Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Today on the Moderate Christian Blog Aggregator

    Just to get a taste of what is available on the blogs covered by the Moderate Christian Blog Aggregator, let me give you a list of the most recent posts, in the order in which they appeared when I viewed the aggregator, with the exception of my own blogs. Note that blogs are randomized with each view.

    • True Christianity excerpt
      Coops was Here provided a link to audio from a sermon on Biblical Christianity. I don’t know if it was my problem, or something with the audio on the site, but I had to go to the second link to get good audio.
    • atheist apologetics
      Bruce Alderman blogged about atheist apologetics, looking at the 1932 essay by William Floyd titled The Mistakes of Jesus. Bruce is seriously unconvinced, and examines the logic at some length. This is a great discussion to get involved in.
    • Proverbs 16 on Planning and Implementation
      Tom Sims of The Dream Factory looks at God’s sovereignty, humility and planning. This is short but with some good advice.
    • Do God!
      On the newest entry in the blog aggregator, Oaks of God, we are encouraged to implement God’s goodness in the world. This one is hard to summarize, so you’ll have to read it!
    • profiles of the bridal party: j norm & davey
      It looks like a wedding is planned in the physical proximity of Hit the Back Button to Move Forward, and we have profiles of the bridal party.
    • Who is Jesus?
      On Monastic Mumblings, a Friar’s Journey, we’re asked who is Jesus, and what does that mean in practice?
    • Open Thread
      This Gay Christian’s Blog has an open thread inviting various discussions.

    I think that provides us with some interesting activity. I’m afraid I won’t have time to post a daily set of entries very often, but I thought it would be a good idea to take a current cross-section.

  • Moderate Christian Blog Aggregator/Roll – Status Report

    A little over a month ago (August 12, 2006) I started the Moderate Christian Blog Aggregator and the related blogroll. To get the ball rolling, I included my three blogs (three so I can segregate my areas of interest more easily) and one group blog to which I’m primary contributor. I also included my wife’s devotional group on Yahoo!. That made five initial sites. Since then we’ve added seven more. I certainly want this thing to get bigger, but I’m neither disappointed nor overwhelmed by that level of growth.

    Here’s the blogroll as it is today:

    I think that’s a pretty good gathering of sites for a start.

    Note that there is no requirement in terms of linking for inclusion in the aggregator–just give me permission and your feed, using the form on the standards page, which also defines what I mean by moderate. It would be nice to have some links to the aggregator, but I believe it will gather those on its own. I do ask that those on the blogroll display the blogroll somewhere, either on a permanent page or their sidebar.

    I am working on some better error control for the aggregator, and I also have a system that will simply list posts by date in the works, but I’m hesitant to implement it, because if we simply list posts by date, that heavily favors the frequently updated blogs, and in this case those are probably mine. Any feedback on this issue would be appreciated. At the moment I’m leaning toward implementing the second option, so a reader could choose simple listing by date, irrespective of source, or listing by source blog.

    Thanks to all for participating, and I look forward to continued growth.

  • Criticizing Religions

    I have long been an advocate of permitting criticism of Christianity, because I think allowing such criticism is good for my religion. I have friends who would regard my religion as a delusion, and I encourage them to speak directly about what they believe. This is not a matter of commitment to legal free speech, though I do believe that the first amendment should be protected. That is an area in which I might even be regarded as extreme. I say this from inside the Christian faith. If we try to use legal or forceful means to blunt or eliminate criticism, we will be the poorer for it, intellectually and spiritually.

    Now we have the remarks of Pope Benedict XVI. I already commented briefly on those, noting that I’m not too much of a fan of the pope, but nonetheless I did not off hand see anything wrong with his remarks that would justify the kind of reaction they are receiving. Despite the Pope’s apology I have not changed my view.

    In an article I read yesterday, but from the September 25 issue of Newsweek, Jon Meacham said:

    Much of the Regensburg address was a meditation on faith and reason, the roots of religiously inspired violence and the need for believers to see God as a figure of love. Roughly put, his argument was this: to Benedict, Islam’s conception of God so stresses God’s will that God can be understood to command the irrational.

    The problem is with a quotation from Emperor Manuel II. As is usual, many people have brought up the crusades at this point. But one should consider the fact that Emperor Manuel’s situation was one of being invaded by Muslim conquerors. I deplore the religious justification of violence other than as self-defense, yet this emperor was defending himself. Again, I’m not an apologist for the crusades, but one must remember that Christian territories were being conquered by Muslim conquerors. I’m not an expert on the history of that period, but I am certain there were various justifications from both sides.

