tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14200931345718927732024-03-13T15:45:27.308-07:00The Bayou ThebaidA Protestant reads the desert fathersJ. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.comBlogger183125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-47324885259143281322015-09-18T08:44:00.002-07:002015-09-18T08:44:27.815-07:00My Final Post and New Developments<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is my final post at this blog. I want to summarize some conclusions reached and address some problems that have come up. I thank God that I have been a small (albeit very small) part of the group exposing and warning the cultish activities in some CREC churches. I really have nothing to add that Spiritual Sounding Board, Wartburg, K. Botkin, and others haven’t added. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Theologically, I have remained Protestant (and will do so). I think my defenses of Sola Scriptura, a Protestant understanding of tradition, and a Protestant rebuttal to Anchorite claims are sound. But I get tired of correcting misunderstandings. More on that later.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I first made this blog I held to a Barthian epistemology and view of God--namely rejecting substance metaphysics. After spending a few years reading and interacting with JP Moreland and Alvin Plantinga, I believe a Barthian epistemology is a trainwreck and his view of God a non-starter. </span></div>
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<a href="http://patristicevangelism.wordpress.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://patristicevangelism.wordpress.com</span></a></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have several goals:</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want to pursue the connections between the church fathers and the doctrine of the soul.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I believe that a patristic understanding of the soul allows for real healing. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Physical healing often needs physical treatments. However, there is also a correlation between neuroscience and philosophy of the mind (see the book </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Heartmath</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is critical in terms of pastoral counseling, as the recent disasters in Moscow, ID make clear. Telling victims to “get over it” and not go to court, besides tampering with witnesses (which is illegal), ignores many dimensions which remained unhealed. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Healing must be total and wholistic, which many of the Fathers intuitively recognized.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While I can’t agree with some of the theological overtones behind monastic theology, there are interesting parallels between the monastics and later psychology (at least at its best)</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: lower-alpha; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Monastics urged one to confide in a confessor. Not so much to “get my sins forgiven,” but to reveal what my baggage is. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: lower-alpha; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A strict diet of good foods (which does include fasting) and self-denial makes the acolyte acknowledge weak points.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: lower-alpha; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While I can’t buy into Hesychast models of prayer, there are different breathing methods that calm the body and some scholars suggest a parallel between the physical heart and the mind (Moreland, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kingdom Triangle</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, ch. 6). Interestingly, the fathers often spoke of “nous” and the “heart.”</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This blog has been very harsh on “convertskii.” I’ve now come to the point that if someone wants to convert to Rome or EO, there is little I can do to stop him. Nor really should I. Contrary to some convertskii narratives, we do make choices and do use our sinful western rational judgment. St Paul says every man stands or falls before his own master. However, I’ve come to realize that some people might have defensible rationales (!!!) for becoming EO. I’m here to help that person either stay Protestant or make an informed judgment on EO before jumping ship only to find the same garbage elsewhere. </span></div>
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<li><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want my new blog to help on the narratives. I've realized that I probably know more about Russian and Balkan history than 99% of Americans (and more than 100% of news anchors). I know how tempting it is to paint Kosovo Poltje as a crisis point. I want to deconstruct a few narratives while still affirming what is good in those narratives.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And I realize I've read a lot about the church fathers. I don't want to boast but neither will I engage in false humility. And I've come to realize that the picture is very complicated. The Fathers affirmed a lot of things I probably won't affirm, yet we don't see them (at least early on) affirming what Convertskii want them to affirm.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once I made peace with myself that Protestants can experience Kingdom Power, go to heaven, and the like, I realized I didn't need to change my church identity based on someone else's narrative about his own salvation (Orthodox Bridge).</span></li>
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<i>A parting shot across the bow</i><br />
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one of the <a href="http://joypeacehope.blogspot.in/2015/09/an-open-letter-to-doug-wilson-who-is.html">victims' father is speaking up</a>.<br />
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A response to <a href="https://homeschoolersanonymous.wordpress.com/2015/09/15/toby-j-sumpters-denial-of-the-body-of-christ-puts-abuse-survivors-at-risk/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter">Sumpter</a>.</div>
J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-71791568790870904752015-09-16T13:23:00.002-07:002015-09-16T13:23:19.558-07:00Disagreement = satanist<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://dougwils.com/s7-engaging-the-culture/the-cruci-defiled.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wilson tries to defend his actions</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by pointing to a warning by CS Lewis on the tyrannical Nanny State. In </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Screwtape Letters </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Abolition of Man</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Lewis pointed out that “therapeutic punishment” is always more tyrannical than retributive punishment. If you do something wrong--steal from the IRS, witness-tampering, molesting a two-year old, etc--then you receive the penalty appropriate to the crime and that’s it. Punishment over. The Nanny State sees you as sick and wants to “rehab” you until you are better. Of course, it will determine when, if ever, you are better.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like of all of Wilson’s posts, he deflects any blame from himself by pointing to the abortion industry. “Yeah, attacking the victim and covering up pedophiles might be bad, but you should see the abortion industry.” True, the abortion industry is bad, but that’s not what I am talking about at the moment. </span><a href="http://dougwils.com/s7-engaging-the-culture/the-cruci-defiled.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Further, when Wendell Berry tried to pull the same stunt you called him on it</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But in this post is Wilson even talking about the Sitler/Wight scandal? It’s hard to say, initially. He does leave us hints. </span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In controversies over abuse, victims, brokenness, and so on, this is why appeals to justice (i.e. let’s find out what actually happened) so often fall on deaf ears. They don’t care about executing the right prisoner. That is not what this is about. They don’t need to find out if you were the culprit. All they need to know is whether you are the patient.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Since he is talking about victims of “abuse,” he probably doesn’t mean Planned Parenthood. So I take this to be a reference to Sitler. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But before you are allowed to attack him, he brings up Jesus.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is why proclamation of the gospel has two parts. The first concerns the objective content of the gospel — what God has done for us as sinners. The contents of the Apostles Creed would be a wonderful summary of the message of the objective gospel in this sense. Christ born, Christ crucified, Christ risen, Christ ascended, and Christ pouring out His Spirit of forgiveness on a lost and truculent world.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is great and true and all. I never once doubted Sitler’s repentance (though his failing a lie detector test--something the Wilsonistas ignore--did give me pause). The problem is not “Can Jesus forgive him?” The problem is, “Granted that Jesus forgave him, we must also realize that the abuser is still wired a certain way and we have to protect other sheep, including the abuser’s (future) children.” Jesus’s objective dying for me or anyone else doesn’t change the fact that we still have physiological garbage. This is what St Gregory the Theologian called </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ataktos</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, chaotic flux, baggage. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The passions must be healed. This is a lifelong process. The CREC has never been known for self-denial and biblical ascetism.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anyone who disagrees is a Satanist</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This quote should bother you,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So when confronted with the frenzied spirit of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">accusation, that central tactic and technique of the father of lies</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the only appropriate response is to declare the gospel, and to take refuge in the gospel by declaring it. This is why — all through last week’s outcries — I turned again and again to the death of Jesus Christ for sinners. When I did this, I was </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not changing the subject</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. That is what all of this is about.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Translated: anyone who accuses me is under the Father of Lies. This is why anyone hoping for reform within the CREC is deluding himself. As long as the pope of the CREC associates “accusations of him” with “The Father of Lies,” well, why bother?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So no, there is nothing to fix. No, not at all. This is what we are called to. Jesus died outside the camp, and He died in a contemptible place. We are not told to bring that cross of His inside the city limits, silverplate it, and start leaving baskets of fruit in front of it.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is worse than anything Jay Adams has ever written. It's like saying, "There can't possibly be anything wrong with your brain. Therefore, you're okay."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s put it this way:</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If a man murders someone, asks Jesus to forgive him, and then hides behind the altar when the cops show up, what do you do? (This was a common situation in some ancient churches. LOL)</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A homosexual struggles with his desires but repents and believes in Jesus. His sin is objectively covered by Jesus, yet he still wrestles with his desires.</span></div>
