John's Musings

Happy Easter! Christ is risen!

2009-04-12T20:18:00.000-07:00

This is the day when we remember the most important and awe-inspiring event in human history: the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The resurrection demonstrates to us that the death of Jesus was not the pointless execution of a mere human teacher who got crossways with the authorities. It was the supreme sacrifice by which Jesus paid the price to free us from our sins, conquer death, hell, and Satan, and give us eternal life. The resurrection is God's seal of approval on what Jesus did.

As C. S. Lewis pointed out, the resurrection is a miracle of the new creation. It intrudes on the ordinary by announcing to us that the iron grip of death is not final. Those who are in Christ will rise with him. Praise God!

To those who refuse the Gospel message, I need do no more than repeat the challenge of the angel: Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here! He is risen, as he said!

Dr. Bart Ehrman talk at Church of the Holy Communion

2009-02-21T13:09:00.000-08:00

Some time ago, a lady in my church lent us a set of tapes from The Teaching Company. The course, taught by Dr. Bart Ehrman, was titled Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication. It was a survey of various divergent ideas and movements in early Christianity, most of which were eventually labeled heretical. Dr. Ehrman took the position that the struggle to determine orthodoxy was primarily political. On the whole, his treatment appeared fair-minded. I was most troubled by allegations that he made that the New Testament documents themselves had been tampered with by scribes in the interest of advancing the "orthodox" view.

Last Thursday night, February 19, 2009, Dr. Ehrman spoke at a public forum at the Church of the Holy Communion (Episcopal) here in Memphis, Tennessee. His topic, not surprisingly related to his most recent book in publication, was "the hidden contradictions in the Bible and why you haven't heard about them." I went to hear this with my wife Linda and my friend from work Richard Roland. I had no idea what the talk would be about, but I suspected that it might have to do with the issue of manuscript differences and changes. We got there early to get seats close to the front. It is a good thing that we did, since by the time the talk started, the nave was full. The church's clergy introduced Dr. Ehrman. He spoke, then took written questions from the audience. After the talk, there was a reception where, again not surprisingly, Dr. Ehrman's books were available for sale.

Dr. Ehrman is an engaging and entertaining speaker. I will say in his favor that, unlike many of his persuasion, he did not belittle or make fun of those who disagree with him. His talk, however, did not live up to its billing. He presented no information about the New Testament that I was not aware of. The main point that I learned was his own personal perspective. I shall now attempt to summarize his talk and make some brief comments before I forget it all.

Dr. Ehrman began by describing his New Testament classes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The students tended to come from conservative evangelical Christian backgrounds. They believed that the New Testament was the inspired, inerrant word of God, but few of them had ever read it in its entirety, and few were aware of the difficulties, the "contradictions" as Dr. Ehrman would have it, that he was about to point out to them. So he would give them an initial pop quiz to see how much they really knew, followed by assignments to research for themselves some of the difficulties.

He also mentioned that most lay people in churches had never been taught about these difficulties, even though their ministers were well aware of them, and then went on to ask why that might be. He said that most people, if they read the Bible at all, read it "vertically": that is, one book at a time. They do not read it "horizontally," comparing the parallel accounts, as he thinks that they should. Thus they never notice the difficulties in the differences of the parallel accounts.

Dr. Ehrman went on to give four main examples that he considered contradictions in the Gospel accounts.

Mark and John appear to give different accounts of the day on which Jesus was crucified. According to Mark, Jesus was crucified on the day of Passover. According to John, Jesus was crucified on the day of the Preparation for Passover, that is, the day before.

The accounts of the death of Judas Iscariot, given in Matthew and Acts, are different. Matthew says that he hanged himself, while Acts has him falling down and bursting open.

The accounts of the birth of Jesus, given in Matthew, and Luke are quite different.

The demeanor of Jesus on the way to the cross is depicted differently by Mark and by Luke. Mark presents him as silent, in shock over the whole thing, speaking only to ask why he was forsaken by God. Luke has him calm, talkative, in control, more concerned about the welfare of others than about himself. He comforts the weeping women by the side of the road and forgives and reassures the penitent thief.

Dr. Ehrman then spoke about his own approach to these and other biblical difficulties. He said flatly that they were contradictory and could not be reconciled. He further said that the differences in the accounts were the key to understanding them. For the differences showed that the authors were consciously changing the descriptions of the events to make theological points.

One claim that he advanced with which I flatly disagree is that the synoptic Gospels portray Jesus as merely a man, while only the Gospel of John portrays him as God. They may not use the same terminology, but the implication is there. See, for example, the story of the healing of the paralytic in Mark 2:1-12.

Now I am aware of all of the difficulties that Dr. Ehrman mentioned, as well as many others. So I was disappointed that he was not pointing out any "hidden" contradictions. As he himself said during his talk, these issues are there to see for anyone who reads the accounts. In fact, I could have given substantially the same talk that he did, except, of course for the references to his own experience.

His own experience, briefly summarized, is that he was raised an Episcopalian, or "Episco-pagan" as he called it, and was an acolyte who prayed for the forgiveness of sins every week. Then in his teens he "found Jesus." The person who led him to Christ convinced him to go to Moody Bible Institute. From there he went to Wheaton College, and after that to Princeton Theological Seminary to study with the best Greek scholar in America. I think he said that was Bruce Metzger, but I am not sure. Along the way, his beliefs changed as he encountered the difficulties in Scripture.

It was somewhat surprising to hear Dr. Ehrman say that his loss of faith was not due to the difficulties he encountered in Scripture. He specifically said that we cannot simply say that the Bible is full of contradictions and therefore we don't have to believe it. He saw the biblical stories as teaching theological truths, even if they were not historically accurate and consistent. His concept of truth allows a story to be "true" even if it never happened. What finally caused him to lose his faith and become an agnostic was the problem of suffering. He said that he has read all the arguments about it, but he cannot bring himself to believe in a God that allows so much suffering in the world. Nonetheless, he continues to be a biblical scholar because he thinks that the Bible is the most important and interesting book ever written, and the most influential in Western civilization, and therefore eminently worth of study for its own sake.

What I did learn that was new to me was Dr. Ehrman's approach to interpreting the Scripture and dealing with the difficulties and differences in parallel accounts. A fundamental principle of his approach appears to be that each Gospel writer consciously chose the material that he presents, and omitted all other material, for the express purpose of creating a specific impression. He appears not to allow the possibility that different writers had access to different material, so that omission by one of material included by another may not have been a conscious, intentional omission. He proposes what seems a paradoxical combination of "vertical" and "horizontal" reading. He says that you must read horizontal enough to determine that there are difficulties, then decide that the difficulties are not reconcilable and read vertically from that point on. You must read each Gospel account on its own, and not try to combine it with the others. If you attempt to combine the details of the various parallel accounts, you are guilty of conflation, of producing a gospel account that did not exist at the time and is different from any that did exist. Further, you are detracting from what Mark was trying to say if you interpret him in light of Luke, and vice versal. So not only is harmonizing the accounts impossible, even attempting it is fundamentally dishonest.

I know that the issues that Dr. Ehrman raised are real, difficult issues. I will have to leave dealing with them to those more learned than myself. But he was not the first to notice them. I have heard them all before.

I close with some comments on the situation of the talk and the reaction of the audience. As my friend Richard pointed out, it did seem rather strange to be sitting in a space filled with the trappings of high-church Christianity to hear a professed agnostic tear down the Scriptures. The audience was courteous and, as far as I could tell, mostly sympathetic. There was one man on the front row whom I observed to clap enthusiastically during the applause at one point when Dr. Ehrman made some comment about how theological truth was not affected by historical inaccuracy. It appeared that this man was rejoicing that here was someone tearing down the basis of the "fundamentalist" arguments from Scripture, so that he could remain comfortable in his Episcopal beliefs and not be troubled by the "fundies."

Well, to that gentlemen and to others sharing the same point of view, I close by saying this. Be careful of your allies. Here you are applauding an agnostic, who says that he does not even believe in the God that you probably claim to believe in. His arguments are not just against those annoying fundamentalists. You are embracing his arguments against your own faith. Be careful: he may prove too much.

Goodbye, Orange

2009-02-08T12:37:00.000-08:00

Some vile dogs in our neighborhood have killed several of our cats recently. This morning they got Orange, our oldest and favorite cat.

Orange was just what his name says: dark orange. He was a neutered male who showed up a year or so after I bought this house, sometime around 1995. As with most of our cats, he just wandered up and we took care of him. I don't know how old he was, but I'm guessing one or two years old at the time. So that would make him about 15 or 16 now. He was a beautiful cat with flowing tabby markings.

Orange was a good cat. He was laid back and personable and would let anyone pet him. He stayed in most of the time but would go in and out at will. He loved to get in our laps and sleep.

Goodbye, Orange. We're going to miss you. I hope to see you again when the earth is renewed.

Squirm, Democrats, Squirm

2009-02-06T21:28:00.000-08:00

As they say, it's easier to win the war than to win the peace.

The Democrats won the presidency and the congress. Now they have to govern. It's turning out that they can't even find cabinet appointees without tax problems.

We were promised "change." As the French say, the more it changes, the more it's the same thing.

Now you know that if this had happened to a Republican president, the media and the Democrats would be screaming their heads off.

Hypocrites.

Interesting use of the article in 1 Thessalonians 1:8-9

2008-12-06T19:32:00.000-08:00

I had some discussion with a Jehovah's Witness earlier on this blog about the deity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. One objection that they always make is that the definite article is not used in John 1:1 where it says "and the Word was God." They want to make that mean "a god," as if the Jewish mind would even entertain that thought.

While preparing for the Sunday School lesson tomorrow, I found it interesting that in 1 Thessalonians 1:9, a very similar construct occurs, where the definite article is used before one occurrence of "God" but not another. Here is the relevant verse from the 1881 Westcott-Hort New Testament, as shown on Bible Gateway.

αυτοι γαρ περι ημων απαγγελλουσιν οποιαν εισοδον εσχομεν προς υμας και πως επεστρεψατε προς τον θεον απο των ειδωλων δουλευειν θεω ζωντι και αληθινω

Observe that the definite article appears in the phrase προς τον θεον, which is the same phrase used in John 1:1 and John 1:2. It does not occur in the phrase δουλευειν θεω ζωντι και αληθινω at the end of the verse. I am not enough of a Greek scholar to draw any definite conclusions on this. I do wonder whether it indicates nothing more than a tendency to use the article after προς, but not necessarily in all other contexts. Observe, for example, verse 1 of this chapter.

παυλος και σιλουανος και τιμοθεος τη εκκλησια θεσσαλονικεων εν θεω πατρι και κυριω ιησου χριστω χαρις υμιν και ειρηνη

Notice that there is no definite article in the phrase εν θεω πατρι, "in God (the) Father." Clearly this use without the article refers to God, not "a god." This just weakens the Arian argument that much more in my mind.

Ecological anthropology: better Red than dead?

2008-11-29T18:05:00.000-08:00

I often attend evening service at Holy Communion Episcopal Church in East Memphis. Recently, they have been having a series of after-church studies on the Genesis Covenant. This is an interfaith movement to save the earth from the alleged coming disaster of global warming. I had not been to the previous sessions, but last Sunday, November 23, I was going to another late gathering in the area, so I stuck around to hear the presentation. It consisted of a video of a talk titled "Who are We? Ecological Anthropology," given by Sallie McFague in the middle of some kind of Episcopal conference on the subject. The talk must have lasted an hour, as it was still going when I had to leave to get to my other meeting. I'm sorry that I missed any discussion that followed.

