Check this Youtube video out: Burning Down The House: What Caused Our Economic Crisis?
It basically summarizes my own readings on the subject. In fairness, it is a bit slanted, some Republicans share blame for the crisis, however the majority of it falls on Democrats, and Barak Obama is in the middle of this. As I’ve said before, if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack were plutonium, Obama would be glowing in the dark now.
There are some people in the Dispensational camp who argue that because the land promises to Israel were never fulfilled, and therefore God is apparently fulfilling it in our time with the present Israel. To be fair, I do not know how common this view is in Dispensationalism, but I did find one case here: “What about the Land Promises to Israel”
If such were the case, what of the Palestinian conflict today?
Joshua 21:43-45 is pretty clear on the subject. 43 So the LORD gave Israel all the land he had solemnly promised to their ancestors, and they conquered it and lived in it. 44 The LORD made them secure, in fulfillment of all he had solemnly promised their ancestors. None of their enemies could resist them. 45 Not one of the LORD’s faithful promises to the family of Israel was left unfulfilled; every one was realized.
Joshua doesn’t just mention in passing that the land promises was fulfilled. He emphasizes it by being redundant, saying that non o fthe promises were left unfulfilled. And if you missed it the first two times he says one more time, “every one was realized.”
There you go. It may be good for the modern Israelites that modern Israel is a nation. However, it doesn’t have the relevance to the ancient Israel that prophesy “teachers”suggest.
Of course, they may respond as the article linked above does, that ancient Israelites never had total control over the land. Several of the peoples they failed to kick out continued to live in the land along side the Israelites. However, this reflects the failure of the Israelites to follow through on their war with these people, not a failure of God to complete his promise. If I promised you a plot of land if you clear the land of moles and other rodents, and you only partially fulfill your conditions (by humane traps and such, I’m sure), and I give you control of the land; you cannot say that I didn’t fulfill my promise simply because moles are running rampant on some small part of it.
(Aside, I recognize the insensitivity in my example. Glenn Miller has a good article on the subject here: How could a God of Love order the massacre/annihilation of the Canaanites?)
John Goodwin, in his classic work Redemption Redeemed, presents us with a thorough examination of the doctrine of Unlimited Atonement, and should be a staple in any Arminian’s library. Redemption Redeemed could potentially have the same sort of impact on Christian thinkers as John Edwards’ Freedom of the Will, and if not, it should (in my humble opinion, Goodwin blows Edwards out of the water). The work is detailed and covers a broad range of Bible passages and relevant subjects. The language bears some of the seventeenth century style and therefore will be difficult for the average
modern reader, but take your time and it will pay off. There is a lot of content, so I’ll note a few examples.
In chapter 2, Goodwin focused on passages which state that God desired to save or propitiated for all men. At the forefront is 1 Timothy 2:1-6, where for example we read that “he wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (verse 4). What is especially handy here is that he not only did he provide a solid interpretation of this passage, he addressed specifically the various arguments of Calvinists that “all men” doesn’t mean “all men.” He demolished the interpretation of “all men” as “some of all sorts of men” thoroughly, an argument which is still frequently used today by Internet Calvinists. An aside, one observation you will walk away with from this book is that there is nothing new in Calvinist arguments, and folks like Goodwin already dealt with and refuted many arguments centuries ago, which are still propagated today.
There are many other relevant passages that Goodwin drew from, including many which I never thought of as supporting Unlimited Atonement until now. Chapter 5 started with the Parable of the Wedding Banquet, Matthew 22:1-10. As you may recall, the parable outlines a situation where a king’s invitation to a banquet gets rejected by his friends. As a result the king instead invites average people off the street. The original invitees were symbolic of the Jews who rejected Christ and the gospel. Goodwin noted from this that as the king intended the banquet for his friends, God intended His grace to be for Jews first. Entailing from this, Christ died for Jewish people who would go on to reject Him. If this is the case then Christ died for people who wouldn’t be saved, and therefore He died for all men. Now initially, it doesn’t seem to logically follow, but think about it for a moment. If Christ died for one person who would ultimately be condemned, why would he not die for all others? Since God is not partial, one has to conclude that either Christ died only for the elect, or for all people. Since Christ died for some who were not elect, we are left with the only alternative, that He died for all people.
