You can't have it both ways, Keith. If it is not an official voice, it ought not to have a minister as editor, and it ought not to be paid for by the denomination and sent freely by the official crc dollar to every home. You can't have it both ways.
"The Banner is the official magazine of the Christian Reformed Church in North America" This is a quote repeated over and over again, when you do a google search for the crc banner. When we say that it is not the official voice, who are we trying to fool? Ourselves?
Above reproach..... "Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. 2 Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money." I Timothy 3.
Not even a hint of.... "Ephesians 5:3... But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people."
It would be interesting to know if there is such a thing as "new ways". The only answer is faith, he says, but that is quite general and might be misunderstood. There are many faiths, and even the devils believe (and tremble). The real only answer is Christ as the son of God, his death and resurrection. (Probably that's what Timmermans meant by "faith", but many others could misunderstand).
To speak in new ways... what does that mean? like the pacifists who refused to fight in the army? like the hutterites who isolated themselves? like the sphere sovereignty people who want to separate church and state and education and business from each other? Like the social gospel people who wanted to be good samaritans without being christ followers? Like the soul winners who ignored poverty? or like the soul winners who ignored personal christian morality?
Whether new or not, perhaps the church should concentrate on not compromising, and follow the example of Daniel and his friends at the expected expense of their life. The deacon Stephen who preached an unpleasant message and died for it. Like Peter and Paul and early christians who would not offer sacrifice to Ceasar. Like those who would obey God rather than men. And the church grew greatly at that time. Maybe not new, but in this day and age, maybe it is new.
We have christian schools in Alberta that have been there since the 1950s. But as time went on, they began to yearn for the provincial dollar, believing they had a right to it. I think they do have a right to it, but how easy will it be to maintain christian education once governments impose their value system on the christian school under the threat of removing funding? It will be interesting to see whether the school retains both its funding and its right to speak against homosex, or premarital sex, or adultery, as the state maintains the supposed human rights to equal treatment for all. Likewise the compromises that churches engage in have a great danger of killing them slowly as they attempt to honor Christ without sacrifice.
Bonnie and Larry and Bill are making good points. Sphere sovereignty does not mean that one sphere does not interract or influence another. Sphere sovereignty means that the church does not run or operate the state, and that the state does not appoint preachers or elders, and that neither the church nor the state should operate business nor daily education. At that level, private citizens, perhaps influenced by their church and their education, would operate the state, their business, and their schools. It is impossible to avoid interaction, since the state will have to decide whether to tax churches or exempt them. The state will at minimum have to facilitate education if private citizens are not doing it adequately.
But it is true that scripture does speak to poverty, justice, fairness, and if the church speaks the gospel, it is difficult to see why it would exclude some issues from its purview. (Should the church be in the business of deciding on appropriate tradeoffs politically? ie. trading abortion for healthcare?) On the other hand, the tendency of the church is often to latch on to issues which society finds popular. In that case, scripture is merely being used as a cover or justification for involvement. Women in office and environmental issues are particularly relevant here. Was greenpeace the result of scriptural preaching or something else? Were all the scriptural advocacy for women in office not relevant for 1900 years?
While the church could speak on many issues, it should recognize that in the eyes of the world, its opinion on these issues will not often bring people to Christ, especially if it has the same position as the world. It will merely lull people to placidity, since they will not be challenged by the gospel. While Jesus did say to give to Ceasar what is ceasar's and to God what is God's, it was not until denying Ceasar what he thought was his, that the gospel took on real significance.
Bill. It's true dead seeds do not sprout. Some seeds die without producing a plant. But perhaps your simple statement misses the essence of what is happening. A seed that wants to remain alive only as a seed, will never produce a plant. It must get rid of the mantle and essence of the seed, in order to become a plant. In the process of germinating, the seed disintegrates(dies). Even a seed potato must empty itself in order to become a potato plant. It must die to self, and live to what it can produce. This too is scientific reality.
