Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

Vaclev Havel - President of the Czech Republic. Is There a National Leader Deserving More Respect?

He's not afraid to confront Al Gore over global warming.  He worries about freedom in the world.  And he fears economic "reforms" more than he does the economic crisis itself.  Jay Nordlinger reports from Davos:

A group of us met this afternoon with Václav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic, which has the presidency of the European Union at the moment.

 

I asked Klaus something about global warming: “Al Gore calls people who disagree with him ‘deniers.’ I heard him do this just yesterday, in the Congress Center.” (The main forum here in

Gospel Singer George Beverly Shea Turns 100 on Sunday

Click here for a news item which includes a brief video of Shea.  He remains in relatively good health, much better than his friend and colleague, Billy Graham.  The Associated Press has a news item on Shea's 100th birthday and includes the following anecdote:

While Shea hasn't driven a vehicle since he was 95, he noticed a year ago that his driver's license had expired. Wanting to keep an updated form of identification, he went down to the local office, passed the vision test and won a new license.

"I don't feel 100," Shea said during a recent interview at his home in Montreat, about 15 miles east of Asheville.

The AP article describes Shea this way:

But with a personality that strays from humble to bashful,  Shea deemed his role in the ministry as "very insignificant" — especially compared with his contemporaries.

Me:   Bev Shea is a genuinely humble, godly man which explains why God has blessed him and his music as He has.

Interview with Biblical Scholar Wayne Grudem - How He Spends His Morning Devotions

Interesting, and instructive.  Click here.

NBC Rejects Pro-Life Super Bowl Ad Educating Viewers on Obama and Abortion

Here's the rejected video.  For commentary, click here and here.  This is the same video that I posted about earlier that is running on select markets of  BET television.

Former President George W. Bush Gets Rousing Ovation at Basketball Game

Video here.

WHAT KIND OF COUNTRY IS AFGHANISTAN? Michael Yon sets the record straight.

From Kathryn Jean Lopez at the Corner [my emphases]:

Michael Yon, who recently spent time in Afghanistan (not for the first time) responds from Jerusalem:

Take all that, and be prepared to work for a century in Afghanistan. Afghanistan will not be a stable country ten years from now. Truly, be prepared for a century of commitment. Most comparisons to Iraq are false or completely inappropriate. Iraq is a relatively advanced country. To compare Iraq to Afghanistan is to compare the United States to Mexico. Vietnam is incredibly more advanced than Afghanistan. One of the poorest countries on earth, Nepal, is by comparison to Afghanistan an advanced country. We cannot allow ourselves to be deluded by the monumental task ahead in Afghanistan. Putting a man on the moon was simple by comparison.

The Obamas Employed A Private Chef to Do the Cooking For Them In Their Chicago Home

Who knew?  Lisa Schiffren has some comments about Obama's deception that his was an average, middle-class family.  Excerpt [my emphases]:

. . . Today, news comes that the Obamas will not run a national Top Chef competition—because they are bringing their own, private chef from Chicago to the White House. Well, isn't that nice?

According the New York Times, Sam Kass, who cooked for the Obamas in Chicago will now move onto the government payroll as a White House chef. . .  Who knew? I believed all that stuff about how Michelle was an overburdened modern working mother, rushing from school dropoff to her high-paying, demanding work at the hospital, to dress fittings, to whatever it was she needed to do to support her husband's political aspirations, back home to take care of her daughters. Call me naive, but that model usually includes making dinner. And squeezing in a weekly grocery shopping trip. Especially for those fresh, whole foods that don't keep so long. Now I have to wonder who did the laundry, and the vaccuuming. Sure, granny helped—but I doubt she was the maid. Who was?

In fact, I don't actually care who did the cooking (or cleaning) in the Obama household. And Chef Sam is fine with me. The orchestrated deception—the pretense that this family did it all themselves, living a low-key life just like most upper middle class Americans, working hard and taking care of the necessary, sometimes tedious requirements of home life as well as they seemed to have done—is a little more troubling. . .

Rush Limbaugh's Bi-Partisan Stimulus Proposal

Why not adopt it?  It's better by far (both economically and in terms of bi-partisanship) than the Democratic proposal.  Click here for Rush Limbaugh's Wall Street Journal article.

CNBC interviews Rush here. 

For other proposals and helpful analysis of what's going on, click here.

The Obama al-Arabiya Interview

Update 1/29/09 - Amir Tahiri calls it a "Pathetic 'Message'"   Excerpt:

. . . For the first time, the question of democracy is top of the political agenda in virtually every Muslim state.

Obama should remember that he is the president of the United States - not an impartial broker. It was unfortunate that he described himself as a bridge. For a bridge has no personality of its own and cares little about who might cross it and in which direction.

IF this was meant as the first direct contact between Obama and the Mus lim world, the Al-Arabiya interview must be rated as a missed opportunity.

Obama's remarks about the Israel-Palestine issue were so trite as to merit no analysis. He said he was sending former Sen. George Mitchell to listen to all sides - as if the world has not been hearing their stories for more than six decades.

The president appeared apologetic, offering no hope for democratization and economic development. He made no mention of the economic meltdown that is creating unprecedented mass unemployment in many countries of the region.

Nor did he offer any support to democratic forces facing crucial elections in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Egypt and Algeria this year.

He had nothing to say about the thousands of Iranian workers who have been thrown into prison solely because they created independent trade unions. Nor did he mention Iranian women's courageous "a million signatures campaign" or the series of student revolts that have been crushed by the mullahs with exceptional violence.

Nor was there any nod toward reformers in Saudi Arabia and Egypt or the heroic Lebanese democratic leaders who are fighting to preserve their nation's independence from Iran and Syria.

Obama didn't call for the release of the tens of thousands of political prisoners held in more than two dozen Muslim countries or a moratorium on executions that each year cost the lives of hundreds of dissidents.

CASTING himself in the role of a "bridge" and dreaming of a return to an illusionary past, Obama appeared unsure of his own identity and confused about the role that America should play in global politics. And that is bad news for those who believe that the United States should use its moral, economic and political clout in support of democratic forces throughout the world.   Read the whole thing

 (Original post) -Full transcript here.  Ed Morrissey explains why he calls it "a charming and dangerous naivete."  Victor Davis Hanson offers his own thoughts.  And Krauthammer had this to say:

Pastor Mark Driscoll Featured on ABC's "Nightline"

I first posted on Mark Driscoll on January 11th after the New York Times did a major article on him. He's obviously a hot property right now since ABC"s Nightline featured him on last night's program. It's clear the secular world finds Driscoll fascinating.  I suggest you click through to watch the Nightline segment on Driscoll.  It's 7 minutes and 21 seconds long.

Me:  From the Nightline video, it seems to me that, on balance, Driscoll is doing a great job.  He's clearly bringing people into his church that would never attend a more traditional church.  And yet he has not diluted his message in the least.  It remains unvarnished, uncompromising and biblical -- with a bit of sanctified tang and zest thrown in.  Preaching always comes through a personality, and Driscoll's personality is undeniably interesting!

John Updike (1932-2009) Wrote a Magnificent Poem on Christ's Resurrection

John Updike, the American writer, died yesterday at 76.  I hadn't read his poem, "Seven Stanzas at Easter," until yesterday.  I think it magnificent.    (HT: Justin Taylor)

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

For remembrances and evaluations, see Russell Moore Charlotte Allen, and Mike Potemra who disagrees with Charlotte Allen on the place of sex in Updike's novels.

John Piper Responds to President Obama on Abortion

John Piper preached a powerful "Sanctity of Life" sermon last week.  (HT: Between Two Worlds).  Video excerpt here.   Piper quoted President Obama:

“We are reminded that this decision not only women’s health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters.”

To which Piper responded:

• No, Mr. President, you are not protecting women’s health; you are authorizing the destruction of half a million tiny women every year.
• No, Mr. President, you are not protecting reproductive freedom; you are authorizing the destruction of freedom for a million helpless people every year.
• No, Mr. President, killing our children does not cease to be killing our children no matter how many times you call it a private family matter. Call it what you will, they are dead, and we have killed them. And you, Mr. President, would keep the killing legal.
  

Hugh Hewitt Interviews J.P. Moreland on Evangelicals and the Left-Leaning Obama Presidency

J.P. Moreland, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Talbott School of Theology in California, has just published a new book, The God Question: An Invitation to a Life of Meaning.  (More on the book at the end of this post).

Hewitt's interview with J. P. Moreland centers mainly on evangelicals and the left-leaning direction of current politics.

Moreland: ... I have a lot of concerns as an Evangelical about the Obama presidency precisely because I’m a Christian Evangelical. 

HH: What kind of concerns? 

JPM: Well, the first, as a Christian, the first thing that I see can be understood by the difference between negative and positive rights. A negative right is a right for me to be protected from harm if I try to get something for myself. A positive right would be my right to have something provided for me. If health care is a negative right, then the state has an obligation to keep people from

"BIG GOVERNMENT IS WHERE ONCE SUCCESSFUL NATIONS GO TO DIE." - MARK STEYN

From Mark Steyn:

If you're wondering where the "stimulus" will lead in the long run, consider this story from The Times of London:

PARTS of the United Kingdom have become so heavily dependent on government spending that the private sector is generating less than a third of the regional economy, a new analysis has found.

The study of “Soviet Britain” has found the government’s share of output and expenditure has now surged to more than 60% in some areas of England and over 70% elsewhere.

Across the UK as a whole, government spending now accounts for 49% of the economy. And look at these regional variations:

Southern England: a mere 36% of the economy is government spending;
Northeast England: 66.4%;
Wales: 71.6%;
Northern Ireland: 77.6%.

As The Times notes:

The state now looms far larger in many parts of Britain than it did in former Soviet satellite states such as Hungary and Slovakia as they emerged from communism in the 1990s, when state spending accounted for about 60% of their economies.

Big government is where once successful nations go to die.

Me: Sad, oh so sad...

Photographing President Bush

From Andrea Shea King at WND:

Blogger "The Anchoress" discovered and linked this photo essay of President Bush created and narrated by TIME magazine photographers Brooks Kraft and Christopher Morris. The pair reflect on the eight years they spent covering George W. Bush. This heartwarming tribute to our 43rd president features memorable and heartrending photos of Sept 11, 2001, the buildup to the war, and the president's visits to our wounded soldiers.

SHOULD WE SPEAK OF "STIMULUS" OR THE "PELOSI-REID-OBAMA-DEBT PLAN"?

The Heritage Foundation does a bit of dissecting.  Some results:

- The “Stimulus” Bills Your Family – $825 Billion is equivalent to borrowing $10,520 from EVERY FAMILY IN AMERICA. This money has to be paid back.

Over $142 Billion in Federal education funds: Nearly double the total outlays for the Dept. of Education in 2007 – making good on Reid-Pelosi-Obama education promises to the NEA.

[Read more. . .]

Peter Schiff - "The U.S. Debt Bubble Will End Badly"

So says the man who called the subprime crisis well in advance.  See his current Wall Street Journal article here.

Is Obama Off to a Good Start?

Not according to Michael Ledeen(my emphases):

So President Obama promised virtue and transparency, and declared war on lobbyists. Thus far, we've got a tax cheat headed for Treasury, a man who lied under oath headed for Justice, and two celebrated lobbyists headed for the #2 slots at Defense and HHS.  (more . . .)

Quote of the Day

"There is nothing pro-choice about requiring others to pay for abortions."

So wrote David Freddoso, at the beginning of his Corner blog post.  He went on to say:

President Obama's new nominee for Deputy Secretary of State believes that taxpayers are constitutionally obligated to fund them. . .  [more . . .]

EXCELLENT BLOG: "BETWEEN TWO WORLDS"

I have found Justin Taylor's blog, "Between Two Worlds," so valuable that I now read it daily.  Today he strongly recommends two books.  I looked up the comments on Amazon and have put the books on my "wish list."  Here is what Taylor wrote:

If you don't yet have following books on your bookshelf--Reinventing Jesus by Daniel B. Wallace, J. Ed Komoszewski, and James Sawyer, and Putting Jesus in His Place by Robert M. Bowman Jr. and J. Ed Komoszewski--I'd warmly recommend them. They are both exactly what the church needs--excellent material, written in clear, accessible English, on important subjects under attack.

He goes on to  recommend inviting Ed Komoszewski to do seminars at one's local church. He also lists mp3s available from the Christian Life Conference at Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis where Alistair Begg and Sinclair Ferguson recently spoke.  Taylor lists the talks available for download on his blog.

Was Obama Wise or Foolish In Speaking Against Rush Limbaugh?

We'll see.  If Obama can marginalize Rush, then Obama is ahead.  On the other hand, Ed Morrissey thinks Obama both foolish and unpresidential to single out Rush.  Morrissey explains:

Instead of marginalizing Rush Limbaugh, Obama managed to make him the most credible voice of opposition. . .  It [Obama's attack] demonstrates that Obama still has no sense of his office, nor of “post-partisanship”, regardless of his endlessly empty rhetoric on the subject.

George Bush never attacked Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, or other voices of the rabid Left by name.  If he ever went on the attack against the left-wing media, he kept the attack general and broad, rather than specific.  Bush may not have been the most media-savvy of our modern presidents — in fact, he may have been the worst at it since Nixon — but he knew enough about his office to understand that part of its strength would keep him somewhat above the partisan-pundit fray.  Obama hasn’t figured that much out yet.

Thanks to this attack, Rush not only has his own megaphone, but he gained everyone else’s for a brief time.  He became a national story, gained national coverage, and in general got a million dollars’ worth of free publicity.  And Rush knows how to use it to his advantage . .  Obama made Rush's megaphone even bigger.

I WISH I HAD STAYED A VIRGIN

After losing her virginity at 14, youth leader is now committed to abstinence.  Click here.  (HT: VirtueOnline)

The Terrible Life of India's Slum Children

- Update 2/6/09  - Joseph D'Souza, the international president of the Dalit Freedom Network, applauds the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" saying,

I have worked with the disenfranchised and marginalised for most of my life. I’m a citizen of India who is proud of my country’s progress in recent years, yet I must point out the obvious again. The movie is not about selling the poverty of India, as a British newspaper alleged (“Shocked by Slumdog’s poverty porn”). Instead, it is the story about the real India of the majority, where children become the primary victims of all that is dysfunctional in society (as The Guardian pointed out).

- (Original post) - Mafia gangs deliberately cripple children for begging profit.  This is truly unspeakable.  Click here.  (HT: Drudge).   The new movie, Slumdog Millionaire, depicts some of this but doesn't go far enough.

Updates on Richard John Neuhaus

Click here for updates to an earlier post on Neuhaus.  The updates include reflections from Chuck Colson and Robert P. George.  Both well worth reading.

Frederica Mathewes-Green: Will Another Generation Regard Pro-Choice Boomers as Monsters?

Frederica Mathewes-Green has written a penetrating column that looks into the future. I think she foresees things accurately.  An excerpt (my emphases):

My boomer generation will never see abortion as anything other than the wise and benevolent gift we bestowed on all future generations. We still control the media, the universities, and so forth, and it will take time for all of us to topple off the end of the conveyor belt.

But the time is coming when a younger generation will be in charge, and they may well see abortion differently. They could see it not as “a woman’s choice” but as a form of state-sanctioned violence inflicted on their generation. It was their brothers and sisters who died; anyone under the age of 36 could have been aborted, and somewhere around a fourth or a fifth of all babies are. A younger generation might feel a strange kinship with the brothers and sisters, classmates and coworkers, who are missing.

And I’m afraid that if they do see things that way, they aren’t going to go easy on my generation. Our acceptance of abortion is not going to look like an understandable goof. The next generation can fairly say, “It’s not like they didn’t know.” They’ll say, “After all, they had sonograms.”

