Open Discussion Page

Most comment policies for the blog are in effect on this page as well. However, we will not monitor the length of comments (unless some wise guy plays a game), the direction of the discussions or the relevance of the discussions. The Deebs may or may not participate in the discussion, depending on busyness of the current posts. In other words, go for it. This page is subject to change as we work out the inevitable issues.

Please note that the usual restrictions on personal attacks and other rude behavior still apply here.

Update: 660 comments in 3 weeks. Not bad. Since infinite is a bad idea in how big a page can be on a web site I’m changing things so comments are split into pages of 500 per page. Nothing is gone. Just click on the link for older comments. (GBTC)

Comments

Open Discussion Page — 6,803 Comments


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    @ RollieB:
    As to your original comment, I think anyone who has actually lived under a totalitarian system would have, umm…. interesting things to say.

    But I’m violating policy by saying that, so I’ll bow out.


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    @numo
    Thanks for the heads up on refraining from political discussions. As a 70 yr old former evangelical, mainliner, progressive Christian, now a universalist, I fully understand avoiding political discussions and keeping it about our beliefs.
    As a point of reference, I found TWW because of the Julie-ToJo mess. TWW caused me to reassess my position as a white male, cisgendered, person of privilege and power by default. We’re never too old to adjust our frame of reference.


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    @ numo:
    We are not talking about the same thing in the same way. Saying that a public sector job is overhead is not saying that it is not valuable to the enterprise or even essential to the enterprise. So, the CEO of a company is overhead to the company but his job is essential. Overhead is not bad, but beyond a certain point, the enterprise cannot support more overhead. Does that make more sense?

    Haitch mentioned the WPA and the CCC. I would argue that there is a difference between people producing products and getting a government paycheck *for a limited time* and an employee who is not producing a product *even though they are essential* to our society. This isn’t a discussion about what is valuable or what is better. It is a way of classifying sectors of the economy and what the entails.

    WRT the Hoover Dam, it could not be done without the federal government for a number of reasons. It should be viewed as a capital investment rather than an expenditure, if that makes any sense.

    Beyond that, we are getting into the weeds with economics. It is *not* about what is valuable or what is essential but rather a matter of how economies work, and economies are nothing more than the aggregation of individual decisions. Division of labor is a wonderful thing for everyone, IMO.


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    numo wrote:

    So. I guess I have a different outlook on these things, and am probably in the minority, but there are things that just cannot be bought, and things that should never, ever be sold (imo, anyway).

    You won’t find a bigger fan than me when it comes to National Parks, for example. Not everything should be for sale, but we need to realize that there is a cost to that. I think the cost is worth it! We need to recognize the benefits of having wide open spaces that are natural *and* we also need to account for the benefits which we forgo from development. It’s both/and.


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    numo wrote:

    I am not against all development, but ISTM that greed drives 99% of real estate and industrial development


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    numo wrote:

    I am not against all development, but ISTM that greed drives 99% of real estate and industrial development, and that said development could be done in far better ways. The thing is, that costs money, and very few developers would be willing to take that risk, now would they?

    One reason for the development around D.C. is expansion of government activity, for better or worse. That’s just the fact. No doubt development could be better, but there are competing interests. Do you want high-rise development with open greenspace? Or lower-density development with dispersed open spaces? There are always trade-offs, and all I’m saying is let’s recognize that!


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    @ RollieB:
    Thanks for that link. I’ll take a look.


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    Just a general note. Economics is about how things work, namely that fallen human nature wants to privatize benefits and socialize costs. We love to spend abstract money (Other People’s Money) and hate to spend money that we have gained by our labor or investment. Other People’s Money comes in various forms, so this is not specifically about government spending but rather human nature. Politics, OTOH, is about how we apportion power and resources to various interests. We can certainly have different perspectives on what that should look like and why.


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    @Gram3
    Indeed!


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    @ Gram3:
    It isn’t just government, Gram – it is *huge* private enterprise stuff. Like USA Today, and that’s only one example. The government people could easily have stayed in and around D.C. and the inner suburbs; it was during REagan’s 1st term that unbridled development really took off (though it had been happening for a while prior; see Tyson’s Corner Shopping Center, for example).

    There’s a ton of stuff in D.C. – which used to be a sleepy southern town – besides government and the various military bases in and around D.C. and Baltimore. And there is a very artificial atmosphere to the development, as is also true with many of the people, who are constantly coming and going due to different administrations, political appointments and the like. I never felt like I was in a real city (aside from certain older neighborhoods in the District itself), but in one huge blighted patch of suburban sprawl. I’m honestly surprised that I lasted there as long as I did. As for locations and development, the Shenandoah is a good deal west of D.C. I think the unbelievably high cost of living in D.C. and the inner burbs is what has driven much of the development.

    When I 1st went there, I couldn’t find the place in Manassas where I was supposed to meet my landlord, and ended up stopping at a tiny (and old) country store right off the battlefield, asking a trio of elderly men (sitting in wooden rocking chairs and smoking corncob pipes) for directions. Manassas was in the country then. It wasn’t that way for very much longer.

    And fwiw, the Baltimore – D.C. corridor has the worst air quality on the entire East Coast. It got exponentially worse in a very short period of time. I lived near (though couldn’t hear or see) I-395 for many years, and it wasn’t long before horrible black soot started showing up everywhere. That hadn’t been true at all when I 1st moved into that apt. in 1989, but by the late 90s, my screens and balcony would get coated with the stuff, which was also a huge pain to sweep/scrub off. We were *breathing* that junk! I had a couple of bad days while outdoors during temperature inversions (90 F+ and I was finding it hard to get enough air – I am not asthmatic, btw), and I am so glad to be away from that. The lat time I was in anything like that kind of smog was a few years ago, while on a visit to the Philly area. It was an awful shock to realize that it was the same blasted terrible air quality as the place I had (sort of) called home for over 20 years.


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    @ Gram3:
    I also think that one of the trade-offs that you’re not factoring in is the paving over of everything. Just *everything.* There is no “green space” unless it’s a planned community.

    Remember that Joni Mitchell song “Big Yellow Taxi”?

    They paved paradise / and put up a parking lot


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    numo wrote:

    I also think that one of the trade-offs that you’re not factoring in is the paving over of everything.

    Well, FWIW, I maintain a small acreage in a suburb of a city. Except for the house footprint it’s natural. It could be certified as a wildlife habitat, but then there are those regulations. 🙂 Many of the trees are at least 200 years old. So, I have carbon credits for sale.

    I’m not making an argument for either choice–high density or low density–just that we need to count the costs. For example, in many city there are formerly “blighted” areas that are now high-density and/or gentrifying. From the perspective of those who want to live close to work and can afford it, high density re-development works well. But what about those who can no longer afford to pay their taxes due to rising property values? That development is not necessarily a good thing for them unless a developer puts together a big enough parcel to buy them out. And then that assumes they can find alternate housing available that they like as well. So, is that good or bad?

    Population growth indirectly and household growth directly drives housing development. Density is driven primarily by land cost and/or regulation or sometimes incentives. If there is substantial net inmigration, for whatever reason, there will be an increased demand for housing. And there will be an increased demand for services and shopping. All of that takes up real estate. Those are just facts. I don’t know about D.C. in particular, but I’m guessing the economic base of D.C. is government. 😉 When the economic base grows, there is a net inmigration of people and a growth in households. It’s math and human nature.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    It could be certified as a wildlife habitat,

    Wildlife? Don’t get me started on what resides under the ivy-and up in the trees-and hanging out on top of the garbage can at night-and what has once climbed up in the engine of my truck and gnawed on some wiring-or what digs in the ground around freshly planted stuff-or what could possible be the critter that lives deep in some hole in the raspberry patch and keeps tunneling it out again every time I fill up the hole. But I can tell you what slithers in the liriope because I have seen him from time to time. I don’t mind any of that, though, and I try to keep an ample supply of available water available for them during the summer. Young daughter got scared speechless coming in late one night because there were reflective eyes looking at her from the compost pile. It was just a ‘possum, but we almost had to take young daughter to the ER.

    Other than the vague feeling of being part of the earth there is an advantage to this, because when TEOTWAWKI comes I hope to cook and eat some of this. That and a little boiled kudzu and we might be okay.

    Do you know why ‘possums cross so many roads at night and do not survive it? They don’t either or they would stop it.


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    @ Gram3:
    No, government is by no means the primary economic basis. High tech companies are one of the biggest sectors, in terms of growth and development, and have been ever since America Online first set up shop in what were then the farthest west suburbs in VA. of course the government is a major employer, but there’s far more to the District and burbs than that. This was not the case (per huge numbers of people moving into the area for jobs other than federal) until the beginning of the Reagan administration. there used to be beautiful rural areas very close to D.C. itself, but , as i tried to explain earlier, they were paved over by the time Clinton took office. It happened in less than 8 years, that huge push out into the countryside, mainly for condos and shopping malls. Endless malls, all with the same stores. If you ever have reason to look into the area, you’ll see this. Part of the reason is that D.C. itself is tiny, and most all federal and military personnel worked and lived in a *very* small area, but as other kinds of businesses moved into the regiin, development exploded. This is also related to the small number of town governments vs. the predominance of county government in the area, in both VA and MD. it is also related to the fact that on the MD side, some large agencies (like the National Archives, HUD and more) moved fairly far out, into new HQs. But a lot of itmis simply greedy investors making land grabs and then building endless iterations of the same 2-3 things. Really, i am not joking about this. However, there are significant parts of the MD suburbs that are decaying blue collar towns that once were nice. It’s a mixed bag, and is not true of the VA side.


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    @ numo:
    Baltimore is a very typical city in terms of growth and development. The D.C. area is so not like that. It’s not as if it grew naturally, in that people settled there and then set up shop. it also had many large plantations (eespecially on the VA side) as well as small farms. It was, until very recently, largely agrarian. I moved there in 1983 and the surviving farmland in Arlingtown County had only recently been turned into wall to,wall shopping malls. One of yhe attractions of the D.C. area post-WWII was that you actually could live in a semi-rural setting and be only a few miles from the District line. Much of the early development was immediately after WWII, but that left huge swathes of countryside untouched until the mid-80s. Old farming families tended to hang onto their land until the owners were basically bought into retirement by developers.

    One of the reasons i mentioned Tysons Corner is that it was the 1st mega-mall in the area, and, until right around the time construction began, it was a crossroads in the midfle of nowhere with a flashing yellow light. When i was still down there, people who had kept horses nearby wrre being forced to flee for the hills, not least because all the farms that had boarding stables were disappearing very, vety quickly due to these big land buyouts.


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    @ numo:
    Postscript – my bad on the original small development that became what is now the Tyson’s Corner mega-mall, as it started much earlier than I’d realized. Still, the explosion of growth there was in the 80s and 90s, as i described. Tyson’s Corner is often cited as a prime example of an “edge city.” It went from the mall plus not much else to (basically) an urban area in just a few years.

    I will have to look up a very poignant article about the co-opting of small farm owners by developers that ran the Washington Post magazine section back when all of this stuff was going on. The farmers in question were in and around Great Falls, VA, which isn’t far upriver from D.C., and which used to be quite rural and beautiful. Most of the farm owners were getting older and just couldn’t afford to hang onto their properties, but hated selling them to the developers. I used to go out there a lot to recharge my batteries, prior to the sales and development push. The area became unrecognizable withing a couple of years, and i stopped going out there. It was just too depressing, and most of what i had loved about it was gone.


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    Haitch wrote:

    PS I saw recent images of the Solar Thermal ‘farm’ in the Mohave Desert, incredible (though to be fair to Muff Potter, I did wonder what the ancestors of the earlier inhabitants thought of it).

    The former inhabitants (Native Americans) are too busy making mega-bucks off their strings of gambling casinos here in Southern Calif. to much care about what goes on in the Mojave. But yeah, I think it’s fantastic that sane people thought enough of sustainable energy to make it a reality.


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    numo wrote:

    No, government is by no means the primary economic basis

    Again, I think we are talking about different things. Ask yourself, why are these companies moving jobs to D.C.? But for the federal government, would these companies be locating employees in D.C.? Without doing a full employment analysis, you can ask yourself that simple question. What would happen if the federal government shut down permanently tomorrow? Would those companies continue to locate jobs there? And it’s not just which companies, it is what jobs from which companies.

    I don’t know what your definition of greed is. If I own a large farm, am I required to hold that farm for the public good in perpetuity? If property rights mean anything, then I have the right to sell my property for the best price I can, don’t I, all things being equal? How do we assign a value to “greed?” If someone needs a lower-skill job, maybe all the retail development is a good thing for those folks.

    It’s just not as simple as saying we wish there was less asphalt and big box stores unless we want to make people drive further to the existing stores and stand in long lines and do without those jobs and live in the places we want them to live. And if housing is not available, then they can live where? People go where the jobs are, and employers locate those jobs in the places that make the most economic sense.

    All that said, I’m not saying all development is good, and I think that all the empty shopping malls around the country are a testament to the fact that economic conditions change and consumer behavior changes, too. Probably that will be true of some commercial office space as well in the near to mid future.


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    numo wrote:

    It was just too depressing, and most of what i had loved about it was gone.

    I know what you mean about my home town. It is *nothing* like what it was when I was a young adult even. Much less than what it was when I was a kid. America is nothing like it was in 1980, much less what it was in 1950. Or 1940 or 1900. We have had a huge population increase, and all of those people need a place to live and work and shop. I don’t know what the alternatives are, though Amazon will probably take care of a lot of the retail.


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    @ Gram3:
    Look, i have tried to explain this, and no, it isn’t all about government contractors. By no means is it that. I guess we are talking past each other. However, you might find reading about Tyson’s interesting – it has more ofgice space than downtown Atlanta.

    Sometimes new things start in places you never think they would, and thid is a case in point.

    Fwiw, one thingmi found increasingly difficult (to the poing of being unable to tolerate it) was the gridlock at all hours of the day, and at night, too. Because these areas of new development were rural, and because just about zero thought went into planning them, there were about 2 (yes, two) main roads that were/are supposed to handle all the traffic. One of them was originslly a rural road, not a highway. It is a complete disaster. Only now, many years after the fact, are plans being made for a decent urban infrastructure. That is the exact opposite of how towns and cities normally develop. The absence of *any* sidewalks or city planning (uusing a grid, numbered blocks, etc.) makes things at least 10 times worse.

    It’s also important to understand that it’s adjacent to the area where yhere are many estates – the Kennedy compound, the place where the shah’s widow lives, etc. etc. That part of Fairfax County has a LOT of money, and some of the people who are extremely flush are the ones who bought up large tracts of land in order to create the monstrosity that is Tyson’s Corner as it is now. it is hugely upscale, in terms of the kinds of stores and restaurants located there, and 2as not a place i could really afford to go after 1995 or so. it is all adjacent to Dulles Airport, which means Bingo Jackpot! for people who wanted to invest in conference centers. (Especially as a rival to the D.C. convention center.)

    You also must be aware that tourism is a *huge* thing, with all its related businesses, yes? People come to see the sights all year round.

    It is kind of impossible to describe the *tiny* scale of D.C. itself in words. There are 5 major universities in the District, so education is a big player in the economy, with all of the businesses related to it. And the University of MD is close, also George Mason U. over in the VA burbs. Most people who visit focus on thd Mall and the monuments plus Mt. Vernon, and don’t even know about 85+% of the District. Which actually works out great for the people who live there, since tourists don’t clog the streets. 😉


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    @ Gram3:
    Yes, but most of the country is very, very rural. I try to explain to people that the closest large cities with any real amenities are 4-5 hours’ drive from where i live, and it does not compute – for city people, anyway. Their worlds are focused on urban centers, and they can’t conceive of a world that doesn’t work that way.

    I would rather be closer to a city, but then, i don’t think i could ever tolerate living in one again. Just too stressful. I think it played merry hell with my overall well-being when i was living smack in the middle of it. (there were D.C. neighborhoods that would have bern a far better fit for me, but i couldn’t afford to live in any of them, even though they were not upscale.)


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    @ Gram3:
    We have had a huge increase ofmpeople in urban areas. That is not by any means the same thing as the kind of huge population increase you’re talking about. We’ve also had an unprecedented amountmof urban snd suburban sprawl since the 1950s, when the car took over.

    Even in rural areas like the one whete i live, thete were multiple, thrivingmpublic transit sydtems (bus, trolley and narrow-gauge railway) until the mid-1950s. Now you cannot survive here without a car. Multiply that by some ridiculous figure and you can get some idea of just how the infrastructure of many small towns fell apart.

    In my county, the population has dropped eignificantly over the past 40 years. And so have basic services, including medicine. One has to travel wt least 30 miles one way for basic specialties like gynecology, 90 miles or more one-way for decent hospitals.

    You see, people don’t want to stay in places like this. There never has been much, and after small-scale manufacturing started closing up shop from the early 70s on, there’s been little incentive to stay. It’s beautiful here, but very isolated, and becoming more so all the time. (Walmart killed retail in my home town, though there are a few stores trying to hold on in whwt used to be a thriving business district.)


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    @ Gram3:
    I used to work in book retail anf hate big box stores with a passion.


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    @ Gram3:
    I was referring to a place in the country that was *never* an actual town – still isn’t, in that there is not an incorporated town called Great Falls in VA. it was a rural pwrt of Fairfax County, mainly small farms, adjacent to Great Fall National Park, which is a lovely place.

    Now, Great Falls is just nasty suburban sprawl dumped into what was an entirely rural landscape during the late 1980s. I doubt there’s much of anything in the way of zoning regulations, except for the sound of slack being cut for developers by certain parts of the county government.


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    numo wrote:

    90 miles or more one-way for decent hospitals.

    Depends on what you mean my decent. Smaller health care facilities can be quite good, but they operate on a different level from large hospitals. For example, there is not enough trauma in areas with lower population density to support a level one trauma center. There is not enough cancer for the small facility to purchase and pay for radiation treatment machinery or PET scanners. It is a trade off. Anywhere you live and anything you do and any job you hold there is always a trade off.

    Personally I live in a small city (maybe 200,000) which is one city of a grouping of three similar small cities. I moved here by choice when a job came open here. When I lived in a condo it bugged me no end. I had access to a swimming pool but no access to a garden, for example. I don’t do pool, but I do ivy and critters. But that is just personal stuff. What we have here are jobs and several medical centers and lots of post-secondary schools and universities. We have here church choices and shopping choices and a diversified population (which is important to me.) So for my family it means that when somebody has a severe asthma attack it is about 10 minutes to either of the nearest ERs. And we can shop at lower cost big box facilities and stash away the savings into college accounts for the grandkids who can then live at home while doing the first two years of college at the local technical community college and then transfer the credits to a state university which is within easy commuting distance. Otherwise, we and they would just have to do without.

    I grew up ‘out in the county’ on a mini ‘urban farm’, using today’s terminology, within easy commuting distance to a city and with a real farm next door and across the road. Mom and I used to gather walnuts and blackberries out in the woods which were just on the other side of the drainage ditch (over which there was a wood plank for a walkway.) We had well water, a septic tank, a kerosene cook stove and a coal furnace. I miss the rural-ish life style, but not enough to pass up all the advantages of the city-education, employment, health care, church choice, diversity and yes retail options. So I live in the city and feed the critters and pull ivy. It is a trade off.


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    RollieB wrote:

    @lydia
    At the risk of getting too political, I want to push back a little on your statement “more and more people are dependant on gov creating a job for them through some gov sponsored program.” When one looks at public (gov) versus private job growth under the current administration, the clear trend is that the private sector is far out performing the public sector in job growth. How is this “close to Fascism here” in the U.S.?

    Rollie, One problem is the public/private is so blurred one can hardly tell anymore. I worked on many economic development project in my workforce dev days and I was astounded at both state and fed money were funneled to very large mulitnational coruporations. The organizations that needed it least got the most and the ones who needed it the most were taxed and regulated to death. Not only that but government pays many businesses to deal with student loans, foreclosures, health care and so on. All of those jobs are a result of government activity. This gets a bit complicated and Byzantine but the real problem is we don’t seem to care.

    Are you familiar with “too big to fail”? That is the sort of thing I mean by Fascisitic leanings. And worse, those who ran these banks, huge conglomeratesn into the ground walk away very rich. That is now our normal.

    Here is some trivia for you: What was the worst economic year of the depression? The answer is 1936. Do some research. All the government jobs, programs, et. did nothing but prolong the agony. And I am very compassionate about the arguments defending that government grab. I just don’t think it had to get that bad to begin with. We are simply going further down that same road even further.

    Personally, I am not interested in which president did what anymore. I am a libertarian so I don’t want my pastor micromanaging my spiritual life nor my government micromanaging my personal life, either. I do not think a bureaucrat is the best decision maker for such personal areas of my life. But that has become the normal. Gov protects big business and and the rest of us pay for it.

    (BTW: A very interesting subject is how unemployment numbers are twisted)


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    RollieB wrote:

    Thanks for the heads up on refraining from political discussions.

    That seems to be ONLY after some get THEIR points across then they want to passive agressively censor others from responding. They usually get their way, too. But they always get in their little digs first. Interesting how that works. A form of censoring others but not themselves.


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    @ numo:
    I’m aware of the tourism and the universities. There is usually not just one economic base to a locality.

    Here is my main point. What you describe at Tyson’s Corner is what is happening all over America. What is the solution? Should the local or state or federal government buy up all the farmland to preserve it? Should the current owners of farmland be required to hold it in perpetuity and pay taxes on it when it is no longer economically feasible to farm it? Should the local government decree that everyone must live in high-density housing? That’s what I’m getting at. For every benefit–open farmland in this case–there is a corresponding cost that needs to be accounted for. We as a society may deem that cost a worthy expenditure, but we need to acknowledge it. Choices always involve costs, even though we may not recognize it.

    If a population increases, then they need someplace to live. Being a human being requires land. It always has. The question is how shall we use the land and how shall we decide the question of land use. This is the interface between politics and economics. I presume that the local governments have land use plans. So, either they followed that plan or they changed it for some reason.

    What do you think the solution would be?


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    numo wrote:

    Now, Great Falls is just nasty suburban sprawl dumped into what was an entirely rural landscape during the late 1980s.

    That may be entirely true, but it’s also true that others don’t see “suburban sprawl” as being dumped somewhere. What some see as ugly suburban sprawl others see as a pleasant place to raise their family while still being within a reasonable distance from their jobs. The land use plan and zoning regs are usually governed locally, though occasionally there are federal or state regulations. So, the problem is with decisions made by local governments. Changes to zoning regs generally require notice and public hearings. This is certainly not a perfect process, but what would be a better process?


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    Lydia wrote:

    Not only that but government pays many businesses to deal with student loans, foreclosures, health care and so on. All of those jobs are a result of government activity. This gets a bit complicated and Byzantine but the real problem is we don’t seem to care.

    That would be government backed student loans, and government backed housing loans (like for vets) and health care commitments of the gov (like the debate over whether to contract VA health care) and so on? Stuff the gov is already responsible for? And are you saying that the gov is wrong to contract that out to private business instead of setting up their own agencies to handle it? And it it somehow wrong not based on some findings of corruption or ineptitude on the part of the contractors but wrong because the gov does it? I must be missing something in the explanation here, but if that is what you are saying then you are correct–I not only don’t care I think it may be a really good idea.


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    @ Gram3:
    I don’t have any answers, although i do believe decent ethics and better planning are part of the solution.


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    numo wrote:

    @ Gram3:
    I don’t have any answers, although i do believe decent ethics and better planning are part of the solution.

    I agree totally. And I would add that there should be total transparency regarding interests that politically powerful people have in any of these decisions. That sometimes requires a lot of digging to verify.


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    @ Gram3:
    Yes.


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    @ numo:
    Better planning still means that there are real choices that come with real costs. That’s the primary point I wanted to make. There is no free lunch for everyone. Somebody has to pay the bill at some point in one way or the other. And somebody has to make a decision about what is on the lunch menu and who pays for it and how much everyone pays or doesn’t pay for it and when they pay for it. Too many times these questions and their answers are obscured or ignored by interests of one sort or another.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    What do you think the solution would be?

    There are only two options: limit the population or else make room for increasing population. If one looks at what the options are as to how to limit population they all have serious problems. If one looks at the reasons for limiting the population of this nation at this time by any of those methods, the reasons are not sufficient. If one looks at the current population trends in this nation with the aging of the boomers and the imbalance between workers and retirees, we obviously need either more workers or fewer retirees. If we look at the birth rate of the current population, we already see problems coming at us–too few babies. (This was in this morning’s news as presented to the NC state board of education last night in session.) Choosing cows over people would not be a wise decision. IMO a return to basically subsistence level farming is a really bad idea. Now, set aside areas like national and state parks and wildlife preserves and such–great. My car license tag says ‘state parks’ and my truck license plate says ‘blue ridge parkway.’ They do this for a small fee. One of the things I have contributed to back in the day is the Nature Conservancy. But cow pastures when the need for such has passed and that land is needed for people communities–nah. Wetlands, yes. Old cow pastures on the edges of cities, no.

    Now, there is always the possibility of war on our soil or epidemics or maybe the yellowstone caldera will blow and the issues may change dramatically. But right now we need people and skills. And this takes land and the building of communities including suburban subdivisions and schools and hospitals and lots of businesses. And it takes something big enough to hold it all together, like governments (plural.) Personally I don’t want the king in charge or the church in charge just like I don’t want anarchy or some free for all where the strong have the opportunity to destroy the weak at will.

    Sure the governments make mistakes. Just like the kings and churches and businesses and individuals make mistakes. But choosing people over cows is not necessarily ‘greed.’ And profit is not a dirty word; corruption is but profit is not. And selling the farm is not evil.


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    @ Gram3:
    I think this is a given.


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    @ Nancy:
    I was not advocating cows over people, though.


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    numo wrote:

    I was not advocating cows over people, though.

    That is true. You were not. And that is one reason I addressed Gram, because I have heard people who do advocate cows over people, and I am betting that she has also.

    I read what you said, and certainly urban expansion and suburban development can look really bad. Or not. No way am I advocating just any old thing that is an insult to people’s sensibilities. People can do better than just creating some mess and folks rightly object to some things that are done in the name of development.


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    @ Nancy:
    I don’t think that there are only 2 options. And if planning for development is done in a truly responsible manner, a lot of current problems would be tsken care of before they started. But that is rarely the case.

    You also mentioned sbandoned cow pastures. Well, in the examples i gave, there were working farms that weren’t dairy farms. A lot of them. They grew food that went to feed the people in the locale, the parts that had already been developed as well as those who lived out in the country. Now, food comes from much further away, which means it costs more, which contributes to people needing to move further and further out in order to try and outun the crazily escalating cost of living. Which leads to more poorly planned, irresponsible development. It is a vicious cycle.

    If we do not have adequate farmland, then people suffer. It is another given in this discussion. People need to eat in order to live, and haphazard development has swallowed up a lot of places in the area around D.C. that actually provided some of the means for that.

    Beyond that, there is a question of those who are already rich choosing to creste poorly-planned, high density places like Tyson’s Corner. The thing is, a lot of yhose already-rich people have land and other properties that directly adjoin Tyson’s. Yet there is no development on those properties, any more than the Mellon estate (a bit further out, in Upperville, VA) is giving way to anything other than more padtureage and a few more horses.

    There is a *lot* of old money in northern VA, and even though it is gradually giving way to new money and development, it will never surrender fully. Virginia had an awful lot of gentlemen farmers from early on, and they still exist, albeit their family names have changed. I am by no means saying that a handful of oligarchs control the majority of land in VA, because that’s simply not true. But you don’t need to drive very far west of D.C. to find their enclaves, and they are not planning on leaving those places anytime soon.


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    @ Nancy:
    Here’s the thing, though: cows need space to exist, as domdairy farmers (i live in a big dairy farming area). Less cows = more expensive milk (and less of it), not to mention less beef. We have to have space for growing crops and for livestock, else there will not be enough food to go around, or st leadt, certainly not at affordable prices.


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    @ numo:

    Were the farmers forced to sell their property to the developers, or to sell at a loss? It sounds like you are objecting to farmers who sell the farm but also objecting to people with large estates who do not sell some of their land for development. Is the objection to who sells which land or is the objection to the appearance of the resulting development?


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    numo wrote:

    Remember that Joni Mitchell song “Big Yellow Taxi”?

    They paved paradise / and put up a parking lot

    I remember vividly Mitchell’s songs. My two favorite albums of hers are Ladies of the Canyon and Blue.
    I remember long ago the orange and lemon blossoms from the groves in my town used to cast a spell on spring evenings that rivaled the Elysian Fields.
    The groves are all gone now, cut down and bull-dozed to make way for the gentrification of what’s left of rural Southern California.
    It’s obscene.


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    @ Gram3:
    Well, let’s see if the phrase “equestrian estates” makes sense to you. Because much of the farmland in Great Falls was turned into housing developments that are exactly that – in other words, houses + stables in the backyards, so that the noveau riches can have their cake and put some ponies or show ho4ses on their property, too.

    I find it pretty sickening, but then, maybe I’m weird. Thatmpart of VA has always been horse country, but subdivisions devoted to those who want to buy into the image seems really twisted to me. Meanwhile, the truly dedicated riders who scrspe by in order to be able to keep a horse or two (which is to say, almost all riders/horse owners) have been forced far, far away, just to acvomodate this weird idea of having it all. (Not to mention the destruction of local food supplies, which i mentioned just above.)

    But, you know, anything for money, and to maintain the illusion that you’re living in a Ralph Lauren photoshoot. (Yes, I’m extremely cynical about this, and have readon to be.)


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    @ numo:
    Scrape by.


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    Nancy wrote:

    People can do better than just creating some mess and folks rightly object to some things that are done in the name of development.

    These things are best decided, IMO, at the local level where people have more input into the processes of decision making and there is a somewhat better chance of accountability. But there will always be conflicts of interest and conflicting values and conflicting aesthetics and undisclosed things which should be disclosed without regard to person or party.

    A family member recently bought a house, and the first thing checked was the land use plan for the county then the zoning regs and then the HOA agreement. That was very wise in a situation where there is the prospect for a lot of future development. Development which will bring lots of good jobs at all levels of employment. That’s what our kids and grandkids need, but they need some wise people to keep an eye on the various interests and to balance those interests.

    I have heard both irrational “environmentalists” and irrational “developers” at various times. Of course, I determine what is rational. 🙂 I use scare quotes because in certain cases they are warranted. Property rights entail my right to enjoy and sell my property but also entail my neighbor’s rights to enjoy or sell their property and, in some rare cases, the right of the general public to use of my property for common services or the common welfare.


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    @ numo:

    This is getting more complicated by the minute. Surely no farmer should be forced to continue in farming of any kind, cows or not. What is this business I read about agribusiness making small farming unprofitable? If that is so, and certainly we have seen a lot of people ‘sell the farm,” why not be comfortable with that if it is more efficient and more profitable? I am not for forcing the small farmer off the land, but neither am I for telling him it is some responsibility to stay in the farming business since the nation has other options than the little guy on the old family place.


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    @ Nancy:

    And in the interests of telling all. The little wide place in the road where I grew up is only a ‘neighborhood’ in metroCity now. It is not identifiable as anything that ever was a small rural area with only a limited number of places for the commuter bus to stop and not much else. Our old place is now mostly a car dealership lot. Been there. But I still think that we are building a nation here, and things change and life goes on. And yes, I sold it to the dealership as executor of the estate. Some of the money helped send one of my kids to college. So, yes, it is personal.


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    @ numo:
    I understand your concerns. But what are the decision criteria for a local councilman? Increasing population is a given unless we are going to close the borders and forbid people from having babies.

    Land value is a residual value that is determined by what people are willing to pay in a given location for a particular type of residence or income property. That’s from the POV of a land seller or purchaser. What I think of equestrian estates or private airstrip estates is irrelevant to rational land use decisions made (usually) by local governments.

    Agricultural land is taxed at a lower rate, and I think that is rational. More people means more services of all kinds, and more services means more taxes which means that local governments need to raise that revenue somehow. Raise taxes on existing housing? Increase the tax productivity of agricultural land? Both?

    I’m not equipped to discuss agronomics and have no idea whether decreasing pastureland increases milk prices which are regulated/subsidized in any case, or at least they used to be.


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    Dee….the FBC New Orleans story….do you have an answer? I have contacted a guy I know in Alexandria who may, I said may know the answer….


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    numo wrote:

    I don’t have any answers, although i do believe decent ethics and better planning are part of the solution

    Numo, have you seen the DVD “The Human Scale” about the Danish architect and professor Jan Gehl? (he has studied human behavior in cities over 40 years). If you haven’t, I think it might be up your alley…


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    Lydia wrote:

    I am a libertarian so I don’t want my pastor micromanaging my spiritual life nor my government micromanaging my personal life, either.

    On this we certainly agree!

    Thanks for the reply… I think I’ll stick to the spiritual/religious discussions going forward. 🙂


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    @ Nancy:
    Wha you say re. agribusiness is not the case in the mid_atlantic states. Most farms are small. we have mountains and valleys here, not open prairie with rolling hills. My art of PA, which has lots and lots of small farms (mostly dairy) looks like a whole pile of rucked-up blankets in satellite shots. The “rucks” are the ridges and mountains. But still, there is farming. Most of PA is still agrarian, even near Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Also, a lot of our land is part of state forests and game preserves and parks. The only open, rolling land is in SE PA (Lancaster and south and east) and up by Lake Erie.

    New England is also full of small farms, partly due to topography, and (imo) mainly because people want it that way.

    Now, I have never lived out on the prairie, where the enormous farms are. But I do know that something is wrong when most of our produce here – even during the summer – is trucked in from the Central Valley in Ca and Mexico.

    I mean, ??? The supermarkets do NOT buy locally, even in the area around Philadelphia, which is nuts – SE PA, the part of MD that adjoins it, Delaware ditto, are *the* truck garden area of the mid-Atlantic states. Yet in supermarkets that I went to the last time I was down there, guess where the fresh produce came from? (Hint: it was not local.)

    I am dumbfounded as to how and why things got to be like this.


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    @ numo:
    there are also areas around Pittsburgh that are open and rolling, and down around Gettysburg as well. Orchards are the big thing – apples, peaches, plums, pears. And they do some dairy.


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    @ Haitch:
    No, but I’ll look for it!

    Long ago I paid a brief visit to Zurich and was super-impressed by all the veggie gardens in peoples’ back lots and in allotments. I know London is full of allotments, too, and I have a friend who has made hers into a really lovely garden for produce, flowers and just hanging out. There were tiny allotments near where I lived in Arlington County, VA, and I do mean tiny. Postage-stamp sized plots in the middle of a median strip on a local feeder road (4-lane, but not a *big* road with lots of traffic).

    I think city planning needs to include green belts. If that isn’t done, you get edge cities like Tyson’s Corner, which are a g*d mess. And downright terrifying for pedestrians trying to cross the 8-lane, constantly gridlocked highway which functions as the main street. It is just horrible. (I mean, it isn’t urban blight, but in its own way, it’s just as bad.) The thing is, rich people and rich companies own most all of the property, and they work outside and around the law, in that the business associations and homeowners’ associations are the actual government, even though they are (sort of) subject to the county government. It really is nuts.


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    @ numo:
    Note: D.C., which is (as I keep repeating) *very* small, has much more green space than all of Arlington Co., VA. That’s because it was *planned that way.* And being able to live on the borders of the parks (Rock Creek Park is the one I would choose; it’s almost like Central Park in miniature) would be SO much nicer than being 5 miles away in suburban gridlock. And the air quality is likely a bit better, due to all of the trees and plants. (Part of D.C. really are blighted, don’t get me wrong.)


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    @ Haitch:
    I am not a big sustainable living advocate, though I think much of what those folks say is common sense. And one thing I liked about D.C. is that buildings are on a human scale (like central London used to be), with buildings that cannot be higher than 10 stories. (Because you cannot deliberately go higher than the Washington Monument and the Capitol dome.) That means that the skies are open and people at least have that, as well as far less shadow than is common when there are skyscrapers. I did like that very much!

    But, being from a small country town, it just makes more sense to me that planning be done carefully so as not to destroy a lot of the natural resources in any given area, be they small farms, forests and rivers/creeks/lakes, or what have you. I cannot imagine what the Great Falls of the Potomac would be like if the land on both sides of the river (which is in 2 different states) had not been reserved in perpetuity as park lands.

    L.A. is my nightmare. (Even though I like SoCal in general, and could probably live out there, in a beach city or town.)


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    @ Gram3:
    I think we have very different points of view on these issues, and am not sure I know how to reconcile them. I am concerned, though, about the way you speak of constantly expanding population, as if it is good for that to happen. What if we overrun the very resources that we need to live? I do not think exponential growth and development from generation to generation is a good idea at all, which isn’t about people not having babies – but it is about planning and foresight.

    Also, I think I have a limited perspective, in that I have only ever lived in the mid-Atlantic area (and southern New England for one summer) and both regions are their own thing. I have not spent much time in the Midwest, never in the Southeast (except for FL), and have never been in the Rockies. I have been in the Pacific Northwest (in both the US and Canada), which I loved, but that was a while ago – before both Seattle and Vancouver blew up due to businesses like Microsoft. So I love the Seattle that was in existence back in the 1970s, not the city and suburbs that are there now (to be fair, I haven’t been in the area for a long time).

    I was struck, on my sole visit to SoCal, at how development had basically destroyed the character of what was once a rugged and beautiful coastline. Even high-price areas like Malibu are a shadow of what they could be if people had been a *little* more restrained and not built on every single available square inch of land. Of course, the orchards that many local people made their living on are long gone, in that area at least, and that’s a shame.

    I dunno, I remember back in the 60s and 70s when there was a lot of talk about “Boswash,” i.e. the mega-city that people saw coming, that would extend from Boston to Washington. It hasn’t *quite* happened that way (again, partly because of “difficult” topography in some areas plus a lot of resistance in various locales). I hope and pray it never comes to pass. Freeways are not my idea of a happy place to spend my life.


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    numo wrote:

    I am dumbfounded as to how and why things got to be like this.

    Because people like strawberries in September and peaches in January and nice lettuce in August. Supermarkets have to have reliable supply chains and must buy in huge quantities to keep prices as low as feasible. People want things year-round nowadays and they want a wide variety. It wasn’t always that way. That said, I’ve heard more about local farmer’s markets with locally grown produce, and I think that is a good thing. But local farms cannot supply the supermarket chains or the vast demand of large cities. There is a reason that Whole Foods has higher prices than Kroger or Safeway. It’s a good thing that people can choose, isn’t it?


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    @ Gram3:
    The other thing to note is that NJ, DE, and large parts of MD and PA are still the truck gardening center of the East Coast. You cannot start paving that over without really messing up the food supply in the NY-D.C. corridor (among other things). A lot of southern NJ is unlivable, and is known as the Pine Barrens. Due to the soil being very sandy, water table being high etc., it is totally unsuitable for development. To get to resorts on the Jersey shore, you have to drive through long stretches of wilderness covered with (you guessed it) pine tress. It cannot be “citified” unless someone comes up with a way to make sand stable. 🙂


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    @ Gram3:
    But here in the mid-Atlantic states, huge amounts of produce are grown for the restaurant trade and farmers’ markets up and down the NY-D.C. corridor. If supermarket chains refuse to buy local when they can (because the farms are *right there*) it’s their loss. Literally. Because locals would rather go to farmers’ markets and little produce stands during the season.


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    @ numo:
    I agree that Central Park is a good thing. But it is not a free thing, and all I’m saying is that those costs need to be recognized. The thing is, I think that Central Park may actually be a net contribution to NYC fiscally, since it is what makes Manhattan livable. That’s an editorial comment.

    I don’t think that most wise planners are averse to green space for that very reason. But then you run up against the affordability problem. So, again, there are trade-offs. Personally, I think that planned developments are a good idea generally.


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    Muff Potter wrote:

    The groves are all gone now, cut down and bull-dozed to make way for the gentrification of what’s left of rural Southern California.
    It’s obscene.

    Yeah. I agree completely.

    *

    As for Mitchell, I especially love “Blue.” That might be my favorite of all of her work, even though I like a lot of the songs that came after (though not necessarily the albums as a whole). I love the alternate guitar tunings she used on Blue; they still sound so fresh!


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    @ Gram3:
    all depends on the kind of planning, no? Tyson’s was largely planned, but it was planned all wrong, and now they’re trying to retrofit it to make it work for actual human beings. The plan began in 2010 and runs through 2050. The thing is, that kind of retrofitting is going to cost significantly more than if it had been planned out correctly and built as such in the 1st place.

    Real estate developers in that area are sharks, and they mostly don’t care about anything but square footage for rent/purchase and the $$$ they can make from it. All the rest is gravy, for someone else to worry about.


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    @ Gram3:
    but places like Central Park are essential for the well-being of humans who live in high rises, so I don’t think you can put a price tag on its actual value (the non-tangible type, not the real estate itself).

    The northernmost tip of Manhattan actually has a park that is *virgin forest.* It is intended to stay that way for as long as people are living in NYC.


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    @ Nancy:
    if development is done responsibly, i have no problem with it, but that’s a big if.


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    numo wrote:

    I am concerned, though, about the way you speak of constantly expanding population, as if it is good for that to happen. What if we overrun the very resources that we need to live?

    The irony is that I have a Malthusian living inside of me who is always struggling to come out. I don’t think I made a value statement about population levels, but the population is certainly a multiple of what it was some time ago. I don’t set immigration policy and I don’t decide how many babies are born, so it’s kind of out of my hands. I’m an observer and as much of a realist as I can be without lapsing into irreversible depression.

    I have lived in several places and traveled to many more. You mentioned California and Florida. Well, a lot of people want to live there for very rational reasons. Lots of vets went through the west coast on their way to Japan or were stationed there in support of the Pacific war. Lots of them were from farms, and they liked what they saw and came back to live. It isn’t commonly known that Florida was also a strategic location during the war, complete with U-boats offshore and the Naval and Marine aviators hunting them and protecting our own ships. People like nice weather and beaches, and after the war more people had more money for vacations to places with nice weather, and some of them stayed or returned.


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    @ Gram3:
    Well, yes, the Gulf and Atlantic coasts (as well as the Caribbean) were/are strategic places. My dad made his career in the merchant marine, starting on Liberty ships in WWII. So yeah, I kind of get that. 😉 (Am also aware that there are a lot of naval and Coat Guard bases in FL, but I think I noticed them because maritime whatever was a fact of life in my family.) I have also known people who were stationed down there, in the Navy and Coasties, too. All kinds of crazy things go on, and both services are very much needed today in that part of the country.

    SoCal: I could live there happily, if I was in the right place. Ditto for parts of Northern Cal. (Just don’t like all the rain, but there are always tradeoffs – around here, it’s the extremes of temperature and weather in summer and winter that can be hard, and are the reason many older people relocate to FL and SoCal.)


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    @ Gram3:
    of course it’s a multiple, but the thing is, most people go to urban or suburban areas.The rest of the country is pretty sparsely inhabited, when you get right down to it.


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    @ numo:
    Rational business will respond to demand, but the nature of supermarkets is to offer the widest variety at the lowest cost. That is really important for a large part of our population. There are community farmers markets springing up, and I think that’s a good thing. Restaurants can use locally-grown as a means for marketing and also of maintaining quality. That’s a good thing for communities for a number of reasons. Maybe churches could use their parking lots to sponsor farmers markets on Saturdays!


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    @ Gram3:
    just for fun, some info. on the Pine Barrens, supposed home of the (mythical) Jersey Devil.


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    @ Gram3:
    a lot of churches in this area host small, unadvertised farmers’ markets already. My home town now has two, operating on different days of the week, and there are a couple of huge farmers’ market in the next county over. (As well as many smaller ones.) Roadside stands are also a commonplace.

    fwiw, southern NJ is *the* place where domesticated blueberry production began and is still located. (Though I have a preference for Maine blueberries – you have to go there to get the real thing, though.) There are also large cultivated cranberry bogs. I mean, Ocean Spray isn’t just in New England!


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    @ numo:

    So you are saying that the mid-atlantic states have plenty of food, some grown locally and some shipped in from elsewhere. And people can go to the supermarket or the farmer’s market or some can eat out of their own garden I suppose since there are all these gardens and such. How is any of that a bad thing? We do the same thing here. I do that. None of this sounds like humans have exceeded the carrying capacity of the environment relative to food.

    Around here we have people who live with or on the verge of hunger, but it does not have anything to do with the nation running out of food, not as long as we turn corn into fuel instead of food, for example. One of our biggest health problems is at the other end of that spectrum–obesity which is partly due to elective overeating.

    Might humans exceed the dreaded carrying capacity of the earth? Maybe. When I was in college one class talked about what various species do when they near the carrying capacity of their environments, but at that time they thought that humans did not have the necessary instincts (actually they thought humans had no instincts but that is a different topic) to avoid a disaster. But we do not know, of course, because we have not reached that point yet. And there are theories all over the place.

    Do humans starve? Indeed. Right now I am giving a monthly donation to a ministry that helps feed aids orphans in one country in africa, but their food issues are not due to too many people with too little food in this particular country. It is due to too much AIDS and too little done too late to address that issue and now too many aids orphans and too little money to solve the problem even if one were committed to doing so. This is not about carrying capacity and population. It is about politics and money.

    But there are things which might happen which could result in lots of problems. If the systems break down for any reason, then the mormons are correct and there could be food issues to deal with. Along with lots of other survival issues. That is a different matter however.


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    @ Gram3:
    You should see how produce-poor our local supermarkets are. It is so much different than even 6-7 years ago. Much of what is for sale is already spoiled or turning, leafy greens especially. I can’t get carrot tops for my bunny at a grocery store, ever. (I keep a close eye on produce because of who I’m feeding… 🙂 )


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    @ Nancy:
    I meant that it was a good thing! I guess I was responding more to Gram than to you, or maybe I misunderstood some of what you were saying? Both you and Gram have been talking about development and population growth, but not about necessary resources to feed and sustain the people who are part of that growth.

    That’s more my slant on it; am also a big believer in conservation of forests, protection of wildlife and such. There are places that really should not be exploited, and in some cases, there are areas that were exploited and ruined but have consciously been allowed to revert to wildlife habitats (many East Coast wetlands, for example). I’m all for that!

    fwiw, when I was very young, one of my brothers took a college course in urban planning and I read some of his texts and was fascinated. What the “human scale” advocates were saying back in the late 60s tied right in to the emphasis on conservation and love of local wild places in my own family. I grew up in a town, but used to wish we lived up on the side of one of the local mountains. I still wish we’d done that!


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    @ Nancy:
    Deforestation is a big issue in this hemisphere and in Africa (and likely elsewhere); the drought in the Sahel has had catastrophic results for humans, livestock and wild birds and other animals. So many have been displaced due to that drought, and countries have been destabilized, which has also had its own (awful) impact.


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    @ Nancy:
    we have a tremendous amount of poverty, both urban and rural.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    I’m not equipped to discuss agronomics

    That makes two of us. 😉


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    @ gram 3
    continued

    This issue of stuff-images and procedures and stuff- has been an issue with me since childhood, and I think maybe I have an idea about it. Now let me say, there are abuses of everything. For example, food is good but how may of us abuse the proper use of food, just little health comment here. But stuff does not need to be abused.

    By stuff I mean, for example, stained glass, pictures, icons, candles, bells, incense, vestments, verbal responses, standing, kneeling, going up to the altar rail to receive communion, bowing, kissing the bible (the priest does this) prior to the reading of the gospel, singing the psalm antiphon, sign of the cross. All of this is sensory and largely participatory. Our church web site says we worship with our bodies also. Only the relatively short but substantive homily is purely auditory (sit and listen.)

    Some of us do better at learning one way and some another way. The schools know this-that there are different learning strengths-some visual some auditory and some of us have to do it in the lab or the field (or the hospital) before we internalize it. I am one of those who learn visually and by doing. When I get hit with a bunch of words as in a sermon or lecture I quickly lose focus and my mind goes off to do its own thing with something more interesting. There is no use telling people like me to just listen. We do listen–we do this other also and at the same time, while just trying to glean the basic topic from the barrage of words and let the rest go. We can’t help it. I can no more absorb anything from a long lecture or sermon than I can play football. If I read it in a book (visual) I understand it (unless it is fiction and then I lose interest.) It is a pity that the schools know this, that there are several learning styles, but some church traditions don’t seem to know it or else don’t seem to care. How does it make sense to aim formation (discipling) almost exclusively at the auditory learner when we know that this leaves out a lot of folks.

    I am thinking that all the ‘stuff’ developed in old church tradition during a time when illiteracy was common and that it served a purpose then and now. It also developed during a time when the arts and the church were not sworn enemies. And it was funded by the wealthy but it also benefited the poor and the illiterate who had little else similar in their lives. No, the motives of the wealthy were not necessarily the best, but surely that does not totally destroy the entire idea.

    I am also thinking that God deserves to be worshipped with every good thing human that we can muster, including but not limited to this sort of thing. How does it make sense to say ideas yes, works yes, self discipline yes, obedience yes, and some add their style of OT legalism, but beauty no. Really? Consider the lilies-are they not beautiful? Might that tell us something?


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    Here is Dottie Patterson’s latest home making project at SWBTS:

    http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/fort-worth/article3839563.html

    http://fbcjaxwatchdog.blogspot.com/2014/04/paige-patterson-and-swbts-unveil-chapel.html

    http://panis-circenses.blogspot.com/2014/01/swbts-president-places-his-likeness-in.html

    Usually stained glass are stories from the Bible used to educate and edify people. I am uncertain OS and Suzie Hawkins are from the Bible? People are being glorified in this instead of God? Do wish in her interior decoration wifely duty, Dottie would consider the bow wow from FBC watch.


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    numo wrote:

    Deforestation …

    A secular writer who has treated this topic extensively is Jared Diamond. See his 2005 book “Collapse”.


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    @ Nancy:
    Beauty is part of worship, IMO, and the fact that we can recognize and appreciate beauty is a result of bearing God’s image, also IMO. Creating beautiful things testifies to God’s greatness, too, since he can make something that can make something beautiful. Mortimer Adler had some things to say about beauty, and I think you would enjoy him.

    I do think it is helpful to have audience participation, and certainly appreciate that illiterate people would have a way to learn and engage. I do think that people back when could tolerate and benefit from more auditory learning since they were illiterate and auditory retention would be beneficial. Not so with me now!

    I don’t personally care for images or the icon system, for want of a better word, maybe because the icons are is a distraction for me. However, the stained glass in the European cathedrals and churches is amazing, and I can see how that draws people’s attention to worship. We visited one, maybe in France(?) that removed their stained glass windows to preserve them from bombing during the war. Like you, I like non-fiction books made of paper and glue and ink. Fiction doesn’t work for me usually, and science fiction is mostly beyond me.


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    numo wrote:

    Deforestation is a big issue in this hemisphere and in Africa

    There are some initiatives in Costa Rica to help people preserve their land in its natural state by creating tourist attractions that are family businesses. We visited some primary forest around the Rio Celeste area and made a hike down to the falls and the river. A family rents boots and poles and then has an open-air restaurant available for after the “hike” which is quite challenging. That’s a good example, IMO, of a sustainability initiative that is not coercive but rather creates incentives and assists in getting it started. They also use cooking fuel created by composting waste, IIRC, so they don’t have to burn the forests down to cook.


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    In other news, New Horizons has just encroached to within 1 AU of Pluto; that is, it is closer to Pluto than the Earth is to the Sun. Still around 93 megamiles to go, of course, but since it is around 3 gigamiles away, that’s relatively close now.

    “Near”, “far”, “old” and “recent” are all relative terms in astronomy!

    The next milestone of note for New Horizons will occur around 5th May, which is the “BTH” or “Better-Than-Hubble” point. New Horizons’ main onboard camera, while about as good as we can launch to solar escape velocity, nevertheless has a much lower resolution than does its counterpart on the Hubble space telescope. But on 5th May, it will be near enough to take the best pictures of Pluto that humanity has yet seen.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    since he can make something that can make something beautiful

    Isn’t that amazing? To create a self-perpetuating creature that can not only appreciate and understand but also create beauty. Like you say, relates to the image of God. I had not thought of it that way.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    They also use cooking fuel created by composting waste, IIRC, so they don’t have to burn the forests down to cook.

    Where I was in Africa was mostly on the edge of a semi-desert area, and they used animal dung for fires built in the center of the hut as well as for paving the floors of the huts. Large herbivores have dung with a lot of fiber in it, so it can be used like this. They would then sleep and also give birth on reed mats rolled out on the dung floors leading to both post partum tetanus and also neonatal tetanus as a health hazard. I understand the firewood issue, but I am not so much about having a dung culture, so to speak.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    … launch to solar escape velocity…

    That is, New Horizons will carry on out of the solar system and keep going forever; the Sun’s gravity is still slowing it down very slightly but cannot pull it back. Had it been launched slower, it would have gone into orbit around the Sun like a tiny artificial asteroid.

    “Solar escape velocity” in this context is sometimes called, informally, the “third cosmic velocity”. Absolutely none of you will be wondering what the first two cosmic velocities are, so I will tell you.

    The “first cosmic velocity” is orbital velocity, or around 17500 mph – the speed you need to launch a rocket at to put it in low earth orbit. Simply put, this is the slowest speed at which you can launch something up, such that it doesn’t come down. However, it will keep re-appearing overhead every 90 minutes or so.

    If you want to rid the earth of something (which, you may recall, the inhabitants of Jerusalem wanted to do with Paul), you have to launch it at the second cosmic velocity which is around 24000 mph. At that speed, it will leave the earth forever; earth’s gravity will not be able to keep hold of it. Depending on how you aim it, it will fly into the sun and be vaporised, forming part of the sun’s corona.

    There is a fourth cosmic velocity: the speed at which you’d have to launch something from earth such that it would (in millions of years’ time) leave even from the Milky Way galaxy, never to return. From the earth, we would have to launch a space probe at well over a million mph to achieve this, which is beyond the reach of current technology.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    “Solar escape velocity” in this context is sometimes called, informally, the “third cosmic velocity”.

    So what is the (roundabout) speed of the solar escape velocity? I assume this speed survives the sun, leaves our solar system, and journeys through our galaxy until . . . ?


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    @ Bridget:

    From earth, it’s around 94000 mph. But that’s measured from a standing start, so to speak; i.e., if you were hovering in a magic balloon, stationary above the sun and level with the earth.

    New Horizons, however, had a flying start: the earth is already orbiting the sun at around 68000 mph. So NASA had to accelerate it to at least 26000 mph relative to the earth; in fact they managed 33000. On top of which, New Horizons passed close to Jupiter and its speed was hiked by a further 4000 mph or so, at Jupiter’s expense.


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    @ Nick Bulbeck:

    Additional News:
    The Dawn space probe is now parked in orbit about Ceres.
    Many of us out here can’t wait to find out what those bright ‘lights’ in the basin of one of her large craters are attributed to.


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    Not sure how Open Discussion works, but I thought I’d mention this for those who are friends or not, of Capitol Hill Baptist. They got their parking lot (some time ago). I am not a sentimental person but I think it’s too bad the houses were demolished.
    http://wamu.org/programs/metro_connection/15/02/06/capitol_hill_restoration_society_celebrates_60_years_of_battles_won_and_lost


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    Godith wrote:

    Not sure how Open Discussion works,

    My view – you could feel comfortable posting this against the latest post, then if there is a lot of discussion about it, or very lengthy posts that aren’t relevant to the topic that the Deebs have posted, then suggest moving the discussion over here at ‘Open Discussion’.


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    Haitch wrote:

    Godith wrote:
    Not sure how Open Discussion works,

    My view – ….

    Whereas my view is that it kind of works by magic.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    at Jupiter’s expense.

    I’m pretty sure Jupiter didn’t feel a thing.


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    @ Mara:

    It lost exactly as much momentum as NH gained, but it has an awful lot to spare.


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    @ Nick Bulbeck:

    Kind of like the difference between a flea sitting on an elephant and an elephant sitting on a flea. Though the elephant might feel a flee bite, I’m not sure it would feel a flea sit.


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    Just a note because I want to say it. In our situation, after months of never anything much seeming to go right, we have seen several things get better within the last few days. One of those things is that we seem to have found a private school (Lutheran by the way) that could make it be a lot better for one of the grandkids who is apparently not going to make it in the public schools. And the school is within our price range-if we just give up food and transportation for a while. The resident educator at our house is fit-prone over the fact that the schools are no way what they were some 20+ years ago when she started teaching. The schools admit this, of course, even bewail this sometimes, so I believe her. Yes, well, neither is the health care industry and neither are the churches. The health care people have sounded the alarm. I am waiting for the churches to grasp some realities. So who needs food or transportation anyhow? At least it is a step in the right direction.

    There are several other things that have also turned out either better than expected or else are in the range of so far so good, but these are not things that might stir up conversation here, whereas education might. There are also still some things that do not seem to be going well at all, but like the old song says, count your blessings.

    And please, don’t any of you people try to launch yourselves into outer space. The comet is not coming for you. Interest in things astronomical is one thing; identifying with any of it would be unwise.


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    Terry Pratchett passed away in case any of you are fans. I can’t think of anyone whose writing and thinking has influenced me more, he’ll be missed.


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    Mara wrote:

    And the Problem with the ESV is that they pick and choose where to place gender-neutral language, best serving a view to put men in authority and to keep women out.
    http://frombitterwaterstosweet.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-problem-with-esv.html
    But perhaps you don’t like the ESV. What translations do you like best.

    I’ve largely stayed with the RSV, partly (don’t laugh) because of the print size (I can’t cope so easily with Serious Eye Strain versions any longer). This is despite its occasional liberal tendency, in the OT in particular, and I have over the years put the odd note in the margin where words have been left out or the translation a bit too free in the NT. I’m also very familiar with it.

    I have also used the NASB for a more conservative version, and the GNB for good alternatives to technical jargon if trying to explain something to those without a religious background. Not so keen on the NIV, though very readable. Even the liberal NEB sometimes has some excellent renderings in non-King James type modern English. Variety can be the spice of life!

    I really would be careful about seeing agendas in translations. The RSV (which contributes 96%+ to the ESV) predates some of these controversies. Your linked example of 1 Cor 14 As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silence in the churches is still RSV, and the first part of the phrase could belong either to v33 and refer to the prophets, or be connected with v34 as here. It doesn’t make much difference to the meaning, the ESV seems to have kept the older version where there was no compelling reason to change it. You’ve still got to deal with the question of silence and submission and precisely how this is to be understood regardless of which alternative you opt for.

    The ESV in places seems to lean towards an egalitarian rendering, for example, in 1 Cor 11 it dodges man being head of woman by changing to husband being head of wife. And it tells us to have nothing to do with godless and silly myths, rather than the more literal old wives’ tales. This latter is a moot point: do you stay literal and risk offending modern cultural sensitivities, or do you translate the meaning using other words?

    I did re-read the introduction to the ESV last night, and it is clear what its policy on gender language is, so you get what is written on the tin. They seem to have tried to keep a reasonable balance between modern usage (with the danger of being politically correct and biblically incorrect) and not straying from the Hebrew and Greek usage, which also reflects cultural norms back then.

    Comparing the German version is occasionally enlightening, though I’ve hardly looked at it for years.

    The subject of versions and translation is fascinating, but does sometimes seem to generate a lot of hot air or intemperate comment, Gail Riplinger style!

    The advent of google of course means it is possible to compare about 20 versions at the same time, so there is little chance of a bible with an agenda getting away with it these days.


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    Ken wrote:

    The subject of versions and translation is fascinating, but does sometimes seem to generate a lot of hot air or intemperate comment, Gail Riplinger style!

    You must be referring to the ESV-only “complementarian” crowd. Lightning will probably strike, but I’ll defend the ESV when it comes to woman/wife and man/husband, at least to the extent that either translation is possible. I think that a plausible explanation for their choice is that if they translated it as woman/man then they would have to speak against female authority in the workplace and in government in order to be consistent with their translation. Since universal male authority simply cannot be sustained in the face of reality, the ESV translators wisely chose to translate the words as husband/wife.

    However, the same translation choice is available in 1 Timothy 2. There, they translate it woman/man in order to maintain universal male authority in the church.

    WRT gender-neutral language, I can make an argument for maintaining the translation of “sons” where the meaning of “son” is referring to our position as sons of God. That is because of the meaning of “son” in the historical context of the text. Sons had rights and daughters did not. Now, in Christ, we have all received the adoption as sons with all the rights that adoption entails. Of course, in the “complementarian” circles, there are big exclusions from those rights in the home and church where women are still 3/5 of a man if not nothing at all. Except in empty and self-serving words.

    I can’t remember if you ever addressed Grudem’s addition of “symbol of” to the Greek text. Honest translators would leave it out. Doubtful ones who follow prior translations usually at least italicize it with a footnote to show that those words have been added to the text. Do you think that adding words that are not necessary and which totally change the meaning of the text is legitimate?


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    @ Ken:
    I think that women should be forced to remain silent in the church because that’s what the text plainly says. To allow women to say or sing or or read the Bible or prophesy or pray aloud or make announcements is to depart from the clear teaching of the Bible. Letting women say anything in church is the path to liberalism and ultimately to complete apostasy. We can see clearly from Genesis 2 what listening to the voice of a woman leads to. The ruin of mankind. I agree with Paul. Total and absolute silence.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    @ Ken:
    I think that women should be forced to remain silent in the church because that’s what the text plainly says. To allow women to say or sing or or read the Bible or prophesy or pray aloud or make announcements is to depart from the clear teaching of the Bible. Letting women say anything in church is the path to liberalism and ultimately to complete apostasy. We can see clearly from Genesis 2 what listening to the voice of a woman leads to. The ruin of mankind. I agree with Paul. Total and absolute silence.

    http://www.womenpriests.org/theology/aqui_inf.asp

    I believe you agree with this viewpoint. Women is helper but not a helpmate because a man can be a better helpmate than is a woman, who is not made in the same image of God as is the male sex.


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    Mark wrote:

    I believe you agree with this viewpoint.

    Don’t know if you knew it, but Ken and I kid back and forth about this issue, so I thought I’d pretend to be a Consistent Complementarian. Ken is *not* like them, I’m happy to say!

    Let’s not stop at Aquinas. Let’s go all the way back to Aristotle. Woman is the gateway to all manner of evil and in every way inferior to the male. Have you heard that “woman” comes from “woe of man?” Shut us up before we cause more damage and bring the end of Western civilization. 😉

    I did not know that there is a movement to ordain female priests, so thanks for that link. It was my understanding that the male (celibate) priesthood was based on Jesus being male and celibate and the OT priests being male. It will be interesting to check this out from the RCC perspective.


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    I was trying to be funny also and look for the most mysogynistic medieval theologians on the topic of women. Some of these in patriarchy movement might agree with them.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    It was my understanding that the male (celibate) priesthood was based on Jesus being male and celibate and the OT priests being male. It will be interesting to check this out from the RCC perspective

    What they told us in RCIA was that the male priesthood was based on the 12 male apostles. They told us that celibacy was something the church decided to do, was not a dogma and could be changed, was not instituted in the very earliest church, and that there are some married catholic priests–converts from some other branch of christianity, especially under the special situation the pope offered to episcopal churches not too long ago. Disclaimer: it was apparently not the most comprehensive RCIA program because a lot of my questions did not get answered, so take this for what it is worth. But those ideas might start you in the direction of researching it at least.


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    @ Mark:
    Check out Bruce Ware who shares Aquina’s belief that females bear the “indirect” image of God because the Woman was created out of the Man who was created First.


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    @ Nancy:
    Celibacy was made a requirement in the early medieval period (am thinking 9th c., but need to check), and for the following reason: Rome did not want sons inheriting church property from their fathers (along with their jobs). Seriously. That’s the main reason.

    The Eastern Rite Catholic churches have many married priests, as do some of the other rites that are in communion with Rome. Which, imo, is a good argument in favor of the RCC caving altogether and allowing priests to marry.


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    @ numo:
    As in, the Eastern Rite churches have *always* allowed priests to be married, even though they are in communion with Rome.


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    @ numo:

    And also, as far as the assumption that Jesus was unmarried and celibate, that is an assumption. Probably a good assumption, but not specifically stated in scripture. And Paul never claimed for himself lifelong celibacy. Whether he had been previously married is not known. Nor do we have a list in scripture as to which of the twelve were married and which were not, apart from Peter who was or had been married. All this lack of information in the bible makes me think that the issue was pretty much a non-issue at the time.


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    @ Nancy:

    But wait, if a comp marriage is part of the gospel, then I guess we should start with the assumption that the were all married–and comp. Oops.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    I thought I’d pretend to be a Consistent Complementarian. Ken is *not* like them, I’m happy to say!

    So you are now being a complimentarian, I am glad to see! 🙂


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    @ Gram3:

    Predictably, it all depends on which traditional doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture we’re talking about.

    The belief that the canon of scripture is sufficient to fulfil the church’s need for authoritative documentation is useful, because it nips in the bud the endless proliferation of laws and regulations that we would otherwise be encumbered with.

    The belief that the canon of scripture is sufficient on its own for the Christian life is the monumental deception. Once the bible has replaced the Holy Spirit, you no longer have a Trinity, and the next two steps are almost inevitable; the Bible first replaces Jesus as the mediator between God and humanity, and then it replaces God. It’s nothing more than gnosticism with a christian veil.

    Well said. We all (Christians in general, that is) need to be wary of any attempts to oust the traditional understanding of the Trinity in favor of new “notions” (which are largely recycled 1st C. & 2nd C. heresies).


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    Ken wrote:

    Gram3 wrote:
    I thought I’d pretend to be a Consistent Complementarian. Ken is *not* like them, I’m happy to say!
    So you are now being a complimentarian, I am glad to see!

    Just wanted to make sure you are not put in the same box as the others! Now, I think you were about to comment on that “symbol of” being added by Grudem…


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    Nancy wrote:

    @ Nick Bulbeck:

    Around here they make something called chicken pastry. The chicken is just shredded chicken in a really think gravy. The pastry is like pie dough rolled rather thick and cut into strips. You can buy the dough frozen and already cut in strips. So you cook the dough in the gravy which is how the gravy gets thick and throw in the chicken and it is awesome. It is obviously a variety of chicken and dumplings, but the pastry is better, in my opinion.

    Chicken & slicks. My grandmother used to make that, & it was delicious!!


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    Gram3 wrote:

    Now, I think you were about to comment on that “symbol of” being added by Grudem…

    Indeed I was (not joking!), and here it is:

    That is why a woman ought to have a veil* on her head, because of the angels. *Greek authority, the veil being a symbol of this. RSV.

    I had to ‘correct’ this chapter quit a bit to replace veil with covering, but in this verse the underlying Greek original is fairly clear. Nevertheless, veil is more an interpretation than covering, and in any event here is is actually authority.

    I’m afraid I don’t see adding symbol of authority on her head as too drastic, but I agree the ESV here should have put a footnote to indicate this is not absolutely literal. Simply to say a women should have an authority on her head is more accurate but less easily understood. I don’t see any agenda at work here, and any bible teacher worth his salt will have looked up this somewhat enigmatic verse in more than one version and checked a decent commentary.

    The covering is not a sign of submission as some versions state; it’s the opposite, a sign of authority, in the context to pray or prophesy. The Holy Spirit has been poured out on male and female alike, and there is no distinction in their justification or inheritance, or potential for spiritual gifts.

    Nevertheless, this does not obliterate them as distinct, and this should be clearly seen in appearance. I think that is the minimum you can still take from this passage. The men should look like men, and the women look like women, and it is still disgraceful for a man to have long, feminine hair; inappropriate appearance is here applied to both men and women.

    Whether the veil or headscarf or hat for women is still necessary as an additional covering you could argue until the cows come home. Personally, I don’t think so, but Christians have liberty of conscience to do so if they wish.

    The more tricky aspect is that of ‘order’ in the church. The angels mentioned here should not see women either in appearance or behaviour taking responsibility from men, whether hubby or pastoral leadership, and the ‘silence’ verses in chapter 14 to me confirm this. It is during the judging of prophecy, in that context, they are to be silent and in submission as detailed in chapter 14, based on the Law. When people should or shouldn’t speak (i.e. keep silent) is a running theme in that chapter, and its goal is that all things are done decently and in order. It’s not putting anyone down.

    It’s a good idea to read chapters 11 to 14 in one go. You get a broader view, and both the head/submit theme, and mutual interdependence are beautifully balanced. It also stops those who want to run off with the silent women verses and make these negate what Paul has said earlier. I don’t think he got lost in the argument, and is also very consistent on this perennial theme.

    In my experience, the ‘system’ in most churches seriously impedes the operation of the Holy Spirit whether through men or women; this is far worse than the somewhat limited restrictions placed on women otherwise. If ‘body ministry’ for all were encouraged, it would take a lot of the heat out of the argument.


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    @Ken
    @gram3

    I don’t see what the problem is with “symbol of” other than it is not a word specifically used in the original. A veil or covering have no authority-fabric is fabric. Such a thing would necessarily be symbolic of something-an idea or a fashion or a custom or an indicator of status or something.

    Nurses used to wear caps. They were symbolic. They had various shapes depending on the school one graduated from and they had different width black ribbon stripes depending on what year of training for a student nurse. So it symbolized status (nurse) and school (shape) and level (black ribbon stripe.) And there were rules for when the cap should be worn and when not. How is that a bad thing to have some sort of symbol on your head?


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    Ken wrote:

    The covering is not a sign of submission as some versions state; it’s the opposite, a sign of authority, in the context to pray or prophesy.

    Actually, in Middle Eastern culture, a woman covered her hair as a sign of modesty, since hair was/is considered sexual. I asked some friends from the Middle East what the significance of a woman’s hair covering is, and they told me that removing the covering from her hair in public would bring shame on her, her husband, her father, and the entire family and/or tribe. But a woman is allowed to remove her headcovering while in private among her family. Her male family might include very close friends who are regarded as “uncles” or “brothers.” Thus, she can remove her headcovering without shame in private if her family’s close friends include males.

    The entire chapter is about shame and honor. I agree that it is about gender to the extent that a woman and a man are to conduct themselves in such a way as to honor their Lord and not bring shame on his name. This is a frequent theme of Paul. The believing woman had the right to remove her headcovering in the Christian assembly, but praying and prophesying with her head uncovered could bring shame and be considered very inappropriate to observers from the outside. There would be cause for the church to be brought into disrepute.

    Paul is telling her that she has authority over her own head and she should decide what is proper and fitting to do so that the Lord’s name is not profaned. There is nothing about her husband’s authority anywhere in that verse or in that chapter. Paul is explicit in his summation that woman and man are interdependent and neither can claim privilege over the other. Woman came from Man originally, but now all men come from women. In Christ, such things no longer matter.

    The only reason to add “symbol of” to “authority on her head” is to make Paul say that her husband has authority over her in Christ when he is actually saying that she has authority to make a decision to honor the Lord regarding her headcovering. Paul is clearly talking about a cultural practice and not some proof of male authority. Therefore, the only reason to add those words is to *confuse* Paul’s instruction rather than to *clarify* it. The fact is that the thought that a woman might have any authority at all over herself was unthinkable until very recently, and that is why this has been such a troublesome passage for translators. If they would just let Paul speak for himself instead of putting words into his mouth, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

    It is simply not necessary, and for translators to continue to do that is simply dishonest and agenda-driven, in the case of Grudem and his dudebros. It is only their own lust for authority over others that blinds them to the actual words of the text and motivates them to hide God’s actual words from God’s people.


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    Ken wrote:

    It is during the judging of prophecy, in that context, they are to be silent and in submission as detailed in chapter 14, based on the Law. When people should or shouldn’t speak (i.e. keep silent) is a running theme in that chapter, and its goal is that all things are done decently and in order. It’s not putting anyone down.

    Yes, things are to be done decently and in order. The part about women being silent is nowhere in the OT Law. It is part of the Oral “law” and tradition. Paul is quoting the “law” against women speaking back to the Corinthians and then responding to their use of this illegitimate “law” in the Christian assembly. Check out the interlinear where there is a disjunctive used before Paul asks the rhetorical question of whether the Law came to them only. That is clearly rhetorical sarcasm which Paul employed when people were teaching ridiculous things and adding to God’s words. He also did that in Galatians where he told them to go ahead and do a “complete” circumcision if they are so insistent on circumcision.

    If Paul is really saying for women to be silent “as the law says” then he contradicts himself mightily.


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    Nancy wrote:

    How is that a bad thing to have some sort of symbol on your head?

    It’s not a bad thing at all. What is bad is to make that symbol mean something that it does not mean. In Middle Eastern culture, headcoverings for women are symbols of modesty and virtue. To remove one’s headcovering in public would be like removing clothing. My Muslim friends tell me it would be like going to the mall food court and removing your clothes. It would have been grossly inappropriate and would bring shame on the entire family. They would be disgraced, and that is why we still have honor killings, even in the West! It is also why Orthodox Jewish women cover their hair.

    There is no reason to make the headcovering a symbol of male authority except that the idea of a woman having authority did not make sense to male translators who believed that was an impossibility.


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    @ Gram3:
    Until very recently, married women in the West wore various kinds of head coverings, *especially* once they got married. Look at medieval and Renaissance portraits (of the Tudor period in England, for example) and you will see it. Girls could wear their hair uncovered, but for grown women it was considered a sign of being a shameless wanton, and prostitutes typically did not cover their hair.

    Women in the US and in many parts of Europe wore hats until *very* recently, and that fashion was a remnant of the head covering thing. In Eastern Europe and Russia, lots of women still wear headscarves in public as a matter of course. The Russian word for grandmother, “babushka,” literally means “headscarf.”

    Around here, lots of the more conservative Mennonite women still wear net caps and very plain dresses, albeit often made of calico (floral prints are a big thing, one of the few ways you can dress “plain” while also having some “fancy” in your fabric choices).


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    @ Gram3:
    Muslim men very often wear various kinds of skullcaps as a symbol of being under God’s authority (*not* as a sign of patriarchalism, but of submission to God).


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    @ numo:
    Or turbans or other kinds of headwraps; ditto for the women. I am thinking of both West and East Africa in particular while typing this. Women in W. Africa (Muslim and non-) seem to have lovely headwraps, in many different styles. And mens’ headgear can vary quite a lot, too.


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    @ numo:
    Exactly. Headcovering is a cultural practice, and particular cultural practices are no longer binding in the church except to the extent that not observing them would bring disrepute on Christ and the church.

    I remember when a proper lady wore a hat and gloves to church and elsewhere. When we travel, we try to observe at *least* the cultural norms of behavior. Not because there is some rule but rather to not give people cause to complain about Americans and/or Christians. The obnoxious American role is already overstaffed.


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    @ numo:
    I guess a Sikh man who became a Christian would have a little trouble with the hair length thing in 1 Corinthians 11. 🙂 Remember when that was taught as a prohibition on long hair for guys in the 70’s?


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    Gram3 wrote:

    . Check out the interlinear where there is a disjunctive used before Paul asks the rhetorical question of whether the Law came to them only.

    Loren Cunningham in the book “Why Not Women” lists 14 times in 1 Cor. where this “expletive of dissociation” is used by Paul. It’s the equivalent today of saying “Nonsense” or “No Way.”

    Many translations have eliminated that little expletive, but here’s the list and it can be confirmed most likely in an interlinear.

    1 Cor. 1:13; 6:2; 6:9; 6:16: 6:19; 7:16; 9:6; 9:7; 9:8; 9:10; 10:22; 11:22; 14:36

    These are evidence that Paul was quoting another’s opinion and uses an emotional rebuttal.


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    In other news, I’m just back from taking my son to see It Follows at a nearby Cineworld. Not bad – it did have some genuinely creepy moments, and the premise itself creates a lot of background tension. But for sheer hyperglycaemia *, it couldn’t match the terrific ’71 that we went to see last year.

    That is, blood sugar level significantly above the control target of 7 mmol / l, rather than acute ketoacidosis


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    That is, blood sugar level significantly above the control target of 7 mmol / l, rather than acute ketoacidosis

    Even relationships between SI (metric) units measuring the same thing aren’t always obvious. Here in the states the unit used is mg/dl (milligrams of glucose per deciliter). There is a unitless factor of 18 between these: 7 mmol/l = 126 mg/dl. Isn’t science fun!


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    hyperglycaemia

    That does it. The british credibility with spelling has been shot with that one. hyper (elevated) glyc (glucose) a (not or without) emia (having to do with blood). Elevated glucose without blood.

    I am going back to using gotten.


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    Nancy wrote:

    …a (not or without) emia (having to do with blood). Elevated glucose without blood.

    Actually, no.

    aem- from αἷμ-. Since a- in the sense of “not or without” is from the Greek (α-), I’m not sure to which ancestor language you were heading with “emia” there. But it does not mean “blood” in Greek.

    Still, I suppose you’d better go back to “gotten” if it makes you happy.


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    @ Nick Bulbeck:

    So I was talking about the difference in how you all do and how we do, and as I take you are saying how did we get to where we got over here. You may have confused me with gram 3 who loves greek, but none the less I will say this.

    The greek word for blood, they tell me when I looked it up just now was haima. Sometimes we keep the -h- and sometimes we drop the -h-when combining terms. You all use -ae- next and we us -e- next, and eventually we both get to -o-. So you have haemoglobin and I have hemoglobin but we neither have haimaglobin. We use either -a- or -an- for less or without or not, as in asymmetry but anesthesia. I don’t know what you all do about that except you mentioned -a-.

    In combining terms for medical words mere fragments are used frequently. Thus if you start with -heme- as referring to blood (hema- and hemo- hemato-etc) then when the -h- gets dropped it becomes the fragment em or eme for various words. At the same time -ia- means condition of. Think pneumonia. Thus anemia literally says a condition of less blood-not really pathologically accurate of course but that is the word. I am thinking you all have anaemia, but I did not look it up, and I do not know what you have when you get a lung infection but that is beside the point.

    In the case in point, hyperglycemia (a condition of elevated glucose in the blood) would be our spelling and to throw an -a- in there would be to introduce a negative. You all do not do it like that apparently.

    My whole point, and the whole reason for my comment in the first place, is that there is enough difference in the language you speak and the language I speak, including some specificities of medical terminology spelling, that I am justified in using gotten if it pleases me, and since I was rigidly trained to do so in childhood I believe I will. Besides I looked that up before and the information over here is that it is something for which there is divided opinion, while some editors do not like it and some do not care. I am assuming that you all do not like it.

    This is rather exhausting, you know but whatever. I am not going to edit all this- it will have to do as it is.

    I hear you about your elevated blood sugar. I continue to curse and grumble about your disease. It is no way no how okay for people to have to deal with that stuff.


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    @ Gram3:
    yes, i do remember that! 😉


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    @ Nancy:
    “Gotten” is very common, and I certainly have no problem with it.


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    numo wrote:

    @ Nancy:
    “Gotten” is very common, and I certainly have no problem with it.

    I have got no problem with gotten, either. I had got(ten) the impression from somewhere that it was the French who are finicky about their language.


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    @ Gram3:

    I have no idea why got(ten) has got(ten) away with me so badly, but it has come to occupy the position of the last straw. I have changed the last blippin thing that I intend to change. Here it is. My line in the sand. If I have to I am going to take my white hair and wrinkles and pretend to have semi-advanced dementia in order to get away with it. Whatever it takes.

    Too bad that when it came to last straw it could not have been something substantive. Or spiritual. Or illegal even maybe. But got(ten)? Who would have thought.


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    @ Nancy:

    Er – you knew I was joking, right?

    I use elevated blood sugar readings as a quantitative film-tenseness index, is all…


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Er – you knew I was joking, right?

    Not a clue Nick. I thought you were talking about that trouble you had a while back. Well, at least it is good to know it now. I miss a lot of humor a lot of the time.


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    @ Victorious:
    It’s an interesting point, but it falls foul of Ken’s 7th Law: it depends on a subtle nuance in the Greek missed by the standard translations. This doesn’t mean it should be dismissed out of hand, but it reminds me of our friend John Mac on tongues, where he has already decided this is pagan and demonic, and reads this into the Greek text as he who speaks in a tongue speaks to a god, a translation not found in any version as far as I know.

    I’m afraid I still think the silent women verses need to be understood in the context in which they are found, the theme of silence for specific people and contexts running through the chapter. You have to try to work out what general principle was not being obeyed from the text itself.

    The presuppositions you have before reading are important. It’s clear this is often interpreted to agree with what the reader already thinks, it’s difficult not to do this.

    My presupposition is women may exercise all the the gifts God gives them, but not be teachers or assume pastoral authority, obviously influenced by 1 Tim. That’s partly why I link it with judging prophecy, but I agree this is not altogether obvious from the text, it is inferred. I there is little room for too much dogmatism on how this it to be understood by any of the competing views.


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    Ken wrote:

    It’s an interesting point, but it falls foul of Ken’s 7th Law: it depends on a subtle nuance in the Greek missed by the standard translations.

    Actually, the KJV, among others, did translate it clearly as a disjunctive.

    http://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/14-36.htm

    It makes no sense in light of Paul’s summation of his argument in vs. 39 that he is putting any restriction on women. He is calling for order at the same time as he is refuting extra rules *added* by the oral law. Jesus frequently ran afoul of the same oral laws.

    I agree about the necessity to read in context. Since you ground your understanding of this in light of 1 Timothy 2, how do you ground Paul’s argument there? Verse 12 cannot be separated from the other verses to which it is attached by conjunctions. This is not a nuance but rather standard grammar. Do you ground Paul’s argument in some Order of Creation, and, if so, where is that in Genesis?

    Are you saying that the reason women are not allowed to teach is that the Woman was the one deceived and the Woman represents all women as our federal head of sorts? What do you do with the reference Paul makes to Eve in 2 Corinthians 11:2 where Eve is used as an example of *all* who are deceived regardless of sex?

    What does verse 15 mean, and how is that linked to Paul’s argument? These are all questions that need to be answered before one can simply say 1 Timothy 2:12 is a plain and universal restriction on women and use that understanding to interpret other verses like 1 Corinthians 14.

    There has to be some grounding for Paul’s argument, and I think that is why this ultimately comes down to some supposed Order of Creation that isn’t in the text of Genesis.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    There has to be some grounding for Paul’s argument, and I think that is why this ultimately comes down to some supposed Order of Creation that isn’t in the text of Genesis.

    When I was saying something a while back about Luke either misquoting Paul or else Paul being inaccurate about who called David after God’s own heart in the OT because the statement is not attributed exactly as stated, you argued that perhaps Paul had information we do not have. Might that be true of the order of creation argument?

    You know I am not arguing for an order of creation argument because of my prior stated belief about origins, but I am saying that from the standpoint of you and Ken perhaps your prior argument would apply–that maybe it does not have to be spelled out that way in order for Paul to be correct in his apparent understanding of the issue.


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    @ Nancy:
    I think I’m misunderstanding. I believe that the expressions “a man after God’s own heart” is commonly understood to mean that God approved of David’s actions. But I believe that the point is that David is the man whom God intended to rule Israel. David was an unexpected choice, it seems, but God had a plan. “Heart” has come to have connotations of approval where it used to mean something more like “intention” or will rather than emotion.

    The problem with the 1 Timothy “appeal to creation” argument is that there is nothing in the text to indicated that there is any significance attached to the order of “birth” or creation. That is a cultural belief, not a divine order. That makes the “appeal to creation order” basically a circular argument. The order must be assumed from Genesis to find it that meaning in 1 Timothy and 1 Timothy supposedly informs our understanding of Genesis 2 which then supposedly supplies the Order of Creation via various “hints” and “whispers” as RBMW puts it. That is what the Comp/Patriarchal argument comes down to when you strip out the flowery language and confusing illogical assertions.

    I think Paul has been grossly misunderstood, but the misunderstandings made sense in the cultural contexts which have existed since Genesis 3. It is only recently that those cultural assumptions have been tested. If we set those assumptions aside, then Paul makes more sense in the context of the New Covenant and all that entails.


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    @ Gram3:

    You are misremembering our prior conversation. Luke said that Paul said that God called David a man after his own heart, but in the OT the statement is not attributed to God but rather to Samuel. (I did not make this up, I read this in one of my current “radical” books, of course. I would never have noticed this on my own.) So, either Luke misquoted Paul as to the attribution of who said what, or else Paul was not accurate in saying that God was the one who said it. At which point you said that perhaps Paul had access to other information (texts?) that we do not have. This does not have anything to do with what the meaning of the phrase or how common it was or was not but rather with what the exact quote is.

    So you seem to be saying that in looking at the creation stories the order of creation argument is not there, if I understand you. So, I am saying that according to your prior argument, perhaps Paul had access to some information (texts?) that we do not have.

    I would argue that Paul had apostolic authority and was inspired by the Holy Spirit and was not limited to quoting OT texts, if I were arguing this particular issue. But that is a whole different conversation. I am simply saying that by your prior argument, here again, perhaps he had access to more information (texts?) than we do.


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    @ Nancy:
    I don’t remember saying that about the David issue, though I’m also not denying I did, especially this week! Do you remember the thread so that I could go back and look at what I wrote? I do remember being troubled that people felt that God approved of rape and murder because of how this expression is commonly misunderstood (at least IMO.)

    I do agree that Paul had apostolic authority. At least that’s how I understand things. However, to say that Paul is instituting a new law under the New Covenant or a new authority order between the genders that is nowhere indicated in the revealed text goes well beyond apostolic authority. When Paul seems to contradict himself, I think we need to probe a little deeper to see if we are not misunderstanding him. Same thing when he might seem to contradict Jesus or Peter or human authors of the texts.


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    @ Nancy:
    Since I can’t remember, I went to Acts and 1 Samuel. Paul said that God testified about David, thought God is not quoted in the OT as saying that. I think that what Paul was doing in Acts 13 is combining two of the events pertaining to Samuel and David in 1 Samuel. In 1 Samuel 13, Samuel told Saul, on God’s authority as God’s anointed prophet, that God had chosen another man to be king because Saul had disobeyed God. Then in 1 Samuel 16, God is quoted is telling Samuel to anoint David, his choice. I think these are the two references that Paul is joining in his address in Acts 13.

    Since God’s prophets in the OT spoke his words, what Paul said is actually correct when the two references are considered together. From Paul’s perspective as a rabbi, the word of God’s prophet speaking God’s word to him is the same as saying God said something. It’s not necessary to say there was any other knowledge or information source for Paul because it is there in the text of 1 Samuel. If you look at Acts 13:36, Paul refers to David being a man who fulfilled God’s purposes in his generation (unlike Saul.)

    I made some other comments above to you about 1 Timothy. Hope that clarifies things, and if I said something like Paul having some hidden knowledge or other sources, then I was either wrong or miscommunicating. Or both. 🙂


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    Ken wrote:

    I’m afraid I still think the silent women verses need to be understood in the context in which they are found, the theme of silence for specific people and contexts running through the chapter

    It’s simple imo. Paul is responding to a question posed by the new Corinthian converts. The fact that the inquiry mentioned “as the law says” should be a red flag as to the origin as Paul would know with certainty that there is no such law that prohibits women from speaking, teaching, etc. and must remain silent.

    That explains Paul’s sarcasm in verse 36. He finds such a statement absurd.


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    @ Nancy:
    You know, I often wonder why people default to the 2nd creation account in Genesis, when the 1st is there and is emphatic about one thing: there is no “created order” re. physical sex or gender. It just states that God created (human)kind, male and female. Full stop.

    I also wonder about this when Judges is raised as being the default “narrative” of the supposed conquest of Canaan, when there are alternative passages in Judges – and in light of there being zero archaeological evidence of said conquest. And the place names used in Judges are highly anachronistic, as most did not exist at that time.

    And so on. Which is why I cannot be an inerrantist. There are are other competing narratives and some secondary (different) narratives in bothe the OT and NT. Trying to explain them away is kind of foolish, imo.

    but… whatever.


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    Victorious wrote:

    The fact that the inquiry mentioned “as the law says” should be a red flag as to the origin as Paul would know with certainty that there is no such law that prohibits women from speaking, teaching, etc. and must remain silent.

    Good point. As Cheryl Schatz pointed out: God is always clear about His Law.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    It makes no sense in light of Paul’s summation of his argument in vs. 39 that he is putting any restriction on women. He is calling for order at the same time as he is refuting extra rules *added* by the oral law. Jesus frequently ran afoul of the same oral laws.

    I had researched the references to women’s voices in assemblies in the Talmud at one time and saved them.

    “A woman’s voice is prohibited because it is sexually provocative” (Talmud, Berachot 24a).

    “Women are sexually seductive, mentally inferior, socially embarrassing, and spiritually separated from the law of Moses; therefore, let them be silent” (summary of Talmudic sayings).

    The Talmud Called the Voice of a Woman “Shameful”

    “It is a shame for a woman to let her voice be heard among men” (Talmud, Tractate Kiddushin)

    “The voice of a woman is filthy nakedness” (Talmud, Berachot Kiddushin)

    With those references in mind, it’s clear where the reference to women being silent originates imo.


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    @ Victorious:
    Thanks for that helpful summary. To me, the combination of Paul contradicting himself, his explanation in vs. 39, and the fact that this prohibition is nowhere recorded is very, very good evidence. The fact is, no one I know of actually practices total female silence in Protestant churches. Just like we know that braided hair is OK and pearls are OK and men praying while not lifting their hands is OK and men with long hair and women with short hair is OK. Ostentatious and disruptive and selfish behavior is not OK, regardless of cultural particulars.

    I agree with you about the law, and ISTM that if these laws against women teaching and having authority and speaking are so “clear” then we ought to have instruction that is not bound to verses that are notoriously difficult to understand, as all agree. God demonstrated with the Big 10 that he is capable of doing that if it is important.


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    numo wrote:

    You know, I often wonder why people default to the 2nd creation account in Genesis, when the 1st is there and is emphatic about one thing: there is no “created order” re. physical sex or gender.

    But that is precisely the reason that they focus on Genesis 2. They can read authority into Genesis 2 a lot more easily than into Genesis 1 which is explicit regarding equality with differences but with no assigned “roles” or significance attached to the temporal order of their creation.

    RBMW is rather shameless about re-writing the Genesis narrative to, among other things, make the Woman’s first sin coming out from under the Man’s authority. Funny how God did not rebuke her for that supposed egregious first sin! Chapter 3 of that book would be hilarious if I didn’t care about the integrity of the text and exegetical methods.

    I don’t know about Judges and the conquest narratives. Having visited the exhibit at the excavation at Megiddo, I’m reluctant to conclude that an absence of evidence means more than an absence of evidence. It is a much smaller geographical area than I thought in my imagination. I am *not* an archeologist, and I don’t have knowledge beyond that. The archeologists are doing some amazing work there, so we’ll see what they find.


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    @ Gram3:
    Jericho was not destroyed during the period in question. There are absolutely zero remajns of fallen walls at the corresponding level. (You’ve been to an excavation site, so are likely aware that there are *many* layers, as people built on top of older buildings again and again.)

    The current scholarly consensus is that Judges was compiled and edited either during or after the exile (probably both). It was not intdnded to read as fact in the way that we commonly assume. Of course, there is a serious problem with the book, re. God’s apparent endorsement of genocide. I cannot accept that as either the nature of God, nor as a reflection of actual historic events, and i do not think it is good to brush aside the many questions it raises. It has some truly appalling passages, and i will freely admit that, to me, they sound like a combination of the Holocaust, Pol Pot’s reign of terror in Cambodia, and the genocide in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.


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    @ Gram3:
    As for the 1st creation account, it would be nice to see more attention paid to it. I do not believe in inerrantism or literalism, which actualy opens up those texts in a pretty lovely way. The 1st one is highly poetic, while the 2nd one reminds me of some of the Native American myths I’ve read. Chaplain Mike has an excellent series of posts at imonk on both passages as OT wisdom literature, and he goes into some detail on that.


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    @ numo:
    Which actually allows for those texts to open up…


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    @ Victorious:
    Do you have approximate dates for any of these passages? Seems important, in terms of scholarship as well as application. The Talmud evolved over a fairly long period of time, and it is more than posdible that there are other passages that are the opposite of the ones you cite. Judaism has long allowed for widely varying views, unlike xtianity, and i think that is one of its best characteristics.


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    @ numo:
    Jericho is not near Megiddo, obviously. I’m not qualified *at all* to comment one way or the other, so there’s that. I believe Sailhamer makes a good case for the notion of an editor compiling at least the Pentateuch. I thought he made a pretty good argument. But I simply don’t know enough. I believe that inerrancy is something like an axiom for me. It’s the place where my chain of authority of scripture begins. Others don’t see it that way, of course!

    I do think that we can make mistakes with evidence. One is thinking that absence of evidence means no evidence exists and will never be found. Another is to appeal to unknown evidence which is out there somewhere which will ultimately prove a POV. Another is to misinterpret evidence we do have which leads us to wrong conclusions. Regardless, ISTM, we have some difficulties with the conquest narratives as we have them. How we resolve that is going to look different.

    The conquest is awful, no doubt about it, and I don’t have good answers just like I don’t have good answers for the problem of evil. The older I get the more questions I have, ironically. There is no question that we read Hebrew literature with modern Western eyes, and that has its own problems.


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    @ Gram3:
    Well, here’s the thing: part of my academic training is in history, so i can’t discount the lack of evidence regarding widespread violence and warfare in Palestine at the time that’s presupposed in Joshua. The fact that Jericho was not razed is a compelling argument, imo, against taking the stories related in Joshua as factfactual accounts. (NNot to mention the ginormous cluster of grapes, and much, much more.) Ii think the typical inerrantist readings would baffle people from the time when the book was written and compiled.

    All that said, i have no background in archaeology, although i think it is a fascinating field, and some people have made truly astounding discoveties, both large and small. I have worked at both art and history museums, and precise dating is important when dealing with any historical period, though obviously, things get much harder the further back in time you go.


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    @ Gram3:
    It isn’t just Hebrew literature, it’s everything from the past. Anyone who looks at any text at all is inevitably going to see it through the lenses of their own time, culture, etc. This is as true of Shakespeare as it is of the Bible.


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    numo wrote:

    And so on. Which is why I cannot be an inerrantist. There are are other competing narratives and some secondary (different) narratives in bothe the OT and NT. Trying to explain them away is kind of foolish, imo.

    Precisely.

    There is one theory about the silent women passage that it was not written by Paul but rather added later by someone else. In NT Wright’s book Surprised by Scripture in the chapter about the biblical case for ordaining women he recommend that everybody should read the work of Gordon Fee on the subject. Wright says that he himself is not convinced one way or the other of this (is of two minds.) Then he rather likes Ken Bailey’s explanation, but notes that there are other ideas out there.

    I poured over the chapter in which he addresses some of the difficult passages. Not what he says or what I have heard anybody say or argue or translate or try to explain constitutes for me a hill on which to die. I do think it is abundantly clear that somebody who had a hand in what we now call the NT clearly saw differences between male and female and clearly had one eye on the culture of the day, but there is abundant room for differences of opinion as to what all that means for us today.


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    @ Gram3:

    I think the conquest stories are plausible because we see that sort of thing elsewhere including in the middle east right now. And some of the tribal warfare in Africa in the not too distant past was staggering in brutality, or so said the media. However, I also think that the lack of corroborating evidence is important. What bugs the life out of me is why we can’t just say “we don’t know.” Why do we have to have a theory or an opinion? Well, IMO, we only have to have a theory if we are wedded to inerrancy, otherwise we can wait it out and see.


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    Nancy wrote:

    What bugs the life out of me is why we can’t just say “we don’t know.” Why do we have to have a theory or an opinion? Well, IMO, we only have to have a theory if we are wedded to inerrancy, otherwise we can wait it out and see.

    I think it’s because not “knowing” is very uncomfortable, therefore we have to “know” something. Other times it’s simply a matter of pragmatism–have to go one way or the other. A belief in inerrancy does not require that I “know” something but rather that I believe it. Because, for me, it is a belief, I can indeed wait it out and see what happens.

    That’s why I characterize my belief in inerrancy as what it is. A faith position. Because it is a faith position, I don’t need to persuade or bully others with it but let God work in them the way that pleases him.

    Those are some good points about the kind of total warfare that has been more the norm for human history. Also, the resident pagan religions were ghastly with human sacrifice and sexual worship.


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    numo wrote:

    @ Gram3:
    It isn’t just Hebrew literature, it’s everything from the past. Anyone who looks at any text at all is inevitably going to see it through the lenses of their own time, culture, etc. This is as true of Shakespeare as it is of the Bible.

    That is true, of course. Translating culture is dicey and only gets more so the further back we go. Lots of assumptions and missing pieces that get filled in and possibly not accurately so. When I referred to Hebrew texts being misunderstood, it is because we can make a big mistake if we assume that the texts mean something just because that is what texts mean today because that is how we use texts.

    Jericho is a puzzle, no doubt about it, along with a lot of other questions I have.


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    I may not be understanding what you all are saying about the creation stories and the presence or absence of their saying something about an order of creation. It looks to me like the creation story of Genesis 1 is all about order. A god who creates from nothing and also a god who brings order our of chaos. The idea as been brought forth that these stories were written down in the light of the babylonian captivity, and that one purpose was/could have been to show that the god of the jews was better than the gods of their captors. What other god creates from nothing and what other god is all about bringing order out of chaos? (Of course I read this somewhere.)

    And, a sort of human order is intrinsic in god telling people to be fruitful and multiply, since mother is different from father. What is not there is the idea that male is better than female. But difference is intrinsic in sexual differentiation in the species.

    Genesis 2 is a whole ‘nuther thing.’ Not going there right this minute, but IMO the idea of order has already been established in Genesis 1, and if not, Genesis 2 would look like total nonsense. (Which it may be, but then I am a sort of heathen.)


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    @ Nancy:
    Genesis 1 is certainly about God bringing order out of chaos. The Order of Creation isn’t exactly about that though it involves that idea. The Order of Creation has been applied to both race and sex. The thinking is that God has built social structures into his creation such that there are hierarchies of race and sex. The temporal order of the Man and the Woman is supposed to be an indicator of God’s intention regarding their ontological order as well. Complementarians have recognized the problem with an ontological ordering, so they say that the authority ordering is merely functional. Of course, that functional ordering is determined by sex, so it’s really a word game.

    AFAIK, those who call themselves egalitarian don’t deny that there are differences in the sexes but only that sex does not determine who is over whom and who is allowed to do what.

    Whether it is classism or racism or sexism, the idea is that God has designated a certain group to be rulers and the other group/s to be followers/servants.


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    @ numo:
    Err, Joshua as default narrative. Hoo boy, did i mess up!


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    @ numo:
    Joshua was compoled…


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    @ Nancy:
    All i meant is that there is nothing there that can be seized on by people who want to read a gender-based hierarchy into the text. So they ignore that and concentrate on the other creation story.


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    @ Gram3:

    I got that. I understand what people are saying. But I am saying that while I think the comps are in error, I also think that there is evidence of order of creation thinking in scripture and that Paul (or whoever edited his comments and may have inserted some stuff) believed it to some extent, though apparently not going nearly as far as the comps do now. I am good with saying that it was mostly related to culture. I am even good with saying that while we are not expecting further revelation we do continue to increase in understanding of things (a pope said that.) I am not comfortable in saying that it is not in scripture at some level. That is what I am saying.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    . Since you ground your understanding of this in light of 1 Timothy 2, how do you ground Paul’s argument there?

    Well you did ask!!

    A quick skim through the beginning of Genesis reveals the following:

    1 v 26f God creates mankind, male and female, in his image and they are co-regents to govern the earth.

    Chapter two is supplemental information on the creation of Eden and more details on the creation of mankind. Adam is created first, and is given the word of God in the form of the commandment not to eat of the tree. Subsequently Eve is created from him and for him, a helper fit for him.

    Chapter 3 has the fall, the temptation by Satan who had at this stage already fallen. He attacks Eve with the infamous Did God say denial of God’s word which must have been told her by Adam. She was deceived; he sinned deliberately and from him sin and death is inherited by the race.

    Later God responds to this state of affairs with his sentence on all the three characters. For Eve it is being ruled over by her husband, a description rather than a prescription. God’s judgement on Adam was Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree … where the and is important. It was an abdication of responsibility on Adam’s part.

    Now I see this scenario as explaining Paul’s thinking in 1 Tim 2. Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent (quiet) is to prevent a repetition in miniature of the events of Genesis 3. He grounds this in Genesis 1 – 3 For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. There is a responsibility laid upon certain men in the church to be custodians of the word of God as Adam was, and men who are not called to this (cf. Titus 1 10 – 11) and all women are called to submit to this order to avoid any similar deception as Eve succumbed to.

    This same order is echoed in 1 Cor 11 with headship grounded in Genesis again. This does not mean women who have received the Spirit cannot pray or prophesy, but there is an appropriate way to do this. Being unisex is not one of them.

    When we get to 1 Cor 14 and the silent women verses, I see the same principle at work. At some point in the meeting, the women were to keep silent as an expression of submission. It is true that the Law Paul alludes to here (and I believe to be the OT in general and Genesis in particular) does not command silence, but it does imply submission, as amplified in 1 Tim 2, where Paul is writing under inspiration so I regard this as the correct way to understand Genesis. The judgement God made there is still in force, it will only be lifted in the future.

    The difficulty of interpreting 1 Tim 2 v 15 has little bearing on how to understand the preceding two verses.

    The attempt to negate 1 Tim by making it local and temporary rather than universal and permanent in my judgement makes the church vulnerable to spiritual attack in its own right. This attack can result in deception of both men and women as you often point out!

    Now the exact details of the problems and customs in Corinth and Ephesus may not be known to us, but there is sufficient information to get the gist of it providing we are careful, and in all the head/submission passages of Paul, he bases his argument on the ‘created order’ in Genesis plus his own apostolic revelation, rather than culture.

    Incidentally, I take Genesis as literal history expressed sometimes in symbolic language, and as I get older, I get more scared to doubt its veracity.


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    @ Nancy:

    It seems to me that some of our scripture arguments as to what scripture meant by this or that come from starting with our own cultural values (especially in social issues) and then thinking that surely scripture agrees with our current values so let’s see if we can’t find a way for that to be true. This looks like an attempt to rescue scripture from itself. How is it a bad thing to think that such and so was how people thought then (but not now) and scripture advised people how to live in that time and place (but not applicable now) because times have changed and issues have changed and god is not dead.


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    Ken wrote:

    I take Genesis as literal history expressed sometimes in symbolic language

    I don’t. I am convinced more by those who say that it is primarily a story about the god of the jews and how he does things. Told in story form-not history or science.

    Ken wrote:

    The attempt to negate 1 Tim by making it local and temporary rather than universal and permanent in my judgement makes the church vulnerable to spiritual attack in its own right. This attack can result in deception of both men and women as you often point out!

    Here we get to one of the central points of the controversy. Ecclesiology. Is the church “stuck” in first or second century AD thinking or has authority been passed on to the church (one way to say it) or do we still have the presence of the Spirit (another way of saying it) to live in the times and cultures where we are now? If one says that the church has no such authority and that the Spirit is limited now more than then, then there is nothing left but to be first or second century christians, and proud of it. This is a popular theme in some circles. And this I am thinking is at the heart of a lot of our disagreements.


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    @ Nancy:
    indeed.


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    Nancy wrote:

    I regard this as the correct way to understand Genesis. The judgement God made there is still in force, it will only be lifted in the future.

    If you believe this, then what about every other command and law that was given in the OT? Why is the Genesis judgement (as you call it) in effect until some future date?

    Ken wrote:

    but there is an appropriate way to do this. Being unisex is not one of them.

    No one has said anything about wanting everything to be unisex.


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    @ Bridget

    Both of these quotes were from Ken (arg!!)

    Nancy –

    This is one of those cases where I quoted Ken but the ‘system’ put your name there instead. Frustrating.


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    Ken wrote:

    The difficulty of interpreting 1 Tim 2 v 15 has little bearing on how to understand the preceding two verses.

    The verses are linked as an entire argument where verse 15 sums up Paul’s point. Same as in 1 Corinthians 11. It makes no sense to say that one part of an integrated argument can be lifted out of its context and made to mean something. That is classic prooftexting. Paul is making an argument. I understand the need to sever off vs. 15 because it is not convenient to the “plain reading” hermeneutic that is necessary for vs. 12 to mean what the comps need it to mean. If you sign a contract, are you OK with the other party severing off some convenient clauses from the entirety of the contract? I think that is unlikely. The fact is that Paul’s *entire* argument fits perfectly as a refutation of the false doctrines of the Ephesian Artemis cult.

    You have cited some inferences which you draw from Genesis 2 which are not necessary inferences and which do not negate the explicitly stated equality in Genesis 1:26-28. Do you really think that the Man was given some special revelation that was not also (subsequently) given to the Woman? Do you really believe that the only reason the Man ate the fruit was because the woman was deceived? Do you really think that women are more easily deceived? That flies in the face of 2 Corinthians where Paul uses Eve as a cautionary example of people of both sexes who are deceived and act on that deception. Paul *never* links deception with a particular sex, though Eve was the first human to be deceived.

    If keeping women from teaching men is protection from spiritual attack or deception, then what explains male false teachers? Is it better to have a male false teacher rather than a female teacher of truth? Why did Paul need to re-teach something so obvious as No Females Teaching Males to Timothy when they two had spent so much time together? Was Timothy that dense? Or was Timothy faced with some women steeped in the Artemis cult who were bringing those false teachings into the church and taking over the assembly in Artemisian fashion?

    So, what is it in 1 Timothy 2 that makes you believe that Paul is not correcting the Ephesian Artemis error and is instead of making a universal prohibition of women teaching men? 1 Timothy has many other corrections to the Ephesian Artemis cult teachings, but they don’t get nearly as much attention. However, once we understand the cult, the odd references make much more sense. That is the same phenomenon as understanding Jewish culture brings clarity to some unclear statements of Jesus.

    You still have not demonstrated where Paul has grounded the supposed appeal to creation that he makes except via your inferences and assumptions. Where did God change his mind and institute some order or priority of one sex or one race over another in Genesis? Or where in the OT did God say anything about a universal prohibition of female authority over males?


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    Bridget wrote:

    No one has said anything about wanting everything to be unisex.

    That is the appeal to fear that Grudem and Piper and company make. It is totally false but is scary enough that people don’t stop and think about it. Same with the appeal to Scary Feminists. Not one of these guys will specify what, exactly, about female emancipation has brought the erosion of culture. They will not specify which right needs to be rolled back so that everything will be OK again.


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    Ken wrote:

    The attempt to negate 1 Tim by making it local and temporary rather than universal and permanent in my judgement makes the church vulnerable to spiritual attack in its own right.

    How?


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    Ken wrote:

    and in all the head/submission passages of Paul, he bases his argument on the ‘created order’ in Genesis plus his own apostolic revelation, rather than culture

    Ken, Paul knew that created order held no significance. He was well grounded in OT history and would have known that…

    God chose:

    Isaac over Ishmael,

    Jacob over Esau,

    Ephraim over Manasseh,

    the tribe of Judah over that of Reuben the eldest,

    Joseph over all his older brothers,

    and David over all his older brothers

    He also knew that neither does God show partiality in regard to age, gender, ethnicity or marital status.


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    Ken wrote:

    and in all the head/submission passages of Paul, he bases his argument on the ‘created order’ in Genesis plus his own apostolic revelation, rather than culture.

    So to invoke “order of creation” to prove anything creates another circular argument. 1Timothy 2:13 does not serve as compelling proof that Paul is mandating female exclusion in ministry of any type.

    What Paul is saying from this Genesis account has nothing to do with assigning all women of all times a subordinate status in church life. It was cited to make the point that untaught and unqualified individuals should not aspire to teaching functions or to positions of leadership. They should first become quiet learners. Adam (man) has been formed; now it’s time for Eve (women) to be formed.


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    Don’t know if any of you have heard about this state Rep in Arkansas that rehomed some adoptive girls after thinking they were demon possessed. The story gets sadder from there. http://m.arktimes.com/arkansas/casting-out-demons-why-justin-harris-got-rid-of-kids-he-applied-pressure-to-adopt/Content?oid=3725371


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    Ken wrote:

    Incidentally, I take Genesis as literal history expressed sometimes in symbolic language, and as I get older, I get more scared to doubt its veracity.

    The Bible passages Gen 1.1 – 11.9 that in too many Christian traditions are interpreted literally are particularly contentious. I believe the best way to approach these stories is as parables, stories that are intended to be interpreted in any culture and language to convey important truths about God and His intentions for us, not as commentary on current science and technology or as history.


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    @ oldJohnJ:
    Thanks OldJohnJ!


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    @ Nancy:

    The trouble with having a dry sense of humour (as it is known over here – it may go by another descriptor over there) is that people don’t always know I’m joking. Inevitably, it rarely goes well when that happens 😉

    I must apologise, though, for my churlish-sounding response re diabetes – that is, I didn’t intend it to be churlish, but on reflection I don’t think it reads very well – to your perfectly reasonable and undoubtedly well-meant commiseration. I am, of course, very fortunate to live somewhere where everything you need to manage type 1 diabetes is available on tap. Elsewhere in the world, it would be far more than a minor inconvenience.


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    “Now I see this scenario as explaining Paul’s thinking in 1 Tim 2. Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent (quiet) is to prevent a repetition in miniature of the events of Genesis 3. He grounds this in Genesis 1 – 3 For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. There is a responsibility laid upon certain men in the church to be custodians of the word of God as Adam was, and men who are not called to this (cf. Titus 1 10 – 11) and all women are called to submit to this order to avoid any similar deception as Eve succumbed to. ”

    So let me understand you. Being deceived and admitting is WORSE than sinning on purpose. The one who sinned on purpose is therefore more qualified to lead the one who was deceived and admitted it?

    This presents a God with no common sense.


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    @ Bridget:

    I do not know whom you meant to quote, but I did not write that. Maybe the computer did to you what it did to me a couple weeks ago. It has glitches like that.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    Ken wrote:

    The attempt to negate 1 Tim by making it local and temporary rather than universal and permanent in my judgement makes the church vulnerable to spiritual attack in its own right.

    How?

    The answer to that I have seen is because Satan deceives women and leaves the men who knowingly sin on purpose, alone. So that means it is better to knowingly sin on purpose than to be deceived. And worse, the Cross/resurrection was not even enough for women to stop being easily deceived. Sad, huh?


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    @ Nancy:

    Oops. I did not read to the end of the page before posting that comment. It has been a long day. I am having some work done in the bathroom and they tore out tile and replaced the tub and there are holes in the wall and holes in my wallet after this. It happens.


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    Bridget wrote:

    No one has said anything about wanting everything to be unisex.

    This is the scare tactic. It is the default position. A bigger problem with this is what does that mean for women as their Savior is a male? Does present problems for women? Is there a pink and blue salvation? Women are even referred to as “sons” in the NT with full inheritance from the Father.


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    Ken wrote:

    It’s an interesting point, but it falls foul of Ken’s 7th Law: it depends on a subtle nuance in the Greek

    Tangentially to the topic in hand, It’s one of my laws too, probably down somewhere near 7 for me as well. Now, I happen to love nuances in the Greek; God often draws my attention to them. That may be to spur me on when doing the right thing is hard, or to suggest a wise approach to an immediate problem that I might otherwise have missed, or to correct my attitude or behaviour towards someone, etc etc. On occasion, it will similarly speak to another believer whose brain is wired like mine. But it will not be to establish a doctrine that is binding on all believers in all settings for all time.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    Or where in the OT did God say anything about a universal prohibition of female authority over males?

    This is the big problem. The only thing they can appeal to is what is “modeled” in a very evil culture that God worked around, with, over and under. A stiff necked people who were constantly doing it their way. That is what we are to take as “evidence” that males are superior in some way.

    The irony is that the horrible evil that came about from sin and caused all the problems was seeking a pecking order. Who would rule who. Everything from patriarchy to conquests to slavery is part of that evil.

    As I have said for years, many are teaching sin as virtue and don’t even realize it.


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    In other news, my latest apple and cinnamon Bakewell sponge * has turned out very nicely. I’m trying different approaches with the apple layer; haven’t quite got what I want yet.

    * Information if required: “Bakewell sponge” or, more commonly, “Bakewell tart” is named after the Derbyshire village of Bakewell. It may or may not be baked well.


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    Lydia wrote:

    So let me understand you. Being deceived and admitting is WORSE than sinning on purpose. The one who sinned on purpose is therefore more qualified to lead the one who was deceived and admitted it?
    This presents a God with no common sense.

    You are correct…makes no sense whatsoever. And btw, look who’s doing all the deceiving in the church today….:(


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    Victorious wrote:

    So to invoke “order of creation” to prove anything creates another circular argument. 1Timothy 2:13 does not serve as compelling proof that Paul is mandating female exclusion in ministry of any type.

    What Paul is saying from this Genesis account has nothing to do with assigning all women of all times a subordinate status in church life. It was cited to make the point that untaught and unqualified individuals should not aspire to teaching functions or to positions of leadership.

    Or the Apostle Paul is simply refuting a pagan creation myth at Ephesus in answer to his protege Timothy. To me this approach to the famous/infamous Timothy texts makes more sense (simpler solution) than Paul as some kind of new Moses to the Gentiles with even more ‘commands’ from the Almighty out of Horeb.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    “Bakewell tart” is named after the Derbyshire village of Bakewell. It may or may not be baked well.

    We’ve had a holiday (vacation to everyone else) in the Peak District for years now, and know Bakewell well. We did on one occasion try an authentic Bakewell tart, and I am please to inform you for your edification that it is definitely not as good as the Mr Kipling ersatz version. In fact is wasn’t very nice, so go for the substitute. 🙂

    As for Greek nuances, we are virtually in agreement, the remaining difference being very difficult to describe in terms an ordinary layman would understand.

    As for dry senses of humour, mine has got me in trouble with the frozen chosen to happy clappies and everything in between on more than one occasion. So thou art not alone in thine affliction.


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    @ Ken:

    Why do you all do this, anyhow? We are no doubt just an ornery as the rest of humanity but by and large we don’t seem to glory in it.

    Here is what it sounds like what you just said;

    (1) I know enough about something to criticize the very idea, having been there ‘once’ and eaten the thing ‘once’ and who needs any more than a slice of a thing since I am such an expert at this sort of thing, and feel free to say so.

    (2) I won’t try to explain anything to you since you are nothing but an ordinary layman and you would not understand so why bother with you?

    (3) And never mind if I seem to be ugly like this, because it is all just flippancy and humor, and if you were to call me on it you would look bad. So that means I gotcha and you can’t do anything about it. NaNannyBooBoo.

    So, am I understanding this correctly? Is this a game of slap face of sorts?

    Now to those of us who do not do that in that manner (admittedly we are aggressive and ornery in other ways) we are left with a choice of two responses: discount the individual doing the talking or else discount the ethnicity of the individual doing the talking. Here is my question. Is that the object of this? Are you all lined up expressing hostility and disdain and seeing how far you can go and still get away with it? I am trying to figure out the game-not in order to play it but rather to understand it and disregard it.


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    Nancy wrote:

    So, am I understanding this correctly?

    I’m afraid not. I like your contributions here and I’m sure if I met you we would get on fine. I’m sorry if I have upset you.

    The whole of comment was very much tongue-in-cheek. None of it is intended seriously. I’m pretty certain – but I hope he comes along to confirm this – that Nick would have picked up on this. I think there may some cultural differences at work here, the comment is I suppose in-house British humour.

    For example, I don’t know Greek, let alone subtle nuances; and I do actually agree with Nick on this, the rest of the comment is only a send-up of this.

    I don’t believe in using humour to hide barbed or sarcastic comments rather than using straight talk, but there is always the danger of being misunderstood.

    I don’t take myself that seriously, and there is a time for everything under the sun, including self-deprecating humour. This is a characteristic of British humour, and can be misunderstood.


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    @ Ken:

    Thanks. I am reasonably certain that some of this is cultural. Just a word of explanation. I am not upset about how you and Nick talk to each other. I am, however, diskaboobatated (upset is far too weak a word) at the fact that I have to deal with what looks like this or something like it over at the episcopal church where the family has taken up. Father S seems to be enamored of things british and says stuff like this, and I don’t know what to make of it or him. There is something we do in the south that is quite similar and which is not a nice thing to do in any way. So I don’t know, but I like the mass and I really can’t go to church reliably alone much any more, so I need to learn to understand this or at least cope with it without being ugly to people at church when they do this.

    So, yes, it is personal, but not about you or Nick. I am just trying to get information from you guys.


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    @ Nancy:

    One last explanation. The reason why I can’t go to church reliably alone is the vertigo which seems to be going to be a chronic problem. I did not have a falling out with anybody, and I am not senile or crippled.


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    Nancy wrote:

    The reason why I can’t go to church reliably alone is the vertigo which seems to be going to be a chronic problem.

    Well, dang! I’m sorry to hear this is still going on. I’ll be praying for you. The doctors have no help or answers?


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    @ Nancy:
    Nancy – in order of priority, I sorry to hear about your vertigo. My dad suffers from something similar, and it is certainly something not nice to have.

    Regarding your church, there is a strain of dry humour in the Anglican church which I like, where they are trying not to take themselves and their churchianity too seriously. I hope your Father S is not someone who is constantly using witty remarks, this can get on your nerves (I know an ex-Baptist pastor who was like this).

    If he or a member of the congregation is someone who as a rule does not hide behind this humorous veneer to criticise or correct others, I think all you can assume if he says something that to you appears rude or out of order is that he intends this as something none too serious, and perhaps the humour has passed you by/what he is saying isn’t actually funny even though he thinks it is. There are people you could shake and ask for once to stop fooling around and say what they really think, this can as I say get very annoying. It’s all very well being diplomatic, but this can be taken too far sometimes. Someone who speaks in public really ought to make sure his listeners know how to understand what he is saying.

    I hope that helps if only a little bit. Perhaps others here have experienced a similar thing and have something a bit more practical to say on what you do when you meet it.


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    @ Ken:

    Yes. Thank you. I think Father S is a roaring extrovert and and ‘in charge’ kind of person and sometimes words come out of his mouth before they are processed in his brain perhaps. But he is friendly but not palsy, so I can pretty much avoid him by making myself scarce. As for the other bunch, well, we will just have to see. Thanks for the input.


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    Bridget wrote:

    The doctors have no help or answers?

    Actually it is interesting. Depending on the cause, and depending if there was residual damage to the inner ear (like scar from an infection) the condition may be a rest-of-your-life situation, or not. Like everything else this happens on a sliding scale. So what the best approach is, or so some of the information says, is for the brain to learn how to process the new information and establish new patterns of explaining the environment. The brain gets one kind of signal from one ear and a different one from the other ear and it does not know what to do with that. Fortunately there are also signals about the environment from vision and from the feel of things we get from feet and hands and whatever is sitting on what. We both feel and see and perceive the environment and its relationships. So, the brain has to be allowed to experience the confusion (like don’t take the pills and mask the symptoms) and it will plot new understandings of how to cope with inconsistent information. This approach seems to be helping.

    At church I am okay to walk in and sit down. I am unstable to go up for communion but so far have been able to do it. But after church when everybody is pouring into the aisles and they become a swirling mass of visual confusion, that takes away a necessary visual stable object and I have to literally hold on to either some person or some piece of furniture or run my hand down the wall or something to keep from actually staggering at best and falling at worst. But this is light years better than before and there are plenty of things and people to hang on to. The swirling crowds (church, movies, mall, parades) are the problem. For example, I can shop alone at the grocery because the cart acts as a stable object and nobody is swirling in the aisles. I can drive just fine, because my body is in contact with the car at several points, and the roads are stable objects, and the cars are mostly going in the same direction and not swirling around like people at church, and I am not standing up. The brain is a fascinating thing. Almost makes you think we were created on purpose by some intelligence or something, don’t you know.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    So, what is it in 1 Timothy 2 that makes you believe that Paul is not correcting the Ephesian Artemis error and is instead of making a universal prohibition of women teaching men?

    Because Paul grounds his prohibition in the OT, Genesis in particular, not the local culture. I must admit I hadn’t seen the significance of Adam being created first until comparatively recently. It’s nice to still be learning something!

    I might add the prohibtion as I see it is against women assuming the office of teacher and the attendent responsibilty that entails in the gathering of the church. Timothy himself was instructed at home by his mother and grandmother, Priscilla and Aquila had to sort Apollos out on his lack of understanding about the Holy Spirit, and I for one do not imagine all she did was produce the tea and cakes whilst hubby did the “real ministry”. Older women are specifically instructed to teach younger women.

    With that in mind, if for argument’s sake about 1 man in 20 becomes an elder or pastor of some kind in a church, the prohibition of this to women does not massively reduce the opportunity for women to serve and minister in the church in all sorts of ways. In fact it exempts them from a ministry for which they would incur strict judgement!

    You asked why I thought negating 1 Tim makes the church vulnerable to deception.

    I hear echoes of the initial deception in Genesis, did God say for one thing, and – and I’ll get into trouble for this – experience. This is both in my charismatic days, and more recently Willow Creek. I’ve known some Spirit-filled women who were very astute and discerning, but where women started assuming the role of teacher error followed in succession. This was also true of Willow Creek, where I spent a lot of time trying to get the feel of the place, and looking up what the female teachers there were into. Again they seemed more than prone to doctrinal deception.

    There’s a lot more behind this, and yes I know men can be deceived as well. In a sense I tríed to go the egalitarian route and consider it not such a big deal, but was forced back from this. This was particularly true of Willow, as initially I thought it must be blessed by God because of the incredible growth. Which of course meant I was prone to deception!

    I know Paul’s use of Genesis etc seems very strange to modern ears. But God hasn’t changed, man hasn’t changed, and the nature of spiritual warfare hasn’t changed. If God has ‘appointed’ certain things in the church, it is no good tying to fight him.


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    @ Victorious:
    I’ve got an idea I would like to run past you, but must disappear for while!


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    Ken wrote:

    Because Paul grounds his prohibition in the OT, Genesis in particular, not the local culture. I must admit I hadn’t seen the significance of Adam being created first until comparatively recently. It’s nice to still be learning something!

    What prohibition in Genesis? Can you be specific? Are you actually saying “Paul” is prohibiting it as in Paul is making a law for the NT church based upon Genesis? Even when there is no such prohibition or law in the OT?

    Adam was not created first in Gen 1. Adam means human. In Genesis 1, the human is referred to as “them”. Genesis 2 uses the language of “formed” not created.


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    @ Lydia:

    I agree, Lydia. There are a couple points I’ve observed in Genesis that no one seems to think are significant so provide no answers. Maybe you can…

    1) Only the man is told to leave his father and mother. This is directed to the man as the object of his leaving and cleaving is his wife. Therefore my conclusion is that the man leaves his “tribe” and dwells with his wife in her “tribe” which is her natural protector imo.

    2) Only Adam is said to have been sent from the garden. Verse 23 specifically states that he is sent out to cultivate the ground.

    3) The words …”Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return” were specifically directed to the one who was taken from the ground. Eve was not.

    Any thoughts?


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    Ken wrote:

    – but I hope [Nick] comes along to confirm this –

    Just back in from picking my son up from rugby practice. I will investigate and report back soon.


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    @ Victorious:

    I think I do need to clear something up first. I think some great arguments against gender roles can be made from reading Gen 1-3 literally as a sort of “how to/what happened” account but I also think by reading it like that we miss the even bigger message and that has hurt us all tremendously.

    God predicted (not commanded) that Eve would allow Adam to rule over her so it is no surprise she follows him out of the garden. The big word that has been so misunderstood is teshuqa which means “turning” as in turning to Adam instead of God. So the question would be: Did she have a choice whether to follow or not? I say yes but also add she wanted to give birth to the one who would bruise the evil ones heel and she needed Adam for that, too. They still had a command to be fruitful and multiply. And we see the evil results of patriarchy after that in living color.

    I think all of Genesis is a story of God’s rescue because humans chose to do it their way instead of grow in maturity and wisdom with God’s guidance. I also think the most important aspect of Gen 1-2 is the tree of the “knowledge” of good and evil…. not how creation happened. That is the part we miss because we either want it to be a treatise on gender roles or a science text on creation. We miss the bigger points of what happened because humans did not work in relationship with God to mature and become more wise and how He tries to rescue us. The humans are His image here! Why do we miss that part? And how significant is it? I say, big time significant.

    I say there is free will all over it! Otherwise it is scary stuff.

    I do think that since Eve ADMITTED she was deceived,God promised Messiah would come through her. I also think what God told the Evil One is extremely important:

    And I will put enmity
    Between you and the woman,
    And between your seed and her Seed;
    He shall bruise your head,
    And you shall bruise His heel.

    I think the Evil One particularly HATES women and wants them subjugated at every turn. I am just heartbroken that so many Christians go along with this in varying ways.

    BTW: Bushnell believes the same as you mentioned about the man leaving mom and dad and cleaving to his wife. If we read this literally the question has to be who is Adam (as male) parent’s that he must leave to cleave to Eve? It really makes no sense when read literally from the creation account. Unless I am missing something. (IOW-there were other tribes and I think that is who Cain married from which is what the narrative is communicating)

    I do agree with Bushnell’s position I just think the story is communicating women were safer in that culture when they stay within their tribe.

    I just think we are better off leaving gender stuff out of it when it is really a story communicating God’s rescue, God’s wisdom, etc. I would think the message is more about us being His image here and choosing wrongly and what lengths God goes to to rescue us.


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    @ Ken:

    Yes, I did get the jokes. As it happens, I too have visited Bakewell (Lesley is from roughly that part of England) and I can confirm that indigenous Bakewell tarts aren’t that special.


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    Lydia wrote:

    I just think we are better off leaving gender stuff out of it when it is really a story communicating God’s rescue, God’s wisdom, etc. I would think the message is more about us being His image here and choosing wrongly and what lengths God goes to to rescue us.

    Lydia, thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions. I agree with everything you’ve said and agree as well that we would be “better off leaving gender stuff out of it.” I use those points only as a rebuttal since men most always use Genesis 3 as permission to keep women in a position of subjection and ignore the other obvious male/female “instructions.” If they want to use it as a passage for male entitlement, then it’s pertinent to use all of it rather than cherry-picking words of their choice.

    I’m a fan of Bushnell’s as she makes an excellent case refuting male supremacy.

    Thanks again for your comments!


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    Ken wrote:

    I know Paul’s use of Genesis etc seems very strange to modern ears. But God hasn’t changed, man hasn’t changed, and the nature of spiritual warfare hasn’t changed. If God has ‘appointed’ certain things in the church, it is no good tying to fight him.

    No, Paul’s use of Genesis doesn’t seem strange at all to modern ears when the entire argument is placed in its literary and historical context. What is jarring to anyone who understands logic, as Paul certainly did, is that the argument is ad hoc and means nothing (is circular) if we interpret it as an appeal to the supposed Order of Creation. I don’t know why the circular reasoning in the Creation Order argument is not apparent to you. To exactly what in Genesis or the OT is Paul appealing that clearly shows God attaching any significance at all to temporal order? The argument goes: we know what Genesis means because Paul tells us, and we know what Paul means because Genesis tells us. That is an endless loop of reasoning. Paul was well-educated and knew how to construct an argument.

    You are close to being extremely uncharitable toward females with absolutely no basis for your prejudice. And that is exactly what it is. For every false female teacher, I can name a false male teacher. If you want to maintain that the cause of apostasy is a woman teaching, then show the linkage and show that the same processes do not occur with males. An example is not linkage. Post hoc and all that. Correlation and causation are not the same.

    You can’t have it both ways. Either the scripture is authoritative or it isn’t. Making up interpretive rules and ignoring inconvenient contexts is not treating the scripture with honor but rather with dishonor, and that is the card that Grudem and the others play. They use spiritual blackmail to say that if someone disagrees with them, then they are “liberals.”

    So, I take it that you would not object if you signed a contract and the other party just decided to perform some of their obligations under the contract while ignoring the others. That is what you are doing to Paul’s arguments in his letters if you take them out of context.


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    Ken wrote:

    I must admit I hadn’t seen the significance of Adam being created first until comparatively recently. It’s nice to still be learning something!

    I’m going to assume you are making a joke.


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    Lydia wrote:

    Bushnell believes the same as you mentioned about the man leaving mom and dad and cleaving to his wife. If we read this literally the question has to be who is Adam (as male) parent’s that he must leave to cleave to Eve?

    Wanted to add that I see this as the way God intended marriage for future generations. The verse doesn’t specifically address Adam by name nor Eve by name, but rather reference a “man” and his “wife.”


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    Victorious wrote:

    I use those points only as a rebuttal since men most always use Genesis 3 as permission to keep women in a position of subjection and ignore the other obvious male/female “instructions.”

    I think a clear case can be made even reading it literally there is no command from God for any gender subjugation/submission. I think that is the result of sin and God continued to work with them where they were in that mindset. In fact, I think God’s intention was the opposite. Mutual and wise dominion over what God created for them.

    You know, God is very clear with His commands and laws. We should never read any new laws or prohibitions into the text. That would be taking His Name in Vain. Putting words in His mouth that are not there is the real meaning of that Commandment. This is nothing to fool around with. If creation order was the indirect message from God for subjection then why form animals before forming the woman? They present a god who makes no sense.


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    Victorious wrote:

    Wanted to add that I see this as the way God intended marriage for future generations. The verse doesn’t specifically address Adam by name nor Eve by name, but rather reference a “man” and his “wife.”

    Very good point and also another point for why Genesis is not a treatise on science or gender roles.


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    @ Gram3:

    yes, it must be a “joke” because a “male” was not created first. The “human” was created first. Referred to as a plural “Them”. The genders were “formed” in chp 2.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    What is jarring to anyone who understands logic, as Paul certainly did, is that the argument is ad hoc and means nothing (is circular) if we interpret it as an appeal to the supposed Order of Creation. I don’t know why the circular reasoning in the Creation Order argument is not apparent to you.

    And Paul refutes that in 1 Corin 11!

    “Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. 12 For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.”


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    Lydia wrote:

    And Paul refutes that in 1 Corin 11!

    Exactly, but the Comps never read Paul’s entire argument so they don’t get to the verse where he sums up his argument. Actually, they read all of chapter 11 with a “chain of command” hermeneutic when there is nothing in that chapter about a chain of command. At all.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    Exactly, but the Comps never read Paul’s entire argument so they don’t get to the verse where he sums up his argument

    And they conveniently ignore 1 Cor. 7 where both husband and wife have equal authority in the intimate sexual relationship. And neither is permitted to override the other in these matters but mutual agreement is required.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    the Comps never read Paul’s entire argument so they don’t get to the verse where he sums up his argument.

    They seem to need some sort of educational evaluation to remedy their problems in this area. But first some sort of testing needs to be done to see if the problem is reading fluency (speed and word accuracy) or if the problem is reading comprehension (understanding.) But they do not seem to be reading all of what the bible says or else their comprehension seems to be pathetic. All the while they are claiming that their only source of information or instruction is the very bible they seem unable to read and comprehend.

    But, you know. I don’t think they have either problem. I think they know exactly what they are doing but are listing to the wrong “voice” whisper in their ear. The same voice that says “power” and “money” and “fame/recognition” and “control.”

    Case study of deception.


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    @ Nancy:

    listening


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    In other news:

    I’m working on a co-authored book today, but
     It’s a sunny day in Scotland
     There’s work to do in the garden
     There is a near-total solar eclipse due at around 9:36 GMT

    I may not get much work done.


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    @ Nick Bulbeck:
    Up to about 80% coverage here (Heidelberg) at its height, which will be in about 20 mins.


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    Hi Guys,

    I just checked yesterday to see what was up on the Open Discussion. I was delighted to find that the discussion was around the ‘women thing’ topic which inevitably gets into the two main and sticky verses from 1 Tim 2 and 1 Cor. 14. Many of you guys have done your own homework and are well able to explain clearly —point by point! Keep up the good work!! These verses have to be explained and re-explained so that at least some of the folks get the understanding–that people don’t have to be locked into a patriarchal or complementarian mind set! People need to hear the truth that mutuality is in the Bible and that it is/was God’s idea in the first place.

    The ‘un-silencing’ of women is a subject which needs to be heralded whenever there is opportunity. Clarifying the misconstrued thinking is an imperative. I head up a Linkedin discussion thread that has been going on for over 15 months! around this topic: if women can biblically be permitted to be pastors or elders or not. That topic naturally opens up all of these other ‘women thing’ discussion areas, especially the Genesis 1-3 passages. That is why this Linkedin discussion has continued for so long.

    I have been motivated to put a number of articles on my Church Exiters.com website which address these various topic areas. I have borrowed from the expertise of a number of scholars in order to make this information available.

    Here are a few of the titles that I offer as resources for further study on these topics:

    • Women in the Church and the Silence Issue Dr. Waldemar Kowalski looks at 1 Cor. 14

    • Women in the Church Dr. Gordon Fee looks at 1 Corinthians 11:7-16, Man, the Glory of God, Woman, the Glory of Man and Women’s Head Coverings in Corinth

    • Women in the Church 1. Which Book Came First—Timothy or Romans? by Dr. Cynthia L. Westfall and 2. Looking at Women from the Context of the Priesthood by Dr. John Jefferson Davis

    • Women in the Church and Evangelical Feminism by Dr. Rebecca Merrill Groothuis

    • Women in the Church—American History, Slavery, and Feminism by Dr. Rebecca Merrill Groothuis

    Comments welcome.


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    In other news, I went for the first extended fell-run of the year yesterday (10k, 550 metre climb) and nothing hurts this morning, so the minor achilles tendon injury I picked up last year seems to be progressing reasonably well.


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    @ Nick Bulbeck:

    Lovely. Run on!


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    @ Barb Orlowski:
    Thanks for your work Barb, this makes for a good ‘ready reference’ to send on when I’m asked.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    n other news, I went for the first extended fell-run of the year yesterday (10k, 550 metre climb)

    Up hill and down dale, Nick put in the effort to chase a fine ale…


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    numo wrote:

    @ Gram3:
    Jericho was not destroyed during the period in question. There are absolutely zero remajns of fallen walls at the corresponding level. (You’ve been to an excavation site, so are likely aware that there are *many* layers, as people built on top of older buildings again and again.)
    The current scholarly consensus is that Judges was compiled and edited either during or after the exile (probably both). It was not intdnded to read as fact in the way that we commonly assume. Of course, there is a serious problem with the book, re. God’s apparent endorsement of genocide. I cannot accept that as either the nature of God, nor as a reflection of actual historic events, and i do not think it is good to brush aside the many questions it raises. It has some truly appalling passages, and i will freely admit that, to me, they sound like a combination of the Holocaust, Pol Pot’s reign of terror in Cambodia, and the genocide in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.

    I wish I had the time to offer a more comprehensive response here, but I want to try and offer a few thoughts for consideration and discussion. (Full disclosure: I have a Master’s Degree in ANE Languages and Archaeology and I have been doing work in the Middle East off and on for the past two decades).

    OK, so two main thoughts based on your comment:

    (1) Re: evidence of Jericho’s destruction. We could get into all kinds of technical discussion here, which I don’t think would work well in this discussion format, so I’ll just say this. You are responding to something of a strawman when you critique the Albrightian Conquest Theory. What I mean is, very few, if any, legitimate scholars hold to that theory – even among evangelicals. You are correct that the extant archaeological data from places like Jericho, Ai, and Bethel does not support a massive, sweeping campaign of destruction against heavily fortified citadels. But the biblical account doesn’t actually claim this – that was a particular (and faulty) interpretation of the Conquest account.

    (2) Re: genocide. I am with you in that this is a very difficult issue for anyone reading the Hebrew Bible. Again, I don’t want to delve too much into boring technical details, but I will say that the sort of “genocidal” language of the biblical conquest account must be situated within its larger ANE context. Royal conquest accounts were very much prone to us exaggerated, dramatic, and hyperbolic language to make their point. We know this and the original authors and readers/hearers would also have known this. It was an accepted literary convention. So, for example, we can see that Pharaoh Merenptah claims to have utterly destroyed Israel by 1208 BC, and yet obviously they were not utterly destroyed because they show up after this in both texts and the archaeological record. We see the same thing with the biblical conquest account: an initial claim of utter destruction of Canaanite populations, and then later references that clearly indicate that there were still a bunch of Canaanites around.

    Sorry for the abruptness of this comment – quite busy at the moment. Hope it contributes to the discussion – if not, my apologies.


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    @ Mr.H:
    1) sure, but many rank and file churchgoers believe it, which is one thing i was attempting to address. I think a lot of evangelicals are wary of scholarship, or don’t see it as relevant (even though it is).

    2) Good points, and some things are new to me and very helpful,- thanks! Again, it would be so helpful if these things were generally known, as the context is extremely helpful and puts Joshua into perspevtive.


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    @ Mr.H:
    Also, no need to apologize!

    I wish there were more folks with your background out in circulation, writing material for lay people to read/study. i truly abhor many things re. literalist interpretation of texts that were never intended to be read in the way that we read/interpret newspapers, etc.

    If you have any reading suggestions, i would be most grateful for them. And it’s good to see you here again, however briefly!


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    numo wrote:

    @ Mr.H:
    Also, no need to apologize!
    I wish there were more folks with your background out in circulation, writing material for lay people to read/study. i truly abhor many things re. literalist interpretation of texts that were never intended to be read in the way that we read/interpret newspapers, etc.

    I agree with you wholeheartedly. I very much appreciate, and agree with, evangelicalism’s commitment to Scripture. The tragic irony is that many evangelicals, in their well-meaning attempt to honor Scripture by “taking it seriously” actually end up dishonoring Scripture by misreading certain texts.

    If I tell someone that it is “raining cats and dogs” outside, it most certainly does not honor my words to interpret them as meaning that there are real canids and felids falling out of the sky. (I know, I’m preaching to the choir here…)

    I grew up very close to, but not exactly in, the so-called fundamentalist subsection of evangelicalism, so I was exposed to all sorts of silly interpretations. The problem is that I didn’t really find out how silly they were until I underwent rigorous academic training under the mentorship of some excellent scholars.

    If you have any reading suggestions, i would be most grateful for them. And it’s good to see you here again, however briefly!

    Oh, gosh. I confess that there aren’t many quality, popular-level monographs that cover these sorts of topics. And regarding the books that do exist – everyone has their biases and also their specialties, so that no one book covers all topics equally well.

    What I’d probably end up doing is recommending clusters of books and articles, organized by a common topic, to be read in conjunction with one another, with the hope being that they complement one another.

    If you’re interested specifically in the archaeological context of biblical history, I’d probably recommend a cluster like this:

    A History of Ancient Israel and Judah, by Miller & Hayes. (This one is more towards the so-called “Minimalist” camp, and gives a glimpse of their perspectives and opinions).

    The Bible Unearthed, by Finkelstein and Silberman. (Also more towards the “Minimalist” camp, although Finkelstein is a bit of an enigma in that he has vacillated back and forth throughout his career).

    Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?, by William Dever. (This one is a sort of middle-of-the-spectrum perspective).

    A Biblical History of Israel, by Provan, Long, & Longman III. (Right-of-middle, with very high quality scholarship).

    On the Reliability of the Old Testament by Kenneth Kitchen. (This one is closer to the so-called “Maximalist” camp).

    Rather than simply reading each book cover to cover, one at a time, I’d recommend reading them in tandem, and going topic-by-topic (Patriarchs, Exodus/Conqest, United Monarchy, etc.), allowing them to create a sort of dialogue as each book presents their perspective and also reacts to the other perspectives. From there, you can begin to form your own opinions and conclusions. (Although it may admittedly be somewhat difficult to evaluate the methods of conclusions of each author without a little bit of technical background).

    If you’re interested in the ANE contextual world of Scripture itself, I’d recommend a cluster of:

    The Lost World of Scripture, by Walton & Sandy.
    The Art of Biblical Narrative by Robert Alter.
    Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament by John Walton.
    From An Antique Land, ed. Carl Ehrlich.
    Hidden Riches, by Chris Hays.
    Old Testament Parallels, by Victor H. Matthews
    Readings from the Ancient Near East by Bill Arnold.

    A cluster for Israelite religion and ANE religion:
    Israelite Religion by Richard Hess.
    Stories from Ancient Canaan, by Michael Coogan.
    An Introduction to Ancient Mesopotamian Religion by Tammi Schneider.
    Religion in Ancient Egypt, ed. Byron Shafer.
    Religion and Ritual in Ancient Egypt, by Emily Teeter.

    Last but not least, if you’re really interested in the Conquest account, I highly recommend Lawson Younger’s monograph Ancient Conquest Accounts. It’s not popular-level, and it’s fairly scholarly, but it’s an excellent work on exactly the sorts of issues we briefly touched on.

    If I had more time, I’d compile a more detailed recommendation list. Apologies! I obviously left quite a few off, mostly because they go beyond the popular-level and bleed over into more technical discussion.

    Maybe, when I get more time, I’ll think about starting up a little blog or website that offers a bit of guidance to folks who want to dip their toe into this sort of thing…we’ll see!


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    Mr.H wrote:

    Maybe, when I get more time, I’ll think about starting up a little blog or website that offers a bit of guidance to folks who want to dip their toe into this sort of thing…we’ll see!

    That might be worth thinking about. Genesis and Jericho do not seem to be going away from discussion for the inerrantists.


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    @ Mr.H:
    Thanks muchly! I’m Lutheran (born and raised), but spent about 30 years in a more evangelical/charismatic-type world, where there was (and still is ) *tons* of bad/wrong exegesis and interpretation. I hear you on popular-level monographs as well – it’s hard to find those in many fields of study, not just yours. (I know; ’tis true of my academic specialty as well.)

    I *love* the idea of a blog (by you) on these topics and do hope you’re able to do it, whenever.


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    @ Mr.H:
    I am very interested in scholarship by Jewish folks, Catholics, non-evangelical Protestants, and anyone who is good in this field (texts/history in particular), regardless of what they believe or don’t believe.


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    @ Mr.H:
    also, most scholarly monographs don’t scare me, though some academics really don’t know how to write. I pretty much had to be deprogrammed when I stated writing music reviews, because I’d been so heavily influenced by academic-speak and the way people who work for the feds write. It was a deadly combination, believe me!


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    numo wrote:

    I pretty much had to be deprogrammed when I stated writing music reviews, because I’d been so heavily influenced by academic-speak and the way people who work for the feds write. It was a deadly combination, believe me

    Oy vey ! Nods head in unison… Despite a short-lived move against ‘weasel words’ (see Don Watson’s book on the subject) they’ve clawed their way back. Haitch groans very deeply.


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    @ numo

    The original issue was why would some people have certain ideas about certain things in the first place. I have not waded through all the comments for the specifics but is was about music. And I said here might be a reason why, a variable if you please, and here is what I saw that gives me pause in this area.

    The larger question is this. Remember when I said that Father T in RCIA told us that the catholic church had ‘baptized the idols’ and some people got offended by that? Father T of course thought it was a good idea and a good explanation, he being a catholic priest. Not everybody agrees that this is a good idea, or even a permissible practice. So the question is; is it right to baptize the idols (bring non-christian practices into the church and declare them christian now.)

    Okay, here we are at easter, and one idea in more conservative christian circles is that christianity has baptized a non-christian festival dedicated to a goddess and called it easter and maybe that ought not be done. We go though this every christmas also with the keep christ in christmas crowd on the one hand and the do away with christmas crowd on the other based on the pagan festival origins, or so they claim.

    In a similar way, but with a different arguments we have some people raking through the OT for applicable laws which can be applied to christians while others say that it is misguided to do that. Some say, that was for the jews and not us, while others argue about some of it should be or is a part of christianity and therefore where to draw the line.

    So the issue was music, and I said that some music (in this case using the illustration of talking drums used to summon the spirits-which is what I happened to witness) and that some people may be aware of this/ know about this/ and this may be one of the variables in the discussion about church music etc etc. And I said, that this also gives me pause.

    Well, it does. I am not really sure we need to be having so much of baptizing stuff and appropriating it for use in christian practices. Maybe I think that because I was raised that way. Certainly I was influenced by the lecture series about the history of western church music that I referenced. Maybe the ‘catholic’ practices of my kids’ church are bothering me more than I have dealt with. Who knows why this is an issue with me, again, and right now? But it is.

    What I am saying is that this is all part of a larger picture of how we ought to do church. It is not about demons under church pews. I never even suggested that, but I don’t know what else would make this such a contentious matter unless you thought that was where I was heading. I did not say that. I said, in effect, was that repentance needs to precede baptism (metaphorically) and that applies, in my mind, also to the music, since music was the topic in the first place. And I also said that in my opinion bringing something into church tradition is entirely different from absorbing something from one culture to another, as in a concert of street festival is different from a mass.

    Now there is plenty said and written about this larger issue, some of it in official church statements, as in when the X have been said to accuse the Y of idolatry and the Y have been said to accuse the X of being schismatics. (I am getting so good with complicated verbs!) I am not , however accusing anybody of anything, or least of not knowingly doing anything for bad reasons, but I am saying that the music issue falls within this larger area of debate.


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    @ Nancy:

    And using a now-famous line from somebody else:

    I hope this helps.


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    @ Mr.H:
    Lawson Stone from Asbury Theological Seminary did a three part series on the ANE context of the violence in the OT. Like what you said, he notes how the accounts can often be exaggerated and gives attention to details in the text which people like me have not noticed. I personally found it to be very helpful.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hotJ7p0f9I


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    @ Ivan L:
    Thx Ivan. That was interesting!


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    @ Nancy:
    I think we have a fundamental disagreement over whether music (of any kind) is good, bad, or morally neutral. My position is that it depends on how things are used. I mean, in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, secular songs (and even quite secular texts) were incorporated into plainchant. Whole masses were composed on variations of the popular song “L’homee armée” (the armed man). During the early days of the Reformation, drinking songs were used as hymn tunes, though, obviously, with different texts.

    I think differently than you do about this, and I believe some of that has to do with my background in non-Western music. But hey, to each his/her own!


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    @ Nancy:
    Drums by themselves are morally neutral. Talking drums (and there are many different “families” of talking drums throughout W. Africa) are morally neutral. They can be used for secular or ritual purposes – and in church, too.

    I think I did not make my points clearly enough, in that I do not think that because x instruments are used in a specific ritual, they cannot be used anywhere else (thought there definitely *are* drums that are meant for ritual use only). Still, music is morally neutral, in and of itself. Drums of all sorts are morally neutral, in and of themselves,a nd talking drums are used in various parts of W. Africa for entirely secular music and dance. I bet you would not feel the way you do about them if you had *only* seen/heard them used in those kinds of contexts. It is, imo, the ritual that is troubling you, less than the drums themselves.


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    @ Nancy:
    You know, in many black churches, guitars are still a rarity, because they are associated with blues (aka “the devil’s music). So, keyboard instruments are fine, but not that other great Western chordal instrument, the guitar.

    That is about culture, not about guitars in and of themselves.

    As I mentioned, when gospel music began, back in the 30s, a LOT of church people ranted against it as being “the devil’s music,” and they believed that the Rev. Thomas A. Dorsey and other gospel innovators were trying to “baptize” something that didn’t belong in church. Fast-forward far less than a generation, and gospel was the norm in most black evangelical and Pentecostal churches. Why? Not because someone was trying to make things “relevant,” but because people got over their initial qualms.

    So. That’s my other point. Cultures change, and opinions change, and what was once beyond the pale has long since been accepted as being part and parcel of worship, since the beginning, I think.

    Re. “falling out,” in black churches, that’s more about people dancing, or doing otherwise fairly “uncontrolled” things under the influence of the Holy Spirit, as they see it. It is *so* much like what happens in many African religions (there and in this hemisphere) as to be identical, in many case, and actually far less controlled than in some of those African religions. (Though not always.)

    Culture: something that is part of our lives, like it or not. Certain African cultural practices have been retained in the New World, whether in black evangelical churches or in candomblé ceremonies in Brazil. That’s just how it is. It isn’t about spirit possession, it is about typical behaviors that are learned from a young age and perpetuated. Equally, it is not about something weird going on in many black evangelical and Pentecostal churches. It is just how some people behave during their own worship services.

    It is not like 99 & 9/10ths % of white churches, that’s for sure. But neither do I think being super-formal and emotionally buttoned up are necessarily ordained by God. Though they certainly *are* cultural practices that have become part and parcel of the order of worship, and deportment during said worship (liturgical or not) in many churches.

    Of course, I remember when folk masses upset a lot of older Catholics, post-Vatican II. Now, they’re pretty much passé.


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    @ Ivan L:
    @ lydia:

    Yes, they were.

    Lydia – did you watch all three?


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    @ Bridget:

    Not yet. I watched the link on my phone so did not see the others. Am looking for them now. Asbury is close, so to speak, and I have known quite a few people from there. I have reading Witherington.


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    Nancy wrote:

    @ Nancy:
    And using a now-famous line from somebody else:
    I hope this helps.

    I like to think that was a slight misquotation.

    I hope this is helpful.


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    numo wrote:

    Fast-forward far less than a generation, and gospel was the norm in most black evangelical and Pentecostal churches. Why? Not because someone was trying to make things “relevant,” but because people got over their initial qualms.

    I think there’s something else going on as well here. People tend to assume that whatever they’re used to must be of God. Admittedly, that too may be nothing more than common-or-garden fear of the unfamiliar, and as soon as it becomes familiar, it’s not frightening any more. But it does frustrate me (as an incorrigible neophile) when other Christians try to warn me that new things are dangerous, with no regard for the fact that the traditions they find so comforting and secure were also once new, dangerous and clearly_of_the_devil.


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    @ Nick Bulbeck:

    Thank goodness I didn’t mention any names and then misquote both.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    People tend to assume that whatever they’re used to must be of God.

    I bet there are people who do, like the bunch over at my kid’s church apparently. But the questioning of christmas and easter that I mentioned, for example, is not due to the newness of the ideas of easter and christmas. It is partly related to the idea that the ‘new testament church’ is thought to have started going off on tangents extremely early on and that the process has continued and built upon itself over the centuries, and apparently totally dropped off the cliff with Constantine and there was no hope after that compromise with Rome and all that entailed. Think some of the ideas of the radical reformation, I think.


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    @ Nancy:
    I think a lot of people believe that “the way we’ve always done it” is the only way, even though it’s pretty likely that the way things are done has changed a good deal over the years. Gradual changes are, i think, less remarked on than sudden, drastic changes.


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    @ numo:
    One other thing: at the ceremony you witnessed, the people *believed* that playing the drums in a particular way would summon the spirits/deities. To them, the drums are a means of communication with the sacred, so… when the rhyyhms gor specific spirits/deities are played, the devotees *expect* them to show up. That sets the stage, psychologically, for people to be ready to greet (and in some cases, be temporarily possessed by) the spirits/deities.

    In Yoruba religion (which carries on in this hemisphere in a couple of different iterations, one from Cuba and now in the US, the other mainly practiced in Brazil), those who experience trance possession are then taken aside and dressed in the kind of clothing that the spirit/deity they are manifesting customarily wears. The devotees believe that the spirit/deity is right there with them, in the body of the person (s) possessed. Those people are treated as the vehicle for the spirit/deity. Certain people are dedicated to particular spirits/deities, and they manifest them if and when they go into trance. Not other spirits/deities, but those they are dedicated to. It is orderly, even though it does not seem so to outside observers.

    Further, over here (not sure if Nigerian practices are identical), the music played by the drums is actually complex, highly ordered, difficult to learn and memorize – and it is, essentially, set up in a liturgical order. Different parts of that large body of music are played at different points in a given ceremony, and (iirc) generally only portions of these long suites are played in most ceremonies (both the private, for devotees only segments, as well as the parts that are open to the public). The order of the various segments is logical, even stately, though to outsiders, it doesn’t seem so. In a word, it is formal.

    Now, even knowing all that, and having seen videos of various open to the public ceremonies on YouTube, i have no doubts whatsoever that i would feel overwhelmed if i were to arattend a ceremony. But then, i have felt overwhelmed in the church services i attended where people “fell out.” Yet, to those in attendance at the latter, there is an order as to how – and when – such things occur. They are not random events, and i can imagine that if/when ecstatic dancing, etc. happen at the wrong time, or in an unusual way, that moves would be made to get the person and the service backmto where it is meant to be.

    Do you see what I’m trying to say? What appears crazy and frightening to outsiders is intended to hsppen (people *expect* it to happen), @and it is intended to happen at specific times and in a specific fashion. It is understood, in the Yoruba ceremonies, when someone is faking a possession. It is also though inadvisible for non-initiates to experience possession, and any visitor (including regulars who aren’t initiated) is taken outside by devotees, away from the drumming and dancing. It is all very decorous and follows certain protocols; there are fine points of etiquette as well. That’s also true in black Pentecostal churches.

    Many people grow up attending services (of all of these religions), and they know what is expected and all the rest of the cues and protocol. Knowing this, they are socially, pdychologically and spiritually primed for various levels of participation.

    And that is true of most any ceremony you could name, from High Mass to the order of precdence given to people who are taking part in a street parade.


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    @ numo:
    Any visitor who appears to be starting to go into a possession trance is taken outside…


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    One other (last) thought: for many people in W. Africa, drum/ddance are an integral part of normal events in a community. That can be harvest time, the celebration of a wedding or the birth of a baby, even at funerals in some cultures. Drum/dance – and many other kinds of music – are part of daily life. This is also true in many countries in the Western hemisphere that are home to people of African descent. It is much less pronounced in N. America, much more pronounced in the Caribbean and Latin America. People of all ages take part – most celebrations aren’t age-segregated in the way they are up here. You will find people from age zero to 90 and above, and some of the older folks will get out and shake it a bit.

    Personally, i like that way of doing things. It is also common in Arab countries, and in former Spanish colonies like the Philippines.

    I have found folks from all of these groups of counties and cultures to be markedly more sociable and welcoming than many of the folks who look just like me. All are welcome, and people will go out of their way to make sure that guests feel included and are enjoying themselves.

    In the case of African, Caribbean and Latin American folks, dridrums are primarily used for secular music. Just because there are drums at religiius ceremonies (aand very particular drums at that) does not mean that all drumming, and all drums, are inherently religious. Usually it’s the other way around.

    Which is a longwinded way of saying that for these folks, it isn’t a case of “baptizing” something for use in church, but rather, using instruments that are a normal part of life. I do not see anything amiss with that, myself. (I will “out” myself as a former church band percussionist, because you all might understand what I’m trying to say more clearly if you know that.)

    So there it is. As William Booth is supposed to have said, “WWhy should the debil have all the good tunes?” I’m with him on that!


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    @ numo:

    I know you do. And no doubt that does go on. But do not underestimate the whole idea that there are chunks of the religious population that have very different attitudes as to what the relationship of the church and of the individual believer to the secular culture should be. Any secular culture. Current or past cultures. Home grown or imported cultures. I think maybe those of us who were raised in that tradition may recognize this when we see it while those raised in other traditions may not realize the extent of these ideas in some christian traditions.

    Briefly the idea is that the world has gone hopelessly astray and that the historical church has sold her soul in compromising with the world in the process. This is thought to have begun shortly after the death of the last apostle. These are people who do not acknowledge the ancient creeds and who do not read the ante-nicene fathers and for whom the idea of church tradition is a dirty word. Written or memorized prayers are not used. A kind of separation is practiced, not necessarily the same as what the current fundamentalists do but somewhat similar. This is a religious attitude and religious ideas I am talking about, not some culture like the Amish or such. The church culture I grew up with had a lot of this thinking by a lot of people, but these people were educated and successful and nobody was home schooling or such. But these ideas were prevalent. Was this just anti-catholicism? No, it went beyond that, but probably that was a part of it.

    I hate to see this dismissed as just something that people will get over. Listen to a zither in church, hang an icon on the wall, march in a political parade and poof all those silly ideas will disappear. They will not. This is one way of thinking about church and people and there is a segment of people who think this way. Example: I remember at one time a bible study discussion about whether it was wrong to have a christmas tree. It had nothing to do with the idea that we had not seen a christmas tree before-that is rather insulting to trivialize this sort of thing by classifying it only as avoidance of innovation.

    Anyhow, this exists. Probably those who grew up in it carry some of these ideas to the grave, and to some extent we may be correct to do so at some level. I do in fact think that the church should be more ‘radically different’ in some ways than some people think it should be. I am not on a crusade to convince anybody of anything, but I will defend the reality of the existence of this a recognizable religious position.


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    @ Nancy:
    It is one thing that i admittedly do not understand, although I’ve certainly been exposed to it. In fact, due to my own decades in the evangelical/charismatic world, i am very opposed to that kind of thinking, at least, in the ways i have seen it played out.

    But, not having been raised in a denomination that holds it as a key tenet of the faith, i cannot easily “gget” the kinds of thinking involved. I have always been interested in the arts, and i think that might actually account for where I’m coming from more than my denominational background – far, far more. My parents were/aare wewell-read people who encouraged creativity. My mom’s gifts in some of the arts inspired me to develop my own. The lovd of reading and learning and encountering new ideas and perspectives has fueled me since i was very young, and to me it serms like a worthy pursuit in and of itself.

    Does that make sense?


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    @ Nancy:
    Fear seems to be a big factor in this. Sadly, it appears to be a fear of God’s own world and the people in it.

    I agree thst this is a ddeep-rooted problem and that there are likely no simple or easy solutions. But my example of the initial opposition to gospel music – which had given way to complete acceptance within a generation – was not intended to be dismissive. I think people began to discover joy and meaning in that music, and a way to express not only worship but other deep and powerful emotions. They began to find that instead of compromising them, it enriched their faith. Church choirs were formed and relationships ddveloped. Playing or singing together is a vety powerful thing, and one of the things it develops is a sense of community. Ensemble playing and chorsl singing are intricately interdependent things – every person who plays an instrument or sings contributes to the whole, and even one less voice diminishes it, and the power of what is being created.

    I believe music can evoke things in us and do things in us in a way that very few other things can. It is one of my greatest loves, and something i am passionate about, for myself and for others, imo, it is one of life’s greatest joys.

    And you can’t get there by hanging a zither on the wsll and never learning to play it.


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    @ numo:
    I will freely admit that itmis the music in thd Lutheran church tradition that captivates me. It is very much a participstory thing, too – Luthersns are very bigmon congregational singing. And that does something for, and in, me that no sermon could ever do. Reverence, joy, a sense of wonder, an awareness of God’s love – music can help bring these things into being in every person, as well as giving them an outlet to express them.

    I have found this to be equally true of the time that I’ve bern involved in W. African percusdion ensemble music. It produces a contagious sense of joy.


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    @ Nancy:
    I misquoted you, but you know, it’s playing the zither, and takingntime to truly look at thst icon that mske all the difference. That icon might inspire any number of things, including the desire to draw, psint, take photographs, investigate the background of icons… even to learn how to make a different kind of space/time for private prayer and reflection. Msybe seeing the colors in the icon will make an onlooker start to see the colors of the sky (and all else) in a new, fresh way. Something likd thst – maybe it goes without saying, but i think it is a gift from God, and derply meaningful.

    All of these small things have the potential to affevt people in deep and abiding ways, albeit mostly hidden from view. Perhaps the zither and the icon can be far more subversive (in a good way) than we might think.


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    @ Nancy:
    I was not intending to ttivialise anything. Sorry thwt whst i wrote came across that way – my intent was the opposite, so it seems that i might need to be more careful as to whst I’m trying to say and how i say it.


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    @ Nancy:
    One of the ptoblems of the way of thinking you suggest is an arbitrary division between the so-called secular and sacred realms. Unfortunately, a lot of people who adhere to these ideas aren’t actually following Jesus’admonition to live – really live – in the world. It is as if the devil is in charge of everything outside of church, and thst the earth is *not* the Lord’s, let alone those who dwell in it.

    I hhave felt deeply torn at times over the kinds of ideas you mention, because they were certajnly a part of my life for many decades. I well remember when people in the performing arts were expected to give up their ptofessionsl work and calling upon becoming part of the evangelical milieu. It was the norm when i was younger.


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    @ numo:

    If you are talking about all or nothing thinking, then I agree with you. But I read what Jesus said in the high priestly prayer about he was not asking the father to take his followers out of the world but was asking that they be kept from the evil in the world. These two parts of that sentence need to both be paid attention to. To embrace the world in entirety no questions asked, no discernment applied, is to ignore that idea of being kept from the evil, perhaps even to deny that there is such a thing as evil. To think that one can or should deny the world like perhaps some of the early severe ascetics is not in keeping with being in the world, at least not for the majority of people.

    Now the trick is, of course, how does one get that done? Can we all agree on what is good and what is evil? Obviously not. We can’t even agree if there is such a thing as evil and good. I believe that you personally don’t use that word, but Jesus did so I am going to stick with it so that I don’t get washed away by the flood of evil that has been with us since the get go. I think it is important to call a thing by its right name. Do not apply all or nothing thinking to that; that is not what I am saying. But if one tries to be in the world (let us say vocationally) and then runs smack up against the evil in the world (and for sure this happens) one will either capitulate to the evil or one will get hurt. Neither option is pleasant.

    With me it was when one of the OB docs decided to start doing elective abortions, but he had no ultrasound equipment in his office to determine fetal age to try to comply with the law. He then asked the hospital (I had the only ultrasound lab in the county at the time and did OB ultrasound among other things) for permission to send his abort patients in for fetal age determination. The hospital and I and the ultrasound tech had to put up or shut up at that point. So there you are. In the world? Sure? Is medicine/ healing a good thing in the world? You bet. And then the evil comes sit down in your office and wants to have a little conversation. In this case the hospital admin and trustees found a solution, but otherwise I would have had to become unemployed or else co-operate with evil. This, I think is why all or nothing thinking thrives. One can convince oneself that everything is okay (total acceptance of ‘the world’), or else one can maybe joint a cult and homeschool and move to the hinterlands and get some chickens (as an attempt to escape) -neither of which approach solves the problem.

    But yes, I do think that there is this dichotomy in the world. I think that God is in the process of redeeming both people individually and eventually the world itself from this problem, but right now we have what we have. And Jesus prayed for us in this situation. There is no easy solution nor is there any painless treatment. At least that has been my experience.

    And I am not talking about zithers, obviously.


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    @ Nancy:
    Of course there is evil. I am not sure why you would assume that i think otherwise.

    However, i have personally experienced real evil from the church.

    It’s complicated.


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    @ Nancy:
    Fwiw, here are acouple of the evil things i experienc3dz:

    1. Having curses from Deuteronomy called down on me

    2. Being told that if i cocontinued to use a cane, my “ddays would be short.” (I very much needed that cane for about 6 months.)

    3. Being totally ostracized, and then being accused of lying when i stated as muvh.

    There’s mmuch more.


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    @ numo:

    That is so bad. What a really awful thing to have happened. I thought you had said in a prior conversation that you did not use the word ‘evil.’ Sorry I got that confused.


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    @ Nancy:
    No, that wasn’t me, and no worries!

    I’ve only given you a few highlights. The false accusations that were leveled against me were part of the reason for the ostracism, but that is a longish story.


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    @ numo:
    You might be amused by this: i got into trouble for asking the CofE-ordained pastor why the Nicene Creed wasn’t partof the church’s statement of faith.it isboth funny and psthetic st the same time. I had no idea that I’d stepped into a minefield.


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    @ Nancy:
    Fwiw, on another thread we were talking about original sin, and i said that i do not believe in it in the way it has been taught in the Western church. Our Eastern O. brothers and sisters have differing views on this, and i am pretty much eith (some of) them, as well as much Jewish thought, on this matter.

    But believing that evil doesn’t exist is not only naive, but just not part of the picture. People can and fo sin and say and do evil things. The worlf is very imperfect, as far as i can see, Jesus was the only sinless person in yhe history of the world.


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    And finally for now, hope everyone has a happy and restful Easter! Enjoy a break and a rest, and above all enjoy the truth that Easter is íntended to remind us all about.


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    In other news, I have finally come up with a satisfactory rendering of the intro to “Run to the Hills” on my daughter’s electronic drum kit.

    Happy days indeed.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    I have finally come up with a satisfactory rendering of the intro to “Run to the Hills” on my daughter’s electronic drum kit.

    If you send me an audio. or a picture, of you doing this I will post it. Dare you!


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    my daughter’s electronic drum kit.

    A long time ago we bought my brother-in-law’s young boy a toy drum kit. He (b-in-l) politely said thank you, but it was only after we had children of our own we realised why he had a certain lack of enthusiasm regarding our present …


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    For a strange experience this morning, read Tony Jones’ Twitter feed. He’s repeating lines from stories re: The Rolling Stone retraction — but that doesn’t seem to be the reason he’s tweeting them…

    It’s a little icky.


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    In other news, 75-year-old golfing legend Jack Nicklaus has today hit a hole-in-one in the warm-up tournament for the Masters.

    As I’m sure you realise, the operative word in the above sentence is (actually the number) 75.


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    @ Nick Bulbeck:
    very cool! It will be even cooler when women have their own tournament in Augusta, on the same course as the men.


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    @ numo:

    At least they’re actually allowed on the premises now. It’s a step in the right direction…


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    @ Nick Bulbeck:
    they have a LONG way to go.


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    @ Nick Bulbeck:
    I just watched his predicting it and then the shot. Mad impressive. My 93 year old grandma still golfs 3 times a week, walking the course.


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    @ Albuquerque Blue:
    wow! does she play 9 or 18?


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    @ numo:
    At least they’re actually allowed on the premises now. It’s a step in the right direction…

    I think professional golf culture and the future of the sport will ultimately produce that result. Look at the amazing girls in the Drive/Chip/Putt the past two years! Billy Payne may be stubborn, but he is not someone who does not understand money or the corporate mindset. IMO, the admission of women happened not because of the political pressure that was attempted in the past but because of the economic reality of the present and the future of the sport.

    In other news, Gramp3 and I have been privileged to attend the Masters, and it is an amazing event and an amazing place. The justly famous pimiento cheese sandwiches are really yummy, despite being made on white “bread.” You might try to come up with Nick’s version and post it here.


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    @ Gram3:
    The course always looks so beautiful, but equally, the place bothers me whenever I see it on TV, not least because of the old, old prejudices that still linger there. No matter what we now know about Tiger Woods, seeing him win the tournament was truly amazing. He broke a *huge* barrier by qualifying and being allowed into it in the 1st place. (Though how anyone can not see that he looks mainly Asian, I don’t quite get.)

    But then there were those ill-spoken words by, iirc, Fuzzy Zoeller afterwards.

    We all have a very long way to go. I hope there’s a green jacket for women before too much more time goes by.

    (I haven’t watched golf on TV for a couple of years now, the reason being that I bought a Roku streaming box and no longer have cable TV. Since I’m not a huge sports fan, it works just fine, except for those times – pretty rare – when I would like to see events. There’s a sports bar down the road, but somehow I doubt that they put PGA/LPGA events on their TVs…)


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    @ numo:
    She went down to 9 last year, though she still does 18 once a week. She’s pretty awesome.


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    numo wrote:

    @ Nick Bulbeck:
    they have a LONG way to go.

    You know, I wonder if it won’t happen rather suddenly. At some point, the abstract “woman” becomes “my daughter” or even “my wife” and then excluding women and not having a women’s even will become implausible and impossible to sustain. Especially now that we have a couple of generations of young women who grew up in competitive sports.

    I think something similar will happen with hierarchy in the church. More and more women are earning terminal degrees in theology and related fields, and the presuppositions upon which the hierarchical model exist will crumble as more and more women study the texts, as more and more men study alongside these women, and as more and more daughters of these men move into full participation in society.

    I also believe the Complementarian married women are going to wake up one day when the nest is empty and wonder what this was all about, anyway. The Complementarian single women will be long gone, IMO, because the System has nothing to do with their lives. The shock will be very great in conservative churches, causing Owen (not John) no mean distress. I believe it is inevitable.


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    numo wrote:

    No matter what we now know about Tiger Woods, seeing him win the tournament was truly amazing. He broke a *huge* barrier by qualifying and being allowed into it in the 1st place.

    Totally agree with that. And the thing is, Tiger might never have happened if the military had not been integrated a generation or two before which gave Tiger and dad access to the military courses. Sometimes these things take time, but that’s the way lasting change occurs. Personally, I loved the coverage on Sunday with Condi Rice, a black woman member wearing the green jacket, smiling and encouraging the young boys *and* girls. That, I believe, is the future!

    The grounds and facilities are immaculate. And I do mean immaculate. And it is one of the few places where decorum makes a public event pleasant.


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    @ Gram3:
    Couldn’t agree more, Gram. It’s just a matter of time….


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    @ Albuquerque Blue:
    that is pretty amazing!


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    https://disqus.com/home/discussion/nadiabolzweber/do_you_have_questions_about_the_cross/

    This situation is getting very creepy. These almost 900 comments were erased off Nadia’s site by her husband but screen shot by some enterprising folks.

    We can see from the comments there is a person called Kandance (sounds eerily like xitanatty in the comments) “investigating” those who are public supporters of Julie. Kandance says that “Dee” is in a different category than the others they are investigating and their ties to Julie. There are even organizations who sponsored some JoPa events who claim they investigated Tony Jones and found no “criminal” activity so he is ok. One commenter claims he represents that nameless group.

    I have followed this for the sake of those spiritually abused having a voice but there is another part of me that had to see how an NPD minor Christian celeb would be dealt with by the Christian Industrial Complex. It is quite telling. Actually it is chilling.

    It is simply amazing the tactics of an NPD. And how many people fall for it. Makes you wonder.


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    @ Lydia:
    I know about this and it startled me. I did not know I was in a different category. Can you find the comment? Do you know why?


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    dee wrote:

    @ Lydia:
    I know about this and it startled me. I did not know I was in a different category. Can you find the comment? Do you know why?

    After my eyes stop crossing, I will see if I can find it. :o) “Kandace” names names of who she is investigating as supporters of Julie. Your name was mentioned but as being in a different category.

    I honestly think Tony and his crew are trying to scare people. Tony forgets the imbalance of power in this situation.


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    This is after much back and forth with “Kandace” and gives a feel for what she is about unless it is made up:

    Kandace •3 days ago

    Someone down the feed asked about me and I was glad for the reminder because I’ve been meaning to answer that. My name is Kandace Brenner. I am a graduate student and also a wife and mother of two small children who lives in California. I did my Masters thesis on Activism in a Digital Age. As I disclosed early on, I do not know Tony or Julie. I noticed several commenters raised questions about the group of people who are continually posting these allegations online and when I went to research this, first on Sargent’s detailed page and then on the others, I found plenty of people have looked into the sources of information from Tony supporters, but those who are supporting Julie have not been asked similar questions about what led them to the conversation. It it possible some of them will have firsthand information that hasn’t come out yet. I’ve been grateful for Danica, KT, Tim W-B and the others who’ve been comfortable sharing they don’t know Julie, but friendship, a heart for activism, and abuse experiences have given them a desire to assist Julie

    https://disqus.com/home/discussion/nadiabolzweber/do_you_have_questions_about_the_cross/

    She goes on to suggest a link to DH and others with Julie concerning money or something. And that a well known Christian celeb is afraid of Stephanie Drury at SCCL! It is the weirdest blog convo I have ever seen. There is a definite attempt to change what the convo is about toward Julie’s supporters. It is done very cleverly. Oh, she claims it is about investigating “claims that strangers” make online about Tony/Julie.

    The comment which included you:

    Kandace •4 days ago

    Okay…whew…yes, when you all said I was naive when I suggested those who have been platforming the allegations against Tony Jones should also be explored, I was sort of offended. I have some professional competency so it felt dismissive. But as things have evolved, I’ve had a good cry which I’ll tell you about in a minute and I can admit you were right. But first the emails you’ve sent: the people that emailers were most curious about their real life relationship with Julie were Tim WIlson Brown and David Hayward, followed closely by RL Stollar and Brad Sargent, and then Stephanie Drury, Amy Smith, and Julia Doughty. I saw at least two commenters here mentioned some others which we’ll add to the list. One person also mentioned Dee from Wartburg, but a couple people stated they saw her as being in a different category than some of the others so…we’ll see about that one. There are also a few others that came up less.

    If you’ve emailed me, I will eventually get to it. I’ve received a lot more emails than I expected (again, you may call me naive). Most of the emails that came in were from people who said they were scared of questioning some of the online personalities who they saw as being mean and lacking the ethical standards of professional advocates (this is what they said: don’t shoot the messenger!). Some of the emails specifically attacked me for even asking the question. I have decided not to reveal any confidentialities, because I promised some people I wouldn’t, but there’s definitely been a few who used a lot of forceful, power-language to convince me why I should NOT investigate those platforming the allegations. Some of these were incredibly rude and had all the marks of WASP manipulation. This was the part that gave me a good cry.

    The other thing to know is I am not alone. Crazy as this is, one of the people on the list actually tried to assert themselves as an impartial helper who could look for bias. Um no. There was one or two people with some relevant background who I think might lend some help. Also though I heard from a writer who is interested in the ties between this story and the Rolling Stones stuff.

    I’m feeling kind of down on myself that I am not stronger in the face of this opposition, but at least I know from the emails of others that I am not the only one who is fearful in asking questions. It gives me a little courage to realize that I am not the only one who is asking these questions and I am not crazy either. 😉

    Respect to all of you for participating in the discussion and thanks for the emails. If I haven’t gotten to yours yet, I will. I had to work today!”

    https://disqus.com/home/discussion/nadiabolzweber/do_you_have_questions_about_the_cross/

    I don’t think the links will take you to the exact comments above because they are cut and past from NBW site. However, one needs to read the entire scope of Kandace and Michael’s comments to see how bone chilling they are.

    Here is what it boils down to and what Tony wants you to think: Tony has been investigated by a JoPa sponsor and found to be “criminal free”. (Never mind about those pesky morals because well, that made them uncomfortable but there was no “criminal” convictions.

    Julie, however, has not been forthcoming and her supporters need to be investigated under the guise of a “Digital Project” which is postitioned as “neutral” and just about wanting to know how they came to the subject. But neither one will give out full information on themselves even though it is under the guise of some institution/org. And it is all so “reasonable” and above board. Right.

    If folks are not convinced at how diabolical NPD’s are (especially ones who are celebs) then there really is not much more to say. Many people are sucked into this stuff with NO idea what they are really supporting.

    Dee, I am dying to know your “category”. I think it is more about divide and conquer.


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    When you read the entire convo note how clever it is to change the convo to being “scared” of the “mean” Julie supporters. After all, she is just trying to be fair and balanced.

    Also note how these people totally ignore the imbalance of power in this situation from day 1.


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    Here it is:

    “1 •Share ›
    Avatar
    Kandace • 4 days ago
    Okay…whew…yes, when you all said I was naive when I suggested those who have been platforming the allegations against Tony Jones should also be explored, I was sort of offended. I have some professional competency so it felt dismissive. But as things have evolved, I’ve had a good cry which I’ll tell you about in a minute and I can admit you were right. But first the emails you’ve sent: the people that emailers were most curious about their real life relationship with Julie were Tim WIlson Brown and David Hayward, followed closely by RL Stollar and Brad Sargent, and then Stephanie Drury, Amy Smith, and Julia Doughty. I saw at least two commenters here mentioned some others which we’ll add to the list. One person also mentioned Dee from Wartburg, but a couple people stated they saw her as being in a different category than some of the others so…we’ll see about that one. There are also a few others that came up less.

    If you’ve emailed me, I will eventually get to it. I’ve received a lot more emails than I expected (again, you may call me naive). Most of the emails that came in were from people who said they were scared of questioning some of the online personalities who they saw as being mean and lacking the ethical standards of professional advocates (this is what they said: don’t shoot the messenger!). Some of the emails specifically attacked me for even asking the question. I have decided not to reveal any confidentialities, because I promised some people I wouldn’t, but there’s definitely been a few who used a lot of forceful, power-language to convince me why I should NOT investigate those platforming the allegations. Some of these were incredibly rude and had all the marks of WASP manipulation. This was the part that gave me a good cry.

    The other thing to know is I am not alone. Crazy as this is, one of the people on the list actually tried to assert themselves as an impartial helper who could look for bias. Um no. There was one or two people with some relevant background who I think might lend some help. Also though I heard from a writer who is interested in the ties between this story and the Rolling Stones stuff.

    I’m feeling kind of down on myself that I am not stronger in the face of this opposition, but at least I know from the emails of others that I am not the only one who is fearful in asking questions. It gives me a little courage to realize that I am not the only one who is asking these questions and I am not crazy either. 😉

    Respect to all of you for participating in the discussion and thanks for the emails. If I haven’t gotten to yours yet, I will. I had to work today!”


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    Oops! Should’ve hit “refresh” before posting. Ah well.


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    That entire thred wasvcreepy. Kandace sounds like she is framing herself as a victim. Certainly drawing much attention to herself. Writing volumes of comments that meander everywhere.


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    In other news, Andy Murray and Kim Sears were married in Murray’s home town of Dunblane today. In a startling development, Murray was observed smiling at one point.

    When asked how he felt the day had gone, his response (apparently) was “Alright, thanks.”


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    In other, other, news, the Dawn space probe has spiraled into closer orbits about Ceres. Still nothing definitive about those bright spots in the basin of one of her craters. Probably just a trick of the light, but time will tell as they say.


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    Albuquerque Blue wrote:

    which is not a planet.

    Plutos are hard to keep up with. Didn’t Pluto used to be Rover and belong to Minnie until he became Pluto and belonged to Mickey? Must be something about the name.


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    Nancy wrote:

    Didn’t Pluto used to be Rover and belong to Minnie until he became Pluto and belonged to Mickey?

    I’ve always wondered why Pluto was like a real dog but Goofy could talk and drive.


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    Let me take a wild guess about Kandace, she’s a hired hand for Tony Jones and Brian McLaren and the rest of the Emergent Crowd. Tony Jones hired a big MN public relations firm to defend him. We’ve seen all of the hired hands here and elsewhere: the supposed attorney, the supposed therapist, the supposed journalist, the supposed neighbor of Tony Jones, supposed friends of Tony Jones and on and on and on. Kandace just is like Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt and Brian McLaren: She’s in it for the money!!!

    Why does Kandace claim to have a college degree and doesn’t know about…gasp Free Speech!?? We’re discussing Tony Jones and Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt…because we can and it’s our Constitutional right to do so. So there.


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    By the way, will Kandace post her tax returns with all of her income (W-4’s and 1099’s) from all sources, etc. I think we should follow the money trail and that will lead to the Emergent Crowd (Tony Jones, Brian McLaren, and Doug Pagitt).


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    Lydia wrote:

    dee wrote:

    @ Lydia:
    I know about this and it startled me. I did not know I was in a different category. Can you find the comment? Do you know why?

    After my eyes stop crossing, I will see if I can find it. :o) “Kandace” names names of who she is investigating as supporters of Julie. Your name was mentioned but as being in a different category.

    I honestly think Tony and his crew are trying to scare people. Tony forgets the imbalance of power in this situation.

    Good to know! I’m now contacting even more First Amendment groups and Ivy League schools to start writing about this story. That Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, and Brian McLaren oppose our First Amendment rights. And since they don’t like the First Amendment…what countries do they plan on moving to? After all, there are plenty of people living in regimes around the world who would like to be here. So I’ll notify the federal government that we’ve gotten some open slots in America:

    1. Kandance is planning on leaving – because she can’t stand our Freedoms and opposes them;

    2. XianAtty plans on leaving – same reason

    3. Brian McLaren (fellow Florida resident to XianAtty) plans to leave the US;

    4. Doug Pagitt plans to leave the US and

    5. Tony Jones plan to leave the US.

    That’s at least 5 slots we can open up to people from around the world who would ENJOY the freedoms of the US, which the Emergent Crowd ingrates aren’t the least bit grateful for. If we add on the spouses….we’ve probably got 10 openings for people who would like to come to the US.

    Oh wait, Kandace has a husband and two kids. That’s four US citizenship openings.

    Can Kandace marshall together everybody’s information. I will give to the U.S. Immigration Service post haste. Kandace, Brian, Doug, Tony and the rest of ’em agree to never enter the U.S. again, because they don’t like it here.


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    I found this to be interesting. Many of us have wondered what people see in leaders like Mark Driscoll in the Calvinista crowd. We have wondered how those at Mars Hill could be so easily schmoozed by charlatans like Driscoll.

    I’m sure there are many more reasons than this one. However. I’m sure this one also contributes a bit.

    http://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/smart-living/9-scientifically-verified-ways-to-appear-more-attractive/ar-AA9NvZG#page=4


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    In a return to space news (New Horizons will officially be “Better Than Hubble” within a week or so, but that hasn’t happened yet so it isn’t news), the Messenger spacecraft that has been orbiting Mercury for the past four years ended its mission yesterday when it crashed onto the surface of the planet.

    This was not a navigational or systemic malfunction, but a long-foreseen result of its finally running out of the fuel it needed to maintain orbit. Messenger had already far exceeded its expected one-year mission lifetime, sending back several terabytes of scientific data, and its demise was a bittersweet moment for the mission staff. But such is space exploration.


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    May I humbly offer one perspective for readers/users/members of this site. One quibble I have with the terminology used here, and elsewhere, is “progressive/emergent.” As a 70+ year old christian progressive, I do not identify with the emergent tribe at all. Most emergents are way to evangelical for my taste. I’m a “universalist” (many paths lead to reconciliation, closeness and a deeper understanding with our creator-God). I’ve mainly discarded atonement theories and have embraced a concept of a loving God, not a punitive God. There are many issues that we progressive christian embrace that most christians don’t. Emergent I am not. Anyway, just wanted to get that off my chest. Thanks. Peace.


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    @ Nick Bulbeck:
    This is a marvelously productive time for exploration of our solar system. All the major and a couple minor planets have had, or will soon have, closeup visits from spacecraft. Mars has had roving robots on its surface for years. The European Space Agency Rosetta craft in orbit around a comet needs to be recognized as providing exquisite closeup data on a class of objects previously only glimpsed at from afar.

    As much as I would like to see other bodies in our solar system visited by manned expeditions I don’t think chemical fueled rockets will enable this. Sadly, the physics enabling much more capable space travel doesn’t exist. God seems to have given us just one planet to live on. We must take care of it.


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    @ RollieB:
    Speaking just for myself, I appreciate the clarification and explanation. For me looking on from the outside, the distinctions and terminology have not been clear. Thank you.


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    @ oldJohnJ:

    Agreed. Chemical thrust technology (in the conventional sense) has reached its limits just as canvas and sail did in olden times. But as it has always been in the past, humans will always find work arounds that breed new technologies*. I think it’s part of our divine nature as inherited from the Almighty. And you’re also very right that we should exercise more of that divine nature by taking better care of what we already have.

    *more than just wishful thinking:
    http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/travelinginspace/future_propulsion.html


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    In obscure other news, England are 151-4 at tea on the first day of the final Test in Barbados. I have to say that this is a disappointing score for the team that won the toss – at first I was convinced the Windies had won the toss and put us in. Joe Root, having finished the second test on 182 n.o., went for a duck. Though Cook’s still there on 60.

    It’s a funny old game…


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    Muff Potter wrote:

    *more than just wishful thinking:

    Ion propulsion systems are not fantasy. The Dawn mission is using them: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/spacecraft/index.html
    Dawn uses solar power but makes do with very low thrust, thus acceleration. Use of a nuclear reactor would make more electrical power available but also significantly increase the weight of the spacecraft which will reduce the spacecraft’s acceleration. Such a scheme could possibly help a manned mission to and from Mars but the mission details will govern everything. Ion propulsion is an incremental step, not something radically different.


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    RollieB wrote:

    May I humbly offer one perspective for readers/users/members of this site. One quibble I have with the terminology used here, and elsewhere, is “progressive/emergent.” As a 70+ year old christian progressive, I do not identify with the emergent tribe at all. Most emergents are way to evangelical for my taste. I’m a “universalist” (many paths lead to reconciliation, closeness and a deeper understanding with our creator-God). I’ve mainly discarded atonement theories and have embraced a concept of a loving God, not a punitive God. There are many issues that we progressive christian embrace that most christians don’t. Emergent I am not. Anyway, just wanted to get that off my chest. Thanks. Peace.

    Hi, thanks for this comment -I’m still getting my head around all the terminologies, still learning. Can I suggest that you post this comment on the current Tony Jones/Julie McMahon post?


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    It has been reliably documented that Dawn has achieved a total delta-v of around 10,000 m/sec under its own (ion thruster) power, considerably more than any previous spacecraft. This would certainly be comparable to whatever the launch system gave it. BUT, of course, that’s with a tiny thrust accumulating delta-v over months. It works fine in outer space, with zero air-resistance and no gravity sticking it to the surface of a planet; it would be useless as a launch-system from earth.

    Interestingly, in the later stages of the Apollo program – and partly in preparation for a potential follow-up program to put humans on Mars – NASA experimented with nuclear-powered rocket engines to surprisingly good effect. The basic idea is that instead of burning fuel to release energy, you heat it to very high temperatures using a small, but intense *, nuclear reactor. The hot (3000°C) gas then blasts out of the end of the rocket exactly like a more traditional rocket. Like an ion thruster, you get quite high propellant efficiency: in other words, the engine can run for longer before it runs out of fuel. Unlike an ion thruster, however, nuclear rockets generated significant amounts of thrust; comparable to the third stage of the famous Saturn 5 rocket. The net effect was that, in principle, nuclear-thermal rockets could launch realistic human-rated spacecraft out of earth orbit fast enough to reach Mars in weeks rather than months.

    * Small nuclear reactors can be designed to produce mind-blowing power outputs. In one sense, after all, an explosive device is a trillion-gigawatt nuclear reactor, albeit for a few nanoseconds. The most powerful device ever tested had an estimated peak power of a trillion trillion watts – around 1% of the power of the sun.


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    Muff Potter wrote:

    Chemical thrust technology (in the conventional sense) has reached its limits just as canvas and sail did in olden times. But as it has always been in the past, humans will always find work arounds that breed new technologies*. I think it’s part of our divine nature as inherited from the Almighty.

    It’s worth bearing in mind that, when humans did built a faster-than-light propulsion system, the crew ended up travelling to hell and died horribly ; it was documented in Event Horizon.

    Although, now I think about it, Event Horizon was actually a sci-fi/horror film, not a documentary. Please ignore the above.


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    oldJohnJ wrote:

    The European Space Agency Rosetta craft in orbit around a comet needs to be recognized as providing exquisite closeup data on a class of objects previously only glimpsed at from afar.

    Hear, hear.

    On a related note, I’m sure you’ve come across the pictures the Russian Venera space-probes sent back from the surface of Venus back in the 70’s and 80’s. I’ve always maintained that these are among the most under-rated of humanity’s technological achievements: building a machine that travelled millions of miles and sent back a colour photograph from the floor of hell (together with quite some detail about the composition of the almost-red-hot rock).


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    @ Nick Bulbeck:
    Are they up against the Gayle force? Or did he bow out after the World Cup?


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    @ Estelle:

    I believe he’s not playing in this test. A couple of days on and we’re 39-5 in our second innings. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse…


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    Further sporting news:

    Alex Dowsett today became the fourth man in the last eight months to break the “blue riband” record of cycling, the one-hour record. Dowsett covered 52.937 km, beating the previous record by 446 metres.

    Dowsett has haemophilia. As a child, he was advised by doctors to take up a musical instrument or chess. He did neither! An extraordinary achievement.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    @ Mark:
    Check out Bruce Ware who shares Aquina’s belief that females bear the “indirect” image of God because the Woman was created out of the Man who was created First.

    But wasn’t the first man made out of dirt and mud? 🙂
    If we go by the logic Ware/Aquina does, that would make man dirtball. Women would actually be a step above, since they were taken from a human body, not dirt.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    The Complementarian single women will be long gone, IMO, because the System has nothing to do with their lives.

    As a never married, 40ish old lady who used to be complementarian, who was brought up in comp churches / culture, I can say yes, that is true.

    Though I started out noticing that comp teachings actually violate or contradict several passages in the Bible…

    It wasn’t until I got older, like around my late 30s, that I started to notice that another reason complementarianism is faulty is that it does not and cannot truly take into account women of all ages and stations in life – it mainly deals with young married mothers.

    If you are a never married woman, married- but- infertile, married- but- child- free (you don’t want kids), are elderly, kids moved out of the house, you are widowed, divorced – most complementarianism does not or cannot apply to you.

    Some of their material will pay passing lip service to mature ladies, or the infertile, or the single, but 99% of their obsession is focused on wives, and mothers who have kids at home.

    Since more and more women in the USA are arriving to their 40s with never having children, and more and more women are opting out of marriage, or want marriage but can’t find partners, or are not marrying until later in life, they too will start to notice how complementarianism isn’t relevant to their lives or spiritual beliefs.

    The complementarians have not picked up on any of this, for the most part. All they do is fret that this is occuring, and yelling at the teen girls of today to marry by the age of 21 and have ten children.

    Comps are doing nothing to help or minister to women who are single and childless over the age of 25 or 30. They are not addressing single / childless / childfree women in most of the material of theirs I’ve seen.

    Complementarianism is damaging not only to married women, but to un-married women as well. It had negative ramifications on me, and I never married.
    (I did a couple of posts about that at SSB in the “Encouraging Shift from Bethlehem Baptist Church Regarding Domestic Abuse and Care for Abused Women” thread.)

    Comp can and does hold single ladies and teen-aged girls back in life too, but most of the focus on its problems goes into the topic of marriage.


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    Pug Alert For Dee ❗

    Stories about Xander the Blind Pug are also being carried in The Daily Mail, Huffington Post, and other sites.

    The Daily Mail headline:
    “Blind Pug gets new lease of life bringing joy to sick children and the elderly (and look at the smile it puts on HIS face!)”

    Here is a pictorial about Xandar from one site, and most of the photos have captions below, explaining more about Xander and his work as a therapy dog:

    http://themetapicture.com/quite-possibly-the-greatest-service-dog-ever/

    One of the captions says, “Xander focuses on being support for victims of child and spousal abuse”

    The Daily Mail reports,
    -Xander the pug lost his sight in an accident aged one
    -He was put up for adoption and taken home by shelter volunteers
    -He is now a therapy dog, visiting hospitals, schools and nursing homes


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    Gram3 wrote:

    You know, I wonder if it won’t happen rather suddenly. At some point, the abstract “woman” becomes “my daughter” or even “my wife” and then excluding women and not having a women’s even will become implausible and impossible to sustain.

    There was some kind of poll or study released about a week ago that showed that the qualities some men want in a daughter are different from what they want in a wife.

    The men surveyed said they don’t care so much if a daughter they have is sweet and pretty – they would prefer a daughter who is intelligent, tough, and independent.

    But then, these same guys turn around and say beauty matters to them in a wife, they don’t really care if the wife is smart, independent, etc.

    Something isn’t matching up, there.

    If you are a man, the potential wife material you are looking at is another man’s daughter, after all. I don’t see how you can want a pretty but dumb, submissive wife, but then want to raise a daughter who is smart, tough, proud, independent and you would expect other men to want to marry your daughter.


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    So I don’t know if anyone else is a demographic nerd like me. If so you might find this interesting. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/christians-leaving-faith-droves-trend-173818770.html Some of the wider focus info was really neat to learn. I’m interested to see how India reacts to a growing Muslim population especially with Modi and the BJP in power right now. World’s biggest democracy is an interesting and probably important state to keep a friendly eye on. I wonder why Buddhism isn’t growing like Judaism and Hinduism. How is American Christianity going to evolve or preserve in the face of change and balkanization (everyone’s a denomination now it seems).


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    Albuquerque Blue wrote:

    I wonder why Buddhism isn’t growing like Judaism and Hinduism.

    I think one reason is that Buddhism is not a strongly proselytising religion. Another factor here is that the popularity of Buddhism is distorted in the west by the easy appeal of “büdism” (note the umlaut) or “boodism” – the kind of faux-Buddhism professed by the fictitious Lisa Simpson who likes the comforting, middle-class pick-n-mix environmental spirituality that it offers.

    Interestingly, we have over here an Anglican intellectual lassie by the name of Elaine Storkey, who hosted a very clear demonstration of this a few years ago. In brief, she invited two Tibetan monks to her church to give a talk on Buddhism – meaning, of course, real Buddhism. A lot of people who came expecting to hear a nice talk about a nice possibility for some nice gentle religion, experienced a rude awakening! Because, of course, to be an authentic Buddhist is no easy ride. I’m far from an expert, but I do know that Buddhist character grows out of years of patient self-discipline. A lesson that I wish a lot of hot-headed young Christian preachers (and Muslim militants) around the world would learn; their reputations are bigger than their characters and grow out of years of zealously disciplining other people.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Interestingly, we have over here an Anglican intellectual lassie by the name of Elaine Storkey

    Nick, this is just the most hilarious description of her I’ve read.


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    @ Beakerj:

    Elaine Storkey is a very good complement to Tom Wright, an Anglican intellectual chappie.


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    Sporting news:

    Tennis
    Murray beats Nadal in the final of the Madrid Open. [Many people spray their drinks across the room] Naebdy saw that one coming, as Rafa has been on decent form this week; it’s Murray’s first Masters-level win on clay, and his first win over King Rafa on the surface as well. Though realistically, you’d have to say that Rafa remains favourite for Roland Garros.

    Athletics
    Ethiopian distance-running legend Haile Gebrselassie has today announced his retirement from competitive running at the end of the Great Manchester Run. After finishing in 16th place in the men’s 10k elite race, he returned to the start and ran the 10k non-elite race! Surprised fun-runners were queueing up for selfies with The Great Man, who duly obliged. Gebrselassie has always been popular in Blighty (I suspect he’s popular everywhere else too) and it is not hard to see why.

    Fitba’
    Following our draw away to Premiership-winners Chelsea, it is now all but mathematically impossible for Liverpool to qualify for the Champions’ League * – though realistically we were out of the running ages ago, when we lost at hame to Scumbagchester United.

    Or “The Give-Us-Yer-Money Cup” as Jimmy Greaves called it


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    @ Beakerj:

    Elaine Storkey is a very good complement to Tom Wright, an Anglican intellectual chappie.

    Magic.


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    If I could ask for all your prayers this morning. I am in Frankfurt and not doing well. The Belgian/German railway systems were in a disaray from a strike yesterday and 8 train changes has killed my already bad back. ( many trains were cancelled or running way behind, so much for the legendary ” on time” German Rail System. We were lucky to make Frankfurt after 14 hrs on trains. ( Many times we were forced to stand on the train. Packed like sardines. We had assigned seats…..and other people were also assigned the same seats.)
    My back was in so much pain last evening, I was vomiting.
    Anyway, we are spending a couple of days to recoup and see what we may wind up doing.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    And that’s barely the tip of the iceberg of the problems facing the unemployed.
    For future reference… you really don’t want to get me started on this.

    Not quite sure what to make of this!

    I’ve been there with a stint of unemployment, and I know how demeaning and demoralising it can be. I’m sure the poor are indeed oppressed. I’ve not had to face it for as long as you have though.

    As a small c conservative, I have sympathy with the govt wanting to make sure that benefits provided by the state are not seen as an alternative to employment. I’ve no idea just how many actually do fit this category, but years ago I worked with someone who had formerly worked in a benefits office, who had interesting stories to tell of dodgy claimants. I remember Theodore Dalrymmple’s axiom ‘poverty increases in proportion to the resources allocated for its alleviation’.

    Nevertheless, I was quite horrified by your depiction of how the unemployed seem to be treated today. This is indeed the totally unacceptable face of the Conservative party, and one which makes me unable to rejoice at their election without a coalition partner who might reign in the worst excesses of their traditional pandering to the rich or Daily Mail readership. (I have long since been disenfranchised anyway as a non-resident.)

    There is a contradiction between putting the boot into the poor for supposedly being irresponsible, but bailing out trillions for irresponsible ‘investors’ and their institutions that are ‘too big to fail’.

    Trying to get an authentic non-party political view of these issues is easier said than done, but I do think the NT does have something relevant to contribute to the discussion. To me it is basically you should work for your living AND support those who are poor not through their own fault.


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    @ K.D.:
    Oh, owwwww. Get well soon xxx


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    In other news, stuff has happened.


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    In further other news:

    Kevin Pieterson is currently 324 not out against Leicestershire, who are 529-9. The 10th-wicket partnership between Pieterson and Matthew Dunn has been worth 108. Dunn’s contribution? 5. (And, obviously, not getting out while Pieterson has scored like the clappers at the other end.)

    It’s a funny old game…


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    @ Ken:

    The frustrating thing is that I, too (and pretty well everyone else connected with the informal campaign for a properly compassionate benefits system) accept the place for the withdrawal of benefits from those for whom benefits are clearly a lifestyle choice.

    The problem is that escalating sanctions is the only real reform the UK government has made to the benefits system. There has not been a corresponding increase in the quality of support provided to job-ready (and job-eager) claimants. Hence the widespread evidence that everyone who claims out-of-work benefits is relentlessly assumed to be doing so because they really would rather get £1.90 an hour doing nothing, while their skills and aspirations rot away inside them, than be doing the much-better-paid and infinitely more satisfying jobs they were doing before they became unemployed.

    Another problem is that there is a complement now


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Another problem is that there is a complement now

    Whoops. Never mind – I need to go and dig the garden the noo.


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    In re: to today’s link about “nones”. The article is stating that “nones” are those who have little or no place for religion in their life.
    TWW seems to have discussed this previously with “nones” being those who have a strong personal faith but are not attached to a specific church/denomination usually due to frustration/disappointment in the hierarchy of the said church.


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    nwhiker wrote:

    In re: to today’s link about “nones”. The article is stating that “nones” are those who have little or no place for religion in their life.
    TWW seems to have discussed this previously with “nones” being those who have a strong personal faith but are not attached to a specific church/denomination usually due to frustration/disappointment in the hierarchy of the said church.

    Perhaps the terminology is changing, but I thought there was a ‘none’ and also a ‘done’.


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    Hi TWW Readers,

    Here’s the latest about Tony Jones trying to litigate Julie, and including blogs where he wants to silence Julie and her supporters. It’s time to get Tony Jones marked as a vexatious litigant in the State of Minnesota:

    lemonaidfizz wrote:

    @ Bridget:

    Well, TWW is named in the court order (http://www.scribd.com/doc/265151674/Jones-McMahon-Lawyer-Letter-5-12-15)–not as being in any kind of legal trouble of course, just that they are included in a long list of entities that have been identified by Tony’s attorney. Didn’t mean to imply any action was being taken against TWW.

    It is time to get Tony Jones marked as a vexatious litigant in the State of Minnesota.

    TWW Readers: Let’s write the Minnesota Supreme Court about Tony Jones and ask the court to put a stop to this relentless litigation against Julie.
    http://www.mncourts.gov/?page=550

    Chief Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea
    Minnesota Supreme Court
    Minnesota Judicial Center
    25 Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
    St. Paul, MN. 55155


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    Since Tony Jones is so opposed to the First Amendment and those giving support to his ex-wife Julie is trying to silence Dee and Deb, Brad Sargent, other bloggers in the U.S. and Canada (David Hayward at The Naked Pastor in Canada and Bill Kinnon in Canada), why doesn’t Jones leave the United States for a country with zero free speech rights and give up his U.S. citizenship?

    U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs website:

    “Renunciation of U.S. Nationality

    A. THE IMMIGRATION & NATIONALITY ACT

    Section 349(a)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) (8 U.S.C. 1481(a)(5)) is the section of law governing the right of a United States citizen to renounce his or her U.S. citizenship. That section of law provides for the loss of nationality by voluntarily

    “(5) making a formal renunciation of nationality before a diplomatic or consular officer of the United States in a foreign state , in such form as may be prescribed by the Secretary of State”

    B. ELEMENTS OF RENUNCIATION

    A person wishing to renounce his or her U.S. citizenship must voluntarily and with intent to relinquish U.S. citizenship:
    1.appear in person before a U.S. consular or diplomatic officer,
    2.in a foreign country (normally at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate); and
    3.sign an oath of renunciation

    Renunciations that do not meet the conditions described above have no legal effect. Because of the provisions of Section 349(a)(5), U.S. citizens cannot effectively renounce their citizenship by mail, through an agent, or while in the United States. In fact, U.S. courts have held certain attempts to renounce U.S. citizenship to be ineffective on a variety of grounds, as discussed below

    C. REQUIREMENT – RENOUNCE ALL RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES

    A person seeking to renounce U.S. citizenship must renounce all the rights and privileges associated with such citizenships. In the case of Colon v. U.S. Department of State , 2 F.Supp.2d 43 (1998),the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected Colon’s petition for a writ of mandamus directing the Secretary of State to approve a Certificate of Loss of Nationality in the case because he wanted to retain the right to live in the United States while claiming he was not a U.S. citizen.


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    I just took another read of the letter that Tony Jones’ lawyer sent his ex-wife Julie, ordering her to remove blog posts and to communicate with bloggers. For those of you that don’t know how this works, Tony Jones’ family lawyer drafted the Order and got a judge to sign it. I don’t believe that Julie has legal counsel right now to represent her and to fend it off.

    But it’s not the judge who drafted the Order, Tony Jones’ lawyer did.


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    @ Albuquerque Blue:

    Yeah, those are some cool pics. Who’d have ever thought we’d go that far in such a short time.

    …Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids
    In fact it’s cold as Hell
    And there’s no one there to raise them if you didn’t
    And all this science, I don’t understand
    It’s just my job, five days a week
    A rocket man, a rocket man…

    From Elton John’s song Rocket Man 1972.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Messenger had already far exceeded its expected one-year mission lifetime,

    That’s one of the things that continue to amaze me – that most of these space probes keep working a lot longer than their projected lifetimes. And even those are often extremely long: The Voyager 1 and 2 probes are expected to work until 2025.

    And they were launched in ’77. That’s almost half a century. Half a century before that we didn’t even have surface to surface ballistic missiles.


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    @ Albuquerque Blue:

    LORRI is well within 40 megamiles now – all being well, they’ll look even better soon. I await with interest as, no doubt, do you!


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    In other news, I believe the time is ripe for the introduction of hashtags on TWW. #amicoolorwhat


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    @ Gus:

    Agreed. The computational power that put men on the moon (and there is an excellent website called clavius.org debunking the conspiracy theories brick-by-brick) could now fit in a pinhead.

    Although, when things go wrong, they tend to go very wrong indeed; like the probe that crashed into Mars not long ago because of the metric/imperial units confusion. I’d love to have been in the meeting at which that was first realised. #yourekiddingright?


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    Dr. Jenny Taylor, Director of Lapido Media, published a pdf transcript of her Catherwood Lecture AND transcripts of Dr. Ganiel’s critique of it and Will Leitch’s response as a local journalist. Her lecture is titled, “When words fail: religious literacy and post-multicultural possibilities”. Dr. Taylor describes herself as a cultural analyst. As I read through to the end of her presentation (more than the title suggests) I recognized some of the same issues are touched on as those discussed here at TWW. http://www.lapidomedia.com/node/5532


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Although, when things go wrong, they tend to go very wrong indeed; like the probe that crashed into Mars not long ago because of the metric/imperial units confusion.

    To the best of my knowledge NASA has officially been metric for years. The problem with the Mars probe was the result of the Byzantine quagmire of trying to get the downstream suppliers and contractors to go metric instead of clinging to the old imperial system.


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    This is the secular example of a bill of goods being sold as one thing which is exactly the opposite of the actual product. Who would not be in favor of modernizing air traffic control, increase flight safety, and decreased carbon emissions? How could that possibly be a bad thing?

    Our own FAA is subjecting countless people, including children, to excessive aircraft noise and collision hazard resulting from their new fly-by-wire air traffic control system, NextGen which is being rolled out gradually to the 20 ATC centers. The flight paths for climbout and approach have been altered, and densely-populated areas are being pounded by aircraft which used to climb out and approach over less densely-populated rural or industrial zones but which now go either low and slow or low and accelerating over the densely-populated areas which to this point had been intentionally avoided due to the impact on people of low aircraft noise. People report that it sounds like the Blue Angels or an air show is flying over their living rooms and bedrooms. Your kids and grandkids will not be able to just leave the building where the health-damaging noise is, because the building is your own home and yard and school and park. If you fly anywhere controlled by the FAA, you have been placed at immensely greater risk without your knowledge and without your input.

    The folks in Phoenix, New York, Baltimore, Charlotte, Chicago, San Francisco, and many other places see clearly that the selling point of “environmentally responsible” and “safer” are false. Your city may be next on the list, and unless you are at least 50-60 nautical miles from your airport, you may be in line for this. Your fellow citizens and neighbors certainly will suffer from this debacle.

    Aircraft are now permitted to fly nose-to-nose and right on top of one another as a practical matter. This is just coming to the attention of people because the word is just getting out about what is going on and why things have suddenly changed. This is a prime case of regulatory capture, in my humble estimation. It is the Obamacare implementation flying over your head. Google NextGen. I was appalled by this totally covert taking by the FAA, or at least I consider it a taking, though I am not a lawyer and have not heard whether the 5th amendment is still in effect. No hearings were held. It was entirely under the table and is a wealth and safety transfer from citizens to the airlines. Pewpeons who pay and Leaders who take. Same story, different setting.

    The FAA has also changed the horizontal and vertical separation between planes and recalculated the wake turbulence of various aircraft to greatly lessen the margins of safety. I’m not talking about little changes, either. I’m talking about horizontal separation that has been cut by 2/3. Now 1 nautical mile. Vertical separation is now less than 1000 feet. Consider this in light of Friday’s near-miss at LaGuardia between an aircraft and a drone which could have ended with a great loss of life on the plane and on the ground. Wake turbulence has been rejiggered to make it possible for the aircraft to fly closer together on takeoff by eliminating the safety margins that were put into place due to the Queens crash in October 2001, IIRC. We are supposed to believe that all of these changes were made in secret with no notice or hearings in the interest of “safety” and “environmental” concerns. Those were the selling points. But the real reason is that the airlines want to operate more flights on smaller aircraft to regional airports. So, if you live near a regional airport with occasional traffic, get ready. There is no net savings of fuel, and the PR that the FAA is putting out is patently false and misleading. The fuel “savings” are calculated based on current flight schedules and not on the increased flights which are anticipated from these “safety and environmental enhancements and modernization.” It is a total lie, and people are being harmed by this thuggery.

    People all over our country are just realizing what has taken place because the media has not been reporting this with the sole exception of isolated reports on CBS. People wondered why planes were suddenly flying continuously overhead when they rarely heard them before. And they are waking up and organizing.

    Beware of people who sell you things with labels that are attractive. Peace and Safety and Environmental Responsibility are actually No Peace, Much less Safety, and increased noise pollution, particulate pollution, and carbon emissions. You have to read between the lines of the PR releases and you need to heed the stories of those who have been abused by the System, which in this case is Regulatory Capture.


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    @ Gram3:

    Gram, Our airport is central in the Metro city area. It is also where UPSAir hub resides. This could be a HUGE problem.

    Yes, we have an oligarchical government. I pray citizens wake up but it really is almost too late and will take drastic measures to change it.


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    Albuquerque Blue wrote:

    So there’s been some fairly awful events. Thought I’d share some music that fights the awful with something beautiful.

    Thanks for posting those songs. Lovely!


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    Lydia wrote:

    @ Gram3:
    Gram, Our airport is central in the Metro city area. It is also where UPSAir hub resides. This could be a HUGE problem.
    Yes, we have an oligarchical government. I pray citizens wake up but it really is almost too late and will take drastic measures to change it.

    Yes, I know that. And Memphis with FedEx. I’ve been writing politicians and speaking to people in my community. I don’t do social media but there is a FB page called SaveOurSkies that has some good info. The way to make big bucks is to be in a regulatory agency and then go into private industry. Meanwhile the rest of us pay and pay. The other thing that people are concerned about is property values since the new flight paths bring the necessity for nuisance disclosure in property sales docs. Many people will be afffected and they have no idea. Implementation just began last year, and they are doing a quiet rollout hopoing to contain the outrage. I’m starting to see the value of social media.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    In other news, I believe the time is ripe for the introduction of hashtags on TWW. #amicoolorwhat

    Hi Nick,

    What do you suppose “God”‘s hashtag(s) would be?

    Cheers from California,

    “Velour”, sister in Christ to “Satin” (sic)/daughter of “Stan”(sic)/aka Dee!


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    Haitch

    Godwin’s law: probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler

    Putty tat rule: christian internet discussions eventually question someone’s salvation

    hush hush law: speak no ill of a church

    Jesus juke: kill a light discussion by making it super serious religious

    (need suggestion): take obvious hyperbole, treat it seriously, and start lecturing

    I recently ran across this one:

    Spock theology on leadership : “The applause and satisfaction of the many drowns out the red flags and complaints of the few”.


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    @ Bill M:
    [Nathan] Poe’s Law: parodies of fundamentalism are indistinguishable from sincere expressions of fundamentalism.


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    @ Albuquerque Blue:

    Maybe the Tleilaxu bio-engineers spoken of in the sci-fi of the Herbert men (both the elder and the younger) are not that far off eh?


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    @ Muff Potter:
    Keep an eye out for Zensufi’s then! This sort of technology boggles the mind. Growing replacement limbs or organs with ease. Definitely something to think about.


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    “Sounds like an awfully good game there John. But to use a metaphor, why do I get this gnawing feeling that if I schlepped myself over to your site kinda’ sorta’ like a wandering medieval Jew in say Krakow or Prague, I might be allowed a money changing booth next to a brothel for a time, and when my usefulness has expired (as in disagreement with a tribal Schtick) , I’d wind up outside the city gates on me arse?”

    John is a professed free enterprise person. I would sell my ideas if they were worth anything. I have always thought that was the American way. You can read there for free, too.

    I don’t really understand this preoccupation and criticism of him. He puts his ideas forth and we are free to engage or not. Buy his book or not. Someone brought him up here and he responded.


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    Josh, Doctor of Pulchritudinousness wrote:

    Poe’s Law: parodies of fundamentalism are indistinguishable from sincere expressions of fundamentalism.

    This can also be used for much that comes from politicians.


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    Bill M wrote:

    Josh, Doctor of Pulchritudinousness wrote:

    Poe’s Law: parodies of fundamentalism are indistinguishable from sincere expressions of fundamentalism.

    This can also be used for much that comes from politicians.

    Easy there, sonny boy.


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    One more thing about the Duggars: I am appalled at their attacks on the woman police chief of Springdale, Arkansas, who complied with Arkansas law’s/Freedom of Information Act and produced a redacted police report to a news agency, as she was required to do.

    The Duggars decided to blame the police chief for their son’s problems and family’s problems. They decided to say nasty things about her. That’s un-Christian and we aren’t supposed to do it.

    Those parents are arrogant. They are to blame for putting their family on national tv and for this whole thing. They mishandled their son Josh’s sexual abuse of at least five victims, four of his sisters and Victim No. 5 a babysitter.

    The Duggar parents have emboldened their son Josh every step of the way. How did Josh get the money and the temerity and an attorney to sue an Arkansas social services agency that investigated him for sexual abuse?

    The Duggars, under Arkansas law, could have lost the ability to homeschool their children due to Josh’s sexual abuse.

    That family is always trying to play the blame game and get special perks. Simply disgusting. The outrage about them from around the world is deserving.


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    Michaela wrote:

    They are to blame for putting their family on national tv

    I haven’t seen a whole lot of good emanate from couples or families who participate in reality tv. I truly don’t understand the people who participate and those who watch (oh rats, memory has kicked in, I must be having cognitive dissonance, because I do watch “Hoarders” and any extreme cleaning type of show). The Duggars and Kardashians don’t count.


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    Anyone watch the Driscoll sermon at James River Church? He lived down to my expectations. More of the same.


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    Michaela wrote:

    That family is always trying to play the blame game and get special perks

    It seems like much of their lives have been about perks/celebrity simply by having lots of children. They have used their children all along the way.

    I am a big time privacy person so I don’t understand these types at all.


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    Lydia wrote:

    I am a big time privacy person so I don’t understand these types at all.

    It’s always amazing to me that these types want the spotlight until it shines on something embarrassing (or illegal). Then they become privacy types.

    Bill gothard
    Mark Driscoll
    The Duggars

    Was going to put Bill Clinton, but he was only a politician. Not the lowest of the low who claim special favor with God.


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    Bilbo Skaggins wrote:

    Was going to put Bill Clinton, but he was only a politician. Not the lowest of the low who claim special favor with God.

    My brother knew Clinton quite well back in the 80’s and even stayed at the Gov’s manse in Little Rock several times. When Clinton was running for Gov of ARk, he decided to sing in the choir of a large FBC that was on TV every Sunday. There he was every Sunday on TV close to the preacher. Of course, most thought this brilliant tactic :o)


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    @ Lydia:

    That IS brilliant.


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    Daisy wrote:

    It really depends on the church. Many churches disregard singles, but the ones who do notice they exist tend to exploit them as free / cheap labor.

    Boy did your comment strike a chord, I’ve seen one church do a good job of integrating singles, and a whole bunch do as you describe. I’d add that some put them in the singles ghetto with the expectation they will pair up.


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    Bilbo Skaggins wrote:

    @ Lydia:

    That IS brilliant.

    So brilliant I told my family about it when we were out hiking this afternoon!
    We all had a good laugh. Thanks, Lydia!


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    @ Lydia:
    Say what you want about Slick Willy (and you’re spoiled for choice), the man is an amazing politician. That’s brilliant.


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    Completely off-topic, but please bear with me… Is there anybody here from Ohio (or knowledgeable about Ohio) that may help me?

    Last week I was told that I will be soon travelling to the USA (First time ever!) to meet with a company that is working with us in a research project… I will be staying in a place called Hudson, north of Akron (by the way, apparently Akron is the rubber capital of the world or something like that) and south from Cleveland. I’ll be busy with work from Monday 15th until Thursday 18th of June.

    Anyway, I thought that I could extend my stay a couple of days, do a little sightseeing and return to the UK during the weekend… Could you recommend any interesting places to visit in Ohio or in nearby states? I’ve also considered visiting New York or other far away cities, but if I do that I will end up spending too much time in a plane… And, believe me, flying from and to the UK in a week is enough for me.


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    @ Martos:
    If you like aircraft, the National Museum of the US Air Force is in Dayton, OH and it is fantastic. That’s about all I remember from my visits to Ohio.


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    @ Martos:

    I live about an hour south west of Akron. If you are into American Football you might like the Football Hall of Fame in Canton. I personally am not into that but some find it fun and interesting. That would be generally South of Hudson (I am going from memory– check it out before you drive)

    Albuquerque Blue is right. I have been to the Airforce Museum in Dayton. It’s a full day of fun and education. That would probably be a 3 to 4 hour drive from Hudson, though.
    You might be able to catch a baseball game. The Cleveland Indians have games in town from the 17th-24th of June. Or, you could save a few dollars and go see the Akron Rubberducks (Cleveland’s minor league team) in Akron. I’ve been to both and they are equally fun, but I admit I am a die hard baseball fan.
    Cleveland has the Rock and Roll Hall of fame and a museum (or two?) I haven’t been to them, but hear good things.

    I will reply again if I think of anything else.
    Welcome to the USA! I hope you enjoy it. Sorry you have to come to Ohio first. 😉 actually, Ohio isn’t that bad.


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    @ Martos:

    Also, if you head about an hour south from Hudson you will find a large Amish population. They have catered to tourists quite a bit (and some “Amish made” stuff isn’t), but I have visited this working Amish Farm with guests from out of town and it is pretty accurate, even if a tourist setup. I think of it as an informational field trip. The Amish that work there are truly Amish and they are very kind and love to answer questions.

    http://thefarmatwalnutcreek.com/


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    @ Martos:

    There is a national park between Cleveland and Akron, and nearby an early American homestead (Hale Homestead) that has been preserved. Cleveland has a free art museum on the east side of town, near Case Western Reserve University. Also between Akron and Cleveland in the Cuyahoga River Valley is the summer home of the Cleveland orchestra. Kent State University is nearby and used to (and may still) have theater and music events in the summer. Cleveland has a very interesting part system called the emerald necklace, and many historic sites. Tours may be available at many of the manufacturing sites, including tire plants, salt mines, steel, etc. And Canton, less than an hour south of where you likely will stay, had the professional football Hall of Fame.


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    has, not had, the NFL Hall of Fame.


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    Hey, does everybody know there’s a TWW place to discuss literature, movies, & TV?
    Just goto TWW’s top banner where it says ‘interesting’ and click into Books-Movies-TV-etc. So far there are very few comments. Maybe it’s cuz’ folks don’t know about the venue?


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    @ Martos:

    “Born and raised in NE Ohio” mentioned some good things. If you head south through Akron on the highway (I think it’s I-76) you will see the hangar in which they keep the Goodyear blimp(s). It looks like a giant inverted ship hull. I have no idea if they have tours, but I am told it sometimes has its own clouds due to its size. Be that an urban legend or not, it is a huge structure and now if you drive past, you will know what it is.


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    Bilbo Skaggins wrote:

    Anyone watch the Driscoll sermon at James River Church?

    I didn’t.

    I hope this is helpful.


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    @ Nick Bulbeck:

    It was very helpful. Thank you! 😉


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    @ Nick Bulbeck:
    I already make a hash of enough posts not to want this additional burden, thank you very much …


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    Thank you all for the recommendations! The airforce museum looks interesting, and there’s also an air show on that weekend at Dayton… However, I’ve been thinking about flying to Chicago after finishing my work at Hudson, spending a couple of days in the city, and then returning to the UK from there. For whatever reason, I’ve always felt that I’d like to visit Chicago.

    In any case, my travelling plans have not completely been defined yet… But I should decide what to do soon as we’re buying the tickets tomorrow in the morning!


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    @ Martos:
    I grew up in the Chicago suburbs. Great city, tons to do. Totally recommend it. Fantastic museums if that’s your thing. Amazing architecture.


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    https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/officially-recognize-philosophy-rape-terrorist-organization

    Believe it or not, the apparent founder of this horrible organization is Dean Saxton (or someone claiming to be him). Saxton is a manic street preacher and Brother Jed disciple who travels around college campuses “proclaiming the love of Jesus” (actually, he mostly just tells women that they deserve to be raped).


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    Albuquerque Blue wrote:

    @ Lydia:
    Say what you want about Slick Willy (and you’re spoiled for choice), the man is an amazing politician. That’s brilliant.

    Is that a compliment for him? (wink)


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    @ Martos:

    Chicago has some of the best ethnic food in America. Greek, Chinese, Japanese. Great American ethnic food as well. Baby back ribs. Deep Dish Pizza (crust first, then cheese, then veggies/meat, then sauce. Cooked slower that most pizza until the crust rises, the cheese works it way up, and everything is done perfecto. Also there are Hungarian places, etc., etc. You will not have time but to sample two or three!


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    @ Bilbo Skaggins:

    We aim to please!

    (I should add that “we” refers to the community here; I wasn’t trying to use the royal plural…)


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    Michaela wrote:

    Hi Nick,
    What do you suppose “God”‘s hashtag(s) would be?

    Sorry, Michaela – missed this one.

    I’m speculating, of course, but it might be something like #ikeeptellingthosementogetrealjobsbuttheywontlisten


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    In other news, the Dawn space probe is now in an orbit approximately 4,400 kilometers from the surface of Ceres. Researchers are no closer in determining what those ‘bright’ spots are in the floor of one of her large craters. However, one of the chief scientists on the project says that water ice is probably the best candidate for explanation right now because of its high reflectivity.


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    @ Martos:

    I realize your plans are probably made, but Chicago is an awesome city. You should go! My wife and I fly over there when we can and always have a great time.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    We aim to please!
    (I should add that “we” refers to the community here; I wasn’t trying to use the royal plural…)

    🙂 and I really enjoy the community here because it is much more diverse than the one I grew up in.


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    @ Martos:
    The Art Institute of Chicago is a great museum, and very highly recommended. Don’t know if you’re a music fan, but there’s a lot of great listening to be had, from jazz to classical to R&B to blues to who knows what all else!

    Hope you enjoy your trip, Martos. And Albuquerque Blue is right about the architecture. Definitely something to include, if you can (either in the downtown area, or out in Oak Park).


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    @ numo:

    My daughter in law went to the Art Institute in Chicago and said it was great. She brought back some children’s T shirts with the museum’s identifier on them, so we decked out the kiddies and sent them off to school looking like maybe they had been there. That is called a poor man’s trip to Chicago.


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    @ Nancy:
    Hee!


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Michaela wrote:

    Hi Nick,
    What do you suppose “God”‘s hashtag(s) would be?

    Sorry, Michaela – missed this one.

    I’m speculating, of course, but it might be something like #ikeeptellingthosementogetrealjobsbuttheywontlisten

    Utterly brilliant…


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    An Australian opinion piece on Driscoll’s recently cancelled talk in Australia:
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-09/lehmann-the-feminist-lefts-ban-on-mark-driscoll-is-absurd/6531660
    Warning: you may drop a few IQ points after reading the article & comments.
    I don’t want to appear supportive of Driscoll, but think there should be better attempts at explaining Driscoll’s context and give him an opportunity to respond. Otherwise it just reads as another anti-Christian (& everyone lumped in together) rant/smear piece.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Michaela wrote:

    Hi Nick,
    What do you suppose “God”‘s hashtag(s) would be?

    Sorry, Michaela – missed this one.

    I’m speculating, of course, but it might be something like #ikeeptellingthosementogetrealjobsbuttheywontlisten

    Good one, Nick!


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    Just a random thought I had:

    Saul went around having Christians thrown in jail before he became Paul – do we ever get a hint of him trying to right those wrongs after his conversion? Wouldn’t that be a part of repentance?


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    Here’s one Canadian pastor’s take on why many of us have left the church. We are guilty of simplistic thinking and not enough understanding of our complex world, among other things.
    The reason I left the church is because of condescending “pastors” like him. I thought about leaving a comment on his website but I’m pretty sure it would be a waste of time.

    http://careynieuwhof.com/2015/06/a-response-to-christians-who-are-done-with-church/


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    BTW, just read an article on Piper’s tweet from April: “The Bible says there are men who rape and women who seduce. United in sin, distinct in form.”

    (Great article at http://fiddlrts.blogspot.co.at/2015/04/john-piper-steps-in-it-on-rape-and-sex.html )

    Piper is getting weirder – and more dangerous – by the day.


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    Jan wrote:

    The reason I left the church is because of condescending “pastors” like him.

    This – condescension in the church towards the poor hurting and broken babies in the world, and those poor rebellious little children who’ve run away from church – is a much bigger problem than many realise.

    There’s a great quote from Hamlet that runs thus:

    I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space

    Which is true of a large swathe of christendom I’ve encountered over the years. We’ve sat tucked into our little denominations and traditions, isolated from everything else and helplessly incapable of meeting any realistic need or solving any real-world problem. And yet we’ve pretended to ourselves that we’re the ambassadors of the highest Kingdom of all and everyone out there is broken and needy – so needy that their very pain is what stops them from realising that our church services and prayers are everything they want! To paraphrase Shakespeare, we’ve been living in nutshells and calling ourselves kings of infinite space…


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    Chèr Sopy
    Vous serez dans mes prières.
    Que le Bon Dieu vous bénisse.
    Salut
    Estelle


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    Sopy, I am so sorry you are going through this. I am praying that this works out for.


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    @ Gus:

    We could do rounds on Piper weird tweets. I am still amazed he admits he listened to Eliz Elliot teach!!!

    http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/peaches-in-paradise

    He has to be the most confusing -contradictory man in all of Christendom. Well, I guess it is ok because he is under his own authority. :o)


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    Hello to Jason Isaacs.


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    Sopy,

    Sorry to hear about the medical issues you are dealing with. I will be praying for a full recovery along with peace to you and yours.


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    Sopwith,

    Best of luck finding a donor and a quick and easy surgery. May your surgery team be skilled.


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    Praying for you, Sopy!


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    Sopy,
    May the God of Abraham set Providence in motion on your behalf.


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    Sopy, your friends here are praying for you. Thanks for all you contribute here and for reminding us to keep Jesus first!


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    Sopy, prayers are (as they say) being offered.

    I am never sure what to say at times like this, except this: we care about you, and i am sending my love and best wishes along with everyone else here.


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    Oh, sopy. Sorry to hear that. Stay in touch. We don’t want to lose touch with you.


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    Sopy, I’ve said a prayer for you too. I hope this all works out satisfactorily.


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    @ oldJohnJ:

    Excellent link oldJohnJ. I particularly liked the Pope’s critique of unregulated Capitalism. In his farewell address to the nation (1961) Dwight Eisenhower tried to warn us of what would happen if we let the Pentagon get in bed with the captains of industry and it indeed happened. It is my fervent hope that we’ll listen to Francis’ warning about unfettered investor confidence and avoid the worst abuses of the bleak future described by David Mitchell in his novel Cloud Atlas.


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    In other news, New Horizons is now within a fifth of an AU of Pluto. This is equivalent to around 100 billion standard pieces of spaghetti laid end to end.

    I hope this is helpful. #uselesscomparisons


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    @ Nick Bulbeck:

    Yer crackin’ me up Nick!


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    @ Nick Bulbeck:
    Mind=blown. Always down for those sorts of comparisons.

    Can’t wait for Pluto’s closeups. It’s done well for a planetoid.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    100 billion standard pieces of spaghetti laid end to end.

    Not helpful but certainly interesting. I didn’t know that a spaghetti was a SI unit. You folks sure have short spaghetti!


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    Sopy, so sorry to hear your news. You are in my prayers.


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    In further astronomical news, the Philae lander continues to make sporadic contact; it seems to be in good working order. Furthermore, planetologists combing through the reams of data collected by the Venus Express probe prior to its mission ending late last year have discovered strong evidence of currently active volcanoes on Earth’s evil twin. That is to say, literally current activity, not just activity that is recent over geological timescales.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    planetologists

    I read this “paleontologists”. What? fossils found on Venus?


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    Seriously… Lifting up Sopwith to da gracious Heavenly Father in prayer.


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    Dave A A wrote:

    I read this “paleontologists”. What? fossils found on Venus?

    Now that would set the empirical cat among the fundagelical pigeons.


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    The SBC just keeps getting wierder and weirder:

    http://sbcvoices.com/breaking-news-james-mcdonald-and-harvest-church-are-southern-baptist/

    Basically, the typical pastor response is: Yes, he has done/said some pretty bad things but he preaches a great sermon! Oh, and he is bringing 13,000 more people to the SBC! (which they did not vote on, btw)


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    @ Lydia:

    Wasn’t MacDonald getting cozy with Calvary Chapel at one time?


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    @ Muff Potter:

    Not sure, Muff. He has only been on my radar for the last 6 years or so. But this is an interesting move after all his scandalabras…especially his cozy relationship with Driscoll before his grand fall. What kills me is how he can simply decide that 13,000 people are now SBC. I blame the 13,000 people who still think he has any credibility at all.

    But in the celeb pastor game, all one has to do is say “I repent” and we are mean if we bring anything up.


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    One can catch sight of Venus and Jupiter appearing close together in the evenings for the next few weeks. Unfortunately the crescent moon is higher up in the sky from now on. The three were in close alignment over the weekend. http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/visible-planets-tonight-mars-jupiter-venus-saturn-mercury


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    @ Albuquerque Blue:

    Thanks for the keyboard tip on the other thread! Didn’t answer there cuz’ of concerns over ‘thread derailment’. Luckily over the weekend, I was able to score an ancient clunker through an old work crony. It dates from the days of IBM system 370 and TSO terminals. It’s die-cast aluminum and weighs a ton, but ohhhhh! the klikity-klak is like music and it’s resistance to fat-fingering is well…what can I say?
    A perfect fit for an old fossil like Muff.


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    @ Estelle:

    The Almighty puts on the best light shows there ever was. Hands down. If you trace the ecliptic line Eastward you’ll see that Saturn is close to the pincers of Scorpio with Antares down and to the left of her.


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    I was curious about what anyone’s take is on the recent report about Tulian Tchividjian. I haven’t seen anyone comment on it yet. Just wondering how all of that fits in with all the other recent happenings in the Reformed world. Or perhaps the writers here are still in the process of composing a post on it and will weigh in soon.


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    Wow, Tullian really threw his wife under the bus with that “statement” crafted and released the Washington Post. “She sinned first and made me eat the fruit”!


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    Lydia wrote:

    Wow, Tullian really threw his wife under the bus with that “statement” crafted and released the Washington Post. “She sinned first and made me eat the fruit”!

    It really is a shame that Tchividjian couldn’t have just put a lid on it and kept it under wraps in favor of a much larger picture than himself. For all the ink that’s been slathered about the bad old days of our fathers and their awful sins, they still had some things right.
    Here’s a short vignette from Armageddon: A Novel of Berlin by Leon Uris.
    They are the thoughts of a Tennessee lieutenant stationed in Germany after the defeat of the Nazis. The Lieutenant is a prince of a man with an earthy horse sense that is in short supply these days:

    …Damn, I’d like to see Lil! He smiled at the thought of his wife. She is a good ole’ gal. And she still cuts a fine picture of a woman. Lil had come out of the hill country, knew nothing but hard times all her life. When she was sixteen she married a bastard just to escape. Used to beat hell out of her. Lil ran away.
    Bless knew a woman like her, with all she’d been through, wasn’t going to go playing around,because she had a good man who treated her square. He and Lil had something wonderful going for them and two of their own…cutest kids in Hook County.
    Such a long time. He wondered how many times Lil needed to have a man in the past two and a half years. She was human and a lot of woman. Bless knew she would go about it in the right way. She’d go off to Memphis for a week, where nobody knew her, and she’d be damned careful.
    He would never ask her about it because it wouldn’t mean a damned thing.


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    @ Andy:
    @ Lydia:
    @ Muff Potter:

    I was sad to hear about Tchividjian. I have been listening to a lot of Lutheran preachers lately and he was friendly to that doctrine, it seems, even if he is a Calvanist or YRR or whatever. I have come to the point of just waiting for the next scandal, though so I wasn’t too surprised. I am glad he resigned. It shows me that he somehow is owning his sin, or at least being held accountable. Here’s hoping he doesn’t show up in less than a year ready to preach as if nothing happened. Like all the rest of the fallen mega pastors.


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    @ Lydia:

    I agree that he should have not thrown the blame to his wife. It is all messed up, and I fail to believe that he was powerless against the temptation because of her sin.


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    @ Muff Potter:

    I have got to read that book. Great passage! Yeah, Tullian should have kept his mouth shut about her. It had all the earmarks of revenge and blame.

    I have never been a fan of Tullian’s because I have this aversion to anything celebrity preachery. And he screamed celebrity cool pastor in it for the fame/ money– in all respects to me.

    His statement “prepared for the WaPo” seems to totally negate the concept of Grace he was big on teaching all the time. He often bragged about doing nothing “good”. So why not give his wife a pass with what he taught?

    It makes NO sense to me.


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    Hey Muff, Just looking at Uris’ bio. He was on Guadalcanal in ’42.


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    Bilbo Skaggins wrote:

    I fail to believe that he was powerless against the temptation because of her sin.

    I have been through marital discord and separation and divorce. The thing I read that TT said is that he turned to a female friend for consolation. I want to say two things. When one is betrayed one can be desperate for some sort of affirmation from the opposite sex. It is a howling need at that time. Now I think he should have known that, and maybe should not as a married man had that close a relationship with some woman that he could turn to her for consolation, and where were his men friends when he needed them. Lots of mistakes were made. That does not excuse any of it, but I can understand how something like that happens unless one is fanatically cautious at such a time.

    IMO there is more to the story, and I am just as happy if they take it off front page and solve it privately. Enough harm has been done as it is.


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    @ Lydia:

    My father flew a B-17 deep into the heart of the Reich in the summer of 44′. His targets were railways and synthetic fuel plants.


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    @ Muff Potter:
    Thanks, Muff. I’ll check it out, may have to stand on my head to follow your directions, I’m in the southern hemisphere.


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    I kid you not, I saw a post on Facebook yesterday saying that it was the first day of the end times. I mean, really. Really? REALLY? (Sorry, I confused this with an episode of “Really with Seth & Amy”)


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    @ Okrapod:

    I get your point. To be clear, I in no way was trying to kick TT while he is down. I hope the best for him and his family. I was only commenting on his mentioning his wife’s transgressions first. I also was thinking about Joseph and how he would not succumb to Potiphar’s wife in her advances. He was basically her slave, but he said he could not sin against God. May I have that strength if ever put in a compromising situation with the opposite sex. Though, I admit, women are not stumbling over each other to get to me. Lol.


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    @ Muff Potter:
    They are so cool aren’t they? I love my laptops for almost everything but if I’m gaming or doing real writing I need a real keyboard.


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    Okrapod wrote:

    When one is betrayed one can be desperate for some sort of affirmation from the opposite sex. It is a howling need at that time. Now I think he should have known that, and maybe should not as a married man had that close a relationship with some woman that he could turn to her for consolation, and where were his men friends when he needed them.

    I have not been betrayed in that way, but when I was betrayed I was desperate for affirmation. So what you say makes a lot of sense. I think it is exactly why Billy Graham had the policy that he did. It was not, as some here have suggested, a legalistic rule for others, but rather one that he had for his own protection from his own human nature, for protection from possibly predatory women and for the protection of the ministry. It was a matter of prudence and wisdom, considering the reality of human nature, and not a matter of law for everyone else to follow in every circumstance. I think Billy has been misunderstood on this point.


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    @ HUG

    And as said in different words by C.S.Lewis and Joss Whedon, rule by Control Freaks convinced of their own Righteousness is the worst of all.

    In this latest case both sides are convinced of their own righteousness and the righteousness of their cause.


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    @ Muff Potter:

    Did he continue as a pilot when he got out? I am often amazed to read how many trained as pilots for the war but then did something totally different when they got out. Anyway, God bless him for what a tyrant forced so many to do.


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    Estelle wrote:

    Thanks, Muff. I’ll check it out, may have to stand on my head to follow your directions, I’m in the southern hemisphere.

    Turn about is fair play as they say hah hah! I read a piece in a local newspaper (I’m in Southern Calif.) awhile back about some honeymooners who went on an Australian cruise tour. The husband was taken aback and he recounts on how it even cracked him up that the constellation of Orion appeared upside down when viewed looking north from down under.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    @ Josh, Doctor of Pulchritudinousness:
    Do you think that the concerns of those on the religious right who worried about this decision leading to coercion of religious belief and practice are unwarranted? In other words, was this about securing equal rights or was it about securing the rights of some? I’m curious because I’ve seen reactions from libertarians who say that they like the result but that the process and the things that will flow out of this do not favor religious liberty.
    In reading some here, I wonder if people are as concerned about the totalist left as they are about the totalist right? Is there a way to preserve freedom of conscience as well? We oppose authoritarianism in the church, but do we oppose authoritarianism from government, too?

    When anti-marriage equality Christians work to keep same-sex couples from having the recognition of civil marriage (and decades before that, any protection at all from police brutality and government persecution), is there something that makes their position not a form of coercion of religious views? To your point specifically, is that issue inseparable from the question of whether churches should be forced to marry people whom they object to marrying?

    In fact, churches are still not required to marry interracial couples, or divorced couples, or any other couples they don’t want to marry. And for what it’s worth, I fully support churches having the freedom to refuse to marry (or hire) anyone that they do not believe they should marry (or employ), and while I celebrate the SCOTUS’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, I would oppose any attempt to force churches to marry people against their consciences.

    To the implied question of whether the SCOTUS should have ruled on the matter or left it up to a vote of the people, I do not agree that it was authoritarian for them to rule on this, given that it was a question of equal protection for civil rights, and I do not believe that civil rights for a minority have any business being put up to a vote of the majority. It took the Supreme Court’s action in cases such as Brown v. Board of Education and Loving v. Virginia to protect civil rights when majorities in the states in question were unwilling to correct injustices purely through the legislative process. With an airtight argument, I might be convinced that the Supreme Court overreached in the case at hand, but good luck, because it won’t be easy…


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    @ Josh, Doctor of Pulchritudinousness:

    This was not about protecting civil rights. It was about creating a civil right where none had existed before, and the court did it admittedly beyond the bounds of the words of the constitution by their own admission. So the issue is way beyond just gay marriage in this case. It is, like Justice Scalia said, about who rules the nation and is it just the majority of the supreme court. Is the court a legislative body? The dissenting opinions make some interesting reading, what I have read so far. Do we need an oligarchy in which a few unelected persons legislate from the bench? Is it legitimate for the court to basically say that here is an important issue so we are going to do this. Note that Justice Roberts said this is not about the constitution in this ruling. Then read what Justice Kennedy said about freedom and see where you think he would draw the line, based on his own comments. That, this thing that I am talking about, is huge and strikes at the heart of how the US governs itself. And this would be so whether the issue were gay marriage or something else.

    Do we need to take another look at how we govern ourselves? Probably, and if there are some flaws those need addressed. Do we need to amend the constitution? Danged if I know. But we may be coming up on a national debate on these issues.


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    Josh, Doctor of Pulchritudinousness wrote:

    In fact, churches are still not required to marry interracial couples, or divorced couples, or any other couples they don’t want to marry.

    That does not mean that changes may not be in the offing. Both the counsel for the gov at the hearing and Justice Roberts have talked about how this might affect a church’s tax exemption. It is does, and whether one thinks that churches should have tax exemption or not, this nevertheless would be attempts at coercion. So, yes, the thought has crossed some minds.


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    @ Muff Potter:
    That’s really neat Muff. I was lucky enough to be able to go through one of those years ago, I’ve always been a bit of a plane nut. My dad flew F-100’s in Vietnam and Laos.


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    @ Josh, Doctor of Pulchritudinousness:

    I agree with Okrapod, this goes right to the very heart of how we govern ourselves and it has been evolving for years to which party holds the majority on the unelected SC. This is such dangerous ground as it really is a precursor to Oligarchy. Governing ourselves is a messy business and it is about having debates in the public square and voting. And what if this gone through the ratification of an amended Constitution? The process would have been horribly messy and divisive but at the same time involve the actual citizens. That is part of being able to govern ourselves. Being grown ups.

    As a civil libertarian I have no problem with marriage for homosexuals. And yet, I do not understand this need for people to be so scared of a debate yet thrilled at the prospect of a few unelected appointees deciding for us on these issues. That is a dangerous slippery slope.

    I think what happens is we get all emotional about an issue and therefore cannot see past the issue and take a good look at how the processes employed might end up being our worst nightmare one day. That is where this is headed.


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    Josh, Doctor of Pulchritudinousness wrote:

    When anti-marriage equality Christians work to keep same-sex couples from having the recognition of civil marriage (and decades before that, any protection at all from police brutality and government persecution), is there something that makes their position not a form of coercion of religious views?

    One of the problems with this sort of argument is that the Gay Lobby in America is quite wealthy and very well connected to media and government. Those representing this Lobby are in the top percentage of income earners in America. And they have the ear of the elite in media, business and government. And they have hijacked the plight of African Americans as their own— which has not helped their cause for “civil rights”.

    They are not the same issues. But every time this is discussed someone brings in police brutality and government persecution. While there might be pockets of this (for other non gay people too) happening it is by no means even in the same league as the civil rights movement and all leading up to it.


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    @ Josh, Doctor of Pulchritudinousness:
    My immediate concern is not about pastors being forced to marry gay couples. My concern is what the goal of some gay marriage advocates is. The instance of the baker and the pizza business being targeted for no reason that I can discern other than their own religious beliefs. I think that there might be some liberty-minded gay couples who would oppose the targeting of these business people for what amounts to thoughtcrime. That is my opinion.

    WRT the Supreme Court, I think there is a real question regarding whether this was an issue which should have been decided at the Supreme Court. I do take your point about civil marriage being vehemently opposed, and I think there is more than one reason for that. So, I also think it is possible to be in favor of civil marriage without thinking that a ruling by the Supreme Court is the best way to go about it. As far as I can see, there is a conflict of rights that needs to find a win/win balance. Neither fringe is helping those of us who would like to find that win/win place of freedom for all.


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    Lydia wrote:

    One of the problems with this sort of argument is that the Gay Lobby in America is quite wealthy and very well connected to media and government. Those representing this Lobby are in the top percentage of income earners in America. And they have the ear of the elite in media, business and government. And they have hijacked the plight of African Americans as their own— which has not helped their cause for “civil rights”.

    So is this connected to the “gay agenda”? LOL!

    They are not the same issues. But every time this is discussed someone brings in police brutality and government persecution. While there might be pockets of this (for other non gay people too) happening it is by no means even in the same league as the civil rights movement and all leading up to it.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_violence_against_LGBT_people_in_the_United_States

    And that only goes back to 1970. Come again, please?


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    Gram3 wrote:

    My immediate concern is not about pastors being forced to marry gay couples. My concern is what the goal of some gay marriage advocates is. The instance of the baker and the pizza business being targeted for no reason that I can discern other than their own religious beliefs. I think that there might be some liberty-minded gay couples who would oppose the targeting of these business people for what amounts to thoughtcrime. That is my opinion.
    WRT the Supreme Court, I think there is a real question regarding whether this was an issue which should have been decided at the Supreme Court. I do take your point about civil marriage being vehemently opposed, and I think there is more than one reason for that. So, I also think it is possible to be in favor of civil marriage without thinking that a ruling by the Supreme Court is the best way to go about it. As far as I can see, there is a conflict of rights that needs to find a win/win balance. Neither fringe is helping those of us who would like to find that win/win place of freedom for all.

    The problem with a slippery slope argument (first marriage equality, then people being forced to sell cakes to same-sex couples getting married) is that it is logically fallacious, and for good reason. If we’re going to discuss this, let’s address marriage equality and “religious freedom” legislation separately.

    Should Loving v. Virginia not have happened, and the couple have waited for voters of the state of Virginia to repeal their anti-miscegenation law out of the goodness of their hearts, because it was the right thing to do?


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    Okrapod wrote:

    So the issue is way beyond just gay marriage in this case. It is, like Justice Scalia said, about who rules the nation and is it just the majority of the supreme court. Is the court a legislative body? The dissenting opinions make some interesting reading, what I have read so far. Do we need an oligarchy in which a few unelected persons legislate from the bench? Is it legitimate for the court to basically say that here is an important issue so we are going to do this. Note that Justice Roberts said this is not about the constitution in this ruling. Then read what Justice Kennedy said about freedom and see where you think he would draw the line, based on his own comments.

    Yes, well said. It is a much bigger issue than same-sex marriage, though I understand if you are gay and want to marry, then it certainly is a big deal and it is tempting to want to put that in place by any means. But there are always unintended consequences when things are pushed through on a results-based method where the only thing in view can be the desired result with no unintended consequences.

    For me, the issues are much broader than even the Supreme Court. They are whether or not people can be free to dissent from the elites of whatever kind. Can a little person still be free, or are we only to serve our betters?


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    Josh, Doctor of Pulchritudinousness wrote:

    The problem with a slippery slope argument (first marriage equality, then people being forced to sell cakes to same-sex couples getting married

    I’m not making a slippery slope argument. I’m asking a question about what the real issue is. Is the real issue that gay couples can be married with a marriage license like a man and a woman, or is the real issue that we must all bend to the Gay Orthodoxy? I do not at all mean that to you personally, but rather to what is really in play here.

    The fact is that businesses were fined and harassed because the owners did not want to participate *only* in a wedding celebration. Those businesses were perfectly willing to serve those gay customers for other occasions or no occasion at all. But their consciences were violated, in my view, and unnecessarily so.

    As I’ve said before, I do not think that the equation of black civil rights with gay civil rights works because the facts on the ground are very much different. I do take your point about the majority not being willing to grant civil rights to black citizens and what do we do about that situation.

    How do you see a resolution between the competing rights?


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    I am also interested in where the bright line is now drawn. Is polygamy legitimate or not, and if not, why not? What is the decision principle?


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    There are some here who have expressed concern about Reconstructionists gaining power and the resulting infringements of liberty that they would impose. My question is, if those Reconstructionists gained sufficient power that they were able to push through their agenda using the Supreme Court, would it be OK? If that hypothetical Supreme Court ruled that magistrates could force attendance at Sunday services using civil or criminal penalties, would that be OK?

    I do not think it would be OK. In my opinion, we need to separate the instant issue with the way that we go about resolving that issue. There can be a tyranny of the minority as well as a tyranny of the majority. Tyranny by either is still tyranny.


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    @ Josh, Doctor of Pulchritudinousness:

    Josh, I am not reading organized ingrained persecution or brutality there as it was for African Americans.

    In the case of “hate crimes” I will relate a incident of a friend of mine who was a property manager. She had to bar some teens from a pool because of their behavior. They were a mixed group who had given her a very hard time for 2 years. One day, she found her car vandalized with all sorts of “white slang” insults carved into the paint.

    She called the police who came out but upon seeing her told her to call insurance as it could not be a hate crime because she is white.

    So what do we do with that?

    All of this is being overcomplicated. Now we have “worse” crimes simply because of whom they are perpetuated upon. Are they lesser crimes if perpetuated on others who do not fit the category? Are those victims not as worthy? Hate is hate for whatever reason.


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    Josh, Doctor of Pulchritudinousness wrote:

    If we’re going to discuss this, let’s address marriage equality and “religious freedom” legislation separately.

    The gay activist lobby are the ones that brought those two issues together to legal light in going after a baker and pizza parlor small business owners. Did they not understand how they were positioning the issue around gay marriage?

    And just because I am concerned about the “process” and “tactics” of this issue does not mean I am religious right. I would have the same concerns if Doug Wilson was so politically connected with power and pushing through special civil rights for polygamists without a public debate and vote. To keep comparing this to “race” issues is a problem for me. I do not acknowledge the comparison and I am sure I am in a minority on that.


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    Sorry, I’m having a hard time following the discussions from every different angle. I’m going to address Lydia’s issue with persecution one more time, and then I’m done.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_history_in_the_United_States

    When police are constantly raiding places where LGBT people gather, harassing, beating, arresting, and imprisoning them, with the full force of the law behind their actions, and you choose to pretend that it wasn’t an issue, then I have no words. I’m not trying to say that LGBT people had it worse than black people, or even that the treatment was equivalent. But you just want to brush the history away, as if it was a minuscule issue and doesn’t really matter. Good night!


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    Josh, Doctor of Pulchritudinousness wrote:

    I’m going to address Lydia’s issue with persecution one more time, and then I’m done.

    Josh, would you respond to my question about how do we balance the rights which seem to be in conflict so as to maximize freedom?


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    Gram3 wrote:

    There are some here who have expressed concern about Reconstructionists gaining power and the resulting infringements of liberty that they would impose. My question is, if those Reconstructionists gained sufficient power that they were able to push through their agenda using the Supreme Court, would it be OK? If that hypothetical Supreme Court ruled that magistrates could force attendance at Sunday services using civil or criminal penalties, would that be OK?
    I do not think it would be OK. In my opinion, we need to separate the instant issue with the way that we go about resolving that issue. There can be a tyranny of the minority as well as a tyranny of the majority. Tyranny by either is still tyranny.

    I see your point on that.

    I am also interested in where the bright line is now drawn. Is polygamy legitimate or not, and if not, why not? What is the decision principle?

    I’m not arguing for polygamy, but I would say that traditional polygamy is not based on a relationship of equals, so there is the matter of consent, which is a huge deal [that is often overlooked when people compare same-sex relationships between adults to pedophilia]. A modernized polygamy between three or more equals creates what to me, as a non-lawyer, seems like it would be a legal nightmare. How do you handle inheritance in the case of the death of one partner? What happens when a man who married two women dies? Do the wives remain married to each other, even if they’re [presumably] both straight and were most significantly connected to the deceased (but assuming that they still love each other in some sense, because the husband would have decided in concert with his first wife to include the second, because remember equality…). But I digress, and my head is hurting now. Point is, I’m sure as heck not arguing for it, but if someone wanted to, and had a framework to address the myriad of legal questions, they could put it forward. I have to say that there’s less Biblical support for banning polygamy than there is for banning same-sex relationships…

    Gram3 wrote:

    I’m not making a slippery slope argument. I’m asking a question about what the real issue is. Is the real issue that gay couples can be married with a marriage license like a man and a woman, or is the real issue that we must all bend to the Gay Orthodoxy? I do not at all mean that to you personally, but rather to what is really in play here.
    The fact is that businesses were fined and harassed because the owners did not want to participate *only* in a wedding celebration. Those businesses were perfectly willing to serve those gay customers for other occasions or no occasion at all. But their consciences were violated, in my view, and unnecessarily so.

    I see the issue as being about the rights, responsibilities, and protections under the law of a civil marriage certificate. That was the issue that was resolved yesterday. The remaining issue of protection of religious freedom is an important one, and one that even amongst LGBT people there is disagreement (falling somewhat predictably on party lines, it seems to me). I’m not inclined to force someone to sell me a product that they don’t want to sell me (even though it’s a product that they already sell to everyone else … this isn’t the straw man of the Gentiles wanting the Jewish deli to sell them ham), because I don’t think there’s a productive path from being antagonistic on an individual level.

    That said, I would appreciate some protection on the basis of sexual orientation (n.b. not relationship status, but core orientation) for housing and employment. Right now, in many states, you can be kicked out of a rental property or fired merely for being found out to be gay (never mind being in a relationship, “rubbing it in someone’s face,” or anything of that nature). If people are protected from being fired on the basis of their religion, which they choose, I feel that there’s a place to argue for protection on the basis of orientation, which I most assuredly did not choose (though now that I’ve accepted who I am, I really don’t mind it, except for that whole worrying about being discriminated against, because employment discrimination still happens on that basis).


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    @ Josh, Doctor of Pulchritudinousness:
    First I want to thank you for responding. I know that this is a deeply personal issue and involves things which I have no way of knowing.

    The problem, as I see it, with your approach to the polygamy question is that it deals with the consequences rather than the principle of “who should be permitted to marry and why.” You also mentioned consent, and I think that is very, very important. But the practical objections you raise to polygamy can also be raised WRT to gay marriage, so that cannot be the way we draw a line if we want to be consistent. And if we are to be a nation governed by laws and not persons, then we need to try to be consistent.

    There are currently polygamous marriages where there is consent, as far as we know. So that argues in favor of polygamous marriages, at least in the civil sphere. I think that the OT polygamy is not what God intended marriage to be, but he made provision for the hardness of human hearts, and a polygamous marriage was possibly better than the other available options which resulted from the free exercise of sinful human will.

    The WaPo had an article to day that the ACLU will no longer defend the RFRA because of CakeGate and PizzaGate and HobbyLobbyGate. So, that lends some credence, ISTM, to those who say that civil gay marriage is not really about rights for individuals but is rather about forcing compliance to a thought regime.

    As a practical matter, we need to figure out how to live together in a pluralistic society. I think that means that we respect each other’s consciences as a paramount right, possibly second only to protection of life itself. It also means not capitulating to those who wish to silence our voices and also not being unnecessarily provocative in the pursuit of our human rights.

    In other words, I would like to see a solution for our civil society which embodies mutual respect and neighbor love rather than coercive acts against the consciences and religious convictions of our citizens. I think we need to find a way to triage civil rights, and we need to think about the best way to go about securing them.

    I see a tremendous erosion in fruitful discussion in the public sphere. There is no room to hold positions other than polar opposite ones. For example, on campuses today there is hysteria over rape culture. Because of that, no one is allowed to bring up the necessity in our society of due process for the accused at the same time as they discuss attitudes toward sexuality and sexism. People are not allowed to say anything against the prevailing orthodoxy of “all males are rapists until they can prove otherwise and even then we will still say they are guilty because men are rapists.” If anyone goes against the prevailing orthodoxy, then they lose their jobs which is tied to funding which is tied to enforcement mechanisms in the federal government. I see this as another form of tyranny, and it is especially alarming that it is happening in our universities where ideas should be freely debated and expressed. We used to be able to do that. We used to have a lot more freedom in so many ways.


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    @ Josh, Doctor of Pulchritudinousness:

    The purpose of the SC is to decide what the laws ARE. Not what the law should be. That is for elected legislatures. That is why Justice Roberts ruling on Obamacare was the right one. Elected representatives passed that law (even if it was at midnight but it is up to us to keep them accountable or put them out of office). While I see it as overreaching on our personal liberties, I agree with his understanding of the SC. I feel the same way about Roe and other decisions they have taken upon themselves to legislate laws as unelected judges.

    This issue should be debated and voted upon by the people in the states or by our elected officials in congress. Do we have a democratic process or not?


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    @ Josh, Doctor of Pulchritudinousness:
    I believe the church has been wrong about the issue of sexual orientation and other related issues. I have been wrong, and I am very sorry that I did not understand because I did not need to understand. However, I’m older now, and I realize that we live in a world where things are not like God designed and intended them to be. Someday, I believe this world will be even better than the original creation. That is my speculation only. No exegesis for that at all. My body does not function the way that God intended bodies to function, so when I say something really stupid, then please assume I’m having a bad brain/body day.

    That said, I think it is also a mistake to normalize the way we do not reflect God’s design and intention and his expressed will regarding the way we should conduct ourselves. Honestly, I think that too many on both sides of all things sexual make this about “how I am” which is equated to “what is good.” That can be used to justify all kinds of things such as, I believe you pointed out, serial marriages, abusive heterosexual marriages, sex outside of marriage, etc. The thing is, we will defend and excuse things which we should not defend and excuse. I think it is possible to acknowledge that many or probably most of us have not met God’s expectations and it is much easier to point at someone else’s issues and talk about those than to face our own.

    So, Josh, I’m truly sorry about the way that you have been treated and thought of for nothing you did but rather the way things are. I confess that it was not my problem so I, in effect, said it is not a problem for anyone. I think that people who press on and do the right thing under all kinds of trying circumstances should be praised and not condemned. I also think that does not mean that we just say that everything is OK. Everyone is loved and valued and should not be blamed for what they have not done. But each of us, IMO, is responsible for what we choose to do.

    And I think that the church should be a reflection of Jesus Christ, and in that way should be light to our society just as some Christians have been throughout history. I do not think that the institutional church and the state should be interfering with one another.


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    @ Gram3:
    I honestly think the only people who would want legal polygamy are the various FLDS sevtd. As for womens’ rights, that crowd is not so intetested…


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    @ numo:
    Sects. Stupid Android keyboard!


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    @ numo:
    But the question is, should people who desire to form polygamous marriages be allowed to do so? What any sect would do or what the feminists are concerned with seems beside the legal/constitutional point, ISTM. That’s what I’m trying to get at. On what principle do we draw lines or do we draw lines?


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    @ Gram3:
    Canada has had same-sex marriage for nearly 10 years now – anniversary is next month.

    Still nothing close to either social and moral collapse up there, let alone polygamy.

    This is true in other countries where same-sex marriage is legal.


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    @ Gram3:
    I think pretty much everyone is agreed on “two adults.” Period.


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    @ numo:
    I haven’t made the social collapse argument since I don’t believe that America is God’s theocratic nation. At one time, no one would have questioned whether “marriage” referred to other than one man and one woman at one time. Even gay people. It was just assumed. That has now changed, and I am asking what governing principle will prevent polygamists from seeking affirmation of their choices as well. That seems to be essentially what Justice Kennedy’s opinion rested upon. The people making the “social collapse” argument say there is a slippery slope, and I’m asking where the off-ramp is and why.

    A secondary question is whether a desired end supersedes our usual procedure for legislating social goals, and if so, under what conditions?


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    @ Gram3:
    Honestly, i think the fears about polygamy are just that. Not even close to a reality.


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    numo wrote:

    Canada has had same-sex marriage for nearly 10 years now – anniversary is next month.

    I don’t know much about Canada’s political climate, but as a result of another issue I’m working on, I discovered that Ontario has enacted tyrannical requirements for wind turbines which obliterated the rights of local governments and citizens to decide what their lives will be like in their towns and farms. In addition, the electricity rates have nearly tripled (I have not verified this but it is reasonable) because of the mandatory economic arrangements between the wind operators and the utilities. This, as usual, falls hardest on the poorest for whom energy is a huge and necessary expense.

    Meanwhile, people have had to leave their own land because the noise pollution has become unbearable. This was pushed through supposedly because Green is now necessary at all costs. The fact is that a very few well-connected people became obscenely rich while the middle class and poor suffer because…Green. That is how an idea–Green–can be used to sell policies which have huge unintended and enormously harmful consequences. The usual safeguards were totally circumvented by the elites in Toronto and imposed on the little people. That is an example of tyranny, IMO.


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    @ Gram3:
    That is unrelated to their Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage back in 2005.


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    numo wrote:

    @ Gram3:
    That is unrelated to their Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage back in 2005.

    That is not the point of what I wrote which is tyranny by government which infringes on liberties of people and which is covered by “good reasons.” The idea of marriage equality is the “good reason” which I believe may have unintended consequences that have not been explored because it is politically incorrect to discuss those unintended consequences. Just as it is politically incorrect to suggest in most conservative churches that being born with same-sex attraction is not the worst thing in the world.

    I am trying to discern the principle here and why that same principle might not apply in other circumstances which we might not think are good.


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    @ Muff Potter:
    LOL. I have still to see Orion right way up! I was lucky enough to see the Big Dipper in the sky when I visited England a year ago. The clouds were parted in just the right place while I was walking back from the station and there it was!


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    Gram3 wrote:

    I am trying to discern the principle here and why that same principle might not apply in other circumstances which we might not think are good.

    A whole lot of folks are saying that the same principle will apply and that cases will be brought in other areas but that it remains to see what the judiciary will do. Both polygamy and incest laws have been mentioned as possible area of concern. IMO, there is less biblical reason to oppose polygamy that there is to oppose gay marriage for those going that route. And what we know now about genetics including the tests available could make some medical arguments against incestuous reproduction no longer as convincing as before. Again, the biblical arguments against incest, including the minority opinion that some NT comments about divorce are confined to discovery of consanguinity during the betrothal period are pretty slim arguments. Theoretically age of consent laws could be questioned. Around here folks just go to SC to get around some age of consent issues but this is not an area that would totally be immune from re-examining the laws.

    (to be continued)


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    (continued)

    Meanwhile, The Episcopal Church has just elected its first black presiding bishop, Michael Curry of NC. I have heard him preach and he is a good preacher, with a strong emphasis on social issues. I don’t know anything about his administrative abilities. He is pro gay marriage. The same article that announced his election says that the convention will vote on whether to change the gender specific language of the church’s marriage laws so that gay marriages could be performed in episcopal churches without the necessity of getting permission from the bishop to do it. The article said that the clergy would be permitted to determine whether they (personally) would do it. In my opinion this holds clergy feet to the fire. To repeat my prior comment, our ‘episcopal church in the catholic tradition’ will pass through the fire on this one, clergy and laity alike.

    In our county there is an episcopal? anglican? church which is affiliated with a diocese/bishop in Africa. What I read says that the church is extremely similar to any other evangelical protestant church in many ways. Some of the clergy and pew persons in this area will have some difficult decisions to make. There seems to be a contingent of people who have been dealing with this gathering storm by a determined mind set to carry on and march ahead and endure—sort of the idea of having been an episcopalian for 167 years and nothing is going to run me off from the church, however hard it is to ignore what goes on. I tried that attitude in order to stay with the baptists as long as I did, but eventually I could not force myself to do it any more. We will see.

    As to me and my family, we are going to have some difficulties. We all are committed to liturgy and no adult would consider a non-liturgical church at this time, but because of ‘certain issues’ in the family we have to be in some ‘liberal’ church which is not terminally offended by us. We will probably sit down in the boat, hold tight to the sides, be glad for flotations vests, and ride out the storm.


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    @ Okrapod:
    This isssue, along with the woman issue highlights the weakness, IMO, of hierarchical polity. There isn’t any room for a local pewpeon, priest, or bishop to have a difference on any matter from the guy above. What you gain from connection you lose by connection. So much for polity/doctrine being the cure for humanity.

    There was, IIRC, a big deal with some priests or bishops in the Anglican church over ordaining a female bishop, IIRC. So, what does a priest or pewpeon with sincere convictions on this do? The shoe was on the other foot several decades ago with people with sincere convictions in favor of female ordination. In both these cases, ISTM, the consciences of subordinates has been violated by their superiors with the only difference being the opinion of the superiors which has changed.

    I guess my question is why secondary issues in the church cannot be secondary issues and why individual consciences in the civil sphere must always yield to the elites as well, with the possibility of any discussion of the implications taken off the table because it is politically incorrect to have a different viewpoint.

    In our greater civil sphere, it is now impossible to have a discussion about any controversy without being labeled as someone who hates XYZ Sacred Cow or is against XYZ Sacred Policy. I’m not just talking about the gay marriage issue. For example, lately the panic has been to erase the Confederate Battle flag. I, for one, think it was wise to remove the flag flying over governmental buildings due to one important aspect of its symbolism, but is it wise to erase history? ISTM that we should be able to have a discussion about what it means, what it meant, where we were, where we are now, and where we want to be. I think there are places to land between the poles, but those seem to have been taken off the table. For the record, my people came from both sides of that conflict, particularly the ones from Tennessee where it was a very divisive issue.

    I’m not for tyranny of the majority (the power of the mob) or for tyranny of the minority (like an oligarchy.)


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    @ Gram3:

    My experience of this and my observation of this issue of style of church government is very different from what you are saying. There is far more individual freedom in my experience with a hierarchical system precisely because nobody forced me to vote on anything or to choose up sides on anything or to personally conform or participate with anything. I am not compelled to try to convince other people that I am right, and neither would I be compelled to listen to anybody who wanted to argue about this or that. Nobody has made me take an indoctrination class or made me get in some small group where the leadership tries to get inside my mind in order to change what I think. I have zero responsibility to agree with or to differ from church policies. And the very diversity of people who are episcopalians testifies to this I am thinking.

    And this is why I think that we will weather the storm. Individuals will decide and do what they think best for themselves, and we will all move on.

    So this morning there was lots of talk about Bishop Curry with folks saying ‘our loss but it is for the good of the church’ that he is the new presiding bishop. Of course, I rather like the symbolism that he is black and NC hates to lose him–we have come a long way baby.


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    @ Okrapod:
    Yes, those are definitely weaknesses of the congregational/independent polity. That was pretty much my point. People will decide what to do, and thankfully we all have that option nowadays! What if a bishop is ordered to do something that violates his/her conscience? Is the answer for that bishop to form another church thereby violating the connectional aspect of their denomination, or is it to silence his/her conscience? That is a question, and not a rhetorical statement, because I can see people going both ways. Is it possible for a denomination to allow individual churches/pastors/priests to differ on secondary issues? Obviously, an ostensibly big tent like the SBC has made it impossible to disagree on secondary issues. 🙂


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    @ Gram3:

    All I have to say about the other issue is that I have and love an old pickup which does not have and never did have a gun rack or a confederate flag. The only identifier I ever considered said ‘nature conservancy’ and a license plate that says ‘blue ridge parkway’. To borrow a quote from a very famous lady, ‘and ain’t I a (southerner)’? I would change my mind about the gun rack long before I would have a confederate flag on the vehicle, because there is way too much baggage attached to it. Put it in a museum and in a history book, but don’t wave it in front of the crazies we still have among us.


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    @ Gram3:

    The Anglican Communion is much larger than just The Episcopal Church. There are various options already in existence for people including here in the US to be part of some other group already functioning as part of the Anglican Communion but not TEC. I an not up to date as to how many there are, but I know there are some out there, including one in my town just down the road. I am thinking that a bishop or priest would have options just like the laity have options but I don’t know what that would entail to get it done.


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    @ gram 3

    I am thinking that some of my attitude with hierarchy in spite of years as a baptist is probably related to health care. In my former line of work, the ones with the knowledge are the ones who have the final word as to what the diagnosis, let us say, is. The orthopedic surgeon does not argue with the ophthalmologist as to what to do about the patient’s eyes, for example. This is a hierarchy of knowledge and I am really comfortable with that. I would not be comfortable with a committee vote with the members of the committee being representative of everybody who had anything to do with the patient all the way down to the housekeeping supervisor.

    Another thing that probably affects my comfort with a hierarchical form of church government is that I spent all my life holding down multiple jobs simultaneously (if you consider mothering a job) and no way could I have been in a position to know what was best for the church, much less what the word meant in the original aramaic. And neither would I trust the guy next door all that much to know.

    BTW, Father S talked this morning about something that might be of interest here about what the words mean in the original language that Jesus said to the 12 year old that he raised from the dead. I have to look it up to see if he got that right, but if so it will be well worth sharing about the difference between ‘healed’ and ‘whole’. It all ended up with regardless if things are bad with your life and regardless if things are bad with your body it can still be well with your soul through it all. Amen to that.


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    Lydia wrote:

    Did he continue as a pilot when he got out? I am often amazed to read how many trained as pilots for the war but then did something totally different when they got out. Anyway, God bless him for what a tyrant forced so many to do.

    More men were lost in the air war over Germany than the combined losses of Sailors & Marines in the Pacific. My Dad was glad to have beaten the odds. He returned home, mustered out, and had no more desire to fly.


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    Okrapod wrote:

    This is a hierarchy of knowledge and I am really comfortable with that. I would not be comfortable with a committee vote with the members of the committee being representative of everybody who had anything to do with the patient all the way down to the housekeeping supervisor.

    That makes total sense! My background in org development would be total opposite as in the ones with the most “knowledge” about the “process” or organization would most likely not be in leadership or high on the chain. As Lee Iaccoa said when he took over Chrysler: I won’t be laying off any secretaries. They know where all the bodies are buried. :o)


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    Muff Potter wrote:

    More men were lost in the air war over Germany than the combined losses of Sailors & Marines in the Pacific. My Dad was glad to have beaten the odds. He returned home, mustered out, and had no more desire to fly.

    I did not know that about the losses in the air war. He sounds like many of them that made it— they had their fill. My uncle was in the Bulge sharing a foxhole with two other guys who were shot at the same time. He told God (did not ask!) that if he got out alive he would buy his parents farm and not leave. And he did.


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    Lydia wrote:

    My uncle was in the Bulge sharing a foxhole with two other guys who were shot at the same time. He told God (did not ask!) that if he got out alive he would buy his parents farm and not leave. And he did.

    Even more affirmation for Tom Brokaw’s statement that our fathers were The Finest Generation.


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    Okrapod wrote:

    The orthopedic surgeon does not argue with the ophthalmologist as to what to do about the patient’s eyes, for example. This is a hierarchy of knowledge and I am really comfortable with that. I would not be comfortable with a committee vote with the members of the committee being representative of everybody who had anything to do with the patient all the way down to the housekeeping supervisor.

    I think that we all draw our models from our experience, so I think I understand what you mean. My knowledge of the workings of the Anglican Communion is next to zero. At least the Anglicans/Episcopalians are out front about their hierarchy and so forth. Unlike the SBC where there is an oligarchy as a practical matter while mouthing allegiance to the priesthood of the believer.

    I guess I was born a questioning knothead and was raised by parents who were both strong-willed and independent in different (dare I say “complementary) ways.


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    @ Gram3:
    Even with Okrapod’s good explanation, matters of hierarchy are both diverse and kinda complicated.

    I know that the Anglican communion believes in something called “apostolic succession” (which she can likely explain more clearly than I can), while I do not know of any Lutheran body (aka synod) that does. That does not mean there are none, only that I don’t know of any – two entirely different things! (Partly because Lutherans in Europe speak many different languages, and in some northern European countries, Lutheran church(es) = the state church, though even then, it is complicated, because not all of them have agreed with their state churh(es) and so on… But what one Lutheran synod/body believes is not automatically true of all – not by any means.)

    I do not imagine that the Methodists believe in apostolic succession, either, even though they come from Anglicanism and many Methodist churches are fairly Anglican (while others are not).

    In any case, the structure is, imo, less about “power over” than “we’re here to help.” It’s more than administrative, though that’s part of it. But… if there is any kind of problem (financial, sexual, other), one of the most obvious things to do is take it to whoever the higher-ups are (as well as to law enforcement, depending on what is wrong/what someone did). I am not saying that the higher-ups are unbiased, necessarily, but they are supposed to intervene and bring about corrective and disciplinary procedures when these kinds of things happen. It does *not* mean that they lord it over the people in individual congregations, though that can happen. The conflicts are usually between people in the hierarchy who are more or less on the same level; I do not think anyone in my synod has the power to shut down or censor the people who make up each congregation.

    There are good examples of compromise in all of this. One is that when the human sexuality initiative (ordination of LGBT people, etc.) was passed in my synod (ELCA), *each congregation* had the choice to accept or reject it, as well as (iirc) the freedom to either choose to be affirming *at some point in the future*, or not. The people who left and have started their own churches were, imo, more than a little premature and rash in doing so, though of course, they are free to do it. But – as with the Anglican communion – the key is working to try to get to a place that is acceptable for the many, and trying to resolve conflicts and differences. People are free to disagree on all kinds of things, and many do. (Fwiw, the practice re. hiring someone for the pastorate is that the congregation votes on candidates. There is nobody reshuffling ministers and foisting them on congregations without the congregation’s say-so.)

    I don’t know if this is helpful, and I certainly don’t know very much about how this works in other parts of my synod, let alone other synods and denoms altogether, but maybe this will clarify things a wee bit.


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    @ numo:
    OK, *never mind*! I am wrong about my own synod. (Not as up on things as I should be, although this is relatively recent for us.)

    However, the meaning of “apostolic succession” is dependent on who is using the phrase – in Catholicism, it is one thing, but in the Anglican Communion, and in many Lutheran churches, it is not the same thing/things.

    I think I typed myself into a corner on this one! Sorry for any confusion, Gram and everyone else.


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    Follow up. @gram3

    You said something about what would bishops do if…. Okay, so I have been following the events in Salt Lake City at the national convention and in an article about this I have obtained this information. In the last few years quite a few episcopal bishops have petitioned the archbishop of canterbury to take their whole diocese out of the episcopal church. As a result of that, and the result of individual churches leaving, the main headquarters building in New York will have to be sold because there is not enough money to maintain it because of both dwindling resources and the millions of dollars spent suing departing churches for their property, and now the cost of maintaining empty church buildings.

    So I looked up Anglican Church of North America and see just a lot of churches both in my state and pretty heavily in the southeastern US as well as elsewhere. It seems there is one in Raleigh also. I have read comments of individuals saying they have looked at where to go but can’t find anything, but some? a few? have become orthodox, but some have said that Anglican of NA is not going to be it because they are apparently charismatic. If it should happen that we as individuals have to leave I see nowhere for us to go. Hmmm.

    It seems that conservative episcopalians are the ones leaving, apparently in droves and have been for a few years due to the drift to the left on various issues especially during the tenure of the outgoing presiding bishop. I don’t see where that leaves our particular church since the focus has not been on social issues here except homelessness and poverty. Mostly the focus has been on being as ‘catholic’ as possible. Like I said, we will pass through the fire as a church and as individuals.


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    @ Okrapod:
    Thank you, Nancy. These are difficult questions, and I think you are right that individuals and organizations are going to go through the fire. I know that some PCUSA churches have had to fight with headquarters to retain their church property when they wished to depart. On the one hand, I think it is just and good for the departing church to reimburse or return the investment that the denomination made, if any, in their property. On the other hand, unjust demands should not be used to hold a congregation hostage. Some of the PCUSA churches are going to middle-way but largely conservative ECO or EPC. I need to look into the Anglican Communion structure to see if I can understand how that works. Thanks for looking into that.


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    @ Albuquerque Blue:

    That is incredible!


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    In other news, there will be a leap second at midnight tonight, UTC (or GMT in Blighty). Unfortunately this will not actually make anyone live longer.

    Leap seconds are added occasionally when They decide human timekeeping is out of synch with the earth’s actual rotation and solar orbit. Because the earth’s motion is not perfectly regular, but chaotic – at least on very small scales – leap seconds don’t follow a regular pattern and so they aren’t programmed in to telecoms software around the world. Instead, they have to be added manually which causes bother.

    I hope this is helpful.

    * Specifically, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, which has never commented on as-yet-unmade allegations that it is funded by a syndicate including Vladimir Putin and Rob Bell.

    #itISrocketscience


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    So an update for those who are interested. I had a long conversation with both of my pastors yesterday. We talked about comp/egal, my pastor’s sermon, the beliefs of the church, and my issues with the marriage Bible study my small group is doing. The comp/egal discussion went about as expected, in that it was mostly the same arguments you’ve seen re-iterated. We talked about ESS some, and it pretty much went right down the line of the standard logic, etc. Well, except without the amped rhetoric.

    And yeah, what I have to say is, after all of that, even though we disagree and I think it’s an important topic, I still respect my pastors very much. They engaged, were willing to listen, and the head pastor is even going to take my charge to him and run with it: to seek out women in healthy, complementarian marriages, and dig to find out if they really believe their value and worth. I charged him with this, because hurt women from abusive relationships can be logiced away as complementarianism misused, but my believe is that complementarianism hurts women even in the best of relationships, even if they don’t realize it. He said he would take that challenge.

    Another interesting part of the discussion was at first his instance that we discuss issues with “submission”, as that is the sticking point, rather than “hierarchy”, which is MY sticking point. It took some time, but I finally got through that I don’t have a problem with submission. I think submission works just fine, and is good. I submit to my wife and she submits to me, though not always in the same areas. But at first he could not understand how “hierarchy” could be a problem, as for him it was the application of the idea, submission, that was the problem. When I explained that the power differential, whether utilized or not, causes women to view themselves as less valuable, it did seem to be a novel concept to him.

    Anyway, there were some good points, but I don’t plan on changing the mind of a PCA pastor in a single conversation over coffee. What was atypical was that both pastors expressed a sincere desire for me to bring my views and discussion into the church. That is, we discussed the Bible study I’d mentioned and trying to figure out to do with week 3 on gender roles. That I didn’t want to be divisive, but I also wanted to be honest. They both said that it would be wrong for us to skip that week and not to bring our beliefs to the table. That the body would only grow through wrestling with scripture and different ideas about it.

    I’ll be honest, in my experience of church throughout my life, I don’t recall being in an environment where I can sit with two pastors over coffee and wrestle with scripture like we did and feel respected. That means a lot to me. In fact, I don’t recall ever being at a church before where I didn’t have some fear about not believing exactly the right things, but yesterday I felt encouraged to be as honest as possible. I wish that they could see the harm in their teaching, but that may come, but at the end of the day I was very happy with the discussion and the respect shown. And what’s more, even though he disagreed with me, I believe my pastor will be influenced by my concerns the next time he speaks on the topic of gender roles.

    So I think we’re sticking with this church a while longer, and I feel pretty good about that at the moment, as does my wife.


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    @ Jeff S:
    That’s great news, Jeff S. May your time at this church be of mutual benefit.


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    @ Jeff S:

    I’m happy for you and your wife, Jeff. Praying that you can share your belief about comp in your small group wi wisdom and peace. Just curious, was your wife with you when you talked with the pastors? If your wife had been the one approaching the pastors with the same concerns, with no husband with her, would she have had the same experience as you? Actually, that would be a serious question for your pastors to ask themselves.


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    @ Bridget:
    No she was not, and this was for a couple of reasons. The first is, I am the one with a long standing relationship with both pastors, so the conversation made sense for us to have. My wife has only been around the church a few months (we’ve been married six months), and because of her work schedule has only been able to attend once or twice. She’s gotten to know people, but obviously this is hindered by infrequent chance to be around people.

    I have been up front with the leadership at the church that until she can be more frequently plugged in, we have not made a commitment as a family to the church, and they have been completely understanding of that. Fortunately, my wife’s work schedule is changing in the next month which will allow us to better asses if it’s going to be a good fit (i.e. she has to be able to establish encouraging and fruitful relationships at the church- it can’t just be “my thing”).

    Another reason is that, ironically, the issue of female equality tends to be something that concerns me more than it does my wife (in fact, her standing joke is that she submits to me on the topic of male headship). Not that it is unimportant to her, but I think my ears are more sensitive to the topic and I am more aware of the subtle harm the teachings can cause. Remember, from her perspective she feels treated as an equal by her husband, so when sermons about male headship are preached, her reaction is more to roll her eyes that to become impassioned. For example, when we read the materials in our Bible study, her first reaction was to laugh at the ridiculous of the gender roles. She warns me regularly that based on the materials we are heading down a perilous path that dooms our marriage since we have not established a “head” in our relationship :p

    So when I told her I was meeting with the pastor, her reaction was more like “Have fun storming the castle!” than it was “oooh, can I come?” It’s not that she doesn’t care, but more than she believes I can handle what needs to be said. But if we continue such conversations (and my pastor indicated he would like more sit downs to wrestle with this topic) it would be great to include her.

    Whether they would have received my wife the same as me, it’s impossible to know. I do know there are single mothers at our church who have had positive experiences approaching the leadership, but I doubt it was on this specific topic.

    The reality is, I think there’s always going to be a subtle bias in favor of males at a comp church.


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    Jeff S wrote:

    Another reason is that, ironically, the issue of female equality tends to be something that concerns me more than it does my wife (in fact, her standing joke is that she submits to me on the topic of male headship). Not that it is unimportant to her, but I think my ears are more sensitive to the topic and I am more aware of the subtle harm the teachings can cause.

    Don’t forget to be careful here. Don’t forget in your enthusiasm for this topic that you are not a woman. Something which may be distasteful to you, seeing it through a man’s eyes, may not be distasteful to some other man’s wife in her relationship with her husband. Think long and hard before you try to convince people who may be having success with a ‘soft comp’ approach that indeed the woman in that situation is being hurt-I believe you said whether she knows it or not.

    I used to hear sermons on ‘what God has joined together let no man put asunder’ and these sermons included not just divorce but also the negative interference of some mother-in-law or some BFF from childhood or such. I am thinking that some sowing of dissatisfaction could easily happen in small groups if one were not careful. Then if a situation falls apart guess who gets caught in some of the fall out as in -why did I ever listen to you in the first place; now look what you have done. Presenting an idea is one thing; telling people how they ought to feel, whether they know it or not, is a tad different.


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    @ Albuquerque Blue:

    That is both delightful and amazing.


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    Jeff S wrote:

    That the body would only grow through wrestling with scripture and different ideas about it.

    So true.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    * Specifically, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, which has never commented on as-yet-unmade allegations that it is funded by a syndicate including Vladimir Putin and Rob Bell.

    As always Nick, yer’ crackin’ me up laddie! In other news, the Dawn space probe has observed a rather large quasi-triangular shaped outcropping protruding from the surface about 5 kilometers high. It’s gotta be the Nephelim trying to contact the Vatican so that the Jesuits can usher in Obama as the antichrist!
    I betcha’ I can ‘prove it’ with scripshur too!


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    Okrapod wrote:

    Don’t forget to be careful here. Don’t forget in your enthusiasm for this topic that you are not a woman. Something which may be distasteful to you, seeing it through a man’s eyes, may not be distasteful to some other man’s wife in her relationship with her husband. Think long and hard before you try to convince people who may be having success with a ‘soft comp’ approach that indeed the woman in that situation is being hurt-I believe you said whether she knows it or not.
    I used to hear sermons on ‘what God has joined together let no man put asunder’ and these sermons included not just divorce but also the negative interference of some mother-in-law or some BFF from childhood or such. I am thinking that some sowing of dissatisfaction could easily happen in small groups if one were not careful. Then if a situation falls apart guess who gets caught in some of the fall out as in -why did I ever listen to you in the first place; now look what you have done. Presenting an idea is one thing; telling people how they ought to feel, whether they know it or not, is a tad different.

    I would never, ever tell someone how he or she ought to feel. Nor try to convince women in comp marriages to be dissatisfied. What I *am* concerned with is conversing with the man delivering messages about the effect those messages have on others.

    And if I have given the wrong impression given my own wife, she finds comp teaching to be very problematic. The reason she is not as sensitive about it as a subject is that she hasn’t lived it or been harmed by it the way many others that I’ve known have been. And we’ve actually discussed this very thing- she is very appreciative of my passion for the subject of equality for women. Finally, she is my ultimate “authority” (LOL- take that comps!) when it comes to how it really feels to be a woman in our culture and in our churches. If I think something may be problematic, rather than just assume, I go to her for insight, and she is more than happy to discuss and explore.

    She is actually very passionate on the subject that there ARE differences between women and men, and there are roles that are better suited to women. For example, biology controls birth in a way that man simply cannot participate, and that has implications before and after the moment of physical birth. The key is, such roles are not hierarchical, which is really the point of contention.


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    Jeff S wrote:

    They both said that it would be wrong for us to skip that week and not to bring our beliefs to the table. That the body would only grow through wrestling with scripture and different ideas about it.

    That’s pretty amazing. What you say about their assumptions about hierarchy match my experience except the reception I got was just a wee bit different. 🙂

    What they are missing, IMO, is the idea that in their model of submission, one party always retains the option whether that option is exercised or not. Options have value, and hence the one without the option and who can never have the option, has less value in the system.

    Another point they are missing is that there can be no real and full union in a hierarchical relationship because the structure becomes paramount and the organic relationship is pushed aside. I would just once love to hear the Patriarchs/Comps explain which one in a golf foursome composed of close friends is in authority over the others and why. They cannot do that because that is not the point of having a golf foursome consisting of close friends. The whole thing is like a cheap sweater that I might knit. And I don’t knit.

    I don’t think they should expect any of the women to be bold enough to say that they feel devalued in a Complementarian marriage. Women are culturally conditioned in that environment to value one another according to how joyfully they submit. To say that she doesn’t always feel joyful is to confess to being rebellious against the assumed authority and to be less than feminine. I expect that they will be confirmed in their view that Complementarianism is good for women.

    They miss the main point of whether, in fact, God actually established a hierarchy and not whether anyone thinks that the supposed God-ordained hierarchy is good (or bad) for women. But I suspect they do not want to talk much about that because that gets into very messy areas at Presbytery.


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    Okrapod wrote:

    Presenting an idea is one thing; telling people how they ought to feel, whether they know it or not, is a tad different.

    I think the point is to tell people that other people should not tell them how to order their marriages. To speak against Comp/Patriarchy is to demolish the idea that other people know what God thinks is best for everyone’s marriage and situation. That, by the way, is why I reject the label of egalitarian. I do not advocate that a 50/50 split of everything is the best thing for everyone or that everyone is gifted in the same way, which is what the term implies to me. The point is to introduce freedom into relationships where love and respect is freely given, mutually, and not to tear down a relationship order that works *for that couple.* FWIW, I am much like Jeff’s wife. The idea of Comp/Patriarchy doesn’t really affect me because I have an excellent husband and had an excellent father. Not everyone is that privileged, and I know it. And people I care about have nearly been entrapped by this ideology. So, IMO, it is my responsibility not to avert my eyes from what is happening and what will happen to real people because of these doctrines.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    What they are missing, IMO, is the idea that in their model of submission, one party always retains the option whether that option is exercised or not. Options have value, and hence the one without the option and who can never have the option, has less value in the system.

    I agree, and when I made this point, my pastor stopped me and told me he had to think about that some more. Not that he “got it”, but he realized there was “something to get” that was going to take some working out.

    Gram3 wrote:

    I don’t think they should expect any of the women to be bold enough to say that they feel devalued in a Complementarian marriage. Women are culturally conditioned in that environment to value one another according to how joyfully they submit. To say that she doesn’t always feel joyful is to confess to being rebellious against the assumed authority and to be less than feminine. I expect that they will be confirmed in their view that Complementarianism is good for women.

    It was possibly an optimistic request for me to make. And you are likely right. However, I think the process of even thinking about this will yield fruit. The key for me is, when I started talking about my motivation for this topic (listening to women about how it feels to be on the losing end of a power differential), the immediate response was “I’ve talked with countless abused women who are angry at men”, but of course, that is (rightly classified) as the result of abusive relationships. To get this, he’s going to have to realize that there are healthy women in healthy relationships that are affected, and even asking those questions, regardless of how they are answered, should get his mind on the right track.


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    Albuquerque Blue wrote:

    They are so cool aren’t they? I love my laptops for almost everything but if I’m gaming or doing real writing I need a real keyboard.

    Amen to that Albuquerque. Back in those days (of TSO terminals) they actually made durable goods here and not like the inferior trinket-like-crap-from-china. When I disassembled it for a thorough cleaning, I noticed that it had the old-fashioned slotted head electronics screws which were easily accessible with the old-style thin-shank electronics screw driver. Nowadays they use those gawd-awful phillips head fasteners which strip out at the drop of a hat.


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    Jeff S wrote:

    However, I think the process of even thinking about this will yield fruit.

    That’s a good point, and I hope that it does. Let’s think about another situation that no one wants to think about for a variety of reasons. The fact is that many emancipated slaves thought they were better off in Master’s household because their needs were met. Somehow that overrode their realization of the value of their freedom and also made freedom rather scary. But their subjective evaluation did not justify one human holding all the options over another human. And no matter how benevolent a particular master was, the fact is that it is immoral for one human to have that power over another human being.

    The principle rather than just the instance must be kept in mind to clearly think through these issues. If all humans are created equally in God’s image–a concept which some patriarchs/Comps dispute–then it is an effacement of God’s image for one human to hold himself or herself over another one in an essential way. And gender and the circumstances of our birth are certainly things over which we have no control.

    I think they will get tripped up on the implications of abandoning hierarchy in principle.


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    Gram3 wrote:

    The fact is that many emancipated slaves thought they were better off in Master’s household because their needs were met.

    And also, to get really Biblical, the emancipated Hebrews wanted to return to their bondage because of leeks/onions. For me it would have been chocolate.


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    Jeff S wrote:

    The key is, such roles are not hierarchical, which is really the point of contention.

    Absolutely, that is the point of contention, and I think you have a good grip on it. I am just suggesting that you be careful in the process in the small group. Things can have a way of coming back to take a chomp out of some body part.


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    @ Gram3:

    Recently, I was reading an article quoting leaders of the confederacy about their reasons for the war. Now I do NOT want to get into THAT discussion; however, they way they talked about slaves and how they were better of, lucky even, sounded eerily like something you’d read about women on the bayly blog . . .