Eric: The guys at Razormouth are taking on Dobson over his endorsement of lawsuits against Casinos. One essay really does a great job laying out the Biblical/Libertarian case against moral coercion. Not the kind of thing you hear very often, and frankly, I am glad someone in the Christian community has the spine to write this stuff.

Dudes: Thanks. The Missus is toooooo modest. Plans and carries out all the musical aspects of worship at church. Plays piano for me in OBI chapel in the summer and whenever I need her. Has written major plays and an entire MUSICAL on Esther. (Get us an agent!) Should have killed me and hasn’t. Did all the hard stuff bringing two great kids into the world, and did the majority of the work turning them into great human beings. Has followed me in my wanderings all over the Sinai, without complaint. Heard that legend that there are TEN righteous people who keep the world from falling into hell? She’s one of ‘em, I guarantee. (I love you!)

RonH: Thanx. C’mon c’man c’mon!!!

11. Sallie asks the girls Bible study if they know any verses she can use to convince her parents to give her money for breast enlargement.
12. After studying “Experiencing God,” several group members believe God is leading them to become successful Christian musicians.
13. Ralph is in the bathroom by himself for 45 mintues every morning. He tells the group he’s having a quiet time.
14. A subscription to MAXIM arrives. No one claims it.
15. ROAD TRIP!!! To The Sunday School Board.
16. Todd gets caught shoplifting Christian CDs from Lifeway and has to leave the house.
17. Sam says thongs are of the devil.

I’m 45 years old. I’ve been a Kentucky gal all my life (except for 10 months in third grade when we moved briefly to Indiana, but that doesn’t count!) My only real claim to fame is being the wife of the Internet Monk. I’m a nurse by education, but am currently working in publications. (Go figure!) I like the job because it gives me a chance to pretend to be a writer. The only things I seem to be able to write are dramatic adaptations of biblical stories. I often write my own skits for our Creative Ministries team at school. Scott, my dog is diabetic. Judson, I play piano, and I also mess around a bit with lap dulcimer, hammerette, tin whistle, and fiddle…but I’m about to give up hope on the fiddle. (Who thought up the idea of a fretless stringed instrument, anyway?) One of my favorite pastimes is reading, but I never seem to have enough time for it. I enjoy everything from Charles Dickens to Sue Grafton. Oh, and I love lurking on the I.M. site! Eric, get Deanna on here so I won’t be the only female!

37
Married; 10 years.
Huge fan. (September 22, Bart)
No degrees, but working on one. (I’m just a crazy college boy!)
Why do I come to the BHT? Because I take great pleasure in being the village idiot.
[I heard that, Jack]

Judd: You have such a cool name, I think I’ll use it as an alias. Is that all right? And you’re married to a rocket scientist? Riiiiiight… (MichaelS, this guy is a plant, right?)
Chip: It’d be interesting to hear about what period of history you most prefer to teach. And why? And what your philosophy of history is.
Eric R: I second your sentiments about God’s grace. What a Saviour! Wow, another teacher? Cool. One of my fantasy lives involves being a teacher someday. And I’ll read your article. Faulkner’s cool. He knows the South and writes of it with genuine passion. Too few folks have ever done that, and fewer still today are able to.

Stolen from Relevant, for a purpose: “Set your VCRs this fall for “The Real World: Baptist!” Southern Baptist-owned FamilyNet channel will be debuting the Christian reality series “TruthQuest: California,” which will follow the lives and experiences of twelve Southern Baptist teenagers traveling across California. “Basically, a person watching MTV is going to see how the world lives,” said Baptist Press assistant editor Todd Starnes. “We wanted to provide a show to show, ‘Hey, this is how Christians live’” ...

SO…what kind of things can we look forward to on a Southern Baptist “Real World?”

