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Many private Christian schools require that a student's parents are Christian, too. One of the advantages of such a school, usually not spoken explicitly, is that your child will be going to school with other children who are being shaped by the same values as yours.

But there are Christian schools which welcome non-Christians, and Michael Spencer is chaplain for one such boarding school, a school that requires Bible classes and chapel attendance and which is unapologetic about its Christian mission:

For the past 30+ years, our school has taken many internationals and children of internationals as students. A fair number of these have not been Christians. Some are from other religious traditions, like Islam, and some are from Atheistic cultures like China....

Several times in yesterday’s ceremony, essays by students were read and the student said…

1) I am not a Christian.

2) Thank you for all you’ve done for me while I have been here.

3) I now understand Christianity much better (or I now realize Jesus is very important.)...

God brings non-Christians to us because we are inexpensive and offer the language and science background international students want to get them into American universities. Our school does not have the “nice” things that more expensive schools have, but many of these internationals do not have American ideas of comfort and entitlement. They are open to our school, the hospitality and friendship of our staff and the generosity and compassion we share with them.

We do not mince words about the Gospel. At least I don’t. I point out the difference between Mohammed, Buddah and Jesus all the time. I preach Christ as the exclusive way to eternal life. I preach that hell exists and judgement without Christ is eternal condemnation. I engage atheism as an inadequate answer. I preach, teach and proclaim the Gospel with all my abilities....

When we do anything with our students, we tell them that we are doing it because of Jesus Christ. I regularly connect up what we do with what Christ has done for us.

And so, sitting there yesterday, I heard many student essays talk about finding Christ and about renewing commitments to Christ. But I also heard about coming here for one, two or more years and leaving without Christ.

And saying so. “I am not a Christian.” One of my best Bible students said it in her essay. “I am not a Christian.” But she thanked me and others for showing her Christ, and she said she is on the way.

Others said they were not Christians, but now they understood better what Christianity means. Some said they had learned that what they had been told about Christians in their culture was not true.

Read more.

There's a great opportunity coming up later this month for Tulsa-area Christians with an interest in sound theology and a concern for the lack of interest in same which prevails in much of the evangelical realm.

Dr. David Wells is professor of historical and systematic theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Wells will be speaking at this year's National Founders Conference, to be held June 26-29 at Bethel Baptist Church in Owasso, Okla.

This is the 25th annual conference of the Founders Movement within the Southern Baptist Convention. The word "Founders" signifies the group's aim to promote within the SBC the doctrines of grace that were held without apology by the founders of the convention. That doctrinal heritage -- and the accompanying theological depth -- was lost around the turn of the 20th century. Awareness and understanding of the Reformed (Calvinistic) doctrines of grace is growing in the SBC, as is acceptance. One of America's most prominent Southern Baptists, Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is Reformed, and he and his colleagues throughout the SBC seminary system are influencing the next generation of SBC pastors.

The theme of this year's conference is "God's Truth Abideth Still: Confronting Postmodernism." They couldn't have picked a better keynote speaker. Wells has written a series of challenging and brilliant books on the culture's abandonment of the notion of truth and its influence on evangelical Christianity.

The first book, published in 1993, was No Place for Truth or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology. It had its origin in an offhand comment by one of the students in the required theology class that Wells taught. The student told him that he had struggled with his conscience about whether to take the course:

Was it right [the student wondered aloud] to spend so much money on a course of study that was so irrelevant to his desire to minster to people in the Church?

As I look through the book, I find my pencil marks on every page. Here's one section I found worthy of note, beginning on page 293:

The vast growth in evangelically minded people in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s should by now have revolutionized American culture. With a third of American adults now claiming to have experiences spiritual rebirth, a powerful countercurrent of morality growing out of a powerful and alternative worldview should have been unleashed in factories, offices, and board rooms, in the media, universities, and professions, from one end of the country to the other. The results should by now be unmistakable. Secular values should be reeling, and those who are their proponents should be very troubled. But as it turns out, all of this swelling of the evangelical ranks has passed unnoticed in the culture. It has simply been absorbed and tamed....

Here is a corner of the religious world that has learned from the social scientists how to grow itself, that is sprouting huge megachurches that look like shopping malls for the religious, that can count in its own society the moneyed and the powerful, and yet it causes not so much as a ripple. And its disappearance, judged in moral and spiritual terms, is happening at the very moment when American culture is more vulnerable to the uprooting of some of its cherished Enlightenment beliefs than ever before, because it knows itself to be empty....

Here's another, from a couple of pages on:

It may be that evangelicals will never recognize their pious self-absorption for the cultural thing that it is because conformity is a powerful force in the evangelical world, and it quickly stifles lone dissenters. Nevertheless, reality will take its toll. The publicized exodus of various evangelicals into the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches in recent years is simply a notable symptom of widespread disquiet in the evangelical world. Many ordinary believers are disillusioned with their churches, with their ministers, and with the larger evangelical empire, which has failed in the business of making known the character, acts, will, and purposes of God in the larger society and in embodying these in the kind of service that has the ring of spiritual authenticity about it.

The good news is that the intervening years have seen the beginnings of the kind of reformation for which Wells called. In addition to the growth and influence of the Founders movement in the nation's largest Protestant denomination, a trans-denominational movement emerged in the late '90s, the Alliance for Confessing Evangelicals, which, in its Cambridge Declaration, reaffirmed the historic solas of the Reformation and set each one against its opposing tendency in modern evangelicalism.

The classical Christian education movement has emerged, helping Christian children develop a Christian worldview which is grounded in timeless truth and preparing them to engage the broader culture equipped with that worldview. The movement stands in contrast to Christian schools which were all about isolation from the world, hiding out in a tidy evangelical subculture and preaching to the choir.

World Magazine brings that same idea to the field of journalism:

We stand for factual accuracy and biblical objectivity, trying to see the world as best we can the way the Bible depicts it. Journalistic humility for us means trying to give God's perspective. We distinguish between issues on which the Bible is clear and those on which it isn't. We also distinguish between journalism and propaganda: We're not willing to lie because someone thinks it will help God's cause....

We cover all aspects of the news: national, international, and cultural; politics and business; medicine, science, technology, and sports. We have feisty columns and religious reflections. We even have cartoons and a page with funny or strange stories of the week. But what matters the most is this: We believe in a God who tells the truth and wants us to do the same.

An affiliated organization, World Journalism Institute, is engaged with the task of preparing Christians to work as journalists in the mainstream media. The curriculum includes both basic journalism skills and the development of a Christian worldview.

These are hopeful signs, but postmodernism, with denial of the very notion of truth, is still a strong influence in the culture at large and, through the culture, in the church.

The National Founders Conference ought to be well worth attending. Because the target audience is pastors, the schedule isn't convenient for those of us with 8-to-5 jobs, but Wells is speaking at two evening sessions. Although Founders Ministries is focused on the SBC, I see nothing in the online material that would exclude pastors and laymen of other denominations from registering.

No, this is not satire (Hat tip: WorldMagBlog):

Former Gov. James E. McGreevey has started the process to become a priest in his newly adopted Episcopal faith and hopes to begin a three-year seminary program in the fall.

McGreevey, who often described himself as a devout Catholic while in public office, was officially received into the Episcopal religion on Sunday, at St. Bartholomew's Church in Manhattan, and is now part of the church's "discernment" phase that usually precedes any seminary work, said the Rev. Kevin Bean, vicar at St. Bartholomew.

While some commenters on the above linked article thought that McGreevey's history of corruption and dishonesty -- particularly cheating on his wife with a man, and putting said man on the public payroll as head of the state's homeland security office -- might disqualify him from the Episcopal priesthood, others suggested he was not only qualified, he was bishop material.

The retired bishop of McGreevey's diocese is the famous liberal theologian John Shelby Spong, who doesn't believe in the virgin birth, the resurrection of Christ, the miracles recorded in the Bible, the authority of Scripture, or even the veracity of Scripture. It's unclear if he even believes in God by any conventional definition of the word.

Mr. Spong has been quoted in two recent Urban Tulsa Weekly articles on the growing influence of liberalism in Tulsa churches. Last week's article featured Carlton Pearson of New Dimensions Worship Center, Stephen McKee of Trinity Episcopal Church, and Bruce Ewing of Fellowship Bible Church. In the story, we learn that the pastor of the city's biggest Episcopal parish, like Spong, apparently believes Jesus is still dead.

"It's a very powerful, truthful story, but it's not literal," said McKee of the biblical accounts of Christ's sacrificial death on the cross and subsequent resurrection.

So it's truthful, but not actually true? Is that like truthiness?

In part 2, in this week's issue, we get this gem from Carlton Pearson, who abandoned the Christian faith for universalism and lost his congregation in the fallout, and whose new congregation meets at Trinity on Sunday afternoons:

I've never questioned the resurrection, but it wouldn't change my faith in God if they discovered Jesus' bones in a tomb.

And McKee elaborates on his views of Christ's resurrection:

When asked if he believes Christ was resurrected in the literal, bodily sense, McKee responded, "To answer that question is not important to me--'resurrection,' to me, is, because we believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, a life of following the resurrected Jesus is a life of caring about the things he cared about. Another is that, when God gives life, he gives it forever."

As for the traditional notion of a literal, bodily resurrection, McKee said, "I just can't believe it. There may have been a physical resurrection, and I would be very happy if there were, but it's not that important to me."

So what is the point of showing up on Sunday morning if Jesus is still dead? And why pretend to "believe" something that you don't really believe? Why recite the Nicene Creed if you don't believe any of it? Why chant, "Christ, have mercy," if he's dead and can't hear you?

Is it just so you can prance about in shiny vestments?

Trinity Episcopal Church is a beautiful place to spend time, but every shard of stained glass, every piece of statuary, every rib of every Gothic vault is meaningless garbage if Jesus was not literally, bodily raised from the dead.

Brian Ervin had the same question:

With objections like these in mind, Spong was asked: Without a literal resurrection, a personal God and the Bible as an external standard for belief and conduct, in what sense do your beliefs qualify as "Christian"? Why not just do away with Christianity altogether?

"That's a question that reveals a profound ignorance," answered Spong.

"I don't know of a single biblical scholar who takes the Bible literally or who believes in a literal, bodily resuscitation of Jesus," he said.

This is what we call evasion (insult the questioner instead of answering the question) and petitio principii. In Spong's world, anyone who takes the Bible literally isn't a biblical scholar. QED. And so's your old man.

As the folks at Kirk of the Hills are finding out, as the folks at the former Episcopal Parish of the Holy Spirit already found out, it's really all about real estate. The liberals could never build a denominational empire based on their doctrine of hopelessness. (If they could, they'd be competing with the Unitarians, who have a corner on that market.) So instead, they wormed their way into the seminaries and into the denominational hierarchies. Now the liberals own the buildings, and if a congregation that is faithful to the historic creeds and confessions chooses to withdraw from a now-liberal denomination, they lose their real estate (paid for by the parishoners, not the hierarchy) and their pastors lose their pensions.

It all reminds me of cowbirds. They wait until some other bird makes a nest and lays eggs. Then they take over the nest, destroy the eggs that were there, and lay their own eggs in a nest that some other bird built.

UPDATE: Mark Krikorian calls it chutzpah defined:

The female head of a church with a practicing homosexual bishop planning to "marry" his lover, a church that could accept into seminary the adulterous homosexual governor of New Jersey, a church that embraces splitting open babies' skulls and vacuuming their brains out, is complaining about Nigerian Anglican bishops coming to Virginia this weekend" to formally install the head of a parallel denomination, being a violation of ancient customs.

Well, sodomy and Moloch worship are pretty ancient.

TRACKBACK: A conservative Anglican blogger calls McKee's comments about the incarnation "More Schoriesque traditionalism" (referring to the new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church USA Katharine Jefferts Schori and her comments mentioned by Mark Krikorian above):

It’s all just symbolism, after all, right? Part of a Mediterranean myth-structure (based on ancient fertility cults) that uses imagery of resurrection to illustrate the regenerative power of hope and forgiveness and compassion for the individual “believer.” Sure, Jesus is “risen” in that sense–he “lives on” in the hearts of those who, as Father McKee puts it, “care about the things he cared about.” Like global warming! I don’t know, though. Somehow I tend to be slightly skeptical of anyone who claims to understand Christianity more deeply than St. Paul did: “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” The logic of that statement seems solid, and brutally honest, to me; I suppose Bishop Spong would say that it reveals “profound ignorance” on the part of that cranky old Paul of Tarsus.

I'm sure Bishop Spong has no use for Paul the apostle whatsoever.

See Dubya at Hot Air links to the Washington Times story about the installation of Martyn Minns as the presiding bishop of a parallel conservative Anglican denomination in America, a mission of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. Yes, African Christians are planting churches in pagan America, and it has some of the pagans a bit upset.

Next Friday night at 9, OETA, Oklahoma's public television network, will air "Islam in Oklahoma":

Oklahoma is home to more than 30,000 Muslim Americans. Join leaders from Oklahoma's Muslim community as they address the questions and issues raised by America at a Crossroads, Friday May 4 at 9 p.m.

(Is it just me, or does the background of that title image look more like Hebrew than Arabic?)

OETA says more panelists will be announced, but for now they only list Sheryl Siddiqui, a leader in the Islamic Society of Tulsa, Imam Imad Enchassi, Ph.D., president of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City, and Dr. David Vishanoff, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Oklahoma.

The facilities of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City and of the Islamic Society of Tulsa are owned by the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which is part of a network of Saudi-funded organizations working to extend the influence of Wahhabism in the US. (There's more detail about NAIT and its related organizations -- the Wahhabi lobby -- in this post I wrote some months ago.)

There's a name that ought to be on that list of panelists discussing Islam in Oklahoma -- Jamal Miftah. His name belongs on the list for his eloquent condemnation of terror in the name of Islam. But it also belongs there because of the response that he received from the leaders of the Tulsa mosque, who confronted him angrily in the prayer hall and in the corridor of the mosque, saying that because of his column he was anti-Islamic, a label that could be heard by others as a thinly veiled incitement to violence against him.

Just this week, two more threatening comments targeting Miftah were posted from a Pakistan IP address at JunkYardBlog, simply because he condemned those who use their religion to justify their acts of violence.

If OETA spends an hour talking to two leaders of Wahhabi-connected mosques, without hearing any other Muslim voices, viewers will not get the complete story of Islam in Oklahoma. If you agree, drop a line to info@oeta.tv. OETA says they want input on the show's content, so let 'em (politely) have it.

UPDATE: A reader sent the following note to OETA:

I have always thought of OETA as an educational channel that was fair. However; regarding the upcoming program on “Islam in Oklahoma”, Oklahomans deserve an unbiased discussion. If OETA has two leaders of Wahhabi-connected mosques on the discussion panel without hearing any other Muslim voices, viewers will not get the complete story of Islam in Oklahoma. Please do the right thing in providing a fair and balanced program by inviting other Muslims such as Jamal Miftah.

Oklahomans are not stupid, please don’t portray us as such.

Here's the reply from OETA public information manager Ashley Barcum:

Thank you for sharing your concerns about Islam in Oklahoma. Please note that OETA worked with the Oklahoma Governor’s Council on Ethnic Diversity to select the panelists and to ensure a balanced panel.

We do have a non-Muslim academic on the panel, Dr. David Vishanoff, who is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He will be on hand to provide an objective viewpoint. Due to the short time of the program, the producers would like to keep the panel limited to the three panelists, which includes Dr. Vishanoff.

Please note the panel discussion will primarily involve a discussion of the experience of Muslims in Oklahoma. What the program intends to do is provide a look at the local experiences of those practicing one of the state’s minority religions. It is an ongoing conversation sparked by the recent PBS series America at a Crossroads.

In addition, the program will be moderated by Gerry Bonds, a veteran broadcast journalist.

Please let me know if you have additional questions or concerns.

Why, that makes it all better, doesn't it? The governor says these two Muslims are representative of the diversity of Oklahoma Muslims so it must be so. Never mind the ethnic diversity within Islam -- Arab, Pakistani, Indonesian, Turkish, North African. Never mind that there are other views than the Wahhabi view, even if those other views aren't as well funded.

And how can you have a panel discussion about local experiences of practicing Muslims while ignoring a very local, very recent experience of an Oklahoma Muslim that made national news?

Notice that the website statement that there would be additional panelists has been contradicted by Barcum, who now says that those three are it.

MORE about "America at a Crossroads," the PBS series to which "Islam in Oklahoma" is a follow-up: Okie on the Lam had this entry on April 9 about PBS's decision to suppress one of the films in the series. The film was called “Islam vs. Islamism: Voices From The Muslim Center.” It was one of 34 proposed films for this series selected for a research and development grant by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Here's the description in the list of grant awards:

Islam vs. Islamism (Martyn Burke, Frank Gaffney and Alex Alexiev, ABG Films Inc., Los Angeles) will explore how Islamic extremists are at war with their own faith, and how the consequences of their ambitions and policies devastate the socio-economic potential and well-being of the Muslim world. The filmmakers will follow the stories of several Muslims who have been victimized by the radicals and who are fighting back.

Sounds like a story that needs to be told, right? The CPB thought so, because it then selected the film for one of 20 production grants -- the money needed to get the film made.

But now PBS is refusing to broadcast the film. One of the film's executive producers, Frank Gaffney, explained why in an April 12 Washington Times op-ed:

As it happens, I was involved in making a film for the "America at a Crossroads" series that also focused on, among others, several American Muslims. Unlike Mr. MacNeil's, however, this 52-minute documentary titled "Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center," was selected through the competitive process and was originally designated by CPB to be aired in the first Crossroads increment.

Also unlike Mr. MacNeil's film, "Islam vs. Islamists" focuses on the courageous Muslims in the United States, Canada and Western Europe who are challenging the power structure established in virtually every democracy largely with Saudi money to advance worldwide the insidious ideology known as Islamofascism. In fact, thanks to the MacNeil-Lehrer film, the PBS audience soon will be treated to an apparently fawning portrait of one of the most worrisome manifestations of that Saudi-backed organizational infrastructure in America: the Muslim Student Association (MSA). The MSA's efforts to recruit and radicalize students and suppress dissenting views on American campuses is a matter of record and extremely alarming.

In an exchange with me aired on National Public Radio last week, however, Robert MacNeil explained why he and his team had refused to air "Islam vs. Islamists," describing it as "alarmist" and "extremely one-sided." In other words, a documentary that compellingly portrays what happens to moderate Muslims when they dare to speak up for and participate in democracy, thus defying the Islamists and their champions, is not fit for public airwaves -- even in a series specifically created to bring alternative perspectives to their audience.

The MacNeil criticism was merely the latest of myriad efforts over the last year made by WETA and PBS to suppress the message of "Islam vs. Islamists." These included: insisting yours truly be removed as one of the film's executive producers; allowing a series producer with family ties to a British Islamist to insist on sweeping changes to its "structure and context" that would have assured more favorable treatment of those portrayed vilifying and, in some cases, threatening our anti-Islamist protagonists; and hiring as an adviser to help select the final films an avowed admirer of the Nation of Islam -- an organization whose receipt of a million dollars from the Saudis to open black Wahhabi mosques is a feature of our documentary. The gravity of this conflict of interest was underscored when the latter showed an early version of our film to Nation of Islam representatives, an action that seemed scarcely to trouble those responsible for the "Crossroads" series at WETA and PBS.

You can read an independent perspective on the dispute here. The film may yet air, but there are no guarantees.

Dawn Eden, who is Jewish and a Roman Catholic Christian, wrote recently about a botched attempt by an evangelist to convert her over the phone when she was a college student. His blunt and presumptuous answer regarding the eternal destiny of her saintly Jewish grandmother put her off the Christian faith for another decade.

The entry spawned an interesting intra-Catholic debate in the comments thread about whether it's necessary or appropriate to proclaim the Gospel to Jewish people, or if it is only for Gentiles. This comment, by a reader called Kate B., kicked off the debate:

The Jews have their own covenant with the Lord, and don't need to be worried about being saved by any other covenant.

My first thought was, "I didn't know there were dispensationalist Catholics."

My second thought was that, while you could delve into deep theological debates about how salvation was applied with respect to the faithful of the Old Testament, the question about whether the Gospel is for Jews as well as Gentiles is simple to answer. You only need to look at the first sermon delivered by the apostle that Catholics regard as their first pope.

It happened on the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot), one of three obligatory pilgrimages, when all male Israelites were commanded to appear before the Lord. While those assembled spoke many languages and came from many places throughout the Roman Empire, they were Jews, either by birth or proselytes. Here are Simon Peter's words:

"Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know-- this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says concerning him,

"'I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;
therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
my flesh also will dwell in hope.
For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,
or let your Holy One see corruption.
You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will make me full of gladness with your presence.'

"Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,

"'The Lord said to my Lord,
Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.'

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified."

Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself." And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

Not only was Peter's first sermon delivered to Jews ("Men of Israel," as he began), whom he charged to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, it took some direct and special revelation to convince him that the Gospel was also for Gentiles.

In the introduction to his letter to the Church at Rome, Paul writes:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith."

"To the Jew first" -- that's the phrase that appears in Greek as the title of this entry. They, God's chosen people, were the first to receive the Gospel and the first to proclaim the Gospel. The Greeks -- the Gentiles -- are secondary.

In his letter to the churches in the region of Galatia, Paul refers to the proclamation of the Gospel to the Jewish people as Peter's special mission:

On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised (for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles), and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.

When Dawn challenged the evangelist about her grandmother's salvation, the truthful (and tactful) answer would have been something like this: "It is not my place to sit in judgment over your dear grandmother. That belongs to God, who is utterly good and merciful and just. I can only repeat the words which Jesus spoke to the Jewish men who were his closest followers. Jesus said, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'"

RELATED: Paul Greenberg has a beautiful, moving column for Easter Sunday. Taking his text from John 20, he imagines Mary Magdalene remembering that first Easter many years later:

I was perfectly prepared for how bad Good Friday would be, but Easter Sunday? My dear, that was quite beyond me. How could I have understood? You might as well have tried to describe sight to the blind, music to the deaf, belief to the cynical. My reality was limited to the evidence of things seen, the substance of things feared.

The empty tomb should have been proof of hope; I saw it only as cause for despair.

So when I saw the gardener -- for who else could he be? -- I wept and wailed and pleaded. I wanted to wallow in my grief; that was one thing I thought no one could take from me. I held on to it like a treasure.

Then I heard my name. How puzzling: How could the gardener have known me? That's when I turned. And I realized who had spoken to me, and who The Gardener was, and the whole, fake world was gone, the curtain lifted, the night shattered forever as the sun rose Easter morning. He had risen.

Funny how all you need is to be called by your right name and turn. You have to turn, you know. So you can really see. Only then does everything fall into place.

AND DON'T MISS: Christine, who writes, produces, stars in, and edits the wonderful "Happy Slip" videos, has a special video for Easter, a song of praise that she wrote and performs. Video here, lyrics here. This is the first explicitly Christian thing I've seen on her website, but as one commenter wrote, "I knew there was something 'right' with [her]"

(UPDATE: A hearty endorsement of Shaun Groves from Michelle of GetRightOK in the comments: "I took my three daughters to the Shaun Groves concert the last time he was in Tulsa. The concert was wonderful. He's a funny guy, and his music is great. He has a song called Twilight that is a favorite of my kids (it's my favorite SG song too).")

About a week ago, I received an e-mail from Shaun Groves. He said he was a Christian recording artist and KXOJ was bringing him to Broken Arrow for a show this weekend. He was looking for ways to get the word out about the concert and came across this blog.

I wrote back:

Thanks for writing. To tell the truth, I'm not a big fan of CCM [Contemporary Christian Music], mainly because so much of it is theologically shallow and musically dull. But I will have a look at your site, and if I like what I see and hear, I'll give you a plug. How's that?

In his reply, Shaun said, "You and I share that beef with CCM in general," and he pointed me to a recent post on his music blog about profaning the name of God. He points to Ezekiel 36, which talks of how God's people dishonored His name with their actions.

Shaun goes on to talk about how some CCM profanes God's name, drawing from his experience as a suicidally depressed Christian teen. He describes listening, with friend who was also depressed, to a program of Christian music that his church youth leader had recommended:

I turned to it wanting to feel better. I remember feeling angry instead. What I heard was music I couldn’t relate to at all, what sounded out of touch with reality, written by happy people who’d never been where I was, who’d never felt hopeless before. No words I could put my heart behind and sing to God. The messages in the broadcast, to me, were clear: God doesn’t care and good Christians don’t have problems.

That anger became a driving force in his songwriting:

That night made me mad enough to write about it. It was the first poem I ever wrote in fact and so, I guess, that anger I felt at Christian music that night is partially to credit for me becoming the song writer I am today. That poem even won some contest back in Texas. But it did more than that. Not only did that poem begin for me the habit of funneling my emotions through a pencil onto a page, but it also gave my creativity a purpose.

That purpose is why I moved to Nashville - to write music that supports the spiritual health of Christians, that encourages through honest discourse, acknowledges the good and bad in life, that reminds us all that a life spent knowing God and not also making Him known is only half a life, a life without meaning and prone to depression and anxiety. I moved here to write songs that hometown station of mine wouldn’t broadcast when I needed them to all those years ago....

My career... has always been about saving listeners from the misery I languished in for so long - desperate to hear a sermon, read a book, or tune to a song that touched even a little of the pain I dealt with daily. The goal is to meet people where they are by being honest about where I am and where I’ve been, and from there, walk with them out of the despair and into a life full of purpose and hope.

All victorious music all the time sends the wrong message:

You see, when God is ignoring your hurts - which is what I felt when listening to sermons, Sunday school lessons and songs as a teen - we begin to suspect that God either doesn’t exist or He’s some sick twist who gleefully ignores our woe. And the Enemy wins. We believe his lie: God isn’t good. That’s where always happy gets us....

The best weapon I’ve found in the battle against this powerful lie is honesty. Honesty about the greatness, the laughter inducing, the breathtakingly miraculous, the sweetness of life. Honesty about the tears and fears and hurries and worries we all have in common.

That’s human. That’s Christian. That says God is good, He knows you hurt, He hears you, He’s sent this song, this book, these words to tell you you’re not alone. We’ve been there too. And we and our God want to meet you where you are and help you from there. There’s so much good stuff about life and God you might have forgotten about and we want to remind you of all that. Trust us. We’re just like you. If I’d heard that kind of music when I was sixteen I wouldn’t have been cured, not with one listen, but I may have tuned in again, I may have bought that CD, gone to that concert, gotten out of bed, opened up to someone sooner, felt a lot less dysfunctional and strange and unChristian.

Instead, he turned to music that spoke about the pain he was feeling -- nihilistic music like Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails -- but which offered no hope, only commiseration. In the end, he was brought back to faith by a girl (who came to be his wife), her father (a pastor) and family. They were willing to be honest about their struggles, about their mistakes, about their sins.

My wife’s honesty, and her family’s, brought me back to life. I found in them a safe place to be myself, to ask questions, to beg for prayer. A place I wanted to spend the rest of my life. By sharing their wounds mine were healed.

Shaun goes on to issue a challenge to Christian radio stations, to be willing to play music that's good, that's listenable, but which may not be "all happy all the time."

Even if his music weren't good (but it is), writing that essay alone is worthy of a plug and a link here.

Shaun Groves's Broken Arrow concert is Friday night at 7 p.m. at the Church at Battle Creek. (That's just north of the Broken Arrow Expressway -- OK 51 -- on 145th East Ave, aka Aspen.) Proceeds go to the poverty relief program Compassion International.

Below I'm going to try to provide some cultural context for James Dobson's comment casting doubt on Sen. Fred Thompson's Christian faith (while applauding serial bigamist Newt Gingrich). But first, these folks had some worthwhile things to say on the subject:

See-Dubya:

Dobson has alienated a lot of people with his comment and he's also set up the biggest Sistah Souljah moment of the upcoming race. Fred ought to use this as a chance to talk about his faith, and also to differentiate himself from shrill voices like Falwell and Dobson.

Allahpundit at Hot Air, where See-Dubya has this to say in the comments:

Speaking as someone who was baptized in the Church of Christ myself, [Dobson] has just used up every last bit of goodwill I had for him. It’s sanctimonious jackass spokesmen like Robertson, Dobson, and Reed who are making Christian conservatism irrelevant and driving us into the arms of mushy-headed Rick Warren feelgoodism.

In the comments of the same post, blogger Right Wing Sparkle defends Dobson's career, but not his comments in this situation.

Karol writes:

Much as my instinct is to lash out at Dobson (I mean, who is he to say who is or is not a Christian) I know that he is quite a big deal, especially in the swing state of Colorado. I don't know what he has against our man Fred, but I do hope he cuts this nonsense out.

The USA Today article included a quote from a Dobson spokesman that may be difficult for non-evangelical readers to parse:

In a follow-up phone conversation, Focus on the Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger stood by Dobson's claim. He said that, while Dobson didn't believe Thompson to be a member of a non-Christian faith, Dobson nevertheless "has never known Thompson to be a committed Christian -- someone who talks openly about his faith."

"We use that word -- Christian -- to refer to people who are evangelical Christians," Schneeberger added. "Dr. Dobson wasn't expressing a personal opinion about his reaction to a Thompson candidacy; he was trying to 'read the tea leaves' about such a possibility."

Let me try to translate and provide some context, without justifying Dobson's comment.

Evangelicals draw a distinction between nominal Christians and committed Christians. Within the evangelical subculture, the bare word "Christian" means someone who has a personal relationship with Jesus, someone who has had a conversion experience, someone who has asked Jesus to come into his heart, someone who has been born again. (As I write those phrases, I'm struck by the difficulty of explaining the concept to people who aren't native speakers of evangelicalese.)

While other branches of Christianity define being a Christian in terms of participation in the sacrament of baptism, which they regard as objectively making a person a Christian, evangelicals understand being a Christian in experiential terms -- making a decision to follow Christ, having a conversion experience.

The pietistic predecessors of modern evangelicalism looked at the institutionalized churches of the 17th century and saw a dead orthodoxy -- the form of religion was there, but the life-changing power of the resurrection was absent. America's Great Awakening in the early 18th century was not about converting pagans but about calling a nation of outwardly moral, faithful churchgoers back to a lively personal faith in Christ.

From the evangelical frame of reference, it makes perfect sense to ask the question, "Is he a Christian?" of someone who was baptized and has gone to church every Sunday morning of his life. As the saying goes, being born in a Christian home doesn't make you a Christian any more than being born in a garage makes you a car. The reality of your faith and the security of your salvation is suspect if you can't point to a date and place when you came to faith.

I can remember, as a Campus Crusader in college, being very suspicious of people who claimed that they couldn't remember a time when they weren't Christian. There were a number of students in our group who grew up in Christian homes and had been baptized as infants, but they had conversion experiences in college. Many chose to be baptized as adult believers, because only now did they consider themselves Christian. Their earlier church involvement was mere religion, not living faith in and a vital personal relationship with Christ.

To bring this back to politics: Here in Oklahoma, even our Catholic politicians are expected to be born again. When a Republican politician from a liturgical background runs for higher office, you can expect to see an interview with him in a magazine like Community Spirit, in which the pol tells of a personal conversion experience and describes his devotional habits of prayer and Bible reading. (Extra points for being part of a Bible study or prayer group with fellow politicians.) Evangelical voters are reassured to hear a politician talk in this way: He must really be saved, and therefore he has the spirit of God dwelling within him, and therefore he can make godly decisions as a government official.

The demand to hear a conversion story can have comical results. I can't find the exact quote, but I recall that the elder George Bush, a lifelong Episcopalian, had a typically awkward answer when asked, during his campaign for the White House in 1988, whether he was born again. He knew he had to say yes, but it was clear that he didn't really understand the question.

While Dobson might be upset that Thompson hasn't come to pay his respects, I suspect Dobson's main problem is that Thompson doesn't wear his faith on his sleeve, that he doesn't talk about his prayer life or having a quiet time or being in a Bible study or listening to Christian radio. The problem with that is that it mistakes the talk for the walk. It puts Dobson (and those he influences) at the mercy of whoever can make the most convincing use of the standard evangelical buzzwords, which doesn't necessarily correlate with genuine devotion to Christ.

