Posts Tagged “Gamespot”
Kenneth Hynek • 13th Aug 2009 • Religion, Catholicism, Religion, Christianity, Stray Thoughts, From Gamespot, Religion, Hinduism, History, Religion, Protestantism, Religion, Theology • angels, Ark of the Covenant, art, Buddha, Catholic Church, cherubim, Christ, Christmas, Gamespot, God, Hinduism, idolatry, illiteracy, Isaiah, Jesus, Joseph, Mary, men, Moses, Shiva, sin, the Bible, the Church
I really couldn’t say it better than Perna does, and didn’t even attempt to try when I posted this at Gamespot:
In regards to Catholics worshipping religious pictures and statues of saints — this claim has been made for hundreds of years. I still can’t believe people bring this up. [If you] think that Catholics are breaking the commandment in Exodus 20:4-5 and 32:31, right? First, it is correct to warn people about idolatry. From the early days of the apostles, the Catholic Church has boldly condemned the sin of idolatry, the early Church Fathers condemned it and so have many Church councils. Someone who calls a Catholic an idol worshipper simply because he or she has a statue of a saint or a picture of Jesus in his home, clearly is ignorant of what the Bible teaches about statues. Second, there are many scripture passages where God clearly commands that statues be made. When giving instructions on how the Ark of the Covenant was to be made, he speaks of the cherubim statues (Exodus 25:18-20). Again, David’s plan for the temple which included statues of angels (1 Chronicles 28:18-19). Also, in Ezekiel 41:17-18, the prophet speaks of the images that were to be carved in the inner room and on the nave looking like cherubim. More so, in Numbers 21:8-9, we read about when Moses was told by God to make a statue of a fiery serpent (bronze serpent) and set it on a pole so whoever looks at it would be healed (they were bitten by a plague of serpents for punishment). This passage clearly shows that the statues were not just religious decorations, but could be used within a ritual.
So why do so many faithful and practicing Catholics have statues, paintings and other religious devices in their homes or on their front porch (I imagine you saw that in Steubenville on your mission trip)? Simply: Catholics use statues and religious images to depict or recall the person. By looking at pictures of the saints or Jesus, it helps Catholics to remember that person in a more visual way. Think about this…As human beings, we come to know the world through our five senses. Having a statue or a picture amplifies us to use our sense of touch and sight more. Catholics DO NOT worship these pictures or statues. We do not bow down to them as the Greeks and Romans did with their gods. They are merely there to help us pray more and to remember more what that person was like here on earth. I have a statue of Saint Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, in my living room. I ask St. Joseph to pray for me so I can be a great role model for other men since he is such a great role model for men. Imagine his vocation, he was to care and protect Mary and Jesus! What a job! I do not worship that statue, but it helps me to remember who he was when he lived on this earth.
Let’s put it another way — do you have pictures of your family and friends either in your home, wallet, or your dorm room/apartment at school? Why do you have these pictures? Is it to remember who they are and how important they are to you?? Do you worship these “images”? Do you bow down to these “images”?
Just as you use pictures of your family members, those still alive and those who are deceased, to remember them when you are away from them, so do Catholics use the pictures and statues to remind them of our brothers and sisters in Christ who have gone before us. Catholics also use statues and religious art as tools for teaching. Throughout the history of the Church, there have been periods of illiteracy (illiterate = those who cannot read). The Church would use the religious art to often explain the Biblical stories to the faithful. In Art History, Stain Glass Windows were known as the “Bible of the Poor.” … Catholics also use statues to remember certain people and events, similar to Protestant communities who have three-dimensional nativity scenes during Christmas.
I followed this up by noting that “there’s a goodly number of liars — yes, liars, even at Gamespot — out there who will attempt to label the Catholic use of statues and icons as being an example of idolatry. Don’t buy it for a second…unless the person making the claim can demonstrably prove that he has no pictures of family or friends anywhere on his person, in his office, in his car, or in his home.
Only then is he worth listening to. For even though he is wrong, at least it cannot be said that his actions and life do not align with his message.”
