5/29/2025
Painting of the day: Jesus ascending to Heaven, Painting by John Singleton Copley (1738–1815), Painted in 1775, Oil on canvas © Museum of Fine Arts Boston
Fr. Vorst took the passage of Luke 24:46-53 for this painting with regards to the ascension of the Lord: "...Their poses reflect a mix of worship and human astonishment, grounding the divine event in human emotion..."
5/27/2025 Interesting: In his podcast, William Lane Craig defended the position that animals do not experience suffering or pain in a human sense, such that this is not necessarily a bad thing in nature, opposing the Young Earth Creationists' view of no death nor pain even in animals before the Fall, accusing the YEC for falling into the trap of anthropopathism. A form of anthropomorphism. The former more focuses on human emotions and feelings upon non-human beings or inanimate objects. Though there's some mystery to the distinction between animals and mankind, WLC is not wrong if folks like YEC could only argue from an anthropomorphic foundation.
Painting of the day: The Baptism of Æthelberht, King of Kent, by Saint Augustine of Canterbury in 597, Engraving based on the painting by William Dyce R.A. (1806-1864) at the House of Lords, Engraved by R. Anderson, issued circa 1870 Alamy
In the start of Christianity in England, missionary monk St. Augustine of Canterbury, from Rome sent by Pope Gregory the Great in 595, played an important role. Converting the King of Kent, Æthelberht.
Fr. Patrick van der Vorst on the piece (using Luke 10:1-9, on the harvest is plentiful): Our Victorian engraving depicts the moment of the King's baptism on Christmas Day 597. Æthelberht was baptised, a powerful public act that signalled not only his personal conversion but also opened the way for the Christianisation of his kingdom.This event laid the foundations for the spread of Christianity throughout the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and firmly established Canterbury as a centre of the early English Church. Our engraving is based on a painting by William Dyce R.A. (1806-1864) at the House of Lords. We see the king in a great act of humility, stripped of his clothes kneeling before Saint Augustine and the baptismal font. The bystanders in the background are not looking at the event but rather discussing whether they too should get baptised.
5/26/2025 Ok, let's see if I can say this in the shortest way possible: Stephen Tong's (probably last visit) to America is as he has promised last year, in the form of concert, bringing his Jakarta Oratorio Society and orchestra. Coming in July. I may go to the one in Philly due to time (7/14 Monday) and transportation (better traffic than NYC). Admission is free, so this is for God's glory and to inspire young minds. Below are the repertoires:
Repertoires
Suppé Light Cavalry Overture // Orch.
Dvořak Symphony No. 9 // Orch.
Indo Song Rayuan Pulau Kelapa // + Choir
Indo Song Garuda Pancasila // + Choir
Mendelssohn Elijah: Hear Ye, Israel! // + S
Elijah: Be Not Afraid! // + Choir
Lobgesang: I Waited for the Lord! // SS + Choir
My Song Shall Alway Thy Mercy // + ST
The Night Is Departing // + Choir
Haydn Creation: Sing the Lord, Ye Voices All // + SATB+Choir
Handel Messiah: Worthy Is The Lamb // + Choir
Messiah: Amen // + Choir
We already told Tante Lyna last year we're not interested in just concerts when she first mentioned it. The a few days ago, she texted me about Stephen Tong coming to deliver sermon on 6/1 during CCCNY Sunday service, with poster and everything, just seems like PR to me. I asked what was this for, she was frank enough to tell me that Tong will be attending his son's 2nd doctorate graduation as well as Peter L.'s father memorial service which will be in Cleveland. I thanked her for it. I think it's innocent enough. I told Nadia, had it been Rev. Lin, I might not reply as kind, as it would be obviously a kind of publicity for the church, which is fine by itself, but to do PR and making it look like it's not PR, it is despicable. Which would be Rev. Lin's methodology, at least back then.
But today, I got an email from Rev. Lin, offering me and Nadia tickets to the Jakarta concert at Carnegie Hall. I thought to myself, these are free tickets (that can be obtained online), why even bother, if not for some twisted kind of PR. But I tried to be fair, and kindly rejected the offer, because concerts are everywhere, anytime. She tried to convince me back again with some weird attachment that's allegedly Stephen Tong's own narration/bio about the concert in Chinese, but it read suspiciously penned by someone else or cut & paste from here and there. But this is not important. What's to note was that she tried to I guess persuade me with the fact that there are "good" Christians from her church that sing at the concert. Apparently, she thought these are the kind of stuff that's going to get me to come. I thought to myself, funny, I keep hearing lots of promotion of people amongst those who allegedly "support" Stephen Tong's ministry, but I never really see any of these folks achieve much in Christendom. In the secular world, maybe, but when I see them in church, some of them scrolling through galleries of photos on iPad during a sermon, some just don't seem like they care about the Bible much. Maybe they attend some church. Maybe they gave some money. And lo and behold, these are people you should come meet. Yet, the ones that truly want to step up and serve God, these are being rejected by them after certain degree of recognition, especially when the bad actors realized they had no part in the rearing/promotion of such folks.
This is clear divine indication what sort of alleged "servants" of God these are. The Bible speaks of them plenty times. Jesus considers them "strangers...depart from me..." Since I know not for sure how far they have fallen, I think I'll just ignore them as best I can. Unless I am opportune to smash their heads, as the serpent's head is crushed, let them go hunt the poor somewhere else. This concert is really for the young minds as Stephen Tong intended. I'd be as guilty if I just focus on bringing the kind of folks, myself included, who only care to be entertained and simply remarked "what a wonderful concert!"
History of Javascript. Brief account.
I'm trying to catch up my Youtube videos since returning from my time in Malaysia. So some of the Youtube posts here may be of videos from a couple of weeks ago.
Stephen Tong on laughter being blessings from God, not invention of men, as Nietzsche (Tong incorrectly attributed this to Arthur Schopenhauer):
Google AI correcting Stephen Tong: It was Friedrich Nietzsche who stated that "Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.". This quote appears in his book "The Will to Power"
Stephen Tong: 你对基督所受苦难的认识，就是你爱祂的基础. How well you perceive the suffering of Christ, is proportional to the foundation of your love for Him:
Jesus said don't be joyful because of the power bestowed upon you to "tread on serpents and scorpions", I would interpret Luke 10:17-19 as church growth in numbers, but rejoice rather because your names are written in heaven. This also implies that one's ministry success does not necessarily mean one's name written in the book of life. Also, Jesus personally took on the hardest ministry himself while He was on Earth, hence His disciples rejoiced over the easier tasks:
2025/05/25 Painting of the day: The Fog Warning, Painting by Winslow Homer (1836–1910), Painted in 1885 Oil on canvas © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Fr. Patrick van der Vorst chose John 14:23-29 for this painting, to emphasis reliance on God in times especially of great trials:
we see a weather-beaten fisherman rowing alone in a small wooden boat. He glances anxiously over his shoulder towards a larger, more secure ship in the distance, with fog beginning to roll in behind it. The sea is choppy, a wave lifts the bow of his boat, and two large halibut weigh down the stern, preventing it from capsizing. Homer learned from the fishermen he knew that halibut fishing was among the most dangerous, requiring long journeys into the open sea. It was a risky business.
On the Sunday School at GCC: The Early Church - Post Apostolic Era to Fifth Century AD, Week 12 Rise of Monasticism.
@4:00 The pastor claimed that monasticism is not from Christianity/Scripture but from culture. I think this is a shallow understanding of how to relate to natural revelation. The right way of viewing this is "radical Christian monasticism comes from the wrong understanding of Scripture."
@9:11 On fundamentalist/gnostic view of asceticism, the pastor chickened out with "if you are doing these for the Lord, that's fine." It's a bad reasoning. The best view on this is simply various level of faith: viz. some people feel drinking alcohol will suffer God's wrath; while others simply don't believe that is true -> differences in interpretation of Scripture. It appears that the pastor could not deal with biblical conflicts between Christians to some level.
@11:00 seems that the pastor has problem with Christians doing their own thing without the church's approval. If that's true, it's historically insensitive as well as wrong view of ecclesiology: a confusion of a church and The Church.
It's good that the pastor listed some key names worth looking into: St. Anthony of the Desert, Alexander of Unsleeping, Simon Stylites of the Pole, Pachomius, Basil of Caesarea.
@30:40 P asked the pastor why didn't God stopped all these extremists that are twisting God's word. The pastor: "That's a question to God", Tom answered better: "so that we can learn how the church survived through all these."
@34:50 I think the pastor got the whole concept of Christian Monasticism wrong. It's not about "look how righteous and holy I am", but more about "getting closer to God by abandoning the world" - however, the pastor was aware of it when he related earlier to the Greek/Gnostic view on this. But it's hardly a pride thing, which seems to be what he was implying.