Messages

1

Your Turn / Re: Liz Cheney Commencement Address

« on: May 30, 2023, 09:19:45 AM »

I thought I logged onto the ALPB Forum Website, but apparently reached Babylon Bee in error...

2

Your Turn / Re: Tim Keller, R.I.P.

« on: May 23, 2023, 09:30:57 AM »

The link is to one of Tim Keller's last works, an 83 page compedium of 4 articles addressing his understanding of the Decline and Renewal of the American Church, why and what to do about it, for your consideration:
https://rpc-download.s3.amazonaws.com/Quarterly-Tim_Keller-Decline_and_Renewal_of_the_American_Church-Extended.pdf?button

3

Your Turn / Re: Politics and Mass Shootings

« on: April 04, 2023, 01:57:17 PM »

ELCA Pastor compares treatment of Nashville shooter to the treatment of Jesus on the Cross:
https://www.foxnews.com/media/transgender-pastor-compares-marginalized-nashville-shooter-jesus-crucified
"The pastor also compared how transgenders were treated in the U.S. to the Holocaust and Japanese internment camps later on in the message".

This was apparently an Easter season sermon. 

4

Your Turn / Re: Epiphany: the ‘Other’ Christmas

« on: January 07, 2023, 12:12:59 PM »

Interesting study of the sources for and history of the Epiphany by Ian Paul in Psephizo:
https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/is-the-epiphany-myth-or-reality/

5

Your Turn / Re: The message body was left empty.

« on: December 26, 2022, 11:05:24 AM »

Thank you moderators for turning the Forum to a more OT correct version of text without punctuation marks and for many no paragraphs as this is refreshing although I am still awaiting the return of thees thous and probably very nontraditional full civility.

6

Your Turn / Re: [i]God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen[/i] rewritten

« on: December 24, 2022, 10:31:19 AM »

It is understandable that those of us who have reaped the benefits of patriarchy might feel a little offended and put upon when it is clear that things are changing.
The fact that we feel put upon and offended indicates that we have not fully understood the offense on the other side.

You didn't only reap the benefits of patriarchy, you embody the patriarchy.  And, every culture throughout history, of every tribe and nation, has a patriarchy (except for a very few that delude themselves into thinking that they are a matriarchy...).

Welcome to the new patriarchy, same as the old patriarchy...

7

Your Turn / Re: More from the “You can’t make this stuff up!” news

« on: November 28, 2022, 12:46:50 PM »

Pastor Morris, you are too literal. I thought that in context my words would be read as an “as if” statement. Acting “as if” Jesus was their campaign manager. (But they do contend the have the only true Word of God.)

Whataboutism:  From Merriam-Webster, that added the word to its dictionary in 2021:
"Whataboutism gives a clue to its meaning in its name. It is not merely the changing of a subject ("What about the economy?") to deflect away from an earlier subject as a political strategy; it’s essentially a reversal of accusation, arguing that an opponent is guilty of an offense just as egregious or worse than what the original party was accused of doing, however unconnected the offenses may be.

The tactic behind whataboutism has been around for a long time. Rhetoricians generally consider it to be a form of tu quoque, which means "you too" in Latin and involves charging your accuser with whatever it is you've just been accused of rather than refuting the truth of the accusation made against you. Tu quoque is considered to be a logical fallacy, because whether or not the original accuser is likewise guilty of an offense has no bearing on the truth value of the original accusation.

Whataboutism adds a twist to tu quoque by directing its energies into establishing an equivalence between two or more disparate actions, thereby defaming the accuser with the insinuation that their priorities are backwards." (N.B.: emphases added)

Let the seller beware...

8

Your Turn / Re: THERE IS NO CLIMATE EMERGENCY

« on: November 25, 2022, 02:17:41 PM »

Perhaps many have built, are building, or are looking for their "Ark" in the face of these strange times.
An interesting secular thought process on the confused signals being foisted upon us that are for some producing what the author has named "Ark-Head": https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2022/09/29/ark-head/
The 'Ark-Heads" in much of the church seem to have few responses beyond "embrance the zeitgeist, the gestalt" and little based upon the Gospel.

9

Your Turn / Re: Accomodationism in the American Church

« on: November 25, 2022, 01:34:54 PM »

This is part of an article I wrote for FL eight years ago after the Obergefell ruling. I've put in bold the parts I think relate well to the First Things article on David French. I remember what little feedback I got on the article being surprise that I suspected Evangelicals would prove unreliable.

....However it came to be, the fact remains that it was a long fought but ultimately resounding victory for progressives, decay being progress of a sort. And to those for whom everything is reducible to power struggles, victory by bogus judicial fiat counts the same as any other. As athletes say, a win is a win. Religious leaders who have no king but Caesar will shrug, say their hands are tied and reluctantly just go with the new reality, while those who dare not call thing what it is will naturally laud these rulings which require everyone to pretend (at least officially) that two men are husband and wife. But American churches in line with historic Christianity on this issue increasingly find themselves in a new and foreign context.

So what will happen in and to the LCMS as a result of this new context and what should we do about it now that we’ve (possibly) forgotten how to be strangers in a strange land? Allow me to offer first two predictions and then two prescriptions.

First prediction: this will not unify the LCMS. I know, I know, going way out on a limb there. But there is always the idea floating around that becoming an embattled minority will galvanize people who share a cause to put aside other differences. At first it may seem like this will happen in the LCMS; the various camps will rally together around a common identity as torch-bearers of traditional marriage. And that may seem to be happening for a little while, but it won’t last. I truly hope I’m wrong on this (stranger things have happened, I readily admit), but I think Evangelicals will soon go wobbly and this cultural change will, given enough time, simply provide another stage on which the same LCMS play is enacted.

The men I know who are married to other men are husband and husband.

As more folks within the Evangelical (and LCMS) camps have friends and relatives who live together without marriage or marry a same-sex partner, many will find ways to accommodate them. In a similar way, a generation or two ago, conservative churches accommodated divorced and remarried folks; or folks who married outside the faith, e.g., Lutherans who married Roman Catholics. What had been seen as forbidden, or at least discouraged, had become acceptable (or at least tolerated) rather than ostracize friends and family.

"What has been seen as..." is an obvious observation that does not address the issue at hand.  Thanks for participating.

10

Your Turn / Re: THERE IS NO CLIMATE EMERGENCY

« on: November 25, 2022, 01:12:24 PM »

Thank you for the illustration of smog - a climate-related issue that humans caused and humans have been able to reduce.

The reduction in smog is primarily here in the USA, Canada, Europe, Israel and Japan - hard work that impoverished few of any peoples.
However, nearly 1/3 of the entire population of the Earth is found in China and India, where smog is incredible - to levels of health hazard in and near city airsheds far worse than most seen historically elsewhere.  China and India continue to build fossil fuel (dirty coal, in their cases) power plants at an astronomical rate and refuse to contribute to world-wide goals to reduce carbon footprint.  Much of their increases and our decreases are due to the "offshoring" of mining and manufacturing jobs and processes to enable buying more sea-side estates and private jets here...

Please note that the Chair/Owner of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwabb, states that the China model must be emulated world-wide while presiding over a crowd of private jet traveling elites from government, tech, industry, and NFP/NGO's in Davos - including many of the proclaimed experts and evident elites from the USA as well. 

This "do as I say, not as I do" ethic on proud and loud display is a major impediment to helping the majority of people understand and work toward overcoming environmental problems.  That many have, in addition to their private jets, lavish mansions in Malibu, Monaco, various Rivieras and tropical islands - on or near beaches alleged to be soon impacted by rising seas - is not lost on the less-elite folk of the world.

11

Your Turn / Re: Accomodationism in the American Church

« on: November 25, 2022, 12:59:46 PM »

This is part of an article I wrote for FL eight years ago after the Obergefell ruling. I've put in bold the parts I think relate well to the First Things article on David French. I remember what little feedback I got on the article being surprise that I suspected Evangelicals would prove unreliable.

....However it came to be, the fact remains that it was a long fought but ultimately resounding victory for progressives, decay being progress of a sort. And to those for whom everything is reducible to power struggles, victory by bogus judicial fiat counts the same as any other. As athletes say, a win is a win. Religious leaders who have no king but Caesar will shrug, say their hands are tied and reluctantly just go with the new reality, while those who dare not call thing what it is will naturally laud these rulings which require everyone to pretend (at least officially) that two men are husband and wife. But American churches in line with historic Christianity on this issue increasingly find themselves in a new and foreign context.

So what will happen in and to the LCMS as a result of this new context and what should we do about it now that we’ve (possibly) forgotten how to be strangers in a strange land? Allow me to offer first two predictions and then two prescriptions.

First prediction: this will not unify the LCMS. I know, I know, going way out on a limb there. But there is always the idea floating around that becoming an embattled minority will galvanize people who share a cause to put aside other differences. At first it may seem like this will happen in the LCMS; the various camps will rally together around a common identity as torch-bearers of traditional marriage. And that may seem to be happening for a little while, but it won’t last. I truly hope I’m wrong on this (stranger things have happened, I readily admit), but I think Evangelicals will soon go wobbly and this cultural change will, given enough time, simply provide another stage on which the same LCMS play is enacted.

Well, your middle name is not Cassandra, but surely you had the integrity to call out in writing what was clearly happening, clearly evident to those who had eyes to see.  The "nothing to see here - move along" crowd censors through silence as well as public braying against the facts.
Thank you.

12

Your Turn / Re: THERE IS NO CLIMATE EMERGENCY

« on: November 25, 2022, 12:26:25 PM »

I agree about both dueling experts and that the most hysterical ones are not objective.  But let me suggest this...

Say I agree with the most dire climate predictions:  now what?  I've used this approach dealing with several people who are emotional to the point of hysteria. I accept for the sake of argument all your science.  So what?

If we do, as Greta Thunberg demands ("how dare you!"), and stop using fossil fuels tomorrow...What comes next?  You've been freed!   I can tell you for one thing that millions of people will die, and it will be the most vulnerable that the caring people allegedly care about the most.

Of course, Greta has recently revealed herself as not just concerned with the environment, but also against capitalism.  This is my shocked face.   There is a real but not well covered split among climate activists between those who are truly trying to find alternatives, and those who would hijack the movement to achieve other, longstanding political goals.  Especially their disdain for the modern industrial society we live in.  (This is the problem with the Greens in Germany.  They don't just hate/fear nuclear energy, they want plants decommissioned and replaced with nothing, so the country has less energy which means less industrial and yes, economic! activity.)

The reason nothing much will change about our energy sources is that we do not yet have the technology to replace fossil fuels.  It's not like people aren't trying, they are numerous incentives to do so.  It simply does not exist.  I for one would like us to invent them, because we will eventually run out of fossil fuels, no matter the global temperature.

You can't replace something with nothing.  I challenge anyone who says we need to DO SOMETHING about the climate emergency to be specific.  And in that specificity, tell me exactly how much of a difference what you are proposing would make.  And the negative unintended consequences.

Because that's what I think Jesus would do.   

Interesting how seldom Jesus is mentioned in this CLIMATE EMERGENCY... on a site populated overwhelmingly by Christians and clergy.
Maybe the emergency is actually denying Christ - whether radically or through the slow creep of "accomodationalism" (see other thread).

As to the consequences of the sky is falling without either empathy or genuine solutions that the experts and elites provide, all almost totally void of Christ, how is the allegedly required reduction of population from the reported eight billion to a sustainable total planned to take place.
We have seen the solutions imposed by central control governments in the past to reduce their perceived population problems:
- The Soviet starvation of Ukraine;
- The Marxist starvation in Ethiopia;
- The Marxist genocide in Cambodia;
- The Marxist cleansings in Maoist China;
- The ethnic genocides in tribal Rwanda, Socialist Germany and Central Europe, Uighar China;
- The religious genocides recently and/or still underway in Iraq and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The list goes on - rational humanist solutions to people who just won't go away or use resources coveted by the experts and elites.

History sure echoes...

13

Your Turn / Accomodationism in the American Church

« on: November 25, 2022, 12:14:57 PM »

The linked article from First Things provides one analysis of the "accomodationism" to secular American culture that the writer finds promoted by David French and, by implication, many other "elite evangelicals" (not scare quotes, but highlighted to note use of terms promoted by the various positions).
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2022/11/david-french-and-the-future-of-orthodox-protestantism
May be worth considering where Christians, as churches or as individuals, will stand as accomodationism - incorporating the progressive zeitgeist into the church - advances.

14

Your Turn / Re: Was Paul Aware of the Apostolic Council?

« on: November 24, 2022, 02:18:59 PM »

I don't say it is unworkable.  I say that there is no Lutheran denomination in America that is interested in making it work.  The ELCA Churchwide Assembly, by a vast majority (88% I am told) voted to abandon that experiment in 2022.  Every Lutheran denomination in America is one way or the other.  There is no middle.  That's not a comment on your exegesis or your good will, just a lament that the day for compromise seems to be over.

Perhaps. Below is the highlight of the resolution.

ASSEMBLY Two-Thirds Vote Required
ACTION YES-708; NO-93
CA22.03.23 To authorize a possible revision of the social statement on Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust which reconsiders the church’s current concept of the four positions of bound conscience. This revision would focus on pages 19-21 (“lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships) and any other references to the four positions of bound conscience.

A revision of the statement is necessary, I believe, not so much because of the four positions of bound conscience, (I think that they accurate express the convictions of people in the ELCA,) but because it was created before same-sex marriages were recognized throughout the U.S., so "lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships" was used.

What about the text of the amendment?

The minutes of the Assembly have not been posted, so I don't have the full text or the discussion.

Then why didn't you say so, instead of pretending that the resolution was what I was talking about?  You knew that I was referring to the amendment.

 Nothing I found on actions of CWA22 mentioned an amendment.

Rather than just "a highlight" which isn't much more than the title of the action, reading the "Summary" itself may help reveal what happened
(or given possible secret handshake code/jargon, maybe not...).  Anyway,

https://download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/Summary_of_2022_CWA_Actions.pdf?_ga=2.120743432.1823308662.1669307740-352950788.1669307740  .

That's what I copied and pasted in the purple.

Of course you did.  As the Russian missile attack AP story demonstrates, provide two sources to verify authenticity.

15

Your Turn / Re: Was Paul Aware of the Apostolic Council?

« on: November 24, 2022, 11:47:07 AM »

I don't say it is unworkable.  I say that there is no Lutheran denomination in America that is interested in making it work.  The ELCA Churchwide Assembly, by a vast majority (88% I am told) voted to abandon that experiment in 2022.  Every Lutheran denomination in America is one way or the other.  There is no middle.  That's not a comment on your exegesis or your good will, just a lament that the day for compromise seems to be over.

Perhaps. Below is the highlight of the resolution.

ASSEMBLY Two-Thirds Vote Required
ACTION YES-708; NO-93
CA22.03.23 To authorize a possible revision of the social statement on Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust which reconsiders the church’s current concept of the four positions of bound conscience. This revision would focus on pages 19-21 (“lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships) and any other references to the four positions of bound conscience.

A revision of the statement is necessary, I believe, not so much because of the four positions of bound conscience, (I think that they accurate express the convictions of people in the ELCA,) but because it was created before same-sex marriages were recognized throughout the U.S., so "lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships" was used.

What about the text of the amendment?

The minutes of the Assembly have not been posted, so I don't have the full text or the discussion.

Then why didn't you say so, instead of pretending that the resolution was what I was talking about?  You knew that I was referring to the amendment.

 Nothing I found on actions of CWA22 mentioned an amendment.

Rather than just "a highlight" which isn't much more than the title of the action, reading the "Summary" itself may help reveal what happened
(or given possible secret handshake code/jargon, maybe not...).  Anyway,

https://download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/Summary_of_2022_CWA_Actions.pdf?_ga=2.120743432.1823308662.1669307740-352950788.1669307740  .