Wednesday, August 31, 2005

I'll interrupt my research (hah)
to interject this comment, in the form of a question. How much revenue loss do local charities suffer when a big disaster occurs? There has to be some (probably significant) funneling away from local charities when a major city is destroyed, eh? So, do you feel that you should think twice before you send your relief check? Maybe you should be the one to remember the locals who need a constant inflow of cash regardless what is happening around the globe.

On a somewhat related note, the AFLAC insurance corp. recently offered the following donation to New Orleans. They are giving a 90 day grace period on insurance premiums to N.O. residents. That causes me to wonder how many N.O. residents even have health insurance.

Back to work.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

I am heading
back to school. Eight months off is a long time. The old joke about taking 5 years to thaw out after graduating from a Reformed Seminary is as far off base as ever. I need to hurry back in there before I fall away into permanent perdition.

The class I am about to take is called 'Ministry of the Word'. It is a prereq. class for the entire preaching sequence. So it is mandatory if I ever hope to finish up the M.Div.

If you like you can take a look at the books I will be reading for this class:

Augustine, On Christian Teaching
Richard Baxter, Reformed Pastor
Charles Bridges, Christian Ministry (One of the top 602,176 Amazon sellers!)
Edmund Clowney, Called to the Ministry
Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible
Samuel Logan, The Preacher and Preaching
Hughes Old, Guide to the Reformed Tradition
William Perkins, The Art of Prophesying

If and when I latch onto some eye-opening stuff in this class, I assure you, my readers, that you will be the first to know the scoop.

Monday, August 29, 2005

Starting soon, probably
before the week is out, I am going to launch a series on sanctification. It will, I reckon, consist of one post per week. Each entry will cover one of the primary views on sanctification. In order for this effort to not be too much of a burden to myself, I will format the content in a bulletized fashion with the addition of a key quote, a key verse, and a comment by myself. With each entry, I will withhold the source (denomination, sect or label) of the view I am presenting. The purpose for this approach is for your benefit. You will be prevented from bringing your own biases that get triggered by labels when reading the material. Obviously, you can defeat this if you already know these positions.

The reason I am embarking on this research is, in the first place, for my own edification. Of late, I have been the recipient of much preaching which has had the effect of beating me up spiritually. For weeks on end,I have been told, in so many words, that I am not good enough. I am not mature enough. I am not disciplined enough. That my Christianity is a routine designed just to make me feel good about myself. That I am more like a Pharisee than a Christ follower. That my prayer of confession is a ruse on my part that I employ merely to clear the path for my next bout of selfish sinning.

I need a quick pick-me-up. I would rather be told that I am holy, quite frankly. I had been led to believe that the Bible tells me that very thing. Or does it? Hence my quest.

The second reason for this post is that I believe an overview of this topic could stimulate Biblical thinking on your part, always a good thing. I have the sneaking suspicion that a large part of the modern evangelical church is drifting away from doctrinal issues such as this. Even though this may not be true in the case of any of the readers of this blog, I want to counter this tendency.

Naturally, I have sources for this research. I will also withhold these sources until the end. (Don't want you reading ahead).

Sunday, August 28, 2005

As I sat on my front porch
this evening, watching the golden orb turn black while the lights in the valley below me started to flicker, I reflected on my name. My initials, actually. For that matter, my sister's also, before she got married. My parents must have had a devious streak. I am actually Robert Bruce Settergren. My sister used to be Barbara Jean Settergren. Now if my parents had gone with Robert Settergren (me) and Jean Settergren (my sister) this BS stuff could have been avoided. But no. (My sister wisely dumped that Fernando Sousa guy -ninth grade, Mayfield Chr. School? or was it 10th grade GR Central Chr. High- and thus avoided a life of BS).

The sad part of the whole thing is, due to my religious upbringing, using the term that my initials represent has been off limits. (Except for a moment of weakness when my friend Dave baited me into a loud outburst when he incorrectly characterized us Presbyterian types as religiously cold and with out any of the Holy Spirit's warmth. At least I showed him that us Reformed folk could cuss when suitably provoked!)

So now what? Well, I have been on a mission, albeit not one that any sort of Christian would approve of, such as one that would bring relief to a sick and dying world. No. The mission I decided to accept was to find a suitable replacement for the BS term.

