Lutherama

Experimenting with Slip Stitch Crochet, cont.

2011-12-06T16:48:00.005-05:00

So I've been doing some swatching, and I've learned why people do F/iB (and iF/B) instead of F/iF (or B/iB) ;) - it keeps the lines from the loops not being working in on just one side of the fabric, instead of both (not a problem working in the round, though). It can be a nice look, but the horizontal lines kill a vertical pattern. Going through both loops, alternating regular and inverse (call it SS/iSS), also solves the problem, but makes for a bit bulkier fabric.

Anyway, the front (non-lined) side of F/iB (and SS/iSS) has a nice vertical pattern that would serve well as the slip stitch stockinette equivalent. The back side has a horizontal pattern that could work ok for reverse stockinette, but I think I like the look of the non-lined side of B/iF better. Might depend on the application which works better.

I'll eventually get pics up - right now my swatches are especially rough ;).

Experimenting with Converting Knitting Patterns to Slip Stitch Crochet

2011-12-05T15:02:00.008-05:00

I learned to crochet a few months ago - instant love :). I learned on #10 thread and then jumped straight into lace, including some in actual laceweight. Crocheting was so much fun I thought I'd learn to knit, too. Got some needles, and practiced knitting and purling till I got the hang of it. Learned k2tog, yo, and psso, and embarked on a simple lace scarf in worsted. I was slow, but I enjoyed the process of knitting.

Didn't really want a scarf, though :doh, so when I came across TECHknitter's Elizabeth Cap - designed so that it would fit over large updos :woohoo (there's not a lot of those in the stores ;)) - in was in garter stitch and I thought it would be a great first project. Got my yarn and needles (sprung for Addi Turbos, even), and set off. Enjoyable enough to knit, but I was slow as molasses (exacerbated by sock yarn on #3 needles), and, as I actually wanted to *wear* the hat this winter, I read up on how to knit more efficiently. And that was where the trouble started :sigh - in trying learn to knit more efficiently, I actually got slower :doh and started making mistakes to boot :grr.

So I decided to give knitting a rest and crochet the hat instead ;). (The entire time I was swatching I was feeling extreme happiness to not be knitting :lol.) I started with single crochet, which looked nice enough, but then I got the idea to google for crochet garter stitch, and that introduced me to slip stitch crochet. Played around with it and settled on the slip stitch equivalent of garter stitch - front loop only sl st (F) - with an I hook (to get reasonable drape, you have to go up several hook sizes). Here's what it looks like so far:

Pretty nice, huh? :)

Anyway, in my experimenting with the basic stitches - front loop only (F), back loop only (B), inverse front loop only (iF), and inverse back loop only (iB) - I realized that if F was the equivalent of the knit stitch, iF was the conceptual equivalent of the purl stitch (seriously - just like purl is knit done backwards, and you can purl by knitting left-handed, iF is F done backwards, exactly what you'd get if you did F left-handed, plus it feels similar to purling with how you change where the working yarn is). And B and iB are the equivalent of, respectively, knitting and purling in the back loops.

(It took a awhile to realize this, as the slip stitch version of stockinette is alternating rows of F and iB, and I had been thinking of iB as the purl equivalent. Which it may be, practically speaking, if you are trying to achieve the same *look*. But conceptually, slip stitch stockinette is alternating rows of F and iF. Which I found no examples of online :huh (but I'm crocheting one up now ;)). iF doesn't seem to be used much, and tends to be paired with B when it is, much as F and iB are paired.)

I came to this realization as I was flipping through my Learn-to-Knit Afghan book (I'll master knitting yet ;)), which led me straight to the idea of converting *any* knitting pattern to slip stitch crochet. It wouldn't look quite the same, but that's fine, as that's not my goal - if I want it to look and behave just like knitting, I'll knit it - but I bet it would look nice (and it avoids knitting ;)). I came up with a few ideas for twisted stitches, and something to try for cables. I'm all excited to get started - I very well may end up with a Learn-to-Slip-Stitch-Crochet Afghan ;). A near one-to-one conversion from knit to crochet (not completely, as gauge would be way different, and yarn substitution might be highly desirable) - how *awesome* is that!

Fairy Tales and Nursery Rhymes Around the World

2011-08-29T19:09:00.006-04:00

This is our focus for Kindergarten (and tagalog K3 ;)) this year. I wanted to do something with world cultures and geography, and given how dd5 *loves* stories, I thought fairy tales were the way to go. Since dd2.5 will be tagging along, I threw in some world nursery rhymes, too.

The basic plan is simple - read the stories and rhymes in whatever order seems good at the time (and however many we are in the mood for), looking up each country on the map and marking it with a post-it arrow, and adding a "stamp" (in our case, a sticker ;)) to our passports. We also have Wee Sing Around the World, and the plan there is to focus on a song a week (or so), with me using my rusty violin skills as accompanist. We also have a few other books - Children Like Us, DK First Atlas - that we'll pull out every now and then.

As I made my giant master list of stories/rhymes by country today, I realized just how many there are (and most of our rhyme books have not arrived, and so aren't even in the list yet). I've no idea how long it will take to read them all, or even if we *will* get to them all. Just going to go with the flow. This is our first year - if we find our groove and dd5 learns to read (or is making progress on that front), Kindergarten will be a rousing success :).

Anyway, since I spent all afternoon typing up this (still only partial!) list, I thought I'd share it with the world, in the faint hope that some one else might find it useful.

Fairy Tales and Nursery Rhymes from Around the World

Books and Abbreviations (white = fairy tales, blue = nursery rhymes, pink = songs/other, italics = contents not in the list yet):

AWT - "Around the World in 80 Tales", by Saviour Pirotta
GMN - "Can You Guess My Name? Traditional Tales from Around the World", retold by Judy Sierra
Lang - "The Rainbow Fairy Book", edited by Andrew Lang, selected by Michael Hague
NT - "Nursery Tales Around the World", retold by Judy Sierra
SS - "Silly & Sillier: Read-Aloud Tales from Around the World", told by Judy Sierra
SAW - "Stories from Around the World", retold by Heather Amery

MV - "My Village: Rhymes from Around the World", collected by Danielle Wright
SAO - "Skip Across the Ocean: Nursery Rhymes from Around the World", compiled by Florella Benjamin
RRW - "Rhymes 'Round the World", by Kay Chorao
LB - "The Laughing Baby : Songs & Rhymes from Around the World", by Anne Scott
BR - "The Calico Book of Bedtime Rhymes from Around the World", by Mary Pope Osborne

WS - "Wee Sing Around the World"
VP - "Voices : Poetry and Art from Around the World", selected by Barbara Brenner
CLM - "Children Like Me"
DK - "DK First Atlas"

Note: MV, SAO, and WS contain both the native language and English versions.

NORTH AMERICA
Bahamas - Clever Mandy - SS
Canada - The White Bear - AWT
Canada - Going Over the Sea - WS
Cuba - The Charcoal Seller's Son - AWT
Guatemala - The Golden Horseshoe - AWT
Jamaica - Tingalay-o! - MV
Jamaica - Anasai and the Plantains - AWT
Jamaica - Anansi and the Pig - NT
Jamaica - Chi Chi Bud (Chi Chi Bird) - WS
Mexico - One Good Turn Deserves Another - SS
Mexico - Red Ant, Black Ant - AWT
Mexico - The Singing Toad - SAW
Mexico - The Ram in the Chile Patch - NT
Mexico - Pin Pon (Paper Doll) - WS
Puerto Rico - El Coqui (The Frog) - WS
Puerto Rico - The Half Chick - AWT
United States (Native American, Pueblo) - The Coyote and the Lizard - SS
United States (Native American, Pueblo) - The Coyote and the Rabbit - NT
United States - The More the Merrier - AWT
United States (Native American, Sioux, Dakota Plains) - The Three Spells - AWT
United States (Hawaii) - The Owl Battle - AWT
United States (African American) - Brer Rabbit Goes Fishing - AWT
United States (Native American, Northeastern tribes) - The Magic Doll - SAW
United States - The Gingerbread Man - NT
United States - I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly - NT
United States - Sody Sallyraytus - NT
United States (African American) - The Gunny Wolf - NT
United States (Native American, Cherokee) - NT
United States (Scottish American) - The Three Little Piggies and Old Mister Fox - GMN
United States (African American) - Big Pig, Little Pig, Speckled Pig, and Runt - GMN
United States (Anglo American) - How Jack Went to Seek His Fortune - GMN
United State (Native American) - The Cunning Hare - Lang
United States - Uhe Basho Sho (The Crooked Path) - WS
United States - Eentsy Weentsy Spider - WS
United States (Hawaii) - Nani Wale Na Hala (Pretty Hala Trees) - WS
West Indies - Tingalayo (Donkey Song) - WS

SOUTH AMERICA
South America - How the Birds Got Their Bright Feathers - SAW
Argentina - Juan Bobo - SS
Argentina - The Man in the Moon - AWT
Argentina - Medio Pollito - GMN
Argentina - Mi Chacra (My Farm) - WS
Bolivia - The Armadillo's Song - AWT
Brazil - If This Street Were Mine - MV
Brazil - Jabuti and Jaguar Go Courting - SS
Brazil - The Three Oranges - AWT
Brazil - Ciranda (Circle Game) - WS
Chile - The Monk's Treasure - AWT
Columbia - The Lost Friend - AWT
Ecuador - Two for You, Three for Me - AWT
Guyana - Bring Girl in the Ring - WS
Paraguay - Toad in the Hole - AWT
Peru - Wish Upon a Star - AWT
Peru - Los Pollitos (Little Chicks) - WS
Venezuela - The Rainbow Snake - AWT

EUROPE
Europe (Andersen) - The Steadfast Tin Soldier - Lang
Europe (Andersen) - The Swineherd - Lang
Europe (Andersen) - The Nightingale - Lang
Europe (Andersen) - The Tinderbox - Lang
Europe (Perrault) - Little Red Riding Hood - Lang
Europe (Grimm) - The Twelve Dancing Princesses - Lang
Europe (Grimm) - The Six Swans - Lang
Austria - The Frog's Wedding - AWT
Belgium - The Lace Makers of Bruges - AWT
Britain - Dick Whittington - SAW
Bulgaria - Orfeo in the Underworld - AWT
Czech Republic - Kuratko the Terrible - SS
Czech Republic - Nail Soup - SAW
Denmark - Snowman Frost - MV
Denmark - A Real Princess - AWT
Denmark - En Enebær Busk (The Mulberry Bush) - WS
England - Silly and Sillier - SS
England - Cap o' Rushes - AWT
England - This is the House That Jack Built - NT
England - The Three Pigs - NT
England - The Three Pigs - Lang
England - The History of Jack the Giant Killer - Lang
England - Jack and the Beanstalk - Lang
England - Lavender's Blue - WS
Estonia - The Laziest Boy in the World - AWT
Finland - The Gift of the Sun - AWT
Finland - Piiri Pieni Pyörii (The Circle Goes Around) - WS
France - What is My Hand Doing? - MV
France - The Miller's Son - AWT
France - Puss in Boots - SAW
France - Jean and Jeannette - GMN
France (Perrault) - Cinderella - Lang
France (Perrault) - The Master Cat, or Puss in Boots - Lang
France - Father Grumbler - Lang
Germany - Dance, Little Child, Dance! - MV
Germany - The Dwarf's Gift - AWT
Germany - The Musicians of Bremen - SAW
Germany (Grimm) - Rapunzel - Lang
Germany - The Ratcatcher - Lang
Germany (Grimm) - The Fisherman and His Wife - Lang
Germany (Grimm) - Rumplestiltzkin - Lang
Germany (Grimm) - Hansel and Grettel - Lang
Germany - The Nixy - Lang
Germany (Grimm) - Snowdrop - Lang
Germany (Grimm) - Snow-white and Rose-red - Lang
Germany (Grimm) - The Street Musicians - Lang
Germany - Alle Meine Entchen (All My Little Ducklings) - WS
Greece - The Pirate's Punishment - AWT
Greece - How the Turtle Got its Shell - SAW
Greece - The Hair and the Tortoise - NT
Greece - Pou'n-do To Dachtilidi (Where Is the Ring?) - WS
Hungary - Thirsty are the Reeds - AWT
Iceland - Bye, Bye, Blacking - MV
Ireland - The Little Donkey - MV
Ireland - The Wonderful Pancake - SS
Ireland - The Giant's Causeway - AWT
Ireland - Wee Falorie Man - WS
Italy - Buggy Wuggy - SS
Italy - The Silver Goose - AWT
Italy - Buried Treasure - SAW
Italy - The Rooster and the Mouse - NT
Italy - The Three Geese - GMN
Italy - Mio Galletto (My Little Rooster) - WS
Lappland - The Elf Maiden - Lang
Latvia - The Fighting Fisherman - AWT
Lithuania - The Mermaid's Marriage - AWT
Malta - Green Figs, Purple Figs - AWT
Netherlands - Hans, the Hero of Haarlem - AWT
Netherlands (Holland) - Kortjakje is Always Sick - MV
Netherlands (Holland) - Brave Hendrick - SAW
Netherlands - Alle Eendjes (All the Ducklings) - WS
Norway - Rain - MV
Norway - Three Billy Goats Gruff - AWT
Norway - The Pancake - NT
Norway - East of the Sun & West of the Moon - Lang
Norway - Ro, Ro Til Fiskeskjær (Row, Row to the Fishing Spot) - WS
Poland - The Dreadful Dragon - AWT
Portugal - Roast Rooster - AWT
Romania - Keeping Secrets - AWT
Russia - Hush You Mice - MV
Russia - Bear Squash-You-All-Flat - SS
Russia - The Czar's Wedding Ring - AWT
Russia - Baba Yaga, the Witch - SAW
Russia - The Bun - NT
Russia - The Flying Ship - Lang
Scotland - The Selkie Wife - AWT
Scotland - Coulter's Candy - WS
Serbia - Little Singing Frog - GMN
Spain - A Helpful Friend - AWT
Spain - The Four Brothers - SAW
Spain - The Water of Life - Lang
Spain - Mi Burro (My Burro) - WS
Scandinavia - Thor's Hammer - SAW
Sweden - Nail Soup - AWT
Sweden - Titeliture - GMN
Sweden - Små Grodorna (Little Frogs) - WS
Switzerland - Joggeli, Can You Ride? - MV
Switzerland - The Herdsman's Song - AWT
Turkey - A Sleeve in the Soup - AWT
Turkey - Ali Baba'nin Çiftli?i (Ali Baba's Farm) - WS
Ukraine - Veselee Husi (Jolly, Happy Ganders) - WS
Wales - The Island of Fairies - AWT
Yugoslavia (former) - Ringe, Ringe Raja (Ring Around Raja) - WS

AFRICA
Africa - Stealing the Sun - SAW
Botswana - The Ostrich's Horns - AWT
Egypt - Counting Chickens - AWT
Ethiopia - White Pebbles - AWT
Ghana - Why Do Monkeys Live in Trees? - SS
Ghana - Rain Song - AWT
Ghana - Tue Tue (Clapping Game) - WS
Kenya - The Rabbit's Friend - AWT
Kenya - Kanyoni Kanja (Little Bird Outside) - WS
Madagascar - The Pheasant and the Hen - AWT
Morocco - The Lion's Dinner - AWT
Morocco - Clever Aisha - SAW
Nigeria - The Tortoise and the Iroko Man - SS
Nigeria - By Royal Command - AWT
Nigeria (Yoruba) - How Ijapa the Tortoise Tricked the Hippopotamus - GMN
Nigeria - Akwa Nwa Nere Nnwa (The Little Nanny Story) - WS
Somalia - Dinner for All - AWT
South Africa (Masai) - The Mighty Caterpillar - SS
South Africa - The Cheetah's Cubs - AWT
South Africa (Xhosa) - The Runaway Children - GMN
Sudan - Secrets are Hard to Keep - AWT
Swaziland - Princess Tombi-ende and the Frog - GMN
Tanzania - The Dancing Hyena - AWT
Tunisia - The King's Best Friend - AWT
Zaire - The Boy Who Tried to Fool His Father - NT
Zaire - Bebe Moke (Baby So Small) - WS
Zimbabwe - Beautiful Bird - MV
Zimbabwe - The Sunbirds - AWT
Zimbabwe - The Hero Makoma - Lang

ASIA
Afghanistan - When Dreams Come True - AWT
Bangladesh - Toontoony Bird - SS
Cambodia - A Bag Full of Stories - SAW
China - Little Friends, Hand in Hand - MV
China - The Dragon Princess - AWT
China - The Fox and the Crab - NT
China (Hmong) - How a Warty Toad Became an Emperor - GMN
China - Hok Lee and the Dwarfs - Lang
China - Fong Swei (After School) - WS
India - Bathtime - MV
India - The Four Magicians - AWT
India - The Snake Charmer - SAW
India - The Cat and the Parrot - NT
India - The Snake Prince - Lang
India - Anilae Anilae (Chipmunk, Chipmunk) - WS
India - Kai Veechamma (Move Your Hand) - WS
Indonesia - My Village - MV
Indonesia - Clever Friends - AWT
Iran - Let's Play - MV
Iran - The Singing Pumpkin - SS
Iran - Precious Pearls - AWT
Iran - Attal Mattal (Rhythm Game) - WS
Iran (Persia) - Leyla and the Lamp - SAW
Israel - Finders Keepers - AWT
Israel - Zum Gali Gali (Work Song) - WS
Japan - Song of Kites - MV
Japan - Magical Mice - SS
Japan - The Crocodile Bridge - AWT
Japan - The Little Sparrow - SAW
Japan - Oniroku - GMN
Japan - The Crab and the Monkey - Lang
Japan - Ame, Ame (Rain Song) - WS
Korea (South) - Big Brother, Little Brother - AWT
Korea - Arirang (Arirang Hill) - WS
Malaysia - The Secret in the Package - AWT
Malaysia - Pok Amai, Amai (Clap Together) - WS
Mongolia - Evergreen - AWT
Myanmar (formerly Burma) - The Teeny Tiny Chick and the Sneaky Old Cat - SS
Myanmar (formerly Burma) - Master Thumb - GMN
Philippines - Don't Wake King Alimango - SS
Philippines - A Birthday Surprise - AWT
Philippines - Odon the Giant - NT
Saudi Arabia - Three Birds - AWT
Sri Lanka - It's Not My Fault - AWT
Sri Lanka - The Cake Tree - GMN
Thailand - The Parrot's Problem - AWT
Vietnam - Food for the Emperor - AWT

AUSTRALIA/OCEANIA
Australia - Grandfather - MV
Australia (Aborigine) - The Koala and the Kangeroo - SS
Australia (Aborigine) - Boomerang - AWT
Australia - Strong Magic - SAW
Australia - Kookaburra - WS
Borneo - Too Many Fish - SS
Fiji - Tapioca - MV
Fiji - Beware of the Shark! - AWT
New Zealand - Big Whale - MV
New Zealand - The Kiwi's Gift - AWT
New Zealand - The Magic Fish Hook - SAW
New Zealand - Epo I Tai Tai E (I Will Be Happy) - WS
Papua New Guinea - The Turtle's Shell - AWT
Samoa - Savalivali - MV
Tonga - Spotty Spider - MV

Once I get my passport stamp-stickers figured out, I'll post them here, too.

Memorize first, context second; or memorize with context

2011-01-24T20:42:00.002-05:00

Especially since younger kids can easily and fairly happily memorize things without being capable of understanding the context. I'm thinking of Latin and math, particularly, but it applies to other subjects, too. And for the purposes of this post, I'm assuming that *both* memorization and conceptual understanding are necessary and desirable for complete mastery of a subject - the question at hand is whether memorization can/should come *before* conceptual understanding, or whether memorization and conceptual understanding ought/must go hand-in-hand.

So, my understanding of classical ed (both neo-classical and traditional classical) is that it is largely in favor of getting necessary memory work started in the younger years, and it's ok that they don't understand it right away - get the foundation laid now, and teach them how to use those facts when they are capable of it in later years/stages. Of course, if they *are* capable of it in younger/grammar years, then go ahead and provide the context - but I'm talking about where a given child, at least, just isn't capable of understanding the context/concepts yet, but *is* capable of memorizing the facts that will be necessary in order to use those concepts. Thus the emphasis on math facts and Latin paradigms without worrying overmuch if they can't understand the necessary math or grammar concepts yet - basically, that memorizing without context won't hurt them so long as you *do* bring in the context eventually. And in fact, delaying the memorization *until* they can understand the underlying concepts is actually counterproductive and slows down the overall mastery of the subject.

But evidence shows that, in many cases, students just never moved beyond memorization without understanding in math and Latin. Lots of ink has been spilled trying to sort out the problem (part of which is undoubtedly because many of those students were never *taught* anything beyond memorization in the first place ) - and one common answer is that students should *never* memorize without being able to understand the concepts - that once they get in the habit of thinking that all there is to a given subject/skill is rote memorization and all problems are/can be solved by straight regurgitation of memorized facts, it is very hard, and in some cases impossible, to now teach them to *think*, to break the habit of mindlessly regurgitating facts and instead *use* all those memorized facts to learn and apply the underlying concepts. Therefore, you should be training the proper habits of the mind from the start, teaching students to *think* from the start, and thus never have them memorize anything outside of the context in which it will be used.

And now, I'm sure, you see shades of the conceptual math debates, and the Latin debates over teaching the language as a logic puzzle versus as a language . I've been pretty strongly on the conceptual math side, as well as the Latin-as-a-language side, as a result of my own learning experiences and the end goals espoused by those positions (too many classical types don't seem to realize there is more to math than memorization and the standard school applications, and don't consider reading Latin as Latin to be worthwhile).

But as I'm starting to teach my dd4, I'm running headlong into reality , which is that she just doesn't get some math concepts, won't even let me show her them (they are apparently things that should not be ). And I'm waffling about whether I should stop any formal math until she is more ready, or keep on with the bits she likes, which undoubtedly are going to get into memorizing without understanding, or go whole hog on memorizing, and do lots of chants and such (which she'd like, I'm sure).

Also, I've been reading up on Latin teaching - Bennett's "Teaching Latin and Greek in the Secondary School", which is rec'd by Cheryl Lowe, and Distler's "Teach the Latin, I Pray You", which is rec'd by teach-Latin-as-a-language advocates - it's been interesting seeing the similarities and differences b/w the two approaches. I'm mostly in favor of Distler's approach, which is a rigorous, in-favor-of-memorization-and-drill approach (but always and only in context!) to teaching how to read Latin as Latin. But unless one's kids are language/grammar types, you would hit a wall really quickly if you started in the grammar years - a lot of the grammar topics are the sort that seem to require logic-stage thinking (and the book was about teaching high schoolers). So what is better? To stick with context, and thus memorize mostly vocab and a few forms, but you can use them all? Or to just not worry about context, memorize all the forms along with vocab, even though you can't use them yet, relying on memorized prayers/songs/etc to provide enough context to be getting on with until they are ready for real grammar/syntax study?

Classical advocates say the former makes the grammar/syntax study more difficult than it needs to be, since you have the memory burden on top of learning how to use all those forms. Reading-Latin-as-Latin advocates say getting in the habit of using the forms out of context makes learning to apply them *in* context much harder than if you'd done it right from the start. (And there's the related issue of whether an early emphasis on translation and otherwise constantly turning the Latin into English at every turn - seemingly inevitable with a memorize-first approach - sabotages later efforts to comprehend Latin without *having* to go through English.) Conceptual math debates tend to go along the same lines - does memorizing without understanding the concepts first inhibit learning the concepts later? And if so, how do you deal with kids who just can't seem to get the concepts at all - is it really best to just drop math entirely until they *are* able to understand?

And, just to make things more interesting, classical advocates are all about the necessity of memorizing in context when it comes to teaching reading. Memorizing sight words outside of the context of being able to divide the word into phonemes/syllables and sound it out - phonics - is considered a bad, bad thing. It is better to wait until the child is ready to comprehend phonics than to go ahead and memorize whole words now, figuring you'll go over phonics later, when the child is ready. Why? Because teaching sight words sets up bad habits, habits that take longer to break than just doing phonics from the start. For some kids, *years* longer, it seems. So classical educators *do* acknowledge the issue of out-of-context learning causing bad habits. (And cognitive science has established that we use different parts of our brains when we read via memorized words versus phonically.)

But on the other side of the coin, the idea that the best way to teach expert thinking in a subject is to teach those thought processes from the very first - no setting up bad habits of thinking wrongly or not at all - is likewise rejected by cognitive science. Expert thinking requires a *lot* of domain knowledge, and trying to reason like an expert *without* that domain knowledge is futile at best, and establishes its own bad habits at worst. Their findings support the classical idea that it is best to learn facts, lots and lots of facts, before trying to think about them. And certainly reality tells me that my kids are ready to memorize a *lot* earlier than they are ready to logically think through things.

But a lot of things can be memorized *with* enough context to be getting by - like history and science stories/sentences and poems and songs - even if the kids don't understand them now, what they've memorized still contains quite a bit of context, that is available to them with no further effort than growing up. But math facts and Latin paradigms aren't quite the same - on their own, they give little-to-no hint of how they will eventually be used (bare lists of history facts or science facts have the same problem). Which isn't a problem if they can be memorized without causing damaging bad habits - but is a *big* problem if the memory-work-without-context *does* build bad habits.

Wrt what sorts of memory work is more prone to causing bad habits of thought, the phonics/whole word thing seems to hinge around memorizing core facts - phonograms, say - versus memorizing facts that are actually composed of other facts - whole words. That the problem comes in when you memorize stuff that you really ought to have been logically figuring out. Like in math, maybe it's fine to rote memorize the basic number bonds up to 10 (the facts up to 18 and beyond can be logically determined from there, and are good practice in using math laws and learning mathy thinking), and skip counting through the multiples of 10/12/15/whatever (to get useful patterns into one's head without getting into the potential minefield of whether memorizing the mult/div facts without understanding mult/div causes problems). In Latin, I don't think rote memorizing the paradigms and being able to give specific forms - so long as you didn't get into the trap of using English all the time, and thus develop habits of turning Latin into English - would *hurt*, but I wonder if it is really the best use of time. By avoiding bad/false contexts, you are left with *no* context, hardly - other than looking at Latin sentences/passages and parsing by giving all possible options for the given endings, since you do *not* have the context required to actually figure out which one it probably is. The only point would be to rote memorize the endings, really - is it worth that?

And it seems that *some* level of context is required, because *way* too many people *do* end up thinking of math, or Latin, or history, or science - any school subject, really - as nothing more than a bunch of random crap to be memorized and regurgitated. They *never* get beyond that.

But *how much* context is the question . And how *specific*. Are lots of living books on the subject, read contemporaneously to the memorization, whether or not they apply to the specific things being memorized, sufficient? Or do they need to be specifically related to the things being memorized? Or is rote memorization - memorizing things without context - inherently going to cause bad thinking habits, for which no amount of secondary context - living books, real life applications, anything that is not *explicitly* how it will be used - can prevent?

I mean, whole language types are all about context - but the context they provide is secondary, the context of "why you want to read in the first place" - similar to the use of living books to flesh out memorizing - and in teaching how to read, it seems that, for many kids, that context just isn't good enough. They need the primary context that words are made out of phonemes, and are combined in these ways, and are sounded out like this. Do other subjects have that same issue? Or maybe just skill-based ones?

Classical math vs. modern axiomatic math

2010-02-05T23:59:00.004-05:00

I've always been a "yea proofs" kind of person, and I was right on board with the WTM/LCC recommendation of proof-based geometry. And then I ran across this homeschooling couple that does proofs in algebra, too. They (the male half, at least) strongly advocate teaching "pure math" - i.e. starting with axioms and definitions and then using them to prove theorems. And they are doing so with their children. How awesome is that?

I was completely inspired - this is what (neo) classical math is supposed to be. I searched online used bookstores and bought all their rec'd, oop textbooks. I started (slowly) learning to do proofs myself. I was invigorated by all the possibilities.

But what about the elementary years? Were we condemned to just mark time doing fake math 'till we're ready for the real stuff in algebra?

And then I found CLAA, and their Classical Arithmetic program. No marking time here! It deductively builds up, from the very beginning, the whole of arithmetic. From the beginning, the focus is on proofs. For 9 year olds! I was in love - *real* math, from the beginning. Now that I know it was possible, I started thinking of exactly how to do it.

But should I do classical axiomatic math or modern axiomatic math? For one, I'm not wanting to enroll my dc in CLAA, so it would be *me* taking the courses, and then synthesizing the info into something I could teach my kids. And I know nothing about how the ancients did math. But I suspect it is quite different than modern axiomatic math - and that those differences have important philosophical ramifications.

One of the more obvious differences is that ancient math seems to rely on words and thus on traditional logic, while modern axiomatic math uses symbolic logic. I've read Martin Cothran's essay, "Logic is not Math," as well as the section in Kreeft's "Socratic Logic" that contrasts traditional and symbolic logic (and certainly they are not the same thing), which has given me an idea of some of the philosophical issues that led to the development of symbolic logic, but I've no idea how that plays out in the use of symbolic logic in math. I feel that it has a deeper significance than just that one uses symbols and the other words, but as to what that significance actually *is*... only vague impressions.

A less obvious, but possibly more fundamental, difference is how they treat axioms. (Certainly there seems to be a big difference in axiom choice b/w ancient arithmetic and the modern properties of the real number field.) From the CLAA article, the ancients picked their axioms based on what was self-evidently true. I'm guessing they just have one master set of axioms for each major branch of the Quadrivium (or just one set of axioms, period). However, moderns have different sets of axioms associated with all different kinds of sets, and they select their axioms based not on self-evident truths, but on trying to generate the smallest set of axioms possible (they hate the whole idea of having to *assume* anything - clear philosophical implications here! - and so want to have the fewest assumptions possible). This can result in axioms which are very much *not* self-evidently true, as well as multiple valid set of axioms to describe the same structure or branch of mathematics.

As well, moderns are interested in what happens when certain axioms don't apply, with little to no concern if it the results seem to correspond with an external reality or not, so long as they are internally consistent (e.g. non-Euclidean geometry came about from imagining what would happen if parallel lines *did* intersect, even though it seemed self-evident that they don't). I'm not sure that this concept would make sense to the ancients - would they care about the results that came from assuming that a self-evident truth was, in fact, not true? (Interestingly enough, though, several branches of mathematics that seemed to have no real world connection when they were first discovered were later found to be exactly what was needed to mathematically describe a new physics theory.)

What do the above differences in approach to axiomatic math reveal about the underlying philosophical differences between the ancients and modern mathematicians?

I don't know, yet. But I'm trying to sort it all out.

(Of course, its not like moderns even have a consensus on the underlying philosophy of math in the first place. Are we discovering things that have always existed, or is math just a human construction? Why is math so strangely effective at describing the real world? For all I know, the ancients were just as divided.)

Planned Parenthood Guilty of Their Own Accusations

2009-10-19T16:20:00.003-04:00

On the Planned Parenthood website you will find a link on getting the facts on abortion. Just clicking around to see if they actually tell women what abortion is (you know to see if they are truthful in their presentation), I found them talking about "crisis pregnancy centers" - with full on scare quotes. Rather than tell you about it, read it straight from the horse's mouth so to speak.

Deciding what to do about an unplanned pregnancy can be very difficult. It may be made even more difficult by so-called "crisis pregnancy centers." These are fake clinics run by people who are anti-abortion. They have a history of giving women wrong, biased information to scare them into not having abortions.

These centers

* may not give you complete and correct information about all your options — abortion, adoption, and parenting
* may try to frighten you with misleading films and pictures to keep you from choosing abortion
* may lie to you about the medical and emotional effects of abortion
* may tell you that you are not pregnant even if you are. This may fool you into continuing your pregnancy without knowing it. If your decision is delayed, it could make abortion more risky. It could also keep you from getting early prenatal care.
* may discourage you from using certain methods of birth control that are very safe and effective

Crisis pregnancy centers often pretend to be real health care providers — but many are not. These fake clinics often trick women with false advertising. They may make women think they will be offered unbiased information and a full range of health services.

Crisis pregnancy centers also sometimes try to trick women by using names that are similar to the names of real reproductive health centers in the neighborhood. Many times, the crisis pregnancy centers are located very close to real reproductive health centers. This makes it easy for women to go to the crisis pregnancy center by mistake.
How do you avoid a crisis pregnancy center?

* Don't schedule an appointment unless you are sure it's a legitimate place.
* Ask friends, other health care providers, counselors, or other people you trust for the name of a real health center.
* If you are considering abortion, you can find a list of abortion providers on the National Abortion Federation website.

No health care provider should pressure you into a decision about your pregnancy. All real family planning clinics will give you information about all your options.

Staff at your local Planned Parenthood health center can help. They can give you information on all of your options — abortion, adoption, and parenting. And they can talk through your options with you so that you can make the decision that is best for you.

I love the bit about crisis pregnancy centers tricking women into believing they aren't pregnant. Are people really stupid enough to believe that line? Ok, maybe they are, I mean they believe that the government can fix the health care system. That aside, talk about the kettle calling the pot black. PPh accuses crisis pregnancy centers of providing biased if not false information to convince you to follow their recommendations while doing the very same to convince you to use planned parenthood's services.

Thoughts on the brain-training benefits of classical education

2009-09-26T00:04:00.000-04:00

I was browsing the CLAA site today, and was looking at links to an axiom-based arithmetic text (deductive study - CLAA thumbs up) and to an early inductive arithmetic text (CLAA thumbs down). (Deductive study is first learning general principles and then applying them to specific examples; inductive study is first looking at specific examples and then extracting the general principle from them.)

While reading the intro to the inductive text, I was struck by how similar its aims were to most modern math texts. The author emphasized starting with concrete examples, rather than jumping straight into abstract, number-only work. He started with children's innate understanding of the four operations and built from there. He even advocated using manipulatives! He made a point of stating that his book taught math in a way that was aligned to how children naturally thought about math, and thus they could learn easily, even at young ages.

This is the same goal that most modern educators have - to take what we know about how people learn in order to find the best - easiest, most efficient - way to teach the subject. While people may disagree about which way is best, no one disagrees with the goal. Certainly homeschoolers, especially, have embraced the ideal of finding the particular approach to each subject that best fits their student(s) and how they learn. As for myself, I've spent a fair bit of time studying the latest research in cognitive science and second language acquisition, in order to find the best way to teach my kids.

But, as I was thinking about the differences between the two arithmetic books, it hit me just what it means to "train the brain." It's not just teaching via a particular (deductive) approach, but teaching via an approach that *intentionally* does not align with how people naturally learn. After all, if children naturally thought that way, then they wouldn't have to be specifically taught to do it.

So the fact that traditional classical approaches to some subjects (Latin and Greek, math) don't line up with modern research on the way our brains work is not a bug, but a feature. (Not, of course, that you can't use how people learn to help you design the best, most efficient way to teach things via a classical approach, but that will, almost by definition, be harder than (some) non-classical approaches.)

I had never thought about it that way before, even though it seems blindingly obvious, now.

Apparently Lutheran Theology Does Conflict with the Underlying Philosophy of Classical Education

2009-07-20T15:55:00.000-04:00

I was discussing with my dh - a Lutheran pastor - the accuracy (or lack thereof) of The Latin-Centered Curriculum's (LCC) description of Luther's beliefs toward classical education, and ended up getting completely blown away.

Dh advanced the position that, however hard we may try to find the truth, we can only succeed in actually finding it with the help of the Holy Spirit. Basically, sin has so thoroughly tainted everything - including the natural world and our reason - that on our own we are thoroughly incapable of ever grasping actual Truth. Sin corrupted all our data, and there is no way that we - equally corrupted by the Fall - can even have the slightest clue what it originally was like. We may very well find out accurate facts about our sinful world, but they are - at best - twisted, distorted reflections of actual Truth. And truth mixed with lies is ultimately still a lie. Only through the Holy Spirit can we discover actual Truth. (It's just like how we can not help but sin except through the continual help of the Holy Spirit.)

(Natural law would be something of a special case. It is directly written on our hearts by God, and - like all works of God - it is perfect. But it was done after the Fall, and in response to it - the law wasn't needed when we were in perfect communion with God, after all - and thus doesn't suffer from the data corruption effects that the rest of God's perfect creation suffers from. However, even though the law is perfect, our reason - outside of God - is still flawed, and thus can't help but mix lies in with the truth.)

Well, that is depressing. And flatly contradicts at least some of the basic premises of classical education. Objective truth exists, but it is not knowable outside of God. Not only it is impossible to know Christ without God, it is impossible to truly know anything without God. Sure, reason alone could never save your soul, but apparently it alone can't do much of anything, period.

Yet, does this understanding of human reason and its limitations violate basic premises of Christian classical education? More to the point, does it do so in a way that makes it impossible to have a historically meaningful classical education that is also grounded in Lutheran theology?

Well, based upon this explanation of true Christian education, written by William Michael of the CLAA, I would say that authentic classical education that is authentically Lutheran is possible. He writes that "[t]rue education teaches human beings to seek truth, goodness and beauty by the use of faith-enlightened reason." Despite our disagreement on the efficacy of non faith-enlightened reason, I am in complete agreement with that statement.

But even so, the more I read about the Scholastics, and about how thoroughly they - and through them the Catholic church - were influenced by Aristotle's philosophy, the more I'm starting to agree with Mr. Michael. If a true classical education requires adopting an Aristotelian worldview (which is not an indefensible position to take), rather than just studying Aristotle's works, then it really *isn't* possible to have an authentic classical education that is also genuinely Protestant.

But is adopting an Aristotelian worldview required to have an historical meaningful classical education? That's the kicker - I'm still trying to figure it out.

Genuine Lutheran Classical Education - Oxymoron?

2009-07-12T16:18:00.000-04:00

So says the founder, Mr. Michael, of the Classical Liberal Arts Academy (provider of authentic Catholic classical education, in an historically meaningful sense).

My first reaction was to reject his conclusion out of hand - He's Catholic, what else would he think? Certainly, Catholics and Lutherans disagree on several fundamental issues, and this naturally would be reflected in how we approach learning - a Lutheran education is an entirely different animal than a Catholic education. But the idea that Catholic beliefs are necessary to an historically meaningful classical education - that's crazy talk, right? Yet, as I considered his arguments, I got to wondering - does authentic classical education, in the historically meaningful sense (which is what I am striving for), incorporate principles and philosophies that are antithetical to Lutheran theology?

Michael, in describing the trouble non-Catholic students would have in his program, says that "it is a matter of fact that the principles of Protestantism and Evangelicalism are inconsistent with the principles of true classical learning. In other words, there can be no such thing as a 'Genuine Protestant Classical Education'."

However, many of Michael's points, while accurate with respect to generic American Protestantism, do not apply to Lutheranism. All of the cultural advantages he lists for Catholic families - the liturgical calender, the numerous saints to study and imitate, the Sacraments, the fellowship in two millennia's worth of Christian society, and the historical examples of other classically educated Christians - are all available to Lutherans as well (though there are differences - number of sacraments, how we consider the saints, etc. - which, while I consider them unimportant to his main point, I doubt he would agree with me).

Also, we do have vastly different definitions of vocation - which Michael sees as the most important difference between Catholics and Protestants with regard to the suitability of a classical liberal arts education. However, I just don't see the problem. Why does a lack of "religious vocations," in the Catholic sense, make a classical education less desirable? (I think I'm missing his point, here.)

As well, we do not hold to the "Protestant principles of knowledge" that he lists - Sola Scriptura, private interpretation, and disregard for tradition, all of which he claims will have to be abandoned to study philosophy properly - in the way that most American Protestants do. On the one hand, we don't place the Lutheran Confessions on the same level as Scripture. Scripture is infallible; the Confessions aren't. We believe them to be a correct explanation of the Scriptures, but if they were proven to be incompatible with Scripture, we would abandon the Confessions on that point and go with Scripture. However, we do believe them to be correct. And we reject the idea of the individual as the highest authority on interpretation - all Scripture interpretation should be in the context of the church (i.e. the Confessions). Teachings that violate the Lutheran Confessions are generally considered to be false, by virtue of having violated the Confessions. Yet we still explicitly deny that the Lutheran Confessions are infallible. It's a paradox - and in good Lutheran fashion we embrace it, upholding both poles, contradictory as they are, as equally true.

Yet for all our differences from American Protestantism, we still have fundamental issues with Catholic theology. Are these issues equally fundamental to classical education? (And how are these issues connected to classical education in the first place?) I'm not sure. But I'm intrigued. So I've been reading more on the CLAA site, as well as researching early Lutheran education (which was classical - and very similar to Jesuit education, in fact) and the philosophical underpinnings of traditional classical education. It's interesting. So far I'm still inclined to argue that genuine Lutheran classical education, at least, can exist, but we'll see.

K3 Diary - Informal Math

2009-07-01T15:36:00.004-04:00

(I've been wanting to keep a log of sorts, recording what we've done, hs-wise - blog seems as good a place as any.)

Today R (3yo) was flipping through one of my books (Distler's "Teach the Latin, I Pray You"), and reading all the numbers she came to. When she said 11 wrong (said "one two two"; I've been teaching her to count the RightStart way - one-ten-one, one-ten-two, etc. - and sometimes she says "two" instead of "ten"; no idea why the second two, though, but she's been doing that consistently the past week or so.), I corrected her, and then said the page numbers (which happened to include 12) for her, first the RS way - one-ten-two - and then the regular way - twelve. That was so much fun that she flipped the page, so I could say the next ones as well. We did that through the mid-twenties. Then she gave me a number - 64, and we looked it up, plus a few more. Then she was done. Just five minutes or so, but every little bit counts.

What to do?

2009-06-19T11:40:00.002-04:00

Yours truly has been extended a call. Now the question is, "what is the will of God for us?" It has always seem to me this is one of the toughest questions to ask. It is not like I can go to scripture and read, "Dr. Luther, you shalt taketh the call that cometh during the sixth month of the 232nd year of the land beyond the sea." So now I have to rely on those tainted sources of reason and feelings. Is that God telling me to take the call or is it heartburn. So, in my moment of indecision please pray for us as we consider this wonderful new opportunity to serve the Lord.

Look Mom! No instruments!

2009-06-17T12:11:00.004-04:00

It is amazing some of the things you can discover by simply hitting a single button. The following group called the Voca People demonstrate the vast potential of the human voice. Check out the video. You won't believe what they do with absolutely no instruments.

Comprehensible input resources for Latin

2009-06-16T10:32:00.003-04:00

I also posted my previous post, asking why classical educators ignore findings from modern language acquisition research - especially that language acquisition requires a LOT of exposure to comprehensible input in the target language (well accepted when it comes to modern languages) - when it comes to the classical languages, on the WTM boards. One theme that quickly emerged was that the parent is not fluent, does not have access to someone who is fluent, and that there is a general lack of easy Latin input available, so while an immersion environment might be ideal, it is impossible for them to provide. Some Latin is better than no Latin, so they do what they can.

Perfectly rational and understandable. However, thanks to the Internet, there are tons of resources for Latin available - many of which are free! More than enough to provide sufficient comprehensible input so that those of us who aren't fluent in Latin ourselves can still approximate an immersion Latin environment - for ourselves and our kids.

Here are just a few:

Use other beginning texts for additional readings: I picked up complete sets of CLC and ER texts for under $20 each on Amazon. As well, Latin Book One, including audio, is online, CLC has their stories online, and here are the stories from ER I and II online.

Google books has tons of readers and beginning books available, as does the Internet Archive. Here is a list of links to easy Latin readers.

John Piazza has many comprehensible input resources on his site, including a history reader and mythology reader compiled from readings from OOP beginning Latin books, as well as an introduction to everyday Latin.

Evan Millner's Latinum podcast has thousands of hours of Latin audio, including recordings of the entirety of Adler's"A Practical Grammar of the Latin Language," provided explicitly to give all Latin learners access to an immersion environment.

Laura Gibbs has provided thousands of Latin proverbs, verses and fables online.

Many Latin teachers have gotten together to write Latin readers, and have posted them online at Tar Heel Readers.

Diederich's research into the frequency of Latin endings and vocabulary showed that a mere 18 endings comprise the majority encountered in literature. Learn those first, and their basic grammatical meanings through a grammar overview, such as Harris' "The Intelligent Person's Guide to the Latin Language," and a vast amount of Latin will be open to you - you don't have to wait till you have gone completely through the grammar to start reading. As well, his vocab frequency lists show what words to focus on to get the most bang for the buck. (Edited to add: A better link to Diederich's research.)

And these are only the resources that came to mind right off the bat!

Latin Pedagogy and Second Language Acquisition Theory

2009-06-15T22:35:00.004-04:00

Or, why do we, as classical educators, care so little about what modern foreign language research has to say?

The classical languages are generally taught very differently than modern foreign languages. Most people in classical education see this as a distinct plus: in addition to learning Latin, we also reap a variety of ancillary benefits inherent to deductive language study. Win-win, right?

But in the midst of all this brain-training grammar-translation study, do we actually learn Latin?

Reading about Latin education in the 19th century - the halcyon days of proper grammar-translation according to Cheryl Lowe of Memoria Press - one finds many noted classicists discussing how, after years of study, most students still couldn't just open a book and read a Latin sentence in Latin word order. They had to laboriously translate, word by word, to have any clue as to the meaning; even then, with each individual word correctly parsed and translated, they still often got it completely wrong. There was quite a lot of discussion about how to change Latin (and Greek) instruction to get better results, so that the majority of students attained some degree of actual reading ability in exchange for all their hard work.

I lurk on a list where the focus is applying modern language acquisition research and techniques to teaching Latin. List members cite firsthand experience with the low level of Latin skill achieved by the majority of their students under traditional g/t methods. In fact, they don't believe that learning Latin via a pure g/t approach trains the brain so much as it requires a brain with high cognitive ability in the first place. In other words, they say, learning Latin deductively doesn't make you smart - you had to *be* smart to successfully learn Latin via a grammar-translation approach in the first place. In their experience, only 5-10% of students - usually those gifted in math - can actually succeed in learning Latin by so-called traditional methods (they argue that teaching Latin almost entirely in the vernacular is actually an aberration compared to how it was taught for most of its history).

While I'm not sure if I fully agree with their assertion that grammar-translation study doesn't confer any brain-training benefits (though they seem to have cognitive science on their side with regard to it conferring - or more accurately NOT conferring - transferable skills; I'm not sure precisely where I stand on all that. Clearly, yes, critical thinking in a field requires significant domain knowledge; however, most people agree that "how to learn" skills, like note-taking, once learned, are applicable across many fields of knowledge. Which side of the line do the Latin claims fall? I'm not yet sure.), I've never seen anyone talk about a successful g/t program (one that conferred actual reading ability) that didn't involve a lot of Latin exposure and working in Latin (as opposed to the vernacular).

This observation dovetails nicely with modern language acquisition research (much of which is based on Krashen's five hypotheses). Some concepts pertinent to teaching Latin:

*The Input Hypothesis - A language is acquired through sufficient input that is one step beyond a learner's current level (input at i+1 for a learner at i); often referred to as comprehensible input, it should be self-selected and ideally be on a topic the learner finds intrinsically interesting. Thus they develop proficiency in the L2 almost incidentally while they are consciously learning about topics of interest. Krashen believes that generating output in the L2 has no effect on acquiring the language - input is all that matters - but other researchers disagree, variously considering output anywhere from helpful to necessary to acquire a language.

*The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis - There is a difference between acquiring a language and learning about the language, with formal grammar study belonging to the latter and having no effect on the former ("language appreciation"), unless the grammar instruction is in the target language and the student is genuinely interested in learning the grammar. Then the grammar instruction functions as comprehensible input. (Traditional Jesuit Latin instruction would fall under this category; they utilized the direct method - striving to avoid, as far as possible, the use of the vernacular as the means by which Latin is learned - thus giving students large amounts of exposure to Latin.)

In reading threads (on the Well-Trained Mind boards) about learning modern languages, I find a lot of support for Krashen's ideas. There is a lot of emphasis about getting sufficient exposure to the L2 - at least an hour a day, if you want to achieve fluency. People talk approvingly about European schools that teach multiple languages by teaching other subjects (math, history, etc.) in the various target languages. Yet, when it comes to the classical languages, we're content to see maybe 15 lines of Latin a lesson?

We seem to forget that the classical languages are, in the end, still languages. Whether acquiring Latin confers greater benefits than acquiring another language, you still have to manage to acquire it. Research that is valid and applicable to learning modern languages is equally applicable to learning classical languages.

It Lives!

2009-06-14T23:26:00.002-04:00

Yeah, it's been awhile.

Quite a lot has happened. First and foremost, we are now the proud parents of two beautiful girls; our younger daughter was born last October, at home. As well, we are the proud aunt and uncle of another niece, who was born in April. Dh's parents now have four grandchildren, all girls. We celebrated our oldest dd's third birthday last week - hard to believe how fast she is growing up. We are hopefully looking at a move soon - will find out this week if dh will receive a call from a congregation in IL.

Hopefully this will be the first of many new posts - I certainly have lots of ideas floating around in my head - it's just a matter of getting them out.

Afternoon show leaves a lot to be desired

2008-04-17T10:21:00.003-04:00

I finally got to hear some clips of the new Afternoon Show on KFUO courtesy of Save the LCMS and this is all I have to say. It sounds like something KSBJ vomited up, if you aren't familiar with the giant Christian radio station in Houston, it is a lame vacuous example of wasting air time and space full of crap pop theology and annoyingly perky djs. With the current inexplicable fear of being different that seems to rule the LCMS a great show that discussed theology from a clearly Lutheran perspective has been replaced with inane banter. Yeah, that's going to reel them in and win them souls. Come on Board of Communications bring back Issues, ETC. and fire the director of KFUO.

Further Proof That The Teachers of Tolerance Are Okay With Intolerance

2008-04-01T14:40:00.003-04:00

The ADF (Alliance Defense Fund) may have finally found their headline case proving governmental discrimination against Christianity. Foxnews reports that they are now suing a school over a policy that bans the depiction of religious imagery in art class. Unless, they are saddled with the stupidest judge (thank God they are not under the purview of the 9th Circuit Court) in history the lawyers for ADF will have a cake walk.

The case in question a student received a zero because he drew a picture for class featuring a cross and the ubiquitous Jn 3:16 reference. The teacher in defense showed him a copy of the official class policy which he then tore up. Now it is not known if the kid knew the policy before hand, however, if he did I applaud him for making a stand. Why? Well it appears the school has a teacher actively teaching Hindu principles, there is a classroom featuring religious idols, the school has numerous demonic representation on display, features a statue of the Hindu goddess Shiva, and a replica of Michaelangelo's "The Creation of Man."

So, either the teacher is making a concerted effort independent of the school to suppress creativity in her class, or the school is willfully suppressing Christian religious expression, albeit unsuccessfully, while allowing pagan religious expression. I do think the school is going to lose the lawsuit (likely settled out of court) but it is unclear if this will result in a total ban (likely in today's climate of "tolerance") or allowing unfettered expression.

R.I.P. Issues,etc.

2008-04-01T12:14:00.002-04:00

Most of you have already heard about the untimely demise of KFUO show Issues, etc. I must lament that I am going to miss listening to the podcasts of the show. Sadly, people do not realize the full extent of internet communication for radio stations. After hearing Pres. Jerry's response, I think it is time that we have officials who actually understand the modern world. Jerry, your a nice guy, but you need to realize the impact that technology is having beyond powerpoint sermons. I was one of the many who utilized iTunes' free distribution of the Issues, etc. program. Being a pastor with the normal demand on time it was nice to be able to pick which hour I listened to while working in the office, but this will no longer happen because somebody didn't do a proper job in researching the listener base. Maybe there needs to be a change in the KFUO management and not the shows? Just a thought.

I took the ten day challenge and lost

2008-03-24T10:16:00.002-04:00

Wow! It has been a long time since I posted, but fear not I will be back and more frequent that the past few months. Anyhow in explanation of my absence, I finally caved and took the World of Warcraft challenge, you know Blizzard's challenge that you can't only play for ten days trial package. Needless, to say I lost. The constant hunt for new and better items and the thrill of leveling was too much for me. Besides, I have always been a fan of the computer role playing style games, where you get to be a warrior for good and slay evil demons. Needless, to say it was more than I could handle, but now that the initial flush is over I find myself drifting back to other favorite past-times. So expect more from me, soon! On a related note, I have a song idea for Weird Al, to the tune of Willy Nelson's "Mama don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys" is "Mama don't let your babies to grow up to be gamers."

Unschooling and Christianity

2008-02-25T18:40:00.000-05:00

For the past few months, I was largely reading about classical education and classical homeschooling. I am really inspired by it, and I believe that a traditional classical education is of great value. However, I was still struggling with my tendency toward unschooling, and working to find a good mix between the two.

Then I spend an hour on a radical unschooling site, and I'm ready to embrace unschooling wholeheartedly. Sigh.

Obviously, unschooling resonates with me. It is the natural extension of my parenting philosophy (AP/GBD: Grace-based-discipline), and it fits in well with my political leanings (libertarian). Just like GBD, the principles behind unschooling are universal and applicable to far more than just learning. I am really drawn to it, but I am uncertain if it is philosophically compatible with Christianity (of the Lutheran variety).

Certainly the majority of unschooling advocates profess many beliefs that are incompatible with Lutheran Christianity (or Christianity in general, or a belief in absolute truth, for that matter), but that doesn't mean that unschooling itself is necessarily likewise incompatible.

I see the main philosophy underlying unschooling as the principle that I don't have the right to force anyone to do something against their will. It doesn't matter if I think it is important or necessary, or I don't want to do it, or I feel I shouldn't have to do it, or I feel that the other person should have to, or anything - there is no reason sufficient for me to impose my will on another. I can encourage, persuade, set a good example, invite them to join me, etc., but they have to be free to say no.

This goes hand-in-hand with the unschooling tenet that forcing someone to do something against their will is a bad way to win hearts and minds anyway, and is thus generally counterproductive. If the end goal is that they freely choose to do 'x', because that is the right thing, or the best thing, or the most rational thing, then you should start how you plan to end up - allowing them to freely choose to do 'x', even if at first they don't choose 'x' nearly as often as you'd like.

Forcing them to do 'x' just teaches them that a) 'x' must be no fun, because otherwise you wouldn't have to force it, and thus, b) there is no reason to do 'x' unless you are forced to. The end result is, of course, that they never learn the value of 'x', nor do they learn the habit of freely choosing to do 'x', but instead learn the habit of doing 'x' only when forced to. If doing 'x' has worth - and you, yourself, are demonstrating that by example, so they are exposed to the idea of doing 'x' and its benefits - then its inherent value should win converts without having to resort to force.

By and large, I agree with that position. God has ultimate authority over all humans, and outside of the spheres where He has specifically delegated His authority (to parents over their children, and to governments over their citizens, both of which are subject to the constraint that they not use their power to compel actions that are against God's Word), no human has the right to force another human to do anything against their will, no matter how virtuous the compelled action. As well, God's designation of some things as right and others as wrong is more than just an arbitrary list, it is a description of reality: ignore it to your peril.

However, many unschoolers argue that, in addition to respect for persons, we have no right to forcibly compel others' actions because there is no reason our view of the "best"/"right" thing to do is any better than someone else' view of the "best"/"right" thing to do. In other words, they believe there is no absolute truth and no objective standards. Obviously, if there is no objective or higher reason to do 'x' over 'y', there can be no legitimate reason to force someone to do 'x' over 'y' - only selfishness.

Of course I strongly disagree here. I believe in absolute right and wrong, and also I believe that some things have more worth than others. I also believe, unlike many (but certainly not all unschoolers), that there is a qualitative difference between the parent-child relationship and every other human relationship.

As parents, we have been given a sacred and awesome responsibility: the right to override another human being's autonomy. God instructs parents to not abuse this right - "parents, do not exasperate your children", but neither are we to abdicate it - we are to "train up a child in the way he should go". I believe that proper use of our authority means that we are obligated to use the minimal force required (infringe upon our child's autonomy as minimally as possible) in our efforts to discipline - i.e. teach - them where needed. As well, we are obligated to never use our authority in a selfish manner, but only in our child's genuine best interests. We should use much prayerful discernment to ensure we are doing the best job we are capable of doing.

(As an aside, I believe the same principles apply when it comes to government's exercise of its authority - thus my libertarian leanings - as well as to humanity's authority over Creation. Thus why, amongst other things, I need to ensure that my treatment of my dog reflects his best interests, not my convenience; I am really struggling with this right now.)

So where I philosophically differ from "mainstream" unschoolers (and how weird is to see 'unschoolers' and 'mainstream' in a sentence without the connector 'are not', lol) is that:

I believe in absolute truth, and thus some things are right and some things are wrong.
I believe in objective standards, and thus some things are objectively better than other things.
I believe that the parent-child relationship is qualitatively different, and thus the parent does have the right to override their child's autonomy in circumstances where the child's best interest requires it.

As a result, I believe that not all activities, skills, and media are created equal, and that, in theory, a small subset may be so important that they must be done/learned/experienced by my children before they are adults, even if it requires force to accomplish. However, I would still be obligated to choose the least restrictive way of carrying it out. And in practice that could easily be straight-up unschooling; after all, I think it so valuable that it should be mandatory, and therefore I should be proficient and knowledgeable in it myself - they could easily learn it incidentally, or decide for themselves it is worth learning.

So, is the core of unschooling respect for persons, in which case I believe it is thoroughly compatible with Christianity, or does unschooling necessitate a rejection of absolute standards?

Over Coming Assumptions

2008-02-07T11:35:00.001-05:00

One of the things that I have noticed with the whole debate over creationism and ID vs. evolution is that it is really an argument of assumptions. There is a fair bit of archaeological evidence for us to look at and to an extent some geological evidence. These things exist and there is no denying them, however, how one goes about interpreting the evidence is largely based on assumptions predicated by a persons world view. Looking at the same evidence a person who believes in the Creation story can look at some of the fossilized skeletons and say that the person was a very old and possible infirm human being whereas a person who believes that evolution is the answer would see a less evolved ancestor to human beings. The answers come pretty much from their various world views. The creationist believes that God created the world so that things began in a complex fashion and things such as age and possibly disease can be the reason fossils look the way they do. On the other hand, the evolutionist believe things have gone from the simple to the complex and that earlier things are by nature less complex and so the differences are caused by being more simple. I realize I am speaking rather generally at this point but I think this gives you an idea of what is going on.

Taking Back The Web

2008-02-06T18:03:00.000-05:00

Firefox was my gateway into the world of open source software. I love the fact that it does not come with a bunch of bloatware and that I can install extensions I find useful and convenient such as ad-block. Today, I found some cool pictures based on the Firefox logo, below is just a sample.

HT: ComputerWorld

Stumble Upon

2008-02-05T22:48:00.000-05:00

My fellow Lutheran Bloggers, lend me your ears! Jk, hey, if you are looking to increase traffic, there is a nifty web service called Stumble Upon (It's Free!). If you are unfamiliar with Stumble, it allows you to set up some preferred topics and then when you click on their tool bar icon it will 'randomly' send you too a page that fits into your category. The bonus is that you can put a Stumble It link on your blog and the more people who give you a thumbs up or stumble it recommendation the more frequently your blog appears when somebody clicks on Stumble.

Which OS?

2008-02-05T17:56:00.000-05:00

I am admittedly a geek. One of those fairly obsessive fans of sci-fi who think of details most people wouldn't even consider. My most recent thought process which my wife and I discussed over tonight's meal is which OS did Dr. Rodney McKay of Stargate Atlantis base his Lantian/Terran interface on. Here is my thought process.

Not Windows - Windows doesn't play nicely with other operating systems. It refuses to read anything that isn't a windows standard file format.

Not Mac OS - The computers look like real computers, generally a heavy duty military style tablet. Not that the military uses tablets, they tend to favor laptops. The OS X also isn't nearly flexible enough to handle the changes necessary. They have a tendency to use fair bit of proprietary code and contrary to ID4 you need flexibility to talk to different computer architectures.

Linux - This is my bet. Why? Linux works on anything. The OS is completely customizable. Need it do something that didn't come with any distribution, write your own code. You can even write your own kernel (the heart and soul of any OS).

Anyhow, what are your thoughts?

The Rational Inferiority Complex or Why It Is Hard To Talk To Atheists

2008-02-03T18:59:00.000-05:00

Over the last week I have been engaging in my newest addiction called Stumble Upon, a nice little addon that allows you to randomly surf the web according to topics of your choice. If you haven't discovered it yet, trust me it is very addicting as you never know what is coming with that next click and you can't help but discover what's next. I have already come across one guy who wrote an applet for Linux to shut off his machine at a reasonable hour so he can get to work.

Recently, I came across an article about why it is so hard to talk to Hyper-religious. An interesting article even if it comes to the wrong conclusions, but interesting still. It is a subtly insulting article towards those who hold conservative religious beliefs such as I. Despite the claim to not be insinuating anything by bringing up the 2006 Baylor study which cites that the more conservative Christians tend to have less education. He double talks a fair bit but I have to wonder if you don't honestly believe it then why do you even bring it up. Eventually, his true colors come out as he concludes that the hyper-religious are guilty of willful ignorance. His point is that we have been shown the proof, but are ignoring it so that we can continue submitting to an authoritarian god.

Admittedly there are more than a few anti-intellectual Christians out there. Generally, they are rather paranoid about the educational system in general and science in specific. I am inferring from his arguments that he believes that all people who refuse to acknowledge such "proven" truths as global warming and evolution are anti-intellectuals refusing to believe the truth in the face of overwhelming evidence. But we aren't to be faulted we are the product of those who have a vested interest in keeping us ignorant.

Apparently, he believes that those of us who are leaders in the religious community are acting out of self interest by trying to keep the ignorant masses ignorant. When I read that I wanted to laugh. I am sure there are a few who do want to keep people ignorant, as they say it takes all kinds, but I want people to understand. I want people to understand the principles of evolution, genetics, physics, and biology, but then I am biased. I was working on a Master's degree in microbiology (a 3.0 at Texas A&M, a thing that goes against his assertions) before going to the seminary, I enjoy science and I enjoy teaching it. However, I noticed that atheists or so called rationalist never talk about a person such as I a very educated and intelligent person who also holds because it violates their world view.

They claim to be believers of evidence, open-minded, a rational when in reality they are just as black and white and irrational as those of us who hold conservative religious views. They have merely replaced an authoritarian god with authoritarian rationality or logic. Don't believe me, check out the number of times you see how many of them who came out of a religious background claim to be too rational or logical to believe in something as illogical as an involved God. Despite their claims at not having a black and white view of the world they have for all practical purposes relegated the world into rational and irrational. Categories that happen to correspond with their personal beliefs and views.

Sadly, I think too many of them have come across the educated religious people who are too willing to abandon all the tenants of their beliefs and/or uneducated anti-intellectuals and enough too few educated and intelligent conservative Christians such as myself. But, then I and others such as myself would upset a part or their world view that is very near and dear to their hearts, their rationality. It is my personal theory that all atheists suffer from an inferiority complex involving their ability to be rational so they are compensating by rabidly rejecting all that cannot be explained, labeled, and categorized. However, that is just my pet theory.

McCain The Republican's Horse?

2008-01-31T09:22:00.000-05:00

Winning Florida looks to have won McCain the nomination. I realize Mitt still is in the race, but I suspect with the Governors now starting to back McCain he is going to win the nomination. I'll be frank, McCain is easier on the stomach than Mitt despite being a firebrand. At least you know how he will move. I like that in a candidate. I can respect a person more when they vote their beliefs. The question is can McCain/Whoever beat Obama/Clinton (my prognostication as too the Democratic ticket)?

It's Finally Done

2008-01-28T16:23:00.000-05:00

Now that good for nothing artist, who will remain nameless is finally done, tell me he's too busy working on Comedy Central project will he, you can finally bask in the glory that is my likeness.

Enjoy!

This Is Just TOO Funny

2008-01-27T22:07:00.000-05:00

Some how I think MLK Jr. would be rather disappointed with the modern civil rights movement.

In case your wondering, its real. Don't believe me check it out Misspelled Signs.

Macaddicts Latest Fix

2008-01-24T00:43:00.000-05:00

Macaddicts are foaming at the mouth over Apple's latest creation, the super thin Macbook Air. Now don't get me wrong the idea of fitting a laptop inside an envelop can even get a Macsceptic such as myself excited, but they need some truth in advertising. First of all they need to let people know they are going to have to spend more than the 1800 for the basic setup in order to have a working computer. They are also going to need to either buy the USB super drive or another Mac or PC in order to provide support for the Air in case of a failure and as we saw with the latest OS X launch Macs do fail from time to time. Why will they need to spend more? Because the Air lacks a necessary component for a stand alone system, a DVD drive. They taut it as the ultimate in portability and power, but forget about conveniently using for watching movies on the airplane or during boring meetings because you are going to have to hook up your USB super drive in order to do so. In case you have never tried such a feat it is very cumbersome. What is worse is they have the gall to call this horrid bug a feature. This is like Bill Gates calling Windows ME the best thing to ever happen to PC's. It just ain't right. Part of me wonders if this isn't an experiment to see if Macaddicts really will salivate at the sound of Steve Jobs voice ala Pavlov, because really the only people who are going to buy the Macbook Air are the Macaddicts, so they can get their fix, and the technologically stupid who believed the pimply faced kid at Best Buy. My advise, if you really want to waste your money on a Mac get the Pro at least it is a real computer.

Another Scifiverse Ruined

2008-01-22T10:04:00.000-05:00

I was excited this year about one of the mid-season offerings on Fox, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I have always enjoyed the universe created by James Cameron, it is a fascinating world of man vs machine. But now I watch what they have done to his vision with the whinny emo kid (I want to have a normal life" at all costs) and the soft idiotic mother ("If I push these buttons 1-9, what happens?") and it is enough to make me want to puke. All I can think of when I see the show now is how much I want to smack that O.C. emo wuss around. I can't believe they took Terminator and turned it into Dawson's Creek. The only redeeming value of the show is the Terminator herself (Summer Glau who played the enigmatic River in the Scifi cult classic Firefly) who is very creepy. However, it is not enough for me to consider watching any more. This is not the Sarah Connor who took her 10 year old kid to blow up a research lab and traveled the world seeking men to train her son. Long story, short, I have seen better Papal Bulls.

The Reformation Of Contemporary Worship

2008-01-17T10:08:00.000-05:00

I have stated before that the solution to Contemporary Worship is not abandoning it rather it is to reform it. Whether or no you like it is here to stay. People are not going to abandon the tradition they grew up with unless they are dissatisfied with the tradition ( the CW nuts are like to jump on me for calling their service a tradition, because isn't it by definition the antithesis to tradition?). This is a similar situation that Luther faced when asked to write a German Mass. He knew that a total departure would be unnecessarily stressful for people because the Roman Mass is what they grew up with so to completely redo things would be harmful rather than helpful. The same thing will happen if we try to eliminate CW. There are now people who have grown up in the CW tradition and they would be set a drift if they were suddenly removed from that which is familiar. This is why I feel we need to follow Luther's example. Keep what works and chuck the rest, all the while replacing somethings with orthodox replacements. Simple changes could go a long way towards changing from the me focus of much of CW to Christ focus. One of which is replacing the "I" songs with "Christ" songs. Switch out the dumb "me" ditties with well written contemporary style orthodox songs gradually and they probably won't even notice. And the beauty is they will have catchy songs that can now positively influence their lives rather than continue to focus inwardly on themselves and sing about what they are going to do rather than rejoice over what God has done for them.

Anyhow, long story short, too late you say, I am trying to put into practice my own preaching and I have started to write contemporary style songs. I have the first one completed and as soon as I figure things out I will post it up here for you to hear and hopefully enjoy.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Blessed Epiphany

2008-01-05T11:02:00.000-05:00

Now that is what I call a holiday season. I hope you all had a great Christmas. I know I did. This year my dear wife really managed to surprise me with a few books I have been looking for for a long time. She managed to find all the books from fellow blogger Lars Walker. I must say I am enjoying Wolf Time and I am looking forward to the other two.

Blessed New Year to all!

Evolution Helped Pregnant Ladies Stand Up

2007-12-13T09:22:00.000-05:00

A recent article on Foxnews.com on how pregnant ladies can stand up is a classic example of how presuppositions influence the conclusion. The scientists presuppose that evolution is true and determined that the features they found were brought about by evolution. However, they have no proof, they have only their assumptions. From a certain point of view, one can just as easily say, "God is an incredible engineer."

Why Don't We Blame What Is Really To Blame For Violence

2007-12-13T09:00:00.000-05:00

An article in Christian Post.com on the supposed influence of pop culture on violence amongst teens illustrates the problems caused by the denial of Original Sin. People need something to blame for such senseless violence such as the Mall shooter and the Church shooter, but because they deny Original Sin in order to maintain their fantasy of deciding for Jesus they blame the media. Why? The media is safe and blaming them means they don't have to look to closely at their doctrine, because to acknowledge that the people themselves are responsible for their own actions is dangerous to their world view.

To state that the people who perpetrate these atrocities are solely responsible for their actions means they must admit to an innate inclination to perpetrate murderous actions and that my friends is dangerously close to saying those evil Catholics were right. We did inherit sin from great grandpappy Adam. The people in the media are not responsible for this men's actions. Those men are responsible for their own actions.

Now, likely these men weren't firing on all cylinders. They probably did have something going on that impaired their judgment, but the root cause for that impairment is sin. If Adam had not eaten that fruit we would not have people who were a few fries short of a happy meal. We would all be perfectly tuned God lovin' people. So, once again sin is at the heart.

Here is the kicker. Why do people like violent entertainment? Sin.

My Newest Pet Peeve

2007-12-12T15:40:00.000-05:00

My newest and greatest pet peeve is advertisements who rather than try to sell their product make fun of other products. Chief of these ads is the Apple ads featuring two guys known as PC and Mac. Every time I see one of these ads I have to wonder what it is about Macs that they feel that to make people want to buy them they have to make be little pc's. Their latest foray is an ad proclaiming the fastest Vista machine was a Mac, what they don't tell you is at the time the PCWorld benchmark was run nobody else was running a Intel dual core at 2.6 ghz. Their claim has since fallen to the Eurocom D-900C - Phantom X which granted using an Intel quad core. I would also like to see how it compares with Alienware's new contender which features much of the same equipment as the Macbook Pro.

They aren't the only ones guilty of this Altell is not far behind in annoyance levels and Metropcs is catching up. If your product is so great and wonderful sell it as great and wonderful don't belittle somebody else's product. They make it seem as if they are trying to mask some great deficiency by getting you to focus on supposed problems.

Who Is A Theologian

2007-12-10T14:18:00.000-05:00

I have heard many people when discussing beliefs use the cop out, "I am not theologian," usually in circumstances where they have been called to defend their beliefs. This is not true. I really like how Stanley Grenz and Roger Olsen defined a theologian in their book Who needs theology?. They defined a theologian as anybody who has sat back and contemplated on who God is. They then broke theologians down into three basic categories: lay, pastoral, academic. I am not going to get into the nitty-gritty but the short of it is, everybody is a theologian.

Do Words Have Meaning Anymore?

2007-12-10T13:59:00.000-05:00

My lovely wife was hanging out on a message board where the topic of infant baptism came up. A few ladies had responded to this person who had asked why people baptize babies. As she was reading through the responses my wife became confused, because she was seeing terms thrown about that we Lutherans cherish such as means of Grace, sacraments, etc but their stated beliefs were not consistent with the meanings of these terms. The height of which was a Nazarene lady who was throwing these terms around and cited as thinking the LC-MS website on infant baptism was a great statement but then proceeded to say baptism doesn't save. My wife having been positively influenced by me in matters of theology politely called her on the inconsistency and asked her to clarify. To which the lady essentially responded, I am not a theologian don't ask me to define my terms. This incident got us to wondering do people actually acknowledge that words have meaning, that we should understand that meaning, or do we just adopt something that sounds nice regardless of meaning?

Kindle Is It All That It Is Fired Up To Be?

2007-12-10T09:35:00.000-05:00

Kindle is the lastest attempt to create an ebook reader by Amazon. I don't have one so I am not really offering a review, but I am just offering some impressions from a bibliophile. My initial thoughts are that it holds some promise. It is completely wireless, capable of holding numerous books (a feature I find attractive for trips), and has a highly readable screen. However, is it worth it?

400 bucks seems mighty steep for something I am only going to use to read books I have to buy @ $10 a copy, plus I am trying to save for my 1080p flat-panel tv. My second thought is too many buttons, couldn't they have hidden the keyboard? I can see it now, I will have trouble getting comfy without hitting a button. Oh yes, I nearly forgot it only comes in B&W, I can't believe in the age of iPhones and high-def laptops they couldn't develop a working color display.

Right now, unless they drop the price of Kindle significantly to the less than $100 range, I am not even going to consider buying something purely for the convenience of having 100 of titles in one paper back size gizmo. Besides they don't offer it in book smell (I love the smell of a book).

A Return To Military Life?

2007-12-05T10:55:00.000-05:00

It isn't a true return as I have never served in the armed forces, but I grew up in a military family. My dad flew in the belly of the BUFF, B-52 for the un-indoctrinated and later a desk for Wing/Base Ops, so I have more than a bit of fondness for those who serve. I know what they and their families go through and I admire them for making those sacrifices. Of late, I have been taking stock of my life and wondered if it is time to "return" to that life by becoming a Chaplain. To do so will, of course, mean a major lifestyle change for myself; I have to drop around 100 lbs, but that would be good for me. It would also be a major change for my wife, particularly with the likelihood of deployment, a thing which gives me pause. She is also concerned about the "nomadic" lifestyle of people who serve (she is not a big fan of moving, but I have faith in her ability to adapt). Of concern, also, is that fact that by its very nature chaplaincy involves working with people of differing faiths and I am not sure how that works for a theologically conservative confessional Lutheran. Anyhow, that is where I am at this time. I would like to hear from men who have served in the Chaplaincy about their experiences, so if you have served leave a comment or email me.

Senate Investigation Into Televangelists Good Thing Or Bad Thing?

2007-12-05T08:53:00.000-05:00

Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has launched an investigation of several of the leading televangelists, identified as "Prosperity Gospel" preachers. Supposedly, he is acting in response to requests from watch dog groups, news reports, and individual complaints. Now, I am all for ministers and ministries being held accountable for their finances, we are too be blameless in the sight of man and our use of ministry finances is a very public endeavor. So, I was generally in favor of Sen Grassley's actions. However, I have to wonder what kind of ramifications this could have for other churches. Typically, what happens as a result of these investigations is hasty and ill thought out knee-jerk laws. Those laws tend to have rather negative unintended consequences and can affect law abiding ministries also.

I think I am going to continue to side with Sen. Grassley on this issue, but I think I will pay close attention to the fall out and pray that they do not react rashly.

I Am Also A Bible Nerd

2007-12-04T11:06:00.001-05:00

You know the Bible 100%!

Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
Create MySpace Quizzes

It's Official, I'm Nuts!

2007-12-04T10:58:00.000-05:00

What mental disorder do you have? Your Result: ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) You have a very hard time focusing, and you find it difficult to stay on task without your mind wandering. You probably zone in and out of conversations and tend to miss out on directions because you cannot focus
OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)
Manic Depressive
Paranoia
GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder)
What mental disorder do you have?

Rick Warren's Convictions On Worship

2007-12-03T15:15:00.000-05:00

1. Only believers can truly worship God.

The Bible says, "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:24 HCSB). Worship must rest on a true understanding of who God is – and that can only happen when a person has a relationship with God. You can have a worship service full of people, but only believers can really worship.

True only a redeemed sinner can worship God, because only a redeemed sinner will want to worship God. Why, because worship is a way of giving thanks and only some one who has been redeemed can give thanks. The unrepentant generally couldn't careless about worshipping. Besides, sleeping in is more fun than getting up.

2. You don’t need a building to worship God.

For 15 years we didn’t have a building of our own. But I guarantee we did a lot of worshipping during that time. The Bible says, "The God who made the world and all things in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands" (Acts 17:24 NAS). God created everything in the world. That includes any place you might consider having a worship service. Worship isn’t a place; it’s a verb

True, you don't need a building to have worship, but they sure are nice when it rains.

3. There is no correct style of worship.

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 12: "There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men." God gives us only three requirements for worship. It must be authentic and accurate (in spirit and truth, as Jesus tells us in John 4). Paul also tells us in 1 Corinthians 14 that it should be done in an orderly fashion. Beyond that, God gives us freedom.
Debates over worship styles are almost always sociological or personality clashes, couched in theological terms. Everybody thinks that their worship style is the most biblical. But there is no one biblical style. There are no musical notes in the Bible. We don’t even have the instruments that they had. The truth is God loves all kinds of worship styles – as long as we worship him in spirit, in truth, and in an orderly fashion.

Actually, there is a theological component to the worship wars that is legitimate, but I wouldn't expect a person who believes worship is all about what we do to realize that fact. Warren seems to think that it really does boil down to personal desires and to an extent he might be right. However, there is a lot to be said about the me centered nature about contemporary worship and the cold impersonal blahness of traditional worship. I still can't get over how the song "The Heart of Worship" goes on and on about" it's all about you, Jesus," but in the end its really all about me doing something. Yes the song is largely a confession, but all it takes is a few words to ruin the whole message. Its ok to say I will praise you but lacking the context of praise in response to God's work of salvation is an empty gesture without meaning even if you are singing praise because he is the creator. Going through the service by rote is equally heinous, sure you are saying the right words, but do they reflect what is in the heart? Are you negating the joyous response of praise through your bored demeanor?

The other question he fails to ask is what is the purpose of worship. I think he does so because he assumes that it is us doing something for God. Sadly, he misses the best part, what God does for us. The worship service should be structured around the things that God does for us and our response of thanksgiving, kind of like how it should be happening in our vocations. We can praise Jesus to our hearts till we fall over from lack of Oxygen, but outside of the context of the Gospel what's the point?

The only thing that is really a question of adiaphora, neither forbidden nor commanded, is the question of guitar or organ.

4. While unbelievers can’t worship, they can watch believers worship.

We see this truth lived out in Acts 2. "They worshiped together regularly at the Temple each day, met in small groups in homes for Communion, and shared their meals with great joy and thankfulness, praising God. The whole city was favorable to them, and each day God added to them all who were being saved" (Acts 2: 46-47 TLB).
When the early church worshipped, non-believers came to faith in Christ. Non-Christians can’t worship, but they can see the kind of joy worship brings us. They can see how God’s Word transforms our heart, comforts us, and interacts with us. God can use our worship services to draw non-believers to himself

True, but it helps if you clearly proclaim the Law and the Gospel. Where these are proclaimed hearts will change. Sadly, too many preachers believe that good worship means that the sermon provides helpful tips on how to be a good parent, fiscally responsible, etc. Rick Warren Deal with real life issues but move them to the Gospel don't leave them hanging in despair or giving them false confidence in their own ability to do God pleasing work.

5. Worship is a powerful witness to unbelievers if God’s presence is felt and the message is understandable.

Both of those are essential parts of a worship service when witnessing to unbelievers. Again, Acts 2 is a good example of this. God’s presence was so evident in the disciple’s worship at Pentecost that it attracted the attention of all the unbelievers throughout the city. And then the message was understandable. Remember the miracle of tongues? Every man heard the message in his own language. It had to be understandable! And that’s true today as well.

Ok, it is good advice to avoid church jargon. Your average parishioner does not understand what sanctification means, but they will understand what it means to strive towards perfection or trying to be more like Jesus in response to the Gospel. The worship service can be a powerful witness to unbelievers whether or not they feel something. Unless all you have to go by is your feelings, but we don't. The Gospel is it's own powerful witness and its power is derived not from how we feel, but from God himself.

6. God expects us to be sensitive to the fears, hang-ups, and the needs of unbelievers when they are present in our worship services.

The Bible says in Colossians 4:5 (NIV): "Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity." When you have guests over for dinner at your house, do you act a little bit differently? I hope so! A little bit more polite. Maybe you use a different set of china or dishes. The presentation of the meal is a little bit more thoughtful. The table conversation is a little bit more courteous. You may be still eating beans and weenies. It’s the same meal, but you are presenting it in a little more polite way.
Is that being hypocritical? No. It’s called being polite. Whenever you hear people talk about being sensitive to unbelievers, that is not watering down the gospel. It’s called love. You’re just being nice to them.

Treat them nicely. That is good advice. What it doesn't mean is turning a blind eye towards sin or out right acceptance. It simply means being friendly. Help them, guide them. Don't berate. It is possible to tell somebody they have done something wrong without hitting them in the head with a Family Bible.

Bryne Under Fire For Not Interviewing Token Minority

2007-11-29T10:00:00.000-05:00

Bill Bryne, the Athletic Director at Texas A&M, is under fire from the Black Coaches' Association according to the Houston Chronicle. Why? He didn't interview any black coaches when seeking to replace Coach Fran. Truth be known Bryne interviewed exactly one person, Mike Sherman, the guy who is replacing Coach Fran. Apparently, the BCA feels that Bryne should have interviewed one more person just because they are a minority. I can't think of a stupider reason to interview a candidate. In a world such as sports the interview is merely to find out if you can work with somebody, their ability to perform is already well publicized. Bryne has already admitted to keeping a running database of people he would like to hire if the need should arise, so it should be no surprise that when he has to replace a coach he already knows who his first pick is going to be. I also seriously doubt that AD Bryne, who is trying to build a championship quality football program is going to let a little thing like race get in the way of picking the best fit in talent.

To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate That Is The Question

2007-11-28T08:35:00.000-05:00

Originally, I was planning on writing a comment in response to Rebellious Pastor's Wife however, if I were to do justice to the topic I need more room.

First, I would like to address the concern of not doing enough research. This may or may not be a fair charge to level on people doing medical research. Why? Simply put, the human body is an extremely complex and diverse "machine," it is simply impossible to test for all circumstances because you cannot predict or know what all the circumstances are going to be. Frequently, what happens is simply a product of the Law of Unintended Consequences. Sometimes this is bad and sometimes it is good. A case in point is a doctor who noticed that fewer women died in the hospital when they were seen right after meals. His investigation turned up the factor involved was that he washed his hands before eating. He tested his findings by washing his hands after each examination and, what do you know, fewer women died. Other times and these are the times they make the news is when it goes bad, such is the possible case with Thimerasol, they used it too prevent contamination by fungi and bacteria, it is very good at this job. Yet, there was no way they could predict that the levels used could possibly be a cause of autism, particularly since autism is still not well understood.

Now some people do have adverse reactions to vaccines. Some can be quite serious, i.e. people died from the old small pox vaccination. Most can be mild i.e. breaking out in hives. The reasons are quite diverse from nurses not paying attention to expiration dates (happened to me with a Tetanus booster) to allergic reactions to the serum. Cases of contracting the disease are exceedingly rare if it is even true that they happen. All of these problems are hard to predict and because of this difficulty you are supposed to wait around for 15 minutes. The worst adverse reactions tend to show during that time frame. Demonstrated adverse effects should constitute reasonable reasons for discontinuing that particular line of vaccination unless it can be demonstrated that it was due to contamination.

Second, do not sell young children's immune systems short. They are incredibly capable and flexible systems and can easily handle the vaccination load. In addition, for vaccines to be remotely responsible for Autism does require a preponderance of variables. The first is that Autism would have to be proven to be an auto-immune disease where the immune system is attacking the central nervous system (CNS). Second, the antigens involved in eliciting the immune response in vaccinations would have to be similar to antigens in the CNS. This is highly unlikely for several reasons. The first is they do not use nerve or brain tissue for the production of any vaccine, which would be the most likely source for the production of these antigens. In addition, the majority of vaccinations given to children are for bacterial toxins which in no way resemble CNS antigens and are very specific. With these in mind I seriously doubt the load of vaccinations is responsible.

Now, my third point is the use of fetal tissue. In reality, this has been blown out of proportion. The use of fetal tissue is limited to vaccines for viruses as bacteria do not require living tissue and when I left the Vet. Microbiology dept for seminary there was work being done on using bacteria to synthesize the viral antigens, because bacteria are cheaper to maintain than tissue cultures. I have a feeling in the next 20 years we will start seeing vaccines made this way and the pharmaceutical companies will buy into it because it will cut their costs significantly. One batch of MRC-5 cells costs over $250 and they have a limited reproductive cycle plus the production of virus destroys the cells, so that adds up very quickly. When you consider bacterial colonies can exist in perpetuity there is no question of cost benefit. Admittedly that is in the future so back to here and now.

All of the viral vaccinations have non-human diploid cell (fetal tissue) alternatives except for Rubella, Varicella (Chicken Pox and Shingles), and Hep A. The alternatives generally use chicken eggs to create the vaccine. They generally work just as well. There are notable exceptions such as Rabies, the HDC Rabies vaccine has a 100% efficacy rate, unusual even for HDC derived viruses, and can be used as a treatment for recently infected patients. Rubella differs from all the other vaccines in that the child that was used for the tissue sample was already infected with the virus due to the mother contracting Rubella while pregnant, which is why it is impossible to find a non-HDC source. The CDC has an excellent resource on their website that lists all of the approved vaccines in the U.S at this link. If you do Google searches of the brand names, the companies have the information posted on how they produce the vaccine and most are available through the John Hopkins link I provided previously.

Now, I did some digging and the pharmaceutical companies all use two HDC lines in producing their vaccines: MRC-5 and WI-38 available through American Type Culture Collection. Both of these cell lines were created from children aborted in the 60's in Europe (WI-38's remains were transported to the U.S.). No new lines are being created. One reason is purely practical the current viral vaccine research needs different cell lines. HIV for instance will only grow in T-cells and both commonly used HDC lines are not immune related. The continued use of these lines falls very close to the debates about the NAZI medical experiments.

The use of the results of NAZI experimentation has caused scientists many ethical dilemmas as illustrated by this 1989 NY Times article. What do we do with what is learned from atrocities committed in the past? There are some who would have us ignore what was learned and try to unlearn what was learned. I can see some of the appeal of this position, because we do not want to be complicit after the fact in their torture and murder. However, I do not take this position. I believe we should keep what was learned and work towards preventing further atrocities. This view forms the basis for my position on the use of HDC's in vaccine production and my advocacy of Pro-Life. One way that we can look at this is that God has worked something good out of something absolutely horrible. I think in someways by throwing out what has been learned would dishonor those who lost their lives. At the same time we can strive to sanctify medical technology (so to speak) by working towards more ethical means of study and production.

Thimerosal or How to Decieve Without Lying

2007-11-27T10:48:00.000-05:00

While researching the Thimerosal debate, I noticed claims that Thimerosal is 50% Mercury. Sounds scary right? Mercury is one of those dangerous chemicals and anything that is 50% Mercury must be bad. Well, what the more honest or better informed will say is 50% by weight. Still sounds like a lot until you actually look at the chemical in question. The chemical formula of Thimerosal is this C9H9HgNaO2S, which is short hand for 9 Carbon (C), 9 Hydrogens (H), 1 Mercury (Hg), 1 Sodium (Na), 2 Oxygens (O), 1 Sulpher (S). Please note that there is only one Mercury atom out of a total of 21 atoms and strickly speaking they are correct to say that Mercury is half the weight. Why? Mercury is huge compared to the others, Mercury has a molecular weight of 200.59 where Sodium the next largest is 22.99. What they are not telling you is that by concentration Mercury makes up a minute amount of thimerosal and concentration is the key in determining toxicity levels not molecular weight. For example, Potassium is quite small compared to Mercury at 39.09 but at sufficient concentration is quite lethal. So, while all of these people are making thimerosal sound scary they are actually lying to you by telling what amounts to the truth told incorrectly.

Now, I am not saying go and get yourself some thimerosal, I am only saying it is not as dangerous as they make out. However, Mercury as a heavy metal is not something our bodies are equipped to expel readily so it builds up over time. Thus repeated exposure in a short period of is bad.

Thimerosal, Vaccines, and Autism

2007-11-27T10:14:00.000-05:00

I will state this up front, I remain unconvinced that the small amounts of thimerosal used in vaccines causes autism, but at the same time I am not ruling out a connection. And I will be perfectly frank in that I believe the refusal to vaccinate on the basis of what amounts to the scientific equivalent of hearsay is the height of parental irresponsibility. At the same time, I am not in favor of mandatory vaccination.

However, if you are worried about thimerosal in vaccines this is a good link for you, John Hopkins compilied a list of common vaccines and their thimerosal levels. It would appear that most contain no thimerosal. Now if you are truly worried still, look at that list and ask the doctor to use one of those on the list and ask them to pull the dose in front of you so you can see the bottle if you are truly paranoid. If they refuse, you can always find a new doc.

This list also brings up something else. A common reason some people are citing for risking their child's health is the thimerosal link to autism. The companies have heard the people's concern and are no longer using it as a preservative, which removes the one objection to vaccinating I could understand. Again, if you are really worried, check the list and don't be afraid to ask. It is a reasonable request to ask the doctor to use a viable alternative and these Thimerosal free vaccines are a reasonable viable alternative.

The other objection, I have heard that companies are pushing vaccines just to make a buck, isn't even worth much of a comment. Do you complain about somebody making some money off the toilet paper you used to wipe your bum?

A New Coach

2007-11-27T09:31:00.001-05:00

The Houston Chronicle was right. Mike Sherman is the new Head Coach at Texas A&M. He will be finishing out the season with the Texans while working with the recruits when he can. While, we may lose a few more recruits because of his lack of recruiting time, I am not too upset. I really like a man who will honor his current commitments before jumping the next new thing.

Here is hoping that the Sherman Tank does not turn out to be an underpowered, thin armored, tank with an undersized gun, but is instead an unstoppable juggernaut.

Babies to Blame for Bad Environment?

2007-11-26T09:47:00.000-05:00

An environmental wackjob, psychobabble for clinically insane environmentalist, murdered her child ten years ago because he/she would be damaging to the environment. Now she has had her tubes tied so that she cannot bring in another hurtful baby into an already damaged environment. The best I can say is at least she has removed her stupidity from the gene pool. Now if only she would stop trying to verbally spread her illness. Our only hope is that House can find a cure for her before it is too late.

HT: House, M.Div

A Great Thanksgiving with a hint of tartness

2007-11-26T08:57:00.000-05:00

For Aggies the world over it was a pretty good Thanksgiving. Our boys beat t.u. for the second year in a row. Whoop! And our B-ball guys creamed Ohio State in the NIT preseason tournament final, and I mean creamed, they made it look easy.

The football game was exciting yet frustrating to watch. Exciting for the obvious, we pretty well dominated t.u. for most of the game running and passing nearly at will. Frustrating for pretty much the same reason, this is what we expected to see all season not just for the t.u. game. Why couldn't they play like this all year? I'll be honest, I don't think I can answer that question and I am not going to drop all the blame on now former coach Fran, those boys probably played their own part in the five losses we suffered this year. This brings up the other tartness of the weekend Coach Fran resigned an hour after the game. I am not his biggest fan, but I still don't like to see these things happen. Although, I am willing to say if it wasn't for the email thing he would still be the head coach. Well, I wish him well and I think he will do well at a mid-major school.

Now, it sounds like AD Bryne has his new coach in hand, we will find out noon today. The Chronicle is reporting on Harris' "Aggie Blog" that Michael Sherman, the offensive coordinator for the Houston Texans, is likely the new head coach. We will see.

Mike Sherman's "resume"
89-93 TAMU Offensive Line Coach
94 UCLA Offensive Line Coach
95-96 TAMU Offensive Line Coach
97-98 Green Bay Tight End Coach
99 Seattle Offensive Coordinator
00-05 Green Bay Head Coach
06- Houston Offensive Coordinator

As the Green Bay HC he compiled a 53-27 record and won three NFC North titles. I think he could be a good pick for the Aggies. He knows the school and he knows the state. He will need to find a really good Defensive coordinator as he is admittedly an offensive minded coach.

Naughty or Nice List Announced by Liberty Council

2007-11-15T08:54:00.000-05:00

As a general rule, I ignore all things Christmas prior to the day after Thanksgiving, largely because I do not want to contribute to the trend of stores starting their Christmas decorating and sales earlier and earlier each year. However, I wanted to take the time to comment about the Liberty Council and their Naughty or Nice List. For those of you who have lives and don't know what this list is, it is a list of stores to patronize or boycott on the basis of their specific recognition of Christmas.

The first thing I ask myself is this, is this really a hill worth dying over? Is this fight over the recognition of Christmas going to bring more people to Christ or deepen the faith of Christians? Hardly, it is only going to succeed in making us look like petty little busy bodies.

I realize that a large part of the stink is caused by the fact they stand to make a lot of money on people buying gifts for Christmas. Ok, in some ways it would be nice that if they are going to be making money on Christmas it would be nice to have some recognition, but is it necessary? Not really. Local stores stand to make a fair bit of money when Lutherans gather to celebrate Reformation Day, but I really don't care if they have a Reformation Day sale or say "Blessed Reformation Day."

Personally, I don't care if the store I am shopping at acknowledges Christmas or not. The only time I would care is if they claimed to be a Christian business. Not that I honestly care if the business is explicitly Christian or not, I only care to be treated with respect and get a good value. I don't really mind if the stores go for a blanket Happy Holidays, Christians are their only customers. We really do not need to create undo offense to those who do not celebrate Christmas by forcing people to hear or say "Merry Christmas." Those two words aren't going to convert them into Christians, so let's fight the fight worth fighting and preach the Gospel.

We can make use of Holiday Season just as well as we can with "Christmas Season," which by the way for you liturgically ignorant people starts on Dec 25th not the day after Thanksgiving. Advent comes before Christmas and starts either the last Sunday in November or the first Sunday in December depending on the year.

So, why don't we all use the brains God gave us and fight this battle smart by making stands on the things that are truly important.

Judge Strikes Down Law Requiring Pharmacists to Dispensing Abortifactants

2007-11-10T10:14:00.000-05:00

Let's hear it Judge Ronald Leighton who struck down a Washington State Law that would require pharmacists to give out Plan B against their religious convictions. Judge Leighton cited that the law would violate the religious freedoms of pharmacists by forcing them to give out medications that were in violation of their faith. Now, he did state that they should refer the women to less scrupulous vendors and I am not really sure that does not violate the religious freedoms also. I mean think about it. Doesn't it sound hypocritical to say "I can't kill you because it violates my faith, but Mr. McDeath over there will do it for discount prices"? However, it is still a victory for religious freedom, if not a total victory and considering where things have gone with our culture of death, I will take it.

Linux Update

2007-11-08T14:53:00.000-05:00

Ok, I have things running mostly now, I haven't completely tested the set up yet tested some major functions such as can I read Luther's Works, but I have important church type programs running in Linux.

Ms Office works very well under Crossover
- I have not tried Publisher, I do not own it, I use Scribus instead.

Bible Works 5 runs well under WINE

Luther's Works works with a bit of a tweak in Crossover
- install IE 6 first under a windows 98 bubble then install Luther's Works in that bubble, because the Libronix system is completely intergrated with IE and will not install otherwise.
- because of this dependancy I do not think it will run under WINE which has a messed up version of IE that runs natively.

The Boy Who Refused to Die

2007-11-08T14:15:00.000-05:00

I found this story today while surfing.
Daily News - We're twinseperable!

The parents of these little boys were faced with the decision to allow one of the boys to die while in the womb and risk the health of the other or end his life sooner and likely save the other. They made a choice I would not have made and chose to end his life surgically.

As the story goes they tried to cut the umbilical but found it was two thick for them to cut, so they cut the placenta in half so as to hopefully spare the "healthy" twin. Much to their surprise the next day he was alive and kicking and to their even greater surprise 5 weeks later he came out all nice and healthy. Now that is something to celebrate, with all odds stacked against him, he is alive and well.

Office Rebel part 2

2007-11-08T10:12:00.000-05:00

Originally, this was going to be a response to Dr. McCain's comment on a previous post and then I saw how long it became, anyhow enjoy it in all its glory. ;)

I had a feeling a Macnatic (I say this in good humor) would respond. Oh to see the world through rose colored glasses.

Don't get me wrong Macs are good machines and OS X is a good operating system. Although, Apple did themselves no favors by making them look like a fish bowl aka iMacs. However, OS X can have as many problems as XP. I have used Power PC's and I had no trouble crashing them. I have a tendency to push computers to their limits and beyond and when you do that you can have some spectacular crashes.

XP is very user friendly, contrary to popular Maclore. It is very intuitive in how it operates, but then I am not the average user so I may not be the best judge. Most problems with XP are not so much that the system is not user friendly is that it is plagued by dumb users. Macs would have the same problem if an equivalent number of people used them.

As far as costs go XP PC's and Macs are pretty close cost wise, if you go name brands. I don't, but then again I am not the average user. The last name brand I bought was a laptop. I build my own desktops. The one I am currently posting with I spent ~250 to build, just to be fair I already owned XP and Office Professional. Speed wise I would say it is slightly slower to the mini mac which runs ~600 according to the online apple store.

Maintenance wise I may not be the best judge because I tinker with my systems. However, tinkering aside I have not had to invest much time into maintaining the system nor have I had to spend any money outside of maintaining security software.

Now to be completely unfair to Mac with the PC, I can easily go completely open source by using Linux which cost wise more churches should look into as it is much cheaper to make a donation than to buy a bunch of Macs or PCs w/ Windows. Now while Linux is no where near as pretty as OS X (which looks a lot like Vista by the way) it is very stable. Like Macs, Linux has the ability to run Microsoft Office (which I believe saved Mac from extinction) plus it can run many other Windows based programs. Feature wise it is not as rich as Windows or OS X, but give it time. Most distros have a 6 month upgrade cycles. With that kind of turn around and the growing popularity of open source you can expect them to quickly catch up with Windows and OS X in the feature department. Look at Firefox it has long since put IE to shame, but then again that may not have been to hard. ;)

Just for grins I thought I would see what kind of open source machine I could get for 600, the base cost of the Mini Mac. This is what I found.

AMD 64 FX2 dual core @ 2.1 gig
2 gigs ram
512 ram Radeon video card
160 gig SATA drive
DVD RW
cordless Logitech keyboard and laser mouse
HP Photosmart C4280 All in one
-price before tax $594.95 and that is before all the rebates of which there is about $150.

Office Rebel

2007-11-07T09:07:00.000-05:00

I am declaring myself to be a rebel. Well, sort of, maybe I am a rebel. I have decided to tread the road less traveled in church offices. Computer wise most church offices are populated by Windows machines. Not necessarily a bad thing, XP is a good operating system, although there are a few offices held captive to 'gasp' Windows 98. If they don't have Windows boxes they have Mac fishbowls. Either of which are rather serviceable although Macs are hindered by the fact only a few Liberal Arts types know how to use them. Now, while they are capable machines they are expensive to maintain and purchase. Hence, the reason why there are still churches using Win98 or worse ME. So, I have decided to take the third road, Linux.

Unfortunately, people have gotten the idea that Linux is for that weird kid who never leaves his parents basement and prefers to be called by his hacker alias, iwanab3ne0. A reputation it has earned by still requiring the use of command line, for those of you born after 1988 that is when mice did not exist and you had to type everything. This is no longer strictly true. While Linux power users still use a fair bit of command line the GUI has improved drastically and if you get the right distribution it takes little time for a Windows user to get up to speed for most tasks. Now, I cut my teeth on Fedora Core 6 about 3 months ago. Fedora is good but not the best for a beginner, my mistake, I went with the distro I knew from friends in college. It because of its non support of restricted licenses does not support them in its installation catalog which means you had to manually install things like printers.

And then I found my dream distro. Ubuntu, if you can use WinXP, you can use Ubuntu. They do not take Fedora's hardline on opensource, so they support a wider range of software through their automated catalog. That means set up is nearly as easy as most Windows based programs if not easier because all you have to do is find and pick the program you need and Linux does the rest. So with Ubuntu you have an easy to use Os, that is fast (my 3gig Celeron w/ 512 ram boots in under 45 seconds compared to the 1.5 minutes of XP), secure (virus do not work well in Linux due to its structure), and cheap (free is hard to beat, although they do charge for support and would not say no to donations programmers have to eat too). What is not to like?

Let me guess Windows compatibility. That used to be a problem but no longer. Linux can now read the NTFS file system (WINXP) in addition to the various versions of FAT (floppy disk formats in Win) so if a church member comes in with their disc from home, no problemo. But I want to use things like Publisher. Ok, understandable, of all the things Microsoft has done Office is the best, no problem here either. There is a program called WINE (stands for Wine is not an emulator) that will allow you to run Windows based programs on a Linux system. Currently, I am using WINE to run Bibleworks 5.0 and it works great. So if you are looking for a cheap and good alternate when upgrading your system check out Ubuntu. Oh, I nearly forgot, they have about a six month turn around on new stable editions so if you like having the latest it is much easier to keep up with the joneses by using the Linux distros.

Blessed All Saints Day

2007-11-01T09:43:00.000-04:00

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might;
Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the Apostles’ glorious company,
Who bearing forth the Cross o’er land and sea,
Shook all the mighty world, we sing to Thee:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the Evangelists, by whose blest word,
Like fourfold streams, the garden of the Lord,
Is fair and fruitful, be Thy Name adored.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For Martyrs, who with rapture kindled eye,
Saw the bright crown descending from the sky,
And seeing, grasped it, Thee we glorify.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
All are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O may Thy soldiers, faithful, true and bold,
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
And win with them the victor’s crown of gold.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on His way.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
And singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For all the saints - William How

For All The Saints (midi)

Zoidberg's Brain Slug Treatment Candidate of the Week part who cares

2007-11-01T09:13:00.000-04:00

UUHhhhhh... My tongue feels a furry as Fry's bath mat and tastes like Nibbler's litter box. Please, no making with the loud noises already.

Today's Brain Slug treatment is a two parter. The first goes to a man with the tact of a doomsday weapon and less commonsense than Amy. He is none other than Fred Phelps. "God hates America", what nonsense. America is great where else could a lobster like me become a rich doctor for a large company? Eh, Eh! But seriously, I have been listening to Dr. Luther rant on about Mr. Phelps and I got to admit he is right. What kind of man would call himself a Christian and not preach redemption in Christ? Preach the law, but don't spew hate like New York passing off its garbage to third world countries such as New Jersey. However, since he can't seem to get this through his thick skull, I will do the procedure for free!

Part 2 of my treatment goes to a whole group of people, twelve of them in fact. They get their nomination because of their egregious thrashing of First Amendment rights. In the lawsuit against Fred Phelps and co. they awarded a mourning father 11 million dollars. I want 11 million maybe I could sue Hermes because he is always blaming me for stuff and that makes me sad. But seriously, trampling first amendment rights just because the defendant is a spiteful hate monger who makes Bender look like a saint? What's next allowing PETA to sue meat eaters for eating in public? Bah, give them some free elective limb removal, I would.

Now, I am going to go finish sleeping off this sugar hangover. Anybody needs me I'll be in the big round spinning room in the professor's lab.

Where in the world is Dr. Zoidberg?

2007-10-31T18:30:00.000-04:00

And for that matter, where are the rest of the people from the future? Well if you are asking that question you obviously need to turn on the tv more. They are all busy filming the new season of Futurama. So, they will check in when they can. In the meantime enjoy this little teaser.

Call Me Scrooge or Whatever, Just Don't Call Me A Fundie

2007-10-31T10:43:00.000-04:00

Today is Halloween and you know what? I don't care. Ever since my final days of dressing up and trick or treating I have become more and more apathetic towards Halloween. I don't hate in the sense so many Fundies hate it, thinking it is a pagan holiday. No, I just don't care. I don't decorate nor will I turn on my light tonight and hand out candy. Today is a non-holiday as far as I am concerned. Tomorrow on the other hand is my favorite day. Massive sales on Halloween candy, now for a chocoholic that is something to be excited about.

I really don't know why I no longer care about Halloween. It wasn't something I set out to do. It just happened. Even now that I have a wee one, I am not sure that I am going to ever take her trick or treating, well may be if she really wants to go, like I said I am not against it. I don't know, maybe we will just celebrate the end of the tyranny of indulgences by indulging in Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

Happy Reformation Day!

Christ Jesus Lay In Death's Strong Bands - Martin Luther

1. Christ Jesus lay in death's strong bands,
  For our offenses given;
  But now at God's right hand He stands
  And brings us life from heaven;
  Therefore let us joyful be
  And sing to God right thankfully
  Loud songs of hallelujah!
  Hallelujah!


  2. No son of man could conquer Death,
  Such mischief sin had wrought us,
  For innocence dwelt not on earth,
  And therefore Death had brought us
  Into thraldom from of old
  And ever grew more strong and bold
  And kept us in his bondage. Hallelujah!

  3. But Jesus Christ, God's only Son,
  To our low state descended,
  The cause of Death He has undone,
  His power forever ended,
  Ruined all his right and claim
  And left him nothing but the name,--
  His sting is lost forever.
  Hallelujah!

  4. It was a strange and dreadful strife
  When Life and Death contended;
  The victory remained with Life,
  The reign of Death was ended;
  Holy Scripture plainly saith
  That Death is swallowed up by Death,
  His sting is lost forever.
  Hallelujah!

  5. Here the true Paschal Lamb we see,
  Whom God so freely gave us;
  He died on the accursed tree--
  So strong His love!--to save us.
  See, His blood doth mark our door;
  Faith points to it, Death passes o'er,
  And Satan cannot harm us.
  Hallelujah!

  6. So let us keep the festival
  Whereto the Lord invites us;
  Christ is himself the Joy of all,
  The Sun that warms and lights us.
  By His grace He doth impart
  Eternal sunshine to the heart;
  The night of sin is ended.
  Hallelujah!

  7. Then let us feast this Easter Day
  On Christ, the Bread of heaven;
  The Word of Grace hath purged away
  The old and evil leaven.
  Christ alone our souls will feed,
  He is our meat and drink indeed;
  Faith lives upon no other.
  Hallelujah!

The Red Sox won?

2007-10-29T11:38:00.001-04:00

Call me out of it but I didn't even know that the World Series had started. Oh well, I hadn't paid much attention to baseball since it was clear the Rangers and Astros were going no where. Much more important has been the daily soap opera that is College Football. While it has been a bittersweet season for the Aggies it has been fun watching the cavalcade of top ten upsets beginning with Michigan. And, of course, watching the Fighting Papists lose is always good for the soul. Then there is the eternal question of when is Mark Mangino coach of the Kansas Jayhawks going to have a heart attack. Hey, coach you can't eat like your lineman. Besides, you are too good of a coach to lose you to something stupid like heart disease. Last, but not least, is the fun of watching the TV talking heads sing the praises of the top ten teams just to watch them lose to an unranked or division II team and then have to back peddle on how such and such team is not too talented to be beaten.

All of this goes with out mentioning the heart burn caused by my consistently inconsistent Aggies. The way they are going you should buy stock in GlaxcoSmithKline because I am going through Tums like they were M&M's.

The Hypocrisy of Birth Control

2007-10-27T09:45:00.000-04:00

It never ceases to amaze me how hypocritical people can come in the name of reproductive control. Recently, the school board in Portland, Maine has approved of a plan to distribute birth control to middle schoolers sans parental consent. I am not even going to touch on how wrong it is for middle schoolers to be on birth control, I mean, does anybody outside of me see the potential health risks in giving an overload of female hormones to children with maturing bodies? There are health risks for mature women, much less a girl whose body is still developing. However, that is not my point.

My point is this, the school board is asking medical professionals to violate the gold standard of medical ethics. This gold standard is the requirement of consent by a reasonably capable adult before undergoing any medical intervention. Generally speaking, an eleven year old girl is not a reasonably informed adult. Face it a preteen girl is not going to understand all of the implications and hazards, she is only going to see a license to have sex. I am predicting it now; places that offer birth control to school kids will be reporting a rise in STDs in the near future. The standard practice is that their legal guardian must give signed consent for any medical procedure, except in the states that legally require doctors to give up their ethics in the name of protecting abortion providers.

There are reasons for this ethical standard. The primary reason is that medical decisions have a long range impact on our well being, even with something as minor as taking ginseng. So, doctors rely on their patients understanding the consequences and being able to make an informed decision. When I was at M.D. Anderson in Houston, they drilled into us the importance of informed consent. In fact, part of our role as chapel was to be with the patients when needed to be the advocate who would ask the questions they hadn't thought of before that point. As stated earlier an eleven year old cannot make this kind of decision. They don't even have enough experience to even know there are questions they need to ask. In fact, I am surprised that a school board would even hand such a decision to middle school kids.

Why you ask? Most middle schools tend think middle schoolers are walking hormone infernos incapable of thinking. If they think middle schoolers are not capable of learning because of the raging hormones why do they think they can make medical decisions? Now to be fair they are inconsistent with how they treat middle schoolers, but I will be honest their treatment of middle schoolers seems to depend on their desired outcome. For instance, they need a reason why so many are doing poorly in school then it is because the middle schoolers aren't taking ownership of their education.

But then in the end I can't say as I am surprised by this decision in Portland. They have bought into the fervent but misguided arguments of the pro-abortion crowd, that everybody needs anonymous access to birth control options. Despite the decision of grossly out of line Supreme Court the right to privacy is not the prime right of people. The preservation of life is the prime right and responsibility of all people.

As I was writing this blog, I thought of another problem. Drug interactions, if the parents do not know the middle schooler is on the pill how are they going to inform the doctor? It is not like doctors are good about sharing records. They do have the legal responsibility to maintain patient privacy you know. However, the pill can cause a large number of nasty reactions with other prescriptions. One lady I know had to go off of the pill because it had a bad reaction with her antidepressant. You don't mess around with prescriptions. There are reasons why the dispensing of these drugs are controlled by people who have spent 8 years in training and are licensed before entering their profession. They can mess you up badly. What is going to happen when a doctor does not know little miss eleven year old is on the pill and he proscribes a medicine that is known to have negative interactions. Is he going to be sued and possible lose his practice? I feel for the poor bugger who becomes the case law study for malpractice suits on this issue.

They are just going to do it anyway

2007-10-23T07:40:00.000-04:00

There is one argument that bugs me beyond any other and that is the justification "They are going to do it anyway so we might as well make them safe. Sadly, this is the argument used to protect those who commit abortion in our country. The latest attempt was in the news snippet section in Time, in the form of a map detailing how many of abortions are safe and unsafe in each region. While they did not really add on to the map any argumentation so to speak, it certainly was a passive aggressive way of arguing the need to keep abortion legal. However, it really is the dumbest argument in the world. You might as well say we should legalize murder because people are going to do it anyways and they need to have a safe environment in which to commit their murder. Oh wait, that is what they are saying. Maybe, I need a different example. I know we should legalize robbery because people are going to do it anyways and they have a right to pursue their chosen profession and we really need to be able to provide a safe environment for robbers because so many robberies are happening in dangerous back alley robberies.

We Came To America To Get Good Medical Care

2007-10-11T09:44:00.000-04:00

No, I am not talking about people from the south, rather our neighbors from the north. Canadian mothers are pouring over the border to deliver their children. Why? Because, their glorious socialized health system can't afford the equipment nor the space to take care of their babies. It seems Michael Moore's panacea of health care isn't all that it is cracked up to be. Apparently there isn't guaranteed health care, but a first come first served and not enough to go around health care system. Complain all you want about how expensive health care is in the U.S, but generally you are going to find somebody to treat you. And people think National Health care is the answer to all our problems in the U.S.

For additional reading: Canada's Expectant Mom's Heading to The U.S. to Deliver

Cool Nerd Queen

2007-10-10T13:52:00.000-04:00

I'd say that beats a plain ol' Nerd King any day.

Take that, Dr. Luther! =)

I am the King of the World!

2007-10-10T09:59:00.000-04:00

Shut up, Leo and get out of my way! I am the King and I have proof.

Take that Rebellious Pastor's Wife ;)

Texas Tech Shows How Low They Can Go

2007-10-10T09:03:00.000-04:00

Ok, I am a Texas College Football fan and former student of Texas A&M so I can get into the whole rivalry scene with the best of them, but the one thing I can't stand are the low brow insults. Well this past week students from Tech began selling t-shirts that featured a football player hanging a collie from a leash with the caption "Vick 'em" now this is not only tasteless but it is also supremely stupid, but then what can you expect from a group who couldn't get into the real universities.

I don't think I need to go into how tasteless the shirt is with its blatant endorsement of animal cruelty, but I can't imagine anybody being so dumb. If there is one thing that is going to turn people against you it is the threat of animal cruelty. Look at what happened to Michael Vick, the guy they modeled the shirt after, he was dumped faster than a Hollywood spouse. But, I guess I can't expect much from a school who's great achievements include ramming a goal post into the visitor section and throwing tortillas.

I really hope this epitome of classless lack of taste gets the team so fired up they pound Tech into the dirt on their home field. That would be the sweetest payback. Besides, I am tired of losing in Lubbock.

Christian Radio: It's the pits

2007-10-09T14:22:00.000-04:00

I have to ask is there anything more inane and annoying than Christian Radio stations (excluding KFUO)?

Every single one that I have ever listened to is the exact same bland, white bread, and vacuous pop sound with equally bland DJ's. In fact, I have noticed that nearly every major station sounds so much a like I am beginning to think that it is Houston's KSBJ being rebroadcast in other towns with new call letters. The DJ's all sound alike and even the jingles and promotions are the same. It is enough to drive you mad!

Of course, it does not help that my preferences are toward the heavy side of music and they play cookie cutter pop music. Have you ever noticed how all the female artists sound like Rebecca St. James and all the male artists sound like Steven Curtis Chapman?

I'll be honest, it really does bug me because if you want to listen to the radio, you only have a choice between the raunchy dj's and not so wholesome music of the Rock stations or the questionable quality of white bread Christian Stations. The only thing that has preserved my sanity while driving is that I have an adapter for my Ipod. BTW, if you are ever on the east coast of Florida and you see a guy in a bluish green Grand Prix wearing a clerical collar and headbanging, that's me.

Now, the inane music isn't the only part about Christian Radio stations that bug me. Their theology is enough to drive me to drink. Oh wait, that is too easy. It is enough to drive me to wear burnt orange the day after Thanksgiving (I am an Aggie, folks) . My wife actually banned me from listening to KSBJ because she was sick of every car trip becoming a rant about the evils of decision theology and the latest drivel from the Left Below crowd. Arggh, sometimes it seemed there was better theological thought on Oprah.

In short Christian Radio is the pits no matter how you look at it.

Zoidberg's Brain Slug Treatment Candidate of the Week Oct, 8 2007

2007-10-08T14:38:00.000-04:00

This week's candidate is selected because he got married. Now I am not against the institution of marriage generally speaking, in fact, if it didn't mean death for my species I'd be involved myself. Besides it is hard to argue against how happy the good doctor's family is. But, enough about that! This candidate because of marriage isn't getting the treatment because of marriage rather who he is marrying. His now wife is collecting ex's faster than flies on that delicious 10 day old hot dog sitting on the street... Is anybody going to eat that?

I'll be right back...

Now where was I. Oh yeah.

My candidate this week receives his treatment because of his marriage to none other than Pamela Anderson. Fry tells me she is a hot babe from a show called Babewatch, Babywatch; oh I can't remember, but Dr. Luther tells me she is a fading beauty with whom wild living is catching up. Anyhow I grant my treatment to her new Beau, Rick Salomon as he boldly goes -snip- {edited by the good censors of the Foxnews Network where we report the news and let you decide}

The Appendix, not so useless after all

2007-10-08T14:11:00.000-04:00

HT: Balaam's Ass

Scientists think that they may have found a use for that useless organ that explodes at random intervals maiming young people left and right and ruining their perfect bellies with scars. Apparently, they think it is the backup drive for our intestinal floral. Go figure, a bacteria laden organ was meant to replenish our intestines with good bacteria. Now if only I had kept my backup files when I was in highschool. Dr. Zoidberg tells me he can get me one cheap but I think he is getting his organs from the guy who tried to sell Fry some gills, so I think I will pass.

More on Tripp and spanking

2007-10-08T12:17:00.000-04:00

In my previous post on spanking as a means of grace, I had a few commentators take issue with my lumping Tripp in with Pearl and Ezzo. They felt that he did not advocate spanking as a means of grace, but merely promoted spanking as a tool that could help parents point their kids to Christ when they misbehave. I answered their specific points in the comments, but I thought the general issue was worth another post.

While I do agree that Tripp does not go as far as the others - he may very well fall short of effectively claiming means of grace level for spanking, although I'm not so sure it is something to boast about - he is nowhere near orthodox.

Why? Because of this: Tripp claims that "God commands spanking":

The use of the rod is an act of faith. God has mandated its use (109).

Spanking is not "one tool among many" to Tripp, but THE tool. "Spanking" is now synonymous with "discipline". As far as Tripp is concerned, if you don't spank, then by definition you aren't disciplining:

If you fail to spank, you fail to take God's Word seriously. You are saying you do not believe what the Bible teaches about the import of these issues. You are saying that you do not love your child enough to do the painful things that God has called you to (149).

And if you aren't disciplining, then you are disobeying God, and your children are effectively lost:

The rod is a rescue mission. The child who needs a spanking has become distanced from his parents through disobedience. The spanking is designed to rescue the child from continuing in his foolishness. If he continues, his doom is certain. Thus, the parent, driven by love for the child, must use the rod (110, emphasis mine).

Spanking cannot guarantee your children's salvation, Tripp says, but NOT spanking will pretty much doom them. How can that be, unless spanking has some sort of power that no other method of discipline has? (Of course, according to Tripp, there isn't any other method of discipline: Spanking is the only way mandated by God.) But never fear, Tripp has the obvious answer: he says spanking DOES have power - the power to change the heart:

[S]panking enables you to deal with issues of the heart....The heart is the battleground. The spanking comes only because it is God's method of driving foolishness far from your child's heart (153).

The child is a sinner. There are things within the heart of the sweetest little baby that, allowed to blossom and grow to fruition, will bring about eventual destruction. The rod functions in this context. It is addressed to needs within the child. These needs cannot be met by mere talk....[F]oolishness is bound up within his heart. Allowed to take root and grow for 14 or 15 years, it will produce a rebellious teenager who will not allow anyone to rule him. The spanking process drives foolishness from the heart of a child. Confrontation with the immediate and undeniably tatile sensation of a spanking renders an implacable child sweet(105-106, emphasis mine).

The rod returns the child to the place of blessing. Left to himself, he would continue to live a lust-driven life. He would continue to seek comfort in being a slave to his desires and fears. The rod of correction returns him to the place of submission to parents in which God has promised blessing (115).

There you have it, folks. Spanking is "God's method of driving foolishness far from your child's heart". "It is addressed to needs within the child." "These needs cannot be met by mere talk." "The child is a sinner...Left to himself, he would continue to live a lust-driven life." "Thus, the parent...must use the rod." "The rod returns the child to the place of blessing."

So, Tripp may not say spanking saves, but he DOES say that it must be used, and not using it has catastrophic consequences. That is completely unorthodox, and is more than bad enough to warrant jettisoning his advice entirely. This is a good example of how ONE wrong doctrine can so thoroughly poison an otherwise correct book.

A Much Needed Update

2007-10-04T09:52:00.000-04:00

I finally updated our Lutheran Blogs of Interest. I hope you can understand my laziness. It is just so hard to copy and paste code you know. Special thanks to our illustrious Aardvark for going to all the trouble to compile a list of Lutheran bloggers.

Tila Tequila and Her God of Self

2007-10-04T08:48:00.000-04:00

Tila Tequila, star of the controversial new MTV reality show A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila - a Bachelor type show pitting 32 men and 32 women against each other for the love of Ms. Tila - has recently come out saying she has made her peace with God. My first thought was, "Woo-Hoo!" But, as usual, I am too optimistic for reality. Tila has instead found a means by which to rationalize and support her behavior as acceptable to God, despite all that he says against it. Christianpost.com quotes her saying:

"I stopped feeling bad about myself because I was told that I was a 'bad' person for whatever reasons and opinions," Tequila explained. "That's when I turned my life around. I accepted me for who I am in all my glory. I accepted the fact that God would love me as long as my heart is good."

What a farce: God will love me as long as my heart is good? Did you ever see the part where God said that nobody is good? David writes in Psalm 14, "...They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good. The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one..."
Tila deludes herself, if she honestly thinks that God acknowledges her as good. He sees you as evil, Tila, because he sees all sins as evil - but there is good news. David, who recorded God's words declaring all evil, also shares with us the only thing we can do with our sins: confess them.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. Psalm 51:1-14

God, who is faithful and just, will forgive your sins when you confess them before him (1 John 1:9). This is what makes God so cool: we can experience his love and acceptance through the Blood of the Lamb. The very God, who rightly declared we are all evil and deserving of death, did not leave us in that state. He gave us a way out through the sacrifice of Jesus. If you want to be right with God, that is where you should look - not some mumbo-jumbo about accepting yourself for who you are.

Sadly, I don't see Tila receiving this truth anytime soon. She is way too happy worshiping herself. She feels all special because she has 2 million plus friends on Myspace, and is going to make a load of money with the Corinthian-esque spectacle MTV is airing; yet none of these things will do her a lick of good in the end.

Coach Fran and HIPAA

2007-10-03T07:55:00.000-04:00

Enough silliness, it is time to talk serious. Coach Fran has caused a serious stir with his high priced email list, much revolving around HIPAA violations. For you people outside of the medical profession, it is the set of rules regulating the release of medical and personal information. I was a student chaplain in a hospital and therefore required to learn the regulations and to be honest HIPAA is a paper tiger designed to make patients feel better. To null and void the HIPAA rules requires only a piece of paper with a signature that does not have to be witnessed. Though I do not know for sure as I was never a student athlete, I strongly suspect in the myriad of papers they have to sign is a HIPAA release form that allows them to release medical information. So, until we learn otherwise all the detractors screaming HIPAA violations ought to shut-up.

Now the question about rules violations with NCAA that is for the investigative committee to determine.

Zoidberg's Brain Slug Treatment Candidate of the Week part whatever.

2007-10-02T10:51:00.000-04:00

Dr. Zoidberg is back!

Did anybody notice I was gone? Well? Nobody ever notices me!
Well I am back and if nobody likes it, they can speak to the claw!
I tell you, this is the last time I go looking through boxes to find a meal - you just never know where you are going to end up.

Now that I am back, it didn't take long to find a new candidate for my patented treatment. This week's candidate is a person who was hired to be smart, but did something dumb in his job. You see, he thought that it would be a good idea to sell membership to an email list and send out secrets concerning people at his work place. Not smart in the best of times, but, you see, he already has people hunting his head because they don't think he is living up to expectations. So, with no further ado, I give you this weeks ZBSTC: Coach Dennis Franchione of Texas A&M.

Just what does it mean to follow Jesus?

2007-10-02T10:07:00.000-04:00

Really, what does it mean to follow Jesus? I have heard so many different view points, with the most recent coming from the Episcopal head Schori. She states:

"What does it mean to follow Jesus? How did Jesus live? With whom did he eat? With whom did he converse?"
"Jesus hung out with people on the margins. He hung out with people who were unacceptable to the Judaism of his time," she pointed out. "I think that's what it means to follow Jesus." - christianpost.com

A nice sentiment, and to a point it is true. However, as always, the devil is in the details. Jesus did hang out with the "undesirables", such as Matthew, Zaccheus, and the foot washing lady - to name a few - but somehow I have a feeling that how He hung out with them is far different than what Mrs. Schori means. Jesus went to them because they were sick with a terminal disease called sin and He had the cure: His shed blood on the cross. As Jesus came with the cure, He did what any good prophet would do and called these people to repentance. The lady caught in adultery, for instance: He told her to go and sin no more. Jesus loved her enough to forgive her, but He didn't give her license to continue in her sin. I have a feeling Mrs. Schori probably doesn't even acknowledge that as part of Scripture.

Whereas Jesus went and hung out with the undesirables in order to bring them to him in repentance, I suspect Mrs. Schori is hanging out with the "undesirables" while affirming and encouraging them in their sin by proclaiming a false gospel. You know the one: Jesus loves us and wants us to be happy, so do what makes you happy. You know, the happy gospel that doesn't have any nasty law hanging around to make us feel bad.

Schori goes on to say, "All people – including gay and lesbian Christians and non-Christians – are deserving of the fullest regard of the Church." Again, it would sound good coming out of Daniel Preus' mouth, but sure sounds foul coming out of hers. Namely, because she means it to include and affirm them where they are at, whereas I would bet my last dollar Dr. Preus would mean to call them to repentance and faith in the sacrificial Lamb of God. Yes, people trapped by homosexuality deserve our attention - because they too are a special creation of God, and He wants to see them purified in the blood of His Son - but it isn't going to happen if we coddle them and tell them they are fine when they most definitely are not; that is as stupid as expecting a cancer patient to get better by affirming them in their cancer while not doing anything to treat the disease. I am all for reaching out to the homosexuals and to others, but let's not ignore half of God's message to us just because it makes us feel bad.

School: The New Religion

2007-10-01T09:03:00.000-04:00

Governments have always striven to instill unity in the populaces they govern. Understandable, considering the easiest way to control the population is when they have a high degree of similarity. In centuries past, governments looked to religion to instill a unified value system in its citizenry - such as Nebuchadnezzar and his great idol, Pharaoh and his deification, Rome and its Emperor worship, Constantine and Christianity, Prussia and the unified national church - the list goes on. The United States even fell into this category until recent years; prior to the sixties Christianity predominated and the government looked to the church to form the moral values of its citizens. Then the minority religions gained a voice and the government realized its predicament: they were walking a tight line as far as the anti-establishment clause was concerned. So, the government had to back off from its quasi-Christian mindset to endorse diversity. Now it had a problem: who could it look to to instill a unified mindset?

The government turned to the one thing it can control: education. Our educational system, public and private, could be used by the government to form the value systems of its people. In recent years, the government has been flexing its muscles in order to change the curriculum into a creature designed to make children into the little governmental "yes men" it desires, forming the young into people who look to Uncle Sam for all the answers: to tell them what to think, and what to buy. Don't believe me? Just read the editorials and see the number of people screaming for the government to fix all their little problems. The government has, in essence, made itself into a god by instilling into people the hope that it can provide for all their happiness and needs.

That is not all - it has taken a page out of our book and is using education to brainwash our children with the ideal of acceptance. Take, for instance, a school in Massachusetts, reading King and King to 2nd graders. Massachusetts has a vested interest in having people accepting the homosexual lifestyle - because they need continued support to maintain the legality of homosexual marriage in the state - so they are training them on their desired path early so they won't go astray.

Where does all of this place religion in our society? On the outside, of course, and dismissed as a non-entity, un-important. Am I dismayed by this? Yes and No. Yes, because religion is a major factor even if secular society wishes to deny it. And No, because the government's dismissal of religion does nothing to affect the truth, because the truth never changes. Besides, Christianity seems to do pretty well when it is on the outside. Not to mention, Christianity is not a religion of control as much as it is a religion of influence through true freedom.

High Tech Worship and the Traditionalist

2007-09-27T08:42:00.000-04:00

I am back, and no, my reason for not posting is not because my secretary decided to join the GM workers on their strike. Rather, I was at a Pastor's convention learning about politics in the pulpit; before you ask no, it was not about Jesus First vs. (insert your favorite confessional group). Instead, it was about engaging the topics of governmental politics, such as universal health care; you know, the things our members are wasting their time with instead of pondering the wonders of the genus maiestaticum. The conference was short on answers, but it was thought provoking, and made me realize just how much people have forgotten about the theology of the Two Kingdoms. Seems like we need more preaching and teaching on the Two Kingdoms in order to counteract the reformed who mistakenly believe that a government can be Christian. Anyhow, enough about the past three days and on into more important things, such as worship wars!

Technology and traditional worship do not seem to go hand in hand in the mind of traditionalists. I have heard many complain that it is a distraction, un-needed, unChristian (or more specifically unLutheran), and a crutch for poor preaching. Sadly, I am not sure this is an unbiased view of technology. I think this view largely stems from technologies' link with vacuous contemporary worship practices. At the same time, there is truth to the traditionalist's complaints concerning technology. This is rather sad, because technology has the potential to be a great tool for the proclamation of the Gospel.

The first thing we need to get into our head is that ours is a visual society. Increasingly, our information is coming to us in the visual formats. If you disagree, why are you reading my blog? It is purely visual. We would be wise to figure out ways to fit the visual technology into the the traditional services. A simple start is by putting up the pericope - the Bible reading - on the screen; it saves paper, and lets everybody follow along with the lector. We put a fair number of our announcements up on the screen and run them between services; this cuts down on paper and the annoying break in the liturgy to announce next week's potluck. And, before anybody comments that I could save paper by not printing out the week's service, we're way ahead of you; we haven't done that for the traditional service since the arrival of our LSB's. The visual cues can also help people during the sermon.

My pastor friend had to take speech communications as an undergrad; for some reason, they expected doctors, veterinarians, and scientists to actually be able to communicate (I am not sure it really worked by the way: half the time I can't understand a word he says), but he tells me they taught him how to use visual aids to help aid understanding and to drive home his points. Many of our people will remember our key points better if they can see it as well as hear it. We do ourselves a disservice to not utilize the visual medium just because a couple of hacks ruined it. We didn't throw out private confession just because a few papists abused it, did we? Take advantage of the technology to help your people understand some of the more esoteric nuances of our theology.

Now, some have said technology is a distraction, and I have to agree it can be. The best solution is: don't be an idiot. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Our worship services shouldn't look like a middle-schooler's My Space page. Simple and clean with appropriate imagery does the trick every time. There is a time and place for using flashy moving backgrounds but in the middle of a rousing rendition of "A Mighty Fortress" is not one of them.

Long story short, technology can be our friend in the traditional setting. We don't have to leave it all in the hands of the vacuous mega-church types and their wanna-bes.

A Sad Day for Fantasy Fans - Robert Jordan died Sept 16th

2007-09-20T15:42:00.000-04:00

Robert Jordan, author of the epic Wheel of Time series has succumbed to the disease which has ailed him for some time. I know I am behind the times, but I only check a couple times a month to see if there is any news about book 12.

Rumor has it Robert Jordan did make arrangements to make sure the final book will be published.

carai an caldazar

Reposted from the Tor Publishers News Room

New York, NY: September 17, 2007

Tor novelist Robert Jordan (whose given name was James Oliver Rigney Jr.), the beloved author of the bestselling Wheel of Time® fantasy series, died yesterday after a courageous battle with the rare blood disease amyloidosis.

In an entry posted yesterday on Jordan's blog at www.dragonmount.com, Jordan's cousin Wilson Grooms wrote that he passed away Sunday, September 16th at 2:45 pm and noted that: "He fought a valiant fight against this most horrid disease. In the end, he left peacefully and in no pain," and that "his beloved wife, Harriet, was at this side through the entire fight and to the end."

Tor publisher Tom Doherty said of Jordan: "He was one of the great storytellers of the 20th and early 21st centuries; Jim's Wheel of Time is a towering epic of power and scope, he was a man of courage and heart and vision but for me, first of all, he was my friend of 30 years."

Robert Jordan was born in 1948 in Charleston, South Carolina; he taught himself to read by the time he was four, and was tackling Mark Twain and Jules Verne by the age of five. He began writing in 1977 and went on to write one of the most important and best-selling series in the history of fantasy publishing with over 14 million copies of The Wheel of Time series sold in North America (and over 30 million copies sold worldwide). The last three books in the series were all #1 New York Times bestsellers.

Jordan has often been referred to as Tolkien's heir and in an article about The Wheel of Time series, The New York Times lauded Jordan for his extraordinary story-telling ability: "the books' battle scenes have the breathless urgency of firsthand experience, and the ambiguities in these novels--the evil laced into the forces of good, the dangers latent in any promised salvation, the sense of the unavoidable onslaught of unpredictable events--bear the marks of American national experience during the last three decades, just as the experience of the First World War and its aftermath gave its imprint to Tolkien's work."

Jordan was a graduate of The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, with a degree in physics. He served two tours in Vietnam with the U.S. Army; among his decorations were the Distinguished Flying Cross with bronze oak leaf cluster, the Bronze Star with "V" and bronze oak leaf cluster, and two Vietnamese Gallantry Crosses with palm. A history buff, he also wrote dance and theater criticism and enjoyed the outdoor sports of hunting, fishing, and sailing, and the indoor sports of poker, chess, pool, and pipe collecting. Jordan also authored the Michael Fallon historical romance trilogy under the nom de plume Reagan O'Neal and seven Conan novels, from Conan the Invincible (1982) through Conan the Victorious (1984).

Jordan had a close relationship with his numerous fan websites, including www.dragonmount.com, on which he hosted his blog, and other sites including: http://www.encyclopaedia-wot.org/, http://www.tarvalon.net/news.asp, http://www.theoryland.com/, http://www.ageoflegends.net/WoTtrack/, and http://www.wotmania.com/.

The sites participated in a massive internet hunt in 2005 to promote the publication of Jordan's last hardcover novel, Knife of Dreams, and again recently in a calendar art competition, for which Jordan had just chosen the winners last week. There were also numerous fan stories about relationships that had bloomed because of a common love of The Wheel of Time series. Tor's website has a snapshot of these from a few years ago at http://www.tor.com/jordan/romances.html

News of Jordan's death quickly spread across the fan sites yesterday and today with fans writing in from around the world to express their grief and best wishes for his family. Jordan had an incredibly close knit group of fans; an article published on Forbes.com summed it up best in describing fans' support of Jordan during his illness: "There are readers, and then there are fans. Readers offer condolences when a favorite author falls ill. Fans offer bone marrow."

With the popular refrain from the Wheel of Time series, where Jordan himself was often affectionately known as the Dragon, Tor says goodbye to a giant in the field of writing: "The Wheel of Time turns and ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time?"

Robert Jordan is survived by his wife, Harriet Popham Rigney; one son: William Popham McDougal of Houstonic, Massachusetts; one brother: Reynolds W. Rigney of New Orleans, LA; his first cousin: Wilson Watson Grooms, Jr. of Charlotte, NC and numerous nieces and nephews, including James Oliver Rigney III of New Orleans, LA. He is predeceased by his brother Theodore Smith Rigney.

Relatives and friends are invited to attend his funeral services at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Wednesday, September 19, 2007 at 11:00 am. Interment is private but friends may call at the Church Social Hall following the service.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in the name of James Rigney to:

Mayo Clinic Department of Hematology -- Amyloidosis research
200 First Street SW, Rochester, MN 55905.

For more information about Robert Jordan or to contact the webmaster of Dragonmount, Jordan's leading fan site, please contact Tor Publicity Director Elena Stokes at: torpublicity@tor.com

Council Meetings, A Inconvienent Necessity

2007-09-20T09:15:00.000-04:00

And that goes double for this evening's meeting. I am thinking of opening the meeting with a motion to close the meeting. It isn't like we are actually going to discuss anything of importance. More importantly, my Aggies are taking on Miami 30 minutes after our meeting starts. I am thinking I am going to sneak in my walk-man so I can listen to the game. I wonder if anybody will notice the wig I am wearing to hide the ear buds?

Gig'em Aggies!

My prediction, the receivers have finally realized they can catch the ball, so Miami's D won't stop the Aggie offensive juggernaut. Yet, at the same time the Aggie D will be hard pressed to stop the Miami Offense. My fearless prediction -
Texas A&M - 30
Miami - 21

Anglican Head Will Hold a Secret Meeting With Homosexual Clergy

2007-09-19T14:54:00.001-04:00

Christian Post.com reports that the head of the Anglican church is going to have a "secret" meeting and service with homosexual clergy. I don't have much to add, but I will say this, God did say we like to hide our sins in the dark. Maybe the fact they want to "hide" this meeting demonstrates that in their heart of hearts they know they are doing wrong.

Children Are A Blessing?

2007-09-19T13:45:00.000-04:00

Actually, I have no doubt that children are a blessing. "Blessed is the man who's quiver is full..." (Ps 127:5) No the actual question is a case study item brought up else where in Lutheran corners of the great big WWW. The question is how do you respond to the single mother of X number of kids who has never married and says "Children are a blessing."

This is a good question, not because the truth is hard to discern, rather how do you respond. How do you communicate the truth that, yes children are a blessing but the ends do not justify the means. I suspect, but I don't know, that part of the unspoken message is at least I didn't murder my kids. But how do you answer in a way to take away the unsaid implication and still phrase things in away that she will listen and receive the truth without rejecting it just because of how you said it?

God Named as Defendant in Lawsuit

2007-09-18T10:18:00.000-04:00

Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers (D) has filled suit against God calling on the Almighty to "cease certain harmful activities and the making of terroristic threats." The honorable Chambers states that because God is almighty and omnipresent he can sue God in the Nebraska court system. When contacted about the legal action taken against him the LORD responded.

Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements- surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? "Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed'? "Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it? ... Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this. "Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness, that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home? You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great! "Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war? What is the way to the place where the light is distributed, or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth? "Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man, to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground sprout with grass? "... "Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion? Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth1 in their season, or can you guide the Bear with its children? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth? "Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that a flood of waters may cover you? Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, 'Here we are'? Who has put wisdom in the inward parts or given understanding to the mind? Who can number the clouds by wisdom? Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens, when the dust runs into a mass and the clods stick fast together? "Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in their thicket? Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help, and wander about for lack of food? "Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the does? Can you number the months that they fulfill, and do you know the time when they give birth, when they crouch, bring forth their offspring, and are delivered of their young? ..."Who has let the wild donkey go free? Who has loosed the bonds of the swift donkey, to whom I have given the arid plain for his home and the salt land for his dwelling place? ..."Is the wild ox willing to serve you? Will he spend the night at your manger? Can you bind him in the furrow with ropes, or will he harrow the valleys after you? ... "Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with a mane? Do you make him leap like the locust? ... "Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads his wings toward the south? Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high? ... "Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it." Job 38:2 -40:2

When asked for his response to God's counter challenge, the state senator meekly responded, "I am merely trying to protect the rights of lawyers to make lots of money off of frivolous lawsuits." It is unknown at this time if the case will be allowed to proceed as the court fears it may face difficulties in the future if it recognizes God in a government court.

The above is a satire of a real case, not all events or quotes are actual. Sadly, the case is real check it out here.

The Rod is a Means of Grace

2007-09-17T21:34:00.000-04:00

Bet that got your attention.

But as crazy as it sounds, that is exactly what Gary Ezzo, Michael Pearl, and Tedd Tripp - along with all too many other "Christian" parenting gurus - seem to say. And there are plenty of sincere Christians who are gamely following their advice to beat their children in order to save them.

The LCMS describes the means of grace as follows:

...We hold with Scripture that God offers and communicates to men the spiritual blessings purchased by Christ, namely, the forgiveness of sins and the treasures and gifts connected therewith, only through the external means of grace ordained by Him. These means of grace are the Word of the Gospel, in every form in which it is brought to man, and the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and of the Lord's Supper....

Let's see what our parenting gurus have to say....

First, let's address Gary Ezzo. He is the controversial author of a Christian parenting series, "Growing Kids God's Way", as well as a secular version, "On Becoming Babywise/Toddlerwise/Childwise". For starters, Ezzo has an odd view of grace:

Of the various means by which God communicates His grace, three deserve our attention here. First, there is a common grace given to all mankind....Second, there is sanctifying grace. God's grace flows to families through the sanctifying grace of believing spouses and parents. That is, when mom and dad have come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, children receive the overflow of God's grace as it is poured out on their parents....Grace is communicated to each household when parents stay vertically aligned with the Lord. As we are blessed, so will our children be blessed....Yet we know our children cannot live off of our blessings but must obtain their own. This is done through the third means by which God communicates His grace—regenerational grace.

A few sentences later in his discussion of grace, Ezzo also seems to say that parents can help save their children:

Apart from receiving a new heart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, no child has direct and personal access to God's grace. Does this negate the divine call for parents to "Train up a child in the way of the Lord"? Most certainly not. It only serves to emphasize even more the parents' need to cooperate with the grace of God....Remember, let God through His grace do His work, while you through obedience do yours.
(emphasis mine)

And how, exactly, are parents to "cooperate with the grace of God"? Why, through spanking, of course! As Ezzo writes in "Growing Kids God's Way":

A child knows when he has broken the rules, and his guilt continually reminds him of his violation. Guilt is the reminder of sin. Chastisement (Ezzo's term for spanking) is the price paid to remove the guilt thus [sic] free the child from his burden. If the parents do not remove the guilt, the child lives under the weight of sin. When an offense calls for chastisement, parents should chastise. If they substitute a lesser punishment, the guilt remains, and the child will suppress it. That, in turn, leads to more antisocial behavior (212).
(emphasis mine)

Sounds like he's promoting spanking as a means of grace to me! Of course, given that this is a rather unBiblical teaching - to say the least! - Ezzo tried to equivocate when asked directly in a BBC interview:

Paxman: Could you explain why it is that smacking is the only way to get a child aware of guilt?
Gary Ezzo: Get, get rid of his guilt?
Paxman: Get rid of a child’s guilt, yes.
Gary Ezzo: No, I can’t, because we don’t necessarily believe that in the context in which you’re presenting it. What we’re talking about is there’s got to be removal of guilt somehow. Smacking, as we’re talking about in young children, is one of the ways. To say it’s the only way is probably—well, that’s 1993, and this is 1999. There’s been like six editions since, so….

Yeah, that's exactly that sort of thing that gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling toward a person; yet despite the high level of controversy he has generated over the years - see ezzo.info for details - his books still sell, and Christian churches still teach GKGW classes (including an LCMS one, even).

Onwards to Michael Pearl. Now, unlike Ezzo, Pearl comes across as much more sincere and honest - a true believer in what he preaches. So it's quite a shame that what he promotes is so completely whacked. Aside from his child-rearing views, an analysis of his sermons online shows that "[a]t the base, or root, of the Pearl's teachings are Pelagianism and a doctrine of sinless perfectionism through instant complete sanctification." But just limiting my analysis to his book "To Train Up a Child" yields plenty of ...er...interesting material; all of the following quotes are taken from TTUAC, which can be found online in its entirety.

The guilt burdened soul cries out for the lashes and nails of justice. Your child cannot yet understand that the Creator has been lashed and nailed in his place. Only the rod of correction can preserve his soul until the day of moral dawning (42).

The parent holds in his hand (in the form of a little switch) the power to absolve the child of guilt, cleanse his soul, instruct his spirit, strengthen his resolve, and give him a fresh start through a confidence that all indebtedness is paid (43).

A child properly and timely spanked is healed in the soul and restored to wholeness of spirit. A child can be turned back from the road to hell through proper spankings....Father, as high priest of the family you can reconcile your child to newness of life (44).
(emphasis mine)

Honestly, what more is there to say? It's pretty clear that Pearl is advocating the use of the rod as a means of grace. Yet despite that, his many other heretical beliefs, and his insanely harsh spanking techniques - amongst other things, he advocates using plumbing supply line as a switch - he has a strong Christian following.

Last, but certainly not least, is Tedd Tripp, author of "Shepherding a Child's Heart". He is both the best and worst of the bunch. Best, as he actually has a lot of good things to offer; worst, as he takes all that good stuff - which lulls people into an uncritical agreement - and takes a hard left into insanity, taking his readers down the merry path with him.

The basic premise of Tripp's book is as follows:

Children have a sin nature.
Thus, when they misbehave, the real issue is their sinful heart that prompted the wrongdoing, rather than just their outward behavior.
As a result, parents need to focus not on the outward behavior - the symptom - but rather on the heart - the core problem.
However, the only true solution for a sinful heart is Christ.
Therefore, parents need to point their children to Christ when they misbehave.

way

The only God-ordained way to do this is by spanking them.
What is the rod? The rod is a parent, in faith toward God and faithfulness toward his or her children, undertaking the responsibility of careful, timely, measured and controlled use of physical punishment to underscore the importance of obeying God, thus rescuing the child from continuing in his foolishness unto death (108).

The use of the rod is an act of faith. God has mandated its use (109).

If you fail to spank, you fail to take God's Word seriously. You are saying you do not believe what the Bible teaches about the import of these issues. You are saying that you do not love your child enough to do the painful things that God has called you to (149).

This is because spanking changes the heart.
The "why" is that God commands it. Additionally, spanking enables you to deal with issues of the heart....The heart is the battleground. The spanking comes only because it is God's method of driving foolishness far from your child's heart (153).

As well, spanking is the only way to change the heart; it cannot guarantee they will choose Christ - no human action can do that - but he strongly implies that a failure to spank pretty much guarantees the child will never be saved.
The spanking is designed to rescue the child from continuing in his foolishness. If he continues, his doom is certain (110).

Say what?! Talk about a left turn into crazy-town! In addition, despite his many strong statements that only Christ can save us from our sins, Tripp still ascribes quite a bit of spiritual power to spanking, nearing means of grace level. (This sentence previously read: "In addition, despite his many strong statements that only Christ can save us from our sins, he ascribes yet more power to spanking, nearing means of grace level." However, a commentator pointed out that this read like "Tripp believes spanking has more power than Jesus", which was NOT my intention at all. Sorry for the confusion.):

[T]he function of the spanking is...to restore him to a place in which God has promised blessing (151).

