On Wed, 06-13-07 8:51 am
Parchment and Pen, a ministry of Reclaiming the Mind Ministries, is a very good blog offering solid theological and biblical insights from a group of writers sharing a similar dispensational background. C. Michael Patton is the owner of the blog and receives regular contributions from Dan Wallace of Dallas Theological Seminary and Ed Komoszewski.
The majority of the posts have little to do with dispensationalism, but there are exceptions. Having grown weary of the wrong-headed, dismissive attitudes of some ill-informed opponents, Komoszewski has begun an overview of the three principal schools of dispensational theology. You can find the first installment here: What Comes to Your Mind When You Hear the Word “Dispensationalism”? (Part 1).
Advocates and wannabe critics alike will profit from his survey.
June 17th, 2007 at 4:26 am
Mike
I just ran across your site and your comments on Clapton’s “Lonely Stranger”. I attempted to post a comment but see that you closed the page. I feel after reading your biography you might appreciate my thoughts on this song and the effect it has had on me.
I received my most in depth teaching on the Word of God from Dr. Dan Hill at Southwood Bible Church in Tulsa, OK. Dan is a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary.
Comment:
It’s reported Clapton put his faith in Christ in 1972 after his re-emergence from isolation and heroin addiction. This is at the time he wrote “Presence of the Lord”. Even after his saving knowledge of Christ Eric continued to live a troubled life of alcohol, women and drugs. His forthcoming biography will reveal he was a nasty drunk who beat on Pattie Boyd while married to her.
Eric has lived the hard life of a blues player. He is the bastard child of a Canadian WWII pilot and an English girl of 16. He was raised by his grandparents and thought, in an eerie parallel to John Lennon, his mother was his much older sister.
Many of Eric’s problems were caused by his lack of personal identity and not knowing who his father was. He never “fit in” as a student and only gained acceptance after tirelessly learning the guitar and winning the appreciation of his peers. That need continues until this day.
Lonely Stranger speaks to all of us who, while knowing Christ, have suffered major disappointments in life. When divorce or death have broken hearts and an increasingly maddening world weighs heavy on our shoulders, the feeling of isolation and loneliness can be overwhelming. There are those of us who suffer from mental disorders and depression that make life even more difficult. We hope in Christ and know that He nurtures us. But we live with the facts of our individual pasts and mistakes and sins.
Lonely Stranger speaks to those who have hungered for acceptance, who wanted things to turn out better but feel like they have “walked down dead end streets on my hands and knees” and is part of their fate.
I have a love/hate relationship with “Lonely Stranger”. I love it because it speaks and sounds so perfect in expressing the longings I feel and the fears that I have “born with a raging thirst, a hunger to be free”. I hate it because it hits so close to home, that, in all honesty, it describes me more clearly than I would want to admit.
The Bible teaches us that “you are in the world, and not of the world”. In a spiritual sense we are all “Lonely Strangers here and will be all our days” and truly its better that we “don’t know what is going on on, so I’ll be on my way” to a better place where we live in the presence of the Lord in His way, and in the richness and fullness of His love.
June 17th, 2007 at 8:56 am
Gary:
Thanks for the history on Clapton and the insights into his life. I didn’t know all the details but it’s clear from his music that something went wrong in his life. Hopefully things won’t continue to go wrong to the same extent in the days he has left.
Re comments: I have my blog set up to close comments after a post is three months old or three months after the last comment. Sometimes people read something I wrote two years ago and want to argue about something, so I decided to close the comments. I am going to copy your comment to the “Lonely Stranger” post, though.