The light of the solstice pierces to the heart of the tomb at Newgrange, and then, soon after, the Light of World arrives. Two moments that remind us of the many manifest miracles of God. Reminders that no winter is without end and that The Gift is given to us again. If we can but receive it.Gerard Vanderleun
The reasoning goes that the growing church, recognizing the popularity of the winter festivals, attached its own Christmas celebration to encourage the spread of Christianity. Business historian John Steele Gordon has described the December dating of the Nativity as a kind of ancient-world marketing ploy. ...But there seem to be mathematical reasons for the Dec. 25 date that rest upon modern computational science, not legend.
This alternative explanation is sometimes deployed to dismiss the notion that the holiday had pagan roots. In a 2003 article in the journal Touchstone, for example, historian William Tighe called the pagan origin of Christmas “a myth without historical substance.” He argued at least one pagan festival, the Roman Natalis Solis Invictus, instituted by Emperor Aurelian on Dec. 25, 274, was introduced in response to the Christian observance. The pagan festival “was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians.” According to Tighe, the pagans co-opted the Christian holiday, not the other way around.
[H]e was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.In my view, the best interpretation of this narrative is that the Magi had no idea specifically when Jesus was born, but based on their sequence of astronomical observations concluded it had to have been within the two years prior to their arrival at Herod's court. Another key may be that Matthew quotes the Magi as referring to Jesus as "born king of the Jews," not "newborn" king of the Jews. Hence, Herod's order to slaughter boys up to the age of two.
7 John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."That is our passage, this third Sunday of Advent, two days after a 20-year-old man – I shall not honor his name from this pulpit – murdered his mother and then broke in to Sandy Hook Elementary school where he gunned down 12 first-grade girls and eight boys plus six women. I hope you understand that the sermon I originally had planned for today is one I cannot give.
10 And the crowds asked him, "What then should we do?"
11 In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise."
12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?"
13 He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you."
14 Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages."
15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." 18 So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.
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| This movie was to open in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, the day of the killing rampage in Sandy Hook Elementary School. Warner Bros. pulled the opening |
Ours is a culture that glorifies violence, profits from it, sells it with the most advanced technology known to mankind. Violence bounces off satellites in outer space and beams into every American home, every hour of every day, every month of every year.Researchers say that each week American children converse with their parents for about 40 minutes but watch television about 1,500 minutes. The average teenager spends nine hundred hours in school per year and fifteen hundred hours watching television. These hours do not include the time kids may spend listening to heavy metal or “gangsta” rap, which glorifies killing cops and raping women, or playing computer games both violent and occultic, or watching violent movies on video or in theaters.
by the time an average child leaves elementary school, he or she will have witnessed 8,000 murders and over 100,000 other acts of violence. By the time that child is 18 years-of-age; he or she will witness 200,000 acts of violence, including 40,000 murders. One 17-year longitudinal study concluded that teens who watched more than one hour of TV a day were almost four times as likely as other teens to commit aggressive acts in adulthood.
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| The Hollywood gun culture: Business Insider reprints part of an AskMen piece on "The 99 Most Desirable Women Of The Year." Here is no. 99, Bérénice Marlohe, who plays Severine in Skyfall. |
In the 1980s, evangelical groups tried to lead boycotts against entertainment and media companies that produced and broadcast gratuitously violent fare. Their efforts met with some success at the grass roots and nothing but scorn from media elites. Hollywood’s contempt for public concern about the ceaseless stream of violent media was perfectly captured in a quote from Ted Field, co-founder of Interscope. ‘You can tell the people who want to stop us from releasing controversial rap music one thing,’ said Field: ‘Kiss my ‘blank.’We call ourselves a Christian nation. Yet events like Sandy Hook keep occurring and force us to ask: if America is so Christian, and Christians are redeemed and transformed, why is our culture so filled with destruction?
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| A 60-second exposure of near-Earth asteroid 2012 XE54 streaking through the sky on Dec. 11, 2012, during a close flyby that brought it inside the moon's orbit. CREDIT: Ernesto Guido & Nick Howes, Remanzacco Observatory |
A former college professor and his wife were apparently attacked and killed by nearly a dozen dogs along a rural road where their bodies were found mutilated, authorities said Monday.Last year, my wife and I were out for a long walk in the local streets around our house, with Wesley, my daughter's 14-pound dog. You would not believe the number of really big dogs people keep around here. And they all want to eat Wesley for a snack.
