Boone here. As I told the DBU Snipe Hunter, lately I'm either busy or exhausted; however I come out of retirement just this once to praise today's chapel.

Dr. Bell spoke in chapel (even if only a sentence, it's as if my life is now fulfilled).

Chris Foley spoke, and dared to use Scripture and say something about repentance. Praise the Lord!

A human video to the coolest Skillet song EVER. Excellent.

Sigh. I suppose one of us will post complaints, if there are any from someone with time. Good day, peeps.

I skipped again; anyone can submit, be they happy or angry with chapel, or ambivalent, or various other adjectives.

Be on the lookout for an update on the Robert Webber chapel sometime. It'll be late, but it'll be here.

And in the meantime, those of you who drink sodas in the LC can leave your cans at the Writing Center, and I'll see that they get recycled. Good day,

Boone

People, I'm not going to every chapel any more! Someone submit stuff! Anyways, I didn't go to Friday, Nov. 12's, chapel either, but apparently the freshmen got a good dose of BGCT propaganda. The news is: Baptists don't impose their beleifs on other people.

Furthermore, Baptists do not impose their beliefs on each other, or on themselves. Baptist institutions do not impose their beliefs on their employees; Baptist organizations pay their employees and give them benefits like huge health insurance, nice cars, house, 2,500 dollars of tuition per semester for their children . . . but Baptist organizations do not ever, under any circumstances, have their employees sign the company mission statement.

Never.

Anyways, Friday's chapel was BGCT propaganda standing against the International Mission Board and the Southern Baptist Convention, etc. I hate to call it like it is, but when I'm calling it like I see it and it's just so darned obvious . . . .

Objections, disagreements, dissent, and refutations are welcome and will be posted if you like. dbusnipe@yahoo.com

Poor Kerry just conceded; I think he had every right to ask for an Ohio recount; I appreciate that gesture of concession; a noble thing it was, says I and Yoda. Poor guy had everything against him. EG, the popular vote was against him; that would have made a recount seem not very legitimate: opposite of last time.

We're free to speculate what else was against him. I don't buy the conspiracy theories that the Clintons wanted him to win the Dem. primaries so he'd lose so Hillary can run next time, because the primaries are decided by the masses, not by conspiring Clintons in dark rooms. However, I wonder if the Clintons didn't influence Kerry's early concession; that's the kind of decision that the masses didn't directly impact; maybe conspirators in dark rooms did influence it, and maybe they were named Bill and Hillary Clinton. It's only a theory; it's not even my theory; it's my speculation.

I shouldn't be doing this because I'm supposed to be studying for a Dr. Williams test on the Progressive Movement and other matters. I like these liturgical chapels but respect the positions of those who don't. Here's why I like them: first, we get more Scripture. Maybe six times as many judging by this one and estimating an average of about three verses for normal chapels. Second, we get better speakers because professors speak. In this case, we also get a sentence from Aquinas and Luther. I'd rather hear one sentence from them two chaps than a whole sermon from many Baptist pastors. Third, I forgot what the third reason was. Anyone with any problems, by all means, email and critique these things. Andrew Armstrong had some critical thoughts last semester; the link is probably in the Snipe Essays section. Email dbusnipe@yahoo.com and tell us your name, that you're anonymous, or a pseudonym.

In other news . . . HA HA HA! NONE SHALL ESCAPE THE TRENCHANT CRITICISM OF THE DBU SNIPE SITE, including myself. If I got caught mispelling words while correcting someone's grammar, we can catch Dr. Son for saying "Martin Luther" once and "Martin Ruther" once. Doesn't mean he's not cool. Korea rocks. Doesn't mean his Turabian skills would beat the narf out of mine any day, like Picard vs. Jar-Jar Binks or something.

Bear in mind that the conservative/Republican victories are almost universal. Gains in the Senate, House, popular president, electoral college, probably governorships, 11 state gay marriage bans. However, PROPOSITION 71 in Cali. passed handily. It provides three billion dollars to clone human embryos and destroy them for stem-cell research. Arnold supported it; Mel Gibson opposed. Terminator beat Braveheart.

(I tell you, I'm not random at all).

God bless,

Boone.

I agree with you 100% on the Chapel comments! I too really enjoy the services that Naugle and others put together. The liturgical stuff is great. You could not be more right about the Scripture as well...we get a lot, and a lot is exactly what we need! Well said.

Regarding the election...I must say, I have to give it to Kerry. Very admirable speech. That was good of him to be a man like that and, dare I say, a GENTLEman!

