every dvd has at least one glitch

The Day After ...

2008-05-07T13:29:00.000-07:00

So I finally fell asleep last night. When I woke up this morning, nothing has changed (at least not to my knowledge). So as Jon L. Estes commented on Grace and Truth to You:

"Every informed Southern Baptist will have to make one of three choices...

1 - Ignore the trustees actions

2 - Join the trustees in their actions

3 - Stand against the trustees actions

What say ye?

The time for blogging only has come to an end, we must take up our cross and follow Jesus."

So what do you think? What are you going to do? I am ready to make choice #3. The Big Questions are now HOW & WHEN?

An Even More Regrettable Day

2008-05-06T20:55:00.000-07:00

It appears that Rodney Hammer has resigned from the IMB. Prior to his resignation, he served as the Regional Leader for the Central and Eastern Europe region. He is resigning in order that he might vocally oppose the guideline and policy adopted by the IMB Board of Trustees in 2006. While it is sad to see him go, it is worse because he was not allowed to openly speak on widely debated information of which only he and a few others have both accurate and widespread knowledge. Hopefully this sad ending will bring things to a head and the IMB BOT will see the errors of their ways. Sadly (have I used that word already :)), I think that it will require supernatural intervention for that to occur.

A Regrettable Day ...

2008-01-29T22:08:00.000-08:00

Another sad day in the SBC: Wade Burleson has resigned from the IMB BoT. Check out his blog for more details.

I hope that this will only be a regrettable day and not a regrettable decision.

Context: It's a funny thing!

2008-01-13T11:35:00.000-08:00

It's so amazing how "sound bites" have transformed our culture. Instead of listening to the whole arguement, people have a tendency to focus on a simple statement isolating it from its' context. Let's look at an example that I have seen used ad nauseum in attacks against Kevin Greeson's book The Camel. People like to condemn Kevin Greeson by only taking this quote on page 144, ahem, sound bite, of his advice to say:

"I agree with what the Qur'an says about Mohammed."

What they dismiss is Greeson's statement in the following paragraph on the same page of this book:

"We are not saying that Mohammed is a true prophet or the seal of the prophets"

The first statement cannot be definitively interpreted without first taking into account the second. The reader has the responsibility to use the context to understand what the author is trying to say.

I guess you could simply take the first statement as the definitive statement of what the author is trying to express. At that point one must face the honest question: why did the author continue writing instead of stopping at that point? I submit to you that maybe he had not finished stating his point.

While slogans and sound bites have some value in getting a message out, check out the context: it's there for a reason!

A Simple Student @ SWBTS

In case you are wondering, I do not think that Kevin Greeson is advocating that as a Christian you say to a Muslim that you agree COMPLETELY/IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES with what the Qur'an says about Mohammed. That is adding to what Greeson has said and ignoring the context. In fact, Greeson should be commended because he is pointing to one way in which Christ is superior to Mohammed even when argued from the Qur'an. He is not affirming that the Christian should view the Qur'an as inspired Scripture. However, I am no Doctor. In fact, I am struggling to even make it through my M.Div. so take it however you would like.

2008-01-12T20:27:00.000-08:00

just a thought: it is really funny how people think that they are being polite in a conversation as long as everybody sees eye to eye. as soon as someone disagrees it is funny how rude these same peoples' comments can be.

The Most Important Statement Made at the November Board Meeting Is Getting Zero Publicity

2007-11-08T21:47:00.000-08:00

What could be more important than the statement regarding the censure of Wade Burleson at this past IMB board meeting? I mean the guy got the proverbial public body slam. He was accused of being a slanderer. That is pretty serious, right? Well, actually, the Board of Trustees also made a statement concerning IMB strategy on the field. Clues as to the content of this statement can be found in Mark Kelly's article, 600,000 baptisms, $304.8 million budget frame challenge for IMB trustees, SBC churches:

In other matters, the trustees also:
[...]
– adopted a five-point statement of principles for contextualizing the Gospel in other cultural settings. The statement affirms the use of “bridges” from elements of host cultures to communicate Gospel truth and encouraged missionary vigilance that unbiblical concepts in a culture do not compromise “the whole unvarnished truth of the Gospel.”

As of yet I have not been able to obtain a copy of this statement. I think that this statement will have great implications on how evangelism (what the IMB is all about) is conducted around the world. More specifically, since the statement is said to affirm the use of bridges to the Gospel, it would be very interesting to see how much it validates the Camel method. It is hard to believe that no one has picked up on this in the blog world and that such a momentous statement is getting little media attention (one paragraph). This was truly the most important statement made at this meeting.

A Simple Student @ SWBTS

Where are SWBTS' priorities?

2007-08-30T07:44:00.000-07:00

For me, public outcry concerning SWBTS' homemaking concentration is a matter of accountability to the SBC. While I think that this degree is off the mark and most people I know here have been offended/embarassed by the new concentration, the biggest problem with this concentration is the money being directed away from ministry oriented classes. No matter how you slice it up, the money to pay for these classes has to come from somewhere. At least some of these classes will require new equipment which costs money. So my fellow students whose wives elect to take the classes will "benefit" from their new found abilities to cook, parent, and iron their underwear. At the same time, many students will continue to struggle to pay for classes and even put food on the table while Cooperative Program funds are directed to teach culinary arts (btw, if the administration is looking to improve food quality in student housing maybe they should raise the "blue shirts" pay). For a school that is constantly seeking to cut costs, this expensive concentration seems like a curious new direction. All of this leads me to wonder what the priorities of the school actually are in light of the new concentration and the new chapel building program (which will cost much, much more than the concentration). Is SWBTS really about spreading the gospel, discipling believers, and preaching the Word? Or is it about building unneeded buildings and teaching women how to cook? The SBC should call SWBTS to account ... and SWBTS needs to answer with wiser choices in how they spend their money.

