well update

Date:    Thu, 09 Nov 2006 13:27:45 -0600
Subject: Re: Follow up
From:  "Aaron Sands" {aaron[at]bloodwatermission.com}
To:      "Frank Turk" {carm_centuri0n[at]yahoo.com}

Frank

Thanks for the follow up. In online donations I see 18
donations of $490 so far under centurion/centuri0n. There
may be some mailed in that I can't see right now, but hopefully
this helps.

This is great, and please let us know what we can do along
the way.

Aaron

Donor Relations and Development
Blood:Water Mission
P.O. Box 682545, Franklin, TN  37068-2545
aaron[at]bloodwatermission.com

www.bloodwatermission.com
615.550.4296 | 866.550.4296

That about one-sixth of one well. Six weeks to Christmas -- find $10 and give clean water to people who don't have any.

the other argument

Back on 2000, a fellow named Sam Schulman wrote an essay called "Gay marriage: fin de ligne", and sadly, that essay seems to have been lost in the bandwidth. The original host, Jewish World Review, still allegedly links to it, but if you click the link dated 04/11/2000, you don't get the original essay. [UPDATED: Alert readers "ross" and "tom" found the live link to the original JWR essay here. It's as good as I remember.]

And it's a shame because it was a brilliant essay on why there's nothing "Gay" about marriage. However, Mr. Schulman hasn't tossed it in because JWR doesn't have the stoney fortitude to stay linked to that great work. Orthodoxy Today has a great iteration of Mr. Schulman's work which you ought to read for two reasons.

The first reason is that you can't live in a cave, people. You can't just read Puritans and Reformers all the time (although I admit that if you did, you probably won't live long enough to read all that they wrote) because at some point you have to engage the society. And Schulman is interesting because his point of view is not necessarily Christian even if it is not actually secular.

The second reason you should read this is to see how someone who's not a Christian can take apart the best versions of common arguments in favor of gay marriage without even opening the Bible. See: I think that the Bible is our best bet for moral reasoning -- but what we can't get trapped into is the idea that God's purpose is not revealed in nature. Schulman makes a classic defense of what is obvious in human society for the reason that traditional marriage is what's best.

And if anyone has a copy of Schulman's "fin de ligne" laying around, I'm interested in a copy. I had a digital copy in an old e-mail account, and it's long gone.

case: closed

So much for Global Warming. I'm shocked.

Peace with the Devil

With the recent Ted Haggard revelations, I thought this would be an appropriate post to resurrect from the archives. I originally wrote this after a local pastor resigned when his two-year affair was uncovered by his sons. This was the post that got me into blogging in the first place. I hope it proves a blessing.

***

On October 3, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain stood before the House of Commons and attempted a defense of his abandonment of Czechoslovakia to the German Reich. Three days previously, Chamberlain had returned from Munich with his now-infamous assurance of "peace for our time." By this he meant that Britain and France would not interfere with the German annexation of the Czech Sudetenland, a move that stripped Czechoslovakia of her strongest defenses and a large portion of her industrial capacity.

As Chamberlain stood before the House on that October Monday, enduring cries of "Shame!" from the Honorable Members, he argued that "the new Czechoslovakia will find a greater security than she has ever enjoyed in the past." Five months later, Germany, along with Poland and Hungary, divided up the remnants of Czechoslovakia, annihilating a model democracy and staunch ally of the Western powers. Less than six months later, Europe plunged headlong into the cauldron of the Second World War.

The morally bankrupt diplomacy of appeasement was largely responsible for World War II. A just peace was whittled away a sliver at a time, until the pitiful remnant of "peace" was too small to prevent the blade from slipping into bloodshed. Small steps, tiny accomodations, incremental acceptance. So begin wars. So begin adulteries. So begin every evil known to man.

No nation transitions instantly from peace to war, and no Christian transitions instantly from holiness to impurity. For instance, when a church reels from the scandal of an adulterous pastor, you can be sure that spiritual appeasement is responsible. When a root of bitterness sprang up, it was allowed to push roots deeply into the soil and leach vitality from the soul (Heb. 12:15). When circumstances pressured a weak conscience, they were allowed to press the conscience to the side (1 Cor. 8:7). When the right action was apparent, it was replaced with inaction (Jas. 4:17).

Step by step, a mosaic of sin began to form. Rather than declaring war on sin, the pastor sued for peace. After all, the wandering imagination is only natural. The flattery of attention is powerful, but not deadly as long as you know it's happening. Implementing God's commands are time-consuming, and there will be more time tomorrow (or the day after). Gradually, tiny acres of the soul were ceded to Satan with the understanding that this would be the final allowance. The pastor willfully ignored the fact that the Devil is a predatory dictator who will be satisfied with nothing less than total control of both body and soul. But Satan is also a wily diplomat; like Hitler, he will agree to partial control, knowing that a foothold today is a firm grip tomorrow. And when the dreadful morning dawns, when the depth and the horror of secret adultery breaks into the punishing light of day, the only sound greater than the weeping of God's people is the laughter of the Devil.

Do not be deceived; peace for our time is a lie. As long as the Curse works its deadly way through our bodies and minds, we must declare unending war on sin (Gal. 5:17). Give no quarter, take no prisoners, accept no truce. Make no provision for the flesh (Rom. 13:14). The command is clear, and the choice is equally clear. If we accept the peaceful coexistence of sin, we will soon live in the lashing service of sin.

Gummby Who?

Anyone notice that Gummby has dropped the ball on BOC today?

I did. Sheesh. And I put that great Gummby warrior graphic up yesterday.

Session 2: What a blog is

You thought I forgot about this, but I didn't. We're in the middle of my personal GodBlogCon with everything you need to know about blogging, and the deal is this: we're only going to talk once about the medium of blogging, and the rest of the time we are going to talk about the method and objective of blogging.

To start talking about medium, read this state of the blogosphere report from Technorati. It has some nifty charts and a lot of really-boring junk. BORING. But this kind of information only comes sandwiched between the stale bread of statistics.

Let me give you an example:

The Low Authority Group (3-9 blogs linking in the last 6 months)

The average blog age (the number of days that the blog has been in existence) is about 228 days, which shows a real commitment to blogging. However, bloggers of this type average only 12 posts per month, meaning that their posting habits are generally dedicated but infrequent.

The Middle Authority Group (10-99 blogs linking in the last 6 months)

This contrasts somewhat with the second group, which enjoys an average age not much older than the first at 260 days and which posts 50% more frequently than the first. There is a clear correlation between posting volume and Technorati authority ranking.

The High Authority Group (100-499 blogs linking in the last 6 months)

The third group represents a decided shift in blog age while not blogging much more frequently than the last. In keeping with the theme of the maturation of the blogosphere, it seems evident that many of these bloggers were previously in category two and have grown in authority organically over time. In other words, sheer dedication pays off over time.

The Very High Authority Group (500 or more blogs linking in the last 6 months)

In the final group we see what might be considered the blogging elite. This group, which represents more than 4,000 blogs, exhibits a radical shift in post frequency as well as blog age. Bloggers of this type have been at it longer – a year and a half on average – and post nearly twice a day, an increase in posting volume of over 100% from the previous group. Many of the blogs in this category, in fact, are about as old as Technorati and we’ve grown up together. Some of these are full-fledged professional enterprises that post many, many times per day and behave increasingly like our friends in the mainstream media. As has been widely reported, the impact of these bloggers on our cultures and democracies is increasingly dramatic.

A note on Ranking

For those of you who are new to Technorati's ranking systems, we establish a blog’s authority (or influence) by tracking the number of distinct blogs that link to it over the past 6 months. In this chart, we’ve looked at folks with at least 3 links or more and grouped them into four separate categories. In total, we’re looking at about 1.5 million blogs of the 57 million total. Even though I labeled the first group as the "Low Authority" group, given that these people are in the top 2% of all of the blogs that exist, the concept of "low" is purely in relation to the other groups above.

Now, for some of you, your eyes have already glazed over -- and you people will never be better bloggers. It's a shame really, because some of you are really cool people.

But here's the deal: regardless of the TTLB ranking system, Technorati is the gold standard of measuring influence in the blogosphere. Why? Because they are earning a living exploiting the way the blogosphere works -- and N.Z.Bear, whom I respect as a pioneer, is simply part of one clan in the blogosphere which is quickly becoming irrelevant. So the way Technorati measures influence tells us something about how we must -- if we are going to use blogs as a medium -- operate to gain influence and authority in (for lack of a better term) the discussion.

Let's get serious for a minute: PostSecret has almost 12,000 unique inbound links. Don't pretend you don't know what that is -- you've read that blog. It's not even designed very well -- it uses a standard Blogger template, which is serviceable, but it's completely no-frills. But in that, it's in the top 100 blogs based on the Technorati influence metrics.

There's nothing at PostSecret that's changing the world, and it's only interesting is a very skank, reality TV kind of way -- the way the first MTV "Real" show was "interesting". Yet it's got 12,000 inbound links?

Listen: Mark Driscoll's site theResurgence.com has "only" 1,100 inbound links -- and it is 10,000 times more edifying than PostSecret. What's up with that? Has the word simply not gotten out about Pastor Driscoll's blog, or is the problem that we Christians are actually ill-informed about how, exactly, to make get a blog distributed in the bandwidth?

Personally, I think it's the latter. And we're a funny lot. We're willing to call Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin and Scrappleface "GodBloggers", but on the flip side those kinds of "GodBloggers" are completely unwilling to link to (for example) aomin.org or TeamPyro. Their reasons are, well, their own, but the bottom line is that they want to be affiliated with the political idea of God and not the actual person of God because frankly, somebody might get hurt.

In that, Mark Driscoll ought to have a broader platform than he does -- but he needs a network of people who are like-minded to get him circulated.

Here's the real rub: there's a guy out there who calls himself "Arklahomboy", and his blog -stinks-. Content? Nope. Design? nope. Train of thought? Nope. So how does this guy have over 300 blogs linking to him, placing him in the top 8,000-ish blogs in the blogosphere?

It's simple: he joins aggregators. That's not very complicated, is it? He sends out an e-mail, drops a piece of code into his sidebar, and viola: he becomes "more influential" at the drop of a hat.

Now, I have said all of that to say this: the key to having an influential blog is shameless self-promotion. If you cannot do that, you will never be an "influential" blogger. And for some people, I think that's fine. What we do not need in the world today is more "Aklahomboys" who make one-line posts and belong to 6 aggregators and somehow turn up on the radar but have nothing to offer.

Shameless self-promotion is easy if you have a radio show or a nationally-syndicated column. Or a really large church. Or you have published a book. Having a blog after you have one of these things is really a self-promotion of an almost-egregious kind. Seriously now: we buy your books, and we listen to your radio show. Did you not get in all the things you had to say? But there they are: blogging for some reason, and the reason is transparent: to maintain a certain level of public awareness and hype. One talks about his blog on the radio show, and then about the radio on the blog, and about the book on the blog, and then about the blog in the book ... geez, bub: is it about you or what?

I take a like of ribbing from my internet friends about my blog because the self-promotion is so obvious. Listen: DUH! The only way -- the only way -- to get part of the podium in this medium is shameless self promotion. Some people take the coward's way out and join 2 or 3 (or 6) radically-different aggregators to get as much coverage as possible, and others of us -- me in particular -- join one reasonably-large aggregator (so my blog is not constantly timing out trying to run the javascript for the aggregators) and then promote the junk out of what we have.

It sounds tawdry, doesn't it? A little earthy and shameful? Listen: if, after the commensurate level of self promotion, you turn out a blog like "Rant Fever", it is more than a little tawdry: it's downright narcissistic. No questions asked.

But if, while you are tossing out hooks to see where you can get some linkage, you are blogging about Christ, and about the Gospel, and about sinners, and about the church, and about the Gospel, and about Christ, and about marriage in that context, you got your hands a little dirty for the sake of raising Christ up for sinners to see him.

So your medium is this: get your blog connected to the blogosphere -- don't hide it under a bushel. All the other stuff you do has to be done in a public way, but if you're going to get connected, do it with gusto. Just do it.

That's the medium. In the next session, we're going to talk about methods. There's meta open for Q&A, so step up to the mike, speak clearly, and remember to ask your question in a way the panelists can answer.

UPDATED: JD Hatfield pointed out, by way of Socratic questioning, that the right thing to do for this session is to establish an aggregator to show everyone how cool and easy it is to join one, and to get a blogroll going for people who are actually blogging about God. So I'm about 30 minutes away from having an aggregator ready for public consumption, and when it is actually ready, you can find out how to join right here.

shirt for your back

I am particularly fond of this new design -- and go look: we now have long sleeve dark T's and women's cut dark T's.

It's very exciting.

One note

ne of the things that some of you may currently be thinking about this blog is that it seems, even in the diversity of the Sidekicks having taken over while I vacate for a while, it is always singing the same note: Christ died for our sins.

Christ died for our sins.

Christ died for our sins.

Enough already, right? We get it: Christ died for our sins. Next.

No: listen – there is no “next”.

I was reading this post by Justin Taylor as this scandal unfolds, and seems to go into hibernation, and I had to read the letter from Ted Haggard two or three times because I felt like I was somehow just skimming it.

You read it, and I’ll wait here for you.

OK: now that you have read it all for yourself, did you perceive what Haggard was saying in that letter? As I read it, what I heard him saying in about 3 or 4 different ways was, “I’ll be back”.

Like this one: I am guilty of sexual immorality, and I take responsibility for the entire problem.

Or maybe this one: The public person I was wasn't a lie; it was just incomplete. When I stopped communicating about my problems, the darkness increased and finally dominated me. As a result, I did things that were contrary to everything I believe.

Or how about this one: I created this entire situation. The things that I did opened the door for additional allegations . But I am responsible; I alone need to be disciplined and corrected. An example must be set.

Now, here’s something that some of you may find to be somewhat strange as a basis of comparison: here’s a Catholic act of public contrition – the Confiteor:

I confess to Almighty God
And to you my brothers and sisters,
That I have sinned through my own fault,
In my thoughts and in my words,
In what I have done, and what I have failed to do.
I ask Blessed Mary, ever virgin,
And all the angels and saints,
And you, my brothers and sisters,
To pray for me to the Lord our God.

The “pray to the litany of the angels and saints” stuff, of course, will bother a lot of people (and it should), but look at the first statement of the Confiteor: I confess to Almighty God. Isn’t that astounding? I confess to God that I have sinned through my own fault. Where is that in Haggard’s confession? It seems to me that Haggard is far more concerned in his apology with the embarrassment he has caused his friends than with the fact that he has soiled the pulpit of God’s word and has offended God.

Because you know what? My sin is against God, and the basis of its wrongness is that I have offended God. My sin is wrong because God is Holy and my sin is not.

In the mortification of sin, we have to realize something: while God may – as any good Calvinist might admit – intend it for good, we intended it for evil. We have violated the holiness of God, and if you have no sense of that you have no sense of what sin means. When we sin, we didn’t do something naughty. We didn’t even do something “shameful”. We do something for which Christ was put to death.

Christ died for our sins. That says something about the lengths God will go for the sake of His elect, but it says something about the nature of sin. God didn’t put Moses to death for our sin; God didn’t put David to death for our sin. God doesn’t ask for the blood of bulls for sin because it’s not enough.

Christ died for our sin. Christ did. The Alpha and the Omega died for our sin. The radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, who upholds the universe by the word of his power, died for our sin.

In that, we aren’t tasked to make a comeback from sin: we are tasked to repent of sin and have a broken and contrite heart over our sin. Because it’s not a little thing! It’s not a trifle, or a mis-step, or a dalliance, or a struggle: it is the cause of the death of Christ, and of the spilling of His blood.

To redeem us from sin, Christ died for our sins. And let’s make sure we didn’t miss this – Christ’s death is not superabundantly overpaying for our little stupidities: Christ death is sufficient for the atonement of God’s people. You may be offended by the cross, and you may not understand the cross, but see to it that you do not underestimate the cross: it is a payment sufficient for the price of sin, but it is also the only payment which could be sufficient for the forgiveness of sin.

Let us take our sins seriously – not as a social setback or a fall off the ladder of success. Christ died for our sins, and it would behoove us to look at our sins as if we recognize that Jesus’ blood was the payment for who we are and what we have done.

And God have mercy on Ted Haggard – may he not merely be sorry for what he has done, but may he see what he has done as a crime that Christ had to die for. Let this be a moment when Ted Haggard sees the real shape and texture of sin, in order that he may not treat grace as a republican party favor.

Christ died for our sins: God have mercy on me, a sinner.

A Girly Girl's Thoughts

It's not as if the Christian blogosphere needs another post about Ted Haggard, you know? It doesn't take a genius to see that if you look at Phil's post about this over at TeamPyro, you'll find that every Christian blogger and his crazy uncle Guido has written on it and linked to Phil's post to boot. Adding to that would only be bandwagonish, so I wont do that. This really isn't so much about Ted Haggard anyway, it's more about Mrs. Haggard, and the Haggard children. More than that, it's about me, and my children. Even more specifically it's really about Christian wives and mothers, and their children. Okay, it's about all of those things rolled into one.

Kev (and for those of you that don't know, that's my husband - and he doesn't have a crazy uncle Guido, but he does have a crazy uncle Jerry, which has nothing to do with anything) and I have discussed this issue in the news over the past several days, as I'm sure many other married evangelicals have done with their spouses. There are so many angles and areas involved in this, that hits right at the heart of any Christian church & family. In some ways, we can't help but relate to what the Haggard family is going through right now.

When I first heard about this last week, after my initial lack of surprise (which actually bothers me, I want to be surprised when a leader in the Christian community is at the center of a public scandal), my next thought was Mrs. Haggard, and the Haggard children. As a wife and a mother of a professing Christian man, I immediately empathized with her. How could I not?

However, if the truth be told I did think of the things here and there in my own marraige that could stand some improvements (if we're all honest, we'd all admit there are things like that) and had the most arrogant thought as I think I was trying to make myself feel better about the severity of the issues I have in my own life:

Well, at least my husband didn't sleep with a gay meth dealer.

How dare I think such a putrid self-righteous thought? As quickly as the thought crossed my mind, I felt like a haughty slob, and new thoughts took its place. That might not be an issue in my own marraige but there are plenty of others to keep me occupied in prayer. Like self-centeredness, lack of obedience, temper-control issues, laziness, procrastination. And those are just my own issues that I have hard time with.

I know there are all kinds of books out there that tell men what women think & how we feel, but I suspect most men don't bother to read them. I probably wouldn't, if I were a man. Not because I wouldn't care, but more because as a woman when I've read them, I get this sick feeling in my gut that as I read I find all sorts of things that are supposed to be "wrong" with the way things are and how should desire to improve in this area or that area. I actually feel worse about my situtation after reading, than I did before reading. Even if it's an area that there really isn't anything wrong with! So... I could be dead wrong here, but I assume most men don't beat down the door to the bookstore when the latest "what women think" book comes out, for the simple reason that it's unpleasant. Like a visit to the dentist, when he's having a bad day.

