@ Gus:

Note that THC is Catholic and not Orthodox. But as an Orthodox I will readily admit that one problem has been the phenomenon of “national churches” whose patriarchs are heavily associated with a particular government. This has led to a succession of schismatic breakaway churches after the collapse of the USSR and Yugoslavia, one of these, the Macedonian Orthodox Church, is the largest church in its country.

Do we give canonical recognition to these churches? On the one hand, their ascendancy is a reality, and there is precedence; the autocephaly of the Bulgarian and Romanian churches was vigorously resisted by Constantinople but eventually they were granted autonomy. On the other hand, recognizing them furthers the idea of the national Orthodox Church, which may not be healthy.

In the Middle East, the Orthodox Churches tend to support established regimes like the Assad regime in Syria, for fear that if Assad falls, the Islamic state would take over. This does not mean that it is a relation of love.

I am inclined just barely to support the idea of national churches based on ethnic and cultural lines on the basis of two ideas, firstly, my personal political support for the ideal of the nation state, and secondly, the fact that I believe the cultural distinctions of different ethnicities are beautiful and the Church should embrace them. I love the distinct musical styles of the Christian world and would be sad to see any disappear. I support Western Rite Orthodoxy out of a desire to see the beautiful liturgical and musical heritage of the Catholic and Anglican churches combined with the mystical faith of the Eastern church.

By the way, where in Austria are you from? I am partially of Austrian decent; Innsbruck is probably my favorite city, and there is nothing more pleasurable than an old fashioned six seater first class compartment on the Eurocity or Intercity trains from Innsbruck to Salzburg (I don’t like the RailJet or the new leather seats).

@ Caitlin:

The incense does bother a few people. That said one is free to move about a traditional Eastern Orthodox Church at all times except the Reading of the Gospel, so there does exist the opportunity to avoid it. A lot of people love the incense though, myself included.

@ William G.:
I can’t be in the building, even if the incense is way on the other side. It’s a migraine thing.

It’s a lovely tradition, but one that God didn’t design me to participate in.

THC wrote:

Luther battled some serious demons (figuratively of course) and created a religion that fit into his worldview.

Yes, obviously the churches he created reflect his worldview. But he did not start out to become a/the “Lutheran pope”. And I still don’t think that your statement “he decided to change christianity to fit his needs” is correct.

He wanted to reform the catholic church from within. And I still think the RCC would be in a better shape today if the 95 theses had led to internal discussion and reform. None of that infallibility nonsense of Pio Nono’s could have happened, for example.

I have great respect for my RC friends (and I have a number of them) and their faith, and whenever I go to a RC service (mostly for funerals and weddings, I must admit), I think they are much better at liturgy than the Lutherans. Also, in many smaller and more remote villages, the whole population is still a member of the RC church, and it can be beautiful when the whole village community is present in the church. OTOH, the quality of the preaching is sometimes embarrassing and generally much better in Lutheran churches.

So by the way, today I was privileged to discover another fine, arcane liturgy, Rev. Jeremy Taylor’s Collection of Offices. These were written as a substitute for the Book of Common Prayer during the Cromwellian dictatorship, in 1658, but doubtless saw little use, with the restoration of the monastery two years later. Taylor was a brilliant devotional poet, writer and homily, and his works on Christian death and life were beloved by John Wesley.

The Offices are thrillingly based on an eclectic blend of liturgies Byzantine, Mozarabic (the Spanish Latin rite extinct except in a few parishes in Toledo, and in the liturgy of the Anglican Church of Spain, a rite celebrated by liturgical enthusiasts for its impassioned and beautiful prayers and distinctive musical style), and according to the author, the “Ethiopic(sic) Rite”; on this latter claim I suspect he was referring to the Coptic liturgy or some other oriental rite, as I have seen no Erhiopian influence in the prayers, and as recently as 1910 the Catholic Encyclopedia commented that the Ethiopian Liturgy was the least well understood by Western scholars. Even today some aspects of it are shrouded in mystery, such as the legendary origins of the Beta Israel and the continued observance of the Torah by Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, as well as the surprising and not entierely substantiated claims of the Ethioian church to posess an entire wing of the True Cross (which seems doubtful; if they do have it, it would be by far the largest relic remaining; it is possible however as according to the calculations of a 19th century scientist the known relics, assuming they are all genuine, account for one third of the miracle-working cross found in Jerusalem by St. Helena the pious wife of St. Constantine, which the Orthodox and Roman Catholics believe to be the actual cross Christ was crucified upon. St. Helena was in any case a remarkable woman; she set out on a dangerous expedition to Jerusalem, near the border of the Sassanians and other enemies of Rome, to find in the half-ruined city as many relics and historical sites connected with the gospel as she could. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the other major pilgrim,age sites in the region are largely the result of that expedition; Helena was as important as any bishop, proving that a male priesthood is not an impediment to women exercising leadership roles of the utmost importance in the Church. But I digress. The Ethiopians also claim to posess the Ark of the Covenant; this is even more doubtful, but no doubt they have somethimg that resembles the ark, that they believe is the ark. Their story of how they acquired it however seems to me to clash with the Biblical narrative as to how it was lost.

But reverting to the liturgy of Jeremy Taylor, the Service of the Lords Supper, which reads like the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, is fantastic. When I finish the Methodist service book I intend to work on a BCP for use by Continuing Anglicans, who in the US mostly use the 1928 BCP. Many are High Church and would prefer something more like the Deposited Book of 1928 or the Canadian BCP of 1962, while stopping short of wanting to use the American Missal or other service books that are essentially English translations of the Tridentine Rite. The 1928 BCP only provides one communion service (the 1926 Scottish book provides two, one the historical English service and one the modified service used in Scotland by non Juring Scottish Episcopalians since the days of Bonnie Prince Charlie, who the non jurors supported); this communion service might be a good one to add.

At the same time Morming and Evening Prayer are a bit of a disappointment. The author composed original hymns from verses of various Eastern hymns that don’t quite work, and expanded the Byzantine Great Litany or Ectenia into a series of collects, with each brief petition becoming a lengthy prayer said by the minister without congregational response. These collects would,be individually superb for occasional use, but saying them one after the other at Mattins or Evensong would result in a very long and very boring service. The structure of the services is also peculiar, with the Lords Prayer repeated twice, and the Doxology in the middle of the service rather than just before the dismissal.

Gus wrote:

OTOH, the quality of the preaching is sometimes embarrassing and generally much better in Lutheran churches.

I would have to agree with you there. For me as a former Protestant, it was the sermon that was the main meal during church. It took a little getting used to the Mass being the meal for Catholics. There is still some great preaching/teaching from the RCC, such as when I listen to EWTN in the U.S.

I do think that Luther started out with the right intent. Had he not turned it into a rebellion, he would probably be St. Martin Luther today. Sola Scriptura is the weakest link in the Protestant Reformation, and Luther himself said it stands or falls based on that one teaching.

William G. wrote:

Now I would urge you THC to please have an upbeat conversation with us on something like the liturgy. The polemical flame wars have had a poisonous effect on the ODP.

William, please cut out the sanctimony. Numo was talking to YOU when she was discussing negativity and you have tried over the past couple of days to shift the blame to me, so please stop.

THC wrote:

For me as a former Protestant, it was the sermon that was the main meal during church. It took a little getting used to the Mass being the meal for Catholics.

I thought you said you were an episcopalian before converting to catholicism. As someone who went to a lot of RCC masses and now as somebody trying attending episcopal mass, I don't see the homily as the center attraction in either style of mass. Though in my limited experience I have found good homilies in both places. Perhaps I misunderstood what you said about your religious background prior to conversion to catholicism?

Ok, so in Revelation, why is a horse not a horse? If it’s not a horse, what is it? Plenty of examples to chose from.
In Revelation 14:20, we are measuring the depth of the blood. Go out and find a horse wearing a bridle and measure from the ground up. That deep, for two miles or 1600 stadia, depending upon your translation.

Does that need special interpretation, and if so why? And if not, can the numbers in Revelation just be real numbers?

Doug

Seems, with the “Plain Reading” of scripture…
There is a challenge with our natural mind and our understanding. 🙂

Pro 3:5-7 KJV
Trust in the LORD with all thine heart;
and **lean NOT unto thine own understanding.**
… Be not wise in thine own eyes…

John 6:63 KJV
It is **the spirit that quickeneth;** the flesh profiteth nothing:
the words that I speak unto you, **they are spirit,** and they are life.

Rom 8:5-6 KJV
For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh;
but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
For to be carnally minded is death;
but **to be spiritually minded** is life and peace.

Josh wrote:

Doug wrote:
And if not, can the numbers in Revelation just be real numbers?
As real and as “Biblical” as the 6214 year age of the earth, I suppose…
And what about the armored, flying horse-sized grasshoppers? (with frickin’ laser beams!)
If the Bible somehow made it clear that a strictly literal hermeneutic based on 20th century western preconceptions and a strictly enforced ignorance of historical context and textual criticism was the only way to understand the Bible, then I’d pretty much not be able to believe. Thankfully, that’s not the case.

And what about the armored, flying horse-sized grasshoppers? (with frickin’ laser beams!) << None of that language is used there.

If the Bible somehow made it clear that a strictly literal hermeneutic based on 20th century western preconceptions and a strictly enforced ignorance of historical context and textual criticism was the only way to understand the Bible, then I’d pretty much not be able to believe. Thankfully, that’s not the case.

That is a caricature, not an honest representation of what I have even said.

“The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. They had what looked like gold crowns on their heads, and their faces looked like human faces.”

This is apocalyptic literature. If you wish to switch into and out of literal mode on a verse-by-verse basis, that makes no sense. The Apostle John wrote a book, not a series of independent verses. If you think that the locusts in Revelation 9:7 are literal, that is completely your prerogative, but you’re going to have to present some actual evidence in the form of a reasonable argument that a very metaphorical-sounding verse should be taken literally. I remain firmly unconvinced.

Josh wrote:

“The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. They had what looked like gold crowns on their heads, and their faces looked like human faces.”
This is apocalyptic literature. If you wish to switch into and out of literal mode on a verse-by-verse basis, that makes no sense. The Apostle John wrote a book, not a series of independent verses. If you think that the locusts in Revelation 9:7 are literal, that is completely your prerogative, but you’re going to have to present some actual evidence in the form of a reasonable argument that a very metaphorical-sounding verse should be taken literally. I remain firmly unconvinced.

I wouldn’t do that. Note he said the “looked like”. No one knows what they are literally because he has difficulty describing them. The plain meaning here recognizes that “looked like” modifies the objects.

  __

“Doctor, My Eyes?”

hmmm…

LORD, I humbly ask, together with the prayers of all sincere lovers of truth, that we may have much of that Spirit which Christ promised at Pentecost, which guides into all truth; and that the blessed and powerful influences of this Spirit would make truth ‘victorious’ in the world…

Thanks Bunches!

“I have more understanding than all my teachers: for ‘Thy’ testimonies are my daily meditations…”

(sweet!)

Dr. Sopy    🙂
__
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zxQD3pdI5Y

—

Nancy wrote:

Doug wrote:
Somehow we have to get to the place where God knew what He was doing in recording His Word so dumb people like me could understand it.
But the ignorant (dumb as you used the word) do not understand some things and they cannot be trusted to do so. Or so said Peter.
2 Peter 3:16 New International Version
He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
So when people come along and say that scripture can be understood plainly by everybody they have apparently missed what seems to be the plain reading of 2 Peter 3:16. They disprove their own assumption. And prove Peter correct.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions.

Many years ago, I read a fascinating interpretation of the book of Revelation: It was written in the form of the Greek classical drama of John’s time. It is, in fact, a play, therefore, & all the “voices” & the like are spoken by the [unseen] Greek chorus.
I was at first highly skeptical, but I tried reading it that way, & suddenly I saw all the ravings of Darby et al as, well….as ravings.
I recommend this system.

I cannot end this post without pointing out that one of the more bizarre fads of the 19th century was “Interpreting the Apocalypse”. You could apparently hire traveling persons of indeterminate spirituality to come to your parties & imbibe their favorite adult beverage, whilst entertaining the folks with their interpretation of the last book of the NT.
It all sounds perfectly mad to us, but when I read of this fact, my mind at once conjured up images of some of the more disreputable figures running about Europe & the Americas in that time, & understood for the first time, why so many intelligent folk of the period were willing to follow nutty (& often genuinely evil) political figures, casting the faith of their childhood aside in the process. And we all know where that leads….to the genocides of the 20th century.

Give me a nice Greek drama, says I, & I’ll be happy to let God surprise me with the rest of it.

Doug wrote:

“The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven” Recants Story; Tyndale Stops Book Production”

There is a post on pulpitandpen about what did LifeWay know and when did they know it. Interesting.

Doug wrote:

I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention.”

Refreshing candor from Alex. I wonder how long Tyndale will wait before they admit the story was too potentially profitable not to be true. Or truthy enough to publish, anyway.

Lifeway should never have stocked this book. But don’t get me started on Lifeway and “Christian” publishing.

Gram3 wrote:

Doug wrote:
I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention.”

Refreshing candor from Alex. I wonder how long Tyndale will wait before they admit the story was too potentially profitable not to be true. Or truthy enough to publish, anyway.
Lifeway should never have stocked this book. But don’t get me started on Lifeway and “Christian” publishing.

I had two observations:
1. The irony of his name
2. He seems to be making a profession of faith in spite of his circumstances

Good for him.

@ zooey111:

You might enjoy reading Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, & Politics in the Book of Revelation by Elaine Pagels. Pagels is a top notch scholar who teaches at Princeton. Her work is accessible to the lay person and not obfuscated by jargon and a melange of stuff that only a specialist would catch. I had an English prof. way back in the Jurassic age who told us to “…never spend 2500 words when 500 will do. If what you have to say is only mediocre skulduggery, all the Rococo artifice in the world will not save it…”
I suspect that Pagels had a prof. somewhere along the line who cared enough to offer the same or similar advice.

@ zooey111:
Do you rember the author or title, by any chance?

Job is probably *the* book for readers’ theater or an audiobook or radio play adaptation. It’s written as a series of alternating monologues.

I wonder how my token “weirdest” OT book – Ezekiel – would fare id adapted (with some judicious editing) in this way? It is hard to get through on the page, but as an audio-only play (i think it calls for multiple voices), it could really work. Likewise Jeremiah, which is both difficult (dense text plus historical allusions), but could be amazing if the right actors were able to work with it.

@ Doug:
@ numo:
I think the Onion has the best response.

“Either way, it’s good he’s safe back here on earth.”

Kevin Robert –
Cryptographer

http://bit.ly/1whCyuF

@ numo:
And there are now people who are saying that Alex was pressured into confessing that his real trip to heaven was fake as some grand unified conspiracy over … something. I’m pretty sure I saw that somewhere in the comments on Warren Throckmorton’s blog, though it may have been elsewhere. True believers are just gonna truly believe, no matter what.

__

@ Nancy

With my usage, it means to push a significant thought to the top of the stack for further consideration…

Hope you are felling better…

ATB

Sopy

—

@ Sopwith:

Loved the you tube vid of Silvestri conducting in Wien!

@ Albuquerque Blue:

Too funny!

numo wrote:

@ Gram3:
This book should never have been published in the 1st place, and I’m willing to bet that plenty of people at the publishing house knew it was totally fake but smelled the money and that was that.

“Never underestimate the gullibility of the buying public” seems to be the publisher’s key “msiion statement.”

Reminds me of that 3 Cups of Tea book on the NYT bestseller by the mountaineer guy whose fabrications were undone. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Nancy wrote:

what does (bump) mean when you [Sopy] use it.?

It’s Sopy’s way of saying ‘Selah’.

@ THC:

Well, I don’t buy something in order to destroy it, though that is probably a good idea with some stuff. But aside from that I want to say that what you are saying about the understandings about scripture and the use of scripture in the churches in the past is the way I heard it–from protestants even.

THC wrote:

It was never “illegal” to read the Bible.

I suppose that depends on how one interprets “illegal” or history. The church certainly did not want people reading the Bible on their own without having it interpreted by the RCC clergy. Those people who were literate in their own language could not read the Bible because it was kept “secure” from being “corrupted” by a native language.

For crying out loud, before Vatican II the RCC did not *prohibit* people from reading the Bible, but it certainly *did* discourage it. Post Vatican II and especially post-Catholic charismatic renewal, people in the RCC *are* studying the Bible, and I think that is good for the people *and* good for the RCC.

And it wasn’t only the RCC, but the Anglicans and some of the Reformers also wanted to limit access of the common man to the scriptures, and I think it is fair to say that much if not most of that was due to political considerations. There may have been a legitimate concern to avoid false teaching, but I’m enough of an American to say the cure for false ideas is the spread of true ideas, not censorship or keeping people illiterate. Keeping people ignorant benefits the elites, of course, regardless of the team jersey that the elites are wearing.

Gram3 wrote:

There may have been a legitimate concern to avoid false teaching, but I’m enough of an American to say the cure for false ideas is the spread of true ideas, not censorship or keeping people illiterate. Keeping people ignorant benefits the elites, of course, regardless of the team jersey that the elites are wearing.

I guess if you subscribe to the big, bad, false church narrative then your position makes sense. My narrative is that Jesus has protected the Church from teaching error for 2,000 years and the Church was and is protecting the people from error. I love the scripture and read and hear it read daily, and I find a lot of comfort knowing that within the Tradition of the Church, I won’t be swept away by every wind of doctrine.

While it is good that people have access to the Bible, I find that outside of the context of the Church, because of private interpretations, it has been used, abused, twisted, distorted, and thoroughly obliterated to fit so many different ideas of God and Christianity. It really is “lost in translation.”

THC wrote:

Today, when I see a New World Translation of the Sacred Scriptures (Jehovah’s Witnesses) I will buy it and burn it.

Doesn’t that get expensive?

Michaela wrote:

And give them money to print more. I wouldn’t.

Good point. A better strategy for THC would be to contribute the cost of the NWT to a Bible society that distributes inexpensive copies of accepted translations. And better to learn enough of the Bible to have an intelligent response when the Watchtower comes calling at the door.

@ Gram3:
@ Gram3:

About the concept of translation into a “common language” like Mandarin is the common language of china for example.

