Sometimes Alcohol IS the answer

Most of the conversation between Christians regarding alcohol consists in whether it is permissible within Christian ethics to consume alcoholic beverages for recreational use. I’ve lost interest in that debate. It’s an easy win. I imagine that the writers of Scripture would laugh at a twenty-first century Christian who mandated that one cannot drink alcohol. Still, there’s another view that Christians often hold that I want to address.

Many Christians, I think, reject teetotalism because it’s possible for someone to drink alcohol and it have no discernible effect on the person. From this fact, they conclude: surely it’s acceptable to drink alcohol since doing so can be entirely innocuous. But there is something in this thought that is misleading. It suggests that when one drinks alcohol, it should have no visible effect on the person. The idea is that it permissible to drink alcohol not because alcohol is a good thing, but because it isn’t always a bad thing. This view is similar to someone who begrudgingly admits that sex is acceptable in cases of procreation. This person is, of course, permitting that sex is acceptable, but they aren’t really thinking of sex as a gift of grace to be enjoyed for its own sake. What I wish to challenge here is the claim that alcohol should never have a noticeable effect on our behavior.

Blackberry Files, vol. 3: The Agnostic Edition

[We've all been there. A thought strikes you at a moment, but it's fleeting fast. Get it down somewhere fast or you'll lose it. I grew so tired of this happening to me that I began making a point to stop whatever I was doing and record it. I usually record it on a BlackBerry Storm. I noticed that I had a little collection of random thoughts piling up and thought I'd post them here on occasion. Sometimes these thought will be half-baked. You'll notice that the development of these thoughts come in varying degrees. Sometimes you might think, "I think that one should've sat in the hopper a little longer..." If so, tell me. No bother, these ideas are in development. What follows is one of those ideas that I put down as it came to me.]

It is often supposed that the scholarship of believing scholars is less credible because they have a vested interest in their own claims and thus are not in a neutral position to assess historical data. As the old adage goes: if the Pope says there is a God he’s just doing his job but if August Comte says this he may be on to something. Granted, believing scholars have a vested interest and that they are not neutral, but it is not true that their claims are less credible. It is no more possible for the unbelieving scholar to assess historical data from a neutral position. The claims of Christianity are the kind of claims about which one cannot possibly be neutral. They are life-governing claims that if true demand one way of perceiving the world and if not true demand other ways of perceiving the world. It is impossible then that even a skeptic should occupy a neutral position on looking at the biblical data and assessing its truth since she makes his assessment on the judgment of a worldview that is either Christian or non-Christian. She may be agnostic with regard to his conclusion about the accuracy of the biblical data, but she is not neutral in the means by which he assesses the truth of it since she is not agnostic or neutral to her methods of evaluation. Agnosticism and neutrality are not methods of evaluation. They are at best attitudes about the outcome of evaluation. Thus it is not possible to evaluate agnostically or neutrally. People can only do any evaluation because they have principles and convictions on which they must stand in order to make an assessment.

A Sermon for Palm Sunday

[Here is a condensed version of the sermon that I preached this Sunday, April 5, 2009. I don't think that I'm a particularly great preacher but I think that I do fairly well at it. I try to preach what I think I would need someone to preach to me. Hopefully I'm enough like other people so that what I need to hear is similar to what they need to hear. The sermon, you will notice, is largely influenced by Luther (yes, I know I just opened myself up the charge that I should be largely influenced by the text). His explanation of Philippians 2:5-11 in "Two Kinds of Righteousness" is, in my estimation, one of the greatest theological treatises ever written. I don't plan to regularly post sermons here, but I thought some might be interested in reading it and I get a blog post out of it...win, win.]

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our text today is the epistle lesson.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:5-11).

There’s a theory in ethics called egoism. It’s a pretty simple theory really. It essentially says that all ethical decisions whether good or bad are ultimately for personal gain and benefit. It claims that there’s only one motive for all your moral actions: self-interest. It’s easy to see how self-interest is behind wrong moral actions.

