Patriot101 said:

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I'll have to research it. Where is the link again?

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Wait, were you lying when you said you'd just concede that he covered for a pedophile? The link is in the thread. The funny thing is that with asking that question, you show that you were arguing a point simply out of ignorance. The information was provided to you, but you ignored it and just continued with the goaltending. Goodnight.

Yep. For the sake of argument, I realize I could be wrong.

I didn't see the link. I'll check it out.

https://moscowid.net/tag/sexual-abuse/

Yep. I encourage everyone to read through these articles.

It's difficult because if a man repents of hitting his wife then what Bible verse merits divorce? If it continues then I even more can see the point. This needs more attention. Spousal abuse is definitely a sin. Terrible.
I've never committed such a sin.

I did punch my brother before I went to jail and rehab a while back. That earned me a domestic violence charge. So yeah. That Isn't and wasn't a good look either because in background checks it looks the same.
The law is gender neutral and includes family members.
So I've laid low for a long time. Consequences of sin. Been sober since October 28th, 2018.

Anyway, Divorce is terrible, too. I'm just heartbroken. I've been through it. Pray for me. Thank you.

Not sure on the rest of it. But it certainly isn't a good look.

I'm certainly no authority. I'm just a poor commoner.

So that probably wipes out my witness here.

Someone said that a church should be cutoff at around 300. I'm not sure if that helps or not. But I grew up in a mega church. Believe you me that Church on the Rock in Rockwall, Texas had a lot of mess. People of all classes and ethnicities were in attendance.

Many lives were changed. But yeah. The top guy fell into sin by embezzling money. Being deceitful about his home burning down on tv, when he had land and another home.

People in the church were fired up about the Lord.
But you had everyone in a small town back then with Church on the Rock bumper stickers. Some of them would cut you off or end up in jail.

Anyway, that church and Tilton's church were nationally syndicated broadcasts, which was a bigger deal back then before most people had cable in the early 90's.

Anyway, don't put your trust in man.

Thank you. Received.

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Someone said that a church should be cutoff at around 300. I'm not sure if that helps or not. But I grew up in a mega church. Believe you me that Church on the Rock in Rockwall, Texas had a lot of mess. People of all classes and ethnicities were in attendance.

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I attended the infamous Willow Creek (Bill Hybels) for a period of time and I can say I left it with mixed thoughts on the subject. On one hand, 300 sounds right for a traditional model of church which caters to a life phase of married with kids. If you're outside of this, it can be a difficult place. I've also seen first hand the impact of God moving in the hearts of many people in 1 congregation. Is it perfect or ideal? No.

But, there maybe a place (or a model) that somehow tries to solve both of these. Maybe smaller churches but connected together in networks or something.

diehard03 said:

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Quote:

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Someone said that a church should be cutoff at around 300. I'm not sure if that helps or not. But I grew up in a mega church. Believe you me that Church on the Rock in Rockwall, Texas had a lot of mess. People of all classes and ethnicities were in attendance.

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I attended the infamous Willow Creek (Bill Hybels) for a period of time and I can say I left it with mixed thoughts on the subject. On one hand, 300 sounds right for a traditional model of church which caters to a life phase of married with kids. If you're outside of this, it can be a difficult place. I've also seen first hand the impact of God moving in the hearts of many people in 1 congregation. Is it perfect or ideal? No.

But, there maybe a place (or a model) that somehow tries to solve both of these. Maybe smaller churches but connected together in networks or something.

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Good stuff. I don't know either. Spurgeon had a rather large congregation without microphones. God was using his preaching and church to reach scores of souls.

It's just baffling that the backlash in today's culture that is ready to throw us out like throwing the baby out with the bath water, forgive the cliche. But it's true. Social media just makes somethings great and other things more difficult at the same time.

They use the Judeo-Christian standard to judge us. Sometimes it's people in various Christian traditions. But it is fueled with much, much more hate from the skeptic.

St. Augustine's mother was abused by Augustine's father. His mother prayed and prayed for Augustine and his father.

Augustine went through a whirlwind of moral failures before he became truly devout. He even had a concubine, which basically is a woman that he didn't marry.

Anyway, Augustine credits his mother for suffering through it. That it witnessed to him, so to speak.

Augustine claimed her prayers were answered and his father eventually saw the light as well as her prayers affecting his own seeing of the light.

