The Cigarette Century

Allan Brandt, The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America.

Video intro (via Spectrum) –Full video of talk by Brandt.

Stravinskas on Purgatory

A video clip on YouTube shows noted Catholic apologist Fr. Peter Stravinskas answering questions about purgatory during a debate with James White.

Questioner: “It appears to me that every good Catholic seems to have the option, instead of going to purgatory, to perhaps write a check or do alms of some kind, that will also purge them.”

Stravinskas: “Yeah. It’s ‘pay now or pay later.’ Very simply.”

Q: “So you can write a check now to avoid purgatory?”

Stravinskas: “The New Testament says charity covers a multitude of sins.”

Stravinskas takes apologetics seriously. Here’s an interview with him from 2005, in which he says:

An apologist should have a thorough grasp of the Catholic Faith. At times, I am distressed to hear would-be apologists expound on various aspects of Catholic doctrine and getting it wrong. This is a tremendous disservice and the stakes are high: Wrong information on the Faith has eternal consequences. Once again, humility comes into play; there’s nothing wrong with saying, “I don’t have the answer at my fingertips but will get back to you as soon as possible.”

The video shows him quite sure of his answer. It comes out as if it is a “no-brainer” for him. There’s no record of him offering to correct it, or suggesting he misspoke. The video has been around for awhile, and James White has referenced it before, but I can’t find anything about any Catholic apologists disputing Stravinskas’ presentation of Catholic teaching.

Catholics wonder why Protestants think Catholicism teaches “works righteousness.” They wonder why Protestants continue to talk about Tetzel, who extended the efficacy of cash payments to those already in purgatory ( “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs”).  And yet well known priests, well-educated and in good standing, continue to make statements like this ….

(Speaking of Stravinskas, whatever happened to him?)

Al Qaeda Alive and Well

FBI noting increased “chatter.”

The success or failure of Bush’s policy in Afghanistan and Iraq can really be judged by one criterion: Did he succeed in diminishing the threat of terrorism, or did he rally more recruits to the terrorists’ cause?

Does any one think the answer to that question is debatable?

“The Soul of War”

Speaking of Faith interviews Chaplain (MAJ) John Morris. Sent by my brother, Jim.

Michael John Poirier

I was saddened to hear (via Amy) that Michael John Poirier has been diagnosed with melanoma. We met at a conference in Houston last November (he was singing, I was speaking). Remember him and his family in your prayers.

Francis Beckwith Explains

Francis Beckwith is granting interviews regarding his reversion to Catholicism. See latest in National Catholic Register. He had been “president of the Evangelical Theological Society, an association of 4,300 Protestant theologians,” since November 2006–six months.

He says that after reading some things about the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, he went looking for the Reformation doctrine in the Fathers of the Church and couldn’t find it.

But what was present was a profound understanding of how saving faith was not a singular event that took place “on a Wednesday,” to quote a famous Gospel song, but that it was the grace of God working through me as I acquiesced to God’s spirit to allow his grace to shape and mold my character so that I may be conformed to the image of Christ.

I don’t recall any Reformer–Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Melanchthon, Bucer, Oecolampadius, Knox, etc.–who ever suggested that justification was “a singular event that took place ‘on a Wednesday.’”

For one thing, all the Reformers believed in predestination. As Luther said:

This therefore, is also essentially necessary and wholesome for Christians to know: That God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that He foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His immutable, eternal, and infallible will. By this thunderbolt, “Free-will” is thrown prostrate, and utterly dashed to pieces. Those, therefore, who would assert “Free-will,” must either deny this thunderbolt, or pretend not to see it, or push it from them.

And this is certainly in the Fathers–most notably, Augustine.

For another, they all believed that grace does work a change in us–God’s word is creative, and creates the reality it declares, as Luther said in his commentary on Genesis (LW 1:17, 21-22):

…[I]n the beginning and before every creature there is the Word, and it is such a powerful Word that it makes all things out of nothing. . . . [T]he words ‘Let there be light’ are the words of God, not of Moses; this means that they are realities. For God calls into existence the things which do not exist (Rom. 4:17). He does not speak grammatical words; He speaks true and existent realities. . . . We, too, speak, but only according to the rules of language; that is, we assign names to objects which have already been created. But the divine rule of language is different, namely: when He says: ‘Sun, shine,’ the sun is there at once and shines. Thus the words of God are realities, not bare words.

