Josiah Concept Ministries

I talked about Steve Ray’s blog post on the Assumption of Mary in a previous post, and I found out from Kevin Johnson’s blog that Kevin’s comments had been deleted.  So I went to the page in question, and found this in place of my pingback:

Comment Deleted: I don’t want this trash on my site. If I had infinite hours in a day to respond to every pontificating anti-Catholic I would leave these all up to refute them. But I just don’t have that luxury any more and don’t want trash up here that might advsersely [sic] effect someone not fully educated in the faith. Some will huff and puff that I am censuring them. You bet! It is my board. Many people don’t want honest discussion but only to rant and rave and cause trouble. I notice most of them don’t have their “Comments” open to the public so they avoid having to answer longwinded diatribes at a moment’s notice.

My “Blog Comments” are open to honest and helpful discourse — not diatribes against the Catholic Church. For now I now have “Comments” set so I will approve them before they are posted. If anyone doubts my ability to confront and refute, just view the hundreds and hundreds of pages I used to write when I had the time. But I am not going subject myself or my readers to “bullies” who want to dictate what I do with my time — nor will they pollute my blog with their endless debate for the sake of debate.

If trolls and anti-Catholics want to discuss on my website, they can take their chances on my Discussion Forum which IS open to long-winded debates and discussion. This blog was never set up to be that. If you want to take your chances with Siggy on my Message Board, visit http://forums.catholicconvert.com.

I will post a general response to much of the criticism of Mary and the Church, but I will do it in my own time.

Fun stuff.

First of all, my comments section is open, Mr. Ray.  You are more than welcome to engage me on any issue I have raised, I will be happy to defend myself.

Second of all, with a daughter due in two months, a full-time job, a blogging ministry, and three different forums I try to frequent, I know well the constrains of time.  I have responded to you, I have responded to Jimmy Akin, I have responded to J.P. Holding.  I do not expect any of you “famous” apologists to respond to anything that I have to say, least of all, at a moment’s notice.  But, at least one of you “famous” apologists have taken the time to read my little old blog, and did leave a comment.  And that guy, a nemesis of yours to be sure, has just as little time on his hands as you do!  The point is that if it is important to you, you will make the time.  Other blog posts you have made it abundantly clear that you do not care to respond to the likes of James White, and Kevin Johnson you waved off and dismissed as another typical Protestant.

When you post a logical argument with little in the way of logic, you should expect your blog comments to reflect that.  You should expect knowledgeable folks like James White and Kevin Johnson to take you to task on it.  If you make a claim, you should expect to be called to back it up at some point.

Finally, I am neither a troll nor an anti-Catholic.  But you have already said that you will not take the time to read and respond to viewpoints you don’t consider important.  But if you are unwilling to listen to what an honest person is trying to say to you, wouldn’t that make you the troll?

Just something to consider.

Kinda speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

Even though I do not endorse Tekton Apologetics Ministries webmaster J.P. Holding’s consistent use of sarcasm and mockery as opposed to loving enemies and praying for the ones who persecute you, I still found this item hilarious beyond words.

I seem to get this same complaint, especially from a guy I work with, that the Bible just isn’t clear.  As Holding observes, the people who say this are just flat out unwilling to approach the Bible on its own terms.  They rant and rave that God should have been more clear in what He revealed to mankind.  Yet after I explain both the clarity and the unique way that each item in the Old Testament foreshadows or is a symbol of an event or a belief in the New Testament, their eyes glaze over and they protest that what I’ve just said makes too much sense for it to be right (Eph 4:18).
A good example would be the time that my atheist coworker asked about the animal sacrifices.  As usual, he asked me why God changed His mind about animal sacrifices.  This guy loves to start the conversation by pointing out that God changes His mind quite a bit, implying that, in reality, people just get tired of religion one way, so they change it by declaring that God no longer wants us to do something.

So I told him that God didn’t change His mind, but instead something better happened.  I explained that Jesus’ death on the cross was full payment of all sins we have, are, and will commit.  I told him that if he took the care to examine the passages in Exodus that describe the care and preparation of a Passover lamb, then compare them to the description of Jesus’ crucifixion in the gospels, followed by the theological exposition of Jesus’ position as High Priest in the letter to the Hebrews, that he would understand why animal sacrifices are no longer necessary.

