First of all, I plan to buy this DVD and make my children view it once a year. I don’t think that will be hard. Even though they could not keep up with the subtitles, both my boys stayed riveted to the very end.

What makes this movie a stand out is that we have a human portrayal of courage in the face of fear. While everyone rightfully raves about the actress, who is amazing, everyone involved in the concept of this movie deserves some heavy credit for not glamorizing anything about this event and yet somehow portraying breath-taking heroism. I have no idea how many of the details are accurate, but they were all portrayed in an utterly believable way.

There will be spoilers below, though I don’t think the movie depends on ignorance of the story to be enjoyed. If at this point you have no plans to see the movie, go ahead and give me a chance to change your mind.

Continue reading →

I can’t find a feed for Dawn Eden’s blog.

(Has anyone read the book? From the attitude she gives I’d love to see her and Camille Paglia in a discussion. It would be half a catfight and half a like-minded bash on the feminist hypocrisy)

Addendum: I didn’t look hard enough, I guess.

Luke 18:9-26 gives us the story of the disciples keeping the children away from Jesus.  The story is sandwiched between the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax-collector and the story of the Rich Young Ruler.  In both these two stories we have themes that recur throughout Jesus ministry regarding who is in with God and who is out.  The Pharisee is sure that he is right with God and the tax collector is not.  The disciples are sure that if anyone can enter God’s Kingdom, a rich man will more likely be found there than anyone else.

Thus, both stories belong to the controversies we find throughout the gospels over who Jesus eats with and who he sides with.  Jesus ate with people whom others were not allow at their tables nor deign to be their guests at a meal.

It seems that Jesus’ challenge regarding children is part of that same ethic.  Societies regard children somewhat similarly to the way they regard other kinds of outcasts.  Jesus wants them included.

1. Start by being enthralled with one of the more arid and arrogant strains of “Reformed theology” being pushed on the internet. Be someone campaigning for the original clause in the Westminster Confession that claimed the pope was the prophesied antichrist. Insist that saving faith is nothing more than intellectual assent. Or carefully listen to seminar after seminar that reduces the essence of the difference between Reformed and Roman to differing soteriological mechanics that diagram in different ways.
2. Meet some real Roman Catholics in person or print.
3. Realize many things you’ve been taught about them are just wrong and rude.
4. Realize that the stuff that seems unquestionably unbiblical can still be rationalized by much the same process of reasoning that once convinced you that celebrating Christmas was sinful or that churches that failed to structure themselves along Presbyterian churches were not true churches.
5. Share these views with overzealous friends and get predictably alienated from them by their predictable reaction.
6. Spend some time among Protestants who have not hated clerical garb or who think the sacraments are actually sacraments. Receive more reaction from zealous friends who have always hated these other Protestants for not being pure enough.
7. Bury yourself in just about any book (church history) except the Bible.
8. Start constantly harping on the completely unconvincing rationalizations for venerating objects until you alienate yourself from your less zealous friends.

Of course, there are other ways to do this. Like

1. Be in a really unhealthy church that matches all your scruples.
2. Refuse to consider a more generic Evangelical alternative.
3. Start developing a theological rationale for a complete break that will put you in a place where the grass looks greener.

Or there’s an “ultra Protestant” passage:

1. Pursue some minority status among the Reformed.
2. Figure out that a displaced seventeenth century Puritan isn’t as exotic as a Roman Catholic who thinks the present Pope is apostate and the mass should be done in Latin, or as a “true vine” Orthodox follower of the Saint Timorous Monastery in Hobguffin, NJ that has discovered that the entire rest of the Church (EO, RC, Protestant) is not truly the church.

The Return of Idolatry in Worship

Friday, January 26th, 2007 in Theology, Church History

Alastair, over on Adversaria, makes mention today of this posting which urges churches to return icons to worship. Naturally such claims as “icons mediate grace” are theologically and exegetically improper. There is no indication whatsoever that icons or images mediate grace. Grace is mediated purely through the action of the Holy Spirit, not through a picture or a piece of bread or a drop of wine. Icons distract the worshipper from God rather than “aiding worship” by focusing the worshipper’s attention on God.

