Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Intimidation by Divine Wrath

    Some Christians resort to an argument of intimidation by divine judgment and wrath when the going gets tough. I read this most recently in a comment on YouTube, in which the writer simply quoted Bible texts implying first that people were wrong, and second that God was going to do something about it.

    Those texts didn’t specify that I was wrong, or that my accuser was right; taken out of context as they were, they didn’t specify the topics on which God would get you if you were wrong; they simply suggested that people who were wrong might well be in trouble.

    This method is intended to make the person who is less sure of himself give in because of the fear of divine retribution. On the surface, the person using it is so absolutely certain he is right, that he believes the other person will flinch, being less certain. But there’s another element to it. He must also believe that the other person secretly knows he is wrong and is simply holding onto a position out of sheer perversity.

    Our hypothetical debater believes that the atheist with whom he is arguing is really a closet theist who refuses to acknowledge belief in God because he doesn’t want to obey. Perhaps if he is threatened with judgment enough times he will come to acknowledge how wrong he is. The more liberal Christian, in his view, truly knows that fundamentalism is true, but has been deceived by the spirit of the age. Again, he will flinch if confronted with the potential wrath of God.

    This isn’t a conservative/liberal type of approach, however. Many very conservative Christians are attacked by other seekers of absolute certainty who regard them as liberal, or just plain wrong in some other way.

    I’ve heard this approach to debate many times. Sometimes it comes in the form of “doubting your salvation” because your theology isn’t correct, at others in the more direct form of telling you that you will have to face God’s judgment.

    What I was thinking today, however, is that despite its surface appearance, this approach doesn’t come from a position of supreme confidence, but rather one of profound doubt, but doubt which cannot be admitted. Those who believe that they have to have certain doctrinal positions correct in order to be right with God, or to gain some eternal reward can become quite tense about the possibility of being wrong. After all, the penalty for an error here runs all the way to eternity in hell!

    And please don’t remind me of salvation by faith. I had a young man question my salvation after he had spent an hour preaching to me about salvation by grace through faith without works of any kind. Then because I didn’t quite understand the words that he did, he said he was concerned about my salvation. I guess it wasn’t just grace and faith, but also a full theological understanding of them!

    Being both uncertain and terrified of the penalty of being wrong, such people would have to get into the habit of never thinking they are wrong. I, on the other hand, have been wrong so many times, it is certainly no remarkable event. I suspect the people who have used this on me cannot imagine that I am unconcerned with being wrong, and that I’m simply waiting for someone to actually show me that I am.

    I think this one works a bit like an insult. When someone you don’t respect insults you, you are hardly hurt by it. When someone threatens you with something you do not fear, it also doesn’t concern you.

  • Pensacola Pelicans Opening Day

    Well, patient readers, you will have to put up with some baseball. My son, John Webb, was the opening day pitcher for the Pensacola Pelicans, and he looked pretty good. His mother and I were a bit concerned to see the trainer go out to the mound in the fifth, but it looks minor and they’re expecting him back in five days.

    He went 5 innings and allowed three earned runs. Several of us in the stands thought the umpire wasn’t giving pitchers the lower part of the zone. Of course my opinion on this matter is totally unbiased! It’s not an excuse John would use. He left the game with the Pelicans ahead 6 to 3, and the final score was 10 to 7.

    Some early season rough edges were showing on both teams. There were a couple of plays in the first that I know those guys are capable of making, yet they didn’t go well. They weren’t scored as errors–correctly–but they just looked a little bit rough. Overall, however, the Pelicans look like a very promising team.

    Our “other” baseball player, Brandon Sing, who is staying with us here, had an excellent night, though as he mentions in the PNJ story (see below), they weren’t throwing him much. He walked twice and hit a bases-loaded double that was a thing of beauty.

    Read some more in the Pensacola News Journal story Pelicans Cruise in Season Opener.

  • Responding to the Evangelical Manifesto

    I never refer to myself as an evangelical, but occasionally others do for reasons that are largely unfathomable to me (except a few from across the pond that make some sense), so I usually take a look at documents that come out relating to evangelicalism. I’m always interested in the potential for finding one of these documents that I could go along with 100%. Of course, I realize that if that happened, there would also be a number of evangelicals who would say that the document, statement, or in this case manifesto was inadequate.

    I have read the entire manifesto (HT: evangelical outpost) and not just the summary, and I find very little in there to which I would want to respond. First, very few evangelicals of my acquaintance would accept that manifesto as adequately expressing their own confession of faith. The few who would are in the United Methodist Church and go a bit light on some of the elements, such as penal substitution. (Note that I am using “evangelical” as a reference to those who would self-identify as such.) I would expect that the expression on the inspiration of scripture would be considered a bit weak by many. One can read inerrancy there if one tries, but it’s not terribly clear. If I wanted to interpret with great latitude, I could fit my own view of scripture in there. I imagine there will be some who will do so.

    Second, I think the idea of rescuing terms is a very hazardous business. The statement from page 4 illustrates this point. “There are grave dangers in identity politics, but we insist that we ourselves, and not scholars, the press, or public opinion, have the right to say who we understand ourselves to be.” The problem here is that I have to first decide who is a “real” evangelical before I know who to ask for a definition. You may think this is nitpicking, but I know evangelicals (by their self-identification) who believe that most evangelicals aren’t really evangelicals any more. Personally I take as a starting place those who are in the majority of a group, and thus break out of the circle, but it does create a problem. I’m left to wonder if evangelicalism as stated in this manifesto is similar to an older evangelicalism. Are they defining a new position, returning to an old one, or something between?

    Such expressions as “Yet we hold to Evangelical beliefs that are distinct from the other traditions in important ways — distinctions that we affirm because we see them as biblical truths that were recovered by the Protestant Reformation, sustained in many subsequent movements of revival and renewal, and vital for a sure and saving knowledge of God — in short, beliefs that are true to the Good News of Jesus” (pages 4-5), equivocate between recovering something old and latching on to something new at some point.

    I would have to say that if I read the affirmations on scripture and salvation as I believe the authors meant them, I could not adopt this statement as my own. I could be wrong on the way they meant those statements. They could even be trying to provide latitude to someone like me. That’s just not how I read it.

    I would add simply that I find the description of liberalism (pages 8-9) to be largely a strawman, though I’m afraid I would not be very likely to persuade evangelicals of that. I often think conservatives are just going along with the culture, while liberals are arguing against the tide, but part of each position seems to be a different perception of the tide.

    In any case, this is an interesting manifesto, as much for what it doesn’t say as for what it does. Whether it will accomplish any of the goals its authors set out to accomplish is another matter. I’m doubtful that it will.

    Here’s some reaction links from Moderate Christian bloggers. Most of it is more positive than mine.

    * = updates after initial post

    Any other members of the Moderate Christian Blogroll can leave comments if I missed your post, and I’ll promote the links to the body of the post. My observation thus far is that the bulk of the moderate bloggers are responding more positively to this than I am.

  • John Webb Pitching on Opening Day

    There’s a nice story today in the Pensacola News Journal (and I rarely call their stories nice!) about my stepson, John Webb, who will be the opening day pitcher for the Pensacola Pelicans baseball team.

    John was interviewed for the article and gets to talk about his goals and his approach to playing. I’m looking forward to the game tonight. I’m a pretty quiet guy. I told John as he left today that I would be the quiet one in the middle of a bunch of wild folks–the rest of the family.

    But I’ll give him a solid thumbs up and a “Yeah!”

  • Christian Carnival CCXXIII – Tabernacle Edition

    Welcome to the Christian Carnival, tabernacle edition.

    Why use the tabernacle? In my teaching I have found that the tabernacle and its services are almost infinitely useful, often illustrating things that one might not assume from the text. I identify as carefully as I can when I’m being strictly exegetical, and when I’m using the imagery to help get across other lessons. As an example, see my talk The Sin of Getting Stuck, in which I use the tabernacle as an illustration of progress in one’s Christian walk–clearly not exegetical, yet the tabernacle lends itself to this. (Note that this is a little over an hour long video, so unless you’re patient, skip it! Audio is also an option.)

    I have attached posts to various sections. There is no greater and lesser holiness implied. For example, Outside the Camp is for posts about witness and our relationship to the world. The camp itself is for daily living. In front of the gate is where many debates and confrontations took place. In the courtyard was a place for learning as the Israelites carried out God’s great teaching program. I reserve At the Altar of Sacrifice for items related to atonement and salvation, and The Holy Place for worship related items. Hopefully I’ve placed your post well.

    The pictures here are from http://koti.phnet.fi/petripaavola/Tabernacle, whose author gives kind permission to use them non-commercially on each page. I have only chosen a very small number, and I’ve had to reduce their resolution, so I recommend going and looking at the results of his hard work.

    Tabernacle image

    In the Camp

    Rodney Olsen presents Keeping Pets in Perspective posted at RodneyOlsen.net. As Christians, what should our attitudes be towards pets?

    William Meisheid presents Seeking Solidarity posted at Beyond The Rim…. A critique of Peggy Noonan’s article on the Wright-Obama controversy.

    Richard H. Anderson presents Rewriting Tabitha posted at dokeo kago grapho soi kratistos Theophilos.

    GP presents Fear is your Friend posted at Innstyle Montana- Your Home on the Range. Horses teach us Isaiah 41:10 (look it up!).

    In the Courtyard

    Tabernacle courtyard

    Ade Sobanjo presents 5 Reasons why Sex before Marriage is dangerous !!! posted at Celebration of Love.

    Jeremy Pierce presents Adam and Eve’s Race posted at Parableman. Is it meaningful to ask what race Adam and Eve were?

    Trevor McKay presents Dating And Courting… What’s The Difference? posted at The Christian Dating Chronicles.

    Pete presents Money and your prayer life: Do you pray about your finances? posted at Bible Money Matters. Is it important to pray about your finances?

    Weekend Fisher presents Scoring the books of the canon: cumulative scores at Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength After looking at a series of early lists of Christian writings, here Weekend Fisher shows the cumulative scores for how well attested each book is. The final answer on which books are best-attested historically will be no surprise to Christians — but may disturb conspiracy theorists who claim that the canon of Scripture was nothing more than an exercise in political power or an arbitrary set of books that could easily have been otherwise.

    I present here my post Hosting Bible Translations Wiki right here at Participatory Bible Study Blog. This is an open invitation to sign up and get involved in creating a solid encyclopedia of Bible translations, editions, canon, and topics related to creating the Bible edition you use.

    Outside the Camp

    Crystal Nichols presents 7 ways to live in harmony with your coworkers posted at Christian in the Corporate World. We are commanded to love each other, that includes our coworkers, too! Here are some easy ways to show Christ’s love to you coworkers.

    Angela Williams Duea presents Go With God, Immigrant posted at angelawd. Illegal immigration is a loaded topic, but we’re still challenged to love the individuals God places before us.

    Jody Neufeld presents Are you challenged to THINK on Sunday mornings? which is actually an introduction to her three part series on witnessing which she wrote after she heard a particularly challenging sermon on the subject.

    At the Altar of Sacrifice

    Altar of sacrifice

    Scott Clair presents Is the recog​nitio​n of sin impor​tant?​ posted at Anticipating the King. This article deals with whether or not the recognition of sin is important when evangelizing.

    Ken Brown presents On Sin and Atonement posted at C.Orthodoxy.
    A review of the film Atonement, focusing on its elucidation of the corporate nature of evil and the impossibility of atoning for one’s own sins.

