Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Warning Sign

Warning Sign

Photo by Frederick Meekins

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Dinobots, God and Your Clone

Why Not Lady Church Ushers?

In the 5/23/14 edition of the Sword of the Lord, editor Shelton Smith lists those undersung yet essential ministries in the church in an article titled “The Preacher's Best Friend”. The first enumerated on this list are ushers.

Of these functionaries, Smith writes, “The men meet the folks coming in.” Smith then proceeds to list a number of responsibilities assigned to this position such as the distribution of bulletins, the finding of seats and the collection of offerings.

The wording itself raises a particular question. Must those filling this position be men? Why can't these individuals be a women?

In many independent and Fundamentalist churches, the deacons carry out these tasks. If so, such a gender specific pronoun would be understandable.

Such churches hold to the simplest interpretation of the text that the diaconal office should only be held by men according to I Timothy 2:12. However, by his own admission, Shelton Smith does not necessarily view deacon and usher as being synonymous.

He writes, “Our soul winners, bus workers, teachers, deacons should not feel left out here.” One might respond that in using the term “men”, Brother Smith was being a linguistic traditionalist in that the term “men” can grammatically include both men and women.

The other two church support ministries mentioned in the article are sound technicians and nursery workers. However, in connection with these, neither is referenced with gender specificity.

For example, sound technicians are referred to as “they” (a term that can include both men and women). Nursery workers are praised as “These men and women are the saints who attend other people's babies during Sunday school and church time.”

In defense of male-only ushers, it could be argued that these servants of the church might be called upon to carry out tasks best fulfilled by men. Ushers are on the front line of the church interacting with the public.

As such, limiting the position to men only cuts down on the possibility for hanky-panky on the part of flirtatious visitors or even sexual predators coming into the church. So if we are to be so uptight about untoward interactions between female ushers and male visitors, shouldn't we be as concerned about improper attraction or spats between a male usher and a female visitor or some lawsuit gold-digger attempting to make a buck off harassment or abuse allegations?

If the threat of this kind of scandal or outrage is to be a foremost preoccupation, then why would Shelton Smith approve of men being allowed to serve in the nursery? For is not molestation a greater evil than a momentary passing tingle or thrill someone might experience from a passing glance or smile in public with someone other than one's spouse.

If anything, wouldn't these potentialities necessitate female ushers to interact with female visitors and male ushers to interact with male visitors. Others will respond that only men should be ushers because it is commanded that women are to remain silent in church according to I Corinthians 14:34..

Verbal communication is at the heart of the usher's ministry as they great people and direct them to where they need to go. If that is the case, should women be forbidden from choir membership and (perhaps even more importantly) musical solos? For along with the pastor's sermon and Scriptural readings, music plays a pivotal role in conveying the doctrine and teaching of the church.

An additional argument could be made that only men should be ushers since these officers and volunteers are usually responsible for the collection of the offering. I am aware of no Scripture that forbids women from handling finances and currency. From the list of virtues and enterprises elucidated in Proverbs 31, it would seem that women of godly character would excel in just such an arena.

It will no doubt be retorted that money is dirty. As such, only burly, gruff men should handle something as filthy. If that is the case, why does it usually fall to women to toil in the kitchen before, after, and during the church suppers?

Scripture does indeed teach that men and women are distinct creations that each exhibit the creative nature and purpose of God in an unique manner. However, when determining what exactly that entails, the exegete must be careful to distinguish what exactly is there in the text from what may be a sincere yet single interpretation among several within a spectrum of acceptability.

By Frederick Meekins

Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth

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Saturday, August 25, 2018

Friday, August 24, 2018

Modern Developments In Protestant Monasticism

Flapper Mannequin

Flapper Mannequin

Photo by Frederick Meekins

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What Is Monasticism?

Trump Condemned For Opposing Genocide Of South African Whites

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The Vigor Of Anglican Christianity

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Thursday, August 23, 2018

Fairy With Leopard

Fairy With Leopard

Photo by Frederick Meekins

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Will The ACLU Come To The Defense Of Alex Jones?

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California Thought Police Prepare Jihad Against State Churches

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Will Cinematic Iron Man Be Replaced By Angry Black Chick?

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Extraterrestrials Far Beyond Anything We Can Imagine

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Goodall Speculates Bigfoot Exists

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Animal Euthanizing PETA Tosses Fit Animal Crackers Boxes Depicted Cages

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Leather Mannequin

Leather Mannequin

Photo by Frederick Meekins

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Pleiadian Republican No Different Than Other Ranking Thought Leaders

The Internet is having a good laugh at the Miami Herald’s endorsement of a candidate running in a Republican primary claiming she was abducted by extraterrestrials.

Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera believes that since she was a small child she has been visited numerous times by Pleiadians sharing with her a message that God is not so much a person as a universal energy.

Before carting her off for psychiatric evaluation, how is what she is professing appreciably different than what is constantly espoused by the media-political establishment?

On Friday’s, the History Channel broadcasts nothing but programming insisting that world religions and ancient cultures were founded by beings from that very portion of the celestial sphere and now that programming block has been replicated to repeat Sunday evenings on A&E.

George Lucas became a household name and made a boatload of money in the process producing blockbusters for the purposes of emphasizing this very same worldview about the nature of God.

Sophisticates will reply that such ideas are acceptable in the world of entertainment.

However, when it comes to actual political power, it should only be handed to those whose minds are down to earth and not so much lost in the stars.

Then perhaps these advocates of sanity will be as forceful in their opposition to federal money going to sponsor conferences in posh resorts where academics discuss the ramifications of extraterrestrial intelligence not so much as topic of dispassionate scientific curiosity but rather to propagandize how traditional theism is the philosophy that must be eradicated if the human species is to ever advance beyond our terrestrial limitations.

Mainstream journalism cannot have it both ways.

It cannot treat Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera as a pariah yet not compel Mitt Romney to come clean about the astrotheological presuppositions of his own Mormon faith positing that God was once a man from the planet Kolob and that you too can one day become the deity of your own little corner of the cosmos.

By Frederick Meekins

How Involved Must Christians Get With Aggressive Deadbeats?

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South Africa On The Verge Of Anti-White Communist Revolution

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Antifa Goons Attack Sanderian For Holding Aloft Old Glory

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How To Publish and Sell Science Fiction In The 21st Century

Compelling Evidence For Life Outside Of Earth

Ecosexuals Turned On By Hard Wood

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Tuesday, August 21, 2018

MeToo Ringleader Accused Of Molestation

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Junker Truck

Junker Truck

The Great UFO Debate

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How To Be A Comic Book Writer with Peter David

Holy Roller Apparently Didn't Have As Much Faith As Congregation Led To Believe

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Is Russia On The Verge Of Strategic Technological Superiority?

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Quest To Develop Artificial Intelligence Merging With Campaign To Eliminate God

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Fifteen Reasons Why To Date A Single Mom Refuted

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Woman Condemns Men Refusing To Be Taken Advantage Of

Monday, August 20, 2018

Pyromaniac Power Company Blames Fires It Started On Global Warming

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Welfare Deadbeats Illegally Clog City Streets With ATV’s

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The Dangers Of Dating A Single Mom

Will Amazon Dots Report Politically Correct Utterances To Thought Police?

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Outrage Erupts Over Photo Of Sacred Mormon Undies

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Catwoman Dumps Batman At The Altar

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Willow Creek Hit With $3 Million Molestation Settlement

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Global Warming Skeptics Accused Of Assassinating Aretha Franklin

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Cuomo Insinuates American Will Never Be Great Without Comprehensive Redistributive Upheaval

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UFO’s In Todays 21st Century World

Law Forbidding White Ownership Of Bald Eagle Feathers Inherently Racist

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Mother Teresa’s Order Investigated For Human Trafficking

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Nun Arrested Serving As Drug Mule

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Eurocrats Surrender Press Control To Radical Jihadists

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Sunday, August 12, 2018

The Evolution Of Modern Fantasy

Buddhist Fraud Learns Desire Really Does Cause Suffering

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Elites Mock Those Taking The Threats They've Harped Seriously

Liberals hate no one more than those that take the implications of progressivist ideas seriously.

Advocates of that particular ideology no doubt ranked among the foremost ridiculing President Trump's proposal of a new branch of the armed forces for now referred to as the “Space Force” that will be dedicated to defending against threats from beyond the Earth's atmosphere.

But are not Hollywood leftists the ones making significant livelihoods promoting the message that the foremost security challenges will eventually originate from that particular operational theater?

Space-centered invasions or conflicts have been the topics of some of cinema's greatest blockbusters.

The History Channel has become so identified with extraterrestrials that one episode of South Park spoofed a documentary on the network suggesting that Thanksgiving actually commemorates a meeting between the Pilgrim forefathers and ancient aliens.

Sophisticates will sneer that Trump's Space Force is not intended to take on an unidentified flying saucer menace but rather America's own earth-based geopolitical adversaries.

Fair enough, but are not our own Progressives the ones harping what a renewed threat Russia poses and how President Trump before now did not take that particular regime seriously?

By Frederick Meekins

Are The Psychologically Compromised Being Deliberately Poisoned?

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Saturday, August 11, 2018

White Wagon

White Wagon

Photo by Frederick Meekins

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Tolerancemongers Call For A Ban On Opposing Banning

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