The case for infant baptism

Justin Taylor presents two summaries of the case in favor of infant baptism. He intends to present the case for believers' baptism soon.

Between Two Worlds: The Case for Paedobaptism

At ease in the world

Also at Church Matters, Matt Schmucker on why today's church seems to have lost interest in eternity: "We hear 12 step sermons to make everything better in this life and rarely hear about the next." He suggests six reasons. The second:

2. We're too content. Living in America is to be comfortable. I know there are exceptions, but even the poor in America (according to recent studies) live better than most of all of human history. We're content. Why long for something else when things are fine - here? Our wealth buys us out of hard labor. Our healthcare buys us out of extreme pain. We are content/comfortable with this world, not eager for the next. And so we don't speak of eternal matters.

We are, almost uniquely in history, cushioned against pain and death. Unless a member of one of the helping or emergency professions, most of us go through life without really encountering either. This could hardly have been true in any other time or place, even for the wealthy and privileged. Our material and medical blessings can distract us from things of ultimate importance.

As if to drive home the point, at Challies.com, The Unbearable Weight of Hell

Church Matters: 9Marks Blog

Baptism and church membership

Is baptism prerequisite to church membership? At Church Matters, Aaron Menikoff writes about the history of the debate among Baptists, beginning with Bunyan.

Church Matters: 9Marks Blog

Beyond Personality

I had read most of the published material by and about C.S. Lewis long before I had a chance to hear his voice. That was not the experience of most of his countrymen — he was a radio personality first for most of them, presenting short talks on the BBC during the Second World War. Very few of those broadcasts were preserved.

The BBC has made available the only surviving audio recording of the radio talks that C.S. Lewis later adapted to become Mere Christianity. It is of material that contributed to the third section of the book: "Beyond Personality." Listen here: "The New Men." (Realmedia, about 14 min.) The original broadcast was on March 21, 1944.

At the same BBC site is a much shorter reading by Lewis of an introduction to The Great Divorce. It was broadcast on May 9, 1948, and can be listened to here: "The Great Divorce" (Realmedia, about 2 min.).

Thanks to the New York C.S. Lewis Society for the reference.

BBC - Religion & Ethics - C.S. Lewis

"Echoes of fundamentalism"

The Associated Baptist Press has distributed a story by Robert Marus about the Seventh Day Baptist decision to remain affiliated with the Baptist Joint Committee (BJC). In it, this blog is quoted:

“The BJC has pursued a doctrinaire ‘wall of separation’ position with respect to the [First Amendment’s] establishment clause,” wrote James Skaggs, a retired Wisconsin teacher, in a June 5 entry on his “One Eternal Day” blog (www.one-eternal-day.com). Skaggs has been an outspoken opponent of continued Seventh Day Baptist affiliation with BJC.

“In alliance with a wide array of liberal religious and non-religious groups, it has filed briefs encouraging the courts to adopt that view,” Skaggs noted. “The cumulative effect of such court decisions is to reduce the ability of religion to influence government policy and to prevent government from using religious institutions for social good. It has also been a vehicle used by anti-religious groups in America to increasingly remove religion from the public square.”

Skaggs' arguments echoed those used by fundamentalists in the Southern Baptist Convention. In the 1980s, they began an effort — ultimately successful — to withdraw from the BJC. The move cut off the groups largest supporter, nearly crippling it. But the BJC has rebounded since.

Interesting. I wonder how the Associated Baptist Press defines "fundamentalist" in this context. It is a term seldom used in a non-pejorative sense these days. From The Associated Press Stylebook as quoted at GetReligion:

fundamentalist The word gained usage in an early 20th century fundamentalist-modernist controversy within Protestantism. In recent years, however, fundamentalist has to a large extent taken on pejorative connotations except when applied to groups that stress strict, literal interpretations of Scripture and separation from other Christians. In general, do not use fundamentalist unless a group applies the word to itself.

The BJC issues had little to do with theology, and a great deal to do with church/state relations in Constitutional law and American history. If my arguments echoed those of "fundamentalists in the Southern Baptist Convention" (few of whose arguments I have read), they also echoed the arguments of First Things Roman Catholics and evangelicals, or National Review lawyers, or of social or traditionalist conservatives of no religious faith. It would probably have been better to simply summarize the arguments rather than attempt to draw parallels with controversies in other denominations — and thus risk committing "guilt by association."

