Monday music (on Tuesday): iPad jam, Garageband

Whatever I've done in past years, this year I decided Memorial Day was somber enough that the lightness of a Monday Music could wait a day.

This is fun.

(Thanks JTW)

Lot of people kicking themselves for buying all those expensive instruments?

Hither and thither 5/27/11

My big news for the moment is that I got what should be my final pre-typesetting version of the Proverbs manuscript back to Rick Kress, the publisher. The hope is to have it available at the start of September. What a nice birthday-present!

Very full week and day, but still I culled this just for you:

• Wait... what just happened?

• Carmen Siekierke pointed me to yet another appalling example of federal government tyranny. A Missouri family began raising rabbits to teach their son responsibility and industry. They earned a reputation for raising fine rabbits. They did a small business, turning a profit of $200 a year. Not much, eh? Enough to attract the malign attention of some restlessly intrusive USDA agents, who decided to demand ninety thousand dollars as a settlement (which they clearly regard as generously low), payable by May 23, last Monday. If the family doesn't pay, fines could go up to $4 million.
• I'll say it again. Raise one of the men who died to free us from King George and show him our lives, and he'd ask who conquered us, and when.
• Reached for a comment, Michelle Obama remarked...

• So what would you make of a law that makes it a misdemeanor for people to touch "the anus, sexual organ, buttocks, or breast of another person including through the clothing," with possibity of arrest and a $4000 fine for violation? Sounds reasonable to me. Does not sound reasonable to the TSA, however, who threatened Texas if they passed the law — and Texas backed down. Sad, sad days.
• Now for a chuckle, some vintage Mark Steyn from 1998: "If Oprah were to endorse a self-help book called How to Stop Buying Books Just because Your Favorite TV Host Recommends Them, You Pathetic, Craven Loser, it would be an instant best-seller."
• Oh my; Sacred Sandwich scores big yet again:

• Sigh.  Ecclesiastes 8:12 vs. this.
• Harold Camping. If you're one of those dainty souls who doesn't want to be too hard on the old man for what he did: watch this and this. Watch Camping grin and chuckle and shrug off responsibility for his false teaching. Watch him smilingly shrug off the lives he's wrecked, say they should just trust God, work harder, do without, they'll be fine. Watch him repeatedly congratulate himself for being humbler than almost any preacher he's ever known, because he admitted that he made a mistake. (See? It's really a good thing!)

• Combining two BibChr constants: Legos and gummis = WIN.

• I realize I am in borderline bad taste here, but I have a title of the week that will give a tingle to any fan of science fiction from the 50s and 60s: Greenpeace warns of radioactive sea life off Japan. 

• (I figure the fact that it's from Greenpeace puts it pretty near fiction, anyway.)
• Important Safety Tip: when you set off a bomb in a quarry, stand far away:

• Staying with Legos, check out this massive Garrison of Moriah that an enthusiast built. (Thanks, Merrilee)
• Lego fans: have you seen this page? (From the previous article.)
• You'll enjoy this passel of Star Wars propaganda posters.
• ONOES!! A Christian doctor at a Christian practice with a Christian name commends Christ to a patient... and he's in big trouble! Because it's in England, where such things are evidently not done.
• Someone was tired of fixing the bridge over and over and over and over and...

• If you're a regular reader, you know how thoroughly I don't mean this seriously — but I swear, sometimes I feel like parenting should require a license. Like these idiots, raising a "gender-free" child. DENIED! Poor kid, named "Storm," joins hapless sibs "Jazz" and "Kio." I kid you not. (Thx Aaron)
• Relatedly?

• Homeschoolers (and others): this is some interesting but rather harrowing footage of food's journey, all the way from the mouth to the, er, large intestine. I watched it while eating, and do not recommend you do the same.
• Wondering how I should celebrate, when my books "hit the stands," as it were. Hmm.....

• Well... he did get the ball.