Chapel yesterday was actually pretty good. India Children's Choir. They were some VERY talented kids. Did a great job. The last two songs were a little unneccessary...trying to pull at emotions a bit. But for the most part, great performance. And a great message about taking God's Word to the nations...

SH

I have it on very reliable sources that worship music is NOT loud to cover up the weirdos who do nothing but talk in chapel. Maybe they're not weird. Maybe they're most of us. Whatever. Anyways, I've been told that the reason music is so loud is because it's 'contemporary worship.'

It would seem that 'contemporary worship' really is intended to be the most powerful emotional experience possible, even at the expense of the worshipper's physical health.

Those of you who are connoussiers (how on earth is that spelled?) of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra: you know what this is like. The louder the volume, the better the emotional experience, the better the catharsis, you know. Imagine listening to the TSO played very, very quietly; it would be much less fun.

But there is an alternative, ladies and gentlemen: if we remember that worship is for the purpose of giving glory to God, rather than intended for our own benefit, we needn't worry about this. My pastor yesterday said that we were going to worship "that we might experience the nearness of God."

Ladies and gentlemen, my pastor's a good guy and I like that he's an inerrantist, but I want no part of this. It's almost certainly idolatry and blasphemous. Heresy? Probably. Worship is for us to give glory to God. Not for us to experience God. Have we forgotten why God created the universe?

--Songs nicely chosen. Meaningful. Had theology in them. Praise the Lord.

Terdema Ussery would be a fun senator. Only (very minor) complaint is a few bad pronouns. Speaking of which, I think Blair Blackburn went out of his way today to avoid danging a preposition (to heck). That was a nice thing for him to do.

Continually quoted Proverbs 3:5-6. Praise the Lord.

Noted that "in all thy ways" includes every aspect of our life. Said that we need ethical Christians in the 'secular world.' I couldn't agree more. Just be sure to note that, while it's good and important for us to evangelize in our 'secular' jobs, doing these 'secular' things is also an end in itself because anything we do can/should be done to the glory of God. I Cor. 10:31, maybe. Find your own verse if that wasn't right; there's many of them.

Commentary is in order in his comments that we shouldn't try to prove Scripture's validity. I think he was referring to proving it to non-Christians. With this I tend to agree, but for very specific reasons.

I agree with John Calvin. This is what I got out of some of the early chapters of the Institutes. There is more than enough evidence to prove the Bible, if we needed it. But because non-redeemed man is so sinful, his reason is broken by sin and is not able (because not willing) to grasp the logic showing the Bible to be true. What is capable of proving it to us is God himself making us know it, what we'd call 'the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit' about Scripture. Presumably this is what Terdema meant when he said that we know the Bible is trustworthy because it's been revealed.

Where does that leave the logical evidence? Calvin said it's there if we need it. The implications are that it's there for negative apologetics. Positive apologetics would use the evidence to prove the Bible true. Negative apologetics uses evidence, sometimes the same evidence, to reply to someone who says it's false. Positive would say, "This is the evidence, so you have to accept that the Bible is true." Negative would say, "You want me to reject the Bible. Why should I? Look here, I have this evidence to show that my believing the Bible is not absurd."

But terrorists are a bit different. When I say, "We need to kill terrorists" I am showing them a lot of respect. They're not sub-human; they're human. Maybe even gloriously human. They think what they're doing is in a good cause; they're further driven to it by the abuses of Christianity and the abuses of democracy (EG, Britney Spears and other scantily clad women. Forgive me, dear ladies, but you have to be careful: you're not only making it easier for the Lange and Williams residents to stumble. Oh no, you are risking much, much more than that. Modestly is so much more lovely anyways. . . .).

Ok, I forgot what I was talking about. Anyways, terrorists need to die, but not because of being sub-human. They need to die because they are my enemies, who wanted to kill me first. I appreciate an honest enemy. I could look at a terrorist and say to him, "Ok, you want to kill me. Alright, I can deal with you wanting that. Maybe I'll be able to kill you first. May the strongest man survive."

This does not mean that I give any man any excuse for killing women and children. That is barbaric, just not sub-human. As for killing civilian men, I realize that ideal evolved as kind sortof a Western standard of war, but I do think it's true for everyone.

The human being is created in the image of God and (as such) should be honored as sacred. Not sacred like God; you people know what I mean: you've heard pro-life types say that "human life is sacred." Anyways, the human body is a part of the image of God. See First Corinthians 6:19-20 to be reminded how redeemed Christians are supposed to treat the human body.

Yet in our worship we damage it: by playing music that is too loud for the safety of the human ear, part of the human body, part of the image of God . . . playing music in such a way as to disgrace the glory of God on earth (the human being) and directly disobey, among scores of other passages, First Corinthians 6:19-20.

