A great line

From Jonah Goldberg:

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, borrowing a line from Obama, complained that John McCain wants to give “$4 billion in tax breaks for Big Oil?”

No. McCain wants to lower the corporate tax rate to make us more competitive with our rivals. Yes, oil companies are included — but by this logic (as my colleague Ramesh Ponnuru notes), Obama's middle-class tax cut will be a tax break for hookers and serial killers.
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I think that is hilarious. I think all political dialogue should consist of portraying the opponent's position in as misleading a way as possible.

Wandering

Like a stranger in a foreign land.

But our citizenship is heaven.

And we eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our earthly bodies.

What does all this mean?

I used a time machine to go to the future and brought back an article!

Church uses "doctrine" to draw new crowd
Friday, April 14, 2024
By Suzanne Sataline, The Wall Street Journal

While studying a Greek lexicon, Jim Walker, the co-pastor of Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community, sips from a ceramic mug full of French Roast coffee. "I like to brew it at home because it saves money," commented Walker. In fact, Walker is almost never seen with that traditional mark of a pastor--the paper latte cup.

But then, nothing is traditional at Hot Metal Bridge except the name. The church is an eclectic group of young people and old people. One looks in vain for tattoos, odd piercings, and dark-rimmed glasses.

Only the teaching elders preach at Hot Metal Bridge. Mr. Walker, an ordained Methodist minister, leads the church with his friend Jeff Eddings, a Presbyterian seminarian. "Instead of coming to our church and watching a overly edited video, you can hear an exegetical sermon," Mr. Walker says. On Sunday when many ministers all over the country will be complaining about church attendance the rest of the year, Hot Metal will be grappling with where to put the 300 people who pack the Goodwill Industries cafeteria every Sunday.

Hot Metal Bridge is part of the "returgent" church movement that rejects fluid orthodoxy and strives to not use hip language or pop culture to draw in young Americans who think attending church means sitting in a room filled with candles and watching old Simpson's clips.

Some ministries have sprung up around a central interest, such as theology. One Minneapolis group attracts those who love to pray. A Los Angeles group favors deep worship. In New York, the Communion of the Arts hopes artists will flock to its first Sunday service on Easter in Times Square. Leadership Network, a Dallas-based church consulting firm, says about 1,000 congregations define themselves as part of the movement.

The movement was embraced in the 2010s by Third World evangelical Protestants. In recent years, it has captured the attention of U.S. denominations desperate to stanch a decline in membership. Hot Metal Bridge is a Methodist/Presbyterian Federated Church and gets grants from both denominations.

Thomas Bickerton, the Methodist bishop of western Pennsylvania, says churches like Hot Metal are the future of religion. He admits the "lost" crowd the pastors aimed to reach, coupled with the focus on doctrine, made some Methodist church leaders nervous. But, he says, "We've reached a point where the younger generation needs to learn the value of submission and obedience."

Short-term grants from the Methodists and the Pittsburgh presbytery fund Hot Metal, a $200,000,000-a-year enterprise. Mr. Bickerton wants the Methodists to open more ministries in the next year.

Critics of the returgent movement include fundamentalists who say such churches veer too far from the normal use of drama and finger painting, or reject it altogether. Brian McLaren, a professor emeritus at Wheaton Evangelical Divinity School in Wheaton, Ill., does not scorn all returgent churches, but he is wary that they promote a return to the authority of the Word, with a focus on the gospel. "If ... you make God more than just your therapist," he says, "somewhere along the line people's self-esteem may be compromised."

Doctrine is a teaching tool, the Hot Metal pastors say. Jason Sluka says doctrine saved his life. A 28-year-old alcoholic and cocaine addict who was jailed after he accidentally set fire to his apartment, he heard Mr. Eddings preach a sermon full of God's wrath at sinners exercised instead against Christ. "He made me bawl my eyes out," says Mr. Sluka, eight months sober, who talks regularly with Mr. Eddings. "I should be dead 400 times over. But the imputed righteousness of Christ is my only hope now." He hopes to be a volunteer minister when he finishes his alcohol treatment program at the Salvation Army.