And Calvin taught (Institutes 3.16):

We dream not of a faith which is devoid of good works, nor of a justification which can exist without them: the only difference is, that while we acknowledge that faith and works are necessarily connected, we, however, place justification in faith, not in works. How this is done is easily explained, if we turn to Christ only, to whom our faith is directed and from whom it derives all its power. Why, then, are we justified by faith? Because by faith we apprehend the righteousness of Christ, which alone reconciles us to God. This faith, however, you cannot apprehend without at the same time apprehending sanctification; for Christ “is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption,” (1 Cor. 1:30). Christ, therefore, justifies no man without also sanctifying him.

It is thus a caricature, and false, to depict the Reformation understanding of justification as “a singular event that took place ‘on a Wednesday’” (or, worse, a “sprinkling of snow on a pile of dung”–an expression many Catholic apologists claim Luther used, but for some reason none has ever been able to cite a source).

Beckwith says:

Catholicism does not teach ‘works righteousness.’ It teaches faith in action as a manifestation of God’s grace in one’s life. That’s why Abraham’s faith results in righteousness only when he attempts to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God.

Catholicism teaches many things. Devotions such as Brown scapulars and First Fridays and Indulgences compete with the theological formulations of Trent and Vatican II for attention. Many Catholics do indeed believe in “works righteousness.”

As for Abraham, Paul says in Galatians that he was justified when he believed God’s promise. God didn’t make promises to Abraham after the sacrifice of Isaac–God made the promises to Abraham at the very beginning. He made them unconditionally. He revealed himself to Abraham, Abraham believed, and God made a covenant with him. Abraham’s faith was demonstrated on many occasions, including when he obeyed God regarding Isaac. Paul was speaking to those who wanted to force Gentiles to keep all the prescriptions of the Torah–he notes that Abraham was justified by faith alone, not by works of the Torah, which was added centuries years later. James speaks to those who might take this teaching to extremes and imagine that one could believe and not do any works. They are using justification in two different senses, in two different contexts. Beckwith should know this.

The issue for the Reformers was this–what will you put your trust in? When your conscience is troubled, when you feel that you must be under the judgment and condemnation of God, when your spirit is disquieted–where do you turn for comfort? In what do you place your hope? We can place our trust solely in Christ, who is apprehended by faith. We can’t pull ourselves up to him. We can’t climb to him up Sinai’s cliffs. We can’t bargain with him. We can only say, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.”

(See also James White’s comments on Beckwith’s interview.)

Draconian Measures in China

Government crackdown on villages–heavy fines on families with more than one children, dispossession of those unable to pay immediately, forced abortions of pregnant women–leads to rioting by tens of thousands.

Spain’s Sephardic Heritage

From the LA Times: “A journey, with baggage: The Sephardic Routes, a network of medieval sites, helps Iberia reconnect with its Jewish history, long kept in the shadows.”

“Too much Billy Graham”

That was Billy Graham’s reaction to the museum at the Billy Graham Library, soon to open in Charlotte, NC. Some also question the use of a singing cow to tell his story (at least it now has a Southern accent). Ruth is said to have called the place a “circus.” At least there is no admission charge.

We went to his crusade at Northeastern University in Boston in May 1982, right after our honeymoon. I think I’m with those who see a contrast between this and what I saw then.

Men’s Ministry

I’ve updated and expanded a webpage I put together a few months ago on ministry with men.

“No More Taking Sides”

Speaking of Faith–No More Taking Sides: An Israeli-Palestinian Story. Via Jim.

Memorial Day

Frederick W. Smith. My grandfather. WWI.

Joseph W. Crowther. My great-great-grandfather. US Civil War.

On Military Chaplains

Discussion at Spectrum blog about military chaplains; I chimed in.

