BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Drab homes give birth to art idolatry...

(NOTE FROM TIM BAYLY: A large part of this post has been removed. A young man objected that I was replacing one idolatry with my own more sophisticated one, and I thought it best to pull the post rather than allow readers to concluding that I am promoting idolatry.)

Here's an interesting explanation of the worship of artists spreading through the PCA by way of Covenant, MNA, and Redeemer clones. George Bernard Shaw points out that this worship has its origin in artless homes and childhoods...

Ugh, it's Christianity Today, again--this time weighing in against spanking...

Knives are necessary to cut meat and bread. Every once in a while, knives are used to kill people. Can we all agree knives aren't the problem? Please? Pretty please?

The abuse of a thing does not invalidate its proper use.

This truth has eluded the editors of Christianity Today. In a recent editorial they use the death of several children at the hands of their fathers and mothers as the spectre to soften readers up to their dogma that "corporal punishment ...should be employed miles short of abuse, without anger, and as an absolute last resort." From their perch in Moses' seat, these scribes declare about spanking that "the Bible does not require it" (emphasis in the original).

Think about this. The magazine that purports to be the voice of Biblical inerrancy and Christian faith in these United States has run an editorial declaring that the rod of discipline God Himself requires God Himself does not require. And if that sentence confuses you, all I can say is I couldn't figure out how to put it more clearly.

And if you're one of the pigheaded ones who balks against progress, just be sure you only use the rod as "an absolute last resort." 

But the Bible commands us to use the rod. God requires it...

It was the worst of Times...

Hating God's large laws (think the Seventh Commandment), the New York Times is hard at work promulgating her own infinitely small ones. Think for instance of the need to divest ourselves of evil toys.

Traditionally, toys were intended to communicate parental values and expectations, to train children for their future adult roles. Today’s boys and girls will eventually be one another’s professional peers, employers, employees, romantic partners, co-parents. How can they develop skills for such collaborations from toys that increasingly emphasize, reinforce, or even create, gender differences? What do girls learn about who they should be from Lego kits with beauty parlors or the flood of “girl friendly” science kits that run the gamut from “beauty spa lab” to “perfume factory”?

The rebellion against such gender apartheid may have begun.

Girl toys are responsible for gender apartheid. So says the New York Times. With its newspaper of record such a nag, could anyone really be surprised that Manhattan's most marketable church is pervasively androgynous? (TB)

 

Christian courage...

As the Obama administration works to advance the wickedness of homosexuality around the world, the gay battle against God and His Word progresses at home. 

Into this battle this week stepped a thoughtful and talented young woman who attends Christ the Word's youth group. Asked to provide her thoughts on homosexuality for a views page in her high school newspaper she wrote:

"Hearing about an individual choosing the way of homosexuality is disappointing. They have given in to the temptation to sin. Am I afraid of the person because of this choice? No. Do I hate the person because they have chosen to give in to a sin? Of course not. Christians are called to love others, even our enemies. I would not love a person any less for the reason of a sin they are committing. Fact is, we all sin and have struggles of our own, whether they are big or tiny, and it makes no difference to God. What makes the difference is overcoming the sin.

The 9/11 suicide mission of Lt. Heather Penney...

They didn't know it at the time, but Todd Beamer and his fellow stalwarts on Flight 93 saved the life of one woman intent on taking theirs--Kamikaze style. Ten years later, the Washington Post broke the story (in its "Lifestyle" section, of course):

Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney was on a runway at Andrews Air Force Base and ready to fly. She had her hand on the throttle of an F-16 and she had her orders: Bring down United Airlines Flight 93. The day’s fourth hijacked airliner seemed to be hurtling toward Washington. Penney, one of the first two combat pilots in the air that morning, was told to stop it.

The one thing she didn’t have as she roared into the crystalline sky was live ammunition. Or missiles. Or anything at all to throw at a hostile aircraft.

Except her own plane. So that was the plan.

When they ordered her to scramble, did anyone know whether or not Penney was pregnant? And if she was, did they ask her little baby if he was willing to die on his mother's suicide mission?

Mother murders eight-year-old son, claims mercy-killing defense...

The defense sounds insane until you realize this is precisely the explanation tens of millions of mothers have used since 1973 to justify their murder of their unborn babies. His life was sad so I murdered him.

What we want to know is why this defense works with parents who murder their unborn and defective newborn children...

Church officers and fathers who cover up sexual crimes...

