Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Fear and Bible Study

    I was preparing a devotional for my wife’s devotional list on facing fear when it suddenly occurred to me that the verses I was using could also apply to Bible study. I regularly encounter Christians who are afraid to study the Bible. Their concern is that they will get it wrong, but more especially that they will teach someone else wrong.

    It’s not surprising that they get to feeling this way, because we do quite appropriately put a great deal of stress on correctly understanding what the Bible has to say. When you add to that the nice note in James 4:1, “Not many of you should become teachers . . .” and the fear becomes set in concrete.

    The questioner generally also asks me how the great scholars, you know, the ones who wrote the notes in their study Bible, manage to figure out what the text means. “I read the text, and then I read the notes,” they say, “and I just can’t see how they got the note out of the text!” I have to tell them that sometimes the note isn’t right either. I have quite a collection of Bibles with study notes, and I can tell you that there are substantial differences in what they say.

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  • New Life Church Behaving Responsibly

    I’m not one to spend a great deal of time criticizing the media for their treatment of Christianity, but I do think that in general journalists in this country have a really good idea for what’s not the most important story, and as soon as they detect such a thing, they print it immediately. That’s why I like to look at stories from multiple sources because then I can gather together the few facts, and the scattered actually interesting things that they all print.

    A case in point is the MSNBC story 2nd Colo. pastor quits over ‘sexual misconduct’ which informs us that another minister at New Life Church has resigned over sexual misconduct. It turns out that the sexual misconduct was by an adult with another adult, both unmarried, several years ago. I’m not trying to make light of the sin here, but considering that New Life Church has around 200 staff members, the possibility that someone had committed a sexual indiscretion within the past six or seven years was pretty good. It is something that should be dealt with, with a key factor being that it is thoroughly contrary to the expressed standards of that church, but is just isn’t news.

    But there was some real news in the story; it was just not deemed worthy of the headline. The report says:

    The church’s outside Board of Overseers was asked to examine the “spiritual character”? of its 200 staff members after Haggard resigned last month from the church and as president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

    “We recognize there will be increased scrutiny of our church in the wake of the scandal,”? Brendle said.

    Now that’s responsible behavior, and it’s good news here. We’re not going to have perfect churches, and we will have scandals involving church leaders as long as human beings are leading churches. That’s not an excuse; it’s just a fact. We need to deal with problems as they occur. Hypocrisy is serious sin, and we need to be especially careful about living up to our expressed standards. But in the case of Ted Haggard and New Life Church, the church structure responded promptly and efficiently and dealt quickly with the problem. Then they went the extra mile and brought extra scrutiny on themselves.

    I think that responsible handling of a situation is more newsworthy than one young adult leader who was guilty of a sexual indiscretion.

  • Tripoli 6 Sentenced to Death

    (HT: The Panda’s Thumb)

    The way this case is being handled illustrates why religious and traditional beliefs about the physical world should be subject to scientific testing. I don’t mean that one’s beliefs about spiritual matters need to be so tested, but when your beliefs or mine say something about the physical world, then they are testable by scientific means, and the scientific method is not merely the best method we’ve discovered to acquire accurate data about the physical world; it’s the only adequate method.

    Traditional prejudices, however acquired, often blind people to facts. Who a person is, where they came from, or what their religious beliefs become more important than any factual data. I like religion, but if I allow the way I think things should be according to my theology, then I will get into the habit of denying objective evidence. Subjectivity is often good in spiritual matters, but it is bad in discovering physical reality.

    These six people have been sentenced to death because they are working in a country in which people have been repeatedly schooled to deny reality in any case in which it conflicts with religious dogma or tradition. We need to save them, but we also need to correct the culpable stupidity that makes such an obviously wrong verdict possible.

    Visit the Amnesty International web site for updates. Donate if you can. (Thanks to Andrea Bottaro at The Panda’s Thumb for the links.)

  • Moderate Christian Blog Roundup

    I went wandering through the Moderate Christian Blog Aggregator today. I really should do this more often as there are always some really excellent posts. I simply try to read so much stuff that I often don’t get around to writing about all the things I’d like to. In any case, here are some selected entries with my (hopefully) brief thoughts. I am only including posts that are fairly recent.

    I’m taking these entries in the random blog order (entries for each blog are in reverse date order) in which they appeared on the aggregator when I looked at it.

    Everyday Liturgy
    I chose too entries from Everyday Liturgy, though there are others that are great. The first is Negative Capability, which will challenge you to look at faith as poetry rather than as prose, a very fine idea all around! The second is A Gendered View of God, which may help us take a broader view of God and gender.

    From Monastic Mumblings, a Friar’s Journey I’d like to highlight Twofold Coming of Jesus Christ, which comes largely from Cyril of Jerusalem, but is an excellent and relevant selection from that.

