[$] Proof that I am a sinner

Like you needed proof, I am sure. However, I have this obsession with stats -- that is, where do I rank? Who's better than me? Who am I better than? Am I popular? Am I despised? So I am a member of the Blogdom of God, and in its ranks in the TTLB ecosystem, I found this:

To keep things in perspective, there are more than 3200 blog which get more links and views than my page does in this ranking system. And the blog rank in the "bigger picture" of the whole TTLB ecosystem is that we're like #8100 out of more than 30,000 blogs. Slithering reptile indeed.

The point, however, after all qualifications, is that somehow communio snactorum does not have the same statistical rank as we do. I know it's hard to believe -- I know it cannot be true that more people link to my blog and more people actually view my blog than the reformedCatholics can muster -- but there it is. Somehow a view which takes the Bible at face value, admits to having a tradition that is subject to reform by Scripture, and addresses issues in the regular world of books and events (as opposed to the Medieval world of books and events) has more relevence than the collective fire power of that particular battle station.

It must be the end-times for Evangelidom. It's just not fair.

[%] Speaking of Mothers ...

... Tim Challies has an interesting review of a biography of Mother Theresa.

Let's remember, as we read the review, that an atheist will say anything to discredit something he sees as superstitious -- but there's a difference between ad hom attacks like, "she had a superstitious belief in God, therefore we cannot trust her moral judgment" and "she said that suffering was beautiful, but she would seek help at expensive hospitals (rather than her own clinics) when she needed medical attention."

[$] Note for our Catholic readers

Today is the feast of the Assumption of Mary -- I would have forgotten except that my Palm reminded me. For your edification and information, I have a link you might want to review: Where does the doctrine come from?

[#] Evangelical Co-Belligerants: who is who?

<JOKE>
OK: BEFORE we do the stuff which Steve and his sidekick JD may or may not respond to, the BEST part of yesterday's "Justice Sunday II" was this report fromthe Swift Report. Sources close to the Devil say that his appearance at the event was prompted by a much simpler reason: the prominent place of sodomy on the evening’s agenda.
</JOKE>

<CRICKETS></CRICKETS>

Ok. Anyway.

I was reading then news about yesterday's Justice Sunday II, and one particular news item caught my eye. It seems that there were Christians who were actually opposed to what was happening in Nashville, a group called Faith Voices for the Common Good.

For those not familiar with Faith Voices, here's their mission statement:

Faith Voices serves its diverse member organizations by enhancing community interconnections. We are the exclusive provider of the powerful new technology, Synanim, a dialogic, collaborative internet technology that enables large numbers to create consensus.

Through our unique technologies and services, we help our membership contribute to the renewal of American democratic life.

Strengthen Organizations

* Encourage dialogue and synthesize consensus among members
* Coordinate event planning and information sharing among members
* Deliver a unique fundraising method that broadly enfranchises donors

Engender Ideas and Leadership

* Spark new thinking about values, religion, and public policy
* Broaden the public role of theological schools and religious scholars
* Prepare emerging religious and activist leaders

Apparently, they are religious activists, too -- but of a stripe from which Steve and Jonathan (and me) would distance themselves. Now here's the question:

Why is what Faith Voices doing wrong and what JSII ECBs doing right?

I look forward to the answers from our theonomist brothers in Christ.

[*] Mega Shift: in the break room?

This wasn't part of my intended series on Mega Shift, but I was at the soda machine in the break room, and one of the guys who is my peer stops me and asks me if I'm selling this book at my bookstore.

Now this is a guy who is relatively-grounded in his view of the church, though I wouldn't call his theology high-octane. In any case, I started to give him my outline regarding why this book is a bad idea, and he looked like I hit him with a brick. He said to me, "I just want to make sure that if God is moving, I'm a part of it."

Holy Mackerel, readers. I used to think that the Evangelical church was not unsalvagable. Now I'm not so sure. If a guy like that -- who has been in church leadership, btw, for a decade of more -- cannot see the fatal flaws in this book, we have a worse problem than anyone I have read has assessed.

Other entries in this series: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

[%] This speaks for itself

Just follow the link and read it.

[*] Mega Shift: the Shell Game

Last time I blogged on this subject, we talked about the (a-hem) loose methodology James Rutz used to decide there was a move of God afoot about which the rest of us ought to be learning something. Let's remember that in that 4-ish page introduction to his book, I did not call into concern his lavish attention to the miracles he could find witnesses for, but I called into account his method for defining and deciding who were and who were not "core apostolics". My problem was that he created one system of measure (method and degree of institutional organization) to place all kinds of people one might call Christians on a spectrum, and then "lopped off the ends" of that spectrum to determine who is and is not growing the fastest.

