Linkathon 9/19
In which you probably thought people would be arguing over Mitt Romney, not Jesus’s wife.
Wait…what? Jesus had a wife?…can’t be true. Never heard any preacher say that on TV.
Thankfully (because The Reformed are always thankful about something), the Gospel Coalition is here to set us straight.
Or CNN. Or The Guardian. Or a bunch of people from whatever political and/or theological angle you prefer.
On an unrelated note, some might say this is the pot calling the kettle black.
If this was an Acts29/Mars Hill/SBC/Sovereign Grace blog, Michael may have written this article months ago. And this one.
Here’s something Al, CeeJay and Marky Mark may not be very enthusiastic about: renewable church membership.
Do you care what is on Rob Bell’s reading list? No?
Good news: if there’s ever a nuclear exchange, your beer will be safe.
More good news, in case humanity ever figures out warp drive and your descendants go on a five-year mission: someone’s already thinking ahead about religion.
Fred Clark asks “what is the deal” with Christians and pyramid schemes?
Al Mohler sets us straight: we can never leave our churches except for “theological error”.
Roger Olson talks about persecution and martyrdom.
FIRST!!!
If Jesus had a wife, it wouldn’t change my faith in HIm. But since He never married, it’s a mute point.
Roger Olson’s declaration that real Christians can expect persecution seems like a no-brainer … and, sadly, includes a good number of church fellowship experiences – IMO
he references a friend that he labels a true Christian and a “certified” genius as declaring that “we may expect to see real Christians being persecuted, if not martyred, here, in America, in the not-too-distant future.”
that seems logical to me, too, which brings the assertion down quite a few notches on the credibility scale and i can hear the voice of my late husband or rather the look on his face when my logic went in that direction … however, isn’t it logical to see the direction something is moving as likely to continue?
CK’s declaration of “FIRST!!!” reminds me of how often i seem to be “LAST” on these threads, but how do you declare that claim? lol
i thot my day was (the 24 hr one) was finished, but got word that the fire has really flared up just over the hill from me and there’s a big evacuation underway – i’m safe, but how does one sleep when your neighbors are loading their livestock and heading for who knows how many nights in a Red Cross shelter? lots of “our” folks up there – God have mercy on the just … and on the unjust, eh?
Hmm … re:surgence sometimes feels a bit like re:printed with the way some of their contributors just re:use stuff from their own sites and blogs. That may be a bit unfair but it’s hard to re:sist the joke.
Pyramid schemes make money for the higher ups, that always and I do mean always justifies their use. I really do not understand why anyone with in the American Evangelical corporation does not understand that. The theological error should be met with force of the secular sword, if one is abused, neglected attacked etc should never leave a franchise with in the corporation. That is evil and one should always repent of such emotional nonsense.
The church membership should always be based on expediency and efficiency, any other reason is well silly and pathetic, and we need to grow up.
I enjoy these linkathons. I didn’t really enjoy the sarcasm in this one.
sarcasm apology to All
but are wry and sarcasm the same thing? agreeing with brian’s #5 – his posts are a call to exam what we can overlook as we tend to live in the status quo, not seeing what may have creeped in among us and lurks there …
‘In which you probably thought people would be arguing over Mitt Romney, not Jesus’s wife.’
I’m game.
Looks like people with the Romney campaign are pulling a Sarah Palin and quitting mid-stream. The latest is “T-Paw,” Timmy Palenty from Minnesota. He’s gonna be a rich
lobbyist. He’s not dumb. He sees the Romney ship sinking.
Wow.
Income inequality is worse now than it was in 1774!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/20/us-income-inequality_n_1898539.html
The Ed Stetzer article on the Resurgence is certainly ironic…”no one can speak truth to power”…
Looks like Jack Schaap is going to prison for 10 years.
Albert Mohler is a joke point blank period, he should stick to scripture rather than his opinions when speaking for the Church
Roger Olson’s article:
There actually is persecution of Christians in Amercia that choose to die to this world. Just start speaking the truth with boldness ,wisdom and Love and being sold out for Christ and dying to this world and you will see the hatred come out of the woodworks
Lutheran, I need to know where you buy your optimism! 🙂
Gallup’s tracking poll today shows a dead heat 47-47. One week ago the same Gallup tracking poll had Obama with a seven point lead 50-43.
I don’t begin to guess who is going to win this thing in 7 weeks. But the race is very close.
(Not sure how making up a 7 point deficit in a week is sinking either.)
AV,
You’ve been hanging out on Drudge again, haven’t you. 🙂 He’s a mouthpiece for the hard Right.
Check out Real Clear Politics. Obama’s up by 3 and surging. Romney lost the election by his hamhanded, cloddish and insensitive comments. Just wait until Obama mops him up in the debates.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/?state=nwa
Well..I never read Drudge. I was just quoting Gallup and looking at the recent history of that one poll. Those are the facts.
I do check RCP daily. I think yesterday was the first day in several days the little arrow wasn’t down for Obama. And yes, today it is up.
You do know that all it would take is some crazy right-winger poll that showed Romney up 6 and RCP would dutifully place that in the average and bring down Obama’s average accordingly. Some of the polls are a little crazy. Does anyone really think that the turnout and support for Obama in some of these states will actually be GREATER than it was in 2008?
