Blog Archives: January 2014 — December 2014

December 17, 2014

To concede or not to concede

Kedric Webster

The world is very confident of its own conclusions, and it is very sure of the infallibility of its own methods of research. It does not call its tenets “opinions,” “views,” “conjectures.” It dignifies them in the mass by the abstract names of “philosophy,” “science,” “learning,” “scholarship.” It does not offer them to the Christian for testing and trial; it thrusts them upon him as the perfect expression of final knowledge. He is not requested to subject them to his touchstone, the Word of God, or sift from them the good and reject the ...

November 19, 2014

Marsden on opposing poles

Kedric Webster

Although there may be signs of change, American society is still caught in the polarized pattern that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s. At one pole is the liberal culture that includes most of mainstream academia and entertainment and that is self-consciously pluralistic in the inclusivist sense, but is also overwhelmingly secular, so that it does not have much of a way to deal with religious diversity in public life. At the other pole is a predominantly religious, conservative, popular political culture that does not often have a ...

November 11, 2014

Marsden on the Religious Right and Enlightenment Ideals

Kedric Webster

The complex heritage of the evangelical religious right, as shaped, among other things, both by biblicist born-again revivalism and broader principles developed during the eighteenth-century American enlightenment, helps to explain some of its paradoxes, apparent contradictions, and blind spots. The biblicist side is often absolutist and militant, invoking stark choices between serving the Lord of Hosts or the Baal of secular humanism. The enlightenment heritage allows militantly conservative fundamentalist to in fact affiliate with the ...

October 30, 2014

A Royal Run

Kedric Webster

This was an amazing World Series, an amazing playoff run. To the San Francisco Giants: if there is a team that is like looking in the mirror, it is this one. Pitching, defense, putting the ball in play, small ball. All of that was on display today. Aoki’s shot didn’t fall to tie the game because of the perfect position of the right fielder. Two runs were scored on sacrifice flies. A starter who KC couldn’t hit managed to shut the Royals down again out of the bullpen. That’s hard to do. Gordon’s single/error gave us hope and the man I ...

September 17, 2014

Objective truth, Subjective truth

Kedric Webster

[Archibald] Alexander's reflection on the themes [of divine truth and the believer's experience] represents his attempt to formulate a theology of religious experience to reconcile two previously separated traditions. On the one hand he attempts to do justice to his Scotch-Irish Presbyterianism by stressing the importance of doctrinal belief. He spoke approvingly of catechetical instruction of children and of the importance of formal education for ministers. On the other hand Alexander acknowledged the validity of religious experience, ...

September 03, 2014

Nothing New Under the Son

Kedric Webster

Hazel Motes: “Well, I preach the Church without Christ. I’m a member and preacher to that church where the blind don’t see and the lame don’t walk and what’s dead stays that way. Ask me about that church and I’ll tell you it’s the church that the blood of Jesus don’t foul with redemption.” “He’s a preacher,” one of the women said. “Let’s go.” “Listen, you people, I’m going to take the truth with me where I go,” Haze called. “I’m going to preach it to whoever’ll listen at whatever place. I’m going to preach there was no Fall because ...

August 07, 2014

Blessed are the Cynical

Kedric Webster

Cynicism rears its head at times in my thinking. Most of the time I want to dialogue about serious issues in order to bring about understanding so that at the end of the day, even if there are disagreements, everyone walks away having learned something. Then there are other times when it's almost better to just answer with the buzzer. I have developed a skill at finding clips on Youtube that relate to conversations on social media (read: Facebook). The work has already been done for me as some wise soul has created a short (under 20 ...

July 15, 2014

Science as Religious Theater

Kedric Webster

I recently finished a book that was not published recently. Not only was it published in 1988, it has no endorsements, despite being published by the well-known InterVarsity Press. This might have been the time when endorsements on the back cover and inside pages of books was not a wide concept or it could be no one wanted to endorse the book because it ticked off too many people. The book is Science Held Hostage: What's Wrong with Creation Science AND Evolutionsism. Yes, AND is capitalized in the title. At the time of the publishing the ...

June 27, 2014

Being and Becoming by Bavinck

Kedric Webster

"Natural mechanism cannot be the final cause and explanation of everything, since it asks for an explanation itself: natural mechanism is not lord of the world, but servant of the spirit. The forms in which it operates--time and space, measure and numeral, order and law--are basic categories of the spirit. Just as a machine serves man, natural mechanism must be subservient to the governing and leading of a divine mind that rules over all. This does provide room for development in the true sense of the word. If the whole world is nothing but ...

June 24, 2014

Alexander on religious melancholy

Kedric Webster

"When...people of nervous temperment are relieved from a fit of depression, their sky is uncommonly free from clouds; their hopes are lively, their spirits buoyant, and nothing can trouble them. These alternations of day and night, of sunshine and darkness, must of necessity affect the feelings in regard to all matters, temporal and spiritual; for as in a dark night every object appears black, so when the mind is overcast with gloomy clouds every view must partake of the same aspect. To many persons this description will be unintelligible; ...

May 30, 2014

The A-B-C's of Newspeak

Kedric Webster

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought--that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc--should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every ...

May 12, 2014

TV and Religion

Kedric Webster

"There are several characteristics of television and its surround that converge to make authentic religious experience impossible. The first has to do with the fact that there is no way to consecrate the space in which a television show is experienced. It is an essential condition of any traditional religious service that the space in which it is conducted must be invested with some measure of sacrality. Of course, a church or synagogue is designed as a place of ritual enactment so that almost anything that occurs there, even a bingo game, ...

March 17, 2014

The Swamps of Wrath

Kedric Webster

Charlie got out of the truck in front of the small concrete block building and went inside. The secretary glanced at his bare feet with distaste; then she asked, "Can I help you?" "I wish to see Mr. Riles," Charlie replied. "Just a moment and I'll see if he's busy." The woman went into an adjoining room and returned momentarily. "Would you go in, please," she said, motioning toward the open door. Kenneth Riles was sitting at his desk when Charlie entered. He looked up and said, "What can I do for you?" Charlie stood in front of the ...

March 13, 2014

Conservative Theology Defined

Kedric Webster

One often hears the term conservative or liberal attached as a label to describe a person's politics, economic views, or social moorings. Many times the labels are adequate as those three features are generally inter-related, meaning that if you lean liberal or conservative in one area, you are generally going to do so in the other areas as well. However, this is not always the case. In the current cultural climate the terms are often thrown about as blanket descriptions and fail to be helpful labels. A nuanced view of an issue from a ...

February 10, 2014

Theology as a Science

Kedric Webster

The words theology and science are not often mentioned in the same sentence. Generally they are regarded as two separate, unrelated disciplines. But it also depends on how "science" is defined. Could theology be called a science, like geology or astronomy? Many would say "No." B.B. Warfield would say "Yes." More accurately Warfield has in mind Systematic Theology. In his article "The Idea of Systematic Theology" (The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield: Studies in Theology) he states that Systematic Theology "deals with its material as an ...

January 15, 2014

Micah 6:7-8

Kedric Webster

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Inspired, Inerrant, Infallible

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