He didn’t believe me.  Instead, he just scoffed at how convenient all of that was.  In his mind, that was just evidence that these guys planned all of it just to make money.  Just a story, a carefully contrived story, designed to make its authors a lot of money.   Of course, he has no reasonable explanation for why all of the Apostles were very poor and why they were so willing to march to their deaths to proclaim a message that not only wasn’t making any of them rich, but that they knew was a lie.

And, he has also said that the inconsistencies in the story make it badly in need of editing.  Funny how he seems to claim both that the story is too well written, and that isn’t written well enough.

In light of all that, I would like to be the first one to say that I would buy Holding’s bumper sticker if he ever gets around to marketing it:

Leave it to Tom in the Box News Network to make something this hilarious. This is even funnier when you realize who the caveman is.

I think I laughed the hardest at the line “You may already be pre-selected for a quote” than at anything else in this ad.

What makes TBNN so darned funny is the ability to come up with articles that sound real enough to make you wonder whether or not they really are supposed to be a theological satire site.

Take this one, for example.  Now this would be an easy verse to misread!  And given the fictional church’s background with feuds that last for a long time, coupled with the inability of previous pastors to make peace in the congregation, it would be easy for a person to conclude that this church is “called” to be an angry church.  A new cult is born, as Christian cults are often born, by snipping a single phrase from a single verse out of the context it resides within.

Every once in a while, I see something online that gives me a dual reaction. I want to be outraged or upset, but I’m not sure if that is the right way to go. Then, part of me sees value in it only for the humor.

I’m talking, of course, about these Jesus action figures. Yeah, you read that right, Jesus action figures. They have Jesus riding a bull at a rodeo, Jesus playing football, Jesus on a Harley, Jesus playing soccer, Jesus surfing, Jesus skateboarding, and Jesus rock climbing.

The two that I question are Jesus begging for food and Jesus dressed in military fatigues carrying a dove. In the toy line, these are titled “I am hope” and “I am peace.”

Jesus begging for food? In the opening verses of Matthew 4, Jesus is tempted by Satan and He refuses to accept physical food, saying that man does not live by bread alone. This teaching is echoed in John 6, when Jesus refuses to give physical food to the followers, saying that it is spiritual food that they are in need of. These points are driven home nicely, albeit in fictional format, in Frank Perretti’s The Visitation (or watch the movie if you don’t like to read). This action figure is not consistent with Scripture.

Another danger of that action figure is the thought of Christ begging in general. People already have this idea–mainly from megachurches and from other places like those that teach extremely watered-down theology–that God through Christ is on His knees begging you to accept salvation. We have this idea that our humanity somehow completes God, or that He for some reason needs us.

Nothing could be further from the truth! It is the other way around. We need Him! He is not lucky to have us on His side, we are lucky that He still makes use of us sinful humans to glorify His name.

As for Jesus in military fatigues, mostly I think that it just gives the outspoken atheists (such as Dawkins and Hitchens) more ammunition in their quest to destroy religion. This just gives them something that they can point to and say, “See! See! The Christians are planning on going to war with the world! Look at this doll! It is one of an entire line! This is what they teach their young. Now, to further illustrate my point, let me play the movie Jesus Camp again.”

I sort of expected that local bloggers would be spending more time discussing the Father Leyland issue, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.  I can only find one other blog aside from my own that mentions the issue.

Perhaps, as this blog points out, that it just isn’t as newsworthy as one might think.  Which, in the final analysis, means that Toledo is experiencing a slow news year since this has been a lead story for about two months.

That’s very sad.

I asuume that everyone is familiar with the Geico commercials that tout Geico’s website as “So easy, even a caveman could do it.”  A church right down the road from the Burger King where I toil to earn a living decided to make a readerboard message that capitialized on the success of that particular insurance ad.  They proclaimed: “Pray.  Even a Caveman Could Do It.”

They wisely changed it the next day.  Did they perhaps realize the plethora of theological problems that it creates?