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J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-13720705741504938092015-09-15T15:53:00.001-07:002015-09-17T10:06:41.870-07:00Hide ya womens, y'all<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
So one of the sites documenting the Sitler/Wilson connection was hit with a court order to remove a video. Another interesting post, while not documenting any criminal activity, but nonetheless creepy, <a href="http://mirroringgrace.blogspot.com/2015/09/why-we-left-crec-part-1-engagement.html">is here</a>. It raises the question over how widespread this mentality is in the CREC. I suspect, while maybe not universal, is more widespread than one would wish.<br />
<br />
What are some consequences for the larger Evangelical world on this?<br />
<div>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>I don't think this will bring Wilson down. He's weathered storms before. I do think it will further discredit the CREC in general. </li>
<li>It took some steam about of the Reformed world's anti-abortion polemic. A few months ago when the Daleiden videos were released, we were drunk with battle joy and Wilson was leading the charge. Praise God the witness will go on, but no one can rally behind him any more. </li>
<li>I think the Evangelical egalitarian movement will get a shot in the arm. It's really hard to lose a debate against Patriarchy at this moment.</li>
<li>I am finding it harder to argue against people converting to Eastern Orthodoxy. Almost all of these "converts" are from the CREC. Let that sink in. And when I urge them not to, they could easily respond, "Yeah, well, I don't want my daughter to get raped and have the elders cover it up and threaten excommunication on the victim." Admittedly, I can't really rebut that point.</li>
<li>It would help to have the NAPARC world formally identify and condemn the CREC. Granted, it means nothing in day to day life, but it is official and would warn other families.</li>
</ol>
<div>
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</ul>
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J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-49662637929028327602015-09-13T05:31:00.001-07:002015-09-13T05:31:14.940-07:00About to launch some old Doug Wilson posts/criticisms<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Back when I was flirting with Eastern Orthodoxy I had a lot of posts criticizing some of Wilson's wackier statements. I might try to find those and launch them, especially in light of the current scandal(s).</div>
J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-89126203026331868882015-09-12T07:17:00.000-07:002015-09-12T07:17:05.935-07:00Penultimate post on Moscow<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I doubt this will be the last post on the issue. But it will be the last one I play as investigative historian blogger on. The more I read up on the back stories the more it felt like I was investigating the Mafia. None of this happens in a vacuum. You realize that the connections go way back. <a href="http://federal-vision.blogspot.com/2008/03/serial-pdophile.html">And we had been warned at least five years ago</a>, but the Reformed world stayed largely silent (and it's not just Doug Wilson who sees repentance as a panacea).<br />
<br />
<img height="200" src="http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080716/images/snake.jpg" width="159" /><br />
<br />
(Sorry that you now have nightmares, but that is what it feels like). And like investigating the Mafia you get the suspicion that this could explode. <br />
<br />
Will this work? Will this take down Wilson's Empire? I doubt it. At least it won't convince his disciples to renounce him. He can do no wrong. Truly they are a cult. But I'm not worried about them. Will this convince John Piper and The Gospel Coalition to sever ties? We shall see. </div>
J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-18819165599611968022015-09-10T15:33:00.000-07:002015-09-10T15:33:04.071-07:00Moscow Scandal Linkstorm<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I am not doing this with rancor. Since all of this is public and most of these links are links to court documents (or links to links with court documents), very little is my opinion. And it isn't slander. Just the facts. The only reason I give a damn is because there is a CREC church in my home town. Presbyterianism is mortally wounded in northern La. There are a few struggling communions but the CREC church is the dominant one. And when people here I am Presbyterian, they say, "Oh yeah, just like ____________."<br />
<br />
I have friends who, while not connected to the local CREC, are familiar with it and Wilson's doctrine. (And can we drop the CREC act? It's Wilson's denomination and that's that). They will not join Auburn but neither have they divorced themselves from Wilson's theology. I hope this post convinces them to do so.<br />
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="http://kbotkin.com/2015/09/09/wilson-on-pedophiles-and-spotting-the-wolves/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Katie Botkin</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> makes connections between Jamin Wight and Wilson (accessed 10 September 2015). Some of Botkin’s implications, if this tweet is accurate, are quite interesting.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="wilson jamin natalie tweet.jpg" height="319px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/YXm0_61azJrPdLc6AKzxABYronaUkbAoi6momOagHenhh-cE1E2e2BhWttlNISFcQEci9drZixoAjeu3CwM5MqIvm-dSrHBQu44k08Gs6D0_AULsd5t-4t1FqqYn2LfY6rEQ4Hs" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="624px;" /></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-2fc41b4c-b95f-6b4a-1a96-c6976d27a0fa" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="http://thewartburgwatch.com/2015/09/07/things-are-hopping-in-moscow-a-new-website-dedicated-to-steven-sitlers-pedophilia-history/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wartburg Watch</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> points to new website on Sitler, implying bigger revelations are to follow (accessed 10 September 2015).</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="http://sitler.moscowid.net/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Interactive site and timeline</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on Sitler (accessed 10 September 2015).</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">R.C. Sproul Jr-Sitler </span><a href="http://federal-vision.blogspot.com/2008/04/thousand-more-words.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">connection </span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(accessed 10 September 2015).</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BalyBlog </span><a href="http://baylyblog.com/blog/2015/09/concerning-open-letter-session-christ-church-moscow-retraction" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">distances </span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">themselves from Wilson (accessed 10 September 2015). </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">During the Phillips-Lourdes scandal, </span><a href="http://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2014/04/22/queen-bees-of-homeschooling-stacy-mcdonald-and-kelly-crawford-dont-like-the-victim-word-in-the-lourdes-torres-manteufel-vs-doug-phillips-lawsuit/comment-page-2/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wilson refused to identify the victim as a victim</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (accessed 10 September 2015).</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some background on the </span><a href="http://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2015/09/08/pastor-doug-wilson-has-been-involved-in-another-disturbing-pedophile-case-jamin-wight/comment-page-1/#comment-292885" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jamin Wight story</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (accessed 10 September 2015), with links to Natalie Rose’s blog. It also points out that Wight was a member, not of Wilson’s church but Leithart’s. </span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If Rose’s report can be believed, Wilson and Co. sat on the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">accused’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">side of the courtroom.</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wilson/Leithart (Leithart’s ministerial jurisdiction has never been clear) placed under church discipline.</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rose’s </span><a href="http://natalierose-livewithpassion.blogspot.com/2010/07/no-more-tape-over-my-mouth.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">original account </span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(accessed 10 September 2015).</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most recent </span><a href="https://homeschoolersanonymous.wordpress.com/2015/09/08/the-jamin-c-wight-story-the-other-child-molester-in-doug-wilsons-closet/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">account of the above is here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (accessed 10 September 2015).</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="http://greyfriars-hallmark.blogspot.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Court documents</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on the original Jamin Wight case (accessed 10 September 2015).</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="https://homeschoolersanonymous.wordpress.com/2015/09/08/the-jamin-c-wight-story-the-other-child-molester-in-doug-wilsons-closet/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This claims</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that Wight was abusive to his family in 2013 (accessed 10 September 2015).</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="http://kbotkin.com/2015/09/07/doug-wilson-on-marriage/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Doug Wilson on Marriage</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Botkin). Mostly summarizes the issue but does list that there was a court recording ten days before the marriage (accessed 10 September 2015).</span></div>
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J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-58172056576245369222015-09-10T07:48:00.001-07:002015-09-10T07:48:48.876-07:00But can you make babies?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The main problem in talking to Wilsonistas is that when critics point out that maybe marrying off a pedophile to a naive girl isn't wise, we are met with, "We are all sinners?" or "Don't you believe in God's grace?"<br />
<br />
The problem is that Wilsonistas collapse and identify God's grace with marrying and making babies.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinUP-iH1Jza69py4JHrq0o3_zATibbP-MJYTxmqBgjdI22moo0sbyWtGEBi-XTjihphD2acopmbDh0KTb5xOTYr4b72oCnK4BB9VXv5vvQ3BHHNCIEZrNUslMvvDmSKOyrH_uJl1Z4OJY/s1600/can+you+make+babies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinUP-iH1Jza69py4JHrq0o3_zATibbP-MJYTxmqBgjdI22moo0sbyWtGEBi-XTjihphD2acopmbDh0KTb5xOTYr4b72oCnK4BB9VXv5vvQ3BHHNCIEZrNUslMvvDmSKOyrH_uJl1Z4OJY/s320/can+you+make+babies.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-12001388446424944182015-09-09T13:51:00.000-07:002015-09-09T13:51:43.494-07:00On the Moscow, ID sex scandal cover up<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is little new I can add to the ongoing train-wreck which is Doug Wilson’s ecclesiology. I have no new court documents (sidenote: Wilson’s defenders rarely engage those) and I am already late to the scandal. So why write something? Several reasons:
</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span></span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">People sometimes ask me questions on Facebook or elsewhere on what I think about ____. While my word isn’t that important, some think it is. And if my meager post keeps some people from joining these CREC churches, then so be it.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want to provide a snapshot of the key facts in the scandal. Whenever the scandal is discussed, both sides immediately harp on the key Christian slang words, “Judgmental,” “grace,” “Jesus forgives,” Pharisee!” What is immediately lost is “Did he actually do __?” I grant that I am a Pharisees. Fine. Answer the question.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rebut many assumptions behind Wilson’s deviant theology. I was about to write “ecclesiology” or “family views,” then I realized for Canon Press they are basically the same thing. In short, and I know this is becoming cliche, his area is a cult. Plain and simple.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Conclusion: Since Wilson has been a vocal name in the War for Life and the War for the Family, often writing good stuff, this gives ammo to the secular crowd. And it would be hard to argue with them, admittedly. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">History</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(For the record. Just because I link to a site does not mean I endorse the site. I have long disliked the Southern Poverty Law Center. Their“hustling” has gotten so bad that even Democrats are embarrassed. Still. Broken clock and all) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It appears </span><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2006/idaho-pastor-hard-liner-exception-or-two" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">about ten years ago S. Sitler</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> came to Moscow, ID. Previously, he had molested a two year old. Apparently Wilson kicked him out of school and informed the police. If true, this clears Wilson of level-one police culpability. (Most people--public servants, anyway--are required by law to inform the police of this stuff). He is not out of the woods, yet.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Given that Wilson is a theonomist, what is his view on sexual crimes of this nature? He writes in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fidelity </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Canon Press, 1999),</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"When we are dealing with young children who are abused by adults (pederasty, child porn, etc.), the penalty for those guilty of the crime should be death." (p. 75)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sitler came back to Wilson. Presumably having repented. (I cannot know if his repentance was genuine. Let’s say it was. I am simply reporting the facts of the case and what both civil and biblical law require the actions to be in response). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The facts against Sitler. These are black-and-white. In terms of justice and the civil public space, it is irrelevant if Sitler repented. It is irrelevant if I am “casting the first stone” or am “mean” or “not being like Jesus or something.” Just the facts:</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> He admits to having sexually abused children ranging in age from 2 to 12 across three states: Virginia, Washington, and Idaho. (</span><a href="http://www.tomandrodna.com/CR_2005_02027/Private_Letter.htm" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Background court documents</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). Also see </span><a href="http://www.tomandrodna.com/CR_2005_02027/Private_Letter.htm" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. (Trigger warning: graphic!). </span><a href="http://www.tomandrodna.com/CR_2005_02027/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">More documents</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why cannot Sitler pass a lie detector test? </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Can the words “Sitler” and “sexual stimulation” and “his child” be used in the same sentence? Wilson’s followers say that isn’t true--only hearsay. Maybe. My source isn’t someone’s blog </span><a href="http://www.correctionsone.com/corrections/articles/9369232-Idaho-sex-offender-allowed-to-return-home-with-child/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">but an official penal site. </span></a></span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(3) provides the context for (2). Supposing it is just slander on Sitler, please address (2). </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even supposing Sitler has a right to marry from a Christian point of view, he can never have a normal relationship with his child(ren!). Is “Dominionism” really worth screwing up lives?</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What did Wilson say was the punishment for pedophiles? </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wilson informed his church, true. But by Wilson’s own words the session informed the church on </span><a href="http://dougwils.com/s7-engaging-the-culture/sick-pleasure.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">13 December 2005</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Here is the catch: Was Sitler worshiping with the Christ Kirk community within this timeline in a way that Wilson knew of Sitler’s actions before he was sentenced? Did the ChristKirk community know </span><a href="http://www.tomandrodna.com/CR_2005_02027/EmOrthPresCh_Ltr_032005_Page_3.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this </span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">before Sitler came?</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s all I’m really going to say on the legal aspect. There are supposed to be court cases this week. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Canon Press Theology</span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If all that matters were simply the above (1)-(7), then we can let the matter stop. If the legal system can’t take care of it, then the problems are too big anyway. But that’s not all. Others have commented on Wilson’s view of women in the church and home.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(P8) What is the role of women in the Canon Press community? Stated differently, what is the active role of women in the Canon Press community apart from the leadership of the male? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(P9) What is the role of single women in the Canon Press orbit? </span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(P8) and (P9) set the stage for another problem. Wilson tells everyone that he, in his defense, had no grounds for prohibiting a “lawful marriage.” What this means is that he couldn’t find a chapter and verse saying he couldn’t. This is biblicism run amok. Wisdom literature teaches us that we don’t always have to have a proof-text. Is it wise? They didn’t ask this question.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(P10) Is it the goal of the Christian life to get married and have babies? This question is ambiguous. We will rephrase it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(P10’) Is the “fallen” (defined as someone who committed a terrible sin but has repented) Christian guaranteed equal access to the marriage/family life? </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Many “Wilsonistas” say it yes. They assert it but never argue it. This doesn’t appear to be the Apostle Paul’s position. The Wilsonistas say, “If you can, and why can’t you?, by all means get married.” Paul said if you aren’t married now, then you might not need to get married (1 Cor. 7:7-8, 26-28). We can now conclude premise 10:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(P10*) There are many good reasons for staying single.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(P10a*) The church is not obligated to provide you for disregarding (P10*)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Wilsonistas will say that married sex provides a legitimate outlet for sexual passion. That is true </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in normal cases</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. But psychology and counseling have shown that men/women who are addicted to porn do not become unaddicted because they get married. The problem is still there, even if there is an “outlet” for it. And the outlet does not solve the problem. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is also true if the spouse is a convicted pedophile. Where is the wisdom in his “outlet” providing him with more victims? Wilsonistas will respond, “Would you deny him the opportunity for a family?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes.</span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are alternatives. None of them fun, but they are noble and workable. He can join a monastery in the desert and spend the next 30 years denying himself. Surround himself with a handful of elderly, cantankerous men who do not put up with nonsense. And who knows, he might be able to find peace and stillness in a way that he wouldn’t in Moscow, ID. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moving to another note:</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(P11) I have only rarely (I think twice) seen Wilson say, “Yeah, I was wrong.” Whenever he is criticized he, a) plays the victim and b) ridicules the actual victim. He (and by extension, his disciples) cannot take criticism.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think his inability to take criticism is tied with his church’s irregular court structure. Technically speaking, it (the CREC) isn’t a real denomination. In fact, I don’t think it claims to be. </span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Bastard Ecclesiology</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://butler-harris.org/archives/1381" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">T. J. Harris argues</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, cogently I believe, that the CREC cannot address the issue of ordination succession because the CREC isn’t a properly ordained denomination. Harris points out that if you make “baptism everything as a gateway” yet only require baptism be “in the Name,” then your ecclesiology will self-destruct. He notes the following situation:</span></span></div>