"Fathers need to know this: avoiding the potential shame by not providing justice for your daughter is a cowardly act that will be forever remembered..." - longtime PCA elder and father of little daughters just found to have been raped by a relative

Here's an e-mail we received responding to the post "With the souls of sodomites destroyed, children are next...". As you will see, the e-mail is filled with horrors--particularly the horror of Christians who refuse to recognize the horrors taking over our homes and churches and to respond to them Biblically.

Since posting this and the previous piece, it's become clear to me that readership of this post has been small. And I believe this means sexual sin and the rampant fornication and pornography that are its seedbed will live on in the church, gaining ground while church officers and household fathers abandon their flocks and talk exchange blog posts and comments about family-centered churches and post-millenialism.

The predators love this.

So please, look again at the pull-quote at the top and ask yourself if you and your church officers are beyond it? If you're such good fathers, pastors, elders, deacons, and Titus 2 women that you don't need to find out what it means or how to respond to this failure of fathers filling our churches with bitterness? I'm sure no one relishes reading such a rebuke, but then do we really think the Corinthians enjoyed the Apostle Paul's letters?

Note particulary the father's statement about the cowardice of fathers who try to cover up the crime rather than protecting their children. This is the reality of my pastoral experience, over and over again. Our session submits the criminal to the civil magistrate. Always. Immediately. And so must you.

Living in a university community, over many years, now, ClearNote Church has been blessed by God with a good number of opportunities to be servants of reconciliation in these tragic circumstances. We would be pleased to serve your church's officers by providing support and counsel when you need help with sexual abuse and crimes against our Lord's little ones. Please feel free to contact us.

Now, on to the account...

With the souls of sodomites destroyed, children are next...

Hazael said, “Why does my lord weep?” Then he answered, “Because I know the evil that you will do to the sons of Israel: their strongholds you will set on fire, and their young men you will kill with the sword, and their little ones you will dash in pieces, and their women with child you will rip up.” (2 Kings 8:12)

Time and again, those who pastor souls are called by God to enter into the havoc and destruction caused by the sexual depredation of children. Sometimes it's the children themselves who initiate the sin; other times it's an older relative or some unrelated adult, both male and female. One tragic aspect of this ministry is watching how often sexualized children grow up into bondage to sexual perversion, themselves. Little boys molested by older boys or men grow up desiring men rather than women.

This simple fact needs to be forced out of the closet, into the light...

The wine of the passion of her immorality...

And another angel, a second one, followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who has made all the nations drink of the wine of the passion of her immorality.” - Revelation 14:8

Son-in-law Lucas forwarded this interview on the future of the internet with Dr. Hamadoun Touré, General Secretary of the International Telecommunications Union. The ITU is an agency of the United Nations with a mandate to make sure the internet "runs smoothly, and that governments don't get in the way of their citizens' unfettered access to communications."

Dr. Touré recommends that countries avoid English if they wish...

Not to worry, Congresswoman Bachmann's resigned membership in her WELS church...

The Wisconisn Evangelical Lutheran Synod sees the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and raises them one. Or maybe ten.

In my former home of Pardeeville, Wisconsin, the WELS congregation was the dominant religious presence in town. When they called a new pastor, Mary Lee and I decided to invite him with his wife and children over for dinner. After a cordial introduction, we sat down at the table and I turned to him and said, "I've heard lots of things through the years, but let me ask you directly: do you pray, do I pray, or do we not pray at all?"

He answered, "You go ahead and pray and we'll sit by," and immediately his good wife turned to their children and said, "We're going to pray; fold your hands and close your eyes." God bless her.

We had a pleasant evening. During the conversation the WELS pastor told us his grandmothers was a godly Baptist and that he didn't pray with her, either...

Redeemer's bondage to cosmopolitan conceit...

“Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name..." - Genesis 11:4

...if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment... - 2 Peter 2:6-9

We make it a habit to say less than we know when we oppose ministries and their leaders here on Baylyblog. We don't want to overreach. This has been true of our criticisms of Redeemer Presbyterian Church and her pastor, especially.

Back in the early nineties we first started recommending Redeemer to souls moving to New York City, and by now we have close to two decades of listening to those men and women who have become a part of Redeemer's congregations.

Our second thoughts about Redeemer started seventeen years ago...

Impeach the judges...

The substance of this post is the text of a recent e-mail discussion I was copied on between two friends of Baylyblog--one a prof and the other an attorney employed as a civil magistrate. Note particularly this statement in the first half of the discussion: "our biggest worry is of a corrupt government whose police violate our civil rights."

