QB Class of 2004

I just read this great article by Don Banks on SI.com comparing the QB class of 1983 (Elway, Kelly, and Marino) with the QB class of 2004 (Manning, Rivers, Roethlisberger). As a Steeler fan, I am a little biased toward the 2004 class, especially considering what they (especially Roethlisberger and Manning) have achieved in their first five years in the NFL, but can we weigh in so soon? Is it too early in their careers to say if they're the best first round draft class of QB's ever? Read the article and let me know what you think.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/don_banks/08/28/qbs/index.html

Fox News as the "New Left"

Oh, the irony.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Fox News: The New Liberals
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

Rush in "I Love You Man"

Cassandra and I just watched "I Love You Man." Cassandra wasn't that thrilled, but it was more of a "guy movie." I enjoyed it, but could have done without some of the course jokes.

The most thrilling aspect for me, however, was that Jason Segel and Paul Rudd's characters in the film were huge Rush fans (for those of you who don't know, Rush is my favorite band of all time). At different times during the film, the two attempt to play Rush covers and at one point go to a Rush concert, making this one of the best movie scenes ever (I love the perplexed look on Rashida Jones' face; unfortunately embedding is disabled, but you can click on the link):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOckQm-TpWk

And just for fun, here's a blast from Jason Segel's past when he plays "Spirit of the Radio" on the drums in Freaks and Geeks (I love the look on his dad's face).

Questions concerning "overpopulation"

Recently, I have been thinking more and more about issues concerning the Christian faith and the use of contraceptives due to some posts on Craig Carter's blog (The Politics of the Cross Resurrected; I don't always agree with Carter [he's a little too conservative for my taste sometimes], but he has some challenging stuff to say) and some reading of Roman Catholic moral theology (from Pope Benedict and others). I haven't come to any firm conclusions yet, but I have definitely have a much greater appreciation for natural family planning (NFP). My shift has definitely come in light of the changing view that people have in the western world toward children (as almost a curse or an unwanted responsibility rather than as a blessing). Carter noted on a recent blog that 40 years ago, Pope Paul VI wrote an encyclical in which he argued that increasing availability to birth control in the Western world would lead to:
1) an increase in marital infidelity,
2) a general lowering of moral standards, especially among the young,
3) husbands viewing their wives as sex objects
4) governments forcing massive birth control programs on their people.

Carter notes the Pope Paul was correct in his predictions.

See http://politicsofthecrossresurrected.blogspot.com/2009/07/natural-family-planning-rebelling.html

So, as I have been thinking about issues concerning sex, birth control, and NFP, I read this interesting article on CNN's website by Sara Sidner. See http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/08/13/sex.or.tv/index.html?eref=rss_topstories.

The article begins "On World Population Day this year India's new health and welfare minister came out with an idea on how to tackle the population issue: Bring electricity to every Indian village so that people would watch television until late at night and therefore be too tired to make babies."

I do understand that there are issues of overpopulation in India that are a concern. In an avocation of NFP I am not arguing for recklessness. There is still a P in NFP. I, however, am troubled by articles like this one. Should India really import western entertainment (and the view of children that goes with it) as a form of birth control?

Mercersburg Theologians, Part 4

In my last post, I assessed the Mercersburg theologians’ critique of the SCM. In this, my last post in this series, I will discuss Nevin and Schaff’s relevance for contemporary Protestantism, and in particular, the SCM.

Some contemporary evangelical or free church theologians see Nevin and Schaff as a model for Protestants seeking a historically informed faith. For example, D.H. Williams, an American Baptist and patristic scholar at Baylor University, says

One should not have to leave evangelicalism or a believers’ church setting to be nourished by the substantial resources available in ancient (or patristic) Christianity. The great model for this understanding was and is Philip Schaff, whose scholarly work of the last century in producing translations of the primary texts of church history, the early church especially, is a sufficient demonstration that any oxymoron between Protestantism and the whole of the church’s history is artificially self-imposed.[1]

