Allan R. Bevere

Faith in the Public Square

2012-02-29T14:00:00.001-05:00

My friend Bob Cornwall's book, Faith in the Public Square: Living Faithfully in 21st Century America is now available for pre-order. I am looking forward to reading it and reviewing it on this blog.

Bob and I are not always on the same page on this subject, but I like reading what he thinks. His arguments are always clear and thought-provoking.

Check back here for the review, and check out the book here.

Change Is Coming...

2012-02-29T06:54:00.001-05:00

...May 19-20. You may register here. Resources are also available.

I ask all United Methodists to consider attending this important event.

Theological Reflection and Church Vitality

2012-02-28T12:08:00.000-05:00

John Meunier is spot on in this post:

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I know this argument is already over. I know it is settled. I know no one who matters will listen, but I cannot escape the conviction that the thing we most need as a church is the thing that has been ruled off the table by the Call to Action and all its related programs and initiatives. We've been told that theology is irrelevant to congregational vitality, and so it is unimportant. Indeed, it is divisive to talk about it because it will only lead to disagreements that will bog us down. Leave theology to theologians.

As a congenital conflict-avoider I understand that impulse. I really do. But if I know anything at all about the state of the United Methodist Church, it is that our theological fog is killing us.

Tell me a time when the church has been vibrant — not this or that congregation blessed by a charismatic pastor but the church. Tell me a time when the church has been vibrant without a burning theological vision of its mission and purpose? Show me a revival, an awakening, a reformation that was not at its heart fueled by a passionate conviction about God and God’s purposes and God’s people.

Yes, yes. John Wesley said "think and let think." But when he said that he was talking of outsiders. He was trying to get critics to lay off his movement. This same tolerant John Wesley had no doubts at all about the reason God had raised up Methodists. He might say having right opinions had nothing to do with true religion, but he had passionate the powerful opinions about what it meant to be a Christian, a real Christian, and he lived that out to his dying day. Methodism was born of theological passion.

Where is our passion? Where is our fire? Do we believe the world needs Jesus Christ? Will we sacrifice our lives for that? Will we sacrifice our pension plans? Would we go hungry or to prison for it? Would we stand in a field while drunks threw rocks and mud clods at us?

Reading the Bible Is Dangerous Business

2012-02-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

Steven James has written a powerful post on CNN's Belief Blog entitled, "Stop sugarcoating the Bible." Below are some excerpts. What do you think?

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The Bible is a gritty book. Very raw. Very real. It deals with people just like us, just as needy and screwed up as we are, encountering a God who would rather die than spend eternity without them.

Yet despite that, it seems like Christians are uncomfortable with how earthy the Bible really is. They feel the need to tidy up God.

God's message was not meant to be run through some arbitrary, holier-than-thou politeness filter. He intended the Bible to speak to people where they're at, caught up in the stark reality of life on a fractured planet.

And rather than shy away from difficult and painful topics, the Old Testament includes vivid descriptions of murder, cannibalism, witchcraft, dismemberment, torture, rape, idolatry, erotic sex and animal sacrifice. According to St. Paul, those stories were written as examples and warnings for us (1 Corinthians 10:11). So obviously they were meant to be retold without editing out all the things we don't consider nice or agreeable.

I find it encouraging that Jesus never came across as pietistic. In fact, he was never accused of being too religious; instead he partied so much that he was accused of being a drunkard and a glutton (Matthew 11:19).

Jesus never said, "The Kingdom of God is like a church service that goes on and on forever and never ends." He said the kingdom was like a homecoming celebration, a wedding, a party, a feast to which all are invited.

This idea was too radical for the religious leaders of his day. They were more concerned about etiquette, manners, traditions and religious rituals than about partying with Jesus. And that's why they missed out.

That's why we miss out.

We don’t need to edit God. We need to let him be the author of our new lives.

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Check out the entire post, here.

The Irrationality of Politics

2012-02-27T14:00:00.003-05:00

Rationality in politics is hard work and the reward for rationality is not worth the effort. Take heed all you partisans on the left who only tune in to MSNBC, and all you partisans on the right who only watch FOX News. You are engaging in the irrational.

