— of September 14, 2008

The best and not so good of this week’s ‘religious’ talk:

SBC resolutions and gluttony:

“If such a resolution makes it to the floor of the convention, I wonder if it will be amended to limit participation in denominational life to those who are not gluttons?” Tom Ascol at The Founders Ministries Blog.

Not gonna happen, but we’ll see. See you ’round like a donut—in Louisville.

The IMB and Believers Baptism:

“This means that the IMB was correct in placing the guidelines on baptism in place because the overwhelming majority of SBC pastors believe a person baptized in a church that does not believe in eternal security has not experienced a scriptural baptism.” At SBC Today.

Logic 101: If the overwhelming majority happens to be wrong, is that still what this means?

On Church Signs:

“IMHO, the proper use of church signs is to display God’s Word. Those who write a clever saying and then attach “God” to it, come very close to blasphemy to me. I would be very careful in attributing to God the words of men. I prefer the words of God.” Les Puryear at sbc IMPACT!

A sound principle in which I can find no fault.

Rant of the Week:

“My denomination is more interested in evangelism than any other denomination in existence or Christian history. Its entire apparatus of denominational machinery is devoted to the promotion of evangelism. Its denominational publications and web sites are basically all evangelism, all the time.” Michael Spencer at internetmonk.com

I never cease to be amazed at the insight of this guy that most in our denomination view as “fringe.” Just as a couple of bonus questions, does any body in the SBC know the meaning of personal holiness, and what the chief end of man is? Keep rantin’, brother iMonk.

On Multi-site Churches:

“Multi-site church is a logical and efficient solution to a problem brought on by bad missiology.” At Missions Misunderstood.

Nothing funny, ironic, or sad here. It’s just a good post. Read it.

Jonathan Edwards Resources:

October 5, 2008 is the birthday of Jonathan Edwards (happy 305th!). And on this date the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale will launch WJE Online 2.0, a new 73-volume(!) digital works of Edwards, which will include the full electronic versions of the printed Yale Works (25 volumes) and another 47 volumes of unpublished, digitized sermons and other material.” At The Shepherd’s Scrapbook.

Edwards still looks good for his age. Check out the site.

Politics:

“Christ is the integration point, not some grand idea, and our duties are always right in front of us, simple and plain. There are certain intellectual convolutions that could make particularity and “individualism” abstract in an idolatrous way, but that is actually hard to do. Because of the Incarnation, the bias of particularity in politics favors the anti-ideological, which is to say, it is a bias against idolatry. And that describes historic conservatism very well. At the same time, I grant that it does not describe George W. Bush’s spending habits very well — there the resemblance would be more like a pack of simians that got into an Congo merchant’s storehouse of trade gin.” Douglas Wilson at Blog and Mablog.

No one makes better use of the English language than Doug Wilson. He is the master of metaphor, the sultan of simile. We Baptists may not agree with everything he says, but Pastor Wilson always says it well.

About arator

Jesus is alive and the whole Bible is about Him, and I am nobody. I like to till the earth and muse over all things theological.
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