64 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 3-18-17”

  4. Good morning. I served dinner to the artists last night. I do it every year and have so much fun. I needed a break from my real life. In a little while Mr. P and I are going into town to walk the show/festival.
    One artist lost his van. He knew he parked under some pine trees and he had to walk up a hill. When I left the police were trying to help him find it as well as several of the other volunteers. We fed him dinner even though he wasn’t one of our artists.

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  5. I was up and gone by the time Jo posted.
    We had breakfast at the Church this morning. They had a nice program.

    Elvera and I got our breakfast and sat down at a table with four people (2 couples) we had never seen before. A Lady I Had Never Seen Before said, “Are you enjoying living in Greensboro?”

    We gat that sort of thing all the time. She knows our son and grandkids.

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  8. Beautiful pictures, Ricky! Did you take them?

    Peter, technically Mr. Cardinal isn’t “in” the snow. Behind him is a snowy garage roof, so he is safely out of it, though it had been snowing on and off when I took the picture. I liked his spiky hairdo.

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  9. Cheryl, I can only take pictures with my iPad or iPhone. However, I regularly visit the places shown which are clockwise from the top left: Big Bend, Blanco, Alpine, Lake Livingston and Galveston.

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  10. I expect that cardinal to ask, “What are you looking at?”

    They are so pretty. A cardinal in a pine tree with snow on the branches always makes for a pretty picture, IMO.

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  11. The cardinal looked at me and said, “what are you doing at this computer? You need to be picking up ahead of your teenage housekeeper. Here comes the vacuum cleaner now!”

    So, chastened, I’ll be back later . . . 🙂

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  12. A cardinal and snow … Christmas is coming! Will my house be done?? Oh, I can only hope.

    Today is (I hope) the broken bed pickup by Dan the Furniture Repair Man. He said they’ll come fetch it today, even if he has to do it himself — they’ve had some guys out this week from the flu so he’s been behind.

    Carol really wanted me to take her to the library today, she has 29 books she has to return that are overdue. But I told her maybe, depending on the bed pickup status. She also posted a rather negative review online of the facility where she’s staying (mainly hitting them for not offering enough activities) so I suggested she either take it down or try to repost it anonymously at least (it’s under her name). Just seemed like not a real good idea considering she currently owes them a few hundred dollars in back rent and all … Oy.

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  16. Okay, email down to six and the house nearly clean. I got my galley proofs for Mrs. Oswald Chambers yesterday and I get to hunker back with Biddy and crew until I’m done examining, reexamining, checking and answering a handful of questions.

    This is only my 3,950,385,295.635th time reading the manuscript . . . or something like that!

    Wonderful trip to Hawai’i, missing my constant companion for the last week, aka daughter, but happy to be home.

    We’ve got two band members spending the night tonight after a concert at a local church. Stargazer’s birthday needs to be celebrating and then everyone but my husband, son #2 and I are stuck home for the next week without a vacation to take.

    I feel sorry for son #2 whose five year-old kept saying, “I’m going to miss you,” as he packed them off to the airport this morning.

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  19. Tess is that dog breed. And she is very, very smart. Too smart. If I forget to put the cat’s food dishes away, she’ll get up on her hind legs, drag the bowls down and carry them into the backyard where she eats the food and, of course, breaks the dishes.

    Well, still no word from the fix-it guy — I’d asked him to call back with at least a time frame I could work with to do other things today, but that obviously didn’t happen. So I’ve been doing a bunch of house work and Carol is panicking, but that can’t really be my problem right now. I gave her several suggestions — recruit another resident to help her handle all the books on the bus (can’t, everyone’s in a wheelchair); take the books back in 2 trips (can’t, only enough bus fare left for one round trip and she’s lost the card — again — that gives her free bus passage); put her request in to the church office for an errand ministry in a pinch (for the future) (can’t, she’s not a ‘member’ — doesn’t matter, I told her). The library is just blocks from where she lives, it makes no sense for her as her only option to rely on me to drive 25 miles to take her when her books are due.