Don't count on my not complaining about the volume in chapel, ladies and gentlemen. It would be wrong not to. Unless someone has scientific numbers: the actual, factual, objective decible level of chapel and the decibel levels described by the American Medical Association or something as being unsafe. You know how we have that quote above about "bringing Dr. Bell to chapel"? Usually that refers to pointing out theological and hermeneutical slippery slopes. Today is an exception: today in Galatians, at about 9:45 AM Dr. Bell himself mentioned that the music in chapel is too loud.

I love Operation Christmas Child. Can't complain about that. Delighted we do it every year.

Hale danged two prepositions. Or maybe he and Blackburn danged one each. I have so much trouble telling those guys apart.

There is, I suspect, this tendency to idolize rather than icon-ize DBU. How often do people say "God is good" in chapel? Now, how often do people say "DBU is good" in chapel? Or, try this one: how often do we hear "God does good things through DBU" and how often do we hear "DBU does good things"? Maybe I missed a few things but I think we get the emphasis on DBU way, way too often as opposed to the emphasis on God.

Certainly this, or something very similar, is the case with Operation Andrew. We are so strongly encouraged to share DBU with others. How rarely we are encouraged to share Christ! How rarely those of us who can are encouraged to disciple others! The encouragement we do receive is merely encouragement. It's not encouragement to do anything.

Well my good man, I must agree with you on the volume. Typically I honestly do not care, but today it did indeed seem a little loud.

Question: Could it be that the volume is purposefully loud not to create a "worship experience", but to cover all the chatter of those who are not paying attention and/or talking?

Also, any thoughts on the testimony? To be honest, testimony chapel always makes me a little nervous. Sometimes there is just no telling what is going to come out of people's mouths. However, today was refreshing. And thoughts?

Yes, it could very well be to cover up the people who are talking. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if someone who actually works with sound or whatever were to say that it's so loud for that purpose; maybe they've been given orders to do that for that reason. The situation would be much less absurd that way, but it's still wrong to damage peoples' hearing for any reason. (Unless they're terrorists in which case we shouldn't damage their hearing so much as shoot them in the chest. Or the head. I am not a Mennonite, though I do think they are awfully respectable people.)

I had no complaints about Angel or Angela or whichever lovely name she bears. The comment about the tendency to say "DBU is good" instead of "God is good through DBU" may be in order. God bless,

Boone

Much though I hate to disappoint fans who come here for sensation, controversy, etc., I am delighted (on the whole.)

Delighted, first of all, with the well-played hymns, whose content and orthodoxy are probably flawless. Secondly and most importantly, absolute delighted with whichever Glowing Heart member it was that pointed out that worship is not confined to the chapel service. Praise the Lord.

For the negative, I am obligated to point out that the music is still too loud (when it's sounds ok through my earplugs, it's too loud). Also, Days of Elijah is rather a strange song

The BGCT's site doesn't have a list of affiliated churches like the SBTC's site does, so there's always the risk of missing something. Looks pretty safe to say that John Durham of FBC Irving is a BGCT guy. I rather liked that guy.

Refreshingly nice anecdotes, though still somewhat irrelevant to the message, serving a purpose of entertainment rather than instruction. They served their purpose well (which some say is a bad thing).

Message was that God calls ordinary people to do great things. Many Scriptural examples. This is true, but useful qualifications and comments follow.

Firstly, most of us have probably been hearing this all our lives. Is it a good thing or a bad thing that many (most?) were encouraged or strengthened or whatever and no one learned a thing? Be your own judge; you have a brain. My opinion is: sure, it's a great thing, but when we have chapels that actually teach many people something about 1% of the time, it's a bad thing.

I think the answer to the question about how one can be used by God, was that one simply has to obey God. This is true. But for those of us who are never called to do something out of the ordinary, and for all of us who are called to do plenty of ordinary things every day, being God's yes-man does not mean answering God's special call. It means answering the usual call: reading the Bible, praying, doing what's right day-in, day-out. In other words, the message's application is far, far more practical than Durham went into. I did appreciate his calling a missionary in Africa just as obedient as a missionary in the dorms.

Now, he said that God calls individuals: true. He said God does not call nations: probably true. He said that God does not call groups: ambiguous. GOD CALLS FAMILIES. Maybe he calls bigger groups than that. Beware the individualism of the modern era. The "personal relationship with God" emphasized by Baptists is still closely connected in a deep, lovely, even mystical way to a community of believers. Our own Dr. Son wrote a a book about that.

