A Java Thing

Jared,

Welcome to a brand new world. Now you're one of us.
Here's one of your first assignments.

Colby

T.S. Arlene

Does this prediction concerning Tropical Storm Arlene mean that we'll be digging out of another fine and pleasant mess like the one pictured from Hurricane Ivan?
Chances are that Arlene will only be a rain event for Birmingham, but the fact that it is predicted to swing to our west could mean more rain. This tree that fell during Ivan was likely caused more by saturated soil (with the 10+ inches of rain) than the wind.

"Has the rain a father?"
"Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
So that an abundance of water will cover you?"
"Who can count the clouds by wisdom?
Or tip the water jars of the heavens?"
[Job 38.28, 32, 38]

What does this say concerning church picnics?

Less Lite

Interesting...God-Lite Doesn’t Cut It

"National Treasure"

"National Treasure" is mildly entertaining at best. The positives of the film are that it is very clean (you can show it to your kids, I promise) and fast-moving, with some great shots of famous places in Washington and Philadelphia that give you a sense of American heritage. However, the plot was nowhere near as stimulating as any of the Indiana Jones movies and the characters all seemed flat. As much as I like Nicolas Cage I found little to appreciate about his character in this movie. This film could have used some help from the school of Frank Capra when it comes to creating real characters that hook the audience.

Paige Patterson and the Southern Baptists

My guess is that 99% of the people out there who call themselves "Southern Baptist" do not really know what has taken place in the denomination over the past 27 years. An even greater concern is that many are completely unaware of what was taking place prior to the changes that began to really take shape in the late 70's. Paige Patterson, probably the most visible figure involved in the changes, has written a new booklet called Anatomy of a Reformation that describes some of the details from his own perspective. Dr. Al Mohler writes about Patterson's work today in his column.

I would also guess that a very high percentage of Baptists who have ill feelings toward the Southern Baptist Convention or who have actually left the convention over various issues do not know the real details behind the scene. On the surface what is often talked about is not really the issue that was boiling beneath the surface. Two other books I would highly recommend concerning the larger picture:

1. Baptist Reformation by Jerry Sutton. This book is a look at various aspects of the changes that have taken place written by Sutton, a Nashville-area pastor.

2. Baptists and the Bible by Bush and Nettles. This book dives into the deeper issues at stake as they concern the Bible and the viewpoints that were being taken by many professors in the Baptist seminaries.

There are others as well, including Paul Pressler's book, A Hill on Which to Die, but the essence of what has happened among Baptists seems lost as the issues which repeatedly surface are merely fronts for the real issue at hand: what is the Bible?

The future of Southern Baptists will rely heavily on the greater majority truly understanding what is at stake and adhering to a truly biblical doctrine concerning the Bible itself. Otherwise, we will all do what is right in our own eyes.

Aslan

Check out this new blog, "Aslan", for some challenging words on the audacity of a Christian and some poetry that will make you think.

View from the Odum Scout Trail in the Talledega National Forest, Alabama.  

The 99-Cent Church Value Menu

It has been 13 years since Charles Colson wrote "The Body" and spoke of the McChurch mentality among Christians. For Colson, the problem was the sporadic attendance at various churches by people in the same manner that we choose to eat at McDonald's or Wendy's or Burger King in order to 'vary' our routine.

There is another likeness out there, though, that invites the picture of the 99-cent value menu. People are devoted to their church and to their denomination to whatever degree they can choke down the particular theological position. Being Presbyterian or Baptist or Methodist or Catholic has little to do with the doctrinal statement of the specific church that people attend – they could not care less. The amount of news recently about the office of the Pope just brings such thinking to the forefront. Many Catholics feel perfectly free to pick and choose menu items from the Catholic beliefs the way we choose chili and a junior cheeseburger deluxe. Same goes for the Baptists (which I am) and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and the [insert denomination.]

We are now living in a society in which there is no prevailing understanding of the church's authority in any way. If the church is against a couple living together out of wedlock, people just ignore this facet of biblical teaching. The even stranger aspect of such predicaments is how many people keep attending and participating in church even though they disagree with what is being taught there.

One explanation I can suggest for this is the false understanding that there is some spiritual merit in attending church that achieves better standing with God. Many people, especially in the Bible Belt of America, view church as 'good' and believe that there is a need to attend church in order to achieve a better status in the eyes of God. Church 'membership' becomes the 'get-out-of-jail-free' card that brings security to individuals. Lost is any sense of gathering to worship the God of creation, the Author of salvation, the very God who has revealed himself in Scripture.

The church is also to blame. Churches have moved to such a place as to value numbers and size so much that they are willing to compromise everything else. Not only is such thinking an injustice to the people who can attend and not hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, but it is akin to the false prophets of Jerusalem who would continually prophesy peace and good while men like Jeremiah were declaring the true message of God. Not only do so many churches water down the content of their teaching, but they seemingly promote the membership role as a God-ordained list. Do churches not teach such easy and faithless church membership when they seemingly require nothing of anyone besides a desire to join? With so little emphasis on truth and so little accountability to any particular church, it is no wonder that people feel fine having their names on a list even though they rarely attend and certainly don't consent to the church's statement of faith.

Politically Correct Exceptions

There seems to be an understood list of groups, nationalities, offices, and even people of whom it is politically incorrect to say anything bad. On the flip side, there seems to be an established list of groups, nationalities, and people that are fair game for the media. Just a few include...

Canadians
The Bush Family
Republicans in general
Southerners
Hispanics
Conservative Christians
People who drive SUV's
SUV's
Smokers

As for Senator Harry Reid's comments about President Bush, calling him "a loser," the statement falls into a whole new category, not only of demeaning the elected president of the United States of America and the office in general, but also of demonstrating such an immature and impolite character as to embarrass the entire country. Kids call each other such names. Has our society fallen this far, or is Reid an exception?

Is there an 'Apprentice'?

The only show I watch on TV has come to be "The Apprentice" with all of its pomp and circumstances. The Donald truly carries the show with his personality alone. Loved or hated, he cannot be ignored.

This series' potential apprentices, though, seem rather incompetent. Are these the best and brightest we have to offer? By about midway through this 'interview', my wife and I had decided that none of this class were worthy of being hired by Trump in contrast to the previous edition which seemed to have at least 3 if not more worthy candidates. Trump should have just fired all of these candidates and started with a clean slate. MARKETING is the key just about every week, and none of these candidates seem extremely blessed in the skills of marketing. What do lawyers know about marketing unless they are accustomed to ambulance chasing and posting pictures of themselves on billboards?

So will Trump take a lawyer, a Mary Kay sales pro, a shoe shine entrepreneur, or a real estate entrepeneur? I'm going to stick with Kendra, the real estate entrepreneur.

Goodbye MapQuest

Hello, Google Maps. Check it out, especially the satellite image feature. I can see myself through the window as I type this. Honest.

Church Marketing

"Big Enough to Serve You, Small Enough to Care"

A local church's radio ad invites people to attend their worship service because their church is "big enough to serve you, small enough to care." Whether or not a church should "advertise" in the first place is a matter of a more thorough discussion, but the above slogan caught my attention because of the way that it sounds like some sort of service is being offered or sold. A quick Google on the matter, and you'll find several businesses with the same slogan:

Acres Power Equipment Company
Manry Rawls HR
Marquise Equipment Leasing
D. B. Withrow Painting Co.

Okay, even if you haven't thought through what the church is supposed to be, surely some alarms go off in your head when a church is advertising with the same slogan as equipment, painting, and HR companies. Truth be told, too many churches see themselves precisely in this light - as some sort of community service organization that needs to promote its 'services' to be successful.

Being salt and light in this world is one thing, but when the church loses the biblical understanding that it is the body of Christ, made up of believers who gather to worship and minister together, the church has ceased to exist. Just because a group of people gather weekly and call themselves a church does not mean that they really are. While the church in question may in reality be the most biblically-grounded body of believers that have just succumbed to a questionable marketing tactic, there are a 103 more out there in this city trying everything they can to promote themselves as an attractive group to join.

Evangelicals and the Pope

"We should be unembarrassed and unhesitant to declare our admiration for John Paul II's courageous stand against Communism, his bold defense of human dignity and human life, and his robust and substantial defense of truth in the face of postmodernism. In many of the great battles of our day, evangelicals found John Paul II to be a key ally."

Thus writes Dr. Albert Mohler today concerning how evangelicals should understand the papacy. The death of Pope John Paul II is certainly not a time for evangelicals to voice our differences with the man, but it is a perfect time to revisit just what the differences are between Catholics and Evangelicals, and Dr. Mohler demonstrates several of these as they concern the office of the papacy. And so Mohler also writes:

"Even in his most recent book, released in the United States just days before his death, John Paul II continued to define the work of Christ as that which is added to human effort. Like the church he served, John Paul II rejected justification by faith."

Christians, if we are not justified by faith alone, then what in the world does Ephesians 2:8-10 mean? What about the entirety of the book of Romans? and Galatians? Even as we admire John Paul II, now is the time, as much as ever, to ask the tough questions of the Christian faith and pray that biblical truth would be the source by which all who call themselves Christians would find their anchor.

Read Dr. Mohler's entire article.

The Forgotten

This movie is the epitome of postmodernism meets new age meaninglessness. The Forgotten sets up an interesting plot only to proceed absolutely nowhere with it, providing no answers and hardly any resolution. I've heard people say that The Village doesn't work. Well, The Forgotten absolutely can't work. (Btw, I still think The Village is a smart movie despite its detractors.)Director Joseph Ruben's filmography reveals one good movie: Sleeping with the Enemy way back in 1991, maybe two if you include The Good Son.

The funny thing about renting this movie was that we had a few choices selected at the video store and a young couple saw us looking at The Forgotten and they heaped lavish praise on the movie. What kind of a sick joke were they playing on us?!?!

Can Congress Save Baseball?

Baseball better make sure that all its prescriptions are in order before the questioning begins. Oh, wait, steroids are illegal. And yet Major League Baseball keeps carrying on as if offended that anyone would bring up the issue:

"Steroids in baseball? Whose business is that?"

Well, its everyone's business...every fan...every player...every owner...the commissioner...and our legal system. The tendency to look the other way has created a monster in sports. We love to see bigger, stronger, faster athletes. They're more entertaining, like watching Gladiator. We aren't interesting in guys the size of jockeys playing football, baseball, basketball, or hockey, so we encourage them to get bigger, stronger, faster. Fans demand it. Sure, there's a place in baseball for the small, agile shortstop and second baseman, but as a whole, we all want to see guys that hit the living daylights out of the ball.

So, as sports fans, we have created the demand for performance enhancing drugs, but now it is going to take an act of Congress, literally, to control these abuses. Things are about to get very ugly for baseball if Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds are truly discovered to be in league with Jose Conseco. The scarlet letter on baseball's chest is going to be tough to deal with. With steroid abuse so apparently rampant, can the game bounce back from such a major crackdown? If Jason Giambi were to serve as an example, the answer is sadly "no." Giambi's game and physical stature would appear to have suffered drastically from his attempt to deal with his own abuse of steroids.

At this point, it is unclear as to how many players are really involved. Conseco seems like the Dennis Rodman of baseball right now, throwing out big names to increase his own attention (and book sales, of course.) Can the game survive the negative publicity of having mutliple stars tarnished? And what about the stats? A game that historically reveres stats more than any other cannot just turn its head to the fact that players today are destroying the historical records. If Bonds, Sosa, and McGwire cheated, then Roger Maris' homerun record should be reinstated as the mark. If this were the Olympics, that would be the case. Is baseball less ethical?

They Might Be Giants

While it is cold and snowing there, here it has been shorts and t-shirt weather. Aaaaa...Birmingham.

"The Broker" by John Grisham

The yearly winter dose of Grisham arrived early this year and caught me a bit off guard. Since I was busy finishing a little novel called Anna Karenina, Grisham's The Broker had to wait.

The book is fun and fast-paced, typically Grisham. As you'll discover from the inside cover, much of the plot is set in Italy, and Grisham does well describing the attractive culture and lifestyle of some Italian cities. He also delves into quite a bit of Italian in the book, adding to the setting and giving the reader a taste of the language, especially as it pertains to espresso drinks and restaurants. The book is a quick read and is best accompanied by a cup of strong Italian Roast or a Cappuccino if reading before 10:30 in the morning.

Grisham himself has openly admitted that he is not a classic author (I think I remember him saying this in an interview, though if I'm wrong, I take it back), and when one reads his books they are simply written, moving along at break-neck speeds.

Personally, my two favorite John Grisham books are The Testament and The Chamber. Ranking The Broker will take a couple of weeks for it to settle in and take its place with the others. (Interestingly, the book feels a lot like The Partner…enough said.)

Torts Lose

The bill that has passed Congress and been signed by the President is hardly the end of class-action lawsuits but does seem to be a step in the right direction. Listening to a little 'left' commentary from places such as NPR one would think, though, that we have unleashed corporate America from all restraints and accountability. Even on the local level there have been attorneys interviewed who claim that the move is one intended to harm the average person.

When our legal system has become one where certain courts are deemed 'friendly' to certain types of lawsuits, and when attorneys can choose to file their "cases" in these courts rather than their local courthouse, then Houston, we have a problem. If a company like Ford knowingly equipped vehicles with bad tires then people should be reimbursed or awarded damages. But when problems are being manipulated and lawyers are getting rich while people are getting a couple of bucks or some discount coupons, only the legal guys are winning.

This is a step in the right direction. Another move that has to take place is one to curtail medical liability. When physicians can't afford to practice medicine (especially certains types in certain states) then adjustments have to come. Insurance agencies are winning, lawyers are winning, and doctors and patients are losing. The legal beast is making prey of the system. Insurance premiums are out the roof. The left wants socialized medicine. Bad answer. (Actually, not really an answer at all.) I think the tort reform that has just passed is one step that will eventually make other steps (like the one concerning the practice of medicine) more reasonable.

Winds of Change in the Mid East

Nathan Guttman at Haaretz points out the new policy of the U.S. concerning the diplomacy between Israel and Palestine. In a nutshell, the U.S. is moving from the mediator to the supporter, pledging support to both sides in the Rice era, which demonstrates a shift from the first 4 years of the Bush administration and an even stronger shift from the role that Clinton took.

Is it a good shift? Under the present circumstances, probably. With the passing of Arafat, one has only to check the headlines to notice that terror has declined in the region. You don't hear such a report from the mainstream in the U.S., but the Nobel Prize winning Arafat was one of the world's greatest hindrances to peace. I'm not saying that the road is going to be smooth now. In fact, the trouble will continue, but we all still have an obligation to attempt to work for peace.