"Then you are an individualist, a materialist, and, logically, a hedonist."

"I wouldn't stand for that," he replied. "Couldn't see the necessity for it, nor the common sense. I cut out the race and the children. I would sacrifice nothing for them. It's just so much slush and sentiment, and you must see it yourself, at least for one who does not believe in eternal life. With immortality before me, altruism would be a paying business proposition. I might elevate my soul to all kinds of altitudes. But with nothing eternal before me but death, given for a brief spell this yeasty crawling and squirming which is called life, why, it would be immoral for me to perform any act that was a sacrifice. Any sacrifice that makes me lose one crawl or squirm is foolish, —and not only foolish, for it is a wrong against myself and a wicked thing. I must not lose one crawl or squirm if I am to get the most out of the ferment. Nor will the eternal movelessness that is coming to me be made easier or harder by the sacrifices or selfishnesses of the time when I was yeasty and acrawl."

"Then you are an individualist, a materialist, and, logically,
a hedonist."

"Big words," he smiled. "But what is a hedonist?"

He nodded agreement when I had given the definition.

"And you are also," I continued. "a man one could not trust in the least thing where it was possible for a selfish interest to intervene?"

"Now you're beginning to understand," he said, brightening.

"You are a man utterly without what the world calls morals?"

"That's it."

"A man of whom to be always afraid —"

"That's the way to put it."

"As one is afraid of a snake, or a tiger, or a shark?"

"Now you know me," he said. "And you know me as I am generally known. Other men call me 'Wolf.'"

(The Sea Wolf by Jack London, Chapter 8)

"MANY clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilisation, what there is particularly immortal about yours?"

~GK Chesterton: The Napoleon of Notting Hill

Of This And That

• It has been a slow summer for blogging. I get home from work and crash, and there isn't a lot of energy left for much else. Work is getting hectic. I did set a personal deadline for retirement. All I'll say at this point is it is less then two years, ready or not. I found I needed to set that deadline to give myself some focus. Otherwise I was just kind of drifting along waiting for something to happen instead of focusing on making it happen.
  
• Our Detroit Tigers are tearing up the central division. They have a pretty good lead heading into the end of the regular season. It has been fun to be able to turn on the TV and watch some or parts of the games. It will be interesting to see what the playoffs bring. Also Detroit Lion fans are looking forward to what the regular season will bring. Will this be the year the Lions roar is heard throughout the NFL?
  
• New Toy Department: I have a new Toshiba Satellite L755 Laptop. The laptop I was using was a work issued HP, and I was restricted as to how I could use it and what software I could add on. I really like the Toshiba. I don't do gaming so didn't need a lot of bells and whistles. The price for the total package was good and in budget.
  
• The days are getting shorter. The trees, flowers, and other fauna are getting that late summer tired, washed out look. Here in our part of Michigan we've even seen a tree here and there that has turned color. A few more weeks and we will put the AC window unit away. Our AC got a real workout during the extended hot weather we had in July and August. I am looking forward to the Fall season.
  
• Reading: How Long O Lord?: Reflections on Suffering and Evil (2nd Edition); D. A. Carson; (Baker,2006)
  
• I have friends and family living in Texas. Things in Texas are really bad; no rain since last fall, and a number of destructive wild fires. Here are some pictures of the devastation caused by the record setting extensive drought. We can expect the economic impact to extend far beyond the Texas borders. The cotton crop has been wiped out. The impact on the livestock industry is simply devastating. We need to pray for our friends in Texas.

Theological Propaganda?

I am in the process of reading a book; a book that received much attention, far and wide, when it was published earlier this year. I found myself asking the question, "What am I really reading? What is it about how this book was written?" After a while the word "propaganda" came to mind.

Now there are words of a negative connotation that you don't want to toss loosely around when talking of those whom Jesus said are our neighbors, even with those neighbors whose theology and message we take strong exception to.  "Propaganda" is one of those words. It is one of those words we could quickly toss out as part of an ad hominem argument; and that even as ad hominem arguments are one of the techniques of propaganda.

Nonetheless if the shoe fits, then we are also obligated to speak truth about what our neighbor has said.

 

At this point we need to refer to the Propaganda Critic WWW site which has built on the work of the original Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA). To quote from this site:

"The IPA is best-known for identifying the seven basic propaganda devices: Name-Calling, Glittering Generality, Transfer, Testimonial, Plain Folks, Card Stacking, and Band Wagon. According to the authors of a recent book on propaganda, "these seven devices have been repeated so frequently in lectures, articles, and textbooks ever since that they have become virtually synonymous with the practice and analysis of propaganda in all of its aspects." (Combs and Nimmo, 1993)"

The above quote lists seven basic propaganda techniques. It is not my intent to expand on the seven techniques. For that discussion I greatly encourage you to go to the P-C link above. If you have been around Christianity for any time, you will also recognize that some of the techniques listed are also marks of cultish behavior found in some churches.

All that said, there were several things about the book I'm reading that raised a flag; a total lack of footnotes or bibliography, partial quotes from Scripture used without any reference to the wider context of the quote, broad sweeping assertions or unqualified statements and subtle ad hominem allusions.

And I've seen this before in other theological contexts from those who would take great exception to the author I'm reading. The rhetorical techniques fit the definition of propaganda; theological propaganda.

Let the reader beware...