The NT has always been available in the “common” languages used by the common people first and later in the case of latin by the educated (in whatever field, not just theology). The NT was written in one common language, and there were translations into latin even before Jerome. And of course the jews translated into a common language with the septuagint. Note in the scripture that the ethiopian eunuch was reading the OT in some language he understood. Paul in one of his letters gives instructions that the letter be read in the churches. Sure,I would be happier if more translations had been done more often as languages changed and as evangelization progressed into other language groups, but the continued use of latin in europe as an academic language probably made translations not at the top of the list for a while. And what about the multiple scriptoria in monasteries to supply the demand for copies of scripture? What did they do with these manuscripts, dig a hole in the garden and hide them?

Now certainly there has been the political idea that the masses should not be educated including should not be literate. The current idea of having a goal of universal literacy, so I am told, is relatively recent and was hotly contested in our own nation when it began to take hold. In our own nation when it was illegal to teach the slaves to read–that was not some plot on the part of the RCC.

In the meantime, scripture was and is read at mass much more at mass than it is now read in evangelical worship services. That is one of the selling points of episcopal mass for our family. The children hear scripture read–a lot–including reading from the OT, the epistles and the gospel and musical presentation (I guess that is what to call it) of passages from the psalms at every mass. Mass is about scripture readings, prayers and the eucharist with a few other minor things thrown in, but the homily is short (10-15 minutes max) and to the point. It is not an attempt to brain wash the masses. Not as I experienced RCC mass and not in what is going on at our episcopal church. If they are attempting to distance the common man from scripture they are doing a terrible job of it.

Given the slipping percentage of adequately literate people in the US, IMO this extensive reading of scripture in worship services needs to spread to the evangelicals also.

Now certainly the RCC and the secular rulers were in cahoots about a lot of stuff over the centuries. No doubt of that. And there were abuses and corruptions. I am certainly not condoning any such thing. But to blame everything on the church, I think not. I think the RCC historically was instrumental in keeping learning alive in the west. And in the US established parish schools for immigrant children as a major project for the church.

@ Muff Potter:
yes.

I just posted a link that’s on the back burner. in the meantime…

The poet, philosopher and political theorist John Milton, whose books were publicly burned in England and France, gives perhaps the best explanation of why authorities down the centuries have seen danger in certain books. “Books are not absolutely dead things,” he wrote in his celebrated attack on censorship, Areopagitica, in 1644, “but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are.” Anyone who kills a man, Milton said, kills “a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself”.

@ Gram3:

*referring to, not referring about…

@ Gram3:
The idea of universal literacy is very, very recent, as someone pointed out above. Not all that many people – including those who had power – knew how to read during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. There are serious (not scurrilous) accounts of illiterate priests throughout the Middle Ages as well.

Nancy wrote:

The current idea of having a goal of universal literacy, so I am told, is relatively recent and was hotly contested in our own nation when it began to take hold.

That was the main reason for “Sunday School” in England started around the late 1700’s. To educate the working children of illiterate parents.

@ Gram3:

It may not have been clear, but I was assuming access to the texts *and* access to an education and literacy.

@ Gram3:
you should read some of the accounts of priests who couldn’t even *say* the Latin Mass, because they could not read nor be bothered to memorize it by hearing.

@ Lydia:
It was about a whole lot of things. Keep in mind that high offices in the church were fominated, taded and bought/solf by people whose families had great power in the secular realm as well. The Borgias were among them.

So many evangelicals damn the Enlightenment, and yet, it was that era that gave birth to the notions of public efucation, universal literacy, abolitionism (both abolition of the slave trade and of slavery itself), systems of goverment that are far more of/by/for the people than most others, then or now – and on to encyclopedias, dictionaries and a whole host of further innovations.

Not coincidentally, most religious wars in Europe ground to a halt during that time.

@ numo:

I agree with this, too

@ Lydia:

I agree with you and numo. I do think Luther was disgusted by the corruption, and I think he did what he could, imperfectly, and also that he had lots of baggage from Augustine. That’s a discussion for another day. I also think that the Reformation, including Luther himself, were co-opted by those with political agendas. Such is the legacy of Constantinianism.

Gram3 wrote:

Such is the legacy of Constantinianism.

Oh that’s choice. Thank God for Constantine and ending the horrific persecution of the early Christians.
Gram3, I don’t think you’ve stated here what your religion is.

THC wrote:

Gram3, I don’t think you’ve stated here what your religion is.

Again, already? We went through this. Her religion is christian. Think separated brethren. Just like most of us here. Well, that is if you accept the pronouncements of the RCC on the matter, if I understand it correctly. I know that is hard for some of you. It is awkward for some of us also. But there we are and no use worrying about it.

Actually, I think they went further than the protestants in this and they are to be commended for it.

@ Nancy:

Have a happy day!! I’d buy you your preferred drink if I was near.

Bridget wrote:

It seems one cannot be a Christian any longer but must add qualifiers and quantifiers to the claim.

Sooo true! I’ve gotten to the point of identifying myself as a “bible believing, spirit-filled, follower of Jesus Christ Christian.

(That’s what I say when the JW’s come to the door)

Lydia wrote:

“I am a Jesusist”

Love it. The most long term destructive part of the whole issue of being an adjectivally modified christian is that Jesus gets pushed aside in all of it.

THC wrote:

Gram3 wrote:
Such is the legacy of Constantinianism.

Oh that’s choice. Thank God for Constantine and ending the horrific persecution of the early Christians.
Gram3, I don’t think you’ve stated here what your religion is.

I am a conservative Christian, and I do not quite understand how that can possibly be missed if one reads my comments.

I think it is perfectly possible and intellectually consistent to thank God that the persecution of Christians ended under Constantine while at the same time to lament that the church and state were fused under Constantine and, further, to declare my belief that Constantine was not a Christian but rather was a political genius who saw a way to unify his empire. I lament that the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Christ have become confused by some with kingdoms of this world. The RCC does not have a monopoly on that mistake, BTW.

@ Nancy:

Happy Birthday to Nancy! May you have many more birthdays to share with all of the Wartburgers. Gramp3 sends his birthday blessings to one of his favorites at TWW.

@ numo:

I agree, and that’s good advice. I’ve been hitting my head against enough brick walls this week…

numo wrote:

@ zooey111:
Do you rember the author or title, by any chance?

Job is probably *the* book for readers’ theater or an audiobook or radio play adaptation. It’s written as a series of alternating monologues.

I wonder how my token “weirdest” OT book – Ezekiel – would fare id adapted (with some judicious editing) in this way? It is hard to get through on the page, but as an audio-only play (i think it calls for multiple voices), it could really work. Likewise Jeremiah, which is both difficult (dense text plus historical allusions), but could be amazing if the right actors were able to work with it.

I don’t remember, I’m sorry. The author was a priest–Catholic, I think, but perhaps Anglican. (THis is not precisely helpful, I know).
You are quite right about Job; it would be easily adapted to dramatization.
I have often wondered if there are not more genres in the Bible than most of us realize? It seems to me, that establishing the genre is the first step in being able to interpret what you read. (My mother was an English teacher, which is certainly an influence.

Nancy wrote:

As an aside, tomorrow is my birthday

Happy Birthday!!

Lydia wrote:

I am one of those (lonely) folk who believe the Reformation was mostly about economics and wrestling power from the Catholics.

I am in agreement with you on this, but probably more radical. I see the Reformation, and the Bibles that came out of it, mostly through a political lens.

Gram3 wrote:

I am a conservative Christian, and I do not quite understand how that can possibly be missed if one reads my comments.

What is a “conservative Christian?” You mean like being politically conservative (Rush Limbaugh, Tea Party, Sara Palin) and Christian? If by conservative you mean not changing, then I would say being Catholic is the more conservative form of Christianity.

Happy birthday Nancy, many happy returns and I hope you do something fun today.

@ Nick Bulbeck:

Good thoughts.

One of the fellows I am reading right now said that while there was persecution of the early church, and some of it drastically horrendous (my terminology–his thoughts) actually the persecution was sporadic and geographically limited. He said that during most of the early centuries the early church was free to practice the faith and free to evangelize. He said that multiple religions were the rule and that basically nobody cared what somebody’s religion was, unless it gave evidence of being a political threat. So I am asking (not he) how hard would it have been to burn incense for the emperor? Everybody has to choose where to draw the line. I say this to lead into the next paragraph.

Ummm, I hear some thoughts along those lines today. As long as you keep your religion inside the walls of your home and your church nobody cares, but religion does not belong they say in the school, the military, on the job, at the mall, out on the sidewalk etc. Don’t let it interfere with your political philosophy or how you run your business or how you vote and everything will be okay. So I guess where to draw the line is still with us.

@ Nancy:

Sorry, Nancy – believe it or not, your comment appeared while I was in the middle of the above single sentence!

Point 1 of 2
Loosely continuing from your point there, I’ve been disappointed with how many Christians here in Blighty don’t think that God has any opinions on how to deal with structural long-term unemployment. So, you can hold a house-group in which you give sandwiches to unemployed people. But God is not going to breathe on (for want of a more comprehensive metaphor) the local economy such that they can actually find jobs.

Point 1 of 2

More importantly, happy birthday!

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

Christians here in Blighty don’t think that God has any opinions on how to deal with structural long-term unemployment.

Structural long-term unemployment is a difficult issue, and I have opinions about it over here. What do you think are the Christian principles which might be brought to bear on that problem over there? What are the underlying causes from your perspective?

@ Gram3:

You’re quite right about the “difficult issue” thing, so of course I can’t give a full answer in the space of one blog comment. But a few basic thoughts:

Thought 1 of 2

The first distinctly Christian principle is that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus. So his followers should pray, separately and together, for local and regional economies, in the expectation that God is ready and willing to listen and respond. Unemployment has many co-morbidities, i.e. it feeds many other social problems, such as crime, poverty, drugs, and so on, and these are things that Christians often do get involved in tackling.

Thought 2 of 2

“Godly government” is about more than legislating against abortion and gayness. It also means wise, consistent, intelligent and innovative government. When it comes to economic policy, one of the limitations of party-based democracy is that political parties have political ideologies. Their approaches to tackling unemployment are nearly always hampered to some extent by the imposition of doctrine over data. The atavistic hostility between “workers” and “management” which, in Britain, has never quite shaken off the Victorian notions of social class, doesn’t help.

Thought 3 of 2

I read the other day that around a quarter of all jobs in the UK need (in practice) no more than a primary-school level of education. In other words, our employing community is not exactly making the most of what it’s got. The current recovery, such as it is, has created a certain number of skilled, trade-specific jobs that are hard to fill; and a large number of unskilled, low-paid jobs that don’t lead anywhere.

Thought 4 of 2

There are infinity more of these.

THC wrote:

What is a “conservative Christian?” You mean like being politically conservative (Rush Limbaugh, Tea Party, Sara Palin) and Christian? If by conservative you mean not changing, then I would say being Catholic is the more conservative form of Christianity.

Can I ask you a couple of questions?

Why do you seem reluctant to accept that there are a lot of people who do not believe that the Roman Catholic Church is the only valid expression of the Christian faith? They exist and thrive just fine without it. They do not care if they were to die today without being absorbed into the RCC. Or any “church” for that matter. They are confident of their eternal destiny apart from any influence from any institutional church.

Just because someone calls themselves “conservative” doesn’t mean they even know or care who Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin are. I think it is rude to suggest that.

I get this all of the time because I am a self-described fundamentalist. Instead of people engaging in dialog to find out what that is or how I got there, they automatically attach characteristics they don’t like to that label.

You would have done better to just as “What is a conservative Christian”? and leave it at that. You seem to think everyone has to have some kind of religious designation. Is that so that you can rank them as to importance?

That’s part of the reason it is so difficult to have a conversation with you. I get the impression that you aren’t really interested in the people. But hey, I may be all wrong. Probably am. Just realize that not everyone fits neatly into your categories.

@ Gram3:

The first assumption is that Christianity after being legalized just “spread” through political means. Note the dismissal of those means being “force” which can be historically verified. But then those “enforcing” Christianity thought it was a good thing, too. :o)

THC wrote:

What is a “conservative Christian?”

Actually, this is a reasonable question. When I say that I am a conservative Christian, I mean that I base my doctrinal beliefs on interpretation of the Bible using a grammatical-historical hermeneutic. It means that I believe in sola scriptura while *at the same time* holding to semper reformanda. It means that I believe that the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit and is the authoritative written word of God. I also would add that the written word can only be rightly understood when the reader is empowered by the Holy Spirit. It does *not* mean that the Bible or any translation of it is the fourth Person of the Trinity.

Obviously many people do not share those beliefs, but it is perhaps helpful if you understand my perspective and how that shapes what I write.

There are conservative Roman Catholics and there are Cafeteria Catholics, so in your framework the word “conservative” takes on a different connotation.

You are reaching beyond what you can prove by implying that the Roman Catholic Church is identical with either the first church or the universal spiritual church consisting of all those who are in Christ. The proofs offered for your assumption may be sufficient for you, but let me assure you that the melody in that tune is only heard by the choir.

Doug wrote:

Why do you seem reluctant to accept that there are a lot of people who do not believe that the Roman Catholic Church is the only valid expression of the Christian faith? T

Sure. This first one is a statement disguised as a question. Your assumption is wrong. I do understand this very well.

Doug wrote:

You would have done better to just as “What is a conservative Christian”? and leave it at that. You seem to think everyone has to have some kind of religious designation. Is that so that you can rank them as to importance?

Again, another statement with a question mark. As to the last sentence, no, I don’t rank anybody. Do you rank people Doug? The term “conservative Christian” may mean she is a fundamentalist. More than likely means she is against social developments such as abortion and gay marriage. I have heard of Conservative and Christian, not a conservative Christian.

THC wrote:

I am glad that you can label yourself like that. It doesn’t really clear things up.

You have a point. I left off the descriptor “ultra charismatic” because certainly that is so blindingly obvious as to be totally unnecessary to mention.

  __

“Crossing The Tiber…?” 

hmmm…

THC,

hey, 

…those on the other side of the Tiber, sėė just fine.

🙂

…religio munda et inmaculata apud Deum et Patrem haec est visitare pupillos et viduas in tribulatione eorum inmaculatum se custodire ab hoc saeculo…

…If you find the world is smouldrin’,
N’ if you get lost, come on home to Tiber River?

No thankz.

ATB

Sopy
__
Comic relief: Talking Heads : “Take me to the river?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RHZEzVUBPk

;~)

—

@ Nick Bulbeck:

We could certainly use some of those objective data collectors. Ours don’t even pretend any more.

Tennis:

In the second round at the Australian Open, Roger drops a set… and Rafa drops two sets. Mind you, it’s often pointed out that you can’t win a Slam in the first week.

In other news, a dustbin has been given a parking ticket in Carmarthen, Wales. Further details are available on the BBC website.

Wales is not in England.

I perused Perry Noble’s transformation of the Ten Commandments ? While I read these transformations, all I perceived was a “me” centered theology, like it is all about “me.” I also didn’t see much of the Ten Commandments in Mr Noble’s transformation of these commandments. He changed these commandments into his “me” promises. These are promises that benefit me rather than commandments from God that should be obeyed. I don’t know…. Mr. Noble says he believes in the authority of Scripture, except I don’t perceive much respect Scripture in all this. I understand the squeamishness of the South Carolina Baptists.

@ Albuquerque Blue:

Bon appetit, mon ami!

!John MacArthur!

I have always assumed the above was a decent bible-teacher. I listened to him for the first time last night on the subject of tongues being demonic. I’ve been mulling over the charismatic dimension a bit lately, like you do.

I was gobsmacked. Speechless. Jaw hit the floor. It’s not his exposure of charismania and Hinnism – I agree with him on that. It’s how he dealt with the text itself, 1 Cor 14 in particular.

It soon became clear to me he had decided what tongues are – sensual, ecstatic, mindless utterance rooted in paganism, and was going to make the text fit this decision. He used guilt by association – Corinth was full of idolatry etc as described in chapters 1 to 11, and this had crept into the church there.

The Corinthians had quote: “goofed on the role of women” in chapter 11. Hello Mr MacArthur, whatever your view of heads and coverings, Paul *commended* them for their practice in this chapter. They had ‘goofed up’ on how they were conducting the Lord’s supper.

He broke Ken’s 7th Law, don’t base an interpretation on a nuance in the Greek language that professional translators don’t reference (gram!). “For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God;” he changed to ‘a god’, meaning babbling to a pagan deity. Why don’t the standard translations say this as well, even as a margin note? He based his understanding of tongues on the addition in the AV of the word ‘unknown’. That’s the pagan version, tongues on its own the genuine gift.

He demeaned a gift of Spirit by repeatedly calling it ‘secondary’.

He changed prophecy into preaching and teaching. Why? – to make sure those pesky women are kept quiet? – in Corinth they were allowed to prophesy. Prophecy was primary because it edifies the church, and happens by happy coincidence to be what he does!!

I can now understand why some of you here show such strength of feeling on some of the issues discussed. I’m not an offended tongues devotee, I’ve heard much more thoughtful and informed criticism of charismatics where the critique has imo merit. The best I can say of this scripture twisting (2 Peter 3 : 16) is it was a work of the flesh; to go further than that would be speculation. Tempting though.

But it leaves me with two questions if anyone cares to comment:

1) Is this man (a bit of) a phoney? I don’t like saying it, and I hope the rest of what he teaches is better rooted in the text itself. I hope his Calvinism isn’t also something he decided to believe in and then tweaks scripture to make it fit.

2) Is there some other agenda in play here? Is this a man and his many followers wanting to be in control of the church, and more spiritual gifts amongst ordinary believers would disturb this? Lower the pedestal a bit. What is driving the passion behind this?

@ Ken:

Interesting what a renowned Bibleteacher can come up with when he wants to!

Just out of curiosity, Ken, how (if at all) did Mr MacArthur deal with verse 5 (Now I wish that you all spoke in tongues…) and verse 18 (I thank God, I speak in tongues more than you all…)? Not that those are the only two catastrophic flaws in his attempts to read, never mind explain, the text; but they are perhaps the simplest.

Your questions both invite comment… I’m sure we can have some informed fun without falling into the Swamps of Gossip or plunging into the Ravine of Speculation…

I don’t know whether you read Christianity Magazine (the UK magazine not to be confused with Christianity Today), but a few months ago they ran a short Agree/Disagree page on tongues. The format was that one person wrote a short article explaining why she does believe tongues are available today, and another wrote a short article explaining why he doesn’t (the articles were standalone – i.e., neither was responding to the other). “He” in this instance was… one John MacArthur.

