I cannot recommend highly enough this article interviewing Thabiti Anyabwile, author of The Decline of African American Theology,on Black Liberation Theology and how it sheds light on the Jeremiah Wright/Obama kerfuffle.  A sample:

What did you think when you first heard the sermons from Sen. Obama’s former pastor. Jeremiah Wright?

Actually, I had two reactions. First, I thought they were fairly typical kinds of comments whenever African American pastors begin to whoop on political issues. One thing the viewer needs to keep in mind is that in terms of sermonic style, Wright appeared to be in the almost-always-dramatic climax of a typical African American sermon. Those parts of the sermon tend to have great emotional effect, as evidenced by the shouting crowd, but are very often not the main point of the sermon. Second, I reacted like most other people, thinking, Ouch. That’s gonna leave a bruise for everybody concerned — Wright, Obama, Trinity, and most viewers.

Has anything surprised you about the wave of indignation that has followed news of these sermons?

I’ve been surprised that so much effort has been made to saddle Obama with the views of his pastor, and that not as much attention seems to be given to equally controversial remarks made by white pastors. Rod Parsley’s comments about Islam barely received a nod.

I’ve also been surprised at how deep the ignorance of the African American church and its preaching tradition goes. Anyone with a passing familiarity with the church in either its historical or contemporary form would recognize Wright’s preaching in style, and sometimes in content, as essentially what has been preached for at least 100 years in African American churches. There’s much to object to in some of the language. But it’s essentially what is shared in a lot of churches whenever the comments turn political.

And this comment is particularly illuminating:

If you keep in mind that historically black preaching aims at emotional effect, it’s entirely possible to resonate with the emotion of a point while not at all holding to the particulars of the point. I don’t think this is healthy. But it is typical and it may help to explain why 8,000 people could attend that church, hear such things, and continue to love their pastor, serve together, and go about their everyday lives without expressing that kind of sentiment. The preaching moment is primarily affective, not cognitive.

The whole interview is excellent.

Steve

HT to JT at BTW

Recently, I have stumbled onto some of the weirdest things in my daily blogwalk.

Phil Johnson over at PYROMANIAC pointed to Tales from the Temple, the story of one mans association with and subsequent rejection of a hyper-fundamentalist, religio-fascist church in Texas. This man, James Spurgeon, is an excellent story teller and its all the more compelling to realize that these stories are true. I was up past midnight last night reading the tales. On the one hand, I laughed a lot. On the other hand I also found it very depressing. Some of the thoughts that came to my mind were:

• Since when was megalomania a Fruit of the Spirit?
• Does the bible teach blind obedience to to your “pastor”?
• Isn’t pastor another word for “shepherd”?
• Can you say “plurality of elders?”
• I am much more likely to become Roman Catholic than to join Longview Baptist Temple.
• If someone tells you not to read books outside your tradition, run, do not walk, to the door.
• Any tradition that tells you that theology is suspect, umm, is suspect.
• Do these people actually read the Bible, or just wave it around and pound on it a lot?
• I seem to have lost my gospel in here.
• How could people be so incredibly un-rooted historically?
• Every time they said they alone carried “the faith once delivered to the saints”, I just about died laughing.
• I thought Jesus commanded us to “make disciples”, or am I wrong about that?
• If Jesus joined this church, He would be “preached at” within a week.
• They would be trying to come up with some dirt on Him in two weeks.
• What the heck is “soul winning”?
• What the heck is a bus route?
• And I thought Saddleback was obsessed with numbers.
• Maybe they have a helpful spreadsheet for the souls per dollar calculation.
• James Spurgeon is a much better man than I am.

I grew up in a town that has a large and prestigious fundamentalist university. Being the pagan Southern Baptist that I was and going to the local liberal Southern Baptist university, I loved to make fun of their barbed-wire fence, knee-length skirts and silly dating rules. The fact is, after God gave me a new heart and as I moved into a more monergistic view of religion, I was very influenced by people who had come out of that university. I can see looking back that there were a lot of godly followers of Christ there. I am still glad I was never raised a fundamentalist. I am really glad I am in now in the PCA.

This sounds like a good religion (jk)

Scott

Brother Seth . I beg to differ. I have been lurking over at the Boars Head Tavern and IM for a few months now and here is my take on the iMonk. Easy to read in bulletized form. DISCLAIMER - These are my perceptions. I may be wrong and the iMonk himself may disagree.

