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Yearly Archives: 2009
:::: A Video Everyone Must See … Spread It Around ::::
I’m not kidding … I’ve never seen a video this moving. I can’t even tell you what it’s about or I will ruin it.
————————–HT: The Doorpost
:::__Don’t Be a Haydenite__:::
An interesting look at a sectarian minister.
A preacher that can’t stop arguing. A denominational leader causing discord and division. A prolific writer who spews vitriol. He viciously attacks his opponents. He agitates at the Southern Baptist Convention. He plays politics. Apparently he thinks highly of himself and enjoys notoriety. He builds himself up, by tearing others down.
N.T. Wright vs. John Piper ::: Ding Ding Ding
A few excerpts from N.T. Wright on his exchange with Piper from Kingdom People.
My anxiety about what has now been seen as the traditional Reformed view (though there are many traditional Reformed views!) is that it focuses all attention on ‘me and my salvation’ rather than on ‘God and God’s purposes’, which – as we see in the Gospels, and in e.g. Romans 8 – are much wider than just my salvation.
A R I S T O T L E ::: Legacy
“Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is the truth.”
– Aristotle
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All quotations without a footnote link are from Thomson & Missner, On Aristotle, Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 2000.
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Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. and died in 322 B.C., which means he lived to be roughly 62 years old. We would say he died young, yet no single individual did more to influence the history of thought than Aristotle. “He single-handedly founded the sciences of Logic, Biology and Psychology.”¹ (more…)
___–__-_Making the Gospel More Accessible_-__–___
U R B A N G L O R Y just released a new podcast where Aaron Skinner continues to talk about how the quality of media can make a difference in how willing people are to listen to the message communicated through the media.
________________—–HT: U R B A N G L O R Y
^_^_^__Tony Jones’ Test of Orthodoxy__^_^_^
The following is an interesting excerpt from Tony Jones’ post entitled, “The Orthodoxy of Down Syndrome”
Since I’m probably as philosophically as theologically bent, I’ve often struggled with the more conservative conceptions of orthodoxy because they surely tend to overestimate the ability of many human beings to articulate complex theological ideas. Jesus (“Come, follow me”) and Paul (“if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”) both had thresholds of belief to which, I assume, most developmentally challenged persons could rise.
• The • Sufficiency • of the • Gospel • Mark Dever on Richard Sibbes
As I was cleaning my room today I listened to a lecture by Mark Dever, who did his Ph.D. at Cambridge on the Puritan Richard Sibbes. Richard was not like the other Puritans in that he did not ultimately break with the Church of England during the time of the great Exodus of Puritan preachers. Why? Because he believed that unity in the gospel was more important than correctness in the secondary matters. I was actually surprised to hear Mark Dever approve of Sibbes’ perspective, and challenge young evangelical ministers to recover the distinction between the essential (the gospel) and the non-essential. I agree with the spirit of Dever’s understanding as expressed in this lecture, only I wouldn’t confuse the basic gospel message with the doctrine of justification the way he does (see below). I believe Eastern Orthodox Christians and Catholic Christians believe in the redemptive death, burial and resurrection and lordship of Jesus Christ regardless of what their doctrine of justification might be.
Here are some quotations from Dever’s Gheens Lecture Series at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary:
“We must be united, Sibbes taught, and we must be united around the gospel.” – Mark Dever
“In Sibbes’ hand, the centrality of preaching was a force for unity, not for dissent. … And it did so exactly because whatever other problems the church might have had, it was a church committed to the Protestant—that is to say the Biblical—gospel, the good news of justification by faith alone in Christ alone. And to leave such a church, would be tantamount to rending Christ’s body.” – Mark Dever
“Sibbes knew that the main point is the reconciliation of man to God, which is accomplished by the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, preaching is more fundamental than polity. I could be convinced of congregationalism biblically, and convinced that the gospel is more important. One of the things that we as evangelicals must do is recover that territory in between essential and unimportant. … It’s a vast tract that we must recover for faithfulness to scripture. There could be many things that are important that are not essential. There could be things that are important that are not essential. And there could be things that are kind of important that are not essential. … But simply because something is not essential does not therefore mean it is unimportant. We need to recover this in our own reflection on our lives, reflection on scripture, and in our preaching in our churches. If we do we’ll easily understand how preaching is more fundamental to polity, and yet polity is not a matter to be disregarded.” – Mark Dever
—————————————HT: Good Soldiers
:: Dawkins, Hitchens, and McGrath ::
____________HT: The Hour______________
To Brand or Not to Brand the Gospel•___•__•_• A Response to Tyler Wigg-Stevenson
••••••••••• For an alternative and less pessimistic take on branding and the gospel, listen to the recent podcast I did with Aaron Skinner, the founder and president of Kairos Creative. •••••••••••••
Jesus is not a Brand … warns Tyler Wigg-Stevenson on the cover of January’s addition of Christianity Today. Well … He’s right. Jesus isn’t a Brand. But why does Tyler seem so pessimistic about using brands and marketing strategies for the sake of the gospel?