For that reason I want to sum it all up in one simple sentence. I wont sell any books with this, but here's the truth all the same:

WE NEED YOU

There it is. Women need men. We were designed by God to need men, and we do.

As little girls we need good and godly men to raise us the right way. If we don't have that, we suffer greatly.

As young women we need good and godly men in our lives (pastors, elders, youth group leaders, dads, friends of the family, etc.) to help us navigate through the miserable puberty years and help us focus on Biblical goals for our lives.

When we marry, we make a vow before God and men that this man is going to be our husband for the rest of our lives. When we say "husband", we mean best friend, lover, team-mate, confidant, companion, study partner and all sorts of other things. Somewhere in the deepest part of our hearts, we know that we've become one flesh and we want it that way even if he does leave the cap off the toothpaste or never picks up his dirty socks. If we lose him, it's like losing a part of our own physical body because we do become one with him.

We expect to be able to count on him to keep his word, to trust him to keep our secrets, to protect us (and oh boy do we ever need it!), help us, hug us, teach us, laugh with us, cry with us, pray with us, pray for us, fix things that are broken, and listen when we spill our own hearts. We rely on this husband person in so many ways like we rely on our own two feet, or our own hands. He is part of us, and these things have to work in conjuction one with another or things go all wonky. We don't like wonky, it throws our schedules completely off balance.

Naturally then, when I read about the Haggard scandal, my thoughts went to Mrs. Haggard. I don't know that she'd agree with me 100% about what a husband means to a wife, but I suspect if she had the chance to read what I just wrote, she might be nodding in affirmation more than she'd disagree.

Her trust was violated and she was betrayed by the one person in the world that is never supposed to betray you; your other half. Along with that, comes the devastating reality that this same person also betrayed his own children and made himself out to be a hypocrite in their eyes. I don't say this with any kind of malice or snarkiness, I'm only stating the unpleasant truth.

When a woman's children are hurt, she is hurt. When she's already hurting herself, it's a doubly painful reality that only the supernatural grace and mercy of God can soothe. That mercy is the only thing that will prevent her from reacting in the flesh and being angry, seeking revenge, losing her temper, and having irrational thoughts of self-blame.

I thought of all of these things and discussed them with Kev, after we'd initially heard this news break, and the subsequent updates. Every armchair theologian blogger has a thought on this (and many of them I'm sure are excellent God glorifying thoughts), this week. More than anything else though my only thought now is what this woman and her children need. They need the same thing they needed all along, good and godly men (and women) to be there for them in prayer, to help them sort all these things out and to direct them to the foot of the cross. Obviously Ted Haggard needs the same thing but to be truthful, my heart tends to go out to the blameless in situations like this, more than the one who caused the pain to begin with.

So, just a suggestion but as you read more and more about this topic in the days to come, you might ask yourself if there is something you can do about it, rather than just read, discuss and write about it yourself. There IS something you can do, and that's lift these folks up in prayer, that God's wisdom, guidance, comfort and assurance will be theirs in abundance, in the next few weeks and months as they all adjust to the bombshell dropped in their laps over the last few days.

I honestly cannot dare to imagine what I would do/think/feel as a wife of a professing Christian, were this to be my own life situation.

Mrs. Haggard has shared a few thoughts in her open letter to her church this past Sunday, and if you read it carefully, you can see that she's a wounded woman desiring to have the right attitude and do the right thing. You can read this letter at Justin Taylor's blog, here.

Rockie Mountain High

This is already more than I want to know.

What kills me about this is that it's like it's written by some hack with an axe to grind -- a guy with a big church and a political club gets taken down by a prostitute with a coupla bags of drugs and a tape recorder. I thought they stopped writing stories like these in the late 70's.