#presbyterian podcasters

[battleforgodstruth]

The Blessing of Sex & the Terrifying Peril of Sexual Sin - Pastor Patrick Hines Christian Podcast

The Blessing of Sex & the Terrifying Peril of Sexual Sin – Pastor Patrick Hines Christian Podcast

[electricparson]

In this episode, I talk with Presbyterian Pastor Paul Moore about the shrinking Mainline Church and what he thinks can be done for churches to grow again. Paul believes that to grow you need to “grow young.”

[denminn]

Inclusion, Pluralism and the Presbyterian Church (USA) with Jack Haberer | Episode 188

[yourdailyqueer]

Erin Swenson

Gender: Transgender woman

Sexuality: N/A

DOB: Born 1947

Ethnicity: White - American

Occupation: Former Presbyterian minister, podcaster

[breitzbachbea]

I will warn though, it is a horror shows. Now, I am usually complete chickenshit with Horror and I could handle it well enough (did have to sleep with the lights on for only a few days), but there are a few jumpscares (very few) and depiction of Gore, especially medical Gore.

If you'd like more historical background on the episodes, you can also listen along with the "Binge O'Clock" Podcast, who are currently doing the series.

"What's this" DO YOU LIKE HISTORICAL SHOWS? DO YOU LIKE STORIES THAT TELL THE FOLLY OF IMPERIAL HUBRIS AND THE FATAL TRUST IN A TELEOLOGICAL MODEL OF THE WORLD? DO YOU WANT TO KEEP STARING AT TOO MANY WHITE MAN WHO LOOK ENTIRELY ALIKE AND BE GLAD EVERY TIME THEY GET PICKED OFF BY THE EMBODIMENT OF THE ICE'S WRATH WHICH IS A BIG FUCKING BEAR? BOY DO I HAVE THE SHOW FOR YOU. No but for real, The Terror S1 is a very good miniseries. And it is simply beautiful to look at.

I watched Bridgerton, I can handle too many historical white men /jk

Fr though sounds interesting, especially the bear. Might check it out.

And sorry for the late reply, Tumblr mobile does not like to tell me when I get asks sometimes smh.

[a-queer-seminarian]

In 2017, Kate Davoli (they/them, MDiv) was dismissed from the ordination process for being polyamorous. In spite of this heartache, they have remained steadfastly part of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

In our conversation, Kate recalls the events leading up to & following their dismissal; ponders what we learn about God through polyamorous people's lives & callings; and balances the heartache of being denied ordination with the queer gift of how their liminal status facilitates ministry to church-hurt people.

Listen wherever you get podcasts — or click here for a direct link + episode transcript.

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

For these people to be obsessed with the “Jewish Problem” reveals an irony: While claiming to lead a resurgence of Christian masculinity, they have embraced a posture that is un-Christian and, frankly, unmanly. Instead of calling men to rise above hardship with courage and faith, they wallow in grievance, blame-shifting, and victimhood. It is a perverse mirror image of the very “wokeism” they so loudly decry.

Consider the rhetoric of Stone Choir, a growing podcast among the Christian dissident right. In just one recent episode, the hosts blamed Jews for everything from the porn industry to ritual child sacrifice. Host Corey Mahler’s social media posts include conspiratorial comments about Jewish control over the U.S. government and media, blaming Jews for the porn industry, and saying that Jews are the enemies of white Christians, or just whites more broadly. 

Besides this generic conspiratorial thinking, Mahler also offers grotesque declarations that would make any authentic Christian recoil: “The Christian faith is antisemitic,” it is a “Christian duty . . . to be unapologetically antisemitic,” and thus “Adolf Hitler’s opposition to the Jews is proof of his Christian faith.” Most shockingly: “Jesus Christ is Lord, and Adolf Hitler is His faithful servant.”

Stone Choir continues to influence young men on the Christian dissident right, such as Michael Spangler, who has publicly expressed his gratitude for the podcast. After being divested of his ordination in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Spangler has gotten more vehement in his anti-Semitism. He recently offered this “confession”: “I used to write off those who publicly opposed Jews as wild conspiracy theorists. I was wrong. Jews are a real and present danger to Christianity and civilization. Much worse than most Christians are willing to think.” Just weeks later he posted: “Jews are evil.” Such rhetoric is antithetical to the gospel, but also at odds with other aspects of the posturing of influencers in this tribe.