Of course, having said as much, it only took about an hour for an Evangelical to happen upon the post and comment thusly:
The problem is that the statues are not a depiction of God, and we all know what Isaiah says in Verse 8 of Chapter 42: “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.” Interestingly, this topic came up on the CWU a few days ago. [Another Gamespot user] posted this:
“How many times have I heard the line, “We don’t worship statues”! It seems that whenever one brings up the subject of idolatry with a Roman Catholic, they invariably think it is a defense that they are not venerating the statue itself, but the thing it represents. My intuitive response has typically been: do you think the pagans think that the statue is actually the god itself?
Just in case they think that, I happen to have found an interesting article that makes the following claim: P. Sivaraman, the chairman of the temple’s board of trustees, explained to the 80 [Roman] Catholics that Hindus do not worship the images — they are only there to help devotees focus their minds on an omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient God.”
To which I replied: “What would a statue of God look like? Has anyone seen Him? We do make statues of Christ; what of them?
Have you ever held a baby in your arms, Lansdowne? Ever looked at a picture of an infant niece or baby daughter? And if you have so done, have you ever begun to marvel at the wonder of God’s creation, at the wonder if His good design, at how the human form and the sparkle in the infant’s eyes bear His image and likeness down to their very last fiber?
Does this make you an idolater?
It’s much the same when we look upon a statue of Mary, or of a particular saint. We remember the person, remember their example, and in so doing remember the God for whom they lived, sacrificed, and perhaps even died in martyrdom. We reflect on the grace that infused their life, the grace that comes only from God, and so we glory in the greatness of the Lord. We do not glory in the saint proper, or in Mary herself, but in God who by His grace touched the lives of the saints, and of Mary, in a unique and example-giving way. The glory is God’s alone, just as it is God’s alone when we reflect on the majesty of His creation by looking on the face of a baby.
I trust the discussion on the CWU was a wealth of disinformation.
As to the other user’s posting, I suppose that depends on which pagans we happen to be talking about, no?
But okay, let’s take that question on its head. What’s the actual sin? That a statue is worshipped AT, or that a pagan god is worshipped? Obviously, the answer is the latter, and what makes the statue an idol rather than an icon is that it is intended to invoke a remembrance of — and then the worship of — an alien god, a pagan deity, a falsehood.
In the end, if I worship God by reflecting on the life and example of the Mother of Jesus and how her life was transformed by God’s grace, and you worship God by a different (you might say “more direct”) means, are we not both worshipping God, worshipping Christ, and giving the Lord the full glory?
I think Sivaraman’s attempting to use a little guilt by association, only there’s not even so much of an association as there is a loose commonality. Which I think is a double fallacy.
Not that one is surprised.
But again, I can raise the same basic objection. If a Hindu worships Shiva at the feet of a statue of Shiva, what’s the sin? Worshipping at the feet of a statue? Or worshipping Shiva?
In the end, the WHERE at which the worship takes place is not particularly important, nor is it particularly important if a person finds it helps his prayerfulness to focus his thoughts on a particular saint whose life, actions, teachings, and/or death are, for that person, a meaningful and powerful example of God’s grace. If a persons prayer is made stronger by so doing, then that is for God’s greater glory. If a person does not need such aids, then that too is for God’s greater glory. All men are not made equal, as far as their talent for prayer is concerned; there is no “one size fits all” mode of prayer.
No, what is important is WHAT is worshipped. If God and Christ are worshipped, there’s no problem. If a pagan deity — Shiva, to give a Hindu example — is worshipped, there’s a very big problem. To make a fuss about a person worshipping God because that person happens to do so best by focusing his thoughts, for a time, on the example of…say…St. Jerome is to make a mountain out of a grain of sand.
Whom do Catholics worship? Tell me directly!”
The answer back?
Mary, the “Saints”, the Pope…..and occasionally this dude called God.
Horses and water, I suppose. There’s almost no point in going over this tired and worn ground again. I didn’t do so in the debate, and fortunately another Gamespot user — and then a Catholic — had this to add:
Not the old idle idol worshiper thing again!