My folks have no quarrel with the term 'drivel' or 'nonsense' or 'mularkey' or 'hogwash' or many others. The problem is that, while all these terms sort of get the idea across, they lack something. And I am not sure what it is that they lack. Its not a matter of degree, for if it were, I could just say "That's extreme hogwash", or "That's complete drivel".

It's more a matter of quality. Or a matter of impact. Even though the term I am seeking to replace is used a lot, it is never overused. It has all the necessary ingredients to get the hearer to realize that what has been said or done is not just stupid or false but also morally indefensible, even reprehensible.

Then I got the bright idea to consult a thesaurus. With that discovery, I thought I may have attained unto BS heaven. Try these: bunk, claptrap, fiddlesticks, folly, foolishness, fudge, humbug, humbuggery, piffle, rot, senselessness, silliness, slush, stupidity, trash, absurdity, asininity, fatuity, foolery, idiocy, imbecility, inanity, insanity, lunacy, absurdness, craziness, madness, witlessness, tomfoolery, gas, hot air, moonshine, rigmarole, twaddle, double-talk.

So, from these I kinda' like piffle, fatuity and twaddle. But I am open.

And you get to discern what part of my blog is full of twaddle.

Friday, August 26, 2005

If you go
to this website, you will see what must be thousands of photos of little Erika Settergren. Well, I am here to tell 'ya that Erika is scheduled to get photographic disk space competition from a sister or brother on or about April 18, 2006. Congratulations Anthony and Andrea!!!

Thursday, August 25, 2005


Sorry if this upsets you,
but there has been a focus of late (especially at my sister's blog where she chronicled her trip to Egypt and Ephesus, check it out here) about a burden for the poor. Well, this is poor.

I am asking for for readers to caption this photo with a Bible verse. I'll start with Heb. 2:6-8 which reads: It has been testified somewhere, "What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet." Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.

Note:You pretty much have to read the whole of Heb. 2 to get enough context to figure out who the 'hims' refer to in this passage. Typically, the "son of man" is Jesus but likely not in this case. Given then that the 'him' refers to mankind, what gives with mindfulness, care and glory in juxtapostion with this photo? More hard to swallow is the clear statement by the apostle that, in spite of having sufficient control to have rectified the conditions depicted in this photo, "we do not see everything in subjection to him".

Take time to reflect on what you see here and what you see in scripture that addresses it.

You can read about this photo and the fate of the photographer who took it here.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

We
(the evangelical west) are living out the chaos initiated by the Reformation. Pat R. with his loose cannon underscores the worst case scenarios initiated by the exodus from Rome in the 16th century. There is no centralization of church/religion in the Protestant world. Consequently, when P.R. apologizes for being an idiot, he apologizes to no one in particular and is accountable for it to no one either.

Don't think that his crime and its irrevocable damage is an isolated case. From Benny Hinn's wife recommending a "holy ghost enema right up your . . . " to carpet time in Toronto to T.D. Jakes Arianism to K. Copeland's "You don't have a god in you, you are one. Pray to yourself because I'm in your self and you're in My self. We are one Spirit, saith the Lord." and on goes the list. (BTW, millionaires, all of them. I want Tetzel back).

But Jesus did say he would build his church. Maybe he is doing the building in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

We interrupt our
regularly scheduled blogcasting to make the following public service announcement: Pat Robertson has lost his mind.

Monday, August 22, 2005

Christian knick-knacks
may not be big business, but Christian bookstores gotta' sell something. The books you find there are not worth much. Wait a minute - the knick-knacks are not worth much either. Like the little plaques with "For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. "

It's the protestant version of a St. Christopher statue on your dashboard. The problem is they don't work. Why not?

Maybe the St. Christopher statues don't work because they are made of plastic. I'm not sure. But the 'promise box' application of verses like Jeremiah 29:11 doesn't work because of improper warrant for using them as promise box verses.

Huh?

A quick look at how to read the prophets:

1) The prophets, Jeremiah included, served up reminders to the people of Israel of the covenant they were in with God. They re-inforced the punishments for covenant breaches, and the blessings for covenant compliance.

2) These P&B were addressed to the nation of Israel, not to individuals in that nation. This is key.

