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My life, faith, family, and friends

Spencer: Jihad at Fort Hood

In FrontPage this morning, I summarize what we know so far:

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. Army psychiatrist, murdered twelve people and wounded twenty-one inside Fort Hood in Texas yesterday, while, according to eyewitnesses, "shouting something in Arabic while he was shooting." Investigators are scratching their heads and expressing puzzlement about why he did it. According to NPR [1], "the motive behind the shootings was not immediately clear, officials said." The Washington Post [2] agreed: "The motive remains unclear, although some sources reported the suspect is opposed to U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq and upset about an imminent deployment." The Huffington Post spun faster, asserting that "there is no concrete reporting as to whether Nidal Malik Hasan was in fact a Muslim or an Arab."
Yet there was, and what's more, Major Hasan's motive was perfectly clear -- but it was one that the forces of political correctness and the Islamic advocacy groups in the United States have been working for years to obscure. So it is that now that another major jihad terror attack has taken place on American soil, authorities and the mainstream media are at a loss to explain why it happened - and the abundant evidence that it was a jihad attack is ignored.

Nidal Malik Hasan was born in Virginia but didn't think of himself as an American: on a form he filled out at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, Maryland, he gave his nationality not as "American" but as "Palestinian." A mosque official found that curious, saying: "I don't know why he listed Palestinian. He was not born in Palestine."

He is a graduate of Virginia Tech and has a doctorate in psychiatry from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. While there, NPR reports, Hasan was "put on probation early in his postgraduate work" and was "disciplined for proselytizing about his Muslim faith with patients and colleagues."

He was a staff psychiatrist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for six years before transferring to Fort Hood earlier this year. While at Walter Reed, he was a "very devout" member of and daily visitor to the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring. Faizul Khan, a former imam at the Center, expressed puzzlement over Hasan's murders: "To know something like this happened, I don't know what got into his mind. There was nothing extremist in his questions. He never showed any frustration....He never showed any remorse or wish for vengeance on anybody."

So he identified himself as Palestinian and was a devout Muslim - so what? These things, of course, have no significance if one assumes that Islam is a Religion of Peace and that when a devout Muslim reads the Koran's many injunctions to wage war against unbelievers, he knows that they have no force or applicability for today's world. Unfortunately, all too many Muslims around the world demonstrate in both their words and their deeds that they take such injunctions quite seriously. And Nidal Hasan gave some indications that he may have been among them.

On May 20, 2009, a man giving his name as "NidalHasan" posted this defense of suicide bombing [3] (all spelling and grammar as it is in the original):
There was a grenade thrown amongs a group of American soldiers. One of the soldiers, feeling that it was to late for everyone to flee jumped on the grave with the intention of saving his comrades. Indeed he saved them. He inentionally took his life (suicide) for a noble cause i.e. saving the lives of his soldier. To say that this soldier committed suicide is inappropriate. Its more appropriate to say he is a brave hero that sacrificed his life for a more noble cause. Scholars have paralled this to suicide bombers whose intention, by sacrificing their lives, is to help save Muslims by killing enemy soldiers. If one suicide bomber can kill 100 enemy soldiers because they were caught off guard that would be considered a strategic victory. Their intention is not to die because of some despair. The same can be said for the Kamikazees in Japan. They died (via crashing their planes into ships) to kill the enemies for the homeland. You can call them crazy i you want but their act was not one of suicide that is despised by Islam. So the scholars main point is that "IT SEEMS AS THOUGH YOUR INTENTION IS THE MAIN ISSUE" and Allah (SWT) knows best.

Of course, it may not be the same Nidal Hasan. But there is more. One of his former colleagues, Col. Terry Lee, recalled Hasan saying statements to the effect of "Muslims have the right to rise up against the U.S. military"; "Muslims have a right to stand up against the aggressors"; and even speaking favorably about people who "strap bombs on themselves and go into Times Square."

Maybe he just snapped, perhaps under the pressure of his imminent deployment to Iraq. But it's noteworthy that if he did, he snapped in exactly the same way that several other Muslims in the U.S. military have snapped in the past. In April 2005, a Muslim serving in the U.S. Army, Hasan Akbar, was convicted of murder for killing two American soldiers and wounding fourteen in a grenade attack in Kuwait. AP reported: "Prosecutors say Akbar told investigators he launched the attack because he was concerned U.S. troops would kill fellow Muslims in Iraq. They said he coolly carried out the attack to achieve 'maximum carnage' on his comrades in the 101st Airborne Division."

And Hasan's murderous rampage resembles one that five Muslim men in New Jersey tried to carry out at Fort Dix in New Jersey in 2007, when they plotted to enter the U.S. Army base and murder as many soldiers as they could.

That was a jihad plot. One of the plotters, Serdar Tatar, told an FBI informant late in 2006: "I'm gonna do it....It doesn't matter to me, whether I get locked up, arrested, or get taken away, it doesn't matter. Or I die, doesn't matter, I'm doing it in the name of Allah." Another plotter, Mohamad Shnewer, was caught on tape saying, "They are the ones, we are going to put bullets in their heads, Allah willing."

Nidal Hasan's statements about Muslims rising up against the U.S. military aren't too far from that, albeit less graphic. The effect of ignoring or downplaying the role that Islamic beliefs and assumptions may have played in his murders only ensures that - once again - nothing will be done to prevent the eventual advent of the next Nidal Hasan.

* Share/Bookmark [4]

Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com
URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2009/11/06/jihad-at-fort-hood-by-robert-spencer/

URLs in this post:

[1] According to NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120138496

[2] Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/05/AR2009110503467.html?hpid%3Dtopnews⊂=AR

[3] a man giving his name as "NidalHasan" posted this defense of suicide bombing: http://www.scribd.com/NidalHasan

[4] Image: http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Ffrontpagemag.com%2F2009%2F11%2F06%2Fjihad-at-fort-hood-by-robert-spencer%2F&linkname=Jihad%20at%20Fort%20Hood%20%26%238211%3B%20by%20Robert%20Spencer

10:35 pm
11/5/09

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john_d_askey

Sharing your troubles with God (reprinted from a friend's e-mail)

My brother in faith, Joe, admits he doesn't have the best spelling and grammar in the world. But his heart shines through, and I wanted to share this message with you, my LiveJournal (and Facebook) friends....

I was praying and thinking and the memory of a time when I was 10yrs old came to me.

You see I had a sister that was younger then me by 5yrs and she had gutting brine damage at the age of 2 from eating paint chips that at that time had lead in it.(lead poisoning) She was like a animal after that with no understanding. So one day at the age of 5 she open the door (witch had 3 locks on i; for her safety) and wondered off without detection. By the time people in the house began to realize that Gloria was missing she was long gone, my Father and Mother got all of the 7 of us together to give the order of attack, "You go to the south side, and you go to the north side you two take the west, and will call the police. So everyone was getting ready to run as fast as they could. But I got so scared that I ran to my room and fell to my knees and began to cry and pray, and as I was praying and crying asking God to "please bring my little sister back home", my Mom walked in the room and with a stern voice said, " What are you doing here ,your suppose to be out looking for your sister". I said, but I thought we where suppose to pray when we are in trouble, that's what you told us. and she walk out of the room. ; And just as everyone was ready to go, there was a knock on the door. We opened and There where two young men and my sister standing there, " We sore her walking around by her self and new she wasn't suppose to be by here self, So we brought her here to your home they said. Father grabbed my Gloria into the apartment and my Mom, gave the two guys big, big hongs and many thank yours. And I as a 10yr old went back to my work. ( No I went back to playing).

Many years latter, After my Mom and Dad went home to be with the Lord, my sister Gloria also went home to be with the Lord, she was 45 and after coming out of surgery her heart stopped and they couldn't bring her back. But she not lose any more, with two angels at her side she entered her rail Home with all of her faculties in tacked.

You ever pray for something and get it, Then forget how God answered your prayers? Did you pray for God to bring someone into your life, and then you are the one that leaves? To ask someone, help me with this task, and then leave them doing it by themselves.

When we are all alone and in trouble, go run to your room and fall on your knees and ask God, He cares!

1 Peter 5:7 Cast all your anxiety (Or Cares) on him because he cares for you. And again Thanks for your faithfulness to the church God, and those He put over you, put you in.

10:09 pm
11/2/09

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john_d_askey

The Life and Legacy of Paul D. Yoder (by the family)

(NOTE: This text was provided by the family at Paul Yoder's funeral. Any spelling or typographical errors are mine.)

Paul Detweiler Yoder was born on February 15, 1931 to the late Norman and Stella Yoder of Telford, PA. He was the second-born in a family of five children, and was raised on a farm in the Souderton-Quakertown area. He attended the Swamp Mennonite Church and trusted Christ for salvation, consecrating his life to Jesus Christ around the age of twelve. He rode his bike to a small country school and later attended the Coopersburg High School. Paul met his wife Naomi Landes at his church in 1951, and they were married on her 20th birthday, Augest 16, 1952. Paul attended a pastor's training course at Eastern Mennonite College in Harrisonburg, VA. He was the pastor of Boyertown Mennonite Church from 1953 to 1964. He preached, visited and brought the gospel and comfort to the poor at Norma's valley. He was also involved in youth group activities.

In April of 1964, Paul and Naomi learned that biblical baptism was immersion for the remission of sins by confession of faith in Jesus Christ. They were obedient to the word and were baptized into Christ in the Manatawny Creek. Paul and his family began a spiritual sojourn in serious pursuit of a more thorough surrender to biblical truth. Paul and Naomi met with other families who left their denominationalism to practice New Testament Christianity, for fellowship and breaking of bread in their homes.

