I was raised Presbyterian, and my parents are still affiliated, so things like this still catch my eye:
Presbyterians OK Leeway for Ordaining Gays
Presbyterians ‘Receive’ Policy on Worship
The “don’t ask, don’t tell” ordination policy is reprehensible in its own way, but I’m half-tempted to find the silver lining to the reception of the “We’ve forgotten the name of our God, so y’all can just use whatever you want” proposal. Mere Comments had a hilarious discussion on renaming of the Trinity, part of which I’ll excerpt here:
Why all the fuss? Those three [“Mother, Child and Womb”] are only some of the possible alternative names. If they don’t appeal to you, there are plenty of others to choose from. Here are some others that the committee proposed:
- Doctor, Lawyer, and Indian Chief
- Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva
- Tinker, Evers, and Chance
- Butcher, Baker, and Candlestick Maker
- Lucifer, Satan, and Beelzebub
- Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner
- Executive, Legislative, and Judicial
- Gippetto, Pinocchio, and Jiminy Cricket
Two other proposed alternatives, “Peter, Paul, and Mary” and “Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria” were both rejected based on fears that they might constitute idolatry.
As much as I’d like to laugh this off, such a blatant denial of Christ and His Church leaves little but a fearful sobriety. Oh, I’m not afraid of PCUSA (though I pray for those who are led astray by their false teaching). I’m not afraid of a body of men (and women), drunk with power, pretention and good intention—No, I’m afraid for them. He whom they have crossed will not be trifled with.
Sister, if there’s one thing you and I can certainly agree on, it’s this: I don’t know what it’s like to be a woman, and you don’t know what it’s like to be a man. We’re both probably wrong where we’re sure we’re right, try as we might. So let me try to dart a telegram from my camp over to the distaff side.
Pyromaniacs: Sister… show mercy!
So here comes this brother into the assembly of the saints, hoping for a rest from the battles of the week, a moment to regroup, sing, pray, get the Word, fellowship. He looks up to the choir, or to his left or his right—and in a tick of the clock, he’s facing the same struggle he faced every time he turned on his TV, opened a magazine, or went down a city street. He’s seeing things that make it far too easy for him not to keep his mind focused where it needs to be focused.
And he’s not in a nightclub, he’s not at a singles’ bar, he’s not at the beach. He’s in church.
There are a good couple articles over at Mere Comments discussing the disuse and misuse of honorific titles in our ever-so-enlightened culture where everyone’s on a first name basis (because we’re friends). The comments are fairly insightful as well, where discussions of the “respect the others’ preference” and “terms of respect are only demanded by the prideful” arguments are offered. There’s even some mention of the Quaker (friendly folk that they are) avoidance of titles, which I’ve always found intriguing.
If nothing else, I’ve come away from the conversation with a new respect for Miss Manners:
“Rudeness that is introduced under the name of informality or intimacy is still rudeness”
“I’m reminded of a Spurgeon sermon I recently read in which he suggested that church-goers seek pastors who will validate their own intelligence. Knowing this, ministers strive to appear witty and sophisticated. The end result is a vicious circle of preening.”
Paul made tents. What’s that say about your PhD? Rude, Rustic and Unadorned
But the intellectualism isn’t really the drive of the article. That’s a side issue, and a symptom. What it speaks more of is the attempt to disguise our crudity. “Yes, we’re lowly sinners, but let’s get beyond that,” we seem to be saying with our showy worship services, our volumes of man-made man-approved doctrine, our comforting ritual observances of our self-styled gods.
It’s hard to admit, but our sophistication undoes us as much as our Dick & Jane praise songs, tacky lighting and poor imitations of sitcom humor do. Have we built a cathedral that could rival any mountain? Has an artist ever painted something to stand up to the evening sky? If we want to offer something of great worth to God, it would be our submission rather than our harsh mimicry of His creative power.
Dan Trotter – I gave up on civil religion.
