Disclaimer: Some postings contain other author's material. All such material is used here for fair use and discussion purposes.

Monday, April 24, 2017

Exposing The Rapture Myth You've Been Taught All Your Life - by J.D. King

Found here.

This is a provocative article about a popular doctrine. For me, it speaks to a gradual change in my own doctrine, because I used to be enamored with end-times speculation and intricate explanations of how Ezekiel and Daniel and Revelation supposedly connected to each other.

But even when I embraced this, it always was in the back of my mind that this all was very thin stuff. Now this article explains what I always suspected, that the rapture doctrine is a little less than a scriptural certainty.

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Thursday, April 20, 2017

Bad worship songs: Praise Goes On - by Brown/Furtick/Joye

Audio link.

From time to to we examine the lyrics of worship songs. Our desire is not to mock or humiliate, but rather to honestly examine content with a view to calling forth a better worship expression.

With the great volume and variety of worship music available, none of us should have to settle for bad worship songs. We should be able to select hundreds or even thousands of top notch songs very easily.

What makes a song a worship song? Is it enough to contain words like God or holy? How about vaguely spiritual sounding phrases? Should Jesus be mentioned? 

We think an excellent worship song should contain the following elements:
  • A direct expression of adoration (God, you are...)
  • A progression of ideas that culminates in a coherent story
  • A focus on God, not us
  • Lyrics that do not create uncertainty or cause confusion
  • A certain amount of profundity
  • A singable, interesting melody
  • Allusions to Scripture
  • Doctrinal soundness
  • Not excessively metaphorical
  • Not excessively repetitive
  • Jesus is not your boyfriend
It's worth noting the most worship songs contain at least something good. That is, there might be a musical idea or a lyric that has merit. Such is the case with this song. Praise Goes On has a catchy beat and slick production. But... it's a bad worship song.

You might also want to check out our criteria for judging worship songs.

First the lyrics:

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

The Christian Doctor Fighting for a Woman’s Right to Choose - BY DR. WILLIE PARKER

Found here. My comments in bold.
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It should be clear to anyone considering this article that it is going to be an effort to burnish the credentials of this doctor for the purpose of justifying abortion, while wrapping it up with a "Christian" label. 

But of course there is nothing Christian about it. He doesn't discuss his faith at all, he doesn't quote any Scripture, he really seems to avoid the issues of his supposed Christianity.

We must conclude, therefore, that his Christianity is a rhetorical excuse designed to give cover for his horrific occupation.

****Update**** It's easy to claim Christianity for his cover, but I wonder now what he will claim in light of sexual misconduct allegations.
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Thursday, April 13, 2017

God Died on the Cross - by Fred Sanders

Found here. A good explanation.
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In the days leading up to Good Friday, I’m going to post a few theological answers to questions I get every year around this time. The answers will be unblushingly doctrinal, so prepare to put your thinking caps on.

This little series isn’t mainly about getting the theology right for its own sake (though I’m strongly inclined to do that, because who wants to get the theology wrong?). It’s mainly to clear a few theological questions out of the way before the Good-Friday-to-Easter church sequence arrives.

My dream is that we could think hard about theology online during the first part of the week, and then have our thoughts in order before we experience the annual remembrance of the death and resurrection of Christ in the last part of the week in church. These posts are intended to clear away some theological confusions that might prevent intelligent participation in the life of the church.

The first one is what it means to say that God died on the cross. My answer is an excerpt from a book I edited about ten years ago:

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Last Crusade: The Promise of Peace - John C. Wright

Found here. A very good article.
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The whole of that nameless modern movement which goes by a legion is names, whether it be called Political Correctness, Liberalism, Socialism, Collectivism, Totalitarianism, Humanism, Secularism, Hedonism or Nihilism, rests on one axiom of moral philosophy: moral agnosticism.

This axiom states that there is not and cannot be a well formed conscience, or a conscience which gives reliable, trustworthy, and universal information about the nature of right and wrong, on the grounds that there is no such thing as universal right and wrong, and that the conscience is a by-product of psychological conditioning by society.

The argument given by legion-named movement typically follows the form of questioning some traditional moral precept, such as chastity, and characterizes this rule is not being confirmed by science, and then takes some breach of that rule, such as incest or homosexuality, and justifies or glorifies it. Then if any man’s conscience troubles him over marrying his own sister, then the argument points at this as an example of the conscience misreading the nature of right and wrong.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

House bill isn’t about privacy, would harm Montana - By Megan Maier

My comments in bold. The text of HB 609 is found here.
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HB 609 purports to protect privacy, but would actually harm Montanans, creating the precise problem it intends to solve. It requires those using protected facilities to use the facility designated for their “biological sex,” ignoring that one of every 2,000 babies is born intersex. (An intersex condition that "can involve abnormalities of the external genitals, internal reproductive organs, sex chromosomes or sex-related hormones." In other words, it's a condition that may have no physical manifestation. And, external manifestations vary. In other words, there is little evidence that "intersex" individuals would be harmed. 

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Explaining my requirements in the cessationism debate

We set forth these requirements when considering the claims of cessationists:
  1. Biblically-based
  2. No appeals to contemporary expressions of charismata
  3. No appeals to silence
  4. No appeals to events or practices of history