SBC Outpost Replaced?

2007-08-29T07:11:00.000-07:00

Out with the old, in with the new. A new collaboration of SBC bloggers is set to launch sbc IMPACT! on September 1. Based on their stated "desire to host a truly edifying, thought-provoking, civil community for the examination and discussion of issues that affect Southern Baptist churches," this certainly could prove to be a promising new forum for discussion. By including a standards page, it appears that they have learned some lessons from SBC Outpost's self-destruction. It will remain to be seen how these standards will be implemented and how the contributors will police themselves. I hope that sbc IMPACT! will avoid many of the pitfalls of other blog collaborations in order to successfully foster an earnest and edifying conversation amongst SBC'ers.

What has happened to the Outpost?

2007-08-16T14:07:00.000-07:00

It seems that SBC Outpost is continuing its pattern self-destruction by writing a post critical of Dr. Paige. This seems to be another in a series of missteps since the new Outpost was formed. I wrote the following thoughts a couple of weeks ago after reading a post on denominational accountability by Ben Cole. At the time, I decided not to post them frankly because I waited too long and it was old news. Anyways, here goes:

I was excited when the new SBC Outpost was unveiled after the Convention. It seemed like a great idea: a consortium of posters on all things SBC. This promised a diversity of posts by a variety of authors whose blogs I was not prone to read. In addition, I assumed the quality of the posts would increase as they would have less pressure to churn out post after post.

However, much to my disappointment, the Outpost has been hijacked over the past few weeks.

Ben Cole now appears to be the chief spokesperson behind the 'post. His articles have been increasingly frequent. In effect, he has set the tone for the new Outpost.

I think that this is extremely unfortunate. While I have been very supportive of "the blogger coalition," I have always had a hard time swallowing the tactics that Ben Cole has employed. It is those very same tactics that I fault the members of the Conservative Resurgence for using. It baffles me to no end to see the "blogger coalition" push Ben Cole to the front of the movement. To me, I think this is a political misstep. The Pattersons of this world will easily find Cole's faults and will exploit them in every political forum. However, this characterization of Cole will be used to condemn all bloggers.

In contrast, Wade Burleson has exposed many injustices in the SBC (his own, Sheri Klouda's, etc.). However, he has done this in a straight forward way. He has not been a jerk about things and has championed irenic dialogue. In the end, I think the SBC, and SBC Outpost in particular, need a little less Cole and a lot more Wade.

In retrospect, I am not sure if Wade would help that much since he hired Cole.

Our Prayers Go Out For...

2007-08-05T20:01:00.000-07:00

those under persecution right now
the persecutors that they might come to faith in Christ experiencing true forgiveness and love
the families of the persecuted

Check this out!

2007-08-03T14:56:00.000-07:00

This video is awesome.

Statement regarding Sept. 6 Chapel

2007-07-20T16:34:00.000-07:00

by Student

Dr. Thomas White, now Vice President of Student Services at SWBTS, was excited about the quality of chapel speakers this past year (see here). After reading of his excitement I began to wonder who Dr. White was specifically thinking about when he made that statement. Was he referring to the first person without the initials LPP to speak in Chapel this past year? Here's what SWBTS "Staff" had to say about that speaker shortly after he had spoken:

"[...] while Southwestern does not instruct its chapel speakers about what they can or cannot say, neither do we feel that there is wisdom in posting materials online which could place us in a position of appearing to be critical of actions of the Board of Trustees of a sister agency." (emphasis mine)

and

"Furthermore, though most of Rev. McKissic’s message represented a position with which most people at Southwestern would be comfortable, Rev. McKissic’s interpretation of tongues as “ecstatic utterance” is not a position that we suspect would be advocated by most faculty or trustees. In keeping with Baptist convictions regarding religious liberty, we affirm Rev. McKissic’s right to believe and advocate his position. Equally in keeping with our emphasis of religious liberty we reserve the right not to disseminate openly views which we fear may be harmful to the churches." (emphasis mine)

So the second chapel speaker's message was deemed unwise to be posted online and expressing views feared to be harmful to the churches.

This brings me to another speaker: Dr. Forrest Pollock. His message on Sept. 6 was NOT deemed to express views feared to be harmful to the churches and NOT unwise to post it online.

I would like to pose two questions:

1. Is it wise to post a chapel sermon full of historically inaccurate material on a website?

2. Are hate-inciting statements harmful to the churches?

As far as Dr. White's excitement, he must have been thinking about all of the other chapel speakers this year ;)

Megaflood?

2007-07-18T16:43:00.000-07:00

A Megaflood in separated England from Continental Europe? Hmmm....

What People Are Saying About The Church!

2007-07-18T16:26:00.000-07:00

What are people saying about the Church? Check out this video that I found on the famous technology blog by Robert Scoble.