Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Replacing Social Darwinism

    Well, the label at least. I think we’d like to ditch the concept as well, but that’s probably harder. I suspect ditching the label won’t work either.

    But Michael Zimmerman would like to do it and I agree with his reasons, even though I suspect people will continue to use the label that best advances their political agenda.

    “Social Darwinism” isn’t something Darwin advocated. It doesn’t result from his theory. It has a loose correlation at some points. What gets me is why one would consider the way things happen in nature a basis on which to determine what we, as humans, should do. For example, the earth shakes and destroys buildings, but if I arrange for an underground explosion such as to destroy a few buildings, it would–and definitely should–be a crime.

    In any case, if you’re more creative (or more optimistic) than I am, go help him out in the comments to his post.

  • Judge Jim Gray on Drug Legalization

    One of the things that annoys me in our national discourse is the way those on the left refuse to recognize the inefficiencies of government on their favorite projects while those on the right do the same thing with theirs. The phrase “legitimate function of government” is a license to all sorts of evils, most importantly the idea that since government must operate courts and have police, military, and other security services, somehow these legitimate functions will tend to work well.

    But the factors that make government work at less that the best efficiency in social welfare programs lead to inefficiency in these other roles as well. The problem is measuring success and then rewarding it or penalizing failure as appropriate. By their own standards government agencies do not fail and there is little in the universe that cannot be managed if you will give the right agency more money–in their own terms.

    One great boondoggle in this country is the drug war. We’re losing it. We have been from the first. Now please don’t put me in the category of folks looking for a new high. I avoid even over-the-counter pain killers. I don’t use alcoholic beverages. I’d like to reduce drug use, but it doesn’t seem to me that we’re managing to do it. So consider me someone dragged toward this point of view against his own will.

    OK, I’m not an expert. Watch this video. He does has some claim to being an expert. I dislike the section that looks like a slap at law enforcement (which he immediately denies, but still …). It’s not law enforcement’s fault if they enforce the law. That’s what we pay them for. I do agree that drugs provide an exceptional opportunity for corruption.

    Give it some consideration.

    (HT: Dispatches)

  • Finding and Protecting the Essentials

    I’ve written several times before about looking for the essentials of the Christian faith, most recently in my discussion of what a successful United Methodist Church would look like.

    I maintain that it is important to identify what are essentials, and to have a well-selected set that will provide identity for an organization. Of course, when we’re talking about church doctrines we hope to deal with essential doctrines that are also true and central to understanding our faith.

    If we make too many things essential, we tend to become narrow and divisive. If we make nothing, or too few things essential, we tend to have confusion. I think the United Methodist Church is in the latter situation in many ways.

    Of course the difficulty is identifying what is essential. I don’t believe this is necessarily easy, but we need to give it thought. Too often we simply think about what we believe and then sort of drift about in terms of what we believe is really essential.

    Eric Carpenter has taken on this topic in his own way, and titles his post Call Heresy What it is, but Only if it’s Heresy.

    Eric discusses both sides of the equation–too many essentials, and none at all–though he doesn’t use those terms. Regarding calling people with more minor disagreements “heretics” he says:

    We should never be calling others who are in Christ heretics.

    Then he discusses essential doctrines and concludes:

    Refusing to call heresy what it is leads to a lack of perceived boundaries between the gospel and the world. It suggests that everyone is really the same in their relationship to God. It strongly implies that gospel proclamation doesn’t really matter.

    Dave Black, in linking to Eric’s post, puts it this way:

    He is right. To be a Christian today we must have the heart of a child and the rind of a rhinoceros. The danger is that along with standing for the truth we will harden our hearts toward people. There are some teachings in the church today that are not to be accepted but rather challenged and (hopefully) corrected. In all of this, however, the serpent’s wisdom must be balanced by the innocent of the dove. God grant us balance.

    I hope more Christian bloggers will start to talk about this issue. We may find it had to agree on a solid list, but I think it’s very beneficial to ask ourselves regarding each area of disagreement: Is this critical to the gospel? Then we can continue to discuss non-essentials, but we won’t let them become divisive.

  • Book Notes: Roetzel on 2 Corinthians

    I’ve given up the enterprise of reading this book through from cover to cover, so these notes are based on using it as reference while I’m reading 2 Corinthians itself.

    The fact is that I found the book impossible to read straight through.  As I mentioned previously in using it as a comparison to Matera’s commentary, Roetzel divides the book into five letters:

    1. A Letter of Appeal for the Offering (8:1-24)
    2. First Letter Defending Paul’s Ministry ( 2:14-7:4)
    3. Second Letter of Defense or The Letter of Tears (10:1-13:10)
    4. The Reconciling Letter (1:1-2:13; 7:5-16; 13:11-13)
    5. Offering Letter to the Churches of Achaia (9:1-15)

    I find this reconstruction unconvincing not because it isn’t well thought out.  In fact, it proposes a rather interesting set of correspondence.  What I find unconvincing is any theory of why it would have been combined in the way it was by any redactor.  I simply see no logic, and Roetzel doesn’t seem to provide any, for why anyone should join the various letters together in this particular fashion. In my view, that is a fatal flaw.  What does the letter mean as constructed?  Why would one construct it in that particular way.

    Since Roetzel then writes the commentary according to his reconstruction, one almost is required to accept the reconstruction in order to read it comfortably.  Now that isn’t necessarily a criticism.  I suspect Roetzel would say that a person who follows the canonical form is requiring people to accept that (re)construction.  (See his comments on hypotheses on pages 24-25.)

