Saturday Ramblings: Oct. 11, 2014 (Beatitudes edition)

Posted byChaplainmikePosted inSaturday Ramblings

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Domus Galilaeae, Mount of the Beatitudes
We’re going to take a little more serious tack on Ramblings today. To guide us, we’ll organize our thoughts using several of Jesus’ pronouncements in the Beatitudes.

MountainAir_IconJune-Hunt-webBlessed are those who mourn . . .
Here, in a nutshell, is everything that is wrong with “Christian” teaching today. June Hunt, radio host and founder of the worldwide ministry Hope For The Heart, is a “biblical counselor” who “offers a biblical perspective while coaching people through some of life’s most difficult problems.” Here are some profound examples of that “biblical perspective”:

  • The Silver Lining of Suicide
  • 10 Biblical Steps to Overcoming Procrastination
  • 7 Biblical Steps to Defeat Deceit
  • Ray Rice, Domestic Violence, and You: 5 Steps on How to Respond
  • 8 Biblical Steps to Recover From Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Really? The Bible tells me about procrastination? It’s filled with clear “steps” for all my problems? And this is the “biblical” hope we offer people who are going through problems like PTSD and the suicide of a loved one? “I have heard all this before. What miserable comforters you are!“ (Job 16:2)

MountainAir_Icon62ea439f34508a8d7ebabc4e99483b33Blessed are the meek . . .
In our youth-oriented church culture, the senior saints sometimes get overlooked. One church decided to do something unique to reach out to them.

Peace Lutheran Church in Joplin, MO will hold a seniors Vacation Bible School. The event will feature four days of Bible studies along with art projects and other activities including classes on the Wii and iPhone apps, pinochle, chess, and other games, a fabric arts project, greeting card crafts, watercolor class, prayer shawl knit and crochet class. They also hope to help participants start on a personal history project, in which seniors get the opportunity to write their life stories.

You know what? That’s just a great idea. Does my heart good to hear it.

MountainAir_IconBlessed are those who hunger and thirst for the right . . .
Apples, apples everywhere! In Poland, that is.

Michael Winship reports that people in Poland are eating lots and lots of them these days as an act of defiance.

mv-applesMoscow has banned the importing of fruits and vegetables to Russia, in retaliation for the West’s sanctions against the country for supporting the separatists in Ukraine. Last year, Poland sold more than $400 million worth of produce to Russia, 90 percent of it apples. Now that market has disappeared.

So Poles are being urged to eat apples and then eat some more. It’s their patriotic duty. Cider sales have skyrocketed. Janusz Palikot, a controversial Polish businessman and politician declared to a local magazine, “Russia doesn’t want our apples? Then let’s make jam and booze!” The Polish ambassador to the US has even pronounced them “Freedom Apples,” in the dubious tradition of “Freedom Fries,” urging Yanks to take up the slack and buy more from Poland.

Winship calls these apples, “symbols of resilience in the face of adversity. The tenacity and desire for freedom they represent are why so many of the Poles, despite their history of enmity from within and without, and the fear of future conflict, seem determined to live in hope.”

Have an apple for Poland today!

MountainAir_Iconnik-wallenda-300Blessed are the pure in heart . . .
Well, this guy had better be anyway. Christian high-wire artist (a title I was unaware existed — is it in the NT spiritual gifts lists?) Nik Wallenda will walk the tight rope blindfolded in Chicago next month.

Wallenda said he plans to walk a tight rope 65 stories off the ground between the west and east towers of Chicago’s Marina City building blindfolded next month in the hopes of encouraging others to challenge themselves. Then he will perform a second high wire performance where he will walk uphill between Marina City’s west tower and the Leo Burnett Building.

Wallenda has a “never give up” attitude. “I believe that with persistence and with hard work and with that “never give up” attitude, you can accomplish anything … and with the grace of God.”

Glad he added that last phrase.

MountainAir_IconStellmanJasonBlessed are the persecuted . . .
Brought to our attention by Michael Newnham, the Phoenix Preacher:

Jason Stellman, who will tell his story soon here on Internet Monk, was a Presbyterian pastor and leading spokesperson in conservative Reformed circles. Then something happened: he became Roman Catholic. Not willingly, but because he grudgingly came to believe the claims of the Church and its teachings. The consequences his Reformed “friends” have rained upon Stellman since his conversion have brought him “almost nothing but loss” in the past two years.

For example, just take a look at this excerpt from a, shall we say, less than gracious response from James White:

Apostasy has consequences. You abandon your vows, deny the gospel of grace, embrace the Papal system and promote it by your speeches and writings, and think you will be welcome in the church you almost single-handedly crippled? Your very presence would be divisive, troubling, and distracting even if you didn’t say a word. But can’t you see that your presence, given your positive profession of Rome’s teachings, would be a breach of the fellowship of the church?

