New Links Category: Hurricanes

So I’m a day or two ahead of hurricane season, but nevertheless I’ve added a few links I’ve found useful since August 29, 2005.

I also need to separate the Resource Links into separate subcategories at some point, and add a few. As for my main links, the blogging slowdown that has come with summer doesn’t inspire me to add anyone new off-hand.

“June too soon, July stand by, August come they must, September remember, October all over”

Good mnemonic, but not entirely accurate, even for the Caribbean.

Theodicy

Theodicy: God throws dice, but He knows how they will land before He throws. Or as some ancient rabbi said, “All is foreseen, but free will is given”.

Hi, Iyov.

Me explaining the mind of God is like an amoeba explaining my mind.

If I were God, you be praying someone else could be God, because I’d make a proper mess of the multiverse. Unless, like James Blish, you think somehow Godhood constrains God. Though it’s been years since I read those books so maybe I don’t recall them properly.

The best defense of theodicy is no defense, as in:

Gen 50:20 NET. As for you, you meant to harm me, but God intended it for a good purpose, so he could preserve the lives of many people, as you can see this day.

Job 40:2 NET. “Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?
Let the person who accuses God give him an answer!”

Job 42:2-6 NET. “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted;(3) you asked, ‘Who is this who darkens counsel without knowledge?’But I have declared without understanding things too wonderful for me to know. (4)You said,’Pay attention, and I will speak; I will question you, and you will answer me.’ (5) I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye has seen you. (6) Therefore I despise myself, and I repent in dust and ashes!

Joh 9:1-3 NET. Now as Jesus was passing by, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. (2) His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who committed the sin that caused him to be born blind, this man or his parents?” (3) Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but he was born blind so that the acts of God may be revealed through what happens to him….”

What, you thought I was going to solve one of the world’s great mysteries all by myself?

A Bit Queasy in Church: Memorial Day

Did anyone else have the feeling I got in church this Memorial Day Sunday? My local independent but associated SBC church had the usual patriotic display: the flag display, starting with the American flag, then the Christian flag, then the flags of the various American armed services.

Now, admittedly my politics are somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun, but I had several immediate reactions:

1) I’m in a church. Shouldn’t the christian flag come first? I mean, even amongst the military isn’t it usually “God, honor, country”?

2) I certainly respect the service given me and my country by members of the armed forces, who generally get about as much or less respect than those of us in the service industries, but that old truism rears its ugly head: doesn’t everyone think God is on their side in a war?

3) Unlike our ancestors in Medieval Europe, most of us Western Christians today don’t hear “to live by the sword is to die by the sword” and think the Lord was expressing approval. 

4) Wasn’t the early church strongly pacifist, at least until they got to actually run the armed forces? Not that I think there was ever much of a Christian “golden age”. The Lord rebuked the disciples regularly and the apostles rebuked the early churches just as regularly. As early as Second Clement a sermon was being preached about Christians being their own worst enemies. Still, flawed as they were, the early church likely had a few things right that we, in our different situation, probably don’t.

5) Baptists as a rule and Southern Baptists in particular have historically been among the strongest advocates of separation of church and state. Doesn’t that make flag-waving in SBC churches a bit odd? Granted I haven’t thought much on the subject but I always thought the solution to church and state was simply that individual Christians had a duty to be good citizens but the church as a unit lived as much as possible in a politics free zone. Of course that doesn’t begin to grasp the whole social gospel/ speaking truth to power/prophetic office thing, does it? 

I am thinking aloud here and have no serious answers. What, pray tell, are your thoughts, gentle readers?