    The Christian actions in the crusades should not mean that we can no longer have dialogue. True dialogue is also impossible when one cannot criticize.

    Again, quoting from Meacham’s article:

    Then why did Benedict quote the emperor in the first place? The most likely answer is that, no matter what the Vatican says now, the pope believes in having what the Catholic theologian and papal biographer George Weigel calls “a hard-headed conversation

  • Psalm 104: Presenting the Message

    Psalm 104 has a distinct message about God’s creation that has stuck with me strongly since I first studied the passage in graduate school. I have previously posted links to my prior study of the text and structure of this Psalm, done more than 25 years ago. I’m starting from that point now.

    When we deal with translation, the message can be presented in many ways. In this case it is presented through poetry. Previously, I worked with Psalm 46, showing how it has been presented in various ways, such as in Martin Luther’s hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is our God.” I then tried to convert the message of the Psalm into the form of an Italian sonnet, at which I can be said to be no better than rank amateur.

    My point, however, is not to demonstrate my skill in transforming Biblical passages, rather it’s to suggest that we need to transform passages in various ways. For example, the message of Psalm 46 could be presented as:

    • A story built around the concept of God as our protector and defender
    • Multiple poetic forms
    • A hymn, as has been done, and in turn that hymn has been musically transformed many times
    • A praise song, or series of praise songs
    • A devotional or even theological essay
    • A drama presented at church

    I did some similar work with the story of Susanna from the apocrypha of Daniel. You can follow the links to related material there.

    All of this falls under the “Share” portion of my Bible study method. I think that Bible students are often the weakest at sharing, but that sharing can be one of the strongest aspects of your approach to Bible study. Thinking of different ways of sharing the message makes you think more about what the message actually is, while getting reactions from others tests the accuracy of your read of the message. Too often our idea of understanding the Bible is reducing it to theological propositions, and then sharing those propositions with others.

    Now don’t get me wrong here. Extracting theological propositions from your Bible study is not a bad thing. It’s just not the only thing. And sharing your theological propositions is not a bad thing either. But just as the Bible uses different ways of sharing, so you can use different ways of sharing. Consider that sharing part of your process of Bible study. It’s a way of exercising your understanding to discern good from evil (Hebrews 5:14).

    So what about Psalm 104? Well, I think this is a good illustration of precisely this point. Elsewhere, I’ve written about the two creation stories of Genesis–1:1-2:4a & 2:4bff. Now there are a number of approaches to these stories. Some people think they turn up a major Bible contradiction, and thus claim the fact that there are two creation stories as a challenge to the Bible’s inspiration and authority. Others defend against this charge by challenging the idea that there are two stories, thus preventing any contradiction.

    I have another suggestion: The story of God’s creation is much too broad and has way too many implications to be comprehended in any single telling. In Genesis 1, the theme is power and authority. God speaks and it happens. But at the same time God can seem very distant and other in that passage. Now these are part of the doctrine of God–transcendance. But what about God’s presence and care for us, immanence? Well, Genesis 2 and even the story of the fall in Genesis 3 present a God who is with us. Combine them, and we get a better picture of God than we would have had with either one. The stories, rather than contradicting, present two very different perspectives on one topic that’s large enough to allow both to present us with the truth of God and creation.

    But there is yet more that God needs to present to us. In reading Genesis 1-11, one could get the impression of a generally receding God, one who is getting more and more distant from us. That would be a sort of gradual deism, God the creator who is no longer present. Enter another perspective–Psalm 104. God is here, God is present, God is concerned with everything. At the same time God is ultimately powerful. (It would be good to go read Psalm 104 from your favorite Bible version about now.

    God’s power is shown in the first 8 verses. God is absolutely sovereign. God’s word sets the boundaries. The very foundations of the world (or the universe, as I understand it) are set by him. This part ties closely with Genesis 1–God of the powerful, absolute word.

    But then we turn in verse 9 to God’s attention to detail. Everything is beautiful. Everything works together. This culminates with the beautiful exclamation:

    (24) How marvelous are your works, O Lord!
    You made them all wisely.
    The earth is full of your created things.

    This is the detailed attention, the God who is present, providing food for everyone. It may be hard for us to comprehend this, but for God, who is infinite, there is no prioritizing. He can be the powerful God who sets the earth on its foundation and commands the water to be in a particular place, while at the same time being concerned with the food for a single particular lion, or a nesting place for a particular bird. We can’t manage that, because for every bit of attention we give to one thing, something else suffers. But not so with God. And here we have this theological principle about God presented in poetic form.

