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A La Carte (4/21)
- 04/21/10
- 8
The History of Computers in a Nutshell - It’s amazing to think how far computers have come in such a short time…and to think that what amazes us today will cause us to laugh just ten years from now.
Teen Texting Soars - NPR covers text messaging and why teens rely on it so heavily. Meanwhile DailyTech says that teen girls average 80 texts sent per day while boys average 30.
Do Popes Quit? - The New York Times asks the question. Look to history and you’ll see that popes die, popes are murdered, popes are dethroned but I don’t know that they ever quit.
Life on the Tibetan Plateau - Here you’ll find a couple of interesting articles about the recent Yushu earthquake. “Norbu flew across the room when the quake hit. My wife was also violently thrown to the ground. Everything in our apartment began to be tossed around, breaking when it hit the walls or floor. I ran to the back bedroom and grabbed Tsering and grabbed him as my wife grabbed Norbu off the floor. Together, we ran to the door. I paused long enough to grab my shoes, coat and a bit of money. I opened the door and one of our Tibetan neighbors assisted us in carrying Tsering down the 3 flights of stairs to the ground floor. All of us were in just our pajamas. I was the only one of my family who managed to get shoes.”
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 
Releasing on April 1, The Next
Published in 2008, this book
This is a guide that calls men,
This review of the bestselling
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This is a guide written
Comments (8)
Regarding the article about teens and texting: I like the quote that the texts are usually “dumb” and “not even worth it.” I’d like to see a study of text message content, so people can see how much of this is truly unnecessary. Also, I think it would be interesting if someone could take a bunch of text interactions and have a couple of people speak them. Again, it would increase awareness of the trivial nature of the messages.
The pope is simply the bishop of the Diocese of Rome, which is what makes him head of the Church. Rome being traditionally the diocese of Peter, the leader of the apostles, whoever is Bishop of Rome is the leader of the Apostles’ successors. (I know most of you don’t believe that yourselves, but we do and the Church is structured accordingly.) It’s succession in office, not in his own person. Cardinal and Pope are merely offices a bishop can hold, not separate steps in the hierarchy. Once he’s been ordained a bishop, he’s always a bishop, regardless of what see (if any) he’s head of. So in theory, he could resign, allowing the College of Cardinals to elect a new pope, and let the new pope either accept his retirement or assign him to another diocese.
In practice, he won’t, and not for the reasons the NYT outlines. (In general, it’s best to subtract about 40 IQ points when reading media coverage of Catholicism.) I’ll leave aside for the moment the fact that Papa Ratzi actually hasn’t done anything wrong in his handling of the abuse accusations. Let’s suppose he really had mishandled the abuse claims. Heck, let’s suppose he actually had molested children or fallen into other grave sin. It wouldn’t make any difference as far as resigning.
What the Times fails to grasp is that the Church is neither a government nor a corporation. It’s the Church. It is the edifice in which sins are forgiven and men are made new creatures in Christ. In a corporation, if a mucky-muck sins against the company, he is fired. In a government, he can be ousted either by election or by coup. In the Church, a sinner repents of his sin and is received back into full fellowship. Whether he’s the pope or the guy on the street, he’s a sinner saved by grace and in need of repentance.
What if he won’t repent? Well, that would rule out resignation anyway, because he wouldn’t see the need. Instead, we’d have a sinful and disobedient pope for a few years. Heaven knows it’s happened before. Infallibility isn’t part of that equation, because (a) his sin is unlikely to stretch into doctrinal pronouncement and (b) infallibility is predicated on the belief that the Holy Spirit will not allow him to lead us into apostasy.
The historian who said “I imagine he thinks, ‘Probably God put me in this position, and it will be up to God to take me out of this position.’ ” is absolutely right. That is what we believe.
So no, he won’t step down the way a CEO or a politician might. He’s neither. He’s the senior pastor of the biggest megachurch in the world and answerable to God for his leadership. But if he did, the Church wouldn’t be thrown into a crisis by it.
Joel - the RCC is an apostate organization. (For the record, I used to be Catholic so this comment is not filtered through the media).
Joel, thanks for taking the time to provide that insight and clarification. It was most helpful. Though I am a Protestant and disagree with Rome theologically, I get tired of how the secular media and even other Protestants misrepresent Roman Catholic beliefs on a regular basis. It is wise to hear what your opponent (or in this case, your brother in Christ) has to say before you critique his thinking.
Interesting history of the computer with no mention of Apple/MacIntosh? Like a history of Christianity without the Prophets :)
Apple II is mentioned…Still, there is not much on the MS/modern enthusiast side of PC’s if any.
Paul, I understand there are a lot of people who believe that. I wasn’t trying to convince anyone otherwise. I used to be Protestant myself. But the news outlets insist on framing the “crisis” in terms that simply don’t fit, so I thought it would be helpful to explain how things really work.
It is wise to hear what your opponent (or in this case, your brother in Christ) has to say before you critique his thinking.
Shepherd, that is exactly what I was trying to get across. You phrased it perfectly. Trouble is, the news media are mostly not our brothers in Christ, and even those reporters who are nominally church members seem to be totally clueless as to how the church (Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox) actually functions.
(I can say that, because I’m a newspapermen myself. I’ve known too many journalists who not only don’t understand, but absolutely refuse to listen to explanations.)