Come on down
Posted by Steve Wilkins
Just a quick note to call your attention to our 2008-9 Bucer Institute schedule and activities. On Friday night, September 12 at 7:00, we’ll be having our annual convocation banquet with Jim Jordan as our speaker (great food, stimulating fellowship, and all for only $10 per plate!). Then on Saturday morning at 9:00, we begin the semester with the first class of Jim’s Old Testament Survey Course (he will give four lectures on the book of Genesis). It’s going to be just fine in every way and everyone who would like to come is welcome.
(If you go to the Bucer Institute site, you can see the rest of the schedule for this semester . . . Jeff Meyers is coming, as is Ralph Smith, along with our regulars, Duane Garner and George Thompson — wondermous in excelsis).
Hey, ’sit ok if I lie about you?
Posted by Steve Wilkins
I didn’t know that seminaries that hold to the Westminster Confession and the Three Forms of Unity tolerated professors who engage in slander. Did you?
Well, live and learn as they say.
Seems like he’d have better things to do though.
I denounce too
Posted by Steve Wilkins
It’s amazing how free some people are to pass along false charges. I was just sent a link to this page which is supposed to tell us about Reformed denominations. It’s supposed to be a “primer” so what’s the harm, right?
But as we go down the page, we find this statement next to the CREC entry: “Composed of Presbyterian, and Reformed Baptist churches, but more congregational in church order. They allow believers and infant baptism and communion, depending on what the local church says, Many advocates of the Federal Vision heresy,which denies justification by faith alone, have come here (e.g. Steve Wilkins), but thankfully there are also members who do not follow this movement (e.g., RC Sproul, Jr).”
(the red ink is the author’s, not mine — and so is the mysterious comma after “the local church says”).
Aside from the unsubstantiated charge of “heresy” there’s the statement identifying the “Federal Vision” with a position that “denies justification by faith alone.” This in spite of the fact that everyone I know who would be identified as a “Federal Visionist” affirms “justification by faith alone.” Speaking for AAPC, here’s point #1 of the statement we adopted in 2006 in an attempt to put some slanders to rest:
1. We affirm that justification is received by faith alone and is not grounded in any sense upon man’s works.
We further affirm the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the sinner. We have never viewed human works as the ground (either partial or total) of justification before God. We have never taken any exception to the statement of this truth found in the Westminster Confession of Faith and catechisms. We unanimously adopted our summary statement on “Covenant, Baptism, and Salvation” which included this affirmation in the first point:
“Salvation is by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and not of works. It is founded upon the obedience, death, and resurrection of the faithful Second Adam, Jesus Christ. Justification is an act of God’s free grace wherein sinners are accepted as righteous in God’s sight by virtue of the righteousness of Christ imputed to them and received by faith alone (WSC Q. 33). This justifying faith is always accompanied by all other saving graces and virtues (WCF 11.2). Justifying faith, therefore, is never vain but one that works by love (Gal. 5:6).”
This is the position we have always held, never denied, and, God willing, a position from which we will never depart.
is this really unclear? Or do we have another case of a Christian who has no regard for truth while he supposedly defends the truth (and, yes, in case you’re wondering, I tried to deal with this privately, but the email address provided by the author [like his moral compass] was not in working order).
Having now seen all the denunciations, refutations, accusations, and rebukitations from individuals and respected denominations against the “Federal Vision” I am forced to conclude that what has now come to be identified as the “Federal Vision” is not a position I hold or have ever held — and I happily join with the PCA, OPC, RPCNA, RCUS, RPCUS, UCRC, ARP, GMAC, AARP, UAR, RCA, ESPN, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, NPR, UAW, and Wikipedia, in denouncing this position and whoever in the world might possibly hold it (though I have no idea who they might be). I say with a clear and, please note, courageous voice, “If you’re out there, you are walking around under my official CENSURE!” And I hope you feel guilty and repent!
(And don’t look at me like that, you know who you are)
Well waddaya know
Posted by Steve Wilkins
Did you ever hear this about Andy Warhol?
“Though he was surrounded by hard-partying rock stars and artists, he lived with his mother, and he went to a Catholic church almost every Sunday. His friends said that he never took drugs and only drank occasionally.”
interesting.