• Grumbly about your kids? Read this story. Poor woman. Sometimes it's good to step back and get perspective. (Thx Aaron)
• Feel very clever if you "get" this:

• With a national debt over $14 trillion, where did President Obama send at least one of every seven Democratic Party infrastructure repair "stimulus" contracts? To tax cheats. A report found that "at least 3,700 stimulus recipients owed a total of more than $757 million in taxes, but were awarded $24 billion in stimulus money." So, there's the new O-Path to Prosperity.
• Let's see... how can I express my feelings about that? Oh, I know!

• Here's something better than that: Calvin's Institutes on Kindle for $0.89 (h-t Challies).
• Well, that's it. I know, I know — I know how you feel when you come to the end of the week's H&T. You feel like...

• So take additional comfort in these:

THE USUALS WILL BE OBSERVED

Walvoord-Camping debate

Decades ago I heard that Harold Camping and John Walvoord, then president of Dallas Theological Seminary, had conducted an on-air debate. Only recently, I found where it could be downloaded and heard online. The debate lasts nearly six hours, and I just finished listening last night.

The debate is interesting and instructive. The moderator, a gracious man, seems stylistically to be on a radio show from the 40s (the crackling sound quality heightens this effect as he speaks); his is an oddly florid tone. But Camping and Walvoord are both straightforward and to the point.

I could do a fairly accurate job of summarizing the six hours like this: for the most part...

• Walvoord keeps reading Scripture and saying "I think it means what it says"
• Camping keeps working his decoder-ring hermeneutics to make Scripture not mean what it says

And that's pretty much it.

For instance, here's a big clue: Listen for Camping repeatedly cautioning that we must read a passage "very carefully," or admonishing that we must "let the Bible interpret itself" rather than being devoted to a particularly school "or consensus." Sounds good? How can you argue against either?

Yet every time, these words signals that Camping is about to explain how Scripture doesn't mean what it says. It means he is about to twist Scripture. He is about to bring together two things that have no bearing on each other, and make a bus bench in Ohio mean that a hamburger in California is really a cup of tea in England.

Figures; Camping also says that the whole Bible is in parables, and he says that it is is very difficult to understand. Perhaps his version of Hebrews 1:1 reads that God "spoke in incomprehensible code to the fathers by the prophets"?

Also interesting: a caller asks about not knowing the day or the hour, and Walvoord answers. Camping simply declines to answer, which is an exception. It looms large in light of his recent deadly error.

Now, this may sound as if I'm writing the next bit for effect, but it is literally true: around the third and start of the fourth hour, I was thinking very appreciatively about what gentlemen both Camping and Walvoord were, and I was anticipating praising both for their behavior — and then the fourth hour started. Camping became completely unhinged. He launched an absurd attack on premillennialism, listing off a dozen dire accusations, including that premillennialism distorts the Gospel, denies Christ's kingship, denies Christ's lordship, denies the Bible's authority to explain itself, and a veritable pile of verbal manure.

Camping did not just crack in recent years. He'd already jumped the shark at this point.

Walvoord remained a gentleman in his response, more so than I would have. He said something like this: "My, that is a very impressive list of accusations. The only problem is that every one of them is false." No kidding.

Ominous note.  There was a very poignant moment at about five hours and thirteen minutes. In the course of his answer, John Walvoord warned against the slippery slope that is spiritualization. He observed that many heresies and much liberalism involved the spiritualization of the Bible. And then he said this: "Once you start spiritualizing, there is no telling where you are going to stop."

He said this in front of Harold Camping who, decades later, after assuring people that the Bible guaranteed that Jesus would return to rapture His own on May 21, 2011, then said, "Oh yeah, about that — oops, sorry, it was actually a spiritual event."

A second poignant note is that in his attempt at a response, Camping actually — I kid you not — alluded to the Biblical admonition against many people becoming teachers (James 3:1f.)! You can't make this stuff up. If only Camping had heeded his own words.

