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.The Witness Protection Program
Ever wonder how the government’s Witness Protection Program works? Or where it came from? Alex Mayyasi gives you some answers at Pricenomics.
A Board Members Guide to Accreditation
Some fundamentalist schools resisted accreditation for years. A handful still do. One possible reason may be because they do not understand how accreditation works.
The organization that accredits the accreditors–CHEA–has recently released “A Board Member’s Guide to Accreditation” by Judith S. Eaton. It is a 28-page document aimed (obviously) at people who serve on the boards of institutions of higher learning. It is also a valuable document for anyone who wishes to understand what accreditation is or how it works.
There are still a few institutions that resist accreditation on principle. A few more simply don’t want to go through the work and expense of accreditation. Several fear that they simply could not live up to the organizational and academic requirements of accreditation.
Board members of both accredited and unaccredited schools will find this document helpful. So will others who wish to understand what accreditation is and how it works. It is available for download as a PDF file.
Trump’s Surprise Victory Sends Shock Through Higher Ed
So says the Chronicle of Higher Education. We’re shocked. Shocked, I say.
White male voters without a college degree largely powered his stunning victory. That leaves academic leaders facing an existential question: What’s their place in a society with which they now appear to be so profoundly out of touch?
Pardon me while I chortle.
Report, Apology, and Editorial Comment
The visit to Bob Jones University went well. It’s an exciting place right now. I spent my time with the seminary, which has been strengthened by the addition of Neil Cushman (Ph.D. from Clarks Summit) and Greg Stiekes (Ph.D. from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary). I was glad to get a look at it. Taken on balance, I believe that I can recommend Bob Jones University more highly than ever.
Unfortunately, my commitments yesterday left me without opportunity to update the Central Seminary blog. I try to make that a daily occurrence. My apologies for having to skip a day.
It was an odd feeling to know that a president was being elected, but to be so bound up with activity that the political events hardly even registered. When I collapsed in bed last night, I had no interest in hearing how the election had turned out.
I fully expected to wake up to news about another President Clinton this morning. To my surprise I learned that we shall have President Trump. I am not unhappy with this turn of events. While neither was a good choice, I dreaded the prospect of four years with Hillary and the helm.
Having said that, I hardly look at President-To-Be Trump as the savior of America. Conservatism is not the same thing as nationalism. It is not the same thing as fiscal responsibility (though conservatism does entail fiscal responsibility)–and, in any event, we have no reason to believe that President Trump will be fiscally responsible. True patriotism is never promoted through braggadocio and bluster. We will have a president who has publicly boasted about doing the kind of things for which Hillary’s husband was subjected to public shame. That we could have a President Trump is a statement about how much America has changed, how far our expectations have been degraded, how much virtue has been lost, and how brazenly we have learned to celebrate the vile.
I am relieved that we appear to have dodged a bullet, but I am not hopeful about the next four years.
The Printing Press, Literacy, and the Rise and Fall of the Secret Society of Adults
Brett and Kate McKay are at it again, with a followup to the recent article on the problem of immaturity among young men. They’ve been reading some of the right stuff and they are drawing some good conclusions. Again, well worth a read.
The central problem can be summarized this way: in world where “everything is for everybody,” an illusion emerges that “everybody knows everything.” Which is to say, the current media landscape leads one to believe that all knowledge is out there and easily accessible, and that it can, and should be, economically summarized. Yet while breadth of knowledge has decidedly expanded (Eric Schmidt once noted that we create as much information every two days as was created in the whole of human history up to 2003), depth of knowledge has shrunk. Adults no longer acknowledge the hidden expanses lying beneath a subject that might yet be plumbed.
A Biblical Case for Prepping?
It’s been provided by Brian Crosby at Reformation 21. Here’s his conclusion.
Why Read Old, Pagan Books?
So asks Jason Baxter at The Imaginative Conservative. Here is part of his answer:
Antiquity, then, especially in the Archaic Age, has become for us a kind of buried Atlantis, wherein we can potentially find truth and beauty of exceptional rarity. And the modern student becomes a kind of intellectual archaeologist, or to borrow a better metaphor from Hannah Arrendt, a pearl diver, who dives deep into the depths of the past.
Why Growing Up Is Hard To Do
As far as I know, Brett and Kate McKay are not Christians. Nevertheless, they grasp the significance of a serious social problem: the lack of maturity among young (and sometimes older) men. They’ve published a pretty thoughtful essay on the topic at The Art of Manliness. It’s well worth a read.
