Tuesday, July 29
Monday, July 28
Pastor Suggests Suppression Of Witches
The minister did a superb job in pointing out that not as many lost their lives in this tragedy as is commonly believed and the role played by Christians such as Cotton Mather in actually bringing this outrage to an end.
Somewhat disturbing was his contention that the civil magistrate should not allow those of that deviant creed to meet publicly as they do here in America.
It is correct that in the Old Testament that the theonomic covenant commanded that Israel was to drive practitioners of these beliefs from the land to the point of execution if need be.
However, we do not see that approach being taken in the New Testament.
For example, instead of physical force being used to repel these abominations, what we see transpiring in the more Gentile context in which the Apostles operated was apologetic confrontation where the errant beliefs were exposed and the alternative of the Gospel offered.
Furthermore, if the Christian magistrate suppresses conscience in this area deemed offensive, on what grounds do they protest when they find their beliefs being persecuted and oppressed?
by Frederick Meekins
A Christian Approach To Technology
Futurists have estimated that nearly 90% of the knowledge today has been discovered within the past decade. This is especially true of scientifically complex fields such as biology and medicine.
Ethics is the branch of philosophy concerned with determining what is right and wrong. Bioethics attempts to apply these principles to issues relating to matters of life, its quality, and preservation. As such, it is a relatively new field of inquiry coming to prominence since the 1980’s.
As a new discipline, overall bioethics is underdeveloped with Christian involvement scantier than it ought to be. With its frontier flavor however, bioethics is not confined solely to those with doctorates in esoteric subjects. Rather it is a field needing input from a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives if mankind is to chart a balanced course into what was before now unexplored territory.
For example, many couples unable to have children on their own have turned to a number of fertilization techniques where egg and sperm are brought together outside the body for implantation inside the womb. While the practice has become quite commonplace, it is in fact fraught with a number of ethical dilemmas that need to be addressed by the church.
For starters, the reader will note that nowhere above is it spelled out that the sperm and the egg belong to the husband and the wife of the couple seeking to have a child. Sometimes these are donated --- often bought and sold like farm produce --- from total strangers, undermining the sanctity of the marriage covenant and no doubt unsettling the identity of the child should the offspring ever learn of his true parentage.
Yet of even greater concern in these procedures is when more eggs are fertilized than are needed. Since it can be concluded from Matthew 1:20 that fertilized eggs posses life, quite a dilemma develops over what to do with the leftover embryos.
If these individuals are disposed of, it becomes an act of murder. They can be placed into storage for up to seven years if the couple would like to have an additional baby in the future; but what happens if the couple divorces?
These conundrums and many others just like it are the result of the underlying worldview upon which much of contemporary culture rests. For since the days of the Renaissance, up through the Enlightenment and French Revolution and no doubt accelerated by Darwinism, no longer is God and His Word seen as the ultimate source of moral authority. Rather, the moral focus has switched to human autonomy in either the form of the individual or the state.
In the Book of Genesis, the student of Scripture learns that man is created in the image of God. As such, upholding this ideal preempts individual happiness when personal satisfaction comes into conflict with innocent human life.
Unfortunately, in this day the preservation of innocent human life often takes a backseat to “I want” and “me, me, me”. Such anxiety can drive the longing soul inward to concentrate on one’s own existential despair rather than outward towards those with even greater needs.
For example, a couple unable to have children on their own biologically wanting to have one --- often pressured into it by members of the congregation and clergy thinking they know more about the will of God for other people than the people themselves --- often turn to artificial fertilization these days rather than other ways to satisfy an otherwise humanitarian impulse such as adoption or other charitable pursuits.
Likewise, at the other end of the continuum of selfishness are those that, rather than coveting life so much that they would dishonor it by an illegitimate attempt to grasp at and possess it on their own terms rather than through God’s providence, that view life needing care beyond the ordinary in order to be maintained such as that at the beginning or end of temporal existence as an inconvenience to be done away with as soon as possible.
Those holding to the Biblical position of respecting the image of God within each individual irrespective of the physical frame’s condition would do what was within their power to defend the young under their responsibility and lend comfort to those passing out of this life on God’s timetable rather than according to some arbitrary definition of quality.
Furthermore, if those in their declining years were treated as human beings created in the image of God rather than as beasts of burden that have outlived their usefulness, senior saints might enjoy a better quality of life irrespective of their bodily circumstances.
By Frederick Meekins
Friday, July 25
Thursday, July 24
Will Government Robots Patrol American Homes?
This is being proposed in the name of obesity prevention.
