Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • On Choice, Coverage, and Contraception

    I’ve been watching this story for a few days. For those who haven’t been keeping up with the news, the Obama administration is proposing rules that would require all employers to provide coverage for contraception in their health care plans. Catholics are in an uproar over this. The White House has responded (HT: Unsettled Christianity). The first line of the response indicates that “all employers” is not correct, by the way!

    I have little sympathy for the Catholic view on contraception. I don’t mean this as generally anti-catholic. There are plenty of specific doctrines for which I have little sympathy. But at the same time, it is their conscience involved. I knew this type of issue would come up when health care reform law was passed. Despite its great length, most of the detail work was left to regulators to fill in. This is one of the dirty secrets of legislation–how frequently congress passes outlines of laws and not complete laws, and then agencies have to fill in the details.

    For me, conscience should prevail on this issue. I realize this involves places where Catholic agencies are hiring people of other faiths, but that should be a factor in one’s choice of employer, just as other benefits and conditions are. It’s an imperfect world, but I tend to come down on the side of freedom of conscience.

    On the other hand, if you read the White House statement, and if what they are saying is correct, much of the uproar over this issue is, in my view, overdone. The government is overstepping its bounds in my view, but less so than was believed. Nonetheless, I am opposed to this regulation.

  • Seventh-Day Adventist vs Methodist on Family Guy

    As an ex-SDA who is now Methodist, I just have to share this video:

     

    Now my experience amongst Methodists is that most will just shrug their shoulders about worship on Saturday. They get a little more tense about soul sleep.

    I have encountered a few Methodists who are like the one in the video, generally those who really have no idea what SDAs believe.

    On the other hand, I’ve gotten some very interesting reactions from SDAs who discover I’m ex-SDA and now Methodist. At one meeting where I had brought one of our Energion authors who is SDA, I was cornered by someone at the book table afterward who said he simply couldn’t understand how one could ever have doctrinal disagreements with the SDA church. Take it from me—it’s really quite easty! It’s only fair to point out that our hosts at that church were embarrassed and apologized to me for his behavior, though I actually didn’t mind.

     

    (HT: Spectrum)

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  • February Biblioblog Carnival Posted

    … at Cheese Wearing Theology.

  • On Externalities and Libertarianism

    I’ve often wanted to write something about externalities, but I’ve never gotten the time. Specifically, I’m interested in how these relate to regulations and in turn to economic freedom.

    I lean libertarian, and many people  who know that are surprised that I’m not always opposed to environmental regulations. Why is that?

    Well, Ed Brayton has written an excellent summary, and all I can say is I couldn’t agree more.

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  • Factors that Make a Difference in Education

    Scot McKnight cites a study that shows many of the things we might think would make a difference in education don’t, and a number of others do.

    I was actually unsurprised by this. The actual study is behind a pay wall, so I don’t know if they covered it, but another indicator of success in school is parental involvement.

     

  • Jesus Creed: Does God Still Speak?

    Scot McKnight has a post asking this question, starting from a book he’s read. This is a few days old, but that just adds more discussion in the comments!

    Just in case anyone wonders, my position–the position I argue for in my book–is that God still speaks today. In fact, my aim in the book was to provide a coherent and simple theology for understanding how God speaks at any time and place.

  • The Cross is an Offense Today

    I rarely post a quote from a book I’m editing, but this one struck me today. It’s from the forthcoming book The Church Under the Cross by William Powell Tuck. Here it is:

    Jesus Christ has called us to a way of life which demands sacrificial living, and this call is still an offense to us today. Oh, we don’t mind hearing sermons about the cross, as long as they tell us about what God did for us in Christ. We don’t mind hearing songs about the cross. We don’t even mind singing songs about the cross or depicting the cross in paintings, sculptures, stained glass windows, or wearing the image around our nicks or on our lapels. But when we begin to realize that the cross is supposed to be a way of life, it is even more offensive to us today. Few people really live a sacrificial kind of life. But Jesus has called us to the cross-like way of life (p. 65).

    How easily we wear the symbol, often made out of gold (or gold-plated), but how difficult we find it to make the symbol a part of our daily life. I think we might well find it offensive to think that the symbol we wear or admire in art should change our lives.

  • Misbegotten Rules and a Cancer Survivor

    School suspends cancer survivor over long hair he intends to donate, says the headline at The Detroit News.

    I have a very strong opinion on this, and I have no sympathy whatsoever with the school’s position. They should work out a policy to allow this sort of good deed and especially to accommodate this young man who has survived cancer. Every bit of his plan resonates with me.

    Our young people need teachers and school administrators with good sense and flexibility. Our country needs more young men like J. T. Gaskins.

     

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  • Inerrancy of the (Unavailable) Autographs

    Joel Watts has some thoughts.

  • Defining Biblical Inerrancy

    One of the problems I have with the word “inerrancy” is that it is understood in very different ways. If I were to ask most people in my home church what biblical inerrancy means, they would probably conflate it with certain literalistic renderings.

    I disagree with the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, even as laid out in the Chicago statement, for example, but it is important in debating for, about, or against this doctrine to define how one is using the term.

    Jacob Allee writes a post in the context of the controversy over Mike Licona. Norman Geisler, amongst others, has accused Licona of denying biblical inerrancy for suggesting that the raising of the saints in Matthew might be apocalyptic language and not literally true. (I write about this and provide some links here.)

    I appreciate his simplified definition, which I do think is good, and much closer to what you would expect a biblical scholar to mean when referring to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. He also distinguishes interpretation from the actual text, which is a valuable point.

    None of this changes my mind, but I think it all clarifies the debate.