Richard: I confess. I’ve been caring. I watched the last inning of the series with Anaheim. And it still turned out ok. I don’t get Fox, so I didn’t watch any of the ALCS, but I listened to much of the last two games on the radio, and it still turned out ok. I’ve listened to all of the games that I’ve had time for in the world series, and it is still turning out ok. I am going to a friend’s house to watch the game tonight. Curse or no curse, fate or no fate, I am going to watch the Sox win the World Series, if they do, and if I’m still alive.

Let me say this extremely slowly and clearly:

Neither my children, nor myself, nor anyone else’s children that I’ve ever met, are celebrating an occultic holiday on Oct 31. They are celebrating an American holiday, that has no spiritual significance whatsoever. In fact, the entire meaning of Halloween is to have fun. (Sorry, Christians. Bummer, I know.) If you want to have reformation Day, or All Souls Eve or anything else, fine. Do it. If you want to kill a goat and incant, OK. Leave me out. We’re collecting candy from the neighbors and scaring the neighbor’s kids.

I resent- highly- being told by well-meaning, but clearly brain-washed people, that the pumpkin on my desk is a sign of involvment in occultism. I am fully aware of all the Celtic, Druid roots of some Halloween symbols and practices. As I said in the comments, I am aware that the days of the week are named from Norse and Roman Mythological Gods. I am aware that I live in a “melting pot” culture, and there are lots of previous meanings behind all kinds of things we do in public ceremonies, weddings, funerals, holidays and cultural rituals. The meaning of Halloween in America is “Let the kids have fun.” That there is someone somewhere with a different meaning doesn’t matter to me AT ALL. That someone thinks I am unaware of these cultural nuances is ignorance. This is the same logic that has taken down Christmas trees. Can’t we just be Puritans and say “No Holidays. God doesn’t like it?” That’s simpler.

Face it, people. All of evangelicalism got punk’d by Mike Warnke. Get over it.

Somehow Mr. Wilson believes that it’s ok to syncretize “the public square” and Christianity, but not “the public square” and Islam? Or is he saying that Mr. Bush as a political leader has the power to syncretize Christianity with Islam and Shintoism? What happens if we someday elect a Buddhist to office (military implications aside)?

I don’t believe Mr. Bush is worshipping in other religious forms as much as he’s honoring the beliefs and traditions of his constituency. He has a responsibility to the Shintoists that voted for him, as well as those who didn’t vote for him.

Wow… the Red Sox about to break the curse. Now if only Cincy could do the same thing. Maybe we need to rebury Marge Schott.

Michael, bravo, well stated.

I’ve often wanted to say (so I’ll go ahead and say it) that if you come to a Tavern expecting that anything (anything = Calvinism, Lutheranism, Bushism, Kerryism, Republicanism, Democratism, Libertarianism, etc..) other than Beer be served you’ve come to the wrong place.

I worked for a company a couple of years ago that used email extensively. I’d archived everything in Outlook and when I left I counted my messages both in and out. Over the period of just under a year I’d sent and received just over 17,000 email messages, a ridiculous amount of communication.

That said, I learned something about cyber communication during that time, I learned that it’s a lot like doing suicide assessments over the phone; you’re handicapped by the lack of visual cues. I don’t know how many times I’d see some sort of personality conflagration take place and at the end the sender would say “that’s not what I said”, and the recipient would say “I thought that’s what you meant”.

We add smiley faces, winks, JNs and SWs to our messages, but even though these cues have agreed upon meanings they still have different connotations to different people.

I used to get a bit lit whenever Phillip used the word “amusing”. Finally I figured out that he really meant “funny”. ;-}

HWS is suddenly entertaining (read the comments), as ELCA guy Clint defends himself from my favorite former discussion topic: heretical churches vs non-heretical churches. I salute John for clarifying the central issue

One other crucial point is that no-one is saying that the boundaries of the church are coterminous with those of the Missouri Synod.

My two cents on the “Mary ever virgin” discussion: The Church Fathers were right on a lot, but wrong about some things having to do with sex. They were in an atmosphere where defending the humainity/divinity of Christ was a real, everyday, blood on the floor argument. The reverberations of Augustinian errors about sex stayed with the church a long time. The legacy of that era has dominated much of Christianity. It needs to be said that despite what many of those Fathers and later Reformers thought, the doctrine of perpetual virginity is wrong. I’m not insulting those guys or saying we are smarter. I’m saying they get to be wrong sometimes and they were clearly wrong on that one. If you want to say it’s one of those neutral, either/or matters…fine. But it is a doctrine that grows entirely out of a wrong view of humanity, sexuality, the transfer of sin, etc. and can’t be defended with clear, unambiguous and consistent exegesis. The problem with Roman Catholicism is that it has no “reverse gear” for errors passed down. Instead, errors must be defended or tolerated because they came from the Fathers. Thankfully, sola scriptura frees us from having to put ANY authority on a list on names who believed something. Like Luther, we can say that it doesn’t matter what the resume of a doctrine is if it’s not taught in scripture and by evident reason.

Bill, it’s more fun if you care. I love this!!! One more win to go… But if they lose this one maybe I’ll start believing in The Curse.

Good Morning, Matthew :-)

Blogging is sometimes sad. You believe you’ve made friends. It turns out you haven’t.

The people on the BHT- especially those who have been here most of the time- are looking for Christian community. They are putting up with a complete and total lack of perfection in that search. They are choosing an on-line community with full knowledge that it might be boring, or irritating or redundant. They understand an extended community conversation isn’t what everyone wants. They accept the fact that some topics may never interest them, but the overall idea of community does.

I really wish those who criticize this blog could understand what we are trying to do. We need the conversation, and we need the community. If what we try to do- imperfectly and with full evidence of our depravity- doesn’t work for an individual member, then that’s fine. There are a million blogs out there that are just one person talking to a few occasional commenters. This is different. And I’ll brag. Our experiment works. It works on a serious level. It works on an unserious level. It works on the level of simple human companionship on the journey. Most people on this blog have their own sites, but they stay with this. This is a conversation….in a bar…and that’s what it sounds, looks and feels like. It succeeded in being as little and as much as it ever claimed to be.

We aren’t trying to prove our church is the only true church. We aren’t all about Bush. We aren’t all about Calvin. We aren’t all about anything. We are all different, and we pull this off. If someone comes and goes because we are all different, and we CAN talk to one another, intelligently and vigorously, about lots of things, then I am sad, but I don’t feel like the BHT failed at all.

