Christians have given up their squeaky wheel

Back in March 1966, this quote of John's was printed in an interview by reporter Maureen Cleave in the London Evening Standard:

"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

Then, almost five months later, on July 29, a teen magazine in the US, Datebook, reprinted the quote out of context, not submerged in an article, but as a part of a front cover story entitled "The Ten Adults You Dig/Hate The Most".

All hell broke loose. Radio stations in the south banned Beatles music. There were rallies of boys and girls stomping on their records and bonfires of Beatles material. 1

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Today, if an entertainer were to say something a hundred times more derogatory about Christianity than what Lennon said, I believe there would be little to no protest in the Christian community. Yes pastors may mention it during their sermons and talkradio hosts would mention the double standard but there would be no bonfires or marches in the street.

Does this mean that Christians are not as passionate about Jesus? Perhaps. Does this mean that bonfires are not en vougue? Doubtful. Does this mean that Christians have been properly neutered by the media and the court of public opinion? I think so.

1966 was only three years after prayer was removed from our public schools so a Judeo/Christian morale was still very much in the fabric of our society. In 2008 there have been several generations in which Jesus has been weened out of public lives. Would a group of Christians feel embolden to burn CDs today after someone badmouthed Jesus? Doubtful. There is such a negative connotation associated with *-burning, such as book burning that today's Christians would not be caught dead at a burning.



1. http://www.beatlesagain.com/bapology.html

Refs couldn't save 'em THIS year

Below in RED is a blog I wrote after the playoff debacle in INDY last January when the Pats lost to the Colts.

Well last night the Colts choked again and AGAIN the refs tried to give it to the Colts. Phantom interference calls are the norm because they hurt the most. But then a phantom holding call now just added to the theory that the refs are corrupt and are afraid of Bill Polian.

I am glad that Fred Smerlas on WEEI is on the radio voicing our suspicions.

Anyway here is my blog from January 2007 (from a now defunct blog site):

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Golden Boy - Colts Rant

Let's face it folks. There are some unwritten yet obvious biases and desires by the those who run the NFL. There are some unspoken facts as well:

1. The NFL loves Peyton Manning and the Colts.
2. The NFL does not like the Patriots and especially the tight-lipped Bill Belichick.
3. The NFL loves parity and they want two different teams in the Super Bowl every year.
4. The NFL is not happy that the Patriots have figured out how to have a Super Bowl caliber team every year.

• A couple of years back the Colts were kept from the continuing in the playoffs because Peyton's recievers were manhandled by the Patriots DBs. At the end of the season a new rule was imposed on the league to keep DBs from roughing up receivers.
• Last year Golden Boy, Peyton set all kinds of records in passing and we thought the beloved Colts would go undefeated. The Colts met the Steelers in the playoffs at home. Anyone who watched that game could see it was obvious that the refs were doing their best to make sure the Colts won. However Vanderjerk missed a field goal and off went the Steelers. The refs also used a phantom interference call in the endzone during the Broncos-Patriots game to make sure the Patriots did not win - you know, the parity thing.
• This year the Colts looked invicible again as they were given another sissy schedule to make sure they had home field advantage in the playoffs. Well they did have home field advantage when they met the Patriots again. Once again the Pats were making Peyton look foolish and the impossible was happening - the Pats were tossing out Peyton again. Then the NFL stepped in again. In the 4th quarter they used the phantom interference call in the endzone against the Patriots AND (for good measure) they ignored a blatent interference call against the Colts in the endzone in order to make sure their boy Peyton made it to the Super Bowl.

Well congratulations NFL!!!! Peyton won!!!! Now can we stop creating new rules to help the Colts and stop with the bias refereeing to favor the Colts in Playoff games?????

Anyone in the know will tell you that the Pats are so good that they really could have won 4 in a row. However the NFL's goal of parity tends to win the day.

Go Pats!

P.S. Was it me or does it sound like Jim Nantz has a man-crush on Peyton????

Wise vs Highly Intelligent

It is better to be wise than smart. Wisdom breeds humility while high intelligence breeds arrogance.

Very smart people eventually learn that they inherently know and understand more than their peers and eventually more than most adults. This can breed a sense of arrogance and a belief that they are “all knowing” and subsequently they begin not to listen when people (who are not as smart as they are) give them wise advice or the same people provide them with information based on life experience – something that a very intelligent person may not have yet.

Wise people listen with an open mind. Intelligent people don’t think the other person is as smart as them and they don’t even consider what is being told to them.

However, wisdom and Intelligence are not mutually exclusive. The greatest advantage in life is someone who is very intelligent but will listen to others and not be arrogant. In life, very smart people will need to interact with people less intelligent as them. This cannot be avoided. They can be arrogant and eventually turn others off and this will not fare them well in life because they can’t live in a bubble where they argue/debate other smart people all day. Or they stop and listen to others - even people who are obviously not as smart as them - because they may be wiser.

Wisdom is learned. Those who have experienced life and learned from it are wise. Those who can pass on their wisdom are a gift and should be listened to. The wise will listen to wisdom being passed to them. The fool will determine that the wise person is not as smart as them and subsequently brushes off their advice.

How the greatest nations fall

Great nations have existed throughout history. Great nations have also fallen. It is usually never because another nation has beaten the great nation that they have fallen but because of a few societal choices over several decades that slowly erode the culture until it cannot stand and will never again be the great nation it once was.

1. Move from religion
The great nations are typically birthed with a strong religious foundation. This foundation bring great strength on which the nation stands. Through this moral strength the nation eventually becomes wealthy. This is absolutely inevitable for nations that are truly great. However once the nation becomes rich, more and more members of society credit themselves over their religious beliefs for their prosperity. God gets pushed aside in the public square.

