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A La Carte (2/7)
- 02/07/11
- 23
Super Bowl this, Super Bowl that. It’s tough to get too excited about the Super Bowl when your church has an evening service that overlaps kickoff. And when you don’t have cable. And when you don’t have a favorite team. And I’m okay with this (especially after catching some video of that unspeakably awful half-time performance).
Can a Computer Win Jeopardy? - We’re about to find out in what should be a rather interesting (and probably anti-climactic) contest.
Poured Concrete for the Soul - The American Spectator reviews Nancy Pearcey’s latest book: “In Saving Leonardo, Nancy Pearcey illumines the answers to those questions and much more besides. Although a great portion of the book discusses the arts, in one sense that is not her real subject at all. Her subject is the intellectual underpinnings of Western society over the past 250 years, how those underpinnings have radically shifted, and how those shifts affect — well, everything, including not just the arts, but culture, morals, and even our concepts of truth and reality.”
Where Have all the Presbyterians Gone? - Russell Moore pens an op-ed for the WSJ. “Are we witnessing the death of America’s Christian denominations? Studies conducted by secular and Christian organizations indicate that we are. Fewer and fewer American Christians, especially Protestants, strongly identify with a particular religious communion--Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, etc. According to the Baylor Survey on Religion, nondenominational churches now represent the second largest group of Protestant churches in America, and they are also the fastest growing.”
Me Tarzan, You Jane? - Girls Gone Wise: “t's all over twitter. It's discussed in detail in all the recent dating and relationship books. It screamed at us from reality television. Every successful TV matchmaker positively demands it. Men are hunters. Women are responders.”
Hitting the Mark - This is pretty amazing. According to Wired, this guy has made 800 jumps and has never missed the mark.
The faintest whisper of support and encouragement uttered by a Christian in the ears of his fellow believer is heard in heaven. —John J. Murray
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 (23)
You are sooooo right about the half-time performance.
Great quote from John Murray at the foot of your page today. Thank you for that!
Tim, you should do a post breaking down the youtube classic “Jesus is Better than football.” In my opinion THAT should have been the halftime show, in a hilarious “You just got Punk’d World!” sort of way…
http://chiefofleast.com/2011/02/04/jesus-is-better-than-the-superbowl/
I guess the NFL went from old, boring and stiff half-time performers to young, boring and stiff half-time performers.
In regards to the WSJ piece. I would say that as a person wonders what communion and baptism mean and the origin of many “non demominational” practices he or she would begin to move toward a denomination. The perceived purity of what is really a mixed bag with the tag non-denominational is obvious in the Sunday school class. Just spend a class teaching on Ephesians and bring up the subject of election and watch the sparks fly.
As someone who attends a non-denominational church, I can see the appeal. I’ve long thought the existence of denominations (even the theologically correct ones) was a poor witness to the non-believing world.
With respect to Mike’s comment on election, I like to think my church could accommodate both sides of that debate. By that I mean someone who held the minority view wouldn’t get booted from the community or otherwise treated poorly. The executive pastor is on one side, I’m sure, and he doesn’t hide it when composing sermons, but there’s no official church position.
I read the piece by Russell Moore. Also, last night I read a good share of Carl Trueman’s “The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind”. The messages align quite well - Essentially, the “scandal” is that evangelicalism has become so “inclusive” that the word no longer means anything; there is no unified, consistent “evangel”. We have sold it away in return for cultural acceptance and relevance, out of fear of being viewed within the “public square” as a cult, as the pressures increase in number from the doctrinal to the ethical. Because churches have dropped or severely streamlined the precise doctrinal standards that these denominations once accepted and required, there has been the implicit conclusion from church people that they are not very important at all. They are not practical, they are at best marginal. And the consequences of this idea is that, in practice, they are downplayed for the sake of “unity” and for building sufficiently sizable coalitions via, for example, parachurch ministries and organizations such as NAE, Focus on the Family, Promise Keepers. The implicit belief is that God works more through ecumenism than through the local church. Therefore, who needs denominations and what can a puny little church do what a well-funded non-denom megachurch with countless specialty ministries can’t do better?
correction: “what can a puny little church do THAT a well-funded non-denom megachurch with countless specialty ministries can’t do better?”
Dan, on the flip side, I’m not convinced that various issues aren’t over-emphasized by denominations. I’m comfortable being in a local body (and a larger denominational body) with believers with whom I disagree over non-essential and non-obvious matters.
