My advice to Governor Palin (— another You Heard It Here First)

Governor Palin: congratulations. We're praying for you, as a professed sister in Christ in a tough situation.

But here's something you need to turn your attention to right away, or regret it forever.

Everyone will be telling you that you'd better bone up on the names of foreign dignitaries, the details of foreign treaties, the detailed history of Upper and Lower Pottsylvania....

Bosh. The MSM will not want to understand you, they will not want to know you. They'll want to shame and destroy you.

And they will ask you questions with no other goal than that one shared objective. They will not care that you are young, or pretty, or accomplished, or your own woman — except insofar as they can leverage those factors against you.

They want to see you groveling, shamed and humiliated and booed from the national stage forever.

I will tell you some of the questions you need to be prepared to answer right now.

• "Do you think women should be pastors?"
• "Why can a woman be a president, but not a pastor?"
  
• "Do you think wives should submit to their husbands?"
• "Do you obey your husband in all things as to the Lord?"
• "Do you hit your children?"
• "Do you believe in evolution?"
• "Do you believe the world was created in six days, 6000 years ago?"
• "Will everyone who doesn't believe in Jesus go to Hell?"
• "Do you think the Bible is the literal Word of God?"
• "Do you think schools should be forced to teach creationism and the Bible?"
• "Do you believe in homeschooling?"
• "You chose to have your Down syndrome child. Should all women be forced to do what you chose to do?"
  
• "Are Roman Catholics going to Hell?"
• "Are Mormons going to Hell?"
• "Is John McCain going to Hell?"
  
• "Is your Down syndrome child a sinner, going to Hell if he doesn't become a bornagainChristian?"
• "Do you speak in tongues?"

I'm absolutely dead-serious about this. Nothing good that you've done or can do will matter, if you don't prepare to field questions like these. Never forget: the MSM hate you. They're your enemy. You need to have articulate, confident answers, and you need to stick to them.

And then you need to know when to tell them to shut up and move on to something of substance.

If you want my wife's and my advice as to how to handle it all, I'm in the phonebook.

(Okay, that last part was a laugh. The rest was serious.)

UPDATE I:

• "Are gays going to Hell?"
• "Can gays be 'healed' by the power of prayer?"

See more questions and discussion here.

UPDATE II: I have begun my suggestions as to how Palin can respond, here. They are concluded here.

This I might put on my car

(h-t bmwcyle at FreeRepublic)

McCain's to lose, with The Obamessiah to thank

You Heard It Here First:
This election is McCain's to lose.
And he's just the man who could do it.

That sums up both my (very qualified) optimism and my fear.

I find that I'm not liking John McCain any better... but darned if I'm not liking his campaign a whole lot.

Somebody woke up over there, or the right head rolled and the right clear-eyed grownup took over. Regardless, Team McCain's been hitting them out of the park again and again and again.

I said to Valerie last night, "We may possibly live to see the first well-run Republican campaign! In our lifetime!"

So far and only recently McCain's run is contrasting favorably with both Dole's and Bush Sr's, which were grinding nightmares of sleepy, muzzy incompetence from start to finish. The campaign has been sharp, responsive, and note-perfect. They have dominated the Dem's convention week with a series of rapid-response, sharp, incisive ads and developments. When everyone's supposed to be being captivated with The Anointing of The Obamessiah, instead the various moves among McCain's possible VPs has been the focus. It's a beautiful thing.

And they're doing all this in spite of the MSM's drunken-schoolgirl infatuation with the Dems in general, and the Clintons and Obama in particular. Not a small feat.

Seriously: if the campaign keeps their eye on the prize and maintains focus and discipline, I can see that McCain is prepped not only to walk away with this, but to have a much more effective administration. One of Bush's most dismal and stubborn failures has been his refusal to deal with the media, to find ways to get his message out in spite of them. Reagan did this; Bush has not.

McCain's campaign is doing it now. If they kept that up in the WH, it could be sweet to see.

Except for one thing.

McCain.

It's been the campaign that's been doing all this. McCain's been out of the spotlight. I've said in a number of forums that, if they can just keep him hidden somewhere until November, this election should be a cake-walk.

I just fear that, when McCain starts campaigning again and speaking unscriptedly, he will sabotage his own campaign by those twin nightmares he carries with him wherever he goes: his mouth, and the bloated ego that controls it.

I can easily see the campaign landing a deft punch, the media demanding an apology from McCain, and him obediently giving it. I can easily see him picking an impressive running-mate (Governor Palin?), can see that running mate land some telling blows on the opposition, and then McCain sabotaging the whole by apologizing or contradicting or otherwise train-wrecking, to keep his beloved NYT/MSM mistress happy. Easily.

So I have no confidence in McCain. I have no confidence in the MSM. I have no confidence in the much-vaunted, mythical common-sense of the American voter. (If Clinton 1 hadn't already destroyed the last vestige of that childish pipe-dream, Clinton 2 would have.)

So honestly, on the horizontal, I have only two hopes:

McCain's campaign and a possibly good running mate, as I've just explained. And...

Obama and Biden. This is the most liberal, extreme ticket EVER. I think there's an awfully good chance they'll self-destruct. Joe Biden has every bit the insane, self-destructive mouth that John McCain has (see also here and here; OTOH, Biden has the party loyalty McCain lacks).

Nor did The Obamessiah's speech, in the Temple of Obama (an edifice which earned some teasing) help him much.

Charles Krauthammer, for instance, was unimpressed. He delivers this biting summary:

Barack Obama is an immensely talented man whose talents have been largely devoted to crafting, and chronicling, his own life. Not things. Not ideas. Not institutions. But himself.

Of course, the conclusion of Obama's speech was most offensive to me as a Christian:

America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise - that American promise - and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

Hm, that sounds familiar, doesn't it? Well, it should. Obamessiah says it's "the words of Scripture." Where does that come from?

Obamessiah says it's a Scripture about holding firmly to a hope that, with the help of government as led by him and the Democratic Party, we can make a better life for ourselves here and now. Is that what it says?

Not so much.

The Scripture is from Hebrews 10, and here it is in context:

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near (Hebrews 10:19-25).

I happen to know that passage pretty well, both because I love it, and because I've preached a sermon on it.

Is it about hoping that we can solve our problems with government's help? Far from it.

It is about the Christian's unique and eternal hope, purchased at the price of God the Son becoming incarnate, living a perfectly righteous life by the standards of God's law, dying in His people's place as a perfect, once-for-all atonement. It is about Jesus, our High Priest, who anchors our hope. It is about professing that divisive, edgy hope boldly and publicly and unwaveringly. It's premised on the inerrant, binding authority of the written Word of God.

It is counter to the hope held out by Obama. It is counter to the hope his Roman Catholic running-mate might hold, insofar as Biden holds his church's dogmas. It isn't a hope shared by most of Obama's hearers — members of a party that openly despises, scorns, and opposes the worldview in which Hebrews 10 is set, that holds abortion as a "core value", whose candidate has (if unwittingly) leant his name to the creation of a new term expressive of his scorn for helpless innocent human life ("Obamacide").

It's Bill Clinton again, but with less to offer. Remember the breathtaking blasphemy of Clinton's proposal spoke of creating a "New Covenant"? Both Clinton and Obama try to trade off of their claim to Christian faith; so both must be held accountable for their perversions of Scripture.

I just have to hope that those folks who try to be Christian and Obama supporters at the same time at least have the grace to feel sick at stomach over this.

Because, one must wonder: if this doesn't do it, what possibly could?

UPDATE: well, I got a little ahead of the news, didn't I? McCain did officially choose Governor Sarah Palin. See the link above for her impressive story. My initial response is of great relief. He didn't pick one of the pro-deathers and "moderates" whose names have been floating around like unpleasant objects in a sewer (Lieberman, Rice, Powell, Hutchison, Ridge, etc.). He picked an unambiguously, emphatically conservative pro-lifer who's lived what she believes. It's an exciting pick positionally and symbolically, and I think checkmates the symbolism of the Dem ticket. The weakness of course will be her lack of experience.

But the Dems will have a hard time making much of that, won't they?

UPDATE 2: Mark Levin offered some good thoughts on the Palin choice, before it was made official.

UPDATE 3: on Palin's religious affiliation:

Just because I'm seeing a lot of confusion on the issue (some saying she's Roman Catholic, others Episcopalian, still others AOG), here's what I have so far:

From a Time magazine interview, done 8/14/08:

What's your religion?

Christian.

Any particular...?

No. Bible-believing Christian.

What church do you attend?

A non-denominational Bible church. I was baptized Catholic as a newborn and then my family started going to non-denominational churches throughout our life.

This report gives some evidence that she is "evidently" Assemblies of God.

Dude -- that's "Alien"

Alien...-fish.