Preliminary autopsy results from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation showed Sherry Schweder, 65, likely died of injuries suffered in a dog attack, Oglethorpe County Sheriff Mike Smith said. Autopsy results for her husband, Lothar Karl Schweder, 77, were not yet available, but Smith said it's likely he was also attacked by dogs because the scene was so grisly.
Smith said officials were going to round up at least 11 dogs seen in the area in northeastern Georgia, where the couple's mutilated bodies were found Saturday morning by five passersby.
According to Prof. Darrell Cole in "Good Wars," Aquinas reasoned thatObviously, the circumstances of a civilian minister are different than of a military chaplain. In orthodox Christian theology, deadly force is justifiable (though deplorable) only in self defense or defense of helpless, innocent victims of aggression and even then may be used only when there is no realistic alternative.
. . . bishops and clerics cannot be soldiers because these occupations cannot "be fittingly exercised at the same time." Aquinas offers two reasons why. First, warlike pursuits keep clergy from their proper duties. In other words, their participation is unlawful, not because war is evil, but because warlike pursuits prevent them from doing their jobs.(Note the Navy's requirement, above, that chaplains "must at all times, both in time of war and in time of peace, be engaged exclusively in religious duties.") Cole continues:
Second [according to Aquinas], it is "unbecoming" for those who give the Eucharist to shed blood, even if they do so without sin (i.e., in a just war). Unlike Calvin, then, Aquinas finds the duties of clergy to be more meritorious than the duties of soldiers. However, this does not mean that, in Aquinas' view, the soldier's duties have no merit. Rather, he employs an analogy to make quite the opposite point: it is meritorious to marry but better still to remain a virgin and thus dedicate yourself wholly to spiritual concerns. Likewise, it is meritorious to fight just wars and restrain evil as a soldier, but more meritorious still to serve as a bishop who provides the Eucharist to the faithful.Here is one root of the custom against, later the prohibition, of chaplains bearing and using arms: to wield the sword in a just cause, justly employed, was no sin, but for clergy both to wield the sword and to offer the Eucharist (Lord's Supper) meant that the chaplain had abandoned his particular calling as a disciple of Christ. Both Reformer John Calvin and Aquinas (and for that matter, Martin Luther), held that soldiering justly could be considered a form of the Christian ministry of charity. But at least in Catholic theology, the battlefield forces a choice: the same person may not offer the Eucharist in ministry and also fight as a soldier. The two ministries were not contradictory, but they were incompatible in the same person.
My only counter-argument is that perhaps he might consider also defending poor tourists from the only state stupid enough to still forbid carrying a pistol either openly or concealed. Oh, and he also might want to defend widows and orphans. God seems pretty cool with that throughout the Bible.Which prompted me to leave this comment:
I did ponder the question of what to do if children are in danger because of criminal acts, such as the Oregon mall shooter this week. While the question's answer is highly situational, I think that I would engage in order to give the kids time to escape.
I would not want to face myself in the mirror each day afterward knowing that I had done nothing to save the truly innocent and defenseless. Sometimes all courses of action are undesirable, but, within the law, it is sometimes true that "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do." You have to do what you know you can live with, and what you know you can face Christ with unafraid.
Somewhere in here is a nexus between "Who is my neighbor?" and "no greater love." And there is no way to know where that nexus is until the time.
"Armies of scholars, meticulously investigating every aspect of [Lincoln’s] life, have failed to find a single act of racial bigotry on his part."~ Doris Kearns-Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, p. 207.
"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people . . . . I as much as any man am in favor of the superior position assigned to the white race."~ Abraham Lincoln, First Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Ottawa, Illinois, Sept. 18, 1858, in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln vol.3, pp. 145-146.That Lincoln deeply opposed slavery cannot be gainsaid. That he ever thought African Americans (they could truly be called that, then) should or even could gain legal, social or moral equality with whites is simply laughable. However, that did not distinguish him from about 99 percent of American whites, North or South, of his day. In fact, in his first inaugural address, Lincoln endorsed the first proposed 13th amendment to the Constitution, called the Corwin Amendment after Ohio Republican Thomas Corwin. This amendment, which was never ratified, specifically forbade altering the Constitution in any manner that would enable the Congress to interfere with slavery "within any state." The Corwin amendment's wording was ridiculous, but its intent was clear: slavery was to be enshrined in the Constitution forever. Why would Lincoln endorse such a measure? Also in his first inaugural, he stated flatly,
The Union must be preserved, and hence all indispensable means must be employed.Preserving the Union was more than Lincoln's policy goal. It was his fetish, a religious-type quest. The South's argument in favor of its secession was based on a contract view of the Constitution. The Constitutional contract, they claimed, had been broken, hence they could withdraw from the Union if they wished. Lincoln's theoretical foundation for destroying the Southern states to compel them to stay within the union was based on his elevation of the Declaration of Independence above the Constitution. The Union, he held, was a binding covenant between the states, not a contract, and that covenant could neither be negated nor nullified. There is no doubt that for Lincoln preserving the Union was vastly more important than the rights of blacks. Writing to influential New York editor Horace Greeley in August 1862, Lincoln explained the relationship (Lincoln's italics):
As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.As writer DiLorenzo explains, "So, go and see Spielberg’s Lincoln movie if you must, but keep in mind that it is just another left-wing Hollywood fantasy."
