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Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending – Second Sunday in Advent — North American Anglican
This was an old favourite of mine back at Bethesda, but was lost from my worship from “swimming the Tiber” onwards. The last loss was due to the perfidious influence of the Baptists, as I discuss (complete with YouTube video) in my post The Wesleyan Advent Hymn the Wesleyan Pentecostals Don’t Sing. It’s ironic that Bethesda, for all of the magnificence of this hymn, wasn’t much on talking about the second coming (outside of reciting it in the creeds, which Episcopalians were notorious for ignoring.) Life was just too good and our position in society too nice to see it overturned by something as drastic as Christ’s return.
On the other hand the church I’m in now spends quite a lot of time–too much, in some cases–on the subject. I say “too much” because each generation becomes fixated on the prophetic clock, produces a timetable and loses the plot on why we emphasise the subject, i.e. to prepare ourselves to spend eternity with Jesus Christ and to do the work he has for us to do while we’re here. The most famous example of that was The Late Great Planet Earth, whose author Hal Lindsey just went to meet God. The only and only time a professor made an overtly evangelistic appeal in my undergraduate years at Texas A&M took place when my Statics teacher (ironically that’s what I teach at Lee University) warned us of his impending return and encouraged us to read Lindsey’s book.
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Elevations on the coming of St. John the Baptist, Forerunner of Jesus Christ: 6, On Zechariah’s Incredulity
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Elevations on the coming of St. John the Baptist, Forerunner of Jesus Christ: 5, Continuation of the words of the angel: The effect of Saint John’s preaching is predicted
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Elevations on the coming of St. John the Baptist, Forerunner of Jesus Christ: 4, The Conception of Saint John the Baptist, like that of Jesus Christ, is announced by the angel Saint Gabriel
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Elevations on the coming of St. John the Baptist, Forerunner of Jesus Christ: 3, First Preparatory Circumstance of the Life of Saint John the Baptist; its Design
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Smyth’s Spankings Come Back to Haunt British Evangelicals
It’s not getting better, even with the departure of the current Occupant at Canterbury:
The long knives are out. John Smyth’s sadistic behavior which has claimed the Archbishop of Canterbury, could claim as much as 30 percent of the Church of England’s evangelicals, a confidential source told VOL.
There has been a conspiracy of silence — Omerta — to protect those accused of abuse, VOL was told. “Up to 30% of the CofE is tainted.”
Evangelicals have grown rapidly in number and influence these past thirty years on the assumption that they “put bums on pews.” It has similarities with the prosperity gospel preachers who, one by one, have fallen from their prominent perches.
My reaction–and one David Virtue reproduced–a while back was this:
Pilavachi isn’t unique in his being drawn to kinky sex practices; the Anglican Evangelicals have had their woes with John Smyth, Jonathan Fletcher and the Iwerne Camp fiasco. What is wrong with these people?
I think that is the question that British Evangelicals should be asking themselves. I’m not sure I have a good answer for that, but one thing is obvious: the reputation that Evangelicals have to “put bums in pews” is being tarnished by putting bums somewhere else they’re not supposed to be. But perhaps a conversation starter is in order.
In addition to the usual prurient reasons, I think some of this comes from the idea that “suffering builds character.” While it can do that (James 1:2-4,) and corporal punishment is certainly a fast way to induce suffering, it seems to me that if you, almost an adult, got that from someone who was supposed to be your spiritual mentor, what ends up getting built is pain and resentment. A regimen to build maturity needs to be built more constructively, which is one reason why people on this side of the Atlantic join the military and go to places such as Parris Island. (Fun fact: I had a student who was in the Marines and one of her last duty posts was being a DI at Parris Island. She was definitely up to it.)
A more Christian approach for this problem–and one Anglicans on both sides of the Atlantic should seriously consider–is to spend time with people who really have suffered in life from poverty and learn from their experience. That’s been my life in the Church of God these last two score, and it’s been an education. If there’s one thing I’ve noticed, it’s that, after a lot of deprivation, people tend to err on the side of creature comfort, even in relief operations.
One thing is for sure: Evangelicals in the UK need to take their lumps on this and get back to doing what their name implies: evangelising the island, because they’ve got a competitor who does a lot worse than spanking.
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Lack of Post? Not Really!
My posting on this blog is sparser than it used to be, and especially these last few months. But that doesn’t mean I’ve been inactive online; I’ve been doing a lot of posting, but not here. So perhaps it’s a good idea to bring everyone up to date.
It’s worth reminding everyone that this blog wasn’t the first site I put out on the internet. That honour goes to vulcanhammer.net; this one came the following month in 1997. My objective with that site and its progeny has been to disseminate technical information for the geotechinical (soil mechanics and foundations) industry. Ultimately the idea was that a) that information would be useful for people in developing countries (and students here) to raise their standard of living without a paywall and b) to be a Christian outreach in the process, with this site as an auxiliary to aid in that. Eventually I just put the relevant Christian material there along with everything else.
Six years later I started the site Chet Aero Marine, which initially documented my family history in the sky and later on the water. This site has experienced quite a lot of “mission creep” (like some of our weapon systems) and one of these expansions was as a home for the sites for my Fluid Mechanics Laboratory course at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. But now it is the platform for my latest adventure: teaching engineering at Lee University, and specifically Statics.
I’ve discussed the need for an institution like Lee to have an engineering program. But at a time in life when most academics are looking to “hang it up” I plunged into a course which, although I took it a long time ago and used it in my family business, have never taught it. So there’s a lot of course prep, and if you look at the course site I’ve developed you’ll see what I’m talking about.
I feel very strongly that engineering in particular is a good thing for Christian colleges to do. In an day when the liberal arts are as politicised as they are, we need a balance, and an engineering program is one way to accomplish that. Engineering programs also produce graduates which can have an income to pay back their student loans and give the practitioners a decent living, and that’s more than many majors can say. And, of course, by putting at least some of my course material online, others can benefit, as they have done with my other courses for many years.
In the process of all of this engineering education has its peculiarities. I’ve been at this since 2001, and was in practice before that. I’ve been an advisor both to curriculum development and further accreditation of the program. As one of my colleagues at UTC noted, it’s not very often you get to do that in the early stages of a program, and for the opportunity I am grateful.
Finally I, like the great Saint-Venant, believe that engineering is a kind of ministry whose benefits will make people’s lives better. Too much Christian benevolence is focused on relief, and while relief is important (as those just to the east of me in North Carolina will tell you) prevention of the effects of disaster can have a greater impact at lower cost. Traditionally that job has been the state’s, but that isn’t always the case, and with governments becoming more erratic in their regard for their people we can expect other people and organisations stepping up to the plate with civil and other projects.
Lee also requires a devotion at the start of class; I’ve drawn from the many stories that I communicated to my students at UTC online and also from my last devotional book Month of Sundays.
So perhaps stop by and check this out; I’m also teaching Dynamics at Lee this Spring. As they say in late night, there’s more to come.
Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Positive Infinity 