One In Jesus

Robert Baty has recently begun posting here. He is a retired IRS auditor. I’m a tax attorney. We are natural enemies — rather like Sam and Ralph, as shown in the picture (if you’re not familiar with the cartoon, sorry. It’s not worth explaining.)

The fact that we are here chatting about Christian doctrine as brothers in Christ shows the power of the gospel. 😀

Anyway, Robert has challenged my criticism of ad hominem arguments in Christian discourse. It’s good to be disagreed with. It forces one to sharpen his arguments. Here’s my sharpened argument. Continue reading →

I spent this last weekend in Nashville attending the wedding of my sort-of son Kyle. Kyle grew up in my house, and he had my wife and me sit on the front row as co-father or associate father or Godfather or something like that. I had to wear a tux, which tells you the depth of my feelings for Kyle, as I hate tuxedos. I really, really hate tuxedos.

Anyway, on Friday night we had a grand time at the rehearsal dinner. You see, we have great Kyle stories, and his friends and family — surrogate and otherwise — had great fun at his expense. My daughter-in-law, who went through Harding with Kyle, took particular delight in poking fun at Kyle, especially so given how much fun he’d had at her expense at her wedding.

Toward the end of the evening, Kyle pulled out his guitar and sang a song about his pre-engagement days, called something like “I’m So Lonely and Bitter,” which was hilarious — and which poked fun back at my daughter-in-law. Well, she sidled up to me and asked me to please help her respond in kind. I said (and it’s very true), “It’s impossible to one up Kyle, because Kyle cannot be embarrassed. There’s nothing you can say about him, no matter how true, that will get him back.” His mother was part of the conversation, and readily conceded the point. You can’t embarrass someone who laughs at himself more quickly than he’ll laugh at others. He’s immune. Continue reading →

To combat the divisions within the Churches of Christ, our first and most important task is to press for a change in the tone of the conversation among the factions. Things have gotten so emotional that all sides are increasingly guilty of actions that are simply unjustifiable — and often very un-Christian.

For example, Paul Clements writes in the February 1999 issue of the Firm Foundation, Continue reading →

(Psalm 19:14) May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Words matter. Words can bless and words can curse. Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead for their words. Jesus forgave the sins of the thief on a cross for his words. God created the universe with words. Jesus is the Word. Words matter very much indeed.

And yet we in the Churches of Christ have a tendency to be very careless about our words. To persuade others of our views, we often slander our brothers and sisters by calling them names and falsely stereotyping them. We often judge the motives of our opponents without justification. Much harm has been done, and great sin committed, through the careless use of words. Continue reading →

Well, it’s time to get back to my normal, left-brained, analytical self. It’s been interesting delving into the creative, artistic, musical side of life, but at last it’s time to talk logic and reasoning. (But not for too long). There won’t be any YouTube songs in this series.

Two years ago, one the first things I posted on this blog was a series by the same name. Of course, two years ago I had no readers. And so I’m going to recycle some of that material, adding some new stuff and re-editing some of the old stuff.

This will be a series of lessons on how to argue. Not “argue” in the sense of being angry or hateful, of course, but rather, “argue” in the sense of a mathematical proof or an attorney’s closing argument — “argue” in the sense of trying to persuade a fellow Christian of your doctrinal opinions. Continue reading →