Dunker Journal

THE GARMENT OF PRAISE QUARTET SANG at the recent Brethren Alive at Elizabethtown College. If you are interested in having a good acappella quartet sing at your church, I recommend them.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, on the murder of the Christian aid workers in Afghanistan by the Taliban:

The core of this was Christianity — it was the Christian nature of the mission. As the statement taking credit said, they were carrying Bibles, which is enough for them to massacre you.

These [aid workers] were admirable, generous, humane people. They were killed because of their religion. We tend to overlook the fact that this, from the enemy’s perspective, is a war about religion. It’s not about Iraq or imperialism, it’s not about Palestine. It’s about the most extreme, nihilistic religious fanaticism which will destroy or kill anything it is able to.

Look, these are the people who six months before 9/11 went into the desert and destroyed two of the most magnificent Buddhist structures in the world. This is purely an act of destroying the Other. There was an attack on July 1 on a Sufi shrine [in Pakistan].

And that’s who they are. … It’s a religious war in their perspective, and we have to remember that.

CARL TRUEMAN ON Gay Marriage.

3. Churches that have sold the pass on other issues — most notably women’s ordination — are going to find themselves skewered by the need to oppose homosexual practice with a consistent hermeneutic rather than the appearance of arbitrariness based on simple bigotry.   I suspect many evangelicals were able to live with women’s ordination because, hey, they liked women; women’s ordination may have been wrong, but it was not distasteful in the way that two men in bed together is distasteful; they never in their wildest dreams imagined what was coming round the next corner, even though enough people pointed it out to them.  Now, if they stand against homosexuality, they look like homophobes.  Better to look like an outdated fundie than a bigot.  Churches that have held the line on women’s ordination can at least say `Nothing personal against homosexuals; we simply follow scriptural criteria’ when asked by a practising homosexual why he should not be ordained.

4. Those evangelical leaders, academics and evangelical institutions that prize their place at the table and their invitations to appear on `serious’ television programs, and who enjoy being asked to offer their opinion to the wider culture had better be prepared to make a choice.  As I have said before in this column, we are not far from the place where to oppose homosexuality will be regarded as in the same moral bracket as white supremacy.   Those types only appear on Jerry Springer; and Jerry generally doesn’t typically ask them their opinion on the ethics of medical research, the solution to the national debt, or the importance of poetry to a rounded education.

SAME-SEX MARRIAGE and the Assault on Moral Reasoning.

ROBERT GEORGE WRITES on God and Gettysburg: “Under God” were Lincoln’s immortal words.

THE ELEPHANT IN the room: Modern paganism. Is it much different in the Church of the Brethren?

A Gavel Falls on Marriage: The Proposition 8 Decision. The homosexual judge, Mr. Walker, wrote in the decision,

Religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful or inferior to heterosexual relationships harm gays and lesbians.

Folks, that is the toe in the door to say that Biblical Christianity is harmful to some group, and therefore must be severely curtailed at some point. As Mohler says,

The religious liberty dimensions of the decision are momentous and deeply troubling. While Judge Walker declared that the religious freedoms of citizens and religious bodies were not violated because no such body is required to recognize or perform same-sex marriage, the very structure of his argument condemned religious and theological objections to homosexuality and same-sex marriage as both harmful and irrational.

Frank Turk writes on why homosexuals want official recognition of their deviance:

Oh no — that can’t be it because they believe they are doing nothing wrong. What is at stake here is that they want to enforce their moral choices on other people to justify their own behavior. They phrase their quandary as an opportunity they themselves are denied, when in fact they are seeking to change the way other people see them.

“OUTED” PASTOR SAYS no to homosexuality, follows Jesus.

I MENTIONED this old Messenger from July 1988 at the BRF General Meeting during Brethren Alive 2010. Some readers in 1988 were offended, but I think most of the BRF Committee took the cover in stride, as the article inside was a fair attempt by Donald Fitzkee to portray BRF.

Brethren Revival Fellowship announces the publication of a commentary on The Acts of the Apostles, by Mark E. Baliles. It has 352 pages, and the suggested donation is $20.00.  Send your request and donation to Brethren Revival Fellowship, P.O. Box 543, Ephrata, PA  17522-0543, or make your request here:

The Brethren New Testament Commentary series aims to give a readable explanation of the New Testament text, with loyalty to Anabaptist and  Pietist values.

The book of Acts provides the link that connects the four Gospels with the remaining part of the New Testament. Luke begins the account by telling about the ascension of Jesus, mentioning another command of Jesus to take the gospel message to the ends of the earth, and then gives much information about the earliest days of the church.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John tell what Jesus began to do and teach. The book of Acts tells what Jesus continued to do and teach through the apostles in the church. The Acts of the Apostles presents the account of the establishment and development of the early Christian church. In Acts we learn about the giving of the Holy Spirit, the early advance of the gospel, and the formation and spread of the church. The Acts gives the historical background for many of the New Testament books which are named in the Epistles.

This commentary is a tool which attempts to explain and apply the teaching of the text through an exposition and an application of the Bible message. There are helpful divisions to aid in structured teaching of God’s Word.

The writer of the commentary on the book of Acts is Mark E. Baliles, serving as pastor of the Indian Creek Church of the Brethren in Vernfield, PA. The General Editor of the series is Harold S. Martin, a Church of the Brethren elder and editor of the BRF Witness.

TIME MAGAZINE: Has the Oil Spill Damage Been Exaggerated?