• He has little patience for arrogance (perceived or real)
• He really does believe in a CS Lewis christianity that is “mere”
• He shuns labels and categorization of people and viewpoints
• He is talking about the “right” things. I.E The things we reformed christians need to be talking about

You mention some things I haven’t seen at all. You said,

The thing that MOST irks me about IM is that the people he has most abused in the last weeks are not the TR folks. It is the people that actually like him and think he has some good things to say but don’t agree with every jot and tittle of his thoughts on the door. People who love the message of Jesus but also love the message of Paul and are not afraid of defining what the gospel is and is not. People who think that those who preach a non-Pauline gospel are “accursed.”

Maybe I haven’t been paying enough attention. But I don’t see what you mean. If you are saying that he is not true to the gospel because he doesn’t just dismiss the NPP and NT Wright perspective, then I think you miss the point of the “big reformed tent’ he is speaking of. I read the article he wrote (which you quoted) and I cannot find anything wrong with it.

You said

I’m waiting for the apology. I really WANT to read him. I’m just hoping I’m given a reason to come back into his tent.

What has offended you so?

Love ya bro.

But I beg to differ.

Scott

I stumbled across this article that Dr. Michael Horton wrote on the culture wars. There is a lot of wisdom here.

Steve

“The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime time dribble of triviality we drink in every night. For all the ill Satan can do, when God describes what keeps us from the banquet table of His love, it is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife. (Luke 14:18-20). The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable.”

John Piper - A Hunger for God: Desiring God Through Fasting and Prayer

Our house was filled with sorrow today. Our favorite guinea pig, Patch, died in the middle of the night. Jean discovered this unhappy “accident” when she got up to drink tea early in the morning. I use the word accident in its broadest sense. Her death was not accidental. Patch had a skin condition which would cause her to scratch and bite herself until she was covered with bloody patches. For many weeks, Jean had been laboring to restore Patch to health by daily dosing of antibiotics, the occasional sulfur bath, topical antibiotics, providing a separate living space from her sister (Cinammon), brother (Junior) and mother (Pepper) and frequent trips to the veterinarian. It was a terribly trying endeavor. After days or weeks of effort, it would seem that the tide had turned and we were finally winning the battle over Patch’s self-mutilating affliction. Only to wake to find her bloodied again. In the last 10 days we began to really hope. Our vet had recommended a different antibiotic and within a few days her skin looked better than it had in months. About 4 days ago, our anxiety took another form. Patch wasn’t eating. She was extremely listless. Her breathing seemed labored. Yesterday, we took her to the vet. He said that her breath sounds were good and her heart seemed strong. He asked whether she had diarrhea. Jean said “no”. He sent us home with high hopes of a recovery. That night we discovered, to our horror, under the hut where she spent more and more of her days, the watery, blackened evidence of disease instead of her normal compacted excremental pellets. We called the vet. He said to bring her to the office in the morning. But their would be no morning, only mourning.

I buried Patch under a pine tree in a patch of ivey in the backyard. I eulogized her by thanking God for the “no small amount of happiness” that Patch had brought us as a family. I reminded the family that this joy pointed to the blazing mercy and goodness of God because we are so undeserving. Mostly, I reminded them that any happiness here is but the faintest echo of the joy that we will have one day when we are in the presence of the Lord. The kids said their goodbyes with tears and each put a shovelful of dirt on her corpse. I completed the unhappy deed.

I have meditated today on the fragility of life and on the unseemliness, the unnaturalness of death. In my job, I work with the hospice industry. I love the work these people do. Hospice nurses are more passionate about their work then any other group in healthcare than I have ever seen. They devote themselves to the patients and their families at a time of great upheaval and crisis. Hospice nurses are wonderfully compassionate. They help patients take those final last steps torwards “shuffling off this mortal coil” with dignity and respect. What makes their job so hard? Why do we feel the loss so acutely when a loved dies? Physical absence is of course one reason. But I believe the primary reason is because we were made for eternity. The little joys and pleasures of this earth are but echoes of what we were intended for; to bask in the glory of God’s beauty and to delight in Him.

In memory of Patch, John Donne’s famous poem:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow,

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
——–
Steve