Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Questioning God-Given Rights

    I’m following Joe Carter’s new series on his particular conservative beliefs with interest. I think it’s a valuable thing to do, and blogging about it should provide some interesting reading and discussion.

    My interest is in the concept of God-given rights, or rights with which we are endowed by the creator, and the value of that concept (Point 4 in Joe’s second post). Of course, any American reader should know that I’m paraphrasing there from the Declaration of Independence, and that I’m likely to get into trouble asking questions about it. This sort of thing is like machine-gunning sacred cows. But I do question the value of the claim that rights are given by God in political discourse.

    (more…)

  • Christian Carnival CCIV Posted

    . . . at Parableman.

  • Christian Carnival CCIV Posted

    . . . at Parableman.

  • Spiritual Gifts in 1 Corinthians 1:7

    The lectionary passages for Epiphany 2 (Cycle A) include 1 Corinthians 1:1-9. In verse seven, we have the phrase “spiritual gift.” It’s interesting to note which word is used for “spiritual gift”–in this case charisma. This is not the word used in 1 Corinthians 12:1 and 14:1, which both use pneumatikos.

    A number of interpreters have suggested that in 1 Corinthians 12:1, pneumatikos should be translated either “spiritual people” or “spiritual matters.” I suggested in a previous post that, despite the translation hardships it presents, the same thing is true of 1 Corinthians 14:1.

    Part of my reasoning for that is that in no other case does the use of pneumatikos refer to spiritual gifts. It refers to spirituality, but not specifically to spiritual gifts. They are all called charismata. This verse, 1 Corinthians 1:7, reminds us of that, in the very book in which those other passages occur.

    Why is this important? I think it strongly reminds us that God’s gifts come by God’s grace and are not ours somehow by spiritual nature. Gifts should always be related to grace–received by grace, used graciously, and intended for the spread of God’s grace.

    In addition, 1 Corinthians 1:7 again points out to us the fact that gifts are given to the church. They equip the church for its work of ministry. They are not an individual possession that may be hoarded.

  • A Common Theme for the Epiphany 2 Lectionary

    I’m probably going to talk about common themes later, but I noticed something interesting that might not be the first thing one would notice in these passages, and that’s a combined sense of inadequacy without God’s Spirit, and the adequacy given by the presence of God’s Spirit. In Isaiah 49, the servant is taken as an infant, and equipped by God. This parallels John 1, I think, where we do not have an expression of inadequacy, but we have the giving of the Spirit at baptism, and ministry that follows it.

    Inadequacy is specifically expressed in Psalm 40:1-11 “pulled me up from the seething chasm” and “from the mud of the mire” (v. 2, NJB), and in Paul’s letters frequently, but demonstrated in our passage again through the focus on “called by the will of God (v. 1), and “relying on God” (v. 9).

    Whether or not the inadequacy is expressed, in each case the preparation and the giving of the Spirit is the launching point for ministry. We talk about the baptism of Jesus as demonstrating the path that each Christian must follow. Jesus is obedient to God, even though he has not sinned and doesn’t require baptism for forgiveness of sins. But note also that Jesus is not inadequate, as we would normally think of inadequacy, but he also launches his ministry when he receives the Spirit.

    There is a pattern there for modern ministry (clergy or lay) as well.

  • Emotions and Candidates

    I think there’s something wrong with us when one candidate’s show of emotion can get this much press time. I’m hoping that the public are much less excited about this than the press, but political commentators seem to be trying to make it a pivotal point in her campaign, part of that every shifting momentum that they loudly proclaim has changed with every new piece of un-news.

    Hillary Clinton is not my favorite candidate for president, but she is not a bad candidate, and how much emotion she shows would likely not be a major issue if she were not a woman. I find this frenzy about a few moments of emotion, one way or another disgusting. I think it’s a major display of sexism, all the more dangerous because nobody wants to acknowledge it.

    Let’s do a little bit more analysis of her policies, comparing programs, experience, and vision. The media needs to spend more time on substantive issues. They need to spend less time talking about themselves. So much of the coverage has to do with “what I (the journalist) did when I was with candidate x.” Little information is passed on.

    Agree or disagree with Hillary Clinton, she has given us enough specifics in her record and in campaign position papers to occupy a good deal of discussion time. She may not be your favorite candidate or mine, but she deserves to be judged on that record, not on whether she displays precisely the right amount of emotion. I’ve found that one cannot display the right amount of emotion for everyone. I suspect that will be the case here. (My wife comments on this in her book on grief. People will actually criticize others for how they express grief at the loss of a loved one or in some other hardship situation. That is such arrogance!)

    I’m going to contribute to this by writing blog posts on candidate’s positions, starting with health care proposals. I’m working on the research for that now.

  • The Momentum has Shifted – Not!

    You’ll notice that I don’t make predictions about who is going to win elections around here. That’s not because I’m really modest and don’t want to let you know how right I am; it’s because I generally don’t have a clue. I do remembering saying to my wife during the 2000 election that I didn’t think they had Florida projected correctly after I looked at a precinct map, but that was because of the obvious (and constant) problem that people project Florida before the panhandle votes get counted, and the panhandle votes heavily Republican.

    So after Iowa and New Hampshire, who is listening to the pundits any more? Those guys don’t know any more than I do, and I can testify to you that on the matter of who’s going to win, that means they know, um, some tiny amount indistinguishable from nothing.

    No, this is not a post with high intellectual content. It’s just that their words annoyed me leading up to both events, I think they have been proven sufficiently wrong, and I think their faces should be rubbed in it, just so they won’t proclaim what they don’t know with such confidence.

    It reminds me of the lousy sports reporters who sense a shift in momentum every team a different team scores. In football I’ve heard reporters speak about shifts of momentum after a team made a first down. “No,” I want to yell at them, “they just made a first down.”