Some contemporary members of all three streams of the Stone-Campbell Movement have come to the hold a similar regard for the importance of engaging the church’s tradition. Therefore, whether these Stone-Campbell theologians are influenced by Nevin and Schaff, they provide an effective response to the criticisms of the Mercersburg theologians.[2]

Such engagement with church tradition has been modeled by four past presidents of the North American Patristics Society from the Stone-Campbell heritage—Everett Ferguson (Churches of Christ), Frederick W. Norris (Christian Churches/Churches of Christ), William Tabbernee (Christian Church [Disciples of Christ]), and Paul Blowers (Christian Churches/Churches of Christ).[3]

In the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ, Paul Blowers argues that a way the Stone-Campbell Movement can move forward into postmodernity is through the further development of a historical consciousness and critical engagement with the tradition of the church.[4] Blowers uses British Church of Christ theologian William Robinson as an example. Robinson, a representative in the Faith and Order Movement, “repudiated pure restorationism, devoid of a sense of the guiding role (and authority) of the church and the ecumenical Christian tradition of the early centuries.”[5]

While Robinson did not hold either the Apostles’ or Nicene Creed as a test of fellowship, he saw the creeds as “time-tested witnesses to the faith of the historic church, which might be used liturgically and instructionally.”[6] Following Robinson, Blowers does not call upon Stone-Campbellites to uncritically embrace practices from the ancient and medieval church, but to humbly expand their perspectives of the catholic and global church as people rooted in the Stone-Campbell heritage.[7] In addition, Frederick Norris has worked to create common understanding between conservative Protestants, like those in the Christian Churches, and Roman Catholics. Norris seeks to communicate the gospel message as a “free-church catholic” who encourages Christians to use the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed as “a standard of reference” and to understand the interdependence of the Bible and Tradition.[8]

In the Churches of Christ, Leonard Allen critiques “the illusion” of the early leaders of the Stone-Campbell Movement that they “they had escaped tradition.”[9] Allen argues that as confidence in the Enlightenment project continues to fade, the Stone-Campbell Movement must develop an awareness that it has a tradition, is part of the Christian tradition, and needs to embrace the church’s “Great Tradition,” which includes the ecumenical creeds of the early church.[10] Allen notes that links with the past help people develop and maintain their identity. So he condemns “historyleessness” and calls on Christians to critically engage with and appropriate the past.[11] Also, much like Schaff and Nevin, Allen calls on the Stone-Campbell Movement to maintain a high emphasis on baptism and the Lord’s Supper as “channels of divine life and grace” centered in a “proper trinitarian theology.”[12] Other scholars from the Churches of Christ agree with Allen. For example, Keith Huey says, “As we move past the hundredth anniversary of our statistical separation from the Disciples of Christ, we can scarcely maintain the anti-traditional myths that largely explained (and justified) our original existence.”[13]

In the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Newell Williams argues “that the Movement has an example of identifying ourselves with the Great Tradition of the church in the work of no less a restorationist than Alexander Campbell.”[14] Eugene Boring, in his Diciples and the Bible, praises biblical scholars, such as Leander Keck and Fred Craddock, who offer a theological reading of the biblical text. Boring encourages a critical yet catholic form of scholarship that is centered on the church and avoids sectarianism, while at the same time standing within a responsible Disciples tradition. This scholarship includes biblical authority and tradition, an ecumenical perspective, and a “rule of faith” or creed as a baptismal confession, aid to worship, catechesis, and mission, as well as a hermeneutical guide. He proposes the Disciples’ creed be a drama in the five acts of, “Creation,” “Covenant,” “Christ,” “Church,” and “Consummation.”[15]

The critiques of Nevin and Schaff can thus, in light of these examples within the contemporary Stone-Campbell Movement, help the Movement avoid sectarian or restorationist extremes that ignore catholicity and the need for an understanding of the Movement’s place within the Christian Tradition. If Nevin and Schaff had interacted with a movement who interpreted the Declaration and Address with a greater appreciation of Tradition, like in the work of William Robinson, who was “ecumenically conscientious of the need to search for the consensus fidelium from within the whole historical spectrum of Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy,” it would have been more difficult to make such substantive critiques.[16]

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[1] D.H. Williams, Evangelicals and Tradition: The Formative Influence of the Early Church, Evangelical Ressourcement: Ancient Sources for the Church’s Future, ed. D.H. Williams (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 12.