I’m still back and forth with the 6,000 year old earth versus the 4.6 billion year old earth.  I don’t think that it truly matters how old our planet is–this issue is merely a distraction from the real problem.  Did we evolve, or are we special creations of God?

Obviously, this church’s bulletin board proclaims the evolutionary side of it is true.  Cavemen, after all, aren’t human according to the evolutionary paradigm, but are the (perhaps inevitable) result of millions of years of slow change, descent with modification, over generations and generations.  Our friendly neighborhood church announced that they believe this to be true.

Probably without realizing it.  All the same I’m happy that they changed it.

The new message reads “Smile.  Even a caveman can do it.”  I think that if we all just smiled today instead of blowing up at somebody, then maybe the world would be just a little bit better today.

Not really, but I figure that if the Rational Response Squad can get so much darn publicity from debating Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron on Nightline, maybe I should jump on the debate bandwagon.

I issue a challenge to Tom Cruise: debate me on the truth of Scientology on the talk show or television news magazine of your choice.  Christianity, God’s intervention to humanity through Christ, versus Scientology, the religion invented by a science fiction writer.  CT vs. TC.

That will probably never happen, I’m sure.  If it does, Mr. Cruise will probably insist on all kinds of strange conditions, like insisting I’m situated a foot and a half lower than him on stage, but design it so that it looks like our podiums are at the same height.  Although it would be easier if he would just stand on a phone book or something.  I wouldn’t object!

Speaking of Scientology, they’re targeting the youth of Great Britain with an eye to Glasgow, Scotland as their next “parish.”  It appears that recruiters will be going into universities to start a sort of “pyramid recruiting” scheme.

‘It [the documentary on Panorama] has led them to look at going into universities and colleges, much in the way the Moonies did, and target young people going through a stage in their lives when their minds are most vulnerable to suggestion.’ The church, which has its largest following in America, uses celebrity congregation members to promote itself, but has failed to achieve official religious status.

The environment in the world is ripe for cults to pick out their members.  With the Abrahamic faiths warring in the Middle East, each making what appears to the untrained eye an unsubstantiated claim to exclusivity, it’s no wonder faiths like Scientology (which stress the individual) grow faster than Christianity.  We shouldn’t expect any less than that.

Science vs. Religion seems to be making a comeback with Ken Ham again facing off with members of DefCon.  You know, I think it is a touch of irony that the group flew over the Creation Museum with a banner that said “DefCon says ‘Thou shalt not lie.’”  Ham thought it was tacky, but I thought it was rather amusing.

I’m going to postpone my series on War of the Worldviews until next week.  I think that this week will be better spent trying to find grant money to either open a business (freelance writing) or a nonprofit organization (Josiah Concept Ministries) so that I can settle into a role that will benefit our society much more than flipping burgers.

If you would like to help out with my endeavors and make a donation, please visit our donations page.  Any help in this area would be much appreciated!

Starting Sunday, I’m going to reread two or three chapters per day of War of the Worldviews by Ken Ham, as promised in earlier comments.  I’m just not sure anymore if a Young Earth model is the correct way to go based on science.  Old Earth models seem to fit science much better, and I want to see if a person can still hold a biblical theology with the Old Earth model.

As I reread the chapters, I’m going to post any relevant thoughts on the blog.

After that, in case you’re reading this, Pastor Steve, I’ll actually give the book back like I promised.

This weekend, I’m going to visit my nieces in Michigan, so I likely won’t be available Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.

The following week, I will start the long-promised series on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Over the next two to three weeks, I will be seeking a publisher for my rebuttal to Discovery’s Lost Tomb of Jesus fiasco.  I don’t actually expect to make much (if any) money out of the deal, but it will be instructive (I think) to try.  Besides, I think I have enough of a readership that at least some people might be willing to spend a little money on my thoughts and apologetics.

I have to stop posting these Church of the Covered Dish strips. I just discovered that I actually have to pay to do that.  So, it looks like I’ll have to find an alternative way of filling up days where I’m just to beat to blog, or don’t have enough time to post an entry.  That will be a priority B next to finishing up my book and finding a publisher for it.

I just spent over two hours answering a post on Theology Web.  It has drained my will to blog.  So I leave with a little bit of Thom Tapp’s wit.  Enjoy.