This rhetoric isn’t just toxic; it’s pathetic. Many of the figures peddling and promoting this nonsense present themselves as bold, brave leaders standing against cultural decline. But the endless scapegoating is a recipe for effeminacy, undermining resiliency by promoting hyper-obsession with blaming a group for one’s woes. These supposed gurus of masculinity and guides to rebuild Christendom are in fact pied pipers leading disillusioned young men deeper into the abyss of ressentiment.

People who face hardship are tempted by fellowship in shared grievances. They gravitate toward confident voices who say, “It’s not your fault. It’s their fault.” But it is unmanly to obsess over the external source of one’s problems. It is akin to perpetually going to therapy only to complain about your parents and how they ruined your life, paying for the therapist to baptize your victimhood. This is trading the dignity of responsibility for the cheap comfort of scapegoating. And what is the fruit of this pedagogy of hatred? Not strength, not courage, not resilience, but bitterness, helplessness, and an endless cycle of blame. Like the grievance merchants of the left, these peddlers of right-wing resentment deny their followers the very agency they claim to champion. Their obsession with scapegoating “the Jews” serves as a catechism for learned helplessness. This is not the way Christ taught us: From the cross, he forgave his Jewish and Roman killers, and proceeded with his salvific mission.

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Unduly Influenced By Celebrity Culture?

by Tony Felich

Christian people should be careful not to be too influenced by the celebrity culture of our age when being guided in some way by spiritual leaders who are not their local pastors or elders. Podcast preachers and YouTube teachers are not your pastors. Christians should commit to membership in a local congregation and eagerly sit under the preaching of that church for their primary spiritual nourishment.

It struck me as odd recently when a person I know expressed his personal devastation about a popular preacher falling into sin and being removed from his pastoral position and connected social media teaching platforms. My friend never met the well-known preacher in person, yet he acted as though he was his personal pastor who had fallen into a disqualifying sin.

Several years ago, Carl Trueman demonstrated how celebrity culture has greatly impacted evangelical Christianity in this country. He noted if you ask a person who their most influential preacher was, they would almost always list a well known “celebrity” pastor before their local church pastor(s).

Christian pastors and Christian people need to think honestly about whether this is true. Have we been unduly and unhealthily influenced by celebrity culture?

Allow me to postulate a bit…

The vast majority of those called to be Christian pastors should be satisfied with faithfully pastoring their local congregation and not seek after a wider “platform.” Pastors should know their ministry is to shepherd the flock of God “among them” (1 Pet 5:2). Shepherding includes feeding and tending. “Pastor” means shepherd. It is a hands-on, personal, localized ministry. If a pastor is doing these things in a particular local church, he won’t have much time to be online trying to influence everyone else’s flock. The idea of a pastor building his platform outside his local church seems to be a overestimation of his importance to God’s Kingdom. It’s hard to see how “He (Christ) must increase but I must decrease” (John 3:30), comports with “building my platform.” There are obviously exceptional Christian teachers, but they are much rarer than we think. For most of us local church pastors, we need to know our very limited place, put our shoulder to the plow, pray for God’s sustaining grace, eventually die and be forgotten. Faithful perseverance is our goal, not a massive “platform.”

Allow me to get to meddling…

Christian people should be careful not to be too influenced by the celebrity culture of our age when being guided in some way by spiritual leaders who are not their local pastors or elders. Podcast preachers and YouTube teachers are not your pastors. Christians should commit to membership in a local congregation and eagerly sit under the preaching of that church for their primary spiritual nourishment. It’s certainly a blessing to have so many sermons at our disposal digitally, but I sometimes wonder if such easy access has inoculated people from accountable application of biblical truth. We have a generation of hearers of the Word but not doers of the Word. Your best opportunity to live out biblical truth happens in your local church family where everyone is under the preaching of Scripture (what is true) that will include ways to live it out (what to do). Detaching a person’s feeding (preaching/teaching) ministry from their tending (personal interaction/example) ministry is a recipe for disappointment. Follow your local pastors/elders for spiritual nurture, where you can see their lives as well as hear their preaching and teaching.

In a nutshell, we will know Christianity is in a good place when its adherents cite their local church pastors/elders as their most influential preachers instead of Tweeters and Youtubers. “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith (Hebrews 13:7).”

Dr. Tony Felich is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and serves as the Pastor of Redeemer PCA in Overland Park, Kansas.

[mere-christianity]

Mere Christianity Podcast: Part 1

A Christian apologetical book by the British author C. S. Lewis. It was adapted from a series of BBC radio talks made between 1941 and 1944, originally published as three separate volumes: Broadcast Talks (1942), Christian Behaviour (1943), and Beyond Personality (1944). The book consists of four parts: the first presents Lewis's arguments for the existence of God; the second contains his defence of Christian theology, including his notable "Liar, lunatic, or Lord" trilemma; the third has him exploring Christian ethics, among which are cardinal and theological virtues; in the final, he writes on the Christian conception of God.