Senator Ted Kennedy: when bravery is foolhardy

When I heard that Senator Ted Kennedy had a brain tumor, which has since been revealed as malignant, I prayed for his conversion, and urged other Christians to do the same. I pray that God uses this to get Kennedy's attention, convict him of his sins against God, open his eyes to the truth, and lead him to repentant faith in Jesus Christ alone as Savior and Lord.

So comes this headline: BRAVE TED IN FIGHT OF HIS LIFE. The article tells us that the ailing senator "put on a brave face." Earlier I read elsewhere of how "brave" Kennedy is being in the face of this diagnosis.

Then Peter Wehner at National Review speaks of the courage and grit and grace Kennedy showed in his speech at the Democratic convention Monday night.

There are times when bravery is wise, appropriate, manly.

For instance, if you're in a car that goes into a river, it would be brave to do everything you could humanly do and more to save the life of the woman with you.

Or if you're a leader in a party that is taking immoral, evil policies; and if you knew better; and if you knew you'd suffer for using your position to oppose the wrongheaded leadership to oppose those policies and advocate their opposite with all your might — doing so, regardless, would be brave.

To expend your fortune, name, reputation, connections, in defense of the defenseless unborn, though it alienates former allies — that would be brave.

But sometimes bravery is inappropriate, and foolish to the point of insanity.

For instance, in facing a death for which we are in no way prepared.

All of us face death. We share that with Senator Kennedy. What sets him apart is that he's gotten a specific "Bill Due" notice. He knows — as we all should know, but choose to pretend that we do not — that his death is almost certainly imminent.

How should we face the prospect of death? With bravery? Or cringing, abject terror?

It all depends.

Death is inevitable, it is unavoidable, it is irreversible, it is final. After death we face the court date we cannot avoid, and stand before the Judge who cannot be Borked, fooled, evaded, impeached, overpowered, nor overruled. From this court there will be no appeal. Its rulings — His rulings — are final, in the fullest and most thunderous sense of that word.

So what if we are going into that trial with blood on our hands? With a legacy of opposing the values that Judge loves, and advocating, practicing, protecting those things He hates? What if we lived a long life in a land with easy access to the Word of that Judge, but we chose, all our lives, to despise, spurn, ignore that Word? What if we sniff at that very goodness of God which was meant to lead us to repentance (Romans 2:4)? What if we squander a long and privileged lifetime of opportunities to repent?

Shall we face that prospect "bravely"?

In that case, "bravery" is the last and most foolhardy response.

The proper response would be heartfelt repentance, self-humbling and self-abasement, faith in Jesus Christ who alone can save us from all our sins. Then, after that, we would employ every remaining moment and resource in reversing damage we'd done in our lives.

Then, and then only, could we face death not only bravely, but with well-grounded hope.

Again I say, pray for Senator Kennedy. Pray not for bravery, but for his first acquaintance with that wisdom of which the fear of the Lord is the necessary foundation.

New England: some of the beauty

First, for Valerie and me both, thanks to everyone for your help and input both on GPSes, and on where to go. As I mentioned, we got a Garmin 670, and really appreciated it. However, we weren't able to work in all the great suggestions for this trip — maybe in the future. Thanks, everyone!

My dear wife and I spent Friday, August 15 to Wednesday, August 20 in New England. To my modest list of states-visited I was able to add Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts.

As I said, I'd pictured a crowded, overpopulated, burnt-out area. I'm sure there's that; but not where we were. Here's some visual proof; click on each picture to enlarge.

There was Fort Ticonderoga, with the plants growing from its stone walls.


(No pencils, though.)


The fort boasted a formidable fence.


Then there was this goose and goslings at Plimouth Plantation.


I kept seeing some of the most beautiful wildflowers, like this delightful little blue ones.


We also did a bit of the the Cliff Walk in Rhode Island. This gave me a chance to touch the Atlantic from this side. (I'd previously only touched it from the other side, off the island of Iona.)


These rose hips overlooked the Atlantic along the Cliff Walk. I loved the play of colors.


There were more lovely flowers in Old Sturbridge Village.



This ant may also have been a docent; not sure.


It rained as we arrived, so we brought our coats -- causing it to clear up and get sunny!


And last, we'll close out this round with a cool covered bridge. My dear wife had hoped to see one, and...voila!


Later I may feature some pictures from the other aspects of the trip.

The confusion ticket?

Is The Obama clear on which one's which one? Maybe... then again, maybe not.



But surely #2 knows who #1 is?



