too much work?

Read this, and then ask yourself: "What exactly is the definition of 'work' these people are using?" It's "too much work" to use an iPod with iTunes?

Listen: if Steve Jobs could figure out a way to beam music telepathically to you and charge you for the service, [1] he'd be doing it already, and [2] some people would find it a drag on their time to wait the telepathic streaming buffer to be ready to play. Too much work to use an iPod?

BTW, I have a theory about the reason the iPod lost iots cool: they sell them at WAL*MART. You buy eggs and toilet paper at WAL*MART -- things which are a commodity and sell based on lowest price. There's a reason you can't buy a Mac laptop at WMT, and it has everything to do with making sure its image and price do not erode.

Enjoy your Sunday. Back to the SIdekicks.

More on Publishing--A Cautionary Tale

Before he left, Frank posted this piece, which made some pointed arguments concerning the responsibilities of publishers. Among them was this: "Publishing books is a form of teaching. In exactly the same way that a University tacitly promulgates what its faculty teaches as truth, a Publisher is tacitly promulgating what it prints and distributes as truth."

I happen to agree with that statement, but I wonder if publishers do.

Consider this real-life example, brought to us courtesy of today's Wall Street Journal. Just in time for the 5 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a publishing house under the auspices of the PCUSA has published a book that claims that the U.S. government orchestrated the WTC bombings to help secure a global empire.

Here are some questions.

First: does the author, David Griffin, have a right to be heard? Well, the First Amendment says he does.

Second: does Presbyterian Publishing Corp. have an obligation to publish him? If you're Henry, perhaps you think that it does. But unlike the Blogosphere, in the publishing world, just because you've written something doesn't mean it is entitled to be printed.

Third: why would a publishing house knowingly publish something that, in the words of the moderator of their own general assembly, is "too over the top to be taken seriously"? Apparently, we're not alone in asking this question, as the front page has a link that answers that very question.

Here's where the red flags go up. Did you notice the word "conversation?"

As I said before, this is not the Blogosphere, and not everything that is written automatically gets a approval with the push of the "publish" button. So what qualifies this book to achieve dead-tree status?

Professor Griffin’s thorough research and intellectually rigorous arguments have persuaded us that this book should have a place in that conversation, regardless of the conclusions readers come to accept.

Maybe it's just me, but this sounds like academic-speak for "whether this is actually true or not is immaterial--you need to think about it."

Want more? Here is the statement of the rationale for publishing the book from the President & Publisher of PPC, Davis Perkins.

The claims David Ray Griffin makes in Christian Faith and the Truth behind 9/11 will not be universally accepted by his readers, but the arguments supporting those claims merit careful consideration by serious-minded Christians and Americans concerned with truth and the meaning of their faith. Professor Griffin employs established principles of intellectual argument in a book with 192 pages of carefully researched text and 49 pages of extensive scholarly notes. This book is not an off-the-wall polemic but rather a considered work that deserves to have a place in the public forum of discourse about Christian faith and U.S. policy.

The mission statement of the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation calls for us to publish “resources that advance religious scholarship, stimulate conversation about moral values, and inspire faithful living.” We believe that Griffin’s book fulfills all three of these aims and accordingly that publication of Christian Faith and the Truth behind 9/11 was a responsible act on our part. We sincerely hope publication of this book will challenge American Christians on both ends of the spectrum–and in the middle!–to see beyond their respective ideological impulses and provoke discussion on substantive issues about faithful citizenship in this country.

In other words, the ends justifies the means. The "end" of provoking a "discussion on substantive issues about faithful citizenship in this country," justifies the "means," which is publishing a book whether or not the claims will be convincing or are even true.

That, friends, is frightening, though perhaps not so suprising. Most organizations experience mission drift, and that drift inevitably seems to be a liberal one. When your starting point is the rejection of many or most of the core doctrines of Christianity (such as the PCUSA has), is it really that much of a stretch to get here from there?

In closing, let me take this opportunity to sound a cautionary note, particularly to those of you in the Emerging Church: this is exactly what happens when you value the conversation over the truth.

How then shall we blog?

We all know that Frank's readers come by here to read Frank's take on those things which interest us. Well, now that Frank's gone (we assume, unless this is some diabolical sidekick loyalty test!?), how about we just sit around and talk about Frank? Yeah, that's no good.

In lieu of that, I submit a bloggerview I had with Frank last New Year's Eve that was posted at Reflections (for those that haven't read it):

December 31, 2005
Reflections Bloggerview: Frank "centuri0n" Turk

I have no doubt that most of my readers here, are at the very least, aware of who Frank "centuri0n" Turk is, if not regular readers of his blog. When I started doing these bloggerviews, I thought it might be fun to pose key questions to certain bloggers, maybe even questions on issues they haven't addressed on their own blogs yet! With that in mind, welcome to the next installment of Reflections Bloggerview: "centuri0n"

Carla: Who is your personal hero & why is he/she so special to you?

Frank: There's a man in Syracuse, NY, by the name of Bruce Aubrey. He's the pastor who baptized me and made me realize that being a Christian is not just about admitting out loud that Jesus is right and you are wrong. He has a wife, a family, a growing church, and a love for God that you just can't beat.About 2 yrs after I was baptized, I got promoted at my job and had to move. My new position was about 4 hrs away from that church, and my wife and I were having a devil of a time finding a church that was alive and preaching the word. After a couple of months like that, I got a phone call from Bruce asking me how things were, and I told him, and he started making a trip out to have lunch with me once a month until we found a church that became our home church - a process that took about a year. Bruce never said, "listen: you have to find a church and stay grounded in the word, and until you do I'm going to check up on you and make sure you don't fall off the apple cart." He just did it. And he did it in such a way that it was obviously out of love for Jesus, His church, and me and my wife.That's what it's all about, and anyone would be blessed beyond measure to have a pastor like Bruce. I think he'd take issue with being listed as a "hero", but he's living the life. One of the things Paul says over and over in his letters is, "if you want to know how to live your life, use me as an example." Bruce can say that without any pride or shame, and I think that's the definition of being a hero.

Carla: How would you define "orthodoxy" as it pertains to the Christian faith?

Frank: Well, no softballs, Carla. That question is why I started blogging in the first place. Orthodoxy starts with the Gospel itself - that's why I have 1Cor15:1-4 listed and hyperlinked at the top of my sidebar. If you properly define the Gospel, you have God's idea about what's important. For example, in 1Cor 15:3, Paul says, "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures" - well, who is "us" ("our" is the possessive of "us")? When you know who "us" is, it turns out that "us" are not just receivers of a gift and it's vacation time: "us" has received a gift which in turn places a responsibility on us to demonstrate we have that gift. So for example, "us" are "believers"; "us" are all baptized; "us" are in fellowship with other believers; "us" are repentant; "us" are in prayer; "us" are doing good works; etc.This definition of "us" is the whole practical matter of our faith, but it is not just some kind of pragmatic issue. It is a result of a right understanding of who God is, what He has done, what He is doing, and what He intends to do. I have also blogged (once) on an ancient and somewhat-anonymous Epistle to Diogentus, which was penned some time before 200 AD. If you take the time to read that letter, it is striking in the way that what the Christians believe is related directly to, without any Rube Goldberg explanation, how they live, what they do.
That's what Orthodoxy is: a total package of belief and action that distinguishes Christianity from everything else in order to proclaim the message of Jesus Christ.

Carla: Your position in a Christian retail business gives you a unique perspective to notice key trends (programs, books, marketing, etc.) that affect Christian thought. If you had to name one trend, or fad that seems to have taken off the most, which would that be?

Frank: Well, to clarify, my "position" in Christian retail is really just participation. I'm an upper-middle manager in a Christian publishing company (which prefers I not use them as an example of anything; because I like getting paid I will oblige), and I'm the owner of a successful Christian bookstore in a market area of about 40,000 people. I'm sure I don't set any trends.
For better or worse, I'm going to answer your question the long way around. I got into Christian retail in part because I felt gifted and called, but in part because Christian retail makes me sick. Most non-chain Christian retail looks like is it run by very nice, ministry-minded people who think that the ideal setting for Christian retail is a flea-market or pawn-shop type environment; most chain CBA retail looks like it is run by somewhat-cynical second-rate retail executives who think that orthodoxy is not their business. When I got into the business, I thought that if we couldn't be a city on a hill, we could at least be a voice crying out in the wilderness.
One of the great lessons I learned (or rather, re-learned, because I knew this when I worked for the WAL*MART in another life) is that while 50% of the problem in any retail car wreck is the retailer's fault, the other 50% is the customer's doing. The matter of whether your store looks like a flea market or a pawn shop (disorganized; rarely cleaned; third-rate fixtures; lousy inventory control; tons of old inventory; dark; etc.) is your fault, and it's going to define what kind of customers you get. But even if you have the sense to control all that and your shop looks like Barnes & Noble, you can only sell what people are going to buy - and you have to sell what people are buying because you can't take a collection at the end of the month to cover the rent and the lights.

Carla, I am sure you and I know a lot of people who are disappointed by what they find at their local Christian bookstore. But you know what? That's the stuff that sells. Let me be very clear what I mean by that:

• That's the stuff 90% of Christian shoppers are looking for
• That's the stuff pastors and preachers are recommending
• That's the stuff people are using for spiritual reference

So the major trend I see in Christian retail is a kind of perpetual dumbing-down of the Christian life. It's horribly ironic - we have at our disposal extraordinarily-powerful means of delivering any message we want, especially when we compare it with first-century means, and rather than people lining up for Mahaney and Sproul and MacArthur and Piper, they are killing themselves for Lucado, Osteen, Warren and Joyce Meyers. In the end, it may not be so ironic since it is in our weakness that God is strong - maybe Christian retail turns out to be a man-centered religion of works as opposed to faith.

Carla: What has been your greatest joy in life, so far?

Frank: [snark for the fans]I have no joy. I am a dour Calvinist who wants to suck the joy out of all the lives I come in contact with.[/snark](editorial: I'm sorry Frank, that job is already taken by ME, you'll have to apply elsewhere!)

Leaving atheism in 1991 was a joy; finding my wife was a joy; growing with her in Christ is a joy; raising my kids is a joy. Not to be a smarmy greeting card, but today is a joy. Being able to be grateful even in hard times is a joy.

Carla: What would be the number one thing you'd like people to think of, when your name, or your blog, is mentioned?

Frank: For the non-believers who wander through my blog, I want them to be completely rattled by it. I want them to see true Christianity, which, as they say, is not actually a very tame Christianity. Christianity is not a bacchanalian frenzy, but it is not a passive, stoic, theoretical thing. For the believers, I want them to think about things they aren't thinking about, and to start doing things they didn't think they could do. So "the number one thing I'd like people to think of" in reference to me is "radical Christian message".

Carla: What’s the one thing that might surprise people about you?

Frank: This is not a joke. I was a cheerleader in an all-boy's Catholic High School.

Carla: If you could only have 5 links on your blog, which links would they be, and why?

Frank: That's a somewhat-unfair question because I have so many links and someone (Challies) is bound to get his nose out of joint.

In no particular order:
http://www.aomin.org/ -- because James White is smart enough to be able to make you feel stupid, and loves Jesus enough not to.
http://www.dougwils.com/ - because someone has to keep an eye on Doug Wilson ...
triablogue.blogspot.com - because Steve Hays is the man, and in 2006 he is going to have both Jonathan Felt and Gene Bridges as sidekicks. Did you know he is about to publish a 500-page e-book refuting atheist arguments against the resurrection? I'm trying to write a review/recommendation for it that does it justice.
PyroManiac - Phil's a great blogger because he has a conversational style and, unlike me, he can stay on-topic. Some day he is either going to just blog and stop worrying about how many posts he makes a week, or he's going to quit because it's too distracting. I hope it's not the latter.
A blog aggregator for Calvinst Gadfly, Brad Williams, Daniel @ http://doulogos.blogspot.com/, Eric Vestrup (to whom I owe a phone call - I'm such a lousy friend), Kerry @ http://theologicallycorrect.com/webmaster/blogs/, and of course my sidekicks JIBBS and Gummby.

And I would sneak links to Kim and Carla in when no one was looking. :)(awww, how very kind of Frank to mention myself and Kim!)

In closing, I’d like to thank Frank “cent” for agreeing to do this interview, and sharing his views. I really enjoyed reading Frank’s answers to these random questions. I hope you’ve enjoyed it too. (I will refrain from making any comment about the cheerleading thing – I’ll leave that with the readers).

Be sure to read the initial comments here, as well.

Is He Gone Yet...?

From the archives...

The burden of conscience

Some fellow named Henry tracked back to my open letter about TNIV here at the blog, and I go a kick out his response. Not “got a kick” like “I enjoyed it a lot” but a “got a kick” like “I can shoe you his shoe print”. I’m sure he wasn’t trying to be mean, but I think he wound up being something worse than mean. And I’m not going to get a chance to do his whole post on this subject before I’m off for the week, so this little bit is going to have to be enough.

Let’s take a look:

A friend tipped me off by e-mail to a post, and I think it is appropriate to respond. The poster, Centurion, expresses his concern about Christian booksellers and publishers, and their choices in terms of what to offer their customers, especially considering that many of them regard their business as a ministry as well.

Let’s keep something in mind here: CBA and ECPA both represent themselves as ministries – so to hedge one’s bets and say “many of them regard their business as a ministry as well” is somewhat distracted from the actual facts.

There is also another problem: who, exactly, wants to but books about faith and life from someone who’s in it “as a business” instead of “as a ministry”? I don’t know anyone like that – even people who shop Amazon for price on their religious books. When you ask them, “do you think that Amazon demonstrates any discernment about the kinds of books they sell,” those people will tell you flat out: “I don’t shop Amazon for anything but price. But I only buy things from them that come from Christian publishers.” What does that say about what people think Christian publishers are doing?

In their mind, there is a level of discernment going on someplace. And that is the problem, isn’t it? Let’s read more from Henry:

I’m a Christian publisher, a very small one, offering 15 titles at this point, some of them my own, and I certainly do have a conscience about what I publish. My conscience, however, seems to tell me something substantially different than Centurion’s.

I need to address a couple of minor points, but then I’m going to simply tell you what my conscience as a Christian publisher requires of me.
Centurion says:

That’s my second point: the two most-vivid proclamations of the Gospel in the NT are unquestionably Acts 2 and 2Cor 15 — and both of those proclamations place the authority of God’s word as the centerpiece of how and why Christ died. That is to say: whatever it is Christ did (died for our sins, was buried and was raised on the third day) was “in accordance with Scripture”: it happened because Scripture said it would happen. In that, Scripture is our most precious possession in the Christian life. . . .

This is an example of the most bizarre set of statements I have seen about the gospel and the place of the Bible in Christian life. (I refer to a set of statements because I have seen quite a number of similar statements over the years as well as recently.) I’m sorry for the strong term, but I simply can’t think of anything less forceful that nonetheless expresses what I see here. Let me illustrate. I’m going to travel to Atlanta, Georgia in a few weeks. As I follow the highway from here to there, I will proceed “according to the road signs.” But those signs will not become the center of my trip, the purpose of my trip, nor will they be my “most precious possession.” They point the way. Jesus is the object of our faith; the Bible is one of the things that points the way to Jesus.

Think about this: someone who calls himself a “Christian publisher” has branded the statement “Scripture is our most precious possession in the Christian life” bizarre! I’m sure he thinks Spurgeon, Piper, Owen, Hodge, Warfield, Luther, Calvin, Bunyan and the Westminster divines are all equally “bizarre”.

In Henry’s view, you can come up with the Gospel without Scripture. The odd thing, really, is that Paul and Peter disagree with him. However, it is very insightful to find someone like Henry who is willing to put all his cards on the table in the first round. Scripture isn’t necessary in his view: it’s only useful, and other things can be sufficient to do the work that Scripture does.

But further, Centurion appears to believe that this somehow means that Christian book stores should avoid the TNIV and possible new and different bindings of the Bible because they don’t fit in with that agenda. He’s not very clear as to what he thinks dealers should and should not carry, other than putting the TNIV front and center in his general complaint.

Interestingly, that’s not what I said at all. The context that I am writing as a Christian retailer who sells many different kinds of bindings in Bibles, and frankly a wide variety of translations, is somehow lost on Henry even though the preface of my open letter says it is in response to the “going back and forth between some fellow Christian Retailers on an e-mail list I belong to.”

My complaint about the TNIV, as you can read for yourself, is that it whitewashes the controversial nature of its methodology. Now, if the Bible is just a "signpost", my complaint is, of course, nit-picking. What the Bible says isn’t actually of first importance but of far secondary importance – if it is not the actual words of God written down, not meant to be sufficient to equip the man of God for every good work.

The problem is that this is exactly what the Apostles taught about Scripture. Isn’t that odd that Paul and Peter actually hang the integrity of God on His word and whether or not he keeps it? (cf. Acts 2, Romans 3)

So let me be somewhat clearer here. What does my conscience require of me as a Christian publisher. First, I do include some of my own writings on my list of publications. This is because the original purpose of my company was to publish materials necessary for classes and seminars offered by Pacesetters Bible School, Inc. As I continued to work, that list expanded, and I very quickly heard this question: Are you going to publish things that you disagree with? People who knew my own doctrinal positions, and knew that I was publishing some of my own material, thought that I would publish only books that supported my own view. But my conscience would not allow me to do that. [Emph added]

Let’s think about that for a minute: his conscience would not allow him to publish only books which had doctrine he agreed with.