It’s sad when you read that you have an “explosive… personality”....and you can’t find the explosion on any posts. It’s sad to talk about a topic, and then find that you- as a person- have been described to the world as if you attacked someone personally, when in fact, all you did was debate an idea. No personalities involved or mentioned. No attacks anywhere. It just underlines my belief that the medium of computer conversation presents the challenge to not supply a fictitious personality to the words on the screen. All of us have the tendency to “hear” these typed words with a whole emotional accompaniment that may or may not be present.

I appreciate the BHT posters who work out the rough edges and stay with it. The BHT rules are pretty straight-forward about this experience, and I know that whatever success we have is because of the great people on the BHT. I know any of you could say a lot about me or other people on here or on your own blogs, and I’m grateful when you’ve shown me some mercy and grace. Hopefully, I’ve gotten better as a person and as a moderator.

And let me just say, that if I had known that asking about a dogcatcher for Mayberry was going to cause this much trouble, I would have skipped it. Sorry for the wreckage.

Homestar Runner and a pumpkin.

Homestar’s Halloween party!

Why not one more.

Doug Wilson on why he won’t be voting for Bush.

But here, in summary, is the reason I cannot vote for him. George Bush is far more likely than any liberal Democrat to get evangelical Christians to justify and go along with a public square religious syncretism. As a matter of settled policy, Bush has observed Ramadan in the White House, conducted a polytheistic worship service in the National Cathedral, offered reverence in a Shinto shrine in Japan, and so on. Many of these things, if done by a liberal Democrat, would (rightly) have had Christians up in arms. But with Bush, they go along.

I do not blame him that syncretism is pervasive in the federal government. A good man might not be able to remove all the high places. Reformations sometimes take time. But participating in worship at the high places is another thing entirely.

American Conservative magazine has a forum of conservative endorsements of the various Presidential candidates. A different writer for each option. Well done.

Feminists in the ECUSA go well beyond the left field fence....into outright idolatry.

CT’s Halloween page.

Do any of you have any experience with collaberative private blogs? I’m mostly concerned about security, but I’m brainstorming solutions to communication issues that I believe may be solvable with a form of blogging. Any input/ideas would be appreciated.

I’m going to yell something really loud, in lieu of a long and uselessly whiney entry.

BHT Rule 7

Michael: I object to the Martin Luther jab—I’m dressing up as Martin Luther and wearing my costume to church. My wife, on the other hand, announced that there will be no Sunday School this Sunday, because the teacher (that’s her) is staying home to take the kids out trick-or-treating. I was torn—wear a Halloween costume to church, or skip church for trick-or-treating—but since this is my pastor’s last Sunday, I’m going.

Other than that, good on ya, mate!

Well friends….BOOOO!

It’s that time of year again. Time to taunt my baby-boomer evangelical peers for their ninnified views on a harmless holiday- Halloween.

First, before you open up your pie hole and start in on me, you must read the entire Cornerstone series on Mike Warnke. If you haven’t read it, I’m not going to talk to you. You see, it’s important that you know that the entire disruption of this innocent American holiday was caused by a man who is probably the worst serial liar ever to suck the money out of church offering plates. A man who found out YOU, my baby boomer friends, were gullible enough to buy his crapola unquestioned. And you did so, and took Halloween away from your children. He lied. No….don’t start. He lied. And you bought it.

Second, you must read my award-winning essay, “The Great Pumpkin Proposes A Toast,” to remind you of what morons we are for throwing out the entire world of the imagination just because a few parasites in Christian publishing wanted to sell their garbage to us. We threw out one of the greatest gifts ever given to us….the capacity to imagine evil and good,wonder and amazement. We threw it out, because of people who thought the Smurfs were dangerous.

Third, read the Snopes.com Halloween page, just to clear out the bullxxxx you’ve accumulated since last year.

Now….I taunt you.

Remember all the fun YOU had as a kid? One day God is going to ask you why your kids didn’t have fun on October 31? Why you went door to door getting candy, dressed like a Pickle or a monster, and it was so exciting you couldn’t wait for it. You prepared for weeks. You went to parties. Your public school went all out. There were contests and pumpkins everywhere. Ghosts and witches and goblins….all pretend, all fun, all a great part of childhood. What awesome memories! But whoa to the Christian with a pumpkin on the porch this Oct 31. Who knows what evil influences are being invited into the home of a person who is daring to play with Druid and Celtic witchcraft in all its dark forms and powers.

Blah blah blah.

My church went all out! We had haunted houses and haunted hayrides and scary movies. This was the fundy church that wouldn’t let us do anything normal! But we could have Halloween. Of course, this was all before Mike Warnke told us we were a bunch of ritual Satanists, and just didn’t know it. We had so much fun as kids. Admit it. We had a blast. I dressed up like a scarecrow every year. It was great. Can’t do it anymore, though. Can’t even show Don Knotts in “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.” God only knows what demonic forces that might unleash.

And now your kids are stuck at church (again), dressed as Bible characters (again), pretending to enjoy themselves (again) as you act out the book of Ruth. How could you do this? How could you believe all this nonsense? How could you buy what has to be the greatest collection of urban legends ever foisted upon a group of people? What kind of person suddenly believes that a simple American tradition is a boiling pot of Satanic ritual, and that we must hide and say our prayers, or at the least go to the church and have some deacon dressed like Martin Luther read the 95 Theses to us?

I vote for a full-blown return to Halloween as a great American Holiday where we dress up, have fun, make light of the dark side, and assert the victory of Jesus by simply enjoying ourselves. I want children to have Halloween back! I want my entire generation to apologize for believing this blather. Yes…that means you back there with your books and tapes.

There…you’ve been taunted by the best. Now go have a drink.

UPDATE: Oh c’mon people. Find your sense of humor. You’ve still got it somewhere. Look in the closet. If you think I am attempting serious analysis….BOO!!! Gotcha again.

Congrats to Real Live Preacher on this CT interview. I’ll channel my jealousy into Santa Clausish prayers that soon I will be discovered, and become a wealthy, well known internet personality. (“Lord….he uses the “F-word.” How could you let him get famous? How long, O Lord?”)

You know what? Reading this really makes me angry. I’d like to be one of those offended Christians. Call Dobson. Call Roy Moore.