    From In Praise Of Jesus we have a practical, classical sermon from George Mueller, titled Real Faith.

    On The Dream Factory Tom Sims tells us that he always chooses hope in his entry These Are the Days.

    Bruce Alderman keeps busy at It Seems to Me…. but what caught my eye as a Bible teacher was our need for the word, in which he calls for a subjective experience of the word. I’d note that the objective study has its place, but we do not become transformed by the word through merely objective study. We often look at “subjective” as somehow less than objective. Subjective is different, not less than, not more than, but it is a personal view.

    Coops was here provided discussions of God’s fairness in Why does God seem to play favorites? and the relationship between what we believe and going to hell in Does God Damn People Because They Believe Something Different? – A response.

    Donny Prater at A Man Coming Alive is Running the Gauntlet of Temptation and learning what’s truly important in life in Bobblehead Spirituality. (Hint: It isn’t bobblehead figures, though he says they’re cool. I’ll take his word for it!)

    Kievas Fargo on Sharing a Journey is participating in the RGPB Friday Five with his post Friday Five: Yuletide favorites, and he has some nice things to say about one of my posts in The egalitarian worldview, though I probably shouldn’t mention that. Oops! I already did. 🙂

    Bill Vernick at The Wordwright wants us to quit TAMPERING WITH REALITY in the way that we use words.

    The Pen of the Wayfarer writes about a comforting vision in A Matinee with the Trinity and some things that can be brought forth by pain in Pain at Christmas, Pain in the Christmas Story.

    Gavin (Hit the Back Button to Move Fwd) is responding to a post about far right youth ministries in huffington post on the far right youth ministries, and calling on all to get involved in a challenge to the Methodist blogosphere (though I don’t suspect outside help would be declined!) in your best millennial life now

    At E-Merging Daniel is in the video and pics business!

    Donny continues his online and ongoing testimony (for which kudos to him!) at Donny’s Ramblings: Diary of a FORMER Pornographer with his latest entry Heartache and Negativity. He may dislike reading negative things at a blog, but I appreciate his willingness to share.

    The Pacesetters Bible School Newletter features two new contributors, Rev. Geoffrey Lentz in Signed, Sealed, Delivered and Dr. Bob McKibben with Inspired and Empowered – Apportionments and Connectionalism

    Peter Kirk (Speaker of Truth) and I have both been rather heavily involved in responding to Adrian Warnock’s interview with Dr. Wayne Grudem. Peter’s most recent entry on that topic is Adrian Warnock closes his blog to comments… but he’s also asking Does God know what time it is?

    Since I often write devotionals for my wife, I’m making sure to feature one of her entries from jodydevotionals at Yahoo! Groups, here message on God’s gifts and our expectations, Monday Morning Devotion 12/18/06. Note that even though all the entries show me as the author that’s because Jody sends them to me and I post them. Even when I write them they go to her first and she selects and edits before deciding what to post.

    From my own blogs, I’d like to note some words on trajectories and how they can be used in scripture, a blank verse attempt at Psalm 103, which may be more of a demonstration of my lack of poetic ability. I’m not totally happy with it, but here it is!

    Note: I’m going to cross-post this entry on the Pacesetters Bible School Newsletter blog. I’m not certain how trackbacks are going to work, but we’ll see!

  • Dave Warnock on Wayne Grudem Interview

    Dave Warnock has posted an excellent set of reflections on the Wayne Grudem interview series. I strongly recommend reading it, especially some specific reflections from a Methodist perspective. While I do not use the term “evangelical” and Dave does, the problem is a difference of definition. Some of us try to hang onto words and defend them. I generally discard them as they begin to be used of things with which I do not agree.

  • The Proper Bounds of Political Correctness

    In my experience, political correctness is invoked more as a way to stifle requests for courtesy and consideration than it is to actually stifle freedom of speech. People here in the southern part of the country want to avoid the charge of political correctness at all costs. It’s sort of like being accused of being a whimp, lacking gun and pickup truck, and never shooting any deer.

    But for me courtesy is just that–courtesy. I don’t vary my holiday greetings to match with the person I’m addressing because the political correctness monitor is going to get me. I do it because I like to greet people in the way they would like to be greeted, not in the way I want to greet them. I don’t use racial epithets because I think they’re inappropriate, not because someone made a law or because someone is looking over my shoulder.

    There is an important line I’ve drawn here. I don’t want to make you use any particular greeting. I don’t want to force you to live and speak according to my standards or anyone else’s standards. In my view, free speech is not just the law–it’s a good idea! Besides the wonders that a free exchange of ideas does for truth-finding, it’s useful simply to prevent boredom. If everyone said precisely what I thought they should say at the time and in the manner in which I though they should say it, well, it would sound a lot like this sentence, and that would be dull.

