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Obama's Human Wrongs

Can we just listen to ourselves? We're debating whether some babies born alive have a right to medical attention.

How have we come to this? Can't we all agree that everyone whose heart beats, brain functions and lungs respire at birth should have a chance to live? If we're a compassionate, rational and just society, we would say, "Of course, every infant has a right to lifesaving medical attention. Even if it's not wanted."

Read more...

O-bortion

So here's the thing. If one believes life to be  the most precious thing (really, that  for which we all should work to protect), should not third-trimester babies be given the absolute right to life?

Here's an excerpt from a Washington Post article that  any Obama support should read and consider:

"But Obama's record on abortion is extreme. He opposed the ban on partial-birth abortion -- a practice a fellow Democrat, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once called "too close to infanticide." Obama strongly criticized the Supreme Court decision upholding the partial-birth ban. In the Illinois state Senate, he opposed a bill similar to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which prevents the killing of infants mistakenly left alive by abortion. And now Obama has oddly claimed that he would not want his daughters to be "punished with a baby" because of a crisis pregnancy -- hardly a welcoming attitude toward new life."

I realize that there are other issues to concern ourselves with, besides abortion. But who is going to speak for those precious lives?

And Christians are voting for Obama?  Read this, then, if you support Obama, let's talk social justice...

Emergin Church 8/12/08

Thanks Mike:

There’s clearly something behind all this banter that must have meaning. I admire you and Aaron, as does Erica. By no means should my former pastor position (or my age) lead to me having the final word. I want to learn from you both. This particular topic has become something for which I have deep passion. And let me make this clear. I do have great interest, as you know, in philosophy, especially the philosophy of language, mind, action, religion and normative ethics. I certainly reside in the analytic tradition, but work very hard, especially of late, at balancing via reading greats from the continental school. Right now I’m focusing on Sartre. But I see the EC influence (sorry if this sounds alarmist or categorizes me in that fundamentalist camp) as dangerous, misleading, divisive, and, in central parts, full of heresy. So I’m concerned less from a philosophical standpoint, than I am pastorally. (Though I no longer bear the title pastor, one of my greatest desires is to see younger people succeed in this dangerous world. Ideas, sometimes more than sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll, can derail one’s faith.)

A friend of mine—who wouldn’t describe himself as an EC advocate—recently described himself as “a follower of Jesus,” but not a “Christian.” Bizarre? The greatest heroes of faith, in terms of thinking, humanitarian work, and both, have proudly accepted this name, which was a badge of honor in the first few centuries. But, in the spirit of Derrida (and we can’t doubt it, can we, that one of his legacies is playing with words in this fashion), we now have people making such distinctions. I call it weird at best, and am personally saddened by his bold clarification. Is this EC responsible? I would say so. Is it heresy to say “I’m not a Christian”? Hmmm… Well, I won’t waste my time here with issues in the philosophy of language, but you both know, in a very basic sense (cf. Wittgenstien, Investigations, first few pages) that words are useful abbreviations. I’m not getting into Russell, Donaldson and Kripke here; no philosophy. In an everyday sense, I use “computer” because I don’t want to say “that thing with an apple on it…with a screen and a hard drive…” And we teach our children to say “apple” instead of “a member of the genus living thing, with the category of plant, with the category fruit…”

I write this to say that I think millions of Christians today are playing these funny little games with words, attempting to separate themselves (I think) from others. Period. What other reason would there be for these distinctions? Is this a bad thing? Slogans? I say so. It is not, in my view, kind, loving, peaceful. It is flat divisive.

Some quick comments to your brilliant comments.

First, I think Rollins certainly, implicitly, tries to undo these greats to the faith. Look, the tradition of our faith, from the time of Moses, held to the view that texts to have meaning. I won’t even begin to give citations here. When Augustine quoted the scriptures in Confessions (I think over 3,000 times?!), he certainly wasn’t doing so according in this spirit Rollins is trying to sell. They meant what they said. Same with Aquinas’ countless citations in The Summa.

Here’s the thing. McLaren and the other guys have incorporated right into their best selling books and lectures ideas from Derrida and his particular “slant.” Why they have chosen to incorporate “that” kind of philosophy is what really disturbs me. They pride themselves as liberal, open-minded, and generous. Yet they are so amazingly one-sided in their philosophical viewpoints.

I think this is simply because they haven’t been trained in philosophy. Not to say that philosophy is the only discipline for such inquiry. But when it comes to issues concerning truth, philosophy of language and epistemology, it is indeed a conversation for the philosopher. McLaren, I’m nearly certain, picked-up on postmodern thought in his work in literature. That is fine. But in many philosophy courses today (in the worlds greatest institutions of learning), many ideas found in postmodern though simply won’t be “allowed in.” Why? Because when one starts with the notion that classical hermeneutics has expired, and that it is the readers who give meaning to text, how is a university course to continue? I see Rollins fitting perfectly into this genre of anti-thinking, though I’m sure he’s a great guy, and I’d love to have a few pints with him myself!

