15 iHe is the image of jthe invisible God, kthe firstborn of all creation. 16 For by6 him all things were created, lin heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether mthrones or ndominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created othrough him and for him. 17 And phe is before all things, and in him all things qhold together. 18 And rhe is the head of the body, the church. He is sthe beginning, tthe firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For uin him all the vfullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and wthrough him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, xmaking peace yby the blood of his cross. (Text from the ESV, biblia.com)

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To begin, the Dove World Outreach Center has a website, but it is currently unavailable. This can only mean that the otherworldly-ness of the church is further made evident – in that they are otherwise occupied. Since this is a humorous study, we will proceed with information from the always reliable source, Wikipedia.

One need only look at the name of this organization to begin to see what they are obviously about. The first word “Dove” is a symbol of peace. But, in this era of postmodernism, descriptors are always deeper than they seem, and usually hidden behind layers of irony. So, one can confidently deduce that this is an ironic statement of the organization’s militancy. The following word “world” is obviously farcical in that the organization only has 50 members, all of which are local. Once again, irony is in play… “Outreach” is made up of two words the head noun being “reach”, and the modifying noun “out.” In the 1990′s there was a popular commercial by AT&T which used the phrase “reach out and touch someone,” which became a popular phrase on ESPN‘s SportCenter for describing big impacts in football or other sports. Obviously Jones is a master of cultural symbolism, as he has employed the nostalgic pop-culture meaning of this phrase to describe the mission of his organization. The last word, “center” brings to mind “center time” which is a way of learning in primary school. This is a tacit way of pointing out that the location in Florida serves as a training base.

The DWOC is supposedly made up of and led by Islamaphobes. Some people in the USA are scared that Islamic militants will disguise themselves as Christians, only to set things on fire (like Sept 11^th 2001). Interestingly, the DWOC has been seen placing signs which seem to be anti-Islam and wearing T-shirts which are anti-Islam. One can only wonder why this supposed Christian group is so bent on signs which talk about Islam. Are they a sleeper cell? Let’s go another layer deeper. They also pledged unwavering support for a controversial Baptist Church. That pledge seems almost transparent in crying out “look we are Christians!!”. So it appears that this organization may well fit the mold of an Islaamic Sleeper cell, based upon the name which appears to be a poorly hidden ironic statement of their purpose, and from their actions which are easily read as poor attempts to proclaim Islam while attempting to condemn it.

So in holding a “burn a Koran day” and a future “burn a Talmud day”, what are they hoping to accomplish? Are these people finally going to reveal their identity as a sleeper cell and set fire to something? I’m not so sure. An impartial outsider (required by the scientific method) focused on results could only conclude that the DWOC is attempting to unite people of all faiths. They have single handedly succeeded in bringing together Evangelicals, Catholics, Muslims, and Jews.

So it seems that the Dove World Outreach Center is a poorly run sleeper cell, which has only succeeded in uniting people of every faith against something.

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In our country you can burn the flag, burn books, burn bibles (strangely these were Christians who did it), etc. Yet, I’m not sure what sort of message that is supposed to send. If it is supposed to communicate “I hate ____” then wouldn’t it just be easier to verbally say it? I guess it is meant to desecrate the item in question. Still, I don’t see how that really goes beyond anything you could verbally say.

I think the guy is a little goofy, but he has the right to burn the Quran in the United States. What I don’t understand is why the media, and public leaders are making a big deal out of it. He’s going to do it either way. If the USA were to just offhandedly dismiss it as some goofball doing something crazy, to me that would send the same message of condemnation, but bring it less attention. If they are truly worried about the reaction of the Islamic world, then they should want to downplay the situation as much as possible, while still condemning it. So, I don’t understand all the public figures going on National (perhaps even international) TV to denounce this act. It seems to make the situation worse.

To me this situation seems no less outrageous than what happened in Austrailia in 2006, with Islamic students desecrating Bibles. While it is a political tragedy, I don’t see how it really communicates anything that wasn’t already public knowledge. There will always be people like Terry Jones who are looking for publicity, and if All the Kings Horses and Men go on TV denouncing it, then he gets his publicity.  Islam does not think the Bible is a real holy book, and Christianity doesn’t see the Koran as true. We all know that already, so what do these stunts prove? Nothing. As a Christian, I sure wouldn’t do what Terry Jones is going to do. I just don’t see the purpose in it, or how any good comes of it. But, he does have the right as an American to burn anything he wants, so long as he is not endangering people at the site of the fire (I sort of wonder if this will be enlarged to include soldiers? – I hope not that would open the door to government controlling people more).

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“Under the letter grade proposal, an average vehicle on fuel efficiency and emissions would receive a B-. Electric vehicles would receive an A+, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles would earn an A and three gas-electric hybrids — the Ford Fusion Hybrid, Honda Civic Hybrid and Toyota Prius — would get an A-. The best-selling passenger car in America, the Toyota Camry, would receive a B or a B-, depending on the vehicle’s engine. Hybrid versions of the Camry would earn a B+. The top-selling pickup truck, the Ford F-150, would receive a C+ or a C, based on the engine variant.” (FROM ARTICLE)

I wonder what grade this URINE POWERED vehicle would get…

Where did they get this picture? 1992?

Report card style stickers will take a bit for me to get used to. Especially since most cars that I would consider buying will be in the A- or B+ category. Maybe its all my years as a student, but I want an A!!! I think that’s what the government is hoping for, some sort of sub-conscious desire to get an A.

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So there are a few pictures to spark your ideas. Remember, as soon as grass goes dormant, you can start digging and preparing beds for gardening!!

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Finally Rain!!

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This book

The work progresses from J.P. Gabler’s address up to the present age. He chooses to describe the progression in terms of segments of history rather than trajectories of ideas. For example, there is a chapter on the 18^th century developments followed by a chapter on the 19^th century developments. Each chapter contains moderately lengthy essays on different scholars and their own contributions. There is some attention to identifying scholarly trajectories, but the emphasis is on the historical development.

The book is a plodding read, and is mainly useful as a reference work, because of the fact that this grew out of a Ph.D. Dissertation – yet it is of excellent quality as an overview. The bibliography is excellent in this book, though there have been many developments since the book’s writing. It seems that Leo Purdue’s The Collapse of History, and later Reconstructing Old Testament Theology after the Collapse of History attempt to fill a need for a more recent work of this sort, though Purdue approaches the matter from a much different perspective. I would say that any student of the graduate level in the field should read this book.

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If one assumes that the supernatural does not exist, arriving at Hawking’s conclusion seems inevitable. Yet, if one grants the miraculous,  then Hawking’s conclusions don’t seem to make sense. How can the universe’s system of physics govern something that does not exist? If the laws of physics produced the universe, then how did they exist before the existence of the universe? It’s not the best logic. I used to really like Hawking, and admire his genius, but no longer can I admire

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Still, Hasel’s basic proposals at the end of the book are very much debated. One should probably think of the final chapter as “one man’s way of working through the issues”, and not a conclusive decision for the field. The work is very lacking in how one incorporates literary theory into doing OT theology. The idea reading the Bible as literature, or utilizing theory in reading, goes untouched in this book, though many (often sub-par) theologies have made use of these methods lately (Segovia, Oduyoye, Kwok, etc.).

FULL REVIEW

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