Author Archives: MzEllen

• 7 Comments

•

I was listening to Issues, etc. (podcast from last week) and the guest (a very regular guest) Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse reacted in horror when host Todd Wilken talked about the Episcopal Church having a ceremony to "celebrate" divorce.

One of the things I've contemplated when studying divorce and remarriage in the church has been how to communicate to the congregation that a member who is (or in the process of becoming) divorced has been before the elders and is deemed by the church to have the right to remarry?

  1. the Episcopal Church does not call it a "sacrament"
  2. there is a point at which this sort of ceremony would be useful
  3. there is an emotional healing that takes place when a person can stand before a church congregation and have them know that the church leadership is standing with them.

The Roman Catholic Church has the annulment process, by which a marriage (no matter how long it has lasted or how many children it has brought into this world) is declared "not a marriage" to the church.  It does not deny that the marriage existed legally, but rather that - even if a priest presided over and blessed the vows - the marriage never existed in the eyes of the church because - in the hearts of the couple, or one or the other of the couple - it was not a sacramental marriage.

I disagree with this because one (or both) of the people involved may have very much made the covenant vows before God and man, and the heart was very much in line with what God intended marriage to be.   People sin.  I can come up with a couple of examples of how "annulment"  may not be fair to one party.

Just one...a man enters a marriage with the intent to stand before God and man and love her as Christ loves the church until they day one of them breathes no more.  She decides that she'd rather not be married and leaves...and then gets an annulment so she can get married in her parents' church.  The husband is left - after taking vows that meant the world to him and that HE kept...and knowing that those vows meant nothing in the eyes of the church, since the church just told him that marriage never existed in their eyes.

To tell a person who wanted to stay married that their vows were not sacramental, leaves them at the mercy of the spiritual life of their ex-spouse.

Where Rome gets it right:  The certificate of annulment comes with an assumption that the parties of the divorce have the Biblical right to remarry.

more in another post...

•

I've been accepted for an apartment. It's not the best place in town (but I've lived in the inner city and this is not that).

The bedrooms are tiny, but the rest of the place is great. It's an upper and the stairs are narrow...I'll pay somebody to move my furniture so I don't have to navigate. Lots of windows - as many as I have now, but facing better directions!  A big bathroom with a washer and dryer (included). Lots of kitchen storage.

No "stuff" storage" so I'll get a storage unit for unused furniture and other stuff (either that or get rid of the Christmas tree and use a little one at Christmas).

It will be a relief to have a more appropriate place.  I'm not tied to being a property owner - the thought of not having to mow the lawn, shovel the sidewalk, yada, yada...is good.

•

Washington (CNN) -- Facing a bruising midterm election in less than four months, President Barack Obama's aides are putting together an aggressive schedule to deploy former President Bill Clinton at campaign and fundraising events in key states around the country, according to Democratic officials familiar with the plans.

"It's a no-brainer you would use one of the most talented politicians the country has ever had," said one Democratic official familiar with the discussions. "There are few as good at laying out the contrast with Republicans."

It could work...remembering Clinton's mid-term election...

While Clinton came into office with a Democratic majority in 1992, Republicans romped to huge political victories in ’94, winning a majority in the House for the first time in 40 years. Throughout the rest of his years in office, Clinton faced a Republican congressional leadership that mistrusted and disliked him, helping to lead to his 1998 impeachment for the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Bill Clinton is a good fund-raiser...but I say, go for it.

•

I don't like this bumper sticker.

Not because I'm opposed to love...

This bumper sticker comes to us from Mars Hill, courtesy of Rob Bell.  The number of these things that I see on the road is an indication of how many followers Bell has.  That I don't like.

The other reason..."Love wins" (the bumper sticker) is misunderstood.  It was put out after Bell preached a sermon on the cross - "Love Wins" (although from what I've read about Bell, I think I'll look up what his version of the cross is).

If you ask most people about the sticker, they'll stand on 1 Corinthians 13 - "love wins, you know."

No, that's a mistranslation.  Love never fails.  Love lasts forever.  Love perseveres.

But it doesn't always win.  Love, once given, lasts.  If it doesn't, maybe it wasn't really love in the first place.

But love does last forever.

I was reading Thomas Watson yesterday and he noted that love is the only grace that will last with us forever in heaven.

There will have no need of forgiveness, since there will be no sin.

There will be no need for baptism, since all there have been baptized in the Holy Spirit.

There will be no need for holy communion, since the Lord's Supper proclaims His death and resurrection until His return...and we will be looking at Him face to face.

Love lasts forever.

•

DEARBORN, Mich. -- Four Christian missionaries who were arrested at Dearborn's Arab American Festival were arraigned Monday on misdemeanor charges of disturbing the peace.

Charged were Negeen Mayel, Dr. Nabeel Qureshi, Paul Rezkalla and David Wood Mayel, all members of a group called "Acts 17 Apologetics."

Negeen Mayel faces an additional charge of disobeying an officer.

They all pleaded not guilty.

The four were arrested on June 18 while handing out Christian literature and videotaping themselves.

The group said they were arrested over religion, but police insist that it's not true, and continue to stand behind their arrest. Dearborn Mayor Jack O'Reilly defends his police department's arrest, saying he saw the video police confiscated from them and he believes the missionaries came into town to cause trouble.

Dearborn, MI has one of the largest Muslim populations in the United States...and (like most of the country) and these days it seems like if there is a question between Christians and "anybody else", the Christians are going to lose.

BUT...

I'm not sure if this is the case here.  There are certainly different accounts.

The four who were arrested were not the only Christians at the festival.

Groups were to get a permit and have a booth...most Christian groups did that.

These four evidently did not get a booth, but they did get a video camera.

There are quotes of them saying things like they had been threatened the year before, so they brought along the video camera...they were there expecting excitement.  This is not what missionaries should be after.

Here is a video from 2009:

I see aggression on both sides, I see the Christians being inflammatory.  I think that perhaps the arrest was justified, if they were breaking the rules.

Let the courts figure it out.

~~~

On the other hand, here is a t-shirt that was confiscated from Arab students at a Dearborn high school

• 1 Comment

•

blog update...as of 10:00 AM Sunday morning, I'm down to 983 uncategorized posts.

~~~

On "The Private War in The Mind" from Reformation Theology

Yet there is a reality to spiritual warfare and it is something God certainly wants us to know about, or else He would not have revealed it to us in His Word. If we just stay with the Scripture, we will be on safe and sure ground. God wants us to understand the warfare, know our enemy and live a life free from his clutches.

~~~


~~~

Hillbuzz on waking up Americans:

this paragraph is talking about why the Republicans don't seem to be all that interested in winning:

Maybe these men truly don’t know how to do that…but we think it’s more like the Washington Generals knowing they have a pretty good racket losing basketball games to the Globetrotters, so why start working harder and winning when the script their all following says they need to lose in the end (if they want to keep their cushy existence as the lovable losers).

~~~

A good article on gay marriage by "The Gay Patriot"

If you feel a victim because the state doesn’t call your union what you want to call it, well, then you have really politicized your psyche.

He says that gay marriage (the union of 2 people) already exists, what they lack is state recognition.  If they went for the recognition of the union (without calling it "marriage"), they would have the rights of the state recognition of the union.

A commenter said,

Even for straights, a State marriage license is a thing created by State legislation (which I call a privilege); not a thing which morally precedes the State and exists apart from it (which I call a fundamental right).

Which is why, in certain circumstances, I would decline piece of paper that tells me that the state has given me permission to marry.

That's God's job, not the state's.

~~~