Introduction: Certain topics are guaranteed to generate troll-swarms, and trying to be sensible about Judaism is one of them. I am actually tempted to open up the comments on this post in order ...
Bat-Guano Crazy
Only God Sees the Visible Church
“Doesn’t this reveal that according to this definition the visible church is just as invisible as the invisible church is? When we use a descriptive adjective like visible, it naturally raises the questions, ‘Visible to whom? From what vantage? When is it visible? Who can see it?’ If the answer is that only God can see the visible church, and this is what we have set up by definition, wouldn’t it be good to find a phrase that points to the same group of people, but does not mislead in this way? . . . Let’s call them the historical church.”
Letters Filled With Nothing But Words
Letter to the Editor: Re: The Bottom of the Empathy Hole I come to NQN to see something lit on fire. I was not disappointed! P.S. I detect the smell of empathy burning. jph ...
Rage Against the Machinery
[A gratuitous assertion] “that when any FVish positions, anywhere in the world, ‘are given their due comeuppance,’ my response is that of flying ‘into a rage.” Whereas that is pretty much the only thing I haven’t tried. I have argued, debated, conceded points, reasoned, made distinctions, offered to debate publicly, made jokes, and hired three necromancers to cast a spell on the Mississippi Valley Presbytery. Actually, that last one is just an example of the next to last one.”
The Bottom of the Empathy Hole
Preamble: If you are here for the really inflammatory stuff, that doesn't really come in until the penultimate section. But if you want to understand the reason for the inflammatory stuff, I am afraid ...
Yeah, That Was Really Bad
In the spirit of No Quarter November, there will be no qualifications, or explanations. But the season does not exclude retractions and/or apologies, and so that is what this should be filed under. An email blast went out from Canon Press that was advertising our family series of books, and there were some really unfortunate …
What Abraham Saw
“And this is why Abraham when he saw the day of Christ, rejoiced to see it and was glad. He did not look forward to the first coming of Christ as the final fulfillment of the promise, but rather as the groundbreaking for the fulfillment of the promise. The cornerstone was laid, and this indicated that the construction on the city had commenced.”
Why the Heck Not?
Refusing to Take That Test Is Passing It
“If our justification were to be lost if we scored less than 100 percent on the justification test (administered by St. Peter at the Pearlies), every last one of us, yours truly included, would be headed for the bad place. We don’t take the justification test for our justification. Jesus took that test. And no, this should not make us want to sin that grace may abound.”
What Justified Eyes Are Seeing
“When we say that something or other is ‘necessary to justification’ . . . we have to be absolutely clear what we are meaning. Do we mean ‘that which is revealed in the Bible concerning justification,’ or do we mean ‘that which a sinner has to understand to be justified’? If we affirm the latter, then we are denying the Pauline doctrine of justification apart from works of the law.”