Your final sentence truly explains it all: you are a traitor to the gospel, Jason. I warned you of that in my office. I made it clear, remember? We actually believe that to be true. Apostasy has consequences. You are surprised that we find you someone who needs to repent and abandon your error? That the church you had been entrusted with leading would rather not have a shepherd-turned-wolf wandering amongst the sheep? Is that really all that difficult to understand?

Later in his post, Michael Newnham shares a personal thought, and I consider it the quote of the week:

“I miss the days when I was dogmatically and doctrinally right and most of you were wrong. Life was much simpler when all my thinking had been done for me five hundred years ago…”

MountainAir_IconFinally, Blessed are the peacemakers . . .
Congratulations to Pakistani child education activist Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi, Indian child rights campaigner, joint winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.

At age 17, Yousafzai is the youngest recipient ever to receive the award, and her story is amazing and inspirational.

122 thoughts on “Saturday Ramblings: Oct. 11, 2014 (Beatitudes edition)”

  2. Thanks, numo. Last year I visited an ELCA congregation out on the prairies of Eastern Montana, and noticed that the people were very friendly.

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  3. I was amazed to see some of the incredibly libelous statements about politicians and statesmen that were printed as a matter of course in 18th c. American papers and handbills.

    I doubt anyone at the time believed it was other than business as usual.

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  4. Patrick – i am really sorry about what was done to you, and dismayed by the examples you cite, though must confess that, having grown up LCA (now ELCA), I never have seen the kinds of things you mention. (By no means am i saying they don’t exist; we humans can get pretty nasty, period.)

    The biggest controversies i can recall were over girls as acolytes (when i was growing up) and communion by intinction (recent), but they are nothing compared to the dustups over the ELCA’s very recent shift on human sexuality.

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  5. People cross these lines all the time, Mike, without ripping each other’s throats out. Catholics, believe it or not, have been known to be friends with protestants. Northern Ireland’s history notwithstanding, It does happen. They have meals together and such. Maybe even attend one another’s churches occasionally. One does not need to disown someone, former pastor or not, because he goes from Presbyterianism to Rome.

    White’s reaction is gross. It’s gross because his theology is gross, and his reading of the Gospel is gross. Not a surprise I suppose, but nowhere near an indicator of any kind of deep Christian faith.

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  6. Heard a number of James White interviews/rants about various topics over the past year. I’ve come to think of him as an inarticulate theology-hack with nothing better to do than attack other Christians.

    Now that suspicion is confirmed.

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  7. numo,

    I am an LCMS Lutheran. I know some here think I am crass and heavy handed, mean spirited, etc. However, I pale in comparison to the likes of the editor of Christian News. Although I consider myself a confessional Lutheran, sadly many of my confessional brothers are very mean spirited. Ask Chaplain Mike about how it went with some fellow Lutherans when he joined the ELCA.. Some of those comment threads were shameful and make me cringe just to think about. Having been a Lutheran for 23 years I have been privy to a number of in house fights that have been ugly. The in house fight over worship styles comes to mind. As one of the founders of New Reformation Press, I was pilloried on a couple prominent blogs. One instance was so bad the blogger was forced by his employer to edit out some of his accusations. Also, poke around concerning the charges of Antinomianism in the LCMS. Plenty of ugliness and a$$holishness to go around.

    That being said, I love Lutheran Christianity and will be buried in Lutheran dirt.

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  9. You know numo, you should swing by Louisville so we can grab a brewski together and talk a little treason.

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  10. Thomas More famously wrote that Luther’s mouth was an *nus. So it wasn’t just Germans who were crude and scatalogical.

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  12. Lutherans have a “vicious reputation”? Do tell, as we Lutherans would like to know what you’re talking about.

    Now, the Wisconsin Synod thinks that the Boy Scouts are irredemable, but that’s a whole ‘nother ballgame altogether! (And it’s because of their inclusion of nondenominatiknal prayef – has been a bone of contention with them since the 1950s.)

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  14. I really agree with your critique. On your critique-yes the bible deals with procrastination but usually with eternal perspectives. She does use the bible but not very well. The biggie for me is on PTSD. Did not look at it so I did not get too upset. If I would have to say one thing about that is continue to rely on God and ask God to take those things away and nothing is a guarantee-and find a good counselor whether a psychiatrist or something else. You would be shocked on what I have experienced just about PTSD counseling let alone PTSD. I just doubt whatever she would say has anything to do with what she knows. If it was someone like Jay Adams-would at least look into it-but does not strike me as a pre-packaged solution kind of guy. There are valid solutions to valid problems-but takes more then ten points and a verse or two-how about some exegesis just one the passages considered-and this takes a bit more time than she took. This smacks of looking for a sermon outline: three points and a poem then thirty seven stanzas of Just as I am-that’s no joke-experienced it a time or two.