But you know what? I’m worse than him. Lots worse. I stand on the shadow of the cross and spit on all that it means….all the while saying I believe it, and that it’s what my life is all about.

I know Jesus and still live like this guy lives most of the time. My heart has the same cynicism and cruelty towards God. I know what the Gospel means, and most of the time I act like I don’t care. Some of the time, I don’t feel like I do care. My heart, mind and emotions ought to be saturated, filled, overflowing and satisfied with Jesus. But I still drink from the cisterns of the world, as if there were no fountain flowing freely from the throne. I look at the cross, and am moved no more than Bill Maher.

God became man for Bill Maher. God died for Bill Maher. All that stuff in The Passion that made me want to puke? For Bill Maher. And even more outrageous….for me. Far more outrageous that it’s for scum like me.

Take a glimpse at what we would be be were it not for the grace of our creator, and remember his bloody sacrifice for this man, for you and for a world much worse. Take a moment and worship such a God.

Bill: At various times throughout history, there has been a point to suggestions related to Mary’s virginity, but most of them have been related to trying to say that Jesus wasn’t fully human. Certainly the idea of a pain-free delivery seems to rob Jesus of a bit of his humanity, but then that’s my own way of looking at things. After all, others clearly think that giving birth robs someone of their virginity. I don’t care one way or the other, but it is a judgment call, I guess.

If you put together various theories, though, you end up with a girl who was herself born without original sin (though apparently, still passed through her mother’s birth canal and so on—I think that this is wacky), who then conceived a child without intercourse (and on this part I agree that Scripture supports this belief), carried the child to term without having sex (sure), delivered the child by abnormal means (uh, wha?), remained a virgin her entire life (hard to believe, honestly, but technically possible from Scripture), and now in heaven is in a unique role to get Jesus to pay attention to us (gross damnable false doctrine). Why this veneration of Mary?

I suggest that perhaps a failure or refusal to comprehend the magnificence of the concept that we can boldly approach the Father’s throne of grace in Christ leads people to imagine obstacles in our way, and to elevate those who overcome those obstacles.

Me, I don’t need Mary interceding on my behalf – Jesus is my propitiation, the Holy Spirit makes intercession for me, and the Father’s wrath was poured poured out on Christ already.

Y’all head over to J.S.’s site, as he tears into “Christian” cinema a bit.

This is some previously unknown definition of the word “virgin” that I’ve never heard before. To be perfectly blunt, it sounds asinine. A virgin is someone who hasn’t had intercourse. Is someone going to say that a girl with a broken hymen from an accident or medical procedure isn’t a virgin? To suggest that Joseph and Mary didn’t have sex after Jesus was born is ridiculous enough, but to suggest that Jesus did the Casper the Ghost thing when it was time to be born just strains credulity to the breaking point. What is the point? I mean what is the bloody point? (those last two sentences are to be read while imagining John Cleese’s voice)

I mentioned this a while back, but just uploaded the snapshot to flickr today: Post-Modern Worship

People who sit around and speculate about Mary’s cherry have too much time on their hands.

And speaking of Ashlee Simpson, she was on the Today show to plead her case to Katie Couric. She claims that she had acid reflux the other night and it affected her voice, so her dad and her doctor insisted she sing along with (not lip-synch, mind you!) a backing vocal track. She claims she has never done that before in her life, by the way. When it came time to do her second song, her drummer pushed the “wrong button” and it started the first song again, complete with her pre-recorded vocals! Here’s the problem: I’ve had acid reflux before, too, and it didn’t affect my voice at all. It was just painful as hell, and I felt like I was having a heart attack. She didn’t look like she was in too much pain the other night. Sorry, Ashlee, you’re busted!!

Having just read a book on Orthodox marioplogy, I feel somewhat qualified to answer on this whole virgo intacta thing. Here’s the deal: Mary was a virgin before Jesus was born. This means that she was physically a virgin, with intact hymen and everything. When Jesus was born, this would normally break the hymen and thus destroy her virginity, dirtying her purity, and making Jesus an agent of sin. This is impossible, therefore Jesus must have been born supernaturally, without disturbing Mary’s virginity.

It’s actually quite logical, except for the first step. I don’t think virginity can be identified solely with the physical hymen, which is what the argument requires. Otherwise, it’s pretty straightforward.

Kent: It may interest you to know that there is some evidence that few, if any, in the early church believe that Mary ever had sex. Those siblings we hear about? Joseph’s from a previous marriage. And so on.

Anyway, considering the Christ’s own disciples fell into doctrinal error repeatedly, I’m not 100% convinced even by the claim that the early church believed X, but it does count for something in favor of X, where X in this case is Mary’s perpetual virginity.

As an American, of course, I’m tempted to make crude sexual jokes involving Mary in order to annoy a sacred cow, but really, aren’t there more important issues than some people’s hangups about sex?

The worst ghetto we partake of as believers is the age-ghetto, it deprives the youth of the elderly and the elderly of the youth. The youth need wise minds in their lives and the elderly need stong backs. I’m grateful to all in the body who work to tear down the walls of this ghetto.

I’d noticed the Here We Stand post too, I have them on my bloglines list but they usually lose me. What’s up with the desire of some to elevate virginity? I cannot think of any higher calling than for a woman to be a mother and a wife, nor can I think of a higher calling for a man than to be a father and a husband. Sexuality is a part of both roles, sexuality didn’t fall any further than the rest of creation. Is this part of the “Catholic Distortion” (Os Guinness in The Call)? The idea that there’s a “perfect life” and a “permitted life”?

This is the kind of the residual dark ages stuff that the church dredges up that has more to do with 16th century mores (or possibly pagan temple virginity) than the reality of Jesus’ life. When I read scripture I see that in addition to being a Messiah he was a son and a big brother.

What’s wrong with a trip down a birth canal? It’s traumatic but survivable, most of us have made the same journey.

Got an IM message from “Infomdd” last night, but didn’t get to answer. So here you go, dude.

