John Kerry's Joke

I just saw a video of John Kerry saying that you can either make something of yourself by working hard in school, or ending up in Iraq. The White House and others have demanded that he apologize for this.

Mr. Kerry and the Democrats in general claim that this was a lame joke that didn't work. Watch the video for yourself watching Mr. Kerry's body language and the expression on his face. Now, goto YouTube and enter the search term "stand up comic," and watch ANYBODY, noting his body language.

Now look at Mr. Kerry's video again. Does it look to you like Mr. Kerry is telling a joke?

Mary and I just got back from a quick trip to The Double JJ Resort. Jane is at college and Dan was gone to Stratford, Ontario for the weekend. So, we hooked up my new (to me) trailer and took off on a shakedown cruise, figuring out how to most efficiently take a quick camping weekend vacation.

This Double JJ Resort place is a themed resort. They have a golf course. I don't golf. Horseback riding is a big thing there. Neither Mary nor I do any horseback riding. We picked this place mostly b/c P.J. Hoffmaster State Park wanted us to stay for more than just one night. But it was pretty cool.

A lot of families with kids were there. We were surprised at how many people were camping in the RV park. But the main thing is the Western theme of cowboys and horses and stuff like that. It was an amusing and relaxing time.

As we're leaving, Mary remarked about the cultural tension she felt. We were both raised in the country with a fair bit of farming going on around us. But she admitted that she just felt like she didn't fit in; she's a city girl now. I agreed. It's sort of interesting to see this subculture, but isn't me.

Then I said, "You know, our former Pastor at Trinity would just love this place." Mary emphatically agreed. We both could see him fitting in there perfectly.

He left Trinity for more reasons than I know, but I think it was simply a matter of flexibility and fitting. He's the kind of guy who'll stand for what's right and not back down. That's good. But Trinity wasn't a cowboy church in the country. Trinity is an American church in the 21st century suburbs. Across from Trinity sit a number of newly built MacMansions filled with families carrying quarter-million-dollar mortgages.

We just heard that our former pastor has taken a church in a rural area in the Michigan "thumb." I hope he does well. I hope he's got a country church where the cultural attitudes of his parishoners match his temperament.

Driving back from Double JJ's, I thought about two groups of people. There's Pew Warmers like me who help out in church when asked. Then there's Joe Random Neighbor, living in that MacMansion, who has no idea what this church thing is about.

It's my job as Pew Warmer to bloom where I'm planted. It is my responsibility to adapt to whatever culture my church presents to me. At my new church, Blythefield Hills Baptist, they occasionally have the "dancing girls" who do some liturgical dance thing. It's cultural, alien to my sensibilities, but neither good nor bad. I don't know if Joe Random Neighbor sees the liturgical dance and thinks, "I understand Christianity much more clearly now," or not. It had better, or it's wasted motion. I have compromise at this point, because there's nothing in the Bible that says this is good or evil.

But things are different for Joe Random Neighbor. He might step in the door of my church to see what's going on. If he sees a bunch of cowboy kitsch, he might get the idea Christianity is some kinda quaint backwards cult--a bigger version of the Amish. I don't know what he thinks of the cultural divide, but I don't think it's essential to Christianity.

My job as an Evangelical Christian is to express Christianity as accurately as I can. Jesus spoke in Aramaic, but I speak in English. I have to translate the truth of Christianity into the language, grammar, metaphors and memes that Joe Random Neighbor will understand. This means accommodating my neighbor, tailoring my message to make sure he understands the essential message uncluttered by my cultural accretions.

Christians need to evaluate our own culture and their neighbors' culture to ascertain which things are good, which things are bad, and which things are neutral. If we find things in our culture that are bad, we need to repent of them. If we find things in our neighbor's culture that are bad, we need to preach against them. But those neutral things in the middle--cowboy kitsch or dancing girls, we need to evaluate whether they advance our goals. If my neighbor isn't into cowboy kitsch, I should drop it. If my neighbor comes to my church expecting liturgical dance, fine then.

Christianity provides value to Christians and the Christian message can provide value to Joe Random Neighbor. I think we have to demonstrate and deliver that value to "buy credibility" with him and so that he'll listen when we talk about God's justice and mercy.

So, Was That A Sign?

When I stay up too late, I get sucked into useless activities. So, I was going through YouTube videos and I saw something from Westboro Baptist Church. They are the folks who hold up signs at funerals saying people are going to hell. (I was going to link to a photo, but that'd probably be overkill.)

So, I watched the video that I presume came from these people, and they have this girl who's smiling and matter-of-factly talking about how "you're going to hell" while playing a slide show of people holding similar signs with big smiles on their faces. All the while she's describing the whole thing with a smile on her face and a smile in her voice.

I'm a 5-point Calvinist, and this kid is quoting Romans 9 to me, and I'm thinking, "yeah, that's true" (in part). But another part of me is thinking, "have you read the book of life? How do you know your name is written therein?" I believe this business about God choosing who he'll be merciful to, and who he'll give grace to. I believe there's only two things people encounter after death: mercy or justice. There's mercy in Christ and there's justice for everyone else.

I believe in asymmetrical, double-predestination, which means God has a good idea to whom he'll offer the Effectual Call of the gospel in the context of my or someone else's preaching of the Universal Call of the gospel. I also believe God hasn't told me everything he knows. I suspect that God hasn't told the girl from Westboro Baptist Church everything he knows, too.

We live in a world that's "virtually arminian" in that God never tells us the details of his decrees, how his predestination works out. From our perspective, contingency is undeniable, because from our perspective God keeps some secrets.

One of those secrets is that book of life the Bible talks about. It talks about the judgement and the books being opened then. They aren't open now. I don't know whether God has numbered the folks at Westboro Baptist Church among elect; I don't know whether he hasn't, either.

It's incredibly arrogant to tell folks they're going to hell, because we just never know absolutely. There's grace. With grace you get mercy and you get heaven. Without grace you get justice and you get what you deserve. Who gives grace or not? It isn't the girl from Westboro Baptist Church, but God.

We can know with some degree of likelihood whether someone is in a state of grace or not. If I don't fool myself about the state of my heart, I can believe and my faith is counted to me for righteousness. That's faith alone: Romans 5. But I don't know what's in the heart of that girl from Westboro Baptist Church. I don't know if she really believes what she's saying or whether she's just faking it, gaming her family like teenagers are wont. Or maybe loving God not one wit, but only loving her self enough to dream up some rationalization that'll make her think she'll escape hell. I don't know. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. It's between her and God.

Jesus had something to say on the subject. He was asked what's the bottom line of God's law: the one-sentence summary of the OT perpetually binding moral obligations on all mankind. He said the first commandment is to love God and to love mankind. How can you love God that you have not seen, but hate his image-bearers (humanity) that you do see?

The book of James talks about how the devils know that God exists and that Jesus is God's son. But they are not loyal to him and they don't obey him. James is a practical book and its intended to give humans practical advice. He says that a man is justified, and I think he means here justified before other men, by his faith and his works. You can fake what's in your heart, but if I look at your life and your good works, I can infer whether your faith is just lipservice or not. Good works means law keeping and law keeping include that pesky love stuff Jesus was talking about.

They say that Christians can only be fruit inspectors: does a person's life bear fruit of good works or not? Based on that we stand or fall in each other's opinion. The only opinion that counts is God's and that depends upon the state of your heart.

So, what got me on this riff was right after the girl from Westboro Baptist Church got done saying for the zillionth time, "You're going to hell..."

ALL THE LIGHTS WENT OUT IN MY HOUSE.

The timing was absolutely perfect. It was spooky, like one of those moments when you wonder if the Rapture just happened. There I sat in the dark with my laptop running on batteries glowing in the dark and I see that kid smiling and saying I'm going to hell.

So, was that a sign? Am I going to hell? I like to tell folks my favorite Amish aphorism is, "If you want to know if I'm a Christian, ask my neighbor."

The World Of Tomorrow

I liked to explore the property across the road from my house when I was growing up. This was OK because my favorite aunt & uncle owned the place, but they lived in Chicago and the place across the street lay vacant. There was a fallen down barn, a basement-house, and a couple out-buildings. I was poking around the loft in one of the out-buildings and I found some old books and magazines. The books were Hardy Boys and Tarzan and I devoured them. Then I turned to the magazines.

They were Popular Mechanix magazines that dated from the early 1950s. I found them quite interesting and read them intently. Thought of those magazines makes me feel quite nostalgic.

Thus, I was amused when I saw that someone had linked an article they'd scanned in from a 1950 Popular Mechanix entitled,
"Miracles You'll See In The Next 50 Years." I was surprised and pleased to see that I actually remembered reading this magazine when I was a teenager. At that time (the early '70s) the predictions were a little funky, but nowhere near as odd as they are today.

When I was a kid I read all the Science Fiction I could get my hands on. And I knew that the future would be full of cool stuff like nuclear powered flying cars and jet packs. No mention of personal computers or the internet, though. That's the problem, back in the 50s and 60s a Science Fiction writer had a pretty good chance of making some really accurate predictions as well as some really unrealistic ones. People remember things where SF got close, like the Apollo project. People forget where SF really missed the mark, like flying cars.

