Riverwood Presbyterian Church

Politics

Nothing Succeeds Like Success

by Clay Staggs

Apparently the “surge” in Iraq is working. According to the Rasmussen polling group (which is, as near as I can tell, just about the best in the business), support for the War is up.

The latest Rasmussen Reports tracking poll finds that 47% of Americans now say the U.S. and its allies are winning the War on Terror (see crosstabs). That’s up from 43% a month ago and reflects is the highest level of confidence measured since December 2005. Over the past 35 months, confidence in the War on Terror has been higher than today only twice, in November and December 2005.

And:

In what may be just as significant a finding, only 24% of voters now believe the terrorists are winning. That’s down from 30% a month ago and represents the lowest level of pessimism recorded since 2004.

Couple that with the recent declaration from formerly stauch war opponent, Democrat Rep. Jack Murtha, that “I think the surge is working.” Read about his comments here.

All of this must just be terrible news for the Democrats, whose Senate leader, Harry Reid, said on the floor of the US Senate earlier this year that the war in Iraq was lost. Their leading presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, has also had a bad couple of weeks, with the latest polls out of Iowa showing her running behind Obama. She’s also got some fundraising scandals brewing, Bill making idiotic and provably false statements about whether he supported or opposed the Iraq war back in 2003, and she’s been found out to have planted questions at her own campaign events. Suddenly, she looks less than invincible.

Capping it all off is the latest whiney audiotape from Osama’s cave:

Bin Laden said it was unjust for the United States to have invaded Afghanistan for sheltering him after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, saying he was the “only one responsible” for the deadly assaults on New York and Washington.

Doesn’t your heart just bleed at the injustice?

If this keeps up (a big IF), the 2008 election dynamic will be even more interesting. If we wind up with a Hillary versus Rudy matchup (which I still think is most likely, though less certain than a month ago), I like Rudy’s chances a lot.

Culture Wars

The Archbishop in the Glass House

by Clay Staggs

I’ve frequently bemoaned the sorry state of the Episcopal Church USA. The Church of England is apparently even worse off, if the recent comments of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, are any indication.

The Archbishop recently gave an interview to Emel, which is described as a “muslim lifestyle magazine.” (I’m not even going to touch that one.) The interview was excerpted in The Times (UK).

Dr. Williams throws out some doozies. Get this:

Williams suggested American leadership had broken down: “We have only one global hegemonic power. It is not accumulating territory: it is trying to accumulate influence and control. That’s not working.”

He contrasted it unfavourably with how the British Empire governed India. “It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering it and normalising it. Rightly or wrongly, that’s what the British Empire did — in India, for example.

“It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put it back together — Iraq, for example.”

Either this man is rabidly ignorant of history and current events, or he is outright lying. Whichever it is, he sounds utterly ridiculous. Does anybody really believe that we went into Iraq, bombed away, and then left for someone else to “put it back together”? Who would that be, exactly? I’m sure the families of the soldiers who are bleeding and dying there would like to know why their loved ones are bleeding and dying if someone else is putting Iraq back together. Probably the folks at the US Treasury would like to know who’s paying to put it all back together, if the US isn’t.

And the British went into India to normalize it? Really? Then can someone please explain to me what all of Ghandi’s protests were about then? The UK got into India for trade, and nothing else. How many decades were they there before granting India independence? Contrast this with Iraq. We invaded in 2003. In 2005, the Iraqis held elections (twice) and began to govern themselves.

Is it any wonder, with leadership like Dr. Williams is providing, that the worldwide Anglican Communion is about to be torn apart? Perhaps he should refrain from political analysis (and probably from interviews with muslim “lifestyle” magazines too) and concentrate on his own problems.

Here’s a start. He should figure out what’s wrong with this quote that he gave in the interview:

He commends the Muslim practice of praying five times a day, which he says allows the remembrance of God to be “built in deeply in their daily rhythm”.

Books

Novel Theology

by Jimmy Hopper

The Riverwood Book Group recently completed Graham Greene’s novel of love in wartime London, The End of the Affair. Greene was Catholic, and his “serious” novels deals with the moral ambiguities of life as seen from a Christian perspective but without glib answers. This aspect is very visible in The End of the Affair, in fact, Christian choices are the theme and essence of the book.