Does Your Church Encourage Homosexuality?

Undoubtedly, many who read this title are members of churches where homosexuality is considered morally wrong. These people will think: “No, my church doesn’t encourage homosexuality. We are against it.” Determining which churches promote homosexuality and which do not may seem obvious, but it isn’t.

Three Churches that Encourage Homosexuality

There are several ways that churches can encourage someone toward homosexuality.

The Blackberry Files, vol. 2

As I was walking the campus of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, I heard one of two middle-eastern women in conversation say: “Jesus f***ing Christ” which made me wonder why there isn’t more religious sensitivity in American society toward Christians the way there is toward Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc. I can think of two reasons.

One reason is that Christians are the majority religion in American society. It is hard to take seriously the oppression of the majority. No one entertains the belief that there is a plight of the majority. If I make a comment in front of two middle-eastern women (say they are Muslim) to the effect of “F*** Muhammad” I can reasonably expect that this is perceived in a way that the parallel statement by the two women is not. Society tires of the majority as the majority in a way that it does not the minority and so we tolerate insensitivity toward the majority in a far greater way.

The second reason I can think that there isn’t more religious sensitivity in American society toward Christians is that Christians have reasons to tolerate it that others do not. Islam is not taught to endure those who hate you and speak evil of you as Christians are taught by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5). There is no command (that I can find) in the Q’uran to love your enemies. Consequently, I do not see that people fear violent repercussions from Christians either on an individual level or on organized level. There is within Christian teaching the idea that the world’s attitude toward us has already been established in it’s attitude toward our Lord. We share the same fate. So Christians should not be surprised at this. And the Christian response is to be the same as Christ’s. When he was reviled, he did not revile back but kept entrusting himself to God who judges justly.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Why Do We Need Ongoing Forgiveness?

One of the questions that I’m asked from time to time, and one that I also have asked many times concerns why a Christian needs to continually confess our sins if we have already been forgiven. Many of us have the vague notion that we need to confess our present sins, but don’t really know why. Sure, 1 John 1:9 (a letter written to believers) encourages confession of post-conversion sin, and certainly Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses…” but many people do so without any clearer reason than that they are commanded (Of course, doing something because God has commanded it is never an insufficient reason, but it is better if we can also know the reason for the command). 

 

Various reasons for confessing sin have been given.

 

A common answer that I’ve heard throughout my years in the church is that we must continually confess our sins to stay in fellowship with God. That is, if we sin and don’t confess it, God won’t answer our prayers and we will feel in our souls that we are distant from him. The verse commonly cited in support of this view is Ps 66:18 – “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”

Any asset that this answer is in providing a reason to confess sin becomes a liability in a host of other areas for theology and Christian living.

Using Foul Language in a Fair Way

[I've been wanting to blog on this subject for a while now and after reading Christopher Gates' comment on another thread, I felt compelled to echo and elaborate on some of the things he said.]

When I was growing up, I heard my mom use the word “crap” one time and only one time. My jaw dropped. “Those” words were simply never used in our house. I could not believe what I heard. After I decided that I heard correctly, I was ashamed of her (even though she only said it in front of another sibbling) and I was seriously worried that God was going to punish her severely for it. I carried this view with me even into adulthood (though I eased up on the idea that God would severely punish you for using them). I always thought them to be a sin. I don’t remember when I changed my view but I remember when it was solidified.

The Blackberry Files, vol. 1

[We've all been there. A thought strikes you at a moment, but it's fleeting fast. Get it down somewhere fast or you'll lose it. I grew so tired of this happening that I began making a point to stop whatever I was doing and record it. I usually record it on a Blackberry Curve. I noticed that I had a little collection of random thoughts piling up and thought I'd post them here on occasion. Sometimes these thought will be half-baked. You'll notice that the development of these thoughts come in varying degrees. Sometimes you might think, "I think that one should've sat in the hopper a little longer..." If so, tell me. No bother, these ideas are in development. What follows is one of those ideas that I put down as it came to me.]

Science is only valuable as a tool for making our lives easier or more fruitful. We value science for giving us what we value. We do not tend to value science for its claims to truth. If we found that science took away or impeded our possession of the things we value, it wouldn’t matter whether it asserted itself as true. It would cease to be granted its authority. Science thus has an anthropocentric component. If we were to discover some fact that had no value for human living then it would be irrelevant (until it could be shown to have relevance for what we value). Furthermore, science is not valued for its ability to reveal reality to us. The picture of reality that science claims to provide is becoming increasingly more confusing. And the average person understands the picture supplied by science less and less. Nevertheless most of us trust the picture of reality that science gives us. But we trust it not because we’ve tested it according to a strict method for identifying reality but because it continues to give us some of the things we value. Thus, with regard to the question of what constitutes reality, the claims of science are only of practical and have no intrinsic theoretical value. To the extent that we believe that science gives us an accurate picture of reality we must show what difference this makes for science — why it is scientifically necessary or relevant that the picture provided be true. The irrelevance of scientific realism is reinforced by the need for realists to show that scientific realism is pragmatically necessary. Even in answering that science gives us an accurate picture of reality that answer will have to terminate in a pragmatic concern. What does an accurate picture of reality get me? How can I use it?

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

One of the Worst Sermons I Have Ever Heard (Joel Osteen Excluded Just to Make It Fair)

I know that many “Reformed” evangelicals like Paul Washer’s preaching. I find this rather troubling. I’ve heard several sermons by him and I find myself grateful that I heard the gospel elsewhere because I’ve yet to find it in anything Paul Washer says. Now, it’s true, I don’t just dislike his theology, I also dislike how he delivers it. I’m probably predisposed to dislike Paul Washer’s preaching. Paul Washer, how do you annoy me? Let me count the ways… I’m annoyed by the contrived weepiness with an amazing control to shut off the faucet when its time to yell. I’m annoyed by the synthetic British-southern hybrid accent, or (in keeping with the accent), the attempt to weave Puritan word-order into sermons (e.g. “you know not God!”), or what seems to be a relish for pissing people off while masquarading as speaking the hard things out of love. But these are my personal piques and I don’t expect others to share them. So I’ll dispense with those things and give attention to more serious errors.

In Praise of Borat

[I'm clearing out my list of drafts -- posts I started but never finished. Here's a topic I took about a year ago and finally managed to finish.]

Yes, I watched Borat. I’m glad I didn’t listen to all the people who said it was a sign of the decay of civilization. I find it is a wonderful movie with insightful social commentary and profound lessons for Western society. While those who also watched Borat are wondering if I saw the same movie they did, let me try to make the case. First, if you haven’t seen the movie, throw out all you’ve heard and let my words reach you unfettered by the misplaced criticism. Contrary to popular opinion it is not simply a fratboy movie full of senseless bathroom humor. Think of the basic plot. Jewish comedian Sasha Baron Cohen pretends to be a naive, racist, third-world visitor from Kazakhstan in attempt to make light of unsuspecting Westerners. Surely, the idea has merit.

We take many of our Western values for granted: pluralism, tolerance, equality for races and sexes. We view the major civil rights issues to be making sure people have equal rights to health care, education, marriage, etc. Westerners typically see these as important, if not necessary, features of a society. However, Borat wants to challenge these and show that the non-Western cultures have to deal with much bigger problems than whether everyone gets equal access to health care. He puts his foreign customs and values up against our supposed tolerance to see just how much pluralism we can take. In the end, it is revealed that we really aren’t as tolerant as we think. Our tolerance only goes so far and it its limits are arbitrary.