UPDATE: Mollie Hemingway at Get Religion gets it. She agrees that the follow-up quote from Schneeberger is the key to understanding what Dobson said:

I also think it’s worth highlighting that what we’re seeing here are classic distinctions in how various Protestants define Christian.

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

Well, this view is extremely different from that held by other believers, myself included. In my church body [Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, one of the most conservative branches of American Lutheranism] we don’t really speak of personal behaviors or statements — as Dobson seems to have done — to determine someone’s religious status. Instead we point to whether they’ve been baptized.

ALSO: Barb the Evil Genius, a Lutheran blogger, initially thought I was defending Dobson and wondered if I still held the opinions that I say I held as a Campus Crusader in college. You can see my response, plus some additional thoughts, in the comments below. If you can't imagine that someone can be a genuine Christian without a crisis conversion experience, you need to read Barb's thoughts on the subject.

Doug Loudenback has a nearly comprehensive history of downtown Oklahoma City hotels from the beginning to the present day, illustrated with postcards, vintage photos, and present day photos. The fate of each hotel is described. One of the more interesting "whatever happened to" stories involves the Holiday Inn (built in 1964) on the west side of downtown, which last operated as a hotel in 1993, closing for good just before the launch of MAPS. Here's what Doug found when he rang the doorbell:

A pleasant young lady came to the door, spoke with me, did not invite me in, but, after a time, she allowed (at my request) that I enter the lobby since it was so damn cold outside! The lobby area was beautifully appointed just like a fine hotel would be. At the lobby desk, we were joined by another pleasant young lady. There, I asked a few but not many questions (understanding that I was an uninvited guest and not wanting to be too pushy) and not necessarily in this order:

(1) Was the building owned/used by the City of Oklahoma City (given the OKC flag flying in the frontage)? Answer: No.

(2) What is the building used for? The young woman who allowed me in said something like it was a character development center. I said, "You mean, like a rehabilitation center?" She said, no, it had nothing to do with rehabilitation. I asked her to explain a little. I don’t recall her exact answer, but it had to do with training programs to build character. Not really understanding and not wanting to be too nosey, I asked if I could have a brochure or something simple, and she gave me a single sheet "flyer" type of paper with the name "Character Council of Oklahoma City" at the top and which contained a picture of Mayor Cornett at the bottom. I asked if there was a website where I could read more, and the young lady gave me this address: http://www.characterfirst.com and, later, I noticed another name on the "flyer", http://www.characterok.org. She also said that a monthly breakfast and lunch was available, the next being 1/24 at 7:00 a.m. and 1/26 at 11:45 a.m., and that I would be welcome to attend (after telephone a fellow to let him know for planning purposes). I asked about the condition of the building above the lobby level and I was told that most of them had been reconditioned, all but 2 or 3. I did not ask what they were used for but didn't get a clear answer about that. That was pretty much the extent of my visit and I left with good feelings generated from the pleasant ladies but still not knowing a lot more than I did in the first place.

Doug did some further digging and learned that the Character Training Center is part of the Bill Gothard empire. The heart of Gothard's teaching is that God's blessing is to be found in unquestioning obedience to the God-ordained authorities to which you are subject. (Here is a pretty fair Time story on Gothard from 1974.)

A version of his teaching that has been sanitized of any religious content has been adopted by many cities, including Owasso. Owasso City Manager Rodney Ray is quoted on the Character Cities website about the program's results:

In the three years prior to our character initiative, we had 42 labor grievances and employee grievances, and seven different lawsuits. In the three years since we put the character initiative in place we have had two grievances and no lawsuits from employees.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Sandy Garrett also provides a testimonial:

From experience, I have found this program to be an excellent tool for filling the void of moral character within our state's youth… I recommend the implementation [of this program] within every level of state and local government.

Oklahoma is a "State of Character," which would explain why we have a state-sponsored lottery and public officials going to jail at regular intervals.

During my time as a member of the Oklahoma Republican Committee, many of our quarterly meetings were held in the center's meeting rooms. While there were always a few staffers around the lobby desk, I noticed that they were always polite but never outgoing, and they never seemed to talk to one another. For young people, they seemed emotionally buttoned up.

The walls of the lobby are decorated with framed posters of each of the 49 character qualities that Gothard has identified, each illustrated with an animal who exemplifies that quality. (Some of the connections are quite a stretch, but it would be disobedient to point that out.) If you run in Tulsa's River Parks, you've seen the names of these qualities stenciled on the storm sewer blocks.

(Gothard has also identified 49 "general commands of Christ", each of which he assigns to one of the 49 character qualities.)

Teaching good character is a fine thing, but there doesn't seem to be any need in Gothard's system for grace, atonement, and forgiveness. Jesus appears only as a lawgiver, not as the one who perfectly fulfilled the Law's demands on our behalf. It's a good moral system, a fine civic religion, but it isn't the Gospel.

If you can filter all the Christian content out of a program without substantially changing it, it wasn't all that Christian to begin with.

UPDATE: Doug Loudenback adds a comment and a link to a lengthier account of his research into the owners of the old downtown OKC Holiday Inn. And his article links to another account of someone who wondered what was going on in that building.

Our 10-year-old was running a degree of fever Friday morning, so we kept him home from school. This morning he was at 104, was coughing, aching, and congested, and he threw up, so I took him to the urgent care center. They were very efficient at processing us in, and it didn't take much longer to get to the examining room than it would have if we'd made a normal doctor's appointment. (I was surprised, however, that the urgent care clinic didn't have access to his records and our insurance information, since his pediatrician is part of the same medical system. We had to fill out all the paperwork again for the urgent care clinic.)

The doctor ordered a nasal and throat swab to check for flu and strep. My son went back to the waiting room while I walked the samples down to the lab. About 20 minutes later we were called back in for the results: Influenza.

For goodness' sake, it's March already! The daffodils are blooming! Flu season is supposed to be over!

So we've got him quarantined in his room, away from little sister and little brother. He and I and little sister are taking Tamiflu.

Since my wife is still nursing little brother twice a day, we're debating what to do for her. Tamiflu could help her not get the flu, but since they don't know if the medication passes into breastmilk and what effect it would have on a 14-month-old if it did, her taking it means not nursing him. We're reluctant to stop nursing, because it immunized him against the intestinal bug that ran through the family two weekends ago. (Also, my wife says, nursing is nice. It would be sad to have to stop.)

Flu means the 10-year-old will miss a sleepover birthday party. The backup plan, if he didn't feel up to a sleepover, but was up to getting out (this was before we knew it was flu), was to take him to the Bob Wills Birthday Celebration -- he wanted to hear Oklahoma Stomp. (I would have liked that, too, and to hear the Texas Playboys' longer set tonight. Would someone please go tonight and e-mail me -- blog at batesline dot com -- to tell me all about it?)

We're quarantining ourselves as much as possible, so the other thing we're going to have to miss is a special program at Christ Presbyterian Church tomorrow morning. Jerram Barrs, head of the Francis Schaeffer Institute at Covenant Theological Seminary, will be the keynote speaker for our church's annual missions conference. He will be speaking during worship at 9:15 a.m., and then during a combined adult Sunday School class at 11:00. After a catered box lunch, there will be a further Q&A session.

Barrs teaches apologetics at Covenant Seminary. The title of his talk is "Finding Grace in Unexpected People." The vision statement of the Francis Schaeffer Institute will give you an idea what to expect:

The Church is to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every person. Unfortunately, Christians can retreat into a subculture due to fear of the surrounding society. Many do not understand or are unsure how to respond to secularism, postmodernism, New Age spirituality, and the challenges of science and technology. Instead of seeking to grow in understanding, Christians can withdraw behind defensive barriers for protection.

The tragedy is that the barriers work both ways. They not only keep the culture away from Christians, but they also keep the Gospel away from those who need it. We can begin to develop an "us versus them" mentality which isolates us from our neighbors and prevents others from hearing the Gospel and seeing it at work in our lives. We often are regarded merely as "religious," not as earnestly concerned for truth.

The goal of the Schaeffer Institute is to assist Christians in breaking down these barriers, to become more faithful and effective in evangelism, and to become more obedient to God's Word in all areas of life. We seek to do this by training Christians to observe and understand the culture in which they live, and by modeling respectful dialogue with those who are not Christians. In this way we hope to prepare Christians to be involved effectively as salt and light beyond the Church in the wider culture.

So while much of this missions conference will focus on the missionaries and outreaches sponsored by our church in Ukraine, Uganda, Mexico, the Philippines, Cameroon, Brazil, and Kurdistan, among other places, tomorrow morning's focus will be on effectively stepping outside of the evangelical subculture to reach our fellow Tulsans with the truth of Christ.

One of the things that attracted us to this church when we joined 15 years ago was the commitment to reach the world with the Gospel. Missions wasn't just a special offering collected a couple of times a year, or a small percentage automatically deducted from the budget. The church was directly involved in supporting individual missionaries and missionary families, in sending its own leaders and lay members on short-term missions, and in helping our own members to become full-time missionaries.

You can learn more about the missions program and the 2007 conference from the CPC missions conference brochure (PDF format).

Jim Miller, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Tulsa, took a sermonal swipe last Sunday at Kirk of the Hills, the Presbyterian congregation which decided last year to disaffiliate from the mainline PCUSA and become a congregation of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Here's what Miller said:

“They left the presbytery because they believed that the Presbyterian Church is the Titanic. And if you’re on the Titanic, the best thing that you can do is get off the Titanic….”

“I believe that if you use the analogy of a ship [and] there is a fire in the engine room, in the boiler, and if you have a crisis in the engine room you don’t need to have people getting off the ship, you need to have people getting in the boiler room and beginning to put things right.”

Tom Gray, pastor of Kirk of the Hills, says he and his church's leadership have spent 15 years trying to put things right:

I, Wayne, and a significant number of our elders attended many General Assemblies and were participants and officers in various renewal groups. We’ve met with denominational officials over the years, written letters and articles, caucused with sessions and pastors of like mind, and generally have invested a tremendous amount of time and treasure in trying to turn the ship back on course.

I’ve spent at least two weeks of every year since 1991 devoted to addressing the PCUSA’s wayward course. I’ve made hundreds of phone calls in that service. I hesitate to compute the tens of thousands of miles I’ve traveled throughout the U.S. working with others in an effort to redirect the denomination. I’ve taken stands that have made me unpopular at home, and I’ve had to hear the general presbyter complain about people like me who are “at the extreme” for wanting the denomination to remain true to its traditional beliefs.

Gray says the problem isn't in the engine room; it's on the bridge.

The ship of PCUSA is heading in the wrong direction even though it has a clear map of where it is supposed to go, found in Scripture and in the denomination’s confessions. Sometime between 1950 and today, in the denominations from whence the PCUSA was formed, there was a very slow and subtle mutiny. Those opposed to the direction of Scripture gained control of the rudder....

If I had paid fare to travel, say, from New York to London, and found that the ship had, without permission or announcement, changed its course for Antarctica, I’d have good reason to get onto another ship—one going in the right direction. This is what the Kirk did when we disaffiliated. The fact that other churches (passengers) are willing to hope that the ship goes back to its rightful course is their business. We found that the officers on the bridge were deaf to our concerns, so we came to the conclusion that the rudder is now lashed in the wrong direction.

The case could be made that the PCUSA started heading south in 1967, when they eliminated adherence to the Westminster Standards as a requirement for ordination and adopted a new watered-down confession.

First Pres has a beautiful and historic facility. It would be hard to leave an apostate denomination knowing that it might cost them their building, but that's the same challenge the Kirk is facing, fighting in court to keep control of the property that their members built.

I'm thankful that forty years ago the founders of our congregation placed faithfulness to God's unchanging Word above the perishable glory of buildings and were willing to forgo stained glass and pipe organs for Sunday worship in a school cafeteria.

"Sheshe," a mom to eleven kids, is being evaluated for deep brain stimulation surgery to deal with severe dystonia. She asks for prayers for wisdom on the decision she'll have if the doctors decide she's a good candidate for surgery.

Amy Wilhoite is a young mom with a fourteen-month-old baby boy who was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia last summer. She had chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant, but she learned today that the cancer has returned, and there are few remaining treatment options. She writes:

We are heartbroken. This is not the news we wanted to hear. We wanted to raise our son, to grow old together, but God has different plans for our family. And as much as we don't understand them right now, we know that He is sovereign over this as well. Please pray for us, and for my family especially. My part in all of this is rather easy. I get to die and be with my Savior in glory. I get to miss out on all the suffering this world holds. It is my family who bear the grief and the pain day in and day out. It is for them that my heart breaks.

(Via Rocks in My Dryer.)

The Ace of Spades, a non-believer himself, has a post wondering why non-believers get offended at the fact that believers think they're going to Hell, and it includes this perceptive passage:

Most Christians who get heat for this don't offer the statement "You're going to Hell" of their own volition. What usually happens is that non-believers begin badgering them -- "You can't possibly believe I'm going to Hell!" -- which Christians initially attempt to deflect away. Because they do in fact wish to be polite, and don't want to hurt someone's feelings.

But if you keep badgering a committed Christian this way, your are forcing him to choose between 1) Being polite and 2) Expressly repudiating his religion.

At some point the deflections stop working and this becomes a very easy call.

I knew a fundamentalist Christian in high school, and he was always troubled by the compromises he had to make as he navigated the world among nonbelievers. On one hand, he didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings and wanted to fit in, as anyone does. On the other hand, he believed the Bible compelled him to "witness" and "testify" as much as possible; he was always troubled that he was choosing the easy, non-Christly way of keeping his beliefs hidden.

Most practicing Christians are similarly conflicted. They don't want to hurt feelings or cause conflict or even just make themselves look "weird" among nonbelievers; but however they navigate their way through these rocky shoals, there's one thing they can't do: Deny the divinity of Christ.

And if you keep badgering them, they will, at some point, tell you those hateful words: "Yes, since you don't believe in Christ, you're going to Hell. Christ said he was the only way into Heaven, and I'm inclined to believe him."

So why doesn't everyone who's so terribly bothered by this stop badgering these people? Stop asking. I can tell what they'll say; in fact, I just did.

There's your answer: Yes, you're going to the Hell you don't believe exists.

Satisfied? Good. So you don't have to ask anymore, jaw hanging in disbelief, eyes welling up with angry tears.

Speaking of Dawn Eden, I like what she said recently to Terry Mattingly regarding churches' outreach to singles:

If church leaders truly want to reach out to women and men who are looking for an alternative to that lifestyle, said Eden, they must realize that the last thing single adults need is a singles ministry that turns "your church basement into a sort of 'Animal House' with crosses."

What congregations should do is rally single adults around worship, prayer, books, the arts and service to others, she said. Then friendships and relationships can develop out of activities that strengthen the faith of those that choose to participate.

"You really don't have to dumb things down for us," said Eden. "There are plenty of ways for single adults to get less church if that is what they really want. Why not talk to some of your young adults and ask them what they really want. They may want more church _ more faith _ not less."

That's not just true for singles. You don't have to dumb things down for the rest of us either. Christianity is at its most attractive when it stands in contrast to the ways of the world. If a person has come to realize that the "lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life cannot satisfy his soul," why would he then be drawn to something that looks like a cheap watered-down imitation? If he's discovered that he can't find contentment by making himself the center of his life, why would he seek out a church that puts the focus on him? Why disguise a fountain of living water as a broken cistern?

Perhaps if the real reason for tarting up church activities is to appeal to cradle Christians who might otherwise feel that they're missing out on all the fun the world has to offer. I suspect that many church activities are most effective at recruiting people who are already churchgoers rather than attracting the unchurched.

Or perhaps it's because church leaders have become bored with what is foundational, what is solid, what is time-tested, what is true and lovely. It's a problem that extends to every area of church life. For example, music.

I'm reminded of the way a choir director will get tired of performing the Hallelujah Chorus every Easter. It's old hat to him, and he's jaded, so he wants to replace it with something modern. The choir director reasons that if he's bored with it, the congregation must be bored with it too. But to the people in the pews, it's a thing of beauty and transcendence. There's always someone in the congregation hearing it for the first time. There are plenty more who will feel cheated if they don't get to hear it again. Likewise for old hymn tunes, ancient prayers, etc.

On Palm Sunday 1989, I was attending Holy Trinity Church, an evangelical Anglican parish in Hounslow, Middlesex, west of London. I was excited to be in a liturgical church for the beginning of Holy Week. I was excited that we would be singing "All Glory, Laud, and Honor" as the processional hymn, and I was all set to boom out the traditional tune, but instead a different, sappy little modern tune was sung. Whoever planned the service must have been bored with the majestic traditional tune. I felt like I'd been deprived of the very reason I sought out an Anglican parish.

Preachers even get bored with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, preferring to deliver self-help messages. They forget that even long-time believers need to hear that Jesus died for their sins and has reconciled them to God. (Our pastor doesn't forget that, I'm happy to say.)

This tendency -- getting bored with and discarding the church's most attractive distinctives -- must be especially grating on Catholic converts like Eden, drawn to the church by a beautiful and ancient tradition, only to have their eyes and ears assaulted with ugly modern buildings and music, created by people who were evidently bored with Gothic architecture and Palestrina.

On a business trip to Montreal a couple of years ago, I took a walk up and over Westmount to St. Joseph's Oratory, which dominates the skyline on the north side of the island. Construction of the basilica began in 1924, and the exterior is dramatic and stately in the Italian Renaissance style.

The interior was completed in 1967 -- and it looks it. It was like being in a very large bank vault. There were only a couple of other people there, tourists like me, taking pictures.

I made my way to the lower level of the complex, to the crypt chapel, which was built in 1917 and used as the main church until the basilica was completed. It was as warm and colorful as the basilica had been cold and grey. Here you had traditional stained glass and statuary and shrines and thousands of votive candles and racks of abandoned canes and crutches. It looked like a Roman Catholic church is supposed to look. And here, not up in the basilica, is where you found dozens of people praying.

Seekers are looking for something solid, something permanent. Why remake the church into something flimsy and ephemeral?

To return to the quote: Eden's suggestions for singles activities are spot on, and not just for singles. Churches hold mixers, progressive dinners, and ice cream socials, build massive recreation centers and even open Starbucks franchises in the lobby, trying to create a sense of fellowship and friendship among their members. But it doesn't work. True koinonia is built when the people of God are side-by-side in worship, study, and service.

TRACKBACKS: Manasclerk has three entries addressing this topic:

Don't Smarten Up Church Either
More on singles in Christian churches
Again with the singles

From that last entry:

I suppose one of the things that I found sad about Eden's comments was that someone actually has to say "I would like to learn about God at church, please." Her requests are ludicrous as Requests For Singles because they should simply be Things That We Do Here. Singles should not have special classes on the faith simply because they are single. They should participate in the full life of the congregation as members, including teaching and learning the doctrines and the scriptures.

Not that I haven't seen it recently. Friends of mine left our church in part because there wasn't any opportunity to learn about the Bible. In depth. Not just verses but the whole thing. They're married, with kids. And he has a great new job. How can we lose someone when they want to learn about God more deeply?

Somewhere, we became embarrassed about the only distinctive that we have: we're the adopted children of the Almighty. We have the Word of God among us, and can read the words about the Word to learn more of him. (Yes, he's a heretic but he's right on that point.) What can be better than learning about the work of God through the scriptures?

I've been listening to David Calhoun's lectures on Ancient and Medieval Christianity, and the third lecture is about the persecutions of Christians in the Roman Empire. Christians were sent to their deaths for refusing to deny their faith in Christ, for refusing to offer incense or bow to an image of the emperor.

The persecutions continue today -- mainly in places like Sudan, Indonesia, North Korea, and China, lands under the sway of Communism and Islam. Every year, 160,000
Christians are martyred for their faith.

But these people aren't just numbers. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Please watch this four-minute video, which introduces us by name to several Christians who suffered for their faith but survived.

It was produced by The Voice of the Martyrs, an organization based in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, which is devoted to making western Christians aware of our suffering brethren, and providing the persecuted with prayer, support, and any comfort they can offer.

You can keep informed about opportunities to pray for and act in support of persecuted Christians by reading Persecution Blog, a online publication of The Voice of the Martyrs.

Calvinist hip-hop? Fo' rizzle:

Bethlehem Baptist pastor John Piper took the podium at a Saturday evening service in downtown Minneapolis last fall and introduced Curtis "Voice" Allen, a hip-hop artist. After warning the largely white congregation that his music would "thump" a bit more than typical Bethlehem fare, Allen launched into a lyrical testimony about the unstoppable power of God's irresistible grace: "I been exposed to bright lights, the doctrines of grace, I'm elected, imputed perfected, becuz of the power of God resurrected and his gift of faith, that when we see his face we're not rejected."...

Even the harshest online attackers had no ill words for the theology of his rap, a departure from the shallowness that has characterized much of Christian hip-hop since its commercial inception in the mid-1990s. Allen is part of a small but growing cadre of artists who lace their stylized rhymes with orthodox Calvinism.

The end of the article in World Magazine tells of another Reformed rapper, Dishon Knox, now a student at Covenant Theological Seminary:

Knox, aka Born2Di, believes hip-hop can become a force for doctrinal correction. "The black church suffers a lot from theological malnutrition, for lack of better words," he said. "That's what drives me to go to seminary."

Knox is not shy with his musical styling on campus, recently performing during a chapel service. The song "True to Reformed Faith" chronicles his view of his own Presbyterian denomination: "Faithful to Holy Scriptures, true to Reformed faith. Presbyterian Church in America, grow in grace. Obedient to the 'Great Commission,' that's the mission. History ain't perfect, but the goal is gradual submission."

The blog Exhibiting the Value of Knowing God has links to video and audio of some of the Reformed hip-hop songs mentioned in the article, including the history of the PCA rap, which traces the development of Reformed doctrine and polity beginning with the 95 Theses and Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, the Puritans and the Westminster Assembly, Jonathan Edwards, the Great Awakening, the New Side/Old Side controversy, Francis Schaeffer, and the "joining and receiving" of the PCA and the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod in 1982. (I think it would be cool if, for his next historical rap, he sampled Prof. David Calhoun saying the name "Kirkegaard.")

Dishon Knox's desire to make hip-hop a "force for doctrinal correction" is not a vain hope. It seems to me that the structure of rap music would enable it to carry more complex information than, say, a praise chorus. Rap lends itself to long sentences and limited repetition, and the use of rhythm and rhyme would be an aid to memorization.

(That link to Prof. Calhoun's name goes to his lectures on Reformation and Modern Church History. You can also listen to all of his lectures on Ancient and Medieval Church History, along with 20 other Covenant Seminary courses in Bible, theology, ethics, apologetics, homiletics, missions, and ministry. I took Calhoun's video courses on church history many years ago, and I highly recommend them.)

...Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who is recovering from pulmonary embolism. His condition is improving, but still serious.

... and D. James Kennedy, pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church (PCA), who suffered a heart attack on December 28, had a pacemaker implanted on Wednesday, and is now recovering.

No one is indispensible, but these two men have made valuable contributions to their own denominations and to the broader evangelical world, particularly in applying a Christian worldview to American culture. I pray that each have many more years of fruitful ministry ahead of them before their homegoing.

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. -- Philippians 1:21-24, ESV

Sung at our church's communion service tonight:

Who is this so weak and helpless,
Child of lowly Hebrew maid,
rudely in a stable sheltered,
coldly in a manger laid?
'Tis the Lord of all creation,
who this wondrous path hath trod;
he is God from everlasting,
and to everlasting God.

Who is this, a Man of sorrows,
walking sadly life's hard way,
homeless, weary, sighing, weeping,
over sin and Satan's sway?
'Tis our God, our glorious Savior,
who above the starry sky
now for us a place prepareth,
where no tear can dim the eye.

Who is this? Behold him raining
drops of blood upon the ground!
Who is this, despised, rejected,
mocked, insulted, beaten, bound?
'Tis our God, who gifts and graces
on his Church now poureth down;
who shall smite in holy vengeance
all his foes beneath his throne.

Who is this that hangeth dying
with the thieves on either side?
Nails his hands and feet are tearing,
and spear hath pierced his side.
'Tis the God who ever liveth,
'mid the shining ones on high,
in the glorious golden city,
reigning everlastingly.

-- William Walsham How

The first of seven ancient antiphons, each used at vesper prayers in the seven days leading up to Christmas, each invoking Jesus with a different name and inviting meditation on a different attribute of His nature:

O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem fortiter, suaviter disponensque omnia; veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.

O Wisdom which camest out of the mouth of the most high, reaching from one end to another, mightily and sweetly ordering all things; come and shew us the way of understanding.

(Latin text found at Dappled Things, translation found at the website of St Peter's, Nottingham.)

The blog Godzdogz has more about the history and meaning of the Great Antiphons of Advent and will be posting a video clip each day of the antiphon being chanted over video of the music for the antiphon in Gregorian notation. Here is the video for O Sapientia.

"Edwards, Spurgeon, Ryle and Friends," an excellent blog devoted to excerpts from Puritan and Reformed devotional literature, has not only been deleted but has been hijacked by spammers. Its former location was jonathanedwards.blogspot.com. I've had to delete it from my blogroll, along with thenewvintage.blogspot.com, another abandoned Blogger site. (The New Vintage's blogger has resurfaced, anonymously, elsewhere.)

I wrote about the zombie blog harvester phenomenon last year, but here's a reminder -- and if you're a blogger reading this, please spread the word: If you must take your Blogger blog down, please, please don't delete the blog! Backup the content and then delete all the entries, but keep control of the blog as a placeholder. There are unscrupulous spammers (I repeat myself) who will grab the URLs of highly-linked blogs and use that high page rank to promote whatever it is they're trying to promote. When you delete the blog, anyone can claim that URL, and websurfers looking for your content will find whatever these cyberspace cowbirds have posted in its place.

One blogger who deleted his blog learned that his old URL had been claimed by a porn spammer, much to the surprise of his wife's grandmother who went to read his site. (To make matters worse, the pornographic story coincidentally used his wife's name as one of the protagonists of the story.)

Protect your reputation; keep hold of your blog's URL.

A quote and a few thoughts about this article by Michael Spencer, on "Christian Community, Friendship, and the Quest for Accountability":

It is certainly true that most of us avoid accountability relationships because there is no one we would trust with our secrets, failures and struggles. Contemporary evangelical spirituality values outward demonstrations of piety, not interpersonal honesty where we confess our sins and ask for advice in our struggles. We are supposed to confess our victories over sin, not our struggles with sin. Holiness, for most evangelical Christians, is a state of arrival, not a journey of response to the Gospel. We want triumph, not lessons. Abiding in Christ is supposed to result in “victory.” The “fruit” of the Christian life is suppose to come in lives where all the major problems have been resolved, and we gather to pray for further victory, for strugglers and for what Joel Osteen calls “God’s Favor.”

The focus of evangelical spirituality in America works against accountability relationships, and even when those relationships occur, it works against true honesty, repentance and the pursuit of humility.

There's much more to Spencer's article, and I encourage you to read the whole thing. In addition, consider the impact of modern city life on accountability. In a small town, accountability is unavoidable, as the people you see at church on Sunday are the same people you deal with at work, at school, in civic groups, and in your neighborhood. In a city, we worship with one group of people, work with another, and are neighbors to yet another, with very little overlap between communities. It's easy to go an entire week and not see someone from church. Even if one is involved in a small prayer group or Bible study with friends from church, that disconnect still exists.

Spencer writes of accountability relationships, "Such relationships can’t be easily constructed. They can’t simply be scheduled or assigned. In a very real sense, they must be born of the Holy Spirit and the providence of God." Trust is something that takes a long time to develop. At least, it should take a long time to develop. There are lots of reasons why it's easier to build accountability relationships in the context of a campus ministry than in the context of a congregation, but one reason is that college students are less wary, quicker to trust, because they haven't been burned enough times or badly enough.

When a small group of adults does gel, when the members feel comfortable enough to trust each other, the group ought to be left alone, but often it's broken up by church leaders. The usual reasons are that the group is becoming "ingrown" or cliquish, that more successful groups can be created if the group members are spread out to different groups, that group members need to be challenged afresh to build new relationships. There may even be an unspoken fear that a cohesive group of laypeople is a challenge to the authority of the leadership. The result of breaking up and reassigning the members of such a group is that new friendships and trust have to be developed from scratch, and the friendships nurtured in the old group fade without that weekly scheduled time to spend together.

On Evangelical Outpost, Joe Carter looks at seven votes in the U. S. House of special concern to social conservatives, then compares the voting records of the current Republican House committee chairmen with those who would replace them if the Democrats win a majority of seats in November. While not all the Republican chairmen have stellar records on this set of votes, all but two are over 50% (Jim Leach of Iowa and Howard Coble of N. C. only voted the right way on 3 of 7), and 8 of the 13 chairmen voted the right way on at least six of the seven votes. Meanwhile, most of their Democratic counterparts scored a big fat zero. (Three exceptions: One chairman voted the right way once, another voted the right way twice, and Ike Skelton of Missouri, ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, who scored a 71.)

I've heard politically-active evangelicals around here say that "the lesser of two evils is still evil." Carter leads off with a quote from Thomas à Kempis book The Imitation of Christ: "Of two evils, the less is always to be chosen." To choose otherwise is to let the greater evil prevail. Refusing to choose, waiting instead for some ideal to fall from the heavens, is to make a choice for the greater evil.

Overall, under Republican leadership in the House, the desired result for social conservatives was attained in five of these seven measures. (A sixth, regarding embryonic stem cell research, was stopped by President Bush's veto.) Looking at the scores of these current and potential committee chairmen, I have no doubt that under Democratic leadership, legislation that protects the sanctity of human life and the traditional definition of marriage would never make it out of committee.

We've seen exactly that situation here in Oklahoma, where, despite a professed pro-life majority in both houses, a Democratic Senate committee chairman, supported by the Democratic Senate majority leadership, blocked pro-life bills from being debated on the Senate floor. The lead story October 2006 issue of the Oklahomans for Life newsletter (PDF) tells how this year's landmark pro-life legislation nearly didn't make it to the Governor's desk:

Senate Democrats were determined to prevent any pro-life legislation from being enacted this year. Senate Democrats facilitated the killing of seven (7) prolife bills that had passed the House this session. The bills were killed by a Democrat committee chairman, serving at the pleasure of the Democrat Senate Leader, who, in turn, serves at the pleasure of the Senate’s Democrat members.

When the Republican House of Representatives reinserted five of those bills in another piece of legislation which had already passed the Senate (and, therefore, did not have to go through committee in the Senate again), the Senate Democrats resisted as forcefully and as long as they possibly could. They were fully prepared to ignore the rules of the Senate by refusing to allow the Republican author of SB 1742 to present the bill for a Senate vote.

The Democrat Leader of the Senate told the bill’s author as late as May 17, the day before the bill ultimately passed, that the bill would not be granted a vote on the Senate floor. It was only when Republicans made it clear that they would attempt to force the issue through a procedural
motion (which would have been voted on in public) that the Democrats relented and agreed to let the vote occur.

With great reluctance, the Democrat Leadership of the Senate allowed the bill to be voted on when the political pressure had built to such an extent that they could no longer contain it.

Once the bill was allowed to come to a vote, SB 1742 passed the Oklahoma Senate 38-8.

At the state level and at the federal level, which party will have control of the chamber is as important as which individual will represent your district.

Here's the conclusion Joe Carter draws:

Social conservatives have reason to be disappointed in the Republicans in Congress. As these scores indicate, though, we will be even more disappointed should the Democrats gain majority control. The GOP doesn't deserve to win; but if the Democrats regain power, it will be society that loses.

RELATED: Paul Weyrich points to the Bush Administration's solid record on judicial appointments and says you can expect strict-constructionist nominees like Samuel Alito never to get a hearing in a Democrat-controlled Senate. "I understand, and am sympathetic to, the reasons not to retain the current crowd in office. But there are two very big reasons why they should be re-elected. If they do not improve their performance in the 110th Congress, recruit primary candidates and replace them."

AND THIS: Are social conservative voters budding theocrats? Bill Rusher hits the nail on the head:

What has happened is that, in the past thirty years, a large number of Americans whose deepest beliefs and concerns are not political but religious have concluded that they have no choice but to gird themselves for participation in the nation's political wars. There are quite enough such people to influence the election returns, and they have been doing so.

