Ali Doesn't Like Me

Was His Original Last Name Clay?

Darryl Hart, who sometimes has the audacity to criticize me, is one of my favorite thinkers. His The Lost Soul of American Protestantism  is on my list of the Top Ten Books I have read. His books on Machen and Nevin are among my favorites.

Even when criticizing me (see above) he has done me the favor of promoting my blogs, this one and The Christian Curmudgeon. Today I am grateful for his passing mention of my blog about Last Chance U in his August 22 Mitt '16. (I was especially pleased with the "trigger alert" for bad language given in connection with the referenced Blog.)

The reason for my gratitude for Darryl's mention is that he provoked a commenter named "Ali" who does not approve of me or what I write - not that he is by any means unique in his disapproval.

I like Ali for his spiritual discernment based on Darryl's one word reference to me as "Curmudgeon":

didn’t read the article, though can a person boasting being ‘curmudgeonly’ be a very reliable champion of the fruit of the Spirit?

What makes this insight so impressive is that Ali makes his judgment quicker and with less information than Peter's insight concerning Simon (Acts 8:23) and Paul's concerning Elymas (Acts 13:10). If this sort of stuff amuses you, you can find more funny stuff by Ali and by those who support me in the comments section that follows Darryl's Mitt '16.

But I have my own discerning question. In this day of Islamic terrorism how much confidence should we have in the comments of one named Ali?

I'm with the Atheists

And Against the Lord's Prayer

Netflix has a big hit with its six-part documentary Last Chance U. The series follows Coach Buddy Stephens and his East Mississippi Community College (sometimes called "Scooba Tech") football team through the 2015 season. The 2015 season has proved so popular that Netflix is back in Scooba, MS, and will follow the team through the 2016 season. The Lions begin the new season ranked #1 in the nation. They won national championships in 2011, 2013, and 2014. 

Last season was a rough one for Coach Stephens. During the

season he was suspended for 2 games because he went after an official. Then in the last game of the season, the benches of

both teams emptied and a brawl ensued. Eventually Coach Stephens got involved and ended up using a lot of his big boy words and threatening the officials. At first he was angry at his team and accused them of acting like rednecks and thugs. Later he thought the better of it and told them they had shown great restraint before leaving the bench and that he was proud of them. That brawl cost Stephens and EMCC participation in the playoffs and a chance to return to the national championship game.

If you care about football, the documentary series is a must-watch. If you care about football and Mississippi, it has the qualities of a can't-put-down book. I watched all 6 episodes over just two nights. It is riveting.

But is is also very depressing. This is not Michael Oher in the Blind Side. Many of the players at EMCC come from very troubled and disadvantaged backgrounds. The school system failed them long ago. You wonder about many of the players how they ever graduated high school. They are ill-prepared to do college work, and their interest in school work is limited to being eligible to play. The heroine of the story, if there is one, is their advisor who does her best to motivate and help them, even to the point of asking if they have pencils before they go to class. She coddles, cajoles, gets angry, helps them to do their work, and even arranges for them to be able to do work that they have failed to turn in on time. For most of the young men featured in Last Chance U their time playing football at EMCC only postpones their return to the life from which they came.

I wonder why Coach Stephens has a job. If he were to behave in that fashion at any other level of college football, he would be fired. I wonder why the authorities who govern community colleges are not embarrassed by the revelations about academics at EMCC. But, football is god, and, EMCC takes great pride in Last Chance U as can be seen on both their website and facebook page. Last Chance U is great publicity for the school.

Coach Stephens is not only a a great football coach and a world class cusser, but also a praying man. The team says the Lord's prayer together both before and after games (practices too), often as the climax to the coach's "Let's go kick their asses" speech. But it seems Coach Stephen's piety has attracted attention from the impious. He may soon also be another Christian martyr for practicing his faith in public.