There's more fire where you see the smoke in that method. Refering back to Mr. Rutz's endnote 15 for Chapter 1, he says this:

I dispensed with 1.238 billion nice folks who comprise the mainline denominations plus the highly overlapping 1.330 billion souls whose only "problem" is that they are capital-E Evangelicals, meaning they are not charismatic or pentecostals. My sincere apologies to my evangelical friends (now perhaps ex-friends), but my numbers cover 1970-2000, and they show that during those 30 years, charistmatics and pentecostals grew worldwide at a blistering 8.8% annual rate, while Evnagelicals limped along at 1.1%.

That's an interesting assertion, but what does it mean? Let's look at a quick chart for one group, the Southern Baptists:

These are the stats for 2004, released in June of this year. Of particular interest is the ratio of Baptisms overseas to church membership (the pink cells).

607132 / 7,400,000 = 8.2%

Now that doesn't look like "limping along" if the base line for "blistering" is 8.8% -- especially if you consider that 607,132 translates into a growth rate year-to-year of 8.9%. But the problem for Mr. Rutz, really, is that this is not an isolated blip on the church growth map. The self-reporting from the SBC International Missions Board is that while 2004 was a high-water mark for the SBC's international mission, it has consistently been baptizing in the 7% range since 1980 -- which, btw, demonstrates the same 5-fold growth since 1980 Mr. Rutz sees in his "core apostolics".

{EDIT 8/24/06} Here's the chart that supports this which I got from the folks at the International Missions Board at SBC:

YEAR    MEMBERS    BAPTISMS    %
----   ---------   --------   ---
1980   1,297,418   109,935   8.47%
1981   1,457,477   127,239   8.73%
1982   1,560,566   142,394   9.12%
1983   1,683,573   144,224   8.57%
1984   1,867,993   156,255   8.36%
1985   2,000,847   158,626   7.93%
1986   2,032,193   185,689   9.14%
1987   2,145,113   203,824   9.50%
1988   2,105,066   197,863   9.40%
1989   2,450,884   227,564   9.28%
1990   2,661,668   208,381   7.83%
1991   2,988,052   233,334   7.81%
1992   3,456,900   251,901   7.29%
1993   3,735,949   262,758   7.03%
1994   3,918,915   302,132   7.71%
1995   4,111,979   287,806   7.00%
1996   4,100,923   283,674   6.92%
1997   4,112,181   283,100   6.88%
1998   4,432,292   333,034   7.51%
1999   4,917,088   363,703   7.40%
2000   5,624,018   451,301   8.02%
2001   5,834,043   395,773   6.78%
2002   6,237,706   421,436   6.76%
2003   7,042,714   510,357   7.25%
2004   7,451,242   607,132   8.15%

What is far worse for Mr. Rutz's on-going development of his thesis is that while he attests that he "lopped off" the "slow growing groups at both ends of the spectrum", it is transparently clear as one reads through his book that he has not actually lopped off the Southern Baptists even though there is no way to say that they are "penetcostal" or "charismatic" -- he uses the anecdotes of Baptist missionaries several times in his book. Thus, in accounting for his "core apostolics", he has fudged the recipe at least by 10%.

Now that's all I'm going to say about the method of his fact-gathering. In the last two installments on this book, we're going to discuss the theology of his book.

Other entries in this series: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

[*] Mega Shift: Introduction

The first thing you should do if you intend to read Mega Shift is make a quick google of the internet for "James Rutz" and "Open Church", and you can find a lot of people who apparently like James Rutz - and think well of his first book, The Open Church. You'll find fellows like this one -- which is an interesting study in what bloggers do. tallskinnykiwi apparently has never read Mega Shift, but believes that it will "stir things up". Very perceptive, I guess, if by "perception" we mean "clairvoyance".

If you keep poking, you will find megashift.com. What you'll find there is a sample of Mr. Rutz's thoughts on a lot of subjects. Particularly of interest are the "articles and info" links, like his "a few questions from God". I'll leave it to you, the reader, to make something of that site.

OK - Mega Shift. One of the very dramatic features of this book is its focus, in the first chapter, on the plethora of miracles happening in the world. We're not talking about "I saw Jesus at McDonalds at Midnight in a bag of fries" sort of miracles: Mr. Rutz does a fairly decent job of elaborating (if not documenting - which is bizarre, given his penchant for endnotes {there are 139 for chapter 1 alone}) on many healings, and particularly many cases of resurrection where dead people are coming back to life 2 and 4 days after they are pronounced dead by a doctor.