I think Gallup has a track record, and a methodology, and a reputation, to be about as solid as anyone out there.
And like I said, I’m not in the predicting business. I thought you were just being optimistic. Didn’t know you were prophesying! 🙂
According the the radio (NPR) Obama’s taking the lead. Who knows what to believe.
Solomon @12: you are always quick to call people God is using fruitfully a joke and other even worse names. Shame on you. All you do for the Lord is point fingers at others. Maybe when you are actuallyproducing fruit for the kingdom, you will have something of value to say. In spite of what you think of you, it’s time for you to start acting like a believer since you say you are one.
This election is pretty much a waste – but… I hear that in 2016 Jesse Ventura is thinking of running. Now that would be fun. 🙂
There is not a wit of difference (that makes a difference) between Obama & Romney. Obama won’t raise taxes on the wealthy and Mitt will not cut services to the poor. They both hold up their finger to the same wind.
On foreign policy, they both seem to have the same – “America, bend over and grab your ankles!”
Polls really have to be dug into to figure out if they have any value. That is why I like the daily tracking polls over several days..with new days being added and old days dropping.
For starters, there is the margin of error which can’t simply be ignored statistically. There is the breakdown of D/R/I samples. Then, even among the breakdown there is further breakdown needed. For example, Obama will lose some Democrats, but almost no black Democrats. So a sample of Democrats might match the election, but the numbers of black Democrats might be oversampled. That sort of thing. Same applies with Republicans. For example, if you oversample evangelicals greater than their percentage of the Republican electorate.
There is the whole ‘registered voters’ versus ‘likely voters’ issue too.
Also, there is a HUGE difference between a +4 poll that reads 51-47 and 2 undecided – and a +4 poll that reads 46-42 and 12 undecided (especially as to an incumbent).
Here is my political junkie stat for you – from Barone.
“If you look at the last three presidential cycles, you’ll see that the winning candidate in each case has gotten exactly the same percentage, or within one percentage of it, of what his party got in the off year election two years before. Well, Obama’s party got 45% in the House elections.”
That stat covers 2000,2004,2008. Of course, in 1996 Clinton did far better than the Democrats of 1994 who got killed – mainly because he moved to the right for his reelection. Obama has chosen to move further to the left after the 2010 drubbing.
So it will be interesting to see how this stat plays out this year.
As long as these polls continue to show 6 percent or more undecideds while polling well within the margin of error – I don’t pay much attention.
Ali’s critique is fair. I suppose I caught the sarcasm bug. I’ll make note of a more straight forward approach for future reference.
LOL – Seriously, when I was reading the linkathon last night I also thought (poor Brian must still be really sick because Reuben did this linkathon)
Then I still thought it, and just that the author tag didn’t get changed…
AV I suppose I wanted to do something a little different. I do have some snark in me, and sometimes it finds its way through my fingertips… 🙂
I liked it, BrianD!
Thanks, Xenia!
I liked it too. Especially since it means you are feeling better…
Whatever this cold was, it took a while to get over it, AV…
Sooo all this talk of local church membership has me wondering if anyone has EVER seen Matthew 18:15-17 carried out–anyone?!
In particular “the whole church” part.
Or is this not really do-able in your mind?
Not really something we SHOULD do?
It seems to be one of the biggies of verses supporting local church membership.
Al Mohler is onto something but not something anyone can/should really do anything about.
People leave churches every week for incredibly self-serving and superficial reasons, but (CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG), one of the signs of a cult is that they make it hard to leave! Or so I’ve heard….
Al certainly overstated his point…to the point that it sounds awful, but I think most of us agree with the principal that it is better to commit to a local fellowship, even riding out some rough times.
Jtk, I have seen Matt 18 carried out in a 800 member church. It was terrible. Reminded me of Salem trials. I don’t think that verse was written with the modern evangelical mega-church in mind.
JTK,
I know in the Lutheran churches Matthew 18 responses are required. My local church constitution contains a whole section on it and how it should be done. The “whole church” thing is a part of it.
But here is the problem in today’s world. The people who are in sin and being confronted in the early stages of Matt 18 usually get pissed and leave before it get’s resolved or actually ends up before the whole church.
And my church is at a disadvantage. If people don’t want to be confronted with their sin, they can just go a mile up the road to Saddleback Church and be all happy clappy.
Jtk,
Yes I’ve seen it played out once at the previous church I was a member of. There was a church member who was not being faithful to his wife. He was actively having an affair with another woman and refused to end the affair. He had previously been confronted about this by a couple elders before it was brought before the whole church. It was the first time in the church’s history (about 20 years old) that church discipline had been carried out as such. It seemed to have been done in a biblical and appropriate manner.
The church size at the time had an average Sunday morning attendance of around 400. Those who were official active church members was less than that number, but probably more than 200.
Re: Ashamed @ 18
What did you just do?
Log meet splinter
Francis Watson makes a case that the Jesus’ Wife fragment comes off like a badly cobbled together modern forgery by someone relying on The Gospel of Thomas but without mastery of Coptic. Linked to it over at Wenatchee The Hatchet with a hat tip to Jim West. It’s just six pages and worth reading.
Thanks, Hatchet!
Dr. Wallace has also weighed in…
http://danielbwallace.com/2012/09/21/reality-check-the-jesus-wife-coptic-fragment/