fundamentalism by blunt instrument
When things aren’t going well with a team and the owner or general manager of the team issues a statement that includes the words, “Coach so-and-so has my full support”, what does that mean?
It means they haven’t found a replacement yet.
So when an institution offers a weakly worded statement of support for one of its adherents, what does that mean? It means that the adherent can see the handwriting on the wall. “No support here”, it says. And that’s the end of it.
So says Paul Boghossian in the New York Times, “The Maze of Moral Relativism”. He argues instead that attempts to hold to moral relativism only turns into nihilism, surely an unsatisfactory conclusion. In the end, he says, there have to be moral absolutes. He doesn’t appear to derive this from any revelation, but merely from logic. His column is interesting, regardless whether you agree or disagree with is conclusions.
Relativism about morality has come to play an increasingly important role in contemporary culture. To many thoughtful people, and especially to those who are unwilling to derive their morality from a religion, it appears unavoidable. Where would absolute facts about right and wrong come from, they reason, if there is no supreme being to decree them? We should reject moral absolutes, even as we keep our moral convictions, allowing that there can be right and wrong relative to this or that moral code, but no right and wrong per se.
And
The argument is significant because it shows that we should not rush to give up on absolute moral facts, mysterious as they can sometimes seem, for the world might seem even more mysterious without any normative vocabulary whatsoever.
Proverbs 26:18 As a mad man who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, 19 So is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, Am not I in sport?
I’ve never liked April 1 and the foolishness that goes on. I especially don’t like it when Christians join the ‘fun’.
It’s my day for finding interesting videos. Check out this African Cardinal on ‘liturgical dance’ and secular music:
HT: ‘danofsteel’, a commenter at Remonstrans
Today I was listening to a message from 1985 by Dr. Marvin Lewis. He started off with this:
“Somebody told me one time that you know you are getting old when you know all the answers but nobody asks you the questions.”
Restore the local assembly to the center where God intended it to be. When your local assembly engages in Great Commission work outside its walls, find some folks you agree with and get busy doing it. Unity is built on agreement about the truth, not by politics. Few things are as political as trying to preserve movements once they have fragmented theologically.
Would that it were so simple. But it is not that simple. In the words of John Donne,
No man is an island entire of itself…
And certainly the pastor and church in question is no island, entire unto themselves. If we were talking about a small church in a small community it might be that simple, but … probably not.
Everyone influences someone else. That’s why our private decisions are important. They have influence on someone.
The popular crowd is missing the point about elitism! Maybe Bauder is right, after all. See the discussion at SI regarding Bauder’s article #4. You have to start about here for the pertinent discussion.
And in the discussion from my revised article, it appears that at least one of my readers is missing the point also. (I am going to use some material from one of my comments on that post for the content of this one.)
What is NOT elitism?
Elitism isn’t about the possession of fine art, fine clothes, fine cars, fine educations, or even a fine vocabulary. Elitism isn’t about having expertise. Elitism isn’t about one’s opinions carrying extra weight in an area where you have expertise.
OF COURSE someone who is an expert has more authority in the area he has gained expertise! A doctor simply knows more about medicine, a trained musician simply knows more about music, a theologian (in theory) simply knows more about theology. That knowledge tends to carry weight, and it should.
I am not arguing against differences in authority, expertise, taste, what have you, when I am arguing against elitism.
The latest audio from the GBCvic
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