Final Post...

Not because I have decided to give up blogging, but because I have merged with my friend Andrew, formerly of Jackknifed Juggernaut. Please update your bookmarks to our new blog, Of Bald Men and Bears, which is at http://baldbears.blogspot.com/. I will still keep this blog up, but will only post to the other one.

Breakfast

My 40 day policktical fast was completed yesterday. This process was probably one of the best I've done in my life; the time in peace from politics have given me a lot of time to do better things (like this blog), and I feel much less likely to have a gut reaction to an event or idea come straight out of the Republican Party platform. Up to this point, I have still not visited the Drudge Report or Rush Limbaugh's web site, but I may after a while.

This morning, I read the Omaha World-Herald and the New York Times, but I skipped most of the stories about politics. I suspect that I felt today like what I will feel on my twenty-first birthday: I'll finally be able to do something, but I'll have no desire whatsoever to binge. The political world seems much more dull than it ever did, and I am reminded of that song: "Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face, and the things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace."

Pray for me that I don't enslave myself again to American politics: "It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery." (Galatians 5:1)

Reflections on a Willow Creek Conference

First, I should note that, contrary to some rumors that have been circulating, I am neither dead nor apathetic toward my beloved blog; I have merely been working like a legalist to get caught up from having taken pretty much four days off of any homework to go to the preaching/teaching conference at Willow Creek Community Church.

Second, I want to answer a few of the comments posted where I announced that I was going on the conference:

• Yes, I want to become a pastor of some sort; I feel extremely led to preach (and have been blessed to have been given opportunities to do it a couple times at my college ministry).
• What I think about Willow Creek is something that I may take up in a future post. My impression was largely favorable, but I feel I need more time to reflect on the church as a whole before I write something one way or another.

Those things taken care of, I mainly want to write about something that has seemingly been coming up in various aspects of my life, and was one of the main ideas of the conference: the idea of striving for excellence in what we are called to do.

I personally have been a little hesitant to want to be a great preacher because there seems to be something egocentric about that. I now have a slightly different approach to this idea: a desire for people to think that I am a great preacher is egocentric; a desire to be the preacher God wants me to be (which entails my striving for the upper boundaries of the abilities He has given me) is not egocentric, but fulfilling my calling. In the Bible, Paul exhorts Timothy to be devoted to growing in his preaching because the salvation of people is at stake therein, for preaching is proclaiming the Word of God.

Also, I have been starting to read Rick Howard's and Jamie Lash's This was your Life, which deals with the Judgment Seat of Christ (see also Hebrews 6 on this subject), where believers will be asked to give an account of what they have built on the foundation of their salvation through Christ. The book challenges Christians to bust their butts for Christ here on earth--not for salvation (that is completely accomplished through faith in Jesus Christ by grace), but to accomplish the work for which God saved us to enable us to do.

So, what have I learned? First of all, I really see the great need in my life to be disciplined. I have struggled this entire semester with procrastination. Although I have finished all the work I needed to, I have been crippled from accomplishing more than the bare minimum to do well in my classes, which barely covers the sort of ministry God has called me to right now. Thus, I am shortchanging myself, those with whom I interact, and God (although I'm not quite sure if it is possible to shortchange the self-sustaining God of the universe, but I'm sure that you know what I mean). So, without becoming a workaholic, I am trying to manage my time a little bit better (which has gone pretty well this week--we'll see about next week).

Second, I have had to repent of a certain fatalistic outlook where I have not worked as hard as I could, thinking that God will still accomplish what He wants to accomplish no matter what I do, which coincidentally (or is it?) is a point about which D.A. Carson wrote in today's reading in For the Love of God, Vol. 2 in regard to Daniel 9:

When Daniel becomes aware from Scripture just when the close of the exile would take place, far from resting and waiting for the promises to come true, he prays for such fulfillment. The peculiar dynamic between God's sovereignty and human responsibility in the Bible never retreats to fatalism. The promises of God are incentives to intercession.

That's probably enough for now, but I'll keep you posted on what God is teaching me about all of this.

Essential survival gear

I will be writing a post soon on my experiences this weekend at the conference I attended in Chicago. For now, you should read this story to find out about an essential piece of survival gear should you ever become stranded on a desert island or something like that.

En vacances

For the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Fall Break, I have travelled to Chicago to attend a preaching and teaching conference at Willow Creek Community Church. So, I'm writing this from a hotel in a suburb of Chicago, and I probably will not have a lot of opportunities to post until Wednesday. Still, I should be back full force on Wednesday! For those of you at UNL, have a good break.

My next computer programming assignment...

This is pretty cool. Apparently, they have hooked up sensors to a quadriplegic's brain that allows him to operate a computer with 70% accuracy. The implications of this are amazing. Does this raise any ethical concerns with anyone? (It may or may not; I'm just curious.)

I just voted.

(It was an absentee ballot.)

That's pretty much all there is to it, except to say that I don't think that I will ever again reveal for whom I vote. In the midst of my political fast, it was somewhat difficult to make an informed decision, but I prayed that God would guide me and that he would bless the election. That doesn't mean that we will have a Super Christian in every office; in fact, when Paul is writing about obeying authority, he's writing under the Emperor Nero, who was not exactly one of the most Christian rulers to walk the earth. Thus, no matter who wins the various offices up for elections, I will submit to those people, knowing that God has a reason for everything he orchestrates.

This is so much better than completely fretting about what's going to happen like I did in 2000! Now, back to Hamlet, so that I can really learn to have faith in the government!

On the nature of news

What people define as newsworthy has always intrigued me. This intrigue peaked, of course, in the publications of my middle school and high school, but also in the newspaper of my beloved childhood home, the Chappell Register (where "news" consisted of letters from Santa schoolchildren were assigned by their teachers to write).

Still, these pieces of journalism suffered because of a lack of news. There simply isn't much to report in a town of only 1000 people (other than gossip of course). I am far more likely to give Chappell a pass than I am for a national publication, such as Wired News, in whom I was disappointed for this story, which actually wasted the hard drive space on some server on the internet with a story about how some iPod users don't want to wear the distinctive white earbud headphones because of their self-asserted "individuality" (never mind the fact that there are lots of them doing this). Granted, this may be a cultural phenomenon, but I simply do not see any relevance to anything here.

This may, of course, be because I do not own an iPod and am not part of the Cult of the Mac. Any thoughts, Andrew (who trendily owns both an iPod and an iBook, and has even sold his blog's soul to iTunes)? What about you, Christy (who owns the iPod and iBook, and is thinking about selling her blog's soul to iTunes).

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Update:

Christy reminded me that Chris also has both an iPod and an iBook. Sorry Chris! You can feel free to comment too (but it would be great it you got an account)!

The Jesus Seminar Strikes Again!

Dwight Knoll linked to a story about the Jesus Seminar from his blog. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read it, either.

There is no place like Nebraska

After I got up this morning, started my coffeemaker, and took a shower, I came back to my room to decide what to wear. I poked around my wardrobe for a while, but I knew what I had to do: I pulled out my favorite Nebraska Cornhusker shirt and put it on. It doesn't matter if we gave up the worst loss in school history Saturday, because I refuse to be a fair-weather fan.

This determination goes back to my days of Middle School. I remember that after Nebraska got shut out by Arizona State in 1996--this coming after going undefeated 1994 and 1995 and only having lost once in 1993's season--I decided that I needed one more day of mourning that next Monday, and I didn't wear my Husker shirt to school. About third period that day, one of my teachers walked into my class, looked around the room, and bought the two kids who were wearing Husker shirts a can of juice. He did it to teach us that we should stick behind our team no matter what happens.

Although at the time I was mainly kicking myself for missing out on a free juice, I came to realize that I must stick behind my Huskers even if they go 3-8 on the season (which is a possibility this year). If Cubs fans can root for their losing team year after year, I can do it for my Huskers who have had three national championships within the last decade.

So, I'm proudly wearing my Husker shirt today. My Husker posters will stay right where they are on my walls in my room. I will still be on constant look-out for any Husker football players I might recognize on campus. I will go to all the games I can, and I will lose my voice at every game, if necessary. One day we will be a great team again; one day we will win the national championship; one day we will again be able to mop the floor with the likes of Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas Tech. Until that day comes, nothing will change in my support of our team. I just might get good at crying.