Goodwin was careful in his definition of Unlimited Atonement, neither providing a definition agreeable to Calvinists nor sliding down the slippery slope into Universalism. He spent a good portion of Chapter 6 explaining why the Arminian doctrine doesn’t lead to Universalism and then refuted Universalism itself.
Redemption Redeemed is clearly an excellent work. There is much more that I haven’t covered here, but I hope this review has whetted your appetite for a good, solid defense of the Arminian doctrine of Unlimited Atonement.
“But whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him as well.” Matthew 5:39b.
Pacifists will argue that Jesus’ command to turn the other cheek means that in the face of violence, the Christian is called to not resist with further violence. This covers any sort of resistance, whether it’s personal self defense, defense of a weaker third party, or even police and military service.
However, is this how even Jesus interpreted his own words? Apparently not. When Jesus was tried before the High Priest, we read:
(22) When Jesus had said this, one of the high priest’s officers who stood nearby struck him on the face and said, “Is that the way you answer the high priest?” (23) Jesus replied, “If I have said something wrong, confirm what is wrong. But if I spoke correctly, why strike me?” John 18:22-23
Jesus didn’t turn his left cheek towards the officer. He called him to account for what wrong Jesus committed to warrant being struck. Jesus didn’t curl up in a ball, nor did He pray to the Father in hopes that the situation would go away. He resisted by appealing to the injustice of the situation.
Granted, Jesus didn’t meet violence with violence. However, that’s besides the point. The prescription to turn the other cheek has little to do with self defense. It’s about taking the moral high ground when an opponent attempts to denigrate you. By doing so, you end up shaming the opponent. On the other hand, if you can stop a gross injustice, for example a rape, by active resistance, and you instead passively let the violence occur, I would conjecture that Jesus would agree that you are guilty by negligence.
You may have heard a recent speech by Obama where he basically takes a shot at average Joe Americans:
“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Obama later went on to explain himself:
“But what is absolutely true is that people don’t feel like they are being listened to. And so they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families.”
Much has been made about whether his comments have been “elitist” or “demeaning.” I think to an extent they are, but framing it in those terms is at best an argumentum ad hominem. I don’t find the elitist angle so concerning as I find the content of his quotes to be frightening. Middle America, being neither corporations which suck at that teat of government nor littered with single mothers locked in the cycle of welfare, for the most part gets little to no assistance from the government. So, according to Obama we cope by toting guns or relying on the opiate of the masses. Or god forbid, you count on your communities or your family to help.
Obama’s solution to this “problem” is to entangle Middle America into the cycle of dependency on the government the same way welfare cases (whether corporate or families) are dependent on the government. You see, in Obama’s mind, it’s a bad thing for you to rely on friends and family. You should be made to depend on the government. And if you are self-dependent, like the “rich”, we’ll punish you by taxing you for the air you breathe. (Aside, it’s funny how ever election cycle the income rate that defines who’s rich gets lower.)
This is far left thinking, grossly out of touch with what Middle America wants and needs. Most Americans are not socialists. If we could, we would be self reliant and indeed would give more to provide for the needy. It’s good to be able to rely on loved ones in times of need, but no one wants to be another welfare case if they can help it. Obama’s prescription is the wrong solution for America. Most of us know it, it’s too bad the media is getting too much of a stiffy over Obama to see that.
I would love to read through William Bradford’s journal sometime. It’s probably available online, somewhere. For those who don’t know the name, he was one of the leaders of the Pilgrims when they first came to the New World. Allegedly there are several misconceptions today about Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims and Native Americans, and the Mayflower Compact. For instance, some Christians may know that Thanksgiving originally celebrated the grace of God, similar to the tradition of passover. But does the general American populace know that? (Or Canadians for that matter.)
Apparently, one fact about the Pilgrims that is overlooked altogether is that they initially practiced a form of wealth distribution similar to socialism, long before Marx and his ilk. To wit:
Though life improved for the Pilgrims when spring came, they did not really prosper. Why? Once again, the textbooks don’t tell the story, but Bradford’s own journal does. The reason they didn’t succeed initially is because they were practicing an early form of socialism.