1. Todd leaves his glasses at the altar after a Sunday night service, and returns to find that Clara and Bill are STILL holding hands, crying and praying, almost an hour later. Hmmmm..
2. Alice and Sara disagree on who will post the missionary birthdays on the refrigerator. Now they aren’t speaking.
3. The topic of the Friday Night Bible study- “Is masturbation always wrong?” has the guys in a serious mood….
4. Allie has started watching a lot of the Oxygen Channel, and the group is concerned. It’s confrontation time.
5. Sam wants to start street preaching in the Wal Mart parking lot, but the rest of the group wants pizza.
6. A group vote on what church to attend ends in a tie. Half the group likes the cool Praise band at Cornerstone Baptist, but the other half really like the sound system and AV at First Baptist. Looks like time to draw lots. Time to call Nashville.
7. Sharon has been wearing a black bra, and Todd asks the other guys to pray with him about a lust problem.
8. There’s a BEER CAN in the trash!!! Whose is it!!!!
9. Ronnie says that the group is gotten too worldly, and he wants TBN on 24/7.
10. Sam confronts the group about totally overlooking the Annie Armstrong Easter offering. Tempers flare!!

Your turn…

I’m 25. I got married one year, two weeks and three days ago. I have a BA in English Lit from the University of Arkansas and am eagerly awaiting Rigney’s article on my favorite writer. I am “fixin” to start my 4th year of a 3 year MDiv program at Asbury Theological Seminary. I love liturgy but currently attend a church whose members consider “liturgy” a dirty word. I love all kinds of food especially Greek pizza while trying to understand difficult theological concepts with someone more than willing to tell me what he thinks ;) SEC football and basketball are the only sports I allow on my television. That’s all the interesting crap I could think of.

Michael: I am a minister.
Jake: Careful with that book, man. If you start pondering the Sovereignty of God too extensively, it’ll mess up most of your theology. Before you know it, you’ll start reading Augustine and quoting Luther. And you’ll probably even start thinking Calvin wasn’t such a freak after all. Definitely dangerous ground you’re treading there, bud.

Michael: You are even more ancient than I am. Thank God. And I’m going to the Globe – eventually. Saturday I’m going to Warwick Castle and Stratford-Upon-Avon. Will that satisfy you even a little?
Ron H: I’ve tried to smoke a brisket, but I can never keep it lit. And they don’t draw worth beans.

Jack: Maybe you better stay in England and become a minister. They need some help. According to this article, a third of the CoE doesn’t believe in the Rez, and half don’t believe in the virgin birth. Almost 85% believe that Bart could single handedly drag the Loch Ness Monster on shore and barbecue that sucker.

RonH: Send food.

Jack: I am almost 46 (9/16/56). Am I- or am I not- the elder in the BHT? I need to know.

Eric: An article for IM? Surely you jest? (IF it has to do with WF, you might suggest what pic you want me to hunt down to go with it.) BTW, did you know that Scott Self is teaching English II and HATES Shakespeare? What can I do with this guy? (I just finished rereading Julius Caesar with the audio tape. So many good lines. “You have misconstrued everything.” Now I am reading Henry V with the tape. Way cool. Jack: GO TO THE DXXX GLOBE!!!!)

MBirch: The photo has caused a major remembrance of my dad’s description of a peeing contest between two little kids.

Bart: I had no idea you were kidding. I mean, everything was pretty much the way I remember it.

Group: SERIOUSLY, I think it is amazing how many of you guys are in the tech industry.

Jake: We made you mad? Hmmmm. That’s never happened before. Really, the guy who first started talking with me about the sovereignty of God would meet me at the back of the church every Sunday and wait till everyone had left and then ask me all these detailed Bible questions, especially about the sovereignty of God in salvation, election, decisionalism, etc. I would go home on Sunday afternoons and read my Bible like I never did in seminary. I don’t think I ever really gained much from study when I wasn’t motivated by being irritated.

That can’t be Bart. He wore a micro-mini and a halter top and parrot earrings.

Bart? Is that you?

And Bart: I didn’t say anything about your bio b/c I was afraid you’d bring up the cross-dressing binging and carousing we did when I visited Nash Vegas!