Thought of the day

D.A. Carson, in his For the Love of God, Vol. 2, writes:

We must always remember that: The Gospel is not admired in Scripture primarily because of the social transformation it effects, but because it reconciles men and women to a holy God. Its purpose is not that we might feel fulfilled, but that we might be reconciled to the living and holy God. The consummation [of Christ and the Church in the future] is delightful to the transformed people of God, not simply because the environment of the new heaven and the new earth is pleasing, but because we forever live and work and worship in the unshielded radiance of the presence of our holy Maker and Redeemer. That prospect must shape how the church lives and serves, and determine the pulse of its ministry. The only alternative is high-sounding but self-serving idolatry.

Amen, brother. Amen.

Bad News for Andrew

Actually, this is bad news for all you Calvinists out there. I was looking around the internet for information on the theology of 7th Heaven, and a Google sponsored result led me to an article that very persuasively refutes Calvinism. You can read it here.

Rev. Paul C. Jong points out basic logical errors in the theology of Calvinism, such as how:

What the untrue theology says about predestination is that God elected the people He loves while condemning those He dislikes. This means that some who were elected are born again of water and the Spirit and accepted into heaven while the others who were not elected are destined to burn in hell.

If God in fact elects only some of us, we cannot help but agonize over the question, "Was I elected for salvation?" If we were not elected, it would be useless for us to believe in Jesus. Thus this theory has made many people more concerned with whether they were elected by God than with faith itself.

(Disclaimer: I am writing this sarcastically; I thought that this article represented one of the worst misunderstandings of Calvinism I have read yet.)

The Last Tempation of Jacob

I regret to inform you all that I have fallen. I didn't want to do it, but my entire family was talking about the presidential debate this evening. I should have yelled, "Get behind me, Satan!" and left the room, but I must admit that I sort of wanted to hear what was happening. I only have seventeen days left in my policktical fast, but I succombed to temptation. These last days are going to be harder than I thought they would be.

Still, I am not going to just throw in the towel. I will continue to shun news and politickery as much as I, by the grace of God, can.

Homecoming

It's homecoming time in Hastings, sports fans! My dad picked me up at about 2:30 from Lincoln, and we just got back into town. The reason was twofold: (1) my car had broken down, but was now fixed in Hastings, and so the trip from Hastings to Lincoln and back again was inevitable for him (whether it was he driving a vehicle and my mother driving my vehicle, their leaving my vehicle in Lincoln, and then driving back together in Hastings; or whether he picked me up from Lincoln, took me back to Hastings, and I drove my car back to Lincoln myself); and (2) my brother's Homecoming at Hastings High School is this evening, and my brother has been nominated for the prestigious position of Homecoming King. So, it made sense for me to come home, go to all the Homecoming festivities, and return tomorrow morning in time for a friend's wedding in Lincoln.

We are all really excited for my brother. The semi-humorous part about all this is that I, when I was in high school, ended up taking the Homecoming King crown for the class of 2002. I don't generally volunteer this information because the title "Homecoming King" conjures a different image in most people's heads than the sort of monarch I actually was. You see, I was not all that particularly popular, nor was I a jock, nor really anything that should have stuck out in any traditional sense.

So how did I usurp the throne of Tiger-land? In terms of geo-political affairs, the events leading up to my coronation were more complicated than those leading up to World War I.

It all started when I voted to nominate myself and my immediate friends. I mainly did it as a joke, but apparently a lot of other people were in on the joke as well.

But my seizing the throne basically came together because I carried the band vote. All the jocks and popular kids split their respective votes amongst themselves, but I was the solitary band member on the ballot. I think that I also carried the drama vote and part of the choir vote, but those were relatively small groups, with most of the major figures in both were also in band.

The political anomaly no one would have factored in was the freshman girl vote, of which I had a cult following. I'm still not exactly sure what that was all about, but there were several freshman girls who actually wore small pieces of paper that they taped to themselves that said, "I voted for Jacob Gerber, did you?" As long as there are historians, I think that they will be puzzling over that one.

So that's the story, recorded for posterity's sake. And as I read it, I'm glad that I'm not in high school anymore.

***GEEK ALERT***

If you enjoy video games, you have to see this eBay auction where 1355 video game system and accessories (including over 290 entertainment systems) were auctioned off in a lot (Slashdot reports that there were over 1300 games, but I didn't want to count them). The lot went for $11,500. There are some rich nerds out there.

Furthermore, Google has added SMS service which, in their words:

...enables you to easily get precise answers to specialized queries from your mobile phone or device. Send your query as a text message and get phone book listings, dictionary definitions, product prices and more. Just text. No links. No web pages.

Ahhh...The path to world domination is moving along smoothly!

"Imagine there's no heaven..."

MC Hendrick wrote a thoughtful post on what the world would be like if there were no God and everything were irrelevant. He makes the case that there is no freedom if there is no creator, since there would then be no objective set of morals, not ultimate purpose for our lives, and no reason not to do the sort of things we don't want done against us (murder, adultery, theft, etc...). I very much agreed with what he said.

Personally, John Lennon's "Imagine" never made much sense:

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
(Source)

I understand the argument that many wars have been waged because of conflicting religions, but how would "living for today" bring about any peace? If there is no God, then there are no moral standards that might prevent starting a war for even more petty reasons. Furthermore, if there were no reason to abstain from certain activities in life that are harmful to others, why bother when I might gain something out of it?

To be fair, I am probably setting up a straw man here, but I think what I'm saying is ultimately true. If you are interested, Hendrick listed a link to another blog, No Religion Now, which basically argues the philosophy of John Lennon's song (WARNING--strong language). It is pretty enlightening from someone who has been a Christian his entire life (me).

Feeding the hungry...

If you attend the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, you have often seen a gentleman holding a sign requesting alms for the poor (himself), and challenging us to think about what Jesus would do were He in our shoes. This has always been a dilemma for me.

On one hand, Jesus describes how those who will be saved will have been feeding the poor and clothing the naked, et cetera; and, in the process, they will have been serving--in addition to the poor and naked--Jesus Himself. Obviously, there is a clear biblical basis for serving the poor.

On the other hand, if this guy were really needy, why would he try to get alms from college students? In fact, one of his signs says, "Will work for food." What sort of work would college students have for him to do? Their term papers? Something just doesn't seem right about the whole thing.

So what am I supposed to do? Do I snub him, and miss an opportunity to show the love of Jesus to a poor man? Or, do I wisely invest my money in the needs of those who are really poor (in which category this man might not fall)? I have, in the past, given some money to people on the street (not often, and not much), but should I be doing it more often? What are your convictions about this?

New Google Service

Good news! Google has stepped up its services, probably in an effort to edge out the new Clusty search engine and, to a limited extent, Amazon.com (only in the way that Amazon allows you to run searches that will scour the text of their books). According to a Reuters news article, Google will now be offering a service called Google Print.

Apparently, if you keep using Google as your search engine, you will start to notice books appearing in your searches. This doesn't so much compete with Amazon.com, but instead is only a service for your searches. In other words, this does not mean that Google is going to actually sell the books. The Google Print site probably says it best:

Finding books is easy. Just do your usual searches on Google and whenever a book contains content that matches your search terms, we'll show that book in your search results. Click on the book title and you'll see the page of the book containing your search terms and other information about the book. Click on the "Buy this Book" link and you'll go straight to an online bookstore where you can purchase the book.

You will not, however, be able to read entire books through this service:

Google Print is designed to help you discover books, not read them from start to finish. It's like going to a bookstore and browsing – only with a Google twist. Google searches across entire books in order to find the pages that are most relevant to your search. Once you're on a book page, you can 'flip' two pages forward and back, view other information about the book and even conduct another search within the book.

So, fortunately, we do not need to worry about Google's downfall. I will therefore be able to sleep well tonight.

To which circle do you belong?

For my Medieval Literature and Theology class, we are reading Dante's Inferno. In this book, Dante puts certain figures from history and his contemporary world into different circles of hell, depending on their crimes.

If you are interested in determining which circle you are headed for*, take a survey** that will determine your destination here.

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* - This does not apply if you have accepted Jesus as your Savior to forgive your sins.

** - Caution, this survey asks potentially offensive quesitons, but only for the purposes of determining your circle of hell.

For the Love of God

As you may have noticed, I have listed listed this book on the list of books that I'm reading/digesting since I put the list up. The reason I am still reading it is that this is the devotional guide/commentary that I use to study the Bible.

