Comments and commenters: minor pet peeves

The first thing I want to say, loud and clear, is that the Comment feature has proven to be a delightful surprise to me, both here and at Pyro.

I initiated it here with great cowardi...er, trepidations. The Comments feature was the aspect of joining Pyro that worried me most. I'd seen better folks than I driven to desperation by their Comments section.

Now, many months later, the comment sections has more often than not proven to be one of the most rewarding and fun aspects of both blogs. I've been blessed with some awfully sharp, kind, open, encouraging, challenging, and stimulating readers.

Having said that, I have picked up some pet peeves. These are the little bones in the big fish. They are the causes of whatever chagrin I feel in the endeavor. But here are the ones on my mind at the moment, in no particular order:

1. Trolls. Phil has a great rule: Don't feed the trolls. They come in with an agenda unrelated to the post or the site or, often, anything other than their own febrile little brains. Happily, I've not seen too many, here or at Pyro.
2. Boilerplate commenters. You know them. There have been a lot of these at both sites. They glance over a post, say to themselves, "Oh, this is about The Gifts. He's a cessationist. Here's what I always like to say when a cessationist writes about The Gifts." Then they just say it, blat. It's apparent by their comments that they haven't read the post at all. Or worse still, sometimes my buds Phil and Frank get people who evidently say, "Oh, it's Phil Johnson / Frank Turk. Here's what I always like to say when Phil/Frank writes anything." Blat. (I'll lump one more comment about them in the next item.)
3. Lazy readers. Now, here's something you may have noticed about my style of writing. I try (note emphasis) to write in a very focused and almost pathologically cautious way. I try to anticipate how I may be read, and misread. To a small degree, this is because I am a cautious and meticulous scholar. Mostly, it is because I am motivated by fear. I hate being misread, and I especially hate it when it's my fault. I also hate when someone goes on some dumb rabbit-trail when I'm trying to talk about something I think is Important. So I try to anticipate the rabbit-trails, and cut them off.

   Well, lazy readers and boilerplaters don't notice or care about any of this. Sometimes it's sadly funny, always it's frustrating, sometimes it's maddening.

   There was one guy who took great umbrage at something I wrote. He made a comment of like 900,000 words. Now, I'm fifty years old, and wasn't certain I'd live long enough to read it all. There are other things I want to do before I die. So I glanced. Immediately I saw that he trotted out some tired old cliche that I had already specifically anticipated and responded to in the post. This immediately communicated to me that -- for me -- his comment wasn't worth a read, let alone a reply. (I suppose I could have done as done to, and just spurted a retort without actually reading it, but that wouldn't be very Golden Ruley of me.)

   The most irritating thing about lazy readers is that they commonly misread, or read very poorly, then demand that you reply to something you already covered in the article. If they would give it a more thoughtful and, dare I say, respectful read, they would learn this. But they don't. You may have written oh-so-carefully, yet they read poorly and lazily, and they feel it's your responsibility to compensate for their doltish sluggardliness.

   Now, let me be very clear. I do not include in this those cases where I really have been unclear. I'm always appalled at myself, and grateful to the commenter, when someone points out some pinheaded misstatement of mine. I race to clarify just as quickly as I can. Nor am I speaking of cases of inadvertent and non-culpable misreading -- for instance in the case of a new or ill-taught believer, or someone with a genuine learning disability.

   The folks of whom I write would insist that they fall in neither category. The problem, they would adamantly contend, is yours (mine), and it is your (my) responsibility to solve it. For them. To their satisfaction. On their timetable.

   ("Or what?", one wonders. They'll demand their money back?)

4. Stubborn lazy readers. These are people who do all of the above, plus. Perhaps you patiently -- or not very patiently, but pointedly -- point out their oversight. Or you point out that you specifically announced the scope of your post, and their challenge is not within that scope. You've written about sovereign-grace election, and they fault you for not proving the Virgin Birth. Or you announce your intent to deal with one aspect of forensic justification, and they rail at you for not having read everything N. T. Wright ever wrote from his kindergarten years and onward. Or (as in my recent posts at Pyro) you announce that you're responding to something a particular and beloved charismatic wrote, and they pronounce that you haven't proven cessationism. And so on.

   So, as I say, you point any or all of this out, and refer them back to the post. Do they say, "Oh, right, my bad! Well, maybe you can get to my subject someday"? No, no no no. Not these folks. They either don't reply, or repeat themselves. But they're not as bad as....

5. Stubborn and argumentative lazy readers. They're like ##4 and 5, plus-plus. They don't listen to A, but demand that you write B -- with no guarantees they'll listen to B and better than they listened to A. In fact, once you write B, they demand C.

   So, you've worked really hard to craft a clear statement of what you want to say. They skim over it like a flat stone skipping across the surface of a lake. You point this out, and ask that they re-read more slowly and thoughtfully. If they do, they'll find their answer -- if they really want an answer.

   Now, time out for a brief aside. Between you and me, who is likelier to know the contents of a post, article, essay, book? The reader, or the author? If I eat something, then challenge the chef, "You really need to put some garlic in this," and she replies, "I did put some garlic in," does it make sense for me to say, "Yeah, but you really ought to put some garlic in it?" Doesn't that make me look doltish?

   Well, that makes sense to me, but I can't tell you how many times I've gotten into this. I don't get very far in, though. When I realize, "Ooh, I have a lazy and stubborn and argumentative reader/correspondent," I bail out. Life's too short, I'm too old, and I'm a poor enough time-manager as it is to pour my life into these little patches of the Sahara. They can be someone else's Special Project. Thank God, I do have some folks patient enough to read attentively, and by God's grace I seem to do them some good, so I'll just focus my efforts on them.

   Which of course infuriates the lazy, stubborn, argumentative readers. But oh, well. Can't please everybody.

To all the above, I commend this these verses for careful consideration:

If one gives an answer before he hears,
it is his folly and shame.
Proverbs 18:13

Do you see a man who is hasty in his words?
There is more hope for a fool than for him.
Proverbs 29:20

And to the rest of you, who are (praise God) the majority -- THANKS.

Kitties: take two

OK, remember -- this is because Robert asked for it. I tried this morning, and the technology outsmarted me. But here we are.




Okay, that's enough kitties for now. Next scheduled post is back to the usual unusual.

Okay, okay... I GET it now!

When Annette said she didn't see any kitties, she wasn't saying they didn't look like kitties -- she was saying there WERE NO kitties. I'm slow, but I get there eventually.

I was fooled by a Picasa / Blogger interface thingie I didn't understand, that made it so I could see the pictures, but nobody else could. Same thing happened with today's Pyro post, which I've had to un-publish and re-publish about a kajillion times.

So... kitties later, DV, after I get home.

Until then, here's an idea of how big Maine Coon kitties can get -- and we think our Hagrid is aiming at this goal.

Thankful Monday

My mood deteriorated over the weekend, mostly for no external reason. I've been dreading this week, because of what's hanging over me at work. Then I start the day after a not-perfect sleep, I stumble here and there, the house-fan cools the house one whopping degree because it's already warming outside (at 4:30am), I step on one of the kitties crouching invisible in the dark, and at 5:45am it's already warmer than I like it to be at noon. And mostly, inside, I just feel immensely unimpressed with myself on any level, most especially on the level of spiritual anything I demonstrate after 33+ years of praying and striving.

(Stepping back.) Okay, let's see... yes, yes that should be just about enough whining for the moment.

So I apologize profusely to the cat (after I chase him down; after all, for all he knows, I've finally snapped and am trying to kill him), make sure he's okay, walk more carefully, pray, and try to look up.

Towards that latter end, here's a (mostly-dead-serious) list of things I'm thankful for:

1. God's immutable character and commitment to keep His good and bright promises to me in Christ
2. The fact that #1 depends entirely on Him, and not one bit on me, no matter what a hopeless, clueless loser I am in myself; that Jesus is my Savior, not my co-redeemer; that He elected me, He didn't co-sign for me
3. I have a spectacularly capable wife
4. I have terrific children
5. Great sermon in church yesterday by Pastor Andrews
6. Then there are the kitties
7. I have my health -- not bad for an old guy
8. Bill Clinton still isn't president anymore
9. Algore and Kerry never were
10. I have a good job, terrific manager
11. I work inside, in an air-conditioned building
12. I don't ever have to make pedobaptism or amillennialism make Biblical sense to anybody!
13. There still is, on average, only one Monday per week
14. I have an opportunity to speak to people I'll never meet this side of eternity, both here and at Pyromaniacs
15. I'm associated with excellent people, in my family, at Pyro, and at work

There. That's better!