So what happens when the human beings disobey the robot?
If these robots are government owned and subsidized, what is to prevent the robot from cataloging for your intelligence agency file everything you say and do.
What if in in a fit of anger you say something uncouth about protected government minorities?
What if the little woman is aroused to carnal relations in a politically incorrect manner?
Click ON The Headline
Wednesday, July 23
In defense of a strident understanding of predestinarian soteriology, a meme has been posted on social media pointing out that a sheep cannot become a goat and a goat cannot become a sheep because they are born that way. If this holds true, what is the point of discussing religion whatsoever other than to preen about like a peacock strutting one’s theological erudition and ecclesiastical finery? For with the exception of the Transhumanists, no one goes around advocating why one ought to alter one’s inherent ontology. Of course, you will find those mesmerized by their own doctrinal navals that parrot that God predestinates the means as well as the ends. Those holding that one is bestowed a degree of choice in determining one eternal destiny are often accused of idolatry. However, if the Calvinist hegemony holds true, isn’t the retort against free will itself an even greater act of idolatry? For its basic assumption, if clerics holding to it are going to continue to berate their co-religionists on the grounds of insufficient evangelistic zeal, that God’s sovereign choice can somehow be thwarted by His minions failing or refusing to implement it.
The Worst Possible Futures & How To Avoid Them
Tuesday, July 22
Monday, July 21
Friday, July 18
A Review Of "Orthodoxy" By G.K. Chesterton
It is Chesterton’s contention that, rather than stifling the individual, it is through orthodoxy that man is liberated to both accept and embrace the contradictions of this life for what they really are in all their wonder and horror. It is the heretic that is unable to rise to a level that would give him a perspective that would enable him to appreciate things as they actually are since the heretic is ultimately beholden unto these very forces of life. Chesterton muses, “Thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world; they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true (22).”
Often, believers are accused of being close minded. However, Chesterton contends that Christians are no more close minded than the adherents of any other outlook. Chesterton writes, “For we must remember that the materialist philosophy...is certainly much more limiting than any religion...The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle (41).”
As a result, the heterodox mind must increasingly withdrawal from a world that declares the glory of God in order to maintain the consistency of the fiction it has constructed. For example, in illustrating views regarding the existence of sin, Chesterton offers the following humorous illustration, “If it be true...that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat (24).”
Those adverse to traditional religious notions have constructed elaborate epistemological systems in an attempt to justify their unbelief. However, Chesterton assures, such intellects (though formidable by human standards in terms of the facts such minds have accumulated) actually bear a startling resemblance to the insane.
Like the insane, rationalists view themselves as the source of all meaning. In the struggle and strain to understand everything, Chesterton notes, the consistent rationalist is actually driven mad as they end up losing everything but their reason. Chesterton observes, “The man who begins to think without the proper first principles goes mad; he begins to think at the wrong end...But we may ask in conclusion, if this be what drives men mad, what is it that keeps them sane (48)?”
The answer provided by Chesterton is none other than the mystical imagination found in religious orthodoxy. The thing about the cosmos human beings occupy is that is both physically and epistemologically too complex for the finite mind to fully comprehend. The only thing we can do is appreciate what we can and to accept that there is a power beyond us. Chesterton notes, “The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable but not quite (148).”
Chesterton further likens the spiritual realm to two wild horses threatening to bolt off into the extremities of either direction with only the church adhering to orthodoxy capable of reining in these powerful tendencies that are good and pure when kept together as a team but result in heartache and ruin if not kept working together in tandem. Ironically, Chesterton claims, though often depicted as scatterbrained the best poets (actually quite sensible and businesslike) are often the ones embodying the spirit necessary for handling this awesome responsibility. For what the average person desires above all else is a life of practical romance defined by Chesterton as “the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure (16).” And what is any more mysterious and secure at the same time than God Himself?
Written in the early years of the twentieth century, some of the authors mentioned by Chesterton might seem obscure to readers not that familiar with general literary history. However, the fact that they have been forgotten while Chesterton is still embraced as a foremost defender of the faith is a positive testament to the relevance of Chesterton’s ruminations that, though written nearly a century ago, ring with a truth that sounds as if they just rolled off the presses.
by Frederick Meekins
Thursday, July 17
The Pope has admonished that nations should be more welcoming of the immigrants flooding over their borders. So does that mean tourists should be allowed to storm the papal apartments and gorge themselves upon whatever treats might be in the private papal pantry? Can whoever wants to without prior approval take a leak in the Vatican bathroom with the nudie paintings on the wall?
In discussing how he would have ended the “Life With Archie” series in which the eponymous protagonist is murdered, home school activist Kevin Swanson announced he would have instead had Archie arrest the gay character and banish the reprobate from the town. So if this is the idealized jurisprudence of the Christian Reconstructionist, what is to prevent rumors of carnal transgression from being concocted in the attempt to seize the property of business rivals or from those that simply have a nicer place than yours?
It has been announced that Archie will lose his life in defense of a homosexual acquaintance. Not getting as nearly as much press is that the gay character is a senator campaigning for increased gun control. So if Archie had been allowed to retain and exercise his Second Amendment rights, this comic hero might have been able to foil the assassination attempt without having to sacrifice his own life. Hopefully, conservatives will make as much fuss over how such narratives paint as an ideal the willingly giving up our own lives for elites thinking that they know how to run our lives better than we do.
Vancouver Catholic Schools Surrender To Transgender Restroom & Pronoun Policies
Are Baptists Fielding A Security Force Openly Modelled On Hitler's Brownshirts?
Wednesday, July 16
One of the principles of the Slow Church Movement holds that the individual should remain in the same church. So will ministry positions and opportunities go to the people that have remained at a church for ages? Or will this be more like the typical workplace where the gloryhounds swoop in when something opens up with the old timers overlooked because they aren’t the right demographic (meaning they are the wrong color or the plumbing hooked up incorrectly) with the excuse being that those at the bottom need to remain where they are (meaning there needs to be somebody to be stepped on).
Is The Slow Church Movement The Next Religious Threat?
According to the 7/23/14 Christian Century review of the book “Slow Church: Cultivating Community In The Patient Way Of Jesus”, these authors contend that the individual should stay in only one church.
This is because, “Every time we move from one church to another, we lose a little bit of our patience for all things religious.”
But what if the church is so small that the less desirable regions of the Afterlife will cover over with glaciers before the average person will be able to participate through means of other emptying pockets into the collection plate?
But more importantly, this perspective could easily lead to the fostering of an atmosphere where the victims (oh, I mean members and attenders of the congregation) will put up with increasingly shocking forms of abuse and levels of generalized mistreatment for fear of endangering their immortal souls.
Even if that is not what the authors originally intended, that is most likely what will result in a world characterized by Jonestown, Waco, and the epidemic of sex scandals blackening the eyes of both the Roman Catholic and Protestant branches of Christendom.
According to the authors of a manifesto on the Slow Church Movement, one is to remain in the same church more or less no matter what.
The authors clearly look like Emergent Church beatniks.
One of them is even a Quaker.
That means he does not view doctrine formulated upon the foundation of His unchanging word as the primary way that God conveys His intentions to mankind.
Rather, we are to fumble about being leading by what is assumed to be the Holy Spirit.
But with that given a higher status than the Bible, we don’t really have any proof that the message we are receiving is from the indwelling presence of the Triune Godhead or rather from demonic entities kicked out of the gates of Heaven.
In the end, this Slow Church mindset will no doubt be used to denigrate the character of those that get up and walk out once the gay weddings or the wife swappings commence and be used to applaud as spiritually awakened those willing to go along with such abhorrent practices.
by Frederick Meekins
Tuesday, July 15
In addressing the theology of hunting in “Rise, Kill & Eat” by Doug Giles, too bad theologian and apologist Kevin Boling did not ask the author why it is necessary for Americans to travel to Africa to kill animals. If you are rich enough to travel to Africa, you have more than enough money to procure food and clothing from other sources.
Monday, July 14
Will Religious Leftists Abandon Gospel Standards To Attract Reprobate Millennials?
Friday, July 11
In a Dallas Theological Seminary podcast regarding the phenomena of Emerging Adulthood and Extended Adolescence, it was remarked that, in 1960, 70% of the population had achieved what are considered milestones of adulthood such as marriage and procreation by the age of 30. Today, however, only about 40% of the population achieved these by the age of 30. Given the epidemic of divorce, the unhappy marriages that lead to the dissolving of what ought to be a lifelong bond, and the resultant social upheaval that has transpired since 1960, that isn’t exactly a good track record of why it is advisable to push the young into situations they might be entering more out of social pressure and conformity rather than as something they actually sincerely desire.
Do Dallas Seminary Scholastics Insist Church Has More Right To Children Than Christian Parents?
It use to be that the name “Dallas Theological Seminary” was akin to a Good Housekeeping Seal Of Approval” in conservative Evangelical Protestant circles.
Upon hearing that name, it was pretty safe to assume that what you were subjecting yourself to was sound theological teaching.
