What is saving faith?

Of Saving Faith

Rev. Scroggins comes to WPB

First Baptist Church of West Palm Beach to welcome new pastor

I rejoice with my friends at First Baptist on this exciting news. May the gospel go forward!

Today a homeless guy told me he loved me

I hadn't seen Scott (not his real name) in a while. When I ran into him today he gave me a sweaty handshake and a smile. He was obviously not doing as well now as when I last saw him several months ago. At that time he was sober, hopeful and holding down a steady job. Today he was evasive when I asked how he'd been and didn't seem quite himself. The look in the eye, the manner of speaking was different than I remembered. I didn't pry, but then he blurted out something about the devil being the cause of his recent problems (whatever they were). I don't recall my exact response, but whatever it was prompted him to ask me to pray for him. I assured him I would and told him that Jesus had overcome the devil and that his (the devil's) time was short and he couldn't harm us in the end if we were in Christ. That's when Scott fixed his eyes on mine and said "I love you" with absolute sincerity. Rather taken aback, I told Scott I loved him too. He went on to tell me that his brother in New York had sent him an airline ticket and sometime next week he'd be going up there, but that he'd be coming back to West Palm because this is "home".

It dawned on me later I couldn't remember the last time someone other than my wife or an immediate family member told me they loved me. Perhaps I needed that unexpected encounter more than he did. I hope to see Scott again so I can tell him I've indeed been praying for him and share some more words about Jesus. My heart breaks for him and many others like him. Is there anything sadder than a man at the midpoint of his life who's lost everything, with a past full of brokenness and little hope for the future? Was it decisions or circumstances that brought him to this point? Or both? I don't know, but I do know I'd give about anything to see him restored as a flourishing member of society, but more than that a flourishing citizen of the Kingdom of God and recipient of the staggering promises of the Gospel. That is my prayer for Scott.

From head usher to head barista

Church transforms into coffee chain

Introducing...Friday is for film!

Welcome to the debut of Friday is for film! Anything film-related that's been rattling around my head will be fodder for this weekly feature. And any questions, comments or ideas from you, dear readers, are welcome. They may even show up in a future installment.

The "dolly zoom" is a special-effects shot popularized by Alfred Hitchcock in his 1958 film Vertigo. Thus it's sometimes called a "Hitchcock zoom" or "Vertigo zoom". Hitch used it to dramatize Scotty Ferguson's, well, vertigo. The effect is achieved by the simultaneous use of a dolly (basically a wheeled platform for a camera) and a zoom lens (if you have a digital camera you've used one of those). The camera operator pulls the camera away from the subject(s) at the same time he's zooming in, or pushes the camera toward the subject at the same time he's zooming out. The viewer is left with the illusion that the background is receding or coming closer in relation to the foreground. Depending how this shot is used it can come across as cheesy or be an effective way of conveying psychological or emotional disorientation.

Here's a series of "dolly zoom" shots starting with the famous ones from Vertigo. The others are from Jaws, Poltergeist, Goodfellas and The Fellowship of the Ring.

The great school of prayer

Other than the Bible itself, there's not another book I cherish more than Life Together. I recently pulled it off the shelf again and couldn't put it down. I love it for it's brevity, it's simple directness, it's practicality, it's realism, and above all for the devotion to Christ and his Church that shines through every page. I enjoy the paradox of reading this passionate celebration of life in community by a self-described introvert, who found being among people (even his family) a taxing experience. I guess I can relate. For Bonhoeffer reading, singing and praying the psalms were an essential part of common worship, both in the church and the home. They are the answer to the question, "Lord, teach us to pray." The Psalter teaches us the meaning of Christian prayer, what we should pray and how to pray as a fellowship.

The Psalter is the vicarious prayer of Christ for his Church. Now that Christ is with the Father, the new humanity of Christ, the Body of Christ on earth, continues to pray his prayer to the end of time. This prayer belongs, not to the individual member, but to the whole Body of Christ. Only in the whole Christ does the whole Psalter become a reality, a whole which the individual can never fully comprehend and call his own. That is why the prayer of the psalms belongs in a peculiar way to the fellowship. Even if a verse or a psalm is not one's own prayer, it is nevertheless the prayer of another member of the fellowship; so it is quite certainly the prayer of the true Man Jesus Christ and his Body on earth.

In the Psalter we learn to pray on the basis of Christ's prayer. The Psalter is the great school of prayer.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (pp. 46-47)

G.K. Chesterton turns 134

Tomorrow is Gilbert Keith Chesterton's birthday. John Piper celebrates by recommending Orthodoxy.

Which reminds me. The title of this blog (and hopefully the spirit of it) was/is inspired by that book.

From uni-versities to plural-versities

I'm taking a break from Pascal and Upton Sinclair to read Kingdom Triangle: Recover the Christian Mind, Renovate the Soul, Restore the Spirit's Power by J.P. Moreland. The long title should give you an idea of the wide-ranging character of this book. I'm only a quarter of a way in and haven't formed an overall opinion of the book yet, but I found Moreland's chapter on postmodernism very effective. Postmodernism is one of those terms (like evangelical) that's hard to pin down. Moreland describes it as "both a historical, chronological notion and a philosophical ideology."

From my reading and knowledge of the subject I think he's right. It's a reaction to the Enlightenment ideas and ideals (good and bad) that Western society has been built on and it's a philosophy that in various forms and degrees rejects the idea of absolute truth. While I agree with some of postmodernism's critique of modernity, as a Christian I must reject it's stance(s) on truth. To Moreland, the acceptance of postmodern ideas on truth within the church would be nothing less than "intellectual pacifism" and "the easy way out." He's surprisingly tough with those within the Christian community (he mentions the Emerging church and quotes several "Christian postmodernists") that have done so.

Moreland traces the turn to postmodernist ideas within the American university from 1880 to 1930 borrowing from a book by Julie Reuben titled The Making of the Modern University. At one time "spiritual, ethical, aesthetic, and political truth and knowledge were real and on a par with truth and knowledge in other disciplines, including science." But things started to change as science and technology became more specialized, and educators lost confidence that there was a unified source of truth and that knowledge existed in all fields of study. I didn't attend university, but Moreland's description here of the change from uni to plural seems to me to hit the nail on the head.

The realm of religion and values became noncognitive (knowledge is not possible in these domains) and nonfactual (their claims are neither true nor false); the function of religion and ethics is to help people live better lives (whatever that means). The idea that there exists a stable body of knowable truths gave way to the notion that truth changes constantly, that progress, not wisdom, is what matters, and that university education should focus on method and "learning how to think," rather than trying to impart knowledge and wisdom to students, especially outside the empirical sciences. Academic freedom, "open" inquiry, a spirit of skepticism, and specialized research became the central values of American universities.

The abandonment of Christian monotheism from the cognitive domain meant that there was no longer a basis for a unified curriculum. Without a single, rational God, why think that there is a unity to truth, that one discipline should have anything at all to do with another discipline? Thus, uni-versities gave way to plural-versities, and we have lived with fragmentation in our schools ever since the 1930s. No longer did possession of a body of knowledge distinguish college graduates from those without such an education. Instead, the main gift of a college education, besides helping one get a job, was the impression of a vague "scientific attitude," of the mental discipline to "think for oneself," of a spirit of open inquiry, and of an attitude of tolerance for various viewpoints.

J.P. Moreland, Kingdom Triangle (pp. 69-70)

Got confessions?

We do. See for yourself at Daily Confession.

It's the little things...

Little things comfort us because little things distress us.

Blaise Pascal, Pensées (77)