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Tuesday, October 08, 2002 |
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I just listened to some more, and like Mohler, Richard Land behaves like a complete jerk. He is seemingly the type of smart aleck, smug, self-righteous loud mouth that the SBC seems to like to put in positions of public prominence.
Of course, he quotes Paul and the civil authorities passage as justification for cart blanche acceptance of "whatever the government" decides. "God ordained the magistrate to punish" Land says. Outright capitulation to society and the "way of the world", wrapped in the Bible and a disdainful theology that simply justifies the American way of life and "baptizes it".
Of course, the NPR interviewer had to cut off Land because he insisted on continuing to talk when she said they were out of time. He continued on, still rambling as his audio faded away. I shook my head. Another typical public SBC figure. PUBLIC figure. I blame the SBC leadership, and their outright fear of diversity, and their absolute ignorance in their handling of theological matters. Disgusting. Still depressing, after all these years.
12:05:48 PM 
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I saw this link, saw the guest list, and saw the SBC representative on the list, and said to myself, "Gee, I wonder what they're going to say?" I knew. I was right. What a joke. So sad. So sickening in the light of what the Southern Baptist Convention USED to stand for, and that was Christian diversity. No more. It used to be that in the SBC, you NEVER knew what you were going to get, because agencies and their leaders were allowed to speak for themselves, out of their own theology. Now, the agencies have only people who have been "theologically screened", and are hopelessly captive to the Religious Right, so I KNEW.
I turned it off. I 'll listen later when I feel a little better about things. Right now, I don't want to listen to their garbage. Link to the NPR program is below. Edgar (a United Methodist) looks like he will respond after the SBC puppet speaks.
Guests:
Henry Brinton
*Pastor, Fairfax Presbyterian Church, Fairfax, Va.
Bob Edgar
*General Secretary, National Council of Churches
*Former Congressman from Pennsylvania
Richard Land
*President, Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission
Bob Edgar
*General Secretary, National Council of Churches *Former Congressman from Pennsylvania
Brian Hehir
*President, Catholic Charities, Inc.
*Distinguished Professor of Ethics and International Politics, Georgetown School of Foreign Services
God and country ... what do you do when allegiance to one seems like a conflict with allegiance to the other? Some Christian leaders are challenging the notion of a military conflict with Iraq. How do your religious beliefs shape your view on war? Join guest host Lynn Neary for Talk of the Nation from NPR News.
11:58:07 AM
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Full text of Bush's Oct. 7 speech. I found it a little more difficult to find that I would have expected, so I provide one here. See my comments (and reaction to David Weinberger's) below
11:48:40 AM
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Sounds like I didn't miss a thing, from what David W. says here. We heard exactly what they've planned to do all along.
"As for the substance: It's beneath contempt. Sorry to write him off, but by now we know how his mind works. For any problem, he can hold on to only one solution. No matter how the situation changes or what the evidence is, that one solution is the right one. A massive - and massively unbalanced - tax cut was the right policy when we had a huge surplus and it's the right solution when we have growing deficits. Overthrowing Saddam is the right thing so we will come up with evidence to support it. It isn't dialogue. It isn't even thinking. If W weren't president, there would be no reason to waste a moment listening to him. "
I'm not so sure , David, if ANY of of this comes from Bush's mind. I find myself having little doubt that he is "spoon-fed" everything by a staff. He reads rather obviously and heavily from a teleprompter on many occasions. I have very little confidence in him, or the innner circle whose bidding he performs. As I sit here eating my lunch, checking the News, and reading the speech , I'm about to lose the lunch. And people actually believe the guy. As if he actually has persuasion skills. Shows just how powerful the mob mentality is.
11:43:01 AM
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I seem to have very little energy of late except for that which is churning in me wishing to find a way out of several limiting circumstances I find myself in. Health concerns, brought on by doctor's offices that prescribe .75mcg of synthroid instead of 1.75, which I had been taking for at least 3 years. I happened to notice an old bottle from 6 months ago and saw the descrepency. Not quite the kind of thing I needed to help me fight any depression that might happen as result of other things, like frustrations with church (and the lack thereof, feeling that nobody gives a shit if I'm there or not, or about the things I obviously care about and have a gift for, and want to be able to do ministry with----- which is the Web and the Net and the ways we as a Church can speak and be present using various capabilities of Web technology. )
Then there's a great divide between my professional aspirations (which is also focused on being an enabler, in a Church communication setting, toward helping the Church arise from its "Clueless" state and speak and be present and encourage community online as well as offline) .....divide beween those aspirations and what presently IS in my workplace, and the ignoring of any attempts on my part to suggest that our lack of attention to things concerning a lack of online community on our sites and our Internet erfforts is behind our lackluster acceptance in the Internet market.
So there's Health, Work, and Spirituality. And all three suffer at the hands of the others. Not that I've lost a grip. I still feel the juices of resistance to all this, and my weblog here has eben a source of strength in combatting all this "negative energy" that bubbles up from all these directions. I still feel called. I still think there's a place for me. But when the three areas I'm talking about here are seemingly working together to make this extra difficult and make me prone to depression, I am fortunate to have this outlet and the occassional response/reflection/interaction form fellow webloggers, and delve into the things which give me life, like this whole "Church and the Web" thing, and how Online Community provides avenues into our spirtuality by virtue of its unique "space" and character.
7:15:06 AM
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Man, Tim. Serious allegation. But I think you're right.
"I will theorize that there is an element within the American church that is pushing for more seriousness in church -- . I think their is a silent minority that are frustrated with the lack of prophetic teaching and serious theology presented by our churches. These folks I suspect get most of their spiritual and intellectual needs met by NPR, PBS, and Harpers instead of the church"
7:05:13 AM
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