Or listened to John Walvoord.

Shallow Small Group — putting the "super" back in "superficial"!

A moment of levity might be a nice break just now, eh?

Starts out okay and somewhat amusing... then gets better and better.

(h-t The Thabiti)

Harold Camping to the folks whose lives he's ruined: Oh well, stuff happens

Tell me if my paraphrase is that far off:

"We just had a great recession. There's lots of people who lost their jobs, lots of people who lost their houses ... and somehow they all survived," he said.

"People cope, he added. "We're not in the business of giving any financial advice. We're in the business of telling people maybe there is someone you can talk to, and that's God."

If that doesn't tell each and every last one of his followers everything they need to know about this unhinged, utterly irresponsible deceiver... I can't imagine what would.

Meanwhile — as I've often observed — don't expect Camping to put any of his money where his mouth is:

[Camping] also said that he wouldn't give away all his possessions ahead of Oct 21.

"I still have to live in a house, I still have to drive a car," he said. "What would be the value of that? If it is Judgment Day why would I give it away?"

Mercy.

I confess that I'm surprised that this isn't getting more circulation. Excellent execution by Joe Cassada, and prophetic content (composed before Camping's double-down). Look again at those poor folks standing behind him.

Monday music: "A Celtic Medley," by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones

For Valerie (but you can enjoy it too):

Camping: artist needed

Were I an artist, I'd draw Harold Camping as tightly painted into a corner, a crowd of scared-looking poor souls clustered behind him, perhaps dressed in rags.

The room would be labeled "Echo Chamber."

On the large floor would be strewn a number of empty paint cans with labels such as "Arrogant," "Isolationist," "Unteachable," "Allegorist," "Uncorrectable," "Echo-chamber," "Wiser than God," "Recidivist," "Solipsist," and "Fool."

It would probably crowd the room too much to have a group of unopened cans outside of the painted mess labeled "Christ," "Gospel," "Discipleship," "Fear of God," and "Submissive teachability."

Any good artists with spare time in the audience?

Hither and thither 5/20/11

Welcome to a very animated H&T.

• Here you go — and, as you read just remember: whoever you are, wherever you are, I'm watching you. Always... watching...

• Mother themes continue here and there, even well after Mother's Day. Phil and I found some Spurgeon very worth sharing. For instance: "A man with a soul so dead as not to be moved by the sacred name of 'mother' is creation's blot."
• Every time I click on Jollyblogger's site (at least once a day) and see that David Wayne hasn't blogged, my concern for him deepens. His health news in late March frames his silence in my mind. I've tried contacting him variously by electronic and telephonic means, without success. Do keep him in your prayers. He's a good brother, a servant of Christ, a preacher of the Gospel.
• Zachary West pointed me to a story of a man accused of stealing some $10,000 worth of Legos. Yikes.
• A decade after the Netherlands created homosexual "marriage," how do family issues fare? William C. Duncan says that "gay marriages are relatively rare, marriage rates are down, divorce rates are stable, and the out-of-wedlock birthrate is continuing to climb."
• L, I B — someone made a projector (almost) completely out of Legos.
• Several (notably Fred) pointed to a hysterical video of a kitten and a scary, scary... tennis ball. (The music is perfect.)
• For my other readers, here's a pretty great dog video. (Thx Dawn Lewis)
• Julie found some office workers with far too much time on their hands:

• Hey Phil — can Wrigley do this?

