Bayly Blog: Out of Our Minds, Too

Men are the minority in Evangelical churches in Africa...

When did you last hear a church commended for her "manliness?" When did you last hear a missionary talk about the absence of men in Evangelical churches in Africa? Have you ever heard how a Christian "spearman" in Africa keeps the oodles of children in his church in order, or how he deals with the bones in his meat?

The author of the post, James Brinkerhoff, is the nephew of Scott Brinkerhoff. You and your church would do well to remove some of your missionaries who have long since turned away from Biblical doctrine and practice, and fill the holes that your due diligence opens up in your missions budget with Scott and James.

And what about the absence of men in African Evangelical churches? It may be the same reason men are absent or docile in American churches. Pastors run churches through the hard work of compliant women...

Large corporations are the real pirates...

I'm sure many readers of Baylyblog consider my opposition to Christian organizations and publishers' claiming copyright on works in the public domain as quixotic, tilting at windmills.

But it's not tilting at windmills--not at all. Rather, it's a serious case of theft and you can get a better understanding of this evil by reading this article showing that the real piracy today isn't your teenage son using Limewire to download a song or movie. That's shoplifting and it's sin, but the real piracy is done by the large corporations abusing copyright law for their own profits. And Christian publishers are not speaking out against these abuses. I have yet to see or hear of them taking a Christian stand against such theft.

If a reader can point me to a place where they have opposed it, please do so. (TB, w/thanks to Lucas)

Please, Mr. Irsay; Don't do it. Do not do it...

Want to know how I feel about Colts owner Jim Irsay interviewing former Ohio coach Jim Tressel as Jim Caldwell's replacement? I'm utterly disgusted. IU hired Tom Crean's predecessor, Kelvin Sampson, after he also lost his job because he was caught cheating. Can we please learn something?

Check out the first two questions and answers on the Indy Star blog and you'll see I'm not alone in my sentiments.

Come on, Mr. Irsay. We didn't even like you using Mr. Tressel to advise Coach Caldwell on his appeals, and now you're thinking of him to replace Coach Caldwell? Don't do it. Please don't do it. (TB)

 

Joseph Maraachli and the state's usurpation of parental authority...

Joseph Maracchli was the subject of an intense right-to-life battle in Canada last spring. Sadly, a couple months ago he died at his parents’ home in Windsor, Ontario. He was 20 months old. Andrew Henry wrote about Joseph on Baylyblog back in March. You may review the details here.

The number of similar cases will explode in coming months and years and there are important lesssons Christian fathers and mothers should learn. God has given parents the natural affection and compassion for their own children that no doctor can truly have no matter how highly trained or respected he may be.

This is not to say that parents are incapable of being neglectful of their children, but it's the exception rather than the rule. God’s good gift to children is parents who are loving and tender toward them.

The ever-increasing power and authority of government in our lives can only produce bad fruit, and the belief that a well-paid and benevolent bureaucracy can make better decisions than parents is wicked...

'Sodomite' is the most accurate and loving word to use (part 3 of 3)...

It's taken a while to get around to it, but here are a few responses to one reader's comments on the two earlier posts, "'Sodomite' is the most accurate, loving word (part I)..." and "'Sodomite' is the most accurate, loving word (part II)...".

James writes: ... Mr. Bayly attempts to address comments (that) he "did not take Sodom's explicitly stated sins very seriously." After reading the entirety of his post and what followed, it seemed very obvious that the person who made that comment was referring to Mr. Bayly's nearly complete ignoring of the Ezekiel text and almost total exaltation of the Jude text.

James, my purpose in what I've written has never been to give an historical analysis of all the sins of Sodom for which she was judged. Rather it has been to defend the church's historic use of the word 'sodomy' to designate same-sex carnal relations and to establish that according to the Word of God this was at the center of Sodom's wickedness. Homosexualists have spent decades promoting a revisionist interpretation of the Genesis account, seeking to remove sodomy from the list of sins God judged when He destroyed Sodom. And to that end they emphasize all the sins of Sodom that have nothing to do with sexual immorality.  My purpose is not to analyze each of Sodom's sins but to defend the church's historic usage of the terms 'sodomy,' 'sodomitic,' and 'sodomite'...

Shaw on "university schoolboyishness..."

One reader sent an e-mail reporting he couldn't find the Shaw quote on corporal punishment mentioned in an earlier post. He's right. I've looked for it several times through the years and couldn't find it either. Sorry. Still, I distinctly remember reading it about thirty years ago and I'm convinced it was Shaw, so that's how I report it.