The things that made such dandy plot devices for the SF of my youth have proven fairly intractible. And other things the Golden Age SF writer found unthinkable are widely deployed. For example, we have computers all over the place, but does any of them do speech recognition like you see Mr. Spock talk to the ship's computer on Star Trek? Here's an example: When I answer my telephone, I say, "Steve Poling speaking." The more advanced telemarketing systems are built to automatically dial and then listen for someone to say, "Hello." When they don't hear "Hello" they hang up and go to the next number without enqueueing a telemarketing person to take the call. By saying, "Steve Poling speaking," I defeat the technology by saying something unexpected that any human can readily understand.

Veggie Tales, coming soon to NBC

Hey kids!

Do you like Veggie Tales, but sorta get uncomfortable with all that God stuff (which is why your mom bought those videos for you in the first place)? Well, Good News! NBC has bought rights to Veggie Tales. And you'll soon be able to watch them on network television.

And best of all, that pesky God stuff in those Veggie Tales is going to be edited out of there by the wise and kind executives at NBC. (These are folks just like the wise and kind executives who proved in court that "artistic considerations" prohibit your parents from buying a DVD player that edits out the naughty bits and swear words. Think of all the new words you've learned!)

Now that NBC will be calling the shots for Veggie Tales, you can expect to see Larry the Cucumber demonstrating condom use. Soon you'll see a new "fruit" join the gang in the new "Open and Affirming" episodes with a special guest appearance of Tinky Winky from Teletubbies.

Now that's what I call "Must-See TV"

Notice To almost-Pedophiles

If you're an older gay adult and want to hit on a younger (18-year old) gay, make sure you do not use Instant Messenger. Instead, you should use the communications channels favored by Al Qaeda terrorists.

I Miss Newt Gingrich

Back in 1983, the governor of Louisiana, Edwin Edwards, gloated that he could not lose unless he was "caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy." In the intervening years, we've seen a change of standards in American politics. Nowadays, the Washington beltway insiders are all aquiver about the resignation of a Florida congressman over years-old creepy IM messages. UPDATE: With an 18-year old.

You will recall that Bill Clinton did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinski. Phone sex and fellatio did not constitute sex back in the gay '90s. However, Clinton was not a Republican and a different standard applies. Who needs to be caught in bed with someone when there's a creepy three-year-old IM message logged on a computer somewhere?

Before the gay '90s, being homosexual sufficed to disqualify one from positions of trust. If you wanted to work for NSA and get a Top Secret security clearance, you had to be straight as an arrow. In fact, the Soviets were adept at using sex to recruit agents. Alan Turing killed himself not because he was gay, but because the Soviets used that fact to blackmail him.

Presumably, the today's Republican leadership in the House of Representatives is more enlightened. Apparently, former Rep. Foley's sexual proclivities were not secret within the beltway and it appears that the House Republican leadership saw no problem with putting this person in a position of trust.

My problem with the House Republican leadership has nothing to do with Mr. Foley's scandal, but with a perception that they are STUPID. Let's see, the Democrats have a problem with William Jefferson, D-LA, who happens to store thousands of dollars in cash in his freezer. (Nicely killing the Democrat "culture of corruption" meme.) Then the FBI searches his offices whereupon Mr. Hastert attacks the FBI. (Stupidly resurrecting this meme.)

Now, Speaker Hastert has been caught in an apparent lie. He said at first that he was surprised by this story. Later he said that he knew about the sorta-creepy emails, but not the really-creepy IM messages. The press is jumping on the Republicans about what they knew 6 months ago, or a year ago. But someone on the Democrat side knew about this three years ago and sat on the story until it would do the Republicans most damage. This argues that Mr. Hastert did not know about this scandal.

There is a strategy for handling damaging information: Bill Clinton had a significant emotional event on Fox News. His people were the first to circulate news of the meltdown. Get all the story out there fast, so the story can flame out as quick as possible. If you know something damaging, you've got to figure your enemy knows it, too. You're stupid to think it won't become public, because your enemy will release the information at the time and at the rate that'll maximize its damage.

Therefore, either Mr. Hastert is stupid or he didn't have the damaging information about Rep. Foley. That he misjudged the cut of Mr. Foley's jib is another matter.

New Toy

When I was just out of high school I got a tent and a backpack and did some camping. Years later a bunch of my friends started a tradition of going to Camp Barakel for family camp over the Labor Day weekend. That meant I had to get something to go with them. I was unwilling to pay for anything more than a tent. I got one and we went. Dan was 3, we've gone back every year since. Dan is now a senior in high school.

Each year we expanded the operation. I got a 10' by 20' canopy (that works well for graduation open houses, as all our friends' graduated kids know) and we set that up in addition to the tent. The kids got big enough and they wanted their own tents, too.

Three or four years ago, a friend told me about a popup camper for sale cheap. It was a 1969 Apache. If you're unfamiliar with the design, it's basically a trailer with a couple of slide out platforms for foam matresses and a framework of metal pipes overhead that a canvas tent slides over. Definately minimalist, but we were sleeping off the ground.

The net result of all this was that preparations for camping took all of August and setup at the beginning of Labor Day weekend took nigh unto 90 minutes to two hours. And tear-down consumed the entire morning (except for chapel) on Monday.

The last two years I've gone from feeling that this was a lot of fun to thinking that this was an unnecessary hassle. What I want is a way to "get away from it all" that isn't a major production. And I want that extra four hours at camp that I'm now spending frogging around setting up and tearing down.

Thus, a few years ago, I found out about a popup trailer company called Aliner. The big appeal is that this popup trailer can set up and tear down in less than 30 seconds. Thus I was surprised and pleased when my wife, Mary, showed me an ad on the internet for a two-year-old Aliner with a "Sofa Dinette" floorplan. The price was right. Last week we drove to Three Rivers to inspect the unit. It had some problems with the weatherstripping, but the seller was willing to fix them so we agreed to buy it. We did so yesterday.

We found that pulling the unit with our van is only slightly harder than pulling the old Apache. I figure its about 900 pounds or so. There's a campground about halfway to church from my house and we stayed there last night to test it out.

It was a good test since there have been off-and-on rain showers all weekend and the temperatures are between the mid 50s and low 40s. The propane furnace keeps the inside nice and toasty. The walls and ceiling are all solid, insulated to something like an R7 factor, so there were no drafts.

We haven't quite figured out how to use the storage spaces in this unit. Because things seemed cluttered, I couldn't quite get as relaxed as I'd like. The sofa that pulls out for a bed isn't particularly comfortable as either. I intend to do some customizing. What I WANT is a wing-back chair and a reading lamp.

It's in the garage now, drying out. If I don't get dragged off to do some plumbing at the apartments, I'll see if I can set it up inside there without hitting the garage door opener.

Sabbath Keeping In Grand Rapids

After church Mary and I were taking our walk when we got to the secret sidewalk that connects our cul de sac with the next street. We heard a leaf blower coming from our neighbor's house. Now, this neighbor is some kind of Dutch Reformed (Reformed or Christian Reformed). These people take the commandment about Sabbath more seriously than Baptists do. Ergo, no yard work.

Approaching his house, I noted that it was after sunset. Maybe the Dutch Reformed sabbath ends at sunset like it does for the Jews?

The secret sidewalk runs alongside his house and back yard. So, we went past his back yard and saw him standing outside his back door. Our neighbor wore a tuxedo and he was not doing any yard work. Before him is an array of large plastic things.

We were naturally curios and he obviously felt sheepish enough to explain that he had returned from a concert tonight (thus the tuxedo) and his wife had brought home all the tupperware from her pre-school class. She had washed it and he was tasked with drying them (thus the leaf blower).

My faith in Dutch Reformed christianity is reaffirmed. He wasn't doing yard work.

Purple-Faced Rage

I just read that the Ex-President, who discovered that White House interns are adept multitaskers (He used one as a humidors.), is in a "purple-faced rage" about the suggestion that he let anything distract him from the business of making Osama Bin Laden dead.

This reminds me of something that happened when I was a child. I had a 9 volt radio battery with a rather distinctive label on it that went missing. A while later, I went to visit my cousin and playing in his "fort" in his parents' garage, I saw a battery that looked exactly like the one that I lost.

I thought it an odd coincidence, but I thought nothing more than that when I mentioned it to him. Much to my surprise, my cousin flew off the handle, got defensive and angry and became altogether no fun to play with. On the ride home, the cousins lived in Chicago and I lived in Kent City, I got to thinking. Did my cousin steal that battery from me?

Lesson in human nature: When someone goes purple-faced on you, there may be a guilty conscience in play.

John McCain is a media hoax

A long time ago, John McCain ran for President as a Republican. In so doing, he was soundly defeated by George W. Bush, a non-conservative I was not particularly excited about. Mr. Bush has ruled roughly as I've expected, non-conservatively, but no so ineptly non-conservative as his daddy. This lack of enthusiasm for a non-conservative was reflected in the conservative-dominated Republican primaries of that election cycle.

Conversely, conservative apathy for Mr. Bush exists in stark contrast with the unfailing devotion of the mainstream media for Mr. McCain. Mr. McCain has maintained a symbiotic relationship with the news party since his implication in the Keating Five corruption scandal and that symbiosis has kept him safe from criticism while he's sponsored legislation to "take the money out of politics" a crusade paid for by George Soros. This legislation regulates political speech against incumbent candidates immediately prior to their re-election. Mr. McCain engineered the "Gang of 14" compromise that rescued the Democratic Senate from irrelevance in the Supreme Court confirmation process. Moreover, Mr. McCain has been an outspoken advocate for the rights of terrorists held in American detention. Rights our adversaries are sure to reciprocate as they're sawing the heads off kidnapped Americans for the world to see on the Internet.