I believe one of the causes of differences between denominations or between christians who think they believe different things from other christians, is that deep down in their hearts, people want to be different. They want to find a way to distinguish from others, or as scripture says, "...there must be differences to show which has God's approval..." I Corinthians 1:19. This takes place in doctrine, in lifestyle, in philosophy, science, dress, language, and education, within the church. This can be caused by anyone, whether educated or not, whether ecclesiastical or not. How is this relevant to discussions about evolution? The same things happen there. Questions about peer review, scientific method, consensus of scientists become deciding factors for divisions.
So, in the interest of providing a balance and another perspective, I suggest you check out the latest youtube video on Wazooloo.com, of Genesis Week, where Ian Juby explains mistakes made in paleontology with regard to mixing bones of Australopithecus and homoerectus. (youtube.com/watch?v=8FKKw74DWo0). This mixing was not discovered before the scientific paper went to peer review and so it was published, but of course it was later discovered to be mistaken. He explains many examples of how scientific journals refused to publish papers from scientists who were later given the Nobel Prize for their scientific work; ie. Krebs cycle, Watson and Crick's double helix, etc. Ironically, Darwin never wrote in a peer review journal. So why the big emphasis on anti-evolutionists publishing in peer review journals? He gives several other very interesting examples of the lack of objectivity of peer review journals, such as when the journals refused to publish previously published papers, even though they had not detected that they were already published in their own journal.
Then, he explains that there are a number of peer review journals which do accept young earth oriented papers, or intelligent design or anti-evolution research. And guess what, then we have some people ridiculing these other journals. So it is not really about peer review, but about point-of-view. And this gives us a clue about ecumenicity, or about reducing or removing barriers to Christian brotherhood. The importance of motives (desire to be different, or not), the willingness or lack of it to accept various ways of saying the same thing play huge roles. Perhaps we should focus more on how christians are different from the world, rather than different from each other. That might put the emphasis where it really should be.
Tjalle, you earlier asked about a timeline for Noah's global flood. An interesting youtube video by Ian Juby (Genesis Week, Episode 12, Season 3) highlighting some of the 250 flood legends around the globe, and the similarity of lineages with the biblical account would give some credibility to the fact that the flood was global, not local. One of the accounts gives a more detailed lineage of Japheth's line than the Bible does, and it seems some of these stories have been shown to predate missionary activity into Africa or east Asia. In this episode, he also talks about the genetic bottleneck of mitochondrial DNA, as well as implications for other species. His episode 13 of Season 3 describes the tropical forest debris found in the high artic, as well as the antartic. The huge amounts of tree trunks indicate major catastrophes since the roots have been torn away, and many of these trees have not been fossilized, but merely frozen.
The theological implications of a global flood are quite different than the theological implications of a relatively small local flood. You can imagine what they might be. When Israel as God's chosen people began to worship other gods, along with still offering sacrifices to Jahweh, God became angry enough to punish them, but He used other people and nations to punish them. Then He would also punish other nations and people as well, (see Nahum on the punishment of Nineveh). But the punishment was never indicated to be global, and did not require a 100 year boat construction project or something similar.
Tjalle, we are getting a lot of snow here, already more so far than we normally get all winter. Beautiful, but roads are tough to get thru sometimes. Your question about mountain formation relative to the Tigris is a good one. There apparently were small mountains before the flood, while the larger ones formed at the time of the flood, but I will have to research that issue further.
Water ends up under rock all the time, regardless of bulk densities, so I don't think that is a big deal. Porosity and volume are some of the details, but in principle it would seem to be possible. As far as how the water got there in the first place, of course scripture says that there was water under the earth, and God created it. It becomes circular or never ending to ask how something got there in the first place, because in our human limited understanding, it would always have to come from somewhere, regardless of where it came from, so the question would never end.
Yes plates would have to subduct. Creation Ministries has a different theory that the subduction we now see is simply the tail end of a very rapid subduction at the time of the flood. Are you saying that Brown denies subduction, or simply doesn't consider it? I would think he is well aware of subduction. I think he also indicates that the crust stretched upward, and some of it disappeared or exploded upwards.