I am delighted with the Salvation Safari thing. One wonders why they aren't coordinating with the IMB or any of the other excellent missions organizations. Having no particular reason to think they aren't coordinating for a bad reason, and not even being quite certain that they aren't in the first place, I'm likely to give them some money. I like this. I like those guys doing that. Good for them, praise the Lord.

One danged preposition. He danged it all the way to heck.

Blair Robinson I think it was who said that the "all" in the Great Commission means we all need to go. That is absurd. The "all" refers to "all the world."

(The Lord of the DBU Cross Ring saga has begun in Subjective Truth. You people who didn't know this was coming: you should have.)

My friends I am in a confused state today. I am in a state of continual ecstasy which comes only once every four years, an ecstasy which I have never before experienced, for today I shall cast a ballot for the presidential election (if you’re registered in Dallas go to the Duncanville Public Library this week. dalcoelections.org). In spite of this and of my joy that the wind is in the south today, I am in the usual Monday/Wednesday depression because chapel was . . . typical.

To begin with the sniper rifle is trained today at Glowing Heart, who can't turn the music down. Possibly this is a mere mistake. MORE LIKELY SOMEONE HAS IT IN THEIR HEADS THAT THE LOUDER THE MUSIC THE BETTER THE WORSHIP EXPERIENCE. I have it in my head for some reason that the better the lyrics the more fitting the worship, and the better it changes our lifestyle the less hypocritical. The more worship informs our lifestyle and impacts our lifestyle the less confused our minds our when we do not sever faith from life, for GOD CREATED BOTH. On the optimistic side, I suppose the music was well done (ask someone else, maybe oocities.com/dbumusic), etc., etc.

Oh by the way, this one song (“You are God alone?by Billy and Cindy Foote) said that God is the way He is “by Your plan.? God plans to be what He is? What does that mean? If it means anything it could be absurd or otherwise wrong, or it could be right. If it doesn’t mean anything, let me just say that we should only sing songs about incomprehensible things revealed to us in Scripture, not incomprehensible things revealed to us by Billy and Cindy Foote

Let me just say right now that I love the Habitat for Humanity thing. I wish more of us would/could be involved with that. Maybe I'll have time this semester, maybe not. However, one wonders if Jay Harley is quite sure he wants God's name to be more famous and not DBU's name.

Also, interesting to note that an IMB representative will be on campus. Even though DBU is aligned with the BGCT which tends to voice dissent to the IMB's policies, we still maintain connections with them. I like that.

Seems like the Heights Baptist Church is a BGCT church; anyways, Richard Covington came from there. A touch of bad grammar and muddled syntax. Seems like a nice chap.

He talked about the great job DBU does putting us in a place where we can get good relationships with other people. No objections, but I just want to point out that the purpose of a university is for its students to have relationships with each other as they pursue together knowledge and wisdom under the leadership of wise mentors (Naugle, Bell, Kappelman, Trammel, Matos, Mitchel, etc.). There's relationships at DBU for you. But it requires scary things. It requires the use of your mind and a lot of hard work. Neither of which is encouraged by DBU's infantile chapel messages, with an occasional exception.

Ephesians: SO TYPICAL. A correct message drawn from the wrong book of the Bible. Should have been Romans 5 which talks about the interaction of the body and how each member belongs to all the others. Covington said that the book of Ephesians encourages us to find our spiritual gift and use it in relationships with others in order to further the kingdom of God.

NEWSFLASH: Ephesians does no such thing. Ephesians chapter four doesn't tell us to do a thing. It tells us what God does. It tells us that Christ distributed spiritual gifts amongst the church to prepare God's church for works of service, which builds up the body of Christ, which brings us to unity of doctrine and makes us mature and more Christlike, which makes us stable in our theology, which makes us (corporately) a better body of Christ. A correct application of this text is for me to "find my spiritual gift" and use it in relationships. But Covington said this was the actual intent of the text. He is wrong.

I like the song choice, especially "Before the Throne of God Above" and the Doxology. Nevertheless it is simply a fact that when it hurts my ears the music is too loud.

--Allow me, dear friends, to draw to your attention a paradox. We did a responsive reading today in chapel (and figured out why half the text was green by the end of it), and I think the banners were some reference to some part of the Christian calendar. It's like we're supposed to be connected to Christian history and the church universal. Yet we have a chick speak in chapel, and thus find ourselves disconnected from 1700 years of church history. Are we part of the Christian community? Having a chick speak surely removes us from the traditions of the other wings of our community, the Catholics and Russian/Greek Orthodox. It doesn't matter what side you're on, ladies and gentlemen, whether you want women to be pastors or not be pastors but speak occasionally or not take any such role at all . . . the sides don't matter; this is a paradox. We are trying to take both sides here at DBU. We are trying to build a treehouse on the fence.

