home | archives: January 2007

Welcome

FaithFusion offers blogs and columns on many topics: storytelling, society and culture, philosophy, religion, politics, science, and especially “deep doctrine magic” about all seven.
 

Features
 



Tags
 

Archives
 



 

Search
 



Updates



Follow me on Twitter
 



Recently read:
Nonfiction
 


Recently read:
Fiction
 



'Making up' God; Grudem on Biblical authority 'circular reasoning'

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 04:37 PM ET , Wednesday, Jan 24, 2007

Permalink
Categories: Columns, Media: Books, Deep Doctrine Magic: Biblical Theology

Bible Doctrine Recommended
Bible Doctrine
by Wayne Grudem, Jeff Purswell


(Recently an online acquaintance posited the common notion that religion — and specifically of course, Christianity — was just “something that man made up,” as Paul rebuts in Galatians 1:11 [NIV]. The following is excerpted from my response.)

I have often imagined a parallel universe in which (I would accept that idea that) mankind did create the idea of God.

Let's say I'm on the Ancient Incidental Subcommittee for Religious Development, either in the caves somewhere, or in Sumer, or perhaps wandering around with Abraham and his nomad entourage. What kind of a God would I make up?

Probably the same kind people would make up today, I submit.

But that is an unusual point for the existence of the Biblical God, that He is portrayed as nothing like most human beings would like Him to be.

Think about it. A lot of church people and quaint, sentimental religious types (you may know some of them) believe in this God who is All Love all the time. He doesn't step on toes; He's very polite and won't offend anybody. In some churches, He even wants desperately to make you personally very rich and healthy. He's the key to Your Best Life Now (the title of the book by the little grinning fiend Joel Osteen).

And as for sin and judgment and absolute holiness and all that? Nahhh. They say God is your Divine Buddy. So He wouldn't do a thing like nuke people. And He also wouldn't do something confusing like exist outside of time or paradoxically be three-in-one.

It's too difficult for many modern people to understand. Or, they just don't like to think about the bad stuff. So they make up a God they feel comfortable about.

Do you think the original Ancient Incidental Subcommittee for Religious Development would have done the same?

Continued ...



Forthcoming: The '4Hs' and 'Harry Potter'

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 06:11 PM ET , Tuesday, Jan 23, 2007

Permalink
Categories: Media: Books, Deep Doctrine Magic: Biblical Theology, Churchianity

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Book 1) Recommended
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Book 1)
by J.K. Rowling, Mary GrandPré


Tomorrow on Speculative Faith comes a column I've been looking forward to writing for a while, likely the first in a series. He's an excerpt:

After reading through the first three books in the series during 1.5 weeks, I’m still wondering where all the absolutely repugnant parts are.

Then it came to me: perhaps I had accidentally retrieved the Cliffs Notes version from the library instead. After all, the more-recent books in the series, which are stacked 12 and 16 deep on stores’ cardboard display cases, are about double the thickness of your standard copy of The Fountainhead.

But no. These are the real books. I double-checked and they haven't been edited in any way.

So why are the first three books so, to me anyway, seemingly non-offensive?

Maybe it’s because they aren’t so wicked. Or maybe it’s because I’m compromising. You decide.

Of course I’m speaking of the (in)famous Harry Potter series.

This will likely be a short series, dealing with the troublesome and redemptive aspects of the stories — at least from what I've read of them so far. And of particular interest to me, anyway, is if we as Christ-followers can be “open” to fantasy stories like this, which do not contain specifically Christian elements:

Perhaps any story that seems to include “magic” as some neutral force, limited to certain individuals and useful for good or bad causes — is inherently negative, opposed to the Christian worldview.

However, that would mean we must get rid of Peter Pan, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast and all of those fairy tales. [. . .]

By Wednesday at midnight, it will be published on Speculative Faith.

Continued ...



Evolution of a debate: Survival among the extremes

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 06:31 PM ET , Monday, Jan 22, 2007

Permalink
Categories: Columns, Science: Genesis, Rebuttals, Deep Doctrine Magic: Churchianity, Cross Firings



Recently I have fallen back into a bad habit, and began engaging in a back-and-forth with evolutionists — and creationist defenders of Kent Hovind — on the forum of the Pensacola News Journal.

The members fall into two extreme factions:
1) Kent Hovind is a “Christian gentleman” who did nothing wrong and who now has been silenced by the Government.

2) Kent Hovind and all creation-believers are ignorant, backward, venom-spewing frauds.

Rarely does a “standard” Biblical creation advocate as myself enter the fray and suddenly acquire the appearance of a Moderate. Yet this is what has happened here. The Hovind-advocates have tried to ignore my questions, and criticisms of the now-convicted “Dr. Dino,” and the evolutionists merely offer their tried-and-trite ad hominem screeds.

The following are some highlights, with adjustments made only to formatting.

Continued ...



Debatable droppings from 'Dr. Dino' and Co.

