GORDON PITTS
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
October 17, 2008 at 7:31 PM EDT
University of Texas economist James Galbraith is taking a pilgrimage this weekend – to the farming settlement on Lake Erie's north shore where, 100 years ago this week, his late father, John Kenneth Galbraith, the U.S. liberal icon, was born.
The professor will join the gaggle of Galbraiths descending this evening on the West Elgin Dramatic Society hall in Dutton, Ont., to hand out a literary award in his father's name.
No doubt, they will also express bittersweet satisfaction that the financial crisis sweeping the world is proving John Kenneth Galbraith was right – about the dangers of hyper-capitalism, the excesses of Wall Street, and the madness of financial deregulation.
“He saw the whole thing as a march of folly and continued to write about it up to his last book published in 2005,” says James Galbraith, an occasional adviser to the Barack Obama campaign, and who carries the torch for the ideas of his father, who died in April, 2006.
Over the past 30 years, John Kenneth, a man of towering stature and ego, was dismissed by detractors as being out of touch with reality in face of the steamroller of free-market capitalism, and the apparent triumph of such laissez-faire adversaries as Ronald Reagan and economist Milton Friedman.
But now, his warnings about the dangers of unchecked capitalism seem prescient.
His son James says the scenario of 2008 was vividly anticipated in The Great Crash, his father's book about the dramatic 1929 market collapse.
“It's about the runaway and deregulated environment, the belief that good times will never end, about the fraud that builds up inside that cocoon, about what happens when the illusions are stripped away and the thing crashes,” James says.
In fact, James Galbraith is blown away by the speed at which a lame-duck Republican administration has embraced his, and his father's, views.
On the decision by Washington to buy equity stakes in U.S. banks, “I was wildly surprised in the sense that I recommended this was exactly what they should do.
“I thought I would have to wait for a new administration to straighten out what they were starting to do – but they moved quite quickly. They basically faced reality.”
James Galbraith believes the panic of 2008 will not descend into another depression. Government is a much more significant factor in the U.S. economy than in 1929, despite rearguard action by free-enterprisers. The recent moves by Washington help restore an appropriately regulated system in the New Deal tradition, he believes.
John Kenneth Galbraith's work will never win acceptance by mainline theoretical economists, who are disdainful of the lack of equations and numbers in his work, says Richard Lipsey, a prominent Canadian economist and professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University.
“But for people who worry about policy, he certainly is on the radar.”
Where better to celebrate his revival than in southwestern Ontario? Dutton, near his birthplace in Iona Station, seems far removed from Wall Street, its artificially contrived financial products, conspicuous consumption and executive bonuses.
“I think we've gotten away from basic finance,” says John Kenneth's nephew Jerry Galbraith, a local financial planner with Investors Group.
“There are so many things out there that are created just to put money in someone else's pocket.
“It's just basic greed. Everyone wants to find a way to just have more money. You don't find a lot of that out here in the country. That's what my uncle was raised on.”
Yet, as Mr. Galbraith wrote in his 1964 book The Scotch, the Scottish-Canadian farmers of Elgin Country were not antagonistic toward wealth that is honestly earned and modestly exhibited. He observed that some people like money for what it will buy, or for power and prestige, but “the Scotch wanted it for its own sake.”
The Galbraiths who will assemble tonight in the drama hall, above the Dutton-Dunwich municipality office, include James Galbraith's brothers Peter and Allan. Their mother, Catherine, died this month at 95.
The family is scattered around North America but it has retained its ability to navigate through troubled economic waters. James remembers calling his father in the depths of the October, 1987, market upheaval.
“James, not to worry,” John Kenneth Galbraith said, “I've been in cash for three weeks.”
There was a pause.
“But I'm sorry to say the same could not be said of your mother. She finds it very hard to sell the General Electric [stock] that her family bought from Thomas Edison for a dollar.”
The Scotch of southwestern Ontario would have understood.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Dangerous Times
Humiliation often leads to horrendous consequences! It is a lesson we should learn from history. And one that is applicable to many areas of our lives.