Another presidential primary season is upcoming. And with Vice President Cheney both unpopular and not standing for election, there is an open field of Republican candidates for President. Most prominent among them is Mr. McCain who surprised Mr. Bush by winning the Michigan primary back in 2000.

I happen to live in Michigan and I voted against Mr. McCain in 2000. I have Democrat friends who voted for Mr. McCain in 2000. In Michigan, a Republican can vote for a Democrat standing for election in a primary, such as when I voted for Geoffrey Feiger, knowing him to be a weaker opponent of the then incumbent governor John Engler. Moreover, I worked a phone bank on election day in the 2002 elections, as I had on many other election days. The phone list that time consisted of people voting Republican in the 2000 primary. Never before had I gotten so many hang-ups and "go to hell" responses while get-out-the-vote calling. This led me to believe a large number of Democrats voted for a Republican candidate in the 2000 presidential primary.

Ergo, I've felt with a fair degree of certainty that Mr. McCain is unelectable in any Republican presidential primary election. Any word to the contrary is mere media hoax.

Interfaith Dialog

There is something wrong with interfaith dialog when one side uses words and the other side uses fire bombs. His Holiness Benedict XVI has said that reason should be the basis of dialog and that violence should not be used to compel conversion. In response, representatives of Islam have taken to the streets and are fire bombing Christian churches that don't even acknowledge the Pope.

The nature of the Islamic deity is quite something, rewarding those who murder in his name with 70 virgins and so on.

Update: added link to B16's address.

The Character of Deity

If you're watching the news, his Holiness Benedict XVI quoted a 15th century Byzantine Emperor, saying, "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman." In response, the followers of Mohammed are burning things.

What are we to conclude from this? Since this is the "religion of peace," they must think Mohammed's contribution to civilization was the invention of fire.

It is a common mistake to think that the three major monotheist religions worship the same deity. It's more than just one deity going by various aliases. Let's suppose I say that the only deity that exists just simply loves to pull the wings off flies. And in eternity, after he runs out of flies, he turns the people he likes least into flies. If you're a Jew, a Moslem or a Christian, you wouldn't call this deity YOUR deity.

When you evaluate a religion, you need to inquire after the character of its deity. My fly-torturing deity would give rise to a sucky religion.

After 9/11, we've heard this constant refrain that the terrorists are aberrations and they were not at all reflective of Islam. This has always struck me as incredibly gullible and foolish wishful thinking. This religion of peace seems to respond to any provocation with violence. I think this reflective of the religion's god-concept.

We've heard that Pope Benedict XVI disapproves of those who fly airplanes into buildings. It's been five years, I cannot name a single "moderate" Moslem who's done so.

As I've said before, you can fly airplanes into buildings OR you can criticize that practise. That which evokes distrust and suspicion of Islam is the former, not the latter.

UPDATE: I just read Benedict XVI's remarks and they bear only a tangental relationship to the media coverage. You really have to read what he said for yourself.

Islam

This morning High Command informed me that I'd better leave the radio off, because everything was 9/11 everywhere. I rolled my eyes and picked out a Keiko Matsui CD. It sounds good. Before I settled down, she told me, "There was this private in World War 2, Saipan who died. He single-handedly got a bunch of Japanese to surrender to him. Made them think he had them surrounded. They called him the Pied Piper."

I shrugged and said, "The Japanese weren't known for that kind of thing." Making my way to my computer I thought back to a story from World War 1. Sargeant York. Took out a German machine gun nest and single handedly took a bunch of Germans prisoner.

It made me think that the most glorious victories do not come when you blast your enemy into teeny little bits, but when you induce him to surrender. It's common to think the other guy is 10 foot tall and bullet-proof. But when you get down to it, he's just as fearful of the outcome as you are.

The tenor of most of the 9/11 retrospectives I've seen from the right goes like this. We're at the outset of another World War and the forces of Mordor have us all divided. Even the Brits are about the take a powder. Pakistan just gave Bin Laden sanctuary. And every Democrat in this country wants to cut and run, they only disagree in the extent of the cowardice they want to manifest in doing so. Woe is us, and we're so screwed.

So, let's look at it from the other guy's perspective. Iran is acting nuts because the gubmint there is standing on a banana peel. Western values of pluralism and open inquiry make US the leaders and makes THEM technological vampires. These guys cause trouble because they have money. Our money from the sale of oil. There's only so much oil in the ground and this kind of geopolitical instability only serves to increase its price. But eventually, that oil is going to run out. And when that happens, they're on their own. Conversely, the US, Europe, Asia and Israel all know howto create wealth. The world will return to a situation where nutcase Imams will have to get jobs driving taxis and muttering to themselves.