When people say they don’t want to embrace adulthood, what they really mean is that they don’t want to be a grownup themselves, but they want to live in a world where everyone else is. They want competent, effective politicians to represent them; they want their journalists and doctors to be smart and level-headed with a comforting mantle of gravitas; they want their children’s teachers to be dedicated and on-the-ball; they want customer service to be friendly and efficient; they want police officers to be honest and fair. They want the world to be stable, predictable…so they can afford to be erratic and irresponsible. They want to be kids, but live in an adult world, where grownups are at the ready to take care of their every need.
Bauder to Deliver the Stewart Custer Lectures at Bob Jones University
On Tuesday I’ll be at Bob Jones University lecturing on the history of Baptist fundamentalism. These lectures are in honor of Stewart Custer, one of the most important scholars in the history of the university. I don’t know whether the lectures are open to the public, but if you’re going to be in Greenville, I’m sure the university offices could tell you.
Children of Hurin–Great Price
J. R. R. Tolkien’s Children of Hurin for Kindle is under two bucks at Amazon. I thought you’d want to know.
Herbert’s “Prayer (I)”
Prayer (I)
George Herbert
Prayer the church’s banquet, angel’s age,
God’s breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth
Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner’s tow’r,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six-days world transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
Exalted manna, gladness of the best,
Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,
The land of spices; something understood.
George Herbert wrote this sonnet in 1633, and the historical context must be remembered while unpacking some of its meaning. The poem provides a wonderful example of the analogical nature of art. It consists of a series of metaphors, each of which is meant to provide an image of prayer.
- List the metaphors, then ask yourself exactly how prayer is like the thing in each image.
- More specifically, what sorts of prayers would correspond to each image? Does Herbert see prayer as a single exercise, or as a variety of exercises?
- If Herbert is right about prayer, then how should it be practiced? What place should it occupy in a believer’s life?
Do We Have a Duty to Vote (For . . . )?
Do Christians have a duty to vote? More specifically, do they have a duty to vote for the lesser of two evils (whomever they think that might be)? Brian Lee gives “9 Reasons Christian’s Don’t Need to Vote for the Lesser Evil.” Here’s one:
No party owns a Christian’s vote, such that to withhold it is to add to the opponent’s tally. Not voting in this election is not a de facto vote for the other guy or gal. Not voting doesn’t subtract, it doesn’t give away, what hasn’t been earned in the first place.
Help in Selecting a Suit
The past several years have seen a shift away from pastors wearing suits. The decision to opt for more casual wear may be a statement or it may just be a preference for comfort. Still, some pastors wear suits every day, and all pastor will find themselves in situations where a suit is necessary. All pastors should know how to select a suit and how to wear a suit. Wearing the wrong suit, or wearing a suit badly, will often do more damage than good.
Need help in selecting a suit? Here’s a useful guide for ascending the “suit ladder.” It wasn’t put together by Christians. It was written by men who just want to help you know how to look good.
There’s really nothing wrong with a pastor looking good. For that matter, there’s really nothing wrong with any man looking good. But you can only look so good in dockers and a polo. You can only look so good in jeans and a tee. And you can’t look good in shorts or Crocks. Period.
Friends of C. S. Lewis
In an article on C. S. Lewis’s friendships, Joseph Pearce suggests that the great don’s friends can be reckoned across generations. Pearce traces those friendships from Lewis’s present, back to his past, and into his future.
Lewis was, however, as Ben Jonson said of Shakespeare, “not of an age but for all time,” which means that he counts amongst his friends not only his contemporaries but also the great writers and thinkers of civilization. These illustrious friends whom Lewis never met except in their books are the eminenti of literary history, far too numerous to mention, Lewis being so widely read and so omnivorous in his reading.
In Case You Didn’t Know
Muhammed was a feminist. In fact, Muhammed was a radical feminist.
You didn’t know that? Neither did anyone else until Jim Garrison, founder and president of Ubiquity University, enlightened us in the Huffington Post. He’s evidently read the Quran, you see, and he knows.
Don’t think that Moses or Jesus had anything to do with it.
Jesus did not explicitly comment on the status of women, although he did associate with women of ill repute and with non Jewish women. Moses was thoroughly patriarchal and there is virtually nothing in the Torah that indicates specific concern about women’s rights.
What about Muhammed?
He both explicitly taught the radical equality of women and men as a fundamental tenet of true spirituality, and he took numerous concrete measures to profoundly improve the status and role of women in Arabia during his own lifetime.
Well, that clarifies everything, doesn’t it? If Garrison knows as much about Muhammed as he clearly does about Jesus and Moses, then I think we can draw a few conclusions.
Seriously, folks, you can’t make this stuff up.