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</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now if some guys get together in a friend’s kitchen and baptize his infant, there are only four possible ways to combine the concept of baptism and church in describing what happened:</span><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1. The guys standing around in the kitchen constitute the visible church</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2. The visible church is a purely formal concept, without any actuality let alone visibility</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3. The ritual they perform is not in fact a baptism</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">4. Baptism is not sufficient to gain entry into the visible church</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On a related note: </span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(P12) On what grounds and by whom was Wilson ordained to the ministry? I checked his website under “Autobiographical Fragments” and didn’t find anything. The best scenario I can reconstruct is this:</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(</span><a href="http://dougwils.com/books/my-first-sermon-and-welcome-to-it.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P12a</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) He was a guitar player for churches who got cornered into preaching.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(</span><a href="http://dougwils.com/books/becoming-paedo.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P12b</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) He is a Baptist pastor that becomes a Paedobaptist pastor. Yet no word of “lawful ordination.”</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I didn’t see anything about a lawful ordination. Which church with established church courts ordained Wilson? I’m not arguing for apostolic succession (though my EO and RCC friends are probably chuckling right now) but basic Presbyterianism. Fair enough, Wilson didn’t start out as a Presbyterian. I am trying to think of ways he could have a retroactive ordination</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(P12c) Someone like Steve Wilkins (already ordained in the PCA) ordain him. I don’t think this happened.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Someone can say I am making a big deal and this is like asking for Obama’s birth certificate. Perhaps. All he has to do (or one of his minions) is to produce the credentials. The larger point is he did not become a minister through established channels. There is nothing magical about said channels, but they do have a discipline with (theoretical, in the PCA anyway) checks and balances.</span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Conclusion</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I write this so people will be warned of entering the CREC. It is a denomination born in sin. Well, it’s not even a denomination but a confederation. Not everyone in the CREC is a Wilsonista, but Wilson is the de facto Pope. He’s too powerful to challenge. Please note that if you enter this “confederation” you will enter a group that did provide cover for pedophiles, marries pedophiles to their women, encourages babies-victims from said union, and is beyond any church court of appeal.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And they travel at conferences. Which means some might come to your home town. </span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the prolife/profamily front: I grant that Wilson has penned some good stuff. It is plutonium now. You can’t touch it. </span></div>
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J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-7550467661695378372015-09-06T13:19:00.004-07:002015-09-06T13:30:42.737-07:00The Evangelical Prayer Masters, or a Protestant reads the desert fathers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My aim in this post is two-fold: explain how J.P. Moreland and Dallas Willard offered a way for Evangelicals to read the Desert Fathers and explain how Christ Church in Moscow, ID could better deal with a sex-offender.<br />
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<i>Willard and Moreland</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
J.P. Moreland's <i>Love your God with all Your Mind </i>is somewhat legendary in the Evangelical Community. He brought "discipleship training" to a hard-core intellectual level. The book has few rivals. He branched out in 2007 by showing that "intellectual formation" is only one "leg" of the Kingdom Triangle. The other two are spiritual formation and kingdom power.<br />
<br />
Spiritual formation isn't a new concept with evangelicals. Since Richard Foster's (mostly good) <i>Celebration of Discipline</i>, Evangelicals have tried to incorporate spiritual disciplines beyond that of the daily "quiet time." But what do you do when you read the practices of Desert Fathers? It's hard for Protestants to really "connect" with monastic figures. Protestants--at their best--are known for having the healthiest view of married sexuality (studies show this), have a vision for transforming culture, and the like. None of this seems to match desert spirituality. <br />
<br />
In Moreland's <i>Kingdom Triangle </i>and <i>The Lost Virtue of Happiness </i>he addresses several exercises for "calming the soul." He was accused of New-Agey techniques. He then responded that he is following neuroscientists. I can take it a step further. Many of Moreland's (and by extension, Willard's) suggestions are in some form related to the practices of the Desert Fathers.<br />
<br />
<i>Psychology</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
And this leads us to psychology. I believe the Bible is sufficient for doctrine. Stated another way: I believe the Bible is sufficient for the Bible's doctrine. However, I don't believe the Bible is meant to solve every medical and neurological issue simply by chanting the Bible over the person. And no, this doesn't make me a Freudian, so stop it.<br />
<br />
Natural revelation is real. Not every "method" is "touchy feely" psychology. The Desert Fathers--without following them on some doctrinal specifics--probably knew what they were talking about on how to achieve stillness, detachment, and focus. Of course, some issues might require medical counterbalances, so I will stop here.<br />
<br />
<i>And Demons</i><br />
<i><br /></i><a href="http://dougwils.com/s7-engaging-the-culture/an-open-letter-from-christ-church-on-steven-sitler.html#disqus_thread">Doug Wilson is facing a storm </a>right now because--to put it simply--he knowingly brought a pedophile into his church, married him to a girl in the church, and encouraged them to have babies. Some will defend it saying "Grace" or "would you deny him marriage?" Isn't marriage supposed to enable the man to grow in holiness? Yes. <i>Other things being equal</i>.<br />
<br />
When you engage in depraved acts with an infant, you lose a lot of privileges. Forever. Sorry. So what should he do? What no one has said on either side is the obvious point: the man is demonized. We need to get clear on what <i>daimonidzomai </i>really means. It doesn't necessarily mean (though it could include) the demon taking full control. It could simply mean "demonized." Part of getting rid of it is exorcism. Another part is simply "starving the demons out." Deny the passions. And given how deep-rooted the demons are, you probably aren't going to get rid of them by listening to a sermon once a week. <br />
<br />
Somebody on Doug's blog suggested what I had been thinking: join a monastery. There were the usual objections: "Protestants don't like that" or "Celibacy doesn't work." I'll ignore the first one. No, celibacy usually doesn't work. However, he shouldn't join just any monastery. He should go to the desert and live with some desert fathers for 30 years. These are cranky old guys who smell like sweat and incense. They have long beards. And they don't put up with nonsense. The whole "celibacy" thing really shouldn't be a problem. You will starve the demons out. You will have knowledge that you are protecting society. <br />
<br />
The other option is to join the Nineveh Plains Protection Unit.</div>
J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-3886525891600423602015-09-05T15:49:00.001-07:002015-09-05T15:49:51.970-07:00A Review of Eastern Orthodox Internet Resources<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Given that Leviathan is in full battle mode against American Christians, my time is better spent trying to strengthen the brethren rather than deconstructing groups like Eastern Orthodoxy. Please understand what I just said. I called them "Christians." I'm not sure given their views on the One True Church if they can return the favor, but no matter.<br />
<br />
Here is my review of the following EO websites and the resources they offer.<br />
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<a href="http://www.ancientfaith.com/">Ancient Faith Radio</a>. Like any site with multiple programs, this is hit or miss. Still, a lot of the material is fantastic and they branch out. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://patristicnectar.org/">Patristic Nectar</a>. This is Fr Josiah Trenham's ministry. The audio quality is excellent, as is most of the material. The only downside is the price. More often than not, you are paying $7+ for 30 minutes of audio.<br />
<br />
Orthodox Bridge. I'm really trying to be nice. I guess the best thing I can say is if you are looking for citations from St Ignatios, then this site is as good as any. They advertise themselves as Reformed-Orthodox bridge, but it's just a one-way street. They don't like it when you ask questions they can't answer. My main problem is that this site sets up converts for spiritual disaster. They make it sound like the American Orthodox church is growing steadily and Protestantism will collapse any day now. If you convert to Orthodoxy for their reasons, you will be disappointed. There are good reasons. They just haven't given any.</div>
J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-90203504854966661282015-08-31T16:10:00.001-07:002015-08-31T16:10:45.773-07:00Boersma Outline Sacramental Tapestry<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">argument: Until the late middle ages people looked at the world as a mystery (Boersma 21). By mystery Boersma means a sacramental link between creation and God, that creation participates in God. In other words, the connection, though not identical, is real. Mystery, so Boersma reads the “Platonist-Christian synthesis” (hereafter PCs) refers to the “reality behind the appearances.”</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-6ba78281-8606-9494-070c-22cf439b66e3" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Boersma structures his book around the (neo)Platonic movement of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">exitus </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">reditus </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(the departure from and return to), except exitus now refers to how the church lost the PCs and the reditus on possible steps for regaining it.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is not Boersma’s goal to defend Platonism as such. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mystery</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Created realities point beyond themselves (carry extra dimension to them)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Symbols just point to something else</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sacraments--the referents coinhere.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Sacramental world not only points to God but participates in him. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">real connection, not just nominal.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">signum </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">points to and participates in the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">res</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The end of created being lies beyond itself (30).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Creation and Goodness</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Creation is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hinged </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">upon transcendence.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If unhooked, it loses its goodness (it has to rely on itself).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It must </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">participate</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in a higher goodness.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Platonic Heritage</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rejecting Parts: </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Creation is not automatic nor an emanation.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">argued for resurrection of body</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Good</span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Weaving the tapestry</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Fathers’ Christological Anchor</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Irenaeus</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">God reveals himself publicly in Jesus Christ to all alike.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The wisdom of the gospel pleads for a unity that doesn’t obliterate differences.</span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Athanasius: Unity in the Incarnate Logos</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To be made in the image of God means to be rational--Christ must teach us. The image is restored by means of teaching (Boersma 45).</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We are not disparate, fragmented individuals but participate in a common humanity. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The unity of humanity lies anchored in the Word.</span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gregory of Nyssa: Universals and Particulars</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">universals refer to what is common, particulars to what is individual.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Universals anchor the particulars.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The deity in which the Father/Son/Spirit share implies a common activity. This is why the three men analogy--James, John, Peter--breaks down, for they all have different actions.</span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Theme: Our particular humanity depends on the participation of humanity in Christ (51).</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unraveling the Tapestry: The Medieval Revolt Against Nature</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Juridicizing the Church</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gregorian reform</span></div>