Even in my generation, people who think of themselves as defenders of the weak and the oppressed may occasionally have a quiet moment when they wonder, “How, on this one issue, did I wind up on the side that’s defending death?” There's a lot of ambivalence out there, and a lot of unspoken grief too, I think. Our pro-choice generation may have won the day—but sooner or later, that day will end. No generation can rule from the grave. When that time comes, another generation will sit in judgment on ours. And they may judge us to be monsters.

2009 March for Life Photos

Click here for a good many photos.   One example:

As Ronald Reagan famously quipped, “I’ve noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born.”

British Writer: This Emperor has No Clothes, It Will All End in Tears

While the world waxes  euphoric over the inauguration of Barack Obama (Peggy Noonan has gone nearly drunk on Hopenchange), one British writer will have none of it.  Gerald Warner writes (emphases mine) of Obama (HT: Hot Air):

Denouncing "those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents" comes ill from a man whose flagship legislation, the Freedom of Choice Act, will impose abortion, including partial-birth abortion, on every state in the Union. It seems the era of Hope is to be inaugurated with a slaughter of the innocents.

I don't think it could be better said.

On the economic crisis Warner says:

We should be long past applauding politicians of any hue: they got us into this mess. The best deserve a probationary opportunity to prove themselves, the worst should be in jail.

It is questionable whether the present political system can survive the coming crisis. Whatever the solution, teenage swooning sentimentality over a celebrity cult has no part in it. The most powerful nation on earth is confronting its worst economic crisis under the leadership of its most extremely liberal politician, who has virtually no experience of federal politics. That is not an opportunity but a catastrophe.

These are frank, even ungracious, words: they have the one merit that, unlike almost everything else written today about Obama, they will not require to be eaten in the future.

Me: Cheers for Gerald Warner.  I don't know of  anyone writing like this in the American press, do you?  Chris Matthews, on reading Warner, will gag...  Warner, no doubt, does the same on watching MSNBC's star...

Three Cheers for the new "International Free Press Society"

Details at the IFSS website here.  It's greatly needed.  May its influence grow.

Prof. Robert P. George of Princeton Reflects on Roe v. Wade

He titled his talk  "Our Struggle for the Soul of Our Nation."  The entire speech needs to be read.  One small excerpt follows (my emphases):

As William H. Rehnquist and Byron White, the two dissenting justices in the case, pointed out, it is absurd to claim that a right to feticide follows from the constitutional injunction that “no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” If the Constitution can be read to imply anything about abortion, it is that unborn human beings are, like everyone else, entitled to “the equal protection of the laws.” At a minimum, Roe and Doe were an outrageous usurpation of

Video Clip: Hannity asks Rush, "Do You Want Obama to Succeed"?

Video here.  Transcript here.  Excerpt:

I would hope he would succeed if he acts like Reagan. But if he's going to do FDR -- if he's going to do The New New Deal all over, which we will call here The Raw Deal -- why would I want him to succeed? Look, he's my president. The fact that he is historic is irrelevant to me now. It matters not at all. If he is going to implement a far-left agenda... Look, I think it's already decided: a $2 trillion in stimulus? The growth of government? I think the intent here is to create as many dependant Americans as possible looking to government for their hope and salvation. If he gets nationalized health care, I mean, it's over, Sean. We're never going to roll that back. That's the end of America as we have known it, because that's then going to set the stage for everything being government owned, operated, or provided. Why would I want that to succeed? I don't believe in that. I know that's not how this country is going to be great in the future; it's not what made this country great. So I shamelessly say, "No! I want him to fail." If his agenda is a far-left collectivism -- some people say socialism -- as a conservative heartfelt, deeply, why would I want socialism to succeed?

Illinois moment of silence ruled unconstitutional

I am filing this in the "hard to believe department."  According to Mike Robinson of the Associated Press,

A federal judge [Robert W. Gettleman] has ruled that a state law requiring a moment of silence in public schools across Illinois is unconstitutional, saying it crosses the line separating church and state.

"The statute is a subtle effort to force students at impressionable ages to contemplate religion," U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman said in his ruling Wednesday.  [more. . .]