HT: Michael Kruse

We Are Not Mistakers-- We Are Sinners

2012-02-27T07:00:00.003-05:00

I'm not OK and you're not OK. There is something wrong with us. Yes, it is true that we human beings have been made in the image of God, but that image is distorted. We are not what we should be. For awhile now it has been fashionable not to use the word "sin" too much. We don't sin anymore. We make mistakes. Viewing my shortcomings as mistakes sounds less ominous, and using such verbiage allows me to believe that the problem with me is not me; it's a few bad decisions I make here and there, as if those decisions really do not indicate the problem with me.

Then into our mistake veneered lives comes Lent, and we must face the truth about ourselves-- we are sinners. The house of our lives doesn't only need a little paint here and some new moldings there... anything less than renovation is insufficient. In Jesus Christ God wants to do a new work in us that is transformative in character. The work needed is so extensive only God can do it. As I heard someone say years ago, "If I'm OK and you're OK, why did Jesus need to go to the cross?"

I realize that there are some preachers out there who spend so much time in their sermons talking about the bad news of our sin, that they never seem to get around to the good news. Such a lopsided proclamation of the gospel leads only to despair and its own kind of legalism. But it is not a better thing when some other preachers spend so much time talking about the good news that one has no idea what the bad news is or if any news about the human condition is bad at all. Indeed, it's only until we understand the bad news about ourselves that the true wonder of the good news can come into focus. Once we hear the bad news about ourselves we can receive with joy the great news of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.

We can celebrate that God has freed us once we realize that our situation, our prison of sin, is of such that only God can free us. The cross was not an accident; it was not, in the words of the late John Howard Yoder, a hurdle on the way to the Kingdom... the cross of Jesus Christ is God's kingdom come.

We cannot have Easter without Good Friday. The truth of the depth of God's love for us cannot be understood nor embraced in all of its wonder and mystery until we face the truth about ourselves.

We are not OK... We are not "mistakers"... we are sinners.

Lent at the Movies: The Temptation of Jesus

2012-02-26T14:00:00.000-05:00

From Jesus (1999)

Scriptures and Prayer for the First Sunday in Lent

2012-02-26T07:00:00.000-05:00

Old Testament: Genesis 9:8-17

Epistle: 1 Peter 3:18-22

Gospel: Mark 1:9-15

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God of wilderness and water, your Son was baptized and tempted as we are. Guide us through this season, that we may not avoid struggle, but open ourselves to blessing, through the cleansing depths of repentance and the heaven-rending words of the Spirit. Amen.

Taking a Break From Sleep

2012-02-25T15:00:00.003-05:00

By Stephanie Hegarty

BBC World Service

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We often worry about lying awake in the middle of the night - but it could be good for you. A growing body of evidence from both science and history suggests that the eight-hour sleep may be unnatural.
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In the early 1990s, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted an experiment in which a group of people were plunged into darkness for 14 hours every day for a month.
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It took some time for their sleep to regulate but by the fourth week the subjects had settled into a very distinct sleeping pattern. They slept first for four hours, then woke for one or two hours before falling into a second four-hour sleep.
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Though sleep scientists were impressed by the study, among the general public the idea that we must sleep for eight consecutive hours persists.
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In 2001, historian Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech published a seminal paper, drawn from 16 years of research, revealing a wealth of historical evidence that humans used to sleep in two distinct chunks.
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His book At Day's Close: Night in Times Past, published four years later, unearths more than 500 references to a segmented sleeping pattern - in diaries, court records, medical books and literature, from Homer's Odyssey to an anthropological account of modern tribes in Nigeria.

Much like the experience of Wehr's subjects, these references describe a first sleep which began about two hours after dusk, followed by waking period of one or two hours and then a second sleep.
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"It's not just the number of references - it is the way they refer to it, as if it was common knowledge," Ekirch says.

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You can read the entire article, "The Myth of the Eight-Hour Sleep," here.

