The Quote Game

Date July 6, 2008 Posted by Roger Overton

Guess who said this, and you could win the satisfaction of knowing you were right…

“I was able to open my mind about the absolute indescribable hugeness of that which we call “God.” I took God out of the box because I grew up in the Baptist church and there were, you know, rules and, you know, belief systems and doctrine…”

“…I am a Christian who believes that there are certainly many more paths to God other than Christianity.”

No cheating 😉

Category Posted in Main Page, Roger's Posts, Theology Comments 7 Comments »

A Word To The Calvinist: Arminians Are People Too!

Date July 2, 2008 Posted by David N

Saint Augustine is well known for (primarily) three things:  His intimate Confessions, his majestic City Of God, and his heated debate with Pelagius.  It is in this debate that Augustine's positions on Predestination and Perseverence of the Saints (eternal security) finds its final and strongest articulation (1000 years before Calvin!).

Pelagius, thanks largely to the tireless efforts of Augustine, was universally recognized as a heretic.  There were some at this time, however, who disagreed with both Pelagius and Augustine, and sought more of a middle road.  These people came to be called “semi-Pelagian” and eventually “Arminian” (after the position's strongest and most infamous Protestant proponent, Jakob Arminius). 

Today there are no confessing Pelagians (although many evangelical Christians today have Pelagian tendencies they are largely unaware of).  Thus the debate that goes on today within evangelicalism is between Calvinists and Arminians.  Since I am a Calvinist, I obviously have plenty of concerns and disagreements with Arminian theology.  However, I have noticed a strong tendency in many Calvinists today to simply think of their semi-Pelagian opponents as full Pelagians.  Or, if they acknowledge the difference, they still tend to treat semi-Pelagianism as if it represents no improvement on Pelagianism at all.   The implication of this sort of thinking is clear: Pelagianism is a universally recognized heresy, liable to lead its adherents straight to damnation.  If semi-Pelagianism is no different…

But Calvinists today would do well to remember that Saint Augustine himself faced semi-Pelagian critics in his own day, and he always treated them as erring brothers, not heretics.  The Augustine-Pelagius debate may have meant eternal life or death, but the Augustine-semi-Pelagian debate was an intramural one. 

It is possible to hold the truths of Scripture in the highest regard without sacrificing charity.  Indeed, it is possible to fight hard for those truths without sacrificing the Apostle's command, “love one another.” 

Category Posted in David's Posts, Main Page, Theology Comments 17 Comments »

Justice Stevens Agnostic about Existence of "Bill of Rights"

Date July 2, 2008 Posted by Amy Hall

I was appalled, but not particularly surprised to read the following in an article about the recent Supreme Court decision striking down the D.C. handgun ban:

In a dissent he summarized from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority [who said the ban was unconstitutional] “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.” 

Stevens is right–the majority is out of control.  What next?  Will they be claiming that the Framers chose to limit the government's tools to ban religion?  Speech?  Based on some supposed document that was created over 200 years ago?  Ridiculous!  Where will this madness end?  Why is it okay for them to force their belief in this so-called “Bill of Rights” on us?

 

I, for one, will be voting for Obama in the fall.  All we need is one more justice on Stevens's side–one more–and we'll be freed from the confines of these supposed limitations on government imposed on us because of a few people's belief in some static, old document.  Those dead “Framers” have no right to impede our progress by telling our elected officials (and judges!) what they can't do.

Category Posted in Amy's Posts, Main Page, Politics Comments 3 Comments »

Providence

Date July 1, 2008 Posted by Amy Hall

From John Newton’s An Authentic Narrative:

