Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.

From Psalm 51

So today (yesterday, technically) was Pentecost Sunday, the birthday of the Church, as our children’s minister pointed out in her message. Today is the day that the Holy Spirit descended like fire on the disciples, and ignited the growth of the body of Christ.

Thinking about the story took me back to one of the [somewhat] unique positions of the Churches of Christ, one that I’m still pretty attached to (though a little uncertain of), based in Acts 2:37-8: “Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

This of course is the doctrine of the believer’s baptism. I’m not going to talk about it, so if your fuzzy, check out info on the Anabaptists, Stone/Campbell Movement, or the Restoration. That thought drove me to think of something else.

When I was baptized into Christ, I felt a joy in my soul that I had never known. It wasn’t just the peace of knowing I had become a child of God, or comfort of knowing I would have a place in heaven, but the joy of the Lord. I knew I had received the Spirit…it was all-consuming.

I keep a journal that I use to keep track of random, sometimes deep (sometimes wafer-thin) thoughts. A few years ago, during my senior year of college, I think, I wrote this:

I got this guy in my class. He’s a relatively new Christian. I love this guy. He’s different. New, even.

I didn’t grow up in church, so I have a different perspective on the Gospel than other people here. But this guy is way different. He came to play football. I remember one night sophomore year I was leaving my dorm and he was running in and said, “Gimme a hug, brother!” and bear-hugged me. “I just got baptized tonight!”

I was surprised, and understandably so. In my experience, by 20 minutes after baptism the emotional excitement is long gone, and after that the fire only lasts so long. But that night he was jumping around and yelling and telling everyone. If only we could all be so excited.

If you picked up on the clues, I wrote this a couple of years after the event, and the guy was still on fire. It was amazing. There was no one so passionate about the things we talked about, unless they were minor doctrinal quarrels, like whether or not it’s okay to have communion on a day other than Sunday. But he was passionate about things like sharing the Gospel, and the spiritual warfare we’re all a part of.

When I was in class, I became more passionate about those things, too. There’s just something about being around a new believer that gives life to the Gospel in your heart. It’s like adding a little fuel to your fire.

“The church exists by mission just as fire exists by burning.” — Emil Brunner

I’ve been a part of my church for nearly 20 months, now. Ask me how many new believers we’ve had. Come on, ask…Ok, I’ll just tell you: zero. The really sad news is that it doesn’t seem to be a problem for anyone. I remember asking one day what the evangelism committee did, and the answer was “hospitality”.

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the whole point of evangelism to go out? How is being nice to the people who come in equivalent to evangelism? But that’s no matter. One day last year a group of students from a local Christian college came by to ask a few questions of the staff. I was brand new at the time, so I was in and out of the office, unable (and a little afraid) to answer many of their questions.

Later in the day I was talking with a few staff members who were involved, and apparently the students had asked the very question I wanted you to ask me…how many? The staff’s reaction was something along the lines of, “It’s not all about new believers, it’s about the kind of growth and community they experience.”

At first I was all aboard. A few years ago I brainstormed a church system that was much like a school district: one church evangelized you and taught you the basics, then you moved on to a church that would provide deeper teaching and closer community, then you would be able to go to a church that would teach you to be a leader in the first level church (Anybody want to help me with a churchplant?).

But after the time I’ve spent there I’ve found that not only are there no new Christians, but there’s little growth to speak of. But there is one thing to get excited about: people leaving other churches in town to come to ours.

It’s like the whole purpose of growth is to show how great our church is. We apparently enjoy hearing people say, “Oh, we left _________ to come here for the __________ program.”

I thought we were trying to spread the kingdom, not just grow our church.

Plus, this gives our members the idea that the church (our local congregation) is there to serve them, when, in actuality, we are all there to serve the Church (the whole body of Christ). How do we serve the church? By following orders: “Go into all the world…”

I’m not sure if this is an actual idiom, but Eddie Izzard used it once, so I’ll blame him.

Anyway, Mollie at GetReligion opened a question in this post, but left no forum for discussing it, so here it is:

Whether they admit it or not, many Americans adopt a view similar to that held by Dobson: Christianity is mainly about behavior and feelings. Christians of all stripes � as well as folks who don�t define themselves as religious � tend to judge Christians� fidelity to their faith (and adherents of other religions) by their actions. Many of them incorporate personal testimonies into the equation as a means of speaking to behavioral change or a change of feelings. I bet that many readers are nodding their head and saying, �And what�s the big deal about this?�

Well, this view is extremely different from that held by other believers, myself included. In my church body we don�t really speak of personal behaviors or statements � as Dobson seems to have done � to determine someone�s religious status. Instead we point to whether they�ve been baptized.