But -- and this distinction is crucial -- their posture is essentially defensive. They are not seeking to turn America into a theocracy. They are simply trying to preserve, and where necessary restore, the politico-religious balance that has been traditional in this country. It is the intellectuals, with the critical support of the courts, and above all the Supreme Court, that have successfully eroded that balance, seeking to marginalize religion and convert the entire civic framework of the nation into a purely secular arena, on the pretense that this is required by the First Amendment's supposed erection of a high "wall" between church and state.

Those who imagine that it is religion's defenders who are the aggressors here are simply not paying attention to the increasingly sharp attacks on religious faith that can be found today in such influential places as The New York Times.

In May 1963, six months before his death, C. S. Lewis was interviewed by Sherwood E. Wirt at Magdalen College, Oxford. The first part of that interview is now online. In it, Lewis answers questions about the craft of writing, and contemporary authors that he found helpful. Lewis makes an interesting comment on Chesterton's statement that he joined the Church to get rid of his sins. Asked about his conversion, and whether he felt he had made a decision, he replied:

I would not put it that way. What I wrote in Surprised by Joy was that ‘before God closed in on me, I was offered what now appears a moment of wholly free choice.' But I feel my decision was not so important. I was the object rather than the subject in this affair. I was decided upon. I was glad afterward at the way it came out, but at the moment what I heard was God saying, ‘Put down your gun and we'll talk.'

Pastors.com promises to post part 2 of the interview next week.

There are all sorts of websites devoted to humor, and all sorts devoted to Evangelical Christianity, but there are a number that combine the two, poking gentle fun, from an inside perspective, at the unintentionally funny things about Evangelical subculture.

One of my favorite such sites is Lark News, a fake-news website in the mold of The Onion (but without any of the filthy stuff The Onion sometimes runs). To give you a flavor, here are a few headlines:

• 40 Days of Purpose draws Deadhead-style following
• Jack Chick buys popular comic strips
• Missionaries maintain obesity against long odds
• Rapture takes two
• Christian couple maintains abstinence through first two years of marriage
• Mega-church downsizes, cuts non-essential members
• New Guinea tribe sees savior in Ark. pastor
• Man in market for Single, Lonely and Depressed Study Bible
• Presb. Church USA launches ambitious plan to lose only 5% of members
• Small Group 'Survivor' experiment fizzles
• Outsourced prayer lines confuse callers

Other Evangelical humor sites find that truth is stranger than fiction:

• Purgatorio: "a panoply of evangelical eccentricities, un-orthodox oddities & christian cultural curiosities." My favorite feature is Divine Vinyl -- odd album covers for Christian albums. There's a lot more polyester on display than actual vinyl.
• Crummy Church Signs: Documenting the weird and the trite.
• Kinda Kitschy: Does anyone really need a Thomas Kinkade angel figurine?

The British website Ship of Fools is broadly Christian, not specifically Evangelical. It's also not solely a humor site. (It reminds me of the way the British satirical mag Private Eye mixes satire and serious investigative articles.) Favorite features include Signs and Blunders and The Mystery Worshipper -- reviews of church services of all denominations from all over the world. The latest "blunder" is a phone message left by a vistor to a church on the pastor's answering machine, gently letting the pastor know that one of the female worship leaders was getting into the music a little more than she should. (After listening to the phone message, you can hear it remixed and set to music!)

Sometime ago, via comments on another blog, I came across Nihilo, a blog by a couple, former Tulsans who now live in Alabama, who have 11 children from five different countries. Five years ago this month they adopted three older Russian siblings, a girl and two boys.

In honor of the fifth anniversary, the mom has published her recollections of the adoption process and the trip to Russia, and each of the three children (Jennifer, Sergei, and Zhenya) have written their own thoughts, how they came to be in an orphanage, what life in the orphanage was like, and the adoption process from their perspective. These are touching stories, reminders of the blessings of family and America.

Part of the story is about the experience of Americans traveling to Russia soon after the 9/11 terrorist attack:

Everywhere we went, the Russian people were compassionate towards us. In the open air market, vendors gave us discounts we did not ask for, simply because we were Americans and they felt badly for what had just happened in our country....

While we were riding on the [Moscow] subway with our translator, a Russian woman began talking to her and asking questions about us. When she reached her stop she gave a package she had been carrying to our translator and hurried on to her destination. Tatia would not talk about what the package held until we subsequently reached our own stop. At that point she told us that the woman had been so touched by the story of our adoption that she had given us a loaf of bread that she had been given for her own birthday. Anyone who knows even a little about the Russian culture knows how much they love their breads! And this one was an exceptional example of their fancy, sweet breads. It was made all the more sweet as we thanked God for this generous woman and prayed that He would bless her in return for the gift she shared with us.

This morning at our church, I heard that the Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery of the PCUSA was sending in a supply preacher to oversee worship this morning at Kirk of the Hills, the congregation that left the PCUSA earlier this month.

As I understand it, this is the theory behind the move: The pastors of the Kirk resigned from Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery, but the congregation did not leave the presbytery, because they did not go through proper channels. Therefore, the presbytery will supply interim leadership, whether the congregation wants it or not.

When I heard this I said, "Where's Jenny Geddes when you need her?"

In 1637, King Charles I of England and Scotland was attempting to create uniformity of religion in all his realms, and commissioned an Anglican-style Book of Common Prayer to be used in Scotland, replacing the simpler form of worship that had been in place for the previous seven decades. The new prayer book was first used on July 23, 1637, at St. Giles High Kirk in Edinburgh. According to legend, Jenny Geddes, a market woman, was highly offended by the intrusion of alien forms of worship, and flung her stool right at the head of the dean who was leading the service. She is said to have yelled, "Devil give you the colic, false thief! Dare you say Mass in my ear!"

I'm sure the good people of Kirk of the Hills are too genteel to fling so much as a hymnbook at an uninvited supply preacher, but I had to smile at the idea of history repeating itself.

Reading Kirk pastor Tom Gray's blog this evening, I learned that the presbytery had planned to send a supply pastor to preach at the Kirk this morning, but that they had backed off after communication with the Kirk's attorneys, and that the Kirk was filled this morning with enthusiastic worshippers showing support for the Kirk's departure from the PCUSA. In another entry, Gray explains the rationale for the method of the Kirk's departure from the PCUSA. He also links to a report of a 2005 attempt by PCUSA leadership and a minority faction to take over the worship service of a Korean Presbyterian congregation in Torrance, California.

In making their escape from the PCUSA, the Kirk's congregants and pastors have taken the risk of forfeiting their property and pensions, and the potential for confrontation and disruption of their services, but they are taking these risks for the sake of the truth. Keep the Kirk in your prayers.

From the blog of Tom Gray, pastor of Tulsa's Kirk of the Hills:

Yesterday the elders and the trustees of Kirk of the Hills voted to disaffiliate from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) denomination in response to decisions made by the PCUSA at the national level which depart from the authority of the Bible and the denomination�s historical beliefs.

Rev. Tom Gray and Rev. Wayne Hardy have resigned from the PCUSA, and have been hired by the Kirk of the Hills Corporation as co-pastors of the church. Rev. Gray said, �I ask that Christians in Tulsa and around America pray not only for Kirk of the Hills, but also for the Presbyterian denomination as a whole. We will continue to love and pray for our brothers and sisters in that denomination, and trust in our Lord Jesus Christ to use these recent events for His will, and to accomplish His work.�

With this disaffiliation from PCUSA, the Kirk of the Hills will affiliate with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC).

Read back through Gray's archives to learn more about what led up to this decision. Gray warns that the liberals running the denomination have already prepared plans for wresting control of church property from congregations who want to leave for a more conservative Presbyterian denomination.

This is a courageous and difficult step, one that could have been justified 20 years ago, but one that the Kirk deferred for the sake of unity. But at some point, if you're committed to truth, you have to say with Martin Luther, "Here I stand. I can do no other. May God help me."

May God help and bless Kirk of the Hills.

You scored as Reformed Evangelical. You are a Reformed Evangelical. You take the Bible very seriously because it is God's Word. You most likely hold to TULIP and are sceptical about the possibilities of universal atonement or resistible grace. The most important thing the Church can do is make sure people hear how they can go to heaven when they die. Reformed Evangelical 82% Neo orthodox 75% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 71% Fundamentalist 68% Emergent/Postmodern 43% Roman Catholic 32% Charismatic/Pentecostal 18% Classical Liberal 18% Modern Liberal 11% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

(Via Manasclerk, whose blog is fascinating reading that will challenge your mind and heart.)

David Wayne, the Jollyblogger, has an interesting entry, "On Thinking New Theological Thoughts." He cites the late Presbyterian theologian John Murray, no liberal or modernist he, who writes of the need for each generation to deal with the issues of the day in the light of Scripture. While the ancient creeds and Reformation confessions are a rich heritage and are not to be set aside, we can't rest on our theological laurels. Murray wrote:

When any generation is content to rely upon its theological heritage and refuses to explore for itself the riches of divine revelation, then declension is already under way and heterodoxy will be the lot of the succeeding generation.... A theology that does not build on the past ignores our debt to history and naively overlooks the fact that the present is conditioned by history. A theology that relies on the past evades the demands of the present.

Note that he is not saying that we should regard the old confessions as mere historical curiosities, as most of the liberal mainstream denominations do, but we need to apply the truth of the Bible to modern concerns that weren't on the radar in 325 or 1647, while building on the foundation laid by those earlier generations. New problems, new theological movements, new technologies need to be addressed in light of the timeless Word of God. Principles that were held by all respectable members of society four hundred years ago, and thus did not need to be affirmed in a confession, are now up for debate, and the church needs to take a stand.

Occasionally a conservative denomination like the Presbyterian Church in America will adopt a position paper -- for example, on the role of women in the Church. (Here's a repository of position papers adopted by American Presbyterian denominations, including a fairly comprehensive collection of position papers from the PCA and from the RPCES, a separate denomination that merged into the PCA in 1982.)

Only very rarely, however, will a conservative denomination modify the church's basic confession. There are very high hurdles to prevent such an action from being taken lightly. In the PCA it amounts to an amendment of the denomination's constitution, and the process is analogous to amendment of the U. S. Constitution, requiring adoption by the General Assembly followed by ratification by three-quarters of the presbyteries. So while theological statements are issued from time to time on various subjects, rarely are they made a part of the denomination's standards and made binding on ministers, elders and deacons.

I appreciated this statement from David Wayne:

It is proper to examine the older statements to see if they erred in their exegesis. It is also proper to examine them to see if the framers brought presuppositions to the table that skewed their understanding. In my own Reformed tradition this has happened. A case in point is the change in the Westminster Confession's position on the pope being the anti-Christ.

I would add the unbiblical practice of infant baptism in Reformed churches as an example of a doctrine that was shaped by the political realities of the 16th century. The Reformation succeeded then where earlier reform efforts failed because of the support and protection of civil governments. Dukes, princes, and city councilors were deciding matters of theology. Reform could only go as far as the civil magistrates were willing, and they were not willing to abandon the idea that everyone within their jurisdiction was born into and subject to their established church. Once it was decided to retain the practice, it took about a century to develop the theology to construct a theological rationale for it which was more or less consistent with Reformed soteriology. (I need hardly add that this is an area where I take exception with the doctrine of the church to which I belong. It's my prayer that some day this will be revisited, but I'm not holding my breath.)

Ultimately, the infallible, inerrant Word of God is the standard by which all creeds, confessions, sermons, liturgies, and pious opinions must be judged. That's the meaning of sola scriptura. Semper reformanda means the work of "bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" is never done.

BONUS LINK: The 1647 text of the Westminster Confession of Faith with notes showing amendments adopted by various presbyterian bodies in the United States. For example, most churches have dropped the "Pope is the Antichrist" clause, and take a different view of the involvement of government in church affairs than the Westminster Assembly, which was convened by the English Parliament in 1643.

The national assembly Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) has authorized congregations to use alternative names for the Holy Trinity in worship:

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) � The divine Trinity � "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" � could also be known as "Mother, Child and Womb" or "Rock, Redeemer, Friend" at some Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) services under an action Monday by the church's national assembly.

Delegates to the meeting voted to "receive" a policy paper on gender-inclusive language for the Trinity, a step short of approving it. That means church officials can propose experimental liturgies with alternative phrasings for the Trinity, but congregations won't be required to use them.

"This does not alter the church's theological position, but provides an educational resource to enhance the spiritual life of our membership," legislative committee chair Nancy Olthoff, an Iowa laywoman, said during Monday's debate on the Trinity.

Evidently not one to be content with half-hearted heresy, Josh Trevino has further suggestions, including:

• Superman, Batman, and Green Lantern
• Rock, Paper, and Scissors
• Moe, Larry, and Curley

Pejman Yousefzadeh chimes in at Red State. Here's a sample:

• Alvin, Simon and Theodore
• Tinker, Evers and Chance
• Dewey, Cheatham and Howe

He also suggests "Sonny, Michael, and Fredo," but I think "Vito, Michael, and Tom Hagen" makes for a better parallel.

Nearly all of the Presbyterian Churches in Tulsa are a part of the PCUSA. Christ Presbyterian Church is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). I usually describe it as the Bible-believing Presbyterian denomination (as opposed to the liberal mainline denomination).

While the PCA (which has its General Assembly this week) has its lively theological debates, they are well within the scope of the Westminster Confession, the historic standard of Presbyterian belief. There are 27 overtures on the agenda -- many dealing with presbytery boundaries and committee structure -- but the big theological issue at this year's GA will be whether the Federal Vision / Auburn Avenue / New Perspectives on Paul understanding of covenants and justification are within the bounds of PCA doctrine.

I know a lot of good, devout Christian folk who belong to PCUSA congregations, and there are PCUSA congregations that are, by and large, faithful to the Scriptures. When the northern and southern mainline churches reunited in the early '80s, there was a period in which congregations could withdraw and align with another denomination, without forfeiting their church buildings, which are owned by the denomination, not the individual congregation.

That grace period has long since ended. It would be a huge sacrifice for a congregation to leave the PCUSA, but the level of nonsense seems to grow year after year.

UPDATE: Tom Gray, pastor of Kirk of the Hills in Tulsa, one of those faithful Bible-believing, gospel-preaching congregations in the PCUSA, has been blogging the PCUSA General Assembly. One of the commenters below mentions passage of the PUP report -- "Peace, Unity, and Purity." Gray says of the report's adoption:

The PCUSA rejected clear, important Biblical injunctions on sexual behavior in order to adjust to our culture�s standards. "Sola Scriptura" has become "Via Vulgaris."

A bit further on:

I had the chance, following the vote, to visit with many people in the various conservative renewal groups. Some are claiming "victory," since there was a minor alteration in one paragraph, and because the GA did not strike down G-6.0106b (the "chastity and fidelity" clause).

On the first they are, I believe, deluded. The whole point of the PUP report has been to start a new "experiment" in being the church; an experiment that allows for the ordination of practicing homosexuals and, inevitably, the encouragement and endorsement of same-sex marriages. On the second, retaining G-6.0106b is irrelevant since local option negates it.

His description of the committee that reviewed the PUP report will tell you a lot about the forces that have control of the denomination. Here are his notes of comments made by committee members about the notion of allowing local option ordination standards.

In a comment on that post, Gray echoes the concern I had (which, thankfully, didn't come to pass) about the commission that was reviewing Tulsa's City Charter. It's a common disease of committees:

What I find most frustrating here is that commissioners (some) tend to want to be "nice" and go along with what is presented to them. Because the average member (commissioner) is not highly Biblically literate, thery are vulnerable to "experts." Combine that with the "niceness" factor and we have a high speed slippery slope.

He elaborates on this in a later entry:

I have deep reservations about the committee process at General Assembly. When commissioners first arrive they are instructed as to how to work in the committee. This is done, in my experience, through a process where the commissioners are repeatedly enjoined to suspend their previous opinions. The upshot of this, particularly for vulnerable commissioners, is the sense that opposition to what someone else says is in bad taste.

He goes on to describe the "discernment" time that the Ecclesiology Committee went through before starting its work. Here is part of what the leader of that session said:

"One of the ways to know the opening of God is when there is energy; when there is freedom, openness and freshness. Another is in that neutral place, letting go of agenda or outcome. Imagine one of the options open to you and imagine going down that pathway." [Letting go of agenda is what the "standard" commissioner preparation tries to accomplish. Is it a bad thing to have a strong opinion? Why?�Tom]

I suspect that the experts aren't letting go of their agendas, but they want these lay people to feel that they are following the Holy Spirit by turning off their brains and letting themselves be swayed by emotional arguments.

(I can't help but think of the application of this to Tulsa's city government. Debate is called bickering by the Whirled and their allies. People with strong opinions are dismissed as naysayers. All of this is to clear the ground for their agenda to be enacted.)

Here is the result of that mental clear-cutting:

The committee members were asked to share what they felt during the discernment time. ...

Another young woman said an image of a music class came to her. "I�ve taken music theory this year, and we learned about dodecaphonic music... you basically throw the notes down on the floor to make your original theme, and then create a piece using only those themes. I personally disliked that part of music theory because I like to pick my pitches... We were all worried about it, but when I stepped back, the piece was beautiful. That is what we are going to do in this committee. It will come out as whatever God intends and we will go home happy because it all works out."

A convocation of evangelical PCUSA congregations, the New Wineskins Initiative will be held at Kirk of the Hills July 19 - 22. It looks like the embryo of a new Presbyterian denomination. They would do well to learn from the mistakes and successes of the PCA, which was founded in a similar way by existing congregations leaving what was then the PCUS (the southern Presbyterian Church).

Our church sponsors a chapter of Reformed University Fellowship at the University of Tulsa, and as a result we've had an influx of college age, young singles, and young married couples into our congregation. (RUF is the collegiate ministry of the Presbyterian Church in America, a conservative evangelical denomination.)

Along with the new people, the RUF connection has brought new songs into our worship service, or, more accurately, new tunes to old hymns by writers like Charles Wesley, Isaac Watts, John Newton, and Augustus Toplady.

The tunes can be found in the RUF Hymnbook. The RUF Hymnbook Online Hymn Resource provides PDF lead sheets, guitar chord sheets, lyric-only sheets (for overhead projectors), and brief demos (usually a verse and a chorus) in MP3 format.

Kevin Twit is the composer of many of the new tunes, and the RUF Hymnbook Online Hymn Resource is a part of his website, Indelible Grace Music. Twit has a blog on the site as well, and one of his recent entries is "Thoughts on writing a new tune for a hymn text."

This morning I was on KFAQ to talk about SB 1324, but before we got to that subject, Gwen Freeman mentioned Carlton Pearson's new TV ads, which straightforwardly proclaim his embrace of universalism -- the doctrine that all are saved from God's wrath, whether or not they repent and believe in Jesus Christ. In that context, I said this:

I'm happy to say that because of [Carlton Pearson's] heresy, my son's school has a new campus. Regent Preparatory School has bought the old Higher Dimensions campus on South Memorial... So we've got a nice new big campus with some wild space, ponds, and woods, and it's going to be a great place for a school, and we owe it all to Carlton Pearson being a heretic.

It was said in a jocular tone of voice, and it provoked laughter from Gwen Freeman and Ron Howell, who was her sidekick this morning.

I got a call later from someone who had heard about the remark second-hand and was concerned that it might reflect badly on the school.

I want to make it clear here that I do not represent Regent Preparatory School in any way. My only affiliation with the school is that two of my children are students there.

For its first six years of existence, Regent has been a tenant of Central Assembly of God, which is located in the old Bates Elementary School building near 51st and Memorial. It has been a good location, but the classical Christian school has been searching for a permanent place where it can settle in and expand. At one point three years ago, Regent was poised to purchase the old Children's Medical Center facility on I-44 between 41st and Yale, but the effort was thwarted by then-City Councilor Randy Sullivan. (That area is now home to a Best Buy and a Bed, Bath, and Beyond.) This new campus is an answer to many years of prayers.

I don't mean to be ungracious to Carlton Pearson, whom I met during the 2002 mayoral campaign. But Pearson turned his back on the historic Christian faith by embracing universalism. As a result, many of his church members left, and many of his fellow pastors and evangelists do not wish to give him a platform at their revival meetings and conferences for his false doctrine.

This decline in popularity, stemming from the rejection of truth and the embrace of falsehood, led to the financial decline of the church and the necessity of selling their facility near 91st and Memorial. The remnant of his church now worships Sunday afternoons at Trinity Episcopal Church.

For a minister of the gospel to turn his back on the truth and lead others astray is a grave thing, and I take no joy in it. Nevertheless, it is a happy thing that, as a consequence of one man's rejection of the truth, a school that is committed to the truth and is grounded in sound Christian doctrine now has a campus that will enable it to grow and to thrive.

Here's an interesting idea from National Review's editorial about the situation of Abdul Rahman, the Afghan citizen who has been charged with a capital crime for converting from Islam to Christianity.

It is important that, while we push for justice in the case, we don�t play into the hands of [Afghan President] Karzai's enemies, who are eager to capitalize on the fears of a very traditional society. We should make it clear privately, but very firmly to Karzai � who would have to sign Rahman's death warrant � that we expect him to find some Afghan way to short-circuit the case before it ever gets to that point.

From a Washington Times story, I get the impression that such a way has been found:

But prosecutor Sarinwal Zamari said questions have been raised about [Rahman's] mental fitness.

"We think he could be mad. He is not a normal person. He doesn't talk like a normal person," he told The Associated Press.

Moayuddin Baluch, a religious adviser to President Hamid Karzai, said Mr. Rahman would undergo a psychological examination.

"Doctors must examine him," he said. "If he is mentally unfit, definitely Islam has no claim to punish him. He must be forgiven. The case must be dropped."

Over on the Religion of Peace? blog, there's a comparison of American, German, Italian, and Canadian official responses to Rahman's prosecution. America looks pretty squishy compared to the more forceful responses of Germany and Italy.

On a related topic, the Nail Yale blog notices an irony in a 2001 editorial cartoon by Jim Borgman, who proposed terrorizing the Taliban by giving Afghan women scholarships to Yale. Instead, Yale is admitting a Taliban official as a special student.

I'll let others wrangle over the implications of this for American foreign policy. For now, what matters is that a brother in Christ named Abdur Rahman is under arrest in Afghanistan for converting from Islam to Christianity. If he refuses to deny Christ and turn back to Islam, the prosecutor intends to seek the death penalty.

Stacy Harp at Christian Persecution Blog is tracking the story. The latest update has links to stories about the situation and to an online petition asking for President Bush to intervene.

This Reuters story says that Afghan officials in the US are hearing from our government and from the American people in support of Rahman and religious freedom.

In a related story, LifeSite reports that the Canadian government rarely to grants asylum to Egyptian Coptic Christians who have suffered physical persecution in their home country.

The Washington Times has more details:

A Kabul court confirmed Sunday that Mr. Rahman, 41, was facing a death sentence under Islamic Shariah law for converting to Christianity. The conversion, which happened 16 years ago when Mr. Rahman was employed by a Christian aid organization in Pakistan, came to light during a custody battle over his two children. ...

But [Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah] insisted that the case was a legal one involving Mr. Rahman and his family.

"The government of Afghanistan has nothing to do with it," he said.

Afghanistan's constitution is based on Islamic Shariah law, which many argue forbids Muslims to convert to any other faith. The Afghan judiciary is considered a bastion of conservative orthodoxy, largely unreformed despite the ouster of the Taliban more than four years ago.

Prosecutor Abdul Wasi told the Associated Press that the capital case against Mr. Rahman would be dropped -- if the defendant would convert back to Islam.

"We are Muslims, and becoming a Christian is against our laws," Mr. Wasi said.

"He must get the death penalty."

Dawn Eden wrote about this story early Monday morning, linking to this story in The Times (London). There are details here that contradict Mr. Abdullah's claim that the matter is beyond the reach of the Afghan central government:

If Judge Zada, who is head of the Primary Court, passes the death penalty under Afghan law, Mr Rahman still has two avenues of appeal, the Provincial Court and the Supreme Court. The death penalty then has to be ratified by President Hamid Karzai....

Repeated request for an interview with Mr Rahman were rejected by prison officials who said the Justice Ministry had threatened to sack them if an interview was granted.

Pray for Judge Zada, for Abdul Wasi, the prosecutor, and for the other officials involved in Rahman's trial and imprisonment, all the way up to President Karzai.

Pray for Abdur Rahman, not only for spiritual grace, but for his physical needs. Food is spartan, and while other prisoners receive food from family, none of his family has been to visit -- not surprising as it was his parents who reported him to the police.

Chris Arsenault, a commenter on The Dawn Patrol entry, offers this prayer:

My prayer is that the Holy Spirit moves American Christian soldiers in the units in Afghanistan to visit Mr. Rahman in prison. I'm talking units, large numbers of units, visiting him, or even requesting to visit him. Like a non-stop number of visitors with food and translators. If his Christian brothers visited him continually, even if they can't speak, you will see tears in the eyes of all the other prisoners, maybe even in the eyes of the administrators and judges and lives will be transformed. It starts by Christians contacting Christians.

According to this Financial Times story, Rahman is being held at Pul-i-Charki jail in Kabul. There were riots at the prison a month ago.

Pray, too, for all followers of Christ in Afghanistan. The Afghanistan entry from the prayer guidebook Operation World predates 9/11 and the war against the Taliban, but here is how it suggests for praying for Christians in Afghanistan:

Though there is no visible church in Afghanistan, the number of Afghan believers is increasing in urban and some remote rural areas. Because of fear and suspicion, many believers find it difficult to meet in groups. Some find help and encouragement through Christian radio programmes in the main languages of Afghanistan. The Taliban religious police are active in seeking out �converts� who are considered apostates. Pray for their protection, consistency of faith and clarity of witness whenever opportunity arises. Pray also that the small fellowships (many are family groups) of Afghan Christians that have come into being in South Asia, Europe and North America may become bold witnesses for Christ.

It's the golden age of the autodidact.

An increasing number of universities are making course materials available online for free. The materials can't be used for course credit, but they are available for one's personal enlightenment and enrichment. Two institutions where I gained some higher learning offer online course material.

First, there's the MIT OpenCourseware program.

For example, the Urban Studies and Planning department offers materials from well over 50 undergraduate and graduate courses, with syllabi, reading lists, lecture notes, and assignments. Their introductory course, 11.001J, looks like an excellent, well, introduction, to the history, terminology, and trends of urban planning.

The Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department offers everything I took in my undergraduate program, including the four foundational courses taken by all Course VI undergrads (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Circuits and Electronics, Signals and Systems, Computation Structures); Artificial Intelligence; Automata, Computability, and Complexity. They even have Strobe Lab, including the required lab experiments (student must supply own stroboscope, rifle, ammunition, and target objects).

Back in the early '90s, our church offered extension courses from Covenant Theological Seminary, and I took about a half-dozen until our church dropped out of the program. Covenant, in St. Louis, was founded in 1956 as the seminary of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC), a denomination which, through a couple of mergers, became part of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), which denomination the seminary now serves. (There's a newer EPC, founded in the 1980s, which has no connection with the earlier denomination.)

Anyway, Covenant Worldwide offers materials from the 20 courses that would constitute the Master of Arts in Theological Studies program if you were taking the courses on campus. For each course there is lecture audio in MP3 format, plus lecture notes in PDF format, and a list of recommended reading materials.

I can highly recommend Ancient and Medieval Church History and Reformation and Modern Church History, both taught by Prof. David Calhoun. One of my fond memories about his lectures is that he always began with a prayer written in the age he is covering in the lecture.

The Francis Schaeffer course is interesting, too -- not only because it's about the background, life, and work of the renowned evangelical writer, but because the milestones of his life were the milestones that shaped modern evangelicalism, from the fundamentalist/modernist controversy in the '20s, through the break between separation-minded fundamentalists and evangelicals in the '50s, to the beginnings of Christian political activism in the late '70s.

I've never heard his lectures on theology, but Robert Peterson served as pulpit supply at our church during two periods when we were between pastors, and he's a wonderful teacher. His course, Humanity, Christ, and Redemption is online.

Many thanks to TulipGirl for the tip.

Some interesting faith-related items from the blogroll:

Swamphopper wonders about the latest release from some prominent evangelical leaders (including Purpose-peddler Rick Warren) calling for an end to global warming:

These are the questions going through my mind today: What will the evangelical church look like ten or twenty years from now? What happens when the gospel becomes an occasional sermon slipped in among series of social topics, "conservative" or "liberal" ones? What happens when the gospel, the good news of Christ crucified and resurrected, becomes a side note rather than the main theme of worship?

Dan Paden has a review of By His Grace and for His Glory: A Historical, Theological, and Practical Study of the Doctrines of Grace in Baptist Life. Tom Nettles begins with the origins of the Baptist movement in 17th century England and traces the influence of what is commonly called Calvinism through the Baptist history in America. Dan mentions that the book traces the decline of the doctrines of grace in the Southern Baptist Convention from the 1920s. I wonder if it deals with the influence of E. Y. Mullins, identified by Harold Bloom in The American Religion as steering the Southern Baptist Convention in a Gnostic direction, a direction that prevailed until the conservative resurgence of the 1908s and 1990s.

The Internet Monk says that "Romeo Is Better Off Dead":

As best I can tell, romance is our poor imitative version of the love of God that is ours in the Gospel; a kind of minor league salvation story for people who need to be �saved� from being alone and unloved. What the love of God in the Final Word, Jesus the messiah and mediator, is for us infinitely and perfect, romance imitates and celebrates imperfectly, and often, tragically.

His thoughts on romance haven't been formed in a vacuum:

It is hard for me to explain what the accumulated experiences of thirty years of listening to teenagers will do for one�s view of romance. Perhaps it is best expressed in what I might say about my own children. I would pray for them the deepest experiences of sacrificial, passionately humanizing love for another person, but I would never, ever wish upon them the kind of intoxication of mind and emotions that could make life, friends, family and all other experiences worthless in comparison to the attentions of the beloved.

Is rekindling romance the way to heal a wounded marriage? iMonk thinks not and explains why. Read the whole thing.

There's been a lot of discussion about the remarks of a guru of the Emerging Church Movement. Brian McLaren wrote, in an article on pastoral response to homosexuality, "Frankly, many of us don't know what we should think about homosexuality. We've heard all sides but no position has yet won our confidence so that we can say 'it seems good to the Holy Spirit and us.'" David Wayne has links to the initial article and the responses it generated, along with his own thoughts:

I am certainly not laughing at anything Brian McLaren has said and appreciate his pastoral passion. But in telling pastors they need to respond pastorally to the homosexual question he isn't telling them anything they haven't always been doing. Pastors have been responding pastorally as long or longer than french fries have been being made out of potatoes. What he seems to be suggesting is that we go beyond tolerating, loving, accepting and caring for the person, to being more tolerant of the sin itself.

Doug Wilson thinks that McLaren's handwringing over the issue is about "lusting after respect from the world, which they will not give to you unless you are busy making plenty of room for their lusts."

On a related note, Al Mohler responds to a New York Times column by Dan Savage, who says that Christians are foolish to want homosexuals to "convert" and enter into straight marriages, predicting that "if every gay man became ex-gay tomorrow... millions of straight women would wake up one morning to discover that they had married a Jack or an Ennis." Mohler says we should thank Savage for what he wrote, because it's a reminder of "the deceitfulness of sin, and its ability to imprison us. We need to be reminded that this is true for all humanity, heterosexuals and homosexuals alike."

We need to be reminded that sexual desires (call them an orientation, profile, or whatever) are deeply rooted in our own sexual selves, with some parts consciously known to us and other parts unknown. We need to be reminded that the sin of homosexuality seems especially (though not uniquely) prone to hold its victims in bondage.

But, beyond all this, we really need to be reminded that we really do believe that the Gospel can and will completely transform sinners, and that the Holy Spirit does perform His work of sanctification within the life of the believer. And this means that we really do believe that homosexuals can come out of the sin of homosexuality by God's power.

Finally, Bowden McElroy has a thorough roundup on the controversy at the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board. I haven't followed the matter closely, but it seems to be about the validity of baptisms performed in non-Baptist churches, something I remember from my Baptist upbringing as a matter of dispute. (If you're wondering, that's the "xenobaptism" mentioned in the title. It means "foreign baptism" and has nothing whatsoever to do with Xenu or body thetans.)