2. Choose money/comfort over children
As the nation gets richer and the rat race ensues, the need to look wealthy and to not let be derailed from that becomes common. Couples tend to choose not to marry in order to protect their own finances. Couples tend to not want children because they believe that children are a drain to their personal wealth. Many couples choose to have just one child. This is coupled with the political acceptance of legally aborting children for birth control purposes and to maintain, as much as possible, their financial position.

3. Once abortion/infanticide (or both in some societies) has become commonplace for two or three generations, there comes an eventual labor shortage. Thus born is the need to import workers at a higher rate than these foreign workers can or want to assimilate.

These foreign citizens eventually build their own enclaves and begin to balkanize the nation based on language differences and/or religious differences. Eventually the societal underpinnings that made the nation great are defended by fewer and fewer people. Because non-immigrants keep aborting their offspring, national pride is not being passed down to the next generations. There are fewer and fewer people who are taught to love the nation as it was founded and what made it great. They slowly are unable to maintain a majority.

Eventually the military will not even be able to keep up its numbers because there will not be enough people willing to die for a balkanized nation. Smaller paramilitaries will form to defend their enclave as war will actually be between the different segments of the populations. Thus civil war will encompass the nation and it will no longer stand.

Read your history and you will see the same patter repeated over and over. Sadly the greatest nation ever to inhabit the planet, The United States, is well into step 3 and its leaders have not found the need to stop that which contributes to her slow suicide.

May God Bless America

Disection of Romans passage

Romans 8:15-16

"15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship (or adoption). And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children."

This is from the Matthew Henry Commentary:

But you have received the Spirit of adoption. Men may give a charter of adoption; but it is God’s prerogative, when he adopts, to give a spirit of adoption-the nature of children. The Spirit of adoption works in the children of God a filial love to God as a Father, a delight in him, and a dependence upon him, as a Father. A sanctified soul bears the image of God, as the child bears the image of the father.

That makes sense as does this:

V 16. Beareth witness with our spirit. Many a man has the witness of his own spirit to the goodness of his state who has not the concurring testimony of the Spirit. Many speak peace to themselves to whom the God of heaven does not speak peace. But those that are sanctified have God’s Spirit witnessing with their spirits, which is to be understood not of any immediate extraordinary revelation, but an ordinary work of the Spirit, in and by the means of comfort, speaking peace to the soul. This testimony is always agreeable to the written word, and is therefore always grounded upon sanctification; for the Spirit in the heart cannot contradict the Spirit in the word. The Spirit witnesses to none the privileges of children who have not the nature and disposition of children.

Is it not ironic or not possibly ironic?

• A suicidal man jumps from a building to certain death but while falling he waves his arms to control his fall. A quadrapalegic man in another town sits in a wheel chair and he cannot wave to his daughter as she smiles toward him during her soccer game.
• A woman is in tears because the expensive invitro procedure did not take... again. Her dreams of having a child are still in question for another month. A woman at a planned parenthood in another town schedules her 8th abortion.
• A man leaves the urologist after receiving the news that he has such a low sperm count that he and his wife will need to adopt. A fertile man in another town has admitted he is homosexual.
• A child is amused by throwing all of her toys all over the playroom with reckless abandon. A refugee child on the other side of the world holds on for dear life to a tattered doll that is her only toy.
• A close and loving family gathers at the bedside of a cancer inflicted brother who is in his last hours of life. In another town 3 healthy siblings live just a few miles from one another but have not spoken in years due to a petty disagreement.
• A rich man does not answer his phone any longer for fear it is someone else claiming to be a friend who is asking for money. A middle class man in another town receives several calls a day from friends he knows genuinely care for his well being.
• A loving and involved father and fireman is killed while serving his community. A father in another town left his children for a new girlfriend and has not been seen in years.
• Let's establish the fact that God is in complete control. Let's also agree that God does everything for good. Then why would God let such apparent injustices occur? To the non-Christian or the new Christian it is just proof that God is not a benevolent father.
• The glaring contrasts above are actually proof of a fallen world, not an unjust God. Consider the following passage:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD . "As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

~ Isaiah 55:8-9

My personal thoughts on the assault on Christmas

OK, this my annual venting concerning the abolition of Christmas in our culture.

Retail advertisers seem the most motivated to not call December 25th - the day they rely on people who celebrate Christmas to patronize them - Christmas. Most all of them call it the ubiquitous "holiday". Grrrrrr. However I just want to talk about the most egregious. It involved the Lowe's flyer, where they called the Christmas Tree a "Family Tree". I must say beforehand that once there was an outcry, Lowe's sent out a new flyer in which called it a Christmas Tree.

This made me think. Someone in the advertising department had to cognitively make the decision that "Family Tree" was a good idea. They must have even decided that "Holiday Tree" was not even good to call it. For what reason? So as to not offend those who don't celebrate Christmas. Even atheists tend to celebrate on Christmas Day. It is a tree that people put gifts under on a holiday that we call Christmas. So how in the world would someone think it is a good idea to call it a "Family Tree". I thought that was something you tracked your ancestry on. And another thing, those who don't celebrate Christmas will not be buying the tree anyway! So in that respect who cares if it is called a Christmas Tree. It is kind of like Christians being offended that a Menorah is not being advertised as a "Family Candle Holder". I mean come on!

I have been with my company for 10 years now. In 1997 we had a Christmas party and that continued for a number of years. A few years back as the assault on Christmas was growing, the spineless decision makers chose to follow suit and they began calling it a Holiday Party. However we are now 2007 and even the Holiday appears to be offensive. This year we are having "Winterfest 2007". Are you done chuckling yet? What is that? Winterfest! We are in December and we are celebrating the beginning of winter and the coming 4 months of frigid weather. That is not something I have ever considered celebrating.

Have a good day and Merry Christmas!