Not every statement we donât agree with is intended to misrepresent and mislead. I personally think the urgency is a traditional solution to the problem of motivating a fitting regard for the sacred which I think of as helping actualize a more robust expression of our humanity and human fulfillment - a notion especially germane to the topic of this thread - when the demands of the mundane are so much more obviously pressing and tangible. Just my guess of course, I certainly wasnât there.
Youâre too kind Mark. The terror of damnation is what drives Protestants and Muslims. Of losing everyone they love.
I really think that is a vestigial feature from an earlier time. It isnât an attractive feature but it is variable both by denomination and by individual. There is hope it will be de emphasized going forward.
This passage came to mind and I thought it was also fitting in the context of your comment here.
âIn the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the templeâŚâ
Sin is not a lie. I believe you even agreed with this recently. The question is how holy is the God you do not know.
Folks sure use motivated reasoning when they elevate their opinions and deny skeptical theism â(new and improved more prestigious link ;Â -Â ).
Just catching up. Sorry for the length. Iâll preface my replies by expressing my condolences to @Kendel and the MSU community.
The Father mocked him? Really? No, the crowd, religious leaders and elders mocked Jesus, and the taunts that they hurled at him were couched in the same language as Satanâs temptations in the wilderness.
âIf you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.â
âIf you are the Son of God, hurl yourself down from this height.â
You sound like an existentialist. Kierkegaard said, Purity of heart is to will one thing.
Right. See Wittgenstein. Most of our philosophical confusions can be traced to the limits of our language.
Yeah. Wittgenstein again. See his discussion of âimponderable evidence.â
Yeah. Withhold judgment until the fruits (if any) are seen.
I have a good friend who left the faith for that reason.
Try harder, my friend. This is rude.
Also rude.
The other day @MarkD shared a different video with Iain McGilchrist over here. I finally got to finish watching this evening and
found his thoughts about purpose around 00:30:00 interesting enough to transcribe them.
According to McGilchrist
There are two kinds of purpose. Thereâs the kind that the left hemisphere understands, which is the purposing of a tool or a machine to fulfill your will. Once it has fulfilled your will, itâs job is done.
Thereâs another kind of purpose which belongs to all the things that we like and love. It belongs to games; it belongs to our relationships, to our experience of spirality and of art. Theyâre not purpose-less. From the point of view of the left hemisphere, you might as well not bother with them, because they have no purpose. However, they are supremely purposeful, because they contain within them something which calls to us and makes us move toward them and beyond. This is not in some designed way by an engineering god. That is a terrible idea that the left hemisphere has dreamt up. It deifies itself as the organizer and mechanic of everything. It says, âGod is like that.â But what I understand by god is nothing like that. When I talk about purpose and talk about these values as being values in themselves, ends in themselves. Iâm suggesting that we need to re-imagine what we mean by those values and by that purpose.
I like how he points out two different concepts of purpose, one extrinsic and one intrinsic. And I think those two different views show themselves in this discussion in various ways, particularly the first concept: that of a tool.
I think underneath many views of meaninglessness is the assumption that the meaning of our lives results from our being made or coming into being in order to fulfill a role, complete a job, carry out some assignment. The assumption is that without a specific reason for our existence, beyond existence itself, existence is meaningless, absurd (out of tune).
If I understand this idea correctly, does it mean, then, that our lives are meaningful only if they function as a tool to fulfill someone elseâs purpose? If that is the case, is that what one would want to be the source of the meaning of oneâs life? Certainly it might depend a great deal on who we imagine that someone is. But stillâŚis that desirable? I donât think this idea works even for Christians.
I think this segment from the long quote above is valuable:
When I talk about purpose and talk about these values as being values in themselves, ends in themselves.
It seems like itâs asking too much to see meaning in our lives in this way, accepting subjectivity as part of the package, being less invested in âultimates.â In focusing so heavily on ultimates (and our inability to participate in or change them), we tend to miss the real value of our own lives and those of others. In missing it, we are poorer. Starving at a feast.