    I wish she could be more responsible, but she just isn’t and seems to show no signs of changing her behavior. All I can do is help out when I can and say no when I can’t — and show grace as it’s not up to me to change her or to convince her she needs to change.

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  20. Back in the later Dark Ages when we lived in Orlando, Florida, the library would MAIL me books I ordered, along with an envelope to mail them back.

    I was shocked. It must have been that Southern gentility trying to spare this young Navy wife a drive to the only library in the area?

    I think you’ve given her options. She wants you. She can’t have you right now. It’s just like being with a child. Perhaps something could be arranged with the library? Or, doesn’t her housing place have a library?

    You made the right call.

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  22. I don’t know who this guy is, he lives in Oregon and has 72 followers on FB, one of whom is a friend of mine. I thought this post interesting. Does your church struggle to fill on the needed slots?

    FYI

    Jack
    ·
    My local church recently attempted to take the pulse of its members by engaging them in a process of identifying and matching their spiritual gifts and personalities with the needs of the church. Many, perhaps most, of the church members decided not to participate in this vital exercise.

    This Southern Baptist Church is the largest and most dynamic church in our small city. We recently completed a multi-million-dollar building project to accommodate present and future growth. The three worship services, one on Saturday evening and two Sunday morning, are well attended, especially the “traditional” gathering.

    By every apparent measure, things are going well for us. Still, something is not right, as evidenced by the poor participation in our recent self-inventory.

    Most small, struggling congregations have always had difficulty filling teaching and childcare positions with volunteers, but this is now the case with larger churches as well. A friend told me that his 6,000-member former church in the Portland area, much larger than our church, had the same difficulty finding volunteers to help in nursery, youth programs, homeless shelters, and other church functions.

    What is going on when more and more people are attending church and supporting its building campaigns while many of the most critical programs are understaffed and exhausted?
    Sociologists are telling us that the world is changing in radical ways that are affecting our churches. Christian Smith draws attention to the spiritual shallowness and intellectual poverty of today’s youth.

    Charles Murray has studied the growing alienation of the bottom two quintiles of Americans from traditional institutions and values. Robert Putnam sees Americans as retreating to internal, private social arrangements. Americans now “bowl alone” rather than in the leagues of yesteryear.

    Communal values, the backbone of neighborliness and civic duty, have nearly disappeared among great swaths of American social life. These old marks of vital culture have been replaced, in large measure, by a breakdown in self-sacrifice, discipline, duty and obedience to unwritten morality. Much of poorer America resembles a religiously empty proto-slum where hostility, shame and macho have edged out manners and honor. We can think of this as the formation of an updated proletariat, Karl Marx’s term for a besieged and disdained worker class.

    Meanwhile, for the top quintile, an “embourgeoisement” seems to be in process, a segregation of the wealthy into enclaves (Murray’s “Superzips”) where a contemporary secular ethical structure prevails. Whereas the “upper crust” once consciously provided the model for the middle and lower classes, the new bourgeoisie of professional and cultural elites has walled itself off from the rest of society while embracing the latest latte fads of multiculturalism, gay marriage, abortion and diversity, doctrines that have devastated the new proletariat.
    Ironically, you hear more about “inclusion” from the new gated bourgeoisie than from anyone else in society.

    For a picture of the new class of White poor in America, read J. D. Vance’s recent book “Hillbilly Elegy.” For a portrait of the new Sidwell-Friends bourgeoisie, read Murray’s “Coming Apart.”

    All of these societal developments impact church life. We are affected by current trends of ironic detachment, constant distraction, and the collapse of earlier certitudes and habits. Our fellowship seems to be superficial and merely jocular. We are far less likely to volunteer and sacrifice, and far more likely to internalize our spirituality, than earlier generations of Christians. We are constantly on the lookout to preserve our privacy and avoid commitments of more than an hour or two here and there.

    Our calling, as I see it at this moment, is to provide a vital center for our society. We dare not buy into the sterile and self-assured bourgeois Christianity of the rich and aspiring rich. On the other hand, we cannot join the increasingly nonchalant ways of thinking and acting that typify the newly impoverished White class.

    A number of Christian thinkers are suggesting that we choose the “Benedict Option” of retreat from the political and cultural fray. Since we are now a moral minority besieged by an immoral majority, this option is attractive. But I think it is a mistake. I do not know what the answer is insofar as our cultural mandate is concerned, though I believe we have been called to leaven the world.

    As a start, we could use quite a few new volunteers in our Sunday School ministries.

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  24. She’s called the library asking if someone could come get the books from her, but they said no. They’ve been very good about waiving late fees for her since she’s so often hospitalized and just not able to get there on her own steam.

    I know she’s missed my more regular visits, the house stuff has just sidelined me for that in the past several months. I used to get up there maybe twice a month, now (at best) it’s once a month, and sometimes not quite that. With Saturdays being my only day to take care of so many things, it’s just complicated and she really does need a Plan B for serious errands like the library when books are due or overdue.

    She wanted to know if I could take her to the library next Saturday, I suggested she might want to get the books back, one way or another, before that. I still need to make my tax appt and that’s also got to be done on a Saturday as the guy I go to is 15-20 miles in the opposite direction.

    Meanwhile, furniture guy still hasn’t called — I’m sure he’s good at what he does, but staying in touch with customers regarding his pick up schedule isn’t one of his strong suits 🙂 If I’d know it would be this long, I probably could have gotten up to Carol’s this morning and gotten the books back, but he never called back even with the “window” I’d requested. So, here I sit, assuming he’ll come sometime before dark …

    Cleaned up some more kitchen grout and reorganized some things, dishwasher is running. It’s been a somewhat productive day in that regard anyway.

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  30. Weren’t we somewhat recently discussing the controversy in some Christian circles about the subordination of Christ? R.C. Sproul wrote the following, in a brief piece, one of his “Tough Questions with R.C. Sproul” (an email thing I get periodically). Was this the conclusion we came to? Or maybe we didn’t come to one conclusion?

    The question was, “In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, ‘The Father is greater than I.’ What does he mean by that?”

    The beginning of Sproul’s answer:

    “Sometimes when Jesus makes straightforward statements that appear to mean one thing on the surface, they require that we go a bit beneath the surface to resolve the apparent difficulty. In this case, that kind of extra labor is not required. Jesus meant exactly what he said: “The Father is greater than I.” That’s somewhat distressing for Christians because we have this sacred doctrine of the Trinity that describes the unity of the three persons of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Here the Son of God is saying that the Father is greater than he is. This is one of the reasons the church has always confessed a doctrine called the subordination of Christ. Notice that it’s not called the inferiority of Christ. I stress that because in our culture some people conclude that subordination necessarily implies inferiority.

    The reason Christian theology contains a doctrine about the subordination of Christ is that even though the second person of the Trinity is coessential with the Father (he’s of the same essence, “very God of very God,” eternal in his being) there is a distinction among the persons of the Godhead. In the economy of redemption and even of creation, we see certain works attributed to the Father, others to the Son, and others to the Holy Spirit.”

    http://links.biblegateway.mkt4731.com/servlet/MailView?ms=NTM2MTg4MjAS1&r=Mjc0NTIzMTAyMjgS1&j=MTEyMjM2NzA2MQS2&mt=1&rt=0

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  34. Michelle, our church seems to be struggling that way as well. Sunday morning service is full, Sunday school is very well attended and yet we have trouble filling needed teaching spots. It may also be more difficult in this day and age when we need the proper adult/child ratios as well as only using people who have had the “Plan to Protect” training.

    At our annual meeting last Sunday we only had 35 members attend. Our ‘official’ membership is about 145 and Sunday services usually have about 250 to 300 in attendance.

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  35. Chas, the orthodox position of that statement of Christ’s in the Garden is that he was speaking in his humanity, in the same way that he was speaking from his humanity when he said, “The Father is greater than I.”
    Kizzie, for R.C. Sproul to make that statement is a serious departure from orthodoxy. The Athanasian creed makes the orthodox position clear – especially in these quotes:

    “Nothing in this trinity is before or after,
    nothing is greater or smaller;
    in their entirety the three persons
    are coeternal and coequal with each other.