"Barack America"?

Maybe not so much.

This could be funner than I thought it'd be.

Random New England observations

The whirlwind tour is over, and I'm more or less coming back up to my normal, West Coast speed. Such as that is.

Last Thursday, I worked a full shift, came home, helped pack and regulate, loaded up the car, dropped the boys off at their grandparents', went to the airport and flew all night. Landing in Connecticut, we rented a car, drove all day, showered and changed, and went to my daughter's graduation ceremony at Middlebury, Vermont. We dined there, and went to bed maybe 10-ish (ET), after having been up since 3:30 the previous day. I'd had maybe 45-60 minutes' sleeep.

I don't know how Jack Bauer does it without psychotic episodes. Well, more psychotic episodes.

So then we took off touring a bunch of those postage-stamp little states back there, thanks to my wife's usual brilliant planning. We saw Plimouth Plantation, the Mayflower 2, the USS Constitution, and Old Sturbridge Village. We walked the Freedom Trail.

Then we got up 3:45am on Wednesday and flew home. Then I went back to work yesterday.

So, it was a full, whirlwind tour. I'll probably put up some pictures, eventually, somewhere. But for now, here are some Random Observations:

1. The weather wasn't nearly as unpleasant as I'd anticipated. We had some beautiful clouds and a bit of rain. The temperatures got up into the eighties. What made the difference (as anticipated) was the humidity, but it was far from miserable.
2. The most exhausting day was the Freedom Trail walk. On that same day, we walked (it seemed) every square inch of Boston, I climbed that 294-step obelisk at Bunker Hill, we toured two ships, and ended up with a delectable meal at Legal Sea Foods.
3. How to say it delicately? With all that heat and humidity, you end up quaffing gallons and gallons and... er... not processing much. It all gets used up and sweat out.
4. My image of New England was population and houses and pavement from border to border. Boy, was I wrong. There are miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles of beautiful, thick forests, on rolling hills, with very trouty-looking, fly-fishable streams and rivers, and lots of rocks and cliffs and outcroppings. Gorgeous. I would love to see it in the Fall.
5. The people we dealt with were all very nice.
6. There seemed to be a higher-than-usual percentage of grim, very masculine-looking women. Often in pairs. I said "Hm" to myself, and prayed for them, a lot.
7. Cracker Barrels are great restaurants. But they're better in the South.
8. Dunkin' Donuts everywhere. Wish we had them here. But the best cup I had was after we landed and got the car, and I'd been up for... hm... (doing math) about 29 hours with about 45-60 minutes' scattered sleep. Had a big, fresh cup, and my, it was wonderful.
9. We did get a Garmin Nuvi 670, and the ladies cristened our navigator "Claire." We were really glad for the purchase, again and again. Cool thing about having a GPS system is you can go off exploring freely, knowing that all you have to do when you're done is flick the GPS back on, and it'll get you where you need to go. However....
10. My least-favorite word for the whole trip came to be "Recalculating."
    

So another trip logged, tremendous credit to my amazing wife's amazing ability to put together the fullest, richest trips.

Excellent, once again, Valerie!

Oh, and I took just <800 pix. I'll put a few more up sometime, p'raps.

Desperation? So soon?

I'm really not one gleefully to announce "They're desperate!" at the drop of a hat; and my un-enthusiasm for McC is well known.

But... goodness The Obama's camp must be desperate. McCain must have really smoked The One. I mean, if their best account is, in effect, "Yeah yeah, the reason our guy did so bad and McCain did so well is... is... is that McCain cheated! Yeah, that's the ticket! He knew the questions in advance! Yeah, that's it."

Anyway, Warren flat-out says that's a lie.

A lie, perhaps. If so, certainly a revealing one.

But then, aren't all lies revealing?

Where I'm At Right Now, 8/16/08-abouts

Woke up as usual 3:30am Thursday morning, worked all day, came home, helped pack and arrange, left home about 8pm, flew all night, landed near Hartford, CT, drove around 4-5 hours to Middlebury, VT, checked in, showered, attended my daughter's graduation ceremony, walked around the 32478503984-acre campus, returned to the B&B, went to bed, slept a little longer than usual (6.5 hours instead of <6).

And I feel great!

So it's been a whirlwind, but all-good. We read all about threatening thunderstorms, and feared a flight would be delay. As you can see, delay would have been disastrous: missing the ceremony. I wasn't able to get Thursday off; my work was generous to let me have Friday (short-staffed). So it was a tight schedule, ad we're grateful to God that we made it at all.

