Jayson Whelpley

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill

2010-03-11T16:47:17Z

I’ve been thinking about posting something related to this bill for a while now. As a person in Christian ministry who has supporters who cover the whole spectrum of social conservatives to social progressives, I have felt that weighing in here for the world to see may be a bad idea. I’ve talked about it in conversations where I can talk through the nuances of my view at length, but things on the internet can blow up in ways that are often uncontrollable.

After seeing this, I had to.

This video outlines the points of the bill that talk about the death penalty that is associated with it. I’ve been opposed to the bill since I first heard about it, but as someone who is not Ugandan and doesn’t know any Ugandans I didn’t feel that it was an opinion that I could do anything with. But, now I wanted to post this in light of the video post I added the other day where pastor John Piper talks about the fact that Christians have no basis to impose the death penalty for offenses against morality. This bill is being backed by a number of “Evangelical” leaders from the United States!

Even if I wasn’t opposed to the banning of homosexuality on a legal level, the vagueness of the bill and its obtuse range of offenses that can lead to the death penalty makes it nothing less than a travesty of any country’s legal system.

Cinema’s New Lowest Common Denominator

2010-03-10T00:58:47Z

This will be the new highest grossing movie of all time.

This happened in January

2010-03-08T22:24:48Z

: Student loan statement.

But it’s still beautiful when a student loan dies.

We’re officially debt free!

Piper: How Could God Kill Women and Children? (Video)

2010-03-05T17:21:50Z

For my second video post in a row, I want to share a video from a series where people submit difficult questions to be answered by John Piper. For anyone who follows me on Twitter or reads this blog regularly, you know that I’m a fan of John Piper’s teaching (though I don’t agree with everything he says).

In this video he answers a common question that even I sometimes struggle reconciling. I agree wholeheartedly with how he addresses the question. You need to watch it all the way to the end.

Reactions?

Twitter Weekly Digest for 2010-03-07

2010-03-07T22:56:00Z

New tip at CruTech: USCM.org email on Gmail: Go to your settings and then accounts/import. For your USCM email se… http://bit.ly/aYl0zP #
Just got some free @starbucks certificates because I emailed them about a bad experience in one of their shops. Free coffee is good coffee! #
Free books from @christianaudio! "The Cost of Discipleship" (Bonhoeffer) & "Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die" (Piper) http://bit.ly/Wua3R #
Reflections on Dobson's retirement. By Matthew Paul Turner: http://bit.ly/95hf3p #
Crap, I feel like I was supposed to have lunch w someone today or tomorrow… Thursday? I can't think of who. Maybe I'm just losing my mind. #
INBOX: 6 (which is better than the 101 that it was yesterday). Still no signs of my ghost-appointment. #
Dude who plays Keamey = Christpher Walken – 25 years + lots of muscle #
Folksy & the Chin: worst show ever. #teamcoco #
Just reported a jam on I- 66, Idylwood VA. Slow. http://bit.ly/a1duyb using @waze – Social GPS. #
Stupid iPhone Google sync is down. I have no contacts or calendar items now. #
Chillin. I love this place's coffee. — at Chinatown Coffee http://gowal.la/s/7yy #
Getting some plugs. (@ Rick's Tattoos) http://4sq.com/9LK7Zc #
Heading to meet the Cabal for some Diner breakfast, convo, bible and maybe some prayer. /via @shradar #
Where does one obtain "Getting It" certification? Are there classes? Can I audit the class? Does life experience count toward credit? #
Columbia Study on Cigar & Pipe Smoking Corrupt Misuse of Junk Science: http://bit.ly/aq8ABM #
Computer was recognizing iPhone as either a camera OR in iTunes, not both. Here's the fix (for you & future reference) http://bit.ly/cKI1Vj #

Signposts of Fundamentalism (Video)

2010-03-05T17:00:59Z

I came across this excerpt from a sermon that Mark Driscoll preached last week (I think) on Luke 5:12-26 where Jesus heals people and upsets the Pharisees. At this point Driscoll takes an aside to point out some of the signpost of what Fundamentalists tend to be.

I like these. I think he may contradict himself about quoting a person a lot and (mis?)quoting the Bible a lot, but I get his point.

What do you think of his definitions?

Also it is really fun to watch the first 5 seconds muted… it’s an awesome little dance.

Is display:none cheating?

2010-03-04T21:42:30Z

So, I’ve been doing a lot of web design stuff lately and I have this thing that I do that feels like cheating.

Sometimes I can’t find that code that is inserting something onto the page, I look through plugins and themes and everything and I can’t find where this little snippet or that little image is coming from. So I figure out what the code is that surrounds it, I head into my CSS editor and I add a little bit of code:

display: none;

Guess, what it does! It makes it not show up on the page. It’s still there if you turn the CSS off or if you look at the code, but it doesn’t show up.

Two questions:

Is it cheating?
Does this provide some sort of deep insight on how I look at the world and edit my life accordingly but allow the things to still be there under the surface?

CNN: Liberalism, atheism… linked to IQ

2010-02-27T18:25:21Z

I saw a link to this article on the CNN Twitter feed. I’d suggest reading it, but I’ll just jump into it:

Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on [political, religious and sexual] behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs.

Well, this is going to make for some fun conversations on campus. I just hope that it doesn’t turn into an a dicto simpliciter fallacy in conversations which would go something like:

Well, you know that more intelligent people tend to be atheists. I am an atheist and therefore I must be more intelligent than you.

Honestly, I already see this argument in conversations all the time. Even as you read the comments on the article you come across statements like:

If you believe in fairy tales please deduct 10 points from your I.Q. Thank You.

As a liberal, vegetarian athiest who has witnessed the rise of the Republican-sponsored Tea Party movement and Sarah Palin, I have to agree with these findings. ; )

Even more disturbing is that the people who don’t like the findings are also making that (il)logical jump:

Then I guess the Founding fathers were complete idiots with single digit IQ’s.

I have been blessed with an average iq of 171 and I am extremely conservative, believe strongly in God and disagree at nearly all ends on the results of their study…

In reality, I’m not at all disturbed by these findings. For one, I know my IQ score and while I’m not a tool enough to brag about it I’ve not been found “wanting,” and I am sure that I apply intelligence to my faith and into understanding it and understanding the arguments for it. Also, this is something that Paul predicted more than 1,900 years ago.

Romans 1:22 Claiming to be wise, the became fools.

The verse does not say that intelligent people are not intelligent. Also, it doesn’t say that they have lost their intelligence, or that they will all of a sudden lose whatever knowledge or ideas they have. What it is saying is that people choose to honor God or not when they see glimpses of Him. We’ve all glimpsed the transcendent and we decide whether or not we want to look into it or attempt to explain it away. This is what the Bible calls “foolish.” One of the researcher’s statements from the CNN article even claims that it’s a choice:

Bailey also said that these preferences may stem from a desire to show superiority or elitism, which also has to do with IQ. In fact, aligning oneself with “unconventional” philosophies such as liberalism or atheism may be “ways to communicate to everyone that you’re pretty smart,” he said.

The Privilege of my Past Week

2010-02-27T18:26:36Z

People Whom I’ve Had the Privilege of Hanging Out With in the Last Week:

Iona Shradar
Stacy Shradar
Stacy’s Husband/Iona’s Dad
The Maines
Ben Todd
Adrienne Bruins
Darren Cogan
Other people at Ben’s b-day thing
My wife (my favorite)
John Boggs (on the phone)
My Parents (on the phone/Skype)
Sean Miller
War of Ages
- Alex Hamp
- Leroy Hamp
The Great Commission
Living Sacrifice
The George Mason Cru Team
Leslie Bridge (x2)
Randy Newman (x3)
Pam Newman (x2)
Jake Tarr
Steph Sonnett
AU Students
- Erin
- Anna
- Mark
- Efrain
- Megan
Darrell & Tajah (next-door neighbors)
Amaad

This has been a great week. I like all of these people a lot.

Oh, and we may add two or four more people in about an hour.

Shelby Abbott on our Significance

2010-02-25T21:51:16Z

Friend and funny-man Shelby Abbott has a sweet ministry that primarily uses humor as a tool to point to the Gospel. He is not only funny though, when he branches into serious stuff he’s no slouch there either.

This week he reflected on the Olympics and how we find our worth and value.

I caught a short interview with downhill skier, Lindsay Vonn before the Olympics started this year, and she casually said something that made me pause and think more deeply about where our significance comes from and what I really believe success is in light of my view of God. In the midst of answering a few questions from an NBC reporter, she said, “who am I if I’m not a skier?”

…

The Olympics have opened my eyes to how much value we place on performance. Notice I said we. I am 100% guilty of validating my life based upon how good I’ve performed in a given situation. But after connecting with the truth that God accepts me for who I am (a [wretched] sinner, saved by the perfection of Jesus Christ alone), my performance barometer begins to loose its effect when I think about what kind of person I am.

He’s so right. It doesn’t matter what we find our significance in: good work, being a skier, a father, a husband, a wife, a minister, a missionary – they all fall short. If our value is based in anything but the ultimate, in anything but the love and value of God then we are placing value in things that are (in the end) of no value next to the invaluable glory of God and his salvation!

Check out the rest of Shelby’s site at: ShelbyAbbott.com (we both have the same creative streak in naming our sites).