    “That we believe and confess
    that our Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Son,
    is both God and human, equally.

    He is God from the essence of the Father,
    begotten before time;
    and he is human from the essence of his mother,
    born in time;
    completely God, completely human,
    with a rational soul and human flesh;
    equal to the Father as regards divinity,
    less than the Father as regards humanity.”

    Link: https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/creeds/athanasian-creed

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  37. And yet, Sproul says “This is one of the reasons the church has always confessed a doctrine called the subordination of Christ.” That’s what struck me. (He does emphasize, however, that the members of the Trinity are equal.)

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  38. His last paragraph says. . .

    “By the same token, the church historically, except for the filioque dissenters, has stated that, as the Father sends the Son, so the Holy Spirit is sent by both the Father and the Son. As the Son is subordinate to the Father in the work of redemption, so the Spirit is subordinate to both the Father and the Son. But again, that does not mean an inequality of being or dignity or divine attributes. The second person of the Trinity is fully God; the third person of the Trinity is fully God. In that work of redemption we see the expression of superordination and subordination.”

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  39. There’s quite a theological discussion going on these days about a doctrine called the eternal subordination of the Son (ESS). Many are calling it heresy. The ESV version and Wayne Grudem, and looks like R. C. Sproul, are weighing in that Jesus is less. What, a lesser God?

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  40. She has had zofran and fluids and is doing better. It seems someone had a chicken and cheese quesadilla last night then went to the movie and had popcorn.
    They are still admitting her overnight and will reevaluate in the morning.

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  41. A lot of the argument seems to be working background from women submitting to her husbands, thus Jesus submitting to God, rather than taking seriously that Jesus is fully God and not a lesser God. Thus, the reworking of a verse in Genesis to a wording not valid for the meaning of the word, a choice made by the ESV that has already lost them a lot of readers and may lose them more. Her desire shall be “contrary to” her husband. That’s reading into the text what your prior belief says it should say, not translating what it actually does say. (My own household may switch to the NASB after the truly careless theology behind that.)

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  43. Kizzie, Sproul is incorrect. One can quote some of the biggest names in early church history to prove that:
    Augustine of Hippo – author of the City of God, On the Trinity, and many other works of a lasting theological impact throughout the ages of the Church:

    Wherefore, although we hold most firmly, concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, what may be called the canonical rule, as it is both disseminated through the Scriptures, and has been demonstrated by learned and Catholic handlers of the same Scriptures, namely, that the Son of God is both understood to be equal to the Father according to the form of God in which He is, and less than the Father according to the form of a servant which He took…

    Some things, then, are so put in the Scriptures concerning the Father and the Son, as to intimate the unity and equality of their substance; as, for instance, “I and the Father are one;” and, “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God;” and whatever other texts there are of the kind. And some, again, are so put that they show the Son as less on account of the form of a servant, that is, of His having taken upon Him the creature of a changeable and human substance; as, for instance, that which says, “For my Father is greater than I;” and, “The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son.” .

    Link:https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_I/Volume_III/Doctrinal_Treatises_of_St._Augustin/On_the_Holy_Trinity/Book_II/Chapter_2

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  44. Athanasius, who stood against the subordinationist heresy – historically, subordinationism is called a heresy – of Arianism, which said that Jesus was a lesser being than the Father:

    Now the scope and character of Holy Scripture, as we have often said, is this,—it contains a double account of the Saviour; that He was ever God, and is the Son, being the Father’s Word and Radiance and Wisdom; and that afterwards for us He took flesh of a Virgin, Mary Bearer of God, and was made man. And this scope is to be found throughout inspired Scripture, as the Lord Himself has said, ‘Search the Scriptures, for they are they which testify of Me.’