So that I won’t be a “spoiler,” since I know some members of Riverwood who want to read this book, I’ll quote this passage without much accompanting information about character, plot, etc. It is from a letter one character writes to another and it speaks of conversion:

What’s the use? I believe there’s a God—I believe the whole bag of tricks, there’s nothing I don’t believe. They could subdivide the Trinty into a dozen parts and I’d believe. They could dig up reconds that proved Christ had been invented by Pilate to get himself promoted and I’d believe just the same. I’ve caught belief like a disease. I’ve fallen into belief like I fell in love. I’ve never loved before as I love you and I’ve never believed before as I believe now.

As we considered this passage, it was said that it spoke strongly of both election and irresistible grace, a very “reformed” position from a practicing Catholic. Or, to put it another way, Truth is Truth.

Faith and Science

Kirk Cameron the New Aquinas?

by Tim Lien

Refining his theological acumen in the serene cloisters of Hollywood, Kirk Cameron is out to “prove the existence of God without an iota of faith.” Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort debated the Rational Response Squad in NYC, moderated by Martin Bashir. Story here.

Question: Is he the best representative we have? Question: Is it healthy to dichotomize faith and science (again)? Question: Once God’s existence is proven, what makes someone want him?

Miscellaneous

Beam Me Up, Scotty

by Clay Staggs

I always liked the Star Trek TV shows and movies. Not in a put-on-Spock-ears-and-go-to-a-convention way, but I was a casual fan. The owner of this house, though, takes Star Trek geekdom to, well, warp speed.

Politics

“Tell the Christians to come home”

by Clay Staggs

I noted last week the return of the cross to the St. John’s Church in Baghdad, and Michael Yon’s dramatic picture. Today Yon has another post, which I recommend that everyone read in full. There are some more great pictures.

The first services have been held in the church since it was closed. Strikingly, the church was filled with Muslims. They want very much for their Christian neighbors who fled to come home. So, to demonstrate that it’s OK to do so, they went to mass. The pictures are remarkable.

Here’s one, followed by Yon’s description:

Today, Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John’s. Muslims who want their Christian friends and neighbors to come home. The Christians who might see these photos likely will recognize their friends here. The Muslims in this neighborhood worry that other people will take the homes of their Christian neighbors, and that the Christians will never come back. And so they came to St John’s today in force, and they showed their faces, and they said, “Come back to Iraq. Come home.” They wanted the cameras to catch it. They wanted to spread the word: Come home. Muslims keep telling me to get it on the news. “Tell the Christians to come home to their country Iraq.”

Yon says he hasn’t seen a gunfight in months. He’s in Baghdad. Remember the civil war going on there, what, six months ago? The local al Qaeda goons would have killed any muslim for walking into a church then. What an astonishing turnaround - doggone near a miracle, if you ask me.

Two thoughts come to mind, one political, the other not. Has anyone seen mainstream press coverage of anything so remarkable? Ought not this to be front page news? This is a military and strategic turnaround (assuming it holds) of the most dramatic kind. But, I am convinced that those running the mainstream media outlets are so hostile to the concept of victory in Iraq (and especially to a resurgence of any semblance of Christianity there) that they couldn’t bear to publicize this remarkable event.

As a Christian, though, I cannot help but be moved by this. God works in ways so mysterious and yet wonderful. I would have thought that Iraq (Baghdad, even) would be one of the most hostile places on earth for believers. I would certainly never have dreamed that muslims there would be filling a church to essentially beg their Christian neighbors who fled persecution to return. But, God always preserves for himself a remnant, doesn’t he? And in the most unlikely of places and at the most unexpected times. It’s not the way I or any other human would go about building a kingdom. But it’s just beautiful, and amazing to watch unfold.

Hocus Pocus

by Peggy Drinkard

According to a news report on Yahoo,Tuesday morning a family was having breakfast and mom was serving up the pancakes when, lo and behold, she realized that there was an image of Jesus and Mary right there in the browned parts of one of the pancakes! Yahoo had a photo of said pancake…I guess if you use some imagination your could see it….kind of. The daughter of the family told the news it was a message from God to us (US) that we needed to get our act together. I don’t know about anyone else, but the family got theirs together….they posted the prophetic pancake on EBay and that same morning sold it for $306. (I think that was the price.) Well. I could use $300.00 with Christmas coming up and all…so next morning I treated my boys to a pancake breakfast. I looked and looked…I was kind of hoping for something like an image of a famous Monet or Picasso or something…so I could market it to the arty types…but no luck. The closest I came to ANYTHING was in the center of one of the pancakes….it reminded me a little of those photos you see of human embryos in the early stages….you know, kind of a cross between a shrimp and an alien. Oh well. To the devout among us, let me just say, eat more pancakes. But before you delve in, inspect them…closely.