By Clives Stapleton Lewis, Professor at Cambridge University, England.

Preface

The contents of this book were first given on the air, and then published in three separate parts as The Case for Christianity (1943),  Christian Behaviour (1943), and Beyond Personality (1945). In the printed versions I made a few additions to what I had said at the microphone, but otherwise left the text much as it had been. A "talk" on the radio should, I think, be as like real talk as possible, and should not sound like an essay being read aloud.

In my talks I had therefore used all the contractions and colloquialisms I ordinarily use in conversation. In the printed version I reproduced this, putting don't and we've for do not and we have. And wherever, in the talks, I had made the importance of a word clear by the emphasis of my voice, I printed it in italics.

I am now inclined to think that this was a mistake, an undesirable hybrid between the art of speaking and the art of writing. A talker ought to use variations of voice for emphasis because his medium naturally lends itself to that method: but a writer ought not to use italics for the same purpose. He has his own, different, means of bringing out the key words and ought to use them. In this edition I have expanded the contractions and replaced most of the italics by recasting the sentences in which they occurred: but without altering, I hope, the "popular" or "familiar" tone which I had all along intended. I have also added and deleted where I thought I understood any part of my subject better now than ten years ago or where I knew that the original version had been misunderstood by others.

The reader should be warned that I offer no help to anyone who is hesitating between two Christian "denominations." You will not learn from me whether you ought to become an Anglican, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, or a Roman Catholic.

This omission is intentional (even in the list I have just given the order is alphabetical). There is no mystery about my own position. I am a very ordinary layman of the Church of England, not especially "high," nor especially "low," nor especially anything else. But in this book I am not trying to convert anyone to my own position. Ever since I became a Christian I have thought that the best, perhaps the only, service I could do for my unbelieving neighbours was to explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times. I had more than one reason for thinking this. In the first place, the questions which divide Christians from one another often involve points of high Theology or even of ecclesiastical history which ought never to be treated except by real experts.

I should have been out of my depth in such waters: more in need of help myself than able to help others. And secondly, I think we must admit that the discussion of these disputed points has no tendency at all to bring an outsider into the Christian fold. So long as we write and talk about them we are much more likely to deter him from entering any Christian communion than to draw him into our own. Our divisions should never be discussed except in the presence of those who have already come to believe that there is one God and that Jesus Christ is His only Son. Finally, I got the impression that far more, and more talented, authors were already engaged in such controversial matters than in the defence of what Baxter calls "mere" Christianity. That part of the line where I thought I could serve best was also the part that seemed to be thinnest. And to it I naturally went.

So far as I know, these were my only motives, and I should be very glad if people would not draw fanciful inferences from my silence on certain disputed matters.

For example, such silence need not mean that I myself am sitting on the fence. Sometimes I am. There are questions at issue between Christians to which I do not think I have the answer. There are some to which I may never know the answer: if I asked them, even in a better world, I might (for all I know) be answered as a far greater questioner was answered: "What is that to thee? Follow thou Me." But there are other questions as to which I am definitely on one side of the fence, and yet say nothing. For I was not writing to expound something I could call "my religion," but to expound "mere" Christianity, which is what it is and was what it was long before I was born and whether I like it or not.

Some people draw unwarranted conclusions from the fact that I never say more about the Blessed Virgin Mary than is involved in asserting the Virgin Birth of Christ. But surely my reason for not doing so is obvious? To say more would take me at once into highly controversial regions. And there is no controversy between Christians which needs to be so delicately touched as this. The Roman Catholic beliefs on that subject are held not only with the ordinary fervour that attaches to all sincere religious belief, but (very naturally) with the peculiar and, as it were, chivalrous sensibility that a man feels when the honour of his mother or his beloved is at stake.

It is very difficult so to dissent from them that you will not appear to them a cad as well as a heretic. And contrariwise, the opposed Protestant beliefs on this subject call forth feelings which go down to the very roots of all Monotheism whatever. To radical Protestants it seems that the distinction between Creator and creature (however holy) is imperilled: that Polytheism is risen again. Hence it is hard so to dissent from them that you will not appear something worse than a heretic, an idolater, a Pagan. If any topic could be relied upon to wreck a book about "mere" Christianity, if any topic makes utterly unprofitable reading for those who do not yet believe that the Virgin's son is God, surely this is it.