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  15. Hm. It kind of sounds to me like you missed the point. We have had plenty of people leave our (Lutheran) church for greener pastures, even ministers. And while it is obvious to all parties what has to happen economically and otherwise, we don’t hate them. And that seems to be the real issue here.

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  17. Heh. You may not be familiar with the history of German rhetoric. Luther sounds like a total @$$hole to me a lot of the time, but in the context of other theologians of the time he sounds downright tame. It was like Howard Stern or something, with everyone thinking that the courser and more strident their language, the more seriously they would be taken. My all time favorite remains Thomas Muntzer, whose never-ending screed against Rome and Luther alike reads like an HBO script about the New Jersey mob. “Donkey c*nt” “scrotum” “diarrhea maker” and “used chamber pot” are some of his more colorful invectives. I suspect they sounded even more “playful” in their original language. Not to mention all the colorful warnings of his theological opponents being ripped limb from limb in hades, while he and the other righteous watch on with gleefully bated breath.

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  20. I’m not quite sure if “mean” is the right word, although I agree completely with your statement. I often think Reformed Baptists are just IFBs with cool jeans. But really, White’s strident language here is not really surprising. He doesn’t do nuance well. Not very sophisticated, really.

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  21. First church I went to after deciding to follow Jesus was U-Pres when Bruce Larson was the lead pastor. Attended several years until moving to the Kent area, which was about the time Earl Palmer became lead. Fond memories of that church and the church body. Many a time I entered the sanctuary when no one was there, just to pray. The presence of God in a huge, empty, silent sanctuary can be quite profound.

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  22. My family was terrified of RC’ s. We were a fundamentalist family; Methodist Holiness. My uncle while at RXschool in Chicago married an RC lady devastating my grandmother and inspiring dire predictions. I wasn’t’t that ignorant but I still felt they were “bad.” Several years later while teaching in Seattle I got a letter from my mother imploring me to write a letter to my uncle who had decided to JOIN the RC church about the danger of this. I really did not want to do this and as I was attending Univ. Presbyterian Church, decided to talk to one of the pastors, Earl. Palmer. When I explained that I wanted to persuade him not to join, he looked up and said. “Why? A discussion to that effect followed. It was a light bulb moment for me. How foolish my family was.

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  23. In some cases, yes if they have denied the Gospel and sown division. Don’t know if thats the case with Spellman,

    In any realm betrayers have a hard lot.

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  24. No, just saying that it might not be fair to write entire faith traditions off as mean-spirited; there are certainly many who have been hurt badly in reformed circles but there are many more who have had wonderful experiences.

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  25. And is the natural response to them that they’ve “denied the gospel of grace” that they’re “shepherds turned wolves” and that they’re apiritual and personal trials are them “reaping what they’ve sown”?

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  26. Fair question.

    I can’t say for sure. I don’t come from a place where my theology necessitates and NATURALLY leads to a response like White’s. I can say that I don’t attend a church that feels the way about Catholicism that White’s church and theological camp does. We say the same creeds, worship the same risen Jesus, read the same Gospels – so it certainly wouldn’t be this kind of a response. But yes, anytime someone leaves there is a sense of hurt and betrayal. That’s not just church – that’s true of life.

    Reading the actual open letter written by White (not a theoretical letter encouraging his congregation that wasn’t written) how anyone would conclude that it demonstrates “pastoral concern” for the remaining congregation is beyond me. I get that they don’t want the guy at their potlucks. That’s fair. But the open letter isn’t about that.

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  27. Mike , have you ever been in a congregation where the founding Pastor (or any Pastor) has renounced their beliefs and joined another denomination or Confession? Yeah, there is some collateral damage, a lot of it…

    The LCMS has dealt with a number of Pastors jumping ship to eastern Orthodoxy. Most usually secretly convert and suck down a pay check from the Lutheran faithful while they feather a fine nest in the EOC and passive aggressively try to subvert their congregations. They then shake the dust from their feet, extending the middle finger of fellowship as they exit.

    I have no idea if that is what Stellman did or not, but you can bet there was huge spiritual damage in the church he left, even if he tried to do it honorably.