The heart and soul of his case was that the existence of tongues would, if valid, detract from the sufficiency of scripture. To me, that’s nonsensical from every direction; but let’s suppose for a moment that it does. That being so, it would be very strange to equate “prophecy” in 1 Corinthians with “preaching and teaching” – even setting aside the fact that the text clearly states prophecy and not preaching or teaching. This would explicitly prohibit preaching and teaching in the church today because they both undermine the sufficiency of scripture! So I suppose it depends what you mean by “a bit of a phoney”. His teaching on the manifestations of the spirit certainly seems phoney to me.

Regarding whether there’s an agenda; I’m a bit of a stuck record on the topic of no preacher believing in the sufficiency of scripture (otherwise he wouldn’t preach, but would hand out bibles). If MacArthur just has a bit of a blind spot on what “sufficient” does and does not mean, then fair enough; he might have a lot of good things to say if you can isolate the stuff on which he is confused. On the other hand… if he doesn’t really believe in the sufficiency of scripture, but in the sufficiency of scripture_as_interpreted_by_an_elite_self_appointed_clergy – well, that would mean there is indeed an agenda.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

it would be very strange to equate “prophecy” in 1 Corinthians with “preaching and teaching”

I believe that his view of the word “Prophecy” is that there are two senses to the word:

1. Forth-telling, as in speaking forth what God has said

2. Fore-telling, as in getting revelation directly from God

He uses the foretelling to indicate that the modern version of prophecy is preaching and teaching, i.e. forth-telling what God has said.

The fore-telling (extra-Biblical revelation) has ceased. That is, I believe, the classic cessationist position, which is what the IFCA believes and forth-tells. Much to the chagrin of many, he is a member of the IFCA.

@ Nick Bulbeck:
Thanks for the comments. I don’t want to bash MacArthur himself, he may be a godly man, it’s his teaching ministry and attitude I’m concerned with.

He thinks the ‘all may speak in tongues’ verses are a) hyperbole and b) negated by the end of chapter 12 where Paul says ‘Do all speak in tongues’ with no as the implied answer. My view is there is no law of tongues, thou shalt speak in tongues, but anyone who really wants it can ask for it, especially for help in private devotions. Personally, I think all who ask can receive based on these verses, but I’m not dogmatic about it. I know what it feels like to be in a charismatic meeting and be the only one who can’t use this gift!

Certainly not everyone receives it and is companion gift of interpretation for use in the church. And as a former pastor used to say, the Holy Spirit is a gentleman and doesn’t force things on us.

Doug wrote:

He uses the foretelling to indicate that the modern version of prophecy is preaching and teaching, i.e. forth-telling what God has said.

To me, this is the crux of why this is important in JM’s camp. Who does the teaching and preaching? Why does this camp speak of “sitting under the teaching of (approved preacher)”? To me, it is a means to control the message and the people. BTW – you and I can’t prophesy, but the preacher can.

@ Bridget:

and no buts . . .

Ken wrote:

!John MacArthur!

I listened to his diatribe against the Catholic Church and became convinced that this guy has no authentic Christian understanding or underpinnings. Just a lot of falsehoods that he has bought into and are easily debunked. He sounds intelligent and has nicely combed white hair, his arguments are just a vapid waste of good air.

THC wrote:

Ken wrote:
!John MacArthur!

He and Joyce Meyers would make a good team!

Ken wrote:

I was gobsmacked. Speechless. Jaw hit the floor. It’s not his exposure of charismania and Hinnism – I agree with him on that. It’s how he dealt with the text itself, 1 Cor 14 in particular.

Gobsmacked just like I was when I started looking into scripture twisting regarding the “role” of women. And adding to the texts to advance an agenda. And ignoring inconvenient data. But that is to be continued in our Other Discussion.

Regarding MacArthur, you need to keep in mind that he started out as a fundamentalist which probably means something more here than it does there. Also, here the Pentecostals and also some of the Charismatics are a little less constrained than perhaps in the UK. Wild stuff goes on. Snake handlers in some places, etc. I was scared to death in my grandmother’s Pentecostal church service. Wonderful people, but the service scared me to death. More recently we have had the Third Wave, and some of those folks have been just as scary.

In contrast, I attended a charismatic service in Texas not too long ago where tongue-speaking and prophesying was limited to a specific time. I won’t say I was particularly edified by that exactly, but it was certainly dignified and I would even say that it was done in a worshipful way.

There are many of us who have been scared by those experiences, and so strong cessationism becomes plausible in that setting. When something is Scary, then something which is the Opposite-of-Scary and which is also plausible can easily be mistaken for The Truth That Will Keep Away the Scary. Never mind that reasoning is very flawed. That’s just the way it goes with fear responses.

Also there was a reaction to the liberalism of the early 20th century. One result is that people developed a distorted attachment to the text of the Bible in reaction against the departure from the text by the liberals. Prophesying is seen to diminish the unique authority of the written word, so therefore it seems reasonable to reject it because errant NT prophecy seems to dilute the inerrant written word. I think we along with Nick went into this point when we chatted following my inquiry about the gifts.

There is also a strain of what I would characterize as hyper-dispensationalism or ultra-dispensationalism (not in the technical sense of either term) that tends toward effectively recognizing dispensations of sorts within the church age itself (using Dispensational terminology.) Classic Dispensationalism doesn’t do that, of course, but it is good to keep in mind how that strain of thinking that is floating around might impact the way someone views the notion of a church era with gifts followed by a church era without gifts. That’s not the way he would put it, of course, but I think there is a bit of that in the stew.

During the Charismatic Renewal of the 1970’s, there were a *lot* of churches that split over the question of tongues. On the one hand there was an attitude of spiritual elitism among those who had the Second Blessing, and there was an attitude of fear or dismissal among those who had not. When the order of things is disrupted, people become fearful, and fearful people don’t think well.

So, in summary, the overriding concern is at least three-fold: first to preserve the integrity and uniqueness of the written word, second to defend against the really outrageous stuff, and third to fend off the very real divisive spirit which arose during the Charismatic Renewal.

If those concerns become paramount, then it is a relatively simple matter to adjust the reading of certain texts, to ignore others, re-interpret others, etc. You can also see, I trust, that any objections by persons from your POV would be met with derision and accusations of infidelity to the authority of the Bible. You would be accused of desiring to bring disorder to the church and division to the church. In short, you might be accused of the very things that non-hierarchical complementarians or mutualists like me are accused of doing. The fact is that we want to uphold the authority of the Bible against the doctrines of men.

As far as his Calvinism, he is a graduate of Talbot, a dispensational school. People often forget that the first dispensationalists here were Presbyterians who rejected the idea that the Church is continuous with OT Israel. Most were/are 4 pointers, but there were a few like S. Lewis Johnson who were full 5 pointers. As you know, there has been a move away from classical Dispensationalism toward Progressive Dispensationalism, and I think that is a good thing. Unlike most people, what bugs me about Classical Dispensationalism was not rapture theology which is at best tertiary, but rather a view of the New Covenant that just didn’t make sense to me and seems inadequate.

On the other side, there has been a move among moderate Calvinistic Baptists away from 1689 Covenantalism toward New Covenant theology, with the exception of the Founders party. Convergence toward the middle! Anyway, I think that softening of the Dispensational-Covenantal divide along with MacArthur’s friendship with Mohler and Sproul has stiffened his Tulip a bit.

Hope that perspective helps. And I hope you understand how I feel when I read Grudem. Or MacArthur on women. 😉

Doug wrote:

I believe that his view of the word “Prophecy” is that there are two senses to the word:

1. Forth-telling, as in speaking forth what God has said

2. Fore-telling, as in getting revelation directly from God

That is my understanding as well. Grudem takes NT prophecy to be non-inerrant prophetic words which can be fore-telling as well as forth-telling which he says is different from OT prophecy.

But at least the two Great Men can agree that wimmin-folk don’t have no place behind the pulpit!

Bridget wrote:

the bible is the diety they want us to worship. The bible is the modern Jesus, the Holy Spirit is finished (except to convert), and God IS boxed in the Book.

Lightning will strike, but I’m going to defend them a bit here. They would say that the Holy Spirit makes his written words alive in the minds of the teachers and the listeners. So it’s not a dead book of letters but a living book that speaks across cultures and ages.

Now, I have taken note of Nick’s excellent point that the written word has been, to one degree or another, effectively divorced from the Word Incarnate. That is a very good admonition to keep in mind, and one which I had not heard put quite that way.

Larry Tomczak, about whom I’d have known nothing were it not for the SGM discussions here at TWW, was in the news recently. I recognized the name immediately and thought it was worth sharing, even if it’s pretty much completely off topic.

http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2015/01/19/ac-ridiculist-ellen-degeneres-pastor-gay-agenda.cnn

Bridget wrote:

Well, Ken, you obviously need help Go read Team Pyro if you think it will help you. I don’t find help there

You had me there for a second! I thought oh dear someone else who is now going to have to show me where I’ve got it wrong. And of course none of us is perfect.

In favour of pyro: they have called out many abberations in church life such as the emergent church, and saw through Driscoll fairly early on. Fair dos on criticing charismatic error when it occurs.

Against: especially now Phil has gone, the remaining two come over as opinionated and the site seems a bit tired now. They are just a but too sure they are right, and Phillips’ Da Gifts pieces have an undertone of mockery, and I dislike this intensely.

Your saying ‘no buts’ actually really blessed me! Thank you. I like you 🙂 . I feel the way Phillips frames his “bible is sufficient but” question is like asking if you have stopped beating your wife. It’s unanswerable. For Phillips, he can evade sincere testimony that might discredit his hard-core cessationalism, and this can really bug you if you let it. Not that that is autobiographical in any way!!

Gram3 wrote:

@ THC:
Care to try again with specific refutation? I’m not going to dismiss the Pope because I don’t like the color of his red Bruno Maglis.

No, I don’t care to refute the same old “pope is the antichrist” fundamentalist rhetoric. And when I hear anyone say things like that I feel sorry for them because they are just repeating the same bigoted stories they’ve been told. It comes from a position of fear and ignorance.

Here is another thought(s): Wouldn’t the man who demands unquestioned obedience from his wife (spiritual wife or legal wife) in all matters of faith and life be a rival to Christ to her? Wouldn’t that make him anti-Christ?

And isn’t that the logical outcome of the Biblical Patriarchy Movement? Training Christian men to be anti-Christ in their home?

Thinking…..

@ Gram3:
I’ve seen first hand the charismatic splits, often the result of immaturity coupled with a failure to communicate on both sides. It’s also true that some charismatics have drifted into things very far removed from anything described in the NT on this side of the Pond.

One of the leaders of the charismatic renewal in the denominations once said ‘two thirds of the manifestations of the spiritual gifts were spurious, but one third is a lot’. I think there is alot of truth in that remark, mistakes were made, but listening to some teaching by David Pawson recently who was and still is a leading exponent of evangelical AND charismatic, he gave testimony of genuine operation of the gifts that frankly I found very refreshing. This included tongues and interpretation where the former was as genuine language (Spanish).

God does still do things, he is not to be confined to intellectual doctrinal analysis!

This was in marked contrast to our good friend MacArthur having such an unbiblical and uninformed polemic against all things charismatic.

Being a super-anointed apostolic glutton for punishment, I’ve listed to JM on silent women and the problem of suffering. On the former, briefly, I found him too strident and dogmatic. I didn’t really disagree with him, but I can better understand the reaction of some of you here to this particular doctrine. On the latter he was much better – it’s a difficult subject – but I felt a bit like he was a doctrine machine. What he came out with in the end was ‘a sovereign God does everything to advance his glory’, even in suffering; but I don’t find this a satisfying answer to the all to human element in this difficult subject.

Pawson’s attitude on this theme was ‘I love God and trust him completely, and I want to defend his reputation from attacks by unbelievers that He is in any way unloving or lacking in power’. I prefer that. The more gracious and softer attitude is imo the result of Pawson being filled with the Spirit, this seems to change a man’s attitude when teaching.

I am more blessed than you. I hardly know anything at all about dispensationalism, never have. 🙂

@ Josh:
Yeah, i saw that earlier this week and felt… well. Here’s someone who was named for sexual abuse in a civil suit being obsessed with mot only other peoples’ sexual orientations but accusing them of conspiring to “turn” girls from what he believes is the Only True and Right sexual orientation.

As Bugs Bunny would say, what a maroon! (I can’t write exactly what I’d like to say in this comment, as the Deebs will have to censor it if I do. 😉 )

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

On the plus side, the local butcher’s haggis was excellent as always

I guess I just don’t have the stomach for that (I crack myself up). Apparently it’s something us Yanks are forbidden to indulge in
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-28070716

Sport: Cambridge United of the 4th division are hosting Manchester United, 4th in the Premiership, in tonight’s 4th round FA Cup match. Half-time, and it’s goalless so far…

Ken wrote:

and Phillips’ Da Gifts pieces have an undertone of mockery, and I dislike this intensely.

I have sensed mockery in many articles at Pyro. That, along with their hard comp stance, makes it difficult to read there, therefore I don’t.

Doug wrote:

Based on Easton’s Dictionary of the word, (a rival Christ) anyone of the cadre of Celebrity Pastors would qualify.

And the irony of THC’s reply is that I wasn’t even talking about the Pope, per se, much less that the pope is the anti-Christ. I was giving an illustration of a stupid form of argumentation. THC and I have trouble communicating, and I won’t blame it all on him/her.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

I’m slightly worried over what part the actual existence of God plays in his religion at all.

The Holy Spirit left us the text. We can read. What else could we possibly need the Holy Spirit to do? 😉

Kudos for making it through the thread. I’ll have to check it out.

@ Ken:

I just wanted to clarify that I don’t think that the charismatic gifts are what divides people. It’s really, IMO, just people using a difference to elevate themselves above others. Some people on both sides of the charismatic issue here did that, though for different reasons. It is a shame. We lost some good friends who left for more charismatic churches, and some other good friends were happy to see them leave and take their gifts with them. I think that grieves the Lord.

I certainly appreciate the way that you and Nick have helped me to better understand this issue outside of the black and white boxes. It has been a source of some confusion for me. You know, the me that wants textual evidence. Of cessation of the gifts and of gender hierarchy. 😉

@ Gram3:
Potatoes, if “tatties” is what youmreferring to. Scots love their neeps and tatties.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

Sport: Cambridge United of the 4th division are hosting Manchester United, 4th in the Premiership, in tonight’s 4th round FA Cup match. Half-time, and it’s goalless so far…

Birding: Gramp3 spotted a pileated woodpecker working away in our yard yesterday. The phoebes have not come to make the first of their annual nests yet. Still waiting on the hummers.

numo wrote:

@ numo:
Neeps = turnips, though the Englidh call them swedes. Confusing!

Why don’t the British just speak English?

@ Gram3:
I don’t think it’s as bad as all that!

numo wrote:

@ Gram3:
I don’t think it’s as bad as all that!

Culture. We had an exchange student who nearly gagged when we made a peanut butter sandwich. Grits are another example. When I asked a waiter in Montreal for some grits for breakfast, his sneer reached all the way to Vancouver. People love them or hate them. Or argue whether they should be topped with sugar and milk or cheese. And then there are the butter and salt grits purists. Then there was the time I nearly caused a stroke with a waiter in Brussels when I asked for catsup/ketchup for some fries. He had brought me mayo! What!?!?! Then there was the Carnivore Restaurant in Nairobi, and that was a whole ‘nuther thing.

Gram3 wrote:

I don’t have any idea why you think MacArthur is correct on women being absolutely silent in the church. Paul is refuting false Talmudic legalistic exclusion of women. I don’t get how that squares with women prophesying

This was something I forgot to mention. I agreed with JM on the 1 Tim bit on women being for today, though I found him rather strident in putting women in their place – the home and family.

But he was so gunning for tongues and wanting to show prophecy was better because it edifies others that he sacrificed his comp teaching elsewhere. Women were clearly allowed to pray and prophesy in 1 Cor, so if prophecy actually equals teaching or preaching, Paul blatantly contradicts himself by disallowing this later in Tim.

My view of this in our own fellowship donkey’s years ago was that women could and should contribute, use spoken gifts – the Spirit has been poured out on menservants AND maidservants to use the quaint RSV, and as each one brings something for ‘when you come together’, or is given something spontaneously in the meeting, including a word of teaching, we even saw no reason for a women to ‘teach’ in this context. We drew the line based on 1 Tim at an ongoing ministry of teaching the written word, because we saw this as something God through the apostle has restricted. The silence/quietness is very targetted.

I don’t think though we ever really managed to break the inherited mold of the congregation being used to a man or small group ‘doing the ministry from the front’ that this freedom was fully utilised, but we achieved a bit more body ministry than your average traditional church.

I wonder if JM goes for charismatic evangelicals because he can’t cope with women prophesying or praying for someone to be filled with the Spirit or for healing or sharing discernment or interpreting tongues or showing gift of mercy etc etc as gifted and on an equal basis as the men. I don’t know!

Doug wrote:

The idea that I would be “head” (in their sense) is more responsibility than I see Scripture giving me.

Yes, it is more than a man can ever be. But that is the point of a legalistic system. No one can *ever* do it well enough, so people have to keep coming back for another dose of whatever is guaranteed to make it possible to do what is impossible. Legalistic systems are very profitable for those making the rules. And the truly sad thing is that they appeal to the best people, those who desire to please God. They also appeal to the worst people who know how to game the system for their own advantage.

So, you have truly good and Christ-like men who are drawn into it because they *do* want to lay down their lives for their wives and they *do* want to be nurturers and providers, but they are also the ones who are crushed by the realization that they can never do this. They are haunted by questions like, “Am I being a good enough leader to my wife?” And the truthful answer is of course you are not, because you were never intended to be Christ to your wife.

Then you get the worst of people who are already insecure about their own personal power, the legitimate power that comes from being made in God’s image, and they see a system they can exploit which will baptize their sinful need to feel important or wield control over others. There is no corrective for these men until things get so far out of bounds that the marriage is lost.

Good women are drawn in because they want to be obedient, and the leaders say that they are disobeying God if they question their husbands or their leaders. Good women who want to be obedient are told that they are rebellious by nature. They are crushed by that. Women who love and respect their husbands are plagued with doubts about whether they are being submissive enough. Women trade stories about the great sacrifices they have made to be submissive. Since I’m a woman, those are the stories I hear of competitive submission.

The immature or irresponsible women are also drawn to the system because they have no responsibility. Whatever happens that isn’t good is the husband’s fault. He didn’t lead well or made bad decisions or whatever. She never has any responsibility for what happens within the partnership of the marriage. The husband becomes a means to gratify her needs and her wants because he is supposed to be like Christ!