    On February 5, we have New York and New Jersey, amongst many others. I can’t imagine Hillary Clinton is going to give up before that, and I suspect Rudy isn’t going to either. I might like them to, but wishes aren’t predictions.

  • I Posted on Prescriptive Grammar

    . . . over at my Jevlir blog.

  • What I Want for Election Day: A Health Care Plan

    I haven’t seen any results from New Hampshire yet, so this is probably a good thing to write about politics. I’m going to try really, really hard to keep this short. I am very much encouraged by the increased voter turnout thus far, both in Iowa and New Hampshire. I hope it is a trend that continues. More involvement and less apathy will be good for all of us.

    What do I want to see in a health care plan? I’d like to see health care:

    • Universal
    • Free Market
    • Limited Regulation and Bureaucracy

    Of course, anyone with any knowledge of politics and economics can tell me I’m not going to get all three of those, as there are contradictions in them. So what do I think I can get?

    It’s something like the little Marilyn Monroe song (later by Madonna as well, I believe) in which we find the lines:

    a yacht
    that’s not
    a lot

    The yacht is a lot, but we’d like to think otherwise. It’s the function of a candidate to convince us we can have the yacht without paying for it; once elected, he’ll make us pay for it, but never provide the yacht. This occurred to me as I was reading the few health care plans that the candidates have put forward. For what it’s worth, I congratulate those campaigns that have gotten specific on this issue.

    First, I think it’s time for us to have some kind of universal coverage, or at least to head that way in this country. At the moment we have too many people using emergency rooms for primary care, and guess who pays for that. You and I do, sometimes in taxes, sometimes in our medical bills. Further, emergency room care is excessively expensive. But I’m not here to get into the details of emergency room care.

    What emergency rooms tell me is something simple. When we are confronted with someone in dire need of medical care, we are not willing to just let that person die. That’s why emergency rooms have to take people in who can’t pay and provide them with a minimum of care. Unfortunately, the same moral compass that leads us to expect care for these people doesn’t seem to lead us to pay for it.

    Second, however, and conflicting with the first, medical care is an economic good. It’s not in unlimited supply, it doesn’t just happen. Somebody has to produce it. When we declare that someone has a right to medical care, we’re also by nature implying a duty by someone else to produce that care. When the issue is someone dying of fatal injuries, however, we want to ignore the issue of precisely how the thing to which that person has a right is produced.

    This leads me to suggest that we build a system that is as private as possible and use a minimum of government intervention. There are certainly some ways to reduce costs. These include moving more primary care to providers such as nurse practitioners. I don’t have statistics on it (I’m going to do more research) but I believe it will also be valuable to put some kind of restraints on malpractice lawsuits to alleviate fear of using people with less than a medical degree plus a specialty to actually see patients. Personally I think we will be better off, on average with the nurse practitioners providing primary care.

    Those items, however, are going to be minor. One thing I noticed in the health care plans I read was a great deal of optimism about saving money. It is very rare that government regulations can be set up to enter an industry and reduce overall costs. Again, it’s a topic for more research, but I am extremely suspicious of the savings numbers given by any of the candidates. It seems to me that the promise of large monetary savings and no new bureaucracy is a bit like “the yacht is not a lot” but yet the time will come when folks have to pay.

    Further, there is a good reason why savings don’t ever seem to accomplish what is promised for them. Even wasted money goes into the economy somewhere. If it is used more productively there will be an improvement, but fired government workers, for example, were buying groceries whether their work was productive or not. Overpaid executives put their money in banks where it can be used for investment. In general, when we state either losses from fraud and waste, or savings from eliminating it, we get the idea that more will be accomplished than will actually happen.

    So where do I end up? With a compromise. I’d be pretty happy with a private system that nonetheless mandated some level of health care coverage with a safety net program for those who are unable to pay for it. I know that safety net programs tend to become entitlements, but I do not want to see anyone left without basic (that needs to be defined, but not today) coverage, or anyone forced to provide free service. I think this one needs to be taken care of nationally.

    PS: To find out why I’m almost certain to be disappointed, read Bureaucracy, by Ludwig von Mises. If you’ve read (or tried to read) Human Action, don’t worry. Bureaucracy is an easy read.

  • Common Theme, Lectionary for Baptism of Christ – A

    The texts are Isaiah 42:1-9, Psalm 29, Acts 10:34-43, and Matthew 3:13-17. (Check them on Textweek which is a wonderful resource.)

    I like to think about common themes in these passages so that I can, if I want create a sermon or a lesson that incorporates all four texts. In this case I see a common them or the creator of all who intrudes into our lives for redemption. There is some piece of this in every one. Now that is way too broad as a theme, but it has gotten me started thinking in several directions.

    Isaiah 42:1-9 – this gives us both elements, with verses 1-7 dealing with the servant, his call, and the way God’s Spirit comes upon him empowering him for a task of redemption. One sermon that would come to me from this passage would discuss just what it is that God means by justice, and how God (or God’s servant) goes about bringing it to pass. Verses 8-9 talk both about power and universality. Note also that if God is creator of all, and Lord over all, he is also interested in everyone. We can downplay our “in-group specialness.”

    Psalm 29 is pretty strictly a hymn about God’s power, which can tie in with Isaiah 42:8-9 (and verse 5).

    Acts 10:34-43 is the story of Peter realizing that God is concerned with more than his own people. It would make an excellent text to discuss moving from exclusive to inclusive because one recognizes that God is more inclusive than I am!

    Matthew 3:13-17, of course, tells of the baptism of Jesus and the coming of the Spirit on him, to a Christian the greatest act of redemption.

    I could think of several lessons one could teach from a combination of all four of those texts.