Safe Haven

This is flying around the internet (and my Facebook Feed). I don't necessarily care how John MacArthur reads the Bible, (Holy Orders, cough, cough) but I watched the video within, and I had a few thoughts: Firstly, since he believes in Sola Scriptura, no one has any idea what he means by "church". He wants to mean "my visible community," but alas, the progressive lackeys who wrote this post have obviously found a visible community that believes whatever they think is right. And the point is this: Unless your community speaks infallibly by the Holy Spirit, your discipline ultimately means 2 things: Jack and Squat. I hate the invisible "Church." I hate it, and these situations are the reason. Which is not to say that everyone holding a "conservative" position on this, or any other issue, is being completely arbitrary. It's an ad hoc morality and exegesis, but it's also correct in many respects. Just pull on the rope; Frank the Hippie...

5. When we're saying stuff like, "You can't leave Patty Mills open for 3," the Spurs are too deep, Miami is too slow, and this thing is over. 4. PATTY MILLS! 3. Here's the sick thing: I'm a Spurs fan. I've seen them play many games. They can play much better than they have. 2. Is Dwayne Wade done? It sure looks that way to me. 1. Tim Duncan scored at least 10 points and 10 rebounds for the 158th time, just in postseason play, which surpasses some guy named Magic Johnson for postseason "double-doubles," though Magic's preferred combination was points and assists.

11.  When canonical penalties were changed and made to apply to purgatory, surely it would seem that tares were sown while the bishops were asleep. My comment: I have no idea what penalties he might be talking about, but Purgatory probably isn't a party in the first place. 12.  In former days, the canonical penalties were imposed, not after, but before absolution was pronounced; and were intended to be tests of true contrition. My comment: Penances are not, strictly speaking, tests for contrition. They relate to satisfaction for the temporal (real world consequences) of our sins. The vertical aspect of them is pardoned by the priest acting in the person of Christ. In other words, "the former days" were screwed up from the hop, if that is a true representation of them. 13.  Death puts an end to all the claims of the Church; even the dying are already dead to the canon laws, and are no longer bound by them. My comment: Except for particular Judgment, and (hopefully) Pur...

As most of you know, Archbishop Carlson has given several depositions over the years related to sex-abuse allegations and confirmed crimes, like this one , concerning a case he'd previously given testimony. Read the transcript yourself; ask yourself if the lawyer doing the questioning wants to get the truth, or is trying to trap the witness. I appreciated Carlson's frankness, and taking of responsibility in general on behalf of the Church, for mistakes in dealing with these kinds of cases in the past. I also appreciated the care he took not to answer hastily, and potentially inaccurately. Here is the statement from the Archdiocese. I think the Post-Dispatch owes the people of St. Louis an apology, and the reporter should be fired . Yes, I feel that strongly about it. Well, they ought to be sued for every penny they are worth for how they've reported the accusations against Fr. Joseph Jiang, but I'm not holding my breath. "How long, O Lord?" (Pro Tip: Sometime...

5. My sister-in-law told me I'd like Ariana Grande; she's right. But I've listened to the album several times, and I know why. She sounds like Mariah Carey. Less vocal range, surely. And it's cruder, owing to the further degradation of our culture since then. But if she told me she was born in Rye, NY in 1970, I would have believed her. 4. I do shout, "By what authority?" a lot. Why? Because that's the whole matter. We can't judge any doctrine except by the ones who sent this particular person as a herald of the gospel. So, again, if I were in Zurich in 1540, deciding whether to remain Catholic or not, what evidence would you present to persuade me to go with the new "reform" movement? By this scenario, I'm taking away an implicit, "Well, the Reformation happened, it's not going away, so it must be right" provided somewhat by the pass of the centuries. 3. Dude, we put the antiphons back for the graduation Mass, and it sc...

6.  The pope himself cannot remit guilt, but only declare and confirm that it has been remitted by God; or, at most, he can remit it in cases reserved to his discretion. Except for these cases, the guilt remains untouched. My comment: Did you catch that "declare and confirm"? This is fully-formed Protestant denial of the sacramental economy right here. On the contrary, the necessity of Holy Orders given in apostolic succession is because grace must be mediated through the Church. Even in extraordinary cases, God's mercy has an ecclesial dimension. 7.  God never remits guilt to anyone without, at the same time, making him humbly submissive to the priest, His representative. My comment: God does not "make" anyone do anything. If Luther is denying the possibility that contrition may be imperfect, (that is, from fear of punishment) or even non-existent, and that the priest has the right and the duty not to absolve in the latter case, he's flatly wrong. 8.  T...

Ben Carmack has asked to go through the 95 Theses, so even though that's a Lutheran document, and he's not Lutheran, I'll try to keep the snarky chuckles and jokes about the allegedly perspicuous Scriptures to a minimum. Let's just do 5 for now, eh? When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said "Repent", He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance. My comment: This appears to completely unobjectionable. We agree that lives are to be entire, marked by a continuing awareness of our need for God's mercy. The word cannot be properly understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, i.e. confession and satisfaction, as administered by the clergy. My comment: This is objectionable. The greatness of the New Covenant is in the power of the sacraments to confer  grace ex opere operato,  that is, by the fact of it being performed. What a joy, if I go to Confession, whether with small burdens or large ones, that Christ, as the true mini...

Paging Tim Dukeman!

I went to a PCA seminary with a dude named Kyle. I'm telling you this because I got this article from Kyle because we are Facebook friends. Hi, Kyle! Hope things are going well! Anyway, this got me thinking (again) about some stuff that isn't probably on this guy's day-to-day radar. Mr. Cannon writes: " I am on the team that believes the PCA’s existence and survival is incidental to the work of the Kingdom.  Mind you, if we go belly-up I will be sad and disappointed but I do not embrace the notion our denomination is essential (or even that important) to the commission Jesus gave his church to make disciples, baptize and teach."  Did you catch it? Did you notice the "invisible church" ecclesiology? At the risk of sounding rude, he's probably assumed it so long, he'd never even think to question it. Let me ask it this way: What if (let's assume the PCA was the Church Christ founded) the PCA was not incidental to the work of the Kingdom? ...

There is the smallest clip of Patrick Stump singing "Rich Girl" by Hall & Oates, here , about 30 seconds in. Which leads one to ask, "How much would you pay to hear Patrick Stump (of Fall Out Boy) sing an entire album of Hall & Oates covers?" I'd estimate I'd pay about eleventy billion dollars. I haven't been this pumped since, while listening to "Kissing A Fool" by the incomparable George Michael, I said, "You know who'd be great singing this song? Michael Buble!" Only to find that Mr. Buble thought of it already. The Buble Debacle, I call it. For my ignorance, not for the song. [Are you becoming a Hall & Oates fan?--ed.] Who's to say? I wasn't even there for most of their work, but I can say that what I know of them never displeases me, and that many well-known tunes of theirs sound pretty good in 2014. You've gotta wonder if they'd be more popular if they'd come 10 or 15 years later. I'd sa...