Archive for the ‘Calvin L. Smith’ Category

Posted on January 7, 2010 - by Calvin L. Smith

Should a Christian Appear on Press TV?

Since its launch in 2007 a number of Christians have appeared on Press TV, including one I chatted with some time later who appeared a little embarrassed for having done so. Why, exactly? Well, especially since the Iranian elections there has been a flurry of allegations by various commentators in the media and elsewhere concerning the channel’s agenda and methods, while it seems a number of politicians, analysts and experts wishing to be taken seriously are increasingly doubtful about the wisdom of appearing on Press TV. Thus, in light of these perceptions of the channel and what it represents, the question of whether or not a Christian should appear on Press TV is an important one for believers contemplating how best to engage with the public square.

But first some background on Press TV, which is a 24-hour, English-language, Iranian news and current affairs channel set up by Tehran with the express aim of promoting the regime’s perspective. As such, accusations of bias, selective reporting, even misrepresentation, abound. In its broadcasting Press TV has little time for the US and Western governments, though much of its vitriol is especially reserved for Tehran’s nemesis, Israel and international Zionism (whatever that is), while the channel has also been accused of anti-Semitism. Moreover, several of its presenters include British politicians on the hard left, for example, George Galloway and Jeremy Corbyn, who are deeply critical of Western governments and Israel. Further comment on Press TV can be found in a piece by The Times and The Independent columnist Dominic Lawson, who publishes a comment on the channel in the The Times newspaper here, while Jeremy Paxman on the BBC’s Newsnight interviews a Press spokesman here (the bit I enjoyed the most is about 5 minutes in, when the Press TV guy challenges a fellow guest to provide him examples of propaganda on the channel, whereupon the other guest, much to the chagrin of the channel’s representative who somehow thought he had caught out his opponent, begins to list example after example in a staccato monotone). (more…)

Posted on December 31, 2009 - by Calvin L. Smith

Predictions for the New Year and Forthcoming Decade

Not wanting to be left out of the prediction business so ubiquitous this time of the year, over at my blog site I’ve offered my own tongue-in-cheek predictions for the forthcoming year and decade, with entries for the World Stage, Politics, Society, Entertainment and the Media. Find a sample below, with my predictions for the latter. Happy New Year!

ENTERTAINMENT
Simon Cowell becomes a born again Christian and launches a new TV talent show to find the best preacher in Britain (he calls it the Homily Factor). Although auditions tend to be pretty long, with various wacky competitors (for example, the illiterate, the theologically-untrained, the plain boring, those who just like to hear the sound of their own voice, those who preach unnecessarily long sermons, or the nutcases who shouldn’t be let loose anywhere near a pulpit) the show immediately becomes a runaway success, with Brits by their millions tuning in to hear the finalists. Panelists consist of internationally respected leading world preachers. As a result of the show a new Top 40 preachers’ chart is launched and soon compilation albums of the best sermons hit the stores, with titles such as Now That’s What I Call Preaching 43, Totally Preaching 12, and for the followers of the prosperity televangelists who gather yearly at venues in Ibiza, the Ministry of Pound. Inevitably, Homily Factor captures the No. 1 sermon each Christmas, much to the consternation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Elsewhere in the entertainment world, Richard Dawkins writes yet another book, this time positing the possibility of Intelligent Design after all (though he maintains it could only possibly be by intelligent aliens). Unfortunately for him some 50% of the population remain of the view that Dawkins does not exist.

Read the rest of the article .

Posted on December 30, 2009 - by Calvin L. Smith

Last Day of Poll on Spiritual Gifts

Earlier this month I uploaded a poll on spiritual gifts to my blog site at www.calvinlsmith.com. However, so far just a few people (far fewer than the traffic the site receives) have voted, and today is the last day of the poll, which I hoped would give me an inkling of the theological stance of the blog’s visitors. So if you are a repeat visitor to my blog but haven’t yet voted, click on the link above and cast your vote today. The poll is in the right-hand column about a third of the way down the page. Thanks.

Posted on December 30, 2009 - by Calvin L. Smith

Evangelicalism and Politics: Then and Now

The latest edition of the Evangelical Review of Society and Politics has just been published. Contributions include a new forum, with this edition looking at Evangelicals and war by Paul Alexander, Peter Dixon, Brian Edgar, Thomas Simpson and Derek Tidball; a paper examining pacifism by Stephen Vantassel; a piece exploring the Christian understanding of the concept of human ‘community’, by G.J. Clarke (Centre for Public Christianity), Andrew J.B. Cameron and Michael P. Jensen (both of Moore Theological College); and a paper which looks at the influence of the Christian Right in US presidential politics since Nixon, by David Cowan. There are also various book reviews and other items, including a short editorial I wrote revisiting Evangelicalism and politic, which is reproduced in full below. (more…)

Posted on December 11, 2009 - by Calvin L. Smith

Poll on Spiritual Gifts

I have a new poll on spiritual gifts over at my blog. Details can be found here: http://www.calvinlsmith.com/2009/12/poll-result-and-new-poll-on-spiritual.html Feel free to come over and vote.

