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For those of us who have turned 100% against Bush, this is a good balancing piece. I said when he got re-elected in ‘04 that if he was going to have any chance of a positive legacy, it would be in Africa, not Iraq.
But if we could return for a moment to the reality that his legacy will not be a good one, this is really funny.
(HT to BHT for those stories)
Sports
Steve Bernier is an immediate hit in Buffalo, scoring on his first two shots of his first game with the Sabres. Here’s the problem: Buffalo has sent the same message for the last several years – as soon as you get good, we’ll trade you. Seriously, the only way to secure a permanent position in Buffalo is to be mediocre; which is, of course, why they’ve stubbornly held onto Lindy Ruff for so long.
Arts and Entertainment
Dave Archuleta, 17-year-old American Idol competitor, makes Randall Goodgame cry. The kid’s good and all, but I’m not as enthralled by him as the rest of the world seems to be.
Editorial: Scot McKnight and Hermeneutics
If you’re tempted to throw a blanket denunciatory statement on everything “Emerging,” you need to read some Scot McKnight. I read A Community Called Atonement recently, and I highly recommend it. He’s just posted a Hermeneutics quiz, which is quite interesting. I scored as a “progressive” (70), but I’m on the more “moderate” end of the progressive score (which ranges from 66-92). Here’s what it says about how I read the Bible, which is actually pretty accurate, both in its strengths and weaknesses:
The progressive is not always progressive. Those who score 66 or more can be seen as leaning toward the progressive side, but the difference between at 66 and 92 is dramatic. Still, the progressive tends to see the Bible as historically shaped and culturally conditioned, and yet most still consider it the Word of God for today. Following a progressive hermeneutic, for the Word to speak in our day, one must interpret what the Bible said in its day and discern its pattern for revelation in order to apply it to our world. The strength, as with the moderate but even more so, is the challenge to examine what the Bible said in its day, and this means the progressives tend to be historians. But the problems for the progressives are predictable: Will the Bible’s so-called “plain meaning” be given its due and authoritative force to challenge our world? Or will the Bible be swallowed by a quest to find modern analogies that sometimes minimize what the text clearly says?
Take the quiz, put your scores in the comments!
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I scored a 57, putting me on the “right” side of the moderate scale (53-66).
To clarify, by “right” I mean conservative, not correct.
I scored the same as you Travis, 70. The one question I have (and maybe it’s been answered elsewhere) is why there is a numeric scale at all. I can’t be the only person who instinctively thinks bigger numbers, especially when the cap is 100, are better. To me, the quiz is subtly saying we should strive for 100%. Or maybe I just look for conspiracies everywhere.
Yeah, I was wondering that as well. I had to sort of think outside the box with the number scale. It seems like it might have been created so that each level (conservative, moderate, progressive) would have been scored on its own scale.
I loved question #13 on the quiz. The question of reading the Bible being (most conservative answer) the individual’s sole responsibility to (most liberal answer) the confessional statement of one’s community of faith. In my own denomination (the Southern Baptist Convention) the Conservative/Fundamentalist wing tends to be against individual interpretation of the scripture. While the moderate/liberal wing tends to be in favor of it. So, SBC conservatives would give the more liberal answer to this question and SBC liberals would give the more conservative answer to this question.
Interesting stuff.
I loved question #13 on the quiz. The question of reading the Bible being (most conservative answer) the individual’s sole responsibility to (most liberal answer) the confessional statement of one’s community of faith. In my own denomination (the Southern Baptist Convention) the Conservative/Fundamentalist wing tends to be against individual interpretation of the scripture. While the moderate/liberal wing tends to be in favor of it. So, SBC conservatives would give the more liberal answer to this question and SBC liberals would give the more conservative answer to this question.
Interesting stuff. My answer was #3 on that question so I’m a moderate on that however you look at it.
lonelypilgrim, yeah, it is especially interesting how that has morphed since the Reformation. When Luther translated the Bible into German, he was most certainly taking the “liberal” position, and the AnaBaptists? Forget about it! So far liberal, they needed to be drowned!
Yeah, the Anabaptists were called radical reformers. They supported that radical notion of religious freedom. Oh, the horror.