I believe Walt Brown talks about superheated water which is well above the normal boiling point temperature, under pressure, and considerably warmer than the 25C per km you mention. In fact he suggests the water temp was too high to boil, since it was supercritical.
It may be true that rock bending slowly enough can bend without fracturing, but that thought goes against common observation. Or perhaps some rocks and not others. Much rock fractures even without bending, simply due to contraction and expansion. In any case, whether it fractures when it moves depends on what surface it is moving on, and whether it can move all at once. If this surface has moderate resistance on a level surface, and if the friction causes a melting of rock then presumably the layer could move without significant fracturing. The bending of present sedimentary rock layers in the mountains is also thought to have happened when the layers were yet soft enough not to fracture significantly, either from heat or from lack of hardening.
The story of Babel does not seem to exactly fit into a chronology in scripture as far as I can see, but regardless, the population growth could be the same whether the tower happened later or earlier. Noah and his descendants lived long and could have had many children, causing a quick and great increase in population. From four couples, there could easily have been millions of people in two hundred years, especially if they were still having children when two hundred years old (and consider how long they lived). Some rough calculations show an exponential possibility of 1.2 million people after only 80 yrs. Perhaps not likely by our standards, but we know they began having children at 35 years old or younger and didn't even Abraham live to 175 years?
And the same people or technology that built the ark may have found a way to build pyramids, don't you think?
Interesting that statement, "we'll have to agree to disagree". Do I have to agree with that? Couldn't I also disagree on that one, hoping that we might some day agree on a few more things?
And I also hope you have a fruitful and enlightening 2014. God bless.
Posted in: What Do We Want from The Banner?
Sexual intercourse is part of marriage. But it is also part of fornication. It is the committment and promise that indicates which is which.
Posted in: What Do We Want from The Banner?
You can't have it both ways, Keith. If it is not an official voice, it ought not to have a minister as editor, and it ought not to be paid for by the denomination and sent freely by the official crc dollar to every home. You can't have it both ways.
Posted in: What Do We Want from The Banner?
"The Banner is the official magazine of the Christian Reformed Church in North America" This is a quote repeated over and over again, when you do a google search for the crc banner. When we say that it is not the official voice, who are we trying to fool? Ourselves?
Posted in: Banner Article Highlights Need for Accountability
Above reproach..... "Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. 2 Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money." I Timothy 3.
Posted in: Banner Article Highlights Need for Accountability
Not even a hint of.... "Ephesians 5:3... But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people."
Posted in: The Voice of The Church in Society
It would be interesting to know if there is such a thing as "new ways". The only answer is faith, he says, but that is quite general and might be misunderstood. There are many faiths, and even the devils believe (and tremble). The real only answer is Christ as the son of God, his death and resurrection. (Probably that's what Timmermans meant by "faith", but many others could misunderstand).
To speak in new ways... what does that mean? like the pacifists who refused to fight in the army? like the hutterites who isolated themselves? like the sphere sovereignty people who want to separate church and state and education and business from each other? Like the social gospel people who wanted to be good samaritans without being christ followers? Like the soul winners who ignored poverty? or like the soul winners who ignored personal christian morality?
Whether new or not, perhaps the church should concentrate on not compromising, and follow the example of Daniel and his friends at the expected expense of their life. The deacon Stephen who preached an unpleasant message and died for it. Like Peter and Paul and early christians who would not offer sacrifice to Ceasar. Like those who would obey God rather than men. And the church grew greatly at that time. Maybe not new, but in this day and age, maybe it is new.
We have christian schools in Alberta that have been there since the 1950s. But as time went on, they began to yearn for the provincial dollar, believing they had a right to it. I think they do have a right to it, but how easy will it be to maintain christian education once governments impose their value system on the christian school under the threat of removing funding? It will be interesting to see whether the school retains both its funding and its right to speak against homosex, or premarital sex, or adultery, as the state maintains the supposed human rights to equal treatment for all. Likewise the compromises that churches engage in have a great danger of killing them slowly as they attempt to honor Christ without sacrifice.
