Response to Joe's Response

Over at Joe's anti Mars Hill website- http://riseandfallofmarshill.blogspot.com/
Joe has responded to my Hebrews 13:17 appeal to him. Here is my response (this will probably be my last as I fear Joe is not up for an extended rational dialogue).

Hedgey said...

Joe, you said:
"As for the Hebrews 13:17 command, you seem to think that we should obey without the latter part of the command being kept? "for they are keeping watch over your souls," Are they watching over our souls? They are certainly preaching over them, and making sure we are in line. But firing the people that are watching over our souls kinda voids the command, i think."

Not to be rude but your exegesis of this verse needs some work. Your exegesis of my comments is spot on though- even if these men were not watching over our souls even then I still believe God has called members of that local body to submit to those elders.

Also, where does it say firing people who watch over our souls voids the command to obey the other elders? That being said I am not happy that Bent and Paul have been fired but I do know that I a God given duty to respond in a mature Christian manner to things that I do not personally like.

Additionally, Hebrews 13 itself does not leave as an option the idea that elders do not watch over our souls. The verse states a contrary fact- elders watch over our souls. Now we can debate whether they watch well or watch poorly but this is not my point here. You make an "if this then this" statement where the Word of God does not. It does not say you are excused from obedience simply because you don't "think" the elders are watching over our souls. Your ego centered feelings do not change the inescapable truth that the elders of Mars Hill are watching over our souls. That they are is evident and proven by the Word of God even if it is not evident in your experience.

And hypothetically even if they were not watching over our souls (which would make the Word of God untrue in what it plainly states) this does not remove the command that God has placed on you. I will admit submitting to leaders is a challenging thing for many people- including myself (especially recently) but since I love and wish to obey God I will submit to the elders he has placed over me as long as doing so does not cause me to sin or violate my own conscience. If it came down to them asking me to sin or to violate my own conscience I would approach them with this fact and if there was no resolution I would leave peacefully and pray for them while trusting God to deal with them. This is what I encourage you to do. Remove the plank from your own eye by shutting down this site and seek resolution with the elders. If it is not forthcoming please invite a faithful brother to go with you and confront them again. If you still find no resolution I would encourage you to pray about what God would have you do- whether to remain in humble disagreement or leave to find elders you can submit to.

Finally, God's call to submit is not a quid pro quo. To put it simply God has called you to submit to the elders whether or not you think they are watching over your soul just as my wife must submit to me whether or not I love her as Christ loves the church and I must love her in that way regardless of whether she is submitting to me or not. If I do not love her in that manner then I am in great sin and must repent or face the judgment of God but even this does not give her free pass to rebel against me.

Joe I pray that you would rethink the path you have chosen and be reconciled to Mars Hill in a manner worthy of Christ. Even if you feel these elders are acting horribly and unbiblical it gives you no right to act similarly- it only makes you guilty of the same sin you accuse them of. I also pray that you would join me in praying that all involved would show a similar humility and repent of all the sin that has gone on these last few months and that we would see everyone involved restored and fully reconciled.

November 26, 2007 9:47 PM

Response To- The Rise and Fall of Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church)

I attend Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Lately, God has been pleased to bring us into a great season of pruning, judgment and learning. I thank God for this time because though these events in themselves are dark and difficult God will use them for his glory. I love Pastors Paul and Bent and pray that both will be fully reconciled with Mars Hill and the elders. I pray that repentance will be granted wherever it is needed and that all involved will show the necessary humility. That being said I think it is very sad that a current member of Mars Hill has created a blog called, "The Rise and Fall of Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church)".

http://riseandfallofmarshill.blogspot.com/

I am not commenting on his content of his complaints but rather on his tactic of taking public what needs to be familial (at least among the members of MH if not just with the elders).

I take this approach because I firmly believe that regardless of any merit in his complaints he has no Biblical justification for what he is doing. Joe (the fake name of this member) seems passionate for the Word of God and for the people of God. For this I applaud him. However, this passion seems to have left out a passion for the difficult submission that that same Word calls us to. Hebrews 13 gives an unqualified call to submit to our elders. Obviously we cannot obey even an elders command to disobey the Bible but so far Joe has not complained that an elder has made such a request of him. As a current member Joe is called to submit to particular elders (those at Mars Hill). Joe doesn't have to go to Mars Hill so he could be faithful by leaving and joining a church where he can submit but he should not and cannot continue his blog against Mars Hill. Please read Hebrews 13:17 for yourself and determine if Joe is acting righteously. I see no qualifications about the obedience called for in that verse and no justification for Joe's outright rebellion.

