Ep. 75: Sex Month

[bluequill]

Emery and Scott, I really liked the new podcast... and the format (of using Scott's sermon) was great! Good job, both of you, and thanks!

[Emery]

Thanks a lot guys. I guess a lot of this rides on how interesting Scott's sermon topics are. We'll stick to the sermons when we can, and veer off when we need to.

[Brad]

I've been curious about something, Scott. Do any folks from your congregation listen to the podcast and/or participate in the forum?
If you generally try to keep the two aspects of your life separate, that would be an understandable and entirely practical position, in my view. Just curious how you handle that...

Yes some of the folks from my church listen and participate, but I do not want to point them out. If they want to own up to their own closeted skeletons, it is up to them!

I am a proponent of honest dialogue, thoughtful questioning, and practiced faith. To that end, this podcast has been good for me, and I think would be beneficial to a good number of folks at New Horizon as well.

Thanks for the comments!

Scott,
Does anything about the fact that some of your parishioners participate here but do not identify themselves as members of your church bother you?
Do any of them pretend to live in other locales so as to avoid inference that they are members of your church, or do any even pretend to be atheists?

If so, I suggest to you that this is an example, albeit a small one, of the common trait of Christians to leave personal integrity behind when they can persuade themselves that they're doing or saying something in the service of their group or its leader. It's a small example of the sort of mentality that makes religion, by definition, dangerous.

Of course, this sort of thing is always rationalized as being "for God" and is not thought of by believers as dishonesty at all. To be blunt, as far as I'm concerned, any such people are simply more liars "for Jesus."

Of course, it would violate the spirit of the forum for it to appear to be a subsidiary arm of your ministry, which could conceivably happen if a large number of your congregation began to spend time here. But honesty is honesty and dishonesty is dishonesty no matter how rationalized.

[JustJim]

Does anything about the fact that some of your parishioners participate here but do not identify themselves as members of your church bother you?
Do any of them pretend to live in other locales so as to avoid inference that they are members of your church, or do any even pretend to be atheists?

If so*, I suggest to you that this is an example, albeit a small one, of the common trait of Christians to leave personal integrity behind when they can persuade themselves that they're doing or saying something in the service of their group or its leader. It's a small example of the sort of mentality that makes religion, by definition, dangerous.

Of course, this sort of thing is always rationalized as being "for God" and is not thought of by believers as dishonesty at all. To be blunt, as far as I'm concerned, any such people are simply more liars "for Jesus."

Of course, it would violate the spirit of the forum for it to appear to be a subsidiary arm of your ministry, which could conceivably happen if a large number of your congregation began to spend time here. But honesty is honesty and dishonesty is dishonesty no matter how rationalized.

When you have to work that hard to build a strawman argument, it might be easier to just leave it alone, don't ya think?

* - And if not, would it be okay for Scott to suggest to you that this is an example, albeit a small one, that it is uncommon for Christians to leave personal integrity behind in those situations? Your implied accusations are based on an unsubstantiated strawman supposition, and are, therefore, meaningless. It may or may not be true that Christians leave their integrity behind in those situations, but you haven't established that except to insinuate it. Got any data or studies to back that up?

Jim

[NH Baritone]

Yes some of the folks from my church listen and participate, but I do not want to point them out. If they want to own up to their own closeted skeletons, it is up to them!

I am a proponent of honest dialogue, thoughtful questioning, and practiced faith. To that end, this podcast has been good for me, and I think would be beneficial to a good number of folks at New Horizon as well.

Scott,
Does anything about the fact that some of your parishioners participate here but do not identify themselves as members of your church bother you?
Do any of them pretend to live in other locales so as to avoid inference that they are members of your church, or do any even pretend to be atheists?

*If so, I suggest to you that this is an example, albeit a small one, of the common trait of Christians to leave personal integrity behind when they can persuade themselves that they're doing or saying something in the service of their group or its leader. It's a small example of the sort of mentality that makes religion, by definition, dangerous.

Of course, this sort of thing is always rationalized as being "for God" and is not thought of by believers as dishonesty at all. To be blunt, as far as I'm concerned, any such people are simply more liars "for Jesus."

Of course, it would violate the spirit of the forum for it to appear to be a subsidiary arm of your ministry, which could conceivably happen if a large number of your congregation began to spend time here. But honesty is honesty and dishonesty is dishonesty no matter how rationalized.

*A conclusion unsupported by the evidence at hand. There are many possible motivations for their anonymity, and affiliation with Scott outside of the C&A forum hardly taints any argument they may present, Brad ... if that's your REAL name.

[Brad]

Points taken.
You're both correct - upon re-reading, I clearly went too far, and I'll make no excuses.

FWIW, Brad is my real name.

[JustJim]

FWIW, Brad is my real name.

Cool! My real name is.. you guessed it... Just!

Jim

[Brad]

Now that I think of it, on not only this occasion, but on one or two other occasions I can think of, I've hammered Scott unfairly and unnecessarily. And there are probably a couple of more such occasions that I haven't recognized.

So for now, this is as good a time and place as any for me to offer my apology to you, Scott.
And I hope at some point I can do so also face-to-face, or at least by phone.

[Pseudonym]

My real name isn't "Pseudonym". Just sayin'.

[mitchellmckain]

There are many possible motivations for their anonymity, and affiliation with Scott outside of the C&A forum hardly taints any argument they may present,

No kidding... like maybe you might be interested at looking at sharks from from a boat or in an aquarium but that doesn't mean you would want to jump in the water with them, or if you are in the water already, then you probably don't want the sharks to know that you are there.

[yjoeyh]

I just finished listening to this show. Here are a few of my thoughts...

1. LOVE that "Calling on You" by Stryper has returned as the show theme. I'm a huge fan and have been even before I became a Christian. You might even say that the band was somewhat instrumental in leading me towards my conversion. I'm friends with Oz Fox on Facebook so I might send him a note of invitation to see if he might be interested in participating sometime.

2. I think the new format it fine, but I'm concerned that the Christian worldview is not being presented very clearly. I'm growing a bit weary of hearing Scott say, "Yeah, I agree" no matter what points Emery brings up. There were several times in this show where Emery presupposed the nature of the Christian viewpoint very poorly and Scott never called him out on it. Also, Emery made several comments that seemed to be inconsistent with the atheist worldview and Scott never really pointed that out either. I may get scolded for this, but I actually miss having Tony English on the show. Whether you agreed with him or not, he did do a pretty good job of presenting a rational Christian worldview. The shows were more interesting and the forums were a lot more active when he was on. That's just my observation.

Anyway, I'm definitely still a fan and looking forward to future shows. Thanks for all you guys do!

[Emery]

Hey, thanks for the comments yjoeyh. I'll see what I can do to mix up the show for more variety.

[Odiex]

I think my thoughts on the subject are best summarized by the following quote.

"God giving advice on sex is like Geppetto giving Pinocchio dance lessons. Unlike Pinocchio, there are no strings on me." -A. D'Agio