DORIS JEAN HIGH HAS a photo report of the work done today to repair the vandalism done to the Kreider Church Cemetery, near Manheim, Pennsylvania. Kreider’s is an old meeting house of the White Oak Congregation. More on the graveyard vandalism at Kreider’s can be found here and here.

ONE ANABAPTIST GROUP HAS DOUBLED in size since 1992, and is now twice as large as the Church of the Brethren. It does not brook homosexuality, women ministers, or divorce and remarriage. It also retains 85% of its young people. It has not changed its doctrinal teaching since 1632.

TRULY R.I.P. Art Gish dies in tractor accident.

BRETHREN BIBLE INSTITUTE BEGINS Monday (Sunday for dorm students).

THE LARGEST CHURCH BODY IN THE WORLD HAS STRENGTHENED its position on the ordination of women.

IF YOU WANT TO GO to Harvard or Yale, you better not join 4-H or the FFA. Come to think of it, I think we’d be better off with government officials who did participate in 4-H or FFA, rather than those who went to Harvard or Yale.

FOR THOSE INTERESTED in saving money on back-to-school items, here is a list of states, with their dates, of sales tax holidays.  I note that the list includes the states where there are significant numbers of Brethren, such as Virginia, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, and Missouri.

AT ANNUAL CONFERENCE IN PITTSBURGH, one ecumenical guest conspicuous by his absence was Archbishop Robert Duncan, of the Anglican Church in North America.  He is based in Pittsburgh, his diocesan see, but wasn’t on the platform. I wonder if he was even invited?

FOLLOWING UP to the recent post on Bible-believing churches actually following the Bible in their practices:

“It is very easy for objectors to say that the reason Christian women were not allowed to become religious ministers back in the ‘olden time’ was because the position of women in society back then would have made the Christian faith disreputable to outsiders if women were allowed to function in this way . . . The problem with this argument is that it is actually the reverse of the truth. The Christian church did not have to exclude women in order to fit right in. Excluding women from the ministry was the odd thing to do. The ancient world was crawling with priestesses, and if Christians had admitted women into their ministry, no one would have raised an eyebrow. The church took the counter-cultural route and did something that made her stand out — which is, incidentally, what we are being called to do.”

TECHNOLOGY REVIEW:  Why Our Universe Must Have Been Born inside a Black Hole. This could explain how the universe appears to be billions of years old, yet eyewitness accounts declare it is less than ten thousand years old.

ANOTHER THOUGHT ON THE “FEAR” MEME that ran through several speakers at Annual Conference:

Liberals cannot imagine themselves into a way of thinking in which conservatives do what they do and believe what they believe for good reasons. And since they cannot believe that conservatives are motivated by rational beliefs and admirable motives, they must appeal to darker, more primitive impulses to explain their behavior. [From Timothy Dalrymple, on a different subject, but still relevant.]

Such as “fear.” But the only fear I heard at Annual Conference was from the liberal side. They are deathly afraid, and sense in their depths, that Annual Conference will affirm the 1983 Statement on Human Sexuality. The rant given in the On Earth Peace Insight Session on Sunday evening, and the relentlessness of the Monday evening sermon by Earle Fike, are clues to that fear.

I also thought there was a telling moment in the Standing Committee model hearing on Tuesday night. One of the scarf-adorned liberal members of Standing Committee, when asked if she would support the Annual Conference decision next year at Grand Rapids even if it went against her viewpoint, demurred by saying, “We’ll let the spirit lead.”

In other words, “No.”

A WRITER FROM SOJOURNERS MAGAZINE VISITS a Bible-believing church, and is surprised that the church actually believes the Bible.

THE FRIENDS OF ISRAEL GOSPEL MINISTRY PRESENTS the annual Winona Lake Prophecy Conference, July 25-30, 2010, at the Orthopaedic Capital Center, on the campus of Grace College and Seminary. (PDF File).

THE Y.M.C.A. IS DOWNSIZING to one letter. Just Y? I have to wonder if it is because some local Y.M.C.A.’s are re-emphasizing the “C” part?

FROM STAN NOFFSINGER, General Secretary, on the issue of LaVerne Church of the Brethren distributing rainbow colored scarves at National Youth Conference, as found in the NYC Advisor packet:

The staff and I are aware that a few youth plan to wear and give away rainbow-colored scarves at NYC. The scarves are meant ‘to show that the church should be a place where everyone is welcome.’ This is not an activity coordinated or endorsed by National Youth Conference; however, because the Church of the Brethren believes there should be no force in religion, we will not prevent the scarves from being worn or shared at NYC. Everyone in attendance may respectfully accept or decline any item that is offered. Our personal opinions and beliefs vary widely. Recognizing our diversity and honoring one another’s relationship with God, we expect respectful interactions among all NYC participants — youth, advisors, and staff — in all situations.

What would happen if a group started handing out American flags to those attending NYC? Would the national staff be as laid back over that?

OUR SYMPATHY AND PRAYERS GO OUT to Camp Alexander Mack, which lost Peter Becker Lodge this morning in a fire. Becker Lodge contains both the kitchen and dining halls, offices, as well as lodging for the summer staff.

ROMAN COIN HOARD FOUND in Britain.

Now on Query #2 on implementation of congregational ethics paper. Some questions raised as to details and process. Standing committee is recommending that the query be adopted and a committee be put in place to answer it.

We started today with a Conference Bible Study led by Stephen Sweitzer. It was a good look at several Scriptures.

Now back to business. On the By-laws, there are some technicalities being addressed. Approved by a 2/3 majority without much opposition.