Shavuot

A post from 2003…

Most Christians have a vague understanding of Passover; if pressed, they could probably recall the Exodus, the plagues, the lamb, the blood on the doorposts, and the unleavened bread. We can probably thank Cecil B. DeMille for that.

But how many would be able to describe the significance of Shavuot, which began at sundown last night?

Earlier this week I received a brochure in the mail from Chabad Outreach of Houston, “Your Shavuot Guide.” Shavuot (the feast of “Weeks”) comes fifty days after Passover (whence we get the Greek name for this feast, “Pentecost”), and celebrates the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai.

This brochure says,

…Shavuot has two faces: It is a celebration of the wheat harvest and the ripening of the first fruits. It is also the birthday of the Jewish nation.
On the day of Shavuot, we received the Torah at Mount Sinai. Before that, we were a family and a community. The experience of Sinai bonded us into a new entity: The Jewish people.

That is why Shavuot is a day to reconnect–to our people and to the wisdom of the Torah

The festival is celebrated with an “All-Night Learnathon,” staying up to study Torah and pray, until daybreak. The students at UCSB Hillel used to then take the Torah scroll down to the beach and dance with it in the surf (and still does). It’s a time, says the brochure, to decorate the home and synagogue with fruits, flowers and greenery. And because “Torah is mother’s milk to the Jewish soul,” the first meal on the first day of Shavuot is a milk meal, with soft cheeses (especially served in blintzes).

Here’s an interesting bit:

Who secured the deal with G-d at Sinai? The kids did. You see, G-d wanted a guarantor to ensure we would keep our side of the deal. At first, we offered our elders, then our prophets, then our rabbis–but He wasn’t impressed. Only when we offered our children as guarantors did He let us step up to the plate. After all, if the children will keep the Torah, the adults will, too.
Ever since then, the primary focus of Jewish life has been to educate our children, to ensure they will continue holding to our agreement. So when we read the Ten Commandments in the synagogue on Shavuot, we make every effort that our children–even the smallest ones–should be there, in the front row.

Want to know more? Check out Chabad’s Shavuot Guide.

Turning to the book of Acts, we find the apostles gathered with Mary in the upper room, studying and praying. As on Sinai, there is fire and a mighty wind. The Spirit binds them together as a new community, the Church, and sends them forth into the streets in the early morning praising God and proclaiming the Word of the Gospel.

Another post from 2004 …

I’m on the Chabad mailing list. Today I received in the mail, “Your Shavuot Guide,” but what caught my eye was the advertisement on the back for the Shavuot Ice Cream Party with reading of the Ten Commandments, Wednesday, May 26, “at a Chabad House near you.” “Super Games – Amazing Prizes – Lots of ice Cream.” Shavuot (or, from Greek, “Pentecost”) begins the evening of May 25 (we celebrate the Christian counterpart the following Sunday).

Ways Chabad says to celebrate:

Relive the original Sinai experience by hearing the Ten Commandments read in the synagogue. Make sure to bring the kids! Decorate your home and synagogue with flowers–reminiscent of the miraculous emergence of flowers on Mount Sinai.

Eat dairy foods–reminiscent, among other things, of the 40 days and nights Moses spent on Sinai (The Hebrew word for “milk” is numerically equivalent to 40).

Stay up the entire first night of Shavuot studying Torah in preparation for receiving it the next day.

Memories of A. J. Foyt

A local guy who’s been playing with cars for many years was honored in Indianapolis yesterday — fifty years after he showed up for the first time, unannounced, eager to race. A fellow named Foyt.

1967 was one of the years A. J. Foyt won. We had moved in January of that year from New Haven, Connecticut, to Terre Haute, Indiana, my dad’s home town. My parents and a couple aunts and uncles went to the race. I was mad I couldn’t go–but they were all in their 20s and 30s … and I was five.

I stayed with my grandparents and listened to it with my grandfather on the radio. It wasn’t broadcast live on TV in those days. We sat in hard wooden chairs at a table on the screened-in back porch (called a “patio” there), the sun shining through the translucent green Plexiglas roof. On a plate on the table … a beef tongue, which my grandfather slowly sliced and enjoyed as we listened to the race, imagining my parents screaming with the crowd as A. J. Foyt raced to victory.