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 02:13 PM ET , Saturday, Jan 20, 2007

Permalink
Categories: Columns, Science: Genesis, Rebuttals, Deep Doctrine Magic: Churchianity, Cross Firings



Yesterday Kent Hovind, longtime speaker on the Biblical-creationist circuit — and one much more prone to wild generalizations, theatrics and questionable “proofs” — was sentenced to 10 years in prison for tax evasion.

Pensacola News Journal reporter Michael Stewart ultra-summarizes the story. And frankly, I don’t want to hear any shouts of “Liberal bias!” right now, as the article is almost too stilted and objective in its style:

After a lengthy sentencing hearing that last 5 1/2 hours, U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers ordered Hovind also:

— Pay $640,000 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service.

— Pay the prosecution’s court costs of $7,078.

— Serve three years parole once he is released from prison.

Hovind’s wife, Jo Hovind, also was scheduled to be sentenced. Rodgers postponed her sentencing until March 1 to allow her defense attorney an opportunity to argue possible discrepancies in sentencing guidelines.

Prior to his sentencing, a tearful Kent Hovind, also known as "Dr. Dino" asked for the court’s leniency.

“If it’s just money the IRS wants, there are thousands of people out there who will help pay the money they want so I can go back out there and preach,” Hovind said.

Hovind, founder of Creation Science Evangelism and Dinosaur Adventure Land in Pensacola, was found guilty in November of 58 federal counts, including failure to pay $845,000 in employee-related taxes. He faced a maximum of 288 years in prison.

Facing temporary extinction

Even for a guy who shoots rubber bands at the audience during his lectures, as Hovind does, 288 years seems a bit extreme. The solution is that the sentences are concurrent. One may be for 14 years; the other, for 9 years. The actual maximum would be 14 years.

“Dr. Dino” was arrested and indicted July 14 last year, and convicted Nov. 3. That conviction followed the exposure of apparently the better-known Ted Haggard. And despite his much more serious offense — and seemingly even-flakier doctrines — Haggard seemed actually remorseful.

Hovind does not. On his blog, although he seems humble, he acts as though he were Paul and Silas, tossed in jail for preaching the Word.

He was not. He was put in there for income tax-evasion. And the best his followers can do is either agree with his extreme-libertarian, Jews-are-running-everything conspiracy-theory positions, or else seemingly ignore them and pray about his needs, etc.

Hovind’s online frustration with friendly fire is particularly telling:

It was disappointing to me to see the way thousands of “Christians” and even quite a few preachers have believed the worst about me in direct violation of Proverbs 18:13. “He that answereth a matter before he hearth it, it is folly and shame unto him.” Oh well, not much has changed in the Lord’s church in 2,000 years.

“Christians” in quotes? This is most disagreeable. Anyone who does not agree with him is not saved, then? What contemptible arrogance, to say the least.

The Bible passage (Authorized Version only, of course) is irrelevant. We know exactly what he did: we hath hearth (“heard”) “the matter,” and he admits it — tax fraud — blatantly proclaiming in violation of law that he owes the federal government nothing because He’s God’s Man.

Hovind’s lawbreaking was bad enough. I would love to excuse him — and even forgive his absurd “prove evolution and I’ll give you $100,000” ministry “challenge” — but he is unrepentant.

And what can we say about his promising to hand over whatever the IRS wants — not from his own property, but from the future donations of his ever-so-willing followers?

This is perhaps saddest at all, that Hovind’s “disciples” have placed their faith in him like this.

It is dangerous.

Continued ...



New webscape and assorted writings

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 06:42 PM ET , Thursday, Jan 18, 2007

Permalink
Categories: Columns, Rebuttals, Deep Doctrine Magic: Cross Firings, Life Applications



Recently I've been spending more time upgrading FaithFusion's webscape than actually posting thoughts and columns.

On Wednesday, though, I finally reached the end of my nine-part series on the co-op blog Speculative Faith, on which I post almost-weekly (author Karen Hancock takes the first Wednesday of every month). The series presents Nine Marks of Widescreen Stories, and the finale, Foreshadowing the Nonfiction New Heavens and Earth, is perhaps the best.

I'll be re-posting the Nine Marks of Widescreen Fiction column series here in succeeding weeks.

Meanwhile, I managed to make time for hitting Boundless Line this afternoon. The blog of Boundless Webzine always contains many interesting pieces and ensuing discussions among its readers.

Here I first learned from a Jan. 17 update that John Piper has been kind-of-sort-of unofficially cited for using the “A-word” in public. What I mean is, the Bethlehem Baptist Church pastor and author of Desiring God apparently remarked at a Passion conference something to the effect of: if we get out of line, “God kicks our asses.”

Now why did I just quote that above? Couldn't I have “as-terisked” some of the letters (ha ha!)

I argued in a comment that this approach makes little sense:

Here seems an interesting paradox worth noting. While reading the original blog installment above, and of course the multiple comments, I never once failed to pronounce in my mind exactly what was being “bleeped out.”

Asterisks aren't real censorship. If we live in the real world, we've heard all the words. (I've heard them countless times in college classes and newsrooms.)

Ergo, I wonder what exactly is the intent of “feigned censorship” if we already know what the words are.