Actually, I have been using this, as well as the first volume for about four years. The reason I have used it so much is because it, more than anything I have found, puts an incredible emphasis on the importance of saturating ourselves in the Scriptures. Carson writes in the following in his preface:

This book is for Christians who want to read the Bible, who want to read all the Bible...Here you will find a plan that will help you read through the New Testament and Psalms twice, and the rest of the Bible once, in the course of a year--or, on a modification of the plan, in the course of two years. Comment is offered for each day, but this book fails utterly in its goal if you read the comment and not the assigned biblical passages. (ix-x)

This is one of the best attitudes about one's commentary that I have yet read. Still, he's being modest; his comments are very good, and rooted in an extraordinarily high view of God. (I quoted him in an earlier post.) This is also in his preface:

Devotional guides tend to offer short, personal readings from the Bible, sometimes only a verse or two, followed by several paragraphs of edifying exposition. Doubtless they provide personal help for believers with private needs and fears and hopes. But they do not provide the framework of what the Bible says--the "plotline" or "story line"--the big picture that makes sense of all the little bits of the Bible. Wrongly used, such devotional guides may ultimately engender the profoundly wrong-headed view that God exists to sort out my problems; they may foster profoundly mistaken interpretations of some Scriptures, simply because the handful of passages they treat are no longer placed within the framework of the big picture, which is gradually fading from view [in western Christianity]. Only systematic and repeated reading of the whole Bible can meet these challenges. (x, original emphasis)

So, if you are looking for a good Bible reading plan where you will actually read Amos, Nahum, and all of Leviticus, I highly recommend this book, as well as its first volume. Anyone know of any other good devotional guides/commentaries?

The Joys of Java (coffee, not computers)

My dad brought me up more coffee from home today. This was wonderful, because I was about 11.25 ounces through my 11.5 ounce container of coffee (the one I purchased at the beginning of this semester). I have no idea where it all went so quickly, but I love coffee. I take great delight out of my coffee routine.

First in my routine, I get my coffeemaker all set up the night before, spooning out just the right amount of coffee into the filter, and measuring out the perfect amount of water (I usually drink about five cups in the morning). After I wake up in the morning, I turn my coffeemaker on and leave to take a shower. When I get back, my room has that wonderful coffee smell, and I quickly get dressed so that I can enjoy my first taste of coffee as I'm reading the Bible or studying, or doing whatever it is that I happen to be doing that morning. Ahhh, life is good when I have my coffee!

That's why I was so upset to read that coffee is addictive. I mean, this has to be a hoax, right? I love my coffee, so it surely isn't addictive! It has no power over me. None whatsoever. I could stop drinking coffee right now if I so desired, without any side effects. I just don't particularly have such a desire. I love my coffee in a pure, unaddicted way. You don't have to worry about any addiction in me. I just like a good cup of coffee now and then.

I'm glad that's settled. I need to go to the Mill to get some studying done. and to drink some coffee.

Google's Downfall?

I found out about a new search engine that, according to the New York Times, is going to give Google a run for its money. Clusty the Clustering Engine apparently has a method of searching that is comparatively as good as Google's (I think it uses some sort of technology Yahoo! developed), but a method of sorting and organizing the search results that blows Google out of the water. I tried it out, and there were things I really liked about it, but there were also things I didn't appreciate so much about it. This is big news to me, because, since the dawn of Google News and Gmail, I have been anticipating Google to take over the world. (By the way, if you are really interested in either Google, Google News, or "Fair Use" issues--which is really only Ben--you should read this article about why Google is having problems getting its Google News to make money.)

Furthermore, Google has attained the status where it is beginning to be vilified, much as Microsoft has. I found this site about how Gmail is too creepy. Not much of it is that interesting unless you are a privacy nut, but I really liked this picture:

So, what's a Google afficionado to do? Well, I have just converted everything I use from Yahoo! (which gave me a great 6 years of service) to Google, and I'll be darned if I'm going to switch loyalties right after I got my oh-so-spiffy-never-mind-the-creepiness Gmail account, this Google-owned blog, a Google search engine on my navigational bar, and a membership in the Google Fan Club. So, search limitations and fair use doctrines aside, I will stand with Gmail.

Bible Quiz

If you would like to test your Bible knowledge, you might enjoy this quiz. I received great insight from the person who designed this quiz--almost as much, in fact, as I received from the Prayer of Jabez. Look out, Dr. Warren Wiersbe--the About.com Bible pundit is taking the theological world by storm, shining light on profound theological truths, such as Adam's real sin in the Garden of Eden:

In Genesis 2:15 God appoints Adam a gardener in Eden. "The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it." Distracted by other goals, aims and activities, Adam never attended to this task of caring for the garden. The question that this passage now suggests is whether humanity is doing any better at caring for the earth than Adam?

I'm thrilled to hear insights from those who take the time to read the Old Testament.

Also, be sure to take note of the moving article on About.com's web site, "Pop Spirituality: What's Hot; What's Not," where guru Charles Henderson will update you about the latest spiritual trends. Here is Henderson's noble goal:

But once the passions of religious conviction are let loose upon the world, unchained to any particular tradition or discipline, all sorts of new and wonderful things begin to happen, some quite positive, others much less so. The ideas of a Matthew Fox, for example, are very creative. While the doctrines of the Heaven's Gate cult group were obviously very destructive. Given the widespread popularity of all things spiritual, there is a need for a review of what's hot and what's not in the spiritual arena these days. In that context, we offer the following.

This review of "what's hot and what's not" is certainly a need of mine--I never know which gods are en vogue, and I constantly worry about praying to the unfashionable deity.

What dreams may come...

As I promised, here is a post about my dream. After I explain what exactly my dream was about, I will then explain how I think I would turn it into a novel.

In my dream, I met a girl named Sarah in one of my classes, whom I really felt led to witness to. (This really was not a romantic thing.) So, I tried to develop the sort of relationship necessary to tell her about my faith and invite her to come to church with me. She was hesitant to go to any church, but I kept at it. One day, as we were walking down some stairs after a class or something, a man was waiting on one of the landings on the steps. When we got to that landing, he said to her, "The Lord, in His infinite sovereignty, has chosen not to choose your fate; but, whatever you choose in regard to following His Son Jesus Christ, you will either do great work for or against the Kingdom of God." He then turned to me and said, "Pray for this one; do not cease to pray for this one." He then went out a door on that landing and was gone.

So, I instantly realized the great magnitude of her life. I began to pray for her quite a bit, and I took every opportunity to tell her about Christ. She, though, became very afraid of what is happening to her, and became very defensive about having to make a choice either way.

Because of all the spiritual warfare going on surrounding her because of the unique dynamic of her life, she became very sick (coughing up blood), which only made her more afraid. That Sunday, I got the Berean College Group to go to her house to lay hands on her and pray for her.

At this point, my dream started to take an odd turn. When I got to Sarah's house, I saw an elf (identified by her pointy ears), I grabbed the elf, and, as though she were a leprechaun that would then have to take me to her pot of gold, I demanded the treasure that came with capturing an elf. The elf smiled and took me behind Sarah's house. Suddenly, the elf turned briefly into a picture of pure evil in front of me--it was a demon. I was horrified to find out that these demons masquerading as humans had persuaded Sarah to leave town with them. My dream ended watching Sarah smile as she drove away with her family and the demons.

So here is the premise for my potential novel: that there are people whose fates God has not predestined. She would not be the only one, but would be part of something like the 144,000 talked about in Revelation 7:3-5, except that these people would not be sealed, but instead the opposite.

There are several issues that I would like to explore:

• Certainly, I would like to look at the seemingly contradictory issues of God's sovereignty vs. our free will (which are both biblical). The twist here would be that there would still be a level of God's sovereignty, even among the people for whom God has made no choice regarding their fates. The analogy I would use is this: angels certainly had some level of choice (otherwise, they would not have chosen to rebel against God), but their level of choice was different than ours since they had been in the throne room of God and should have known better. Although God has not made the same type of decision that He has with us (the "regular" Christians), there is still some kind of choice made on His part.
• I want to really emphasize the power of prayer, especially by contrasting the power of prayer with our powerlessness. The main character is commanded to pray and can only affect change through his prayer.
• I really want to have the main character be a realistic, but ideal, Christian. What I mean is that I do not want a shallow I-always-do-what-Jesus-wants-me-to-do Christian, but someone who goes through times where he can't see his impact and has a difficult time justifying being consumed by getting Sarah to come to Christ. Furthermore, I want someone who knows what it's like to screw up in front of the person to whom he's trying to witness, and the issues of relying not on our power to bring someone to Christ by our rightousness, but by being weak--though strong in the grace of Christ--and being about continuing on toward perfection, not by trying to live perfectly. I really want to look at what it means to live a transparent life, unashamed to let others know our struggles, and proud only in what God is doing in our lives.

