Friday Follies- Help You Make it To Your Flight

Here's a good one from Buck Howdy over on YouTube.  It is to the tune of Help Me Make It Through The Night by Kris Kristofferson.

The Last Vestige of Theology Around Christmas (Music!)

I've long been interested in hymns and their stories.  I have multiple iterations of those hymn-story books, and love reading about the origins and meanings of some of the hymns therein.  I especially enjoy reading about songs that are more than two hundred years old.

As Christmas season approaches, it isn't too hard to see that there is really little theology left in the holiday.  It has become secularized and commercialized (more of the latter, which results in the former, I think).  The last vestige of any theology outside church services is found in some of the Christmas music that has remained popular in spite of their lyrics.  Here's an example- I have XM/Sirius satellite radio in a couple of my vehicles, and I tune in to the couple of seasonal stations that they put up during the holidays.  One, called Holly, is really about as secular as it can get, and is new music, so I don't listen much.  The other, called Holiday Traditions, is more older stuff that we heard when I was a kid.  (But note, there is no Xmas hint in the station's title.)  The Holiday Traditions station plays a lot of secular seasonal music, but occasionally slips in a religious Christmas song, if it was performed by one of the greats (Crosby, Martin, Presley, etc.).  I heard Hark! The Herald Angels Sing yesterday.  Have you ever paid attention to the lyrics to that song?  The gospel is in there, and it can't be confused with any moralistic therapeutic deism, much less secular winter solstice worship.

Pete Scribner, over on his Sola Gratia blog (which I both follow and recommend), has just posted a couple of really neat posts about the song O Come, O Come Emmanuel. 

The first post of the pair is here, and the second is here. 

He talks about several aspects of this song, but also about how the real Christmas music works year-round, because it isn't oriented toward a holiday, but toward the gospel, at least the part of the gospel that is the incarnation of Christ.  I don't think the gospel orientation is why the songs have become traditions...if anything, the wording is offensive to secular culture and in many cases the lyrics get changed to fit the artist's taste (heard Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas lately?  It's not even a religious song, but the line, ...if the Lord allows has been changed to, ...if the fates allow.  And they say Calvinists are fatalists...).  I think R. C. Sproul got it right, in the video of the Q and A time at one of the Ligonier national conferences, when he points out that the high church music lasts because it is complex and strives to glorify God rather than be simple to perform; that's why the music has become a landmark.

But enough analysis.  Give these posts a read...they are worth the time taken as a devotional this time of year.

She Will NOT Be Silenced

Dr. Laura's blog today needs to be passed on.  Even if you don't always agree with her, what she says is courageous and needs to be repeated.

Here's the blog.

.

The Tyranny of the Contemporary

A year or two back, Al Mohler gave a talk at one of the conferences he regularly speaks at which he titled, The Tyranny of the Contemporary.  He had many good points (as usual), but a couple were especially relevant to our culture today, and particularly to this part of the country.  One of these points was about how we are told that the gospel is offensive to folks today, and that this is a new problem.  Funny.  I think the New Testament writers made clear that this problem existed two thousand years ago, and Christian leaders since that time have continually reinforced the idea that the gospel was offensive to non-regenerate folks ever since.

Another point that Dr. Mohler made was in regard to the idea of full churches and empty preaching.  At least in the Southern Baptist denomination (in which I participate), this is true to some degree.  We measure pastoral success by baptisms, giving levels, and above all, attendance levels.  One will often hear pastors and laypersons alike asking each other at state or regional meetings how 'big' their church is.  "Whatcha runnin' these days?" is a common question.  I've never been asked how deep the church is.  Just how big.  Maybe it happens, but not when I've been listening.  And on top of that we keep reading about how we are losing our youth to secularism.  As Michael Horton puts it, we are not only not reaching the lost, we are losing the reached.  I won't say this is completely due to poor preaching and the abandonment of the gospel in preaching, but I'd be willing to bet some lunch money a good statistician could find a fairly strong correlation between these things.

Dr. Mohler also talks about the universality of these issues.  Citing John 6, he notes that 'seekers' never seek what ought to be sought and needs to be found.  He reminds us that after Jesus fed the five thousand, those in attendance looked not for spiritual truth from the source of this miracle, but rather they looked for more food.  Physical food.  Bread.  Not the bread of life.

And people say the offense of the gospel is a new problem?

So in response, we look to new ideas and programs to try and outfox the problems.  We look to contemporary technologies, contemporary worship styles, contemporary dress and mannerisms, contemporary programs, contemporary advertising campaigns, contemporary church names, and on and on it goes.  But where'd the gospel go?  I don't recall Paul saying anywhere that contemporary ideas were the power of God unto salvation, but we certainly tend to live like he did.

