of intangible. I’m trying to grab onto it, and it’s floating away even as I type. Its essence is something like this:

“The WORD OF GOD is a moment that a human being encounters.”

I hope I’m not misrepresenting Mr. English’s position. He starts from the claim that the Bible is not the word of God, and that to assert that the Bible is God’s word is to diminish what it means to possess the ‘word of God’.

Sunday, December 06, 2015

Who Is Being Tested Here?

Carol Delaney, an anthropologist at Stanford who doesn’t believe in God, is trying to analyze the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac.

How might such an endeavour go wrong? Let me count the ways ...

A Prior Note About Motivation

When digging up Delaney’s paper I could not help but notice that nearly everyone else who has published something on this subject starts with the question “Why did God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son?” With all respect, that’s grabbing the wrong end of the stick. Or really, asking the unanswerable.

Saturday, December 05, 2015

Below the Surface

A few thoughts for our Christian readers that I’ve condensed (and hopefully not distorted too badly) from R’B’s excellent series on interpreting scripture via the Jewish perspective. The original posts may be found here, here, here and here.

Orthodox Judaism seeks to understand the first five books of our Old Testament (for them, the Torah) on four levels. These principles may also be applied to the rest of the scriptures.

Having read about schools of thought like Kabbalah, which originated in Judaism, I feared rabbinical exegesis might be a bit wacky and mystical. For the most part that does not appear to be the case.

Thursday, December 03, 2015

Is Your Faith Boring You?

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Wednesday, December 02, 2015

Doing It My Way

“For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way.”
— Paul Anka

Individualism is the spirit of this present age. And actually, that is not an unmitigated evil.

I used to think it was. When I was young Christian and more inclined to overreact, I found Anka’s lyrics, popularized by Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, more than a little cringe-worthy. I can’t take credit for the impulse since it almost surely came by osmosis from a church environment that tended to read the worst possible motives into every pronouncement of popular culture. Looking back on it, it seems to me the reaction of older Christians to the observations of the pop philosophers of my teen years was generally spot-on, if ever-so-slightly paranoid at times.

But not always.

Tuesday, December 01, 2015

It Makes A Good Headline, But ...

... that doesn’t make it true.

In a post entitled There Was Room at the Inn, Rachel Held Evans is off and running again, this time about Syrian refugees and how their situation is morally equivalent to that of Mary and Joseph long ago in Bethlehem when a child was born who would change the world forever.

For Evans, saying no to having Syrians resettled in your neighbourhood is like turning away the Lord Jesus.

Could we have another spoonful of cheesy rhetoric, please?

Monday, November 30, 2015

Revisiting Lot’s Wife

The most recent version of this post is available here.