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<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: square; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For earlier fathers, sacred actions are performed in the church, but everyone is subject to God. God was directly working in the sacred actions.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">earlier theology regarded sacramental power as within the life of the church. Now it is causally top down.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Discovery of Nature</span></div>
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<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">earlier sacramental thought held a link between heaven and earth. There was the unity of the church (</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">res</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) and the sacrament to which it pointed.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Berengar Dialectic</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: square; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Berengar said we spiritually participate in the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">res</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: square; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">His opponents said we physically participate in the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sacramentum</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: square; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Both sides widened the gap between heaven and earth.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scripture, Church, Tradition</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The earlier fathers said church and Scripture coinhere. They are not two separate sources of authority.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dialectic of Wyclif: Catholics responded to him by pitting Church against Scripture.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nature and the Supernatural</span></div>
</li>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Counter-Reformation introduced the notion of “pure nature,” which meant human nature before any prior movement of grace. Human nature is walled-off.</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cutting the Tapestry: The Two Scissors of Modernity</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Univocity of Being</span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scotus said being was used in a univocal way. Being is now “unhooked” from God. </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If being now applies to God and creatures in the same way, then it has become an overarching category in which both God and creation “share” (75).</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sacramentum no longer receives res from God’s own being. </span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Voluntas</span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">God no longer relates to creation by gift, but by will. </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The world can only relate in an “external” way. </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The late medieval emphasis on divine decree cut the link between God’s will and God’s knowledge (79).</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Younger Evangelicals</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After Late Medievalism the Reformation struggled to reweave the tapestry. This isn’t entirely its fault. Most of the Reformers were philosophical realists, but it’s hard to keep together what has long since been sundered. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Great tradition had a Christological anchor: a vertical link between God and humanity where we receive our being by participation in the Logos (89). </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">REDITUS: RECONNECTING THE THREADS</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eucharist as Sacramental Meal</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If our connection with God is an external or nominal one, then there is little room for sacramental participation. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">De Lubac and the Eucharist</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a real transubstantiation, but it is when the congregation is changed into the body of Christ. This leads de Lubac to posit a threefold body: the bread, the congregation, Christ.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">St Paul seems to operate off this as well. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“And is not this bread [Body¹] we break a participation in the body [Body..n..] of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16b).</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Because there is one loaf [Body¹], we, who are many, are one body [Body²], for we all partake of one loaf [Body¹]” (1 Cor. 10:17). </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The question is what does Body...n refer to in 1 Cor. 10:16b? It could refer to Christ himself. It could also refer to Body². Or as de Lubac says, it is a three-fold body so there isn’t a hard and fast separation. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sanctorum communio</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: can refer to either communion of saints or communion of holy things. Communion of holy things was related to communion of saints (115). </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Shifting Corpus</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The word </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">verum </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">moved from the ecclesial body [Body²] to the eucharistic body [Body¹]. “Christ’s body in the Eucharist came to be seen as the true body” (de Lubac, quoted in Boersma 117). </span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Church began to focus more on the Eucharist and less on communion within the ecclesial body. </span></div>
</div>
J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-31440014987003743412015-08-28T15:19:00.002-07:002015-08-28T15:19:47.251-07:00On the leaving of a certain Reformed forum<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I won't name names because I don't want this to be a "kiss-and-tell." I decided to leave because my theology--while remaining historically Reformed on most points, and certainly Evangelical Protestant on others--was moving away from "Vanilla Reformed." <br />
<br />
I expected them to disagree with me on issues like the charismata and premillennialism. That didn't bother me. Recently, however, my theology took a Patristic and Augustinian bent. I started drawing inferences from what the Church (and yea, even Calvin) taught about the nature of the soul. It became clear that I had "maxed out their conceptual paradigms." I am not saying they are dumb. Quite the opposite. I am saying they do not have the conceptual paradigms to deal with, say, Augustinian themes. <br />
<br />
<img height="320" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3101/2443326658_cb6f9fa746.jpg" width="250" /><br />
<br />
This was quite evident in a lot of questions I got. One thread dealt with whether angels are present in church, based off Hebrews 12. I heard: "So, you are saying you can physically see _________?" To which the answer is, "Of course not." It's hard to see immaterial entities. Most fathers (and CS Lewis) hold that when one encounters an angel (or a demon), the spirit-being manipulates matter and space and mind and causes you to be aware of its existence. This can take physical appearance (Augustine, De Trinitate, Book II) but it doesn't have to. <br />
<br />
<img height="200" src="http://images.oca.org/icons/lg/GreatLent/johnclimacus.JPG" width="164" /><br />
<br />
This is Angelogy 101. <br />
<br />
Regarding the charismatic gifts. Why bother arguing? The evidence is overwhelming and it is the testimony of global Christendom (regardless of tradition).<br />
<br />
I wish them well but in the name of charity and peace it was best I go elsewhere.</div>
J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-69757127420900994402015-08-24T18:47:00.002-07:002015-08-24T18:47:41.412-07:00Neckbeard News<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Light-hearted humor.<br />
<br />
http://www.neckbeard-news.com/</div>
J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-53747748114493457752015-08-20T16:56:00.001-07:002015-08-20T16:56:24.627-07:00Spirit beings--spirit words<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I am currently reading Jennifer Leclaire's <i>Satan's Deadly Trio. </i>She is one of the more articulate charismatics. I don't always agree with her outlook, but <a href="http://www.charismamag.com/component/search/?searchword=Jennifer%20LeClaire&ordering=newest&searchphrase=exact&areas[0]=authors">most of her stuff is quite good and worth reading</a>.<br />
<br />
Admittedly, the book isn't that theologically profound--and she isn't a trained theologian. Still, I found myself saying, "Hmmm....that just might explain some things." For example,<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Since we are spirit beings created in the image of God, our words are not just sound vibrations--our words are spirit (John 6:63).</blockquote>
</div>
J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-49692766399340626672015-08-18T13:53:00.000-07:002015-08-18T13:53:03.519-07:00Notes on the Faerie Queene, Book 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Here is the allegory of Temperance. It follows the standard medieval warrior pilgrimage. Sumpter has done a fine job of modernizing the spelling while retaining the exalted style. However, there are a few flaws with Sumpter's approach (I am not criticizing his work. It is literally one of a kind and preciously needed). Sumpter ignores (or doesn't notice) Spenser's Neo-Platonism. Without understanding Spenser's commitment to Neo-Platonism, parts of the story are incoherent. Here are some themes that will guide the reader.<br />
<br />
<img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51or-oW5R2L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" /><br />
<br />
Neo-Platonic Themes<br />
<br />
Reason masters passions: “Yet with strong reason mastered passions frail” (VI.40). But this isn’t standard Neo-Platonism of the monkish sort. Passions aren’t bad. They just need to be guided by reason.<br />
<br />
*Mediating Spirits. Neo-Platonism of its various forms sees a chain of being connecting all of reality. The material is suspended by the spiritual. Transcendence, therefore, can be found in the lowest link of the chain. Along this chain are mediating spirits (powers, angels, fairies).<br />
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*Because of his Neo-Platonism, Spenser sees a greater role for angels than we do today (VIII:1-2). Angels actively engage and empower man and thwart the enemy.<br />