Lately, however, what is or might be meant by open communion has shifted. The received understanding has always included a proviso, sometimes explicitly stated but often simply assumed: “All are welcome to receive” has been taken to mean “all Christians,” which in turn has been understood as including all (and only) those who have been baptized with water in the name of the Trinity. In other words, an open eucharistic service has been open irrespective of denominational status but not of baptismal status. That proviso is now under discussion in many quarters, to the point that to ask whether such-and-such a church practices open communion is apt to be ambiguous. The disputed question at present is how open the practice is or ought to be.
The logic of what has been the accepted interpretation, which does in a sense limit the openness of open communion, is not hard to see. It stands to reason that if taking part in the Eucharist is a specifically Christian privilege, and if Christians are defined, minimally if not exhaustively, by their baptism, then those who would avail themselves of the privilege can be expected at least to have met this one objective criterion. Is this expectation indeed valid? That is the question at issue in the current discussion.
The introduction asserts that ‘Philosophy is dead’ (p.5) and science alone can provide ‘New answers to the ultimate questions of life’ (the book’s hubristic sub-title). But the authors then produce their own brand of humanistic philosophy, christen it ‘science’ and base their book upon it.
House Selects the New President As directed by the 12th Amendment, the 435 -- many of them brand new -- members of the House of Representatives would find as their first official duty the selection of the next President of the United States. "Welcome to Congress!"
Unlike the Electoral College system, where larger population equals more votes, each state in the House gets exactly one (1) vote when selecting the president. Even California, with its 53 Representatives, get one vote. The first candidate to win the votes of any 26 states is the new president. The 12th Amendment gives the House until the fourth day of March to select a president.The Senate elects the vice president, one vote per senator, with no time limit on its decision. As for the House, each state's delegation decides for itself how its single vote shall be cast. In states that have both Democrat and Republican representatives, expect that decision to be, um, tumultuous.
Here is what has been happening in the Methodist Church in Cuba:Read those last quotes again slowly: ",,, we tried every program that came along, but the church continued to grow older and decline. We had no other option but to pray and fast with all our power."
>Since 1999, the Methodist Church has grown from 8,000 to 36,000 members.
>The median age of the average Methodist parishioner ranges from the mid thirties to mid forties.
>The average age of pastors is 30 years old. All clergy have started at least one new church.
>Bishop Ricardo Pereira says that the Methodist seminary in Cuba intentionally trains its pastors theologically that he describes as "eminently Methodist and Wesleyan."
>Many congregations worship in house churches where they practice "lively worship, contemplative prayer, theological formation, and Bible study."
>The Methodist Church also excels at a Wesleyan understanding of the gospel that is one and the same time evangelistic and social in character. Every Methodist is encouraged and taught to share their faith verbally and in living it out daily. The Methodist Church has outreach missions to seniors and vulnerable families and single mothers, among other ministries.
Bishop Pereira states, "In the 1970s we tried every program that came along, but the church continued to grow older and decline. We had no other option but to pray and fast with all our power."
"Methodists are called to have that burning heart. ... We can't sit still. … If your heart does not burn, no program is going to fix it."
The discussion is highly accessible to anybody with a high school science background. ...
Prof. Barr helps us to understand that the “beginning” of the universe is not the same as the “origins” of the universe. ... And what does quantum physics have to say about that and whether or not God exists? In short, quantum mechanics cannot prove the existence of God, but it makes it more difficult to subscribe to a philosophy of materialism, which opens the door to the possibility of something beyond the material world, such as an “ultimate mind.” Prof. Barr cites a number of other physicists who share this notion. The final portion of our interview brings up the question of whether or not science can play a role in informing our faith, and Steve notes that many, many of the great scientists of the past and present have been ardently religious individuals. The notion of a war between religion and science, often championed by the likes of Richard Dawkins, is once again the type of media hype that gave us the term “God particle.” Prof. Barr then reflects on his own background and what it has been like to be a faithful Catholic in the world of academia, providing advice at the end to any religious individual thinking of making a career in science profession. Recorded: October 10, 2012.