I believe that the call for obedience is specifically for men like Joe (and often myself) who are likely to often be troubled by the actions of leaders. When we agree with everything this is not the time that we are obeying. If I give my wife $200 and tell her to go to Nordstrom's and buy some new clothes she can hardly say she is obeying me. However, when I tell her we must do something that is very difficult for her and she outright does not want to do (an example might be moving to a new city) now she is truly showing obedience. The recent events at Mars Hill have been difficult for many and I personally have had to learn obedience at a new level. For this I am thankful and I would invite Joe to humble himself and to follow Hebrews 13:17 even if it just out of respect for God. There is a great blessing in "saluting the uniform" and then trusting God to bring about the just resolution we long to see. I do not know Joe and though I do not necessarily agree with him I sympathize with any man who sees what he believes is injustice and wants to respond. I believe Joe does have an avenue to respond and that is to speak with the elders and other leaders at the church with his concerns. Until he does that I believe he is on the same side of rebellion and arrogance he accuses the elders of being on.

Of Atheists and Pinatas

Like a big fun pinata that continues to rain down sweet treats Sam Harris continues to bless us with atheist gems. Harris is an evangelical atheist who touts himself as the ultimate rationalist and defender of all that is good. Like a small kid with a big plastic bat here is my best shot at Harris' offering (my comments in blue):

Do We Really Need Bad Reasons To Be Good?

By Sam Harris October 22, 2006

Bad reasons to be good? My first question would be how does this title make sense in an atheistic worldview? What does good and bad mean in his mind? What standard does he use to determine what is a good standard and which is bad? This problem will become more apparent as we continue.

THE MIDTERM elections are fast approaching, and their outcome could well be determined by the “moral values” of conservative Christians. While this possibility is regularly bemoaned by liberals, the link between religion and morality in our public life is almost never questioned.
Given that over 90 percent of Americans identify themselves as religious in some sense it seems pretty obvious that this would have to be the case and will always be the case unless government forces people to a more secular way of life.

One of the most common justifications one hears for religious faith, from all points on the political spectrum, is that it provides a necessary framework for moral behavior. Most Americans appear to believe that without faith in God, we would have no durable reasons to treat one another well. The political version of this morality claim is that our country was founded on “Judeo-Christian principles,” the implication being that without these principles we would have no way to write just laws.

I think Harris misses the point that he is trying to critique. It is not just that faith provides the framework for moral behavior rather it is that apart from God there is no such thing as moral or immoral behavior. If atheism is true then we are just physical beings acting in response to our environment. Our actions cannot be moral or immoral since they are determined by the physical and chemical makeup of our brain. Our point is not that we need God to write just laws our point is that apart from God concepts like morality and justice are non-sense. This becomes apparent as we will later see that Harris is playing word games. He continues to use words like moral and just yet is defining them in a way that most of his readers do not agree with. For Harris morality ultimately comes down to what he or other groups of people like or dislike. I also disagree with his last point. Mankind can write just laws whether they believe in God or not. This is because being made in the image of God he can understand justice and injustice- even if he cannot give a coherent account of why.

It is, of course, taboo to criticize a person’s religious beliefs.

It is only taboo to crticize the beliefs of those who will kill you for doing so which is why Harris critiques Christians and not Muslims in this article.

The problem, however, is that much of what people believe in the name of religion is intrinsically divisive, unreasonable, and incompatible with genuine morality. The truth is that the only rational basis for morality is a concern for the happiness and suffering of other conscious beings.

This is really the most important assertion he makes. Here Harris has just assumed something to be true. He offers no compelling reason why this is even a rational basis for morality much less the only. If I simply said that only rational basis for morality is the teachings of Jesus would that convince anyone? Should it? Does my mere assertion make it true? Obviously the answer is no so in reality we should stop here and demand that Harris prove this assertion before we follow him down his prim rose path.

This emphasis on the happiness and suffering of others explains why we don’t have moral obligations toward rocks. It also explains why (generally speaking) people deserve greater moral concern than animals, and why certain animals concern us more than others. If we show more sensitivity to the experience of chimpanzees than to the experience of crickets, we do so because there is a relationship between the size and complexity of a creature’s brain and its experience of the world.