My biggest problem in all of this is how to present it. These "unchosen" people are not Scriptural, so do I set this in a fantasy world, or do I put it in this world and hope to avoid being brought up on charges of heresy (probably with Andrew leading the charge)? I would like to set this in this world, because I would like to use our Bible in looking at what it says about human choice and God's sovereignty.

Well, sorry for writing so much, but it's kind of a complicated idea to explain. I would appreciate any and all thoughts about how I might get this to work.

The Old Testament

One of the things I appreciated most about Laura Winner's Girl Meets God was her strong appreciation for the Old Testament (coming from an Orthodox Jewish background), and especially why it is still important today, even though we have the New Testament. Winner writes about a time she went to a Messianic Jewish Church:

The rabbi is in the middle of a sermon series on the Book of Joshua. "Well, that's refreshing," I whisper. "A whole sermon series on something from the Old Testament. You would never hear that in regular church." Steven shushes me before I can climb onto one of my favorite soapboxes, the Christians-think-the-Bible-starts-with-Matthew soapbox. (p. 17 in my version)

I really think that Christians cannot understand their faith unless they have a strong understanding of whence their faith came: Judaism. This doesn't mean we need to go to such lengths to study the Talmud (although doing that wouldn't be such a bad thing, especially because Paul's ideas of slavery to the Law in Romans and Galatians would really make sense), but I think that we should make a concerted effort to be reading the Old Testament as we read the New Testament.

Here are my main reasons for advocating this:

• Jesus, His disciples, and the apostles who wrote the New Testament only had the Old Testament--if it worked for them, it surely will work for us.
• We cannot really understand what Jesus means when He says things like how He is the good sphepherd without understanding Old Testament basics such as that David (in whose line Christ was born) was a shepherd, or that in Ezekiel 34, God promises that He would shepherd His people, but that David (a symbol for the Messiah) would (see how this all comes back to Christ?).
• By reading the Old Testament, we realize that the when and the how and the who and everything else about Christ's birth, life, death, and resurrection wasn't merely something God decided one day when He was bored or something, but that the plan was extraordinarily deliberate, and known from the very beginning.

Well, I'll get down from my own soapbox now. I will probably post a little later today about the dream I have been promising, but, until then, go read the Old Testament...all of it (you know, if you have time).

***GEEK ALERT***

For those of you who, like I, enjoy Star Wars perhaps a little too much (don't worry, your secret's safe with me!), you might be interested in knowing that George Lucas has approved a Star Wars TV show that should premiere in May 2005. The article about this is here.

More Marching Band

In today's issue of Sports Illustrated On Campus, there was an amusing article about great moments in band history. It was a true/false quiz (which was kind of annoying), but I have distilled the following list of humorous, true, band moments in history:

• 1941: The University of Chicago disbands its marching band--two years after having disbanded its football team.
• 1967: During a nationally televised game against Harvard on ABC, the Princeton band intentionally spells out the letters NBC.
• 1974: On Children's Day in New Haven, Yale's band dedicates a halftime show to birth control.
• 1981: The Brown band visits Columbia, in New York City. During the halftime show the band forms the "I [heart] NY" symbol. Suddenly three saxophone players don stocking masks and begin mugging their fellow performers while other bandsmen pretend not to notice.
• 1981: During a postgame performance a few members of the Stanford band reportedly urinate on the field.
• 1989: After a dean is named at Columbia, band members blockade his office, refusing to disperse until he accepts a list of 10 demands. Among them: "Write a glowing law school recommendation for [the band manager]."

This article isn't up on Sports Illustrated's web site, but last week's cover story about the murder of the Husker soccer player, Jenna Cooper, is here if you missed it.

Ezekiel 33

Today, my Bible reading plan brought me to one of my favorite chapters in the Bible, Ezekiel 33. Here's a quick run-down of why it is so meaningful to me.

• Verses 1-9: It is a challenging and sobering thought that we are responsible to communicate our knowledge of Christ with those who don't know Him, although we obviously have no control over their response. Paul, toward the end of his life, said that he was innocent of the blood of all men, because he never shrunk from proclaiming the gospel to people. Ezekiel, though, had already received this challenge from God when he was first commissioned.
• Verses 10-20: God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but wants all to turn to Him. We really need to see people who are lost as just that--as people who need a Savior just as much as we do. Still, our God is a just God, who must ultimately meet those who reject His grace and mercy with the wrath their sins deserve. (Paul explains this as well in Romans 2:1-16.) And remember, it's not that God did not demand justice for the sins of those who trust His Son, but that God met His Son with the wrath that should have been put on us.
• Verses 21-22: As soon as Jerusalem falls to the Babylonians, God lets Ezekiel speak again (previously, Ezekiel was only able to speak when God was directly speaking). This concept was one of the biggest motivating factors in beginning my policktical fast. The idea is that God wanted nothing of Ezekiel coming from Ezekiel, because otherwise that might corrupt the pure message of God. I realized that much of what was coming out of me was not God's pure message (the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ), but a lot of party-line rhetoric, some of which having dubious Scriptural roots, even though it might not have been outrightly contrary to Scripture. In the process, I built walls between people of different ideologies that were a hindrance to the gospel, since I might have been giving the impression that to be a Christian, they needed to vote for exactly the same people I would vote for. Thus, I had to get rid of it, at least for a little while.
• Verses 23-33: When I first read this, I didn't really know how to tie it together, so I will instead quote the thoughts of D.A. Carson in his For the Love of God:

  So the news arrives: Jerusalem has fallen (33:22). Ezekiel is now released from the silence God earlier imposed: he can converse openly and can say things other than what was given to him as a prophet. But all that he says in the rest of this chapter are more words from the Lord. He has two themes. (a) Regarding the people left among the ruins of Jerusalem, they are ever the optimists. They think they will reestablish themselves, even though they have not renounced their sins. So God will continue his chastening until there is only desolation, so that they will learn that he is the Lord (33:23-29). (b) As for the exiles whom Ezekiel addresses directly, they have learned to enjoy listening to him, as one enjoys listening to a gifted orator--but they have not learned to repent.

  Where are the closest analogies to such stances today?

There are a lot of challenging ideas here for only being a 33-verse chapter!

DN Extravaganza

Some of the important news of the day from our beloved college newspaper, the Daily Nebraskan:

• Apparently, Rep. Tom Osborne (R-Neb) has switched houses in Congress to be in the Senate without my knowledge (is that even legal?). This is news to me, because I haven't been paying attention to such things. Here's the headline of the DN today: "Osborne near rocket explosion: Senator unharmed after incident" (my emphasis). As you can see, it wasn't really a political discussion, so I felt it safe to read. I couldn't find a link to the story on the DN's web site, but maybe I'll try to get this scanned and put up on my blog soon.
• The next article that caught my eye was one entitled: "Phishing trolls for personal information as latest online scam" This brought to mind the story of how Ben, upon receiving an e-mail purportedly from eBay, signed up for identity theft by giving out his social security number, his checking account number, the user ID and password to his eBay and PayPal accounts, as well as his mother's maiden name (which is needed to get new credit cards and bank accounts). Ben later said that he did, in fact, have warning bells going off in his head, but he just hit the "Manual Override" switch because, after all, who would try to steal someone's information and use it for ill-gotten gain?

That's pretty much all for the DN today, but I thoroughly enjoyed it!

---

Update:

I forgot to mention that the reason Ben's story is funny is because he never actually lost any money, and (so far) no one has tried to get a credit card in his name or anything like that (Ben put a fraud alert on his credit report). I didn't want you to think I was sadistic or anything, but since no one got hurt, it is really funny!