Oddly enough, you cannot even conclude, from my silence on disputed points, either that I think them important or that I think them unimportant. For this is itself one of the disputed points. One of the things Christians are disagreed about is the importance of their disagreements. When two Christians of different denominations start arguing, it is usually not long before one asks whether such-and-such a point "really matters" and the other replies: "Matter? Why, it's absolutely essential."

All this is said simply in order to make clear what kind of book I was trying to write; not in the least to conceal or evade responsibility for my own beliefs. About those, as I said before, there is no secret. To quote Uncle Toby: "They are written in the Common-Prayer Book."

The danger dearly was that I should put forward as common Christianity anything that was peculiar to the Church of England or (worse still) to myself. I tried to guard against this by sending the original script of what is now Book II to four clergymen (Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic) and asking for their criticism. The Methodist thought I had not said enough about Faith, and the Roman Catholic thought I had gone rather too far about the comparative unimportance of theories in explanation of the Atonement. Otherwise all five of us were agreed. I did not have the remaining books similarly "vetted" because in them, though differences might arise among Christians, these would be differences between individuals or schools of thought, not between denominations.

So far as I can judge from reviews and from the numerous letters written to me, the book, however faulty in other respects, did at least succeed in presenting an agreed, or common, or central, or "mere" Christianity. In that way it may possibly be of some help in silencing the view that, if we omit the disputed points, we shall have left only a vague and bloodless H.C.F. The H.C.F. turns out to be something not only positive but pungent; divided from all non-Christian beliefs by a chasm to which the worst divisions inside Christendom are not really comparable at all.

If I have not directly helped the cause of reunion, I have perhaps made it clear why we ought to be reunited. Certainly I have met with little of the fabled odium theologicum from convinced members of communions different from my own. Hostility has come more from borderline people whether within the Church of England or without it: men not exactly obedient to any communion. This I find curiously consoling. It is at her centre, where her truest children dwell, that each communion is really closest to every other in spirit, if not in doctrine. And this suggests that at the centre of each there is something, or a Someone, who against all divergences of belief, all differences of temperament, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks with the same voice.

So much for my omissions on doctrine. In Book III, which deals with morals, I have also passed over some things in silence, but for a different reason. Ever since I served as an infantryman in the first world war I have had a great dislike of people who, themselves in ease and safety, issue exhortations to men in the front line. As a result I have a reluctance to say much about temptations to which I myself am not exposed. No man, I suppose, is tempted to every sin. It so happens that the impulse which makes men gamble has been left out of my make-up; and, no doubt, I pay for this by lacking some good impulse of which it is the excess or perversion. I therefore did not feel myself qualified to give advice about permissable and impermissable gambling: if there is any permissable, for I do not claim to know even that. I have also said nothing about birth-control. I am not a woman nor even a married man, nor am I a priest. I did not think it my place to take a firm line about pains, dangers and expenses from which I am protected; having no pastoral office which obliged me to do so.

Far deeper objections may be felt, and have been expressed,  against my use of the word Christian to mean one who accepts the common doctrines of Christianity. People ask: "Who are you, to lay down who is, and who is not a Christian?" or "May not many a man who cannot believe these doctrines be far more truly a Christian, far closer to the spirit of Christ, than some who do?" Now this objection is in one sense very right, very charitable, very spiritual, very sensitive. It has every amiable quality except that of being useful. We simply cannot, without disaster, use language as these objectors want us to use it. I will try to make this clear by the history of another, and very much less important, word.

The word gentleman originally meant something recognisable; one who had a coat of arms and some landed property. When you called someone "a gentleman" you were not paying him a compliment, but merely stating a fact. If you said he was not "a gentleman" you were not insulting him, but giving information. There was no contradiction in saying that John was a liar and a gentleman; any more than there now is in saying that James is a fool and an M.A. But then there came people who said, so rightly, charitably, spiritually, sensitively, so anything but usefully, "Ah, but surely the important thing about a gentleman is not the coat of arms and the land, but the behaviour? Surely he is the true gentleman who behaves as a gentleman should? Surely in that sense Edward is far more truly a gentleman than John?"

They meant well. To be honourable and courteous and brave is of course a far better thing than to have a coat of arms. But it is not the same thing. Worse still, it is not a thing everyone will agree about. To call a man "a gentleman" in this new, refined sense, becomes, in fact, not a way of giving information about him, but a way of praising him: to deny that he is "a gentleman" becomes simply a way of insulting him. When a word ceases to be a term of description and becomes merely a term of praise, it no longer tells you facts about the object: it only tells you about the speaker's attitude to that object. (A "nice" meal only means a meal the speaker likes.)