GARBC Resolution on Preaching Christ from the Old Testament
PROCLAIMING CHRIST FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT
The messengers of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches, meeting together in regular conference June 28—July 1, 2016, at Harvest New Beginnings in Oswego, Illinois,
Believing that the Old Testament Scriptures are rich in teaching concerning Christ (Luke 24:27; John 5:39), regarding such topics as His incarnation, death, resurrection, glory, Messiahship, kingship, and much more,
Rejoicing in the privilege of preaching, teaching, and proclaiming the Old Testament in the light of Christ and New Testament revelation,
Understanding that the meaning of the Old Testament does not change, yet recognizing that further New Testament revelation about Christ’s life, death, glorification, and future rule clarifies the divinely intended meaning of various teachings of the Old Testament, including the reality of an intricate and complicated law system (Col. 2:16, 17; Heb. 10:1),
Declaring that, while desiring to move the listener from the Old Testament context toward Christ, one must not force the text to convey New Testament teaching or to reveal Christ; being assured that there are times when one can preach an Old Testament text, understanding the writer’s intended meaning for his original hearers and then pointing the contemporary audience to rightly respond to the teaching point of the text,
Admitting that some have been guilty of preaching the Old Testament merely moralistically, at times missing the opportunity to draw the listener toward Christ, grace, and the gospel, and that some have overused typology in the Old Testament Scriptures or made connections to Christ that are suspect,
Noting also that some have wrongly used allegory and that others advocate a Christ-centered methodology built on a faulty redemptive-historical approach to interpretation, a tactic that makes the advance of God’s redemptive plan the delineating factor in the historical context of any Bible passage, an approach often arising out of hermeneutical systems that confuse Israel and the church,
Recognizing that while a redemptive purpose of God in the world is fleshed out in the Old and New Testaments, a more comprehensive theme for the underlying purpose of God in the world, taught in Scripture, is His glory, with redemption as a means to that end (Eph. 1:6, 12, 14), we
Urge all students of the Word to rightly divide the Old Testament, making use of a grammatical-historical approach to interpretation, allowing the central truth intended by the writer to emerge from the text or texts;
Encourage students with a clear grasp of the writer’s intended meaning of the text in its historical context to then give strategic scrutiny to the text, aware of the progressive nature of Scripture and God’s plan, the promise-fulfillment of Scripture in Christ, direct prophecies, legitimate types and foreshadowing, the longitudinal themes of the Bible, and other proven and balanced approaches to understand the text in light of its possible fulfillment in Christ; and
Exhort all preachers, teachers, and students of God’s Word not to neglect the Old Testament, but to proclaim it faithfully, revealing to listeners the unity and richness of God’s revealed Word, and in a richer, fuller way proclaiming Christ and redemption to the glory of God, “warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus” (Col. 1:28).
Conspiracy Theories
Dwight Longenecker asks why conspiracy theories are popular in America. And he explains why we don’t need them. Read more at The Imaginative Conservative.
From the Tower of Babel down through human history it has always been so. The rich and powerful have always schemed behind the scenes. They have always made alliances and broken them, built secret armies, waged war both secret and open. They have always built vast wealth, met in secret, and schemed to control the world. Through the ages, their secret societies have taken different forms and moved across the globe and across human history like a pack of ravenous and cunning wolves.
We do not need conspiracy theories to know this.
Old Parked Cars
I never would’ve thought of a blog like this. But I’m glad somebody did. It may be a guy thing, but it’s fun to browse and see how often you find yourself saying, “I used to have one of those.” Or those. Or those.
A Critique of Academic Publishing
Daniel Lattier insists that “Academics Write Rubbish that Nobody Reads.”
Sadly, however, many academic articles today are merely exercises in what one professor I knew called “creative plagiarism”: rearrangements of previous research with a new thesis appended on to them.
He has a few special remarks about the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. As a member of the American Academy of Religion, I can only say that we resemble those remarks.
Toxic Charity?
Americans love charity. They jump to help relieve the latest disaster. But sometimes charity is not what’s needed, at least not exactly as it is being given. So argues James Huenink at the Federalist in an article entitled “How to Make Sure Your Charity Doesn’t Keep People Poor.”
Relief undermines developing nations’ economies. Clothing donations given to charities like Oxfam and the Salvation Army are often shipped overseas, where they destroy local textile markets. Why buy a locally made shirt, when you can get a better quality, cheaper shirt donated from America? For every secondhand shirt we ship to Africa, a local clothing manufacturer or retailer loses a sale. Soon, the textile mill goes out of business.
APPLICATION & AID