A beautiful and sensitive essay on why parents had their daughter killed for MAYBE being imperfect

No, really. It is just that bad. Read it for yourself.

DISCLAIMER: I have great sympathy for parents who find themselves with an unexpected child at a rough time, or a child who may have "birth defects," though neither has ever happened to us. We had our last child when I was about 43; we knew that the statistical chances for "issues" mount with each year, so we discussed it. It was a fairly short discussion. If God wanted us to have a child with issues, the odds were 100% that we would; if He didn't, they would be 100% that we wouldn't. Either way, you just do not kill a child for being imperfect. So when we were offered the opportunity for testing, we asked for clarification as to the intent, and declined.

So I sympathize with parents in that state. I also sympathize with parents who have difficult children (-- although, of course, all mine were perfectly-behaved angels from their first breath on, just as surely as I've always been a perfect father).

I do not, however, sympathize with the decision to kill such children, nor with the rationalizations with which such decisions are whitewashed. So, having said that....

COMMENT: I have often remarked that I have never yet read a pro-abort who can make a coherent, rational, factual, moral case for killing children because they are imperfect or inconvenient, or because they have a bad parent.

This essay brings the total up to zero.

It offers some of the most excruciating... well, I hesitate to elevate it to the level of calling it "thinking." I suppose "rationalizing" would be better, though the element "rational" isn't merited. The woman is explaining why it was a good thing for her and her husband to contract the killing of their daughter because she might be a little imperfect.

It starts out like this:

A tear creeps down my cheek when she says it's a girl. I don't know why that makes me cry.

Um... because you're about to kill her, and you still have some shred of conscience? Just a guess.

I'd really rather not know. She assumes that like most expectant parents we want to know.

But as its turning out, we aren't like most expectant parents.

Well no, thank God, that's true. You're actually going to get your daughter killed. Most expectant parents don't do that.

And I can probably tell you why you don't want to know her sex, Ma'am: because of this pesky imago Dei thing, killers have always found it easier to dehumanize their victims. Ask racist lynchers. Ask Nazi guards. It's really not new. You're part of a time-honored tradition amongs oppressors with blood on their hands.

The rest of the essay is no more uplifting. Take this absolute beauty. It's a real window to the couple's thinking:

In many ways my 45-year-old husband and I could be perfect parents. We're professionals, with university degrees, own our own house, it's even paid off (we're financially careful yuppies). We're also fit -- we do Ironman events, marathons, play golf, travel and help support my parents.

Well, heck, whose definition of "perfect parents" doesn't that fit? They've got careers, money, physical fitness -- and hobbies! My gosh, what else is there to being a "perfect parent"?

Well, there is that pesky little you-don't-kill-your-kids-for-being-imperfect bone that got left out of their heads. Some people might think that that is an important attribute.

But, hey! Ironman! How cool is that?

So these "perfect parents" were initially happy to find that they were expecting. But then they learned that a "dreaded extra chromosome -- a triple X -- has robbed us of a healthy baby." Little Brittany might not be an honor student, so she must die. My understanding is that this is not even necessarily the case. But the fact that it might be the case, in this perfect mother's view (Ironman!), demands a death-warrant.

She still is working hard to quiet her conscience. Listen to this: "Isn't it more cruel to bring a child burdened with so many disadvantages into the world?" Well, I don't know. Why not ask your daughter? Oh, wait....

Here's the same thing that comes up with every such line of thought: if this is a rationale for killing an unborn person, it is equally a rationale for killing a born. If a less-than-100% quality of life is a death-sentence one side of the cervix, it equally is such for the other. A few inches don't make that much of a difference, not rationally.

And the mom's concerned about "disadvantages"? How many "disadvantaged" children have gone far in life, due largely to the commitment and undying love of committed parents? Seems to me right now that this poor girl has only one real, big, insurmountable "disadvantage": a selfish, immature, morally-clueless mother. And while it may be a condemning "disadvantage," it isn't the child on whom the guilt falls.

But she cried about it, we read; so that means she's a decent person. Her religious, pro-life mother would forgive her... she thinks. But she's not going to tell her and find out. Hmm; maybe Mom wouldn't be so sanguine about her granddaughter being killed after all....

The lady does have regrets and blame, though.

But not for herself!

No, here's who she's really mad at:

Why can't we just go to the nearest hospital? I hate the sanctimonious people who have made this more difficult than it has to be. No one begrudges couples thwarting God's plan by spending tens of thousands of dollars on fertility drugs, in vitro treatments, donor eggs, sperm, and surrogate mothers -- they get sympathy. But if you don't want to keep a seriously flawed baby, you bundle your pain in guilt and shame.

Wow. Where to start? It's just awful that people stand between her baby and its killer. It's just awful that they make the killing inconvenient.

But note what she says: "...if you don't want to keep a seriously flawed baby...."

Oopsie.

Yes, Ma'am. That's right. She was a baby. But because she wasn't perfect (like you and Mr. Ironman), she had to die.

The final words of the essay:

His work sends flowers to me: his wife who had a miscarriage.

That's what we tell our friends and parents as well.

It was the right decision. It was the right decision. It was the right decision. It was the right decision.

But... let's just lie to Mom, Dad, and our friends, 'kay?

But it was the right decision. Just keep saying that. It was the right decision.

When we sin, we all have basically two options: forgiveness, or not. If you're saying it's not a sin, it can't be forgiven. Only sins can be forgiven, and they can only be forgiven through and because of Jesus Christ (Acts 13:38-39).

Rationalization kills. In this case, it is killing more than one.

The beauty of God's creation in California's Eastern Sierra Nevada

I spent a few days in the Bishop/Mammoth Lakes area of California's Eastern Sierra Nevada. I've loved this area since I was maybe five years old, when coffee was five cents a cup, and gas was... well, let's not go there.

I've taken many solo retreats there as a bachelor, my wife and I honeymooned in that area, I've brought all my kids there as many times as I could. I've tried to teach them to love it, as I caught that love from my father.

Here are just a few of the photographs I took. Mouse-over for captions, and click on the picture for fuller views.

Training Husbands -- your thoughts?

To prove that I can occasionally post briefly, I refer you to What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage (h-t CraigS), and I invite your comments. My thoughts actually go in a few directions on this one; I'm interested in yours.

Sorry that (A) it's the New York Times, and (B) registration is required. Maybe you can find it elsewhere, or use www.bugmenot.com, if you don't want to do the free registration.

What kind of freedom do we most need?

[This is an excursus of sorts that fits in the middle of a sermon/essay on Pyromaniacs, titled "What Price Freedom?]

Christians who study their Bibles know that Christ secured freedom for us on the cross. But freedom from what? What binds us?

The Bible indicates three malevolent forces: the world, the flesh, and the Devil.

First, we are bound by the WORLD (1 John 2:15-17.)

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world - the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions - is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

The world first opened for business in the Garden of Eden. The first seller was Satan. The first buyers were Eve, and then Adam. Satan’s challenge as a salesman was twofold: first, Satan had to convince them that God was not enough -- His counsel was not enough, His word was not enough, His provision was not enough, His person was not enough. Second, Satan had to convince them that he could provide what God did not provide. He alone could provide meaning, fulfillment, knowledge.

And that is the world’s business today: to convince you and me that God is not enough, and that it can supply what God does not. The specifics are manifold: cars, jobs, body shapes, philosophies, good works, bad works, better sex, no sex, perverted sex, money, power, houses, exotic vacations, foods, colognes, makeup. Some of these things are evil in themselves, some are not. But they are wrapped up in a package that is absolutely deadly, because it is delusional, and damnable. The point in the world’s approach is that these things, these experiences will give you worth, meaning, value, joy, fulfillment — and they’ll do it without God. That is what makes them worldly.

The world has as many “good” works as bad. Whether you or I beat the stuffing out of this guy to get drugs to dull the pain of our Godless lives, or whether we help this child, to feel good about ourselves, to dull the pain of our Godless lives, either way, it’s the world!

Does the world have many slaves? Are you one?

Second, we are bound to the FLESH (Romans 8:5-8).

For those whose lives are according to the flesh think about the things of the flesh, but those whose lives are according to the Spirit, about the things of the Spirit. For the mind-set of the flesh is death, but the mind-set of the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind-set of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit itself to God's law, for it is unable to do so. Those whose lives are in the flesh are unable to please God. (HCSB)

The flesh is the world’s outpost in me. When the world says, “I’m selling,” it is the flesh that says, “I’m buying!” That is, when the world says, “I’m selling a fulfilled, meaningful life without God,” it is the flesh that says, “That’s what I want! I’m buying!”