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*It seems that Spenser identifies “Temperance” as a “god” (IX.1). Granted, he isn’t using god in the crude polytheistic sense. Rather, temperance seems to be a “power” or even “Archetype.” True, this could be merely poetic license, but given Spenser’s Neo-Platonism, it fits neatly.<br />
<br />
*In the Bower of Bliss the heroes (Guyon and Palmer) come across a “false Genius.” If we accept that these characters (Genius et al) are Archetypes, we can then add the standard (neo)Platonic insight that the Archetypes and Forms have causal power. But we have a problem. The “Genius” here is a false Genius, as Spenser clearly argues (XII.47). So clearly this Genius isn’t the real genius, but a shadow one.<br />
<br />
EXCURSUS: ALMA'S CASTLE<br />
<br />
Alma's Castle in Book X illustrates how thoroughly committed to Neo-Platonism (and how familiar with the occult) Spenser was. Sumpter isn't aware of these connections.<br />
<br />
Sumpter misses the implication that Memory has hermetic overtones (Yates 2014). Memory mediates a society’s passing down of Absolute Spirit (Magee 87). <br />
Speculative Philosophy holds up a mirror (speculum) to the Idea itself: it allows the Idea to comprehend itself (88). In fact, following the Kabbalist tradition, the “mirror” allows one to behold the deeper essence of Spirit (120).<br />
<br />
This brings us back to the Hermetic Art of Memory. “Imagination” is to evoke from memory the Perennial Philosophy. In other words, to echo Jung, it draws out from within the unconscious.<br />
<br />
This is rather speculative. Is this what Spenser really had in mind? I think so. Dame Frances Yates argues that Spenser “inherited much more than Neo-Platonism” (Yates 2001, 112). Spenser describes the man (representing memory) as “of infinite remembrance” (IX.52). Man is finite, not infinite--unless man himself was drawing upon a universal subsconcious. I suggest this is what Spenser had in mind. (Interestingly, Yates comments specifically on this very Canto; 114).<br />
<br />
Yates further argues that the structure Spenser gives suggests that Man is a Microcosm of the universe. In Canto 22 we read of a “circle” and a “triangle” with a “quadrate” (cube) in between. The four-sided cube represents the four elements of the world, which is proportioned equally by “seven and nine.” Seven is the number of the planets and nine is the angelic hierarchy. If the cube is between seven and nine, then it is an eight, or an octave. This could also represent the Temple of Solomon. <br />
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<br />
Conclusion:<br />
<br />
Spenser’s work is literally the standard by which all other poetry is compared. Even though (or perhaps because of!) he is a Neo-Platonist, Spenser floods the senses (and the soul) with beauty and creates in the reader a desire not only for the good, but for the Beautiful, for the Heroic--indeed, for the Temperate.<br />
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This isn’t accidental. If what we have said about Forms/Archetypes’ having causal power, then then we can expect “pullings” upon our soul when reading Spenser.<br />
<img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51yB2PrhZtL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" /><br />
<br />
Spenser’s most memorable creation is the Bower of Bliss (as Lewis said, no prude can read Spenser). Guyon’s actions represent a neat twist in Neo-Platonism. The most temperate action is to go into a frenzy and destroy the Bower. This isn’t what we expect from a Neo-Platonist. Spenser doesn’t negate the passions--he calls them into Reasons’s service, but all the while they remain very, very passional. Spenser may have just squared the circle: he may have just redeemed Neo-Platonism. Guyon isn't an Anchorite who tries to transcend the realm of passions. <br />
<br />
What about Sumpter’s annotations? They are a mixed bag. When Sumpter is explaining ethics, theology, or literary symbolism, his annotations are amazing. When he tries to be funny they are worse than awful. Remember the Ron Swanson style of humor? If you have to try hard to be funny, you aren’t. Hilarity should flow from your very being. You shouldn’t have to strain to be funny. I say that because some of the wannabe funny footnotes seriously distract from the story.</div>
J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-49967338528813171792015-08-15T08:31:00.003-07:002015-08-15T08:31:59.577-07:00Christian Reconstruction and Radical Orthodoxy: The Difference<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A common Reconstructionist refrain is "All of life is worship," usually coupled with "No square inch." Is all of life worship? We'll get back to that. The underlying theme is "no neutrality" between Christian thought and non-Christian thought. I suppose there is some truth to that.<br />
<br />
Radical Orthodoxy will also defy a "secular reason." They point out--with some persuasiveness--that the secular mythos is just that--a myth, a story--that is used to buttress power. Is this another way to say that "All of life is worship?" I think it is.<br />
<br />
So then: are Radical Orthodoxy and Christian Reconstructionism saying the same thing? Even worse, has Christian Reconstructionism suddenly become intellectually respectable and morally coherent? Fortunately, we can answer "no" to both claims. <br />
<br />
It is true that both groups deny a secular reason and posit the centrality of the Christian story as the only true one. However, when Christian Reconstructionists say "all of life is worship," this is implicitly done in such a way to minimize the role of the church. Imagine a social space in which discourse inhabits. In this social space--on the CR claim--the church has been relegated to the margin. Why should the church be central, since all of life is holy? Since nature supposedly abhors a vacuum, another group will arise to mediate the Christian discourse. That's right. You guessed it: The Reconstructionist Parachurch Ministry (think Chalcedon or American Vision).<br />
<br />
This is clearly not what Radical Orthodoxy is claiming. Radical Orthodoxy, it is true, does posit a social space in which the Christian mythos is the only one. However, Radical Orthodoxy makes one more move:<br />
<br />
P1: The Church is social space.<br />
P2: Therefore, instead of "all of life is worship" we have "all of life is the Church."<br />
<br />
I think there are some problems with the RO claim, but it is certainly a healthier claim.</div>
J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-57163220643137052892015-08-12T15:12:00.000-07:002015-08-12T15:12:00.477-07:00Redeeming the Dialectic by means of the Filioque<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 17.563634872436523px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"I am trying to suggest how Christian Trinitarian logic has a mediating structure which is not dialectical. The key point here (simply to state things baldly for the present, without argument) is that that which lies “between” two poles is paradoxically “extra” to those two poles, an irreducibly hypostatic third. In the case of the infinite Trinity, this extra is itself indeed the procession of the love that lies between Father and S<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">on (as Augustine put it)—yet the arriving externality of this thirdness is still guaranteed by the fact that Father and Son (according to the logic of substantive relation, perfected by Aquinas after Augustine) are in their mutually constitutive relationship only through this additional constitutive relationship to the Holy Spirit—which is not so much their “child” as the very womb of desire of truth in which the Father has originally conceived the Word of reason. If, to speak by geometrical analogy, Father and Son are points only because they are the two ends of one line, then this line is a line only because it is the base of a square whose remaining space is the Holy Spirit."</span></span></blockquote>
<div class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; line-height: 17.563634872436523px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">- John Milbank, The Double Glory, or Paradox Versus Dialectics, in The Monstrosity of Christ, p. 147</span></div>
</div>
</div>
J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-70464649460668903662015-08-12T10:03:00.001-07:002015-08-12T10:03:26.223-07:00Jesus and Nonviolence<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It struck me while reading this that "nonviolence" is not the same thing as Pacifism. The latter includes the former, certainly, but the latter has political connotations that the former does not.<br />
<br />
Wink suggests that "nonviolence" is a third way beyond Institutional Violence and Pacifism. The former, argues Wink, represents the "principalities and powers" while Pacifism simply accepts the status quo, thus further strengthening the powers. I think Wink's analysis of the situation is a bit simplistic, but he offers some unique insights on application.<br />
<br />
<img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41VeAOoJsFL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" /><br />
<br />
Wink rebuts crass readings of Jesus and Romans 13 that urge passivity. In its context, true nonviolence "provides a way to take on the system in a way that unmasks its essential cruelty and burlesque its pretensions to justice, law, and order" (Wink 21). In other words, we are to deprive the oppressor of a situation where force is effective.<br />
<br />
In short, Wink argues, quoting Ghandi, nonviolent revolution is a "program transforming relationships, ending in a peaceful transfer of power" (71).<br />
<br />
So what do we make of it? In today's Big Brother state whose methods of warfare are simply beyond what we can fathom, any attempt at "armed rebellion" is essentially suicide. Jesus knew that. The apostles knew that. Practically speaking, it is. These principles of nonviolence allow for a way to deconstruct social situations that affirm the humanity of the Other, thus ending at and aiming for an ontology of peace. <br />
<br />
This sounds good on paper, as Wink is well aware of. Most of the examples of nonviolence, while successful, were quite nervy. Most people probably aren't up for that. <br />
<br />
This book is a marked improvement on Wink's earlier treatments, though with some shortcomings. To be sure, Wink acknowledges that Communists and Marxists have done terrible evils (he was noticeably silent in Unmasking the Powers on this point). On the other hand, Wink continually rails against "The Powers and Principalities," but we are never quite sure "who" these entities are. I realize he covered that in his earlier volume, but he could have spent two more pages explaining it here. <br />
<br />
All in all, an enjoyable read.</div>
J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-66501824860196431822015-08-07T15:21:00.003-07:002015-08-07T15:21:57.381-07:00Angels mediate revelation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This isn't intended to sum up the biblical position on angels or the bible, but it is interesting. Hebrews 2:2 writes,<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
For if the word <u>spoken through angels</u> proved steadfast...</blockquote>
<br />
Jewish tradition suggests that even though the Bible came from God, it came from God <i>through </i>angels. St Stephen notes in Acts 7:53,<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You who received the law <u>as ordained by angels</u>...</blockquote>
<br />
Galatians 3:19 continues the same thought, albeit with one modification. St Paul writes,<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[The Law] having been ordained by angels by the agency of a mediator...</blockquote>
<br />
So it appears that Jesus [as Word] is the mediator, to be sure, but he sends his law to angels who send it to us. It looks like there are multiple mediations.<br />
<br />
