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Memorial Day 2010

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Understanding the range of political expression in the USA

Look at the two political diagrams that I have attached to this post. Each one of them tells a story that is much more complex than the one that you commonly get to hear in this country. Because the story is not heard, too many Christians end up being deluded by the constant pounding of the political myth that is being told in the USA today. What is the political myth? The political myth is that there... [Read more]

language

Christian libertarians and morality

Libertarianism is an appealing approach nowadays. It can best be classified as the “pox on both your houses,” approach to politics. For many is is an appealing minimalist approach because of the constant unending stream of news that we get about earmarks that keep getting shoved into bills and special deals that keep getting cut. Many libertarians come out of a very American tradition of... [Read more]

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The dangers of a convert’s blog

Well, yet again with another Pithless Thoughts comic. This one made me chuckle because of the Episcopal Assembly currently going on. I am a convert; I admit it. And, I understand the convert tendency to be looking not simply for the Church of the Apostles but also for total doctrinal agreement by all involved and complete accord on all issues of practice. But, that has never been the reality of the... [Read more]

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Rand Paul, the Tea Party and Libertarianism

There has been a lot of furor over the remarks by Rand Paul recently. Needless to say, defenders of Rand Paul immediately charged that it was “gotcha” journalism. This is the favorite political catch phrase when you have uttered something that turned out to be politically unwise. Unfortunately for Mr. Paul, he has a record of similar statements. Please do Google him and see the various... [Read more]

Posting suspended for a couple of days

My stepfather passed away around midnight yesterday. My father died when I was seven, and my mother remarried a few years later, so he has been the “dad” in my life since then. I spent all of yesterday involved in the inevitable set of rounds one must make, church, funeral home, cemetery, etc. Now I swing into the weekend services that every priest has. On Monday is the funeral, but I will... [Read more]

faq

Secular reaction to extreme, uhm, dispensationalism?

On May 18, Father Orthoduck published a publisher’s blurb on an anti-rapture secular comic. He commented that the secular comic is probably, in-part, a reaction to a certain strain of Christianity. Yesterday, a poster made the following comment: But the truth is that a virulent strain of Dispensationalism is so real and pervasive in American evangelical Christianity that the strawman fallacy... [Read more]

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Do secularists have a point about dispensationalists?

Satan comes as an angel of light Some very interesting points were made by the people who commented on yesterday’s post. Let Father Orthoduck do some quotations. I don’t recognize the God they are talking about when they start the–if you want to go to heaven, you have to be just like me or else you will be caught in the tribulation and suffer and suffer and wish you were dead and rue the... [Read more]

Dispensational theology and secular counter-reaction

Many Christians do not know the technical name for the theology that is behind the Left Behind series of books. It is called dispensational theology or dispensationalism. While there are a couple of types of dispensationalism, here is a reasonable definition: Dispensationalism is a Protestant evangelical tradition based on a biblical hermeneutic that sees a series of chronologically successive “dispensations”... [Read more]

Anti-rapture comic

Below is a copy of an announcement sent to Father Orthoduck by Fr. Huw. Neither Father Orthoduck nor Fr. Huw  agree with the viewpoint in the announcement, however, Father Orthoduck will be discussing this in the next day or so. It is important to note that the comic below is a secular reaction against a certain type of Christian theology, one that is not well regarded in many Christian circles, but... [Read more]