Posted in: The Voice of The Church in Society
Bonnie and Larry and Bill are making good points. Sphere sovereignty does not mean that one sphere does not interract or influence another. Sphere sovereignty means that the church does not run or operate the state, and that the state does not appoint preachers or elders, and that neither the church nor the state should operate business nor daily education. At that level, private citizens, perhaps influenced by their church and their education, would operate the state, their business, and their schools. It is impossible to avoid interaction, since the state will have to decide whether to tax churches or exempt them. The state will at minimum have to facilitate education if private citizens are not doing it adequately.
But it is true that scripture does speak to poverty, justice, fairness, and if the church speaks the gospel, it is difficult to see why it would exclude some issues from its purview. (Should the church be in the business of deciding on appropriate tradeoffs politically? ie. trading abortion for healthcare?) On the other hand, the tendency of the church is often to latch on to issues which society finds popular. In that case, scripture is merely being used as a cover or justification for involvement. Women in office and environmental issues are particularly relevant here. Was greenpeace the result of scriptural preaching or something else? Were all the scriptural advocacy for women in office not relevant for 1900 years?
While the church could speak on many issues, it should recognize that in the eyes of the world, its opinion on these issues will not often bring people to Christ, especially if it has the same position as the world. It will merely lull people to placidity, since they will not be challenged by the gospel. While Jesus did say to give to Ceasar what is ceasar's and to God what is God's, it was not until denying Ceasar what he thought was his, that the gospel took on real significance.
Posted in: Unless a Kernel of Wheat Falls
Bill. It's true dead seeds do not sprout. Some seeds die without producing a plant. But perhaps your simple statement misses the essence of what is happening. A seed that wants to remain alive only as a seed, will never produce a plant. It must get rid of the mantle and essence of the seed, in order to become a plant. In the process of germinating, the seed disintegrates(dies). Even a seed potato must empty itself in order to become a potato plant. It must die to self, and live to what it can produce. This too is scientific reality.
Posted in: Is Creationism an Area of Ecumenism? Does God Belong in Science?
I believe one of the causes of differences between denominations or between christians who think they believe different things from other christians, is that deep down in their hearts, people want to be different. They want to find a way to distinguish from others, or as scripture says, "...there must be differences to show which has God's approval..." I Corinthians 1:19. This takes place in doctrine, in lifestyle, in philosophy, science, dress, language, and education, within the church. This can be caused by anyone, whether educated or not, whether ecclesiastical or not. How is this relevant to discussions about evolution? The same things happen there. Questions about peer review, scientific method, consensus of scientists become deciding factors for divisions.
So, in the interest of providing a balance and another perspective, I suggest you check out the latest youtube video on Wazooloo.com, of Genesis Week, where Ian Juby explains mistakes made in paleontology with regard to mixing bones of Australopithecus and homoerectus. (youtube.com/watch?v=8FKKw74DWo0). This mixing was not discovered before the scientific paper went to peer review and so it was published, but of course it was later discovered to be mistaken. He explains many examples of how scientific journals refused to publish papers from scientists who were later given the Nobel Prize for their scientific work; ie. Krebs cycle, Watson and Crick's double helix, etc. Ironically, Darwin never wrote in a peer review journal. So why the big emphasis on anti-evolutionists publishing in peer review journals? He gives several other very interesting examples of the lack of objectivity of peer review journals, such as when the journals refused to publish previously published papers, even though they had not detected that they were already published in their own journal.
Then, he explains that there are a number of peer review journals which do accept young earth oriented papers, or intelligent design or anti-evolution research. And guess what, then we have some people ridiculing these other journals. So it is not really about peer review, but about point-of-view. And this gives us a clue about ecumenicity, or about reducing or removing barriers to Christian brotherhood. The importance of motives (desire to be different, or not), the willingness or lack of it to accept various ways of saying the same thing play huge roles. Perhaps we should focus more on how christians are different from the world, rather than different from each other. That might put the emphasis where it really should be.