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  28. I think one of the reasons that the reaction to Stellman has been so visceral is that he was a rising star in the Reformed pantheon, an anointed son. His embrace of RCC doctrine was accompanied by a corresponding and passionate disavowal of the core of what the Reformed, Lutheran and many Evangelicals consider to be the core of the Gospel. Add to that the casting off of his ordination vows. Many view this as a betrayal and apostasy, or at least a kick in the Reformation family jewels. Given that many Reformed and Lutherans have a vicious reputation, and will devour their own on occasion, I am not shocked at the reaction. He knew this would come too.

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  29. I know what you mean. I saw the video and it was horrifying. Still his quote always inspired me:

    “Being on a tightrope is living; everything else is waiting”

    So I guess he went out the way he wanted to.

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  30. So a pastor founds a church and then renounces the essentials of what that church believes and leaves. And then that church is supposed to do what? Let that former pastor come and go as he pleases? Now you go ahead with that, Mike H. Tell me the specifics of your church and what your church would do. Go ahead and go with that.

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  31. It is amazing that you were there that night in Detroit. I am assuming you were fairly young (it was in ’62 I think?) It must have been traumatic to witness that.

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  32. FOR,

    I heard the back story on that. In the RCC bishops have Apostolic Succession and apparently (to my understanding) an indelible character and ability to ordain and continue the Succession. They sent out basically their ecclesiastical ‘special forces’ lest he start ordaining Unification Church ministers that would ‘really’ be ordained and successors to the Apostles.

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  34. I don’t castigate the Roman laity. They don’t know any better.

    I hold the Pope, the cardinals, the bishops and the priests responsible for teaching terrible doctrine that ‘faith in Christ alone’, is not quite enough.

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  36. Randy,

    Do you think there is a difference between a Presbyterian becoming a Roman Catholic or the reverse and a Catholic priest deciding that he is not called to celibacy and taking a wife?

    Pastoral concern for those who have had a former minister renounce their church and beliefs is nastiness? It seems to me that such a former minister thinking he could just show back up is presumptuous at best and contemptuous of his former congregation at worst.

    Do some people perhaps hold to the beliefs of a theological tradition because they hold them to be true? Not that holding evangelical or even orthodox beliefs merits any quarter at internetmonk.com.

    I am sure that the secretary at your former church is a lovely person. I once knew a Baptist church with a wonderful secretary who was Dutch and Reformed. How was that possible?

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  37. You want to castigate Leo Ten, be my guest. There were a lot worse and it built a magnificent cathedral still in use, and still bringing people closer to God. Personally I prefer my little hundred year old Lutheran country church, but tastes differ. You think indulgences were the vilest things human beings ever came up with one against another? That seems a bit limited to me. I would say that torturing people in the name of God and Inquisition would be a front runner, with religious genocide and child sexual abuse strong contenders. As it happens, these things were most noticed within the Roman Catholic Church but I would not for that reason castigate all worshippers within that tradition. Nor would I castigate those worshippers over points of doctrine.

    I have observed not only Catholics but Reformed and Baptist and Evangelicals in general castigated here over points of doctrine, including all well-meaning, sincere, even devout worshippers and children of God. I’m sure I have missed others who suffered excoriation here. I’m also sure you would never do anything like this. We are all either brothers and sisters under the big Jesus umbrella, or we aren’t. Opinions differ, as our resident Irish pundit, Fawlty O’Ring, so often points out.

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  39. While I’m thinking of it. . .

    I have a heard of a number of former Roman priests who got married and stayed Catholic. Maybe not comfortably Catholic, but Catholic.

    If someone opts to make a major mid-life change theologically, they should be loved, if not employed in their former tradition. Usually, when folks make such changes, they are aware of what the cost will be. The issue here , it seems to me, is nastiness. When people confuse their theological tradition with The Truth, they inevitably get nasty with those who begin to see things differently. Calvinist, especially of the “Split P” variety, tend to mistake their tradition for The Truth, which is why Calvinism is so often more of a weapon than a theology.

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  41. There’s a big difference between being a member of a church or being employed by a church, and visiting a church. For the record, my former church (Protestant) had a Roman Catholic secretary, who was wonderful.

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  42. From what I read on June Hunt’s ministry’s website and from the articles I saw online, it seems to be a caring and compassionate ministry. People were encouraged to seek counseling. Obviously, it doesn’t go to the depth of care that is often (always?) needed but it did seem to show loving concern and awareness of the reality of problems. The Board of Reference included many respected Christian leaders.

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  43. Many years ago I taught adult (not just seniors) VBS in a Baptist church. VBS for all ages was held in the evenings so everyone could attend. The Southern Baptist Convention has published excellent adult VBS materials for years.

