“[Pop music] has seeped into our sensibilities in such a way that nothing that antedates it really sounds like music to us. … To dismiss the cultural effects of music as insignificant or merely a matter of taste, is like dismissing the study of sociology itself as merely a matter of taste.”
David Gordon, Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns
The whole book is readable, insightful, and often quotable.
Due to furlough traveling and busyness, I’ve been absent for about a month from posting, but hopefully that will be corrected now as I’ve got a better connection, and some of the busy work is done now.
Thanks for your patience, eager reader.
WORLD | The media and President Obama’s view through a Gosnell lens | Ken Blackwell | April 16, 2013.
Mariners have been familiar with the Fresnel lens for nearly two centuries. It refracts light from a lighthouse to magnify the life-saving capacity of the illumination.
Now, we are seeing a new kind of lens we can call a “Gosnell lens,” which refracts light in such a way that the object in view is not seen. It deflects all critical examination of what we plainly see in front of us. The Gosnell lens is named for Kermit Gosnell, who is on trial in Philadelphia for the murder of seven infants born alive and one mother. His alleged victims are all poor, mostly minority. Normally, this kind of trial—with plenty of gore—would be a major news story. After all, if it bleeds, it leads, right? Not this time.
Gosnell is an abortionist, and we have known for decades that when abortion is in the picture, all bets are off. The major news media are pro-abortion. Not just “pro-choice,” but pro-abortion. They agree in the main with Lawrence Lader, who founded NARAL Pro-Choice America: “Abortion is central to everything in life and how we want to live it.”
When somebody who has never owned a slave apologizes for slavery to somebody who has never been a slave, then what began as mushy thinking has degenerated into theatrical absurdity–or, worse yet, politics.
Slavery has existed all over the planet for thousands of years, with black, white, yellow and other races being both slaves and enslavers. Does that mean that everybody ought to apologize to everybody else for what their ancestors did? Or are the only people who are supposed to feel guilty the ones who have money that others want to talk them out of?
This craze for aimless apologies is part of a general loss of a sense of personal responsibility in our time. We are supposed to feel guilty for what other people did but there are a thousand cop-outs for what we ourselves did to those we did it too.
Thomas Sowell, Dismantling America
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Recently, David de Bruyn has been insightfully plowing up the ground of the third commandment. But in my context, another question has been raised.
I have heard church members commonly say under their breath, “Isus” or merely “Sus” as an exclamation when something surprising happens, as they’re playing ball, or just in general language as a “filler.” However, this comes from the Afrikaans’ name for Jesus Christ. As such, they are breaking the third commandment if it is strictly interpreted.
Is it possible to dishonor God’s name even if you are using a language that you do not know? Is this kind of dishonoring so serious that it should be church disciplined?
The first question I’d answer in the affirmative. But for the second question, I would lean toward the negative for these reasons.
1. We are all ignorant about God to some degree at all times on all issues. All sins are committed within the context of some kind of ignorance. Yet this lack of knowledge does not remove our culpability seeing as we have a responsibility to prize God, thinking clearly and consistently enough about Him that we will be able to obey all His commands perfectly.
2. The Bible has examples of people who sinned ignorantly. When Uzza touched the Ark of the Covenant, he was probably not thinking that he would be required to pay the ultimate price for that seemingly insignificant action. (1 Chronicles 13)
The next question is trickier to answer for me. How should the church posture itself toward someone who openly takes the Lord’s name in vain, but yet wants to join the church and be involved? I want to say “Yes” but can I?
The name of God represents His infinite dignity. So young people in church should not be allowed to speak of it in a flippant, trite, or passing manner. But our God is a Father who knows that we are dust. So young believers should receive from us a generous allotment of time as they grow in this particular command.
When was the church born? When did it start? Here’s two well-known voices:
His [the Holy Spirit] coming to fill the assembled disciples at Pentecost establishes the church of the New Covenant. Clowney, The Church, 28.
On this point we cannot agree with those Premillenarians who, under the influence of a divisive dispensationalism, claim that the Church is exclusively a New Testament institution, which did not come into existence until the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost… Berkhof, 571.
If the church began in some sense at Pentecost (Clowney), then how can Covenant Theologians (CT) affirm that the OT believers were in the church?
If the church began in the OT (Berkhof), then what was the point of Pentecost? Was it merely a helpful add-on to their faith, but really not essential? If it was essential, then how can we explain that the OT believers did not have it?
I recognize that CT will argue that the church existed as believers in Israel during the OT, but the point still remains: if you press for an OT church, the worth of Pentecost is downplayed to some degree. If you flatten the distinctions between the two sections of Scripture, then the most obvious distinction–the coming and permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit–is also ironed out. To exalt the meaning of the Spirit’s coming in Acts 2 is to speak of distinction from the OT, and that is a very difficult shibboleth for many CT’s.
Is this a possible explanation for why Robert Reymond in his otherwise very helpful Systematic Theology devotes a mere 4 pages out of 1,093 to the third member of the Godhead?
Striving for true doctrine, right action, and spiritual feeling amidst the mine fields on all sides.
I could wish that they had dealt with Rom. 7:2-3 in its own chapter. Also, the syllogism of Eph. 5:25:
1. A husband must be like Jesus Christ.
2. Jesus Christ never divorces His wife.
Conclus…
An interesting and perhaps important book which educates the citizen to vital factors about the region and country to which he is obligated to vote, pray, …
For its glorious and compelling presentation of Christ as well as intensity that comes straight from Scripture, this book deserves more honor than Pilgrim’s Progress.
Plot:
1….