How many such casual events may we remark in the history of Joseph, which had each a necessary influence in his ensuing promotion!  If he had not dreamed, or if he had not told his dream; if the Midianites had passed by a day sooner or a day later; if they had sold him to any person but Potiphar; if his mistress had been a better woman; if Pharaoh’s officers had not displeased their lord; or if any, or all these things had fallen out in any other manner or time than they did, all that followed [would have] been prevented:  the promises and purposes of God concerning Israel, their bondage, deliverances, polity, and settlement, must have failed; and, as all these things tended to, and centred in Christ, the promised Saviour, the desire of all nations would not have appeared; mankind had been still in their sins, without hope, and the counsels of God’s eternal love in favour of sinners defeated.  Thus we may see a connection between Joseph’s first dream and the death of our Lord Christ, with all its glorious consequences.  So strong, though secret, is the concatenation between the greatest and the smallest events.  What a comfortable thought is this to a believer to know, that amidst all the various interfering designs of men, the Lord has one constant design which he cannot, will not miss, namely, his own glory in the complete salvation of his people; and that he is wise, and strong, and faithful, to make even those things, which seem contrary to this design, subservient to promote it.

I can only respond with the words of Romans 11:33 and Psalm 139:6:  Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  It is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it.

Category Posted in Amy's Posts, Main Page, Theology Comments 1 Comment »

The Inspirational Wayne Grudem

Date June 23, 2008 Posted by Roger Overton

This one deserves it's own post…

(Lyrics posted here)

Category Posted in Main Page, Roger's Posts, Theology Comments 1 Comment »

In the Scope, 6/21/08

Date June 22, 2008 Posted by Roger Overton

“The stage was set,
the lights went down and in a suburban Japanese primary school everyone
prepared to enjoy a performance of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The
only snag was that the entire cast was playing the part of Snow White. For
the audience of menacing mothers and feisty fathers, though, the sight
of 25 Snow Whites, no dwarfs and no wicked witch was a triumph: a clear
victory for Japan's emerging new class of “Monster Parents.” For
they had taken on the system and won. After a relentless campaign of
bullying, hectoring and nuisance phone calls, the monster parents had
cowed the teachers into submission, forcing the school to admit to the
injustice of selecting just one girl to play the title role.” (Source: Times of London) The reminds of a post I wrote a few years ago about teachers changing the ink color they use for corrections from red to purple.

“What the Media Didn’t Tell You About Friday’s Unemployment Spike” It wasn’t Bush, it wasn’t greedy corporations, or free trade, or
history’s most over-predicted recession. It was not the oil companies,
income inequality, or the excesses of cowboy capitalism. None of these
things caused the unemployment rate to jump a half a percentage point
in one month.” Get the truth here.


Ever worry about what your friends and family will do without you after you're raptured (assuming they're not saved)? Wish you could leave them a personal message or other important documents? Worry no more! For $40 a year “You've Been Left Behind” will store those documents for you, and in event of a rapture, will send them to email addresses you provide. Ain't that handy?

Eckhart Tolle has been selling New Age teaching for years, but recently it really took off when Oprah gave him a huge spotlight. Millions have been buying into his teaching and not enough Christians have been saying something about it. Thankfully, Marica Montenegro has written a great article online explaining what Tolle is teaching and where it goes wrong: A New Earth, Ancient deception: An evaluation of
Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. I'll be interviewing Richard Abanes regarding his new book on Tolle in the next month or so.

A few months ago I thought to myself, “I wonder if there's ever been a switch-pitcher?” Switch-hitting is a useful talent- just imagine how great switch pitching would be! From what I could find out, there's only been one switch-pitcher to pitch in the major leagues, and it was only one game (I'm not sure why since it sounded like he did well). But yesterday, MLB.com posted a video of a guy currently in the minors: What happens when a switch-pitcher faces a switch-hitter? It'll sure be fun to see him in the majors some day!

Category Posted in Main Page, Miscellaneous, Roger's Posts Comments 4 Comments »

(Mis)Understanding <i>Sola Scriptura</i>

Date June 20, 2008 Posted by David N

The Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura, simply put, is the belief that the Bible, the Word of God alone is the final authority in all matters of Christian faith and practice.  Where Popes or church councils have seemed to violate the plain meaning of Scripture on these matters, it is Scripture alone that has the power of veto, it does not stand side by side in authority with tradition.

