Tidbits

1. Internet Explorer 9 and Being Assimilated by Quick Time
I upgraded all my computers to IE 9 a few days ago. I figured something wouldn't work correctly. I've got a few different audio / video programs, but I've set all the defaults to Windows Media Player. With IE 9, all audio began opening in a separate window with a small Quick Time bar with no controls. So I looked over all the Internet options stuff which was all still set to WMP. I tried a variety of things, but Quick Time decided it was not going to leave, so I completely removed the program. The ironic thing is about a month ago I explained to a friend with the same problem he didn't know how to work his Internet options. Kudos to Quick Time for hijacking my computers.

2. How's Family Radio Doing?
I've been meaning to check in with Family Radio now that doomsday is even closer. I'd be curious if Mr. Camping has been answering any questions about the recent earthquakes. Patrick Madrid actually posted an interesting X-File on the recent earthquakes here. Here's a great overview of Harold Camping from a URC minister (part two here). Also, here's a recent mp3 of testimonies of ex-Camping followers.

Camping Countdown clock:



3.  House Church Revisited
A while back I put together a brief article on the house church movement for James White's website: Tradition and the House Church Movement. After I wrote this article, the main leaders of this movement contacted me, and we went back and forth a bit. Recently the pastor of my church touched on this subject, and the audio link can be found here. 


4. Catholic Answers Grows Up in Regard to Luther
I never thought I'd see the day when Roman Catholics would be correcting Roman Catholics about Luther. They're now saying some of the stuff I've said for years. This post, Catholic Church and Luther asks "What is the Catholic Churches views toward Martin Luther today?" The normal response is heretic or madman. This time someone actually said, "The Catholic Church has no infallible official view, with respect to Martin Luther." That is indeed true. Hubert Jedin was a German  Roman Catholic historian from the Universities of Breslau and Bonn. He was a specialist in the history of the Council of Trent. He pointed out that Catholicism never condemned Luther by name at Trent, and that no official judgment on Luther exists by which a loyal Catholic is bound. There are many Roman Catholic scholars that are quite benevolent toward Luther, a partial list of these can be found here.

Also interesting was someone quoting Patrick O'Hare's The Facts About Luther and then having another participant state:

Ohare's book should not be used as a citation in this day and age. His book was a popular polemic intended to arm catholics to fire back at the vitriolic anti-catholic culture of America in that day (1900ish). But Ohare wasn't very good about carefully citing his sources by modern standards. It's really hard to substantiate some of his claims when you're challenged. Read the book if you like, but get corroborating evidence before citing him. In some cases he doesn't name sources, for other claims he names sources that have been since lost and there does appear to be some distortions, maybe even falsehoods in there.

That's amazing, I never thought anyone besides me would post something like this on Catholic Answers. The actual O'Hare section was as follows:

Martin Luther looked around and saw the damage that Sola Scriptura and 'private interpretation' of Holy Scripture was doing to his 'reformation', and made the following remarks...



"This one will not hear of Baptism, and that one denies the sacrament, another puts a world between this and the last day: some teach that Christ is not God, some say this, some say that: there are as many sects and creeds as there are heads. No yokel is so rude but when he has dreams and fancies, he thinks himself inspired by the Holy Ghost and must be a prophet" De Wette III, 61. quoted in O'Hare, THE FACTS ABOUT LUTHER, 208.

I've covered this quote before. Luther isn’t talking about the devastating effect of sola scriptura. He’s talking about the devastating effect of the devil, who, Luther says, was at peace in his papal fortress, but now with the gospel being loudly proclaimed, must find a different way to keep men enslaved to sin and darkness. One of the Roman Catholic participants corrected the person posting this by stating,

His last years and months were more anti-papal and pro-evangelical Christianity more than he ever was. Luther didn't make this statement as a "what have I done!!?" type of sentiment Catholics would like it to say but rather he was disappointed that so many Christians who had started off by making the right decision (in his mind) to leave Catholicism made poor choices in going in Zwinglian directions or Reformed type theology (even though Calvin wasn't a contemporary there were Calvinist type overtones already) and Anabaptist thinking, etc. He felt Lutheranism was reformed Christianity and lamented that so many made the poor choice, in his opinion, of not following his lead. He was sad that there was chaos, but he wasn't regretful.

5. The King's Speech
I went to see this yesterday (finally) and thought it was very well done. Yes, it indeed deserved to win awards over Inception.