The Perfect 4th of July BBQ

Peter is cleaning up old Rock TVs and this is my all-time favorite. Each gag supplies its own sense of humor very well from the main character, a pushy salesman who is uber patriotic and eager to sell you anything, to the visual of an alien showing up to the party. Most of our videos start well and finish well, but often sag in the middle. This seems to flow evenly from start to finish with each joke delivering the intended gag well enough to make you want to see more.

Its key strength, I think, is how well it uncovers and lampoons many subtle ongoings at 4th of July parties. There is the territorial grill master who may feel challenged by another who wants to brown the burgers, there is the “classic dish” from grandma no one really likes, there is the “who’s invited?” issue that usually reduces to the interest of seeking out available members of the opposite sex, there is the controversy between meat and vegetarianism, and the super competitive person who ruins every game by virtue of always having to win. Technically, the video covers a lot of good senses of humor in slap stick, costume gags, satire, pictorial jokes, and an appropriate soundtrack.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, because there ain’t no doubt I love this land.

Preposterous Statements of June, 2009

I am in the process of collecting the most preposterous statements I read on blogs and newspapers. At the end of the year a bracket will be formed and and a poll devised for YOU the readers to vote on. If you would like to nominate a preposterous statement, leave it the comments with a link.

51. In a way Obama is standing above the country, above the world. He’s sort of GOD. He’s going to bring all different sides together.–Evan Thomas.

You’ve gotta be kidding me!

52. I really don’t clarify things that are incorrect because I literally could stand at a press conference all day long and clarify… It’s really not my job to comment on erroneous things.” –Brad Childress

I am betting he carries this same philosophy into his coaching style too. “Hey T-Jack, I could correct your erroneous understanding of my playbook , but that is not really my job.”

53. And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased. –Paul Krugman

Why doesn’t Krugman just come out and say, “You are either with Obama or with the terrorists.”

54. With Mr. Obama’s unbelievably ballyhooed address in Cairo Thursday to what he calls “the Muslim world” (hereafter known as “the Speech”), there is mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself.–Frank J. Gaffney Jr

On second thought, why doesn’t Gaffney just come out and say Obama is a terrorists.

55. Asked if he has been able to speak to President Obama he said, “Them Jews ain’t going to let him talk to me.”–Jeremiah Wright.

Those Zionist, racist dirt bags! They all work for the White House.

56. Being president, by contrast, suits him much better. He has not lapsed into his old ambivalence. He is intellectually engaged by sculpting history.–Maureen Dowd

Don’t slobber too much there Maureen. We wouldn’t want to see anything get on your nice shiny Pulitzer!

57. The New Testament does not teach anywhere that every individual believer is to be involved actively in evangelism. –T. David Gordon

Take that Great Commission! It’s cessationism on meth!

58. On this Father’s Day, the American public should proudly note that our president takes his personal role as father (and spouse) as seriously as he does his job as father of the country.–Jennifer Weiss

And all of America cried ‘Abba,’ father!

59. But we can only hope that fathers and spouses everywhere will be thinking “What Would Obama Do?” as they navigate through the murky waters of parenthood and family.
–Jennifer Weiss

60. I have always hesitated when my colleagues rush to pronounce final judgment on events thousands of miles away [like Iran's election] about which we know very little. –Ron Paul

Yeah, I heard that Ahmadinejad is actually a pretty good guy.

61. Every single Iranian is valuable. Government is a service to all.–Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Except for those who didn’t vote for you.

62. Call me crazy but the ideal ticket for Republicans in 2012 would be Chuck Norris for President and Bill Cosby, Vice-President.–Crazy Right Wing Blogger.

Yep, you sure are crazy.

John Calvin: A Pilgrim’s Life

2009 is the year of birthdays it seems as both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin are turning 200. Not to be forgotten is arguably the most influential Reformer within Christian history, John Calvin who turns 500 this July. Calvinists from all sectors of the church are celebrating his birth by writing biographies, holding multi-day conferences, and even blogging through his Institutes.

As an Arminian I do not have a lot of interest in Calvin, but amongst all the talk I realized that I had never encountered the man behind the theology. This can be a bit difficult, however, because so many biographies either lionize or demonize him that few if any are worth reading. Enter Herman J. Selderhuis’s new biography John Calvin: A Pilgrim’s Life whose book is neither laudatory nor disparaging and very, very well-written.