The most common objection I have heard from Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox brothers to this doctrine is that it is not itself found in Scripture.  Nor is the list (canon) of books that ought to count as Scripture found in Scripture.  At first brush this seems rather embarrassing, if not outright contradictory.  But I feel this objection has been given far more attention than it deserves, and here I will attempt a brief response.

First, a simple but all too important point must be made:  There are many items of true knowledge to be found outside of the Scriptures, and we can know them.  My belief that the external world exists (including the Bible I'm holding in my hands) is one such item of knowledge.  But this belief, it could be argued, is found at least implicitly within Scripture.  Fair enough.  Another example would be the deliverances of modern Science, or of History beyond the date of the last New Testament book.  The Bible is neither a Science nor a History textbook.  But no one would attempt to argue that the doctrine of sola scriptura precludes Christians from engaging in and learning from these disciplines.  

Likewise, I see no reason why the list of books determined to be canonical or the doctrine of sola scriptura itself cannot be such items of knowledge, arrived at by sound arguments and the use of God-given reason.  

To illustrate the point, one need only study church history.  In the earliest days after the Apostles, there were a few books widely accepted as Scripture (such as the letters of Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas).  There was no single council convened to answer the question of which books belonged in the canon and which did not.  There were several, some with slightly differing opinions than others.  There were also prominent individuals who compiled their own lists (such as Athanasius, who was probably the first whose list comprised only and all of the 27 books we now call the New Testament).  What is important to note about all of these is that each group or individual offered arguments on behalf of their selections.  The church did not arbitrarily pick which books it liked and which it didn't.  Good reasons were given for including books like Revelation and excluding Clement and Hermas, and in the end, the best arguments won the day.  And very recently, such arguments came in handy once more, as many Christians, especially Catholics, had to rebut the claims of the best selling Da Vinci Code.  

If this was sufficient to convince the church at the time, why not now?  Why now must infallible church authority  be added to the mix in order for us to be confident that we have the right canon?  Catholic and Orthodox Christians readily admit that the church never sat down and self-consciously used its belief in its own infallible authority to declare the canon into existence by fiat.  So why is infallibility necessary to be confident in the reliability of the canon today?  This at least seems to lead us to the conclusion that the list of books belonging in the canon need not be in Scripture itself in order for sola scriptura to be coherent. 

But what of the original charge, that sola scriptura itself is not discovered by Scripture alone?  Again, this objection simply misses the point.  If I have good reason to believe, based on the best evidence (both historical and logical) that the Bible (in its final, canonized form) is the infallible Word of God, and moreover, if I likewise have good reason to believe, based on the best evidence, that no other earthly institution bears the mark of divine infallibility, then sola scriptura follows quite naturally.  It is a deliverance of sound argument and reason, and need not be found in Scripture itself (which would be circular anyway).  

***

As a side note, it's worth pointing out that whatever can be said in favor of church infallibility can likewise be said in favor of the infallibility of Scripture, and whatever can be said against the doctrine of sola scriptura can likewise be said against the infallibility of the church.  Consider, upon what basis does the church claim infallible authority?  If the basis is on either tradition or Scripture (which is really a written derivation of tradition anyway), then the argument is circular.  But if the basis is upon reason (or even faith…which are by no means opposed), then whatever can be said for church infallibility can be said for sola scriptura. 

(I recognize that my Catholic and Orthodox brothers have other concerns with sola scriptura, but in this brief post I meant only to deal with this one common objection). 

Category Posted in Apologetics, David's Posts, Main Page, Poetry/Scripture/Liturgy/Etc., The Da Vinci Code, Theology Comments 30 Comments »

GodBlogCon 2008 – Time to Register!