Seventh Day Baptists to stay in Baptist Joint Committee

"Let Jesus come into your heart"

Michael Spencer explains What’s Wrong With “Christ Knocking at the Door of Your Heart.”

InternetMonk: What's wrong with Christ knocking at the door of your heart

"Wholesome children's titles"

National Review is having a sale of children's books. I took advantage of the offer last week and the books arrived yesterday - three great sets [two books each] that they describe as "wholesome children's titles." They are wholesome, and good, and fun, and I anticipate much pleasure from them.

1. Treasury of Classic Children's Literature [Volumes One and Two]. A selection of stories most of which were originally printed in St. Nicholas Magazine, a popular magazine for young people that published from the last decades of the 19th century until the mid-20th. The stories in these volumes were selected by William F. Buckley, Jr. and include authors like Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling ["Rikki-tikki-tavi"], Jack London, Louisa May Alcott, and many others.
2. Treasury of Classic Bedtime Stories [Volumes One and Two]. These volumes collect all twenty of Thornton Burgess's "Bedtime Story Books." My father owned some of these books and I have pleasant memories of his reading them aloud. The stories follow the adventures of such as Reddy Fox, Peter Cottontail, Jerry Muskrat, and Old Man Coyote. The characters and their adventures are perfect for younger children. Burgess intended not only to create good children's stories but also to encourage an appreciation for nature.
3. A boxed set of two Howard Pyle books: The Wonder Clock and Pepper and Salt. Howard Pyle was a painter and illustrator of considerable reputation - the founder of the Brandywine School which also included N.C. Wyeth and other noted artists. These two are among a number of books for children or young people [e.g. The Book of Pirates, Story of King Arthur and His Knights] that Pyle both wrote and illustrated.

Store on National Review Online

Elvis

At GetReligion, on the 30th anniversary of his death, a reflection on Elvis and gospel by Terry Mattingly:

Frankly, evangelicals have never known what to do with Elvis. He represents the down side of both emotional, charismatic (in several senses of that word) Protestantism and the rise of the whole culture of sex, drugs and rock & roll.

As I wrote a few years ago, in a column that ended up in my book:

No picture of Elvis is complete without faith, as well as failure. He was not the first or the last devout country boy to stray in the big city.

. . . If there is a cautionary tale here, it is another reminder that believers should be careful when dealing with heroes.

. . . The boy who made his profession of faith in a Baptist church in Tupelo, Miss., struggled to hold on to that faith for the rest of his life. The Elvis story is packed with pain, piety, sin, struggle, glory, guilt and repentance.

YouTube has a number of clips of Elvis singing gospel. This seems to be an informal performance:

Elvis never left the church (in his heart) » GetReligion

"It's just easier"

A good essay at First Things about the political [and personal] advantages of avoiding confrontation:

You have probably already discovered one distinct advantage of supporting abortion rights if you have loved ones who have had an abortion. It's just easier. Betray your qualms about the practice in general and they are liable to feel you've betrayed them, and then you in turn are liable to feel their resentment. If your sole objective is to avoid social conflict, you might well calculate that the ticket is to keep your thoughts to yourself and say you're pro-choice.

Expedience is the oxygen politicians run on, but they can’t say that, and so they invoke or invent principles that enable them to pander and call it philosophy. “Government should stay out of the bedroom.” .... (the rest)

Most of the contentious moral issues are like that. It's easier to get along with everyone if you just avoid taking a stand. "Live and let live." That is one of the reasons many [especially younger] evangelicals are attracted to libertarianism.

FIRST THINGS: On the Square » Blog Archive » The Seamless Garment Reconfigured

Proof texting

"Proof texting" is finding a phrase or verse in scripture that will "prove" your point, rather than allowing scripture, in context, to mean what it says. Blogational points to an egregious example of proof texting by Rick Warren, described at Extreme Theology:

In his column Warren makes the case that laughter is a good thing and that God has a sense of humor. Before I go on let me say that even though this is a shallow point to be making, I agree with Warren about the psychological benefits of laughter. I also believe that God has a sense of humor. .... The problem is that Warren supports his conclusion with twisted scripture.

Here is what Warren wrote:

One of my favorite verses in the Bible is Psalm 2:4, “The One enthroned in heaven laughs.” Isn’t that a great verse? God has a sense of humor. God laughs!...Do you want to be more like God? Learn to laugh. A sense of humor can preserve your sanity.

