Why theology matters

OK, I can't really prove that theology matters, but I can share how meditating on infinity helped me. Remember those old time preachers who would intone “God loves you so much that he would've died for you even if you were the only one? I think when I first heard this I accepted it with youthful credulity, but later when depressed I made the obvious inference: “Yeah, well, I'm NOT the only one—so what? I 'm still depressed.” Gradually, I thought of the math, and it not only helped, but led me to the theology: if you split 10 million dollars ten ways, you've made ten millionaires! If you split one thousand trillions among a million people, each is a billionaire! But infinity is so large that no piece into which it can be split is even slightly smaller than infinity. So, the assertion by the preacher that I thought was sentimental, even treacly, turns out to be mathematically precise: God already DID die just for me! The infinity of his grace, split among all humans that have ever lived, and ever will, is STILL infinity: all of God, just for me. (Not because there are an infinite number of infinitely insignificant gods, but because the one true God is infinite.) That's why God really is waiting to hear us pray, and is incapable of distraction. It is WE who are distracted, while his eye is upon us, waiting for us to look back at him. A child understands this merely as “God is really big” and if that still works as an adult, fine! But this is for the skeptic or the doubter. This leads to the openness of God. I've read next to nothing about it, but still have my doubts. Everything in Scripture, and even the Greek philosophers speculating about God (see Hermann Bavinck on this), agree that he is infinite. That must mean infinite in wisdom and power and all dimensions of space, including time. “Now his Glory has filled all the Earth. Holy is God the LORD” (Infinity of space followed by infinity of power) And if that's just poetry, it's not very glorious. A self styled “progressive” might admit: “We proud humans just say that to the little god we have invented so he feels good” which is nonsensical and almost blasphemous! And idolatry is blasphemous, although it would be better to think of it as petty and ridiculous, as when Isaiah said: Cut down a tree. Burn half of it for fuel, and worship the rest. I suppose the good motivation behind openness is to make our prayers and actions matter. God has already revealed to us that they do! I supposed if meditating on HOW, and why, they matter in a world with a Sovereign God helps your faith, do it. But there is a lot of vain speculating that doesn't help at all. Yes, most early Pentecostals threw out the wisdom of theology along with the futility, but you and I needn't go in the other direction and forget that every theologian that ever lived once wore diapers, and probably will wear them again if he or she lives long enough! More to the point, we are sinful, and so are our speculations if we think they are even half as important as God's self-revelation through Scripture. Even Karl Barth summed up hundreds of thousands of his own words with a Sunday School song: Jesus Loves Me This is know, for the BIBLE tells me so! Naturally, we need to understand how to interpret and apply Scripture, but with humility, not arrogance and self will. Or a “Progressive” agenda. What is progress if there isn't a timeless standard to measure against? What's next, removing the age limit on elders? You've probably read Webb's “Slaves Women and Homosexuals” in seminary. I haven't finished it, but the first half makes his point pretty well, and it's nothing new, really, just using contemporary hot button examples. End of sermon;-) P.S. You can't talk theology w/o footnotes, right?! Here they are: FOOTNOTE: Think of the universe: if you could split it in half, you could still go on infinitely in that direction. No matter how many 'Halves” you split it into, it still is infinite if you go away from the split. Split again, and it's still infinitely large. There is no measurement you can take where length times width times height would be any smaller than infinity. And, of course, if you travel back towards the imaginary “split” you can go infinitely far into that “half” too. Each half is exactly as large as the whole! Your “Division” of space is imaginary, as is any conception of God that is finite. But our God is real!

Weak-kneed liberals who CAN'T teach with authority

It's often said that Jesus didn't come to found a church. If understood as a dismissal of Christianity, as is often said by theological liberals like Rudolph Bultmann, it's annoying but true in a way. But not in the way the "Christian" liberals mean it:
Because Jesus DIDN'T come to start just another religion.

HE CAME TO RULE THE WORLD!

He is the King!

Already!
The only place he doesn't reign completely is the social and political realm, and in rebellious human hearts. He rules the stars and the planets. (Why do you think they stay in their orbits?) He rules you and me if we let him

(I think that's what the book's about but I'm about 320 pages short of finishing)
Dallas Willard, "The Divine Conspiracy" pp.20ff.

See also "Redeeming Science"

According to Poythress, PHYSICAL LAWS AREN'T JUST LIKE DIVINE LAW, THEY ARE PART OF IT!

Legalism v. Antinomianism

"The measure of righteousness, but not the means of righteousness"

.