Anyway, I also forgot to provide a link to today's letters to the editor. Most of the time, I don't read them, because what do I care what people with too much time on their hands write? (Don't think about that too much.) Anyway, read the insightful letter titled: "WWJD? Probably practice safe sex." I love his logic:

1. Assume "hypothetically" that Jesus sinned.
2. Would it not make sense, that, if Jesus sinned, that he would do it in a "responsible" manner?
3. For example, if Jesus murdered someone, would he not do it in a humane (rather than torturous) way, and would he not clean everything up afterward?

Bravo, Mr. Griess! You have proven...nothing!

Unbelievable.

A more Orthodox Christianity?

Continuing my series of posts on Winner's Girl Meets God, the next subject I would like to broach (and probably the last, unless I think of anything else) would be that of Orthodox Christianity. This is not so much in the sense of the principles contained in the Apostle's Creed or the Nicene Creed, but in the sense of the rituals and practices the Christian Orthodoxy has promoted over the centuries. Winner is herself Episcopalian, and her book is structured through a year of her life, each section of the book being a new season of Christianity. She does this largely because her former life as an Orthodox Jew was structured around the festivals and calendars of Judaism.

In the denominations in which I grew up, there was something of a fear about celebrating anything other than Thanksgiving, Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter. For example, we never observed lent, I never attended an Ash Wednesday service, and I only now know what the Maundy in Maundy Thursday means because she explained it in her book (it has to do with the Last Supper). I am now wondering why we didn't.

Before reading this book, I would have given a pat answer that would be something like, "Rituals can take the place of a relationship with God. Remember, Christianity is the only world "religion" that is not about man's trying to get to God (religion), but is about God's attempt to get to man (relationship)." As I read this book, though, I wondered if my Christian life (which is largely a routine of when I get up to read the Bible to pray, when I go to church, when I meet with other believers to fellowship, etc...). Furthermore, how different really is each service I attend from the last one--there is a very "ritualistic" pattern of worship, announcements, more worship with perhaps a special program on some ministry or other, a sermon, and a little worship to top the whole thing off. What's more is that I take comfort from this pattern of the service. I need the ritual of the worship and the teaching to be reminded of who God is and to be taught what God wants from me every week. Is that a bad thing? If not, then what about more rituals, as long as they are designed to continually remind me about the nature of God and the nature of His commandments?

Of course, there is a point where ritual takes over, but are we anywhere close to that dividing line? Furthermore, is it a bad thing to be prepared for Easter by the Lenten season? I have always been skeptical of what people were giving up for Lent, because (a) I knew a lot of people who quickly broke their fasts; and (b) even if they could stave off temptation for that time period, they were always back at whatever they had given off--so what was the point? Now, though, as I am giving up politics for forty days, I realize that the purpose is not so much on giving something up (if you should give something up--for example, a specific sin--that surrender should probably be permanent), but it is more about replacing what you are temporarily giving up for time in the Word, in prayer, and doing other things that perhaps don't have quite such a hold on your life.

Winner also talks about the "icons" (posters) of Jesus she has around her room. She writes several times about the conversations she has with different depictions of Jesus (for different moods she is going through--one Jesus may look encouraging, another may look forgiving, and another may look powerful). To me, this raised a few more warning bells than the stuff about Christian holidays and church service rituals, because this seems to teeter on the brink of breaking God's commandment against idols. Still, because we know pretty much everything we know about relationships from what we've learned with flesh-and-blood people, it seems like it would be comforting to at least have an artist's rendering of Jesus to talk to. As I said, I am quite a bit less sold on this idea as I am on the idea of rituals in Christianity, but it was certainly something to think about.

So that this post doesn't get too long (and so I can get back to my homework), I'm just going to post the rest of the ideas I gleaned from Winner's book about this subject in bullet-point fashion:

• Using a Book of Common Prayer--the book of Psalms also, in a way teaches us to pray, and we certainly pick up ways to pray from some of the good Christian music we listen to (like Derek Webb's "I Repent"), so why not have an organized book of topical prayers? Might they be good guidance for our prayer life, or should we try to "rough it" and be taught by the Holy Spirit?
• Confession--the Bible tells us to confess our sins to one another, so why not make a regular practice of it to a pastor? This, of course, is not for actual forgiveness (we as Christians have the authority to go straight to the throne of grace because our High Priest is Christ Himself), but it seems like it could be useful for accountability, support, and prayer in the areas of our struggles.

Finally, I want to point out that it is possible that all these things are externals, and if one denomination practices one of these sorts of things, we should praise God for how He is working there without feeling the need to adapt our denomination to do the same thing. As long as we are following Christ, perhaps the how's and the when's and the what's aren't so important.

Praise

Having written my earlier melancholy (but hopeful) post, things may be starting to look up. I just got an e-mail from a wonderful, faithful client of mine (for those of you who do not know, I am a parliamentarian--the information is a bit out of date on that web site, by the way), perhaps needing a professional opinion for her organization. This is a good thing (it means that I might be able to pay off a bit more of my credit card bill this month than I had planned on doing!). So, whether this is the turning-point for my life to move upwards, or whether this will fall through and there will be many difficulties yet to come, I do want to praise the God who is orchestrating all of it, whether good or bad (from my perspective, of course--from His, it's all good!).

On Literature

Well, my faithful blog readers (i.e., those of you who have sloshed through some of my deeper, weighty, and just plain long posts, who are still reading my blog now), I am considering writing a novel. Now, don't whisk away to Amazon.com just yet--I still have to actually get this future bestseller on paper (or, at least on the hard drive of my computer).

What I am interested in knowing (and this will require reader participation) is what you most appreciate about the books that you most appreciate. Is it a quick-paced plot? Good, descriptive imagery? A deep delve into weighty issues?

I have a story for a book in mind (literally--it will be based on an actual dream of mine) which I will describe in a future post. For now, I am interested in what people are interested in when they pick up a book to read it.

My date with a Messianic Jewess

I read Lauren F. Winner's Girl Meets God this weekend. I loved her insights into the relationships between Judaism and Christianity. Her thoughts about politics challenged my conceptions of what a Christian should be. Also, she's an extremely good writer, if you can stand memoirs.

This probably won't be an extremely long post, but I wanted to give you a general idea of what I thought about the book. First, if you do not like books written in the style of a memoir, you probably won't like this book. Still, it has extremely strong organization for a memoir.

Second, the most valuable part about reading the book was learning about the ties to Christianity from Judaism that I never knew about. She was always comparing some holiday in Christianity to a holiday of Judaism, and she knew quite a bit about the symbolism from each.

The only thing I was disappointed with was how she sidestepped seemingly important issues. She only mentioned homosexuality once in passing with no value judgment, and I was wondering what she thought about that. She never even mentioned abortion. As I mentioned earlier, she is one of the more liberal Christians I have read from (culturally and somewhat politically, but not theologically), so I was wondering what she thought about such moral issues.

So, I give the book a four out of five stars. I highly encourage you to find time to read it, but it wasn't quite profound. And, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I read this book on the suggestion of another reader. If you have any book suggestions, let me know!

On faith

My life isn't going very well right now. Starting a little over a week ago, things just haven't moved as I would like them to. School seems to be piling up everything it has on me. I'm extraordinarily broke. Yesterday, I even had a little car trouble.

As I was driving back to Lincoln from Hastings (both in the great state of Nebraska), I suddenly got a "Check Engine" light, which prompted me to call my dad. Before we got figured out exactly what was going wrong, my car died. On the interstate. In one-lane, construction traffic. I pulled over into the ditch. Steam poured out from under my hood. My dad came out to see what we could do. About three hours, a wrecker (to tow my car back to Hastings), and several police officers and highway assistance vehicles later, I was back on the road (this time in my father's van) headed to Lincoln.

So where am I? Even though everything is going poorly, God's given me this supernatural faith that sort of feels like He's leading me by the hand through something like the valley of the shadow of death. I, like a blind person, have no choice but to just keep moving where He's showing me to go. It's somewhat scary, but there are no other hands I'd rather be in.

At other times, I seem to get a little anxious about where everything is going. Still, even then, God seems to sort of remind me who He is, and then He reminds me who I am, and somehow He gives me just enough faith to get through the class, or the assignment, or the early morning to get things done, or the waiting for the wrecker to come pick up my car, or whatever else comes up. It's partially rooted in the theology gleaned through His Word, partially in what He shows me through prayer, and partially through a desperation that has nothing else to hold onto.

Anyway, I've written enough about bookish academic theology on this blog so far. I wanted to write something about the real-life Christianity. Really, they are the same lessons, but learned in different contexts. Sometimes I wonder if the Christian life is about learning what all those Sunday School, churchy, Christianese cliches really are all about. So, right now, I'm learning about the strength of God in my weakness.

***NEWSFLASH***

WORLD PREMIER STORY :: MUST CREDIT "WORDS, WORDS, WORDS."

Our ever fickle-friend (or should we say "flaky"?), Ben, has started a new blog with the help of his friend Christy. Ben had an embargo on the address, but with a little technical know-how, this blogger uncovered the new blog's address before its official launch.

The sure-to-be-smash-hit (or at least, the perhaps-to-be-soon-jettisoned) blog in question is:

umm...yeah...we couldn't agree on a title

###

(I think that I'm going to go straight to the NYT Editor this time.)

Update on the Policktical Fast

Per the advice of a member of this blog's readership, I have been reading Girl Meets God, by Orthodox-Jew-turned-Christian Lauren F. Winner (this is a link to the original edition sold on Amazon.com and has better reader reviews, but the first edition-first print from which I am reading is full of typos). Once I am through reading it, I will post a general review of the book, but, in the meantime, she has given me many things to think about. Therefore, instead of inundating you at once with everything I thought about the book, I am going to try to break it up a little. This naturally leads me to an update on my policktical fast.

The link to my fast is bound up in the fact that Winner, growing up an east coast Jew, was a Democrat. Although she sheds her old faith, she doesn't seem to shed her party. I find this intriguing for several reasons. Before, we get into this, I want to clarify the terms of my fast a bit more, because some political items will be thrown around in this post: for my fast, I do not mean that I am somehow bound from stating objective facts (i.e., the statement that George W. Bush is running for president for the Republicans, and that John F. Kerry is running for the Democrats is not a violation of my fast); on the other hand, I do mean that I am bound from exploring the pragmatic (as opposed to theological) pros and cons of issues, or from keeping up with the latest news on what each candidate is saying about the other (i.e., arguing that one candidate would be a better president than the other would be breaking my fast). That said, let's continue.

First, I think that I actually thought at one time that part of being a Democrat meant not believing in the authority of the Bible. Although she seems to suggest that Biblical inerrancy is not completely central to her identity (she defines herself as an evangelical, and contrasts evangelicals and fundamentalists thus: "Theologically, evangelicals and fundamentalists have a lot in common. Both groups affirm the authority of Scripture (though fundamentalists are more inclined toward a literal interpretation of Scripture, and a doctrine called biblical inerrancy--the idea that the Bible, in its original autographs, is perfect and immaculate and free from error--is more central to fundamentalist identity)" (105, my emphasis).), she certainly writes as though she believes in the inerrancy of the Bible. Thus, we'll give her this one for the benefit of the doubt. Still, the hesitancy of most Democrats to completely endorse the Bible has, in the past, been another justification for me to completely dismiss that party as un-Christian. Winner is a great counter-example to my former overly-simplified thinking.

Second, I have been wondering through this time of my fast (and in the past in what led up this fast) to what extent my political differences boil down to (a) cultural differences (i.e., the sort of things of which I should be accepting in grace and love), and (b) theological differences (i.e., the sort of thing on which I cannot budge). On this, Winner writes:

Sometimes I even feel equivocal about claiming the evangelical label. For, theologically, I am right in line with the evangelical mainstream, but what people want to know when they ask me whether or not I'm an evangelical is rarely theology. What they want to know is whether I vote for Pat Robertson, listen to Amy Grant, and believe the Earth is only five thousand years old. In fact, I've never voted for Pat Robertson, I prefer Mary Chapin Carpenter, and I think Darwin might have been onto something. (105)

She ends her thoughts on this by saying, "I look around [her church] at a motley crew of Christians, some of whom buy clothes at Wal-Mart and some of whom wear Vera Wang, and I know that these people are my people, polyester, Amy Grant, and all" (106).

Although I feel like I need to hear what she meant by her statement about Darwin, I still feel that she has written a great description of the body of Christ! Some of us are very culturally conservative (that would be I), and some of us are culturally liberal (that would be Winner), but we are all part of the body of Christ. In fact, she, being a Jew, has greater claim to being part of the body of Christ than I do; I'm merely a Gentile who has been grafted into the olive tree.

All in all, I think that this fast has given me some good insights into the blinders I had put on myself with such a dogmatic adherance to the philosophy of conservativism. I still have 30 days left, but I've rarely felt more free to think biblically in my life.

Marching Band

This weekend I went home (I am right now writing from my couch in Hastings). I got home extremely late last night, but this morning I turned right around and went to Norfolk for a marching band competition. I usually enjoy following my old high school's band around the state to the various competitions that I marched in during my tenure. Today was a slightly different story.

Of course, it was wonderful to hear the old parade cadences and songs, and it was great to see the band's field show, and I enjoyed seeing the seniors (those who were freshmen my senior year). My problem was that my parents had volunteered to be band trip sponsors. In other words, they rode up on the buses and made sure that the students on their bus didn't stage a revolt or anything like that.

Of course, I have no problem with my parents' being involved and volunteering. My problem came when I had to ride up on the bus with them. If you close your eyes, you can probably picture me--I looked like a sore thumb. There I was, a junior in college, riding the band bus. I wasn't a band student, but a has-been. I wasn't a Band Parent, but a tag-along. I felt like some kid who graduated a few years ago, but still hangs out in the high school parking lot in his letter jacket--he's not really cool to anyone. Self-consciousness, thy name is Jacob!

Fortunately, I escaped with a few shreds of my pride intact. Also, the extreme shame of my situation left me in a good position to get a lot of reading done, partially for school, and partially for pleasure (I will be posting on what I've been reading soon).

Now you might wonder, "Why did I even bother going home for all the torture I have gone through?" Mainly, I just wanted to do free laundry (even though I spent $20 on gas for the trip and would have spent $5 on laundry--what was I saying about logic and English majors?). It was nice to see my family, but it was they who pulled me into my plight today. Maybe I just really missed my dog.

The Joys of Java

It has been something of a lifetime goal to learn how to program computers. It isn't that I have something specific that I want to program; in fact, I doubt I would have much use for programming skills much beyond writing simple programs to check math problems (we English majors who have completed our math graduation requirements don't always think logically). Still, I followed my heart (not my head), and I signed up for Computer Science 155 this semester.

The professor is pretty cool. He gets so excited about the most mundane details about our computer programming language of choice, Java. He'll say stuff like "With Java you can import a package that already defines all this for you! This is so much better than when I started. Back then, we had to do all of that ourselves; this is so easy!" I, though, am thinking, "What's a package?"

On the first day, the professor asked, "How many students are computer science majors?" About half the class raised their hands. Then he asked, "How many are computer engineering majors?" About a third of the class raised their hands. Then he asked, "How many mathematics or other engineering majors do we have?" The rest of the class (except for me) raised their hands. "Did I miss anybody?" he inquired. I, the lone humanities major in the room, raised my hand. I could tell at that point that it was going to be a long semester.

Our second homework assignment is due on Monday. I couldn't get it to compile (that is, change it from text of the programming language into a program the user can run), so I took my source code to a teaching assistant. She offered me sage advice about what to change about my program. Merrily, I came back to my room, implemented the suggested changes with a giddiness that comes from knowing that your assignment is completed, hit "Compile," and the stupid thing still wouldn't work!

It's times like these that one questions the meaning of life. Questions like "Who am I?" and "What am I doing here?" take on new meaning when the professor has just said something about constructors and initializers, and you didn't know that there was a difference. Why can't we talk about plots and character development?

But a compiler does not understand such things. I shout at it, demanding "Wilt thou flout me thus unto my face being forbid?" and it retorts:

Triangle.java [175:1] cannot resolve symbol
symbol:   class IsoscelesTriangle
location: class TestIsoscelesTriangle

And, as we well know, "When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in batallions!"

Triangle.java [196:1] ';' expected

*Sigh*

So, I have to go back later today to get additional help on my program. But right now I'm going to read some Shakespeare. At least he is someone whom normal people can understand!

***NEWSFLASH***

WORLD PREMIER STORY :: MUST CREDIT "WORDS, WORDS, WORDS."

Ben's blog, "The First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Lawyers," officially passed on into the abyss of cyberspace. Ben, citing issues of time, commitment, and interest, formally terminated his blog.