So now my oldest and only daughter has a Master's in French from Middlebury. Great job, Rachael. We're very proud of her and her dogged, hard work. Now we're off to tour the area for a few days. I think we go to Fort Ticonderoga today. Hope they give us a pencil or something.

And Dunkin' Donuts! They actually have them out here. Had my first coffee in too long from a DD, and dude, it was good.

What a beautiful area it is: green, rolling hills; huge rivers, streams. Would love to see Fall colors. We did a too-quick walk-through of the Yankee candle store. Perhaps I'll post some pix later.

And I just caught up on my Bible reading. Man, you miss one day with that For the Love of God schedule, and you've got some serious catching-up to do.

A Muslim, son of Hamas leader — finds Jesus Christ

Praise God for some great news: the conversion of Mosab Hassan Yousef from Islam to Christ. We should pray for this young man's growth in Christ, for the effectiveness of his testimony, and for his physical safety.

Razing Ebenezer, and other hymn-crimes

I stumbled upon and appreciated an article by Gary Parrett in CT about how hymns have sometimes been changed, dumbed-down, or partly pirated.

For instance, aced by "Here I raise mine Ebenezer," in Come Thou Fount, many have changed the lyrics, to accommodate our Biblical illiteracy.

That's a choice we have to confront in such things. Sadly, it probably is true that most church attenders think Ebenezer's last name is Scrooge, and don't know why we're singing about raising him. So we face a choice, don't we?

1. Dumb-down the lyrics; or
2. Smart-up the worshipers

You can guess which my preference is. How hard is it to explain the context before singing the hymn?

UPDATE: Wesley didn't care for anyone "improving" his hymns.

McCain, according to The Professionals

Remember, blogs and talk radio can't be trusted, because bloggers and hosts are so biased. Not like the professionals in the MSM.

Of which, now, an example from Politico.

Perhaps reluctantly, the article is forced to pass along some (color-me-pleasantly-surprised) great John McCain lines about the Obamessiah:

“...even the most stirring speeches are easily forgotten when they're short on content. Taking in my opponent's performances is a little like watching a big summer blockbuster, and an hour in, realizing that all the best scenes were in the trailer you saw last fall. In the way of running mates, Sen. Obama should consider someone with a knack for brevity and directness, to balance the ticket.

“In the meantime, let me take a stab at a plot summary of the Obama campaign: America is finally winning in Iraq, and he wants to forfeit. Government is too big, and he wants to grow it. Taxes are too high, and he wants to raise them. Congress spends too much, and he proposes more. We need more energy, and he's against producing it.”

It may have been painful for the Mike Allen to record such direct-hits. But he did his best to defuse the remarks, reporting it as "mocking the oratorical gifts [—not alleged gifts] of Barack Obama... McCain sneers ...McCain snarks at Obama 10 times ...McCain’s gibe about a less windy running mate is part of a continuing effort [—not successful?] by the Republican’s presidential campaign to turn Obama’s strengths [—not perceived strengths or alleged strengths or much-touted strengths or self-promoted strengths or attempted strengths?] against him."

By contrast, "Obama ...declares [— not pronounces, nor "tries to" anything]....In a bit of onedownmanship [— not attempted, and not "trying to" do anything], Obama says [—not snarks nor sneers nor whines]...."

Ah, isn't it great to have Truth funneled to us, predigested, from the Experts?

Why would Allen color his reporting in this manner, depicting McCain as a peevish, nasty, snarly jerk? Maybe he gives the answer himself: "...Americans usually vote for the more likable presidential candidate." Ah, that's it. He's just telling us which is "more likable." That would be the gifted, youthful declarer. Not the snarky, sneery guy.

Thus endeth another lesson in an ongoing series.

UPDATE: on the other hand (turning from the ever-popular topic of media bias to the ever-popular topic of what a pinhead McCain can be) you see reports like these which, if true, means McCain is every bit as clueless as we fear, has a political death-wish, and has very little chance of defeating The Obama's candidacy. Now, this may well be a planted rumor intended to upset whatever is left of McCain's base. But the fact is, no astute observer can say, "What? Nonsense! McCain would never be so feckless and stupid and treacherous!" Because, well, sadly....

Breaking News! Rowan Williams (A of C) morally and spiritually clueless!

...or, at least he was a few years back, according to The Times Online.

The Times has some letters from eight years ago revealing that Archbishop Williams "described his belief that biblical passages criticising homosexual sex were not aimed at people who were gay by nature."