Legalism is the default of all religions. Even mine. I've been there. Following Jesus is different. The Law is still the MEASURE of righteousness, since Jesus (the MEANS) is the only human who ever followed it perfectly, and completely, as a human. Sinful humans (me, for example) cannot follow God's moral law. Our frustration at our obvious failure is what must drive us to Jesus and his complete, sinless perfection before the Law.
Misuse of the Law comes in several forms:
1. If I compare my own transgressions with other humans, it leads either to pride or despair, but never to Jesus.
2. If I ignore God's Law, I thereby create my own law, which I still disobey.
3. If I view the Law as a path to God, I fail. I fail in an especially miserable way if I THINK I followed it, for then I deceive myself much like #2. The legalists and the antinomians make EXACTLY the same mistake. They just look different while they stumble.
Only by turning to Jesus am I freed from the sin which makes Law-following impossible. But the moral law is still holy, righteous, and good, as Paul wrote, and "perfect" as David declared. It's using it as a means to Jesus that is wrong.
Finally, even our reason is fallen and we have a tough time teasing out the moral law from the Old Testament law. It takes work, but it's not really that hard. Anything repeated in the New Testament, like the Ten Commandments, is binding, morally, on Christians today. That includes rules about sex, which go back to Genesis 2--many centuries before the Law was given at Sinai!

David, prompted and fully inspired by the Holy Spirit, said
"The Law of the LORD is perfect."
What part of "perfect" don't some of us get?
Have you never read "..as we gaze intently into the PERFECT LAW THAT GIVES FREEDOM"
Disobedience is the sign of bondage. Obeying God's Law is the sign of our freedom. By grace, we are freed from sin, and THEN we can freely obey.

I especially recommend "The Prodigal God" by Tim Keller. It is one of the best books I've ever read.

Saying "God is Love"
is very different from saying that "Love is God" (Love being subject to subjective definition.)
It's also very different from "God is indulgent" which, as an overarching attitude, is anything but loving. (Especially if it means unhealthy and indiscriminate giving.) Instead, truly knowing that God loves us, in spite of our very real sin, and at the unimaginable cost of his very own Son . . . THAT is a love worth celebrating.

Anticipating a defense of Modernism. . .

You can live the rest of your days in denial, if you can get away with it. But remember Niemoller: At first they came for the Jews&I didn't speak up, then for the Communists...Catholics...and when they finally came for me, there was no one left to speak up.
We are still on that continuum. Nothing, philosophically, has improved. Modernism [and the equally pernicious post-modernism] rules here as much, if not more, as it ever did. Into this vacuum of truth, power always intrudes: Germany, Russia, global corporations, China, whomever. The “salting” which held back the tide of wickedness is losing its savor. And all this was predicted by a certain outcast in the Gospels. Our so-called “progressive values” are nearly irreversibly moving us towards perdition and the final, richly deserved judgment. We can pray like Hezekiah for a break “in our time” but he was no more perfect than I am.
You, by God's grace&the color of your skin, may have received a temporary burst of freedom, but it's an illusion. Try speaking up about abortion and homosexuality, and see where it gets you. NOwhere—all you can manage is a futuile attempt to blame everything on the Religious Right. (which does share plenty of blame, but in a way that lessens your own responsibility not a whit.)

Is the media anti-Christian

[An online friend insists the media is trying to reach out to Christians, esp. the "Emergent Church" and is even a sincere believer himself]http://disq.us/xgpho


No doubt that's how it looks from your perspective. “Common grace” extends in all directions, and I'm sure you and even some who aren't believers are sincere in at least trying to be open minded. But I'm referring to a number of specific affronts, which we've discussed here (the persecution of the California gynecologists, for example), and more broadly to worldview. Modernism is our state religion. (Read Machen's “Christianity and Liberalism” for a classic statement of the specifics, long before the Religious Right “got a-holt” of the idea.) This religion is taught in our schools quite specifically. Since it is a way of thinking, it is more pervasive than what is thought of as religious rituals, which can be superficial. The MSM media never questions whether modernism is true, or whether it ought to be taught to our students and the basis of all political deliberations.
So it's much worse than "sentiment"--it is a pervasive, unquestioned falsehood that is incompatible with Christianity and freedom itself.

A New Right Entirely

To the Editor, Boston Globe:
Adrian Walker is entitled to his opinion about Senator Brown, but, in fact, Massachusetts voters didn't “give gay marriage” to anyone. Gay people are free to marry in all 50 states, consistent with their various rules concerning degree of consanguinity, and the number, age & sex of partners. Massachusetts voters were denied a chance to be heard on this issue in 2008. The only votes that mattered were those of four unelected, unaccountable justices who imposed their personal views on us in the name of progress. This includes the Chief Justice, who, according to Mass Lawyers Weekly, neglected oversight of the corrupt probation department—a duty actually within the purview of our judiciary.


"...Chief Justice for Administration and Management Robert A. Mulligan and Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall, have neglected their duties by allowing the corruption to continue."


http://masslawyersweekly.com/2010/11/26/corrupt-probation-system-stain-on-judiciary/


http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/12/11/how_now_brown/