Anyhow, in looking for that quote this reader came across another he forwarded...

Roe v. Wade's 39th anniversary: The Lord's throne is in Heaven...

(TB: On the occasion of the thirty-ninth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I post this message. It would please me if you would take the time to read it. Thank you.)

I remain amazed that abortion could even become a political issue in a country with pretensions to being civilized. It is as if we were to debate the merits of legalizing cannibalism, with the liberal side chanting the slogan "Keep government out of the kitchen!"

There is no danger that the other side will ever be persuaded that it is wrong; there is, however, the very real danger that we will become discouraged, worn down, and inured to an evil that should always horrify and sicken us. The erosion of our consciences is surely part of the destructiveness of this abominable "procedure."   - Joe Sobran

The Lord'€™s Throne Is in Heaven

(For the choir director; a psalm of David.) In the LORD I take refuge; how can you say to my soul, "Flee as a bird to your mountain; for, behold, the wicked bend the bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string to shoot in darkness at the upright in heart. If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" The LORD is in His holy temple; the LORD'€™S throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men. The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence His soul hates. Upon the wicked He will rain snares; fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup. For the LORD is righteous, He loves righteousness; the upright will behold His face. (Psalm 11:1-7)

Thirty one (now thirty-nine) years ago today, on January 22nd, 1973, the Supreme Court of these United States issued its infamous ruling, Roe v. Wade, in which the Court declared that a mother's intentional killing of her unborn child was a fundamental right guaranteed under our Constitution. Since that ruling, it has been a commonplace to observe that Roe v. Wade, the Court's repeal of the laws prohibiting abortion on the books of all fifty states, was simply the exercise of raw judicial power with a legal justification based upon a mist and a vapor--€”or as the Court itself might put it, emanations from penumbras.

Our Supreme Court: intentionally conniving at murder...

Since 1973, no one has made a name for himself defending Roe. v. Wade’s history, biology, ethics, logic, or justice; and only a few have been foolish enough to claim this ruling will stand the test of time...

Should Christian parents get vaccinated...

Excellent blog post by son Joseph on the subject of the discipline of children and talk shows on Christian radio stations. Please read it. (TB)

Old friends...

Back in the early nineties at Evangelical Community Church here in Bloomington, I started a Calvin's Institutes Reading Group and a young graduate student at the church named Steve Baarendsee helped lead it. For most of the twenty-five or so men and women in the group, this was their formal introduction to Reformed theology and to the PCA (at the time I was PCA)...

Sex-selective abortion...

Through FB our longtime friend Al Stout writes:

Here is the argument… 

Abortion is a decision between a woman and her doctor. It is a matter of privacy, and the health of the woman is all that can be considered in these decisions. The fetus is not an individual life. It is not a person. It is a thing (sometimes a parasite) that cannot be taken into account by a third party to the abortion decision. An abortion is like a kidney, lung, or cornea removal.

Since the "thing" in a woman's womb is not a person, why are people upset abortions are performed for reasons of sex selection? For that matter...

Happy birthday, Professor Baker...

Speaking of art, one blessing of Bloomington is the constant stream of operas (if you like that sort of stuff), recitals, and concerts flowing out of our music school. In the past few years a young husband and father of our congregation named Alex McNeilly has played his sax in several Jazz Ensemble concerts led by the universally respected jazz composer, Professor David Baker...

What's done in Atlanta stays in Atlanta....

Two years ago at the PCA's General Assembly our denominational stated clerk, Roy Taylor, spoke in support of an Administrative Committee funding initiative. In defending the proposal, Roy criticized unnamed PCA bloggers for lacking the courage to speak personally to the authors of the initiative before opposing it on the internet.

Because I had opposed the initiative on this blog and because I don't see myself as a shoot-from-the-shadows critic of PCA leadership, I made my way forward to introduce myself at the end of the session.

I told Roy I was one of the bloggers he had just accused of cowardice, but added that I hoped he would accept on the basis of my presence before him that I was willing to say in person what I said on my blog. Nevertheless, I added, despite speaking to him in person I held myself in no way bound by Matthew 18 to approach members of the committee personally before publicly criticizing their plan.

Roy responded that he hadn't been aiming his criticism at me individually, adding that he neither knew of me nor was familiar with my blog--though he corrected himself later by saying, "Oh, I think I did see that blog once."

The conversation was cordial and direct. I ended by telling Roy that I'm willing to be held accountable for the things I write while he reassured me he had not intended to malign me personally.