I know this is way too long, but that is the power and also the poison of hierarchical marriage and hierarchy in the church. How much better for brothers and sisters to dwell in unity in the Mind of Christ while each is being conformed to his image? We grow up in Christ and thereby grown in unity one with the other. There are disagreements, but there is mutual trust and mutual love and mutual respect that makes coming to consensus not only possible but almost unavoidable. Then, instead of doubts about whether either of them has met their obligations, there is confidence in one another.

That is a positive, upward relationship spiral. The hierarchical system is a downward relationship spiral which includes doubt and accusation and struggles for power. There may be the form of a relationship and order when one in the marriage rules, but healthy and robust and mutually edifying personal relationships between and among adults are never built on rank recognition. Never.

Have a great date night. Gramp3 and I are having our usual Friday night pizza. At home together.

Ken wrote:

Sorry gram, we even saw no reason for a women not to ‘teach’ in this context is what I meant to say!

No, I’m the one who has dropped the thread. Maybe if you just restate what your thinking is about women and silence and and prophesying and teaching I could get it. The mind is a bit muddled today. OK, even moreso than usual. 😉

@ Beakerj:

Correct me if wrong but the “swede”, as my Brit friends explained to me, is a rutabaga to us.

Why swede? They just shrugged that it had always been Swede.

@ Beakerj:
Tur-neeps, i believe, but could be wrong. Thanks for the claritication re. rutabagas!

@ Gram3:

Also Ken, that is just one perspective on this issue, and history is not my profession at all. I hope some others have more information or better information. Just did not want to leave the impression that this is The Truth As It Happened. The US is messy culturally and religiously.

@ Nancy:

When I referred to the traditional/liturgical/magisterial churches I only meant that the pastors/elders/preachers were only males. I remember the days when you would see nurses who were nuns at Catholic hospitals, and the Catholic lower schools were staffed by nuns.

I don’t know what happened with the Free Will Baptists who did use to ordain women. My sense is that the Civil War probably caused a lot of reactionary changes that were not really based on Biblical interpretation. I wonder if the southern churches are stricter about gender roles because abolitionists were frequently women and they were the ones pressing for suffrage.

The old the-sinful-and-rebellious-women-have-brought-all-this-upon-us thing that is basically the appeal that the Complementarians are making today. Keep women in their proper role or God will judge us schtick that Owen (not John) posted. The antebellum culture was certainly hierarchical and the ladies had their place. So, I wonder if there are cultural memories which make southern churches in general more reactionary on this issue. Or at least the institutions might have those built into them. Whatever happened to the WMU?

  __

“Lord, Lord, Open To Us!”

Hey Muff   ,

I said:

“They better go back and read their bibles, huh?” ~Sopwith

You said: 

“Which is precisely their point Sopy. Their claim is that this is what Holy Writ says, no if(s), no and(s), and no but(s). And if you don’t see it that way, your problem is not with them, but with the Lord. And usually the implication is that you don’t ‘know Lord’. ” ~Muff Potter

hmmm…

…that I don’t ‘know ‘their’ Lord’ [Calvin] ?

Probably Not.

-snicker-

Since when is the ‘servant’ (John Calvin) better than the Master (Jesus Christ) ?

(grin)

hahahahahaha

What child is this…hum, hum, hum…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmBXKMfx5qs

…Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in: Naked, and you clothed me: I was sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came and ministered to me. 

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hunger, and fed you? or thirsty, and gave you drink? When did we see you as a stranger, and take you in? or naked, and clothed you? Or when did we see you sick, or in prison, and came to visit you? And the King shall answer and say to them, truly I say to you, In as much as you have done it on behalf of one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. ~ Jesus

Q: RELIGION OR RELATIONSHIP?

Kind folks need ta decide.

Sopy

🙂

—

@ Lydia:
@ numo:
Oh I did know that about Swedes but had forgotten. Rutabaga is an hilarious word though, where did come from?
So turnips are tur-neeps, Swedes are rutabaga. Here ended the lesson on root vegetables.
I have to say, given the extremely erudite comments by Gram3 etc I feel my comments may not be living up to our current academic standards here on TWW. Root vegetables indeed… when did I come to this!

__

“I lõõk unto da hills?”

hmmm…

“…Stayed upon Jesus, hearts are fully blest
Finding, as He promised, perfect peace and REST.”

Didn’t Paul and Silas sing when their feet were in the stocks? 

Jesus loves me this I know…hum, hum, hum…

🙂

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owx3ao42kwI

ATB

Sopy

—

@ Beakerj:
Believe it or not, rutabaga apparently comes frome the Swedis word “rotebagge.” And i had no idea that rutabagas are a result of a cross between cabbage and turnips, but that’s whst it says. I have a feeling that I grew up knowing them under the name “yellow turnips,” as opposed to regulsr (white) turnips.

Mystery solved!

@ numo:
Even more amazing: in Ithaca, NY (where it gets extremely cold and snowy in the winter), there’s an event called the International Rutabaga Curling Championship every winter. I want to find videos!

@ numo:
Swedes. I give up for tonight!

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

But he seems to take the doctrine of sufficiency so far that I’m slightly worried over what part the actual existence of God plays in his religion at all.

Thanks for your reply. Both pyromaniac writers when discussing the gifts theme always want to be in control of the conversation – they diligently avoid anyone who could seriously challenge their current position.

Living in Germnay where it is harder to get English language Christian materials, the Internet has provided an easy source of Christian input, and I have enjoyed the variety you can find. I’ve visited Pyro and many others over the years, often to personal benefit, and it would be childish simply to suddenly go back on that.

But I have to say, in all my reading of the more Calvinist brethren online, I have noticed over the years that they almost without exception never stop their doctrinal discussions to give testomony of something wonderful God has actually done in their fellowships or their own life – spectacular answered prayer or someone converted and dramatically changed or something similar. Your sentence above powerfully reminded me of this.

I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but it would be nice to hear of this sometimes to dispel the impression that the Christian life is really only church services where you go to hear bible teaching, and that is ‘sufficent’. My old thing of because you have the Word for something, it doesn’t mean you have the thing itself.

Gram3 wrote:

Yikes, please forgive me, but I did not see your comment above where you wrote about teaching and prophesying.

No need to apologise, I had a comment go into moderation because I messed up the e-mail address only to find I had included a sentence saying the precise opposite to what I intended. I plead late night tiredness, Your Honor.

There’s something I want to get back to you on, but home and a brass band are calling me … 🙂

Gram3 wrote:

I love brass bands.

The moravians here still maintain brass bands.

@ Gram3:
Nearer Heidelberg, but I’ve stayed in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The ‘Posaunenchor’ or small brass band/ensemble I belong to numbers 15 at most, but usually – and for church services as it is linked with the Lutheran church – 9 or 10 is better, it gets too loud!

I play bass on a 4 valve euphonium, and I think I got the bands best instrument! It’s good fun, but when they lapse into local dialect, it’s still difficult to follow the conversation.

I had a gap of 30 odd years without playing, but like cycling you never really lose it, and it soon came back with a bit of practice. The worst aspect was having to transpose everything up a tone – now that did take some getting used to.

Ken wrote:

I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but it would be nice to hear of [some significant answers to prayer] sometimes to dispel the impression that the Christian life is really only church services where you go to hear bible teaching, and that is ‘sufficient’.

That’s actually a really good point – “the sufficiency of scripture” is actually a cover for a very different doctrine, which has not (to my knowledge) been afforded its own polysyllabic moniker in the esoteric world of academic theology, but that we might variously describe as “the sufficiency of expository preaching”, “Sacred Pulpit theology”, or “the elevation of the preacher”.

That said, the idea of God being imprisoned within church services isn’t limited to neocalvinists or sacred pulpiteers, at least here in the UK. The idea that you’ve got to have a progression of songs to bring us into the presence of God* is also very common, the point being that the “presence of God” is the aroused emotional state that real Christians reach after the two vigorous “praise songs” at the start of the meeting, at the point where the meeting is ready to “move into a time of worship” using quieter songs.

So, a person sees the light and rejects their previously-held beliefs in favour of signing up to some new, Christian beliefs. Now they’re living “lives transformed by the gospel”. Or, a person gets prayed for in a meeting and is induced to weep with emotion. God has “powerfully moved on them”.

All of which may be fine as far as it goes; the trouble is, much of Christendom is satisfied with that. Charismatic or otherwise, they have established some very strict limits beyond which God may not trespass. And if he ever does, they’ll curse him and call him “satan”. The thing that most frustrates me is that these strict limits are always much narrower than the bible itself. So, Jesus did many wonderful things in the presence of his disciples that are not recorded in the Bible. But today, 95% of the things that are recorded in the Bible are forbidden to him.

* This is a real-life quote.

@ Ken:
Agreed on all counts. But it was really a shock tome on 1st viewing (the tragic elements), due mainly to the deliberate misrepresentation of the bleaker aspects of the film by PR types.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

you’ve got to have a progression of songs to bring us into the presence of God

Yes, I twigged quite a long time ago that the awed silence after certain worship songs was not the presence of God. You can achieve a similar ‘presence of God’ after a piece of very moving classical music (if that’s your orientation). After the second movement of a symphony and before the third is a good time, though most people use it cough.

I would say such silence can be a human response to God’s presence, and the charismatic fellowship I was in was unusual in that there were occasional times when everybody would be silent, something some believers are afraid of, and seem to need to fill the meeting with spoken or sung contributations.

Regarding the restrictions that modern evangelicals place on what they think fit for the Holy Spirit to do, it occurred to me that if by some miracle you could transport 12 Evangelicals – sound calvinists and baptists all – back to the first century, they would advise Jesus (after their conference on the subject) that they don’t mind him doing the healings and deliverance but could he please do this privately and more discreetly. You see, Lord, this is distracting people from the Teaching of the Word you are giving us. 🙂

Jesus called 12 disciples, not 12 evangelicals!

Question- are any of you familiar with Ken Freeman Ministries?
I was invited to a ” revival” at a local church by a neighbor who is ” concerned about my soul”
I look at Ken’s site and it looks pretty much youth oriented…..but not really familiar with his doctrine/ theology….any enlightenment will be helpful…

Nick,
I have known my neighbor and the family for 40+ years. I was working on a church staff when the neighbor’s brother passed from stomach cancer in the early 80s. ( His brother was a member of the church, and I sang at the funeral.)
I think they see me as ” a back slider” and want to get me back into the fold.
He/ she may also think it’ll get me to stop shooting military style assault rifles in my backyard….( I collect French weapons Mas 49/56, Mas 49, Mas 44 etc….and some of the people who come over and shoot are well, outlaws…)
8-0

Revisiting some C.S. Lewis and came across an old favorite quote of mine. Thought some of you may enjoy it.

The real test is this. Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, “Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,” or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.

Anonymous wrote:

Never been to this Open Discussion site. Was referred here by Numo.

Do any of you have thoughts on what is a fair way to treat staff who might create a work – a book, a song, or speak at a conference?

Our staff is totally open to this, and our church has yet to resolve the issue. We have had no issues to date, but we are looking toward the future.

What arrangement does your church have with your pastor if he speaks at conference or writes a book?

We already have a deal where he has to inform us and get permission. But we need a plan to deal with honoraria. He always reports what he gets. So far, it has been a small amount. But it is conceivable that it could be larger.

The more likely place we could have problems is with the worship leader. Very talented guy. Writes a lot of worship music.

What have you all seen and what does your church do with respect to royalties etc.?

I look forward to any thoughts you may have.

Thank you.

Hi,

I previous posted a response to you, but perhaps you didn’t see it.

The books and songs that people create are their Intellectual Property under U.S. law.

Songs:
Covered by the United States Copyright Office, a department of the Library of Congress
http://www.copyright.gov/

Books:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl109.html

Patents & Trademarks here: (just since your question involves Intellectual Property)

Free Legal Help to post questions:
http://www.avvo.com

Choose your state and “Intellectual Property” to have those attorneys answer your questions.

*Church & Tax Law dot com (but you have to pay for it to see content)

*Work related questions – Human Resources expert Alison Green at http://www.askamanager.org (all things related to work, the good, the bad and the ugly, plus great ideas from savvy readers)

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

K.D. wrote:
He/ she may also think it’ll get me to stop shooting military style assault rifles in my backyard
…OK, I stand corrected – maybe your neighbour is right…

It’s a different world here Nick….. 😉

By the way, my pastor is 73, married, wants to retire but can’t as there are no replacements available, and is paid $2,500-$3,000/month; he has published a few books for the church but I don’t think he gets any substantial royalties. And he’s a fantastic preacher, has the great musical skills required to chant the Eastern liturgy (including the ability to match and produce long quarter-tones), and is talented at holding the community together. And after church on Sunday he takes like 15 prescription pills of different sorts before joining the congregation for the Agape.

So if you’re in a position of selecting, hiring, and paying pastors, bear that in mind. His pay is typical for an Orthodox Church. I think Protestant pastors are in some cases overpaid relative to their Orthodox and Catholic counterparts. The Orthodox Church pays some pastors who have families and where the wife doesn’t work up to around $5,000 or so but that’s it. On celibate Roman Catholic priest remarked on his blog that since the implementation of the Anglican personal Ordinariates, some in the church unused to paying the expenses of married priests living in the West have had sticker shock. But I think every Protestant church should take these numbers into consideration when hiring a pastor. A pastor who asks for more money probably isn’t worth it as it shows a certain greed on his part.

In other news:

Space exploration

NASA’s New Horizons space probe is now under 120 megamiles from Pluto.

Domestic work

The washing I hung up outside earlier on today is frozen.

I hope this is helpful.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

The washing I hung up outside earlier on today is frozen.

That does it. It is not helpful. But this is. There are a number of ways to dry laundry indoors, but I will spare you the instructional pamphlet. I do want to say though, drying laundry indoors with no dryer will increase the humidity in a winter home and make everybody feel a lot better physically. It is messy but healthful. Unless you are in survival training for TEOTWAWKI and if so carry on.

@ Ken:

Bear with me as I’m a little under the weather. I would never say don’t read Grudem, but I would also say it is wise to read other very conservative scholars who have examined his work and found defects in it.

The primary problem with Grudem is that he starts with the presupposition that the emancipation of women to vote, hold property in their own name, inherit equally with male siblings, hold jobs outside the home and earn their own income, and effective birth control have caused the chaos in society. Please at least think about that for a minute or two. Which of those is a bad thing? Which of those has caused society to crumble?

If you read the Danvers Statement, it doesn’t start with what the Bible says. It makes assertions about the causes for various social problems, namely women being emancipated. Then after poisoning the well with fear that stops critical thinking, they enumerate their *interpretation* of a very, very few verses which interpreters of all views agree are difficult verses to interpret. They then pretend their *interpretations* of these verses are the only interpretations that are faithful to the text. That is simply false and deceptive and slanderous to those of us who are trying to stay as close to the text as possible. An implication that Grudem or the others draw *from* the text is not the same thing as something that the Holy Spirit put into the text.

In its very form, Danvers reveals that it is essentially a political manifesto, not an exposition of the Bible. I think something that looks so much like propaganda just might be propaganda. The fact that these men have made the Danvers statement practically speaking on par with the Apostle’s Creed says a lot. They have made this a Gospel issue, and that looks like Galatianism to me except we are talking about a different cultural practice being essential to the true faith. This is not inconsequential.

You may not think that whether or not God ordained men to rule over women is a significant issue, and I think it is just an abstraction for you because no one is telling you in your church that you are a deceiving Jezebel by nature and because of that you want to usurp proper male authority. Here I would like you to stop and think about whether you might give this more consideration if you were in my position and the position of every woman in churches that have been Grudemized. The shoe might pinch more if it were on your foot as it does with MacArthur’s eisegesis on the charismatic gifts. The topics are different but the principles are the same.

The question is not whether a given man and a given woman can agree between themselves what the Bible is saying and then order their lives according to that, including the husband always being the ruler if that is how they think their marriage will bring glory to Christ. That is very different from a universal assertion that God *designed* for females to be subordinate, and he *designed* males to be rulers over females. And it really *is* merely an assertion backed up with eisegesis and presenting a narrative that is not actually in the text. No one has yet shown where God ordained these rules and roles in the text of the Bible. I can say that with confidence because Grudem would certainly have included it in one of his many books on the topic. Not even Grudem is authorized by God to make things up, however, and he needs to prove his case that women are bound to be ruled by God’s decree.

Here’s another point that is unjust. Why are women required to offer proof that we are as free in Christ as men are and that we have received the same inheritance as sons as men have? Why is Grudem presumed to be correct and *never* required to offer proof that God indeed ordained male rule? Why is the burden of proof on women to prove they are free rather than on men to prove that women are not free? The proof must be from the actual text, if we really believe in the authority of the Bible rather than merely giving it lip-service.

Another double standard is that women like me are accused of casting aside the Bible when the fact is that I have never made any appeal to culture nor have I ever departed from the actual text. I have challenged **TRADITION** but never the text of the Bible. We can’t say that we believe in sola scriptura and then just abandon our grammatical-historical hermeneutic for the special case of the gender verses. That is simply not intellectually honest. Why should any human tradition be above questioning?

Yet another double standard is that Grudem can make his entire career on this one issue, and that is perfectly OK. But if a woman makes opposition to Grudem her career, that is a bad thing. Why? On another thread Gavin did that very thing. For me to talk about Grudem is exhibiting a “pet hate” but for Grudem to ride his hobby horse into every rodeo is good and shows he is a great teacher.

It is unjust to blame women alone for the cultural disintegration that you and I probably largely agree on. Women and men are both responsible, and re-instituting male rule will not return us to a time that never existed except in the fertile imaginations of the “Complementarians.” Divorce is rampant and homes are broken and the lives of children are scarred. Is that because of women having the same means to leave a bad marriage as a man has always had? Is the solution to remove the economic freedom and means that women have?

There are people here who believe that the solution to the chaos in the black underclass is a result of destruction of social hierarchies between the races. Do any of the Complementarians believe that? It is exactly the same argument they make against the emancipation of women. The fact is that chaos in the culture and in the church is due to sin. Just plain sin. Changing who is in charge will not change that. Only when we start to see one another as more alike than different in Christ will we be reconciled to one another and stop playing the game of who’s in authority over whom.

@ oldJohnJ:

Yes, I saw that one too. The article I read had an artist’s impression of what the planet/ring system would look like from earth, if it were at the orbit of Saturn. Quite something. There’s some amazing stuff out there…

@gram3
@lydia

You all are stalwart proponents of your position, but it seems to me that you have agreed with your opponents on too many issues and that hinders the success of your cause.