Paul took his wife and five children to Kenya in January 1970, to do work as a missionary among the Kikuyu tribe. While there, Paul visited many villages preaching the gospel, holding Bible school training for future church leaders, and started two churches which continue faithfully today. The family lived in Kenya for 3 1/2 years. They resided the first two months in a tent, then moved to a coffee plantation, and later moved to an Indian community where their youngest daughter Heidi was born. They returned to the United States in April 1973.

Upon return to the USA, Paul shepherded a church which met in his home and later in his renovated barn. He discipled many new believers in the Word of God and living out Christ's teachings. Paul never compromised the truth and his example was one of faithfulness, consistency, kindness, and integrity.

Over the years, he made many month-long trips to Kenya to hold Bible-training schools and today, many churches in Kenya are pastored by men he taught. He took various brethern and family members along on his trips, and during his most recent trip in March of 20009 he taught Bible school classs and many Kenyans trusted in Christ as savior and repented of their sins and were baptized.

Paul oversaw a ministry of ordering Bibles for needy believers in Kenya, supporting orphans, sending help to disaister areas, and helping with countless needs. The day before his death, Paul was working on sending church funds to brethern in Kenya suffering from draught for purchasing food. He also managed the funding of the international Bible Correspondence Cource compiled by son-in-law Patrick Yanello.

Paul was always very adventuresome, his first trip abroad was to the newly formed state of Israel, on a cattle-boat in 1951. In 1968 he traveled to Uganda on a mission quest which led to the move to Kenya. He went on a teaching trip to Mexico, and assisted a Christian dentist ministering to Wycliffe missionaries and a jungle trip in Ecuador.

Paul is one who redeemed every minute of his time. Hard-working, high energy and diligent, he spent his younger years as a milk man for Longacres Dairy. He then became a self-employed carpenter, and operated a small sharpening shop. He spent his later years with the upkeep of his property, including carpentry and cement jobs and installinga new roof on his house and barn this summer.

He spent his life serving others in many ways. He went to Zerns Farmers Market to get produce to give away, visited the sick and elderly in nursing homes and held a church service at Burks Heim Assisted Living. Paul's life was a busy stream of perpetual helping. The Yoder home was always open and hospitable and the table was laid for welcomed visitors. A room in the house or the third-floor barn apartment constantly housed needy persons or families. Paul enjoyed long, deep conversations with anyone who stopped to visit.

Paul loved his wife Naomi of 57 years, as his best friend, constant confident, and counselor. They constantly challenged and stimulated each other in their thinking and were in love like high-school sweethearts, even in their late age. They delighted in each other's company and in each other in their thinking and in sharing the simple joys of life. The day before Paul's death, Naomi had run back to the woods where Paul was gathering firewood, to show Paul a huge sweet potato she had found in her garden. They celebrated this together by taking a picture with the sweet potato.

Paul had a great wit and sense of humor and there was constant spark of live and liveliness in his eyes. He was full of dry humor and witty jokes and his upbeat and energetic personality kept him chipper and things would not get him down. Paul would turn unpleasant experiences into lighthearted moments.

Paul loved his children and grandchildren, setting aside his time to invest in their lives with fun, interesting projects, and kind-guided words. He also taught them the ways of the Lord and spent ours in prayer for their well-being and salvation.

Paul and Naomi displayed a constant transparency and purity in their lives, filling their home with God's love and the righteousness of Christ. Their children gew up observing this consistency, purity and love. Their children and grandchildren bear testimony that their parents are genuine followers of Jesus Christ. They have deeply committed to conforming to the trurth of God's word and living it out by loving, helping, and teaching all that cross their path. There was no hypocrisy or dark hidden secrets in their lives. The love in which their children were nurtured was real, tangible, constant and genuine.

It is impossible to describe the fullness of the life and vitality of spirit of this great man of God. God brought Paul Yoder home suddenly, in the midst of his years on Wednesday, October 14, 2009. A mighty warrior of God has gone from us.

Surviving Paul are his two sisters, Grace Gehman and Naomi Clemens and two brothers, David and Glen Yoder. His seven children, Peggy Fitzpatrick of Nashville, TN; Rose Ann Howell of King of Prussia, PA; Bonnie Keener, of Millersburg, PA; Dr. Paul D. Yoder, of Halifax, PA: Lucy Tamburro-Hiland, of Boyertown, PA: Heidi Yanello, of New Providence, PA: and foster son, Allen Robert Tremer of Reading, PA. Paul and Naomi also have 34 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren.

Paul Yoder left his family and all those touched by his faithful life, a legacy of wisdom and reverence for the truth. We thank God for granting us the privilege of knowing and loving this great man. we thank God for the lifetime graciously alloted him and for benefiting from his wisdom, knowlege of the Word, kindness and strength.

From his life will flow a river in his future generations a legacy of the kingship of Christ bearing fruit for years to come until the souls and fruits of his labors are reunited with him in heaven in the presence of the Lord and Savior he seved and loved.

Goodbye Daddy, We love you so!

05:58 pm
10/18/09

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john_d_askey

Computer-Inside-a-Computer (Reprint from Gizmodo.com)

This may be just the thing for geeks and nerds alike - running one "computer" inside another - so you don't need two beige boxes on your desktop...

In my case, it might be to run my old Mac System 6 software on my Linux computer, or inside my Windows XP machine. I've got old Mac programs, and documents, and an old Mac SE - but turning on yet another computer and letting it run until I get a free moment to give to it? I've tried...and let an old computer run for hours or days, untouched, and then shut it down again. Virtualizing a computer inside a computer I'm already running might be a better solution...

There are documents on my Mac that I'd like to continue working with, but the Mac doesn't run for free...and devoting a few hours to that document? That's hard to do! But if my Mac, and its word processor, runs inside my Windows computer, and lets me get things done, why not? I'd put the finished document in a "shared" folder, just like several users of Windows might do, and then open it in a Windows program to reformat if necessary, and print. I'm not ready to to this - but it's sure exciting to see that Sun has made the virtual machine possible! (REPRINT)

How To: Virtualize Any OS For Free [How To]

Syncing your Zune in Mac OS X, running Word in Linux, giving Linux a go within Windows 7: just a few of the things you can do with virtual machines. And setting one up isn't just easy—it's free.

The word virtualization conjures images of the dank nerd lairs, populated by lonely network admins, scattered with miles of gray wire, grimy PC towers, processed food packaging and tiny tumbleweeds woven from human hair. It sounds like the domain of the software nerd, the Gentoo jockey, and most importantly, not you. Today, though, virtualization has become mainstream: modern software makes running virtualized operating systems amazingly easy, and undeniably useful.

Intimidating terminology aside, here's what desktop virtualization means today: You can run just about any OS, Mac OS X excluded, inside any other OS. Ubuntu in Mac OS? Sure. Windows 7 within Windows XP? Why not? Windows ME within Snow Leopard? Nobody's going to stop you, I guess! And these aren't patchy, half-assed experiments we're talking about here—these are fully-functioning installations that'll connect to USB peripherals, access the internet, share files with your host OS, and run almost any software, short of 3D games. You can set up as many of these things as you want, and delete them in a matter of seconds. It's pretty great, is what I'm trying to say.

Best of all, virtualization is now something you can try—and stick with—for free, thanks to software like Sun's VirtualBox. It's a free download on any platform, and it does its job spectacularly. Here's how to get started.

What You'll Need

Free hard drive space: VirtualBox is going to create a simulated hard drive (a hard drive image, to be specific) inside your current OS's file system. In other words, you'll need to have space handy to hold a standard OS install, plus whatever apps you're planning on using on the host system. 10GB is enough to play around with in most cases.

Lots-o-RAM: As efficient as modern virtualization is, running one OS inside another isn't going to be easy on your hardware. The easiest way to ensure good VM performance is to have plenty of RAM, such that both OSes—your host and your guest—can have more than their minimum recommended amount of RAM.

VirtualBox: This is the virtual machine software, or the program in which all of your virtual OSes will run. You may've heard of clients like VMWare or Parallels, but these are either paid or have limited platform support. VirtualBox is a free, cross-platform alternative. Getting it is just a matter of downloading the correct version—there are Windows, Mac and Linux editions—and running an installation wizard.

A guest OS: Installing an OS as a virtual machine is almost exactly like installing an OS natively, albeit slightly easier. In other words, you'll need a full, licensed version of your OS, in whatever form you can get it. Downloaded ISO images will work right out of the box—this is how most Linux distributions will come packaged—while OSes on a CD will work too, including your Windows install discs. If applicable, you'll still need to enter license keys—as far as Microsoft is concerned, this is a fresh installation of an OS.

Installing Your Virtual Machine

I've chosen to install Windows 7 within OS X Snow Leopard for this guide, because this will be a common usage scenario, and because the processing of installing an OS in VirtualBox is nearly the same no matter what host/guest combo you're. If you're installing Ubuntu 9.04 within Windows XP, for example, you can still follow along. Anyway, here you go:

Installing Guest Additions

VirtualBox supports so-called "Guest Additions" in some OSes, which are essentially sets of tools and drivers that make the virtualization more seamless. If they're available, you'll want to install them: the guest OS will adjust to your screen resolution properly, your video performance will be smoother (and in Windows XP and Vista, possibly accelerated), filesharing will be simplified, copy and paste will work between OSes, and in some cases, you'll even be able to run individual programs as native windows in your host OS

That's called "Seamless Mode," and if you're running Windows inside Mac OS or Linux, you may as well try it out. It's not quite perfect—the Start Menu stacked atop the Dock is a little awkward—but this way you don't have to switch between entire desktops just to switch from one app to another. It's a cool effect, at the very least.

To install Guest Additions, click "Install Guest Additions" under the "Machine" menu while running your virtual machine. Guest Additions should appear in your guest OS as an optical disc, which should contain an installer. Run it, then restart your virtual machine. Once Guest Additions are installed, you can access Seamless Mode from the VirtualBox menu, under "Machine."

