Let me begin with a confession: I have seen the equivalent of 30 minutes of Duck Dynasty. This makes me uncommitted to the show. I have no intention of watching any more of it. At least, until Phil Robertson goes out and hits a home-run. A&E exercising their free speech called it a foul ball, and beyond that treated Phil as unprofessional. Rumors are that Phil has been looking for a reason to leave and he just found himself one. Read the Rest.<>
Marc Hays: One Miracle of Speech
The following quote is from Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy’s The Origin of Speech, chapter 4 “The Conflict of Political Sense and Common Sense.” This is a conflict we have all felt, but probably haven’t expressed this way…
“The cry for peace and order is a desperate cry. Shouting for freedom and for regeneration of the good old days is of the utmost violence. The lullabies and sugar coating of common sense are not acceptable to crying, weeping, shouting, raging people. They must experience the miracle of seeing the dead come to life again, and foes become friends, and dissent become agreement, and shouts become new words. They must see and hear and touch before they believe. Formal speech produces exactly these miracles. The dead seem to come to life, shout becomes prayers, foes come to terms; inner dissent becomes harmonious song of strophe and antistrophe, of dialogue and chorus.
If speech did not produce these miracles for society, it would be unnecessary. As a “means of communication” it is only used by common sense. But 10,000 languages have been spoken over thousands of years just as often as means of excommunication as of communication. They have cursed the werewolf and the demon and the enemy just as often as they have blessed the child and invoked the spirit and obeyed the Lord and reconciled the enemy. Any tribe has been exposed to constant attack from within and without. It’s formal language has kept it in existence as a body politic through migrations over the earths and over decimatinons and ravages through time. Miraculously, it is anchored in an eternity and defies space and time. Speech is the political constitution of a group beyond the lifetime and living space of any individual, beyond common sense and physical sense.”
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Harold Camping Dies at 92
The California preacher who used his evangelical radio network and thousands of billboards to broadcast the end of the world has died at age 92.
Family Radio Network marketing manager Nina Romero said Harold Camping died at his home on Sunday. She said he had been hospitalized after falling.
Camping was a retired civil engineer who first predicted the Rapture would happen in September 1994. When Judgment Day didn’t come to pass, he blamed it on a mathematical error.
After his second failed prediction in May 2011, the preacher again revised his prophecy, saying he had been off by five months.
Camping said he felt so terrible after the cataclysmic event didn’t occur in October 2011 either that he took refuge in a motel.
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As I sit at an International Airport…
I am sitting at Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport waiting to board a flight for the Dominican Republic. My wife’s sister is a missionary there, and we’re going to visit for a couple weeks. As I sit and watch people board, I am getting giddy about Christ’s Kingdom. There are people everywhere; more than I can count. They’re a field that is white unto harvest, and they’re mostly “brown.” Having 3 bi-racial children, we left the stereotypical, ethnic/racial verbiage behind us several years ago. God has a huge palette of colors, shades, and hues, and he is very creative with it: lots and lots of beautiful people.
Our temporary visit to Heaven, and our never-ending life on the new earth is going to look a lot like an International Airport: more beautiful people than there is sand on the seashore. We’ll turn around and see a multitude no man can count. Praise be to God for the international kingdom Jesus is building. Praise be for God for his mercy to the Hays Haus. May we be a blessing to God’s People (present and future) as we visit them in the Dominican Republic.<>
Uri Brito: Interview with Jason Hood
Over at Trinity Talk Radio, I have an interview with Jason Hood, author of Imitating God in Christ: Recapturing the Biblical Pattern.<>
Uri Brito: Redemptive Education: A Talk at the Genevan Academy Donor’s Banquet in Monroe, LA
I did a talk at a banquet this past week and some of you may be interested:
Uri Brito: C.S.Lewis on being in love
I will be presiding over another wedding tomorrow night, and in my studies came across this quote from C.S. Lewis on being in love:
Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state called ‘being in love’ usually does not last. If the old fairy-tale ending ‘They lived happily ever after’ is taken to mean ‘They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married,’ then it says what probably never was nor ever would be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships? But, of course, ceasing to be ‘in love’ need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense — love as distinct from ‘being in love’ — is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be ‘in love’ with someone else. ‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. it is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.”