There's no doubt this should be the greatest concern of believers, today.

Christians consistently have failed to recognize that every accretion of power and authority to the civil magistrate comes at the expense of the authority and freedom of the mediating institutions of the Church and family, not simply the freedom of the individual. Typically, political conservatives worry only about individual liberty, but the freedom to obey Scripture and exercise authority in the Christian home and Church is under sustained attack, also, and is every bit as serious a usurpation of authority as our loss of individual freedom.

God has ordained authority in the households of the home and Church, and the denial of freedom to those institutions to govern themselves according to Scripture is growing year by year and is a central part of the decline of the West we have experienced. Yet sadly, there has been almost no warning given by our church and home fathers.

The State is our Savior-Protector/Provider and the more dependent the State renders her citizens, the more those citizens will place their faith in the god of the state rather than their own personal gods. And so we arrive at the place where America's most popular gods, whether Mormon, Roman Catholic, or Protestant, pose no particular threat to the state's bipartisan and unilateral commitment to destroy any person or institution blocking the path to her glorious dominion...

WORLD enters the Promised Land...

Father Bill Mouser submitted this excellent comment under the post, WORLD's schtick.... Reading the original post may be necessary to understand this comment. (TB)

Do not defile yourselves by any of these things; for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled. For the land has become defiled, therefore I have brought its punishment upon it, so the land has spewed out its inhabitants. (Leviticus 18:24, 25)

Imagine for a moment Joshua facing Israel as it's perched on the east side of the Jordan river, addressing that nation this way:

"For the longest time I’ve struggled to put my finger on just what I believe about homosexuality. Or, for that matter, about incest. Or, for crying out loud, Moloch worship. Forty years ago, after all that sturm und drang at the foot of Sinai, I think I would have come down pretty solid on the line of “absolutely not.”

"But, I’m not sure I can say that anymore. Wait a minute: It isn’t that I think homosexuality, or incest, or Moloch worship, or anything else Moses wrote in Leviticus 18, is OK and is something YHWH overlooks or agrees with. But it is that I’m understanding a little better that what is commanded of us Jews is simply not the same as what we should expect from those who inhabit the land YHWH has given to us...

Must a gay man go straight?

Under another post, a longtime reader named Jay asks a question that seems worth answering on the main page.

* * *

Dear Jay,

Answering a question like this by writing rather than in person is very difficult, pastorally. How can I show you I love you and am very concerned that you know the mercy of God for your particular set of temptations, especially in a time and place when any condemnation of sodomy is seen as at least shrill, and likely smug, insensitive, and grounded in self-righteousness, to boot?

Still, I will work to answer you because you say others are unwilling to do so, and because you are a precious soul belonging to the Lord of us all Who bought us each with His Own Blood and has called us to be holy as He is holy. If you want, I can put you in touch with those struggling with your particular set of temptations who are a part of our church here in Bloomington and you may ask them if what I write here is from love or censoriousness? You may ask whether you’d find our church to be loving of all regardless of their particular besetting sin, or loving only of those with more acceptable besetting sins?

So on to the difficult work others have avoided.

You wrote, “I would not consider myself heterosexual at all. Is being straight a requirement?”

Let’s clarify the question. The opposite of straight is gay, so another way of asking the question would be, “My psychological and emotional identity and inclinations are completely homosexual, so can I be give in to them as long as I don’t go all the way?” Or another way of saying it would be, “May I give myself to gayness rather than straightness in everything but physical intercourse, and will this please God?”

The answer is...

Pleasure or pain: which would you choose?

Here's an excellent article by Brian Carpenter that's filled with wisdom for all of us, but particularly those of us learning how to raise our children in the Lord. Read it. Then ask your wife and children to read it and discuss it around your dinner table.

(TB: w/thanks to David W.)

Children are amazingly resilient...

Lots of you have forwarded the story about the foolish couple in Toronto trying to keep their newborn's sex a secret. Hissy-fits and kudos all around, depending on your politics.

But really how different is it from the normal Christian home where, aside from putting body parts together when it's time for marriage...

So this hip-hop star walks into our art gallery and he's like...

Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse. (Malachi 4:5, 6)

(NOTE: helpful obscenities ahead) Almost always, an absent father, father-hunger, and hatred define The New Yorker profiles of the purveyors of our Godless culture. Here we have a profile of the hip-hop group, Odd Future, and its best rapper, Thebe Neruda Kgositsile (alias Earl Sweatshirt) who at the time of the song's release was sixteen years old. From The New Yorker's profile, "Earl Sweatshirt begins one track by sneaking some autobiography into...

Get them off your computer. NOW!

Video games are the bane of manhood; and increasingly, of womanhood, also. More, they destroy Godliness. Followers of Jesus Christ should not be wasting hours on these things, let alone days, weeks, months, years, and decades. And yes, I know several men who are close to wasting a decade of their lives, now.

But it may not even be video games. Three years ago, now, the game I needed to delete from my laptop was Backgammon...

Blah blah blah blah blah I blah blah would blah blah blah definitely say blah blah blah blah blah...

Once again, we have that paragon among unreforming preachers asked about his take on sex--this time homosexual marriage.

Lauren Green of FoxNews did the interview March 28, 2011, as part of the Justice Event hosted by Redeemer's Hope for New York, Diaconate, and Grace & Race ministries. The place was packed, bases were loaded, bottom of the ninth, the pitch floated in waist high...

"Important fantasies we can escape to..."

(Tim) With sincere apologies to all the wee ones and their mothers, I think Disneyworld is too similar to hip preachers with full-service video venues to take the children for a visit. Really, do you want Disney's moral and spiritual authority to accrue to our Evangelical/Emergent theme parks?

Taryn Simon is a photographer...

Elton John, preachers, and sodomy...

(Tim) Talented, absolutely. His eponymous breakout album back in 1970 was hauntingly beautiful and you knew he was here to stay. But since then, even more than his music John has taken his public identity from sodomy.

Two months ago out in Hollywood, John serenaded a few hundred $1,000 a plate guests at a fundraiser for the repeal of California's law banning sodomite marriage. Partiers included David Geffen, George W. Bush's Solicitor General Ted Olson, and the immediate past chairman of the Republican Party, Ken Mehlman. In other words, anyone who's made a name for himself and lots of wealth was there. Together they announced their commitment to this sexual rebellion against God that permeates Hollywood, Wall Street, Washington D.C., Las Vegas, and New York City. Also those two peas in a pod--the Democratic and Republican parties.

The entire world is getting along fine with Elton John. AIDS softened us up--it was the justification for the blather about "compassion" that provided cover for executive orders and legislation that normalized in one more area the rebellion against God's Order of Creation that is one of the defining characteristics of our culture.

Pastors too have learned our lesson...

False dichotomies and contemporary worship music....

(Tim: this from our worship minister and music director, Jody Killingsworth) Defenders of traditional worship consistently present a false dichotomy. Observing that CCM is lyrically and theologically impoverished, they conclude that this must somehow be the fault of the music. As if popular style and lyrical drivel are somehow intrinsically connected. Bring in the drums and guitars, they say, and inevitably you'll have us singing 30-minute versions of “Shine Jesus, Shine” every Sunday.

I’m sympathetic, of course, because CCM really is the mountain of emotive garbage they say it is, and there are precious few positive examples to point to. But this isn’t the fault of the rock n’ roll genre, per se. Rather, it highlights the failure on the part of godly pastors and elders to lead musicians to think...

Paul Johnson wearing his velvet slippers...

(Tim, w/thanks to Mark) So very many good points here from that excellent historian, Paul Johnson. The necessity of courage in politicians and a woman--Sarah Palin--held up as an example. He likes women in politics, but he is divorced and notes with approval the cut of Governor Palin's jib. Also a tip of the hat to President Bush for his courage--which I think exactly right. Summary judgments of leaders as "goodies" and "baddies" with Churchill and Napolean, respectively, heading the list. His dislike of intellectuals defining them as caring about ideas rather than people. That Reagan talked in sentences punctuated with one-liners while President Obama speaks in paragraphs (punctuated by nothing). That revolutions come in waves and the protests in the Mideast may be successful against the softies but certainly not the hardened, evil men. Much more wisdom here. Take the time.

Said Musa released!

(Lucas) Our readers will remember this story about an Afghan Christian who was imprisoned for his conversion to Christianity. We praise God for the news that Said Musa has now been released from prison! We're very grateful to God for his kindness.

Mothers, don't exasperate your children...

