Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Consider this nasty, self-righteous screed: Christianity has died in the hands of Evangelicals. Evangelicalism ceased being a religious faith tradition following Jesus’ teachings concerning justice for the betterment of humanity when it made a Faustian bargain for the sake of political influence. It's amazing that people can so lack self-reflection that they don't see they've …
Continue reading "It's All About Moving Up, Only the Ladder Changes"
Bossuet, in his History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches, I, 7, gets to the point: Justification is that grace which, remitting to us our sins, at the same time renders us agreeable to God. Till then, it had been believed that what wrought this effect proceeded indeed from God, but yet necessarily existed …
Continue reading "The Strange Consequence of Luther's Concept of Justification"
As a follow-up to my earlier post, an interesting parallel to Barth's situation, with Luther's solution, from The Reformation: A Narrative History Related by Contemporary Observers and Participants: None the less the Lutheran territories suffered an incisive setback, foreshadowing worse things to come. In 1540 the political bulwark of Protestantism, Langrave Philipp of Hesse, became …
Continue reading "How Martin Luther Would Solve Karl Barth's Mistress Problem"
A live-in mistress with their family, Barth first: I just read a disturbing, I mean for me personally, earth-shatteringly disturbing essay by Christiane Tietz about Karl Barth entitled: Karl Barth and Charlotte von Kirschbaum. As most of us know, who have spent any amount of time with Barth’s theology, his “secretary”, Kirschbaum was rumored to …
Continue reading "What Karl Barth and Karl Marx Had in Common"
I could not pass up this gem from Philo Judaeus, in his Life of a Man Occupied with Affairs of State, or on Joseph, I: Now, this man (Joseph) began from the time he was seventeen years of age to be occupied with the consideration of the business of a shepherd, which corresponds to political …
Continue reading "If You Can Lead Sheep, You're Ready for Politics"
A little over twenty years ago I received the following notification from Geocities, the free website provider: Sat Aug 23 13:59:46 1997... Welcome, DON, to GeoCities Personal Home Page Program! Please write down or save the following information for future use. Your Member Name is: penlay. Your Neighborhood is: Athens/Parthenon. Your Address is: 4799. Your …
Dovetail DOVE 1 (1973) Inaugural album on the UK's premier Christian music label of the 1970's. As Ken Scott observes, by the time it was released the music is a little behind the times; it's more of a 1960's "British Invasion" kind of record in an era when the country was putting out albums that …
As Nick Park points out in his letter to Ireland's Foreign Minister about the EU's actions about Christian refugees from Eritrea: We are alarmed at report recently from contacts in Brussels that the EU is in the process of signing Compact Agreements with third countries which will mean that members states can send back asylum …
Continue reading "The Undemocratic, Procrustean Experiment Strikes Again"
Paula Records LPS 2211 (1972) "Revival" recordings (audio and video) are common in Christian music. For Southern Gospel, the best known ones are the "Gaither Homecoming" series, which they did in the 1990's and 2000's. Their idea was to get many of the famous Southern Gospel artists--who were passing away--to perform their music, which made …
Continue reading "Kell Street Camp Meeting: Dinner and Joy on the Ground"
Today is Ascension Day, when we celebrate Our Lord's bodily ascension into heaven. The Acts of the Apostles describe the "aftermath" on earth as follows: While they were still gazing up into the heavens, as he went, suddenly two men, clothed in white, stood beside them, And said: "Men of Galilee, why are you standing …
Continue reading "You Could Just Stand There and Look Stupid: An Ascension Day Reflection"
Positive Infinity 