SAWHORSE

2007-02-09T17:41:00.000-08:00

Tin Shed is Dead...Long Live the Tin Shed!

Well, I suppose all good things must come to an end. And so, Boyd & John decided it was time to bring Tin Shed Talk to an unceremonious end. But lo, the conversation continues beyond the Hollow, still...

Christian Cultural Engagement

2006-09-30T14:39:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's been a while. Welcome back anyone who may have stumbled upon this site, or is revisiting. Lots has gone on in the past 2-3 weeks, so I'm not going to begin to go into it in detail.

One general thing that crisis points in one's life will do for you (or, at least for me anyway) is make you read up on stuff that applies to your situation. One of the ways I engage my mind in my circumstances is to get a book...ok, usually a lot of books about the subject, or related subjects and delve deeper to see what others have said about how they worked through ideas and concepts they were wrestling with.

With that in mind, I was browsing over at Desiring God just now, and came upon this really helpful article titled, "The City of God and the City of Man: Recommended Reading on Christian Engagement in Culture," by an associate there, Justin Taylor. It's basically a reading list for Christian cultural engagement. It's packed full of great books and other resources. Go check it out. It reminds me of the book I loaned my friend Boyd by James E. White, "The Mind of God." Matter of fact, I'm sure there's some overlap in their respective lists.

Pyromaniacs!

2006-09-12T17:33:00.000-07:00

The folks over at Pyromaniacs, a team blog run by Phil Johnson and some of his friends is very interesting, especially of late. It's been encouraging to go there and read intelligent discussion on a myriad of theological topics. They've got what they call, "Curiously Strong Opinions" over there. Check it out on the link to your left and below. Or just point yer browser here, I s'pose:

http://www.teampyro.blogspot.com/

Tin Shed Talk

2006-09-12T17:14:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine has, along with some very long-time friends of his, recently started a really "interesting" blog, even more 'eclecticer' than mine, or Pyromaniacs. You can find it here:

http://www.lakenheath.com/blog/

for fans of hiking, beer-drinking, bottle-cap collecting, yard work, theology, Rush, U2, current events, church-shopping, Emergent-bashing, woodland construction projects, transit/civil engineering...you name it, Tin Shed's got it!

Enjoy!

Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain!

2006-08-26T17:48:00.000-07:00

I have had this song stuck in my head all the past 24hrs. Here's a little snippet...(now it'll be stuck in YOURS! buwahaha!)

"I'm just a little black raincloud,hovering under the honey tree. I'm just a little black raincloud; pay no attention to little old me.

More to come...

Destination Eccentric Orbit - We Have Liftoff!

2006-08-21T20:11:00.000-07:00

Wanna see prophecy in action? Here's a taste (located at www.timsuttle.blogspot.com in the McLaren Interview thread...buried deep in one of my comments back around June 2006):

"if you seriously doubt the doctrine of the Creed at the end (referring to Tim's shall we say, discomfort with the doctrine of eternal punishment), what’s to stop you from doubting the doctrines at its beginning? And there’s already a number of “Christian” denominations that are well-established that we could wander off to today. The aforementioned Unitarian Universalists are one, Unity School of “Christianity,” is another, Christian Science, etc are others. This is not to mention the myriad established world religions like Buddhism and Baha’ism that would be sufficient for this."

Yes, sad to say, Satellite Soul's Capt. Kirk has set course for the Neutral Zone. Take a peek at today's posts and see lathering lapdogs at the helm handing over control to the Romulans! Hell was the first indignation to go the way of the dodo in Tim's "theology." Now, like the prophet foretold, he's on to more substantial things, like the "false doctrine" of the Atonement:

Atonement is a hot issue in Christianity right now. There are a lot of
people weighing in on this issue in theology. It’s really important to study and
talk about these things. We need to hear everyone’s voice on this. However, in
my humble opinion, what we don’t need are people who are just absolutely
convinced their way of seeing it is the only right way. It’s such a complicated
issue, it’s really not as cut and dried as Hybels tried to make it seem. We need
to listen more and try to entertain other points of view. Now more than ever we
need a well rounded view of the atonement. One which deals with the shedding of
scales from our eyes which has occurred through new philosophies and cultural
shifts and which deals with the sacred texts of the bible without running home
to Anselm at every mention of the cross.