As Zwingli said, so rightly, “It is false religion or piety when trust is put in any other than God. They, then, who trust in any created thing whatsoever are not truly pious.” Indeed, Zwingli was so convinced of the impropriety of icon-olatry that he wrote an entire book about it, Eine Antwort Valentin Compar gegeben, published on April 27, 1525. In his Commentary on True and False Religion Zwingli discusses the problem in some detail as well. He was right then, and he is still right today. Icons have no place in Christian worship. They are not the “books of the illiterate” nor are they aids to piety. They are idols, and swiftly so, purely and simply and so any desire to return to their inclusion is a return to impropriety.

Mike Hyatt introduced me to Joel’s goals last month and I’ve been using it since. Unhappily, I’ve not used it that well, but that hasn’t discouraged me from the value of the site. I just deleted my checklist and began rethinking it to come up with more realistic goals or a better opportunity to starts some of them.

I’m pretty confident this will work. The rather shallow desire to use a “cool app” will keep bugging me about more important disciplines. The desire to be cool converges with the desire to make substantial improvement. It is a good thing.

But what I did not know until recently is that Joe’s goals is also Joe’s logbook.

Joe’s logbook works differently. With the goals you simply check off tasks you want to do (or not). With the log you actually write notes. Currently I’m using the log as a way to keep track of hours for various freelance projects I am working on. It is also a way for me to make sure I’m moving consecutively through the Psalms for devotions, through the Bible in general (I started going through Deuteronomy but am considering reverting back to Genesis and heading straight through) or any books. You don’t have to dogear pages or write notes in the margins.

Something in me responds a little bit more powerfully to seeing my page count, rather than simply checking off that I have read a chapter that day.

Joe’s logbook is a different site than Joe’s goals, but they both offer both forms of record keeping and progress monitoring. Give it a try.

1. Should icons be used in worship as a means by which God ministers to us?

Yes, we should find God’s presence and blessing mediated to us through true icons.

2. So then should icons be brought into public worship?

Not only should they, but they must be brought into worship on the Lord’s day. Those who do not bring their icons to worship need to repent of their behavior.

3. What are true icons?

True icons are images of God through whom he ordinarily acts and speaks and works. They are to be revered for the sake of the One whose image is stamped upon them.

4. Is it proper to bow to true icons?

Upon appropriate occasion it is fitting and right to bow to icons.

5. Is it proper to confess one’s sin to a true icon?

Upon appropriate occasion it is fitting and right to confess one’s sin to an icon.

6. How does one lawfully produce a true icon?

A husband and wife must have sex to produce a true icon, and God must bless them with conception.

7. Where in the Bible are icons first made?

Genesis 1.26-27

8. How are Christians taught to use icons in the Church?

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

“Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.”

“Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.”

“Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”

“Greet one another with a holy kiss.”

Etc.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention!

We read indeed, that God justifies the ungodly, Rom. 4:5; but this cannot, in fair construction, imply that the man when justified, is ungodly, still holding fast his sins, and refusing to return. For his being justified by God, is as a thousand arguments that he has returned to God…He who exercises [faith], cannot be called ungodly, in the usual sense of the word. He is radically holy, having holy faith. The true sense therefore of these words, that God justifies the ungodly, I conceive to be the same, as when our Lord said, the blind see, and the deaf hear, Luke 7:2. It cannot be that these persons were actually blind, when they saw; or deaf, when they heard: but that being once so, they now both saw and heard. In like manner, God is said to justify the ungodly, i.e. him who had hitherto been so.

The quote is from Thomas Bell. When I have time I will research who he is.

My fellow PCA minister, Lane Keister, thinks there was something wrong with Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church hosting a conference with Richard Gaffin and N. T. Wright.

The reason is these stealth Bible conferences, where their teaching tries to get under the radar screen of “teaching.” I’m not talking about how visible the conference was (obviously). Rather, I’m talking about a forum where new ideas are being discussed; a forum there that is not accountable to any church body. Since they are not accountable, they can invite speakers like N.T. Wright to come and speak at their conference. And presbytery cannot do anything about that, except after the fact, and based on transcripts of something where the damage has already been done.

I think Lane needs to choose another example. If there was anything wrong with this conference why did Gaffin agree? What makes a conference like this “under the radar screen.” And what of the PCA pastors and professors from Covenant Theological Seminary, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Westminster Theological Seminary, who all went and were edified by both men?

The good news is that you can still purchase the CD of Wright’s first lecture and DVD’s of the rest. In fact, Lane has inspired me to listen to them while I ‘m working today. They were extraordinarily good.