The real problem we, the blogosphere, are faced with is the void formed by the loss of this blog. So, if anyone out there is interested in writing about government openness and sandwiches, please let me know, and I will post a link to your blog to in some way compensate for the loss we have just experienced.

###

(Does anyone know why the New York Times hasn't returned my phone calls about even the dawn of Ben's blog? Hopefully they'll pick up the slack on this story.)

Trans-Christianity

I heard a presentation tonight on why we (my university) need to take greater efforts to protect transgender people in areas as diverse as housing rights, restroom construction, and forms that force people to define themselves either as "Male" or "Female."

There was a time in my life (and indeed, there may be more times in my life) when I laughed dismissively at stories of how identity questioning people felt oppressed by bathrooms that made them make a choice about their genders. During that time in my life, the homosexual agenda made me want to storm Washington, D.C. in an attempt not to have other people define morality for me. Now, issues like these only leave me confused.

Don't get me wrong--I think that homosexuality is a perversion of God-ordained marital relations between one husband and his wife. Furthermore, I see the movement to gain acceptance of a transgender identity as just one more step to reject the classifications of gender given to us by God, because classifications and roles mean that there is someone to whom we are ultimately responsible. If there are no classifications and roles, everyone can define their existence for themselves.

Still, I think that there is a bigger issue here. Do we Christians approach this issue from a desire to extend God's grace to these people by pointing them to the truth, or do we just sort of write them off and wait for God's judgment on them? Do we, who are so enamored by God's grace in the context of our lives, desire justice above all for the people who call our way of thinking "oppressive," "bigoted," "homophobic," and "hateful," whether they be homosexuals, transgender people, or the liberals who believe that such lifestyles are acceptable alternatives?

If we really believe in the gospel, I think that we should be fighting for homosexuals, transgender people, and the liberals who condone such lifestyles, not against them. Think of Christ's attitude for the lost: when Jesus saw sheep without a shepherd (lost people who have no direction and therefore decide for themselves their direction), he felt compassion on them; then "He began to teach them many things" (Mark 6:34). When I say that we need to fight for these people, I mean that we need to be fighting for their souls. I in no way want to give what they are doing a pass because such actions are sins, but I also realize that I have no way to claim the higher moral ground in life. I am just as much of a sinner as they are (in fact, perhaps I am a sinner to a greater extent, because I know and claim to believe the gospel).

And this is about as far as I can get with all this. You see, I don't really think that I know what it means to "hate the sin, but love the sinner." I don't know how to love someone without muddling the fact that I believe that the Bible identifies the activities in which they are involved as sins. I don't know which issues I should support, and which I should oppose (that, of course, is off-limits right now because of my fast from politics).

So I guess the only thing I can do is pray more for all these people that I know. Even if I could come up with the perfect way to communicate Christianity--eloquently, firmly, and lovingly pointing out God's moral demands, our inability to keep them, and Jesus Christ's atoning sacrifice on the cross for everything from homosexuality to lying to murder--I have no power in myself to affect any change in the life of anyone, whether that person be homosexual, transgender, or just regular ol' heterosexual. Maybe if we as the Church of Christ spent more time praying (petitioning the throne of the Almighty God) and less time politicking (petitioning the government), we might make a bigger impact on those who need to know Christ.

What do you think?

Powering Andrew's Blog

I have six Gmail invitations to give away, and I have a friend who has another six who is willing to give his away. If you don't know what Gmail is, it is Google's up-and-coming e-mail service that turned the geek community on its head because it offers a whopping 1 gigabyte of mail storage. Also, it has a lot of other intuitive features in its mail service that I'm enjoying. Furthermore, because it is so new, you don't have to be joesmith45623@whatever.com, because few names are taken. In fact, I know several people with Gmail accounts and none of them have to use numbers in their address. All in all, it's pretty cool.

So, the first twelve people to contact me by e-mail will be sent invitations. Otherwise, I will probably send them to a service that connects all the people who do want a gmail address with those who have them. But I wanted to give you, my faithful readership, the first opportunity.

Because I am trying to protect my pristine, Spam-free Gmail address from being corrupted, send it to an e-mail like name@gmail.com, except fill in where it says "name" with my full name, all lower-case, in one word without any spaces or periods or underscores (my full name is Jacob Gerber). Believe it or not, there are programs that scour the internet for e-mail addresses published on web sites, so I'm trying to be really careful here.

Happy Gmailing!

Boy Meets World

I hate being poor (poor in the sense of I'm-an-American-who-has-no-real-perspective-on-poverty). You see, Buena Vista Home Video has released the complete first season of Boy Meets World on DVD. I desperately wanted to purchase this when it came out some time in August, but I had no money to spend then, and I have no money to spend now.

*Sigh*

I was doing a little poking around Amazon.com, and apparently, the torture continues: coming out on November 23, 2004 is the complete second season of Boy Meets World.

This probably wouldn't be a big deal to me if it were any other TV show, but it's Boy Meets World. Boy Meets World practically taught me what it meant to be a high school adolescent. Furthermore, I was a big proponent of its being put on DVD before there was ever even a whisper on the internet that this would happen: I signed a petition on TVShowsOnDVD.com a long time ago, and was an active recruiter to get other people to demand that the most profound (and yet, so darn funny) television series of the modern world be put on DVD.

But when the time comes, I have no money with which to purchase it.

On that note, I would like to make an official announcement that I have joined into affiliation with Amazon.com and with Google's AdSense. If you buy books or DVDs or whatever through links on my site, or if you follow links to advertisers from this site, I will be that much closer to my dream of owning the DVD set of the seven seasons of Boy Meets World. Please do not just click links for the heck of it, but if you see something in which you are interested, use your best judgment. And by the way, if corporate sponsorship really bothers you, just do what I do on the vast majority of web sites I visit: ignore it.

But whatever you do, think of me laughing with Cory, Topanga, Shawn, Eric, and everybody else. Do you see me smiling? Now think of me sad and without my copies of the series. Am I still smiling? So just follow your heart on this.

Does this count as selling out?

Worship Choruses

Andrew put up a post about the worst worship choruses. He is absolutely right about the horrendous nature of some choruses. I have often been frustrated by the picture our "worship" music paints of God. It seems like far too many of the songs we sing in church read like "Oh, God, you have made me so happy, so I am happy, because you made me happy. I am happy, so I praise you, because I am happy." Garbage like this seems to drain our omnipotent, uncontrollable God of His power, leaving Him as something like a big, jolly vending machine in the sky.

Still, I think there was a time when I went too far the other direction. I began to get really self-righteous about what music I would allow myself to use in my (holier-than-everyone-else's) worship experience. I started to believe that if we were singing a song where there wasn't a theological truth taken from some obscure passage in one of the books of the minor prophets, then it wasn't good enough for me. (Then I'd stamp my foot, take my ball, and go home, because that's what real worship is all about.)

So, you might wonder, have I found a happy medium between a willingness to trivialize God and a self-righteous desire for every song to have some deep truth? Sort of, but my pride still likes to poke his head out about as often as my complacency does. I have to be on guard for both. The attitude I have tried to take is one where I certainly appreciate the more meaningful songs, but where I try to approach the "other" songs with a heaping helping of grace. I think that Paul writes pretty strongly about this: "Now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions" (Romans 14:1 -- read the whole pertinent passage here). While I don't want to trivialize God, I don't want to be judgmental of the people who do derive some meaning out of these songs.

Anyone think this is a cop-out?

Ezekiel 24

This morning I read Ezekiel 24. In this passage, God tells Ezekiel that He was about to take from him "the desire of [his] eyes with a blow" (v. 16); in other words, Ezekiel's wife was soon going to die. Why? Well, God also commanded Ezekiel against mourning in any way for the loss of his wife. Why? God wanted the Israelites to have a representation of what he was about to do in the lives of the Israelites: he was going to allow the Temple to be destroyed by heathens (so say my notes in my Ryrie Study Bible).

So how does Ezekiel respond? Verse 18: "So I spoke to the people in the morning, and in the evening my wife died. And in the morning I did as I was commanded." What incredible obedience! Imagine the difficulty he must have had; I really wonder to what extent he struggled when he "did as [he] was commanded." This is really humbling to me, because sometimes I throw a fit about getting cut off in traffic, which is nothing in comparison to what Ezekiel went through.