Further, it is flat irresponsible for McLaren to give such an endorsement. I’m all for liberal thinking, and read wildly and widely. But books that flippantly dismiss the hermeneutical tradition from Jesus to John Paul II shouldn’t be endorsed in this manner. Call me old fashioned, again. But I feel pain when I meet younger people who have been enlightened with the new awareness that biblical passages have no single meaning. I suppose the nightly Proverbs readings I have with my three children are a waste? When Edison asks “daddy, what does that mean?,” am I to answer, “we can never know, Ed, it can mean many things.”

So he doesn’t explicitly make the assertion, but it is very clearly implied.

Good points about these EC guys reading more than evangelical pastors. But wait. Which would you prefer? A pastor with a traditional M.Div (Fuller, Talbot, Dallas, Regent), or one with deep reading in EC literature? Give me the former. You see, part of the “us versus them” strategy has relegated anything traditional (churches, schools, music, names for things) as part of the narrow and fundamentalist problem. I have been utterly blown-away at Talbot. Mike, you sat in on a class with me. David Horner has a D.phil from Oxford, we read widely from Aristotle, Kant, Plato and the great ethicists. No “Christian view” was presented. The same is true for virtually all of my classes at Talbot; there were few exception with some Bible courses, though. Coming from UCLA, I knew that this school would be an evangelical Christian extension of the Christian-right. I was wrong, though I continue to marvel why the M.Div still ignores classical philosophy.

As to what they “should” be reading. It’s just not going to be the case that all religious leaders have interest in all “this” stuff. And they shouldn’t! The church should be full of diversity in its leadership. So Jesus, Paul, St. Francis, Billy Graham, Rick Warren, Mother Teresa—they all add greatly to the growth of the body of Christ.

Your comments on Derrida confuse me. I will have to do a bit of research to find sections where he dismisses, the meaning found in text, and promotes deconstruction. I’ll get back on this one.

Yes, evangelical should read the fathers. All top M.Div seminaries have required work in the fathers. I took two at Talbot—very dense. And this is considered a fundamental seminary. So I think it’s a temptation to think that these seminaries overlook the history of theology. My experience proves the contrary.

Mike and Aaron, please contextualize Luther from the EC leaders. Luther was trained rigorously in philosophy, was a priest, was the great advocate for biblical authority, and was responding to a true debacle in organized religion. We’re talking here about indulgences guys, not about nuanced “problems” with organized religion. I would expect that Luther would have been tickled-pink with the practices of most evangelical churches today. The comparison of Luther to the EC is so far from historical reality that I’m astonished with your comment. Yes, he was divisive, as was Jesus, Peter, John, and Paul. But there’s a failure in logic, because of controversy, to associate these two

Big statements about Pentecostal movements ruining Christianity. I’d like to hear more.

My use of Lewis is to simply use an example of a respected thinker who respected tradition and church authority. He hasn’t done much for the church as a whole? Mike? Hello? His books have paved with way for millions of Christians to think deeply. Without him, I’d still be pursuing wealth. People generally don’t come to the fathers directly. Academia is this way, is it not? Did you or Aaron start with classics? Yes, ideally, we all should have. My children will! The Confessions exhortation was a great project; only about five read the work. Many more will read the latest Philip Yancey book. I prefer the former, but am happy if the latter happens. I am not happy, though, if they read Joel Osteen or that other self-help stuff you refer to.

“The congregations are doing less..” Please. Again, read chapter of Screwtape! Humble yourself! The basic tenet of Lewis’s Mere Christianity is to articulate just how utterly hum-drum, pick yourself up, be faithful, endure, press-on, discipline yourself, this journey is. I reject he opposite side of the same coin analogy because the result of the EC is to have disdain for churches (in general), leadership (in general) and Christian (in general).

I can’t help but continue to say that what I see as a result of the EC/postmodern movement is division “from” the church.

But the scriptures say that Jesus will return for his church. Notice the singular tense. Yes it’s ugly, uneducated, full of pride and legalism, hypocrites, arrogant, shallow, unconcerned for the poor, selfish…but so am I. What makes the EC people any different for other believers, other than an incredibly nuanced way of saying “we’re different”? That posture, my friends, is sinful, and is the very heart of division that Paul the Apostle so painstakingly worked against. When he said to live in peace, as brothers and sisters, lovingly, he meant exactly that. This movement, in its core, divides.

