Entries Tagged 'Church and theology' ↓

What’s the matter with Newsweek’s cover story on gay marriage? It’s the journalism, stupid:

It looks like Newsweek, in the face of an economic disaster, has decided to do the full monty, becoming an out-and-out opinion-oriented magazine.

The problem is: the readers never got the memo. Most people thought newsmagazines were supposed to be objective and have not been aware of the two decades of soul-searching about how to insert more opinion. So suddenly they wake up and this magazine that used to be balanced has come out of the closet as an overt opinion magazine. …

Most stunning was editor Jon Meacham’s defense of the cover story, in which he says “this conservative resort to biblical authority is the worst kind of fundamentalism.” …

This cover may ultimately become known less for its significance in the culture wars but as a watershed in the history of American journalism.

Great perspective. Hat tip: getreligion.org

If you don’t have time to read Newsweek’s cover story on how a reporter discovered that the Bible actually supports gay marriage when you squint really hard, here are the main points:

• The Bible’s examples of marriage are horrendous polygamous slave-owners.
• The Bible “offers inspiration and warning on the subjects of love, marriage, family and community.”
• The Bible doesn’t explicitly say marriage is between one man and one woman.
• The Bible doesn’t say David and Jonathan were homosexual lovers, but it’s fun to imagine they were.
• The Apostle Paul was tough on homosexuality.
• One guy the reporter knows says Paul was actually talking about something else. Violent people, maybe.
• The Bible “provides conceptual shelter for anti-Semites.”
• Thankfully, newsmagazines have no similar problems mishandling Biblical texts.
• Despite what Newsweek thinks, almost all churches say that gay marriage is sinful.
• Newsweek does not own a phone book, and thus cannot call any of these churches for comment.
• When the Bible says something you want to do is wrong, then the Bible is outdated.
• When the Bible says something you want to do is right, then the Bible is beautiful.

Hope that helps.

A post from The Good City:

A post from The Good City:

It’s time to unveil my new project that I mentioned a few weeks ago.

Welcome to The Good City, a web site Scott Greider and I hope to develop into a resource for caring citydwellers, all from a Christian perspective.

The goal, as we say on the web site:

Calling Christians to consider the city and calling the city to consider Christ.

Scott and I love our city and want to see it succeed as a good city. Join us over at The Good City and comment.

“Our people don’t so much need to have their heads stored as to have their hearts touched and they stand in the greatest need of that sort of preaching that has the greatest tendency to do this.”

– Jonathan Edwards

Until midnight on Thursday, every book and study guide at John Piper’s web site are only $5. That includes hardbacks.

I already have three Piper books, “Desiring God,” “Don’t Waste Your Life” and “What Jesus Demands From the World.”

If I had to recommend only one Piper book, this would be it. In fact, what’s always been great about Piper’s ministry is how unselfish it is. For example, the entire text of “Desiring God” is online, and in an easy-to-read-online format.

Note that the subtitle for “Desiring God” is “Meditations of a Christian Hedonist.” In the book’s introduction, Piper states five convictions upon which he builds his philosophy of Christian Hedonism:

1. The longing to be happy is a universal human experience, and it is good, not sinful.
2. We should never try to deny or resist our longing to be happy, as though it were a bad impulse. Instead we should seek to intensify this longing and nourish it with whatever will provide the deepest and most enduring satisfaction.
3. The deepest and most enduring happiness is found only in God.
4. The happiness we find in God reaches its consummation when it is shared with others in the manifold ways of love.
5. To the extent we try to abandon the pursuit of our own pleasure, we fail to honor God and love people. Or, to put it positively: the pursuit of pleasure is a necessary part of all worship and virtue. That is, The chief end of man is to glorify God BY enjoying him forever.

It’s a great book that cannot be too highly recommended.

Oh, and their servers have been very, very busy, so you may want to wait and order later in the evening or early in the morning.

Related: We Want You To Be a Christian Hedonist!

Ever since I read a review of “Heaven Is Not My Home” over at The Jolly Blogger, I’ve been hoping our local library would stock a copy.

But since I had in my possession an Anchor Room gift certificate, I thought it was a dandy time to pick up a copy.

As David Wayne says in his review that captured my attention:

The view that many Christians have is that, after this life, our souls go to heaven and we walk streets of gold, wearing white robes and singing hymns for eternity. What Marshall does is show that our eternal destiny may in fact look a bit more like our current earthly existence than we realize.

Marshall correctly brings out the biblical teaching that the created order is basically good, and therefore it can be embraced. Sin is not the essence of the creation, sin is an imposter.

Because many Christians have wrongly interpreted Biblical passages on the world and worldliness we have adopted an attitude that sees this world as something evil at worst, or unnecessary at best. Either way, this world and this earth and this creation are to be avoided or endured until the time when we will be freed from all of it.

I’m looking forward to reading it — once I get done with “The Rise of the Creative Class.”

From “Against Christianity” by Peter Leithart:

Worship is Political Science 101. … Every worship service is a challenge to Caesar, because every Lord’s Day we bow to a Man on the throne of heaven, to whom even great Caesar must bow.

I’ve been reading through Peter Leithart’s “Against Christianity” and decided to post a few quotes that I thought deserved some airing.

For some context, Leithart is an ordained minister in my denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America. In this book, you quickly realize that he is not fighting Christ, but particular beliefs about the Christian religion popular in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Formally, the Bible is not a “theology text” or a “catechism” that arranges doctrines in a systematic order. … Paul was not a university theologian calmly writing from a safe haven above the fray. Like the Lord he served, Paul entered the fray. He taught truths about God, but they were taught in the context of conflict and deployed in the form of weaponry.

I happened upon this quote at JollyBlogger, who referenced Justin Taylor’s blog, who in turn thanks Desiring God’s Bill Walsh, who was quoting from James Galvin’s book “Faith Alone.” Ah, the hyperactive hyperlink.

But it’s from Martin Luther, and it’s good medicine for me:

People don’t earn God’s approval or receive life and salvation because of anything they’ve done. Rather, the only reason they receive life and salvation is because of God’s kindness through Christ. There is no other way.

Many Christians are tired of hearing this teaching over and over. They think that they learned it all long ago. However, they barely understand how important it really is. If it continues to be taught as truth, the Christian church will remain united and pure

I am in the business of putting fiber into the backbones of wimps.

From the audio of his sermon titled Staying Married Is Not About Staying in Love, Part 1.