Why is this important? Conservative Evangelicalism (and the entirety of TR Reformed theology) overreacted to American inanity on angels. In my discussion at PB on near-death-experiences, even though I was basically quoting Augustine, people were "worried about the direction" I was taking. I was worried that they hadn't gotten their angelology from the Bible. </div>
J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-70680662068540986282015-08-04T13:06:00.000-07:002015-08-04T13:06:11.983-07:00Rightly Ordered Loves<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This is a summary of Joan Lockwood O'Donovan's essay "Christian Platonism and Non-Proprietary Community."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<img src="http://www.dadalos.org/int/demokratie/demokratie/grundkurs2/mittelalter/Gentar_Altar_a.jpg" /><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Thesis: The possession of rights is always proprietorship. In the Western tradition all natural rights originate in property right.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pope John XXII proposed that from the moment of creation all mankind was collectively endowed with full lordship in the sense of ownership over earthly goods.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Patristic Foundations of Non-Proprietary Community</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i>
Augustine distinguished between two rights on which earthly goods are based: divine right, in which all things belong to the righteous, and human right--which is in the jusridiction of the kings of the earth (Ep. 93, NPNF (1) I:400.).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Eventually, this would be seen that in a just commonwealth, "the highest and truest common good, namely, God, is loved by all, and men love each other in Him without dissimulation" (Ep. 137.5.17). <i>Therefore, bonum commune is above all a sharing in rightly ordered loving--an activity that is entirely common in the sense of inclusive and participatory because entirely spiritual</i> (JO, 80).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"By contrast, Augustine conceived of the disordered love of the soul as the <i>privatization of good</i>, in that it entails the soul's turning away from the universal common good to its private good, that is, to itself as privately possessed."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"In the body politic, disordered love is the destruction of community, of the bonum commune, because it involves radical loss of the shared spiritual possession of being, meaning, and value."</span><br />
<div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">regulated interaction of private spheres of degenerate freedom.</span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Franciscan Poverty: The Theology of Evangelical Non-Possession</span></i></div>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the later middle ages the distinction between common property and common non-proprietary possession never surfaced.</span></div>
<div>
<div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Bonaventure moved the debate forward. By drawing upon the Christian neo-Platonic tradition, he was able to posit the Trinity/Word as <i>font </i>and <i>finis </i>of thought and spirituality. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Christ's life revealed "Evangelical Perfection."</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This meant that Bonaventure's order saw the claiming of spiritual goods <i>for oneself </i>and <i>against one another</i>. It disrupts the human response to divine love (84).</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Renouncing the property right means the wayfarer is not a self-possessor, but is possessed by Christ, receiving from Him all the good that he is, has, and does (85). </span></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Wyclif's Ecclesiological Revolution</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Fitzralph (Wyclif's intellectual predecessor) argued that God's "gift of lordship to Adam is a communication or sharing of himself and his lordship rather than an alienating transfer of lordship, which would diminish God--a communicating and communicable possession and use of things according to rational necessity" (89).</span><br />
<div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.31999969482422px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Wyclif's core Augustinian insight is that just lordship over earthly goods involves rightly ordered love toward them, which in turn depends on the true knowledge of them available only in Christ"</span></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 19.31999969482422px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Evangelical dominion, therefore, is the just communal possession and use of earthly goods that shadows God's own dominion by conserving the being of non-human creatures...</span></span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.31999969482422px;"><b>Conclusion</b></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.31999969482422px;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.31999969482422px;">"We are not our own but Christ's" (1 Cor. 6.19). "As we are possessed by Christ and receive ourselves from him, the central act of our willing is one of conforming to his will" (92). </span></span><br />
<br />
<div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li style="line-height: 19.31999969482422px;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When we encounter other goods, we first possess them in their essential being, through knowledge illumined by the love of Christ, before answering the demand or claim that they present" (93).</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 19.31999969482422px;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We are "claims," not "rights-possessors." </span></li>
<li style="line-height: 19.31999969482422px;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">By conforming to Christ, we respond and recognize that the Other is. We fulfill the demands of Justice, but not the demands of one another (this solves Hegel's problem. We introduce the Other as loved). </span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.31999969482422px;">Righteous human lordship is communal chiefly because it is spiritual (this is where Reconstructionism in its libertarianism is so horribly wrong).</span></span></div>
<div>
<div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li style="line-height: 19.31999969482422px;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Righteous "human community is a sharing in or communication of spiritual goods before physical goods."</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 19.31999969482422px;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Only the fellowship of the Holy Spirit entered into through the divine-human communication of Christ crucified and resurrected makes possible an inclusive communion in the use of physical goods. No <i>meum </i>or <i>teum</i>. </span></li>
<li style="line-height: 19.31999969482422px;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Common possession means that no one acts as if any good belongs to him/her in any excluding or even particularizing sense (94).</span></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-14491421080896040522015-08-03T12:01:00.000-07:002015-08-03T12:01:22.627-07:00My summary of Near Death Experiences<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I debated this on Puritanboard. The only good thing that came out of it is I got to sharpen my own thoughts. I don't really see any future in Reformed apologetics.<br />
<br />
You say you weren't impressed with my arguments, but my premises were all drawn from the Christian tradition, the negation of which would be heresy. I'll restate it.<br />
<br />
P1: Body and Soul are not the same thing (correspondingly, neither are brain and mind, which is why I didn't put immediate stock in "physical" explanations. Physical explanations can only explain the brain, not the mind, otherwise the truth would lie with Dawkins).<br />
<br />
P2: The soul outlives the body. Otherwise, Jesus's parable about Lazarus and the Rich Man would be incoherent.<br />
<br />
P3: The Christian tradition holds to immaterial entities that do not exist spatially. We call them angels or demons (and we have a natural revelation analogue: Plato's Forms, Jung's Archetypes)<br />
<br />
P4: These entities primary mode of existence is outside the time-space continuum. Otherwise Belinda Carlisle would be right and heaven would be a place on earth. <br />
<br />
P5: (4) helps us understand the soul's mode of existence after death. Either it doesn't exist, and we have heresy. Or it exists on earth and we just committed ourselves to the next season of Ghost Hunters, or it exists "on the other side" (call it heaven or hell or hades).<br />
<br />
P6: The key problem is that some think I have argued for a realm of existence between Death and Life called "near death experiences." I have argued for no such thing. I'm fine with mystery. But I am not going to be like the Eastern Orthodox apologists I debate and start chanting "Mystery" whenever I come across facts that don't fit my paradigm.<br />
<br />
P7: The best explanation--and I am not arguing this as dogma--is that in those "near-death" moments the veil is pulled back or the boundary is weakened. <br />
<br />
P8: What about the "Happy Hindus?" Or more precisely, say there is a dissolute person who sees the proverbial "bright light." Does that mean the wicked see "heaven?" Not necessarily. One of the key points I argued for--and this is Van Til 101--is that facts and interpretation of facts are not the same thing. The person is probably seeing new phenomena for which he or she has no previous way of evaluating and opts for the next closest analogue.</div>
J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-73684817016590466782015-08-03T10:36:00.000-07:002015-08-03T10:36:16.558-07:00Reading Plan for August 2015<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I really want to get Milbank's <i>Beyond Secular Order</i>, but I have to read some other stuff first (and I can't afford it at the moment). So here goes:<br />
<br />
Plotinus, <i>Enneads</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Kant, <i>Critique of Pure Reason</i>.<br />
<br />
William Morris,<i> Wolfings </i>and <i>Roots of the Mountain</i>.<br />
<br />
Milbank and Pickstock, <i>Truth in Aquinas </i>(reread).<br />
<br />
George MacDonald, <i>Lilith</i>.<br />
<br />
Dostoevsky, <i>The Idiot </i>(more than 3/4 finished)</div>
J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-6551629726504166092015-08-01T14:49:00.002-07:002015-08-02T15:13:20.626-07:00On not ossifying the fathers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I am trying to take a more positive, constructive role in theology. This post is akin to an autobiographical manifesto. Part of it is how I came to the church fathers and ultimately my critical-appreciation of them, and the other part is how to use the Fathers to kill souls.<br />
<br />
I left seminary disillusioned. While I had made a lot of intellectual mistakes there, academically it was not the best (in terms of actually doing scholarship). I didn't want to say that the Reformed faith was wrong, despite RTS's best efforts to make it so, but I knew there was something more.<br />
<br />
For reasons I don't entirely remember, I was reading Thomas Aquinas as I left seminary. I had one foot in the door for medieval and patristic theology. I am not sure how I first heard of John Milbank. I do remember reading about him in James K. A. Smith's <i>Introducing Radical Orthodoxy</i>. This was late 2006, early 2007.<br />
<br />
There is a lot wrong with Radical Orthodoxy, but there is a lot right--and a lot that is just plain fun. So what that they over-interpreted Aquinas as a Neo-Platonist? They got all the right people in academia angry, and that is good. For me they introduced me not only to a wider world of theology but also to ask different--deeper--questions of church history. <br />
<br />