That should have been put to rest with the other prevarications about Catholics and Buddhists years ago. Buddhists no more worship the statues than we do — the Buddha images are nothing more than symbols of his great qualities, just as the religious statues of the Christians (read Catholics) are symbols of the qualities they represent.
We are not idol worshipers; we are ideal worshipers.
Just so. And while it is entirely true that Christ is the foremost ideal, and Mary the prime example of a Christian, the many saints whom we venerate and ask the intercession of are not idols; they are further examples, witnesses in the truest sense to the glory of God to which they necessarily point us.
But that’s the problem with lies, good reader. It doesn’t matter how many times you tell a liar what the truth actually is; he will almost always prefer to remain caught in his lies, if his heart is hardened. (Sadly, I speak from some experience here.) And I for one am not sure how to un-harden the heart of this particular evangelical.
If you could all pray for his conversion, that would probably be a good start, though.
Kenneth Hynek • 11th Aug 2009 • Religion, Catholicism, Religion, Christianity, Stray Thoughts, From Gamespot, Religion, Protestantism, Religion, Theology • Book of Deuteronomy, Christ, faith, free will, Gamespot, God, Hell, Holy Spirit, Incarnation, Mass, salvation, sin
Yes, I’m in another debate at Gamespot.
Unconditional Election, in a nutshell (as summarized by one Gamespot user) basically teaches that: “[i]f God wants you to be saved, then you will be saved no matter how much you resist. Under the assumption that we are totally depraved (point 1), we cannot choose God by our own free will. Thus, the only way to be saved is the Holy Spirit changing our hearts, purely an act of grace on the part of God. Grace can be resisted but only until God wills to overcome that resistance, at that point you have no choice but to be saved. Because we are depraved as human beings we cannot choose God, this point shows that we cannot stop God from choosing us.”
My thoughts: it’s a nice theory, and for some is doubtless comforting, but it doesn’t survive contact with the reality God has wrought.
For starters, it takes an either/or position on the matter of salvation: either it is entirely God that is involved in our salvation, or it is entirely us as individuals. This is an errant position; the reality of the matter is that both we and God play a role in our salvation. To be fair, God’s is the superior role; we cannot save ourselves, nor can we be saved absent Him and the grace He freely offers. But by the same token, we are entirely free to accept or reject that grace, and in fact we must necessarily choose, freely, to accept or reject that grace. In accepting it, and in turning that faith into one which bears the true fruits a justifying faith must bear, we are saved…but the choice is given to us. God will not compel our decision, but will abide by it. If we choose for Him, He will work to preserve us in our faith; if we choose against Him, He will attempt time and again to say to us “turn back to me,” until the day of our passing…but leave the ultimate decision to turn back to us. Yes, this means He sometimes loses us…by our own choosing.
In other words, the reality of the matter is “both/and” in nature. This Calvinist tenet is a nice and somewhat comforting theory (one Gamespot user gives evidence, by his words and comments, of just how comforting the doctrine is for those who cleave to it), but it is little more than a theory at the same time, and then one that is ultimately incorrect. Were this not the case, Scripture would not be full of example after example of prophets, apostles, evangelists, and Christ Himself exhorting individuals and groups to choose to turn to the way of God, to choose to abandon sin and repent, to choose life (in the Lord) over death (in sin). Read Moses’ speech at the end of the Book of Deuteronomy for one of the best-known examples.
Interestingly, the sermon at Mass (7:00 PM, St. Basil’s Ukrainian Catholic Church) this past Sunday was related to this issue. The priest spoke about Hell, and how it is a concept and doctrine that does not often get mentioned these days, unfortunately. He got to talking, at one point, about the rather silly notion some have, that a merciful and loving God would not send anyone to Hell…and he noted that if we follow the logic of this position through to its end, what we find is that God is not merciful and loving. Instead, we find that a God who grants access to Heaven to all, regardless of what they have believed or what they have done, is a callous and indifferent God, possibly even a cruel God, and certainly not a just, merciful, or loving God.