I’m grateful for true revolutionaries that stand firm against injustice (as did St. Francis and Luther). I’m also equally grateful for those that stood against the injustice of false teaching (Paul, Augustine, Polycarp).

There are evangelical traditional churches such as St. James and Holy Trinity Brompton. But I totally agree with all you said about traditional churches, creeds, authority. That’s why I so struggle with the anti-authoritarian result of EC thinking.

Ok. This will be full of typos, but I’m so grateful for this tension and for your friendship.

Response to Aaron and Mike

(please read their comments from previous posts.)

You two! So much to say in response. And I will say more. But for now, the point I wish to make is that I disagree with Aaron's point at the end of his last post. The core of the EC, in my view, is its divisiveness. The leaders have self-appointed themselves as experts (McLaren, Burke, Rollins, Blue Like Jazz guy). Their domain of inquiry: "the church." But embedded in the whole EC ethos is division: us versus them--the EC clan versus the traditional one. I encourage you all to read Lewis's Screwtape Letters, chapter 25. The essence of "Mere Christianity" is its antithesis when compared to new fads and trends. Aaron, I see a very stark difference between moves of the spirit (Luther, Vineyard, Azusa Street) and movements that simply divide Christians (cf., 1 Cor., 1). The EC, as I see it, denotes "progress," emergence ("from something"), superiority. All the while, its leaders hold conferences, accept donations, cash-in on royalties, form boards, organize, plan. It is not organic.

I do not see this movement as adding anything positive. It is responsible for creating a generation of younger people who have little regard for authority. It has also peddled some philosophical (actually anti-philosophical) thoughts in the spirit of Derrida that undermine the very notion of truth.

I think its leaders are intellectually...um...well, lets just say I giggle often when I read their CV's.

The risk those of us opposed to the EC thing is this. Their (us vs. them) axiom relegates EC opponents (me) to the fundamentalist farm. If you're not with them, you must be a greasy, Faldwell-loving, teetotaling, narrow, "kind" of Christian (versus the new kind).

Quick summary, this movement in its core, is against authority. Its illusive and non-articulated charter is amazingly brilliant, in that the leaders can't be pinned-down for espousing to a set of dogmas.

But they do.

In essence, the EC people are the new. Those not with them are against them. Aaron, I haven't read anything of theirs, other than a book Mike got me by a guy named Peter Rollins who says he has a Ph.D in postmodern theory, but failed to say from where. I'm grateful to Mike for the book. But its spewing of ignorance is laughable. In one line he rejects the notion that a biblical passage could have a singular meaning, saying that Feuerbach, Nietzche, Marx and Freud had, in essence, undone Augustine, Aquinas, Anselm, Anscombe and Lewis (to name a very, very few). In the end, it is Derrida that has the greatest influence in EC (anti) thinking. And you know what that means: we give meaning to text from a hermeneutic standpoint (don't try and interpret what I mean here, you give whatever meaning you'd like).

A part of McLaren's endorsement reads "...one of the most important contributions to date to the emergent church conversations." I realize that this book is a drop in the bucket. I haven't read anything else. I just have heard so, so many younger, uneducated Christians go to an EC conference, read an EC book, and come out the other end railing against "the church" and authority structures.

What do the EC guys have on Lewis, who attended a parish, was a practicing Anglican, and respected that structure? What do they have on Mother Teresa who gave herself faithfully to the most organized religious structure in the history of the world? You see, these guys will invite (Bishop) NT Wright to their events, then both implicitly and explicitly rail against church authority, traditional religion, stale modes of religious practice. Why do they do this? Why do they create new works like "missional," to replace "mission"? Why "community" instead of "church"? Why all the new? Why, becasue it all has a sizzle, and doesn't align with the bore of Christianity that is mere.

As I say at the start, whether these guys know it or not, their final product is division. That is what they are selling to millions. As soon as they cease their generalizations, they loose their money, power and influence.

More to say...but watch this fad fade away. There is nothing new, unheard of, emerging here. This kind of fervor was well established, again, as we see in 1 Cor. 1.

Posted by: Paul Martin | August 11, 2008 at 04:56 AM

Quotation

"In a conversation, keep in mind that you're more interested in what you have to say than anyone else is."

--Andrew Roone

Toshiba Blues

I purchased my first personal computer in 1987. A brand-spanking-new Mac SE with 40 mb of hard disc space. It cost me over $3,000. People wondered about mac's in those days. Not today. They're cool, trendy, fresh, sleek.  I have stayed with mac's. I just counted and realized that I've owned nine over the years. Until now.