That’s somewhat staggering. What scope is he talking about here? For example, would be publish a book which denies the resurrection? How about a book which denies the consequences of sin – a book which says that sin is not a death sentence for man in and of itself? The extraordinary thing about his complaint, of course, is that he pleads conscience in this matter!

Isn’t our conscience exactly what we are supposed to use to separate the false from the true? Even in Henry’s view where conscience is formed by nature and history and the bunnies and the puppies, conscience is what keeps us from doing what’s wrong. And apparently, it is far more wrong to refuse to publish a book because it is doctrinal pap than it is to publish something which will confuse or mislead the reader.

Let’s be clear about something here: I don’t think that it’s wrong to have a publisher who is willing to publish Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist and Lutheran titles – I’d actually admire someone who could do that well. My concern -- and it ought to be the concern of pastors, elders, and teachers in the church -- is that Henry is plainly advocating for the liberty to print anything without regard to its doctrinal substance.

For example, it was irresponsible to publish Jim Rutz’s Mega Shift. Its ecclesiology was reckless and waters down the effectivity and ministry of the local church; Barna’s last book Revolution was equally irresponsible. I have reviewed both of these books here at the blog if you are interested in more detail on those complaints. It is also irresponsible to publish books by people who have been proven to be fraudulent prophets; to publish teaching books by people who demonstrate a lack of concern for the Trinity; to publish books which apply deconstructionist literary theory to the Bible; to publish books which claim that Christ died to make you rich, happy and healthy.

And in the end, my complaint about TNIV centers on this kind of error, not the problem of paedobaptism vs. credobaptism or some other such important-but-not-deal-breaking denominational doctrinal application.

My conscience as a publisher suggests the following:

Let me also say that if your conscience is only suggesting things to you, it’s not worth listening to.

* Respect the ability and responsibility of the individual believer to make choices as to what they read and study

That’s an interesting assertion. Does Henry really believe that a 16-yr-old who has just made a confession of Christ has the same ability to discern truth from error as a 30-yr-old believer who has spent his time since his confession of faith being discipled by men of good conscience who have been faithful to the Gospel?

If the reader has a responsibility to be exercise discernment, why does the publisher not actually have that same responsibility? For example, when a writer says something like, “your Bible is only a guide; Christ is the real object of faith and you should seek Him whether your Bible helps you or not,” don’t you think that the publisher has some obligation to consider that even Catholics affirm that the Bible is more than just a signpost and is critical to the formation of faith in Christ?

Publishing books is a form of teaching. In exactly the same way that a University tacitly promulgates what its faculty teaches as truth, a Publisher is tacitly promulgating what it prints and distributes as truth. There is a duty attached in the Bible to being a teacher, and that duty includes a higher standard for representing the truth. (James 3)

That's all I have time for. Listen: be with the Lord's people in the Lord's house on the Lord's day. And try to find more use for your Bible next week while the sidekicks are running the asylum than as a bookend. And be kind to them -- they're not used to the spotlight, such as it is.

attack of the sidekicks

BOOYAH! Next week I'm on vacation, and I have fired up the bat-signal or whatever it is we use here to call in the SIDEKICKS to blog next week.

Oh yeah: my only fear is that they'll blog better than I do and you'll all realize what a fraud I am after they get through telling you exactly what they think of this so-called world we live in.

One more post this week, and then I'm off to cause terrible woe for Innkeepers and commoditizers of religion. I'm sure it'll be relaxing.

open letter

I was shovelling out my e-mail this morning and was reading some of the chatter that was going back and forth between some fellow Christian Retailers on an e-mail list I belong to. The topic was TNIV, and there were some people saying that it's not a great translation and they aren't carrying it; others were somewhat angry that a retailer was making a content decision (take your astonishment to the meta), and yet a third group appeared -- saying that an argument like this was dishonoring to Christ.

yeah. So I sent the following e-mail to that list, and I thought you people might enjoy it as the first post of substnace this week:

Oh brother. When I read emails like this topic has inspired, I think that we retailers are doing more harm than good for the sake of the Gospel -- but not in the way implied by some. I have a couple of thoughts on this subject, and believe me when I say that I have no one in particular in mind as I spin these notes out to the list. You can throw rotten produce at me when I present on Strategy at CPE. :-)

The first thing to say about "arguing" is this: we are supposed to contend for the faith, amen? The Gospel is not some truth-less blanket that just gets thrown over things, and whatever happens to be under it this morning as we cast it out wide is not "the Gospel for today". The Gospel is the power of salvation for everyone who believes. But believes what?