The talk focused on both a theoretical background for action and a call to action. The theoretical background was that global warming is going to destroy the world if we don't all change the way that we live immediately. The call to action is that the religions of the world have to join together to teach their people a new theology calling for societal changes to save the planet. Lifestyle changes by a few individuals won't do it. It has to be the whole of society, and we have to change the institutions of society. In a democratic society, the only way to achieve this is by convincing, or educating (I wish I could remember the word that she used) enough people.

Her evidence for global warming is that it is accepted "by all scientists who publish in peer-reviewed journals." Really? And even if that is so, is it not just possible that this has become such a tenet of current scientific "orthodoxy" that those who do not accept it are not allowed to publish in peer-reviewed journals? After seeing Ben Stein's movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," I see that as a real possibility.

At one point, she seems to blame the Protestant Reformation for global warming. She said that the Reformation got us all focused on the individual's relationship to God rather than the world as a whole. This encouraged individualism that led to freedom that led to a choice of lifestyle that led to global warming. What a connection!

She sees science and Christianity as telling the same creation story, but makes it clear that we have to start with the scientific version. This translates, essentially, into evolution. Even though she and her friends use the term "Genesis covenant," I rather doubt if they would even consider the Genesis account of creation as anything more than a fairy tale.

McFague's mention of having to convince people in a democratic society was disturbing. One got the sense that she would really prefer an authoritarian government, so that she would just have to convince a few top leaders to implement her scheme, and the rest of us would have to fall in line. Well, authoritarian governments sound fine, as long as you are in the crowd who has authority. They don't sound so good otherwise.

McFague said that we must turn from an individualistic anthropology to an ecological anthropology. Her mantra is" Everything is related to everything else. That means that we need to figure out where we fit in the scheme of nature and then live in harmony with that place. I can't remember the exact phrasing that she used, but she said something like: the world would be better off without us humans around. That is frightening.

She also had some good words for Communism: "Say what you will about Communism, it is a communitarian philosophy." So we have a new take on the old saw: "Better Red than dead." We have to embrace Communism, or something like it, to save the world, or we'll all be dead.

Now some observations. They tell us that global warming will kill us all, and then tell us that the world would be better off without us here. So, what's the problem? By their own logic, they are working against the best interests of the world if they try to save humanity. We should all just keep living the way that we are and hasten our demise in order to truly save the world.

If there is indeed a climate change problem that is going to seriously disrupt the world, then human beings are the only ones who can do anything about it. Rather than falling into an enforced primitivism, we ought to be encouraging individual effort and creativity to develop new ideas and new technology to combat the problem.

What is really scary is that the new administration will probably be ready to listen to this kind of talk. Those who value their freedom need to be aware of this kind of threat and not take it lying down.

A bit late on the election

2008-11-29T13:18:00.000-08:00

Now we have elected a new president. Well, I did not vote for him, and I'm scared. I predict that the new Democrat administration and strengthened Democrat congress will, in the name of freedom, begin trying to take away our freedom. My predictions:

They will push for FOCA, overturning state restrictions on abortion.
They will try to reinstate the "fairness doctrine," in an attempt to silence conservative talk radio.
They will use the current economic difficulties as an excuse for a government power grab.
They will try to restrict free speech in the name of preventing "hate crimes." It may be come a criminal offense to criticize the "gay" agenda.

We shall see. If you care, write your representatives and senators.

One bright note was the Proposition 8 in California defined traditional marriage, dealing a blow to the "gay" agenda. Afterward, there were protests all over the country, demanding that the will of the people be negated. There was even one here in Memphis, for crying out loud. These people are not content with winning the White House and most of Congress. They demand that they win everything, even when they lose. They are also whining that people were confused about the proposition, since a vote for the proposition was a vote against "gay" marriage.

As they say, hey, you pay your money and you take your chances.

A Way to Store a Library Catalog Online

2008-07-12T16:57:00.000-07:00

Well, I might have expected it. Since you can keep your diary online (blogs), you can now catalog your personal library online as well. Library Thing allows you to look up information on your books and store records of them in its database. You get 200 free, then you have to pay for an account. Plus, you can see who else has the same books you have. It's something that I have been wanting to do for a while, so I am starting my own online catalog. As you might guess, it will take me a while to get them all entered. It should be a joyous, and at times poignant, reunion and review.

Learning Attic Greek

2008-07-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

A friend at work and I have committed to meet regularly and keep each other accountable to study Attic Greek. We are using Introduction to Attic Greek by Donald J. Mastronarde. I have been procrastinating starting the exercises until I found a reasonable way to type Greek on a computer. I type much better, and with less pain, than I write. I looked for Greek text editors and word processors. As I expected, they cost money. So I was glad to find a free Greek font and template combination that allows me to type my Greek exercises in Microsoft Word. I'm no big fan of Microsoft. But I have Word and have already paid for it, so this will be the simplest way to do my writing. I'll get to a bit of it now.

Learning Computer Security

2008-07-12T13:28:00.000-07:00

On Thursday and Friday, I took a web security course at work. We were required to go, and I suspected that, as with many required classes, it would be boring. It was not. The class was taught by Jerry Hoff of Aspect Security. He is quite a good teacher and made the class interesting. I learned quite a bit about how hackers attack web applications. There are a surprising number of potential weaknesses that can be exploited if developers code carelessly.

One organization that we learned about is called OWASP. It is a consortium of companies and people concerned about security. I'll have to check it out and see if they have a group here.

There is always a danger of forgetting what you learned in a class like this. I'm going to review the material and check out the tools that Jerry recommended we get. Unfortunately, I'm already displaying forgetful senility. I took in my personal ergonomic keyboard to protect my arms while typing the assignments. We did not do that much typing, and when I left, I walked out without my keyboard. I hope that it is still there when I get back. So now I am typing on the regular laptop keyboard, doing my best to preserve my arms and avoid tendonitis.

"Reverend" Wright is Wrong!!!

2008-05-03T10:34:00.001-07:00

I doubt I'll be the only one using this title, but I like it, so I'm using it anyway.

Recently the "Reverend" Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of imploding Democrat presidential hopeful Barack Obama, put himself front and center in the media to reply to criticisms of his positions. In doing so, he has dragged the name of Christ through the mud, embarrassed Obama, and possibly irremediably hurt Obama's campaign. After trying to soft pedal the issue for a while, Obama finally had to distance himself from Wright unequivocally.

I shed no tears over his effect on Obama. It's fun to watch the Democrats squirm. But few things rouse me to reaction more than his misrepresentations about Christ and the church. Here are some statements attributed to Wright.

* The US is responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
* "God D--- America!"
* You can't criticize one of my sermons unless you have heard the whole sermon.
* "His people" came over on the lower decks of the ships.
* Black children are all right-brained, and learn differently from white children.
* An attack on Wright is really an attack on the black church.
* Some (presumably white) people just don't understand the black church, its history, or its "prophetic theology."

My responses:

* The US is responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
* "God D--- America!"

"Reverend" Wright resents his patriotism being questioned and points out that he served in the military. Well, so did Timothy McVeigh, so that proves nothing. If saying "God D---- America" does not qualify as unpatriotic, I don't know what does.

Maybe "Reverend" Wright would appreciate sharing the fate of the fictional character Philip Nolan in "The Man Without A Country."

* You can't criticize one of my sermons unless you have heard the whole sermon.

"Reverend" Wright loves to whine about being taken out of context. Well, then, he should not say things that make bad sound bytes. He can't evade questions about what he says by criticizing the questioner for not having heard the whole sermon. I don't have to roll in mud to recognize that someone else has mud on his clothes.

* "His people" came over on the lower decks of the ships.

The whole "we came over on slave ships" business is getting tiresome. There is not one black American alive today who came over on a slave ship. Slavery was a sad and sorry episode in our country's history, but it is over. If "Reverend" Wright is so upset about how his ancestors got here from Africa, maybe he would like to return there.

* Black children are all right-brained, and learn differently from white children.

"Reverend" Wright had better be careful about this one. One might argue from this that if they learn so differently, perhaps they should be taught in separate schools. If a white person were to make such a blanket generalization, it (and he) would be labeled as racist. Why isn't the same thing said here? OK, I'll say it: this statement by "Reverend Wright" is racist.

* An attack on me is really an attack on the black church.

Oh, really? Who appointed "Reverend" Wright pope of the black church? And since when is there a monolithic black church? There are black Baptists, Pentecostals, Methodists, and Catholics, just to name a few. And there are lots of variations among those. Do they all agree with "Reverend" Wright?

* Some (presumably white) people just don't understand the black church, its history, or its "prophetic theology."

It's easy to make this kind of ad hominem argument: if you don't agree with me, you must not understand me, so I can dismiss you. One might just as well say that "Reverend" Wright does not understand the "white" church since he is part of the "black" church. It's interesting that it's OK to talk about the "black" church, but a "white" church would be discriminatory. Whether we understand or not, does that justify such bigotry toward us? And if we need to be educated, we are a lot more likely to listen if you approach us with kindness rather than confrontation.

I find it most interesting that not once during all this have I even heard a mention of church-state separation. If a white pastor, say John McCain's pastor, were making inflammatory statements, you can bet the liberals would be screaming "separation of church and state" and telling him to keep his mouth shut.

All of this drags the name of Christ through the mud. Where is the focus on Christ in "Reverend" Wright's antics? It just gives the infidels something more to make fun of and exploit.

Back again

2008-01-01T19:13:00.001-08:00

I'm back after a hiatus. I really hate it when they change things all up and you can't get to your account without creating a new account somewhere else. A friend finally talked me into creating a Google account, which I never use, so I guess I'll use it now for this. I don't know what I'll write here for a while. I guess it will have to be as I think of things.

Happy New Year!

More time now?

2007-04-01T11:26:00.000-07:00

The convent is over. The Priory of St. Andrew of the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem (SMOTJ) held its vernal convent in Memphis this weekend. It started with the postulants' reception, a dinner cruise on the Mississippi. It was lovely weather, the food was great, and the crew was most entertaining.

The business meeting at Evergreen Presbyterian showed that we need more communication between meetings. I volunteered to work on updating and maintaining the priory web site. I need to contact Claire Terry about that.

The convent itself, also held at Evergreen Presbyterian, was standard. We invested three new nights.

The evening concluded with a banquet at the downtown Marriott. Good food, good fellowship.

Why I believe that the Scriptures teach that Jesus is God

2007-01-11T18:51:00.000-08:00

Recently, in the first non-spam comment that I have received to one of my posts, one identifying himself as "one of Jehovah's Witnesses" asked me to explain why I believe that the Scriptures teach that Jesus is God incarnate. It has taken me some time to get to it, but I am happy to provide an answer. The apostle Peter exhorts us to be ready to answer those who ask us about the hope that is in us (I Peter 3:15-16).

I do not, of course, know the questioner's intent. It may be an honest quest for answers. It may be a desire to begin an argument, to get me to say something that he can tear down. It may be something in between. I begin my answer fully aware of all possibilities, yet I am glad to make it. If it is a sincere question, I hope to provide a sincere answer. If it is a challenge, I hope to provide a good defense of the truth.

I am fully aware that I cannot convince anyone. I can only present the facts. The Holy Spirit must make the truth real to those who seek it.

I shall also restrict myself to answering the question. I have some serious issues with the beliefs of the Watchtower, but my purpose here is to deal only with the one question: what leads me to believe that the Scriptures teach that Jesus is God incarnate?

I assume prima facie that the Scriptures are historically accurate and truthful accounts. I know that there are textual issues, and I shall touch on them as they are relevant, but my purpose here is not to enter into textual criticism or a defense of the authority of Scripture. I take that authority for granted.