However, as in the case of the Good Housekeeping Seal Of Approval, it seems this once great name in theological erudition and learning can also be bought for a price in an era of declining standards and quality.
One comment in a podcast about the phenomena of Emerging Adulthood produced by that particular institution ought to send chills down the spines of the discerning.
One of the speakers in the discussion remarked that parents ARE NOT to think of themselves as the primary disciplers of their children regarding the Christian faith.
Instead, that is an area over which the parents are to yield to the authority of the Church.
Frankly, I doubt that is a concession even the most sincerely devout of Roman Catholics are willing to make to Vatican hierarchs.
So just how much control over what is taught in the home in regards to doctrine and practice in regards to secondary issues are the parents suppose to surrender to the pastor and his underlings?
Ideally, the parents are to be the primary teachers of the faith to their offspring.
The church is there as a source a general teaching and consultation should the family face an issue over which they do not feel equipped to address.
This mindset where the parents are looked to as glorified innkeepers and hotel bellhops with the real task of character formation left to credential and positioned experts has worked out splendidly in terms of the public education system.
Why should we assume it will work out any better in the confines of the Church.
By Frederick Meekins
Has Handout Mentality Penetrated Dallas Theological Seminary?
A Dallas Theological Seminary podcast tackled the issue of Emerging Adulthood.
That is the phenomena where many youth do not assume all of the responsibilities of adulthood all at once but rather over a span of time that can extend into the 30’s.
In reflecting, one of the seminarians remarked how in his own life as soon as graduating from Biola he set out straight to Texas to embark on his ministry.
Essential to his own success were regular checks from his church COMMUNITY.
Instead of simply offering a statement of gratitude, the seminarian went on to lament how this practice was no longer usually the case.
Why should it be?
Most people are struggling financially on their own to keep their heads above water.
On what grounds are those that are in jobs or occupations that they might not care for obligated to turn hard-earned money over to an Evangelical Christian equivalent of a shiftless beatnik meandering about trying to “find themselves” or are unwilling to lift a finger on their own until landing in their dream job?
Shouldn’t church money or money from church people instead go to those enduring ACTUAL hardships?
By Frederick Meekins
Thursday, July 10
Calvinists Overly Critical Of Altar Calls
Such humor is an attempt to ridicule the practice where pastors and evangelists encourage those under conviction to come forward so that they might invite Jesus into their hearts for forgiveness and salvation if they are not exactly how to commence this journey towards a beatific eternity.
Granted, such tactics might prompt an insincere or misunderstanding person to rush forward thinking the profundities being approached are formulaic.
However, what those spreading this missiological propaganda fail to reveal is that they don't really want you making a decision irrespective of the venue.
If they had their way and preached sermons consistent with their soteriology, you'd remain neutral with your fingers crossed (unless they make a fuss about that gesture also somehow being pagan in origin) with the mystery resolved of whether you'll awaken after death in Heaven or Hell only after you arrive in one of these two regions of the Afterlife.
It is claimed that this ritual urging the penitent to march forward to receive Christ is not in the Bible.
But neither are many other traditions that these hardline Biblicists of a Calvinistic persuasion insist upon retaining.
For example, it should be pointed out to those holding to this variety of predestinarianism from a Presbyterian or Anglican perspective that there is nothing about infant baptism providing salvatory protection for a baby.
It might be a beautiful symbol of welcoming a child into the covenant community.
But if you, dear Christian, are relying on that liturgical act to protect your precious little one from the fires of Hell throughout a lifetime and do nothing more to introduce that child to Christ as the Savior they must claim for themselves, spiritually you have doused your child in gasoline and edged them to the brink of those unquenchable flames.
Next, there is really not a thing in the Bible about formalized membership in one particular church organization.
At most, the Scripture speaks of one church in a particular town.
So if we are going to be such a stickler on detail, if your church is not the oldest congregation in town, are you guilty of being a schismatic?
Interestingly, those looking down their noses at those congregations that make use of altar calls as part of their order of service certainly don't mind going out of their way to whack me over the head about not “belonging” to a particular congregation even though I go to church most weeks out of the year, listen to sermons and conservative talk radio at least four hours per day, and nearly every day post conservative and/or Christian content to the Internet.
The Bible provides the basic rules by which the Creator expects us to abide if we are to please Him and for us to receive His blessing even if that reward is not granted this side of eternity.
However, one truth that each of us often struggles with is that the specifics in which those absolutes are implemented on the practical level might not be as clearly spelled out.
By Frederick Meekins