[2] Blowers, “Restoring the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church,” 381.

[3] Paul M. Blowers, “Fathers of the Church, Appeal to the,” In The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, Ed., Douglas A. Foster, et al (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 333 and “Dr. Paul Blowers Gives Patristics Society Presidential Address.” Accessed 6 Aug 2009. http://www.esr.edu/News/News.htm#Dr._Paul_Blowers_Gives_Patristics_Society_Presidential_Address.

[4] Paul M. Blowers, “Engaging Tradition as an Imperative for the Stone-Campbell Churches: A Response to Leonard Allen’s ‘The Future of the Restoration Movement,’” Leaven 14 (2006): 178–184.

[5] Blowers, “Engaging Tradition,” 183.

[6] Ibid., “Engaging Tradition,” 183. See also Blowers, “Creeds and Confessions,” 255.

[7] Ibid, 184.

[8] Frederick W. Norris, The Apostolic Faith: Protestants and Roman Catholics (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992), vii, 38, 40–41, 45–59, 157–158 and Blowers, “Creeds and Confessions,” 255.

[9] C. Leonard Allen, “The Future of the Restoration Movement,” Leaven 14 (2006): 160.

[10] Ibid., 160–163.

[11] C. Leonard Allen, The Cruciform Church: Becoming a Cross-Shaped People in a Secular World, 2^nd ed. (Abilene, TX: ACU Press, 1990), 4–15.

[12] Allen, “The Future of the Restoration Movement,” 164.

[13] Keith Huey, “The Future of the Churches of Christ: Applying Leonard Allen’s Essay,” Leaven 14 (2006): 169–170.

[14] Williams, 177.

[15] Boring, Disciples and the Bible, 406–407, 413, 418–450. Blowers, Creeds and Confessions, 256.

[16] Blowers, “Restoring the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church,” 379, 381.

Mercersburg Theologians, Part 3

In my last blog, I summarized Nevin and Schaff’s critiques of the Stone-Campbell Movement and other Baptist and Congregational churches. In this post, I will assess their critique.

Some of the critiques of the Mercersburg theologians stemmed from simplistic understandings of the Campbells’ positions. While the Campbells recited slogans such as “No Creed but Christ” and “No Book but the Bible” and called upon Christians to make nothing “a term of communion in the Christian Church which is not as old as the New Testament,” their application of them evidenced a complex theological methodology, which was often overlooked.[1] Within the Declaration and Address, Thomas Campbell clarified his position concerning creeds by saying:

As to creeds and confessions, although we may appear to our brethren to oppose them, yet this is to be understood only in so far as the oppose the unity of the Church, by containing sentiments not expressly revealed in the word of God; or, by the way of using them, become the instruments of a human or implicit faith, or oppress the weak of God’s heritage. Where they are liable to none of these objections, we have nothing against them. It is the abuse and not the lawful use of such compilations that we oppose.[2]

Elsewhere in the Declaration and Address, Thomas Campbell claimed that creeds and confessions have catechetical value and purpose.[3]

Influenced by his father’s view, Alexander Campbell defended believers’ baptism and the weekly practice of the Lord’s Supper by using not only scripture, but also tradition.[4] Campbell quoted and cited the Church Fathers and had great respect for the Apostles’ Creed,[5] of which he said, “I can say, ex animo, that I believe every word of it. Because it is not, like all modern creeds, a synopsis of opinions, but a brief narrative of the facts, and of all the great gospel facts.”[6] William Tabbernee also notes that despite Campbell’s skepticism concerning the ecumenical creeds, “Campbell nevertheless often drew on such creeds to explain and defend orthodox Christology and trinitarian theology.”[7] In reality, what the Campbells so strongly rejected was the abuse of creeds to exclude some from the Lord’s Supper or Christian fellowship. In other words, the Campbells rejected sectarianism.[8]

While some of their critiques were simplistic, the Mercersburg theologians’ critiques have merit. While the Campbells intended to combat sectarianism, Nevin, as noted above, claimed that “the power of the unhistorical mindset” is “after all to prevail in his system.”[9] While it is often the case that the intended meaning of a leader’s message differs from the followers interpretation and application of it, Thomas Campbell argued in the Declaration and Address for a restoration or “recovery of the example and life of the apostolic church.”[10] The Stone-Campbell Movement also demonstrated a clear dependence upon Common Sense philosophy and emphasis upon freedom of individual conscience.[11] Mark Noll, as a modern outside interpreter of the Stone-Campbell Movement, thus agrees with the Mercersburg theologians’ interpretation of the Movement by noting that in the Declaration and Address, the “pillars of the movement” were “self-reliance and the Bible.”[12] These criticisms came despite the similarities of the Campbells and the Mercersburg theologians, for they all sought a catholic understanding of the Christian faith and held to a high view of the church.

In my next post, I will discuss the Mercersburg theologians’ relevance for contemporary Protestantism at large and more specifically, for the Stone-Campbell Movement.

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[1] William Tabbernee, “Alexander Campbell and the Apostolic Tradition, in The Free Church & the Early Church: Bridgint the Historical and Theological Divide, ed. D.H. Williams (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 166–180.

[2] Thomas Campbell, Declaration and Address, 37. Emphasis his.

[3] Paul M. Blowers, “Creeds and Confessions,” in The Encylopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, ed. Douglas A. Foster, et al (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 253.

[4] D. Newell Williams, “The Future of the Restoration Movement: A Disciple of Christ’s Response,” Leaven 14, no. 4 (2006): 176–177. Williams regards the Stone-Campbell movement as not anti-tradition, but instead as anti-sectarian.

[5] Tabbernee, 167–175.

[6] Alexander Campbell, “Reply to Barnabas,” Millenial Harbinger (1832): 602.

[7] Tabbernee, 168.

[8] Ibid., 166–168.

[9] Nevin, Antichrist and the Sect, 112–113.

[10] Paul M. Blowers and William J. Richardson, “Declaration and Address,” in The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, ed. Douglas A. Foster, et al (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 264.

[11] Ibid., 264–265.

[12] Noll, 380.

Baseball Suspicion?

Today, I watched David Ortiz's press conference about reports that he is on the list of 104 people that tested positive for steroids in 2003. Ortiz claimed that while he was at times wreckless in taking different supplements and vitamins, that he never purchased or took steroids. Part of me wants to believe him. As an ESPN analyst noted after the press conference, he seemed genuine in his statement. He did not read his statement, but just spoke. As incoming director of the MLBPA, Michael Weiner (unfortunate last name) noted, the government list exceeded the number of players known to have tested positive (96) and that some of the tests were also contested. Ortiz also noted that since the drug testing policy was implemented in 2004, he had been tested for steroids at least fifteen times and never tested negative.

At the same time, A-Rod and others have claimed to have never used steroids and then reports came out to the contrary. The steroids scandal is obviously unfortunate. Baseball's popularity in the US was waning even before the steroids scandal and will probably continue to decrease. I have fond memories of evens like seeing Mark McGwire hitting one of his 70 home runs in PNC Park in 1998 and still have a great love for the game of baseball. How suspicious shoule we be about baseball players, or of atheletes in general? Discussions of doping in the cycling world increased on sports talk radio and television during the Tour de France. I don't want to be a cynic who doubts that an athelete is clean every time they succeed at something. At the same time, I am greatly upset that Barry Bonds is now the homerun champ given his checkered past. I have great hopes that someone like Albert Pujols will break the record sometime in the next decade or more and bring the universe back to balance.

At the same time, should Barry Bonds be allowed in the Hall of Fame when his eligibility comes up? He was a seven time NL MVP, including two MVP's while in a Pirates' uniform. I haven't made up my mind yet. Any thoughts?