Claim OwnershipThe Reformed Rant
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© Edward Dingess
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In this podcast I rant about theological, philosophical, apologetical, ecclesiological, and political issues from a distinctively reformed perspective.
115 Episodes
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In this episode, I deal with the incoherence in Andy Stanley's apologetic method and theology. It is impossible to separate "the Bible says" from what Matthew or Luke or Paul says. What the authors of the Bible say, the Bible says. Moreover, if one of the authors of Scripture proves unreliable in regards to one miracle, say the virgin birth, then how can we consider that author to be reliable regarding his claim about any miracle? The first step in being able to defend Christianity is to make sure you actually have the true version of Christianity.
1In this episode, I rant about the practice of modern pastors to reduce everything sermon, bible study, and Sunday school lesson to the lowest common denominator in order to look out for the new believer. This tactic is a ruse on the part of pastors to keep people comfortable and coming to their little kingdoms.
In this episode, I rant about the God who is a God of purging. God purged the earth of wickedness during Noah's day. God demanded that his covenant people in the OT purge their communities of wickedness. God demands that his covenant people in the NT purge their communities or wickedness. In the end, God will purge the wicked from among the righteous for all eternity. Why do the churches and their leaders refuse to obey God's demand to keep the body of Christ pure?
In this episode, I rant about the tactics of manipulation being employed by those who would want to shut down dissent. If these tactics do not work, I predict they will, like the Jesuit Catholics in the Ottoman empire, use the pagans to shut it down. Taking someone's claim to its logical conclusion and evaluating that conclusion based on the teachings of Scripture is not a false gospel, it is not violating divine command, it is not unloving, and it is not being divisive.
I this episode, I provide a very high-level overview of the social structures in Greco-Roman times, specifically, class and status. Then I ask the question: did Jesus or the Apostles work to change things in that structure? What are the implications of the answer to this question?
In this episode, I rant about an interview that took place over the summer between Frank Turek and Tricia Scribner regarding a book that Scribner helped edit: Answering the Music Man. The Music Man is a response to many of the arguments that Dan Barker has made against Christianity. I offer up criticism of the method employed by Turek and Scribner to answer the music man.
In this episode, I rant about Team JD Greear's complete obliteration of The Jerusalem Conference all for the sake of defending the new Woke Cult that most of the SBC has become. Did you know that the apostles were actually trying to figure out how to remove obstacles to the gospel? This is how Greear frames the theme of the first conference in the history of Christianity. The insanity of these men knows no bounds.
In this episode, I rant about the ecumenism of Tim Keller, the judgementalism of J.D. Greear, the tyranny of the Gospel Coalition, and the new Generation Z Bible translation that amounts to blasphemy. And oh, I return to my view on COVID and in-person vs digital worship.
In this episode, I rant about the way pagan culture, liberal Christians, and even evangelical Christians and leaders are arrogantly employing the second greatest commandment to bully and intimidate Christians so that they behave and think according to their own personal standards.
In this episode, I rant about an article by Jarvis Williams who implies that Christians who have a problem with saying black lives matter could mean they are not saved.
In this episode, I rant about my concerns regarding the very popular series, "The Chosen." Another American fiction tale about Christ that only serves to misinform, confuse people but it is entertaining or so they say.
In this episode, I rant about the recent SEBTS and its symposium which included a lecture from Elisabeth Mburu on the topic of African Hermeneutics..
In this episode, I rant about the complete vacation of duty that most modern American pastors have been on for decades now and its impact on the Christian message in American and Western society.
In this episode, I rant about another attempt from David Platt to supposedly take up the cause of racial injustice in light of the Ahmaud Arbery situation. In this episode Platt mangles Ps. 133 while unwittingly putting forth a number of ideas that are racist and unjust. One of the pastor's advocates for judging the McMichaels based on the color of their skin without realizing that is what he is doing. That pastor's wife admits to having a greater connection with people based on melanin rather than Christian convictions, theology, ethics, and values. Something is very wrong at McLean Bible Church.
In this episode, I rant about the "Christian" response to the Arbery shooting that took place in February in Georgia. Is it Christlike to rush to judgment? Is it Christlike to call these men white supremacists without a shred of proof? Should a pastor actively endorse, promote, and forward a petition that engages in malicious gossip and slander and ultimately promotes division and disharmony? Let's talk about it.
In this episode, I interact with a short except of Andy Stanley's Easter Sunday sermon in which he does everything he can to unhitch the resurrection from the Bible and Christianity from the teachings of Jesus. The argument is logically untenable, philosophically implausible, and exegetically groundless.
In this episode, I rant about the idolatrous obsession with image in both Western society and Evangelicalism.
In this episode, I rant about Joe Carter's article at the (anti) Gospel Coalition and entertain the question, does Joe Carter really care about your sanctification where politics is concerned or does he care about something else far more troubling?
In this episode, I rant about an article that Brad Mason wrote claiming that Standpoint Theory is NOT antithetical to Christianity. Maybe it isn't contrary to Brad Mason's version of Christianity, but it is clearly contrary to Biblical Christianity and I demonstrate why that is the case.
In this episode, I rant about a number of issues and nearly every one of them demonstrates how the chaos that is evangelicalism is threatening the very fiber of Christianity by threatening the Sacred Text upon which it rests.
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8:10 - 8:40 This reminds me of what Joy Gresham wrote about atheism and morality. "It's not true that an atheist cannot have any morality. What it cannot have is a rational morality."
1:55 I've been saying this for years against the Furtickisms. Welcome back! I was hoping you were still doing this podcast. 😎
Please don't ever stop doing this. It has been a source of both comfort and inspiration. Even when it becomes difficult to hear.
40:25 - 40:35 And Christians who do so will forever chase themselves. At the very core, Christianity is always going to offend somebody. But a greater danger remains when there is more of a concern about offending people rather than offending God.
25:20 - 27:01 For reference to what Ed is speaking about, see the link below how Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden, led by Richard Mouw, are now having buyer's remorse. The trouble about being a useful idiot is that one remains an idiot well after they no longer serve a purpose. https://www.theblaze.com/news/evangelical-leader-would-not-publicly-support-biden-do-over
42:18 This reminds me of the time when an atheist set the rule of an argument to prove the supernatural without pointing to anything or any event of supernatural. You can see the problem with this. This would be like trying to make somebody try to prove George Washington existed without pointing to any historical references or correspondences of people who interacted with the man. The fella who set the rule of the argument was trying to be clever about his not wanting to hear any possiblity of a supernatural and just wanted to shut down the argument.
21:11 - 21:25 This reminds me an essay "On Living in an Atomic Age" by C.S. Lewis: "For most modern people, I think, thoughts of this kind have to be gone through before the opposite view can get a fair hearing. All Naturalism leads us to this in the end — to a quite final and hopeless discord between what our minds claim to be and what they really must be if Naturalism is true. They claim to be spirit; that is, to be reason, perceiving universal intellectual principles and universal moral laws and possessing free will. But if Naturalism is true they must in reality be merely arrangements of atoms in skulls, coming about by irrational causation. We never think a thought because it is true, only because blind Nature forces us to think it. We never do an act because it is right, only because blind Nature forces us to do it."
Ephesians 4:25, "Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another." Zechariah 8:16, "These are the things which you should do: speak the truth to one another; judge with truth and judgement for peace in your gates." Modern Christians, especially American Christians, are no longer interested in the truth nor can they handle the truth.
30:07 - 30:30 I would go further to say it isn't just a violation of Christian beliefs. It is a complete violation of logic, reason, reality, and biology. in an effort for people to be hospitable and never confront absolute insanity, nobody is made better and only helps to further the delusion. "Sic volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas"
28:06 I truely despise folks like Greer who can't wait to expouse the evils of judgement for the main reason that they are the main offenders of it. Oh don't get me wrong, I would like for anybody to tell me how they are able to put on a shirt without making some kind of judgement. But these non-judgemental folks like Greer would like to have the cake and eat it. I would love to know how they accomplished that...
26:41 I think most Christians understand that we are not electing a spiritual leader. Piper and those like him are trying to target folks who have been alienated and burned by mainstream Christian leaders who backed Trump from the very begining of the primaries in 2016 when for years they screamed character matters. Having said that, Piper is being disengenious with his writing as he expects such people to forget that the Democratic party for the last 4 years championed abject lunacy, the disentigtation of due process, the removal to enforce the rule of law in order to protect law abiding citizens, and allowed whole cities to be destroyed imperiling law abifing citizens. These reasons alone are more than enough for voting for Trump and straight Rs whether you're Christian or not.
Frank Turek saying "you have to have more faith that it didn't occur (the resurrection), than it did" is his way of trying to put what he thinks is a clever spin to the argument that he is presenting. It's the same tag line to the title of his book "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist". Both is based on psuedo-logic that Frank Turek has been dabbling with as of late. To suggest in any way that a non-believer has greater faith because of their unbelief over a Christian's faith has two fold impacts. It first deminishes the suffering of the martyrs who lived out their faith in our Lord God Jesus Christ. The fact that many even today would be willing to die painfull horrific deaths for the sake of Jesus Christ says more about the faith of a Christian than what a non-believer would be willing to do when self-preservation kicks in. But more importantly because of the first, once again Jesus Christ is denied the glory that is His. But I think Frank is more interested these days in soun
9:06 It is actually worse than growth being stymied. Nothing is ever criticised or corrected in a world that is obssessed with the faux virtue and oxymoron of non-judgement. The result is a backsliding of critical thought and education. Baseless nonesense is taken seriously in spite of never being able to hold its own in any part of human history. We are in a new era of the dark ages.
I think you are being generous when you say that there is no overt heresy when taking "The Chosen" as a whole. I think complete abject heresy has been committed in the entire show at the moment Jesus Christ is painted into anything less than what is revealed in Scripture. This is taking into account artistic licensing which this program has far and above crossed the line. The heresy is compounded further when you consider that the premise is to focus on the people who knew Jesus, in spite of keeping the focus about Jesus Christ which is what the Gospels have presented. In both instances, Jesus Christ has been denied the glory and reverence He rightly deserves.
35:27 Mary has become Paula White
23:38 And there lies the problem. Nobody wants to read the Bible. People say they love the Bible, but are too lazy to read it and want to be entertained. #SolaEntertaina
5:52 This alone shows that a majority of Christians in the US will fall for anything that sounds like it is of Christ. In spite of Christianity's rich history of producing great intellectuals, the modern christian is mentally weak and lacks all discernment. Boenhoeffer was right that there is zero defense against stupidity.
@17:31 It is a way of getting dissentors to shut up. It is a lazy attempt to shut down an opposing view by distracting away from the argument that would have been difficult to refute. This happened to me when I wrote an article on Facebook concerning the fallacy of using the "lesser of two evils" phrase and its origin in the midst of the 2016 election cycle. One of the items that was argued in the comments section was not how wrong I was about the subject, but a critique of a minuscule grammar error in order to deminish and dismiss my article. For some, the only way to argue when a coherent objection cannot be made is to distract and dismiss.
18:47 "The Christian faith did not begin with Genesis." - Andy Stanley Whoa, Christianity sprung up from Jesus Christ, but it certainly did start in the first book of the Bible. Unless of course, Andy no longer believes in the Trinity and the many parts within OT Scripture that prophecised Jesus Christ. Did he not go to seminary or is it that this is no longer taught in seminary?
Concerning the scrubbing of Christianity & Jesus Christ being made to be less offensive by Andy around 8:56, seems to be all but forgotten by Stanley is that, at minimum, Jesus Christ was in fact killed for the reason that he was controversial. It's Christianity, it's suppose to offened everyone since it always runs counter-culture.