I dove right in. And made mistakes. But I also latched on to key points: how Christology shapes everything. (Some Eastern Orthodox guys played that card as a front to justify going to Eastern Orthodoxy when in reality they wanted smells and bells, but that is another story). Anyway, I realized that Systematic Theology didn't have to follow the outline of Berkhof (Berkhof is useful but limited to a certain context, namely a seminary classroom).<br />
<br />
Before continuing on the RO line, I should probably address a common criticism: Did RO read Reformation metaphysics correctly, namely that Western theology took a nominalist turn with Scotus and the Reformation crystallized it? Obviously, anyone who advances that reading today will be laughed at. So we can say RO was definitely wrong on that point. Further, not all of Milbank's criticisms in "Alternative Protestantism" hold water (or at least they might attack Reformation ontology but not where Milbank thinks they do). <br />
<br />
This was around 2008-2009. I was able to read the Father without pretending that the Fathers were a complete deposit who taught a unified, identifiable theology across time and space. Moreover, I was able to honestly say, "St ______ is wrong here. That's okay. I can still benefit from what he says elsewhere." Side note: <i>Remember that stupid facebook meme that has the Nicene Fathers pictured and the caption reads, "So these guys are right about the canon but wrong about everything else?" </i> The epistemological howlers in that statement are too painful to mention.<br />
<br />
Back to the Fathers. Since I didn't (at the time) believe the Fathers taught a unified, ahistorical body of truth, that meant I didn't have to play East and West against each other. I could say guys like Anselm, Aquinas, and Wycliff were good guys. And I could benefit from the modern John Wycliff, Oliver O'Donovan. While some Ecumenist Orthodox guys will speak kindly of the aforementioned gentlemen, technically speaking they are heterodox (or heretics!), so good luck with that one. The harder-line folks will say that they (and by extension, you and me) are deprived of grace.<br />
<br />
Towards the end of 2010 I moved into a harder, Eastward direction. I never officially became Orthodox. It wasn't viable for a number of reasons. While this meant I accepted Orthodox doctrines like anti-Filoque and icons, the main problem is I had to cut off my theological past. Another problem is I had to place the Fathers within the received tradition of the church. This implied a number of cognitively dissonant positions:<br />
<div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>The Fathers are part of Holy Tradition but I must interpret which Fathers are speaking Orthodoxically by Holy Tradition. I couldn't square the circle. All of the Orthodox problems with Sola Scriptura would come crashing down on Tradition.</li>
<li>This meant that the Fathers probably didn't disagree about "big stuff." </li>
<li>So what was I supposed to do when I came to issues where the Fathers sounded "Western" or were plain wrong? </li>
</ul>
<div>
The dissonance was building up. Move on to the end of 2011. I was beginning to be more "Western" in terms of cultural outlook. I just didn't feel right "negating" my Western heritage. I know that no one was "making" me to do that, but the cultural enclave mentality among a certain denomination is just too overwhelming. I was by no means Protestant, of course, but possibly Western.</div>
</div>
<br />
My daughter was born in 2012. My life was turned upside down and I really had to put theology on the side. And life was hard--all of which made me reevaluate everything.<br />
<br />
By May of 2012 I was firmly in the Protestant, even Reformed camp (again). From 2012-2015 (now) I have been in the Protestant camp and plan to stay there. There are problems with Reformed theology--some big ones actually. But there are also key gains that outweigh the problems and the Reformed tradition can be the Reformational Tradition.<br />
<br />
<i>So how do we use the fathers?</i><br />
<br />
<div>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Protestant liturgy is about to come to a crisis-point and the Fathers offer insight.</li>
<li>Obviously, you have to sit at the Fathers feet when it comes to triadology and Christology.</li>
<li>Some of the early church historians are quite fun.</li>
<li>Recent developments in Continental philosophy and phenomenology make Maximus, Pseudo-Dionysius (and stop pretending he was Paul's traveling companion) and to a lesser degree Origen quite relevant today.</li>
</ol>
<div>
<i>How do we misuse the fathers</i>?</div>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Pretending that they are "infallible," either individually or corporately.</li>
<li>Pretending that they have good advice on married sexuality.</li>
<li>Pretending they exist outside of time and space.</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i></div>
J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-53478861334760880522015-07-30T14:31:00.001-07:002015-07-30T14:31:20.617-07:00Book Review: Sabbath as Resistance<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
by Walter Brueggemann.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Brueggemann uses the Sabbath as a prism through which we understand economics and social relations and the ideological assumptions embedded in each.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<img src="http://www.walterbrueggemann.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Sabbath_as_Resistance.jpg" /><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“The demands of market ideology pertain as much to consumption as they do to production” (Brueggemann xii). It is “Pharaoh’s insatiable script.” </span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-ce7be00a-e0d9-7739-747d-ca9b1be235c0" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Wherever YHWH governs as an alternative to Pharaoh, there the restfulness of YHWH effectively counters the restless anxiety of Pharaoh” (xiii).</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sabbath and the First Commandment</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">God is embedded in a narrative and cannot be known outside that narrative (2). The Sabbath commandment is drawn into the Exodus, whose narrative matrix is that of YHWH. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The economics of Pharaoh:
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">every socioeconomic system will be legitimized by some god (3).</span></span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The system is designed to create endless surplus, and thus endless storerooms. </span></span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">it makes a fetish of the market. The market generates a desire for commodities of a social value, making us want even more commodities, which takes on a life of its own.</span></span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It creates anxiety.</span></span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pharaoh is anxious about the food monopoly (26). </span></span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is an ontology of violence (30-31).</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Sabbath is a commitment to covenant (relationship) rather than commodity (bricks). Most of the ten commandments have something to do with the horizontal “Other,” my neighbor. The economics of Pharaoh does not allow for neighborliness. The economics of the Sabbath demands it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Thesis: “Sabbath is a bodily act of testimony to alternative and resistance to pervading values and assumptions behind those values” (21).</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-ce7be00a-e0de-5666-f4fa-6290de8cde6b" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Resistance to Anxiety</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Anxiety makes neighborliness impossible (26). God counters anxiety with neighborliness.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Resistance to Coercion</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The prosperity of the land will eventually lead to two economic systems: possession or inheritance (38).</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The aim of market ideology is to make us forget our rootage and to let ourselves be defined by alien expectations (39). The Sabbath makes us remember that God broke the cycle of coercive production.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-ce7be00a-e0de-cda2-790a-d78e4c308dc4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Resistance to Exclusivism</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Whom does Brueggemann think are the “Insiders?” Brueggemann suggests that Isaiah 56 reworks Dt 23 so that Sabbath is the criterion of membership (54). A Sabbath person is defined by justice, mercy, and compassion, and not competition, achievement, and production.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sabbath and the Tenth Commandment</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-ce7be00a-e0df-29e6-bc88-edb02914407c" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The 10th commandment rejects an attitude of “and a forced action to secure what is craved” (71). Given that the term “neighbor” occurs 3x in the commandment, it is also about preserving the neighborhood. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Brueggemann speculates, albeit with some justification, that these were agrarian peasants and the commandment ultimately applied to protecting them against urban elites, which in today’s terms meant:
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">state power</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">corporate wealth</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">legal sharpness</span></span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">credentialed religion</span></span></div>
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</ul>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In conclusion, the tenth commandment, and Sabbath-practice in general, is a safeguard for a certain way of organizing social power in the interest of the neighborhood (77).</span></span></div>
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J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1420093134571892773.post-85977128870104681852015-07-29T15:41:00.002-07:002015-07-29T15:41:56.583-07:00Os Guinness--Power Apologetics?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2015/july-web-only/os-guinness-interview-welcome-grand-age-apologetics.html?start=3">He notes</a>,<br />
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<b>Part of the church, particularly the charismatic or Pentecostal streams, sees signs and wonders as key to apologetics. Signs contradict naturalism, and raise up hopes and dreams of greater things. What do you think of that?</b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: ff-more-web-pro-n4, ff-more-web-pro, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7em;">I believe passionately in it. As Peter Berger says, we live in a world without windows. We need to go back to the New Testament. Our Lord is the Father’s greatest gift, and the Holy Spirit is Jesus’s greatest gift to us. You can see apologetics accompanying deliverance and healings right down to the fifth century. Augustine started a little skeptical, and then became a passionate believer through experience. He records more than 70 miracles in Hippo.</span></blockquote>
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And then sadly, in the centuries that followed, signs were specialized to certain people (the saints) and certain places (the healing centers). Then it was surrounded with superstition and moneymaking. The Reformation came along and, in throwing out all the corruptions, tended to throw out the baby with the bathwater. It stressed the Word and not the Spirit. Then came the Enlightenment. Many of the more sophisticated people in the church today frankly are operational atheists, and don’t have a living sense of the Holy Spirit. Reviving that sense is absolutely a key part of apologetics.</blockquote>
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J. B. Aitkenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15616638312087360239noreply@blogger.com0