The original contract the Pilgrims had with their merchant-sponsors in London called for everything they produced to go into a common store. Each member of the community was entitled to one common share. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belonged to the community. Bradford, as governor, recognized the inherent problem with this collectivist system.
(A Thanksgiving Lesson. Joseph Farah. WorldNetDaily, Nov. 27, 2003)
The community floundered at best. Bradford explains his view on why this social structure failed for the Pilgrims. According to him, the young workers, who were most fit to produce food, shelter, etc., were decidedly unhappy that much of their hard work was going to support other families, with no benefit beyond the common fund for them and their own. With no incentive to work harder, these laborers did the minimum that was expected of them, crippling the society’s ability to really prosper as a whole.
Bradford’s response to this predicament was to divide up the land into plots, assigning them as private property to individual families to work on as they saw fit. The result was remarkable! Bradford described that this made the workers “more industrious.” From the article above:
As a result, the Pilgrims soon found they had more food than they could eat themselves. They set up trading posts and exchanged goods with the Indians. The profits allowed them to pay off their debts to the merchants in London much faster than expected. The success of the Plymouth colony thus attracted more Europeans and set off what we call the “Great Puritan Migration.”
Viva La Capitalism! The mixture of common sense economic practice and Christian ideals allowed the Pilgrims to thrive. Although it’s not stated in the article, based on their commitment to Christianity and it’s teachings on personal philanthropy, I believe they were still able to ensure the well being of the disadvantaged among them. This is one example where free market practices, when employed with Christian virtues, are superior than implementations of “liberation theology” or “Christian socialism.” And this is centuries before socialism as an ideological movement swept across the world.
As they say, those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.
The new Demon Hunter CD, Storm the Gates of Hell, just came out last week. I’ve already procured my copy, and though I am still listening to all the songs for the first time, so far it is freaking awesome. Check it out:
This is simply amazing. Please read this article in full:
Media Myths about the Jena 6
It doesn’t matter if it’s left wing media, or right wing media, the national media outlets have gotten the whole Jena 6 story wrong. The article was written by a local reporter, who has been reporting on the situation from the beginning. He appeals to court documents and testimony.
It’s cases like this that exemplify why you cannot trust the media to report anything credibly.
Some might not think so.
The broad popularity of the movie 300 should be telling. Granted, it was a porn of violence, but other movies are likewise violent but don’t go over well. and that’s despite the often 2nd Grade level lines. There is something about a handful of men, a band of comrads, going off to battle against impossible odds, knowing they will die, that resonates deeply in us.
It’s the need to be part of, to serve, to protect, to fight for, and to die for something more important than yourself. That is masculinity, idealized. It’s what drove ancient men to back breaking work and to face violence from beast and other men, so that their families may be safe. It’s what drove men to storm the beaches of Normandy, running roughshod of machine gun batteries. It’s what drives men (and women) in Iraq, to persevere despite the social-political turmoil there and at home.
Leonidas, the leader of the Spartans in 300, is a type (antetype?) of Christ. This may confuse people, due to the pagan elements of Spartan culture and the violence. But let me explain. Both Leonidas and Jesus faced overwhelming opposition. Both fought for their convictions, considering that not all fighing involves violence. Both willingly and courageously faced brutal suffering and death. and both sacrificed themselves for the ones they loved deeply.
This is why I like to consider Christ, like Lord of lords, the Man of men. He is thouroughly masculine. even where he takes on “feminine” traits, it is as one who puts a masculine spin on them.
Perhaps such things as virtue, honor, and sacrifice are artifacts of a bygone era. But I don’t think so. Even today, couldn’t there be something out there that is greater than ourselves? That we will work for, contend for, even die for? Or are we just metrosexuals, living out our suburban lives in perpetual mediocrity?