Now I am getting old, and I am no longer thrilled about America. It is pagan to its roots. Its media, its universities and colleges, its think tanks, its political parties, its businesses, its entertainment and popular culture, its public schools, and worst of all, its church institutions (for the most part) are apostate. When its politicians incessantly invoke “Gawd,” I try to restrain the nausea.
Ok, that’s only part of it. The other parts are different, and better. But that excerpt was worth some attention.
[update]: Ok, the conscience was weighing. I should note that the writer of the above excerpt has an extremely acerbic and arrogant style of writing. What he says is worth reading, but he could stand to be a bit more humble.
“We hold there is no free-standing fundamental right of parents ‘to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex in accordance with their personal and religious values and beliefs … ’” – Judge Stephen Reinhardt, Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals
That quote begs the question: Where does it stop? Our government is kindly telling us that we can control our children’s exposure to “information” in all areas but sexual education. How solidly is that line drawn?
Replace the “sex” from the quote with the variable X. Are there any limitations to what X can be? Or is there anything saying that our government has to be restrictive in this statement at all? I’d ask how far off it is before the state regards parents as entirely irrelevant, but I think yesterday’s ruling answered the question for me: not very.
Anthony Esolen sums it up well on Mere Comments:
“I can only conclude that if you cannot decide what to tell your children about so intimate a matter, and when, then you are not free. You are a tool of the state. There really is no way around it. The only remaining escape in the United States is to keep your children at home, or send them to one of the few private or church schools that can be trusted. But even at that, you are like a rebel suffered to remain in peace, temporarily, because the tyrant understands that for now it would not be feasible for him (her; it is fast becoming a nanny tyranny—a tyrannanny) to do anything about it. But the totalitarian principle is in place.”
The argument that Catholic (and other denominational) “traditions” are God-ordained usually points to verses in the NT that say something like:
I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the traditions…
But, looking more closely at the context:
Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the traditions, just as I passed them on to you.
I Corinthians 11:1-2
A Mere Comments article today touches on why mainstream Christianity is woefully unequipped to defend same-sex marriage.
[I]t will never work for Christian churches to stand against same-sex “marriage,” while remaining silent about working mothers, daycare, the contraceptive culture, and egalitarian marriage roles.
...
[A] malleable definition of marriage is deadly. The answer is for counter-cultural churches and families to model something alien to both Ozzie and Harriet and Will and Grace: marriage that points to the mystery of Christ and his church.
At a time when I’m examining my family’s “Church-life” very intensely, the email I received this morning from Vision Forums was extremely encouraging. Below are excerpts from a few articles that the email led me to.
National Center for Family Integrated Churches
Read More…
As the church has followed the world system, she has acquired practices that are harmful to her families. One example is that most churches have nearly obliterated the scriptural role of the head of the household in church life. This has paralleled what the world has done in the broader culture. Progressively, and often unwittingly, the church has eliminated the father’s role and given it to Sunday school teachers, and childcare workers.
Children in the Meeting of the Ephesian Church
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We need to understand that the meetings in the early church included babies who were cutting teeth, eight-year-old boys who were wired for movement, and budding teenagers being tempted by the worldliness of the world. The children were not in age-graded Sunday schools, but were in the midst of the meeting, and were taught side by side with everyone else. The meetings of the early church were conducted with a full complement of relationships.
Children Destroy Worshipful Atmospheres
Read More…
I have a friend who was visiting a large and prominent church in the Northwest. He brought his family down to the front, where they always go, to get settled down for worship. After they sat down someone came down the long aisle and whispered to the father: “we have childcare, could you please take your children to the back and down the hall….” My friend said, “no, we normally keep our children with us.” The usher left. A moment later another usher came down and whispered “We really would not like the diversion the little ones might make during the service, would you please take your children out?” The father repeated what he said before. Then, as everyone was now standing for the opening hymn, another usher came down the aisle and handed him a paper and said: “it is our church policy that children are not in this service,” and he handed him the written policy.
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Jun 21, 2006
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