Posted on 11/29/2012 12:44:22 PM PST by marshmallow
I must do things your way OR I'm a hypocrite? I see. I don't pretend the non-Catholic crowd are the only ones who read the Bible, so you're wrong there. Whether to follow extra-Biblical edicts and interpretations of your church OR the Plain Truths of the Bible is my choice. My soul is on the line you see. As far as which version of Scripture is canonical, each must choose their own stairway to Heaven. Let God judge and not man what is in their heart.
It's also not a matter of “each must choose”, that's total nonsense as anyone who reads the Scriptures knows. That's as absurd as the Cafeteria Catholic crowd who do what they damn well please and claim they're still faithful Catholics. They may fool themselves but they're not fooling the Jesus Christ nor are those who pretend they can accept a subset of Scripture and have the same relationship to Christ as those who accept all of His Word.
As I said, non-Catholics need to fish or cut bait.
They should either accept the entire Bible or throw out portions of the NT and admit they accept the ‘Luther Subset of the Bible’ because they don't want to accept His Word the same way Eve didn't want to accept His Word.
Non-Catholics read a subset of the Bible and ignore the balance of the Scriptures.
It's always funny to see a poster with both of their feet in their mouth mumbling about the need for an ignore button.
Obviously some such folk not only stuff their feet in their mouth they also clearly never read the rules for the Religion Forum, either.
It figures, that's the very sort of people who follow Eve rather than Christ and make up their own little religion they pretend is Christianity. In reality, though, their little personal religion is nothing other than their worship of their own, Most High and Holy Self.
I attended 11 yrs of catholic education. only bible verses i heard was for 3 minutes at mass. still Catholic but am now reading it.
However, this type of software is killing our (myself included) ability to do real, serious scholarship. It makes it too easy to find little factoids just as you need them, and most of us (myself included) do not commit the kind of study time required to make ourselves true scholars of the Word.
Could I make a suggestion: T. David Gordon, Reformed Worship in the Electronic Age. Four lectures on media ecology (with special reference, eventually, to issues of worship). The first lecture and a half or so are background on media ecology. Highly recommended*.
If that's too long, check out his short piece on Education and Electronic Media. Same stuff, smaller bite.
Our tools, in this case our communications media, shape us. It behooves us to be aware of it. Electronic media seem to be uniquely stupifying. Uniquely powerful, but we flail around like cats chasing a laser dot. I'm not sure there are good answers, and I grope for Christian wisdom on the topic.
(I volunteered to do a presentation on "technology and distraction" for men's group at church, little knowing how big the topic was.
A ping to a few other saints that might be interested.)
*Though I think he overstates the scarcity of writing materials in a chirographic culture. He seems to think parchment is all there was to write on, prior to Gutenberg.
People with limited attention spans to begin with aren’t helped by automated tools that let them substitute apparent depth for required breadth.
Use of automated tools itself can shrink the attention span.
"Hey look! A Wikipedia article!"
We need an “Ignore” button.
I remember talk, years back, of a FR forum software upgrade that would allow that. I guess it never materialized.
I just need to do the ignore function myself. I took his bait and I usually don’t but . . . sometimes the flesh is weak. I’m okay now.
Let’s take this a step further...
Enter any number of churches and what do you see?
Huge screens flashing lyrics to the hymn or praise tune with a serene backdrop of some type. It’s not the same as interacting with book. You look towards the front to see the screen and there are any number of distractions that will take your attention away from the lyrics.
The farther along I get, the more of an iconoclast I'm turning out to be.
It’s not the same as interacting with book.
And, of course, you could argue (and I might) that even "interacting with a book" is not what people would have done through vast stretches of the history of the church. Memorized hymnody, most likely, or a precentor.
Yup, I need to read Old's book on the history of worship again.
Very well stated, and I should have qualified my generalizations. Of course there are some people who are able to do better with digital resources. I should not have generalized so broadly.
Now, the next question is how do I teach my students to be better scholars using these tools? That is quite a question that I have not yet answered. And, since I teach computers for a living, it is one that I should spend a lot of time answering.
Thank you very much for the links. I will definitely add them to my Christmas Break Reading List. And I should move them to the top of the list.
Or why, whenever I do one of my frequent moves, I don't join a church that has screens.
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