Chris Hubbs's Comments

chrishubbs.com : links for 2010-02-09

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:04:41 +0000

Hey bub, so I'm kinda slow in replying to this. But I have a couple thoughts. As to what happens when you hear in class that "science tells us it all comes from nowhere and that God doesn't exist", well, that's just an incorrect statement on the part of the science teacher. Science may "tell us" that things appear to be very old and have evolved. Fine. But science can't tell us that it all comes from "nowhere", and of course science has no way to prove that there is no God. As for your Facts 1 and 2, I am completely in agreement on #1. I'm not in such agreement about #2. There are respected scientists out there who are Christians and would affirm your statement #1 while at the same time pursuing scientific studies that they would say point to an old, evolving universe. Like I said in my original post, I'm not sure where I fall on this one yet. I'm just coming to acknowledge the fact that there are serious, committed believers out there who have put in good, serious study, and have come to the conclusion that believing in a billions-of-years-old evolving universe isn't at odds with the Bible's teaching about God as creator, designer, and sustainer. Which makes me stop to think. Still thinking. :-)

chrishubbs.com : Sometimes knowing too much is a bad thing

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:04:51 +0000

I hear ya. See also: movies that include an actor pretending to play an instrument but not even coming close to having their hands in the right places. That's actually one of the reasons I love That Thing You Do so much - even though the actors didn't record the music, they're playing the right chords on their guitars and drumming accurately throughout the show. Makes the movie really work for me.

chrishubbs.com : Partaking "in an unworthy manner"

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:45:02 +0000

Thanks, John. That seems so obvious, and yet it's something that the evangelical churches that I've been in seem to have missed. Frankly, there's a bunch of fuzziness surrounding the Lord's Supper in our (lack of) tradition. It verges toward being just something we do from tradition rather than something we do because we really understand what's going on. Or maybe I've just been clueless for thirty years. (It's possible.)

chrishubbs.com : links for 2010-01-13

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:21:28 +0000

I think you're pretty much on here, bro, though I'm still working through what I think about the idea of partaking 'in an unworthy manner'. In the context of the chapter, it seems to me more like Paul's "unworthy manner" is talking about those folks who show up early and pig out before everyone has arrived, not those who are potentially unrepentant sinners. As you've noted, we're pretty much all potentially unrepentant sinners at various points in our lives. There's a blog post floating around in my brain that needs to be written on this topic... let's see if I can make it coalesce into something respectably coherent. :-)

chrishubbs.com : links for 2010-01-13

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:15:18 +0000

Yeah, that's a typo, I would infer from the rest of his piece that he meant "repentant". Did you read the comment thread after the post? I said pretty much the same thing in the first comment. I like your way of putting it - the first being done in anticipation. You know, feel free to jump in on the comment threads of those blogs, too. :-)

chrishubbs.com : It's the SNOWPOCALYPSE!

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 16:51:20 +0000

Yes, Texas is rather deficient in that regard. (We'll see how Iowa turns out. At this point we have only an inch of snow and dire threats of more.)

chrishubbs.com : Orangeburg

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:47:49 +0000

Yeah, that's our place. It usually doesn't have the backhoe out in front, though. :-P

chrishubbs.com : What Would Jesus Want Us To Think about Healthcare Reform? a Quick Response

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:09:17 +0000

You took up the cause nicely over on JT's blog, Ryan. I was surprised by how quickly the debate turned to the political merits of healthcare reform and ran quickly away from the question "what would Jesus do?". OK, so maybe I'm not too surprised. The latter is a lot harder question than the former. :-)

chrishubbs.com : links for 2009-10-06

Wed, 7 Oct 2009 19:20:00 +0000

First off, just for fun, note that neither Mars Hill Church's doctrinal statement nor The Gospel Coalition's Confessional Statement include an assertion of the age of creation. Second, I agree with Driscoll - the Bible is all about Jesus. But I think you're not drawing a fair conclusion with your quote from Luke. Yes, everything written about Jesus in the Law of Moses (Leviticus through Deuteronomy), the Prophets (not gonna name them all) and the Psalms (self-evident) must be fulfilled. But first, the creation account isn't about Jesus. It's about the creation. And secondly, where Jesus does come into that account, namely, in the promise to Eve that her seed will crush the serpent, Jesus did fulfill that. So if you're really going to assert that to understand Jesus and the Gospel you of necessity must believe in a literal Genesis 1, please just understand that in doing so you're writing off a lot of very devout, dedicated Christians throughout history who disagreed with you. Final note: do yourself a favor and when you have some time go read through some more of iMonk's archives. I tend to only link the controversial ones, but if you take the time to get to know him through his writing you will understand that this guy is a serious, thoughtful believer who has devoted his life to teaching the Gospel to young people. He's not someone who should be dismissed lightly. Well, that's plenty for now. Look forward to continuing the conversation!

chrishubbs.com : links for 2009-10-06

Wed, 7 Oct 2009 19:10:28 +0000

I don't think any of us are gonna disagree that yeah, we have to believe that "the Bible means what it says", but we also have to agree that interpretation is needed. We have to use context, genre, etc to understand. That's just inherent in any language-based communication. For instance, I know that your whole 'die on the hill with the trench and bazooka' statement is a metaphor, and that you're not literally looking for a shovel right now. :-) So I think we have to agree that we have to think about what the Bible is trying to tell us, and not just think that we can read every passage literally. I hope that makes sense. To your two questions, which are good questions: 1) I don't think we can get from the Genesis text that the universe came into being over millions of years. But I also don't think that the purpose of Genesis 1 is to be a science textbook - I think the purpose is to tell us that God is the awesome, omnipotent creator of everything. Genesis 1 is setting the basis for the Gospel story that takes the whole Bible to tell. I would assert that whether the creation of Genesis 1 took place over 144 hours some 8000 years ago, or whether the creation took place over some much longer period of time, it doesn't affect the truth of what Genesis 1 is trying to tell us, which is that God created everything out of nothing. 2) So what does the old earth explanation buy us? Well, it helps potentially make sense of all of the science that's been done that really really points to an old universe. Even if you want to write off things like radio carbon dating, etc, it really is reasonable to look at things like the expansion of the universe and conclude that the universe is really old. So if you're going to assert that Genesis 1 has to be read literally, then you have to start coming up with reasons why good science (including a lot of science done by Christians) disagrees, and then you start getting into things that seem kinda silly to me now, like God creating the universe with "apparent age" just to fool us all. I would also point out that in the history of science and Christianity, we've been through this before. Copernicus figured out that the planets rotate around the sun, rather than everything rotating around the earth (as had been previously believed). His scientific discovery (done completely with mathematics and physics, and not with repeatable experiments) was rejected by the Church and those who carried on his work were persecuted by the church for a bunch of years. We just accept it now as the way things are, and we have decided to interpret things like Joshua 10 differently in retrospect. Might we be in the same sort of spot now? Worth thinking about.

chrishubbs.com : links for 2009-10-06

Wed, 7 Oct 2009 16:49:09 +0000

Yeah, bro, read it again, and try to not react quite so much. Be willing to think about it. OK, so you may want to discount iMonk, but look at the names of others that he points out don't hold the YEC position. R. C. Sproul? I don't think you want to discount him so quickly without being willing to think about it. Let's be honest - there are lots of passages in the Bible that we understand that we're not supposed to read literally. iMonk notes Revelation 1, for example. Do we think Jesus really has a literal sword coming out of his mouth? Or do we need to read Revelation as a piece of apocalyptic literature and understand that some of it is figurative? Same question about Joshua 10 where it says that the sun stood still and the moon stopped. Based on what we understand about our universe and astronomical mechanics, do you really think we're literally supposed to understand that the sun and moon completely stopped moving? Or is there some other understanding we can have that still agrees that God did something miraculous, but that it probably didn't involve the entire universe grinding to a halt for two hours while the Israelites fought their battle? If we can agree that there are parts of the scripture that have to be understood in not only their literary context but also their literary genre, then I don't think we're out of line to think about passages like Genesis 1 and try to understand what genre that book is, especially the first few chapters. I'll admit this is a departure in thinking from what we were taught as kids - heck, we watched most of those Ken Ham videos in Sunday School at one point or another - but I think these are valid questions to ask and areas to explore. Remember that Paul wrote to Timothy that all Scripture is God-breathed, and profitable for teaching, instruction, etc etc. What Paul didn't say is that all Scripture is to be understood literally at the expense of everything else that we see around us. There's a lot of ideas to explore here, I look forward to discussing them with you.

chrishubbs.com : The Patient Notebook

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:09:05 +0000

Thanks, Andrew!� I'm very excited about it.

chrishubbs.com : links for 2009-09-10

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:18:22 +0000

I think what you're trying to get at is that we need to have integrity in our beliefs across all dimensions of life; if our faith teaches us that something is wrong, then yeah, it's wrong, period, not just in our church discussions but also in our discussions in the public square. Where the Evangelical church has missed it, though, is by assuming that God directs us to try to enforce, via government, all of the morals that He instructs. I've been around the blog on this blog on this principle before, and I'll use gay marriage once again as the example. Yes, I believe the Bible teaches that homosexual behavior is wrong. Yes, I believe that the idea of a "marriage" between two people of the same gender is not a marriage in any Biblical sense and makes a mockery of the image of Christ and His church. But I also have to recognize that those beliefs of mine are pretty specific to my faith, that other branches of my faith, not to mention those of other faiths, may well disagree with me. So then I have to get pragmatic about it - do I really want to have the government in the business of regulating the complete morality dictated by my religion, even if I'm in the majority? I don't think so. What happens if in a decade the Muslims are in majority? Should I then be OK with them pushing the government to enforce Sharia law? Well, I don't need to rehash the whole thing - if you want to read all of my arguments, do a search over in the box on the right for "gay marriage" and those posts will come up. Still, always worth thinking about and discussing.

chrishubbs.com : links for 2009-09-10

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:10:18 +0000

Man, you ask good questions. To me, his three really good points were these (summary): 1) makes enemies out of friends - we forget that we're not wrestling against flesh and blood 2) barrier to mission - liberals will think that they have to become a political conservative to be a Christian 3) wrong gospel - we end up teaching our kids to be good political conservatives instead of good Christians I don't think that Conservative political beliefs are any more inherently dangerous on these points than Liberal beliefs are - it's just that conservative beliefs are so much more prevalent in our Evangelical subculture. For your question #2, yes, I think our political views should be shaped by our Christian values. Too often in the past few decades the evangelical church has blindly gotten in bed with the Republican party and hasn't really asked if Republican values were actually Christian values. The evangelical fear of the godless government that would propel us into Tim LaHaye's picture of the tribulation caused us to instinctively side with Ronald Reagan who proclaimed that "government is the problem, not the solution". We have too often forgotten that God ordains government and proclaims that it does have a place in civil life. And we have too often assumed that just because Democrats are wrong on the moral issue of abortion, that they are wrong on everything else. We have much to learn.

GazetteOnline.com : Is dancing in church appropriate?

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:41:52 +0000

I don't find the comment irreverant, but I do find it interesting, in that it ducks the actual question "does God care?".

GazetteOnline.com : Is dancing in church appropriate?

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:07:56 +0000

The assumption in your question, Molly, is that a church wedding is a "holy ceremony". As a Christian I would certainly hope that all church weddings are truly holy ceremonies, but I'm realistic enough to understand that many folks use the church as an attractive traditional backdrop, with scant thought given to the faith-based aspects of the ceremony. If a couple is serious about their faith and considering something like the entrance in the YouTube video, I'd ask them to seriously consider what message they are trying to send with the dancing. If the couple in question is just using the church as a backdrop, and isn't thinking about the faith-based aspects of the wedding itself, then the dancing, to me, would become a minor issue compared with the questions I'd have about what they're thinking with regard to having a church ceremony in the first place.

chrishubbs.com : Taking Worship Seriously

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 18:04:06 +0000

Hehehe, I knew this rant was coming eventually. :-) And I've been on the same side of it most of the time. Though I will admit, as the father of preschoolers, that having a regular Sunday School class during the service time has been a helpful thing at times. There are also times when I'm really glad to have Laura in the service with us. Again, not a topic with a clean-cut simple answer. :-)

chrishubbs.com : Taking Worship Seriously

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 18:01:34 +0000

Andrew, a while back I posted another Lewis quote on worship that is just fantastic. An excerpt:

To judge from their practice, very few Anglican clergymen take this view. [the view that we can put up with anything if it's just consistent.] It looks as if they believed people can be lured to go to church be incessant brightenings, lightenings, lengthenings, abridgements, simplifications, and complications of the service. And it is probably true that a new, keen vicar will usually be able to form within his parish a minority who are in favour of his innovations. The majority, I believe, never are. Those who remain – many give up churchgoing altogether – merely endure. ...And they don’t go to church to be entertained. They go to use the service, or, if you prefer, to enact it. Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best – if you like, it “works” best – when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice… The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.... ...A still worse thing may happen. Novelty may fix our attention not even on the service but on the celebrant. You know what I mean. Try as one may to exclude it, the question “What on earth is he up to now?” will intrude. It lays one’s devotion waste. There is really some excuse for the man who said, “I wish they’d remember that the charge to Peter was Feed my sheep; not Try experiments on my rats, or even, Teach my performing dogs new tricks.”

chrishubbs.com : Taking Worship Seriously

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:57:32 +0000

Thanks for your thoughts, Bruce. You've hit on a couple of things that have felt key to me for a while now: first, the need to resist the "entertainment" inclination on Sunday mornings, and, second, the extreme need for a corporate time of remembering the Gospel as it applies to our daily lives: confession that we are sinners, a reminder of Christ's payment for us, and a reminder of the forgiveness that God gives. Even Evangelical churches that have successfully avoided the entertainment trap seem to have simply forgotten that notion of confession and of repeatedly preaching the Gospel to ourselves. And yet it is what we most desperately need.

chrishubbs.com : Taking Worship Seriously

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:51:56 +0000

Michelle, don't think I've met you - feel free to say hi sometime at church - would love to meet you. I'm so glad to hear that the message that week was something that sparked discussion and learning for your family. I'm very torn on the use of that sort of message/illustration in the main Sunday morning worship time. It's different, but maybe not the most appropriate or best use of the time. But really, I'm glad it was effective for your family, and I'm sure it was helpful for many other families there. Thanks for commenting!