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Samson Agonistes – The Donald

“If I had my way, I would tear this whole building down.” – Samson and Delilah – Bob Weir, The Grateful Dead I don’t know if God has appointed Donald Trump to win the presidency. I know he is making a lot of people mad, but I see a lot of similarities to the Story of Samson from The Judges. Donald is impulsive, immature, self-centered, vengeful… He has a weakness for women… It is all about the hair… Everyone is afraid he is offending someone and the powers that be (media, the Republican Establishment, etc.), but he don’t care. We are being ruled by Philistines (Political parties that can’t do or fix anything, plus a judiciary that makes up rules as they go). And he may be being used to “tear this whole building down.” Judges 14:1-4 Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. Then he came up, and told his father and mother, “I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah; now get her for me as my wife.” But his father and mother said to him, “Is there not a woman among the daughters of … Read more

Times, They Are a’Changing

Having struggled with Drupal updates and security issues for many years, we have decided to move The Scholars Corner over to a WordPress installation.  Since the Forums have generated almost no activity, we are eliminating them.  However, since commenting is easier, we expect conversations to continue.  Please bear with us as we re-establish pages and links. Hopefully we will be able to clean the site up and make things easier to navigate. We expect this transition to be complete within a few weeks.   This post will update as we make progress. We have transferred over all approved members from the old site, but you will need to update your passwords to gain access.

Book Review: The Jewish Gospel of John

Book Review: The Jewish Gospel of John: Discovering Jesus, King of All Israel  by Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg    Shows Samaritans as a primary audience for the the Evangelist’s outreach. Uncovering the political meaning of the word Judean (Jew) as representative of the ruling class, not of the entire Jewish people. 

Paul, Called to Be an Apostle – Ephesians 1

Ephesians 1: 1-14 Acts 9: 1-19 , August 10, 1986 Sermon no. 92, Jefferis Kent Peterson According to Plan Today, we are beginning a study of the grand and glorious letter of Paul to the Ephesians.  It is a  letter that is different from the other epistles of Paul.  Not written to deal with problems or disputes in a specific congregation, as is the case with most of his other letters, this letter is a theological treatise, and it has a theme that is broad in scope and wide in purpose.  The letter has to do with God’s eternal plan of salvation for the whole world.  And it brings the news that God has done something new for the benefit of heaven and earth in Jesus, the Anointed One.  In Jesus the Anointed, he has given the world peace.  This letter’s purpose is to announce this peace, which God has  planned  from the beginning of the world.  And to the wonder of it all, Paul proclaims the unbelievable good news that God is establishing this peace with us in spite of our resistance to his will! Paul begins to reveal this theme of God’s peace with the very first verse, when … Read more

Replacing Scalia, the Politics of Justice and The Role of the Supreme Court

To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions would be very dangerous doctrine indeed and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy… The Constitution has erected no such tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with corruption of time and party, its members would become despots. – Thomas Jefferson Letter To William Charles Jarvis. Monticello, September 28, 1820.

When words no longer mean what they mean, the Constitution becomes a Rorschach splotch, where justices can read anything into it they want to see and read out of it anything they want to see changed. My point here, though, is not to argue for an originalist interpretation, which I clearly support, but to point out how the Court’s role has veered from that intended by the Founders.

Dante’s Inferno, Pedophilia, and the Catholic Church

Bernard Law and the Sex abuse scandal

Dante’s Inferno is a picture of hell with 9 levels, each with greater punishments for sins committed on the earth. Dante was not afraid to place in hell Cardinals, Bishops, and Popes. Dante’s point was that corruption in the Roman Catholic Church by its leaders was just as worthy of punishment, if not more so, as sinful deeds done by pagans and government leaders. His political activity was not admired by all, but his writing exposed the abuse of power by Popes and church leaders. We hear today that Pope Francis is engaged in a similar battle, facing much entrenched opposition to his attempts to cleanse the church of its sins. This week I met an artist, Butch Casanova, who invited me to his home. There I saw a work of art that reminded me of Dante’s Divine Comedy. He was disgusted by the corruption exposed in the pedophilia scandals that rocked the Roman Church. And putting brush to canvas, he created a great allegory of the cover up by  Bernard Cardinal Law of Boston. He tried to have this work displayed through the Boston media, but at that time, no one would touch it because Bernard Law was feared and so powerful. He has … Read more

The Quartet: A Review

What if the Constitution Had Not Compromised on Slavery?

The Quartet: Orchestrating The Second American Revolution, 1783-1789, by Joseph J. Ellis. 

Slavery would have lasted much longer…. 

God, Time, and Foreknowledge – How Can God Know the Future?

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity measures time by the speed of light, but the experience of time changes relative to gravity and to the speed of light. In other words, time is not a constant .  For someone traveling at the speed of light, one day is thousands of years on earth. So for God, creating in One Day is not a problem. It is only a problem for the limited human who tries to measure God’s day from his miniature, finite frame of reference, and then insists that God has to do Creation in a way that he understands and which conforms to his human experience of time. Time is Finite, a Created and Limited Dimension God is infinite not finite. He has no beginning and no end. He is before Time and after it. Our Time is finite. Our Time began with the “Big Bang” and the creation of material light.  Anything that is finite must be a created thing. It has a beginning and an end, and it has limits. Science is the study of the created order, and as such, gives us insight into the glory of God clearly seen in the things that have been made. … Read more

Love -Interrupted

First sermon I’ve preached in years, and never had people clap and cheer for a sermon before 🙂 June 7, 2015 God’s Desire for Love and Fellowship – Interrupted So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, Where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. (Genesis 3:6–10, ESV) God’s Problem is in us! Sin Causes Shame and Fear … Read more

The Hobby Lobby Decision and What it Means for the Church

The Supreme Court upheld religious liberty and freedom of conscience in its 5-4 decision on Monday, and in doing so, avoided the same mistake the Court made when it upheld the rights of slave owners in the Dred Scott decision and ensured the Civil War. The Dred Scott case not only restored the rights of slave owners to recapture runaway slaves in the Northern States, but made those who did not believe in slavery complicit in their capture and return. In other words, it forced those who hated slavery to comply with slavery by handing slaves back to their masters. This legal decision to deny freedom of conscience only served to strength Abolitionist sentiment and helped precipitate the Civil War. Noting that then, as today, we have a sharply divided country on the issue of just “who” is entitled to the protection of life and liberty, that narrowly divided Supreme Court is reflective of that divide. The belief that abortion is indeed murder is a conviction that will not disappear with the stroke of the judge’s pen, as has been amply demonstrated by over 40 years of conflict and social disaffection. However, this decision is a lesson for the Church … Read more