In his post You Will Never Guess Who Is Really Responsible For The Softening of Males In The Church, Mark Sayers shifts the blame for the current “sea of passivity” in modern males from feminism to men like John Newton.
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“All those who hate me love death.” Proverbs 8:36
Ralph Smith notes that Western culture, particularly the United States, is suffering from a clash of two worldviews, two competing narratives that “vie for the right to define our world.”
A review of the biblical story already sets the biblical worldview against much modern thought. The theory of evolution, of course, contrasts sharply with the miraculous creation of the world in six days and man’s special creation as the image of God. The story of Adam and Eve as the original family stands in stark, if implicit opposition to all forms of racism, feminists’ denial of different sexual roles for male and female, homosexuality, and polygamy, to name only a few areas in which contemporary thought clashes with the Christian worldview.
Mark Driscoll used a combination of conservative doctrine and cultural liberalism to build his church. Some snippets from Mark Driscoll’s book The Radical Reformission:
Reformission evangelism, patterned after the example of Jesus, is particularly appropriate for our current economy, in which people live much of their lives pursuing experiences… Reformission evangelism to our growing experience economy will require Christians and churches to steep the gospel in the culture with increasing creativity, hospitality, and authenticity. This is necessary because lost people living in an experience-based economy are willing to immerse themselves in the life of a Christian community to experience it for themselves and to see firsthand the experiences of people Jesus has transformed.
“Courage is the flower of conviction.”
When Christians speak of “cultural engagement,” what comes to mind? Are we thinking diamond rings or swords and strategies?
Jefferey Ventrella again:
Postmillennialism provides a biblically tenable basis for hope in God’s future grace. But we must not forget that God’s decree ordains both the end as well as the means. Christians must “work out their own salvation,” and this means ethical living by God’s holy standard, that is, theonomic living…
A truly “catholic” church has universal appeal. It doesn’t pander to diverse audience. And it simply can’t be that diverse anyhow. Terry Johnson writes:
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Doug Wilson writes:
“The debate in the early church was not whether the Jews should stop circumcising their sons; it was whether the Gentiles had to start. The decision of the Jerusalem council was not that individual Gentiles did not have to be circumcised. If circumcision had been required of them, it would have obligated them to live as Jews under the Mosaic law — which included the circumcision of all subsequent generations. Circumcision was not being waived for individual Gentiles; circumcision was being waived for Gentiles and their seed. So the Christian church did not insist that Gentiles circumcise their infants — not because they were infants, but because they were Gentile infants” (To a Thousand Generations, pp. 68-69).
Since there is no ex-plicit proof of infant baptism, Pastor Wilson’s self-stated, continuing goal here is to find im-plicit proof. My goal in the following is to show that not only do circumcision and baptism not correspond, but also that the solution to the dispute in this passage he refers to is given in the passage, leaving no room for an im-plicit reference to infant baptism.
Here’s a great post from Doug Hayes’ blog, republished here with his permission.
When Rich Bledsoe was with us at Family Camp he mentioned a paper he wrote: Sex and the City, [PDF] which we have now placed on the RCC website. It is an interesting piece of biblical social commentary worth thinking about.
Bledsoe contrasts the great ancient cities with the great city of God, the New Jerusalem and their respective sexual commitments and activities. At the base of his comments is the presupposition that it is important for us to think about cities because “the entire planet is ‘metropolizing.’ Everywhere, human beings are leaving their rural roots and are moving into the city.”
Richard Bledsoe has posted an interesting article in two parts on the Biblical Horizons blog.
“The great question for the emerging East, for Asia and other awakening third world areas, for an emerging nation like China is, ‘what fate awaits them?’ They are now emerging from an analogous paganism that the West emerged from centuries ago. Here an amazing quotation from David Aikman, the Time Magazine religious editor. He is a quoting from ‘a scholar from one of China’s premier academic institutions, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing, in 2002.’
Just watched the movie Gattaca again (with daughter Olivia). It begins with a couple of quotes, one of them being:
“Consider the work of God; For who can make straight what He has made crooked?” Ecclesiastes 7:13
This is one of those movies that delivers more upon repeated viewings.
“…that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the Land, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.” Matthew 23:35
“from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation.” Luke 11:51
The Hebrew word for “land” is feminine. [1] The fruitful Bride is pictured in the fruitful field. Both are to be cultivated and cared for under God by Covenant.
When the priesthood was faithful, God promised to make the people, animals and Land fruitful: the Covenant “to,” the input of the Spirit as Head, as Covenant Word made flesh. Deuteronomy 28 gives a long list of ways in which God would make her abundant. Continue reading