So, cut it out. Sell your plaques on eBay.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

I'm a regular
party animal. Two nights in a row, now, I have been socializing. My anti-social tendencies are breaking down. Our next door neighbor (across the street actually) invited Deb and I over for "coffee". Turned into a three hour snack feast of cheeses, salami, crackers, fruit, cheese cake, ice cream and, finally, coffee. I forced myself to sit there and be a normal person. This is what people do, I told myself. Being a neighbor is half the law. Neither half of which do I do well at all. But I was there with a nice smile on my mug.

Friday, August 19, 2005

Had some friends
over tonight to watch the big screen. So, I wasn't able to get to the computer. There are still 35 minutes left in my big sister's birthday. Happy birthday B.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

There was a scene
in a Woody Allen movie where Woody attempts a jail break by using a gun that was carved out of a bar of soap (which I guess he dyed black with shoe polish or something). Things were going along smoothely until it started raining. Then the bubbles gave him away. (First caller to name the movie wins a signed print of any photo seen on this blog so far).

I had an experience a while back that reminded me of that scene. I had gotten into a discussion with a young friend from work about some Biblical topic. This friend is extremely bright and I have talked with him about "religious" topics before. He is a member of an Episcopal Church here in town and he has betrayed his position as a liberal WRT to scripture more than once. On this occasion, the discussion devolved into a lecture where I was informed that, among other things, Paul didn't write anywhere near half of the epistles attributed to him, the dates of the epistles are actually 200 years later than most think, all of the content of those epistles is no longer pertinent to 21st century life, that the Bible transmission over time has corrupted the text to a point where . . . ( I could keep going but "yada yada yada" works just as well).

It was all very intimidating. I had taken some fairly robust classes at seminary that addressed many of these outlandish claims. In spite of that, however, I was unable to utter a single thing in defense of orthodoxy. So, with my tail stuffed between my legs, and feeling like the idiot that my young friend secretly thinks that I am, I sat there and took it.

Then it started to sprinkle a little and the bubbles definitely appeared. While citing a case in point, my friend made a reference to 1st Romans!

I felt a lot better after that.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Two in one day!
But this one I didn't write a lick of. I 'd cut and pasted it from a link I found today while surfing. If you want the source, ask.

Read on:

Beginning of paste -
Over 1350 pastors and church leaders from around the world attended a
pastors convention in San Diego last week. The dual National Pastors
Convention and the EmergentYS Convention were held at the Town &
Country Resort in Fashion Valley. This year, nearly half of the
attendees came to participate in the EmergentYS Convention focused on
the growing emergent movement in the Christian church.

The emergent movement has been called a reaction against the
traditions of mainline Christian churches. The goal of the movement is
to deconstruct these traditions and refocus on what it means to live
true to scripture. This movement continues to gather followers and
influence in America. Brian McLaren, one of the movement's statesmen,
was named one of the top 25 most influential evangelical Christians in
America, according to the February 7 issue of Time magazine.

At the convention, McLaren and other leaders in the movement taught
sessions, such as: "They Like Jesus but Not the Church"; "How to
Change Your Church without Killing It"; "The Church in Transition";
and "No Perfect People Allowed: Creating Church Culture for the
Postmodern World."

I spoke to a number of local attendees about their thoughts on the
mainline church, the emerging church, and what they believed.

"The Christian Church has to sober up. The church in general is in a
bit of a drunken arrogant stupor. We feel like we have arrived.
Christians have a belief that we are superior to everyone else in our
rightness," said Garret Akerson. Akerson, a former youth pastor, lives
in Oceanside, where he attends Saddleback Church.

"Too many Christians are concerned with heaven and hell," stated
Akerson. "It is a lot more important to be like God. My view of hell
is that it is not an actual place. There is no lake of fire or
partying with the devil. We all are on a journey. If you choose God,
you will be with Him. If not, you will cease to exist.

"Scripture is best seen as a case study or story- book; it should not
be read like a code book or a science manual," Akerson continued. "The
Bible speaks about how God had a relationship with the people. He has
been misrepresented by the Christian community. A lot of Christians
hold to an Old Testament view, 'God will strike you down' type of
attitude."