The flesh is not simply what we do, it’s what we are. In fact, by natural birth, it is all we are! We are naturally inclined away from God. The idea that all men seek God is a crack-dream!

We all need God, true — but seek Him? Not a chance!

Why? If there’s a real God, a big God, a holy God, then how can we be God, as we all want to be? And because it’s what we are, it means we carry the world with us wherever we go. Do you think you can escape the world by retreating to a monastery, with no ads or magazines or scantily-clad women or men? Guess again! Everywhere you go — there you are! And that’s the problem!

Third, we are bound by the DEVIL (Ephesians 2:1-3).

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience - among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Satan is the mastermind behind it all. He is thousands of years old, he's tireless, he's relentless, he's pitiless, he's remorseless. Satan is utterly focused and driven and committed in pursuing his goal.

Think of Adam and Eve. They had no bad genes, perfect "childhood," flawless conditioning; they were pure and innocent, and Adam was taught by God Himself.

And how long did they last? How long did they resist the Devil's sales pitch?

Do you really think you’re more of a match than they were?

What's worse, we’re Satan's natural constituency!

Are you going to loose yourself from these powers, shake off these chains?

Can you free yourself from the entire culture into which you and I were born, of self-absorbed, self-willed, self-reliant Godlessness? Growing up, you were no more conscious of this mindset than you were of being surrounded by air. Less! This is the mindset that motivates advertising, the media, the schools. It is our context, our framework, our matrix — how do we free ourselves from that?

And if we imagine the answer to be “yes” — where are we going to get that power? From ourselves? From our flesh? By natural birth, you are the flesh! I am the flesh! Our very being, our thoughts and feelings and inclinations, are 100% in sync with the world. When our very nature is bound to the world, what power from within us will free us from what we are? Can the Ethiopian change his skin? Can the leopard change his spots? Can we “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps?”

How can the power to change our nature arise from our nature?

All the self-help, self-motivation programs just deepen this problem. It is possible by willpower to lose a bad habit. But if the lesson one learns from that is “I have the ability to create a fulfilled life for myself,” then the real problem has simply been doubled! When my self-improvement deepens my self-addiction, my real problem is vastly worsened.

But even if you could beat the world and the flesh -- and you can't -- could you beat the Devil?

Do you really think you’re smarter than he, a better debater, stronger? Character actor John Quade, years ago, said he turned down certain roles in plays or movies. Their plots—you’ve seen them—had a man outsmart the Devil. He said he couldn’t do it: “No man can out-smart the Devil!”

These powers — the world, the flesh, the Devil — are beyond us. We are bound by powers vast, and pervasive, and damnably effective. Had we the will to do it, we could no more free ourselves from them than we could start breathing in water instead of air.

And there’s the real kicker: we haven’t the will to do it.

Our only possible hope for freedom, for loosing from this bondage, would have to come from a power superior to that of the world, superior to that of the Devil, utterly outside of us, and not dependent on the tiniest fragment of contribution from us to our liberation.

[Concluded at Pyromaniacs.]

Has WORLD magazine lost it? (Goodbye, cruel WORLD)

I received my latest and last copy of WORLD magazine.

It says "Last issue. Don't miss another issue -- RENEW TODAY!" But I won't be.

I've gotten a few pleas to return, but I don't plan to do so.

WORLD set out to provide a Christian alternative, from the Biblical and Reformed viewpoint, giving TIME and Newsweak a run for their money. Joel Belz was the editor, and he was a good brother who wrote consistently excellent editorials. I had, and have, the highest regard for him. It was a thin magazine at the start, but it was promising, and I "bought in" years and years ago.

I was an aggressive advocate. I have said, publicly and often, that WORLD magazine subscriptions should be required by law. Free publicity, glad to give it.

But now I'm letting my subscription lapse, and I'm taking its blog off of my preferred links.

Why?

It started many months ago, with an adoring, non-confrontive interview with Anne Lamott. I was non-plused as to what such a softball interview was doing in WORLD -- except that the "reporter," Susan Olasky, was evidently editor Marvin Olasky's wife. (I tried to find verification of that relationship and didn't, so I rely on my memory.)

This interview opens with Mrs. Olasky saying, "I love your description of becoming a Christian." However, as I read the article, the fruit in Lamott's life left me seriously, profoundly wondering whether Lamott had any concept of what it meant to be a Christian, beyond that it has something to do with someone named "Jesus." However, the Jesus of her description bears little resemblance to the real one, the one of the Bible. The concept of the Lordship of Jesus Christ did not seem to me to have broached itself to her.

You may be thinking, "Anne Lamott... that name sounds familiar...." It should. This is the Anne Lamott who just confessed (proudly) to the murder of a sick friend, lacing it with references to her being such an ardent Christian -- though clearly one who feels free completely to make it up as she goes. (Read Ron Gleason's very acerbic commentary; h-t Slice of Laodicea). It's a self-consciously literate, gauzy, white-wine-and-brie narrative of a murder.

Wonder how WORLD will cover that. Will it? Will it allude to Susan Olasky's adoring fluffy interview?

Then there was the interview with "convert" Anne Rice, best known for her Interview with a Vampire series, her baldly immoral storytelling.

The article was titled Into the Light, and subtitled "Novelist Anne Rice leaves the vampire Lestat and embraces Christ, 'the ultimate supernatural hero'." You may know the story; Rice became a Roman Catholic. That's right, a Roman Catholic.

Note very carefully: the title and subtitle express a spiritual evaluation of Rice's spiritual condition.

Now, I don't doubt that there are Roman Catholics who do not understand and do not believe the RCC's damning dogmas, and are genuine, if mistaught, Christians. WORLD is ostensibly coming from a Reformed perspective, and its writers and reporters presumably know this also. So naturally, with their readership in mind, the interviewer is going to ask Rice about her conversion, right? What is Rice's understanding of the Gospel, what does it mean to her to be saved, to be a Christian? What drew her to Rome? Just the natural, basic questions every Christian will wonder, all perfectly capable of being asked in a friendly, respectful way.

No. Not at all. Not even close.

Follow-up: in WORLD 's blog's post on this article, I object in posts 3 and 6. In #10 the reporter herself, Lynne Vincent, gives the most clueless sideways response (around me, not to me) that I can imagine, sniffing that it is a "turn off" to examine a testimony when you're reporting on a testimony.

Read that again. Then say it with me: "Huh?" You make sense of that.

But again I note: WORLD had no trouble concluding in its title that Rice had indeed gone "into the light," and had indeed embraced the Lord Jesus Christ. It is just that readers are denied information that would help us understand the basis for that evaluation. Every Roman Catholic -- in fact, let's broaden that and say every "Christian" cultist -- will claim to have embraced Jesus Christ. Mormons, Oneness Pentecostals, Christian Scientists, Jehovah's Witnesses. We can only understand what folks mean by asking questions. It isn't rude, it isn't loveless -- in fact, it is respectful. It is saying, "I respect you enough not to assume that I know what you mean without asking."

But it's a "turn off." To a reporter. To ask questions so as to elicit information and attain understanding.

One can only sigh and shake one's head.

[UPDATE: Anne Rice has since renounced any claim to be a Christian.]

Then again, there was the End of the Spear controversy. You can search this blog for articles and comments on that movie, and homosexual activist Chad Allen, chosen to portray martyr Nate Saint and his son Steve. Olasky in his comments proved himself to be, in my opinion, startlingly tone-deaf on the issue and its implications again and again. Is that where the slide has been coming from — Olasky?

On the first of those two posts, I replied: "Is the lead article a parody? It is written as if the author is not even aware of the concerns many Biblical Christians have very carefully worded for well over a week. If it's serious, I'm very disappointed by its shallowness and seeming unawareness of easily-available counterpoints and responses."

To the second, I replied: "After years of very vocally supporting and promoting WORLD, I'm getting the impression that WORLD is very anxious to turn into Christianity Today. This leaves me wondering if they shouldn't just merge."

I suppose others could give examples as well, but it was enough for me. I did what I never thought I'd do. When renewal time came around, I just didn't. I bailed on Christianity Today -- the real one -- years ago, after they thumbed their nose at Biblical teaching about creation and the roles of men and women. I was uninterested in heading back incrementally, along with WORLD.

WORLD may or may not have lost "it."

But it lost me.

[Note: this essay has been revised and extended.]