I am indebted to C. S. Lewis and Peter Kreeft for some of the formulations of thoughts expressed here. Also, all Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version.

The ancient formulation of the answer is simple: "Aut Deus aut homo malus." Either God, or a bad man. A modern formulation sometimes heard is, "liar, lunatic, or Lord." When presented with the evidence that the Scriptures present about Jesus, we are left with only two options: either he is God, or he is a bad man, either morally or mentally. The one option that they do not leave us is that he is a mere good man, a prophet, a teacher, but only a man. I would go further and say that if he is not God, as he claimed to be, then he is the worst liar and deceiver that has ever lived. There is no ground in between.

Here are references from Scripture that show that Jesus claimed to be, and indeed was, God incarnate. There are others that could be adduced. I am trying to focus on some of the main ones.

Isaiah had a high Christology. In Isaiah 9:6, we read, "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

According to the apostle John, Isaiah saw Christ in his theophanic vision in the year that King Uzziah died, as recorded in Isaiah 6:1. In John 12:40, the apostle quotes Isaiah 6:10, and then says in verse 41, "Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him." He applies Isaiah's condemnation of the unbelief of Israel to unbelief in Christ.

The synoptic gospels have a high Christology. Mark records in chapter 2 that when a paralyzed man's friends made a hole in a roof and let the man down in front of Jesus, Jesus said, "My son, your sins are forgiven." The people who heard him knew very well what he was claiming. Verse 7 records their response: "Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" Note that Jesus does not take the opportunity to say, "Oh no, you are mistaken, I am not claiming to be God." Instead, he proceeds to prove his ability to forgive sins by healing the paralyzed man.

Mark also records in chapter 2, verse 28, that Jesus claims to be lord of the sabbath. Since God gave the sabbath, who else could claim to be lord of it?

Mark also records Jesus's claim to lordship over the law. In Mark 7:19, we read in a parenthesis the early church's understanding of Jesus's teaching about defilement: "Thus he declared all foods clean." Since God gave the law, who else could be lord of it? Note: I am aware that not all agree on the meaning of this statement.

Mark records the transfiguration in chapter 9, as do all the synoptic gospels. Here, for a moment, the veil is pulled back, and we get a brief glimpse of the divine glory of Jesus the Christ.

The fourth gospel certainly has a high Christology. John begins his gospel, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Some object that "the Word was God" does not have a definite article before "God" in Greek, and so it should say "the Word was a god". I answer that there was no concept in the Jewish mind of but one God: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one."

And note the end of the prologue, John 1:18, which is even stronger in the Alexandrian texts than in the majority text: "No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known."

As to the incarnation, John clearly states: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." In the next verse he quotes John the Baptist's testimony to Jesus's preexistence: "He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me." This chapter is one of the clearest teachings on the incarnation.

John states that Jesus has divine knowledge, in 2:24-25: "But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man."

John also expresses the preexistence and incarnation of Jesus in chapter 3, verse 13: "No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man."

In 5:18, John tells us, "This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God."

Immediately thereafter, Jesus tells us of his authority, including his power to raise the dead (5:25). What can that be but divine power?

In John 8:58-59, we read one of Jesus's clearest claims to be God: "Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.' So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple." The Jews who heard him knew very well what he meant when he said that.

In John 10:30-31: "'I and the Father are one.' The Jews picked up stones again to stone him." I am aware that this story continues with a somewhat puzzling statement, where Jesus quotes Psalm 82:6, which seems to refer to judges as gods. I do not have a complete explanation for this, but it seems to be an argument from the lesser to the greater, not a denial of Jesus's own divinity.

In the high priestly prayer, in John 17:5, Jesus says, "And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed."

In connection with this, it is worth noting Isaiah 42:8: "I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols."

The high point of the gospel of John is 20:28: "Thomas answered him, 'My Lord and my God!'" There, Thomas finally "gets it," and so should we.

The apostle Paul has a high Christology. See Philippians 2:6: "who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped...". See also Colossians 1:15-20, especially verse 19: "For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell." You can't say much more about divinity and incarnation than that.

The author of Hebrews has a high Christology. The whole book is about how Christ is better: better than Moses, better than the angels: "Let all God's angels worship him." Hebrews 1:6b.

The book of Revelation has a high Christology. Note the vision of the glorified Christ in chapter 1, and John's response in 1:17: "When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead." Note also verse 1:8: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty." Now compare 1:17, where Jesus speaks: "Fear not, I am the first and the last." Now compare 22:12-13, where Jesus speaks: "Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."

Note also: Jesus is not an angel. In Revelation 22:8, John tries to worship an angel, who refuses his worship. In chapter 1, Jesus did not refuse his worship. And in Matthew 28:17 and John 20:28, Jesus accepts worship. Only God can properly do that.

There is ample evidence in Scripture for the divinity of Christ. Praise his name! He became incarnate, and all things are changed. He won the victory over sin, death, and hell, and the creation shall be renewed and redeemed.

In the words of the Nicene creed: "God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten not made, of one essence with the Father."

Witnessing takes practice

2007-01-06T20:49:00.000-08:00

The apostle Peter tells us to always be ready to give an account of the hope that we have. It is easy to think that you are ready and then not be.

A few weeks ago, shortly before Christmas, I took my car in to Dobbs Honda for repair. While waiting for it, I did as I usually do and walked around the area reading. As I passed a Mapco on Mendenhall, a young lady approached me, held out a flyer and said something like, "I see you like to read, here is something else for you to read." I was almost certain what it was without looking, but I looked at it quickly and verified that it was Watchtower (Jehovah's Witnesses) literature. I said, "Ma'am, I am a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ." She replied, "I believe in Jesus, too." Here is where I made my mistake. I said, "No, you're not. You believe in a Jesus who was created, not a Jesus who was God incarnate." She looked somewhat taken aback and replied, "You don't even know me. How do you know what I believe?" I pointed to the flyer and said that I knew what group put that out and what they taught. I said that Jesus was "God of God, Light of Light, begotten not made." She replied, "Jesus came into existence because of what the Father did." When I continued to insist in the divinity of Jesus, she thanked me for my time and walked away.

I fear that I botched that witnessing opportunity. When she said that she believed in Jesus too, I should have said, "Tell me what you believe about Jesus." Then I could have drawn her out with questions, and she could not have argued with me because she would have put forth her errors with her own mouth. I ask God to forgive me for that blunder.

But notice also how deceitful her statements were. The statement "Jesus came into existence because of what the Father did" is ambiguous: purposely so in my view. It sounds like it might refer to the Christian concept of the incarnation, but in reality it refers to the Arian notion of Jesus as a created being. I do not know whether she came up with that herself or had been trained to say it. It certainly is a clever deceit.

It is ironic that this exchange came just before the great celebration of the incarnation.

Beware of these people. They preach another gospel, which is really no gospel at all.

Perhaps God will use even my blunder to shock her into considering the truth. I pray that it is so. Please pray for this lady to see the truth, and for me to be able to present it more ably when I have another chance.

Farewell to Saddam

2006-12-30T20:31:00.000-08:00

Saddam Hussein was executed this morning, as well he deserved to be. It is hard, though, to be happy about the death, especially the execution, of anyone. The wise man said, in Proverbs 24:17-18, "Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the LORD see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from him." Jesus went beyond this and told us to love our enemies.

I also can never forget this quote from Tolkien, which he placed in the mouth of Gandalf: "Deserves death! I should think he does. Many who live deserve death. And many who die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too hasty to deal out death."

Some say that Saddam should not have been killed because now we can learn no more from him about his crimes. Whether we would have learned any more is a good question. From what little I know about it, I also think that his trial was a farce.

I almost think that Saddam should have been kept alive and on public display.

Saddam died saying that there is no God but Allah, and that Muhammad is his prophet. He will now learn the truth about God. I fear that he will not like what he learns.

Modern Jacobites

2006-12-18T17:51:00.000-08:00

Would you believe it? There are still Jacobites around today! It did not die out with Bonnie Prince Charlie. See these web sites:

http://www.defendersofscotland.org/monarch.htm
http://www.jacobite.ca/kings/francis2.htm

Phallic evangelism? How low can we go?

2006-11-25T18:52:00.000-08:00

I recently saw an article on Worldview Weekend about a group that calls themselves XXXchurch. They claim to be going around trying to get people to stop looking at pornography. The trouble is that their emblem is a phallic symbol called "Wally the Wiener." This symbol adorns their web pages. They even have a 25-foot tall inflatable Wally that they use at conventions, fairs, and so on. They are aware that Worldview Weekend criticizes them, and they seem to pooh-pooh the criticism.

Now I am not an unqualified fan of Worldview Weekend. I am not sure that I agree with them on their evaluation of the emerging church, for example. But this time, I am with them wholeheartedly. It is ridiculous and inconsistent to use a pornographic image to tell people not to look at pornography. That might be an admirable goal, but I agree with the Worldview Weekend writer that it is getting the cart before the horse. We need to bring people to Christ first. Then the Holy Spirit will convict them of their need to honor Christ by holy living.

Even Integrity, Inc. with their so-called "gay saint" Aelred (whose memory they dishonor) did not stoop to this level.

Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us!!!

Free at Last

2006-11-25T18:48:00.000-08:00

Finally, I am as caught up as I can be with the Scottish Society work. I have the deposits made, the new membership data entered, and the recent address changes merged into the membership reccords. I still need to find the membership cards and do a few final clarifications, but I have done as much as I can without more information.

Maybe now I'll have time to start straightening the house, sorting through some piles, and finding other things that I need to live a more normal life. I recently found my Celtic Daily Prayer book, only to have lost it again.

Pay for sins versus take our place?

2006-11-05T20:28:00.000-08:00

This morning while visiting a church, I heard something interesting in a Sunday School class that bears on struggles I am currently having over the concept of the atonement. The teacher said that he believed that Christ paid for the sin of everyone, but only took the place of those who believe on him. When I questioned him on what he meant, he said that he meant that the atonement is effecatious only for those who believe. I do not think that he really understood what he had said, or at least how it had come across to me.

If I take what he said literally, there is a difference between Christ paying for sins and Christ taking one's place. That could speak to the nature of the atonement: Christus Victor or penal substitution.

Chance Meeting

2006-10-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

Well, you never know what a day will bring. Yesterday afternoon, as I was wandering around Oak Court Mall while my new glasses were being made, I went into Banana Republic. I was wearing my "cross cap", purple and green with a silver cross on the front. A lady was there with her daughter and commented on how much she liked my cap. I said that it was just my way of trying to show my love for my Lord. She said that she wished more people would do that, and that I was doing my part. I said I was trying, and she replied, "So is my husband. He's running for the Senate."

I was talking to Bob Corker's wife. She said that she guessed she should be with her husband campaigning, but her daughters needed her and she came to Memphis to spend time with them. I like that kind of family commitment.

Maybe I should have given her my card and said let me know if you need anything in Memphis.

Sermon or interview?

2006-10-08T21:13:00.000-07:00

I have attended two church services recently where, instead of a message, there was an interview. One was with a visiting organist who had lost an arm but still plays. The other, which I attended today, featured an interview with new members of the church about their experiences and why they had joined the church.

These interviews could be considered testimonies. Such interviews are valid and useful in giving us understanding of how people are applying Christianity in practical, everyday life.

My first question is, should such interviews take the place of a sermon? To me, reading and expounding the Word of God is a central part of worship. Not every worship experience needs to have a full-length sermon, but I feel cheated if I go to church and do not receive at least some teaching from the Scripture.

Another question I would raise is: Is this a trend? Are sermons being replaced by interviews? If so, it seems a symptom of the times. Perhaps we do not want to listen to the Word any more. Perhaps we feel we need something more hip, more cultually relevant. If this is true, God have mercy on us.