Political Correctness, Western Gullibility, is the Jihadists' best weapon. But it's probably not going to survive a mushroom cloud over a major city. Mercy is a Christian virtue unknown the the Greeks who formulated Western thought. We live in a post-Christian civilization. It is only a matter of summoning the will and you can transform even Swedes into Nazis.

After 9/11, I first experienced a sensation I now recognize as wrath. Such wrath can summon the will to transform large portions of Syria, Iran, and Waziristan into radioactive glass parking lots. Sure, tangos can retire to hide in the hills to plot. But we make those hills poisonously radioactive, dirty bombs can be used in more places than just Manhatten. And we can shoot every villager who triggers a geiger counter when he comes to town.

Islam means surrender. We need a Sergeant York to fox the savages into surrendering.

Prophesy Junkies and Divination

I was in High School when Hal Lindsay wrote "The Late-Great Planet Earth" and it's hard to believe (this being a public high school), but we listened to a phonograph record of Jack Van Impe's "The Coming War With Russia" in speech class. In the decades that followed, Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins have sold millions of copies of their "Left Behind" novels. Suffice it to say, Prophesy has long been of interest to a lot of people around me.

So it was at Camp this Labor Day weekend. The preacher preached from Jesus' Olivet Discourse which is the mother lode for prophesy junkies. In this passage, the Savior is asked for the signs of the end of the world and Jesus complies. The preacher then proceeded to interpret the passage indicating those things in current events that may correspond to the signs Jesus described.

Only trouble is that people have spent the last couple thousand years pointing at current events and matching them to the content of prophesy to make a case for the imminent end of the world. I am not enamored with eschatology, because I believe it serves as a distraction from more important matters, particularly, soteriology. I would rather someone knows how to get saved than how many horns or bowls or seals are in the eschaton.

(The preacher at Camp wasn't stupid or even wrong, I suppose. But each time he said that money was "digitalized" it felt like fingernails being drawn across chalkboard.)

This week I had lunch with a couple Christian brothers. One is a cradle Baptist like myself who was exposed to a lot of Hal Lindsay premillenialism. The other was raised Christian Reformed and I presume exposed to an amillenial eschaton. Talk got around to prophesy. My Christian Reformed friend said that someone he knew had gotten in which a group who claimed that prophesy teaches that the world will end in ten years. Had we heard anything of that? Not specifically. But it's not as if this hasn't happened a zillion times before.

I got to thinking about what is the "right" way go use prophesy given the fact that I'm so un-enamored with the way I've always seen it used.

Consider Joel 2:28-32, where the prophet claims that in the day of the Lord, the sun will be dark, and the moon will be like blood. This prophesy is actually used in the Bible, and I think that usage gives us a clue. The Bible tells us that on the day that Christ was crucified, it was dark from noon to 3:00pm. If Christ was crucified in AD 33, then there would have been a lunar eclipse at moon rise then, too. If you are familiar with the appearance of a lunar eclipse, you'll note a reddening of its appearance. If this happens at moonrise, the light from the moon will pass through more of the atmosphere reddening it even more.

Let's suppose you're living in Jerusalem, maybe one of the guys in the crowd shouting for that Barabas fellow. Fifty days later you're in the Temple and there's a commotion. A preacher, one of Jesus's disciples, who's calling himself Peter stands up and quotes the aforementioned prophesy. Think about how you'd respond. You've seen these things. You've read the prophesy. The prophesy points to the recent past and shows you how to interpret events of the recent past.

Contrast this with fortune-telling or divination. In those activities, the goal of the activity is to forecast or predict the future. I think my dislike for prophesy mongering is that even if the preacher doesn't intend to do so, he's acting like a Baptist fortune-teller. Instead of interpreting tea-leaves, he's interpreting ancient Hebrew verse, or ancient Greek apocalypse, but he's pointing to the future.

I think it is wrong to use prophesy as a tool of divination. I think the correct interpretation of prophesy always points BACKWARDS in time, not forwards. This is confusing. I'll illustrate. Let's suppose the prophet Joel lived and wrote before 800BC. Let's suppose Christ was crucified in April 33AD and Peter preached 50 days later. I can't see how anybody could have interpreted Joel's prophesy before April 33AD. We see, however, Peter interprets the prophesy after that point with powerful good effect.

I think that we should go through scripture prophesies with an eye for what HAS happened, instead of looking for whats GOING TO happen. When we find a match, we should use the prophetic message to properly signify those events.

$2.499 Gasoline

I should point out that yesterday at the peak of the Labor Day driving binge, I was able to fill up my gas tank at $2.499/gallon. I don't know whether the evil oil monopoly conspiracy was asleep or what, but it was nice to see the numbers scroll upwards at a slightly slower rate.

What a difference a year makes. I recall seeing on the news signs for gasoline over $6/gallon. Hurricane Katrina had reduced New Orleans to a 3rd world status, with cannibalism in the Super Dome. And the world was going to run out of letters for hurricanes, too. Has there been any hurricanes this year?

