Thanks to Jeremy for doing all the work. I’m at #8 amongst some pretty great company!
Author: henry
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Few Knew Health Care Bill Got No Republican Support
I don’t think this is a major issue against the Republicans, in the sense that I don’t think they should be criticized for managing to be united in opposing something that they, well, oppose. That’s good politics, and if they really do oppose the bill (and I’m not certain about some of them) it’s honest politics as well.
But the voters need to know what their representatives are actually doing, thus I was not surprised, but nonetheless dismayed to learn that according a Pew Research poll, only 32% of those polled know that the senate version of the health care bill was passed without a single Republican vote, while only 26% know that it takes 60 votes to stop a filibuster.
Why do people need to know that sort of thing? How do you know who is doing what if you don’t understand the basic of the process? Knowledgeable voters are critical to the success of democracy, and we have a serious problem.
I note that the news story in which I picked this up, Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire, there was no mention of the fact that Republicans did better on the quiz than Democrats. Being an independent, I’m not as concerned here, but it’s an interesting result.
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Surfacing again after Server Work
I’ve been working on servers both for my personal and business sites. I think the results are largely good, though due to the speed with which I did the work I keep finding glitches I need to correct.
I have also marked quite a few items in my RSS reader for links or comments, so I’m going to do a bit of a dump today and tomorrow catching up. Of course some of these items will probably never see the light of day because their time is past.
If you have had difficulties with the site or its feed (which I know was down for some hours), please accept my apologies.
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Hebrew Codices for Download
Seforim Online provides downloads of some pretty nice stuff. I downloaded Codex Leningradensis. Details at Awilum.
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Opinions, Interpretations, and What the Word of God Says
There’s one use of the phrase “just your interpretation” that implies that no interpretation is better than any other. This is often used by people who have no idea how a particular text should be interpreted, but nonetheless feel like rejecting your interpretation in particular. Either they think all interpretations are equal–a common idea these days–or they are just tool lazy or uninterested to bother to check. (I wrote about this some time ago on my Threads blog.
But today I’m writing about the opposite use — the idea that you can get past opinions and interpretations to something that is just “what God’s word says.” For example, this morning a reader named Bryon commented on a post on tithing, and began thus:
In regards to tithing, the question is not what is someone’s opinion or interpretation of Malachi 3:10
. The question is what does the Word of God say about Malachi 3:10 and other scriptures concerning the tithe? …(I’ll provide him a link in my reply to his comment, so he can respond here..)
Now it happens that I agree with most of the interpretations and opinions contained in his post, but they are his opinions of how to interpret those passages and apply them. My agreement is my opinion as well. There’s nothing wrong with interpreting or with having opinions.
Some people think that claiming something is just God’s word is a matter of humility. If you attribute it to God then you’re not claiming authority for your own opinion. I happen to disagree. It is my opinion that not taking credit for your own interpretations and opinions is really rather arrogant. They are still your opinions; now you’re just letting people think that somehow God is speaking directly through your words.
For example, Malachi 3:10 does not tell us whether tithing applies to Christians or not. Clearly it is addressed to the Jewish people after the exile, but there are other commands that are addressed to specific groups of people that many, many Christians believe apply to everyone everywhere. Determining the person(s) to whom a command applies is a matter of interpretation.
Now my opinion is that Bryon is right and this command applied to Israel at the time and stewardship is different for Christians. But that remains my opinion of how the text should be interpreted.
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Biblioblogger Amazon aStore
Jeremy at Free Old Testament Audio has created an Biblioblogger Amazon.com aStore and is creating lists of books by various bibliobloggers, including yours truly. I encourage you to head over and check it out and consider buying through his links if you plan on buying any of those books. Jeremy has been doing some nice things to the top 50 list.
Of course I’m not writing this because he has me listed with all my books. No. Not at all.
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Server Move
This was a lateral move with the same provider, but still the database was physically moved. If you commented over the last 24-48 hours and your comment is missing, it was most likely due to the move.
If you are seeing this, you can go ahead and comment and your comment will not be lost.
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Greg Boyd Tells Mennonites to Go to Hell!
Read about it here. My ancestors were Mennonite, so perhaps I should be offended.
Not so much! His own title for the post ends with “… and they liked it.” He was asking them to go storm the gates of hell, i.e. areas of the world that are under the dominion of Satan. He suggests that they have been focusing on “keeping hell out of their communities.”
Consider:
As the religion of Christendom dies a slow death (praise God!) and the vision of the cruciform Kingdom is caught by more and more people around the globe, it will be interesting to see what role the Mennonites (and other Anabaptist groups) will play, for they alone have the tradition that is centered on this vision. …