I was born Leif Erickson Rigney in August of 1971. I am a living example of God’s grace being poured out on us silly sinful stupid humans when we SO don’t deserve it and when the odds are against us: both parents alcoholics (both sober now, thanks in part to the much-maligned AA); grandfathers horrible men (one a sexual predator, one an alcoholic who killed himself); grandmothers strange or dead; brother and sister with substance abuse problems (sister much better now, brother in prison completing third felony trip). In short, DYSfunctional all the way. Thanks to God, I am not dead or in jail, and I believe strongly and stubbornly in God’s grace and complete sovereignty. I have a beautiful wife of 8 years, and a 5-year-old daughter about to start Kindergarten (sniff). BA English, Georgetown College, MA English (American Lit/Rhet-Comp), Eastern Kentucky University. I teach English at Madisonville Community College, and I am currently writing an article for IM that probably no one will read because it mentions William Faulkner in the first sentence. God bless us everyone!

Actually, Bart, your bio was hilarious. But I was afraid if you heard me laugh, you’d try to buy me a drink.

Hey, Barkeep! Another pint of ESB over here for me. And a shot of Lagavulin for that goofy Scotsman wearing the skirt.

All right, i’ll get real a bit later.

Mawwiage. That dweam wiffin a dweam. That bwessed awangement…

I love that flick.

Good on ya’, Jake!

I’m older than most of you guys, and am pretty pissed about it, quite frankly.

I believe that they quit writing good rock-n-roll the year I graduated from High School, which was far longer ago than I care to admit.

I’ve been tormenting the same Godly woman, to whom I am bound in Holy Matrimony, for nearly 22 years. She is smarter, tougher, meaner, faster, stronger and waaaaaay better looking than any of us idiots on this board. Why she hangs with me is continuing mystery.

The children from this unlikely union are all smarter, better looking and more mature than their father. Chris-19 and Audrey-17 both attend Arizona Status University. Tyler is 15 and oozing testosterone. (Remember what that was like? Yowzer.) Ellyn is 12 and keeps the rest of us in line. I have convinced them all that I know more than they do, and they still believe me. I haven’t decided what I’ll do once they break the code.

I have a degree in Music Compost, sorry – Music Compostition from Baylor University. Like most music majors, I work in the technology industry. I’m currently serving as a project manager for a software company based in Arizona, where I own a house. However, I actually live in a house I am renting in Chiswick in West London. (Yes, it’s complicated.)

I attend an Anglican Church when in England and a Presbyterian Church when in Arizona. Before that I did the Southern Baptist bump, the charismatic can-can, the home-church hoochie-coo, the non-denominational Bible church boogie, and in spite of all that, I still dance like a white boy.

I was called a “Mean Ole’ Calvinist” by someone here at the Tavern, and I’ve decided I kinda like that label.

I try to make up for my lack of ethnicity by continuously skating the fine line between genius and insanity. Which side I am currently on is up to you to decide.

My heroes are Winston Churchill, John Knox and my wife.

Bart:

Sod Off.

Respectfully Submitted,

Seamus Patrick O’Heald

You guys are taking this way too seriously, not even one retort to my fabrication? PLEASE! Geez, Why don’t you just sit around and think about theology or something.

I’m a 35 year old repressed Scottsman. I like beer/ale and football. In the chinese zodiac, i’m a horse (STOP ALL FREUDIAN ANALYSIS IMMEADIATELY). I like sunshine and snow and warm bunnies. Occationally I like to dress like Rosie O’Donnell andd cruise the lesbian bars. I tell them that I’m a pre-op transsexual and that I need a date.

Matthew and I were talking yesterday about the sovereignty of God, which is obviously a key point for anyone in various stages of asking questions about Reformed Christianity. Many people that I know first thought through those issues with the help of A.W. Pink’s very provocative study “The Sovereignty of God.” Pink was a British writer and teacher who travelled widely – even to Kentucky!- and wrote many articles that have been collected into his many books. His book on Sovereignty is on the web, and I would recommend it. It will kick you in the head, and get you mad- and hopefully studying. Caution: He is a REAL Calvinist, not a girly one. (You can also download the whole book here.)

My bio is on IM.

I’d also like to tell you guys why I enjoy this blog. It’s difficult for me to get involved in the body of Christ as I would like, since I’m gone from home so much. The great conversation here helps fill that gap. I also believe it’s good policy to hang out with more experienced, better-read people than myself, as I am constantly forced to learn something, even when I don’t want to.

I go by “Judd”. Born in Aug ‘72 in Lubbock, Texas. Raised on a dryland cotton farm until dad left the business in ‘80. Raised Southern Baptist; confessed Christ as a child; wandered in the wilderness for 12 years (beginning my freshman year in college, fancy that). Struck by God’s grace again last year, near the birth of my first child, Angus (struck by grace near a child’s birth, fancy that). Married to Amy, wonderful rocket scientist for NASA at Houston’s Johnson Space Center. Work offshore on a SOTA (state of the art) drill ship; currently hold 2nd mate’s unlimited merchant mariner’s license; a LTJG in the USNR. B.S., Geography, Texas A&M University, 1994; B.S., Maritime Transportation, Texas A&M U at Galveston, 1998. Interests- tall ships, anthropology, Irish traditional music (I play squeezebox, whistle and flute; Amy plays fiddle). If I have any say, Angus will play the fiddle, as everyone knows it is the only real instrument.

Scott Ward’s Bio

I’m 29, for a few months more, anyway. Been married for a year and a half to the greatest woman in the world – Anne – who loves me more than I deserve (and ain’t that what marriage should be?) and live in Alamance County, NC. I graduated from Montreat-Anderson (now just Montreat) College with a degree that’s best described as youth ministry meets social work. I’m currently employed as a PC Tech and Webmaster, and spend my hobby time either reading, writing, playing music, discussing philosophy, learning about diabetes (I’m a card-carrying member of that club), or collecting classic video game systems (like the old Atari 2600). I play bass with a praise and worship group called the Five Minute Band (hence, my common screen name “5Minutes”), and currently attend a Southern Baptist church, although my own personal theology is becoming less SBC and more reformed.

My favorite quotes:

“It is one thing to see the mountains in the distance, and it is another to walk the road that leads to them.” – St. Augustine
“While we were pleasure hunting, we got tricked like Elmer Fudd – brainwashed by the media.” – The Galactic Cowboys
“If there’s bait, there’s probably a hook.” – Me

It’s been a while since we each posted a brief, one paragraph bio for the benefit of the other bloggers and our readers. Let’s make that a project the next day or so.

Oh Great BlogMeister: These seems to be some interesting dudes what hangs out here. It’d be kinda cool if there was a way for each dude-writer to have a brief biography so as that we could know a tad more about each dude what contributes here. What what?

Jake: I had the honor of seeing Jacob’s Trouble front row on their last tour (that I know of). Excellent band – great, creative stuff.

And yes, indeed, SFC did indeed rock. In fact, I’ve got Phase III in my car, for the days when I’m feeling urban.

Rich Mullins was awesome – simple music with simple praise.

Ever feel like this?

Just finished listening to the Springsteen LP again. If you haven’t read a good review, there is one at NRO. Springsteen is at his best when connecting with real world events, and this CD is connected to 9/11. Songs about people who lost loved ones, firemen, the loss of life, the rebuilding of the city, personal relationships, etc. I’ve asked this question before, and got a list of exceptions to my comment, but I am going back. Why doesn’t CCM come up with this kind of music? Connected to real experiences? This CD is very Gospel in its feel. Lots of prayer oriented choruses. It is really an artist feeling the grief and the hope and contributing to the healing of people through music. I’m trying to figure out what would have happened if a CCM artist had recorded this same record. In all honesty, I think it would have been judged not “spiritual” enough. It seems that as Christians, we already know what feelings and answers we want to hear, and if an artist strays from that, he is outside the bounds. Remember the late great MARK HEARD? He could have recorded this record. Terry taylor too I suspect. But CCM marginalized those type of artists in favor of Plus One.

Can I get those lyrics on a Powerpoint or an overhead cel? i don’t think anyone has ever praised God exactly like that before.

MS: I would return the bible, but since i don’t use it any more; I don’t know where it is.

Now, here is some real CCM. yeah_buddy.mp3