Here's one place I want to start a review of this work: let's concede that all the miracles Mr. Rutz reports are 100% true. There's no sense in disputing claims of the supernatural because, frankly, Christians ought to believe that the supernatural - that is, acts which transcend the laws of the physical world perpetrated by God Almighty - happens. Our faith is based on the fact of a supernatural act, and to come out and say, "yeah, but ..." when we are faced with supernatural claims today is not quite consistent. As a Baptist, I'm a cessationist, but that's to say that I don't believe men are invested with supernatural gifts today as an endorsement of their office or mission because there are no apostles and prophets today. But to say that God has stopped working miracles is to deny that God saves anyone - because salvation is itself a supernatural act, replacing the old sin nature with a new nature which seeks Christ-likeness.

The question, then, is not "do supernatural acts occur," but "why do supernatural acts occur?" If we use the Bible as a guidepost, there are all kinds of supernatural acts done by God for the purpose of clarifying His declaration and validating His role in some historical act. But let's be clear: When God perpetrates a miracle, God tells the reason why He's doing such a thing. For example, in 1 Kings 17:

8Then the word of the LORD came to {Elijah}, 9"Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you." 10So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, "Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink." 11And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, "Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." 12And she said, "As the LORD your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die." 13And Elijah said to her, "Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son. 14For thus says the LORD the God of Israel, 'The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the LORD sends rain upon the earth.'" 15And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days. 16The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by Elijah.

God intends the miracle to be done; the vessel (the prophet or the apostle) is not surprised when the miracle is done. And the miracle is foretold, intended for a purpose, and comes to pass on command.

What is starkly missing from all of Mr. Rutz's reports is the clear intention for a specific miracle to happen. When Jesus raised Lazarus, He went to the tomb and intended to raise him. When Elijah raises the widow's son, he goes with the intention to do such a thing. When Paul raised Eutychus, Paul intends to do so. And it is in the intentional nature of these acts that we can say they are revelational in the sense that they are meant to do something for the church in terms of fortifying them or teaching them about God and His plan. When Mr. Rutz is listing his plethora of miracles, there is no indication that there is someone through whom God is manifesting a miracle who knew for certain that a miracle was about to take place.

So the basis of my first concern is that Mr. Rutz has no ability to say "this act means 'X'" because his claim exists in a revelational void. Yet he takes the acts he describes and claims they are the evidence of something which is conjectural at best.

To move to my second concern about this book, let's talk about methodology. From page 14:

The direction of world events has made a sharp turn. Before the mid-1980's, Christians were growing about 2% a year, barely above the world population growth rate. Now God has stormed on the scene like a tornado. Compare today's annual growth rates:

Core Apostolics are the new saints who are at the heart of the mushrooming kingdom of God.

You can take your favorite quote about statistics and apply them to this chart - because we're not looking at a rigorous study of fact in Mr. Rutz's illustration. In the first place, his "source" for these number behind the chart - according to his endnote #14 - is a place called uscwm.org. Their "fact" is that "for the first time in history, there is one believer for every 9 people worldwide who are not believers." Mr. Rutz does the math, and comes out with "707 million switched-on disciples".

This part of his set-up is very rapid-fire stuff - until we get to the place where he says, "if you don't mind some tedious reading, you'll find my long-winded explanation of core apostolics and their numbers in this endnote.¹⁵"

Now, in the blogosphere, "long-winded" means "long" - you know, like my 4-part, 20-page treatment of Tony Campolo's last book. For Mr. Rutz, 2 pages gets him to "long-winded", but if you ask me (and did you really ask me?) when we're talking about methodology -- especially when we're talking about some research and its conclusions which are "a new ball game" for the church - you can't be too specific in telling how you came to your foundational presuppositions.

He begins his explanation with this statement: "I will defend my statistics to the death - or until the numbers change, whichever comes first." Well, OK: he's passionate. He believes he's right. Can't fault a guy for being on about something. But this is supposed to be his explanation of his methodology. Is the basis of his methodology, "I have the numbers I want: now I will defend how I got them"?

I think it turns out that this is his methodology - because when he tells us specifically what he did, you have to wonder why. His source of starting is a pretty valid source - Barrett and Johnson's World Christian Encyclopedia (NY: Oxford Press), 2001.

Rutz - who is not a statistician, but self describes as "a dogged scholar who managed to compress five years of college into eight" - then tells us this:

My tiny contribution today to church statistics is that I've been able to put a frame around the growing heart of Christianity - a very rough and ruthless frame, but a sensible one:

A. I've place the entire church on a continuum. On the left side, you have the denominational folks. At the far left end, you have a vast pile of tradition-bound, liberal, ancient, highly-centralized, and strategically-useless organizations that haven't grown much since the 1940's.