(If you wish to comment, please join the ongoing discussions at the blog entries linked above.)

I received an urgent prayer request from Israel this morning. Herbby and Anne Geer, representatives of the Southern Baptist Convention in Israel, have been denied visa renewals, an unprecedented act by the Interior Ministry:

This past week, we have been told by the Ministry of Interior, here in Israel, that they will not renew our A3 visa, and they have requested that we leave the country. They have refused to give a reason, namely, they don't have a legal one. Never in the history of the Southern Baptists has a visa been denied. We are here because of a historical right (Baptists were in Israel pre-1948), and also because of the Law of Status Quo (Israel and the US have an agreement which allows the exchange of Religious persons between the two countries).

Such a move by the Ministry of Interior would be precedent setting, one we can't allow to happen. It could impact the whole Christian community within Israel.

On Sunday, the Lawyer for the Southern Baptists and our business manager will approach the offices responsible for the decision to deny our visa.

We ask you to pray on this day: pray that the Lord would reverse the decision.

I received this message from Phil and Heidi Litle, friends from college who are also in Israel on Southern Baptist visas, working with the Christian community in Haifa.

I suspect this change has something to do with the political situation leading up to the March 28 parliamentary elections there. The voting system is an extreme form of proportional representation, and it often results in very small but very intense parties holding the balance of power as a major party tries to build a ruling coalition. Often the ultra-religious parties wind up holding all the cards, trading their support for key cabinet posts, such as the Ministry of Interior, which deals with immigration and religious regulation.

These ultra-religious groups want Christianity out of Israel. They are especially angry about Christian groups who provide help to Jews who have immigrated to Israel from the old Soviet Union. Their opposition has kept many Christian workers out of Israel. Nevertheless, until now, the Israeli government has "grandfathered" the visas that were allocated to Baptists, Catholics, Orthodox, and other Christian groups prior to independence in 1948. The decision not to renew the Geers' visa reveals that the respect for precedent is gone, and that puts the presence of every foreign Christian worker in jeopardy.

Please pray, and contact your congressman and senators and express your concern.

To get a flavor of the Geers' work in Israel, here's a story from the Anniston, Alabama, Star about their involvement in the Maccabiah Games.

(Hat tip to Joel, who is Chalcedon compliant, albeit semi-Pelagian.)

Julie R. Neidlinger writes of a Christmas Eve service at the Church of the Living Powerpoint:

And therein lies another problem: we were not a congregation, but an audience. We were performed to by a bunch of talented musicians and a music pastor and a pastor who had planned the service to a T, with few glitches, all quite lovely. I looked around at the rest of the people, and everyone seemed to be really into it.

Except me, because I am an alien.

The start of the service should have served as a warning. The music pastor took his place behind the keyboard and as a non-Christmas chorus flashed on the screen, he told us he was going to teach us a new chorus.

Teach us a new chorus. During the Christmas Eve service.

I got up and walked out of the sanctuary. I was absolutely angry, because it just bothers me so much and I couldn't even say why. I waited outside in the hallway, pretending to read a bulletin board, while a few other choruses that had little, if any, Christmas connection were sung. A few parishioners came in and out of the sanctuary, but I avoided eye contact for fear they would attempt to share the four spiritual laws with me, assuming I was a pagan visiting family for Christmas and was unable to sit through the service.

If Julie's an alien, so am I. I remember being just as disturbed some years ago at a Christmas eve service. We were visiting out-of-town family and went to worship at a megachurch I call the Bobble Barn. (That's the way they say "Bible" in those parts.) I walked out, too.

Two things really got to me. At the beginning of the service, the music pastor told the parents not to correct their kids' behavior because, after all, it was Christmas eve. It struck me as the same sort of idolatry of the family to which evangelicalism is prone, the idea that Christianity is all about happy marriages and well-adjusted children (never mind all that gross stuff about God's wrath and a perfectly holy God-man offering himself as a bloody sacrifice to satisfy that wrath). The music pastor's admonition reflects a world-view in which Christmas is a holiday for children -- "tiny tots, with their eyes all aglow" -- not a day of rejoicing for all the redeemed.

And then, through most of the service, the house lights were down, and there was a spotlight on the music pastor. It was as if we were at his concert, and he was graciously allowing us to sing along. What was missing was any sense that we were assembled there corporately (as a body) to offer praise and adoration to the Word Made Flesh. A pagan wouldn't have had any trouble sitting through the service -- there wasn't anything that would have offended a pagan in this comfy, cozy, cardigan-clad Christmas concert.

Julie's essay is a re-run from a year ago, brought back because it articulated the feelings of many readers, all of whom no doubt wondered if they were aliens, too. I found myself nodding in agreement, especially when she comes to the issue of emotional manipulation:

I fear that evangelical denominations are desensitizing their own parishioners with this constant manipulation, to the point that their hearts are no longer moved by the simpleness of the Gospel, as well the complexity and wonder of the Gospel. They need a minor chord progression in the background before they know the presence of God, or appreciate something He's done.

The Bible says to let our yes be yes, and our no be no. It doesn't say anything about a violin in the background.

Julie plans to post an update, revisiting the ideas she was trying to get across in this entry. I'll look forward to that.

The five-year-old added the thought balloons to the cover of this morning's order of service.

Lance Salyers has posted his first blog entry in a few months, stepping out of hiatus with a post at Eternal Revolution about the War on the War on Christmas. He begins with vocal Christians who have their knickers in a twist over this year's White House Christmas Card, which has a Bible verse but also says "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas":

This is just the latest in a series of skirmishes in the war to save our culture from itself. The call of Christ to help rescue fellow sheep that are lost often gets tabled for bigger missions, like �saving Christmas� by boycotting Wal-Mart, or �saving marriage� by boycotting Disney. How can the Enemy not love these morality crusades? They accomplish two things, neither of which are good:

1. They create an image of Christianity that is easily (and understandably) disdained: a shallow religion that concerns itself most with coercing others into an appearance of uniform morality.

2. They distract attention and divert resources of Christians away from doing the work Jesus actually calls us to do: bringing hope to the lost by personifying God�s love for them.

Lance goes on to suggest what we really ought to be doing to ensure that Christmas has meaning for us and for others.

I'm happy to see Lance posting again, even if this is only a brief cameo. I'm also happy to report that Lance's old URL, ragged-edges.blogspot.com, is now back under his control. When he decided to step away from blogging for a while, he deleted his blog. A spammer grabbed the URL to take advantage of the strong search engine page rank the URL enjoyed, thanks to all of the links to Lance's writing on other blogs. (His is not the only blog to have been hijacked in this way. I wrote about this phenomenon back in October.) The spammer went away, or more likely was booted, the URL became available again, and I was able to help Lance reclaim it before some other spammer could get hold of it.

There's always funny stuff over on Purgatorio, but the latest batch is laugh-until-you-cry quality:

• Religious LP covers: "The Addicts Sing" (nice sketch of someone shooting up on the back), "From Nightclubs to Christ" (the conversion of a debauched accordionist), "Lynne and Gwynne" (the singing twins), and Christmas adventures with the Six Million Dollar Man.
• 10 Reasons Why You Probably Shouldn't Be Amish Anymore: Number 10: "You start what you think is a really good Amish blog and your only visitors are Hutterites."
• Kitschy nativity sets, including Peanuts and Veggie Tales characters, Precious Moments figurines, and an all-dog cast (including a dog in the manger, natch).
• Nuns with guns: It's a caption contest; be sure to read the comments.
• Snake handlers: In memory of snake-handling pioneer George W. Hensley, who died 50 years ago... you can guess what from.

Bookmark it, blogroll it, enjoy.

P.S. Yes, I will get back to serious stuff, and I will analyze the 4 to Fix the County vote and the latest developments with the Mayor's "Citizens' Commission on City Government" -- but not tonight.

Michael Spencer has a roundup of responses (including his own) to the news that many of the nation's evangelical megachurches are punting services on Christmas morning, although they will have Christmas eve services.

Cancelling Sunday service on Christmas day is not as novel as some of the reaction seems to suppose. There was one Sunday Christmas during my schoolyears -- 1977 -- and if I recall correctly, the little Southern Baptist congregation we belonged to cancelled Sunday services.

Also, it was our church's practice to sing Christmas carols only on the Sunday nearest to Christmas. The Sunday School quarterly (it was a long time before I knew it wasn't spelled cordalee) had a lesson from the nativity accounts on that Sunday, and the pastor would preach a Christmas sermon, and that was about it for our church's observance of the holiday.

It wasn't that Christmas-themed content was banned on other Sundays, it's just that we stuck to the usual pattern the rest of the time -- gospel hymns from the late 1800s and early 1900s, and the pastor preaching from wherever he happened to be on his expository preaching through the Bible. No Advent, no Christmastide, no Christmas eve or Christmas day service.

We did have our own family Christmas traditions -- reading the nativity story and a time of prayer as a family, driving around to look at Christmas lights, then opening one gift each on Christmas eve -- new pajamas. Christmas day was always about gifts, food, and family.

I'm glad the church we now belong to has a Christmas eve service. I think it's right to come together as a church to celebrate the Incarnation of Christ. I agree that our country's biggest and most visible churches ought to be open on Christmas day and ready to receive and minister to those who will only enter a church on Christmas. But, for what it's worth, closing a church on Christmas day is nothing new, and nothing especially progressive.

UPDATE: Our church, Christ Presbyterian Church, 51st and Columbia, will have services at 6 and 11 p.m. on Christmas eve, and at the usual time, 10:45 a.m. on Christmas day, with Sunday School at 9:15. No services that Sunday evening.

In the comments, Elaine Dodd has posted times for her church's Christmas eve and Christmas day services. If you're part of a Tulsa area church having services on those days, feel free to post a brief comment with the details.

Kevin McCullough, New York radio talk show host, blogger, and columnist, has come up with a positive way to protest the push to turn Christmas into Generic Winter Holiday.

I'm joining Kevin and a number of other bloggers around the country to urge you to send a Merry Christmas card to the ACLU national office in New York City. Not "Season's Greetings," not "Happy Holidays," not "Harry Eidiwalihanukwanzamas," but "Merry Christmas." ("Happy Christmas" is acceptable if you're an Anglophile.) And make it as specifically Christmassy as you can. You might even write a note explaining what Christmas means to you.

Here's the address:

Kevin reminds us to be respectful: "[P]lease be kind, even cheerful in sending the card. Trust me - kindness will produce more smoke out of their ears than anything untoward you could think of anyway..."

Some of you may object that the ACLU doesn't deserve all the credit or blame for the increasing secularization of Christmas, and that's fair enough. And although I'm sure the ACLU would not interfere with our ability to observe Christmas in our homes or churches, they have damaged the ability for a community to come together and acknowledge Christmas. And ACLU litigation has created a "chilling effect" that has led to overreactions by public schools (like banning the school choir from singing Handel's Messiah) and private companies who genericize the holiday season in their advertising.

I think the chilling effect is not just fear of being sued, but the ACLU's efforts give the impression that more people are offended by explicit references to Christmas than really are. The message is starting to get through to retailers that avoiding "Merry Christmas" offends more people than are offended by using it.

As Greta (Hooah Wife), who is Jewish and lives in the Tulsa area, wrote, "Merry Christmas is a holiday greeting to me - it does not and should not offend me. If it does, then I need to re-examine my own values."

I'll update here periodically, but read Kevin's blog for the latest on the effort.

A couple of weeks ago I linked to Michael Spencer's essay "With Regrets, All My Love," in which he let us look over his shoulder as he wrote to his wife and children with regret about the way his pursuit of the ministry had hurt their life as a family. (Please don't bother trying to find it; it's not there.¹ Actually, it is there, but password protected. Go to his home page and e-mail him if you want access.) I just linked to it, without comment, but I linked to it because I thought it had some important things to say about vocation and family.

For his openness, Spencer has been hammered by some of his fellow Christian bloggers. One jumped on a comment he made on another blog, on an unrelated issue (the "Emergent Church" movement), writing, "[Y]our hatred of the Christian life (starting with your own) disqualifies you from being a reasonable commentator." "With Regrets, All My Love" was the smoking gun. The same blogger wrote in a later comment, "It is my contention that because Mr. Spencer hates his life as it is, and hates the church which caused his current life, his opinions about the state of the church and church culture are suspect."

We Tulsans hear that sort of thing all the time, don't we? "Because you've voiced your frustration at the way the poor leadership of Tulsa's establishment has damaged our city's beauty, history, safety, and economic viability, you are disqualified for reasons of being a naysayer, a grump, a negativist, from voicing your opinion on city policy. Only contented people may offer criticism."

Without wading into the whole ugly argument, which I spent way too much time reading this afternoon, I will say it reminds me of what sharks do when there's blood in the water.

I for one am glad that Michael bothers to write the occasional confessional essays. For those of us who aren't perfect (and acknowledge the fact²), it helps to read that someone else has had the same struggles and trials and that nevertheless God hasn't given up on him or vice versa.

Michael has helpfully collected links to about a dozen of his confessional essays, including one about coming to terms with his dad's depression, and one about his marriage after 25 years.

Michael's writing reminds me a lot of Mike Yaconelli's essays in the Wittenburg Door, a magazine I discovered and read in college. The Door and Martin Luther, between them, helped me believe in Christianity when I could no longer place my confidence in the hothouse variety of the faith taught by our college campus ministry.

The victorious Christian life. The Spirit-filled life. Entire sanctification. Promise keeping. Covenant faithfulness. In a state of grace. The vocabulary changes from one century to another, from one denomination to another, but the illusion persists that we can make the brokenness go away while we are still in this flesh. And the corollary is that if I still see brokenness in my own life, I must not belong to Christ. And that notion drives some to denial and some to despair. We are taught to give our testimonies -- before Christ I was a mess, but now Jesus is on the throne of my life and all my dots are neatly lined up. You can get the impression that Jesus is only for those who can do a thorough job of cleaning themselves up and keeping themselves tidy.

I'm glad that there are writers like Michael Spencer who remind us that God still cares about us and even uses us in our brokenness.

Tomorrow is the First Sunday in Advent. It's one of the two penitential seasons in the church year. As we prepare to celebrate the Light entering the world, we need to prepare our hearts to appreciate that Light by considering the darkness that is in the world and still in our own hearts. It ought to lead us to give thanks for the First Advent 2000 years ago and to long for the Second Advent, when sin and death will be no more, and every tear will be wiped away.

Those of you who have managed to conquer your sin and weakness on your own, I don't imagine Advent and Christmas will mean much to you.

¹It's too late to say they're sorry. How would he know? Why should he care?
²Confessing guilt for petty annoyances doesn't count. "Why, of course, I acknowledge I'm still a sinner. Sometimes I forget and leave the seat up, ha, ha."

UPDATE 11/28: Dan Paden at No Blog of Significance and Joel at On the Other Foot.

It's a better question to ask than WWJD, according to a blogger who calls himself Father of Eleven:

One day I was out in a boat with the twelve (my wife and the eleven kids) when a storm came up. Seeing the ship starting to flounder and the panicked look on the faces of the twelve, I said "What would Jesus do?" Of course, remembering a story from Sunday School, I did exactly what Jesus did in a similar situation, I stood up in the bow of the boat and rebuked the waves. Suddenly a large wave crashed over the bow knocking me into the water and nearly swamping the boat.

This blogger, a former Tulsan, built his own family football team in part via adoptions, and he presents some theological insights drawn from his experiences with his adoptive kids. This, for example, about the two teenage boys they adopted from Russia, where children in the orphanage have two career choices -- the Army or the Mob:

One day we were talking about the future, and we were talking about what they were going to do. They kept asking about what the American Army was like. I kept explaining to them that "if" they went into the Army it would be like so and so. The word "if" kept confusing them. Suddenly it dawned on them what I was saying; they were not required to go into the Army. They began to realize that, with their new father, not only had their present life changed, but their future as well. They suddenly had a new hope in life.

I found Father of Eleven's blog via this comment on an entry at Phil Johnson's Pyromaniac about Mardel's, the local Christian superstore:

Mardel's always seemed a metaphor for the state of Christianity today. 50,000 sqft of store space and three shelves of theology, half of it bad.

(The next time Phil Johnson comes back to Tulsa and strolls through Mardel's doing running commentary, I want to tag along.)

Father of Eleven calls his blog Nihilo, the ablative case of the Latin word for nothing. He explains why in his initial entry:

So what is this Blog really about. It is more about the God who created everything out of Nothing. The God who has brought a man who hated Him and hated children to be raising eleven children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Talk about creating something out of nothing.

Mister Snitch!, a Hoboken, NJ, based communications consultant, has posted a response to my Urban Tulsa Weekly column about faith and political courage. It's an interesting perspective, coming from someone who has worked with Blue State politicians.

When I've finally caught up on sleep, I'll respond to his post and the earlier responses to my column, which you'll find here.

I sent out an all-points bulletin to fellow faith-n-politics bloggers, asking for their reflections on my column in this week's Urban Tulsa Weekly, "Of Faith and Political Courage." As I spot responses, from them and from other readers, I'll link to them here.

Rick Westcott, a Republican running for Tulsa City Council District 2, wrote about another aspect of faith and political courage:

I also think that a person�s faith gives them a sense of identity which helps ground them in times of trouble. Because I know who I am in Christ, who God made me, because I know He has a plan for me, it gives me a sense of identity that isn�t shaken by those who might attack me. I don�t need the external validation that some seek from others.

The other side of that same coin: I have known elected officials overawed, absolutely dazzled, because now important and wealthy people would return their phone calls and invite them to their homes. That shouldn't be true of someone who believes she's a child of the King of Kings. (For that matter, even someone who doesn't believe that, but has a proper regard for the people who elected her to office, should consider her position as elected representative as impressive as the wealth of any one constituent.)

Dan Paden, of the badly misnamed No Blog of Significance, asks and answers a broader question:

What sort of belief-system should be preferred in our government's office-holders? The atheist's? The relativist's (by this, I mean all relativistic religions,such as Hinduism, Buddhism, "New Age," Paganism and Neo-paganism, etc.)? The Jew's, or the Muslim's? Or the Christian's?

He examines how different worldviews would affect one's approach to government, then brings out some relevant quotes from America's Founding Fathers about the kind of belief system they thought was necessary to the system of government they designed.

Eric Siegmund of Fire Ant Gazette has some kind words for me and this blog and writes:

Michael's column is worth reading whether you care anything about Tulsa politics or not. It contains some universal truths about why Christianity and politics can mix without diluting the former or distorting the latter. If nothing else, perhaps it will give some critics of "religious politicians" a better understanding of why many of those politicians are not hesitant to refer to the role that faith plays in their lives...and politics.

manasclerk says that living within a faith community that holds its members accountable makes a difference, and draws a contrast between Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton in that regard.

Red Bug at Tulsa Chiggers compares the situation on the Tulsa City Council to power politics at work on a non-profit board.

Sean Gleeson has posted two responses in a planned series of three entries on faith in the public square: God and Bates in Tulsa, The Fool's Heart Inclineth to the Left. UPDATE: The third installment of the trilogy is up -- The New Devouter -- in which he says that I got it backwards, and he may have a point.

PCA pastor David Bayly, who has some personal experience with faith and boldness in the public square, writes:

Michael's vision of Christian action in the political sphere is both bracing and realistic--bracing because it is realistic in its view of the centrality of faith to action. In a Christian world where what matters politically is usually numbers and pragmatism, Bates speaks Christian realism: faith, not numbers, not connections, not wealth, is power.

Also linking: Caffeinated Musings.

I'll update this entry as I spot more responses to the column. Email me at blog AT batesline DOT com, if I've missed yours. And at some point soon, I'll actually respond to some of the responses.

Starting from Philippians 3:13-14, Eric Siegmund writes, "God's grace is often poured out on us via the ability to forget." For me, wince-inducing memories of failures and embarrassments are more vivid than memories of successes and triumphs, so this is a form of grace I can use. As a formerly teetotaling Baptist (now a Reformed Baptist attending a Presbyterian church who can still count the number of alcoholic beverages I have in a given year on my fingers), I note this with some hesitation: God sometimes provides this grace in liquid form, although I have not personally used that method to avail myself of the grace of forgetfulness.

You'll find many more thoughtful and funny entries over at Eric Siegmund's Fire Ant Gazette.

Via Christian Persecution blog, an account of a young Afghani whose parents were Muslim converts to Catholicism. They kept their faith quiet and deliberately avoided using the term "Christian". His father was killed for his faith. It wasn't until he arrived as a refugee in Italy that the young man understood how his family had been different from the neighbors.

I feel I'm somewhat derelict in my duties as a blogger just to throw up a few links and say go read them. I ought to at least provide some witty or enlightening commentary, but I'm too tired, and at least, by posting the link, I'm saying that something is worth reading. So read it, OK?

• Manasclerk has learned a lot of lessons in two-and-a-half years -- about faith, leadership, job size, object oriented programming, software risk management, and organizational design. A selection of 30 months of blog wisdom in summary form:

  Although bigger people can do bigger jobs (larger work), there is a point where you are too big to be useful doing anything that makes money.

  Moses would never have led the Jews out of Egypt had he not ruined his career by killing the Egyptian.

  If you don't have money, prestige and power, you are unlikely to be able to do anything to change the world.

  If you have either money, prestige or power, you're highly unlikely to change the world.

  You really can keep going even when you have no hope of ever having hope.
  

  (I think I kind of understand what he means about modes and trajectories and "size", but I'd like to understand it better.)

• Joel, a Catholic blogger, has written an entry about five fallacies he sees in the way Protestants talk about Catholicism. David Bayly, a pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America, has posted a response, and the discussion -- respectful but direct -- continues in the comments on Baylyblog. (For some reason I'm now getting a 403 error when I try to access Joel's blog, but perhaps the problem will be fixed soon.)

• Michael Spencer is tired of weird Christians: "...'normal' Christian experience is increasingly seen as 'bad' or 'abnormal,' while weirdness is increasingly seen as 'normal' and proof that a person is really 'spiritual.'"
  

A few faith-oriented links for your Sunday reading:

Catholic Seminarian Dennis Schenkel is back from his intensive language course in Guatemala. Browse back through his archives for accounts and photos of his travels. There's an entry from a couple of weeks ago about why Evangelicals are having success in Central America at the expense of Catholicism, which has been the predominant religion in the region going back to its colonization by Spain. It's interesting to read about this phenomenon from the perspective of "the other side". The most persuasive explanation came from one of the commenters: It's a matter of spiritual vitality. Success in evangelization depends on knowing and loving Christ.

Matthew has gone back to Ohio to see his grandfather, who is facing death:

More than this, I will be about the work of the LORD - serving my family in the most loving way I know: by bearing witness to the Truth, giving reasons for the Hope that I know, and fighting for my grandfather�s Soul with all that I am capable. Though his Salvation is my desire, I know the battle is the LORD's - and it is by the Grace of GOD that one comes to Faith, not my clumsy speech.

Now at his life's twilight, my dear grandfather is clinging so fearfully to his life - under the horrible distress of a great dread that he can scarcely understand in total, but still knows well enough within his heart. Despite a long life lived without knowing Christ, he knows that beyond the veil lays something he does not wish to face.

Please remember Matthew and his grandfather in your prayers.

Steve Camp has recently been added to my blogroll. He's a contemporary Christian musician, which might lead you to expect little of substance, but you'll find a great deal of depth. He's a Calvinistic Baptist, and he takes a contrarian view of Christian political involvement, saying that "evangelical co-belligerence" amounts to watering down the gospel for the sake of building alliances to fight temporal political battles. He writes today:

People who champion evangelical co-belligerence will never win the culture wars, though they might improve them some. But they will have failed miserably by sacrificing the gospel message, sound doctrine, theology, the church, and the biblical duties that the Lord has called us to all along �for a piece of political pie� with the reward of temporary fame, increased fortune and the still unrealized fantasy of a moral Christianized world without Christ and His truth at the core.

I'd like to believe that Camp is working with outdated information about the aims of Christian leaders who are engaged politically. 20 years ago, it seemed that some Christian political leaders believed that political victories could transform society. I think Christian engagement in the culture war today is aimed at protecting the innocent, particularly the unborn, and protecting religious liberty, not at achieving the transformation of society through legislation. You may not agree with Camp, but you'll find what he has to say worth your attention.

Continuing with the topic of Christian political involvement, George Grant has a fascinating and lengthy biographical sketch of William Wilberforce, the Member of Parliament who strove for 50 years to pass legislation abolishing the slave trade. One of those who encouraged him to remain in politics and persevere in pursuit of this goal was his pastor, former slavetrader John Newton.

Finally, David Bayly has banned the use of historical pejoratives in his church office. He says that calling someone a "Donatist" or a "gnostic" doesn't engage the issues at stake and doesn't win arguments.

The evening excerpt for Wednesday, July 13, from Spurgeon's Morning and Evening is one I have formatted and taped up next to my computer, where I don't look at it as often as I should. The text is Psalm 56:9: "When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know; for God is for me."

Spurgeon writes:

It is impossible for any human speech to express the full meaning of this delightful phrase, �God is for me.�

He was �for us� before the worlds were made; he was �for us,� or he would not have given his well-beloved son; he was �for us� when he smote the Only-begotten, and laid the full weight of his wrath upon him�he was �for us,� though he was against him; he was �for us,� when we were ruined in the fall�he loved us notwithstanding all; he was �for us,� when we were rebels against him, and with a high hand were bidding him defiance; he was �for us,� or he would not have brought us humbly to seek his face.

He has been �for us� in many struggles; we have been summoned to encounter hosts of dangers; we have been assailed by temptations from without and within�how could we have remained unharmed to this hour if he had not been �for us�?

He is �for us,� with all the infinity of his being; with all the omnipotence of his love; with all the infallibility of his wisdom; arrayed in all his divine attributes, he is �for us,��eternally and immutably �for us�; �for us� when yon blue skies shall be rolled up like a worn out vesture; �for us� throughout eternity.

And because he is �for us,� the voice of prayer will always ensure his help. �When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies be turned back.� This is no uncertain hope, but a well grounded assurance��this I know.� I will direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up for the answer, assured that it will come, and that mine enemies shall be defeated, �for God is for me.�

O believer, how happy art thou with the King of kings on thy side! How safe with such a Protector! How sure thy cause pleaded by such an Advocate! If God be for thee, who can be against thee?

Some faith-related entries of note from my blogroll. Not all of these are recent, but all are worth your time and attention.

Christian Persecution Blog reports that this is a national weekend of prayer for the people of Darfur, in Sudan. You'll find some additional background information here.

David Wayne, the Jollyblogger, has posted a review of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek.

Marsupial Mom has been writing about her journey from the word-of-faith movement to Reformed (Calvinist) theology. She recommends a video series and book by R. C. Sproul called What Is Reformed Theology? And her husband chimes in with a sketch of his spiritual background and journey, some things he appreciates about Reformed theology, and more recommended reading.

Michael Spencer writes about his first pastorate, which was in a small church. He began with optimism.

And then....I was taken for a ride in a truck. Mr. So and So, (not his real name) says, "Now you know I give more money than anyone else in the church don't you?" The shine was off of Mikey's new toy. (Actual true story.)

It didn't take long to discover that I was pastoring a network of extended families, and if I were going to do anything here, I was going to have to memorize a map that was never printed; a map of who mattered, who had power, who called the shots, and whose blessing would determine my support.

His health and family suffered during his four years at the church, which has run through three more pastors in the 13 years since he left. Spencer writes that thousands of pastors face the same situation at small churches "that are nothing more than 'family chapels,' gatherings of family and cultural loyalty where the question of ball caps in church becomes a major division and an ugly testimony to the disunity of Christians." He understands why young pastors prefer to start new churches and bypass the kind of politics he had to deal with, but he says we can't write off small churches, which remain the spiritual home for a large proportion of Christians.

Phillip Johnson measures the crisis in "Fad-Driven" modern evangelicalism by the length of Jan Crouch's hair extensions. He also recalls a special dinner with Esther Ahn Kim, a Korean Christian who suffered persecution as a Japanese prisoner during WW II for her refusal to bow before a Shinto shrine. If you haven't already, you'll want to read about his trip to London, particularly his account of the day of the terrorist bombings and his visit to Bunhill Fields, the burying place of John Bunyan, William Blake, John Owen, and Thomas Bayes, the mathematician whose theories are hard at work fighting spam nowadays. The best way to read it all is to go to his July archive, start at the bottom, and work your way up.

I'm sure hotels are accustomed to getting more letters of complaint than of praise, but Brian of An Audience of One has written an eloquent letter of appreciation to the proprietor of a fabled extended-stay establishment, down at the end of Lonely Street:

It's been a year since I first lugged all my baggage in your front door. I started to explain why I was there, but you smiled and waved me off. You'd heard it all before. I was sure I was the only person in the world who felt this way. You gave me the ten-cent tour, some bedside reading, and an extra toothbrush. "Hey buddy", you said. "You'll get over it some day. We all do."

"Hey man!", I replied, "you just don't understand. My heart is permanently broken. In pieces. I can't even pick it up. I'll need to borrow your whisk broom and dustpan just to get it all in one place again." You puffed on your stogie, and blue smoke swirled around your head when you sighed and said, " my friend, all it takes is time. The human heart has the ability to heal and regenerate itself. You'll see. Now take these clean towels and go find your room."

The staff there caters to the guests, but the customer isn't always right:

I took your advice. I wondered if a man with no taste in cigars would know anything, but I thought I had nothing to lose. I got in touch with old friends. I kept up conversations with current ones. I met some wonderful new people. Some of them touched my life in ways I could not have imagined. People I could trust. People I could count on. People who taught me things. People who gave me hope. Do you know how powerful it is to realize that so many people give a damn? When people that know you call to see how you're doing? When people you've never even met reach out a hand of friendship? When someone can look at you with all of your warts and find you attractive? I may try one of those cigars of yours.

Congratulations, Brian, and well written. The rest of you, go read the whole thing, especially if you're just checking in.

Monsignor Julius Jia Zhi Guo, the Roman Catholic bishop of Zhengding, Red China, was jailed by government agents yesterday for the sixth time in the last 18 months. (Via Catholic World News, via Christian Persecution Blog.)

Government officials had warned the churchman in advance of the arrest and had ordered him to tell people that he was being taken away for medical tests. Msgr Jia is currently not ill, nor is he in need of any medical treatment.

Msgr Jia has been a bishop since 1980 and has already spent 20 years in prison. His is one of the most vivacious dioceses in Hebei, the area with the highest concentration of Catholics, some 1.5 million. He lives almost constantly under house arrest. Not being recognized by the government, he is technically not allowed to exercise his ministry. For this reason, prior to important religious celebrations (Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Pentecost, the Feast of the Assumption), he is taken into custody and forced to undergo indoctrination sessions, to prevent celebrations and gatherings by underground Christians. At other times, such as important Party meetings or visits from foreign heads of state and other prominent figures, he is segregated to some secret location. In 1999, to thwart his activities in evangelization, the police tried to close down an orphanage for abandoned and handicapped children. Authorities, however, had to backtrack on their intent, due to international pressure. The bishop shares his home with some 100 disabled children whom he supports at his own expense.

China has an officially recognized Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association which is controlled by the state and is not in communion with Rome. Since China is a totalitarian state, anything it doesn't ultimately control is illegal, so Catholics loyal to the Vatican must operate underground. The Chicoms have also set up an official Protestant organization known as the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. (That's not a trinitarian reference -- it refers to self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating, i.e., no foreign involvement or influence.) Evangelicals who operate outside the officially recognized church are also subject to persecution.

The need to persecute and suppress betrays the ultimate weakness of Chinese Communism. How strong can a system be if it feels threatened by the existence of an orphanage?

Thank God and pray for Bishop Jia and for all those in Red China who suffer for the sake of Christ.