(I love The Writers Almanac)
Braves win
Posted by Steve Wilkins
I grew up during a time when major league baseball was played completely in the North. The closest team (and the only one I could listen to on a semi-regular basis) was the St. Louis Cardinals (with announcer Harry Carey). I listened over KMOX and grew to love Harry and his wheezy play-by-play. But the Cardinals were not my team. My team was the Milwaukee Braves. Why? I never got to see them on TV. I never got to listen to their games (until they came to St. Louis to play). But they were my team because I lived in Mobile, Alabama, and that was the home of Hank Aaron, Tommy Aaron, and Frank Bolling (all Mobilians) and for that reason (and their incredibly beautiful uniforms), the Braves were my team.
In 1965, my team miraculously moved to Atlanta, Georgia. I couldn’t believe it. Not only a real major league team was playing in the South, but MY TEAM was playing in the South! Dad took me over to see a game in the first season and it was unbelievable (I have a copy of the 8mm film of our visit to Fulton County Stadium and still get the chills when I watch it).
Now, with the Braves in Atlanta, I got to listen to MY TEAM every night. Glorious. And, of course, we had the greatest announcers ever. I loved Milo Hamilton but when Milo left, my favorite announcer of all time became the Braves’ announcer, Skip Carey (Harry’s son). Skip was incredible. A truly great announcer and hilariously funny (which was very important during the late 60s and 70s when the Braves were so terrible — Skip’s quips were about the only reason to listen, since we usually lost). But Skip always kept us hopeful and entertained.
Then finally, after one of their worst seasons ever (1990), the Braves began an incredible run. They won the divisional title for 14 straight years and Skip Carey was in top form and Braves’ fans enjoyed every minute of it. Perhaps no game exemplified these years more than the 7th game of the 1992 divisional playoff series against Pittsburgh.
The Braves were behind 2-0 to the Pirates in the bottom of the 9th. The Pirates brought in their closer Doug Drabek. Drabek gave up a double (to Terry Pendleton), then second baseman, Jose Lind, made an error allowing David Justice to reach. Then Sid Bream walked. Drabek was replaced by the other Pirate ace, Stan Belinda. Belinda gave up a sac fly (to make the score 2-1). There were 2 outs and men on 2nd and 3rd (Bream at second Justice on 3rd) when Francisco Cabrera (the Braves’ 3rd string catcher/utility man came up).
Every Braves’ fan can tell you what happened next. It was unforgetable. Listen to “the call” made by Skip Carey. Listen to it and tell me if it’s not one of the greatest calls ever made. Most of us never heard it live . . . we were screaming and going nuts over what we were watching on the TV screen as Sid Bream (one of the slowest players in baseball) came huffing and puffing around third with the throw from Barry Bonds coming in. It was an incredible moment and probably the happiest of my “baseball fan life.”
Now, what brought all this on???
This morning I heard the news that Skip Carey died in his sleep yesterday afternoon in his home in Atlanta. I never got to meet him but still, he was one of my ole friends and I’m going to miss him.
Apple blues
Posted by Steve Wilkins
ok so my new iMac died last Friday. Called AppleCare. “No problem” (say they) “just go to an AppleStore and they’ll take care of you!”
Uh, says I, the closest AppleStore is a 4.5 hour drive from here.
“No problem! We’ll just get you an on site repairman.”
Great, says I, “since I paid for a special APPLECARE plan that’s what I need.”
“Gotcha,” says they. “Hold one moment.”
ok, says I.
(after a fairly long “moment”)
“uh, sir?”
yes?
“We going to have to ship the parts to an authorized repairman. They should arrive next Tuesday and the repairman will call then and set up an appointment.”
”Next Tuesday? I’m in the middle of working on my sermon and I really need help a lot quicker than that.”
“we understand,” says they, “but this is all we can do.”
ok, says I.
This past Tuesday:
AppleCare repairman calls “Sir?”
yes?
“We have the parts for your computer but we can’t come today — full load of repairs already — but maybe we can come tomorrow.”
MAYBE TOMORROW??? says I
“Yep, MAYBE tomorrow. Sorry sir but that’s the best we can do.”
ok, says I.
Wednesday:
10:00 a.m. repairman calls, he’s on his way.
10:30 a.m. repairman enters church office. huzzah.
10:35 a.m. repairman says he’s only done one of these iMac computers before and they are horribly designed.
Huh? says I.
“Terrible design. It’s like these guys think that you’re never going to have to repair them!” says the “authorized” APPLE repairman.
10:40 a.m. Authorized repairman opens a box with a power cord FOR A MACBOOK, not an iMac. “Uh-oh,” says he.