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Marc Hays: Responsible Wife and Mother Gets the Boot
This article is two days old, so things may have changed, but if the facts are as they are presented, this deserves public outcry and denunciation of those officials overseeing this debacle. Any new news you may have would be appreciated. Please comment below.
Albanian mom with three American kids makes desperate bid to stay in the U.S. after she’s given 24 HOURS to leave the country
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Peter Jones: Why Christ Cannot Be the Organizing Principle of Dogmatics
I am almost done with the first volume of Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics. It has been an amazing read. Below is a quote I like from early in the book. It shows Bavinck’s precision in thinking something through that at first blush seems right. Throughout this chapter he has been talking about the task of dogmatics (theological study) and how dogmatics should be organized. Here is Bavinck’s definition of dogmatics: Dogmatics can be defined as the truth of Scripture, absorbed and reproduced by the thinking consciousness of the Christian theologian. Here is the quote where Bavinck explains why Christ cannot be the way we organize our theology.
However, the christological organizing principle is subject to even more objections [than the Trinity as organizing principle]. However attractive it may seem at first sight, it is still ununsable. It often rests on the false assumption that rather than Scripture the person of Christ specifically is the foundation and epistemic source of dogmatics. However, we know of Christ only from and through the Scriptures. In addition, though Christ is quite certainly the central focus and main content of Holy Scripture, precisely because he is the midpoint of Scripture, he cannot be its starting point. Christ presupposes the existence of God and humanity. He did not make his historical appearance immediately at the time of the promise [in Eden] but many centuries later. It is, moreover, undoubtedly true that Christ revealed the Father to us, but this revelation of God through the Son does not nullify the many and varied ways he spoke through the prophets. Not the New Testament alone, nor only the words of Jesus, but Scripture as a whole is a Word of God that comes to us through Christ.
What struck me about this quote is how many modern Christians do exactly what Bavinck says we should not do; separate Christ from the Scriptures or elevate the words of Jesus above the rest of the words of the Bible.<>
Augustine on the Kind of Happiness and Life Truly Delighted in by Those Who Inveigh Against the Christian Religion
From Book 2, Chapter 20 of Augustine’s The City of God.
Of the Kind of Happiness and Life Truly Delighted in by Those Who Inveigh Against the Christian Religion.
But the worshippers and admirers of these gods delight in imitating their scandalous iniquities, and are nowise concerned that the republic be less depraved and licentious. Only let it remain undefeated, they say, only let it flourish and abound in resources; let it be glorious by its victories, or still better, secure in peace; and what matters it to us? This is our concern, that every man be able to increase his wealth so as to supply his daily prodigalities, and so that the powerful may subject the weak for their own purposes.
Let the poor court the rich for a living, and that under their protection they may enjoy a sluggish tranquillity; and let the rich abuse the poor as their dependants, to minister to their pride. Let the people applaud not those who protect their interests, but those who provide them with pleasure. Let no severe duty be commanded, no impurity forbidden. Let kings estimate their prosperity, not by the righteousness, but by the servility of their subjects. Let the provinces stand loyal to the kings, not as moral guides, but as lords of their possessions and purveyors of their pleasures; not with a hearty reverence, but a crooked and servile fear. Let the laws take cognizance rather of the injury done to another man’s property, than of that done to one’s own person. If a man be a nuisance to his neighbor, or injure his property, family, or person, let him be actionable; but in his own affairs let everyone with impunity do what he will in company with his own family, and with those who willingly join him. Let there be a plentiful supply of public prostitutes for every one who wishes to use them, but specially for those who are too poor to keep one for their private use. Let there be erected houses of the largest and most ornate description: in these let there be provided the most sumptuous banquets, where every one who pleases may, by day or night, play, drink, vomit, dissipate. Let there be everywhere heard the rustling of dancers, the loud, immodest laughter of the theatre; let a succession of the most cruel and the most voluptuous pleasures maintain a perpetual excitement. If such happiness is distasteful to any, let him be branded as a public enemy; and if any attempt to modify or put an end to it let him be silenced, banished, put an end to. Let these be reckoned the true gods, who procure for the people this condition of things, and preserve it when once possessed. Let them be worshipped as they wish; let them demand whatever games they please, from or with their own worshippers; only let them secure that such felicity be not imperilled by foe, plague, or disaster of any kind.<>
