At about 7:45 p.m. Eastern Time today, one of the Newsweek links on the front page of MSNBC.com was asking whether a particular local chapter of Alcoholic’s Anonymous was actually a cult. The link referred to the following article:
David Wells compares the Emerging Church with traditional and Seeker-Sensitive churches
The following video was prepared for the 2006 national conference (September 29-October 1) held by John Piper’s Desiring God ministry. The 2006 conference took its name from David Wells’ recent book, Above All Earthly Pow’rs: Christ in a Postmodern World, (Grand Rapids, MI, USA: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005). Wells (Ph.D., University of Manchester) is a professor of historical and systematic theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Massachusetts.
You can also view this video on Desiring God’s web site, where you will find a page linking to videos of interviews with other conference speakers.
I have been told…
I have been told to reason by the heart,
But heart, like head, leads helplessly;
I have been told to reason by the pulse,
And, when it quickens, alter the actions’ pace
Till field and roof lie level and the same…[Dylan Thomas, excerpted from “Should Lanterns Shine,” in The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas 1934-1952, (New York: New Directions Books, 1971), 72.]
Wrong Number
One day I called someone up and got the wrong number. I apologized profusely but then realized just an apology was not enough. I offered some money as partial compensation and then threw in some stocks and bonds at the last minute. Then I thought, perhaps if I could take their address and send them everything I own, then take a journey to Tibet to acquire wisdom, I could then inform them of the truth, something money could not buy. Naturally they were still indignant, but were at least convinced of my sincerity in wanting to make it right. They suggested that after I go to Tibet, I kill myself, thus offering my last breath as penance. This seemed slightly out of line, but not being a good businessman, I agreed.
So now I’m in Tibet, standing on my head on a llama, thinking ’bout the day I got dat wrong number.
—Steve Martin, “Wrong Number,” from Cruel Shoes, (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1979), 61-62.
The two Benedicts
The version I read, which was written before Joseph Ratzinger became pope, goes something like this: Karl Rahner, Hans Küng, and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger all die on the same day and go to meet St. Peter to learn of their fates. St. Peter approaches the three men and tells them that he will interview each of them to discuss their views on various issues. Continue reading
Sixty years ago today
The first year in which Major League Baseball offered its Rookie of the Year Award was 1947 (at that time there was only one award for both the National and American Leagues). Coincidentally, it was in that same year, on April 15, Jack Roosevelt “Jackie” Robinson debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers as the first African American Major League Baseball player. He went on to hit .297, lead the National League in stolen bases, and win the Rookie of the Year Award. Branch Rickey‘s gamble had paid off.
Old question
Thirty-six years ago (in 1971), in a series of three lectures that he delivered in Mittersill, Australia, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones asked the question, “What Is an Evangelical?” (You can read them in Knowing the Times [Edinburgh, UK & Carlisle, PA, USA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2001].)
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Easter Eggs
A guy comes down to Earth, takes your sins, dies, and comes back three days later. You believe in him, and go to heaven forever. How do you get from that to hide the eggs? Did Jesus have a problem with eggs? Did he go, “When I come back, if I see any eggs, the whole salvation thing is off”?
[Judy Brown, ed., Joke Stew, (Kansas City, MO, USA: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2000), 135.]
How to be an oppressor
Weariness hung from his facial muscles like lead weights on fishing lines. His hair, recently mauled by the suburban Chicago winds, reflected the gusts of reproach he had just battled. His jaw was set like that of a courtroom defendant whose guilty verdict was still echoing in his ears as he came to lay his pile of frustrations on the counter just long enough to write out a check to the seminary business office and be on his way.
Something told me he was having a rough day. It didn’t take long for me to dig it out of him. I guess he thought I would empathize.
On turning 48
The light bends through the prisms of dangling yesterdays, stacked-up on floors, spilling off shelves, hiding underneath the papers in the bottom of my briefcase until I accidentally excavate them, following me wherever I go. Sometimes like circus mirrors, sometimes like vignetted dreams, they never knock or phone ahead; they act like that family member who always pretends not to notice that she has a habit of dropping in just before dinner is about to be served. Long ago they stopped insisting that they wouldn’t dream of intruding. Now they just pull up a seat as if it’s a given that I’ll set out a plate and silverware. Continue reading
The Sola Scriptura of Cyril of Jerusalem
Have thou ever in thy mind this seal, which for the present has been lightly touched in my discourse, by way of summary, but shall be stated, should the Lord permit, to the best of my power with the proof from the Scriptures. For concerning the divine and holy mysteries of the Faith, not even a casual statement must be delivered without the Holy Scriptures; nor must we be drawn aside by mere plausibility and artifices of speech. Even to me, who tell thee these things, give not absolute credence, unless thou receive the proof of the things which I announce from the Divine Scriptures. For this salvation which we believe depends not on ingenious reasoning, but on demonstration of the Holy Scriptures.
[Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 315-387), Lecture IV.17, “The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem,” translated by Edwin Hamilton Gifford, in Philip Schaff., ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Volume 7, (Peabody, MA, USA: Hendrickson Publishiers, Inc., reprinted 2004), 23.]
March 18 is the feast day of St. Cyril of Jerusalem on Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican church calendars.
Double Mystery Solved
“Mrs. Larson, you’re not going deaf in your left ear. You seem to have a suppository stuck in there!”
“Well, now I know what happened to my hearing aid.”
[Mike Danforth, et. al., and Garrison Keillor (Introduction), A Prairie Home Companion Pretty Good Joke Book, (St. Paul, MN, USA: Highbridge Company, 2000), 123. The book is now in a fourth edition.]
Speciesism
As we continue to recognize the fifteenth anniversary of the original publication of The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook, by Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf, let us consider the plight of the voiceless victims of speciesism. But how can we consider their plight if we don’t know the exact nature of their oppression? Hence the need for a handy reference work that can enlighten (or is it better to say “encolor?”) us on this matter.
A lot of people will like this book.
In fact, a lot of people have liked this book. And isn’t that all that matters? I mean, if you can write in a congenial autobiographical style that makes people feel good by telling them the kinds of things anyone would want to hear, if readers warm up to you the way kids would to a favorite uncle who intrigues them with views different from those of their parents, if you can effectively manipulate the emotional hooks in a story when truth and logic abandon you, does it really matter if your premises are faulty, your facts are few and far between, and the cover of your book is a tad misleading? So what if this book is less than the sum of its parts (much less, actually)! Why can’t we all just be open minded for a change, and if, in the process of opening our minds our brains fall out, so what? If God is bigger than our puny little brains, He shouldn’t care what’s in them, right? So let’s try putting the stuff Philip Gulley and James Mulholland have written in their book, If Grace Is True: Why God Will Save Every Person (San Francisco, CA, USA: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003) into them and see what happens. Continue reading
The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things we do not know.
Bur there are also unknown unknowns.
The ones we don’t know we don’t know.February 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing
—Donald Rumsfeld, as versified by Hart Seely in Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld, (New York: Free Press, 2003), 2.
Our Life Is But a Span 