Is body art really constructive (i.e.: edifying)?

Back in October I found myself engaged in a friendly blog-comment-debate at another site on the subject of body art.  The discussion thread dealt with the evangelical usefulness of tattoos. 

For regular readers of my blog, it probably is not surprising to you to know that I can find nothing redemptive about body art.  Redeemable yes, redemptive, no.  I don’t understand the motivation for body art, and I don’t see how the permanant marking of the body, could be regarded as edifying for either the wearer, or for the church.  It is a stretch for me to see how one’s faith is developed or grown, or how the church is built up by applying a permanant mark on a human body.  And I hold that view irrespective of the subject matter, meaning that while I acknowledge the difference between a cross tattoo and a skull tattoo, I don’t see how either is really helpful.

To either wearers or supporters of tattoos, I wonder how strongly you defend other forms of body art.  How about the examples below.  Too much?  Taken too far?  The difference between these examples and a small tattoo of a cross, or an ichthus is only a matter of degrees.  All of them are permanent, and presumably have been sought to serve some form of self-expression.  So, where is the line to be drawn?  How far, is too far?

Photos…HT: Don Weeks

Driscoll in the news again…this time on Nightline.

No seven minute video can do justice to Mark Driscoll and his ministry.  As a man and as a pastor, he is far too complex.  And the style and manner he employs to reach a very specific demographic with the message of Jesus Christ, is too easily misunderstood to be fully explained in what amounts to being a hit and run segment on a television news magazine produced by the mainstream media.  While you might be able to discern some of the agendas that ABC may have had in their piece on Driscoll, their report on Nightline is not a totally unfair representation of the man, his church and his theology.

P.S.:  The line at the end of the video about bringing a church like Mars Hill to your neighborhood is probably a veiled reference to the Acts 29 Network of church planters that does NOT intend to drop a Mars Hill look-alike in every neighborhood, but rather to facilitate new church growth that meets the individual needs of a community through resourses, education and support.

It’s just a simple test.

Setting up a national service-dispatch call center, was one of the tasks that a group of people working for me, had on their plate.  A part of that effort was to recruit people who would receive telephone calls from customers who were in need of a trained service technician to come to their place of business to effect a repair. 

One of the “tests” we would conduct during interviews of prospective call center employees was a fairly simple test of U.S. geography.  I was always stunned at how ill-informed people were about the location of the states in the United States…and in some cases, even the ones that were big and had distinctive shapes.

How would you do?  You can find out by using the “test” at this website.  See if you would have been qualified to be hired.

HT:  My Dad

Abortion, it’s the logical extension of dignity and kindness.

Or at least that seems to be the case for Dana Delaney!

Delaney is a television actress.  She moves in the upper echelons of Hollywood.  She currently appears on ABC’s Desperate Housewives.  Not surprisingly, she was a supporter of Barry Obama’s presidential campaign and was in Washington on Tuesday to attend the post-inaugural festivities, including the Creative Coalition Ball, which was the D.C. mecca for entertainment types.

“Looking beautiful in a Kevin Hall dress,” here are her reflections on Inauguration Day and her hopes for the Obama presidency.

Note the change in her tone of voice and facial expression, and lack of eye contact when she reveals the “cause” in which she invests her hope in BHO.  She is almost monotone in comparison to her comments about what she had experienced earlier in the day, and now no smile or pleasant look, and she looks down.  It makes me suspicious that at some level, even she knows of the contradictory nature of her collective comments, their absolute betrayal of logic, the darkness of her heart, and the wickedness of her desire.  

A study in contrasts, in prayer.

As my pastor has correctly noted…WHAT A CONTRAST between the prayer offered today for our newly inaugurated president and our country, and the one offered at the HBO entertainment event for Obama on Sunday.

HT:  Bill Stegemueller

Oh god of our WHAT?

 …”of our many understandings.”  Our many understandings?

This video is the invocation that Eugene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal Bishop, offered at the first inaugural event held yesterday in Washington D.C.  He addresses his prayer to the “god of our many understandings,” whatever that is intended to mean.  

This might just take the cake for the most indecisive opening of a prayer that I have ever heard.  This sets a new high water mark for political correctness and inclusiveness.  No one can say they were excluded, except of course the atheists who are convinced that there probably is no god. 

Notice how reverently the people in the foreground of the video regard this invocation.

If the New York Times is critical, he must be doing something right.