    John at Brain Cramps for God writes On Depravity and Obedience. It seems many times folks just do not understand what “total depravity” really means; nor do they understand why Christians actually strive to obey the “rules”.

    David Porter presents Shall we continue to sin or can we change? posted at A Boomer in the Pew.

    At the Gate

    simplyeddie presents First Principles posted at Simple Life In Christ. He says: “Hope you like this article! It’s my first submission to Blog Carnival.” Welcome Eddie!

    Diane R presents Angry Young Christians? posted at Crossroads: Where Faith and Inquiry Meet. Why are there so many angry young adult Christians nowadays?

    Holy Place

    Tabernacle image

    Chad Dalton presents There is a place posted at Living Stone Bible Church Blog.

  • How it Happened vs. Probabilities

    I may be hopelessly naive in the matter of probability, though it is the one area of math that I have actually studied, but I am simply not terribly impressed with probability arguments. That’s probably (!) a major reason why I’m not impressed with intelligent design (ID). I’m particularly not impressed with probabilities calculated for processes that are not yet understood. If you don’t know all the factors, how can you calculate a probability?

    On the other hand, it appears that many creationists are much more impressed with probabilities that are largely guessed, while they are not terribly impressed with extrapolation in historical studies. For them, it often doesn’t matter how much detail you get for the development of various structures in the past, it’s not enough, because it would only be testable if we could see every stage and explain everything.

    Thus when an ID writer claims something is highly improbable, even though he hasn’t a clue how it actually happened, it impresses his fellow creationists, while when a scientist extrapolates development between existing specimens, the same creationists are totally unimpressed. Yet which of these is operating on the greater level of evidence?

    If anyone is wondering why I see strong evidence for evolution, here’s the answer. I’m used to and respect historical methods. If you find a pottery type developing, and then you find several examples of stages, sequentially arranged by date, you can extrapolate a path from one style to the next. You don’t need an example of every pot. If you see writing develop from one style to the next, you don’t need every stage. You can extrapolate.

    For me, the simple fact of large numbers of sequences in the development of complex structures suggests that such things have developed naturally. Extrapolating the intermediate steps is not terribly difficult for those who study these things, and it is a quite proper procedure. Challenging the observed sequence by indicating that it is improbable strikes me as absurd. The only proper challenge would be to say, “Here! This is where the intelligent designer intervened.” But of course, ID advocates do no such thing.

    NCSE has produced a video, which I will embed below, that shows such a sequence on the development of the eye. It’s very clear, but it lacks some steps. I don’t know whether the video produced all the steps we know of, or just a sampling, but if these were the sum total of examples we have in a sequence of eye development, we would have good cause to believe that the eye evolved.

    This video comes from the truly excellent site Expelled Exposed, sponsored by NCSE. Hat tip goes to The Panda’s Thumb.

  • Next Christian Carnival Will be Here

    I’m hosting Christian Carnival CCXXIII here. It will be posted later today. I actually cut off submissions this morning, so if you had your post in any time last night, it will get in there.

    I’ll be posting from somewhere out of my office, so corrections will have to wait at least until evening.

  • Distinguishing Freedom and Ability

    I have always preferred our classic statements of rights, such as the bill of rights, to such statements as Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms.” What interests me is that while our classic statements of rights indicate things that the government is not permitted to prevent you from doing, the latter two freedoms from Roosevelt’s list, and especially the third, indicate things that you get to have.

    The four freedoms Roosevelt mentioned are:

    1. Freedom of speech
    2. Freedom of worship
    3. Freedom from want
    4. Freedom from fear

    This ambiguity comes up in plenty of discussions of rights. What precisely does “freedom from want’ require, who gets to decide just how much want is permissible, and who gets to decide who has to produce all of that? I, for example, would like a much better computer. It would help me in my creative activities. Perhaps someone should give me one in order to improve my mental health.

