Greg Johnston

(Ran out of characters but to be clear I agree with you and am commenting on the nature of some people’s replies here!)

Any conversation about the proposition “Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation” really clarifies people’s relationships to logic.

It doesn’t follow that everything in Scripture is necessary to salvation, or even that nothing else contains those things! Just what it says on the tin…

Excellent pickle to non-pickle ratio there too

This is a great example of the way in which non-technical people have been duped into pulling LLMs into areas where traditional computing is really good and LLMs are really bad… like generating invoices and payment records.

Yeah… but you’re gonna do what you want to do, no matter what you usually do

But agreed that if you’re worried about feeling out of place or awkward then having a volunteer role could be a good idea

I’ve attended mine for 11 years — which I guess would be 5 without voice or vote and 6 as a delegate. I can only imagine responding “that’s so awesome!” to someone being there as a visitor, and if anyone has any another response… they need Jesus.

YouTube video by Greg Johnston Lazy Leptos: WASM code splitting for fun and profit

For my Rust/web programming followers: here’s a short video introducing the code-splitting features released in Leptos this week youtu.be/w5fhcoxQnII?...

Clergy, clergy; you are troubled about many things. But one thing is needful!

Book recs:

- Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor
- Julia Gatta, The Nearness of God
- Christopher Beeley, Leading God’s People

These are less “how do I do pastoral care?” and more “what is the pastor?” All different, all quite good in my opinion and very formative for me.

I know a handful of clergy who’d list her as an inspiration for their particular contemplative practice or whatever. Nobody else would have any idea who she is.

Unlike Spong, she has no pastoral authority or public leadership role. Idk her theological commitments but they wouldn’t be a scandal.

I don’t think it’s likely to help us treat humans better if we become more used to talking to computers

(With a nod to my half-remembered reading of Rawls’s wonderful _Political Liberalism_, which would remind me that our discourse *in the public sphere* needs to be made along the lines of shared values on which people of multiple faiths and philosophical commitments can converge.)

To put the same idea another way: “YOLO” is an eschatological claim!

It is hard to do Christian ethics if there’s a firewall separating it from theology in general, especially in a world that is functionally utilitarian.

And conversely our default cultural ethics smuggles in its own commitments

Honestly if someone had asked me whether “Yeti Blood Oath Seminary Follies” was a Mountain Goats track title before I’d seen the story, I’d have been like 50-50. Maybe a B-side I didn’t know?

Gives “Maize Stalk Drinking Blood” title vibes, you know?

One of the cool things about early medieval history is that there are both many more weird Latin names and many more weird Germanic names than we use today, along w our names.

So eg I just read a page that included Bishop Sagittarius (v Latin), Queen Radegund (v Germanic), and also a Gregory.

But in a literary sense, perhaps the real face-punch was the friend you made along the way who bit your finger off and died in the flames of the very mountain in which evil thought it had forged its ultimate victory, thereby undoing all its works and saving the world by giving his own life?

“A talented philologist of deep faith with an ability to empathetize with non-human rational beings?” [JRRT thoughtfully puffs on pipe.] “I don’t see the connection at all.”

update: the protagonist has punched the Devil in the face

yes

What’s “no formation” in this context? No MDiv? Limited experience as a layperson in an Episcopal church? Limited experience as a layperson in any church?

I am having trouble making sense of the idea that 7 years of discernment + an MDiv is the fast track, empirically speaking

Don’t worry though, now a guy has plummeted from the sky to have a philosophical conversation!

(I love Lewis and it’s a good book, it’s also just hilarious)

(I say I can only speak for myself but I’ve also supervised seminarians and work with our diocesan newly-ordained clergy group)

There *are* things that make it easier/harder that people sometimes can’t control, don’t know about, or don’t agree with… so there’s no “if you just do X it will be fine”

I can only speak for myself in saying that my experience (of the discernment process and seminary) ranged from “meaningful and profound” to “basically fine with some stressful moments.” It is also true that actual ordained ministry has been an even better experience.

Simultaneously reading The Fellowship of the Ring (to my kiddo) and Perelandra (myself, for the first time) and I’m reminded of why Tolkien thought Lewis’s writing was a bit too… obvious.

“Okay so there’s a WOMAN. She’s the only person except this MAN. And she DOES NOT KNOW GOOD AND EVIL.”

k Jack

A Religious Rebellion Against Mass Deportation American Christians are showing increasing discomfort with Trump’s signature policy.

Turns out a lot of people who actually believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ don't think getting thrown into a concentration camp, deported to a country they're not from, or eaten by gators is a fitting punishment for working under the table.

The RTS math is a bit sus for me. Yes they require 41 credits of Greek/Hebrew/OT/NT. But the MDiv is 3 yrs and 106 credits. SBTS is 3 yrs/84 credits. (YDS is 3 yrs/72 credits.) So while their program clearly has lots of Bible, I think at a point they’re just inflating what a credit-hour means here.

As a man, I feel I’m qualified to talk about any topic authoritatively for about 30 minutes at a time, and then publish that on the Internet, so — anything really, you pick

Megan we should start a podcast

Purely speaking from my own experience, it was not hard to fit that number of credits of Bible (6 OT, 6 NT, 9 language) into a mainline MDiv (assuming 3 credits = a semester course, which is how my schools have defined it)

Whether people choose that or not is another question I guess.