Need a chuckle? Purgatorio has one for you

You Supply the Caption 42 is about the funniest thread I ever remember seeing on Marc's site. Wouldn't it be hysterical to be in a room with all those people?

Okay... with many of those people?

Dang, this is good

Not this. That -- which could be retitled "How George Bush Aborted My Baby" -- is appalling.

What's good is this blow-by-blow deconstruction/commentary on it.

I was tempted to pull some quotations -- but the whole is quotable. Read it.

(H-T Mary Katharine Ham.)

Forgiveness, the Dixie Chicks, Christianity

This headline annoys me: Dixie refuses to forgive the Chicks [SunHerald article, link now dead]. Its assumption is that there is a reason why "the South" should forgive the anti-American country-western band "The Dixie Chicks," and that it refuses to do so.

In 2003, during wartime, the Chicks were enjoying their freedom in a foreign country, and used that opportunity to — sing? Heavens, no; liberals seemingly never simply shut up and sing. No, they attacked our Commander in Chief. When outrage was expressed back home, they ultimately simply dug in their heels and maintained their opposition and refused to admit just how wrong their action was.

Immediately afterwards, there was a mealy-mouthed non-apology — but now they have retracted even that.

So now they're not selling well in the South, and having to cancel concerts.

So my question is: whyever would the South, or anyone, "forgive" them for what they proudly maintain was the right thing to do? What does "forgiveness" mean, anyway?

I've had people tell me they "forgive" me for being a dispensationalist, and I don't generally do much more than grin, because I know it's just a tease. But if I seriously thought someone was telling me he'd forgive me for holding to something that is a conviction of mine, something I am persuaded is true, I'd react very pointedly. I might say, "Please don't. I haven't changed my mind. Taking all of the Bible seriously is not a moral crime crying out for repentance and forgiveness."

Similarly, I'd decline anyone offering me forgiveness for loving my wife, for being devoted to my children, or for liking fried chicken and "24." Please don't. I don't regard any of those as moral wrongs, as sins, and I don't ask for forgiveness. So don't give it to me.

There's this traditional notion that Christians are required to forgive unrepented wrongs. I simply have never seen it in the Bible. What's more, I simply can make no sense of it.

On the contrary, Jesus says, "Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him..." (Luke 17:3).

"If."

If he sins, I am not told to forgive him, but to rebuke him. Tell him that what he has done is wrong, and why. And then, if he repents, if he admits that what he has done is a sin, then I am to forgive him. But Jesus says nothing about what to do, in this section, if he does not repent.

Not that He never speaks of such a circumstance. Take Matthew 18:15-18. Now, there is a situation where a brother sins, is rebuked, and refuses to repent.

What does Jesus say to do? Forgive him? Not at all. He says to rebuke him again and again, with increasing intensity. And then, if he still refuses to repent, kick him out of the church and regard him as an unbeliever.

So where does the idea come from that I am morally obliged to forgive every sin, whether it is repented of or not? I do not know. God doesn't do that (1 John 1:9), and I know of no passage where He says I must.

What would it mean, anyway? When I ask you to forgive me, I am thereby telling you that I have come to regard what I did as being wrong, as being immoral and sinful, as being indefensible. I am saying that I should not have done it. I am asking you to let it go, not to hold it against me, on the basis that I too have let it go, insofar as I no longer embrace the mindset that it was a right and justifiable thing to do.

But forgiving an unrepentant person makes no sense to me. He doesn't regard what he did as being wrong. He doesn't see it as immoral and sinful, and indefensible. He doesn't think that he should not have done it. In a sense, it is insulting to him to "forgive" him of something he defends, embraces, clings to.

Let's say I'm the president of a seminary, and T. D. Jakes expresses an interest in teaching there. A representative approaches me. I say, "No, I don't think so; there's good reason to believe that Jakes is a modalist and rejects the Biblical doctrine of the Trinity. That's contrary to our position."

The representative expresses shock at my response, and says "Brother, that is such an unforgiving spirit!"

I blink. "Sorry?" I might say. "Come again? 'Unforgiving'? Did Jakes admit that he was a modalist, repent of it, denounce modalism as sinful and heretical, and embrace the Biblical doctrine of the Trinity publicly and unambiguously? Did he ask the Christian community to forgive him his past heresy?"

"No, of course not."

"Then how could I even 'forgive' him for holding a position he still holds? What would that even mean? 'Brother Jakes, I'm so glad you're teaching here and admitted that you once held to heresy, but no longer do?' He'd be outraged — and he'd have a point! Of course I'm 'unforgiving,' because he's 'unrepenting'!"

So what does it mean to be unforgiving, in such circumstances? Simply to regard the sin as a current issue, and deal with it as such. I must not take vengeance, but must rather bless, love, and do good (Matthew 5:43-47; 1 Thessalonians 5:15; 1 Peter 3:9). There may sometimes be consequences for another's sin (Matthew 5:32; 18:15-18), but the motive is not revenge and the attitude is not bitter hatred.

If anyone ever convinced me of a Biblical obligation to forgive the unrepentant of their unrepented sins -- to regard them as not having done what they have proudly done and will do again, gladly and without concern, at the next opportunity -- his next task would be to help me see what possible sense it would make.

As the first has never been done, I don't anticipate the second anytime soon.

UPDATE: since I wrote this post, Chris Brauns came out with a wonderful book on the subject, titled Unpacking Forgiveness. I reviewed it here. Get the book, read it. You won't regret it.

More abortion news from Bedlam

A young woman was found guilty of "felony murder for causing the baby's death while committing first-degree cruelty to children," because she left her newborn to die in a Walmart restroom.

Not even meaning to be sarcastic: I find myself unable to guess how the pro-aborts would explain this sentence, when this exact same woman could have had that exact same living baby torn to pieces until dead, perfectly legally, if she'd simply managed to get herself to an abortuary instead of a Wal-Mart.

Shouldn't it be practicing medicine without a license, rather than murder?

That last sentence was sarcastic. But honestly, when the subject is abortion, I keep coming back to the sense that it is simply an area of national moral insanity. It is not possible to mount a rational, morally-sane explanation for the abortion-on-demand mindset. Yet it still is the legally prevailing position.

What it illustrates is this:

They have rejected the word of the LORD,
so what wisdom do they really have?
(Jeremiah 8:9b)

The path away from the word of God is not the way to sanity.

To put it mildly.

Karate, Kidneys, Kitties: What I've been up to lately (instead of blogging much)

I've had to go easy on the blogging for the last few weeks, and here's why -- for anyone who cares. That is, it will almost all be personal and not directly theological, and if (as I assume) most of you don't care about the details of my life, you should feel free to skip it. No hard feelings.

KARATE!

After dropping about 100 pounds thanks to God and Dr. Atkins, I enrolled in karate last year. My three sons (now 6, 10 and 19) had already been advancing up the ranks, and I'd been watching from the sidelines. I kept thinking that the sparring looked fun, the rolling-around-and-grunting (floor grappling) looked absolutely miserable, and the kata's (choreographed fight moves) looked increasingly insane and impossible, particularly for a confirmed lifelong oaf.

Under the guidance of always-positive Sensei Abe Cerezo, I worked towards my first test. In our system (Cerezo-ha Shito-ryu karate-do), the first test is for advancement from white to yellow belt. Praise God, I scored well enough to skip yellow and advance directly to orange.

This meant I was instantly behind, and had to learn make-up kata's plus new ones, and new moves and facts and Japanese and history and other fun things. So I puttered along, doing what the classes did, whittling away at catch-up-and-advance, quite leisurely.

One night at class, after I'd done some work with a bright young female student, Sensei took me aside. I honestly expected him to give me a friendly but well-deserved chewing-out for being so unfocused and unapplied, and telling me to get serious.

Instead, to my drop-jawed astonishment, he said that I was doing so well, and had it so together, that I could either test for my next belt (purple) or, if I wished, skip that belt and test for the next belt beyond purple, which is blue. He said further that he thought it possible that I'd do so well in that test, that I might actually skip blue and go straight to green, thus actually advancing three ranks in one test.

But, he cautioned me, if I failed the blue-belt test, I would not receive purple. There would be no "consolation prize." In that event, I'd simply have to re-take the test another time.

Well, I was floored, gob-smacked, and otherwise astonied. I consulted with my wife and, in particular, my oldest son Matthew, who had already advanced to black belt. After all that, and with their encouragement, I decided to go for it.

It had a wonderfully focusing effect on me. I now had this large, distinct, and menacingly looming goal bearing down on me. There probably is a spiritual lesson in this, by the way (1 Corinthians 9:23-27). So I worked very hard, both alone and with my two older sons -- Matthew, the black belt, and Josiah, the green-belt-one-stripe who was about to test for a brown belt on the same day.

