Posted by Anthony on October 30, 2006
Last night I was watching Extreme Make-Over “Home Edition”, the show where they take a needy family and basically give them a new house and sometimes throw in extras. I was struck (for about the billionth time, I’m afraid) with the failure of the Christian church to handle the needy families in their own neighborhoods. Here we have a case where an out of town television program comes in and helps people- where were the churches?
Now, it is true that organizations like Habitat for Humanity is strongly supported by churches and Christian organizations.  There certainly are many other examples, too. I’m the first to point out to my secularist friends that the number of Christian universities, schools, hospitals, and charities, are off the charts (how many “Secular Humanist’s Charitable Hospitals” are you personally aware of?). The problem with this is a matter of delegation among the church. Christians, like everyone else, I suppose, delegates to others duties that belong to them personally, or to their own group in particular.
But I think the other part of this particular illustration is that it would be pointed out that “Home Edition” is almost certainly making a big bundle of cash in advertising and sponsorships in order to be able to afford what they do. And that’s true- but I’m not proposing that we build new houses for needy people, either. What “Home Edition” does is extreme, but it is not out of the realm of possibility. There are degrees of ‘help’ less than a new home that are still substantial and the Christian Church has plenty of resources enough to pull them off in a sustainable fashion.
I have a lot I could say about all this, but after all, I have this blog and the one over at www.nakedapologetics.com to talk about it. For example, this entry here. So, for now let me submit a passage that for years I struggled with but now understand. Something for ya’ll to think about:
“I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” Luke 16:9. [Context]
Posted by Anthony on October 22, 2006
I suppose now that a few news cycles have past, most Americans have already forgotten about the school house shooting at an Amish school in Pennsylvania. That’s too bad, because it is specifically this short attention span that continues to shipwreck humans in general and Americans in particular. The Amish Incident, as I shall call it, illustrates a few points I have always maintained, but is filled with its own ironic emphases at the same time.
Let’s start with the irony. Here you have a group of people that have gone out of their way to isolate themselves from outside civilization, and yet despite this deliberate barrier, find that the outside civilization breaks in and kills their children, anyway. So, despite the best efforts of the Amish to protect themselves from the wicked evils of the world at large, they found themselves experiencing those evils first hand, anyway. Read the rest of the entry… »
Posted by Anthony on October 18, 2006
http://www.sntjohnny.com/radioportal.html
I had a weekly radio show for awhile which was broadcast online, and then in the course of things I had to let it go. I have been ramping up for a renewed effort to make sntjohnny.com something special, with a target date of January of 2007. Bringing back the radio show is a part of that. More than that, the show is now on a streaming radio station, which even now, as we speak, is broadcasting some music and some other stuff- including the new sntjohnny theme song.Â
The radio show I envision beginning will be an hour long panel discussion, recorded before a live audience, and then made available as a podcast as well as on the streaming audio for later listening.
Feel free to try it out right now by going to the portal page, http://www.sntjohnny.com/radioportal.html and clicking on ‘tune in.’
Posted by Anthony on October 12, 2006
Go ahead, feel free to…
Tune in…
(its always possible its down for testing, or what not, but I leave it up.)
Posted by Anthony on October 8, 2006
A discussion thread commenting on similar themes is here:
http://www.sntjohnny.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2200
Today I attended a study at church on ‘Politics and Christianity.’ I don’t think many people who consider this question understand that the American situation is extremely unique in that our system explicitly allows Christians to express themselves, just as it does anyone else. For example, by contrast, in Romans 13 the context is such where the average person on the street, and Christians especially, are just outsiders. This complicates things a great deal for the Christian trying to make heads or tails on how or what our government should be doing.
I find that both politically liberal and politically conservative Christians miss the boat completely. They take opposite sides, but the result is the same thing. For example, I have a friend who is politically liberal but theologically conservative (not exactly common). This person supports all sorts of government programs for the poor, the helpless, the needy, etc. None of these are functions of the government as illustrated in Romans 13, though. See Romans 13:4 for the highlighted function. My accusation against Christians on this side of things is that Read the rest of the entry… »
Posted by Anthony on
There are a lot of people out there that think that religions are all the same, and a large number of those people are Christians themselves. The idea is that there really isn’t any true explanation out there, and anyway, it would be rude, or arrogant, to say that you’ve got it, even if you think you do. This pretty well numbs the Christians who hold such a view from doing any evangelism… it would be rude… but these folks forget that their Scriptures do not define ‘religion’ the way it has been used all over the place for centuries. You find it in James as “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
This is a great chasm away from notions that a religion (or the Christian ‘religion,’ at least) is a set of beliefs, typically subjective beliefs that cannot be proved or disproved. What James says ought to cut to the heart of most of the Christian church which seems to have thought that acceptable religion in God’s eyes centers around building massive church buildings and singing hymns in line with those ’subjective beliefs.’
But Christianity, unlike nearly every belief system out there Read the rest of the entry… »
Posted by Anthony on October 5, 2006
I’m always amazed at how the same things come up over and over again from atheists. The funny thing is that they always think they’re bringing some new revelation, as though Christians and theists in general haven’t been hearing- and answering- these things for thousands of years. Sparking this blog is this thread and the two threads it references: http://www.sntjohnny.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2199.
A robust understanding of the ‘omnis’ of Christian theism… omnipotent, omniscient, etc… is easily gained by anyone spending time engaging solid Christian material rather than taking cues from skeptic’s ‘objections’ so I’m not going to expound on that too much here. Read the rest of the entry… »
