My Journal

01/02/2026 Friday

Nadia and I visited Joe (our former neighbor) and Joanne's place by Manchester (near Toms River). We dined around 3pm at Nonna's Place (Ristorante Italiano). Joe treated us. Nadia's Linguini with Clam Sauce (Under Pasta $18.95) was the best. We went from 1:30pm at their place to around 6pm by the time we got home. I have recording on Youtube, but not in my drive, too much work.

01/01/2026 Thursday

Nadia found a rather apt message from one of Tim Keller's sermons, that can deal with the self-righteousness of GCC with a serious blow. This is SO GOOD! When Pastor Chris and others said something like New York City is not a place for humans to live. Keller's message: "This is the reason, by the way, why your attitude toward New York City is one of the best ways to tell whether you're a Christian or a religious person. Because when you take a look at New York City, you're going to see two things. First of all, you're going to see some things falling apart. And religious people say, who wants to live in there? Which shows you have no saltiness at all. They're going to say, you know, religious people look around and say, what's wrong with these people? And you see, which of course is my sin is a speck, your sin is a plank. And not only that, when you take a look around New York City, one of the things you can see right off the bat, you can see them just walking down, you can look at some people and say, here's somebody who does not obey the Ten Commandments. It's not that hard to see. And Christians aren't turned off by that. And religious people totally are.":

12/30/2025 Tuesday

It always intrigues me whenever I see American ministries trying to solicit donations. If only they pursue fellowship with believers as eagerly as they fundraise from the same. What's ironic is that many of such ministries are rather edifying. But does it mean we should give because of it? That's like putting Six Flags on Jesus. The only reason people give is because they believe they are serving the Church which is the children of God, which is forged in fellowship with one another before God. There is no other way I see this giving can be done without turning it into a business for circus.

12/29/2025 Monday

Leland Vittert, I don't think he is really autistic, but what do I know. It seems that this interview by Allie Beth Stuckey is really just for her emotional fulfilment and his book (Born Lucky, reading the negative reviews helps and is good enough to not buy the book) promotion and perhaps something she agreed with his past along the right wing issues. He's more of an introvert "spectrum" (Asperger's? Which is just an excuse for being more self-absorbed) I would say, but many of such is diagnose as autistic as a cop-out by either the professional or the parents to truly face adversity in life. At least Vittert's father helped raising him up. But the methods really aren't for autistic children, it's just common sense.

Posted this on Facebook, it was a long time coming. Targeting not just folks like Alex Tseng (he did love to contrast the fact that when he bragged of how open-minded he was to have LGBT friends, he was in the right, when other spoke of the problem of LGBT, they are in the wrong if their answer was other than "the Bible says so". This was about 20 years ago, in a Bronx Bible study), but others who seem to want to make people think that they are more open-minded as perhaps a mask to cover their rebellious attitude:

When a Reformed/Fundamentalist preacher/theologian/Christian likes to brag about how many LGBT friends they have, watch that red flag!

They have no true care (not even for their LGBT friends, not really) but are mere hired hands with eloquence of words, or sophisticated academic degrees and networks.

Because of a fundamentalist connection, once their complex encyclopedic articulation is decrypted, it's really no different/harder than 1+1 in context. Big words, but small mind.

They do care about one thing though: That they want to be known as wannabe-images of those who truly care.

I was tempted to add "If you are offended by this post, think twice before commenting, for you are not equipped for this battle." But never mind.

12/28/2025 Sunday

At Crossroads, Jeffrey Jou was preaching as his final stage of being hired as the Youth Pastor. Sermon's on Zacchaeus, Luke 19:1-9. Nadia/Willy noted the similarity of the message to Tim Keller's. So they believe Jou is a fan of Keller. My first impression was more cynical: That he was doing these Keller quotes to boost his acceptance into a church that was once connected to Redeemer, indirectly. I could very likely be wrong as I should have given Jou the benefit of the doubt, seeing that I don't know anything about him at all.

But this is interesting, both him and Keller, as Nadia (Willy?) pointed out (so I looked it up), spoke of this:

Jou: Zacchaeus climbed onto a tree to see Jesus. But Jesus climbed onto a tree to save us. Jesus tells Zacchaeus to come down from that tree so that he could stay at his house, protecting him from scorn and shame.

vs. Keller @21:33: Zacchaeus came down from a tree. Jesus Christ went up and was nailed to a tree.

If a question is asked in good faith and reverence before God, God always gladly answers. Never in the Bible has God ever answered "because I say so." Unfortunately, many fundamentalist Christians take that approach. This is also resulting in, or caused by, the bad parenting tactic: Because I say so, against smart, inquisitive children.

I am reminded of Janet Mefferd's talk show, which always in every episode, intro with a preacher (Dr. W. A. Criswell, I think, in his Acts 20:19-21 1995-11-01 Sermon titled Old Time Religion @10:15) yelling: "But if the Word of God says it, I believe it!" Now that I found this preacher and sermon, the context of that phrase, though seeming meant as a joke, is of highly fundamentalist's narrow minded view: Two boys glued the preacher's Bible pages together so when he preached "Noah was married to his wife...and she was fifteen cubits broad" unknowingly that his pages were glued, the pastor continued "this is the first time I saw it in the Word of God. But if the Word of God says it, I believe it!" It's no different than Roman Catholicism: "If the Church says it, I believe it."

So it's not new, this anti-intellectual path.

This had been a series of encounters I've had with folks like Alex Tseng ("LGBT/"gay marriage is sinful because the Bible says so"), Pastor Chris of GCC ("God says so", "Your knowledge cannot save you, only Faith can"), on top of the preachers such as from the intro of every Janet Mefferd episode. I am not critiquing them for Sola Scriptura, but when it becomes Solo Scriptura or the tendency to be so, that's when the problem comes which I think all of them committed. It is usually a sort of narrow-mindedness, the inability to understand who they are conversing with, the incompetence of having a better answer, the pride of being self-righteous.

It must be noted that before they answer "Because God says so", the question already assumed God says so. So it is a redundant answer "because God says so," as if they need such reminder or to remind others themselves. But of course, they would all say: I am not against reason, I'm not against LGBT people, I have a lot of gay friends, I'm not perfect, etc. Textbook means of covering their own "humble" behinds.

So after all this, I dare to challenge even their theologians, that though we can always start with God says so, or the Bible says so, saying BECAUSE God/the Bible says so, is actually unbiblical, to any question asked in good faith and reverence.

Why forbid the eating of the fruit? Because God says so. That is an unbiblical response.

In fact, the strongest lesson on this topic in the Bible is the book of Job. When God rebuked Job in the end, it is exactly because Job did not, in all his fear of God and righteousness, ask the questions that God asked. Questions God demands man to seek answers to, so that man could fulfil the responsibility and the purpose of MAN. Rather than just being complacent with "because God said so." Mankind MUST ask WHY. Even Jesus called out the servant with the least talent (Matthew 25:25-30): Thou wicked and slothful servant...take therefore the talent from him...from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath...cast ye the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. Job asked something, but his problem was he did not ask God directly, he did not seek such relationship. He feared it. He feared not the works of righteousness, he feared the relationship with God. He wanted to just stick with "Because God says so, what else did God say, and I'll do." Pastor Chris misunderstood the parable of the talents even further from the truth, that he thought the parable was about being afraid to work. He saw the word "afraid" in verse 25, but he missed the point of "to every man according to his several ability" in verse 15.

To say because the Bible says so, or reason cannot save you but only faith can, is basically advocating superstition, or blind faith. Rob of GCC wanted to give a biblical example in defense: God says He is God. But that's off topic, because it begs the question: What is the question, that you need to answer "Because God says He is God?" The only response to that is in the presuppositional apologetics: How do we know God is God, because He says so. This is a statement of ontological identity, not an explanation of why.

These are example of the failed apologetics using the "Because God says so" tactic:

One of my favorite street preacher Ray Comfort, when challenged why homosexuality is sinful, he could only self proclaim himself to be a doctor in front of those who did not see themselves patients (Note: the apologetics target are usually not covenant children, which is probably why Ray's error come from, seems biblical because they thought Jesus said only the sick needs a doctor, but it's actually not how Jesus answered to uncovenanted people.)