The President of EMCC has received a letter from the Freedom from Religion Foundation informing him the school is in violation of the first amendment and calling upon the school to desist from the practice. Among the things said by the FFRF are:

Religious endorsement is endemic within the football program. Head Coach Buddy Stephens regularly leads his players in the Lord’s Prayer. He prefaces the prayer with “everybody touch somebody,” and then the whole team and coaching staff recites the prayer. This occurs in several episodes during the series. Stephens has said of faith: “It is the foundation of our program. We start our practices with prayer [and] end our practices with prayer.”

In one episode, Assistant Coach Marcus Wood leads a prayer before a game that says, “Dear God, Thank you for these guys, the way they’ve worked. Thank you for all of our blessings. Help us to play this game in a violent and vicious manner and play it the way it’s supposed to be played.” He also apparently leads a weekly bible study for the players. An episode of “Last Chance U” begins with him holding what seems to be a bible while discussing a verse from the Book of Job. In another episode, he says, “Maybe my job is to talk to you a little bit every week about the bible.”

When I watched the series the one word that came to mind, as I watched the speeches before and after games followed by the Lord's Prayer, was "blasphemy." Let me explain. I am not here objecting to the profane and scatological language used by the coaching staff. All the bad words you hear in in a PG-13 movie are heard in this documentary, including frequent use of the f-bomb, the language did not give me a case of the vapors.

I object to these things: (1) The context. "Let's get out there and kick their asses. Now everybody touch someone. "Our Father...". (2) The mindless repetition of the Prayer. This is not a group of believers saying the Lord's Prayer together. This is a football team practicing their tradition of repeating the words of a prayer without the slightest thought given to what the words mean. (3) The superstitious use of the Prayer. This is not true prayer in which the players acknowledge God's glory, ask for the coming of the kingdom, submit to God's will, depend on God for his provision, ask for forgiveness of their sins, and ask to be protected from temptations to sin and from the traps of the evil one. This use of the prayer is the equivalent of Clemson Tigers rubbing the Howard Stone before they take the field.

So I hope the atheists win. We are allies in the effort to stop practices we, for different reasons, believe are wrong. Their goal is to suppress what they see as a violation of the establishment clause. My goal is to stop the blasphemous use of the Prayer our Lord gave us to pray. If the EMCC Lions are prevented from praying the Lord's Prayer and if Assistant Coach Wood is prevented from using the Bible as a collection of motivational stories and sayings, then practices that offend the Lord will be stopped and the interests of true religion served. If this is accomplished through the efforts of an atheist organization, let it be.

Dear Willie - Love Johnny

Letter of John Calvin to William Cecil

One of the interesting side arguments of the current Trinitarian debates among evangelical Christians has to do with John Calvin's view of female magistrates. This debate between Liam Goligher, of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, and Tim Bayly, High Priest and Patriarch of Baylyism, has gone on for several weeks ago. Goligher cited Calvin as allowing for women to serve as magistrates. Bayly has accused Goligher misusing Calvin and perhaps kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. 

This debate (most of the arguing coming from Tim and surrogates) has revolved around a letter from John Calvin to William Cecil very early in the reign of Elizabeth I after the reign of Mary who had done her best to undo the Reformation in England and to restore Roman Catholicism. She executed quite a few Protestants, including the guiding hand of the English Reformation, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. Upon the death of Mary Elizabeth became Queen. Elizabeth restored Protestantism and imposed a religious settlement that pleased neither the Roman Catholics or the more rigid Puritans. 

John Calvin was the great Reformer in Geneva. He and his Institutes of the Christian Religion have had and continue to have much influence on the whole of western civilization. (See A Life of John Calvin: A Study in the Shaping of Western Culture by Alistair McGrath, formerly Professor of History and now Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford and a Professor of Divinity at Gresham College. William Cecil was a shrewd politician and survivor and was until his death the most influential advisor to Elizabeth and served as her Secretary of State.

Calvin wrote to Cecil to offer counsel about Elizabeth should go about her work of reform. I have expressed my view on the Trinitarian debate (the Persons of the Trinity have one will and are co-equal. I have expressed my view about women. First they are hard to understand. Second, female submission in home and church does not extend to the civil, business, and other fields. 

