Anonymous Asks (328)

“What does it mean to be baptized for the dead?”

The so-called Latter-day Saints or Mormons practice something they call proxy baptism, literally baptism for the dead. They believe individuals who have not been water baptized cannot enter the kingdom of God — “Even Jesus Christ himself was baptized,” they say — and so, under ecclesiastical supervision, members of their church will baptize a living person on behalf of the unbaptized dead. In doing so, they believe they are putting in place a critical component of God’s salvation requirements for those who can no longer do it for themselves, but would if they could.

The authority they claim for this practice is the apostle Paul and, more importantly in their view, an alleged revelation to the “prophet” Joseph Smith.

Folly and Shame

“If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.”

Musician and producer Rick Beato demonstrated the truth of Solomon’s words in a recent video. He tracked the viewing time of critics of his theories about human creativity. On average, these viewers consumed only 3:47 of a video over nine minutes long before stopping to pound out their (often very well expressed) objections to what Rick was saying.

The problem? They hadn’t heard the last two-thirds of his case.

119: Daleth

The Hebrew letter daleth or dalet [ד] is also the word for “door”, signifying humility and receptiveness. Alefbet says dal is “the realization that as humans, we having nothing of our own, but are entirely dependent on the creator and that every breath and movement is given to us from him”.

This is certainly the attitude of the psalmist in today’s section. We find him eager to receive knowledge, understanding and practical affirmation of the truth of God in his daily walk, reflecting the underlying meaning of the letter with which each line commences.

Too Hot to Handle: He Made Them Male and Female

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

Immanuel Can: Ordinarily I let you throw out the first pitch, Tom, but let me hurl the first fastball today. The wind-up’s a bit long, but I think it’s worth it for the amount of heat we stand to generate.

Tom: Deal.

IC: Psychologist Paul Vitz (a Catholic) has a book, Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism (2013), and in it he says some very provocative things. In context, he’s been writing about how atheism and the experience of bad, abusive, weak and absentee male parenting (fatherhood) are psychologically correlated. He turns to considering the reasons why men and women tend to experience the effects of ill-fathering in a somewhat different way.

Bottom of the Ninth

I’m beginning to think the ninth commandment is more important than I ever realized.

Traditionally, it reads, “Thou shalt not bear false witness” (KJV), or more colloquially, “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.”

Well … Duh!

“Okay,” I said to myself when I first read it, “that makes sense. In court, telling a lie about someone or something can get an innocent person into serious legal trouble. And to do that would be malicious. Fair enough.”

Prophets, Preachers, Teachers

Recently, I came across an online discussion concerning the relationship between prophets, preachers and teachers, as biblically defined. By some verbal sleight of hand, one of the participants had accepted as valid the proposition that preaching is the functional heir to the prophetic gift.

The question naturally followed: since there were female prophets (prophetesses) in both Old and New Testaments, why can’t women be preachers today?

Collars and Harnesses

Our family’s Shih Tzu wore a harness 24/7 during his younger years. We had originally gone with the traditional dog collar until one sunny summer afternoon in the backyard when he blithely shucked off his cute, leather pet store circlet with a single energetic twist of his muscular little neck. He disappeared through an impossibly tiny gap between the boards of the fence faster than a speeding bullet on the heels of a terrified squirrel.

My daughter, who was probably nine at the time, wept her way through the neighborhood looking for him until some observant elderly gent pointed to her pup sitting in a nearby yard basking in his newfound freedom.

Anonymous Asks (327)

“Following up on an older post, did the Canadian government ever admit COVID vaccines have injured or killed some of its citizens?”

Not sure which older post that might be. There were a few. This one linked to a news piece confirming England has started making reparations to people injured by the vaccines and/or the families of those killed up to £120,000 per person.

Canada is definitely not doing that.

On Measuring My Spiritual Progress

Written some time back in response to a brother’s email observation that he ought to be a better person than he believes he is.

Dear Fellow Pilgrim,

Well, that’s all very dark and depressing to wake up to. To be honest, if I am thinking only about my own personal state, I might say something similar, though of course I would put it much more eloquently. J

119: Gimel

The third letter of the Hebrew alphabet is gīmel [ג], which means “all”. Gabriele Levy’s Alefbet says gīmel signifies “a dynamic balance between opposing powers … constant transformation, change and motion, and translates literally as camel, an animal we associate with motion and travel between faraway places”.

I think that image may help with these next eight verses of Psalm 119, which, as I read them, are all about sojourning, an obsession with truth and otherworldly priorities.

Too Hot to Handle: Abandoning Evangelicalism

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

Rachel Held Evans, who is post-evangelical herself, documents dissatisfaction among those she calls “defenders of the marginalized” in U.S. evangelical churches. In some quarters, it appears, the fact that so many of their fellow pew-occupiers voted for Donald Trump is not going down well.

Brandi Miller tweets, “I drafted my divorce papers with evangelicalism a long time ago. Tonight I serve them.” Glennon Melton asks, “Does a Love Warrior Go? YES. If that’s what her deepest wisdom tells her to do.”

Tom: What do you think, Immanuel Can? Imagine your fellow churchgoers voted for an immoral, bigoted incompetent with no regard for the dignity of women, as Rachel so delicately puts it. Something worth leaving your church over?

The Era of the Gentle and Reverent Lie

This morning a new video appeared on YouTube.

To my surprise, it had arch-atheist Bill Maher in admiring conversation with Dr. Jordan Peterson, the pro-Christian conservative.

This is Bill Maher, who personally coined the insult “religulous” to describe all religions. But here he was, literally stumbling over himself to give a platform to someone who claims that understanding religion, and particularly Christianity, is vital to the survival and future well being of Western culture.

Amazing.

Discount Discipleship

“You lack one thing,” said the Lord Jesus to his wannabe disciple. “Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

Oops. Remember now, Mark says Jesus loved this fellow. Whatever we might think about the effectiveness of the Lord’s method of qualifying potential followers, we would not accuse him of making it too easy on them. Sorrowful and disheartened, the man went away without accepting the offer. He had “great possessions”, and he returned to them.

Would you have taken the Lord up on that deal if it cost you your lifestyle and status for the rest of your days? I’m not sure what I would have done. I’m glad salvation wasn’t offered me with a price tag on it.

Nothing Beside Remains

Doug Wilson has a little encouragement over at his blog for Christians worried about the US election next week.

That would not be me. No fussing and fretting in this corner. I can cheer for a particular outcome I believe to be best, pray for it and even get emotionally invested in it without spiraling into depression if in the end it doesn’t go my way.

That’s either the work of the Lord in conforming me to Christ-likeness, or else years of Buffalo Sabres fandom finally paying off. Both are character transforming, though probably not quite to the same degree.

However it shakes out, we are in for interesting times as we head into the new year.

Anonymous Asks (326)

“What’s the difference between contentment and stoicism?”

I was recently thinking through how believers ought to deal with change. Denial is obviously not a Christian option, though it’s a very natural one. Intransigence is also generally unhelpful; there are situations in which no movement is good movement, but these are rare. Stoicism is a third common reaction to change, even among followers of Christ.

Oh, we wouldn’t call it that. Most of us haven’t read the stoics to know what they believed.

Wrath Revealed

Billy Graham once asked, “Is AIDS a judgment of God?” He then answered, “I could not say for sure, but I think so.” Allegedly, he later apologized and retracted the tentative connection. Big surprise. I’m sure he got major heat for that line.

The wrath of God is a concept usually identified with flood, fire, famine or pestilence on such an epic scale we may attribute them to little else. When fire falls from heaven, for example, it’s difficult to come up with a more convincing explanation than “God’s angry”, especially when a prophet calls it only seconds earlier.

119: Beth

It’s one thing to intellectually acknowledge the benefits of regular Bible reading and meditation. It’s another to actually do it day in and day out. That requires a consistent application of the will. Those who make the word of God their daily companion will reap the benefits of it. Dabblers, dilettantes and occasional readers will not.

On to section 2 of 22 in Psalm 119, where each line begins with the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which looks like this: בּ. It is pronounced “bet” rather than “beth”. Put it together with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and you get “aleph-beth”, from which we get “alphabet”.

The influence of Hebrew on the individual units of the English language is not profound, but its overall impact is considerably greater, as discussed here.

Too Hot to Handle: Getting Reoriented

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

Tertius drew my attention to this three-year-old blog post written by a self-described “twenty-something Christ follower” who says he is same-sex attracted.

That makes him a member of a small but disproportionately influential group. Infogalactic has this survey of the various attempts made to measure the demographics of sexual orientation. The numbers are all over the place, but nowhere do they exceed 5% of the population.

The Foulness is Downstream

I like to fish.

I’m very fortunate. In the town where I live, a river runs nearby. It starts above the town, and it meanders its way through, coming out at the far end and continuing for some distance. I live in the upstream end, very near the river. In a few moments I can be out fishing on any summer’s day; and the fishing is pretty good. The river’s clean, flowing and healthy.

On the Beauty of Limitations

The obsession with unlimited freedom of choice that we considered in yesterday’s post is nothing new. Mankind has always desired to dine from a menu of infinite possibilities. The apostle Peter even writes about false teachers who invaded the church of the first century, defied spiritual authority, and drew off followers after themselves. What was the attraction of such men? “They promise them freedom.”

Ooh, look, more options!