When I become pope of the Protestant church

And I thought the Catholic magisterium went way beyond the requirements of Scripture! At least they have the advantage of not just enshrining personal pet peeves into theology….

On the light side, a Catholic friend of mine at college once had a dream—I think late night pizza was involved—that I (then a newly minted Baptist) had become Pope, and I was driving around in a souped up Popemobile and solving mysteries. Thankfully it never happened, but in discussion with him, I did learn that it is theoretically possible for a non-Catholic to become Pope.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

In response to:

Ministerial staff will be expected to spend a minimum of 50 percent of their workweek outside the physical office of the church. At least 20 percent of each work week (one day) will be spent engaging with non-church members, and preferably non-Christians.

Back when I was a salesman with IBM in the early 70’s: management wanted us out of the office and in the field from 9 am until 4 pm.

So the deacons have to tithe on their annual income but only have to attend 40% of the time. Yeah, that’s pretty revealing.

And I especially love #18, “Sabbath means Sabbath.” Indeed, 7th does mean 7th. Not sure what that has to do with Sunday, but ok.

He says (emphasis added):

20. Anyone expressing their personal biases, prejudices, judgmental attitudes, murmurings, complaining or condescending spirit toward other human beings will be forced to listen to an endless loop of 1980s heavy metal music.

A number of his points express his own failures in the bolded point.

Scott Smith, Ph.D.

The goal now, the destiny to come, holiness like God—
Gen 1:27, Lev 19:2, 1 Pet 1:15-16

OK, admitting that there are a LOT of songs that I don’t want on that loop because of seriously nasty lyrics, I’ve got to confess to loving the guitar work and such of 1980s heavy metal. So who wants to be offended so I can be punished? :^) As they said in “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”, “Iron Maiden—Excellent!”.

I think his statement #20 also explicitly contradicts #13 and #21, probably a few others. Moreover, again, Deming clearly noted that performance reviews are a deadly disease of organizations, and the 360s I’ve seen often turn into a gossip session. I think the man seriously needs to work on some of his ecclesiological thinking. He’s got some nuggets in there, a kernel of truth, but a lot of it sounds a lot like pet peeves to me.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.