To try something new last week, I posted an essay at Faith Writers for a topical challange. It can be read here:
Dealing With Confusion in Christian Thought
If you follow the news, at least cursory, you might have heard that Monster.com’s resume database has been “hacked,”* resulting in the pilfering of personal information of 1.3 million job hunters. *(Technically inaccurate, from what I can tell, but that is how it’s been described.) And this information was used to scam money out of many of the job hunters.
What is amazing about this is the level of sophistication involved by the attackers. Below I post a link to an article that outlines the many layers of exploits that were used. The reason I post is is to show how such an attack can be performed, so that you can learn from it and, hopefully, protect yourself from similar attacks in the future.
I suppose that I should subtitle this post, rather than “Buy” (Linux in many of it’s forms is free), Try Before You Install.
Ever wanted to take the leap? Give up on Windows for a bit, and try out a new operating system? But if you aren’t tech savvy, no doubt you are worried about deleting or messing up something on you computer.
If you ever wanted to give Linux a test drive, you are in luck! These days, the various distributions of Linux have what are called liveCDs. (A distribution, by the way, is just a certain “flavor” of Linux, so to speak.) A liveCD is basically an operating system on a disk. You boot it up, the CD loads, and then you can use it like you were using Windows. Some distributions are designed to have a smooth learning curve from Windows. You click on the “Start” menu, go through the list, click on one of the applications, and you can play with it. And if you wanted to, you can install Linux from the LiveCD (be careful here, you can lose files on your computer if you don’t know what you are doing).
If you are interested, the distribution I suggest is Kubuntu. You can download a LiveCD from here:
Kubuntu 7.04 I386 (total size: 694 MB)
If you are not in the US, find a download site near you:
Kubuntu download sites
When you get the .iso file saved to your disk, open your CD burning software (e.g. Nero), and select and burn the image to the CD. You can’t just drag’n'drop it to the CD, you actually choose to “burn from an image.”
Reboot your computer. You might have to manually select to boot to a CD, and if you don’t know how, check the documentation that came with your computer.
It should boot up, and you’d be all set. For reference, OpenOffice is the Office program (like MS Office) Konqueror is the web browser, and Amarok is the media player.
Not that the news outlets, by and large, want you to think that. Stories about people being blown up seems to be more airplay than signs of peace and posperity. Especially when US troops are involved.
Today I have two items for you to look at, and to form your own conclusions. One is a Youtube video showing the progress of the Iraq military in moving into conflict areas and eventually taking the lead of those areas from coalition forces. It’s based on graphics from the Department of Defense website. Details, and the video, can be found here:
The second item is an opinion piece which is rather positive about where Iraq stands now, contrasted to a year ago. What makes it so remarkable is that it’s in the New York Times, an admittedly liberal newspaper which has historically been against the war. Here ya’ go:
This verifies something I’ve noticed before. Their is far too much information in the world for it all to be presented as “news,” so it is filtered down through the media outlets. This isn’t a bad thing, since you don’t need gobs of information you’ll never use in real life anyways (arguably, most to all news is useless information, but that’s a blog post for another day). The problem occurs because someone has to control the filter. Who decides what information makes the news and what doesn’t? To say that the news is not driven by an agenda, whether it’s Fox News, the New York Times, or everyone in between, is morbidly naive. Someone controls the filter, probably with a vested interest in maintaining power over what the average person sees, and most certainly driven by an agenda. Hence, even news reports that seem objective can be slanted, because someone picked that news story over another one, where the forgone option may not have fit the template.
This is why, despite all objective metrics suggesting progress in Iraq, most people believe it’s a quagmire and there is no hope of resolution. The only Iraq we see in the news is a wasteland littered with IEDs, which is surely only one sliver of the reality. Even recently, with many stories about the efficacy of the Surge, the media has had to go out of its way to find something pessimistic to pepper the reports with.
So chin up. It’s not over yet for the Iraqis.
There is an alledged quote by Irving Crystal that I found to be poingant. I haven’t been able to track down the text it originates from, so I don’t have it verbatum. Crystal said that when a man claims to love his wife, but spends his time criticising her, it is hard to believe he truly loves her.
It is often said that liberals hate America. I wouldn’t say all liberals do, but some certainly hate the US. And when this charge is made, the response is usually that it’s not hate, it’s just that there are certain policies they dislike.