    But there’s a very solid line that one can cross, and that is illustrated in some policies in place at Michigan State University. You can read about these in a report from FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) (HT: Dispatches from the Culture Wars) I doubt that Michigan State University is alone in this. Ed made a number of good comments on this policy in his post. I’m looking at it for just one thing: The line!

    What has happened here is simply that force has been added to political correctness, and the result is inappropriate suppression of expression. It would be fine for the university to make certain suggestions but to force the students to produce certain results is ridiculous and despicable. Hazy standards given the force of law have been the bane of religion for millenia, with an absolute certainty that when religion is given the force of law the result will be destructive of both religion and law. Now hazy standards in dialogue and discourse are similarly given the force of law, and the result will not be good.

    It would be a good thing for freedom in this country if we learned to distinguish between simple courtesy–the way I want to address people–and suppression of free speech. When the force of law is placed behind the words I want to hear, then free speech is being suppressed, and nothing good will follow. This is the liberal form of despotism. A private business can choose what to permit and not to permit. A government agency cannot.

  • The Wayne Grudem Interview – Reflections

    I’ve been responding at some length to Adrian Warnock’s interview with Dr. Wayne Grudem. He has now posted his Highlights and Reflections and I’m not going to respond point by point to that as it simply deals with issues I’ve responded to earlier.

    I think probably the best question to ask at this point is why on earth I took the time to respond to this entire interview. While Dr. Wayne Grudem is not completely at the opposite end of the spectrum from where I am, he’s far enough from me that it is often hard to engage. I disagree with him on Biblical inerrancy, on women in church leadership, and on the atonement. Just what do we have to talk about?

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  • Grudem and Church Leadership

    In part 9 of Adrian Warnock’s interview with Dr. Wayne Grudem the subject turns to church leadership. While I disagree with much of what Dr. Grudem says about church leadership, I could wish he would show some similar sensitivity to different points of view on male-female authority issues that he does on church leadership. Certainly the Bible says at least as much about leadership among God’s peopple as it does about women in teaching or leadership positions.

    The problem comes down to the process of application. Those who claim a “clear teaching” on a particular topic in scripture, generally ignore the very serious process of determining just how one command becomes applicable and another does not. Because of this, while we can often agree on Biblical exegesis (in 1 Timothy 2:8-15 there is an instruction for women not to teach), we often tend not to be able to agree on whether and how such a command might apply in another time and place. Our explanations can be ad hoc, and are based on how we want to understand the passage rather than on how God would want it applied in our lives and churches. Dr. Grudem thinks this is true of egalitarians. I think it’s true of complementarians. Dr. Grudem thinks that slavery is a bad trajectory, and in fact is generally unhappy with looking at trajectories (see part 4), and yet we do, in fact, have to look at the direction in which scripture is going on a particular teaching, else we will apply scripture inappropriately.

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  • Grudem Interview #8 – Arguing from Numbers

    I’ve had a day or so delay in responding to sections of Adrian Warnock’s interview with Wayne Grudem, so I’ll take on the last couple of sections and do my own reflections post today. This post takes a small sample from Part Eight – What Does the Future Hold for the Church? The main part of the post simply expresses Dr. Grudem’s hope and optimism that his side is going to win. He does kind of limit it a bit with the following:

    Yes, I have great confidence that this issue will eventually be resolved, and that the vast majority of God’s people who take the Bible as the Word of God will adopt and practice a complementarian position, and will put it in their statements of faith.

    That “God’s people who take the Bible as the Word of God” phrase is theological code for “those who agree with me.” I know this will be seen as disrespectful, but this is the kind of qualification one uses on a statement when speaking for publication with a political aim–in this case, to make it appear one’s position is strong. The easy response to opponents is then, as has been demonstrated in this interview, simply to claim that they aren’t really taking the Bible as God’s word. If you allow me to define the terms, then I take the Bible as God’s word, and Dr. Grudem might not. The point is that as qualified, the statement doesn’t convey factual knowledge, but rather simply tries to comfort a particular audience.

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  • Developments on the Plagiarism Front

    There have been a couple of very interesting posts about the flap over Judge Jones’s alleged (falsely it turns out) plagiarism in the Kitzmiller decision. I pointed out previously that I saw this as essentially a broad scatter ad hominem attack that reflects no credit on those who perpretrated it.

    In the meantime, if there are any of my readers who do not also read The Panda’s Thumb, they might like to look at Now That’s Video to Look Forward To for some fun notes from Dr. Kenneth Miller (via Wesley Elsberry). This was, of course, in response to Dembski’s video caricature of Judge Jones. There slightly more informaiton on this in Dembski’s Motive, which simply illustrates what I said earlier. This is a simple case of an ad hominem attack designed to leave a bad feeling behind. Whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter in the least to those who take this approach.

    I think that’s all for me for now on this topic.