In a way, this Calvinist false doctrine seems to me to be a kind of reversal of what the priest spoke against. Okay, it doesn’t specifically stipulate that everyone goes to Hell, so it is not a binary reversal, but there is a kind of comlementarity present all the same; a god who in any way pre-ordains persons to salvation or damnation, or a god who in any way does not offer us complete and total ability to choose for or against Him, is a god who to some degree doesn’t actually care about us in the way one would expect of a loving, merciful Father. There is, in the god behind this Calvinist teaching, a certain indifference and callousness, a certain lack of care for the actions, lives, and choices of the individuals whom He brings into salvation or casts into damnation.
And then there’s the whole anti-Incarnational thing. Remember: as Christians, all our doctrines must pass the litmus test that is the Incarnation. And what is the Incarnation? It is Christ, fully human and fully divine, the God-man, God enfleshed living not just among us, but as one of us. God who ate, drank, slept, wept, sneezed, went to the bathroom, bathed, and so forth. Jesus was fully God, and fully human…not merely God wearing a dirty and uncomfortable human shell which He couldn’t wait to be rid of again. Implicit in the Incarnation is the truth that humanity is not, per Calvinist taeching, totally depraved; there is something blessed still in man such that it was worthwhile for God to enter into full union with him.
And in that truth, there are many important lessons embedded, including the understanding that just as it was necessary for Christ to be fully human and fully God in order that He might win our salvation, so too is it necessary that we participate with Christ in the salvation we desire from Him; our salvation has both a component that is ours to choose, and a component that is God’s to grant. Absent God’s participation, we cannot be saved…but neither can we be saved if we do not ourselves choose to participate with God toward that goal. We will not be forced into Hell, nor will we be forced into Heaven; we will go to the end we choose for ourselves, by our faith and by our actions. God, who is love, will abide by out decision, but will not compel us down either path.
Kenneth Hynek • 4th Aug 2009 • Site News, The Sciences, The Interwebs, Web Design • Aiera, Apache, Chesterton, CSS, Danica Patrick, Gamespot, GoDaddy.com, IIS, Internet, Internet Information Services, Joomla, Mambo, Microsoft, PHP, SMTP, UAMC
(Or: for the love of Chesterton, never buy web hosting from GoDaddy.com, no matter how much you like Danica Patrick!)
As the utter lack of articles attests, I’ve been busy with other projects. Two, in fact: a series of large debates at Gamespot (which I completely intend to take a break from today), and the UAMC Website, which, though functional, is still profoundly unsatisfying…to me at least. Myles, my good friend and the Chorus’ Advertising Manager for the upcoming season, is satisfied with the design.
In the end, though, it just doesn’t have the visual sophistication and clean lines that my previous layout for it did. Joomla is to blame for that; the 1.5.x version renders menus very differently, and there seems to be nothing I can do to get the CSS for the old template to play nice with the new list formatting.
C’est la vie. The only real selling point for the new system is the admittedly very nice-looking contact form (although GoDaddy’s strange limitations on both PHP‘s mail() function and PHP-instantiated SMTP calls severely impair its performance).
I’m tempted to go back to Mambo…which I discovered yesterday is still in active development. The only potential snag is Mambo’s uncertain compatibility with IIS, Microsoft‘s Internet Information Services; Mambo technically requires Apache for a web server (although one can find rumour of it having worked with IIS in various corners of the Internet).
But I’m techno-babbling.
The point is: I’ve got a couple of big hurdles to clear at present, and the site here has really taken a back seat to those. I’m going to see if I can’t balance things a bit better for the remainder of the week, so as to get in at least a couple of posts a day…to say nothing of continuing to update Aiera, which has been similarly neglected over the past few weeks.
If, however, I fail in so doing…well, the good reader can at least make a guess as to why.