A gentleman, once it has been spiritualised and refined out of its old coarse, objective sense, means hardly more than a man whom the speaker likes. As a result, gentleman is now a useless word. We had lots of terms of approval already, so it was not needed for that use; on the other hand if anyone (say, in a historical work) wants to use it in its old sense, he cannot do so without explanations. It has been spoiled for that purpose.

Now if once we allow people to start spiritualising and refining, or as they might say "deepening," the sense of the word Christian, it too will speedily become a useless word. In the first place, Christians themselves will never be able to apply it to anyone. It is not for us to say who, in the deepest sense, is or is not close to the spirit of Christ. We do not see into men's hearts. We cannot judge, and are indeed forbidden to judge.

It would be wicked arrogance for us to say that any man is, or is not, a Christian in this refined sense. And obviously a word which we can never apply is not going to be a very useful word. As for the unbelievers, they will no doubt cheerfully use the word in the refined sense. It will become in their mouths simply a term of praise. In calling anyone a Christian they will mean that they think him a good man. But that way of using the word will be no enrichment of the language, for we already have the word good. Meanwhile, the word Christian will have been spoiled for any really useful purpose it might have served.

We must therefore stick to the original, obvious meaning. The name Christians was first given at Antioch (Acts 11:26) to "the disciples," to those who accepted the teaching of the apostles. There is no question of its being restricted to those who profited by that teaching as much as they should have. There is no question of its being extended to those who in some refined, spiritual, inward fashion were "far closer to the spirit of Christ" than the less satisfactory of the disciples. The point is not a theological, or moral one. It is only a question of using words so that we can all understand what is being said. When a man who accepts the Christian doctrine lives unworthily of it, it is much clearer to say he is a bad Christian than to say he is not a Christian.

I hope no reader will suppose that "mere" Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions, as if a man could adopt it in preference to Congregationalism or Greek Orthodoxy or anything else. It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in. For that purpose the worst of the rooms (whichever that may be) is, I think, preferable.

It is true that some people may find they have to wait in the hall for a considerable time, while others feel certain almost at once which door they must knock at. I do not know why there is this difference, but I am sure God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait. When you do get into your room you will find that the long wait has done you some kind of good which you would not have had otherwise. But you must regard it as waiting, not as camping. You must keep on praying for light: and, of course, even in the hall, you must begin trying to obey the rules which are common to the whole house. And above all you must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best by its paint and paneling.

In plain language, the question should never be: "Do I like that kind of service?" but "Are these doctrines true: Is holiness here? Does my conscience move me towards this? Is my reluctance to knock at this door due to my pride, or my mere taste, or my personal dislike of this particular door-keeper?"

When you have reached your own room, be kind to those Who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house.

Book 1 The Law of Human Nature

Chapter 1.

Everyone has heard people quarrelling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but however it sounds, I believe we can learn something very important from listening to the kind of things they say. They say things like this: "How'd you like it if anyone did the same to you?", "That's my seat, I was there first", "Leave him alone, he isn't doing you any harm",  "Why should you shove in first?", "Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine", "Come on, you promised." People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grown-ups. Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man's behaviour does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behaviour which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies: "To hell with your standard." Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse. He pretends there is some special reason in this particular case why the person who took the seat first should not keep it, or that things were quite different when he was given the bit of orange, or that something has turned up which lets him off keeping his promise. It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behaviour or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals, but they could not quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarrelling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer had committed a foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of football.

Now this Law or Rule about Right and Wrong used to be called the Law of Nature. Nowadays, when we talk of the "laws of nature" we usually mean things like gravitation, or heredity, or the laws of chemistry. But when the older thinkers called the Law of Right and Wrong "the Law of Nature," they really meant the Law of Human Nature. The idea was that, just as all bodies are governed by the law of gravitation and organisms by biological laws, so the creature called man also had his law, with this great difference, that a body could not choose whether it obeyed the law of gravitation or not, but a man could choose either to obey the Law of Human Nature or to disobey it.

We may put this in another way. Each man is at every moment subjected to several different sets of law but there is only one of these which he is free to disobey. As a body, he is subjected to gravitation and cannot disobey it; if you leave him unsupported in mid-air, he has no more choice about falling than a stone has. As an organism, he is subjected to various biological laws which he cannot disobey any more than an animal can. That is, he cannot disobey those laws which he shares with other things; but the law which is peculiar to his human nature, the law he does not share with animals or vegetables or inorganic things, is the one he can disobey if he chooses.

