Don't Diss Jesus' Fiance

Hey, I'm finally back after a month and a half...just don't expect anything else for a while. Having to keep a daily log for my internship leaves my blogging motivation pretty low most days. Anyway, a couple weeks ago I went to an excellent seminar called "Don't Stop Loving the Church." The speakers were Kevin DeYoung and Tim Kluck (who together wrote the book Why We're not Emergent: by Two Guys Who Should Be) and Mike Wittmer (a prof at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary).

Rather than tell you all about the conference I thought I'd just share some of my favorite quotes/paraphrases from it. Disclaimer - These may not be word perfect since they're from my notes/memory and I'm afraid I don't remember exactly which speaker said them (I think most of them were DeYoung)...but without further ado, here are my favorite insightful (or at least entertaining) quotes:

- "When you harshly criticize the church you're dissin' Jesus girlfriend!"

- "We need fewer revolutionaries and more plodding visionaries."

- "Leaving the church to find God is primarily a white yuppie affectation"

- " 'social justice' [as practiced by many 'revolutionaries'] often involves nothing more than advocacy and feeling guilty for being middle class."

- "If all we focus on is societal change, where is our uniqueness?"

- "We want to eliminate suffering wherever possible. Especially eternal suffering."

- “Does the presence of crime in a neighborhood mean the police are irrelevant?” [response to saying the church is irrelevant because there are problems in society]

- "Well, since we already had someone say 'butt' from this pulpit -us Baptists always say 'bottom'- I suppose it's okay that we're having a raffle in the foyer."

- "...and you all get together after church for a potprovidence..."

- Preaching/teaching/acknowledging the doctrine of original sin goes a long way toward explaining why “the church is full of hypocrites.”

- What's going to make an impact is us visibly allowing Christianity to truly impact how we live (rather than us trying to look cool/almost exactly like the culture at large)

Semester Over!

Well, after four weeks in which I read 1300+ pages, watched/listened to 14+ hours of lectures, and wrote 45+ pages, I am done with my last semester of regular seminary classes!!! Now I get a three week break before beginning my 9 month internship, which is the next-to-last step toward getting my M.Div. (last step is two hours of oral exams right before graduation).

I actually finished last Friday, but I've been trying to clear up a grading problem with my "favorite" professor (the one I've blogged/ranted about several times who basically thinks that ministry success is measured by how quickly your church is growing). Thanks to all the confusion of losing my job, Erik being born via c-section, and a moving 600 miles away (the whole family, not just Erik) I had to request extensions on my work for both of my summer classes. Both profs granted them...or so I thought. I got my course grade back from this "favorite" prof and mine and it was a "C." Even though all the work was at an "A" level he docked almost every single paper 20% for being late - turns out his idea of extension is "you can submit it late and I won't fail you, but you'll still be severely docked for being late." WOULD'VE BEEN NICE TO KNOW THAT UP FRONT!!! He "generously" upped my grade to a B since he hadn't communicated clearly enough. Hopefully the other prof didn't have the same thing in mind...I haven't gotten the course grade on that one back yet.

And so dies my 4.0 GPA. I'm pretty annoyed that that's how I lost it, but mostly I'm just glad that I'm done with regular classwork. WOOHOO!!!

More Translation/Textual Criticism Posters

I still don't have time to write anything, so here are a couple more pictures on more-or-less the same theme as the last couple posts...you don't need to have taken a Bible college/seminary textual criticism class to get these ones though. I didn't make the KJV1611 one, but it was a whole lot more clever (and had a bit more "bite") than the KJV one I made. Enjoy (or maybe not if you're a "KJV only" person).

If you get this, you are probably a seminarian II

If you get this, you are probably a seminarian

It's been a month since I posted anything...things have been chaotic with losing my job, Erik arriving, and moving to Michigan. I'd give you something better, but I have to get back to trying to get caught up on homework...try back in a week or two.