Germany was defeated in WW 1. The humiliation following that defeat resulted in the desire for the people of Germany to find their pride again. Hitler seemed to be the means of recapturing their national pride. Hitler created the rescue the Germans in the Sudeten! Czechoslovakia could not stop the overwhelming force of the Nazis and soon the German people of Czechoslovakia were reunited with their German brethren.
The Soviet Union collapsed. They were humiliated by the failure of their own making. Now, following their humiliation they are determined to re-establish their pride. Georgia may only be the first!
When you are humiliated and taken for granted as being toothless, it is easy to respond, often with violence. Hitler did it, and now Putin is doing it! It can be dangerous to jab the bear through the bars.
There are dozens of correlations. They are worthy of our consideration! These are very dangerous times.
Germany was defeated in WW 1. The humiliation following that defeat resulted in the desire for the people of Germany to find their pride again. Hitler seemed to be the means of recapturing their national pride. Hitler created the rescue the Germans in the Sudeten! Czechoslovakia could not stop the overwhelming force of the Nazis and soon the German people of Czechoslovakia were reunited with their German brethren.
The Soviet Union collapsed. They were humiliated by the failure of their own making. Now, following their humiliation they are determined to re-establish their pride. Georgia may only be the first!
When you are humiliated and taken for granted as being toothless, it is easy to respond, often with violence. Hitler did it, and now Putin is doing it! It can be dangerous to jab the bear through the bars.
There are dozens of correlations. They are worthy of our consideration! These are very dangerous times.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Jonah the racist!
Can you imagine resenting the mercy of God? Getting angry over souls being pardoned?
It is the resentment which comes when people who we believe have lived lives a whole lot less worthy than ours, receive the same reward!
I have been thinking a lot lately about why some of us who have been very traditional in our relationship with Christ, our worship styles, and our evangelism methods, are troubled by a more emergent or progressive methodology.
I have been led to study Jonah! Rather than being the hero of the book named after him, he was really the loser. In fact I read in amazement as a man who had been called to preach the love of God, actually harbored hate!!
Why would Jonah have such contempt for the people to whom he had been called to preach the love of God? Could it be that he felt himself superior? It was almost as if he was saying, “God I am worthy of you love! I have done (well almost) everything you have asked …. But these are not your people, I am! They are not worthy of your love, but I am!
It was F.B. Meyer who once said that when we see a brother or sister in sin, there are two things we do not know: First, we do not know how hard he or she tried not to sin. And second, we do not know the power of the forces that assailed him or her. We also do not know what we would have done in the same circumstances.
Stephen Brown, Christianity Today, April 5, 1993, p. 17. Jonah was a man who although preaching the mercy of God actually wanted the judgment of God to fall on Nineveh! Perhaps in the recesses of our hearts we are truly resentful over “the price we have paid” to follow Christ. Being told dancing is sin, bowling is sin, jewelry is sin, slacks are sin, and the list goes on and on, has filled our hearts with both resentment against those who have not made these sacrifices, and the thought that they, could somehow share in our forgiveness is troubling to us! After all some of them even have tattoos!
Or it might just be spiritual arrogance, that we are amongst the few truly worthy of the love of God. When in Jonah 3:10, we are told, “When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.” What was Jonahs response? Jonah 4:1, “But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry.” G. W. Knight writes, “When a person works an eight-hour day and receives a fair day’s pay for his time, that is a wage. When a person competes with an opponent and receives a trophy for his performance, that is a prize. When a person receives appropriate recognition for his long service or high achievements, that is an award. But when a person is not capable of earning a wage, can win no prize, and deserves no award—yet receives such a gift anyway—that is a good picture of God’s unmerited favor. This is what we mean when we talk about the grace of God.” G.W. Knight, Clip-Art Features for Church Newsletters, p. 53.
Oh yes he was glad he was “saved!” But really longed to see the judgments on Nineveh!
Jonah had successfully delivered the message of the Lord to the people of Nineveh and had seen 120,000 people saved from the wrath of God, yet he had failed to learn any lesson about God’s love or about himself.
Jonah 4:5-11 reads, “Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live." But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?" "I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die." But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"
At the conclusion of the book God attempts to let Jonah know that his concept that he owns the vine, even though he had nothing to do with it, is flawed.
He enjoyed its presence much like we have enjoyed the Church, but that Jonah neither had created it nor had the right of ownership to it! Perhaps the same way we feel we have a right to the mercy and protection of the Church, and then try to determine the methods used to bring people into it, and who is worthy of the mercy of God and how it should be distributed. In his book
No Wonder They Call Him the Savior, Max Lucado tells the following story to illustrate God’s love, grace and concern for those who are lost. “Longing to leave her poor Brazilian neighborhood, Christina wanted to see the world. Discontent with a home having only a pallet on the floor, a washbasin, and a wood-burning stove, she dreamed of a better life in the city. One morning she slipped away, breaking her mother’s heart. Knowing what life on the streets would be like for her young, attractive daughter, Maria hurriedly packed to go find her. On her way to the bus stop she entered a drugstore to get one last thing. Pictures. She sat in the photograph booth, closed the curtain, and spent all she could on pictures of herself. With her purse full of small black-and-white photos, she boarded the next bus to Rio de Janeiro. Maria knew Christina had no way of earning money. She also knew that her daughter was too stubborn to give up. When pride meets hunger, a human will do things that were before unthinkable. Knowing this, Maria began her search. Bars, hotels, nightclubs, any place with the reputation for streetwalkers or prostitutes. She went to them all. And at each place she left her picture--taped on a bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel bulletin board, fastened to a corner phone booth. And on the back of each photo she wrote a note. It wasn’t too long before both the money and the pictures ran out, and Maria had to go home.
The weary mother wept as the bus began its long journey back to her small village. It was a few weeks later that young Christina descended the hotel stairs. Her young face was tired. Her brown eyes no longer danced with youth but spoke of pain and fear. Her laughter was broken. Her dream had become a nightmare. A thousand times over she had longed to trade these countless beds for her secure pallet. Yet the little village was, in too many ways, too far away. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes noticed a familiar face. She looked again, and there on the lobby mirror was a small picture of her mother. Christina’s eyes burned and her throat tightened as she walked across the room and removed the small photo. Written on the back was this compelling invitation. "Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home." She did.” Max Lucado, No Wonder They Call Him the Savior, Multnomah Press, 1986, pp. 158-9.
Dear Jesus, I am a product! A product of society, Church culture and my own personality! Please dear Lord, remove anything that would cause me to be an obstacle to the demonstration of your mercy. And rather that I be a vessel to help accomplish it! When your mercy is shown, allow my heart to truly rejoice!! Amen
It is the resentment which comes when people who we believe have lived lives a whole lot less worthy than ours, receive the same reward!
I have been thinking a lot lately about why some of us who have been very traditional in our relationship with Christ, our worship styles, and our evangelism methods, are troubled by a more emergent or progressive methodology.
I have been led to study Jonah! Rather than being the hero of the book named after him, he was really the loser. In fact I read in amazement as a man who had been called to preach the love of God, actually harbored hate!!
Why would Jonah have such contempt for the people to whom he had been called to preach the love of God? Could it be that he felt himself superior? It was almost as if he was saying, “God I am worthy of you love! I have done (well almost) everything you have asked …. But these are not your people, I am! They are not worthy of your love, but I am!
It was F.B. Meyer who once said that when we see a brother or sister in sin, there are two things we do not know: First, we do not know how hard he or she tried not to sin. And second, we do not know the power of the forces that assailed him or her. We also do not know what we would have done in the same circumstances.
Stephen Brown, Christianity Today, April 5, 1993, p. 17. Jonah was a man who although preaching the mercy of God actually wanted the judgment of God to fall on Nineveh! Perhaps in the recesses of our hearts we are truly resentful over “the price we have paid” to follow Christ. Being told dancing is sin, bowling is sin, jewelry is sin, slacks are sin, and the list goes on and on, has filled our hearts with both resentment against those who have not made these sacrifices, and the thought that they, could somehow share in our forgiveness is troubling to us! After all some of them even have tattoos!