“Life is a steeplechase,” begins Selderhuis, “there are dangers everywhere, and God himself, who has put most of the obstacles in our way, watches to see whether we make it over them. Such is John Calvin’s view of life.” From there Selderhuis exposits the life of Calvin from ten angles:

1. Orphan (1509-1533)

2. Pilgrim (1533-1536)

3. Stranger (1536-1538)

4. Refugee (1538-1541)

5. Preacher (1541-1546)

6. Victim (1546-1549)

7. Widower (1549-1551)

8. Patient (1551-1554)

9. Sailor (1555-1559)

10. Soldier (1559-1564)

Would You Want One?

The Fifth Commandment

A branch of the Discovery Channel Canada called “Forensic Factor” did an episode profiling the investigation of my uncle’s murder. It is not viewable in the US, but if you are a tricky IP address monkey you can set your proxy to watch it (I don’t know how, of course. Brother did that).

After watching, it I found it to be factually accurate, though the dramatizations were a bit overwrought. I suppose it is television after all.

(also, my old blog seems to be working… for now)

New Rock TV: The Sitcom

See Peter for details.

Losing God

I had Matt Roger’s new book Losing God: Clinging to Faith through Doubt and Depression on my night stand the last week in the “to-read” pile. Ever since iMonk reviewed it I have put it as priority one on my wish list. Since I was already in the middle of the books listed on the sidebar I did not want to start a new one, but since each was so deep and challenging to read, I thought I would pick up Losing God and at least get started… and I finished it in one sitting.

I am not a fan of the spiritual memoir writing. I discovered this, not by reading many, but as a blogger who wrote about himself way too much. The only other books I’ve read in the spiritual memoir genre is Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz, which was another quick and interesting read, and Philosophers Who Believe in which each of the essayists bemoan the project of autobiography as inherently narcissistic. This, no doubt, is true. And yet it can be deeply compelling.

Matt Rogers’s story is very much like my own in some important ways. First, Rogers and I share a memory of despair at a powerful conference. His was at Urbana ’99 and mine was at Faithwalkers ’06. He remembers God falling forever silent during those five days of powerful worship, and I remember wondering why I didn’t believe anything that was being taught. He experienced the dark side of Calvinism that reads Romans 9 as a passage about a capricious and cruel God who arbitrarily saves some and dispatches the rest to a fiery furnace, and I too wondered if I was one of the “chosen” as I awoke from terrifying dreams. He struggled with loneliness and depression in ways that seem unbearable, and I have had my history with the dark night of the soul as well. He was a member, and now a leader, of the GCM church New Life Christian Fellowship on Virginia Tech’s campus and had JR Woodward as a pastor. I’ve attended GCM churches for the last 9 years.

And then there are ways in which we are not alike. I never batted an eye at taking medication for depression and think the whole fear of antidepressants Christians have derives from a misunderstanding of the relationship between science and religion. When the implication of Calvinism’s dreadful logic became readily apparent to me I rejected it completely. His trials lead him to leadership in the church, where mine lead me out of it.

But one thing is for sure: the experiences of doubt, depression, and eternal anxiety will leave a mark.

The book’s endorsements all come from Emergent writers, but there really is no reason the Reformed should be upset with the text (see Trevin Wax). The author retains conservative views, values the counsel from a Calvinist pastor, and rightly finds the eternal divine decrees incomprehensible and mysterious. It should serve as a warning, though, to those who are obsessed with Calvinism’s resurgence and how affections of piety are to be counted as evidence of true conversion. My favorite line in the book is when Rogers says, he didn’t want evidence, he needed proof!

Those that find comfort in the Doctrines of Grace will probably not find much in this book to appreciate. There can be a blessed assurance and confident life in Christ lived out in a Calvinistic framework. But for those tender soles that have been bullied into Calvinism and have been taught to see psychiatric problems reduced to spiritual problems will find balm for the wounds in its pages. For these I heartily recommend it.

Back In the Saddle

It is good to be back in the saddle. After crushing my collar bone to bits a week and a half ago I am back to work and ready to work. I had surgery on Thursday and got a plate installed with 8 screws holding everything together. Lots of baseball games and movies were watched. Gobs of pain medication and copious amounts of tea were consumed. I got pretty far in my books (see the sidebar), but was not able to finish any of them. They are pretty deep and take a lot of mental energy, but the educational experience was worth the work.

Thanks to everyone who sent me a note and a “get well” card. I was more than blessed to feel cared for and not alone.

Lewis’s Perelandra on God’s “Thwarted” Will

Not too long ago I got into a debate with Frank Turk over at the Pyromaniacs blog over Arminianism. In the ensuing discussion the issue of whether God’s will can be thwarted came up. Lewis has some interesting thoughts he communicates in the second book of his space trilogy Perelandra that express much better what I was trying to get across.