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  44. I am curious as to what Jason Stellman or any of his sympathizers here think should have happened to him economically. Was his Presbyterian church supposed to continue to employ him and allowed him to teach his new beliefs that were contrary to their doctrine? If something comparable happened in one of your denominations, what would happen? Is there much of a market for newly converted to PCA ministers in the Catholic, Lutheran, or Orthodox churches? Where is the concern over the lack of welcoming arms on the other side of the Tiber – economically or spiritually?

    I am also curious about all this concern over Stellman not being welcome in his former congregation. I guess all of you Catholics, Lutherans, and Orthodox would allow one of your clergy back into the same congregation they had established and then apostacized from and renounced. Sure.

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  48. I’m not sure in a case like this that you can separate message from tone. If I’m beating someone with a rod telling them, “I’m doing this for your own sake, out of love”…well, Sorry, but that just doesn’t work. The message almost HAS to be rejected outright because I’ve lost the right to claim that my message is right and good and true.

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  49. Well then, just think about what’s at stake today. I hope you don’t hold it too much against me when I excommunicate everybody.

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  53. Seventh-Day Adventist. I don’t belong to that church anymore, but despite my misgivings over their interpretations of Scripture, I have a high level of respect for the church’s emphasis teaching youth to ingest and memorize Scripture.

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  54. A number of years ago, when I was a youth minister, we ran a senior VBS in the afternoon after our kids VBS in the morning. Our church hosted a location based meals on wheals for more mobile seniors in our parish hall. The teens did the skit/puppet show from the morning again after their lunch and more appropriate crafts for the older set. It was awesome. There were a few people who didn’t control their mouths, but it helped us teach teens how to be aware and safe with adults.

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  56. I think this numbers business goes right back to God. Wasn’t he the one who decided there would be 10 Commandments?

    And then there are all the cycles of 7 in Revelation–trumpets, cups of wrath, etc.

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  57. Most of the reformed pastors/teachers I know are in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). I know many other reformed Christians who come from a variety of backgrounds, mostly under the broad tent of evangelicalism, and who attend a diverse group of churches: Evangelical Free, Presbyterian, Baptist, Nondenominational, etc.

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  58. I’m trying to think of how a technical error could lead to a spiritual error. The fact the mustard seed isn’t the absolute smallest doesn’t change the meaning of the parable. Maybe something like: there can be no sons of Adam at the Antipodes, therefore if we find man-like beings we don’t have to treat them as fully human? But I have a hard time imagining Jesus buying that argument. Maybe the slavery thing; Jesus did not condemn it as the atheists are fond of pointing out. I don’t know, you nester-boys are a tricksy bunch, I don’t want to join your club after all.

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  61. But being wrong in matters of fact can lead to being wrong in ethical/spiritual matters, as well. And somewhere in the gospel (I’m not good on chapter and verse) Jesus said that if we do not trust him in things pertaining to earthly matters, how are we to trust him in those pertaining to heavenly.

    “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”

    John 3:12

    There’s the rub.

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  62. Why should Mr. Satyarthi be pitied? Did he not share the Peace Prize with Malala Yousafzai?

    He has done a great work and is an inspiration to all. I see to reason for him to be bitter.

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  63. Interesting. I’ve always thought that in the kenosis Jesus emptied himself of the omni’s. So intellectually, he didn’t know any more than any other Palestinian Jew at the time. He thought the mustard seed was the smallest of seeds, but it isn’t. So he was wrong in the technical sense. Did he know technically that Noah’s flood did not cover the entire planet? He probably did not know that the earth was a sphere. But I always thought his perfection was a moral and spiritual perfection. No one could convict him of sin. He always did what the Father showed him to do. So I would have a problem with him being wrong “in some sense about spiritual truths”. Otherwise it sounds like a fun club, can I still join?

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  64. You want to talk about “vile”, Charles?

    I think that nothing could be more vile than promising people time out of Purgatory for monetary contributions.

    Read up on Pope Leo X, if you really want to see what ‘vile’ is all about.

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  66. Well, if you were to take my username, append the word “fang” at the end and entitle an electronic letter of some kind care of gmail.com, you might just successfully contact me. 😉

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  67. I remember The Flying Wallendas. I also remember the day that Karl Wallenda fell off the wire and died attempting to cross between two buildings in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1978. I promised myself I’d never watch a Wallenda perform again, and I haven’t; but I wish Nik luck. His sponsors are making him wear a tether, unlike his great grandfather, so a fall won’t be fatal. I might even watch.