Shared Directories

Copy and paste will often work between the host and guest OS, but if you're planning on using your guest OS for productivity or downloading any kind of media, a shared folder is the only real solution. In the bottom right corner of a running virtual machine, you should see a small folder icon. Clicking it will bring up a shared folder creation dialog. Select where on your host OS your shared folder should be—it can be an existing directory, like your "Music" folder—and check the box to make it "Permanent." On your guest machine, the shared folder will show up as a VirtualBox shared directory in your local network.

Connecting USB Devices

One of the most common reasons for installing a virtual machine is to circumvent some kind of driver incompatibility. VirtualBox recognized most of your computer's inbuilt components, like sound cards, extra storage or webcams, and can use them automatically. For most USB devices, though, you'll need to tell it when to take control.

In most cases, this just means making sure your device isn't in use by your host OS (a flash drive will need to be unmounted, for example), and clicking the small USB plug icon in the bottom right corner of the screen. This will bring up a list of available connected devices; simply click the one you want, and you're good to go.

Odds and Ends

Virtualizing isn't just a good way to get around some kind of nagging compatibility problem, it's a fun way to wile away a few hours experimenting with weird new OSes. Setup is just about the same no matter what you're installing, so there's really no reason not to try some of the more esoteric software out there—anything with an ISO available for download will do. For a taste, try the Haiku Project—a revival of the long-dead BeOS, or see what the hell FreeBSD is.

If you have more tips and tools to share, please drop some links in the comments-your feedback is hugely important to our Saturday How To guides. And if you have any topics you'd like to see covered here, please let me know. Happy virtualizing, folks.

05:45 pm
10/17/09

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john_d_askey

Obituary - Paul Detweiler Yoder, Boyertown PA

Paul Detweiler Yoder of Boyertown, died suddenly in a car accident Wednesday, October 14. He was the son of the late Norman and Stella Yoder. Paul was born February 15, 1931and married Naomi (Landes) in 1952. He was the pastor of the Boyertown Mennonite Church from 1953-1964, afterwhich he embarked on a journey in serious pursuit of practical New Testament Christianity.

Paul was employed by Longacre's Dairy until 1970 when he and his family moved to Kenya for a 3 year missionary work, where he began two church plants. Since 1973, Paul has made multiple month-long teaching mission trips to Kenya , where he discipled many. Multiple existing churches there are currently pastored by men he trained in his Bible schools. His most recent trip was March, 2009, following which many Kenyans who had repented of their sins and trusted Christ, were baptized.

Upon return in 1973 until his death, Paul pastored a home fellowship in Gabelsville. Ever hospitable, he and his wife shared their table and home with numberless people from all backgrounds.

Youthful and hardworking until his death, Paul worked as a carpenter and had a small sharpening shop. Always adventuresome, he made trips to Israel , Kenya , Uganda , Mexico , and Ecuador . He spent his years doing good, working diligently, helping others, teaching and living out the Scriptures, and enjoying his family and many grandchildren.

Surviving Paul are his beloved wife of 57 years, Naomi (Landes) Yoder - always in love and each other's best friend. They have seven children, Peggy, wife of David Fitzpatrick of Nashville, TN; Rose Ann, wife of Thomas Howell of King of Prussia; Bonnie, wife of Philip Keener of Millersburg; Paul Daniel, husband of Janet (Martin) Yoder of Halifax; Lucy, wife of Timothy Hiland of Boyertown; Heidi, wife of Patrick Yanello of New Providence; and a foster son, Alan Robert Tremer of Reading. They are also blessed with 34 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren.

Paul left his family a godly heritage, and served his generation in faithfulness to the Lord Jesus.

Services will be held Monday, October 19 at 11 am in New Life Bible Fellowship Church , 2960 W. Philadelphia Ave. Oley. Viewing 9-11 am. Interment at Fairview Cemetery , Boyertown. In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to feed drought victims in Kenya , c/o Naomi Yoder.

Blankenbiller Funeral Home, Oley is in charge of arrangements. To send a condolence please visit www.blankenbillerfh.com

05:36 am
10/12/09

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john_d_askey

Church of Christ statistics (from Facebook)

Consider the following findings from the research about Churches of Christ in general:

Churches of Christ constitute the 12th largest religious group in America.
Churches of Christ are one of the more stable churches in America. (In terms of consistent membership)
Churches of Christ rank 4th in the nation in total number of congregations.
Churches of Christ rank 5th in the nation in # of counties in which there is a congregation.
Churches of Christ rank 1st in the nation in distribution of congregations.
Churches of Christ rank 1st in the nation in weekly attendance among its membership

Like Debbie Bray said in her wall post, this is not shown to brag, but to let members of the Church of Christ know the impact we have in the world.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2213164465
This link is to a group on Facebook, "Church of Christ Members (COC)" - there are a number of Church of Christ-related groups on Facebook! (Probably many for other denominations as well - but you'll have to search!)
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I'm impressed with the figures for consistent membership - although the Churches of Christ may not be growing much, nor are they loosing much, compared to mainstream Protestant churches and the Catholic church, who are loosing members at a troublesome rate. (Are they abandoning their faith entirely, or are they transferring to other churches?)

Also it's interesting to note the national distribution . although this is a figure that's hard to describe and evaluate meaningfully. I guess this means that there are few areas with very low church counts, and very few areas with very high counts. Although the "Bible belt" has a great share, other areas are not consequently under-represented in exchange.

Fourth in the total number of congregations? This coresponds well with the number of counties with a congregation, and the distribution of congregations, although clearly membeship overall must increase if it is to rise higher in the rankings from the 12th largest religious group in America.

The most significant number is the last; weekly attendance is very consistent proving that they've managed to really teach the scripture saying, "Forsake not the assembly." Not that attendance gets one into heaven, because that would be "salvation by works" but it is through attendance that you grow family, gain fellowship and support and encouragement from each other, and gain knowledge of the Bible and of God. True, you could learn the Bible by yourself - and in fact, personal study as well as prayer and meditation is very important as well - but it is in the classroom that "iron sharpens iron" and you learn from each other. And it is in the pew that you hear somebody (hopefully with good research) expound on the Word of God, making clear God's truths, promoting a deeper understanding of applying Scripture to our daily lives.

I'd like to know how other denominations or church groupings compare. For instance, how do the various sects of the Baptists compare? Or the Presbyterians? (Both groups having had some early influence on the Restoration Movement.)

I've been doing some study on Wikipedia (a sometimes questionable source, of course), of the various "children" of the Restoration Movement, which includes the Churches of Christ, the Disciples of Christ/Christian Church, and others. It's interesting to read of the early leaders of the Restoration Movement and their ideas and ideals, and the early debates which still echo in our churches today. (I've blogged on some of this.) But there is a lot I don't know about other religious movements and denominations throughout history, and if you have any suggestions about which direction I should study, please comment!

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Comment on Facebook or directly on my LiveJournal blog... or e-mail me directly if you have my address! I'll be happy to entertain your questions or respond to your challenges to my assertions!

03:13 am
10/12/09

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john_d_askey

Here We Are To Worship (reprint) - as culture changes, how should Churches adjust?

My comments follow at the end of this article.

Here We Are to Worship

Six principles that might bring a truce to the age-old tension between tradition and popular culture.

Brad Harper and Paul Louis Metzger | posted 8/21/2009 09:54AM

Those of us who are baby boomers and grew up in evangelical churches in America experienced firsthand the birth of "contemporary Christian music" and the battles it has spawned. The cultural revolution of the 1960s affected every institution, including the church. For one of us, living in Southern California during the 1970s meant witnessing the culture shift brought to the church by the Jesus Movement, giving rise to Maranatha! Music and Christian rock bands playing every Saturday night for thousands of young people at the original Calvary Chapel, in Costa Mesa. On the other hand, it also meant being lectured by ex-rock-musicians-turned-Christians who warned Christian teenagers to stay away from rock music, even when it had Christian lyrics, because, as everyone knows, "volume plus pulsation equals manipulation."

As the large response to John Stackhouse's recent Christianity Today article ("Memo to Worship Bands," Feb. 2009, page 50) attests, the worship wars are alive and well. In part, that's because more than ever, churches strive to make their worship culturally relevant, and when they do, this invariably raises questions about the nature of Christian worship. What we haven't seen articulated enough in these disputes, however, are theological principles that can help worship leaders incorporate culture into worship in such a way that the church's worship remains authentically Christian.

Culture and the Spirit of God

The symbols of popular culture transmit the shared meanings by which a people understand themselves, identify their longings, and construct their world. There are no truly neutral symbols, images, or rituals in popular culture.

Whether popular culture and its symbols are inherently evil or good has been a matter of much debate throughout church history. Today, most Christian leaders recognize that like it or not, as theologian Tom Beaudoin contends, "We express our religious interests, dreams, fears, hopes, and desires through popular culture." Religious expression is a cultural reality. Christian symbols were not pristinely dropped from the sky. As the Incarnation so profoundly illustrates, God reveals himself in the common. As he reveals himself through the common reality of flesh and blood, so we engage him through the common elements of bread and wine.

At the end of the day, culture is an arena from and to which God speaks, but also one that distorts God's self-revelation. So it is not only acceptable but also necessary that we bring popular culture and its symbols into the church, for through them God engages us, and we respond to him. But since culture's symbols can also distort both God's engagement and our response, we must be wary.

The church has used and adapted thousands of cultural symbols for worship that reflect and shape its view of God and of the gospel of salvation. Pulpits, kneeling benches, vestments/robes, fish symbols, pictures of Jesus and the disciples, video screens, incense, movie clips, and so on all affect the church's view of God and the communication of the gospel. The result has been a consistent tension in the church between form and function.

If the forms of worship are meant to communicate God and his message of salvation (the function), then as culture precipitates a change in forms, this change necessarily affects the function. The basic question the church must address is, Do changing worship forms adapted from popular culture facilitate an authentic encounter with God in Christ through the Holy Spirit as described by the Scriptures and understood by historic Christian orthodoxy?