Now I�m aware that this is a very contentious issue and ours is not the place to debate which view is correct. And I�m fully aware I�m giving short shrift to the theological issues. I just think it�s interesting to see the two views so succinctly highlighted in a mainstream media article.

Well, for any GetReligion readers that happen by, or anyone else, for that matter, this is the place to debate the issue. I know that there are a number of more important things to be debated within Christian theology and practice, but this one has piqued my interest for the moment.

The first thing that seems odd to me is that when questioned, Fred Thompson’s spokesperson said he “is indeed a Christian. He was baptized into the Church of Christ.� I was baptized into the CofC myself, and I know that — for the most part — the movement believes just as Dobson does. In fact if you ask a member, he’ll probably quote James 2:14-26, which boils down to verse 18: “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.”

I think that baptism is an inadequate determinant of faith, because it points to one moment in time. It’s one decision that could have been made in any state of mind; it could have been the result of coercion, confusion, fear, or any number of factors other than belief.

Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. If those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.

Romans 2:25-27

I believe that you can substitute baptism for circumcision. This doesn’t downplay the importance of baptism. But if there’s no life change after baptism, it’s clear that it was just a meaningless dunk. And if there’s life change before baptism, as with the believers at Cornelius’ house, the Bible points to that as the moment.  But notice that Peter still has everyone baptized: “‘Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water? They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.’ So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Anyway, it seems to me that the Bible points to more than baptism or a conversion experience as the evidence of true Christian faith. What do you think?

Most global warming advocates (fanatics) have had their blinders on so long they don’t even miss their peripheral vision. They just keep right on down the parade route, never worrying about what’s causing all the noise on the sides of the road. They eat what they’re being fed, without questioning it. And they’ve gotten so used to the taste of rotten meat that they don’t even want the fresh cuts anymore.

Examples abound. These are from the comments at a recent God’s Politics post:

I suspect few of the people who post here have actually read articles about global warming in peer-reviewed science journals.

And if the statements of Dr. Heidi Cullen on the Weather Channel are any indication, the peer review process is worthless, because those peers wouldn’t take the time to look at the research of anyone who believes the current warming is natural. But they pretend that she’s no indicator of the scientific community:

My concern about what you wrote above is that I don’t know about any real quality research that is *opposing* the anthropogenic view. We’ve been around this topic before; the independent, peer-reviewed scientific journals carry very little, if any, evidence that counters this view. Those who are saying they aren’t sure humans are contributing to climate change are mostly those in the pay of the oil, coal, and other energy industries.

This is one of the worst straw-men I’ve seen in a long time. People keep saying this, but provide no names, no documentation, no evidence whatsoever to back it up. They just blame any opposition on oil money. Well, there are plenty of climate experts who are not in the employ of any oil or energy companies, but are tenured professors and department chairs at major universities. Here are some names:

David Deming an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma and an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA).

• Timothy Ball, PhD in Climatology — “Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn’t exist.”

Thomas Sowell identified a half dozen a few weeks ago without working up much of a sweat:

• Dr. S. Fred Singer, who set up the American weather satellite system, and who published some years ago a book titled “Hot Talk, Cold Science.”
• A professor of meteorology at MIT, Richard S. Lindzen
• A professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, Patrick J. Michaels
• A professor of climatology at the University of Delaware, David R. Legates
• Skeptical experts in other countries around the world include Duncan Wingham, a professor of climate physics at the University College, London, and Nigel Weiss of Cambridge University.

Obviously all lightweights (/sarcasm).

A few more, from the NRSP:

• Dr. Ian Clark, Professor of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa
• Dr. Tim Patterson, Professor of Earth Sciences, Carleton University, Ottawa
• Dr. Vincent Gray, Expert Reviewer for the IPCC and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of ‘Climate Change 2001′, Wellington, New Zealand
• Dr. Sallie Baliunas, astrophysicist and climate researcher, Boston, Massachusetts
• Dr. Fred Michel, Director, Institute of Environmental Science and Associate Professor of Earth Sciences, Carleton University
• Dr. R.M. Carter, Australia, Research Professor at James Cook University (Queensland) and the University of Adelaide (South Australia)

The “oil company funding” argument also ignores the fact that many of the scientists who are pushing the anthropogenic warming theory are on the payrolls of alternative energy companies.

One of the other arguments is how everyone could afford a Prius and how cheap they are compared to SUV’s:

The real problem is that there isn’t a real alternative, at this point, for most Americans. People can’t afford to purchase a Prius. Raising the gas tax isn’t going to make them any better able to afford a Prius.