    Of course I’m not serious about that. Nobody has any duty to give me a computer. I will have to earn the money and buy one. People often assume that we will all have a reasonable definition of “want” in place, but the fact is that we don’t agree on such things.

    That, however, is not my main point. I would like to focus on the distinction between these two types of rights. The first, freedom of speech, is provided by the government failing to take certain actions–not suppressing speech. There is, of course, the positive action of maintaining a lawful framework, but that is a requirement for the existence of any right. Freedom from want requires some positive action on someone else’s part, namely to produce the particular goods.

    While I believe I have an obligation as a Christian, individually and in community, to care for those who are less advantaged, I have a distinct problem with many of the government programs that do what I believe I must do privately, because they tend to make one person have an inherent, legal right (I think those are oxymoronic, but they are commonly used together) to that which someone else must go out and produce. I advocate certain safety net welfare programs in any case, not as a right of those who receive them, but as part of maintaining a workable society.

    But I want to apply this now to speech and to the controversy about intelligent design. There’s a regular chorus going on right now about suppression. I think that chorus is based on a confusion of their rights with someone else’s production.

    I have a right to free speech. I do not have a right to any particular medium. If I can find no publisher for my writing, then my writing will not get printed. Since I am a publisher, I have the right to refuse to print someone else’s drivel, or even their masterpiece, and I am not suppressing free speech, even if they find no other way to publish.

    Besides forcing someone else to produce what they believe is a right, people who make such claim try to take away the rights of others. Again, illustrating with myself. As a publisher, were I required to print the works of someone even though I chose not to, then my right of free speech is abridged. My right of free speech does not require a carpenter to build a stage, an electrician to wire the sound system, a newspaper to print an ad for my event, nor any person to come an listen to me.

    My belief that I have important things to say does not require a college or university to gather students to hear it. There are things that are of value under those circumstances, and other things that are not. If I were the chair of a religion department, for example, I would consider it quite appropriate to refuse a place on the faculty to a KJV-Only advocate, even if he could produce the appropriate accredited degrees.

    In High School curricula, we have the need to cover a great deal of material, and some things are in while others are out. We have groups whose job it is to decide which is which. Subject matter needs to meet a threshold of validity and usefulness in order to merit a place in such a curriculum, otherwise you are forcing students to spend time learning that which will not work to their benefit.

    Now there is a little glitch in the educational plan. What about state sponsored institutions of higher learning? Shouldn’t they have to provide a platform for anyone in the name of free speech? They are the government, after all. I would say rather than if we allow a government to operate an academic institution, that is precisely what we should expect them to run, and that will mean making choices, discriminating against bad ideas (it isn’t prejudice if you studied it ahead of time!), and allowing some in and not allowing others.

    I say to the intelligent design advocates: You don’t have a right to access to scientific journals and faculties. Your presence in such places must be earned. Your ideas should not appear in curricula by right, but rather because they have proven themselves in the appropriate arena.

    ID is trying to create a welfare state for ideas. It’s a bad idea economically, and it’s no better of an idea in the realm of ideas.

  • My Advice for Florida Creationists

    Which, for those in doubt, includes advocates of intelligent design (ID). I know they won’t take it, but here it is:

    Just tell the truth.

    John West, over at Evolution News and Views, has written a quite disingenuous post in which he wonders about the motives of advocates in the Florida House who insisted on passing a measure that differed from the one in the Florida Senate and one which would most likely be rejected. Personally I don’t think there was any certainty that the Senate would decide to reject the House bill in the end, but that’s how it worked out.

    West thinks this “smacks of classic back-room politics by politicians who are trying to play both sides of an issue.” I’m sure back-room politics is alive and well in Florida, despite sunshine laws, but the real “sunshine” problem here is with ID advocates themselves. You see, if you stick with the truth, you only have to remember one story, but if you decide on lies, then you have to agree on your lies, and you have to keep the various stories coordinated.