Penitent Blogger has an update on the complaint (noted here a few days ago) by a liberal Episcopal (Episcopal Church, USA) parish's rector about a nearby conservative, continuing Episcopal (United Episcopal Church of North America) parish referring to itself as Episcopal. The liberal rector, Lowell Grisham of St. Paul's Episcopal Church (ECUSA) in Fayetteville, Arkansas, replied to Fr. Leo Michael of St. Gabriel's Episcopal Church (UECNA) in Springdale, and said that St. Gabriel's use of the name "Episcopal" was no different than St. Paul's calling itself "Catholic":

Your argument is the same one I might make should I say that the Roman Catholic Church violated the "truth once delivered to the saints" with its pope and other accretions, and that my church is the true Catholic church. So, from now on, I would advertise my church as St. Paul's Catholic Church or even St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church. How false and confusing that would be to Catholics moving into NW Arkansas. It would be dishonest of me.

That would be dishonest, but some might call it even more dishonest for a denomination like the ECUSA to continue to call itself Episcopal when it rejects Anglicanism's doctrinal standards and traditions and seems bound to reinvent itself as Unitarianism with nicer vestments.

You can read Fr. Leo's gracious reply on his blog here.

(Also, I enjoyed Penitent Blogger's ideas for updating notations in the hymnal to encourage livelier singing. Examples include "Twice as fast as you think appropriate," "Not using your inside voice," and "In the voice of Elmer Fudd.")

The rector of St. Gabriel's United Episcopal Church in Springdale, Arkansas, which is running a widely-supported and effective relief effort for those in southern India affected by last fall's tsunami, has been asked by the rector of St. Paul's, the largest Episcopal Church USA parish in nearby Fayetteville, to stop calling St. Gabriel's an Episcopal church. After a bit of buttering up, he writes:

I have one request, however. When you identify your churches in public venues (signs, newspapers, etc.), would it be possible for you to be attentive to identifying your denominational affiliation with the United Episcopal Church of North America. It can be a source of confusion if you call yourself "St. Gabriel's Episcopal Church." I've had a couple of parishioners mention the confusion to me.

Matt of Overtaken by Events, a parishoner of St. Gabriel's, notes that the e-mail arrived a couple of days after the leadership of St. Paul's announced plans to move ahead toward performing blessings of same-sex relationships. Matt asks, "Is there unrest in the pews of St Paul's?" I'll bet the rector of the liberal congregation is concerned that his older, more conservative parishoners will leave and take their money with them if they know that there is another Episcopal Church in the area, one that is faithful to the truth.

Fr. Leo Michael, the rector of St. Gabriel's, has posted the e-mail and his reply on his blog.

Penitent Blogger, another St. Gabriel's parishoner, has more about the liberal parish's process of dialogue on same-sex blessings, which is set up to lead inevitably to approval. Her description of how the process works is spot on, especially this bit: "It's just a matter of time before this so-called 'vestry-led congregational process' leads to the actual approval of same-sex blessings, and the term used to inform the community of this inevitable decision will neccessarily contain flowery, politically-correct, multi-syllabic words in excess of ten per sentence, instead of just coming out and saying 'screw you, we did it anyway.'" She thinks St. Paul's should change its name to "Saul's Sociopalian Entity, proudly undermining 2,000 years of Scripture, history and tradition, whether you like it or not."

It's great to see that Penitent Blogger is back to blogging after a month or so of working on other projects. In her previous entry, she takes apart St. Paul's rector Rev. Lowell Grisham's recent op-ed attempt to expound a biblical justification for abortion. I love her concluding remark: "Fortunately, I'm not inclined to take seriously the opinions of a priest who hosts labyrinth walks in celebration of the full moon at what is supposed to be a Christian church."

One more word of praise -- Overtaken by Events and Penitent Blogger are among the few blogs on my blogroll which are directly pinging BlogRolling.com so they show up as "recently updated" when they've recently updated. That means that more people will notice that they have new content and will go to read it. If you're a Movable Type user, it's an easy thing to fix, and if you use Blogger, there's a simple manual procedure. Click here for more information on the problem and the workaround.

Also seen in that Nebraska truck stop, on a rack of Christian books: The 25th anniversary edition of Decision Making and the Will of God, by Garry Friesen and Robin Maxson. I first read this book about 10 years ago and about 15 years too late for me -- after most of my major life decisions had been made -- but not too late to help shape my children's understanding of the freedom and responsibility they will have to choose among the many options they'll be presented with.

The thrust of the first part of the book is that the "traditional view" (a view that appears to trace back to the 19th century Keswick movement) of making life decisions is unbiblical. The idea you are likely to encounter in a church youth group or in a campus ministry is that God has a perfect will for your life -- where to go to college, what career to pursue, whom to marry. Your job is to figure it out, and if you guess wrong, you will miss out on the abundant life God desires for you (except that He apparently doesn't desire it for you enough to tell you how to find it).

As an alternative, Friesen looks at what the Scriptures say about decision-making and summarizes what he finds with the name "the way of wisdom." Where God gives us a specific command in Scripture, we're to obey it. Beyond that we have the freedom and responsibility to make choices in accordance with Biblical principles, trusting that God will sovereignly work through those choices to accomplish His purposes.

In the new edition, the section describing the traditional view is significantly reduced, and more space is given to presenting the Biblical view and how it can be applied in specific decision-making situations. The back of the book has a list of Frequently-Asked Questions raised in the 25 years since its first edition -- the FAQ list refers the reader back to specific chapters to read the answers. There's also a "study guide" -- discussion questions for each chapter.

You can read a review of the 1980 edition here on the 9 Marks website. Can't seem to find a detailed review of the new edition on the web.

UPDATE (2006/04/18): Garry Friesen has a section of his website devoted to the new edition of the Decision Making and the Will of God. The website has the forward, intro, first two chapters, and the opening section of the original edition. There are answers to frequently-asked questions and reviews by Friesen of over 30 other books on the topic of life decisions. Very helpful and informative.

George Grant has an interesting biographical sketch of Christopher Wren, the architect of the rebuilding of London following the Great Fire. He was a professor of astronomy at Oxford and designed his first building at the age of 31. Three years later he was overseeing the rebuilding of St. Paul's Cathedral, outwitting the committee that was overseeing his work. Grant's piece also touches on how Wren's theology affected the architecture of St. Paul's.

Dory of Wittenberg Gate has posted the latest entry in the series on dealing with controlling personalities in the church. (That entry has links to the first three entries.) In an earlier entry, she also has links to a couple of resources that may help those recovering from spiritually abusive situations -- a sermon on spiritual exhaustion and a review of Martin Lloyd-Jones's book Spiritual Depression.

Oh, the joys of those who do not follow evil men's advice, who do not hang around with sinners, scoffing at the things of God: But they delight in doing everything God wants them to, and day and night are always meditating on his laws and thinking about ways to follow him more closely. They are like trees along a river bank bearing luscious fruit each season without fail. Their leaves shall never wither, and all they do shall prosper.

-- Psalm 1:1-3, The Living Bible

Kenneth Taylor, who published his paraphrase of Scripture as The Living Bible, passed away last week.

The Living Bible was the first Bible I really read for myself. My parents gave me a copy when I was eight -- an Easter gift if I remember correctly. When our VBS class memorized John 14:1-6, I was the oddball who memorized the LB version -- everyone else recited the King James. Up until I received a Scofield Study Bible in high school (KJV with dispensational premillenialist study notes), The Living Bible was how I got to know God's Word.

Christianity Today has posted several articles in tribute to Taylor: an obituary, an interview from 1979, and a review of his 1992 autobiography.

From that 1979 interview, some insight into Taylor's motivations for paraphrasing Scripture:

The children were one of the chief inspirations for producing the Living Bible. Our family devotions were tough going because of the difficulty we had understanding the King James Version, which we were then using, or the Revised Standard Version, which we used later. All too often I would ask questions to be sure the children understood, and they would shrug their shoulders�they didn't know what the passage was talking about. So I would explain it. I would paraphrase it for them and give them the thought. It suddenly occurred to me one afternoon that I should write out the reading for that evening thought by thought, rather than doing it on the spot during our devotional time. So I did, and read the chapter to the family that evening with exciting results�they knew the answers to all the questions I asked!

You'll find a more personal tribute to Taylor at Baylyblog, starting here. Tim Bayly is Taylor's son-in-law. (We all got acquainted with Tim and his brother David as they kept vigil outside Terri Schiavo's hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida, and reported their observations on their blog, back in March.)

For whatever God says to us is full of living power: it is sharper than the sharpest dagger, cutting swift and deep into our innermost thoughts and desires with all their parts, exposing us for what we really are. -- Hebrews 4:12, The Living Bible

I'm not going to be doing any writing of my own tonight, but here are a few links on faith, theology, etc., for your Sunday edification:

• Evangelical Outpost has the commencement speech Neil Postman never delivered (but you're welcome to give it, if you ever get the chance). Graduates, will you align yourselves with the Athenians or the Visigoths?
• Michael Spencer, the Internet Monk, has an essay on assurance of salvation, entitled "On Faith's Crumbling Edge: Restoring The Uprooted Assurance Of The Ordinary Christian." From my years in the Southern Baptist Convention, I can affirm his observation that although the denomination professes belief in the security of the believer, it is home to many believers who are filled with doubts about their standing with God. I saw plenty of people who "got saved" again because they weren't sure they really meant it the first time. (There's a typo in the piece that made me laugh -- an errant "r" turns Lifeway, the publishing/bookselling arm of the SBC, into Lifewary, which is probably true of a lot of the tender consciences that Spencer writes about in this essay.)
• Speaking of the SBC, Southern Baptist Seminary president and powerhouse Al Mohler turns out a thoughtful, in-depth essay every single day on subjects moral, theological, and political. His May 31 column is a review of Paige Patterson's new book on the reformation within the SBC in the '80s. The denomination nearly followed every other large Protestant body in the US into relativism, but thanks to a dedicated group of laymen and pastors, the SBC is firmly committed to the gospel of Christ and the truth of Scripture. That victory required both prayer and politicking. But even if you don't care about the history of the Southern Baptist Convention, you will care about the other topics -- sanctity of life, sanctity of marriage, deliberate childlessness -- that he has written on in the last few days.
• In response to native Tulsan Philip Johnson's piece on Quick-and-Dirty Calvinism, Marsupial Mom owns up to her nascent Calvinism, and finds that real-life Calvinism is easier to take than the Internet variety. (She also mentions having been involved in the "Toronto Blessing" movement. To put that in Internet terminology, that's the Church of ROTFLMAO.)
• Jacob Hantla, also responding to "Quick-and-Dirty Calvinism", said his pastor compared him to Barney Fife during his early enthusiastic days as a Five-Pointer. "At the discovery of the most humbling message around, I became boastful, proud, and arrogant, even harsh." He talks about the mentors and the books that helped him out of what I've heard called "the cage period" -- the period when new Calvinists should be locked up so as not to harm themselves or others by beating people over the head with the new understanding they've acquired.
• Jacob also enthusiastically recommends John Piper's sermons on "Sex and the Supremacy of Christ," the topic of 2004's Desiring God Ministries national conference.
• Bowden McElroy has some thoughts on Henry Cloud's Christianity Today article "Dating is Not about Marriage". Before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, what Cloud describes sounds like "Crusade Dating" to me -- conversation over lunch or dinner, no promise or expectation of long-term commitment, and no physical contact beyond a wee hug at the end of the evening -- just time to get to know another person and sharpen one's own social skills. (We called it "Crusade Dating" because that's how we were taught to date in Campus Crusade for Christ in college.)

Have a blessed Sunday. Attend church!

Robert Williams latest three entries on Dead Man Blogging are all excellent essays:

1. God's Sovereignty Over Pharaoh: How God hardened Pharoah's heart so as to deliver Israel in a way that brought great glory to Himself, to make His name great among the nations. Williams notes that Pharoah let Israel go, and that might have been the end of the story, but God hardens Pharoah's heart, and he continues to pursue Israel all the way to and into the Red Sea.
2. Appeal to Consequences is no way to Rightly Handle the Bible: You can't make a valid argument against a theological assertion based on the fact that you don't like the conclusions to which it leads you.
3. Losing My Religion: Williams outlines his faith journey over the last 10 years from Arminian dispensationalist to Calvinist, and it resembles mine in many ways -- growing up in a small Southern Baptist congregation, Campus Crusade in college, a brief time in a Bible Church, then settling in a PCA congregation, and in the process coming to a very different understanding of what it means to live the Christian life:

   I�m trying to understand what a Christian life ought to look like. I�m losing my Gnostic religion. I�m losing my �busyness is godliness� religion. I�m understanding godly living and Christian service to be in the small things. I don�t have to light a fire and start a ministry that will change the world. If I pursue a close walk with God, lead my family, look to my wife�s sanctification, raise my children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, work diligently and enjoy the work itself as well as the fruit of my labor, spend time with a very few good friends, go to worship regularly at my church, serve a little bit at my church (e.g., by teaching theology), take care of my extended family and my church family, I�m full. There�s not a lot of time to do much else. And that�s OK. No, it�s more than OK. It�s good.

   Robert from 10 years ago might not like the Robert of today, but that�s his loss.
   

   Three entries well worth your time and pondering.

Phil Johnson is well known to admirers of the 19th century English Baptist evangelist Charles Spurgeon and to searchers for online Christian history and theology resources. Starting in the early days of the web, Phil has developed an extensive online archive of Spurgeon's sermons and writings. "Next door" to the Spurgeon archive is the Hall of Church History -- 14 pages of annotated links to collections of primary texts, timelines, and history, including Early Church Fathers, Medieval theologians, Reformers and Counter-Reformers, Puritans, revivialists, and even heretics. Phil has also put together an annotated collection of links to theology resources on the web -- not just links to the good stuff, but links to bad, really bad, and really, really bad theology.

Phil has just started blogging, and he calls his blog PyroManiac. As you might expect, the blog is mostly about theology -- such as this entry on "ugly Calvinism" -- but one of his first entries is about the eccentric early 20th century French composer Erik Satie. It includes a link to a MIDI version of Satie's most famous composition (Gymnopedie No. 1). The entry also includes a few of Satie's eccentricities, such as the artist's account of his daily regimen:

I eat only food that is white: eggs, sugar, shredded bones; fat from dead animals; veal, salt, coconuts, chicken cooked in white water; mouldy fruit, rice, turnips; camphorated sausage, pasta, cheese (white varieties), cotton salad, and certain kinds of fish (minus their skins). I boil my wine and drink it cold mixed with juice from the fuchsia. I have a good appetite but never talk while eating for fear of strangling myself. ...

Once every hour a servant takes my temperature and gives me another.

I've added Phil to the blogroll at right. Check out his blog, and be sure to check out the wonderful collection of online resources he has developed.

It's one of the wonders of the Internet that you can learn about a new blogger in your own backyard by reading a blog thousands of miles away.

I'm looking through referrers to my website and check out a site that sent me a visitor. Carla Rolfe is a Reformed (Sovereign Grace) Baptist blogger and mother of seven homeschooled kids in Ontario, Canada. In her latest entry, she announces:

Dennis from Grace and Truth Books (hands down, THE best bookstore in the universe) is now blogging here. Go say hello to Dennis, then go buy a book from his store, you�ll be blessed senseless.

Dennis is Dennis Gunderson, pastor of Grace Bible Church here in Tulsa. I met him many years ago through mutual friends, David and Susan Pedrick Simpson. (Susan and I were high school classmates.)

Dennis's online bookstore features works by John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, and the English Puritans, books from Banner of Truth and Soli Deo Gloria publishers. Grace and Truth is also a publishing house, focusing on devotional and educational material for families.

His first blog entry is an excerpt from his eulogy for his best friend, John Bower, who died suddenly three weeks ago:

I just never knew anyone less easily satisfied when it came to getting answers to his questions about God! John did not tolerate shallow answers! Surface. Superficial. Half-baked. Now, as for you, if you could settle for that, he would smile that incredible smile at you, of amazement at how you could settle so little, but he had to have more than that. He was just driven to understand the truth as deeply as God would allow a man to know it this side of heaven.

And guess what? Now he�s satisfied. Can you imagine John Bower, satisfied? Completely satisfied with his knowledge of God?!? But it�s true: he is! John has no more questions! No more battles to fight, no more dragons to slay; no more controversies to settle; no more �but what about this�? I think that�s what makes me happiest for John right now: John has all he wants. He is satisfied with the life he has � eternal life � which means not just endless time, but a quality of life which is boundless. And John is satisfied with the light he is given.

A worthy beginning to your blog, Dennis. Welcome to the blogosphere.

A wonder of the Internet is that you can recall something that had puzzled you or that you had wondered about years earlier, but could never find an answer for at the time, but now, with about a minute's worth of Googling, you have what you were looking for. That happened to me a few minutes ago.

The Thirty-Nine Articles, the statement of faith adopted by the Church of England in 1563, has an article devoted to something called the Second Book of Homilies -- a book of sermons commended for reading in the churches -- and in another article makes specific mention of a homily on justification.

For some reason I thought of that again today, and sure enough the two Books of Homilies are available on the web. It appears that the intent of publishing these books was to ensure that each parish could provide its parishoners with a basic education in doctrine (e.g. "Of the salvation of all mankind") and in living the Christian life (e.g. "Against idleness").

Dory of Wittenberg Gate has an excellent post up about manipulative people and the harm they can do in a church, particularly when they are in leadership:

Even more problematic, though, is when the controlling personality in the church is a member of the pastoral staff or the lay leadership. The lay couple I described above had no authority in the church, though they apparently thought they did. Most people in the congregation were able to simply ignore them when they became obnoxious. But a pastor or church officer does have real authority, and where there is real authority, there is the possibility of abuse or misuse of that power. There is also the opportunity to shape the culture and group dynamic that prevails in that congregation.

I think it is important to note that a manipulative leader can create a cult-like dynamic in a church that is not cultish or heretical in its doctrine, but rather well within the range of what would be considered the historic Christian faith. There may be an unbalanced emphasis on certain doctrines, such as an attitude that emphasizes works at the expense of grace, or an emphasis on such things as submitting to authority and giving financially to the church in a sacrificial way.

On the next post on this topic, I will write about the warning signs that we can look for when looking for a new church, or evaluating one we have already joined. In this post, though, I want to discuss the common characteristics of a controlling personality.

Dory provides a long list of characteristics, with a description and example of each, and there is a good discussion going on in the comments.

The second post in the series -- warning signs to watch for when considering joining a church -- is here.

Congratulations to Lawton, Oklahoma, pastor and blogger John Owen Butler for getting a mention in a Business Week article on religious podcasting. John's podcast can be found at psalmcast.blogspot.com, and it features recordings of the singing of the Psalms by choirs from around the world.

His latest entry is Psalm 98, set to the tune "Desert," a joyous tune I've also heard used for the hymn "O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing." (The tune is Common Meter, so it could be used for a vast number of hymns.)

It's been a summer tradition for Oklahoma Baptist teenagers, going back almost 90 years, to spend a week in the hottest part of Oklahoma, in the hottest part of the summer, sitting on hard wooden benches and sweltering in an immense open-air tabernacle to sing hymns and choruses and hear the Word of God preached. My parents first met there as teenagers. I went three times to Falls Creek Baptist Assembly as a camper, once as a sponsor. While the cabins where campers ate and slept were renovated and air conditioned over the years, the tabernacle remained open on the sides, with only some big fans to try to make a breeze on a still summer evening. (The fans had to be turned off when the choir was singing, as they would have inhaled some of the more petite vocalists.)

The preaching and singing will continue, but the old tabernacle at Falls Creek Conference Center south of Davis is being replaced with an air conditioned auditorium with theater-style seats. The wooden benches, up to 20 years old, covered in graffiti, and ranging in size from four to twelve feet, are being auctioned off. Unfortunately for old campers, the auction house does not provide a searchable index of doodles, so the odds are slim of you finding the bench where you and your sweetheart de la semaine proclaimed your everlasting love with a penknife.

There's an opportunity for graffiti of a sort in the new auditorium, but it's only the one chance and it'll run you $500. For that price, you can "save a seat" and have it inscribed with the text of your choice. You could commemorate your conversion, remember a departed loved one, or honor your church. I suppose a camper could still get an inscription in the time-honored form AB+CD, but $500 is a bit much to pay and a brass plaque is a bit permanent for what may turn out to be wistful memories of the girl you surreptitiously held hands with during the sermon. It might be worth it, though, if that week-long romance turned into 44 years (and counting) of marriage, as it did for a couple I know.

(Found via the dead-tree version of the Baptist Messenger.)

You're encouraged to carve your favorite Falls Creek memories in the comments.

As much as I would have preferred that John Piper or J. I. Packer had been elected to the See of Rome, both of those outcomes were rather unlikely.

Evangelicals should nevertheless be encouraged that the new leader of a billion Roman Catholics is someone who believes that there is objective truth about God and what He requires of us and that it is knowable. Not all branches of Christianity are so blessed. Can you imagine the chaos that would have been unleashed had some sort of mushy relativist been elected, particularly here in the United States where so many Roman bishops already lean in that direction? With the Roman Church under Benedict's leadership, evangelicals can hope not only to continue to find culture-war allies among the Catholic laity and priesthood, but increasingly among the hierarchy as well.

In the meantime, we'll keep praying that the full splendor of the Gospel of Christ will be restored to the Roman Church -- the splendor of God's grace, His unmerited favor towards us, which outshines every gilded reliquary and every shard of stained glass.

MORE: Tim Bayly, a conservative Presbyterian pastor, explains why he sees Cardinal Ratzinger's election as a positive outcome.

AND MORE: Dennis Schenkel, a Roman Catholic seminarian, posts some thoughts from one of his classmates, who says that Ratzinger's reputation as "God's rottweiler" comes from his faithful pursuit of his role as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, and that he set aside his own speculations as a theologian to fulfill those duties. I found this bit particularly interesting:

He was a priest and Bishop in Germany in the late 50 and 60�s. When he was serving in those roles, he worked on his own theological ideas, such as how the power to be a good Christian is a grace from God but at the same time, there is work to be done on our end in terms of preparing ourselves for that Grace. So, the big question is how does the fact that God gives grace freely work with the idea that our actions can make us more or less likely to receive it? It is a very complicated issue, and theologians around the world (such as Cardinal Ratzinger) are always encouraged to work on this idea (along with countless others) and develop their responses.... Cardinal Ratzinger, like any good theologian, would usually put his ideas out there and sort of say, �OK, here is what I�m thinking. I ask that fellow theologians and bishops etc. show me where I�m wrong or unclear etc.�

James Lileks writes:

The defining quality of 20th century modernity is impatience, I think � the nervous, irritated, aggravated impulse to get on with the new now, and be done with those old tiresome constraints. We�re still in that 20th century dynamic, I think, and we will be held to it until something shocks us to our core. Say what you will about Benedict v.16, but he wants there to be a core to which we can be shocked. And I prefer that to a tepid slurry of happy-clappy relativism that leads to animists consecrating geodes beneath the dome of St. Peter's. That will probably happen eventually, but if we can push it off for a century or two, good.

I admire Christian bloggers who are willing to open their hearts and let us readers watch as God works in their lives, especially when they write with expressive power.

One such blogger, Manasclerk, has announced that Manasclerk's Power Struggle is closing up shop, possibly as soon as today. Time to move on, he says, and while he'll be migrating the stuff about information technology and organization to other sites, what he's written about personal and spiritual matters is "going into storage." (NOTE: There's an update at the end of this entry -- click the "continue reading" link if you're reading this on the home page.)

That's a shame, because it is challenging and thought-provoking material. He's Reformed, and that informs his perspective, but he doesn't write theological essays. He writes about Christians in community, from his own observations and his own struggles in relationships with friends, family, and churches. He writes about the work God does sanctifying him through those relationships. It's worthy of your consideration no matter what your theological or denominational affiliation.

Now online: Last Sunday's communion meditation, preached by Pastor David O'Dowd at Christ Presbyterian Church in Tulsa.

If you're pro-life, you'll find it interesting because, woven into David's exposition of Exodus 12 -- the account of the Passover -- is the story of the conversion of Norma McCorvey, known to the world as the Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade, and the touching story of how God used the seven-year-old daughter of an Operation Rescue volunteer to draw Norma to Himself.

The meditation also includes one of the clearest explanations I've heard of the Presbyterian view of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Catholics, in particular, seem to assume that all Protestants, or at least all evangelicals, hold to the Zwinglian view that the bread and wine are mere symbols and the Lord's Supper is a memorial, an ordinance commanded by Christ, but not a sacrament or a means of grace. That's not the case for the PCA or other bodies which hold to the Westminster Confession of Faith, which teaches the real presence of Christ in the elements.

You can find the sermon notes here, streaming audio here, and a downloadable MP3 here.

Tulsa Christian counselor Bowden McElroy has some excellent brief entries about the grieving process:

• Men, Grief and Relationships
• Grief: A Rollercoaster of Emotions
• Losing a Child Increases Risk of Mental Illness
• Grief

That first entry has sound advice for men who are grieving over the loss of a significant relationship, often the reason that a man seeks out counseling. Some of that sound advice: take care of yourself physically so you can think clearly, don't turn into "evil stalker guy" ("There is nothing attractive about desperation."), and learn to pray unselfishly -- not for her to change, but for you to be the man you ought to be, regardless of what she does.

The second entry includes the observation that someone experiencing grief may be in a different stage of the process for each facet of the loss, which is why someone may experience wide mood swings.

I admire Bowden's ability to communicate something profound and practical in just a few words, and if you aren't making his blog a regular read, you should be.

It's late, and I will save my own thoughts for another time.

Don Singleton has a comprehensive biographical sketch of John Paul II, along with details of the process to select his successor, and links to reactions in the mainstream media and the blogosphere. (I was remiss in not adding Don, a fellow Tulsan, to my blogroll sooner -- that's now been fixed.)

Joe Carter of the Evangelical Outpost gives some reasons for admiring this Pope -- he stood on the right side of history against Communism, he stood for truth against relativism, and he stood for life against the culture of death. He praises John Paul II for being a leader of the "catholic church" -- with a small "c" -- for his influence extended beyond the Church of Rome:

He was a true Christian leader � Any Pope can lead the Catholic Church. It is, after all, what the job is all about. But it takes a special person to lead the �catholic church�. While my old fundie pastor would surely disagree, I believe John Paul has been an example for all Christians, regardless of denomination. American evangelicals are particularly indebted to him. Before John Paul our concern for our neighbors was almost exclusively missional and focused on making converts. Now, evangelicals are not just concerned with sending out missionaries but with being salt and light to a troubled world. John Paul deserves some of the credit for that shift. The Pope has reminded us that the church is not defined by any one nation and that there are no borders within the body of Christ.

Finally, Carter praises John Paul for remaining active, traveling and ministering, even as his health declined: "Though his words often failed him in the end, he continued to preach using his frail body as the sermon."

Sad but funny: Ed Morrissey has a screen grab of the initial posting of the New York Times story on the Pope's death. In the midst of quotes from critics of the Pope, there's this placeholder: "need some quote from supporter." What ultimately filled that space was scarcely an improvement over that placeholder, as you can see in Captain Ed's story.

John Hinderaker of Power Line links to a blog about Lutheran liturgy and hymnody. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the largest and most liberal of the Lutheran denominations, has a proposed new hymnal and service book called Renewing Worship, and the authors of www.worshiphymn.org are documenting the "improvements" contained in the new hymnal, such as the unnecessary rewriting of Joachim Neander's "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty."

But the highlight is the most recent entry, a parody by Gracia Grindal of the worst in modern mainline liberal hymns, "Hymn to God the Whatever." Here's the stirring second stanza:

You are like a weaving grandma,
Or a father making rugs,
Like a farmer on her tractor
Trying not to kill her bugs.
We create you when we name you
You appear at our command.
Aren't you glad that we still want you
Here to take us by the hand?

I can just imagine Garrison Keillor singing the final verse with gusto:

We will work for peace and justice,
We are not Republicans.
We believe in Marx and Engels
Not the brotherhood of man.
It is foolish to do mercy
Without handling the root cause.
We will work to feed the hungry
By the passing of new laws

The rest of the blog has thoughts on liturgy and worship and the Church Year that would be thought-provoking for a Christian of any denomination. I was interested to learn that Martin Luther published two worship services only with the greatest reluctance, concerned that congregations would regard it as binding:

He concluded his preface to the German Mass: "In short, this or any other order shall be so used that whenever it becomes an abuse, it shall be straightway abolished and replaced by another, even as King Hezekiah put away and destroyed the brazen serpent, though God himself had commanded it be made, because the children of Israel made an abuse of it (II Kings 18:4). Lutheran worship should be free."

Then there's this profound observation about liturgy:

Liturgy is meant to be transparent, like the glass in your household windows. You don't look AT the glass, but THRU it to the outside world. Because the PURPOSE of glass is to let the outside world IN: not to call attention to itself.

Likewise the purpose of liturgy is to present you to His Majesty, the King, so that you may see Him, hear Him, know Him: give Him thanks and praise. If the worship service does not do this to some degree, it is not helpful, or worshipful, but simply becomes something "we do in church" to please God. Even ancient liturgies (loved by liturgists) can become a museum of ancient artifacts no longer efficacious in worship today.

Prayers and best wishes go to these Lutherans who are working for worship that honors God.

I suppose if one must wake up feeling utterly hopeless, it's helpful if one has already obligated oneself to lead the congregation in worship on Easter Sunday. Staying in bed and pulling the covers over one's head is not an option.

Not only my mood, but my voice was limping along as well -- Bb and up just weren't there -- but with a little help from my Friends and bit of hot coffee, the voice loosened up sufficiently.

The tonic for my mood was the service itself, which began with the congregation reciting the Nicene Creed. Here is the part that always chokes me up, whether I'm reciting it in English or singing it in Latin:

Who for us men, and for our salvation, descended from heaven.
Qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de coelis.

Jesus left the glory of heaven, and did so for us and for a purpose, a purpose He accomplished on the cross. As Ron Dunton, one of our founding elders, prepared to lead us in a time of prayer, he called our attention to the banner underneath the cross at the front of the church, his voice breaking as he did. The banner is partially split in the center, starting at the top, a reminder that as Jesus died, the veil of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. No longer are sacrifices and priests required to obtain access to God, but Christ as our great High Priest, offered Himself as a sacrifice once for all, so that we might enter into God's presence:

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having an high priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

We have bold and direct access -- not through a priest, not through a saint, not through any other human intermediary, but through the one mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus. And there does not need to be a weekly or daily sacrifice for our sins -- Christ's one sacrifice is sufficient for all the sins of all His people. (With all due respect to the followers of the Pope who are valiant allies in the fight for the sanctity of human life, I do not know how anyone who has read the Epistle to the Hebrews can buy into the Roman Church's teachings on the sacrifice of the mass.)

Pastor David O'Dowd's sermon was challenging and encouraging (as usual), and when it's online and I've heard it again, I'll write about it and provide a link to the audio.

I wish I could tell you that the afterglow of the service kept me in a good mood for the rest of the day, but it didn't. It took a CD of Charles Wesley hymns on the drive down to keep my mind off my troubles and on things above. That is the daily and hourly challenge.

This prayer seems especially apt today. It's from the Good Friday liturgy (from the 1978 Episcopal Book of Common Prayer): "for all who suffer and are afflicted in body or in mind." It should remind us to pray for Terri Schiavo, and for those around us who suffer from grave disabilities. What are we to pray for them?

That God in his mercy will comfort and relieve them, and grant them the knowledge of his love, and stir up in us the will and patience to minister to their needs.

At noon our time tomorrow, Terri Schiavo will have endured a full week without food or water. That's about the time many Christians will gather to remember the three hours of darkness that fell as Christ hung on the cross.

I encourage you to attend a Good Friday service, even if it isn't at your usual place of worship. Although we are free as Christians to observe special days or not, it is a good thing to set aside a special time to meditate on God's great love for us, that while we were His enemies, He sent His Son to die for us, to pay the penalty for our sins. It is a good thing to gather with believers all over the world to celebrate this day of victory -- the day our Redeemer accomplished our Redemption, and purchased for Himself people from every tribe and tongue and nation. If you cannot come to a church, the Good Friday liturgy linked above could be used for your own private devotions.

Few aspects of worship move me so much as those hymns which direct us to meditate on the Cross and Our Lord's wounds, which He suffered out of love for us.

Do you have trouble believing that God could love you? Look at the Cross!

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down.
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Crown Him the Lord of love!
Behold His hands and side!
Rich wounds, yet visible above,
In beauty glorified.
No angel in the sky
Can fully bear that sight,
But downward bends his burning eye
At mysteries so bright.