Kenneth Hynek • 31st Jul 2009 • Health, Aberrant Sexuality, World News, British News, World News, Canadian News, Politics, Canadian Politics, Religion, Catholicism, Religion, Christianity, Society, Freespeechery, Religion, Islam, Society, Men and Women, Health, Sex, The Sciences, The Interwebs • CMS, Ezra Levant, Gamespot, GoDaddy.com, Hamid Mohammed Shafii, HRC, human rights, Inside Catholic, Islam, Jim Corcoran, Joomla, Khurrum Awan, Kingston, Koran, Mark Steyn, Mohammed Shafii, multiculturalism, Ontario, Osgoode Hall, Peterborough, pro-life, Rome, Tarek Fatah, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, UAMC, University of Alberta Mixed Chorus, Westminster
So I haven’t been doing much on the blog of late, apart from a few articles that emerged either from some quick reads I found at Inside Catholic, or out of various arguments I got into at Gamespot.
That’s life, I suppose; one gets busy with other things, and the blog ends up taking a back seat. Did I mention I’ve been busy with web design again? The University of Alberta Mixed Chorus (of which I am a former member) needed a new website, and since their Advertising Manager is a good friend (and groomsman) of mine…well…
…not that I’m entirely happy with it. In a previous iteration, I had built the Chorus website using this excellent template for the Joomla CMS…but it turns out that said template is only compatible with the now-outdated Joomla 1.0.x, and is in fact almost entirely incompatible with Joomla 1.5.x.
So I’ve had to use a template I’m marginally less-than satisfied with. That, coupled with the fact that GoDaddy.com has discovered a way to make administering a website into an exercise in frustration that is beyond the ability of any human language to describe, has made the process rather frustrating, overall…so much so that I’m even now in the process of setting up a test version of the UAMC website here, at a subdomain of this site, just to see if Mediatemple handles things better.
But I digress. I was talking about Canada.
Turns out, a lot of stuff (most of it bad, admittedly) happens when one stops paying attention! It’s like the country keeps on ticking or something (weird, I know).
Honour Killings in Kingston?
Three Afghan-Canadian girls, along with their father’s first wife, were found murdered near Kingston, Ontario. A highly…predictable…commonality exists in the names of the three suspects in the murder: Mohammed Shafii (the father of the girls), Hamid Mohammed Shafii (the girls’ 18-year old brother) and Tooba Mohammad Yahya (the father’s second/current wife).
Apparently, one of the girls’ aunts is on record as saying that the oldest girl was not right in the head (or some such), and has apparently even asserted that the deaths can be attributed to a suicide pact between the four girls. To be fair, it’s a theory…I’m not sure I’d call it a plausible one.
In the article linked above, Tarek Fatah has nothing kind to say about honour killings or the status of women in many parts of the world where Islam is predominant. By now, it’s the sort of fare one expects to see repeated in cases such as this, just as one expects to hear the various sundry denials that the murders have even the slightest thing to do with the Islamic faith from other agitators. Interestingly, as Fatah points out, the denials in this case actually came out before any major news publication had made the connection between the suspects and their Islamic faith.
Certainly, the crime bears some hallmarks of an honour killing: the victims were all female (either “rebellious” daughters or divorcees), both the father and the brother of the girls are suspects, and…well…there’s the Islam angle as well. The fact that the second wife is also a suspect is something we haven’t seen much of.
I agree with Fr. DeSouza: “…the Kingston killings remind us that there is very little that is truly foreign anymore. The clash between histories, cultures and values is not a battle overseas; it’s as much a part of Canada today as the Rideau Canal.”
All praise and give thanks to multiculturalism!
* * *
(Yawn) Another art exhibit that defames Christians…
You’d think these transgressive artistes would have clued in by now that producing yet another art exhibit which demeans some Christian symbol or artifact is so…1990s. Seriously, an exhibit which invites people to deface a Bible? Yeah, because that’s something new.
Funnily, in response to this exhibit, there hasn’t been even one violent incident. No mass protests in Rome or Westminster, no hordes screaming “Death to Britain,” or “Jesus Christ will Crush England!” I mean, how boring is that? Had this display involved a Koran, there’d be blood in the streets in various corners of the world.
Still, in the end, even an exhibit defacing the Koran isn’t particularly daring or bold. I mean, it’s certainly more daring than this exhibit is, in that the artist responsible might actually have to worry about his (or her?) life to some extent. But for maximum transgressiveness and maximum offensiveness, the artist would have been better off to try and present some kind of pro-life message…maybe a dismembered baby at some mid-gestational development point, with a simple banner overhead that reads “Choice?”
My bet is that the museum wouldn’t even have allowed such a piece to be displayed. Now that’s bleeding-edge, transgressive art!
* * *
And I see that Khurrum Awan, one of the “infamous” (far too kind a word) Osgoode Hall law students involved in the Mark Steyn/HRC fracas from a while back, is now suing Ezra Levant.
The boy is a sucker for punishment, I guess.
* * *
And…the issue of the gay former altar server in the diocese of Peterborough is progressing; the diocese has filed its response to Jim Corcoran‘s human rights complaint against them.
Oh, and Binks has gone on vacation for a bit? Coincidence?
Nah.
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Kenneth Hynek • 23rd Jul 2009 • Religion, Catholicism, Religion, Christianity, Entertainment, Gaming, Religion, Protestantism, Religion, Theology • Catholicism, Gamespot, God, Google, Hell, Internet, KHdN, predestination
…if you get into an argument in which your position becomes untenable, about the worst thing you can do is attempt to sweep it under the rug.
Case in point.
This guy is a Gamespot user I have “entanglements” with about once every two weeks. That’s fine. And our latest entanglement began like any other: he posted a criticism of Catholicism which took the position that Catholics, in essence, aren’t Christians.
Calvinists and monergists (I don’t quite repeat myself) are prone to such ejaculations. It’s an affliction.
So I responded. The exact issue is almost lost to my memory, but I believe the issue turned to predestination. And at one point, he spat out a list of Scripture verses which he claimed supported the Calvinist notion of predestination (basically: some people are born condemned, inexorably damned to Hell for the glory of God — wrap your noggin around that if you can!). I took each verse and exegeted it.
Thing is, Gamespot limits comments on blog posts to just 1500 characters. I know a workaround, however, that allows for…more characters. 65,536 characters, I think…call it “a lot.”
So I use my workaround to post my reply to him, exegeting some 20 Scripture verses all at once.
I don’t know what thought process occurred next in maheo30′s head. Maybe he just didn’t want to debate to that level. Maybe he got moderated. Maybe he realized he was wrong (yeah, and I’m Lutheran). Maybe he just wondered how the heck I blew past the 1500 character limit, and didn’t feel like writing 20 comments in reply to my one.
Whatever the reason, he deleted the blog post.
There’s no such thing as “good optics” when you do that; unless you get moderated for what you wrote, a deleted post communicates only cowardice and a lack of conviction. Especially when you do it twice in a row.
I apologize if I sound like I’m gloating; I don’t mean to. I can’t post this on Gamespot, however, so I’m posting it here (most of my Gamespot correspondents read KHdN anyway). I’m not keen on letting maheo30 get away with tossing two anti-Catholic posts down “the memory hole.”
Pity I didn’t think to grab a screenie or two. Maybe Google will have the pages cached still.
Update: Google is your friend, somewhat. Here’s a shot of the first blog post, along with some of my responses. The massive exegetical comment is, sadly, not present…but some early sparring can be seen.
The second blog post cannot be found in Google’s cache, but I noticed that the title could still be seen in the sidebar of maheo30′s blog in this cached copy thereof:
That’s the thing to love about Google. It really makes it impossible to truly bury something that has seen the light of day on the Internet.
(Paparazzi was used to take these screenshots.)
Kenneth Hynek • 14th Jul 2009 • Religion, Catholicism, Religion, Christianity, Religion, Protestantism, Religion, Theology • Calvinism, Christ, damnation, emotion, evangelism, faith, Gamespot, God, Jesus, logic, Manichaeaism, Mark Shea, reason, soteriology, the Gospels
Mark Shea nails the first one, which I can likewise relate to:
Normal people do not pit God against his good creatures this way. But Calvinism (which Trent analyzed as a resurgent form of Manichaeaism) routinely does, at least in its anti-Catholic polemics. Of course, five centuries has done something to wear the edge of Calvinism into more demented hatred of creatures. Even the guy who wrote this would probably not slap his child if he sought comfort in the arms of his mother after a scraped knee or (like Calvin) have somebody flogged for praying at the grave of a loved one. Calvinists, after long exposure to normal human emotion, have backed down on the creatures are absolutely worthless in providing help and comfort. They have figured out, at least on a day to day basis, that humans rightly seek help and comfort from creatures all the time. That’s why there aren’t any Calvinist Child Rearing Books urging parents to punish their children as godless infidels when they call for their mothers after a nightmare, or Calvinist counselors slapping grieving parents around for their sinfully misplaced love of their dead child or Calvinist marriage counselors urging couples to stop finding love and consolation in the idolatrous love of their spouses.