The New York Times Magazine will run an article on Mark Driscoll in its January 11, 2009 issue.  The on-line version can be read at this link.

Not surprisingly, the NYT writer gets her story a little mangled, particularly in her descriptions of Calvinism and in the hyperbole about the man Calvin, himself.

And there is clearly a hint of cynicism or perhaps even disdain for Reformed Theology and Mark Driscoll in particular and very likely, evangelical Christianity in general.  And the writer’s predictions at the conclusion of the article cannot be based on anything other than personal opinion, mere speculation, or maybe wishful thinking, reflecting her preference for the future of Mark Driscoll’s ministry. 

Still, she does get some things right.  And for those who are unfamiliar with Mark Driscoll, they will get at least a peak at his highly effective ministry in a part of our country that would be most generously described as “counter-cultural” and is perhaps more accurately characterized as anarchist.

For those seeking to reach the unchurched and post-modern, there are lessons to be learned from this man.

HT: JT and MR

My take on The Voice

I admit to my skepticism.  Knowing something about the people who were behind this book (specifically Seay and McLaren), I suspected an almost heretical re-write of the New Testament, that would be fully reflective of their emergent and post-modern sensitivities. 

At least some of it’s sponsors, proponents and spokespersons are not folks for whom I would use the term “orthodox” when describing their Christian theology.  Consequently, their plans to produce a “modern” translation of the New Testament sounded like a disaster in the making.  My hunch was that they would produce a paraphrase of the New Testament with a clear editorial leaning toward their predisposition for relativism and what I would describe as squishy doctrine, particularly in the areas of man’s sinfulness, the exclusivity of Christ, and His substitutionary atonement, the virgin birth and a variety of other matters that tend to characterize the “conversations” that go on in their stream of contemporary Christianity.

While I have not read The Voice cover to cover, I have read a substantial amount of it, and certainly enough, to say that I am surprised, in fact I am pleasantly surprised at what I found.  Now let me quickly add that there are some peculiar things about The Voice, one in particular that I am bothered by.  But on the balance, it really is not what I had anticipated.

The Voice reads like something of a hybrid between The Message, and The New Living Translation of the Bible.  It is clear from reading that it is not fully a paraphrase like Eugene Peterson’s re-write of scripture.  For one thing, it at least uses the modern convention of a chapter and verse structure and the verses are not long strung out commentary like The Message.  But The Voice falls short, doubtlessly on purpose, of the more formal and traditional presentation of the dynamic equivalence of the NLT.

Since I had my suspicions going in, that The Voice would be filled with content that could not be traced to any ancient manuscript, I give high marks to the publishers and editors of The Voice for their integrity with respect to how they have inserted their views into the text.  Whenever there is content NOT traceable to the original language, even within the framework of a dynamic translation, the editors have italicized the print.  This editorial decision does not really distract from the reading of the text after you get used to it, but clearly discloses what is purely editorial content, from what is a translation of the Greek.  It did take a little while to get used to it, as there are occasions when italicized print in other writing is intended to communicate emphasis, which is not the case in The Voice.

In a similar vein, the commentary in The Voice is not at the bottom of the page, like a footnote, it is positioned in the text itself.  However, these comments are marked off in an outlined box, clearly distinguishing them from the translated scriptural content.

And while The Voice is presumably intended to be a more “user friendly” Bible for the postmodern generation, it does not exclude important theological terms, such as grace, reconciliation, redemption, and justification, as I might have expected, although these more formal terms are occasionally replaced with other words that have a lower theological resonance.

Probably the most unusual thing I noticed when reading The Voice, is the absence of the word “Christ.”  Using both an ESV Study Bible concordance and a complete NIV concordance, I looked through all 27 books of the New Testament, and could find only ONE occasion when The Voice uses the word “Christ.”  That verse was John 1: 41 when Andrew reported to Peter that they had “found the Messiah. (which means Christ).”  Even in the three synoptic Gospels, where Peter confesses the Christ, in Matthew 16, Mark 8, and Luke 9, The Voice uses expressions such as “Liberating King” or “Liberator” as a substitute for “Christ.”  And throughout Paul’s letters to the churches and his young proteges, with his frequent use of the word “Christ”, Liberating King is the word choice in The Voice.

I have to wonder what is going on with this.  I will conceded that “Liberating King” is not wholly inaccurate, but also a little unusual.  Are the writers, editors and publishers simply trying to be trendy, or edgy in their references to Christ as an appeal to their target audience?  Or is this supposed to somehow be provocative?  Is the word “Christ” so confusing to the target audience for this Bible that the editors have intentionally exchanged the word for something that is less so?  Or is the word “Christ” considered to be so offensive to the postmodern intellect that it might repel people from the reading of scripture?  

I have to admit that the obvious effort to avoid the word “Christ” was noticeable and became somewhat unsettling, leaving me to suspect the motives of producers of The Voice.  I cannot help but speculate on the possibility that by adopting Liberator or Liberating King as euphemisms for Christ, they are trying to re-frame His office as exclusively king and savior, all the while minimizing His future role as judge.

Not as bad as I had anticipated, but falling short of a Bible I could recommend, The Voice will likely be embraced by far too many because of its easy reading style, and to some degree its trendy jargon that will likely appeal to the postmodern mind.

Some sweet info!

A regular package of M & M milk chocolate candies, not a part of a seasonal promotion contains the colors in the proportions shown below. 

 

 

25.0% each of Orange and Blue
12.5% each of Brown, Red, Yellow and Green

I know, you’re wondering how you lived this long without knowing this extremely important information.  And you are probably already imagining all the ways in which this knowledge will improve your life going forward.

 

You’re welcome!

Cut and Paste “Bible”

I can say without fear of impeachment that many people in our day believe that the founders of our country were Christians.  I also can say with some degree of certainty that when the word “Christian” is used to describe our country’s founders, it is thought of in today’s terms as an “evangelical Christian.”  The proposition that our founders were Christian is a claim made in defense of what is perceived to be a legislative abandonment of the “Christian values” that were presumably present in the hearts and minds of the men who declared our country’s independence from England, fought that empire to make it a reality and who then authored our Constitution, establishing our first set of laws.

No doubt some of our country’s founders were Christians and their theology would be accurately defined as historic, orthodox Christianity.  But to assume that all of the “big names” in early American history were Christians, would not only be inaccurate, but dangerously so.

Thomas Jefferson was one such man.  No question, Jefferson’s marks on our country’s history are significant.  He was a state legislator, Governor of Virginia, a minister to France, and a Secretary of State.  But he is probably most well known for being an author of the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, as well as Vice President under John Adams and third President of The United States of America.  He was by all rights a statesman, well read and a brilliant thinker.

But he was not a Christian.  Some adjectives that would describe his faith would be deist, universalist and Unitarian.  He denied that Jesus was the Messiah or the incarnate Son of God.  He believed in divine providence, a divine moral law and rewards and punishment after death.  But he only regarded Jesus as an incomparably great moral teacher.

A product of the Enlightenment, Jefferson was no fan of the Bible.  While he held Jesus in high regard as a teacher, he had no appreciation for the account of His life as provided by the four Gospel writers, and Jefferson held the apostle Paul in especially low regard, presumably disagreeing with much of the doctrine that Paul set forth.  He acknowledged the fact that there was valuable teaching contained in the four Gospels, but was insistent that the “diamonds must be separated from the dung” using his terms. 

It is from this bias against the canon of scripture that Jefferson created his own bible.  The process in his own words…”I had sent to Philadelphia to get two (New) testaments Greek of the same edition, and two English with a design to cut out the morsels of morality, and paste them on the leaves of a book.”  [emphasis mine]  When the Bibles arrived, he found out that he had received the Greek and English, and also a Latin Bible.  For some reason, Jefferson also added a French version.  After numerous starts and stops, Jefferson finally completed his cut and paste bible in 1820 at the age of 77.   He called it “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth”.  It is an interesting compilation of scripture verses, jumping from one Gospel account to another, combining and mixing as suited Jefferson to create a flow of Jesus’ life and his moral teachings.

Jefferson’s bible has no mention of Jesus’ virgin birth, no indication of His claims of divinity, no miracles.  And perhaps the most striking aspect of Jefferson’s bible is the abrupt way in which it ends. 

Then they took the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.  Now, in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never a man yet laid.  There laid they Jesus,
And rolled they a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.

That’s it.  Jesus died.  They buried Him.  And they left. 

While God is his judge, Thomas Jefferson certainly did not regard the hope of a resurrection as being worthy of recording.  Can we then assume that represents the hope that Jefferson had for an eternal life?  No mention of a required faith in Jesus and His sacrificial atonement.  No expectation of embracing His Lordship.  Just moral teaching by a man who died and was buried.  And His followers departed.