That report in itself, if accurate, is damning enough. Like all the rest, it reveals that Williams isn't coming from Biblical revelation in his view of the world; he's coming to Scripture with his worldview.

A robust, full-Biblical anthropology would step back and realize that all people are sinners by nature (cf. Romans 1:18-32; Ephesians 2:1ff.; etc.). That a thing comes "naturally" to any given sinner says something about the sinner, but nothing about the thing. Hollywood to the contrary notwithstanding, the test of an act's morality is not what we feel in our heart, but what God feels in His heart, and what God has said with His mouth.

Homosexuality is not sinful because we reason it to be, nor neutral because we reason it to be. It is wicked because God says it to be.

But such thinking is lost on Dr. Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, who says

I concluded that an active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might therefore reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage, if and only if it had about it the same character of absolute covenanted faithfulness.

It does not trouble Dr. Williams that God had concluded the contrary.

As a further sample of the reasoning of the man to whom so many Anglicans look up as their leader,

In his 1989 essay The Body’s Grace, Dr Williams argued that the Church’s acceptance of contraception meant that it acknowledged the validity of nonprocreative sex. This could be taken as a green light for gay sex.

Reasoning from one human viewpoint to another apparently takes the place of Biblical exegesis. By contrast, here's how a disciple of Christ "does ethics":

God nowhere defines the sole purpose of marital relations as the production of children; God everywhere defines homosexual activity as abhorrent.

Reason from that.

I wasn't raised as a Christian. Denominational loyalty über alles has always been lost on me. I became a Christian because I was convinced that Christ was true, and the Bible His word. Church selection has always — always — been primarily a matter of finding (or pastoring) bodies genuinely committed to those propositions.

I simply cannot imagine promoting the interests of a hierarchical organization such as the Anglican church, which prizes organizational unity, that is for all intents and purposes apostate, and is led by apostates.

Interesting perspective on feminine submission

From the often-opaque (to me), sometimes-brilliant Douglas Wilson, Piperically quoting himself on his blog:

"Headship in marriage does not mean that women submit to men; it means one woman submits to one man. Her submission to her husband protects her from having to submit to other men. Prior to marriage, her submission to her father protects her from having to submit to other men. There is no overall biblical requirement that women be submissive to men in general. The biblical pattern is that a wife should respond to the initiative and leadership of her husband, and only to him. She is prepared and trained for this in her submission to her father" (Her Hand in Marriage, pp. 12-13)

What think ye?

Me, I'm pondering. Of course marriage does not mean that a wife submits to no other man in any other context. She may have a boss to obey; if a Christian, she will have an elder or elders in church to submit to. But her husband may have the same responsibility in both similar relationships. Neither of these relations has anything to do with her sex.

But sex does weigh in marriage. The two are equally each other's spouse; but God ordains that the husband, the man, be the head of the family; and that she submit to him.

But that isn't because he is a man; it is because he is her husband. She doesn't submit to his maleness per se, but to his office. That office is exclusive to males, however.

Don't we see this reflected in various verses? For instance, I think of 1 Peter 2:18, where slaves are told to submit even to unjust masters; or 1 Peter 3:1f., where wives are told to submit from the heart even to husbands who are disobeying the Word. In neither case is it the sex of the authority that is the issue, but the office. However, in the case of masters, I know of no Biblical legislation barring them from being women; in the case of husbands, of course, there is.

There, perhaps that's enough to prime the pump.

Wanna love that Spam

I think I've mentioned before that spam seems to come in cycles. You get a bunch of vitamin offers, Viagra offers, Cialis offers, Canadian drug offers. They seem to come in waves.

I love this one (click to enlarge):

So you've got to figure: somewhere, there's some schmoe who's opening up his (or her) email, who reads this title, pauses, and says to himself (or herself):

"Ya know? Yeah... yeah, I do. I wanna be a psychologist!"

And then he (or she!) clicks Reply, and writes the spamco, and says, "Yeah! I wanna be a psychologist!"

And then a new career is born.

So here's what I'm thinking. You've been seeing this psychologist for a year or two, and you realize that everything he is saying, Oprah has already said. Suddenly, the light goes on.

You sit up on the couch, and face your psychologist.

And you ask, "Did you once answer an email with the title, 'Wanna be a psychologist'?"

And he (or she!) pulls the iPod bud out of his (or her!) ear, and says, slowly, "Yeah... why ya wanna know that?"