    Link: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_II/Volume_IV/Against_the_Arians/Against_the_Arians/Discourse_III/Chapter_4

    These things being so, come let us now examine into ‘But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, neither the Angels of God, nor the Son;’ for being in great ignorance as regards these words, and being stupefied about them, they think they have in them an important argument for their heresy. But I, when the heretics allege it and prepare themselves with it, see in them the giants again fighting against God. For the Lord of heaven and earth, by whom all things were made, has to litigate before them about day and hour; and the Word who knows all things is accused by them of ignorance about a day; and the Son who knows the Father is said to be ignorant of an hour of a day; now what can be spoken more contrary to sense, or what madness can be likened to this? Through the Word all things have been made, times and seasons and night and day and the whole creation; and is the Framer of all said to be ignorant of His work? And the very context of the lection shews that the Son of God knows that hour and that day, though the Arians fall headlong in their ignorance. For after saying, ‘nor the Son,’ He relates to the disciples what precedes the day, saying, ‘This and that shall be, and then the end.’ But He who speaks of what precedes the day, knows certainly the day also, which shall be manifested subsequently to the things foretold. But if He had not known the hour, He had not signified the events before it, as not knowing when it should be…
    Now why it was that, though He knew, He did not tell His disciples plainly at that time, no one may be curious where He has been silent; for ‘Who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counsellor?’ but why, though He knew, He said, ‘no, not the Son knows,’ this I think none of the faithful is ignorant, viz. that He made this as those other declarations as man by reason of the flesh. For this as before is not the Word’s deficiency, but of that human nature whose property it is to be ignorant. And this again will be well seen by honestly examining into the occasion, when and to whom the Saviour spoke thus. Not then when the heaven was made by Him, nor when He was with the Father Himself, the Word ‘disposing all things,’ nor before He became man did He say it, but when ‘the Word became flesh.’ On this account it is reasonable to ascribe to His manhood everything which, after He became man, He speaks humanly.

    Link: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_II/Volume_IV/Against_the_Arians/Against_the_Arians/Discourse_III/Chapter_6

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  45. More from Athanasius, on the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane:

    And as to His saying, ‘If it be possible, let the cup pass,’ observe how, though He thus spake, He rebuked Peter, saying, ‘Thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.’ For He willed what He deprecated, for therefore had He come; but His was the willing (for for it He came), but the terror belonged to the flesh. Wherefore as man He utters this speech also, and yet both were said by the Same, to shew that He was God, willing in Himself, but when He had become man, having a flesh that was in terror. For the sake of this flesh He combined His own will with human weakness, that destroying this affection He might in turn make man undaunted in face of death. Behold then a thing strange indeed! He to whom Christ’s enemies impute words of terror, He by that so-called terror renders men undaunted and fearless…
    Idle then is the excuse for stumbling, and petty the notions concerning the Word, of these Ario-maniacs, because it is written, ‘He was troubled,’ and ‘He wept.’ For they seem not even to have human feeling, if they are thus ignorant of man’s nature and properties; which do but make it the greater wonder, that the Word should be in such a suffering flesh, and neither prevented those who were conspiring against Him, nor took vengeance of those who were putting Him to death, though He was able, He who hindered some from dying, and raised others from the dead. And He let His own body suffer, for therefore did He come, as I said before, that in the flesh He might suffer, and thenceforth the flesh might be made impassible and immortal, and that, as we have many times said, contumely and other troubles might determine upon Him and come short of others after Him, being by Him annulled utterly; and that henceforth men might for ever abide incorruptible, as a temple of the Word

    Link: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_II/Volume_IV/Against_the_Arians/Against_the_Arians/Discourse_III/Chapter_7

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  46. Sproul actually contradicts himself. First, he says, “Jesus meant exactly what he said: “The Father is greater than I.”’ Then he says, Notice that it’s not called the inferiority of Christ. I stress that because in our culture some people conclude that subordination necessarily implies inferiority. Last time I checked, a thing that is called ‘greater’ means that it is being compared to a thing that is ‘lesser’ and inferiority is a state of being lesser. Sproul cannot have it both ways – either Christ was saying the Father was greater in his divine nature than the Son was, making the Son inferior, or, Christ was speaking from his humanity, not his divinity, and the statement has no bearing on the relation of the eternal Son to the eternal Father.