Yes, your humble 'Pastor' Tim has seen fit to chuck the vicarious death of Christ on the cross for your sins and mine. Hell? Fuggedaboutit! The cross! Too pointy! Let's sand those splinters smooth, Jesus. We'll get kinder, gentler nails, and you can just hold 'em between your feet and in yer hands.

I gotta tell ya, Tim...the "hot issue" ain't the vicarious atonement of Christ on the cross for your sins and mine. It may be "hot" with you and your can't-really-be-sure-of-any doctrine-except-one (the tithe!). Glad I didn't let the door hit me on the way out. Make sure you keep your job secure by ensuring that every foundational doctrine of the historic church is officially declared too difficult and complicated for the 'common people' (Matt 11:25 & Luke 10:21), then run it thru with your diploma-mill MAP certificate and plenty of citation from postmodern "philosophies" (Col 2:8).

I'm not at all certain what Tim's reference to Anselm is in his chucking of the atonement, since the doctrine is of "first importance" according to St. Paul:

3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, (1Cor 15:3a)

The not-so-pastoral Tim sez: "what we don’t need are people who are just absolutely convinced their way of seeing it is the only right way."

(now, I'm guessing from Tim's tone here, that he's 'absolutely convinced' his way of looking at this is 'the only right way.")

Now compare that to this:

2:1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 He is the propitiation for our sins,

(note: he says "the" not "a" propitiation)

(NLT, the fave version of Kevin & Co, renders "propitiation" as "sacrifice." The Message puts it this way: "2 When he served as a sacrifice for our sins, he solved the sin problem for good")

You can see there's a 'great gulf fixed betwixt' what Paul says, and what TS says. I'll take St. Paul any day over the thin gruel on Tim's menu.

And, as for assurance, which is what being "absolutely convinced" is, at its essence, here's what John says:

9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son[b] into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for[c] our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, >>>>we also ought to love one another.

13I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 14This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

A church that receives the kind of steady diet that is being served up by K10, and Tim in particular, will be starved of that confidence, and in turn, of that motivation for loving one another. The abrogation of the doctrine of God's atoning sacrifice in Jesus' death on the cross for us is abject heresy which will breed not just more heresy, as if that weren't bad enough, but will engender not humility, but timidity, lack of prayer, and lack of assurance, which naturally would leave no reason to worship such a god; a lack of worship at such a "church" even in song, let alone in works is nearly inevitable. It'll turn into what it's already becoming: a church that preaches a treacly gospel of social clubs and social work, born out of guilt and manipulation instead of an expression of true worship for a Savior who really took our punishment for us to make us His possession for all eternity. In other words, it'll become a "mainline church."

Sadly Yours,
Bill

How Many Titles Do You See on Blogs Like This: "Been Awhile..."? Hmmm???

2006-08-08T16:26:00.000-07:00

Well, here's mine. Now that we're fully into the season of complete departure from Christendom at our (soon-to-be-former) "church," we'd like to take a moment to remind ourselves, and anyone out there who happens upon this lonely backwater of the blogworld, just WHY it's 'time for these bootheels to be wanderin' "...and so, I give you

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2006/08/why-emerging-conversation-is-going.html

If the Emergent(tm) 'conversation' is going nowhere, perhaps we'd better figure out where we'll be going instead.

Happy Trails!

Say It Ain't So, Floyd!

2006-07-27T20:03:00.000-07:00

Ok...thanks...I think...

more here

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/austin_murphy/07/27/landis.react/index.html

Allez, Floyd!

2006-07-21T11:48:00.000-07:00

If any of you haven't been following this year's soon-to-be-over-Sunday promenade around FrogLand, you're missing one of the best ever. You shoulda been tuned in yesterday when, as this velonews.com writer puts it, "Landis chased down an 11-man breakaway, killed them and ate them, built a new bicycle out of their bones, and roared away in a pillar of fire to win the stage to Morzine and jump back to within 30 seconds of the yellow jersey..."

