- Introductions: Was this class worthwhile? What would you change?
- Todays Topics: Review and Recap
- We almost talked about USA Today’s article entitled, “NSA has massive database of American’s phone calls” printed on May 10, 2006. But that will have to be another time.
- Relativism
- Read from Dr. Suess’s book Oh, The Places You’ll Go! and from William Ernet Henley’s poem Invictus.
- Pride is the center of relativism—I can make all decisions.
- Division in the Church
- The church has dealt with a lot of divisive issues. We have handled them:
- All perfectly.
- With a good heart, but some really dumb actions.
- We acted with bad intentions, but managed good actions.
- We really blew the situation all around.
- Options 1 and 3.
- Options 4, 3, 5, 1, and 2.
- Christianity is not for perfect people, it is for sinners.
- “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance
- Michael Newdow was going to court to try remove “Under God” from the pledge.
- “Under God” was added to the pledge on June 14, 1954.
- Christian Involvement in Politics
- “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” Romans 13:1
- God is in power, even over government. He does not fail if our candidate does not get elected.
- Christian involvement in politics has been varied over the years, including traditions of Anabaptist/Mennonite, Lutheran, Catholic, Black Protestantism, and Reformed Protestantism.
- Media Bias
- We discussed articles with headlines like:
- “Drug stash saved my life, says hostage”
- “Bush: God told me to invade Iraq”
- “Pro-family groups challenge ‘.xxx’ domain”
- Dumb Christians, or Love Thy Neighbor and Defend the Faith
- Which of the following is Christ’s example?
- “You’ve got to be dumb or stupid or ugly, or all three, in order to become a Christian.”
- “Frank is a product of anti-intellectual dumb Christians in the current Fundamentalist Dark Age.”
- “Why is it that Christians insist on making dumb things dumber, more infantile, and just plain tackier.”
- “And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.”
- Philosophy and the Christian
- Basic Philosophical Questions of Life:
- Logical
- Epistimological
- Ethical/Morals
- Metaphysical
- Aesthetic
- Two classes of answers to such problems:
- Options in Metaphysics
- Everything began with nothing.
- Everything began with something impersonal.
- Everything began with something personal.
- Epistimology
- How the heck do we know anything anyway?
- Creation and Evolution and Intelligent Design
- Is intelligent design based on the Bible? No.
- Can one be a Christian a believe in evolution? Probably.
- Israel
- Pat Robertson made an interesting comment on his “700 Club” show, saying that, “The prophet Joel makes it very clear that God has enmity against those who ‘divide my land.’”
- THere cannot be lasting peace—anywhere—without Christ.
- Marriage
- A woman married a dolphin in Israel.
- The gay marriage debate probably started much earlier—with us.
- Muhammed Cartoon Controversy
- The cartoons were originally published in September 2005.
- There is much disagreement amongst Muslims whether a violent response is right.
- Christians ought to be sure to avoid slander. (Leviticus 19:16)
- The Ethics of Life
- We talked about Christian views on capital punishment, war, poverty, euthanasia, life support, and handicapped.
- Persecution and Suffering
- A quote from the current pope: “Today what people have in view is eliminating suffering from the world…Anyone who really wanted to get rid of suffering would have to get rid of love before anything else, because there can be no love without suffering, because it always demands an element of self-sacrifice, because, given tempermental differences and the drama of situations, it will always bring with it renunciation and pain.”
- Religions Freedom in Prison
- Some prisoners have begun pretending (maybe?) to be Jewish in prison.
- Illegal Immigration
- Cardinal Roger M. Mahoney says he would instruct his priests to defy any federal legislation that would require churches to check parishoners for legal status before providing assistance.
- “You shall not wronga sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.”
- Some folks even believe that we should have wide-open borders.
- Abdul Rahman
- Christian in Afghanistan imprisoned for his faith.
- Feminism and “The Mommy Wars”
- “Mothers ought to have only 1 child.”
- Zacarias Moussaoui
- “Asked by defence lawyer Gerald Zerkin if he thought he was helping his case when he testified earlier that he had planned to pilot a plane into the White House, he replied: ‘I was putting my trust in God, so from an Islamic point of view, yes.’”
- The Gospel of Judas
- Part of a 66-age codex called Codex Tchacos.
- Has a lot of Gnostic beliefs and ideas.
- Calls itself: “The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week three days before he celebrated Passover.”
- I hope this class was worthwhile. I don’t expect we’ll do the same thing again next year—it is too exhausting. But would you be interested in continuing a class like this next year? Teaching one, perhaps? Please let me know your thoughts, interests, ideas for improvement, etc.
- No class next week, but you are all invited over to our place for lunch the following Sunday, the “official” last day of class.
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