The “What I Believe Page” is an insurance policy. It exists to protect me if some statement on the web site becomes controversial to the authorities at my current ministry. That page allows me to say, “At the same site, I clearly say….” and use their familiar revivalist language to express myself. If they can’t understand what I mean elsewhere, I will speak their language for a moment. It also exists to keep me from being fired for being a Calvinist. (When I wrote it, I was being grilled for preaching on I Thess 1:4, and I was in some danger of being shown the door.) The founder of our school was a Calvinist, and I like to keep that handy. And the last paragraph is about my relationship with the church where I preach, because some folks are upset that a guy employed at a Baptist school is preaching for Presbyterians. So it’s not exactly the ideal Internet Monk “beliefs” page, but hopefully you get the drift. Normally, I prefer to survive to fight another day, rather than be a martyr. After my son graduates, I’ll probably be more willing to say “Here I Stand…”

If you like CCM occasionally, there is a big variety at the WVIL link on the sidebar. (Best startup is IE)

If you haven’t watched what happened to pop tart Ashlee Simpson on SNL (first clip) the other night, it’s hilarious. Her blatant lie at the end of the show wasn’t hilarious, but pathetic. I wish we could get past this phase of accepting lip synchers as artists. I saw a clip of Sir Elton ripping into Madonna on this, and I just said “Yeah!!” It’s insulting, and the music journalists that write about these people know what is happening. Why don’t they just say it?

On Emergent churches: I have to admit that I really don’t know these people. I have invested some time in getting to know Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church. I’m very impressed. A lot of involvement in the arts. A major commitment to “radical Biblicism,” that shows in leadership, preaching, musical content, and next week at a conference for young pastors featuring John Piper. If Driscoll is an indicator, then I approve. His book, Radical Reformission, is excellent, and really quite convicting for me.

One thing I notice immediately: this is not Rick Warren and the Seeker church. Trust me. Driscoll’s sermons are Spurgeon compared to Warren. For one thing, he’s an expositor. He’s currently going through Genesis a chapter at a time. None of this Warren/PDL verse clipping stuff. And that just gives some real substance that appeals to me. I actually see a lot of similarity between Driscoll and Keller. Redeemer Presby is also big on the arts, especially jazz, and Keller, while not being an expositor all the time, is a tremendously theologically driven preacher, dealing with deep stuff routinely. Stuff Warren and Co. would avoid like the plague. And, of course, Warren and company still sound like SBC revivalists at heart. Driscoll and Keller don’t. They sound like culture-changing Reformed types.

So, Danny, Driscoll says this isn’t a repackaging, but a bringing missionary theology out of the far country and into the neighborhood. He says it’s NOT about reaching Gen X, but about reaching all culture groups. He explicitly criticizes the “age ghetto” of some emerging churches. I guess I am attracted to this because I have consistently taught that missionary theology was the best road to church renewal, and the best movements for reaching our culture haven’t been a bag of tricks, but a rethinking of the mission/church/Gospel/culture paradigm.

Now I’m convinced, does anyone have a Gmail invite to send my way?

GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google GMail account, allowing you to use GMail as a storage medium.

I haven’t tried it yet.

Thanks Michael for the McLaren link/paragraph. One quote from A New Kind of Christian that’s been stuck in my brain for more than a year is: “Count conversations, not conversions”. His writings (and yours) have been of great value to me in “lightening up” and not being so “wretchedly urgent” about everything.

Another interesting guy to read is Donald Miller, he had a line in Blue Like Jazz that went something like, “I was a fundamentalist once, for about three months…”

Douglas Wilson has some fine things to say about liturgy and culture.

Kurt will appreciate this.

Here’s Noel (right) and her friend Jennifer at last May’s OBI graduation.

Here’s a really extra-entertaining Best of the Web Today. If these Kerry supporters get any angrier, really…..it will not be a nice election night.

Emergent = “fragment of the “church” that is emerging from the vast miasma of history”

Can someone please explain this “Emergent” thing to me? I understand it has something to do with church and the post-modern world but when we speak of “post-modern” it only obfuscates the definition to the point where I go “Bahhh . New stuff bad”.

I have been invited to a meeting with the other youth “leaders” (they all quit so I am not sure who will be there) to figure out who is saved and who is not. Then put the saved kids in new membership class and figure out how to save the unsaved kids. These are high school kids and I didn’t object during the explanation of the meeting but I was almost bubbling over with questions about qualifiers. I’ll ask them at the meeting. Thoughts?

As for the QotD: Does American Christianity value social acceptance more than moral integrity? What are the signs of the disease? Yes. The signs include the justification of behaviors and attitudes, of some I am sure I share, that morality and community become interchangeable. To quote Derek Webb
“i repent of trading truth for false unity
i repent of confusing peace and idolatry “

Can anybody recommend a good, nonpartisan website that would have a breakdown of where both Bush and Kerry stand on each of the “big” issues? Gotta do a newspaper article on it… sigh they won’t let me endorse third-party candidates…media bias crap… ;)

This is why Tim Keller is rapidly becoming one of my favorite preachers. His explanation of a Gospel witness that mixes a variety of approaches mirrors what I am trying to do in the diverse kinds of ministry that I am doing at OBI. Making the Gospel attractive (because so much of the baggage isn’t.) Answering objections. Dealing with the cultural substitutes. Emphasizing community. Finding the place for a more thorough, Biblical explanation of the Gospel.

This is just superb and well worth keeping and studying. (Thanks to Mr. Monergism for the link.)

Kerry’s use of scripture really has me on the fence. Maybe a guy this saturated in the Bible deserves my vote. (Hats off to whoever is writing these speeches. Wow. An impressive way to get that evangelical vote.)

Anyone want to suggest other scriptures that ought to be hauled out and abused?

Bet you didn’t know what our Lutheran friends actually believe about Mary...didya? Didya?

The Sanger family says let’s abort without shame!

Judson: Nicene Theology is a nice blogger site.

Mclaren debates Emergent Evangelism. Big time applause from me for this paragraph:

“Rather than measuring the church by its attendance, we will measure it by its deployment,” McLaren said. “One of the greatest enemies of evangelism is the church as fortress or social club; it sucks Christians out of their neighborhoods, clubs, workplaces, schools, and other social networks and isolates them in a religious ghetto. There it must entertain them (through various means, many of them masquerading as education) and hold them (through various means, many of them epitomized by the words guilt and fear). Thus Christians are warehoused as merchandise for heaven, kept safe in a protected space to prevent spillage, leakage, damage, or loss until their delivery.”

Had a little choral group come from a Baptist college today. I said they were going to “perform.” I was promptly castigated. But they weren’t doing congregational music. They were doing choral arrangements of spirituals. What’s so un-Christian about a choral performance? If I go to hear a great artist, and the guy next to me starts clapping and loudly singing along, I’m going to pick up something and hit him. Hard.