I tell this story in light of a ByFaith Online article about a conclave of "PCA leaders" held at Roy Taylor's behest last Tuesday in Atlanta under what ByFaith calls "Chatham House Rules" to discuss "causes for conflict in the PCA that hamper our ministry and unity."

The U.S. Constitution requires civil magistrates to protect the unborn...

Here's the simple truth stated by the man I most respect in matters Constitutional: "The federal government and its magistrates and officials have a duty to stop abortion under the Constitution, not just the discretionary authority to decide to do so."

Both the duty and the discretionary authority are denied by the curmudgeon libertarians muttering this and that out on the perimeters of our national political debates. This is why I do not trust them...

RCJR on Sanctify of Human Life Sunday; with notes on Pharaoh, Herod, and Margaret Sanger...

Now here's an excellent post by our dear friend recently widowed, RCJR. He speaks of the celebration of Christmas, the church calendar, abortion, and the upcoming Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. He asks if it's Biblical and confessional to require this observance in our pulpits and answers with a resounding, "No." I agree; the pulpit is not to be bound.

He goes on to ask whether it may be observed and answers with a resounding, "Yes."

My own suggestion is that you exercise two liberties at the same time and turn Sanctity of Human Life Sunday into Holy Innocents Sunday. You could preach on those little ones who died as Joseph took Jesus and His mother down to Egypt. Study Exodus 1:7-10 noting how Pharaoh's genocide and God's rescue of Moses is the antitype to...

Drab homes give birth to art idolatry...

(NOTE FROM TIM BAYLY: A large part of this post has been removed. A young man objected that I was replacing one idolatry with my own more sophisticated one, and I thought it best to pull the post rather than allow readers to concluding that I am promoting idolatry.)

Here's an interesting explanation of the worship of artists spreading through the PCA by way of Covenant, MNA, and Redeemer clones. George Bernard Shaw points out that this worship has its origin in artless homes and childhoods...

Ugh, it's Christianity Today, again--this time weighing in against spanking...

Knives are necessary to cut meat and bread. Every once in a while, knives are used to kill people. Can we all agree knives aren't the problem? Please? Pretty please?

The abuse of a thing does not invalidate its proper use.

This truth has eluded the editors of Christianity Today. In a recent editorial they use the death of several children at the hands of their fathers and mothers as the spectre to soften readers up to their dogma that "corporal punishment ...should be employed miles short of abuse, without anger, and as an absolute last resort." From their perch in Moses' seat, these scribes declare about spanking that "the Bible does not require it" (emphasis in the original).

Think about this. The magazine that purports to be the voice of Biblical inerrancy and Christian faith in these United States has run an editorial declaring that the rod of discipline God Himself requires God Himself does not require. And if that sentence confuses you, all I can say is I couldn't figure out how to put it more clearly.

And if you're one of the pigheaded ones who balks against progress, just be sure you only use the rod as "an absolute last resort." 

But the Bible commands us to use the rod. God requires it...

WITD...

I'd ask him myself but it would be so embarrassing. Maybe someone here can explain to me why my son-in-law always signs his e-mails, "Sent from my Dell Optiplex 780, Windows XP desktop computer"? You'd think he'd be ashamed. He knows I've always had Macs. Is this a PC thing you can't get out of--like Microsoft and black plastic and PP clip art and bullet points?

If you have an idea, please use the comments to explain it to me. He doesn't like comments.

Stop the sweetheart deal the wealthiest corporations are demanding of Congress...

Did you notice Google's protest today, shown to the right? I can't remember another time we've done this on Baylyblog but rich corporations' abuse of copyright has to stop. Join millions of others in registering your opposition to Senate 968 (PIPA) and HR 3261 (SOPA).

The corporate authors of this legislation are demanding the ability to take down any web site (including Craigslist, Wikipedia, or Google) that hurts their profits without prior judicial oversight or due process. You'll notice sites such as Wikipedia and Craigslist have joined Google in protest.

Register your opposition now. Stop this money grab by the likes of News Corp, TimeWarner, Comcast, Ralph Lauren, ABC, Juicy Couture, Chanel, Sony, Rolex, RIAA, and Nike.

And if you think SOPA solves a real problem, read this and this.

Odd allies of the protest include Nancy Pelosi and Ron Paul. The ACLU is right on this one.

(TB)

A correction and apology...

After exchanging several e-mails with a commenter named Scott, it became clear to me I'd not done a good job writing the post, "Neglecting the Weightier Provisions of the Law." Specifically, I'd written it in a way that reasonable people would conclude my purpose was to answer Scott, personally, rather than answering more generally this error common among Reformed men--and specifically, the man Scott had provided a link to in our comments.