Not sure if I told the story perfectly. But that's what I remember reading years ago.

Where would we be without St. Augustine?

Would be great if Piper called out Wilson on some of his language because I think he's been properly called out here. Maybe not though...
Iron sharpens iron though

Also, those articles on that Wilson link about sexual abuse looked fishy. Yellow journalism summaries. I saw no quotes. May want to look through it again.
This is weird.

Patriot101 said:

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Where would we be without St. Augustine?

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St. Augustine was a brilliant theologian but is almost single handedly responsible for the ECT concept of hell and had a huge effect on the Inquistion.

Also believed unbaptized babies went to Hell.

dermdoc said:

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Patriot101 said:

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Where would we be without St. Augustine?

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St. Augustine was a brilliant theologian but is almost single handedly responsible for the ECT concept of hell and had a huge effect on the Inquistion.

Also believed unbaptized babies went to Hell.

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Apparently Wilson agreed with Augustine about penitent spousal abuse by not permitting divorces.

Side note:

I met a young man in rehab at Casa Colina. He was very intelligent and appeared normal to me. He wasn't a believer in Christ, but that doesn't mean that I watched him over and over pour out his heart to me about the following situation.

He wAs accused of date rape or something close to that anyway. He was a freshman at A&M. He was kicked out. His brilliant little sister won't go there now either.

For some reason, I truly believe his story. He said he didn't do it. He brought it up in disgust. You could just tell how heartbroken he was over it.

He never was arrested. I don't know. Maybe he was lying?

The abolition of man led to the abolition of woman.

Something Like Dryer-Vent-Lint-for-Brains
By Doug Wilson

In order to keep these things plain and clear and lucid and comprehensible and transpicuous, you and I are going to have a little talk about this here election tomorrow. And in this little talk I am going to play the role of a Dutch uncle, which means, in its turn, that I am going to set certain things before you. As I do so, I will seek to speak with a becoming frankness. The wood will be unvarnished, the signal ungarbled, and the rhetoric unadorned. The amp will be plugged in, but the distortion knob will be turned all the way to the left.

So I am going to splain here why a Trump vote is the path of true wisdom, and why a refusal to cast a Trump vote is walking a different path. What is the name for those who walk that different path? Because we are good friends, you and I, I will tell you, jabbing your forehead with an affectionate forefinger. I will limit myself to the sort of names that are consistent with our long-standing relationship, not to mention our mutual Christian confession. You know, names like Dryer-Vent-Lint-for-Brains.

You may well ask if I am going to just use a name like that. Yes. I am doing it so that you may test my mettle, and my commitment to this November thing. No qualifications. Look at the calendar. The election is tomorrow, for pity's sake. No sense trying to talk me into qualifications. And if you keep pressuring me like this, I will have to make it the lint from two dryers.

But November or no November, we will eventually need to get to the actual argumentation. That doesn't involve any compromise with the ground rules.

Comparing Like With Like
When we turn to the Scriptures for guidance in such matters, we want to turn to passages that are relevant. We want to open our Bibles to the places that are actually comparable. We don't want to have an orange problem, which some people believe we actually do have, and turn for help to the apple passages. And yet even here there are layers. You can tell at a glance that there has been equivocation in the use of the word orange.

The Scriptures give us various ways to break this down. For example, the Lord told us the parable of the two boys who were told to go work in the vineyard. One dutifully said he would go, and then didn't. The other said he wouldn't go, and then did (Matt. 21:28-32Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)). Which one did the will of their father? This is not a trick question. One politician talks pro-life for his entire political career, but when in office doesn't do anything about it. Another one talks all over the place, and before he was elected the first time there was no telling what he thought, but when he got into office, he did more to advance the pro-life cause than all his conservative predecessors combined. So which one do you vote for? Yes, someone says, but he just can't get over the fact that when he told his father he wouldn't go work the vineyard, he was quite disrespectful. Rude almost.

Here's another way to look at it. When it comes to evaluating kings on the basis of policies and personal life, the Old Testament gives us a broad array of kings to look at. We have a king after God's own heart, like David, who failed grievously in his personal life, and yet whose policies were really good. We have a king who inherited those wonderful policies, and who was beloved by God, and who even wrote Scripture, like Solomon, but who introduced manifold corruptions into Israel later in his reign. Likewise, Amaziah and Joash began well, and cratered later. We have reformers like Asa, who removed corruptions, but whose personal life had real problems. We have reformers like Josiah, whose personal life was sound enough, but who didn't get the job of reform completely done. We have kings who occupy other places along the spectrum, like Hezekiah or Jehoshaphat, and who are still identified as good kings.

