Wow, Wyman.  A while back you ran some smack about S. Carolina beating my Hogs later in the season.  I’m glad I saved that post since SC is up 3-0 in the 2nd half over the worst team in the SEC West.

Sharon: It might be a good book to start with but it is not at all the typical PD James novel. Her usual genre is murder mystery (and her main sleuth is Adam Dalgliesh, a Scotland Yard homicide detective who grew up a PK and moonlights as a poet. Really!). The Children of Men is not a mystery but a dystopian novel in which, inexplicably, all women become infertile. The last generation (last year) of children born (called the “Omegas”) become a pampered, protected and increasingly demanding lot. The social order collapses as people become increasingly hopeless. Both crown and parliament are replaced by a dictatorial “Warden”. The Church of England survives in a Pagan form. Suicide is rampant and even officially encouraged for the old and weak. Meanwhile the search is on, through compulsory fertility testing, for a fertile woman who could prove to be the hope of survival for the human race. Sex becomes a duty and a chore and most men soon lose interest in it, prompting the authorities to set up a “Ministry of Pornonography” to ensure that couples will be aroused enough to at least try to procreate (it doesn’t work very well). Through her story the author clearly expresses her concerns for an increasingly nihilistic West (Britain in particular).

I am agnostic on the subject of “book-before-movie-or-vice-versa”. I hated reading The Lord of the Rings (sue me!) but loved the movies. In this case I would read the book first becase I expect that James’ pro-life message, very strong in the book, is likely to be watered down by Hollywood

...no, I’m not kidding.

Xtreme Conversion, a Christian reality-TV show that compares the all-out commitment of extreme sports enthusiasts to the focus needed to be a real Christian is set to debut this fall.

Each half-hour program tracks the real-time progress of Christians who, through the power of Christ, are making powerful changes in their lives….

“I love adventure,” says Dwight Hall, seminar speaker, entrepreneur, and host of Xtreme Conversion. “When I jumped from a plane as an Airborne Ranger, there was no turning back. It was 100-percent commitment. That’s the way it is with extreme sports, and that’s what it takes to be a real Christian too.”

“The Bible compares the Christian life to a race,” Hall says. “If you are going to compete in a death-defying race, you have to train, you have to commit, you have to focus. Why should it be any less for someone who really wants to walk the walk of true faith-the most difficult race in life?”

“The Bible says, if you love God, you will keep His commandments,” explains Hall. “That’s the bottom line. If we truly have love, it won’t be that difficult, but we have to give God 100 percent to make it happen. With God, everything is possible-it’s not possible to be impossible.”

That link between surfing and baptism…how did I miss that gem of an illustration?

HT to Riddleblog – and Kim Riddlebarger’s response is appropriate:

Somewhere along the line, I missed the connection between Christianity and extreme sports—probably because I went to Westminster, where they just taught us Scripture and theology.  It also may be because I haven’t yet given God 100%.

Richard, the trailor has my interest. I’ve never read her books. Is this one a good bet for my first?

I’m a little backward about what should come first, the book or the movie? I actually like to see the movies first because it is usually NOT as good as the book but, see, I don’t know that yet, now, do I? I usually am tickled with the movie. So then, when I read the book after the movie I’m delighted all over again.

Wyman, I’m listening to the new Dylan CD right now.  This is easily some of the best stuff he’s done in a long time.

We have just returned form our vacation, having spent most of it this year getting to know the city of Calgary where our daughter will begin university next week (Michael and Denise, I feel your pain!).

A lot can happen while one is on holidays. While I was away we lost one planet and my Beloved Red Sox hit the skids in a big way ... Oh well!