Tripp is promoted by many moderate Christians as a Biblical, grace-filled parenting method, and as a saner, less controversial alternative to Pearl and Ezzo. They read him with a strong theological filter, take what is good and leave the rest. However, not everyone has a good filter, and the very fact that he is not as obviously nuts as the other two makes him, in some ways, more dangerous.

These so-called Biblical parenting experts were entirely unknown to me until I started researching Christian parenting philosophies online, and in my experience few Lutherans are aware of their existence. However, they have a strong impact on many conservative Christians in America - especially Bapticostals - and this trickles down to the average Lutheran layman, who often knows more about the latest vapid Christian fiction - which is often filled with all sorts of theological errors - than Lutheran theology. This junk is out there, and I believe it behooves us to be aware it, and prepared to combat it.

We Men Don't Wash Our Hands

2007-09-17T15:52:00.000-04:00

A study by some peeping toms reports that women are "better" at washing their hands after using the bathroom than men.

This reminds me of the old adage, "They taught me not to pee on my hands in the Boy Scouts."

They claim that this makes women cleaner than men. I am not sure this is an accurate statement. Primarily because of anatomical differences between men and women. Lets face it of the two types of urinary appendages the male is "cleaner" because it is an exterior appendage and is not apart of the mucosal membrane and negates the need to come into contact with the area of evacuation of bodily fluids. I think it would be interesting to see a study that examines the bacterial concentration on men's and women's hands pre- and post- urination visit. That would be a better measure than watching people wash their hands in the bathroom.

My Thoughts on the Emmy Awards

2007-09-17T14:45:00.000-04:00

House, Monk, and Kyra Sedgwick were robbed. "You really love me. You really do love me" was all I could think when Frog got up to give her speech.

They only gave the one award because they all worship Al Gore. I hadn't even heard of it before last night, so obviously it can't be all that big of a deal.

The banter as usual was forced and unnecessary. Does anybody honestly believe the presenters are buddies?

Where was Psych? That show is just plain fun tv. Oh wait, it hits too close to home for all of the actors, "I know, you know, I am not telling the truth..."

Kyra, Glenn, and Mariska we don't care if your shows have strong or weak female main characters, we watch them because they are entertaining shows. BTW Glenn Close you show your ignorance of TV History when you forget about every geek's dream girl, Agent Scully from the X-Files. She was smart, pretty, and would shoot you if you looked at her funny.

And was it me or did half the episodes nominated have something to do with homosexuals?

Anyways, it was all a waste of time and bunch of how great we are backslapping. All of which begs the question, just why did I watch them anyways? Oh yeah, 74 channels and nothing of quality to watch.

More Rick Warren Wisdom

2007-09-13T09:32:00.000-04:00

Rick has posted another tantalizing tidbit for us poor preachers who don't know our own jobs. Now I am going to offer up my witty remarks about his points.

Right from the bat it becomes clear he thinks we are boring. Obviously, he has not heard me recently as I do wild and crazy things such as introduce the sermon to the theme song from "Mission Impossible." So he gives us the insightful tidbits such as add illustrations to your sermon, Humor, and special features.

1. Illustrations - O.K. does anybody not use illustrations to make a point? If you don't, the line for brains starts on the right. Even the dimmest bulb can see that a good illustration makes it easier to relate a point to people and aid them in understanding. He goes on to tell us to throw out our illustrations books they are written by guys a 100 years ago and are irrelevant to today. Ok. I will go throw out my Bible because it is 3000? yrs old and therefore it must be irrelevant. Warren, of course, tells us to use t.v., magazine, newspapers, movies, and everyday experiences for our illustrations. He even includes using actual clips, not a bad idea, I know some of my old school preaching brethren will scream and yell about using clips and such in a sermon, but sometimes telling about the scene isn't nearly as effective as watching the scene. Just make sure it fits and is the best way to illustrate your point. Too many people who use multimedia use it just because they feel they have to use it.

2. Humor - Humor is an effective way of communicating something that would otherwise turn people off. How often have you caught yourself laughing at a situation to then realize you are guilty of the same thing. I know I have. What this doesn't mean is that you need to be a Jeff Foxworthy wanna be or worse Larry the Cable Guy. Just don't be afraid to smile and use a bit of humor to get your point across. What ever you do don't smile like Joel Osteen. I just might have to come and wipe it off then.

3. Special Features - Here is where it gets fun.
Testimonies - Yeah, this will make any confessional Lutheran squirm because it just smacks of Bapticostalism. However, there is nothing wrong with people telling about how God's grace in word and sacrament affects their lives. Word to the wise, videotape my friend, its an easy way to control length and edit out those non-kosher statements.

Skits - Just make sure they are relevant to the message and your actors practice. Nothing worse than a group of people getting up there and reading pieces of paper, believe me.

Interviews - Unless you are interviewing Jesus, what is the point? I mean really? What is the point. The sermon is the time to call people to repentance and proclaim the Gospel, so why waste your time on a pointless interview.

Film Clips - see my comments under illustrations.

Interspersing Songs - This is a fun way to make your point and with the rich hymns of the church, well I think you get my point. Our senior pastor did this for a funeral for one of our members, it was very cool and a great proclamation of the Gospel.

Tag Team Preaching - Umm. No. Need I say more, last thing we need to do is give Gerry more bad ideas.

Well At Least He Can Sympathize With Bevo

2007-09-12T13:11:00.000-04:00

A t.u. fan nearly gave up his manhood for the team. Foxnews.com

Don't Censor Kathy Griffin

2007-09-12T09:05:00.001-04:00

Foxnews.com reports that E! is planning on censoring Kathy Griffin's acceptance speech for her Emmy. Apparently, in her speech she demonstrated just how shallow and unfunny she really is, could it be that is why she is on the D-list? She reportedly stated,

"a lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus." She went on to hold up her Emmy, make an off-color remark about Christ and proclaim, "This award is my god now!"

The Catholic Defense League is all up in arms. I can't say as I am, at least, not in the sense that I want somebody censored for it. I take exception to her remarks concerning Jesus, but I don't need somebody to protect me from the idiots of the world. I can do just fine on my own. Besides, let everybody see just how small and unimaginative the modern liberal mind truly is. Let everybody see that the greatest proponents of tolerance are just as intolerant as the people the despise.

I will just continue on my merry way, proclaiming the goodnews that Christ died for all including loud mouth idiots, of whom I am chief loud mouth.

Time To Move On

2007-09-11T14:10:00.000-04:00

I do not want to be insensitive, but it is time to move on. Six years is far too long for having memorials. I realize that 9/11 was a tragic day, even I who have no real connection can remember exactly where I was when I first heard the news. However, that doesn't mean that we need to make a big to do out of 9/11 every year. I guess I shouldn't be surprised when I consider the fact we still have at least a blurb in the news every time Dec 7th roles around. Well, I have said my bit and I will be quiet now.

Demon Hunter - Real Despair, Real Hope

2007-09-10T10:24:00.001-04:00

For those of you who belong to the uncultured masses, Demon Hunter is a Christian Hardcore Metal Band and probably one of the best of their genre I have ever heard. From me that is saying something because as far as I am concerned most "Christian" music is empty, vapid, self centered pop trash. I will have to say if you are going to find more explicit Christianity you tend to have to look in the ranks of the Hard Rock/Heavy Metal groups such as Kutless, who is probably the best because not only do they rock their songs are openly and unabashedly Christian, generally you won't find their music to be a generic love song written and performed by a supposedly Christian person. Now Demon Hunter, is not quite as explicit in their Christianity in that one will not find them mentioning Christ in their lyrics, but that is not to say Christianity is missing in their lyrics. They are like the Chronicles of Narnia baptizing the imagination in musical form.

Take for instance, As We Wept, in this one song we see the anguish Paul wrote about in always doing that which he didn't want to do, but still retained hope in the one who died for him.

I will stand and fight to justify you.
You have bled and died to justify me.
Force me down into hate.
Your freedom will stop when I can't breath.
I'm taking the path that i don't need.
I'm taking the place so it won't bleed.
Broken out and turned away.
Burned to the ground and change the face.
Bled to death and turned to gray.
Resurrect again to say.
I made my promise, and now i've fallen.
Through broken pieces i set you.
I will stand and fight to justify you.
You have bled and died to justify me.
Let me see it all die in front of myself so i can't lie.
A hollow design for the new side.
Exterior death for the old side.
This is the end of the last time.
Bury the old and say the name.
break the mold and new remain.
Resurrect again to say.
I made my promise, and now i've fallen.
through broken pieces i see you.
I will stand and fight to justify you.
You have bled and died to justify me.
A lifeless body, a broken soul.
I fall to zero, I've lost control.
I've lost control, I will stand and fight to justify you.
You have bled and died to justify me.

Video Undying

While falling just shy of being explicit, meaning they actually say the name Jesus in relation to justification, they are a great topic starter if you are going to talk with a person who is into Metal. The other part that I like is they are not afraid to express anguish and despair, unlike other song writers who write about it but never make it to actually expressing it and thereby seem incredibly shallow. Maybe we could use their music in our liturgy? Just kidding!

A Sweet New Website

2007-09-06T15:53:00.000-04:00

I just found a cool new Lutheran website by the clever name Lutheran Online which ironically is about Lutheran stuff, go figure. All kidding aside, it is a sweet website, it is still in its infancy but if David keeps up the good work, it is going to be the coolest clearing house of Lutheranism.

Truth Transcends Culture

2007-09-06T09:36:00.000-04:00

According to postmodern philosophy truth is determined by ones cultural make-up. Your ancestry and modern society blend together to determine truth. Post modernism on the surface seems to be a decent examination of the question, "what is the truth?" However, post modernism is going about things backward. It is taking our perceptions and equating them with truth. Just because we perceive something in a certain fashion does not make it true. A mirage is a perfect example of perception being false. It make look like there is water in the distance but there truly is no water. Our perceptions should not be taken into account when answering the question, "what is truth?" This question must be answered objectively, not by how I feel about it or how I perceive it, but simply by what it is.

For truth transcends culture. For example, let us use something that is simple and undeniable. Water when it reaches 0 degrees Celsius begins to freeze. It does not matter if you African, 1 st Century Jewish, a 21st Century American education major, or even Martian, water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius. The truth of the matter transcends these cultural differences. The only way to change the freezing point of water is to add different substance to either raise or lower the freezing point, however, when this happens it is no longer water but a water based solution. The water has been changed through outside pollutants. This is how culture affects the truth, it at best, distorts the truth. In this case the freezing point of water has been changed by outside influences distorting our view of when it freezes, yet, the central truth has not changed. Water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius.

Therefore, since culture at its best is a distortion of truth, it should never be the lens of determining truth. It should step aside and let truth speak for itself. Contrary to the po-mo followers, truth should determine culture, because truth is transcendent.

Rock 'n' Roll Kills

2007-09-05T13:13:00.000-04:00

Or so the 'brain' trust of Dial the Truth Ministries would have us to believe. DtTM is one of the sites I frequent on an infrequent basis, largely because it is entertaining to watch somebody proof text their way to proving that Rock music and modern translations of the Bible are evil. They are kind of like old Papa Pope with my German Hymns and my modern German translation of the Bible. There creative misuse of the Bible aside, they are on a crusade to prove that Rock Music is a fruit of the devil. Granted the music industry has given them much to fuel their fire, particularly of the rampant debauchery of the musicians. The latest log is an article from the UK on msnbc.com about the short lifespans of rock musicians.

DtTM, of course, jumps to the conclusion that the music itself kills largely because they believe the lifestyle is intrinsic to the nature of the music, but just as they are incapable of interpreting the Bible, they are also incapable of interpreting articles on scientific studies. The article is quite clear that it is the associated stress of the entertainment industry compounded by the easy access to various substances and activities that are contributing to the shortened lifespan not the music. However, DtTM does not understand that such excessive lifestyles are not intrinsic to the music itself. I can use myself as an example, I am doubly evil in their eyes because I don't listen to just Rock music, I partake in that full out audio assault of Heavy Metal some of my favorite groups include Metallica, Demon Hunter, AC/DC, Stryper, One Bad Pig and Twisted Sister to name a few. And yet, even though I listen to some of the music by these groups I have never, engaged in the sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll lifestyle. Now I am not saying I am perfect, I am far from it, I just have not engaged my self in the extreme debauchery they claim is intrinsic to the nature of Rock music.

You see, contrary to DtTM the excessive lifestyle, lived out by many of the musicians and often tauted by the musicians, is not intrinsic to the music. Sure, some of the musicians of the musicians have claimed it is intrinsic but that doesn't mean they were right. No, the rock 'n' roll lifestyle is related to Rock music in the same fashion as the sin nature is to being human. It is not intrinsic to the nature. It can be Rock music without the rebellion and excessive lifestyle much in the same way we can be fully human without the sin nature.

One must remember, that Satan cannot create anything himself. He can only distort and warp things that already exist. So it is with Rock music. He distorted it much in the same way he deceived Adam and Eve into sinning that fateful day so long ago.

What does this all mean? It means that just as we daily need to have our sin nature drowned in the everlasting promises given in baptism we should also strive against the sin nature of Rock casting it aside so that all that is left is the good Rock music.

James Kennedy called to Glory

2007-09-05T13:09:00.000-04:00

James Kennedy, one of the very few TV ministers I could stomach, died last night.

Fare thee well, soldier of the cross, until we meet again.

"Gay" Travel

2007-09-04T14:23:00.000-04:00

I am in the process of organizing our domestic missions trip to Houston, Tx for our congregation and I am researching travel costs so that we can plan our budget requirements. Out of due diligence I went to the Southwest Airlines website to get a general idea of ticket prices into Hobby. It is while looking at the group rate information page I noticed something.

Southwest Airlines is now in the business of catering to the homosexual community. Now if that just doesn't take the cake. They have put together a website to help homosexuals find "friendly" travel spots and to help them get to their events on the cheap. I don't know which is worse the implicit support of their lifestyle or the over the top capitalism. It really is a blatant attempt to market to their perceived core identity almost like Christian vendors and businesses. If you slap the word Christian (Gay) in the name than it is obviously good for the Christian (homosexual) community regardless of its content and intent. While this probably won't stop me from using Southwest, it is the height of stupidity and a great indicator of where our culture is heading. Anything and everything is fair game for marketing.

A Memory

2007-09-04T10:52:00.000-04:00

Lutheran Lucciola, posted a comment about when she first joined the LCMS about how she was approached by four women wanting her support for women's ordination and it reminded me of a similar incident. About a year before I was to enter the seminary, my grandmother passed away, so we headed up to D.C. for the memorial service. At the service, only a few of our relatives were there including some from the ELCA. Anyhow, I guess my uncle had told them I was going into the seminary because these my aunt's mother came over to talk with me. They asked the standard question of which seminary was I going to be attending and I, of course, told them proudly Concordia, St Louis. Their faces turned a bit dark as they responded "Oh... the LCMS, well we don't really like the LCMS." Being curious, I couldn't help but respond "Why is that?" To which, they said "They don't allow women to be pastors and until they do we won't ever go to one." Me being a smart mouth replied " Guess I won't ever be seeing you in church then."

At first, I thought it rather crass for them to even bring it up at my grandma's memorial service, but then I realized these people are on a mission. Not that being on a mission is an excuse for rudeness, but that having women pastors means so much to them that it overrides their common sense. This got me to thinking, just what is it that is making them seek this abomination so stridently. Now, after some study and thought it occurs to me that it is about power. They want access to the power of the Office of Holy Ministry.

Their lust for women's rights fueled by past and present abuses have led them to believe that the office of pastor is an office of power. They speak in terms of hierarchy, patriarchy, etc; terms which denote power over somebody. Boy they couldn't be more wrong. Pastoring is not wielding power.

Long have people had the misconception that the Pastoral Office is about power. It has existed since the days of the Levitical Priesthood right up to today's Pastor as CEO types. Yes, a pastor is a leader, it is part and parcel of being a shepherd, but above all things a pastor is a servant. We are to serve the people not lord it over them. In my previous post, I spoke about the congregation and the pastoral office being the image of God, well the Pastor is to be Christ to the congregation. Therefore, our model of the office comes from Christ himself. Guess what, he did not come to lord over but to serve. He died on the cross like a common criminal, he washed people's feet, these are not the actions of one seeking power. They are the actions of one seeking to serve the ultimate need of the people. This is our role model for the pastor, to be the lowest of the low to serve the ultimate need of the people. We are not to be lording it over the people. We are to be Christ to the people.

I have said my bit, if you want to read a better post on the topic check out Balaam's Ass, he has an excellent article on the topic of women's ordination.

In The Image of God

2007-08-30T09:13:00.001-04:00

It is a slow news day. So, slow I actually ventured into the realms of Daystar, I feel like, I need a bath. Anyhow, they are once again ranting about the need to ordain women. I guess some people never learn. Just to top things off in the nothing new under the sun category, Karl Wyneken is using the same old tactic of I don't like what it says so I am going to change the meaning or barring that question whether it is applicable in our so called enlightened times. Yes, I am being overly simplistic and dismissive, but these arguments do not deserve the time of day. Particularly, when you realize they all ignore one basic principle of the church. The church is created in the image of God.

The image of God is a regular theme throughout the Bible. From the very beginning in Genesis to the very end of Revelation. Marriage it seems plays a large role in this image and it is this image that is key to understanding the make up of the church and ministry. My thoughts on this topic started many years ago, and it is now becoming a pet project of mine that I hope will culminate in a book. Anyhow, years ago I was pondering why it was so important to bring up the deception of Eve when speaking of pastoral authority in the letter to Timothy and it was during a lecture by Robert Gagnon at the seminary on the image of God and homosexuality that really sparked something. Typically, it has been accepted by biblical scholars that quotes of the Old Testament are not to be understood in isolation of their source but are to encompass their complete contextual meaning i.e. Christ on the cross. This lead me to thinking there must be something more than just the sin involved in the determination of women not holding pastoral authority. It is then it hit me. Marriage is the image of God and Eve's deception distorted the image of God and was solidified by Adam's sin. God's relationship with the church is often described in the terms of marriage. The New Testament reveals that the church is the image of God in that it is the body. The idea of the image of God in marriage is repeated frequently on different levels, so why not at the level of the pastor and the congregation. The relationship here is one of marriage. The pastor is the "bridegroom" to the congregations "bride," a woman serving in this fashion would disrupt the image God desired and thereby repeat the events of Genesis 3. Have you ever noticed just how much churches that allow women to serve as pastors have degenerated? It kind of fits when you compare it to the Fall.

Anyhow, I have been toying with this idea for sometime and I am now finally getting down to the business of actual research and solidifying my arguments. God willing, I will be able to submit manuscripts in the near future.

To Be As Wise As Serpents.

2007-08-28T10:25:00.000-04:00

Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. Matthew 10:16-18

I was just reading an article about a court case concerning the distribution of Bibles to elementary children in Maryland. The Gideons are, of course, losing the court battle. To be honest, I can't work up to much outrage on their behalf. In stead, I am wondering, why do they not spend sometime taking to heart Jesus' words. We are no longer welcome to present our message in such a fashion as the Gideons in the school. That's alright, not good, but alright, because they cannot actually stop the Gospel despite their best efforts. We just need to be smart in how we do it. Jesus warned that we would need to be very smart and wise when it came to operating in the hostile world that we live in; therefore, it would behoove us to stop using methods that were acceptable in the past and start figuring out ways to reach people with the Gospel. Obviously, we cannot continue showing up at public schools and handing out bibles, court cases only make people angry and intransigent and are not going to change anything.

I honestly do not have any answers. I am studying and thinking about the question myself. A few possibilities come to mind. Such as one that we used as hospital chaplains, we weren't allowed to actively evangelize but we were allowed to answer questions. So, what we would do is find ways to have people ask questions and if the answer involved sharing the Gospel so be it. The courts, try as they may, cannot ban people from answering questions and if they ever do well - Since it is not wise nor safe to go against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other.

What is there to talk about?

2007-08-27T10:44:00.000-04:00

Talk, talk, talk, talk that is all anybody seems to want to do. Once, again I read in the news that there are calls for new talks on homosexuality and the Bible. And I wonder what is there to talk about? Scripture is quite clear that their lustful thoughts and actions are sinful. Why are they so up in arms about that fact? There are lots of things that people like to do that are sinful. It is time for them to fess up.

But they won't. I ask why they are up in arms, but like any good lawyer I try to ask questions I already know the answer to. They don't want to think of themselves as sinners because it makes them feel bad about themselves and their desires. Welcome to the club! I don't like feeling bad about myself, and it is very painful to think of some of things I like as sins. However, just because I don't like how it makes me feel, does not make it any less true. A sin, is a sin, is a sin, it doesn't matter if it is the white lie you tell the telemarketer to avoid talking to them or murdering your neighbor. They are all equally abhorrent and therefore equally damning. But just because God condemns your sin doesn't make him an uncaring, hateful so and so. God hates our sin but he gave us the way out in Jesus. This is the whole point of the cross, to set us free from our sins through the blood of God himself.