Or it might just be spiritual arrogance, that we are amongst the few truly worthy of the love of God. When in Jonah 3:10, we are told, “When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.” What was Jonahs response? Jonah 4:1, “But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry.” G. W. Knight writes, “When a person works an eight-hour day and receives a fair day’s pay for his time, that is a wage. When a person competes with an opponent and receives a trophy for his performance, that is a prize. When a person receives appropriate recognition for his long service or high achievements, that is an award. But when a person is not capable of earning a wage, can win no prize, and deserves no award—yet receives such a gift anyway—that is a good picture of God’s unmerited favor. This is what we mean when we talk about the grace of God.” G.W. Knight, Clip-Art Features for Church Newsletters, p. 53.
Oh yes he was glad he was “saved!” But really longed to see the judgments on Nineveh!
Jonah had successfully delivered the message of the Lord to the people of Nineveh and had seen 120,000 people saved from the wrath of God, yet he had failed to learn any lesson about God’s love or about himself.
Jonah 4:5-11 reads, “Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live." But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?" "I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die." But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"
At the conclusion of the book God attempts to let Jonah know that his concept that he owns the vine, even though he had nothing to do with it, is flawed.
He enjoyed its presence much like we have enjoyed the Church, but that Jonah neither had created it nor had the right of ownership to it! Perhaps the same way we feel we have a right to the mercy and protection of the Church, and then try to determine the methods used to bring people into it, and who is worthy of the mercy of God and how it should be distributed. In his book
No Wonder They Call Him the Savior, Max Lucado tells the following story to illustrate God’s love, grace and concern for those who are lost. “Longing to leave her poor Brazilian neighborhood, Christina wanted to see the world. Discontent with a home having only a pallet on the floor, a washbasin, and a wood-burning stove, she dreamed of a better life in the city. One morning she slipped away, breaking her mother’s heart. Knowing what life on the streets would be like for her young, attractive daughter, Maria hurriedly packed to go find her. On her way to the bus stop she entered a drugstore to get one last thing. Pictures. She sat in the photograph booth, closed the curtain, and spent all she could on pictures of herself. With her purse full of small black-and-white photos, she boarded the next bus to Rio de Janeiro. Maria knew Christina had no way of earning money. She also knew that her daughter was too stubborn to give up. When pride meets hunger, a human will do things that were before unthinkable. Knowing this, Maria began her search. Bars, hotels, nightclubs, any place with the reputation for streetwalkers or prostitutes. She went to them all. And at each place she left her picture--taped on a bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel bulletin board, fastened to a corner phone booth. And on the back of each photo she wrote a note. It wasn’t too long before both the money and the pictures ran out, and Maria had to go home.
The weary mother wept as the bus began its long journey back to her small village. It was a few weeks later that young Christina descended the hotel stairs. Her young face was tired. Her brown eyes no longer danced with youth but spoke of pain and fear. Her laughter was broken. Her dream had become a nightmare. A thousand times over she had longed to trade these countless beds for her secure pallet. Yet the little village was, in too many ways, too far away. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes noticed a familiar face. She looked again, and there on the lobby mirror was a small picture of her mother. Christina’s eyes burned and her throat tightened as she walked across the room and removed the small photo. Written on the back was this compelling invitation. "Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home." She did.” Max Lucado, No Wonder They Call Him the Savior, Multnomah Press, 1986, pp. 158-9.
Dear Jesus, I am a product! A product of society, Church culture and my own personality! Please dear Lord, remove anything that would cause me to be an obstacle to the demonstration of your mercy. And rather that I be a vessel to help accomplish it! When your mercy is shown, allow my heart to truly rejoice!! Amen
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
God Deleted From Worship, Replaced With Ricky Ricardo
By Joe Bob Briggs 01/15/2008
Professors at Dallas Theological Seminary published a position paper Tuesday eliminating the concept of “God” and/or “Lord” from Christian worship and replacing it with worship of the Bible only. The step had been anticipated for several years and was considered a formality within the actual “Bible only” movement, but there were a few theologians from an older generation who waxed nostalgic about the change.
“A lot of these young guys don’t go back this far,” said Willard “Flip” Rasmussen, head of the Department of Greek Hermeneutics and Computer Science, “but back in the late seventies, early eighties, I would frequently preach about God. I don’t mean the way we say it today—I mean, we’ll probably always say it—we would really talk about him like he was capitalized and everything. But around 1985 it all became Word of God, Truth of God, God’s Revelation—we pretty much narrowed it down to this little baby right here”—plunking a Scofield Reference Bible—“or, for your students, this monster over here”—picking up a Greek New Testament. “In some ways I miss those days. God was a rascal when we still had him around.”
The only churches to be immediately affected by the position paper are the evangelical “Bible churches,” most of them pastored by DTS graduates, but several other denominations are expected to follow suit, including the Southern Baptists, the Church of God, the other Church of God, the Church of God Universal, the Assembly of God, and the Church of God’s Assembly. Ironically, several denominations using “God” in their actual name have not worshipped the deity himself for at least twenty years, but so far none of them have suggested changing names to reflect the new reality.
“Sure, we could go Assembly of the Book or Church of the Word or something like that,” said Roger Flanders, official spokesperson for the Church of the Universal God of Gods in Dayton, Tennessee. “We’ve talked about it. We’ve had marketing meetings. But you can’t go against your brand. The logo is out there. People know what it means. Look at it this way. Frito-Lay hasn’t sold any Fritos for a long time now. It’s all Doritos, right? But would they change that Frito name? I don’t think so.”
Among other worshippers likely to welcome the change are the so-called megachurches, many of them named after the natural environment (Saddleback, Lakewood, etc.) in the manner of real estate subdivisions and pagan Canaanite cults. “To tell you the truth,” said Meg Strothers, leader of the women’s athletic leagues at Grove Mountain Cathedral in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, “I’ve never been that comfortable with the G-word. It’s not that we have anything against God, it’s just that you say that and everybody is like, ‘What the flip?’ Let’s be honest, it’s a vague concept. It confuses the children.”
Not all the reaction was positive. Some individual churches in parts of eastern North Dakota and rural Florida issued statements saying they were continuing to worship God, even at the expense of Biblical inerrancy, and that, if forced to choose between God and the Bible, they might be seeking affiliations with Nigerian archbishops. At Harvard Divinity School, there was a concern that the position paper didn’t go far enough. “We stopped teaching the worship of God in the 1950s,” said Dr. Hildegard Wittman-Brumley, “so in one sense this is a welcome development. However, to merely replace one form of dead Christendom with an equally senile brand of pentecostal literalism is, in our view, less than postmodern.”
Most of the denominations and churches involved will be working out the implications of the new policy at their various conventions and retreats throughout the year, but one source of possible sectarianism has already reared its ugly head: Which Bible is considered the Bible? At the press conference announcing the change, a DTS professor clumsily laid his King James on a chapel pew at the same moment that the seminary president was holding aloft a New International. In his haste not to cause offense, the professor grabbed for the text and knocked it onto the floor, which resulted in gasps from the audience and a later frenzied debate about whether the Bible now needs to be ritually burned. Meanwhile, in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, a Bible-worshipper from the other side of the aisle, the Reverend William “Bill” McWilliam, publicly burned his New International on purpose as an act of protest while preaching from the Living Word Bible, resulting in a criminal citation from the fire marshall for lighting fires in close proximity to sleeping people.
The only other issue that still needs to be worked out theologically is how to preach the literal truth of the one Bible without mentioning either God, Yahweh, Jehovah, the Lord, etc. “But actually, wasn’t that always the problem?” said Rasmussen. “Too many names, too many concepts. We’re just telescoping all that stuff into one term. We’re re-branding. If you have to talk about a higher power, you just say Ricky Ricardo. It’s consumer-friendly, everybody knows Ricky Ricardo, everybody likes Ricky Ricardo, and it’s still in syndication in most markets so it’s hip without being ridiculously up-to-date.”