O'Hare Airport Delays

2006-10-06T12:24:00.000-07:00

Linda and I are on a trip to Canada to visit some friends. The plan was to fly on American Airlines from Memphis to Buffalo, by way of Chicago, and they would pick us up in Buffalo for the drive to St. Catharine's, Ontario. We were supposed to leave Memphis at 8:20 AM CDT and get into Buffalo at 1:45 PM EDT.

I will think long and hard before I fly through O'Hare airport again. We were delayed initially due to weather: Chicago had put a ground hold on all incoming flights. Then, again due to weather, they changed our flight plan to fly around turbulence, and we did not have enough fuel. So we had to return to the gate for more fuel, then wait some more. It was after 10:30 AM before we took off from Memphis.

When we got to Chicago, we found that our flight to Buffalo, which we had missed anyway, was canceled. We wound up on standby for two more flights, which we did not get on. After waiting all afternoon and evening in Chicago, we finally got on a flight at about 10:00 that night, and did not get to Buffalo until after midnight local time.

The worst of it was that our friend was supposed to pick us up, and came in from St. Catharine's, Ontario, only to find out we were not there. We finally managed to contact her at home, over a poor phone connection, and told her we might make it onto a flight that night. She called the airline to be sure we were on the flight, then came back and picked us up.

Avoid flying through O'Hare airport in Chicago. It is delay city.

My new Wiki web site

2006-09-25T19:16:00.000-07:00

I have established a new personal web site at PBWiki. I shall use that site to develop pages and thoughts about my interests, and move some content from this site to that. I shall use this blog site as more of a journal with links to that site.

DSL at home!

2006-09-23T14:44:00.000-07:00

Wow! I finally have BellSouth FastAccess DSL at home. I can now play around with the internet at home without having to go out to a coffee shop to get a wireless connection. Going to the coffee shop was fun, and I may still do it occasionally. But it cost money: over two dollars for a large cup of tea, over four for a large but really not-so-large smoothie. So even though DSL costs, it will save me money in the long run over the coffee shop.

I used to have free dialup connection through the University of Memphis when I taught there. They let it stay active for a while after I stopped, but they finally purged the old accounts and I lost the access. Now I'm on again.

The DSL modem came with a setup CD that I was supposed to run on my computer. A friend at work told me to try just hooking the modem up to the computer through an ethernet cable, and it should work out of the box. It did! When I got on Firefox the first time, a page came up asking me to do some kind of configuration on the modem, which I did. It asked me to restart Firefox, and voila! I was on the internet without ever running the startup CD.

My next step will be to get a wireless router and see if I can set up a wireless network including my other computers. This will allow me to use them for something other than expensive doorstops. It will also allow my wife and me to get on the internet at the same time!

Spiritual Formation Conference

2006-09-20T20:32:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, Linda and I went to a spiritual formation conference at Union Avenue Baptist Church in Memphis. Dr. Don Whitney from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville was the speaker. The seminar focused on personal spiritual disciplines for Christian growth. The central disciplines were Bible study and prayer. Also mentioned were meditation, fasting, silence and solitude, journaling, and learning.

The conference was quite thought-provoking. The main statement was probably, get going and do it! Most of us stay so busy that we do not think that have time to pursue spiritual disciplines.

Dr. Whitney presented an approach to prayer called praying through the Scripture. The idea is to take a passage of Scripture, such as a Psalm or a teaching passage, and look at each phrase individually, letting it suggest thoughts to your mind, and praying about them. For example, Psalm 79, beginning "O God, the nations have come into your inheritance," forcefully reminded me to pray for the peace and security of Israel.

The challenge to me will be to organize my life to find time to do these disciplines and to pray, meditate, and journal each day. A blog can be a form of journal, so we shall see how successful the attempt will be.

A "Gay" Saint??

2006-07-16T19:11:00.000-07:00

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy on us!

I just discovered on the web an organization called Integrity, Inc. that purports to be an organization of and supporting homosexuals within the Episcopal church. They have adopted as their patron saint one St. Aelred of Rievaulx, whom they claim was "gay".

Now, I have never heard of St. Aelred before. I know nothing about him, other than what I have read on the Integrity, Inc. web page. Yet I detect an error in logic that I must point out. That error is a redefinition of terms.

According to modern usage, the perversion of the word "gay" denotes a homosexual who identifies him or herself as such, accepts and approves that lifestyle, and practices it. According to the Integrity, Inc. web page, this does not describe St. Aelred. The site says that he had homoerotic feelings, but did his best to suppress them and never act on them. He even warned a hermitess to avoid sexual defilement with either men or women. This does not sound like someone who was comfortable with his homosexual orientation and acted on it.

This group may decry the situation that caused Aelred to repress his orientation, but in doing that, they complain about the historic doctrine and tradition of Christianity. They want to be Christian and "gay" at the same time, which flies in the face of the teaching of Scripture.

If the members of Integrity, Inc. want to honor St. Aelred, I suggest that they do as he did and remain celibate. It dishonors his memory to identify him as something that he spent his life trying not to be.

What should a pastor be like?

2006-07-03T20:46:00.000-07:00

Being a pastor of a church is a heavy responsibility. The role is defined by its name: a pastor is a shepherd. From the very etymology of the word, this means that a pastor is to feed the flock. The pastor is to care for the spiritual well-being of those in his charge.

Jesus himself gave this instruction in a post-resurrection encounter with Peter, regarded as a key leader of the early church. As John records it (John 21:15-19), Jesus three times asks Peter to affirm his love for Jesus. In response to these affirmations, Jesus gives three responses: "Feed my lambs." "Tend my sheep." "Feed my sheep." Peter was to demonstrate his renewed love for his Lord by caring for his fellow disciples.

This evidently made a deep impression on Peter. In his instructions to his fellow-elders, recorded in 1 Peter 5:1-3 (English Standard Version), Peter says:

So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.

This pretty much sums it up. The pastor, and indeed all who serve God's church, are to lead the flock like a shepherd. The attitude enjoined here is worth noting: willingly, not as a mercenary, and not as a dictator, but as an example. The current term for this is "servant leadership."

Paul also, in his instructions to Timothy (however you regard them as being transmitted), says that an overseer should be "not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome". This describes part of the demeanor and character that a pastor should have. He is to lead the flock gently, not with overbearing dominance.

Unfortunately, there has been for some time among some Baptists the idea that the pastor is the boss of the church. Some pastors feel that it is their way or the highway. Those who feel this way need to seriously reconsider the words of Peter and Paul, and the words and actions of Jesus at the Last Supper as he washed the disciples' feet.

What can happen when a pastor ignores these warnings? It can hurt the very people for whom he is supposed to be caring. It can destroy a church. It can hinder the witness that the church is supposed to have for Jesus Christ.

The pastor is supposed to be the shepherd to all the church. This does not mean that he must accept every idea and action of everyone in the church. He should strive to persuade those whom he finds in error of their error and restore them in a spirit of meekness (Galatians 6:1). He should not seek to divide the church and alienate those who disagree with him.

The pastor needs to recognize that it is not all about him. Some pastors seem more concerned about their own power, prestige, and position than about doing the work of God. It is wrong for a pastor to seek to determine who supports him and who does not, then eliminate those who do not and either drive them from the church or ask them to leave. This betrays greed for power, insecurity, and an inability to deal with people. Unfortunately, even those who find themselves on the good side of such a pastor are not secure. They never know when one false move will cause him to turn on them.

Is this what Jesus did? He chose twelve to be his core group, and spent three years living with them and teaching them. He put up with their scheming, arguing, hot tempers, lack of faith, and their general inability to "get it." He rebuked them for their blindness and lack of faith, but he never once told any of them to leave. He even put up with Judas Iscariot, knowing that he was a thief and that he would ultimately turn traitor.

The dictatorial attitude creates an atmosphere of fear and distrust in the church. The church should be a place of love, caring, and truth. How can it maintain and support the members already there, much less welcome and grow new believers, if the people fear the pastor and spend their time trying to stay off his bad list? How are insiders and outsiders alike to see, experience, and understand, grace in such a situation?

One primary task of the church, though by no means its only task, is outreach and evangelism. Many churches struggle to find ways to reach out effectively to their communities. An evangelistic outreach demands that the church be a welcoming, nourishing community for new believers who are brought in. A church with an atmosphere of fear and distrust is no fit place for new believers. It will harm, not help, anyone whom it brings in.

Guiding a church is difficult enough under the best of circumstances. The pastor who fosters an authoritarian atmosphere of domination, backstabbing, fear, and distrust may think he is making his own job easier, but in the long run he is making it much more difficult. The church will not flourish, and will slowly, if not quickly, wither.

Lord, have mercy on us when we fail to follow your pattern for the church. Guide churches in crisis to turn to you and seek your love and your grace, so that the world can see that we have been with Jesus.

Back from Israel

2006-05-31T12:20:00.000-07:00

Well! Quite a few things have happened since my last post. I have been incredibly busy, but then I guess that applies to most of us. Last night, Linda and I got back from a trip to Israel and Jordan. We went with a tour sponsored by Insight for Living, with Chuck Swindoll. It was quite an experience.

I was not thrilled at first about the idea of going to the Holy Land. It was Linda's idea. My hesitancy was based on some ideas and feelings. I do not think that you have to go to any particular place to be close to God. God is everywhere. If you cannot be close to God where you are, I wonder whether going to a particular place will help. Once you come back home, you are in the same situation that you were before. Going on a pilgrimage could be useful if you truly retain the closeness that you felt there.

Plus, I had some other trips I wanted to do. To me, the Celtic lands are the holy lands. I have thoroughly enjoyed trips to Wales in 1996 and Ireland in 2002. I hope to do Scotland sometime soon, and maybe even Brittany and Galicia.

Once we got to Israel, though, my perception changed. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole time. We saw many places where events in the Biblical story happened. To see these places and to know that these were real and not merely good stories made quite an impression.

Being there also gives you an impression of the relative locations of places and events, and helps you understand the geographic references. You can visualize what it means to say "Zion stands with hills surrounded." You understand "going up to Jerusalem" and "A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho." You can see the barren and inhospitable territory on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, and understand how bandits could hide in those hills and waylay travelers, as in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

There were also many interesting sites and ruins not directly related to the Biblical story. There were Roman ruins at Beth Shean and Jerash and the Nabatean holy city of Petra. Seeing Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls was a highlight.

So if you are looking for a great time and, as Anselm said, "faith in search of understanding," make the pilgrimage. It will make your faith more real.

Still here

2006-02-24T21:15:00.000-08:00

It has been a long time since my last post: since 8/26/2005 according to the site. A lot has happened. I am now treasurer of the Memphis Scottish Society as well as holding offices in the local and state SMOTJ. We have several new cats. The Memphis C. S. Lewis Society is now studying "That Hideous Strength." It is interesting to reread it after all these years. I remember some parts but have forgotten much.

My church is still looking for a pastor and a youth minister, and in the midst of a controversy over the diaconate. Please pray for us.

Other strange things: the president wants a company owned by the UAE to run our ports. Something does not feel right here. I must admit that I am losing confidence in this president, as much as I liked him at first. I feel that Americans should be running American ports.

Oh, yes. Now I understand countersteering. I tried it on my bicycle, and it works. Well, I still do not totally understand it intellectually, but I know through experience that it works.

What else? I'm behind in most things, as usual. It's late, so I'll keep this one short. It's just a note to say that I'm still here, if anyone is interested.