So what’s the big deal? The verse says God laughs, what could be wrong with that?

Let’s look at this passage in context and you’ll see what the problem is. Here is what the passage says in context, pay close attention to verses 4 and 5:

Psalm 2:1-6

1. Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
2. The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his anointed, saying,
3. “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”
4. He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.
5. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying,
6. “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.”

When this passage says that God’s laughs, it is not referring to a therapeutic, stress relieving belly laugh or sense of humor. The laughter it is referring to is the laughter of derision that is followed by terrifying wrath and fury. This verse in context doesn’t support the point that Warren is making. Yet, Warren says that Psalm 2:4 is one of his favorite verses in the Bible. How can this be unless Warren read’s Bible verses as if they were disconnected fortune cookies sayings?

One might hope that very popular preachers and evangelists would exercise great care in their use of Scripture. And that those of us with a much smaller public would, too. I have no doubt that I have been guilty of misusing verses to prove my point rather than trying to discern what they really say.

Extreme Theology: Warren's Use of Scripture is No Laughing Matter

"We win, they lose."

Three who won the Cold War and ended the threat of global thermonuclear war.

The Claremont Institute - The Great Triumvirate

Defending the faith

As previously noted here, Harold O.J. Brown died last month. He was important to evangelical Christianity, and to the larger pro-life movement for many reasons. I think I first encountered him in the pages of National Review in the early 1970s, which evidenced his belief that faith has political implications. Today Albert Mohler remembered one of Brown's books that was important to him Heresies: Heresy and Orthodoxy in the History of the Church. Mohler:

Christianity is a doctrinal religion. As Professor Brown observed: "For many religions, the cardinal test is right conduct or right observance; for Christianity it is right faith. Christianity is full of specific doctrines."

Heresies is a profoundly important book about a profoundly urgent concern for the church. Professor Brown was keenly aware that our Christian responsibility is to receive the faith and then to pass it on to the next generation of believers.

Professor Harold O.J. Brown served the church by reminding us all of this great responsibility and by his defense of doctrinal orthodoxy. Dr. Brown died July 8 after a recurrence of cancer. His recent death should remind us all of the responsibility he so bravely fulfilled in this book - to defend the faith against all heresies.

Why Heresy Matters -- A Remembrance

Membership

Mike Gilbart-Smith wants particular answers before he would recommend someone for church membership.

Church Matters: 9Marks Blog

Mastering the Bible

Fred Sanders at Scriptorium and Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost, have both recently re-posted some older posts about an approach to the Bible that they have found helpful. It is based on a book written in 1904 by James M. Gray, How to Master the English Bible. An excerpt from Sanders:

One thing Gray is careful to emphasize in the following pages is that he does not recommend reading the whole Bible cover to cover in course, at least not if you're attempting to achieve mastery. Reading all 66 books is just too much. Your mind cant retain it all, and even if you read cover to cover twenty times in a row, you will not master that bulk of material. Pick one book and devote yourself to it until it belongs to you. The plan was to read and reread each book by itself and in its order, as though there were no other in existence, until it had become a part of the very being. ....

Gray provides a set of pointers in a chapter entitled “The Plan at Work.”

1. Begin at the Beginning. Here he does recommend working through the Bible from Genesis on.

2. Read the Book. That is, don’t study it minutely, but read through it at a natural reading pace.

3. Read it Continuously. “The adjective may not be the most lucid, but the idea is this: It stands for two things – the reading of the book uninfluenced by its divisions into chapters and verses, and the reading of the book in this way at a single sitting.” (p. 45)

4. Read it Repeatedly. Over and over and over and over and over.

5. Read it Independently. Commentaries are great, but your bad outline is better than an expert’s good one. Why is that the case? Because the goal of mastery is not to produce the best possible summary of the book itself, but to develop your own skills. “The independent reading of a book in this sense is urged because of its development of one’s own intellectual powers. To be ever leaning on help from others is like walking on stilts all one’s life and never attempting to place one’s feet on the ground. Who can ever come to know the most direct and highest type of the teaching of the Holy Spirit in this way?” (p. 49)

6. Read it Prayerfully. This is the great note that Gray ends his book with, and it is a welcome note in a book with a cheeky title that promises “mastery of the Bible.” ....