Here’s a post on practical evangelism by Christian scholar Don Johnson.Read the whole thing.
His list of reasons why people often reject Christianity:
- Christians behaving badly
- Disappointment with God
- Weak or absent father
- Social pressure
- Cost of discipleship
- Immorality (especially sexual immorality)
And here’s the detail on #6:Of all the motivations and reasons for skepticism that I encounter, immorality is easily the most common. In particular, sexual sin seems to be the largest single factor driving disbelief in our culture. Brant Hanson calls sex “The Big But” because he so often hears this from unbelievers: “’I like Jesus, BUT…’ and the ‘but’ is usually followed, one way or the other, with an objection about the Bible and… sex. People think something’s deeply messed-up with a belief system that says two consenting, unmarried adults should refrain from sex.” In other words, people simply do not want to follow the Christian teaching that sexual intercourse should take place only between and man and woman who are married, so they throw the whole religion out.
Read the whole thing.The “blind faith” concept is actually not biblical. Pistis, the Greek word translated as “faith” actually is defined as a conviction based on the facts. “Without faith, it is impossible to please God” (Heb 11:6a) It would be impossible to please God unless our minds can accurately discern the facts.
Not only does Christianity have plenty of room for people to use their mind, but the Bible even commands us to. "Test everything. Hold on to the good." (1 Thes 5:21). Its really cool that God invites us to test Him and what He has said. There is nothing wrong with asking questions or looking for reasonable answers.As Christians we should never be afraid to ask questions, and we should also never discourage unbelievers from asking questions. Answering the tough questions is one of the ways to "...go and make disciples of all nations..."Apologetics is extremely important, but never the first step in leading someone to Christ. In fact, if someone does not have intellectual stumbling blocks, I don't wish to create them. Apologetics should only be used if and when I first identify that there is an intellectual stumbling block standing between the person and their belief in, trust in, and commitment to Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. – Luke Nix (from Why Apologetics?)
Afterlife exists says top brain surgeon
A prominent scientist who had previously dismissed the possibility of the afterlife says he has reconsidered his belief after experiencing an out of body experience which has convinced him that heaven exists. ...
"I've spent decades as a neurosurgeon at some of the most prestigous medical institutions in our country. I know that many of my peers hold as I myself did to the theory that the brain, and in particular the cortex, generates consciousness and that we live in a universe devoid of any kind of emotion, much less the unconditional love that I now know God and the universe have toward us.
"But that belief, that theory, now lies broken at our feet. What happened to me destroyed it."
There is one place in the Bible where serious theological conversation about the nature and thought process of God does take place, prompted by the conflict between the human wish to see the world as a moral sphere where people get what they deserve, where everything happens for a reason, and the inescapable reality that ours is a world where good people suffer for no apparent reason. The book of Job is a full-length argument about whether the misfortunes that befall ostensibly good people come to them from the hand of God. If we want to believe that ours is a moral world, the scene of justice and fairness, we need to confront the arguments presented in what is probably the most challenging book in the entire Bible: the book of Job. ...
The first thing you need to know about the biblical book of Job is that there are two of them. There is the Fable of Job, a very old, simple folktale of faith maintained and rewarded, found in chapters 1, 2, and 42 of the biblical book. And then there is the Poem of Job, a much later, more complicated work comprising the large middle section of the book. A lot of people reading the Bible don’t realize that. They assume it is a single work, a theological sandwich composed of two slices of pious theology wrapped around a dense filling of hard-to-follow religious poetry.
Called the eXtreme Deep Field, the picture captures a mass of galaxies stretching back almost to the time when the first stars began to shine.
But this was no simple point and snap - some of the objects in this image are too distant and too faint for that.
Rather, this view required Hubble to stare at a tiny patch of sky for more than 500 hours to detect all the light,
"It's a really spectacular image," said Dr Michele Trenti, a science team member from the University of Cambridge, UK.
"We stared at this patch of sky for about 22 days, and have obtained a very deep view of the distant Universe, and therefore we see how galaxies were looking in its infancy."Most people know that the universe is expanding, but not many non-astronomers are familiar with the theory of inflation, which reveals that the term "Big Bang" is misleading. Instead, says NASA's "Universe 101" web site, the universe's creation "is better thought of as the simultaneous appearance" of the universe everywhere there is the universe.