To examine this question, we will build upon six affirmations for worship from John D. Witvliet in his book Worship Seeking Understanding:

(1) All liturgical action is culturally conditioned. Witvliet writes, "Liturgical enculturation best begins with an accurate description of existing cultural influences on liturgical celebration." Simply stated, since worship will necessarily involve elements of popular culture, the church must examine its worship forms, asking how contemporary culture has influenced its worship.

(2) The relationship between liturgy and culture is theologically framed by creation and the Incarnation. If creation provides the basis for human cultural activity, then Christian cultural engagement can be seen as containing great potential for good. Moreover, the Incarnation provides the model for the church's involvement with culture. Thus, if God, in taking on the form and identity of a creation/cultural reality in Jesus, facilitates the clearest image of who God is, then the church must recognize that popular culture symbols have the potential for a powerful and positive place in worship.

(3) Integrating liturgy and culture requires us to be critical of our own cultural context. Worship leaders need to critique the culturally generated worship forms they use, asking whether each form enhances or degrades authentic worship. Contemporary forms must be examined to see not only if they engage the church through commonly understandable symbols, but also if they are able to represent God and the gospel with integrity.

Few people, perhaps, would question that popular cultural worship forms can engage a broad spectrum of people. People who already identify with contemporary music and computer graphics will find themselves easily drawn into the worship experience when such forms are used. But thoughtful worship leaders and theologians have recognized that there can be a downside as well. As theologian Donald Bloesch has written,

Worship is not a means to tap into the creative powers within us rather than an occasion to bring before God our sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. Hymns that retell the story of salvation as delineated in the Bible are being supplanted by praise choruses that are designed to transport the soul into a higher dimension of reality.

Worship is not about a search for meaning or experience, but an acknowledgment that meaning and salvation are found in God's incomparable act of redemption in Christ. Methodist pastor Craig Rice agrees: "As long as the church continues to confuse the hunger for God, extant in every human heart, with the same yearnings that drive a market culture and a consumerist society, its worship will remain irrelevant at best and an outright impediment at worst."

There is no question that authentic worship will meet people's needs. The problem occurs when worship forms are focused on meeting people's felt needs. Each week, the church is filled with people whose felt needs have been defined for them by a consumer culture that generally urges them to focus on self-fulfillment. The role of the church in worship is not to meet felt needs but to show people that their real needs go deeper.

Can contemporary worship forms address people's real needs? Certainly. But in choosing only forms that are comfortable and familiar, there is always the tendency to cater to what people want to hear and feel, rather than confronting them with God, whose presence is not always so comfortable. And a God made comfortable by market-driven worship is unlikely to confront sinners with their need for repentance or a gospel that is fundamentally about self-denial rather than self-fulfillment. Quoting Martin Marty, theologian Marva Dawn remarks that when worship is driven by the market, it "draws crowds, but it is so fully adapted to the not-yet-born-again 'that worship becomes measured by the aesthetics and experience of those who don't yet know why we should shudder.'"

(4) The extremes of either complete identification with or rejection of a given culture should be avoided. "In every instance of cultural engagement," says Witvliet, "there must be a yes and a no, a being in but not of, a continuity and a discontinuity with accepted cultural practices." Dawn agrees, suggesting that the Christian faith has always been odd, and that we must emphasize the importance of that dialectical pole. However, when churches take this to the extreme—becoming completely alien to the culture in sticking to traditions or celebrating them in ways irrelevant to normal life—then Christians separate themselves from the world in a sectarianism, provincialism, or esoteric Gnosticism that prevents ministry to the culture. The best array of worship forms will illustrate that the church is both embedded in culture, speaking through its constantly changing forms, and also a countercultural community, one that represents transcendent values and truths that confront culture's fallenness.

(5) Worship must reflect common elements of the Christian tradition through the unique expressions of a particular cultural context. If we adapt the church's worship forms too fully to the unique forms of a particular culture or subculture, those outside that culture who come to the church may have no idea of the form's transcendent meaning and will not be able to connect it to God or the gospel. Moreover, the unchecked use of cultural forms for worship runs the risk of producing a national Christianity, or worse, a national (American) Jesus, or a Gen X, baby boomer, or postmodern Jesus, with the result that the church begins to bear witness to a God made in culture's own image.

One example: Many large churches try to solve worship-style frustrations by opting for both a traditional service and a contemporary service. To do this is necessarily to divide a local congregation into two congregations, based usually on the age of the worshipers, with the older worshipers attending the traditional service and the younger attending the contemporary one. Given that most American churches already divide into other smaller gatherings (e.g., adult Bible classes, youth groups), where then does the church come together as a multigenerational community to worship its Lord? Where do young people learn the riches of "ancient" worship symbols, and where do old Christians learn to worship the same God in new ways, helping them to continue engaging an ever-changing culture?

(6) The liturgical actions of the church—including proclamation of the Word, common prayer, baptism, and Eucharist—are among the "universal" or common factors in the Christian tradition. And these kinds of symbols should remain universal for at least two reasons.

First, the church is not only a multicultural community, but also a historical community, one that always finds its identity in the same God revealed in Jesus Christ. Thus, as there are theological and relational realities that unify the church through the ages, this unity should be reflected in a consistency of symbols.

Moreover, the use of historic forms of Christian worship allows a congregation to understand experientially that it is not merely a present community, in danger of passing away along with other fads of modernity, but a community in living union with believers of all time, coming to the same table to meet the same Jesus encountered by the disciples at the Last Supper 2,000 years ago. The church obsessed with constantly reinterpreting itself through ever-newer symbols is in danger of forgetting who it is and why it exists. Walter Brueggemann laments,

In a stupor of amnesia, a community may think there is only "now," and there is only "us." … People with amnesia are enormously open to suggestion, blind obedience, and easy administration.

But some might object, "Why do we have to retain ancient forms and symbols to remember who we are and who God is? Can't we represent enduring realities best in the language of contemporary culture?" In regard to certain symbols, the answer is definitely no, which leads us to the second reason to keep certain worship forms consistent despite a changing culture: Scripture sometimes ordains not only the function but also the form.

An obvious example is the Lord's Supper. To a certain extent, the form is the function here. During the early church era, the form of Eucharist was offensive to pagans, who thought it was a kind of cannibalism. But the church was unwilling to change the form because it was so closely connected to the message it represented.

Some have suggested that, since symbols like bread and wine do not have the same meaning in all cultures as they did in ancient Middle Eastern culture, the church should use "cultural equivalents," that is, symbols from each culture that have the same meaning. The problem is that cultural equivalents are never exact, and usually not even that close in their meaning. For example, some have suggested using rice instead of bread for the Eucharist in Asian cultures, since rice, like bread in other cultures, is the basic food source of daily life. The problem is that bread represents much more than this in the biblical narrative. It represents the presence of God, as illustrated by the showbread in the temple. Also, unlike rice, the ability of bread to be broken is of supreme importance to the image of the broken body of Christ. Similarly, one is unlikely to find a cultural equivalent for wine, which represents not only a basic meal drink in the biblical text, but also life, blood, and judgment.

Better simply to teach people the significance of the ancient signs and preserve them intact.

Yes and No

So what is the solution to the worship wars, to the battle over contemporary versus traditional worship forms? As suggested above, the answer must lie in a dialectical, yes-and-no approach. When contemporary forms draw a broad community of worshipers more effectively into authentic engagement with the Trinitarian God, yes. When they accurately represent the biblical gospel, yes.

When contemporary forms present an image of God or the gospel that lacks the fullness of or distorts the image given by historic Christian tradition and the biblical narrative, no. When they create unmitigated divisions in the local church, no. If the biblical image of the church is multiethnic, multigenerational, and multicultural, then the church should prize such diversities even in the midst of their difficulties, seeking always to bring the diverse elements of its community into unity through worship.

When it comes to the ongoing tension between worship and cultural engagement, Dawn has said it well: "The primary key for holding the two poles of this dialectic together is education—teaching the gifts of the faith tradition to those who do not yet know and understand them, and teaching those who love the heritage some new forms in which it can be presented to others."

Brad Harper is professor of theology at Multnomah University. Paul Louis Metzger is professor of theology and culture at Multnomah Biblical Seminary of Multnomah University. They are coauthors of Exploring Ecclesiology (Brazos Press, 2009), from which this article is excerpted and condensed. Download a Bible study for this article at ChristianBibleStudy.com.

Related Elsewhere:

Exploring Ecclesiology is available at ChristianBook.com and other book retailers.

Christianity Today has more articles on music and worship, including:

Memo to Worship Bands | Five sound reasons to lower the volume. (February 2, 2009)

Think About God | Pioneer Brian Doerksen on what's wrong with worship music. (July 16, 2007)

Raising Ebenezer | We are misguided when we modernize hymn texts. (January 1, 2006)

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While it's true that we serve (and are saved by) an unchanging God, and His Word remains true and unchanging as well, our local culture has changed from decade to decade. And as the article illustrates, cultures around the world also face their own differences with that of the New Testament church. Many things we find useful in our worship services today (video projectors, for instance, or even the "pew" Bible and hymnal) were not a part of the historic church, but innovations of the last decade or millennium.

For those within the Church of Christ, who reject instruments in worship as being outside the Biblical model, this article may seem to be irrelevant. Yet, I say to them, read closer! You may not face the issue of "praise bands" but you still face the choice between traditional hymns and praise choruses. You might face issues with multicultural expectations, multi generational differences, and even multi economic disparity. Finding ways to adapt, not necessarily to change the church, but to change aspects of worship, so that it provides meaning to all who come, is important.

The worship service should be about connecting to God, about learning anew the salvation story, about appreciating His absoluteness over all things. Many churches have tried to reach the "seeker" and provide an emotional experience; one that is "uplifting" and "spiritually moving" yet in the end, lack depth. People do complain, "I don't get anything out of that church" and that makes me wonder, did they put anything into the church? Did they contribute their talents and gifts? And is church about getting, or is it about giving worship and praise to God?

The article talks about the symbols of the Christian faith, which sometimes include the logos of denominations, but also the cross, the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, the "fish" and shepherd's staff, and so on. Some people have tried to use rice, in Asian cultures, as a substitute for the bread, but as this article points out, doing so shortchanges the meaning behind the symbol. As we face mixed cultures coming to the doors of our congregations, we need to be aware of how different people understand these symbols. In cities like mine, where the Hispanic cultures are growing rapidly, churches that have been traditionally Anglo need to be aware of these differences. Simple things like being slaves to the clock, or ignoring it, can be causes of conflict. How, then, do we recognize what are valid differences in culture, and what might be issues related to differences in knowledge of the Bible, or differences in learned doctrine and traditions?

Adjusting the "how" of the worship experience to meet the contemporary culture - even the multicultural congregation - is a good thing to do. But doing so at the expense of the meaning of Christian symbols, stripping much of the depth away, is very wrong. Even churches that avoid tradition do have their traditions! There are jokes about the Church of Christ, for instance, which give the worship formula as "three songs then a prayer" and oft-repeated phrases and patterns. There is no biblical basis for these, and they could safely be thrown out, the order of worship rearranged, perhaps more songs, perhaps a 90-minute or even two hours of worship. Perhaps "Sunday School" should be moved after the corporate worship, which could start at the earlier hour? Perhaps a mix of hymns and "praise choruses"? Perhaps, although it's been very convenient to do so, the "offering" should not be taken adjacent to the sharing of the Lord's Supper? And perhaps, the "alter call" to repentance might be given a second thought - not to throw it out, but to change how it is presented. Is the sermon instructive, or is it evangelistic? Might one sermon strike hearts differently than the other? And so, might the "alter call" lead some for the first time to "take on Christ" and another sermon lead to a time of seeking prayer from the body of Christ?

As we find new people darkening the doors of our congregation's worship, they bring different ways of praising God and different ideas of how to serve him. Not all of these are going to smoothly integrate with the "way we've always done things." But perhaps we need to shake things up, take a look again at our "traditions" and see if we've become complacent, ingrown, stiff-necked and proud with the security of our comfortable situation. Maybe we need to get a little uncomfortable - not to do things unbiblically, but to see if the new way might also fulfill the requirements of scripture?

Doing "Bible things in Bible ways" need not be a cry to "leave things alone"; considering other ways of praising God and learning to be His children need not lead to heresy and unbiblical activity!

I crave your responses. This is a long article, and some of it is difficult for many "lay" people to study. But God challenges us to stretch, to reach beyond our comfort zone, to study and grow. Testing uncomfortable ideas, even if we ultimately reject them, is one way of growing. Do write, and tell me how this article has stretched you out of your comfortable place. I'd like to hear how you have faced issues of multiculture in worship, your congregation, your community's religious experiences. And how the symbols of the faith have gained fresh meaning in the process.

Thanks in advance for your comments.

-- John Askey

09:50 am
10/11/09

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Church of Christ hermeneutics

Understanding the positions of the Churches of Christ requires an understanding of their historically accepted hermeneutic.

[The contents of this blog post are derived from the Wikipedia article on the Churches of Christ, October 2006. Unfortunately, this material is only briefly covered in the most recent version, October 2009.]

This hermeneutic is often summarized in three parts: Command, Example, and Necessary Inference. An additional hermeneutic is the principle of silence.

Command
"Command" refers to a direct command found in the Scriptures (this being further complicated by what some mainstream evangelicals would refer to as the dispensation principle; for example, the command to build an ark was directed to Noah specifically, as opposed to Christians in general. Additionally, commands are classified as "Specific" or "Generic" in nature.)

Example
"Example" is sometimes phrased as "an approved Apostolic example." The intent here is that the apostles or first-century Christians performed some action or engaged in some practice that was approved of (or not condemned). [NOTE: The reverse is also true. Something clearly condemned is clearly prohibited; a negative example.]

Necessary Inference
"Necessary Inference" refers to some interpretational conclusion that would be necessary in order to obey a command or example. In other words, all things necessary in order to carry out a clear command would also be authorized. The New Testament is necessarily silent about many other issues, such as orphanages/children's homes, Sunday School, instrumental music, and congregationally-owned houses of worship ("church buildings"). In each case, the "mainstream" group has reasoned that "necessary inference" allows their use as a way of providing for otherwise-homeless children, facilitating study of the Scriptures, and providing for a reasonable and convenient setting for worship services. In apply the "principle of silence", or distinguishing between congregational and individual responsibilities, some consider these practices to be unauthorized; the most prominent of these are the non-institutional churches and the non-class or non-Sunday-School churches.

Principle of Silence
The principle of silence is observed to varying degrees by the Churches of Christ. When the Bible does not specifically or indirectly authorize a practice, it is considered unauthorized. The belief is that the Bible is the authority on all things, and one should not presume to authorize what God has not.

The disagreements within the Churches of Christ over silence often derive from differences in perception of the meaning of the word "necessary" within the phrase "necessary inference" and the conclusions which can be drawn from scripture's silence". For example, the non-instrumental Churches of Christ agree that the absence of references to instrumental music in New Testament worship means that their use is unauthorized. Conversely, progressive Churches of Christ agree that the absence of reference to musically accompanied worship in the New Testament means that it has not been specifically forbidden by a command.

What constitutes indirect authorization is also another point of contention. For example, there are numerous commands in the New Testament for churches to meet. Meeting necessitates a place, and there are many ways to obtain a place to assemble. From this line of reasoning, most churches believe that they have the authority to buy a building to use to fulfill this command. There are also commands to spread the word of God, though there are no microphones; ergo, most churches use microphones rather than interpreting this scriptural silence as a prohibition.

Some more liberal churches have begun to abandon a prohibitive principle of silence. The principle of silence has historically sometimes been defined as permissive within the Restoration Movement, beginning with Thomas Campbell's Declaration and Address in 1809.

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My thoughts - and questions...

I have recently posted some questions on Facebook, and hope some of my Church of Christ friends (and family), and those familiar with the Church of Christ doctrines, will take the time to answer. Several questions connect back to this general question: "What is the scriptural basis for understanding the Principle of Silence to be prohibitive, or restrictive?"

Beej posted a link to a W. Carl Ketcherside article from 1958, which I reprinted earlier in my LiveJournal blog. (See my "Clergy in the Church" article.) Mr. Ketcherside was questioning the use of a paid pulpit minister, comparing it to the role of a pastor in the denominations, and pointing out how that leads a church away from solely spiritual concerns, and into matters of a church budget (to pay the man), and so on. He believed that these paid "evangelists" were not authorized by scripture - using them reduced the congregation to "laity" and elevated one man to a glorified position - this, in a church that calls each other "brother" and rejects "titles of men"! He would argue, and probably did elsewhere, that this violates the principle of silence! He, like many, saw silence as restrictive, not permissive.

I myself don't agree with Mr. Ketcherside on this understanding of scripture's silence; still, he raises a valuable point. I think that "mutual edification" has to be the Scriptural way if you believe silence of scripture is restrictive! In practice, I would agree with him in this case: mutual edification is superior in many ways to that of the clergy system!

But back to where I came in - where in scripture does it say, "Thou shalt not authorize anything that is not authorized by command, or example, or necessary inference; thus saith the Lord"? Did I miss that verse? Is it in Romans - or Hebrews? If it's not in scripture, then how can it be taught? "Where the Bible is silent, we are silent" -- and it seems to me that the Bible is silent on this hermeneutic!

Yes, I'm making a point. I'm being facetious, a bit extreme. I'm hoping you will think, and pray, and carefully respond to my question.

Early in the history of the Churches of Christ, at least some of the leadership considered silence to be permissive - although there was always some discussion, and even conflict, in the early years of the Restoration Movement. Thomas Campbell took a more permissive view, at least in his earlier days, but by the American Civil War, things had started to change. After Alexander Campbell died in 1866, the more conservative side of the debate began to exert more influence. People like Tolbert Fanning, David Lipscomb, and others, advocated an increased unity of doctrine - which some have compared to an unwritten, but still de facto, creed of sorts.

Coming out of the Second Great Awakening, early leaders such as Barton W. Stone, Thomas Campbell and Alexander Campbell, and others, were influenced by the writings of Enlightenment writers like John Locke and other movements like the Quakers. The original vision was Utopian, thinking that all denominational distinctions could be cast off or ignored. Today, however, some acknowledge that many of the distinctive practices of the Churches of Christ resemble in fact those of denominations! The early emphasis was simply on denying of denominational labels, and the acceptance of a diversity of opinions. "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity" was one oft-quoted slogan of the period.

William Lipscomb, Tolbert Fanning, and others, took over the influential positions around the time of the American Civil War. Tolbert Fanning, who began publishing the Gospel Advocate in 1855, found a "bully pulpit" and exerted influence over the broad base that was considered to be the "Churches of Christ" by that and other names. The Gospel Advocate is still published today, a leading periodical within the Churches of Christ. Roughly contemporaries of Lipscomb and Fanning, in the North, included Benjamin Franklin and Daniel Sommer.

Things began to change in the 1850s, as the liberty granted under "in non-essentials, liberty" produced great variety within the Restoration Movement. Many began to question what was essential and what was a matter of liberty. To the "children" of the Enlightenment, and perhaps to the academic and intellectual today, it seemed clear: if all that were necessary for salvation was contained in the pages of the Bible, a systematic study of these pages would resolve all doctrinal debates, great or small. But many congregations shifted from "in non-essentials, liberty" and spoke more feverently of "in essentials, unity." The scope of what was deemed essential kept expanding, laying the foundation for several major conflicts, and splits, of the Restoration Movement churches.