This is a scary line of thought. So if some day we discover an animal that has a larger and more complex brain than humans do we then care more for it then our children? Also what does deserve mean in an atheist universe? Is there some giant rule book in nature that tells us what we owe to other people and other creatures?

Unfortunately, religion tends to separate questions of morality from the living reality of human and animal suffering. Consequently, religious people often devote immense energy to so-called “moral” questions—such as gay marriage—where no real suffering is at issue, and they will inflict terrible suffering in the service of their religious beliefs.

Here Harris has begged the question and is again playing word games. Tacit in the statement above is the idea that gay marriage is not a genuine moral issue. This is only the case if he presupposes that there is no God or that God has not defined what marriage should be. Even if we were to use Harris’ standard and demonstrate that conservatives would suffer genuine mental anguish if same sex couples were getting married would Harris then agree that it is immoral for them to get married? I doubt he would be that consistent.

Consider the suffering of the millions of unfortunate people who happen to live in sub-Saharan Africa. The wars in this part of the world are interminable. AIDS is epidemic there, killing around 3 million people each year. It is almost impossible to exaggerate how bad your luck is if you are born today in a country like Sudan. The question is, how does religion affect this problem?

Many pious Christians go to countries like Sudan to help alleviate human suffering, and such behavior is regularly put forward as a defense of Christianity.

So which one is it? Does Christianity make people help others and relieve suffering or not? Christians just can’t win with Harris. When they do nothing they are uncaring but when they do care it counts for nothing. Ultimately Christianity will never be justified by the behavior of Christians. It will only be justified by God and His actions in the history of mankind. To argue the validity or invalidity of Christianity because of the behavior of Christians is to commit the genetic fallacy.

But in this case, religion gives people bad reasons for acting morally, where good reasons are actually available.

Not to sound like a broken record but again Harris has never offered a standard (other than his own musings) as to what good and bad are.

We don’t have to believe that a deity wrote one of our books, or that Jesus was born of a virgin, to be moved to help people in need. In those same desperate places, one finds secular volunteers working with organizations like Doctors Without Borders and helping people for secular reasons. Helping people purely out of concern for their happiness and suffering seems rather more noble than helping them because you think the Creator of the universe wants you to do it, will reward you for doing it, or will punish you for not doing it.

I could easily refute Harris by saying that helping people out of concern for their suffering seems less noble than doing it for religious reasons. But I won’t because I have never been a believer in the “it must be true because it seems true” argument. I doubt Harris would accept me saying the opposite is more noble because it seems so. In the end this is all Harris has to offer because he has made himself to be his own God and thus he determines what is true and what is good. Thus, in the end Harris must always revert to himself as the ultimate standard because he can allow for no other. Apparently his god is a jealous god who allows the worship of no other.

But the worst problem with religious morality is that it often causes good people to act immorally, even while they attempt to alleviate the suffering of others. In Africa, for instance, certain Christians preach against condom use in villages where AIDS is epidemic, and where the only information about condoms comes from the ministry.

It’s interesting to note that Harris fails to point out all that Christians are teaching. Just reading this one might assume that church is encouraging villagers to go out and have unprotected sex. In reality nothing could be further from the truth. These Christians are teaching the imperfect but most certain way to avoid Aids- celibacy and monogamy. Harris can’t have it both ways either the teachings of the church are affecting the behavior the villagers or they aren’t.
What is interesting to note here is that Harris assumes that condom use will solve Aids. Reality dictates this is not the case. Some have argued that trying to stop Aids with a condom is like trying to stop a bullet with a chain link fence. Simply look at America where both Aids and condoms live side by side. In reality if people in Africa were to live as the church instructs them to Aids would soon disappear. If people were to abstain from sex until marriage and then remain faithful in marriage Aids could be all but gone in a few generations. Thus it seems that Christianity has the only solution that would truly stop the suffering of Aids while the billions of dollars that secularists have poured into Africa to promote condoms has only made the problem worse.

They also preach the necessity of believing in the divinity of Jesus Christ in places where religious conflict between Christians and Muslims has led to the deaths of millions.

Interesting point but it begs the question- who is killing who? Is he seriously trying to argue that belief in Christ is responsible for the death of Christians instead of the Muslims killing them? And he charges Christians with ignorance and a lack of compassion!

Secular volunteers don’t spread ignorance and death in this way. A person need not be evil to preach against condom use in a village decimated by AIDS; he or she need only believe a specific faith-based moral dogma. In such cases we can see that religion can cause good people to be much less good than they might otherwise be.

