Evolution is a funny word that gets bandied about. Saying it in different context evokes different responses, sometimes laughter and sometimes justified anger. In fact, I’ve been in conversations where a person is using evolution in one sense and me in a completely different sense and both of us have gotten riled up until we pinned down our terms.
Category: apologetics
Justin over at Politics and Religion has begun a series on Christianity’s Downfall by starting off and highlighting fundamentalism. In hopes of education rather than attacking he points out that fundamentalism (in general and in Christianity particularly) is (1) dangerous (2) intolerant (3) rigid (4) illogical and (5) surface-reading which he equates with literalism. Of course, he doesn’t delineate his points as such and is careful to point out what the fundamentalist is rigidly adhering to (and thus obviously dangerous) are the specific doctrines that make Christians who they are: but he does point out that “in many cases, the fundamentalist Christian believes what he…does because it was told to him†and he adheres to a strict literalism. I’ll deal with both these points below.
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Christian Blasphemy?
I hate that I’m embedding this video and I abhor how it’s defaming the name of Christ in what it’s doing but it has to be addressed: it’s wrong and a defamation of God’s Gospel. The video consists of a certain group of professing Christians who publicly protest funerals by raising banners and saying “This Person Has Gone To Hell” or the sort—even if the persons were professing believers like the case of the Amish girls who were killed in
For example, John would state that God loved the world in a specific manner. John doesn’t use world to mean the elect or even to mean the whole expansive planet and all the creatures on it but John uses world (very often) to mean the corrupt and immoral system. Yet these so-called Christians say God Hates The World because they are sinners: contrary to the words of John. Paul will add to John’s argument by showing that the sin in the world is actually God’s systematic judgment—not the cause for His supreme judgment. Then Paul will say that God demonstrated His love in the death of Jesus Christ which these professing Christians reserve solely for there elitist group.
In fact their wrong is akin to that of the Pharisee in Jesus’ illustration who prays in the public saying “Thank you God that I’m not like this filthy sinful tax collector” while the tax collector beats on his chest saying “God forgive me a sinner.” What’s so utterly wrong about this is that the Pharisee (and these professing Christians) are forgetting (or denying) that they are sinners just as bad as the Hitlers in the world and it was God’s love, mercy, and grace that offered a salvation to them as well as the Hitler’s in the world.
God’s righteous Gospel is glorious, is far-reaching, is patient, forbearing and for the worst of the worst sinners for whom Christ died. The fact that these Christians profess the exact opposite leaves me thinking that they don’t understand or really know who Christ is and what He is like. Video after the jump. Remember: I think it is evil.
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Stump The Chump 01
I get a lot of email but most of it is spam. But some are from innocent bystanding readers who’ve witnessed a Rey-Post-Astrophe and had some questions. More often than not, these folk drop me a line and I stammer out an answer but some questions have come up often enough that I feel confident in rewording the questions and sharing my general response sharing my response and Putting It Out There as an Old Testament witness (you know, where you hiss as you walk by the ashes of a blog and see the goatlings prancing about and not even the Spammers make their home there since its so devoid of life). As homage to Click and Clack, here is my first Stump the Chump question plus response: If Adam and Evil were tricked by the Devil—why did they get in trouble?
Read it over at Newsweek.