Eleven Types of Christian Blog Commenters

A guest post from my friend Sean after this brief introduction.

I’m a believer in at least the potential value of blogs as a way of Christians interacting (I’m writing one, right?). But usually I back off that view for a few days after there’s a long, controversial exchange on one of the blogs I read.  If you think this is over the top, go to Between Two Worlds or Challies.com and look at pretty much any post with 20 or more comments. (Usually by that time the blog authors, who are great guys, have moved on to other work, like their real jobs.)

The Eleven Types of Christian Blog Commentators (blatant stereotypes to follow):

1. The liberal/skeptic/atheist – This guy is always pretty off base because most of the arguments are based on a different world-view, but after 3-4 posts he always throws up his hands in disgust, says how stupid Christians are, and claims that these arguments are exactly why he doesn’t read Christian blogs (which is exactly what he he was doing at the time).
2. The credentials guy – As the argument progresses, this guy likes to point out that he knows Greek and Hebrew/has a degree in X/is a professional X/has many non-Christian or minority friends, etc. This usually happens when his argument is no good, so to prove its good he adds some “credentials” to it.
3. The guy who always calls for repentance – No explanation needed, except that he himself has never, nor will ever repent of anything on an internet message board.
4. The “don’t judge me” guy – Almost everyone on the boards is afraid to by pigeonholed as anything, so as soon as someone calls them on what they’ve said (and usually the caller is dead on), the guy backs up and claims you don’t really know me (well buddy, what I do know is that you are a jerk on the internet, so you’re probably a jerk in the rest of your life). Sometimes this guy has some crazy made-up handle, because Phobiatos looks much cooler than Bob Davis. Ironically, this guy almost always passes judgment on his accusers.
5. The Bible quoter – Just loves to quote random Bible passages without explaining their context or how they apply, as if the rest of us never considered the Bible but after reading 7 random phrases from the Scriptures, we’re completely convinced. This guy is also usually aghast that the argument keeps going after he obviously just solved the issue and has no concept that people could conceivably interpret passages differently.
6. The dude who doesn’t read any comments – Look, if you go to a blog post with over 25 comments, then it is a given that the thread is no longer about the original post, but rather some dudes in a cat fight, so don’t interrupt their thrilling debate with some random comment about the original topic. This guy is usually redundant, and is always ignored.
7. The guy pimping his blog – Just stop. If you made a good point on your blog about the issue at hand, then cut and paste it, don’t add a link to your insanely boring blog with white type on a black background with some lame title about your special Christian journey.
8. The guy calling for mommy - See this all the time on BTW. Somebody can’t handle the debate so they call on JT to just swoop in and end it all. Are you kidding me? You want JT to police your idiotic comments? Let’s take away from his Christian ministry so he can tell you morons to just shut up.
9. The indignant jerk – Always thinks his view is the only way, no matter how meaningless the topic. Usually after many mean posts, someone calls him on it, but he claims he has people who know him, like a pastor or an accountability partner. So even though he is a jerk, only his buddy can tell him so, and none of us. Just a hunch, but I bet his buddy is also a jerk.
10. The “innocent” questioner – The worst. All he does is pose questions, all the while claiming he is not making any points or really saying anything. Probably loves Brian McLaren. His questions can only be answered one way, and that is the exact point he is making. The most frustrating is when you try to argue with him, he backs off and claims he never actually said anything, just questions. Talking to him is like trying to nail Jell-o to the wall, only that Jell-o is heretical poison that is falling into innocent children’s mouths. Can’t stand this guy.
11. The actually innocent questioner – Usually some sort of wide-eyed student whose come to the mecca of Christian knowledge– the blog– to pick the greatest minds of our generation. Does this guys have any friends? Professors? Family? Church? If you are coming to a blog for advice, it is already too late for you, buddy.

Who wrote Hebrews?

The beginning of what might become a long series of posts on the book of Hebrews.

The book of Hebrews is formally anonymous– that is, the text of the letter doesn’t identify an author. Because of that, there’s been a lot of debate throughout church history about who could have written it. In fact, there was debate in some circles on its even being inspired, largely because of its anonymity.