    But then we get down to the continuing nature of God’s presence.

    (27) All of them look to you,
    To give them their food on time.

    (28) You give to them, so they may gather;
    You open your hand, so they may be satisfied with good.

    (29) You hide your face, and they are disturbed;
    You bring their breath to an end,
    And they return to their dust.

    (30) You send forth your breath, and they are created;
    So you renew the face of the ground.

    It’s not just that God created, it’s that God creates. God is the ever-present creator. Every single move of every single subatomic particle is under God’s control. He doesn’t miss a thing. He doesn’t have a priority list. You are in no danger of falling off God’s radar screen, because nothing ever falls off of it.

    That’s why I call Psalm 104 the third creation story. There are a few other passages, but I think this one neatly ties together Genesis 1 and 2 and gives us the perspective of a God who is constantly present.

    Now the question I’m going to continue with in future posts on this topic is this: How do you share that concept in different ways? How do you catch the right way for you to really comprehend this and apply it? How can you find the right way for a friend?

  • McCain and Conscience

    I have liked John McCain for a long time, and now he has taken a stand on torture and interrogation. Chip Read on MSNBC’s first read comments on this as a matter of conscience. I’m amazed, despite everything that has already happend in the war on terror, that this is entirely an issue. I’m deeply disturbed that leaders in the administration have taken the stand that they have.

    From the moral point of view this should be a no brainer. From the point of view of international politics, it should be a no brainer. I served as aircrew in the Air Force. Aircrew always face the possibility that they will be shot down and captured by the enemy. Don’t imagine me being wondrously heroic or anything. I didn’t feel threatened. But when your job is one in which you could get into that position you do give it a little thought.

    One of the few bright spots in that horror we call war is the Geneva Convention. It’s more honored in the breach than otherwise, but it’s still a bright spot. We shouldn’t play with that. It’s wrong morally, and it’s dangerous politically. This is a place we need to listen to the international community and play good citizen on the world scene. When Christians support this sort of thing I truly have to wonder whether they’ve even passed the idea somewhere near their Christian principles.

    There are times when we need to challenge the international community. When other countries supply money to terrorists, or make it easy for them to transfer it, that is a reason to take some sort of action. They’re aiding and abetting criminals.

    But when they ask us not to torture, that’s a request for us to live up to our principles. True, many of these same countries will engage in torture. But if we don’t live up to a higher standard ourselves, we may come to the next stage–or the next–of this war on terror and find out that we have come more and more to resemble our opponents.

    That’s too high a price to pay.

  • Psalm 104

    I’m planning to do some posting on translating and transforming Hebrew poetry over the next few weeks, so I want to start with a couple of links to my existing work on Psalm 104. I did a considerable study of the structure of this Psalm in graduate school. I’m not in a position to repeat the work I did then or even to reaffirm it, but I’m planning to work from the text that I prepared for that paper, and build from there.

    Here are the major links:

    The translation was prepared for technical purposes and not for general reading. The actual translation without the notes follows.

    (1) Bless the Lord, O my inmost being!

    0 Lord, my God, you are very great;
    You are clothed with majesty and splendor.

    (2) He spreads out light like a covering;
    He stretches out the heavens as a tent.

    (3) He fills his upper chambers with water;
    He makes the clouds his chariot;
    He travels on the wings of the wind.

    (4) He makes the winds his messengers,
    Fire and flame his servants.
    (5) He established the earth on its foundations;
    It shall not be moved forever and ever.

    (6) The primeval ocean covered it like a garment;
    The waters stood over the mountains.

    (7) Prom your rebuke they fled;
    From your thunderous voice they rushed away.

    (8) They went up to the mountains, down to the netherworld chasms,
    To the place which you appointed for them.

    (9) You set them a limit which they cannot transgress;
    They will not return to cover the earth.

    (10) He sends forth springs in the wadis;
    They flow between the mountains.

    (11) He makes all the beasts of the field drink;
    He makes the onagers shatter their thirst.

    (12) Near them (the streams) the birds of heaven nest;
    Among them the ravens give forth their voice.

    (13) He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
    From the fruit of his work, the earth is well supplied.

    (14) He brings forth grain for the animals;
    And grass for those who serve man.

    He indeed brings grain from the earth;
    (15) And wine which gladdens the heart of man.

    He indeed makes their faces shine with oil;
    And bread, which strengthens the heart of man.