(Tim, w/thanks to Lucas and several others) After everyone's been discussing the article for quite a while and the Bayly children have finished their argument over which of them grew up during the American and which the Chinese years of our family administration, I thought I should clue the rest of you in on the fun of reading this article on Chinese childrearing (actually motherhood). Then, when youv'e finished that piece, read this one responding to the first. The animation was also inspired by Chua's article.

"If you think of it like a person, you're going to make yourself depressed..."

(Tim, w/thanks to Mark) This is what the New York Times can carry on its editorial page while most of the hip and feckless preachers of Reformia are mute--in the safe privacy of our pulpits, even! "Dead babies? Who? Where? When? I don't see any. Lord, when have I seen you unwanted?"

American's love/hate relationship with unborn babies is heart-wrenching. Read this oped piece. You simply must. It's about the most accurate snapshot of abortion in America you could ever get in three short minutes. Then think what your pastor hasn't writen and at your next session meeting ask him why not?

A review of Voyage of the Dawn Treader...

(Tim) Here's a teaser from this movie review:

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader joins a pantheon of other films in which the redemption motif is found within ourselves. Within such a schema, man is placed at the centre and God – in this case Aslan – becomes an irrelevant fixture. The Aslan of the recent movie is little more than a motivator, certainly not the savior he is within Lewis’s series.

In Lewis’s book, Aslan is terrifying...

Gagging Scripture and Scripture's Author...

(Tim) I've long believed that Christians are foolish to leave Scripture out of debates in the public square--most often from a misguided sense that quoting God's Word is offensive and carries little or no weight. But what could carry more weight than the Word of God written? Who could carry more weight than our Creator? The Apostle Paul wasn't squeamish about resting his argument on Genesis 1 when he spoke to the Areopagus.

This doesn't mean I think it unwise to make arguments from nature, but when at least half of the citizens of this representative constitutional democracy believe God's Word is God's words, keeping the Bible out of the public square is foolish.

Which brings us to the subject of this post. Here's an e-mail exchange between Scott Tibbs and the editor of our local paper's letters to the editor. If two transvestites take off their wigs in public protest of three bass getting shredded when a speedboat's propeller exceeded DNR regulations for size and speed...

African-American girls talk chips...

(Tim) Among the advantages of growing up in foreign lands surrounded by other foreigners while your mom and dad build the Church is developing an ability to see the world through others' eyes. Check out these African-American girls whose parents build the Church in Ndola, Zambia, and whose sister's marriage provided them an occasion to survey the comfort foods section of an American supermarket.

Columbia prof, Huffington blogger arrested for incest...

(Tim: this post is by Church of the Good Shepherd's David Talcott; it's interesting to note that, so far as I've been able to tell, the New York Times doesn't consider this news "fit to print.")

This past Friday, December 10th, Professor David Epstein of Columbia University (formerly of Harvard and Standord; also a blogger for Huffington Post) was arrested on charges of incest. Though every man is legally innocent until proven guilty, it is hard to imagine that the Boys in Blue would arrest a tenured, full professor at Columbia without having good evidence. Based on initial news reports Epstein is accused of having sex with his adult daughter (now age 24)...

Ben Stein exercises his First Amendment rights...

(Tim, w/thanks to Eleanor) Ben said to pass it on, so I have. While we're not all brothers in the way he states and argues, much of this is good.

* * *

The following was written by Ben Stein for CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees... I don't feel threatened... I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it...

Womyn in combat...

(Tim, w/thanks to Scott) Our national president of shrews, Eleanor Smeal, sent an e-mail out earlier today exhorting her constituents to protest the don't ask, don't tell policy. She's desperate to see it repealed before the Republicans take over. Smeal made the point that this policy is a particular hardship to her sex because women comprise a disproportionate number of the 13,000 soldiers discharged for sodomy in the past sixteen years. (And yes, historically, "sodomy" includes copulation against the order of nature.)

Smeal reports that, in 2009, although women were only one seventh of Army soldiers, they were half of those discharged for the same-sex perversion. Similarly in the Air Force, although only one out of every five airmen was a woman, one out of two discharged was a woman. In the Navy, one out of every eight sailors was a woman...

"So that the land will not spew you out..."

(Tim) Responding to this article from Family Research Council commenting on President Barack Obama's use of his office of Commander in Chief to promote sodomy, a friend of mine who is a longtime IVCF staff worker in a metro area of the Eastern Seaboard sent this e-mail:

Friends, I’d be interested in your take on the first article here. I’m as strongly against homosexual activity as anyone but I’m not sure I see the logic of banning them from the military. Prohibiting any and all sexual contact among servicemen, yes. But can we ban someone’s desires in a public way?