LWW Chapter 3

2005-08-26T14:21:00.000-07:00

In chapter 3, Lucy, who has just tumbled out of the wardrobe after returning from Narnia, finds the others and tells them her tale, only to have them disbelieve her. After they examine the wardrobe and find that it appears perfectly ordinary, the others, especially Edmund, make her life miserable for several days that ought to have been most enjoyable. On the next rainy day, as they are inside playing hide and seek, Lucy is beginning to doubt her own experience and decides to take one more look in the wardrobe. Hearing footsteps, she jumps in to hide, and Edmund, seeing her go in, jumps in after her. He finds that he is in Narnia, and shouts out an apology, but Lucy is nowhere to be found. As Edmund is preparing to return home, the White Witch herself rides up in a sledge pulled by small, white reindeer, and driven by a dwarf. Edmund notices that, though she is beautiful, her skin is pure white and her look is proud and stern. She begins to question him about what kind of creature he is.

In this chapter, we get a bit more of a feel of Edmund's nastiness. He describes Lucy as "batty" when she tells her tale of Narnia, and in his spite he makes her life miserable by teasing her about her story. After he gets into Narnia, he reluctantly calls out an apology, but when he cannot find Lucy, begins to blame her rather than himself for the situation.

We find that Lucy has the courage and determination to stick to her story. She knows it to be true, even when the others do not believe her and she can produce no evidence to support her experience. She refuses to yield under taunting and pressure, even though it makes her own life miserable.

We also see enough evidence to learn that the entrance to Narnia through the wardrobe is not there all the time. Specifically, you can get into Narnia that way only when you are not trying to, when you are thinking about something else as you enter the wardrobe. If you are trying to use the wardrobe to get to Narnia, you cannot.

Another fact that appears is that Narnian time runs in a different way than earth time. Lucy had been in Narnia for "hours and hours," but she got back only a moment after, or perhaps at the same time as, she left.

There are no obvious Christian references in this chapter. Perhaps the closest is the portrayal of sin through Edmund's nastiness to Lucy, and his attempt to place the blame on her, even when she turns out to have been right. We also see how sin can break relationships and spoil good times.

LWW Chapter 2

2005-08-25T18:54:00.000-07:00

In chapter 2, Lucy goes to the home of Tumnus the Faun for tea, then discovers that he meant to lull her to sleep and turn her over to the White Witch. After meeting her, Tumnus decides that he cannot betray her, and helps her get back home.

There are few direct Christian references in this chapter. One that I detect is that the Faun calls Lucy "Daughter of Eve," a term which she does not understand. Another is Tumnus' repentance for a premeditated sin and Lucy's forgiveness of him.

From the storytelling point of view, the reader detects fairly quickly that something is not quite right in the interaction between Tumnus and Lucy. The first hint is that he says nothing to her until he has picked up his packages. Then, instead of immediately introducing himself, he takes some pains to ascertain that she is really human, and we learn that he has never seen a human before. After establishing that she is human, he is about to say something and suddenly stops, then presses her to go home with him for tea. Probably, for many people today, the thought of a stranger inviting a girl home would immediately raise red flags. Those must have been more innocent days.

After luring Lucy into a trap and trying to lull her to sleep so that he could turn her over to the Witch, Tumnus realizes that he cannot go through with it, and repents with bitter tears. To show that his sorrow is genuine, he confesses what he meant to do, and tries to make it right by helping Lucy find her way back home, even at his own peril. He begs forgiveness, which Lucy freely and gladly offers. While we applaud her forgiving spirit, we also get the impression that in her childhood innocence, she does not fully comprehend the horror of what she would have faced had Tumnus carried out his original intent.

We also learn that Narnia is a land under an evil spell: the White Witch is a usurper who makes it "always winter and never Christmas." The message here is that evil shows its power by making others miserable. It also depicts the frozen state of the soul without God, and prepares for the depiction of the thaw and healing that comes when God enters.

LWW Chapter 1 Observations

2005-08-25T15:04:00.000-07:00

The Memphis C. S. Lewis Society is reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the first of the Chronicles of Narnia. Here are some of my observations, chapter by chapter. Among them, I hope to point out the Christian and biblical references that I notice.

The book begins with a dedication to Lucy Barfield by her godfather Lewis. No doubt Lewis based the character Lucy in the story on her, somewhat as A. A. Milne included his son Christopher Robin in the Pooh stories. I do not know whether the other children were based on the real Lucy's siblings or not.

The dedication expresses hope that fairy stories are not just for children, but also for those who have matured enough to appreciate them once again, at a new level. In that spirit, let us proceed.

Chapter 1 begins the story by telling of the four siblings Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, as they are sent to a country house for safety during the Blitz of World War II. I do not recall their surname Pevensie being used in this first book. It is clear from their initial appearance that Edmund is the problem child of the family. He has to hide his laughter at their host when he meets him. There is a hint of his short temper and pessimism. His problems will trigger the crisis in the story later.

On a rainy day, the children decide to explore the house. The very immenseness of the house and its unexpected hallways and rooms depict adventure, new horizons, and the sense that something unusual is going to happen and could be waiting around any corner. One of their discoveries is a series of rooms full of books, as Lewis says, "most of them very old books and some bigger than a Bible in a church." This is the first hint, however indirect, that there is a religious air to the story.

When they encounter the magic wardrobe while exploring the house, only Lucy stays behind to examine it. Lewis thus portrays her as a bit more inquisitive, a bit more venturesome, even perhaps a bit more in tune with her surroundings and with life, than the rest.

Once Lucy enters the wardrobe, Lewis begins a running joke combined with a bit of advice: it is very silly to shut yourself in a wardrobe.

The wardrobe, it turns out, is a portal: one of the magic places that open between this world and Narnia. We shall learn more about this portal later. Lucy's reaction is the natural reaction of one who encounters something unexpected and unexplained: frightened, inquisitive, and excited. This could apply to learning unexpected spiritual truths as well.

Making sure that she can get back, Lucy ventures into this unknown world of winter and encounters a lamp post in the middle of a wood and a Faun. The first is unexplained, the second clearly unearthly. One does not ordinarily encounter a functioning lamp post in the woods, but it might be understood as the result of human action. A Faun, however, is not in our normal realm of experience.

Thus the chapter ends, leaving Lucy and us to ponder her encounters. There are no specifically Christian references yet, except the offhand reference to a Bible in a church. But we sense that, in the midst of a very ordinary experience, we are being taken out of the realm of ordinary experience and into a different world. This in itself is preparation for the possibility of spiritual experience and change.

It is also important that Lucy just stumbled onto the experience. She was not specifically looking for another world. She was just being inquisitive about something that she enjoyed in this world, and it became for her a portal into another. So, perhaps, Lewis is saying, we can encounter the spiritual world in unexpected ways in the course of our "ordinary" experiences.

The Memphis C. S. Lewis Society

2005-08-25T13:55:00.000-07:00

Since I am an Inklings fan, it was with great interest that I recently discovered that there is a C. S. Lewis discussion group that meets in Memphis. Their web site is narnia.org. They meet every second Sunday night of the month at 7:00 PM in the library at the Memphis Theological Seminary.

This month, August, Linda and I attended for the first time. They were finishing their discussion of Charles Williams' book The Forgiveness of Sins. We had not read the book, but the discussion was interesting. I should have written this post earlier, since now I cannot remember much of it.

One interesting point, on the side of receiving God's forgiveness, was that sometimes people get too hung up on deciding whether they need forgiveness for some particular sin, and forget that they are sinners. Each of us can confess to God every day that we have sinned, whether we can remember the particulars or not.

On the side of giving forgiveness to others, there was an interesting discussion of how approaching someone to "forgive" them can in fact become a weapon against them. If I am going to forgive you, that means that you did me some wrong. But what if you do not think that you did me a wrong? Such interactions call for much discretion, good judgment, and tact.

The society will next move on to a discussion of the first of Lewis' Narnia Chronicles: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I say first advisedly. It was the first in the original order of the series, and should still be the first. I do not agree with the decision of the current publishers to try putting the stories in chronological order, beginning with The Magician's Nephew. Beginning the story in the middle, then filling in the beginning later on, is a well-known literary device. The author's intentions in using it ought to be respected.

Linda and I are rereading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe now in preparation for the next meeting. I plan to make some posts on this blog of my thoughts on it, especially Christian and biblical references in the story.

I Am Not a Motorcyclist

2005-08-22T13:33:00.000-07:00

Some years ago, Leonard Nimoy wrote a book called I Am Not Spock. I have not read it, but I presume that he felt that he had to establish his own identity, distinct from that of the beloved character that he played on Star Trek.

This spring, I got interested in motorcycles. I have never before this ridden a motorcycle in my life. What actually happened was this. Last spring of 2004, I believe it was, I was teaching a class at the University of Memphis, and picked up a copy of the student newspaper, the Daily Helmsman. On the front page was an article about the Memphis dealership for Vespa, an Italian motor scooter. For some reason, I got intrigued and was looking into getting one. I was discussing it with a coworker who rides motorcycles. He said, as long as I was thinking about a scooter, why not go for a regular motorcycle? So I started thinking about it. I also went to the current Wonders exhibit in Memphis, "The Art of the Motorcycle." Since I had never ridden, I decided to try taking a training course.

On July 29 and July 30, I took the Motorcycle Safety Foundation basic rider course. I would like to have said, July 29 through July 31, but I cannot. I flunked out of the course on Saturday, July 30.

The course started out OK. Friday night, we were in a classroom and went over various aspects of motorcycle safety, gear, and handling. On Saturday morning, we went outside for riding practice. It started slowly, with checking the bike, starting the bike, walking the bike, and then finally slow riding. There were different exercises in starting, stopping, turning, cornering, and use of the friction zone. It was quite a thrill to be riding for the first time in my life.

I was doing OK until the exercise on weaving around cones. I was having difficulty managing the weaving and was missing some of the cones. Then, on one of the turns, I had a low side fall. I was not hurt, and did not even damage my helmet. I learned something very important from that: don't put on your brakes during a turn, especially the more powerful front brake.

The real trouble came with countersteering. Before taking the course, I read the course material. The one thing that I could not understand was countersteering. The basic idea is that to make a motorcycle turn, if you are going more than about five miles per hour, you have to make the motorcycle lean in the direction that you want to turn. The way that you are supposed to do this is to press forward on the handlebar in the direction that you want to turn. This seems totally counterintuitive to me. I told the rider coaches this when we started the course. Their answer was, it does work, just wait until you try it, it is something that you have to feel.

Well, when I tried it, I still could not feel it. When we got to the countersteering exercise, I was doing it so poorly that they stopped me and wanted me to ride behind one of them while they showed me. I found this too frightening. So they told me that if I could not get this down, I could not continue the course. I went home at lunch time and did not return.

I am not criticizing them for stopping me. That was what they had to do. My only criticism of the course is that it seemed to me that they were asking us to do exercises, such as the weaving among cones and the countersteering, for which we were not sufficiently instructed. It felt more like a test of the abilities that we already had rather than instruction in how to acquire those abilities. I really had a fear of and a mental block about countersteering that I needed to get over.

Since then, I have read a little about countersteering on the web. I think that I understand the concept a little better now, and may be able to do it given some patience, instruction, and practice.

My suggestion to the coaches in the course, which I offer freely, is: get a gyroscope. Let people hold it and see how it behaves when you apply pressure to it while it is spinning.

I was about to give up on the whole idea, when, oddly enough, I ran into the president of the Memphis Motorcycle Club at an event at my church. He offered to help me learn. They have an event where they get out and ride in a field, and he said that he could help me there.

So who knows? I hear that Leonard Nimoy eventually wrote another book, I Am Spock. Maybe some day I shall be able to post another article here entitled "I Am a Motorcyclist."

Kidney Stone

2005-08-22T13:22:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I posted. It's just hard to find the time. Today is going to be a banner day for posting, since I am home from work with a kidney stone.

I have never had a kidney stone before, and hoped that I never would. I guess I had some warning that it was coming from some minor abdominal pain. But I woke up this morning with discomfort that quickly developed into excruciating pain. I had no idea at first what the problem was, but suspected a colon blockage. So as not to bore or nauseate you with the details, I wound up in the emergency room, where they gave me a CAT scan and determined that there is a stone of size 4 mm by 7 mm in my right kidney. They said that it was borderline whether it would pass on its own. For that, I am still waiting and may be waiting for days.

I have heard it said that kidney stones are the closest thing that a man can experience to the pain of childbirth. If that is so, my had is off to all women who go through childbirth. This is the first time that I have ever been on pain medication. I do not like pain medication. I pray that this clears up soon. Your prayers would be appreciated too.

I also learned something else. I have been taking calcium tablets for bone health. Kidney stones are made of calcium. The calcium tablets have to go.

My sympathy is with you if you are going through anything similar.

Lord of the Rings Movies

2005-07-03T13:12:00.000-07:00

I am a great fan of the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien. There is too much to say about his writings to get it all into one post, so I foresee writing several on the subject. This comment is about the movies that have been made on the Lord of the Rings saga. The movie versions of the Lord of the Rings are uniformly a great disappointment. In general, they are not true to the story the way Tolkien wrote it. They leave out important parts and sometimes invent and insert material that was not in the story at all. It seems to me effrontery for moviemakers to suppose that they can tell the story better than Tolkien did. I understand that there are always difficulties in transforming a printed story into a visual story. Sometimes accomodations are necessary. The feeling of narrative words can be difficult to convey in a visual mode. I am not saying that every word of the book has to be reproduced in the movie. But I do feel that the movie should be as faithful to the narrative and feeling of the book as possible, and not take gratuitous liberties.

Tolkien himself did not believe in film or stage adaptations of fantasy works. He felt that theater was already one step removed from reality, and should not be further removed by attempting to depict fantastic situations.Years ago, back in the seventies, there was a cartoon version of The Hobbit. I do not think that I ever saw it all, but I seem to remember it as one of the better adaptations of Tolkien's work.

Then there was Ralph Bakshi's version. It was animated: part cartoon, part rotoscoped from live action. It was an impressive work, but again fell short. It purported to be a portrayal of the entire trilogy, but stopped after the victory at the battle of Helm's Deep. It ended with some statement like, "Just as the forces of good triumphed at Helm's Deep, so the ringbearer successfully fulfilled his quest." That seems pretty lame to me. I guess the producers ran out of money, or time, or both.

Some years after that, I saw a children's cartoon version of The Return of the King. I did not like it at all. For one thing, it substituted songs for story. That might not be all bad, since Tolkien's work is permeated with song and poetry. But this cartoon used cute songs, such as a marching column of orcs singing, "Where there's a whip, there's a way," to repetitive, monotonous background action. The portrayal of Aragorn was all wrong. He came across as a gruff, ignorant pugilist who just wanted to go beat up Sauron. None of the high nobility in Tolkien's portrayal of him showed. It showed Frodo losing his mind and running around madly in Mount Doom with Gollum chasing after him. When the ring is finally destroyed, it shows eagles carrying away all the troops of Gondor from the battle before the Black Gate to save them from a giant earthquake. At the end, Gandalf tells Merry and Pippin that hobbits are getting taller and men are getting shorter, and that eventually the two races will merge. All of this is so out of character.

Peter Jackson's movies of the trilogy are not much better. I think that he should have made six movies. Each volume of the trilogy contains two books, so there should have been one movie for each book. Then maybe he could have done the story justice. As it is, he left out so much, but he also modified and inserted. Plus, he left out most of the music and poetry. Essentially, he turned Tolkien's masterwork into a Hollywood action movie.

Gone is the encounter with Gildor Inglorion and his elf band in the flight from the shire. Gone is the meeting with Farmer Maggot. Gone are the stay at Crickhollow, the passage of the Old Forest, the encounter with Tom Bombadil, and the rescue from the Barrow Downs. Gone is Frodo's song at the Prancing Pony. Mistold are the revelation of the ring and the encounter with Aragorn, as well as the attack on the Prancing Pony (made not by the Nazgul, but by their henchmen). The encounter at Weathertop and the flight to the Fords of Bruinen do not fare too well either. Totally gone is Glorfindel, whose place is taken by Arwen Evenstar.

I can tell that I am running on and on with this. I have not even catalogued all the deviations in the first movie of the trilogy yet. I had better let it rest a while and then maybe say some more.

I begin to doubt that a good, accurate film version of Tolkien's work will ever be made. Maybe it is impossible to make. Perhaps that is as it should be. The wonder is in reading Tolkien's masterful prose and poetry.

RIP Terri Schiavo

2005-07-01T18:21:00.000-07:00

I shall never get over the death of Terry Schiavo. It was the most awful feeling that a helpless, disabled woman was being starved to death, and there was nothing that I could do about it. I wrote emails to government officials. I prayed. I listened to horrifying descriptions of what was going on. I pledged to a fund that was set up to buy Terri's life. I hated myself for not having the guts to go down to Florida and join in the protests.

What has become of our country? How have we reached the place where we treat a disabled woman worse than we would treat a condemned criminal or a lab rat?

I do not understand the behavior of Judge George Greer in this situation. I could never see how, without any written directive, the judge would condemn her to death solely on the statement of her husband that this is what she wanted. I read some of the judge's rulings. The tone of them sounded like, "These requests of the family are just trying to evade my earlier orders, so I deny their requests. So there." I later signed a petition that this judge be impeached.

I do not understand how the governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, could allow this to happen, saying that he had no power to intervene. I cannot understand how a judge could be so powerful that no one dares challenge him.

I commend the Schindler family for their unbelievable courage, faith, and patience in the midst of all this. I hope that their fight to protect others in the same situation will have more success than it had for Terri.

Words cannot describe what I feel about Michael Schiavo. I cannot comprehend his behavior, and I find it reprehensible. He was clearly not a benevolent, nor even a disinterested guardian. Most people have probably heard the arguments on both sides, and I doubt I shall convince many. He was maintaining another family and wanted to be with them. What I do not understand is why he could not divorce Terri and let her parents have her. They offered to take care of her for the rest of her life, at their expense. Why, why, why, could he have not let them have her? How would it possibly have harmed him?

Where do we go from here? This was a chilling episode. People were arrested for trying to take a cup of cold water to Terri. A lawyer sickened my by telling us how wonderful Terri looked as she lay dying of starvation and dehydration. I can only pray that we learned something from all this. My fear is that we did not.

Thoughts on Star Wars: Episode III

2005-06-16T20:22:00.000-07:00

We finally went to see Star Wars: Episode III. It has been a while since we saw it, but I am just now getting a chance to write my impressions. Please pardon any spelling errors in the names, as I am writing this from memory.

I thought that Episode III was the best of the new trilogy. Episodes I and II were OK, but not what I would call great. Even Episode III does not, in my opinion, come up to the level of the original Star Wars trilogy. But it is well-paced and captivating, a worthy conclusion to the saga, if conclusion indeed it is.

The movie had a difficult premise: to depict the transformation of the good Anakin Skywalker into the evil Darth Vader, and to show how and why he turned to the dark side of the force. As one critic said, we all knew what was going to happen. The only thing that we did not know was the details.

The story succeeds because it is complex and uncertain enough to hold our interest, even as we watch the inevitable unfold. The story involves multiple levels of plot: political intrigue, internal conflicts among the Jedi, conflict between friends, relationship conflicts between Anakin and Padme, and Anakin's personal struggle to come to grips with who he is, how he relates to others, and what is to be his role. It is the story of the willing transformation of a democratic but unwieldy republic into an empire led by an ambitious demagogue. It is the story of the demagogue's duplicity in orchestrating a war and playing both sides for his own gain and advantage. It is the story of a troubled young man, overcome by a combination of his own pride and desire for eminence and his love for and desire to protect his beloved wife. By yielding to his fear, he unknowingly destroys the very one that he is trying to protect.

Chancellor Palpatine, as we all know, is scheming to become emperor. He has orchestrated a war against the Separatists, who are trying to break away from the republic, but is secretly helping them through his Sith apprentice Count Dooku. The Separatists seem to be the remnants of the Trade Federation of Episodes I and II, whatever that was. Palpatine fakes his own capture by the Separatists and Count Dooku to lure Obi-wan and Anakin to come to his rescue. The outcome appears not to greatly matter to him, since he can use whatever happens to his advantage. But he gets what he really wants when Anakin defeats Dooku. We see the next small step of Anakin toward the dark side when, at Palpatine's urging, he kills Dooku, though he knows that it is wrong. Little does Anakin know, though of course the audience does, that a time will come when the scene will be reenacted, with Palpatine telling Anakin's own son to "kill him and take his place at my side." Luke succeeds where Anakin failed.

At the personal level of the story, Anakin falls because of love: his love for his wife Padme. He foresees her death in childbirth and is desperate to protect her. The Jedi counsel him to let go and detach himself, but he will not. He is willing to try anything to save her, and so is open to the suggestions of Palpatine, who insinuates that only the dark side can give him the power to prevent her death, a power that the Jedi do not want him to know about or experience. He even tells Anakin tales of a Sith lord who discovered this power to protect those he loved from death.
We do not know, of course, whether Palpatine was lying about this. And the point is, neither does Anakin. He must make his decision based on his knowledge, experience, and feelings. We feel that what Palpatine said was probably a lie, but Anakin is so desperate for help that he is willing to try it.

At another level, Palpatine engineers a conflict between Anakin and the other Jedi. He plants the seeds of doubt in Anakin whether the Jedi trust him. Desperate for recognition, Anakin chafes at this. All is, of course, for Palpatine's benefit.

The showdown comes when Anakin realizes that Palpatine is a Sith lord and informs Jedi master Mace Windu. Windu and three other Jedi go to arrest Palpatine, insisting that Anakin remain behind. But Anakin follows, driven by fear that if Palpatine dies, there will be no way to save Padme. In a troubling reprise of the scene in which Count Dooku dies, Mace Windu defeats Palpatine and is about to kill him, crying, "He is too dangerous to live!" But Anakin intervenes, maiming Windu, and allowing Palpatine to kill him. Knowing that what he has done is wrong, he nonetheless vows to serve Palpatine, still believing that it is the only way to protect Padme. Anakin begins carrying out his new master's evil program, murdering the Padwan children in the Jedi temple and wiping out the remaining leaders of the Separatists, who think that he has come to help them. At the same time, Palpatine gives an order to exterminate all the Jedi, and it is ruthlessly carried out. Only Yoda and Obi-wan escape.

Now the scene is set for the showdown. Padme follows Anakin to the mining colony where he has gone to kill the Separatist leaders, and unknowingly leads Obi-wan to Anakin. Furious at what he considers a betrayal, Anakin uses his new powers to choke Padme until she passes out. He is harming the very one he has done so much to try to protect. Then he and Obi-wan, former friends, former student and master, fight through a hellish scene until Obi-wan finally defeats him. Unable to bring himself to kill Anakin, and thinking him as good as dead, Obi-wan leaves him badly burned, with his arms and legs burned off and all his hair gone, and flees with Padme. But Palpatine rescues Anakin and has him tended and fitted with prosthetic limbs and a breath mask and helmet.