This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that every one knew it by nature and did not need to be taught it. They did not mean, of course, that you might not find an odd individual here and there who did not know it, just as you find a few people who are colour-blind or have no ear for a tune. But taking the race as a whole, they thought that the human idea of decent behaviour was obvious to every one. And I believe they were right. If they were not, then all the things we said about the war were nonsense. What was the sense in saying the enemy were in the wrong unless Right is a real thing which the Nazis at bottom knew as well as we did and ought to have practised? If they had had no notion of what we mean by right, then, though we might still have had to fight them, we could no more have blamed them for that than for the colour of their hair.

I know that some people say the idea of a Law of Nature or decent behaviour known to all men is unsound, because different civilisations and different ages have had quite different moralities.

But this is not true. There have been differences between their moralities, but these have never amounted to anything like a total difference. If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and to our own. Some of the evidence for this I have put together in the appendix of another book called The Abolition of Man; but for our present purpose I need only ask the reader to think what a totally different morality would mean. Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five. Men have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to, whether it was only your own family, or your fellow countrymen, or everyone. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired. Men have differed as to whether you should have one wife or four. But they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked.

But the most remarkable thing is this. Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining "It's not fair" before you can say Jack Robinson. A nation may say treaties do not matter, but then, next minute, they spoil their case by saying that the particular treaty they want to break was an unfair one. But if treaties do not matter, and if there is no such thing as Right and Wrong,  in other words, if there is no Law of Nature, what is the difference between a fair treaty and an unfair one? Have they not let the cat out of the bag and shown that, whatever they say, they really know the Law of Nature just like anyone else?

It seems, then, we are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong. People may be sometimes mistaken about them, just as people sometimes get their sums wrong; but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the multiplication table. Now if we are agreed about that, I go on to my next point, which is this. None of us are really keeping the Law of Nature. If there are any exceptions among you, I apologise to them. They had much better read some other work, for nothing I am going to say concerns them. And now, turning to the ordinary human beings who are left:

I hope you will not misunderstand what I am going to say. I am not preaching, and Heaven knows I do not pretend to be better than anyone else. I am only trying to call attention to a fact; the fact that this year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people. There may be all sorts of excuses for us. That time you were so unfair to the children was when you were very tired. That slightly shady business about the money, the one you have almost forgotten, came when you were very hard up. And what you promised to do for old So-and-so and have never done, well, you never would have promised if you had known how frightfully busy you were going to be. And as for your behaviour to your wife (or husband) or sister (or brother) if I knew how irritating they could be, I would not wonder at it, and who the dickens am I, anyway? I am just the same. That is to say, I do not succeed in keeping the Law of Nature very well, and the moment anyone tells me I am not keeping it, there starts up in my mind a string of excuses as long as your arm. The question at the moment is not whether they are good excuses. The point is that they are one more proof of how deeply, whether we like it or not, we believe in the Law of Nature. If we do not believe in decent behaviour, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently? The truth is, we believe in decency so much, we feel the Rule or Law pressing on us so, that we cannot bear to face the fact that we are breaking it, and consequently we try to shift the responsibility. For you notice that it is only for our bad behaviour that we find all these explanations. It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to ourselves.

These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in.

To be continued in episode 2, based on the works of CS Lewis.

[anacostiadigest]

Project Create - Anacostia, South East, Washington DC

As Historic Anacostia downtown main street business community, and the surrounding residential neighborhood experience growth and changes, the lives of young children and youth are impacted by the work of the Project Create, which has its roots in the early 1990s to provide a safe haven and after school creative art programs for children in the community.

Project Create, now in 2024, has its permanent place to call home in downtown Anacostia, where it provides free art and digital media classes to at-risk children and youth living in the Anacostia neighborhood and beyond. Project Create studio classes offers children and youth a gateway to engage in studio classes in learning to experiment in art expression of mixed-media collage, jewelry making, graphic design, dance, theater improv, and drawing & painting year round.

Back in the 1990’s, living in Anacostia was an extremely challenging time. Neighborhood children and youth needing a safe haven and after school programs to go to, but had no where to go. Filling that void of no place to go, is where Rev. John W. Wimberly, active in the community, and pastoring the Western Presbyterian Church in Washington DC, stepped in. Rev. Wimberly launched his after school program, which evolved into Project Create decade later.