So the much-anticipated test week arrived, and with it arrived....

KIDNEYS!

I already had kidneys, of course, but here's what they did to me -- sparing you unnecessary specifics and photo's.

I'd recently become a bit uncomfortable, but it was fairly mild, and I assumed it'd pass. But on the eve of test week, I became very and distressingly uncomfortable, in ways I'll not detail for you. I bemoaned the timing, and got myself to the doctor. Our quick guess was unusual but not unheard-of: urinary tract infection. I optimistically began taking an antibiotic.

Briefly put, it didn't work. So I got myself back to the doc. We began a second antibiotic, and considered the possibility that I had achieved another one of those wonderful gifts and prizes you get for being a fifty-year-old man, prostatitis.

When I took the first part of my formal test on Thursday evening, I was in a lot of discomfort, to the point of distraction. I didn't feel I did very well. It was a typical test-situation, in that the things I felt I could do best weren't tested, and some of the (innumerable) facets I hadn't mastered were, instead. But I soldiered on, and Sensei was characteristically encouraging, ordering me to "stop freaking out!" I think the freak-out syndrome is genetic, but I tried to heed his advice.

Well, the next day, along with more pain came blood, which was new and unwelcome. So the doctor saw me again, changed the diagnosis to a fairly firm "prostatitis," gave me some counsel and took another sample to diagnose.

I never considered cancelling the test. For one thing, Sensei would kill me. Not literally, but I'd already delayed longer than he preferred, and I had promised him I'd take it this month. I don't break my promises, God helping me. For another thing, I'd not be any younger, and really don't like to set a precedent of failure or dodging if I can help it, so....

I went to the test Saturday in a good deal of discomfort. That test-day went considerably better -- mostly. (I still beat myself up severely over failing to throw a brown-belt lawyer [really nice guy, but dang!] to the floor during a fun pile-on portion of the test.)

And when the time came for the awarding of belts, I found, to my tearful gratitude, that I had somehow managed to score high enough to skip purple and blue, and indeed advance to green belt, two-stripe.

Then, the next Monday, I passed a kidney stone. End of mystery, and symptoms.

KITTIES!

Out of a sad family event came a very happy one.

I had been, not a cat hater, but certainly a cat disdainer. I didn't care much for what I perceived as their snotty, abusive, unrewarding ways, and was uninterested ever in having one infest our house.

And then some fifteen years ago, my wife discovered three little feral kittens in our garage. Mom ran off, and kids scattered within the garage. Armed with leather gloves, Valerie caught them all and put them in a crate. They were tiny, probably very recently weaned. "They're going to the pound, of course," I declared.

Sure, Valerie responded; but if we could keep them a little while, and tame them a little bit, they'd be easier to adopt. (Women can be so devious.)

I grudgingly agreed. Now, since I was home more than she at this time, this meant that I would feed and care for them. We didn't have cat food, so I got hamburger meat and baby food, and fed them.

To telescope the story, they completely won me over, and I converted hard. I said we might keep one... which turned into Well, it'd be better if the one had a sibling to play with; which became Oh, let's not break them up, they're all so great.

So we kept them, got them fixed and cared for, and loved them. The male unfortunately turned out to be an unrepentant house-wrecker, so we did give him to an agency in hopes of adoption, and kept his sisters Prickle and Smudge. They became family-members for the next fifteen years, with their very different temperaments.

Prickle however took ill a couple of years ago. Prickle was such a sweet cat. She was everyone's friend, was a happy presence at every family meeting and prayer time, and just was a dear little cat. We tried a long list of measures to help her, to get her over it, but eventually I had to make one of the hardest family-decisions I have ever had to make, and have her "put to sleep." I may write more on that sometime, but for now I'll just tell you that I shed a lot of tears, lost sleep, and had nightmares over that joyless, lonely and miserable decision, even though I still think it was, overall, the kindest and wisest. But given my temperament, you can easily imagine the kind of working-over I gave myself over that one.

This left us with beloved Smudge who (in cat years) is a very healthy 80, and mostly keeps to our bedroom. So we began considering kitties.

My wife's tales of growing up with a really special Maine Coon-mix cat named Mischief had always tickled me, and after my conversion to cat-lover I began wishing that one day we could have Maine Coon cats, or mixes. Maine Coons, for the uninitiated, tend to be unusually intelligent, personable, loyal, and LARGE.

So, again telescoping, I began searching fruitlessly for mixes, and only slightly more fruitfully for breeders with adoptable cats. (Be warned: pure-bred Maine Coon kitties are expensive.)

We found and were very seriously considering a delightful-looking little cat provisionally named Babette in my old home town of Glendale. The breeder, Susan Hansen, was very helpful in telling us about her and working at the logistics of us Sacramento-bound folks seeing her cat. What a gorgeous cat; anyone with the inclination in the area should consider looking Susan up.

But we renewed some earlier correspondence with Geree Martin of Tabbypatch, in Oakland, California, and found that she had a number of kittens who either were available, or soon would be. So we made an appointment, and all of us except my oldest son went over to meet her kitties.

We were all immediately smitten with a female kitty, who actually began purring and was very interested in everything before she even left her cage. She played happily with my boys, let herself be petted, and impressed us as a sweet, intelligent kitty. She was probably our first choice.

Then there was a male who had actually gone to a breeder as a female. The vet checked "her" out and broke the news that "she" would not be producing any kittens... at least not from "her" body. He had just come back to the cattery that morning, and even though he was a bit disoriented, he was friendly and playful, with classic Maine Coone lines. He was our second choice, mostly....

But we were torn. There was another male, beautiful and with a brown coloration I had particularly been looking for. Also, he was friendly and sweet; but he'd not be ready for adoption for another three weeks. That meant taking one kitty home, risking her having no other kitty to play with, then coming back and introducing a third cat to two strangers in three weeks.

And then was this one other male, but he was very small. The vet said he was perfectly healthy, and would probably be larger than an average cat, but he was still small for a Maine Coon. (We met his sire, and he was huge!) He had a beautiful face, interesting colors, but he was very timid and quiet. He stole my daughter's heart, and sat quietly with her as we played with the others.

Geree offered us a very tempting deal if we would take him as a third cat.

We deliberated fast and hard, and decided that the mix of colors and temperaments could be very winning. So we took all three home.

That was last Sunday, and, with church, took my whole day.

And then this week I've been working a different shift (5am-2pm), working with various crises, not having my usual blog-time.

So that's what I've been up to. Life happened! Pain, pleasure; blood, sweat, tears; more pain; and furry little kitties.

Illegal "immigration": some thoughts

This is not a topic about which I'm wild-eyed and obsessive. Here are a few thoughts I can't seem to shake, whenever I hear the subject broached.

1. The proper frame: anyone who illegally crosses the border has broken into my "house." The government is supposed to keep my "house" secure. Instead, it is proposing pronouncing them to be members of my family, and arguing how much I should be forced to pay to support them, tend to their medical wants, and generally reward their lawbreaking.
2. The Bible has nothing good to say about home invasion (Exodus 22:2).
3. The Bible urges voluntary mercy toward the needy (Mattthew 5:42), but never constrains enabling or rewarding of home invaders or lawbreakers. In fact...
4. The Bible discourages the rewarding of lawlessness (Proverbs 28:4; Ecclesiastes 8:11; Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13-14).

On this topic, frankly, I just do not have The Answer. I just know I don't think much of any of the solutions I've heard, and any solution that rewards past border invasion strikes me as immoral, insane, and ultimately nationally self-destructive.

And one last thought: what is this disconnect in President Bush's brain by which he (correctly, IMHO) pursues America's security issues on another continent, but doesn't see the need to secure our own porous border with equal or greater intensity?

Light blog week

Work schedule, personal life -- keeping me from giving much to either blog this week. But I've not forgotten, and I do have ideas! It's just that... life happens.

You already knew that one, didn't you?

Family Films

An email reminded me that I'd done a post at FreeRepublic four years ago, recommending family films and soliciting other recommendations. I should really do an update. Hope you find some use of this as a resource.

What I'm working on: posts on temperament, WORLD magazine, and Harry Potter.

Oh, and one on illegal immigration.

(It does say "eclectic" up there, doesn't it?)

Whoa. Spurgeon.

[NOTE: this is part of my ongoing, occasional efforts to accept the fact that every post does not need to attempt to be an Opus.]

