Theology Central
Theology Central exists as a place of conversation and information for faculty and friends of Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Posts include seminary news, information, and opinion pieces about ministry, theology, and scholarship.Communion on the Moon?
It’s been tried. Badly, if one holds a New Testament view of the ordinance.
Gift Book Suggestions for Conservatives
Jed Donahue provides a list at The Imaginative Conservative.
Local Church Membership
Is church membership necessary? What does church membership mean? What obligations does it entail? Michael Riley answers these questions in “The Necessity of Church Membership” at Diakrisis.
Membership is important because church discipline is designed by God as a way for you to grow spiritually. As we have already seen, discipline only makes sense if membership exists. Your theology might be deeply opposed our church’s, and your decisions might violate our church covenant at every point, and yet I won’t be coming to your house to ask you about it—if you are not a member of our church. And while you might think that it would be better not to have that kind of accountability, the Bible says otherwise.
Feminism and Maleness
S. M. Hutchinson asks whether feminists are man-haters in his brief essay, “A Short Course on Feminism.”
[E]ven if someone feels no ill-will toward men in general, but supports programs that proscribe maleness in accordance with a formula that makes them “equal” to women despite their manifest differences, this denies their being as male and prohibits them from exercising it. What better practical example might there be of hatred, especially interesting among those who invariably find it among people who refuse to accept sexual deviation as personal identity?
Well, that’ll be controversial.
Paul Helm on the Imago and Trinity
In the latest Helm’s Deep – Modern Trinitarian fads vs. Augustine, Calvin
The Trinity is used in another way as a ‘model’ of being human. Moderns have postulated what have always seemed to me to be extravagant ideas about the imago as relations between Individuals in union, mirroring the mutual indwelling of the three persons of the Godhead. A trinity-like community with others, being as the Lord of creation is tri-personal. It seems to have been forgotten that the three trinitarian persons are one substance, God himself.
To avoid this then maybe they veer towards another modern fad, understanding the Trinity as social, as three persons sharing one divine nature, three individuals of one unique kind. But (again) the trinitarian persons are persons of the numerically one God, not members of a trio of divine persons each in some sense generically divine. In any case there is a distinction between thinking of human nature as having a Trinitarian structure, which was Augustine’s view; and it consisting in one human being as having a perichoretic relationship with others.
Ben Witherington on Going It Alone
His essay is “The Narcissism of ‘Solitary Religion.’” Here’s part of what he says:
There is, I suppose, a sort of paradox here, but it is a very natural one. Faith is something that no one else can do for you. It must be your own faith, or it isn’t faith at all in the proper sense. You can no more have faith by proxy than you can be born by proxy. You can take a degree in absentia, but you cannot take part in faith that way. But when you are born you are normally born into a family. It is like that with faith. The faith is your own, but it immediately admits you to the household of faith. So the Church is not patting itself on the back, or trying to keep itself going, when it says to anyone who professes faith in Christ: you must be a member of a Church and take advantage of the fellowship and the means of grace that the Church affords.
Kids Still Prefer Paper Books to E-Books
Kate Stolzfus at Education Week asks, “Do ‘Digital Natives’ Prefer Paper Books to E-Books?” Part of her answer:
Indeed, the ability to “toggle” between print and digital for different types of information consumption might be a key aspect of effective literacy today.
Tozer on the Regulative Principle (And He Wasn’t Even Reformed)
Moses was instructed to make sure that the tabernacle was “according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount” (Hebrews 8: 5). Moses did not have the authority to improve upon God’s design. The pattern God gave Moses was not a suggestion, and then Moses could take artistic license, as we say.The tabernacle, in order to be approved by God, had to be according to the pattern shown to Moses.
The pattern was a revelation to Moses, and Moses was faithful to that pattern.
This is where we need to get back to in the church. We need to understand what the pattern is, and that God has given us a pattern. Everything we do must be in complete harmony with that pattern. To improve upon the pattern, to compromise the pattern, is to incur God’s displeasure.
Tozer, A.W. Delighting in God (Kindle Locations 449-454). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Annunciation by Rilke
Translated by Anna Staples
This poem is a translation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Verkündigung,” from the Book of Images.
Playful and poignant, the poem envisions the confusion of the angel Gabriel in the presence of Mary, as he forgets his message and is overwhelmed with the immediacy of Mary herself.
You’re not more near to God than we.
To Him all things are far.
And yet your hands — how wondrously
Grown full of grace they are.
Such hands by woman never grew
So ripe, so fulsomely.