In Scripture, a man can be a good man and a bad king, like Solomon, and a man can be a bad man and a good king, like Asa. Life is complicated but it is much simpler if you recognize that it is complicated. The question you should be concerned about is whether high places are going to get removed. Or, failing that, whether no new high places will be built. We even have the complication of Nathan the prophet working to get Solomon on the throne instead of Adonijah, even though Solomon was the one who was going to set the stage for Israel going astray later. A prophet should know that, right? And yet, Solomon's party is where the good guys gathered at the time, and we don't fault Nathan for supporting Solomon.

Sins and Crimes
The problem with the metric that John Piper applied to Trump is that he failed to distinguish sins from crimes. Even on his assumption that Trump had not repented of the sins that Piper listed, all of them were sins, not crimes. In my ideal biblical republic, nobody would ever be prosecuted for being boastful, or factious, and so on. But Biden's policies advance child sacrifice, sexual mutilation, grand larceny, and more. These should be considered by us as crimes, whether they are pursued as part of an individual's personal choices, or through the more respectable procedure of framing mischief through a law (Ps. 94:20Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)).

Not only were Trump's listed failings sins, not crimes, almost all the Christians I know who are voting for Trump recognize them as failings, do not applaud them, and wish it were otherwise. They are not going to follow him down that path, not even a little ways, while at the same time recognizing that his pubic policies are far to be preferred over Biden's.

Someone might say that character does matter, and wonder aloud whether a man of Trump's character will keep his word. That was an entirely fair question . . . in the fall of 2016. But now we have four years of governance behind us, along with the color commentary that his Tweets provide. We have a very good idea of how Trump will govern over the next four years, and a pretty good idea of how he will talk about it. Who in their right mind would not prefer that total package to Biden's cavalcade of regulations and diktats and controls. And when I refer to his cavalcade of oppressive and suffocating governmental edicts, I am not using a figure of speech. He has a drum major out in front of it and everything. He is proud of how he hates liberty.

Disagreement, Not Disappointment
I would much rather have open disagreement in certain areas than convoluted disappointment in other key areas. And what I mean is this. I disagree with Donald Trump on a wide range of issues, but he has kept his promises on the pro-life issue. I am not a thoroughbred single-issue voter, but I am pretty close to that. And when it comes to a president doing what I want to see done in this area, Trump has really been good. He has kept his word to those of us in the pro-life movement. Trump has done what he said he would do in the areas of disagreement, and he has done what he said he would do in the areas of agreement. This is very different from agreeing with Republicans, and then being let down by them.

So here's the thing. I know exactly what my issues of disagreement with Trump are. In the 2016 election, he promised to spend money like a drunken sailor on shore leave, and he has done so. I wish he hadn't, but he did exactly what he said he would do. At the same time, he also promised that he would appoint conservative judges to the federal bench like crazy, and he has done that as well about 300 to date, including three on the Supreme Court. If Trump is reelected tomorrow, we could easily see him appoint at least two more SCOTUS justices, along with many more federal judges, which would have the direct effect of my grandchildren having the liberty to work for continued and most necessary reformation.

Some of the things they will have to clean up would be some of the negative effects of the second Trump administration. They will still be free to do so because there was a second Trump administration. Under Biden, they will have total freedom to agree with all the HR departments of corporate America, and to clap at official nonsense like they were at a North Korean missile parade. Fortunately my grandchildren wouldn't do any of that, but I would still rather have them working for reforms in a country that is still recognizably free, as opposed to attending those mandatory tolerance seminars in the gaylag archipelago.

Quitting at the Battle of the Bulge
Among conservative Christians, a common retort to the argument I have set out above (viz. that Trump has been a consequential pro-life president) is the reply that the traditional pro-life movement is a money-making scam, and that nobody is really serious about outlawing abortion.

I view these discordant voices as men who got really tired of all the fighting right after the Battle of Bulge, and who decided to quit there. Why haven't we captured Berlin yet? Why all this fooling around?

The answer is that this a long war, and long wars aren't short ones.