I am still waiting for a definition of good and evil other than things Sam Harris likes and things he does not like. If that is the only standard then would he accept that wool sweaters are immoral because I don’t like them?

We have to realize that we decide what is good in our religious doctrines. We read the Golden Rule, for instance, and judge it to be a brilliant distillation of many of our ethical impulses. And then we come across another of God’s teachings on morality: If a man discovers that his bride is not a virgin on their wedding night, he must stone her to death on her father’s doorstep (Deuteronomy 22: 13-21).

I can’t respond to his use of scripture here since he has not provided the context. But I can say that even if he were being fair to the Bible (which he is not) maybe God just doesn’t like girls who aren’t virgins and prefers them to be stoned. If this were the case upon what basis would Sam Harris prove that God’s preferences were any less valuable than his? If Harris is going to judge God upon what basis will he indict Him? Alternatively what if stoning the girl produced less suffering than letting her live? What if in that culture to be found out to not be a virgin led to a lifetime of pain and suffering? Then would it not be moral to end a life time of suffering with a few moments of suffering? If this were the case how could Harris not agree?

If we are civilized, we will reject this as utter lunacy.

I suppose we are MUCH more civilized. Killing young women in the womb for economic reasons is much more civilized. In light of this practice why is this lunacy? Does it have to be because he just said it was? I still don’t hear any reason why one moral system is better than another. Again Harris doesn’t like something so he concludes it must be evil.

Doing so requires that we exercise our own moral intuitions, keeping the real issue of human happiness in view. The belief that the Bible is the word of God is of no help to us whatsoever.

But my moral intuition tells me something different. In fact it tells me that the Bible is the Word of God and that without it morality does not exist. Since I am using my intuition as he has suggested I should, how can he disagree with me?

As we consider how to run our own society and how to help people in need, the choice before us is simple: Either we can have a 21st-century conversation about morality and human happiness—availing ourselves of all the scientific insights and philosophical arguments that have accumulated in the last 2,000 years of human discourse—or we can confine ourselves to an Iron Age conversation as it is preserved in our holy books.

This is simply a rhetorical tactic to try and poison the well. The reality is that Christianity is a part of the 21st century and that atheism can be found in the Iron Age as well. This whole sentence is utterly irrational and essentially amounts to name calling. If I were to respond by calling him names would anyone see that as a valid tactic?

Wherever the issue of “moral values” surfaces in our national conversation in the coming weeks, ask yourself which approach to morality is operating. Are we talking about how to best alleviate human suffering? Or are we talking about the whims of an invisible God?

Fortunately we are all made in the image of God and so we will continue to be moral beings who usually seek to alleviate rather than cause suffering. This morality is in each of us even if like Sam Harris we have no idea why.

Sam Harris is the author of Letter to a Christian Nation and The End of Faith. He can be reached through his website, samharris.org.

More on Equality

It seems that people are looking everywhere these days for equality. Little Mikey here wants to find it in a name-http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070112/ap_on_re_us/take_my_wife_s_name.
It does the beg the question though- if this fight to take on a woman's name is really about equality how does his quest make any sense. If it is demeaning to women to take her husband's name then how is it any better for the man to take his wife's name? Wouldn't that be demeaning to him? Maybe he referred to equality in access in name changing but he doesn't clarify. In a sense I agree with him. If a woman takes a man's name simply for tradition's sake then it very well may be demeaning.
However, the wife's taking of her husband's name is supposed to be a glorious reminder of God's plan for humanity. In the beginning, God made mankind- male and female He made them in His image. He then graciously created marriage wherein Adam named his wife. This was partly to signify the care, responsibility and love he would have for her. Any man not willing to do this, not willing to love his wife in this way should not give her his name. To do so would make a mockery of what God created. In light of this, I applaud Mike's honesty and his willingness to be true to his beliefs in which he will most likely submit to and obey the woman who will rule over him. Maybe if he is lucky she will up his allowance and let him have a guys night out once in a while!

On another note Mike's friend at the ACLU Mark Rosenbaum is rumored as considering filing another lawsuit to do away with another 17th century custom. It seems a plaintiff wants to sue the city of Los Angeles for having gender specific restrooms. Because this man only feels comfortable peeing while sitting down he wants access to the women's restroom where there are more toliets than the urinal dominated men's room. Sounds like another sure victory for the ACLU and freedom!

