solution: cancel

Oh brother: Townhall meetings start going awry, so our brilliant representatives of the people, by the people, for the people have determined that the right answer is "cancel the meetings".

You know: because when they disagree with you, you don;t have to listen. You have better things to do, "like ministry".

I'll be moving 10,000 lbs of bookstore fixtures across the Ozarks today. You make sure you're with God's people in God's house on God's day this week, whether you agree with them or not. Man up.

cent cites JT cites Tozer

The man of pseudo faith will fight for his verbal creed but refuse flatly to allow himself to get into a predicament where his future must depend upon that creed being true. He always provides himself with secondary ways of escape so he will have a way out if the roof caves in. What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God as completely now as they know they must do at the last day.

News Flash

Obama natural born citizen.

The best part of this archived version of the National Review editorial (HT: JT) is to find that the accusation probably started on a blog from a supporter of Hillary Clinton. The left makes the best crazy people, I swear, but the ones who won't die are always on the Right.

That essay's archived for your future personal edification, but it is copyrighted by the national Review. Don't make copied, but if JT's NRO link goes dead you can find it here.

Culture and Science

Here's something I ran across in which scientists think machines are becoming too close to human intelligence. And I'm publishing this on a Sunday, so I'll be brief.

I have two bizarre obsessions on this blog: global warming and the progress of robotic and computer science toward "lifelike" robots/machines. Here's why I am obsessed with these things: they are false religions which will ultimately hurt us more than help us as created beings made in the image of God. For example, it may be interesting or even cheaper or more efficient to have an answering machine that acts like a person. But if what we really want is to interact with people, we shoudl interact with the people God has made.

I realize that this has nothing to do with accounting or time management -- but those are not Gospel virtues. The Gospel virtues are to love God above all things, and your neighbor as yourself -- and to build a machine because you are philosophically a misanthropist and a committed worshipper of yourself violates both of those, no matter how you dress it up.

Think about this: the scientists are the ones here noticing that the trend is toward something which will cause social and societal upheaval. Why is it that they can say stuff like this, and care about stuff like this -- even in what is today a sort of back water of technological development -- but we Christians are somehow unable to get to the place where we can call me out of the rest of their sins with equal precision and clarity to the true solution to their culture?

Mostly right

Because iMonk is made that I picked on him via Twitter, here's something he said recently that I'd own:

It’s hit me like a ton of bricks this past year: the blogosphere is full of voices that think we are all a bunch of big brains, and nothing more. We need more information. More data. More sermons. More books. More facts. More lectures. We are what we think. We are what we hear, read and think. So open up those brains and pour it in…after an appropriate prayer.

Behind this is a view of humanness that needs to be called out. (More SHOCKING REVELATIONS!!)

What thousands of evangelicals are experiencing is not a call from the Holy Spirit to become an overstuffed theological brain with a vocabulary that can only be decoded by a committee of seminary professors and a reading list that looks like the “atonement” shelf at a seminary bookstore.

I think he's mostly right. The lopsidedness of the 4 corners of English-speaking Evangelidom is true -- even if it's not all the same lopsidedness.

I think iMonk is right about the people who are big brains, or want to be. The rest of his post you might haggle over, but here's the thing: you gotta do something. You have to do more than read books all day and call yourself a Christian -- because the truth is that the Christians who overcame the pagan world frankly didn't have a lot of books. They had a life in a community around a Gospel which was given by God through His resurrected Son. And somehow they did it without being any kind of belligerent: they did it by being grateful and generous and loving and kind.

Can you say the same thing? If not, leave iMonk alone.

George Will wakes up from his nap long enough to say something worth reading.

I don;t think I could have siad it better myself.

Phoning one in today to thank Dr. Paul Foltz for keeping me real regarding the diet. However, being fat is not a virtue, either.

You will regret it

Read the whole thing. Don't complain to me if you suddenly realize that your religion isn't all it's cracked up to be -- but I think I can overcome your new-found concerns with the Gospel.

Just say no, I guess

Just saw these videos, HT: Doug Wilson.

I can remember in the 80's when "just say no" was ridiculed as a somewhat-backward approach to dealing with the issue of drug use. Some of you may remember that as well -- some of you weren't out of diapers yet, so you won't have any grasp of the events in question.

But in order to stem the broad use of the phrase "that's so gay", apparently it'll do just fine -- or its cognate "knock it off" will. Perhaps it is a more-earthy rendition. "Just say no" sounds so earnest and clean; "knock it off" is more, um, something.

Starting a new diet today. Weighed in at 202. That is depressing.

Do I know anyone in Montreal? Looks like I'm going to be stuck there for the night ...