One worry at this early stage is that stay-at-home believers who get most of their Bible study from television won’t fully understand the implications of worshipping the book itself instead of a universal force who either wrote the book or spoke it into existence or otherwise caused its appearance. “That’s the same thing, though,,” said Paul Crouch of the Trinity Broadcasting Network when asked about it, “because the Bible is magic. It’s a magic book. The only difference now is we’re not making a big deal about where the magic came from. We’ve got research on this.”
That research, according to Barna Associates, was carried out in focus groups with Christians who had donated at least $10,000 to evangelists in a single fiscal year. Without being told the nature of the experiment, these donors were placed in a temperature-controlled room and shown three altars. On the first altar were various images of God, including a reproduction of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, George Burns in character, and a multi-media collage from a Soho gallery representing the creative spark. When these objects were hacked to smithereens with a four-foot pickax, there were expressions of only mild disapproval from the focus group.
On the second altar, researchers placed various Bibles, from plain miniature New Testaments to ornate hand-lettered Latin editions from the Middle Ages. When the Bibles were first ripped into pieces, then burned, there were cries of protest, wailing, tears, and loud accusations of blasphemy that only be quelled after several minutes. According to data analysts, the Bible burning registered a 64 on the destruction-of-cherished-belief-systems scale, compared to only an 8 for the God-demolishing.
As a control experiment, and mainly at the request of Benny Hinn Ministries, which financed most of the research, a third altar was decked out with various western currencies, including the dollar, the Euro, the pound sterling, and the Swiss franc. At a pre-determined signal, about $100,000 in bank notes were doused with kerosene and ignited, causing panic, hysteria, screams of agony, and a mad rush as several people tried to put out the fire with their own bodies. Barna reported a 98 on the belief-system scale and most of the focus group required subsequent counseling. All of the television ministries pronounced themselves pleased with the results, indicating that you could eliminate one focus of the Bible, but as long as you kept the other one in sharp relief, there was no danger of losing the attention of the main body of believers.
Professors at Dallas Theological Seminary published a position paper Tuesday eliminating the concept of “God” and/or “Lord” from Christian worship and replacing it with worship of the Bible only. The step had been anticipated for several years and was considered a formality within the actual “Bible only” movement, but there were a few theologians from an older generation who waxed nostalgic about the change.
“A lot of these young guys don’t go back this far,” said Willard “Flip” Rasmussen, head of the Department of Greek Hermeneutics and Computer Science, “but back in the late seventies, early eighties, I would frequently preach about God. I don’t mean the way we say it today—I mean, we’ll probably always say it—we would really talk about him like he was capitalized and everything. But around 1985 it all became Word of God, Truth of God, God’s Revelation—we pretty much narrowed it down to this little baby right here”—plunking a Scofield Reference Bible—“or, for your students, this monster over here”—picking up a Greek New Testament. “In some ways I miss those days. God was a rascal when we still had him around.”
The only churches to be immediately affected by the position paper are the evangelical “Bible churches,” most of them pastored by DTS graduates, but several other denominations are expected to follow suit, including the Southern Baptists, the Church of God, the other Church of God, the Church of God Universal, the Assembly of God, and the Church of God’s Assembly. Ironically, several denominations using “God” in their actual name have not worshipped the deity himself for at least twenty years, but so far none of them have suggested changing names to reflect the new reality.
“Sure, we could go Assembly of the Book or Church of the Word or something like that,” said Roger Flanders, official spokesperson for the Church of the Universal God of Gods in Dayton, Tennessee. “We’ve talked about it. We’ve had marketing meetings. But you can’t go against your brand. The logo is out there. People know what it means. Look at it this way. Frito-Lay hasn’t sold any Fritos for a long time now. It’s all Doritos, right? But would they change that Frito name? I don’t think so.”
Among other worshippers likely to welcome the change are the so-called megachurches, many of them named after the natural environment (Saddleback, Lakewood, etc.) in the manner of real estate subdivisions and pagan Canaanite cults. “To tell you the truth,” said Meg Strothers, leader of the women’s athletic leagues at Grove Mountain Cathedral in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, “I’ve never been that comfortable with the G-word. It’s not that we have anything against God, it’s just that you say that and everybody is like, ‘What the flip?’ Let’s be honest, it’s a vague concept. It confuses the children.”
