Nov 27
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost complaint that a change in the tax code will make employee money spent on public transportation taxable for nonprofit organizations. This change will bring a host of additional problems for these organizations.
The title's stated concern over threats to religious liberty is not even mentioned, let alone supported by the article. Rather, what we have above is a complaint that a free lunch of some public service has been taken away from nonprofit organizations. I could see the complaint being made for those nonprofit organizations whose primary purpose is to provide a direct service to the public. But I can't justify the complaint for houses of worship.
And though I can't justify the above complaint for houses of worship, I can understand it by referring to a famous quote from a 1974 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. That quote is, 'follow the money.' And it seems that along with the support from many religiously conservative Christian leaders for neoliberal Capitalism and the materialism that they have allowed or even fostered in the Church over religious holidays, the above article is just another indicator of how our Free Market and the love of money has infiltrated the faith of many of these leaders.
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To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that rejects the idea that Calvinism carries with it a certain rigidity. This appeared in the Heidelblog.
Let's face the truth, Calvin himself was very rigid. That rigidity was not necessarily seen in his theology as in how Calvin related to people. Like Luther, Calvin possessed an authoritarian personality type. That was demonstrated in how Calvin reacted to dissent: his reactions were often over the top bombastic. The epitome of his over the top bombastic reactions to dissent can be found in his support for the murder of Michael Servetus for heresy.
In addition, a number of Calvinist leaders have quite recently spoken against being nice in how we sometimes should theologically disagree with others. It is as if remaining loyal to basic tenets of the faith requires a certain harshness when interacting with those who believe otherwise.
From what I've seen, some Calvinist leaders have been playing the persecution card when challenged by others. Rather than asking their people to be more self-aware, which should be part of one's life of repentance, these leaders are promoting the idea that persecution is almost always the result of people's reactions to our statements of faith rather than our behavior. This is especially true regarding how we react to the LGBT community.
Sorry, despite being a Calvinist to some degree myself, I find the charge that many of us are rigid to be very credible. Thus being unnecessarily rigid is a trait we should acknowledge and work on rather than one we should deny.
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To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost about how Evangelical Christians must work long and hard to become Reformed in their faith. This appeared in the Heidelblog.
One must be concerned with Clark's claims about the Reformed faith here. For he portrays it as a higher form of Christianity that is gained by those Christians who work long and hard to achieve a higher level of knowledge that is not available to regular Evangelical Christians. His claims mix the descriptions of the Gnostics with those of the Pharisee from the parable of the two men praying. And in neither case was a higher spiritual level achieved.
I lean more toward the faith of Calvin and Luther than to Arminian theology. But I would never speak as if the faith and thinking of Calvin and Luther were superior to Arminian theology. I just agree with more individual points made by the former theologies while acknowledging the vast amount I can learn from the latter theology.
The height of the pedestal on which Clark has placed Reformed Theology invites tribalism. And once tribalism begins to be embraced, then Christ is automatically displaced by theologies that claimed to have put Him on his rightful throne. Surely Paul would ask Clark if Luther and Calvin died for our sins? If Clark had noted some of the faults of Reformed theology and how because of that we can learn from Arminian theology, I would not object as much to Clark's overall claims. But that was not the case here.
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