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  68. Wow, Tokah. The more I learn about your story, the more interesting I find it! I do wish you’d write another article here sometime. And I’d really like to pick your brain about Orthodox liturgy and music sometime.

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  69. Jacob, depends on what you mean by “Reformed”. Dutch Reformed and other older, especially “Continental” Reformed have been quite ok, but it is the Reformed Baptists and small spliter gropus like Doug Wilson’s crowd who tend to turn into Calvinistas.

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  70. Luther was so often “over the top”.

    But what was he up against? What was at stake? Not to make excuses for everything he said. I don’t agree with everything he said. He said some horrible things. Some very wrong things.

    But he also said a lot of wonderful things. Gospel laden, life giving, freedom giving things.

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  71. Martin was also a child of his time, to be read in his own context. Not that he wasn’t over the top, but one has to see that within context. James White is just, as we said in South Africa, king of his own anthill.

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  72. For what it’s worth, my experience with reformed folk has been almost 100% positive (I’m Lutheran) and from my observation most of the reformed people I know (and these are both laypeople and ordained ministers/trained teachers) have been extremely charitable toward Catholics as well.

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  73. Well, my views about Jesus Christ make a distinction between the historical givenness of Jesus’ human life, and the experience of the divine Christ in the post-resurrection Christian community. For instance, I do believe that Jesus Christ could be wrong about matters of fact, and even in some sense about spiritual truths, during his earthly life, though I believe his divine nature has all the qualities usually associated with divinity, omniscience, omnipotence, moral perfection, etc.

    While I believe a true disclosure of the divine nature in human incarnation was given in Jesus Christ, I do not believe that this incarnation included all the qualities usually associated with divinity. Mule, seeing this implied in my support of natural theology, which claims a disclosure of theological truth apart from and partly independent of revealed truth as it is given in the Church, finds parallels between my theology and the Nestorians, who separated the human and divine natures of Jesus Christ. Their is a kind of family resemblance between my views and theirs.

    I don’t believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, or the revelation of theological truth given in the scriptures/tradition, is dependent on the communication of error-less information through scriptures/tradition, or on errorlessness in the life of Jesus Christ himself.

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  77. “Here are the Top 8 Ways that You Will All Be Blessed:
    #1: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the kingdom of heaven.”

    — Matthew 5:2-3, Yahoo! Newsfeed Version

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  78. I do, though it is hard for me to believe sometimes. I used to be the backup, and just switched places with our previous main director at the end of this summer. There is a third lady, MUCH more talented than I am, who would have my job if she was sticking around for more than a year.

    I’m part of the orthodox parish on the SW side of Richmond, VA. I’d say I’m not sure why they put up with me, but “put up with me” really doesn’t cover it. They have nurtured me back to a level of emotional wholeness I never thought I could reach, and when I think about missing my home, the nave here is my mental picture of that home.

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  79. From Ms. Hunt:

    10 Biblical Steps to Overcoming Procrastination
    7 Biblical Steps to Defeat Deceit
    Ray Rice, Domestic Violence, and You: 5 Steps on How to Respond
    8 Biblical Steps to Recover From Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

    From Peter Enns and Jonathan Aigner, resp., on the sidebar posts:

    10 Things I Wish Everyone Knew about the Bible
    15 Reasons Why We Should Still Be Using Hymnals

    Forget apples, snakes, fig leaves, and death — increasingly, I’m coming to believe that the Original Sin involved mankind’s acquisition of mathematical abilities. Is it even possible nowadays to get anyone to pay attention to what you’re saying unless you’ve got a Top X list in the title? It’s the New Numerology. Call it Newmerology if you dare.

    I say all this as a wanton statistical modeller of anything that moves.

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  81. I have a friend who had regular run-ins with James White in the early days of the religious blogosphere. The man is arrogant, revels in half-baked knowledge, and loves condeming people to damnation. Nothing has changed. Just another religious bully.

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  83. For me, VBS was where I was taught to memorize huge swaths of the Bible (e.g., the Creation narrative, John 3, etc.). The closing ceremony required each of us to stand before the congregation and recite what we memorized verbatim. Granted, it was the KJV, but it was a monumental educational experience.

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  84. James White may be a vicious, tunnel-visioned bigot poisoning the air around him with bitterness and anger and hatred, but he doesn’t hold a candle to Martin Luther when he got going. Talk about vile. Talk about grieving the Holy Spirit. Talk about missing the point. Not even Calvin came close. I hope I get the opportunity to meet Martin some day. I want to ask him what he has learned in 500 years, if anything.

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  85. I was there the night the Flying Wallendas fell from the high wire in Detroit. Saw 4 members of Wallendas here in Gainesville Florida a few weeks ago.