I’m not sure this is as clear-cut as many conservatives make it out to be. Your thoughts?

To which I responded...

We're all gay, now...

(Tim) Many of the current changes in English usage are motivated by the hatred of sex that is a defining feature of the postmodern. He opposes distinctions, particularly that hardwired distinction between man and woman we used to call "sex."

At times, his hatred is directed against God Himself. Consider the decline of naming God "Father" in preaching, teaching, and prayer. Among pomos, this change often is the most direct way of ascertaining faith or unbelief. If when "we cry out 'Abba! Father!'" the "Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God," those who refuse to name Him "Father" are not indwelt by the Spirit, but remain lost in their rebellion against God. Jesus commanded us to "Pray like this: Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name." Names have always been important to God. When we think to alleviate our own (or others') pain by avoiding addressing God as "Father," He yet remains the Father (pater) from whom all fatherhood (patria) gets its name. No other name will do.

Turning from God to man, the postmodern's attack on sex is a mishmash. The enemy can breach the wall as well by stealth and confusion and radar jamming as a ramrod smashing against the gates. Postmoderns are fuious that God made Adam first, then Eve; that He decreed Adam to be our federal head; and that He named our race "adam" rather than "adam-eve" or "eve," and this fury has led to changes in English usage which, in turn, have motivated thousands of deletions of the original Hebrew and Greek in our latest Bible products. It's not by frontal attack as much as by a thousand cuts: here a 'he' cut, there a 'him' cut, everywhere a 'father,' 'brother,' and 'son' cut. It's a tsunami of appeasement.

Then too, pomos obscure the nature of sex, itself. There's lots of talk about being sensitive to the queer...

Announcing our 4th Annual Good Shepherd Band Christmas Sing-A-Long.

(Jody Killingsworth) Each year, our worship band joins forces with our adult and children’s choirs and fifteen or so orchestral musicians from Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music to lead the Bloomington community in celebrating the Incarnation of our promised Messiah. It’s exuberant, ecstatic, poignant, energetic, stirring, tremendous, resplendent; and best of all, participatory!

So come sing your Christmas hearts out with us. Then join us for Lord’s Day worship the next morning. We’d love to have you, especially if you’re from out of town. Let us know, and we'll do our best to find a home for you and your family while you're here.

When: Saturday, December 11 at 7pm 

Where: Church of the Good Shepherd          

Here’s a teaser to whet your appetite…

Advertising Sorcery

(Tim: a series on beliefs about spirit beings in Zambian culture by David Wegener) 

Editors note: Here is a lightly edited version of an advertisement for a Traditional Healer (taken off a tree) in our neighborhood. This doctor knows his clientele and the items he mentions are typical reasons why people come to see him. I'm still not totally sure what #9 means.

Witchdoctors in Zambian Culture

(Tim: a series on beliefs about spirit beings in Zambian culture by David Wegener) 

** Editors Note: Readers in the US may not understand just how prevalent these beliefs are in African culture. Witchdoctors, or "Traditional Healers", are regularly consulted by Africans both inside and outside of the church. In other words, this report from David doesn't represent anything exotic where he lives. Rather, it's "business as usual". **

I’ve been teaching class on Spirit Beings this fall at our theological college. As one of their assignments, I asked the students to interview a witchdoctor and ask him a set of questions. They also interviewed a local pastor and asked him the same set of questions and then they were to evaluate the answers of both from Scripture and write things up in a paper.

PCA pastor calls for more state control over home...

(Tim) As I've mentioned before, one of the most important journals for elders, pastors, and Titus 2 women to read as we shepherd God's flock and our own families is the Howard Center's "Family in America." (Full disclosure: my longtime friend, Bob Patterson, edits the journal.)

In order to live and lead "wise as serpents and harmless as doves," we should spend time studying our culture. There's no issue pastors, elders, deacons, fathers, and mothers of covenant children should study more carefully than the interface between the church, her families, and the civil magistrate--an area of the public square commonly referred to as family policy.

Recently, a friend of mine who's stated clerk of Central Indiana Presbytery (PCA) wrote an oped piece for his local paper calling for more review and discipline of homeschoolers by state government:

What do we do with home schools?

Leave them alone? Regulate them? Ban them?

...So I ask: is it in the interests of the state, to keep an eye on this? I say yes....