I’ve tended to be very direct and clear in making the distinction that Saddam Hussein was a supporter of terrorism, though not of Al Queda or 9/11 specifically. In fact, I’ll continue to make that statement to avoid cloud the issue, but I did find some of the information at Hussein And Terror to be very interesting, especially near the end.

This is not intended to be an after-the-fact justification for invasion, since we (and by “we” I mean President Bush) should have done a better job of spelling this out before the invasion, but it serves to remind me, and hopefully others, of the sort of people against whom we are now committed. We’re spending too much, and shedding too much blood—our own and others’—and all in all it is painful and ugly hell, as war always is. But war will be expensive, and bloody, and horrible, and sometimes we simply must spend and bleed.

Judson: The old BHT ran on blogger, and aside from the usual dose of blogger burps, I really liked being able to use a WYSIWYG html editor to create/alter the page as I chose. Having to depend on other people to deal with site design is a pain. I love my fellow bartenders, but I simply am not geeky enough for advanced CSS. Kent shows you the nice things you can do with the blogger template.

Jim: It really comes down to this. If I wanted to ask questions like, “Where do most incidents of teenage gun violence/physical abuse/out of control behavior occur?” the answer would be at home. But I would never cite that in a home school vs public school context, no matter what side I was on, because the implications for the safety of a place should be considered individually. A school can be safe or dangerous. A home can be safe or dangerous. I need more information.

QotD: After reading “The Lottery,” the students concluded the following: “Our desire for social acceptance is greater than our desire for personal moral integrity.” IOW, we would rather be accepted than do what is right. We will shut up, and do the wrong thing, do nothing, or let the bad thing happen with no protest, IF you will not reject us.

How do we teach our children to resist this deeply ingrained human tendency?
Does American Christianity value social acceptance more than moral integrity? What are the signs of the disease?

Judson: My costs are pretty low. I use Bloghosts to host my domains. I also used BH to register 5minutewebs.com, which was pretty darned convenient. There are lower prices out there, but I’ve been happy with bloghosts so far.

You can get a really basic account for $3 a month, or you can go as high as $20 a month with their ultimate account. I’m using my ultmiate account to host 3 websites, and I’ve not come close to my limit.

Jack: A weekend has passed, so I’ll make my response brief. Incidentally, I’ve asked a number of questions repeatedly with no answer, and according to the rules as I read them, I can’t even ask them again. As it happens, I don’t think I’ll have as much time this week as last anyway, so that works out.

Judson, as a beginning blogger I’d concur with Michael’s (thank you sir for the kind words!) advice to go with Blogger. They’ve been great and supportive in handling questions. I don’t understand how they can provide what they do free of cost.

I’m not a geek, I’m a middlin’ “power user”, my programming skills are founded in dBase and Basic, but I”m able to fuss around with my HTML/CSS template and with some trial and error accomplish what I’d like to. I’d like to migrate to either WordPress or MT and learn enough to take a bigger role in site design, but earning a living, trying to start a family and time with my wife seems to get in the way of my plans…pesky people…

The biggest challenge I find is the ability to consistently post. I’m also running into a confidentiality issue as many of my experiences with people fall into this “silent bucket” in my life. One thing I know for sure, the more shameless blog plugs you post on BHT, the more readers you get. It’s great to be able to ride on somebody else’s coattails!

Michael: There were 8 in 18 months at one point. All at public schools. This told us something about the percentage of disturbed kids in PSs, the openness of PSs, the nature of social/psychological rage at PSs, the kinds of safety issues at PSs. I tend to think that school shootings (and the less-well-reported analogs that occur in different settings) say volumes about the shape of the culture, and that they occur at schools is simply a factor of logic. If the place where kids are is school, and a certain number of them are going to shoot somebody, it seems to follow logically that there’s a pretty high probability that they will shoot somebody while at school. Of course, if the perception is that such events occur principally at school, one might be forgiven from concluding that schools are less safe statistically than other places, although it would be a bit more of a stretch to say that the violence was inherent in the school setting rather than simply a part of the general culture.

It all points back to media skew. The general population forms its consensus on the basis of the media’s portrayal of reality, and there are two fundamental errors at work in that:

• The belief that the media accurately and honestly portrays events as they happen, in an objective fashion, without taking a point of view or pushing an agenda.

• The belief that the allegedly “entertaining” aspects of media are simply reflective of culture and not formative in any way.

The first error makes people think that every school is a looming Columbine, and that the NRA wants it that way. The second error makes them believe that somehow leaving Jr. at home alone with his buds, Pamela Anderson on his walls, HBO and Showtime on the telly and Marilyn Manson on his CD player while Mom goes out and has a “life” and Dad works at his true passion (making $$) has nothing to do with his decision to flout the gun regulations and commit a felony in a drug-free school zone while wearing a black leather trenchcoat.

I’m cogitating about setting up a blog. I’ve poked around on both blogger & typepad. Free is great, but I think now I want to do a little bit more than what that allows. Typepad is friendly, but annoying (e.g. you have to upgrade membership by 40 bucks a year just to put a banner image at the top of the blog- pretty niggardly of them, I’d say).

I’d like to hear your thoughts on-

1- costs associated with getting space, a domain, software, etc.

2- software solutions for someone who knows rudimentary html, and wants to make it look nice & personalized, but just wants to start simply at first

3- caveats about domains, software, etc.

You guys all have nice looking blogs and I trust you. Fire away. Thanks.

Interesting comments about the logical analysis of the fighting teacher post. Let’s do a little Aristotle.

I would see it something like this. Event X happened at place Y. What does event X tell us about place Y in general? What does event X tell us about a place Y in particular? What does event X tell us about place Y down the street?

Given that there are 44 million children in hundreds of thousands of public school classrooms, there will be a large variety of events of all kinds taking place. The fact that a fight between a teacher and a parent is unusual in the classroom is probably why it is in the news, therefore clueing me in that this isn’t likely to be the case at any other school.

Change the event. Let’s make it a school shooting. There were 8 in 18 months at one point. All at public schools. This told us something about the percentage of disturbed kids in PSs, the openness of PSs, the nature of social/psychological rage at PSs, the kinds of safety issues at PSs. However, there have also been a number of similar shootings at churches, public events and at workplaces. This clues us in that there are some limited similarities of these environments, but actually tells us that society contains a certain number of disturbed individuals who act out their anger in social settings that they associate with their rage. We can make few conclusions about place Y apart from what we know about human beings in general.