Posted in: Why We Don't Want To Rent Space
Good points!
Posted in: Ecumenical and Interfaith Approaches to the Genesis Flood Story
Tjalle, you earlier asked about a timeline for Noah's global flood. An interesting youtube video by Ian Juby (Genesis Week, Episode 12, Season 3) highlighting some of the 250 flood legends around the globe, and the similarity of lineages with the biblical account would give some credibility to the fact that the flood was global, not local. One of the accounts gives a more detailed lineage of Japheth's line than the Bible does, and it seems some of these stories have been shown to predate missionary activity into Africa or east Asia. In this episode, he also talks about the genetic bottleneck of mitochondrial DNA, as well as implications for other species. His episode 13 of Season 3 describes the tropical forest debris found in the high artic, as well as the antartic. The huge amounts of tree trunks indicate major catastrophes since the roots have been torn away, and many of these trees have not been fossilized, but merely frozen.
The theological implications of a global flood are quite different than the theological implications of a relatively small local flood. You can imagine what they might be. When Israel as God's chosen people began to worship other gods, along with still offering sacrifices to Jahweh, God became angry enough to punish them, but He used other people and nations to punish them. Then He would also punish other nations and people as well, (see Nahum on the punishment of Nineveh). But the punishment was never indicated to be global, and did not require a 100 year boat construction project or something similar.
Posted in: Ecumenical and Interfaith Approaches to the Genesis Flood Story
Tjalle, we are getting a lot of snow here, already more so far than we normally get all winter. Beautiful, but roads are tough to get thru sometimes. Your question about mountain formation relative to the Tigris is a good one. There apparently were small mountains before the flood, while the larger ones formed at the time of the flood, but I will have to research that issue further.
Water ends up under rock all the time, regardless of bulk densities, so I don't think that is a big deal. Porosity and volume are some of the details, but in principle it would seem to be possible. As far as how the water got there in the first place, of course scripture says that there was water under the earth, and God created it. It becomes circular or never ending to ask how something got there in the first place, because in our human limited understanding, it would always have to come from somewhere, regardless of where it came from, so the question would never end.
Yes plates would have to subduct. Creation Ministries has a different theory that the subduction we now see is simply the tail end of a very rapid subduction at the time of the flood. Are you saying that Brown denies subduction, or simply doesn't consider it? I would think he is well aware of subduction. I think he also indicates that the crust stretched upward, and some of it disappeared or exploded upwards.
I believe Walt Brown talks about superheated water which is well above the normal boiling point temperature, under pressure, and considerably warmer than the 25C per km you mention. In fact he suggests the water temp was too high to boil, since it was supercritical.
It may be true that rock bending slowly enough can bend without fracturing, but that thought goes against common observation. Or perhaps some rocks and not others. Much rock fractures even without bending, simply due to contraction and expansion. In any case, whether it fractures when it moves depends on what surface it is moving on, and whether it can move all at once. If this surface has moderate resistance on a level surface, and if the friction causes a melting of rock then presumably the layer could move without significant fracturing. The bending of present sedimentary rock layers in the mountains is also thought to have happened when the layers were yet soft enough not to fracture significantly, either from heat or from lack of hardening.
The story of Babel does not seem to exactly fit into a chronology in scripture as far as I can see, but regardless, the population growth could be the same whether the tower happened later or earlier. Noah and his descendants lived long and could have had many children, causing a quick and great increase in population. From four couples, there could easily have been millions of people in two hundred years, especially if they were still having children when two hundred years old (and consider how long they lived). Some rough calculations show an exponential possibility of 1.2 million people after only 80 yrs. Perhaps not likely by our standards, but we know they began having children at 35 years old or younger and didn't even Abraham live to 175 years?
And the same people or technology that built the ark may have found a way to build pyramids, don't you think?
Interesting that statement, "we'll have to agree to disagree". Do I have to agree with that? Couldn't I also disagree on that one, hoping that we might some day agree on a few more things?
And I also hope you have a fruitful and enlightening 2014. God bless.