I am not going to throw myself into this fracas on this page except to make this remark. There are legitimate/ orthodox/ traditional/ and currently demonstrable ways of thinking and groups who think in such ways, who have far more comprehensive beliefs about the position and ministries of both men and women than those who wave the flag of sola scriptura but who do not practice what they preach. And these people and groups see their conclusions as consistent with scripture.

For example, both catholic women and charismatic/pentecostal women have far more respect in the area of spiritual matters than do sola scriptura women. Why not check it out and see if there are not some things in each of those traditions, consistent with scripture, which your opponents may have taken away from you when you have agreed with them in too many things. Have you wondered why there is such vehement anti-catholic and anti-charismatic thinking on the part of the leadership? What are they afraid of? What is the source of their irrational and excessive rejection of all things outside their own way of thinking? Maybe some truth which they fear will crack the foundation of their mini-empires? That might be. Why not check it out? You both seem capable and intelligent and mature. Find out for yourselves where the perimeters of evidence and truth lie. Why take someone else’s word for it?

You say that your opponents are not correct about comp-ism. So, does not this open for discussion that they just may not be correct about some other things also?

oldJohnJ wrote:

The real frontier now is biology and exploitation of such knowledge has the possibility of changing our biological “hardware”. In the absence of strong moral leadership from the Christian community the prospects of such manipulation are frightening.

Are you talking about mitochondrial donation/repair? What is your perspective on that issue if that’s what you mean. Admittedly it sounds like a great idea to me because we know the grandparents of a child with mitochondrial disease, but I also realize there are risks but do not understand those. I just don’t how to evaluate the risks and benefits.

Nancy wrote:

You say that your opponents are not correct about comp-ism. So, does not this open for discussion that they just may not be correct about some other things also?

Of course it does. However, for myself the Bible is the benchmark, and these people are the ones who are influencing the people I know and love. I believe in sola scriptura because that makes the most sense to me. These men say that they teach that, but they don’t in practice. They make up doctrines with the best/worst of the popes.

Also, if you have any comments on mitochondrial donation, I would love to hear them from the perspective of a physician and a mother and grandmother.

@ Gram3:

I have no comments on mitochondrial donation. My comment is that like OJJ seems to be saying, we have lost, or failed to develop, a platform for significant ethical impact in a large area of research and practice. We have argued among ourselves until we have, at best, perhaps some lone voice in the wilderness (who may even sound hysterical or may even be hysterical), and that process, that system, that place which we have allowed to develop may come to bite us in our fanny. We do not need my ideas. I am not an ethicist. We need ethicists and researchers to work together each new step of the way in every new endeavor. Our position in this is weak, because as OJJ seems to be saying some of us have made ourselves the enemy of science to our own detriment. Why would anybody listen to some self-declared enemy of science when they tried to even talk about some matter, much less about research ethics. Many of us would not. I would not.

Ken wrote:

they were fed up with their men abdicating responsibilty, both in the home and in the church. Isn’t that surprising. This may well reflect the pressure from the secular culture around, the empowering of women tending to create irresponsibility in men.

Is it the fault of women that men are irresponsible? How does making women equal diminish men? Are men so fragile that they must be in charge or they will check out? I don’t quite follow your point here.

Don’t know about over there, but here the popular media often portray men as boors or ignorant or just plain foul-ups, and I think that is morally wrong. I don’t think men should be portrayed that way because it is just not true of all men. There are many strong men who are married to strong women. You use the words “empowering women” as if that is a bad thing. How does a woman being strong make a man weak?

And, if a man does feel weakened by a strong female, then are you saying the solution to that is to weaken the females? How about exhorting the men to be more like Christ? Isn’t that more in line with the Gospel and the empowering and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit?

What you consider the Danvers rationales look to me like well-poisoning justification. They are drawing an explicit causation relationship between societal breakdown and female emancipation. How does that work? To what point on the slippery slope of female emancipation do we need to return so that society will get all better? That isn’t gospel thinking, IMO. Gospel thinking is that we spread the Good News, people are converted and seek to be like Christ. What Danvers is suggesting is that we need more rules rather than more Spirit.

As for the multiple Scripture references, I would just say that MacArthur has lots of Bible prooftexts as well. A prooftext for something I agree with is still a prooftext.

Just tell me straight up how this Danvers solution would work. How does universal male rule produce a just and ordered society and a moral culture? How?

Gram3 wrote:

To what point on the slippery slope of female emancipation do we need to return so that society will get all better?

I am responding to the statement above, not specifically to gram3 or ken. We, in the following, means the current churches with specifying.

We need to find a place where men and women do not see each other as opposing forces of nature, so to speak. As long as the quest for dominance becomes a central issue we are ignoring the larger teachings of scripture, and we are ignoring some things about individual preferences and individual personalities that we may not like or agree with, and we are certainly ignoring any evidence that there may be more than scripture involved in this issue, and we are sacrificing people to either of two ideologies because we care more about the ideologies than we care about people. And all that in the name of religion.

I am “hooked” on the question as to why this issue consumes people.

Nancy wrote:

As long as the quest for dominance becomes a central issue we are ignoring the larger teachings of scripture,

Exactly! The quest for dominance is the fall in a nutshell. Doesn’t matter if it is male/female or inter-tribal or inter-national. The Kingdom of Christ is *not* about dominance. If there are women who are calling for female dominance to replace male dominance, then they are just flipping the sin and proving that they are not about being equal but rather about who is in charge. The larger teaching of Scripture is to be conformed to the image of Christ, and he explicitly told his disciples that they are *not* to create hierarchies like the Gentiles.

I don’t know what you mean about consuming people. Not everyone is responsible for addressing every wrong. Maybe abolitionists were consumed. Or advocates for child labor laws might have been consumed. Certainly Grudem and the folks at CBMW are consumed with reinstating a system of gender hierarchy. That is the message that drowns out the Gospel of Christ.

Maybe you haven’t see what is going on in the conservative churches like some of us have. The fact is that self-styled conservatives are misusing the Bible, and they need to be called on the fact that they are violating their own rules that they say are sacrosanct on every other issue. Their hypocrisy in service to self-interest is rather astounding, ISTM.

It is an issue for me because it compromises the Gospel the same way that Paul rants about in Galatians. In addition, both the advocates and the victims of this theology are within my wing of evangelicalism. If all of us worked within our own circles to take out the trash in the church, we would all be better off, I think.

@ Nancy:

do not get

Gram3 wrote:

How does making women equal diminish men?

That is how I read it, too. As if women becoming more independent means men cannot be responsible anymore? This has been the underlying theme of comp since day one.

@ Nancy:

I thought I was clear in my reply to Ken that, as I see it, any given husband and wife are free to order their marriage in any way they see fit. Who am I to judge them regarding which one of them is the dominant one?

There is only one “side” that is prescribing dominance for *every* marriage. That is the “Complementarian” party. They are the only party describing the other as ungodly and un-Gospelly. There is no mutuality in their vision of marriage or in their vision of the church. The governing principle in the “Complementarian” world is not love, as it is with Christ, but rather authority and power.

They make their argument by appealing to the evils which feminism has brought. So in my reply to Ken I merely ask which particular part of female emancipation is responsible for this breakdown in society. I think it is a reasonable question to ask. Grudem makes vague appeals to the evils of feminism but never says which rights he thinks should be rolled back. It is nothing more than a scare tactic.

I believe that the real issue we are discussing is who retains, in every instance, the option to act. Who retains human agency and who is denied agency. The “complementarians” do not want to engage actual reasoned questions because they do not have any reasoned responses that they do not violate themselves when the issues are different. That is why the meaning of “head” is imported and imposed onto the text where the head/body metaphor is used. It is why we even talk about the ESS doctrine. They must appeal to the rule of the Father over the Son in order to support their notion of “head” being equivalent to “ruler.”

So, if your quarrel is with either/or thinking, then they are the ones who brought that into the discussion.

@ Lydia:

They are one couple I totally understand on one level and totally do not understand on any other level. The Clintons are legally married, but I would seriously question whether they have the unity of spirit that is the hallmark of a successful marriage of two people who have the mind of Christ. Hillary made a rational and very pragmatic decision to protect their common interests, and she sacrificed her credibility as any kind of advocate for women’s equality. Principles get exposed as merely partisan talking points devoid of substance. We have seen that over and over again in the church where it should not be so.

Gram3 wrote:

So, if your quarrel is with either/or thinking, then they are the ones who brought that into the discussion.

Indeed they did, and they are wrong to do so in my opinion.

Nancy wrote:

I am saying it is their marriage. Does egal equate to feminism?

More like self respect, I would hope.

Nancy wrote:

Our position in this is weak, because as OJJ seems to be saying some of us have made ourselves the enemy of science to our own detriment. Why would anybody listen to some self-declared enemy of science when they tried to even talk about some matter, much less about research ethics. Many of us would not. I would not.

Thanks for making my primary point much better than I did!

Nancy wrote:

Free and equal means “ain’t nobody’s business” to require conformity to some cultural idea, one way or the other.

If it’s agreed on and acceptable by both parties, then it’s fine. It’s also “mutual” in that case. The problem arises when one feels entitled to override the other in matters affecting one or the other.

Not sure where to put this, but fyi.

Per the BJU/GRACE efforts, BOZ responds to some regrettable actions of some victims’ advocates because of potential “unnecessary anxiety” to victims.

http://www.romancingvictims.net/boz.html
http://www.romancingvictims.net/fakeattorney.html

There have been concerns expressed before as to Dr. Lewis’ credibility
whose work has been featured here.
http://thewartburgwatch.com/2014/02/28/dr-camille-lewis-presents-the-stormy-history-life-at-bob-jones-university-2/

FYI for those this might affect.

@ Nancy:

I was referring to her complicity in the destruction of the many women who came forward to say Bill assaulted them or used his position to gain sexual favors (that is the best I can say about the Monica affair.) If Bill had been a corporate executive or a man in the opposition party, the feminists would have been apoplectic and that man would have been destroyed rather than having the whole thing as “being just about sex.” That is the hypocrisy that Hillary embraced. It is not a matter of how the Clintons structure their marriage. That is their business, but Hillary has no business claiming to be a feminist any more. Not if that word means anything.

@ Gram3:

I did indeed not know what you were talking about. But I did not know that Hillary had identified herself with “the feminist agenda” any more than to appeal to that group politically. I had thought Hillary was first and last about her own political ambitions. Frankly, she does not seem like an ideologue of any kind to me, for better or worse. But I was talking about marriage specifically and you were not and we had crossed communication there.

I believe you about the corporate world, because I know nothing about the corporate world, but “back in the day” getting in bed with the boss was something some people tried to do for its advantages. I always thought that sometimes one was the aggressor and sometimes the other. Is that not the case any more?

@ Nancy:

Let me expand on that a minute, because I really think I may be missing something. Back in the early 1950s when I was a student nurse the story went around that at one of the hospitals in town the student nurses had set up a competition to see who could sleep with the most doctors. (The hospital was one of the teaching hospitals of the med school with a lot of young guys.) The story said they even had a chart to keep up with this competition. Now I never saw any chart, but that is not the point. The point is that we all believed the story, because we all believed that people do like that, including females. The idea of the female as the sexual aggressor did not cause us to question the story at all. I now seem to be hearing just the opposite. So help me here. Bring me up to date on this. Has the world tamed the female? Were we some aberrant generation? Maybe corporate and hospital are two different continents? What is going on here?

@ Nancy:

I will let this go shortly. We thought that the conduct was immoral but certainly not illegal. We thought that it exposed everybody to ‘herpicificgonolitis’ and who wants that. We would have feared damnation but not the law. Talk about a different planet, I guess.

Nancy wrote:

‘herpicificgonolitis

Sounds like a word in those old movies shown in health class or gym class.

Have a reply to you in moderation.

Lydia wrote:

If that is an egal marriage, I am disappointed. Sounds more like a comp wife bowing to her husband to keep position or appearances. Not a woman with self respect.

Good points. It looks to me like two of a kind married to each other with each acting in their own best self interest no matter what it takes. Egal or comp I am not a fan of a lot of stuff. But then I am no more a fan of egal than I am of comp. It is all still based on power struggles and like Gram says that is not how the kingdom works, but B & H don’t pastor anybody’s church exactly, so I mostly don’t expect much from that source.

lydia wrote:

I hate word “egal”. I prefer mutuality.

Mutuality is a great word. I will have to add that to my vocabulary.

And speaking of words, I am not fond of “neutrality” but rather prefer “objectivity.” I think that if one objectively as possible gathers information it may quickly become necessary to either abandon neutrality based on the balance of the information or else ignore some evidence/information to remain neutral. I do not think that one can necessarily maintain both neutrality and objectivity at the same time.

Nancy wrote:

And speaking of words, I am not fond of “neutrality”

Yes, exactly. I often think of Switzerland and how that played out during the war.

Interesting info on Ergun Caner and Brewton Parker College
https://dwightmckissic.wordpress.com/2015/02/05/is-a-georgia-baptist-college-covering-up-racism/

Muff Potter wrote:

Let’s not forget the Jesuit-Vatican observatory conspiracy to bring back the Nephilim

I think you have been taken in by a giant hoax …

Lisa wrote:

Interesting info on Ergun Caner and Brewton Parker College
https://dwightmckissic.wordpress.com/2015/02/05/is-a-georgia-baptist-college-covering-up-racism/

Somehow, this pattern of wrongdoing and then covering up by firing the people who do the right thing has got to stop. Time for some Trustees to do the right thing.

Gram3 wrote:

Is it the fault of women that men are irresponsible? How does making women equal diminish men? Are men so fragile that they must be in charge or they will check out? I don’t quite follow your point here.

My only real point was that there Christian women in the UK who find the effect of the strongly secular culture that surrounds them has led to the men in the church abdicating responsibility. I’m sure if I tried I could find reasons for this, but I haven’t given it much thought and more than likely would end up guessing.

It’s that interdependence is giving way to independence of the sexes, which may account for the very high level of marital breakdown now in the UK.

I’ve actually go something on a different theme brewing at the moment, but it will have to wait.

Having a short weekend away when I will get to see and hug (lots) my eldest! 🙂

@ Nick Bulbeck:

True Nick and the closer the Dawn probe gets to Ceres the more we’ll know.

@ Lisa:

When an issue becomes about people or parties, then it is not about principles.

Here is the thing. No two of us can agree about much of anything, so I am suggesting that we abandon christianity which does not seem to be working anyhow, and part amicably and find something else. A couple thousand years is really long enough. If it were going to work we ought to see some signs of it by now. You say I’m kidding? I don’t know, I thought I might be putting voice to what an increasing number of people are doing, doing, done.

Perhaps we need a new reformation, or maybe a new religion, or maybe a new messiah figure or something. Just thinking out loud.

@ Ken:

You have to contort 1 John 1.1-3 to not see that it is about Jesus and fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and not with a book of scriptures.

Ken wrote:

How do the Saints of God regard Scripture? They delight in it, love it, treasure it, meditate on it, and tremble before it.

Wouldn’t this be worshipping the scripture?

Ken wrote:

No exemplary saint of God in Scripture is shown to be dissatisfied with Scripture and seeking after “more.”

The “exemplary saints of God in scripture” he refers to didn’t have the Scripture he is referring them to as “sufficient.” They had some OT scripture, their own experiences with Jesus, word of mouth, and the power of the Holy Spirit to help them as Jesus himself said would be the case.

Ken wrote:

There are those, I fear, for whom the Doctrine of the Sufficiency of Scripture is becoming their religion and their God.

Those are some good thoughts. We are called to delight in God’s word, and I can’t really disagree with what Phillips said about filling ourselves with God’s word. It’s what he left out that, IMO, is crucial. That is that we are also to be filled with the Holy Spirit and walk in the Spirit. Where I think things got off track in Corinth and in the charismatic movement is that they went off in the opposite direction and sought the gifts without the words that go along with the gifts. Also I would like to distinguish between the elitist charismatics of the 70’s and those who were earnestly seeking the gifts to serve the church. Similarly, I think we need to be careful to distinguish the counterfeiters who profit from that from the honest seekers.

On our Other Discussion, because of a recent personal discussion, I have been reading more about the situation in the CoE regarding gender issues, and I see that I have not understood well the issues there nor have I appreciated the differences in approach to those issues. If nothing else, it has shown me that the American way of thinking frames issues very differently than non-Americans.

I am curious whether you think that there is a similar divergence between UK thinking and Australian thinking. Is it just an American “thing” or is it a “colonial” thing?

Nancy wrote:

Perhaps we need a new reformation, or maybe a new religion, or maybe a new messiah figure or something. Just thinking out loud.

I can only speak for myself here. No new Messiah figure for me. Jesus the son of Mary, the promised one from the beginning who will destroy the works of the Devil works fine for me. I cling to his very person and nothing more. But the rest of the stuff from Augustine to Chuck Smith? I’ve given it a listen, and at day’s end I keep my own counsel on what I believe or disbelieve

Ken wrote:

I found these gems from Phillips, and of course immediately thought of you!

I’m honoured!

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

Ken wrote:
There are some more notes taken from the recent Sufficient Fire Conference…
Incidentally, at first I thought that “Sufficient Fire” was a phrase you had thought of as a parody. Then I checked, and discovered that (as you know, of course) this really was the name of the conference.
Yer couldn’t make it up!

You realize that this follows from the Strange Fire conference that was the anti-charismatic meeting?

Strange Fire vs Sufficient Fire – nope, you can’t make this stuff up.

@ Ken:
Rumpole of the Bailey and Hilda! The books and TV shows did very well over here, too. Am a fan myself.

Ken wrote:

Pride and blinding power – in my humble opinion a dangerous combination of cause and effect.

Reactionary agendas are not usually well thought-out. Whatever it is causing the agenda makes us blind to other factors. That works with our pride to resist even thinking we might be wrong.

ISTM that, for those of us without power, our experiences might over-inform our judgment. I’ve mostly known Krazy Karizmatics and would be inclined to dismiss any manifestations of those gifts. But, I have known a *few* charismatics who were not Krazy, and that is what preserved openness. And what prompted me to ask you and Nick about it. The MacArthurites have become Beza to MacArthur’s Calvin, and the ideology is driving what they say.

Gram3 wrote:

But, I have known a *few* charismatics who were not Krazy, and that is what preserved openness

May I share a little testimony by way of encouragement?

Having moved on by and large from things charismatic a long time ago, I’ve been very influenced by the negative criticism of the MacArthur and friends camp – who rightly call out the mania.

