Other Opinions
“Every man should periodically be compelled to listen to opinions which are infuriating to him. To hear nothing but what is pleasing to one is to make a pillow of the mind.” – St. John Ervine
Why New Testament Worship Is More like a Potluck than a Production
Who knew? Worship is a potluck and everybody brings a dish. Picking up an earlier analogy, worship is a team sport and everybody plays.
When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation.
Somewhere along the way the situation got flipped. These days it’s more like, “When you come together, each of you take a seat and focus your attention on the gifted leaders who are up front leading the worship service.”
JDWalt
“Nones”
The growing number of “nones” represent not the collapse of Christianity, but the inadequacy of secularized Christianity.
Fr Stephen Freeman
Intentions
…the stuff of social and economic life—cooperation, creativity, innovation—requires both risk and trust. For our institutions to function well, we must believe that the people working or learning alongside us are generally decent (until shown otherwise). If wariness and suspicion are our default attitudes, and if each of us knows that one misunderstood word or action might be used against us even if it was motivated by the best of intentions, then we won’t need a virus to keep us socially distanced.
Emily Yoffe
Zero Tolerance
Over the past thirty years, America has become a hyper-punitive society, and our zero-tolerance mindset has led to an addiction to punishment. This has resulted in mass incarceration, causing the destruction of millions of lives and of entire communities. But many of the same people who abhor the excesses of our criminal justice system applaud this new form of social ruin.
Emily Yoffe
Sense of Worth
To some extent, we get our sense of worth from attaching worth or detracting worth from others, based on what we see. We position ourselves as judges of others rather than simply as lovers of others.
Greg Boyd – Repenting of Religion
God’s Essence
Love is God’s essence. Nowhere else does Scripture express God’s essence in this way. Scripture says God is just and merciful, but it does not say that God is justice itself or mercy itself. It does say that God is love, not just a lover. Love is God’s very essence. Everything else is a manifestation of this essence to us, a relationship between this essence and us. This is the absolute; everything else is relative to it.
Peter Kreeft (Repenting of Religion)
God’s Sovereignty
God’s sovereignty relieves me of a great responsibility—the responsibility of assuming the role of God. No matter what I do, say, or think, no matter if I succeed or fail, no matter if I do it right or wrong, God is still in charge, things are under his control, and in the end, “every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Philippians 2:10).
Steve Brown
Good & Evil
There is no absolute good, for decent institutions always contain flaws, and evolve in a laborious process of trial and error. But evil—the disregard for the values of human life and individual freedom—is often clear and present. Where it is appropriate, we should not be afraid to use the term.
Gary Kasparov
Horseshoe Theory
As horseshoe theory predicts, the extremes are often united in their opposition to the foundations of a free society. Much as they dislike each other, their real enemy is the moderate majority that, should it stand up for its values, can relegate them to the fringes, where they belong.
Yep!
In an age of insanity, the sane seem like oddballs.
Nothing quenches the flame of rebellion more than the cold water of victory.
Everyone’s a dog on a mission to catch a car, but no one knows how to drive.
Victimhood and rebellion have a symbiotic relationship, after all. Why rebel if you haven’t been victimized?
The primary problem today is …that they want to define happiness for others and turn that definition into an orthodoxy. But don’t you dare say they’re not on the side of freethinking and free speech. And don’t even think of suggesting they’re not the rebels they think they are. We’re not The Man, you are!
Jonah Goldberg
Christian Nationalism
Christian nationalism is idolatry/apostasy. While Moses, the true prophet, is with God on Mt. Sinai, people clamor for a visible god. Aaron, the priest, makes the Golden Calf, a Yhwh substitute; that’s the god who led them out of Egypt & will lead them into the Promised Land.
Miroslav Volf
Virtual mob
Largely driven by social media, that virtual embodiment of the mob, there has been a rush to expand the range of unacceptable opinion. A misplaced word won’t result in the KGB knocking on your door at midnight. But Twitter never sleeps.
Sometimes if you just step back and take the long view, things look a lot better.
SO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT!