Astronaut Scott Kelly posted this photo taken from the International Space Station to Twitter on Sept. 5, 2015 with the caption, “#goodnight #Earth! Make me proud and I’ll try and do the same. #YearInSpace”.
“I have learned now that while those who speak about one’s miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.” – C. S. Lewis
__________
ARBCA Pastor Al Huber Posts $250,000 Cash Bond to Free Convicted Felon Tom Chantry From Jail
Todd Wilhelm at Thou Art the Man continues his coverage of the seemingly interminable hearings and trials surrounding the allegations of child physical and sexual abuse of children by Tom Chantry. Todd has tirelessly attended the trials and hearings. He has also documented the number of churches leaving the ARBCA, most likely due to ARBCA’s mismanagement (and some might say, cover up,) of the allegations against Tom Chantry.
According to the ARBCA’s website:
The ASSOCIATION OF REFORMED BAPTIST CHURCHES OF AMERICA (ARBCA) was founded on March 11, 1997. On that day at the Cornerstone Church in Mesa, AZ the first General Assembly met to establish a charter membership of 24 churches from 14 states. Now in 2018 there are 59 member churches.
This organization is geared to male only leadership and claims to be able to help churches work through difficulties together. Given the number of churches resigning from this organization, I wold venture to guess their problem solving skills are rather weak. Perhaps they could have used some input from the womenfolk….
In addition to the cooperative efforts (ARBCA) is designed to advance Christ’s kingdom by providing a fellowship in which churches of common confession may find mutual encouragement, assistance, edification, and counsel. ARBCA can provide an organized forum of godly men, each holding to the same confession of faith, to help churches work through various difficulties together. As needed, it can also serve the interest of individual church members whenever “any member of any church is injured, in or by any proceedings in censures not agreeable to truth and order. . .” (London Baptist Confession, 26:15).
For those of you who want to catch up on the Tom Chantry situation, this link will take you to a page which lists all of the posts TWW has written on the situation.
I believe that it was a member or members of this organization that attempted to cause serious embarrassment to Dee a couple of years ago. This was most likely due to my coverage of the Tom Chantry arrest. However, the poorly written letter, which was sent to a number of organization with which I’m affiliated, only served to make members of this group look downright foolish and ill-educated.
In February 2019, Todd posted another letter by an ARBCA church which resigned from the organization. Note that they say the events that have transpired over the last few years have led to this decision. That would be the Tom Chantry situation.
In the meantime, Tom Chantry, having been convicted of felony child abuse, has been languishing in jail, unable to raise the money (cash only) for bail while he awaits retrial for 4 counts of molestation of a child along with another case of sexual molestation of a child as well as physical abuse and assault of a child.
It looks like his pastor/father in law ponied up the $250,000 cash and Chantry is most likely awaiting trial in the comfort of his own home. I wonder if the victims have received similar comfort from the leaders in ARBCA?
ARBCA Pastor Al Huber Posts $250,000 Cash Bond to Free Convicted Felon Tom Chantry From Jail
ARBCA Pastor Al Huber has posted $250,000 to spring his son-in-law, Tom Chantry from Jail. Convicted felon Tom Chantry has been incarcerated since September 10, 2018 in the Yavapai County jail as he awaits two trials. The first trial is scheduled to begin April 23, 2019 and is a retrial on 4 counts of molestation of a child. You can read more about these charges here.
Chantry faces a new trial in which he has been indicted on nine counts of child abuse, sexual molestation of a minor, and assault. I do not believe a date has yet been set for this trial. You can read more about these new charges here.
I attended the entire trial of Thomas Chantry. I witnessed first-hand the anguish of the victims, the anger of their parents and the heartache of all who were affected by the heinous actions of Chantry. It is hard for me to believe that anyone who sat through the trial can believe that Chantry is innocent of the charges. Yet, apparently, ARBCA pastor Al Huber still believes convicted felon Thomas Chantry is an innocent man! He is entitled to his beliefs, but one must wonder how anyone continues to attend a church pastored by such a man!
I am praying justice is done in this case. I am hoping Chantry’s own words – “I have done something I cant recover from” are prophetic. If they are, Chantry is now enjoying his last month of freedom.
1 Batta BOOM
I trust that TomC is properly supervised, with an ankle monitor to make sure he doesn’t re-offend while out on bond. He strikes me as a dangerous person that should be put away for a long time.
3
I am upset he is out on bond, and that things have already been delayed this long. He deserves to be in jail.
I’m glad churches in the ARBCA are seeing the light and getting out of Dodge, though.
Astronaut Scott Kelly also has a great commercial for April Fool’s Day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=NCcX6EL9GMY
On the subject of the letter from the church leaving ARBCA… it’s an odd one, isn’t it? Why are they leaving if there have been so many benefits from being involved, and what has caused them to re-evaluate their membership?
This from Matthew 18:
1 comment not approved. Be nice, now.
Friend,
I loved that!
I wonder sometimes if the reason for posting such a hefty bail for this guy is to keep him from talking. Perhaps he could name some big names….
What the heck is a pastor doing with $250K of ready money to just plop down for bail? To me that right there would be enough for me to quit his church. Money, money, money, money. That’s their religion, and nothing else.
roebuck,
I believe that Huber is the proprietor of a small business with several employees. I don’t think that the funds are ill-gotten lucre taken from church offerings. Huber’s daughter is TC’s wife; while I have no sympathy for TC, it is (I think) understandable that AH might feel constrained to show exceptional kindness and forbearance toward his son-in-law. And that would bias him against believing the charges. It is very hard for mortals to discern what is true.
I hope I never find myself in such a situation.
neat picture from space! wonder what part of the earth that is.
does the space station line up with earth the way it looks on the globe? like, with the arctic at the top, and the antarctic at the bottom? the earth & solar system are still the same when looking at it all vertically.
roebuck,
I was thinking the self-same thing…those money orders are as good as cold hard cash! Maybe they just kept passing the plate around until they got it.
Honestly though, if either of my sons-in-law were accused of such heinous and evil things, putting up a bond for their release would be the LAST thing on my mind!
It looks from the documents like the bond was recently posted; TJC has been incarcerated awaiting the 2nd trial since the first trial last Summer, so this does not appear to be “ready money”. If I were to guess, it might be an attempt to give his daughter and grandsons some time with their father before he is put away for a long time. TC grievously damaged his own family as well as the children he abused.
Which might suggest that they do not expect the 2nd and 3rd trials to go well.
Samuel Conner,
That’s horribly sad. The whole case is just a tragedy.
Samuel Conner,
It also striks me as odd that Huber would post bail only now, after allowing Chantry to sit in jail all those months. Who knows what is behind it, but it doesn’t seem logical to wait so long.
TS00,
strikes
Did Chantry’s new lawyer get his bond reduced? It was last reported that it was a one million dollar cash bond:
https://www.verdenews.com/news/2018/oct/22/former-prescott-pastor-receives-three-years-probat/
“[Judge Astrowsky] considered imposing an initial jail term, but…that didn’t make sense to him…'[Chantry’s] already in custody,’ Astrowsky said…a $1 million cash bond for another case…’The likelihood of (the $1 million bond) being posted, I trust, is not significant, because he would have posted bail already,’ Astrowsky said.”
Jerome,
Jerome, sounds like it. Todd Wilhelm would probably know more.
I was wondering about that too, but can imagine scenarios in which the father-in-law had to pledge corporate assets to raise funds; that would take time to arrange (an asset-based lender, perhaps? those are extortionate; no bank would touch a loan request like this, I imagine). Given that it’s a short period of time, the absolute amount of interest would not be outrageous. When TC surrenders, the bond is recovered and the loan (if a loan it be) paid down.
This is all very hypothetical, but if they expected TC to be exonerated at trial, why seek temporary release now? It seems to me that this is a “vacation” before an expected long ordeal.
While the family members may appear to us to be delusional in their affirmations of belief in TC’s innocence, I think they merit our sympathy. They are not complicit in the crimes for which TC is about to be re-tried (I think they didn’t know him at the time of commission) and the cost to them of an unfavorable outcome is high.
It looks to me like they stumbled into a very unequal yoking.
Is it a kindness to his daughter?
If I found out my husband was a child molester and child abuser, the last thing I’d want is for my kids to have time with him. But that’s just me.
SiteSeer,
Yes, that is my intuition. But it’s only a guess.
“finding out” implies “believing”, and it seems that the people close to TC have not yet calibrated their beliefs to the results of the court findings. Assuming that they care for him, they also have strong reasons to hope that the charges are not true; they may never be able to accept the results. As I said, he has wrecked the lives of his family as well as his abuse victims.
Another comment not approved. Please stick to the post as opposed to taking potshots at other commenters.
I’m kind of curious where you even go to get money orders for $100,000 or more. I stopped using checks years ago and when necessary go and get a money order, but they’re typically limited to $500, I think. I can just imagine popping into my local gas station and asking for five-hundred $500 money orders, LOL.
I have nothing good to say about ARBCA so will say nothing.
But to those who may not understand the personalities of the new Calvinists, please just google doctrines of grace or Calvinism and go specifically to what pops up on open to read forums. Puritan Board and the like will curl your hair, where often basically all non Calvinists are spoken of as either ignorant (untaught) or stupid (unable to comprehend) or willfully obstinate (you are intelligent and informed and still disagree) or hell bound (just plain rejected by God and why bother).
Chilling, especially considering if you reject free will then the “poor saps” that are non Cal just cannot help it anyway.
It’s a very complicated dance of different coordinate systems, motion within and without…
Pray for his victims. I can only speak for my own experiences. I didn’t start feeling any relief until I found out my abuser passed away.
Of Course Not.
They’re LAITY, Not CLERGY.
Daddy(-in-law) bailed out Little Precious.
Except where did Daddy-in-Law get a quarter million?
Oh, he’s a PASTOR. That explains it. “TITHE! TITHE! TITHE!”
Family is Family, i.e. the Great Houses of Huber and ARBCA.
“Because You’re a Lannister.”
Very well-groomed and completely domesticated.
“TOUCH NOT MINE ANOINTED!”
Not if she doesn’t count because “She’s Just a Woman(TM)”.
(AND the linkage uniting House Chantry with House Huber. Like Lannister and Baratheon or Stark and Bolton.)
Agreed. Unfortunately, even the best case outcome of a conviction and severe sentence will not do much to heal the victims.
This is an example of “prevention” being infinitely preferable to “cure”. Will the churches wake up to this?
Dee,
I’m confused about this. I thought Chantry was already convicted on ‘some’ charges. Wasn’t he sentenced on those charges? If so, how is he out on bail while awaiting trial on additional charges?
Bridget
he has been in jail long enough that his sentence has been served. He was convicted on low level felonies.
dee,
Argh!
I’m sure his victims feel differently, considering they are affected for a lifetime! It doesn’t seem like he served even a year.
dee,
IIRC, the sentencing for the two felonies was “supervised probation” for 3 years — no jail time was imposed as part of the sentence for these crimes. Jerome has a link above to a news item about this.
TC was held after sentencing because he will be retried on the 4 more serious counts in which the original trial did not reach a unanimous verdict (IIRC one juror refused to vote “guilty”, regardless of the evidence). There is also another victim who stepped forward after the mistrials and this may lead to a 3rd trial if these charges are not consolidated into the 2nd trial.
I not really sure what to make of ARBCA, but some things come to mind:
-It must lonely to see your identity rooted in the 1689 Confession. Nobody knows or cares about thia today. Thriving mega-churches are drawing crowds with successful marketing. I could imagine an ARBCA group desperately wanting a connection with other likeminded ARBCAs.
-One thought sticking in my head reading the Confession, was “godly seed.” If you subscribe to the Confession, then you believe in godly and ungodly seeds. I would want to stay connected with godly seed in an ungodly World. I think it would be like distant family.
Al Huber didn’t bail TC out sooner because his bail was set at 1 million cash. Shortly after it was reduced, he bailed TC out. Al Huber has a business so not just a pastor, but the fact that it was 4 checks is at least somewhat suspicious.
sowellfan (Rich),
I think that banks will write money orders in larger sums. But why not get a bank check/cashier’s check? The fact of the four MOs in random amounts kind of makes it look like the funds were cobbled together from various sources. It doesn’t look like one giant pastoral “slush fund”, and ARBCA churches are, as far as I can tell, not large enough to have such things.
Muff Potter,
does the space station line up with earth the way it looks on the globe? like, with the arctic at the top, and the antarctic at the bottom? the earth & solar system are still the same when looking at it all vertically
muff: “It’s a very complicated dance of different coordinate systems, motion within and without…”
++++++++++++++++++++
hmmm…. complicated dance…. within and without….
so, if i’m in the space station and i touch the ceiling (which is up), when i look at the earth is the north pole also up and the south pole down? or could the north pole be left and the south pole be right? or any other angle?
it’s a weird and silly question… i’ll try to rephrase: does the space system of necessity have to match up and down with north pole being up and south pole being down?
but here’s the bigger question of what i’ve always wondered:
why do we always view the solar system in a horizontal direction, and the earth with the poles on the top and the bottom? it’s equivalent in a vertical direction with poles on right and left, is it not?
i mean, we’re so used to seeing the shapes of the continents on earth in the same orientation. it’s kind of interesting to tilt the globe 90 degrees and see the continent shapes that way, to envision our home planet that way.
astronomy, etc. could have evolved with that perspective, right? no more italy as a boot… but perhaps some land mass would resemble something else from that angle.
don’t mind me, chattering away, here…
Like a rolling wheel instead of a spinning disk, IOW? Well, physically and mathematically, it is equivalent, yes. I suppose it’s probably because it’s easier to make a model of it as a disk arrangement, which was popular back in the day.
It’s a similar question to why the Roman, Greek, Hindi and Russian alphabets read from left to right, whereas (IIRC) both Arabic and Chinese, as well as Urdu, read from right to left. (I don’t know, BTW. Presumably it seemed like a good idea at the time, and it stuck.)
I wonder how much of history happened that way?
Banks issue money orders. I would suspect that’s where they got the money orders. I wonder what the fees were?
I have to admit that soda water commercial is probably the funniest thing I have seen in a while. I was really falling for it, even with the April 1 note. Mr. Kelly really strikes me as a down to Earth kind of person (sorry).
The article was well written and I appreciate the efforts by all to keep us informed.
Besides protecting their denomination, brand, the bucks, and alma mata instead of the most precious members of the body of Christ, what other reasons are given for not protecting the children by some of these churches?
Brian,
I suspect that most churches that find themselves confronted with the choice to “disclose and prosecute” or “hide” an incident of child abuse did not set out, before the incident came to light, to be places where predators could easily pursue their victims. It doesn’t occur to most people, before something like this happens, that a self-described believer (or, more incredibly, an ordained minister) who “says the right things” about faith and God and Jesus could be that kind of person.
I also suspect that theology is involved. Believers in “the Gospel” want to believe that it is indeed the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, and that it really is able to deeply change people. I think that it must be very shocking for people to discover that someone whom they had reckoned to be “born from above” and to be endowed with “gifts of the Spirit” (TC was regarded in his association to be a gifted teacher) could be capable of heinous acts. The difficulty of reconciling the theology of redemption with the reported deeds might play a part in the family’s reluctance to believe the accusers. It’s easy to suspect that something like this played a role in the trust extended to TC by the Miller Valley Baptist Church elders and parents when they entrusted their young to TC.
The churches are way behind the times in the sense that their understanding of people, conditioned as it is by their biblically-derived anthropology, does not contain categories like “sociopathy”, “narcissism”, “paraphilias” that are useful descriptions of what really is there in the human race. There are more horrors under the sun than are contained in their philosophy, but many of them seem to not know that yet.
Many of us here like your chatter, so please don’t stop.
And there’s no such thing as a weird and silly question, without them, we’d still be hunting grass-fed beasts, and gathering berries in a bid for a precarious survival.
And Nick’s right, all that stuff about up and down, right and left, is agreed upon by convention.
But in answer to your query, there’s no reason why top and bottom cannot exchange places so long as the math is consistent across frames of reference.
linda,
Linda, I think you’re being unfair and ungracious to those who are “Calvinists”. You’re making some very broad brush assumptions that are simply untrue. Please read more before unfairly rejecting people you think are looking down on everyone else. I’ve been in plenty of situations where people have wrongly misrepresented the facts and looked down on others because of untrue statements and false information. It’s not fun and it does damage.
Excellent, clear, and understandable explanation. One that I fully believe. Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
Samuel Conner,
All this discusssion about the picture at the top is very fascinating, but I hate to break it to you folks that the photo must be fake since we all know that the earth is FLAT!
Oops…my smiley face didn’t show up. I hope nobody thinks I’m serious! (Albeit, “flat-earthers” do still exist!)
Actually though, I do love that photo. It shows me that we all have at least one thing in common—we all live on that beautiful Big Blue Marble!
Root 66,
We know that – you can clearly see the edge of the disk in the photo.
By coincidence, I was pondering the same joke as you were earlier on.
Flat-earthism, oddly enough, dates back to the 1800’s and a laddie called Samuel Rowbotham.
I suppose it’s hard to be certain whether Rowbotham himself was serious, given the paucity of his arguments and the risible jumping-off point for his theory – it was based on a handful of poetic sentences from the bible, taken out of context and interpreted literally. There’s a political party over here called The Official Monster Raving Loony Party who field candidates in real political elections. They’re not serious – the last promise on their list of manifesto pledges is always that, if elected, they will fulfil NONE of their manifesto pledges. At the same time, they kind of never come out of character: they don’t openly state, for instance, that it’s all just for a laugh.
Maybe Rowbotham was a kind of forerunner of the Loonies. (As they point out: “We’re Loonies, not nutters”.)
roebuck,
The direction of electron flow
Sorry to have edited your comment so much, Samuel – I kind of wanted to cite ALL of it, but that’s bad Wartburg netiquette!
I’ve often thought (and said here, ad nauseum) that the “conversion” is to evangelicals what the “healing” is to followers of the televangelists. Meaning, a fake “miracle” that props up, and lends undeserved credence to, something that’s not actually real. When Jesus talked about signs and wonders that would deceive even the chosen if possible, he didn’t necessarily mean traditional “charismatic” signs and wonders. His statement applies, surely, to any manufactured and misleading “evidence”.
And: once anyone decides that the bible is the literally the only store of knowledge on any subject, they become – as you point out – vulnerable to a very dangerous kind of ignorance on subjects the bible doesn’t actually say very much about. Which, come to think about it, is every subject.
Iowa Steve,
Good one!
Nick Bulbeck,
I am hoping, for the sake of the future of the message of Jesus (a king who, as you have said, inspires deep loyalty and whom one would follow into any battle) that in future the Bible will be read less as a data source for systematic theology and more as history of the long-suffering patience (and sometimes impatience) of the Creator toward His people.
Andrew Perriman has been arguing along this line for at least a decade. NT Wright’s proposals are similar, though less radical. I suspect that a lot of present trouble could be avoided, or at least reduced, if there were a humble recognition that we don’t understand the Book as well as we (I include myself in this “we”) imagine ourselves to, and that we may at present not be using it in entirely wholesome or fruitful ways.
Re. various money musings in the thread: Banks I’ve known issue money orders for free to account holders. Government agencies I’ve known accept cash or money order, but not cashier’s check. Separate money orders could indicate separate accounts being drawn from. It doesn’t seem odd to me that an older business owner could pull together this kind of sum in a family emergency, especially if as a pastor they had housing provided over the years (don’t know if this was the case). Decades of modest income and honest dealing can result in the ability to come up with $250,000. It might take awhile to liquefy business or retirement assets. And, of course, posted bail is returned as long as the defendant shows up for court, so this is a short term loan rather than an expenditure (presumably).
None of this is to argue anything about whether the money was obtained or used well, but I don’t see that the money situation is necessarily nefarious.
Question for Why Me Oh Lord?:
When it is ever ok to refer to other Christians as ignorant, stiff necked, stupid, or non elect simply because they disagree with a specific systematic theology. You seem to think it unfair and judgmental of me to call bull on that.
Take your judgment of me and apply it to those using those terms for other people. There is no judgment involved in reporting what is said on some of those forums. No way to “take it wrong” if a brother in Christ assumes and states those rejecting the “doctrines of grace” are “stiff necked and rebellious if not lost entirely.”
Go and read. You can do so without signing in. You can do it anonymously. And you might be shocked right out of your sox.
Muff Potter,
“It’s a very complicated dance of different coordinate systems, motion within and without…”
+++++++++++++++++++++
so, thinking through this a little more… (it’s spring break, a lapse in schedule & routine, the mind is picking up the slack and wondering as it wanders away….)
it’s highly unlikely i’ll be an astronaut at this point, even if just to serve them tea. so i’m trying to figure out what i would see out the space station window. That is my thesis question.
one of the launch stations is Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
i’m picturing the earth now like a pin cushion with a needle coming straight out the top followed by a very long thread. i tilt the globe and Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan is now the (relative) top, the needle is the rocket being launched, the thread the trajectory of the rocket.
i imagine rockets arc a bit, but for the sake of i don’t know what (squids, why not), let’s say the rocket goes straight up (like the thread being pulled taught). it deposits the space station 220 miles straight up from the point on the globe that is Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
that would be an interesting angle from which to see the earth. but from which orientation?
–again, picturing the space station on the end of the taut thread as a button (the flat face perpendicular to the thread), it could spin left or right (to mix metaphors, like a plate spinning on a stick). it could theoretically be at any of the 360 degrees. how/why do the decision makers decide the point where the button-come-plate positions itself?
continuing on…
–does it move with the earth at that point (thread still attached, so to speak), or is that a technological impossibility?
–does the space station stay stationary (thread cut, so to speak), hovering in one place, or is that a physical impossibility?
–or does it revolve around the earth like the moon at its own unique speed? does the earth’s gravity hold it in place, and it revolves according to its’ weight, etc by centrifugal force?
(wow, the pandora’s box opens quickly!)
(this would be a great research paper topic! for someone in Physics for Poets, that is)
Why Me O Lord?,
Actually, she is not. If you read this blog, you will see where I’ve quoted Calvinists like RC Sproul who said “Those who are not Calvinists are Christians, but barely.”
The disagreements with these statements are deserved. The New Calvinists with public platforms have done great damage to their side of the argument with this approach. Calvinists have made so many mistakes in their representation of the what they believe that they are the ones who have done a number of being *gracious.”
What I would suggest for your in the future is that you argue from your point of reference and explain why you believe that Calvinists are gracious and how they don’t look at their fellow non-Calvinist believers as intellectually lacking. Perhaps you are the one that could turn the tide in this debate.
Question about the space station photo up top?
Is that pic public domain or open source?
Samuel Conner,
Thank you for your initial response. But, a church that is literalist, believes in the innerancy of the Bible can’t be the issue. Both the Catholic church and the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist churches in the Houston Chronicle articles were moving around their pedophile priest/pastors instead of turning them over to law enforcement.
Brian,
True; I was thinking more in terms of the reactions of people who reflexively disbelieve charges of abuse and how hard it can be, consequently, to shine light on these cases.
I really have no concept of the mentality of the people in high places who know what is happening, cover it up and protect the abusers, though I suspect that a biblical meme relevant to this might be along the lines of “the wicked imagine that YHWH does not see.”
Samuel Conner,
Thank you.
I’ve better phrased my question this time. I’ll throw it out to the others.
The Old Testament provides examples of behavior, the good, bad, and the ugly.
The New Testament says to judge a person by their fruits. But it also says there are false teachers, i.e., you can still be lied to.
So not believing or attacking/deflecting the victim shouldn’t be their response.
The supporters of some of these pedophile pastors should at least be able to agree that there can be some doubt.
Samuel Conner,
Exposing church scandal is a Pandora’s Box. A church will not know where it will lead.
The International Space Station is in low earth orbit, with an orbital period of about 90 minutes. That means that while it is traveling at about 17000 mph, the earth’s gravity is causing it to fall just fast enough so that it is always roughly the same distance from the earth’s surface.
There technically is gravity inside the station, but it affects both the station and everything in it equally, meaning everything is falling at the same speed including the station. The result is that the conditions are the same as if the whole system was not affected by gravity at all. Accordingly “up” and “down” are matters of convention. I wouldn’t be surprised if the chairs don’t all point the same way on the station.
elastigirl,
I’ll have a go.
Your space station – let’s call it the ESS (Elastigirl Space Station) – has to be moving relative to the centre of the earth. That is, it must be moving in such a way that if the earth’s gravity didn’t pull it back, it would fly away into space. Now, the earth’s gravity does pull on it; so the trick is to get the ESS to be going around just fast enough that, by the time it’s fallen (say) a mile towards the earth’s centre, the earth’s surface has curved away by a mile as well. That way, as the ESS is steadily pulled towards the centre, it doesn’t hit the surface but goes around in a circle. *
Now, that circle doesn’t have to be around the equator. In fact, as long as it’s centred on the earth’s own centre, it can be at any angle; around the poles, for instance (some satellites do just that) or anything in between. BUT the ESS does have to keep moving along that circle, and the circle does have to have the same centre as the earth does. So no, I’m afraid you can’t hover above Baikonur. If you try, you’ll just fall back down again. The best you can do is fly exactly over Baikonur once every orbit. For an orbit just above the atmosphere, that’s about every 90 minutes.
You CAN, however, “hover” over a point *IF* it’s on the equator. That’s because the earth itself is spinning, and it spins around an axis through the poles. The earth only spins in that one way, in other words. THAT is why, even though you could draw a picture of the earth any way up you like, you can’t orbit it any way you like. If you orbit high enough, gravity is weaker (because the earth is further away) and you can go slower. At a certain height – about 22000 miles – the ESS will orbit once a day. That means it’ll look like you’re hovering over the same point on the equator, because it is also going round once a day.
I don’t know whether that answers your question, but IHTIH.
* OK: strictly speaking it’s an ellipse, but I’m keeping the example simple.
Nick Bulbeck,
first, i want the ESS kelly green with white interior and kelly green piping.
second, to orbit is to fall?
Nick Bulbeck,
thought of a third one — if my window seat on the ESS is a clock face, will the lights of new york city and miami be at 12:00 and 6:00 respectively (you know, the normal way)?
or 3:00 and 9:00? or 6:00 and 12:00? or 9:00 and 3:00?….
and just now thought of a fourth one — i want to be able to rotate the ESS any direction i choose. i want to see New York City positioned at 6:00 and Miami at 12:00.
(i want to see what the earth looks like hanging upside down.)
(then i’ll want to see what it looks like sideways)
(…and then i’ll just start messing around the controls every which way…)
Samuel Conner,
You’re spot on with the “it can’t be, he’s a great teacher” response. The ex-Liberty U. professor Philip James Kirkpatrick thread reinforces that.
That could open another can of worms…
Because of the type of jobs I have been involved in I have seen way to many children die, usually in horrible excruciating and nonstop pain. I really struggled with it and often berated myself because as a Christian it was made fairly clear one should trust God and God can do what He wants, and we should always trust Him and deviating even slightly from total submitted trust with no doubt, guess, questioning, anything is tantamount to hating God or worse. One aspect of trying to find solace I ran across folks who were animate that infants/children/cognitively disabled are not saved because they cannot consciously and accurately express all aspects of the faith in detail. Then there were the folks that held that covenant children would be saved but children of non covenant parents that die in infancy or before birth are lost (after God resurrects them in a fully adult body, so they can fully understand their depravity).
Rev DeYoung sort of covers this in this clip
https://youtu.be/IgsTfUjDisk
Where he states “…the baby is killed because of his sin with Bathsheba…” In the same story where David was begging God not to kill his kid, and he was not eating and crying, but when God killed the baby David was fine and ready to move on. That was told me when I was encouraged to get over my grief and move along. I want you to watch how mater of fact they discuss it, quoting the canons of Dort. In every time I sat with a parent that lost a child, including my own mother who lost two of her children before she passed, it gutted them, each and every parent. The canons of Dort or any other theological tripe meant nothing to them, people sitting with them and weeping with them meant a lot.
Of the many things that have ravaged my soul this is probably the worst being in terror that God will Damn those I have spent my life working with, I care very little if God damns me by comparison. It is the reason I became a universalist.
I should add this I am sure Rev DeYoung actually does comfort people he is a pastor off, and I am also sure he feels deeply in these situations. Its just that this clip sparked so many memories of when I struggled so much with this.
Robert M,
Your post appeared after I commented!
Robert M,
thanks for the input. so, to orbit is to fall. never thought of it that way.
Nick Bulbeck,
Sorry, Mr. Bulbeck. I evidently cited all of it and need instruction on how to edit so I can be guilty of good Wartburg netiquette. (I am just a daily, interested reader who has gained useful and trusted knowledge from 99% of posters.Thank you. I rarely comment, not that that matters.)
I suppose that if one of these confessionally consistent thinkers had been in Jesus’ inner circle as he approached Jerusalem the last time, they might have been tempted to counsel him to not weep over the city, since its impending destruction had been decreed by YHWH from before all eternity.
If Jesus can weep over the impending destruction of his enemies, I think we are justified in weeping over the deaths of our friends.
We could practically live on a Diet of Worms in Wartburg.
So you did! Sorry to be in the 1%…
🙁
elastigirl,
Orbiting is falling – exactly right!
It was Newton who first realised this, long before anyone had ever actually orbited anything (obviously). He imagined firing a cannon from the top of a mountain. The cannonball would be fall in a downward curve as it was pulled by gravity, until it hit the ground. The faster you fire it, the further it would go before hitting the ground. But if you fire it fast enough, it wouldn’t hit the ground, because the curvature of the earth would keep pace with it (so to speak). It was just a thought-experiment, of course; even today we can’t fire a projectile that fast through the atmosphere.
And yes, as long as the ESS is travelling in the right kind of circle, you can turn it to face any direction you like. And you can paint the inside green.
brian,
Brian.
Do not lose sleep over things such as the Cannons of Dort.
I am not sure if you understand the nature or source of these type of statements. They are intended to cause harm because they are rooted in slander. They are offensive because they’re intended as such.
The Cannons where a court judgement. A lower court, but court all the same. Generally, people don’t visualize decisions as comforting in case of tragedy and loss. In particular, the Cannons say some very offensive things, including torment and death.
Here is the take-away I suggest.
-The final word has not been handed down-
I don’t mean that as a cheap cliche. Lower court decisions that are badly written, are meant to be overturned. The Cannons will be struck down.
Nick Bulbeck,
how’d you get so smart?
but more importantly, why can’t it be kelly green on the outside? waxed to a really good shine… a bit of chrome…
It never ceases to amaze me how people have the audacity to confidently proclaim things, as if they were there as God’s assistant on the day of creation. Their God is the echo of their own tortured ideas.
God is love. None of that stuff is compatible with that. God is love but they somehow twist that around until God is hate. I wonder if it is the result of child abuse, trying to come to terms with it when they can’t say their parent was wrong, so God becomes a big reflection of the parent and they pretend that’s what love is. It’s just sad.
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.”
Well, it can probably be green on the outside. The only problem is that it would probably fade in the sunlight – which is much harsher in space than it is on earth.
Maybe that can be your big science project! Since the problems of building and launching something like the ESS have basically been solved, the next great challenge is space-proof kelly green paint.
SiteSeer,
Not several employees more like a few dozen several millions in sales and millions in profit it would not have mattered if it was a million dollar bond.if it was not for his daughter Tom would still be in jail
Just to make it clear On church donations Al Huber own a multi million dollar business with not several but dozens of employees He loves his family. Karen TC wife works for Al at more than twice the normal salary for what she does. I Don’t think Al Huber would have bailed Tom out if if it weren’t for Karen Chantry and Lori Huber.
Nick Bulbeck,
well, if NASA isn’t interested, Ford will be!
With the kind of behavior we read about on the part of Chantry and those who were complicit in his crimes, the idea of “godly” and “ungodly” seeds is ludicrous.
Oooops! I am losing my memory from illness. This is a bit embarrassing.
The Westminster Confession, chapter 24 lays out the godly seed doctrine.
1689 is drawn from Westminster, but chapter 25 is missing the sentence containing godly seed. It does mention the increase of mankind with legitimate issue.
Ch.24 does not define legitimate, but under the context, I argue that “Issue” could be read as more then legal wedlock.
I believe the historical actions of the Reform Baptist would support my view. I suspect these attitudes motivated the racism of English Reform Colonist in the New World. I don’t believe economics alone was behind slavery. I think they saw themselves as a replacement Covenent people. A New Israel.
SiteSeer,
Thank you for the insights on racism. From my own studies, I found that it was more universal, it came from the outside culture, even before settling of North America. In Islam, there is a preference of lighter skin over darker skin. In Asia, it was darker skin meant that you worked outside, i.e., poor. I have a 1983 Dakes Study Bible, in the comments section, where it lists 32 reasons why segregation is biblical. It uses the verses referring to Isreal as a chosen people, saying it refers to white skinned people. It also uses the verses in Genesis I and II referring to animal kinds to support segregation.
Thankfully the Human Genome Project points back to Adam and Eve and stops all the racist nonsense.
Brian,
Sorry, response meant for Nathan Priddis.
This the “Zeteteic Astronomy” guy, “defending GOD’s Word against So-Called ‘Science’!”?
Slightly different application, but I’ve been there too.
David’s sudden shift to a calm and serene “The LORD Giveth, the LORD Taketh Away, Blessed Be the Name of The LORD” was also held up to me as an example of the only Godly behavior in such a situation. The best I can interpret it now is David “numbing out”, as things were now obviously past the point of no return.
Ah, yes.
God’s “Law of Segregation”.
Dake’s Annotated was heavily “suggested” by that not-a-cult I was involved with in the Seventies. Looking back at that part, I am sure this Dake guy was probably white and from the Deep South; and the raw racism of that time and place filtered into his “plain reading of Scripture”.
Since you’re obviously familiar with the Dake’s, did you actually read the KJV text in the inner two columns or Dake’s psychotically-dense notes filling the outer two? In retrospect, those notes read like a kook rant.
Like how God sits on three thrones in bodies made of “spirit matter” on a planet called Heaven somewhere in the northern sky? And how everything in Heaven from God to angels to “spirit animals” is male; the female was a special creation for reproductive purposes only? And the list of “Seven Proofs” about this and that? And how every Parable of Jesus was totally, absolutely true, pulled from real life by Christ’s omniscience?
Samuel Conner,
As both a Reformed Baptist and a PhD psychologist I could not agree more with your observations. Somehow, many Christians were taught to mistrust (not rightly discern or evaluate) secular professions like psychology and just threw the baby out with the bath water. James Dobson and Jay Adams have made many remarkable contributions to the church and society. As I began to write in psychological terms about TC’s malignant narcissism (garnered from personal experience BTW) on another blog many supposed Christians appeared taken
aback by the comments as if they could (or felt safe) by only using and comprehending biblical terminology to describe sin, dysfunction, and evil.
One comment not approved. Let’s be careful about making assumptions about the faith of another.