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A La Carte (2/17)
- 02/17/11
- 16
Yesterday I got to see the final cut of the commercial they’ve made for my book. I’ll try to debut it here at the blog early next week. I think you’ll enjoy it…
God at the Grammys - WSJ had an interesting article last week about popstars and their beliefs. “Believing that God wants you to be famous actually improves your chances of being famous. Of course, from the standpoint of traditional theology, even in the Calvinistic world of predestination, God is much more concerned with the fate of an individual’s soul than his or her secular success, and one’s destiny is unknowable. So what’s helping these stars is not so much religion as belief--specifically, the belief that God favors their own personal, temporal success over that of almost everyone else.”
Ask R.C. Sproul Live - Tonight at 8:00 PM R.C. Sproul will be live online answering questions from you and me. You can ask questions by Twitter or Facebook.
11 Theses on Birth Control - Douglas Wilson has some great things to say about birth control in this blog post. For example: “There are no promised covenantal blessings for the self-absorbed proprietors of stud farms.”
Couch Surfing - Here’s an interesting application of social media. CouchSurfing.com “aims to connect travelers, or ‘surfers,’ with hosts willing to offer a free place to stay, has some similarities to Facebook in that it includes user profiles, photos and friend requests.” Of course the service begins with a faulty premise: “We believe that people are fundamentally good, and our service is designed around that premise…”
How Much Information? - Here’s an attempt to figure out how much information the world contains. “If a single star is a bit of information, that’s a galaxy of information for every person in the world. That’s 315 times the number of grains of sand in the world. But it’s still less than one percent of the information that is stored in all the DNA molecules of a human being.”
Teg Haggard on Restoration - Matthew Paul Turner has a few reflections on a recent interview with Ted Haggard.
When I have any money I get rid of it as quickly as possible, lest it find a way into my heart. —John Wesley
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
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Comments (16)
I’ve actually used (both hosting and surfing) Couch Surfing before - I think it’s incredibly interesting and an opportunity to meet and interact with people you probably wouldn’t otherwise. A wonderful opportunity to live the gospel out in front of people and develop relationships.
Loved God at the Grammy’s . Although I despise the whole glitz and glam, it’s good to see the Almighty still inching His way into lives. Although much of the god-talk is just that, I still pray for redemption
Matthew Paul Turner’s random thoughts on Ted Haggard were good and I found them interesting.
However, I will NEVER understand how Martha Stewart continues to be villified and lumped in with these celebrity downfall stories. Turner parallels her plight with Tiger Woods, David Letterman and Ted Haggard???
Look, Stewart was framed and served time for obstructing an agency proceeding and making false or incomplete statements to federal investigators. They were investigating the charge of insider trading, and those charges were dismissed and unfounded. If she had shared everything she knew openly with the federal investigators, she would not have gone to jail; however the information that she had received was received second-hand, through a licensed, certified stock broker, who cut a deal to stay out of jail, in order to testify against Stewart. BOOOO!!
Meanwhile, ppl like those associated with Enron and the Wall Street meltdown (the ones still alive) walk the streets unfettered, none of them having darkened the inside of a jail cell to date.
While it is true that celebrities do tend to get held to higher standards most of the time, we should be ashamed of the ridiculous double standard in her case.
How her transgressions get compared to the escapades of likes of men like Tiger, Letterman and Haggard is bewildering to me.
/end rant//
When I read your twitter tease for this post “God at the Grammys”, I thought it might have been referring to the song I translated and recorded with the Soweto Gospel Choir, entitled “Baba Yetu” (Our Father), which is the Lord’s Prayer in Swahili and which won a Grammy for ‘Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist.’
Story here: http://mshale.com/article/Entertainment/Entertainment/Swahili_song_wins_…
Soli Deo Gloria!