Nevertheless, I have more recently begun to see through their agenda; when it comes to discussing 1 Cor 12 to 14 I still do believe if we ask we can receive, and bread and not a stone at that. The secret is to be filled with the Holy Spirit (rather than making sure your pneumatology has a correct hermeneutic).

At my daughter’s baptism I think God gave me a prophetic word, it ‘brewed’ over the days leading up to the event, but I wimped out of giving it (would have been given in the third person, not Isaiah style). I had Dan Phillip’s mocking Da Gifts in mind, and it made me unsure – was I simply making something up, or even wanting to appear ‘spiritual’?

Last Sunday, visited the Calvery Chapel my eldest currently goes to. In the worship, suddenly and unexpectedly found myself having a word of knowledge. This has not traditionally been my thing! There was someone there who had been having severe pain in their knee, caused by cartillage damage. I nearly asked my wife if her knee was playing up again.

A few minutes later, someone gets up at the front and gives testimony for having had prayer James 5 style for healing the week before: he had been having acute pain in his knee, due to cartillage problems.

The atheist would say coincidence. But I don’t think it was that. I told my wife the following day and she wondered what the point was. It is what it did for me. The Holy Spirit can still prompt and enlighten, and perhaps give a specific word of encouragement or consolation.

If you ask was I absolutely sure, I in honesty have to say no, but I had a strong conviction I was right. It doesn’t matter if you make honest mistakes, I’ve let other men rob me of being secure in the love and grace of God; and it has reminded me that this area of church life does require taking a certain risk and stepping out in faith.

If we are to get back into a church here, it is more than likely to be a bit charismatic, but this seemingly insignificant experience on Sunday has liberated me from other men’s spirit of fear, to only worry about getting it wrong. The grace of God is stronger than our imperfections (1 Cor 13 : 9).

Ken wrote:

Last Sunday, visited the Calvery Chapel my eldest currently goes to. In the worship, suddenly and unexpectedly found myself having a word of knowledge

Ken, I have had a number of similar experiences including the word of knowledge. I have found that if one is not obedient to what the Holy Spirit is gifting them with at the moment, He has a myriad of others who will be. The problem is that the “target” may be denied the healing or word needed at the moment it would provide the most encouragement. And the one chosen to provide the encouragement misses an opportunity to see the miraculous, supernatural work of God in action which strengthens their faith.

Next time, hopefully you will step out in faith and pass on the gift to the one it is intended to help. and not worry about making a mistake or looking foolish.

I know because I have worried about mistakes and looking foolish, but after a bit of growth and maturity in the gifts, I’ve come to recognize them when they happen.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Thankfully God’s purposes will be achieved regardless.

Ken wrote:

Not really my scene, but the outright mockery at the end of it from a row of worthies at the front, including MacA, Phil Johnson, Al Mohler, Todd Friel and some others was wholly uncalled for.

What makes them a row of worthies when they act in this manner? How can one ignore this behavior? When you add this behavior to this groups position on women with their strong comp/patriarchal views, how would a non-krazy (for Gram3) charismatic woman who struck up a conversation with these men be viewed? Would she even be allowed to approach them? Have you seen any pictures of these men engaging with their sisters in the Lord?

Can I just say for me, I could not bring myself to be near them because of what I have observed from afar with their mocking words and belittling attitudes. It appears they have no clue of how they sound or that it is mean spirited. Their cluelessness about their actions is also scary. As a non-kra charismatic Christian woman, I do not trust them nor would I want to listen to what they have to say. I wonder how an unbelieving woman would view it all? I wonder if she would be drawn to their Christ-likeness?

Ken wrote:

this seemingly insignificant experience on Sunday has liberated me from other men’s spirit of fear, to only worry about getting it wrong. The grace of God is stronger than our imperfections (1 Cor 13 : 9).

The thing about fear is that it skews our judgment. We overvalue what we fear and avoid. We undervalue what we have foregone by acting on our fear. So the cost/benefit calculation is misleading.

If I’m reading you correctly, you disregarded your fear response to the Krazies, and as a result you were able to benefit by the Lord’s word to you. I think you are exactly right about the fact that it strengthened your faith even though you did not speak it out loud. The MacArthurites have let their fear of the Krazies control how they assess what they are missing by constraining God’s actions.

Bridget wrote:

When you add this behavior to this groups position on women with their strong comp/patriarchal views, how would a non-krazy (for Gram3) charismatic woman who struck up a conversation with these men be viewed?

You would be viewed as a Krazy and Rebellious Usurping Daughter of Eve named Jezebel. 🙂

I think Nick touched on the thing that unites these seemingly disparate issues. Those guys are numbered among the theologically educated ones who are above the others who don’t understand what the Scriptures say. They are accustomed to others looking to them for the Knowledge of the LORD. It is just another form of elitism, IMO. Viewed from another perspective, *if* the Spirit distributes his power to *all* believers in differing ways so as to provide for the needs of the Body, it diminishes the uniqueness and value of being among the Theologically Educated and Enlightened Anointed Ones.

Gram3 wrote:

I have the gift of Irritable Personality Disorder

Don’t believe you … 🙂

Ken wrote:

Gram3 wrote:
I have the gift of Irritable Personality Disorder
Don’t believe you …

You’re being ironic, surely. You just don’t want to allow a woman to preach to men! 🙂

@ Gram3:

Predictably, it all depends on which traditional doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture we’re talking about.

The belief that the canon of scripture is sufficient to fulfil the church’s need for authoritative documentation is useful, because it nips in the bud the endless proliferation of laws and regulations that we would otherwise be encumbered with.

The belief that the canon of scripture is sufficient on its own for the Christian life is the monumental deception. Once the bible has replaced the Holy Spirit, you no longer have a Trinity, and the next two steps are almost inevitable; the Bible first replaces Jesus as the mediator between God and humanity, and then it replaces God. It’s nothing more than gnosticism with a christian veil.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

The belief that the canon of scripture is sufficient on its own for the Christian life is the monumental deception. Once the bible has replaced the Holy Spirit, you no longer have a Trinity, and the next two steps are almost inevitable; the Bible first replaces Jesus as the mediator between God and humanity, and then it replaces God. It’s nothing more than gnosticism with a christian veil.

I’m with you on this one. The idea that Scripture is meant to be a series of bullet points connected by straight line segments into a kind of iron-clad Euclidean proof for this, that, and the other, has been standard procedure in Western Protestantism since the Reformation. And you’re very right, once Messiah gets replaced with a written canon about Messiah it becomes all too easy to choke off the agency of the Holy Ghost in its workings with the human conscience and its moral compass within. It also makes possible a rogues gallery of Rushdoonys, Dabneys, Misslers and Pipers with the power to hold others in thrall with fear and a natural desire to please God.

@ Nick Bulbeck:
I think you’ve summed the issue up clearly and concisely. There is a paragraph in the introduction to the RSV which I think worth quoting in this context:

The Bible is more than a historical document to be preserved. And it is more than a classic of English literature to be cherished and admired. It is a record of God’s dealing with men, of God’s revelation of Himself and His will. It records the life and work of Him in whom the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among men. The Bible carries its full message, not to those who regard it simply as a heritage of the past or praise its literary style, but to those who read it that they may discern and understand God’s Word to men. That Word must not be disguised in phrases that are no longer clear, or hidden under words that have changed or lost their meaning. It must stand forth in language that is direct and plain and meaningful to people today. It is our hope and our earnest prayer that this Revised Standard Version of the Bible may be used by God to speak to men in these momentous times, and to help them to understand and believe and obey his Word.

__

“Pulp Fiction?

hmmm…

Nick , it is evil men and women who twist the scriptures and muscle out or quinch the Holy Spirit to their own destruction, you know that well. (the apostles tell us of this) you also know that the cannon of scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is good for doctrine, for reproof, for training in righteousness, that jesus’ kids can be prepared for every good work, if they are skilled in their use, as God’s words have great power, ask ole slewfoot, he knows to his own frustration.

Satan : “Hath God said?”

Jesus: “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. “Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven…”

do you love Me more than these? …feed My sheep, Jesus said…

ATB

Sopy

—

__

“Be On Guard?”

hmmm…

You simply can not guard yourself against desception if you don’t know the word of God.

(sadface)

Sopy

—

Victorious wrote:

Next time, hopefully you will step out in faith and pass on the gift to the one it is intended to help. and not worry about making a mistake or looking foolish.

Gram3 wrote:

If I’m reading you correctly, you disregarded your fear response to the Krazies, and as a result you were able to benefit by the Lord’s word to you.

Thanks for your replies and encouragement.

The point was, I think, that having moved on from things charismatic because of the excesses, I had gone too far in the other direction and was losing the plot as far as genuine gifts are concerned. I agree with the JMac negative critics on the mania, and even that immature charismatics can follow feelings and hunches. But I had taken this on board so much I had come to doubt the real was possible – though this would be to deny things in my earlier Christian life I have experienced.

Without adding to scripture, it is possible to be prompted by the Spirit, and this relatively minor event showed that. At the time I wondered quite what the point was until the man got up and gave his testimony, and immdiately I knew the point was encouragement to go on believing ‘to one is given in the Spirit …’. I need to stop allowing my thinking being dominated by other men’s unbelief in the form of doubts, insecurities, fears, “theology” or other agendas.

It actually takes a certain amount of guts to have a go, whether prophecy or tongues and interpretation. It’s very easy to say it’s not for today, makes for a more comfortable though somewhat Spirit-lacking church life as far as gifts are concerned.

I now see both the mania and the JMac ‘tongues are demonic’ as being spiritual warfare on the genuine. God giving gifts to ordinary, normal believers to bless each other. Poor JMac’S sermon had quite the opposite effect to the one intended. Such and irrational attack, such twisting of the (to my mind) plain meaning of the text indicates that even if tongues were the least of the gifts, the gift has some value. The attack is surely earthly, soulish, demonic. How ironic!

This whole thing, far from detracting from the bible, serves to enhance its value, I agree wholeheartedly with what sopy has said in this regard.

@ Sopwith:

Er – Sopy, that’s a very interesting string of comments an’ a’ tha’, but as the first one was posted in reply to one of my comment, would you be so good as to help me out here… how does what you posted related to what I posted?

__

@ Sopwith:
@ Nick Bulbeck:

Nick,

hey,

The first comment was in response to yout comMent ‘alone’.

Cheers !

Sopy

—

Gram3 wrote:

It’s hard to stay out of reactionary ditches.

I probably sound as though I am being blown around by every wind of doctrine. It’s not that bad, but I’m also backing off a bit from doctrinaire Calvinism, or at least what passes for it amongst those who identify with the label.

Ken wrote:

I probably sound as though I am being blown around by every wind of doctrine.

Not at all. You are certainly *not* a flake, going by what you write.

There you go. Every word shall be confirmed by two or three witnesses! 🙂

You’re being very kind. None of us has arrived, and as Nancy said we need nudging in the right direction from time to time. I’ve long since been a believer in the renewed Christian mind, the need to think about the faith, and of course change and amend thinking as things get a bit clearer or you see things you hadn’t noticed before.

The penalty for failing to do this, to test everything by scripture, is probably one of the main reasons a site like this has to exist – believers to some extent ‘mindlessly’ following some celebrity pastor or in-teaching, either going along with the crowd or overawed that someone at the front preaching knows Hebrew and Greek and that this of itself makes what they say correct, even if your own understanding of the bible runs counter to it or it just doesn’t feel right. Someone with a huge church surely can’t be wrong, and how easy it is to follow them and not have the courage of your own convictions.

Ken wrote:

You’re being very kind. None of us has arrived, and as Nancy said we need nudging in the right direction from time to time. I’ve long since been a believer in the renewed Christian mind, the need to think about the faith, and of course change and amend thinking as things get a bit clearer or you see things you hadn’t noticed before.

Beautifully transparent and humble words, Ken. I was blessed reading them.

@ William G.:
For some reason I stumbled upon the Pulpit and Pen claim. Now I can understand a protestant critique of churches whose tradition is very ‘religious’ and liturgical, in that it is possible to go through the outward motions without the corresonding internal content, i.e. a kind of nominal faith, placed in the church ritual rather than in God. Of course protestants can do the same thing in their own way. The older churches though do tend to have accumulated accretions over the centuries that are not found in the bible.

That said, I was appalled at the attitude P & P displayed. We are not saved by doctrinal correctness, nor indeed by believing the doctrine of justification by faith. Our faith is in a person, not a doctrine. Is it not true that if someone is told Jesus is the only way to God, and they believe it, then (as was true of Abraham) God will reckon them righteous?

How easy it for us comfortable Westerners to nitpick over the doctrinal foibles of those for whom naming Christ can mean putting your life on the line. Is it not possible for protestants to accept others as believers whilst not accepting the cultural or traditional baggage that comes with them?

This Saturday on 48 hours, they look at the Tyler/Bethany Deaton case. http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/sneak-peek-fall-from-grace/

As ugly as it is, Tyler gets interviewed and from the promos comes off as a classic cult leader/narcissist. No word on if anyone from IHOP will be on there, as they come off as pretty cultic as well (although considering how they horribly botched this incident, I doubt they’d want to say much).

@ David:
I don’t think there’s any question that IHOP is a cult. The whole “Kansas City prophets” thing (beginning in the 80s) hasbeen a mess from start to finish. Mike Bickle and IHOP are part of it, albeit (afaik) a sort of second generation of it.

I don’t know anything about the Rolling Stone web site, but it has a fairly detailed article about Tyler Deaton and his involvement in IHOP.

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/love-and-death-in-the-house-of-prayer-20140121

@ Victorious:
You are unfamiliar with Rolling Stone? It was the 1st serious rock magazine (aan essential read when i was young), and has always published excellent investigative journalism that has nothing to do with music. That article you linked to is very, very good.

@ dee:

I don’t think directly. IHOP is in the whole “NAR” circle that was discussed awhile back, but I don’t think the Tyler Deaton cult got a mention.

Numo posted a good overview, although those inside the Deaton cult (no official name, but just to differentiate it from IHOP itself) have written quite a bit about what all happened. Check out Boze Herrington and The Cosmic Cathedral for considerably more.

The kicker for me is learning that IHOP sent over people to the Deaton cult (after Bethany’s death) for “healing,” but it ended with them screaming in tongues at these grieving people and getting a tainted confession of murder. Abuse 101.

__

Nick,

  It is my understanding that 501(c)3 ‘religious systems’ that devalue the validity or the placement of the holy scriptures limit their usefulness to the body of Christ. 

ATB

Sopy

—

@ David:

I watched that last evening. Tyler came across to me as a person with NPD. Everything was about him and he didn’t seem upset about any of the nightmare he caused. Even in mentioning therapy, it was about him learning to deal with his control issues.

And IHOP simply heaped further abuse on those already abused. It was very sad. I hope her family finds peace.

David wrote:

Update: Here’s the full video from the 48 Hours show. http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/fall-from-grace/

Fair warning, I felt a need to take a shower every time after Tyler talked. IHOP comes off as impotent and naive at best, dangerous at worst. All in all a sad lesson that spiritual abuse comes in different shapes and sizes. My heart really goes out to her family, friends, and everyone in that house.

I had to turn off the TV. I was seriously creeped out, & it was just too heartbreaking to see Bethany’s grieving family….
The Rolling Stone article was very good.

Ken wrote:

There must be an irreducible minimum of ‘gospel’ for it to be in any sense authentic

I don’t know how complicated you want to get in the pursuit of that idea (or its opposite). Perhaps there is a minimum “gospel.” Perhaps, though, people have tried to hard to minimize it and the opposite is true; maybe it is a lot bigger than we are comfortable with.

I am currently reading “How God Became King” “Getting to the Heart of the Gospels” by Tom Wright. He distinguishes between what the early reformers (Tyndale who was influenced by Luther) meant when they used the word “gospel” and says (that Lewis said) that they were referring to the meaning of the message in Pauline theology primarily in Romans 3 and Galatians 1 & 2. They were not referring primarily to the actual contents of the gospels themselves (M, M, L, & J). He says that some people today focus on one or the other meaning of the word “gospel” and end up with an unbalanced viewpoint. Those who focus only on the theology of Jesus as savior (insert appropriate doctrine for the atonement) can miss a significant part of the rest of who Jesus was, what he did, what he taught etc. He notes that the creeds leap straight from “born of the virgin mary” to “suffered under pontius pilate” but there was an entire ministry in between the manger and the cross and that must not be missed. One comment he used that stuck in my mind was that for some people apparently the word “biblical” means “Pauline.”

Disclaimer 1: I have put the paragraph above in my own words as close to what he said as I am able.

Disclaimer 2: None of this is “devotional” reading, but to me is well worth the time and effort. Because, in the final analysis, it is about Jesus, not just about what somebody says concerning Jesus. If there is more to the story I don’t want to miss out on it.

Ken wrote:

It remains true though that whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life, and there is no grey area inbetween.

And who exactly decides who has the Son and who does not?

@Muff, sorry you didn’t write that. My comment was directed towards Ken

Ken wrote:

there is no grey area inbetween.

In other news:

Did a short (< 3 miles, 100m ascent) hill run today for the second time this week and – thus far – no reaction from either my dodgy hamstring or my dodgy achilles. So that's good.

Dave A A wrote:

@ Ken:
Yea and amen! Appalled as well (which was my former moniker here).
One quote: “If the Coptic Church has a different gospel, then faith in that gospel is not a faith which justifies.”
Sooooo….. They appear to believe in faith in some sufficiently correct gospel as justifying faith. Which would mean Jesus is able to save precisely one indvidual– – himself!
Later he writes, “their departure from the Protestant understanding of the Gospel is being minimized.” Too bad these heretcks departed from Protestant understandings back in Roman times!
As Piper says… OH MY!

Indeed so, the Coptic and Syriac Orthodox Church hadn’t had any connection with the Romans since 451. Which was largely Pope Leo’s fault. Not a huge fan of Pope Leo, IMO he basically caused the Chalcedonian schism by writing a Tome which he knew Dioscorus would object to, differing as it did from the terminology used by St. Cyril. There’s never been a Pope named Leo that I liked in fact; Leo X caused the Protestant schism which he could have prevented IMO by taking action on Luther’s valid criticisms. Most of the objectionable parts of the 95 Theses from an Orthodox perspective were phrased “to wit”; had Leo answered a serious charge in a humble manner as the chief servant of the people of the Roman church rather than dismissing it arrogantly I think Luther would have been satisfied with that.