Houston Police out of Control. Again.

When confronting people with mental illness, Houston police would rather pull out a Taser than talk.

Report: Some Sodas May Mess up Your DNA … ?!

Rod Dreher links to report on dangers of sodium benzoate.

“Business as Usual”

Lutheran Pastor Paul McCain comments on his Catholic mail.

Pastoral Change in Maryland

Methodist pastor has “sex change.”

On Mormonism

The Independent (UK): The darker side of Mormonism.

Jesus as Harry Potter

Dom comments on an upcoming movie production based on Anne Rice’s novel, Christ the Lord. The producer, Good News Holdings (“a Spiritainment Company,” the CEO and co-founder of which is pollster George Barna) says of the story: “At seven years old, Jesus is a curious child, wise beyond his years, yet troubled by the secret of his own identity, which has been kept from him all his life.”

A Long Time Ago …

Today is the 30th anniversary of the opening of “Star Wars,” and the US postal service is commemorating it with some new stamps.

May 25, 1977, was the end of my sophomore year in high school, I was 15, and I didn’t go see the movie. I had other plans that summer, including a trip to Connecticut. When I got back, my four little brothers could talk about nothing else but “Star Wars.” That fall I went to Broadview Academy, and I read the novelization of “Star Wars” on breaks at Harris Pine Mills. I didn’t see the movie until it came out on video–same for “Empire Strikes Back.” “Return of the Jedi” (which opened May 25, 1983) was the only one of trilogy I saw in the theater; by that time I had been married a year and was looking forward to being a senior in college. My youngest brother was only 8, Jim was 13, and they and my other siblings were still primarily interested in “Star Wars” toys.

Religious and Civil Rights …?

It seems to me that the most important “religious and civil rights” include both freedom of religion and freedom of speech. This includes the right to disagree with someone else’s religion, and to say so. Bill Donohue, of the “Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights,” seems to disagree. Currently he is going after Bill Maher and Barbara Walters for disagreeing with and mocking things important to him (he intends to launch a “campaign” against the latter).

Now, I believe respect and tolerance are important values in a civil society. But those virtues are inculcated by patient teaching and example, not by trying to shut people up who disagree. Because tolerance isn’t something that can be taught by, well, intolerance.

Creation in Kentucky

Creation Museum opens in Kentucky. New York Times, Christian Science Monitor. Via Greg B.

Origins

Cliff Goldstein, God’s Man, Darwin …

Even from a nonliteralist interpretation of Genesis, two points are obvious: nothing was random in the act of creation, and there was no common ancestry for the species.

Now, along comes Darwinian evolution, which in its various incarnations teaches two things: randomness and common ancestry for all species. How, then, does one interpret Genesis through a theory that, at its most basic level, contradicts Genesis at its most basic level?

If evolution were true, it would mean that for thousands of years (from the Israelite period up through and beyond the Protestant Reformation) the Lord’s church was kept in darkness regarding human origins, until God, in His infinite wisdom, raised up His divinely appointed one, Charles Darwin, an atheist, to finally reveal the truth about the proper interpretation of Genesis.

And though we shouldn’t judge someone in the nineteenth century by our standards today, God’s man Darwin also held racist views that would make David Duke look like an ACLU lawyer. Even worse, thanks to Darwin and his theory of human descent, racism had now been given a “scientific” rationale. Finally, many of Darwin’s teachings are rejected by evolutionists today. Even Richard Dawkins (the most vociferous of the evolution apologists) wrote: “Much of what Darwin said is, in detail, wrong.”

So, if evolution were true, then the Lord used an atheist racist with detailed errors in his teaching as the divinely appointed one to finally set the church straight on the book of Genesis and our origins.

QOD

Andrews University will host a Questions on Doctrine 50th Anniversary Conference this October. Adventists leaders published the book (full title: Seventh-day Adventists Answer Questions on Doctrine) in response to conversations with Donald G. Barnhouse and Walter Martin; these answers satisfied the evangelicals, but caused multiple controversies within Adventism. The book was republished in 2003, but can also be read on-line.

“Islam vs. Islamists” Will Air

PBS will show Islam vs. Islamists.

The McPassion

On marketing: The McPassion, via Spectrum Blog.

“Knocking”

David Neff looks at a recent PBS documentary on the JWs. I had intended to watch it … but got caught up in something else.

“Renewalists”?

The study of religion has an occupational hazard–blink your eyes, and you may miss some new trend.

“Renewalism” is a neologism that is being used in some quarters as a term to refer to both the old school Pentecostals (dating to the early 1900s) and to the various mainline Protestant and Catholic Charismatic movements (of the 1960s and 70s). Old school Pentecostals, like the Assemblies of God, say that speaking in tongues is the initial evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit; the other movements accept is as a sign, but not necessarily the sign that you must have if you’ve had the experience.

USA Today uses the term, “renewalist,” in an article, “Faith’s Language Barrier?” A Google search shows 2660 links using the term (vs. 3.88 million hits for “Pentecostal,”1.17 million hits for “Charismatic movement,” and 294,000 hits for “Amy Welborn”).

The subject is in the news now because the Southern Baptist Convention will be taking up the question of speaking in tongues at its annual meeting next month.

Pentecostalism and the Charismatic movement both figured in my movement towards Catholicism. I checked out the Assemblies of God church while looking around in my first couple of years outside of Adventism. I joined John Michael Talbot’s “Brothers and Sisters of Charity” while in seminary. I attended conferences for priests and deacons at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. I had a couple of articles published in New Covenant.

In one of those I wrote:

The dangers that come with a renewal of the Spirit’s gifts are as old as the Christian faith. In the earliest days they appeared in Corinth, a Gentile church that was awash in all the latest fads. The dazzle and excitement of the Spirit’s gifts combined with the zeal of recent conversion for an explosive mix. Some believers used the new life in the Spirit as an excuse for sexual sin. Others used it to neglect the needs of the poor.

Rival factions looked to charismatic “super-apostles” for inspiration and teaching, each of whom justified his position by appealing to the charisms as proof of God’s blessing.

St. Paul’s response was a call to the cross. God’s true power, he said, lies not in that which dazzles the world, but in that which the world ignores. “God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God” (1 Cor. 1:27-29).

It may have been similar circumstances that led the Gospel of John to take its unique approach to the Spirit. John is very careful to emphasize that the Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus. He records Jesus as saying, for instance, that the Spirit “will not speak on his own, but … will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:13-14). As if to underscore this link between the Spirit and Jesus, John doesn’t wait until Pentecost for the Spirit’s descent; Jesus breathes on the disciples Easter night, and they receive the Spirit.

Paul and John not only focus on Jesus, but center their focus on his model of humility and self-denial. John precedes his narrative of the coming Comforter with the story of Jesus kneeling to wash the disciples’ feet. And Jesus says, “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14). Paul warns against rivalry and ambition with a similar appeal to the example of Jesus, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death–even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:5-8).

The renewal of the charisms at the turn of this century brought with it a renewal of the Corinthian problems. In the name of the Spirit some have built empires, while others have dispensed snake oil. Others have claimed, “in the Spirit,” that prosperity is available to every faithful Christian–implying that those who are poor or ill have second-rate faith. The cross of Christ exposes such charlatanism for what it is. A prosperity gospel cannot stand alongside the battered and naked figure of the crucified Jesus. Personality cults must collapse in the shadow of this washer of feet.

I was optimistic, though. I felt the Catholic emphasis on the Eucharist and the example of the saints could be a safeguard–and I said that despite knowing of scandals such as that which shook the Mother of God Community and other “covenant communities” in the early 1990s.

But now I’d say: Trust not in subjectivism. Stick to the Word of God, not any emotional experience or any man’s authority. Scripture says of the gift of tongues on Pentecost (Acts 2): “every man heard them speak in his own language.” Paul says, if someone is speaking an unknown language in church and there’s no one to interpret, keep him keep silence (1 Cor. 14:28).