Spurgeon today, Morning & Evening:

God had one Son without sin, but not a single child without the rod.

Whoa.

Al Mohler: Tim LaHaye is like Dan Brown

PREFACE: this is going to be scathing, and long. If you can't take "scathing and long" -- run away! Run away!

DISCLAIMERS:

First: I've always liked Al Mohler. I'll probably go on liking him. But this essay -- oy!

Second: I've read all the Left Behind books except either the last one, or the last two. I thought they were clever and imaginative. Well-written? It depends on what you are looking for. If you want a light page-turner, that pretty well hooks you and keeps you going, yes. If you're looking for depth of thought, reflection and literary quality, phrases you'll savor and memorize for their craft and beauty -- oh my heavens, no!

I'd say it's a good-faith effort to imagine how Biblical prophecy might play itself out.

Anyone who wants to criticize it as literature will hear no argument from me. Anyone who wants to propose a better (read "more Biblical") scenario for how prophecy will be realized on our planet, in our history, will have no thematic argument from me.

But the most acid critiques I've read of the Left Behind series come from another place. They come from people who are threatened and outraged at the fact that the authors take Biblical prophecy seriously. Of course, they never put it that way, but that's the bottom-line.

Take Al Mohler.

Set flame to "sim." Al Mohler titles his essay The Danger of Gnosticism -- And Its Attraction. (Check out the URL; it's just funny that it ends in "666.") Out of the 568 words of the essay, 383 are straight quotations lifted from an editorial in the magazine Christian Century, not a publication noted for its Biblical intensity. I make that 68% of his essay. Guess he really, really liked it.

What is the premise of the celebrated editorial? It is that the two works are similar, in that both bring out secret and suppressed knowledge to the reader, both appeal to lurid curiosity or restlessness, both are designed to sell.

Mohler doesn't fully quote the editorial's specific sneer at dispensationalism: "[Left Behind's]unfolding of the apocalypse according to a dispensationalist eschatology presumably appeals to far-right biblical fundamentalists who scour the news for signs that the rapture is coming." The editorial refers to Rodney Clapp's article in the same issue, where he also specifically curls his lip at "the thrill of decoding the Bible by way of dispensational theology."

(Get that? Saying that "Israel" means "Israel" is "decoding"; saying that "Israel" is "the Christian Church" is -- what? Sober, sound exegesis, I guess.)

The editorial further snipes, "Both also update the dusty old gospel of the churches with action-packed stories that move so fast that readers tend not to notice the problems in the stories or the mediocrity of the prose."

Now, try something with me for a second. Put aside your hermeneutical and eschatological system for a moment. Pretend you're reading Revelation for the first time. What do you see? Explosions, chases, loud sounds, dragons, falling stars, global events, supernatural and human battles in the heavens and on earth, culminating in the return of Christ from Heaven to earth, the judgment of all mankind, and the complete transformation of all creation.

That's not an "action-packed story"?

But I digress.

Mohler agrees with the article, and pronounces his "Ditto" on its last sentence: "When the junk food of the gnostic stories fails to satisfy, churches should be there with the soul food of the gospel."

(May I pause once again, to remark on an essay that slams the "mediocrity of the prose" of these novels, and then concludes with the words, "Ditto on that last sentence"? As Buck Murdock sagely remarked, "Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.")

So, Al Mohler likes lumping together Brown and LaHaye, DaVinci and DaRapture.

Increase flames." I would have expected better of Mohler, but evidently would have been wrong.

Clearly we should feel that it is terrible that there are actually people who think that, simply because Biblical prophecy says something is going to happen, it actually is going to happen. To some, it is scandalous that there are people like LaHaye who make (good-faith but) flawed efforts to loook for real-world fulfillments of Biblical predictions.

These louts just aren't sophisticated and educated enough to know that the coming of Christ was a sort of bait-and-switch. Our Lord could roundly and severely reproach the leaders of His day for not taking the prophetic portions of Scripture seriously and literally, and for not expecting real-world fulfillments (Matthew 16:1-4) -- but then, after His departure, everything turns around! Now His representatives (like Mohler?) scorn and reproach folks who do take prophetic Scripture seriously and literally, and do look for real-world fulfillments!

In some circles (Mohler's?), it is the accepted stance to be appalled that there are still theological Neanderthals who are actually so barbaric and crude as to imagine that grammatico-historical exegesis applies to all of Scripture, and not just the sections about the Atonement.

Can you imagine practitioners of this school of decorder-ring interpretation in Jerusalem in the year 1 BC, debating the meaning of Scripture? "Come on, Rabbi Jacob -- as if 'donkey' means 'donkey' (Zech. 9:9)! Don't you know that our Zeitgeist dictates that a 'donkey' is a symbol of humility? Your approach is so crude and unsophisticated! And 'virgin' (Isaiah 7:14) -- of course that cannot mean a literal female who has never had sexual relations! It is a symbolic representation of the spiritual purity of the Remnant to whom deliverance comes! And 'Bethlehem' (Micah 5:2) has such a deeper meaning than a mere geographical label! It means 'House of Bread,' the Torah which replenishes our souls!" And on and on it would have gone, until everything meant everything, and thus nothing.

Yes, Dr. Mohler. Brilliant observation. People who take all of the Bible seriously are JUST LIKE Dan Brown, who completely trashes the Bible! Thanks for pointing that out. We must really keep those dispensationlists at the back of the bus. They've got to learn to stay silent around their betters.

Someone really must tell the LaHayes of the world that the Church had scoured all the truth out of the Bible by the year 1700. They must become more sophisticated. They must learn that the Bible is just a museum now -- not an actual working mine.

Afterword: One more time, because I know I will be misunderstood. My point is not to defend Tim LaHaye's book, his specific interpretations, nor his skill as a novelist. He is most scorchingly criticized because he looks for real-world fulfillment of Biblical prophecy, because he dares to be EWD (Existing While Dispensationalist), and because he doesn't just lump the whole of it into one shapeless, formeless, indistinguishable mass, shrug, and say, "Whatever. Christ. Whatever."

I don't think most of the harshest critics are animated by their offense at LaHaye and Jenkins' specific envisionings of prophecy. I think they're animated with rage at the very fact that they try to envision prophecy, as if John meant something when he wrote that his book was about actual "things which will take place after these things" (Revelation 1:19c). It is threatening to their "Yeah, well, whatever" approach to Biblical prophecy.

That is my point.

(For more on the hermeneutical approach underlying this critique, please see my essay,The Science of Bible Reading. And please do keep in mind What Dispensationalism Isn't.)

Riddle me this: on worship

When we do our reading of the Word of God in church, we read each verse one (1) time.

When we sing, we might repeat a 2-to-4-line chorus 4, 5, 6 or even more times.

Why?

Funniest. Denomination-name. Ever.

Ever since I first heard it, I've thought "Primitive Baptists" is the most hysterical name I ever heard for a denomination. What do you think, what do you picture, when you hear it?

I picture a bunch of guys in loincloths, carrying clubs, sitting on stone benches. The worship team beats rhythmically on hollowed logs. Maybe they drag their wives in by the hair with the club-hand, and carry a leg-bone to gnaw on in the other.

Favorite hymn?

"Rock of Ages," of course.

Now Jeremy Weaver ruins all my fun by actually explaining what the denomination is all about.

Thanks a lot, Jeremy.

I like mine better.

Bob Novak jumps the shark? (On Mitt Romney and "religious test")

Should evangelicals -- a word I always have to use with a puzzled expression, anymore -- have reservations about a Mormon President? I expressed some, and then expressed some more.

According to Robert Novak, it was baaaaad of me to do so.

Novak doesn't name me, and I guess I'm glad, because I've always liked him. I used to watch him on Crossfire on CNN, first opposite the mind-numbing Tom Braden, then opposite the mind-shredding Michael Kinsley (who always looked like he was on a brief break from sniggering at the back of some junior-highschool classroom, and was probably never spanked). I didn't always agree with Novak, but he was fun to watch. Never dispassionate, very aggressive, a little corny sometimes. My kind of guy.

He made for some moments of "real" TV. I remember Braden had just introduced a subject with the most biased, acid, loaded dumpsterfull of inanity I'd heard to that date. Novak was then supposed to get the conversation going.

Instead, Novak just gaped, speechless. Finally, he said something like, "I can't believe you said that." Then he got going.

Last month, in Romney's Religious Test, Novak very fiercely scolds anyone who would dare hold, let alone express, let alone be influenced by, any religiously-based reservations about Romney.