God and Science in Three Parts

2012-02-25T08:00:00.003-05:00

Great stuff from John Polkinghorne

On Being Catholic-- From a Protestant Bystander

2012-02-24T14:00:00.005-05:00

By Stanley Hauerwas

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The nature and mission of the Church, the relationship between Church and world, the role of Scripture and tradition, the question of teaching authority (the Magisterium) within the Christian community, the connection between teaching authority and theological exploration, the meaning of doctrine and dogma--the Roman Catholic Church is working through these questions on behalf of the entire Christian community. Of course there are other Christian communities addressing these questions. Some communities, however, are not capable of that. Much of liberal Protestantism has lost the points of reference, even the vocabulary, required for deliberation and debate on such questions. Most of conservative Protestantism, especially fundamentalist Protestantism, is not aware of the questions."

[Catholics] changed when [they] came to America. By "came" I mean when Catholics took up the project of being Americans rather than Catholics who happen to live in America. For when you came to America for the first time you had to live in a culture that was based on Protestant presuppositions and habits now transformed by Enlightenment ideologies. For the first time you had to live in a society which was putatively Christian and yet in which you were not "at home." The church knew how to live in cultures that were completely foreign--in India and Japan--but how do you learn to live in America? A culture which at once looked Christian but may in fact be more foreign than China.

For example, you came to America thinking that societies had the obligation to educate children about the true and the good. Yet confronted by putative neutral public education that presumed that everyone agreed that church and state ought to be separated, you were forced to build your own school system. Where else would Catholics learn that the life of the mind could not and should not be separated from the life of prayer? I do not wish to be misunderstood. I am aware that there were many reasons--not the least of which being Protestant anti-Catholicism which is still more virulent than Catholics generally are willing to acknowledge--for Catholics to live in ghettoes. Nor do I wish to invite you to wallow in romantic nostalgia for the oftentimes wonderful and terrible forms of life those ghettoes produced. Rather I simply want to call your attention to the sociological form that seemed necessary to sustain the Catholic project of a natural law moral theology.

Of course the problem for Catholics is no longer how to survive in a hostile environment dominated by Protestant and Enlightenment presupposition. Now the great Problem is how to survive liberal tolerance. Until recently you could depend on Protestant prejudice to keep Catholics Catholic -- i.e., it may not be clear what it means to be Catholic, but at least Catholics could depend on Protestants to tell them why they were peculiar. However, as Protestants have become increasingly unclear what it means for them to be Protestant, it has become equally difficult to know-- at least in matters moral--what difference it means to be Catholic. From a Protestant perspective, an long as we are characterized by a generalized uncertainty about what we are about it just seems to be a matter of courtesy to invite Catholics to become part of our amorphous search for identity.

This is a particularly dangerous situation for everyone. Catholics desiring to show they have a positive attitude toward Protestants end up telling Protestants what we already know--e.g., that moral matters such as abortion and divorce are extremely complex so it is very hard to have predetermined moral stances about such issues. But if Catholics, thus, end up telling Protestants what they already know consider the plight of Protestants. We end up telling secularists what they already know. Strange results for traditions that are called into the world on the presumption they have something to say that the world needs to hear.

In short, one of my worries is not that Catholics will fail to be ecumenical, but when they come to cooperate with Protestants they will have become what we already are-- that is, a denomination. In his book The Restructuring of American Religion, Robert Wuthnow documents the decline of mainstream Protestantism in America. He confirms what I think many have sensed-- that members of Protestant churches now depend less on belief in the particular theological and ecclesial heritage of that denomination than on how that religious organization provides a means for individuals to express their particular interests. Therefore American Protestants are no longer determined by whether they are Presbyterians or Methodists, but by whether they are "conservatives" or "liberals" within their denominations. Moreover, the meaning of "conservative" and "liberal" is determined primarily in terms of the options of the American political system rather than by theological and moral questions.

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You can read Stanley Hauerwas' entire address, "The Importance of Being Catholic: Unsolicited Advice from a Protestant Bystander," here.

United Methodists, Catholics, and Religious Liberty

2012-02-24T07:00:00.002-05:00

United Methodist professor and blogger, Richard Heyduck responds to Jim Winkler on the HHS Conscience Clause. Richard is spot on. He writes,

How would United Methodists feel if they were required to use their apportionments to fund the construction of new casinos and weapon systems? Would we just say, "Caesar says we have to do it, so we’ll be good citizens and pony up the cash?"

I'm half tempted to add my own editorial, but I have been in the fray long enough. It is time for some other voices.

Richard's entire post can be read here.

The Prodigal Daughter Gets a Party!

2012-02-23T14:00:00.002-05:00

Practicing a Forgiveness that Travels Both Ways

2012-02-23T07:00:00.001-05:00

...it must surely be admitted that the restoration of relationships requires not only forgiveness on the part of the offended but also the penitent willingness to be forgiven on the part of the offender. Thus R.C. Moberly interpreted the sacrifice of Christ in terms of the offering of perfect penitence by Jesus as the inclusive representative of all humanity.* The notion of inclusive representation responds to the need for a universal objective atonement. Some theologians will find this difficult and unnecessary, but certainly God's forgiveness comes alive for every sinner when he turns to God in penitence. The sign and effect of our willingness to be forgiven by God is our willingness to forgive others: the prayer 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us' implies that the lesson of the parable of the unforgiving servant has been learnt (Matthew 18:21-35). To forgive those who have wounded us is to grow into the moral and spiritual likeness of God. 'Be merciful, even as you Father is merciful' (Luke 6:35-38): that is a translation of 'perfection'.**

These words from Geoffrey Wainwright remind us of the dangers of observing Lent in a rampantly individualistic Western culture. Lenten discipline can all too often degenerate into a self-centered spiritual navel gazing instead of being a further step along the way of discipleship of becoming centrally focused on Jesus Christ and oriented toward others. From Genesis to Revelation the Bible continues to remind us that our biggest problem as human beings is ourselves, our central focus is ourselves, and all too often we attempt healing and reconciliation and restoration through ourselves. Only in a self-centered society can books be written that are labeled "self-help."
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One of the areas where our self-centered spiritual navel gazing comes into focus is in reference to forgiveness. As we examine our lives during Lent we seek forgiveness, as well we should. But forgiveness works both ways. We must not forget that Scripture not only comforts us with the possibility of our own forgiveness, but demands that we stand ready to forgive others. To forgive is indeed "to grow into the spiritual and moral likeness of God."

But forgiving can be difficult. We sure want to receive forgiveness when we know we need it, but to forgive those who ask us... that can be asking too much depending upon how greatly we believe we have been wronged. Perhaps our difficulty in forgiving is found in the unspoken assumption that the sins of others are more grievous than our own. Perhaps in a culture where it has become commonplace to demonize those who believe differently than we do, whose politics is other than our own, whose selfish motivations are labeled as nefarious whereas ours are simply mistaken... in that kind of culture it can be so very hard to forgive.

I reject accounts of salvation that are highly individualistic and framed in terms of self-fulfillment. The deeply ingrained human problem is that we are too much into ourselves-- and self-centered, self-fulfilling accounts of the gospel seriously undermine the central reason Jesus came to die-- to get humanity out of itself, to take our gaze off our own nakedness in Adam and Eve-like fashion and return our vision heavenward. Reconciliation is impossible when human beings are too busy examining their own spiritual navels, focused only on what they believe they want and need. Just as the alcoholic cannot get help until she realizes the answer lay outside herself, so Christ cannot begin his work in us until we admit that our salvation must come from the outside. The problem Christians face is that while they may understand that their justification comes from the outside, for all practical purposes they act as if their sanctification comes from within and from under their own power. So during Lent, we contemplate and pray and read Scripture, which are all necessary to be sure, but we forget that Lent is another place along the journey of moving toward the perfection that God has for us that is less and less about us and more and more about God and others. Lenten discipline should be just as much concerned with works of service as it is with prayer and meditation.

To receive forgiveness is a great blessing. To offer it is also a blessing... and a sign that we are spiritually and morally becoming more like God.

During this season of Lent, we would do well to practice a forgiveness that travels both ways; for the sake of others, and for ours as well. We will be much better off with a divine focus and with less obsessing over our unspiritual navel lint.

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*R.C. Moberly, Atonement and Personality. London: Murray, 1901.

**G. Wainwright, Doxology: The Praise of God in Worship, Doctrine, and Life. New York: Oxford, 1980, p. 76

Wednesdays With Wright: The Book of Acts, 8

2012-02-22T14:00:00.003-05:00

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Wednesdays With Wright: The Book of Acts, 7

Wednesdays With Wright: The Book of Acts, 6
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Wednesdays With Wright: The Book of Acts, 5

Wednesdays With Wright: The Book of Acts, 4

Wednesdays With Wright: The Book of Acts, 3

Wednesdays With Wright: The Book of Acts, 2

Wednesdays With Wright: The Book of Acts, 1

Ash Wednesday and Creeping Mortality

2012-02-22T07:00:00.090-05:00

Three weeks ago I celebrated my fiftieth birthday, or as I like to refer to it, my half a century. I am still relatively young (although my children think I'm done for) and I feel good and I am generally healthy. But there is not a week that goes by that something happens that reminds me I am fifty years old and not thirty. The weight does not come off as easily as it used to. When I get a good workout in at the gym, I feel it in my joints the next day. When I am working with my tools in the garage, I have to wear my reading glasses in order to use a screwdriver or a hammer. My hair is not as brown as it used to be. The gray is creeping in slowly but surely. And I find myself to be generally more cautious in my life. And anyone who knows me knows that is quite a change-- I, who have been described as one who rushes in where angels fear to tread.

I don't spend much time thinking about my own death, though I know it will come sooner or later. I am well aware of the aging process going on within me and being noticed by me (and others) on the outside. Such aging is a reminder of my own mortality, which I pray will come much later than sooner, only because there is much more in life I want to experience, and because I believe God has not yet finished with me. But I know that there is no guarantee of anything. And in the big picture of things, that's OK.

In one sense my creeping mortality is a blessing. It serves to remind me of what's important. The older I get the things that seemed so trivial when I was younger, are more important. I have a sense of urgency to accomplish things I did have not when I was thirty. I am more impatient when it comes to some matters and more patient with others. My aging reminds me of my mortality, and in so doing it also serves as a teacher. There is no age when one is too old to learn. Sadly, there are too many persons who die before they get to experience their creeping mortality; taken away much too early. So, I must remember to be thankful for the experience of aging. Not all get to journey with their mortality into old age.
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As the ashes are placed on our foreheads this day, we are reminded that we are dust and yet Christ has redeemed us. I am doubly blessed this day: to know that Christ has redeemed me, and to journey with Jesus and my mortality toward the end God has in mind for me. Moreover, in this fiftieth season of Lent for me, I know that while I am hopefully going on to perfection, I have definitely not yet arrived. There is more of God's re-creation in store for me, and I must pray and study and serve and submit.
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Remember that you are dust. Remember that Christ has redeemed you.

Secrets Kept Silent in the Church

2012-02-21T17:12:00.002-05:00

Walter Brueggemann on Romans 12:

The Roots of Mardi Gras

2012-02-21T07:00:00.000-05:00

From American Catholic.org

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Mardi Gras, literally "Fat Tuesday," has grown in popularity in recent years as a raucous, sometimes hedonistic event. But its roots lie in the Christian calendar, as the "last hurrah" before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. That's why the enormous party in New Orleans, for example, ends abruptly at midnight on Tuesday, with battalions of streetsweepers pushing the crowds out of the French Quarter towards home.

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Tone Down the Rhetoric on Rhetoric

2012-02-20T07:00:00.003-05:00

I confess it is a pet peeve of mine, but I strongly dislike the negative connotations now associated with the word "rhetoric," particularly as it is currently used in the realm of politics. It is often employed whenever any political debate gets loud and personal. One side tells the other to tone down the rhetoric. Of course, both sides of the political aisle regularly engage in such negative "rhetoric," but I wish the term wasn't used by anyone as a synonym to refer to incendiary verbiage.

Merriam-Webster defines rhetoric as the art of speaking or writing effectively. Dr. L. Kip Wheeler writes the following about rhetoric:

Rhetoric is the ancient art of argumentation and discourse. When we write or speak to convince others of what we believe, we are "rhetors." When we analyze the way rhetoric works, we are "rhetoricians." The earliest known studies of rhetoric come from the Golden Age, when philosophers of ancient Greece discussed logos, ethos, and pathos. Writers in the Roman Empire adapted and modified the Greek ideas. Across the centuries, medieval civilizations also adapted and modified the theories of rhetoric. Even today, many consider the study of rhetoric a central part of a liberal arts education.

St. Augustine taught rhetoric in Milan. Prior to his conversion, the future bishop of Hippo found the persuasive arguments of Bishop Ambrose commending the Christian faith to be instrumental in his conversion to Christianity. In all of his theological works, Augustine not only paid attention to the substance of the argument he was presenting, but to the style, to the art of persuasion in the making of the argument. Substance or the "what" of the argument is crucial, but so is rhetoric, the "how" of the argument, or to put it less awkwardly, how the argument is made.

Rhetoric is critical in the art of persuasion. We recognize this when we comment on someone who says something that does not come out quite right. "It's not what was said; it's how it was said." When we make such a claim we are criticizing someone's lack of rhetorical skills.

So, it seems to me that we should reserve this wonderful term "rhetoric," as it has been traditionally used, and rescue it from politicians and their loyal pundits who could use a little training in the art of the word they use too often and so shabbily; after all, there aren't too many good synonyms for rhetoric in its classical sense, but there are plenty of words that can replace what it is that politicians and their loyal minions often engage in, and it is not the art of persuasion.

Perhaps the best synonym for those kinds of arguments is "demagoguery."

Stanley Hauerwas on the Tranfiguration of Jesus

2012-02-19T17:16:00.000-05:00

At the transfiguration the disciples get a glimpse of the glory of the Son of Man – the Son who was with the Father on the seventh day and the Son who will be with the Father on the last day. John Howard Yoder observes that the confession that the Messiah has been placed by God above and not within the cosmology and culture of the world means that under his lordship the cosmos finds its true meaning and coherence. In Colossians the powers are rightly understood to be not merely defeated but reenlisted in their original purpose to praise God. In the Revelation of John the logos, the rationality of the universe and of history, is not only dethroned but is put to work illuminating the work of the martyrs. Yoder continues:

To know that the Lamb who was slain was worthy to receive power not only enables his disciples to face martyrdom when they must; it also enables his disciples to go about their daily crafts and trades, to do their duties as parents and neighbors, without be driven to despair by cosmic doubt. Even before the broken world can be made whole by the Second Coming, the witnesses to the first coming – through the very fact that they proclaim Christ above the powers, the Son above the angels – are enabled to go on proleptically in the redemption of creation. Only this evangelical Christology can found a truly transformationist approach to culture. We still do not see that the world has been set straight. We still have no proof that it right is right. We still have not found a bridge or a way to leap from historical uncertainty to some other more solid base that would oblige people to believe or make our own believing sure. "As it is, we do not see everything in subjection to him. But we do see Jesus, revealing the grace of God by tasting death for everyone." (Heb. 2:8-9). (Yoder 1984, 61)

When the disciples fall to the ground in fear after hearing the voice of the Father, Jesus touches them and tells them not to be afraid. Jesus' touch is significant. By touching them Jesus reminds them that the very one who is declared by a voice from heaven to be the Son is flesh and blood. In this man heaven and earth are joined. As a result, the earth is transformed, made bright and shining, "charged with the grandeur of God," as Hopkins wrote. The transfiguration heralds the new creation, reconstituting not only our lives but existence itself. As it is, we do not yet see that all is complete, but with the disciples we do see Jesus.

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Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew. Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker), 2007.

Scriptures and Prayer for Transfiguration Sunday

2012-02-19T07:00:00.001-05:00

Old Testament: 2 Kings 2:1-12

Epistle: 2 Corinthians 4:3-6

Gospel: Mark 9:2-9

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Holy God, mighty and immortal, you are beyond our knowing, yet we see your glory in the face of Jesus Christ, whose compassion illumines the world. Transform us into the likeness of the love of Christ, who renewed our humanity so that we may share in his divinity, the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who live and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Church Is Not the Society of the Saved

2012-02-18T17:00:00.000-05:00

If you haven't read Scot McKnight's The King Jesus Gospel, you need to do so.