Posted on December 11, 2009 - by Calvin L. Smith

Ten Features (8 good, 2 bad) of the Current AGW Debate

In the lead-up to the forthcoming Copenhagen summit, man-made climate change (also known as Anthropogenic Global Warming, or AGW ) is being even more ubiquitously reported in the media than usual (if that were possible), with a flurry of apocalyptic scare stories and grave pronouncements by government officials. Deliciously, the climate change ideologues have become more apoplectic of late, as Copenhagen looms and, one suspects, in the wake of the highly damaging so-called “Climategate” leaked emails scandal. Anyway, not wishing to be left out of the current media frenzy, here’s my ha’penny’s worth… Ten features (eight bad, two good) of the current AGW debate.

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Posted on November 24, 2009 - by Calvin L. Smith

Stephen Sizer as Anti-Replacement Theology Champion?

I note Stephen Sizer will be speaking at Bethlehem Bible College’s Christ at the Checkpoint conference (March 2010), aimed at promoting a reading and reflection upon Scripture from a distinctly Palestinian perspective. The title of Sizer’s paper is “Israel and the Church: Challenging Zionism, Anti-Semitism and Replacement Theology.”

Let’s leave aside for the moment the supercessionist-heavy list of speakers (excluding, of course, Walter Kaiser, a respected theologian taking the opposite view), which suggests there is unlikely to be a much-needed Evangelical theological breakthrough on the Israeli-Palestinian issue at this conference and instead yet more preaching to the choir and plenty of back-slapping. If only those critical of Christian Zionism could intelligently disengage it from supercessionism, they might find they’d command wider support.

Anyway, the notion of Stephen challenging replacement theology appears somewhat incongruous. In the past, several other supercessionists have tried (not very successfully) to distance themselves from the label “replacement theology”. You see, ditching punitive supercessionism while holding to variations of either economic or structural supercessionism (see R. Kendall Soulen’s useful book The God of Israel and Christian Theology for definitions of the terminology) doesn’t qualify as having eschewed replacement theology. True, there are technical differences between these variations of supercessionism, nonetheless all mean the same thing semantically and theologically: whether one maintains Israel has been replaced or subsumed by, or redefined/extended in light of the Church, however one chooses to word it, it is still replacement theology in concept and outcome. God’s historic people are superceded.

Thus, given how, in our correspondence last year Stephen stated categorially the Jews are no longer God’s chosen people, I will be interested to see how exactly he intends to challenge replacement theology. At the very least his paper’s title is disingenuous, even misleading. It is certainly amusing. At the risk of sounding pejorative, it’s like the Pope presenting a paper challenging Catholicism, or Benny Hinn criticising the excesses of Charismaticism. Though no doubt it will be embraced with gusto at the conference, it just won’t wash across the wider theological world.

Originally posted on www.calvinlsmith.com
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Posted on October 29, 2009 - by Calvin L. Smith

Intercultural Theology: Pluralist Relativism or Democratic Asolutism?

Several weeks back I asked for definitions of intercultural theology from both postmodern and Christian perspectives, offering a guest blog post for the best answer in 200 words or less. There were no takers (!) so I thought I’d better wrap up this one so we can move on. Here are my 200 words on the topic.

Intercultural theology is a broad term which can generally refer to the study of religion and cultures and often forms part of a missions/missiology degree. But more specifically it has two distinct meanings, closely related but quite different, within postmodern and Christian settings. Drawing on postcolonial theory and thus challenging Western theology’s automatic privileged position, both seek to explore how local factors, culture and worldviews shape theological inquiry. (Actually there is a delicious irony here, given the fundamentally Western nature of postmodern thought.) But whereas a postmodern understanding of intercultural theology emphasises pluralism and relativism, so that the outcome is a collection of various local theologies, none of which is right or wrong, a Christian approach to intercultural theology, though still emphasising pluralism and local theological engagement, nonetheless ditches relativism. Instead the focus is on how different cultures represent equal stakeholders in the formulation of theology (a view expressed by the pioneering scholar of Pentecostalism Walter Hollenwegger), so that it is not just a Western stronghold, yet in keeping with the Christian concepts of absolutism and truth there still exists such a thing as good and bad theology. In short, the postmodern approach regards theology as a pluralist, relativist exercise, while Christian interculturalists instead emphasise a democratic yet absolutist approach (that is, they are pluralist to a degree as long as the ultimate outcome is truth). So while both take a similar starting point (postcolonial theory), their outworkings they are poles apart.