Padme, heartbroken in grief over Anakin's fall, gives birth to twins and dies. The funeral procession, interestingly, shows her as still pregnant. The remaining Jedi are careful to separate and hide the twins and prevent Anakin from knowing that they exist. Perhaps the saddest moment in this whole sad film is when Anakin, after being fitted with his prosthetics and breath mask, rather pathetically asks whether Padme is all right, only to be told that he killed her. Palpatine, knowingly or unknowingly, helps the Jedi in keeping the children from Anakin by telling him that he had killed Padme when he choked her. Defeated and hopeless, Anakin resigns himself to a life of service to his evil master.

We see, at last, that Palpatine has lied to Anakin. The dark side has no power to preserve life. Instead, its power is to twist, kill, and destroy. While Palpatine's statement that Anakin killed Padme is in its strictest sense a lie, yet in a deeper sense, it is true. Anakin did kill Padme: not by choking her, but by breaking her heart. In his attempts to save her, he has become what made her give up the will to live. He has caused what he dreaded most by trying so hard to prevent it.

To mix stories, Anakin would have done well to heed the words of Galadriel to Samwise when he saw the destruction of the Shire in her mirror and wanted to rush home to save it: "Many things the mirror shows. Some are, some have been, and some may never come to be unless he who sees them turns aside from his path to try to prevent them."

Some have seen a reference to the current political situation in the story: a corrupt leader uses a manufactured war to subvert democracy. It is possible that there is a reference to President Bush and the Iraq war in this, but I doubt it. I suspect that this story was conceived long before that. The story is a universal one: leaders always find war a pretext to increase their power "during the present crisis." Once taken, the extra powers are rarely given up. Consider George Orwell's 1984 and the slogan "War is Peace." Certainly we need to be always on our guard to defend freedom against demogoguery.

There is a message in the fall of Anakin. He did not start out to become evil. The temptation came to him through a desire to do good. Even so, in the story of the temptation of Christ, all three temptations were to take a shortcut way, doing evil in order to accomplish good. Like Adam, and unlike Christ, Anakin took the shortcut. And again, like Adam, he had to wait for his descendent to overcome the temptations and deliver him.

The scenes of the deaths of Count Dooku and Mace Windu anticipate the climactic scene in Episode VI, when Luke defeats his father in front of Palpatine but refuses to kill him as Palpatine orders. This time, Anakin destroys Palpatine to save his son, and so redeems himself.
There are aspects of the story that leave one to wonder. The Jedi are supposed to be able to feel the presence of good and evil in the force. In the original trilogy, Anakin is able to sense the presence of Obi-wan and of Luke. One wonders why he cannot feel at the beginning that Palpatine is an evil presence. Perhaps his powers have not developed enough.

One can see certain events as setting things up in minor ways for Episode IV. When Obi-wan has to grab a blaster and finish off General Grievous, he mutters, "How uncivilized." And Yoda tells Obi-wan that his friend Anakin is gone, consumed by the new Darth Vader. This prepares the way for Obi-wan to tell Luke that Darth Vader betrayed and murdered his father.
One statement near the end of the film also leads to some interesting speculations. Yoda tells Obi-Wan to take Luke to his relatives on Tattooine to be raised, and tells him to live nearby to watch over Luke. He informs him that while is is there, he will receive training from the spirit of Quai-gon Jinn, who has discovered the secret of immortality.

One wonders whether this means that not all are immortal, but only those who know the secret. It sounds rather Gnostic. It does recall a statement of Obi-Wan to Darth Vader in their fight on the Death Star in Episode IV. The movie abridges in a significant way the statement as it is in the printed book: "This is a fight you cannot win, Darth. If [my blade finds it mark, you will cease to exist. But if] you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

One also wonders whether this statement paves the way for yet another movie about Obi-wan's adventures with Quai-gon between Episode III and Episode IV.

Privacy

2005-05-30T15:11:00.000-07:00

I am a conservative, but I do not necessarily agree with everything that other conservatives want to do. I just read an article that says that the administration is wanting to have its power restored to obtain secretly the records of an ISP with the company not even able to disclose that the request for information has been made. The administration's justification is that this is necessary to help fight terrorism.

I remember from history classes that medieval serfdom developed by people surrendering their liberty for security. Those became lords who had the capacity to protect others. I have heard a quote from Benjamin Franklin (as best I remember) that those who give up liberty to preserve security deserve neither.

I oppose the concept of the government being able to spy on citizens without probable cause and obtaining a court order. The constitution was written to protect us against just such intrusions. If the administration feels that the times are such that different procedures are required, let them propose a constitutional amendment and go through the process of getting it ratified. It seems that they are trying to get the power by sidestepping the constitution.

Well, one might say, what else is new. Governments have a tendency to want to govern, surprise, surprise. They are always grabbing for more power. In the United States, we are blessed to have a system that at least has checks and balances and gives us a chance to oppose power grabs by our votes, input, and influence.

I do not usually agree with the ACLU, but in this case, I support the effort to keep restrict the government's abilities to spy on our internet activity and to keep secret that it is doing it.

To generalize: we need to gut the so-called Patriot Act.

The Coathangered IU Pro-Life Rally

2005-05-22T06:25:00.000-07:00

All my graduate work was at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. It is a fascinating place, with many cultures from around the world represented. It is also a hotbed of alternative ideas and lifestyles. For example, William and Emily Harris, cohorts of Patty Hearst, were professors there.

Once while there, I heard about a Christian pro-life rally to be held on campus and decided to attend. When I arrived, I noticed on the front row several people who, from their appearance and clothes, looked more alternative than like someone who would have been interested in this rally. But hey, we are not to judge by outward appearance, so I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Once the rally started, though, they showed that they did not deserve the benefit. The rally began with the singing of Amazing Grace. During the singing, these people mocked and parodied the song. When the speaker came up, they began going up and putting coathangers on the stage. Apparently, according to the speaker, the IU administration had told these people that they would be allowed to disrupt the rally by putting one coathanger on the stage every minute or so. Of course, their point was that we were trying to turn back the clock to the "bad old days" when many women allegedly died from back alley abortions. So the IU administration was more concerned about this group's "freedom of speech" to be able to disrupt the rally than about the freedom of the Christian group to speak without disruption.

This illustrates the left's concept of "freedom of speech." They want it for themselves, of course. They want it even to the point of being allowed to disrupt your attempt to speak. But they do not want you to have it if you do not agree with them.

The speaker at the rally told the disrupters to stop what they were doing. He said that if they did not, the rally would be adjourned to the on-campus house of then IU president John Ryan in protest of the IU decision to allow the disruption. Predictably, the disrupters continued their tactics, so the speaker told us to proceed in an orderly fashion to the president's house, where the rally would continue outside.

While we were walking, I wound up walking beside a young lady from the group of disrupters, and we began to talk. She asked me, rather heatedly, why I was so opposed to "a woman's right to choose," and I proceeded to explain it to her: because of my Christian beliefs, I felt that killing unborn children was wrong. I do not remember the details of the conversation, though I think that she said something like "Don't shove your religion down my throat. I don't want it." I then told her that I would pray for her that she would see the light. Then an amazing thing happened. I would have expected her to laugh or mock. Instead, she looked at me with fear in her eyes, and said, "Don't you pray for me!" I responded, "How are you going to stop me?"

Now let's think about that for a while. I especially want all you who share her persuasion to think about it. If God does not exist, if religion is meaningless, if what we believe is a myth or a hoax, then what difference does it make if I pray for you? What harm can it possibly do you? What are you afraid of?

I rather suspect that this young lady's atheism was not quite as confident as she would have had me believe. Perhaps she was afraid that there was a God, and that I might "sic" Him on her. Well, if you believe that there is a God and you fear His judgment, then it behooves you to figure out how to get right with Him rather than try to hide from Him.

Either the rally organizers had warned the administration in advance that they would move the rally like this, or the administration had anticipated it, for there were campus police at the entrance to the president's house. There was no violence, no trespassing, no attempt to storm the president's house. Instead, the speaker stood on the sidewalk out front and continued his talk. Predictably, the disrupters continued trying to disrupt.

At one point during the speech, the speaker took on one of the disrupters. He asked her why she was so opposed to what he was saying. She replied that he was saying that abortion is absolutely wrong, and there were no absolutes. He responded, "What about rape? Is rape absolutely wrong?" She replied, "Of course." He asked, "Why? I thought you said that there were no absolutes." She replied, "Rape is an attack on a woman's body." He replied, "So? Who says that is absolutely wrong, if there are no absolutes?" She answered, "I do." The crowd laughed. He had her and everyone knew it.

This may have changed some of the disrupters minds, but I doubt that it did. Leftists like to belittle conservatives as idiots, but sometimes logical consistency escapes even their enlightened minds.

Political correctness still lives. If you cannot answer their arguments, then silence them. That is the politically correct concept. But God does not call us to be politically correct. He calls us to be committed to Him, to speak the truth with love, and to speak for and defend those who cannot defend themselves.

Letter the President

2005-05-18T09:33:00.000-07:00

No, this is not talking about writing letters to the president, though I am thankful that we live in a country where we can.

We have all seen on cars the small square stickers that say "W the President" and "W Still the President." Today I saw one that said "F the President." Responsibility was taken (and I put it that way deliberately) by the group behind the URL dontblamemeivoted4kerry.com.

Now come on. I am not the biggest fan of Bush, though I generally approve of his activities. I think we are a lot better off than we would be had Kerry won. But do we have to descend even below the level of Barry Commoner (the BS word) in our political dialog?

Give them enough rope and they will hang themselves. The Bush-haters are portraying themselves as crude and vile. I thank them for saving me the trouble. And yet, they want to persuade us to support their ideas and candidates.

Well, they need to take a Dale Carnegie course. I looked at their web site. Typical. Among other items, it advertises a sweat shirt sporting a magazine cover that says, "How can 59,054,087 people be so dumb?" There you have it. That is what they think of the rest of us.

Well, those of you who think the rest of us are so dumb, let me point out a little something to you. You have committed an ad hominem fallacy. (Go look it up if you don't know what it means.) You are attacking the person making the argument rather than trying to refute the argument itself. That is, as Mr. Spock would say, highly illogical.

Just imagine what they would be saying had things gone their way: "Yes! 59,054,087 people finally wised up and got it right!" Or maybe, just maybe, they would be saying, "Hey, we won, so the rest of you stop griping." But no, that would be intolerant, and by their definition, only conservatives can be intolerant.

So keep smearing it around, leftists. Let everyone see your true colors.

Addendum:

I guess I am too trusting. I should have looked more closely at the description of the sticker on the money-making leftist web site before writing this post. There, the description of this sticker says that since F is John Kerry's middle initial, all that they are doing is claiming that he should be president, and that anyone who is offended by it just has a dirty mind.

OK, leftists, have your laugh on me. Go ahead, since I have plenty of laughs on you. Feel better? Good.

Now let's be realistic. Everybody knows that W is President Bush's middle initial. I bet that relatively few know that F is John Kerry's middle initial. The people who put the sticker out certainly know this. So it is obvious that this is a double entendre, with obscene overtones. Predictable. They get to laugh at any conservative who "doesn't get it." They probably don't laugh at any liberal that doesn't get it, because they would agree with what that person thinks it means.

Sorry, guys. Don't expect me to take the bait twice. This isn't just a cute, innocent statement, despite your protests. You don't get off that easily.

Dodgeball at camp

2005-05-16T19:45:00.000-07:00

It's amazing the things that stick in our minds. Many experiences, we forget. Others remain with us, as vivid as when they happened.

I can't remember the exact year. I think that I must have been in high school. The Lions Club in Hueytown, Alabama (my home town) sent me and a friend to a summer camp. I don't remember much about the camp except for one event: a game of dodgeball.