    What the Florida creationists want is religion taught in public schools, but they can’t write a law to do that directly, so instead they have to write some other scenario, and that’s when things get difficult. The real effect of each of these bills would be to refer the issue to the courts, and the main issue then is just what do you want to take to court with you, considering the truth absolutely won’t do.

    That was the problem in Dover. The people who pushed intelligent design really wanted religion in the classroom, and ID was just the means to an end. Once you get one set of materials in you start working on the next one. As long as you are trying to get something that you can’t admit you want, you’re going to have confusion of strategy.

    I have been astounded at the number of ID advocates who have told me here on this blog, in e-mail, or in person that I am horribly misunderstanding their position because I think ID has to do with religion. But there is simply no possibility that ID, without any religious overtones, has any audience at all. If the whole argument is about the possibility that some form of alien life is interfering with earth life, perhaps a roomful of weirdos would be interested. The fact is that “intelligent designer” is heard (correctly) as a codeword for God, and that is what gives this traction.

    Whether ID advocates are creationists or not–and I think they are–it is certainly creationists in the older sense (YEC or OEC) who are carrying the torch for this movement. What happened in the Florida legislature is that conservative Christians who believe that their particular faith position should be taught in public schools tried to get some portion of it allowed in the curriculum of Florida public schools. There was no back-room deals needed to kill the legislation; differences in the particular form of the lie that should be told in order to reap the greatest benefit spelled doom for the bills.

    I cannot prove there were no back-room deals. If there were, I wish I knew who was involved so I could vote for the people responsible. In the legislature I’d prefer crooks who are in favor of good education to crooks who want to lie for God.

    One more thing from West:

    . . . More importantly, we still live in America, and although Darwinists are doing their best to shut down and intimidate anyone who raises questions about Neo-Darwinism, we still have free speech, and they can’t prevent people from hearing about the debate in the public arena, no matter how hard they try.

    I’m wondering if West is even aware of what this bill was for. This was about High School curriculum. It wasn’t about “the public arena.” The ID movement is the noisiest bunch of “suppressed” people in history. If their voices are cut off, there sure is no evidence of the fact.

  • Hosting Bible Translations Wiki

    Updated: I added one more topic for the wiki, and also changed the links to point to mybibleversion.com which is where I think this belongs. The old URLs are redirected.

    Before I discuss this, it is not a diversion from personalizing the MyBibleVersion.com site. In fact, it is now a part of that process.

    “This” is my creation is a Bible Translations Wiki, which will be hosted at Energion.com, the same physical site as hosts MyBibleVersion.com. I have wanted to do this for some time in order to enhance the available information. I had a small database of definitions, but it is nothing like what could be done with a Wiki specific to Bible translations.

    Associated with the Wiki is a forum. In order to be a user of the Wiki, users will register in the forum, and the same registration will be useful for both. This is why I installed the Wiki and the Forum first. The same registration will also be used when you create Bible translation profiles on MyBibleVersion.com.

    What will go into this Wiki?

    1. Definitions of terms related to Bible translation
    2. Basic information on Bible versions
    3. Reference sources, including books, blogs, and web sites
    4. General information to which you might need to link in discussing Bible translations
    5. Translation discussions for specific texts and issues

    I’ll be trying to avoid duplicating Wikipedia and writing more specialized materials. I will also be setting up style guides to divide information into general user sections and separate advanced sections.

    I have left this open so that anyone can contribute. Just create your account and start adding entries. I will be an editor, and I’m looking for a few others who would like to help edit. I do hope that many people will contribute. I don’t want the Wiki to be a form of self-expression for me. I have blogs to to that! I hope it will be a community project of value to those interested in Bible translation.

    While the software is stable, WikiMedia and phpBB, the installation should be considered in its very early stages. There aren’t many pages yet, and most of the needed help and introductory pages are still blank. I just thought it would be worthwhile letting people know and seeing if anyone was interested before I tried to spruce everything up.

    Go on over and check it out.