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  47. It takes a little time for the liver to get up to speed after the gallbladder is removed. The gallbladder acts as a holding tank for the bile produced by the liver. The bile is what enables us to digest fats. So that the liver doesn’t have to produce a huge amount of bile all at once when we eat, it has a reserve, as it were, held in the gallbladder. When the gallbladder is removed, the liver will adjust eventually, but it takes a little time and the bile duct which moves the bile from the liver to the intestines has to enlarge to carry a higher volume.

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  48. I bought a nice Frisbee several years ago. Trouble is, you have to have someone to throw it to. Today at the family picnic I finally got to play Frisbee with some of my students. One boy was so funny, he just sorta wound himself up, never knowing where the Frisbee would go.

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  50. After reading Cheryl’s cheesecake heresy a few days ago, it is good to see she is back on her game dealing with Arianism. Your too, Roscuro. Nice work, ladies!

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  51. Jo. That’s what dogs are for. They love Frisbees.

    I realize there has to be a theological position WRT such things, but I have given up long ago on trying to understand things like “Trinity” and “Eternity”.. It is beyond comprehension. The farther you get into it, the denser it gets.
    John started his gospel: “In the beginning……” What do you mean, John, by “beginning: ? There was no “beginning”, it always was..
    We can’t grasp the concept of “always was”. Nor, “forever will be”.
    Our lives would change considerably if we could grasp the concept that our lives are a single tick in eternity’s clock.
    Assuming that eternity has a clock. That’s another problem.
    Have fun!

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  52. Jo- If the wind is strong enough you can throw the Frisbee into it and it will come back to you like a boomerang. Of course, if the wind is too strong you’d have to run backwards to get it.

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  53. First night without the bed frame, just the box spring and mattress on the floor. It’s like I’m sleeping on a giant dog bed (or cat bed, Annie planted herself smack in the middle of it shortly after I dragged it all into the center of the room before going to bed last night).

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  55. Kizzie, it would seem that R. C. Sproul has since changed his position regarding the Son being subordinate to the Father, since publishing the book the quote you linked came from, Now, That’s a Good Question, which was published in 1996. This is a communication his organization, Ligionier, sent to an inquirer regarding Dr. Sproul’s position this past December:
    blockquote>DEC 22, 2016 | 03:18PM EST
    Here is the official position of Dr. Sproul and Ligonier on the Eternal Subordination of the Son debate:
    Dr. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries deny the doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son and the idea that the Father eternally has greater authority than the Son. The Bible clearly teaches the deity of Christ (e.g. John 1:1; Rom. 9:5; Titus 2:13; Heb. 1:8–9; 2 Pet. 1:1), and there are no degrees of deity. All of the attributes of God belong equally to all three Persons of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is why we confess the Nicene Creed, declaring that the Son is homoousios (i.e. same nature, same substance) with the Father. To use the language of the Athanasian Creed, the Father, Son, and Spirit are “co-equal with each other.” The fifth ecumenical council in AD 553, elaborated on the implications of the homoousios doctrine, explaining that the Father, Son, and Spirit “have one nature or substance” and that they have “one power and authority.” There can no more be levels of authority within the one divine being than there can be levels of deity. The biblical doctrine taught in the early creeds is taught in our Reformed confessions as well. The Westminster Confession declares that the Son is “equal with the Father” (8.2). The Holy Spirit is also equal (WLC Q. 11). The Belgic Confession concurs, saying that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are “equal from eternity” (Article 8). All of this is what it means to confess, along with Scripture, the true deity of Christ and of the Spirit.
    Link: http://www.heartandmouth.org/2017/01/28/subordination-of-the-son-ligonier-and-the-economic-trinity/