And can it be that I should gain
An interest in my Savior's blood?
Died He for me who caused His pain,
For me who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be
That Thou my God shouldst die for me?

�Tis mystery all: th�Immortal dies:
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.
�Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more.

He left His Father�s throne above
So free, so infinite His grace�
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam�s helpless race:
�Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature�s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray�
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

Still the small inward voice I hear,
That whispers all my sins forgiven;
Still the atoning blood is near,
That quenched the wrath of hostile Heaven.
I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Savior in my heart.

No condemnation now I dread:
Jesus and all in Him is mine.
Alive in Him, my living head,
And clothed in righteousness divine.
Bold I approach the immortal throne
And claim the crown through Christ mine own.

For your morning amusement, a funny (but a bit sad) piece by a Church of England vicar on the bizarre vows and readings people want to use for their weddings these days, in place of the poetry of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

He, with the David Beckham haircut and clothing hanging about him in like manner, wanted to stand at the chancel steps and begin his lifelong vows with the immortal words,

Ever since we met last year in the disco�

This is the sort of degraded demotic that ought to qualify this bloke for a place on the Liturgical Commission. We didn't get as far as her reply. They took kindly enough to my advice -

Sorry dears, this is the Church of England. Have you tried Blind Date?

- and shoved off.

Read the whole thing.

I have just started exploring this Christian group blog, which introduces itself with the following words:

On February 7th, 2002, a diverse group of Christians started a wide-ranging weblog conversation. Today, that conversation continues and you're invited to pull up a chair. Welcome to the Boar's Head Tavern.

It's an interesting mix of topics. As the name suggests, it's not a particularly solemn place. Worth noting in the sidebar is a good collection of online devotional resources.

Go check it out.

From Sunday's choral evensong

Psalm 103

The Lord knows whereof we are made.
He remembers that we are but dust.

Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and all that is within me, bless his holy Name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits.

The Lord knows whereof we are made.
He remembers that we are but dust.

He forgives all your sins
and heals all your infirmities;
He redeems your life from the grave
and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness;
He satisfies you with good things,
and your youth is renewed like an eagle's.

The Lord knows whereof we are made.
He remembers that we are but dust.

The Lord executes righteousness
and judgment for all who are oppressed.
He made his ways known to Moses
and his acts to the children of Israel.
The Lord is full of compassion and mercy,
slow to anger, and of great kindness.

The Lord knows whereof we are made.
He remembers that we are but dust.

He will not always accuse us,
nor will he keep his anger for ever.
He hath not dealt with us according to our sins,
nor rewarded us according to our wickedness.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so is his mercy great upon those who fear him.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our sins from us.

The Lord knows whereof we are made.
He remembers that we are but dust.

Like as a father cares for his children,
so does the Lord care for those who fear him.
For he himself knows whereof we are made;
he remembers that we are but dust.
Our days are like the grass;
we flourish like a flower of the field;
When the wind goes over it, it is gone;
and its place shall know it no more.

The Lord knows whereof we are made.
He remembers that we are but dust.

But the merciful goodness of the Lord endures for ever
on those who fear him,
and his righteousness on children's children;
On those who keep his covenant,
and remember his commandments and do them.
The Lord has set his throne in heaven;
and his kingship has dominion over all.

The Lord knows whereof we are made.
He remembers that we are but dust.

Bless the Lord, you angels of his,
you mighty ones who do his bidding,
and hearken to the voice of his word.
Bless the Lord, all you his hosts,
you ministers of his who do his will.
Bless the Lord, all you works of his,
in all places of his dominion;
bless the Lord, O my soul.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

The Lord knows whereof we are made.
He remembers that we are but dust.

Last August, Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, gave a speech ("The Mystery of Marriage") to a singles conference in which he suggested that there is something sinful about young Christians delaying marriage. He lays much of the blame at the feet of Christian men who seem to prefer an extended adolescence to shouldering the burdens of adulthood. The speech drew praise, criticism, and ridicule. (Mohler wrote two columns about the speech -- part 1 and part 2. You can find audio of the speech itsef here.)

Mohler's speech has generated a lot of discussion about Christians, churches, and singleness. It also seems to have brought to the surface a lot of frustration among Christian singles, both men and women, as you'll see if you'll follow the "Continue reading" link below.

Michael Spencer has written a lengthy and thoughtful post, partly in response to Mohler, but looking at the bigger picture:

This debate is a small part of what I see as a major evolution within evangelicalism; an evolution toward overemphasizing marriage at the expense of much that is Biblical, good, healthy, balanced and normal in human and Christian experience. From the best of motives, some bad fruit is appearing.

Spencer presents six ways that churches can overemphasize marriage, elaborating on each point:

I've added yet another blogroll to my sidebar. I'm now a participant in the League of Reformed Bloggers. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop blogging and take up a more wholesome hobby. I'm as addicted as ever to putting my thoughts up for everyone to see.

"Reformed" in this context means committed to the doctrines of the Protestant Reformation, as expressed by the five "Solas":

• Sola scriptura: The scriptures alone our rule of faith and practice
  
• Solus Christus: Christ the one mediator between God and man
  
• Sola gratia: Salvation by grace alone
  
• Sola fide: Salvation through faith alone
  
• Soli Deo gloria: To God alone be the glory
  

The Cambridge Declaration, adopted in 1996 by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, explains each of the solas and how they speak to the practices and beliefs of modern-day evangelicalism.

Another entrance requirement for the League is adherence to one or more of the historic Reformed confessions, at least to the system of doctrine taught, if not to every particular. For me that's the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, even though I am a member of a Presbyterian Church in America congregation.

David Wayne, the Jollyblogger, and Tim Challies, of Challies.com, are moderators and managers of the League. There's an aggregator of League posts here.

To learn more about the League of Reformed Bloggers, and how to join if you are interested in so doing, read this entry on Jollyblogger.

Sciolist of the Rough Woodsman reports that NBC's Dateline tonight (6 p.m. Central Time) is a two-hour report on televangelist Benny Hinn. The good news is that Michael Horton of the White Horse Inn -- a radio program on theology and apologetics from a Reformation perspective -- was interviewed for the show, and that means there will be some solid Biblically-based perspective on Hinn's practices.

Michael Horton has written some excellent books on Reformation theology and on modern Christian culture examined through a Reformation lens. Unlike many theological works, Horton's books are clearly written and accessible to any intelligent reader. A couple of his books that I've read and enjoyed: Putting Amazing Back into Grace -- the Bible's God-centered view of salvation and the Christian life, and how that differs from the Catholic view and the understanding held by many evangelical believers -- and The Agony of Deceit, an anthology of essays about the heretical roots of many of the teachings of televangelists.

Here is a link to the White Horse Inn's page of resources on televangelism. I can't speak highly enough of the White Horse Inn and Modern Reformation magazine -- lively, high-quality efforts to apply the insights of the Reformation to the situation of modern culture and today's church.

This is a slight revision of an entry that appeared a year ago. It will stay at the top of the home page through Saturday night -- scroll down for more new entries.

Please read this, read the earlier articles linked below, and please pray for the Litle family and the families of the other victims through this season of remembrance. And pray for real, lasting peace in Israel.

Saturday is the second anniversary of a suicide bombing of a city bus in Haifa, Israel, which took the life of 16 innocent people, including Abigail Litle, the 14-year-old daughter of Philip and Heidi Litle, college friends of mine. In memory of her, I invite you to read an article I wrote shortly after the bombing, and an article by her dad, written a month after the attack, about Abigail's triumphant faith in Jesus.

Remembering Abigail, a victim of hate

Remembering Abigail, a victor in faith

In a letter to friends and family just before the first anniversary, Phil told us how Abigail's school planned to remember her and a classmate who died in the attack:

The Christ Presbyterian Church Missions Conference concludes tomorrow. Two of our missionaries will be speaking to the combined adult Sunday School classes. Bob Mulloy is with Tulsa-based Literacy and Evangelism International, assigned to Mindanao in the Philippines. Bob's next assignment is to develop a written language for an ethnic group that is known for piracy and which follows a blend of Islam and animism. This group has about a dozen Christians in a population of over 100,000. The other missionary speaker, Doug Shepherd Jr., will be headed back to Ukraine later this year with his Ukrainian bride Masha and their first child (once first child arrives). The Shepherds will be planting Presbyterian churches for Mission to the World. Doug will also be preaching during morning worship. (For what it's worth, I'll be filling in as worship leader.)

Bob, Doug, and Masha spoke at Friday night's missions banquet. The content was very interesting -- I hope to write about what Doug and Masha said about the gap between the program-oriented approach American mission organizations take to ministry and the things that really had an effect on the lives of Ukrainians.

For now, I'll just mention the food. A good missions conference should introduce you to some unfamiliar customs, words, and sounds, and, if possible, strange food. Friday night's buffet line featured styrofoam cups of hot purplish-red stuff with a dollop of something white and creamy. Hot cherry jello with whipped cream? was the question in the mind of the man who once, in a cafe in Wales, put a spoonful of mushy peas in his mouth expecting to taste guacamole.

It was borscht, of course, and it was good, but then I like beets. The whole meal was Ukrainian. The main course was chicken pilaf, which we were told was really an Uzbek dish that has been adopted by Ukrainians.

Dessert was a cake of many colors, textures, and flavors -- green icing and white cream and chocolate cake and some light brown crumbly stuff (nuts?) and red cherry filling in layers. Apparently you can't get a cake like this in Tulsa, so someone brought it from the Kiev Bakery in Brooklyn, New York. The cake box had a checkmark next to the word крещатик, and I'm told the cake is also known as Kiev torte. I don't know if our cake had a fancy design on the outside -- it was already cut when I got some -- but that page about Kiev torte is a great description of the texture and flavor. I suspect this is the same kind of cake I tasted (and later blogged enthusiastically about) at an event in New York last August.

You hear about homesick folks who have favorite foods from home shipped to where they are -- wings from Buffalo, deep-dish pizza from Chicago, ribs from Texas. I was impressed that someone would think to have this cake shipped in, not to satisfy his or her own yearning for familiar flavors, but to go beyond sight and sound to use another of the senses to connect our congregation with Ukraine, a nation where we've been investing our prayers, our finances, and our people for over the last 10 years.

Dan Paden, on the badly misnamed No Blog of Significance, has posted notes from the latest lesson from the Sunday School class he teaches at Sheridan Road Baptist Church here in Tulsa: "Can God Fix This?" The lesson focuses on Hosea 14 and is a follow-up to last week's lesson, "Does God Want Me Back?"

Having plenty of blown opportunities and damaged relationships to my credit (or debit, I should say), this lesson piqued my interest. From the introduction:

Maybe you've broken things in your life that don't seem so easy to fix. Maybe you've broken hearts; maybe you've wrecked your financial future; maybe you've wrecked your health, or maybe destroyed your witness. Maybe you've broken things that can't be fixed with a little rubber hose. Is there any hope at all that your mess can be cleaned up?

You'll have to read the whole thing to find the answer.

Dan also has a post about Calvinists and Arminians, asking if anyone really takes credit for his own salvation. He discovers that J. I. Packer made the same point in his book Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, a book I recently re-read. In the same post, he mentions that he has discovered a used bookshop with "a remarkable number of theological books," a shop he does not name. Dan (as if I didn't already have enough books, but anyway), I charge you to tell us where to find this treasure trove!

UPDATE: In the comments, Dan says it's the bookstore next to the dollar theater in the Fontana Shopping Center. That's Quicksilver Books, at the northwest corner of Fontana Shopping Center, off of 49th Street west of Memorial Drive.

Our own Sunday School class this morning was fascinating. As part of our church's missions conference, all the adult classes met together to hear David Vila, assistant professor of religion and philosophy at John Brown University. Prof. Vila spoke on the early history of Christian missions, from the beginning through 1300. In the course of his lecture, there were three recurring themes: How persecution of Christianity led to the spread of Christianity, the importance of apologetics (writings defending Christianity to the outside world), and the all-too-frequent reluctance of God's people, from Jonah to present day Christians, to take God's message of reconciliation to hostile nations. Vila also introduced us to some Arab Christian martyrs, theologians, and apologists from the Middle Ages, some with names that link them to familiar places in present-day Iraq.

Dan Paden of No Blog of Significance posted the first installment of notes from the Sunday School class he teaches at Sheridan Road Baptist Church. He writes a bit about how he prepares to teach and how he conducts the class, and then launches into a study of Hosea 11, beginning with this intro:

Think, please, of things that can be ruined. Have you ever seen a ruined house (try not to think of the state of your own house!)? Something utterly destroyed by termites and neglect? How about a ruined car--something allowed to rust away to nothingness, or made to run without oil or coolant? Ruined books (I've lent enough books out to know that it can be done!)? Appliances? Jewelry (a painful thought)? ...

Is your life like that? Is it possible to ruin it beyond all repair? Isn't it the case that you can--indeed, have--ruined your life? ...

And the worst is yet to come: unlike your house, your car, or your 'fridge, a ruined life is ruined beyond the reach of all human efforts at repair, for all time! But is human effort all that counts? Can God forgive your ruination of the life He gave you and repair it?

Well, can He? If you missed church today, or even if you didn't, go read it. It's good stuff, and the 19-41 class is very blessed indeed.

Pocket-sized need not apply: Some guys are just into BBWs -- big Bible women. (12 MB Windows Media file, via X-ATI Guy.) Lyric excerpt:

I like big Bibles
And I cannot lie.
You Christian brothers can't deny
That when a girl walks in with a KJV
And a bookmark in Proverbs
You get stoked.
Got her name engraved
So you know this girl is saved.
It looks like one of those large ones
With plenty of space in the margins.

UPDATED after the jump with links to other blog reminiscences of Gene Scott. And don't miss my multimedia homage to Doc's fundraising style.

Another UPDATE 11/29/2005: The Wittenburg Door, a Christian satire magazine, has a short video of Gene Scott in one of his fundraising rants. My parody of him was extremely mild in comparison to reality.

It was the summer of 1986. I had just graduated from MIT and came back to Tulsa to look for a job, either here or in northwest Arkansas near my girlfriend. Dad had been laid off the previous September after 20 years with Cities Service and had taken a job in Abilene, Texas. Mom planned to move down there in a few months. My sister was back home after her freshman year at OU, and I had moved back home.

Since I didn't have to be up mornings, Mom and sister and I would tune in every night to watch KSHB out of Kansas City -- Uncle Ed Muscari's "All Night Live". I'd make a pan of Orville Redenbacher, and we'd watch "Twilight Zone", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", and the Three Stooges, interspersed with Uncle Ed talking on the banana phone, his cat Caffeina snoozing in front of him on the desk. At midnight we'd switch over and catch Letterman.

When Letterman went off at 1, if I wasn't ready to crash, I'd surf over and watch Dr. Gene Scott. I don't remember if he was on KSHB, or some other channel. He was strange, but strangely compelling, this preacher smoking a cigar, wearing one funny hat or another, shouting at his pledge-takers, showing the same ancient video of the Statesmen singing "I Want to Know" over and over and over again until he raised as much money as he felt was necessary before he continued his teaching. Another tune that got heavy rotation was "The P*ssant Song," a ditty devoted to all the carpers and complainers who criticized Scott's teaching and style.

Where was the money going? You didn't need to know. Gifts were payable to Dr. Gene Scott himself -- not a tax-exempt ministry. He could and would do with them as he pleased. He might buy expensive clothes, cigars, saddlebred horses. In his view, you didn't give for specific projects; you gave in appreciation for his teaching. The man lived large, but he also is said to have given generously.

Now, the time has come for you people to demonstrate whether you value the blogging you've been receiving night after night. I'd like to blog to you about the airport investigation, the City Council recall, and the meaning of the Pyramids, but right now I'm lookin' over at the phones and not a one of 'em is ringin'. It's time for you to pick up the phone and demonstrate the value of the blogging with your tithes. I'm not doing any more blogging until you GIT ONNA PHONES!

Play "I Wanna Know"!

I.... I wanna know...
(I want to know that Jesus welcomes me there)
I do not want...
(I do not to be denied)
Well.... I wanna live (let me live) in that city so fair
That's enough (that's enough) for me to know.

I do not know (doot-do-doot-doot)
The day my Savior will come
I must be (doot-do-doot-doot)
Prepared to go-o
If from earth I know he'll call me, O Lord,
That's enough (that's enough) for me to know.

I want to know (a-know-know)
That Jesus welcomes me there,
I do not want (a-want-want)
To be deni-ied.
Let me li-ive, in that city so fair,
That's enough... for me... to know!

All right.... [click, click, puff] There are still five, six, seven Voices of Faith that aren't talkin' to one of you on the phone.

Play it again!!!! And GIT ONNA PHONES!

That's more like it. Now before we get to more blogging, I've got some video of my saddlebred horses at a competition....

Confused? See next entry. Hat tip to the Daffy Net for the audio and images. And (updated 11/29/2005) if you want a glimpse of the real thing, the Wittenburg Door has a short video of Dr. Gene Scott in full rant.

Some of you will get the next entry (above), and some of you won't. If you don't get it, just skip it.

In memory of w. euGene Scott, a pioneer of satellite television and religious broadcaster sui generis....

Today was the first day of our church's annual missions conference. This is not the typical missions conference, with slideshows about specific missions work in specific countries. Instead, the aim of the conference is to shake up our understanding of the purposes of God, the central message of the Bible, the main point of the Christian faith. The aim of the conference is to help us replace cat theology with dog theology.

What's the difference between dog theology and cat theology?

A dog says: "You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, you love me. You must be God."

A cat says: "You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, you love me. I must be God."

The old joke is that Presbyterians sing "Que Sera, Sera" for their hymn of invitation. Discoshaman explains why this isn't so -- why Calvinism isn't fatalism, and how it can be some of the greatest evangelists of all time were men thoroughly convinced of the Reformed doctrines of grace:

God is working everything that happens in the Universe according to his own divine plan and will. But He's chosen to work out this will through means. No Calvinist believes that God makes robots of us. The Westminster Confession itself says that God does no violence to our wills. Instead He works through our own actions -- both good and evil ones.

So how does this work out practically? Take prayer as an example.

God has ordained that prayer changes things. When I pray, God really does hear and respond to it. But if God has a purpose to be accomplished, there WILL be prayer for it. God ordains both the ends, and the means to accomplish it. Far from fatalism, I have the comfort of knowing that my prayers fit perfectly into the gracious plan of God.

Evangelism is the same. God has ordained the foolishness of preaching as his primary means of reaching the lost. So I can never say, "Ah, no need to evangelize. God'll save them anyway." No, He won't. I'm responsible to preach both in season and out. But it is true that if God has ordained that someone will hear the Gospel, it WILL invariably be preached to them. Again, both means and ends.

A commenter challenged Discoshaman to list some of the practical implications of being a Calvinist, and he promised to post a reply.

A great book explaining, in layman's terms, Reformation theology and its implications for the Christian life is Michael Horton's Putting Amazing Back into Grace. We used it some years back as the basis for a small group discussion. Horton came to Calvinism from a form of revivalist evangelicalism, with its emphases on lists of dos and don'ts and exclusive focus on man's responsibility for salvation -- the discovery of the doctrines of grace, as clearly set out in Romans and Ephesians, indeed throughout the scripture, revolutionized the way he lives out his faith.

One of the most comforting and challenging aspects of Calvinism is its understanding of providence. We learn to see God's hand in everything, that God not only works through direct intervention but more commonly through the ordinary workings of cause and effect. God even works through our sin and folly to accomplish his purposes.

I have a strong tendency to wallow in regret, to look back over foolish decisions, some of them made decades ago, some just days ago, and say, "if only." Ancient follies can make me blush or cringe as if I had just committed them. Recent follies even more so: I saw the doctor a while back because my heart would start racing from time to time. I checked out healthy, but then I realized that I would induce the condition every time my mind turned to what I had done to inflict apparently irreparable damage on a once-close friendship.

The doctrine of providence teaches me that, however I got to this point, I am exactly where God, in his goodness and mercy, wanted me to be at this point, and my task is to be thankful in all things and to be faithful to his calling in my present situation, not to continue to flagellate myself over what I did, or carry bitterness over what others did, to get me to this point. Acting on that knowledge goes against the grain of my personality, but I am called to believe that God works all things for good. Christians who believe that God is somehow handcuffed by the choices we mortals make cannot share in that comfort.

...she takes the painful grit of her own past and turns it into pearls of God's grace. Here's the latest example. Go read it.

"...to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified."

X-ATI Guy's latest entry explains why his site speaks to more than just those who were once involved with Bill Gothard's Institute of Basic Life Principles or Advanced Training Institute. Ordinarily I'd just put up an excerpt, but you need to read the whole thing:

X-ers hold a unique place in Christianity. Whether one's background is IBLP or some other Christian subculture that emphasizes individual performance over Christ's grace, we've endured a level of spiritual scarring--a hardening of the soul. Some of us don't make it, and they become the spiritual washouts, the reprobates, the backslidden untouchables. Others of us realize the problem was in the system, and once we exit the system, we begin the rehabilitative process of discovering God's grace for the first time.

But leaving the program is not enough. The residual effect of the indoctrination controls our perception of God in unhealthy ways. Freeing yourself from years of harsh judgment and performance-based Christianity is a messy process; it is often accompanied by rage, substance abuse, moodiness and long nights of inner reflection. Exiting the Matrix is not pretty. At times, our suspicion of systems of though[t] makes it difficult for us to assimilate truth. Which, of course, provides plenty of ammunition for those still in the Matrix to condemn the X-er. "He has left us because he was not one of us."

God's love is powerful, though, and eventually we discover the joy of a life redeemed by Christ.

For those of us who have unplugged from the system, there's no going back. Supporters of the system label this abandonment as "rebellion," "anger," "pride," and "judgmentalism." If we speak out against the system, we're told to forgive those who have offended us--to go and share how we were damaged. We're advised to move on and get over our hurts. We're frequently told that we're bitter. But you're talking bitterness, and we're talking freedom.

We're told that unity in the Christian world is more important than individual suffering. But since when was the program we left interested in Christian unity? Systematic conformity is more like it.

Our intent is not to judge people, but to judge error. And we make no claims of a special insight into Scripture or a unique connection with God that sets us apart from other believers.

Have we been hurt, misled and damaged? Yes. Are we healing and experiencing God's grace? Yes and yes. That's the ethos of the X-er revolution.

I've never been involved in any of Gothard's ministries, but through college I was a FAT participant in Campus Crusade for Christ. FAT stood for faithful, available, and teachable. "Faithful" meant if your staff discipler asked you to do something, you did it. "Available" meant you didn't get involved in other campus activities or even allow your studies to absorb your free time -- your time was reserved for ministry activities. "Teachable" meant you didn't question the Biblical basis for what was presented; you didn't challenge what you were being taught.

Why would I put up with this? I longed to fellowship with other Christians who were serious about living a dedicated Christian life -- something I didn't see in my home church. Recently I read through Whittaker Chambers' explanation, in the book Witness, of why he, or anyone else, would become a Communist. From my Crusade experience, I could understand the desire to be dedicated to a cause worth living for and worth dying for.

As a committed Crusader, I thrived on the affirmation I received for jumping through the prescribed hoops. Jumping through those hoops had some value. I studied and memorized Scripture. Leading singing at Friday night meetings built my confidence in front of a crowd. Leading small group Bible studies forced me to deepen my own knowledge of scripture. Going on summer missions projects forced me out of my comfort zone. But the affirmation that I was becoming a "man of God" and a "spiritual giant" was what kept me going.

I came to trust my staff disciplers, to believe that they had my spiritual best interests at heart. Looking back years later, I can see that their principal concern was building me into a useful tool for the movement, at whatever cost to preparing me for a lifetime as a Christian in the real world, and all the decisions that entails. (UPDATE: My wife, herself a Crusade veteran, suggests that I don't mean it quite the way it comes across, and she's right. My staff disciplers were not cynical manipulators seeking to use me for their own ends. They simply couldn't distinguish between the best interests of the institution and the best interests of the Kingdom of God. I will add that my first discipler, a senior student, was more focused on building in his disciples a foundation for living the Christian life, less focused on building the Crusade organization.)

One of the things that comes toughest to me as an X-Crusader is believing that I can trust a mentor, that someone out there would be able to help me sort through my options without steering me in a direction that fulfilled his own agenda.

I like X-ATI Guy's comment: "At times, our suspicion of systems of though[t] makes it difficult for us to assimilate truth." Crusaders were sold a systematic approach to the Christian life that only works within Campus Crusade. It makes it hard to buy into any attempt to apply scripture and define the normal Christian life. Cynicism is an easy reaction.

It's a long process of recovery, learning how to live a life motivated by grace instead of the desire to please others.

From A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, Chapter 20:

Our Father which art in heaven, we Thy children are often troubled in mind, hearing within us at once the affirmations of faith and the accusations of conscience. We are sure that there is in us nothing that could attract the love of One as holy and as just as Thou art. Yet thou hast declared Thine unchanging love for us in Christ Jesus. If nothing in us can win Thy love, nothing in the universe can prevent Thee from loving us. Thy love is uncaused and undeserved. Thou art Thyself the reason for the love wherewith we are loved. Help us to believe the intensity, the eternity of the love that has found us. Then love will cast out fear; and our troubled hearts will be at peace, trusting not in what we are but in what Thou hast declared Thyself to be. Amen.

Discoshaman has a post about Ukraine President-elect Yushchenko's program for reforming the government there, focused on ending corruption, with steps such as cleaning up the way state-owned businesses are privatized, and cleaning out the tax code to make it reasonable enough that people and businesses will pay their taxes.

Discoshaman also links to this very interesting post, on developing an evangelical method for sanctification. It looks like worthwhile reading anyway -- with lots of links to previous entries with supporting material. I'm a bit too tired to tackle it at the moment.

I must say that the notion of a "method" for sanctification strikes the wrong note with me. Ultimately, God himself works sanctification in the hearts of his elect through means of his choosing. We're learning about one of God's tools for sanctification in a new Sunday School class at our church -- namely, marriage. The class, called "Sacred Marriage" (based on a book by Gary Thomas) asks this question: "What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?" I can truthfully say that being a husband and a dad has revealed rough edges of my soul in need of sanding, edges that would never have been exposed had I remained single.

And if you need help finding a godly wife, X-ATI Guy comes to the rescue with a Biblical Guide to Wife-Finding -- and he has links to more about relationships in the strange little subculture he studies -- and it rings all to this one-time Campus Crusader.

Lileks offers his help to Blue Staters trying to understand what makes Red Staters tick. And he continues his latest creative project -- trying to imagine a life from a collection of matches (in alphabetical order).

Diplomad is a new addition to my blogroll -- it's the creation of members of the Republican Underground within the U.S. State Department. Here's an interesting post on foreign aid and unintended consequences.

Sunday morning our pastor challenged us to read the Bible through this year. Here's one site, set up like a blog, to make it simple. They've got several RSS feeds, too, for different reading methods.

The version is the English Standard Version, which stays close to the King James Version, while avoiding archaic language and making use of the best available manuscripts -- it's now the version of choice in our church.

It's been too long since I tried something like this, and consequently I no longer know the Scriptures as thoroughly as I once did. While years past of more diligent study have sustained me thus far, it's like trying to survive on your own body fat, without eating -- eventually all your reserves are exhausted.

Many years ago, my dad read the entire Bible in a single day. He used the Living Bible and the speed-reading techniques he had learned to get through it all in 24 hours. I remember that he had marked time estimates at the end of each book so he could pace himself. He was our little Baptist church's Church Training Director at the time, and the stunt was a way to encourage church members to read the Bible through at 1/365th the pace. How hard could that be?

It's not every Sunday service that you hear the pastor read a poem called "I Want to Have a Space Alien's Baby." Not only did our pastor read said poem this morning, he read it twice. In a day or two you'll be able to find out for yourself what that had to do with the rest of his sermon, by going here and listening to the sermon.

In the meantime, you can read the poem here.

When he read this line:

"I spent a night beyond the moon
one time. Aliens are wonderful lovers.
You know that old song about slow hands?
They have six of them."

I nearly let out a belly-laugh, but no one else laughed (we're Presbyterian), so I held it in.

Believe it or not, the poem really is appropriate to the season. And here's something about the man who wrote the poem.

With everyone else exhausted and in bed, and me exhausted but not yet in bed, as I cleared away some dirty dishes, I treated myself to the Christmas Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College Cambridge. The service, held annually (with a few war time exceptions) on Christmas eve since 1917, is a gift from the college to the City of Cambridge. The nine lessons are nine readings from the Bible which set the incarnation in the context of redemptive history, beginning with the fall of man in Genesis 3, the promises made to Abraham, the prophecies of Isaiah, the nativity narratives from Matthew and Luke, and concluding with the first chapter of the Gospel according to John, about the mystery of the incarnation. Interspersed are Christmas hymns, carols, and anthems, mostly traditional, some new but composed after the traditional style.

For many years, Holland Hall School held such a service at Trinity Episcopal Church downtown. As a student I was required to attend the service, grudgingly the first time, but gladly thereafter, and as a member of the Concert Chorus and Madrigal Singers I performed at two services.

As far as I can determine, the tradition was introduced to Tulsa by Father Ralph Urmson-Taylor, a Lancashire-born Anglican priest who came from Yorkshire to Tulsa in 1962 to be a chaplain at Holland Hall. I first encountered Father Taylor when I came to Holland Hall as a third grader, in 1971. For chapel, Father Taylor read to us from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and planted in my heart the seed of an openness to hear more of what C. S. Lewis had to say, a seed that bore fruit eight or nine years later, when I casually pulled The Abolition of Man down from a B. Dalton bookshelf.

(Fr. Taylor is also responsible for bringing another English seasonal tradition to Tulsa -- Trinity's annual Epiphany Procession, patterned after the annual service at York Minster. God willing, I'll be one of the singers at this year's service, January 2nd, at 5 p.m., at 5th & Cincinnati in downtown Tulsa.)

At the beginning of the service, after the processional, Father Taylor would read the bidding prayer. Confessing Evangelical has it as I remember it:

Beloved in Christ, be it this Christmastide our care and delight to hear again the message of the angels, and in heart and mind to go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass, and the Babe lying in a manger.

Therefore let us read and mark in Holy Scripture the tale of the loving purposes of God from the first days of our disobedience unto the glorious Redemption brought us by this Holy Child.

But first, let us pray for the needs of the whole world; for peace on earth and goodwill among all his people; for unity and brotherhood within the Church he came to build, and especially in this our diocese.

And because this of all things would rejoice his heart, let us remember, in his name, the poor and helpless, the cold, the hungry, and the oppressed; the sick and them that mourn, the lonely and the unloved, the aged and the little children; all those who know not the Lord Jesus, or who love him not, or who by sin have grieved his heart of love.

Lastly, let us remember before God all those who rejoice with us, but upon another shore, and in a greater light, that multitude which no man can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh, and with whom in the Lord Jesus we are one forevermore.

These prayers and praises let us humbly offer up to the Throne of Heaven, in the words which Christ himself hath taught us: Our Father, which art in heaven...

That's a beautiful prayer, and I get goosebumps thinking about that next to last paragraph, and think of people like my Uncle Bud Hunt, who passed away earlier this fall -- a man with zeal for God's Word, for God's spirit, and a love for his fellow man that compelled him to proclaim the gospel to others -- now free from pain and delighting in the presence of the Savior he loved so dearly in this life. I think of the last verses of the Epiphany hymn, "As with Gladness, Men of Old":

Holy Jesus, every day Keep us in the narrow way; And, when earthly things are past, Bring our ransomed souls at last Where they need no star to guide, Where no clouds Thy glory hide.

In the heavenly country bright,
Need they no created light;
Thou its Light, its Joy, its Crown,
Thou its Sun which goes not down;
There forever may we sing
Alleluias to our King!

The King's College version of the bidding prayer is a bit different, as one would expect, with references to Mary, the patron saint of the chapel, to the college and city, and to the Monarch. As I listened, I noticed a difference that can't be attributed to differences in local conditions. Dealing with politics as I do, I tune in to what is said and what is carefully left unsaid. There's a difference in the fourth paragraph above. Here's the current Cambridge version:

And let us at this time remember in his name the poor and the helpless, the cold, the hungry and the oppressed; the sick in body and in mind and them that mourn; the lonely and the unloved; the aged and the little children; and all who know not the loving kindness of God.