Most of Mr. Walker's sermons explore Biblical doctrine with a surprising lack of pop culture and modern-day skepticism. It is odd seeing a pastor dressed in a conservative navy blue suit on a Sunday morning. Absent are the usual flip-flops, jeans, and ironic t-shirt...

Some thoughts

1. Golly, I've gone to a lot of weddings lately. All my friends and family are getting married. It is not a bad thing. The pastor of the wedding I went to today said the following:

Some have the gift of singleness, but for most it is God's will that each man should have his wife and each woman her husband.

That's a good thing to remember. Singleness is blessed, but marriage is blessed as well. The will of God rules over each.

2. I love the way Jerry Bridges spells out trusting God. It takes a threefold knowledge and a threefold belief. First, in the sovereignty of God over all things. If God is in control, than he is able to bring about all that is in his will. Second, in the wisdom of God in its perfection. If God is perfectly wise, than his will is guided towards the end he sets for it, and which his power effects. Third, in the love of God in Christ towards the elect. If God's love is known, than his power, perfectly guided by his wisdom, can always be trusted.

3. I have been thinking lately about a phrase much-loved by John Owen, and taken from II Corinthians 4: the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. It is slightly mysterious, in my opinion, one of those phrases in Scripture we tend to skip over as some variable phrasing, the exuberance of Paul spilling over into a muddled way of saying "saving knowledge."

But the context is dominated by two things: light and beholding. Set before us are the unbelievers, who are blinded by "the god of this age." There is darkness. But God, the God of light, who in his initial moment of creation said, "Let there be light," has again shed light in out hearts, that we might behold something new.

"the glory of God in the face of Christ."

4. I am reading Revelation again, this time with more clarity and a larger view of its structure. Some passages stubbornly remain obscure, most particularly, the millennium reign.

5. Certain things keep coming up in my heart, and my connection to the world is at the center of them. Scriptures emerge:

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world was crucified to me, and I to the world.

Remember the heights from which you have fallen!

I remember those days when I first knew Jesus, the joy and intensity of my love, the sheer wonder of grace! Unmerited favor, him my sin, I his righteousness! These things have been refreshed lately, because the glory of God in the face of Christ is set before my afresh, the knowledge to which his Church alone has access, by faith.

6. Why would anyone want to diminish or shun this glorious doctrine, set before us so clearly in the Word? Why when all good is presented, all joy, all hope?

Here is love, vast as the ocean
Loving kindness as a flood
When the prince of life our ransom
Shed for us His precious blood!

On Watching the Olympics "Live"

Usain Bolt won the men's 200 gold, setting the world record in the process. This will be broadcast tonight during prime-time on NBC as if it were live. In fact, NBC might even put a little "live" graphic up in the corner.

Despite the fact that many events can be easily broadcast live, NBC chooses to rebroadcast them on tape delay during prime-time. This is not a bad idea, and it used to work well, even as late as the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. But now, the internet has made a mockery of it. All the "major" results, the meat of NBC's prime-time schedule, are shown on the front page of every news and sports website in America.

Now, I know I'm not the only person who checks sports online about once a day. In fact, I think most people in America visit some sort of news site at least once a day. This should drain all the drama out of the Olympics, and in fact, it sometimes does. But usually I enjoy "watching how it happened," especially in the case of gymnastics.

The only annoying thing was the other night, when NBC, near the end of its broadcast, played a short bit about how the Olympics were causing people to stay up late because they wanted to see how it ended. Then Costas said that this was caused by the time difference! They showed a light-hearted video of people talking about how they were staying up really late in order to see the gymnastics final, etc. This was ridiculous. The gymnastics final had been broadcast on significant tape delay--almost 12 hours! The results had been available online for a long time. People's sleeping problems don't come from the time differences, but from NBC's decision to have it end at 11:30 at night instead of earlier.