The level of doctrinal acceptance required for me to consider that someone is likely a believer is relatively small. There’s a larger set of beliefs that I consider to be “not really up for debate” based on a objective reading of the scriptures. If someone is “wrong” on an issue that’s in the second set (but not the first) then I’m not going to say he’s not a believer. But, at the same time, I wouldn’t want to be part of a local body (or larger denominational body) that propagated this wrong belief.
The above is pretty standard, I would imagine, for all believers, including those who strongly support strict denominations. The difference is in which beliefs or issues one assigns to each of the two sets. For instance, some folks may think it is so indisputable and important that baptism be done on adults, that they couldn’t be part of a local body that performed infant baptisms. To my mind, infant vs. adult baptism isn’t worth dividing over.
I am glad you posted the video of the skydiving… it is a clear reminder that I never want to go skydiving. Got a pit in my stomach just watching him walk out on the plan and jump.
What denomination was Calvin? Luther? The Puritans? Spurgeon dropped out of his denomination!
In a day where denominations are continuing to move to more liberal views of Scripture, denying Biblical creation and the 5 Solas, is it any wonder people are moving to independent Bible churches?
@Michael: I think it’s still a noteworthy development given there are theologically conservative denominations people could be switching to.
JPH (#9): Don’t make the mistake of assuming that because Christians embrace a certain denominational position and/or community that they assume people in other denominations are not believers. An example: as a Southern Baptist (at heart, though not currently by membership), I can say with confidence that Presbyterians are born-again followers of Jesus; but I can also say that our differing views on baptism would make it quite difficult to be a part of the same local church, without someone changing their theology and practice.
And regarding the national anthem: Everyone’s railing Christina Aguilera for blowing the words. Does anyone else think the more distasteful thing surrounding her performance was the crowd of people booing throughout the rest of her performance after the botched line?
Packers win!
Kyle: Agreed. I tried to lay out my position in that regard w/ the two sets of beliefs (one salvational, one not), but may not have been clear. I’ll take another stab.
There are certain foundational doctrines where, when someone doesn’t hold to them, I hold some doubt as to their salvation. For me, this set is rather small. In other words, I allow that someone can be fantastically wrong about many/most important issues while still having salvational knowledge of Jesus. Examples in this category would be, “Jesus actually existed,” and “I have sinned and am in need of a savior.”
There’s a second set of doctrines that I think are “unequivocally clear from scripture”. That is to say, two reasonable believers in submission to Christ will almost never disagree on these doctrines, despite their not rising to the level of salvational necessity. In this category I might put something like, “Homosexual acts are sinful in God’s eyes.”
There’s a third set of doctrines where, while I have my personal opinion (that I think is the right one), I allow that two reasonable believers in submission to Christ can, in fact, disagree. In this category would be issues like infant vs. adult baptism, Calvinism vs. Arminianism, various eschatalogical differences, cessation vs. continuation of spiritual gifts, whether pastors can (or should) wear vestments, etc.
I view it as highly appropriate for denominational bodies to enforce doctrines from the first and second categories. That is to say if a given congregation decides to adopt the position that Jesus was merely an idea rather than an actual person, or that homosexual unions are appropriate and blessed by God, I would hope that an orthodox denominational body would sever its association with that congregation.
At the same time, though, I don’t consider doctrines in the third set to be worth splitting over. That is to say a denominational body should consider whether it needs to adopt an “official position” on, say, predestination, pre/post trib, the exact method of baptism, gifts, etc. It does make sense in some cases for individual congregations to adopt positions (mostly for issues related to “practice”, e.g. baptism), but there’s no reason two congregations can’t be in fellowship that differ on the method of baptism or what will happen at the end of the world.
Case in point, my congregation often partners with a local theologically conservative Anglican congregation. We had a combined Good Friday service, for example. I would feel comfortable worshiping in their church and, I suspect, they would feel comfortable (aside from differences in style) worshiping in mine. Why could our two bodies not exist under the same banner?
“Everyone’s railing Christina Aguilera for blowing the words. Does anyone else think the more distasteful thing surrounding her performance was the crowd of people booing throughout the rest of her performance after the botched line?”
Absolutely. But what can you expect from the average fan? Fans routinely boo when the other team comes on the field. Packers fans booed Favre every time he took the field as a Viking. Disgraceful fan behavior is de rigueur.