After the American Civil War, Austin McGary began publishing the paper, Firm Foundation, in 1884, in part to support his position on baptism. (That's another article!) Also in this period, Daniel Sommer participated in drafting the Sand Creek Address and Declaration, which sated clearly the divisive nature of human innovations and digressions from the biblical pattern which were affecting the church at that time (and for years to come). Daniel Sommer (and others involved) later reversed his endorsement of the Sand Creek statement, but the form and content of the Address are still found in other words today. Strong statements like "usages and practices" and "innovations and corruptions", and the issues they were applied to, are still in use today.

The direct result of the Sand Creek Address and Declaration was the acknowledgment of a division, and a legal separation was formed between the Churches of Christ and the Disciples of Christ, who took the more permissive view, and at the time of the 1906 US Census (when David Lipscomb officially acknowledge the distinction) the Disciples of Christ has six times the members as the more conservative Church of Christ. Placing an emphasis on "correct" Biblical doctrine made further schisms inevitable. One researcher counted over 21 different schisms by the 1960s. Naturally, some schisms were delayed from arguments decades earlier. The "non-institutional" Churches of Christ became virtually their own distinct group, with little fellowship with their more mainstream brethren, between 1945 to 1960. The Disciples of Christ also faced their own splits over time. Many of these disputes crossed schism boundaries in a way that made it seem that almost any combination of permissibility and prohibition for any of the disputed patterns of worship could be found!

Much more could be said about the issue of hermeneutics within the Churches of Christ, and "necessary inference" and the "principle of silence." Yet, I've written more than I expected, and I need to send this out to the 'net instead of conducting any further research! I hope I've shown that the use of these hermeneutics have changed over the decades, hopefully this will provoke you to further study on your own. If so, I look forward to hearing your reply and reading your studies. And I'm serious: I want to hear your explanation of the scriptureal basis for these hermeneutics!

For Christ, who gave us unity with charity,

-- John Askey

05:35 pm
10/10/09

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Clergy in the Churches of Christ? W. Carl Ketcherside (reprint) THE ROAD TO RUIN

See my comments at the end of this reprint.

The Road to Ruin

W. Carl Ketcherside

The modern one man minister system in "The Church of Christ" is the sectarian pastor system in disguise. Calling those who engage in it "located evangelists" only white washes a system which is without divine authority and exists in opposition to God's plan of edification for the saints. The idea of hiring a man to do what all are required to do appeals to a lazy, untaught and unconsecrated membership. The special reverence given "The Minister" pampers the pride of the graduate of a seminary who seeks a position of professional status in the community. Of no small moment is the fact that many wives of "Ministers" bask in the social prestige accruing to the office which has been created by the clergy caste among us.

It is not implied that all who are hired as "The Minister" of a congregation are necessarily hirelings, in the modern usage of the term. Many are tireless and self-sacrificing men, but this is true of the clergymen in many denominations. They are victims of circumstances, and lack the courage of conviction required to launch out into the deep through faith in God. A half century ago, the idea of elders hiring or firing a local minister was unknown to restoration- minded churches. But even then conditions were ripening for it to occur.

Brethren were wrapped up in the task of converting men to the Christ. The cause was growing so rapidly and there were so many demands on their time they could not stop to consolidate their gains. They did not train their converts nor develop elders. Men were appointed as bishops who were untaught and unable to cope with changing situations. They had to turn elsewhere for help. In desperation, human institutions were created to supply the need. Every human institution to do the work of the church is a monument to the mistakes of the brethren. Through "ministerial courses" in Bible Colleges men were trained to take over the work and handle it with professional ease for a fee. Under their skillful manipulation congregations grew in size, and made the mistake of thinking that size meant strength. Discipline disappeared as the criterion for a "successful ministry" became the number on the church roster and the increase in contribution. "The church budget" was introduced and pressure methods of exacting money to keep the machinery moving were inaugurated.

Congregations began to bid for the services of "big preachers." To secure a prominent name as window dressing on the sign in front of a huge cathedral-like building, meant constantly increasing salaries. Special inducements were offered in contracts. Congregations went into the real estate business. They built attractive residences for the "Ministers" although a few decades ago, gospel preachers decried parsonages, rectories and manses as symbols of a decadent sectarianism. Now a full- fledged pastor system is in vogue and a vicious circle is created. The college seeks to place its alumni in favored pulpits for advertisement; the alumnus seeks to recruit from his congregation ministerial students for his alma mater, and the church pays the bill. Scores of sincere individuals are drawn into this whirling vortex of politics and business and think they are doing God service. Many need to be pitied, for they blindly follow blind leaders.

Can "The Church of Christ" be rescued? It is doubtful! It is contrary to all history that a people once started on this giddy path can be checked short of rampant sectism. They now have millions invested in human organizations and money considerations alone would keep them from returning to the old paths! Perhaps if bombs rained upon our cities to blacken and destroy our material temples, ruin our gadgets and drive us to dens and caves of the earth, we might see ourselves in a proper light; or if dearth, famine, plague and depression reduced us all to an equality with no one to whom we mighty turn except to the Lord, we might find a proper sense of spiritual worth. Otherwise, pride, power and pelf will continue to be motivating factors eating like gangrene at the vitals of the body.

What can be done by those humble servants of the Lord who love Him and His Cause, and who weep over the fate of Zion? They must with earnest devotion find the place they can fill in the Kingdom and dedicate their life to service. So long as brethren desire to be ministered unto, there will be those to do the ministering for hire; the answer is to make every disciple of the Lord a minister through love for God rather than for gain. Godly men must be trained as bishops. Here is our greatest need! The respect for God's eldership must be restored. In short, all Christians must be opposed to the clerical system which steals away their rights and privileges, and relegates most of the congregation to the position of a laity. All must resist the drift away from the simplicity of the divine arrangement and the ancient order.

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A friend posted this article on Facebook, and asked our Church of Christ friends to comment. I replied, referencing The Gospel Message and the articles they published on Mutual Edification in recent years.

As Mr. Ketcherside points out, adopting paid ministers (sometimes called "evangelists" instead) does lead us down a slippery slope that seem to run counter to the principles upon which the Churches of Christ were founded - "where the Bible speaks, we speak; where the Bible is silent, we are silent." Did the Bible really speak of paid clergy? Or for that matter, the church owning real estate, an annual budget, tax exempt status, youth groups, or song books? Well, all of these are beyond the scope of this particular blog - but they go back to the issue the Church faced years ago, and still today some oppose "located" or "pulpit ministers" and fellowship halls and the like. Some, I understand, even oppose the use of restrooms! All of this because there are no signs in scripture that they were permissible.

The use of a paid minister does have some advantages; namely, somebody with formal education is better able to trace the meaning of the Greek and Hebrew words of the Bible and apply them properly to our understanding of the text, and, a paid minister is freed to spend time in extensive study of the Bible that would be lost in a secular job.

This article by Mr. Ketcherside appeared in 1958; however, the argument surrounding the use of a paid minister in the pulpit goes back to what amounts to the founding of the Churches of Christ (as we know it today), perhaps as early as the American Civil War, but certainly was made clear in the Christian Standard, referencing the Sand Creek Address and Declaration of August 18, 1889.

Key to all of this, it seems to me, is the hermeneutic called "silence of scripture." If something is not mentioned in scripture, is it permissible or not? Does God's grace grant permission, or does the failure to mention something take it off the table? Does "necessary inference" permit the use of a paid pastor, or not? Many argue that the use of a building, many cups for communion, grade-divided Sunday School classes, and the paid minister, are all permissible as things that facilitate the needs and purposes of a congregation in edification, in education, and so on.

I do hope many of my friends, both on Facebook and readers of my LiveJournal blog, will take the time to carefully (and prayerfully) consider this question, and offer your responses. I am looking for people on both sides of the topic - and not just the use of a minister, but the hermeneutic principles of "necessary inference" and "principle of silence."

I am currently drafting another blog entry on the principles of hermeneutics used by the Churches of Christ; look forward to that appearing in the next few days. (I'm drawing from the October 2006 edition of the Wikipedia article on the Churches of Christ for this topic.)

As always, I live to serve Him, and seek to stir up debate not for divisiveness, but to encourage thought and consideration of the foundations upon which we live in faith.

-- John Askey

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thoughtful

10:25 pm
10/4/09

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john_d_askey

Young believers struggle with values, culture, theology

My comments appear below...

The Case for Christendom

A renewed sense of Christian culture could be the key to younger evangelicals' angst.

Collin Hansen | posted 8/24/2009 09:40AM

Two of every three young American adults (66 percent) say that older Americans have
better moral values than they do, according to new polling released by the Pew Research Center. A similar number, 67 percent, say
their elders are more respectful of others. And 68 percent attribute a stronger work ethic to more experienced generations.

"[W]here perceived generational differences exist today about moral values, work ethic and respect for others, today's young adults—by heavy margins—believe that these differences have arisenbecause their generation hasn't lived up to standards set by older adults," the Pew Research Center noted.

The results vary significantly with only one other value that Pew polled. Americans younger than 30 are widely regarded to be more tolerant of races and groups different from them. Relentless public campaigns for diversity and acceptance of racial minorities and alternative sexual lifestyles have largely succeeded.

Mere Orthodoxy blogger Matthew Lee Anderson struck a nerve earlier this year when he identified young evangelicals as another group desperately seeking social acceptance. In a twist on the Pew data, Anderson sees his fellow20-something evangelicals lobbying for acceptance by denigrating theirelders.

According to Anderson's reading of evangelical youth, they believe older evangelicals were seduced by the Religious Right and didn't do enough to fight poverty and racism. They were preoccupied with a narrow set of values, such as abstinence from alcohol and sex outside of marriage. These same rubes even bought Left Behind books and watched The Late Great Planet Earth.