A Startling Scenario

What if...

In 2000, a young, charismatic senator named Barack Obama is campaigning in California on the day of the California Presidential Primary. Over the course of the day, there are no less than three assassination attempts. Due to his courage in the face of these attempts and his vow to continue campaigning, he is easily elected, defeating George Bush in every state except Texas and South Carolina. Immediately after his election, scandal breaks out when it is revealed that Michelle Obama has not seen or spoken to her husband since the assassination attempts. The first 100 days of his presidency are darkened by the divorce proceedings--first ever for a US President.

But all this is forgotten one year later. A daring terrorist attack is foiled, but the entire nation is brought to the brink of war. Only the firm leadership of Obama amidst mutiny in his own staff and cabinet prevent the war, when it is revealed that the evidence linking several Middle Eastern countries to the attacks was faked. As the nation rejoices, it is shocked by a daring attempt on President Obama's life. In the midst of meeting the press, Obama glances at his hand in horror as a poison begins to eat at his skin. Some wonder if it was retribution for his dismissal of his loyal chief of staff, Mike McTurtle.

In the summer of 2004, his health restored and accompanied by his closest advisor, his brother Mahmoud, President Obama travels to California for the first of three scheduled debates with his Republican challenger, Senator Tom Coburn. Polls place Obama in a double-digit lead. However, scandal surrounding his ex-wife Michelle immediately increases when she is discovered dead at the house of a campaign donor. Mahmoud Obama was found at the scene of the crime along with his ex-lover, who quickly admits to the crime. In the midst of the crippling scandal, and perhaps wearied by another terrorist attack, this time killing nearly 100 people in a crowded office building, President Obama abruptly announces that he will not seek re-election.

This startling news throws the party into turmoil, and the Coburn/Bush ticket easily wins re-election. Obama moves into quiet retirement, although observers note that his home in the DC suburbs is only a 15 drive from his old home on Pennsylvania Avenue.

In summer of 2005, the nations is shocked to wake up to news that the Secretary of Defense has been kidnapped. Although he and his daughter are quickly recovered, the news is followed quickly that evening by a report that Air Force One had been shot out of the sky by a rogue Air Force pilot, apparently in the pay of an Al-Queada cell. President Coburn is found alive a short time later, but he is severely injured (he will in fact die from his wounds in only a few days) Vice-President Bush is forced into action, and asked to make decisions he is not qualified to make. Secretly, he calls in Former President Obama, whose sure hand guides the nation through the crisis. Obama, super-patriot, allows Bush to claim all the credit.

In late spring of 2007, the nations is again shocked, this time by the fifth and final assassination attempt on former President Barack Obama. This time, however, the attack is successful. The nation is stunned, but this is only a prelude. The next day, during a live press conference, President Bush is arrested and placed under Secret Service custody. Later that day, he resigns. He answers no questions, and in fact is never publicly accused of any crime. But many whisper that he had a hand in the death of Obama. In addition, Laura Bush almost immediately files for divorce, only to move in with a member of the Secret Service.

The Republican party in turmoil, Mahmoud Obama is approached by a coterie of special interest groups and Democratic party officials who convince him to run for president. The Republican party still stained by the Bush scandal, the Obama name rides a crest of sympathy votes into office.

In early 2008, the nation is again stunned, this time by a small nuclear explosion, killing nearly 10,000 people. Later that day, during a press conference held to announce a significant step towards finding the group responsible, a bomb explodes, sending the President into a coma. Although he later awakes, and in fact makes several vital decisions, his health remains precarious. During a live speech broadcast on every station, the president suffers a stroke, his speech breaking down into stuttering and incoherence before falling sideways off of the podium.

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What do you think of that scenario? What would the condition of the nation be if that happened???