Carter lists some "practical suggestions" that differ in a few respects from the advice offered by Gray, but that do seem eminently practical:

1. Choose shorter books and work up to longer ones. Since you'll be reading an entire book of the Bible and not just a chapter or two, you'll want to work your way up to more extensive readings. When beginning this program you may want to start with a short book that has only a few chapters that can be read several times in one sitting. This will not only give you a sense of accomplishment but will give you an idea of how quickly you can “master” the material. ....

2. Read at your normal pace. Treating the material reverently does not require reading at a slower than normal speed. Read for comprehension, ignoring the division of chapters and verses and treating each book as one coherent unit.

3. Skip the commentaries. Don’t get bogged down by referring to commentaries or other outside sources. Commentaries are for your Bible study, rather than for this “synthetic reading.” Read the book in its entirety and then attempt to summarize in your own words the book’s theme and major points.

4. Stick with the process. After the eighth or ninth reading you’ll hit a wall that is similar to what runners face in marathons. The text will become dry and lose its flavor. You’ll want to move on to the next book or abandon the program altogether. Stick with it. Persevere and you’ll discover the treasures that repeated readings can provide. ....

5. Choose an appropriate version. As much as I love The Message, a modern language paraphrase is not an appropriate version for synthetic reading. Likewise, the familiar rhythms and cadences of the KJV can, upon repeated readings, get in the way of comprehension. I personally recommend the ESV, though the NIV can be a suitable alternative.

6. Pray. Ask God to open your heart to his Word. Trust the Holy Spirit to illuminate the text and provide guidance and understanding.

7. Begin today. Don’t put it off another day. Don’t say you’ll start tomorrow, or next week, or after New Year’s. You won’t. Start with the only time that you are guaranteed – now. ....

James Gray on Mastering the Bible | Scriptorium Daily, Evangelical Outpost: How to Change Your Mind

Inclusion

Ignatius Insight notes that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America [ELCA - the largest, and one of the more liberal Lutheran bodies] has voted for "the gospel of inclusion," and will no longer discipline those in "committed" same-sex relationships, although a day earlier they had voted not to end a ban on "non-celibate gay clergy." Mainline Protestantism marches on.

Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog: "The gospel of inclusion has won..., Chicago Sun-Times: Gay clergy OK'd by Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Che

The popularity of Che Guevara's image is a mystery to me. Why celebrate the image of an unapologetic murderer? I've known firmly anti-Communist teens who wore Che T-shirts, but wouldn't have considered wearing any other fascist or communist symbol - or indicating any admiration for Hitler or Stalin, or Lenin or Mao, or even tin-pot dictators like Castro. If style simply trumps everything else, there should be a lot more totalitarian chic - design was something propaganda departments could do. Ilya Somin at The Volokh Conspiracy:

One communist icon...still has staying power: Che Guevara. Go to any college campus or hip hangout and you'll find no shortage of Che T-shirts, Che posters, and even Che cell phone messages. The truth, however, is that Che was no less a brutal killer than other communist leaders. If he failed to rise to the same "heights" as Lenin or Mao, it was largely for lack of opportunity. ....

1. Che was responsible for the execution of thousands of political prisoners in Cuba (most of them purely for their opposition to Castro's communist policies or for no reason at all).
2. Che enjoyed torturing and abusing the prisoners, including children.
3. Che was instrumental in setting up the Castro regime's massive forced labor camps and secret police apparatus.
4. Che tried to organize campaigns of terrorism against civilians in the US and elsewhere (though he largely failed in these efforts).
5. Far from being merely a Third World nationalist or pragmatic leftist, he was a committed, hard-line Stalinist, even going so far as to call himself "Stalin II" early in his career.

However, as Vargas Llosa points out in this New Republic article, Che was no uncritical admirer of the Soviet Union. To the contrary, he thought the Soviets had not taken communist totalitarianism far enough. In his travels through the Soviet bloc, Che was, by his own account, most impressed with North Korea - not coincidentally also the most oppressively totalitarian of all communist states at the time. ....

