The End of The Thinking Servant

Yes, this will be the final posting in this blog. I have decided since I have ended the Seminary portion of my life that I want to move on to the next phase. I plan on opening a new blog under a new name once I get settled in our new geographical location.

I have also decided to leave only some of my postings to view. Think of the ones I leave here as a "BEST OF THE THINKING SERVANT" section. I don't have a set number but I am only leaving what I feel are the best of my column. I am also deleting some good ones that are more topical to events of the day than would be appreciated in future years. Of course, I may delete a favorite of yours that maybe wasn't one I wanted to leave. I apologize if your favorite gets the delete.

I have enjoyed blogging at this site and look forward to a new blog (or blogs) in the future.\

Cordially,

The Thinking Servant.

Theology World (Updated)

EDITORS NOTE: This column was intended to be in two parts originally, but after some thought I decided to just add on to this original column. The add-ons start after Calvin Corner below.

Yes, we are in desperate need for a theology based theme park. Well, some people think so. So in the interest of helping out I have a few ideas for Theology World:

The Lands: Every theme park has themed lands so how about these: Augustine's Area, Aquinas Apex, Luther Land, Calvin Corner, Arminian Acres, Higher Criticism Hollow, Barth Burg, and Existentialist End.

AUGUSTINE'S AREA: Attractions will include the following: Confessions Carousel (the park's merry-go-round); Hungry Hippo (a great restaurant); Allegory (a roller coaster); and The Two Cities Gift Shop.

AQUINAS APEX: Attractions will include: Suma Screamer (a looping roller coaster); Aristotle Air (airplane ride); Monastary Meals (a restaurant); and The Theologica Turnpike (an antique car ride). Of course, you need a gift shop - how about the Medieval Mart.

LUTHER LAND: Attractions include: Wittenburg Whirl (a tilt-a-whirl); Tetzel's Terror (a hyper coaster); Diets of Worms (a food court style restaurant); The Papal Bull (a mechanical bull ride); and the gift shop - Indulgences.

CALVIN CORNER: Attractions include: Tulip Twister (a scrambler ride); The Five Points (a nature walk with five scenic overlooks); Geneva Gourmets (a restaurant); Institutes Inverter (a looping ship ride); Calvin's Escape (a roller coaster themed to Calvin fleeing Geneva the first time he was there); and the Gift Shop: Unconditional Elections (you will buy this merchandise because you are predestined to do so).

ARMINIAN ACRES: Attractions include: Wesley Wheels (a car ride); Free Will Fling (one of those wheels that spins you upside down - chose the ride cabin of your choice); Jacob's Juice (juice shop); and I Hate Tulips (a shop featuring clothing that insults Calvinists).

HIGHER CRITICISM HOLLOW: This is the lame area of the park as can be expected. Attractions include: The Compromiser (a roller coaster that starts of fast but ultimately fails to deliver the intended results); The Wishy-Washy (a log flume); Sigmund Mowinkle's (a restaurant named after the higher critic theologian who, while lame in his work, definitely had the best name of a theologian ever); and Documentary Hypotheses (a bookstore filled with boring, irrelevant books).

BARTH BURG: Not quite as lame as Higher Criticism Hollow, but not that much better. Attractions include: Trying to Have It Both Ways (a ride that swings from side-to-side); Scremo-Orthodoxy (a roller coaster only slightly better than the Compromiser); Barth Burgers (it does have a nice ring to it); and German Accents (a clothing shop).

EXISTENTIALIST END: No one knows what this area is about or what is in it, so we'll go on. We suspect it is ultimately meaningless when you get down to it.

That's the great Theology World theme park. Admission is a pre-destined $45 for Calvinist guests and Arminian guests may chose their own price (as long as its ultimately $45).

Rejected Christian Book Titles

These little known book titles are not available at your local Christian bookstore because they were rejected by publishers.

10) Blue Like Bluegrass. A man moves from Portland, Oregon, to Renfro Valley, Kentucky, and discovers Christian theology while learning to make moonshine.

9) The Purpose-Driven Lifer. A prisoner's biography.

8) Left Behind Again, Left Behind Once More, Left Behind Yet Again, Left Behind: The Final Rapture; Left Behind: Oops, There Was Another Rapture; Left Behind: Jason and Freddy versus Alien and Predator at the Rapture. Apparantly it was decided to start a new series of books by the occurance of yet more raptures. Did not pass the eschatology smell test of any of the mainstream evangelical positions.

7) Confessions of Saint Augustine, Florida. Some things should remain secret.

6) Your Best Life 30 Years From Now. Osteenism only goes so far.

5) Your Denomination is Stupid. Considered too provocative by the publisher.

4) John MacArthur's Apocrypha Commentary. Publisher considered this title to likely be a forgery.

3) The Institutes of the non-Christian Religion. Apparently this was mailed to the wrong publisher.

2) The Leap Year Study Bible for Bill Johnson. This was considered to be a little too personalized.

1) Sound Theology in the Emergent Church Movement. This would be a very small book.

Top 5 Travel Destinations

My recommendations for your travel pleasure. I am only recommending stuff I have been to, so that means everything is either in the USA, Canada, or Russia (I have been to one city in Mexico but nothing there is making my list).

Top 5 National Parks: 1) Banff (Alberta); 2) Denali (Alaska); 3) Grand Canyon (Arizona); 4) Yellowstone (mostly in Wyoming); 5) Mammoth Cave (Kentucky).

Top 5 Theme Parks: 1) Disneyland (Anaheim, CA); 2) WDW: Magic Kingdom (near Orlando, FL.); 3) WDW: Epcot (same); 4) WDW: Animal Kingdom (same); 5) WDW: Disney's Hollywood Studios (same)

Top 5 non-Disney owned Theme Parks: 1) Silver Dollar City (Branson, MO); 2) Busch Gardens: The Old Country (Williamsburg, VA); 3) King's Island (near Cincinatti, OH); 4) Sea World (Orlando, FL); 5) Sea World (San Antonio, TX).

Top 5 Roadside Attractions: 1) Wall Drug Store (Wall, SD); 2) Rock City (near Chattanooga, TN); 3) Reptile Gardens (Rapid City, SD); 4) Upper Dells Boat Tour (Wisconsin Dells, WI); 5) Beardale Castle (near Revelstoke, BC. - if it is still open).

Top 5 Historical Museums (single building complex): 1) Buffalo Bill Center (Cody, WY); 2) American History Museum (Washington, DC); 3) Cincinatti Public Museum (guess where?); 4) Yorktown Victory Center (Yorktown, VA); 5) There is no number 5.

Top 5 Historical Museums (multi-building complex): 1) Harold Warp's Pioneer Village (Minden, NE.); 2) Colonial Williamsburg (Williamsburg, VA); 3) Homeplace 1850 (Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area, TN); 4) Jamestown Festival Park (near Williamsburg, VA); 5) Upper Fort Gerry National Historic Site (just north of Winnepeg, MB).

Top 5 Zoos (does not include zoo-ish theme parks like Sea World): 1) San Diego Zoo (San Diego, CA); 2) Fort Worth Zoo (Fort Worth, TX); 3) St. Louis Zoo (St. Louis, MO); 4) Brookfield Zoo (near Chicago, IL); 5) Cincinatti Zoo (guess where again).

Top 5 Historical Homes: 1) White House (Washington, DC); 2) The Hermitage (St. Petersburg, Russia); 3) Monticello (near Charlottesville, VA); 4) Biltmore House and Gardens (Asheville, NC); 5) Mount Vernon (near Alexandria, VA).

Top 5 Shopping Centers: 1) Mall of America (Bloomington, MN); 2) West Edmonton Mall (Edmonton, AB); 3) Opry Mills (Nashville, TN); 4) Grapevine Mills (Grapevine, TX); 5) Underground Mall (Moscow, Russia)

There are other categories of course but I do have other things to do other than blog.

New Airlines of the World

Yes, flying has grown to be too predictable and boring in the sense of you get the same old seats, same old beverage cart items, same old in flight entertainment, etc. Of course, we do not want to increase the excitement factor by things like crashes and near scares. We have better ideas. How about themed airlines or airlines for places that don't have one.

Sitcom Air = on this airline your pilots will Howard Borden (The Bob Newhart Show) and those two brothers on Wings. The flight attendants will be the waitresses from Alice and It's A Living, and also Steve Urkel (waiter from Rachel's Place on Family Matters). On board flight meals will be served by either Ginger & MaryAnn from Gilligan's Island or by Igor from M*A*S*H. In flight entertainment will be a mixture of episodes of Tool Time, The WJM Six O'Clock News, FYI, Vermont Today, and Wake Up, San Francisco. Radio feeds in flight will be of The Frasier Crane Show or live feeding from WKRP in Cincinatti.

Theology Air = on this airline your pilots will be dressed like either John Calvin or Karl Barth. The flight attendants will serve either Martin Luther Beer (this isn't necessarily a Baptist airline) or Tulip brand sodas (Tulip, Tulip Classic, Diet Tulip, Caffeine-Free Tulip, Caffeine-Free Diet Tulip, Cherry Tulip, Vanilla Tulip, Cherry-Vanilla Tulip, Crystal Tulip, New Tulip, Tulip Zero, et al.). On board flight entertainment will be readings from Augustines' Confessions and The Institutes of the Christian Religion (overseas flights can cover more than one volume). You can decide whether the people on the plane are pre-destined to be there or whether they are chosing to fly of their own free will or if its a mixture of both.

Air Leichtenstein = Flights will be from the capital to the other town in this small country. Flight time will be three minutes.

Star Trek Air = This one is just too obvious. Trekkies fill in your own data.

Has-Been Air = Your favorite has-beens have their own airline. Your pilots are Charo and Gary Coleman. Your flight attendants are the entire cast of the movie The Breakfast Club. In flight meals will be from the menu of either the Atkins Diet or the Burger Chef restaurant chain. Your in flight entertainment will be music videos of Menudo, Falco, Gerardo, Culture Club, A-Ha, Ace of Bass, Wham!, War, the Bay City Rollers, Peaches & Herb, the Captain & Tenille, Bananarama, Duran Duran, Rick Springfield, and every celebrity mentor from American Idol.

Thank you, sit back and relax, and enjoy your flight (if you can).

The Balanced Christian - Part Two

OK, where are we having trouble with balance in current Christianity. Well, some of these may not easily be pigeon-holed into the Pharisee/Saducee template we established, but others will. The ones that won't can be seen within the framework of ignoring part of the Bible's teaching while over-emphasizing other parts. And some unbalances are occuring because of wrong-headed interpretations of the text. But in the end unbalance is there.

Rules - This is ever a problem for Christians. One sects Pharisaical rules include no smoking (a practice not encouraged by me but still not directly addressed in the Word), no dancing (does this include exercising to upbeat Southern Gospel music?), or movie restrictions (six cuss word minimum with certain words being used once counting as six but at seven you must leave the theater in a rage and tell the teenager at the popcorn counter that he is a purveyor of utter filth). In another Saducaical sect, NC-17 rated movies are allowed as fine and dandy (its making an artistic statement after all and if its called art it must be unquestioned), you can engage in sexual sin just fine (as long as you love you each other, whatever that means to you), but you better show up at a radical environmentalist rally (after all Mother Earth is ruined by polluters and we must protest and dump our trash all over the park we are protesting in). The first three examples are rules added to the Bible while last three are, respectively, a fuzzy current culture inclination, a direct violation of the Bible, and a Pharisaical rule the Pharisees would have been proud these Saducees adopted.
The Bible has enough rules without any additions please. Biblical rules exist for our protection, holiness, and quality of life. Adding to the Scripture elevates the opinions of man to the level of God's commands and is thus SIN. Denying Scripture makes the opinions of man superior to God's commands and is also SIN.

Contemporary/Traditional Debates - This can be over music, worship styles, preaching formats, dress, and on and on and on. The Scripture gives great freedom to us in certain areas. Take music. We have no commands in Scripture regarding styles of music we have today because none of our styles existed during Bible days (even if the organ seems old enough to have existed in Bible days it did not). Bach, Bluegrass, Basie, Beatles, Bono, Brooks, Bubble Gum, Brunge (OK, its technically Grunge but my allliteration was doing well), Bagpipe, Bangles, Bananarama, Britney (music style, not train wreck lifestyle), Billy Ray, Brown, Billy Joel, Bosephus, Barnyard, Ballet (please don't I beg of you), Beach Blanket, Buffet, B-52, and other styles are all acceptable music styles within Biblical limits (though we are dead certain that if we ever find 3 Thessalonians there will be a prohibition against any song ever being sung to the tunes of "House of the Rising Sun" or "I Will Always Love You" or "Help Me Make It Through the Night" or "You Light Up My Life").
At the same time your fellow Christian is not evil or outdated because they don't like your taste in music. Though we are sure it is banned in 4 Thessalonians, you can sing a worship song in church to the tune of "Almost Persuaded" (of course there is an actual hymn of this name that is available to sing but right thinking people do not want to do this as this hymn moans, drags out, and sounds like a funeral dirge that makes you want to listen to the sound of nails scraping against a chalkboard to get some relief from hearing it). But, you can see that I lack strong feelings on this issue.
Anyway, if it glorifies God, sing it.

I shall cease writing on this subject of balance at this time as I've grown tired of said subject at this point. Perhaps I will write more about this in the future.

The Balanced Christian - Part One

Those who know me well know that I am an advocate of balance in the Christian life. What do I mean by this?

Remember when Jesus told the Disciples to beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Saducees. They at first thought he was speaking literally but became aware that he was actually telling them to beware the false doctrines of both groups. What were there false doctrines? Boiling it down to its simplest terms the Pharisees were guilty of adding to the Scriptures a whole pile of rules and regulations that became the focus of their religion which blinded them to Christ. The Saducees took away from the Scripture certain things they rejected and thus were also blinded to Christ.

There is an important principle here. The Bible essentially teaches a balanced life for the Christian and whenever we add to or take away from the Scriptures we get unbalanced. Sometimes this is blatant: Did you grow up in a church that required a dress code for attendance at church? This was the yeast of the Pharisees as the Bible teaches no such dress code for church attendance - it was simply the preferences of men that were being enforced. Did you grow up in a church that tried to explain that the miracles of the Bible weren't really miracles but could be easily explained via natural phenomena? This was the yeast of the Saducees as the Bible was doubted.

For most evangelicals, the yeast of the Pharissees is a far greater temptation. If you are an evangelical you probably saw more of your church in the first example than in the second. However, the yeast of the Saducees is making a tremendous comeback through some of the emergent church teachers and their allies.

Most of us have a problem with a mixture of the two. We sometimes side with the Pharisees and sometimes with the Saducees making us guilty of both. Actually, when you look at it, both groups were essentially similar on the inside as both rejected Christ outright and, whether they wanted to admit it or not, they rejected God's Word as well.

This thing we are calling balance is very important. Sometimes inbalance is easy to see and sometimes it is not. Sometimes we accidentally invoke either extreme without meaning to do it. This comes primarily from focusing on parts of the Bible's teaching without focusing on the whole teaching of the Bible. While we may be sincerely trying to uphold God's Word, we actually undermine it through our unbalance, and thus get infected with the yeast. The Thinking Servant has been guilty of this at times and still occasionally has to repent when shown his error. Examples of some of these current day inbalances will be featured in the next column.