• We could do an entire riff on how being good at one thing has nothing to do with being good at another. For instance, John Cleese was a very funny comic actor... who knows nothing whatever about Christ. Stephen Hawking is a widely-regarded physicist... which earns him zero credibility on the reality of God and heaven. N. T. Wright is famed for his studies in Second Temple Judaism... which in no way qualifies him to comment on the execution of bin Laden. Harold Egbert Camping earned a B. S. in Civil Engineering... which gives him zilch qualifications as a Bible teacher. I could go on and on. (Thx Joel Griffith, David Elliott.) 
• And now, in another bit of that literary beauty in which H&T specializes — it brings a tear to the eyes — we come full circle and have N. T. Wright criticizing Stephen Hawking for not knowing what he's talking about. Snif! Hankie!
• Again on Hawking, while Kirk Cameron (like all of us) may not be able to match IQs, he's wiser than Hawking in that he knows the difference between bald assertion and proof.
• All of that to say: "A man's got to know his limitations" (Det. Harry Callahan). Stick to what you know.
• Squirrel offers some very good observations and perspectives about Camping.
• It's even worse, actually. Dear, esteemed friend Mark Ostby pointed out to me that Camping's people took out a full-page ad in USA TODAY, in which the argument is advanced that those who affirm that the incarnate Christ did not know the hour of His return are committing the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. I am not kidding. Basis? "Son" is not capitalized in Greek. So, on the basis of that kind of exegesis, 99.99% of all professing Christians through all time are going to Hell, because Harold Camping (alone) says so. I. Am. Not. Kidding.
• (And just in case you didn't know, "Son" is never capitalized in the Greek manuscripts in any distinguishing way... nor is any other word.)
• Philosophical question: if raised-pinkie bloggers don't notice something, did it actually happen?
• A must-have:

• Professor Jim Hamilton certainly knows his Bible, and offers a helpful and thought-provoking post on how we should order the books in the Hebrew OT. Jim argues that we should follow the tradition of the Jews rather than the English tradition. Our tradition is literary (law, history, poetry, prophecy), and makes sense. Hamilton is like Sailhamer and a growing consensus in seeing the very order of the OT books as theologically significant.
• Important Safety Tip: be very careful when you conduct Mentos experiments:

• Byron York did an interesting profile of an interesting man: Herman Cain. None of the candidates "lights me up" at this point, but I do like that Cain has actual experience running things, fixing them and making them work. I also like his plain talk. That he did not have a pre-set "solution" on Afghanistan in itself doesn't bother me — but it was a gaffe. He should have been ready to say in effect, "Without knowing the classified information reserved for the CiC, I might make foolish and harmful statements such as candidate Obama made, which I would later have to eat, as he has. However, I can tell you that my philosophy and policy towards such engagements is _____." What concerns me more is the fact that the Presidency is not a good entry position; one doesn't want to know going in that there will be need for massive on-the-job training.
• On Gingrich, I'm with Russell Fuhrman, as well as Bill Bennett and others. See, here's the thing: it isn't that Newt has this one really bad idea, which he shared with the MSM. It's that Newt loves Newt, and Newt loves Newt's mouth, and Newt loves running Newt's mouth in ways that attract attention and awe. And as long as he's in the spotlight, he'll just do that. It's all about how he sees himself and is seen. He has no message-discipline, no focus on a larger goal. He is the larger goal. Baggage and braggage. No thanks. Next!
• Amazing what a blind spot Hugh Hewitt has for Mitt Romney.
• By contrast, Ronald Brownstein has a somewhat more clear-eyed discussion of Romney's "evangelical problem."  My problem with the article is its apparent assumption that being an evangelical means support from evangelicals. I never was for Huckabee, because he was too big-government, and his religious statements were foolish. That Romney adheres to a bizarre cult is a minus to me, but the deal-killer is the fact that he's never held office as a conservative, and I don't believe his "Des Moines Road" conversion.
• San Francisco "logic": abortion? No problem! Circumcision? No no no! (Thx Robert Sakovich)
• Did you know that Paul Ryan wants to push your grandmother off a cliff? It's true! I saw it in a video!
• The scary thing is that people spent money to make that piece of inanity, and there are actually people who will believe it.
• And that just makes me sad.

