An open letter to powerFM in Dallas

This is a letter sent to our really cool Christian Alternative rock station in Dallas. As you will find out below, I really love this station and support them financially. I love them enough to tell them that they have done some things that worry me. This letter is written to address these issues. I think this letter is important because it addresses some of the issues all of us Christians deal with when we try to engage culture creatively... and all of the issues I criticize them for are issues I must keep myself in check about when I try to engage culture as a youth minister.

You can find powerFM at: http://www.897powerfm.com
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Howdy from Coppell,

My name is Nate and I have supported the station for the last several years at $10.00 per month. I know that is not a whole lot, but our family doesn't have much more to give above our tithe. Over the last two years there has been some direction with the station that concerns me. I have been sitting on this and not saying anything, hoping it would go away... but it comes up every time I listen to the station.

So, here it goes:

Brett Wells on Tradition and Scripture

The following is a conversation started by my friend Bret (http://bretwells.blogspot.com/) about a debate I posted between myself and Steve Rudd (see http://natebostian.blogspot.com/2005/06/debate-on-tradition-and-scriptural.html). Both Steve and Brett are from the Church of Christ, but, as you will shortly see... they are very, very different:

So this priest and two monks walk into a delivery room...

The following article is a re-publication of an essay on fatherhood I posted to my daughter's website. The website is defunct, but my daughter is not... and this essay was too good to leave on my harddrive for no one to read...

This is a story about fatherhood for guys who aren't real emotional and who are completely out of touch with their "feminine side". Let me start this off by saying that I am not a touchy-feely kind of guy. I am humorous. I am passionate. I am intense. But touchy-feely... not so much. I don't cry at weddings or funerals... or very much at all for that matter. I don't watch chick flicks unless my wife makes me. And I am not even empathetic about most injuries. I am from the "no blood, no bones broken, no problem" school of thinking.

Debate on Tradition and Scriptural Interpretation

Here is a friendly debate between myself and Steven Rudd (of the Church of Christ) who runs the website http://www.bible.ca. The debate started over his postings that said that ALL tradition is bad in interpreting the Bible (see http://www.bible.ca/sola-scriptura-tradition.htm). Here is how it went down:

Irrelevant appeal to authority???

Rejecting the so-called "appeal to authority" is a tactic used by all kinds of "skeptics" to "debunk" ideas that they do not like. Most frequently I encounter this tactic in discussing God with people who claim not to believe in God. Usually, it turns out that I do not believe in the God they do not believe in either, because they are not actually discussing the Person whom I know as God, but that is another point entirely.

When someone appeals to authority, they usually put it in terms such as "Because [Person/Institution/Source X] supports [Truth Claim Y], then I support [Truth Claim Y]". Usually, in debates about God, it goes something like this "Because the Bible says [Y], I believe [Y]. God says it, I believe it, and that settles it." Nontheists rightly argue that this proves nothing, because the reliability of the Bible is still in question. It may say that Y is true, but how do we know it is accurate in what it says? I mean, there is the issue of who wrote the Bible and when, and whether these writings are authentic and accurate. Then there are the textual issues of how well the text has been preserved, even if the original text was accurate. And then there are issues of interpretation, linguistics, and historical-cultural context, not to mention genre and purpose, in considering how to understand the text. Then there is the question of what presuppositions we bring to the text, and if there are other legitimate ways of understanding the text. All of these must be considered before making an appeal to Scripture to support a certain truth claim.