I am certain anyone reading this blog - friends and whipping-boys alike - can see where this is going, or at least where it is coming from. However, it's instructive to see him spell it all out. It's actually funny if you approach it from the perspective that he clearly no idea what he is talking about.

On the right side, you have the independents, composed of overlapping groups know by such labels as post-denominational, neo-apostolic, radical, restorationist, free, etc. Bartlett and Johnson trace their origins to 61 AD, starting with the Celts, then flowing onward through the Montanists, Donatists, Monophysites, Arians, Cathari, Bogomils, Waldensians, Lollards, Lutherans, Puritans, Methodists, etc.(World Christian Trends, Part 6, p. 293) Eventually, most of them have either turned into denominations or been stomped out of existence by their better-armed brothers in the faith.

See: when I read somebody lumping "Montanists, Donatists, Monophysites, Arians" in with "Lutherans, Puritans, Methodists", I wonder how this book got past the editor. And that's just his "A" methodological prop. Check out his "B":

B. I've pin-pointed the groups at the growing heart of Christianity. But hold the applause, it was not through a stroke of brilliance by isolating some magical quality that sets the core apostolics apart from everyone else. It was through the far-cruder tactic of lopping off the slow-growing groups at both ends of the spectrum en masse.

So this fellow apparently lays out the classes of "Christians" on a spectrum based on organizational characteristics, and then lops off the ends of the spectrum based on the criterion of "slow growing".

There is a very large part of me that wants to say, at this point, "The toy store just called, and they have apparently found Mr. Rutz's marbles", so I will instead confess to having nothing nice to say about what he has here done. He admits that he dispenses with about 1.330 billion "whose only problem is that they are capital-E Evangelical" - but Mr. Rutz: I thought the criterion was "slow-growing"? How do you make the equation you make here stand up on its own?

And consider this as we close for the weekend, faithful readers: that's James' Rutz' methodology. Wait until we start covering some of his extraordinary deductions based on this metholodology.

It'll be good for reference. How you get the lawn mowed this weekend because I will not finish mine: it's knee-deep after missing it last Saturday and I'm afraid the snakes have moved in.

Other entries in this series: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

[%] Ardian Warnock Speaks

He asked bloggers last month to link to this post and then link on a blog entry to 5 "favorite well-known living preachers", and tell why they have been a blessing.

Adrian (funny how all bloggers are on a first-name basis, isn't it? Hi Adrian!) listed John Piper in his list. Oh, big woop. Everybody would list John Piper because he's what all of us stupid bloggers wish we were: well-known for telling God's truth with no holds barred but with a charitable spirit.

Well, here's my list just so there's something to get upset about before you go home on Friday:

HONORABLE MENTION: J. Vernon McGee. He's "HM" because he's gone to be with the Lord, but let me convey a personal anecdote. The year that I was baptized I was "promoted" to being the receiving manager for a new SAM'S Club, and I had the distinct privilege of opening the place up every morning at 5 AM. On the drive in to work, there was only 1 radio station to listen to, and it was Christian talk. At 4:30 AM they had Thru the Bible on, and at first I just couldn't listen to it. That guy's voice -- can't be get a coach or something? But he was teaching through the book of 1 Samuel, and he was talking about Saul's disobedience to God and then about David. I can't remember at what point I realized that something was happening in that half hour, but one morning I got up early and had to listen to the whole broadcast. I was a brand new Christian, and I was hungry for the word of God, and I knew that this southern fella with the corny accent was saying something I needed to hear. It wasn't high theology or the micro-parsing of verses: it was the first pass I ever had at the Bible. I praise God for Dr. McGee, and for those who are still replaying the 5-year journey of his teaching through God's word.

Dr. John MacArthur -- If anyone from CNN is reading this, you should have Dr. MacArthur on Larry King every week. There is no one -- and it's a long list to compare against -- who presses the case for Christ and the Gospel harder than John MacArthur, especially when the stakes are high. He's clear-spoken, witty, gentlemanly, and will not accept anything but God's truth when it comes to world-view issues. And that's not even to mention his great books, like Twelve Ordinary Men, Hard to Believe, or and Unleaching God's Word in Your Life. If I were a more serious person, I'd want to be more like Dr. Mac.

Andy Stanley -- some people are going to find me repugnant for listing Andy Stanley as one of my favorites, but I have met Pastor Stanley and I have heard him preach. The stats on his church are about 10,000 attenders on Sunday, with only about 4,000 as members -- not counting kids. But read this bit from their church FAQ:

Why is membership important?