But beyond that, Luther never suggested Catholics were damned. His later writings seem to suggest the burdens born voluntarily by Catholics and Orthodox were unnecessary but in no way dangerous to the laity, with the exception of the Catholic rite of Extreme Unction which Luther regarded as a curse. He may have been right; some of the language used in the Tridentine services for the dying is troubling, but not as much as that in the pre-1928 Anglican Visitation of the Sick.

So we have this novel doctrine that only someone with the correct Gospel can be saved, novel for Protestants at least. But this is a dangerous road for the Pen and Pulpit writers, because on what authority do they claim their interpretation of the Gospel is correct? The Coptic Church has an unbroken line of bishops in succession tracing back to Mark the Evangelist. They are one of four ancient, apostolic churches (the others being the Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, and the Assyrians) that have always existed. What is more, the Coptic Church has been largely frozen in time since the sixth century. If you study the history of their liturgy and so on you’ll find only minor changes after that time, and what you find at that time is consistent with the Euchologion of Serapion and the pre-Chalcedonian Divine Liturgy of St. Cyril, known to the Greeks as the Divine Liturgy of St. Mark, which is one of the oldest Christian liturgies, probably dating from the second or third century. And since the 13th century when the Coptic church switched from Sahidic to Bohairic as its liturgical language and standardized the texts, there really haven’t been any changes in how they worship.

So when you go to a Coptic church, you really are seeing Christianity as it was 1,500 years ago more or less. The same applies more or less to all the Orthodox churches; my studies in liturgy have focused on what changes have occurred over the years and it’s astonishing how little change actually happens. The sweeping revision of the Roman Catholic liturgy in 1969 for example was more or less unprecedented, although the Roman mass had changed more than most. If you go further East you find worship traditions that are almost entirely static. Its shocking how little has changed and how superficial most of the changes are.

Whereas I don’t think many Baptists from the 19th century would recognize the music or worship style at the Pen and Pulpit churches. Lex orandi, lex credendi. Because Pen and Pulpit has no discernible history, their claims of having a corrrect gospel are ludicrous. The notions advocated by some Landmark Baptist historians of a chain of proto Protestant churches existing on the fringe of Christianity and including groups like the Paulicians, Bogomils, Cathars and Waldensians do not add up (the Paulicians managed to last into the 19th century when they engaged in some polemics, mostly lost, against an Armenian bishop; I do not believe they were the victims of a genocide unless it was one of the Turkish ones, but I think as a church they had ceased to function around 1870 or so, probably due to a combination of pressure from the Russians and Muslims and Orthodox evangelism, but I’m pretty sure the Pen and Pulpit guys would regard the Paulicians, who were essentially Marcionites or Gnostics who rejected all but the Gospel of Luke, as heretics). Now this wouldn’t be a problem, except our Lord promised the Gates of Hell would not prevail against the Church.

Thus I have to reject any ecclesiological model which essentially relies on the idea of a Great Apostasy. Especially if it goes so far as to say not being a Calvinist Baptist means being damned, and thus deprecating the martyrdom of the Copts.

By the way, as I mentioned in another thread, I have heard rumors of unspeakable things being done to Syrian and Iraqi Christian children and Yezidi children by ISIS. So while the noble coronation these martyrs have received is praiseworthy, and I pray for their intercession (the Coptic church already has an icon of them which I intend to add to my icon corner), I fear it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

William G. wrote:

Now I think if we read the Gospel it’s pretty clear that even if they were Unitarians or Mormons, that confession of faith looks like a ticket to Heaven, one paid for in blood. So if there is a minimum Gospel, maybe it’s that.

I think that is correct. The essential core of a confession of faith is Jesus is Lord. I think, though, that the idea that the Copts are not christians was not some great universal uprising against the Copts, since lots of people rose to their defense. It was just some ignorance on the part of some apparently poorly catechized soul who believes that salvation is dependent on adherence to his particular set of denominational beliefs. He did not not get very far with that mess, thank goodness. But I do wish that His Leadership in the White House had called them Christians and not just Egyptian citizens, but that just has to be overlooked as political and not a religious statement.

William G. wrote:

numo wrote:
Dave
Wait a second, IHOP is a cult? I love their cheese blitzes and Swedish pancakes…where do I sign up? I can’t wait to begin performing sacrifices for the Pancake Gods. :-
Oh wait, it’s something else. Dagmabbit. I would have professed monastic vows for the International House of Pancakes.

Sadly, I’ve suggested before that both IHOPs should be required to have a sign on the outside warning people of the nuts inside.

Micah Moore has written about his experience of being shouted at and taunted by the top dogs @ IHOP with people screaming and threatening him — experiences that caused him to confess to a murder he didn’t commit. You know when someone is sexually assaulted and church leaders call the victims adulterers? Yup, that and a whole lot more:

https://airborneanchored.wordpress.com/2015/02/26/a-false-confession-in-context/

This stuff makes my blood boil. God help these young people who went through this, and God may mercy on IHOP for taking advantage of and adding to their horror.

In further other news, the New Horizons space probe is now within 100 megamiles of Pluto.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

within 100 megamiles of Pluto.

What is a mega mile?

Mara wrote:

What is a mega mile?

In Nick’s absence perhaps I can help. As a prefix mega means 1,000,000 thus the space craft is less than 100 million miles from Pluto. There is a web site for the mission: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/#.VPN4oXW98Xc The present distance is 1.07 AU (Astronomical Units, the distance from Earth to the Sun).

@ Mara:
@ oldJohnJ:

Quite so: a million miles. Like a megaton is a million tons, a megabuck is a lot of money and a megabyte is (actually… that’s not a good example).

I’m trying to embed the prefixes “kilo-” and “mega-” in other areas of everyday speech where I feel they would be convenient. For instance, the small town in which I live has a population of about 5000, or 5 kilopeople. Whereas the city of Glasgow is home to ¾ of a megaperson.

For the benefit of Muff, New Horizons is around 160 gigametres from Pluto. By extension, the nearest star other than the sun is around 40 petametres away. And so on.

Lydia wrote:

A “woman” pastored church is taking over Mars Hill property! It is poetic.

Jesus did mention something about the kingdom being taken away from one group and given to another that would produce its fruit.

Lydia wrote:

It is poetic.

Poetic justice at its finest.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

petametres

Yes, well, there you are then. Now about that ‘re” instead of ‘er’ spelling. How do you all pronounce it? Like ‘er’ in ‘her’ or does it sound like something a frenchman with a sinus condition got hold of?

Nancy wrote:

what exactly what

It’s late, what can you expect, okay?

@ Nick Bulbeck:
he he

There were some orcas causing a stir in my part of the world recently http://africageographic.com/blog/pictures-of-the-killer-whales-in-cape-town/

Enjoy the pics.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

Obviously, a killer whale is a thousand whales.

The amount of tonnage this represents is ascertained at a whale weigh station.

Ken wrote:

whale weigh station.

Okay, I got it. I just don’t know what to do with it.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

About 4 ½ hours

Okay, so now how long will it take for light from the New Horizons space probe to reach Pluto?
Not trying to be difficult. Just actually trying to get my head around how close the New Horizon space probe is to Pluto in relation to the Sun, the Earth, and the greater solar system.

Mara wrote:

Not feeling much like touching this topic with a 39 1/2 foot pole.

I don’t blame you for not wanting to! Still, I try to live in both the STEM and Christian camps and am often baffled by the Christian camp’s approach to science and technology. Maybe someone will offer an insightful comment.

BTW Nick will say about 8 minutes for the time for light to travel from Pluto to the New Horizon’s spacecraft.

Ha, this page is like being in the back row with the smart kids….

oldJohnJ wrote:

Maybe someone will offer an insightful comment.

Here’s one:

The man that chases two rabbits catches neither.

Nancy wrote:

And maybe the calvinists will jump all over it if that happens and declare the STEM people to be the scientifically proven spiritual zombie unchosen–worst case scenario.

I doubt it. Though they would love the idea, it would involve giving way too much authority to non-“theological” sources. “Sola Scriptura!!”

Nancy wrote:

But I doubt that the reason for the misunderstanding is just plain cussedness alone.

It’s definitely more than cussedness. I can’t declare the that law of gravity does not apply to me and walk off a high cliff. Well I could, but the feedback will be immediate, not deferred to some distant future meeting with the Almighty. It seems to me that theological claims going against God’s spiritual laws don’t have the same immediate consequences as violating physical laws.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

The man that chases two rabbits catches neither.

Unless they are in the precambian.

Gram3 wrote:

I will offer an opinion about why Americans refuse to change to the metric system. We’re lazy and inertia is powerful.

Probably. But we did adopt metric, we just did not drop the english system. We buy milk by the quart but coke by the liter. We walk in miles but we run in kilometers. At least we did drop the apothecary system for meds, at least officially I think, but I kind of hate that because some of the symbols were actually cute and decorative and oh so traditional. And we all signed on to the international anatomical naming system and also dropped a lot of people’s names from various diseases and such. So we do change, just slowly and painfully.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

Actually, I just picked that phrase (a Chinese proverb) at random – I wasn’t trying to apply it to anything!

Nick, you seem to do better with random comments than I do after much consideration. Perhaps the moral of this is that we interpret what we want, not what is actually being said, especially with the Bible.

Ken wrote:

coming home …

Again, surely I did not hear what I thought I might have heard. Surely you were not referring to the UK, which of course was England in 1776. Surely not. That was never home to masses and hoards of americans. For example, in the school where my daughter teaches (and this state was one of the 13 original english colonies) the student population is about one third african-american. Their ancestors did not immigrate from england. That school is also about one third latino, mostly but not exclusively from mexico. Nothing remotely english there. Then there are the approximate one third ‘white’ students whose ancestors, like mine, came from all over and intermarried long generations ago and mostly in this group nobody cares or even knows any more where they all came from. And we have asians of various sorts and native americans. It took the mormons and their emphasis on genealogy to even get a lot of people interested enough to ask the question with any real interest.

You have just been insulting, actually. My ancestors were english, german, irish and french with the most recent immigrants being the french in the first decade of the nineteenth century. Why would I choose to identify with one over the other? They were both protestant and catholic. Why would I despise either religious tradition? Home is here, and proud of it. “God bless the US of A.”

Ken wrote:

I think you missed that, there was no intention to be insulting.

Good to hear that, and yes I certainly missed it. I mostly don’t get british humor at all. There have been a couple of t v series that one of my kids has liked enormously, but I don’t get it enough to watch the programs. One of them I think is called ‘keeping up appearances.” That is nothing against british humor, I don’t think, because I fail to get it with a lot of humor. Brain glitch I think. Mixed with the fact that I can’t sit still long enough to actually watch TV. So I work puzzles (mostly sudoku or else what they call logic puzzles) while sitting there to keep focused, and that really makes one miss a lot of what is going on with the program. My grandmother used to crochet doilies and hand sew quilt pieces for the same purpose, but who does that any more. My oldest grandchild does origami while watching stuff on some e-device. She is now making origami moravian stars for sale at the christmas bazaar at the school. Some of us have to have something like that, and we miss a lot of what goes on in the process.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

the AU is the average distance from the earth to the sun, or about 93 megamiles. It is a convenient unit of approximate distance when describing the Solar System or, for that matter, other stellar systems as they are discovered.

This is good info to have. It is a natural human instinct to measure by what we know. It doesn’t matter how big the universe gets to us, it is still helpful to have “landmarks” and points of reference. It helps our finite brains reach deeper into the infinite though we know we will never reach bottom.

oldJohnJ wrote:

am often baffled by the Christian camp’s approach to science and technology.

I am baffled and usually disheartened.
That attitude (plus doctrine concerning women) drove my son away from Christianity and toward atheism. He has mellowed a bit since then and now settles more into the agnostic camp.

Sorry – must’ve hit “Post Comment” too soon there.

@ Nancy:

I love keeping up appearances. And so did my in-laws, full-blooded German Americans. But then again, they were all about Monty Python too.

Further to the topic of England and Germany at fitba’, it’s worth noting that matches against England aren’t that important in Germany. They’re much more bothered about beating Holland, whom they see as their natural fitba’ enemies.

It’s a bit like England/Scotland games. In England, a win’s a win; whereas north of the border, a win is a national holiday.

Probably my favourite ever fitba’ “chant of the week” came from a Scotland / Wales match during the Euro 2012 qualifiers. The Scots fans were singing at the Welsh thus:

We hate the English
We hate the English
We hate the English more than youuuuuu….
We hate the English more than you!

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

To be fair, the last time England beat Germany in the knockout stages of a major tournament, we built Stonehenge to celebrate.

Now look here, my good man, that’s just not cricket don’t you know what …

And to let Nancy in on an open secret, the way the British in their several nations play football (and many other sports beside), you have to have good sense of humour or you wouldn’t cope.

It’s not about winning, it’s about the honour of taking part.

PPPPTTTHHHTHZZZHHTTTZZZTTT !!

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

To be fair, the last time England beat Germany in the knockout stages of a major tournament, we built Stonehenge to celebrate.

LOL

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

t the butter-based pastry disaster

Ain’t no such thing unless you left out the sugar. OTOH, I did have a disaster one time while making a butter cake. I was making a large tiered cake, the lowest tier being 16 INCHES in diameter. So when multiplying the recipe’s requirement of TEASPOONS of baking powder I inadvertently used the appropriate number only I used TABLESPOONS of baking powder instead of TEASPOONS, having forgotten to divide by 3. It was a truly spectacular butter cake volcano which erupted in my oven!

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

should have used lard (or whatever it’s called over there) instead of butter for the pastry.

Ah, yes, because butter has a substantial amount of liquid which messes with the chemistry. The fat must coat the flour to protect it from the liquid or else Paste. It is called lard here, too, and my grandmother used to keep a lard can at the back of her stove so that it was readily accessible.

That sounds delicious, depending on the vegetables.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

should have used lard

Lard is a wonderful but much maligned product. Back in the day (depression and WW II) poor kids used to take lard sandwiches to school for lunch. We have come a long way with the free and reduced school lunch program. Somebody needs to have a talk with Michelle about it, though, because she doesn’t ‘get it’ about what all kinds of things people deal with. If some kid just gets breakfast and lunch at school and mostly goes hungry at home, he needs a pile of calories at school. How is that hard to understand?

Nancy wrote:

That was the first flour project. For now the flour is sitting in a huge jar on my kitchen counter as a daily reminder of the frailty of humanity and the certainty of judgment to come. It is lent after all.

Alternatively, you could use up the whole lot of it by making original Toll House cookies. There is no way to mess up that recipe except by not using twice as many chocolate chips. Gussy it up with pecans or walnuts. Substitute M&Ms or chopped Snickers or Heath bars. Make up the dough and stick it in the freezer until after Lent. Naturally that wouldn’t work at our house.

I give up cauliflower and shrimp for Lent every year. Gramp3 tells me that won’t do. So then I try the “I’ll submit all my shrimp and cauliflower to you because you like it, and I’ll take that cheesecake off your plate, too, because I know you want to serve me” schtick. Works like a charm.

Muff Potter wrote:

@ Nick Bulbeck:
My Grandma made the best pies on the planet (a purely opinionated statement of course). Her blueberry and rhubarb pies were divinely inspired (another biased statement). She always said that the best pie crust requires lard.

My grandma too! Lard was the only fat that touched her crusts.

Mara wrote:

When asked why he never introduced anything German he was reported as saying that there was no good German praise and worship music.

Well there certainly has been a tradition of good German hymns, but no so much output when it comes to more modern songs. But that doesn’t mean there are no good ones to choose from.

The more traditional Lutheran outfits seem to stick with traditional or German songs. The free evangelical sector on the other hand uses English language stuff a lot, either in translation or very often sung in English. This used to annoy me, as I felt it was unfair to those whose grasp of English is insufficient to really understand, and goes against the tongues and interpretation doctrine in 1 Cor 12 – 14.

The Willow Creek church we don’t attend was fairly heavily into this, but they were aiming at a younger demographic who would more likely cope with English. They weren’t bothered presumably about older people.

Without reading too much into this, this may in part be due to the historical legacy of the 20th Century. Germans have been keen Europeans, because they can partly bury their identity as Germans, of which there is residual shame. English is used a lot outside churches, you can almost do a double-take sometimes and foget where you are. Most of the output on the radio in the mornings is English-language pop, and when you do hear the occasional German song, you realise why. 🙂

The other reason English is used such a lot might simply be Germans like the sound of it! The Anglo-Saxons do tend to be more creative and have more talent to choose from.

@ Nick Bulbeck:
Please repeat …

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

I couldn’t make an emergency orange punge

I can’t find this on google. What is it?

Ken wrote:

wonder if an American reluctance to go fully metric is due to a desire not to finally close the door to coming home …

I was part of a workforce development panel years ago when this issue came up in light of education and business needs. It really seemed to boil down to the problem that school curricula from K-12 is, for the most part, federal/state mandated and changing anything is a very slow painful process. All the experts up the chain have to sign off because the locals never know best for their own communities..

We did introduce it in my daughter’s elementary school in K-5 where they have a tad bit more flexibility. We also introduced Spanish in Kindergarten.

Nancy wrote:

was over with.

I know, I know.

Muff Potter wrote:

the perch are no longer safe to eat

One professor I had in college told us that the Ohio River used to have I forget how many edible fish but pollution had destroyed the native fish population and all there was left that was remotely edible would be channel catfish. That bit of information is 50 years old, so there may be nothing left edible in the Ohio.

.lufpleh si siht epoh I

.egnahc a rof esrever ni tnemmoc d’I thguohT

Oh – is it cold over there?

@ Nick Bulbeck:

Since you know a bit about everything and you are English and the English are big on camellias, do you or your lovely bride have a fail-safe method for rooting them? I’m nursing one survivor from a cutting cohort of about 2 dozen, and this is my second go-round. Standard azalea practice is not working. Exotic methods are out of the question. This is important because there is a family heirloom camellia I am trying to preserve and pass on.

@ Gram3:
or Bletchley. Never know when to add the e or the u.

?enog saw I elihw deneppah kceh eht tahW

Tacit – I hate gas, aroma of evil, a nut, sleep, no lemon radar, no melon peels, tuna, live foam or a sage Tahiti cat.

@ Gram3:

It’s “Bletchley”; of course, the team at Bletchley Park were actually tasked with breaking encryptions. Though, strictly speaking, spelling doesn’t constitute encryption.

I’m afraid I cannae help ye wi’ yer camellia problem, but the Royal Horticultural Society are the authority on all things green over here, and their web-page on camellias might help:

http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=327

@ Nick Bulbeck:

Thanks for that link. And the spelling lesson. One of my grandsons once thought writing something backward was pretty amazing, and of course we pretended not to be able to read it. Then he discovered elementary cryptography and is also a puzzle and chess fiend and a trivia machine. It is humiliating.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

Tacit – I hate gas, aroma of evil, a nut, sleep, no lemon radar, no melon peels, tuna, live foam or a sage Tahiti cat.