So with a series of events, we might learn something about PSs. This event is like reading “Boa Constrictor swallows first grader” or “Christian School Principal Convicted of Running Meth Lab.” Event X happens in various settings, and the particular settings have little to tell us about the original event. Boas eat children wherever they can. People who make meth can be found everywhere in society. People who fight over objects can be found in bars, stores, neighborhoods, flea markets, sporting events, malls, etc.

The nature of modern news- to juxtapose bizarre events and ordinary settings- should make us cautious about how much we conclude from the event at all. It’s like my dad saying “There are more tornados than there used to be.” No, there is more weather on TV and radio than there used to be.

Ok, I posted quickly – I was being called to lunch. Let me clarify: my point was not that public schools are inherently unsafe, or any more prone to violence than any other institution (including home schooling, as the recent NJ case where adopted Russian boys were abused by their “homeschooling” parents.) My point was to illustrate, as we have discussed several times here, that there is a wide variety of experiences to be had within public schools in this country. There is no monolithic public school as an institution, and thus it’s sort of pointless to even talk about whether “public schools” are bad or good, just as labels like “evangelical” or even “Christian” are meaningless when applied to whoever decides to call themselves that. I guess I’m a bit of an Aristotelian on this sort of thing; we can discuss particulars, but if you want to discuss universals, I’m probably going to quibble about the validity of categories.

The American Prospect article is too full of s**t^H^H^H^H holes to know where to begin to shoot at it, although it would probably make great sport. They can’t even find a conservative pastor with a clue to quote, as witness this paragraph:

“That’s why when Jimmy Carter ran, he [turned out to be] such a terrible president. Because when he [governed], he really tried to maintain [his integrity] and those types of values—and that is virtually impossible.”

Sorry, Rev, but Carter’s presidency was a waste because his ideas – and even his theory of governance – were wrong. Carter goes way out of the way in interviews to describe the lengths he went to to separate his “faith” from his governing role as president, usually invoking JFK as his model. He did so recently in an interview on NPR’s Fresh Aire, which I’d link to except that they are DNC shills who don’t deserve the traffic, even if their incidental music is pretty good.

OK: I went through 12 years of PS, and have spent at least 15 years after that working with primarily public school kids, and I’ve never heard anything remotely like it. Never seen a story in the paper or on the local news remotely like it.

But sooner or later, anything will happen in some public school somewhere.

Jim: That’s pretty ____ed up, but I don’t think you can use it as an indicator of public schools in general. I mean, by that measure, we could find a case of child abuse by a parent and say “see what happens when you allow kids to stay with their parents?”

Remind me again about how things are in public schools.

Good morning Matthew. I have a poem for you, courtesy of SI.

Anathema to Cards, ground balls through holes.
And pitchers, brave and meek, all fear Pujols.

Too long has Boston grieved, to feint or tease.
From Quincy to Revere, they pray, “Ortiz.”

Thank God I can still laugh. Pearls always helps.

Clay is with the school choir today, and they are singing in Covington and Lexington. Noel will get to hear the choir in Lexington, which will be a treat for both kids.

Last night I printed out all the classes Clay will take as a film studies major if he goes to Calvin. Wow. This just may be worth all the trouble and money. When I do this, I wind up wondering why there was no one in my world to direct me to the right college? Why wasn’t I born into a family that valued education? We can’t live with regret, but it’s one of my prevailing faults. But alas, if I had gone to a school like Calvin, and then on the academic road, there would be no Internet Monk. And what kind of world would that be?

I guess this guy is slipping in his commitment to Mormonism.

I think Bill Kristol gets it entirely right in this piece. What is the significance of this election? This is precisely why all the talk of anything other than 9/11 is very annoying.

Please read David Warren’s appeal to American voters as well. He is always good, but never better than here.

The Clinton administration had its chance to wake over the first attack on the World Trade Centre in 1993, and chose to look the other way. Egyptian intelligence warned the FBI that Arab terrorists were entering U.S. flight schools after the attempt to fly an airliner into the Eiffel Tower in 1994. The Clintonians looked away after uncovering a plot to bring down 11 airliners over the Pacific in 1995; after Khobar Towers in 1996; after uncovering an Al Qaeda masterplan in Albania in 1997; after the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998; after attempted terror strikes on the U.S. in 1999; after the USS Cole was hit in 2000. They chose, consistently, the path of least resistance.

To be fair, 9/11 was on an unignorable scale, and for months after, Americans were united in bi-partisan agreement to do more than mourn. But what would actually have been done without Mr. Bush’s remarkable spine?

The bottom line: WE HAVE RESPONSIBILITIES. This election isn’t about preferences. It is about responsibilities. To the living, to the dead, to the world, to one another. Go to a military cemetary. Go to a day care. Talk to a young person who just joined the Marines. Go to the VFW and talk to the WWII guys we have left. Remember what history has brought us. This isn’t the time to choose to think about ANYTHING ELSE. There will be that time, but this isn’t it. This is the time to think of what history will say about us in 50 years.

Someone called Bush “Churchill for the 21st century.” I believe it. Not that he is such a great man. (He’s a very simple man.) But that these are times history has brought us to. A great struggle. A great enemy. Great possibilities for evil. The whole future of the West is at our doorstep. Militant Islam wants the world, folks. It doesn’t just want a few acres in Palestine and then to be left alone. The Islamo-facists aren’t going away if we leave Iraq. Where was Iraq during WTC 1? The Cole? The Towers in Saudi Arabia? The embassy in Kenya? This is just starting, and it is a global conflict between two ways of life. We have a RESPONSIBILITY to these times, and to one another, to be brave. This isn’t the time to step back, but the time to step up and do what’s right.

Just a few days after 9/11, I wrote these words. They are as true as ever.

Now this is important: Our children and young people need to be told, over and over, about the very bad, evil people who want to hurt them. We have told our kids that everything is OK, and that is a lie. Everything is not OK. Every culture is not equally good. In fact, some cultures ought to treated like a rabid dog. People who hate us, who hate Wal-Mart, Disney, cable tv, Wall Street, your house, your dog, your little brother and our nation- these people are trying to do terrible things to us. They must be stopped. Many of them must be killed, and that is the right thing to do when really bad people are trying to kill innocent people just out of hatred and jealousy. Our children need to be told that our country is great and good, that the people in police and fire and military uniforms are heroes, and they should grow up and become heroes by wearing a uniform or protecting us from bad people. Kids, our country is worth all this trouble, and anyone who questions this should be pitied or egged.

I realize a number of liberals are quite sweaty at that last paragraph, but this is where we are. Our innocence is over, and if we try to protect our children or the flying public or the nation in general, we are going to see the beginning of a new dark ages. If you don’t believe me, take a course in world history and note the following- all the civilizations before us, at some point, fell apart and someone else took over. It can happen to us. Ask the Romans.

One of our brave soldiers writes a letter to his supporters at home. While I enjoy the World Series, this young man has his life on the line for me and mine. No mythology. The real war.

I forgot what a loon Pat Robertson really is. And I have family members who hang on this nut job’s every word.

Dr. Michael New writes on the Stassen column.

Wow. I mean….how does this get published anywhere? Read the last paragraph and be glad you live in America.

And here we see just how bad….how sad and bad…it’s gotten out there. A whole essay in a serious mag to convince conservatives that GWB is not a real Christian. Whatever happened to issues? I guess this is to balance all the Kerry is no real Christian stuff.

My second major piece over the weekend. I like being productive.

“Politics East of Eden: Political Mythology or the Christian Story?”

Update: IM is updated.

Russ at Coffeehouse has something new on-line that I think the BHT gang would like to support. You can read about it here. Add the link…..and pray it all comes to nothing :-)

Badnarik openly tells Kerry voters: Help us, and we will help you win Wisconsin. Sad and disappointing. Are Libertarians really of the opinion that we need a President who will declare terrorism a nuisance? Is the strategy to get a Massachusetts liberal in the White House, and then the country will be even more ready for a Libertarian President?

You know, When you believe in things that you don’t understand, you suffer.

The Hardball Times does an excellent World Series preview, especially so because of the right result :-)

The Bishop of Denver speaks to an issue we’ve been debating in the bar: How does the Christian view pluralism?

CT does a major piece on the Emergent Church. Very, very good, with sensible and balanced conclusions.

Paul Krugman is articulating the Democrat position this year: “We are appealling to the American people to join us in saying (for the cameras) that 1) African-Americans are too stupid to know where and how to vote. 2) Evil racist Republicans are throwing the votes of all blacks into the trash can. But don’t worry- our army of lawyers will vote for you.” (IM research staff translation) Surely this kind of patronizing nonsense is turning the stomach of intelligent young blacks somewhere? I hear that polls indicate Bush is going to receive many more black votes this year. It would be nice to shut this guy up.

Professor Stassen was my pro-choice, pro-abortion Ethics professor at Southern. I liked him, but on the issue of abortion he was clearly a man determined to teach us that the Bible was pro-choice and the pro-choice position was more compassionate. Here’s a column giving his Democratic liberal view of how Bush’s economic policies are really pro-abortion, and, I suppose, in the end, encouraging us to vote for the team that is full-blown enthusiastic for lots of abortions. The Democratic leadership seems to have never saw a child who wouldn’t have made a nice abortion. (This is the kind of Sojourners liberalism I came out of, so thank God that I made it through the darkness into some sensible light.) National Right to Life responded and then Stassen rejoined. (Some states on the BHT are in this discussion)

I mean, hey….does economic data influence abortion data? Of course. Should the pro-life community be consistent? Absolutely, but we need to start out with scripture’s view of life beginning at conception, then let’s protect that life by law, THEN let’s talk economic policy. I always appreciated Dr. Stassen, but I have to say the day we went through various passages and heard that the Bible didn’t teach life from conception was a key day in my abandoning of liberalism. (Thanks to World Mag Blog for this story)

For some reason I’m not able to assimilate much of the “Libertarian” discussion, likely it has to do with an intense week at work, but it might be that though I find some aspects of libertarian thinking appealing, I don’t see the concepts I’m hearing at the bar actually working. Many of my reasons are intuitive, which is good for me to go by but it’s not valid criteria for anyone else.

But I’m going to take a crack at explaining my thinking, maybe I’ll simply be talking dandruff…

All week I’ve been immersed in the needs of the developmentally disabled. I sat for a few moments staring off into the woods trying to apply a “free market” economy to funding the needs of this population. It won’t work. Many disabled people come from families that could not afford to procure care for their loved one in a “free market”, the cost of the care of the disabled individual is greater, sometimes many times greater, than the family’s ability to earn.

By spending down their savings, in the form of cash and real assets, they could “make a go” of it for a few years, but then they’d be broke and unable to help their loved one any further.

If we as a society have a value of caring for the “least of these”, which thankfully we still do, then the “collective will” must at times superceed the “individual will”. In a sense “will” is simply an exertion of “value”. The collective has a value to care for the needs of a disabled individual, actions based on this value become the collective’s “will”.

Where does the “collective get the right”? Where does the “individual get the right”? What right? Did God really grant you “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness?”

I understand the concept of “tyranny of the majority”, but libertarianism sounds like “tyranny of the individual”. Theoretically governmental power in the US derives from the “consent of the governed”, but that’s a macroscopic, not microsopic concept. When a murderer is locked up in prison he’s not consenting to be so governed, he’s yielding to the force of the collective. He can shout “I don’t recognize your authority” all he wants, what really matters “at the end of the day” (I hate that phrase) is that he’s weaker than the force imprisoning him.

Individual rights in any society are at the “whim” of the collective, we have this document in our country called “The Constitution” that attempts to define our society’s understanding of what rights are important for individuals. But in the end, as with all things of man, it’s power that rules the day. In the US our entrenchment with capitalism inexorably links “wealth” and “power”. If the “Golden Rule” (i.e., “He who has the gold, rules) really means anything, then the collective truly “rules” as the “state” is wealthier than any individual.

We’ve done “ok” in our country with balancing the needs of the “collective” with the needs of the “individual” (please note I didn’t use “rights”). The simple fact that there are people pissed off at both ends of the spectrum (socialists and libertarians) testifies to this reality.

Think of it this way. If the election gets ugly because of all the lawyers and judges and contention over 2004’s version of “chads”, who wins?

The person who controls the military.