Now, dodgeball is not something that I play, or have ever played, on a regular basis. But on that day, it was one of the activities, so we divided into teams and played. Each team would take a turn in the center with the other team encircling them and throwing the ball at them to put them out. The sides were timed, and the side that stayed in longest would win.

My team was in the center. Somehow, during the entire time, I managed not to get hit. As the game progressed, I watched the strategy, or lack thereof, of each team. My team would, en masse, run to the other side as far as they could from whoever had the ball, to give themselves more time to dodge. The team in the circle would then pass the ball rapidly around the circle to get it close to the cluster of players inside, who would then be easy pickings.

Well, again, somehow, I managed to avoid being hit and was the last man standing on my team. Now, I am no athlete and I know it. At school, I was always the one chosen last when we divided up teams. So, not unexpectedly, the team in the circle was clapping and cheering, "OK! Last one! Easy out! Easy out!" But I had been watching what the other players on my team had been doing. I thought quickly and came up with a plan.

I knew that I could not run fast enough to stay far from the ball as they passed it around the circle, so I went to the center of the circle and stayed there. I would make them do all the work. They started passing the ball around like before. I just turned to face whoever had it. When they threw it at me, I just pivoted or leaned aside, turning quickly to face the direction that the ball had gone. Several times, it came within an inch of me, but it never touched me. I stayed up until we had surpassed the other team's time.

After it was over, one of the other boys came up and asked me if I was on the dodgeball team at my school. That made my day. I had never heard of a school dodgeball team. I doubt if his school had one either.

To be honest, on the next round, I got caught up in the mass of my team as they ran around the circle and was unable to stick to the center. I got put out early.

After the camp, the deal was that I would go back and talk to the Lions Club about what had happened. I don't remember whether I told them about the dodgeball game.

What is the point of all this? I doubt if there is one. It is just a cute story of something that I remember from long ago. There are probably many more important things that I have forgotten. If it has a point, it probably is: watch what others are doing and learn from it, even from their mistakes. What looks like the best strategy on the surface may not be the right approach at all. Oh, and it helps to be able to think quickly on your feet.

Kingdom of Heaven

2005-05-16T18:50:00.000-07:00

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:3

Bible scholars debate what the kindom of heaven means in the Scripture. To many, it means God's reign, whenever and however experienced. Jesus taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come." Yet Jesus also said, "The kingdom of God is in your midst." He also spoke of it as something that could be entered: "You are not far from the kingdom." In one sense, God's kingdom is already here, for He certainly rules over all, whether they recognize it or not. In another, one must be rightly related to God to enter His kingdom and experience it. In yet another, the kingdom will not be fully realized on earth until Jesus returns.

None of these meanings, however, seems to quite fit the use of the term as the title of the movie, "Kingdom of Heaven." Orlando Bloom plays the son of a crusading baron. Tormented by his wife's suicide due to the death of their child, and his guilt for killing a priest, he decides to go to the Holy Land to take his father's place and try to find forgiveness for his sins. In the course of events, he proves his worth and becomes leader of Jerusalem in its last defense before its fall to the armies of Saladin.

In this movie, the "kingdom of heaven" is presented as a theocracy in its odious sense. The Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, while ostensibly set up to restore Christian rule to the Holy City, has, according to the movie, become merely a greedy grab for land and power by unholy men who cloak their avarice in pious pretensions. There are a few who, disillusioned by the hypocrisy, yet strive to live decently. But even they have, for the most part, despaired of establishing a truly righteous kingdom. One says, "Jerusalem does not need a perfect knight."

Yet Bloom plays a tarnished Galahad, questing not for the Grail, but for his own peace of soul. He goes to sit on the hill of Calvary, expecting God to speak to him. When God does not, he despairs and returns to tell a friend that he has lost his religion. The friend replies that he has never put much stock in religion. According to his philosophy, we are made holy by our actions. If you do good deeds each day, you are a good person.

The portrayal of Christianity in this film is troubling. Perhaps it portrays the view of Christianity that is becoming dominant in the secular culture. Almost everything that the film says or insinuates about Christianity is negative. The priest in Bloom's village in France steals a cross from the body of Bloom's wife, then tells him that he must do penance to lessen her punishment, for she is in hell because she killed herself. Monks admonish the knights on their way to the Crusades that "to kill an infidel is not murder; it is the way to heaven." The patriarch of Jerusalem is presented as a narrow-minded coward. Bloom himself encourages his troops to fight not for the holy sites in the city, but for its people.

On the other hand, almost everything that is portrayed about Islam is positive. At one point, Bloom hears a Muslim prayer and remarks that "it is a lot like ours." Saladin is portrayed as merciful and forgiving, not seeking revenge for past wrongs (only present ones). He goes to war with the Christians only when they provoke him.

Also troubling is the movie's portrayal of the Knights Templar. The Templars are portrayed as the bad guys who attack and massacre Muslims just to stir up trouble and provoke a war.

At present, I do not remember enough details of the history of the Crusades or of the Templars to make definitive statements on the historical accuracy of most of the movie's portrayals. I am not naive enough to believe that the crusaders were perfect, and were interested only in religious idealism. Many were younger sons of nobility, who had no land or inheritance, and "took the cross" for an opportunity for glory and land. But I also have trouble believing that they, and especially the Templars, were all cruel and conniving, attacking innocent people just to provoke a fight. Nor were Saladin and the Muslims all saints either. Those were different times, and there was plenty of cruelty on all sides.

My personal opinion, for what it is worth, is that the makers of the movie were less interested in historical accuracy than in making their points: don't put too much stock in religion (especially Christianity) in your daily life. Being a good person by doing good things is what matters, and you have it in you to do that without the help of religion.

It is sad if the conduct of Christians has led the world to that point of view. For that, of course, is not the message of true Christianity at all.

Some thoughts on Star Wars

2005-05-15T14:03:00.000-07:00

Some works of art, literature, and entertainment catapult themselves into public consciousness and become pop culture icons. Star Wars is certainly one of those. Some (including me) are fans; others disdain it. The saga has been around since 1977, coming out with a new episode every few years. Now we are on the eve of the release of the final movie, Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith. It does seem poignant, as an article in the local paper here points out, that the series is finally coming to an end. But who knows? George Lucas may find a way to keep yet more new material coming out.

During the early days of the first three episodes, I heard a kid say, "If you like Star Wars, you say, 'May the Force be with you.' If you don't like Star Wars, you say, "May the Farce be spared you.'" There is no question that the early movies had both admirers and detractors. The technical achievements were stunning. I even enjoyed the acting, though not everyone agrees about that. The original movie got several Academy Awards, I don't remember how many. But they were all considered "minor" awards by movie junkies, while the "major" awards that year went to Annie Hall.

It's hard to explain the appeal of a story. The Star Wars story could be viewed from many angles. It was a coming-of-age story of a young man, Luke Skywalker, stuggling to find himself, to escape the humdrum, pedestrian life to which he feels unjustly consigned, to learn about his shadowy past, and to fulfill his dreams of adventure and usefulness to a cause in which he believes. It is a story of the conflict of good and evil on a cosmic level. It is a story of spirituality, and how it can be turned to good or evil. It is the conflict of a small, courageous band, struggling against incredible odds to outwit and overcome a super-powerful empire that has turned evil and corrupt. It is a love story. And, as it develops, it becomes the story of Luke discovering the shocking truth about his father, and struggling with the conflicting demands of revenge wished by his Jedi superiors and his own feelings of right and wrong, his desire to help his wayward father. Ultimately, it is story of salvation.

Some who have written comments on the story have said that it is shallow because Luke never really experiences any conflict. I do not see this at all. Luke reveres Obi-Wan and Yoda, his original mentors who introduce him to the Force. Intent on revenge, he faces Darth Vader only to learn, to his shock and horror, that Vader is indeed his father, Anakin Skywalker. He than has to struggle with the knowledge that his mentors have deceived him, at least by keeping back part of the truth. He also has to struggle with what to do about Vader. He decides that he cannot destroy his father, but must try to save him. In doing so, Luke rises above his mentors and discovers who he truly is. To me, that is the heart of the story. He still has to struggle to keep from being overcome by anger at the treatment of his rebel comrades, and most of all, at the possible seduction by the dark side of his sister Leia. It is touch and go until, at the last, he sees the danger of becoming like his fallen father and finally refuses the dark side. Luke's torture at the hands of the Emperor then is the agent of his father's salvation, as Anakin reasserts himself, destroys the emperor, and saves his son's life. Through his persistence, patience, self-control, and suffering, Luke has achieved his goal.

The most two movies, Episodes 1 and 2, in my opinion, did not measure up to the quality of the original three. Episode 4 was a stark, rural movie. Episodes 1 and 2, especially 2, were urban, with images coming at you to the point of overload. The stories were, of course, setting the background for the original three movies, and in that they succeeded.

I am waiting to see Episode 3. I do not plan to go on the first night. I shall let the real fanatical fans savor that, then go when things have calmed down a bit. I must say that in a way, I am not looking forward to seeing the metamorphosis of Anakin into Darth Vader and the destruction of the republic and the Jedi. But go I shall, for the experience is not to be missed.

I also have a bit of a complaint about one decision of George Lucas: not to put the original versions of the original trilogy out on DVD. He made revised cuts and put them out. I do not like the revisions. They mar the beauty of the originals by trying to make them more glitzy, like Episodes 1 and 2. Lucas says that that was the way he originally wanted to make them, and could not for technical and budget reasons. Well, he has to deal with his business decisions. I personally think that he could have made more money, and angered fewer fans, by releasing both versions and letting fans have their choice.

The movie series may be over, but the Force will be with you always.

Introductory post: So here I am

2005-05-15T13:18:00.000-07:00

Yo soy un hombre sincero

De donde crece la palma,

Y antes de morirme quiero

Echar mis versos del alma.

This verse from José Martí expresses why I started this web log. I have some things that I want to say before I leave this world. I feel that God has given me abilities to think and to put my thoughts in language. A web log puts thoughts out where others can see them, think about them, and possibly benefit from them. If what I say is enlightening or beneficial to anyone, I am grateful and pleased. I have never done a web log before, so it will be interesting (at least to me!) how this develops. I get the feeling that other people can post responses to my posts, kind of like a newsgroup, so we may even get some conversations going.

First, here is a bit about me. That is what you would expect in an introductory post, right? I am 52 years old, a computer programmer at FedEx in Memphis, Tennessee. I also teach programming course part time at the University of Memphis. I currently use and teach the Java programming language most. In the past, I have worked in several other languages, of which my favorite is Scheme.

I am a Christian, a believer in Jesus Christ. He is my Lord and the meaning of my life. I serve him in various ways, primarily through teaching and music. I am the music director, a Sunday School teacher, and a deacon of McLean Baptist Church in Memphis.

I'll probably say more about myself as I go along, but I'm anxious to begin posting on various topics on which I have thoughts. My thoughts will certainly not be politically correct, but that does not concern me. It is not my purpose to intentionally offend anyone.

Here are some of the topics that interest me, and that I shall probably post thoughts on as I go. This list cannot be exhaustive, since I shall undoubtedly think of other topics and unrelated ramblings over time. I do not claim to be an expert in any of these topics, just someone who is interested and perhaps has some thoughts that others may find interesting.

Religion and biblical studies
Tolkien, Lewis, and the Inklings
Music
Cats
Freemasonry
Templarism
Computers
Various of my experiences
All things Celtic
Language
Historical ramblings
Travel
Mysticism
Gnosticism
The Star Wars saga
Politics
And who knows what else

So here begin my thoughts. Enjoy.

John Simmons