The longer answer is that we can tell how serious traditional pro-lifers are by how seriously they are taken by the all-in dedicated pro-abortionists. Abortion is their blood sacrament, and they will do anything up to and including open insurrection against the government to prevent the outlawing of that sacrament. They will do anything, including burning down American cities, to prevent the appointment of any more traditional pro-lifers to the Supreme Court. Why? They see a serious threat, as do I.

Do you want to do the radical thing at the state level? Great, and God bless you. What you should want then is a Trump High Court that outlaws (or even weakens) Roe. When and if you get it, don't forget to say thank you.

So Then . . .
So then, I voted early, and did it last week. And I did what I never thought I would do back in 2016 I voted for Donald J. Trump. And do you know what? That night I slept like a baby. I did not have any agonistic contests in my soul. I did not experience any turmoil beneath my sternum. I did not google anything about how to change my vote.

And do you know why? It was because when it came to saving my nation from becoming a fetid swamp of totalitolerance, I did my bit.

You should do yours. I highly recommend it.

https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/something-like-dryer-vent-lint-for-brains.html

I guess if you are a single issue voter, you are willing to sell your soul for this issue. So be it. I will add that I believe it to be incredibly misguided as has been discussed on here. Banning abortions will not stop them.

Abortions have been on the decline for years, and the ironic thing is the initiatives that have been shown to have a true impact on the numbers are things that evangelicals overwhelmingly won't support.


https://baptistnews.com/article/can-christians-come-together-to-reduce-the-need-for-abortion/#.X6AxoFNKgUQ

I also think you have sold your soul and it could have long lasting impacts on the church.

https://www.businessinsider.com/christians-trump-pushed-some-young-christians-away-from-churches-2020-11

https://gen.medium.com/these-evangelical-women-are-abandoning-trump-and-the-church-ee8899837fe

There is also a toll taken on the fabric of this nation at the hands of this man.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/i-gathered-stories-of-people-transformed-by-fox-news.html

This one has a personal impact on me as my family that I have known to always be kind and inclusive has all of the sudden become afraid of their shadow and thinks Isis is coming to take over rural Texas. I truly do not recognize my mother and father anymore.

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This one has a personal impact on me as my family that I have known to always be kind and inclusive has all of the sudden become afraid of their shadow and thinks Isis is coming to take over rural Texas. I truly do not recognize my mother and father anymore.

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I certainly know this feeling, and am seeing it in my parents as well.

Thought this was useful and on topic for this post.

Works both ways.

I hardly know my sister and brother in law anymore because of their "wokeness".

Both completely quit the church(which is not a fundy, condemning church at all). In fact, they are almost hermits and claim to be at the best agnostics. After decades,of both serving in leadership positions at the church. And if you bring up politics, you get attacked.

And all you have to do is watch one Antifa riot and understand this is not only a conservative/Fox News problem.

And one last point about the fabric of our nation, his attacks on the election process are incredibly damaging. We like to think our democracy is resilient, but I think that's wishfull thinking.

For him to say he won't accept results unless he wins. Green lighting his knuckle draggers to be 'poll watchers'. Strategizing that he will simply declare himself the win early tomorrow and claim fraud as more votes are being counted is the antithesis of what our system is about.

Not all, but many of his followers are cultists. Plain and simple, and those of you that think there will be no lasting effects of this man's tenure are blind.

dermdoc said:

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Works both ways.

I hardly know my sister and brother in law anymore because of their "wokeness".

Both completely quit the church(which is not a fundy, condemning church at all). In fact, they are almost hermits and claim to be at the best agnostics. After decades,of both serving in leadership positions at the church. And if you bring up politics, you get attacked.

And all you have to do is watch one Antifa riot and understand this is not only a conservative/Fox News problem.

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Nope. This is not a 'both sides' issues. Balderdash.

Antifa is the biggest lump of garbage propaganda going.

Well, you gave your anecdotal story and I gave mine. And my view.

And notice I did not say that the right was not guilty as you did with the left.

God bless you.

dermdoc said:

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Well, you gave your anecdotal story and I gave mine. And my view.

And notice I did not say that the right was not guilty as you did with the left.

God bless you.

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Yeah I agree with you. I've seen people on both sides sever lifelong relationships over this election. It's sad, and where I believe our Kingdom witness gets damaged most because I've seen this from professed believers on both sides. If we can't provide a radical alternative to the Bidens and Trumps of the world, then we are failing as the Church.

dermdoc said:

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Well, you gave your anecdotal story and I gave mine. And my view.