That's because we impeached George Bush and stopped global warming, right?

Strait Gates and Broadways

Driving back from Camp yesterday I blew through a rural area where some religious organization had posted this portion of a Bible verse:

Matthew 7:13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Since I've been under the influence of ecumenism, I got to wondering how the above applied to my context. I don't know which little country church put up that sign, but I can imagine it's vastly different from the mega-suburban Blythefield Hills Baptist Church that I attend. What exactly constitutes "strait gates" versus "broad ways?" In my separatist days, I would have answered that "strait" means rejecting the world and all its wisdom. But now I don't think that's the answer.

What I like most about Camp and what brings me back every year is theological conversations around the campfire. Usually these conversations involve something interesting and philosophical. This year I was surprised when a friend's daughter mentioned "Lordship salvation." I hadn't heard that term in decades. It's funny how some problems just don't get solved but the confusion remains over decades.

If you don't know what "Lorship salvation" means, let me refresh. Some teach that there is a distinction between asking Christ to be one's Saviour and asking Christ to be your Lord. If such a distinction is possible, then those who ask Christ to be Saviour but not Lord, can be termed "Carnal Christians." Carnal Christians who wish to improve their spiritual lives can do so by upgrading their Saviour relationship to a Lordship relationship. Others teach that Salvation means more than just a fire insurance policy, but conversion of the whole person and that Salvation means rescue from one's current life of sin. This second group would term the "Carnal Christian" a "non-Christian."

The first group claims that the second group makes "Lordship" a work that must be added to one's faith in order to be a Christian. The second group asserts salvation by "faith alone" but it is a "faith that is not alone." Surely, everybody in both camps claim that one is justified before God by "faith alone." (This is a Protestant argument.) This leads to a two-tier Christianity with mere fire-insurance policy holders looking up to their spiritual betters who have "rededicated their lives" to the Lord Jesus.

Coversely, the second group claims a causal relationship between good faith and good works. Good faith will cause good works and thereby I justify my good faith before myself and before other Christians by my good works. This is how the Protestant interprets James 2:24. (The Protestant distinguishes between Paul's use of Justification before God, and James use of Justification before Man. Luther failed to make this distinction and thus sought to remove James from the canon of scripture. Catholicism defers Justification in order to bring James and Paul together.)

I happen to be a Reformed Christian who asserts this causal relationship between good faith and good works. I think that identification with Christ as Saviour in true saving faith alone suffices to justify a man before God. Causally, faith alone causes justification before God. This is how I read Romans 5. Moreover, I think that true saving faith has its root in the supernatural creative act of God within the believer's heart. God causes a change of heart and that changed heart starts functioning by believing. At this point, logically, the believer is Justified. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to the believer at this point. This changed heart that believes then obeys. This obedience is the way in which the righteousness of Christ inheres within the believer and this is termed Sanctification. Thus one is saved by faith alone, but it is a faith that is not alone.

You'll note that there is no room for über-Christians or Saints in this second way of looking at things. Every Christian is identified with Christ to the same extent.

Good faith causes good works. You can distinguish between them, but you cannot separate them. If you belong to a "cannibalistic church" that doesn't quite get around to keeping Christ's double-love command, you've good reason to doubt the bona fides of that church.

Christ is in the forgiveness business. He does so by means of putting his righteousness into the lives of his followers. The WWJD bracelets are nice if we keep in mind what exactly it was that Jesus actually did. I suppose the broad way that leads to destruction is to try to "do what Jesus did" and latch onto this bit of his life or that and copy it. Jesus said "woe" to evil doers. and Jesus fed the five thousand. and Jesus did the all the stations of the Cross. The strait gate is to ignore all that and rest in Christ alone by faith.

Periodically, we should test our faith asking whether our lives fit what Christ taught. We need to periodically revisit the Law that Moses revealed and that Jesus interpreted on the Sermon on the Mount. The Law is a mirror that should point out the dirt on our face and metaphorically drive us to the soap of Christ's righteousness claimed by faith. This self-critical introspection and this utter dependence upon Christ doesn't come naturally. I hope this is what Christ called a "strait gate."

Hatred And Mistrust In The Moslem Community

The Australian Prime Ministry contradicted multi-culti dogma by asserting that moslem communities in Australia must assimilate into Australian society, including notions of equal rights for women and other things that characterize Western values.

The response was that these statements "fueled hatred and mistrust" of Moslems.

Let's see, John Howard calls on immigrants to act civilized. Those are words. Even if they were lies, instead of fairly practical common sense, they are only words.

Moslems seized airplanes and flew them into buildings. Moslems routinely strap bombs to their children and send them into Israeli coffee shops and pizza parlors. Moslems use dead children as props in their manipulation of Western media coverage of the war they start.