Movie reviews by Christ-followers are the same way: they take near-exact counts of exactly how many Ds and Hs and POs and GDs and Fs are in a movie. (I often wonder how they do this; perhaps with notepad and tally marks?)

Again, my open question is: what exactly is the rationale of basically “giving away” the bad words so that people may decide whether they want to hear the bad words or not?

Even if Piper had said “God kicks our you-know-whats,” everyone would have known exactly what he meant.

Ergo, who are we trying to fool? or shield from vile and corrupt speech? Because it is certainly not ourselves. ;-)

Meanwhile, a friend of mine, a longtime ministry leader (mostly locally) once told me, during a brief dicussion about Christ, that “Jesus didn't do a d*** thing.”

Though I wasn't that shocked, I did inquire, and he explained that though he often tries to avoid such strong language when with others, he sees little wrong with employing “regular” Bad Words — the kind that appear in the Bible in context, not the made-up Bad Words — in order to express strong feelings. A Bad Word said in anger would be sinful, he explained; however, telling someone after a successful sports maneuver that he did a “h*** of a good job” would not be sin because it's in a wholly positive context.

I would not adopt this view myself, nor carry out its conclusions — for one thing, it would be *very* difficult to discern which people would be offended and which people would stumble over their “word blocks.”

But it is an interesting line of logic nonetheless.

Also among the items is Boundless editor Ted Slater's request for feedback regarding a column by Scott Croft, in which he argued that pre-marriage kissing should be avoided by Christ-followers so they won't defraud each other.

To this, reader Jethro noted:
Let's just admit this is a matter of personal opinion and not a biblical mandate.

There are no bible verses specifically addressing this topic and many that are used to do so require drawing a pretty long bow, as in the case with some verses used in Scott Croft's article.

Upshot: Everyone one is different and it's largely a matter of what is right for each person within the context of the relationship. If one couple decide not to kiss and it works out for them — awesome. If another couple decides they want to spend 23 hours a day glued to each others lips and it works out for them — awesome.

Let people live their lives, they don't constantly need to be told that what they feel, think and do is wrong.

Several others objected, of course, and my comment was:

Addressed to Jethro:

It's doubtful that few here will admit to anything of the sort — that “this is a matter of personal opinion and not a biblical mandate.”

One can easily argue that “no Bible verses specifically address” any specific sin, especially those that are more culturally based: carjackings, for example.

Yet *overarching* Biblical principles apply.

Scott Croft maintained persuasively that in current cultural context, kissing (especially via both mouths) is unavoidably indicative of “foreplay” — or, I would say, a pre-mating ritual — both emotionally and biologically. The Bible is *very* clear that we are to protect one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, not defrauding each other, and to flee “any hint” of sexual immorality. And the overall context of these passages, along with that of Scripture altogether, is that of avoiding “minor” actions that we know can lead us into major ones.

What do you mean by “if it works out for them”? Do you perhaps mean that one unmarried couple may *not* be able to avoid progressing beyond kissing to other procedures, but another couple may slow-dance via lips for “hours” and avoid any temptation to go further?

Here we might resort to common-sense and experience-based points; I would ask the married couples, or those singles who've already smooched for extended periods of time: were you tempted to go further, or was that the farthest thing from your mind during your mush-mouthing session(s)?

And, concurring with the last of Danni's note above: Your last comment seems indicative of your arguments' questionable presupposition. Turning away from legalism, you support the opposite extreme of antinomianism — i.e., toss out the rules, we can do what we want.

For a non-Christian, that approach could be expected; for a Christ-follower, though, you might well remember that though we're under Grace, that gift from Christ should naturally motivate us to seek His glory in our actions and not merely chase after our own do-your-own-thing live-and-let-live lifestyle.

I do believe, that for discussions of this sort, a certain expression is warranted. For a while I've been using first this expression, then the actual graphic, to denote a this-is-way-too-“mushy” sentiment in the ongoing NarniaWeb forum discussion Wuv, Twue Wuv — and Mawwiage!:

“Eeeewwwww!”

“Eeeewwwww!”



Countersigns: Resolve to 'attend church'?

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 01:19 PM ET , Sunday, Jan 07, 2007

Permalink
Categories: Deep Doctrine Magic: Countersigns



Driving home from my first attendance of a hopeful church plant this morning, I came across yet another church sign. This one contained a slogan even more weird and un-Biblical than the “Frequent kneeling leads to good standing” sign of the previous Signs and Countersigns installment:



The response to this is easy, based first on the definition of not only the word church (a gathering of Christ-followers) and also the entire material of Biblical epistles about the institution, and the precedents set in the book of Acts:



The Apostle Paul is clear in 1 Corinthians 14: 20-25 that Christ-followers can expect nonbelievers to show up during church services. But the context is that believers must avoid flagrant displays of spiritual gifts and such, maintaining order so that nonbelievers will be convicted.

Scripture gives no indication that the Church must cater to, or even try to drag in, nonbelievers. Of course, the Church is not a closed-access country club. But neither is it a public-access, “come one come all, we don't care what you are” style of community center.