One of my clients - for budgetary reasons - made me get a PC. That's right, made me. A purplish, slightly metallic, Toshiba laptop, to be exact. I was in shock when I opened the box. The frown was real. But after a few days of practice I must say that it works just fine, and I'm enjoying the new landscape of Vista. I haven't experienced any problems, other than my own unfamiliarity with Windows. I'm very happy with the performance, and it's much more user-friendly than I had expected.

There is one not so insignificant problem, however: my image.

See, I sometimes write at a local coffee house, Kean (I would have put the accent above the letter "e" here, but haven’t figured out how to do that yet..with a mac, you just press control+e, then press the "e" key and...Voila). And much to my chagrin, across the back of my new purplish companion, in large bold letters, for all the Kean/ mac-ish trendy types to view, is the word

T O S H I B A

I honestly had thought that Toshiba only made stereos and TV's. And I might have been less (what do I call it?) insecure with a silverish IBM or HP. But there's no way of hiding this one. Why couldn't "Toshiba" have been etched in something smaller than 100+ point font? A few times,  I just about approached one young looking fellow (complete with Bose headphones, sports coat, shaved head, intellectual spectacles...and a PowerMac) and explained to him that my "main" computer is actually a newer iMac that I keep at home, and the only reason that I'm using that PC is because my employer makes me. Then I would given my mac-pedigree, etc. But I didn't. I sat, typing away, wondering why it all meant so much to me.

I turned 43 a few days ago...and I'm now the owner of a purple TOSHIBA.

This all might sound trivial, and it certainly is compared to major problems like death, disease, divorce and war. But owning this Toshiba, and being seen in public with it, in a very real sort of way, hurts.

But is not life full of these kinds of little lessons? What is it about the need to impress people, even those we don't even know?

Is image everything?

Back to work we go...

McCain's Advantage

A must read for those "on the fence."

click here

 

Change?

I predict that tomorrow I will make a change. We need to change the Martin Household. Too status quo. Too many bad decisions. Too much spending. Poor organization.  It's a mess. So  I will make changes. The Martin Household needs change and I pledge to bring that about. I will tell Erica and the kids. I will give speeches during dinner, and even make a poster to underscore my message: "CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN." I tell everyone about my vision for change. And with my aggressive campaign, within months,  people know what I'm all about: I'm the one who talks endlessly about change.

But, based on my household campaign, will the spending and poor organization stop? Can I KNOW that my promise will be fulfilled? Am I capable to bring it about through my glossy speeches and posters? Do I have the capability, persistence, skill-set, track record?

Can one man, via posters and postulation, bring about change? Perhaps he can. Perhaps he might.

But typically, things like experience, tenure, track-record (i.e., not voting "present"), and heroism count more.

Speeches and stadiums do nothing much more than excite.

So contrast a man that CHANGED his accent (based on the advise of political handlers, Obama ditched his Harvard drawl for a a pithy black intonation in order to win the working-class and black votes) to one that volunteered his body for torture and imprisonment to save others.

Changing one's accent is real change for certain, but, sadly, it's the same old kind.

Think, America.

Thank God for His Megachurch

Many today are slamming the mega church movement.

But we are to remember that  gatherings of believers (i.e., churches) bring with them pros and cons.

Let us all applaud all the forms:  high, low, mega, house. I believe firmly that spiritual growth cannot be measured in numbers, unless one is counting things like decisions to follow Christ, baptisms, or real church growth (described as new attendance of formerly non-church-attendees). Perhaps one day a neuroscientist will invent a devise to hook-up to our brains to measure, on a  scale of 1 - 10, our pride, envy, cowardice, and also our love, compassion, and pure motivations. Until then, it's all a mystery as to which of our brothers and sisters sitting next to us in church, large or small,  are truly "growing."

One critique of the mega-church movement is defining "growth" in terms of numerical growth. This line of thinking is more motivated by western capitalist thinking than it is by biblical parameters for spirituality.

Watch and listen to a confession from a mega church attendee. Thank God for his megachurch.

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-15394

I'm wanting to start a revolution

I've been in the church all my life. Sixteen years as a Roman Catholic, then Calvary Chapel/Vineyard, then back to my liturgical roots in the Anglican Church.

The greatest commandment is about loving God. But most of the messages and attention in churches seems to be about loving him with our heart, soul, and strength. I don't hear much about loving him with our minds--never really have. There are a few exceptions, but I wonder what would happen in our lives if we turned-off external influences, and became rigorous readers of the greats.

Do you love God with "all your mind"?

Do you feel ignorant about metaphysics, epistemology, history, science? Be honest, are you wanting more out of your intellectual life?

I'm open to "the promotion of rigor in intellectual thought"--for the Christian. How do we get there?

Let's start a revolution!