However, applying Crystal’s analogy to the rhetoric often seen from liberals, it’s hard to say that that is the case. When you misrepresent facts for the purpose of driving a criticism of America, it’s hard to say you don’t hate us. When you continually criticize our society on every level, from the family to international policy, it’s hard to say you don’t hate the US. When you set aside the law of noncontradiction for the sake of attacking America, like for instance criticizing government incompetence while simultaneously advocating more government intervention in the market and our every day lives, it’s hard to say you don’t hate the US.
The fact of the matter is, there truly are liberals out there who are so pessimistic, so spiteful, so inflammatory about America that it is not vane rhetoric to say they are hateful, it is just a matter of fact.
What is social justice? By asking this, I am not seeking a technical definition. I am well aware of what is meant by the term. Rather, what are the biases that this phrase is impregnated with, when it comes up in discourse?
Typically, when we think of “social justice,” we think of AIDS in Africa, or homelessness, or images of starving kids on a late night TV commercial. These things prick our hearts, and give us a desire to remedy the social ills behind them. And that is a good thing! I am a firm believer in personal philanthropy, as well as a social safety net in the form of essential, government welfare. Regular readers will recall I posted saying such not too long ago.
That said, what does “social justice” mean? That is to say, why use that term rather than “philanthropy,” which is my prefered term for charity and volunteer work? Is it not enough that I give of my wallet or even my sweat? From the etymology itself, I suspect not.
The problem is, for there to be a “social justice” in the act of giving, there must first be a social injustice that requires a cure. The term goes beyond describing the act of charity, it presumes some sort of inequality, which is somehow evil. This is how it works: if man A earns $50,000 a year, while man B earns only $10,000, then somehow A is inequal to B because A is exploiting or oppressing B. The “haves” have and the “have nots” don’t because of some sort of illicit activity on the part of A at the expense of B. If this is not the case, then why call the remedy of B’s poverty “social justice,” rather than just plain old philanthropy? As a corrollary, “social justice” demands that A repay B so they can be equal.
But how, exactly, one is exploiting the other is not explained. Could it be that one is creative, works hard, and prospers through honest gain, while the other does not? Is it possible that there is no real injustice here, that some find themselves in an unfortunate position, sometimes through no fault of their own? To say it seems likely would be gross and radical understatement!
Really, what belies the term is socialism. It is the pie in the sky sentiment that because you have gum and the rest of the class does not, therefore you must share with the rest of the class. They suppose the rich exploit the poor because of greed, and so we should rob the rich and give to the poor.
The Christian does well to recognize the folly of socialism, and to shun it at all costs. Hence, Christians should avoid using prases like “social justice,” when we speak of free will acts of philantropy, lest we be misunderstood. I’ve already made the case that Christian acts of charity must always be voluntary (Socialism and Christianity).
Today I want to highlight a tool that was posted in a comment last week. I originally talked about Hashpass, but after trying out PassPack, I decided to recommend that instead. I’ll explain why, but first I go through the shpeal again.
These days, we have to be very security-minded with our Internet habits. Since many viruses and malevolent hackers are intent on grabbing at your private information, it is no longer safe to muddle around the ‘Net as if nothing was wrong. It was never safe really, but aside, many people are mindful of the need for antivirus, antispyware, and firewall applications.
But, how safe are you with passwords? When you access a site that requires a login, like say TheologyWeb (link), what do you use as a password? Your pet’s name? And even if it’s not a name or otherwise something easy to guess, do you use the same password for every site you browse?
Neither are good ideas. Weak passwords are susceptible to brute force attacks (link), and if you use the same password for every site, and an attacker somehow gets your password, he can have access to every site you use that password on.
To solve this problem, you can use random passwords containing lowercase and capitol letters and numbers; a unique password for each site. But good luck remembering any of them. Fortunately, Firefox and other browsers can save passwords for you. However, if you are ever in a situation where you lose those passwords or you can’t access that browser, you are up the creek.
PassPack solves this problem by allowing you to save your passwords in an encrypted form on the internet, secured by a pass phrase only you should know. That way, if you find yourself away from your computer, or Firefox hiccups and loses your saved passwords, you can access your passpack and find the password you need.