Have you ever actually priced one? I have, and what I found is that the base price was around $20,000…The argument that the Prius is too expensive is patently and unequivocably false.

Most people can’t afford $20,000 (and they cost more than that). That is far above the average purchase price of an automobile. It is not as though one can go buy a used Prius anywhere.

you are correct, the starting price of a Prius is more than 20K. According to Cars.com, it is $22,175 – $23,070. This is still far less than the starting price for the average SUV–go to Cars.com and click on SUV’s–it gives you a list of the prices, and only a couple are below 20K, and not much below. Most are well above 25K. What’s my point? My point is that plenty of people find a way to afford SUV’s. If people can’t afford 20K for a car, then why are there so many SUV’s around? I doubt even a used SUV is much less than 20K. Your point was that the Prius is too expensive for people to afford. If people can afford a 35K vehicle and the gas to fuel it, they can afford a 23K Prius and the far less gas it takes to fuel it.

Another blantant unsupported lie by our resident Republi-Nazi. I just did a search of the internet and most new cars cost more than 20,000 and the average is well above 20,000.

a quick search on used SUV’s in the area I live in (and that is the dominant car driven) shows that even used vehicles don’t dip below 20K until they are at least three years old.

All of these posts ignore the actual facts of vehicle costs. The Prius starts at 22k. Here are the starting prices for several other vehicles:

• Honda CRV: 20,600
• Honda Element: 18,900
• Ford Escape: 19,245
• Ford Ranger: 14,495
• Ford F-150: 19,200
• Chevy Colorado/GMC Canyon: 14,595
• Chevy HHR: 16,550
• Saturn Vue: 18,100
• Toyota Tacoma: 14,180
• Toyoa RAV4: 20,950
• Hyundai Santa Fe: 21,045
• Dodge Nitro: 19,885
• Jeep Compass: 15,985
• Jeep Patriot: 14,985
• Jeep Wrangler: 19,185
• Wrangler Unltd.: 20,895

All of these vehicles are trucks or SUVs. And there are plenty more with prices of 22-24k. For all their claims of going to cars.com to price vehicles, they didn’t do a great job, especially since these are all sticker for new vehicles. Besides, hybrids aren’t the answer anyway, diesel is.

There are many more badly framed arguments, and most of them are as easily countered as these. They’re hardly worth the argument, but this is entertainment for me. Anybody find fault with my research?

UPDATE: See comment #2 below for some interesting facts about the NRSP. Mainly, that it has ties with an energy lobbying group and is funded by energy companies. But there is one surprise. Note that the supporters include alternative energy companies that would benefit from regulation on fossil-fuel use. Nuclear, natural gas, wind, and hydrogen would get a huge boost if heavy restrictions were put on coal and petrol.

But the question here is whether or not industry is allowed to commission research to support its position. You may think that the people who are paying the bill for the other side have nothing to gain, but that’s not true. Power is always at stake.

And you have to recognize that there’s another likelihood: that these climate scientists are skeptical on their own, and want to do research…but the only people who will fund it are those that are skeptical themselves, or would gain from their results. Just because anthropogenic global warming is the “mainstream” scientific position, doesn’t mean it’s right.

How about eugenics?

Eugenics is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention.^[1] The purported goals have variously been to create healthier, more intelligent people, save society’s resources, and lessen human suffering.

Earlier proposed means of achieving these goals focused on selective breeding, while modern ones focus on prenatal testing and screening, genetic counseling, birth control, in vitro fertilization, and genetic engineering. Opponents argue that eugenics is immoral and is based on, or is itself, pseudoscience. Historically, eugenics has been used as a justification for coercive state-sponsored discrimination and human rights violations, such as forced sterilization of persons with genetic defects, the killing of the institutionalized and, in some cases, genocide of races perceived as inferior.

This was mainstream science, supported by Alexander Graham Bell and Winston Churchill. It even led to US laws for compulsory sterilization for those considered “unfit”. In the US immigration was cut to lower the number of “unfit individuals” coming in from the “inferior stock” of other countries. In Canada those immigrants who did not know English well did poorly on IQ tests, and the result was sterilization of many who didn’t even fall into the category.

In science, mainstream is not best. Don’t just look at the results, look at the process, the research, the testing, and the models. Ask questions. Is the sun hotter? Is carbon-dioxide really the most important greenhouse gas?