    (16) The trees of the Lord have plenty;
    The cedars of Lebanon which he planted,

    (17) Where the birds make their nests;
    As for the stork, her house is among their tops.

    (18) The high mountains are for the mountain goats;
    The rocky places are for the coneys.
    (19) He made the moon for appointed times;
    The sun knows when to go down.

    (20) It darkens, and becomes night;
    In it creep all the beasts of the thicket.

    (21) The lions roar for their prey;
    They seek their food from God.

    (22) The sun rises, so they may be gathered,
    So they may lie down in their dens

    (2)) Man goes forth to his work,
    And to his labor until the evening.
    (24) How marvelous are your works, O Lord!
    You made them all wisely.
    The earth is full of your created things.

    (25) This sea, great and wide across,
    In which are uncountable creatures,
    Living things, both small and great —

    (26) There the ships travel;
    Leviathan which you made,
    Plays in it.

    (27) All of them look to you,
    To give them their food on time.

    (28) You give to them, so they may gather;
    You open your hand, so they may be satisfied with good.

    (29) You hide your face, and they are disturbed;
    You bring their breath to an end,
    And they return to their dust.

    (30) You send forth your breath, and they are created;
    So you renew the face of the ground.
    (31) Let the glory of the Lord. be eternal;
    Let the Lord rejoice in his works —

    (32) He who looks at the earth, and it trembles;
    Who touches the mountains, and they smoke.

    (33) I will sing to the Lord while I live.
    I will sing to my God while I continue to exist.

    (34) Let my song be pleasing to him,
    I will rejoice in the Lord.

    (35) Sinners shall be removed from the earth,
    And the wicked will be no more.

    Bless the Lord, O my inmost being!

    I’ll be working from that basis on my various presentations of the content of this Psalm in different forms.

    See also my recent note on Hebrew Poetry.

  • Muslim Protests of the Pope’s Remarks

    I have not been very excited about the vatican over the last few years, and I was not overjoyed when the current pope was elected, but in general since I’m not a catholic, it’s not something I get very excited about.

    But the current round of protests about the Pope’s quotation of a medieval text on Islam in a speech to college professors just emphasizes again that there is an element in modern Islam that simply cannot tolerate freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry. Now the words of a major Christian leader are different from the publication of one person’s cartoons, and the history of the crusades adds a negative element to the context, but nonetheless this kind of universal protest and anger in Islam is, to put it mildly, inappropriate.

    I know that Christians also protest negative things said about them, and the Muslim world provides plenty of opportunities with a number of grossly irresponsible leaders who have serious mouth control problem. Still, I don’t think they should be forced to shut up. That’s freedom of expression. I’m not talking about the legal right of free speech, but of the concept of freedom of expression.

    But many Muslims are reserving to themselves the right to insult practically everyone else, while protesting any effort to respond. Let me be clear. There are moderate Muslims with whom I have no problem. In fact, I have no problem with any Muslim who is not planning to try to use force to impose their views on me or on my country. They can use as much peaceful persuasion as they wish. At the same time, I condemn every person who feels that they should be able to shut up their opponents by threats of violence. I would suggest that western leaders, religious or otherwise, refuse to apologize or respond in any way while angry crowds run around the streets protesting words and images.

    The behavior in these protests is stupid, and it should be condemned as such. The behavior of those who threaten death to westerners is evil, and it should be condemned as such. If protesters want to burn down pieces of their own countries, that is the problem of those countries and those people. And yes, when Muslim countries deny rights to women, or impose cruel punishments on their people, it is appropriate for people to condemn those activities and those laws.

    Having said that, if westerners or Christians call for violence against civilian populations in the Muslim world, or any unjustified violence against anyone, they should also be condemned. At the same time, their right to express their view should be protected. The pope may have made less than the best choice of words, but thus far, I don’t even see that much of a problem in his speech.

    Freedom is threatened right now on every side, in our own government here in the United States through authorization of torture and indefinite incarceration, in Europe through the imposition of politically correct speech, and in the Muslim world by the advance of fundamentalist Islam. The only remedy is for those who love freedom to defend it by word and deed at all times.

    (OK, I’ll get off the soapbox!)

    Note: Actually let me note that as long as the protests are non-violent, the protesters also should be allowed their expression. I would certainly consider it hypocritical, however.

  • Brief Thoughts on Hebrew Poetry

    A few days ago Wayne Leman blogged about translating Hebrew poetry, and referred to an article by Philip C. Stine Biblical Poetry and Translation. The article is really excellent, and nothing I’m about to say here is intended to criticize that article as such.

