“You ever see a picture of her back then? Whew,” [Spencer] told Daily News columnist Ben Smith during a plane ride to Rochester last Friday. “I don't know why Bill married her.”

“She looks good now,” he added.

An objective glance at the former Ms. Rodham's high-school yearbook photo actually shows the opposite — well, that is, regardless of one's view of the “New York” Democrat senator now, it would be a painful stretch (ha, ha) to conclude she was “ugly” back then.

And yet somehow, this whole situation reminded me of a certain omnipresent advertisement on the internet. ...

Collin Hansen of Christianity Today wrote:

Baptism and membership figures, [seminary Provost Steve Lemke] said, show that the Calvinist churches of the SBC's Founders Ministries lack commitment to evangelism. According to Lemke, the problem only makes sense, given their emphasis on God's sovereign election.

Note their criteria: “baptism and membership figures.” Foundational to this is one very interesting assumption: that “baptism and membership figures” denote true Christ-followers. In fact many indications show that thousands of church members — yes, even Baptist! and yes, even those baptized! — are not true believers!

In fact, many churches, which believe in Free Will, have tailored their services so exclusively to The Unsaved (leaving those already redeemed a little “lost” themselves) that it's somewhat more easy to join such a place — and even get baptized without knowing just exactly what you're doing.

I've been in at least one Rhode Island-sized church that conducted serial baptisms, three and four deep, and statistically it would be impossible for every single one of those “converts” to stick with the church without causing it to collapse, black-hole-style, under its own gravity.

Thus, to accuse Reformed churches of being anti-evangelism just because they haven't baptized a dozen people one Sunday or amped up membership roles ... that bears reflection on what exactly qualifies a convert, not an evangelist or even a church.

Moving on ...

[NarniaWebber] FencerforJesus wrote:

The Calvinists teach that there are a select elite who God chose to take with him to heaven.

The term “elite” here is misleading, for this results from an assumption of free-will-ism that assumes people do something to “merit” God's Grace, as if such an oxymoron were even possible.

Biblically speaking, those who are redeemed do absolutely nothing to merit the Creator's favor, by definition. Reformed doctrine just takes that idea a step further than informed Armenians: the former hold that people would somehow merit God's favor by choosing Him of their own volition, without Him dragging them toward Him from the brink of Hell first. This, to the informed Reformed, seems to violate Scripture's clear portrayal of an absolutely sovereign Lord.

However, clearly some Calvinists — and here I do use the harsher-sounding term pejoratively — take this to such an indeed “elitist” extreme that one would think they do somewhat believe they've merited God's favor. And perhaps they actually do think so, if only subconsciously.

Again, be careful not to assume all Reformed people believe or act like this — any more than all Arminians believe the comical “open theist” idea which pretty much holds that people can actually surprise a non-omniscient God.

Just hours after the shooting the Amish were already reaching out to the non-Amish family of [schoolhouse murderer] Charles Roberts IV, who had barricaded 10 girls aged 6-13 in their school house, tied them up in front of the blackboard and shot them, fatally wounding five before killing himself.

[. . .]

The Amish response to what many of them have called, “our 9/11” has been in turns inspiring and startling.

Widescreen fiction: a speculative story with realistic characters, epic elements and engaging plot that includes strong, Christ-honoring themes of good versus evil and growth in faith.

Recommended Heaven by Randy C. Alcorn

Do Animals Have Souls?

When God made the animals, he made “the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:25 [NIV]). Animals were important in Eden; therefore, unless there's revelation to the contrary, the principle of continuity suggests that they'll be important on the New Earth.

Like humans, animals were formed from the ground. “Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air” (Genesis 2:19). When God breathed a spirit into Adam's body, made from the earth, Adam became nephesh, a “living being” or “soul” (Genesis 2:7). Remarkably, the same Hebrew word, nephesh, is used for animals and for people. We are specifically told that not only people, but animals have “the breath of life” in them (Genesis 1:30; 2:7; 6:17; 7:15, 22). God hand-made animals, linking them both to the earth and humanity.

Am I suggesting animals have souls? Certainly they do not have human souls. Animals aren't created in God's image, and they aren't equal to humans in any sense. Nonetheless, there's a strong biblical case for animals having non-human souls. I didn't take this seriously until I studied the usage of the Hebrew and Greek words nephesh and psyche, often translated “soul” when referring to humans. (Nephesh is translated psyche in the Septuagint.) The fact that these words are often used of animals is compelling evidence that they have non-human souls. That's what most Christians in the past believed. In their book Beyond Death, Gary Habermas and J.P. Moreland point out, “It was't until the advent of seventeenth-century Enlightenment . . . that the existence of animal souls was even questioned in Western civilization. Throughout the history of the church, the classic understanding of living things has included the doctrine that animals, as well as humans, have souls.”

I cannot emphasize strongly enough that humans and animals are different. Humans continue to exist after death, but that may not be the case for animals. However, to do justice to Scripture, we need to recognize that people and animals share something unique: They are living beings. Because God has a future plan for both mankind and Earth, it strongly suggests that he has a future plan for animals as well.

Alcorn, Randy, Heaven (Carol Stream, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 374.

Robin McGraw, wife of Dr. Phil McGraw, has written Inside My Heart: Choosing to Live with Passion and Purpose, published by Thomas Nelson. Nelson expects this book, endorsed by Max Lucado, to be a huge bestseller. We agree, and will be printing Robin's book in several upcoming catalogs, and have also scheduled in-store events. [. . .] These will be outstanding opportunities to draw numerous people who would never have come otherwise to these stores and presents a positive and creative Christian witness to them. However, in spite of this positive news about the book and events, and the ministry opportunities they provide, we want to address some questions that may come up.

Robin recently spoke at a Women of Faith event in Dallas where she delivered an excellent message and received a standing ovation but did not mention Christ or quote Scripture. There are Internet blogs in which some people are expressing the opinion that Robin McGraw espouses humanist psychology rather than Biblical teachings in her talks and books. We are pleased to report that we have thoroughly researched this and have confirmation that Robin is a born-again Christian who believes that Jesus is the only way to heaven. Her faith in God is clearly stated in the book. She has an active prayer life and enjoys attending worship services with her husband. We are convinced that we can move forward with confidence by adding this personal growth title to our current inventory for the stores, positioning it in feature space, promoting it in our catalogs, listing is on our website, and proceeding with the scheduled book signings.

If you have expressions of concern about this author or her book, you are free to verbally share (but not distribute this memo) how we have researched this and have confirmation of Robin's profession of faith. As always, customers are free to contact us [. . .] and we will respond to them as soon as possible.

Christian bookstore chain sales memo, dated Sept. 8, 2006

[The objection:] Robin McGraw espouses humanist psychology rather than Biblical teachings in her talks and books.

[Our defense:] Robin is a born-again Christian who believes that Jesus is the only way to heaven.