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  56. I have never been to Bible School – all my theological training comes from church, supplemented by my own reading. My old retired pastor, whom I shall have to start calling Pastor A because I find myself referring to more than one former pastor frequently, was very careful, when teaching about the work of the Holy Spirit and how Christ accomplished his miracles by the Holy Spirit, to emphasize that Christ, in all he said and did in the Incarnation, was deliberately laying aside his own power as the Son and living as humans live. Christ did this, in order that we who live in him, might also walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. So, having a proper understanding of the nature of Christ, as God and man, really helps us to grow in the knowledge of how we live as Christians. My mother never attended Bible School either, and she, when I told her about the idea of eternal subordination of the Son, was horrified, as she recognized the impact such a teaching had on our view of Christ and our hope of salvation. My father also never had formal Bible training, and he saw the same problem. It is so important to have pastors/elders who preach sound doctrine, as Pastor A did for us.

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  57. Roscuro, what’s “funny” to me in all of this (I don’t think I’ve said this before on here, but maybe I did) is that 20 years ago I had a friend who was an “evangelical feminist,” and really more “feminist” than “evangelical.” (She told me once, “I don’t have a problem with Jesus; I have a problem with Paul.” She thought him a chauvinist. So it isn’t that she said, “Paul is misinterpreted; he didn’t say that” but “Paul said it, but that was just Paul.” Um, was Paul writing inspired Scripture, or not?) One day she told me, “The complementarians are saying that wives are subordinate to their husbands like Jesus is subordinate to the Father. But that’s heresy! Jesus is equal with the Father, just subordinate temporarily as He was incarnate!” I don’t remember her exact wording, just “That’s heresy!” And now 20 years later the conservatives are finally saying, “Wait! They said what? But that’s heresy!”

    I didn’t pay a lot of attention at the time when she said that; I hadn’t read the books she was talking about. But they were already out there. What took the conservatives so long?

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  58. Cheryl, to put it bluntly and succinctly, the conservatives’ fear of feminism – and attending ‘liberal’ ideas – was greater than their fear of heresy.
    The conservative Christian movement in the late 1900s was in a dither over the societal rot they perceived around them and how it seemed to be impacting the church. Therefore, they gathered any and all weapon they could to their aid, without examining if the weapon was loaded or clean enough to fire without backfiring or blowing up. Some of their weapons against the media influence simply weren’t loaded – there were no real grounds to the claims of Satanism in the rock beat or subliminal messaging in films. Some of their weapons backfired, like the Patriarchal movement. And, some, like Eternal Subordination of the Son, have blown up. It’s what comes from trying to accomplish righteousness by the works of flesh, rather than the power of the Spirit.

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  59. Thanks for the input on the matter. I was surprised at Sproul’s saying that the church had always taught that, as I understood that it hadn’t. And I guess it was especially surprising coming from Sproul. But as Roscuro pointed out, he has changed his position since that was written.

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  60. Roscuro, too often we do seem reactionary. And we aren’t always good at nuances: “hate the sin, love the sinner,” for example, often just comes out as “hate.” We’re also willing to expend a lot of energy–and a lot of capital–if we think someone can help us politically. Theological foundations seem like too much work when we can instead go on gut instinct.

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  61. I see that the quiet, subdued female red-winged blackbird sitting on the peeling fence has been pushed aside by the bold, colorful male. Quite a difference in those two–their size and shape are the same, but that’s pretty much it.

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  62. Long day, after church and SS I picked up a co-worker to go to a visittion for another co-worker who lost her dad recently. It was from 1-5 with the Rosary at 3 so we figured we’d go toward the beginning and spend and hour and then leave, which is what we did. But I think our stopping by was appreciated.

    I think the animals are taking over the floor bed.

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  63. Woman who lost her dad is a big fan of “This is Us” (which we’re all watching now) so when we ordered the company arrangement, we said they should include some pears, which they did. 🙂 Some of you will get it.

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  64. Just swooping in like the bird in the header to say hello. It is still a long day/night at the office.

    When clients died during the year, doing the tax work can be a sad time. Also, hearing of older people getting scammed is sad, too. It has been that kind of a weekend. But there are lots of things to laugh about in the mix, too. So many people walk through the doors. All for now. Sweet dreams!

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