Church Voices

Cincinnati Christian University (formerly Cincinnati Bible College & Seminary) seems to be having a very difficult time lately.  In addition to their public relations problems, I know of at least a few students and former employees who became bitter about their time there.   But it’s not all bad.

Some of my most cherished relationships from my time at CBC are from those who challenged me and sometimes even argued against me.  Thanks to Tim Reed, co-student those many years ago and author on this blog, for not writing me off as a fundamentalist.  Thanks to Dr. Jon Weatherly for the insane intellectual stimulation and wry humor (I wish I had you for more classes, but then I would have had to do more work.)  Thanks to Dan Dyke for the deeply philisophical and yet somehow mostly meaningless (for all practical purposes) conversations.  Thanks to Jamie Smith for pushing us to think beyond our own little world (so that we didn’t all turn out to be fundamentalists).  Thanks to Johnny Pressley for showing us all how ignorant we really were.

Good friends, great teachers.

Today I had an interesting conversation with a faculty member of the college I attend. She knows about my interest in philosophy, so asks, “Why don’t you come up with a philosophy of happiness? Philosophy seems so depressing. Is there a philosophy of happiness?” One imagines that all she thinks philosophy amounts to is the 20th century existentialism of Nietzsche, Sartre and Camus. So I say, “Oh, there is! It’s Christianity. It’s called the Good News, right? But of course I didn’t come up with that!” “Oh well that doesn’t work for old people,” she said. She continued, “But what about Buddhism? Why can’t we find fulfillment in Buddhism?” I told her that’s even worse because the goal of Buddhism is to transcend all desires, including happiness! So she agreed that that won’t do. But it remains unclear to me why Christianity won’t.

As I reflected on our brief conversation, it occurred to me that Christianity is the only worldview that can really make happiness, in the rich sense of “finding fulfillment,” possible. All others amount to filling a vessel full of holes. In Islam, there is no assurance of salvation. There’s only the capricious judgments of Allah. Who can bear the weight of the burden of karma in Hinduism? Sometimes I think we forget that Christianity is really, really good news.

Luke 2:10-11
But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.

At some point prognostication from Christians concerning economic doom and gloom makes it difficult to believe that they believe things like “Our father in heaven…. give us this day our daily bread”.

I was supposed to have published an articled entitled “Cthulianity” today but I got busy and it didn’t happen. So to the few who that promise was made I bring you via twitter Fake Pastor Mark [Driscoll].

Its funny cause its about 3/4 true. A sampling:

Only fought 5 guys on the way home after service last night. Then baptized them

Good thing people are getting saved in Seattle. Plan B to equal out the dogs-to-christians ratio was not as pleasant.

Apparently you can’t train good customer service… or if you can, companies don’t know how.

Don’t ask me how I’m doing if:

1) You don’t really care.

2) It isn’t going to change the way you treat me.

I was in the local grocery store the other day and the cashier asked me if I found everything okay.  It’s company policy for them to ask.  I’m not sure why, though, because when I explained that in fact I had not found what I wanted, she said, “I’m sorry.  Your total is …”. 

Today I was on the phone activating a credit card so that I could get free stuff with it (just kidding).  The website wasn’t working properly so I had to call.  The automated system transferred me to a live person who asked me how I was.  I was frustrated from a series of events including the problems on the website and made that known (in more of a defeated tone than one of anger).  She proceeded to tell me about some program to get more of my money and I said, “No, thank you,” as soon as she took a breath.  She then asked me to keep in mind blah blah blah.  The spiel was taking even longer than they normally do, so I interrupted again.  Only instead of simply saying “No thanks,” I asked her if she heard me tell her I was frustrated at the beginning of the call.  She said that she did.  I then told her that when somebody is already frustrated, it’s not a good idea to press the issue when they say no.  She then told me that she was simply asking me to keep in mind blah blah blah (seriously, she went right back to the spiel).

Don’t ask if it doesn’t matter.

Let me now remind you, dear brothers and sisters, of the Good News I preached to you before. You welcomed it then, and you still stand firm in it. It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you—unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place.

I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said.

When you add to the gospel, you diminish the gospel, and you end up with ugly statements like this:

“Ninety-six percent of black voters supported Barack Obama and the majority of these voters were influenced by black preachers to put race ahead of their country and their faith,” said Rev. Peterson. “How can ministers who are supposed to lead their flock to Jesus Christ instead lead them to a socialist like Obama? The truth is that most black ministers don’t have a real relationship with God and they are leading their congregations to hell. These blind leaders helped elect their black ‘Messiah’. This ‘Messiah’ happens to be the most left-wing member of the U.S. Senate,” said Rev. Peterson.

Oddly enough I was unable to find the portion of scripture that says: Welcome to hell. Population: black democrats.

I’m curious about something I’ve noticed among intellectual deconverts, such as Ex Apologist and John Loftus. Self proclaimed apologists earlier in their religious lives, after a gradual process of deconversion they maintain that all the arguments for the existence of God are logically fallacious. Moreover, the Bible becomes entirely historically unreliable and all of the traditional atheological arguments such as the problem of evil and the incoherence of the concept of God, though once thought to be unpersuasive, become unstoppable forces. And, of course, Christianity is responsible for social evils, after all.

I have my own thoughts. But what do you think is to be made of this?

Part of the reason that Democrats can take extreme stands on abortion is because they have nothing to gain by being more moderate, and nothing to lose by being extreme.

Internet Monk puts together a list of sins that are commonly tolerated in churches. The last two on the list really caught my attention:

Cruel speech about those with whom we differ.

No grace for ordinary failure

Click to enlarge.

HT: ASBO Jesus