If young evangelicals had reached these conclusions for principled reasons, then Anderson might not be so concerned. But he suspects more nefarious trends at work.

"I get the sense that for many of my young evangelical peers, the doctrine of eschatology is less important not because of careful reflection upon the Scriptures, but because of the political and cultural scorn the doctrine has earned," writes Anderson, a 2004 graduate of Biola University. "For most young evangelicals, eschatology is cringe inducing not because traditional formulations are wrong, but because they are weird. That all Christians would disappear in a flash will hardly earn Christians cultural acceptability—and cultural acceptance, today, is their paramount desire."

Anderson worries that younger evangelicals miss their own shortcomings in the rush to judge older generations. Namely, their angst about individualism and consumerism is stoked by appeals to shed inherited community values in order to pursue the latest fashionable cause. While not specific about remedies, Anderson contends that the evangelical future depends on breaking this vicious cycle.

"Yet until evangelical leaders educate their laity on the importance of the authority and inerrancy of Scripture, the role and depths of the evangelical tradition, the importance of the body to the spiritual life and disciplines, and the wonders and glories of the Triune God—and then reform their ecclesiastical life accordingly—it will be difficult to keep our best and brightest within the fold," he writes.

John Mark Reynolds, founder and director of Biola's Torrey Honors Institute, responded this summer to Anderson in the first online edition of The City, a journal published by Houston Baptist University. Following the argument in his new book When Athens Met Jerusalem, Reynolds defends Christendom as an alternative to the contemporary hodge-podge of evangelical approaches to culture. It is easy to denounce fellow evangelicals as mistaken, but more difficult andproductive to build a viable alternative.

"Cornel West, who strongly rejects Evangelical theology and social policies, can get a standing ovation at Gordon College for denouncing Christendom, even though Christendom created most of the colleges in which he goes about denouncing," Reynolds writes. "Poor Saint Constantine is blamed for things he did not do, like putting the state in charge of the Church, and given no credit for the obviously good things he did, like ending the persecution of Christians."

Baylor University philosopher Francis Beckwith sympathizes with Anderson's lament about the state of evangelical theology. Like Anderson, Beckwith does not attribute the change to deep, careful engagement with older evangelical scholars. Rather, young evangelicals are tempted to reject their parents' practices and beliefs, both good and bad, in a facile pursuit of authenticity. The result may be no more authentic than pieces of local flair in Applebee's.

"If you want to be an authentic real person," Beckwith admonishes, "put down your iPod and pick up your cross."

Anderson returns in The City to reconsider his thesis in light of the responses offered by Reynolds and Beckwith. Appealing to peers who would abandon the evangelical movement, Anderson argues that loyalty is a necessary precursor for constructive criticism and reform. He contends that whether evangelicals seek to engage, create, or transform culture, they cede vital terrain to secular visions. "If the Church is not a culture," he writes, "then it exists only in relation, and in response, to secular reason—and as such will not be able to escape its domain." Essentially, he is partial to Reynolds's remedy.

"Once the Church starts thinking of itself as culture, all the external behaviors of baptism, communion, and ceremony find a more natural home," Anderson says. "And the arts, music, science, literature, philosophy, architecture and, as Reynolds puts it, 'public policy' will all begin to take root, not as a response to secular culture, but as a response to the Word and Spirit, the foundation of the Church. In short: Christendom."

Is it possible that Christendom, widely regarded as the depths of Christian captivity to politics, could offer the way of escape from today's cultural morass? To be sure, Christians offernothing compelling to their neighbors unless they carry on the time-honored, biblically mandated practices of baptism and communion.

Thinly veiled imitations of current cultural trends may win temporal acceptance for us but few converts for God's kingdom.

Still, we should not be quick to denigrate younger evangelicals. Their impulse for reform legitimately redresses some pastwrongs. In the right circumstances, their zeal inspires the rest of usto re-examine our lifestyles according to the gospel. And like their Boomer parents and grandparents who came of age in the 1960s, stern warnings might only encourage their worst impulses. But a life well-lived according to the inherited rhythms of grace is an effectiveapologetic in any generation.

Collin Hansen is a CT editor at large and author of Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists.

Related Elsewhere:
Previous Theology in the News columns are available on our site.

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Wow, what a great article! There has always been intergenerational tensions, but here is a clear analysis of the tensions that exist today. Clearly, there are major differences between those youth of the 60s and those of the 80s and those of the 90s and 00s. From the post-World War radicals, to the sheer exuberance and greedy capitalism of the 70s, 80s and 90s, to the cynicism and amoral and apathy of many of today's youth, things sure have changed!

Several points to ponder here. First, are much of today's generation, as the article suggest, lacking in respect and morals and work ethic, compared to their "elders"? Or is this more of a age-and-maturity issue? That is, as kids grow to become adults, do they all go through a time where they have relatively less respect, less dedication to work, less moral absolutes, than their elders? Do they add morality, a valuing of hard work (and reward), and mutual respect as they grow? It's commonly believed that people tend to become more conservative in their outlook as they marry and have children, or go into business for themselves.

Second, the issue of tolerance and diversity is also raised. Perhaps today's youth are more tolerant and racially diverse than before, which to me has both good and bad connotations. True, racial and creedal tolerance is a good thing. A diverse society brings a lot of wisdom into play, a broad range of traditions, foods, music and more. In this sense, tolerance and diversity is a good thing. However, when absolute morality becomes questioned because of differences in "culture" then there does become a serious problem. We are "required" to be "tolerant" of what we believe to be wrong (sin), because it's "just another culture" or "it's culturally relative."

Social acceptance is important to everyone. We tend to gravitate towards people like us, whether it's an issue of race, or culture, or creed. It's part of what causes Anglos to group in one neighborhood, or Catholics, or the middle-class. We have things in common! We share values, traditions, appreciations for how things are done. It's also a generational concept, too. In almost any larger shared social situation (say, a church dinner), you'll find people tend to group by relative ages, the youth over here, the seniors over there, the parents-of-young-kids in another. We conform our behaviors to what's normal for our group, so we fit in. We don't want to be outcasts!

But, this study shows that how youth perceive the church and its traditions and values and even theology is in conflict with these religious institutions. Have their elders ignored poverty and racism in years past, in their concerns of premarital sexuality and alcohol and drugs? Are the youth right on this point? (I've discussed sexuality and marriage other times, too.) And even if they're right, that we the older believers have been "seduced by the religious right" are they in turn being seduced by cultural distaste for "Left Behind" and other "wacky" aspects of our (cultural) faith?

"If you want to be an authentic real person," Beckwith admonishes, "put down your iPod and pick up your cross."

Has the church (evangelical Christians) gotten too involved in end-times theology and contemporary politics and forgotten the essence of being a evangelical Christian? Or are the youth more off-track in their criticism of the church, and instead need to focus on the core of the faith? It's so easy for people of any generation to get caught up in trends and "the next great thing" in gadets, music, culture, and even in religion, that we forget what it means to be a real person, an authentic Christian. We've got to give ourselves time of silence, where God's still small voice in the wilderness, can reach us. (Elijah in the wilderness, after being impressed by God's power in the storm but unable to hear Him, was able to commune with God in the silence.)

The article points out how important it really is to value Scripture for what it is, and to accept its accuracy and inspiration and authority. Without Scripture embodying these values, we have no foundation. This is where much of the mainstream church has gone wrong - by qeustioning the Bible and its meaning, and accepting culturally relativity in its stead, they stand for nothing.

As always, I treasure your thoughts and hope that you find this article relevant to your life. Please comment, either on Facebook or here in LiveJournal, and I'll answer as I am able.

01:06 am
9/30/09

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john_d_askey

Ten Principles of Conservatism (reprint)

What do conservatives believe?

(And no, not all Republicans are conservative any more than “all Democrats are liberal.” And don’t confuse those who are Libertarian with those who are conservative, or liberal, or Democrat or Republican. Libertarians tend to be conservative on many issues, but not all. Glenn Beck is not a conservative - he’s a Libertarian.)

Conservatives have many different beliefs, as they have learned from many scholars and wise men over the centuries. They have had many different personal experiences, too, which affect how they perceive how the world works, or should work, and what they can to do make a change to improve things.

This article, from 2006, provides a good outline of what conservatives believe. “Distribution does not signify endorsement.” Read carefully, and see if you can agree with any, or all, of these statements. I’d be glad to hear what you have to say - especially my liberal friends!

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Ten Principles of Conservatism
by Terence P. Jeffrey/Posted 12/20/2006

As a very political year approaches an end, and a new presidential election cycle looms, it’s a good time for conservatives to step back from partisan politics and reflect on their cause.

What do conservatives believe? Here are 10 principles worth pondering.

1. God’s Law Governs Nations as Well as Men.

The Ten Commandments should not only be enshrined in our courthouses, they should be engraved in our hearts and minds as guides to all behavior, public and private. As the Founders acknowledged in the Declaration of Independence, laws and policies that violate the natural law are abuses of government power that must be resisted and reversed.

2. Life Is the First God-Given Right.

It’s always wrong to deliberately take an innocent human life. When this principle is abridged, violence escalates. Thus we have aborted 47 million unborn babies in the past three decades, begun to accept euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide, and stand at the threshold of cloning human beings for the specific purpose of killing them.

3. Marriage and Family Come Before the State and Deserve Its Protection.

The marriage of one man and one woman is the natural foundation of all human society, and the means by which children ought to be brought into the world and taught the basic values of our civilization. Government has a duty to recognize and protect the family and must not grant alternative relationships the same status and privileges.