“What do you mean, ‘uh-oh’?” says I
“Well, this is not encouraging. Wrong cord, probably wrong parts.” says the authorized repairman. “I need to give APPLE a call.”
Sure enough. Wrong parts. Plus, what is even more exciting, we have a repairman that has no idea what he’s doing.
Authorized repairman leaves with profuse apologies.
Saga continues. I call APPLE back and speak with a “products specialist.”
“You’d probably be better off just taking it to one of our APPLE stores,” says the PS.
“That’s not as easy as it sounds,” says I.
“oh, you’re not very close to a store are you?”
“nope.”
“well, maybe you can take it to Shreveport.”
“look, I can’t take the time to take it to Shreveport. What if you pay for it to be shipped there?”
“No can do. If you had a MACBOOK, we could do it but we don’t ship desktops.”
“really?” says I.
“yep,” says the APPLE PS, “you’re not by any chance going over to Shreveport any time soon?”
“nope.”
“I could call them and tell them you’re coming,” says my helpful APPLE PS guy.
“Listen,” says I, “I got your computer. It ain’t working and I need it to work. It should have been fixed today but y’all sent the wrong parts and a repairman that couldn’t distinguish this computer from a top hat. I got the special AppleCare protection plan in order to avoid all this sort of stuff. SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE. . . . . . Please.”
Now APPLE says they’re going to send a new computer to me, seeing as I’ve been “put out” but first I have to wait for an email containing the return labels and a release form.
Email? says I, ok.
Wait.
6:30 p.m. still no email from APPLE.
How long before a dead APPLE computer starts to smell bad? Should I refrigerate or what?
Left behindists beware
Posted by Steve Wilkins
Our newest Athanasius Press offering just walked through the doors: Duane Garner’s Why the End is Not Near: A Refutation of End-Times Hysteria. It’s the second of our “Answers in an hour” series and it’s really, really good.
This follows Mark Horne’s fine Why Baptize Babies? in the same series. 
Check em out at the Athanasius Press website.
Oh yeah? so?
Posted by Steve Wilkins
The paper this morning gave us the latest news regarding the “fattest” states in the union and I’m proud to say that Louisiana is number 4! My home state of Alabama is #2 and the state where most of my children were born was #1 (say hey Mississippi!). I confess, I couldn’t be prouder. All you wimpy Yankee states ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
Randy Booth and I were talking this past weekend and decided that our new motto should be “Eat what you want and die like a man!”
I love it.
David Dark on Flannery
Posted by Steve Wilkins
“Though they’re all mostly short and entirely unpretentious, O’Connor’s stories leave me feeling winded and humbled. Her endings always manage to surprise me even when I’ve read them numerous times before. As a rule, you can generally read the first paragraph, close your eyes and imagine what the worst possible fate could be for the characters described, and then continue reading to gradually discover that whatever the worst-case scenario you had in mind, it probably wasn’t sufficiently horrifying. And yet somehow, with your head pounding, you know that the story was accelerating inevitably to this point from the very first word. This is the way it had to be, and to insist otherwise feels almost immodest. Somehow, you can even sense, beyond whatever it is O’Connor herself had in mind when she started, a voice affirming, amid the mind-bending messiness, ‘It is good.’ . . .
[O’Connor] can never be popular enough, because there’s something uniquely healing in her powers. She cures the heart of all desensitizing sentimentality. In her company, we will be shocked awake from whatever anaesthetizing spirits have rendered us incapable of thinking clearly about ourselves and the world we inhabit. She delivers us from the deluding evil that is ever apocalyptic’s moving target. Listening to her stories changes everything. A new world is busting through the fabric of folly. It isn’t polite. It isn’t what we’re expecting. And it’s offering us a choice that we will have to make, even if it kills us.”
(Everyday Apocalypse, 28-29)
And I says, yep and right on, amen, hear, hear, and all that.
Catching up
Posted by Steve Wilkins
Been on vacation and traveling the last couple of weeks and was able to get a little reading done (and I know *everybody* has read these already . . . probably years ago, but, as usual, I’m trying to catch up). It’s been interesting and fun. Here are some of the titles:
Blink and Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
and on pop culture icons and what we can learn from them, Everyday Apocalypse by David Dark.
Also finished James Blaylock’s All the Bells on Earth.
And speaking of novels, I finally got around to reading Susan Howatch’s amazing Starbridge trilogy (Glittering Images, Glamorous Powers, and Ultimate Prizes) and I’m ready to start on the last three in the series.
so, whachoo bin readin?
