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Wednesday, December 21, 2005
The War on Christmas Well, this has now definitely become a spiritual
world war. First we had the Jews against Anti-Christian Defamation, and now
we have an atheist in the London Telegraph entering the fray. I'll let you read
these stories - the opinion piece is really exceptional, so there is nothing
that I can add to it. What is amazing is that we have atheists and Jews,
joining the battle on the side of either orthodox or evangelical Christians,
against... Islamists? No. Other Muslims? No. Atheists? Not really. No,
the enemy here is by and large secular Christians. You know, the folks who were
raised Christian, show up at Church once in a while (usually Christmas, btw,
which isn't even the biggest day of the year in the Church, but these folks
wouldn't know that), but quite frankly have no more belief in God than even Mr.
Heffer has. Now, I'm not asserting that I'm some perfectly devout Christian. I
try, but certainly not hard enough, and certainly without routine success.
However, these people don't even have the courage to admit that they really
aren't Christian anymore. After all, if you really believe that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God, you'd think you would, at the least, not be ashamed of it. And
that is precisely the way these people
feel.
However, my point here is not to pick on secular Christians, as if they are something new on the scene. Frankly they have been around since the time of Ananias and Sapphira , and it only has become worse since Constantine and the legalization of Christianity. No, I think that maybe it would be better to eliminate Christmas from the secular world. Let people have some sort of Winter Solstice celebration. Then, those of us in the Church can return to observing Advent, celebrating Christmas by worshiping, and stop having to deal with the secular Christians regarding Christmas. No more explanations as to why we don't do Santa Claus in our house (we celebrate St. Nicholas on his feast day which seems better than celebrating some made up Coca Cola advertising gimmick), no more explaining to the children why we try to wait and begin celebrating Christmas on Christmas day (so we aren't one of those who announce, on the feast of the Nativity of the Lord of all Creation, "thank God that's over"). Once again, Christmas, as important of a holiday as it is, will be placed in the correct perspective, as the second, or maybe even third most important feast in the Church, not the first. What is the most important feast in the Church? Well, if you're not a secular Christian then you know. If you are, you may know only because somebody mentioned it to you, but you likely don't. The biggest feast day, by far, is Easter. Yep. The incarnation of our Lord was a huge event, but nothing is more important than the Resurrection itself. If you're not clear why that is, e-mail me following the link below and I can help you out. Thursday, December 15, 2005 Okay, Enough Dr. Toon Often, I have found myself bothered, generally in
a non-specific sort of way to the writings of the Rev. Dr. Peter Toon, one time
president of the Prayer Book Society here in the U.S. In a recent essay , Dr. Toon raises some points to which I
have much more specific problems.
In this essay, Dr. Toon looks to the Tractarian movement as a bad thing, to which I can only agree in that it did not go far enough. The Tractarians, at times, seemed more interested in defending their right to exist within the Church of England, than they really did in converting the C of E to its Catholic roots. Dr. Toon would disagree, and, often in his writings calls people back to the reformed roots of the Church of England. Of course, this is an absurd, very anachronistic position. To speak of the reformed roots of the Church of England is to consider the Church to have been founded at the time of the reformation, rather than more than a millennia earlier. Certainly, this reformed theology can't really be found in the early Church, outside of some elements of the theology of St. Augustine. Dr. Toon also decries things of the AngloCatholic movement as "ritualism", an attempt to dismiss the entire movement with a slur as opposed to engaging the reality that such "ritualism" was the norm in the universal Church, which Dr. Toon repeatedly in his writings claims to support. What Dr. Toon really supports is a brief 350 year period within the Church of England as being the measure of what the Church should be. He is, in many ways, just another fundamentalist, except that what he holds most dear is not Scripture, but rather the Book of Common Prayer, and more importantly the 39 articles. In fact, there are times when I suspect he would sooner eliminate the Nicene Creed than the 39 articles. I would recommend that Dr. Toon study the Old Testament a bit more, and realize that God, Himself, established ritual as a necessary part of Worship. God, Himself, appointed sacrifice as a part of worship, and God, Himself, established priests as the leaders of such Worship. He did not establish hour long sermons and temples which placed the pulpit and the preacher as the center point of worship. If you doubt that this is what reformed theology leads to, just look at any large Church built during the first 200 years or so after the reformation. The altar (the throne of God) disappears in the interest of the pulpit, or the throne of man. This is, after all, what Dr. Toon longs for. I'm sure he would be happiest if we could return to the days when the Eucharist was only celebrated once a month or less, so that we could allow more time for preaching. More man, less God. I know he would be displeased to be accused of such sentiment, but realistically it is what he really longs for. Tuesday, December 13, 2005 Tookie and the Death Penalty So, Tookie Williams was put to death today.
Surely it is a shame whenever any life is lost, but this event once again raises
some interesting questions:
⁃ Do states, from a Biblical perspective,
have the right to enact the death penalty?
⁃ Should we use the death penalty in
California?
⁃ Should Tookie have been granted
clemency?
Of course, by now the last question is immaterial, but probably worth exploring. I'll start there and argue that based on the current law I think he should not have been. The arguments for him having undergone some significant change seem a bit hollow. Some children's books were published under his name, but written by someone else, and he has gone on record as being opposed to gang violence. From a Christian perspective, of course, we understand that interior change is easily demonstrated by exterior behavior. Did Tookie apologize for the killings? No, he still denies that they happened. Did he take serious steps to undue the unbelievable carnage that he unleashed on Los Angeles by the founding of the crips? No. Yes, he wrote some books, but when asked to provide information to the authorities that would allow them to dismantle the gang, he stated that he didn't want to be a "snitch". So, how much personal responsibility does he assume for this group? Apparently very little. There doesn't appear to be much interior change here. I think the Governor probably got this one right. There is an interesting account of the execution here. Note the following quote: 12:10 a.m. After surveying the room with the head
movement he is allowed, Williams turns his head to his right. He stares at the
media. It is a long look and one that attempts to pierce our being in the room.
There is no mistaking, even as this man awaits death, he is attempting to be in
control, he wants to intimidate. He stops after about 10 seconds or so. His
breathing is still deep and nervously quick. His massive chest continues to
fluctuate distinctly.
He wants to intimidate? Gee, why is that not surprising. A crip to the end. Of course, one of his biggest supporters has been Snoop Loser Dog, another crip who has at least stopped directly killing, but who now peddles trash - noise pretending to be music with grand lyrics like "Don't f***with Snoop too much cause he goes off when niggaz mouth too much." Why doesn't Jesse Jackson speak out against him? Is he really a great help to the Black Community? At the end of all of this, if by some bizarre chance Williams didn't directly kill the people in question (roughly as likely as Aliens having landed in my backyard last night), he still bears responsibility for every killing ever perpetrated by a crip, if you ask me. As to the other two questions, the first has been well answered elsewhere. Government (not individuals) do possess that right - although it needs to be administered with great integrity and fairness. On the other hand, I'm beginning to think that California should do away with it. Why? Well, the process takes so long, that all that ends up happening is that these criminals become famous. If summary executions happened within a year or so of conviction, it would be fine. But instead, we get a long runup with lots of publicity. Frankly, we would have been better off if Williams had been dropped in a dark cell somewhere never to be heard from again in the public arena. Update Well, I had grand plans to do some critical
review of John Ortberg and Rick Warren's books, but really don't have time to do
the sort of methodical work that is warranted. So, I eliminated those blog
categories. As time permits I'll try to address those
specifically.
Instead, I'm going to try to actually blog more frequently, but in a less structured way, and save the big projects for later :) |