Not all the reaction was positive. Some individual churches in parts of eastern North Dakota and rural Florida issued statements saying they were continuing to worship God, even at the expense of Biblical inerrancy, and that, if forced to choose between God and the Bible, they might be seeking affiliations with Nigerian archbishops. At Harvard Divinity School, there was a concern that the position paper didn’t go far enough. “We stopped teaching the worship of God in the 1950s,” said Dr. Hildegard Wittman-Brumley, “so in one sense this is a welcome development. However, to merely replace one form of dead Christendom with an equally senile brand of pentecostal literalism is, in our view, less than postmodern.”
Most of the denominations and churches involved will be working out the implications of the new policy at their various conventions and retreats throughout the year, but one source of possible sectarianism has already reared its ugly head: Which Bible is considered the Bible? At the press conference announcing the change, a DTS professor clumsily laid his King James on a chapel pew at the same moment that the seminary president was holding aloft a New International. In his haste not to cause offense, the professor grabbed for the text and knocked it onto the floor, which resulted in gasps from the audience and a later frenzied debate about whether the Bible now needs to be ritually burned. Meanwhile, in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, a Bible-worshipper from the other side of the aisle, the Reverend William “Bill” McWilliam, publicly burned his New International on purpose as an act of protest while preaching from the Living Word Bible, resulting in a criminal citation from the fire marshall for lighting fires in close proximity to sleeping people.
The only other issue that still needs to be worked out theologically is how to preach the literal truth of the one Bible without mentioning either God, Yahweh, Jehovah, the Lord, etc. “But actually, wasn’t that always the problem?” said Rasmussen. “Too many names, too many concepts. We’re just telescoping all that stuff into one term. We’re re-branding. If you have to talk about a higher power, you just say Ricky Ricardo. It’s consumer-friendly, everybody knows Ricky Ricardo, everybody likes Ricky Ricardo, and it’s still in syndication in most markets so it’s hip without being ridiculously up-to-date.”
One worry at this early stage is that stay-at-home believers who get most of their Bible study from television won’t fully understand the implications of worshipping the book itself instead of a universal force who either wrote the book or spoke it into existence or otherwise caused its appearance. “That’s the same thing, though,,” said Paul Crouch of the Trinity Broadcasting Network when asked about it, “because the Bible is magic. It’s a magic book. The only difference now is we’re not making a big deal about where the magic came from. We’ve got research on this.”
That research, according to Barna Associates, was carried out in focus groups with Christians who had donated at least $10,000 to evangelists in a single fiscal year. Without being told the nature of the experiment, these donors were placed in a temperature-controlled room and shown three altars. On the first altar were various images of God, including a reproduction of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, George Burns in character, and a multi-media collage from a Soho gallery representing the creative spark. When these objects were hacked to smithereens with a four-foot pickax, there were expressions of only mild disapproval from the focus group.
On the second altar, researchers placed various Bibles, from plain miniature New Testaments to ornate hand-lettered Latin editions from the Middle Ages. When the Bibles were first ripped into pieces, then burned, there were cries of protest, wailing, tears, and loud accusations of blasphemy that only be quelled after several minutes. According to data analysts, the Bible burning registered a 64 on the destruction-of-cherished-belief-systems scale, compared to only an 8 for the God-demolishing.
As a control experiment, and mainly at the request of Benny Hinn Ministries, which financed most of the research, a third altar was decked out with various western currencies, including the dollar, the Euro, the pound sterling, and the Swiss franc. At a pre-determined signal, about $100,000 in bank notes were doused with kerosene and ignited, causing panic, hysteria, screams of agony, and a mad rush as several people tried to put out the fire with their own bodies. Barna reported a 98 on the belief-system scale and most of the focus group required subsequent counseling. All of the television ministries pronounced themselves pleased with the results, indicating that you could eliminate one focus of the Bible, but as long as you kept the other one in sharp relief, there was no danger of losing the attention of the main body of believers.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Funeral
I have conducted hundreds of funerals over my life. Today I had a most marvelous experience. I had opportunity to minister to a family mixed with democrats and republicans, jews and gentiles! The wonderful lady I memorialized was the founder of the abused womens shelter her in Newark, as well as many other wonderful accomplishments. Her last wish was to have someone conduct her service who would be inclusive of her entire family.