Politics

Refreshingly Candid

by Clay Staggs

For the record, I remain officially undecided about the GOP primary. Frankly, I think that all four Republican front-runners would make such better presidents than HRC or Obama that it’s somewhat difficult for me to choose among them.

Rudy Guiliani continues to intrigue me the most. He’s pretty out of step with some of my views, but I like his leadership style so much that I can’t strike him off my list. In fact, if I lean in any direction right now, I lean slightly in his.

I ran across an interview with him on ABC’s website that illustrates pretty well why I like him. It’s been all over the press lately that his ally and former NYC Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik has been indicted on corruption charges. Some may recall that Kerik was, on Guiliani’s urging, initially appointed by Bush to be the Secretary of Homeland Security, a nomination that was ultimately withdrawn during the vetting process, likely on account of the same facts that lead to this indictment.

Now, all of this is not good for the Guiliani campaign. After all, one of Guiliani’s most impressive resume lines is his time as US Attorney in NYC, when he aggressively worked to bring down some major organized crime rings. (In fact, it was recently revealed that the five crime families he went after took a vote on whether to kill him - it was 3-2 against the hit. Rudy discusses this in the interview linked below.)

Now, there’s lot of spinning a politician could do when confronted with a fact scenario like the one with Kerik. Stop and imagine what Bill Clinton would have said. It would all be about how the vetting process failed, how he never knew - yada, yada, yada. Contrast with Rudy:

In a press conference today in Dubuque, Iowa, Giuliani told reporters, “I have made a mistake, I made a mistake in not clearing him effectively enough.”

Wow. Was that a politician admitting a mistake that I just heard? The reporter then questioned whether the Kerik affair would taint Guiliani’s reputation, both as Mayor (when Kerik was police commmissioner) and US Attorney:

“I think that people are capable of looking at all of that and saying we have to judge that in the overall context of everything that I did,” he said. “And the balance is very much in favor of ‘I must have been making the right decisions if the city of New York turned around.’”

Giuliani even defended Kerik’s performance as police commissioner.

“You know, people are complex,” he said. “But the fact is that the results for the city of New York were excellent results.”

When asked if he thinks highlighting those results diminishes or excuses the potential crimes Kerik committed, Giuliani said, “of course not.”

“How about, it’s realistic? It’s the complexity of human life and the reality of human life,” Giuliani said. “Richard Nixon had this very serious problem, but was his breakthrough with China one of the historic things that happened in the 20th century? Can’t take that away from him — it was.”

To me, this is really refreshing. Rudy first admitted it was his own mistake. Then he went on to acknowledge, without using these words, the fallen nature of humanity. And that, despite that fallen nature, sometimes good things come about anyway. Now, I see this all through the lens of my reformed world view - depravity, and yet God’s grace at the same time. Rudy may not understand it in those terms, and he certainly isn’t in sync with all my other views, but I think he gets some very basic facts right about the world we live in. And that’s something I can’t say about most politicians on the stage today.

The whole article is here. Interesting reading.

Christian Chaff

Vulgar Sign Language

by Tim Lien

I feel like Dave Barry, when I say, “I’m not making this up.” Someone saw this church sign here in Tuscloosa, alerted me, and then sent me the photos. Here it is in all its glory:

I even feel I’m being too nice by pixelating the church name and the pastor’s name. This is excrement. This is anti-scriptural, anti-gospel, and anti-work-of-Christ…..and impossible. I told somebody that vulgarity spray-painted on a brick wall would have been less destructive than this nonsense. I will go take 10 deep breaths, now.

“For it is by grace you have been saved— through faith, and even your faith is not of yourselves— it is the gift of God, so that no one should boast.” Ephesians 2:8,9

Christian Chaff

Just Around Budget Time

by Tim Lien

Last week Sen. Chuck Grassley from Iowa launched a Senate Panel investigation into 6 televangelists. It turns out that Creflo Dollar’s church bought him a Rolls Royce. (Article here.) To the Riverwood faithful: I like the color charcoal.