Discussion of the relative importance of different infrared absorbers are confused by the overlap between the spectral lines due to different gases, widened by pressure broadening. As a result, the absorption due to one gas cannot be thought of as independent of the presence of other gases. One convenient approach is to remove the chosen constituent, leaving all other absorbers, and the temperatures, untouched, and monitoring the infrared radiation escaping to space. The reduction in infrared absorption is then a measure of the importance of that constituent. More precisely, define the greenhouse effect (GE) to be the difference between the infrared radiation that the surface would radiate to space if there were no atmosphere and the actual infrared radiation escaping to space. Then compute the percentage reduction in GE when a constituent is removed. The table below is computed by this method, using a particular 1-dimensional model of the atmosphere. More recent 3D computations lead to similar results.

Gas removed	percent reduction in GE
H2O	36%
CO2	12%
O3	3%

There are lots of questions to be asked, and it’s counter productive to refuse to even examine someone’s science because of who made the donations. Besides, if you knew your science was good, and the opposing science was bad, would you need to go around calling for peoples jobs if they disagree or telling the press only to print your version?

You’ve all seen this skit on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, right? Well, here’s to science and religion meeting on the web.

The Slope is Really Slippery, from Christianity Today:

For many years, IVF proponents dismissed fears about IVF abuses as irrational slippery-slope arguments. But now the Abraham Center for Life, through embryo selection, is moving society farther down the slope. This abuse of biotechnology opens the floodgates for commercializing human life. When will the embryo drive-through service start?

The slippery slope is real, and it involves a broad cross-section of the bioethics industry. W. Jay Wood, associate professor of philosophy at Wheaton College, notes that the Christian view of sinful human nature makes slippery-slope arguments credible. “Humans naturally test limits. Any cop will tell you that if you post a 35-mph speed limit, drivers will go 38, 40, 42, until the law cracks down.”

People tend to say that the problem with “slippery slope arguments is that they assumer we’re at the top of the hill right now. But in reality, does that matter? If we’re halfway down the slope, shouldn’t we be trying to stop and turn back?

Science, Superior to God? (JackeHammer):

Some men look to sex to fill an uneasiness they sense in their soul, some look to wealth, some to knowledge, some look, yes, to science as they seek and when they do they find answers to questions about all sorts of things, just as do those who look to God and God’s Word—the Bible. Sometimes scientists can’t find an answer but they have faith that they will one day, when they do enough experiments, when they ask the right question, just as those who believe in God have faith that they will one day understand things which they can’t understand today.

Secular people tend to ignore the faith needed to pursue science as the basis for your understanding of life. They act as though science is totally based on fact. What they ignore is that much of the science that forms the foundation of their “belief” in the ordered, autonomous world, is only theory. Of course, you can test your theory through the scientific method, but that process isn’t as simple in it’s implications as some people believe:

Science is the OPPOSITE to faith. The scientific process is all about finding evidence to prove or disprove a theory. Science is always moving forwards, trying to disprove earlier theories, searching for new theories, trying to gather better data[...]

So [the Big Bang is] about as proven as scientific theories get (which doesn’t necessarily mean it cannot get replaced by a new theory in the future if competing evidence becomes available, although that seems highly unlikely).

Well, if people are always trying to disprove you, and if you look at history, likely will, how do we know that this is right? Once we’ve “proven” a hypothesis aren’t we believing on the faith that we’ve taken into account all the details and tested them purely? And how quickly we forget…as recently as 1949 “big bang” was a term of ridicule for the theory that many now revere so well. So why is anyone confident at all that a new theory isn’t going to pop up and knock the big bang right out of the picture?

In the line of thinking of the above quoted blogger’s six-year-old (”Who invented God?”), here are some questions that might make your head hurt:

The big bang theory says that the earth expanded “a tremendously dense and hot state” in which all the matter in the universe was packed together. But where did that matter come from? And what did it expand into? If space is generally a vacuum, containing no matter, what is space expanding into now? Since matter can neither be created nor destroyed, how did we come to have so much of it? Wouldn’t it have to have had a beginning?

And what if one day all of our scientific experimentation leads to proof that God exists?

This is a great testimony from Frank Lockwood at Bible Belt Blogger:

Oddly enough, I don’t remember ever seeing Christina search the scriptures during our conversations. She didn’t have to look passages up — she already had them committed to memory — in the King James Version — of course.

It seemed like she had memorized the entire New Testament, with the book of Proverbs tossed in for good measure.

Two decades after attending Harvard, I can’t remember many of my professors’ names. Lord knows I can’t quote them. The textbooks they cited are distant memories.

But I can still hear Christina’s voice, soft and powerful and so full of conviction…

Read the rest, it’s worth it.

Also, check out my new page, Carl Braaten on the ELCA.

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