I don’t know what you’ll think about this, but I’m proud of it, and I’d like to write a lot more things like it.

“Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery:” A theological reflection on the Gospel of the scapegoat.”

I’d be honored if you would read it. I’ve got two more articles in me that I need to write.

BTW- I just scored my third IM interview, and I am really excited by it.

Phillip: You asked some questions, and I answered them. I asked a couple of simple question and so far you have not answered them. To simplify, here are my questions:

1. If the collective has the right to FORCE the individual to obey the will of the collective, then what is the principle that gives the collective that right?

2. Is that right absolute? If not, what are the limits of that right?

Further, I did NOT propose feudalism as an example of a libertarian civilization. You said Nobody has addressed my basic assetion that 100% private property rights held dear to Libertarianism are incompatible with civilized society. To answer and refute you, I pointed out that Feudalism was an example of 100% private ownership. I did not say it was an illustration of a libertarian society. Please do not think that is what I intended.

(Nevertheless, the middle ages in Europe produced the great universities, (Cambridge, Oxford, Sorbonne, Wittenberg). The Reformation was born in feudal Germany. Aquinas was a product of feudal Italy. Hardly a time of unmitigated brutality for all but the most wealthy.) More »« Less

Jack: My scenario in which nobody cooperates with anyone is one possible outcome of rational actors doing the math. Since each person benefits most when he doesn’t act, and others do, and is hurt the most when he acts and others don’t, nobody will act, and nothing will be done. To argue otherwise is to suggest that people will look beyond their own self-interest to contribute to a greater good—a very (hopelessly) optimistic outlook on humanity. That we can point to examples of similar things happening in the past is interesting, but when one looks closer at those examples, one finds: a very limited number of people in decision-making roles, usually with a strong religious authority in place of the state, able to restrain people and influence decisions by non-political pressure. And also, much suffering by non-land-owners.

Are you suggesting that we should reserve voting rights to landowners, and take land away from people who don’t meet certain requirements, or do you have some other way of ensuring that people (_all_ people, or things don’t work) look beyond their own immediate self-interest to act in the common good?

Jack: I posted my last before seeing your last, but you provide yet another example of what I’m talking about. Feudal society was oppression of the many by the few, pure and simple. Nice, if you’re one of the few. Pretty much sucks, if you’re one of the many.

We don’t disagree on socialism, but your characterization of the American system as socialism is simply nonsense. And I see nothing but hopeless optimism in Libertarianism. Nothing.

And still, you’ve got one mentally-disturbed Mr Sourpuss restricting 99,999 people from living, and you have no answer. Still, you’ve not described how a system can expect to function without 100% participation. But I’m hopelessly optimistic? How does Libertarianism deal with someone determined to be a problem? Most systems bend the rules and lock that person up, eventually. Sometimes they lock him up too soon, sometimes too late. But Libertarianism says that nobody has the right to lock him up unless he breaks one of the limited set of rules, and there are a lot of ways to disrupt civil society without breaking the rules, especially if you have money.

Imagine Howard Hughes in a purely Libertarian society. Very wealthy, and thoroughly nutty. Now imagine you’re his serf.

Jack: Let me suggest another way of understanding how someone (me) can be an ex-Libertarian. That’s right, by the way, I’m not ignorant of Libertarianism, but in fact at one point held the same beliefs I see from you and Neb and Russell here. Well, maybe not all three of you. The point is, I “get” what you’re saying about the federal government. I’m suggesting it is a limited way of looking at things.

In the standard Libertarian view, which you have put forward here today, there are two actors in an adversarial relationship: the people and the state. I agree that this is a problem, and that there are abuses. Certainly an understanding of the fallen nature of man leads us to be cautious about granting any man unlimited power, which is why we have a Constitutional Republic and not a monarchy.

However, the solution you offer to problems with the current system does away with the single adversarial relationship and replaces it with 300,000,000 relationships!

In a war between the people and the federal government, who wins? Trick question, of course, since the federal government is made up of the people. That complicated relationship ensures a sort of balance which tilts sometimes one way and sometimes the other, and I think we can all agree that it has, of late, tilted a bit too far toward the federal government.

But with a strong (too strong, let’s stipulate) federal government, the people band together to try to equalize things. The state is nearly infinitely stronger than any one person, even Bill Gates, but it is almost a match of equals when many people band together as a single actor.

Not let us say that we have eliminated the state as an all-powerful actor, constrained it, and defanged it. Now we have 300 million people in the United States, and some have more power than others. More importantly, some of those people have much more power now that the state is gone. With nobody to enforce the rules that keep us healthy and safe now, the more powerful individuals begin to subjugate the less-powerful ones.

Oh, that can’t happen, you want to say. And yet the times to which you point as models of Libertarianism are marked the subjugation of women, minorities, immigrants, and the “working class,” which used to mean an entirely different type of people than we think of today.

Employers within an area band together to lower wages, while raising prices. Where can we go for redress? Enough goods are sold at the higher prices—say, to other company-owners—to keep the companies going, but now the majority of people are priced out of the market. If someone wishes to break with the pack and pay higher wages, how long will that person last in the marketplace?

All business-owners theoretically have the right to refuse service today. That’s the theory. But as Denny’s found out, refusing service to a class of people is costly. Now imagine that there is no state to investigate claims of discrimination. Denny’s is a private business and can serve whom they wish. Perhaps a certain class of people are willing to pay a little more to make up for lost sales if a company will refuse service to another certain class of people, and threaten to take their business elsewhere if the company will not. This is all perfectly legal in a Libertarian society, of course, since each person can enter voluntary agreements or not, as he wishes. And now there are “Whites Only” signs in shop windows, and whites-only drinking fountains, and whites-only schools—they’re all private now, and determined racists have enough money to ensure a competitive advantage to whites.

It is not for no reason that Libertarians tend to be white males (again, sorry, Neb).

The philosophy of which Libertarianism most reminds me is “natural selection.” The “survival of the fittest.” It’s a great system—if you’re fit. But we can’t all be the sheriff in the wild west, some of us are the whores, or the drunks, or the folks who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and got shot. Don’t worry, though, if you have relatives, they’ll be paid by the shooter to compensate for their loss. And if you don’t, well, you just ain’t fit.

Think about the glorious time in the past to which you three want to return us. Was it really as glorious as you think? I’ll take my chances against the state with a couple of hundred million other people backing me up, thanks.