Church of the Fist-Fighting Monks

This is hilarious and appalling. Check it out here, and here.

Eucharist Life

Christ reigns immortal.
And remember, the life is in the blood. In drinking his blood every week, we sip immortality.

Holy Ground, Part II

Ex 3.5, "Then He said, 'Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.'"
I see three possible explanations:

Possibility 1. This is primarily a negative command, remove your shoes. Moses' sandals are incompatible with the holy ground, somehow. Perhaps there's something symbolically offensive about footwear when its juxtaposed with holy ground.

Possibility 2. This is primarily a positive command, make yourself barefoot. Something about holy ground requires barefeet. So, Moses' sandal is only important insofar as it happens to be the object that forms a barrier between his foot and the ground.

Possibility 3. Both of the above.

Gen 9.4

"But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood."
I see three possible explanations:

Possibility 1. Drinking blood is prohibited because of what's not happening; i.e., it's a sin of omission. In other words, it's wrong simply because the blood needs to be used for some other purpose. Maybe he should pour it on the ground as some shadowy type of sacrifice. I don't know. {{shrugs}} The ground cries out for our blood, so we give it animal blood instead. Something like that.

Possibility 2. Drinking blood is prohibited because of what is happening; it's a sin of comission. This is a bit more straight-forward: the act itself of imbibing blood is sinful. But I can't think of why that would be. Perhaps drinking nephesh symbolizes an attempt to obtain "life" illicitly, outside of God's provision.

Possibility 3. Both of the above.

Against Ex Nihilo

Rodney Stark, in The Rise of Christianity, tries to explain the incredible spread of the Christian Church during its first few centuries, using only natural phenomena. He claims it was because of its unique historical setting, or because the Christians made a special effort to convert the widely-distributed Jews, or because women were more privileged in the Church, or because it happened to arise in the midst of Greek/Roman culture, etc. etc. In short, the rise of Christianity was a perfectly natural thing; we should have expected it. It was the right ideology, in the right place at the right time.

I believe the rise of Christianity was miraculous. But that doesn't mean I deny Stark's thesis. On the contrary, I embrace many of his secular explanations. They don't make the rise of Christianity any less miraculous; they only increase my awe! God made Greece, and he made Rome the master of Greece. He spread out the Jews in every city of the empire, and taught everybody to speak Greek. A host of natural phenomena came together and formed the symphony that brought about the rise of Christianity. And God made all of it.

Digestion is a miracle. Yes, it involves plenty of digestive enzymes and hydrochloric acid and bacteria and millions of intestinal villi. That's why it's a miracle. God made all that amazing stuff.

I'm the type of person who likes to find a "natural explanation" for miracles. For example, when Constantine saw his vision of the cross in the sky, it was probably a sundog. I believe most of God's miracles are pieces of his original one: creation. God made the world Ex Nihilo, and He doesn't need to do it again. He's already got all this stuff lying around, waiting to be turned into something better.

Lay Baptisms

Even Roman Catholics accept them.

"Although, however, all the faithful can baptize, the priest alone can complete the building up of the Body in the eucharistic sacrifice" (Vatican II, LG, section 17)

"[Baptism] is validly conferred only by a washing in real water with the proper form of words." (Code of Canon Law, Canon 849)

Church Unity

I believe the Christian Church is more unified today than it has ever been.

The Ancient Church was not unified. (Anyone who says different is trying to sell you something.) Ancient Church History was just as messy as current events on CNN, if not messier. The Early Church Fathers weren't Anabaptist, they weren't Federal-Vision-Presbyterian, and they weren't Council-of-Trent-Roman-Catholic. They were all of the above! They got together and held councils and screamed at each other. Not even Ecumenical Councils could reconcile them. After the 1st Council of Nicea, for example, there were still plenty of Arian Bishops and Emperors. Simply put, if you search for a pure "strand" of unity throughout the ages, you'll never find it.