The book reframes the Temptation account from Genesis on the planet Venus where Lewis imagines a pair of first “humans” being tempted to disobey the God figure named Maleldil. One of the Tempter’s strategies is to say that Maleldil can turn anything for good, so why not go ahead and do what he forbids? Nothing will be lost. The hero of the story, an earthling named Ransom, is sent to intervene. The “Lady”–who is being tempted–inquires of Ransom if this is true. Ransom replies:

“I will tell you what I say,” answered Ransom, jumping to his feet. “Of course good came of it [the Fall]. Is Maleldil a beast that we can stop His path, or a leaf that we can twist His shape? Whatever you do, He will make good of it. But not the good He had prepared for you if you had obeyed Him. That is lost for ever. The first King [Adam] and the first Mother [Eve] of our world did the forbidden thing; and He brought good of it in the end. But what they did was not good; and what they lost we have not seen. And there were some to whom no good came nor ever will come.” He turned to the body of Weston [the Tempter]. “You,” he said, “tell her all. What good came to you? Do you rejoice that Maleldil became a man? Tell her of your joys, and of what profit you had when you made Maleldil and death acquainted.”

Frank and I’s debate became long and protracted. Given the last word, Frank made some puzzling remarks that claimed that Arminians such as myself are under the influence of Charles Finney. Why he says this, I do not know (I have never read Finney, and don’t know anyone who has). If anything, we Arminians, or anyone else who does not believe in Calvinism, are the children of C.S. Lewis. It is Lewis, not Finney (or Pelagius or whomever) who has had the biggest influence on evangelical thought in the last 50 years. His books Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain are the main reasons why so many Christians are attracted to free will theism (theism that is compatible with libertarian freedom) and the logical coherence of the free will defense (against the logical problem of evil).

Calvinism is seeing a revival, and that may have its place in the story of Christian theology as the church navigates its way through a postmodern wasteland. But it is Lewis who has guided many Christians, and continues to guide many more through the tangled mess of a world gone wrong. If Frank wants to relegate Lewis and company to the category of heretics, then that says a lot more about the so-called “New Calvinism” than it does about “mere Christianity.”

Breaking the Collar Bone

Hey everyone, I just thought I would update everyone via the blog of my situation (so I don’t have to repeat 8 or 9 times). It’s really stupid actually. Becca and I were biking around Cedar Lake and while going up a hill I flipped over the handle bars. Yes, that’s right… I was going UP the hill. I recently bought a very nifty little one speed that handles exceptionally well, and I was swerving the bike to get more power out of my peddle strides. It is a little trick I discovered that really helped me save lots of energy going up hills. Well, I got going too fast, lost the rhythm of the peddling and swerving, pulled too hard to the right, flipped over and furiously hit the ground left shoulder first. I hit it so hard I shattered my collar bone in three places. It is poking out as I type this (yes it stings), though it is not a compound fracture.

I knew I broke something because while I was looking at the constellations of stars (not wearing a helmet) I realized I could not sit up, or at least very easily. I thought I dislocated my shoulder, but I was able to raise it up, though only by the feat of adrenalin. I felt along my collar bone and almost fainted when I felt it jutting out in a direction it should not be pointing. When Rebecca saw it she almost fainted too.

We debated about calling an ambulance, and Becca won out saying she could bike back and get the mini van and save me $500. It was a long painful wait. I was tensing up and my shoulder was really starting to swell. I had to wait 45 minutes (we were a long way from home) watching several similarly shaped mini vans drive by, many of which contained drivers gawking curiously at me while I was sitting on a tree stump holding my shoulder with a sullen expression on my face, until she arrived.

At the ER I was taken care of quite quickly. I was given an IV in which they fed me a shot of something called Diladin that gave me the worst panic attack I ever had. Then they gave me a huge dose of Valium which was much more helpful. :P So I am in a sling waiting to have restorative surgery Thursday morning. I will be out of work for about 7 to 10 days as I am popping Oxycodone every 4 to 6 hours. I get to have a metal plate installed! Not to worry though. This injury is quite common they say, and the surgeon says there is very little risk involved.

Through it all, though, I have had a pretty good attitude. While I was waiting for Rebecca to pick me up I discovered a new meaning to the 23rd Psalm (which I surprisingly remembered) that gave it a whole new personal twist. I have the best girlfriend in the world and I am not sure how I’d be doing without mom and dad.

Thanks everyone for reading.