5 comments

1. “What has God said?” “Has God said?”
   -Hmmm. I’ve seen these sayings somewhere before. Any WSCAL students out there to help?

   “Too many folk think that the doctrine of predestination is the alpha and omega of Reformed theology. The Reformed churches know nothing of such a definition!”
   “…the doctrine of divine election…is still to be published in due time and place in the Church of God…in the spirit of discretion and piety…” COD I:14

   “The rationalism of modern fundamentalism reflects the Quest for Illegitimate Religious Certainty (QIRC) or the desire to know things the way God knows them as distinct from the way he reveals himself to us. It is a desire to get behind revelation.”
   -Ames is hitting on this a bit here? :“To test God is to seek some divine perfection in an unlawful manner.”p.276 Marrow of Theology

2. Great interview. I have distributed the link link to it around to various people so they can get a brief, concise glimpse at some of the issues I’ve been attempting to explain to them recently.

   Regarding GD’s question about “evangelicalism:” To what extent to do you think that the late 20th century “Christian press” (CT and others, in particular) has been responsible for the vague and evasive use of that label as a generalization for American protestants? (I’m thinking of the way the secular press has grabbed onto buzz words, handles, cliche’s, etc. and turned them into labels that soon became mainstream. Examples include “hacker,” which was a perfectly legitimate word used to describe an electronics hobbyist who fooled around bread-boarding microcomputers until the 80’s when it was robbed by press to imply illegal invasion and theft of someone else’s data; “gay” was very commonly used in English to mean a certain mood until the press hi-jacked it from the homosexual subculture, changing the meaning forever)

   Too bad this had to happen to “evangelical.” Many Lutherans still use that word in the name of their churches, but now it carries a different meaning (much to the delight of the ELCA, I’m sure, but not to more confessional synods).

3. George,
   You said:
   ““gay” was very commonly used in English to mean a certain mood until the press hi-jacked it from the homosexual subculture, changing the meaning forever.”

   Certainly the word has been painted with moral acceptance nowadays yet “gay” has had the sense of sin: wanton, licentious, and dissipated. The guys sending for Lot and company would definitely fit that description.

4. Good point, Drollord! I guess that’s why the last decade of the 19th Century got that title, as well – a time of materialistic abandonment. So it seems that the “gay” subculture picked it up appropriately.

   Nevertheless, point being that the media didn’t have to cater to their whims, but went right along with the flow and shunted the word into mainstream usage carrying an even more lascivious connotation.

   I like the term “evangelical” in the Reformation sense of it and I’m saddened that it has come to mean American fundamentalist (in the pejorative sense or otherwise, depending on one’s point of view) Protestant in its present usage and often wonder how it got warped around to that new meaning. And I’m thinking that somewhere along the line some kind of media source, religious or secular or both, was largely responsible for it.

5. LOL! The Ramones! Well, you can laugh at me too, since I turn up the radio whenever The Cars’ “You’re Just What I Needed” comes on.

   Would never have suspected it 🙂

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