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June 30, 2005
Standard final exams request
Do not forget to pray for students taking summer classes. They're fewer in number, but their experience is far more intense, and right about now is when they truly feel overwhelmed.
And yeah, praying for their overwhelmed professors is a good thing too.
Posted by Chuck at 10:09 AM
June 28, 2005
More Billy Graham goodness
I was quite surprised at the reaction I've gotten to my Billy Graham cheerleading. It's pretty shocking how many people have been bad to dismiss Billy as "just another fundie" who falls into all of the standard hard-right traps.
I mean, how many in the Christian right do you think go into apoplexies when something like this happens?
Graham drew a big laugh from the former president -- who theatrically buried his face in his lap, then threw his head back and closed his eyes with mirth -- when he recalled once saying that Clinton should become an evangelist "and leave his wife to run the country.""Because he has all the gifts," said Graham, who used a walker but spoke in a strong voice. Graham was effusive about both Clintons, returning to them after the altar call and telling the crowd, "I love them both with all my heart."
And I've never been accused of being a Bill Clinton fan, but: Billy has a point.
And my friend Summers happily points out this piece of Texe Marrs lunacy, which is filled with so much giddiness over Graham's dealings with gays in the Christian faith that I have to wonder WHY ol' Texe is spending so much time researching gay churches. If you know what I mean. And I think you do.
But that's not what really gets me. Marrs cites an interview with Robert Schuller that supposedly proves once and for all that Billy Graham really has no interest in world evangelism (an accusation so rich in irony that I'm sure Marrs misses it in full). God bless him for bringing it to my attention, I never would have paid attention to Schuller otherwise:
Robert Schuller: "Tell me, what do you think of the future of Christianity?"
Billy Graham: "I think everybody who knows Christ, whether they're conscious of it or not, they're members of the Body of Christ...God's purpose is to call out a people for His name, whether they come from the Muslim world, Buddhist world, the Christian world, or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ, because they've been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus...and I think they are saved, and that they are going to be in heaven with us."
Robert Schuller (overjoyed): "What I hear you saying is that it's possible for Jesus Christ to come into human hearts and soul and life even if they've been born into darkness and never had exposure to the Bible. Is that a correct interpretation of what you are saying?"
Billy Graham: "Yes it is, because I believe that. I've met people in various parts of the world...that have never seen a Bible or heard about a Bible, and never heard of Jesus, but they've believed in their hearts that there was a God."
Of course, Marrs goes into apoplexies:
So, there you have it. The world's most famous evangelist teaches that no one needs Jesus to be saved and enter the Kingdom of Heaven. They're already members of the Body of Christ whether they know it or not! All they have to do is believe in a God--like one of the three million Hindu gods; or perhaps the man-god whom many Buddhists worship, the Dalai Lama; or the Moslem's Allah; or perhaps the Cosmic God of the evolutionists; or the witches' horned god, Pan; or perhaps all that people must do is believe in the New Age deity--themselves--as God!
I absolutely refuse to assert that we don't need to go into the world and proclaim the good name of Jesus (of course, that requires doing good in the world, which is a subtlety missed on many but one we'll pick up another time). But let's listen closely to what Marrs is saying. Is he implying that it's impossible for someone to come to know God without hearing from human lips the name of Jesus? Is he trying to argue that no man can ever look for God himself, live his life honestly and earnestly, recieve a word from God, believe that word, and have it credited to him as righteousness?
What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about — but not before God. What does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."
Better burn all the books that suggest THAT.
So, yeah, Billy Graham is most certainly NOT a fundie. I'll continue to hunt down examples if you need more convincing.
EDIT: More examples, posted today on ChristianityToday.com even.
Posted by Chuck at 10:20 AM | Comments (3)
June 27, 2005
pah! I am NOT one of the COOL KIDS!
I refuse put a survey link button on my web page.
That's right. You heard me. I absolutely refuse.
I don't care if it is some high-falootin' MIT survey that's going to get used academically and crap. I don't care if it's just one little icon. I'm not going to do it.
Because I never just post one little survey icon on my page.
I post all five.
(Especially when they're nice and hip like these.)
Posted by Chuck at 11:48 AM | Comments (3)
June 26, 2005
Billy Graham
(Originally a post on The Swamp.)
I don't know about these other guys
There's something in the back of their eyes
But Billy, you're the man
Who don't use sleight of hand
Ain't wearin' no disguise
I love you, Billy
I love the simple things you say
You never seem to get in the way
No one is quite like you
Passionate and true
Just as I am, I say
I love you, Billy
- Terry Scott Taylor, 1990
(And Franklin Graham, God bless him, just don't quite do it for me.)
Posted by Chuck at 09:36 PM | Comments (6)
June 17, 2005
Kids, be healed of your milquetoast pop tastes!
I don't know how I missed this review of being an old fogey watching the current music scene by Terry Scott Taylor written last year, but I did. And I'm glad that I'm not the only dad who feels this way towards his kids, even if TST has more than a few years on me:
I often kid my daughter by asking her how it feels to have a Dad hipper than most of her friends. I'm being facetious when I ask this, because she and her friends are admirably eclectic in their musical tastes and like a lot of real good stuff. The point is, I'm into Flaming Lips and Queens of the Stone age, bands most Pop fans would think weren't very cute, find completely loud and obnoxious, and who sing vocals you can't even understand. It's sort like my grandparent's reaction to the Rolling Stones when they first appeared on the scene, or modern musical tastes becoming the equivalent of the Johnny Bravo episode of the Brady bunch.
Trouble is, were not talking here about elderly people who thought Perry Como got a tad wild when he recorded "Hot Diggity Dog Diggity, Boom What You Do to Me", We are speaking of 17 and 18 year old girls who absolutely swoon at the mere mention of the names Celine Dion and Justin Guarini. Something's really wrong when our supposed rebellious teens dig middle of the road muzak Popsters, while their doddering old parents are having visions of confining them to their rooms for a 24/7 intervention employing hand and feet restraints, old Sex Pistols and Ramones records, and enough stereo wattage to cause them to immerge a normal teenager, exorcised of the demons of Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard.
I'm still trying to deal with being the parent of a child who owns a "Kidz Bop" record.
Of course, when I was a kid kicking it, I didn't have the punk rock going - that was about the point when Billy Idol was saying in the papers "punk rock might not be dead, but it sure smells funny." If I was putting in front of my kids the kind of music I was wigged out over as a kid, I'd have them listening to Def Leppard and Loverboy.
So that might explain part of the problem. It wasn't until I got into R.E.M. and the Smithereens and started discovering what was known at the time as "college rock" that I started becoming hip.
As hip as I have ever been, anyway.
By the way, Terry Taylor (and his band, Daniel Amos, or DA, or Dä, or the Swirling Eddies) is another one that, if you don't know him, you really should.
(Completely tangential point after the jump.)
Is it worthwhile to edit quotes that I take from other people's websites? TST is a notoriously bad speller (what can you say about him, other than that one of his best known songs is called "Breath Deep"?), so having the misspelling "immerge" is in-character for the quote, but I'm kind of freakish about making sure the spelling is right particularly when the error is grating...but then it's not a direct quote from the site, it's my edited quote...any takes?
Posted by Chuck at 07:59 AM | Comments (3)
June 13, 2005
Two situations to pray for
One of them is at my undergraduate alma mater.
One of them is at my graduate school. (And it involves some of the creation/evolution controversies I've brought up here in the past.)
Pray for them both.
Posted by Chuck at 12:18 PM
June 08, 2005
More background reading
Everybody involved with the Shorter/GBC stuff has been, and will continue to be, talking about the case of Louisiana College and how it applies to Shorter's current situation. And that kind of background needs to be studied, and the struggles that Louisiana College went through do not need to be repeated.
But I would hope, in the midst of this, that there is a lot of discussion about another school, one whose accreditation is in no danger whatsoever, but there has been an equal level of controversy - over a president and a group of faculty, not spurred by any Baptist convention, who had a vision of what a Christian college should be, and started to put that vision into action.
The school is Baylor.
Read these background articles on the Baylor 2012 vision and what it has wrought.
And make sure you read this article that stems from the Baylor 2012 vision about wholesale rethinks that are going on in Christian education right now.
What's going on at Shorter is happening in a larger context of some real heavy-duty questioning about what the Christian college should be. I think part of my overwhelming optimism about everything stems from that - that I think we haven't all fleshed out all of our respective visions fully ourselves, and this initial "clash of cultures" that we're going to face as Baptist Convention gets to know this particular group of academics is going to force us to face some of the really hard questions.
And I believe that, eventually, we're going to see that we both want the same thing - an education for these students that is both academically rigorous and spiritually fulfilling, worshipful even. We'll find more in common than we think we have right now.
But keep praying.
Posted by Chuck at 11:21 AM
Shorter has filed for reconsideration
I'm still trying to figure out what I feel about the fact that I get most of my useful local news from K-98, the pop radio station in town.
Nonetheless, there it is - "Attorneys for Shorter College have filed a motion for reconsideration before the Georgia Supreme Court in an attempt to void an earlier ruling that basically gives control of the college back to the Georgia Baptist Convention."
My understanding of how this will proceed is that the Georgia Supreme Court will respond to this motion within the next 10 days. I don't put too much stock in the time thing, because it doesn't seem like anything in the Georgia court system gets done on time.
I am also gathering that the chance that the Georgia Supremes will actually reconsider might not be zero, but it approaches zero asymptotically.
(Apologies for inserting math geekery into a rather serious post.)
Posted by Chuck at 07:34 AM | Comments (1)