Me:  Has it come to this?  What manner of insanity grips the radical left?  I am wondering when the sane people of the land will rise up against this madness . . .

Celebs Pledge Allegiance to Obama

Here's a creepy video and an apt comment by Michael Graham in the Boston Herald.  (HT: Jonah Goldberg at The Corner].  Graham writes:

Demi Moore and her boy toy Ashton Kutcher have put together a YouTube video called “The Pledge,” in which a cast of celebrities and semi-celebs pledge their service to Obama.

Literally.

The video starts harmlessly enough, with Hollywoodies like Cameron Diaz, Laura Linney and the like making various innocuous pledges of good behavior. They range from the serious (“I pledge to promote mental health education”) to the silly (“I pledge to never give the finger while driving again”) to the slightly icky (Jason Bateman pledges to stop flushing the toilet after urinating. House guests, you’ve been warned).

So when rocker Anthony Kiedis says “I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama,” it seems humorously over the top.

But then Moore stares intently into the camera and announces “I pledge to be a servant to our president,” a pledge echoed by all the celebs who promise to become “the change that we seek.”

Celebs Compare Obama to Jesus, Gandhi

From the "roll your eyes department" as far as I am concerned:  The Hill reports,

Movie star Susan Sarandon compared President Obama to Jesus. Broadway and film actor Alan Cumming thought of him more like Mahatma Gandhi.

“He is a community organizer like Jesus was,” Sarandon said Tuesday night on the bright blue carpet leading into the Creative Coalition’s 2009 Ball at the Harman Center for the Arts in Chinatown. “And now, we’re a community and he can organize us.”  [more. . .]

(HT: Andrew Stuttaford at The Corner)   

Dick Morris - "The Obama Presidency: Here Comes Socialism"

Morris articulates the probable future well.  (HT: Drudge)  He writes:

2009-2010 will rank with 1913-14, 1933-36, 1964-65 and 1981-82 as years that will permanently change our government, politics and lives. Just as the stars were aligned for Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson and Reagan, they are aligned for Obama. Simply put, we enter his administration as free-enterprise, market-dominated, laissez-faire America. We will shortly become like Germany, France, the United Kingdom, or Sweden — a socialist democracy in which the government dominates the economy, determines private-sector priorities and offers a vastly expanded range of services to many more people at much higher taxes.

Obama will accomplish his agenda of “reform” under the rubric of “recovery.” Using the electoral mandate bestowed on a Democratic Congress by restless voters and the economic power given his administration by terrified Americans, he will change our country fundamentally in the name of lifting the depression. His stimulus packages won’t do much to shorten the downturn — although they will make it less painful — but they will do a great deal to change our nation.  [my emphases]

Read the whole thing . . .

Tune in at 5:00 p.m. ET Today to Watch Congressional Pro-Life Speeches on CSPAN January 21, 2009

The Family Research Council announces:

As pro-abortion forces increase their numbers in Congress and with the election of President Barack Obama, prolifers need to work hard to protect the life of the unborn. Leading up to the March for Life rally tomorrow, Members of Congress decided to hold a Special Order on the floor of the House today in which they will give speeches defending the unborn. This special order will be aired on CSPAN 1, and could begin as early as 5:00 p.m. EST, depending on the vote schedule. Please keep your eye on CSPAN 1 to watch Members defend the right to life of the unborn, or you can watch online.

Has the Pro-Life Movement Failed?

Not by a long shot.   As Cathy Ruse and Austin Ruse suggest, "Ask an abortion doctor."  The Ruses write:

Imagine yourself a typical abortion doctor . . .  Every day you walk through a phalanx of protesters praying for you to stop your work and trying to persuade your patients to walk away. A few doors away or across the street sits a pregnancy help center that has a new sonogram machine which is opening a

Life

An ad appearing in select markets of Black Entertainment Television:  Click here.

Obedience Equals Freedom - Taught by the Dog "Monk" aka "Isa. 40:31"

A friend sent me this 4:45 minute YouTube clip about a champion dog.

The Inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States

- Rick Warren's Inauguration Prayer here.

- Kathryn Jean Lopez said,  "Wouldn't it have been something if more of the VIPs and those gathered on the Mall had joined Rick Warren in praying "Our Father..."? Among other things, it would have made me more comfortable with the spontaneous "Obama" chants I've been hearing all morning."

- Obama's Inaugural speech here.

- Jay Nordlinger offers inaugural reactions including listing  things not to his liking.  Worth reading.

- Terry Teachout on the musical composition and poem:  "neither was any good at all." 

- Update 1/21/09 -  It's perhaps significant that only Fox News carried President George W. Bush's homecoming to Midland, Texas.  I saw most of Bush's speech.  It was memorable and well worth watching.  Too bad networks and other cable outlets didn't think the same.

Most Memorable Christian Audio of 2008

Justin Taylor links to the Faith by Hearing Audio blog which has posted their best audio list for 2008.  I hope I won't get in trouble for reproducing the list below.  (I am not sure of blog etiquette regarding this).  But let me add that this website/blog, Faith by Hearing looks amazing!  There's an incredible amount of material here.  "Faith by Hearing" says:

Having listened to hundreds of sermons, discussions and interviews this year, I have listed here the 12 mp3’s or mp3 series that still linger in my memory as being particularly impactful.

Gordon Fee’s 3 part series on Reading & Studying the Bible for Life is perhaps the most important series I’ve posted on FBH. Fee nails one of our generation’s most dangerous blind spots in regards to the Christian faith.

Sinclair Ferguson’s 17 part sermon series through James is an incredible journey of powerful expository preaching.

Outrage, Complaints Shut Down Planned D.C. Homosexual Orgy at Doubletree Hotel

WorldNetDaily published the story which carries the subtitle: "Hotel nixes homosexual 'pig sex' party celebrating Obama inauguration."   It's a story you won't see covered on television (or almost anywhere else, for that matter).  One of the major links within the article goes to Peter LeBarbara's Americans for Truth about Homosexuality.

Richard John Neuhaus on Martin Luther King, Jr.

Richard John Neuhaus (1936-2009) wrote a major essay on Martin Luther King, Jr. for the October, 2002 issue of First Things magazine.  Since the nation celebrates the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. today, I thought it appropriate to post Neuhaus' reflections on the great civil rights leader.  Neuhaus wrote:

I recall rallies when, in the course of his preaching, King would hold forth on the theological and moral foundations of the movement. The klieg lights and cameras shut down, only to be turned on again when he returned to specifically political or programmatic themes. “Watch the lights,” he commented. “They’re not interested in the most important parts.”

Again, writing on the theological substance of King, Neuhaus noted:

A few days after the assassination, I took part in a huge memorial service in Harlem. The service was reported on the evening news. The reporter, microphone in hand, stood

Weirdness with the Google Search Engine and "Muddling Toward Maturity"

For those who have ever used the Google search engine to find "Muddling Toward Maturity," you are probably aware that Google always brings people directly to one of my sub-topics, "Anti-Christian."  I wonder why that is so.  Does Google have a bias?  I don't know, but be that as it may,  I have many other topics!  If you have newly arrived at the "Anti-Christian" sub-topic, please check current posts here.

Dr. Ben Witherington Writes on the Apostle Paul's Ethical Trajectory Regarding Slavery

Dr. Ben Witherington, Professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary, has a blog on which he has published a section of a book he is writing on New Testament ethics.  I have extracted below a portion of what he published, all of which I found very interesting.  Witherington shows how Paul's treatment of slavery exhibits increasing specificity as the closeness of his contact with those receiving his letters advances.  In short, Colossians, Ephesians, and Philemon demonstrate an ethical trajectory which proves quite illuminating.