What's missing? First, the phrase, "because this of all things would rejoice his heart" -- the notion of being in the presence of Jesus, who would be pleased by our intercession for those in need. Second, the final phrase, "all those who know not the Lord Jesus, or who love him not, or who by sin have grieved his heart of love," becomes "all who know not the loving kindness of God." Here again we have language that speaks of the Lord Jesus as one whom we owe love, one whom we may know, and one whose heart is grieved by sin. The language of the traditional prayer reminds the hearer that Jesus is not just a babe in a manger 2000 years ago, not an ancient, long-dead moral teacher, but our living Lord, to whom we owe allegiance and honor. And for what greater need can we intercede, than the need for all mankind to know, love, and obey Jesus?

On the way to Christmas Eve service tonight:

Joe: "Dad, what does PCA stand for?"

Dad: "Presbyterian Church in America."

Joe: "What are the initials of the Presbyterian church for Democrats?"

BBC Radio 4 is running a series of three historical debates -- modern scholars championing the arguments of one of the principals in an important dispute from history. The first program pits St. Augustine of Hippo versus Pelagius on the question of original sin, grace, and the possibility of human perfection. You can listen by clicking here. (Real Player required.)

Dawn Eden links to an interview about the Roman Church's view of the salvation of infants who die without baptism. In that system of doctrine, baptism is required for the washing away of original sin, and that has led their theologians to theorize variously that those dying without benefit of baptism are doomed to hell or consigned to limbo. The article reports that in October Pope John Paul II commissioned an in-depth study of the issue.

Plenty of Protestants have wrestled with this issue as well. I have wondered why it is that, given the higher rates of infant mortality that must have prevailed in Bible times, the Scriptures never deal directly with the fate of children dying in infancy or in the womb.

In looking at what great thinkers and preachers in the Reformed tradition have had to say about the subject, they consistently affirm that those dying in infancy are among God's elect, and by the saving work of Christ on the cross, they are welcomed into the presence of God. Some examples:

• A sermon by Charles Spurgeon.
• A section from Lorraine Boettner's Reformed Doctrine of Predesitination.
• Thoughts from Reformed Baptist pastor John Piper.

Perhaps the clearest and most satisfying answer I've seen is this one by Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His answer seems to hinge on a key difference in the Catholic and Reformed understandings of the effects of original sin. Original sin is present in all of Adam's descendants, making us mortal and making us "utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil." (That's from chapter 6 of the Westminster Confession of Faith. That link will take you to the annotated text with proofs from Scripture.) But when the Bible speaks of eternal judgment, we will be judged according to our deeds:

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Although they share in the common corruption of the human race, that corruption has not come to fruition in those who die in infancy. On that ground, and on analogy with other scriptures, Mohler argues that these infants will be saved and therefore are evidently among the elect. This echoes a similar argument in a 1907 book, The Theology of Infant Salvation by R. A. Webb -- justice would not be satisfied if punishment were inflicted on one who could not understand the reason for punishment.

In the movie "Minority Report," the police determine who is going to commit a crime and arrest and punish the potential criminals before the crime is committed. God doesn't operate that way. He doesn't punish potential or likely or future disobedience, only actual disobedience. There's a passage -- can't remember exactly where at the moment -- that says that God waited until the wickedness of the Canaanites had reached its fullness before bringing the Israelites up from Egypt to conquer the land.

I've written more here than I intended, and less than I should to give this sensitive subject its due. To those who have lost a child in infancy, I offer this with a prayer that God will use these words to comfort you that your child is safe in His arms.

In response to a Seattle pastor who claims that President Bush is the Antichrist, Ace of Spades reposts his "Top Ten Mandated Changes to Make Christianity More Politically Correct and 'Inclusive'". (Warning: contains one mild vulgarity.) An excerpt:

7. Placards displaying "John 3:16" outlawed at sporting events; spectators wishing to display their spiritual beliefs may substitute oversized foam-finger bearing the corporate slogan "Dude, You're Getting a Dell!"

5. Christ's words are modified to make them less "harsh" and "hostile" to non-believers; "I am the Way and the Light" changed to "I am the Way and the Light, if you believe in that kind of thing, and assuming that's your bag"

Evangelical Christianity doesn't have a Pope or a Presiding Bishop to speak with authority on behalf of such a diverse movement, which includes entire denominations like the Presbyterian Church in America and the Southern Baptist Convention, megachurches like Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago, parachurch ministries like the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Campus Crusade for Christ, and Prison Fellowship, independent seminaries and colleges like Wheaton College and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and individual congregations and individual believers who belong to denominations that are not as a whole identified with evangelicalism. While it would be tough to come to a commonly-agreed definition, groups like the National Association of Evangelicals and the Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization have made an effort.

With all this diversity in the evangelical movement, it's disheartening to see Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson plopped in front of a camera every time the media needs a spokesman from the evangelical community, when there are far more credible and eloquent spokesmen who can communicate effectively beyond the evangelical subculture with the rest of the world. I cringed when I saw a recent talk show pitting Falwell against Al Sharpton. Our faith deserves better representation.

David Wayne, the Jollyblogger, writes about the recent column by David Brooks, in which he says the media and the Democrats should acquaint themselves with the real leaders and voices of influence in the evangelical community. As an alternative to Falwell and Sharpton, Brooks nominates John R. W. Stott, the rector emeritus of All Souls Church, Langham Place, in London:

[Stott] was the framer of the Lausanne Covenant, a crucial organizing document for modern evangelicalism. He is the author of more than 40 books, which have been translated into over 72 languages and have sold in the millions. Now rector emeritus at All Souls, Langham Place, in London, he has traveled the world preaching and teaching.

When you read Stott, you encounter first a tone of voice. Tom Wolfe once noticed that at a certain moment all airline pilots came to speak like Chuck Yeager. The parallel is inexact, but over the years I've heard hundreds of evangelicals who sound like Stott.

It is a voice that is friendly, courteous and natural. It is humble and self-critical, but also confident, joyful and optimistic. Stott's mission is to pierce through all the encrustations and share direct contact with Jesus. Stott says that the central message of the Gospel is not the teachings of Jesus, but Jesus himself, the human/divine figure. He is always bringing people back to the concrete reality of Jesus' life and sacrifice.

I have read some of Stott's books, including Basic Christianity and Baptism and Fullness, and have had the privilege of hearing him preach at All Souls, including a wonderful sermon, just before New Year's Day 1992, about living in the tension between "the already and the not yet," the reality that God's Kingdom is at hand, but has not yet been fully consummated. He has a wonderful clarity of thought and expression.

But there are other evangelical leaders, and in particular, American evangelical leaders, who are well equipped to speak intelligently to matters of faith in a cultural and political context. To name a very few: Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship, Marvin Olasky of World magazine, Al Mohler of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Cal Thomas. Behind giants like these is a deep bench of columnists, pastors, seminary professors, and bloggers who combine passion for the truth with wit, precision of thought and expression, and compassion.

Wouldn't it be refreshing to hear important moral issues discussed with the sophistication of thought and expression that these issues deserve?

UPDATE: Comments from readers after the jump.

L'Abri Fellowship, the network of study centers founded by Francis and Edith Schaeffer, will, in 2005, celebrate the 50th anniversary of its beginnings in Switzerland.

L'Abri (the word means "shelter") was established as a place for people "to seek answers to honest questions about God and the significance of human life." The Schaeffers, sent by the Bible Presbyterian Church to Europe as missionaries, just after World War II, sought to respond effectively to the cultural and spiritual trends in an increasingly secular continent. Students come for a few months and spend their days in study, helping with the practical work of the community, and engaging in conversation with the staff and fellow students.

Here's the L'Abri philosophy in a nutshell, from the webpage of L'Abri in Rochester, Minnesota:

The centrality of L'Abri teaching is that Biblical Christianity is true, and that it offers sufficient evidence to say 'it is the Truth'. It can be proclaimed and known without committing intellectual suicide or simply having to say 'just believe'. Because Christ is Lord of all life, Christianity speaks to all areas, not to only what might be called 'religious'. True spirituality is seen in lives, which, through Christ's redemption, are free to be fully human. Therefore, Christians can and should realize the implications and relevance of a Biblical worldview in the arts, sciences, politics, etc. If Christianity is 'the Truth', it will stand up to examination and provide satisfactory answers, and on this basis your questions will be taken seriously and addressed honestly.

World Magazine has just set up a sub-blog devoted to testimonials and reminiscences from those who studied at L'Abri, particularly during the Schaeffer years. It should make for challenging reading, as the church continues to struggle with the question: "How do you confront the culture with the truth of Scripture, when the culture rejects the very notion of truth?"

I never spent any time at L'Abri, but Francis Schaeffer's books have shaped the way I view the world and my faith. If God is there and if He has spoken to mankind, those facts should affect every aspect of life. Here are a couple of sites where you can learn more about Schaeffer: The Shelter and The Francis Schaeffer Institute at Covenant Theological Seminary. And here is a 1982 sermon called "A Christian Manifesto," based on the book of the same name.

Some reading material for Thanksgiving Day:

Pilgrim Hall has the only two primary source accounts of the first Thanksgiving in Plimouth Plantation, and the text of every Presidential Thanksgiving proclamation.

Here is President Lincoln's 1863 Thanksgiving proclamation, which counts the nation's blessings in the midst of war. Lincoln begins:

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

MayflowerHistory.com is a website devoted to the history of the Mayflower and the Pilgrims. The site has the full text of some books and letters written by the Pilgrims.

Karol of Alarming News, who was born in the Soviet Union, tells us what she's thankful for.

Here's a photo from a big family dinner on Thanksgiving Day 1945 at the Waldorf-Astoria. And another dinner from the same year.

For the 44th year, the Wall Street Journal publishes its traditional pair of Thanksgiving editorials: "The Desolate Wilderness," "And the Fair Land." The former is Nathaniel Morton's contemporaneous account of the Pilgrims' tearful departure from Delftshaven and what they saw upon their arrival in the New World. The latter piece is an editorial, ever-timely though first published in 1961, in tribute to what the Pilgrims and their heirs have built in the desolate wilderness:

But we can all remind ourselves that the richness of this country was not born in the resources of the earth, though they be plentiful, but in the men that took its measure. For that reminder is everywhere-in the cities, towns, farms, roads, factories, homes, hospitals, schools that spread everywhere over that wilderness.

We can remind ourselves that for all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators. Being so, we are the marvel and the mystery of the world, for that enduring liberty is no less a blessing than the abundance of the earth.

And we might remind ourselves also, that if those men setting out from Delftshaven had been daunted by the troubles they saw around them, then we could not this autumn be thankful for a fair land.

(This was going to be a general blog roundup, but the Dynamic Duo in Ukraine had too much interesting material.)

Discoshaman is busy after a summer on hiatus. He posts his response to the clowns at sorryeverybody.com, and he lists Entertainment Weekly's list of top cult films and highlights the ones he's seen. And he reflects on evangelicalism, cities, and heaven:

The Duchess and I are both big city people. While Red State in our values, the idea of actually living in one is a little scary.

So I got to thinking. . . our eternal reward described in Rev. 21 is a city. Which explains why Paris, San Fran, Prague or Budapest all feel like a foretaste of heaven. I'm sure there's some charm to small towns that I've missed, but nothing compares to the energy of the City.

I agree. Especially Prague.

The Discoshaman's wife, TulipGirl, is blogging about child development mis-leader Gary Ezzo and exposés of his teaching by TV stations in Detroit and Wichita. The focus of the TV stories was on the hazards of Ezzo's approach to scheduled infant feedings, but as TulipGirl says in the comments, "I honestly think the advice for toddlers and older children is more harmful in the big picture." About that advice -- dealing with discipline and behavior -- another mom comments, "Following the Ezzo plan for older children turned our children into little 'moralists.' They could spout the right and wrong of things, but they had not incorporated anything into their hearts. It was all about being trained in behavior rather than reaching to their hearts. It also turned their good behavior into ways to get rewarded. They did things for reward, as opposed for the love of virtue, which is what Ezzo's plan is supposed to prevent."

TulipGirl also blogs about a program with similar flaws: Bill Gothard's Institute for Basic Life Principles (IBLP) and Advanced Training Institute (ATI).

In the olden days, it was customary for pastors to preach election day sermons, an opportunity to instruct the flock in the Biblical principles that should inform the exercise of their franchise. The practice is enjoying something of a revival. The best election sermon is not one marked by blatant advocacy for or against a candidate but by calling the congregation to consider first principles: For what purposes did God establish human government? What is its proper place among God's ordained institutions, such as the church and the family? Christians in New Testament times were persecuted and didn't have the right to participate in imperial Roman politics (not that anyone else had the right) -- how then should we conduct ourselves in a nation where we do have such rights?

Christians have tended to oscillate between radical activism and pietistic apathy. The Oklahoma Council for Policy Analysis has posted a fascinating speech by Graham Walker, delivered to a chapel service at Oklahoma Wesleyan University. Walker seeks to guide the listener to steer a course between the two extremes. No time to comment, but you will find it here.

Sunday morning our church choir sang this beautiful hymn, a metrical paraphrase of Psalm 23 by Isaac Watts. The tune is "Resignation" from Southern Harmony, the popular 19th century hymn collection.

For Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) Dawn Eden features an article written by her mom Rachel in reply to one of Dawn's readers. Like Dawn, Rachel and her husband Ron are Jews who follow Jesus. (You can find links to their accounts of their spiritual journeys on the left-hand side of Dawn's blog.)

Rachel's article deals with replacement theology, the notion that there is no longer any place in God's economy for the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Rachel cites numerous passages of scripture, including the 11th chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans. You really have to stand on your head to read those passages as referring to anything other than the natural descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (And I have seen this done, metaphorically speaking.)

This paragraph particularly impressed me:

I LOVE being Jewish. I grew up with a meaningful, joyous and restful Sabbath. Our family spread a white tablecloth on the table, dined on traditional foods, sang Grace and hymns together. We celebrated all of the Festivals of the Bible; Passover, the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot a.k.a. �Pentecost�), and Sukkot (Tabernacles). We built a booth, a Sukkah, and ate in it for eight days. We learned Hebrew from the age of five. When I became a believer, I became a Biblical Hebrew teacher. I love that I can unravel some of the wonderful secrets of the Hebrew Bible because I understand how many of the words are related to each other. And I love sharing these secrets with other believers. My family still celebrates all of the Festivals or Leviticus 23, and we are amazed at the Lord�s fulfillment of each. Most people think that Communion is just about wine and bread memorializing Christ's death on the cross. Yet He Himself is the Paschal (Passover) Lamb, and He told us at that last Seder to "Do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22, Matthew 26, Mark 14). It makes sense, since He made great preparation for that Seder, and that He wants us to do the entire thing in remembrance of Him.

My college fraternity was founded as a Jewish society, later becoming non-sectarian. Our chapter was about a third Jewish, two-thirds Gentile. Although I had had Jewish friends in high school, it was much different, and fascinating, to observe first hand the variety of ways that these young men practiced their faith. The Jewish guys in the fraternity came from a variety of backgrounds -- from laid-back LA agnostics to strictly observant Long Island Orthodox and the whole spectrum of belief and practice in between. Some kept strictly kosher, cooked meals in their own kitchen, and used separate sets of pots and dishes for meat and dairy. At the other extreme, I saw someone eat ham and cheese on matzoh during Passover. But for all that diversity, everyone observed the principal holidays -- Pesach and Yom Kippur.

After graduation, I attended the weddings of a number of my Jewish fraternity brothers. The ceremonies, the traditions, and the blessings made me wish I had as rich a tradition to draw from, and it sparked an interest in Anglican liturgy, but that tradition doesn't have an equivalent to the Jewish emphasis on family worship, which is evident in the paragraph I quoted above.

We did what we could to tap into some sort of tradition, and it seemed reasonable to draw on the Book of Common Prayer as the common cultural heritage of the Anglosphere, whether or not we were Anglican ourselves. Mikki and I used the ceremony from the 1979 Episcopalian BCP for our wedding ("Dearly beloved" and all that), with the traditional vows, and we even made the Bible Church pastor who presided wear his doctoral robes over his suit, since he refused to wear a cassock. (Had I known better then, I probably would have chosen the traditional version from the 1662 BCP.) Writing your own wedding vows just seems wrong to me -- as if the happy couple were inventing marriage on their own terms, rather than following in the footsteps of the billions of couples who had gone before. (Are the origins of today's marriage debate to be found in sappy self-authored '60s ceremonies?)

From time to time, we tried, in our early married years, to use the BCP evening prayer service for our family worship time, but it was hard to stick with it. At least, the attempts have given me a lasting appreciation for liturgy and the benefit of reading prayers written by others, the sort of thing that was mocked as rote, inauthentic, mere formalism in the Baptist church I grew up in.

Evangelical family worship is pretty much "roll your own", and even if you adopt or develop a satisfactory pattern, there's something missing, because it doesn't connect you with the community of faith. In fact, it sets you apart, because it's unlikely that anyone else is using the same pattern as your family. I appreciated what our pastor did for our church this last Advent -- he wrote and distributed a short home liturgy, which our family used each night to light the Advent candles. (Katherine, then three years old, would break in at the same point each night. As I would read the written prayer which began, "O God, as light comes from this candle," she would stop me and say, "No, Dad, you mean, 'As God's light comes to this candle.'") It was nice to have something that was both theologically sound and prescribed, something that connected us to other church families who were following the same liturgy. We continued to use the Advent service, adapted somewhat, through Christmastide, but ran out of gas when we reached Epiphany -- I was sent out of town for two weeks, and we were without a plan for continuing.

While I greatly appreciate the freedom we have in Christ to observe holidays or not, and to decide how to observe them, there are times I wish I could say we're celebrating in this way because our people have been celebrating in this way for centuries.

Even if you aren't Anglican and aren't classically inclined, you will still enjoy the Classical Anglican Net News, a link-heavy news blog that covers the Anglican and Episcopalian world, faith, and culture, but everything else under the sun as well. A headline, a link, and a pithy comment -- more than 100 every two or three days. Some recent samples:

HU'S ON first-- becomes China military chief. Abbot & Costello ensues .... (reuters)

THE LORD'S MUSIC AND THE DEVIL'S WORDS-- Ray Charles, 1930-2004 .... (steynonline)

HE WENT TO PAKISTAN to become a fighter, martyr, but he returned home a Christian .... (newindpress.com)

AL QAEDA wants to nuke a U.S. city. There are simple ways to stop it .... (latimes.com)

THE ROOTS of Pentecostal Scandal�Romanticism Gone to Seed .... (CT)

That last article was pretty interesting and I may blog about it, if I get the time to do so.

CANN -- links to hundreds of interesting articles, plus links to Morning and Evening Prayer in accordance with the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Doesn't get much better than that.

An observation for a Sunday morning.

You can sing Charles Wesley's hymn, "And Can It Be," to the tune of the verse of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

The question is, "Should you?"

The answer is, "No."

Screed on singing traditional hymns to "modern" tunes will follow when I'm feeling especially screedy.

I'll accept this:

Hat tip to Just Believe.

While Googling for a Robert Hall reference I found this insight, in the epilogue of an account of a cross-country bicycle trip taken by Illinois schoolteacher Robert Graham in the summer of 1999:

Without having exact measurements, I'm pretty sure that every foot of slope I coasted or screamed down was met with a corresponding slope I had to climb back up. When people take pictures of bicycle tourers they are always either running down a hill or pedaling easily across the flat. It looks like SUCH fun. But in terms of real time, that picture is way out of whack. Three days up the Sierras, twenty minutes down. Three days up the Rockies, three hours down. And innumerable mountains and hills in between. One hour up at 5 mph, two minutes down at 40 mph. And I don't even want to TALK about the Appalachians!

I'm working on a life analogy here. There is no way I would have enjoyed the thrill of the downhills without the pain of the uphills. Yes, I could have gotten a ride to the top of every hill and just ridden down. What a rush. But the pleasure wouldn't, couldn't have been the same.

American culture has been inundated with advertising that, no matter what the product, has told us over and over for years and years now that we DON'T have to climb the hill in order to enjoy the thrill of the drop. We've heard it so many times it has become a part of our cultural fabric. (And we're spreading it so successfully to the rest of the world!)

Problem: you can TRY to hide from truth, but you can't succeed. So we have a nation full of people who think they're happy. They MUST be happy. Why? Because the TV tells them 10,000 times a day that they ARE happy. Get your pleasure with no pain attached!! And get it NOW! No waiting!!! Who even hears anymore the few true preachers of the Word who are saying the opposite? It's a million against one. No contest. Game over.

But the gut doesn't lie: we feel crappy. We keep buying, using, consuming; keep finding steeper and steeper hills to go down, using stronger and stronger drugs...and it's all so temporary. Nothing makes the ache go away. And we have no idea why. (We used to vaguely remember, but we're in the 2nd television generation now. And the preachers have joined the circus.)

We wonder why our suicide rate is skyrocketing, why our mental health industry is exploding, why our pharmaceutical industries are on top of the stock market (are YOU making money off the nation's death throes?), why illicit drug use continues to plague us, why extreme sports are getting more extreme, why we have that dull blankness in the pit of our stomachs.

There's only one solution. You've got to climb the mountain in order to experience the full joy of zooming down the other side. The climb takes way longer than the zoom. And that's just how it is. People I know who are happiest understand this formula. It gets harder and harder to teach.

And there's more, about America, about fatherhood. Interesting stuff.

Eve Tushnet reviews a new book by David Aikman, the former Peking bureau chief for Time magazine, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power.

If Aikman's assessment is accurate, China is being transformed from the inside out, and the nation may make a smoother transition to liberty because of it. The rise of Christianity and the rise of capitalism are rebuilding mediating institutions and networks of trust that had been destroyed by Communism as a matter of policy. In the West, civil society preceded civil liberty. In the Third World and in liberated totalitarian societies, the reverse has often been true, with disastrous effects.

This month marks 15 years since the remarkable demonstrations in Tienanmen Square. Our hopes were dashed to see the regime's brutal crushing of dissent, but of course God causes all things to work for good -- even the oppression of tyrants -- and perhaps the delay of freedom and democracy prevented chaos and a return to even fiercer oppression. God's words to the Israelites in Exodus 23:28-30 comes to mind:

I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way. But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.

Let's keep China's Christians in our prayers.

An interesting piece in the latest The New Republic about globetrotting evangelist K. A. Paul:

Over the past two decades, Kilari Anand Paul, a self-described "Hindu-born follower of Jesus," has cultivated a peculiar specialty as spiritual adviser to the scum of the earth. Liberia's Charles Taylor, Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic, and Iraq's Saddam Hussein are among the more infamous butchers to talk with Paul about the moral implications of running a brutal, repressive, and occasionally genocidal regime. In fact, Dr. Paul, as everyone calls him (thanks to an honorary degree from Living Word Bible College in Swan River, Manitoba), has counseled scores of corrupt political leaders at all levels of government, as well as warlords, rebels, and terrorists from Mumbai to Manila to Mogadishu. By Paul's estimate, he has gone mano a mano with the leaders of every significant terrorist and rebel group in the 89 countries where his ministry operates. ...

But, despite such high-profile interventions, Paul remains virtually unknown in the United States--and the anonymity is driving him crazy. It's not that he craves public acclaim, says Paul (though quite clearly he does). It's that GPI's humanitarian work--aiding disaster victims and supporting thousands of orphans and widows throughout the Third World--costs money, and the United States is where the money is. But it's hard to raise cash when no one has ever heard of you. ...

Americans tend to prefer their humanitarian and spiritual leaders humble and self-deprecating, � la Jimmy Carter or Billy Graham. Paul, by contrast, is so desperate to convince you of his influence that he can come across as either a liar or a crank. ...

By all accounts, Dr. Paul's overseas peace rallies are sights to behold. Most take place in Africa or India, where villagers stream in from around the countryside to see, as one Indian paper put it, "the mesmerizing evangelist," who has become a minor celebrity across much of both continents. A "small" rally is defined as an audience of 10,000 or 20,000. Large rallies stretch upward of a million. (GPI claims its largest was three million attendees at a 2001 event in Lagos, Nigeria.) Surrounding the speakers' podium, on which Paul is joined by local politicos and traveling dignitaries, bodies crowd together in a sea of humanity. "I hesitate to tell people how big these crowds are, because they can't comprehend it," says Texas oil billionaire Nelson Bunker Hunt, who served as co-chair of GPI until recently. Until you see the crowds yourself, you assume the numbers are inflated, agrees Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who traveled to India with Paul in January 2002. "But there were maybe seventy-five thousand, a hundred thousand," Huckabee says of the rally he attended. "I'm not sure I ever saw that many people except at a major football game."

Very interesting to read of this man and his cultural dilemma -- how do you win the support of Americans when the way you talk about yourself pegs the finely-tuned B.S. meters of most Americans. American evangelicals are accustomed to hearing "evang-elastic" accounts of ministry success, which they credit in inverse proportion to the size of the claim.

The same article links to an earlier TNR story about India's untouchables, and the troubles they face if they convert from Hinduism to a religion that will treat them like equals.

This poem was a favorite of the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. The opening four lines were used by her husband, King George VI, to open his Christmas address to the nation in 1939, just a few months after the start of World War II.

I really need to curtail my surfing and get some work done or at least some sleep, but I should let you know that Dawn Eden has written a series of excellent, thought-provoking essays called "The Truth in Small Things". She's on the sixth installment, and I suspect that there is more to come. You can find all of them in the April archive of her blog, the Dawn Patrol.

Here's a highlight, from her third essay:

As for myself, I'm thirsty all the time. I'm also hungry�I can never understand those people who claim that they "forget to eat." But when I read the Scriptures, I realize that I am not hungry enough.

"He turneth the wilderness into a standing water, and dry ground into watersprings. And there he maketh the hungry to dwell, that they may prepare a city for habitation" (Psalm 107:35-36).

What does this tell us?

You could say that it means God feeds the hungry, which He does�the next verses say He gives them fields to plant and that he allows their cattle to increase. But there's another meaning in those verses, one which gives me pause:

There is a condition for living in the city of God. And that condition is hunger.

It doesn't say, "God takes the satisfied people and sets them up so they can stay satisfied." It says, "He maketh the hungry to dwell..."

That hunger is a figurative hunger�the same hunger that Jesus speaks of in the Sermon on the Mount, when he blesses "they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness" (Matthew 5:6).

When you are hungry, really hungry, it's hard to think about anything else. Likewise, hungering for righteousness means not being able to rest until your hunger is satisfied. As Augustine wrote of God, "Our hearts are restless until we find rest in You."

Today I am going to practice an exercise. Whenever I feel hungry or thirsty, before I fulfill that need, I am going to get in touch with it and try to imagine, just for one moment, how much I really need God for everything in my life. Because "in Him we live and move and have our being," yet "His footsteps are not known." He is so omnipresent that it is possible to go through the day without sensing his presence.

Hunger�real spiritual hunger�is a gift. Cherish it.

A failure to focus on the Cross of Christ, to "preach" to ourselves the good news of God's forgiveness and acceptance of us in Christ, can lead to busyness or to introspection. I realize I don't measure up to God's standards, and it is easy to look to my performance as a way to affirm my standing before God. Or at the other extreme, I can withdraw into introspection and self-pity, despairing of fellowship with God and finding other ways to comfort myself. That's the gist of an excellent essay by Jay Wegter:

Certain temperaments are prone to specific departures from cross-centeredness. The �catalytic extrovert� has a personality that makes things happen. He shies away from introspection. He seldom retreats into the �grey castle of self.� He prefers to manage his dereliction (depravity) by performance, production, and by the generation of massive amounts of work.

The extrovert�s problem is harder to see than the person�s who is neutralized by condemnation. Yet the extrovert�s deviation from cross-centeredness is just as real � he may be operating by law, not grace.

By contrast, the person laboring under a yoke of condemnation feels that heaven is staring at him in one large cosmic frown. Thus he retreats into the grey castle of self and attempts to comfort his soul with sensual things justified by self pity.

Having lost sight of the cross, he does not entertain high prospects of the Lord�s desire to meet him and commune with him. Comfort from the Lord seems light years away.

From John Owen's The Things of This World:

Whither so fast, my friend? What meaneth this rising so early and going to bed late, eating the bread of carefulness? Why this diligence, why these contrivances, why these savings and hoardings of riches and wealth? To what end is all this care and counsel? "Alas!" saith one, "it is to get that which is enough in and of this world for me and my children, to prefer them, to raise an estate for them, which, if not so great as others, may yet be a competency; to give them some satisfaction in their lives and some reputation in the world." Fair pretenses, neither shall I ever discourage any from the exercise of industry in their lawful callings; but yet I know that with many this is but a pretense and covering for a shameful engagement of their affections unto the world. Wherefore, in all these things, be persuaded sometimes to have an eye to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Behold how he is set before us in the gospel, poor, despised, reproached, persecuted, nailed to the cross, and all by this world. Whatever be your designs and aims, let his cross continually interpose between your affections and this world. If you are believers, your hopes are within a few days to be with him forevermore. Unto him you must give an account of yourselves, and what you have done in this world. ...

Labor continually for the mortification of your affections unto the things of this world. They are, in the state of corrupted nature, set and fixed on them, nor will any reasonings or considerations effectually divert them, or take them off in a due manner, unless they are mortified unto them by the cross of Christ. Whatever change be otherwise wrought in them, it will be of no advantage unto us. It is mortification alone that will take them off from earthly things unto the glory of God. Hence the apostle, having given us that charge, "Set your affection on things above, and not on things on the earth," Col. 3:2, adds this as the only way and means we may do so, "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth," verse 5. Let no man think that his affections will fall off from earthly things of their own accord. The keenness and sharpness of them in many things may be abated by the decay of their natural powers in age and the like; they may be mated by frequent disappointments, by sicknesses, pains, and afflictions, as we shall see immediately; they may be willing unto a distribution of earthly enjoyments, to have the reputation of it, wherein they still cleave unto the world, but under another shape and appearance; or they may be startled by convictions, so as to do many things gladly that belong to another frame: but, on one pretense or other, under one appearance or other, they will forever adhere or cleave unto earthly things, unless they are mortified unto them through faith in the blood and cross of Christ, Gal. 6:14. Whatever thoughts you may have of yourselves in this matter, unless you have the experience of a work of mortification on your affections, you can have no refreshing ground of assurance that you are in anything spiritually minded.

Link via The Threshold, and its page of links on the godly life.

Surfing around I found an interesting website, spiritualdisciplines.org. The site's proprietor, Don Whitney, is a frequent guest speaker at churches and conferences, and he has come up with a list of 10 questions for a conference planner to consider, in order to insure that they are treating the meeting's guest speakers with courtesy and consideration. In church settings, guest speakers aren't usually compensated as professionals, paid for their time or expertise, which makes it all the more important to ensure that their expenses are covered and their basic needs are met. Here's his introduction, and a sample of the 10 questions:

Those with little experience hosting guest speakers may be unaware of some of the courtesies their guests will appreciate. Because of my frequent travels as a guest speaker, I'm sometimes asked for tips on showing hospitality to other visiting speakers. Answering these questions will help you excel in this sort of hospitality....

Are you prepared to offer several restaurant options?

Just about everyone has likes and dislikes. You may be planning on going to your favorite local seafood restaurant, for example, but not know that your guest doesn't like or is allergic to seafood. If you plan for your guest to eat a complimentary breakfast served in his hotel, ask if it is sufficient. The quality of these varies widely, and nearly all supply nothing but carbohydrates, something your guest may be trying to minimize.

I found Whitney's website through the links page of Grace To North America, a ministry which works to facilitate planting churches which are faithful to the Reformed doctrines of grace. The links page is going to be worth exploring further: It includes links to online repositories of the works of Jonathan Edwards and Charles Spurgeon and to a host of other soul-provoking articles.

And I found Grace to North America through Founders Ministries, an organization devoted to "encourag[ing] the return to and promulgation of the biblical gospel that our Southern Baptist forefathers held dear."