    Using the index, one can still find the commentary useful in studying particular passages, and the introduction to the whole book as well as the introductions to the various sections are still quite useful.

    Due to space constraints, the commentary covers many of the major theological issues in the book very briefly.  That will actually be a feature to many readers, especially to pastors who are trying to prepare a sermon.  On the other hand, the pastor doing sermon preparation will have to work through the table of contents to find where his or her particular passage is covered.

    The language of the commentary is commendably clear, easy to read, and the referencing is light, and does not use footnotes.  That makes individual sections easy to read and to follow, again an advantage to the pastor of Sunday School teacher wishing to find the answer to some issue of interpretation.  Omissions in the discussion are entirely due to the size of the commentary.  You’ll find a great deal of information for the size of book involved.

    In the final analysis, I would have to say that I cannot overcome the negative factor of the book’s arrangement, and that goes back to my personal evaluation of the author’s hypothetical reconstruction of the book.  Were one to accept his reconstruction, the same things that I find annoying might be seen as helpful.

    As it stands, I must say that I prefer Matera’s commentary in all ways, and give this one three stars out of five.

  • Respect for Other Prayers

    According to the Christian Post:

    About a dozen delegates did not attend the prayer of Johari Abdul-Malik.

    “I’m going to be somewhere else saying the Lord’s Prayer,” Delegate John Cox (R-Ashland) told CBN News. “It’s just not something that I feel like I can condone as an individual.”

    Yet when I get into conversations on the topic of public Christian prayers, I’m regularly told that other people shouldn’t be bothered. They can just observe a moment of silence.

    Concerns surrounding the prayer were not driven by the fact that it was a Muslim prayer but by the troubling associations the imam has.

    Sorry, but I don’t believe it. The explanation given, that two of the 9/11 hijackers attended the same mosque, at a time when Johari Abdul-Malik wasn’t there, just doesn’t wash for me.

  • Christian Carnival CCCXVIII Posted

    … at RodneyOlsen.net.  Check it out!

  • Special Prices on Resources for Students at Bibles.com

    I’m not a student (at least in the traditional sense), but looks good.  Check it out.  (HT:  New Testament Resources)

  • On the Old Testament and Vengeance

    Peter Kirk linked to my post on “an eye for an eye” in responding to David Ker’s post What to do with the vengeance in the Old Testament? Skip it!

    As a result I’ve been able to follow a rather substantial number of posts discussing this issue.  One of these comes from John Hobbins, who tells us that one can’t be a “New Testament only” Christian.  I’m glad he used the word “only” because we all should be New Testament (or covenant) Christians.  As it is I can agree with him completely.  Dr. Platypus gets somewhat more helpful as he discusses the value of some of the difficult passages, especially in the Psalms.  Bob MacDonald also provides some good thoughts and resources.

    I emphasized Old Testament rather strongly in my studies and would certainly not want to be without it as part of my spiritual life.  I wanted to link in three more posts that provide videos of presentations made recently by one of my undergraduate professors, Dr. Alden Thompson.  I also am the publisher of his book Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God?  You can regard this as a semi-commercial announcement.

    I have not yet watched this set of videos, but having both taken classes from Alden as an undergraduate, and must more recently hosted him as teacher of several seminars, I have no doubt that he will make a valuable contribution to this discussion.  One of the things he says regularly is:  “You may not like the Old Testament, but Jesus did!”

    Links to the videos:

    Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

    The presentations were at the Toledo First Seventh-day Adventist Church.  If you’re harboring some denominational prejudices I’d urge you to lay them aside for the time it takes you to benefit from Alden’s teaching.

  • Divining the Voice of God

    I spend a good deal of time talking in my book (When People Speak for God) about discerning God’s voice and also about the way that people use the phrase “God told me” and its like in a manipulative way.

    Today on the Spectrum blog, James Coffin has a post titled Divining the Voice in My Head, in which he suggests that some of the people in scripture might have been engaging in the same practice:

    Anyway, as I read the scriptures, I wonder if maybe the people in Bible times weren’t given to the use and misuse of the “God told me” expression just as we are now. Maybe even more so. “God told” people a lot of things back then, it seems. And judging just from the context and the ethics of the advice given, I think it possible that there may have been times when God gets the credit for something that came from other sources. …

    He continues by discussing the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar and their interactions.  It’s well worth reading.

  • REB Module for e-Sword

    I previously reviewed e-Sword and found it a pleasant surprise in the free Bible software category.  Note that my review was written in 2006, within a few days of my starting this blog, and a great deal has happened since then.  Hopefully I will manage to write an updated review soon.

    June 20, 2026: I like to preserve old posts rather than delete them, but I have removed all links from the following. At one time there was an REB module for eSword, but the links are no longer valid and I cannot find such an edition. The closes thing available is on the Internet Archive, which you can browse. The old post, without the links, is shown below for reference.

    But there is more exciting news.  I got an e-mail today from Thought-Sight Consulting regarding an REB module for e-Sword.  You can go straight to the purchase page here, but the first page I linked has a great deal of valuable information.

    Many of us object to paying for modules to add to free software, but if you want the REB, you’re going to have to pay.  It’s under copyright, and the publishers are not giving permission for free distribution.

    From my previous post.