A few weeks ago I opined that I didn’t trust Oliver Stone with the topic of the WTC and 9/11. But everything I have read since then, both here and elsewhere, says that he has done an excellent job with the film. My bad. So it’s on my list…

Speaking of movies I’m psyched about… I love the work of P.D. James. I try to read one of her mysteries each summer on my vacation. This year it was Death of An Expert Witness. Excellent! She writes so well that one feels drawn viscerally into the story. I particularly like how she weaves her Christian faith (of the High-Anglican sort) into her stories. She did this particularly well in her dystopian The Children of Men, which is at once one of the more troubling and hopeful books I’ve read. It is being made into a movie (to be released on Christmas day) and here is the trailer. From that little peek it loks like they have captured the feel of the book. If you have not read The Children of Men I recommend it highly. Read it before the film comes out.

I’ve been trying to form some “dots in a row” thoughts on “N.T.Wright’s (not)imputation” put in a column next to ”(put your favorite Reformed theologians name here) imputation”.

Next comes along the “imputation of Adamic sin” vs. “the inherited sin nature”

Then my question: in terms of preaching the Gospel, what does this have to do with what Christ did for us?

Brian: If what you see when you stick the CD into your computer is .CDA files, that means you’ve got an audio CD. You should be able to play it in any CD player, or use a standard MP3-ripping program (say, iTunes) to convert the files to .MP3.

When a man has so much faith he’ll deliberately drown himself, that’s a lot of faith. It’s a sad shame that he didn’t learn that God isn’t obligated to jump when we say jump before he died. The most amazing part, I think, is that God is so good that people really can go through their entire lives believing that God will honor stunts like this, because over and over He does guide us through all kinds of ridiculous and foolish things we do.

My condolences to his family, and my hopes for his congregation that they hold to the Cross of Christ as the center of the Christian faith, and not just “faith” as an abstract concept.

For your consideration, just because I liked it:

Anthony Bradley, posting at Resurgence, suggests that since our redemption in Christ is such a huge deal, we ought to be the most joyful, partying-est people on the planet. I agree. Here’s to no more crabby Christians. (except Angus, because when he gets his crabby on, it’s freakin’ hilarious)

Denise says that blogging has changed me. I don’t know what she means. If anything, I think I’m finally becoming the person God wants me to be.

Sorry, Brian, but CDA files don’t contain the audio information.  They’re just representations of the actual audio.

Angus said: Really. Because if it is, I’m going to video tape myself doing my prayer of Jabez routine and play it on an endless loop. I’ll have a Benz by Christmas.

Seriously, I know I am sleep deprived and all but this is the funniest thing I have read lately. 

I had a friend digitally record some audio cassettes for me.  I was wanting it in mp3 format.  It is actually in cda (CD Audio) format.  I cannot convert it into mp3 format for some reason with my software.  Because of logistics it is not convenient to get things re-recorded.  Is this cda a useable format?  I mean, if I put this audio on my blog can the average person listen?  (I realize that this assumes someone would actually want to listen, but play along with me here.)  If not, any advice on converting it?  Thanks.

Matthew:  I realize I am late responding, but I wanted you to know that I MUST dress like an old man.  It’s part of my ongoing bid to be more like this man, who said that when he was young he dressed like an old man, drove an old man’s car, and even walked with a cane for a while (an old man’s cane, not one of the ones I see High School seniors renting out as part of their prom outfits).  If it’s good enough for Renfield, it’s good enough for me!

By the way, thanks to those of you who have emailed me with advice about my joint and muscle problems.  The auto-immune test came back negative, which is good news.  The bad news is that I still don’t know what’s wrong with me (besides the obvious psychosocial problems) and it’s getting worse.

a coworker of mine has engineered a bible study of Proverbs to which I remian invited but, as of yet, have been unable to attend. Therefore I thought I would read the material he sent and comment or give my interpretation via e-mail. This weeks lesson is on friendship.

His text:

“This week we are looking at what Proverbs says makes one a good friend or neighbor. Also, see how these traits tie into other examples in Scripture. There are some especially good examples throughout the books of Kings.

Check through the book of Proverbs and see the variety of circumstances in which someone is called a friend. Some starter passages are 18:17; 17:17; 18:24; 27:6; 14:20.

The Good Neighbor – 3:29; 25:8-9; 24:17-19; 25:21-22; 11:22; 14:21; 21:10; 22:24-25; 6:1-5; 3:27-28; 12:26

The Good Friend –

• Constancy – 14:20; 19:4-7; 18:24; 17:17; 27:10


• Candor – 27:6; 29:5; 28:23


• Counsel – 27:9; 27:17


• Tact – 25:17; 27:14; 25:20; 26:18-19

The Vulnerability of Friendship – 2:17;16:28; 17:9;

My response:

Friend 1:

It’s all about accountability man!

Friend 2:

I love you man, but you are a butt hole,

Outsider:

you are a butthole!

Friend 2:

shuddup you jerk I’m the only one that get’s to call him butthole.

Friend 1:

Yea! I’m closer to him than my own brother. Right on Bra! Thanks for caring enough to confront me for my buttholeness.

Friend 2

You bet bro, I expect the same from you – because I trust you enough to be very open with you.

Friend 1:

I’m gay.

Friend 2:

See! You are a butthole again.

 

I’m doomed.

We had a church picnic (with no comedians!) last night and some thoughts I’ve been having finally came together for me by the end of the evening.

Yesterday I borrowed a trailer, loaded up all the tables and chairs by myself (brutal work), drove them out to the site, set them up, collected money for the food, pretty much MC’d our entertainment portion, and then loaded up the stuff (with help) and brought it back to the church. What struck me was my inability to ask people to help.

As a child and teenager, I heard over and over how lazy I was. I think part of the reason I can’t ask for help or delegate tasks to other people is because I don’t want people to think I am lazy. In my mind, if I ask someone to do something for me or volunteer for something, I am lazy. I do this in about every area of my job and it is driving me into the ground.

I want to know how skewed my perception really is because I’m pretty sure folks think I’m an idiot for doing everything myself. And they’re probably right.

On a lighter note, I need to confess some sins. Last night, I read the first chapter of Celebration of Discipline and about ten pages of In Search of Solitude by Thomas Merton.

Call me Jimmy Swaggart for “I have sinned.”

I have a question…if your pastor pre-records a portion of your service that contains him praying, when they replay that section of the service over the jumbotrons is it still a valid prayer? Are you supposed to pray too or just enjoy the video? Really. Because if it is, I’m going to video tape myself doing my prayer of Jabez routine and play it on an endless loop. I’ll have a Benz by Christmas. Another question, when they opened the service last Sunday, they had a guy play the trombone as a call to worship. He was really good. The orchestra backed him up and it was very powerful, except, is the song “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho” supposed to sound like, “Everybody wants to be a cat” from the Aristocats? Also, the song leader got pretty riled up during their “Special”, they sang “The Church Is Alive”. Is he supposed to preach a sermon in the midst of the song? If so, that’s good because the other sermon was more like an Amway presentation. The song just kept getting louder and louder and longer and longer, by the time it was over, the old people were doing the jitter bug right in front of the alter. A real blessing let me tell you. In the song sermon, I learned a lot of church history. I learned that the church was once wrapped in purple velvet and covered with jewels and it survived in spite of that. I guess he was talking about how financially challenging it must have been to spend all that money to only redecorate later. I also learned that the media and the press have attacked the church and it still survived. I never heard anything about that before. Did they use rocks and sticks, or did they – like have guns, because i don’t see any indication of destruction on the building itself.
During the sermon, I did learn that our church is moving to the multi level marketing approach as a means of making money. We are going to give both our name and our financial support to struggling smaller churches and in turn for their buy-in, they get to be a part of our “network”. Pretty soon, we will be all over Nashville. Thousands of members and many branch churches. I’m hoping to make branch VP, so if you want in, just shoot me an email.

 

i’ve contemplated bringing this up for a while and a recent comment on Wal-Mart’s new deal pushed me to it.
A few weeks ago, i went with my wife and her 12-year-old sister down to Colorado Springs to go camping for the weekend.  While we were there, we went over to the Focus on the Family visitor center to see the Adventures in Odyssey stuff (as both of them grew up on listening to it).  Well, for those of you who haven’t gone there, the building is divided up into three basic areas: the James Dobson shrine (which covers 1/3rd), a bookstore (covers 1/2), and the AiO/Whit’s End.  Of course, as it can be seen in my previous sentence, a major part of the building is more of a James Dobson shrine than a FotF tour.  There’s a mini-theater that continuously plays Dobson’s “best” moments (mainly from TV, such as his appearances on Larry King), as well as a TV room which shows the same things (but ordered differently).  Now, before i turn this into a major rant on Dobson, i wanted to focus on the family politics.  One of the monthly magazines published is entitled Citizen and addresses political concerns.
It just so happened that the August issue dealt with the issue of “what would happen if the Democrats take control of Congress in November” (here’s the article: link).  This is the FotF’s “most likely scenario”:

1. George Miller, an appraently anti-home school Dem would take control of the House Education and Workforce Committee and would push out a bill to end home schooling.
2. Charles Rangel would take over the House Ways & Means Committee, causing tax increases and increased spending to welfare programs.
3. Patrick Leahy would take over the Senate Judiciary Committee and stop all “strict constructionists like Roberts or Alito” judge nominees.
4. The Deomcrats would push out an impeachment of GWB through John Conyers, the Dems pick for the House Judiciary Committee.

The next page (i suppose it is not part of the article) details (1) what (tax-exempt) churches can and cannot do with regards to politics and (2) asks churches to push this line as much as possible (such as pastors may be included as supporters of a candidate as long as it is clear that this support does not consitute the church’s endorsement of the candidate and churches may rent liss of their members to candidates for use in seeking support or raising funds if rented at “fair market value”).

Two questions (QsOTD?):
(A) Does the first part (the bleak future if the Dems win Congress) sound a bit over the top?  Personally, i’d almost want those to happen only because that would mean Congress would have done more in one season that practically every other Congressional season combined.
(B) Does the second part (church action) sound “wrong?”  It sounds to me like “ok, we can’t do this, but let’s do our best to get as close as possible to it.”  Should believers waltz that close to illegal behavior in order to push a particular political agenda?

What the…?

Has anyone else heard of this?

It’s an article about a group of renegade Catholic preists running a web site called Rent a Priest. Like the way I see many things Catholic (Roman, that is), they do a few good things, but what I disagree with is enough for me to politely excuse myself from the room.

Some examples:

Good – married preists, counseling for people who were abused
Not so good – gay priests and marriage (no, I’m not jumping into that debate. I’m just pointing out an example from my own belief)

Yesterday was a strange day. Actually, I thought the most interesting post was my Screen Door Jesus thingie. Turns out there is a BHT lurker who lived in Port Neches, Texas at the time and was part of the whole Jesus sighting phenom as well.

Funny, I thought that this…

Your blog is not a ministry, especially if you’re a layman.

...was the money quote.

I nominate the following for a banner quote:

If you’re calling a blog a “ministry,” you can be 99% sure you’ve got your head so far up your butt that it’s actually come back out your esophagus again.

That’s Real Ultimate Power,^© Martin Luther style. It’s at least got to go on The List.

Well, I just got the chance to tune in for the first time today, and what a day. I have no idea what most of you are talking about, but I have some idea what none of you are talking about… I think.

But I did laugh out loud at several posts.

By the way, Dale, I think I completely got your post, and liked it. Bring it.

Is God free, and if so, what has He decided? Election (9).

Had Dale’s post been directed at Sharon, I would have objected that he was imputing inferences which he had not sought to clarify. However, since he didn’t directly address Sharon, but simply brought up what seems to me to be a parallel to the way many people (not necessarily Sharon, but I don’t know yet) treat the issue of homosexuality, he avoided a wrathful response from me. :-)

So there you have it, Michael. That’s my belief of what Dale was getting at, though I might be wrong. In any case, his post stands as an interesting question for anyone who does suggest that homosexuality isn’t always a problem, or that love should cause us to overlook that particular sin.