• Everybody knows about Al Mohler going after Harold Camping. I guess. But I prefer reading our beloved Trogdor on the subject. After all, Mohler would never start his essay on the befuddled near-nonagenarian by saying "a punk named Harold Camping is shooting his big mouth off about how the Bible supposedly guarantees that judgment day will be May 21." Stylistically, that's chow-de-dow.
• Another installment of Coffee As A Health Food.
• Reader Sue found the Mona Bacon; and she and Marla Beale found van Gogh's Bacony Night.
• Then there's this, from Pilgrim Mommy: candied bacon ice cream! Om nom nom!
• And if you find yourself staggering about in a bacon-induced haze, and you fall and hurt yourself, Martin Pitcher knows just the thing at Amazon.
• Hmmm, Amazon... say, is that the site that's accepting pre-orders for...?
• So, back to baco-genic injuries: if it's your honey who's injured, nothing says "Get well soon" like a lovely bouquet of bacon roses. (Thx Kirby Johnson)

• I don't think you have to have cared a fig about the "royal wedding" to appreciate this cartoon/photo pairing that Julie found for us:

• Your Tax Dollars At Work Alert: the government's CDC has issued a paper on preparing for a Zombie Apocalypse. I am not kidding. (Thx Robert Sakovich and Chris Carney)
• Well, it's easy to see why we can't cut spending. Everything is essential!
• Oh, and still on that subject (zombies), Chris Carney already has his Zombomobile all picked out:

• Name the two deadly sins on display here:

• Am I the only one who sees irony in this? There's a woman in Scotland who thinks she's a pastor of some kind ("Rev Canon Dr"). But she's disappointed because the electoral synod appointed a man as Bishop, instead of her. She'd had her heart set on becoming their first woman Bishop. So here's the irony: God Himself says she cannot and may not be a pastor. Yet she insists that she is, in defiance of His express will. But this body of mere mortals says she cannot and may not be their "bishop" at this time — and she submits to their will? Why not just proclaim herself the first female Bishop, and be done with it? See: irony.
• ...and reader William Dicks found a copy of the book that explains all about women:

• ...volume I, anyway.
• Now I'm Really Worried Alert. A general tells us that China is no match for the US military. A Chinese general tells us this. (Thx John)
• Dear wife and I have often marveled at the fact that Star Trek tricorders apparently can do anything. Now there's going to be a contest to develop a real-life tricorder, with a $10 million prize.
• And in conclusion: what's that sound on the stairs? Oh, don't worry. It's probably nothing.

• Bringing up these parting thoughts.

THE USUALS WILL BE OBSERVED

Harold Camping, the true Gospel, and hedged bets

My first point will be very obvious — so stay with me a tad longer, please.

Harold Camping says he and all Campingites (only) will be raptured on Saturday the 21st, and judgement day will come. (Does that make him pre-trib? Brr-r-r-r.)

In response, some of his followers have made radical changes in their lives. Some (like Robert Fitzpatrick, as well as numerous others) will be ruined if Camping is wrong yet again.

The obvious question I have never seen Camping forced to answer is: why hasn't Camping himself put his money where his mouth is?

If he's wrong yet again, he'll be humiliated. But Camping was humiliated before, and more than once — and he just went right on misleading and being misled. So what will this failure cost him?

To my mind, this fact is pretty eloquent. Were he truly convinced, he could show the world by going his followers one better and deeding off every last cent and penny and bit of real estate and business, effective May 22.

But he has not.

Now the Gospelly application.

I preach what I believe is the Biblical Gospel of the urgent need of every last man, woman and child to turn to Jesus Christ in repentant faith, to rest in Him alone for full and complete salvation, and to bury all notions of contributing a penny, a shilling, or a Euro to their own salvation. Jesus is all-sufficient Savior, Jesus plus nothing. That is what I preach, and that is what I believe.

Now, if you found me saying that just in case, I occasionally dropped by Roman Catholic churches to do confession and penance and salvific good works and stock up on some saving wafers; and just in case I bowed to Mecca ever so often and did a hajj or two, and just in case I lubed my karma every so often... what would you conclude about the genuineness, sincerity, integrity and singleness of my professed faith?