Some Randomly Not Necessarily Connected Thoughts

2012-02-18T07:00:00.002-05:00

Some say that preaching is a thing of the past in a postmodern context. The suggestion is that perhaps it should instead give way to a weekly discussion/focus group. I'm all for discussion, but it seems to me that the act of preaching is one of the few events that reminds us that the authority of Scripture is found in the One (God) who gives the Word and not in the personal preferences of the hearer.

I remain convinced that the biggest doctrinal deficiency in the Protestant Church in America is not Christological but ecclesiological. Nowhere is this more clearly seen of late than in the HHS Conscience Clause controversy.

Why is it that some Christians are so interested in attempting to read the so-called signs of the Second Coming of Christ? Are we not content to leave the end in the hands of God? Do we not trust God? And do we really want to know when everything will end anyway? To me that's like wanting to know the time and day of one's death.

I love lobster. I wish it wasn't so expensive. In colonial America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries lobster was cheap, plentiful, and was often consumed by the poor. I sure wish that were true today. I say, "Let them eat liver!"

Apparently CNN has cancelled its next scheduled Republican Presidential Debate due to the fact that Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have said they are done debating. This is a good thing. How much more can be said than what has been said already? It's reminiscent of the church meeting that goes longer than an hour. Nothing new gets said after that; it's all repetition. Moreover, if the Republican contenders are tired of it all who can blame them?

President Obama recently revealed his singing ability at a speaking engagement. He sounded pretty good. You know, Mr. President, even if you win re-election, after four more years your political career will be done. After all, where can you go from the White House? If I were you, I'd be negotiating recording contracts right now. You need to do something in retirement.

I love the theology of Søren Kiekegaard. He is one of my favorite theologians. If he were here today, I suspect that neither Christians on the political left or the right would be very happy with him.

Speaking of theology, Martin Luther said that after theology, music was God's greatest gift. I admire those who put the great theological claims of the church to melody and harmony. Their work is indispensable.

I dislike the negative connotations now associated with the term "rhetoric" as in "political rhetoric" or "tone down the rhetoric." Traditionally rhetoric refers to the art of writing and speaking effectively. In that sense rhetoric is not the term I would use to refer to today's political discourse.

I must confess, I have never thought much of the idea of being well-rounded, as in we want to expose our children to all kinds of experiences so they can be well-rounded.That sounds to me like psychological-ese for making our children compliant to the status quo. Jesus was not well-rounded. The Apostle Paul was not well-rounded. Well-rounded people don't get executed by the authorities.

The biggest threat to the church in the West is materialism. The more Christians have a stake in their stuff and the powers that be that ensure they can keep their stuff, the more the radical claims of the gospel are perceived by believers as... well... radical.

To finish on a lighter note, years ago I saw on the sign of a certain Cash Baptist Church that read, "God takes credit." Hmmm....

Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction 2012.2: Fighting Certain Fires Can Really Make You Hungry

2012-02-17T08:37:00.003-05:00

Pa. smokehouse fire 'best-smelling in long time'
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From Associated Press

February 15, 2012 10:50 AM EST

NEW CASTLE, Pa. (AP) — Firefighters in Pennsylvania have managed to save 200 pounds of Polish sausage from what they're calling the best-smelling fire they've doused in years.
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The New Castle News reports that firefighters responded about 11:30 a.m. Monday when a 20-by-20-foot smokehouse caught fire in the yard of Cash Koszela (koh-ZEL'-uh). He's a retired meat cutter who's been smoking his own sausage for about 30 years.
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Firefighters say some grease caught fire when the smokehouse got too hot — about 300 degrees.
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Koszela says it will cost about $3,000 to replace the smokehouse. It's actually a tin-lined walk-in cooler fed by smoke piped in from a fire pit.
.

Assistant Fire Chief David Joseph says, "This is definitely the best-smelling fire we've seen in a long time."

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Information from: New Castle News, http://www.ncnewsonline.com

Album Covers of the Past

2012-02-16T08:26:00.001-05:00

From the days of the leisure suit...