I am wondering, though, how I will respond to the loss of a loved one in my life. I am blessed enough to still have both sets of my grandparents still living. I have all my uncles, aunts, and cousins (and in my family, there are quite a few of those). I don't think God is asking me not to grieve when people do die, but I often wonder whether I will be able to praise God as Job did. I guess time will tell.

Ego

This evening I read Ayn Rand's Anthem. For those of you who are unfortunate not to have ever read any of her works, I highly recommend that you do. This one is particularly good to start with, since it is extremely short (well under 100 pages).

Be warned, though, that Ayn Rand is not someone to read as a source of Christian inspiration. In fact, she is one of the staunchest atheist writers I have read. Still, there is something in her philosophy that is so intellectually honest that it is, in an odd way, attractive to me. Furthermore, she is one of the few philosophers who writes fiction to convey her ideas. If it were up to me, all philosophers would be required to write stories portraying how their ideas would work in real life. Otherwise, it is easy to get people writing garbage that only makes sense on a very cursory level and that seems to have absolutely no practical application whatsoever.

Let me give you a prime example of Rand's basic philosophy from Anthem:

I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I spread my arms. This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the quest. I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning. I wished to find a warrant for being. I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction. (p. 94 in the Signet Fiction paperback copy)

Okay, so it's obviously pretty sacrilegious. But here is another thing I really like about her: she unwittingly gives insight on what it would mean to be God. What I mean is that Rand portrays man as a god, an end in himself, and responsible to no one but himself. She argues that no other person or god should have control over man. Her philosophy is often called "ethical egoism" for that reason.

Obviously, this selfish doctrine doesn't mesh well with Christianity, at least as far as how we should run our lives. But think about God in this light: no one has any claim on God, and He is responsible to no one but Himself. It seems to me that often we get in a mindset that because God sent Jesus to die to pay for our sins that God is somehow obligated to have done that. In reality, God owed us nothing (and still owes us nothing, for that matter). Amazingly, He sent His son to die for us while we were actively warring against Him.

Two things, though. First, I think that Rand would roll over in her grave if she read this. This type of thinking is completely antithetical to her philosophy. Second, this one idea isn't the only thing that has kept me pushing through two of her larger works, Atlas Shrugged (about 1100 pages) and The Fountainhead (about 700 pages). (I would highly recommend both of those books, by the way.) I find her ideas interesting, because she is the only person you will read who takes capitalism and egoism to such extremes. She isn't a touchy-feely kinda gal, but I recommend that you read something of hers in your lifetime; she will definitely make you think.

Confessions of an English Major

I need to get something off my chest. I'm not really sure how to broach the subject, so I'll just treat this like a band-aid, and rip it off quickly, thus exposing my deep, gaping wound:

*big breath*

I use Sparknotes.com. I, who love literature and despise cheat-guides like Cliff's Notes, have been using the plot-summaries of Sparknotes.com for about two years now; I have been doing the very thing that I hate, a slave to my sin. Instead of grappling with difficult texts to find the meaning out for myself, I lazily make a few clicks on my computer and get (Oh, the shame! Oh, the ignominy!) someone else's regurgitation of what is happening. I'm not even the dog who returns to his own vomit. Worse, I'm the dog who seeks out the vomit of others!

Sometimes I can justify what I do by telling myself, "You are only doing this because you want to enjoy how the writer is portraying the plot. Really, the plot isn't that important to find out for yourself. Besides, who's the victim here?" Only sometimes will that justification soothe my raging conscience; most times, I can't shake an image of William Shakespeare standing beside me, looking at me in a way that at once conveys his hurt, betrayal, and anger.

I'm wondering if there are any support groups for English majors caught in the trap of such vices. I think it would be helpful in the healing process to meet with other English majors who have sunk to such levels. Of course, I must consider the possibility that I am the only one. *sigh* Who can set me free from this body of sin and death?

***NEWSFLASH***

WORLD PREMIER STORY :: MUST CREDIT "WORDS, WORDS, WORDS."

A friend of mine, Ben Keele, just entered the blogosphere with his sure-to-be-smash-hit-blog, "The First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Lawyers" (a reference to the play Henry VI, written by your friend and mine, William Shakespeare). Already, Ben is providing hard-hitting analysis of today's most pressing issues.

We want to welcome Ben to the world of blogs. Ben, we look forward to your insights.

Mozilla Firefox

Well, I just downloaded and installed the preview version of the internet browser Mozilla Firefox 1.0. It's pretty nice, but, unfortunately, some of the extentions and themes I had for Firefox 0.9.1 don't yet work in 1.0PR. I imagine that there will soon be updates. For those of you who have never used Firefox before, you are definitely behind the times. Here is a whole list of reasons to switch to Firefox if you are still using Internet Explorer, but I just wanted to let you know that it has my full endorsement (the Mozilla Foundation and I are still working out the compensation issues of this endorsement, but in this post, I am offering a good-faith gesture).

(For those of you who were lost when I used the term "internet browser": an internet browser is the software that you use to view web pages. Unless you are on AOL, you can use any internet browser, regardless of the provider from whom you get your internet service. Most likely, if you don't know what you are using to read this, and if you use Microsoft Windows, you are probably using Internet Explorer. I am highly recommending that you make the switch to Firefox.)

Thou wilt be like a lover presently

- Much Ado About Nothing (Act 1.1, l. 290)

Now that I have a blog on which I am posting my thoughts on everything (as well as a reader base that spans the entire Husker nation), it certainly seems obligatory to write about such a subject as the opposite gender (that would be women). After all, it's my writing on this topic that ensures the posterity of this blog!

First, I have a list of qualities I want in my wife. I want:

• a Messianic Jewess.
• a French or Scottish woman.
• a girl with dark brown, curly hair.
• someone who enjoys reading and discussing literature (and who is, most importantly, an ardent believer in the Law of Charity in the way of literature).
• a girl who could not be characterized as being "flirty," although she should be somewhat outgoing.
• someone who takes her faith in Christ seriously and will continually challenge me to do the same.
  

Of course, many smirk at my list, thinking it a bit too specific, but I think that the list itself is a good idea. In Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Benedick remarks:

One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well. But till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what color it please God.

That Benedick and I have slightly different tastes in women is not the point--the point is that we all should figure out our non-negotiables before giving our hearts away.

(By the way, I suppose that I could be convinced to marry someone other than a Scottish or French Messianic Jewess with dark, curly hair, but the type of woman in whom I am interested would not change. I just wanted to include that so not to discourage those of you who were not privileged enough to be born into the God's chosen race and/or in two specific countries on the continent of Europe.)

So when is this woman coming my way? No clue. I'll just wait. Where am I going with this post? Not really sure about that either. Perhaps I'll have more clarity about all this when I meet my Scottish-born, French-speaking, dark, curly haired, Christian novelist (think C.S. Lewis--not Christian girly novels).

Policktical Views

I have been known to be somewhat...ah...partisan in my political views. Often, in fact, I have been more interested in changing someone's mind about a political issue than being sincere in telling them about Christ. So, I have made a decision to go on a forty day fast from politics. This means:

• No news (I tend to enjoy Fox News)
• No Drudge Report
• No Rush Limbaugh
• No taking sides in friendly, political debates

My political fast will be over about a week before the election. Hopefully, though, I won't be dying to gorge myself on politics, but, rather, will be able to approach politics from a much more temperate position (I don't necessary want to moderate, but I do want to be less convinced that someone is off the deep end if they do not agree with my conservative views.

What prompted me to make this change? For starters, I have been reading a lot in the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel which have been reminding me of the sovereignty of God in the rise and fall of nations. It's quite freeing to be able to live by faith that God will accomplish what he will through America, without trying to believe either that (1) God can only accomplish his will through a conservative America; or (2) that the American system of government and values is in some way God-given and inspired. Most of all, eschewing politics allows me to form my opinions on the Bible alone. And honestly, it hasn't been so hard to avoid politics as I thought it would.

Also, I am writing about this not because I want to pass myself off as super-spiritual (I don't want to be like the pharisees whom Jesus condemned). Instead, I think that this is a weakness of mine that I am trying to temporarily remove from my life in order to allow God to work in me to give me perspective.

Finally, I do not want to imply in any way that good Christians really should be doing exactly as I am doing. I think that God uses some to work within the political system for His purposes, but I don't think that I am called to be there, and I think that I am spending far too much time somewhere I'm not supposed to be.