Politics

Maybe Worth More Than 1,000 Words

by Clay Staggs

I’m hardly the first person online to make this observation, but I think that the photo below may just turn out to be one of those that achieves true icon status. It was taken by a guy named Michael Yon. His blog is here. He’s an independent blogger-journalist. He’s supported entirely by donations, and has been in Iraq a LOT during the course of the war. His views are purely his own.

I’m going to copy and paste Yon’s description of the circumstances surrounding the photo:

I photographed men and women, both Christians and Muslims, placing a cross atop the St. John’s Church in Baghdad. They had taken the cross from storage and a man washed it before carrying it up to the dome.

A Muslim man had invited the American soldiers from “Chosen” Company 2-12 Infantry to the church, where I videotaped as Muslims and Christians worked and rejoiced at the reopening of St John’s, an occasion all viewed as a sign of hope.

The Iraqis asked me to convey a message of thanks to the American people. ” Thank you, thank you,” the people were saying. One man said, “Thank you for peace.” Another man, a Muslim, said “All the people, all the people in Iraq, Muslim and Christian, is brother.” The men and women were holding bells, and for the first time in memory freedom rang over the ravaged land between two rivers.

It’s really encouraging to see something like this. I really believe that Iraq is turning around.

One final note: As you’re watching CNN or reading mainstream press, see if you come across this picture or this story. Yon’s making it available for free. I suspect that you won’t, and I suspect I know why.

General Theology

Really, really, really Fallen….

by Jimmy Hopper

Last Tuesday I had the pleasure of giving the morning devotional to the Riverwood Classical School and, using the week’s Catechism question as a guide, talked about the Fall of man. Afterward, I was thinking about the Fall in light of a book I was reading the previous week. It was the second volume in Rick Atkinson’s trilogy about the American army in Europe in WWII, The Day of Battle and it focused on the Sicilian and Italian campaigns in 1943-44. As a result of this juxtaposition of book and devotional; it crossed my mind how inadequate, although totally valid, my illustrations of obedience to parents, etc. from the devotional were to the idea of fallen man and the truth of how far man fell from Grace. I suppose, in a sense, war is the ultimate example and result of fallenness.

To define the situation, it was determined to invade Sicily after the victory at El Alamein had driven the Germans from Africa. The Sicilian invasion was bloody but relatively quick and the British and American armies invaded Italy at Salerno, and began fighting an entrenched, well trained, disciplined, ruthless and barbaric army . This was the war of Ernie Pyle, the brilliant journalist who brought the war to life for millions and Bill Mauldin, the cartoonist whose creations, “Willie and Joe” became synonomous with the “GI,” the American soldier. The way north bogged down at Cassino after a disasterous attempt to attack accross the Rapido River on the German Gustav line. Winter came and the misery increased (I discovered that Rome is the same latitude as Chicago) as did the savagery. There was an invasion at Anzio to attempt to break the stalement but this bogged down also scant miles from the beach at the Pontine marshes. The two armies settled in to killing each other and the civilians who happened to be unlucky enough to be in the villages that sheltered the armies. The Americans that survived became what they were intended to become; instinctive killers forged by survival instincts developed under inhumane conditions. The Germans had long since reached this point.

The stalemate was eventually broken by the “weight of metal” thrown at the German lines as more and more bombs and weaponry, and men, became available to the allies. 750 tons of bombs and 200,000 artillery shells were dropped on the village of Cassino in six hours before the final assualt. Entire villages were reduced to rubble and when the Germans evacuated Naples, they destroyed infrastructure and booby trapped public buildings to explode after the Allied armies arrived. Many of the treasures of history and antiquity were destroyed by the fighting.

Rome was taken June 5, 1944, one day before the Normandy invasion. The Italian campaign had cost 312,000 Allied casulties and 435,000 German casualities. You would have to read the account to understand the barbarism and horror as these men (and civilians) faced the unleashing of modern weapons of war. Some of the scenes Atkinson described were simply painful to read.

So this too was the fallen world, inexplicable in its total fallenness, at least to a class of lovely and fresh faced children in the Riverwood Classical School. But it is not unexplainable because the root cause of the disobedience of children and war are identical. May these children never have to face war to this degree, but they, as do all men and women, will face the reality of their own sin and fallenness.

General Theology

But We Are Right, Right?

by Tim Lien

Quotation from Douglas Wilson:

But we do not demand that they trust in “living in this certain way” for their justification. We demand the opposite. We require them to not trust in what they are doing, and we also teach them not to trust in what they are saying. We teach them to trust in Christ, not to trust in themselves trusting in Christ. We do call upon them to confess their faith in Jesus alone. This is what we teach them to do, and it is how we lead them. What we do not do is tell them that their salvation hinges on whether they say the magic words just right, or have their face looking “just so” while they say it. We don’t tell them that they are apostate if they get some detail about justification wrong. To do so would be for us to deny sola fide.

Church and Worship

An Unpopular Appeal for the Big Three

by Tim Lien

Jimmy Hopper sent me this NYT article on “praise rock.” It’s an article about larger churches spending time building a musical culture adapted specifically to the various generations reflected in their church.

You can read it here.

A quotation from the article:

“When you start a church,” said Tom Mercer, 52, the senior pastor, “you don’t decide who you’re going to reach and then pick a music style. You pick a music style, and that determines who’s going to come.”

Obvious critiques abound. If contextualization comes first, you become a slave to it. Now, I’m all for contextualization, but a church must be faithful to the historic Church’s greatest concerns: Word, prayer, and sacraments—first and foremost. Then other concerns will/should flow from this emphasis. To an extent Mr. Mercer was correct: the music style does determine who will come. And, those who come will also determine the very substance of the church. People and their beliefs matter. Churches are not abstract entities.

However, the very same critique can be leveled at those within the PCA who have emphasized another necessary component: Mercy-Ministries. If a church becomes dominated by a practical exercise of good, it often times will compromise the very things it should be emphasizing over and above everything else—so that the “mercy” can be maintained, groomed, and expanded. Mercy-ministries (or any other ministry) that do not flow from The Big Three (Word, sacraments, prayer) will not have longevity past the energized few who began them. I talk with many twenty-something Reformed people who want to choose a church based on the mercy-programs that are emanating from the church. And there are also pastors who want to “plant-an-urban-integrated-church-that-likes-mercy.” Well, ok, but how will that be fed? By the Word or by cool mercy mercy techniques. And this (in principal) is just as faulty as choosing a church for its music or building a church around its music.

Politics

GOP Primary Update

by Clay Staggs

Because I’ve written so much on this blog slamming Dr. Dobson and some of his fellow travelers about their third-party rumblings, I thought I’d note that there are some high profile social conservative figures who are living in the “reality-based community” and are making endorsements for various primary candidates.

Interestingly, Romney seems to be commanding the majority of those endorsements, at least until today. The latest big name to endorse Romney is Paul Weyrich, who founded, among other things, the Heritage Foundation. According to the NYT (of all papers), Weyrich joins Jay Sekulow and Bob Jones III (among some others) who are prominent among social/Christian conservative activists supporting Romney. Personally, I think this must be something of a coup for Romney, to have these folks support him despite his Mormonism. I just never thought they’d do such a thing.

Today, though, the latest big name in Christian political circles came down off the fence. I’m assuming that you’re sitting down - if not, you need to be. Ready? Pat Robertson is endorsing Rudy. Seriously. Link is here.

Now, a couple of caveats. First, none of this means anything to me as far as influencing my vote, nor do I think it should have any influence on anyone else’s vote. However, this being a fallen world and all, there are some folks who will pay attention to what these folks do. Secondly, I think that most of these folks are WAY too entrenched in the political power structure of this world, and that as a Christian, I don’t know how they can really play the game the way they do. By pointing out all these endorsements, I don’t mean to suggest that I approve of their MO.

The thing that is important (and slightly encouraging) to me is that not everyone is following Dobson’s lead off the political cliff. I’m very happy to see that an element of pragmatism is finally coming to the surface.

Finally, note that no big-time endorsements seem to be heading Fred or McCain’s way. I’m thinking that the Republicans may just be heading for a two-man race. Romney is leading in all the polls in NH and IA, and Rudy is leading in the national polls, and in big early states like Florida. Fred’s performance over the next two months will tell whether my speculation is correct or not, but if so, it will be very interesting to see how a Rudy/Romney race plays out.