I have to give the Ancient Church some credit, though. They did have a certain kind of unity. Most compelling is their ecclesiastical structure: they had the episcopacy, or the pseudo-episcopacy, or whatever you want to call it. No competing denominations. When modern Christians read about it, we ooh and ahh. "So unified!" we say, "if only we could attain that kind of agreement today!" And that's not all. Their liturgies were relatively uniform. They argued over issues like the dating of Easter, or standing while praying, and came to a general consensus. The Ancient Church possessed a primal, simple sort of unity.

But under that apparent unity lurked a demon. Christians sued each other. Bishops contended for the same position...with casualties! Christians murdered each other. Donatists in the 4th century conquered and stole church buildings. (But don't worry, the Catholics usually stole them back.) And this isn't limited to the Ancient Church; we all know about the hostilities between Protestants and Catholics, or between Protestants and Anabaptists. Historically, our deadliest enemies have been other Christians. Philip Schaff says, "More Christian blood has been shed by Christians than by heathens and Mohommedans."

Today I believe this is no longer the case. Perhaps I'm misinformed (or uninformed), but it seems Christians don't commonly murder each other anymore. When I meet a Catholic in the street, I don't feel compelled to duel him to the death like the Irish used to. The Modern Christian Church is more... well... Christian. Yes, we have more denominations than ever, and more variant theological opinions. We have scandals and kerfuffles, like the Federal Vision Fiasco among conservative Presbyterians here in America. But no PCA pastors are plotting to assassinate Doug Wilson for it. When push comes to shove, we love each other.

That is why the Christian Church today is more unified than it's ever been. We live at peace with one another, or at least, more peacefully than we used to. That's a broad generalization, I know, and I can't really defend it perfectly. Certainly, during times of persecution the church has been unified. Christians generally forget about their hatred and superficial differences when they're hunted by a common enemy. But overall, I think we give the modern global church far too little credit. There's more to unity than creeds and liturgies.

Barefoot humility?

Unfinished thoughts and questions on sandals:

1. Sandals and clothing go together--that's pretty intuitive, and also backed up biblically. Furthermore, sandals/clothes are a blessing (2 Chron 28.15, Song of Sol 7.1, Deut 29.5). Presumably, Adam would've worn sandals and robes eventually if he had never sinned.

2. In other words, it seems there's more to shoes than just protecting our feet from cursed ground.

3. Barefeet in the OT usually carry connotations of nakedness or shame (2 Sam 15.30, Isaiah 20.2-4, Micah 1.8).

4. So then, why does God require Moses to take off his sandals as he approaches the holy ground in Ex 3? Is God requiring "symbolic nakedness" of Moses? Why? Are barefeet more humble than shoes, perhaps?

5. How does this affect our understanding of holiness in general in the OT?

6. How might all this change in the NT?

Holy Ground

Question: Why does God command Moses and Joshua to take off their sandals, "for this is holy ground" (Ex 3.5, Josh 5.15)? Some unfinished thoughts:

James Jordan's explanation doesn't seem quite satisfactory. He says that shoes symbolically protect our feet from the cursed ground, and "holy ground" isn't cursed, rendering such protection unneccesary.

My objection: JBJ's theory might explain why Moses could have taken off his shoes, but it doesn't explain why he had to. The most he can say about sandals is that they are unneeded or superfluous on holy ground.

Or, to put it another way, I think holy ground is more than just "uncursed" ground. There's something substantial about holiness that requires barefeet.

5 Coolest Scientific Things

To celebrate Keith Woodford's new book, here are what I consider to be the 4 other most exciting scientific things I've learned in the past few years. All of these are worth doing cartwheels over:

1. Heart attacks are caused by the failure of blood capillaries, not clogged arteries. (2007, Tom Cowan)

2. AIDS is probably caused by an HIV infection combined with selenium deficiency. (Harold Foster summarizes many researchers)

3. The mysterious "x-factor," unidentified for over 60 years, was finally discovered to be Vitamin K2. (2006, Christ Masterjohn)

4. Low-dose naltrexone stimulates endorphin production and thereby promotes healing of all kinds, especially of the immune system. (Bernard Bihari)