Quoth the Bobster:

The U.S. Constitution prohibits a religious test for public office, but that is precisely what is being posed now. Prominent, respectable Evangelical Christians have told me, not for quotation, that millions of their co-religionists cannot and will not vote for Romney for president solely because he is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Uh-huh, well... what?! Did Bob Novak actually just accuse "Evangelical Christians" of violating the Constitution? No... no, he must have misspoken, or we misunderstood, or something. Right?

Evidently not, because he immediately says again, "Romney is well aware that an unconstitutional religious test is being applied to him...."

Okay, now that Novak's got that out of his system, is he ready to be a little mellower, a little more rational?

Not so much:

...relatively few fanatics ...highly emotional collision of religious faith and religious bias with American politics ...The Republican whispering campaign against Mormons ...ridicule of the church's doctrine. ......amateur theologians ...mixed up....

Um... "unconstitutional"? What is he talking about? Closest I can even guess is this, from Article VI:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Okay, so there can be no federally-imposed religious test. Got it. What does that have to do with how I, a free and private citizen, decide as to how to cast my vote? Nothing. It means that, if a witch doctor is elected, the government can't bar him from serving due to his refusal to affirm the Trinity. But does that mean that if a witch doctor runs for President, I can't let that fact figure into my considerations? Not even close.

I am free not to vote for someone because he affirms an irrational religion, or for any other reason I choose. Nothing un-Constitutional about it. Novak isn't serving the Constitution well with this spoutoff.

Nor does he drape himself in glory with this gem:

These amateur theologians occasionally get mixed up, with some Republicans asserting that Mormons do not believe in the divinity of Christ. The first of Mormon founder Joseph Smith's 13 Articles of Faith reads: "We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost." It is true that the Mormon understanding of the Trinity is not what is taught by Catholic and most Protestant faiths. But nobody today seeks to disqualify Jews and non-Trinitarian Protestants from high office.

If I didn't like Novak so much, I'd find delicious irony in such a dismally, abysmally, multi-facetedly ignorant paragraph opening with a barrage against "mixed up" "amateur theologians." Ohh, Bob, Bob... I hear Yoda saying, "How embarrassing! How embarrassing!"

That shark in your rear-view mirror, Bob -- it's not a good thing.

ENDNOTE: to be painfully clear, I'm not advocating any particular attitude towards Romney. My main point is that it is neither un-Constitutional nor un-American to take into consideration a candidate's worldview. And if his religion doesn't affect his worldview, then he's a hypocrite -- which, itself, is worth consideration.

T. D. Jakes does an Osteen?

I've never quite understood it, but to many folks TD Jakes is "all that" and a bag of fries. Now Slice of Laodicea directs us to this answer by TD Jakes to a Muslim's question as to whether only Christians go to Heaven:

"When it comes to Heaven, I try to leave that up to God. I certainly believe that Christianity is right, but when it comes down to the final test--who goes and who doesn't go--Jesus said, Other sheep have I who are not of this fold. Them also must I bring. I'll let Him identify who those sheep are and I stay out of the conversation."

Hard not to think of Joel Osteen's miserable bobbling of the same softball question from Larry King. (Osteen, to his credit, later apologized; will Jakes?)

So, Jakes is apparently a modalist heretic, and is unclear on what one must do to be saved. Otherwise, really great preacher.

How can I call this a "softball question"? Certainly not in the sense that it is not an emotional question, nor that it is not a momentous question. It is both. However, I daresay most genuine Christian converts could have given a Biblical answer to that poor, lost woman's question. Jakes doesn't. Oh, he alludes to a Bible passage -- but he mangles it pretty mercilessly in the process.

Look: some matters in the Bible are open to honest debate (timing of the Rapture, exact structure of church government, meaning of "Parbar"), and some things aren't. Among the things that aren't would be truths such as the Trinity, and the Gospel. Those are areas most new converts face, to some degree, pretty close to their conversion. Often they are matters that are clarified in connection with our conversion. "Who is this God I'm being called to believe in?" is a fundamental question, and "Trinity" is part of the Biblical answer; and "Do I really have to be converted?" is another, and "Yes!" is the Bible's response to that.

Jakes is 0 for 2 on that score, and they're a pretty significant two.

And this is the man adored by so many professing Christians.

I don't know which is more discouraging: the dearth of principled, admirable leadership in the Republican Party, or that same chasm among professing evangelicals.

OK, I lied. No contest. The latter.

Libbie nails it again: Gospel authority vs. "evangelical" woman "pastors"

Libbie's Musings of an English Muffin is a regular visit of mine; I really must shake off my torpor and admit as much in my links. (I don't feel too bad; Libbie doesn't admit to frequenting mine in her links, though she confesses to visiting Scary Frank's.)

Today she unloads on T4G and that article. She's speaking of the "controversial" article in the Together for the Gospel statement dealing with women and ministry. Among her memorable and on-target musings:

I remain a little puzzled that this is the issue it is among evangelicals, as it doesn't seem to me that scripture is silent of the matter....

There are passages that explicitly say that women are not to teach or have authority over men. They are not fuzzy passages that require a koine greek concordance to understand the plain meaning of them.

The [explanations] I have read for women to ignore these passages seem to range from dismissing the passages as only for a particular time, to Paul being a hideous woman-hater, to them actually not being part of scripture at all.

Now, in all honesty, I have also seen every one of these arguments used to say that homosexuality isn't a sin either. And it seems obvious to me that none of these arguments should have any weight among people who believe in the complete inspiration and infallibility of scripture.

Because once you begin to say that you don't like a passage because it doesn't apply anymore, or because it's not really scripture, or because it was a part of scripture that was just Paul's humanity sneaking through, then you deal a blow to the authority of scripture itself that I think does great harm to the authority of the gospel contained within it.

Amen, and well-said. You go, girl. (That's American for "Spot on!")

Can you keep a secret? Chuck Colson's excellent point about the resurrection

Colson, first famous due to Watergate and then through his conversion to faith in Christ, knows something about keeping secrets. He points to...

...the infamous Watergate cover-up in which I was very much involved. Surprising though it may seem to some, it took only two weeks from the time that the president was first told the extent of the cover-up to the time when John Dean, his counsel, went to the prosecutors and made a secret deal to testify against the president in exchange for a lighter sentence. Now, mind you, this happened among twelve people, perhaps the most powerful in America, loyal to their leader. In a situation like that, as I saw up close, the desire to save oneself has a way of overriding loyalty or any idealism.

And from what were they saving themselves? Not torture nor death, but loss of reputation, scandal, possible prison time. If "elite" men like this could buckle so quickly under relatively mild pressure, how much more quickly would simple rustics collaps under greater and more certain threat?

This is Colson's point, and he makes it well:

Just think about the situation Christ’s disciples were in after He left them. Here was a group of peasants, powerless, up against the most powerful empire in the world. Possible prison time was the very least of their worries. They knew that torture and execution could be in their future if they refused to stop preaching the name of Jesus Christ.

But they couldn’t stop.

To a man, they kept talking about Christ’s life, death, and resurrection to anyone who would listen. None of them would deny or retract their story. Eventually, just as the authorities had threatened, most of them were executed for it. But still, all of them maintained to the very end that Jesus had risen from the dead—that they had seen Him, touched Him, talked with Him.

Read his essay in full. It is a potent underscoring of the credibility of the witnesses to the Resurrection, from an angle I've never heard better explained.

That Spurgeon and his imagery!

It's funny how I sometimes see things wrong at first glance.

I read Spurgeon's Morning and Evening every day. Today, I was a bit startled when the august preacher wrote,

He who is in a wilderness infested with rubber bands must handle matters wisely if he would journey safely.

When I tried to picture that, I thought a re-read was in order. Of course, that isn't what Spurgeon wrote at all. He actually wrote:

He who is in a wilderness infested with robber bands must handle matters wisely if he would journey safely.

Yeah, but... my way's funnier.

BibleWorks 7 Review

[NOTE: this supplements my review over at Pyromaniacs.]

What resources do you get with BibleWorks 7 (BW7)? "Time would fail me to tell of" thirty-two English translations, plus versions in twenty-two other modern languages. Now, free tools such as the valuable E-Sword also have a lot of free versions. What they don't have is the Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic resources built in to BW7. You get the BHS4 Hebrew OT, and Nestle-Aland27/UBS4 Greek NT, as well as Robinson-Pierpont Greek New Testament (Byzantine Textform 2005), Scrivener's, Stephanus', and other variations in both Testaments.