Taverns Are Evil

Albert Mohler recently wrote a largely anecdotal reflection on the local circumstances of power outages in Louisville. It was getting a little boring and then he chose to take an interesting if ridiculous turn. He concludes his blog post: “The Lord, as the Bible says, causes it to rain on both the just and the unjust.  Churches and taverns are both dark.  Darkness fell on those doing good and those doing evil.  The difference may not be evident again until the lights come back on.”

Now I never took the GRE, but I studied quite a bit for it and Mohler’s comment could easily function as one of those word association questions.

Rain on the just is to church, as rain on the unjust is to ______________. 

A. playground
B. Yankee Stadium
C. tavern
D. bald men

At the risk of being accused of putting words in his mouth, it seems clear that he’s identifying the just people as those in the church and the unjust people as those in the taverns. But whence comes this dichotomy? I certainly agree that the church is the gathering of the just, but why must this mean that Mohler considers those in places that serve alchohol are “those doing evil”? I doubt that substituting “grocery stores” for “taverns” would’ve afforded him the opportunity to communicate the point he was out to make.  I won’t go on the defense and argue that alchohol is a gift of God (Ps. 104:14-15), but I wonder, “Why distract your readers from your main point for a chance to take a dig at taverns and people who attend taverns?”

I patronize “taverns” almost weekly (not always the same place) and I have many times met other believers there. I often choose to meet with Christian friends in pubs. There are many Christians that hold Bible studies and discussion groups in pubs. I don’t see what necessitates that “taverns” are the gathering place of the evil. Furthermore, I have seen many more unjust things go on in churches than I have ever seen in taverns. All of this makes drawing the lines between the church as the home of the just/those doing good and the tavern as the home of the unjust/those doing evil messier than Mohler understands it to be.

I once ran into Mohler at Chick-fil-a on a Friday night a couple of years ago. The employee taking his order was a Southern Seminary student and he and Mohler were talking. I interjected that I was a SBTS grad and he said that “Chick-fil-a is a great weekend meeting place for Baptists because we don’t do beer, we do carbs.” This Baptist-turned-Lutheran saw that descriptively this wasn’t true (many Baptists do both) and prescriptively this wasn’t true (Christians can do both).

When life isn’t peachy…

 Buy the shirt.

God the Philosopher

Think about this:

Under ‘things in the broadest possible sense’ include such radically different items as not only ‘cabbages and kings’, but numbers and duties. possibilities and finger snaps, aesthetic experience and death. To achieve success in philosophy would be, to use a contemporary turn of phrase, to ‘know one’s way around’ with respect to all these things, not in that unreflective way in which the centipede of the story knew its way around before it faced the question, ‘how do I walk?, but in that reflective way which means that no intellectual holds are barred. Knowing one’s way around is, to use a current distinction, a formof ‘knowing how‘ as contrasted with ‘knowing that’. There is all the difference in the world between knowing how to ride a bicycle and knowing that a steady pressure by the legs of a balanced person onthe pedals would result in forward motion (Wilfrid Sellars, Science, Perception, and Reality, [Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Co, 1).

This statement sums up well what we are after when we speak of knowledge. Sure, we want to know about these radically different items Sellars lists but we want to think rightly about them. We want to know the how and the why not the simple what. Cornelius Van Til, reminded us (naggingly at times) that there are no brute facts. In fact, we can go even further: there isn’t even brute knowledge of brute facts. To even recognize one fact as seperate from another takes a viewpoint, a perspective – the beginning of doing something with facts. We easily recognize what we are after when we speak of human knowledge – we want to know what to do with facts. But when it comes to speaking of God’s knowledge, Christians often forget what’s most important. We are often concerned with God’s knowledge of facts or perhaps as some might term them (incorrectly in my judgment) propositions. We want to make sure God knows stuff – all about stuff. But when we get the bottom of what this means, it turns out we’ve found a God who can play a helluva game of Trivial Pursuit. Not exactly a great-making property for God.