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  87. Check out histories of the Reformation Wars in Scotland and the original Scots Presbyterians sometime. Last time I was on the East Coast, I read a friend’s book about “Scottish Battles”. One in particular during the Reformation Wars (where the Presbyterian side won) read like an ISIS/ISIL massacre story, complete with the Khmer Rouge touch of saving powder and shot by drowning hundreds to thousands of POWs and enemy women and children in the local river, ordered and cheered on by Ministers of the Presbyterian “Kirk”. “GOD HATH WILLED IT!”

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  88. It’s standard “NO POPERY!!!! ROMISH ANTICHRIST WHORE OF BABYLON!!!!!” boilerplate. With the additional viciousness of the Righteous going after a Traitor and Turncoat.

    The Treaty of Westphalia ended the Reformation Wars in 1648.
    It is now 2014.
    And some “NO POPERY!” Prots STILL haven’t gotten the news.

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  91. You know, Tokah, I don’t take these discussions lightly. For me, dialogue, even as limited as it may be in the forum of internet commenting (although, I don’t really have these discussions elsewhere in my life, so what could be more limiting than that?), is something I only enter into with a desire to both speak what I have to say, and listen to what others are saying, recognizing that I have to be open enough to allow space for the possibility that my position may change as a result of the exchange. As such, there is always some tension involved for me, because something real is at stake, and the changes I may find myself led to as a result may be far-ranging and difficult. More frightening yet, I may come to recognize the truth of a position that I’m not able to move into because of other life commitments (for example, I will never change my church address without my wife in agreement, because we are not two, but one). If my tone becomes harsh or rude at times, it’s because of this fact (as well as my more elementary sinful propensities), and I beg pardon of anyone to whom I’ve given offense.

    I do like my new name, and, in certain ways, I do lean Nestorian theologically (thanks, Mule, for pointing that out), so I may hang onto it. A rose by any other name…

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  93. Awhile back there was a situation in which an elderly (read: senile) Catholic bishop joined the Unification Church, which then gave him a wife. The Catholics sent somebody round to let him know that all this was against the rules. I wonder how they phrased it, though?

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  96. Oh, no wonder. Never mind.

    But wait! Stellman got the cold shoulder from his own former church, which is apparently Presbyterian, as well as his old seminary, Westminster Theological Seminary, which accepts Presbyterians as well as Baptists (presumably on the basis of a common Calvinism).

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  97. Just this past Wednesday, someone brought what I thought was a rhubarb pie to the weekly dinner before our Bible study. When I complimented the woman who created it, she revealed that it was not rhubarb at all. It contained apples, pears, and raspberries. Absolutely scrumptious! Someone should tell the Poles.

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  99. Beyond even the content of his words, there is the associated action: shunning this person to the point where they are not allowed to visit the church for Christmas.

    Mule, you are certainly abrasive and occasionally I wince when I read things you’ve written. Despite that, I’m pretty sure that if you were traveling through my town, walked into my parish, and saw me (a buzz-cut chick in jeans) leading the music, you would stay for the Divine Liturgy anyway. I’d even bet that when it came time for the classical orthodox communion line dance of constantly urging the other guy to go first, you’d show me the same courtesy that anyone would.

    Abrasive words, tone, even content are one thing. Barring someone from entering a church as a visitor is a whole different thing, incarnational in the bad way.

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  100. For sure.

    What I saw in White’s response goes well beyond abrasive. It’s not only the tone but the content – the theology and the God behind it – that’s concerning.

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  101. Mule, my experience of Reformed Baptists tells me otherwise. Other than sects, only the IFB’s have this tendency to viciousness.

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  102. Very well said, Christiane. Examples such as young Yousafzai brings me peace and hope when I get agitated about all the discord in my world. I take a breath, and believe the Kingdom has come and continues to come. Violence and hatred ultimately can’t win, we see evidence of it all the time, how wonderful to see it recognized on a large stage.

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  103. Presbyterians, or even Reformed Baptists, are not by nature this vicious.
    They have to be carefully taught.

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  104. I’ve been a fan of the Wallendas since I was a little kid. The family is legendary; does anybody remember The Flying Wallendas? Very interesting story, circus family for well over 100 years. The family performed in Europe in the 19th century before members immigrated to the states. Looks like Nik Wallenda is carrying on the tradition. Very cool.

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  105. a person who (I have to assume) sincerely seeks after the Christian God and has a “biblical” faith turns into THAT.

    A clear and present danger for all of us. I can be pretty abrasive too.
    May our merciful God have mercy upon James White, and upon me.