Gaging the creative needs of Anacostia at risk children and youth, many with no outlet for after school programming, he started an after school program to meet the community needs. With a small beginning, that planted the seed of the creation of Project Create as a neighborhood after school program with a focus on the arts and culture in Anacostia, and connecting it to the museum resources in the city. That includes the Smithsonian, plus more.

In 2002, Project Create expanded to serve more children and youth in their after school program with collaborative efforts with So Others Might Eat (SOME), which is a non-profit focused on touching and transforming the lives of children and families who are underserved or homeless. With time, Project Create expanded collaborative efforts with Community of Hope, connecting children, youth, and their families to the city health care services.

By 2003, Project Create officially became a non-profit, and achieved a milestone to buy a building on the main street business corridor 208 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE. That is a monumental achievement given its humble beginnings back in the 1990s.

Today, Project Create is a art and cultural pillar in Anacostia downtown main street revitalization, with a focus on engaging children, youth, and their families to participate in the arts and emerging cultural community in Anacostia, and the opportunities within the city and beyond as participants of the program head for colleges and universities throughout the country. All classes are free, and it is open to children and youth of all ages.

Project Create has also expanded its program to offer digital media classes. It has a studio that is fully equipped with sound and recording equipment, DJ and podcast equipment, video and photo technology, new computers with graphic design capabilities, and 3-D printers. That gives way to so much creative space for underserved and homeless children, youth and their families to find creative spaces to thrive in the Washington DC area.

[battleforgodstruth]

CRPC Podcast - Christ's Glorious Mission Accomplished (WCF 8.5-8)

Pastor’s Patrick Hines (Bridwell Heights Presbyterian Church), Jim Thornton (Reformed Faith Presbyterian Church), and Henry Johnson (Trinity Presbyterian Church) tackle the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 8, “Of Christ the Mediator” – paragraphs 5-8. CRPC Podcast – Christ’s Glorious Mission Accomplished (WCF 8.5-8)

[minipliny]

I have the incredibly pressing sensation that there is Something I Have To Accomplish and I have no idea what specifically this is about. What I need to accomplish is sleeping and I was so desperate I switched from Thomas aquinas podcast episodes (moderate disinterest) to John Calvin (longing for unconsciousness) but now I have just learned more about the difference between the Presbyterians and the Covenanters

[ashleywritesstuff]

I don't really have more to add to what I wrote last year other than to say that Star Wars set me on a path to the work I do today. However you choose to Star Wars today, have a good one. May the Fourth be with you.

May the Fourth be with you! This was from last summer where we got to see the Millennium Falcon for the first time. I cried. It was not the reaction I expected to have, but this space opera was the first science fiction work that I truly loved. That love of sci-fi captured my imagination and fundamentally changed my trajectory, ultimately influencing my life as an adult. I have a M. A. in science fiction. I write and podcast about Star Wars and Star Trek as part of my job. And I think that’s pretty dang cool. So, May the Fourth be with you. And my inner Presbyterian replies, “And also with you.”

[walnutjuniors]

Links Ask Anything: Fun or serious questions for Aaron and Tiff. Walnut Classroom: Our podcast and lesson audio recordings.

Books Giveaway: Romans and Household of Faith Review: Household of Faith (Presbyterianism) Review: Romans by Vos Review: Everyday Gospel Review: Gospel Stories

Resources Kids Q&A: Missions Go and Make Disciples: Three Motivations for Missions Motivations for Missions: Why Christians Answer Questions Ask: Sin and Sanctification

Recommendations How the Gospel Answers Shame in College Students The Digital Allure of Being Attended To

Schedule 2/2 Student voice review / Topics for spring 2/9 Missionary sharing

Subscribe Walnut Weekly: New resources and recommendations from our social media ministry.

[nahreflectionproject]

Who is Patty Krawec?

To begin, we need to understand who Patty Krawec is.

Author Patty Krawec and the cover of "Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future." Courtesy Images

Patty Krawec is an author of Indigenous and Ukrainian descent and a writer from the Lac Seul First Nation. Krawec grew up in the Christian church, going with her mother. Later, she reconnected with her father, who is of Ojibwe descent and became more involved in her Indigenous side. She is a co-host of the podcast Medicine for the Resistance and also writes for Sojourners and Broadview magazines.

A detail that is important for this story is that she does not identify herself as a Christian. As mentioned in an interview here, "Krawec is a member of Chippawa Presbyterian Church in Niagara Falls, Ontario, but she said she hesitates to call herself a Christian, wary of any assumptions that accompany the label." This is important to the rest of the blog since she often compares and contrasts Christian ideals with her Ojibwe ideals.