4. Freedom of Conscience is the Soul of Liberty.

Understanding that freedom of conscience is at the heart of liberty, the Framers protected freedom of religion and assembly in the 1st Amendment. Movements to force the Boy Scouts to accept homosexual scout masters, or to compel religious individuals or organizations to distribute birth control or abortion drugs against their beliefs, directly attack these freedoms.

5. Private Property is the Servant of Freedom.

The more that individuals, families and businesses can acquire and control the goods necessary to sustain and advance themselves, the more autonomy they will have from the state and others who may wish to unjustly restrict their freedom. The free and responsible use of private property tends to create greater wealth and greater freedom for greater numbers of people.

6. Government Dependency is the Seed of Tyranny.

The more that individuals, families and businesses are dependent on the state for the goods necessary to sustain and advance themselves, the less autonomy they will have from the state and others who may wish to unjustly restrict their freedom. This is why expanding the welfare state is bad, and Social Security personal retirement accounts, Health Savings Accounts and school choice are good.

7. The Constitution Means What It Says.

Believing in the God-given rights of man and understanding the imperfect nature of human beings, the Framers crafted a Constitution designed to protect the former from the latter. Many of the problems in U.S. government would be resolved if the President, Congress and Courts limited themselves and each other to the authority the Constitution actually grants them.

8. Taxes Are Justified Only to Fund Necessary Government Spending.

A massive and complex tax code has become a powerful weapon politicians can use to pressure citizens to behave as the politicians, or the interest groups that support the politicians, wish. The correct function of taxation is to equitably collect only that revenue needed to fund the legitimate activities of a constitutionally limited government.

9. National Defense Is Just That.

The first duty of the federal government is to defend the American people against foreign enemies. While advancing freedom in the world is good in itself—and, where it prudently can be done, would advance the interests of the United States--ultimately, the mandate for our national leaders is to use whatever moral means they can to carve out that path in our relations with foreign powers that is most likely to lead to enhanced security, prosperity and freedom for this nation.

10. We Should Strive to Give Our Children a Better Country.

America is more than just an expanse of territory or a set of laws. It is a culture, whose art, architecture, journalism, music, movies, television, schools and universities, should reflect and reinforce the traditional values that made this country great. We owe this to our children, who will build the America of tomorrow on the foundation of the America we teach them to love today.

Terence Jeffrey is editor at large of HUMAN EVENTS. If you would like to send a comment to Mr. Jeffrey you can reach him by email at terencejeffrey@eaglepub.com. Copyright © 2008 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved

09:05 am
9/29/09

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john_d_askey

Obama and the Middle East and the Bible and End Times

The text below is from an e-mail I received from “CrossDaily.com”, a service that offers many services to churches and Christians. It’s easy to get caught up in politics, in economic policy, in health-care issues, and discussions of the “end times.” I find it interesting, for instance, that a number of historical sources indicate something happening late in 2012. Is this “last date” on ancient calendars significant or did they just run out of ambition to calculate any further?

But the Bible tells us that the world will grow increasingly evil in the last days, and there will be wars and rumors of wars, but only God knows when He is going to call His church home, and when He will begin the final countdown - or even what form of end-times prophecy fulfillment He will use! There are compelling arguments for pre-trib, post-trib, no-trib... but even so, if we’ve read “to the end of the Book” we know how History ends - and Satan, although he knows it too, hopes to pull out a victory against the odds. Although Satan ultimately WILL loose, he won’t go willingly, and he wants to drag as many people into hell as he can. And if he can’t tear us from our faith and destroy us, he wants to at least distract us so we won’t draw upon the power of prayer, or the mighty two-edged Sword of Scripture. Satan wants to keep us from going out and making disciples of all men... and he’s pretty effective at this game! He’s had thousands of years to study us, and even if he doesn’t read our minds, he doesn’t need to! He can guess pretty well just from our behavior, and he knows how to distract us, or fool us, or persuade us to lie to ourselves and continue in un-confessed and un-repented sin.

As a friend used to stamp on literature, “Read with discernment: distribution does not signify endorsement.” I just think this message has merit for Christians and all who love the Jews.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Messianic Jewish Alliance of America...for the restoration of Israel

Dear Friend of Israel,

Obama’s Myths Mini-Book

What does the Bible say specifically about the conflicts in the Middle East? How do today’s headlines in Israel, Palestine, and Iran fulfill these prophecies? Most importantly, what role is President Barack Obama playing as these events unfold in the Middle East?

We have all of these questions answered for you in a free download from Joel Chernoff and the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America. As General Secretary of the MJAA, Joel is an internationally known speaker on Messianic and Biblically prophetic topics, such as the Final Arab/Israel War.

President Obama’s Middle East policies have thus far focused on “creating a better dialogue with the Muslim world.” We are actually seeing a complete change in US relations with Israel and the Muslim world. This President believes he can handle the religious fanaticism of radical Islam. His hubris leads him to believe he can solve the world?s problems if you just give him what he wants and enough time.

There is one fundamental problem with President Obama’s Middle East agenda...There is only one true God! And His agenda trumps all others!

Each of us must realize that the events described in Isaiah chapters 11 and 19, along with Ezekiel 38 give a clear picture of future events in and around Israel. Any effort by the United States or other nations in contradiction are based upon a misguided myth.

Do you find yourself wanting a deeper understanding of these important issues? Are you wondering exactly what is the “end-game” for all of the players?

For details on these questions and more, please download our free mini-book titled Obama’s Middle East Myths Exposed right now. With these simple and easy-to-read chapters you will be fully informed of the reality facing us today.

Part I - Islam and Religious Freedom...A Dilemma
Part II - The Palestinian/Israeli Conflict
Part III - Why Does Bin Laden Hate President Obama?
Part IV - Confusing Turnaround on Iran’s Nuclear Capability

This book is a perspective of truth and hope for all people of the Middle East. God is calling Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike to reconciliation with each other, but most importantly with our Creator.

Unfortunately, many nations and their leaders are not responding to that call of truth and hope in today’s political environment. Because God’s agenda is the spiritual and physical restoration of Israel, anything working against that prophetic agenda will fail.

How far will President Obama go with Israel? Will he force a two-state solution upon them? Will he allow Iran to develop the bomb?

Nobody really knows. Stay tuned!

08:48 am
9/29/09

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john_d_askey

Terry Brooks - The Gypsy Morph (book read notes)

Terry Brooks started writing fantasy with The Sword of Shannara many years ago, and I’ve been reading them (and some of his other story lines) about as fast as they come out. Thanks to the public library, I’ve not spent much along the way. I’d rather build other parts of my library!

The Genesis of Shannara draws together two story lines, the “Knight of the Word” and the “Shannara” series. Essentially, our contemporary world has always had a hidden element of magic, a hidden kingdom of Elves. As our world grew more evil with crime and war, it endangered their existence as well. They could only keep the pollution so much at bay, and the “higher power” knew something had to change. A world-wide disaster was coming, one that would be almost as cataclysmic as the Biblical flood.

The “Word” using magic empowered a few people to serve as defenders of the few remaining good people, against the many evil-doers. Wars ravaged the world, and nations collapsed. Just as the “Word” serves the side of that which is good, there is a very real demonic power, with a horde of real demons, acting against good, and hoping to bring eventual annihilation through great evil upon the world. The demon’s vision, the opposite of paradise, is “the Void.” The demons work with corrupt humans, seeking to enslave all mankind, like Hitler and others using captives for “experiments” and other tortures, as they move toward the end.

The “Word” planned for a “new world” and needed a person to guide the Elves and the gathered-together remnant good of humanity into this new world. This book - Genesis of Shannara -- bridges between our world, the “Knight in the Word” series, and the future world - Shannara’s story, which is filled with magic and Elves and Dwarfs and so on.

Although this is not an outright Christian story, it does have interesting parallels to the spiritual battle that is very real on earth. It has been said that if we but could see the demons arrayed against us, fighting all around us, seeking our destruction, we would be very frightened indeed. For their evil is truly horrific, and their power and desire very real. Satan has limited power, but he has been given a lot of freedom to use it, and more so as we move through these last days. I don’t know if Terry Brooks is a Christian, or claims to be one, or his understanding of Scripture. Sometimes, reading fiction gives us insight into human existence, human history, human future...and that can give us a greater appreciation for the reality of the Bible. Reading fiction shouldn’t take the place of scripture reading - both casual and in-depth study - but fiction can be a tool in developing our knowledge, our understanding, and so it should not be disparaged either.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry Brooks
“Genesis of Shannara” series
The Gypsy Morph

Eighty years into the future, the United States is a no-man’s land, its landscape blighted by chemical warfare, pollution, and plague. In fortified compounds, survivors hold the line against an enemy neither mortal nor merciful: demons and their minions bent on slaughtering and subjugating the last of humankind.

But from around the country, allies of good unite to challenge the rampaging evil. Logan Tom, wielding the magic staff of a Knight of the Word, has promised to protect the world’s only hope of salvation. Angel Perez, Logan’s fellow Knight, has risked her life to aide the peaceful elvish race, marked for extermination by the forces of the Void. Kirisin Belloruus, a young elf entrusted with an ancient magic, must deliver his entire civilization from a monstrous army. And Hawk, the rootless boy who is nothing less than destiny’s instrument, must lead the last of humanity to a latter-day promised land before the final darkness falls.

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Terry Brooks is the New York Times bestselling author of more than 25 books, including the Genesis of Shannara novels, among others, and the novel based on the screenplay and story by George Lucas, Star Wars: Episode 1: The Pantom Menace. He also wrote Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons From a Writing Life . The author was a practicing attorney for many years but now writes full-time. He lives with his wife, Judine, in the Pacific Northwest.

www.shannara.com

Terry Brooks' web site

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Spencer: Jihad at Fort Hood

This may be just the thing for geeks and nerds alike - running one "computer" inside another - so you don't need two beige boxes on your desktop...

How To: Virtualize Any OS For Free [How To]

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Installing Your Virtual Machine

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