--Here's another fine paradox: there may be those of us who think it's a 'wrong' for chicks to speak in chapel because they're not supposed to have spiritual authority over men. There may be among their number those who think it's wrong for chapel to not have exposition of Scripture. Today's chapel message, for these people, shows two wrongs making a right because the chick had no spiritual authority over the men in the audience because there was no exposition of anything spiritual.

--Anyways, the message was recycled from her last speaking in chapel, almost word for word . . .

-- . . . I counted six dangling prepositions . . . this could be a world record chapel service for bad grammar . . .

-- . . . and . . . the message was hugely 'entertaining.' Very much 'motivational.' Perhaps 'inspirational.' Only a weak form of 'encouragment.' Not a bit 'exhortational.' Not a bit 'theological.'

--In her favor, I suppose Dr. Blackburn's little song and dance was very funny. I think I may have been studying the book of Galatians at the time.

--One more note, ladies and gentlemen. The situation of those of us who are critical of chapel messages and chapel speakers is very difficult. Amy Jones is a very nice person with a great heart for that about which she talks; I think she really cares for human beings; the last thing we want to do is denigrate her testimony. I think it's a good one; I tend to think that the testimony of every Christian is a precious thing, a wonderful story that gives glory to God, a story to be shared with the church. Yet at the same time I am placed in a position where I am required to attend something ostensibly for my spiritual edification and my intelligence is regularly insulted by weak theology. Things would be so simple if I were not required to go to chapel, if I were not treated as a spiritual infant. If I were the president of this university or a professor I would be able to look at Amy Jones and appreciate her, appreciate her testimony. Talking about unoriginal messages, bad grammar, and poor use of Scripture would be so easy, so objective. But when I'm treated as though I, as an undergraduate and therefore a spiritual infant in need of just a little bit of watered-down theological milk interspersed between moments of entertainment . . . it's so hard not to take this personally.

That's probably why so many of those critical of chapel are so hard on speakers sometimes. Not because we don't realize their passion, their stories, their persons, their intelligence in some cases, but because . . . we are deeply offended by so many other things.

I am torn, fairest ladies, brave gentlemen. Is the glass half full . . . (Jeremiah 29:11 is her life verse and came up several times during a testimony chapel) . . .

. . . or half empty . . . (Jeremiah 29:11 was mentioned in the course of giving anecdoes for 2 out of 6 parts of an acronym)?

Regardless, the glass is entirely devoid of Scriptural exposition. Need we this in a testimony chapel? Perhaps not. Make up your own minds.

Not that I wish to be mired in such petty debates, but I feel compelled to speak out against our illustrious chapel speaker, Jim Dennison.

First of all, it is readily apparent to the observant listener why he is invited so frequently to come speak to DBU, at length, on so many occasions. Flattery does not rule the hearts of men, but very few men reject it either. That said, given the sycophantic nature of Dennison's sermons, it leaves little doubt as to why Dr. Cook keeps asking him to return. Secondly, I find it interesting, and highly suspect, that Dennison claims to have taught philosophy at Southwestern BTS, but be horribly in error in his basic description of the philosophies of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. None of these men advocated anything even approaching what Dennison made them out to be advocating. None of them ever said that with the right knowledge or anything else that a person could be whatever he wanted to be. Plato, for example, advocated the EXACT opposite. He said the people will not be able to change their position in life, and if necessary, lie to them to keep them content about it.

Finally, I am distressed that this man has been intimately involved with at least 7 institutes of higher learning, but has many basic flaws with his theological understanding. Not his doctrine, per se, as I will allow the theologians to attempt to critique that, but rather his overarching outlook on the Christian life. The two incidents that I am referring to are his statement "Glowing Heart is my favorite type of worship." While this is simply another example of Dennison brown-nosing Dr. Cook, however it demonstrates and perpetuates a key misunderstanding of the Christian life. Worship is not music, it is a lifestyle. Secondly, Dennison did not come out and specifically say that "all people are children of God," but that was his clear and distinct implication. This once again demonstrates a misunderstanding amongst God's people. All people are God's creation, but we do not become God's children until we accept Jesus Christ into our lives. The distinction seems subtle, but believe me, it is significant. Students at this school, Freshmen especially, take heed. My associate Alastor Moody may be paranoid, but that does not mean he is wrong. There is a great need for CONSTANT VIGILENCE! This school claims to have the students' interests at heart, and purports to be in the business of building servant leaders. I am unable to share what I have come to believe in regards to this, but I urge you, please remain vigilent and pull back the vineer that covers this school, and find the truth behind the mask.

In Dis