[glassfullofsass]

so. It's been a hot minute since I gave a shit about the bible as a "guiding" texting my life, and at least as long since I attended church services with any sort of regularity, but I was raised in the United Methodist Church which does tend to be one of the more liberal* denominations.

(*over the last decade, the denomination has formally split over the Issue of Gay Marriage.)

(I'm going to use "church" as a catchall for A Bunch of Christian Churches that I Feel Confident Grouping Together, lets say Protestants, which covers Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians and Evangelicals, among others)

There's plenty of nuance to dig into if you want to think about ordained ministers/divinity schools/Christian Educated Folk, but at the end of the day, church leaders follow the teachings they agree with, they find ministry programs that further their beliefs, and they stay on their chosen path.

Regular everyday congregation members are typically exposed to Teachings 1-3 times per week, depending on their dedication and the activeness of the church. (Some denominations certainly meet more often). These teachings fall into two (Very very broad) categories, services and bible studies.

Services have readings, sermons, prayers, and maybe music if your denomination is spicy enough.

Readings are literally just a layperson reading a text that has been selected for them.

Sermons usually involve a reference to the bible (maybe the parable of the sower, or the good Samaritan), and then the pastor's interpretation of it. (And usually his 15 minute illustration of that reference in a "real world" scenario that ends in a shitty joke.)

Bible studies do involve conversation and actual engagement with the text...but its usually a very select piece of text. It's from whatever version of the bible the specific church uses, or whoever is leading the study uses. The study may be lead by the pastor or some other Educated person, or just a layperson. I can't speak for every church, but as far as I remember, all the sunday school and vacation bible school and confirmation classes and youth group discussions I ever attended were not about challenging the text, or digging into it to discover how the teachings might be applied in today's world, they were about learning the story and "understanding" the "lesson". (The Prodigal son, the mustard seed, the one about the two guys that were given their master's coin and the one with more buried it and the one with less invested).

Now sometimes you might get an actual, good sink-your-teeth-in study that does really investigate whichever book. I'm not denying that those exist entirely.

I know Christian scholars exist. I know sacred reading practices have been practiced in Christian traditions. Even some protestants observe the teachings of the saints. There's a *booming* industry of Christian non-fiction where scholars do reach an audience that seeks to deepen their relationship with Christ.

But. The Everyday Layperson isn't expected to challenge the text. It is the word of god. To question it would be sacralidge. Interpretation is for those Wiser and More Holy to pronounce.

The teachings and sermons and passages are all chosen by Important People that the congregation looks up to, and those people sure as fuck have an agenda.

Those sacred reading practices I know about? I didn't learn Lectio Divina or Sacred Imagination in youth group. I learned them from a podcast hosted by divinity school students.

Even if your average layperson decides to Read Their Bible, they likely don't have the tools or the community support to interpret it in a meaningful way.

There is, also, this pervasive teaching that underlies the Christian belief...that if everyone were just "saved" then all would be well. If everyone accepted Jesus into their life, then that would solve our problems. That Christianity is the one true way and we know best and we are the blessed and all others are to suffer for not bowing to the truth.

I'm getting low on spoons, so I'll just wrap up with this-

Particularly with American Christianity, you have a legacy of the faith being used as a tool of assimilation and being claimed as an indicator or righteousness and superiority.

There exists a pattern where access to the source material and the ability to understand it is reserved for those who "deserve" it.

This is the faith that literally stripped passages from its sacred text in order to better master the enslaved people who had been indoctrinated into it.

Americans have not rooted out our indoctrination to the White Supremacist Social Order and American Christians are the natural conclusion to a religion that worships itself more than its god.

Since posting that "how many mass graves and extinct cultures" post last month, I've had multiple Christians in the notes whining that there isn't a "specific instruction of belief that Christianity needs to wipe out every other religion in the world" in Christianity's teachings, and that it's all just The Church/King James/etc.

And every time, I point to the literal text of the passages of The Great Commission.

And nearly every time, that shuts them up; the only time it didn't, it was to engage in some disgusting semantical goalpost moving.

But it's like...

Why do Christians not know the content of their own texts? Is your faith really so tribalistic and totemic around the concept of "Jesus" that you all don't bother to actually read the religious texts?

It feels like it must be--I've heard of too many instances of Christians walking out of readings of The Sermon On The Mount because they think it's "liberal nonsense" and the like, but I just find it baffling and more than a little sad that I, a Jew, apparently knows the New Testament's text better than the people who swear by it and ostensibly believe and follow it.