Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Sunday, March 31. 2013

Dead wood, Blue Model Churches, and celebrating a Living Easter amongst family, good old and new friends, and good food

From Mead on Blue Model Churches:



Neither Jesus nor any of the twelve apostles could get a job in any self-respecting mainline church in America today; none of them had a degree from an accredited seminary.



Christ is my Pastor, my Lord, my teacher, my guide, and my friend. Happy Easter, readers. The Barrister team is off to occupy our (mainline but distinctly non-Progressive and verging on evangelical) New England Congregational church, then a long brunch-lunch with cocktails and champagne, oysters, clams, squid, lobsters, foie gras sliders, rare prime rib with horseradish and rare lamb chops, Halibut with caper and tuna sauce, ridiculous desserts, then (for me) naptime. Why not?

Posted by The Barrister at 09:19 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

The true "genius of American Christianity" was to never have or support a government program to accomplish its goals.
#1 John on 2013-03-31 09:51 (Reply)
Funny you should mention that mainline church thing and seminary. One of my best friends is a Presbyterian Pastor and he's an auto mechanic in his real job. A lot of the pastors around here have day jobs as teachers, university professors, I know one Lutheran minster who is a retired Army Master Sergeant (Combat Armor) who drives buses because he got bored - at least down here, it's not as important I guess - it's The Word that is important.

In any case, have a blessed and Happy Easter.
#2 Tom Francis on 2013-03-31 11:01 (Reply)
Most graduates of mainline seminaries are not becoming pastors in any event, they primarily are going into church bureaucracy or becoming religiously tinged social activists. This is one reason the mainline denominations are collapsing, they are supporting large numbers of people that are not actually promoting the Gospel. Although some of those denomination are collapsing because the people in the pew are no longer willing to financially support such a system. This is one reason why my church no longer supports our national denomination, especially since the national denomination actively promotes things directly contrary to Scripture and the Gospel.
#3 Jim on 2013-03-31 16:41 (Reply)
My Congo church voted to quit the UCC several years ago.
#3.1 Bird Dog on 2013-03-31 16:58 (Reply)
The New Testament describes no church organization above the level of the local congregation. God did not authorize any man to hold power over people with whom that man does not regularly worship.

Having any such form of hierarchy just makes it easier for Satan to take over a church.
#4 John on 2013-03-31 19:43 (Reply)
so, in your opinion, James, Peter, Paul and the others at the Council of Jerusalem (AD 50, described in Acts) didn't lay down the law for early Christian communities outside of Jerusalem on circumcision and mosaic law for gentile converts? because if church leadership based in Jerusalem had authority to tell believers in Antioch, Cyprus, Asia Minor, etc. what to believe, then there's an organization with authority above the local level.

now, of course, orthodox Christianity could have been wrong for the last 2,000 years and the internets just discovered this, I'm open minded here.

so which of the hierarchical orthodox churches has satan "taken over"? I'm thinking the russian orthodox because, you know ... "russian".
#4.1 wirraway on 2013-04-01 03:56 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.