Boundary Markers

N. T. Wright proves he's not always crazy. For once, I agree with him about what the boundary markers mean.

HT: iMonk via Twitter

The pendulum swings about sex talk. I'd call this essay a conversation starter and not the final word.

Therefore, let the conversation start.

gaps

dramatic warming of the planet 55 million years ago cannot be solely explained by a surge in carbon dioxide levels, a study shows, highlighting gaps in scientists' understanding of impacts from rapid climate change.

religion in everything

Doug Wilson:

They do not see Tetzel in carbon offsets. They do not see shuning in the treatment the neighborhood gives the guy who doesn't sort his garbage according to the dictates of the regulatory bishops. They don't see a fierce imposition of morality in their crusades for the sake of saving us all from climate change. They do not see blasphemy laws in thought crimes legislation. They do not see their religion in everthing they do, and this is because idolaters are blind.

phoned in #3

Quick endorsement: I bought (the gross indignity!) Kluck & DeYoung's new book 'Why we Love the Church', and it's pure gold. Will post a link and a full review of it Wed @ TeamPyro.

Read the whole thing

I'll bet they never thought of that before.

"No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top," he says. Think about that for 5 or 6 minutes and try not to either laugh or cry.

"or [where] the head of the Port Authority is corrupt. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery," he says.

He should give this speech in Boston or in Chicago. Let's see how it goes over in those cities before we start giving that lecture to these folks.

phoned in #2

FYI - it's Justin Taylor's birthday today. Apparently he's 500 years old.

Just like John Calvin.

phoned in #1

Because this is the age we live it, I can now blog from my mobile phone.

I just realized why Abraham Piper does what he does ...

Wait - El Nino?

I thought we called this "Global Warming"?

Is this above global warming? Should we tax it? How do we know?


Wait - wait - wait! Here's the one I really want to hear: "is it going to rain tomorrow or not? Yes or not only, please -- and if so, how much?"

R. Scott Clark Fan Club

After you read this sweet note from December of last year, I invite you to join me in the R. Scott Clark Fan Club.

The great thing about it is this: it's for you and your children. And if you don't think you can make your children a fan of Scott Clark simply by saying so, you're not actually a member. Yes, yes: you may or may not be a fan (we'll check your other credentials later and make a weak-tea concession that you think he's dreamy), but any group which doesn't necessarily say their children are also fans of Scott Clark from birth -- these people are clubless.

I brought this up to resident ingrate and malcontent Cubby Martinez, and Cubby asked me, "centu -- will your children also have full voting rights? Do they have all the benefits of membership? Can they hold office? Because I think you are asking for something which you don't really understand."

To which I replied: Cubby -- don't start blabbering at me about that. Clearly, you think fandom for Scott Clark is about works, and it's not: it's about Scott being gracious enough to love us in the first place. You must be some kind of crypto-catholic or something.

More on this later -- you can put your membership applications in the comments.

D-Blog D-tails

Oneness pentecostalism vs. the Bible. Are the Father and the Son the same person? Is the trinity an invention of the Pope? Has anyone ever translated the Bible correctly ever?

You get the idea. Put your commentary in the comments here.

Don't be like that

Before you read an comment on this post, you have to demonstrate that you have read this post and are willing to at least concede that I will stomp on any gay-bashing in this thread.

iMonk posted this on his panel moderation at CStone09, and somehow some have interpreted his view as being too conservative or too harsh. Michael's comment there is "We are not going to have that debate on this post."

I say good for him, but we are going to have it here. If you haven't read the iMonk's post, read it, then read my link about, and then use the comments for what the comments are for. Bashing GLBT or iMonk will be not tolerated in the extreme.

#moonfruit mania

Because I have succumbed to #moonfruit mania on Twitter, I am resorting to posting pictures of sad homeschool children in order to draw the the sympathy of the judges and somehow get them to pick me! pick me! for one of the keen MacBook laptops they are giving away for their 10th anniversary

In this picture, we see said pathetic homeschool child with the computer her father used to draft his Master's thesis some 20 years ago. Of course, she is not forced to use said nostalgic box, but it's included to give you some idea of the environment she's growing up in.

This is actually one of the computers she is forced to use for homeschool. Yes: it's a nice white laptop, but it's actually the same age as she is. Would you use a computer which was the same age as you? I think not.

This last photo is a picture of this sad and deprived child and the computer she's forced to use when her brother is doing school work. It's from 1998, and while it's very stylish in black, it runs an OS with a single-digit referent which the manufacturer doesn't even support anymore. It doesn't even have internet connectivity, for pete's sake!

So as the very solemn and serious judges of #moonfruit think about the future of their competition, they should think about this poor, sad-faced girl and her father (who is above the age of 16, and therefore qualified to win, you see) who are clearly in dire need of one of the #moonfruit prizes.