Suffering and Morality

Today I stopped in to Barnes and Noble to use a gift card that I got for Christmas. I didn’t find the book I was originally looking for but I had some time to kill so I looked over Sam Harris’ book, “Letter to a Christian Nation”. I was intrigued by the title and was even more surprised when I opened it up to learn that it was addressed to the U.S. Apparently, we are a Christian nation with many problems. What we really need to make everything better is a good dose of atheism. I guess the sheer number of abortions, sexual deviancy and violence in our culture had deceived me into thinking we were no longer a Christian nation but apparently I was wrong.

Harris’ book is a diatribe against religion in general but in particular against the monotheist trio of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Clearly, as the title might lead you to think he is most concerned with Christianity. In light of the recent terrorist attacks and wars fueled by Christianity this is only logical. One can hardly forget the Baptists cheering Yahweh Akbar as they kill thousands. There are many things that can be said about Harris and his book but in my view the most amazing things are his unquestioning dedication to rationality and morality when his atheistic worldview cannot account for either. In this first post I will deal with his vision of morality. I will attempt to deal with his commitment to rationalism in a future post.

The way in which he deals with Christianity and morality is most apparent in the following quote:

"One of the most pernicious effects of religion is that it tends to divorce morality from the reality of human and animal suffering. Religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are not—that is, when they have nothing to do with suffering or its alleviation. Indeed, religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are highly immoral—that is, when pressing these concerns inflicts unnecessary and appalling suffering on innocent human beings." (p25)

Here Harris is upset with religion because as he rightly points out religion tends to divorce morality from human and animal suffering. Christian morality is determined by God and His character not by human and animal suffering. This does not mean that the two are mutually exclusive but it is indeed the Lord Himself who decreed that suffering would exist as a result of our sin against Him. God disagrees with Sam Harris and says that human and animal suffering is not the sole basis for morality. But since Sam does not yet believe in this God it would seem unfair to critique him solely from God’s perspective. Instead, I will show how internally inconsistent Sam Harris’ worldview is.

First of all, his entire worldview is based upon an assertion which has no basis. Sam Harris asserts that human and animal suffering is immoral yet offers no reason for why this is. As a Christian I know plenty of reasons why it can be immoral but as an atheist Harris has no such basis. He might try and offer a reason like Dan Barker does when he said that human suffering is immoral because it hurts. That statement is a truism but it just begs the question and is utterly not helpful. It just puts the problem back to why is hurting immoral. From an atheistic worldview suffering is just part of nature. In fact, it is one of the driving forces of evolution. If not for suffering you and I would not be here. People and animals may not like suffering but that is an issue of popularity- not morality.

In addition to the fact that his theory of morality lacks epistemological justification (it cannot give an account for why it ought to be believed) it is inconsistent with itself. If morality is determined by suffering then 5 years in prison is much more immoral than the death penalty. If atheism is true then by definition all suffering stops at death. In fact, the only suffering involved with someone who gets the death penalty is awaiting the moment. We could solve this problem of suffering by telling convicted thieves that their punishment will be a two week vacation in Bermuda. Then in the middle of the night while they are sleeping we could sneak in and kill them- sparing them the suffering of prison and awaiting the death penalty. Since we have caused no suffering I see no reason why this would be immoral in Harris’ system. Yet I doubt he would agree with this solution. This is because his system is inconsistent even with its own standards.

This can be further seen in that one of the places people suffer the most is in a dentist chair. Yet despite the agony of a root canal (I think I would prefer prison) I doubt Harris would call it immoral. Harris might interject that a dentist is inflicting pain in order to achieve health which is a higher goal. However, this simply betrays that he actually agrees with theists. He agrees not in specifics but in general that there is something higher than human and animal suffering that determines morality.

Harris has no way of defeating skepticism. How does he know what causes human and animal suffering? What is suffering in the first place? Suffering itself is a relativistic idea. For example, if Donald Trump had to live in my house and eat my food he would most likely suffer greatly while I am completely content. Also I suffer when people next to me have bad breath or wear ugly clothes yet I doubt Harris would call those things immoral. A more basic point it that in order for Harris to use suffering as a standard he would have to know not only in general what causes suffering but also in every specific circumstance whether or not suffering is going on. He would also need to quantify suffering so that we can tell what is permissible and what is immoral. Ultimately in order to use this as a standard someone would have to be able to read minds because people (and animals) do not always vocalize their suffering.