Question: what cases more hatred and mistrust of Moslems? The words of that last paragraph, or the actions that those words describe?

The Most Useless Guys In The Bible

I recently came to the conclusion that the most useless guys in the Bible were Job's friends. You may recall the story. Job is put through some serious hurt. In the midst of his misery, his friends arrive and "comfort" him.

The nature of their "comfort" is to rise to defend God, claiming that Job's misfortune is the consequence of Job's prior bad acts. They are useless for a couple reasons: 1) they are mistaken in their explanation of Job's misfortune. There is a tacit assumption underlying their remarks, God is under suspicion of wrongdoing in permitting Job's misfortune and must be defended. 2) God doesn't need their help to assert and vindicate his righteousness. As a result, the friends "comfort" consists of accusing Job of prior bad acts.

At the end of the story, God shows up and instead of vindicating Job, he discloses that there's plenty of blame to go around. It's improper to engage in theodicy. It's improper to demand of God an explanation. God is God. If God is not good, there is no Good. If God does that which hurts us that we don't understand, he doesn't owe us an explanation, we owe him the benefit of the doubt. And incidentally, Job's friends were wrong to suspect Job.

Let's suppose you're Job. It's altogether proper to lament the negative circumstances. There is a whole book of the Bible filled with Lamentations. Do that.

Let's suppose your friend is Job. How can you be something better than useless? For one thing, don't assume the negative circumstance is due to your friend's sin. If you love your friend, you owe him the benefit of the doubt. Assuming the negative circumstance is a judgement for sin indicates that you're using your doubt about your friend to think the worst of him. Don't do that. If your friend hurts, you should hurt. Compassion means sharing someone's passion, suffering alongside.

Encourage your friend. The Navy Seals are a tough, elite group. Every Navy Seal goes through training and part of that training is Hell Week. Now, let's suppose you're idling on the beach and you see your friend the Seal struggling up the beach burdened with some heavy military equipment. He's suffering, but he's suffering because he's BETTER than most of his peers. And you are idling on the beach. You can't deny your friend is suffering, but you can remind him that hard training is only for elite troops, and despite the present suffering, there will be something better on the other side of it.

Pressure makes diamonds.

The Accidental Puritan

One of my fave Catholics tells the story of an explorer who went sailing in search of adventure, whereupon he landed upon an island that he found quite marvelous in its geography, climate, and the culture of its natives. After marveling for a season about this find, he came to realize this island was England. (If you've not yet read "Orthodoxy," by all means quit reading this and read that instead!)

I had something similar happen to me. I grew up with WFUR playing in the background. There was Carl McIntyre "20th Century Reformation Hour" and I learnt to roll my eyes at the appropriate times when that old demagogue was in full sail. And Kent City Public High School assigned as reading, "The Scarlet Letter" and they did the "The Crucible" as a high school play. I didn't believe Christianity at the time, and I most certainly wanted nothing to do with that kind of hatefulness. I rather enjoyed having fun, and I had absolutely no fear that "that someone , somewhere , is having fun." Had you asked me what I thought of the Puritans, I'd have rolled my eyes.

I kept this attitude when I started reading my Bible again and ended up identifying myself as a Christian again. In the intervening years, I was blessed to receive an excellent, Christian education chock full of Intervarsity Press apologetics and some world-class philosophical theology at the feet of James Grier who was teaching at Cedarville at the time. In the course of those years, I had a bunch of humanistic notions wash out of my brain. "Hmmmm, I suppose God doesn't need my permission to save me." Stuff like that.

Whereas my world-life view had once been a patchwork of bits that fit on Sunday, but not on Monday, or fit in Physics class but not in Old Testament class, instead I came to find a single integrated way of thinking where everything fit--even the parts that can't fit in a box. Superficially, I became a five-point Calvinist. I liked the rationalism and I found no place where my Reason overturned scripture. And I loved books, and a friend turned me onto a mail order bookstore that had the kinds of books I found most interesting. Contemporary stuff from Banner of Truth, and the old stuff, too.

The name of the bookstore was Puritan Reformed. That name bugged me to no end. I grew up in Grand Rapids, MI where the Reformed guys were all liberal or believed you were a Christian because you were Dutch, or something like that. And then there was the Puritan bit. I like to have fun to much for that to make any sense. And that Reformation thing was something that made total sense. It translated Christianity into the language of the Age of Reason. And I was fine with that. And the Puritans were the 2nd generation Reformers. Semper Reformanda and all that.

Yeah, I identify with the Reformation, and with Reason, and that made me a Puritan.

But that word, Puritan, has lots of overlays of meaning that have been added by Puritanism's enemies over the centuries. I don't buy into any of that. So, maybe I'm not a Puritan. It depends on what you're thinking when you use the term.