We all shoulda been standing on the roadside there watching this feat! Whatta ride! Allez, Floyd!

Speaking of Wrong Roads...

2006-07-21T11:29:00.000-07:00

Whatever happened to hell, you ask?? Well, you might go see a close up example here www.timsuttle.blogspot.com, or you could read more intelligent fare here:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/007/35.40.html

That's what happened to H.E. Doulbletoothpix. So there!

Pax,
Bill

Wisdom of the Sages

2006-07-19T13:33:00.000-07:00

"We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive." - C. S. Lewis

Tell Him What You Want

2006-07-06T21:24:00.000-07:00

You can find a confused 'pastoral' viewpoint on just what is the "mainline" referred to in some of George Barna's recent research here (look under 'Emergent Conversation with Mike Horton') @ www.timsuttle.blogspot.com. However, you can see from this link (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/007/21.56.html) that the mainline referred to is in fact, the old, liberal protestant (and I use the latter label very loosely, since they don't protest anything, with the exception of orthodoxy) mainline denominations.

P.S. (to Tim) - FYI - Yer buddy Tom Oden is the author, not only of "Turning Around the Mainline," AND "The Rebirth of Orthodoxy," but also the general editor of The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture." Go figure, eh?

g & p,
wtb

The Big Fix!

2006-06-30T18:12:00.000-07:00

Some crazies on fixed gear bicycles (that's one gear, no coasting!) are riding across the US from the Left Coast(tm) to the other Left Coast(tm) to raise awareness & funds for a disease I never heard of before meeting them online at bikelist.org's i-bob forum. It's a rare one called Histiocytosis, and it's so much like cancer, it's treated by oncologists. It attacks youngsters, like it has one or two of the riders on this trip. Y'gotta hand it to folks who don't wait for someone else to do something, but take action like these guys have. If you got some spare cashola, you could do worse than dropping these folks a few coins. Check it out at www.fixhistio.org. They're also blogging on this site: http://fixhistio.blogspot.com/.

I'll be out in the beautiful (but blazing hot!) Flint Hills of Kansas riding along and hopefully cheering them along, too with some V8 & beer. They'll be doing day 16, which runs from Great Bend, KS to Emporia, KS, which is about 143 miles! That's something to see, so I'm going!

Truant Officers of a Sort

2006-06-30T17:49:00.000-07:00

www.stannespub.com is a fine web presence of some folks up in Spokane, WA at a place called Christ Church. What's a guy gotta do to get that kind of 'conversation' going on in the midwest?

Playing Hooky

2006-06-30T17:47:00.000-07:00

As you can imagine, this whole business, if any of you have been following it, (www.timsuttle.blogspot.com) is making it a chore to go to church these days. Anyone else out there occasionally 'play hooky' and what are your excuses? Boredom, irritation, sloth, being a 'root o' bitterness,' heresy? Hmmm??

Battery Acid as Theology

2006-06-24T12:03:00.000-07:00

That's about the only description I can think of to term the British version of Brian McLaren's latest contribution to the 'conversation.' John Piper, in his fresh words commentary from Fathers' Day has more to say about the emerging corrosion of sound thinking here:

http://www.desiringgod.org/library/fresh_words/2006/061406.html

STR has more discussion on this here:

http://www.str.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Radio_Archives

Scroll to their June 18th, 2006 radio archive.

grace & peace,
Bill

Do We Do What We're Told?

2006-06-23T18:40:00.000-07:00

A fellow blogger recently decried the evangelical 'subculture' on his blog & how for "the past 80 years" in America, these churches have been doing nothing but besmirching the good name of Christ and Christianity. Next day, I get this tidbit from the daily Christianity Today weblog. Read more here:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/007/9.44.html

It's one among many examples of good things we've been up to since AD 33 or so...

Discuss...

Grace & peace,
Bill

Why Sawhorse?

2006-06-23T17:53:00.000-07:00

Matthew 13:55 for one thing; Mark 6:3 for another. That's pretty much it. Get it?

Grace & peace,
Bill