Iâll bring Sisyphus back, the poster-boy of nihilism. Aside from his mythical existence, he canât fit the bill of the nihilist. Sisyphusâs meaningless existence was created for him with a purpose â punishment. Sisyphusâs existence is a paradox, particularly, if one sees meaning in life tied to an assigned purpose. I donât think we need it.
Dan Allender and Tremper Longman arrived at that conclusion in their book The Cry of the Soul:
âGod chose to violate His Son in our place. The Son stared into the mocking eyes of God; He heard the laughter of the Fatherâs derision and felt Him depart in disgust. In effect, the horror of judgment that God brought upon Nineveh, as prophesied in Nahum 3, was leveled against Jesus.â
Not at all. @Klax freely admits this. Which makes his certainty regarding the judgement of God contemptible.
Donât forget our friend Narcissus:
âNarcissus finds himself thirsty one day and makes his way to a clear pool for a drink. In the water he sees his reflection, an image so striking that he reaches in to embrace it. But the image is lost when the water is disrupted, as it is with each future effort, leaving Narcissus all the more desperate. Immobilized before the pool, he pines for the image that will never return his love and eventually succumbs to the neglect of his basic needs.â
Chuck DeGroat When Narcissism Comes to Church
To whom? Liam couldnât lie to save his life. No one here is lying. No one who can be said to have originated the ignorant superstitious idea (the Egyptians wasnât it?) was lying.
But of course most here believe this that is not true. And its not just Muslims and Protestants, although their exclusivity is acute, Orthodox and other Catholic are damnationist too. Virtually nobody believes that Love is competent. Virtually every Abrahamic believes that âchoiceâ made by teenagers affects their eternal destiny. Believes the lie that Love is incompetent.
Just read the blog post, Mike. Keener conveniently leaves out things like the Burned Over District and other revivals that turned out not to be revivals.
In my short life, Iâve seen Christians grab on to all kinds of things as âof the Lordâ and run with them. Then to find out that the end result was worse than before.
We can only get a sense for what has been happening at Asbury or any other âeventâ, great or small, in distant hindsight. And that will be colored as well by many things.
We also fail to notice what looks mundane but which has been transformative. Shiny objects tend to pull at us. So sometimes we miss the most important things.
Keener conveniently leaves out things
If he did that may not have been the point or context of what he was saying. Which blog post? Knowing him the way I do, he does not conveniently leave out things.
Sam Storms: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma > What is Revivalâand is it Happening at Asbury?
Ok, I think you meant this article, while Keener doesnât go into specifics, he is not naive about it:
âHe also noted that, while some manifestations were human responses to the work of Godâs Spirit, some were imitations or worse.â
Shiny objects tend to pull at us. So sometimes we miss the most important things.
What are the most important things? Do you believe genuine revival or works of the Spirit happen?
- Keenerâs a professor at Asbury? Ha! Good to know.
- Interesting article, even Sam Stormsâ bio; Good Lord! about the only thing Sam didnât say about himself is whether he drinks his coffee black or with milk and sugar!
- I have half a mind to email Keener privately and suggest the Asbury crowd go âfull onâ: unscrew the pews from the floors and encourage circular seating on folding chairs or the floor, and allowâwithin reasonâpublic testimony, teaching, and singing, followed immediately by private prayer and time for reflecting on whatever has been shared by whoever is âmovedâ to share it. Nothing, IMO, is more conducive to the Spiritâs flowing, than a circular or oval seating arrangement. Stages are for lectures and performances.
- Will the Asbury Revival last or grow? Who knows?
- âA farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a cropâa hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.â
- Just stifle Catholic and âEnd-timesâ prophets who want to stir the crowd up with a claim that the Virgin is holding back the Hand of God or that Heavenly War will break out tomorrow. Thatâs unnecessary and uncallled for fear-mongering.
N.T. Wrightâs comments at Asbury were a topic of discussion here not too long ago
- In this thread? or elsewhere?