More details about how it works and what kind of security you get, you can check out the website: PassPack.com
[update] I was going to mention the reason I’m picking this product over Hashapass. For one, it removes doubt about whether you enter your information just right. After several months, I figure it would be difficult to remember what, precisely, you used for the key phrase for each site. But with PassPack you only have to remember two passwords. It’s a lot less room for error, especially if they are passwords you readily remember. You also don’t have to radically alter passwords for every single site browse. You should be able to use the same passwords, here we are just locking a copy of them away for future use.
Update: After trying out PassPack, a web utility suggested by a reader, I decided to recommend that instead of Hashapass. A more detailed blog entry is forthcoming, but for now you can check it out for yourself here: PassPack.
I found a new utility website I would like to feature here.
These days, we have to be very security-minded with our Internet habits. Since many viruses and malevolent hackers are intent on grabbing at your private information, it is no longer safe to muddle around the ‘Net as if nothing was wrong. It was never safe really, but aside, many people are mindful of the need for antivirus, antispyware, and firewall applications.
But, how safe are you with passwords? When you access a site that requires a login, like say TheologyWeb (link), what do you use as a password? Your pet’s name? And even if it’s not a name or otherwise something easy to guess, do you use the same password for every site you browse?
Neither are good ideas. Weak passwords are susceptible to brute force attacks (link), and if you use the same password for every site, and an attacker somehow gets your password, he can have access to every site you use that password on.
To solve this problem, you can use random passwords containing lowercase and capitol letters and numbers; a unique password for each site. But good luck remembering any of them. Fortunately, Firefox and other browsers can save passwords for you. However, if you are ever in a situation where you lose those passwords or you can’t access that browser, you are up the creek.
Today, I found a tool that gives you strong, effectively random passwords, which you can recover. It’s a site that is called Hashapass (link). What you do is enter keyword (say, the website name, like “theologyweb” for www.theologyweb.com, “john15″ for john15.net, etc.), and a master password, which should be easy to remember but hard to guess (e.g. “wiRiP” as in “when it Rains it Pours”), and hit enter. Use the same master password every time, but a different keyword. What results is a password based on those two entries ground together through an encryption algorithm. No two passwords should be the same. Use the resulting password, and then have your browser remember the password, and you’ll be good to go.
Then, if you lose the password, you can simply go back to the Hashapass site and enter the same master password and keyword combination. You will get the same password as a result.
Seems pretty handy to me.
I’m trying something new. What I would like to do is, every now and then, to post pictures I’ve taken. I’ve been travelling a lot for work, so I have bundles of pictures I haven’t even messed with.
For instance, here are a few from Johnston Canyon. It’s a nature trail out in the Rockies in Alberta, Canada. It was nice.
More can be found on my pictures site.
It has been a complaint of mine, and several other like minded people, that sermons in the average, modern, American church have become dumbed down and banal. Pastors feel it a requisite to accommodate their sermons to the lowest common denominator; that is to say, it has to be appealing to an unbeliever or new Christian who don’t know much about Christianity. And to be fair, the make up of the average congregation makes this a bit of a necessity.
However, I have been reading Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. (Aside, this is quite arguably the most important book I’ve read excepting the Bible. If I can start writing book reviews again, I’ll focus on this one.) His observations on how television media is having an impact on public education is especially telling, and frightening. Although he elsewhere discusses the impact of TV on religion, I found this scary when comparing it to sermons today. Postman gives us the “three commandments that form the philosophy of education which television offers”1:
1: “Thou shalt have no prerequisites.”
Postman goes on the explain how each episode is expected to be self contained and requires no prior knowledge to understand. Sesame Street comes to mind as an example. You didn’t need to know about the letter L or the number 3 to learn about the letter Q and the number 2. A child may watch an episode and not need to have ever seen Sesame Street before and never again. Some may say this is good for young children at a certain level (Postman decisively does not), but at some point the child must progress or else they will never learn more complex lessons.
