Comments on The Schooley Files

So do I, GREV. Thanks for stopping by.

2009-10-14T21:48:45.288-04:00

So do I, GREV. Thanks for stopping by.

I get tired of a debate that characterizes Arminia...

2009-10-14T15:23:46.580-04:00

I get tired of a debate that characterizes Arminians as heretics and Calvinists as just people who make God the Author of Evil.

From Dave Porter Hi Keith, I'm sorry if you misu...

2009-10-11T22:11:41.533-04:00

From Dave Porter

Hi Keith, I'm sorry if you misunderstood my post; I thought it was fairly clear, but perhaps not. I'm not going to argue the issue further, because our friendship means far more to me than politics.

Besides, your last paragraph says all that needs to be said anyway. (at least, it does until people who disagree with you have a different definition of who Jesus is)

Grace and Peace, Dave

Dave, I can't figure out what you were even trying...

2009-10-08T08:43:49.498-04:00

Dave, I can't figure out what you were even trying to say about semantics. For my own part, I was merely pointing out that it's pointless for two people to square off against one another, each saying, "You're not the real conservative! I'm the real conservative!"

You seem to be under the impression that words have a single, unchanging, clearly defined meaning, and that your own understanding of a word can be definitively applied to everyone. So you know what a "conservative" is, and everyone who deviates from that is not a conservative. Where that ends up is: "conservative" = "Dave Porter". Good luck with that.

I don't care about the labels. The real issue is, what is it that conservatives want to conserve, and what is it that liberals want to liberate? And are these the same things that Jesus would want to conserve or liberate?

From Dave Porter Hi Keith, By the way, I may not...

2009-10-07T23:52:09.249-04:00

From Dave Porter

Hi Keith,

By the way, I may not have said so yet, but I'm glad to see you back here. I know that the political stuff isn't as near to either of our hearts as is Jesus, and I look forward to your future posts.

-Dave

From Dave Porter Hi Keith, If arguing semantics ...

2009-10-07T23:46:27.210-04:00

From Dave Porter

Hi Keith,

If arguing semantics is pointless, then Quayle was the equal of Kennedy, and Palin's proximity to Russia did give her foreign policy points.

If people who self identify as conservatives don't hold to traditional conservative beliefs, they ought to be told so. The medieval Catholic church would have to show, point by point, just how Lutheranism failed to meet the New Testament standard of Christianity--which they tried to do, of course, and failed. The Rockefellers would have to prove that they, rather than Reagan, were closer to Lincoln's intent for the GOP. If there is truly "nothing new under the sun," isn't everything about semantics?

Love ya bro,Dave

Well, Dave, I might be inclined to agree with you,...

2009-10-06T21:27:03.864-04:00

Well, Dave, I might be inclined to agree with you, but the thing is, words change meaning. The issue is "modern conservatism," which I take to mean, conservatism as it is understood by the majority of those who self-identify with that term at this point in time.

We can argue that "modern conservatism" isn't "conservatism," just as the medieval Catholic church would have argued that Lutheranism wasn't Christianity, or the old Rockefeller wing of the Republican party could have argued that Ronald Reagan wasn't a true republican. It's kind of pointless to argue semantics.

And your quote isn't really hard to identify, for those of us of, ahem, a certain age.

Hi Keith, The point that I got from the article i...

2009-10-04T23:34:51.873-04:00

Hi Keith,

The point that I got from the article is that the current crop of neocons AREN'T really conservatives. These are the same bunch (David Frum of Nat'l Review) who publicly "read out" of the conservative movement people like Jerry Pournelle who opposed the Iraq war. Pournelle's Edmund Burke-based "paleoconservatism" (his term) understands that profit and power are not the be-all and end-all of life.

In my mind, the followers of Rush, Coulter, Rand, etc. are a cult (much like the cult of Obama) but they are certainly not conservatives. As for what they may think of me, I don't care. They may equate Jesus with John Galt, but they are wrong. Gentlemen, I know Jesus; Jesus is a friend of mine; and gentlemen, John Galt is not Jesus (and neither is Rush, Obama, Palin, or Gore)

I really don't mind being the underdog, and besides, I've got these five smooth stones...

(extra points for the first one- other than Keith- to identify the quote I borrowed in paragraph 2 above)

Grace and Peace, Dave Porter

From Dave Porter: Good stuff Keith. Petra's "Bema...

2009-10-02T00:07:19.809-04:00

From Dave Porter:

Good stuff Keith. Petra's "Bema Seat" and Steve Camp's "Judgement Begins with the House of God" set to a British accent.

