The description for this video reads: “Outside during a fire drill Dr. Schaap challenged a group of girls to hit him with a snowball.”
Does this whole scene strike anybody else as just a bit off? I can’t quite put my finger on it but the whole thing just makes me twitchy.
Apparently, Rick Santorum today held a campaign rally at Crown College and spoke from behind the pulpit in the sanctuary of Temple Baptist Church.
Normally, Crown College wouldn’t let a Roman Catholic any closer to the platform than the altar but I guess politics trumps religion this time around.
When the time shall come upon thee that thou art ready to prepare the hearts of the people for the sermon then shalt thou stand before the congregation and shall instruct them to take up their hymnal and either sing or make a “joyful noise” — for that is a a joke that shall never grow old (never grow old). And the people shall stand and sing at the sound of thy command and they shall raise their hymnbooks from the little racks on the backs of the pews and then proceed to not look at them at all for they know all the words already. And they shall lift of their voices to sing on the one and four for in such doth the Lord delight.
And from the Majesty Hymnal and the Soul-Stirring Songs and Hymns and the Songs & Hymns of Revival thou shalt surely sing. For the songs therein may contain the occasional Gaither number but they have long since been cleaned up and added to the canon of songs in which the Lord delights (as long as thou shalt accompany them only by piano). And if thou art in any wise uncertain as to whether or not any other hymnal is up to snuff then simply check the words to At the Cross and if they have conspired to remove the word “worm” from the first verse then chuck it. But of the responsive readings in the back of the hymnal we give no commandment because we’re not even sure why they’re there.
And thou shalt in no wise conspire to to use a video projector to replace the hymn book for this is a great and terrible step towards wanton use of hands in worship. For in the day that thou shalt let any person have their hands unencumbered by a hymnal then shalt come terrible temptation to clap them together or raise them above shoulder level or wave them in the air like they just don’t care. For such displays are an abomination in the sight of the pastor who shall then begin to suspect that people are enjoying the music more than the sermon which follows.
But of the holding of the hymnal the following rules apply. It shall in no wise be the case with the unmarried couples that they both touch the hymnal for the man should with great care hold the hymnal for both parties and he shall hold it at an awkward angle where neither of them can see to avoid all appearance of evil and flirty fingers. Married couples may hold the hymnal together with one hand on each side as long as they promise to keep their minds on the singing and not engage in finger hanky-panky either.
So shalt thou dwell in the church with gladness and so shalt thy children and thy children’s children learn the music that was only written in the last century or so but is better than everything that has ever come before it or shall ever be written afterward. And thou shalt keep them on the straight and narrow and rhythmless path forever.
Independent Baptist Book of Everlasting Rules and Requirements p 664.
If his campaign website is to be believed, Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum will be holding a “Rally for Rick” in the auditorium of Crown College at noon today.
I wonder if one of the students will be brave enough to try to hand him a gospel tract and convert him from his Catholic ways. Perhaps they’re operating today under the special exception that Roman Catholics and Mormons are Christians during election years.
Update 1: The rally was held in the 3,000-seat sanctuary of Temple Baptist Church, not at nearby Crown College as was initially planned. The church operates the college.
Tomorrow perhaps I’ll write some happy, silly thing — Lord knows there’s been a dearth of that kind of levity in my posts of late — but tonight as I sit staring at my computer screen I’m reminded of something that my father told his children repeatedly: “put your chair down on all four legs before you break it!” As I recall, we did go through an inordinate number of chairs.
There was, of course, another thing that he used to tell us which bears slightly more relevance to my thoughts tonight and that is this: “Sometimes your enemies will tell you the truth about yourself when nobody else will. It may be a distorted and exaggerated truth but it’s worth considering it nonetheless.” In light of that bit of fatherly wisdom, I sometimes stop and think about the things that fundamentalists say about me and about us. Are they even the tiniest bit true? Is there value and insight to be gained even from distorted and partial truths? Perhaps there is.
For if we have learned nothing else in fundamentalism this truth abides eternal: that we should always hate and fear the other with a deep and fervent passion. But what does it profit us if all we’ve learned to do by leaving the church of fundamentalism is to switch our name tags at the door and continue on as ever we were in that same path of despising the others who are not we? It was no simple command that Our Lord gave us when he told us to love our neighbor and He gave us no exclusion clause for people who will never love us back.
It falls then to us to make their words untrue. If they call us bitter let them find us always loving. If they call us liars let them find us honest to a fault. If they call us quick to wrath, may they be confused by our graciousness and perturbed by our serenity.
So let us each examine our own self. As it is written: “let the one who thinks that he is standing take heed lest he fall.” Perhaps we should put that chair down on all four legs after all.