Sharp gal or fella that you are, you'd conclude that I was hedging my bets. You'd conclude that I was stocking up a Plan B, a Plan C, and a few other plans... just in case this whole Jesus-business didn't work out for me.

And you'd be right!

Because the truth is, I have no Plan B. If Jesus is not all that the Bible says He is, and if some other religion is right, I'm sunk. I have no backups. Jesus is it. All my eggs are in that basket.

See the tie-in?

Sure you do.

Harold Camping is not a false prophet

The tale of Harold Camping is that of a man who did not take sufficient heed to Romans 12:3 and James 3:1, propped up by people who haven't gotten the point of 1 Thessalonians 5:21 and Hebrews 10:19-25; 13:7 and 17.

Or, to turn our gaze downward to the secular wisdom of Harry Callahan, "A man's got to know his limitations."

Camping clearly doesn't.

You can read some of Camping's sad tale in the posts linked here, or see some of it in this piece:

See any Gospel in any of that? I don't.

One would think that Camping's put it all on the line in this, his latest shame. One would hope that he would be completely discredited after this coming Saturday.

But people are not machines, dispassionately processing data. After all, there are still Jehovah's Witnesses after their many false prophecies; there are still Roman Catholics after the Reformation. There will still be Campingites after Saturday. For "evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived" (2 Timothy 3:13), and "the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths" (2 Timothy 4:3-4). Ironically, those who refuse to yoke themselves to the fellowship and leadership of a local church will still subject themselves to a fool who makes fools of them (Proverbs 18:1; 2 Corinthians 11:20). Would that it weren't true, but it is.

So yeah, if Camping's followers had a fortieth of the wisdom God calls them to in books like Proverbs, they would demand that Camping prove his commitment by deeding all his assets to Phil Johnson or some sane person, effective May 22.

But then again, if they had a fortieth of that wisdom, they would have nothing to do with Harold Camping in the first place.

One more note: I know what people mean when they call Camping a "false prophet." He is not a false prophet, he is a false teacher. It may seem like an academic distinction, but it is an important one. Teaching falsities concerning prophecy does not make one a false prophet. Camping is not claiming to have direct personal revelation apart from Scripture, as far as I know. That is not what he does. Camping is not claiming to produce Scripture. What Camping does is to twist Scripture (2 Peter 3:16). There is a difference.

This, of course, is not a demotion. Being a false teacher is plenty bad enough. As Peter said, "false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction" (2 Peter 2:1). It is a matter of focus: were Camping a false prophet, we would need to train our guns on the notion of direct revelation and the sufficiency of Scripture.

As it is, we're faced with a matter of raging, irresponsible, unaccountable incompetence.

Deeper and more relevant than it means to be

Now, class, tell me why I say that.

(Hey: I figure, if I have some of the smartest commenters on The Intrawebs, why not let them shine?)

Monday music: "Four Seasons" selection, David Evangelista and Manuel Iradian

You know I like to change-up styles, while still occasionally keeping to a progression. It's the "eclectic" thing to do. So, from last week's nouveau-Celtic, we turn to... nouveau-Classical!

Hither and thither 5/13/11

FINALLY, Blogger is back up. Here's the into I had at the WordPress site; now we can continue here.

Well, gang, Blogger is still down. This is an unused blog I've had mothballed for a while, from when I was considering a move to WordPress. It's a temporary thing, to "hide you over" (as one of my children used to put it) while Blogger figures out how to clean up its mess and who should be fired.

A Godsend of sorts: I just found that I'd left the post open at my work pc! I'll copy it over and put it up here until I can post it at Blogger, and edit it. The usuals will still apply. So here's what I've got for you:

• First... a graphic history of the Emerging Church movement?

• EC motto: Semper Dilabens.
• (For a bit o' background on the animation, see here. On dilabens, see here.)
• Now, my BIG BIG news! I have been cleared to let you know that my book, The World-Tilting Gospel, is available for pre-order in case you're interested. You can see it here at the Kregel site.  You can also see (and "like," if you like) at the Amazon site.  (NOTE that Amazon has instructions about what to do if you want a Kindle edition. Not here, please, I've got nothing to do with that.) It's also at Christianbook.com. And British readers can see it here. Exciting to the point of numbness. If you choose to like, Facebook, Tweet or any of the other things those pages offer, thanks!
• Meanwhile, I think it was thoughtful of cultist Mitt Romney to clear a cluttered field by removing his name from serious consideration as a GOP candidate. Bravo, Mitt — and loodle-oo!
• Dr. Jim Hamilton says: preach the whole psalm! (I add: read the whole psalm, if you're reading Scripture in church.)
• As I've said, I think the PCUSA (the "mainline" Presbyterian denomination) jumped the shark when it defrocked J. Gresham Machen. That was a long time ago. Now the denomination formally states that  submitting to Christ's Lordship and pursuing homosexual cravings are compatible. Remember: you support a PCUSA church, you support that. Feet vote.
• Al Mohler adds a few thoughts.
• By contrast: m'man Jim Hamilton points us to the CBMW evaluation of NIV 2011. Their conclusion is that the "new" NIV retains 75% of the TNIV's agenda-driven twistings of gender, and that it hoses out some verses (prominently 1 Timothy 2:12) in a feminist direction. Thus: "We regret, therefore, that we cannot recommend the 2011 NIV as a sufficiently reliable English translation. And unless Zondervan changes its mind and keeps the current edition of the 1984 NIV in print, the 2011 NIV will soon be the only edition of the NIV that is available. Therefore, unless Zondervan changes its mind, we cannot recommend the NIV itself."
• Just Glue Them Directly To Your Stomach and Arteries Alert:

• Mike Vlach provides a helpful summary of a just-concluded seminar on dispensationalism. Wish I'd been in it! Then a followup did a summary of an eschatology seminar. Common theme to both is the importance of holding that the NT does not reinterpret the Old. I see no honest, consistent way around the conclusion that to assert that the NT reinterprets OT text is to impugn God's honesty in order to prop up a tradition.
• Reminder: never trust AP polls. Never.
• Reason #8505 for homeschooling (or some alternative to state reeducation camps).
• Homeschoolers (and others) will thank me for this. (Back-story.)
• BTW, I suppose occasional reminders of the following facts are salutary. I do not think that GOP legislators are definitionally good legislators. Some are idiots who are unclear on the concept. Like this guy. I'm just saying that one party is occasionally supportive of values distinctively dear to Christians, and is regularly hostile to those same values.
• OTOH, it is good to know that the GOP has gone on-record as opposed to federal grants to mimes.
• This prompted Mark Steyn to wonder whether an all-star awareness-raising song would be called Proud to Be a Dole Mimer's Daughter. Then a reader of his also mused as to whether a groundswell of popular support for federally-funded mimes would be called The Silent Majority.
• The theme of moms has recurred this week in my writing here and there. Now I read of a mom I really like: loves her son, doesn't love his choices, stands for her (apparently Christian) principles. My family will always know her son as the voice of "Kronk" in the hysterically funny Emperor's New Groove.
• My cyber-friend pastor Chris Brauns voices what I am sure is one of the very deepest fears of every faithful pastor. In my own ministry I have always felt that I would rather rattle a genuine believer a bit, than give false comfort to a deluded tare.
• Irony Alert: President Obama said, "Our heritage as a nation of immigrants is part of what has always made America strong. Out of many, one -- that is our creed." Aww, how nice. The irony? He said it at the Hispanic Prayer Breakfast! (From an alert I received, believe it or not, from the "White House Media Affairs Office.")
• Since it's been a while since we've had a Robot Invasion Update, let's just close on that note, shall we?

• Then these: