Tag Archives: Ethics

Polemics

Is it necessary to use words to preach the gospel?

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The Pugnacious Irishman has some thoughts on it.

Here’s the problem he ran into at church last week:

The message today was a message that contradicts the biblical witness, yet it is a message I hear frequently in the 21st century.  I cannot see Jesus proclaiming the message that was proclaimed today.

[…]Our pastor’s main intention was to press home that our actions need to match our beliefs.

[…]Things started going off the rails, though, when a very obvious second message was proclaimed: the whole “actions-proclamation” dichotomy.

[…]Here’s why I say that: I thought I was just reading into the message, but that was put to rest when I heard the worship leader’s application: “go out and proclaim the gospel at all times.  Use words if necessary.”  He got it loud and clear.  When we got to my car, my wife, who is not an apologetics freak like myself (she’s normal, thank God!), turned to me and said, “I know what his intentions were, but do you get the notion that he was saying that you don’t need to talk to others about Jesus?”

Go here to read Rich’s answer to the problem.

I will surprise no one by stating that it is impossible to preach the gospel without using words, which is why Jesus used them, and why we have people writing letters, preaching sermons and disputing in public throughout the New Testament. In fact, it is literally impossible for someone to be saved without hearing about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The propositional content about these events is required, not optional.

Basically, the message of Christianity is that we are all sinful, and in need of a Lord and Savior so that we can be rightly related to God again. Works are just epiphenomena that occur after you have already been saved, showing that you really are saved. The message of the feminized church, on the other hand, is “do nice things because it makes you feel good, and it makes other people feel good – and that’s what Christianity is about”. So, saying things that make non-Christians feel bad, or that imply that they should be studying to change their beliefs is intolerant or harassment or a hate-crime.

Well, I haven’t been snarky, since, oh… yesterday. So let me tell you exactly why people in the feminized church emphasize actions instead of words, by referring to some of my favorite posts from way back when the blog started. That way, all you new readers can read stuff from back when I actually wrote really good posts on Christian apologetics, instead of really bad posts on politics.

Here are some of my thoughts on why people in church want to do nice things instead of telling others the good news and defending it against attacks. (If you only have time to read one of them read this one)

Commentary

Animal rights activists oppose research that can save millions of lives

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It is an axiom of my profession (software engineering) that “there is no silver bullet”. Every design decision represents a compromise – a trade-off – between two competing goals. As someone who loves animals very much, I think that it is important that my readers understand the benefit that we get when we allow medical researchers to experiment on animals to develop new cures.

The story is here. (H/T Secondhand Smoke via ECM)

Excerpt:

A new malaria vaccine has been shown to provide 100% protection in mice. If it can approach that level in people, it could slash the toll from one of the world’s worst scourges, according to Stefan Kappe of Seattle Biomedical Research Institute (SBRI). “We’re shooting for 90%-plus protection,” said Kappe, who is the leader of the international collaboration behind the vaccine. “I am extremely optimistic this will work. The initial trials on Kappe’s vaccine are tentatively scheduled to start in January at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval is required.

Either we are going to save many human lives or save a few animal lives. It’s that simple. We cannot do both.

News

How Obama rewards his most prolific fundraisers with crony appointments

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Story from the Washington Times. (H/T Verum Serum)

Morgen at Verum Serum writes:

These top fundraisers are known as “bundlers”. Since campaign finance laws restrict any one individual from donating more than $2400 to a single candidate, these bundlers achieve prominence within a campaign by soliciting for and then – you guessed it – bundling up individual donations received via their extended network of friends, family, business contacts, etc. While exact figures are not available, the top bundlers within the Obama campaign each delivered in excess of $1 million in campaign contributions, and there were nearly 50 bundlers who were responsible for at least $500K in donations.

As the Times notes, it’s somewhat of a Washington tradition for an incoming President to appoint choice ambassadorships to key political donors and allies. While this may be the case, for a President who declared a “new era” of accountability, and who championed ethics reform while in the Senate, a look at the appointments made to date reveals what I think is a surprising level of cronyism on the part of this Administration. And notably, many of these appointments extend outside the relatively ceremonial realm of diplomatic posts.

What sort of positions are they talking about? Just harmless ambassadorships?

Special Counsel to the President
Chairman, FCC
General Counsel, Dept. of Energy
Deputy Asst. Attorney General
Associate Attorney General
Under-Secy. for International Trade
Chairman, Corp. for Nat’l & Community Service
Asst. Attorney General, Civil Div.

By my calculation, nearly half of the top level of Obama campaign bundlers have been rewarded with some sort of role within the government.

And it gets worse:

Robert Wolf is the Chairman/CEO of investment bank UBS and given his influence on Wall Street may in fact be the largest bundler of them all. Significantly, Wolf’s firm seems to be mired in several tax-related scandals; and they were also a key counter-party recipient of  funds from AIG, courtesy of the U.S. tax payer. However, apparently all this was not enough to deter the President from naming Wolf to his Economic Advisory Council.

Verum Serum has the full list of donors, the total funds raised by each one, and the appointments.

What do you expect from the affirmative action President, whose private-school education was paid for by his rich grandmother?