.... Che's continuing popularity does matter as an indication of our failure to fully recognize the evil of communism and the magnitude of its atrocities. With some 100 million victims, communist regimes killed more people in the 20th century than all other forms of tyranny combined. Cuba's was not the worst communist regime, but its crimes were great nonetheless, if we take account of the country's small size. As Fontova points out, during the 1960s alone, the regime Che helped set up executed over 100,000 people, and incarcerated some 350,000 political prisoners out of a Cuban population that numbered only 6.3 million in 1960 ....

The Volokh Conspiracy - The Real Che Guevara:

Lenin's great achievement

From Pseudo-Polymath [who found it at Telic Thoughts]: Christopher Hitchens, who does understand the evil of totalitarianism, and can usually be counted on to defend the persecuted, totally loses it when confronted by religion. Hitchens:

One of Lenin's great achievements, in my opinion, is to create a secular Russia. The power of the Russian Orthodox Church, which was an absolute warren of backwardness and evil and superstition, is probably never going to recover from what he did to it.

Lenin, of course, created the GULAG [See Gulag: A History by Applebaum]. By the time he died it has been estimated that it contained 70,000 prisoners, and many others were already dead. What he started, Stalin would expand. And the Orthodox Church was among the victims. A summary from Wikipedia:

Between 1917 and 1940, 130,000 Orthodox priests were arrested. In 1918, the All-Russia Emergency Commission under Felix Dzerzhinsky executed over 3000 Orthodox clergymen of all ranks. Some were drowned in ice-holes or poured over with cold water in winter until they turned to ice-pillars. In 1922, the Solovki Camp of Special Purpose, the first Russian concentration camp was established in the Solovki Islands in the White Sea. Eight metropolitans, twenty archbishops, and forty-seven bishops of the Orthodox Church died there, along with tens of thousands of the laity. Of these, 95,000 were put to death, executed by firing squad.

Lenin was the creator of perhaps the most murderous regime in history:Pseudo-Polymath: A Dumber Thing is Rarely Said, Wikipedia: Interbellum Persecution of the Church, Democide in Totalitarian States

Doré

Wonders for Oyarsa is blogging through the Bible and has reached Judges. His insights and responses to Scripture are invariably interesting and often enlightening, but one of the greatest pleasures is his use of the Doré Bible illustrations.

Wonders For Oyarsa

Academic bigotry

World Magazine has a story about prejudice against evangelicals by university faculty. Although there has been much anecdotal evidence for such bias, this appears to be the first actual survey of faculty attitudes.

In a recently released scientific survey of 1,269 faculty members across 712 different colleges and universities, 53 percent of respondents admitted to harboring unfavorable feelings toward evangelicals. ....

Gary A. Tobin, president of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, set out to gauge levels of academic anti-Semitism compared to hostility toward other religious groups. He found that only 3 percent of college faculty holds unfavorable views toward Jews. In fact, no religious group draws anywhere near the scorn of evangelicals, Mormons placing a distant second with a 33 percent unfavorable outcome.

Some argue that the bias doesn't result in mistreatment of students. The article indicates that Tobin intends to test this with a follow-up study of their experience.

WORLD Magazine | Weekly News, Christian Views

"And this is what he had to say..."

Tod Lindberg's new book, The Political Teachings of Jesus, might well be suspect as an effort to recruit Jesus in support of a partisan or ideological agenda. But it isn't. It is, rather, a very interesting effort to discern the principles found in places like the Sermon on the Mount, and what the implications have been, and are, for society. The quotation below is from the first chapter of the book, titled "The Beatitudes," and leads into a discussion of that portion of the Sermon. Much of that chapter has been made available online here, at the Policy Review site.

One finds in these passages of Matthew a sense of mounting excitement: Jesus began preaching and drawing crowds - and this is what he had to say. The Sermon on the Mount has long been rightly understood as both the starting point and a summation of Jesus's teaching. No less than with regard to his religious teaching, the Sermon on the Mount is also the foundation and the first concise summary of the political teaching of Jesus.

The Beatitudes provide a dizzying commentary designed to turn upside down the political and social world of the Roman Empire of Caesar Augustus and of the Jewish religious elite of Judea and Jerusalem. This is the opening move of a more drastic and fundamental reassessment of political and social affairs, applying not only to its own time but to all future times, down to our day. More still: It points to the increasing fulfillment in this world of the promise of the human condition as such and of the struggle against vast and daunting but not insurmountable obstacles that such fulfillment will require.

Hoover Institution - Policy Review - What the Beatitudes Teach