Furthermore, what would he say to someone who has experienced pain as pleasurable. What if this person is so committed to his personal experience of that pleasure that he thinks everyone who complains about pain is lying and then sets about trying to make everyone feel the pleasure of pain.

The idea of knowing about animal suffering is even more difficult. We can guess that certain animal gestures and noises indicate pain but since we have never actually spoken with an animal to hear what it is feeling it seems tough to use this as a measure of morality.

Finally, it seems that Harris does not really believe that suffering itself is the standard of morality. He may give lip service to this idea and bring up tired old arguments about the suffering God caused in the Bible but once we look at his theory closely we can see it is not ultimately about suffering. If he were to believe this consistently he would fall into absurdities which are self refuting. In the end it is clear that suffering itself is not Harris’ standard of morality. Rather Sam Harris is his own standard. Because Harris has rejected the truth of God and believed a lie he has put himself in God’s place and has made himself the moral law giver. He is so devoted to his own standard that he has written his moralizing little pamphlet in which he has the audacity to tell the potter that He has no idea what He is making. The most ironic thing about this is that the aversion Sam Harris has to suffering and the judgmental attitude he exhibits towards God’s people is simply the image of God welling up in him. In the end his diatribe and judgmentalism comes not as a result of evolution but because though he is a fallen sinner Harris is still made in the image of God. Thus, Harris cannot help but act in the mold of the compassionate judge who made him. And every time he shows compassion or judgment he testifies against himself and testifies to the reality that he knows the truth yet chooses to suppress it.

Mars Hill and Equality

For a little background let me say that I attend Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA. A few weeks ago there was a huge blow up online and in the local media over several things that were said by one of our Pastors, Mark Driscoll. You can read about it from Mark's perspective at www.theresurgence.com. You can also read about from those who were upset with Mark at several blogs (try www.rosemswetman.blogspot.com) but most notably at the website www.endfundamentalism.org. In summary several people took things Mark had written to mean that he hated women.

After I went to a party last weekend and had a few people ask me about Mars Hill and if we really did hate women it got me thinking. It got me thinking about how ironic this whole situation is. It is ironic because at Mars Hill we are one of the few churches in Seattle that consistently teaches and believes in the ultimate reason why men and women are equal. I can think of no better argument to prove the absolute equality of men and women than the story of creation in Genesis 1 where God creates man in his image- male and female he creates them both. Here God is giving the best (and only ultimate) reason to say that men and women are equal. According to God men and women are equal because He created them that way and made them in His image. To me this is the most sure way to establish that men and women are equal because no one and nothing can ever change it. Physical and mental attributes may change but being made in the image of God is immutable. In light of our belief in this I find it funny to even accuse Mars Hill of teaching that men and women are not equal. Furthermore, to say that this a morally bad thing to teach one must have a worldview in which it is immoral to teach such things. In order to have such a worldview you must have a justified reason for believing that men and women are equal. We have this at Mars Hill and we do teach it while those accusing us of teaching the opposite have expressed no such worldview.

The hypocrisy of the situation is easy to miss but I want to point out that apart from adopting a literal view of the Genesis creation account you have no justified reason to believe that men and women are equal. It appears that these people have borrowed the moral underpinnings of our worldview and then used them to beat up on us for our consistency in that worldview. At Mars Hill we believe that God has revealed Himself through the Bible. From this we learn that indeed men and women are equal. We also learn that God has given roles to men and women in which to live out that equality. One of those roles is that men should Pastor the church and that women should not. Those who accuse us of hating women (primarily for our view of roles) will not engage this point and given their inability to justify the reason for those attacks I think I know why. As long as they can point the finger and call us names we will be on the defense and will not have time to bring them back to what the Lord has revealed. So here I wish to do that- for those that think we hate women or that we are wrong in our views of who should Pastor God's church please tell me by what standard we are wrong and by what standard should we change our ways? Until then at least have the courtesy to not call names.

Blogging Begins

Please let everyone you know about this new blog. I will updating it several times a week and will be sharing my thoughts on everything from politics, religion, terrorism, finance, sports and general meanderings. Mostly I will cover religion and politics but please understand if I have to comment on the others as well. I will also try to bring you some of the thoughts and links to some of the best thinkers I know. I hope you will enjoy reading as much I like writing. Thanks.

-Hedgey