Matt Mills started an experimental café church. He attended the
convention to participate in the discussion regarding the future of
the church. "People say they want to reach out to the unbeliever. The
vast majority are just spiritual baby-sitting. Their churches end up
reaching out to people raised in a Christian environment," said Mills.
At Mills's café gatherings, the people don't identify with any
religion or church. "They are actually hostile towards church," Mills
remarked. "I create an environment for people to interact in a
spiritual way. We host community groups for the people that live in
the local neighborhood."

I asked Mills what a person has to do to get to heaven. "Heaven is an
afterthought. Heaven isn't a 401(k) program where we cash out.
Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, agnostics, witches can all be saved. Your
religion isn't going to save you. It is your relationship with the
ultimate being. Christianity is not what most people think it is. A
lot of Christians don't know God. These Christians are the Pharisees
that Christ fought against," said Mills. "I believe a person will move
toward the Christian ideal of becoming like the nature and essence of
Christ. There are ways of moving toward that and moving away from
that. I have faith God will do the converting of people. We all are
converting to what God is."

Shawn Beaty is the senior pastor at North Hills Church in Oceanside.
Pastor Beaty calls North Hills Church a replant. One-and-a-half years
ago, North Hills took over an older, traditional church that was once
a thriving church that had since dwindled. Forty people started with
North Hills, which has since grown to 120.

Beaty considers himself emerging, but still holds to traditional
Christian beliefs. "I believe you have to accept Jesus Christ and that
He died for our sins." I asked Beaty what happens if someone doesn't
accept Jesus. "The Bible leaves that as a mystery. People usually
believe [if one doesn't accept Jesus, that leads to] annihilation or
eternal torment. I believe that people will perish. [As part of the
emerging church], we are okay with not knowing everything. The
traditional church has to know."

I asked Beaty his thoughts about theologians such as Martin Luther,
John Calvin, John Wesley, and Jonathan Edwards. "These are guys that
were used by God for their time. A lot of what they dealt with, such
as Calvin and predestination, are no longer the issues of our time. In
San Diego and the West, pluralism is the issue." Religious pluralism
involves accepting all religions and beliefs as equal spiritual
expressions. When asked what religious beliefs are wrong, Beaty
replied, "I've always believed if you begin slinging mud, you're going
to get yourself dirty. There are enough errors that [Christians] have
made that need to be corrected." Beaty reiterated his belief that to
be saved, a person needs to accept Jesus as his Savior.

Glenn Murdock works in public relations for EmergentYS. Murdock lives
in San Diego and attends The Flood, a local postmodern church. At The
Flood, the church service includes concert ambience, loud music, dark
lighting, and the ability to "ask questions, find answers, doubt,
heal, learn -- there's total freedom." I asked him about the emergent
movement's scriptural beliefs. "Some people in the emergent movement
are open to reinterpret everything, like how we view God and the
Bible. However, most people believe the way we express our faith needs
to change but the principles stay intact."

Charlie Johnson works for the Church Resource Ministries (CRM) in
Anaheim. The purpose of CRM is to develop leaders to strengthen and
start churches worldwide. He spoke to me about the emerging church.
"The philosophy of ministry in the emerging church is evolving and
fluid. It changes with each new culture and time period so that we can
be a tasty representation of Jesus," said Johnson. "Traditional
churches are based on a culture that is 100 years old. The emerging
church is much more relational, community-centered, with a holistic
component. Traditional Christians often go to church in order to
consume from a religious service. But, the emerging church is a
gathering of people that participate in the work. The emerging
churches use art, poetry, interpretive dance." At the convention,
seminars on this included, "We Speak Art: Rituals and Celebrations
from a New-Monastic Postmodern Tribe" and "Art Therapy and Prayer."

My last conversation was with Renee Altson, San Diego author of
Stumbling Toward Faith, a book that deals with her faith struggles and
the abuse she's experienced at the hands of the church. She spoke of
her desire to find a church to call home. "I'm looking for a church
that honors story, that holds a big God, and that creates a safe place
for people to be human with one another.

- End of paste -

Ya wanna' know how to tell these places are full of it? (and I believe most of you know what I mean by 'it') - Go to their websites and read their statement on tithing. All of a sudden they get real traditional, but in extremely smarmy lingo.

