moderateBaptists.com

The sorts of things that “christian” bookstores shove off on gullible and silly “christian” consumers is becoming more and more reprehensible. Scott’s analysis of the facial expressions of these ‘bible dolls’ is right on the money. Be sure to take a look at San Fran Jesus and Constipated Davey and Guess What Mary and Inebriated Moses.  If Zwingli were alive he would take the whole lot of inventors of these wretched things down to the Limmat.  And Calvin would invite them to a barbecue.

It seems that others are miffed at his latest fundraising scheme.

It appears that Haggard wasn’t exactly truthful in his fundraising letter: Ted Haggard’s recent request for money to keep his family afloat while he attends school was “inappropriate” and “unacceptable,” according to a statement Wednesday by the group that oversees the former president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Good for them.  We certainly see things eye to eye on this one (which isn’t always the case).  Thanks to the Reformed Woman’s Coffee Clutch for the tip.

AFP reports

Israeli officials cast doubt Friday over claims that remains of the second Jewish temple might have been found during work to lay pipes at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem.     “If that was the case, the antiquities authority, which has an observer on site, as well as police, also monitoring the work, would have stepped in,” said archaeologist Dan Bahat, a former excavations official in Jerusalem.  On Thursday, archaeologist Gaby Barkai from Bar Ilan University told local television that “a massive seven metre-long (23 feet) wall” had been found, and urged the government to ask the Muslim religious authorities to stop laying pipes.  Bahat said he would visit the site, but accused nameless archaeologists with a nationalist agenda of “waging a politically inspired campaign, systematically for several years, to strengthen Israeli control over the esplanade”.

Curiouser and curiouser, isn’t it.  Read the whole essay.

Brandon Wason mentions today an upcoming panel discussion at Emory University which sounds absolutely fascinating..  If you are fortunate enough to be in the area you should certainly drop by.  Thanks for mentioning it, Brandon!

David Instone-Brewer has written an expansive review of the SESB.  Read it here.  He concludes, rather rambunctiously,

If you are a PC user, this decision is a no-brainer. Sell your paper BHS, NA27 & UBS4, and buy this package. You don’t need to stop using BibleWorks but you will soon want to have both open. BibleWorks integrates itself well with Libronix and with internet resources via the built-in Link Manager.

No.  Don’t.  It’s never proper to replace an easily portable, non electronic, easy to use  reference tool for one that requires a battery or a cord.  But, do take his advice seriously if you are looking for an electronic supplement to your print collection.

A Texas Baptist (oh but of course) has claimed in an editorial that folk who have decried Southwestern’s “Cookie Degree” are sexist! I suppose he thinks that if he can turn the tables on those who have questioned the program by erecting a straw man, he can divert attention away from the real issue- which is the sexism of those who developed and have implemented the degree program themselves.

Ethics Daily reports

Gary Ledbetter, editor of the Southern Baptist Texan, said in an editorial he believes there is a “sexist” element to criticism of the bachelor’s degree in homemaking being offered to women only at the College at Southwestern, the undergraduate arm of the Southern Baptist Convention seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. “If men and women are different in important ways, they will have different areas of competence,” Ledbetter said. “I’ll stick my neck into the slipstream of thousands of years of human experience and suggest that women are temperamentally better equipped than men to manage the home and nurture children.“

Gary, I’ve got news for ya- men and women are different in two ways- DNA and genitalia. And that’s it. As to competence in any and every other area of human existence, they are exactly equal. And if differences in genitalia equals difference in competence, many of us males are in severe trouble.

Who’s sexist? Why it’s those who pretend to be defending women when in fact they are controlling, circumscribing, and disabling them from being absolutely equal partners in home and society.

August 31, 1572. Heinrich Bullinger, pastor of the Grossmunster in Zurich, rose to address the City Council on the oppressive economic situation of the City and the Canton. Things were bad for the poor and were getting worse, with begging on the rise because so many were ‘down and out.’

The title of his address says it all: “Vorschlag zur Bekämpfung von Armut und Bettelei.”

The essence of the speech can be summarized in two phrases: the poor must be helped and begging must be curbed. Those who can’t work should be helped by the city coffers and those who can, should work. And beggars from other Cantons and lands should be dissuaded from setting up camp in Zurich, and thereby adding to the already difficult circumstances.

That notwithstanding, Bullinger concludes, the Church (and of course the City) should give heed to the actions of the early church as described in Acts 6:1ff. That is, after all, the only proper course of action.

There’s something about some Baptists that makes them believe that if they don’t like something, they should boycott it. “Let’s stop spending money on [insert offensive person, business, or in the latest case, newspaper, here] and they will come to the light and adopt our perspective- rightly whipped into submission by the overwhelming fiscal power of the 4 people on the planet stupid enough to listen to our boycotting idiocy” seems to be the line of reasoning they follow.

The most recent foray into this failed socio-political policy is a group of Baptists who want to boycott Scripps-Howard papers in general and The Memphis Commercial Appeal in particular because of its purported ‘anti-christian’ bias.

Oh please. First, there’s nothing inherently anti-christian about either the Memphis paper or the particular columnist in the Fundamentalists sights. Second, this move - this mindless boycott - will actually see to it that MORE papers are sold!

One gets the impression that “boycotters” really have way too much free time. One can almost imagine them, sitting there playing their XBox or their online game (for countless hours on end) and suddenly thinking “Wow- I’ve just slaughtered Saron the Great with my magic sword of Thursias! I bet I can overcome Christianity’s foes with the mighty Sword of Boycott!”

Christianity’s foes aren’t those outside the Church. Christianity’s foes sit in pews, stand in pulpits, and say the most profoundly stupid things out in public. Christianity’s foes, in truth, are the boycotters themselves.

If Zwingli were alive, he’d show them the river….    Oh for the good old days.