Exciting News

I am delighted to announce that I am an uncle. I have a little nephew, born to my brother and sister yesterday, named Bentley John Crawford. I am excited to meet this little guy, and I will be praying for him and for the parents. Congratulations guys!

Amidst the Olympic Brou-ha-ha

It should be noted that the two members of the Chinese women's gymnastics team are almost certainly too young to be competing. The minimum age is 16, and both were listed in media reports repeatedly over the last few years as being around two years younger.

The Chinese, of course, issued them fake passports. The IOC says that a government passport is "significant proof of age." That basically means that any government that wants to break age rules can do so simply by issuing their gymnasts false passports.

This makes me angry.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn Died

Read this:

Speech at Harvard Commencement, 1978

Bidding Farewell to Tucson

I was hanging out with an old friend of mine the other day, a fellow who has recently moved to Tucson. His name is Chris Anderson, a like-minded soul who enjoys sitting at Starbucks, reading, and gently discussing this and that. He said something that made me unexpectedly happy.

See, we were walking down University Boulevard. I turned to him and said, "I love this street." He said, "I do too!"

Golly. Tucson has been my home now for about four years, long enough for me to want to defend against those lousy Californians who would deprecate it. I won't defend it at length now, because it will just bore you. Instead, I will just list some of my favorite spots...

1. University Starbucks

I was estimating today how many quiet times I have done there. I think it is close to 500. There have been two other spots where I have done quiet times consistently. Espresso Art is one, and Grant and Swan Starbucks is another.

2. Speaking of...Espresso Art

It began simply. I was taking a winter session class. None of my friends were in town. So I bought several books and began to spend every afternoon finishing my homework and reading. Espresso Art was a logical choice. Eventually I became so consistent that they posted a photo of me on the wall. Later, after Starbucks stole my affection, I returned to Espresso Art for hookah. Nothing will beat the memories that Eric, David, Matt and I shared there.

3. The porch of my house on University Blvd.

Remember the birth of story time here? Rich and I had many a good conversation here. I remember crying here one night, alone, not in pain but in joy. I remember reading all of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows here over the course of a hot summer afternoon.

4. The University of Arizona campus

Countless hours spent here, but the ones that stick out were spent praying on the second floor of Old Main. Then also, that hour on Saturday evenings when dusk settles in.

5. Bison Witches

According to their website, they actually have four locations: Tempe, Tucson, Oklahoma, and Nebraska. After my third trip I settled into a routine from which I never again wavered: Beef and Brie on Wheat, New England Clam Chowder, and a bag of Salt and Vinegar chips.

6. The Adam's house

These were my Tucson parents, who had me over for Sunday dinner almost every Sunday from spring of 2005 until summer of 2006. They were mentors and friends. And of course, their children, Jenn, Ben, and Sara are dear to me.

Maybe I will write more later.

Things that annoy me

1. Rob Bell's prose style

Here is a sample:

"He promises to send his Spirit to guide them and give them powers, but Jesus himself leave the future of the movement in their hands. And he doesn’t stick around to make sure they don’t screw it up. He’s gone. He trusts that they can actually do it.

God has an incredibly high view of people. God believes that people are capable of amazing things.

I have been told that I need to believe in Jesus. Which is a good thing. But what I am learning is that Jesus believe in me"

This is an oft-quoted passage from Velvet Elvis, mainly because it is based on a radical re-interpretation of the story of Jesus walking on the water (a radically wrong re-interpretation, by the way). Why do I think this is bad prose style? Read it. It is cheesy, cutesy, devoid of humor and logic, ignorantly humanistic.

Perhaps the most annoying thing is the way that Bell is ignorant of the historical philosophies that underpine his beliefs. He thinks that he has come up with them himself somehow. He is not new, not original. What is unique is that he has managed to package these ideas so that they are palatable to the masses.

2. Friends

The show. I do enjoy having them.

3. Ok so, maybe this list was artifically created for me to express annoyance at Rob Bell.