“Packers fans booed Favre every time he took the field as a Viking. Disgraceful fan behavior is de rigueur.”
Why is that disgraceful? Consider the reasons:
(1) Favre left the Packers disgracefully. He was an ego maniac (still is). When he was with the Packers toward the end, he demanded that Packers’ management attain Randy Moss otherwise, he said, he would retire. Packers decided not to get Randy Moss (Packers’ management and Ted Thompson are wise because they don’t want personalities on the team, i.e., ego maniacs distracting the team such as Moss). Then about a week later Favre announced his retirement. He was a big baby. He did not get what he wanted and took his toys home. He was not a team player. No loyalty.
(As an aside, this past year, Favre demanded that Vikings attain Moss for him. Vikings capitulated to Favre and about a week or two later the Packers decimated the Vikings.)
(2) Favre disgracefully joined the Vikings out of spite. (For those who do not know, the Vikings are the Packers biggest rivalry and vice versa. In short, the Packers dislike the Bears, but hate the Vikings). No loyalty by Favre.
Postscript: This past year the Vikings let Favre do what the Packers did not allow him to do: control decisions that should be left up to coaches and managers. And what was the result? The biggest embarrassing year the Vikings have had in a long time.
Favre…BOO
J.P.H.: In re-reading your initial comment, you actually did a fine job making that distinction - I just didn’t catch it. Sorry for my hastiness, but thanks for your thoughtful clarification.
I tend to believe that theological and ecclesiological differences are likely to create strife in a local body sooner than perhaps you believe, but I can appreciate the desire to hold to certain distinctives loosely, for the sake of unity in the body. Thanks for contributing.
Alan,
“Consider the reasons”? So, if my kid sins against another, I should see if the other had it coming, and so justify his sin?
Even if I grant your points, which I don’t, and have no interest in debating, booing is shameful sportsmanship. It is immature, childish, spiteful behavior, regardless of what you claim as your provocation. Support your own team, and do it with dignity and grace.
By the way, I have no horse in this race. The only thing that bores me more than professional sports is listening to sports talk, about the actual games, and about the soap operas behind them.
Kyle: I definitely think you’re right about differences giving rise to strife but, to some extent, I think it’s our “job” as believers to overcome that inclination, love one another, and walk in unity. That said, my “vision” for how we should organize ourselves includes like-minded folks predominantly belonging to a local congregation whose views and practices they agree with. I think that’s entirely appropriate.
I guess what bugs me is when we have 100 churches who believe X and 100 churches that believe Y, and X and Y are not so far apart as to preclude fellowship, then all the X churches want to band together to form denomination X and all the Y churches want to band together to form denomination Y. I don’t see why they can’t all be members of denomination Z, with Z having a loose enough set of distinctives that it can accommodate both X and Y congregations.
The trouble, though, would be for someone whose personal belief is X and who wants to attend an X church. How would he know which of the 200 Z congregations are X-type and which are Y-type? He wouldn’t, at least not automatically- he’d have to research each individual Z congregation in order to find one of the type he wants. So in that sense I admit denominations are at least useful to believers in that they create a convenient “shorthand” for sets of beliefs and practice preferences. If you’re a PCA guy then you can go find a PCA church and be relatively sure that its beliefs and practices match what you’re looking for.
The down side is that to unbelievers it looks as if Christians are hugely divisive and can’t agree on anything doctrinally.
David,
I think you are being overly pious. Nevertheless, those are the facts about Favre. And it disturbs me to see people place egomaniac sport stars on a pedestal. Not saying that you are, but I have to call out things when people starting treating him as sacrosanct.
j.p.h. and Kyle: Have been following your conversation and thought I would chime in. If I am correct your responding to Russel Moore’s article. Specifically the quote…. “A church that requires immersion baptism before taking communion, as most Baptist traditions do, will likely get indignant complaints from evangelical visitors who feel like they’ve been denied service at a restaurant.
This becomes an real issue when so few reformed churches are available. So a reformed guy has to make an informed decision between biblical churches that might not be exactly as he would want. So in my case (as it should be for every earnest believer) the criteria is Christ, what is the teaching of the church concerning Christ. If that is solid then usually everything else falls into place and hopefully with any brotherly love the issues that divide most believers pale in comparison to those that unite us.—- Christ.