The church, quite arguably, is stuck in a Sesame Street world. Sure, it’s important to cover the fundamentals of Christian faith, and to some extent to cover them again and again. However, a repeated complaint against churches in the New Testament, was the failure to progress beyond the “milk” of the gospel to the meat of loftier matters of faith. (See 1Cor. 3, and Heb. 5:11-6.) This same complaint can be levied, and with greater applicability, to the typical modern church.
2: “Thou shalt not induce perplexity.”
I’ll let Neil Postman speak for himself: “This means that there must be nothing that has to be remembered, studied, applied or, worst of all, endured. It is assumed that any information, story or idea can be made immediately accessible, since the contentment, not the growth, of the learner is paramount.”
Today, the day I’m writing this, is Monday. Do you remember any details of the sermon you listened to yesterday (or the weekend before you read this)? Do you remember the general application point? And if so, is it something that you have started applying to your life? Unless of course you already do. What about the week before, or the week before?
3: “Thou shalt avoid exposition like the ten plagues of Egypt.”
(Aside, this is a sample of Postman’s subtle humor. You’ll enjoy reading this book.)
Logical argumentation is too complicated. Instead, tell a story. Appealing to reason is not as efficacious as appealing to one’s emotions. And of course, responding to a contrary position is too negative, if not dangerous if what you’re taking a shot at is someone’s sacred cow.
Granted, there is some merit to each of the assertions above, in moderation, but when they guide the entire methodology of sermon construction, you end up with sermons which make people feel good, but lack power.
Taking all three commandments together, it is exasperating to consider how this kind of thinking has influenced teaching in the church. In a sense, we are a TV generation, with a TV pastor giving TV sermons to a TV congregation. Personally, I don’t like to ever come off as cynical, but I do not see a solution. Even if a pastor shrugged off the above points, by giving a deep, graduated, reasoned series of sermons, people will leave the church. “We are not amused,” as the saying goes. Christians, as a subset of the general culture we have become, will not tolerate a teaching that doesn’t entertain. Such churches exist, in the traditional denominations, but they are in decline. Meanwhile, churches that are stagnated, if not growing, are pacified by dumb entertainment masked as edification. That is not to say that entertainment has no place in the church, or even in teaching, but should it be incidental? Rather than all encompassing?
The change would have to come in the congregation itself, but to expect the Christian culture to change in a way that is for the better seems to be like expecting a dragster to stop on a dime. It’s a problem of momentum.
Citation:
1. Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death. Penguin Books, London. 1986. [All quotes taken from pp. 147-148]
(I know, people are sick of politics. But it’s never too early to hold candidates’ and politicians’ feet to the fire.)
This woman has finally and formally shown herself as a John Kerry.
In January, she was quoted as saying, “I’m not going to cut American troops’ funding right now–they’re in harm’s way.” (link) Certainly noble of her, anyone who would vote to cut funding the troops desperately need is absolutely wicked and a demon from hell. I know such absolutists terms tend to irk liberals, but upon reflection i’m sure you all would agree with me. It would be completely horrible, even as a political gesture.
Well, it turns out, she recently has voted to cut of funding for the troops. “But the vote [”Feingold” amendment] allowed the Dem Presidential candidates — Hillary, Obama, Biden — as well as many other Dems, to make strong antiwar statements, endorsing the idea of cutting funding in principle.” (link)
Looks like flip flops will be in fashion once again, this election period. Dick Morris’ assessment, IMO, is spot on: “What has changed? The polls. Surveys show Democrats supporting a funding cutoff and a date certain for withdrawal by 3:1. With John Edwards running to Hillary’s left, using her timidity in opposing the war as the raison d’etre of his candidacy, Hillary dared not vote her conscience or conform to her previous positions on the war. She had to back the left to prove her bona fides for the primaries.” (link)
Hillary is a chameleon. Like Kerry, no one knows what her platform is, because what she says shifts and contorts depending on which audience she is trying to please. One must wonder if indeed she has a platform, and if so, if even she knows what it is. (Well, aside from, say, regarding individual freedom
When she the candidacy, we must be careful, holding her accountable for her words. I don’t believe anything she promises can be trusted. Personally, I refuse to vote for her.
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