I did my best and was motivated by the fact that I really liked this lady! No I had never met her, but show me someones interests and I can show you the person!
I spoke from Isaiah chapter 1, where God told Judah that he was tired of their sacrifices and empty praises, and that by caring for the orphans and widows they would "though your sins be as scarlet be white as snow!"
What marvelous testimony of caring!! It is a shame that the Church is more concerned with their mansions then mercy and justice!
The family, Christian and Jewish were touched by the service! But no more than me!!
"Blessed are the peace makers ..."
I did my best and was motivated by the fact that I really liked this lady! No I had never met her, but show me someones interests and I can show you the person!
I spoke from Isaiah chapter 1, where God told Judah that he was tired of their sacrifices and empty praises, and that by caring for the orphans and widows they would "though your sins be as scarlet be white as snow!"
What marvelous testimony of caring!! It is a shame that the Church is more concerned with their mansions then mercy and justice!
The family, Christian and Jewish were touched by the service! But no more than me!!
"Blessed are the peace makers ..."
ABC Presidential Debates
First off, let me say I loved this format!!! No, I really loved it!!!
Republicans: I think Huck hurt himself with his cynicism and sarcasm!! I was not impressed! He seemed to be trying to sound articulate, but failed miserably. He is a great speaker but it is obvious to someone who has been a public speaker for over 34 years when someone is talking about subjects they have no clue about!
Ron Paul. please! He is so far out it is pathetic.
McCain. His profane outbursts recorded on other blogs appear justified. He tried to cover his anger with the occasional smirk, but I am not buying it.
Rudy. His stock went up in my book. I liked his answers, and he appeared Presidential.
Romney. Wow! It seemed like everyone was ganging up on him, and quite frankly I liked his demeaner. Who is McCain to accuse him of flip flopping! Can anyone say immigration?
Thompson: Was much better tonight, but he is NO Ronald Reagan! Does anyone else think he looks like a blood hound? With the same energy?
Winners: Rudy and Romney
Democrats: I am sorry I am still laughing about Hillarys melt down. She really showed her nature. She is indeed a bitter women! But after Bill who can blame her.
Richardson: He is playing the king maker role. Not qualified!
Obamma: He flip flopped on many issues. I don't trust him!
Edwards: The clear winner!! Articulate on message and qualified. He is passionate and in my estimate the clear winner of the night!!
Total winner: Edwards
Republicans: I think Huck hurt himself with his cynicism and sarcasm!! I was not impressed! He seemed to be trying to sound articulate, but failed miserably. He is a great speaker but it is obvious to someone who has been a public speaker for over 34 years when someone is talking about subjects they have no clue about!
Ron Paul. please! He is so far out it is pathetic.
McCain. His profane outbursts recorded on other blogs appear justified. He tried to cover his anger with the occasional smirk, but I am not buying it.
Rudy. His stock went up in my book. I liked his answers, and he appeared Presidential.
Romney. Wow! It seemed like everyone was ganging up on him, and quite frankly I liked his demeaner. Who is McCain to accuse him of flip flopping! Can anyone say immigration?
Thompson: Was much better tonight, but he is NO Ronald Reagan! Does anyone else think he looks like a blood hound? With the same energy?
Winners: Rudy and Romney
Democrats: I am sorry I am still laughing about Hillarys melt down. She really showed her nature. She is indeed a bitter women! But after Bill who can blame her.
Richardson: He is playing the king maker role. Not qualified!
Obamma: He flip flopped on many issues. I don't trust him!
Edwards: The clear winner!! Articulate on message and qualified. He is passionate and in my estimate the clear winner of the night!!
Total winner: Edwards
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