I'm sorry I wasn't more careful in the way I wrote this post and apologize to Scott for my failure and the wasted hours it took him to show it to me. The first two paragraphs of that post have been changed to call attention to this failure and correct it. (TB)

Reformed pulpits today show Erasmus won...

In his Bondage of the Will, Luther opposes the Roman Catholic church's champion Biblical scholar, Erasmus of Rotterdam. In an earlier post, I put up an excerpt from the beginning of Bondage of the Will in which Luther tells his readers he will be making assertions because it's the character of the Christian mind to "delight in assertions."

One longtime Baylyblog reader who is a committed Roman Catholic thought to defend Erasmus here by placing a large quotation from Erasmus immediately under the Luther quote I had posted.

Reading the Erasmus excerpt, it was apparent Erasmus was saying one thing while doing another. The way Erasmus speaks in this excerpt is common among scholars today and, having put those scholars in charge of the training of our future pastors at our denominational seminaries, we've arrived at the place where preachers often are incapable of saying, "Thus says the Lord God Almighty."

Pastors preach for the approval of the lowest common denominator, scholars and the professional and chattering classes they manufacture, rather than the farmers, truckers, and coal miners who used to be Presbyterian but long ago left for Baptist and Pentecostal churches...

Martin Luther: "not to delight in assertions is not the character of the Christian mind..."

Appropos to everything, this from the beginning of one of my brother David's favorites--Luther's Bondage of the Will. Here Luther is addressing the principal humanist of his generation, Erasmus of Rotterdam. As Luther makes clear throughout the course of this book, Erasmus was committed to tenuous debate and only a modicum of reform:

* * *

First of all, I would just touch upon some of the heads of your Preface; in which, you somewhat disparage our cause and adorn your own. In the first place, I would notice your censuring in me, in all your former books, an obstinacy of assertion...

A Harris Tweed is just plain serviceable...

This is likely a first, but may I offer a little sartorial advice? Few things are more serviceable to pastors than a good Harris Tweed. It goes down, to the middle, then up from jeans to chinos and then even gray flannels, shirt, and tie. But where to get one without breaking the bank? After much searching a year ago, I decided to use the internet and hop over the pond to make the purchase. I'm happy I did and want to recommend two sources for this jack-of-all-trades jacket. I've ordered from both these companies and commend their service and price.

Harris Tweed Isle of Harris (bought my own here)

Peter Christian (also good moleskin pants)

Reilly on Tebow...

Another good piece by ESPN's Rick Reilly. You may remember Reilly's nasty piece attacking the home-schooled boy who, in a state wrestling tournament last year, declined to wrestle a girl? On a different note, in this piece Reilly commends Tim Tebow. As the Apostle Peter puts it, Tim Tebow is keeping his behavior excellent among the Gentiles:

Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation. (1Peter 2:12)

(TB, w/thanks to Doug)

Tim Tebow, Ben Roethlisberger, and Rick Santorum...

The rare fair account of Evangelicalism that runs in the mainstream media--this by David Kuo and Patton Dodd from the oped page of the Washington Post a couple days ago.

Midwives, denominations, abortions, and my present political philosophy...

I don't write much about Indiana politics and government but it's caused me no small sadness to contemplate the term-limit-departure of our fiscally excellent governor a little over a year from now. Gov. Mitch Daniels will have completed his second term and will have to leave office.

If I am comforted in our loss of Mitch's magnificent fiscal leadership, my comfort comes from this: that his likely successor is a man, Representaive Mike Pence, who promises to govern with the same fiscal commitments while adding a theological framework to those commitments that promises to extend far beyond fiscal discipline, on to principles concerning many other areas of governance including the battlefields on which the destroyers of our nation and its states are focussing their revolution: sexuality, the Image of God in man, the origin and nature of sexuality and marriage decreed by our Creator in His Order of Creation, and so forth.

As you read through Daniels' penultimate State of the State Address delivered yesterday evening, you will gain a hint of why I respect him. He has been unflinching in disciplining the educationists of our state by a host of private initiatives that have finally brought competition into public education. True, he brags about over half of our state budget going to edcuation, and he seems to see higher education as an unqualified good. I disagree with both things as I disagreed with President Bush on similar matters. Mitch Daniels is not a wild-eyed enthusiast. He's a realist who really changed our state. Definitively. And reading, you'll see what difference it makes to each citizen of the state.

But there's something else I want to say, here.