I am the day, I am the dew:
You are the tree.
I’m weary now (such leagues I’ve come!),
Forgive me, I’ve forgot
What he who sat within the sun
Told me to speak about:
He said to say to you who sense —
But space unsettles me.
Look: I am the Beginning, hence —
You are the tree.
I lifted up my wings abroad,
And spanned a mighty space;
And now my garments overflow
Your little dwelling-place.
And still you sit here so forlorn,
And hardly look at me.
I’m merely wind among the thorns:
You are the tree.
All angels are as shy as this,
And let each other be.
And yet I’ve never felt before
Desire so mightily.
Perhaps—perhaps It has occurred,
What you have dreamed and guessed.
All Hail, for now my soul beholds
How ripe you are at last!
You are a high and mighty Door
And soon will open wide.
You are the Wood, the sweetest ear
To which I sing; and yet I fear
My songs are lost inside.
And so I’ve come. A thousand dreams
Are now fulfilled through me.
God looked at me, the lightning flashed —
You are the Tree.
Questions:
- Contrast the theological particulars of this poem with its sensibility. Which is more powerful?
- Who is the Tree? Why is this an appropriate image?
This Week’s Nick
Jeff Straub talks about his visit to Winners Chapel, an African Pentecostal church.
Subscribe to In the Nick of Time here.
Ryrie’s collection update
New American Commentary on Genesis 1-11
Kindle version is under a buck right now.
![Genesis 1-11: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary) by [Mathews, Kenneth]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51bdDy1KQ5L.jpg)
Premodern Sensibilities
The deepest of worldly emotions in this period [the Middle Ages] is the love of man for man, the mutual love of warriors who die together fighting against odds, and the affection between vassal and lord. We shall never understand this last, if we think of it in the light of our own moderated and impersonal loyalties. We must not think of officers drinking the king’s health: we must think rather of a small boy’s feeling for some hero in the sixth form. There is no harm in the analogy, for the good vassal is to the good citizen very much as a boy is to a man. He cannot rise to the great abstraction of a res publica. He loves and reverences only what he can touch and see; but he loves it with an intensity which our tradition is loath to allow except to sexual love.
Lewis, C. S. The Allegory of Love (eBook Original) (Kindle Locations 202-207). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
Homeschooling Today
Kerry McDonald says, “It’s a Great Time to Be a Homeschooler.” Read at the Foundation for Economic Education.
According to new data released this month by the U.S. Department of Education, the number of homeschooled children has doubled since 1999 to 1.8 million children in 2012, or 3.4 percent of the overall school-age population. (As a comparison, about 4.5 million children are enrolled in U.S. K-12 private schools.) According to the DOE data, the geographic distribution of today’s homeschooling population is evenly split, with about one-third each in rural, urban, and suburban areas. “Concern about schools’ environments” remains a top driver for homeschooling families, with 9 in 10 survey respondents indicating it was an important reason in their decision to homeschool.
John Kerry: An Israeli Perspective
Ruthie Blum, managing editor of the Algemeiner, evaluates Kerry’s performance as Secretary of State for Israel Hayom. Her article is entitled, “Good Riddance, John Kerry.” If that doesn’t give you a sense of how she feels, here’s a quotation:
Even Bozo the Clown would be better than Secretary of State John Kerry.
The Date of Christmas
Why do we celebrate Christmas on December 25? Is Christmas really a “baptized” pagan holiday? William J. Tighe answers these questions in “Calculating Christmas” at Touchstone Magazine.
Rather, the pagan festival of the “Birth of the Unconquered Sun” instituted by the Roman Emperor Aurelian on 25 December 274, was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians. Thus the “pagan origins of Christmas” is a myth without historical substance.
Tozer on the Preacher’s Task
But my task is to give a report on the character of God, or as I like to state it, the perfection of God. I want to tell you what God is like, and when I am telling you what God is like, if you read and listen with an open mind, you will find faith spring up automatically. It takes the restored knowledge of God to bring forth our faith. I do not believe there was ever a time in the history of the church when we needed this more than we need it today.
Tozer, A.W. Delighting in God (Kindle Locations 342-345). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
YES.
Just, yes.
Thomas Oden Passes Away
Arguably, he was one of the very few theologians to cross the line from non-conservative theology to a version of orthodoxy. See a summary at Christianity Today.
Some of Charles Ryrie’s Library Sold
For the bibliophiles out there, check out this report by Dan Wallace on the sale at Sotheby’s of some of the books from Ryrie’s collection.
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