Gadfly's Muse

I'm Glad They Cleared That Up: God Can't Be Sued in County District Court

You can read the news article HERE. 

Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers is fed up with God raising all kinds of havoc, sending wars, rumors of wars, tornadoes, etc.  But like any good Mid-Westerner, he's not about to just sit around and complain... he, by God... oops, takes action.  He filed a suit against God saying that it is illegal for Him to do this stuff.  Downright unconstitutional if you get my drift.

There were some questions about how to "serve" the indictment - Chambers answered that since God knows everything He cannot plead ignorance.  There was another problem about how you can't sue someone if they can't show up to defend themselves... Chambers was ready for that one... God is everywhere so He's here in the courtroom.

The judge, after lengthy deliberation (I'm betting about 5 seconds) threw the case out.  However, he did so "without prejudice"... don't want to appear to be taking sides here... even if God is one of those sides.

Sheesh....   Like an old friend Tim H. used to say "Arch, they ain't all locked up!"

I Just Read: "We’re Stupid and Irrational, so Why Should Palin’s Popularity Shock Us?"

The following is quoted from Brittanica Blog post, you can read the entire article HERE.  The added emphasis is mine.

["Bookshelf", 2008, JAVanDevender, Yes... I really do read N. T. Wright]

Many claim to be disturbed by Palin’s popularity in the face of ever-more evidence that she is out of her depth in discussing world affairs.  If they truly are it means they haven’t been paying attention.  Surveys over the last half century have consistently demonstrated that voters simply do not know much about politics nor care about it.  A majority of Americans cannot name the three branches of the federal government.   Only one in five know we have 100 United States senators.  Most think a president’s veto of legislation is final and that the Congress cannot override it. A near-majority—49 percent—believe the president can legally suspend the Constitution. 

What do Americans know? 

As citizens of our 21st-century consumer’s republic they know the price of a gallon of gas or the cost of a fast-food pizza.  And they are experts in pop culture. While only one in four can name more than one of the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, a majority can name at least two members of the cartoon Simpson’s family.   If I may:  We need more Lisa Simpsons, the brainy one in the cartoon bunch, and fewer Homers.  Alas, just as Lisa is outnumbered by the lovable dolts in her family, so are well-informed voters in the real world.

OK - is anyone ready to truly reform our educational system?  Maybe it's time to actually start doing math drills (1+1 = 2, 2+2 =4, etc.), history drills ("the three branches of constitutional Federal government in the United States are: the legislative, judical and executive), science drills, etc.  Anyone familiar with "Classical Education" knows that the first step is "grammar", the acquisition of facts in each particular discipline - hence, math "grammar", science "grammar", etc.  The American educational experiment, dreamed up by fanciful "educationists" over the past half-century has entirely discounted this idea.  Schools are not educational institutions, they are education "facilitators" wherein the students are provided materials, introduced to concepts and the parents are supposed to teach the kid in two hours of homework what the school spent eight hours "introducing." 

Stupidity is rampant, parents are burnt out and we scratch our heads and wonder why the local sales clerk cannot make change from a five dollar bill without the aid of a computerized cash register.

Bah, humbug.  Throw the bums out.  It's foolish to decry the literacy of the general population in articles such as this one without addressing the root causes.

A Frail Grasp on the Big Picture - Economics, Politics & Reporting

Back ground for this post HERE

I don't often commend much in our modern culture, especially when it comes to gifts of discernment, but I listened to this old Eagle's song on my way to the office this morning and it seemed to hit a certain nail right on the head.

(picture at right - Ship Of Fools, Hieronymus Bosch , Louvre - Paris)

Well, ain't it a shame
(a)bout our short little memories
We Never seem to learn
The lessons of history
We keep makin' the same mistakes
Over and over and over and over again
And then we wonder why
We're in the shape we're in

Good ol' boys down at the bar
Peanuts and politics
They think they know it all
They don't know much of nothing
Even if one of them was to read the newspaper
Cover-to-cover
That ain't what's going on
Journalism's dead and gone.

(A Frail Grasp on the Big Picture - The Eagles)

Yesterday the stock market tanked a bit, Lehman Bros. did not get 'bailed out' by the Feds,  Merrill Lynch was put up for grabs,  and the politicians all weighed in on how, if they are elected, it will all get better.

Talk about a frail grasp on the big picture!

The "big picture" of American economics is that it is currently running on accumulated capital (pun intended).  The years of foreign deficits in spending, the move to "service" based job formation, the farming out of production, and the extraordinary expectations of the American people about the standard of living to which they are "entitled", has generated one of the biggest soap bubbles of prosperity imaginable.  In this country we have sold our intellectual property rights for a mess of pottage.  We have intentionally transferred massive amounts of American know-how to people who are now more industrious and ambitious than we.  They in turn are progressing beyond what we have given them and we are not keeping up.  Manufacturing expertise, that set the standard for the world and made us the arsenal of democracy, is no longer available.  GM cannot build a vehicle to compete with countries which just a few years ago, barely had paved roads.

The problem with our economy is primarily moral and spiritual.  Until, as a people, we put away our foolish day dreams and lower our individual expectations, live within our means, promote jobs that pay a living wage competitive with foreign production, stomp on the hegemony of international conglomerates, and kill the graft in our political system, this ship of fools will remain our home.

The Eagles got it right. They think they know it all, (but) they don't know much of nothing. It's a frail grasp on the big picture.

Reflections on 9/11 - God Is Our Only Security

(Photo taken from HERE)

(Meditation Prompted by THIS ONE)

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every
man is a piece of the continent, a part of the
main. If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory
were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or
of thine own were: any man's death diminishes
me, because I am involved in mankind, and
therefore never send to know for whom the bells
tolls; it tolls for thee."

"Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels as gold in a mine and be of no use to him; but this bell that tells me of his affliction digs out and applies that gold to me, if by this consideration of another's dangers I take mine own into contemplation and so secure myself by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security"

John Donne
Selections from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, no. 17, (Meditation) 1624 (published)

Perhaps no event in the history of our country, not the attack on the Alamo, the firing on Ft. Sumter, the sinking of the "Maine" or the "Lusitania", the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Tonkin Gulf incident or the other multiple such items, has had such a fundamental impact on the way Americans perceive themselves as the attack on the World Trade Center seven years ago.

From a guy who's been there... done that... and this is what he thinks!

This will probably appear "corny" to most middle thirties and below folks. However, the fact that it appears that way demonstrates how far we are from being motivated by abstractions, by a sense of value, etc. Perhaps it could be a bit more sophisticated, but I think this young man is sincere and when you get right down to it... maybe the problem is not with the video... it's with the framework in which it will most often be received.

Disclaimer: Commercial for the John McCain campaign for president... features a "friend of a friend's kid" - a man whom I have met.

The Power of Myth: 9-11 An American/Israeli Conspiracy

(Photo = "Twin Towers of Lights"; Public Domain)

Reference - New York Times - 09/09/08 - Rumors That Become Conventional Wisdom - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/world/africa/09cairo.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Never discount the force of myth.

Myth has been much on my mind recently because of articles about the conscious effort currently underway to re-write or re-imagine the "myths" that govern American society.  Myths function in popular culture to determine how a people think of themselves and of the world around them.  The "myths" may be true, mostly true, somewhat true, or totally false - essentially that is irrelevant to their importance.  The fact is that myths function whether they are true or not.  Americans have long held certain 'myths' about themselves - mostly the myth of the "cowboy in the white hat."  No matter whether it was how we saw ourselves in fighting two world wars or in exterminating American enemies, for years the myth that governed us was that we were the "guys in the white hats" and therefore those whom we were fighting were the "guys in black hats."  Whatever historical circumstance was in view, it was interpreted through that lens.  This is not to criticize that - it is simply to illustrate how such mythical ideas work.

A Bit Of A Different Take On The Sarah Palin Phenomenon

Judges 4:9   So she said, "I will surely go with you; nevertheless there will be no glory for you in the journey you are taking, for the LORD will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman." Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh.

(image right taken from http://kodiakkonfidential.blogspot.com/2007/12/sarah-in-vogue.html - no it's not a real issue of Vogue but it is real cute)

My brother elder, J. D. Wetterling (read it HERE) joins me and many others across the Evangelical Christian conservative spectrum in our country in breathing an extended "It's about time!" exclaim of enthusiastic support for Mrs. Palin's speech the other night.  She articulated our thoughts very well and our prayers are for her strength, courage, wisdom and wit as she now faces the dedicated animosity of the opposing powers.  She is a threat to all that they stand for and I expect to see an attempt to dismantle her from stem to stern.

I believe the Scriptures teach that men are supposed to be the ones who lead and take covenant headship authority across the spectrum of human social endeavors.  That which is true for marriage and for the Church would seem to hold for the wider political structures also.   But it is undeniable that God used Deborah to "judge" Iisrael in her day and when Barak was called to go forth and fight the Lord's enemies, he insisted that she go with him or he would not go at all.  In the well known passage quoted above, Deborah interprets the whole situation very clearly.  She would go but because Barak abdicated his distinct position as covenant leader of the Lord's people, he would not get the glory, nor the resulting political influence which would come from taking Sisera himself.

Sarah Palin - this guy got it right

This guy is pretty balanced and reflects my own impressions of Sarah's speech. Go Here

Meditation on Calvin's Institutes, Bk I.4.2

(The Triumph of Death Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1562, currently  hanging  Museo Del Prado,  Madrid)

> BOOK I  CHAPTER 4  SECTION 2
> CONSCIOUS TURNING AWAY FROM GOD
>
> >>>>>Nothing being less accordant with the nature of God than to cast off the government of the world, leaving it to chance, and so to wink at the crimes of men that they may wanton with impunity in evil courses; it follows, that every man who indulges in security, after extinguishing all fear of divine judgment, virtually denies that there is a God.<<<<

Yet it seems that nothing is so quickly denied as that God has cast off the government of the world.  We see evil, we do evil, we have rotten politicians, we reel under the perverse practices of fellow citizens which then become validated as rights by a legals system adrift in epistemological relativism, and we say that God has "cast off government of the world."  Christians cannot believe that God would bring on a people a culture which is awash in abominations, murder, conceit, greed and idolatry, and so we believe God is far removed from it.  We cannot understand it in terms of God giving us over to our sin, as a prelude to judgment, as the release of enough rope so as to prove that we will only hang ourselves with it.

We read the witness of Revelation 9:20-21 and we tremble at the thought that man could be so imbecilic, as to not turn away from their murders, sorceries and the like in the face of the terrible nature of God's wrath, and then we rise from our pleasant little devotion, step out of our doors into the virtual blackness of night, and spend our days proclaiming "peace" when there is no peace.

I once heard O. Palmer Robertson preach to our Presbytery - and he roundly challenged us with our comfort... he questioned our "wartime" mentality... he wondered if we trembled and repaired to our place on the wall at the notion of God's wrath as did Habakkuk.  I think it is easy to pass off Calvin's words as being directed to "those other guys"... the Deists, the Dead-In-Their-Sins, the Never-Knew-Him lost ones.  I think the Church of Jesus Christ ought to be more concerned to recognize the prevailing state of the world in terms of their own failures, of their own lack of zeal, of their own complacency, of their own distractedness in the face of worldly comforts...    Perhaps the Church ought to recognize that it is too often willing to tolerate the culture of men who persist with "wanton impunity in their evil courses."  How often are we, the Church, virtually denying "that there is a God!" in our preaching, witnessing, and conduct?

It's enough to give me pause.

The Largest Re-enlistment in History (?) - Even if not, it is impressive

So much for those who argue for the demoralized state of our troops.  Maybe we ought to be asking why you don't hear about these kind of events in our national media.

The ceremony was held July 4, 2008 at Al Faw Palace, Baghdad, Iraq. General Petraeus officiated. A pizzeria in Chicago donated 2000 pizzas that were made last weekend, shipped on Sunday, arrived in Baghdad Wednesday and were fed to the enlistees on the 4th. Oh, by the way, the media did report on the 2000 pizzas...just not what they were for.