Let's get back
to cyber-reality. Here is a photo of one of our fav. things to capture - a church. This one is in a little town called Ajo. It's in Arizona just a few miles from the Mexican border. Deb and I have been there several times.

This photo was taken in the spring of 1999.

BTW, if you want an in-depth read on the previous days' topic, and I recommend it highly -it was written by an actual smart guy - check out this article.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

But
let's get serious as I try to finish this topic off. What about all the other more obvious indicators that the mind is tightly coupled to the physical, material realm? Take some LSD and get back to me. Take some PCP and get back to me. How about some crystal. Go interview a person with Alzheimer's disease. Talk to a manic-depressive case.

Not really knowing where my near stream-of-consciousness would lead, this topic, this series of articles has arrived at a painful place. Some readers know all too well the havoc that a damaged brain can have on a person's mind.

So, let it be said that, as theists, we know that the mind is non-material. Or at least there is a non-material component to the universe and to our selves. Indeed, that belief is at or near the foundation of our entire cosmos view. And we also see that it can cause changes to the physical.

At the same time we see that the reverse is also true. That the material effects changes on the non-material. Or does it?

I ask that question one more time to bring up the idea of the separation between the mind and the self. Maybe it is the self that is the non-material and the mind is actually a physical thing.

Rabbit trails everywhere I turn.

I can speak from experience. I battled periods of mental breakdown when I was in high-school. When those episodes were ravaging me it was clear to me that it was my mind that was falling apart. At the same time, it was another entity that seemed to be assessing or evaluating what was going on. That entity seemed to be, as I reflect on it, my self. My self was clearly under the impression that something had gone wrong with my mind. In fact, my self was functioning perfectly at least insofar as it correctly saw that there was a problem. It had no idea what it was and, unfortunately, it had a poorly functioning tool to analyze the problem with.

So, it is plain to see that these articles are not going to solve anything or make any profound conclusions. (Stream-of-consciousness is like that).

What I really want to get to, at some future time, is the distinction between the soul and the spirit.

So, if I haven't chased my readers away, tune in again later. Maybe I will lighten things up a bit and get back to photography.

Monday, August 15, 2005

A follow up
on the naturalist view of the existence of the mind given a material only cosmos -

Bear in mind that all that my previous article has done is to render the naturalist argument so flawed as to eviscerate it at its root. Unfortunately, I doubt that many naturalists have converted to theism with this argument. The common response of the naturalist is that, flawed though it may be, it is the only workable view of the cosmos we have. Once a naturalist, always a naturalist, I guess.

However, the theist already believes in the non-material and rejoices in the difficulties that the naturalist inherits from this argument.

One of the mysteries that juts its way into the issue is the undeniable fact that the mind, whatever it is, is able to affect bodily (material) changes without any physical involvement (look ma, no hands!).

Here are just a few examples:
  • heart rate
  • diastolic blood pressure
  • systolic blood pressure
  • sexual response and arousal
  • salivary flow
  • dilation of the pupil
  • galvanic skin response
  • This is just a small part of a much larger list. You will recognize that some of the above are what makes a polygraph test work.

    How is it possible that the non-material has an affect on the material? And how does it work? (If your four-year old comes to you and says, "Mommy, how does my mind make my mouth water when I see a plate of your home-made cookies?", you've got a problem!)

    If you are wondering why this and the previous article are relevant to you or your life, what I am getting at is the idea that the soul lives on independently from the body. Because this data certainly points in that direction. I am not qualified nor prepared to address that in any further detail. But it is something to think about, no?

    However, there is a glich in this neat view. The glich is this: We apparently need the material in order to sustain the non-material.

    How so? Well, if you have ever had surgery, you more than likely have experienced the hole in time phenomenon. The instant after you "go under" the anaesthetic, you wake up and the surgery is over, regardless of how long the surgery took. So, apparently, without the physical participating in your mental processes, your mind takes a leave of absence. So too with sleep but not quite as dramatically.

    FWIW, this lends support to Jesus and Paul who both referred to death as sleep.

    I apologize for the scattered, shot-gun approach to these issues, but I am not really qualified to write cogently about all of this. But I do believe it is something on which it is worth meditating.