Oops, forgot to link to the Choral Octavo: http://www.stagepass.com/groupartist/artist_item_detail.hperl?Artist=Kia…
Wilson:1. What is cultural apostacy? This needs definition.2, What are covenantal blessings? Does grace run in genes?3. Overall a confusing argument that doesn;t advance much understanding.4. Overall an argument safe at home in middle class western christianity. Woe betid eyou if you live in poverty in a third world country - you’re condemned by the pharasees whoi say you must nit pratcice BC as you are limiting the covennatal blessings….
“….specifically, the belief that God favors their own personal, temporal success over that of almost everyone else.”
Ed Young Jr and any number of other Metro/Suburban Baptist pastors teach the very same thing. If only in degrees.
I appreciated Wilson’s theses. Given what little I’ve read of his before, I expected him to come down on the side of birth-control legalism. Refreshing that he did not.
One though exercise on the topic of fertilization and implantation:
If it is the case that reducing the statistical likelihood of a fertilized egg implanting is wrong, then why is it not also wrong, through inaction, to fail to improve the chances of implantation? There are certainly drugs that will do that.
Teg - a two-year-old sheep that has not been shorn. Funny.
The thing that really bothered me about the Birth control article (and the comments that followed) was how little the basic understanding of biology was followed. Until recently, women breastfed their babies until they were a couple of years old, exclusively, which helped to deter menstruation and thus, delayed pregnancies. Since our society looks down on public breastfeeding, women have to use birth control to achieve the same ends. And what about women who are given birth control for other medical reasons? God looks at our hearts, not our pharmacy bill.
I am surprised that the same people who rightly condemn euthanasia, abortion, etc., under the principle of God being the Author of life, the Lifegiver and the Lifetaker, do not see birth control falling under the same principle. It seems a technicality to me that somehow it is not sin - preferring our own way to God’s way - if we just make sure the egg is not fertilized.
I am not adamantly anti-BC, and because I spent most of my child-bearing years under the worldly delusion that our bodies are our own., I have not had to live with the consequences of no BC, but I just don’t see the scriptural support for it.
btw: That God looks at our hearts should not be a comforting thought.
Couch surfing may be based on a faulty theological premise, but it really works. I know a guy who bought a bus pass and travled 48 states for dirt cheap through that site. I’m sure it has it’s risks, but it was reasonably safe for him. He DID run into some freakishly weird people, BUT they were not dangerous.
Wilson’s post makes some good points (like the fact many Christians ignore the abortifacient possibility of the pill), yet he doesn’t really address the important questions regarding what the Scriptures do say. How does the “go forth and multiply” command given to the whole human race speak to this issue? Has the exception become the rule for most western societies regarding when to use birth control? What does a person’s use of birth control say about their view of children, if anything?
At least Wilson admits he is breaking from Church tradition (including Calvin and Luther) on the issue. Many people will try and show where Calvin and Luther were pro-BC to support their argument.
I have looked at these issues, and the best faithful handling of the issue I have found is in John Frame’s The Doctrine of the Christian Life. My summary of his summary: “If you’re going to use BC, you better have a very, very good reason in light of the what the Scripture says about children being a blessing. And most people don’t have a good reason.”
I have gone back and read Wilson’s article and he does say some quite good things….
“8. More is involved in raising up a godly seed than to have a man with dogmatic convictions about birth control, matched only by his unwillingness to feed, read to, educate, pay tuition for, bestow upon, and love the results of his dogmatism. There are no promised covenantal blessings for the self-absorbed proprietors of stud farms.”
I have known a few self-absorbed proprietors of stud farms and boy you’d think that they are adding to their justification and sanctification but the number of rug-rats they have sired. Thankfully God has enabled my wife and I to undertake some family planning and this has been a blessing to us.
Couch Surfing would be based on a faulty premise if the statement were a theological one, but it quite clearly isn’t meant that way! If, as I suspect, their definition of “good” means to help others out rather than harm them, then it’s not based on a faulty premise at all.
Tim - Do you think you could start putting a reference for the quote you put at the end of each A La Carte post? Some are fantastic and we would really like to use them in lessons or sermons, but it’s good to have a “this is where you can find it” note.