Your safe with this one. I’m not up to long palindromes.

@ Nancy:
That is good PA Dutch syntax! 🙂

@ numo:
Snopes, that is. My tablet’s keyboard is acting very odd lately. It copies when i don’t hit the Delete key just so.

@ Nick Bulbeck:

Thanks for that link. I picked up some good info from the RHS and from other pages the RHS linked. There are some different methods and timing I’ll try later this spring, but the heirloom camellia trees are about 9 hours away, so timing is not always perfect for taking the cuttings. Anyway, several people will be very happy if I am successful, so thanks.

@ oldJohnJ:

The “tacit, I hate gas…” palindrome is not original to me, of course. It was composed a long time ago by, I believe, Lawrence Levine. He gradually enlarged it… anyway, I’m being summoned outside to mow the lawn (by Lesley, I hasten to add – I’m not hearing voices from dryads just yet) so I will return to this topic later today. It has, I think, a certain curiosity factor…

Nancy wrote:

I can’t see anything in the culture that would precipitate such a sea change in religious thinking. Key word: ‘religious’ thinking. Now, today, I see the politics of it currently, but is that they whole explanation? What am I missing here?

If you don’t mind me jumping in, and in a few words, I think some of what happened religiously in the 70s and early 80s was reactionary to women’s rights movements and sexual freedom movements of the 60s. CBMW states that feminism is a threat (to some anyway) in the Danver’s Statement. In my opinion reactionary is not always helpful. Add the Charismatic movement to the mix at the same time and you have a lot going on.

Bridget wrote:

If you don’t mind me jumping in, and in a few words, I think some of what happened religiously in the 70s and early 80s was reactionary to women’s rights movements and sexual freedom movements of the 60s. CBMW states that feminism is a threat (to some anyway) in the Danver’s Statement. In my opinion reactionary is not always helpful. Add the Charismatic movement to the mix at the same time and you have a lot going on.

You also have to wonder how WW2 played a part in all this. The world changed not just concerning women doing male oriented jobs and quite well. Then they were expected to go home and have kids. Betty Friedan seems a sort of culmination of it all with her book, The Feminine Mystique. I think that book put Tim LaHaye over the edge of sanity. (We tend to forget what a huge influence the LaHaye’s were in Christendom back in the 70’s-80’s. He graduated from Bob Jones, btw)

Just some random thoughts out of the blue….

Nancy wrote:

You responded to a comment by Daisy “I did not hear, read or see messages of empowerment from Christians during my youth or yung adulthood.”

Going back to this….what would a message of empowerment look like prior to the 1970’s or 80’s for women? I am not even sure I understand where that comes from.

Nancy wrote:

I thought that empowerment was supposed to come from somewhere deep inside the individual. If that is the case, then it does not take a lot for somebody to feel empowered.

I loved your entire comment!!!I could totally relate to your comment as far as how I viewed things working out for my mom, aunts and others who were born in the 1920’s or so.

In fact, I think we can sum it up with: Expectatations. The expectations were different for kids. There was not this idea of whether “they” (whatever group) would “let you” achieve. Or, that some entity was holding them back on purpose or putting up barriers. It was a different way of thinking: achievement first comes from within. Proper self esteen comes from seeking to achieve something.

The expectations in so many of our public schools is a HUGE problem. Frankly the focus seems to be on why students cannot achieve. They go every day hearing about the barriers and discussing the accomodations to them for those barriers. I think we have “overcorrected” a lot of wrongs.

Lydia wrote:

My conclusion is we have failed to teach people how to think and do for themselves.

It is much more profitable for Leaders to tell people what to think and do. That applies generally. You must concentrate power to have control over distributed resources and to prevent others from gaining any control over those resources. That is how the trade union movement was corrupted. And government in general. It is all about competition for scarce resources, or economics.

@ Gram3:

Oh yes.

http://subversiveinfluence.com/2015/02/tony-jones-the-new-emergent-manifesto-part-iv/

GREAT article

Lydia wrote:

The expectations in so many of our public schools is a HUGE problem. Frankly the focus seems to be on why students cannot achieve. They go every day hearing about the barriers and discussing the accomodations to them for those barriers. I think we have “overcorrected” a lot of wrongs.

There is this also. We have globalized and sent the manufacturing oversees. And contracted with oversees for work that can be done on line or on the phone. What then do average students do? So here in my state the legislature has declared that everybody will have to meet college entrance requirements as to which classes to take, and if they do not they will not get a high school diploma. Now, yes, there are some accommodations made and some vocational training, but high school is now college prep like it or not.

Some (right many) kids cannot do it. For example: two years of algebra, one of geometry and one year of ‘higher math”-something beyond algebra 2. Or else. Hey, the bell curve is the bell curve for a reason. Average means average. There is no way to have a system where everybody is above average. We have set it up so a large number fail to achieve through no fault of their own. Why? Because the jobs which they could do and through which they could build a good life for themselves have been sent to unpronounceable places on the planet because some people can make a lot of money doing that. Society has much less use for these people than before. We have done this thing. (Information courtesy of the resident educator at my house. They pull their hair out about this at the school constantly.)

@ Bridget:

Absolutely. But if the issues are more complicated that just the uppity women then it is not fair to blame the women for societal disintegration (as they see it) like some seem to try to do.

@ Nancy:
Singing my song. There is a secondary educator in our family as well who has spent significant nearly a decade trying to make a difference in Title I schools. The biggest barriers are the parents and the administrators. The parents are a total mess and think it is the job of “the government” to take care of things. There is no sense of responsibility. But there are a few students and parents who lack resources to move to a better district or afford private schooling. Their kids are stuck in a chaotic environment where learning cannot occur. Yet more mandates come down from state and federal education departments resulting in more administrators and fewer counselors. The Educational Industrial Complex is a big thing.

Remember the days when textbooks were issued to students and then they were assessed if the textbook was returned in poor condition? Haha. Those days are gone. Our family educator is dressed down for not providing pens to the students on demand, at said educator’s own expense. No, really. Teacher work day is 6:45 am to 4:30 pm. Not like the old days at all.

@ Gram3:

Absolutely. It impacted so many lives. I got out of the psych residency and into radiology when they drafted my husband during Nam–lost my night time child care and had no options, though it was not my first choice. I doubt there were many who escaped unscathed due to that war. And the drugs impact associated with it all. And the awfulness of what happened to so many young men who had been just trying to ease on into adult life before they had their options taken away from them. It was awful for them. Tore the nation apart in so many ways.

But here again, the women did not do this. And baking cookies instead of teaching school would have been no answer to military conflict. Not that anybody said it was, I am just so p. o. at the CBMW people and what they are doing.

@ Gram3:

I don’t know where you are gram, but you are describing part of our local scene here. I suspect this is true from sea to shining sea.

Nancy wrote:

Not that anybody said it was, I am just so p. o. at the CBMW people and what they are doing.

Me, too.

@ Nancy:
I think your experience (seemingly no discrimination) is *very* unusual, to say the leadt. I ran into it a LOT when i was in college, during the 70d, and, having much older siblings, well remember how many people got married as soon as they graduated from either HS or college – and how that was literally expected of pretty much all young women.

I think, somehow, that you must have bern able, somehow, to let common prejudices and expectations slide right past you, which is great, and probably necessary, given your work in medicine. Maybe people felt unable to patronize you? Because it just serms very strange, to my mind (given the attitudes that I and others of my generation encountered on a painfully regular basis) that said attitudes did not exist when you were young. ISTM that your family’s attitude, as passed on to you, must have given you much in the way of being able to not focus on the negative attitudes and actions toward women in yhe sviences and in the workplace. Would that that had bern the case for me, and for msny of my perrs!

@ Nancy:
The Equal Rights Amendment (wwhich was never passed) created a *tremendous* backlash. I ran into what i can now clearly identify as Gothardism plus similar strains of thought almost immediately upon getting into the evangelical/ccharismatic world in the early 70s. Although nobody ever mentioned Gothard’s name. His ideas, and others like them, were presented as commands from God. Period.

Also, i think that the tremendous social changes of the 60s and 70s provoked a bitter-tasting, very angry backlash in many circles (not restricted to white evangelicals by any means).

numo wrote:

ISTM that your family’s attitude, as passed on to you, must have given you much in the way of being able to not focus on the negative attitudes and actions toward women in yhe sviences and in the workplace.

That was my experience. But I come from a long line of uppity women who also managed to be good wives and mothers. Women who left the familiar to explore new horizons, immigrant women, pioneer women, women who raised large families when their husbands were disabled, female overcomers of all kinds.

@ Gram3:
While i don’t come from pioneer stock, my family never really made any distinctions between my brothers and myself, as far as education, etc. Nor in *ever* telling me thst i couldn’t do something because i was a girl. I am vety, very grateful for that, but struggled constantly against the vety different kinds of expectations thst were common at the time – like the advice columns that insisted that women literally should throw games (tennis, Monopoly, whatever) so that their husbands/bfs could win, indeed that it was our duty to do that. And constant remarks about “women drivers” and the like. The young women i knew who went into the sciences and other male-dominated fields had a hard time, no question. Since my academic specializations were in the visual arts, i had a somewhat different exxperience, but even so, there were some macho jerks who drove people crazy. One was a faculty member who used to start fistfights with other faculty members. On occasion, he and the guys he was fighting with had to be pried apart by students. Yes, he should have been fired, but he had tenure by then. He used to paint still lifes of beer cans. Still other faculty members were always after students (sexually). And there was always the worry of bring hit on by people who had power and could make or break one’s grade, even one’s academic career.

Gram3 wrote:

But I come from a long line of uppity women

Ha Ha. Me too. Although I think they would have termed it “can do” women. They just did not know they “had a place” to stay in. They just did what had to be done.

Gram3 wrote:

How so in England?

Several people in Birmingham rejoiced at the birth of a baby girl.

@ numo:
Insurmountable.

@ Lydia:
Definitely think that school choice of various kinds would be helpful. But I see the dysfunction in schools as being an instance of thinking that more regulation produces better results, and that is simply not the case universally. The economy is seized up by regulations which go far beyond what is optimal and which originate, IMO, from regulatory capture by various interests. If I cited some cases, I know some here might not believe that is what is behind some of the moral panic issues of today. I would not think about starting a business in today’s environment. For many reasons.

Better stop there…

Lydia wrote:

On the other hand, most parents in those schools do not care but are always the first to threaten to call the governors office if their kid gets suspended. And guess what? The school board is scared of that!

Some parents are a problem, and the threat of lawsuits is ever present. But what we have in the small town down the road where my people are involved in three different schools does not fit that pattern. In the past few years since 2008 one elementary school has had increasing percentage of children on free and reduced lunch and is now a Title 1 school, but the issue is the employment problem for the parents. They are mostly good and hard working people who lost a decent job and took what they could find and it is not enough. And there is no indication that things will get better. The other schools are not there yet but are sliding in that direction. So I don’t know that saying that ‘most’ of the parents are problem parents is exactly correct. It probably depends on the location and the population, but in this economy a lot of people are hurting-badly.

@ numo:
these folks were hardline comp for *ages* before the term was invented.

@ numo:

That makes sense.

Gram3 wrote:

I would not think about starting a business in today’s environment.

You don’t have to tell me about it. I know first hand. Losing that pioneer spirit of small “legal” start ups is horrible. It becomes the government’s responsibility to provide you with a job. That was never the intention of our Founding, was it?

@ Nancy:
Gramp3 and I have started two businesses and helped some others start theirs. I think it depends on whether or not you have employees. If it remains a family business which markets products that are not high-liability, then you will be subject to less regulatory risk and liability risk. Compliance costs are very steep now if you have employees.

I am not an accountant, but my understanding is that the IRS is primarily concerned with people claiming that their hobby is actually a business and hobby expenses are treated as business expenses. The IRS is going to want a cut of any net profit of any enterprise if they can. They do *not* want people claiming business losses when the *business* is actually a hobby. Gentleman farmers are notorious for this.

I have lots of *business* hobbies I would love to write off. 🙂

Nancy wrote:

@ Lydia:
Now you all are getting me seriously worried. What is the problem with having a small business like I discussed? If you all know something that I need to know now is the time to tell me.

Sorry, I didn’t intend to frighten you. What your grandchild is thinking about is good life experience in many ways. I did know a woman who was quite involved in craft fairs, and she did very well, but she did not have employees and sold clothing items which are low-liability.

Nancy wrote:

@ Lydia:

Now you all are getting me seriously worried. What is the problem with having a small business like I discussed? If you all know something that I need to know now is the time to tell me.

I am not talking about being self employed. That is easy where you just file SE form with taxes. Ebay and some of those deals with pay pal do most of the bookkeeping work for you!

Now when you are talking employees, infrastructure, etc, etc, the regulations and paperwork just about do folks in anymore. Remember, the government defines a small business as any business with less than 500 employees. :o)

It is a lot harder for the little guy to hire people, invest in any infrastructure and make a profit anymore. They are not valued in our society.

@ Gram3:
Yeah, i get that – was just thinking that the example in question is more of an Etsy-type thing (items handmade by one person), though some Etsy sellers do work together to produce handmade items.

Nancy wrote:

…but the issue is the employment problem for the parents. They are mostly good and hard working people who lost a decent job and took what they could find and it is not enough. And there is no indication that things will get better.

It is not possible to have a vibrant and progressive Democracy without a thriving Manufacturing Sector. Ours has been looted, gutted, and shipped offshore to low wage Nations by financial Oligarchs who are allowed free rein to do as they damn well please in the name of free-market Capitalism and investor confidence.

@ David:
Honestly, I suspect that’s just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of weird/abusive/cultlike behavior. I read another site where an IHOP survivor (there are a *lot* of them out there) sometimes posts, and it’s interesting to see their take on things. The place has been abusive since long before this horror with B. Deaton, though I am referring more to other, non-sexual kinds of abuse.

Still, that whole “bridal paradigm” thing is just tailor-made for all kinds of abuse to happen. I really, truly am amazed that I somehow escape the reach of this cult, as people I used to know were quite enamored of it, in terms of the “intercessory prayer” that goes on there. (Which doesn’t seem to me to be actual intercession, but has the hallmarks of doomsday cult thinking written all over it.)

Muff Potter wrote:

It is not possible to have a vibrant and progressive Democracy without a thriving Manufacturing Sector. Ours has been looted, gutted, and shipped offshore to low wage Nations by financial Oligarchs who are allowed free rein to do as they damn well please in the name of free-market Capitalism and investor confidence.

Yours too eh? We’re strongly hitched to the mining economy and most of our financial eggs are in one basket. And iron ore has dropped 2/3rds in price. You don’t need to be a futurist to draw some conclusions. I thought Occupy may have forced us to stop and consider the unchecked plutocracies, but no, business as usual and the feral capitalism and unchallenged outsourcing/deregulation policy continues unabated. Good times for some – our politicians have an ‘independent remuneration tribunal’ who recommend hefty pay increases while the rest of us not in the political elite class take a haircut.

@ numo:

Yeah, there is some “Tip of the Iceberg” stuff going on. If you read a lot of the comments on Facebook or Twitter it’s clear people are coming forward with stories that can’t be dismissed as anomalies.

And like other stories in this vein (Driscoll, BJU, Tony Jones), something apparently unrelated is responsible for unleashing a lot of pent-up frustration and some uncomfortable truths. You can actually read family members of IHOP senior leaders (and younger leaders themselves) attempting to put a lid on it, and it’s not working.

I’ve been reading The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse again. History repeats itself.

@lydia
At the risk of getting too political, I want to push back a little on your statement “more and more people are dependant on gov creating a job for them through some gov sponsored program.” When one looks at public (gov) versus private job growth under the current administration, the clear trend is that the private sector is far out performing the public sector in job growth. How is this “close to Fascism here” in the U.S.?

@ David:
It also makes me angry that Mike Bickle et. al. have *always* targeted young people, who don’t have the life experience to be able to see through his facade and the extension of his ego, which is IHOP as a whole. I’ve known about it for many years, but didn’t really get the whole doomsday cult aspect of it until recently. (WORSHIP WORSHIP WORSHIP – complete with much food and sleep deprivation – or Jesus will nevet come back!!! All of the fasting and lost sleep makes people more easily susceptible to manipulation, the music in his “prayer rooms” even more so. There actually have bern stray survivor blogs out there for a good while now.)

@ RollieB:
I’m skeptical. Too many ways to manipulate the data to yield the right result. In *every* administration the “right” result is more private-sector employment because public-sector employment is analogous to overhead. Some level is necessary, but too much will eventually swamp the enterprise. That’s the way economies work.

A safe assumption is that the elites of whatever stripe will look out for the interests of the elites and will recruit supporters by telling the supporters they are looking out for the interests of the supporters. That’s the way politics works.

@ numo:
I wasn’t a cleaning lady, but a lot of th higher-placed staff where I worked saw my job and the jobs of others in the tiny archive where I worked as being, oh, on the level of Kelly Girls. (For those who remember them – basically, temps who don’t know much of anything except typing and filing. Didn’t matter that some of us had more education than the highly-placed people, either.)

I’m loving this economic discussion.

Gram3 wrote:

The point is that increasing the public-sector of the economy is not a solution for a stagnant economy.

It was during the 1930’s Depression. No more Hoover Dams to build?

PS I saw recent images of the Solar Thermal ‘farm’ in the Mohave Desert, incredible (though to be fair to Muff Potter, I did wonder what the ancestors of the earlier inhabitants thought of it).

@ numo:
P.S.: the area around Washington, D.C. has been eaten up with relentless development. I saw that happen and it makes me feel sick. I would hate to see it happen here, and in any number of other places. Yes, all that development created jobs, but it was done in an unthinking manner and far, far too much was lost as a result.

I am not against all development, but ISTM that greed drives 99% of real estate and industrial development, and that said development could be done in far better ways. The thing is, that costs money, and very few developers would be willing to take that risk, now would they?

It all raises so many ethical questions, it’s not funny.

P.S: Smog dulls the view from the Blue Ridge Parkway in VA now. Development ran right up against the national park’s borders, and it is so very sad.

@Gram3 @numo
Here’s a link that explains some of my comments:
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2014/10/public-and-private-sector-payroll-jobs.html
The charts are very interesting.

oh, and… my initial comment was addressing a comment on the U.S. heading toward fascism, which I pushed back on.