In general, we’re probably all very selective about which sins bother us more than others, either easier or harder on the ones with which we struggle the most. Or both, in fact. I’m both proud and gluttonous, and really really harsh on the first while strangely feeling charitable toward the second. Go figure.

I just saw the most frightening person ever on TBN. Let the horror of that sink in for a moment. Is it okay to fall asleep or am I going to have nightmares where she gets up in my grill yelling at me to send in $66.12 and I wake up pinned to the ceiling with blood shooting out of my ears?

“Don’t push me Steve.”

Holy crap!  What kind of Christianity is that? So the post was bad enough to take down, but not bad enough to issue a public apology? And what the hell does “Comedians don’t belong in church, period” even mean, especially when the context is an entertaining date night for parents? The blogosphere is like a lifetime of free methamphetamines for people on a power trip like this lady seems to be.

Did someone on here say God is “agnostic” on adultery or some other sexual sin? Or that they didn’t like some passage so it must not mean whatever?

If this post is aimed at something said here on the BHT or IM, Dale, please draw a connection that can be responded to with some certainty.

I’m very somewhat confused.

Death By Love – audio by Mark Driscoll.

It’s worth a listen.

Please.

One bloggers encounter with the queen of the watchbloggers.

“Don’t push me Steve.”

You have some friends that are adulterers. You like them. In fact, they are your best friends. You wouldn’t do it yourself, but your very best friends in the world happen to be adulterers.

But you come to pesky verses in the Bible like 1 Cor 6:9–11:

Or know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

But what do you do if you are an “evangelical” and don’t want to offend your friends? You cannot tell them that they are going to hell if they don’t repent from their sins. That would be “unloving”.

Whereas a classic liberal would say “yup, that’s what the Bible says; but I don’t buy it”, the postmodern Christian says “I don’t buy it; so that cannot be what it really says”. And regardless of how many times they read about adultery in the Old Testament being a moral offense (Ex 20:15) and a capital offense (e.g., Lev 20:10); or they read in the New Testament that Jesus expands on the definition of adultery (Matt 15:19; Matt 5:27–28) or tells the woman caught in adultery to go and sin no more (Jn 8:11); or that it creates enmity with God (James 4:4), or adulterers will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9), Postmoderns don’t believe it.They find that it doesn’t fit their conception of God.

Yet Paul says that adulterers “shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” The Apostle does hold out to them the gospel to them, though:

And such were some of you: but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.

Past tense. The gospel was extended to them; they repented and believed.

But now comes the rub: if the Bible is true; and if its universal testimony concerning adultery is true; then saying that God doesn’t really hate adultery actually condemns the adulterer from repenting, believing, and inheriting the kingdom of God.

Is telling your friends that God is really agnostic about adultery really loving your neighbor? Or is it in fact eternally hating them?

When I was growing up summer vacations usually involved a revival, camp meeting or church homecoming. In June of 1969 our equivalent of Disney World took place in Beaumont, Texas when my family attended a function that was a combination of the above. It was a week long revival with dormatories for out of towners—Bible studies in the AM, afternoon and evening worship sessions, meals in a church dining room. Like I said,  great vacation for kids (jn+++)

For some reason that I still can’t fathom someone talked my mother into playing hookey from one of the afternoon sessions so that we could drive about an hour to see the image of Jesus on someone’s screen door.

Now, it’s a movie. I was there. I swear.

My apologies to Kevin.

Michael: “I dont understand what that swipe at us was all about. How weve offended the guys at Reformed Catholicism I cant imagine.”

Normally, it seems that there is much overlap of opinion between Kevin and the BHT. I’m still a relative newbie around here, so I don’t have the perspective of time, but I’m reading him with the assumption of a good natured jab. I hope that’s the case.