Speaking with authority - ya know

Those of you building new churches should include this-a dynamic membrane

This is too kewl! People driving by would cetainly know you are there.

How about a little humility here!!!

In a letter posted at Tony Jones site a writer submits

“I compiled a list of “views” books, you know, like those Zondervan books that have four views on blah blah blah. My argument for a hermeneutic of humility would be: If there are so many views argued so well, by godly, intelligent men, who all think they have the correct interpretation, doesn’t that imply a humility of sorts? And boy, do these guys argue well for their views! How, then, can one claim so dogmatically and with such over-arching certainty, that their view is the one!”

Here’s the list of books that present the different views on various subjects:

as of 19 Jan, 2006

ZONDERVAN 

Who Runs the Church? 4 Views on Church Government

How Jewish Is Christianity? 2 Views on the Messianic Movement

Remarriage after Divorce in Today’s Church. 3 Views

Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? 4 Views

Evaluating the Church Growth Movement. 5 Views

Exploring the Worship Spectrum. 6 Views

Five Views on Apologetics.

Five Views on Law and Gospel.

Five Views on Sanctification.

Four Views on Eternal Security.

Four Views on Hell.

Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World.

Four Views on the Book of Revelation.

Show Them No Mercy. 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide

Three Views on Creation and Evolution.

Three Views on Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism.

Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond.

Three Views on the Rapture.

Two Views on Women in Ministry

Sub Total: 19 topics, 77 views (Incl. extra views by different publishers on same topics, below)

INTERVARSITY PRESS

Four Views: Psychology and Christianity

* (4V Zondervan) Two Views Of Hell

In Search Of The Soul: Four Views Of The Mind-Body Problem

Four Views: God and Time

Four Views: Meaning Of The Millennium, The

Four Views: Science and Christianity

* (3V Zondervan) Four Views: Divorce And Remarriage

* (2V Zondervan) Four Views: Women In Ministry

Four Views: Divine Foreknowledge

Sub Total: 25 topics, 101 views

KREGEL

Three Views On The Origins Of The Synoptic Gospels (Kregel)

Sub Total:  26 topics, 104 views

THOMAS NELSON

* (4V Zondervan) Four Views: Revelation

YOUTH SPECIALITIES

Four Views Of Youth Ministry And The Church

Sub Total: 27 topics, 108 views

PATERNOSTER PRESS

* (See IVP above) Four Views: Divine Foreknowledge

* (See IVP above) Four Views: God and Time

BROADMAN AND HOLMAN

* (4V Zondervan) Perspectives On Church Government: Five Views Of Church Polity

Perspectives On Spirit Baptism: Five Views

Sub Total: 28 topics, 113 views

BRAZOS PRESS

Christianity And The Postmodern Turn: Six Views

Sub Total: 29 topics, 119 views

That’s an incredible 119 views on just 29 topics! What’s a layman like me to do? Throw some dice, choose a view, and loudly proclaim it as the only interpretation, and my detractors be damned to hell?  I think you get my gist.

“Expelled” reviewed

I finally got to the film, which was only in one cinema complex in our area.

Entertaining is not the word I would use for this film, which surprised me. The very medium of film in the theatre seems to require a certain level of entertainment. The verb “to entertain” means “to get and keep one’s attention.” This would appear to be the minimum requirement for a flick, but it’s missing. The viewer has to bring a high level of interest to the film to sustain attention the entire time.

I teach college philosophy with a focus on modern movements that have dominated the academic landscape, including Freud, Darwin, Nietzche, etc. The reality is that the 20th century was a mess, and I feel queazy about relating anyone of these directly to Nazism, Stalinism, or Maoism. I don’t think that Darwin anymore allowed for the evil of eugenic experimentation of the Nazi regime than Nietszche explains Hitler. Any demagogue in any culture will find some figure to support his reign of terror.

I am much more interested in comparing philosophies in their best expressions, not in their worst misuses. For instance, when evangelicals compare their version of Christianity to Roman Catholicism, their version of RC is almost always aberrant and anecdotal. I would like to compare the two by their best expressions, say and evangelical churchman like Chuck Colson to a Neuhaus. Both visions have spawned some mutant variations that scare us all.

I think that linking Darwinism to Nazism ultimately worked to defeat the film and make it useful to the far right but not so useful to the great middle.

Yes, the point still stands that scientists who are creationists will experience opposition and injustice. I continue to wonder how much opposition and injustice. The film did not answer this.

My favorite Bible verse after a colonoscopy

1Co 12:24  “If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?”

Right now that’s a verse I can say a hearty “amen” to.

When $35 million isn’t enough

Jose Canseco told the syndicated TV show “Inside Edition” that he walked away from his $2.5 million, 7,300-square foot home in suburban Encino because it didn’t make sense to continue making payments.

“I do have a judgment on my home and it to me is very strange because it didn’t make financial sense for me to keep paying a mortgage on a home that was basically owned by someone else,” he said in an interview that aired Thursday.

“You know my life, this financial thing, is a very complicated issue. Obviously, when you make all that money, people think, ‘OK, let’s assume it is $35 million.’ People have to understand that $35 million, you’re paying the government 41 percent. That leaves you with about $17 or $18 million, not even. Then you’re taking care of your whole family.”

Taking care of your whole family with only $17 million? How can anyone make it!!! Actually, Jose, it doesn’t seem that complicated to me.

Jesus Made Me Puke

Don’t flip out yet. This refers to an article by a Don Bryant fav, Mike Taibbi, in Rolling Stone. Jared at The Gospel-Driven Church reviewed it.

Tiabbi goes undercover at Hagee’s Cornerstone Community Church, posing as a Christian to see what’s going on. His expose focuses on a weekend conference that ends up with vomiting up the evil spirit that has dominated one’s life and being filled with the Holy Spirit.

My response is that Pastors are now being watched in a way we were not before, particularly since the Jeremiah Wright episode. A lot of the things we say and do are “in house.” When the world isn’t watching and the TV cameras aren’t on, our Christianity can morph into shapes that are often unexamined and unintelligently engaged.

Another response is that some aspects of our Christianity are more “model-driven” than we realize. In other words, there is a process that is being followed that might be closer to Dr. Phil and Chopra than we thought. This doesn’t make it untrue. After all, there are bound to be counterfeits of anything that is true. But it can make it cheap and market-driven. Taibbi keeps relating what he is experiencing in the church to trends and fads outside the church. The problem is that the people in the church don’t know it.

Another observation is how oriented our models of change are to power and strength themes but not wisdom, love and service themes. Of course, the Pastor is THE model of what that change is supposed to look like. He is the AFTER picture that follows everybody else’s BEFORE picture. The AFTER picture, of course, emphasizes THE LOOK - physically, style, charisma and influence. He is what the weak and broken desire to be like. What a trap!!!! For the Pastor and the parishoners. I have seen more than one Pastor chewed up by this model and a host of parishoners who never accept their “ordinary” lives of the routines of family, work, suffering and service. I actually wonder if most of the church models we pursue are more based on what the Pastor needs to be and less on the wisdom of the “Jesus Way.”

Eugene Peterson never translates so energetically as he does on those passages that have to do with Paul’s ministry and how Paul eschewed the tools of the world.

Read the Taibbi article if you can. I am hoping Taibbi doesn’t visit Coastal Church

 

You Name It, and Exercise Helps It

It’s amazing what just some exercise will do. Click here.

What if no one were fat?

Think about it. Here is the article.

Gollum and Smeagol sing Barry White

YS Marko posted this video. Too kewl!!!