Instead, the Calvinist zealot now confines his denunciation of enjoyment, supplication, and love of creatures strictly and solely to those creatures who happen to be dead. That’s what that qualifier about the “spirit realm” is all about. My combox Calvinist knows, at some level, that it’s insane to shout “trust in God alone” to a child who wants his Mother. He senses at some level what non-insane people know: that one of the ways God mediates his love and help to us is through creatures like our mothers. So he doesn’t denounce people for honoring their mother or asking her help. But when it comes to the Mother of God, all the demented rhetoric comes out full throttle, even though it is no more crazy to ask for her help than it is to ask for the help of our earthly mother.
The other thing is something I’ve noticed. Calvinists have this thing about “planting seeds” (not that way, sicko), and I notice the phrase is used in many of the debates that take place in the Gamespot Off-Topic Forum (and in the post-debate analysis conducted elsewhere). The dive-bombing evangelists come in, stir up anti-Christian vitriol with their whimsical, half-baked theological ramblings, and then — when logic, reason, and somewhat-more-sane Christians have dismantled their arguments and backed them into a corner — leave with a pithy comment about having planted seeds, and how the rest is in God’s hands.
This disgusts me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for evangelism. I’m just not for evangelism-as-a-means-of-damning-someone, which is why Calvinists mean (I think) with all this rhetoric about seed-planting. Banner images like this are not intended to actually compel people to seek salvation in Christ; they are made to use the reality of Christian soteriology as a weapon with which to sentence people to damnation (or, at least, that is the intent with which they are used). The Calvinist believes that simply by yelling “Jesus saves you, you damned rotten sinner,” at another person is a sufficient and fully legitimate mode of preaching the message of the Gospels; if the damned rotten sinner does not immediately go out and “get saved,” he deserves what he gets.
Of course, the person is vanishingly rare who will, upon hearing the above, go out and “get saved.” The Calvinist knows this, but spews forth his bilgewater preaching anyhow. The possibility that in so doing, said Calvinist is genuinely concerned for the salvation of the other is small, so small as to be non-existent against the statistical margin for error. The Calvinist can thus only be uttering his bilgewater preaching not to bring about the salvation of the other, but to ensure the damnation of the other (who, rightly, has indeed been informed of the truth).
Now, perhaps I am a Catholic pagan idolater infidel prostitute zealot, and a “Romanist” (17th century rhetorical polemics are just de rigeur, you see…) besides…but it seems to me that preaching to someone for the express purpose of ensuring his damnation is about as far removed from what is right, moral, and Christian as can be. Or nearly so.
Planting seeds from which faith can grow doesn’t mean spewing a venomous iteration of the message and then shrugging it off when nobody listens; it means preaching a message that actually speaks to others and encourages them to further explore a fledgling, nascent faith. It means teaching something which is true, and encouraging the other to seek after more and deeper truths from that starting point. Bellowing at someone that he’s a dirty rotten sinner destined for the Pit might make for good catharsis, but it’s actually counter-productive to spreading the Good News (actually, believe it or not, it makes the Good News sound like Bad News) and, moreover, sets up the one who bellows it out as a stumbling block in the other’s walk with Christ.
Jesus had something to say about stumbling blocks. It involved millstones.
Anyhow, it’s been a crazy day, and I haven’t had time to do much in the way of blogging, or to give complete and just answers to some threads in the CU. I’ll attempt to do so tomorrow, though I of course make no promises in this regard.