    Stay tuned for the clinching third post which I hope to write tomorrow.

    Saturday, August 13, 2005

    "If naturalism were true
    then all thoughts whatever would be wholly the result of irrational causes...it cuts its own throat". That's a C.S. Lewis quote. It addresses an area of study that has captured my mind for a long time. Let me briefly share with you what Lewis is saying.

    Naturalism is another term for materialism; the idea that all that exists in the cosmos is matter. Non-material things just don't exist.

    You see the obvious inference here. They are saying that your mind is not what you think it is. If it exists, it is just matter. Now we know that matter exists. And what we know about it is this: it obeys laws - physical laws. Laws of reaction and response to stimuli - of several sorts. Another thing we know about matter is that it has no will, free or otherwise.

    Therefore your thoughts and subsequent utterances about/from them are merely physical responses to prior physical stimuli (irrational causes, to Lewis). They spring up from nothing other than some physical cause.

    The problem for the naturalist is this: one of those irrationally caused utterances (thoughts) is the very claim being made by the naturalist. What he has done is made a claim, and in the same breath, he has advertised that we should be considered fools to believe his claim.

    To put it in graphical terms, the sounds that come out of any one's mouth (statements, propositions) neither make any more sense nor carry any more authoritative weight than the gurgling that you can occasionally hear in your own stomach. Including his own naturalist claims. It cuts its own throat.

    Problems for naturalists are many. One problem is the same one you would have if you started telling your mind that it is a physical thing, just a brain, say, and that mind (behind the green curtain) has no authority and is at bottom non-sensical. Secondly, if his own mind is telling him that it is non-material, what does he believe it with? (The obvious problem is that our minds do exist and he has no explanation for their source or their constitution, but this one begs the question and therefore is verboten in the discussion).

    A third problem is how it is possible for the mind, a non-physical thing (whose existence he does not allow), to cause changes to occur in the physical realm. How can the non-physical control the physical? Examples of this abound in real life.

    And you, the atheist or agnostic reader, have to be a naturalist. You don't get a free pass around this. You can't at once deny God and also get to believe in any other part of the non-material universe.

    Friday, August 12, 2005

    A quick post
    due to a lack of time this evening. I am requesting help from those who read a lot. At a recent gathering of pre-sems, sems and post sems (seminarians) one of the group, a pastor, lamented that one of his parishioners was reading Joel Osteen's best seller. (Don't know its name). He tried to encourage her to read something more worthwhile. Apparently, this woman doesn't read much of anything but this Osteen book she really liked.

    So, here is my request. Please suggest some books for her to read that would be actually beneficial. Remember that Osteen's book is geared for a sixth grade reading level, so whatever you come up with should be of the same reading difficulty.

    Thanks.

    Thursday, August 11, 2005


    Ouch
    is what I will be saying later this fall. In the drawing, I am the guy on the right. So, I get gum/periodontal surgery. Along with that I get stitches in my gums. Lots of them. I could just let it go and put up with dentures later on. Like my dad says, at least then you get a discount on teeth cleaning.

    Oh, and another thing, I would encourage your little kids or grand-kids to take up dentistry as a profession. At least the periodontal kind. For two and a half ours of work, the dentist will collect a cool $5000. Minus expenses of course. Those expenses are $2.95 worth of sutures. (He buys the expensive kind).

    I guess I will have to put off for a few months the new Lexus I was planning on buying. And the starving kids are gonna' have to wait too.

    Wednesday, August 10, 2005

    Faith is sin.
    Now that should get your attention. That is right out of the Bible. Romans 14:23 in fact. Maybe you should go look it up. I'll wait a second while you get your Bible out.

    Ok. So you say I was wrong in my handling of the text. In fact, you're even a little peeved for my misusing scripture. You rightly want to charge me with a very poor reading of the Bible. I want to tell you it happens all the time.

    What exactly was the error of my handling of Romans 14:23? Simple. I took a piece of a verse out of its context. Is taking a piece of a verse out of context any worse than taking a whole verse out of context? I don't think it is. Either way, you are killing the word of God.

    The most common reason we take things out of context is that we have an agenda or a pet belief we want to advocate. Out of context proof-texting is our strongest ally for that enterprise. Another motivator behind ignoring context is that we want a ouija-board kind of method of handling scripture. We sort of hover over a sound-byte Bible phrase and listen for what the Spirit is saying, frequently paying no attention to what the writer is saying. You may not be guilty of either of these but this is no strawman argument. It is done all the time.

    The problem we can have is that the inviolable principle of context is so pedestrian, so mundane, so boring. There is no short cut method to understanding the Bible. There never will come a day when context is not fundamental.

    Tuesday, August 09, 2005

    Liar, Lunatic or Lord.
    Those were the choices we got from the evidentialist apologists. Look at the evidence and decide for yourselves. They reasoned that nothing about Jesus' life, conduct, morals, etc. could possibly allow for his being a liar or a lunatic. He must be a Lord. They never mentioned some of the other options. Two of which are that he either never existed or that he never actually said or did any of the things that the Bible credits him with saying or doing.

    If you believe either of the latter options, you would be at home in the age of the Enlightenment. In the mid-eighteenth century, the reigning intelligentsia glorified their own reasoning powers and concluded that the New Testament gospels were fabrications of one sort or another. It was the miracles they could not stomach. Any person who held the miracles as factual was either stupid or superstitious.

    Theologians of the day, since they trafficked in Bible matters, were caught in a bit of a bind. How could they walk in two worlds at once? They needed to maintain their credibility as reasoning folk and at the same time they wanted to sustain their income off of religion. What to do?

    Easy. They put forward the idea that the gospel writers were novelists. They maintained that their writings addressed life situations that arose in the Christian communities. As needs arose within Christian groups it became clear to the evangelists that a document that spoke to those needs should be written. For example, the direction to the rich, young ruler to give all of his possessions to the poor and follow Jesus could have been inspired by growing economic inequities within the community. The story we read in Mark, then, was the evangelists attempt to shepherd Christians through those challenges.

    Another explanation they put forward was the idea that the evangelists were fledgling theologians in their own right. They spun the gospels out of their own creative imagination. The opening of the Gospel of St. John would be a prime example of that sort of writing.

    Unfortunately, this brings us sort of back to where we started. Now we have to decide the same choice regarding the evangelists: Liars, lunatics or apostles of the Lord. You decide.

    Monday, August 08, 2005


    Some people buy a house and they get various kinds of freebees that sort of come with it. Like a filing cabinet in the garage or maybe a lawn mover left in the shed. We got the flower you see above. We actually got several of them. This, as you can see, is an unusual flower. This flower is almost the size of a softball. It has spikes on the leafy parts. It also has jelly-bean-like things squeezing their way out of the body of the flower.

    Like a lot of things, this flower makes me wonder what its creator is like. Somehow, the idea that whoever it was that created this flower also decided to try on human flesh and dwell among us does not register very well in my brain. It is incomprehensible for me, but at the same time it is it is as true an idea as any I have ever heard.

    Another way of saying this is that the incarnation of the creator makes no sense, but then, neither does any thing else. It is the work of the creator to create reality as well as to make sense of it for us. My own trying to make sense of things is faulty and also futile. Fortunately, I don't have to. I am learning to quit trying. I admit my brain is getting tired and my believer muscle is worn out. Maybe I have been using it way too much.

    So, enjoy the flower - the cyber flower, that is.

    Saturday, August 06, 2005

    Missed
    a day, I did. Came home from the gym after work and found a gathering of people and a disconnected computer. My reading/music room was under construction still, so I just couldn't get to you, my fans, for an update.

    I have a few more thoughts on tithing, but I don't want to sound bitter, cycnical, or just ticked off in general. So I will (just) let it go (,will ya').

    I do have some really worthwhile and practical information for you. A long while back, my niece, Ellen, posted a blurb on her blog where she admitted that she was in posession of that most valuable secret: How to open a CD case in 10 seconds (or less). You know the stupid tape they put on the top to prevent in-store highjackers from stealing the disc right out of the case and making off with it. The only problem was that Ellen didn't share the secret, thus fomenting envy in her uncle. I need this info!!!

    So when I went to Tower Records today to spend hard earned cash on some tunes, at the checkout counter I asked the guy with the spiked hair and spiked tongue to show me the trick.