But wait -- there's a virtual-ton more. Suffice it to say here that I'm very enthused about this version, and heartily recommend it to any serious student, particularly to anyone who's a student of the original languages. It is an amazing resource, a treasure house.

List of ten goodies above and beyond what I discussed at Pyromaniacs:

1. Be Eugene Peterson! You can make your own translation, and get it formatted and included into the BW7 database. (Okay, don't go off on me saying "Peterson" and "translation" in the same paragraph; you get my point.)
2. Outlines! You can make your own Bible outlines, and have them display as you go through Bible books.
3. Maps! They've got all sorts of cool maps, including satellite imagery.
4. All sorts of potential add-ons! At the forum, you can find a list of user-created add-ons.
5. Customizable all over the place! You can change a lot of how BW7 displays and works, to your own preferences.
6. MS Word interface! You can insert Bible text into your Word document via a hot-key combination.
7. Flash cards! You can make your own Hebrew/Greek/Aramaic flash card system. You can do it in terms of frequency, or in terms of the specific vocabulary of the book(s) you are studying.
8. Cheaper upgrades! Pay full price for your first BW, and every upgrade after is significantly discounted.
9. Nice guys! The programmers with BW are hardworking, very nice folks, totally easy to work with.
10. Great instructional videos! Earlier versions had well-intentioned, informative, but kind of lame and long videos. This version has a ton of them, and they tend to be more bite-sized, specific, and very helpful.

Wish list. There are relatively minor changes I hope may be made in future editions.

1. Updates. It is a really good feature that you can check online for updates -- and the programmers frequently update the program and data files to improve, catch bugs, correct typo's. But you must check manually. You click on Help, then Check for updates, and then you find out whether there are any. You check boxes, download, install. (Oddly, you have to approva that BW will shut down -- then you have to approve that it will shut down!) The program should check automatically and alert users to updates -- as, for instance, AvantBrowser and other software does.
2. Non-intuitive searches. The methods of searching are, to me, not intuitive, not patterned (say) on standard web or window searches. For instance, if you want to search for all occurrences of the word word, you don't type in word. You have to type in period-word: .word. If you want to search for the phrase "word of God," you don't type "word of God," as in a standard web or Windows search; or check a box that says "All the words." You use an apostrophe, and type 'word of God. It goes on, gets even more Byzantine, for more complex searches. Now, it's all quite learnable, and they have very handy online reminders and context-sensitive help -- it just would soften the learning-curve if it were standardized -- or if it used a GUI box, as other programs do.
3. The ASE. There is an Advanced Search Engine that I, so far, have been unable to learn. For years. Now, the brainiacs at the site (advanced users) use it, love it, probably think I'm a wimp for not "getting" it -- but I don't. I've tried, and I don't. It's GUI, but it is -- to me -- indecipherable. Hebrew was easier. I do think it could be done easier, using a GUI box with options to check. But I've raised this at the forum, and didn't elicit much sympathy among users. So perhaps you'll find it easy, too. (I would hasten to add that, though I can't/don't use this feature, I get immense profit from the program, and enthusiastically recommend it nonetheless.)
4. Less wimpy taskbar/QuickStart icons. Need I say this is my most trivial "gripe"? The icon they use might be great full-size, but it looks like a bit of speckled tiling on the taskbar and especially Quick Launch. So I used an icon editor and made my own, just so it could be distinctive.

In closing: check out BW7. It's a terrific tool.

Homeschoolers driven by fear? And so?

Pastor Jim West wrote a defense of subjecting our children to government indoctrination called The Theology of the Cross and the Theology of Homeschooling. Please read it rather than taking my summary as fair; I'll just summarize the angle I wish to attack.

Citing Luther's theology of the cross vs. theology of glory, West tries to argue that homeschooling parents are motivated by fear rather than faith. A theology-of-glory person avoids obstacles, but a theology-of-the-cross person welcomes them, because he has faith in the Gospel's transformative power. Homeschoolers are more of the former category, West argues, than the latter. They withdraw from the world out of fear, and do not in faith rise to the challenge to be salt and light in the world. They lack confidence in the power of the Gospel. In his words:

It fears; it lives in fearfulness, and it has forgotten that "perfect love casts out fear". The theology of homeschooling calls for a withdrawal from society because, at its heart, it does not believe. Not really. Not that God can change people and thereby change society through the Gospel. And finally it supposes that society, social structures, and God ordained offices are evil. Indeed, it calls what God has ordained evil and withdrawal good. It errs in so doing, theologically.

Then our sister and sometime-visitor here Kate responded in a post she says West was unwilling to allow. Like the two comments West allowed on his site, she argues that we do not HS out of fear and unbelief. She makes great points.

My wife observed that, in fact, the first waves of homeschoolers had a lot more to fear from their course of action than we generally do today. Society rejected them, thought them weird at best. They had to endure persecution from various government functionaries, and many had to defend their rights in court, at great expense. They were driven to confront their fear, due to their convictions -- because their concern for their children's souls was greater than this fear. She's absolutely right, of course.

Here's my somewhat-different response.

West has written the sort of article I might have written twenty-plus years ago, when I knew very little about homeschooling. At that time, my only HSing contacts was in fact a couple who struck me as having escapist and elitist leanings.

The following years brought me kids, experience of PSing as it is done today, and eventually a great deal more thought about and exposure to HSing. That's a story for another post, perhaps. The upshot is that I converted in a big way.

For my part, I don't accept West's premise. I don't agree with him that parents who free their children from government indoctrination are motivated by a faithless fear. Fear can be a perfectly good, rational, and godly motivator in child-training and care.

Why don't I let my goofy, adorable, indispensible little six-year-old play in the street, unsupervised? Fear. Why don't I let him run up the bank of a raging, rushing river? Fear. Does this fear indicate a lack of faith on my part? Don't I trust the sovereignty and goodness of God? Couldn't God protect him in any of those situations -- stop careening cars, split surging rivers in two? Of course.

But God gave me to my children to be their parent so that I could protect them, so that I could let my rational, sane fears drive me to take pro-active measures. That's my job -- and I'm the worst kind of contemptible fool if I try to shrug my God-given responsibilty back off onto God.
When the Galatians were wobbling under temptation to a false Gospel, what did Paul say? "I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain" (Galatians 4:11). Should he have been rebuked for his lack of faith? He went on to say, "my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you" (vv. 19-20). Is this ungodly anxiety? If it was anxiety, Paul did not regard it as a vice. In fact, Paul told the Philippians that one trait he loved in Pastor Timothy was that he, like Paul, would "genuinely be anxious" about their welfare (Philippians 2:20, Greek).

So what of public schools? Don't I want my kids to be salt and light, to engage the world with the Gospel? I do, passionately.

So, on West's line of argument, why don't I really "go for the gold"? Why don't I stop sequestering them in our sound, local church? Why don't I send them off to a Roman Catholic church, or a Kingdom Hall, or a Mormon church, from age 5 on? Shouldn't they evangelize those pagans? Isn't that a wonderful opportunity?

Of course it isn't. Their shoulders aren't broad enough to bear that weight. They're young saplings; they need support, nourishment, time, and a modicum of protection.

And so what are the government schools today? Are they (as I once naively imagined) flawed but fundamentally impartial purveyors of the mechanics of mathematics and writing, and the "brute facts" of history? In no way. As a school official condescendingly informed me when I protested a school interference, "Yes, Mr. Phillips; we know that used to be the model. But we take a more holistic approach now. Anything and everything that concerns the child is our concern."

I won't quote you the exact wording of my inner response to that. The "dynamic equivalent" would be, "Yeah, right."

Government schools today are religious institutions. It is basically the same -- to my mind -- as sending them to a Unitarian church. They do have a religious worldview (secular humanism), and they do set out to indoctrinate our children from Day One. Since the government itself is sterile, it uses us as brood stock, and seeks to turn our children into compliant statelings, suckled on the State's teat from progressively earlier days on.

I speak in generalities, of course. There are courageous Christian teachers trying to work within the system. Plus, I am explaining my perspective, and my rationale. I do not assume to know the situational considerations motivating other parents. Mine is one legitimate Christian choice; it is not the only one.

My target is this "fear factor" criticism. I find it silly, in this connection. My children are not born knowing what to fear -- so I do it for them, in their younger years. As they mature, I do it less. My older son and daughter are in different categories -- but I still express concerns to them, as I see fit. And fear -- intelligent, rational, responsible fear -- is sometimes behind those concerns.

As parents, it's our job to be afraid of the right things, and do something pro-active about it.

It is the failure (or refusal) to be motivated by appropriate fear that indicates defective faith.