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  107. Matt,
    I think we all see the caustic and over the top rhetoric in James White’s remarks. What I find more interesting is the substance of what he is saying. When I read your response “…thinks he is being loving by telling the truth. But the cruelty of the language is shocking” it’s not clear what is being rejected.

    Do we reject the message outright? Or do we agree with the message just not the tone?

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  109. the triumph of Malala Yousafzai over evil is a victory for all of us . . .

    she was once declared a ‘daughter of the nation’ by the leader of Pakistan, and now she is called a ‘daughter of the United Nations’

    a child of eleven is shot in the face . . . her ‘crime’ according to the Taliban is speaking out for Pakistani girls to have an education . . .

    by some grace of Providence, and a lot of help from many people, the child survives and becomes a young girl of seventeen, on a mission for all girls who deserve to go to school in fundamentalist cultures that traditionally repress females

    the little girl shot unconscious on that bus becomes the young teenager standing before the United Nations:
    mirrored in this one precious life is the unending journey of all girls and women who seek to overcome repression . . .

    THIS girl, so bravely continuing to speak out on behalf of those whose are silenced. . . is there not something so powerful about her being chosen to share the Nobel Peace Prize ? . . . now her voice and their voices are magnified

    imagine, said one authority, the brutal Taliban with all their guns and knives being so frightened by ‘a girl with a book’

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  110. I think your handle would look even snazzier as Robert F. Nestorian, perhaps with a “the third” afterwards.

    More seriously, thanks for your comments yesterday and the day before Robert, I appreciated the chance to read them. I didn’t have time to dabble in that discussion, but it was really interesting.

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  111. Shocking words for sure. He’s been around for a long time. A well known influential voice. Regardless of doctrinal differences, the scariest part for me in seeing White is seeing that a person who (I have to assume) sincerely seeks after the Christian God and has a “biblical” faith turns into THAT. Worst apologetic and indictment for the Christian faith that there is.

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  112. The senior vacation Bible school is a good idea, but did anyone else find the content somewhat — well, insulting, condescending, perhaps? Is all that stuff really Bible study? I’ve always held that little kids can do more than just glue beans on paper plates and learn more than the hand motions for “Zacchaeus Was a Wee Little Man.” Surely older people too would appreciate and respond to something real and substantive.

    Yes, before you ask, I’m well aware I’m a crank, but it’s my job.

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  113. My mother in law makes the best cherry pie I have ever eaten from a special cherry tree that blew over years back. I’ll never forget it. I have a request Lord can you guess what it is Robert.

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  114. The best apple pie I ever had was apple, sausage and potato pie. We had just come back from apple-picking at an orchard one fall afternoon years ago, and we had all these apples, and my wife had this recipe, and the pie she made with that recipe was the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten.

    But it was quite a production, and we rarely had all those apples after that occasion, and we just never got around to making another one, and now our health issues are such that we don’t make or eat pies much, and the recipe is probably lost forever anyway….But I’ll sing the praises of that pie in my heart every time I remember it.

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  116. I read James White’s words to Stellman a few days ago and they have shaken me. It’s possible White thinks he is being loving by telling him the truth. But the cruelty of his language is shocking. Makes me wanna read Merton.

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  117. I believe that the Bible does address procrastination somewhere in the Pauline epistles. It would have been in the Old Testament, but God was busy, and there was this whole Israelite apostasy thing going on, so he was all like, “Once Jesus does his ministry, I’ll get around to it.”

    And how awful is it that today’s ramblings have to include someone as horrible as James White alongside the beautiful and strong Yousafzai, the quirky mission outreach of Peace Lutheran Church, and the apple-eating Poles (I’ll make an apple pie today, even though those apples are not going to Polish).

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  118. I miss the days when I was dogmatically and doctrinally right and most of you were wrong. Life was much simpler when all my thinking had been done for me five hundred years ago…

    I know that feeling. Sometimes I get so ANGRY over the sense of certainty that I have lost. Living with one’s intellectual finitude, and having to deal with other people holistically rather than just accepting or judging them based on their adherence to Reformed theology, is a messy pain in the posterior.

    Your prayers are appreciated.

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  119. (On Stellman) I had no idea that Presbyterians were this mean. Is this normal behavior from them? How representative is this particular grouping? (I think they said PCA.)

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  120. Aren’t 10 steps way to many for procrastinators? If they only got around to doing one every couple of months it would take close to 2 years to get better.

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  121. “Wallenda has a ‘never give up’ attitude.”

    I think that, like me, he’s a Nestorian.

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  122. Not much to laugh at in this edition of “Rambling”. Guess I’ll just have to watch an old Steve Martin movie instead…

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