Some thirty years ago, I was at the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly to oppose their denominational abortion policy. My dear Mary Lee was pregnant and, since we were in the habit of having home births, I'd called the midwest representative of the PC(USA)'s self-funded independent medical insurance plan to ask if they'd cover the cost of our midwife? It was awkward. He hemmed and hawed and said he didn't know and would have to get back to me on it...

Limited government, yes. Limitless bloodshed, no.

INTRODUCING A GUEST POST: A number of otherwise Reformed men are making the case that Federal laws against abortion are unconstitutional. They claim conservatives who call our nation's civil magistrates to stop the baby slaughter are the legal equivalent of liberals who claimed the Constitution as their authority for legalizing that slaughter. They announce there is moral equivalence between the two sides with each abusing the Constitution in the name of their own pet social issues.

So, as promised earlier today, here's an exposure of their argument written by a Presbyterian elder with significant appellate experience who currently serves in a high post of civil authority. Read it carefully and have the faith and courage to rise above these theological masters so once again we will expect of our civil magistrates, both federal and state, faithful protection of the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of each citizen whether he is black or white, rich or poor, old or young, born or unborn. (TB, w/thanks to...)

* * *

Limited government, yes. Limitless bloodshed, no.

Men advocating on behalf of the Tenth Amendment and stumping for federal indifference to abortion nullify the very principle they purport to champion. The Tenth Amendment says: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Reserved to those people, that is, who aren’t selected for State-tolerated dismemberment in the womb...

What a guy...

Godly man. Manly Christian. And after the win, he's back home playing with his nephews.

A parable...

To those Reformed men ever vigilant to protect our form of government from being harmed by the passage of code banning abortion across our nation, a parable... (TB)

Here we have the Hutu father sitting on his porch holding forth on the boundaries of his property and the limits of his legal powers and obligations as a group of neighbors use machetes to hack to shreds his own Hutu son and Tutsi daughter-in-law and their eight children (his grandchildren).

But of course, the bloodshed is out in the street just beyond his property line...

After ClearNote conference, send your chilluns on a river trip...

This announcement just went out to our church family from our daughter, Heather Ummel. I've regularly recommended Al and Amy Parker's work of outdoor discipleship, Canoe Creation, to readers of Baylyblog. You'd not go wrong using them for your Christian school, home school co-op, church youth group, father-daughter or father-son church canoe trip, or taking part in Canoe Creation summer camps.

Here is something that may be more convenient for you since the date and location have already been set. Think about it and let Heather know if you're interested. (TB)

Canoe Creation Summer Camp

Some of our church family will remember Al and Amy Parker, who lived in Bloomington and attended church with many of us years ago. If you were reading my dad's blog this summer in mid-July you would have seen pictures of a camp experience our boys had with their ministry, Canoe Creation. The wonderful news is that they're going to bring their camp to us this summer! They will be offering a 3-day, 2-night canoe camp right after this summer's ClearNote Conference (I Believe in God the Father). The conference will be Friday and Saturday, July 6 -7 here in Bloomington. Then worship with ClearNote Church, Bloomington Sunday, July 8, followed by you and your wife taking a couple days R&R while your chilluns are off on the water with Canoe Creations...

Neglecting the weightier provisions of the law...

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. (Matthew 23:23)

One commenter calls our attention to the blog of a writer of economic treatises popular within some Reformed circles who, in the linked blog post, makes the case that Federal laws against abortion are unconstitutional and that conservatives seeking federal action to protect the babies is the legal equivalent of liberals using the Constitution to declare baby-murder legal. Both sides abuse the Constitution for their own pet projects, this Theconomist argues.

(PLEASE NOTE: The paragraph above has been changed substantially in order to clarify that I meant for the words below to be more general than personal; but also that I did not intend them to be read as applying personally to the commenter, Scott, who provided the link to the other blog.)

Here's my own limited response. In the next day or so, though, we'll post another response written by a Presbyterian elder with significant appellate experience who currently serves as a civil magistrate in an high post of civil authority.

* * *

To argue that the federal government doing something to stop the wholesale slaughter of the nation's millions of defenseless infants is usurpation of powers is the sort of heartless rabbinical self-justification we should expect from those who tithe their mint and cummin. I've said over and over again that the Declaration of Independence was the basis for the mounting of our nation's revolution and the moral and legal context from which our Constitution was birthed and has any meaning or purpose yet today. The central purpose of our Constitution is the protection of the nation's citizens--not the protection of states' rights--and when that central purpose is defied or denied, the rest is straightening the deck chairs on the Titanic.

I've quoted the Declaration in this discussion. Its words are clear. If our federal civil magistrates' hands are tied in stopping the slaughter of our nation's fifty million wee ones...