~ The Billy Goat ~

Four Myths About the Crusades
Paul F. Crawford (from Intercollegiate Review (46:1) - 04/21/11
The four myths Crawford deals with are as follows:

Myth #1: The crusades represented an unprovoked attack by Western Christians on the Muslim world.

Myth #2: Western Christians went on crusade because their greed led them to plunder Muslims in order to get rich.

Myth #3: Crusaders were a cynical lot who did not really believe their own religious propaganda; rather, they had ulterior, materialistic motives.

Myth #4: The crusades taught Muslims to hate and attack Christians.

Click on the link above to see the whole article with the details and extended footnoted references.  This article is a refreshing breath of wind amidst all the propaganda we are bombarded with.

Balancing Mystery and Certainty in Theology

“…Some of us have absorbed a form of theology with all the answers.  We can offer standard answers to every problem that comes along, especially if the problem is afflicting some other person.  Our certainty and dogmatism give us such assurance, our systematic theology is so well articulated, that we leave precious little scope for mystery, awe, unknowns.   Then when we ourselves face devastating catastrophe, and we find that the certainties we have propounded with such confidence offer us little relief, our despair is the bleaker: we begin to question the most basic elements of our faith.  Had we recognized that in addition to great certainties there are great gaps in our comprehension, perhaps we would have been less torn up to find that the mere certainties proved less than adequate in our own hour of need.   

It becomes important, then, to decide just where the mysteries and the certainties are.  Christianity that is nothing but certainties quickly becomes haughty and arrogant, rigid and unbending.  Worse, it leaves the Christian open to the most excruciating doubt that when the vicissitudes of life finally knock out the supporting pillars.  The God of such Christianity is just not big enough to be trusted when you are up to your neck in the muck of pain and defeat.  Conversely, Christianity that is nothing but mystery leaves nothing to proclaim, and makes faith indistinguishable from blind credulity…”

How Long O Lord? – Reflections on Suffering and Evil (2^nd Edition); D. A. Carson; (Baker, 2006), page 26

Theology Matters: D. A. Carson on the Intent of the Atonement

The above is a link to an extended quotation from D. A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Books, 2000), 73-79.

Carson looks at the atonement in light of the various ways the Bible speaks about the love of God: (1) God’s intra-Trinitarian love, (2) God’s love displayed in his providential care, (3) God’s yearning warning and invitation to all human beings as he invites and commands them to repent and believe, (4) God’s special love towards the elect, and (5) God’s conditional love toward his covenant people as he speaks in the language of discipline.

I found this discussion helpful, and am adding The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God to my "want to read" list.

Does the Word “Evangelical” Mean Anything Anymore?

Eternal Perspective Ministries Blog (Randy Alcorn, July 15,2011)

...I didn’t grow up in an evangelical church. I grew up in a nonchristian home and came to Christ as a teenager. I’ve seen very different kinds of evangelical churches, and I have a broad appreciation of many of these differences. But now, at an ever-accelerating pace, the word “evangelical” and even the term “Bible-believing” seem to be losing their historic meaning. (Yes, I’m aware that terminology isn’t all-important; but I’m also aware that terminology can mislead people and cloud understanding and dialogue when radically different meanings are attached to the same term.)
Is the extent of the need to hear the gospel and respond to it in Christ-centered repentance really so unclear in Scripture? Are matters of salvation, judgment and eternal destiny really gray areas or secondary issues subject to in-house evangelical disputes? Or is the Bible emphatically clear on the point that ANY person without Christ, whether they be Muslim or atheist or Baptist, will go to Hell, not Heaven?

There is what the term "Evangelical" means to me personally, and there is what the term "Evangelical" means to the wider culture. Culture looks at Evangelicalism and defines it in terms of the wider context of evangelical culture. I tend to define the term in a more narrow theological context. It is that theological evangelicalism that I see as my "Mother Kirk" to borrow a C.S. Lewis expression.

It is my fear that the term "Evangelical" as used in the wider context of the visible church and culture is indeed losing its meaning, and thus even the theological definition continues to erode and lose Biblical precision. Along with that erosion is a loss of vibrancy and energy that I associate with my more ideal and perhaps traditional view of what Evangelicalism should be.

That is a reason I have the Philip Yancy quote on the left side bar of this blog. The term Evangelicalism as used in our culture may in the end indeed become meaningless. That said, the Bible will continue to be and always will be an evangelical book; the story of the Creator calling a lost humanity back to Himself through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

"Some of my friends believe we should abandon the word evangelical. I do not. I simply yearn for us to live up to the meaning of our name." ~ Philip Yancey

Why the Cross?

"Consider what God did to save us.  He didn't hand us a brochure, as if our problem was merely ignorance.  He didn't call a meeting, as if our problem was merely stubbornness.  He answered our need with the cross, which can only mean we have royally messed up.  If the cross is necessary to save us, then What did we do?

We have rebelled against God, causing both his death and ours.  So hard as this is to accept, of course we deserve hell.  Anything less would be grave injustice."

(Mike Wittmer, Christ Alone, page 130)

Bengalis as an Essentially Unreached People

"...although the founder of the modern missionary movement, William Carey, went first to the Bengali people in 1793, even today there are less than one half of one percent (0.5%) of Bengalis who call themselves Christian (both Catholics and evangelical). In the same time frame we have seen some Latin American and some African countries exceed 30% evangelical. China itself is over 5%. But the 250 million Bengalis are basically still languishing without the Good News. We must raise the level of our passion and start bridge-building to them."

~ Dave DeCook, Director of Bangla Ministries Worldwide