Every time we are tempted to buy into a new idea about anything, we ought to run it past Romans 1:16-17 four or seven times just to make sure we are keeping the main thing, the main thing.

Here's what Tullian Tchividjian said about it about a month ago-

"I once assumed the gospel was simply what non-Christians must believe in order to be saved, while afterward we advance to deeper theological waters. But I’ve come to realize that ” the gospel isn’t the first step in a stairway of truths, but more like the hub in a wheel of truth.” In other words, once God rescues sinners, his plan isn’t to steer them beyond the gospel, but to move them more deeply into it. All good theology, in fact, is an exposition of the gospel.

Martin Luther often employed the phrase simul justus et peccator— 'simultaneously justified and sinful.' He understood that while he’d already been saved from sin’s penalty, he was in daily need of salvation from sin’s power. And since the gospel is the “power of God for salvation,” he knew that even for the most saintly of saints, the gospel is wholly relevant and vitally necessary. This means heralded preachers need the gospel just as much as hardened pagans.

In his book The Gospel for Real Life, Jerry Bridges picks up on this theme–that Christians need the gospel just as much as non-Christians–by explaining how the spiritual poverty in so much of our Christian experience is the result of inadequate understanding of the gospel’s depths. The answer isn’t to try harder in the Christian life but to comprehend more fully and clearly Christ’s finished work for sinners and then to live in more vital awareness of that grace day by day. The main problem in the Christian life, in other words, is not that we don’t try hard enough to be good. It’s that we haven’t accepted the deep implications of the gospel and applied its powerful reality to all parts of our life."

The original citation can be found here. 

>

What Was Stevie Johnson Thinking? (Nothing to do with the dropped pass!)

Erik Raymond had a nice analysis of what Stevie Johnson said on his twitter account after dropping the pass against the Steelers Sunday.  Before we jump all over Johnson, we need to read the analysis carefully, because we will see some of ourselves in what Johnson said/did if we are honest.

Here's the link.

>

Doug Wilson GETS IT

Once again, Doug Wilson has posted on the TSA nonsense in a way that I simply can't match, so I'll send you directly there (pass Go, collect $200).

Wilson's Latest TSA Post

My family went to the Cowboys (er, Cowgirls?) vs Saints game in Dallas.  Guess what?  Wilson was right...we were separated into lines of males and females and were patted down upon entering the stadium.  But then, it shouldn't surprise anyone that if the TSA can be associated with noncompoopery, Jerry Jones can also.  That's a bit nicer than I'd like to put it, but this is a family blog.

Right now, I'd put a professional football game (if it happens to be in Dallas) as the biggest waste of money in America, right after the federal government, that is.   And on top of that, rather than a sporting event, it was more like a pagan worship service in a billion-dollar temple, complete with temple prostitutes (the pole dancers...yes, they have pole dancers at Cowboys games) and meat sacrificed to idols (what else can you call a ten-dollar hot dog?).

Billy Graham was right...if God doesn't judge the United States of American, he's going to owe Sodom and Gomorrah an apology.

Krauthammer Gets It Right

Charles Krauthammer says it simply and about as well as it can be said- the latest TSA nonsense is, well, nonsense.

Read it here.

TSA = Too Stupid (to be) Alive

When faced with the incredible stupidity of some people responsible for air security, I wonder how stupid the terrorists must be to not have killed off ten or twenty thousand air passengers by now. Read this if you don't believe me. TSA=Too Stupid (to be) Alive!

Engaging the Culture

I recently read a very thought-provoking blog about engaging popular culture.  The post is by Ted Turnau, a professor at the Anglo-American College in Prague.  Here is a paragraph from his article, and by itself an absolute key for we who are raising children to understand the effects the culture around us has on those kids-

"Popular culture works not by blurting out a message, but through appealing to the imagination. A television show does not simply convey a message, such as ‘Life is meaningless, so have all the fun you can while you can’. Rather, it tells a story in which someone discovers the ‘truth’ of that message; it tells it in a style that underlines that message, and it invites us along for the journey. Popular culture works indirectly, suggestively, not like a slogan at a political rally, but like a poem or a song. It draws you in and gets under your skin. Therefore, you must be intentional in your approach to popular culture so that you understand its effects on the imagination (including the imaginations of your friends and neighbours)."

The whole article is here.  I encourage you to read and think about these things as you ponder how to effectively raise children, live as a family, and proclaim the gospel in a postmodern, secular culture.

Gate Rape

Here's some more fallout on the TSA adventure.  I'm beginning to think we might be able to get some things changed, especially if Drudge, et al., keep it up.

I picked up the term Gate Rape from a blog where it was so named by an airline captain.  I think it'll stick.