Date June 19, 2008 Posted by Roger Overton

 The annual God Blog convention hosted by the Torrey Honors Institute is only a few months away. This year it's September 20-21 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Most importantly, early bird registration ends on June 20th. So if you want to get the best price, register NOW! (click on the banner)

Here's this year's speaker line-up:

Andrew Jones (TallSkinnyKiwi)
Ken Myers  (Mars Hill Audio Journal)
Scott Ott (ScrappleFace)
Mark Joseph (HuffingtonPost)
Joe Carter (EvangelicalOutpost)
Wade Tonkin (Affiliate Marketing)
John Mark Reynolds (Buffy Addicts Anonymous)
Roger Overton

GodBlogCon will take place only a couple of weeks after the publication of The New Media Frontier, and the book is actually the result of past conferences. So this GBC will be something of a premier/launch party for the book. I'll be speaking about the book as one of the sessions, and we'll have a book signing. So come network with other Christian new media folks and get to know what's going on and how to use it all for God's glory!

Category Posted in Main Page, New Media, Roger's Posts Comments No Comments »

Interview with Michael Ward, Part 3

Date June 12, 2008 Posted by Roger Overton

Introduction to Michael Ward and Planet Narnia
Interview Part 1
Interview Part 2

The only critic I've been able to find who's argued against your book after
having read it is Devin Brown. Of his criticisms, the inconsistency of the
imagery seems most substantial to me. He argues that “Ward's proposed
planet-related imagery does not stay rooted in its “home” book, but
appears scattered randomly in all seven Chronicles.  For every image that
fits Ward's scheme, we can find one that does not.” He's offered the
prominent appearance of Bacchus and Silenus in Caspian as a
counter-example to your argument, since these are clearly jovial characters. I
agree that there are strong Martial images in Caspian, but could it be that
Lewis sought to make both Mars and Jupiter especially present in this volume?

You say that Bacchus and Silenus are 'clearly jovial characters'.
 Why?  Is it that they are festive?  Festivity is definitely an
important feature of Joviality, but we must understand what kind of festivity
we're talking about!  The festivity of Jove is kingly, leisured, serene,
majestic, regal; it comes in the wake of priceless sacrifice.  The
festivity of Mars is tied to a different set of qualities: it's Bacchanalian,
sensual, reckless.  It's very close to drunkenness!  It's more of a
riot than a feast.  It's the sort of abandonment to pleasure that comes as
the backswing to physical risk, – like Orual's deep drinking after her single
combat in 'Till We Have Faces'.  It's like the sap surging up through the
trees in March. 

I have addressed some of Devin Brown's concerns in a
conversation we've been having on Narniaweb. 

Why do you believe Lewis only emphasized one planet per novel?

One's enough!  In 'That Hideous Strength' the planetary
themes are numerous and they get in the way of each other.  Lewis himself
thought that 'That Hideous Strength' was overstuffed.  Better to
concentrate on one planet at a time, as he does in the Chronicles.

As the rest of the series are adapted to the big screen, what influence do
you think your discoveries should have on the movies?

I hope that 'Planet Narnia' will convince the screenwriters
that the Chronicles are very carefully constructed novels.  They were not
just slopped together and dashed off in five minutes one afternoon!  If
the screenwriters realise how much thought and creative intelligence went into
Lewis's composition of the Chronicles, hopefully it will cause them to respect
and understand their source material more and stop them from making some of the
unnecessary changes which they introduced in the first two films.

One reviewer of Planet Narnia, Rachel Fulton, claimed that your
discoveries require a reconsideration of more than just the Chronicles.
Seeing as most Lewis scholars have been convinced of your thesis, how do you
think your discoveries will impact the general study of C.S. Lewis?

I hope that 'Planet Narnia' will contribute to an
understanding of Lewis as a more integrated writer and thinker than people have
generally recognised. 

Walter Hooper said that “This will make Michael Ward's name.”
 Are you planning to continue working on Lewis, or do you have other plans
for the future?

I already have two definite plans for further Lewis
study.  The first is a popular version of 'Planet Narnia', – shorter,
simpler, with more pictures!  The second is to co-edit the forthcoming
'Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis', which should be ready for publication in
2010.  Aside from those two projects I have several ideas, some related to
Lewis and some not.  But I'm not telling people about these plans yet
because they are still at a very early stage.

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Interview with Michael Ward, Part 2

Date June 11, 2008 Posted by Roger Overton

Let's look especially at Prince Caspian, since at least the movie is
fresh in many people's minds right now. You claim that in Prince Caspian
Lewis chose to use imagery from the planet Mars. Can you briefly highlight some
of the reasons why you believe Prince Caspian is the Martial book of the
series?