I've got a Ravenhill book or two back home, and I always thought he was a guy the Church ought to listen to. As close as anything I've seen to a modern day prophet, which explains why his message gets ignored. We want Gospel Lite; more entertainment- less conviction. I pray that our Deliverer comes before our captivity does, but if He doesn't, I'm still not going to bow to the idol.

Grace and Peace, Dave Porter

Hi Darrell. Welcome! I don't really have a bio po...

2009-09-20T08:48:47.509-04:00

Hi Darrell. Welcome!

I don't really have a bio posted. I'm more of "the message is more important than the messenger" kind of guy.

But if it helps, I'm a grad of Wayne State University (English) and Gordon Conwell (New Testament). I've pastored an independent Congregational church and worked for Teen Challenge as a counselor and teacher, but I'm presently a lay person, just helping out in my church in any way I can. I'm happily married and have three children, all boys, as well as three grown stepchildren. You can get more of a sense of who I am by reading this link.

Also, please feel free to comment on any page, no matter how old.

Keith, I read your piece on Romans 9 with great in...

2009-09-20T07:56:19.739-04:00

Keith,
I read your piece on Romans 9 with great interest. Do you have a Bio posted on the internet anywhere?

Good to see you back. Looking forward to new post...

2009-09-13T22:28:44.708-04:00

Good to see you back. Looking forward to new posts. Dave Porter

Is there anything other than Firefox? :) Good to ...

2009-09-13T01:10:11.017-04:00

Is there anything other than Firefox? :) Good to see you back.

Thanks for stopping by, Mich. Yes, we need to unle...

2009-04-25T09:33:00.000-04:00

Thanks for stopping by, Mich. Yes, we need to unlearn a lot of stuff.

Terrific Post--you could almost say everything you...

2009-04-24T16:23:00.000-04:00

Terrific Post--you could almost say everything you believe is wrong if you want to grasp and live the Kingdom of God.

Hi Keith, Great posts, as usual. Your essays on ...

2009-04-15T01:10:00.000-04:00

Hi Keith,

Great posts, as usual. Your essays on Passion week succeeded both in celebrating Jesus and in encouraging readers to think more deeply about the implications of bible stories that we've known for years.

Grace and Peace, Dave

Oh, yes. I worry a lot about those who talk the mo...

2009-04-06T14:48:00.000-04:00

Oh, yes. I worry a lot about those who talk the most about all the different things we need to change--ostensibly including themselves in the "we," but really meaning all the things other Christians (read, "the institutional church") need to change. Specks and logs indeed.

It does make one wonder what "tables" Jesus would ...

2009-04-06T13:30:00.000-04:00

It does make one wonder what "tables" Jesus would turn over today. The more I think about that question, however, the more I realize that my answers are based on my own sacred cows and pet peeves. How easy it is to see the speck yet be blind to the log.

Hi Keith, that was a very good read, thanks for th...

2009-03-27T12:45:00.000-04:00

Hi Keith, that was a very good read, thanks for the link. If I was going to guess, I'd say there is a good chance that the emergent teacher was Rob Bell. He has a chapter in "Velvet Elvis" on the Jewishness of Jesus, and also mentions sandal dust, prayer shawls, etc. In the footnotes Bell quotes his source as Ray Vanderlaan. Vanderlaan made a video series a while back on Jewish history entitled "That the World May Know".

I enjoyed Bell's book and also the Vanderalaan video series. I love learning new history. However, it sounds like they may not have all of their facts straight. This is good to know. :)

Hi Mich,Thanks for stopping by. I'm not sure which...

2009-03-27T02:44:00.000-04:00

Hi Mich,

Thanks for stopping by. I'm not sure which "speaker" you are referring to, but I'm guessing that the facile analysis is my own, in the penultimate paragraph.

Here's why we can't simply say "Jesus was a 1st century Jew who was immersed in Jewish, Roman and Greek culture": it's a gross oversimplification of the historical situation. Jesus was immersed in the three cultures (as well as other Middle Eastern cultural influences), but to different degrees and in vastly different ways. Despite Jesus' conflicts with the Pharisees, he actually has more in common with that group than with any of the other Jewish sects. And the Pharisees developed as a group in reaction to the progressive Hellenization that followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. Their very name means, "Separated." This reaction, of course, bespeaks influence, but one has to give due weight to opposition to the influence.