    I’ve been very interested in translation of Hebrew poetry, but I think successful translation ranges from difficult to effectively impossible. The two translations I think do the best job into English are the Revised English Bible, and New Jerusalem Bible. One key feature of the NJB is the use of the Yahweh rather than “the LORD” for the name of God, which would obviously make it unacceptable to orthodox and conservative Jewish readers. In poetic terms, however, I think that helps just a bit.

    Referring to James Kugel, Stine says:

    In fact, he examines many traditional classifications of biblical parallelism, including the categories of Lowth, synonymous, antithetical, and synthetic, and finds them wanting. The ways of parallelism are numerous and varied, and the intensity of the semantic parallelism established between clauses might be said to range from zero perceivable correspondence to near perceivable differentiation.

    Now this is a good point, and one that a couple of my professors made to me when I was in graduate school back in 1979-1980, though perhaps not so clearly as Stine has done. The problem is that in order to teach this material to Bible students a bit of terminology is necessary. One can’t just say, even to beginning Hebrew students, that there is “some relationship” between the clauses. Nonetheless, a number of errors result from oversimplification. One of these is the idea that one can determine the definition of an unknown word by finding it in parallel with another term. Now such parallelism can contribute to our understanding of a word, and can give us a starting point in studying it, but it doesn’t determine it, as some people think it does. Without knowing the meaning of the word, the very thing sought, one cannot be certain what type of parallelism one is dealing with.

    So let me just suggest here that the terms synonymous, antithetical, and synthetic are quite useful. Like any labeling system, they oversimplify. Indeed, any system of labels is by nature less complex than reality and is provided precisely to allow such simplification. In order to improve accuracy, however, students should be taught that the actual parallelism will lie along a line from complete parallelism of thought to either complete opposition or through a synthetic combination.

    Now translating this is much harder, and comes back to the issue of how much interpretation the translator should do, and how much should be left to the modern reader. I’ve been playing around with this before, and commented in Reading Psalm 46, in which I also link to a couple of “transformations.”

    Hebrew parallelism does not have the same effect on English readers as it presumably did on readers of the Hebrew original. Thus I would suggest there is room for a broad range of translation possibilities, from a version that copies the poetic forms from Hebrew into English, to ones that might take the thought and express it in an English poetic form. I believe Bible translation and exposition would benefit from more transformations, re-presentations of Biblical material not only in new languages, but in new and/or different forms.

    One further note on Stine. He goes through the problems of defining poetry, and that’s a standard problem with Biblical material. Without a solid, understandable definition it’s hard to discuss what is poetry and what’s not, and how to deal with it. I think the problem with this definition is precisely the same as the problem with labels for types of parallelism. We are putting a small number of labels on a continuum–synonymous, antithetical, and synthetic on the one hand, poetry and prose on the other. But poetry and prose do not exist in well defined pockets in real life, and thus our labels will be problematic. On encountering a Biblical passage one might ask, “Should this be presented divided into lines, or paragraphed?” rather than asking whether it’s poetry or prose. Whether it’s technically poetry or not, if it presents well in defined lines, it might be best to present it that way.

  • Nation Whose God is the LORD?

    Today while doing grocery shopping, I saw a T-Shirt with the slogan: My faith and my freedom are one. Underneath was the verse: Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD (Psalm 33:12).

    I don’t know who provides such a shirt, but that slogan troubles me deeply. I think it reflects the problem that many Christians have with unhypocritical support of freedom of religion in this country and elsewhere in the world. Now there is a theological sense in which I can understand the claim that faith and freedom are one. There is a point of spiritual freedom, the freedom to make spiritual choices and to build a healthy relationship with God that comes, for me, through my faith. But a key element of that spiritual freedom comes from the fact that it was freely chosen. That faith is my faith, and even though I share a fellowship with Christians because it is also Christian faith, it bears a distinct stamp.

    But with the accompanying text (about which more below), I’m pretty sure that’s not the freedom we’re talking about. There are a number of groups that advocate a Christian nation, one built on Biblical principles and enforcing Biblical laws. Let’s ignore, for the moment, the incredible problems there are with simply producing a “Biblical” system of law. One’s hermeneutic is quite determinative of what one holds to be applicable, and even amongst people who advocate a Christian nation, there is considerable variety of interpretational principles.

    There are those who advocate a nation that lives a life of holiness. What this means, in practice, is that they want a single set of moral standards enforced on everyone, derived from the Bible in whatever way they derive things. This will mean marital fidelity in the strongest sense–not only no sex outside of marriage, but no premarital sex, no common-law marriages, and modest apparel and lifestyle. It will mean that homosexuality cannot be tolerated anywhere in the nation. Blasphemy, of course, cannot be allowed, because how can a “holy nation” allow such a thing? Thus freedom of speech will be prohibited. Of course, idolatry and worship of any other God but “the LORD” however defined, must be eventually forbidden.

    Now I’m not arguing against anyone’s advocacy of a particular code of morality for their lives and for those in their spiritual community. I do that myself, and my own code is actually quite conservative and restrictive–to me! But for various reasons, many groups of Christians have decided that somehow true freedom can only come with the practice of Christianity. At the moment, they will advocate permitting other groups, but they want them to exist in a Christian nation and live up to Christian principles.

    They do so often for quite contradictory reasons. One broad grouping believes that Christianity has replaced Israel in God’s scheme, and that America is a new Zion, a new promised land, in which all the promises of blessings will be fulfilled if only we will follow the laws and purify the land. If you encounter such a view, don’t let them claim moderation. That slope is a very slippery one, and unless you are 100% in agreement, eventually you’re going to find yourself on the outside.

    Another broad group continues to believe that Israel is the benificiary of God’s promises to Israel, but they believe that those promises can be extended to our nation if we behave, as a nation, in the same way. This is a bit more logical on the first point–the promises after all were made to Israel, and there is nowhere in the Bible that might indicate a transfer to the United States of such blessings. But it is less logical on the second point, because we take random promises and random blessings and apply them on a national scale.

    Either of these groups needs to read the second half of the verse I quoted above: and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. Clearly the reference was to Israel, and “the LORD” is YHWH, the proper name of Israel’s God. God does promise blessings to other nations, but not on the same covenant basis as he does for Israel itself. Either transfer or extension of that covenant needs some serious theological undergirding, and none is forthcoming from advocates.

    Jesus never advocated establishment of a physical nation. What he did was advocate people, with the kingdom of God in them, living kingdom lives. I challenge you to find Jesus advocating anything similar to the seeking of blessing on a national scale through somehow forcing them all to agree to identical moral codes. In fact Jesus seemed to be against the imposition of any detailed sets of laws on people; he was a revolutionary advocating the spirit rather than the letter.

    Freedom will not survive in a Christian nation, not because Christianity is bad but because it is a spiritual faith offering a relationship with God to individuals. Christianity applied by force should be regarded as an oxymoron. In fact, Christianity applied by force has repeatedly resulted in persecution of opponents and dissenters, and in a faith that bears little relation to Jesus. Non-Christians should be very careful to guard against the type of Christian who says that his faith and his freedom are one. But Christians should be equally careful. We are commanded to make disciples from all nations, but that does not mean that we should try to make the nations themselves into disciples. Christianity does not work that way and was never intended to do so.

    Freedom is freedom and faith is faith, and neither will flourish unless faith is freely chosen or rejected. Because of this I am absolutely opposed to the notion of a Christian nation. A nation with lots of Christians in it, yes. But even if 100% of the population were to choose freely and without pressure to be Christians, I would advocate complete freedom of religion, because anything else would be destructive to faith (and of course to freedom).

  • Wesley Blog Back/Goodbye to Wesley Daily

    Shane Raynor has returned to blogging after a summer hiatus. The Wesley Blog is back, but at the same time he announces the end of his experiment with the Wesley Daily. I’ll miss the Wesley Daily, because often Shane’s picks of a post for the day gave me good material to blog about. However, the Methodist Blogs Weekly Roundup on Locusts and Honey still helps me with that. Welcome Back Shane!

    The demise of Wesley Daily has made me decide to go ahead with an experiment I was planning over on the Pacesetters Bible School Newsletter. Yes, I know, it’s a fairly boring title, but there it is. It’s a group blog, though I’ve been the most prolific poster, and often I’ve been the one to post material provided by others. I started to write a note requested entries from people who would like to allow me to cross-post, similar to what was done on Wesley Daily, or also simply to contribute material, but I laid it aside, because I was thinking my idea was too similar to Wesley Daily.

    But there are some substantial differences, and now there’s no Wesley Daily, so I’m going to try it. I’ll post over there later in the day. The big differences are these: 1) Pacesetters is interdenominational, and the small essential doctrinal statement will be posted there and 2) The purpose will be to post material useful those involved in religious education, and particularly youth and young adult level religious ed. I’ll define that broadly, and I’ll flesh this out a little over there.

    Oh, and thanks to Shane for the great idea. 🙂