Posted December 18, 2009 by Charles
A friend of mine who is a minister in Canada reacts to the news about Matt Chandler’s cancer, and Matt’s attitude about God’s sovereignty:
“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ.”
Phil 3: 7-8
I believe that with all of my head but when a challenge comes, I am disappointed with how my heart replies. Despite what I know I am shocked that God would allow one of his servants to suffer like this. I know better but I can’t believe that God could let this happen.
Read the whole thing.
Posted December 14, 2009 by Charles
This morning in church the pastor quoted C.S. Lewis’ well known “lunatic, liar, or lord,” trilemma during his sermon. I didn’t sleep much last night, so I was primed to chase a rabbit, and this was it.
Immediately this argument, which I had accepted wholeheartedly as a freshman in college and held in the back of my mind ever since, struck me as problematic. It became clear that the problem for me was the assertion that a person isn’t “morally reliable” if they are deceived or deceptive. In either case, it is not only acceptable, but perfectly logical to accept moral teaching from a lunatic or a liar.
In the Modern era morality is not the stable and absolute entity that it is in earlier times, and in the postmodern era it is no longer even broadly coherent. It is understood as a social and cultural construct, and in the pluralistic societies of the Western world, it is also understood as an individual construct. We can, as individuals or societies, develop our own personal or local moral codes through our own invention and through collecting the parts of existing codes that we accept as valid.
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Posted November 10, 2009 by Charles
Does that sound odd? Should it? Maybe, maybe not, but that’s how I feel. Rather, that’s how I hope I feel. I don’t know if I can pull it off.
The criticism I’ve been hearing of Ft. Hood shooter Maj. Malik Hasan today centers around this comment, from a classmate of his:
Well, Hasan gave a presentation on whether the war on terror was a war on Islam. I raised my hand immediately. I questioned why that type of topic was being presented at because it was so off-base, and it was allowed to continue. His radicalism grow throughout the year. He would make frequent comments that he was a Muslim first and an American or an officer second, and also that, you know, Islamic law, Sharia law took precedence over the Constitution. And we all became concerned because he’s a sworn officer of the United States and he’s supposed to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. Yet his loyalties lied elsewhere.
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Posted October 3, 2009 by Charles
I wonder if God left us the ambiguity of John 3:16 — that is, whether they are the words of John or Jesus — as a gift. It would be a strange gift, but God does that from time to time. It’s a strange gift that I love my son even when he is blatantly disobedient. It’s a strange gift that my wife puts up with me day after day. The platypus. That’s a strange gift.
The ambiguity of this verse reminds us that it doesn’t matter if the words are black- or red-letter, they are still the truth. The red-letter movement of McLaren and others has always bothered me because of just this problem. They have decided that the words of John, Peter, and Paul are less important than the words of Jesus. But all Scripture is God breathed—wait, Paul wrote that, it doesn’t matter.
Not knowing who said it is much more valuable to us in our approach to the Bible than knowing would be, because we are forced to admit that those black letters are important to, and that if we leave them out, we don’t have the Gospel.
Posted August 21, 2009 by Charles
I just finished my first class at DTS and my TA suggested I submit my final paper for publication in one of three journals of Christian education. I trust his judgment—he went through this same program and has a doctorate in education—I’m just frozen by shock. I was just trying to get out of this class alive.
My main concern, as always, is, “What if I suck am not very good at this?” I tend to give up on things when there’s a risk that they won’t work out, so this would normally be a no-brainer: stuff this thing in a drawer, then twenty years from now say, “Oh, I wrote this thing once someone thought I should show to somebody about…blah, blah, blah.”
But if I’m going to finish seminary I’m going to have to push past that. So that leaves me a bit confused, because I don’t know anyone who has had anything published before. Well, there are the professors, but who wants their help?
If anyone has some good advice, let me know.