Blow some bubbles and dry your tears..

(Tim) In connection with an old post, son-in-law Ben writes: If people thought the world of Avatar was painfully beautiful and were saddened by the thought of never being able to travel there, maybe they should blow some bubbles and dry their tears.

Clearing the squares for the guillotines...

(Tim) Steve Hutchens is a senior editor at Touchstone magazine (join me in subscribing), and I've long had a deep appreciation for his Biblical wisdom. For instance, each time one of our good readers makes a public demonstration of his cluelessness by declaring, "sex has nothing to do with worship," I remember this superb critique of evangelical worship that Hutchens published back in 2004. If you've never read it, you must. Trust me.

Anyhow, earlier this week I was privy to an e-mail exchange between Hutchens and a mutual friend. Steve's graciously allowed me to post his response here.

* ** *

There was a time when I would have scoffed at the idea that in the United States one could be hauled up before a judge for expressing a difference in philosophical or religious opinion. But the world is changing, and those who wish to make the expression of Christian opinions a hate crime, or otherwise punishable by law, are gaining the political power to do it...

You wouldn't believe it...

(Tim, with tongue planted) Nearly every one of my friends is sending me a link to this Wall Street Journal piece announcing the earthshaking news that evangelicals are in love with hip and cool and dude and are trying to make their churches hip and cool and dude, also.

I'm floored. Someone quick call PCA and MNA headquarters so they can get a jump on battening down the hatches.

Our scale of marital breakdown has no historical precedent...

(Tim) This just in from our African correspondent, David Wegener:

Found that article. It's "Splitting Up" by Joseph Adelson, a professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan and the author of, "Inventing Adolescence." It ran in Commentary, September 1996, pp. 63-66. I can't find it online unless you subscribe. Here are the first few...

Grazing in Augustine...

(Tim) From Augustine's City of God, let's sample a few notes rarely struck by pastors marketing their church as "in the city" and "for the city;" but really, rarely struck by almost any shepherd working in the pastorate today in North America.

Take, for instance, the matter of food: how would we compare our declaration of the Order of Creation and the meaning of the Sixth Commandment to the vegans and vegetarians in our own congregations--of which there are as many now as back in the time of Augustine and the Apostle Paul (1Timothy 4:1-4)--to Augustine's own declaration, here?

...some attempt to extend "Thou shalt not kill" even to beasts and cattle, as if it forbade us to take life from any creature. But if so, why not extend it also to the plants, and all that is rooted in and nourished by the earth? For though this class of creatures have no sensation, yet they also are said to live, and consequently they can die; and therefore, if violence be done them, can be killed. So, too, the apostle, when speaking of the seeds of such things as these, says, “That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die;” and in the Psalm it is said, “He killed their vines with hail.”

Must we therefore reckon it a breaking of this commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” to pull a flower? Are we thus insanely to countenance the foolish error of the Manichæans?

Putting aside, then, these ravings, ...when we say, "Thou shalt not kill," we do not understand this of the plants, since they have no sensation, nor of the irrational animals that fly, swim, walk, or creep, since they are dissociated from us by their want of reason, and are therefore by the just appointment of the Creator subjected to us to kill or keep alive for our own uses... (I:20)

Are we similar to Augustine in his work magnifying, making the most of the distinction between the city of God and the city of man? What a contrast he provides here to our effeminate attempts to blur all distinctions--particularly that essential distinction on which eternity hangs, drawing the line of God's election between the slaves of God and the slaves of Satan. In his comments, Pastor Beatty has illustrated typical attempts today to market the Church as not other or peculiar or God-fearing or holy, but "we're just like you, really; and you're just like us." Contrast this...

Social class or the Gospel: pick only one (part 2)...

(Tim) Most responses under the recent post, "Social class or the Gospel: pick only one...," have gone off on tangents, tilting at windmills. Some have been helpful, though--including some who have disagreed with the post. I want to promote the discussion back to the main page, so here are three short contributions.

The first is by my brother, David; the second by our church's worship pastor, Jody Killingsworth; and the third by your faithful scribe...

When in New York...

(Tim) What must a preacher in New York know in order to appeal to his listeners? How should he contextualize his worship services and sermons so they're on-pitch for Gothamites?

A recent article in The New York Times featured an interview with Sting. Knighting him their "Renaissance man," the Times caught up with him in his "sumptuous Central Park West duplex" where he was taking a break from his "Symphonicities" tour.