My interest is in this letter - and for several reasons. (1) It is a good example of the mutual interests among the reformed on Continental and in England, particularly after cooperation with the Lutherans brom down because of issues such as the physical presence of Christ in the Holy Supper. (2) It reveals Calvin as strong and principled yet moderate and pragmatic. He was not of the "reformation today without tarrying for any" spirit. (3) On the matter of female magistrates it shows that Calvin at a minimum was will to accept the providence of God when women were elevated to rule. God has put Elizabeth on the throne. Now what?

Cecil

LETTER XXV—JOHN CALVIN TO SIR WILLIAM CECIL, SECRETARY TO THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND.

For writing to you familiarly, most accomplished man, I shall not make a long apology, although I am personally unknown to you. Relying on the testimony of some pious persons, who have declared to me your generosity of heart, I trust that you will be disposed to receive my letter with pleasure ; especially when you shall discover from the perusal my intention in writing. Since the awful darkness which had almost stupified the minds of pious men is dispersed, and the clear light has suddenly shone forth beyond all hope, it is reported that you, possessing distinguished favour with her majesty the queen, have endeavoured diligently to remove the profligate superstitions of Popery, which had accumulated through four years in England, so that the sincere doctrines of the gospel, and the pure and entire worship of God, again flourish. I have now therefore to exhort you freely and openly to commence your warfare for Christ. This one thing however remains, that what you do, you should proceed to do with the greatest activity and most invincible constancy. Your holy labours should neither be broken by any troubles, difficulties, contests or terrors, nor even in the least degree retarded. I doubt not, indeed, but that obstacles sometimes encounter you; and that dangers rise full before your eyes, which would dishearten the most resolute, unless God should sustain them by the most wonderful power of his Spirit. This is the cause, for the defence of which it is not lawful for us to decline the most arduous labours. During the time that the public place of execution was appropriated for burning the children of God, you yourself remained silent among others. At least then, since greater liberty is restored by the singular and incredible favour of God, it becomes you to take courage; and if you was, during that period, too timid, you may now compensate that loss by the ardour of your zeal. I know very well that a preposterous haste is injurious; and that many retard their progress by an inconsiderate and precipitate zeal, with which they would leap in a moment to the end of their race. But on the other hand, it is faithfully to be considered, that to maintain the whole truth and pure devotion of the gospel, is the work which God assigns us, and which must not be slothfully undertaken. From the present state of things, you are better able to judge, what steps are proper to be pursued, and what degree of moderation is to be exercised. But yon will remember, that all delay, with however specious colours it may be covered, ought to excite your suspicion. One fear, I conjecture, is from popular tumults, since among the nobles there are many who would kindle up the fire of sedition; and if the English become tumultuous among themselves, their neighbours are at hand, who anxiously watch for whatever opportunity may offer for their purpose. But as her most serene majesty has been wonderfully raised to the throne, by the hand of God, she cannot otherwise prove her gratitude, than by shaking off all delays by her prompt alacrity, and surmounting all impediments by her magnanimity. Since it can hardly be otherwise, but that, in the present turbulent and confused state of things, her attention should be suspended among important affairs, her mind perplexed and sometimes wavering; I have ventured to exhort her, that, having entered the right course, she should persevere with constancy. Whether I have done this prudently or not, let others judge. If, by your endeavours, my admonition produces the desired effect, I shall not repent of having given her that counsel. Consider also, most illustrious sir, that God has placed you in that degree of favour and dignity which you hold, that you might be wholly attentive to this concern, and stretch every nerve to the accomplishment of this work. And lest slothfulness by any means creep upon you, let it now and then come into your mind of what great moment are these two things: First, in what manner that religion, which was miserably fallen away ; that doctrine of salvation, which was

Calvlin

adulterated by abominable falsehoods; that worship of God, which was polluted with defilements, may recover their lustre, and the Church be cleansed from this abomination? Secondly, how the children of God among you may be free to invoke his name in sincerity; and how those who are dispersed may be again collected ? Farewell, most excellent man, sincerely respected by me. May the Lord guide you by his Spirit, protect and enrich you with all good gifts.

JOHN CALVIN
Geneva, January 29, 1559.