I thought about writing an in depth critique of the logic of his article in Christianity today, but I decided I didn’t really have the time to invest in something quite so detailed. Besides, others are already doing that. Although if I were put in a room with Stevenson, I’m almost sure that much of the difference between the way I think and the way he thinks about marketing would turn out to be semantic.
However, concisely put, I think Stevenson has done a poor job setting up the discussion in his article. His rhetoric will no doubt be appealing to many since we recognize that Jesus is not a brand, not just another consumer option, not just some product, etc. But all my friends who are using their branding and marketing gifts for the sake of the gospel understand this. None of them have reduced Jesus down to a brand, nor are the intended audiences of such branding necessarily having some sinful self-reliance reinforced as a result.
I think Stevenson is, for the most part, clotheslining scarecrows (read: attacking a staw man). His logic doesn’t hold up, and his statements are a bit extreme—especially his comment about how approaching Jesus through marketing that taps into felt needs is blasphemy.
… people who respond to church marketing approach Jesus as another consumer option. This is first and foremost a problem because it is blasphemy:
His criticisms and warnings are misguided, I think, and hinge on several assumptions that he never explicitly mentions. I might revisit my claims later with detailed analysis of his article, but right now I don’t have time, so just look for others to critique him and listen to the podcasts I mention below. Ultimately, I fear the spirit of his article could cause Christians to be less aggressive in engaging the cultural median of branding for the sake of the gospel.
• For an alternative and less pessimistic take on branding and the gospel, listen to the recent podcast I did with Aaron Skinner, the founder and president of Kairos Creative. The podcast is only 1 of 7 short excerpts from U R B A N G L O R Y that will be posted over the next two weeks to provide an alternative perspective to Stevenson’s extreme comments in Christianity Today. •
Jesus is Not A Brand : Jesus is Not A Brand : Jesus is Not A Brand : Jesus is Not A Brand : Jesus is Not A Brand : Jesus is Not A Brand
_________*****UPDATE_______________
I found out one of my friends, Kevin Hendricks, occasionally contributes to the well known website Church Marketing Sucks. I found the following comment of his in a thread.
… I think bad marketing does those things. Wigg-Stevenson assumes that all marketing fosters consumerism and leads to the negatives he lists. I agree that those things are all negatives, but I don’t agree that marketing automatically leads you there.
Those are definitely pitfalls of marketing and things we need to be on guard against, but I don’t think they occur simply because we do marketing. If that were the case, Wigg-Stevenson would be guilty of them as well (his book is marketed, the magazine in which his article appears is marketed, etc.)
• Determined to Argue for Determinism •
Often thoughts are best clarified in the comment threads that come once discussion ensues on a post. So often, rather than posting about another’s post, I will point people to comments that are made in the thread of that post. This is because often, 1) the authors point of view becomes more clear in the comment section than in the post, and 2) the dialogue that takes place once others have a chance to cross examine what is said are often more interesting than the post itself.
Having said all that … Gerald Hiestand recently wrote two posts about the position of Determinism. It’s an excellent post series. Gerald makes a biblical case for determinism as he understands it to have been held by Augustine, Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, and others. I found the best summary of his position in the comment section:
Actually, the way that I am using the term “determinism” is consistent with its use by classical determinists (Augustine, Edwards, Calvin, Luther, Aquinas–all of whom I’ve read) and with how contemporary theologians use the term. Determinism is simply the belief that everything (everything) that happens does so in accordance with God’s pre-ordained plan. Determinists might differ slightly as to how God actualizes his pre-ordained plan, but what makes determinism determinism is the belief that God has a pre-ordained purpose for everything that happens, and that there are no random events. I don’t know of any determinist (classic or contemporary) who denies freewill (”freewill” being defined as the ability to make a free moral choice, and that we are responsible for our actions).
———————————HT: Straight Up————————————
T h e o • p h i l o g u e 