    He said, "Thure, mithter. Here'th how itth done". And in 5 seconds he had it open, tape ripped off, and put back together.

    So when I got home I tried it myself. But, he had done it so quickly, I really didn't get the whole procedure. So I struggled a bit. It probably took me about 3 minutes to get it. The next one I tried, however, only 30 seconds. The last one - 10 seconds. What a scoop I got from my pal at Tower!

    Ya wanna' know the secret? All you have to do is open the CD from the bottom - it's not sealed down there- and while you're opening it, you pry the little hinge tab out of its hole. Now, the only thing hinging or holding the whole case together is the annoying tape, which you will find comes apart really easily with the case opened up.

    Try it, you'll like it.


    Thursday, August 04, 2005



    If

    you feel so led and if you feel better having read my writings, I will humbly accept your donation. I prefer paypal but money orders work okay also. I am not set up for Visa at this time.

    Above is a photo of the boat I intend to buy with the proceeds from this ministry.

    Sorry about no artsy-fartsy post today. My scanning salon is under construction so I had to dig up a file that we already had on the hard-drive. Signed prints are available for $325.

    Wednesday, August 03, 2005

    Lame

    is what this blogging software is. I have failed repeatedly to update my profile. I no longer want to go through their updating exercise. Not that it matters much since things like 'my favorite movies' and other such inanities have zero value. So, don't bother looking for it.

    My promise has been brevity. So, my thesis is that tithing has been relegated to the dust-bin of history. My intuition: there is zero probability that nascent church would have brought along this one institution from the collapsed Mosaic economy.

    The trickiest argument in favor of the practice has always been that, though the law had been superceded, fulfilled, eclipsed (you pick a word here) in Christ, (see Col. 2:13,14) tithing must remain because it was instituted prior to the law.

    Proponents of tithing being a church requirement always trot out Abraham's ten percent donated to Mel. (see Genesis 14) as the driving principle. I am a little confused by that passage since we could easily see Mel. giving a tenth to Abraham, not the other way around. Given the standard interpretation, I don't buy it since while that cash was a tithe (a tenth) it was not tithing - as an ongoing practice. In short, we have to ask why we don't see Abraham making a practice of it.


    As for the contention that tithing got imported into the church age, a key text is 1 Cor 16:1ff:

    Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem.


    The church had been functioning for twenty (+- 1) years (the date of 1 Cor is widely given as 55 ad.) without this direction. This passage can only be read as a specific administrative method for facilitating a specific fund raising activity. To extend this passage to indicate an modus operandi for all time in the church has to fail.

    This amounts to an effective argument from silence. Only if there is no tithing happening in the church since its beginning would Paul have had to do this adminstrative organization for the purpose of collecting a gift to be brought to Jerusalem.

    A lot more could be said. But, I have reached my word limit.

    My adoring fans are clamoring for more photographs, so I will make every attempt to please them. Come back tomorrow for something artsy/fartsy.

    Tuesday, August 02, 2005


    Next

    time you are in San Francisco, make sure you get over to the City Hall building. There, you will see what may be the most impressive staircase in the country. What's the significance of this entry? None. None at all. But that's what you get today.

    I am not ready to launch into anything interesting or controversial. In order to get ready for what's coming, I suggest you read the first few verses of 1 Corinthians 16. I believe that section has implications for a position on tithing.


    Monday, August 01, 2005

    A workable solution

    to the problem that still allows individuals to claim deductions on their income tax returns for charitible giving is the following: A score is given to each institution for which an individual may want to claim a deduction. That score becomes a percentage which is multiplied with the amount donated by the individual. The resulting number is how much of the individual's donation he may deduct. The score is a function of the the percentage of the "take" is actually used to help the needy in a material way. This will tend to lead people to give to the institutions which materially meets the need best. It will incentivize institutions to help the needy more efficiently.

    People who donate to a church whose budget of $1,000,000 includes $25,000 actually given to the "poor" will find they can deduct only 2.5% of their donation.

    The devil, of course, is in the details (or in Massachusetts) and centers around the definition of "materially" assissting. The goal is to get the US government out of the ideology business, as it is supposed to be already.

    Come back tomorrow for something new and, if you're good, maybe a new photo for your viewing pleasure.