Similarly, the Roman influence is undeniable (and the New Testament makes no effort to hide it), but it was the influence of an oppressive conqueror. Palestine was a thorn in the Empire's side, culminating in the catastrophe of AD 70, precisely because the Jews did not roll over and let themselves be Romanized. Saying that Jesus was immersed in Roman culture is a little like saying Nelson Mandela was immersed in Afrikaner culture--there's a sense in which it's true, but the bald statement would be entirely misleading.

So to "privilege one of these cultures at the expense of the others" is not merely the result of an "Enlightenment mindset": it is to take seriously the complexities of the cultural situation. Moreover, it is more necessary for a modern Western interpreter to adjust to the Jewish, ancient Middle Eastern context, than it is to adjust to the Greek or Roman contexts, because many of our cultural presuppositions arise from Greco-Roman philosophy and culture. It is natural for us to read Scripture with Greco-Roman eyes; it is unnatural for us to make the cultural shift to first-century Middle Eastern Judaism, which is why it is so important to do so.

Nice post--but isn't the analysis a little too fac...

2009-03-26T17:58:00.000-04:00

Nice post--but isn't the analysis a little too facile? Why do we have to seperate Jewish from Roman and Greek? Isn't one of the main points of Historical Jesus scholarship that it is an Enlightement mindset that wants to privilege one of these cultures at the expense of the others? Here your speaker seems to want to say Jesus is Jewish and any hint of Roman or Greek culture must be banished. But isn't this just continuing the previous scholarship which wanted to banish Jesus' Jewishness and call hime a Greek Platonist or a cynic?

Instead, can't we say Jesus was a 1st century Jew who was immersed in Jewish, Roman and Greek culture?

Hi Jc_Freak,Getting info from the Talmud is a tric...

2009-03-25T12:09:00.000-04:00

Hi Jc_Freak,

Getting info from the Talmud is a tricky business, because although it attained its final written form somewhere around AD 500, it is based on far older oral tradition. So certainly some information gained from it is valid. But those five centuries were very tumultuous for Jews, especially considering the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, and the rise of Christianity.

What this essay makes me want to do is to read the two books that Dr. Burge recommends. I should mention, however, that Burge is problematic for me; I was disappointed in his commentary on John. He pays lip service to John having written the fourth gospel, but for him, this means that John wrote the first draft of something that went through extensive revisions through many hands and eventually ended up as the gospel we have. He also approves of a cut-and-paste approach to the fourth gospel, believing that various sections are severely disordered. As Donald Carson notes in his commentary, how are we to discern the difference between a "final redactor" who found some reason to arrange the materials in the form we now have them, and an original writer who could have decided that this was the best form to put them in from the beginning?

I think I have a guess as to who that speaker was....

2009-03-25T09:21:00.000-04:00

I think I have a guess as to who that speaker was. Its a teacher that I like a lot who has resisted being within the emergance conversation, but tends to gravitate towards that way of thinking. He does admit that he gets those thoughts from the Talmud.

I'm interested in seeing this essay though. thanks for the link.

Hmmm... Interesting quote. I have that going on wi...

2009-02-18T10:13:00.000-05:00

Hmmm... Interesting quote. I have that going on with a couple of different essays I have started. I think my tank runs out faster than his though.

Hi Anonymous,First of all, thanks for dropping by ...

2009-01-31T14:05:00.000-05:00

Hi Anonymous,

First of all, thanks for dropping by and commenting.

Just so we're clear, I'm not a member of the Calvary Chapel fellowship and never have been, and I have no firsthand knowledge of Chuck Smith's authority over those churches. As the post states, I actually disagree with Wagner's designation of Pastor Chuck as an "apostle." So I'm not in any way trying to support (or, for that matter, to denigrate) any authority that Pastor Chuck may assert or that other people may attribute to him. My post really has nothing to do with that question at all, and I'm not in a position to be able to comment on it.

With regard to the "movement" vs. "denomination" thing, well, I am a member of a church body (Assemblies of God) that prefers the term "fellowship" to "denomination." Personally, I think the distinction is pointless: to "denominate" something simply means to name it. By that standard, the Assemblies of God have been a denomination ever since they chose the name at their first General Council in 1914.

The Church as a whole has always struggled with the problems of centralized leadership vs. the problems of decentralized leadership. There are significant problems on both sides, and even splitting the difference by having some kind of shared (e.g., Presbyterian) structure doesn't solve it: at some level, God has chosen to bestow on us flawed human beings the job of managing His Church. Neither all of us doing our own thing nor one person imposing his will on all will accomplish God's will for His people.

Once again, thanks for dropping by.