Here are seven brief reasons.  There are many more, and I
go into these in detail in 'Planet Narnia':

1) Mars is the god
of war and Prince Caspian is
a war story. The four Pevensie children find that they have arrived in Narnia
‘in the middle of a war’. The war in question is ‘the Great War of
Deliverance’, as it is referred to in a later Chronicle, or simply the ‘Civil
War’ in Lewis’s ‘Outline of Narnian History’. It is ‘a real war to drive Miraz
out of Narnia’ and restore the kingdom to Caspian. At the start of the story he
is a mere boy, hardly aware of the Martial spirit which is already abroad. When
Glenstorm tells Caspian: ‘I and my sons are ready for war. When is the battle
to be joined?’, Caspian replies that he had ‘not been thinking of a war’.
Glenstorm asks why it is, then, that he goes ‘clad in mail and girt with
sword’; he informs him that the omens are good: the planets foretell success.
Nerved for the conflict, Caspian thinks it ‘quite possible that they might win
a war and quite certain that they must wage one’, so he convenes a ‘Council of
War’. The Council authorizes action and Caspian leads the skirmishing forces as
they engage the usurper’s army. Once the Pevensies arrive, Peter challenges
Miraz to ‘monomachy’. Miraz is killed, not by Peter as it turns out, but by one
of his own side, after which ‘full battle’ is joined.

2) Mars makes you ‘martial’, and the very word ‘martial’ appears
twice in “Prince Caspian”, the only one of the seven Chronicles in which it
occurs at all. Reepicheep is described as a ‘martial mouse’ and Miraz frets
over his ‘martial policy’.

3) In his study of
sixteenth-century literature, Lewis quotes Sir John Bourchier: ‘I know by the
course of the planettes that there is a Knyght comynge’. In Prince Caspian he dramatises that
sentence. Glenstorm tells Caspian, ‘The time is ripe. I watch the skies . . .
Tarva and Alambil have met in the halls of high heaven’. Tarva, the Lord of
Victory, ‘salutes’ Alambil, the Lady of Peace, in a conjunction witnessed by
Caspian and his tutor, Dr. Cornelius, who declares: ‘Their meeting is fortunate
and means some great good for the sad realm of Narnia’. The conjunction tells
us that there is, indeed, ‘a knight coming’, – namely Peter, who will fight the
tyrant Miraz and right the wrongs under which Narnia suffers

4) Knightliness is one of the key, recurring images throughout
the story: we hear of ‘knights-errant’; in the ruins of Cair Paravel we see
‘rich suits of armour, like knights guarding the treasures’; Peter is ‘Knight
of the Most Noble Order of the Lion’; Edmund is ‘Knight of the Noble Order of
the Table’, a ‘very dangerous knight’; Caspian is knighted and then, in turn,
knights Trufflehunter, Trumpkin and Reepicheep; even the chess piece discovered
at the start of the story is a ‘chess-knight’. This War of Deliverance is a
good, medieval, knightly conflict, formalised by the art of heraldry and the
rules of chivalry; hence the shining armour, the banners, the ornamented
shields, the elevated language of Peter’s challenge.

Peter is the model knight, able to hew the treacherous and
murderous Sopespian in pieces (slashing his legs from under him and walloping
off his head with the backswing of the same stroke), but gentle enough to kiss
the furry head of the badger. He has physical courage (risking his body in the
single combat) but also pays attention to forgotten and seemingly unimportant
traditions (the Bears’ hereditary right to be Marshals). He is sensitive to his
army’s morale (cheering up Wimbleweather by appointing him to the parley);
adroit in decision-making (his handling of the bumptious Reepicheep is
diplomatic); and self-effacing towards Caspian (‘I haven’t come to take your
place, you know, but to put you into it’). He demonstrates the summit of
knightliness in refusing to attack Miraz when he is down; this to the
frustration of Edmund: ‘Oh, bother, bother, bother. Need he be as gentlemanly
as all that? I suppose he must. Comes of being a Knight and a High King’. This
is that knightly behaviour, which Lewis wrote about elsewhere, ‘in which
morality up to the highest self-sacrifice and manners down to the smallest
gracefulness in etiquette were inextricably blended by the medieval ideal’. For
more about this tradition of knighthood, take a look at Lewis’s essay, “The
Necessity of Chivalry”.

5) The Martial
temperament is one of ‘sturdy hardiness’, according to Lewis’s book, The Discarded Image, and the Martial
visage is ‘hard and happy’, according to his poem, ‘The Planets’. This ‘hard
virtue of Mars’ (to quote his poem, ‘The Adam at Night’) appears frequently
throughout Prince Caspian:
Peter looks ‘hard’ at Lucy; the soldiers escorting Trumpkin have faces that are
‘bearded and hard’; we meet three badgers called the ‘Hardbiters’; when the
children are lost in the woods they find that retracing their steps was ‘hard
work, but oddly enough everyone felt more cheerful’; Aslan tells Lucy ‘it is
hard for you [to wake the others] . . . it has been hard for us all’; Peter’s
army at the end of the battle are found ‘breathing hard . . . with stern and
glad faces’. More significantly, certain characters visibly become Martial as
the story progresses: Caspian begins ‘to harden’ as he sleeps ‘under the
stars’; the children, ‘jingling in their mail’, begin to look and feel more
like Narnians and less like schoolchildren; the ‘hard’ ground and ‘the air of
Narnia’ work on Edmund so that ‘all his old battles came back to him’; he and
Peter have become ‘more like men than boys’ by the time they march to Aslan’s
How. The iron has entered their soul, as is to be expected, for these
characters are responsive to the Martial ‘influnce’, to that same ‘magic in the
air’ that has saved Susan’s bowstring from perishing.

6) In addition to
being the god of war (Mars Gradivus), Mars was a god of trees and forests. He
was known in this capacity as ‘Mars Silvanus’. This explains why trees have
such an important part to play in Prince
Caspian. Lewis puts ‘Silvans’ into his cast of characters in this
story; they never again appear in any other Narnia Chronicle. Caspian and Dr.
Cornelius cannot clearly see the conjunction of Tarva and Alambil because of
the interposition of a tree; Cornelius repeatedly mentions waking the trees;
Caspian is brought to Trufflehunter’s cave by the intervention of a falling
tree; Trufflehunter laments that they cannot ‘wake the spirits of these trees’
for ‘once the Trees moved in anger, our enemies would go mad with fright’;
Aslan’s How now stands in the middle of ‘the Great Woods’ and there Caspian’s
army must flee; Lucy tries to wake the trees in Chapter 9, but fails; in
Chapter 10 the children’s progress is hampered by the fir wood, but it provides
them with cover when they have to run from the arrows of Miraz’s sentries;
later in Chapter 10 Lucy, at night-time, finds the trees awake in the presence
of Aslan; in Chapter 11 the trees stir at the sound of his roar and then join
in the riotous procession of Bacchus and Silenus.

7) The month of
March, when the trees come back to life after winter, is called March because
it is named after Mars in his capacity as Mars Silvanus. It is the only month
of the year that is named after one of the planets. Interestingly, the only
Narnian month ever named in the Chronicles is ‘Greenroof’, during which all the
events of Prince Caspian take
place. In ancient Rome,
the festival of Mars (the Feriae Marti) began on the first day of March and
Bacchanalian festivities followed on the sixteenth and seventeenth, just after
the Ides of March (the fifteenth) on which, famously, Julius Caesar was
assassinated by being stabbed by his own disloyal Romans. Given the Bacchanalian
revelry recorded in this story (in chapters 11 and 14), and given the fact that
Miraz is betrayed and stabbed in the back by one of his own men, the
connections with Mars grow ever more evident. There are many more reasons
why Prince Caspian is
a Martial story, and I explain some of these things in my book, Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in
the Imagination of C.S. Lewis

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