Referring to his nineteenth century aluminum double bass over by the piano, Sting indicated he plays it regularly: "one little piece of Purcell every day and that's it." Referring to a pair of chess sets on a coffee table, Sting reported he'd played grandmaster Gary Kasporov: "Of course he beat me every time. But you know, he can't sing."

The article concluded with Sting giving this sketch of New Yorkers...

What separation of church and state looks like...

(Tim, w/thanks to Bob P.; this happened a year ago, but I'd not heard of it) Reformed isolationists like to think the barbarians sacking the West will leave them alone if they keep church and state separate and don't go meddling in public morality. But it's a Faustian bargain. There never has been such a thing as separation of church and state, and never will be. Presently, Christians believe the push for pluralism and diversity and tolerance is sincere and will protect the people of God in our private judgments and ministries and worship, but it won't...

Another happy Bloomington family...

(Tim, w/thanks to James, Annie, and Barbara) Who's against dogs and cats? Not I--at least the dogs part of it.

Yet something in me shrivels when I see animals paraded as if a woman, three dogs, and a cat are just a different kind of family than one man, his wife, and say, three girls and one boy. Or would it be three boys and one girl?

Edwards and Whitefield I've heard of, but who is Glenn Beck...

(Tim) I'm not making this up. Two days ago I had an hours drive in the middle of the day and turned on the radio. I'd read of Glenn Beck once a while back, picking up from the article that he's the first serious contender for the throne long occupied by Rush Limbaugh, but this was the first time I'd actually heard him.

Beck was opposing something he called "social justice," saying all the liberals in Christian and Jewish and Moslem churches had mounted an attack against him. But all of them are socialists, he said, and they're using talk of "social justice" to rid America of her precious liberties.

Parts of it set my teeth on edge. Yes, generally, the social justice rap is bad karma. And yet, do I really want a conservative talk show host sending his troops into churches to root out any doctrinal commitments their hero disapproves of? Later, brother David told me Beck is Mormon. It figures.

This just to relate the humorous part of the show...

The conscience criminalized...

Woe to those who enact evil statutes And to those who constantly record unjust decisions, So as to deprive the needy of justice And rob the poor of My people of their rights, So that widows may be their spoil And that they may plunder the orphans. Now what will you do in the day of punishment, And in the devastation which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help? And where will you leave your wealth? Nothing remains but to crouch among the captives Or fall among the slain. In spite of all this, His anger does not turn away And His hand is still stretched out. (Isaiah 10:1-4)

(Tim: This by Brian Bailey, an attorney and elder here at Church of the Good Shepherd) On October 28, 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Congress tacked the hate crimes act onto the tail end of an already 646-page, $686 billion Department of Defense bill.[1]

A hate crimes racket?

What is a federal hate crime? “[W]hoever, whether or not acting under color of law, in any circumstance described in subparagraph (B) or paragraph (3), willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, a dangerous weapon, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person” commits a federal hate crime.

We can breathe a sigh of relief. We don’t plan to cause homosexuals or cross-dressers “bodily injury,” and thus the statute could not possibly apply to us. But . . . why this nagging doubt about the reach of the hate crime act?

Legacy publishers on the ropes...

(Tim) The latest New Yorker has an article by Ken Auletta chronicling the death throes of bookstores and traditional book publishers. People are still buying books, but there's a hostile takeover of these legacy hard copy businesses being waged by authors and their strong allies: particularly the explosion of e-books and the pricing structure and self-publishing services of a number of companies; most especially, Amazon. 

It's been a long time coming and nothing but good that authors are regaining some authority over the marketing and distribution of their work.

Take, for instance, self-publishing. In the old days, traditional book publishers cultivated the notion that anything worth publishing would be recognized and put under contract by a reputable publisher. If you weren't able to interest the big name publishers and went the vanity press route, it was because you were vain and wouldn't listen to the simple truth acquisitions editors kindly sent you by letter--that your book had no market. So hardheaded authors who wouldn't take "no" for an answer went off to a vanity press and paid, rather than being paid, for their book to be published. They spent money out of their own pockets to purchase a few hundred copies they could pawn off on business associates or family members.

But no serious man with serious credentials and serious things to say would be caught dead going that route. That's what was meant when you heard the suits say "he went with a vanity press."

Of course those who live in the publishing world know how fallible acquisitions editors and publishers are. John Grisham had his first mystery turned down by twelve publishers and sixteen agents before he found someone willing to take him into print...