And notice I did not say that the right was not guilty as you did with the left.

God bless you.

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Fair enough. No doubt there are nuts on the left, but it's pretty disingenuous to say that the far left's rise hasn't paralleled Trump's increased rehetoric.

And I can provide data that the far left's rise is still not anywhere near as large and dangerous as the right.

Antifa is a farse.

https://www.businessinsider.com/right-wing-extremists-kill-329-since-1994-antifa-killed-none-2020-7

https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/10/27/in-america-far-right-terrorist-plots-have-outnumbered-far-left-ones-in-2020

And I notice you completely ignored the rest of my post that is far more troubling to simply say 'see, the left is bad, too.'.

Agree. But I feel CNN is just as biased and affects people the same as y'all think Fox does.

We will never solve this divide and frankly, I try to avoid it and think about Christ. I sometimes falter especially after some wine.

But whatever, I am going to retreat to my office for my noon nap and prayer time.

God bless you. And I mean it.

While I agree CNN and MSNBC certainly have a left bias, I just don't see the level of fear mongering like Fox. We all know how big of a motivator fear is. Fox is undoubtedly sowing the seeds of fear to manipulate their audience. I've watched them all and those others just aren't on the same level as fox. Sorry.

The problem as I see it is that the center left doesn't condemn the far left. I don't hear much of anyone on the left (center or otherwise) disagreeing with the far-left politics of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The left is a solid political bloc supporting the continual expansion of abortion. I don't hear much dissent or breaking rank against the ever-expanding range of when abortion is legal. What mainstream Democrat condemned and openly disagreed with the recent legislation in Virginia? Was there even one?

It rings hollow to say, well there's center-left and far-left and we can't conflate the two when essentially every single vote in congress breaks down party lines. There's no center left or far left. There's just one party.

Zobel said:

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The problem as I see it is that the center left doesn't condemn the far left. I don't hear much of anyone on the left (center or otherwise) disagreeing with the far-left politics of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The left is a solid political bloc supporting the continual expansion of abortion. I don't hear much dissent or breaking rank against the ever-expanding range of when abortion is legal. What mainstream Democrat condemned and openly disagreed with the recent legislation in Virginia? Was there even one?

It rings hollow to say, well there's center-left and far-left and we can't conflate the two when essentially every single vote in congress breaks down party lines. There's no center left or far left. There's just one party.

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You're not paying attention if you don't think there are rifts within the Democratic Party. There are tons of Bernie folks that refuse to vote for Joe. And there has been plenty of discussions about AOC and her rifts w Pelosi.

Sure, during primaries. But the whips are effective. Once those folks are in office, breaking ranks is incredibly rare.

I always give a chuckle when the right brings up AOC. It is truly amazing the amount of headspace a freshman congresswoman occupies in the right.

I know this is hard to do because most of you have showed your hand, as it relates to abortion, but if you can set that issue aside, realize that AOC is simply a populist. And the right likes to think Trump won the election because he's a great conservative and you guys won the 'battle of ideas'. That's really kinda nonsense. Trump won in 2016 because he had a populist message. He was an outsider that appealed to much of the country with a populist message. His messaging in 2016 is not that different than AOC. That may make some heads explode but if you strip away all the labeling of socialism, facism, blah, blah, blah, it really boils down to old fashioned populism.

Your condescension makes this discussion difficult. The point is that, as a party member who I think most will agree is far left, she is not condemned by the party for being too far left. In fact, I'm not sure anyone is too far left for today's democrat party. Bernie Sander's success is evidence.

Populism and socialism aren't the same thing. Saying if you strip away the labels they're the same is like saying if you strip away the labels Nazis are really just super interested in German culture. There's a massive difference in the economic policies of Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and President Trump. Calling them both populism in an attempt to make them equivalent is insulting to the intelligence of everyone reading this.

I do agree that President Trump is a populist. And, in that regard, he has been roundly criticized by those on the right in this country. There's a massive amount of dissension relating to his economic policy from free-market capitalists. I think his stance on economic protectionism is wrong, and it hurts our country. I would put President Trump to the left of most free-market capitalists.

Where are the similarly withering attacks on Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez or Senator Sanders openly socialist policies from these centrist elements on the left?

I mean, are we really expected to believe that the Democratic party hasn't taken a hard step left in the past twenty years?