Witherington labels this section "LEVELS OF MORAL DISCOURSE"

Unfortunately, besides the neglect or disparagement of NT ethics, one of the other negative things that has happened to NT ethical material is the de-contexualizing of the material and the failure to see its usual ad hoc nature. All too often it has been treated rather flatly or uniformly. These things ought not to be. NT ethics is just as much a word on target for certain Christian audiences as the theologizing we find in these same documents. And in fact, when we have material that is repeated in more than one document, for example like the household codes, we begin to discover that there are trajectories of change in some of this material, just as there are levels of discourse. Let me explain what I mean by these two concepts (levels of discourse and trajectories of change) as they are in fact intertwined.

If a person has any sensibility about wanting to make an effective communication with a particular audience and persuade them of something, especially if the issue here is exhortation and application, then that person must:

Hymns Online

"Cyberhymnal"" has a new home:  http://www.hymntime.com/tch/.  (HT: Between Two Worlds)

Me: This is a website I expect to explore more extensively in the future.  In a conversation the other day, the subject of the hymnwriter Fanny Crosby came up.  We discussed some of the hymns she has written and wondered how many more there were.  A quick look at the Fanny Crosby link on this site offers extensive coverage, including not only a list of all her hymns, but also her pseudonyms. The site also includes the lyrics and melodies of the hymns she wrote.  And there are thousands of other hymns and hymn writers listed as well, including more modern hymns and hymn writers also.  

The "Cyber Hymnal" says of itself:

This site has over 7,300 Christ­ian hymns & Gos­pel songs from ma­ny de­nom­in­a­tions. You’ll find lyrics, scores, MI­DI files, pic­tures, his­to­ry, & more.  . .  This wor­ship & teach­ing re­source is pro­vid­ed as a pub­lic ser­vice

Bill Moyers Rants Against Israel -- and Jews

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) complains bitterly about Bill Moyer's egregious distortion of  the Israel-Hamas reality.

Bill Moyers, long a prominent figure with the Public Broadcasting Service, has crossed a journalist and ethical line.  In a  commentary broadcast on January 9, 2009, he not only presented several highly distorted statements about the crisis in Gaza, but also depicted Israeli violence as a consequence of "genetic encoding." In particular, Moyers falsely accused Israel of indiscriminately killing Palestinians in the recent round of fighting in the Gaza Strip and portrayed Israel's military actions in Gaza as the equivalent of America's use of napalm on villages during the Vietnam War.

. .  He claimed the dead in Gaza were the "casualties and victims of Israel's decision to silence the rockets from Hamas terrorists by waging war on the entire population."  [Emphasis added.]  He also stated that "By killing indiscriminately the elderly, kids, entire families by destroying schools and hospitals Israel did exactly what terrorists do and exactly what Hamas wanted.  It spilled the blood that turns the wheel of retribution."

Such assertions are outrageous.  Israel has not "waged war on the entire population" of the Gaza Strip of 1.5 million people; it has waged war on Hamas and its terrorist infrastructure.    (more . . .)

(HT: Jonah Goldberg at The Corner)  

More. . .

D.A. Carson's Lectures and Sermons Now Online

Dr. Don Carson, a prolific writer and outstanding Bible lecturer and preacher, currently serves as Research Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School,  Deerfield, Illinois.  Carson now has 443 of his sermons available online.  This is a boon to the serious Bible student.  The sermons can be accessed here by Scripture passsage, topic, or category.   (HT: Justin Taylor).

The Secret of R. J. Neuhaus' Productivity

I posted earlier on the passing of Richard John Neuhaus. Kathryn Jean Lopez notes that a priest wrote in his diocesan paper of Neuhaus the following:

I asked him his secret for being so prodigious a reader and writer. His response I took initially as a non-sequitur, until I had a chance to reflect on it more and put it into practice. His secret, he told me, was to make sure he did his morning prayer before he began to read the newspaper. Once he had put God first and received his help for the day, he could then get to the work God was asking him to do with greater concentration. God seemed to multiply his efforts.  [emphasis mine]

One of our mutual friends, who was with him to the end, told me that as his mental capacities were beginning to shut down, the one thing he continued to do lucidly was to pray his breviary.

On the Lighter Side: A Fun Video of a Well-Trained Dog

I found myself smiling and laughing as I watched this 3 minute video.   (Hat tip: Jonah Goldberg at the Corner)