That's my second point: the two most-vivid proclamations of the Gospel in the NT are unquestionably Acts 2 and 2Cor 15 -- and both of those proclamations place the authority of God's word as the centerpiece of how and why Christ died. That is to say: whatever it is Christ did (died for our sins, was buried and was raised on the third day) was "in accordance with Scripture": it happened because Scripture said it would happen. In that, Scripture is our most precious possession in the Christian life. While we have an interior witness of the spirit, the Gospel doesn't go out by means of interior witness: it goes out by the Gospel being proclaimed. What gets proclaimed -- if we follow Paul's example and his own words -- is the testimony of Scripture.

Third, that means the truth of Scripture doesn't change -- it's not a mutable template which we can upgrade. We receive a Gospel we are expected to then declare. The question is: how does this apply to translation efforts? For example, what's the purpose of the a translation -- is it to provide the Gospel in the context of "every tribe, tounge and nation", or is it a somewhat-worldly pursuit to remarket a product?

This third point is the critical issue for those of us who are Christian retailers who profess to be in a ministry. Without naming any vendors, let me say that we must discern whether or not a publisher is trying to remarket an existing product at the expense of fidelity to the mission of spreading the whole Gospel to the whole world.

For example, let's assume (not conclude) that all translations in print today are generated by the motive to evangelize (an assumption, I suggest, that is faulty): are new binding types a violation of the kind of spirit we want to see cultivated in the body of Christ? That's a hard question -- because what it really asks us is if we are trying to make disciples of men or consumers of product -- who are hungry for the next big thing.

That is a hard question -- because personally I sell a lot of "new" bindings. You know: duotone, tru-tone, gripper, 16 different kinds of "leather", etc. People like new bindings -- especially in the context that 60% of Bibles are given as gifts. But are we marketing a binding, or are we being the beautiful feet of the Gospel?

When we look at the question in this way, we have a larger problem: how "new", exactly, is the TNIV? Did the NIV need an update? Why? Who is the target of the TNIV? Do those people have a theological persuasion?

There is not one person on this list which sells the New World Translation (the Jehovah's Witness bible) because it's not "just another translation": it is a faulty translation with a theological agenda. By no means is the TNIV as-bad as the NWT, amen? It's not a cultic corruption. But it is something we need to be aware of: a translation which takes ecclesiastically-volatile subjects like the gender-specific language and in many ways glosses over the problems.

So when we think about this problem, let's specifically think about what we are doing for and to the body of Christ. Is it more controversial to take a stand against marketing the Gospel, or is it more controversial to simply ignore legitimate controversy and simply let things pass through our stores which do more to confuse people than to help them grow in faith.

God bless you all as you think on these things, seek guidance from your pastors and elders, and resolve to do God's work for God's sake and God's glory and not for the approval of men.

The ESV NT -cheap-

ISBN# 1581348355

As promised, I called Crossway books this morning about the 50-cent ESV NTs, and here's the skinny:

I can get them for you at 50-cents each when you buy in lots of 100 (that's the case count), and you'll have to pay the shipping. I don't have exact shipping charges as I do not have a box in my possession today, but I'll have one by the end of the week.

If you are a local and you want ESV NTs, we'll have them in stock priced like this:

1-each: $0.99
10 or more: $0.75 each
25 or more: $0.50 each

My wife will start taking mail orders (full case QTYs only) at the bookstore on Thursday when we have the store set up to make it happen. If you are serious about needing these, you'll have to leave a deposit of half on your credit card (we'll charge the other half when they ship). Continental U.S. shipments only. The bookstore can be reached at (888) 835-5648.

Thank you.

Light reading

Well -- it was a nice weekend in the backyard. I haven't got much to say this morning because I'm trying to get work caught up so I can go on vacation next week.

As I gather my thoughts, let me recommend two books for you:





They have very little nice to say about the state of Evangelidom and how we got here, but they are very informative. I'm sure I'll have a more substantive review or comment on each of them in the future.

I'm on the case of the 50-cent ESV NT today also, so stay tuned for that.

Proud Papa

I suppose I shouldn't care, but the "homeboy" series of t-shirts has absolutely taken off, particularly in infant creepers. Apparently John Calvin is still da bomb.

Spend the Lord's day in the Lord's house with the Lord's people, and don't pretend that you are OK with Jesus if all you do is buy t-shirts from me and look down your nose at the Emergent guy down the street who is watching a Nooma video while you're reading my blog. Go to church, you sinner.