* Membership helps the staff to identify the people in whom we can trust to lead and care for others.
* Membership identifies that a person has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and that he/she is willing to go public with that faith through baptism.
* Membership identifies that a person is willing to support this ministry with their time, talents and treasure and to be held accountable to the values of NPCC. With the added requirement of participation in a strategic service team or community group, it also identifies that the person will partner with us in our strategy of "Foyer to Kitchen".

Why is it important to be a member in order to be in a leadership role?

* Because of what membership represents, members are the most qualified people to be in a leadership position.
* Often, if people are not willing to be held accountable, to go public with their faith through baptism, or to commit to leading people into a relationship with Jesus Christ, it can be an indication that they are not ready to lead others within the church environments.

Stanley isn't playing games about discipleship of believers. My personal opinion is that he learned a lot from watching his father (the mistakes as well as the good things), and if (BIG "if") the megachurch is useful in God's kingdom, Pastor Stanley is someone to watch to do it well.

Dr. James R. White -- in spite of my current defrocking in the #prosapologian channel, James White is someone a greatly admire. Somehow he has the reputation of being some kind of bully or ruffian, but I have never seen him lose his temper or deal with someone in a way which was unwarranted. There is literally hundreds of hours of evidence of his apologetic testimony, and one would be hard-pressed to put together 10 minutes of uncharitable discourse for James. However, that's only the best reason to admire him. My personal reason to admire him is that when I wasa stupid evangelical with a dim view of Christ's work, he spent his valuable time correcting me because it was the Gospel work to do so.

Chuck Swindoll -- If he wasn't Chancellor of Dallas Theological Seminary, I'd have nothing to complain about. He has a very dynamic radio ministry (which is sometimes too theatrical for my tastes, honestly), but he is always about reading God's word at face value and making practical application to your life.

Kay Arthur -- everyone always laughs at me for this one because she's not a man. Well, you're right: she's not a man -- so she's not a pastor. And she accepts that as far as I can tell becuase her ministry in under the headship of of her husband (who is President of Precept Ministries), Jack Arthur. Moreover, the content of her studies is clearly constructed to be by women and for women -- and is growing for children and teens as well. That is not why she is on this list. She's there because her teaching caused my wife -- who had been an SBC Baptist since she was 7 -- to start reading the Bible at face value for the first time. There is no greater blessing than to have a wife who wants to study God's work and grow spiritually from it, and my wife gained that zeal from Kay Arthur's teaching.

[$] The Aristocrats,and Dice

The funniest punch line to a movie review in 2005 goes to Roger Ebert for his summary paragraph of Penn Gillette's new Movie "The Aristocrats":

“The Aristocrats” might have made a nice short subject. At 87 minutes, it's like the boozy salesman who corners you with the Pinocchio torture. I am left with three observations. (1) If Buddy Hackett were still alive, he could have told it better than Gilbert Gottfried. (2) Whatever happened to Andrew Dice Clay? (3) The punch line stinks. These are better:

“The Brothers Two.”
“The Mellow Tones.”
“Penn and Teller.”

FWIW, I can tell you what happened to Andrew Dice Clay. The Diceman is an entertainment outcast. When he came out with "The Day the Laughter Died", he crossed a boundary that people who want to stay employed in entertainment should never cross: he made the audience the joke.

Frankly, his audience deserved to be the object of jokes because most of them didn't get his real schtick anyway -- they actually thought that the dirty nursery rhymes and the misogyny was funny, when what was funny was the "Diceman" character. But even other comedians didn't get Dice.

Here's an example -- in the early 90's (like '91) -- I saw Gilbert Godfrey live in Rochester NY. He was funny -- but his closer was a goof on Dice. He put on a Brooklyn accent and started muttering incoherently, and then he punctuated his sentences with f-bombs. Some people in the audience thought it was funny, but I admit I didn't "get" Godfrey's joke. Did he think Andrew Clay was Dice? Was he spoofing raw comedy? However, it was clear that Godfrey thought Dice's act was contemptible, so much so that it wasn't even worth a decent parody.

So that's where Dice went: he alienated his audience by spoofing their own love of his first-round schtick, and it gained him the contempt of both his audience and other comedians. Which is extraordinarily funny in the context of "The Aristocrats" because the joke is that form matters over content -- and the Diceman demonstrated that when Penn Gillette and his sidekick Teller were doing gross body-piercing comedy. Nice of you to drop by.

Oh yeah -- notice the new feedburner counter for each post. Pretty cool, yes? UPDATED: The feedburner counter LOOKS cool, but it doesn't work very well. I'm tweeking it; it's in the sidebar now.