I’ll say this once; nobody can make me say it again.  I enjoyed the Independence Day Eve sermon by Ray Wilkins at Lebanon Baptist Church. I am not going to excerpt it since the whole thing is good.  There is probably not much of interest to atheists and quite a bit that goes against the popular holy-con idea that we are a Christian nation.  But every church-goer in Frisco ought to hear this message.  Wilkins goes over the history and reasons for keeping the government out of church business.  It tickled my ears and (not counting the proper pronunciation of Zwingli, which I have been trouncing for years) taught me something new. (Dang it, I hate it when he does that.)

afterthought: the pastor’s blog

After seeking wise counsel I am no longer convinced that I have an unbiased opinion regarding recent comments by Pastor Wayne Braudrick of Frisco Bible Church.  Instead of indulging myself in a paranoid rant, I invite you to  listen for yourself and send me your opinion. (5 megs of barely-edited goodness, be patient.)  If I am flooded with responses (read: “if I get more than 2 emails”) I might reconsider.

I will, however, follow my second impulse and publish a unilateral promise to Frisco Bible Church and, by extension, all Christians.  I have not spoken to any of the regulars at the Frisco Atheist meetups about this; this promise is mine alone.

• I will complain to any elected official that takes advantage of a government sponsored event to urge people to abandon faith.  If an official invocation is used to promote atheism or if it is used to praise the unity and sensibility of atheists and thus belittle citizens that have other beliefs, I will complain publicly.
• If any organization that I am involved with resolves to attempt to use the force of government to encourage atheism, I will argue against it and, if I cannot bring about a reversal, I will leave the organization and publicly denounce it.
• If the government attempts to enforce atheism or engages in purposeful “elimination” of religious thinkers that do not fund or promote terrorism, I will side with the believers in protest and resistance.

This promise is unilateral.  Reciprocation by believers is appreciated but not necessary.  I am willing to defend this with local atheists, but I cannot recall hearing any comments that are in conflict with this.  I am also willing to elaborate on my position and personally encourage Christians to reciprocate — I will not refuse an invitation to meet with a Sunday school class or Bible study group to talk about this.

Kingdom Life fell off my radar a while back; the RSS feed went dry and I deleted it from my podcatcher.   But while updating my church list (see the link at the top of this site) I noticed that things started hopping again so I downloaded all of the sermons I missed and began catching up.

Now I’m a little sorry that I did. This is very ugly stuff.

In the first link, Brandon Burden announces that all of the local candidates and ballot issues that were  promoted(?) by the Kingdom Life were successful in the last election.  I doubt that this is an intentional snub to the IRS; he probably doesn’t realize that promoting a candidate can jeopardize the church’s 501c3 status.  If I find any specific endorsements in a sermon, I’ll definitely post them.  A twitter endorsement probably does not cross the line but, for what it’s worth, I added one that I found to the bottom of this post.

Brandon seems to be hoping to build a reputation as a straight-shooter — he clearly doesn’t know how ugly it makes him look.  Here he works in a dig at President Obama – a particularly ugly attempt at humor.

I’m working through the sermons now.  And I’m not looking forward to it. If anyone needs links to the entire sermons, please holler.

The series on doubt at Fellowship of Frisco is ending next Sunday.  Last week’s sermon consisted of 4 or 5 “hard” questions then a short “ask anything” segment.  Mel Cure was asked one uncomfortable question about homosexuality but the rest were softballs.

One problem that I noticed (was I the only one?) was that Mel began the message stating that the Bible is the source of their beliefs rather than tradition or external sources.  But when he was asked why Christians don’t worship on the Sabbath, he appealed to tradition.  Not a big deal (“practice” rather than “belief”), but y’all shouldn’t let a preacher off so easy – even a nice guy like Mel.

Only one more week to go, folks.  Ask some tough ones.

If you need some inspiration, here are my favorites:

Did the disciples see the fig tree wither before the cleansing of the temple or did they only notice it afterwards?

Since heaven is not actually located in outer space, why did Jesus ascend?

I can’t exactly ask these myself since I’m not trying to preserve my faith.  Nothing but mischief on my part.

Fellowship of Frisco still has my attention these days. It’s hard to look away when a preacher talks about evolution, politics or doubt. This series on doubt by Mel Cure has gone into a third installment as of May 15, 2011. I have no idea how long this will continue but I’m enjoying the ride for as long as it lasts. Mel Cure is a good speaker and he’s generally a lot of fun to listen to. But this series is clearly showing that there are topics that are too dangerous for Sunday morning.

During this series he has invited his parishoners to meet with him or with other church leaders for one-on-one answers to the tough questions. Any church member that has any level of doubt should take him up on the offer. First, you’ll have a good time. Church leaders are, by necessity, good with people so it will at least be a pleasant meeting. But, more importantly, you deserve to have your questions answered fully. It is easy to see that Mel specifically chose Bible difficulties that could easily be slain with a poem and a smile. The answers that were given from the pulpit were not intended for people with real doubt.

If anyone from Fellowship of Frisco is considering taking the tough issues to Mel for a fair hearing, please do it. But be sure that your questions are answered. There are a lot of Bible discrepancies that are much more damning than the ones from the sermon. If anyone would like to hear some particularly thorny Bible discrepancies please feel free to contact us. But even the easy targets that were attacked from the pulpit were not dealt mortal blows. Some of the big ones from the sermon were:

1. How could a loving god send anyone to hell?
2. How could a puny, finite being be worthy of eternal punishment?
3. Would God send a baby to hell?

Mel answered the first question, “how could a loving god send anyone to hell,” by suggesting that we have the wrong idea about love, that there’s such a thing a “tough” love, like when a mother disciplines her child. To make the comparison a little more accurate, we should try to visualize a woman shooting her child in the head. A mother who disciplines her child is hoping for a better future. But hell is permanent, if I remember my Bible correctly. It is not correction, it is vengeance.

The second problem is about eternal punishment for a finite crime. Mel says that a big crime deserves a big punishment and that rejecting Christ is the biggest crime one can commit. But we are not talking about the crime, we are talking about the criminal. When a judge passes sentence… more specifically, when a just judge passes sentence, he considers extenuating circumstances. If the criminal is a child or if he was incompentent for any other reason, the sentence will not be as harsh. A human is finite and, by anyone’s reckoning, incompentent to be held fully accountable for a an “eternal” crime.

Would God send a baby to hell? Mel invokes the doctrine of the age of accountability. He also gave an exhaustive list of all of the supporting biblical references – one verse that only indirectly addresses the issue. It would be nice if he gave the references that support infant damnation. Mark 9:42 might be a start. It’s not iron-clad, but neither is the reference supporting accountability. It would be nice to hear someone admit that they cannot positively say that God does not damn infants.

Everybody has experienced doubt. Doubt is healthy. But where should you go to get the answers to your questions? Common sense will tell you to seek multiple sources. The church will not give you both sides of the story.  Will atheists give you both sides?  Give us a listen but don’t thoughtlessly accept what we say. You would do well to listen to (and doubt) everybody.

It always make me happy to hear a preacher acknowledge that Christians are not necessarily heretics if they accept evolution.  I would guess that one would think twice before mentioning it.  Mel Cure from Fellowship of Frisco was good enough to take the risk during his sermon on 2011-05-08.  This is the second part of series on doubt.  Unfortunately, this is just about the only sentence that I enjoyed.  The sermon is intended, naturally, on keeping people from veering out of the faith, so it is very heavy on encouragement, very weak on logic.  Still — one gutsy sentence is enough for a “thumbs-up”.