Possibly because of this, a couple of early Fathers credited the epistle to Paul, although they recognized that the Greek was different from Paul’s. Other Fathers disagreed, but eventually Jerome and Augustine attributed the book to Paul, and that became, more or less, the majority view until the Reformation. (Sometimes you’ll see Bibles that call it The Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews).

But now, the idea that Paul wrote Hebrews is almost universally rejected by critical and conservative scholars alike. There are several strong arguments against Paul’s being the author.

• The lack of self-identification. If Paul wrote Hebrews, it’s the only extant letter of his without his name as the first word in the text.
• Significant differences in the style of the Greek. (This isn’t always a dealbreaker, but in a case where authorship is unclear it can be helpful.)
• The central doctrine of the book of Hebrews is the high priesthood of Christ, a doctrine Paul doesn’t mention in the 13 letters that bear his name. It would be strange for Paul to write an entire book on this idea, yet never bring it up elsewhere.

But the strongest indication by far that we’re not dealing with a Pauline letter comes in Heb 2:3-4.

[H]ow shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will (emphasis added).

The reason this is a big deal is that the author is setting himself apart from the apostlic circle (“those who heard [Jesus]“) and placing himself in the second generation of believers, who heard the gospel from the apostles and not the Lord himself. Paul, on the other hand, is always careful to identify himself as an apostle (see the first sentence of any of his letters), and assert that he learned the gospel from the risen Christ himself. In other words, he would go in the category of “those who heard,” the first group to proclaim the gospel they learned from Christ.

So if not Paul, who? There have been lots of suggestions, including Apollos (who was “eloquent and accomplished in the Scriptures,” Acts 18:24), Barnabas, Priscilla and Aquila, and the church father Clement (whose letter quotes extensively from Hebrews). But these are really just guesses; there’s really no hard evidence to back any of them up. At the end of the day, the best answer we can give to the question “Who wrote Hebrews?” is “We don’t know. But probably not Paul.”

Stuff White People Like

Winner #4 of the Stuff White People Like contest: Comparing People to Hitler. A must-read.

Thoughts on The Shack

This isn’t a book review (even though I’m posting it in that category). I haven’t read The Shack yet; I will. This is a reflection on the controversy the book has generated, which is why I’m weighing in without having read the book. For background, you can see the publisher’s page for The Shack, Tim Challies’ reviews of the book (a short one and a long one), a response from the publisher to the book’s critics, and the book’s Amazon page, where there are a lot of reviews and comments.

People who like The Shack like its presentation of God and the love he has for people. It seems that for many, the book is a breath of fresh air, presenting God as Someone to be known and interacted with, rather than something to be studied. People who don’t like The Shack believe it presents a defective view of Scripture, the Trinity, the atonement, and even that it hints at universalism. You can imagine the controversy.

Personally, I’ve been concerned at some of the excerpts I’ve read, but I’m even more frustrated with some of the responses to the book’s critics. Frequently you’ll see fans of the book say “It’s a story, it’s not a theological treatise.” Implication: the book shouldn’t be judged or scrutinized the way a theology book would be. Well, fair enough– we shouldn’t read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe like we would Grudem’s Systematic Theology. But The Shack happens to be a story in which the persons of the Trinity speak to a person, telling him things about God, himself, and the Christian life. When you’re depicting God speaking to a person, communicating things about himself, it seems to me you want those things to line up with Scripture. Some reviewers think The Shack fails on that front– they say it denies God’s wrath toward sin, muddles the doctrine of the Trinity, and implies or outwardly states other errors.

(Imagine if I were to write a story about Jesus that presented him as a pedophile. Christians would be outraged. Can you imagine me objecting, “Hey, I’m not saying Jesus actually was a  pedophile; it’s just a story!” It wouldn’t fly. When we speak of God, we need to be very concerned that we speak the truth.)

Second, it’s clear from the publicity surrounding the book both that it’s being presented as more than a story and that it’s being read as more than a story. The publisher says The Shack “offers one of the most poignant views of God and how he relates to humanity that has been written in our time. It will not only encourage those who already know him but also engage those who have not yet recognized his work in their lives.” Some quotes from the endorsements:

• “If God is all powerful and full of love, why doesn’t He do something about the pain and evil in our world?   This book answers that age old question with startling creativity and staggering clarity.”

• “The Shack is a one of a kind invitation to journey to the very heart of God.”

• “When I read it, I felt like I was fellowshipping with God.”

It’s really not fair to tout something as being this life-changing and then object when people want to examine the accuracy of the contents. The Shack, although a story, is trying to teach people something about God. Christians, then, have not only the right but the duty to judge what it teaches by Scripture. And if what it teaches is unscriptural or anti-scriptural, Christians have the right and the duty to reject it, no matter how good the story is.

Wordle

If you’re trying to kill time this afternoon, get ready to thank me. Via JT I learned today of Wordle, a program that generates a word tag from whatever text you paste. If you’re not familiar with word (or tag) clouds, they’re based on frequency, so the words are sized according to how often they’re used.

This is from a paper I wrote a couple of years ago on Revelation 19:11-16 (it was one of the longer texts I had).

ESV Children’s Bible

The ESV Children’s Bible is not a story Bible like The Jesus Storybook Bible or The Big Picture Story Bible. It’s a little more like a study Bible for kids, although there aren’t notes on every page (which is probably good, since kids don’t need much help being distracted from reading!). It includes the entire text of the ESV, illustrations every few pages with additional related Scripture references, and a brief introduction to each book. The illustrations look pretty realistic (Jesus doesn’t look American, for instance) and don’t seem to me to trivialize the text. The captions and introductions emphasize that the Bible is a book about who God is and what he does.

But what really sets this Bible apart are the study materials at the beginning and end, which are adapted from materials developed by Children Desiring God, the children’s ministry of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis (where John Piper serves as pastor). As you would expect from Desiring God, these are excellent. Here are some of the topics covered:

• The Bible, God’s Message to Us
• What the Bible Says About Itself
• About the ESV (in kid-friendly terms!)
• Who is God? What Is God Like?
• God Makes Himself Known (creation, conscience, Bible, Jesus)
• God Chooses a People for Himself (Abrahamic covenant)
• The Ten Commandments (and how they show us our sin)
• The Gospel of Jesus
• Sanctification
• The Promises of God
• Go Into All the World

As you can see, this is more than you usually get in a resource for kids (there’s even a dictionary at the end). And it’s all very well-done-adults could stand to read through it as well! It’s great practice for beginning readers, and I would guess that by about 7-8 kids could begin to read & understand a lot of the supplemental stuff by themselves. Most of all, this edition does a great job of pointing to the Bible itself-it’s not gimmicky or cheesy. Setting the supplemental stuff apart from the text of the Bible helps underscore this. The Word of God is powerful and effective, and this is a great way to train young children to study it and take it to heart.

Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor

At the Desiring God Conference in the fall of 2006, John Piper and D. A. Carson were asked what encouragement they might offer to pastors of small or rural churches, who will likely never see the kinds of crowds or have the kind of exposure Piper and Carson do. In his response, Carson spoke of his father, a Baptist church planter in French Canada who labored for years with very little fruit, and the effect his life has had on Carson’s own perspective on numbers and influence. It was a touching tribute (which you can read here or listen to here).

This spring Carson published Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor, a short biography of his father, Tom Carson, drawn largely from Tom’s diaries. I’ll venture a guess that unless you’ve heard of this book, you haven’t heard of Tom Carson. He was an obscure pastor in the recesses of French Canada who preached the Gospel, prayed for the people in his town, and routinely went through bouts of depression and discouragement when his church didn’t grow. This book is a realistic portrayal of a very human figure, and it’s very encouraging to other ordinary Christians. Carson never spoke at conferences or wrote bestsellers; he just faithfully preached the Gospel and tried to love people for years and years. The final paragraphs are so powerful I’ll share them here.

When [Tom] died, there were no crowds outside the hospital, no editorial comments in the papers, no announcements on television, no mention in Parliament, no attention paid by the nation. In his hospital room there was no one by his bedside. There was only the quiet hiss of oxygen, vainly venting because he had stopped breathing and would never need it again.

But on the other side all the trumpets sounded. Dad won entrance to the only throne room that matters, not because he was a good man or a great man-he was, after all, a most ordinary pastor-but because he was a forgiven man. And he heard the voice of him whom he longed to hear saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of your Lord.”

This quick read would be a great addition to your summer reading, and especially a great gift for your pastor. It’s both challenging and encouraging, and a reminder that we’re called to run whatever course God has marked out for us, whether large or small.