I'm part of a group going through The Purpose Driven Life, and I've just read Chapter 5, which refers to the Parable of the Talents. That reminded me of this item from Lark News, a very funny Christian news satire website, which I meant to blog about months ago. Actually, the more I think about this the sadder it seems:

Man, 91, dies waiting for will of God

TUPELO � Walter Houston, described by family members as a devoted Christian, died Monday after waiting 70 years for God to give him clear direction about what to do with his life.

"He hung around the house and prayed a lot, but just never got that confirmation," his wife Ruby said. "Sometimes he thought he heard God's voice, but then he wouldn't be sure, and he'd start the process all over again."

Houston, she says, never really figured out what his life was about, but felt content to pray continuously about what he might do for the Lord. Whenever he was about to take action, he would pull back "because he didn't want to disappoint God or go against him in any way," Ruby says. "He was very sensitive to always remain in God's will. That was primary to him."

Friends say they liked Walter though he seemed not to capitalize on his talents.

"Walter had a number of skills he never got around to using," says longtime friend Timothy Burns. "He worked very well with wood and had a storyteller side to him, too. I always told him, 'Take a risk. Try something new if you're not happy,' but he was too afraid of letting the Lord down."

To his credit, they say, Houston, who worked mostly as a handyman, was able to pay off the mortgage on the couple's modest home.

Many evangelical Christians are afflicted with this form of paralysis, which is the result of defective teaching about discerning God's will and making decisions. There's this notion that God has a specific plan for your life that He expects you to follow, and if you don't, you've wasted your life, but He's not going to make it easy for you to find out what that plan is, or to distinguish between your own gut feelings and human advice and what God really wants you to do.

The truth is that God has revealed in the Bible everything He wants us to know about Himself and what He wants us to do. Within those boundaries, we have the freedom and the responsibilty to make prudent decisions. In terms of career, that means seeking the counsel of friends, parents, and mentors, and having a realistic view of our own gifts and skills, and even considering our own desires.

I could go on about this, but I'm too tired right now. Go look at larknews.com and have a thought-provoking laugh. And for a more serious treatment of the issue of decision-making, vocation and God's will, check out this page of Q&A from Tim Keller, the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. Note particularly the entries under "God's Will" and "Vocation".

On the PCAnews website, there's an article by Paul Kengor, author of God and Ronald Reagan, about how Reagan's personal faith emerged in his speeches and letters:

In a March 1978 letter to a Methodist minister who expressed doubts about Christ's divinity�and accused Reagan of a "limited Sunday school level theology"�Reagan responded:

"Perhaps it is true that Jesus never used the word "Messiah" with regard to himself (although I'm not sure that he didn't) but in John 1, 10 and 14 he identifies himself pretty definitely and more than once. Is there really any ambiguity in his words: "I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me?"� In John 10 he says, "I am in the Father and the Father in me." And he makes reference to being with God, "before the world was," and sitting on the "right hand of God."�

"These and other statements he made about himself, foreclose in my opinion, any question as to his divinity. It doesn't seem to me that he gave us any choice; either he was what he said he was or he was the world's greatest liar. It is impossible for me to believe a liar or charlatan could have had the effect on mankind that he has had for 2000 years. We could ask, would even the greatest of liars carry his lie through the crucifixion, when a simple confession would have saved him? � Did he allow us the choice you say that you and others have made, to believe in his teachings but reject his statements about his own identity?"

A politician who is just trying to adopt a veneer of religiosity for political convenience would not write a letter trying to persuade someone of the deity of Christ -- why risk offending a voter? This letter displays deep knowledge and the deep love of a Christian toward his Savior.

Reagan's critics, unwilling to debate the issues, would attack his intelligence, creating a false public image that has even seeped into the consciousness of his admirers. The publication of his private letters and his radio broadcast notes, memoirs by close aides like Peggy Noonan and Peter Robinson -- all have served to refresh our memories of his intelligence, his clarity of expression, his firm convictions, and his warmth and grace, even toward his detractors. We read things like this, from the period just before his 1980 campaign, and we remember why conservatives were so energized at the thought of him serving as our president.

Read the whole thing.

She dreams about non-existent train stations. She writes songs about historic events that occurred in Worms, Germany. She writes liner notes for '60s pop album reissues. She writes about replacement theology.

She's Jewish. She's a born-again Christian.

Her name is Dawn Eden, and she has a fascinating and well-written blog. Check it out.

Here's her story of coming to faith in Christ, and the perspective of her sister, a Reform rabbinical student.

Oh, and she's single. Here are her "looking fors" and "deal breakers". She has high standards, and although I don't aspire to be the one she's looking for (already taken, thanks), those are characteristics I aspire to have. And this "Salonica" she has planned for tomorrow afternoon -- "literate, Christian-friendly discussion and fellowship over Sunday brunch at one of New York City's best-loved Irish pubs" -- sounds like great fun.

Thanks to dustbury.com for linking to Dawn's song about the Concordat of Worms.

Today is the anniversary of a suicide bombing of a city bus in Haifa, Israel, which took the life of 16 innocent people, including Abigail Litle, the 14 year old daughter of Philip and Heidi Litle, college friends of mine. In memory of her, I invite you to read an article I wrote shortly after the bombing, and an article by her dad, written a month after the attack, about Abigail's triumphant faith in Jesus.

Remembering Abigail, a victim of hate

Remembering Abigail, a victor in faith

In a recent letter to friends and family, Phil told us how Abigail's school planned to remember her and a classmate who died in the attack:

Heidi has focused for the past weeks on the upcoming one-year remembrance of Abigail�s death. The Jr. High and grade school have begun a month emphasizing the value of human life. During the course of the next month in the Hebrew calendar they intend to discuss subjects such as how to cross the street with care and why not to use drugs. They will mark the anniversary of the bombing on the first of Adar (February 23rd) with a memorial ceremony and a march to the site of the bombing. During this month the school has planned a hike in memory of Yuval -- Abigail�s classmate who was killed -- and an exhibition of Abigail�s art at the school.

Heidi has been very involved with the administration in setting up this program, particularly in helping select and frame Abigail�s work. The school has taken the song The Power of a Moment by Chris Rice as the theme of the exhibition. The page from Abigail�s calendar on which she drew two clouds kissing as they partially cover the sun while rain falls, watering a tree and which included her paraphrase of Chris�s song, will be the centerpeice of the exhibition. The school has translated the song into Hebrew. This translation will be displayed along side her drawing. During the course of the month, the students will study the text of song in their literature classes.

While holidays and days of remembrance follow the Hebrew calendar, most people here think in terms of the Gregorian calendar. So on March 5th we will hold a one year memorial service at the grave side. Children from school and officials from the city as well as members of our local congregation are planning to attend. Our children want to be involved in doing something to remember their sister. We�ve talked some about what we want the time to include, but there is still much to think about -- with a lot of that falling on Heidi to work through.

To read more about Abigail:

Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a page about Abigail.

Here is an account of her faith and how it was expressed through her funeral.

Here is a Jerusalem Post story about the bombing, with links to other stories.

And here (scroll down toward the bottom) is an editorial by Israel's consul in the Midwest US:

Abigail Litle, also an American citizen, who died at 14. She was one of 17 innocent civilians killed (and 53 injured) by a homicide bomber while riding home from school on a Haifa bus March 5th. Litle, like so many of the 772 innocent Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism and violence, was simply involved in a normal activity in her daily life-coming home from school. She was not aware that her life was at risk simply because she was riding a bus with her classmates. The bomber alone made the decision that it was her time to die a horrible death.

Litle, the daughter of the representative of the Baptist Church in Israel, had lived in Israel since infancy. She lived in Haifa, a town with a large Arab population. Abigail had been part of the Children Teaching Children program at the Jewish-Arab Center for Peace at Givat Haviva since last September - a program that teaches pluralism, tolerance and coexistence. They and their classmates were preparing for the upcoming meeting with Arab youth from a neighboring town.

Abigail personified the promise of a future where Jews and Arabs could coexist peacefully. She worked for dialogue and understanding between Christians, Jews and Muslims. She truly embodied a spirit that anyone seriously concerned with achieving a just peace in the Middle East, would do well to emulate.

Keep the Litles in your prayers, and pray for real peace (not just a phony "peace process") for Israel.

National Review Online has a great interview with the author of A Travel Guide to Heaven. DeStefano is not writing some New Age nonsense that sprang full-grown from his own imagination. He is attempting to present orthodox Christian doctrine about heaven in a manner accessible to mainstream readers. When asked when and why he decided to write the book, here's his reply:

Coventry Chorale is rehearsing for a traditional Advent Service of Lessons and Carols at Grace Episcopal Church in Ponca City. (5 p.m., Sunday, December 14.) Tonight we rehearsed a hymn for Advent that was new to most of the singers but was well-received for its text and lyrics.

Here is the first verse:

The people who in darkness walked
have seen a glorious light;
on them broke forth the heav'nly dawn
who dwelt in death and night.

It is a metrical paraphrase of Isaiah 9:2-7 by John Morison (1749-1798), set to the tune Dundee, from the Scottish Psalter of 1615. The text, as altered in the 1982 Episcopal Hymnal, is here. An evidently older version, perhaps closer to the original, is in the 1961 Trinity Hymnal. The original seems to be here, in the Scottish Psalter and Paraphrases. (CyberHymnal also has that version.)

What I like about this song is that it is truly a hymn for the Advent season, not just a Christmas carol we sing early. It is a paraphrase of a prophecy of the coming Messiah. It expresses a central theme of Advent -- the contrast between the darkness and light -- between the darkness of mankind's rebellion against God and the light of Christ, which has pierced the darkness. Each night as our family lights the Advent candles we read the passage from Isaiah 9, as part of a devotional prepared by our pastor. Now we can sing it as well.

Advent is mostly forgotten or observed as an extended Christmastide. Traditionally, Advent was a penitential season, like Lent, signified by the liturgical use of purple, in contrast to the white of Easter and Christmas. Advent is a time to reflect on our own brokenness and sinfulness, to renew our yearning for redemption and reconciliation with God, a time to retrospectively look forward with the saints of the Old Testament, longing for the redemption which came in Christ's first advent, and a time to look forward to the consummation of all things and our ultimate deliverance from sin and death at our Lord's second advent. Advent is a time to build up an appetite, to hunger and thirst for righteousness, so that we can properly appreciate our hunger's fulfillment in the miracle of the Incarnation.

A major part of my college experience was my involvement with Campus Crusade for Christ, an evangelical interdenominational outreach to college students. The Sunday's Boston Globe has a story on the growth of evangelical groups at Harvard, MIT, and other Boston campuses.

There are 15 evangelical Christian fellowship groups at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology alone. This is a pretty stunning development for a university where science has always been god, where efficiency and rationality are embedded in the DNA of the cold granite campus. Hundreds of MIT students are involved in these fellowships -- blacks, whites, Hispanics, and Asians, especially Asians. Some of the groups are associated with powerhouse national evangelical organizations, like Campus Crusade for Christ and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Others are more home-grown. Either way, the ranks are multiplying. ...

And somewhere along the way, evangelical Christianity -- which a generation earlier had been a mark of embarrassment, a sign that you had checked your brain at the gate -- became not just tolerated but cool.

You can see this in the throngs of students from around Boston who cram into Harvard's Science Center on Friday nights to sing, "We are hungry for more of You/We are thirsty, oh Jesus." The event is called RealLife Boston, which is Campus Crusade's name for its 500-student Boston-area ministry, and the SRO crowd is made up of well-built athletes, attractive faces, even artsy types with chin hair and trendy black glasses. The emcee is Aaron Byrd, an easygoing junior from Abilene, Texas, who plays safety on the Harvard football team.

Sounds like the evangelical groups are approaching or surpassing the level of 20 years ago, when I was on campus.

It's an interesting profile, from the Globe's left-wing, secular perspective, but fairly balanced nonetheless.

(Link via Instapundit.)

UPDATE 6/2/2005: I'm sure the article is long-gone from the Globe's website, but you can still read it here, on the website of Brian Ellis, a CCC staffer based in Cambridge.

Clayton Cramer calls attention to a remarkable survey by Barna Research, which reveals a lot of theological confusion in America -- born-again Christians who believe that you can earn a place in heaven by good works, and atheists who believe in heaven, hell, and that Jesus is the way to eternal life. From the report:

Many of those who describe themselves as either atheistic or agnostic also harbor contradictions in their thinking. �Half of all atheists and agnostics say that every person has a soul, that Heaven and Hell exist, and that there is life after death. One out of every eight atheists and agnostics even believe that accepting Jesus Christ as savior probably makes life after death possible. These contradictions are further evidence that many Americans adopt simplistic views of life and the afterlife based upon ideas drawn from disparate sources, such as movies, music and novels, without carefully considering those beliefs. Consequently, the labels attached to people � whether it be �born again� or �atheist� may not give us as much insight into the person�s beliefs as we might assume.�

On the one hand, this is encouraging news for Christians, because these contradictory beliefs held by atheists represent a point of contact between the atheist and the Biblical world view, and thus an avenue for the Gospel. On the other hand, the idea that one's worldview should hang together logically no longer seems to be accepted by the American public -- that's bad news for the spiritual realm and the civic realm.

Blogging has been light -- we've been taking it relatively easy the past few days.

Doing our part to help the local tourism industry, we decided to stay in Oklahoma for my son's fall break, including a day here in town.

We actually left the state for the weekend, so that my wife, Mikki, could attend a reunion of her college church choir, the New Creations. The New Creations choir was part of the collegiate ministry of University Baptist Church in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The choir was founded in the late '60s and was active for 30 years, involving over a thousand students over the years. During Mikki's involvement (1980 - 1985), the choir sang at the Sunday morning collegiate services and went on spring break tours around Arkansas and around Europe. In addition to weekly rehearsals, a singer would meet once each week with a different singer for prayer. Tanner Riley was the choir's director during my wife's involvement, and many students who sang for him describe him as more than a choir director -- a friend, mentor, and counselor as well.

UBC has the distinction of a mission that matches its name -- University isn't just an indicator of proximity to campus, but ministry to college students has been the heart of its mission, particularly under the nearly 40 years of leadership from Senior Pastor H. D. McCarty. Along with the choir, UBC ran a student housing program for many years, using nearby houses and an old fraternity house. UBC housing was not just a place to live but also a program of mentoring to develop students as followers of Christ. Mikki is also an alumna of that program.

About 100 singers, and three of the choir's four conductors, gathered for the reunion, along with spouses and kids. Although I was just there as the spouse of a singer, I enjoyed the weekend as well. I didn't feel out of place: Many of Mikki's fellow singers were still around Fayetteville when Mikki and I started dating, and I met them at them at the many weddings we attended in the years after graduation. It was fun to watch the directors put the choir through their paces.

The music they sang would never be described as timeless. The music, by composers Beryl Red and John Purifoy, among others, reflected its era, a time when church musicians were trying to connect with the Baby Boom youth culture by dropping old hymn tunes and campmeeting songs in favor of more modern sounds. To be honest, the attempt at being contemporary was always about 10 years out of date, and the sounds I heard had more in common with an Andy Williams rendition of an adult contemporary chart topper than with the Beatles or Janis Joplin.

The music may have been the audio equivalent of polyester bell-bottom slacks, but the message is timeless. I was especially touched by John Purifoy's setting of Jesus' words in Matthew 11:28-30:

Come to me all who labor
And are heavy-laden down
And I'll give you rest...
Here you'll find rest,
You'll find rest for your weary souls,
For my yoke is easy,
And my burden is light.
Come to me.

Those words must have had a poignancy for these singers that they lacked decades ago amidst the relative simplicity of college life. In the rubble of broken dreams and good intentions unfulfilled, there remains a promise of rest in Christ Jesus.

The Kiev (Ukraine) Symphony Chorus and Orchestra will perform this Friday night at 8 p.m. at Union Performing Arts Center, as part of their 2003 US tour. These talented musicians are a symbol of the resurgence of music, culture, and faith in the old Soviet Union.

The chorus was founded in 1992 by a visiting American musician, who organized the first Ukrainian performance of Handel's Messiah in over 70 years. The following year the chorus was expanded to 100 singers and an orchestra was added. Over time, a church of 600 members and ministries to widows and orphans emerged as part of a larger organization called Music Mission Kiev.

The link above will take you to their repertoire for this concert tour, which includes works by Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Mussorgsky. I am particularly looking forward to the selection of Slavic a capella pieces. As a member of Coventry Chorale, I had the privilege some years ago to sing selections from Rachmaninoff's Vespers, an a capella setting of ancient Orthodox chants. This music will give you goosebumps, and all the more when you know how the lyrics glorify Christ and exult in his incarnation and resurrection.

The link above will take you to the website of Christ Presbyterian Church (my home church), which is cosponsoring the concert with the TU music department and Reformed University Fellowship (a campus ministry of the Presbyterian Church in America). Tickets are $10, and most area Christian bookstores have them for sale.

This morning at 8:46 am local time, Trinity Episcopal Church will host a choral concert to remember the victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Coventry Chorale and singers from other Tulsa choirs will present Gabriel Faure's Requiem. Admission is free.

Reflections in d minor, another Oklahoma-based weblog, with an emphasis on classical music, links to a biographical survey and analysis of the music French composer Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924), by Terry Teachout, in the June issue of Commentary.

Fauré's Requiem (text and translation here) is one of my favorite choral works. I particularly love the movement "In Paradisum", which beautifully weds text and music, and leads the listener to the gates of the New Jerusalem:

In paradisum deducant angeli:
In tuo adventu suscipiant te martyres,
Et perducant te in civitatem sanctem Jerusalem.
Chorus angelorum te suscipiat,
Et cum Lazaro quondam paupere
Aeternam habeas requiem.

Into paradise may the angels lead you:
May your arrival be greeted by the martyrs,
And may they lead you into the holy city, Jerusalem.
Choirs of angels sing to you,
And with Lazarus, once a poor man,
May you have eternal rest.

Christian sages from Richard Baxter to C. S. Lewis follow the apostle Paul in exhorting us to set our minds on things above. The Requiem, with its dire warnings and its hope of eternal rest, can help us in that regard.

This year's September 11 memorial service at Trinity Episcopal Church in downtown Tulsa will feature Fauré's Requiem, performed by the Coventry Chorale and members of other Tulsa choral groups. Details to be added to this entry later.

The most difficult part of heavenly contemplation is, to maintain a lively sense of heavenly things upon our hearts. It is easier merely to think of heaven a whole day, than to be lively and affectionate in those thoughts a quarter of an hour.

Faith is imperfect -- for we are renewed but in part -- and goes against a world of resistance; and, being supernatural, is prone to decline and languish, unless it be continually excited. Sense is strong according to the strength of the flesh; and, being natural, continues while nature continues. The objects of faith are far off; but those of sense are nigh. We must go as far as heaven for our joys. To rejoice in what we never saw, nor ever knew the man that did see, and this upon a mere promise of the Bible, is not so easy as to rejoice in what we see and possess.

It must, therefore, be a point of spiritual prudence, to call in sense to the assistance of faith. It will be a good work, if we can make friends of these usual enemies, and make them instruments for raising us to God, which are so often the means of drawing us from him. Why hath God given us either our senses or their common objects, if they might not be serviceable to his praise? Why doth the Holy Spirit describe the glory of the New Jerusalem in expressions that are even grateful to the flesh? Is it that we might think heaven to be made of gold and pearl? or that saints and angels eat and drink? No, but to help us to conceive of them as we are able, and to use these borrowed phrases as a glass, in which we must see the things themselves imperfectly represented, till we come to an immediate and perfect sight. Besides showing how heavenly contemplation may be assisted by sensible objects, this chapter will also show how it may be preserved from a wandering heart.

-- Richard Baxter, The Saints' Everlasting Rest, Chapter 15

Participants in this year's Tulsa course of the Royal School for Church Music will sing several Choral Evensong services around Tulsa this week. Here's the schedule:

Monday 14 July - Thursday 17 July 7:45 p.m. - University United Methodist Church 5th Street and South College Avenue

Friday 18 July
6:00 p.m. - First Presbyterian Church
7th and Boston Avenue

Sunday 20 July
4:00 p.m. - Trinity Episcopal Church
5th and Cincinnati

The course participants will also sing the morning liturgy at Trinity
Episcopal Church on Sunday 20 July at 11:15 a.m.

James Litton - Director; Jeremy Bruns - Organist

Music by Shephard, Archer, Bairstow, Sowerby, Sumsion, Smith, Bainton, Mundy and Howells

Choral evensong is a brief, traditional Anglican service that combines the reading of scripture, Psalms set to Anglican chant, and eloquent prayers that are as relevant today as when they were composed over 400 years ago. It is a world away from contemporary worship services that seem more focused on the worship leader than on God. Make it a point to attend at least one service this week.

This week, the week of the 4th Sunday after Trinity, each evening's service will include the following "collect" (prayer):

O God, the protector of all that trust in thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy; Increase and multiply upon us thy mercy; that, thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal: Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ's sake our Lord.

It's graduation time, and our thoughts turn to the commencement ceremony. Three weeks ago I was at my cousin's high school graduation, where we listened to the superintendent urge the graduates to register to vote and elect legislators who would shovel more money into the schools. 17 years ago, at my college graduation, we all sat in heavy rain for an hour while we listened to the World's Most Boring Commencement Speaker (William R. Hewlett) read, in monotone, a speech that he was apparently seeing for the first time as he stood at the podium. It was a litany of his company's engineering achievements, recited in excruciating technical detail. I have a photo of me, looking like a drowned rat, taking my diploma from Paul Gray, MIT's last good president, and not coincidentally, its last alumnus to serve as president. Gray's charge to the class (continued on this page) was actually pretty good, although we were all too wet to notice. Gray delivered the only funny line of the day, which came from a parent:

"After the soaking I've take from this place for the past four years, what's a little rain?"

Here is a much shorter, much funnier, and much more inspirational commencement speech. It's three years old, but I just came across it, thanks to a link today from Jonah Goldberg on The Corner. Conan O'Brien addressed the Harvard class of 2000, on the 15th anniversary of his own graduation from the red brick schoolhouse up Chuck River from MIT. In an inspirational speech, he prepared the students for a lifetime failure and ridicule:

So what can you expect out there in the real world? Let me tell you. As you leave these gates and re-enter society, one thing is certain: Everyone out there is going to hate you. Never tell anyone in a roadside diner that you went to Harvard. In most situations the correct response to where did you go to school is, "School? Why, I never had much in the way of book larnin' and such." Then, get in your BMW and get the hell out of there.

You see, you're in for a lifetime of "And you went to Harvard?" Accidentally give the wrong amount of change in a transaction and it's, "And you went to Harvard?" Ask the guy at the hardware store how these jumper cables work and hear, "And you went to Harvard?" Forget just once that your underwear goes inside your pants and it's "and you went to Harvard." Get your head stuck in your niece's dollhouse because you wanted to see what it was like to be a giant and it's "Uncle Conan, you went to Harvard!?"

He went on to tell the story of his post-Harvard career, marked by low-paying jobs and bad career moves, like leaving SNL to write a sitcom that never made it to air. Even taking the Late Night post looked like a bad move at first, as he suffered a barrage of negative reviews. He winds up by telling the graduates not to fear failure:

Needless to say, I took a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, some of it excessive. And it hurt like you wouldn't believe. But I'm telling you all this for a reason. I've had a lot of success and I've had a lot of failure. I've looked good and I've looked bad. I've been praised and I've been criticized. But my mistakes have been necessary. Except for Wilson's House of Suede and Leather. That was just stupid.

I've dwelled on my failures today because, as graduates of Harvard, your biggest liability is your need to succeed. Your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve. Because success is a lot like a bright, white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you're desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it in any way.

I left the cocoon of Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left the cocoon of The Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet, every failure was freeing, and today I'm as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good.

So, that's what I wish for all of you: the bad as well as the good. Fall down, make a mess, break something occasionally. And remember that the story is never over.

That's a gem -- buried in the laugh lines, something these graduates really needed to hear. If you've gone to a school like Harvard or MIT, you either succeed big or you never get over the sense that you could have done more with your opportunities. And a fear of big failure can keep you from taking the risks that could lead to big success, so you settle instead for middling security.

Conan and I started college the same year. I could have been his classmate, as I had an offer from Harvard, but declined it for MIT's offer because I figured an engineering degree would give me a better chance at a job after graduation. (Yes, there is a difference between being smart and being savvy.) Some night, when I'm feeling especially rueful, I'll tell the story of what went into that decision. Don't get me wrong -- I made wonderful friends at MIT, I got a solid education, and I have many happy memories. And MIT is a great choice if you are in love with science or engineering. I chose MIT because it promised a career that would provide a secure future in comfortable surroundings, not necessarily a career that I would love.

Looking at my job history and Conan's circa 1990, my choice of MIT and engineering looked pretty sound -- I had been continuously employed, my salary had gone up every year, and I had received job offers from competing companies. Since 1990, I've stayed on a linear track. Conan took risks, was doing something he loved, and after a slow and bumpy start his rise was exponential. Of course, his career track may just as easily have followed a spectacular downward curve, but at least he'd be failing while doing something he loved.

The Bible reminds us that neither earthly success or earthly failure are permanent:

So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless.

In light of this reality:

A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?

My advice to my graduating cousin? Understand and delight in your God-given abilities and inclinations. Find a job you will love. Use college to help you get there. Don't play it safe.

UPDATE: Steve Young has written a graduation address with a similar theme, which begins, "THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR TO SUCCESS IS FAILURE!" Citing the examples of Elvis Presley, Oprah Winfrey, and Walter Cronkite, Young writes:

All these people share one thing in common. They ignored the "experts." They refused to let hardships stop them on the road to victory. They learned that every triumphant discovery resulted from many unsuccessful experiments; that every home run has been tempered by a multitude of missed swings; that every great script was built on the back of endless rewrites; that every top performer has been humiliated by more than one performance; that failure is part of the process that breeds success.

In NRO today, David Klinghoffer (who is Jewish) argues that there shouldn't be objections to Christians communicating the Gospel as they bring supplies and help to the Iraqi people. After all, Abraham, revered by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, was a missionary for monotheism, and used hospitality to create opportunities for his message:

Abraham was pretty aggressive. In another cryptic verse in Genesis, he's said to have planted an "eshel" in Beersheba (21:33). If that is just a kind of tree, as many translators say, who cares that he planted one? According to the Talmud, this eshel refers to an inn Abraham established in the wilderness, a hospice where he taught wayfarers to acknowledge God. The patriarch would give them food, then ask them to say grace.

Sound familiar? As Christian missionaries understand, food creates fellowship. We eat with our friends. And it is friendship that, more than food itself, leads to conversions.

How could any religious believer, who thinks his faith has the answers to ultimate questions, not share those answers with others? The patriarch operated in a free market of ideas, where he was able to share his conception of the One God. Part of his legacy is missionary work. Another part is the liberty to make friends by offering food, and then to tell them about your God.

With a tip of the cap to Andrew Stuttaford of National Review Online for pointing this out, here is a fascinating review by Christopher Hitchens of a new book on the origins of the King James Version of the Bible by Adam Nicholson. The review includes a link to the book's first chapter.

Although I find translations like the NIV or the more word-for-word literal NASB better suited for study and comprehension, the King James Version is a cornerstone of the modern English language, and its turns of phrase inhabit our everyday speech. That's why I'm happy that the scripture memorization my son does at his school is done in the KJV. That is the only appropriate choice for a school with a classical emphasis.

UPDATE: The Washington Post has posted this review, by Jonathan Yardley.

There's more to the story of Abigail Litle. About a month after her murder by a terrorist, her father Phil, a friend of mine from college, collected his thoughts and remembrances of his daughter, of learning of her murder, mourning her death, and celebrating her victory over death through her faith in Christ. With Phil's approval and encouragement, I want to make her story known as widely as possible. The full text is below. (You can also download the original PDF from Phil. It's a large file, 961 KB, which included some color photos, but the text is identical to what you see here.)

Here's a quote from Phil's introductory letter, which is an apt summary of the article.

The measure of our love for Abigail can be found in the depth of our pain. How it hurts that we can no longer hold her, that our partnership in the dreams she dreamt is broken and that our dreams which included her being here on earth with us are over. But we are finding comfort and strength in the Lord through the prayers of the multitudes who are interceding for us � many who we have never met. We are thankful that we can know that we will hold her once again as we share together in our Heavenly Father�s Kingdom.

We have tried to record some of the events and our experiences beginning with the moments we first heard of the bus bombing in Haifa. Our desire is that the Lord would enourage your hearts and strengthen you as you pray for us in the weeks and months ahead.

In case you missed it, an excerpt from the remarks of State Senator Bernest Cain:

"I got a quote the other day that I got from Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler. And I don't have the exact words, but here's basically what it says. He says, in our government we are going to put Christians in key positions of responsibility because there has been too much liberal access going on out there and we are going to straighten up and make sure that the Christian culture is back in control. Now folks, they took Jewish people and they took them out and they strung them apart, they killed them, they mass murdered some of those people, and all of the ideas that were behind that were, and they were doing this while they were having Christian music going on, while they were having hymns. They killed thousands of Jews while they were doing hymns. That is what happens when you let the right wing of the Taliban come in and try to dictate to the State how we should run our business."

You can read it all here in the context of the legislative debate, with a brief, apt rebuttal from State Senator Charles Ford.

Cain has used his position as chairman of the Senate Human Services Committee to block legislation aimed at protecting the dignity and sanctity of human life. For example, he blocked a ban on human cloning which passed the State House on a 96-0 vote and which was sponsored by fellow Oklahoma City Democrat Opio Toure. On this occasion as well, he took the opportunity to bash supporters of the bill.

"I'm not going to pass laws just so a bunch of right-wingers can go pump to their folks that they passed something," Cain said. "I'm not going to do that. We've got too much of that junk."

I see from Cain's bio (linked above) that he learned philosophy as an undergraduate at Oklahoma Baptist University. Hope they do a better job of filtering out the duds nowadays.

Separation of church and state notwithstanding, you can't separate your theology (or lack thereof) from your politics. What you believe about the existence and nature of God and the nature of mankind will shape your ideas about government and society. If we build public policy on a solid foundation of ideas that reflect the world as it really is, we will build a peaceful, happy and prosperous society. If we build policy on a complete misunderstanding of human nature, we will produce chaos and despair. That's why I like to ask candidates -- particularly judicial candidates who won't be drawn out on specific issues -- "Are people basically good, or basically evil?" If they get this question wrong, they'll make all sorts of bad decisions, and I'll end up in my house behind seven different kinds of locks, hoping the marauding hordes will leave me alone.

This is what got me thinking about this: In today's "Bleat", James Lileks tells us about a couple of Anthony Burgess's dystopian sci-fi novels (The Wanting Seed, A Clockwork Orange), and how they reflect Burgess's fascination with "the dynamic between the teachings of St. Augustine and the Pelagian heresy." Augustine said that it was not possible for man not to sin -- because of the fall, humans cannot acheive perfection, apart from God's grace. Pelagius said, yes, it was possible for man to be perfect, and Augustinians shouldn't be so lazy about attaining personal holiness. Of course, theology has implications for public policy: "...in this argument, Burgess saw the two poles of political philosophy at work in the West, and beyond. Augustinian philosophy, which saw man as flawed and sinful and basically hosed when it came to perfectibility in this mortal plain, was the conservative view. Pelagius was liberalism: our nature is not only perfectible, we can perfect ourselves here and now."

Which view you hold comes down to a matter of religious conviction but it leads you to very different conclusions about the role of government, how to educate, how to deal with crime. Some theological propositions aren't testable, but with regard to human nature, we have thousands of years of recorded history to draw from. We can see how real humans have responded to various methods of governing and quickly determine which set of presuppositions, which model, is closest to reality.

I am reminded of a Monty Python bit: The Amazing Mystico and Janet, an illusionist (and his assistant) who builds high-rise apartments by hypnosis -- they stay up as long as the tenants believe in them. In real life of course, apartment buildings stay up only if they are constructed in accordance with the immutable laws of physics, exploiting those laws to produce the desired result. In the same way, a society built in accordance with the immutable laws of human nature will stand firm, while no amount of sincere believing will sustain a society built upon an illusion.

Read the whole article. Lileks' Bleat is always worth reading, and the rest of his site is hilarious, thought-provoking, and amazing, too.