Carson on Liberal Theology

You never, never want to get on D. A. Carson’s bad side, because let me tell you, he’ll make you look really stupid and sound very civilized doing it.

Certainly liberal theology… was on the ascendancy during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, but until the twentieth century it did not capture the majority of people in most denominations. And now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, classic liberal theology looks more and more outmoded. It still embraces more than its share of scholars, of course, but its denominations are shrinking, its influence in the culture is declining, and its most extreme and vociferous proponents– the Jesus Seminar, for instance– simply look silly. (Christ and Culture Revisited, 34)

Kind of makes you want to giggle and point, doesn’t it?

Concert Report

The Duhks were fabulous, well worth the ticket price. Which is good, because I didn’t love the Waybacks. But seriously, the Duhks are great. A little bluegrass, a little world music, a little gospel, even a little funk now & then. Their singer Sarah (who I think joined the band last year) is incredible. Some singers eventually let go and get to a really good place. She starts there. The banjo guy, Leonard, is good; I wished he had showed off a little more last night. Tania, who plays fiddle, is fun to watch because she plays well and has a good time doing it, and the drummer and guitarist are both interesting without being overpowering.

I will say they had a couple of politically-tinged songs, I think both by Sarah, and predictably they leaned the other way from me. I can usually handle that if the quality of the song & lyrics outdo the usual “love is all you need” mushiness. (Ben Harper is a good example.) This was not the case with songs like “Fast Paced World,” whose lyrics I just found stale & fluffy. But this was the only song I really couldn’t get into (I can stomach the one French song since they’re French Canadian, although I certainly didn’t pay to go to a Celine Dion show).

All that to say: Check out the Duhks. We have their first record, they have a new one coming out in August, and I think there are two in between. Better yet, catch them live if you get a chance. They are great musicians, have great songs, and put on a really fun show.

Shepherding a Child’s Heart

I usually have a pencil in hand when I read a book. If not, when I read something I want to go back and underline or write a note on, I fold up the bottom corner (sorry pristine-book-lovers). Because I read Shepherding a Child’s Heart either one story away from my pencil or at the beach, it is dog-eared approximately every three pages. In other words, there’s a lot of really good stuff in this book.

Shepherding isn’t a three-step guide to producing perfectly-behaved children; it’s a call to gospel-centered, heart-based parenting. The central idea is that our children are a trust from God, and that we have a responsibility before God to train them in a way that’s consistent with the gospel. So the book is mostly about what the Bible says about children and parents, and seeking to lay out a sketch of parenting that’s consistent with what Scripture teaches. Tripp starts with the fact that our kids’ behavior, like ours, is a window into their heart. Then he talks about the natural state of our hearts: they are not neutral toward God, but naturally sinful, and this is just as true of our kids as it is of us. Our kids tend toward idolatry, like we do, and like us, they need to be pointed toward the true God. That’s what parenting is about.

Tripp covers the issue of parental authority expertly, showing believers that God has put us in charge of our kids, and we simply do not have the right to abdicate that role; failing to exercise that authority is a failure to serve God and is harmful to our children. Subsequent chapters cover unbiblical ideas and methods that need to be discarded, and try to rebuild a biblical foundation for parenting. He talks about the key biblical methods of communication, corporal punishment, and appeal to the conscience over against common methods like pop psychology, emotional manipulation, bribery, and others.

This first half of the book is sort of like clearing the furniture out of a room, repainting, and sketching some ideas of what the new room will look like. In the next half Tripp brings some furniture back in, giving guidelines for parenting kids of every age group from infancy to adolescence. These are not incredibly specific, but give a general view of the kinds of discipline to focus on in different stages of childrearing. (For more nitty-gritty ideas for young kids, I’d suggest Babywise II or Toddlerwise, which suggest specific skills kids of those ages can be taught. These would be good to have alongside Shepherding, which is more big-picture oriented.)

Shepherding a Child’s Heart is not a guarantee that you’ll have nice kids, or even believing kids. And it doesn’t promise to make parenting easy– in fact, I came away more overwhelmed at how difficult good parenting really is. But as a theology of parenting, and as a sort of beginner’s guide to discipline, it’s the best thing I’ve seen.